Sunny Dublin

Sunny Dublin was sunny! The magnificent spring weather was such a lovely and unexpected change from grey London.

We stayed at the Clarence Hotel, owned by Bono and the Edge, apparently one of the coolest hotels in Dublin. Well, without wanting to contradict popular opinion, I now consider their rock star credentials seriously in question given the lack of ipod players in the guest rooms. Yes there was a CD player, but really, who nowadays travels with their trusty CD wallet? So 1990s!

Quibbles on electronics aside, the hotel was in a great location on the banks of the River Liffey and the edge of Temple Bar. Enough features of the old Custom House building had been kept to give a sense of character and the understated interior styling gave it a modern edge. Great pillows, too.

The cliché of Temple Bar is alive and well with a smattering of hens/stag parties spotted, at least one footy trip and countless chavvy chicks trying to negotiate the cobblestones in their sky-high white heels. But perhaps because it was Easter Weekend it wasn’t completely overrun with drunken packs and there was a mix of people, though admittedly most were tourists. And we did manage to find a couple of really good restaurants and a W-like hotel bar with an amazing DJ & drummer combo. (I’m not sure when I turned into the type of person who hangs out in hotel bars, but seemingly that is what I have become.)

Venturing out of the old town of Temple Bar, we made it over to the Georgian precinct with row after row of well kept terraces, complete with brightly painted doors. The hero of Merrion Square is Oscar Wilde who assumes a louche posture on a rock in the Square (locally known as the fag on the crag!) The statue is coloured rather than the usual run of the mill bronze (very Oscar!) and a very different tourist experience from his flower strewn tombstone in Paris’ Pere Lachaise cemetery.

The highlight of Thomas’ trip (and perhaps his year) was the GUINNESS Storehouse. A seven storey tourist exhibit in what was a working storehouse from 1902 – 1988, it was one of the better attractions I have been to with lots of old machinery mixed with multimedia displays and a live cross to the actual brewery three streets away. I learnt GUINNESS is made from hops, water, barley and yeast. And that GUINNESS is a stout. And that a stout is a heavy form of a type of beer called Porter (as opposed to an ale). I also learnt their brand police are amazingly effective, with GUINNESS written in caps at all times.

Dublin overall surprised me. Admittedly a 48 hour stint in the tourist district is a biased view, but I think I was expecting a more integrated city. Instead it seems to have very distinct pockets – Temple Bar, Trinity, St Stephens Green, O’Connell St – with very different architecture and populations in each. It was expensive, which I had been warned was the result of a decade of financial reforms and high house prices.

But to be honest, beyond high prices, I didn’t get the impression of booming successful city. The weekend newspapers indicated that the country had been battered by the global slump and a recent emergency budget which cut incomes, raised taxes and generally served to push hard-working middle class families across the poverty line.

Not sure I would rush back to Dublin, but definitely want to explore out into the Irish countryside at some stage. Photos on Flickr