Such a glorious day! this is to whet your appetite, should you ever have some tie to just wander along the quays in Dublin,
Today as yesterday – only yesterday? – it was a truly glorious day. So much so that I left the house and set off to walk along one side of the quays and return along the other, without remembering that I had an appointment. A zoom call. Zoom calls. 2020. Zoom calls are de rigeur in 2020. Anyway, I soothed the unfortunate who rang me to check if I were still alive, and continued on my way.
And what did I see?
My photos will be my prompts.
The first photo shows the replica Jeanie Johnston, looking up river, and a link tells you more. The day of the Inauguration of the Famine Walk, I was among the motley group who waited for those who had enacted the walk, and it was an emotional moment, to see them all being herded along and hurried up along the gangplank on to the Jeanie Johnston…


The little shoes are part of a remembrance of the Famine Walk, from Strokestown House along the Royal Canal to Dublin quays. The story has many starting points, but all ended at the quays. Those who travelled on the Jeanie Johnston were lucky, as the reputation of the ship was a good one, with very few if any losses on its journeys.

The above is a plaque on a recently built bridge over the Liffey, honouring Rosie Hackett. It was the first bridge in Dublin to be named for a woman.
The following is taken from Wikipedia.
Rosie Hackett was born into a working-class family in Dublin in 1893. Her father was John Hackett, a hairdresser, whilst her mother was the former Roseanna Doyle. According to the 1901 census, she was living with her widowed mother and five other family members in a tenement building on Bolton Street in the city centre. The available documents suggest that her father died when she was still very young. Hackett joined the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union(ITGWU) when it was established in 1909 by Jim Larkin, which marked the beginning of her lifelong activity in trade unionism.[1] By 1911 she was living with her family in a cottage on Old Abbey Street, and her mother had remarried to Patrick Gray.[2] That same year she co-founded the Irish Women Workers’ Union (IWWU) with Delia Larkin. Hackett never married, and lived in Fairview with her brother Tommy until her death in 1976.[citation needed]

Surprise surprise. Palm trees on the boardwalk in Dublin City?
Quote from Wikipedia: Palm trees in Ireland are frost hardy and grow in gardens all over. They decorate our towns and suburbs, they are blasted by the salt air on our seafronts, and they are often seen in pairs guarding the entrances to farmhouses and give a tropical look to any garden.
However, they are not palm trees at all; they are the New Zealand native, Cordyline australis. They enjoy the common name of “cabbage tree”, supposedly because settlers in New Zealand found the young leaves to be a tolerable substitute for cabbage. The plant was popularised in Irish gardens as early as the late 1800s. By the 1970s — and almost certainly before that – the palm imposter had gone rogue, spreading into the wild and lending parts of coastal Ireland a distinctly beautiful aura.

Looking to the south side of the quays, we can see what many conservationists wish had never been built. Modern Civic Offices have been superimposed upon an area known as Wood Quay.
Dublin Corporation acquired Wood Quay gradually between 1950 and 1975, finally announcing that it would be the location of their new offices. Large-scale archaeological excavations were conducted on the site by the National Museum of Ireland at intervals between 1974 and 1981. Finds made during the excavations of the site led to a significant, but ultimately unsuccessful, public campaign to halt the development. Artefacts from the excavations are now on display in the National Museum of Ireland. Most of the quay is now entirely occupied by Dublin City Council‘s Civic Offices.

15 Ushers Island, on the south quays of the River Liffey, at the James Joyce Bridge, The house was used in the film The Dead, by James Joyce.
It is currently pending a final decision on an application for using it as a tourist hostel, much to the chagrin, once more, of conservationists.




Best if you wish to look up Anna Livia statue. She was given at least two other names, thanks to Dublin wit.

She is to be found here, just a short walk from Heuston Station, on the north side of the quays, heading towards the city, and on out to the sea…

I was delighted to come across this piece of street art. Some few years ago the City Council invited ideas for decorating objects that sit on streets, maybe meters, who knows. This guy, Bang Bang, was before my time, but he was a real character, in both senses. Internet will help you learn more.


Not Christmas yet, but it has begun. I was lucky – no music!
So that was my stroll along the quays. It was nippy enough, but the blue sky and the sun from time to time made for a very pleasant stroll.
Thank goodness for feet, and good health!