I’m writing more about my first day, in fact my first few hours in Ireland, as I drive south from Dublin and through the Wicklow Mountains. I had taken notes in advance of the trip, including tips such as the fact that one should definitely start this drive with a full tank of gas, as there are no gas stations, shops or toilets along the route. If you read the first post from this trip, the first picture at the top of that post gives a good indication of what is out here: lots of beautiful scenery with almost no man-made structures (other than the roads, and a few bridges).
Speaking of bridges, I had read in a travel guide about this route that one should make a note to stop and see the “P.S. I Love You Bridge.” The bridge is named as such due to being the location of a scene in the 2007 romantic comedy “P.S. I Love You,” a movie which I have not seen and didn’t really have a reference point in advance of seeing the actual bridge, pictured at the top of this post.
Movie scenes aside, the actual location of this bridge is quite beautiful. As you can see in the picture above, it’s out in a vast landscape with nothing but rolling hills and a winding road. The water source that runs under the bridge is a small mountain stream, as you can see in the video below.
Identifying this bridge as the bridge from the movie was a bit confusing as there was a nearly identical one just down the road a mile or so, and there’s no signs or identification at either bridge location, but this is indeed the spot where the two characters, Gerry and Holly, first meet as they cross the bridge in the movie. I wanted to do more than just walk across the bridge, so I went down off the road and looked under the bridge on both sides.
This location did provide me with some inspiration for a painting. At left you can see my photo of the mountain creek after it had already passed under the bridge and meandered through the field stones off into the distance. At right you can see a watercolor painting inspired by this scene which I’ve titled “Stream in the Wicklow Mountains, Ireland,” 2026, measuring 12 x 9 inches.
