Sandymount Strand: the tidal sands of Ulysses
The vast low-tide strand of Joyce, the Poolbeg chimneys, and the wall out into the bay. This is a Claude-drafted route awaiting the editor's walk.

1. Sandymount Green and the Martello tower
Start at the village green, then down to the promenade where a squat Martello tower guards the seafront — one of the ring built against a Napoleonic invasion that never came. Time this walk against the tide: at low water the sand runs out half a mile, at high it's all sea. Check before you set off.

2. The strand itself — Stephen's walk
This is the 'ineluctable modality of the visible' beach: Stephen Dedalus walks here in the third episode of Ulysses, eyes shut, listening to the shells crunch. At low tide you can walk far out on the firm sand toward the channel. Don't go beyond where the sand stays solid — the tide comes back fast and flat across the flats.

3. The Poolbeg chimneys
The two red-and-white striped stacks of the old generating station, two hundred-odd metres tall, the most recognisable thing on the Dublin skyline and weirdly beloved — there were protests when closure raised talk of demolition. From the strand they stand straight out across the water. Decommissioned, kept as landmarks.

4. Irishtown Nature Park
Walk north off the sand into the low green headland reclaimed from a dump and turned into a quiet coastal park, with paths up to a small rise and views back over the whole bay. A good place to clean the sand off your shoes and decide whether to push on to the wall.

5. The Great South Wall and Poolbeg Lighthouse
If the legs and the light allow, the Great South Wall runs straight out into the bay — a 1700s sea wall, once the longest in the world, ending at the red Poolbeg Lighthouse. It's a there-and-back of a couple of kilometres on exposed granite; skip it if the wind's up, but on a calm evening it's the finest walk in Dublin. (It begins beyond the chimneys, off this route's main line.)

6. Back along the seafront to Lansdowne Road
Return along the Sandymount and Beach Road seafront, the Wicklow hills low to the south, the bay opening east. Cut inland to Lansdowne Road and the DART. If there's a Six Nations or a concert on at the Aviva, leave extra time — the whole area fills.

Sandymount Strand: the tidal sands of Ulysses