It has been quite some time since I have written. In my own defense,
the delay has been the combined result of fatigue, business, and
illness, rather than willful neglect of my intentions to record my
time here. Hopefully, memory will serve to sweep the dust of the days
before it gathers too thickly to penetrate.
MONDAY, 23 JUNE
Though I had passed by the Four Courts building several times and
admired (or perhaps, wondered at the temerity of) its exteriors, I
had previously been dissuaded from entering by the sudden recall of a
small pocket knife I was carrying right as I began to enter security.
Judging by my experience with American security, I knew that the
device I saw as a means to slice cheese and open pesky packaging
would be, to a bored security guard, an excellent reason to deport me.
Fears of sudden repatriation alleviated by leaving the knife at home,
I got off the LUAS a few stops before Abbey Street, my normal stop,
on Monday afternoon with the intention of visiting the Four Courts. I
passed through security without event and found myself in the middle
of a large parking lot surrounded by buildings. I walked somewhat
randomly towards a door and entered. For the next 20 minutes I
wandered through a warren of narrow and dim hallways. There were
papers and books stacked everywhere, and nearly every door said
"Private" or "Barristers only" – even the library. The majority of
the entire building was like this. I must say, it was a bit
disappointing. I suppose I can see the rationale – who really wants a
bunch of pesky tourists underfoot when one is in the business of
dispensing justice? I suppose it is ideal that, above all, the Four
Courts is a functioning building, not an ornament.
All of the great public buildings of America, though, are not just
functional but are monuments - monuments to their makers, their
inhabitants, or their ideals. What American has not become more
inspired at the simple idea of justice and the majesty of the law
simply by visiting the Supreme Court? The Supreme Court in Washington
is a beautiful building and a working one, like the Four Courts…but
you can walk through the Supreme Court, and an attempt is made to
welcome visitors, unlike at Four Courts. "You've traveled hundreds of
miles just to see the seat of justice in our nation? Hey, I think
that's great, let me tell you a little bit about what we do here."
It's as simple as that. This sort of helpful interpretation or
welcoming atmosphere was totally absent at the Four Courts.
Unpleasant and all the more surprising considering that most of the
buildings and places I have visited have have impressed me with their
hospitality and their accessibility. Not so the Four Courts. I did,
however, have the opportunity to see a few barristers at work. In
Ireland, as in several other Common Law nations, the legal profession
is "split" (as opposed to America, where it is "fused") between
Solicitors and Barristers. Solicitors have contact with the clients
and have the legal power to act on behalf of them by entering
documents, etc, and barristers are the court room advocates who never
talk to the clients. If you want to do something in court, you get
the advice of a solicitor, who advises you and files the motion on
your behalf. Should your motion require court adjudication or similar
action, your Solicitor retains a Barrister to advocate in court.
The Barristers are quite proud of their tradition and purview, and
still strut about in their black robes, stiff collars, and horsehair
wigs. It's all very grand really, for all of its impracticality.
Impeccable decorum even in the most absurdly impractical ways is one
of the things I admire most, and so I was quite pleased, in my
generally disappointing visit to the Four Courts, to see the wigs. I
also managed to see a bit of a lovely dome, around which were
arranged several courts, but that was the extent of my visit.
Somewhat dejected, I picked another dome on the horizon and walked in
its direction, hoping that it would yield more promising fruit. The
Courts are down the Liffey a ways, so in heading back towards the
city center I cut up and across Christ Church again, and headed down
Dame Street. The dome to which I referred is the Old City Hall,
constructed in the early 1700s. The City government has expanded and
moved across the road closer to the Liffey to a building that is far
bigger, far more suited to the Council's Modern needs, and far
uglier. I mean superlatively ugly. It's quite a travesty to the eye,
the strangely slanted grey cement next to the elegant Cathedral and
the nearly-as-handsome City Hall. They were almost closing the doors
as I entered, because I had dallied so long at the Courts, but I
prevailed upon the fellow to let me have a look around nevertheless.
The atrium was quite splendid – a high dome supported by columns and
surrounded by statuary of various Irish luminaries. There is a floor
mosaic of the Dublin City Seal, and the whole hall is painted rather
festively. I prefer the white purity of the Rotunda at the
University, but the colored effect was also quite nice.
