The Overend sisters had a farm…
The noble aim of Airfield House is to ‘respond to nature, our traditions and the rhythms of the seasons to ignite our sense of natural curiosity, wonderment and playfulness’. Sounds like a slow goal to us! Located in an old, big-house estate in the heart of thoroughly suburban Dundrum, Airfield was inspired by the open-minded and nature-mad Overend sisters, the last residents of the place.
The farm and natural habitat are designed to educate and delight, and the introductory Meet the Animals tour with real-life farmer Eamon Younge succeeds on both counts. Sights and activities change with the seasons, making it ideal for return visits to gauge the passing of the natural year. There are camps, kids’ clubs and family activities every weekend, but even if you’re only visiting for an afternoon in the holidays you’ll love stumbling across this hidden green world that feels like kids’ fantasy and animal husbandry rolled into one.
But adults needn’t feel left out: gardening workshops and summer concerts are in season at the moment, while the last weekend of each month plays host to Sustainable Saturdays, a regular programme of talks and workshops about living lightly. There’s a vintage market, book swap and grow-your-own workshop every week, plus one-off events like tomorrow’s ‘Be a grown-up nature detective’ – because, as Airfield puts it, ‘Why should children have all the fun?’
Fast to be slow
From Dublin, I now live in Ennis and usually get the train when going to Dublin. Hopping on the Luas to Smithfield, or taking a leisurely ten minute walk to the bike station there and making my way to wherever it is I need to be on one of these bikes is certainly the best way to travel and the fastest within the city. This speed is, of course, only relative, and is not in any way hectic – these bicycles are really only, and thankfully so, designed for a nice easy pace. To be able to leave the bike at a station, say for example in Chatham Street and walk around the Grafton Street area as you do, and when finished, head towards the Merrion Row side of the Green (that’s where O’Donoghues’s is, often mistaken for Baggot Street…) to another bike station to continue my journey over towards the canal end of Baggot Street – wonderful!
I had an appointment in that area one Saturday morning, finishing up at 12.45. My train from Heuston was at 14.00 – this would have been the time to get to the station, have enough time to buy a sandwich and take my seat on the train, but with the bikes, it was a different and far more joyful story. I was at Christchurch before one and was sitting down on the grass in the grounds of the cathedral with my smoked cod from Burdock’s by five past one. I relaxed until about half one, took a bike back to Smithfield and walked back to Heuston with plenty of time to spare.
Granted, the weather was fantastic, but had it been raining, I would have had my rain gear, having cycled to the train station in Ennis, and I probably would have stopped off in Peter’s Pub for a pint and a toasted sandwich instead…hmmmm…sunshine or a pint and a sandwhich…sunshine or a pint and a sandwhich – will try both next time.
A time before that, I nipped down the quays to see the new Beckett Bridge, on one of the bikes of course – how else would you do it? There’s a photo to prove it.
Kieron O’Reilly of Dublin in Ennis
Slow bowlers
Okay, starter for 10 points: in what Dublin sport recently did a boy of 10 play seniors while a man of 94 played junior league? If there’s an outdoor sport that requires less exertion than lawn bowls, then we’re yet to find it. It’s the epitome of slow and graceful; with the curve of the solid wood against your hand, the sun and breeze on your back, and the carpet-soft grass underfoot, enjoy a game that can take anything up to three hours to complete.
The sport has been going for over 300 years in Dublin, when the first green was laid right in the city centre, just off College Green. Back then it was definitely a pastime for toffs but TV coverage and a conscious outreach effort have attracted a wider and younger participation in recent years. Down-to-earth Crumlin Bowling Club offers free open days from April to June.
Good with food
‘We don’t have a freezer,’ boasts Cormac Kenny, owner of Smock Alley Café. ‘We make absolutely everything here fresh and totally organic each day.’ From the bamboo floor (easier to regrow than hardwood) and recycled furniture to the natural paints and low-energy lights, everything here is testimony to Cormac’s enthusiastic commitment to sustainability. He’s also determined to make the café a part of the community and – unlike most eating establishments these days – a place to spend some time: the walls are given over to local artists; parents will enjoy the baby-changing space and ample room for strollers; there are tango classes at the weekend; and a regular guitar player in the corner helps to keep a buzz about the place. The super-simple menu comprises one sensational soup and savoury tart each day, bolstered by a few cakes and sarnies.
