Bakker Bugle Blog » dublin

Bugle-Blog CLASSIC

Will — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 18:59:23 +0000

The Bugle does not aspire to comprehensive coverage of anything in particular. So it’s not a revelation that we didn’t get around to all of our ideas for blog posts about Ireland. When we moved from our home in Dublin, we took with us a long list of experiences that we still want to share.

Beyond that, our interest in Irish affairs is hardly over. For example, we followed the second vote on the Lisbon Treaty, which took place last Friday. (The referendum passed.)

For good reasons, then, we will continue to write about Ireland.

In a moment of serendipity, our staff developed the following brand during a seminar on branding at the Bastelengebläers HQ:

To launch the brand, the staff chose a tasty sample to whet your appetite for old stories from our time in Ireland. The following photo from the mean streets of South Dublin contains shocking content, so you may want to send the children to play outside before you scroll down.
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Okay, maybe that photo isn’t staggering. Let’s zoom in a little — scroll down to see the shocking close-up.
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That’s a Missouri license plate! In Ireland! (Is your mind boggling?) Let’s go to the CSI-cam for the incontrovertible proof that will impel the perp to confess spontaneously, er, I mean, that will help you understand our shock at the time.

Anita and Will spent the next hour speculating about the means, motive and opportunity that would bring a car from Missouri to Dublin, Ireland. Not to mention the hazards of being on the wrong driver’s side. And is a Missouri plate even legally meaningful in Ireland?

That’s it for today. You can look forward to posts in the future about:

Things we miss about Ireland and from Ireland, such as: lamb on the grill, super-sugary chocolates, clear skies just moments after rain, the oceanfront at Dublin Bay.
Photosets that somehow failed to make it to Flickr
Minor adventures in the Irish countryside
and probably ~~much much~~ not much more!

I am a Dublin voter!

Will — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 13:46:21 +0000

I almost missed the deadline to apply for the Register of Electors for Friday’s election. You can imagine my delight when I found my reminder card in the mail last week. It said that I should vote at the primary school on Lower Baggot Street.

With a firm sense of civic duty, I walked the short distance to my polling place on Friday morning. I followed a few of my fellow walking voters down the lane to the rear of the school. So far, it looked quite similar to polling places in Illinois.

I don’t know if there are state or city regulations prohibiting posters and electioneering close to the polling place; the location was deep on private property, so there wasn’t an opportunity for the parties to hang signs.

I entered the small gym to find a familiar system: two bored teenagers behind a table labeled with my district’s number, and an older man behind a second table for a different district. The young men were solicitous and quickly found my name on the Supplemental Register. I received one ballot, for the city councillors of Dublin. (Alas, only citizens of the EU could vote for Ireland’s Members of the European Parliament.)

Ireland uses proportional representation for almost all elections; techincally, I voted in a single transferable vote system. That means that my ballot consisted of a list of all the candidates for the office, and I could number them in my order of preference. On this ballot, each candidate’s box included the candidate’s party’s logo, area of residence, occupation and other professional information — but no face-photo, to my surprise!

I chose to rank my four preferred candidates, numbering them from 1 to 4 and leaving the rest blank. Ireland uses a secret ballot, so I folded my sheet in half and dropped it in an old-fashioned ballot box. The teenagers bade me farewell, and I was done!

Ballot-counting takes a little longer with proportional representation, but not by much in the digital age. The results were final in most areas by Saturday afternoon. As expected, the political establishment was thoroughly shaken, including the Dublin City Council.

Finally, what you’ve been waiting for — the final set of Face-Poster Trading Cards!

Face Posters: Set #3

Will — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 12:47:50 +0000

Here comes another set of trading cards in the famous series: Face Posters of Ireland 2009

Set Three: Download the PDF today!

Face Posters: Set #2

staff — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 14:13:53 +0000

Are you ready to get another set of your very own trading cards of the best Face Posters of Ireland 2009?

Set Two: Download the PDF today!

Now that Set Two is available, it won’t be long before Set One is gone forever!

Face Posters: Trading Cards #1

staff — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 13:22:48 +0000

For a very limited time

Download and print out your very own trading cards of the best Face Posters of Ireland 2009! Each PDF will be available for just a day or two, so be sure to check in frequently, so that you can…

COLLECT THE WHOLE SET!

Set One: Download the PDF today!

Busy, busy — but time for art

Will — Sun, 24 May 2009 14:56:10 +0000

Anita and I so busy that we’re just now watching the Eurovision 2009 broadcasts from last week. (Fantastacular! Glorilicious!) Mostly, we’re preparing for the big move to Luxembourg in three weeks.

Today, we completed a task 18 months in the making: we bought a lovely painting from one of the regular exhibitors on Sundays at Merrion Square. We’ve strolled around the park at midday on dozens of Sundays, knowing that we would leave Ireland with a souvenir someday.

