Ireland day 1454. Sunday 21 September 2025- Guests 4

Today’s summary	A relatively straightforward day with our friends today. The weather was a bit better so the four of us went into Dublin for a look around. Coffee and croissants in Bewleys then the group spilt – three of us went on a walk out to Kilmainham and one stayed in Grafton Street. Train back from Pearse to Malahide then dinner at Townyard restaurant
Today’s weather	Plenty of bright sunshine but interspersed with heavy downpours. Moderate northerly wind. Appx 12c

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): Abbey Street to Phoenix Park via Kilmainham

Commentary

Today was our third day with our friends here in Malahide. We didn’t have any specific plans, though we had held out a forlorn hope that tickets might have become available for today’s Ireland v England cricket match. Sadly nothing came of it so we needed to find an alternative plan for the day.

We thought about it over breakfast and eventually decided that we couldn’t allow our friends go back to Scotland without having had ant least half a day in Dublin. So we came up with a plan for the day. We agreed we would head for Grafton Street, get some lunch, then take it from there.

Being a Sunday, the trains into Dublin are a bit infrequent – but fortunately the H2 bus came to our rescue and whisked us from James’ Terrace to Abbey Street in next to no time. We walked from there to Grafton Street and we headed straight to Bewleys for a light lunch. We had a short wait, but eventually got a table and I enjoyed a croissant and a flat white by way of midday sustenance.

Afterwards, our group split into two – some of us decided to go on a stroll through some of Dublin’s more interesting sights, and the rest stayed behind to enjoy the delights of the Grafton street area. I went with the walking group, so we set off west and went out as far as Kilmainham gaol before crossing over the Liffey at Islandbridge and entering Phoenix Park.

To took a short walk as far as the Wellington Testimonial (the obelisk) and then out of the park along Chesterfield Avenue. We had lost quite a lot of time along the way, sheltering from the brief but vigorous showers that cascaded down on us at frequent intervals along the way. So when we arrived at Heuston, we were running out of time and we needed back at Grafton Street by 5pm. So we caught a Luas into the town centre and walked back to Grafton Street via O’Connell Bridge.

Once we had all all met up, we walked over to Pearse and caught a Dart back to Malahide after only a 10 minute wait.

The evening was very enjoyable. After cups of tea to build our strength (!) we left the flat again at about 7:30 and walked down to Townyard restaurant. We had a nice seafood dinner alongside the coast, washed down with a pretty decent bottle of Malbec.

By the time we eventually made it back to the flat, we were flagging slightly after a pretty full-on three days. So we had a couple of glasses of whiskey to round off the day before finally retiring to bed just before midnight.

Wow! What a full on and rewarding few days!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


The end of the H2 bus line in Abbey Street	In Trinity College – the Book of Kells is in the library to the left

Christchurch Cathedral	In the formal gardens below Kilmainham hospital

Turnstiles at the entrance to Phoenix Park at the end of Islandbridge	Sheltering in Westmoreland from one of the three heavy showers that hit us as we were out on our wanderings

Heading towards Portmarnock beach, on the upper deck of the H2 from the coast road.