The Dublin Chronicles, Part One.
I wasn’t going to post about the Irish Blog Awards. It was fantastic in every way but, for some reason I didn’t want to write the whole weekend out on the blog. And besides, I can’t top Devin’s account. However, I made such a long comment over at her’s -and I’d promised myself not to be writing these mammoth comments – that I’ll do a wee jot on it here.
OK , if I’m going to do it, I’ll start at the beginning and do the toury part too, so this is a bit of a boring post about my first couple of days in Dublin – Sami saw this and Sam saw that and blah blah blah. You want the dirt on other bloggers, right? Right. I’ll split this post and do the Dubliny bit here and the blog awards bit next which is a bit more of a peopled post. That’ll come tomorrow ‘cos I have heaps of things to do this afternoon.
Wednesday. Arrive in Dublin. Am cold. Get bus into town. Find hotel. Very sleepy but don’t want to fall asleep so go out for long walk around all the sights I aim to see in the next few days. (Some of this plan happens and some doesn’t on account of mammoth alcoholic imbibation at night).
At breakneck walking speed I see: Stephens Green, St. Patricks, Christ Church, Dublin Castle, Trinity College, Merrion Square and Oscar Wilde’s house. (Big breath) The house where Yeats died and Schrodinger’s house (the dead moggie theory Schrodinger, not his brother, the unfamous one); Fitzwilliam Square and general Georgian gorgeousness; The National Museum, Leinster House and many unnamed great grand buildings around there. Smashing.
As much as anything it was just lovely to walk about in a European city again with the heaving bustle and the sudden quiet when you turn a corner into a quieter street, all hushed by big buildings and ideals. Now out in the blowy cold struggling with your plastic bags against a salmon leap of shoppers, and the next minute reprieve as you’re holed up in a warm pub with a golden drink and a chuckling good read. I miss that a lot. Dublin is a fantastic walking town.
I crossed the windy river and walked up O’Connell street stopping in Eason’s to get Twenty’s book. I saw the Post
Office where the Easter Rising took place, assorted statuary including the great man O’Connell himself and the equally great but more embarrassed Parnell. There was a massive spire just sitting there so I looked at that and found it to be a good thing, and moved on up to the unfortunately ugly Garden of Remembrance. Then to Parnell Square and the James Joyce centre.
By now I was warmed up but hungry so I headed back towards Grafton Street’s main drag and had an Irish stew and a lager in a pub. Then I was so very, very sleepy. I thought to take another turn in Stephen’s Green but catching sight of myself in a Grafton Street shop window I noticed I was no longer stepping out but was shambling in the manner of an old lady with a double hip replacement. I went to my hotel and slept… until at 10 o’clock when I didn’t.
The hotel I was in also has two nightclubs in it and even on a Wednesday they were packed with revellers who all appeared to have taken their loudest vocal cords out with them too. Singing D.I.S.C.O! Oh, D.I.S.C.O! But never mind! I was on my holidays! I had no responsibilities and noone to look after but me! I’d already had a shower for as long as I liked (!), I had only one face to wash, a mere 30 odd teeth to brush, no requests to fulfill and, apart from the deafening music, peace and quiet. I slept again soon after.
Thursday – massive breakfast in hotel, thinking that way I’d save money on lunch. (Dublin is dearer than a doe and I’d already noticed I was pissing away euros like urine.) Out and about early, off I go, all excited. I spy a bus tour. Why very not? I think, for I am a tourist and touring ’s what I do! I see much of what I’d walked the day before with useful narration from the worst joke-teller in Ireland. Then we head West to the Liberties and reach the sombre and imposing Kilmainham Gaol where the Easter Rising rebel leaders were executed; Not half chilling. If ever an architecture screamed its purpose, the walls of Killmainham Gaol do, and the route the bus took gave an almost cinematic half-circle sweep of the place. It looks like a place bad and bloody things happened; you would know that even before you knew that they did.
A half-mile or so on, I considered getting off for the Guinness tour but it takes nearly two hours and to be honest, though I did get a taste for it in Dublin where it’s ten times nicer than the pasteurized US stuff, I’m not that bothered how it’s made – not two hours worth of bothered anyway. The architecture of that place was eerie too. Massive, high-walled and sprawling like a crop of mushrooms – which it didn’t smell unlike, it was like a menacing Victorian Willy-Wonka factory with the same vibe as the old Battersea Power Station. Films should be made there. Alleyways galore. A small door opened in an enormous brick wall and Oompah Loompahs were disgorged onto the street to light up and linger for a bit before Mr. Guinness needed their labours again.
