TEMPLE BAR IS RETURNING TO NORMAL

It would appear that life is beginning to return to the area and it will be interesting to see if the St. Patrick’s Festival will provide the necessary boost.

Yesterday and today there was enough rain to make photography impossible so when I was passing through the Temple Bar area I decided to use my iPhone 121 Pro Max and much to my surprise the autofocus appears to have had difficulty because of the rain.

Temple Bar (is an area on the south bank of the River Liffey in central Dublin, Ireland. The area is bounded by the Liffey to the north, Dame Street to the south, Westmoreland Street to the east and Fishamble Street to the west. It is promoted as Dublin’s ‘cultural quarter’ and, as a centre of Dublin’s city centre’s nightlife, is a tourist destination.

The area is the location of a number of cultural institutions, including the Irish Photography Centre (incorporating the Dublin Institute of Photography, the National Photographic Archive and the Gallery of Photography), the Ark Children’s Cultural Centre, the Irish Film Institute, incorporating the Irish Film Archive, the Button Factory, the Arthouse Multimedia Centre, Temple Bar Gallery and Studios, the Project Arts Centre, the Gaiety School of Acting, IBAT College Dublin, the New Theatre, as well as the Irish Stock Exchange.

At night the area is a centre for nightlife, with various tourist-focused nightclubs, restaurants and bars. Pubs in the area include The Temple Bar pub, The Porterhouse, The Oliver St. John Gogarty, The Turk’s Head, The Quays Bar, The Foggy Dew, The Auld Dubliner, The Stag’s Head, Bad Bobs and Busker’s Bar.

The area has two renovated squares – Meetinghouse Square and the central Temple Bar Square. The Temple Bar Book Market is held on Saturdays and Sundays in Temple Bar Square. Meetinghouse Square, which takes its name from the nearby Quaker Meeting House, is used for outdoor film-screenings in the summer months. Since summer 2004, Meetinghouse Square is also home to the ‘Speaker’s Square’ project (an area of public speaking) and to the ‘Temple Bar Food Market’ on Saturdays.

The ‘Cow’s Lane Market’ is a fashion and design market which takes place on Cow’s Lane on Saturdays.

Part of the 13th century Augustinian Friary of the Holy Trinity is visible within an apartment/restaurant complex called ‘The Friary’.