I Can Remember It For You Wholesale: A Fictional Diary of a Perfect Ireland where Covid Doesn’t Exist: Day 2 — Town, Pints and Football
Disclaimer: This is a fictional diary I am writing to give myself an escape from Covid and the current lockdown here in Ireland. Two of my best friends were supposed to come from American for a holiday in October, but couldn’t because of the pandemic so I am writing a diary of what we would have done to give myself an escape.
I was up early. I’d struggled to fall asleep the night before. I was so excited to have Americans in the house and brand new, never been to Ireland before Americans to boot. Once I got over that hump though, a wave of relaxation and contentment washed over me, and I was out like a light. Still, I was up at the crack of dawn. So were Dawn, Chris, my wife, the kids, the dog and the cat. It can be a pretty hectic start of the day at the best of times, but the addition of guests added a few more elements. Luckily the Americans are also parents and understood when to help and when to stand back. It all went smoothly and we even had time for a quick coffee together to iron out the specifics of getting to town to meet me before I hopped on the bike and headed to work.
The lads hadn’t ridden on public transport in years. Chris grew up in New York, so he had a history of it, but it was a fairly ancient one at that. Where they live in Oregon is rural, and there is no rural public transportation in Oregon. Dawn grew up in Idaho so a double decker bus would be a completely new adventure. I was somewhat sad that I would miss sharing this experience with them, but I also loved the idea of them heading off on this adventure and striking out on their own so early in their stay. They’d go home with a few memories of just the two of them travelling in Ireland without the immediate safety net of being with someone with a few more answers.
They were able to download the bus app on their phones and could use google maps, but they only had internet while they were using the home broadband. Once they left the house, they’d be on their own till they got to town. They’d have to figure out where to get off in town and how to get to a phone shop on Grafton Street to get Irish sim cards. They’d have to navigate for a short time as we all used to up until a few years ago. Back when we had to use actual maps. I used to study maps so that when I went somewhere new to me, I’d recognise the streets and it would all make sense. As long as I could find two of the places on that map, I could imagine where the rest fell into place in real life. Dawn and Chris both grew up driving cars, so they are both good with directions. We got truly lost together more than once in the deep woods at dusk in America so the fact that we’re not all still lost in those woods gave me confidence that they’d find me no matter what happened on the way.
Which was not much as it happened. They used the Dublin Bus app to time the bus and the stop is visible from my front door, so they were straight on. Like most Americans, they couldn’t understand a Dublin accent and had no idea what the bus driver said, but I’d given them my Leap Card and they were smart enough to know that the slight roll of the driver’s eyes and his short grunt meant that he’d taken the money from the card and they needed to get out of the way. Too traumatised by this encounter so near the start of their journey, they didn’t dare brave the upper deck and the perilous climb up the stairs as the bus lurched from side to side and front to back through the congested estate.
It’s a short enough journey to town. Out the estate, through Glasnevin village and past the Botanic Gardens, through Phibsboro and then down Constitution Hill all the way to the quays. From there the bus travels along the river all the way to O’Connell Bridge where it crosses to the Southside and circles around Trinity College and on to their destination, Dame Street.
A lot of Dubs will tell you that O’Connell Street is Dublin’s main street. That has never sat right with me. In my time in Dublin, O’Connell Street has never seemed like the centre of town. It is the longest and the widest. The most historically significant. The busiest. But it has never felt like Main Street. Dame Street has always had that feel. If there is an exact centre to Dublin, it’s the bottom of George’s Street where it meets Dame Street. That feels like the centre, where everything is converging and emerging. Dame Street is always buzzing. Closing time on a summery Saturday on Dame Street is something everyone should see at least once. The place is electric. It’s electric any time though really, and on a Friday morning it is packed.
So, telling the lads to get off on Dame Street meant that they would be emerging on their first day in Ireland, on their own, into the middle of the melee. You literally have to push past a wall of people in order to get into a flow of people going the same way and then have to push through them if you have to get to the flow going the other direction. But that’s the buzz. It’s mad, it’s manic, and it’s mobbed.
