On the steps of the GPO and other myths – An Irishman’s Diary about psychic geography

So often have I heard about Patrick Pearse reading the proclamation "on the steps of the GPO" that, despite multiple visits to the building over the years, I remained convinced until recently of the existence of actual steps at the entrance.

Then, last week, I attended a preview of the venue’s fine new multimedia exhibition on the Rising. And on the way out, I noticed at last that the main entrance is entirely deficient, step-wise. You might expect there to be at least one somewhere, long romanticised into the plural. But there isn’t even that.

The discovery was almost as disorienting as the film on the exhibition's giant screen, which tells the story of the Rising for the Google Earth generation, climbing and swooping over a map of the city, in and out of scenes where actors dramatise the key events.

The supposed GPO steps are part of the psychic geography of Dublin, only, and will have to remain so now. It’s too late to put real ones in before the tourists arrive. And anyway, steps are rightly frowned upon in the 21st century, where architects are expected to cherish all the children of the national equally.

But on the way home afterwards, the revelation briefly had me trying to compile a "History of Ireland in 100 Myths". Or a "Geography of Ireland in 100 Mismeasurements". And readers will be relieved to know I quickly abandoned both projects, although not before getting well into double figures.

By coincidence, one of Ireland’s most mythical measurements was given its now annual outing the same week, when the usual half a million people were said to be attending the St Patrick’s Day Parade in Dublin – a spatial miracle beside which the banishment of the snakes was a minor achievement.

On the two sides of a 1½-mile route, if you lined up pins and balanced the maximum number of fairies on top of each, you might still struggle to reach 500,000. As for humans, the parade route would have to stretch as far as Bray to fit that many in.

But no spatial measurements are certain in the Einsteinian world of Dublin, where you could probably fit half a million people on the steps of the GPO alone.  Consider another of the city’s traditional measurements, this time mythically understated – the Phoenix Park’s “Fifteen Acres”. Maybe in former times, there was an identifiable 15 acres there.  Today the area so identified stretches over several hundred. If anybody still thinks it’s only 15 and has land for sale, I want to buy it.

Getting back to exaggeration, another piece of Dublin geographical myth, famous throughout Ireland, is the “wide open spaces of Croke Park”. Yes, in the psyche of many GAA followers, the pitch there is as extensive as the Serengeti.

And I have no doubt that this causes many of the teams unused to performing on it to be beaten before they leave the dressing rooms.

But I have it on good authority that the playing surface in Croker is no bigger than many of Ireland’s main GAA grounds, and a bit smaller than Semple Stadium in Thurles, about whose wide spaces one never hears anything.

Still on the capital city’s warped space, we could also talk about Croppies Acre, and Usher’s Island, and the Longmile Road.

Then there's one of my favourites, Brighton Square, birthplace of James Joyce. and a triangle. But then, if we're going to be picky, most of Dublin's great squares are in fact rectangular – Mountjoy being an exception.

It’s true many of the modern misnomers had logic once, before the local topography changed. Usher’s Island used to be mid-Liffey. Dublin did once terminate at Townsend Street. Basin Street used to have a reservoir.

In fact there's a whole mythology now attached to a drained former spur line of the Grand Canal, alone. To this day, the landlocked streets at the back of Guinness's include a Grand Canal Place. It even has an Old Harbour Bar, where Brendan Behan is said to have had his last drink, although (unlike him, alas) the harbour was dry by then.

The same phantom waterway also explains one of Dublin's more romantically named suburbs –Rialto. The area is not now strikingly reminiscent of Venice, and never was, it seems, having acquired its name via the local bridge.

Nor did that ever look anything like the famous bridge in Venice, apart from having a Grand Canal underneath. And the only gondolas passing there now are Luas Red Line trams.