ST VALENTINE'S DAY:No money doesn't have to mean no fun. MICHAEL FREEMAN goes back in time and space, when all you had to offer a girl was a crossbar
A HANDWRITTEN SIGN in the lobby directs us to Room 6, on the second floor. Room 6 turns out to be a smallish function area, furnished with folding tables and a mildly hallucinogenic carpet. But tonight, it is artfully lit with upturned desk lamps (one sits on top of a dormant widescreen television) and an atmosphere of conviviality prevails over the modest decor. The An Góilín Traditional Singers’ Club has taken up residence.
This is a January which is not only as miserable as any other, but also has its seasonal gloom made glummer by a recession; and this is not just any recession, but one that carries with it the sneaking but unavoidable feeling that we’re getting what we deserve. So the prospects for a good evening out are more than usually limited.
But love, like the economic boom-bust cycle, springs eternal. What if you’ve met a nice boy or girl – by the woolly-jumper bin in Arnotts’ bargain basement, say, or in the dole queue – and you need a way to get to know them a little better? The old stalwart of getting mutually battered in the snug, while carrying obvious inhibition-obliterating benefits, has come to seem not only a bit expensive, but even a little anachronistic. But you can’t just stay in with a DVD on a first date.
How, then, to make that special someone believe that you are not only (a) resourceful and inventive, but also (b) financially prudent, and thus a good bet in these difficult times? What you need, my cost-conscious friend, is a Cheap Date. Here are suggestions for ways to spend the evening, without spending the rent money.
YOURS FOR A SONG
The aforementioned An Góilín Traditional Singers’ meet every Friday evening at the Teachers’ Club on Dublin’s Parnell Square. When we arrive, the folding tables are filling up with respectable-looking people. The dress code is modest and the hair tends, on the whole, towards the greying. Pints are brought up from the club bar downstairs (which is on the cheap side) and nursed in a manner that is entirely recession-friendly. Except by some of the rowdier elements in corduroy jackets.
Proceedings begin when a friendly woman called Róisín (who had earlier made us welcome and invited us to look at her book of ballads) rings a bell. She makes a few announcements in the vein of every club everywhere, and then names the first couple of singers.
First up tonight is a woman with an American accent, who sings a slow, sad ballad about hobo-ing on the railroads. She is followed by the man next to her, who delivers a folk song on the decline of the Newfoundland fisheries. Several of the men around him join in on the chorus. Singing seems a democratic process: people are often moved to hum along, and if a singer loses the words, someone might remind them. When a singer finishes, another starts. Everyone gets applause and congratulations.
Date-wise, it rates pretty highly. The atmosphere is friendly and encouraging; we are invited to sing, but no one minds when we don’t. And the financial burden is a mere €3, plus (optional) drinks, for a whole evening’s worth of music that is not only a little unusual, but also tends towards the dewy-eyed – ideal for engendering subtle, natural-seeming gestures of affection (the companionable lean; the held hand – patience, patience). There is the caveat of maintaining a respectful quiet during songs. But that could be a good or a bad thing, depending on the date.
An Góilín Traditional Singers’ Club, Fridays, 10pm at the Teachers Club, 36 Parnell Square, Dublin 1. €3. www.goilin.com
STAR GAZING
“Between two worlds, life hovers like a star, twixt night and morn, upon the horizon’s verge.” So wrote Lord Byron. And stars have been a reference point for high-falutin’ rhetoric pretty much ever since the first man had the first woman back to his cave for coffee. So why not get in on the act? Spending an evening at a public watch organised by Astronomy Ireland might be not only an ideal opportunity to deploy your clumsiest romantic metaphors, but also a novel way to pass the time twixt night and morn.
“Since ancient times, mankind has looked up into the sky and wondered, what is it all about?” says Astronomy Ireland chairman David Moore. “The stars are unreachable. That’s the fascination of it.” The society’s watches are run on a monthly basis, in a dozen locations throughout Ireland, and are free.
Telescopes are provided, as are people to tell you what you’re looking at (thus avoiding the possibility of any humiliating asteroid/comet mix-ups). And it’s not just for those of a scientific bent, explains Moore. “Some people think it’s all science and mathematics. And there is that side of it, but there’s also everything else.” It is, he says, an occasion for beauty. “Some of the pictures that come back from space, I think, are works of art. They should be hung in galleries.”
He’s enthusiastic, too, about the events’ romantic possibilities. “I would have no problem recommending it to people. We have lots of couples coming along. People go away with their minds blown.” And he goes as far as to suggest that the excitement of the stars might compensate for any other shortcomings of the occasion. “You’ll remember the date for a long time to come,” he promises.
Monthly public watches are run by Astronomy Ireland staff and volunteers in 12 locations countrywide. For more details see www.astronomy.ie.
