Sabbatical 2001-2 : Dublin, Ireland : days 28-30

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Dublin, Ireland As we trained east across the green hills of Ireland, the weather improved so much that when we emerged from Connolly Station it was mostly sunny. We blinked like nocturnal animals at the bustle and chaos of a big city. Then we found a taxi driver to set us right. But wait! I forgot to tell you about the train ride...

The traveling office

photo credit: Chad Abramson

It was restful, dry, and warm, but not very scenic, and so I spent most of the time working on the Northern Ireland pages while Rochelle watched the countryside stream by the window. Covering so much territory in a short time is much easier by train than by car or airplane -- there's none of the stress of navigating or surviving strange traffic, and lovely long bits of time when nothing special is going on.

By the time we were most of the way through rush hour in the city center -- of course we had to go through the center, and so did everybody else; how else could we meet each other? -- we were agreed that we were going to like this city. Instead of a uniform greyness, some of the people didn't look at all like some of the others ... and there was some flavor and style to the buildings, unlike Sligo's drabness. Our cabbie told us that a third of the Irish in Ireland -- we think he meant the Republic, which excludes Ulster in the north -- lived in Dublin. It looked to us like they were all walking on the streets of the center, or driving vehicles through.

Many downtown streets are pedestrianized

We got ourselves situated in our lodgings -- not very pleasant, unfortunately, but Dublin on a summer weekend is either not very pleasant, or very pricey -- then struck out for the city center again. We quickly figured out that ALL busses go to the center (of course) but finding one that goes to the right part of the outer city takes a native.

We also found the folks friendly and felt at home.

We sought the Dublin edition of a chain of noodle shops called Wagamama, which they say means "caring for yourself." We needed some Caspar-style food, and we found it at Wagamana.

Good to the last drop!

Then we strolled some more, enjoying the late sunset and lingering twilight of these northern latitudes. The streets were filled with people, many college-aged and enjoying the ambiance of a university town. Of course there's plenty of homogenization and americanization -- the Irish sailor's favorite fast food is Burger King -- but it seemed to be thoroughly flavored with Dublin's special qualities ...more on those later.

The happily crowded streets and student bustle gave us a really good feeling about Dublin. When our feet were tired and we had our strategy for the next day, Saturday, worked out, we gave up trying to figure out the bus system and hailed a cab back to our lodgings.

It was a Friday night, and maybe we should have known to stay out and pub crawl, but we're just not pub crawlers... so it came to us. Our room, it turned out, was back to back with a raucous pub where the inmates sang lustily, joyously out of tune until well past midnight. Somehow, this didn't disturb us, but emphasized the difference between Dublin and Elsewhere. I can't imagine a crowd of regulars at the Caspar Inn singing Sweet Molly Malone...

Sunset at Trinity College

The main courtyard, Trinity College

The exploration plan for Saturday relied on Guide Friday -- remember him from Edinburgh and Oxford? -- a hop-on-hop-off tour service that hits the high spots of, in this case, Dublin. We caught it on the way back from Phoenix park, where we were staying, and rode in to the Center, where we got off at Trinity College and caught the tour (per instructions from our travel guru, Rick Steves.)

Trinity resonates with the authority of ages of scholarly pursuits, and the names of its scholars are stellar. The student who guided us had just the right mixture of awe -- "Oscar Wilde lived behind the brown door at the end of that passage..." -- with appropriate sarcasm -- "nearly 500,000 visitors come to Trinity to see the sights, not to study, a characteristic shared with the students..." He explained why the Henry Moore sculpture (seen above) occupies a random spot on the lawn instead of the place intended, in front of the Berkeley Library (below; personally, I like the deconstructed globe better) -- Henry thought the new library "an excresence."

