Dublin (2004)

Dublin (2004) We spent 10 very fine days in Dublín during Blanca´s Easter vacation. This despite the weather, which was terrible: rainy and cold.

The city is extremely walkable, and we covered a lot of territory on foot, much of it following the steps of Leopold Bloom and Stephen Dedalus.[1] (Scholars reckon that Bloom covered 18 miles on June 16, 1904, but part of it in trams and carriages.) And there are buses running everywhere. You can buy a family “rover” ticket for €7 and travel all day long, even as far as County Wicklow, to the south.

We were very lucky to find a hotel with a perfect location: lower Gardiner Street, which is close to just about everything, but isolated enough to be peaceful.

Dublin is not cheap. The meals were especially expensive. Lunch at a simple Italian restaurant (spaghetti, wine) was between €40 and €50. A pint of stout is €3,50. Luckily the hotel was fairly reasonable, given Dublin standards (70€ per night, including breakfast.) I suppose that culinary perverts could survive the day with the hotel’s “full Irish breakfast”: bacon, kidneys, liver, and other assorted fried animal parts.[2]We ate toast and marmalade.

The Irish seem to be amazingly open, friendly, and helpful. This is true even outside of pubs. Inside pubs, you can be approached by a total stranger with the intimacy and affection appropriate for a life-long friend.

The pubs are a real treat.[3] They are generally old, atmospheric, and very friendly. (Bloom muses that it would be impossible to cross Dublin without passing a pub. But that puts the point far too mildly. It would be impossible to cross a street without passing one!)We quickly became addicted to pints of Guinness. (Murphy’s is also popular, but it lacks the ¨bite¨of Guinness.) There´s a great deal of art that goes into pouring an acceptable pint. The kosher way of doing it is to tilt the glass and fill it three quarters full, with lots of foam on top. Let it settle for several minutes, and top it up so that not a drop spills. (The bartenders at the Guinness factory are able to pour the last few drops onto the foamy head in the shape of a shamrock.)

One especially nice aspect of the visit was that at the end of March a total ban on smoking in public places went into effect. What a treat to be able to go into a pub and actually breathe! The people—even hard core drunks—abide by the new law. And the Irish—unlike the Spanish—are serious. They issue heavy fines for offenders, and there are signs posted all over. The downside of the whole thing, however, is that virtually every entrance to buildings is crammed with smokers neurotically sucking away, and one must run a gauntlet of miasma to enter. Everyone on the street seems to be and blowing filth and ashes on everyone else. Jesus, I hate smokers!

4/8/04. Aer Lingus flight from Valencia to Barcelona (€279 return). Hazelbrook Hotel (85 Lower Gardiner Street, Room #30); €70 per night, including breakfast. The hotel is close to the Customhouse, one of Dublin´s finest riverside landmarks. Italian restaurant (€50). Sir John Oliver Gogarty´s Pub. (Gogarty was a friend of Joyce´s on whom the character Buck Mulligan is based.) In Temple Bar we met several Brazilians from Minas playing samba in a large square. One sang and looked just like Djavan. I did some quick calculations: it was Thursday, and Dario´s radio show would be coming on in an hour, local time. They said they had internet access. I gave them Dario´s address, and they promised they’d write him and listen to the show.

4/9 (Friday). Dismal rainy day. The gloominess was worsened by the fact of it being some important Christian festival. All pubs closed. Not a drop to drink in all of Dublin! As Mr. Dedalus says in Portrait, “we are a priest-ridden race.”

We vainly searched for the Joyce Center on Upper Great George´s Street, although we did manage to locate Belvedere College, the Jesuit gymnasium that Joyce (and Stephen Dadalus) attended.

Trinity College is just over the Liffey across from O´Connell Street. It faces the impressive Bank of Ireland Building, which formerly housed the Irish Parliament. In the Old Library is the Book of Kells, the 9th century illuminated manuscript of the 4 Gospels. It’s gorgeous. The Long Hall, one floor up, houses the oldest books owned by the College.

