St Stephen's Green, Dublin

St Stephen green is a wonderful place to wander and relax after a long night of music or to take a break for all the sights. It is an oasis of over 20 acres, with nice lawns, ponds, benches and bridges. Until the mid 1600's it was a common area marsh, which was then divided into lots for housing developments with a private inner green area. In the late 19th century it was opened to the public again.

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We walked along Grafton Street to reach St Stephens Green which would be the best known parklands in Dublin.

The parkland gave me everything I was expecting of Ireland, lush vibrant green lawns and trees. The rich colour was something rarely seen in my homeland which has a much more severe climate and lack of water.

These parklands have been maintained in the original Victorian layout. Covering 9 hectares and with 3.5 km of pathways to guide you around the park it is very easy to traverse the whole park or just see and enjoy a section.

The children's playground is very popular, the ornamental lake with waterfowl and beautiful flowering gardens with a variety of trees in the background make this a very relaxing haven.

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St. Stephen's Green is a nice place to hand out, walk about and people watch. We were here on a very chilly day but still had a good time. We walked about and admired how green the grass was and the changing colors of the leaves on the trees.

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St. Stephen's Green is a very popular park in the very centre of Dublin, at the top of Grafton street, where you can find the main entrance, though Fusiliers arch. On sunny days, you'll see hundreds of people sitting on its laws, enjoying the fair weather - having a snack or a drink. It's a landscaped park, with fountains, ponds and ducks, little bridges, trees and flowers.

If you walk around the park you'll find quite a number of statues, some of them really beautiful. My recommendations are all for the Three Fates (the Leeson Street gate), the bust of James Joyce (near Newman House), and the memorial to the Great Famine of 1845-1850 (in the northern side).

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It is all white with old colonial style elegance, particularly in the passion for natural light. Not necessarily a huge mall, compared with North American standards, but is very special. The whole mall is encapsulated in the main large hall. Good shops as well. Not rippoffs surprisingly!

Across the street from the mall, is the wonderful Park Stephen park, which is worth a visit. On my day, a outdoor Photo exhibition was out; amazingly colourful photographs dramatically showing animals in action. Im sure you'll find something interesting when you go

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Located at the top of Grafton Street is my favorite spot in Dublin - Stephen’s Green which also happens to be Ireland’s best Victorian public park.
The park is a 22 acre green sanctuary and actually it is more than a park!

It is a meeting place, for couples and singles, family spot to spend quality time with their kids but also a place that hold most of Dublin's open air, free events!
One of the more unusual aspects of the park lies on the north west corner - a garden for the blind with scented plants, which can withstand handling, and are labelled in Braille.

In the middle of the Green is a large lake with an artificial water fall, if the weather is nice you can come here to feed the ducks, or just sit down on the grass beside it and dream.

To the south side has a more open surroundings and is almost always occupied by lunching students, workers and shoppers, often band performances are held their, to the amusement of many vistors.

The Green is an unnusualy peacefull place in the middle of a vibrant and buisy city. However have in mind that is it always packed and it might be hard to find a free spot (especially if you want to sit on a bench). But if you look around and see a people in their suits sitting on the grass, why can't you?

Really nice place to sit down and relax, to watch the world go by.

The main gate is cool. The lakes are cool. Very green. When we were there, were lots of huge photos of wild animals, which were cool. Various statues etc add to the charm, although the centre-piece fountain was rather lame.

Some idiots left rubbish on floor, sandwich wrappers etc - a real shame, this is a real gem, especially when the sun is shinin. Nice way to kill an hour or so.

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One of the things Gene and I enjoyed very much was strolling through St. Stephens Green park. We visited the park several time during our stay in Dublin. St. Stephens Green is a 27 acre park in the heart of Dublin and is accessible to everyone. The park is frequented daily by people who go there at noon to eat their lunch or just to take a break and relax and on the weekends the park fills up completely with people enjoying being outdoors.

The green was private property for a time and in 1877 Sir A. E. Guinness, a member of the Guinness brewing family pushed an act through Parliament making the green public again. He later paid for the development of the gardens and the ponds some of which date from 1880.

The green has a special garden area for the blind with special scented plants that can be touched and items are labelled in braille. There are also many statues of famous Irish men and women such as W. B. Yeats and James Joyce. A sculpture that really touched my heart was Thomas Delaney's "Famine" a tribute to the victims of the Great Potato Famine from 1845 to 1850 during which 1.5 million people died.

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In the south of the city centre you will find the very pleasant park St. Stephen’s Green. It measures 450 by 550 metres and that makes it the biggest park in the city. St. Stephen’s Green is situated directly south from the busy shopping street Grafton Street and other busy streets as well as nice buildings surround it since this part of the city is a luxurious area.

The area that now is the park, used to be a meadow in medieval times, situated just outside the city. Later, when the area became a part of the city, a small piece of the meadow was surrounded by fences. From this period on the area was used as a park, although it was not always as peaceful as it is today: in the 18th century it also was the place where convicted people were executed by hanging.

The current park dates from 1880. It includes some large ponds where you can find lots of ducks and other birds, a playground for the children and a small stage where musicians can perform. Besides this, you can find a special garden for blind people here (with the names of the strongly smelling plants written in Braille) and a lot of statues of famous Irish people.

But most of all, St. Stephen’s Green is a place where you can relax: a quiet place in the big city. Especially when the weather is good, you will find a lot of local people here to read their newspapers, to have a chat or to feed the ducks.

I must say I am not a fan. It's way to central so it doesn't really have a relaxing atmosphere, but it's still good enough to get away from the traffic. It's quite big and always full of people, but also full of pigeons, which are one of the rare kinds of animals I find hideous.