Anita and I waited until the last possible Sunday, and it was the best time, too. The park was packed with the Dublin Soul Festival, and we met Blanaid Lynam, whose “Sunset (Dusk) Sandycove” will grace our future homes. We were glad to have met her, and we are very happy to have found (and most importantly, agreed upon) an ideal representation of our fondness for Dublin.

I have a mile-long list of potential post topics about Ireland and Dublin. In a perfect world, I’d have time to work through them over the next three weeks. Alas, I must warn you: the posts may be sporadic in the month of June.

I’ll keep making short remarks on the Bugle Tumblr, which is on the right sidebar (and you can follow it on its own webpage too). I’ll keep reading comments, and publish at least one post each week. But more than that? Anita and I can’t make any promises.

Dracula in Dublin

Will — Tue, 19 May 2009 19:35:48 +0000

I am all in a sea of wonders. I doubt; I fear; I think strange things, which I dare not confess to my own soul. God keep me, if only for the sake of those dear to me! …

Safety and the assurance of safety are things of the past. Whilst I live on here there is but one thing to hope for, that I may not go mad, if, indeed, I be not mad already. … For now, feeling as though my own brain were unhinged or as if the shock had come which must end in its undoing, I turn to my diary for repose. The habit of entering accurately must help to soothe me.

Bram Stoker’s novel, Dracula, begins with a series of diary entries from the journal of one Jonathan Harker, who travelled to the Carpathian mountains to provide legal services for a certain Count Dracula. I humbly suggest that we follow him.

Bram Stoker was born in Clontarf, just outside of Dublin, and began his career while living in a house not far from our own. For April 2009, Dracula was the required reading for One City, One Book, as sponsored by the Dublin City Public Libraries. (I fondly remember the One Book, One Chicago program from a few years ago, and I rejoiced in the adoption of similar programs by smaller library districts like Warren-Newport Public Library.) There is a tourist attraction in Dublin called The Bram Stoker Dracula Experience — but I have yet to visit it.

Now, a book-binder named Whitney Sorrow is publishing the book as a blog. Hold on, hold on — this makes a lot of sense. Dracula is an epistolary novel, and Ms Sorrow will release each entry on the appropriate date, one-hundred-and-some years after the dates of the original book. So we readers will experience the events of the story at about the same pace as they unfolded in the (probably imaginary) timeline of the novel.

The project began May 3rd. So if you catch up now, there’s enough content to get you interested and hopefully subscribed to the blog’s feed. After that, it takes just a few minutes a day to keep up.

(If you need help with RSS feeds, shoot me an email or ask in the comments below. You can read along without using RSS, but it really is something you should learn anyway.)

I started on May 7th, and so far, the format works very well for me. (Today’s entry mentioned dates with an eerie parallel to our move to Luxembourg.) I’ve started Dracula a few times in years gone by, and I admit that this is the first time that I haven’t put down the story after a few pages.

So, dear readers, join me in reading Dracula! Let’s use the comments for this blog post to talk about the book so far. No spoilers past the current date, please.

Dublin Politics = Face Posters

Will — Sat, 09 May 2009 11:33:03 +0000

This week brought the return of Anita’s beloved “face posters,” the primary form of campaigning that we’ve noticed. These posters, of uniform size and a standard design, are attached to nearly every pole in the neighbourhood. Here are two examples near Baggot Street:

The upcoming election (in Dublin) is for two levels of government: representatives to the local councils and to the European parliament. The newspapers lead me to believe that there is a close parallel between these elections and mid-term Congressional elections in the US. In both cases, the media and the parties take the results to indicate the popularity of the parties at the national level.

Talking on the street in Dublin

Will — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 12:36:23 +0000

The Irish government presented its emergency budget for 2009 on Wednesday, and I’d picked up a newspaper to learn about it, after finishing some frivolous shopping. I was sitting outside a cafe, with coffee, reading that the changes would be hard on lower income residents of Ireland.

A women approached me to beg for spare change. I’d seen her around the area quite a bit. She didn’t recognise me, but that was no surprise.

I thought I had a few coins in my pocket. Generally, I give spare charge to people on the streets. I reached into my pocket to find that I’d left my change as a tip at the cafe.

After I said, “I honestly don’t have any change. I thought I did,” she sat down and gave her spiel. I insisted that I had no change to give her. Finally, I said, “Come back in 10 minutes. I will have change then.”

I bought a second coffee and had change to give when she returned, less than 10 minutes later. (The few times I’ve made such a proposal, the person didn’t return, and I respect that. Beggars’ time is valuable too.)

She accepted the money and immediately began to explain that she needed more for her bills at the hostel and for her four babies. We talked for a little while, mostly her explaining why she needed 20 euros today. Her explanations fit well with the accounts I’ve read of asylum-seekers and refugees living in Dublin. (I read avidly on that topic, partly due to professional interest.)

Eventually, our conversation devolved into me repeating, “No, I cannot give you more today. I kept my promise, and I cannot give more.”

She left, disappointed but with good will. I wonder whether she will approach me when she sees me again.

