It is indeed green and lush here, just as imagined, with occasional light rain and wind since we arrived 2 days ago, the sun shining through periodically so that I can understand the image of the rainbow with the pot of gold at the end. I am traveling with 4 Berkeley friends with whom I have journeyed before, Geri/Rich and Jeanne/Bill, none of whom have been in this country before.
Our time in Dublin upon arrival has been brief and intense. We wandered the main central areas of this compact city which left us with impressions of its age over time, from the ancient stone castle, to the beautiful Georgian squares with large private parks, to the rows of individual 3-story red brick buildings with tall narrow windows and brightly painted doors.
This is of course the heart of local tourism where many languages can be heard but, in general, visually it is a very non-diverse population. We see here and there the stereotype of the older ruddy-faced Irish man but these are mainly vacationing visitors and in the hotel the staff all have foreign accents. This is the EU so workers can easily flow in and out and fill any jobs not wanted by the local folks. We saw a slogan on a passing window from a famous leader: “You can’t be racist and Irish”.
On our one full day, we took the green hop-on, hop-off bus sitting upstairs on the upper deck under lightly drizzly skies. We did the full round with live commentary from the driver, as we sat on top of the double-decker bus hearing his stories of the neighborhoods we pass through. We pass Trinity College where the President once said women would be admitted “over my dead body” and where today the graduating females scoffingly wave their diplomas at his statue. We passed the famous Guinness distillery (where half the bus disembarked for free tastings) and the oldest public hospital in the world, We saw large civic buildings and the Lord Mayor’s house, all tucked within lively neighborhoods. In the afternoon, we all ended up at the EPIC Museum, containing stories of the waves of immigration from Ireland, taking local Irish culture around the world.
and glass architecture.
Churches are of course everywhere, large baroque to more modern, I assume mainly Catholic and there were many bells heard as we passed on Sunday morning.
On the plane I was fortunate to sit next to a vegetarian woman, Judith, who is a professional singer and choral conductor who told me not only about her favorite vegetarian restaurants but some music venues as well. So on our first night we ate at a wonderful restaurant called Cornucopia and our second day lunch Bill, Jeanne and I ate at a fabulous higher end vegan/gluten-free bistro called Glas.
And she also told us of a choral concert we attended last night at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the center of Catholic Dublin in a huge gothic style edifice. There were 2 different choral groups singing devotional pieces, separately and together, in the large resounding space, classical to Messiaen and Alvo Part. The conclusion was an homage to Dublin, a very memorable and beautiful rendition of “Danny Boy” in Its most glorious form.
We are all well, not getting quite enough sleep, and we are now on the fast train to Belfast.