I ducked out the door and into a Chinese Restaurant, yearning after
some noodles. I had Chow Mein because, sadly, no Lo Mein was
available. Always having had Lo Mein available to me, I had never
before been compelled to sample Chow Mein; I am sad to report that it
is vastly inferior. It was a rather slimy, viscuous dish that was not
especially pleasing to the eye or the pallete. It was filling,
however, and so I ate it and read until the rain abated.
I then went outside and walked to Kildare Street to return again to
the National Library. This time, my intention was to have a look at
the Reading Room and, if it pleased me, to abide there for a time to
read. Storing my bags in the cloakroom, I ascended a splendidly worn
marble stairway dimly lit from above by leaded glass. It was as if
the feet of generations of weary scholars had worn thin even stone's
resistance, and I felt pleased to be retracing their steps.
The Reading Room was, as I had hoped, quite magnificent. The layout
of the room is generally elliptical, with the bottom of the ellipse
squared off. The room is filled with very old walnut desks, each with
a built in lamp with one of those green glass shades, of the like
that are seen in old banks and libraries and of the sort that,
seeking just that ambience, I purchased for my apartments last year.
The wall around edge of the room is lined with marvelous old
bookcases of dark hardwood labeled with gold leaf, ornately carved
and stuffed with old leather bound reference volumes (I found one
that was actually printed in 1776, which is quite remarkable). The
walls arch inward to the ceiling of the room and are divided,
vertically, into three segments. The lower segment is, as I have
said, bookcases, immediately above which are mounted a circlet of
winged cherubs, nymphs and angels, curly haired and bedecked with
ribbons and roses. This heavenly collective circles the entire room,
above the shelves. The middle third of the walls appear to be
supporting the uppermost portion of the walls by means of flattened
columns crowned with Corinthian ornamentation and between which are
recessed windows that let it light that is, like the clouds, mostly
grey. The top third of the walls is the beginning of the ceiling,
sloping into a dome, and cross hatched by various plaster moldings.
The ceiling is a peculiar combination of the barrel vault and domed
style, and is split in the middle by a large, opaque oculus, which
admits more of the constantly grey light. On the flat wall of the
room, the only one which no shelves rest, is a large wooden
altarpiece that takes up the entire ground story of the room, wall to
wall. It is ornately carved as well, and appears to have a balcony.
Atop it is a clock and several large brass light fixtures.
The combined effect of the room is quite magnificent. Sitting in the
room, I would have been unable to tell the decade or even the century
had it not been for the style of clothing of the few inhabitants,
each of which was pouring reverently over a weathered tome supported
in a walnut book cradle. I am very pleased that pleases such as these
still exist and that they are still used rather than cordoned off in
the manner of a museum. I reflected that the marble stairs curved
with the wear not just the scholars of ages hence but of the people
of Dublin today, who continue to come in to the quiet to read and to
think. I was very impressed. Judging from pictures (and sadly, almost
exclusively pictures) this is how most libraries used to be. The very
fact that this reading room was so remarkable to me is testament to
the fact that settings of its kind are now relatively rare. This is a
totally different sort of affair from modern libraries, like the one
that was just opened, with much pride and fanfare, at Tallaght,
directly adjacent to my office at the County Council. That library is
almost a commercial affair – the entire thing is grey linoleum and
brushed stainless steel. The chairs are pale sticks and the walls
covered with stupid splotches of poorly rendered color. Even the
bookshelves are on casters, which lends the place an atmosphere of
deplorable temporality. It is as if to say "hey, if this whole books
and library thing doesn't work out, we can always wheel these shelves
away and install a really first class K-Mart in this place." The
Tallaght library isn't designed like something to be respected, and
so it is not – people run around loudly and throw things on the
floor, as if they are in a playground rather than a place of learning.
Don't get me wrong – in the end, I'd be hard pressed to find
something I'd rather money be spent on than a library. They are
tremendous civic resources, and a library is a library regardless of
the shape it takes, and I'm pleased that a community can get excited
about it. But it's just nice to see a place so old, so unchanged, and
so thoroughly different from the majority of its counterparts.
