Travel Notes: Dublin — Day 5
Literary Daze
13 September 2009
Aloha Friends & Family,
Another fine day in Dublin—another fine breakfast—and then off to explore!
My first stop was the General Post Office. It’s a post office, a bank, and a historical monument—how convenient. Yes, the bullet marks are still there, as is the Proclamation read on Easter Monday, 1916, by Patrick Pearse—schoolteacher, poet, and revolutionary leader. The GPO served as headquarters during the Easter Rising, and much of the fighting took place there. It’s a grand old building and a living monument to the ideals of independence and self-rule.
Next, I strolled up O’Connell Street, watching shoppers and tourists alike. My goal: Parnell Square, the Garden of Remembrance, the Hugh Lane Gallery, and the Dublin Writers Museum.
At the foot of Parnell Square stands the statue of Charles Stewart Parnell, honoring the man who nearly achieved Home Rule some thirty years before the Rising, before being brought down by scandal. He remains a hero for helping to grind the wheel of change—slow though it may turn.
The Garden of Remembrance memorializes the heroes, martyrs, and fighters of the 1916 Rising and the War for Independence. The reflecting pool is shaped like a cross, with mosaics of ancient Irish weapons at each point—traditionally thrown into lakes or rivers to mark the return of peace. Most captivating of all is the sculpture at the garden’s summit: swans and children, representing the Irish myth of the Children of Lir. Cursed by an evil stepmother and turned into swans, the children remain so for 900 years; when the curse is finally broken, they briefly return to human form—only to die, having aged those centuries all at once.
My next stop was the Hugh Lane Gallery (also known as the Dublin City Gallery)—free admission, which I continue to love. Hugh Lane was a contemporary of W. B. Yeats and a patron of the arts, who died tragically when the sinking of the Lusitania occurred in 1915.
When I arrived, a children’s art competition was underway, which temporarily blocked access to the Impressionists I’d come specifically to see—Claude Monet, Édouard Manet, Edgar Degas, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. So I wandered to the back galleries and discovered a delightful installation inspired by a poem Yeats wrote after visiting the same gallery (then called the Municipal Gallery). The paintings mentioned in the poem were displayed together with excerpts from the poem itself—a beautiful way to experience both word and image:
“You that would judge me, do not judge alone
This book or that, come to this hallowed place
Where my friends’ portraits hang and look thereon;
Ireland’s history in their lineaments trace;
Think where man’s glory most begins and ends,
And say my glory was I had such friends.”
I continued wandering and pondering and came upon a painting by Mary Swanzy. Wealthy and widely traveled, she spent time in Hawaiʻi, and her painting Honolulu Garden instantly transported me home. What a wonderful surprise.
Eventually, the front gallery reopened. I enjoyed the Impressionists I’d come for—and also discovered terrific works by up-and-coming young Dublin artists. The children’s pieces were wonderful too.
Just a few houses down stood the Dublin Writers Museum. Finally—an admission fee! It included an audio tour, which was well worth it. It’s astonishing how many writers have come from such a small country, including four Nobel Prize winners in Literature: W. B. Yeats, George Bernard Shaw, Samuel Beckett, and Seamus Heaney.
Trivia question: which of these Nobel winners also won an Oscar?
(Answer below.)
The museum—especially with the audio tour—was a wonderful way to learn about this rich literary history and to experience these writers as people like you and me: flawed and great, sinners and saints, each in their own time. I especially loved seeing the typewriters. I remember typing college papers on a manual typewriter, using onion-skin paper so I could erase with a rubber eraser as I went. I can only imagine the piles of discarded paper while trying to write Ulysses. You kids today are so lucky with computers—in my day… blah blah blah!
It was time for tea and a late lunch, and the perfect spot was the Gresham Hotel on O’Connell Street, on my way back to the B&B. In the lobby café, with a cream-of-vegetable soup, brown bread with butter, and a pot of tea, I enjoyed a brief taste of Victorian luxury.
After a short rest, I headed back out—this time to the Duke Pub for Irish stew, a pint of Guinness, and the starting point for the Literary Pub Crawl. Two actors performed excerpts from the great Irish canon, sharing fascinating tidbits about Dublin’s literary life—much of it fueled by inspiration gathered in pubs across the city. We visited four in all.
After a day like this—and a pint or two—I feel inspired to write myself. Or at least to feel like a woman of letters… or maybe just a little more learned about Irish writers.
More later,
Love,
TJ
P.S. Trivia answer: George Bernard Shaw, for his screenplay adapted from Pygmalion (1938). You probably know it better in its later musical and film form: My Fair Lady.