THE BEST THING about the part of Dublin I live in is the Royal Hospital Kilmainham. I love the building itself and its atmospheric, 300-year-old courtyard. I love the walled, Italianate garden, with its manicured hedgerows and paths. And by complete contrast to that, I also love the “meadow”.
For a decade now, I’ve been in the habit of cycling through the latter on fine spring or autumn mornings, accompanying one or more of my children to school. On which occasions, I never fail to marvel at the view across the meadow and the Liffey valley, towards the Phoenix Park.
This is the middle of Dublin. And yet, barring one or two man-made intrusions on the panorama (I don’t know how that Wellington Monument ever got planning permission) it could be open countryside.
The RHK is also great place to be philosophical, thanks in part to its cemeteries: the ancient one of Bully’s Acre, where some of the dead from the Battle of Clontarf reputedly lie, and the more recent ones added by the old military hospital.
There had, of course, to be separate graveyards for officers and men: you couldn’t have the ranks mixing, even in death. But it doesn’t require an overactive imagination to suspect that there are ghosts of both wandering around, trying to make sense of the exhibits installed since the hospital’s reincarnation as a museum of modern art.
ANOTHER REASONI love the RHK is that, of late, Leonard Cohen keeps playing in it. When this happened the first time, in 2008, I thought it was a once-off.
Apart from anything else, I assumed that having redressed the financial problems that forced him back on the road in his mid-1970s, Cohen would again soon retire from touring, or perhaps even return to his Zen monastery in California and achieve Nirvana.
Instead of which, he keeps coming back to Dublin. According to his tour blog, the city is now a “home from home”. And if Dublin is a home, the RHK’s meadow must be the living room.
As both a Cohen fan and an RHK neighbour, earlier this week, I found myself in an odd situation. I am, as stated, a local resident. It might not be much of an exaggeration, indeed, to say that I’m a concerned resident.
And I’m thus well aware that, having pioneered the RHK as an outdoor music venue, Cohen inadvertently opened the way for other acts, not all as welcome as his.
We haven’t had the Swedish House Mafia in yet, thank God. But during a festival last
June, amid the usual problems with unauthorised urination, etc, some eejit trying to get in free pulled a neighbour’s fence down.
Such incidents harden local opinion. And for the estimated 96 per cent of residents who are not Leonard Cohen enthusiasts, the latest concerts were just another security issue.
So we were all canvassed about any concerns we wanted raised with the promoters. During discussions of which I mentioned to a neighbour that, er, I would be attending one of the concerts myself. And at this admission, I swear, the neighbour looked at me like I was a member of the Garvaghy Road residents committee who’d just admitted enjoying flute bands.
I felt similarly divided loyalties on Tuesday night, as Cohen performed his final encore. Like most of those present, I would have loved another song or two. But I could see from the RHK clock tower that it was coming up to 10.55pm and the agreed curfew. Bloody residents, I thought to myself: they’re everywhere these days.
A HIGHLIGHTof the show, as usual, was Anthem, a song that encapsulates Cohen's philosophy of joyful resignation to life's failings, viz: "Ring the bells that still can ring/Forget your perfect offering/There is a crack, a crack, in everything/That's how the light gets in." I've often thought this would make a good anthem for Ireland, where we have cracks in many things (including the neighbour's fence) and should maybe learn to look on the bright side of them.
But I wondered if the ghosts listening to the song on this occasion included a former Master of the RHK, “Gentleman Johnny” Burgoyne. Burgoyne went down in British military history, perhaps unfairly, as the man who lost the American colonies. At any rate, his overconfidence as a commander led to pivotal defeat at the Battles of Saratoga in 1777.
He was, however, subsequently made commander in chief of the army in Ireland. And his appointment as master at Kilmainham was commemorated by a large bell, which to this day can be seen by visitors, not far from where Cohen is singing this week.
There isn’t a crack in the bell, as it happens. And it does still ring – I often rap it when passing to make sure. But there would have been a crack in the bell-tower, soon enough, if they’d left the thing there. It was always too heavy for the job. So at some point they moved it to a floor of the basement, near the cafe, where it now stands, silent, and where it could easily be mistaken for an ironic modern art installation.