On the Green

So far, I’ve walked through St. Stephen’s Green a couple of times. Thursday afternoon, it looked like the drizzle had stopped, so I suited up and went out. As soon as I got out of the hotel, it started pissing down rain. So yesterday, in the sun, I went back. Today’s post is a tale of two parks.

I won’t go into the history of St. Stephen’s Green, but it was a key site in the Easter Uprising of 1916. Today it’s a gorgeous green space, with a couple of ponds, a playground, and shady and open areas. When I went on Thursday, there were a few folks dawdling, but mostly they were just walking as fast as they good to get from one place to another. So I was kind of surprised yesterday to find about a squillion people out, lounging on the grass, sitting on benches, feeding the seagulls and the pigeons and playing in the playground. Here are some images.

First, Thursday’s drenched outing.

NB: the video is a little jumpy because I was shooting while holding an umbrella. The sound you hear is the rain hitting the umbrella.

Even the seagull looked uncomfortable.

There’s this one swan, which I only saw in the rain:

Note the expanse of no people:

There are several statues. Here’s one called Famine:

And this one, from the former Federal Republic of Germany, commemorates post-WWII aid sent to German children by the Irish:

It depicts the three Fates, spinning the destiny of humans. In the second shot you may be able to see the rain running down their faces, as though they’re weeping.

Moving on to yesterday, let’s start with the statuary. You saw the Fates in the rain, here they are in the sunshine:

The famine group is a little harder to distinguish:

And here’s one behind Famine: Wolfe Tone, the father of Irish Republicanism, who died in British custody, having been sentenced to hang for his part in the Rebellion of 1798. He’d been denied his request to be shot; it’s in dispute whether he committed suicide or was murdered by his jailors.

And an interesting, techy touch:

A lot of people were, uh, interacting with the pigeons:

Frankly, I don’t know why you’d want to do that; they’re just disease transmitters. But, hey…

Remember that wet, empty grass from Thursday? Here’s what I found yesterday:

And I really loved these fountains, which I hadn’t even seen the day before:

Summing up, we have benches from Thursday:

And an art fair that appeared on the railings yesterday. They were taking a chance that it wouldn’t be pissing down rain again: