May 16, 2014 Churchtown, Dublin County, Ireland
My first day in Ireland visiting my friends Janet and Steve who have been doing a house trade in Dublin for two months for their home on the west coast of California. The couple in their home don't seem to want to ever return because of all the sunny weather, golfing and tennis, compared to Ireland's frequent clouds and daily showers. But I am delighted to be here, finally, after 55 years to explore my one quarter Celtic heritage from my mother's side. My maternal grandmother Marguerite Carmody was born in the Bronx to Irish immigrant parents from Limerick in County Clare, but I know very little about her heritage while I have been steeped in the lore of my father's family in Belgium.
Dublin feels at once familiar and foriegn. Familiar for the faces and voices in the crowds, not so different from NY or mostly Boston where I grew up - or my own family for that matter. My brothers and my sisters some with blonde and red hair and freckles. These are the faces of my blood and of those that I know and grew up with, but then the constant Irish accent not just the "Southie" brogue of Dorchester Boston, the distinctly European alleyways and cobble stone streets and the double decker buses winding narrowly, the wrong way down hairpin turns two inches from your feet, tell me I'm in a different world altogether.
Dublin is a real mix of stone houses and sleek modern buildings - and art. A cosmopolitan, artful city filled with music and writers - Joyce, Shaw, Wilde, Yeats, - the Dublin Writers' Festival is this week and we will go tomorrow to a reading from Ulysses at Sweny's Pharmacy where Leopold Bloom, Joyce's heroic protagonist bought his lemon soap.
Janet and Steve bring me first to a real tourist pub near Trinity College called O'Neill's.
Janet and I have glasses of Guinness stout (starting slow as I hardly touch the stuff at home.) Steve has his pint (and a shot of Jamison's too.)
It's rich and brown and so creamy, not bitter at all. This is beer that tastes like food. The pub itself is many levels with nooks and crannies where you can sit round a table with your friends and tuck into a plate of food. We go down to the cafeteria stye line for the meals. You can have just a sandwich but we opt for the hot meal line: Guinness Irish stew, shepherd's pie or a lamb shank with potato. It's my first meal in Ireland, I go for the obvious - stew with sides of cauliflower turnips and potato. Genuine comfort food.
We walked from there over the River Liffey and the Half Penny Bridge to St. Mary's Street - the Catholic side of town - to a neighborhood called Smithfield. This is the less touristy side of town where we find the Cobblestone a pub where singing was underway in the front corner. I inserted myself in among the crowd at the front of the bar. There are signs that say to be respectful of the musicians. Several fiddle tunes are played with banjo and guitar as back-up - three men playing. Then the ballad signing began and I was invited to sing a song by the gentleman sitting next to me on the bar stool. Then two young female fiddlers joined in with the men as if it were normally what they would do of a friday night. The older fiddler got up and took his leave and I bought a CD from him before he left. 10 euro. His name was Mick O'Grady.
Walking back along the tramline through what is called the Four Courts we stopped into another place called M. Hughes and found another group of musicians - older, more somber- playing quietly in the main room up front. There were a few quiet observers seat on the green velvet banquettes around and the men do not stop or even acknowledge us. We are drawn to this bar by the sweet sounds emanating out into the deserted street from inside. Two bagpipe players, an Irish flute, a tin whistle, and a mandolin are playing quiet these sweet tunes - all older men - very serious. Their audience is small but attentive. The bagpipes play in harmony, one playing the melody and the other the chords. They go from one hypnotic tune to the next with hardly a word and seemed surprised by the sudden audience watching as we settle into the green banquettes.
A tiny sleeping man with red cheeks and his hands folded over each other on his lap sits next to Steve. His pint of Guinness sits half finished in front of him. He wakes up long enough to ask where we are from and goes back to his dozing contemplation of the music. The waiter places another pint in front of him while he dozes. A fiddler comes in and opens his case to join. I watch his fingers trying to discern the tune. This is part of my mission. Two men from the US in their mid-sixties, who had been the other half of the audience, tell us that we have walked into Michael Hughes the best bar in Dublin. Eventually a group of older women occupy the far corner and the audience is almost overflowing by the time we leave. Then its the long ride to Churchtown on the #14 bus. I have stopped at the market and have eggs, Irish sausage and oatmeal to make for breakfast.
