DUBLIN

Dublin's famous beverage

Anna Livia - personification of the River Liffey as a woman.

Locally known as The Floozie in the Jacuzzi,

The Hoor in the Sewer or Viagra Falls.

Oscar Wilde

locally known as The Fag on the Crag, The Quare in the Square

or The Queer with the Leer

Sweet Molly Malone

locally known as The Tart with the Cart,

The Dolly with the Trolley or The Trollop with the Scallop

James A.A. Joyce

locally known as The Prick with the Stick

The second holiday of the year happened Thursday when we went up to Dublin, which is my second most favourite city in Ireland. My first preference, whatever the weather, will always be Cork. Some places have a special effect on us and speak directly to the heart and Cork does that to me.

Not that there is anything wrong with Dublin, for it is a friendly city as cities go. Small by comparison to most European capitals, though it still manages kill my feet and I am glad to find a bench on which to take a rest and have a puff on my pipe. Better was the pipe today for my sole purpose for making the visit was to go to Peterson's and replenish my stock of 9mm charcoal filters. My next visit to them will be to buy a new pipe.

I had a shock that morning for our rail station was jam packed with folk going to Dublin, even more than on that day when we joined the anti - Iraq war march and a 100,000 people peacefully marched through Dublin's main thoroughfares. So this morning I was almost tempted to go and ask a few of them if there was something going on that I should know about. It was a grand journey despite the fullness of the train and I managed to get a window seat, plugged in my Nano Shuffle only to find after fiddling with it that the battery was flat, so I caught up on some sleep instead.

From Heuston rail station we took the bus to St.Stephen's Green - Mrs H's first visit to Dublin's 26 acre inner city park. It is I believe a must for any visitor to this city with it's bronze statues, fountains, lakes and formal gardens with dozens of benches to sit on and watch the world go by. From there we went to the nearby shopping arcade the St Stephen's Centre, I felt that it would be the ideal therapy for my busy artist wife, especially with TK MAXX on the second floor.

On Grafton Street were even more stores to whet a shoppers' appetite, catering for the many different classes of credit cards right up to Platinum. This is a street of character though, with it's liveried doormen, conjurors, musicians, singers and many flower stalls whose scents perfume the pavements. It was on this street that many a now professional musician/pop star started their career. I once met the mother of a cellist in Belfast, who would regularly drive her daughter to Grafton St. for the sole purpose of getting the young woman accustomed to playing in public.

Throughout the city there are dozens of bronze statues, depicting some of Dublin's most famous characters: whether they be real people or fictional representations such as Molly Malone. It is the characteristic nature of the Dubliner to have an earthy sense of humour, that sportingly derides poshness or false dignity: thus there are nicknames for almost every piece of bronze in the city.