Ireland
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Photo Corner – Spraoi: Waterford Street Art Festival
Every year in the middle of summer, the streets of Waterford are filled with artists from all over the world performing their art, be it music, dance, acrobatics, theater or anything else. This is one of the biggest and in my opinion the best festivals in Waterford and in Ireland as a whole. The name Spraoi comes from Irish and means fun or revelry, which beautifully describes the festival itself. It takes place every year at the same time – the weekend over the public holiday in August (always the first Monday of the month). The festival has been running since 1993 and several dozen artists perform in it every…
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A park that is definitely worth a visit in Dublin: Kilmainham Park
During my short stay in Dublin in May I finally visited Kilmainham Park opposite Heuston train station. Kilmainham Park is located on the edge of Dublin city centre, opposite Heuston train station. Right next to it is Kilmainham Gaol, which contains a large piece of Irish history. The park is known for the IMMA – Irish Museum of Modern Art and also for the annual Forbidden Fruit festival, which this year was headlined by Nelly Furtado. What I did not know is that there is a park with a large green area, but right next to it there is a walled garden and the Royal Hospital Kilmainham, which nowadays houses…
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Weekends on the move: After eight years again on the Giant’s Causeway
The Giant’s Causeway, Northern Ireland’s stunning natural beauty, attracts all kinds of tourists and has lured me twice in the last decade. In the years 2014 – 2016, we traveled a lot around Ireland and at the end of September we headed to the famous Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland for the first time. Coincidentally, I returned to the same place in September 2022 with my friend N. He had never been there and has a car, so I joined and it was very nice. The funny thing is that it was ugly during both visits, so I only have cloudy photos. Hopefully I’ll be more lucky the third time…
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Weekends on the move: girls weekend in Galway
On the third weekend in April, my friends and I had a planned trip to the northwestern capital of Ireland, Galway. We stayed overnight and I had one of my cameras with me and I would love to share my experiences with you. I’ve been to Galway before, some ten years ago, but we just stopped there for a while and during bad weather and drove on again. This weekend was the first time I got around the city and saw Salthill, which is a very popular part of Galway overlooking the ocean and the Burren National Park in County Clare. The main reason for visiting Galway was a concert,…
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Weekends on the move: 200 years of The Metalman in Tramore
At the last moment, I am looking back at the trips this year. This time I’m taking you to Metalman in Tramore – an unofficial vantage point over the cliffs of the Celtic Sea. If you ever visit Waterford, the locals will surely tell you that you just have to go to Tramore. Tramore is a small town right by the Celtic Sea, where not only locals like to go. You will find a very nice view here, but mainly a large beach, along which you can walk or get wet in the sea. More about Tramore in one of my first articles. By the way, the so-called Metalman is…
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Photo corner: Kilkenny town during a heatwave
I’m just saving the photos here from last year’s visit to Kilkenny at the end of August. Some of them still look great even after one-ish year, so I’m glad they turned out so well, because the sun wasn’t really shy that day. You could see most of the photos on my Instagram, but if the algorithm didn’t show them to you… I wrote about Kilkenny two years ago, if you don’t know which town it is – the article is here. There is a mishmash of everything – from the castle, street photos, nature and even street art. Enjoy! We are starting with the castle of course… …then let’s…
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Photo corner: Christmas in the Irish oldest city, Waterford
Only this year I realized that I have never really showed you Christmas in Waterford and especially our Winterval festival. So let’s do it! I will have a few photos here from the past years, but also from this year, when I focused more on details and on new points of view (after all, how many times can one take a photo of the same building to make it interesting every time?). All photos are taken over the last 4 years with my DSLR camera. The first two years I shot with my 18-135mm, last year and this year it is a mix of the aforementioned lens and 50mm. Winterval…
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Weekends on the move: Avondale Viewing Tower in Wicklow
This might surprise you, but Ireland only got its first viewing tower last year. It is located in County Wicklow, just a short distance from the local mountain range. I went there with friends on the last Saturday in July (last year hihi). Wicklow is a county made up mostly of mountains. So where else to build a viewing tower than overlooking the mountains. So, to make it clear, the mountains are not that big (sorry, Irish people), but they are still very nice and nice to look at. We had a heatwave here last summer, but that particular day the sun wasn’t shining, it was cloudy and I even…
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Weekends on the move: cliff walk in Dunmore East
Dunmore East is a small harbor village just outside of Waterford. In addition to a popular beach, a large park and views of the neighboring county Wexford, it also offers a built nature trail along the cliffs. I somehow missed the cliff walk and learned about it about a year ago on Instagram from an account I follow. Of course I wanted to go there. But I had two problems – the weather and how to get from Waterford to the village by the sea (the infrastructure in Ireland is… not good). Fortunately, the latter was not the problem in the end. I found out that there is a fairly…
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Weekends on the move: a quick one to Dungarvan
I usually just pass through Dungarvan on my trips to Cork and it’s been a few years since I’ve been there. At the beginning of July, the friends decided that they wanted to visit this town. It was the second Sunday in July, the heat was ravaging Ireland (while the island suffered, Terez had a blast) and we were on our way to the west of County Waterford. First stop was Ring, a small village near Dungarvan where my fav Dutch artist Nina Valkhoff was painting a new painting for Waterford Walls at that time. I haven’t seen Nina in three years, so it was nice to see her again…
