Bray Strand

This entry is a significant geographic break from the previous ones. After working our way down the Wild Atlantic Way on Ireland's west coast, we're now back on the Irish Sea on Ireland's east coast. This will also be the last post from Ireland --- not because we ran out of beaches, but because we ran out of time.

Bray seems like a classic beach town from an earlier era. A string of old hotels, a small amusement arcade, and an aquarium line the main drag across from the beach.  Bray is on the main railroad line less than an hour south of Dublin, so was an easy weekend escape for the city crowd.

AERIAL VIEW

The beach is gravel - or at least mainly gravel. My cursory internet research hasn't shed much light on the history, but it sounds like gravel was added as nourishment here back around 2000, and maybe again more recently, but I'm not sure. Beaches often have complex backstories and I wish I knew this one.

Longshore transport is generally south to north along this coast. You get a sense of this looking at the jetties at Bray Harbor in the distance. The beach is stacked up against the south jetty. And the narrow beach farther north is backed by eroding bluffs, suggesting a sediment deficit.

A similar situation apparently exists at Greystones (AERIAL VIEW), a few miles south, where structures that cross the foreshore (a marina) have led to beach problems on the downdrift (northern) side.

I added 33 beaches to my collection during our three weeks in Ireland. And this was the 804th post on Gravel Beach. It began back in late 2005 with a beach northwest of Port Townsend, a shot from Cama Beach, and a few pictures from California (Gravel Beach: December 2005).