Ireland day 1371. Monday 30 June 2025- Clondalkin

Today’s summary	Joined the gym in the morning then Val and I went out to Clondalkin to explore this new (to us) suburb in west Dublin. Visited the round tower, Corkagh park and the modern railway station. All very interesting. Slow rail journey home but explored the tunnel under Phoenix Park. Cottage pie and beer for dinner, and search for a “Mad Men” replacement.
Today’s weather	Overcast with occasional light drizzle. Light southerly wind. Appx 22c

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): Clondalkin Explorer

Commentary

We are always on the lookout for new places to explore, so today, after doing a bit of research, we concluded that Clondalkin would be a good place to start. It’s a suburb out to the west of Dublin and boasts a number of attractions – including a thousand-year old round tower, a park and a visitor centre. So, as we had never been there since we arrived in Ireland, we made that our destination for the day.

But first.. I have realised that if my hips are going to limit how much hiking I can do, at least in the near term, I need to find some alternative form of exercise that will help keep me in shape. The obvious alternative – cycling – isn’t particularly attractive as the roads around Malahide are so busy. So I decided I would resuscitate my gym membership, which I allowed to lapse a few months ago, so I could make use of their exercise bikes and swimming pool instead.

So once we’d got ourselves organised, I pottered off to Arena and signed up for a month, starting on Thursday this week. On return to the flat, we had a cup of coffee then set off on our travels.

Clondalkin isn’t that far away, and it’s well served by public transport, but it took better part of two hours to get there – and the same coming back – no matter which way we went. But the best part of course was that thanks to my old age travel card, both Val and I travelled for nothing. I really can’t get used to it but it’s great.

Anyway, we took the train to Connolly and then a rather seedy Luas out to the Red Cow stop. From there we walked half an hour or so into Clondalkin town centre – all of which was completely new to us.

Our first port of call was the Round Tower and visitor centre. The tower is some thousand years old and is one of 97 in Ireland. It’s particularly well preserved. The visitor centre next door is modern and well laid out, and the displays about the history of Clondalkin and the round tower were informative. It was a bit let down by the slightly lackadaisical front of house staff and early closing hours (4pm) but we did just find time for a decent cup of tea and piece of cake in the café before it closed

Once we’d exhausted the possibilities of the visitor centre within the constraints of its opening hours, we walked a short way west into Corcagh Park. It’s one of Dublin’s larger parks – on a par, perhaps, with St Anne’s or Marley – yet we had never been. Today, we only had time for a very short look round the eastern fringes. But what we saw today was pleasant enough, if not remarkable. Similar in fact to Clandalkin itself, though I’m sure that the people who live there would say something different.

As the final excitement if the day, we walked 20 minutes north from the park, up to Clondalkin & Fonthill station. It’s a remarkable place. Quite new in appearance, and with four tracks running through it. Which must make it pretty unique in Ireland. There are tracks leading to both Connolly and Heuston in one direction, and to Tralee and Cork in the other. Fortunately after only a short wait, we managed to get a train to Connolly (they are only approximately every two hours) as we didn’t really want to go to Heuston and to have to take the yucky Luas across town.

The particularly interesting aspect of the route we took was that it uses a tunnel under Phoenix Park to make an arc avoiding Heuston and going directly to Connolly via Drumcondra. It was the first time we had been on that line and to a nerd like me it was especially interesting.

We were fortunate that after our rather sedate journey under Phoenix Park, a fast Drogheda diesel was waiting to depart on the next platform. So we scooted from 3 to 2 and hopped on board. As soon as the Belfast Enterprise on platform 1 had left, we were on our way, non-stop, to Malahide.

The town was buzzing, once again, when we got back. Duran Duran are in concert tonight so the place was teeming with Durannies out to have a good time. I dropped in to SuperValu to pick up some beer and crisps to sustain us through the evening while Val returned to the flat to heat up the cottage pie.

So now our most difficult decision of the day is what is going to fell the gap left by the conclusion of “Mad Men” last night. Fortunately for us (and especially for Val, as she’s a real fan), Wimbledon started this morning. I think that will probably sustain us quite well for the next couple of weeks or so at least.

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Clondalkin Round Tower – as seen from the rather nice Visitor Centre garden	The secret of the Round Towers revealed (actually – the truth is that nobody really know why there were built over a thousand years ago. But the popular theory that they were places of refuge during Viking raids seems to have been debunked, as they were far too vulnerable to attack from the bottom)

Clondalkin visitor centre – it felt a bit under-appreciated and under-used. Nice, but could do better	Pair of beautiful nesting swans (complete with statutory litter pile) on the banks of the river Camac which runs through Corcagh Park

Crossing the Grand Canal on the R113 trunk road bridge leading up from the park to the station	Clondalkin & Fonthill station. It’s all very new-seeming, but a bit of a ghost town, to be honest

Some interesting destinations from this curious four-track station (fast trains to the West run through on Platforms 3 and 4)