I am committed to treating strangers as individual people, talking with them when they want, and speaking as honestly as possible. I prepare to meet that commitment by making myself secure — I keep my valuables beside me, I know the signs of some street scams, and I do not fear that giving my attention to someone will leave me vulnerable.

An aside: As far as honesty is concerned, passing someone on the streets is a different context than the one from Wednesday. In my opinion, it’s okay to say, “Sorry” or “I don’t have any,” to keep moving as a pedestrian, but also acknowledge someone’s presence. If I were working on an article at the cafe table, I would have adopted a more dismissive attitude. I’ve noticed that when I am absorbed in my work, beggars rarely interrupt me. I take that as (possibly) a sign of respect.

Another aside: I know that my open stance sometimes encourages an activity known as “aggressive begging.” I acknowledge that my commitment may be counter-productive, since aggressive begging tends to give a mandate to intolerant policies towards people on the street. Indeed, I admit that after an interaction like Wednesday’s, I feel a little bit of resentment towards other beggars; I want to respond, “Look, I just spent ten minutes with someone like you. I’m not just another callous passer-by.”

Now I’ll get back to the point, however flimsy it is. When the woman said, “You have nice things, you can buy two coffees,” she is correct.

When I said, “I cannot give more, to you, today,” I was also correct. (By “I cannot,” I meant, as most people do, “I ought not,” as a practical matter and as an ethical conclusion.)

I rarely try to resolve the conflict between these points of view. To be honest, I’m conserving emotional energy, since the conversations themselves are so draining. The talking itself is difficult, from the language barriers to the mismatch between her urgency and my (leisurely) devotion to saying things right.

Add to that my reasonable, background fear of being a “mark” (as it’s said in Midwestern American), that her words are just a sales pitch — and these conversations are almost not viable at all. We talked, we even touched, but the separation between us seems to keep me from knowing whether my own words and actions are right, let alone hers.

I’m not sure why I’m offering this to you, in such a public way. Maybe I recently formed a new opinion — that keeping it to myself isn’t working.

Last Dark Grill of the Year

Will — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 21:21:01 +0000

In 2007, the United States extended daylight savings time by three weeks. Europe did not. We will change our clocks this coming weekend.

So tonight should be the last night that I must grill in the dark. Now, readers in the northern US may say that I should be glad to be grilling in March at all. They underestimate one factor: rain.

It wasn’t raining when I decided to grill a chicken breast for Anita’s dinner. But this is Ireland, and a gentle but chilly precipitation began drifting around the sky by the time I started. It was a typical Irish rainfall. The drops are so tiny that they dance around like snowflakes. Rather than falling to the ground, they collect on every surface, whether horizontal or vertical. It doesn’t rain harder or softer — it’s more like the rain is more dense or less dense.

It’s not an unpleasant kind of drizzle, barring windy or cold conditions. Our little garden is very well sheltered. And throughout the year, it will rain about every second time I decide to work outside.

I don’t mind the rain. But I will be very glad to grill in sunlight for the next several months. Our only outside light comes from a motion-triggered floodlight. The motion-detector senses my presence only when I move to a spot that is exactly 10cm beyond my reach with a grill tool while standing near the grill. So I either grill in the dark (and mistreat the food), or I leap back and forth and brandish my spatula. Depends on my mood.

Our neighbours must puzzle over the combination of flashing floodlights and American-style curses emanating from our garden.

Fun fact (Well, it’s fun for some.) : In the US, each time zone changes when it reaches 2am — in series, rather than all at the same time. In the EU, every time zone changes at once, at 0100 UTC.

Ireland win Grand Slam in Six Nations

Will — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 19:10:29 +0000

The year was 1948 when Ireland last won the Grand Slam of the Six Nations Championship. At this time yesterday, the frustrating era of not fulfilling Ireland’s hopes was almost as long as the Chicago Cubs’s absence from the World Series (i.e. baseball’s Two-Nations championship).

Yesterday, we were privileged to witness Ireland’s moment of rugby glory in our local pub, which was full of Irish fans who lived and died with every change of possession.

For now, all you need to know is that Saturday’s match against Wales, at their stadium in Cardiff, was for Irish rugby the equivalent of the seventh game of a World Series. We arrived a few minutes after the start, and The Pembroke was packed — someone stood on every square foot of the floor.

There are few sports-bars in Dublin’s city-centre, but every pub in our (rugby-oriented) neighbourhood has a few televisions. In The Pembroke, they are arranged in a way that allowed just about everyone to see the action. Their sound system was superb, making the commentary audible above the crowd without blaring, which was important for novices like us.

The first half was nerve-wracking, with no score until the 33rd minute. (Each half is 40 minutes, with rare clock stoppages.) Ireland appeared to suffer from their usual malady: penalties that infuriated fans and gave points to their opponents. Wales led at the half, 6-0, although Ireland had controlled the game. There was plenty to cheer, and the crowd cheered for every small success on the field. Still, Ireland had not scored at all.

