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St Audoens Park, Dublin

Located on the corner of High Street and Cook Street [just on past Christ Church] St Audoens Park is, I’m glad to say, another of Dublins little gems. According to Dublin City Councils website:

St. Audoen’s Park, although less than 0.5 hectares in size, is quite significant in historical terms.  Located adjacent to St. Audoen’s Church (1300 A.D.), it incorporates the first stone city wall dating from about 1100 A.D.; St. Audoen’s Arch, the last surviving entrance to the old city; and Fagan’s Gate.

The City Wall was restored in 1976 as part of Architectural Heritage Year and the park development of 1982 won a prestigious civic award.  Audoen was a 7th – century Bishop of Rouen (France) and the nearby church named after him is reputedly one of the oldest still used for regular religious services.

As a park, it is extremely relaxing and a great little getaway from the hustle and bustle. The fact that it has so much from a heritage point of view is something that maybe is overlooked a bit too often… But maybe there’s a little of The War Memorial Park versus The Phoenix Park going on here with Christs Church only a stones throw away [?].

That said I like it. Nicely laid out. Clean and tidy. There was even a gardener in trimming the lawn edges on the day I visited. I also like the fact that there’s a Dublin Bike Scheme collection point right outside. I cycled right up from Exchequer Street. The beds were a little empty but I’ll simply put that down to the time of the season… still no leaves on the trees 😉 A note should go also to the stone work cobbles that so often are not in keeping with the surroundings.

Go take a look. Enjoy. Well worth it.

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more picture of St Audoens Park

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Dublin Bike Scheme

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I live in a small farming town called called Ballyboughal. There’s no bus service here and very little else 😉

Last week I had a meeting in Dublin City Centre. So I got a lift into Dublin City.

What happens when at about 5pm, peak traffic one hits near Sherriff Street and tries to get to Merrion Square is very little by way of movement. In fact one could nearly pull the hand brake and set up the picnic table. However if I back tracked about 2 miles I could get on a bike, for free, cycle to Merrion Square, park the bike and that’s that.

The cost for this Dublin Bike Scheme is a registration fee of €10 per annum. And assuming none of my journeys are over 30 minutes then that’s all it will cost me for the year. Realistically, unless I’m going on a back packing journey around Dublin… I can’t see any ride lasting longer than that.

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When I went to St Patricks Park last week [I had a meeting near there just before] my next meet was on Baggot Street…. I walked it. Not a problem, but the cycle would have made things, well, more efficient time wise I suppose.

There used to be a handy iphone app for all of the locations… which made it really easy to figure where was best [for you] to drop your bike back – but JC Decaux who did a deal with Dublin City Council in exchange for advertising space put a stop to that.

Anyhow, it is a great idea. It does work. And for ten bob…. one can’t really complain. Go to the Dublin Bike Scheme website, have your credit card handy and give it a whirl. It takes about 2 weeks to get your card through the post.

UPDATE:

Anthony tells me there is an iphone app from JCDecaux called ABikeNow – but – it’s really poor being very honest and terribly hard to navigate. My advice…. print out a locations map and put it in your handbag 🙂

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Iveagh Gardens, Dublin

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It was last month when I chose to visit the Iveagh Gardens just north of St Stephens Green.

On the whole, I like the Iveagh Gardens. I like the layout, the sunken lawn and the symetry of the main features.

But on this occasion I was a bit surprised with some elements of the grounds.

The Iveagh Gardens were originally given to University College Dublin by Lord Iveagh in 1908. The gardens are now under the remit of the OPW.

The waterfall was closed off, which is fine, but road cones and some other paraphernalia seemed to be strewn there and the rose area was closed off. These bits one can live with and are easily resolved. But when you see statues/ figures with parts removed and at the same time a brand new looking [and therefore slightly out of place] sculpt of John Mc Cormack one wonders mildly. No offence meant to the Mc Cormack people…. but I could think of more fitting places for such a sculpt. I suppose I may have thought that one would restore the more historic pieces before bringing in the brand new [?].

The main water features were also turned off, the lawns [acknowledgment of winter weather here] were in disrepair and the trees had a fair amount of suckering growth. Not a lot going on being quite honest.

On the plus side the park is one of the quieter ones in Dublin, which in recent times has become a little better known thanks to the comedy festivals that now take place there. And no harm. It is in summer months very much filled with the joys of spring [?!!] but on this occasion I was disappointed.

As I said, I really do like this park, overall and to simply escape the hustle and bustle of the city centre. It’s history is also quite amazing and well worth reading up on… that said if I was Lord Iveagh… I guess I’d be a little disappointed to see the missing and semi dismantled sculpts that dorn the parks peripherals.

