Severed heads and ice-cream cones, just another day in Drogheda. Looking outside today it’s hard to imagine how I managed to pick up such a bright tomato red shade on all exposed skin yesterday while on the annual Drogheda Photowalk. We met late morning and began the day’s walking tour around the town, which I will admit is bigger than I had previously thought. From our meeting spot we headed to Millmount museum where we were treated to a very informative (I honestly can’t figure out how the guy remembers so many dates) speech on the history of the town.
We got shown around the museum and were treated to a snippet of info on the tapestries housed there. No, I didn’t manage to shy away from doing the ‘Ve are here to inspect ze tapestries’ bit from Indiana Jones. Then, as Sarah rightly pointed out, the basement was full of ‘cool stuff’. A mix of old and not so old, including a 1990′s Telecom Eireann telephone that some poor unfortunate customer is most likely still paying equipment rental charges for.
The rest of the museum, as one might expect, was full of Drogheda’s achievements, famous faces and err, shoes. I never knew the Drogheda shoe was such a famous article of clothing. Apparently even St. Patrick wore them while he was dancing on snakes heads [citation needed].
After some expert level milling around the courtyard, we headed down toward some lovely lovely derelict stuff.
If only I could have secured myself a short notice tetanus shot and borrowed a big stick from someone for self defense I’d have been in there like a shot. I couldn’t help but feel teased by the whole affair. From there further down the road to a mostly abandoned flood plain where some creative group photography was practiced. I found myself on the outskirts of the group so I don’t feature. Having witnessed some of the less fearful members of the group put their eyes up to holes in doors & windows of the derelict houses, I wondered if they’d seen as many horror films I as I have. Nothing is more suspicious or more likely to result in a freshly poked out eyeball than a small hole in the door of a derelict building. Fact.
We moved on to a graveyard with delicious amounts of old headstones, withered flowers and sunlight partially blotted out by big leafy trees. Oh yes. Not before stopping for ice-cream and allowing Cole opportunity to photograph groups of girls. No phone numbers were taken, I have that on good authority.
Great day out had, even if I have to suffer for my stupidity afterwards in the form of sunburn. Thanks to Shane for organising and if anyone helped you, thanks to them too. Now to get off my ass and sort out details for a West Cork photowalk.
