Wandering Ballymun

Thursday was to be the day that David and I, with the help of his friend of great magnanimity, Larry, were to go to Ulster. My family is from Ulster — specifically, County Fermanagh — and one of the big to-dos for the trip had always been to get to Enniskillen, if possible. Now it looked like this would be possible.

I got up that morning in advance of everyone else and got cleaned up. I spoke with Mary for a while before Dave got up. She offered me breakfast but I didn't want to put her out that early, with Dave not even up yet, so I politely declined. I imagined that she'd want some time to tend to Cara without having to worry about my comfort, so for that reason, and others, I excused myself to take a walk.

I'd actually wanted to just take a brisk morning wander in the immediate vicinity, just off on my own to sort of take it in. Unguided, unintended. Just looking around. It seemed like a nice way to pass some time before things really got rolling, so I set out from Ard Na Meala with the vague idea of heading north, then east to Ballymun Road, and then coming back from the proximity of the shopping centre.


This area of Ballymun is currently undergoing an urban renewal. There were, among other things, seven apartment buildings in Ballymun named after the seven signatories of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic. From what I understand, low-rise townhouses are meant to replace the six towers that have been demolished.


I didn't do it. :)


Looked over by a four-legged Jackeen.


Not very illustrative, but I was amused by the odd sentiment: PEDESTRIANS KILL, and then the arrow. Obviously the original intent was to guide people like me to the street. Ballymun has a bit of a rough-edges reputation, though, so I'm glad I saw it broad daylight. :)


A wide-angle shot of some attractive (well, to me, anyway) apartments at the very north edge of my little sojourn. This was assembled from several shots using a freeware program called AutoStitch.


Heading east, I arrived at Ballymun Road and headed south. This view looks south towards the intersection where we were catching the bus (across the street) to head south to O'Connell Street and the city centre in general.


An election for the European Parliament was underway.


By the time I reached Ballymun Shopping Centre, I discovered I was indeed rather hungry. I started wondering if they had something familiar in the mall... a McDonald's, say, or Burger King, or even some "exotic" local fast food chain where I might snag something breakfastesque. Ballymun Shopping Centre is a strange kind of hybrid... it's not really an "indoor" mall; it's not really an exposed strip mall... it's more a sort of covered cluster of mingled strip malls reminiscent of a place I knew when I was very young. But wandering through it, I found nothing quite what I was after. So I went into SPAR. SPAR, I had correctly deduced, was a European convenience store chain. I ducked in for a quick look around at what was on offer, and was completely slack-jawed to find this:


If you're not Canadian, your immediate reaction will be, "yeah, so, and...?" If you are Canadian, you'll no doubt be as stunned as I was. Tim Hortons? In Dublin? I would have been amazed to see a kiosk like this in most places in the United States, let alone in Europe. But, as I learned on my return home, SPAR has made a deal with Tim Hortons to serve their coffee and donuts at several locations in Europe, and incredibly, one of them happens to be in Ballymun.

Tim Hortons, if you don't know, is a vast chain of coffee shops across Canada, and now making headway in the United States as well. It's named after a hockey player of the 1960s and 70s. Tim Horton played for the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Buffalo Sabres (among other teams). Back then, NHL players didn't make anything like the money they make these days. The smart ones would set money aside and set themselves up in a business to retire on. That's what Tim Horton did, opening his first store in Hamilton, Ontario sometime in the mid-60s. Sadly, he was killed in a car accident on his way home from a game. But his chain took off; there are thousands of them across Canada now and it verges on a patriotic institution. Seeing it represented in Dublin was really a shock, and for a few moments, I was intensely aware that I was far from home, and the differences I'd been discounting became very real. Then it struck me that this was a symbol that those differences were, in fact, closing up. So was the Mars Bar I bought and ate on my way "home" to Ard Na Meala. :)

By then, everyone was up and around, and Cara and the cats, Sammy and Todd, were having a blast chasing bubbles around the garden.

First night: the kindness of strangers

I'm not sure now – I wasn't sure then – but I think the name of the pub we walked to in Santry was Kilmardinny Inn. We took our time getting there. Dave and Jay's father, Thomas, is not in optimal health.

