If you loves yer metals like I loves me metals

Last week was Heritage week - the week when you can visit any heritage site for free and get educated at the same time.

This year we managed to get to a few really interesting places - those places that were always on the list but you only ever really make the effort in Heritage week.

A tour of Arbour Hill cemetery on Sunday 24th was a revelation. I’d been to Easter commemorations there but never knew the whole story before.

Got a one day visa to cross the Liffey on Monday and headed out to the martello in Howth for a talk on the martellos of Dublin. That was interesting enough but the real highlight was the Hurdy Gurdy Radio Museum which is housed in the tower - nostalgia heaven. If you’re interested in radios or the history of radio, wireless or otherwise, this is a real gem and well worth a visit. The staff there are real characters and eat, drink and sleep this stuff.

Tuesday was good and bad. We took a trip out to the Pearse Museum at St. Endas, Rathfarnham for a talk by Liz Gilleece about her book on the siege of the Four Courts and the beginnings of the Civil War. She was absolutely brilliant. We came out to find the car had been broken into and Ellen’s briefcase had been stolen. The briefcase would have been worth a lot more than what was in it. To cut a long story short, the following day I was out in Tallaght having the glass replaced when I got a call from Rathfarnham Garda station to say the briefcase had been handed in so I picked it up on the way back - how lucky is that? Nothing in the briefcase had been touched. Hats off to the boys in blue and the good citizen who handed it in.

On Thursday night we did a walking tour of historic Dun Laoghaire with Michael O’Flaherty. I was teacher’s pet for the night and got to carry his old photographs - thought I knew Dun laoghaire well but discovered I know nothing.

Left the big smoke behind on Sunday and went to the Battle of the Boyne site at Oldbridge, just outside Drogheda. Great place to visit and very well run. Will definitely call here again - probably on the next occasion that Lord Henry invites us for tea in Slane Castle which is only a few miles up the road.

Anyway, back to the title of this blog. On Wednesday we were to do a tour of the ‘metals’ - the pathway alongside the railway line that was built to ferry granite from Dalkey Quarry to Dun Laoghaire when the harbour was being built. We chickened out when the rain came. Maybe next year.