The reading room of the National Library is another example of the
powerful effect that place can have on emotion that I have attempted
to convey on several past occasions with regards to Christ Church,
St. Mary's, and the Iveagh Gardens, among other places. At the
Tallaght library, I sit grey and listless. I get a book, swipe it
through, and take it home. At the national library, I sit as quietly,
but the quiet is born of admiration, inspiration, and imagination.
The creative faculties are vivified simply by their presence in a
room whose physical architecture mirrors the magnificence of the
ideas in the books it contains. Sitting in a room such as this, one
cannot (or at least, I cannot) sit idle. The mind cannot be fallow
because the very grandness of the light and the shape provokes one to
seek a similar scale of aspect and scope of thought.
This, I think, is a theme that I have discovered in my wandering
about this city - that magnificence of architecture is more than an
aesthetic enjoyment and a technical accomplishment, it is also means
of imbuing space with a normative force. You don't need a Cathedral
in order to pray, you don't need a colossus in order to mail a letter
or do your banking, you don't need a temple in which to govern, and
you don't need a great domed hall in which to read a book. The
practical aspects of each of these ordinary transactions may be
dispensed with in much simpler, more efficient, and less expensive
ways: you can pray anywhere, you can bank and mail with a pencil and
a box, and you can read with a book and a chair. But when you create
massive spaces that seem superfluous but glorious, when you equip the
physicality of a place with the dignity of the character of the
activity it will house, that dignity is more likely to be revealed.
Men are moved to greatness by greatness itself, and a society is
defined by its shared spaces – they should lend cohesion and
direction to interactions. If the shared spaces are tawdry and
fleeting and pareto-optimized, how can men use them to seek what is
higher? Great deeds and great thoughts and great reverence do not
demand great spaces, of course. Exploring the great places of this
city, though, I cannot help but note that they help a great deal.
One of the volumes I found in the reading room – the previously
mentioned book of great age – was part of a series of books that had
one volume for each year from 1773 to the present, each volume with
the events from that year that its editors deemed to be of note. Out
of curiosity, I opened the book from 1776 to discover that it was not
a retrospective work, a 2003 book published about some stuff and some
dead guys a long time ago. Rather, it was a volume that was published
in 1777 about the events of just one year previous – it was,
essentially, current events reporting seen through the vision of the
age, not through the distant appraisal of a historical lens. I have
found that the time and perspective from which History is told
effects not just its tone but its content – 1776 was very different
if you were living in Boston than if you were living in London, and
it's even more different if you're living in, say, Turkey. 1776 was
a Halcyon year for my nation, the year of its birth, which is perhaps
why my eye immediately leapt to that volume. We all tend to magnify
the importance of our own trials and accomplishments; most Americans
think of the Declaration of Independence as an earth shattering,
epoch rending, destiny shaping moment: not just for us, but for the
world. Free people took control of their destinies, and that wasn't a
common thing.
At the time, apparently, it also wasn't a big thing. The 1776 volume
contained barely a whiff of America. A revolution could be occurring
that involved the greatest empire in the world, and a book published
within that empire did not mention it? What could possibly have
happened in 1776 that was more important than the American
Revolution, I wondered? Apparently not just one thing, but enough to
fill a whole book. Among other things, It seems like the Baronetcy of
Twynham failed to transmute, that the London Municipal planning board
approved the construction of a new park, and a stallion called Twain
won the Derbyshire stakes. The volume went on and on with this sort
of stuff – details of life and culture, military promotions and
festival descriptions.
They seemed to me to be thoroughly unremarkable sorts of things,
insignificant minutiae that have little bearing or effect on today or
any other day but that on which they occurred. How could such items
be included in a history book that made such glaring omissions?