I was on the top of the open-top bus and freezing like I was a painter of Italian walls but there’s no point in sitting downstairs on a tour bus. Anyway, I needed blood in my limbs which I could sense were returning to their natural tinker’s-tartan and blotching purple ‘neath my clothes, feeling for the first time in a while the chilly winds of the North Atlantic and responding by automatically changing the colour of my skin, cold-weather-chameleon-like in a pinky-blue palate. So I jumped off and took a warming pootle in Phoenix park for a while. I saw the massive cross marking the place where Pope John Paul preached to a million people in the 70s, the presidential offices, the Wellington Monument which surprised me ‘cos I guess I’d just assumed Wellington was English; I took a wee walk in the People’s Park and found out that the MGM lion, Rory (har har), was a Dublin Zoo lion(!) before hopping back on the next tour-bus and so back into town. I saw Bono’s expensive hotel on the ride along the river, the impressive Four Courts of which there are only now 3 and back to O’Connell Street.
My breakfast plan hadn’t worked and now I was starving again, so I picked a random pub, had some kick-ass fish and chips and rolled onwards towards Trinity and the Book of Kells. The college museum also has the Book of Armagh and the Book of Darrow and I spend a happy while in that strangely alert, strangely sleepy museum fug, willingly being guided or herded -I didn’t care – by the huge posterboards explaining the script, the myriad illumination elements and history of the books.
The line for the actual Book of Kells itself wasn’t too bad. I was expecting a lot worse but, when it came time to look at it, it was difficult to get around the cabinet for the peering people. When I finally did I found myself standing next to an oldish lady who smelt of pee. This put me off my own book-peering. Worried that people would think it was me I high-tailed it upstairs to the magnificent Long Library and my breath was taken away. Dark and high and, indeed, long, it smelled of the thoughts of men and women, old bindings, paper dust and, what’s this? Pee? God, she’s back again! I move down the library. She follows me! Go away, old woman! What do you want from me? Unfortunately, because I want to hate her, she is sweet and lovely and murmers a few smiling, appreciative comments to me about the library. I like her. Damn! I move away and examine some fine drawings of birds by some old fine bird-drawer whose name I can’t recall although I bet I could if Mrs Sweetie O’Stinky hadn’t been there. I beat a retreat down to the gift shop.
Blinking out into the day again like a mole, I am in the mood for more book-peering and make my way to Dublin Castle to the Chester Beatty Museum. This is a treasure of a place. I spent a couple of round-eyed hours in the dark there, ogling my way around some of the world’s most precious religious texts. Right there, in the heart of Dublin, is a premier collection of some of the oldest and finest Korans,(Korans in Dublin! – who’d a thunk that?) biblical texts, and ancient Eastern manuscripts in existence. I saw the earliest known copies of the letters of St. Paul, and the Gospels. There were mediaeval books of hours in their original leather bags where travelling priests would keep them on journeys. I saw ancient Chinese law books, Japanese prints, Arabic law and poetry books, Coptic scrolls, Manichean texts, some of the first known korans in existance – the North Afican ones lavishly decorated but the Arabic ones left plain because adorning the sacred was profane to these scribes; and papyrus and parchment and vellum scrolls with holes from the flaying process that the scribes just wrote around. It is a rich, incredible place and Chester Beatty himself was an incredible man. He was a pioneering mining engineer and made his fortune in the Wild West just a few decades after the Wild Bill Hickock days, before moving to London, increasing his wealth and travelling all over. He bought up a lot of his library at a time when the many of the old families of the East would gladly part with a few old manuscripts in exchange for a Cadillac or something difficult to get outside America. He moved his collection to Dublin finally and Dublin is lucky beyond measure to have it. And it’s free!
I emerged feeling as if I’d been absorbed by the books and not the books by me, and feeling dusty, but not. Dublin is all aroar about me after the quiet and I think I might have a cuppa somewhere. But what’s this? It’s nearly time to meet fatmammycat! Back to the hotel for a shower and a bit of a phone home and then downstairs to the bar to meet herself. My first blogger!
More tomorrowish.
March 11th, 2008 at 8:16 pm
This comes to you with the benefit of only cursory editing, cos it’s a long’un and I gots me some things to do. Sorry an’ that.
March 11th, 2008 at 10:11 pm
Jesus! You went to all those places in a day, jet-lagged. I lived in Dublin for years and I still haven’t seen some of those things.
March 11th, 2008 at 10:16 pm
Bock – all that was over 2 days. The first day I was just walking around the outside of places to get a sense of where everything was. The second day all I really did was the bus tour, the book of Kells and the Chester Beatty. I never even went into the cathedrals or the James Joyce Centre. I planned to on one of the other days but hangovers got the better of me.
