Two things about Dublin: everyone is super-helpful and many, many people there are Polish.I was stunned by how easy it was to get around in Dublin. After a year of living in Vietnam I have pretty much accepted that if I don’t know where I’m going then I will just have to wander around permanently lost. Locating something – the post office, the hospital, your passport - will almost always be by complete accident. Sometimes you can even be in the place you’re looking for and not know that you are there. This is particularly true of police stations which do not look at all like police stations. Instead they look like sparsely decorated living rooms with four men smoking outside. It is important to state that asking someone for directions is not an option. There are many pitfalls. I have outlined two below:
You ask someone for directions and even though they have absolutely no idea where you are going, they will give you directions just to please you. Those directions could be to anywhere – their mum’s house, a noodle soup stall or a street that sells only padlocks. Almost always, the directions will help you to become more lost and will navigate you further away from the place you actually want to go.
You are met with a smiling face. You ask for the directions. The person you have asked raises their right hand to head height and swivels it furiously. Their brow is furrowed. If you persist in asking directions, for example, by shouting loudly and slowly in English “WHERE. IS. BANK? BA N K?” then you will simply be met with a double handed swivel.
So, in Dublin I took a while to adjust to the fact that I could simply ask someone WHERE something was and they WOULD TELL ME where it was. Unbelievable. We asked a bus driver how to get to Sandyford. “Ahhh. Sandyford. Now why would you be going there? Never mind, that’s none of my business. Sandyford. Now I’m not personally sure but I will find out for you in a jiffy.” He asked his fellow bus driver friend who didn’t know. He then picked up his mobile phone and inquired about the bus to Sandyford. He hung up the phone, drew us a map stating clearly where the bus to Sandyford would depart from, wrote down the number of the bus, told us what stop to get off at, directed us to our hotel from that stop, told us Glasgow was great (he’d been there often), wished us a lovely day and then gave us 50 Euros. Ok, he didn’t give us 50 Euros but what brilliant, helpful, pleasant directions. We actually made it to Sandyfo
rd. Not a swivelling hand in sight.This helpfulness did have its downsides. In the queue for the Guinness Storehouse the people in front of us asked for some information from the sparky, young girl selling the tickets. And boy, did she give then information. She practically gave them her inside leg measurement and donated them her kidney. I was willing and praying for her to swivel her hand or direct them to her mum’s house.
Walking down O’Connell Street in Dublin a familiar sickening feeling rose within me. I could hear the familiar chimes of frikking ABBA. ABBA haunt me wherever I go. They sometimes even haunt my dreams. This time it was Thomas Cook workers demonstrating about the closure of Thomas Cook branches in Dublin meaning the loss of around 70 jobs. Four of the staff were dressed as Abba and were dancing on one of O’Connell Street’s statues singing. The Thomas Cook boss is called Manny Fontenla-Novoa and apparently the cost of the job losses is not even a tenth of his annual bonus, the song ran: “Manny, Manny, Manny must be funny, in your rich man’s world. Manny, Manny, Manny – YOU’RE A GREEDY PIG.” (www.ipetitions.com/petition/savethomascookjobsinireland)
One of the most interesting things we did was visit Kilmainham Gaol where many of the leaders of Irish rebellions have been executed including many of the members of the 1916 Easter Rising. The jail is now a museum and well worth a visit. The personal stories of the prisoners and their lives are incredibly interesting. One of the executed prisoners, Michael Mallin, was second in command of the Irish Citizen Army. Before he was killed he wrote a letter to his wife and children explaining his hopes for them. One child, he hoped would become a priest. He did. He is now 96 years old and living in Hong Kong. He has donated the letter to the museum and it is now, amongst many other fascinating letters, on display in an exhibition entitled ‘Last Words’. He visited his father’s cell in Kilmainham Gaol the day before we were there. (http://www.1916rising.com/bioMallin.html)
