Silver Strand in Co Wicklow was a surprising new beach to discover

Inside a cave at Silver Strand in Co Wicklow watching the waves on the beach (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016; click on image for full-screen resolution)

Patrick Comerford

I try to go for a walk on a nearby beach at least once in a weekend, if not twice. It’s good for my lungs and good for my feelings about two conditions, Sarcoidosis and a Vitamin B12 deficiency.

Because I live so close to the M50, places like Bray are often no more than 15 minutes’ drive from home, and it is only little further to get to the beaches at Greystones and Kilcoole, further south in Co Wicklow, or beaches to the north at Malahide, the Velvet Strand at Portmarnock, Balcarrick Beach at Donabate, Portrane, Rush, Loughshinney, the two beach at Skerries, and Laytown, Bettystown and Mornington in Co Meath.

They are all within such easy reach, that I really have few excuses for not getting out for a healthy walk on a beach, taking in the fresh sea air and enjoying the sound of the sea and the waves lapping against the sand and the pebbles.

But I was surprised by the list of “50 Great Irish Beaches” in the ‘Weekend’ Review’ in The Irish Times on Saturday [30 July 2016]. I am familiar with only 20 of the 50 beaches listed by Catherine Murphy.

Few of the beaches I have named in north Co Dublin are included on the list, I am familiar with only one of the beaches on Achill Island, and I was surprised that the list did not include beaches such as Dugort on Achill Island, Brittas Bay in Co Wicklow, or more beaches in Co Wexford, and that the list included none of the beaches on the ‘Gold Coast’ of Co Meath.

Please don’t get me wrong, though. I’m not quibbling. I have long been vocal about the pollution on Bettystown Beach and the refusal of Meath County Council to stop its use as a car park, and the erosion of the beach in Courtown is symptomatic of the problems facing many beaches on the Wexford coast.

The list made me realise how limited I have been in my exploration of Irish beaches. So, after I had presided and preached at the Sung Eucharist in Saint John’s Church, Sandymount, this morning [31 July 2016], two of us decided this afternoon to go for a walk on one of the beaches on the list of ’50 Great Irish Beaches’ that I had not visited previously.

Silver Strand beach and caves in Co Wicklow came in at No 14 on the weekend list in ‘The Irish Times’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016; click on image for full-screen resolution)

Silver Strand beach and caves in Co Wicklow came in at No 14 on the list in The Irish Times. Catherine Murphy wrote: “Caramel sands, fragrant honeysuckle and intriguing waves await those who walk down the steep steps to the beach.”

The beach lies just 3 km south of Wicklow Town, but it is a private beach, and access is through one of two neighbouring caravan parks perched on the cliffs above Silver Strand, in picturesque rural settings.

Silver Strand Caravan Park is also known as Webster’s Caravan Park or Harry’s Place. The park is a family run business with coastal views and private access to Silver Strand Beach and Caves.

The park has been owned and operated by four generations of the Webster family and has been catering for the needs of mobile home owners for over a century. For over 40 years, the park has been run by Harry Webster with his wife Jean and their children.

The park has also been a location in a number of media productions, including TV series such as Love/Hate, Moonfleet, The Vikings, Camelot, George Gently, Fair City and ITV’s Primeval, and several feature films including Frankie Starlight, The Escapist, Driftwood and The Count of Monte Cristo.

A little further south, Wolohan’s Caravan and Camping Park has been run by the Wolohan family for over 70 years. This is a 22-acre site set in rural farmland and with spectacular coastal views.

During the week, both parks charge an entrance fee of €6 a day for a car. But this is a bank holiday weekend in Ireland and we paid €10 for the car and access to the beach and the facilities at the Silver Strand Caravan Park or Webster’s.

I know Irish people object to charges like this, but when you compare this with parking charges in high rise inner city parking lots in Dublin that offer no facilities, the charge seemed reasonable and goes towards maintaining a beach that truly deserves its place on that list of ‘50 Great Irish Beaches.’

From the top of the steps leading down to the beach, Silver Strand looks like a small bay. But as we made our way down, we were surprised how large the bay is, with plenty of space for families to stake out their own place with a degree of privacy.

Silver Strand is a collection of three small beaches, enclosed by a maze of caves that brought me back in my mind’s eye to a visit to Matala on the south coast of Crete almost two years ago [26 August 2014].

