lunney.net Lunney family homepage
Family
James, Linde, John, David and Ellen Lunney live in a suburb of the city of Dublin. James is a professor in Trinity College, Dublin; Linde works in a historical research project in the Royal Irish Academy. John is 19, David is 17 and Ellen is 15. David and Ellen are in secondary school, and John is in his second year at university.
We have done a lot of home exchanges, and are committed to this way of getting to know another culture and area. We can't imagine any other kind of holiday! We have exchanged with families in Wales, England, Denmark, France, the United States, Spain, Scotland, Finland, Italy, Canada and Switzerland, as well as for weekends in Ireland.
House
We have a three bedroom semi-detached house; it's fairly spacious, and has a large garden. Large by city standards, anyhow; we have room for a vegetable garden, where we produce quite a lot of our own food, and we also have raspberries and other fruit bushes. We always ask our exchange partners to help themselves to any vegetables or fruit that is ready when they are here.
The house is about 30 years old; it has a large sitting room, a dining room and another small sitting room, which has a sofa-bed to sleep two. There is a modern kitchen, a utility room, a shower room downstairs and a bathroom and a shower room upstairs. One bedroom has a double bed, one bedroom has two single beds, one has a single bed.
Our house is well-equipped, with most appliances, including a dishwasher, DVD player, clothes dryer and freezer, though we don't have a microwave. We have a lot of books on Irish and local history; we have two computers connected to the Internet, and John, who is our expert, has assembled a large collection of computer games. There are four adult size bicycles and some sporting equipment and toys and children's books; lots of music on CD, to suit various tastes!
Surroundings
At the end of our street is a large and beautiful public park, called Marlay Park; it has a small lake, rivers, a walled garden, an excellent playground, a toddlers' playground, free tennis courts, a BMX track with jumps, a nine-hole public golfcourse and a tearoom. There is a craft courtyard, based on the old stable buildings; there are several interesting shops, including a silkscreen printing workshop, and a glass shop. The park centres on an impressive eighteenth century house.
Our house is quite close to the edge of the city; it's possible to walk or cycle from our house up through state-owned conifer forests to the moorland on the Dublin hills, which are covered with heather and pine trees and rocks, and from which you have a view over the city and to the sea. The nearest summit, about two kilometres from our house, is 545m, and the highest point is at 924m. The hills cover an area of 50km by 40 km, and the whole area is full of interest and relatively unspoiled. The Wicklow Way, a 132km waymarked path, starts in Marlay Park, and there are lots of forest paths. The photos on this page show Glendalough, an ancient monastic site in a valley with two lakes; it is about 50km south of Dublin.
A huge new shopping centre, with large cinemas and restaurants, has opened near our area; it has some elegant and expensive shops, and it is a pleasant place to spend an hour or an evening.
Attractions
Dublin has a surprisingly pretty coastline; there is a beach about 9 km away, within the city boundary, which has had for several years a European Blue Flag for facilities and for being clean and well-managed. There are lots of other seaside walks, and other beaches further away. There are walks round rocky headlands, as well as paved footpaths along impressive harbour piers in Dun Laoghaire, about 5 km distant; we like to go over there for walks on summer evenings. We bathe from several beaches, though people used to the Mediterranean might find the sea too chilly!
Dublin is an interesting city of over a million people, with museums, shops, cinemas, old churches, a good zoo, art galleries and restaurants. We are about three kilometres away from an excellent reliable and fast tramline, called the LUAS, which we use to get into the city centre. It is possible to drive to a station, or cycle. There are also several bus routes beside our street.
The Georgian architecture of the city centre is well known, but almost as interesting and much less talked about are the Regency and Victorian areas of the suburbs, and especially areas close to the sea, where there are colourful gardens and picturesque houses and squares.
There are many prehistoric monuments fairly close by; Newgrange, one of the most famous neolithic sites in Europe, is about 70km north of Dublin. Ireland is relatively small, and it would be possible to spend a few days to visit the West of the country, where the scenery is still more wild and unspoiled.
Links
Irish Tourist Board
Trinity College Dublin
Book of Kells
Gateway to Wicklow
Powerscourt Estate and
Gardens
The Irish Times and other
things
The Irish Government
Website developed by John Lunney.