It led me to wonder – when the defining moment of our age comes, will
we see it? Will we recognize its potential to shift the course of the
tides of time, or will we allow it to float past with the rest of our
days, un-noticed and un-marked? Judging from the 1776 volume,
probably the latter. Just as we cannot see the curve of a coastline
until we are high above it and far away, we cannot trace the arc of
the trajectory of human history until it has happened. The experience
of temporality is a deceiving one: we have a sort of forced myopia
imposed on us by the necessary parochialism of our sphere of
existence. Most of us do not exist on a grand scale, striding the
nations and shaping the world. We are defined by our ordinary
associations within a relatively small circle of friends and
associates. The important things to us are the tears and the joys of
our family and friends, the wedding announcements, promotions, and
local news. We are born, we live, and, within a relatively small
lapse of time and span of space, we die. The demands of living alone
take so much that we cannot be concerned with transpirations in
places and in circles that are, almost literally, worlds away. The
rural family is concerned with the church picnic and the school
dance, not the Ricardian Equivalence sustainability of the
government's third world development policies. Most of us don't even
have the time or desire to judge things and people far away in their
ultimate context, even if we were graced with the capability to do so.
So perhaps it is unreasonable to expect historical omniscience. In
the end, I suppose it's not really surprising that certain among the
events of 1776 went un-noticed by most of the world. They didn't care
that a band of scalawags in a dingy village in the woods fired a
shot, and that a young Virginian poured the soul of his principle
onto a piece of parchment and mailed it to a king. They were more
concerned – and logically so, for them – with the comings and goings
of their own society.
And so it seems, again, that the arc of history cannot be judged from
a close proximity. Time must pass, information must spread. But this
presents a difficult situation: so much of our behavior and our
planning is based around our memory and around our conception of
history. We calibrate our actions on the basis of what effects these
actions are expected to yield, and we make these forecasts based on
what we believe has happened in the past, how we think others,
similarly situated, have fared. We try to learn from the past so as
to avoid repeating its mistakes. Indeed, history is very important to
us, whether or not we frame it in that way. But if we cannot know and
use history – or even, really, determine its contents – in the
immediacy, how are we to act? We cannot wait 100 years to render a
decision, of course, we will have died. But the uncertainty of
perspective and the limitations of our capacity to incorporate
knowledge of the past and present into our own paradigm demands a
sort of suspended judgment, a curiosity that reaches insatiably
outward to avoid the crushing shortsightedness of its own limitation.
History places a heavy burden, indeed, who would bear it
conscientiously.
Meditating thus, I only had about an hour to read 'The Count of Monte
Cristo' before the library closed. The closing of the room was
announced by a small librarian who strode about the room swinging a
large bell with no uncertain glee. Tired, I took the bus home and
went to sleep.
TUESDAY 24 JUNE
It is quite common for John to get the urge to leave the
office, and that's when he's shown up to the office in the first
place. On Tuesday, he announced in the afternoon that we were going
to have a drive, so drive we did. We went first to pick up a woman
whose name I cannot remember beyond that it was Polish. We drove her
to a neighborhood in the Constituency, and John deposited her with a
large parcel of fliers to distribute to the houses there.
Having driven far afield from Tallaght, we decided to
take the scenic way back. It's not hard to take the scenic route when
scenery abounds and, as I believe I have mentioned before, many
parts of the Councillor's constituency are a 30 second drive to the
hills. We made our way swiftly to them and took the high road back to
Tallaght, which is far more gratifying than the M-50, the main artery
through South Dublin County.
We ascended to a majestic high place, a space that I
would have described as Tundra had it not been so green. The road was
but single lane, and cut only a very minimally obtrusive figure as
it wound through the hills and dells. The hills have a very different
sense about them internally than they do from below. Driving up and
through them, as we did that afternoon, I was able to see them
swelling off into the distance, rippling valleys seamlessly
succeeding each other. I felt very high in the mountains because
there were no trees in our area, even though the hills are lower in
absolute altitude than even the Appalachians in Virginia. Instead of
trees, there was miles of bracken, grass, thistle, and a lichen that
stained the green land red. The road refused to go straight, instead
curving picturesquely around rocks and into little dells. In the
distance I could see a lake and a village. It was a strange
combination of majestic (because of the scale) and homely (because of
the detail), and it seemed to be the perfect picture of Ireland…until
we had to stop the car so a herd of mountain sheep could cross the
road. THEN it was the very image of Ireland that I have so sedulously
cultivated but had so far not seen. The only thing that it lacked was
the merry highlander in tweed and playing a wooden flute, gamboling
through the hills with his sheep on his way to his cottage for tea.