The tide and the waves were gentle, the sand was soft, and it seemed possible to walk out safely into the water for quite a distance. Inside, the caves acted as echo chambers, resounding with the sound of the waves on the beach.

Eventually, we climbed back up the steps, turning back every now and again for wistful glances at the beach below, before heading on to a late Sunday lunch in the Avoca Café at the Mount Usher Gardens, in the part of Co Wicklow that is known as the ‘Garden of Ireland.’

Memories of the caves at Matala in a cave at Silver Strand, Co Wicklow (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016; click on image for full-screen resolution)

‘For last year’s words belong to last year’s language’

‘We shall not cease from exploration’ … in the gardens at Mount Usher, Co Wicklow, this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2016)

Patrick Comerford

For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
And next year’s words await another voice.
…

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree

Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.

— TS Eliot, Little Gidding

‘And the end of all our exploring / Will be to arrive where we started’ (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

‘Little Gidding’ is the last poem in TS Eliot’s Four Quartets.

Moving from last year’s words and language to the voice of this new year provides an opportunity to reflect on the meaning of time, the past, the present and the future.

A good place to do this this afternoon was by the river and the waterfall in Mount Usher in Ashford, Co Wicklow, which is the “Garden of Ireland.”

It is only 2 January, but I found myself thinking how this was already my first time outside Dublin this year. Time plays silly games with us as we move between one place and the next, from one year to the next.

I had spent much of this morning working on a paper on James Annesley, the schoolboy from Bunclody, Co Wexford, who was kidnapped 300 years. It is a story of abduction, adultery and assassination that is more captivating than the novel it later inspired, Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped. Time does little to diminish its shocking impact.

Strolling through the riverside garden by the banks of the River Vartry and at the Garden Café before lunch and through the walled garden with its garden shop later, between the enveloping dusk of the afternoon and the winter darkness of the evening, I had just a tinge of regret that I had not arrived in time to walk by the rivers, waterfalls and tall trees in Mount Usher Gardens.

Three of us had lunch in the Garden Café before returning to the café gardens. Perhaps, had I been more organised, we might have gone further south to see the flooding Slaney Co Wexford, in Bunclody, Enniscorthy and Wexford, for the reports of rising waters and the losses suffered by people in flooded areas are heart-breaking.

But “what might have been … is always present,” as TS Eliot reminds us in ‘Burnt Norton,’ his first poem in the Four Quartets. And I have promised myself more time this year for walks by rivers and the sea, in gardens and in the countryside.

‘Through the unknown, unremembered gate’ … (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future
And time future contained in time past
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden.

— TS Eliot, Burnt Norton

‘What might have been is an abstraction’ … (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

In the fading light, there is time to remember saints and souls

Autumn lights in the late evening at the Café Garden in Mount Usher, Ashford, Co Wicklow (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Patrick Comerford

Since the clocks went back last weekend, the evenings are closing in much more quickly, and it is almost dark before the working day has finished.

The evening canticles, such as Hail Gladdening Light and Nunc Dimittis seem more appropriate at Evensong on these darkening evenings, and yesterday we also sang Henry Francis Lyte’s hymn about the evening of life, Abide with me, fast falls the eventide.

This afternoon, before evening lights began to fade, two of us left work early and drove down through the Glen o’ the Downs to Ashford for a late lunch in the Garden Café at Mount Usher Gardens.

As we drove through this part of Co Wicklow, the trees were a burnished mixture of green, gold, yellow and brown, as if the autumn leaves are holding onto the branches even though November is only a few days away.

A cheerful, cheeky robin on one of the tables at the Café Garden in Mount Usher this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

The tables in the garden were virtually deserted – one person was sitting alone, working on her laptop as she sipped on her cappuccino; one other table was occupied by a cheerful, cheeky robin, as he hopped from chair to table and on to another table, obviously used to be being given sweet morsels by people throughout the day.

Inside, we were given a table by the large window looking out on the gardens with its autumn trees and flowers.

By the time we were leaving, darkness had fallen, and there was a warm glow around some of the tables that were lit.

On the way back home, a few early Hallowe’en bonfires were burning, though with little sense of enthusiasm.

Soon the leaves are going to fade and fall faster, and this seems to be an appropriate time of the year to consider the natural cycle of life and death and new life, to celebrate All Saints and to remember All Souls:

Change and decay in all around I see;
O thou who changest not,
abide with me.

