Dublin Castle and City Hall

The Great Ireland Voyage, 2011. I went to Ireland, from October 24 - November 2, 2011. I attended a conference in Dublin, and then had some vacation days in Dublin and elsewhere, including Galway. I took a good number of pictures.

This part covers Dublin Castle and City Hall.

Click on the thumbnail images to get larger ones (around 100-300K). Click on the "huge" link to get the full size pictures (around 3M). Around 50 pictures included.

Dubhlinn Garden

Dublin Castle, as the name implies, is part of an old castle in Dublin. The garden section has a lawn with a celtic knot pattern in it. This was my first stop. I should also note that while the day started out as gray, overcast, and a bit rainy, in the afternoon, the clouds moved out, the sky cleared, and it was quite nice out.

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First up is a map of the Dublin castle and some text that explains the areas. It can provide orientation, but it more so I could remember the names of the different places.

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The garden is surrounded by a wall, with a proper castle wall at one end. The First picture shows the grass and the entrance area. The second shows the castle wall on the far side, and the third shows the other side of the entrance, near the memorial garden.

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A few pictures of the paths going through the grass. It's a brick path that crosses itself in a celtic knot of some sort.

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And a panoramic shot of the garden, with most of the patterns on the grass visible. I did a little to smooth out the border of the picture so it wasn't jagged, but beyond that, I did not try to make it rectangular or even a perfect arc, as too much of the picture would be lost. The full-size picture is rather wide.

Garda Memorial Garden

The Garda Memorial Garden is at the entrance to the Dubhlinn Garden. The garda are the national police and this is a memorial to those killed in service to the country.

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The first picture shows the entrance to the memorial garden from the main garden. The second is a sign describing the design of the memorial garden (probably need to look at the 'huge' version to read the words). And the last picture is looking at the memorial garden after passing through the entrance. The window on the left with wrought iron appears in later pictures.

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There were benches to sit at, look at the artwork as well as the grassy area beyond. The first and third picture shows a fresnel-like lens (concentric circles are a theme in the garden) and is on the left side. The sun is shining on the lens, illuminating it. The second picture shows a sort of ying/yang sculpture that is on the right side of the garden, with a doorway to the grassy area visible in the distance.

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At the back of the memorial garden is a window with a wrought iron grate. It had cool, swirly patterns in it. The black of the iron contrasted nicely with the white wall that was behind it. THe first picture shows the window with a bit of the wall. In the second shot, a few people were walking by as I took it and I cought their silhouettes. It wasn't intentional, but I like the effect. The third is a close-up of the patterns in the grate.

Near the Ship St. Entrance to Dublin Castle

Outside the garden was one of the entrances, the only non-pedestrian one. Some of the buildings with the Dublin Castle area are very modern-looking, at least on the outside. While I was there, I also took a few pictures of a delivery vehicle with a built-in crane. It was an interesting contrast, to see the modern and ancient together in the same place.

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A few of the buildings, just behind the gardens are very colorful. With the intense blue sky and bright light, the colors really stood out. The bright blue car parked nearby also helped. The cannonballs on the top of the corner in the second picture is featured in the next pictures.

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One more shot of the colorful buildings and car, with the wall in silhouette. The second picture is a close-up of the top of the corner of the wall. The colorful wall is behind me and the colors can be seen, reflected in the cannonballs.

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A truck (or perhaps a lorry) was driving through the entrance arch...very slowly. It barely cleared. (Side note: the map which appears in the first picture is on the wall, just to the right of the truck, just beyond where the man is standing.) It was interesting to watch as they very cautiously drove through the entrance. Once through, they extended a crane from the truck, connected it to a shed and swung the shed around, over parked cars, since there was no free space, and then onto a trailer pulled by a smaller truck.

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A few more shots of swinging the shed over a parked car and onto the trailer. A worker then climbed on top (with a ladder) to disconnect the shed from the crane.

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All this was right next to the window with the wrought iron grate that looked into the memorial garden. The first picture shows the window and the wall, the second provides more of a view into the garden beyond the window.

Chapel Royal

Dublin Castle has its own royal chapel. I think, generally, only people who are part of a tour group can visit it. I just saw an open door and was curious. No one was in there, so I took a few pictures. After a few minutes, someone came in and said, "Sorry, but there's going to be 40 people coming in, in 30 seconds." And then the place was flooded with tourists taking pictures. It was nice to have a few minutes to myself.

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The first picture is looking at the chapel from the back. The second picture is of the stained glass window at the front. And the third picture is from the front of the chapel, looking back to the entrance and the pipes of the organ.

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And then people started to arrive. And then more people. And even more. I took my leave after a bit.

Upper Castle Yard

The Upper Castle Yard is the main courtyard of Dublin Castle, a large rectangular space between several buildings.

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I took a 360° panoramic picture of the courtyard. To provide some sense of orientation, the entrance, about a third of the way in front the right side of the picture, is where I started shooting. To the right of the arch is see the blue door with someone sitting in it, which appears below. The distant area towards the center or just to the left of center of the picture was what was on my immediate left. The muliple archways on the left side of the picture was behind me. And the very left edge of the picture, along with the right edge was on my right. (This is all with respect to facing the archway.) Again, I did not do much to trim the picture, as I didn't want to lose too much. Also, there is one funky visual artifact: the woman in the foreground was walking towards me and appears in two pictures, though the lower half of her body is not in the more distant version of her. Again, too much work to try to edit her out, and it's a kind of interesting effect. As might be suspected, this is a fairly wide image.

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The first picture is of the entrance to the chapel, which is outside of the courtyard. The second picture is someone sitting in a large, colorful doorway in the courtyard. And the third is of a statue of justice on top of a building in the courtyard.

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The first picture is a building to the left of the arch on the panorama. Its top was cut off in the panorama. The second is a statue on top of a building just to the left of the building in the previous shot.

Dublin City Hall

Dublin City Hall is an impressive, domed building with big arches and columns in front and is an example of the Georgian architecture.

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The symbol of Dublin, I think, is 3 castles (on fire?). The base of the columns on the City Hall building had them, as well as utility poles and other thigns around the city. The second shot is of the city hall columns adn the third is a plaque below the 3 castles image on a column.

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I took a few shots of the inside of the dome. There are glass windows on the sides and one at the top.

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Two shots of the glass window at the top of the dome, with different expusures to show the ceiling. And one picture of the inside of the building and a big clock.

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The first picture is of another view of the columns. The second is a door, which was at the edge of Dublin Castle, and the third is of a utility pole nearby that has the 3 burning castles on it, in color.

This page last modified Dec 30, 2011.
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