Malahide Beach

When thinking of Ireland, beaches are one thing that never really come to mind. Foggy cliffs and dark green hills, sure. Maaaybe a freezing stone beach. But soft sandy beaches?? I'd never have guessed. I suppose this was silly, considering Ireland is surrounded by water.

It turns out that Ireland has a number of warm sunny beaches. I never actually tried swimming, but others were. 

There was one such beach just a few minutes away from the Malahide Cricket Ground in Dublin. On our second day there I took a few hours off to wander down.

Or starts as an estuary, the sand mixed with fine sticky mud, wandering out to sea.

I love walking the beach in search of creatures, or at least evidence of them. I was surprised by how many I found, considering how little animal life I have actually witnessed here.

On one beach I found a bone (pic below) and took to twitter, asking the Grant Museum of Zoology in London, which I visited there, if they had any guesses to what it belonged to. They responded they thought it was the carpometacarpus (fused wrist bone making the end of the wing) of a large gull. Three cheers for the internet!

I found another bone on Malahide beach, this one much larger. The one end looks cut fairly straight across, so I'm guessing it is a man-made one. Maybe it is some pig bone or something left over from dinner??  The other joint end is shown here.

I also found jellyfish washed up, which surprised me.

And some neat shells.

It seemed like a nice place to come for the day or have lunch. There were some people with young kids, including one who took his clothes off and ran up and down the sand, refusing to put them back on. 

Eventually I turned and went back to the cricket match, feeling sun-happy and refreshed. The whole rest of the day I could feel the sand scritching about in my shoes.

Tomorrow we take the ferry out of Dublin and then the train from Wales back to Lpdon. I've really enjoyed our time in Ireland, and will surely miss it. But the road calls! On to the next.