Ireland, day 2

My research project was to study the parks of Ireland to learn their history, influences, and compare them to parks in the US and even in London. So on the second day of my trip, I visited 3 different city parks.

The first one was St. Stephen's Green, a 22 acre Victorian era park in the middle of the busy streets of Dublin.

It was a typical layout for a city park, albeit very beautiful. A lake and a couple ponds were interspersed throughout the paved walkways, and flowerbeds and benches were set up along rolling lawns.

There were many statues and memorials in the park, including this large one to commemorate the poet W.B. Yeats. I really liked this one, as it was very peaceful to walk through and sort of had a zen garden feel to it.

This was one side of the lake at St. Stephens, above.

After visiting St. Stephens, we headed over to the Chester Beatty Library where we hoped we could find some public documents on the parks to use for our research project. As it turned out however, the library was actually a museum of religious artwork (who knew?). Fortunately, the greeters at the front desk were very kind, and one gentleman actually knew a lot about the parks.

He told us that most of the parks in Dublin had been private gardens until the last century or so when they were opened to the public. He circled several parks on the map, which we proceeded to go find after a quick look at the museum.

Archbishop Ryan Park is named for the Catholic Archbishop who used to own it. Although somewhat smaller that St. Stephens, it had a huge variety of bird species and seemed popular with the locals.

One particularly friendly bird was this Robin that posed very nicely for a long time. I take it that since it appeared to live in the park and had several bands on its legs, it was pretty used to humans and actually followed us around for a bit.

One of the newest and most striking features of the park is this pyramid memorial to the members of the Defense Forces killed in action. I thought it was pretty; a live flame was in the center, while the Irish flag flew overhead.

Our last park for the day was Iveagh Gardens, also known as the "secret garden" of Dublin. Indeed, it did feel like entering the Secret Garden from the book, as it was but a tiny sliver of land on the side of the road into which you had to descend from a series of stone steps.

One of the smallest parks in Dublin, Iveagh Gardens was similar to the others we had visited. It had 2 large fountains, various statues and sculptures, ivy-covered walls, rolling lawns, and plenty of walkways where people strolled along with their pet dogs or just enjoying quiet solitude.

In the evening we met up with a few other Eckerd students who were also in Dublin, and found a fantastic little pub called the Purty Kitchen. It was pretty well off the beaten path, full of locals, and had a group playing live traditional Irish music in the front, making for a great atmosphere. It was definitely the most expensive meal I have bought since coming to Europe (close to 10 Euro), but the food was delicious.

And thus ended day 2 in Dublin. So far, even with minor mishaps, everything was going fairly well and I was really beginning to love Ireland.