Not long after halftime, however, the Irish team showed poise and stamina as they slowly ground down Wales until they scored a try. The entire match was hard-fought, well-played and very close, to the final seconds. Ireland constantly held the advantage in territory and possession, but Wales managed to score points quite effectively in the second half.

Time expired with Ireland ahead by two points, but Wales attempting a long-distance kick for a three-point penalty. The kick fell short and our pub went wild. I haven’t seen such joy since Illinois beat Arizona in 2005. Today, the team returned to Dublin for a rapturous welcome.

The Bugle will not attempt to introduce our readers to the rules of rugby — after watching two full seasons of international play, we are just now beginning to understand the fundamentals. (Consider this article from the Irish Times. Irish newspaper coverage is still mostly opaque to us.) Like fans of American football, rugby fans struggle to explain the game to newbies.

Instead, we will concentrate on the panoply of titles that can be during a single competition among just six teams: the annual Six Nations Championship. The competitors are the national teams of England, France, Ireland, Italy, Scotland, and Wales.

To win the Six Nations Championship, and thus become the de-facto champion of European rugby union, a team must earn the most points in a single round-robin schedule. (Two points for a win and one for a draw.)

To win a Grand Slam, a team must defeat all five opponents in the schedule. In the 82 eligible championships since 1908, a team has achieved a Grand Slam 35 times — most often England, Wales, or France. Ireland did it this year: they defeated all their European opponents in 2009.

To win a Triple Crown, one of the original Home Nations teams (England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales) must defeat the other three. This accomplishment is a matter of great pride, but having a “Triple Crown year” is like being “Divisional Champions” in Major League Baseball. A good year, but not a great one. Ireland last won this competition in 2007, when France beat Ireland in February and won the Six Nations on points.

Our first rugby match at The Pembroke was the second 2007 meeting of Ireland and France, in September, when Irish fans were already despondent over being in the Pool of Death and then watched France lay waste to their team.

There are no unhappy Irish rugby fans tonight.

(Thanks to erase at flickr for the two photos under a Creative Commons license.)

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!

Will — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 10:04:37 +0000

In just moments, we’ll have a fine Irish breakfast on our way to the big parade. We’ve been in the spirit of things since Sunday, when we went to Big Day Out. Merrion Square, about two blocks from our home, was transformed into a festival to celebrate the holiday.

The place was completely overrun by small children and their strollers. Every kind of stroller was on display. So was every kind of child, from the smug older kid getting a free ride from the folks, to the tottering toddler always on the verge of curbing herself.

The usual suspects were on hand to prey upon the little ones:
B.O.B. from the movie Monsters vs Aliens, for example. But for the most part, the activities were run by community groups and social organisations. The parkour people did saints’ work of entertaining the notorious skeptical pre-teen crowd.

What was the most popular activity? What rose above the rest, with all the effort and care put into family-friendly and positive engagement?

A bump in the lawn, of course! Kids ran, rolled and fell down the hill over and over. There was no line, and the parents were happy to leave them be.

The ferris wheel was attractive — Anita and I always like the view from a height. The Brian Boru band was fun to listen to, and even more fun to dance to. Mostly, we just enjoyed watching the crowds. The funny hats were just beginning to appear, like crocuses in early spring. Today, they’ll be everywhere.

By the way, we have a photoset of last year’s St Patrick’s Day Parade. If your appetite was piqued by yesterday’s post, have a better look at Flickr.

St Patrick’s Anticipation

Will — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 13:05:10 +0000

Tomorrow is March 17th, 2009 — Saint Patrick’s Day! It’s a national holiday for the Republic of Ireland, and the city centres of Dublin and most other towns will be devoted to massive parades.

On last year’s Saint Patrick’s Day, we watched part of the parade. We were meant to fly to Venice that evening, so we could not spend the whole day in Dublin. It was a cold day that threatened rain, but the crowds along Dame Street were enormous nonetheless.

With the cold weather, most of the Irish colour last year came from fantastic hats. The rest of the year, one rarely sees these outside of tourist souvenir shops. St Patrick is (notoriously) a mascot in Ireland, so it’s not unusual to dress as a kind of cartoon version of him, with an orange beard and a ludicrous mitre. (I was educated in the very serious American Catholic schools system, so I still have a visceral sense that this is sacrilege.)

It’s impossible to tell the difference between locals and visitors on this day. So many people come to Dublin for the holiday, and there are so many residents of Dublin who don’t look like stereotypical Irish folk. (And who would look Irish on a day with so many leprechaun outfits?) Many Dubliners contemptuously claim to leave town on March 17th — but for a week after, most of them have well-informed opinions about the quality of the parade.

I like to think of Saint Patrick’s Day as a time when the Irish can have a paddywhack at themselves, dressing up in the gear that ignorant tourists buy and having a go at the most undignified of nonsense peddled as Irish culture. No green beer, though; that would be sacrilege indeed.

