dublin is an odd sort of place.
i will admit i arrived in ireland with preconceptions; less “leprechauns and drunken fistfights” than they were “easter risings and verdant hills,” but preconceptions all the same. obviously dublin is a modern city, and that much i expected as well. what i was not anticipating was a near complete inability to escape tourist town–but we’ll get into that in a bit.
i arrived into dublin mid-afternoon on the tenth. i was greeted very warmly by my airbnb hosts, gareth and ian, which was a welcome suprise after having not actually seen my host in manchester. i wandered toward dublin city centre before whipping rains turned me back around. gareth, ian and i went out and had thai for dinner (when in ireland?) and then to a pub (that’s more like it), where we chatted into the night about death and music.
the sun rose hesitantly the next morning, and i was able to explore the city properly. while it’s definitely cosy as far as large cities go, the richness and character i had anticipated felt almost indistinct. i’ve begun to discern the little details, but i think it will still be a while yet before i can gather a good picture of the city–much less the country–as a whole. too much of dublin proper seems to cater to its own popular perception. i’m not sure it’s ever really matched that image.
i spent my first two full days just wandering, as you do, popping into galleries and museums where i found them.
the national gallery of ireland was a beautiful collision of styles and structures, and the municipal gallery (called the hugh lane, after the collector who kick-started the gallery with his death aboard the luisitana) was restrained but fascinating. the studio of francis bacon had been lifted wholesale and placed in the gallery, and my own art space felt absolutely vindicated:
the next day was a bit more of the same, starting this time at christ church cathedral:
and then moving on to the chester beatty, a collection dedicated to illuminated manuscripts, religious texts, and other rare documents from all over the world–including some of the oldest christian artefacts in existence.
while decidedly cool, it was also definitely an overload. i walked back out of the city centre, toward my airbnb and into phoenix park. by the time i made it into the park, the sky was bucketing it down. despite my umbrella, raincoat, and best efforts, i was drenched in no time at all.
i popped into the phoenix tea rooms with the intention of warming up and waiting out the rain, but i clearly was not the only one. the place was packed, and the only seating was outdoors.
i walked back, slightly dejected, to make a cuppa at my airbnb. i ended up spending the rest of the evening in.
the next day, feeling spurned by dublin, i took the train north to howth (rhymes with oath), a little fishing village on far side of the peninsula which caps dublin bay.
settled into the hills over a harbour, howth faces out toward a small uninhabited island called ireland’s eye.
and walking along the pier, ireland started to make more sense. i took to a hiking trail along the cliffs toward the easternmost point and was legitimately (and, every now and then, almost literally) blown away.
the clouds parted as i climbed the hills, and at this point i’ll let the photos speak for themselves.
i followed the trail back into town and had fish and chips for dinner before catching the train back into dublin. i headed home feeling considerably reinvigorated, despite a returning ache in my ankle. i took my time ambling back, quite literally walking into the sunset.
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