Ireland day 1209. Sunday 19 January 2025- Paddy Wander DWC

Today’s summary	Val went on a fast walk to Howth while I joined the Walking Club outside St Sylvester’s church Malahide for a short walk up and around Paddy’s Hill. I added on a loop through Portmarnock at the end. Dinner of leftovers from Christmas and guests’ visit, then a couple of episodes of “Mad Men” later in the evening.
Today’s weather	Breezy, dry and bright, but with high cloud cutting out the sun most of the day. Moderate to strong southerly wind. Appx 7c

Today’s overview location (The blue mark shows the location of our route)		Close-up location (The red dotted 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): Paddy Wander DWC

Commentary

Today the Walking Club came to Malahide. Which was great because it meant no rushing off to catch buses or trains, or doing battle with the M50. Just an extra couple of hours in bed!

Val decided to forgo the pleasures of our relatively more leisurely walk today and beat a path of her own, walking direct to Howth as fast as she could. So that just left me to meet up with the others at noon outside St Sylvester’s Church, from where we set out on a wandering stroll around Paddy’s Hill.

There was a good turnout today – at least twenty walkers – and a couple of new faces, too. So lots of chatting to be done as we strolled on. It was much cooler than lately, with the brisk wind really pegging back the temperatures.

In view of the chill, we didn’t pause for lunch but kept on going until we returned to the bottom of the hill, just to the east of the Robswall estate. At this point, the rest of the group elected to head into the nearby Gourmet Food Parlour for coffee – somewhere I’ve never been in (it’s very close to – if not part of – the sports pitches) – but I felt I still had more in the tank so decided to keep on walking.

I headed off down the coast to Portmarnock, where I sheltered on the rocks by the beach to enjoy my packed lunch. It was still quite cold, even when sheltering, though the trusty Thermos did a great job of warming me with hot coffee. Anyway I didn’t hang around long, but soon set off once again, this time returning to Paddy’s Hill via Limetree Avenue, then back to Malahide down Church Road.

Val had got back a few minutes before me so we had a cup of tea together, watched a couple of exercises videos, and harvested some Christmas and Guest leftovers from the fridge for our dinner.

The rest of the evening was spent reading and catching up on a couple of episodes of “Mad Men”. Excellent!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Distant view of the Grand Hotel (where we like to go for coffees!) which was sold last week to the Spanish-Irish consortium FBD Hotels for €55mln	A fleeting glimmer of sun illuminated Paddy’s Hill as we made the ascent

Looking north towards Portrane in the brief moment that the sun shone	I parted company with the rest of the group when they went off for coffee- and I walked south on the coast path to Portmarnock

On the beach – shelter for lunch at the bottom of the beach steps at the north end of the Velvet Strand	Crossing the green between Heather Walk and Dewberry Park

I’ve only been vaguely aware of this tumbledown ruined cottage on Paddy’s Hill, even though I must have walked nearby a million times. Evidently, the council has recently spent money fencing it off and generally tidying it up but I have no idea why. Maybe that’s why I only noticed it properly for the first time today. I don’t even know anything about the history of the building – whether it was a municipal facility or a private dwelling. I’ll need to do some more research.