Even absent my tweed-clad friend, it was a very impressive and
beautiful drive, all the more impressive in that it took us only 10
minutes to get back to the office. That sort of majesty does exist in
the United States, but it's not 10 minutes from anywhere and it
doesn't have the same sort of softness to it.
WEDNESDAY 25 JUNE
Wednesday was a more conventional day in the office – we
had no field trips and, tired, I went immediately home. There was,
however, a pleasing moment in the middle of the day when John looked
up from his work and said "wotcher call him, that poet from Maine?"
Surprised by the randomness, I did manage to help him realize that he
was thinking of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (who, though borne in what
is now Maine, actually originates from Massachusetts, which owned the
land when he was born).
John acknowledged his like of Longfellow, and then he
quoted a line of poetry, which I finished for him. The same thing
occurred several times in succession and, for about 1 minute and 30
seconds, the only sound to be heard in the room was John and I
gleefully completing each other's stanzas of poetry. Poor Jennifer,
who is a math major, was rather put off by it all, but I found it to
be quite glorious. It's not often that I am able to recall bits of
verse at the appropriate time but, for some reason, the jolly old
poesy was flowing that day. Granted, it was all really easy stuff –
like "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, "The Road Not Taken",
and "The Wild Swans at Coole", things that I should be ashamed to be
the descendent of my parents and grandfather if I did not know – but
it was still quite pleasing to find that I had internalized certain
lines into my concept to the point that they leapt forth unbidden
when appropriate. It was a small victory, and one for which I was
pleased. It's the sort of facility that I seek so eagerly but so
rarely develop in practice. I spend a great deal of time trying to
integrate knowledge and, though I am almost always left with a good
conceptual grasp of the matter at hand, I seldom have the exact words
or form…and that's what's really lovely. It is a great pleasure for
me to be able to judiciously proclaim "Cedant arma togae" (Cicero's
Latin, "Weapons yield to the Toga") when talking about civil control
of the military in politics courses, a joy to cryptically muse that
"good fences make good neighbors" in the midst of a tangentially
related conversation, or to wake up in the morning and wonder,
sleepily "but soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is
the east, and Juliet is the sun", replacing "Juliet" with "Maria".
These sorts of references add color and life to activity and
conversation when fluidly occurring. If laboriously referenced, they
smack of annoying pretension. If alluded to in unappreciative
company, they produce the distinct impression that one is out of his
head.
Wednesday was a good example of one of the ways poetry can play
through to life from time to time.
The most remarkable capability in this regard that I have yet
encountered was, of course, my first year room mate, Maximilian
Plotnick. He had the rather remarkable capacity to complete seemingly
any verse composed in English (and a good number in German) if
prompted. I certainly (and probably thankfully) lack that sort of
encyclopedic connection with the canon. Were I to share in it, I
would probably walk around running into things and hopelessly
besotted with my internal conception of things. That's not to say
that Maximilian did, it's to say I probably would if bequeathed the
time to develop that sort of mastery.
THURSDAY 26 JUNE
Apparently the effort of poetic recall was sufficient to
overcome the last vestiges of the strength of my immune system.
Jessica had been sick (we now know with pneuonia) for more than a
week and, surprisingly, had not managed to pass on the illness to any
of her living companions. She had been gallantly striving not to
breathe in public areas and to use separate dishes, etc, but on
Wednesday night I fell ill. Having taken a nap Wedenday afternoon, I
could not go to sleep for the entirety of Wednesday night. Because I
was awake all through the night, I had the opportunity to notice that
my throat had become very sore and that my neck pain was escalating.
"Shit," I thought. "My neck hurts. I'm about to get a fever."
