Children’s art on a wall overlooking the South Beach at Greystones, Co Wicklow (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)Patrick Comerford
It was a grey day this morning in Greystones. But what a day.
After Morning Prayer in the chapel, and breakfast with students and other members of staff, I headed out to Co Wicklow. The temperature was mild (in the mid-teens), but the forecast was for rain and wind. By the time I was approaching Bray and Glencormack, the Sugar Loaf Mountain was covered in cloud, and so, instead of heading into Bray two of us headed on to Greystones.
The town was a-buzz with shoppers, and the coffee shops were busy. We crossed the Dart line, and made our way down onto the South Beach behind the railway station, where the sea – to quote James Joyce – was “snot green,” and the tide was coming in with a swell.
The South Beach is a broad expansive sandy beach about a kilometer in length. It is a Blue Flag beach, but there were few people walking the shoreline this morning.
The waves rolling in on the South Beach in Greystones, Co Wicklow, this morning (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2011)It is said that Greystones is the town with the highest Protestants population in the Republic of Ireland, and according to the 2006 census 9.77% of the residents say they are members of the Church of Ireland.
From Greystones, we headed back towards Bray, and stopped for lunch at the Sugar Tree café at the Avoca Shop in Kilmacanogue.
The Avoca store in Kilmacanogue is set in the grounds of the old estate of the Jameson family of whiskey fame and is surrounded by ancient trees and rolling gardens. We ate in the exquisite pavilion-style veranda looking out onto the garden terrace, and we could have lingered there all afternoon it was so charming.
A good walk on the beach and a hearty but lazy lunch combined to make it a good end to a week that had been a hard-working but happy one.
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