DAY TWO
SUNDAY, MAY 19, 2019
A deep dive into the city of Dublin, especially the writers
I started out Day 2 with a visit to the Little Museum of Dublin, a charming Georgian-style townhouse with a collection of over 5000 objects donated by locals that collectively tell the story of the city.
Our guide Ciarán was adorable and engaging, and clearly enjoying the hell out of himself as he told us the stories around several of the objects, all with a punchline. (I was a tour guide for prospective students in college and had to memorize a script that had the corny jokes in italics - I will forever think of that in situations like this, and assume that his jokes were of course italicized as well. 😄)
On Saturdays and Sundays, the museum offers a combo of the Little Museum tour and a guided tour of the adjacent St. Stephen’s Green led by a local historian, so after saying farewell to Ciarán, we were handed over to professor Donal Fallon who gave us a little more info about the Georgian Townhouses in this neighborhood before leading us across the street and into the park.
Got a kick out of the fact that they have a first edition of James Joyce’s notoriously difficult-to-read Ulysses open to the last page, so that people can say they finished it.
St. Stephen’s Green is a beautiful public park near the center of the city, but was originally developed in 1664 as a private, enclosed green for residents around the square. Much later, in 1877, Arthur Guinness (of the beer family, major benefactors throughout Dublin’s history) led an initiative to make the park public, and paid for the reconstruction into its current layout.
Winding paths, open greens, a peaceful lake, bridges, and plenty of birds, the park also contains several sculptures and memorials, including a bust of James Joyce and a memorial garden dedicated to W.B. Yeats featuring an abstract sculpture by Henry Moore.
I love that this statue of Arthur Guinness, main benefactor of the park, is turned outward… facing west towards his beer factory.
The Little Museum happens to have a very nice little café in its basement, so I stopped at Hatch & Sons for a quick lunch. That roll is called a blaa, comes from Waterford, and is the fluffiest bread I’ve ever had. That bright pink is from a beetroot relish (along with goat cheese, root vegetables, and some seeds and things). It was great, and I totally recommend if you’re in the area. Just don't wear black as the flour from that blaa gets everywhere!
After lunch, I walked around the area a bit, admiring the pretty Georgian townhouses and their charming multicolored doors on my way to the nearby Merrion Square.
Merrion Square has an outdoor gallery showcasing local art on Sundays, so I took some time to admire the work before visiting Dublin’s great sculpture of Oscar Wilde lounging on a rock at the corner of the park. Fits his sense of humor so perfectly.
From there I headed to the National Museum of Ireland—Archaeology, filled with Irish artifacts from prehistoric times through the late Middle Ages. I specifically wanted to see their collection of Bronze Age gold, an exhibition on the Vikings, and the “bog bodies,” prehistoric remains that have been mummified because of the unique chemical makeup of the peat bogs. (Didn’t know what to expect, but it was weird.)
The bog bodies were presented in a gallery called “Kingship and Sacrifice,” and explained the various rituals that existed in Iron Age Ireland that resulted in these ancient kings being ceremonially buried in the local peat bogs (probably lakes at the time).
After leaving the museum, I walked over to St. Patrick’s Cathedral, stopping to listen to a busker’s tribute to Game of Thrones, the series finale of which was airing that night in the US.
St. Patrick’s Cathedral was one of the things I was most looking forward to as a long-time choral singer, as their Cathedral Choir School is one of the oldest in Europe, so I was happy to be able to fit a Choral Evensong mass into my schedule. I spent some time admiring the architecture outside before heading into the cathedral to take my seat for the service. I’ve always assumed this was a Catholic cathedral (probably conflating it with St. Patrick’s in NYC), but was surprised to find that it’s Anglican.
For any of my singer friends who are interested, the pieces they performed that day were Leighton: The Magdalen Service and Howells: Behold O God Our Defender, plus Psalm 98 and Hymns 437 and 104.
