Wednesday 14th July 2011, the day started out wet; however, I decided to proceed with my planned day out in Dublin City. I had brought my camera as I wanted not only to see Dublin but also to record what I seen. I began my long walk in Finglas in North Dublin. As I walked through Finglas village it was very quiet, it was about 8.30am and a few shops were starting to pull up their shutters and place their sandwich boards outside. A couple of the pub names were familiar to me; they had been the scenes of recent gang-land shootings and had been reported as the reference point on the news. As I proceeded through the village my path was periodically crossed by very nervous looking, tracksuit clad men in their teens or early twenties, they all had the same destination, the medical centre, and I speculated from their demeanour, they were on their way to get their daily fix of methadone. I could not see much signs that the Celtic Tiger had ever visited Finglas. Finglas looks tired and very much in need of social regeneration. As I proceeded along the footpath on the main road away from Finglas and into Dublin, I noted that the old Garda station is now closed and boarded up, many times I had passed this landmark on the old Dublin Road in the early 80s as I had travelled to and from Dublin to work. I mostly thumbed in the early 80s and the Garda station on the old Dublin Road marked for me the end of Dublin City and from there I could proceed to thumb and have the possibility of getting a lift. I noted as I walked along the footpath in 2011 that the new road has pushed back much of old Finglas from the eye view of the passing tourists or business people.
As I approached Glasnevin Cemetery the sun began to break through the large conifers that hang over our dead generations like brooding hens hang over and protect their baby chicks. The sun rays made no discrimination between the polished granite headstones of the middle classes and the plastic pipe surrounds of the underclass. Each grave marked out in desperation as families try to remember their loved ones, loved ones often displaced in the pushing and shoving of decaying and dying bouquets of remembrance, this place like the living world over populated and the majority starved of their fair share. A large black cat stepped gently over family tributes until it found a resting place, to bask in the sun rays that were beaming of a little stone slab that marked the grave of a little boy. I wondered if the cat had known the little boy who lay now protected by the aching limbs of the large oak that stood above him. In the distance I could hear children laugh and shout as they enjoyed their new found freedom from school for the summer recess. Glasnevin has recently been furnished with a Crematorium, Florists and Café. People in fine suits and dresses visit their loved ones and they stand uneasily beside small groups of the less well off, as all remember their loved ones. I visit the tomb of the great Daniel O’ Connell, the steel gate was not open, but the inscription appeared to read, I give my life to Ireland and my heart to Rome. I wondered what that great Irish man would think of Rome today.
I looked at some of the great monuments and history in Glasnevin with uncertainty, I was overwhelmed by the contrast of the graves of little children marked by no more than a couple of Euro worth of plastic piping from Woodies and these great monuments worth vast sums of money to bishops and cardinals. Fine cars rolled into the car park and before long the smell of coffee and freshly baked muffins replaced the smell of dampness and death that had filled the morning air. God bless the little people both in life and death, which were my thoughts as I left behind our departed generations. I took great interest as I read the plaque that hangs on the wall beneath the watch towers at Glasnevin, where it is explained that those on duty at the watch towers in 1840 had stopped body snatchers from taking bodies for medical research. I wondered how that might all have been.
As I make my way towards Botanic Road I note how quiet the traffic is, in 2006 when I was working in the City the roads and particularly this area would have been bumper to bumper with lorries stacked high with building materials, small vans as tradesmen tried to keep up with the work, skips filled high with good timber and veneered office furniture as the Celtic Tiger filled offices with mahogany and marble. I followed the side streets that took me in by the Grave Diggers public house in Glasnevin, little streets once busy with landscape gardeners and handy men, now silent with the weight of recession. The Royal Canal brought a welcome lift on my journey, as the baby ducks and swans followed behind their parents to their next slippery meal. Brendan Behan still cuts a lonely figure as he rests beside the Royal canal as I reach Dorset Street. Dorset Street has seen a great deal of private investment in recent years, much of that due to the much anticipated construction of the new Children’s hospital on the site of the Mater Hospital and Temple Street Children’s hospital. New Café bars such as the Aurora sit side by side with the traditional pubs such as Kavanagh’s and the Temple. There is much to be done, but private investors and the City Council have certainly put a great deal of time and effort into Dorset Street.
As I approach Parnell Square I note a women begging, she is of foreign origin and her little girl is hiding in the bushes by the Garden of Remembrance. I note two drug users shooting up the gear as I pass a lane way, I make my way to O’Connell Street. O’Connell Street is buzzing with people, it is a far cry from the city I knew in the early 80s, this is a multi-cultural city and that is for sure. My eye is drawn to the number of Chinese people that I see in Parnell Street, so I walk into Parnell Street to see what is going on. Parnell Street has become China Town, nearly every business is being run by Chinese people, this Chinese invasion is punctuated by hair dressers and beauty salons run by people of African origin. Everyone seems to be getting on well and the street is a blaze of colour and ethnicity. I return to O’Connell Street and I am immediately caught by the shimmering light reflecting off the Millennium Spire, I don’t know if my experience of the Spire is worth the many millions of tax payers’ money spent on it, but I suppose it does add something to the main street of our capital city.