Last year, Anita enjoyed an extra-special surprise during the parade. As the parade passed, she appreciated the wild colours and designs of the Continental-style floats, and the music of the Irish bands. Before half the parade had passed, however, it was time for us to walk home to prepare for our trip. As Anita reluctantly checked her watch again, the strains of a familiar tune carried to her ears.

“Is someone playing our university’s song? Is that Illinois Loyalty?” she asked me.

“Sounds like it. I wonder whether a local school is using it as their own,” I said, knowing how many high schools in the US Midwest borrow the fight songs of Michigan and Notre Dame. “It would be pretty cool to discover somebody who does.”

But the truth wasn’t “pretty cool” — it was…
wait for it…
legendary.

The Marching Illini appeared before us in all their glory. I hastened to record their miraculous, splendiferous performance as Anita sung (or screamed) the words to Illinois Loyalty — her way of shouting “Welcome to Dublin!” to our fellow Illini. She was deliriously happy for the next few days.

The palazzos of Venice? Meh.
The Marching Illini in Dublin? ZOMG, it was so awesome!

Anita wishes to add that her enthusiasm is justified, in light of its historical significance. The Marching Illini were the first college band to march in Dublin’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade, in 1992. That’s well before the bandwagon of the Celtic Tiger, mind you.

For your pleasure, a very badly shot movie of the moment is available on YouTube. The original version is safe for work (as long as you turn down Anita’s volume), but it is possibly not safe for those suffering from epileptic seizures. This video makes The Blair Witch Project look professional. If you dare, here’s a link to it.

I used some software in an attempt to even out the bumps. The result is a video with a much less comprehensive view of the scene (but it is also less likely to induce vomiting). Enjoy, and get ready for Tuesday!

Friends of the Bugle and of Ireland: How will you celebrate?

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

First Signs of Spring in Dublin

Will — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 20:58:53 +0000

Sunday was gorgeous: warm and partly sunny. Today was almost as nice. It feels like spring!

In some places, robins are a sign of spring. In others, the heavens are the guide.

Here in Dublin, we know it’s spring when the flocks of tour buses take to the streets. Through winter, we see the odd tour bus wheeling around our city. Their open-top seats are bare of passengers, and they always look like they missed their species’s annual migration.

As of this weekend, the buses appeared in full plumage, with all kinds of people adorning their backs. Today, painters began touching up the pubs and Georgian houses of the city centre. In the complex ecology of the city, it’s not clear whether the two are linked by correlation or causation.

There are other signs of spring, of course. The days are getting noticeably longer (at last). And flower bulbs are blooming everywhere.

This Week in the Tumblr

Will — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 18:46:09 +0000

Alert readers have noticed the regular updates to this blog’s sidebar: daily photos, news stories from Ireland and all over the world, and other items of general interest. If you’d like to see Tumblr entries in full (or subscribe to their RSS feed), go to the website, bugle.tumblr.com.

This week’s tumblr included these items, and more:

Ireland’s national rugby team beat France in an upset, at Croke Park in Dublin. Ireland’s team “punches well above its weight,” in the Six Nations Championship, in part due to its strong professional rugby clubs. France is a reliable powerhouse. Last year, Anita and I watched them pick apart Ireland, looking superior in every way. This year, we went to a friend’s for dinner, so we didn’t watch the game. But we’ve heard about it!
Taxi drivers mounted a series of protests around Dublin, with the largest on Monday near our home at Fitzwilliam Square. Since taxi licensing was deregulated in 2000, the number of taxis on the streets of Dublin has exploded. The startling fact is that Dublin has more taxis than New York City. (The protesting drivers cite this fact regularly.) The drivers want a means of appealing decisions by the Taxi Regulator, and a moratorium on new licenses.
Ireland’s national soccer authority hired Giovanni Trapattoni as the coach of the national team. Trapattoni is one of the greatest Italian coaches of all time, and hopes are high for Ireland’s bid for the 2010 World Cup. On Wednesday, Ireland beat Georgia, 2-1, to strengthen their position in the European qualifying round.
The “Pepper Canister” is the unofficial name of St Stephen’s Church, a prominent landmark just a few blocks from our home. Some part of the church has been surrounded by scaffolding since we arrived in Dublin (and well before). Restorers recently discovered that the columns that support the copper dome of the Pepper Canister — the most unique parts of the building — are structurally unsound. St Stephen’s Church does not presently have the funds to repair the problem, so the present scaffolding will hold the dome in place for the foreseeable future.

Yes we have winter in Dublin

Will — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 13:12:09 +0000

If you follow the Tumblr photos in the sidebar of this blog, then you’ve seen a few shots of the snow in Dublin this week. If you’ve visited the Bugle B&B, then you know that there’s a desolate mountain range just south of Dublin. It’s one of my favourite places in Ireland.

It’s still fascinating to this child of the Corn Belt that such an inhospitable area is so close to Dublin, just a few kilometres beyond the suburbs. You can take the urban bus system into the Wicklow Mountains. If you research hillwalking in County Wicklow on the internet, you’ll see plenty of warnings about weather conditions. Those warnings resonated with my wariness of mountainous terrain. And I was not long in Ireland before I saw how quickly a sunny walk along a little trail can turn into a beating administered by a cold, wet wind followed by rain and flooding creeks.

