...Look at the colours in the second shot here. Unaltered, right out of the camera. I swear, the colours in Ireland were often simply more vibrant and full than anything I've ever seen back home...
In retrospect, I'm surprised that we went down there three days in a row. There was a lot to see, and in three days, we didn't cover it all. But I mean, Dave's lived there all his life, so it must have been a little like surfing reruns for him. I think that was the morning we caught the bus and stayed on the first level. I was heading up when Dave called me back. He hadn't liked the look of the guys who headed up before us; I gathered he thought they were heavy drug users. I hadn't noticed a thing, myself. But there you go.
We stopped by the General Post Office again. This time we were able to go inside. Dave was disappointed because many of the great paintings of the battle had been taken down, leaving it just... a post office. But there was still a statue of the great Ulster hero Cuchulain, dying, in the window, and at his feet, a quote from the end of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic.
On our way, we passed statues of Molly Malone (who may or may not have actually existed) and of Dubliner Philip Lynott, the late lead singer of Thin Lizzy, who certainly did. Beyond that is St. Anne's Anglican Church. It was in the street before the church that Dave spotted a stand of bubblers... these battery-operated toys that spit out streams of soap bubbles. They were going for €10 and Dave wanted to get one for his daughter, Cara, but he was tapped, so I volunteered, taking an opportunity to reciprocate for all the kindness he'd been showing me.
Dave knew I was keen on the history of Ireland's liberation, and he felt the place to go would be to the 1916 Easter Rising exhibition at the National Museum of Ireland. There was a lot to see there. In a large central area, they had displays of general archeology, and some of the items had ages estimated between 100,000-400,000 years old. Makes the Book of Kells seem positively contemporary. It was a strange feeling. Here, in Canada, I'm used to going into museums and seeing artifacts that predate history. But in a way, it feels like they're someone else's. I might have Native ancestry; I might not. I couldn't say for sure. I can connect to them on the human level, but I can't claim the visceral sense of wonder in thinking that someone from whom I might be descended crafted, used, and somehow came to lose this item before me. But in Dublin, I had that. The things around me were the tools, vessels, and adornments of people from whom I am unmistakably descended. And that's a very powerful feeling to have, standing in a country you've never been in before.
I saw the remnants of Viking longboats, hordes of gold and jewelry, samples of clothing, and even some of the people themselves. In one section of the museum there were a number of bodies... four, if I remember correctly... of what are known as "bog men". These are victims of human sacrifice, preserved by the anaerobic conditions in some of the peat bogs of Ireland, who have been preserved, their skin turned to something like leather. On display under glass, each in a curved shelter, they're a macabre reminder of what life in pagan Europe was like. Of course, even nowadays, human sacrifice and kingship ritual is never far away in Ireland, and it never has been. Most of the bodies were just bits, pulled apart, trailing off into the invisible, as it were. But one fellow was neatly bisected right about at the level of the diaphragm. Dave suggested he'd been cut in half by a farmer's plow before his discovery. Seemed odd to me that they'd find just the one half and not the other. When I read the official account, though, there wasn't any such relatively mild explanation. That had been done to this person a very long time ago. In the same section was a huge silver bowl, almost large enough to bathe in. It was beautifully decorated, with carvings and trimmings. I happened to notice that one of them seemed to show a person inverted, hanging upside down, raining something... that something had to be, of course, blood. I was instantly sobered at the realization of just what it was this immense punch bowl had probably once been used to contain.
There were happier things there, of course. One display I really enjoyed was an audio-video presentation of life along the Liffey about the time the Vikings arrived, bringing to Ireland such high technology as windows and shoes. We watched that for about half an hour before drifting off again to look for the 1916 exhibit. Dave spoke to one of the attendants, who informed us that that particular exhibit had actually recently moved to Collins Barracks, which seemed a more appropriate location. We thanked the man and made our way.
We stopped to get a bite and a pint. I don't remember the name of the restaurant now (I'll look it up), but as was the case with many pubs in Dublin, its subdued, cozy lighting was supplied mainly by ambient light from the street. It had a clock that ran backwards (with the numbers arranged counterclockwise as well), and a motto over the bar that read, "If you're drinking to forget, please pay in advance." Dave was suggesting the Irish stew, and I nearly bit, but in the end I let him down. It featured lamb, and I have no experience with lamb (or mutton in general), and when the bill comes in euros, well... you tend not to gamble. I opted for a more conventional sandwich of some sort and remember being happy with the choice.
