Roof ripped off Dublin bus: photos from the accident site

10 passengers escaped harm by sitting downstairs on the 42A double-decker bus that hit a tree yesterday morning.

The Indo reports the accident took place shortly before 8.30am - as the photos below show the time was approximately 8.11am or so.

The accident occurred in a designated bus lane near the former Five Lamps pub as the bus travelled towards Artane from Abbey Street, shortly before 8.30am.

A spokeswoman for the company said the driver of the bus was taken to the Mater hospital to be treated for shock, but all 10 passengers on board escaped unharmed.

Shortly after the accident Sinéad Cochrane uploaded some great pictures to her Flickr account including the ones below.





Joe Drumgoole and Swear I'm not Paul followed quickly with photos, as did Pix.ie member dmeagher:



I received more by email last night but I'll start with this remarkable artist's impression, found via Thinkhouse PR:



Ahem, yes. Well anyway - my thanks to Lisa for sending the following through:

Vikings at the National Museum

Following a tweet on Twitter by the lovely Laura (@Czajkowski) I checked out the Viking Event at the National Museum at Collins Barracks recently. I didn't know what to expect at all, but it was all rather wonderful!

I saw fellas fighting







That big boat in the background is the Sea Stallion. There'll be talks on it soon.



Some of the vikings were a bit more modern than you'd expect...



Wouldn't fancy wearing this to go hurling



But some of the other stuff looked really interesting





I discovered a passion for weapon design I didn't know I had. Some of the designs were very intricate



Just look at the detail on this spear



The weapons viking, Eryk (what else could it be?) had interesting rings



and many Thor Hammers for luck in battle



I reckon he'd easily have damaged me...



I went to have a look at the decorative elements on display



The intricacy of the designs was amazing, and all based on ancient types



We met a viking youth (fascinated with the vacuum cleaner he was)



and we learned all about the different herbs and spices used for dying clothes



For example green and yellow came from straw and tumeric





It was a pity I didn't go in earlier or on the Sunday like Laura because there was a lot more to see. Will tells me it's the guys and gals from livinghistory.ie that put this on - all very knowledgeable, personable and friendly. Really made the day worth it.

On April 26 in the National Museum at Kildare Street there's another Viking exhibition. Would highly recommend it.

Thanks for the heads up Laura. We had fun :)

The art of bus timetables and bus lanes

Late for work today, thanks to a combination of heavy traffic, red lights and a bus driver who made odd decisions.

Living in Dublin 15, I take the 39b. Normally it's a schedule of bus at 07:30 - the journey to town is fairly direct and usually takes 40 minutes - hit town 08:07, get next bus at 08:15. Not always an exact science but fairly standard. Not so today.

I've resigned myself to not getting stressed about these things any more - why bother, there's not much I can do about it - but it doesn't stop me questioning it. Or taking photos.

Today, from the Navan Road right down to the quays traffic was heavy. When at 8.05 we were nowhere near even the North Circular Road, I knew there wasn't a chance of me getting the (free) bus to work. Those are the Luas mornings.

It's when we got to the quays that "bemused" (for want of a better word) me.

Traffic is usually heavy but moving well anyways. Gotta keep an eye on the time.


And of course you have that great bus corridor the whole way practically from Heuston to O' Connell Bridge, right?

You know the one? The one that's EMPTY in the photos above and below:


That's just before the Ha'penny Bridge. A 5 minute walk to O' Connell Bridge. Less if you're a bus driver with a big empty bus lane to fly up. With people who time their timetables and busses exactly. People like me.

But our bus driver? He chose to sit in traffic.


And there we sat while Dublin traffic did its thing.


We got to O' Connell Street 5 minutes later


Eventually getting to Trinity College at quarter to.


Is there any point in complaining? I don't know.

But of course, getting off the bus I said "Thanks" and nothing else. No complaints, questions or anything. Of course I did.