From Dawn’s telling of it, they went they exact wrong direction and were heading straight for Thomas Street until someone on the street heard their accents and walked them all the way back to the bottom of Grafton Street and pointed to the phone shop.
It was Friday lunch time, and it was sunny, so Grafton Street was rammed. A sea of people from the Gates of Trinity all the way to the Gate to Stephen’s Green. Packed like sardines, only with little pockets of space around street performers belting out whatever they can for a few bob. Once you get to the top of Grafton Street all you have to do is take a left and as long as you don’t get off that line, you’ll walk right to my school.
I am the Director of Studies in an English language school in the middle of the old business district in the heart of Georgian Dublin. The school building was built in 1789 and has played many roles. One afternoon a few years ago a guy came in with his elderly father, who immediately started having a good look around the place before he’d even said hello. It turned out that it had previously been a maternity hospital and the man had been born there some 84 years earlier. It’s a lovely building with a beautiful Georgian door and a good amount of original plasterwork. I can’t really say that I forget how lucky I am because I’ve always loved working in that building and in the area, and I never take it for granted. It’s one of the main reasons that I don’t make more money or work longer hours somewhere else. It is a joy to work in the heart of the area and to spend my afternoons looking out that giant sash window onto the street scene outside. The school is on Fitzwilliam Street which at one point was the longest stretch of unbroken Georgian Architecture in Europe. It is like a deep gorge of red bricks and white windows, perfectly framing the lush green mountains above the trees at its far end.
I love showing it off as well, so after brief introductions between my friends and my colleagues, we made a bee line for some lunch to take to the park. Although a greasy roll next door in the old Astons, surrounded by builders on their lunch break, smoking fags and drinking sugary tea would be the most authentic Dublin City Centre experience, I know a guy that runs a Thai place just up the road who gives me deals on what is really some top notch takeaway grub. Lee is actually Chinese, and I know him from my days as a bicycle messenger. When I met him, he had literally three words of English. We were all constantly fascinated by the fact that he was doing the job without a word of English with just a crackly radio and a battered paper map to guide him. 20 years later, his English is nearly as good as mine, although you’d still know he was from China. Lee’s a go getter as well. He’s no longer a courier and has now got two Thai restaurants and just opened one of those Chinese restaurants where you watch someone make the noodles by hand.
More introductions were made in the Thai shop and then we were off to Stephen’s Green, the biggest and most famous of the Dublin City Centre Parks. It is a truly magnificent oasis from the manic hustle and bustle of the area and an absolute must see even just to hear the relative silence amid the caustic dissonance of the city outside its wrought iron gates. The park is full of life. Lots of birds of all sorts and always lots of people. There is a long unevenly shaped lake that wanders off into little nooks and crannies that stretch nearly the length of the park. A steep arched stone bridge pinches it like some sort of odd belt around the middle and then it wanders into deep shade at both ends. The centre of the park has magnificent flower beds and some of the few un-littered working fountains in all of Dublin. Wooden benches radiate from these as it they were suns in the middle of the park with everything else is circling around them.
Right on the pond’s edge is where to sit for lunch. There are plenty of benches and the grass is well kept. There is a bit on the far side of the lake that is roped off for wildlife and thankfully all of the Swans and geese use that area as a toilet and leave the rest of the grass for the rest of us to enjoy without fear.
We found a nice place right between the oblong gazebo and the stone bridge and tucked into our boxes of noodles. The park was busy enough. Much like other Americans, Dawn and Chris asked if I came to the park every day for my lunch, as this was a particularly wonderful experience and much like I have before, I said that I came here whenever the weather was nice (and once again promised myself that I would come to the parks a bit more for my lunch).
My lunch break went a bit late and by the time we got back to the school all of the students were out of class and hanging around chatting in the hall. Dawn and Chris both wanted to use the toilet before they headed off into town for some shopping, so they had to push through the stationary masses of people to get there. The sounds of dozens of languages being spoken as they waded through. I gave them a few suggestions and they had a guidebook so I sent them on their way and arranged to meet for a pint before showing them where to get the bus home.
