Night Fell Clean and Cold in Dublin
Whenever I think I have my shit together, little things begin to happen to humble and remind me that I don’t. My key wouldn’t work in the lift or my room door when returning last night to the Hilton. Recoded I then got stuck in the lift. Not being able to open the safe in the morning to get my passport and flight tickets, I finished packing, about to check out and realised I had lost my luggage lock. Tube service to Heathrow stopped in the morning due to flooding, not enough pounds left for taxi, cash machine in hotel not working and 40 minutes left to flight time. You know – little things like that!
Ah love that adrenaline!
As usual, with the William Tell overture playing in my head, it all worked out in the wash and I landed in Dublin at lunchtime breathlessly looking out the plane window at the rolling green hills reminiscent of the ones that I fell in love with from the movie Flight of the Doves a million childhood years ago.
How many flights have I caught this trip? The well worn routine – currency exchange, baggage, tourist info booth, transfer to hotel and before I knew it, I had been dropped off out the front of the Molly Malone statue across the road from Trinity College. It was raining however now it simply doesn’t bother me. Back Pack, laptop bag, wheeling my large blue suitcase, I walked down College and then Dame Streets, turning into the Great George and then Stephens Street until I reach quite a dodgy looking end of town at Golden Lane where the brand spanking new Radisson resides – my home for the next week.
It feels good here.
Walking down the street, there is a beat to this city. A pulse that permeates everything and everyone – it is alive – music, art, knowledge and people. I forget that Dublin was once a medieval city - there is nothing to remind you here - it feels modern. Then I realise that the Vikings laid much of the cobbled streets around here maybe 1000 years ago as a through passageway to connect the river to the main market centre around High Street.
Clifton Street being heritage listed at 130 years of age seems quite silly in comparison! gulp!
Checking in, I set myself up in my new home, book my day tours – Ring of Kerry, hill of Tara and Wicklow and Glendalough before setting out to the city centre of Dublin.I am close to everything. Yet again I have been afforded the good fortune of another great position. Gracie!
Trinity College is my first stop. Founded in 1592, playwrights Oliver Goldsmith and Samuel Beckett were a couple of the famous students here. The lawns and open student square reminded me so much of the original Conservatorium of Music that I attended near the old Botanical gardens in the city centre of Brisbane. Such a long way , so long ago - yet to realise that within one year, Sam will be going to Uni - life has a way of completing that circle!
You know how we all secretly keep lists of things we wish to achieve in our lifetimes? Amazingly, this trip has seen me cross many things off - unexpectedly and unplanned. For no significant reason, I’ve always had a love for the main image of the Book Of Kells and over the years have collected many posters, cards and books sporting this image. It fills me with a sense of the sacred somehow – the images of the four elements combined with ancient symbols whose meaning and origin is unfamiliar to me. So today, my mission was to visit the Old Library and view the Book of Kells. Supposedly written around the year 800 AD, these texts are elaborately decorated key words, phrases, symbols and scenes around old versions of the four gospels in Latin text interspersed with several poems and writings.
Very cool indeed!
Looking for the exit upstairs, I stumbled onto the Long Room. Now THIS was magnificent. I stood there in awe for what seemed like a very long time until they asked me politely to leave. (I hope I wasnt drooling) This room is almost 65 metres in length, and houses around 200,000 of very old leather bound faded books of all shapes and sizes. Alphabetized per room, book shelves reaching the high wooden barrel-vaulted ceilings, long thin wooden ladders per room – this was my nirvana – f**k the band – honey I’m home! Marble busts of notable minds sit silently down either side of the room. I didn’t see it however apparently there is the oldest Harp to survive from Ireland, dating from the fifteenth century that lives in this room. I was too obsessed with the lines and lines of old books to notice anything else.
Reluctantly I left when asked to - thinking to myself – that’s the kind of library I want in MY house - all 70 metres of it.
Crossing over to Suffolk, I poked around some little shops and had a late lunch in the nude café. Chilly. He he he – great soup actually!
The Temple Bar was interesting – naturally it was a red light district – funny how all interesting places usually start that way. Cobbled streets leading to retail and warehouse premises, there is a real art house feel to this area. A major beat in this zone and in walking past the many bars and pubs, the posters advertising live music seven nights a week give me a clue why.
It doesn’t feel old here – it feels young and alive! More like Amsterdam I think!
I venture over to check out the Dublin Castle – nice and close to my new neighbourhood. There survives an original fragment of the Norman tower whose claim to fame fascinated me. In 1742, over 700 people were crammed in to hear the world’s first performance of George Frederick Handel’s new oratorio “Messiah”.I’m suitably impressed now. The history is beginning to seep into me. I will admit though, like Windsor and Oxford Castles, it is so odd discovering a castle right in the centre of a 21st century town. All we have is kangaroos in our backyards!
Sight Seeing, Shopping, Snooping complete for the day, the light dying and the rain refusing to relent, I hear a distant church bell and suspect it is St Patrick’s Cathedral – around the corner from my hotel. It sounds so comforting as I walk back to the hotel and retire for the evening in front of Irish TV – which by the way is far superior to what we witnessed in Britain.
James Joyce said “When I die, Dublin will be written in my heart.”
I’m kinda getting that.