Trinity's oldest building
A residential building put up at the end of the 17th Century and home to some of the world's great scholars; they finally got around to installing indoor plumbing in the 1950s

The Berkeley Library's sculpture

The Berkeley is one of five "copyright" libraries in the British Isles, which means they have a right to a copy of every book published in England and Ireland. Needless to say, the collection outgrew the original library, which is now the place where Trinity's collection of precious books lives -- notably, the Book of Kells. Our guide turned us loose at the entrance to the Book of Kells exhibit after explaining to us briefly what we were about to see.

The Book of Kells is rich that I can't put it here on a journal page. If you're willing to take the time, I've created a Dublin Treasures page with images from the Book of Kells and the Dublin Museum of Archaeology and History.

"Quoniam" detail

Hopping back on our Guide Friday bus in a state of heightened awareness, I enjoyed the crowded shopping precincts so close to the small wonder of the Book of Kells. At the foot of Grafton Street there's a statue of the aforementioned Molly Malone, known affectionately (according to Guide Friday) in these parts as "The Tart with the Cart.

The Dish with the Fish

Our guide explained that much of Dublin is Georgian, and built at a time when there was a glass tax. This explains why the ground floor windows are largest. The architectural justification was that this made buildings look taller and more stately, but it didn't hurt that the servants lived on the top floor with the really short windows.

We've noticed that a preponderance of homes in the British Isles are what might be called "duplexes" in the U.S.

Grafton Street on Saturday

a typical Georgian residence

After an exciting little disagreement over ownership of a table in a crowded little dive, we decided to go top drawer, and had a lovely lunch at Ireland's high church of coffee, Bewleys.

After lunch, Chad said "Enough Culture!" and headed off for one of Dublin's internet cafés. Rochelle and I soldiered on to the Museum where we viewed some gorgeous early gold work -- pictures may be found on the Dublin Treasures page.

At the end of the day we got together again for the obligatory pilgrimage to Guinness, where we saw the original 9,000 year lease for the premises where the great beer is brewed. Now there's a concept for you: if you want an institution to be around for awhile, grace it with a long lease!

Chad enjoys his Guinness!

Chad hadn't been indulging since Edinburgh, so it didn't take much of his free pint to get him toasted. Rochelle and I enjoyed ours, too, and we made our way home on rubbery legs. Mighty stuff, that Guinness! It explains many things about the Irish.

The Parnell statue

Sunday, after the zoo (sorry, no pictures; the gorillas and orangutans were great, but you've seen zoos...) Chad hit the internet again while Rochelle and I took a patriotism walk. While the Irish are great writers and beer makers, they are also outstanding nationalists, and this pride in Irishness -- what Yeats called "the indomitable Irishry" -- is fully recognized in modern Dublin.

Too much pride? Is the time for nationalism gone now that multi-national corporations rule? Should the Irish think less about their stubborn identity and more about their unfortunate alcoholism? (Our Irish Guide Friday remarked that in this city of great museums it's a scandal not to have a Museum of Drunkenness.)

After only a week here, we can't even begin to have an opinion.

But we can be inspired by the basic humanity inherent in the Irish struggle. In the GPO -- the General Post Office that was blown up by the British attempt to suppress Irish Independence in 1916 -- we found a copy of the document that caused the trouble then, and informs the Irish spirit right 'round the world to this day.

The Declaration

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updated 6 August 2001 : 14:47 Caspar (Pacific) time
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send website feedback to the Solarnet webster

© 2001-2002 by Caspar Institute. All Rights Reserved.

The traveling office photo credit: Chad Abramson	It was restful, dry, and warm, but not very scenic, and so I spent most of the time working on the Northern Ireland pages while Rochelle watched the countryside stream by the window. Covering so much territory in a short time is much easier by train than by car or airplane -- there's none of the stress of navigating or surviving strange traffic, and lovely long bits of time when nothing special is going on.
By the time we were most of the way through rush hour in the city center -- of course we had to go through the center, and so did everybody else; how else could we meet each other? -- we were agreed that we were going to like this city. Instead of a uniform greyness, some of the people didn't look at all like some of the others ... and there was some flavor and style to the buildings, unlike Sligo's drabness. Our cabbie told us that a third of the Irish in Ireland -- we think he meant the Republic, which excludes Ulster in the north -- lived in Dublin. It looked to us like they were all walking on the streets of the center, or driving vehicles through.
Many downtown streets are pedestrianized	We got ourselves situated in our lodgings -- not very pleasant, unfortunately, but Dublin on a summer weekend is either not very pleasant, or very pricey -- then struck out for the city center again. We quickly figured out that ALL busses go to the center (of course) but finding one that goes to the right part of the outer city takes a native. We also found the folks friendly and felt at home.