We had an Italian lunch on Dame Street (€40, without wine!). We walked to Merrion Square, the heart of Dublin’s Georgian quarter. Then on to Dublin Castle, Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, and Christchurch Cathedral.

With pretty much everything closed, we settled for a falafel sandwich and mineral water at an Arab restaurant (€15).

4/10. We found the Joyce Center, now marked with a sign. It’s a wonderful repository of Joycean memorabilia, including the door of 7 Eccles Street. We then located 7 Eccles Street, or at least the spot, marked by a plaque. It is at present part of the Mater Hospital complex.

We had lunch at Davy Byrnes´ “moral pub” (Bloom). Alas, no more gorgonzola sandwich and burgundy, but we did have a reasonable pub lunch.

The collection of Celtic art at the National Museum is very impressive. But I liked the Natural History Museum even better. It’s a dusty old Victorian building with thousands of stuffed animals. It reminded me of the zoology Museum at Harvard.

We repaired to the Brazen Head Pub, which claims to be the oldest in Dublin. Delicious vegetable soup and several pints.

4/11. We took a very long walk along the north side of the Liffey and crossed over into the old docklands area near Ringsend. It’s being gentrified (just like the Docklands in London). We then went back to Merrion Square. Oscar Wilde was born in a house on the Square, and there’s a rakish statue of him across the way in the park. Opposite the statue are several columns with quotations. My favourite: “I drink in order to keep body and soul separate.” Then to St. Stephen’s Green, where we visited Cardinal Newman’s Chapel. Joyce (and Stephen) studied at the catholic University College, headed by Newman during the 19th century.

4/12. Eight miles south of Dublin is the village of Dan Logaire (in Joyce’s time, Kingstown). Its main feature is a huge harbour bounded by lobster-claw Victorian piers. We walked out to the lighthouse on the south side. It’s from here that the ferries go to Holyhead, Wales.

We walked about a mile to the village of Dalkey, where Stephen Dedalus had a teaching job. On entering an attractive pub and starting in on our pints, we were accosted by two typical Irish pub denizens, Sean and Paddy. They approached without the slightest sign of diffidence and launched into a non-stop comedy routine that had us falling off our stools. (Paddy was the “straight man.”)

Sean: “Did I tell ye about mi Uncle Mike who was a drinkin´ in the pub down the street? He asks the barman when he´s goin´ ta close. The barman takes out a calendar and says, ´I think it´ll be in December.´¨

Paddy. (His cell phone rings.) To Sean: “That´ll be yer wife callin´me.”

We walked back to Sandycove, Dan Logaire. Before getting to the Joyce tower, we passed the Forty Foot Gentlemen’s Bathing place, a cliff where the locals jump—winter and summer--into the gelid sea. Buck Mulligan takes his morning swim there in the first chapter of Ulysses. The place is now co-ed, and there’s a sign saying “Togs must be worn.” These last two developments occurred only after much strife.

Ulysses opens in a martello tower, a 19th century anti-Napoleonic fortification where Joyce stayed with Oliver St. John Gogarty (“Buck Mulligan”) in 1904. It’s now a museum dedicated to Joyce. There are fantastic views of Dublin Bay from the top floor, and the second floor recreates the “breakfast” scene. There’s a statue of a black panther, which commemorates the English guest Haine´s nightmare about such an animal, which was responsible to Joyce´s leaving the tower. The bottom floor contains lots of memorabilia, including a pandy-bat of the sort with which Stephen is punished in Portrait. There are numerous translations of Joyce´s work. I wondered what it must be like to try to translate Ulysses into Chinese!

We walked back into town and found a pub for lunch. As we were getting ready to leave, a man approached us and apologised for intruding. He simply wanted to say that his life was going wonderfully (he had recently turned 60, had just returned from his granddaughter’s birthday party, etc.) and wanted to tell someone about it.

Back in Dublin, we had a pint in Conlay´s Pub, followed by an Italian dinner.