I spent the rest of the afternoon beavering away on this and that at work. Counting down the minutes. It pissed rain all afternoon. Gone were the bright yellows and purples of the flowers in the park and the technicolour paint job of the ice cream van circling the green. It was lashing and everything had turned grey. We had decided to meet at the Long Hall because it was close to where they could get the bus home (and it’s a fabulous pub).
The Long Hall was the very first Dublin pub I was ever in on my very first trip to Ireland in ’98. It is a Victorian bar and hasn’t changed much since then. There has been a pub on the same spot since 1766 and it has a long and storied history. It is a deep, skinny pub, always thick with bodies, laughter and up until the ban, smoke. It was one of the pubs that the smoking ban was not particularly kind to. Once the smell of smoke was removed, the smell of the toilets tended to fill the vacuum. The smell of urinal cakes and vomit were especially noticeable. It was unfortunate to say the least and kept me from its doors for many years. Thankfully, that has been sorted and it has returned to its Victorian splendour, albeit without the haze.
Like many Dublin pubs, you are greeted at the front door by the end of the long bar that lines most of the room. There is a bit of room at the very front, but then the bar itself and the stools directly in front of it take up ¾ of the space as you move further in. You have to push past a seemingly endless procession of people waiting to order as you make your way back, where the bar ends and the space opens up. This is the spot to be. Tables are plenty and even though it’s always pretty bustling back there, I have nearly always found a seat . The embossed patterns of the deep red ceilings, the twinkling golds of half empty whiskey bottles reaching as high and as far as you can see and the odd relics of bygone days lining the walls are reflected perpetually in the abundance of shiny mirrors. The woodwork is fabulous, complete with a clock topped gate that separates the bar seating and the bigger room at the back.
The bar tenders are always great craic in there and never seem rattled. If you mention that you like whiskey, their eyes light up. As Dawn and I waited for our pints to settle, I pointed to a bottle of Yellow Spot they had on a shelf and told her that when I’d brought my mates that own a Whiskey Bar back in Portland here, they had been so excited to try it. Yellow Spot was impossible for them to get for their bar and they’d only heard rumours about it. One of the barmen overheard me telling this to Dawn and jumped in, telling us the stories about the different whiskeys on that particular shelf. He got particularly excited when he got to one bottle. He pulled it down and kind of hid it behind his back. He told us that a certain American liked to come to Dublin quite often and that he always made a stop at the Long Hall for a drink. The barman was getting more and more excited as he built up his story and was nearly giddy when he placed the bottle in front of us and asked us to read the name on the tag. ‘The Boss’ it read. He then stepped back with a look like he had just cooked us all a Christmas dinner on his own. A proud smile, reaching ear to ear. He leaned back in and recounted in a hushed voice, like it was some kind of secret that he was only telling us, that it was in fact Bruce Springsteen himself who visited every time that he was in Dublin and this was his bottle.
It was mid-afternoon, and even though it was a Friday, Whiskey would make the day go in an entirely different direction than it was going and would undoubtedly end up in a less kid friendly space than planned. So, we took our beautiful pints of Guinness and settled into our seats. The pub was full. Old men looking as worn as the original wooden bar, young professionals with ironic glasses and purposefully ill-fitting clothes, tourists weighed down by cheap souvenir store detritus, suited businesspeople obviously moving their boozy lunch to an even boozier post work bit of networking. Different ages, interests, profiles, personalities. No music, no TVs, no video poker. Nothing but conversation, the way Irish pubs should be.
It had been pissing rain all afternoon and the lads had gotten a proper soaking, but the pub was warm and cosy, and we were far enough from the windows at the front to forget about the outside world. We stayed for two pints and then had to pry ourselves from our seats before the third, which would have undoubtedly turned into many more. As soon as we walked out of the front door, we were blasted with sunshine and a warm wind. This sent the two pints in my body on a high-speed circuit around my blood supply and kicked my buzz into gear. I’d picked the Long Hall for any number of reasons, but one of the main ones was that the bus to my house stopped a few feet from the front door. Dawn and Chris having navigated their way into town were confident they could navigate their way back as well. I’d say the pints gave them a bit of extra courage, which would be handy at rush hour. Town was heaving. It was Friday clocking off time, and it looked like the whole country was clocking off. I had the wind behind me and flew down the Quays and straight home.