Some colour remains on some of the trees at Mount Usher (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

‘The Sea, the Sea’ in Bray during Saturday afternoon on the Prom

θάλαττα θάλαττα … grey sea and grey skies in Bray this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Patrick Comerford

For many people, if it’s Saturday and it’s summer, then it must be ‘Saturday at the Proms,’ with the Last Night at the Proms as the climax of the season on both radio and television.

This year on Saturdays, Proms Extra, the Proms magazine programme, is hosted by Katie Derham. The show covers performances from the previous week’s Proms, has interviews with artists appearing at the Proms and looks forward to the musical week ahead. The Last Night of the Proms this year is on 12 September.

It was ‘Saturday Afternoon on the Prom’ today for two of us when we had to think again about a planned walk on the beach at the Silver Strand near Wicklow. As we drove south towards Wicklow, the grey skies turned to rain, and the Wicklow Mountains were shrouded in rain clouds and mist.

Summer flowers in the rain at the Avoca Café in the Mount Usher this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

We turned off at the M11 at Ashford, and decided to have lunch at the Avoca Café in the Mount Usher Gardens.

In summer weather, this is an ideal place to sit in the garden and enjoy afternoon lunch in the sunshine. But it was just as pleasant this afternoon to sit inside and enjoy the views of the garden, with the rain acting in a translucent way to enhance the colours outside.

We stopped briefly outside Ashford to buy strawberries from Enniscorthy on the roadside and then drove on through Greystones to Bray, where we went for a short Saturday afternoon walk along the Promenade, and stepped down onto the beach for a short, brief stroll along the shoreline.

Despite the rain, the water was calm, and a few small sailing boats from Bray Sailing Club were moving out from the harbour into the sea.

Bella Vista … an elegant Victorian summer villa on Strand Road, Bray (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

One of the attractive features of the seafront in Bray is the Victorian architecture of the once elegant Victorian houses and hotels on Strand Road. Some of these have been converted into bed and breakfast accommodation, some into nursing homes, and others into flats and apartments.

But some of these houses retained their Victorian charm and elegance and are still used as family homes.

One that caught my eye late this afternoon is Bella Vista, which was built in the early 1890s as a seaside villa by Joseph Michael Meade (1839-1900), a building contractor who was twice Lord Mayor of Dublin, in 1891 and again in 1892.

Meade was educated at Trinity College Dublin before becoming a partner in his father’s expanding building business by 1871. After the death of his father, Michael Meade, he continued to build up the business until it employed on average about 900 men.

His contracts included the masonry for the Loop Line railway, the Roman Catholic church in Bray, the Convent of the Little Sisters of the Poor on the South Circular Road, Kilmainham, and the Guinness printing works.

Meade was a Parnellite Nationalist in politics and was elected to Dublin Corporation in 1886 as an alderman for Trinity Ward. He was High Sheriff in 1889 and Lord Mayor in 1891 and 1892 and later represented the Corporation on the commission which was set up to inquire into the causes of the high death rate in Dublin. In the 1890s he was also president of the Dublin Master Builders’ Association.

Meade received an honorary LL.D. from TCD in 1892 and became a member of the Privy Council for Ireland in 1893. In politics, he was a. He died suddenly on 14 July 1900 at his home in Ballsbridge, Saint Michael, Ailesbury Road, and was buried in Glasnevin Cemetery.

The unique “look-out window” at Bella Vista in Bray (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Bella Vista, his summer villa on Strand Road in Bray, is currently on the market with Sherry Fitzgerald Bray, with an asking price of €750,000. It has views across the bay as far as Lambay Island and a view over to Bray Head.

Many people know this house on the seafront for its unique “look-out window” and iron-railed balcony. Inside, many original period features are intact, including marble fireplaces, beautiful cornicing and ceiling roses, working window shutters and stained glass panels on windows.

The front garden, with an array of shrubs and bushes, is meticulously maintained and planted in raised flowerbeds to the side. It has been praised as the “Best Summer Garden in Bray” and the “Best Garden at Bray Seafront.”

Ulysses … an appropriate name for a seafront guesthouse in Bray Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

A few doors away is a Bed and Breakfast house known as Ulysses, which seemed an appropriate name by the sea on this grey afternoon.

In Ulysses, Buck Mulligan’s first mention of the sea is when he says to Stephen: “The snotgreen sea. The scrotumtightening sea. Epi oinopa ponton. Ah, Dedalus, the Greeks. I must teach you. You must read them in the original. Thalatta! Thalatta! She is our great sweet mother. Come and look.”

