Dollymount beach

I went down to my favourite place this morning,Dollymount beach.I love it down here,its less then a mile from my house but feels a million miles away.I normally go down there to get a plan together or to remind myself how beautiful Dublin is.Suprisingly its a crisp spring day,sunny and misty but this just adds to its beauty.The sun is breaking through the odd cloud directly on to my car and i feel like i'm on stage performing to nobody,the beach is deserted.To my left is Howth and to my right are the famous red and white chimneys of Dublin bay.

Dollymount is a man made beach with a nature reserve and last remaining beach that allows you to drive right on to it.Sadly you can no longer drive the lenght of the beach and for generations if you went down there at anytime of the day or night you would always see nervous teenagers,girlfriends and wives stuttering to a halt learning to drive.I can see why they blocked off most of the sand to cars but it is now only dotted with dog walkers , couples and joggers.The beach itself is named Dollymount  beach ,however , its actually on an island called bull island and is linked to Clontarf/Raheny by a wooden bridge

                                                            trust me its made of wood

The reason this island was built was to combat the problem of 'silting',this is when rivers carry large amount of sediments and makes the riverbed shallower and it was Captain William Bligh who highlighted the potential of the Bull island sandbank.If you don't know who he was,he was the captain of the the ship 'BOUNTY' which you might know from the very famous movie 'mutiny on the bounty'.In the nature reserve there are all kinds of wildlife,iv seen foxes hedgehogs and seals along with all kinds of birds and its a nice to walk through the dunes on a summers evening.

I sat in the car with the seat tilted back taking notes of everything i saw.To my left was a plumber in his van having some lunch,to my right was an elderly man taking pictures of his grandkids.Behind me 4 young teens arrived on there bikes and in front of me 3 windsurfers prepared their equiptment.Apart from the latter the water had no beneficial value to any of us but it was the main attraction for everybody.There is just something so calming and relaxing about watching  the waves breaking and listening to them crash against the shoreline but there were no waves,just slight ripples moving from right to left as the sun reflected from it but it still attracted us.

Five generations of people all there for different reasons sharing this same view together,the young kids,the teenagers,myself,the 50 year old plumber and the 75 year old grandfather.At that moment a police car arrived on to the beach and parked beside an empty red van half hiding from us,they had taken an unofficial break by the looks of it but the grandfather began to pick up some sweet wrappers from the ground,the teenagers climbed back on their bikes and rode away,the plumber turned his radio down and started the engine and the winsurfers made their way to the water,it ended as quickly as it began

You don't need much to have days like this , you just need to appreciate something special when you see it !!