Kevin Barry is the must-read Irish writer of the moment, and for good reason: his short stories feature the mad, the bad, and the dangerous to know, and his language is deliciously quotable and musical. I think of him as an Irish Coen Brother, writing dialogue so crisp and perfect you long for people to actually talk like that, even though you know that nobody really does.
City of Bohane by Kevin Barry
City of Bohane has done nothing to dispel the cult growing up around its author. Barry’s recent triumph in capturing the Impac Award has capped a string of stellar reviews and ecstatic notices.
At its black, twisted heart, City of Bohane is a gangster noir. Set in an imaginary Irish city some 40 years in the future, City of Bohane tells the story of the struggle for control of a crime family. Logan Hartnett has control of the Hartnett Fancy, the gang who has been in control of the Bohane trace, the quarter containing all the dens of iniquity, and thus effective control of the city, for 25 years, an immense span of years in gangland. At the opening of the novel the first stirrings of gang warfare appears, as rival factions begin to agitate for more power. But as the feud plays out, the real power struggle emerges: which of Logan Hartnett’s deputies is going to succeed him?
The Ireland of Barry’s novel is one that has regressed into rule by local fixers, crime bosses who allow the veneer of society to function as long as the appropriate palms are greased. It’s an Ireland not hard to imagine in light of the country’s current machine politics, dynastic political families, and increasing levels of gangland violence.
Barry’s signature inventive language and vivid characters are on full display, and to these virtues he adds a confident world-building comparable to any first-rank science-fiction or fantasy author. However, over the course of the novel, it’s noticeable that there’s little character development — something that the brevity of a short story rarely allows. We have vivid characters, but they each do one thing well, rather than grow and change with experience. It’s a trait familiar from super-hero movies, where everything you need to know about a character can be seen on the poster.
Harnett is our aging mafia do: tall, immaculately tailored, suave, and striking. He may be getting long in the tooth, but he’s ruthless, and still fit to rumble. In a tight-fitting, white leather jacket, tight black pants, and high, sharp boots, we have Hartnett’s manipulative asian deputy, Jenny Ching. Equally ready to take out a rival with the knife, or use her body to gain an edge; she’s a Tarantino heroine transposed to the rain-soaked streets of the west of Ireland. Logan’s other deputies are tough-guy support roles, and would be played by former teen heart-throbs trying to establish their credentials as tough-guy leading men if this were a movie (and it would make a good one).
Barry uses cinematic effects throughout the novel, to generally good effect: scenes are set with birds-eye views, the camera floating overhead to describe the movement of crowds, the lay of the land, or the emotional state of a city about to erupt into violence. The antagonists’ clothes are described in lingering detail, sartorial choices being character in many cases. The affect is generally pleasing as spectacle, the mood of menace and inevitable showdown is built beautifully, until the violent denouement.
Here the cinematic influences of the novel fail to reach the same heights on paper as they can on-screen. Barry aims for a Godfather-esque finale of cutting between multiple scenes — there’s even a song that attempts to pull them all together — but the tension can’t be sustained in this way on paper, and truth-be-told, the outcome has long been certain by that point, so much of the hoped-for drama fails to materialize.
However, this over-reliance on cinematic devices does not lessen the novel’s joys or creativity in the slightest. Barry has proven he can sustain the mood and tone of his maddest stories at novel length, and hold the reader rapt. The intricacy of the world of Bohane, and its idiosyncratic dialect is fully realized, and never flags or fails to convince the reader. City of Bohane deserves all the plaudits and awards it’s earned. The most-apt comparisons for City of Bohane may be the fabulist world-building of China Miéville, rather than the usual suspects of Barry’s Irish literary forefathers. Kevin Barry continues to be a breath of fresh air through the Irish literary landscape, and City of Bohane will provide Irish writers and readers with much to argue over and much to champion.
During my recent research into the Northern Ireland locations used for Game of Thrones, I came across the story of Shane’s Castle, near Randlestown, Co. Antrim, which is said to be haunted by the O’Neill banshee.