The lads weren’t too far behind me on the bus so I waited at the stop closest to the house so they could see where to get off. We got home to a working family household. The kids were in full flow. Excited to see our guests and to tell us all about their day. My daughter has just started secondary school so she loves to recount absolutely everything that happens with all the new people in her world everyday when she gets home. Its all so new and exciting for her and it was lovely for Dawn and Chris to get to see that side of Dublin life as well as the one I was trying to show them outside of my home.
I threw together a quick curry and by the time the lads had stuffed their shopping into their room and got a tiny bit of downtime, it was time for dinner. This too was done quickly as we had to be back on the bus and on the way to our next adventure within the hour. The fact that we were all going meant that we all had to whip the house back into shape as soon as we were done eating before grabbing our coats and heading for the bus stop and on our way to Phibsboro for a Soccer game.
I think the lads were pretty happy that I was with them on the bus. I understood the bus driver for one, which was an improvement on the morning. This one also grunted and rolled his eyes, but at this point that’s something that I have come to assume is included in a public transport induction process. This time it was straight upstairs and up to the very front seats. The one right above the driver has slightly more leg room than the rest, so I always go for that one if possible. It also has the best view and the least amount of possible nutters, they tend to go for the back rows. Even after all of these years, I still love double decker busses. I don’t particularly like the bus, well I don’t like it all really if I’m honest. I like to be on my own schedule and unreliable and uncomfortable service doesn’t fit well with my modus operandi. So, the only saving grace for the bus for me is sitting in the front row of the top deck and seeing everything from a different vantage point. All of the weirdly shaped gardens in my estate, what’s behind the high fences on the very fancy stretch of houses around Washerwoman’s Hill, seeing what is going on behind the hoarding where the Addison Lodge used to be, watching the procession of madsers wandering around Phibsboro. It always feels like a bit more of an adventure when you are acting as tour guide and that’s easier when you are literally travelling above everything.
Traffic going into Phibsboro was mad. It always is. There is no solution. Two main roads intersect at the crossroads and no matter of public transportation is going to fix it. Too many people need to go through it in cars and for many of them there are no alternatives. I even avoid it on the bike at this point. So, it was a slow crawl up Botanic Road and we got out a stop early and walked, passing the bus twice and leaving it in our wake as we turned up Connaught Street towards the stadium.
Our local team, The Phibsboro Bohemians are currently enjoying the status of flavour of the month. Every match this year has been sold out, often weeks ahead of time. It was the same last year. At one point my son had a season ticket and I couldn’t get a ticket for myself so I had to drop him with my mate Tommy who is a season ticket holder as well and then had to listen to the crowds cheer each goal from my back garden on my own before jumping back in the car and going back to collect him. I learned my lesson last year and had secured tickets for all six of us in the Jodi Stand.
Phibsboro was electric. People everywhere, traffic jammed, pedestrians using every available bit of space regardless of whether it was the middle of the road or not. Gards trying to direct traffic. People selling flags, scarves, Bohemians cowboy hats, tickets, you name it, someone was hawking it.
Dalymount is a strange stadium. It is bordered on three sides by long terraces of red brick houses and on the fourth side by an awful 80’s brutalist style shopping centre and tower block. If you didn’t notice flood lights reaching up towards the sky behind the houses, you wouldn’t even consider that there was any space behind them. To access the entrance, you have to go down a narrow lane that is covered in graffiti and unless it’s a match day, usually a bit of dumped rubbish. I have spent many great nights in that lane and love it dearly, but picturesque it is not.
We got seats down at the Peter’s Road end. It’s where we’ve always sat when we’ve gone to the matches. It’s right next to the section where everybody stands up for the whole match to spew out a constant barrage of chants and songs. Where we sit is right on the edge of where it goes a bit wild. Those guys next to us are the super fans. I love that spot. There is so much energy going on and its a real buzz to be in the middle of it.