WORTHY LECTURES
Not what you deliver when you’re four pints in and the conversation turns to your pet topic, but an actual lecture given by an actual expert. Various institutions around the country hold evening talks and panel sessions, with the subjects varying wildly according to the speaker.
It might seem that voluntarily attending a lecture is a little like taking a cold shower, in that its only real advantage is making you feel virtuous afterwards. But a little learning can also be not unpleasant in itself. Moreover, it has the added benefit of making you, personally, appear both attractively curious and in touch with the intellectual zeitgeist. Obviously this last will not apply if you invite your paramour to a talk on recent developments in, say, insurance liability calculation.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. “There’s a huge variety of topics,”says Aoife McGonagle of the Royal Irish Academy, about its public lecture programme. “Recently we’ve had a lecture on Darwin. We had a professor talking about maths paradoxes. And we’ve had Michael McElroy, who was Al Gore’s adviser on climate change – he did a public interview with Minister Eamon Ryan.”
So you’re not necessarily letting yourself in for an hour of impenetrable jargon? “It’s really, really broad to be honest. Some are quite academic in nature, and then some are designed to be more publicly accessible.” And the cost? “The majority are free. But you do need to register for them.”
If fate really smiles upon you, you might also luck out and find there’s a free wine reception afterwards. Most universities run similar programmes and advertise events on their websites. In fact, student debating societies sometimes attract the highest-profile visitors. But I speak from bitter experience when I say that if you don’t also wish to hear about the night Stewie and Tommo lost their trousers to the hockey club, you might be best off steering clear.
For events at the Royal Irish Academy, see www.ria.ie. See also www.publicspeaking.ie.
PLANEWATCHING
Way back when air travel was associated with glamour and romance, planewatching used to be a staple dating activity. Young couples would drive to the airport and watch the flights coming in. It was simple, it was free; it was an opportunity, perhaps, for a little discreet courting.
In these times of scratchcards and security checks, aeroplanes are a little harder to imagine as a mood-setter for flirtation. And, perhaps as a consequence of this, it proves impossible to locate anyone who can tell me about recreational planewatching (as opposed to its more definite cousin, planespotting, which seems to involve mainly ticking things off lists). So one evening I pack some sandwiches, tell a sympathetic woman that her eyes remind me of the landing lights on a Boeing 737-400, and set off for the airport.
We pull up at a lay-by, on a sliproad running along the airport chain-link fence. Surprisingly, at 8pm on a dark Wednesday evening, the lay-by is full of cars – all parked carefully to face the runway. We do likewise, turn up the car heater, and settle in with the picnic.
Periodically, and with considerable noise and bright lights, a flight takes off over our heads. But other than that, it is an uneventful way to spend an evening. We watch the planes shifting around the loading gates and the airport fire truck driving around and around the perimeter fence. Maybe the idea is to bore your companion into consenting to canoodle with you?
But we gradually realise that the darkened cars around us are full of people. One man has his dashboard light on and appears to be reading things from a clipboard. Another seems to be using a laptop. Two men in the car next to us leave, then come back a few minutes later to park in exactly the same spot. This, at least, is activity. (Criminal activity?) Why, I wonder, would you choose to spot planes in the dark?
Just then, as a plane takes off, a young couple get out of a car to watch it. One of them is holding a baby. Could it have been conceived during a date of unbearable boredom in an airport lay-by? Perhaps, I think. Perhaps.
GOING WALKABOUT
Going walking on a date might seem, in this day and age, like an idiotically retrograde suggestion. In a climate as miserable as ours, why hark back to a time when social morality demanded that courting should include braving the vicious elements – when three Appletinis can see you back at your sweetheart’s studio flat and making scrambled eggs?
Well, for one thing, Appletinis don’t come cheap. And for another, there’s more to walking than escaping the prying eyes of long-gone landladies. Clubs around the country organise events which might not only quicken your heartbeat like the pangs of love, but provide a fine way to prop up halting first-date conversations.
Ronan O’Donnell runs the Let’s Walk and Talk programme for Dublin City Council. “We have five or six weekly walks in different parts of the city,” he says. “And then to complement those we have programmes of historical walks, and cultural tours as well.” You can join any of them for no money whatsoever. On the regular weekly walks, “the leaders will always take in different events,” he says. “There might be an exhibition on at the Print Museum or at the Royal Irish Academy.” But the occasional cultural and historical tours are more elaborate.
Last year, they ran evening tours of Jewish and Italian Dublin. “With the Jewish one, we had a walk, and then a reception afterwards, where we had a panel discussion with Alan Shatter, Ben Briscoe and the curator of the Jewish museum. And we had a film screening, and kosher food.” An evening out, in other words – and gratis!
