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TRAVEL PAEAN TO THE DUBLIN PUB

By Richard West |

Every afternoon at 2:30 Dublin’s pubs close down by law for one hour. It’s the “Holy Hour.” You know by the appearance of little knots of men, stretching out their last goodbyes on the doorsteps of pubs, hoping the hour will pass quickly so that it all can start again. And why not? The pub, after all, is the quintessential expression of Dublin delights, for it is the setting where drink and talk blend into an alloy of unsurpassed congeniality.

Proud possessor of the oldest vernacular literature in Europe after classical Greece and Rome, the Irishman reveres The Words above all else. Good pub chatter is conversation raised to aesthetics, the social art par excellence of the Irish. While there have been few fine Irish architects or painters, the city of Dublin alone is closely associated with the authors Swift, Goldsmith, Sheridan, Yeats. Shaw, Wilde, Joyce, O’Casey, and Beckett. What other city can boast of three Nobel laureates in any field, as Dublin can in literature {Shaw, Yeats, Beckett)?

“He entered Davy Byrnes. Moral pub.” So native son James Joyce refers to pubkeeper Davy Byrnes in Ulysses. There, on June 16, 1904, Joyce had his wanderer, Leopold Bloom, stop for a glass of burgundy, a Gor-gonzola sandwich, and a chat with Nosey Flynn. Though it’s been tarted up since Joyce’s time, some things at the “moral pub” (at 21 Duke Street, in the center of (he city) haven’t changed: smoke thick enough to cut up and make workshirts from it; the engraved mirror showing the upper yard of Dublin Castle in 1880; and an expert publican slowly pouring a pint of velvety Guinness stout, Dublin’s own vin du pays, the creamy suds flowing down the sides of the “jar.” the surplus froth removed with a ruler. And James Joyce would recognize The Words:

“Poor! Jaysus, he didn’t have nails to scratch himself, did he?”



“Aye, there used to be iron men in wooden ships, and now there’s only wooden men in iron ships.”



“And I told the lad, six yards of graveyard clay on top of ye before I’ll do it.”

All around you: a soft country brogue answering “Ah, ’twas the half of nothing” in reply to a thank you; another describing a farm as “having the grass of twenty, twentyfive cows”; and effortless Casey Stengelisms (“Ah, now this pub is always jam packed, no wonder no one comes here”). And the black river of Guinness flows on, with more than 250,000 pints sold daily in greater Dublin.

Sláinte! (Good health!) Dublin is the great mother of all Irish pubs, and throughout 1988 she is celebrating her grand millennium-1.000 years of fascinating history. Although earliest accounts of the city go back to the second century, it was the Vikings who built a sea fort on the south bank of the River Liffey in the 9th century. The settlement finally fell into the hands of the Irish warrior-king Mael Sechnaill II, who wrested it from the long dominance of roving Viking occupiers in 988.

Dublin’s millennium program involves almost every major cultural organization from the National Gallery and National Library down to private groups like the Irish Jewish Museum. Buildings and streets have been refurbished; new monuments and parks dedicated; and special sporting events, music festivals, craft fairs, plays, an exhibitions, and literary symposiums will be held throughout the year. A full schedule of the millennium’s events is available from the Irish Tourist Board (757 Third Avenue. New York. 10017. I-800-223-6470) or at the Dublin Millennium Information Office (45 Lower O’Connell Street, phone 731700).

Dublin is the capital of the Republic of Ireland and the fulcrum for a third of the nation’s 3.5 million residents. Yet it is still a small, intimate city, circumscribed by the sea to the east, mountains to the south, and pastures to the north and west. And Dublin remains a city of the sea. One can see how readily its Viking founders must have accepted nature’s invitation to run their light ships inland and settle along the first deep place of the river, which they called “Dubh Linn,” or the Dark Pool.

Because of its compactness and its mixture of broad streets and squares, Dublin is a perfect walking city, and walking tour books exist on many subjects: general city lours, medieval Dublin, Dublin’s churches, Joyce’s Dublin, guides to Ulysses, and the best free brochure in Dublin, courtesy of the Guinness Brewery. It’s an atlas that groups fifty-nine of the city’s almost 1,000 pubs according to music, poets, patriots, and professions. Thus armed, you too can hobnob with the actors at Madigan’s.