On a slightly seperate note The Iveagh Gardens wiki page tells as lightly different story to that of heritage Ireland

The gardens in their present form were laid out in 1863 by Benjamin Guinness after he had built what is now Iveagh House on St. Stephen’s Green. Previously the land had been laid out as a private pleasure garden by “Copper-faced Jack”, Earl of Clonmell.

According to Heritage Ireland

The Iveagh Gardens are among the finest and least known of Dublin’s parks and gardens.  They were designed by Ninian Niven, in 1865, as an intermediate design between the ‘French Formal’ and the ‘English Landscape’ styles.  They demonstrated the artistic skills of the landscape Architect of the mid 19th century and display a unique collection of landscape features which include Rustic Grotto’s and Cascade, sunken formal panels of lawn with Fountain Centre Pieces, Wilderness, Woodlands, Maze, Rosarium, American Garden, Archery Grounds, Rockeries and Rooteries.

The conservation and restoration of the Gardens commenced in 1995 and to date most of the features have been restored, for example the Maze in Box hedging with a Sundial as a centrer piece.  The recently restored Cascade and exotic tree ferns all help to create a sense of wonder in the ‘Secret Garden’.  The pre 1860s rose varieties add an extra dimension to the Victorian Rosarium.

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More images of the Iveagh Gardens on Pix.ie

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Scientists measure tree cleansing powers in city carbon emission tests

dr rowan fealy
dr rowan fealy

Instruments capable of measuring the ability of surrounding trees and vegetation to consume carbon dioxide emissions have been located at sites across Dublin as part of a joint research initiative led by scientists from NUI Maynooth and University College Dublin. The idea is to understand how different types of urban landscapes cope with carbon dioxide (CO2)emissions, and how planners might create ‘carbon neutral’ or more sustainable city developments in the battle against carbon emissions.

The instruments, which also measure wind, temperature, humidity andsunshine, record the CO2 concentration of the air as it passes by. They have been fixed on masts above Marrowbone Lane (an urban site with little or no surrounding trees or vegetation), and above St. Pius X Girl’s National School in Terenure (a suburban site with plenty of surrounding trees and vegetation). A third instrument has been fixed to a mobile mast that can be located at different locations around the city. This will allow the scientists to measure the impact of heavy traffic and other key factors involved in the local carbon cycle. The instruments will be in place for 3-5 years.

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Globally, cities contribute about 80% of CO2 emissions attributed to human activities, but the nature of these emissions is rarely studied. Through this research the scientists hope to better understand the urban processes that give rise to these emissions and to determine the ability of particular urban spaces to capture CO2 after its generation. According to Dr Rowan Fealy, Department of Geography & ICARUS at NUI Maynooth, until recently, these types of studies were not made in urban areas as they were regarded as far too complex. “As a result, scientists have tended to estimate the CO2 emissions based how much fossil fuel is used. However, measuring the flux allows us to see the link between urban landscapes and their role in generating or consuming CO2,” he says.

“While industry, traffic and other fossil fuel burning activities act as sources of CO2 emissions, trees, through the process of photosynthesis, remove carbon from the atmosphere,” says Dr Gerald Mills, UCD. “In many urban areas, the absence of trees means that CO2 that might otherwise be captured in the city, drifts into the wider atmosphere and contributes to global climate change.”

*unfortunately when this press release was sent there were no contact details and no images attached…. normally I’d bin it that being the case – but it is a nice story. I did contact two of the people mentioned but… I got one answering machine and one simply rang out.

UPDATE: jan 21st 2010

I have just received an email from Dr Rowan Fealy who very kindly emailed the images now used above. The first image is of Dr Rowan with the devices at Marrowbone Lane in Dublin. The second is the instruments at Templeogue in Dublin.

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st. stephens green – faiche stiabhna

one of my favourite parks. I have always gone here. The memories for me start as a child; to my first girlfriend and now as [ahem?]…. as an elder. I really do love St Stephens Green. Steeped in history [great info on all things dublin here] it is not just a beautiful park for the horticultural enthusiast [and superbly well looked after for that matter] but it is unusually one where I find I can relax. That for me, where ‘green’ of any form is concerned [after working hours you appreciate], is deserved of great applause.

Outside of that the 9 hectares and 3.5km of walkways, mature trees and the fact that two minutes later one could be right in the middle of the hustle and bustle of Dublin City Centre makes it a little gem.

I was in most recently last week for a meeting and rather than walking from grafton street through the pedestrian traffic to merrion square… i walked through the park; sat watching the ducks, where we shared my lunch. A marshy common until 1663 St stephens Green history, it seems, it best noted here…