Ron Brown's = Ron Black's!
I believe I had the pleasure of introcing Prol to it the last time she was in Dublin
:-)
Comment by tomcosgrave on Monday 29 September 2003 at 22:19.
I'd arranged to meet Prol at the airport, as she was arriving just over an hour after me. I sat in the café with a pint of mocha and a chocolate brownie the size of a football and read the Irish Independent for a while, then wandered downstairs to the arrivals area to wait for her. Her flight was slightly late, so I spent a good forty-five minutes watching the airport undergo its Sunday afternoon transformation from virtually deserted to a seething mass of people.
We took the bus into the city, checked in to our hotel, then almost immediately strode purposefully to the Avoca café for smoothies, soup and fruit salad. The service was the customary mixture of laid-back and offhand, but we didn't care. We were back in Our City, with People To See and Things To Do. Second priority after this basic sustenance was alcohol. We wandered round the corner to The Stag's Head, only to be struck dumb to find that it was closed, with metal shutters down. Actually, "dumbstruck" might not be entirely accurate - I believe I emitted a small whimper.
For a few terrible seconds we entertained the wild notion that the pub had closed down, but then we composed ourselves and realised that it was 6:30pm. The more traditional pubs in Ireland open at 7pm on a Sunday or, in some cases - rarer these days, admittedly - not at all. If we couldn't have The Stag's Head another traditional pub would not be an adequate substitute, so we aimed for the opposite end of the scale and headed for the trendy bars of Dawson Street. Prol had SamSara in mind, but actually the new place next door seemed more interesting, so we ended up there.
I think it was called Ron Brown's, but it doesn't seem to have a web presence so I can't check. It was called Ron Black's and you can see it in this 360 degrees panorama - it's the building with the grey curved frontage, empty at the time this picture was taken. The decor was a nice blend of modern materials with old-style aspirations. All too often this combination goes hideously wrong, but here they got the balance right. They didn't aspire to make it look fake-authentic, they just decorated the interior in the same dark-wood hues as many of the older Irish pubs. If there was any dominant style, I'd say it was that of the 1940s. I was particularly keen on the out-sized light shades, which you can see in the picture a few posts back.
Towards 8pm we moved on to The Octagon Bar at The Clarence Hotel, an old favourite, to meet up with Pat. Dublin euphoria had gripped me and the Guinness was slipping down nicely ("One touch of darkness and you know where you are..."), so memories of the rest of the evening are hazy. Prol had an amazing cocktail that seemed to be liquid apple crumble. Pat elaborated on the newspaper article I had read about Celebrity Farm, the Irish reality TV show. In a nutshell, no, the word "farm" was not an ironic comment on the cattle like nature of today's C-list celebrities; the word "farm" did indeed mean sheep, cows and pigs.
ModSue flew in from Boston early on Monday morning, so by the time I went down to the breakfast room at 9am she was already ensconced in her hotel room taking a jetlag-prevention nap. She joined Prol and myself and we had a leisurely Irish Fry: sausages, bacon, tomatoes, egg, black pudding and (I've never seen this anywhere outside of Ireland) white pudding. Delicious. Our first objective of the day was to visit the Spiegeltent, based at Wolfe Tone Park, where Gavin would be performing on the following evening.
Prol runs Gavin's web site and thus was there in an official capacity, checking out the venue for recording and photography purposes. As she was talking to the event organiser, ModSue and I saw him gesture towards us and say to Prol that "you and your people can set up wherever you want." He must have been under the (hugely mistaken) impression that www.gavinfriday.com is a pulsating media machine with armies of people at Gav's disposal. I had an insane vision of myself as Chief Technical Architect, barking orders down a mobile phone to an army of programmers back in Amsterdam. "Zoom the webcam! NOW!"
The Spiegeltent is absolutely fascinating. It's a tent in the same way that Jamaica Blue is a cup of coffee. Colourful and ornate, with red and green tinted windows, a mirrored interior and a solid wooden floor, it takes you back to a golden age of performance. Marlene Dietrich apparently performed in one, along with other cabaret luminaries. In retrospect, I missed a trick during this morning reconnaissance trip, because I should have taken many more photographs of it during daylight. I guess I'll know for next time.
Next, we walked away from the venue and caught the number 19 bus to Glasnevin, where we had coffee at John Kavanagh's bar (also known as The Gravediggers Pub) before visiting Glasnevin Cemetery next door. The cemetery is Ireland's largest and I was interested to see how it would compare to Highgate in London and Père Lachaise in Paris. It's an imposing place, with high surrounding walls and ten watch-towers (to keep a lookout for graverobbers) that make it look more like a castle from the outside.
Walking from the pub to the cemetery entrance, we passed a solitary tombstone on the pavement on the outside of the wall. "One escaped!" I quipped, before Prol offered the more plausible explanation that this was the grave of a Protestant spouse of a Catholic buried within the walls. An odd sight, which turned out to be probably the most unique thing that we saw. The Irish way of death is more spartan and uniform than anywhere else that I've been and many of the graves resembled each other. They generally fell into one of three camps - a spartan Christian cross, a straightforward headstone or a Celtic cross with its characteristic intricate swirls.
We spent an hour or so in the cemetery and then decided to move on to the Botanic Gardens. We knew that they were close by because you can see them through the fence at the back of the cemetery, but we didn't know the quickest way to get there. Asking at the florist's at the cemetery gate, Prol was told that it was either "left, left, left" or "right, right, right" and that there was little difference between the two. We dithered for a few seconds and then I took a decisive step rightwards. Prol and ModSue followed.
