Dublin Tour

Thanks again to Patrick Liddy for another great three hours walking in Dublin. We are hoping to do this again soon, with a number of people expressing a preference for learning more about the Liberties area of Dublin.

People who know me well know I regularly get lost in UCD campus and have a very poor sense of direction, so please feel free to correct anything here. From my recollection and notes afterwards, we began on Westland Row at Pearse Street DART station. We stopped for a brief chat under the bridge where Leopold Bloom reads his love letter during the Lotus Eater section of Ulysses. We then went down to Lombard Street and stopped outside the Windjammer bar for discussion of the development of housing around this part of Dublin over the last 30 years. We then walked to Sir John Rogerson quay, and stopped to talk next to the Linesman statue, which commemorates all the Dock Workers, who worked around that area over the years. It is a lovely piece if you have not see it. We also spent some time speaking about the 1916 rising, as the memorial for Elizabeth O'Farrell, one of the women who took part is across the road. From there, we went across Sean O'Casey bridge, and stopped at the centre (which wobbles - though that might have just because of me). The view from that bridge on a sunny day is really fantastic and looking down to the docks development gives an enormous sense of history. The famine statues by Rowan Gillespie below were next stop. There are sister versions of these statues in Toronto.

A discussion of the Jeanie Johnston followed, which is famous as being one of the few famine ships with a perfect safety record, one of the reasons for the strong desire to create the replica that sits in the quay. We then went into CHQ, a huge former store for tobacco, wine and so on that is now a shopping centre, and a very interesting destination to spend time talking about the importance of the docks. Some of the most interesting aspects of the tour came next walking through George's dock into the IFSC , which is an extremely important part of Irish economic history at this stage. We then walked back out into Sheriff Street and talk about the development of the Irish inner-city during the 70s and 80s. We then walked through Talbot street and spent sometime discussing the monument to the victims of the Dublin-Monaghan bombings. The tour ended in the area formerly known as the "Monto" one of Europe's largest red-light districts around the late 1800s, and most likely the "nighttown" setting for the Circe episode of Ulysses.