Looking for an old love

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.