Getting to Dublin for a weekend visit in the very late fall

Ireland exudes a certain romantic lure. Christine, Bobby, and I had never been but were drawn. We wanted to jam one last European trip in this year before heading to the U.S. for Christmas. How could we have known the weather would be so cold and rainy in December? We were anxious to spend some time in Ireland because so many people talk so fondly of the place, and it has experienced a remarkable economic transformation (we, of course, being contributors to the blog Law Partially are always interested in the legal-socio-economic structures underlying our tourism destinations).

I love the Irish language and Irish names. I love that the language is so old and a bit strange and actually hardly used anymore. We almost named our first born Seamus, and I still plan to name our first daughter Siobhan, even if Mum so far hasn't been convinced.

Besides, visiting the Long Room of the Old Library at Trinity College was a bucket list item for Christine and me.

In the Long Room of the Old Library at Trinity College. The library dates originally from the early 1700s with the upper deck added in the 1850s. While the library is grand, Trinity College itself is humble in architecture, not like the ostentatious universities at Cambridge and Oxford. Bobby is holding a souvenir we bought in the gift shop: a plush Trinity College rugby ball. Interestingly, rugby goes back far at Trinity College, with the oldest football club of any type (i.e., because rugby, English and American football, and Australian rules football all descend from the same game) still in operation being the Dublin University Football Club, which is associated with Trinity College. 

Growing up in the U.S., being of Irish extraction, which I am not, was something boasted about, especially at St. Patrick's Day. The Irish were pretty much the last western European nationality to emigrate en masse to the U.S., so people of Irish descent were on average less far removed from their Irish ancestors, perhaps giving Irish-Americans that close feeling to them. Irish are well known as authors, poets, singers, and songwriters, all from a land of lush green hills (must be all the rain) and maybe some leprechauns and rainbows (lots of rain in Irish lore). Ireland has been a place worth fighting for, apparently. Plus, I guess the Irish just seem like fun with all those pubs, songs, and Guinness -- even if the terrorism was less fun.

The Irish were still emigrating because, by European standards, Ireland was relatively poor until fairly late in history. But turn it around they did in the very late 20th century, following some economic growth strategies of Singapore and the other "Asian Tigers" (Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea) and earning the nickname Celtic Tiger. Much of the growth came from foreign companies investing, with major multinational companies still routinely setting up their global or European headquarters in Ireland. Ireland got a bit too far ahead of itself, though, with some of its banks nearly failing during the financial crisis but for the IMF and EU lending emergency funds to the heavily indebted country. The tiger moniker was forgotten as it became one of the PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, Spain), famous for their weak fiscal states. Now, the Irish unemployment rate is low, and the flip side of that is that house prices and rents are soaring with lots of complaints over the lack of suitable and affordable housing, especially in central Dublin.

GDP per capita is a measure of a country's output per person and is a proxy for a country's wealth. You can see how Ireland lagged the US and UK for a long time but then surged ahead. By this measure, Ireland is even wealthier than its long-time oppressor, the UK. I downloaded this data from a well-known data series of long-term economic statistics put together by Angus Maddison.

Bobby and I out for an early morning walk along the one part of the Liffey bank that has been pedestrianized.

We stayed in the center of Dublin, nearby Temple Bar, where the tourists tend to congregate, and just a few houses away from the River Liffey. You can tell that Dublin didn't enjoy an historic golden age of wealth where the city was rebuilt with a grandiose and consistent architecture like, say, Paris. The Temple Bar mostly looks like an old warehouse district, populated by square brick buildings; the banks of the Liffey are mostly devoted to road transport, as opposed to some pedestrianized public promenade. The River Liffey is a bit like the old Chicago River, where until recently the river cutting through town was for heavy industry, not tourism. (Now, of course, the "Chicago Riverwalk" has steps into the water, kayak rentals, docks for yachts to pull up to riverside bars, and an Apple store.) Until the Dublin Tunnel under the center of town was opened in 2006, trucks all had to pass through the old center city streets to get to the Dublin Port. Now, nearby the Dublin Port is where you can find the glass and steel buildings hosting foreign tech companies, Facebook, et. al., in addition to the port's heavy facilities still in use. The tunnel also provides a quick route to the airport.

