Third trip to Dublin City Centre

By the time Tuesday rolled around, I was kind of dragging. I was sneezing quite a bit and even starting to cough. You know you're in for the rough part when the cold moves down into your chest. But I had the meds and I had limited time, so I sacked up and went with my magnanimous host Dave back into the heart of town.

...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.

First trip to Dublin City Centre

We got off the bus at Parnell Square. By this time, I should point out, I’d had that scratchy, dry throat sensation for hours, and it was becoming clear to me that I was, indeed, coming down with something. I only hoped it wouldn’t prove too serious during my stay. Nevertheless, there were things to see and do. Many.

Immediately where we got off were the sights of Findlaters Church, apparently undergoing some sort of exterior restoration work, and the Garden of Remembrance, which was opened in 1966 by President de Valera on the 50th anniversary of the Easter Rising. It is dedicated to “all those who gave their lives in the cause of Irish freedom”. It was strikingly beautiful, featuring a pool in the shape of the cross and headed by a statue of the Children of Lir, who were transformed into swans by their jealous stepmother. Legend had it that they could only be released by a monk, and during their time as swans, St. Patrick Christianized Ireland. After 900 years, they were released. The statue was added to the garden to symbolize the rebirth of the Irish nation after so many centuries under English rule.


I got an inadvertently funny picture when I shot the statue from the side just as Jason was walking away. It looks as though one of the children of Lir covets Jay’s cap and is determined to grab it.


At the corner of Parnell Street and O’Connell Street is a memorial to Charles Stewart Parnell himself, where I took this photo with Dave in the frame. Parnell represents one of the great “what if” stories in Irish history. A 19th century Member of Parliament, Parnell was an ascendancy Protestant, but an Irish nationalist who spent most of his life working, and nearly achieving, Home Rule for Ireland before the dawn of the 20th century. Intransigence by Ulster Protestants and in the House of Lords on the one hand, and parochial Irish Catholic attitudes towards divorce on the other, conspired to frustrate him and damage his reputation. He died young, at only 45. Had he lived, and had he been able to achieve his goals, it’s possible that all of Ireland would have been united under a single home rule parliament, that there never would have been a partition of the country, an Anglo-Irish War nor an Irish Civil War, and arguably, that there might never have been an Irish Republic. It’s possible that if the Irish had achieved control of their own domestic affairs before the Easter Rising and the bitterness that followed, Ireland might today have a constitutional relationship to the rest of the United Kingdom similar to that of Scotland today. For better or worse, though, that’s not how things played out. Parnell’s reputation has only grown in the years since his death. He was on the Irish ₤100 note prior to Ireland’s adoption of the euro, and his headstone, so I’m told, bears only one word: PARNELL — nothing more needing to be said. The "uncrowned King of Ireland".

The text on the Parnell Monument quotes the man himself: “No man has a right to fix the boundary to the march of a nation. No man has a right to say to his country, ‘Thus far shalt thou go and no further’. We have never attempted to fix the ne plus ultra to the progress of Ireland’s nationhood and we never shall.”


Our next stop was the General Post Office. I knew this building mainly from the opening of the movie Michael Collins (starring Liam Neeson, Aidin Quinn, and Alan Rickman). To me, this was a big deal, because it was something tangible and real from the Easter Rising. This is where they surrendered, where they were marched out to stack their arms, and from whence they went to their fates... prison, or the firing squad. As tourists have done for decades now, we milled around, looking at the bullet holes in the pillars and the façade.


Below is your man, "Big Jim" Larkin, the labour organizer and adjutant, who led the 1913 Dublin Lockout. Behind him you can see the Dublin Spire, which stands where Nelson's Pillar stood (till it was blown up by the IRA in 1966).


And the man himself, Daniel O'Connell. In Ireland, O’Connell is known as “The Great Emancipator”. He didn’t free the slaves (exactly), but he did free the Catholics (and to some extent, the Jews). It was largely thanks to his efforts that Catholics and “Dissenters” (Presbyterians) were allowed to sit in the House of Commons. He was less successful in his efforts to dissolve the union between Ireland and Great Britain and return Ireland to its former status as a separate kingdom under the British Crown. O’Connell was a constitutionalist and never supported the armed struggles to free Ireland. His example informed other, later liberators, Gandhi among them. Between them, O’Connell and Parnell justly anchor the ends of O’Connell Street.


