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Grafton Street
Pedestrians a.k.a. shoppers rule!The raucous calls of seagulls all night did nothing to interrupt my ten hours of sleep. Great draughts of water helped me overcome the dehydration of flying, and breakfast at
Ann’s restored my energy (
black pudding and mushrooms today). As forecast, the sun shone again - great exploring weather.
Across the Liffey River and past Trinity College, I found Grafton Street, recommended for buying a SIM card for my phone. Grafton Street was astonishing! A long stretch of the wide street was a pedestrian mall bordered by Irish and international big brand names. People hustled and bustled, whether tourists or locals. Later I learned it has been a pedestrian zone for forty years. The only phone company I saw was Vodafone, but their package that included the UK as well as Ireland was €40, a bit stiff.
My next destination was
St Patrick’s Cathedral that I missed out on yesterday. I walked along various streets that the map seemed to indicate were correct, but my sense of direction didn’t work well here. In a hotel, I asked the receptionist which way I should be going, and she confidently pointed me back to the way I had come. I chose to walk back
Dublin Fusiliers Arch 1904
Gate into St Stephen's Green inside a big park,
St Stephen’s Green. In the leafy formal garden there were information signs about how it had been a prisoner-of-war camp during the
1916 Easter Rising, which lasted only matter of days.
Checking the map again, I decided that the receptionist had been wrong in her directions, and that almost as much walking would be required again to put myself back close to the Cathedral. This time I chose to walk through a modern shopping mall; unfortunately, it had doors only on one street and my attempt at a diagonal path was thwarted. By repeatedly consulting the map, I did at last find myself on St Patrick’s Close, by the church. Now the distraction was
Marsh's Library – how could I pass by a library!
Admission was €2, for it was actually an archive of 17 – 19 century books in Ireland. A staff member briefly told me the story of the library, initially populated by three large donations of books. He pointed out some books that had been shot by a British soldier firing into the building when he suspected some rebels were there. The damaged bindings were a source of pride and had not been repaired. He also
Reading "cage"
Marsh's Library proudly showed me the table where
James Joyce had studied
Dante.
In one wing of the small building were three “cages”, with wood half-doors and wire decorative tops. These were designed in the 18 century to deter theft of valuable books. The books weren’t caged – the reader was, and frisked when his studying was completed! The shelving arrangement was similar to The Long Room at Trinity, i.e., alcoves with shelves to the ceiling and long ladders. Titles included Essaies de
Montaigne, The Works of
Johnson and The Works of
Berkeley. In addition, several temporary display cases held a special collection, “
Sole Survivors, The Rarest Books in the World”. These ranged from Euclid translated into Arabic, through school primers that had suffered at the hands of many students, to the defiant reply of
Oliver Cromwell to the Bishops of Ireland.
By this time, it was far too late to buy a tour of St Patrick’s Cathedral, so I contented myself with eating in the adjacent park (the remainder of my peanut butter sandwiches) and rushing through the increasingly familiar streets to arrive at the Palace Bar in the
Temple Bar area for a “Ulysses tour” at 2:00.
David was a musician and a James Joyce enthusiast, rather
than a scholar. He learned to love
Ulysses when he joined a Ulysses reading group at
Sweny’s Pharmacy, a shop mentioned in the novel. At the meetings, each person present reads aloud one page, resulting in a slow-paced oral rendering of Joyce’s musings and wordplay. When they have finished reading it through, they simply start again. Each time through, the readers find new delights and understanding of the work. According to David, Joyce asked only that his readers devote their life to reading the novel; David has been through it five times now.
He began the tour in the Palace Bar pub, which touts its James Joyce connections but is not mentioned in the book. The pub does pre-date the writing of the novel; beautifully kept well-polished wood and brass fittings have not been updated. The other people on the tour were a grown family of five from Bakersfield, California. Over a pint of Guinness (for the fellows, I needed water), David regaled us with an anecdotal history of Joyce’s life and writing, virtually all of which was done in Europe rather than Dublin. With this good background, we set off to see Joycean sites, although not to retrace
Blooms Hotel murals
Fully dedicated to place his steps, because Dublin has changed immensely since 1922 when Ulysses was published (in France).
Immediately right of the pub was a set of murals in what had been disreputable back lanes. The murals honour a large number of Irish writers, artists, actors, sports heroes, and comedians. In addition to Joyce were
Edna O’Brien,
Terry Wogan,
Yeats and many who were unknown to me. As a mark of respect to those honoured, the lanes were clean and imaginatively decorated with street art. From there we walked by pubs and buildings loosely associated with Joyce’s life and writing, plus some honouring him. Particularly spectacular was the
Blooms Hotel, covered in multi-storied paintings of the characters Leopold Bloom, Molly Bloom, Stephen Dedalus, and Blazes Boylan, who was obscured by the scaffolding on a neighbouring building. Back at Grafton Street, we examined brass plaques (each with an appropriate quote) in the sidewalks tracing the some of the walk
Bloom made during the single day of Ulysses. We passed the National Library (mentioned in the book), where I hope to go tomorrow, and ended at Sweny’s Pharmacy where the fictional Bloom bought lemon soap. No longer a pharmacy, it is a non-profit book shop where the
St Patrick's Cathedral 13 century
Vast Cathedral with generous grounds purchase of lemon soap pays part of the bills and where the reading group meets weekly. This day they will start at the beginning of the novel again.
Hopeful of returning to St Patrick’s Cathedral for sung Evensong, I received assurances from David that 15 minutes was probably sufficient time, and he gave me directions for the most efficient route. Because Dublin is indeed an old city, no streets are straight. I walked as quickly as possible through the throngs of tourists and people going home from work, many standing in crowds around innumerable bus stops. After one day, I have developed the Dublin knack of crossing against the lights, although on main thoroughfares I only cross with a herd of others. Without consulting the map again, I overshot one block and arrived at the Cathedral puffing and 5 minutes late (5:30 start). They let me in, and others after me.
The men’s choir (only six) was singing. As in all vaulted churches, the sound was achingly beautiful. Even these few voices resonated through the curved arches. With my eyes closed, the music flowed through me, bringing a wonderful calm at the end of an excellent but hectic
O’Shea’s pub
Good dinner in a friendly dining room day.
I thought to preserve this feeling with a slow walk back to the hotel; however, architecture won out by stimulating more picture taking. An hour later, shuffling, I found the energy to walk an extra block to find a different pub for dinner. When I did, the temptation to simply go in and eat was too great, rather than returning to my room for a much-needed shower. The atmosphere in O’Shea’s was friendly and the service warm. I had fish and chips in a quantity that exceeded the weekly recommendation for fish, let alone for potatoes. (True to the Ireland cliché, the main vegetable component of my diet for the last two days has been potatoes.) Add a Guinness, and life was complete.
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D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
We love Dublin
The music, the people and the food.