Ireland 2014

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

THE NUDEY SHOW

The Strand Hotel had a health conference booked for the entire hotel so we were forced to decamp for one night. Since we wanted to go to Dublin anyway, it was no great hardship. My mother was even convinced to consolidate her luggage to one small bag and we got to leave a majority of our bags at the hotel. Huzzah.

Thirty five years ago, the trip to Dublin was along a narrow two lane road that stopped in the dozens of little towns between Limerick and the big city. Dublin was also the home to the only McDonald’s in Ireland at the time. As a teenage, I think that was the most important fact I knew about Ireland. The trip usually took over three hours.

Now that you can pick up the two lane motor way and travel at 120 kph, you can make the trip in about two hours. Which was good and bad. Good because I wanted to get as much sight seeing in around Dublin as I could. Bad because you don’t see all those little towns anymore which were the back-bone of any Irish trip.

After my father’s admonition to drive slower, I did go the speed limit or under the entire way. The only sights of note along the route were the posters of Barack Obama raising a pint and advising us to stop in the Barack Obama plaza in Moneygall, his ancestral birthplace. They even had government signs announcing the historic importance of this spot.

There were are also frequent reminders that traffic would be slow when we got to Laois (pronounced leash) for the Ploughing Championships. Traffic for the Ploughing Championships would be quite heavy, the signs warned.

Every time I’ve turned on the radio, there has been some mention of it or even a live report from the Championship. It was the biggest event going on in the country at the moment. The crowds were huge. Politicians were showing up for photo ops. They had wellie tossing championships and row ploughing and many other events.

My mother had it twisted up in her mind as some grand return to the land celebration as opposed to it just being the national county fair.

You might have heard this one before, but it seems to be a cornerstone of all my adventures.

I figured out our route by checking Google Maps. It looked pretty simple. I had to leave the Motorway for the 110, make a left on the 111 and then a right on Northumberland and we would be safe and sound at the hotel. The 110 even had a cool name, the Long Mile Road. The 111 ran along side the canal, which would serve as a great landmark.

Okay, prepare tears and gallons of aggravation.

At the farthest reaches of Dublin, traffic got heavy around an area where they are building a new bridge to ease traffic. The road shunts to a side street and through a couple of traffic lights before the motorway resumes it’s high-speed glory.

At about this same junction, the signs appear announcing our turn for the 110. Arrows point to the left lane for the road and say take the next left. I do what every good driver does and maneuver to the left and get off.

Too bad the sign was an intersection premature. I turn off into some industrial estate, get stuck making a bunch of turns to find a way back to the motorway and the proper turn onto the Long Mile Road.

I make it back to the motorway, but I’ve come in at a junction beyond the turn. There aren’t any good places to a make the u-turn for a mile. My father sits in the back of the car offering up suggestions. It is early in the game, but I can already feel my blood pressure achieving call the doctor levels.

I find the right turn. I see lovely big signs for the Long Mile Road. I turn. Again, I’ve turned early. I think I’m cursed. The traitorous thought that a GPS device would come in handy floats in my mind.

I do finally drive on the Long Mile Road. Now all I have to do is find my right turn along the canal and everything will be smooth sailing.

We drive for quite a while. Distances become strange around Dublin. Nothing is as close you think it should be. Plus, it’s a warren of shifting street names designed for horse carts hundreds of years ago. Street signs are an after-thought.

I get it in my head, I’ve missed the turn along the canal. So, I decide to make the next right turn. I found myself in a markedly residential area full of speed bumps also known as ramps. Ramps are my father’s bane since they bounce him on the seat causing him pain in the ass wound that won’t heal.

Signs point us to Ballsbridge and Landsdowne road which is the area where our hotel is situated. I’m scanning the area looking for a distinctive landmark to orient myself but find nothing. My father admits to always getting lost in this town and suggests maybe it’s time to ask someone. Not yet.

Suddenly, I see the canal. But it is on right side of the car when it should be on our left. The road dead ends. I turn around and find my way to the other side of the canal. The hunt for a street sign continues. One that says Parnell road would be the best.

That doesn’t happen. I make turns. We find a park which should put us on the road, but I confuse the Merrion park with St. James Green and we continue to wander looking for clues to the hiding hotel. More calls to ask for directions.

I recognize a landmark. It’s an old flour mill that I had photographed when I was in Dublin last year. The landmark is important because it is next to the Google building. The Google building is where my friend John Hurlihy works on the top floor. I also know it is a stone’s throw from our hotel. Proximity to Google was one of the deciding factors in choosing this hotel.

I pull in illegally in front of Google where a taxi is parked. I ask the driver if knows where Northumberland street is located. He says sure. It’s a right turn and a left turn away. Praise be to Jesus.

As we make the turns to Northumberland, we pass Haddington St, one of the few street signs I had seen. We had been in this exact spot a couple of times, always going right. If we had turned left, like we were now doing, we would have immediately seen the Roxford Lodge Hotel sign.
Done, right? Not so much.

Another reason I chose this hotel was the fact it had a car park in the rear which led to an elevator without having to climb stairs. All I had to do was drive around back.

In the back, there was no sign for our hotel and it’s car park. I pulled back onto Haddington again. I pulled up on the curb in front of the hotel, which was a converted row house nestled in amongst lots of other row houses.

The lady at the desk told me I had to go down the alley from the other direction to see the sign. Of course, I did.

Sure enough, coming from the other direction there was a lovely visible sign for the Roxford Lodge.

