Two granite piers enclose a Victorian harbour, with the East Pier bandstand Michael Collins used for its promenade scene.
What Dún Laoghaire looks like
Two granite piers close around Dún Laoghaire Harbour, built between 1817 and 1859 and wide enough at the top to carry a quay road their full length. A pale blue cast iron bandstand and sun shelter stands partway along the 's promenade, its ornamental dome and filigree columns facing the open water. The runs opposite it on the harbour's far side, plainer and without a bandstand of its own.
, a pair of stucco terraces around a four acre park, dates from the 1860s. A matching row of five houses was added on the north side in 2017, built to the same period facades. The keeps a low, single storey clubhouse in cream stucco with arched windows and a slate roof at the water's edge. faces its own white stucco terrace across a railed green a few streets inland.
, set back from the harbour behind iron gates, has its own cast iron bandstand inside a walled Victorian green. The coast road continues south past Sandycove to the , a rock platform with concrete steps and wind shelters cut into the point.
Shot in Dún Laoghaire
Michael Collins used the East Pier for a scene at its Victorian bandstand. Sing Street also filmed along the pier, two decades later.
Michael Collins, 1996
Michael Collins used the East Pier for a scene of Liam Neeson as Collins walking the promenade with two co-stars, while a band plays on the bandstand behind them. The cast iron bandstand and sun shelter are the same structure on the pier today, restored between 2007 and 2010 for the harbour's 2017 bicentenary. Street View
What Dún Laoghaire can double for
Scarborough in North Yorkshire, England
Victorian and Regency terraces run along Scarborough's South Cliff Promenade above its own working harbour, a similar arrangement of seafront housing stacked over a working waterfront. The cliffside funicular and Scarborough Castle on the headland are distinctive in any wide or aerial shot, so keep the frame to the terrace fronts and the harbour edge below. Try searching Victorian terraces above harbour now.
Cowes in Isle of Wight, England
Cowes has a comparable scale of Victorian yacht clubs facing a narrow quay, with the Royal Yacht Squadron's clubhouse and the Royal London Yacht Club both fronting the water the way the National Yacht Club fronts Dún Laoghaire's harbour. Cowes Castle's crenellated silhouette and the High Street's narrow lanes give it away in a wide shot, so hold to the clubhouse fronts and the water's edge. Try searching Victorian yacht club quay now.
Cobh in County Cork, Ireland
Cobh keeps its own Victorian promenade and bandstand along a granite pier at the water's edge, a close match for the pier and bandstand here at a smaller scale. Cobh's hillside cathedral and pastel painted waterfront houses are unmistakably Cork in any wide shot, so a tight frame on the pier and bandstand holds the illusion best. Try searching granite pier bandstand now.