Regardless of whether I actually have the pub's name right, it represented a departure for me. The place was huge. It seemed like four or five giant rooms full of squat tables and stools, clustered around a bar. It was dimly lit – largely, the light seemed to be ambient, coming in through the large windows above us. There was a soccer game being played at the time, and a few of the folks there were watching it casually. A woman came by just after we arrived, a friend of theirs, and chatted Dave up about the family and the pending new arrival. It had a wonderful small-town feel to it, despite being in a city of about a million people.


Dave had hipped the man behind the bar, because whenever a glass was empty – or even slightly before – a new one showed up in its place. There were four of us, and I think Dave bought all, or nearly all, the rounds. That was when he told his dad and brother that I wasn't to pay for anything. I have no idea what Dave laid out for drinks that afternoon, but I'd probably blanch if I did. One thing I can say is that booze isn't cheap in Dublin, not even compared to Toronto.

We had a lot of beer. A lot of beer. Something I noticed about Dave was that he seemed to glide along on the beer without any sign of inebriation... until he hit some kind of set point, and then it just exponentiated. Bang, like a rocket, he was in orbit. I saw this happen a couple of times and it was fascinating to watch. That afternoon, it was hitting him about 3ish. We took a cab back to Ballymun and Dave simply had to grab "a nap". Jason and I left him to it and took another cab back to his dad's place in Santry, where I met his brother Tom and sister Joanne. We kept drinking the night away. At some point, pizza and chicken fingers arrived (Domino's, I believe... they're everywhere)... with it, we had white wine. The mob flick Goodfellahs came on and Jason and I spent the movie heckling and making comments. I don't remember much of it, of course, but I'm convinced we had a good time.

I ended up spending the night there in the room Jason's kids use when they visit him. I don't think I took anything off; I just passed out on the mattress on the floor. When I woke up, it was cool and damp (no one seemed to have double glazing or bug screens... you open a window and it's 110% open). It's the kind of cold that's slight, but effective... it soaks right into you. Despite the dampness, I had what felt like a dry throat. I hoped I wasn't coming down with something. I made my way downstairs... I guess it was about 7... and no one else was up yet. So I hung around with Franky the cat for a while... tried to figure out how to turn on the TV and failed... went into the kitchen and visited the dogs... Sammy and Sally? Not sure now... a husky and a basset hound. I drifted back to the front of the house and was looking out into the street when I heard someone in the kitchen. It was Dave and Jason's dad. We had a little chat about my impressions so far, and he made me tea, and returned to his room.


Jay was up not long afterwards and we started making arrangements for getting back to Ballymun. He called over. I was worried that they'd be upset with me... the plan had been to head over to Santry for a bit, and then go back and join them in the evening, which, of course, never happened. I thought they might be offended that I'd just taken off, crashed somewhere else, but no... they didn't mind at all, which really impressed me. Some people can get pretty uptight about stuff like that.

Dave had plans for us to head downtown, so the three of us caught the bus on Ballymun Road down to O'Connell Street. Route 13, I think. While we were waiting, I remember someone saying it looked like rain, at the exact same moment I was watching a rain shower in the street in front of us, not ten feet away, without a drop touching us. Lasted about 15 seconds. I've never seen anything like it before in my life.

Anyway, the bus was a double-decker. It was €1.60 to ride to O'Connell, which we did in the top level. There were some Americans a few rows in front of us, a couple in late middle age, pointing things out and commenting enthusiastically. Then the "American" man turned slightly and I saw the Canadian flag on the side of his ball cap. Hey, usually even we can't tell. :)


The trip was brisk, taking us through a very built-up area, some of it with glorious overhanging trees and beautiful homes. Finally, as the sun came out, we arrived at O'Connell Street. We got off the bus and Dave led us around, full of knowledge and interesting facts, knowing just where to go. I didn't realize till later he was blazingly hung over. What a trooper.

A fast introduction to Dublin

David waggled his finger at his father and brother in the pub in Santry, admonishing them, in reference to me, “This man pays for nothing while he’s here.”