It was sold out, so the place was packed. Queues for the jacks, for the bar, for the food truck, for the hatch that sells Euro bags of shite candy and even for the steps to get up and down the stands. By the time the match started, half the steps in every section where taken up with Boh’s fans.
We we’re playing Dundalk, which is always a good match. They’re rivals, but it’s still fairly good natured. When Bohs play Rovers it’s a different story. There’s actual hooliganism at those matches. But Dundalk is a good rivalry. They manage to bring a lot of away supporters and they make a lot of noise over in the far stands.
League of Ireland takes a particular set eyes to see the beauty of the game in. It’s never a particularly graceful bit of football on display or even a bit of flow to it. It’s scrappy and there is often a lot more emotion than there possibly is skill. But the buzz is great. I’ve been taking my kids there for years and have always felt completely safe, which can seem at odds with the level of profanity that is hurled at both home and away teams. Bohs fans are as hard on the Bohs as they are on their opponents. Poor play is met with harsh wards and my kids have definitely heard some combinations of profanity I couldn’t manage to put together if I tried.
The match was neck and neck. Bohs were playing well, but so were Dundalk. Each side had had a few shots on target and for the most part the fans were happy with how things were going. It was all fairly pedestrian football with not much to get worked up about and then the oddest thing I’ve ever seen in football happened. A Dundalk player made a shot on target that the keeper picked up. The keeper was looking to the far side for someone to play it out to and had completely overlooked the fact that a Dundalk player had snuck in behind him.
The keeper bent down as if he was going to roll the ball out in front of him briefly as he surveyed the scene and literally everybody in the stadium screamed that the Dundalk player was right behind him. He bent again and the whole stadium erupted again. Screaming and pointing to the man behind him.
He bent down a third time and actually rolled the ball out in front of himself at which point the Dundalk player ran around him, took the ball, and promptly scored into the empty next in front of him. The whole place went mental. I can tell you that we heard some language that would have stripped the paint off a house. Combinations of curse words I had never even thought of. Images I had never considered. I think someone, a home fan mind you, screamed that if he saw the keeper’s ma walking down the street, he’d give her a dig. The amount of abuse was unbelievable.
Dawn and Chris didn’t know what to think of it. (My kids had seen and heard it all before at previous matches) The fact that it was the home team receiving all of this seemed particularly odd to them. As was the fact that we didn’t feel like we were in any danger even though it all seemed quite over the top. I think Chris was getting a kick out of it anyways. He’s from New York and they like shouting at their sports there.
Eventually, Bohs got an equaliser. I was really hoping they’d score because that’s just such a buzz. When the whole stadium erupts, and everybody is smiling and clapping and dancing. I wanted Dawn and Chris to get that feeling. It was a good goal and that anger over the soft goal they’d given up was immediately replaced with exhilaration.
The bar was way too full to try to get a pint in at halftime, so we ended up in the queue for the chip van for the most of it, watching the junior league kids kick balls around on the pitch and chatting as we waited. The second half was scoreless, which was grand. It was actually a lovely evening, so it was nice to just sit in the terrace, explaining the history and importance of Irish football to kids like my son to our guests. Trying to give them a feel for a sport that is so important everywhere in the world except America.
A draw was a good result to have for Bohs. It was a good result to get with the Americans as well. No sport in America ends in a draw. (Well, Hockey does, but that’s Canadian isn’t it?) A draw was a good result for both teams and there was a good buzz leaving the stadium. No rancour, although that howler of a goal will definitely be talked about for years to come.
The lane was packed, but I got a chance to show the lads the mural of Colin Riot as we walked out. Colin was a punk one of the more well known punks from Belfast, he was the king of punk there. A complete gentleman and always great craic to hang out with. My old band Moutpiece played on tons of bills with his band Runnin Riot and they were always great nights. Colin sadly passed away while on tour a few years ago and it was a devastating loss for Belfast and Dublin punks. There is a gorgeous mural of Colin painted in the laneway and it has never been graffitied. It’s a beautiful tribute. The lane is full of murals. There’s a big Phil Lynott coming out of the stadium and a brand-new Jack Charlton piece in the lane. But Colin’s is my favourite.
