Thursday Doors – First of 2021

Welcome to the first Thursday Doors post of 2021. Knowing we were in for more travel restrictions I took advantage of the window of opportunity we had in December and paid some visits to family and captured images for my weekly blog, too. This first one is of the Cooley Mountains as seen from Blackrock, County Louth. When I think of the seaside village where I was born this is what always comes to mind, with its ever changing light and colours. I’ve also used it as a setting in a few of my books.

Just a couple of miles up the road is the town of Dundalk, which I’ve featured many times on this blog. On every visit I find something different to photograph.

This is the rear of St. Patrick’s Church (also called a pro cathedral). I’ve featured the front in some previous posts but never the back. It was opened for worship in 1842 but wasn’t completed until much later as work came to a halt during the Great Hunger, resuming in 1860. The church was designed by the architect Thomas Duff, who modeled the interior on Exeter Cathedral and the exterior on King’s College Chapel, both located in England. My grandmother often sang solo there at the request of Michael Van Dessel, a famous organist in Ireland in her day. In the 1920’s he settled in Dundalk when he was offered permanent employment as organist in St. Patrick’s. It was at a time when Belgium was in ruins after the first world war and the churches there could not afford to pay wages to their organists. Van Dessel was not only famous for his playing of church music. He wrote many lovely pieces for his own choir, which was made up of talented local singers.

Not too far from St. Patrick’s (you can see it in the distance in this image) is the main indoor shopping area or mall. Although it’s fairly new, the style is in keeping with the older architecture of the town and blends in very well.

There are also old buildings with new additions. It’s nice when the original has been preserved, as I prefer the older part myself.

Just before the sun went down I took a photo of the main street in Blackrock, as the lights were coming on.

This bar is managing to keep a little bit of business going by serving take-away tea and coffee at a time when many hospitality businesses are struggling to stay afloat.

Recently, some new street art has been added to the town of Dundalk in the form of local sayings. When I get a chance to travel again, I’ll take some photos of them but in the meantime here’s one I managed to capture from the car as we drove by. It’s a good one to end this post on as I am well and truly ‘away’ now.

It was lovely to have you with me for my first blog post of the year. Dan has a great mix of Thursday Doors over on his blog, with links to some more first posts of 2021 from around the world.