We make the place? | A Dublin Picture Post

I've been a biteen absent from here lately, for which I'm genuinely sorry. It takes a short absence to remember all the wonderful people one loves to interact with. But that's because I've been on the road, and space for writing has been little.

I was supposed to go to Dublin for my 20th birthday, a few years back, but didn't, through a collision of circumstances. I regretted it tremendously, especially during the pandemic years, where it felt every measly missed trip warranted its own mourning (let alone a big one, like Dublin). But I'm glad it turned out this way, 'cause I got to go with my family now, and it's been quite wonderful.

I also got to meet a few people in the in-between years, one of whom, a dear friend who made several wonderful recommendations. Funny how things work out.

Temple Bar

I generally stay away from the big tourist pubs, on principle, since they feel inauthentic. I imagine a Dubliner will tell me Temple Bar is an inauthentic, tourist hangout with overpriced booze. But it felt authentic enough to me, and we spent a couple of nights here.

It's a lovely, winding pub, for one thing, adorner with important faces in Irish culture. There's a James Joyce statue having a drink. The old perv. And there's Rort Gallagher on several walls, which was particularly to my liking.

I loved this concept of live music, all through Dublin pubs. Every night, there were these small live bands, all more or less singing the same songs. What struck me was the joy with which people sang along. You'd think the Tuesday night pub chorus to "Sweet Caroline" was the highlight they'd waited for for 40 years. It was great. I never thought belting out "Wonderwall" with a bunch of drunk strangers could be this fun, but it was. Very freeing.

Power of suggestion? Maybe. But it certainly felt like the place for a couple of nights.

Molly Malone Statue

Growing up, I adored Irish history and culture. I devoured anything to do with Celtic mythology and all those wonderful 'pagan' ideas that endure to this day. I also felt a deep connection to the country's more recent troubles, and read quite a bit about that, as well.

So coming here was a real treat. I think I was the only one with an excited screech when seeing the Molly Malone statue on Suffolk Street. But that's because I grew up on Irish folk songs.

Molly Malone is believed to have been an actual fishmonger in the 17th century (maybe), who also turned tricks, and died of cholera during one of the many outbreaks.

I've been thinking about death a good deal, and the idea of living on in song, even someone with such a small, miserable life, is beautiful to me. Imagine. The real Molly, if she existed, must've had a pretty shitty life. Poor. Diseased. Hungry. Yet she gets remembered, where the better off folks in her time have flown downstream through time. Popular memory always finds a way of siding with the underdog.

Trinity

The library at Trinity College is another tourist must, though it left me, personally, underwhelmed, as much of it was in construction and covered while we were there. And packed with tourists who, by the look of them, had come for that sweet Insta selfie, and might've struggled to remember the last title they enjoyed.

Nevertheless, there's something compelling about gathering books. About man's drive to amass important and valuable tomes, and lead them to safety. Something quite noble, indeed, so for that, at least, Trinity was a treasure.

It's also a genuinely beautiful college. I might've liked to study here, in another life, though I doubt current curriculum would be too thrilling.

Right opposite Trinity College, there were these bizarre statues. I couldn't find a plaque as to who they were, so I've just nicknamed them the harbingers of the apocalypse in my head.

Might be a comment on the current state of education. Or at least my view of it. Who knows?

Street Color

Finally, what I loved about Dublin were the streets. The buildings, most of them old, but a beautiful, graceful old that makes you feel like you're in a novel.

Well, not all. Stray to the outskirts, and Dublin looks like any other city, really. But the heart is colorful and vibrant in a way other places like Paris or Prague are not. London is and isn't, in ways. It's the closest I've seen so far. Edinburgh is quite different, as is Glasgow (or seems to, I've yet to explore it in depth). But that's cool. It makes Dublin all the more memorable.

It's fun to walk the streets, and take in all the pubs, and the life and the music. Even if, like me, you're not a big party animal. Why be inside when all the beauty and great photo ops are outside, anyway?

I don't know. I always seem to enjoy the streets of a place more than the tourist attractions. The architecture. I don't know when I started caring about architecture.

So coming back to that title, I think we do make the place we're in. It's an old Romanian saying. I reckon there is no place we're genuinely supposed to be. No pub. No school. No pretty street. But maybe we end up there, and resonate with it, and that's enough to "make" a place.

Bonus : Bookworm Paradise

One of my favorite parts about traveling to the UK is access to a lot more books than I have back home. I left home with a list of 9 bookstores I wanted to hit up in Dublin, and got 8 of them (plus a few random ones I chanced on).

I don't have many pictures of them. For some reason, I find it weird to take pictures of book sanctuaries. But I'll put them here, in case you go to Dublin and, you know, like books.

There's a huge one off the center called Chapters Bookstore. It's immense in its own right, but also has a second pre-loved books section, which I fell in love with. I found titles I'd been looking for for ages, so genuinely hard to find. If you go to one bookstore in Dublin, maybe it should be this one.

There's also Hodges&Figgis (maybe the oldest in Dublin?), which sprawls over multiple floors, and also has a great selection of books, particularly on Irish history. The Dubray Books on the same street is small, but gets a mention, since I found some Martin McDonagh (my latest obsession) there.

And finally, The Last Bookshop was a random find I enjoyed tremendously. It's a very well-stocked secondhand bookstore with every genre you can want.

So yeah, I guess that's about it. Thanks for coming along, and again, sorry if replies are a little late. We've still got a tiny bit of Scotland to explore before the week is out. Cheers.