Malahide Harbor Wednesday (continued) Monday afternoon, we flew back to Dublin. This Air France flight was on the same size plane as the previous week, but it was not full and we were invited to move back to a row of three unoccupied seats. We took a taxi from the airport to Sona's B&B in the nearby ocean side community of Malahide. Sona's is a ordinary home in a quiet neighborhood of similar buildings. I had picked it because it was within walking distance of the shore and downtown. After settling in to our small room, we headed out, walking along the shore to the small downtown and then on to Malahide Castle, parts of which date to the 12th century. It was closed for the day but the 260 acre park surrounding it was open and we watched young people playing cricket during our walk. There were men playing what looking like a pickup game as we went in and women playing what looked like league play as we left. The palace has a walled garden so we could see much of that, but were were able to walk around the castle and the nearby graveyard & Mainistir Abbey ruins. Surprisingly little is known about the abbey. We walked back through town and briefly visited the Church of Saint Sylvester, whose neo-gothic central tower and spire we had been admiring for some distance. There were people at prayer, so I snapped only a few interior photos from the back of the chapel. Although there has been a church at this location for over 800 years, it turns out that this building dates only from about 1837.
Walking back along the shore, I enjoyed seeing unfamiliar shore birds and watching Sea Scouts rowing on the bay.
|
