Sunshine by shores behind the sale in Portrane

Lambay Island was basking in the afternoon sunshine today (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2012)

Patrick Comerford

After last night’s heavy rain, the rain held off this morning, and eventually it was a bright sunny afternoon in Portrane for the third and final day of the August bank holiday sale in aid of Heart-to-Hand and the projects it works with in Romania and Albania.

I had arrived late because of Irish CND’s Hiroshima Day commemorations in Merrion Square at lunch time. It was sleeves up and down to work immediately at the bookstall in the big red-and-white marquee at The Quay.

During the afternoon, the sunshine was so warm it was impossible to resist the temptation to take a walk on the two beaches divided by jutting tiny headland at The Quay.

A few children were playing in the sand, making sandcastles and Lambay Island seemed to be basking in the rays of sunlight as a lone yacht made its way between the rocky shoreline and the island.

Evening lights on the Burrow Beach in Portrane (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2012)

Around the jutting headland, the tide was receding from the Burrow Beach, and a child was delighting in the pleasure of skipping and hopping through ripples and pools left behind by the water, bathing in the last rays of sunshine of the day.

By the end of the day, we heard we had made €280 on the bookstall this afternoon, and the total take today passed €8,000 again. The figure for the three days this weekend is almost €25,000 – and it could be even be more if some extra donations come in over the next few days.

At the Hiroshima Day commemorations in Merrion Square this morning with (from left): Dr David Hutchinson-Edgar, chair, Irish CND, Councillor Clare Byrne, Deputy Lord Mayor of Dublin, and Mr Kojiro Uchiyama, Counsellor and Deputy Head of Mission, the Embassy of Japan.