George Bernard Shaw's Birthplace

I walked all the way down to the house where George Bernard Shaw grew up.

Here's the message on a plaque on wall of front facade:

Bernard Shaw
Author of Many Plays
Was Born in this House
26 July 1856

Like in London, these oval plaques on the walls are popular.

After getting up at about 9 am—lying in bed at the hostel and wondering how on earth I’d climb down from the top bunk—I went out to the dining room on the ground floor, and it turns out that they stop serving breakfast at 9 am and the place is bare; there’s only the vending machines.

I walked all the way to Shaw’s birthplace—found it—and it turns out the hours I have are incorrect: they don’t open till 2 pm, like 2-5, rather than 11-5 on Sundays. On the bright side, at least I know how to get here (assuming I come back later) and I saw the vegetarian café Juice on my way over, and it opens at 11 am. By the time I get there, it should be open.
Sunday’s not a good day to be in Dublin—they don’t even have plays on Sunday. Even St. Louis has plays on Sunday, and it’s flamingly Catholic.

In hindsight, next time I’m hanging out alone in a foreign city, and the hostels don’t have single rooms, I’ll splurge and stay in a dorm or hotel, at least part of the time. Just have to spend less on books! Well, not get any souvenirs, probably. Easier said than done.

I suspected that if I got a bed in a dorm room with 16 beds, I’d be with 15 college students, making noise and coming in at all hours, but I didn’t anticipate an obnoxious drunk babbling on and on at one am. I got to the hostel a little before 11:30 pm last night (the play was out at 11), and the lights were on in the room, #118, “the Harding Room” and a few people were asleep or at least in bed. I tried to keep quiet, got my stuff to take a shower, but had to ask for help with the door—you have to simultaneously press the “door release” button and push the door open. It’s really quite easy for me now that I know how.

Julia Kavanaugh (1854-1877)—Irish novelist (portrait in National Museum of Ireland)
After finding that Bernard Shaw’s birthplace would be closed till 2 pm, I sat on the steps and rested for a bit, writing in this journal, and then I backtracked till I came to the vegetarian restaurant called Juice, but it wasn’t 11 am yet, so they weren’t open. Fortunately, I was carrying my bottle of tap water. Ireland does not have drinking fountains. If you order ice tea in Ireland, you’ll be laughed at, as Dave or someone on the tour discovered. If you ask for ice, you might be laughed at, though I don’t think that’s the case in such an urban place as Dublin.

Anyway, I wandered up the street and looked at the store fronts and the 18th century architecture. That South Great George St. has a fine selection of ethnic restaurants—there’s even an Indian restaurant right next door to the Chinese restaurant Good Food.
After Juice opened, I had water (went through two glasses), an incredible glass of “apple juice” that was almost a smoothie and surely contained pineapple, and I had a big salad with cooked tofu in a Chinese sauce. While eating, I read more of Liz’s book on Dublin and noted that the National Gallery opens at noon on Sunday, so I decided to go there and stay till about 2. I did just that but stopped at a couple stores in Temple Bar along the way.

I went back to the hostel for the new (daily) password, sunscreen, and my sunglasses.
I’ve finally been through George Bernard Shaw’s birthplace and took a couple of pictures—I figure since Karen has pictures of Oscar Wilde House for me, it’s OK to not take pictures there. Well, at least, I only have one picture left, so I might do that. It was sort of like a time machine, going back and seeing Shaw’s childhood, of which he didn’t have a lot of nice things to say. Hmm. His mom was a singer and had pretensions.

When watching the film A Man of No Importance, I used to think some of the actors, such as Rufus Sewell, were doing English accents rather than Irish, because they couldn’t get it right. But I was very wrong—Rufus Sewell was definitely speaking with a distinctly Dublin accent. There’s a somewhat annoying young man talking with almost the same voice beyond the next tree.

I’m in St. Stephen’s Green, the most popular park in Dublin, and from what little I’ve seen so far, I much prefer Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park in London. There is a band in the distance—I think I’ll put my shoes back on (now that I’ve rested my sore feet) and go try to find this bandstand….

I did find the bandstand, but I didn’t feel like parking myself there—I went back to this lake that I found on the way, ducks, rocks, weeping willows—very pleasant. Though I’m rather dubious about the background sounds—I can still hear the band at the bandstand, but louder than that is drums—like a parade—coming from the opposite direction, possibly from outside the park, because it’s in the direction of the Fusilier’s Arch. The drums remind me of London, particularly the strange procession similar to a Chinese dragon but with mice masks, by the Thames on the way from the Globe. I think I’m in the mood for rather gentler music.

At Shaw’s birthplace, I had a recorded tour guide [now the band is playing Beatles music] and one of the things the tape said was [Oh, baby ducks!] “Imagine living in a house with no privacy,” and went on to mention servants running up the stairs and such. Yeah, you don’t get much privacy staying at a hostel, either! Not to mention going to a park occupied by so many people. But at least this isn’t my permanent home, and now I finally want to go back to my house and cats, even though they’re in Bigotville. Sometimes I’m really a homebody, like Linda.

I’m hearing Italian accents and Japanese—well, in both cases, they’re speaking their native tongues, not just accents. In some ways, Dublin comes off as a smaller and less impressive version of London. Give me the steep hill leading to the Abbey Cultural Centre in Ballyshannon, or the wind and rain of the Dingle Peninsula, rather than this!

Maybe on the way back from the park I might stop at a café or pub and have tea, but I don’t intend to return to the hostel before 9 pm today, maybe ten. I can take a shower and go straight to bed, and then I’ll be prepared to wake up early the next two mornings. I want to get to Oscar Wilde House by 10:15 tomorrow morning, for the first tour, and the following morning I want to get up really early—by 7—to get to the bus station so I can get to the airport in plenty of time. In fact I might want to find the Busaras bus station tomorrow, after Oscar Wilde House, just so I know the way and don’t get lost on the morning that I’m hopping on a plane. Bus stations and airports make me nervous, really—but I’ll be fine once I’m at the correct terminal.

I’ve concluded that Liz had the right idea in hanging out in Dublin alone before the tour—not to mention staying at the Eliza Lodge--not after the tour and staying at a hostel. After all that socializing, and whirlwind tour, and music, and luxurious hotel accommodations, here I am in a metropolis and staying at a hostel where I feel out of place, since I’m neither in my early 20s nor traveling with friends or classmates. On the other hand, I am in Ireland still, for a little longer, and I’m doing sightseeing during the day—and of course there was the play last night at the Abbey Theatre.

Now the strange drums are accompanied by a horn—or maybe that doesn’t go with the drums. Maybe I’ll walk around to the other side of the lake and see if I can get a good look at the performers—perhaps something like the Kodo drummers.