Ireland day 1202. Sunday 12 January 2025- Howth Sutton DWC

Today’s summary	Got up early so Val could go on a run and I could go shopping first thing. Then caught a couple of trains to Howth and joined the Walking Club for a decent “medium” walk up and around Howth headland. Val and I finished off with a walk back to Sutton along the beach and caught a 102 to Malahide. Relaxing evening watching “The Godfather” and a couple of episodes of “Mad Men”
Today’s weather	Lightly overcast but dry and bright. Moderate southerly wind. Appx 8c

Today’s overview location (The blue mark shows the location of our route)		Close-up location (The blue line shows where we walked) (Click button below to download GPX of today’s walk as recorded, or see interactive map at bottom with elevations corrected): Howth DWC and Sutton

Commentary

Val and I are not really early morning people – me especially – but today we had a lot to do so had to discard our natural instincts and get up at what felt like the crack of dawn.

The reason for our urgency today was that a Club walk that we both wanted to do was scheduled to meet at Howth at 11:30, but before that we had quite a lot to fit in. First up, Val wanted to go on a decent-length run round the demesne, so she was in her running shoes and out of the front door well before 8:30. Meanwhile, I needed to go down to the shops to pick a few more essentials – shower gel and the like – in advance of some visitors coming to stay on Monday.

Anyway, we had done everything we needed to do by about 10:00, which left just enough time to get washed and changed before heading down to the station to catch a train at 10:30. After a quick change at Howth junction, we made it to the Insomnia coffee shop at just after 11, and the rest of the group – all 14 of us – duly turned up a few minutes later.

Our “Medium” Club today walk took us up through the deer park, behind the hotel to the rhododendron forest, and then on up the hill past the “Aideen’s Grave” dolmen. Once out of the wooded area, the views opened up nicely – and the wind came out – and we got a great bird’s eye panorama including the Sugarloaf, the snow-covered Dublin Mountains, Lambay Island, Ireland’s Eye and Howth harbour.

We only paused briefly for lunch as there wasn’t really anywhere dry and sheltered to sit, so we just had time to scoff half of our sandwiches before setting off again on the return leg of our journey. After passing the glorious Bog of Frogs (apparently it lives up to its name in the tadpole season), we were down at Howth Station again just in time to miss a DART to Sutton. So rather than wait half an hour for the next one, Val and I said our goodbyes to the rest of the group, and took advantage of the low tide to walk round the coast to Sutton.

As luck would have it, a 102 was just about to pull out when we reached Sutton station car park, but fortunately the driver spotted us rushing forward and was kind enough to wait. So we were in Malahide again just before 5pm – and were delighted to note that there was definitely still some light in the sky, probably 20 minutes later than nightfall at midwinter.

The evening was pretty low key after today’s busy day. For dinner we finished off the sandwiches we hadn’t had time to eat in our truncated lunch stop, supplemented by some Christmas cake. The day was rounded off with the classic “Godfather” on Netflix and – if there’s still time before an early night – a couple of episodes of “Mad Men” – our latest go-to box set. Phew. I need a rest!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


These huge blocks of flats – I think there are seven of them – are still under construction on the shore leading to Howth “village”. I am still perplexed as to how such a massive project ever got planning permission. Now that some of the apartment blocks are approaching completion, I have to say I still don’t think they look very nice	Val looking in pretty good shape – considering she’d got up early and had already been on a long run before we even started walking!

Distant view of the Dublin mountains. Although silhouetted here, when the sun moved round a bit later in the day, you could clearly see that they were covered in snow from top to bottom	Regrouping after lunch for the descent back to the station. There were 14 of us in total today – quite a good turnout

Deer Park Lake – a dammed lough on the northern slopes of Howth head. It was still partly frozen on the far side	Enjoying our walk back along the beach!

Aideen’s Grave – a ruined dolmen, approximately 4500 years old, hidden in the laurel forests