Sandymount Strand

Sandymount Strand looking across Dublin Bay to Howth Head

Sandymount Strand (Irish: Dumhach Thrá) is a large strand on the east coast of Ireland, adjacent to the village and suburb of Sandymount 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.

Sandymount Strand is a popular place for locals to take a walk. People and cars have been occasionally trapped by the incoming tide. A large inlet of water that remains even at low tide is known locally as "Cockle Lake".

The baths

File:IMG SandymountBaths.jpg

Sandymount swimming baths; in the background: the Poolbeg Generating Station

The Merrion Promenade Pier and Baths Co built Sandymount swimming baths in 1883. The baths measured approximately 40 by 40 metres, with a 75-metre pier added in 1884. The pier featured a bandstand halfway along it and summer concerts were regularly held there for many years. By 1920, the pier had deteriorated so much that it had to be demolished. The concrete baths section, which resembles a small harbour, remains.

Martello Tower

About halfway along the strand is a Martello tower, 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

In long lassoes from the Cock lake the water flowed full, covering greengoldenly lagoons of sand, rising, flowing

- Ulysses, James Joyce.

Sandymount Strand is the most famous beach in Irish fiction, James Joyce based two episodes of his epic novel Ulysses here:
On the morning of Bloomsday, in the Proteus episode, Stephen Dedalus wanders "into eternity" on the strand; later the same day, Leopold Bloom 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 banning of the book in the USA for alleged obscenity.