Half an hour later, walking along a street full of suburban houses, it began to feel as though we had strayed too far north and were on the southern tip of Belfast. We cursed the woman in the florist's and kept on walking. Finally, starting to feel rather hungry, we found ourselves approaching a row of shops and a restaurant. The restaurant was closed and the pub just down the road looked unappetising. A deli a little further down the road seemed interesting, but it turned out to be only a shop. Then I saw the Botanic entrance a little further down the road, so we carried on in pursuit of the inevitable café that we were sure would be one of its many attractions.
To cut a long story short, we managed to stand right outside the café and still not see it. Fortunately I had spotted the Addison Lodge pub over the road and so we strolled on over. I can't tell you in retrospect how much we were influenced by being tired, achy and hungry, but this place seemed like a little slice of heaven on earth. It was serving a robust carvery lunch and we surprised ourselves by emptying our monstrous plates.
We sat at a circular table with semi-circular green leather bench in one of the curved windows at the front and the sun streaming through the glass was so bright that I had to put my shades on. It was 3:30pm on a Monday afternoon in a quiet Dublin suburb, yet the pub was almost full and humming with the pleasant vibe of conversation and friendship. Quite honestly I could have sat there all day, but eventually we managed to motivate ourselves to get up again and wander back over the road to the Botanic Gardens.
If ever you have a few spare hours in Dublin and it's a nice day, I'd recommend a visit. I'm going to resist the temptation to describe it and instead I'll let my pictures do the talking. It's astonishing to think that the glasshouses were derelict only thirteen years ago; indeed, the largest of them is still be renovated and I'm looking forward to going back to see it when it's completed. The Botanic doesn't appear to have a website of its own, which surprises me for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the on-site signs and historical exhibition were very thorough and secondly the numerous art exhibits throughout both the glasshouses and the gardens indicate a multimedia approach. I'd love to see someone create a stunning website that does justice to this marvellous place.
Later that evening we met up with Tom at The Stag's Head (which, we were relieved to find, was open!). Around 9:30pm we were amazed to find ourselves hungry (after the huge carvery lunch around 3pm, we thought we'd never eat again) and so wandered around the corner to Chanze, the Chinese restaurant that Mrs Hg and I had visited in August of last year. Afterwards, we went for a drink at The International on Wicklow Street, a handsome-looking pub that I've been wandering past for years without ever managing to enter. It didn't disappoint.
On Tuesday, Prol was busy with pre-show arrangements at the Spiegeltent, so ModSue and I hit the shops and then the Avoca café before taking a taxi out to the Irish Museum of Modern Art at Kilmainham. Located in the former Royal Hospital, the "Museum" (why not "Gallery"?) seems to have few permanent collections and instead presents a frequently changing calendar of exhibitions. Of the current mainstream shows, Paul Morrison's Haematoxylon was probably the most interesting, but my favourite work was Hidden, a series of ten stark landscape photographs of Afghanistan by Paul Seawright being displayed in a smaller gallery at the opposite end of the courtyard.
From the IMMA, we took another taxi straight to the Hugh Lane Gallery on Parnell Square, primarily with the aim of seeing Francis Bacon's studio, which had been transported lock, stock and paintpot from its original location in South Kensington after his death. I remembered reading about this a few years ago, but hadn't appreciated that it was based in Dublin. The studio section of the Hugh Lane begins with a video interview with Bacon by Melvyn Bragg from the early 1980s, which provides many memorable moments. I particularly liked Bacon's description of his work as "a deeply-ordered chaos," which is borne out by looking at the studio.
The studio is exactly as he left it. Staring at it, trying to take it all in, I felt mixed emotions. On the one hand, what an admirable thing to have done. This was an almost sacred space, within which a man communed with the very essence of his creative, spiritual vision. To have simply put the contents of the studio into fifty black plastic bin-bags would have been a work of unthinking vandalism. And yet, what a monumental feat of insanity, to have catalogued every dried-up pot, every crumpled newspaper, every balding brush! To enumerate, to label, to pack, to transport and then to carry out the whole process in reverse in a different country. What a piece of work is man!
The day was moving on and it was now towards the end of the afternoon. In a couple of hours' time we would be expecting a call from Shaun (freshly arrived from the UK) and returning to the Spiegeltent for the magnificent finale to the trip. The following morning, it would all be over. We would be departing for the airport at various hours - some more sociable than others - and wondering when we would next be back. However, this was no time to be thinking about the return home. The high point was yet to come...
[I have a suspicion that several of you will skim-read the above and end up here at the bottom in search of the inevitable link to pictures, having missed it above. In the interest of customer-friendly interface design, here they are. Philistines.]
Posted by Hg on Monday 29 September 2003 at 21:59.
Received 10 comments so far.
Comments
Wow - it's really cool to see someone else's view of the city you're from. I've never been to the botanic gardens - it's strange, but I know that once I get home, all I'll be able to think about is how far Glasnevin is from where I live (which it's not: it's just funny how you think of places the other side of the city as being too far away).
Either way, good story, good photos.
Comment by Andy on Tuesday 30 September 2003 at 05:08.
Correct link for the Idolize spiegeltent: http://www.spiegeltent.nl
Fabulous photos - and white pudding is abundant in Scotland too, although to be honest I've never tried it.
I too can attest to the existence (and deliciousness) of white pudding. My Scottish step-mother produces it for us regularly, even though she's been transplanted to central England.
The photographs are wonderful, the picture of the glasshouse through the "website" I found absolutely stunning.
What a piece of work is man... ...And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?
Entropy indeed!
Small correction: "Prol had SamSara in mind, but actually the new place next door seemed more interesting, so we ended up there."
I didn't have SamSara in mind. I was looking for the place we went to.
Ah, I misinterpreted the fact that we popped our heads round the door of SamSara first. Glad we ended up at the other place anyway, I much preferred the look of it.
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