This was taken on top of the magazine fort in the Phoenix Park, one of my favourite buildings in the entire park, derelict and all as it is.

These guys were creating quite a bit of noise on a beautiful quiet summers day, there were literally twenty or thirty birds knocking around at one stage, there seemed to be a bit of fuss about something or other. Not sure if they were arguing over ownership of the chimney stacks or maybe there were nests inside the actual stacks.

The bird on the right hand side of the photo looks like I placed a cardboard cut-out into the shot, trust me I’m not that ingenious [or tall].

I can only assume this place is a real haven for wild birds to live in, the gates are permanently locked, which is kind of sad because they could easily turn this building into a really interesting visitor attraction. It’s quite functional but at the same time rather beautiful, there is something very eerie about the general area surrounding it. I can only imagine there are some spectacular views from inside some of the rectangular lookouts planted on all four corners of the building.

Ok so it’s landmarks in the park time today.

It’s been a while coming and I am going to try to work my way through several easily recognisable sites from the park in the coming weeks.

I have spent many wasted hours standing in various spots in front of and behind the Papal Cross without getting any real success. I finally tried something a bit different and tried to just isolate the cross itself and remove it from its distinctive environment.

I like this photo for several reasons, the first being the completely blank white sky in the background. I wasn’t sure at first as it was a beautiful summers day with not a cloud in site. Sometimes this can ruin a good landscape shot but this is not ordinary landscape photograph and I think any kind of cloud would distract the viewer. I also love the fact that the cross looks like it is leaning backwards. This can mostly be a great big no-no under normal photographic rules but hey, the rules are there to be broken in my opinion.

I also like the apparent 3D like effect on the surface of the cross, it looks a bit like a scanned image of a solid object but believe me I don’t actually have a scanner that big. I am also quite sure the park wardens wouldn’t have let me set up a gigantic scanner against the cross.

I am not a particularly religious person but this cross does remind me of a scorching hot summers day back when I was only ten years old, corralled into a pen with my parents, brothers and sisters. Seeing the pope as a ten-year old didn’t really mean that much to me but I do remember getting a present of a cardboard periscope and for years that was my abiding memory of the day out in the park. I also remember it being one of the longest walks I have ever embarked on in my entire life [you must remember I was only ten] and thinking the legendary Pope-mobile would be a truly excellent vehicle to travel around Ireland in. Just think, you could sit indoors and see everything from a comfortable chair, I wonder is there a toilet in it. I also wonder where it ever ended up, was it donated to somebody as a fancy camper van.

Sadly I no longer have my wonderfully cheap periscope, not even sure if it lasted the full day. My mother informs me she still has the tacky yellow and white Papal flags we all received but that didn’t interest me as much as the periscope, the only thing that ever comes close to the periscope was those wonderful crepe paper hats that our dad used to buy us on the way in to GAA matches in Croke Park. It’s fair to say none of the hats exist anymore either, most of them disintegrated on the way home in the rain.