The kids were still interested in hearing about Colin even after having been told who the man on the mural is every time we’ve walked past it. Sure my son thinks I’m famous because I play gigs, he doesn’t realise that many of those gigs are very far from fame. But he’s fascinated that I know the man on the wall. It was getting late so it was out the lane, back towards Connaught Street and then down to the bus for my two dependents and the woman who I share the responsibilities for them with.
The footpaths were thronged with people and traffic was again at a standstill on all of the roads around the stadium. The whole area was bursting with sounds. Car horns, air horns, lots of people singing and even more chanting. Some chants seemed a bit blue for my current audience of young people, but the area was buzzing.
Strangely the bus came almost too quickly. We’d assumed that it would be a pain in the arse to get a bus after the match because of all of the traffic and had kind of nonchalantly walked out of a side street to get a taxi, only to notice that the bus was just at the lights. It was all a bit rushed and then before we knew what was going on, the kids and Tara were gone and it was just Chris, Dawn and I standing in front of the Golden Chip.
I checked my phone and saw that it was 9:48, so I quickly realised we could order a couple of curry rolls in the chipper and then run down to Fagan’s to grab a couple of cans of shitty lager before they closed at 10.00. All off licenses in Ireland close at 10.00 by law. It’s supposed to protect us from ourselves. Back in Portland you can buy beer until half two in the morning. Fagan’s is not a particularly nice off license. It has a couple of craft beers on display, but nothing in the fridges. Those are just packed with Guinness and lager. But it has got its charm. It’s always manned by very friendly Brazilians, which is nice. And it’s cheap. There were a few other people rushing for the door as we got there, but it was a quick exchange and we were back to the chipper well before our food was ready.
Food and beer procured, we headed up the canal a few hundred yards to the first big set of locks heading towards Cabra. It sits on a large rise and overlooks the still waters of lagoon between itself and the next locks down at the Phibsboro Road, flanked by the imposing old silos of the grain buildings and tall apartments reaching to the sky to one side and the old rail line sinking below the water line to the other. There is a strange stone outcropping just below the locks and a few people had climbed on top of it and were having very civilised pints and by the smell of it, salt and vinegar chips. We found comfortable seats to ourselves on the locks and tucked into the feast before us.
Curry rolls are an oddity even in Dublin chippers. Not many places do them, but the Golden Chip is somewhat known for theirs in chipper circles. It is a strange combination of rice, peas, carrots and curry sauce, battered. It looks like a long skinny fried burrito. It shouldn’t be nice, but it’s gorgeous. It’s a savoury, salty bomb and one that goes very nicely with ice cold shitty lager. We sat there for ages. Chatting, catching up. Talking about old people, talking about new people. Talking about how life has changed and how it hasn’t.
We toyed with the idea of heading around the corner for a last pint in The Brian Boru. It’s a lovely pub, with a great beer garden, but the sounds of gently rushing water over the locks and the intermittent sound of the trains oozing by on the sunken line behind the bushes nearby were zapping us of the will to move anywhere. We were getting pretty mellow and the day was starting to catch up with our jet lagged guests. In fairness, the curry roll alone would do most people in for the evening. So we finished our cans, nodded nicely to the new group of canal drinkers that were coming up the path to take our place and strolled down to the small carpark at Crossguns Bridge. Taxis were plenty and we were in one in a matter of seconds. Chris delighted to be back to somewhere where you can hail a taxi. In Oregon you always have to call a taxi and can’t just wing it. Wing it we did and we were home in jig time.
It was after midnight by the time we got home and the kids were long gone to bed. Tara was sitting up, having a glass of wine and listening to a few tunes and was happy to see some adult company. My wife has great taste in music so once again we listened to the stereo a bit too loud. Once again we stayed up a bit too late. And once again we told stories, some of them about today, some of them about days nearly 30 years ago, and once again we laughed deeply when they were funny. Once again, it felt like home.
