THE IRISH SUZHOU CHINESE GARDEN

THE IRISH SUZHOU CHINESE GARDEN IN ST. ANNE'S PARK [A PLEASANT SURPRISE]


If you ever get the chance to visit St. Anne's Park you should notice an old clock tower which is located in a walled garden. The walled garden, to which access is limited, contains a really big surprise in the form of an attractive Chinese Garden known as the "Ire-Su Chinese Garden".

When I first visited this Chinese garden in August 2018 a lady who I had a chat with told me that it had been there for at least a hundred years and that surprised me as it appeared to be new. About ten minutes later she returned and told me that here friend told here that it was installed in 2012 [not 1912 as she had believed].

The garden was first shown at the Bloom Festival in 2011 and it was designed by workers from the Suzhou Garden Bureau, which looks after nine famous UNESCO-listed gardens in China. Parts of the garden were relocated to St Anne's Park in Raheny after the festival as a gift to coincide with Dublin's twinning with Beijing in 2012.