Dublin – City of Superlatives

The streets of Dublin (Eat Me. Drink Me.)

Everything in Dublin was simply the best, and I know this, because all the signs in Dublin told me so. There was the best Irish dancing at the best dinner show. The best deals on souvenirs, the best pub in which to drink Guinness, the best breakfast in all Ireland. There was the best walking tour and the best little shop for all your cake decorating needs. There was even the best poem about a cat in the best book written by monks in the early 9th century: “I and Pangur Bán my cat / ‘Tis a like task we are at…”

Though beset by a bad case of the bests, Dublin is a sweet little city – a street-smart ruffian with a heart of gold, all dressed up in a bright new suit. I imagine him as an impish fellow: a pint in one hand and a ready joke in the other. He reads poetry on the sly, but always has a dirty tale to tell his mates hanging around a table in the back corner of a smoky pub.

The Guinness bird (Eat Me. Drink Me.)
A Dublin pub (Eat Me. Drink Me.)
A little building in Dublin (Eat Me. Drink Me.)
Just another pub in Dublin (Eat Me. Drink Me.)

The city has a good energy, when you get away from the places where the tourists cluster like flocks of drunk ducks. (We paid Temple Bar homage, reluctantly, and briefly, and never again.) On Friday night, we joined an after work crowd at John Kehoe’s. Early in the evening, the pub was already packed with people sitting around tables and crowding into nooks to chat. The weather was holding steady, and the sidewalks were full of overflow from inside. As dusk dimmed into night, the conversations flowed, washed down with pints of dark and creamy Guinness and Smithwick’s Pale Ale. And the atmosphere stayed convivial.

Of course we made the round of pubs. We spent our last evening at The Brazen Head, Ireland’s oldest pub (another of those superlatives), built in 1198, but burned down and built up again who knows how many times. Though we didn’t last until the live music, and admittedly, not a single person who passed through while we were there was Irish, it was a charming place of many small rooms with people coming and going and the pleasant clang of silverware and conversation. We ordered burgers made with generous patties of good Irish beef, thick fried chips, and Guinness, of course.

It was a pleasant mirror to our first night at The Ginger Man, where we met a friend of Elli’s who fed us sneaks of manchego sandwiches and lovely orange pound cake from Food Fiesta, the café she and her husband run, in between sips of Guinness… of course.

Nighttime at the Temple Bar (Eat Me. Drink Me.) The Liffey at night (Eat Me. Drink Me.)

Pub culture feels different from bar culture. Bar culture can be showy – it’s about dressing up and chatting up, and it often comes with a side of leering as salty and stale as the peanuts on the bar. Pub culture is more casual. It’s like meeting your friends in a very big living room where other groups of friends also just happen to be meeting. It’s both intimate and open, and in Ireland at least, the people were friendly – offering to share tables with extra seats, making jokes at the bar – in a non-prowling way. Then again, we weren’t there for more than a weekend, so my assessment might not hold water. Or a pint, for that matter.

Grafitti in Dublin (Eat Me. Drink Me.)
The travellers (Eat Me. Drink Me.)

The days in Dublin were drizzly with a smattering of sun. Enough to give us surprising sunburns on our faces as we walked around the cliffs of Howth, a small coastal suburb.

A sailboat in Howth, Ireland (Eat Me. Drink Me.) Trail along the cliffs of Howth (Eat Me. Drink Me.)

At the information booth, we picked up a map outlining different trails to take. After our escapades up steep mountain trails in Norway, we figured “hard” in Ireland would be a piece of cake. We chose a route cutting inland across the Bog of the Frog and finishing along the water.

Boats in Howth harbor (Eat Me. Drink Me.) Beautiful yellow flowers along the cliffs (Eat Me. Drink Me.) Gulls on the cliff in Howth, Ireland (Eat Me. Drink Me.)

When we asked the woman in the booth where the trailhead started, she pointed to the waterfront. “We’d like to go the other direction,” we said, showing her our proposed inland route. “Can you show us where that trail starts?” “No,” she said, “It’s best if you walk along the water.” Never ones to pass up a good superlative, we set off in the direction she’d sent us, and soon decided we didn’t regret the decision.

