PHOENIX PARK

Looking down on the Wellington Monument, (yes the Duke of Wellington was born in Dublin) in the Phoenix Park. The Phoenix Park is one of the largest enclose urban parks in the world, it covers 1,760 acres, with a circumference of seven miles. The parks has two residence, the President of Ireland, Mrs. Mary McAllis, in Aras an Uachtarain, and the American Ambassador’s residence which is occupied by Jean Kennedy Smith. Other attractions which can be found in the park include The Zoological Gardens, The Fifteen Acres, an area of playing sports grounds which actually cover two hundred acres and was the site use during the visit of Pope John Paul II in 1979 for a Hugh outdoor mass . The alter of which is now marked be the enormous papal cross, and in the 18th. Century was used as a dueling ground. Lit by gas street lamps and inhabited by 500 fallow deer the Phoenix Park is one of the unique features of Dublin’s Fair City.