Irish Summer By The Seaside
At the weekend we decided to go on an expedition in the car to the seaside. While we don’t exactly live inland, travelling around has become something of a chore now. While you can take public transport, I’m still somewhat wary of it, and so we try and stay in the car where we can be fairly isolated. On a July weekend, you might be thinking the beach would be packed, but at the height of a typical Irish summer, that wasn’t going to be a problem, as the temperature barely got above 16 degrees Celsius for the day, and the sky looked like something out of a science fiction movie.
Back in March, when the coronavirus lockdown was first announced, the weather here in Ireland was great. In fact, it was unseasonably warm, and for the following month or two, the sun shone every day, and eventually, it was actually declared that it was a drought. In June, when the lockdown restrictions were eased and we could travel more than two kilometres, the clouds and rain came, and it’s been like that on and off ever since. There is an ongoing joke about Irish summers but this is getting ridiculous.
Our first stop was a beach in the north of Dublin called “Dollymount Strand”. This is a pretty famous beach here, and it’s a vast expanse of sand that, when the tide is out, rolls off into the distance of Dublin bay. To get there you pass through a small but compact set of sand dunes that border on a nature reserve at the equally famous “Bull Island”. All of this makes a nice escape from the city, and an interesting if short nature trek through the sand dunes and reeds and the various wildflowers that live there.
On the beach itself, you look out to sea towards Wales and the United Kingdom, as well as south towards the south side of the city. Dublin itself curves around in a bay, and you can see one side form the other. In the centre is Dublin port and the famous “Poolbeg Towers”, chimneys of a power station that are icons of Dublin City, but have also been the cause of much discussion and protest at the thought of their demolishment.
While not exactly a typical day at the beach, the moody sky was a nice dramatic sight, and the beach, while not basking in the sun, wasn’t particularly cold either. The sea air was certainly a welcome feeling.
After we left the beach we travelled to the fishing village of Howth for a walk by the pier following at a stop off in another north Dublin town, Sutton, on our way back.
All of these photos were taken with a Nikon D700 and 28-300mm lens. Processing was done in Capture One, and the black and white images used my T-Pan Capture One styles.
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