Ireland day 1367. Thursday 26 June 2025- Not Derek Hill

Today’s summary	Took a late morning train into Dublin and spent a leisurely afternoon having roast ham lunch at the National Gallery, then visiting the Castle and the Chester Beattie gallery. Caught a train back around 6pm and spent the evening relaxing with a glass of beer and another couple of “Mad Men” episodes.
Today’s weather	Overcast with occasional spots of rain. Moderate to strong south westerly wind. Appx 18c

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): Dublin Castle no Derek Hill

Commentary

Today was one of those delicious days when we had nothing scheduled in either of our diaries. So we didn’t rush to get up this morning, and took our time pottering about in the flat. Eventually, though, we decided we needed a little more structure, so got our things together and headed to the station. An exhibition by the Donegal artist Derek Hill had been advertised in Dublin Castle, and we thought we would go and take a look.

By the time we got off the train at Pearse, it was getting hungry time, so we made a brief diversion into the National Gallery café. We had intended just to get a coffee and croissant but they had a really tempting roast ham on offer so we succumbed and had a hot dinner instead. It was as good as it looked, and we decided to designate it as our main meal of the day.

The visit to the Castle was a bit less successful. When arrived, there was no sign of the Derek Hill exhibition. Although the details are on the castle website, none of the curators had heard of it. Anyway a bit more googling unearthed an obscure article on the Meath Chronicle website which confirmed that actually the exhibition was in 2018 – fully seven years ago. The castle just hadn’t updated their website and as the original post had no year on it, there was no way of telling it wasn’t current.

Anyway, the curator was very apologetic and as a bit of a compensatory treat let us out of a back door onto a “secret” bridge which led over to the Dubh Linn garden. In the adjoining former coach house building there was an exhibition of Donegal tweed, which partly offset the absence of Donegal Derek Hill.

After looking round, we strolled over to the Chester Beattie collection and got a cup of tea in the café. For once, it was warm enough to sit outside and enjoy it. A rare treat to be savoured!

We forewent the opportunity to look round the galleries themselves but instead walked across Dublin back to Connolly for the return journey to Malahide. We had a 20 minute gap to fill before the diesel on platform 3 set off, but we were able to get on and wait in relative comfort on board.

As we had already had our main meal at the Gallery, once we got back we restricted ourselves to a snack dinner, to the accompaniment of 79 year old Neil Young who is crooning up at the castle tonight. And no evening, particularly these days, could be complete without a couple of episodes of “Mad Men” before bed. Only six left to go now!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Lunchtime in the National Gallery. the roast ham was excellent	Busy Dublin, at the bottom of Grafton Street looking down Suffolk Street towards Molly Malone

Rear view of Dublin Castle from the Dubh Linn garden. The building works at the have been going on at the Record Tower since before we arrived in Ireland almost four years ago – I wonder if they will ever be finished?	In the Coach House gallery, with Donegal art on display

Looking skywards in the Chester Beattie – we decided not to go round the galleries today, as we have already been round a few times in the past	Very attractive Arabesque water feature in the central atrium of the Chester Beattie

Giant tomatoes in Fallon & Byrne on Exchequer Street. We try and drop in when passing, as they always have interesting produce on offer