There are signs of the economic downturn; there are properties for rent that would have been fully occupied during the boom years. There are hundreds of chattering tourists moving along O’Connell Street, there are still plenty of international guests being dropped off and picked up at the Gresham Hotel. Other Hotels are much quieter and seem almost resigned to their fate. There is a smattering of businesses that have gone with the down turn, but equally there are new businesses that I had not noticed before. Internet Cafes, Cafes, beauty salons and so forth seem to have appeared where they were not before, perhaps this is to do with reduced rents or easier terms and conditions, but at least there is some thread of hope to be gleamed. The homeless man with the cider bottle propped below the ATM machine has little interest in the economics of reality, he has like many before him resigned himself to the dustbin of human existence.
I sit and talk to the homeless drunk, he scores me for a couple of Euro and I am happy to give it to him just so that we can chat. He once worked in a good job, had a wife and children and a nice home, he became an addictive gambler and lost everything, he turned to the drink and his wife turned to his brother. He sometimes stays in a hostel but in the good weather he is happy to sleep under the stars. He says sometimes the Gardai move him on but they don’t be too bad to him, sometimes one of them will even bring him a cup of tea if he is close to the station. I don’t ask to take the man’s picture as I think that would invade his privacy. I make my way over O’Connell Bridge and towards Trinity College, what a wonderful place, what architecture and just a real sense of scholarly enlightenment. The cobbled court yard is filled with tourists who are aghast at its architectural finery. I heard one American lady explain how they had no such architectural history back home.
I proceeded to Grafton Street, my working class roots sit uncomfortably among the suited gentry and woolly jumpers of suburbia. I just wonder where they get their accent from, these are Irish born and breed but they sound like aliens to me. Mothers with their cloned daughters dart in and out of Brown Thomas and Next as if tomorrow would never come, their soft white hands red with the strain of the brand name bags that are filled to over flowing. I would like to stop some of them and ask if they realise that only a few hundred yards away children are being refused emergency surgery because our country is bankrupt by corrupt bankers and property speculators. But then I think these people don’t live in the real world, but in a virtual world, they may be in Grafton Street but it is unlikely they will ever do a day’s graft in their lives. I proceed to Stevens Green, the lawns beautifully manicured and the flowers beds bursting with summer colour. The tourists and the pigeons lay side by side on the grass, the water features kick back against the back drop of the mid-day sun, the tall grasses are tickled by a slight northern breeze. The band stand is surrounded by the blazing colour of its well-maintained hanging baskets. Three ladies busy themselves with the planting and pruning of bedding plants around the manmade pond. I walk past the Department of Foreign Affairs and into Staunton’s on the Green; this is a Georgian property with a modern extension that operates as a very cosy and well run family hotel. The attraction for me is the large private garden at the back of Staunton’s; this is a place of great tranquillity and contemplation. I just ask the receptionist if I can step out into the garden for half an hour and there is no problem as I have on occasion stayed here over night.
Soon I am ready to continue on my journey, I make my way to the Four Courts or as they are more commonly known the Goldmines due to the vast amounts of money that some members of the legal profession can make. There is no recession at the Four Courts; the parking spaces are still too small for the BMWs and Mercedes S Series that make the car park look like the forecourt of a dealership in Ballsbridge. The fancy suits and skirts are as busy as an army of ants, just beyond the rails I can hear the traditional promises being made to clients, we will hold out and see what we can get. Nothing has changed here, least perhaps the vast amount of private security now in place to protect the hand bags and glad rags of suited legal world. I moved on and noted that the old cells at the bottom of the Four Courts are no longer in use; this I was told by the security Guard was due to the opening of the new courts of justice. As I looked down at the granite steps that led to the cells below, I wondered how all the tabloid photographers were getting their pictures of the condemned now. Many free meals were had here by the tabloid press as the accused and convicted person were led into their lenses like fish in a bowl. Many a prison officer got a free drink for tipping the wink when a high profile prisoner was about to be brought up from below to be returned to Mountjoy.
I made my way to Easons, what would a day out in Dublin would be without a visit to Easons, I picked a copy of Ed Moloney’s new book from the shelves and sat in one of the leather seats and enjoyed a good read, a cup of tea and a muffin. I put the book back when I was finished so the whole experience only cost me three Euro and fifty cents. That’s not a bad price to enjoy the comforts of bohemian Dublin for an hour at least. Within ear shot as I enjoyed my cup of tea and exceedingly good muffin, two men obviously in the property business state that 1,852 properties were sold in Dublin between January and June of this year, this they believed was a sign that things were beginning to pick up on the property market. Both were purchasing books in the economics section as both were now unemployed and doing educational courses to improve their employment prospects.
When I eventually left the comfort of Easons I was drawn to the rhythm of drums from a small group of Hare Krishna. I waited for a break in their music or chanting and spoke with one of them, he was a young man in his mid-twenties, he told me they live on an Island and simply don’t want to get involved in the world the rest of us have to live in every day. As we spoke his mobile phone rang and he had to search in his robe to find it, I said I see you have not left the entire old world behind and he laughed, nice lad, I took a picture with their permission. I then made my way to the Hugh Lane Gallery and the National Writers Museum, both of which are a must if you have a day out in Dublin. My day in Dublin ended, it was busy, but worthwhile, I had reconnected with the capital city of my country and I had a better understanding of the contrast that Dublin in 2010 has to offer. Dublin is a great City; it has a history and culture not equalled by many.
