Martello Tower
This morning's forecast said the weather would be fine, all day - a little cloud, maybe, so we thought it might be a good time to walk the coast around Portrane.
It wasn't looking great though when we got in the car just as it started raining. Driving north it got heavier and darker through Malahide and then blue skies ahead just as we hear on the radio that "most of the country is clear except for heavy showers on the east coast. Like Portrane, for example. But we really had to get out of the house so we carried on and it was actually clear when we parked at the end of the road and started walking along the cliffs.
It started really bucketing down about halfway to the Waterside Hotel so by the time we got there for a spot of lunch we really were wet - literally dripping - but nothing a nice burger wouldn't cure.
Timing our exit until just as a shower finished I got this lovely shot of the Martello Tower outside. These coastal forts are dotted all up and down the coast of Ireland. Many have been turned into houses (and anyone here will tell you that James Joyce spent some purgatory in one at Sandycove - now a museum).
We carried on to take a look around St Ita's Hospital - a derelict red brick victorian mental institution of which perhaps there will be more photos tomorrow. Apparently St Ita's or "Portrane Asylum" was the largest public contract construction in Ireland at the time. It was built over four years from 1896 to 1900, and from the signs around the place it might be seeing some love again as a new "Forensic Hospital" soon.