Thursday, December 27, 2012

East Pier Battery/Fort in Dún Laoghaire

Today, Roma and I decided to walk the East Pier in Dún Laoghaire Harbour, something we have done together many times before. It's a great place to meet people and you will nearly always bump into somebody (as we did) doing the same. It seemed that EVERYBODY was out to walk off some of the Christmas cheer. Some brought their dogs, the evidence for this was unfortunately scattered like a mine-field on the pier. At the end of the pier is a former fort which was closed many years ago. I had never seen it open, but today Teddy's Ice Cream were open for business inside the fort. 

We went inside for the first time and had a wander around. There are numerous brass plaques on the walls pointing our the Officers Quarters and the WCs. A large upside down bell is still in situ and you can also see what looked to me like rails on the walls for large cannon to be swivelled around in case the pesky French tried to invade. It was obviously quite a feat of engineering to build this in the 19th century, there are massive granite blocks everywhere to see. Though there were major renovation works last year, it is still a little bit dilapidated. This could be a fantastic new amenity for Dún Laoghaire, especially in the summer when Teddy's are likely to sell more ice cream!

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