Features
The bay is rather shallow with many sandbanks and rocky outcrops, and was notorious in the past for shipwrecks, especially when the wind was from the east. Until modern times, many ships and their passengers were lost along the treacherous coastline from Howth to Dun Laoghaire, less than a kilometre from shore. Early maps of the bay carefully show narrow shipping channels and mooring areas.
The bay had two inshore sand banks, the North Bull and the South Bull. With the building of the Bull Wall, the North Bull began to build up rapidly, forming North Bull Island (often simply "Bull Island"). A southern wall had earlier been built - the Great South Wall - but did not result in island formation, the South Bull remaining today an area of mud flats and strand. In addition there are several offshore sandbanks, notably Kish Bank (on which a lighthouse stands).
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Famous quotes containing the word features:
“Each reader discovers for himself that, with respect to the simpler features of nature, succeeding poets have done little else than copy his similes.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Art is the child of Nature; yes,
Her darling child, in whom we trace
The features of the mother’s face,
Her aspect and her attitude.”
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882)