We sought the Dublin edition of a chain of noodle shops called Wagamama, which they say means "caring for yourself." We needed some Caspar-style food, and we found it at Wagamana.	Good to the last drop!
	Then we strolled some more, enjoying the late sunset and lingering twilight of these northern latitudes. The streets were filled with people, many college-aged and enjoying the ambiance of a university town. Of course there's plenty of homogenization and americanization -- the Irish sailor's favorite fast food is Burger King -- but it seemed to be thoroughly flavored with Dublin's special qualities ...more on those later.
The happily crowded streets and student bustle gave us a really good feeling about Dublin. When our feet were tired and we had our strategy for the next day, Saturday, worked out, we gave up trying to figure out the bus system and hailed a cab back to our lodgings. It was a Friday night, and maybe we should have known to stay out and pub crawl, but we're just not pub crawlers... so it came to us. Our room, it turned out, was back to back with a raucous pub where the inmates sang lustily, joyously out of tune until well past midnight. Somehow, this didn't disturb us, but emphasized the difference between Dublin and Elsewhere. I can't imagine a crowd of regulars at the Caspar Inn singing Sweet Molly Malone...	Sunset at Trinity College

The main courtyard, Trinity College	The exploration plan for Saturday relied on Guide Friday -- remember him from Edinburgh and Oxford? -- a hop-on-hop-off tour service that hits the high spots of, in this case, Dublin. We caught it on the way back from Phoenix park, where we were staying, and rode in to the Center, where we got off at Trinity College and caught the tour (per instructions from our travel guru, Rick Steves.)
Trinity resonates with the authority of ages of scholarly pursuits, and the names of its scholars are stellar. The student who guided us had just the right mixture of awe -- "Oscar Wilde lived behind the brown door at the end of that passage..." -- with appropriate sarcasm -- "nearly 500,000 visitors come to Trinity to see the sights, not to study, a characteristic shared with the students..." He explained why the Henry Moore sculpture (seen above) occupies a random spot on the lawn instead of the place intended, in front of the Berkeley Library (below; personally, I like the deconstructed globe better) -- Henry thought the new library "an excresence."	Trinity's oldest building A residential building put up at the end of the 17th Century and home to some of the world's great scholars; they finally got around to installing indoor plumbing in the 1950s
The Berkeley Library's sculpture	The Berkeley is one of five "copyright" libraries in the British Isles, which means they have a right to a copy of every book published in England and Ireland. Needless to say, the collection outgrew the original library, which is now the place where Trinity's collection of precious books lives -- notably, the Book of Kells. Our guide turned us loose at the entrance to the Book of Kells exhibit after explaining to us briefly what we were about to see.

At the end of the day we got together again for the obligatory pilgrimage to Guinness, where we saw the original 9,000 year lease for the premises where the great beer is brewed. Now there's a concept for you: if you want an institution to be around for awhile, grace it with a long lease!
Chad enjoys his Guinness!	Chad hadn't been indulging since Edinburgh, so it didn't take much of his free pint to get him toasted. Rochelle and I enjoyed ours, too, and we made our way home on rubbery legs. Mighty stuff, that Guinness! It explains many things about the Irish.

	updated 6 August 2001 : 14:47 Caspar (Pacific) time this site generated with 100% recycled electrons! send website feedback to the Solarnet webster
© 2001-2002 by Caspar Institute. All Rights Reserved.