My Dublin is black and white; grey and sepia. It’s Georgian buildings dark with rain, and ruin, it’s seagulls, whippet-thin young lads from the flats diving into the canal in the choppy sunshine at Portobello bridge, a green Morris Minor proceeding down the empty road.
My Dublin is 1965. It’s The Beatles and The Rolling Stones “crowds of girls screaming damply’”; an atmosphere hot and sharp; full of powder and perfume and a frightening excitement. It’s big navy gardaí up from the country looking on astounded: what is it about them English boyos that’s driving our young ones so crazy? It’s nuns in full regalia on Grafton Street; men doffing their hats. The entire country off to Mass on Sunday, down on our knees to confess our sins on Saturday, “Would kicking boys be any good?”
My Dublin is artisan cottages in Portobello for sale at IR£6,000; another IR£4,000 to do one up; it’s a slaughterhouse on Synge Street, one of the first Well Woman clinics beside it; the pigs screaming in the summer afternoon. An abattoir stench. My Dublin is Bewley’s coffee and sticky buns on Saturday mornings; The Bailey, Davy Byrne’s, McDaids later, where Patrick Kavanagh, Tony Cronin, Eddie Maguire ruled. It’s Broadsheet, with contributions from John Behan, Seamus Heaney, Michael Kane, John Heath Stubbs, Michael Hartnett, Paul Durcan, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Leland Bardwell. Me!
My Dublin is the Pope’s visit, walking to the Phoenix Park with Hattie (daughter of Evelyn), Adrian Kenny, Mum. Hattie carrying fold-up chairs. Adrian waving a white handkerchief as the helicopter circled steeply. My Dublin is mini skirts, hurrah!, boots, massive mirror shades. Eh, Is that a pelmet you’re wearing, asks Dad, or a skirt?
My Dublin is Bloody Sunday, THIRTEEN DEAD IN DERRY! It’s being crushed in Merrion Square two days later as the British embassy is burnt to a black shell amidst roars and cheers. It’s Mrs Gaj’s restaurant and the Women’s Liberation Movement. Fuck you, Patriarchy – secular and religious – Yeah! It’s consciousness raising, making friends with our vaginas in hand-held mirrors. Jesu! It’s the Contraception Train to Belfast. It’s marching for freedom of choice. It’s invading Neary’s snug. Invading Sandycove’s MEN ONLY! premier swimming hole, the old fellas running for cover as female twentysomethings demand equal access. Oh yeah; it’s a young activist spray painting Gloria Steinem’s battle cry on the plinth of the (hideous) Papal Cross. If men got pregnant abortion would be a sacrament. The powers-that-be marshalled every JCB in Ireland and earthed it up prontissimo. A metaphor for their general approach to cries for change; hence the terrible revelations to come.
In my Dublin Alfred is on the bridge at O’Connell Street offering Polaroids, it’s pre-celebrity, (largely) pre global capitalism,pre the Super Rich, pre the Dart, pre the Luas, pre duvets, pre the internet, pre mobile phones, pre Facebook. Weirdly, it’s (mostly) pre-drugs, apart of course from sensational amounts of alcohol, the smell of hops all over the city, the Guinness barges with their tilt-down funnels, sliding under the Liffey bridges, the pubs rammed to the rafters, everyone penniless, smoking their heads off.
Bond Street Studios, holding down its corner in the lee of the Guinness brewery for 15 plus years, is to open its doors for Culture Night for the first time. They certainly aren’t doing things by halves. The theme of the group show is Dublin 8. The artists involved range from junior photographers such as Ellius Grace and Cait Fahey and spreads to more experienced shooters such as Liam Murphy and Johnny Savage. The content ranges from Dublin 8 residences, portraits of local groups and looks at local fashion. To echo the imagery, three of Dublin’s finest writers have stepped forward to create site specific work for the night in question, author Rosita Sweetman, recently published Sarah Griffin, and writer / director Dave Tynan. Come on down.
[ culturenight.ie/dublin_event/bond-street-studiosOpens in new window ]
