Ireland day 1397. Saturday 26 July 2025- Casino Market

Today’s summary	In the morning, Val and I went to the new farmers’ market outside the Casino model railway museum. Better than we expected, and we got some nice cake and vegetables. After lunch, we walked out to Centra for a cup of tea. Did some online Spanish in the evening then roast beef salad again for dinner and a James Bond film to round the day off nicely.
Today’s weather	High cloud and dry with occasional sun. Moderate westerly wind. Appx 20c

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): Hills of Howth walk

Commentary

A couple of weeks ago we got an excited email from Fingal Heritage breathily announcing that “Something special is happening in Malahide” on 26 July. Which is today.

That special thing, which had got everyone so frenzied, was to be a Fingal Markets “Malahide Market”, featuring local produce, and to be held in the grounds of our very own Casino Model Railway Museum. So as it’s virtually in our back garden (or it would be if we had one) we of course had to go and check it out.

Which meant that as soon as we had finished our morning routines, we locked up the flat and dropped in to the Market.

We didn’t really know what to expect but if we’d had any expectations, I’d say it would probably have exceeded them. From my perspective there were rather too many stalls selling scented candles and polished “gem” stones and not quite enough food stalls. But those that there were, were actually very good. We picked up some really fresh garlic, cabbage and peppers, and a couple of super sickly but otherwise lovely cakes which we had for lunch. Most of the suppliers seemed to have come from the Donabate / Lusk area, just to the north of here.

We returned to the flat once we’d finished looking round, then had our cakes and coffee in lieu of lunch. I don’t know how many calories there were in the cakes but there must have been quite a lot as I didn’t feel like eating again for several hours afterwards.

For the rest of the afternoon, we walked out through the Demesne to Centra where of course we got a cup of tea. We sat and put the world to rights on the bench overlooking the lagoon, and directly opposite Seafield house. For once, we didn’t need to hurry as it was quite mild and the sun even came out briefly.

Back at the flat, later in the day, I did a couple of online Spanish lessons and then we enjoyed roast beef salad again for dinner. Finally, we rounded off the day with a James Bond film that we streamed from Amazon. One of life’s simple pleasures.

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


The Talbot flag (on the right) more clearly showing itself by the Demesne cricket pitch today	Sailor Val safeguarding the entrance to Killeen Park. Notice how she is cleverly colour-co-ordinated with the boat

I’d never really spotted these Michaelmas daisy-like flowers growing the the marshes alongside the lagoon, before. But a quick check on Google revealed that they are actually Sea Asters (Aster tripolium) which are very common around the coasts of Ireland	Rapidly expanding swan family on the Gaybrook Stream – all neatly arranged in height order, of course



Cheery stallholders on the market today. Their cakes were delicious – but the epitome of unhealthiness. Not to worry. I am sure tonight’s salad will reset the balance.