NOTE: The name of the place was The Blarney Bar. Thanks, Dave! :)
On leaving, we saw this incredibly cool-looking door. But unless it has something to do with the next Harry Potter movie, we had no idea what its purpose was...
We walked along the south side of the Liffey and came to Dublin's City Council building. Dave cursed the place as having been built over a Viking site, and against the wishes of much of the country, news that stunned me. Countries in Europe are usually extremely protective of their patrimony, and so far Ireland had seemed no exception. I found it hard to believe when he told me. Out in front of the place is a sort of token to what was done – one that seemed almost mocking, to me: the suggestion of the frame of a longboat, sunken into the earth, with its benches arranged for sitting and perhaps waiting for a bus. I thought it was kind of neat until I understood the calamity of what it represented. We walked along and got a great view of the Four Courts.
And after a bit, we made it to Collins Barracks. I can only assume they were named for Michael Collins, hero to some, traitor to others, who was instrumental in fighting the guerrilla war that convinced the British to quit (most of) Ireland, and then in bringing the Treaty home that created an independent Ireland; fighting for which eventually cost him his life. Collins was in the 1916 Easter Rising, and spent time in prison afterwards. I've actually read some of his writings, a few years past, and he was eloquent and persuasive. He was also very young when he died; 32. One year for each county in Ireland. He did a lot more with those 32 years than most do with two or three times as many.
The barracks inside have been given over to the functions of a museum. The exhibition on the Rising was restrained, sober, and indeed, almost sorrowful. There was no triumphalizing, little in evidence smacking of the romance of war and death. It told the story of the Rising, gave voice and humanity to its heroes, and simply laid out what happened. Step by step, you wound your way through the days of the rebellion and what followed. An original broadsheet of the Proclamation... Patrick Pearse's sidearm... last letters from the signatories of the Proclamation who faced the firing squads... hand-written orders to mobilize... it was a collection of the ordinary made awesome by the import of the events, becoming so much more than the mere sum of the parts. I felt pride and humility all at once. This was at the very heart of what I had come to see.
There were other displays concerning Ireland's military history, including a comparison of solders' kits from the 18th or early 19th century and that of the First World War. Ireland, like Canada, takes great pride in its contribution to United Nations peacekeeping efforts. But since independence, Ireland has had a more peaceful history (at least in terms of foreign affairs) than Canada. Ireland has maintained its neutrality even in the face of World War II (euphemistically called "the Emergency" in Ireland; see below) and the Cold War, when countries all around it were joining NATO. The principal military losses of Irish life (that haven't involved paramilitary groups with three-letter acronyms at home) have come from peacekeeping missions. All things considered, that's hardly a bad thing to say of a country. As someone with both citizenships, I can grant that on the one hand, a person could argue that every free country had a stake in the Allied effort in WWII, and Ireland's contribution was missed. On the other hand, what's Canada doing in Afghanistan?
By the time we were looking at the UN display, my batteries were really creeping into the red. I could hardly remember being more weary. We went to the cafeteria, where Dave got me a really wonderful fancy coffee. Maybe that's what did the trick, because as the evening wore on, I started really coming out from under it.
So close... so close, and yet so far... The Guinness factory through the trees.
Meanwhile, we still had to get home. Not far from the foot of Collins Barracks is one of the two new Luas (tram) lines. Dave had never used it before, but I guess he could tell I was baked, so he gave it a go trying to figure out how to get a ticket. I think he wound up using his credit card. While we were milling around, I found two British coins, 10p and 5p. I made 15 pence out of the deal. I kept those coins as souvenirs.
Dave told me that the storefront below is where Bono got his nickname from.
The tram ride was enthralling, but in a strange way. We were going through some parts of town that looked really rough, like they'd seen better days. Closed up shops and empty streets. Not many, but a few. I found them beautiful, sad, and compelling. Like Temple Bar, there was an authenticity to them that mingles uneasily with the more successful, more modern aspects of Dublin. Very quickly, the tram had us back in places just like that, full of people and cleverly-named stores. I seem to recall we took a cab home that time, in the midst of the traffic, creeping our way back to Ballymun. Even by then, I think, I was noticing hopeful signs that the cold was easing up. It was as though I'd reached my lowest ebb, and now I was on my way back, fast. And that was a good thing, because the real road trips were about to begin.
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