A traditional depiction of a banshee. Image source: Wikipedia Commons
A banshee is similar to the Morrigan, the crone aspect of the Celtic triple goddess, the representative of death. Sometimes encountered in the guise of an old woman washing clothes by a warrior on his way to death, the banshee is more often seen as a spirit (bean-woman, sidhe–fairy) keening a death in the night. Like the washerwoman, the banshee’s appearance precedes death.
Set on the northeastern shore of Lough Neagh, Shane’s Castle was a commanding presence for many centuries. Originally know as Eden-duff-carrick, the castle was reinstated to the O’Neill clan by King James in 1607. After this it became known as Shane’s Castle. Mary Lowry, in her 1913 book The Story of Belfast and it’s Surroundings, cites Shane McBrien O’Neill as the owner who changed the name, and gives 1722 as the exact date. The O’Neills then in possession of the castle were descended from the great Shane O’Neill, who become The O’Neill Mór around 1562 and ruled or controlled most of Ulster. After his death, his many sons were known as the Mac Shane, the sons of Shane, and predictably the christian name Shane was popular among his descendants. So, the name Shane’s Castle has many resonances and potential origins.
Although the O’Neills held many castles, Eden-duff-carrick contains a stone carving of a head inset into one of the tower walls, known as the black head of the O’Neills, or the black brow on the rock. It’s thought that this stone carving pre-dates the castle by some centuries. It is said the line of the O’Neill’s will come to an end if the head ever falls from its position on the castle wall. Luckily for the O’Neills, the tower containing the head survived when their banshee burned the castle.
Traditionally, only the oldest Irish families are said to have banshees, spirits that forewarn of death. The O’Neills, being descended from the first Ard Rí, the High King of Ireland, Naill Nolligach, also known as Niall of the Nine Hostages, are one of the very oldest. (Niall died around 405, Shane O’Neill rose to O’Neill Mór about 1562, and the O’Neill family were hugely influential in Irish political life during this span.) A room in Shane’s Castle was traditionally laid aside for the use of Maeveen, the White Lady of Sorrow, the banshee of the O’Neills. Perhaps, implying she was originally a family member? I don’t know of any other banshee’s who were/are on first-name terms with their families. Visitors, it is said, could see the impression of the woman on her bed. However, in 1816, a large house party meant that this room was called into service. Perhaps the banshee was enraged at this snub after centuries of respect? A fire began in this room, and burned down the main block of the castle. They say a jackdaw’s nest which had been built in the long-unused chimney caught fire, and the fire spread, but who knows the true story?
One source suggests that the origin of the O’Neill banshee lies in an affront the fairies. One of the early O’Neills was returning from a raid when he found a cow with its horns tangled in a hawthorn tree. Single hawthorns are sacred to the sidhe [see wishing trees] and so the fairies now regarded the cow as their property. Foolishly, he freed the animal, and incurred the anger of the fey. When he arrived at his home (which presumably was not Eden-Duff-Carrick, as that was built much later, but may have been where the black head of the O’Neills originally stood), he found that the fairies had taken his daughter to the bottom of the lough (which lough is not specified, but the waters of Lough Neagh were said to have healing properties associated with the little folk). The girl was allowed to return to let her father know that she was safe in the fairy kingdom, but she could only return from then on in order to warn of impending death in the family by keening. This source names her as Kathleen, which is of Anglo-Norman origin and so would seem to be of much more-recent provenance than the ancient legend. Maeve is a very old Irish name, found in the oldest sagas, and appears more in keeping with the apparent antiquity of the banshee myth. The ending -een is a common diminutive in Irish, an affectionate twist on a name that would seem to reinforce the story that the banshee was originally a daughter of the house.