We were told explicitly and repeatedly that we couldn’t take pictures or video during the service, so I didn’t, but I’m glad this guy was bold enough to do it for the sake of this trip recap. Different pieces being performed, but this captures the mood well. Coincidentally, I was sitting in the same place.
After the service, I walked back to the Creative Quarter and my hotel to rest for a minute before dinner.
On my way back out, I did a quick walk through George’s Street Arcade, an indoor market with lots of cute little shops and stands.
I made my way up to the Liffey and, on my way to a restaurant across the river, made a point to cross the Ha’Penny Bridge, a pretty Victorian bridge that has in some ways become a visual symbol of Dublin.
Raining!
Across the bridge, I made my way to The Winding Stair, both an adorable independent bookshop and also where I’d be eating dinner. I was earlier than expected, so spent a decent amount of time browsing the books (and buying some Wilde) before heading up to the restaurant… which was still empty when I got there, though not for long.
You can see the Ha’Penny Bridge through the window
Lovely ambiance and service at the Winding Stair – even when the place filled up a little later it still felt cozy and welcoming. I had their sweet potato soup special as an appetizer (perfect comfort food for the rainy day), and cauliflower croquettes for the entree. The waiter convinced me that their bread & butter pudding for dessert was the best bread & butter pudding in Dublin, and while I have nothing to compare it to… I believe it. That was one delicious bread pudding.
To close out the night, I headed over to the Trinity College area and the Literary Pub Crawl. Led by two local actors, Colm Quilligan and Frank Smith, this popular tour brings you to four historic pubs to talk about their influence on the iconic Irish writers, poets, and playwrights who frequented them: James Joyce, Oscar Wilde, W.B. Yeats, Samuel Beckett, Jonathan Swift, Bram Stoker, George Bernard Shaw, and so many more. There are a good amount of facts thrown out, but the majority of this tour was Frank & Colm reciting poems, singing songs, and acting out various excerpts from the work of these literary legends, all with impeccable timing and a great sense of humor.
We started at The Duke, an iconic Dublin pub and regular hangout of James Joyce and George Bernard Shaw, before taking a detour over to Trinity College to talk about the laundry list of literary greats who are alums. After leaving the college grounds, the next stop was O’Neill’s, a particularly picturesque pub which has attracted many writers and poets over its 300-year history.
Across the street from O’Neill’s was the pretty St. Andrew’s Church and the Molly Malone statue (“the tart with the cart”) so I stopped to take a few pictures.
We stopped on the steps of St. Andrew’s for some more reenactments before heading to the next pub, The Old Stand. It’s known its fair share of writers, but is most known for the patronage of Michael Collins, the Irish revolutionary who led the fight for a free Ireland, and who used disguises to spend time at The Old Stand, gathering intel about the British Secret Service. Our final stop on the tour was Davy Byrne’s, infamous for its role in James Joyce’s Ulysses (where Leopold Bloom orders his gorgonzola sandwich and glass of burgundy) as well as a real-life hangout for Joyce, Beckett, and other literary greats.
The tour ended with a quiz… both questions based on what they had told us that night, and general trivia questions based on things that could be found in the pubs. Some tour participants were really into this, and it came down to two different Canadians who had clearly prepared for this moment. So, props to Canada for the hardcore trivia showdown in pursuit of a coveted Literary Pub Crawl t-shirt.
For what it’s worth, I’d recommend this tour to anybody, whether or not you know anything about pubs or Irish literature or care about drinking. The actors who led it made the information so entertaining, and I definitely learned a lot about Dublin’s great writers and famed pub culture.
On my way back to the hotel to call it a night, I stopped to take a few pictures… of some pretty street art & umbrellas at the nearby Zozimus Bar, and sculptures of two Dublin music icons: Irish folk legend Luke Kelly and Thin Lizzy frontman Phil Lynott. (Wish I had known to bring a pick to leave!)
