Howth Pier, Howth

The port is quite picturesque, with recreational boats and fisher's ships sharing the same piers. Actually, there were much more recreational boats and yachts than anything else. I reckon Howth days as a fishing village had gone long ago. The port also has a beautiful marina

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We're now back onto Harbour Road, near to where we started this walk. Crossing the road we'll head to the West Pier.

West Pier is an interesting place to visit. It's the working area of the harbour. Fishing boats land their daily catches here, nets are tidied and mended, and this is where the fish is auctioned and sold (pic 4). One of Howths most established businesses is to be found here too- Wrights of Howth - fish specialists, who's motto is 'If it Swims we have it'! (pic 5)

Looking into the water, there was a large area covered by a petrol spillage - which I was quite mesmorised by- Something so wrong, yet the lustre of the purples, greens and blues were quite attractive (pic 3)

I was quite hungry by now, and was enticed by the cooking smells from a nearby stall in the style of an old tram that was serving fish chowder, and soup (see my restaurant tips)

I walked a bit further along the pier to eat my lunch, and saw a crowd peering into the water......

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I left Abbey Tavern and walked down to the waterfront to take photos of the lighthouse. I didn't get a lot of photos because my camera battery died.

There are two lighthouses here - the old stone one and the new white concrete one.

The old one looks like a lighthouse. It was build in 1818 and was inactivated since 1982. It is a 33 ft tall round stone tower with a lantern and gallery, which is attached to a 2-story stone keeper's house. The lantern is painted white, and the gallery rail is painted red. The station is partly surrounded by a semicircular stone sea wall, which formerly protected an artillery position. It is located at the eastern entrance to Howth Harbour, which is accessible by a bridge from the foot of Watermill Road, Dublin

The keeper's quarters in the tower were very cramped, so a separate single-story residence was built in 1821 and a second story added some years later. In the early 1980s, Howth Harbour was modernized be building the modern tower at the end of the East Pier Extension. Since 1982, this has been the active lighthouse which shows white southeast over the harbor entrance and red in other directions. It is a slender cylindrical concrete tower.

The actual pier was constructed between 1807-09, and is frequented by yachts and fishing-boats. In 1914, Howth was the scene of the gun-running incident in which 900 rifles and 25,000 rounds of ammunition were landed there from Germany by Robert Erskine Childers

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Howth Lighthouse is standing in the harbour in the end of the East Pier. It was built in 1818 and was working until 1982 when it was replaced by a more modern lighthouse standing on the East Pier Extension.

I have no pics of this place, or, at least, I can't find them at the moment.

I still want to talk about a magical evening I spent in Howth.
Howth is a very small village north of Dublin. You can reach it taking the road by the coast. Sea is east of you so the sun, in the evening, is behind you. Nothing blinds you preventing the sight of the coastline.

Arriving there I saw a panorama I will never forget.

The village, with its small colourful houses, climbs the hills surrounding a small bay.
Hills are also covered by long grass, waving by the wind.
Silence and peace everywhere, a small number of inhabitants slowly walks along the steep small roads. A small harbour is there, and the masts of docked white boats gently wave by the wind.
Long piers protect the harbour from the foaming sea, and beyond them, in front of the bay, there is a small green island, dominated but a smooth hill. An ancient, abandoned house is also there.

The landscape and the magical atmosphere cannot be described by writings or photos, you must go there, remain silent for a while, and feel...

We had dinner in a small restaurant. Food was superb, and while we were eating, a young wonderful woman with dark red long hairs came in.

She was pregnant, and started playing old celtic ballads with her harp, sweetly singing.

I stopped having dinner, took my glass of wine, and sat alone for at least two hours in exstasy listening to her music. She also played a song from Kate Bush (and I'm a great fan of her!). I can't remember her name, she was from Colorado, and she married a lucky man from Howth.
Oh God! What a place!!

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photos from our day visit and overnight at Ann's B&B sept 2007
nice and close to airport for a 20 min trip in early morning.

Our last night in country Ireland was at Howth, a working fishing village just north of Dublin but close to the airport. We stayed at Ann’s Bed and Breakfast, which is upstairs from Ann’s ice cream shop on the Howth Pier. We walked around the harbor, smelled the fish, watched a seal playing under the old lighthouse, and went to bed early with the skylight window open. When we left at 7:00 AM, Ann wasn’t available, so we ran our own credit card transaction on the card machine she had out in the hallway. Nice touch.

After a ten minutes' walk from the DART station (at the entrance go to the left) you arrive at the Howth Pier. A walk along this very windy stretch of pier to the light tower is really nice! You can also take the (less wind torn) walk below the pier, but I liked the wind better.
It's ideal to reminisce with a friend about good times encountered, or when you're alone to think about things to come.
The views on Dublin Bay are a welcome extra; also check out the planes just whistling by. It's an ideal spot for plane spotting, as my friend said :-)
You can also take a small boat trip to Ireland's Eye (Eye is for Island here), a small island in front of the Harbour, with splendid rock formations. You can take a peek at it on the enclosed picture.

Seal watching in the harbour is a must. I had never seen these animals in the wild before but to see them swimming between the fishing boats in the harbour is amazing, watching their heads bob up and down out of the water looking for bits of fish discarded by the fishermen.

Howth has an active harbour with lots of fishing boats as well as the Howth Yacht Club which has slightly fancier boats! Its one of the largets yacht clubs in the city. Just sitting watching the boats come in and out the harbour [with an ice cream in hand of course!!] is a nice way to spend an hour or so!

The West pier looks long but it is a very manageable walk. It is the one you will see first if you're coming in from the DART station.

On fine Sundays & bank holidays, Dubliners and tourists come out to walk the pier in their droves.

Now that I've moved nearby, I hope to provide more photos of this because I think the scenery around here is amazine.