DUBLIN is a city of pubs, beautiful Georgian buildings, Guinness and hidden treasures you might never associate with the Irish capital. It is a fascinating place to visit, and the locals are helpful, charming and as full of blarney as in any Irish movie.
We soon discovered one important thing: you need more than the two days we had to fully explore the lovely city and sample its atmosphere.
We travelled by ferry from the Welsh port of Holyhead across the Irish Sea.
The Irish Ferry Company recommended the Ulysses, the huge car carrying boat that takes a leisurely three hours to cross the sea. We were booked standard but upgraded to Club class and enjoyed complimentary wine and food in a huge comfortable lounge which we shared with no more than a dozen other passengers.
The rain lashed down during the trip and as we neared the port, Dublin itself appeared through the mist, a rain-soaked ghost of a place. Not so odd, I thought, Ireland and liquid sunshine are synonymous.
But as we disembarked the rain stopped and that was the last we saw of it. It was cool, but the sun shone through the clouds as we hopped into a taxi for the short trip to The Westbury Hotel right in the middle of the city on Grafton Street.
“You’ll like it there,” said the taxi driver, “It’s the best hotel in the city.”
Like all the Irish people we met on the trip, he was friendly full of local knowledge, such as where to find the best Guinness, although we were assured that in Dublin there is such thing as a bad drop.
The driver was right about the hotel too. It is a beautiful, recently refurbished five-star haven of luxury, with huge, tastefully decorated rooms that contain superb beds and luxury bed linen. The public and dining rooms were elegant and the breakfast buffet varied enough to satisfy any taste from croissants to Irish Breakfast with grilled everything!
The hotel is so central that many of the city’s attractions – and historic pubs - are within walking distance. We ate in the Bruxelles Cafe just down the road where the statue of rock star Phil Lynott stands on the footpath and supped Guinness in O’Neill’s famous hostelry.
Despite the chill, al fresco dining is popular and tables and chairs dot the pavements like any Mediterranean or sub-tropical paradise. People, well rugged up, sat and sampled the fine fare on offer.
But it’s not the fresh air they crave it’s a cigarette. In Ireland smoking is banned inside all public buildings including restaurants and pubs, so each time a non-smoker wants to enter a pub or restaurant they have to take a deep breath and fight their way through the smoke-laden air around the doorway
Any visitors from Australia will find Dublin an enigma. The sun rises late and so do the people. Shops open usually around 10 am and the working rush hour starts around 9. It was odd to wander through empty shopping arcades in the late morning.
But all the famous brand names are there from Marks and Spencers to Gucci and Louis Vuton, plus lots of expensive jewellery shops. For real Irish souvenirs though take a stroll through the St Stephen’s Green shopping centre at the end of Grafton Street. It’s easy to walk round and has interesting interior design.
On a short stay the best thing to do is buy a Hop on Hop off bus ticket which will take you around the city for 24 hours. We caught the bus at Grafton Street at St Stephen’s Green, so we made our first stop at Dublin Castle.
The guide was a knowledgeable young woman with a cute sense of humour and kept us chuckling with some wry comments about the past.
The Castle is no museum, but a working building that hosts state occasions and is home to several government departments.
The tours took us through some magnificently decorated and furnished rooms – and one in particular was where US President Bill Clinton, British PM Tony Blair and Irish leader Bertie O’Ahern thrashed out the Good Friday Peace agreement in 1998.
From the ceilings dangled million dollar Waterford Crystal chandeliers that dazzled as we walked through and, hanging on a staircase wall was one of the world’s most famous paintings, Landseer’s The Stag at Bay, which was copied as a lithograph and was hugely popular in Victorian homes.
On the other side of the castle is the Chester Beatty Library. Now this is a gem that was so fascinating it took up much more time than I expected. Beatty was an American industrialist and collector of early reading material who settled in Ireland 1950 and put his collection on show.
The ancient books and manuscripts are fascinating in themselves , but the real mind-blowers are pieces of papyrus that contain the original Greek New testament texts and 9th century copies of the Qur’an, illuminated manuscripts, in fact a treasure of literary history.
We spent so much time in the library that after the next stop of the bus – the beautiful and historic Christ Church Cathedral - there was no time to visit the famous Guinness storehouse and brewery or the Jamieson distillery.
Instead we stopped for lunch at The Church Cafe and Bar at the junction of Mary Street and Jervis Street. This is an amazing place. It is the former St Mary’s Church, a place rich in Irish history. Arthur Guinness was married there in 1761, playwright Sean O’Casey was baptised there and Jonathon Swift attended services there. It was closed in 1964 and only re-opened as a restaurant in 2005.
The stained glass windows glow in the sunshine and the organ, upstairs in the gallery has been rebuild. The huge oval bar sits in the centre of the room and tables are scattered around the edge of the building.
Another excellent place for lunch us Bewley’s on Grafton Street. This pasta and pizza palace boasts carbon neutrality and is the biggest supplier of fair trade coffee in Ireland.
One place I did want to see was George Bernard Shaw’s terrace home in Synge Street, so we walked through leafy Georgian boulevards only to find that the place closed at the end of August. We were three days too late. Although a peek through the letter box gave me some idea of the cosy Victorian lifestyle the writer lived. There was so much to see and do in the Irish city that I have promised myself a longer visit in the future, to see the literary tributes to people like Bram Stoker and James Joyce not to mention taking a look at the lush green countryside outside the capital and following the trail of Dublin’s ghosts.
The last evening was spent enjoying the famous Dublin Literary Pub Crawl. It was a hugely entertaining night, but more of that later.
The trip back to England was onboard the fast ferry, The Swift, which took less than half the time of the graceful Ulysses, but was just as comfortable in Club class, which was much better patronised on the return trip.
It was back on a train then for a trip down to Hereford in the English West Country. It was a crowded standard class milk train that stopped at every station to Shrewsbury, but it was fascinating to see the variety of people from businessmen on the way home to sleepy drunks and the train also stopped at one of the most famous stations in the world, a place I’ve read about and even tried to pronounce but never thought I would actually visit. It was the Welsh village of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.
That was a bonus.
Getting there: Ferry from Holyhead, from $48 per person, with a $24 upgrade to Club Class.
Stay: Westbury five-star Hotel. A superior room costs $320 per night including breakfast and free internet.
Must do: Hop on Hop off bus around the city, cost $24 person; The Literary Pub Crawl, cost $19 per person.
The author was a guest of the Irish Tourist Authority.
www.absolutetheatre.com.au
PHOTOSby Deanne Scott: The Bruxelles cafe with Phil Lynott’s statue outside