I went to work on Thursday morning and had a good go at
it, but I couldn't really speak well, and was generally quite glum
because of my throat and headpain, and fatigued because I had slept
30 minutes the night before. When John arrived to find me feebly
pecking at a Croissant at my desk, he took one look at me and said,
essentially, "go home, you poor bastard." I protested most heartily,
and indicated that I was quite willing to work if only he would let
me moan quietly in the corner every now and then. He would brook no
dissent, however, and eventually prevailed by saying something along
the lines of "If you don't care about yourself, fine. But if you get
me sick with your hacking in the office, I'll bloody kill you. So go
home!" And so home I went, stopping (as mentioned in a previous blog
entry) at the bookstore after being struck by a particularly strong
yearning for a particular book that I did not find. I came home and,
frustrated by the failure of the bookstore to carry the desired
volume, produced a sordid essay whose title rather grandiosely
overstated the problem at hand - "The Decline of Art." I gave up
hope in art in general because my bookstore did not have my book. It
was a logical syllogism, given my illness, and it only made me feel
worse. Grumbling, I crawled into bed for an afternoon nap that,
foolishly, I terminated at 10PM because I was hungry. I chugged 2
liters of Orange Juice in an effort to thwart my sore throat, and
made a sandwich.
I wish I had been able to ignore my hunger and sleep through the
night, because after waking up I could not get back to sleep. Again,
my sleeplessness provided another opportunity to examine the
interesting progression of my illness. Around 1030 PM, I became
struck with a fever that grew progressively more violent through the
night. I lay in my bed wrapped in most of my clothes, my neck getting
worse and my bed providing no comfort. I was freezing, sore, and
cramped for 6 hours as I grumbled at my ill fate and sought a way to
blame the whole thing on Mugabe, the Zimbabwean who is messing most
everything else up right now. It was only after I took a shower
around 6:45AM that I managed to dip into a troubled and fitful sleep.
When John called in the morning, he was pleased to hear that I
agreed I was in no condition for work, and ordered me to sleep for
the day…which I did most eagerly, not having slept the night before.
FRIDAY 27 JUNE
So I slept all day Friday, and took quite a good deal of
medicine. I felt in much better health but, not surprisingly, was so
well rested that I could not sleep on Friday night until the morning
– you sense, as I did, a rather frustrating pattern developing.
SATURDAY 28 JUNE
And so I awoke on Saturday morning, feeling better
physically but only having slept since 6AM. Because I sensed my
impending illness, I was hesitant to purchase a bus ticket to
accompany my friends, who were going to Belfast that Saturday. Unsure
of my health, I didn't want to waste money if I couldn't go. As it
turned out, I had recovered by Saturday, but it was too late.
Probably thankful, too – it sounds like Belfast was a valuably
enlightening experience, but a depressing one. Furthermore, in order
to get to Belfast they had to contract with the dubiously named
"Paddy Wagon Tours", departing from "Paddy's Palace", so perhaps it's
good that I did not go: I would have considered it a significant loss
of dignity, as an individual proudly bearing the name of "Patrick",
to be conveyed around the countryside by means of a "Paddy Wagon",
especially one painted so heinously as those I have seen traipsing
around Dublin.
Not wanting to waste the day (which was, though grey,
not raining) and my good health (which seemed to be of tenuous
quality and questionable duration), I resolved to make some shorter
expedition that, though closer afield, would provide some sort of
stimulation and amusement.
Consulting my guidebook, I settled on a trip and
departed around 2:30 PM for Killiney, feeling comfortable in my late
departure only because I now realize that the sun sets only at 10:30.
I took a train South, down the cost of Dublin Day, to
the village of Killiney. Or rather, a sign proclaimed that I had
reached a village, but I didn't see anything but a beach, lots of
hills, and the train station. Thinking there must be some mistake, I
turned around, but my train was receding to the distance, another not
scheduled for 40 minutes. With little other recourse, I began walking
somewhat randomly. Looking about, I espied a stone monument atop the
tallest hill insight, and decided to climb the hill to ascertain the
nature of the piece of stone I saw at the summit and to see what
views or pleasing vegetation the hill might have to offer. Though a
faded poster board by the track vaguely alluded to the hill, I saw no
trail to the top from the station. I am spoiled by the Appalachian
Trail, whose white blazes are so conspicuous that one must have taken
leave of most senses to not find and keep the trail.
Here, I wandered through a bit of twisting road, that
was paved and dotted with occasional houses, but not much else. My
only reassurance is that I was climbing – at some point, I reasoned
with deadly acuity, I would reach the top of something.