We crossed the Liffey and on a pedestrian landing in the middle of a crosswalk, I noticed these inlaid footprints. I thought it was a nice effect.


At Townsend Street, there's a stone erected to the memory of another stone, which was put up in 9th century by Vikings. At the time, what's now Townsend Street was actually the edge of the River Liffey, before the land was reclaimed. The stone pillar, called "the Steine", was a landing marker, and it stood in this vicinity till around 1750, when it was removed. What a real shame! Imagine if they'd been able to keep that around. This replacement was put up in the 1980s. Below is Jason looking at the plaque.


Some of the interesting sights on our way back toward the Liffey. A store called Get Stuffed, and a poster for a musical version of Michael Collins.


Dave knew I was a big fan of the movie The Commitments, and pointed out to me that this bridge is the one you see Jimmy Rabbitte crossing over at the start of the movie.


Below is the Custom House. It was destroyed by the IRA in the Anglo-Irish War, and rebuilt by the Free State government afterwards and serves as government offices. Many irreplaceable records dating back to the Middle Ages were lost in the destruction.


On the south side of the Liffey, just before crossing back to the north side to see the Custom House, is this sign sending you to the other three corners of the island. Curiously, they all seem to be in the same direction.


Below is one of the things I came to Dublin specifically to see. These are the famine sculptures by Rowan Gillespie. Situated between the Liffey and the Custom House, they represent the figures of the famine Irish fleeing the country at their point of departure in Dublin, back in the late 1840s. This is particularly meaningful to me because in Toronto, we have the complementary ones, by the same artist, at Ireland Park on the shore of Lake Ontario, at the point of arrival for 38,000 Famine Irish.


Below are the plaques with the names of supporters. Ones of interest, among others: Dermot Morgan, whom I presume is the self-same late actor who portrayed the title character in Father Ted; Martin McGuinness, one-time chairman of the IRA's Army Council and now Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland (how times change), and "John" and Aline Chrétien of Canada, whom I can only assume are actually Jean and Aline, the former Prime Minister and his wife, with the PM's name anglicized. Wow, you'd think that's a mistake they'd never make in Ireland! :)


...And speaking of whom, I was blown away to see this plaque, below, acknowledging Canada's debt to the victims of the Famine and their descendents. This was the only national-level recognition I saw at the site. At least the PM's name was spelled right on this one. :)


Jason and Dave read the plaque too. I remember Jay commenting that he'd had no idea Ireland had such ties to Canada. That's the American PR machine for you — every Irish emigrant wound up a cop or Tammany Hall politician in New York City. Sure, don't we all know that?


My cold was really coming on by this time and I was grateful for the chance to sit and stew for a bit. We crossed the Liffey again into the Temple Bar area of the south side (named, as you might guess, for a bar called Temple Bar). Temple Bar was a glorious set of pedestrian streets that, of all the places we were ever in in Ireland, really took my heart and captured my imagination. Of all the things I saw, this was the place that most stirred me with thoughts and feelings of really being in the Old World. We didn't go to Temper Bar itself, but we did go to a really salubrious pub called the Vat House. Sitting there together with Dave and Jay for the next hour and a half was an absolutely perfect, Zen moment for me. It's one I know I'll return to in my mind over and over again.


Dave was getting over his hangover by then and it was easy for me and Jay to prevail upon him to indulge in a hair of the dog. Jay confessed himself not much of a drinking man and I guess I have to agree because his libation of choice was Budweiser. Yeah, an Irishman slumming in the archetypal Yankee beer! But I have to admit, the stuff was everywhere, always alongside Coors Light. It's true; Americanization has gone too far. :)

NOTE: Added on Sunday, June 14: a little bit of video of our taxi trip home from the city centre. Warning: some strong language. Enjoy. :)