Dublin Redux

I mentioned that all this travel can be a little disorienting. Yesterday (I think) we all went to do the Trinity College tour, which includes the Book of Kells. The campus is beautiful, and I think it would be a great place to study. It reminded me of the summer semester I did at New College, Oxford, back in 1974. I was so taken with the place that toward the end, I asked some of the faculty if there was any possibility of my transferring there from Ohio State (or should I say, The Ohio State University). I received what I have come to think of as a nokie-dokie; absent a very substantial contribution from my parents, there was no way they were going to let the likes of me into those hallowed halls. But I showed them; I left New College, Oxford, and transferred to New College in Sarasota, Florida. However, I try to work “When I was at Oxford” into every conversation. Here are some photos of Trinity:

They have the Harp of Brian Boru, high king of Ireland from 1002 to 1014. Here’s the high king himself:

And here’s the harp:

He didn’t actually own it, but it is wicked old, and it is the official symbol of the Irish government:

Fun fact, the Guinness family trademarked the harp decades before the formation of the Irish Free State. Rather than infringe on their trademark, the Irish government simply flipped the image. Here’s the Guinness version for comparison:

The library where the Book of Kells and the harp are stored is pretty impressive:

That was yesterday. I am reliably informed by my phone that it is Sunday; I’ll have to take its word. It was a long but interesting day. We met Jon and Jos and went to a breakfast spot to start the day.

I don’t know if you have ever had this experience. You go to a cafe or lunch spot and open the menu, and everything has a clever twist. You want fries, but they come with raspberry truffle sauce. They have a burger, but it is topped with lemon cheese curds. Everything on the menu is tweaked in “creative” ways. I guess there is pressure to differentiate your food, but sometimes there seems to be no rhyme or reason.

I ordered poached eggs on soda bread with hollandaise, which in my head is the breakfast equivalent of a standard ballad. You don’t mess with it; you just play it in tune. All the plate needed was good eggs, good bread, and a sauce that didn’t try to claim a solo.

Classic idea, but it was cheffed up with pointless microgreens that tasted like lawn trimmings and a hollandaise sauce jazzed up with treacle, which is what we Yanks would call “molasses.” I get motivation. You can’t walk 10 paces in Dublin without passing a cafe or pub that serves the “full Irish,” and if you are a sharp operator, you want to give people a reason to come to your place and stand in line rather than just pop into the first place you pass. I couldn’t finish what was on my plate. But as my Buby Ruth used to say, “May dat be the verst thing that happing to you.” 

After that, the four of us wandered around Dublin and popped into various arcades and flea markets. Lots to see, but no bargains. There were lots of distressed leather jackets, faded jeans and distressed hoodies. My daughter-in-law passed along what I think was a brilliant idea to one of the vendors. She should save up some money, fly to Boston, and hit up the various Salvation Army and Goodwill stores. They are full of the same clothing that was being sold for 60 euro but priced at about 5 euro. The vendor thought it would be a lot of work.

Jon and Jos were flying home today, so we said our goodbyes. Then it was on to the hop-on, hop-off bus around the city. I like the tour, and the driver was entertaining, telling jokes and singing songs to underscore the sights. When he wasn’t doing the guiding, there was a canned narrative voice that filled in the gaps. Also, the whole ride had a soundtrack of an Irishwoman singing every Irish song ever written. It went on and on, and since we stayed on for the whole route, I must have heard it at least 3 times. Brennan on the Moor, The Foggy Dew, Molly Malone, The Parting Glass, Finnegans Wake—you name it. I couldn’t help but think of how they pitched the gig to the singer. “We would like you to do your rendition of every Irish tune in the world.” Then I thought about how that would play out in America. Consider, how would you feel about recording a soundtrack of every song ever written in the US of A?

Born on a mountaintop in Tennessee, greenest state in the land of the free,

Raised in the woods so he knew every tree, 

Kilt him a bar when he was only 3,

Davy, Davy Crockett, king of the wild frontier!

Then:

Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer true

Followed by:

Sweet home, Alabama

Then on to:

You’re a grand old flag…

And then:

This land is your land…

By the time you got 4 or 4 hours into it, I presume you would probably feel that death would be a relief.

You do get to see many points of interest riding the bus, particularly if you read much historical fiction or literature. Oscar Wilde’s birthplace, all manner of Jonathan Swift locations, and many sites related to the 1916 Uprising and the Civil War. 

Kay and I hopped off and had a quick late lunch at the Brazen Head, reputedly the oldest pub in Ireland. Like a lot of these “oldest pubs, inns, castles,” etc., it’s not that clear-cut. There is evidence that there was some kind of public house on the spot dating from the 1100s, but it was rebuilt several times, and the current version dates from the 1700s. Still, it’s plenty old:

Then we took the Guinness Storehouse tour, where I learned everything I wanted to know and a whole lot more about the making of stout. Ironically, I don’t care for stout; something about the coffee overtones. Luckily, they make a lager, and I applied my drink tickets to a couple pints of that.

They have a huge store with every imaginable Guinness-branded shirt, sweatshirt, glass, hat, or coaster on offer. I couldn’t help but consider that with this merch and lots of other kinds of the same stuff, we turn our bodies into advertising billboards for the product and pay the manufacturer for the privilege. Shouldn’t they be paying us? The concept was probably developed by the same guy who thought of selling us water in plastic bottles when we have perfectly good tap water more or less free in our houses.

Today we packed up and grabbed the train to Belfast, which is part of the UK. I realize most of my myriad readers know this, but it can be a little jarring. For one thing, the sim card I bought for Ireland stopped working at the border. Then I realized the euro I had on me was no good in Northern Ireland. We checked into our hotel and ventured out into the city center, which was a trip and a half, but more about that in the next post.