I’m taking a little trip to see family this week. I like the excitement of being at the airport, minus my interactions with TSA, but flying is not an activity I enjoy. I wouldn’t mind traveling in an old-fashioned train like the one in the first picture. I rode in one like it once in Arizona and it was really fun.

Today’s pictures are from Ireland’s National Library.

A goods train passing, Clones East, Co. Monaghan, circa 1900.

From the National Library of Ireland

The chaos of Grafton Street in Dublin –just in front of Sibley’s booksellers and stationers, and proud purveyors of Stylographic Pens–circa 1903. Everyone is so well-dressed and the streets are very clean.

National Library of Ireland

A view along Sackville Street (now O’Connell Street) in Dublin. Photographed by Robert French between 1903 and early 1908. Would you look at those beautiful lamp posts? If cities looked like this today, I would want to live in one forever.

National Library of Ireland