To a large, and somewhat embarrassing, extent during my stay in Ireland, that was the case. I was supplied with copious amounts of drink and food, my lodgings were free, and my transportation was essentially the gift of friends of friends. Ireland, in the form of a dozen people or so, opened her arms to me, a full-fledged member of her Diaspora, and embraced me.

I crossed the Atlantic with €500 (over $800 Canadian) in various places on my person. I came home with about twenty-five. It vanished in my attempts to stand my share of rounds (I never could keep up), souvenirs for family and friends, and my insistence on paying for some of the meals out. On the whole, there’s no question I came out far, far ahead. And not just financially.

The people I lodged with were not, strictly speaking, family, though I’m not romanticizing or embellishing when I say that I strongly have that sense of them. At every instance, they treated me like blood, and honestly, without guile or pretension. This is all the more overwhelming to me because of the nature of my family here. We, and the people I know, are by and large WASPish, reserved, undemonstrative — regardless of race or religion. Even close friends maintain a certain froideure. It’s not exactly at the level of Germans who work side by side for decades and still address one another as “Herr”, but there’s a noticeable difference between Toronto and Dublin in this regard. I had never met David, or his wife Mary, before… aside from internet exchanges, phone conversations, and a few packages. But I was accorded a welcome like an old friend come home again. And not just by them, but by their extended family and friends as well. Listen to me as I tell you the story of my week in Ireland.

* * * * *

I dozed through the six-hour flight from Toronto to Dublin. I can’t strictly say I slept. My boss, originally from Spain and an adventurous traveler, gave me some non-prescription pills to battle jetlag, and I have to say, they quite did the trick, coming and going. What I do know is, I took a shot of the graphic of the plane leaving Toronto, and I remember it catching the corner of New York on its way to Montreal… and then I remember seeing us flying over Shannon and approaching Limerick. A small mercy for a guy who isn’t enamored of flying.


At some point during the flight, one of the flight attendants came around with declaration forms non-EU passengers had to fill out. It was with no small thrill that I proudly informed her I had an Irish passport. It was with an even bigger thrill that I passed through customs at the airport. People with blue passports and the forms queued up in a long, slow line. Those of us with burgundy passports passed through much more quickly. I handed the man in the booth my Irish passport; he glanced at it for three or four seconds, passed it back to me, and nodded me in. Into Ireland. My country. My other home. That was all the dreaming, all the work of getting the documents and the registration and the passport, made real... come true. I would never presume to call myself an Irishman... but I was Irish. And that was enough.


So suddenly there I was, in another country, on another continent. I’ve been to the United States, but that’s really just more Canada... or vice-versa. But here I was, in Europe, in Ireland. Standing there alone, waiting for my bag to show up on the belt, wondering what was ahead of me. Would I find my friend? Would we get along? Would I be a week-long toothache for him? I certainly hoped not.


And there I was, bag in hand, coming out into the common area. And he spotted me. He, Dave — and his friend… a man who turned out to be, in fact, his brother, Jason, of whom I had heard much over the years. Jason drives; Dave doesn’t. But Jason never showed a moment of resentment for his chore of ferrying his brother’s friend around over several days, or accompanying us on several bus trips. I came to regard Jay as a friend on his own terms… particularly later that day.

Everyone in Ireland drives standard, I guess. Jason does. His VW Rabbit zipped along the road south of the airport to his brother’s home in Ballymun, which for me, will forever be “home” when I think of Ireland and Dublin. There was an alley behind their place where we parked… a longtime fan of British television, I was reminded somehow of The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole. I have seen places like that in Toronto, but it’s not quite the same.


And I met Mary, and Dave and Mary’s daughter Cara. Mary is expecting, very soon. But she seemed without a care for it, and was so gracious and considerate to me, a virtual stranger, that the sense of blood relation truly washed over me. It was a real revelation for me, come from beyond the wave, as the song goes.

It was a fast couple or hours that saw me in Ballymun, putting my things away in a the room that will soon be Cara’s. After that, it was off to Santry, where Jason and his father and some of their siblings live. This is a story for another installment.