All the yellow flowers (Eat Me. Drink Me.) A glimpse of the lighthouse (Eat Me. Drink Me.)

The trail climbed over cliffs gently rising from the ocean, a pale slate blue. The grass, where there were fields, was softly peaty, and everywhere were massive clusters of yellow flowers. They clambered over the hillsides and down the cliffs, bursting over the path and all around us until we felt like Dorothy in her field of poppies. Gulls squawked overhead, and the cool May breeze was a welcome balm against the sun.

Field of yellow flowers, Howth (Eat Me. Drink Me.)
Cliffs in Howth, Ireland (Eat Me. Drink Me.)
The green grass of Ireland (Eat Me. Drink Me.)

We ate lunch at a fish restaurant on the pier – mussels in garlic and white wine for me and a fish burger with chips for Elli. We sat on the patio out back, our wind-chapped faces soaking up even more sun, watching the tide go out.

The ocean at Howth (Eat Me. Drink Me.)
Fish burger and chips from The Oar House, Howth (Eat Me. Drink Me.)
Mussels in white wine and garlic at The Oar House in Howth, Ireland (Eat Me. Drink Me.)

What else did we eat in Dublin? I discovered Ballymaloe relish our first breakfast out – similar to ketchup, it’s a chutney-like tomato-based sauce stewed with raisins and other spices like ginger, allspice, and nutmeg, with a strong vinegar bite. It was fantastic on sourdough toast with butter and fried eggs. We had another memorable breakfast at Hatch & Sons: twice-baked eggs with sausage, bacon, and roast tomatoes served with brown Irish soda bread.

Twice baked eggs with bacon and sausage (Eat Me. Drink Me.)

It was sustenance enough for a long day’s walk in the drizzle plus a thought-provoking peek at the Book of Kells. As flimsy paperbacks and floppy disks give way to USBs and the data-crush of clouds in a dizzying dance of informational obsolescence, is anything we create today built to last longer than our own lifetimes?

Trinity College Library, Dublin (Eat Me. Drink Me.)
Lovely old books at Trinity College, Dublin (Eat Me. Drink Me.)

Certainly a rocky road donut from The Woollen Mills isn’t built to last – it’s built to be devoured, crumbled as it is with bits of pretzel and macaron, white chocolate buttons, marshmallows, Oreo chunks, and fresh raspberries.

Inside The Woollen Mills, Dublin (Eat Me. Drink Me.) Rocky road donut from The Woollen Mills, Dublin (Eat Me. Drink Me.)

All trips end, as they must, and so our little weekend jaunt to Dublin ended early in the pre-dawn morning, when the last of the Temple Bar carousers were shuffling through the streets now littered with fast food wrappers and crushed cans of beer. Through the eyes of the just awakened, the bleary all-night city is garish in its cups.

Sunset on the Liffey (Eat Me. Drink Me.)

Maybe Dublin is best in the day, when its many small, thriving bookshops open their doors. Or maybe it’s best in the early evening, when work is done and the pubs are full of locals laughing with a pint. Maybe it’s best along the coast or best along the Liffey at sunset. But maybe Dublin is just best in the moments you live it with an open mind and an open heart… and an open Guinness, of course.

 

Comments

  1. Gail says:

    Such an enticing window into Dublin, Lyz! When I went there a couple of summers ago, my main reaction was surprise at all the fashionably-dressed young women teetering around in high heels as if it was Manhattan on cobblestones.

  2. Elisabeth says:

    I love this post. It’s such a wonderful summary of our long weekend. Where to next? ;)

  3. Vanessa says:

    I loved reading this travelogue, Lyz! You guys really made the most of your time here! It was a pleasure to meet and chat over drinks. I only wish I could have strolled the streets along with you some more. Maybe next time ;)

    • lyz says:

      It was lovely to meet you as well, Vanessa! I hope both events went well, in spite of the rain :) Until next time!

Leave a Reply