Thursday Doors – B is for …

Blackrock Beach

I’ve noticed that many of my Thursday Doors posts are of places that begin with the letter B – Belturbet, Blackrock, Ballycastle, Ballyconnell, to name a few off the top of my head. In the Irish language, Baile can mean a town, place or field and Beal is mouth, as of a river. This might explain why so many towns and villages in Ireland begin with the letter B. However, Blackrock is the English literal translation for the village I come from. In Irish it’s called Na Creagacha Dubha. Dubh means black in Irish and the name refers to the colour of the sedimentary shale rocks that dot the coastline in the area.

It might be a small place but Blackrock has quite a few names for its various sections of coastline, like The Priests’ Beach in this image and next to it you’ll find Ladies’ Beach. There’d be no shananigans going on with that set-up but I’m not sure who benefitted the most. Of course, nowadays the beaches are open to all but the old names still stick.

Blackrock has some lovely colourful doors, as you can see from the above photo. It also has unusual business names, like this one.

Even the food in Blackrock is ‘healthy’

There are often unusual vehicles to be seen parked up by the beach.

My mother used to paint for a hobby, as did both of her parents. Her father painted a watercolour scene of Blackrock main street back in the early 1900’s and she copied it in acrylics.

Then she decided to paint one of the main street as it is nowadays.

Sorry about the reflections but you get the picture, so to speak. Thanks for stopping by this week and for lots more Thursday Doors, have a look at the links on Norm’s blog.