Our rooms weren’t ready despite my driving adventures having made us arrive after noon. The parents were hungry and agreed to walk to the Jack Ryan Beggar’s Bush pub that was just out the back door through the car park.

The only thing notable about the Jack Ryan was it had the first unfriendly publican I had encountered on this trip. They also sold Jack Ryan Whiskey. I’m sure Tom Clancy would be proud.

My mother wanted to visit the James Joyce museum. Naturally, she asks all the patrons in the pub to check on their smart phones for the location. The Bar host said he didn’t know where it was. She talked to the guy next to us, who was working on his phone, if he was looking it up. No weird embarrassment there.

I told her I would find it once we got back to the hotel and it’s wifi. My father keeps thinking she wants to go to the Martello tower which is out on the water and where Joyce lived for a period of time.

Back at the hotel, the rooms still weren’t ready. The receptionist, possibly owner, kindly looked up the address for the museum and gave us a map. I gave the map to my father and let him play navigator.

Dublin seems to have gathered together a bunch of one way streets that always go opposite the direction you want to travel. We had to make a bunch of lefts to end up going right. We got to cross over the Liffey. The map route told us to turn right on streets that only went left. Good times.

Again, success was achieved after the gnashing of teeth and some not so quiet swear words. I was only half illegally parked since most of the of the front of the car was in a legal curb parking area. Although they did want a parking pass which I did not obtain. My father opted to wait in the car.

Stairs led up to the museum for my mother to climb. Much like the McCourt museum, you would have to climb stairs to visit the displays. My mother chose to peruse the gift shop instead and bother the clerk with inane almost Joyce related questions but focused on certain gifts in the gift shop. The clerk quickly lost interest in us when he realized how little we knew about Joyce’s history in Dublin.

Back at the car and time to find our way to the hotel. I ended up on O’Connell St., the main road through Dublin, because that would take us back to the hotel. It only took me two blocks to realize O’Connell St. was now closed to all traffic except buses and taxis. I pulled off and navigated through side streets to the Roxford Lodge.

Our rooms still weren’t ready, but we could wait in the lounge until they were. I asked if I could just the bags in the unmade room. No. Rooms weren’t displayed unless they were in perfect condition. I didn’t care if they were messy. I just wanted to make sure my parents had their bags while I went for a walk. Still, no. I could bring them in they would be brought in at the appropriate time.

I carried the bags up the tiny stairs to reception. I was told twice that there was an elevator. I said twice I knew that and had made a decision to carry them up.

I wandered around Dublin for a couple of hours, which is always enjoyable even under grey skies. I went to familiar spots like Christ Church and Trinity College. At Dublin Castle, I watched them film a scene for the TV show Penny Dreadful which stars Timothy Dalton. The interior courtyard had been dressed like it was the 1890’s. I did want to point out that two guys were drinking out of Insomnia Coffee cups in the middle of the scene, but I held off.

At the hotel, I get my first look at my closet size room, complete with one person sauna in the middle of it. I determine that I should have brought even fewer bags that I did since there was really no place to put the ones I did bring.

At least my parents room had a fax machine. And quite a big collection of DVD’s to use with the TV.

For the evenings entertainment we were going to the Gaiety Theater to see Brendan Behan’s ‘Borstal Boy’ one of those classics of Irish Cinema. I had long hard fight convincing my father that the theater was off Grafton street, since he knew for sure it was in another part of town.

I won this one when I found a printed map showing the theater right were I said it was.

We met John and Sinead Hurlihy for dinner at Saba, a Thai Fusion restaurant just behind the theater. It was really good and I had that traditional Thai dish of a lamb shank. Photo albums were displayed during dinner and there was lots of talk of the old days in Limerick. John is the son of my father’s friend, Tom who met on Monday. Currently, John is the Senior VP of Sales for Google in Europe.

The walk to the theater was probably a little longer than my parents could comfortably make from the restaurant but we didn’t have a lot of choice since the theater was on a pedestrian only lane.

The Gaitey was one of those traditional victorian theaters you occasionally see in period movies done in red and whites with elaborate filigree work on the faces of the balconies.

We had some good seats down front where I sat between my mother and father. That was a mistake. Not for me. I’m used to my father spilling out of his chair, into my seat so I can only sit in about half of my chair.

I was concerned about the poor woman on the other side of him who was potentially having this large unknown man pushing into her personal space. On top of that, my father didn’t smell the freshest. That must have the made the night miserable for the poor girl.

Borstal Boy is about Brendan Behan’s arrest and incarceration in England after he was caught with bomb making materials. He was sent over to Liverpool by the IRA to set off a bomb but was quickly caught.

The first half of the play is very stark and dramatic, showing Behan’s terrible treatment in prison. He’s beaten constantly by the guards. His prison cell is tiny. Almost the size of my hotel room at the Roxford.

The oddest scene in the first half is the shower scene. It seemed tremendously out of character. I’m watching the play. The guards call “Shower’ and suddenly the entire male cast of about twenty or so young men walk on stage naked. I figured they would keep their backs to the audience, but no. They were turning around and showing all they had while pretending to wash under the shower heads.

At the interval, I made my father switch seats with me. I don’t remember the lame excuse I gave him to switch. I just wanted to prevent further harm to the other patron. I distracted him from my reason by getting him an ice cream.

The second half of the play was completely different once Behan is sentenced to the Borstal or reform school. More jokes. More singing. It was quite the tone shift.

All in all, the play was fine. I think there are many more plays which go through similar themes. But it was revolutionary in it’s time.