Ruins of Shane’s Castle. The intact conservatory is to the left. (Image source: Wikipedia Commons)
The ruins of the castle today are unusual, as the castle was in the process of being rebuilt in a grander style by Richard Nash, architect of Buckingham Palace, among other famous buildings, when the fire broke out. The conservatory was already completed, and it survived the blaze while the main block of the castle was destroyed. Visitors can get a glimpse of the sumptuousness of the plans for the restored castle from the completed conservatory, while touring the ruined remains of the main block, towers and curtain wall. A fortified esplanade, studded with cannon salvaged from an English man-o-war, stands guard over the shoreline, and an interesting family tomb and statues can be seen in the grounds.
The castle boasted an impressive series of vaults and basement chambers, connected to a long underground passage, reputedly used as the servants entrance, but possibly originally intended as a refuge or escape route. To my knowledge, these vaults are now closed to the public.
The banshee was said to be heard in Coile Ultagh, the “Great Wood of Ulster” which grew by the castle on the shores of Lough Neagh, and through which Shane O’Neill had marched his army in 1565 on his way to defeating the MacDonald’s at the battle of Glentaisie, which cemented his authority over Ulster. There’s still some of the great wood left in the grounds of Shane’s Castle, although much of it has gone to farmland and housing developments.
After the Flight of the Earls, in 1607, when the leaders of several Irish clans fled to the continent, thus ending the last vestiges of the Brehon laws and traditional governance in Ireland, some say that the Banshee of the O’Neill’s followed the family into exile. However, the family line of the O’Neills is often unclear, and Hugh O’Neill, the last Earl of Tryone, was the offspring of an illegitimate son of the first Earl of Tyrone, and his father’s claim had been successfully contested by the great Shane O’Neill. So, perhaps Maeveen, the White lady of Sorrow, the banshee of the O’Neills remained at Shane’s Castle, and the legitimate descendants of Shane O’Neill. After all, the black head of the O’Neills still stands on the tower wall at Shane’s Castle.
Regular readers will know that I can’t watch anything Irish without wondering where it was made. Lately, I’ve been interested in where Game of Thrones was made as quite a lot of the show is shot in Northern Ireland. I’ve also been playing around with Google Maps, and have created a map showing the major Northern Ireland locations used for Game of Thrones thus far — just in case anyone’s planning to visit. You can explore the map below to find the locations (blue pins) and see what was filmed where, or you can scroll down and read the location notes on this page instead. There’s also a wonderful slideshow of location photos that I found on flickr at the end of the post.
Warning: plenty of spoilers ahead if you’re not up-to-date with the show!
Castle Ward, Downpatrick, Co. Down
Castle Ward is stately home set in a 820-acre estate. It has served as parts of Winterfell, the ancestral seat of House Stark. However, much of the exterior views are of an actual castle in Scotland improved with some CGI.
The grounds of Castle Ward Forest Park housed the Lannister encampment in the first season.
The Tourney of the Hand, filmed at Shane’s Castle
Shane’s Castle, Randlestown, Co. Antrim
Shane’s Castle is a ruin on the shore of Louth Neagh, and as such is a very versatile location for Game of Thrones. Multiple scenes have been shot in and around the 2600-acre estate; it’s hosted the Tourney of the Hand in honor of Ned Stark, and served as the King’s Landing dungeons. The shores of the nearby lough saw Brienne of Tarth despatch a group of wildmen while escorting Jamie Lannister to King’s Landing, and a distinctive arched bridge has been seen several times.
Moneyglass Estate, Toomebridge, Co. Antrim
Various scenes have been shot here (Winterfell in season 2; when Arya meets the caged men on the Kingsroad), but they all pale in comparison to the “Red Wedding” scene that shocked viewers so much. (Those who had already read George R.R. Martin’s books, just smirked smugly.)
Photo of Slemish from Shillanavogy road by Albert Bridge (Wikipedia Commons)
Shillanavogy Valley, Co. Antrim
Below the slopes of Slemish mountain (where St. Patrick slaved away minding sheep when first brought as a slave to Ireland), lies the Shillanavogy Valley, which provided the location of the Dothraki camp early in the series.
Cushenden Caves, Co. Antrim
This location is where (in season 2) the ‘Red Priestess’ Melisandre of Asshai gave birth to her ‘shadow baby’ who later kills Renly Baratheon. The caves are a short walk from the village.
