Dublin

A sneering Oscar Wilde in Merrion Square. Photo by David Lansing.

If Oscar Wilde were in his prime today, I wonder what he’d be known for. Certainly not his poetry (we don’t read poetry anymore, do we). And to be honest with you, his plays and prose weren’t much although they stirred up the literary crowd back in his day. (Speaking of his day, one of the reasons I’ve been thinking about Oscar Wilde is that his birthdate, October 16, is just around the corner; he was born in 1854 and died ridiculously young on November 30, 1900.)

The thing Oscar was best known for, I suppose, is his witticisms. All the Irish seem to have a way with words; Oscar was better than most. “America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between.” That’s one of his bon mots (or, more properly, bons mots). If he were around today, I imagine he’d amend that to, “America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence and back to barbarism without civilization in between.”

“Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.” That’s a good one. That’s something Sarah Palin should have painted on the side of her “Going Rogue” bus.

Oscar, who was married and had two children who he doted on, was also a sodomite. At least that’s what he was convicted of in 1895, not long after he sued his lover’s father, the Marquess of Queensberry, for leaving his calling card at Wilde’s club, the Albermarle, inscribed, “For Oscar Wilde, posing sodomite.” Oscar sued for libel, lost, and then was arrested by the Crown. His mother advised him to take a boat to France to avoid the trial, but Oscar wrote: “The train has gone. It’s too late.” He was convicted of homosexual acts and sentenced to prison in London. By the time he was released, in May 1897, he was both broke and broken. A pauper, he moved to Paris and died of cerebral meningitis—probably as a result of syphilis. He’s buried in the wonderful Père Lachaise Cemetery, not far from Jim Morrison.

But a spirited tribute to Oscar Wilde lounges on a boulder in Merrion Square, across from where he resided with his family from 1855 to 1876. Dubliners have a tendency to give nicknames to these tributes (the Molly Malone statue is known as “The Tart with the Cart” and James Joyce is called “The Prick with the Stick”) so it’s not too surprising that the Irish refer to the slouching Oscar as “The Fag on the Crag.” Or, if you prefer, “The Queer with the Leer.”

I think Oscar wouldn’t have minded that too much. As he said, “Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.”

A tourist poses with Molly Malone. Photo by David Lansing.

It’s odd. I’ve still a few days left in Ireland but I can feel the trip running down. Yesterday after we’d gotten Danny-Boy back to the Cartron Farm and headed for Dublin, I was so tired that I immediately fell asleep in the car. It’s not so much that I didn’t sleep much in the gypsy caravan (although I didn’t) as it is just the emotional letdown that always comes at the end of a trip for me. Even a trip that isn’t quite over.

I woke up just in time to see that we were heading for the city center so I grabbed a map to see if I could direct Mr. Lynch to our hotel, the Brooks on Drury Street. I found it on the map and figured out the best route to get there but even with all that preparation we got lost again. Maybe that’s just our karma in Ireland: to be forever lost.

I was looking for the Grand Canal so as we could swing by St. Stephen’s Green (familiar turf to both of us) but next thing you know we’ve crossed the River Liffey and we’re on the wrong side of Temple Bar. Ah, well.

Still a few hours of late summer light left by the time we checked in to our rooms and so it wouldn’t do to just stay in the hotel until dinner. I wanted to have a look around. Soak up the last of Dublin. Down to St. Andrew Street I strolled, mobbed by the locals just getting off work and meeting friends at the pubs and bars along Grafton Street. Something buoyant about a city like this that is so alive. You don’t know whether you want to find a bar and order a glass of wine while observing the comings and goings all around you or just jump in to the tide of pedestrian traffic and go with the flow.

What I did was follow the crowds around Trinity College looking for an old love of mine. Miss Molly Malone. Bit of a tart, that one, but a sweet girl. Hadn’t bothered to say hello when I first came through Dublin so thought it best to look her up, now that my time here was short. And there she was. A fine looking woman. Her hair done up atop her head and that lovely blousy gown showing off her best assets. Forever pushing her cart of cockles and mussels up Grafton Street. And gawd the crowd she draws. All gawking at the wench. Mostly women. Climbing up on the pedestal to put their arms around her, have their pictures taken. Show the folks back home: Look, that’s me there with Molly Malone. Who has the better rack do you think?

Lovely. Absolutely lovely.

Harpist at the Guinness Storehouse. Photos by David Lansing.

We’re late for the Guinness tour but no matter. As Mr. Lynch says, he’s gone through so many brewery tours it would be quicker for him to make the beer than learn about how it’s done. So pop up the stairs to the Perfect Pint Bar. Greeted by music from a pale, freckled woman in a green silk dress strumming a harp. And waiters offering up the dark stout in champagne flutes. What’s this then? asks Mr. Lynch. A Black Velvet says the young waiter.

Oh shiite, says Mr. Lynch. I can’t drink this stuff. Can I get just a regular pint?

I take Mr. Lynch’s flute as well as another for me. Champagne and Guinness. Better than it sounds. After a second sip, quite nice actually. Goes down easy. Lovely view of Dublin from here. Or it would be if it weren’t raining again, gray puffy clouds sitting atop the Wicklow Mountains like Irish caps. Mountains, indeed. Hills we’d call them back home. Small hills.

Finish my two drinks and then make off with another as we’re herded like well-dressed sheep up the escalator to the Gravity Bar at the top of the building. Panoramic 360 degree views of what? Gray neighborhoods beneath us. Can’t even make out the Liffey though it must be close enough that if you hurled a pint glass from here it would end with a splash in the river. Spires of a church rise up out of the muck. Is that Christ Church then?

