{"id":547289,"date":"2026-06-21T21:26:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T21:26:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/547289\/"},"modified":"2026-06-21T21:26:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T21:26:13","slug":"i-saw-wales-from-killiney-hill-on-a-summer-solstice-sunday-morning-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/547289\/","title":{"rendered":"I saw Wales from Killiney Hill on a summer solstice Sunday morning \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cDaddy, where are the whales? I can\u2019t see any whales.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, love, the man meant Wales<\/a>, it\u2019s a country over there across the Irish Sea.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sunday morning lesson: be careful raising the expectations of young girls, especially ones with bright orange cameras that may love whales.<\/p>\n

Anyhow, she wasn\u2019t my child, and her father sounded genuinely thrilled to be informed that he could see the coast of Wales from the top of Killiney<\/a> Hill on this summer solstice Sunday morning.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe coastline of north Wales was visible from Killiney Hill on the summer solstice. Photograph: Emmet Riordan <\/p>\n

It certainly stirred a child-like enthusiasm in me that after 54\u00bd years on this planet, I finally, clearly and indubitably was viewing the outline of the Welsh coast from Ireland. And it even showed up on the camera of my Samsung S25 phone.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve thought I saw it plenty of times, but I couldn\u2019t be sure: \u201cMaybe it\u2019s low clouds shaped like land\u201d; \u201cmaybe I had too many gargles last night\u201d; \u201cmaybe I should have gone to Specsavers\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"AA zoom photograph taken on a Samsung S25 of the Welsh coastline from Killiney Hill. Photograph: Emmet Riordan <\/p>\n

Growing up in Dalkey, I had heard many older folk talk of how on a clear day you could see Wales from Dalkey or Killiney Hill, about 150m above sea level. There\u2019s even a bench on the pedestrian pathway above the Vico Road \u2013 known locally to many as the Green Road \u2013 where it\u2019s printed on a shiny plaque as a tribute to a late loved one from their family.<\/p>\n

The science shows it is possible to see Wales from Ireland despite the fact that it\u2019s about 100km away. A recent article by my colleague Niamh Browne<\/a> outlines the atmospheric and sea conditions required to allow it to be seen by the naked eye, complete with a wonderful back-of-an envelope graphic.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0How a viral Wicklow \u2018hills\u2019 video shows why Ireland is visible from Wales in hot weatherOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\"SketchSketch provided by Prof Conor Sweeney <\/p>\n

Those conditions aligned perfectly on Sunday morning, the Irish Sea flat as a mill pond, with just that high candyfloss cloud in the sky. And peeping through was Anglesey, as clear as day, not just one little bit of it, but a long stretch of the north Wales coastline.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Why is the summer solstice important in Ireland?Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

I decided to extend my walk, taking in the vista from various vantage points on both Dalkey and Killiney Hill, and delighted in telling a few people I met what awaited them when they got to the top.<\/p>\n

And then it was gone.<\/p>\n

By the time I had dropped down to the Vico Road, maybe just 60 or 70m below, Wales had disappeared again. Was it the change in height, or a change in atmospheric conditions as the heat of the day built up? Certainly the Irish Sea wasn\u2019t quite so serene any more.<\/p>\n

Maybe it was just the summer solstice playing tricks on me. Hold on, was that a whale that just swam by?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cDaddy, where are the whales? I can\u2019t see any whales.\u201d \u201cNo, love, the man meant Wales, it\u2019s a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":547290,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,60741,18,13,14,6,19,17,40606,11,12,15,16,5,7,8,17331],"class_list":["post-547289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-dalkey","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-killiney","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-wales"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=547289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547289\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/547290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}