As a recovering alcoholic and 4 years into my quest for sobriety, I must admit that part 5 of of our 2011 trip to Dublin, wasn’t the one I was most looking forward to. I had spent 8 years working for a large global alcohol company that had Guinness as one of it’s staples and subsequently one of my favourite “tipples”. Had it been 5 years earlier, the thought of spending a day pub crawling in Dublin soaking up the music and conversation would have been thrilling, but not now. Having been with Lynda for only 18 months, it was imperative I held my nerve and continued the good work. I’m pleased to say I’m 12 years into sobriety and Lynda’s still here thankfully!
These are the diary notes and photos from a couple of days in Dublin.
by Ian Wilson on Sunday, August 14, 2011 at 7:53pm
Dublin-Sunday. Drove to Edinburgh airport yesterday morning and stopped so Lynda could take some photos of the bridges of Forth. Spent the usual amount of time as it does to fly to another country but it was only 40 mins to Dublin. Mind you it’s 40 mins to Adelaide also and that may as well be a foreign country! Anyway, picked up the car at the airport and eventually found the hotel in the guts of Dublin next to Christchurch Cathedral. Could have killed for a street sign!! De-stressed and went wandering the streets. We bought some fish and chips in the tiniest Chippy where, as Lynda says, “you have to step outside to change your mind!” The Temple Bar district is where much of the partying goes on particularly for the tourists and it was up and running early last night. I used to sell Guinness and consume enormous quantities before quitting so to see it plastered everywhere was an eye opener. Still not enough to unsteady me but the charm of these pubs is everything I imagined. We went over the other side of the Liffy River and wandered to a wider cleaner part of Dublin. There is a monument which is a huge needle called the Spire which was quite beautiful and Lynda took a couple of good shots of it looking up. Dublin is a drinking town…simple. Guinness and the other beers have more signage here than Coke. The collateral damage from that is sadly not dissimilar to Darwin or Alice Springs. There are some seriously drunk reprobates wandering the streets either looking for money or a fight. It can be amusing to see a bloke incapable of scratching his arse trying to fight, or a toothless woman screaming at another toothless woman, but as an ex boozer I take little comfort. We were hoping to get into Croke Park today for a hurling final but the 80000 seats are sold out so we will do our normal discovery day. Tomorrow we are off south and into the country.
Dublin 14/8/11
by Ian Wilson on Monday, August 15, 2011 at 7:51pm
Dublin. We are quite tired this morning after walking Dublin yesterday. It’s quite easy to get around to everything and despite spending way too long lost in a crack and heroin borough, we had a great time. A shop owner in the dodgy area told us not to pull out our maps and keep everything close as we found the seedier part of Dublin. Lots of grown men in full tracksuits with swallows tattooed on their hands and necks do not exactly fill me with optimism whilst wandering the streets. Anyway it was a good lead in to a movie we went and saw last night called Knuckle which deservedly has won a heap of international awards. Filmed over 10 years it tells the story of a few Irish “travelling” families (trailer trash) who insist on having arranged bare knuckle fights with each other due to incidents and grudges that happened decades ago. It was truly fascinating and very funny although the fights brought back bad Kwinana memories. We went to the Irish Museum of Modern Art yesterday. I don’t know why I keep going back to modern art. It can be truly painful and self- indulgent rubbish. I have attached a photo Lynda took of an installation. She then took a photo of her own exhibit. It’s called “Man’s arse retrieving back pack from locker” 2011, L Harris Canon digital. We are thinking of putting a series together!! Anyway the gallery had another area which had a superb photographic collection which saved the day. Off to southern Ireland today.