As the altitude grew, so too did the splendor of the
houses, most of which were now guarded by tall iron gates. Climbing
and gazing over a few stone walls, I was surprised by the size and
elegance of the houses. In the United States, such houses would be
conspicuously displayed, and probably all stacked on top of each
other in a cluster leaving 2 feet of lawn. Here, the wealth was
tastefully concealed, which only enhanced the beauty of the few peaks
I was able to get. At one point halfway up the hill (still on paved
roads), I came across a house whose charitable (or egotistical) owner
had only built the stone wall waist high. It was an amazing sight:
acres of terraced perfection meticulously carved out of the side of
the hill with wandering stone walls, paths, and gardens, all looking
out and over the escarpment the beach and rocks below. Killiney is at
a curve of the land, so you can see the coast curving away in the
distance to a rather fetching peninsula, Bray's Head, in Co. Wicklow.
Proceeding further up the hill, I saw a castle and
proceeded eagerly to explore it until I discovered that, though
resembling a medieval castle in appearance, it was in fact a private
residence. My dismay didn't last for long because I realized shortly
thereafter that I had finally found the village of Killiney, probably
800 vertical feet and more than a mile and a half above the train
station bearing its name. The town was small and cozy but, eager to
continue, I was pleased to finally leave the road and to enter a
wooded parkland. I encountered a German couple whose feminine
component was climbing the hill in rather precarious heels. They
asked me to take their picture at the first vista, and I obliged. The
vista was, indeed, spectacular. One could see houses and little
hamlets nestled into the hills and trees for miles around, and down
to the coast. The curve of the coast was visible and, in the
distance, mountains covered in colorful fields divided by hedgerows.
It was a most bucolic setting, and I wished for my picture as well.
They were happy to oblige. They had driven most of the way up the
hill in their BMW, but I had walked from sea level and was quite
sweaty. I had unbuttoned my shirt to belt level to gain air, and must
have presented a rather interesting sight. They courteously ignored
that, though, and so I courteously ignored what was, I believe, a
rather more severe transgression on their part – at the next vista,
they stopped and began to exchange extremely lavish intimacies
roughly two feet away from me, intimacies that I believe are more
appropriately (and safely, given the speed of the wind on our little
ledge) confined the privacy of the bedroom.
Uncomfortable, I sped up and went ahead of them to the top.
The top features a large obelisk in the middle of a park of green grass. There are rocky vantage points in various directions that that allow you to see down the bay to Wicklow, back up the coast along the train tracks, or over the trees to Dublin City.
The top of Killiney Hill was dedicated in 1742 with a visit by Prince Albert. Given the decorative item with which the Prince's name has later become associated, the phallic obelisk is placed with flawless irony. Into the side of the obelisk is a plaque, on which is carved "last year being hard with the poor, the walls about these hills and this, & c, ereced by JOHN MAPAS, esq, June 1742."
It is rather a strange thing to write there. It seems to say "last year there was a famine, and a lot of people died. Instead of buying the peasants food to replace what I taxed them out of, I, the local lord, have decided to erect a needless but beautiful monument to myself, in their memory of course, on top of a tall hill. They won't see it, because they can't spare the calories to climb up here, but later people will look at it and admire my beneficence."
I wandered about on top of the hill for some time, taking pictures in all directions. One of the rocks had a small, perfectly round hole in it, in which someone had placed a golfball. The hilltop also came complete with frolicking children! Their names were Connor and Catherine, and they were quite fond of scrambling over rocks. We became friends when they started climbing on me, as well, while I was sitting admiring the view. Apparently, they thought I was another stone.
I picked a rock whose view featured the City, and read for awhile on it. By elevation allowed me to see the weather patterns moving, so I was able to tell what was about to happen to me before it happened. I decided to go down when I saw some omnious black clouds blowing swiftly towards me. Someone pointed out to me the other day that, even when you can't see the water, you can tell that you're on a small island because all of the clouds are moving so quickly, as if never far from the buffeting winds and the pressure currents of the open water. The clouds do seem to move quite fast here, but I don't know enough about weather to state whether it's because of the size of our island.
In any event we did manage to get down from the open part of the mountain under some trees before it began to rain. The cover of the trees combined with my rain jacket prevented me from getting wet. The rain did prevent me from understanding much of what John, who called to check on my health, said to me.
