Ireland day 1419. Sunday 17 August 2025- Sunny Dublin DWC

Today’s summary	Val was working at the Museum and I went into Dublin for a short walk with the Club. Met at Heuston station at 12 then walked through Kilmainham to the War Memorial gardens for sandwich lunch. I walked up to Chapelizod from there, while the others returned via Islandbridge. I walked across Phoenix park and caught a train back from Ashtown. Finished off Friday’s Thai takeaway for dinner and watched another James Bond.
Today’s weather	Warm and dry with plenty of sun. Moderate south easterly 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): Heuston Kilmainham Memorial Ashtown DWC

Commentary

The run of good weather continued today – though unfortunately Val was booked in to do a shift at the Museum, so she wasn’t able to enjoy all of it. I was a bit more lucky, in that there was a short Club walk scheduled in Dublin, so I was able to get some fresh air and exercise in the sun.

We were both up early in anticipation of our days – and that did give us plenty of time to enjoy tea and porridge before setting off on our respective missions.

Val left just before 9:30am and I was away about an hour later, off to the station to catch a Connolly train. Once in town, I took a LUAS and met up with the other walkers at Heuston station.

It was a fairly lazy walk today – in keeping with the lazy Sunday weather. Our stroll took us through Kilmainham – and the Hospital gardens – to the war memorial park. We found seats in the rose garden, where we paused to have our sandwich lunches. It has to be said that this wasn’t the most stretching of excursions. But then again the enjoyment is as much in the chat as it in the walking.

After lunch, the rest of the group wanted to return into Dublin via Islandbridge, but I decided to go a bit further up the Liffey, to cross over into Phoenix Park at Chapelizod.

It was a quick walk from there directly across the park in a bee-line towards the Ashtown Gate, and then the station just beyond. Lately, my return journeys from Dublin to Malahide have been quick – with short waits for trains and slick transfers at the interchanges. That wasn’t the case today, however, as I had to wait half an hour at Ashtown for a train to Dublin, then another half an hour at Connolly for the diesel back out to Malahide. But it was no big deal, as it left me plenty of time to get a cup of tea at Pret.

Once at the flat, I found that Val was back before me, so we had a quick catch up on all the days news. Then for dinner we enjoyed gins and tonic with the Thai dinner left over from Friday. We’re thinking of streaming another Bond film to round off the day – yesterday we watched Timothy Dalton in “License to Kill” and found it surprisingly enjoyable enjoyable. So tonight we might go for a repeat performance with “The Living Daylights”. Tune in tomorrow to find out how it worked out!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Apples busily ripening on the espaliers in the Royal Hospital garden. They looked delicious!	Engineers busy at work erecting scaffolding and other temporary infrastructure in the park at the Royal Hospital Kilmainham. Queens of the Stone Age (a heavy metal band) and RAYE (a young British female R&B singer-songwriter) are performing there next week. Regrettably, I’ve never heard of either

I really like this warm sunny weather	Looking upstream from the bridge over the Liffey at Chapelizod

Papal Cross in Phoenix Park	Crowds piling off the train at Drumcondra – the nearest station to Croke Park, where Oasis are doing their stuff again tonight

*Beautiful Cyclamen hederifolium* popping up in the undergrowth round some of the hedges in the Hospital gardens. Usually they appear in the Autumn – perhaps they are a bit early this year?**