Swimming in Ireland

We headed to Dun Laoghaire for the day so that we could get an idea of what the Irish coast looked like. Besides, it was easy to take the commuter train from Dublin.

We also wanted to visit the James Joyce Museum (the Martello tower on the right). Joyce got ideas for one of his initial scenes from an incident that happened here. 


 

 Evidently, Joyce's host had a bad dream, woke up, and started shooting! Joyce decided he'd rather be anywhere else. 

Joyce remembered the incident and used it. In fact, he made his host the bad guy in Ulysses. Never anger a writer! It's dangerous!

(Note: Be especially careful if the author writes murder mysteries.)

The museum is right behind a little beach. When I saw lots of kids in the water I thought, "Wonderful!" Naturally, I had brought my swimming suit just in case. The joyous shouts of the children convinced me to give the water a try.


I might have guessed that even though the air temperature was in the 70s, the water would be freezing! That's why the kids were all shouting! But nevertheless, I got in a short swim, my first off the Irish coast. For a spoiled swimmer such as myself (it's nearly always nice to swim in Tucson), the cold water was shocking rather than refreshing, but afterwards I felt very successful!