Ireland day 1372. Tuesday 01 July 2025- Airfield Estate

Today’s summary	We took the train and Luas into Dublin to visit the Airfield estate at Balally (near Dundrum). Went on a house tour and had a good look round the farm. Just time for a late lunch. Altogether excellent – one of Dublin’s best attractions, in my opinion. Reversed the journey back to the flat, then had pop-pop curry and red wine for dinner. Wimbledon on the TV and no concert in Malahide tonight, so a more peaceful evening than lately.
Today’s weather	Overcast with occasional light rain. Some brief sunny periods in the late afternoon. Light northerly wind. Appx 17c

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): Airfield Estate

Commentary

When we were in Athlone last week, we picked up, by chance, a pamphlet listing all the main sights and attractions of Dublin and the surrounding areas. There were about seventy places on the list and, perhaps unsurprisingly, we had visited almost all of them. But there were one or two gaps. Clondalkin Round Tower, for example, was one – which was a primary driver for paying it a call yesterday. Another was the Airfield Estate, which we went to look at today.

Its badged as an “urban farm” which probably explains why we hadn’t been before. Neither of us is a particular fan of farms – let alone in an urban setting – so it wasn’t high on our list of things to see. But we soon found out we were wrong.

After our normal breakfast routine was successfully despatched, we gathered our things and set off for the station. (I should add, in passing, that it’s really nice not having to pack so much “stuff” at the moment, when we take trips like this. It’s much warmer now that it’s high summer, and even if it rains it doesn’t seem to last for long. So down jackets and heavyweight waterproofs aren’t needed. It won’t be long before Autumn is upon us though, so we are enjoying it while it lasts).

We took a diesel as far as Pearse, and then a Luas, out to the Balally stop. It’s in the south of a Dublin, near Dundrum and not that far from the M50.

It’s only a five minute walk to the Airfield estate from the Luas stop and as soon as we got there we realised it was a bit of a gem. We arrived at 2pm, paid our €10 pensioners rate and raced up to the house to join a guided tour (which turned out to be just the two of us). We learned about the two Overend sisters who had lived there for most of the last century, up to the mid 1990s. They came from a wealthy family and when they died, they bequeathed the house and 30 acre estate to the people of Ireland

Nowadays, its fully open to the public and is run as a charity. As well as the working farm with pigs, sheep, cows and chickens, there are some fabulous herbaceous borders, fruit trees and vegetable plots. There are good interpretive centres for both adults and children and no fewer than two cafés, which serve some of the dairy products, fruit and vegetables from the site.

So we came away very impressed. It was everything that the visitor centre at Clondalkin wasn’t – including the late (7:30pm) opening hours. Ten out of ten from m; a rare accolade.

Afterwards, we retraced our steps back to Malahide, eventually catching a Dart from Pearse at about 6pm. Although public transport was busy, Malahide itself was considerably less so, and especially compared to recent evenings. The reason? Simple – there’s no concert tonight.

So hopefully we will have a slightly more peaceful evening this time, with just the thud of ball on Wimbledon racket to accompany our pop-pop curry and Rioja.

Altogether an excellent day, and another of Dublin’s “must see” attractions ticked off the list.

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Airfield House, owned by the Overend family (Overend Snr was a successful Dublin lawyer) from the turn of the 20th century until the mid 1990s, when it was turned over by his daughters to the state, with the stipulation that it should be run as a charity for educational purposes. By the way it looks flat-roofed but actually it isn’t. There is a shallow pitched roof with box guttering, hidden behind the false balustrade.	Looking out into the beautiful grounds – with some magnificent sequoias – from the main porch of the house

Inside the living room – the globe shows all the places the sisters visited in the course of their travels from the 1920s onwards. Pretty much everywhere, really	Latest arrival in the stables!

Super healthy (I think!) spinach ricotta pastry for lunch, with grated cabbage salad	Beautiful Buddleias – originally from South Africa, and now an invasive weed (but still lovely, and with a fabulous honey fragrance)

The family Rolls Royce. It will mark its 100th birthday next year (I think). The sisters used to hitch a cattle wagon to it to haul their prize heifers to the Royal Dublin Society for the annual agricultural fairs. Nowadays, of course, it’s priceless. The “Spirit of Ecstasy” (which must have been removed for safe keeping) alone is said to be worth €100,000. It was maintained solely by the sisters, and it is still in full working order. What a magnificent machine