Dear Dirty Dublin

My first transatlantic trip was 12 years ago, in August of 1997. Even though I was only eight years old at the time, I still have many memories of the three weeks that my family--parents, sister, grandparents, two aunts and one uncle--spent in Europe. It was my first experience with international travel, and it gave me a travel bug that I've never shaken off. And, fittingly, it happened in Ireland.

I don't think that my first European experience could have happened anywhere else. To clarify: I started Irish dancing when I was four, have suffered sunburns on every body part from my scalp to my toes, and eagerly awaited annual St. Patrick's Day visits from the leprechaun. I'm Irish.

So last Friday morning at 5:30 I mustered up a remarkable amount of excitement considering the hour, and left my apartment on my way to the airport. Five hours later, I caught my first glimpse of Dublin in over a decade. I was on my way to meet up with Eunice, my college roommate, her friend and a friend of that friend.

We started the trip with--what else--food. Specifically, this food. While I do love my pastries dearly, it was good to spend three days gorging myself on corned beef, potatoes, lamb stew and shepherd's pie. Which is exactly what we did.


Yum.

To walk off our boxtys (boxties?), we headed over to take a tour of Trinity College. This was one of the few things I remembered from my first visit to Dublin. It's a beautiful university, and is famous for housing the Book of Kells, one of the world's finest illuminated manuscripts. It was one of the eight nice days that Ireland gets all year, so it was nice to walk around the campus for a while. We learned about decision to make Trinity a coeducational college (the provost who opposed it died shortly afterward and was buried under the quad so women could walk over his dead body), the terrible organization system in their library (it's done by size of the book) and Irish people's inability to come up with creative names (e.g. Long Library is a long library).

Then it was off to the Jameson Distillery for some genuine Irish whiskey. Given my past trials with alcohol, which I have documented here, I wasn't expecting very much from the tour. But it was actually surprisingly interesting. Our guide told us the history of the factory and took us through the entire process of producing the whiskey (secret: it's triple-distilled). At the end, of course, there was whiskey to be tasted. Surprisingly, I really liked it (Mom and Dad, pretend you didn't read that). Maybe that's because it was about three drops of whiskey mixed with half a glass of cranberry juice. But I think it's a start.

My favorite piece of information from the tour involved the factory workers. Considering that there are only so many Irish surnames, sometimes several employees would share a last name. To avoid confusion, the men were each given nicknames. Behold, the names of my ancestors:

I am opening the vote on which one should be my new nickname. Personally, I'm liking Ducky Woman.

Saturday

Saturday, we woke up to a The tour covered most of Dublin's major sights, including: Trinity College, Dublin Castle, Temple Bar, Christchurch Cathedral, the Ha'penny Bridge and St. Stephen's Green. Our guide Louise, was a Dubliner who knew a ton about the city. We learned about some of the major neighborhoods of Dublin, Irish rebel figures and some ridiculous stories about the Dublin city council.

We also learned that Ireland has had a terrible history. I have created a pictorial representation for you. It goes something like this:

Basically, whenever there was even the slightest chance that things might be getting better, something came along to ruin it. It's hard to believe now, as Ireland is such a modern country, but its people lived in sub-human conditions for centuries. The fact that the Irish have managed to keep a legendary sense of humor is pretty astounding.

Even though the tour took over four hours (instead of the advertised three), I really enjoyed it. I have a decent understanding of Irish history, but there are still a lot of gaps. Hearing a Dubliner's perspective on it gave me a grasp on some key events. Plus, our guide was hilarious, and spent a lot of her time insulting the British and the French.

Sidebar: I picked the worst possible time to come to Dublin, considering that I was coming from France. You may not have heard, since America is the one country in the world not obsessed with soccer, but there was a rather contentious World Cup qualifier match between France and Ireland just before my arrival. Many Irish fans are convinced that the refs missed the call on purpose, because the French team can bring bigger sponsors and more money to the World Cup. Whatever the truth, there was a march on the French embassy in Dublin while we were there. I thougt it was best not to mention that I'm living in Paris.

We finished the day with a trip to what is probably the most touristy destination in Dublin: the Guinness factory. For some reason, my parents did not think this was a fit place to bring an 8-year-old and a 6-year old, so I had not visited on my first trip.

Unlike Jameson, it's a self-guided tour. You start on the first floor and work your way up the museum, which is shaped like the largest pint glass in the world. It's all very high tech (think interactive videos, waterfalls, etc.) and pretty impressive. What everyone really comes for, of course, is the free beer you get at the end of the tour. It's served in the factory's Gravity Bar, which offers panoramic views of Dublin city. And it was surprisingly not as disgusting as I thought it would be. I don't think I'll be ordering it in restaurants anytime soon, but it wasn't half bad for a beer. I'm not sure that it made me feel stronger, but it did make me feel Irish.

Sunday

Unfortunately, Eunice decided that things like "sleep" and "classes" were more important than another day in Dublin, so our foursome was down to a threesome on Sunday.

We started the day with a long, long walk out to Kilmainham Gaol. Kilmainham is a famous Dublin prison, built in 1796. It held thousands of people during its 130 years in operation, but its most famous inmates were the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising.