This week, those warnings were completely vindicated, as reported in the Irish Times:

Emergency services also got a call on Tuesday evening to rescue four men trapped in a 4 x 4 vehicles at the Sally Gap. The Glen of Imaal Mountain Rescue team was dispatched and made several attempts to access the vehicle, via Laragh, Roundwood and the Wicklow Gap. Snow drifts were so high, however, that the team could not find a way through. They eventually drove to the western side of the mountains and skied out to the men with food and heating equipment. At 8am yesterday, the Coast Guard helicopter at Dublin airport was scrambled and the four people were airlifted to safety. Though suffering from mild hypothermia, they did not need to be hospitalised.

Richard Fleming, one of the men rescued, said he could not distinguish between the roads and the mountains. He told RTÉ radio he abandoned his car to search for a house but was disorientated and came upon two men in a Land Rover. The three men then became trapped and were joined by a fourth who had also abandoned a car. The emergency services kept in contact with them throughout the night and advised them to clear the snow away from their exhaust pipes so the fumes could escape, he said.

Ann Fitzpatrick, spokeswoman for the mountain rescue groups, said motorists in the area might have had a false sense of confidence because they were driving 4 x 4 vehicles, but conditions were too severe for them.

Here is a photo from that exact area on a much kinder day in June (with a link to the photoset with more):

For those who wonder whether they’ve passed the spot with me — if we drove into the Wicklow Mountains, we almost certainly stopped there (the Sally Gap) to take some photos. Here’s the location on a map — the Sally Gap is at the intersection of the two roads.

View Larger Map

And a photo of the crossroads itself, from late May:

A view of the pass — the mountains look small, but keep in mind that we’re far above sea level at this point:

And the road upon which the unfortunates were trapped:

For centuries, Irish rebels used the Sally Gap as an escape route from raids on Dublin. The Military Road was built after the British Army, while putting down the 1798 Rebellion, found the Wicklow Mountains as impassable as the present authorities did this week.

Finally, click here to see a lovely photo from the Irish Times, taken this week, near that point.

Ninetieth Anniversary of The First Dáil Éireann

Will — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 21:44:27 +0000

The Bugle is a bit tardy in reporting the 90th anniversary of the first independent parliament of Ireland. The celebrations in Dublin were understated and mostly for the political elite, but the pivotal moment, ninety years ago, is too important to let pass.

The idea of forming a government apart from the British Parliament was promoted for 15 years by Arthur Griffith, the founder of Sinn Féin. According to Michael Laffan of the Irish Times, many Irish voters at the time saw their representatives at British Parliament as lobbyists who could occasionally bring home pork projects (to put it in American terms). Why give up those lobbyists for the sake of an improbable ideal?

The equation changed when the three years after the Easter Rising added new factors. Ready for the list?

the threat of conscription
the Ulster unionists’ paramilitary mobilisation
the British Parliament’s signals that it would renege on its promise to re-establish an Irish Parliament
the Irish Members of Parliament (MPs) loss of status as swing voters on many bills, and
the harsh treatment of the heroes of the Easter Rising.

In the election of the British Parliament in 1918, the Irish people chose Sinn Féin overwhelmingly over those moderate lobbyists.

Sinn Féin led the anti-conscription campaign and ran for election on an explicit policy of “absentionism” — they would refuse to take their seats in Westminster’s Parliament. Soon after the election, the number of absentionist MPs, and their popular support, made it feasible to convene the first independent Irish legislature. The Sinn Féin leaders reserved space at the Mansion House, the residence of the Lord Mayor of Dublin, and they sent invitations to all the Irish MPs (who were supposed to be sitting in Westminster, serving the British Empire). The First Dáil Éireann met on Tuesday, 21 January 1919.

Americans may want to think of the first meeting of the Dáil as something closer to the second meeting of the British colonies of America’s Continental Congress in the 1770s. It was held in defiance of the internationally-recognised sovereign at the time, and its very existence constituted a threat to the legitimacy of that government. Like the Continental Congress, the First Dáil set the program for the establishment of an independent state, while hoping for the military and diplomatic success that would make that possible. (A small dissimilarity is that the First Dáil did it all at once.) To put it simply: each of these two meetings moved a people from widespread revolts to a coordinated revolution.

It would be wrong to push the analogy any further, of course. Imagine that the Continental Congress had no control of General Washington or any other member of the American military. Imagine that Washington and other generals raised their own funds from all over the world, making promises about the future policies of the United States, and never reported to the Congress at all. In fact, the Continental Congress exercised tight control over the Continental Army.

In addition, the delegates at the Congress were beholden to the states and they were mostly held in check by political entities in each of the former colonies. The members of the First Dáil did not act as representatives of geographical or ideological constituents. From my perspective, they seem more like a 1960s convention of the SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) — big personalities vying for charismatic leadership over a group of idealistic intellectuals.