Murlough Bay, Co. Antrim
With views of Rathlin Island and the scottish mainland, Murlough Bay is breath-takingly beautiful, but hard to get to. Visitors have to follow a narrow road winding down a steep incline, andd some simply give up and go to one of the more-accessible strands. For Game of Thrones actress Michelle Fairley (Catelyn Stark), shooting at Murlough Bay was very special, because she used to swim there as a child. Murlough Bay provided the backdrop for Theon Greyjoy and Asha riding to the road to Pyke.
The Dark Hedges as it appears in Game of Thrones and real life. Photo credit: (L) HBO, (R) Ian Paterson (Wikipedia Commons)
The Dark Hedges, Ballymoney, Co. Antrim
The Dark Hedges is an avenue of 200-year-old beech trees on the Bregagh Road near Ballymoney. They were already one of Northern Ireland’s most-famous landmarks long before Ayra Stark escaped from King’s Landing disguised as a boy. The avenue is said to be haunted by the Grey Lady, a ghost who appears at dusk, but she has not made her debut in the series just yet.
Ballycastle, Co. Antrim
Around the other side of Fair Head, you’ll find the village of Ballycastle, birthplace of both Conleth Hall (Varys) and the character he plays, as some of the Free Cities’ scenes have been filmed there.
Larrybane Head, Co. Antrim
Perhaps better-known as the site of the Carrick-A-Rede rope bridge (which has not yet appeared in the series), the famous peninsula accessed by the bridge has been seen in the background several times in the series, but most notably as Storm’s End, seat of House Baratheon (again, with the help of some CGI). Several key scenes were filmed there.
Tyrion being arrested by Catelyn’s soldiers.
Cairncastle, Co. Antrim
A small village north of Larne, Cairncastle has proven another versatile location. Ned Stark beheads a Nightwatch deserter here, and Catelyn captures Tyrion. Various other minor scenes have been shot around the area.
Ballintoy Harbour
Ballintoy Harbour (note correct, British spelling) served as Lordsport Harbor on the Iron Islands in the second season. (See the photo slideshow below for some pics from the set at Ballintoy Harbour.)
Downhill Strand/The Mussendun Temple, Castlerock, Co. Londonderry
Viewed from the beach below (Downhill Strand) the Mussendun Temple was seen on the cliffs overlooking Dragonstone, when the seven idols of Westeros were burned. (For location shots for this scene, see the slideshow below.) The Temple was originally built as a library in imitation of an ancient Roman temple, it’s now used as picturesque setting for weddings. The temple is part of the Downhill Estate, but Downhil House itself was gutted by fire in the 1800′s, and is just a shell today. Perhaps it will be used in a future season of Game of Thrones?
Game of Thrones Location Slideshow
Created with Admarket’sflickrSLiDR. Photoset (c) Amanda Killen/craftedfromtheheart from flickr
Local photographer Amanda Killen managed to get pics from two of the Northern Ireland locations as the production was shooting, Ballintoy Harbor and Downhill Strand.
Those are the major Game of Thrones‘ locations to date — as far as I can discover — in Northern Ireland. I’ll attempt to update this page as future episodes are made, and if anyone has shooting news or corrections, please let me know in the comments.
Wishing Trees, aka May Bushes, are hawthorn trees where people tie ribbons to ask blessings from the local saints/deities/wee folk. The hawthorn usually flowers in May, time of the Bealtaine festival of rebirth (now generally known as May Day). Local people still tie ribbons or strips of colorful cloth to the wishing tree as a symbol of their prayers or wishes. If you visit in May or June, you’ll find wishing trees covered in colorful fabric and rippling in the breeze. If you visit after the summer — you might not even notice the tree, as the decorations will be sun bleached, rain soaked, or blown away. May bushes were usually associated with a holy well, but time has often dried up or filled in many of the wells. The wishing trees that still grown beside known holy wells tend to be used year-round.
Conventional and Unconventional clotties side-by-side at the Hill of Tara.
