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.