I remember sitting on a roof, looking over Dublin town
It still seems so warm
A sunny day, the shirts were off with love in the air
Oh, we had it captured there
We didn’t care too much about the weight of it all
(from Dublin Song by T. Noonan )
Dublin got off to a rough start, and my enthusiasm for being there was dented, but not crippled. I still managed to have some fun. On Saturday night, even as we were reeling from the hostel mix-up, Mary and Elizabeth and I had dinner with Sandy and Dwight Oglesby at Dunne & Crescenzi, the great Italian restaurant where Liz Weir and I had eaten earlier in the week.
Liz and her daughter Clare were in Dublin that weekend for their pilgrimage to the Leonard Cohen concert. I met them and their friend Kay Sunday morning for brunch at The Queen of Tarts. Liz said it was the best concert she’d ever attended. Clare asked, “Is it wrong to lust after a 70 year old?” We said it was not! After brunch with them, I spent most of the rest of the day with Miceal Ross. We sat in Johnny Fox’s Pub on top of the Dublin Mountains and talked for several hours.
That night I ran into a group of students who were all heading out to take the Dublin Ghost Bus Tour. “It’s storytelling! You have to go!” So I went. Most of the participants were about their age – early twenties. I’m pretty sure I was the oldest person on the bus by a good 15 to 20 years. As a storyteller, I’d have loved to had a crack at crafting the “stories” the actor on the bus told. Some of them were really worth telling! But, in his defense, he really knew his audience – they were delighted with their experience. And the point wasn’t really the stories, it was to create an opportunity for people to feel scared, jump, and squeal while simultaneously being perfectly safe. The fun for me was being with our students – and that they wanted me to go!
Monday was Bloomsday, and I decided to go out for breakfast before the events. On my way, I passed the hearse and re-enactors preparing for Paddy Dignam’s funeral, which takes up most of Chapter 6 in Ulysses. Later we all trooped behind Mary to Meeting House Square in Temple Bar to hear readings from Ulysses by celebrities, politicians, writers, scholars, and diplomats. We stayed less than an hour and then cut the students loose. Mary and I headed for Hodges Figgis Bookstore on Dawson Street. On our way to lunch at Bewley’s on Grafton Street, we passed Davy Byrne’s Pub on Duke Street. Since the pub is mentioned in Ulysses, there were actors in the street playing a scene from the book. It was great! I wish the students could have seen that instead of listening to the Korean ambassador read from the first chapter.
After lunch we passed a living statue of James Joyce on Grafton Street. He stood absolutely still until someone dropped coins into his case. Then he slowly and decorously opened a box and offered it. Inside were folded scraps of paper with lines from Ulysses. I can’t remember what mine said. I stuck it in my pocket so that I’d have it for the blog, but I never saw it again.
Once every one got settled in Abbey Court, Mary and Elizabeth had a room in a new building owned by the hostel. It was a full apartment on the fourth floor of a building facing the Liffey. Their window looked right across the river into Temple Bar. One evening we saw a rainbow behind the buildings. I took it as a good sign.
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