In his errata for the first edition, James Joyce specified that he wanted this to be “grey” sweet mother. This may be an interesting if somewhat obscure allusion to grey-eyed Athena, the protector of Odysseus.

The Homeric epithet ἐπὶ οἴνοπα πόντον is, perhaps, the best-known quotation from ancient Greek literature and occurs several times in the Odyssey. However, the precise meaning of οἴνοπα (“wine-red,” “wine-faced,” “wine-dark,” “wine-coloured,” or something else) is the subject of endless scholarly debates.

But when Joyce puts these words into Mulligan’s mouth, he is not offering any compliments to Mulligan’s scholarship and pronunciation of the Classical Greek which Mulligan would have learned at Oxford.

The sea, the sea … graffiti on a hoarding in Bray this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

θάλαττα θάλαττα (Thalatta! Thalatta!, “The sea! The sea”) is a familiar quotation from Ἀνάβασις (Anabasis, The Inland Expedition), the best-known work by Xenophon, narrating one of the great adventures in human history.

The joyful cry of the Ten Thousand Greek mercenaries on finally reaching the Black Sea is another of the best-known quotations from ancient Greek literature. “The sea! The sea!” means that at last they are back among Greek cities, although they have not reached the end of their journey.

Once again Joyce is undermining Buck Mulligan’s pretensions to scholarship by having him quote such a familiar phrase and offering a debased translation.

But today, looking out on this grey Saturday afternoon on the Prom, the sea in Bray was grey rather than “snot-green” or “wine-red.”

Surreal graffiti? A hoarding in Bray this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

An accidental lunch in gardens in the ‘Garden of Ireland’

The windows of the Avoca Café provided picture frames for the gardens at Mount Usher (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Patrick Comerford

I only came across the Gardens at Mount Usher in Ashford, Co Wicklow, for the first time last year. I had intended to go to lunch in Bray but ended up in Mount Usher by accident that Sunday afternoon and was overwhelmed by the beauty of the gardens during that first visit last July.

Once again, at the end of October, I ended up in Mount Usher by accident for a second time, when I had planned instead to go for a walk on the beach at Brittas Bay.

I had a busy morning this morning, the Second Sunday of Christmas, celebrating the Eucharist and preaching in Zion Parish Church, Rathgar, at 9 a.m. and once again at 10.30 a.m.

Two of us planned afterwards to have lunch in Greystones and a walk on the beach. But as we arrived in Greystones we thought it was a very cold and grey day, and decided to drive on further south. Once again, by accident rather than design, we ended up having lunch in the Avoca Café at Mount Usher.

We got there before the Sunday lunch rush, and what a delightful lunch it was.

One of us had Castletownbere Crab on Avoca toasted multi-seed with celeriac and apple remoulade, cucumber pickle, pink grapefruit and mixed leaves. I had homemade falafel with baba ghanoush, beetroot tzatziki, caramelised onion hummus, cous-cous and pita. We shared a jug of water and finished with two double espressos.

Time for double espressos after lunch at Mount Usher this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2015)

Most people visit Mount Usher to see the trees and the foliage in Spring, Summer and Autumn. But the Winter views of the gardens, framed in the windows of the garden café were equally attractive.

Co Wicklow boasts it is the “Garden of Ireland.” But Mount Usher also deserves its reputation one of Ireland’s loveliest gardens, and one of the prettiest too. There are over 5,000 species of plants and shrubs from all over the world scattered throughout the nine hectares of gardens along the River Vartry.

Mount Usher is one of the few Irish gardens ever to have had a whole programme devoted to it as part of the BBC’s long-running series, Gardener's World, and the BBC's Gardener's World Magazine once voted it the best garden to visit in Ireland. It is one of only three top-rated Irish gardens in the The Good Garden Guides, and the celebrity gardener Monty Don once nominated it as one of his favourite gardens anywhere.

The shop at the garden centre is closed for the winter season, but the Avoca food shop was open, and we returned with enough food for the next few days, driving back though the Glen of the Downs, part of the scenery that contributes to Co Wicklow’s reputation as the ‘Garden of Ireland.’