The summer's gone and all the flowers are dying for the Irish Sopranos. Photo by David Lansing.

Salad served as a short, stout man holding a pint in his right hand makes a speech about tourism. Something about something about something. Hurry up, man, and make your toast. The gals are waiting. The three of them. The Irish Sopranos, standing patiently on a low stage in front of the window that should be showing the Wicklow Mountains in the background if it wasn’t so gray out.

They’ve sung at Carnegie Hall, says the red-nosed man, and are Irish treasures—Wendy, Kay, and Deirdre. And wouldn’t you know it? Their first song is Danny Boy. I groan. Mr. Lynch gives me a sharp kick to the shin. I hate this song, I whisper. Doesn’t matter, says Mr. Lynch. Mind your manners.

Right. So here we go. Oh, Danny Boy. Pipes calling, valleys hushed. ‘Tis you, ‘tis you. Every woman in the place misty eyed and crying. And I just want to hurl. Thunderous applause. Standing ovation. Can’t beat that Danny Boy. And as Wendy and Kay and Deirdre launch into cockles and mussels, alive, alive-O, I slip away from the table and back down to the Perfect Pint to have a quiet drink far from the ghostly cries of sweet Molly Malone.

A busy Dublin street. Photo by David Lansing.

White haired gent, food stains blotching his rumpled shirt, shifts and straightens up quite suddenly, as if suddenly awakened from a nap, as Mr. O’Connor and I hurry into the back of his taxi. How are ya, boss? he says, stretching, patting the front of his shirt as if looking for a pack of lost smokes.

Guinness Storehouse, says Mr. O’Connor. Gives me a look and rolls his eyes.

Traffic thick, nothing moving, but never mind. It’s a lovely evening. So light out, even though it’s past seven. Driver gassing on about Patrick Kavanagh but I’m hearing little of it, watching the young Dubs marching home. Two colleens on bikes, skirts hiked up mid-thigh, thread their way through the stalled cars. One on a cell phone. Imagine that; dancing through traffic so close one man could reach out his side window and open another man’s back door, and the thin girl with long flowing red hair maneuvers with one hand on her bike while no doubt discussing weekend plans with her lad. Lovely.

Where the fish ‘n’ chips shop is used to be a bookstore, says our driver, rambling on to nobody. Owned by two spinster sisters. Kavanagh would roam the store and take any book he desired and the sisters never saw his light-handedness, for he was a poet don’t you know.

You saying he stole their books, Mr. O’Connor wonders.

That’s what I’m told, says the driver. And if there’s a lie in my story, sure it wasn’t myself that composed it.

That’s something, isn’t it? A taxi driver telling us rich stories about a long-dead poet. Get that in New York, do you?

Fifteen, twenty minutes later and we come around the corner and there’s our hotel in front of us. Bloody hell, says Mr. O’Connor. We’ve spent twenty minutes just going around the block. Thought you’d like to see a bit of the city, says the driver. Ah god, rants Mr. O’Connor. You’ve had a bit of the gargle, haven’t you?

No extra charge, says the driver. Now then, was it the Guinness Storehouse you wanted?

And once again we lurch down the street past St. Stephen’s Green, this time twenty minutes late for dinner.

Bust of James Joyce in St. Stephen's Green. Photo by David Lansing.

The rain stops. Not really rain anyway, is it? Heavy fog? Light mist? Just something to keep the grass green and the skin pale. For one solid minute the sun creeps out from behind a dark cloud like a child from behind his mother’s skirt.

It’s a lovely day, isn’t it? says the humped over man strolling with his hands clasped behind his back as if for ballast. Likely fall over on his face if he didn’t. He smiles a toothless grin at me, nods with his head towards a dark bust, a sheen of verdigris wrapped like a shawl around the shoulders.

James Joyce. The man himself. The humped old man moves on, satisfied. Well, now. Here you are. Looking worried. Or perhaps perplexed. At why Dubliners should take such pride in you when they practically forced you out of Ireland? It is amusing, don’t you think? They love writers; they hate writers. Love them when they’re dead; detest them when they’re alive. No more so than you, Old Boy. Wait. That’s not true. Oscar Wilde had an even harder time of it. Put into prison. For sodomy of all things. Clever stupid man. There’s an inscription here: “Crossing Stephen’s, that is my green.”

Something from Ulysses, I should think. Must read that again. Slog through the first bit until you get to Molly Malone. The tart with the cart. She must be nearby as well.

Must be going though. Looking for a lovely spot of lamb’s liver. For breakfast. You should understand that. And a nice cup of tea. Hot. With milk. What was it Seamus said? The best grass is in Ireland so the best cows are in Ireland so the best cream is in Ireland. Sure it’s so.

Here’s the Shelbourne then. That will do nicely. Lovely place. Do they serve breakfast? I ask the lad at the front door? Indeed, he says. In the Lord Mayor’s Lounge. I like that. This is where Ireland’s constitution was drafted by Michael Collins and his associates. Not the Lord Mayor’s Lounge, of course. But one of the rooms upstairs. Wonder if they still use it as a room? Should be a museum, I’d think.

Feel a bit under-dressed as I’m led to a wing-backed chair near the fireplace. Not peat. But cheery. Have you lamb’s liver? No, sir. Pity. The Limerick ham, then. And two eggs. Poached. And a pot of tea. Black or something herbal, sir? Black. With milk, of course. Very good sir. And toast? Yes, please.

No lamb but lovely anyway. Fatigue starting to settle on my shoulders. Fire, even in August, seems comforting. Might just fall asleep in my big chair waiting for my tea and Limerick ham. Why not?