Dublin and Oscar Wilde

I just saw a bird that at first I thought was a pigeon, but it crowed. Wow, I never thought I’d hear a noise like that out of a pigeon. I took another look, and it appears to be a cross between a crow and a pigeon—it has the white, blue and grey wings of a pigeon but otherwise is a black crow. Weird. (Later I saw more of these birds and learned that they're jackdaws.)

I’ve returned to the Archbishop Ryan Park after going over and taking pictures of 1 Merrion Square, the house where Oscar Wilde grew up. It’s only down the street from the house where he was born, which is much more modest, just a tall rectangle that appears to be part of an apartment building—meaning, the buildings are identical (18th century Georgian) and right up against each other, no space at all. But anyway, I’m at this sort of patio in the park. You go up cobblestone steps to a cobblestone surface with park benches (green with black ends and with graffiti), and a stone mausoleum-like structure with three bricked-in archways and urns on top.
Just down the walkway is the Oscar Wilde Memorial, otherwise known as the Fag on the Crag—a sculpture of him on a rock—where tourists from different countries are continually flocking. A student sat down and started sketching him. Across the path from him are two rectangular, glossy dark stone pillars with numerous quotes, on all four sides; in his handwriting. On top of each is a statue representing beauty—one a male torso and the other a nude female, both in Greek style, very Oscar Wilde.

Some of the Oscar Wilde quotes on columns:
There is only one thing worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.
Literature always anticipates life. It does not copy it but molds it to its purpose.
Nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.
Being natural is only a pose.
It seems to me all look at nature too much and live with it too little.
All art is at once surface and symbol.
A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it.
This suspense is terrible. I hope it will last.
Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast.
Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong.

I have slightly more than an hour before I have to be back at the lodge (Eliza Lodge) to meet up with the rest of the tour group—but actually check-in is 1 pm, in less than an hour, since it’s 12:15. Birds are trilling, the weather is beautiful (very below 100 degrees), and beautiful plants surround me. There are a few people around, but it’s not a big crowd like around Temple Bar and the Quay.

I feel like I’ve wandered all over Central Dublin—maybe I have. I found my way to the Abbey Theatre, but the box office opens at 10:30 am, and I was an hour early (gee, at the Symphony it was 9 am). So I walked around to get to know the neighborhood, like O’Connor Street I saw a pretty building, Neoclassical with columns and statues on the roof—in the distance and decided to find out what it was. It turned out to be the Post Office, and right there in the front window is the famous statue of Cuchulain commemorating the rebellion of 1916. After that, I wandered my way back across the river (the Halfpenny Bridge is cute, and I’ve crossed it about three times now) and I more or less circled the Temple Bar areas, looking at what shops are there. Boots is one of them, and a juice/sandwich shop called O’Brien’s is about three locations that I’ve seen so far. After that, I went back to the Abbey Theatre and got a ticket for The Importance of Being Earnest. Then I headed back across the bridge and found the birthplace of Oscar Wilde (21 Westland Row), and the house where he grew up (1 Merrion Square, now the College of Dublin), and the Oscar Wilde Monument. Quite a communing with Oscar Wilde.

Dub-lin (Black Pool)—Viking settlement is now under Dublin Corporate Offices (government office—ugly building)

Later—9:10 pm—
When I was done hanging out with Oscar, I got back to the Eliza Lodge, when I heard a cheerful male voice call, “Susan!” I turned and there was Phil Wilke, a representative of Kansas Public Radio, which is responsible for this tour. He was accompanied by our guide, Dave. I commented on how startling it was that I’d only been in the country for a few hours, and someone called my name. So we had jokes about “Who do you know in Ireland” along with greetings. It turned out that most of the tour group had arrived and my room wasn’t ready yet. Maid service was working on it, but I could hang out in the first floor lounge (one floor up). So I went up there and chatted with other members of the tour. Eventually my room was done and I got my luggage in it and it wasn’t long after we had a meeting in the lounge, re-introducing ourselves and whatnot.

Dave gave us a walking tour and sort of history lesson on Viking Dublin. Next to Christ Church Cathedral is a mosaic of the floor plan of a Viking house, the foundations of which are now a few feet away under a butt-ugly new office building. On the site of this building, archeologists found a treasure trove of Viking stuff, and they had a limited time to unearth it because the jerks wouldn’t change their plans to start building the ugly box on a specific date. Ugly, plain, grey concrete block, and there’s still an ancient treasure trove under it, though what they did excavate is in a local museum, the Dublin History Museum.

We also walked around the façade of Christ Church Cathedral, where Dave said they have vespers, I think it’s called, a choir singing something quiet and soothing, and it’s supposed to be at 6 pm—he even double-checked. And we walked to Trinity College—which is gorgeous—and before that we went to a piece of the original Dublin Wall, dating to 1180 and in excellent shape—even the metal gate, in an archway, has survived. It leads to an old church called St. Aul’s or something. Before Trinity, we went to Dublin Castle and looked at the lovely eighteenth century courtyard. At Trinity College, we admired the architecture and went in to a building with a café where some of us got drinks, and some used the restroom. (I got a raspberry-cranberry fruit juice that was yum yum.)

Afterwards, some of us went to a pub near the lodge—Fitzsimmons—for tea and to socialize, and I ordered a snack in addition to tea, since I skipped lunch—it was grilled French bread topped with cheese. It turned out to be a big slice accompanied by a salad of romaine lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, olives, and dressing. The tea was great—I asked for cream, and there was a lump of real cream in the bottom of my cup, in addition to a small porcelain pitcher of milk.

When we went to hear the music at Christ Church Cathedral, the doors were locked, so we waited around for someone to open the doors (there are benches just outside) and talked. I chatted with Liz, who volunteers with the Lawrence Public Library, and we talked library talk and also about my sculpting with sculpey, she told me about how she dies it off and on—though not in the past five years—and she’s taught kids to sculpt. Actually, she’s a professor in the Design department at KU in Lawrence.

Since the music wasn’t happening after all, we went to another pub near the Lodge, the Farriday or something like that (it’s painted bright red and the other is brown) and it just had still water (my snack had been filling enough) while the others had meals—and most had Guinness. I’ll probably try it tomorrow, or certainly at some point during the trip, since I haven’t tasted it since college…and didn’t like it then.

I afterwards went to the Internet café—the keyboard is like in England, so I grope around the keyboard looking for the right shift key. And AOL long distance has gotten weirder—apparently I can’t just click on addresses and send—I have to type up all the addresses.