For the love of food
‘I am essentially a beginner,’ Aoife Mc announces to her readers, ‘so please don’t get offended if I cook things for too long, display ignorance of the lesser known members of the food family or blend ingredients that make your culinary cuticles ache.’ This is not your usual foodie blog, oh no.
Rather, I can has cook? is a delightfully personal journey into this Dubliner’s kitchen, diarising triumphs and frustrations as she begins an affair with cooking. There are no stuffy recipes here. Aoife writes about things like ‘Lola-Lu’s Lamb Tagine’, ‘Tabouleh – kinda’, and ‘The Daily Spud’s Spud Cakes’, all of which also give her a chance to gush about the fellow foodies who give her inspiration. And like a dusting of icing sugar on top, she links her recipes to the music she’s listening to at the time, so that we might enjoy cooking these lovely meals just as she does. It’s delectable.
Family yarns
Apparently Jacqui Sisk likes knitting so much, she spent much of the 80s making matching woolly jumpsuits for her four children. Unsurprisingly, her daughter Lisa grew up a little averse to the craft, and after making the compulsory teddy bear in school, laid down her knitting needles. But, like mother like daughter perhaps, the fixation caught up with Lisa a few years ago in a hostel in New Zealand, while watching a fellow backpacker knit away the nights. There is, after all, something so homely about creating something with your hands. Four months later she returned to Dublin, hooked.
Jacqui and Lisa started This is Knit at a little stall in Blackrock Market in 2006, and have since migrated into a shop at the Powerscourt Townhouse Centre. More than just somewhere to buy knitting needles, their shop is one of those lovely places where customers can pop in for a yarn, a bit of advice or to show off their latest creations.
You probably won’t find any woolly jumpsuits.
Dear old folk
In rushing towards the cosmopolitan, we’ve have had an ambivalent relationship with traditional music, a genre often regarded as the preserve of tourists and rural folk with nicotine-coloured fingers and beer-stained beards. But in more recent years, feeling thoroughly modern, we’ve re-embraced that most evocative vein of expression, which connects us to the centuries and our roots. In the spirit of tradition, we’re revisiting the reasons we love our old favourite venues…
A session at the intimate shack that is the Cobblestone is a slow and organic process. At 8pm it might be little more than a fiddler and mandolin player plucking away in the corner, half-finishing tunes while they chat and sup. Of course, the essence of a session lies in the spontaneity of not knowing who’ll show up. It’s fun to watch stray musicians arrive in ones and twos, carrying leather instrument cases of all sizes and shapes, receiving a welcoming nod and smile from those already playing. Patterns emerge; the flautist always seems to be female, the bodhrán player the biggest drinker, and someone on strings takes the lead. Sessions are also modest, not demanding your upright, undivided attention, leaving room for talking and dreaming. They build slowly, but they build, and by the end of the night there could be up to 15 players banging out wild reels and passionate hornpipes, and every hand in the bar seems to be tapping a tabletop or thigh.
Greeting seasons
In typically oblique Dublin fashion, we don’t have hard and fast rules about when one season begins and another ends. The Celts used the solstices and equinoxes to mark their seasons, which were linked to the growing cycle. We modern Liffeysiders know that seasons change when they decide, and there’s no point trying to squeeze them into our neat and compartmentalised calendar universe.
Still, we’re restless by the time spring comes, increasingly exasperated by so many false dawns. And then one day we’ll be strolling through St Stephen’s Green and a sudden, arresting explosion of white, yellow and lilac crocuses around the statue of solemn Lord Ardilaun heralds once again the beginning of Dublin’s natural cycle.
When the seasons do arrive, they provide opportunity aplenty to celebrate how the shifting weather, light and conditions alter the look and feel of the city, as well as our mood and behaviour.