My first day in Ireland visiting my friends Janet and Steve who have been doing a house trade in Dublin for two months for their home on the west coast of California. The couple in their home don't seem to want to ever return because of all the sunny weather, golfing and tennis, compared to Ireland's frequent clouds and daily showers. But I am delighted to be here, finally, after 55 years to explore my one quarter Celtic heritage from my mother's side. My maternal grandmother Marguerite Carmody was born in the Bronx to Irish immigrant parents from Limerick in County Clare, but I know very little about her heritage while I have been steeped in the lore of my father's family in Belgium.
Dublin feels at once familiar and foriegn. Familiar for the faces and voices in the crowds, not so different from NY or mostly Boston where I grew up - or my own family for that matter. My brothers and my sisters some with blonde and red hair and freckles. These are the faces of my blood and of those that I know and grew up with, but then the constant Irish accent not just the "Southie" brogue of Dorchester Boston, the distinctly European alleyways and cobble stone streets and the double decker buses winding narrowly, the wrong way down hairpin turns two inches from your feet, tell me I'm in a different world altogether.
 |
| Mind your toes! |
Dublin is a real mix of stone houses and sleek modern buildings - and art. A cosmopolitan, artful city filled with music and writers - Joyce, Shaw, Wilde, Yeats, - the Dublin Writers' Festival is this week and we will go tomorrow to a reading from Ulysses at Sweny's Pharmacy where Leopold Bloom, Joyce's heroic protagonist bought his lemon soap.
Janet and Steve bring me first to a real tourist pub near Trinity College called O'Neill's.
 |
| Steve and Janet in Dublin |
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| A pint and a shot of Jamison's |
It's rich and brown and so creamy, not bitter at all. This is beer that tastes like food. The pub itself is many levels with nooks and crannies where you can sit round a table with your friends and tuck into a plate of food. We go down to the cafeteria stye line for the meals. You can have just a sandwich but we opt for the hot meal line: Guinness Irish stew, shepherd's pie or a lamb shank with potato. It's my first meal in Ireland, I go for the obvious - stew with sides of cauliflower turnips and potato. Genuine comfort food.
 |
| The Half Penny Bridge |
We walked from there over the River Liffey and the Half Penny Bridge to St. Mary's Street - the Catholic side of town - to a neighborhood called Smithfield. This is the less touristy side of town where we find the Cobblestone a pub where singing was underway in the front corner. I inserted myself in among the crowd at the front of the bar. There are signs that say to be respectful of the musicians. Several fiddle tunes are played with banjo and guitar as back-up - three men playing. Then the ballad signing began and I was invited to sing a song by the gentleman sitting next to me on the bar stool. Then two young female fiddlers joined in with the men as if it were normally what they would do of a friday night. The older fiddler got up and took his leave and I bought a CD from him before he left. 10 euro. His name was Mick O'Grady.
 |
| A mural in Smithfield |
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| A "seisun" of traditional music at The Cobblestone |
Walking back along the tramline through what is called the Four Courts we stopped into another place called M. Hughes and found another group of musicians - older, more somber- playing quietly in the main room up front. There were a few quiet observers seat on the green velvet banquettes around and the men do not stop or even acknowledge us. We are drawn to this bar by the sweet sounds emanating out into the deserted street from inside. Two bagpipe players, an Irish flute, a tin whistle, and a mandolin are playing quiet these sweet tunes - all older men - very serious. Their audience is small but attentive. The bagpipes play in harmony, one playing the melody and the other the chords. They go from one hypnotic tune to the next with hardly a word and seemed surprised by the sudden audience watching as we settle into the green banquettes.
 |
| Musicians at M. Hughes pub the Four Courts section of Dublin |
A tiny sleeping man with red cheeks and his hands folded over each other on his lap sits next to Steve. His pint of Guinness sits half finished in front of him. He wakes up long enough to ask where we are from and goes back to his dozing contemplation of the music. The waiter places another pint in front of him while he dozes. A fiddler comes in and opens his case to join. I watch his fingers trying to discern the tune. This is part of my mission. Two men from the US in their mid-sixties, who had been the other half of the audience, tell us that we have walked into Michael Hughes the best bar in Dublin. Eventually a group of older women occupy the far corner and the audience is almost overflowing by the time we leave. Then its the long ride to Churchtown on the #14 bus. I have stopped at the market and have eggs, Irish sausage and oatmeal to make for breakfast.
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