Alpine Summer

The day I've been anticipating for a long time is finally here: I get to tour Dublin. Luke let me take the reins of what we were to see. I don't remember the order exactly, but we visited the Abbey Theatre, the General Post Office, the James Joyce Centre, the Dublin Writers' Museum, Merrion Square, and walked up and down O'Connell Street several times. Actually, I think that might have been the order, but I'm going to pretend it was even if it wasn't.

We learned the night before that the bus is not the cheapest or the easiest or the quickest way to travel in Dublin. The answer is the DART: Dublin's equivalent of the MARTA or the S-Bahn. The nearest station was the Salthills and it was only 200 meters up the street. From there, it took only 15 minutes to get into Connolly Station, the main station in Dublin and the most central for our purposes as well. We had a map from the information center that had many of the landmarks we wanted to see, so I grouped them together and headed off.

Before any site-seeing took place, we had to do something about the cold! I guess we didn't think that Dublin would be very cold because Germany was supposed to be cooler and, instead, it's just as hot as home. But, Ireland is an island. Dublin is on the coast. It's windy. And cold. So we found a souvenir shop that had some sales and I bought a jacket for pretty cheap.

First on the list was the Abbey Theatre. We missed the turn the first time past, but turning around afforded us a tremendous view of the front right away. Right across the street was a small demonstration for the people killed during the Easter 1916 Rebellion. Basically, it was pictures with names and dates pasted onto shut-up windows. Then you turn around and see the Abbey. It was perfectly how I pictured it: huge and majestic in comparison to the rest of the city, but small and simple in comparison to theatres in other countries. In many ways, you could just tell it was the Irish National Theatre. I took it in from afar, and then we decided to go into the lobby. The lobby was small and modest: on one wall was a bookshelf with buyable books related to plays produced at the Abbey or Irish playwrights who were just important in the scheme of things; in front of the bookshelf was an information desk; on the other side of the wall was the box office of three windows, two of which were closed; there was a set of doors into the house and a staircase leading up to the bar. We saw that "The Importance of Being Earnest" was the next play to open, so we looked at the information about it. Amazingly enough, we discovered that it was opening that evening and tickets were pretty cheap. We went to the lone open ticket window and inquired if seats were still available. They were, and good ones too. So we splurged.

















After we left the Abbey, tickets in hand and shock lining my face, we turned a couple of corners to get to the General Post Office. The GPO was the site of the Easter 1916 Rising. Well, the main site. The Irish rebels got together to take back 11 of Dublin's public service buildings from the British occupation. The biggest and most important of these was the GPO, and several of the leaders, themselves, were centered there. When the British realized what was happening, short story is they opened fire on the GPO, arrested all the insurgents within, and executed all of them within days. When we got to the GPO, there was a large statue to Cuchulain (( an Irish mythic figure of strength against oppression )) in the main window commemorating those killed. I couldn't get a good picture of it because of all the window glare. As I was trying to read the inscription, Luke called my attention to the massive columns in the front of the building. All of them are scarred from gunfire, some with massive chunks removed.

















At this point, we spent some time in and out of Irish department stores. We were worried that nothing we had brought to wear was nice enough to wear to the Abbey that night. Most things were pretty expensive, so we had no luck. We stopped for sandwiches and chips. I must say that I was very impressed with the chips. I mean, I know potatoes = Ireland / Idaho. But, I just don't think I've ever had any as good as on this trip.

The James Joyce Museum was the next on the itinerary. We found the street with ease, but not the museum. We passed it three times before we finally noticed it; it looked like any other residential building on the street, with the exception of a sandwich board sign propped up outside. First, we looked through the gift shop. They had a lot of nice shirts and other gift-y things with witty or interesting things from Joyce's writing. One of my favourites was a black umbrella with these words from Ulysses on one section in white letters: Love me, love my umbrella. I really wanted a t-shirt with Stephen Dedalus' Clongowes delineation of who he is, from his person to the Universe. Then, we paid our admission and the ticket lady said "That's for the entire house." So, we start walking around. All over the walls are quotes from Joyce. I took a lot of pictures of these. The bottom three floors kind of confused us. There didn't really seem to be much purpose. So, we headed up to the top floor, crossing our fingers it would get better. Upstairs actually seems like a museum. There were old copies of Ulysses, along with a family tree of all the different publications of it. There was a screen where some documentaries about Joyce were playing. There were re-creations of some of the rooms of the house. It wasn't great, but it was definitely better than downstairs.