4/13. Glendalough (1½ hours). Glendalough, County Wicklow, is located in a pristine valley, bounded by two lakes; it is one of the premier medieval monastery sites in Ireland. In the 9th century, one St. Kevin came here and lived happily dining on roots and berries and communing with the animals. But soon his fame spread and thousands of others joined him to live in seclusion.

4/14. Guinness factory. The Guinness factory is in fact a small city. We took in the exhibitions at the Storehouse(13€), which illustrate the making of the stuff (water, yeast, hops, barley) and the history of the factory. There are 7 floors. On the top is the Gravity Bar, where each visitor is given a complimentary pint. The view of Dublin—360 degrees—is spectacular. We walked back to Temple Bar for a few more pints.

4/15. We got a bus to Glasnevin Cemetery, several miles north of the city center and location of the Paddy Dignam funeral episode of Ulysses (“Hades”). The O´ Connell tomb dominates the site. It was almost completely deserted and mysterious, especially with the misty rain. The square watchtowers, located at various points on the walled fence, were for controlling body-snatchers. We then walked a mile or so north to the Botanic Gardens, which are impressive. Back in town, we lunched at Pasta Fresca. Nearby, on Nassau St., one can still see “Finn´s Hotel,” painted on the side of a wall. This is where Nora Barnacle worked as a chambermaid during the period when she first met Joyce. Leopold Bloom stops in Sweeny´s Chemists to buy lemon soap for Molly. I did the same for Blanca. (The price has gone up: three cakes, €9.) W went into the beautiful National Library, setting for Stephen´s discourse on Shakespeare. Crossing the river, we had a pint in the Flowing Tide, opposite the Abbey Theater.

4/16. Phoenix Park, northwest of the center, is the largest city park in Europe (twice the size of Hamstead Heath and of Central Park). It´s dominated by Nelson´s column. We walked up a hill with a huge cross on it, commemorating the Pope´s visit several years ago.

After a pint at a place outside the park gate, we walked about a mile to Kilmainham Jail. It was here that many of the most famous figures of the Irish independence movement were imprisoned and, sometimes, executed. (Parnell in the 80´s, the rebels of 1916, the civil warriors of 1922). The old (18th century) part of the prison was usually inhabited by poor people. Children could be sent there for throwing snowballs or pulling up flowers. During the Potato Famine, the place was filled with beggars. The new, Victorian, wing featured such mod cons as light in the cells, and housed mostly political prisoners. The jail was closed in 1924. It was one of the most interesting places we visited, a genuine snapshot of Irish history.

4/17. Enniskerry is an archetypically beautiful small village, in County Wicklow. We went via bus. But the weather was so bad that we just ate and came back.

4/18. Up at 4:00. Bus to the airport at 5:00. We visited the house in Alcántara on the way back from Valencia airport. The place is turning out to be a real gem. A rough stone wall has emerged on one side of the living room, and the arch in the kitchen gives the place a totally new feel. But that’s another story.

[1] Joyce provides a wonderful “lens” on Dublin. To prepare for the trip, I re-read Dubliners, Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man, and Ulysses. I read the biography of Nora Barnacle by Brenda Maddox, which Blanca had in Spanish translation. Martha Nussbaum’s chapter on Joyce from Upheavals of Thought was, predictably, wonderful. For constructing routes, the “Ulysses Map” and Robert Nicholson’s The Ulysses Guide: Tours Through Joyce´s Dublin (2002), were very helpful. [2] The tradition goes on. “Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls. He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart; liver slices fried with crustcrumbs, fried hencod´s roes. Most of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine” (¨Calypso”). [3] Partial list of places we favoured with our custom: Oliver St. John Gogarty, Palace Bar, Temple Bar, O´Sheas, Sirens Bar (Ormond Hotel), Gravity Bar (Guinness Storehouse), Brazen Head, Conways, Davy Byrnes, Flowing Tide, Kehoe´s, MacTurcailles.