Photos

Dollymount Strand is a beach around 5km long or three miles if you're so inclined on the northern side of Dublin City. It's on an island known as Bull Island which formed as the port was built to the south of it. It's a sandy island, and is made up largely of sand dunes. Between the island and the mainland are mudflats which are home to a great deal of interesting bird life. There is also a golf course at the northern end of the island.

On the southern end of the island, there is a pier, which you can see in this photograph. From the pier, you can see Dublin Port, the Pigeon House electricity generating station and Poolbeg Lighthouse which is a bright red colour. To be honest, you can see them from the beach too.

The beach is very, very popular with local people and it's often packed at the weekend. It is also ideally located for windsports, and if the wind is right, regardless of the rest of the weather there are often a great number of kite and windsurfers to be found there. It rarely sees regular waves, so is not known as a surfing beach otherwise. The beach has commonly been used by people to drive on, so it's since been split into a no-car zone and a car zone. The beams which you can see sticking up out of the sea here mark the limit of the driving zone.

The tall spiky object at the end of the pier in the background is a statue of Stella Maris, I think, Star of the sea.