A good way to begin exploring Dublin is by using the Irish Tourist Board’s guidebook, which sets you on a route through the central city following green-and-white signs. The first stops along O’Connell Street introduce you to Ireland’s turbulent history. Here stands the General Post Office, gutted by fire during the 1916 Easter Rising that touched off Ireland’s successful drive for independence. About 170 houses were destroyed and 1,351 people killed or wounded in the week-long rebellion, thus giving Dublin the dubious distinction of being the first European capital city to be wrecked by war in this century.

The tourist trail continues south over the O’Connell Bridge, which spans the River Liffey. The river divides the city north from south and, correspondingly, separates the poor from the rich.

A nice time to catch the vibrancy and character of Dublin is at dusk looking up-river from the bridge, past painted houses, past all the sad, poverty-gnawed decrepitude of the southern quays-the 18th century falling down-through the lovely, humpy Halfpenny Footbridge at the dusky bulk and green dome of the Four Courts, the home of the Irish Law Courts. Downstream is dominated by the trim, green, copper dome of the vast (375-feet-long, 205-feet-deep) Custom House, the crown jewel of 18th-century Dublin when it was the second-largest city in Great Britain. Standing on the O’Connell Bridge, celebrated for being as wide as it is long, it isn’t hard to notice how modern Dublin seems blind to its heritage. The garish shopfronts and fast-food shops on Lower O’Connell Street make it about as charming as a set of dentures; the two hideous skyscrapers nearby are obviously out of place; 18th-century facades are obscured by neon signs.

Down Westmoreland Street are two of Dublin’s prime monuments. The striking, windowless edifice of the Bank of Ireland, originally built to house the nation’s parliament, presents a dramatic sweep of twenty-two columns and leads the eye to the focal thoroughfare of College Green; opposite, the long, gray facade of Trinity College. Passing underneath the stone entrance arch and across the lovely courtyard brings you to the Long Room, dating from 1732, a repository of Trinity’s oldest books and its most prized possession, the Book of Kells. It is a Latin text of the four Gospels written around the 8th century, richly illuminated in Irish majuscule script and indescribably beautiful with its yellow-gray vellum and the intricate print, a strange brown, flecked and decorated with orange capitals. Those with less scholarly tastes may recognize Trinity as the site of the movie Educating Rita.

Outside Trinity’s gates is Grafton Street, Dublin’s most fashionable shopping strip. Just off Grafton, three stories of some of Dublin’s tonier shops and craft workplaces form a quadrangle around an enclosed courtyard at the Powerscourt Townhouse Centre. Especially popular is The Design Centre, where the newest fashions by Irish designers are sought after.

After a walk in the cool, wooded beauty of Saint Stephen’s Green, twenty-seven acres of duck ponds, manicured lawns, and gazebos, it’s time to enjoy a legendary Dublin luxury; afternoon tea with tiny sandwiches, scones, and cream at the recently refurbished 164-year-old Shelbourne Hotel, where not so long ago Irish revolutionaries composed their constitution. Civilities over, turn left upon leaving the hotel, then left again, and there is Merrion Square. At Number 1 Mer-rion Oscar Wilde spent his childhood. The political hero, Daniel O’Connell, lived at Number 56; the pioneer mystery author, Sheridan LeFanu, at Number 70; and the century’s greatest poet, William Butler Yeats, at Number 82.

In this millennium year, what better place to end the day than the pub at the Brazen Head Hotel? It’s Dublin’s oldest bar, built around 1666 in the shadow of Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin’s oldest existing building, which was founded at the same spot in 1038. Dimly lit, with mahogany fittings, a brass foot rail, and few women, it’s a Joycean saloon with the main emphasis on a creamy pint of stout and a sound “ball o’malt,” the Dublin phrase for a glass of whiskey.

The regulars gossip and hoist their jars for more of the black, flowing river, and sometime after nine or ten-when the speech has accelerated to polysyllabic streams, like new fragments of Finnegans Wake-the publican will switch off the taped music and a Dub-berlin man, as the vernacular has it, feigning reluctance, will begin to hum and then fit words to the melody like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle:

“My mind’s too full of memories.

Too old to hear new chimes.

I’m part of what was Dublin

In the rare ould times.”

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