March 11th, 2008 at 10:42 pm
Fuck I’m with Bock, I’ve only lived in Ath Cliath for a few weeks once, (work sent me there), all I became familiar with was Dublin pubs. That said, if I was to go back I’d repeat that experience.
March 11th, 2008 at 11:37 pm
hurry up n get to the best bit…….
March 12th, 2008 at 7:34 am
I’m knackered after that.
March 12th, 2008 at 8:11 am
Spot on, about the goal. But when I saw it for the first time, thought ‘wow, its small’. Here we read about it, and add all ever in it, together.
Tinkers-tartan, oh boy do I remember that. That feeling of cold where the blood moved so fast from the surface you could hear the screech. The mothers it the area had a thing of putting their kids into short pants on Easter Sunday and it did not matter at all which season the day fell.
March 12th, 2008 at 8:50 am
…freezing like I was a painter of Italian walls..
Brilliant. I love it!
March 12th, 2008 at 9:04 am
The Long Room, The Chester Beatty, The treasury in the National Museum, the Phooenix Park, the Museum of Natural History, Blessington Street Basin, Merrion Square, the canals, the Liberties, the avenue into the Royal Hospital Kilmainham, the quays, and the Bull wall are among my must sees in Dublin that I take people on walks around – and it looks like you hit most of those.
Whether or not the Duke of Wellington was talking about Ireland when he said being born in a stable does not make you a horse, by all accounts he considered himself British. It’s a great monument for kids – and all war memorials should be great for kids to play on.
March 12th, 2008 at 10:31 am
Handy for the Pigeons, Eolai.
March 12th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
You wrote that so well I felt like I was there too. Now I’m homesick…
March 12th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
Ok then. I have to come back to see all of those things.Eolai, when do you have an opening in your schedule?
March 12th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Eolai, when do you have an opening in your schedule?
Devin, just as soon as I don’t have an opening in my pants. Currently I am jobless, incomeless, and a tiresome cliche in search of a home. And the only pants that fit me gave way in 3 places a couple of days ago.
No, I’m not telling you what I was doing, but basically, once panted, the rest of my life is one big opening.
March 12th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
Oh you make me so very want to go! But I don’t have any money or any time, bummer.
I think there’s a travel-writer lurking in you, did you swallow Paul Theroux?
March 12th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
Stopped by early this morning and had to come back for a second go. Marvelous, Joycian ramble, there Sam.
Cheers.
March 12th, 2008 at 9:23 pm
You certainly made the most of your time, Sam. An aerosol can to point at Mrs O’Stinky and everything would have been perfect.
March 12th, 2008 at 9:59 pm
John Mc, I gave the pubs my best shot too. They broke me.
Manuel, alas, the wee one’s poorly today, and last night I was doing the questions for Trivia at the pub (regular gal on holidays) so I haven’t done it yet.
Sneezy, it looks more on the page than it actually seemed for real. That was not the most knackering part of the trip.
Vincent, we got it every time we did PE outside in our shorts. I remember loads and loads of purple-and-blue-pied legs shivering by the sandpit.
Bad Am, Oh I can pun worse than that, baby. You would weep with the pain of it.
Eolai, I’d love to see Dublin with you as a guide, knowing it as well as you do. What’s the Bull wall? I didn’t see that in my book. And what’s Blessington Street Basin? I quite liked the statue of the children in the Garden of Remembrance but the garden itself looked like a 1970’s corporate atrium. Apart from that I though Dublin does a really good job of mixing the old and the new without too much jarring. What a cheeky-ass duke!
Caro, I really liked the place, toots, it was easy to enthuse – I hope you get the chance to visit home soon. How long is it you’ve been in Italy now?
Devin, we’ll charter him, will we?
Eolai, can we charter you? A needle and thread, man. It’s a nearly pantless man’s best friend.
Eryl, that’s between me and Paul Theroux…
Rand, more ramble than Joycean, I’m afeared. But the thing was, after doing so much pre-Dub-trip reading, short stories and memoirs and so on, I had a pretty good map in my mind of the layout, the various districts and even some of the roads. It was fun putting reality to that.
Nanas, poor Mrs. O’Stinky. I kind of feel bad for blogging her now because she seemed a really nice woman. I bet she had no idea herself. Still, it put me right off the Book of Kells. I’d have been rubbish in the Middle Ages when whiff was as plentiful as the people.
March 13th, 2008 at 12:58 am
I hope Eola? doesn’t mind me jumping in front of him, but the Blessington St Basin is one of those wondrous urban treasures we only stumble across by chance. Nobody who sets out to find the Blessington St Basin ever gets there. Obviously. It’s on the North Side, near the Mater, but that won’t help you: if you go looking for it, you’ll be forever lost.
