Art Galleries

It was my husbands birthday over the weekend, perfect excuse to spend some time in Dublin - doing the touristy thing. I used to live in Dublin so I know it pretty well but it is really nice to take time out and appreciate your capitals' offerings from time to time. My parents live quite close to the city so when we travel up we usually stay with them - which we did on Friday night but I booked a hotel in Dublin for Saturday night so we wouldn't have to concern ourselves with nightlinks (late night bus service to suburbs), taxis or not drinking ( real shame when it happens). So, we took in some of the art galleries in Dublin.......we went out to Kilmainham to the IMMA. The Irish Museum of Modern Art is housed in the Royal Hospital Kilmainham a fine 17th century building. Here's a pic of the inner courtyard.And here's another one....it was impossible to capture the entire courtyard without being at a height - anyway, I hope it gives some sense of how impressive a building it is. Here's a view of the gardens outside............ There was a Howard Hodgkin exhibition on and it was very enjoyable - unfortunately I wasn't able to take a photo of my favourite painting (OBV) but you can have a look at his style of work here.

On Sunday we took in the National Gallery - I much prefer contemporary art and not a lot of it is on show here but we did get to see some of Jack B. Yeats' work and a Louis Le Brocquy painting, again it's a very impressive building.......which I'm sure the photo below doesn't capture but if you haven't been there, take it from me - it's worth the visit.

I didn't get much knitting done over the weekend and I've been very busy since so the baby sweater hasn't progressed much further ( not helped by the fact I forgot to bring any yarn with me to Dublin). There was an unexpected bonus to this though..........content of which I'll save for another post. Are you intrigued? Re: Comments on Previous Post Sara - thanks for the offer of the Sherri bag pattern - there's really no hurry though I have quite a list of knitting projects either on needles or in the planning at the moment. Well done on the two needle socks I think they look great. Anyone reading this should really check out Sara's Blog - what a workrate - does anyone have more FO's in the last few months! Cheryl - I can tell that my husband wouldn't like you - not only are you encouraging my own knitting expenditure thoughts but you are adding to them. Denise Needles? I think they are a great idea too, except now I'm thinking maybe a knitting trip to the states could be justified!! LOL - I wish. Regarding the Swift do you have a wooden one or a steel one - do you have any recommendations regarding them? Dipsy D - believe it or not some parts of Ireland were covered in snow the morning I took that photo in my garden - we live right beside the water here in the South East of Ireland so we rarely even get frost!