Visiting the country house in Co Wicklow where Wittgenstein lived and worked

Kilpatrick House … Ludwig Wittgenstein lived and wrote here from December 1947 to April 1948 (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Patrick Comerford

My search for places associated with Ludwig Wittgenstein’s visits to Ireland continued this afternoon with a visit to Kilpatrick House near Redcross, the house where Austrian philosopher lived and worked from December 1947 to April 1948.

Kilpatrick House is an elegant 18th century Georgian country house set at the foot of Kilpatrick Hill in the hills between the Wicklow Mountains and the coast at Brittas Bay. The house is just an hour from Dublin yet is close to sandy beaches, woodland trails, golf courses, the Wicklow Mountains and the other attractions Co Wicklow.

Kilpatrick House is just minutes from Ballymoyle Wood, a large area of natural woodland hosting a rich variety of flora and fauna, while Brittas Bay is just 5 km east of the house. Glendalough, the Vale of Avoca and Avondale House and Forest Park are also close at hand.

Kilpatrick House was built about 1750 by the Howard family of Shelton Abbey for their land agents (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Kilpatrick House was built around 1750 by Ralph Howard (1726-1786), 1st Lord Wicklow, a local landowner, as one of three houses to accommodate his agents or rent collectors. Lord Wicklow was eldest son of Robert Howard (1670-1740), Bishop of Elphin, and before becoming a peer was MP in the Irish House of Commons for Co Wicklow (1761-1765).

The last holder of the family title was William Howard, 8th Earl of Wicklow (1902-1978), who was educated at Eton and Magdalen College, Oxford, before entering Saint Stephen’s House, Oxford. His Oxford friends and contemporaries included Evelyn Waugh and John Betjeman.

After his ordination to the priesthood in the Church of England, he worked with the Magdalen Mission in Somers Town. He was a devout Anglo-Catholic, but he became a Roman Catholic in 1932, and from then on lived as a layman. He was disinherited by his father and banished from the family home at Shelton Abbey near Arklow on Sundays because he was seen as an embarrassment when he went to Mass with the servants.

During World War I, he was a captain in the Royal Fusiliers, but returned home and in 1946 succeeded his father as Earl of Wicklow. In 1959, he married Eleanor Butler (1915-1997), an architect and author of school textbooks who was also a Labour Senator (1948-1951). When he died in 1978, the title became extinct.

Kilpatrick House is close to all the attractions Co Wicklow has to offer (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Meanwhile, Kilpatrick House has been the Kingston family home and a working farm for three generations. The house first opened as a guesthouse in 1941, and one of the earliest and most eminent guests was the Austrian philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein, who stayed there from 1947 to 1948.

While he was staying at Kilpatrick House, Wittgenstein worked on one of his major treatises, Philosophical Investigations, now accepted as a classic of 20th century philosophy.

In his letters from Kilpatrick House to friends in Cambridge, Wittgenstein complains of feeling old and tired. “I have, somehow, an old soul,” he wrote on 5 February 1948. He complained of “occasional … states of nervous instability” that taught him how to pray.

In March 1948, he complained that his work was “progressing very slowly and painfully,” adding: “I wish I had more working power and didn’t tire so very easily … my brain feels very stuffy indeed.”

In another letter later that month, he said: “I often believe that I am on the straight road to insanity. It is difficult for me to imagine that my brain should stand the strain very long. That I dread this end I needn’t say … May our fate not be too terrible! and may we be given courage.”

While he was staying at Kilpatrick House, Wittgenstein kept in touch with his former Cambridge student and friend, Dr Maurice O’Connor Drury. Con Drury had once been an Anglican ordinand at Westcott House, Cambridge, but by the late 1940s he was working as a psychiatrist in Saint Patrick’s Hospital, Dublin, and Saint Edmundsbury’s Hospital, Lucan.

Wittgenstein and Drury met about once a month in Dublin while the Viennese philosopher was staying at Kilpatrick House. In April 1948, he had moved from Kilpatrick House to Con Drury’s holiday home in the west of Ireland, Rosro Cottage in Renvyle, Co Galway, and stayed there until the following October. This is now the Killary Harbour Youth Hostel.

From Co Galway, Wittgenstein moved to Ross’s Hotel, now the Ashling Hotel in Parkgate Street, and he remained there until June 1949. In all he spent 18 months in Ireland before returning to Cambridge, where he died in 1961.