The story of the First Dáil is all the more interesting for those personalities and ideals. And, unlike the stuffed shirts of the Continental Congress (Ben Franklin excepted), the members of the First Dáil aspired to modern democratic ideals. You can expect to read more about the Irish men and women of 1919 in the next few days.

If you can’t wait, take a look at the collection of articles on First Dáil published online by the Irish Times.

And just one more thing: it’s pronounced a lot like the common American last name “Doyle”. But, as with most words in Gaelic, that pronunciation is not quite right.

Joyce’s Birthday today!

Will — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 20:46:02 +0000

James Joyce was born in Dublin on this day in 1882. In honour of one of Ireland’s greatest writers, I set out to find his birthplace.

The usual sources of knowledge on the internet put his birthplace in Rathgar, a suburb of Dublin. By a marvelous coincidence, I was scheduled to pick up papers in Rathgar, at the Russian Embassy. Now all I needed was an address, for the suburb is too large to simply wander the residential streets looking for a memorial plaque.

Dublin does not lack for commemorations of Joyce, as I’ve noted noted once or twice. But his family moved around Dublin frequently during his childhood, and those homes are far less popular with literary tourists than the places featured in Ulysses and Dubliners.

The only information that I could find online mentioned the birthplace of his sister, Poppie, almost two years after James. From the James Joyce Centre’s webpage on Poppie:

The Joyce family were then living at 41 Brighton Square, Rathgar, but not long after Margaret was born, they made the first of what became numerous relocations as the family’s fortunes declined.

Given that this was the first of the relocations, it stood to reason that Brighton Square was James’s birthplace, too. And for you, my fair readers, I would brave the apocalyptic snows of Leinster to find the truth.

The massively adorable Luas brought me to Rathgar. After narrowly avoiding an international incident at the embassy, I forded the River Dodder to reach the residential neighbourhood of Brighton Square.

The neighbourhood looked right, a row of houses just like so many outside Dublin’s city centre. They are modest by today’s standards, but they were the McMansions of their day. (I wonder whether people said, “That cheap construction won’t be standing in twenty years,” in the 19th century, too. Was Victorian brickwork the vinyl siding of 1880?)

Then, lo and behold, a plaque! A plaque that reads, “Birthplace of James Joyce,” right above the bay window of Number 41. Oh happy day! Never have I shared so completely in the joy of plaques that Sarah Vowell described so well in Assassination Vacation. (Feel the thrill of discovery by clicking on the photo here and marvel at the commemorative goodness therein.)

Thank you, Dr. Frederic H. Young, for bringing this plaque to Dublin in 1964. From the good man’s obituary:

Frederic H. Young was a minister, a philosopher, a poet, and a teacher. He was a student of the works of James Joyce, and inspired his students at Montclair (N.J.) State College to raise funds to place a plaque on Joyce’s otherwise unheralded childhood home. The plaque was unveiled on June 16, 1964, with Young present, one of his proudest moments. (The date is instantly recognizable to readers of Ulysses as Bloomsday.)

Without your work, Dr. Young, my Groundhog Day would have been much poorer. And your plaque helped me to find more information about this house and others, on the web this evening. (By the way, Dr. Young was a founder of the Charles S. Peirce society, one of the great institutions of American philosophy.)

Brighton Square encloses a triangular field (not a square one), but such a geometrical oddity is not unusual for Dublin. But I was surprised to find that it became a members-only square, “Established by trust in 1891,” many decades before our own Fitzwilliam Square. I like to think that toddler James raised so much hell that the surviving residents decided to prevent future residents of Number 41 from entering the formerly public space.

Happy Birthday, James Joyce!

Friday’s Inauguration

Will — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 20:57:06 +0000

I know, I know, the title is a weaker pun than even Bugle readers should expect.

We partied with friends at TGI Friday’s on St Stephen’s Green. It’s the most American drinking establishment around here, and they did the place up for Tuesday night.

An article in The Irish Times that got me thinking: “Irish catalyst in Obama’s journey” by Patrick Cosgrave (who reports on the work of historians and the observations of Obama’s friends).

Barack Obama owes a whole lot more to Ireland than an ancestor or two. His journey of change and his central vision were born 150 years ago because of Ireland. … Who inspired Barack Obama? One figure appears to stand above all others: Frederick Douglass.
…
In a letter from Ireland to William Llyod [sic] Garrison, one of the founders of the American Anti-Slavery Society, Douglass wrote: “I seem to have undergone a transformation. I live a new life.” He went on to add that, “instead of the bright, blue sky of America, I am covered with the soft, gray fog of the Emerald Isle. I breathe, and lo! the chattel becomes a man! I gaze around in vain for one who will question my equal humanity, claim me as a slave, or offer me an insult.” Prof Patricia Ferreira, of Norwich University, concludes that “although from a young age Douglass possessed the inclination to be a leader, Ireland was the site where this trait blossomed”.
…
Douglass, it seems, inspired Obama more than any other individual … because it was Douglass, “transformed by Ireland”, who first articulated change in a way America has never forgotten and in a way to which Obama has given a new meaning. “Behold the change!” Douglass wrote from Ireland. Behold Obama!