Captain Bligh built the Bull Wall: reason enough to see it.
March 13th, 2008 at 7:46 am
And following the comment above. The basin was the terminus of the royal canal, the original one that is. The river to-day, on both sides, did not exist when the canal was conceived, think of the bank of the river 100 or so yards behind the four courts. But with the Corn Laws, certain areas had money running from the ears, so they built the thing down to the river with the new basin entirely on reclaimed ground.
The Grand canal -the one going south- has something similar, the basin there was just behind the brewery.
There is a war memorial designed by Lutyens, which is somewhat different from the one you saw behind the Rotunda. Which I think was ‘66 after thought, for the 50th of 1916. It saved those who took part in the War of Independence, most then in their seventies plus, from the hike all the way to the Republican plot at Glasneven. It was a handy end to the march past. Since then, I do not believe the garden has been used.
March 13th, 2008 at 8:13 am
I’ve been here just over five years, which is hard to believe as I only intended staying for six months. I lived in Dublin for 8 years and though I was pretty sick of the place in the end I find I now miss it a lot, and love going back.
I’ve never been to the Chester Beatty which is a disgrace. I love the Long Room though. Shame about the smelly woman.
March 13th, 2008 at 10:03 am
Marsh’s library, Sam. You have to come back to see that.
March 13th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
what a wonderful ramble, sugar! you tour a city the same way i do – get out and walk and take it all in. hell, you didn’t tavel all that way to sleep!
i can’t wait to hear about the awards and meeting everyone.
March 13th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
Bock, I am coming back to Dublin one day and will hunt for it. Why is the Bull Wall called that though?
Vincent, thanks for the info, I appreciate it. One place I didn’t get to at all except for a coffee one day, was Temple Bar. Fmc were planning on going out to Howth too, but I regret I was too hungover and the day was pouring wet anyway, so we aborted the mission.
Caro, I get homesick too from time to time. I hope you’ll be able to get over again soon.
Conan, I heard about that on the bus tour going past St. Patrick’s and had a wee read about it. The great thing is that there’ll still be masses of new stuff for me to see when i come back.
Savannah, yeah but if you read the next post you will discover that I did sleep for most of Friday. But there was really no way around it. The demon Carlsberg hurt me bad, baby. If I was to meet any more bloggers on Friday night, I needed to stay in a darkened room for the morning. I was still a wee bit jetlagged too and although I regret not seeing more, it was worth it for the rest and to be fresher for the Friday night meet-up, one of the main reasons I was there.
March 14th, 2008 at 11:21 am
PCB, the temple bar is more a state of body than a actual place, and none too bad for all that. And having just read your follow on post….
While Beann Eadair/Howth is a lovely place it requires a bit of time and at least four extra layers, as it is the coldest spot on the entire Island. And the RNLI have/had a very good secondhand bookshop
March 14th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
Sam, so far as I know the sand spits that formed from silt on both sides of the Liffey were said to cause sounds at certain times through tide and wind, sounds that put people in mind of a bull’s bellowing.
The sand spit on the north side adjoins Dublin at Clontarf which comes from the Irish Cluain Tarbh – Bull’s Plain or Meadow. The North Bull Wall is built along the sandbar and caused the island of sand to form behind it. This is the Bull Wall of Bligh that Bock referred to.
And across the mouth of the Liffey the South Bull Wall is built on the sandbar over there – it comes out by Poolbeg power station, what we call the Pigeon House where the two famous (to U2 fans) red and white chimney stacks rise from. The south Bull wall is older.
Both afford you the ability to stand in the middle of the bay
March 14th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
Whoops – I didn’t close my italics properly after “Cluain Tarbh” – you might want to fix that for me sam or every following comment will be in all italics – sorry.
March 14th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
Sorted.
And ta for the info. I have masses to see next time. I think I read about the Pigeon House in The Dubliners. That one about the 2 wee boys skiving school who see the old man jerking off.
March 14th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
I love the architecture of the Guinness Brewery. It reminds me of the Wonka Factory. Nobody ever goes in…no one ever comes out.
March 15th, 2008 at 1:15 am
Yep Sam, that’s the one – it’s a great short story/
March 15th, 2008 at 11:02 am
Oh here, and since I’m dropping comments like they’re going out of fashion, were you aware of the Long Room being used (allegedly) in one of them there Star Wars filims
March 15th, 2008 at 11:05 am
2nd attempt – I need tea.
Oh here, and since I?m dropping comments like they?re going out of fashion, were you aware of the Long Room being used (allegedly) in one of them there Star Wars filims
March 17th, 2008 at 10:37 am
Darlin’ next time you’re in Dublin you really should do some sightseeing.