This year, O’Donnell is planning events around the Handel Festival, and a Bram Stoker walk, to finish with a screening of the silent-film classic Nosferatu – perhaps an opportunity, if you’re really out of ideas, to revisit the well-worn “spontaneous-clutch-in-fear” manoeuvre.
But O’Donnell has further suggestions regarding romantic possibilities. “If you were going out with someone from another country,” he observes, “you could introduce them to Irish culture by going on the walks.” And the group could also perform a useful regulatory function. “Walking in the Phoenix Park is always nice for a pleasant afternoon or evening,” he says. “Maybe when you’re with a gang of people, you wouldn’t be as uncomfortable as just walking with the date. If you know what I mean.”
A directory of walking groups nationwide is at www.irishheart.ie/iopen24/defaultarticle.php. Details of Dublin walking tours are at www.dublin.ie/neighbourhood/community-events/walking-tours.htm. Ronan O’Donnell can be contacted on 01-2223726.
CÉILÍ DANCING
Humankind is much like other animals, in that our schemes to attract potential mates often involve performing some kind of faintly embarrassing dance. These schemes, it has to be said, often fail. Part of the problem is that they tend to take place in venues where one’s judgment is already severely impaired – in subterranean clubs early on Saturday mornings, for example, or at weddings. So as we bob and weave our extremities in a way not totally dissimilar from the blackfooted albatross, perhaps we should ask ourselves: could there be a more prudent, sober and – let’s face it – economical method of demonstrating our genetic desirability?
“One of the things our organisation focuses on,” says Eilís Ní Mhearraí, national secretary of Cairde Rince Céilí na hÉireann, “is that none of our events are held in places where alcohol is available. And for a lot of people that’s a plus.” Her organisation, set up for the promotion of céilí dancing, has 30 branches nationwide offering weekly evening classes. Each region’s clubs get together to host a céilí every weekend. And everyone is welcome. “We have a live band on stage and we do about 20 dances on the night. There’s a break for tea, sandwiches, all that.”
But hold on. For a novice, might attempting to dance the Walls of Limerick prove just as humiliating as an inadvertent burst of air guitar during Don’t Stop Believing? Ní Mhearraí says not. “We welcome everyone, no matter how good or bad they are. There’s always friendliness about it, they’ll always fit in. There’s nobody saying ‘Oh, you don’t know it, don’t come near me’.” So, essentially, it’s an inclusive thing. “Yes. We always go back over the easier dances, and then we gently get them through the more difficult ones.”
When I ask about its possibilities as a venue for dating, Ní Mhearraí is positive. “It’s a very friendly environment, it’s certainly fun . . . Sometimes people wouldn’t want to go out for dinner because there’s too much focus on them maybe. The first few times, some people don’t like just going off two by two. So it would take the pressure off.” You’d want to be fit, though.
Cairde Rince Céilí na hÉireann: www.ceilidancing.com.
ENVELOPE OPENINGS
Finally, and foraging deep into high-cultural territory now, we come to the art gallery exhibition launch. Here’s the theory: any art institution worth its salt will have a rolling programme of temporary exhibitions. And each of those exhibitions will, even in the most modest gallery, be launched with an event at which wine is sipped and chit is chatted. How bad could it be?
Colm Mac Athlaoich is the proprietor of the Monster Truck Gallery on Dublin’s Francis Street, which holds openings on a more or less weekly basis. “It’s definitely a good potential dating spot, I think,” he says. “Speaking as an observer of the exhibitions that we have, it’s good because there’s enough hustle and bustle happening that you can get lost in the whole environment. You can always disappear off and start looking at the art.” Thus evading that difficult silence-at-the-table moment? “Exactly. You can avoid looking like a total plonker.”
There is also, of course, a certain cachet to bringing someone to an arty event. “There’s the feeling that you’re part of a cultural outing,” Mac Athlaoich says. “It’s something a bit substantial. Something to talk about.” And even if you think Jasper Johns sounds like an expensive hairdresser, you can always bluff your way through it. (If you get really stuck, look your partner in the eye quizzically and say, “But is it art?”). Mac Athlaoich even suggests a little tactical schmoozing to further your cause. “If you like the work, you can always get in touch and get to know the artist themselves. And then you can invite someone else along, and introduce them.”
So has he witnessed this magic in motion? “Sometimes, when we have a late-night one, you can see something brewing . . . I know people definitely have hooked up following exhibitions here.” And is there anything else about the openings that might help people along? “Well, there’s the free booze, of course.” Right.
For listings of exhibition openings nationwide, visit http://www.recirca.com/onshow/index.shtml. Monster Truck Gallery: www.monstertruck.ie