All but one were executed in Kilmainham's courtyard (Countess Markiewicz was spared because she was a woman). One of the leaders, the schoolteacher Joseph Connelly, was dying from injuries sustained during the fighting. He couldn't stand to walk across the yard, so he was strapped to a chair and shot. The rebellion had been considered unpatriotic among Irish people whose family members were fighting with British troops in WWI. But when they heard about the deaths, particularly that of Connelly, the executed men became martyrs and the country began its real push for independence.

It was an interesting place to see, having heard the names of these men for years. It wasn't the happiest of places, but it was important.

Afterwards, we fought the rain and took a quick walk to Phoenix Park, the largest enclosed urban public park in Europe. As it's over 1,700 acres in size, we only saw a tiny fraction. But that fraction was well worth the trip. Dublin isn't a capital city known for its beauty, and the gray November weather wasn't helping its aesthetics. But I'm a sucker for parks, and wandering the green pathways was a great way to relax after the morning. The best part came a few minutes after our arrival, when the sun came out, and we got the most stereotypically Irish sight we could hope for.

At this point, I split off from the group for several hours to indulge my nerdy side at the Dublin Writers Museum. It's a pretty small museum in a beautiful old house that highlights major figures in Irish literary history (Beckett, Joyce, Swift, Yeats, O'Casey, Synge). There were some pretty standard displays mixed in with other, more unique artifacts (original playbills from the Abbey Theater, the phone from Samuel Beckett's Paris apartment). For such a small island, Ireland has produced a lot of great writers (many of whom, ironically, left their country for France). I've read a lot of them, and it was nice to read about their lives in the city where so many of them found their inspiration.

The next morning, I left for the airport at about 4:20 in the morning, so there was no time left for sightseeing. My weekend in Dublin was a ton of fun, and left me with a couple observations:

Observation #1: I LOVE Irish people.

I have to admit that a large reason for my love of Irish people is the Irish accent. As soon as I heard the accents on my fellow passengers on the flight out of Paris, I knew I was in trouble. I think I would marry an 80-year old toothless hunchback if he had that accent. But that is besides the point...

One thing that my host mom told me before I left (besides that Irish girls are ugly and fat from too much beer-drinking) is that within five seconds of pulling out a map in Dublin, you will have about fifteen Irish people offering directions. This turned out to be absolutely true. We barely had to look confused while looking for the Guinness Factory before a good Samaritan stopped and told us: "Guinness? Just that way."

Our bus driver from the airport took this idea even further. We bothered him during the ride about whether we were on the right line, which stop we had to get off at and which direction our hostel was in. When we saw that the drivers were changing, we thought we were lost. Instead, our driver told us that we were at our stop, and then walked us 3/4 of the way to our hostel.

Then there was the guy who paid for part of Eunice's shampoo when she couldn't find exact change (although we agreed this was probably because he didn't want to wait for her to sort out pounds from Euros). Obviously it's too simplistic to say that all Irish people are jovial, happy-go-lucky, "top-of-the-morning-to-you" types. But there's something true in the stereotypical Irish friendliness.

Of course, this might just be because I have lived in Paris for three months and have a skewed reaction to any sort of human kindness, of the "Did you just smile? MARRY ME!!!"variety. But I think they really are nice.

Observation #2:

Being in Ireland was like going through a wormhole.

I've dreamt of studying abroad for at least ten years. I remember researching my options as early as seventh grade, and a good study abroad program was absolutely essential when making my college choice. But I always thought it would be Ireland.

Even as late as last year, I seriously considered applying to at least one program in Ireland, just to keep my options open. It was ultimately academic considerations that kept me from doing so. Essentially, if I were not a French major I would be in Ireland right now.

So it was strange to wander around Trinity College, picturing myself as one of the students crossing the quad. I can't say whether my year would have been better, worse or comparable to my current study abroad experience. I certainly don't regret coming to France. But it is strange to me that I made a decision to live in a culture of which I am so clearly not a part.

I love Paris. I love many aspects of French culture, and I made a conscious decision to immerse myself in said culture for a year. I like the idea that you should be able to relax on Sundays. God knows I can get behind pastries. But I am not--and never will be--French. I smile reflexively when I walk into stores. I'd take the Dubliners over Edith Piaf any day. I wear green, not black.

I would never claim to be as Irish as someone born in Ireland. Being in Paris has helped me identify those parts of myself that are very American. And the way I've been raised, my beliefs about education, religion, politics have been shaped by my upbringing in the States. But even here, I bring up my Irish heritage a lot. I don't think I'm alone in feeling this way. For one thing, it's nearly impossible to identify "American culture" when you've been surrounded by it for your entire life. For another, a hallmark of American culture is its diversity. So adopting the culture of your parents or grandparents is a way to differentiate yourself from everyone else. And I strongly identify with my Irish heritage.

Ultimately, I'm very happy in Paris. And I think that living in a culture that is not my own, speaking a language that is not my own, has been good for me. Paris isn't exactly exotic, but it has taken me further out of my comfort zone than Ireland would have. But it was still nice to spend a weekend hearing (hotly-accented) English, seeing smiles on the street and feeling a little more at home.