Leaving the Joyce Museum, I wanted to see the Hugh Lane Gallery (( at least from the outside, considering I didn't know how much admission would be )) and the Dublin Writers' Museum. Along the way, we got a great view of the Abbey Church. I never found the Hugh Lane Gallery because it wasn't where the map we had indicated. The Dublin Writers' Museum looked interesting, but after the Joyce Museum, we were kind of wary about spending 10 Euro on a museum in a house. So, we opted against it and started heading south again. It began threatening to rain, so we thought we should check out Merrion Square. That way, if it did start raining, all the rest of our time could be spent in indoor attractions.

















Merrion Square was beautiful. I'm not entirely sure what the deal is with it . . . I couldn't find any of the odd numbered houses, or any that went above 24. So, I'm guessing that the actual "Square" is where those houses were, and is now a park. It certainly stood up to expectations as far as the greenery. I know Ireland is famous for being green, but the grass and the leaves of trees and everything truly were the greenest I've ever seen. The first thing we saw was a giant statue-thing of Oscar Wilde. I say "statue-thing" because it's really a statue of him, chilling out on a giant boulder. I had heard about the Yeats statue in the Square, so we start wandering around, looking at all the plants and trying to spy Yeats. Along the way, we found a bust of a Chilean man with an Irish-sounding name. According to the inscription, he was born in Chile and died in Venezuela (( I think )) and fought for Chilean independence. It was given to the Republic of Ireland shorting after the formation of the nation. The bust was hidden behind a giant bush. We found a map before we found anyone else, so we tried to figure out where we were. The paths on the map did not match those we saw in front of us from any angle or position. So, we looked to the legend. This was no luck because the "how to find your way by landmarks" idea was based off of street lamps. Yes, if you knew which was the 1934 Johnson Fire-Twist Lamp (( I made that up )), you might could find your way by it. If not, you're stuck to judge by the paths . . . which are not labeled correctly. The only thing that seems to be correct is the placement of the statue of Eire. Eventually, we start walking in the direction we THINK we'll find George "AE" Russell and then Michael Collins. Where AE should be, we find a small modest bust of Michael Collins. He kind of has that look on his face like someone just yelled his name so he turned around, confused. We figure maybe we'll find AE where Michael would have been, so we keep going. Except, where Michael should have been doesn't seem to exist; the square ends before that. So, we walk around a little more, and don't find anything. It's also beginning to rain a bit more, so we decided to find a pub to wait it out and get some chips.

People in the pub were preparing for the 3rd place World Cup match that evening. Lots of people were dressed up and painted (( nothing like back in Germany, though )), and one rather scruffy guy had apparently lost a bet because he was dressed in ladies' clothes: a skirt and a tank top, with his stomach hanging out. The bartender refused to serve an underage Spanish girl, and we had some awesome chips. We soon realize it's time for us to go back to the hostel to change for the Abbey. We DART to Dun Laoghaire and back to Connolly Station and arrive at the Abbey just before the house opened. As we climbed the steps for the balcony seats, I noticed many portraits hanging around. I saw many faces I expected to see -- Lady Augusta Gregory, Lennox Robinson, Annie Horniman, Frank and William Fay --, but one face was peculiarly missing. How they could not hang a portrait of Yeats, considering he was one of the three founders of the Abbey and worked so hard to make it the Irish National Theatre when they won independence I'm not entirely sure. But it was a fact that bothered me up until the show began. Our seats were outstanding. We were on the first row of the balcony, just left of center. The theatre is small enough that we didn't feel miles away from the stage.

The show was amazing. It was "back by popular demand", and we just happened to catch opening night of its return. I knew when I saw the poster advertising "A show comprised entirely of gentlemen" that it was going to be hilarious. And it was. I dare say the men in the women's roles were better than the men in the men's roles. Seeing Oscar as Lady Fairfax but still clearly Oscar was absolutely brilliant. I obviously wasn't the only one delighted by the performance, given that the cast took three curtain call bows because the audience was still clapping, and a standing ovation followed. After the show, as we were walking down the stairs from the balcony seats and I notice a peculiar painting. It is a rather large canvas with an applauding audience at the bottom. Above their heads is a massive black space and, just above that, three figures seated in a box are visible. The three founders of the Abbey. There, I found the man I came to Ireland to chase. It was unmistakably him -- the white suit with the head full of angry silver hair and the round glasses. This vision was the perfect ending to my day.