Sandymount Strand
Encyclopedia
Beach
A beach is a geological landform along the shoreline of an ocean, sea, lake or river. It usually consists of loose particles which are often composed of rock, such as sand, gravel, shingle, pebbles or cobblestones...
on the east coast of Ireland
Republic of Ireland
Ireland , described as the Republic of Ireland , is a sovereign state in Europe occupying approximately five-sixths of the island of the same name. Its capital is Dublin. Ireland, which had a population of 4.58 million in 2011, is a constitutional republic governed as a parliamentary democracy,...
, adjacent to the village and suburb of Sandymount
Sandymount
Sandymount is a coastal seaside suburb in Dublin 4 on the Southside of Dublin in Ireland. It is in the Dublin South East Dáil constituency and the East Pembroke Ward. It was once part of Pembroke Township, which took its name from the fact that this area was part of the estate of the Earl of...
in Dublin. The strand, which is part of the South Bull, (a mirror to the North Bull sandbank, which grew into North Bull Island) is a major component of the south side of Dublin Bay
Dublin Bay
Dublin Bay is a C-shaped inlet of the Irish Sea on the east coast of Ireland. The bay is about 10 kilometres wide along its north-south base, and 7 km in length to its apex at the centre of the city of Dublin; stretching from Howth Head in the north to Dalkey Point in the south...
.
Sandymount Strand is a popular place for locals to take a walk. It is not ideal for swimming; the beach's gradual slope makes the water too shallow to allow swimming near the shoreline. People and cars have been occasionally trapped by the incoming tide
Tide
Tides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by the combined effects of the gravitational forces exerted by the moon and the sun and the rotation of the Earth....
. A large inlet of water that remains even at low tide is known locally as "Cockle Lake".
The baths
Martello Tower
About half way along the strand is a Martello towerMartello tower
Martello towers are small defensive forts built in several countries of the British Empire during the 19th century, from the time of the Napoleonic Wars onwards....
, part of a system of defences built to warn of an invasion by Napoleon. The Tower was a popular cafe back in the 1960s. An attempt to turn the tower into a restaurant led to the installation of a large window with roller blinds on the seaward side of the tower. The restaurant never opened, leaving the tower with the modified window.
In fiction
- Ulysses, James Joyce.Sandymount Strand is the most famous beach in Irish fiction, James Joyce
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
based two episodes of his epic novel Ulysses
Ulysses (novel)
Ulysses is a novel by the Irish author James Joyce. It was first serialised in parts in the American journal The Little Review from March 1918 to December 1920, and then published in its entirety by Sylvia Beach on 2 February 1922, in Paris. One of the most important works of Modernist literature,...
here:
On the morning of Bloomsday
Bloomsday
Bloomsday is a commemoration observed annually on 16 June in Dublin and elsewhere to celebrate the life of Irish writer James Joyce and relive the events in his novel Ulysses, all of which took place on the same day in Dublin in 1904...
, in the Proteus episode, Stephen Dedalus
Stephen Dedalus
Stephen Dedalus is James Joyce's literary alter ego, appearing as the protagonist and antihero of his first, semi-autobiographical novel of artistic existence A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and an important character in Joyce's Ulysses...
wanders "into eternity" on the strand; later the same day, Leopold Bloom
Leopold Bloom
Leopold Bloom is the fictional protagonist and hero of James Joyce's Ulysses. His peregrinations and encounters in Dublin on 16 June 1904 mirror, on a more mundane and intimate scale, those of Ulysses/Odysseus in The Odyssey....
sits on a rock and watches while young Gertie lifts her skirt as Bloom pleasures himself. It was this incident in the Nausicaa episode which led to the ban
Ban (law)
A ban is, generally, any decree that prohibits something.Bans are formed for the prohibition of activities within a certain political territory. Some see this as a negative act and others see it as maintaining the "status quo"...
ning of the book in the USA
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
for alleged obscenity
Obscenity
An obscenity is any statement or act which strongly offends the prevalent morality of the time, is a profanity, or is otherwise taboo, indecent, abhorrent, or disgusting, or is especially inauspicious...
.