A selection of Irish articles on the inauguration:

Time for Obama to be as good as his eloquent word – Irish Independent: This week, the first black American president will move into the White House — a residence that was partly constructed by black slave labour. And, although Barack Obama is not himself descended from slaves, his wife (and thus his children) are. Whatever President Obama achieves, or fails to achieve in office, the extraordinarily moving fact of his election will dominate history’s view of him. … So why do I think that there is anything dubious about Obama’s gift for words? Because the miraculous effect of them cannot be a substitute for action.
Moneygall, you’ve got competition – Irish Independent: A second Irish village is laying claim to be the ancestral home of Barack Obama. The tiny village of Moneygall raised American flags and tricolours side by side yesterday. The excitement started early in the morning in the Offaly village when an Obama bus pulled up outside of Ollie Hayes’s pub. But in the nearby village of Shinrone, Co Offaly, it was a more low-key affair, as they have only recently discovered links to Barack Obama.
It’s Obamarama time! – Irish Times: The American Ireland Fund is hosting a daytime event for supporters at a building on Pennsylvania Avenue, with excellent views of the parade. On Tuesday night, the leading lights of Irish-American society will don black tie and ball gowns at the Phoenix Park Hotel near Union Station for the first ever Irish inaugural ball. Irish Ambassador to the US Michael Collins and former taoiseach and EU ambassador John Bruton are among the guests of honour at the event, which is hosted by Irish-American Democrats, a political action committee that raises money for Democratic candidates who take an interest in Irish causes. … The Irish event is the biggest of the ethnic balls…
Illegal Irish “need Obama’s help” – Irish Times: An Irish MEP has written to US President-elect Barack Obama to highlight that up to 50,000 undocumented Irish immigrants living in the US need his “political assistance now more than ever.” Seán Ó Neachtain, Fianna Fáil MEP for Ireland North and West, urged Mr Obama to consider introducing measures to allow undocumented and illegal Irish to remain in the US legally.

Irish Independence: “One Big Union”

Will — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 13:28:09 +0000

Today marks 100 years since the organisation of a labour union that played a crucial role in Irish independence. On 20 January 1909, union cards were issued to the first members of the Irish Transport Worker’s Union. Those members’ commitment would help bring Ireland to the Easter Rising of 1916. In a real way, they made possible tomorrow’s celebrations of the 90th anniversary of the First Dáil Éireann.

The Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union (as it was called a few years later) held the strike that led to the Great Lockout of 1913. During the strike, the leader of the ITGWU, James Larkin, gave speeches all over Dublin despite being arrested for seditious libel and released on bail. The reason for his arrest? In a speech on 28 August 1913 he said: “Before I go any further, with your permission I am going to burn the Proclamation of the King. People make Kings and people can unmake them.”

During the Great Lockout, Larkin and James Connolly helped establish an Irish Citizen Army to counter the thugs hired by employers and to protect workers’ meetings. The Irish Citizen Army was also, by its constitution, to pursue nationalist aims for Ireland. James Connolly said, in commemoration of the workers killed in the Lockout one year before:

Our fight of last year was not for added wages and reduction of hours; it was for an opportunity of building up in our midst men and women, a chance to develop nobility and grandeur of character for men and women, a time to realise the nobility of life, to study the history of Ireland, to study our rights as well as our duties; time to develop men and women for the coming crisis, so that they might take advantage of it when it came. … If you are itching for a rifle, itching to fight, have a country of your own; better to fight for our own country than for the robber empire. If ever you shoulder a rifle, let it be for Ireland. … You have been told you are not strong, that you have no rifles. Revolutions do not start with rifles; start first and get your rifles after. Our curse is our belief in our weakness. We are not weak, we are strong. Make up your mind to strike before your opportunity goes.

Less than two years later, on Easter Monday, 1916, the Irish Citizen Army fought alongside the Irish Volunteers in St Stephen’s Green and the GPO. The British gunboat that shelled Dublin singled out the headquarters of the ITGWU on Beresford Place, Liberty Hall, for special attention.

Several months passed before Irish nationalism recovered from the military defeat of the Easter Rising. James Connolly’s execution by firing squad at Kilmainham Jail for his role in the Rising inspired tens of thousands to join the ITGWU. The union led a general strike against conscription in 1918 that was one of the mainsprings for the First Dáil Éireann, which this blog will commemorate tomorrow.

Sources:

Thanks to Tolka Rover of flickr for releasing the Big Jim Larkin photo under Creative Commons.
Mick O’Farrell, A Walk Through Rebel Dublin 1916 (Mercier Press, 1999)
Joseph E.A. Connell Jnr, Where’s Where in Dublin (Dublin City Council, 2006)