Our goals in visiting Dublin were to discover Irish food, visit the national museum and Long Room, and check out the parks. In the end, we didn't spend much time in the parks due to the constant rain. We had several meals of fish, plus some beef, pork, and potatoes, with cream, butter, and cheese making frequent appearances. I wasn't familiar with traditional Irish pastries, but we found some for our little Parisian pastry fan. We had some Guinness and some local craft beers. I would have liked to have visited the Guinness Brewery, but such sites, demanding visitors to fall in line with an organized tour, don't work well with our anarchist toddler. We did make it to the national museum, but we didn't spend much time there. Bob had no patience for the exhibits. The museum was also confusing in layout, spread across multiple buildings in multiple locations, and confusing in narrative. Also, like some museums in Scotland, it made heavy use of mannequins, a narrative tool that now seems a bit inexplicable or just dated. The museum is due for a heavy revamping.

As has been well-documented on this blog, to succeed in traveling with children, you must get the timings right. And we started off with the wrong timings, even before we knew we were going to be spending the weekend in damp conditions. We flew on a Thursday evening so that Christine could finish her day's classes. Maybe if everything would have been on time, Bob would have only gone to sleep in Dublin a little past his normal bed time. But the flight was delayed, and he went to bed several hours too late.

A tired Bobby, in the cold damp air, just isn't as much fun. A weekend of irritable behavior culminated in the now infamous Dublin Airport banana incident, where the boy screamed and threw a temper tantrum because we wouldn't let him eat an unpeeled banana. I had to take him to a handicap bathroom to let him work the screams out of his system. I thought we were going to have to put him in a straight jacket and wire his mouth shut. Luckily he pulled it together just before our short flight back to London, even if his parents were exhausted and scarred from their airport experience.

The highlight of the Dublin trip for him, however, was unquestionably the Dublin tram running through town. We took several rides on it. On Sunday morning, we even took a ride just for the sake of taking a ride since it was the only thing he really liked in Dublin, other than the pastries.

For Mum and Baba, while it is nice place, Dublin would not rank at the top of our favorite cities list. I think that Irish-Americans derive a lot of satisfaction from spending time in their ancestral homeland. I can also see the appeal for younger people who want to visit the many, many pubs of the Temple Bar (across the street from our apartment was a raucous gay bar called PantiBar). The FD Linges not falling into these categories, and after having just spent an exceptional holiday in Paris... we'll have to give Dublin another try someday, maybe after they've fixed up their national museum. All national museums should strive to get to the National Museum of Denmark.

Baba and babe co-sleeping during the late evening flight to Dublin, with this nap working to sabotage a proper bed time later in the evening. This flight marked a milestone: in addition to being his 29th flight, it was also the first flight Bobby took since turning two, so it was the first flight in which he had his own assigned seat. Welcome to the club, buddy, of those of us who don't sit on laps on planes anymore.

With a bag full of Irish pastries, confidently walking down a street in the Temple Bar back to the apartment.

Irish pastries consist of pastry crusts filled with various meets and a fruit-based cake like a Fig Newton.

This barmaid brought me a Guinness. We knocked back a pint (just one) at the Brazen Head, Dublin's oldest pub, they say, founded in 1198. The Guinness is brewed literally just down the street. Along the Liffey quay we saw Guinness tanker trucks frequently barreling by.

We had a remarkable meal at the Fish Shop, a little bistro focused on locally sourced fish. Those little nuggets Bob munches are gujons, which is a fancy way of saying fish stick. The breading was very light, and these things were just delicious. Christine says she will from now on travel the world over for a gujon like she had in Dublin. Although a while earlier this day he freaked out in protest at the national museum, he was well-behaved at lunch, eating a number of different fish dishes, including a second order of the gujons.

From our seats in the Fish Shop, we could see the tram go by. No doubt this was a major factor in keeping his interest sustained in the meal.

Happy riding the Dublin tram

Perched in the Ergo Baby, watching a street pianist perform and sing on Grafton Street. The pianist had to wipe down the keys after songs as the low volume rain was unrelenting.

At the Dublin Airport, with very puffy eyes, he finally ate the banana but without the peel. He's also holding an Irish toy bus we bought at a souvenir shop in hopes of pacifying our grumpy boy.