When you think Dublin you think... GPO, Grafton Streen, St Stephen's Green and Temple Bar... after we dropped off Oisin, we headed for Pehonix Park. I had never been there, so i thought, why not? Also i had never been to IMMA. Which was near Phoenix Park.
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| The Wellington Monument |
This is the Wellington Monument. It is a VERY VERY large cenotaph. It is the largest cenotaph i have ever seen. You can see the woman in the photo for scale. It is the most blatant, unapologetic hymn to colonialism and militarism. I find cenotaphs quite horrible anyway. Aesthetically they are really really dull. They are grey - usually made of granite - and straight and awful. The most interesting sort of cenotaph i have seen is the Vigsland one in Oslo. That i fantastic. Most others are awful. The Wellington Monument was awful on a very large scale.
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The bronze friezes depict his battles
One is India submitting, the other France |
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| Talk about a poor winner |
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| There's Ghin |
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| Here is a plaque saying how Asia and Europe were civilised by him |
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| It must been hell living in Europe until about the 1960s |
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| I think people forget how awful things were until very recently |
If it was up to me everyone should learn history, literature and media studies. Maths. These are non negotiable - because they tell everyone where they have come from. Those who forget history and condemned repeat it, said someone. But what about those who don't even know history. They could be make the same stupid mistakes and think that they are making wonderful new ones. No, please, learn from the mistakes of the past. I became a pacifist when i studied the 100-year war. I realised that after one generation, people became very tired and only made deals because they were exhausted from fighting. People do not win wars, no one ever wins wars - it is a question of which side gives up first.
Ask Michael Collins.
I became completely disillusioned about power when i read all of Shakespeare's history plays back to back. If you ever want an illustration of barefaced power and what it does to anyone, read them, back to back. The first couple of Acts are hard, but you get used to it.
You cannot hold on to power - people give you power and if you abuse it, well, it is goodbye to the power. An individual does not have power as such over other people - you could have terror, but that is not really power. It is more like a form of magic and bullying. So i disagree with Machiavelli completely. When i read The Prince, i thought what a load of ass-kissing shite this is.
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| I cannot imagine how pissed off the Irish were with this |
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| Pheonix Park |
When i used to read Jane Austen in Singapore and people would talk about taking air in the park to meet people, i used to think, that must be a very short walk. I was of course thinking of the very small parks in Singapore. Except for perhaps Macritchie and really, who would you meet there, in the middle of the jungle? Anyhow, Pheonix Park is one of those super old parks, which has a perimeter of 11 km. You take about fifteen minutes to drive from one side of the park to the other - in a car. It has a zoo. Sports grounds. Concert grounds. It has wetlands. It has copses. It has strands of trees. It has ponds. It has the Wellington Monument. It is a big ass park. I could imagine Emma doing a turn here.
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| Ghin sneaking up on the gulls |
I LOVE Ireland. I love Ireland the way i cannot love Singapore. It has to do with, of course, geography. In Ireland you have everything. It has these amazing cities, like Dublin and Belfast, and counties which are known the world over: Tipperary, Cork, Derry. People have written songs about them which are sung all over the world: the Mountains of Mourne, the Fields of Athenry, Galway Bay, and then you visit these places and you are blown away. you are in no doubt that you are on the edge of the world. The Cliffs of Moher, the Wild Atlantic Way, Cashel Bay. You wander the streets of Dublin and you are in one of the most amazing novels ever written, you walk into the GPO and you are at the site of where the liberation of the modern wave of independence movements take place. In their National Museum, you see the site where the Irish martyrs were shot - names which have been preserved in verse and song. You know you have seen the stones which were seen by WB Yeats, by Samuel Beckett, by Synge... alleyways and buildings - even the very small burnt brick ones are so full of charm. I imagine this was how Singapore must have been like before it all began being gentrified. In Dublin they have not suffered from the refusal to adhere to the maxim of Leave Well Enough Alone. There are places which are real, still so very real.
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| The long walk into Kilmeanan |
The Museum of Modern Art is on the grounds of a hospital. An old military hospital. They had a surrealist exhibition which we could not take Ghin into. So instead we just wandered the grounds. It was ridiculously mild for this time of the year.
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| The limestone walls remind us that once Ireland was totally underwater |
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| The gardens of Kilmeanan |
I did not expect the formal gardens which we saw. A reimagining of the 17th century formal garden plans, but like all great Irish histories, there was a period of neglect. And in fact it was so neglected that nothing could be salvaged. So in the early 20th century they went away and they did up the place according to what they thought it could be like. It was completed in the 1980s. It is looked after by Duchas, the NT of Ireland. I love formal gardens as much as i love the cottage gardens.
And the physic gardens.
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| I also loved this mermaid plant holder |
Ghin was very sweet, he said, they should get you to look after this garden mom, you would do a much better job. It is a bit boring.
After Kilmeanan, we went to Dublin city centre to hop on the Ghost Tour bus, but it was only going at night. So instead, we hung out at a chocolate shop and we had Govindas for lunch before we headed back to Belfast. I took Ghin to a friend's place for a party and then trick or treating and then headed back to my mom's house.
That was our Halloween. It was a good day in Dublin.
Throughout we missed Oisin. Who by all accounts is having a great time.
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