Dublin 1

July 14, 2010

Charles Stewart B&B, Parnell Square, in exactly the same room they gave me the last time I was here, at year’s end a few years back. I think I was imagining this room when I booked, for I remember thinking good thoughts and writing well in it. Whatever about the room, the rest of the place has declined a little. The courtly, old-style gentleman who knew literature and carried one’s bag has been replaced by the ubiquitous Eastern European girl, who is on a cigarette break when one arrives. All Dublin is a little threadbare. Most of O’Connell Street is vacant store fronts. The roof on the shed in the courtyard below still bristles with lost balls, maybe the same ones. Walked, shopped, bought tickets, though compared to London (or even compared to Dublin a few years back) the pickings are slim.

Went to The Flowing Tide to waste time until my room was ready. There is a very old clock on the wall, and when I looked at it and noted the right time, I thought, “Is this antique working, or did I happen to look at a stopped clock at exactly the moment it could be right?”

It took 15 minutes to get to the London City Airport from Crawford Passage, so there was another wasted bout of anxiety. My Pakistani driver with the very posh accent was hugely informative about the parts of London we were passing through, about which quays received which goods in days of yore and the like. Passed a bit of the ancient London wall. I asked whom it was built to keep out. He said, “The French, Napoleon and all that.”

Overheard in the airport: “Have you noticed how the handsome boys always sit together?”

“Of course. Handsome boys like handsome boys just like everybody else.”