Ireland day 1553. Monday 29 December 2025- Dublin Sales

Today’s summary	Spent the morning planning January activities and thinking about the day. Had cold turkey lunch then went into Dublin to get some fresh salad at Fallon & Byrne and to see if there were any bargains in the sales. Drew a blank on both fronts. Dart home from Pearse then in the evening watched some TV, had more turkey for dinner, and started making candies orange slices
Today’s weather	Heavily overcast but dry. Light easterly wind. Appx 7c

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): Dublin Sales

Commentary

Today we had one of those delicious days when we had nothing planned. Although it’s good to be busy, it’s also nice to get some down time when you can enjoy life at a slightly more relaxed pace.

So today we spent the first part of the morning planning how we were going to get the most out of January, without becoming over-committed in the process.

Then we got a bit of a shock when we discovered they Seamus O’Brien, curator of Kilmacurragh Botanic Gardens, had died suddenly on 22 December at the age of 55. We had met him in April when we went on our “Rhododendromania” tour and found him to be charming and engaging. I had actually just bought Val a signed copy of his book for Christmas. A sad loss to the world of horticulture and yet another one of the many unwelcome reminders of mortality – and the need to maximise the joy of every day – that we have received in 2025.

Anyway, by this time it was late morning and we decided to have an early lunch before tackling the afternoon. It was unsurprisingly cold turkey sandwiches for me, but Val couldn’t face yet another avian meal an opted for cheese and biscuits instead.

Afterwards, we decided to go into Dublin to try and get some healthy fruit and vegetables to supplement our unending diet of Christmas leftovers. We also thought there may be some sale bargains we could pick up from the shops along the way.

So we donned our warm outdoor gear and wandered off to the station and caught a timely diesel into Connolly. Once in town, at about 2pm, we walked from the station to the south of the town and made our way along to Fallon & Byrne, the specialist grocers. Last week, I’d got some really nice tomatoes and salad there, and we wanted to try and get some more today.

Sadly the same varieties weren’t in stock, so we couldn’t get exactly what we wanted. Hopefully the slightly less exotic-looking alternatives we bought instead will be OK. Also last week, I had bought some delicious chocolate-dipped candied orange slices, and we wanted more. But last week I had been enjoying a flush of pre-Christmas good cheer and hadn’t paid too much attention to the cost. I was stunned then to find that they actually cost €9.95 for three slices so I hastily abandoned that idea. Instead I bought a couple of blood oranges and will try making my own.

After abandoning Fallon and Byrne, we slowly made our way back towards Pearse station. Along the way we dropped into the National Museum in Kildare Street to take a look at the three bronze bells from St Mary’s abbey, Howth. We had learned about them yesterday on our Club walk on the headland.

Before getting our train, we dropped into the National Gallery for a cup of tea and to look round the shop. Sadly no bargains were on offer. Indeed I don’t really recall seeing much if any evidence of sales going on in any of the shops we passed. Still, I’m not an expert in these things so I probably don’t know what I’m looking for.

Once we finally made it to the station, we only had a short wait for a Dart and we were quickly back in Malahide. A quick diversion to the shops to buy some milk and chocolate, then we were at the flat again by 5:30pm.

The evening was passed in partly conventional manner – salad and (yet more) cold turkey for dinner, then a couple of YouTube documentaries. Then in departure from the conventional, I set about making my very own candied orange slices – slicing and boiling the blood oranges in sugar. They’ve got to be left out for a couple of days to desiccate now – I’ll report back “in due course” on how they turn out. Necessity, in this case driven by excessive cost of the purchased alternative, is the mother of invention!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


Congenial Connolly. Actually it isn’t at all but I liked the alliteration	Luas trundling past Wynn’s hotel – the preferred venue for most DWC AGMs, in Abbey Street

Major building works underway at the Bank of Ireland in College Green. Either that or its a heist of epic proportions and nobody has noticed	The National Museum of Ireland – Archaeology, in Kildare Street. We dropped in as we happened to be passing, just to take a look at the Howth St Mary’s Bells (see photo below)

Text here	Text here

Here are the Howth St Mary’s Abbey bells. An amazing six hundred years old and still looking in pretty good condition (though the one on the lower left has a chunk missing). See yesterday’s blog for the details