Dublin Photos - The Bus Home From Town
Because I grew up in Dublin West, due west of O’Connell Street, my initial familiarity with town, Dublin city centre, wasn’t with that part of the city centre that is to the north or the south of the Liffey, but the route to the very centre - from Parkgate Street and Heuston Station, to the Ha’penny Bridge and O’Connell Bridge.
The Quays, in other words. Both sides.
I’m sure I’m wrong but it seemed when growing up that the direction of the traffic on either side of the river kept getting reversed. Maybe it only ever happened once, but that’s enough when you’re of a young age to seem like all the time.
Either way, eastbound or westbound, towards town or home, I loved it. And I still do.
You may have noticed that I just placed the very centre of town as somewhere between the Ha’penny Bridge and O’Connell Bridge, but that’s from a bus perspective, and for those of us whose buses travel along the quays. For other people I’m sure it’s Stephen’s Green or O’Connell Street.
Buses aside I always considered the mythical centre of town to be Parnell’s monument - but that’s because I was born next door, in the Rotunda, and who doesn’t want to be the centre of the world Dublin when they’re born?
If you’ve read the 101 things about the Irish KC author then you’ll know how much I love the quays as expressed on foot (#36). That expression of love adds half an hour onto the walk that more directly takes one and a half hours, from O’Connell Bridge to my parents’ house.
For over 25 years now the bus home westward travels along the south quays. From Trinity these days. So odd after so many years of waiting by the river - at Bachelor’s Walk and Aston Quay mostly, but also at the Clarence Hotel on Wellington Quay where the tragedy struck our bus stop, and then to where Essex Quay meets Wood Quay.
There’s not a single bus stop along the quays on either side of the Liffey that I’ve never got on or off the bus. In fact the same is true for the entire bus journey from town to my childhood home. In over 8 years in Kansas City I never got close to that level of bus-stop usage of any bus route.
The main reason for this is that there are so many bus stops in KC. Compared with Dublin and other cities I’m familiar with in Europe, they stops are incredibly close. It’s as if even those people who use public transport still have to be delivered right to the door of their destination.
A photograph of O’Connell Bridge and Street then, from the bus as it turns from Westmoreland Street onto Aston Quay:
And a photograph of the Ha’penny Bridge, officially the Liffey Bridge, with the dome of the Four Courts visible beyond:
On an old page about Dublin you can see my painting called The Quay which comes from, well, a lot of time spent looking at Dublin’s quays.
See Other Photos of Ireland:
• The Grand Canal in Dublin
• Dublin Walls
• At The Races - Clonmel
• County Derry
• Downpatrick
• Tallaght
• Ballsbridge
Eolaí gan Fhéile:
I miss the Middle Abbey Street stop the most. Always got the bus there home from college as it guaranteed I could sleep sitting down rather than standing up. Easier.