The plaque at the entrance to Kilpatrick House marking the 50th anniversary of Wittgenstein’s death (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

To mark the 50th anniversary of Wittgenstein’s death, the Austrian embassy erected a plaque at the entrance to Kilpatrick House in November 2001. Every year, visitors from all over the world call to the house where Wittgenstein stayed, worked and found inspiration.

We were there on our own this afternoon, and we never got to see Saint Patrick’s Well in the grounds of Kilpatrick House. Local legend says Saint Patrick blessed the well before he set out on his journey north to convert Ireland to Christianity.

From Redcross, we had planned to return to the N11 at Jack White’s and to go for a walk on the beach at Brittas Bay. But the afternoon weather was looking dull and grey, and rain was threatening. Instead we had a late lunch in an autumnal setting at the Avoca Garden Café in Mount Usher Gardens near Ashford, and a stroll through the garden centre and shops before heading back through the Glen of the Downs to south Dublin.

Lunch at the Avoca Garden Café at Mount Usher Gardens near Ashford (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

What do you call your Greek coffee? I call mine ελληνικός or σκέτος

Traditional coffee for two in Little Jerusalem this evening (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Patrick Comerford

After a walk in Saint Enda’s Park in Rathfarnham late this afternoon, two of us decided to go for dinner in a small Italian restaurant in Ranelagh.

The summer colours were still vibrant in the flowers in the walled garden, but there were autumn colours in the trees around the park and by the banks of the streams and brooks, the leaves were beginning to fall, and in one place there was a blanket of fallen chestnuts on the green grass.

It was early in the evening when we arrived in Ranelagh. But as we drove around looking for parking, we realised the place was closed and were glad we had not paid for parking. Instead, we fell back on an old and trusted favourite in Rathmines – Little Jerusalem.

We had expected to end our meal in Ranelagh with double espressos. Instead we ended by asking for two Lebanese coffees, only to be corrected: “Arabic coffees?”

What’s the difference between Lebanese coffee and Arabic coffee? Between Greek coffee and Turkish coffee?

What do you call it?

In Greece, it is “Greek coffee” (ελληνικός καφές ellinikós kafés), or simply ελληνικός ellinikós). In Cyprus it is “Cypriot coffee" (κυπριακός καφές, kypriakós kafés).

What is known as Turkish or Arabic coffee was simply “coffee” throughout the Middle East until the introduction of instant coffee in the 1980s. Today, it is known as Türk kahvesi (Turkish coffee) in Turkey. In the Arab world, it is “Arabic coffee” (qahwa ‘arabiyya), and variations such as Egyptian, Syrian or also indicate different traditions about its flavour, preparation, and presentation.

In Greece, Cyprus and the throughout the Arab world, western-style instant coffee is usually referred to as “Nescafé” without implying one particular brand.

Frappe for two or three in Rethymnon in Crete(Photograph: Patrick Comerford)

Frappe (φραπές, frapés) is a Greek foam-covered iced coffee drink made from instant coffee and popular during the summer months. But real Greek coffee is a strong brew, just like the coffee we were served in Little Jerusalem this evening. It is served with foam at the top and the grounds at the bottom of the cup, and is best made in the μπρίκι or briki, the traditional small pot, because it allows the proper amount of foam, which adds to the unique taste.

To make Greek coffee you need a pack of Greek coffee, sugar, if you use it, a μπρίκι (briki), traditional-sized small cups, cold water, and glasses of water.

The traditional μπρίκι (briki) is known in Turkey as a cezve It usually comes in two, four and six cup sizes that help form the right amount of foam ... a very important part of the process.

You start with very cold water, and use a small, traditional coffee cup to measure the water needed for each cup of coffee, and then pour the water into the briki. Mix a heaped spoonful of Greek coffee with the amount of sugar needed according to taste.

Unsweetened coffee is σκέτος (sketos), medium-sweet coffee, with one teaspoon of sugar for each heaped teaspoon of coffee, is μέτριος (metrios). Sweet coffee takes two teaspoons of sugar in the briki and is called γλυκός (glykos).

Turn on the heat at medium low, stir the coffee until it dissolves, and do not stir again. As you heat the coffee slowly, foam will start to rise in the briki before it boils. This foam is called καϊμάκι (kaïmaki) and the richer the foam, the better Greeks like it.

Once it starts, the foam can move very quickly. When the foam rises to the top of the briki, remove it from the heat and serve. You evenly divide the foam among all the cups, then fill the cups with the remainder of the coffee, taking care not to disturb the foam.

Greek coffee is served in cups about the same size as espresso cups and is always served with a cold glass of water. When the coffee is served out into the cups, it is allowed to settle, with the grounds settling at the bottom of the cup.

Double espressos for two in Mount Usher earlier this summer (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

A summer afternoon strolling in the ‘Best Garden to visit in Ireland’

In the grounds and gardens of Mount Usher this afternoon (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Patrick Comerford

It has been a warm summer day, with temperatures in the mid-20s, and earlier in the day I thought I was going to spend the afternoon walking a beach in either Bray or Greystones after presiding at the Eucharist and preaching in Saint Bartholomew’s Church, Ballsbridge.

However, by the time two of us reached Bray on the N11 early in the afternoon, we realised that Bray would be crowded today for the Bray Air Show. We continued on, accidentally missed the turn-off for Greystones, and on a whim decided to turn off for Ashford and to go for lunch in the Avoca Garden Café at Mount Usher Gardens.

My initial impression was memories of the Tea Gardens in Grantchester near Cambridge on another summer afternoon. But this turned out to be a unique experience.

Lunch in the Avoca Garden Café at Mount Usher Gardens (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

We had:

● one herbed Fivemiletown goat’s cheese crottin and marinated beetroot salad with rocket, spelt, candied walnuts and caramelised apple puree;

● one plate of homemade Falafel with baba ghanouj, beetroot tzatziki, caramelised onion hummus, couscous and pita;

● two large jugs of water, generously laced with mint and chunks of lemon;

● and two double espressos.

This was my first time in this Avoca café, and it turned out to be one of the most relaxed as well as one of the tastiest lunches I have had this year, and after strolling through the garden setting of the café I could have headed back feeling I had a beautiful afternoon.

4562 Two double espressos in the Avoca Garden Café at Mount Usher Gardens (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

But I had never visited Mount Usher before, although I have passed it hundreds if not thousands of times while it was on the main road between Wexford and Dublin before it was by-passed. Looking at the time and the blue skies above, and recalling the joys of a visit to the National Botanic Gardens earlier this month, we decided on impulse to spend a few hours strolling through the gardens.

Mount Usher was voted the “Best Garden to visit in Ireland” by BBC Gardeners’ World Magazine and is one of only three top-rated gardens in Ireland in The Good Garden Guide.

Mount Usher is laid out across 8 ha (22 acres) along the banks of the River Vartry as it tumbles over a series of cascades on its way to the Irish Sea. It is a fine example of a true “Robinsonian-style” garden with its free-flowing informality and natural design.

Mount Usher Gardens were created by four generations of the Walpole family over a period of 112 years (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Mount Usher Gardens were created by four generations of the Walpole family over a period of 112 years from 1868 and were preserved by Mrs Madeleine Jay from then until they were taken over by the Avoca group in 2007. The gardens include many champion trees of Ireland and Britain, as well as some 4,500 different varieties of trees, shrubs and plants.

The Walpoles were greatly influenced by Ireland’s most famous gardener, William Robinson (1838-1935). When he started, gardening was based on what is now called formal Public Park annual bedding. It allowed the rich to display their wealth as the bedding plants required expensive staff to grow and maintain them. Robinson rejected this approach and advocated a natural style which ever since is known as “Robinsonian.”

Mount Usher is probably the oldest and best-known of the gardens inspired by Edward Robinson (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Robinson admired the way cottage gardens had been maintained for hundreds of years, and believed a garden should be based around perennial plantings and that its art is working with nature to create beauty. He revolutionised gardening and virtually all gardens in this part of the world owe a great deal to him. Mount Usher is probably the oldest and best-known of the gardens he inspired.

Edward Walpole, the garden’s founder, passed the property to his three sons. The youngest son, Thomas Walpole, was an engineer, and his contribution to the beauty of the place included designing and building the curved weirs throughout the grounds.

Are you ready for a tour around Mount Usher Gardens? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2014)

Today there are over 5,000 species of plant in Mount Usher, many of them rare and exotic, all grown organically, painting a cacophony of colour throughout the season. We took a copy of the new Mount Usher Tree Trail brochure and set off on an afternoon walk through one of Ireland’s Greatest Gardens.

If Co Wicklow is the Garden County of Ireland, then Mount Usher is the Garden of the Garden County.

Here are some more of my photographs from today’s visit to Mount Usher without any further comment. I hope you decide to visit the place yourself.