Not having seen any enticing restaurants in Killiney (also not having looked very hard in my eagerness to get up the hill of that same name), I elected to descend the other side of the mountain and to take a different path down than I'd taken up. I didn't have a map to tell me where I was going, nor was there any helpful signage, but I figured that the very worst that could happen was that I'd have to retrace my steps.
I did see a rather heinous statue, but that was about the worst of my descent. The approach to the hill is much gentler from the other side. Instead winding straight up the hill on roads and through houses like the route I had taken up, the way down was through a gently sloping green meadow that, because of its lack of trees, afforded lovely views of Dublin in the distance. The rain conveniently stopped falling and allowed the sun to shine magnificently on the grass and to sparkle off the water. I was quite charmed.
I was also quite hungry, and so walked swiftly down the mountain in search of food. I soon entered a residential neighborhood and began walking down what seemed to be a main road in the hopes that it would take me to some sort of village.
Handily, it did. I soon found the village of Dalkey, which has a number of things to recommend to it. Among other things, I found a house whose name was Rivendell. The last homely house in the west! The fact that the owner had named his house after the home of the Elves in Lord of the Rings is amusing considering that I later discovered that Enya, who sang "May it Be" for the movie soundtrack, lives in Dalkey. So too, apparently, do Bono and Van Morrison. I wonder if any of them ever roll into a local pub at the same time and provide a bit of live music? Different styles, maybe, but I'm sure something could work out.
Dalkey was lovely - lots of quaint houses, cute signs, two small castles from the 1400s, and more plants hanging from the lamp posts than are found in most gardens in the United States. I perused the restaurant selection and settled on Benito's Pizzeria. I enjoyed my dinner - tortellini and bruschetta - a great deal, but I judging from the posters on the wall, I fear that the "Benito" in the name of the restaurant may refer to a certain B. Mussolini. At first I was slightly dismayed, but once I surrendered my principles to the gastrointestinal imperative, all was fine. Fascist tortellini has never tasted so good.
I was glumly considering the possibilities of walking back over the mountain to return to the train station to head back, but my waitress told me that Dalkey also has a DART stop...how lovely! I walked in its general direction, stopping to enjoy the sense of accomplishment that comes from viewing from below the hill that one has just climbed. Surrounded by a pleasing cloud of garlic, I boarded the train back up towards Dublin.
Rather on a whim, I got off the train at Sandycove before it got back to Dublin, determined to maximize the daylight hours. Sandycove is famous (at least, it is if one pays attention to such things) for being the home of Joyce's Martello tower. Martello towers were built as defensive fortifications all over the coast of England and Ireland, and housed small garrisons of troops. The tower in Sandycove was briefly the residence of James Joyce, who lived there for a few days until one of his living companions, Oliver St. John Gogarty, rather rudely discharged a weapon in his direction. Needless to say, the living arrangements were no longer amenable to Joyce, and he left. He did begin Ulysses in this Martello tower, and "stately, plump, Buck Mulligan" is based from him.
The tower was a fare ways down from the station, so I had a nice walk along the bay with views back towards Dublin, out to Howth and its glimmering lighthouse, and down towards the tower. The whole scene was draped with a rather nice purplish blue light.
Despite its name, there is not much sand to be found in Sandycove. Much of the walk was on concrete or rocks, even though I was right next to the water. Every now and then I found a few patches of sand and pebbles. I collected several small stones from one of them, with the intention of displaying them proudly on my bookcase as Joycean pebbles. I finally found the tower - turns out it's home now to a James Joyce museum! I had arrived around 10 PM, though, so of course it was closed. Having made the pilgrimage, though, I was pleased to get a picture in front of the tower before heading back to the station and from there home to Dublin.
I barely managed to catch the last bus back to Santry and avoided having to pay for a taxi. I was tired but happy from the day's adventure. It's nice to be able to roam so far and through territory of such variation and beauty without having to use a car. It was nice to climb a mountain and enjoy a nice meal upon coming down from it before getting on a train to go and walk on a beach that had been visible from the summit.
I'm falling behind on the writing here...It's now Sunday evening the sixth of July, one week and one day after the events of this post. Perhaps eventually I shall catch up?
(to be continued...again)
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