Hill of Tara
A May Bush grows along the ancient boundary wall that surounds Tara, the seat of the High Kings in County Meath. The well associated with this particular bush is long gone (although it is recorded in various sources), but the tradition endures.
The ribbons and colorful items tied to the tree are known as clotties. When we visited Tara last summer it was just seven weeks past Beltaine, and the the tree was still a colorful presence. Among the usual ribbons, we spotted some rather unusual trinkets and gifts, including a large number of pacifiers, perhaps in thanks from grateful parents? The offerings at a popular location like Tara tend to be rather idiocyncratic, presumable because many of the gifts are impromptue. Our eldest daughter likes to make origami cranes, and leave these as her gift to the spirits. For most of the year, the may bush at Tara is just another nondescript tree on the hill top, but for a couple of months following Bealtaine it’s resplendent with color.
St. Bridgid’s Well, Co. Kildare
Another popular site with a wishing tree is St. Bridgid’s Well in Kildare. The signposted well is actually a 1950’s replacement for the original well, built a couple of hundred yards away. The original well is now in a corner of the Japanese Gardens’ car park (it’s also known as the Wayside Well). The newer well is nearby, and is set in a little park with various stations for the faithful to contemplate the various aspects of the saint. The tradition of leaving clotties to ask blessings of the saint continues at both wells, although the tree serving this function at the modern well is not a hawthorn.
St. Brigid’s Well, Kildare, with clotties on the tree behind.
So, be on the lookout for wishing trees while you travel around Ireland. They’re easy to spot in May and June, but you might have to look a little closer during the other months.
Sign of the times? A modern offering left on the wishing tree on the Hill of Tara.
Today is Cemetery Sunday in the parish where I grew up, so it’s a good opportunity to post a short piece about this old Irish tradition. Cemetery Sunday usually consists of a service in a graveyard to remember the dead, and it is one of the shared dates that many communities revolve around. Relatives work to spruce up the cemetery for weeks before, and many graves will be decorated with fresh flowers and wreaths, headstones freshly scrubbed, and plots weeded. Not all graveyards get a service, however — there are so many — but families with relatives in these cemeteries will spruce up the place nonetheless.
In the larger towns, traffic can sometimes be brought to a halt, the streets lined with cars. But, the day is perhaps most important to the communities around many of the deconsecrated churches throughout the country, because although the churches may not be in use, their graveyards will always be — indeed they may still called into service several times a year. For these locations, Cemetery Sunday may be the one religious service of the year, and for the communities around these graveyards it is a significant event, reaffirming bonds of community and kinship through the pervious generations.
1702, and not even the oldest gravestone in this cemetery.
It’s possible that the Cemetery Sunday tradition grew out of the medieval “pattern days.” These were days set aside to honor local saints (who often founded the local church) and perform a series of prayers, stations, etc. (patterns) at (or more often around) a churchyard or holy well. Although, in order to increase the likelihood that the weather will be more cooperative, most parishes now hold their cemetery sunday celebrations during the summer months.
It can be odd to find dozens of cars parked along the sides of quiet country roads where the only traffic is normally the slow morning and evening trudge of cows on the way to be milked. Visitors coming upon a remote country churchyard teeming with people and looking well-cared for can be tempted to interpret this as a sign of strong faith and a strong religious community — all the old stereotypes about the land of saints and scholars seem to be at once confirmed. This is not necessarily the case; neighbors may choose to attend services at different local churches, or not at all. Many may only attend on one of the major feasts. But, Cemetery Sunday is about honoring the ancestors, remembering parents, grandparents, great grandparents, and reminding ourselves of the larger connections within the community.
People trying to trace their Irish roots via web forums and late-night emails to parochial offices might do well to attend the Cemetery Sunday service in their original family townland, and strike up some conversations with the other people present. Everyone congregates around their family plots, so it would be easy to find others with the same name, and identify common ancestors — after all, gravestones are essentially a three-dimensional family tree. Before you go, consult the parish bulletin (now often posted online) to discover the dates of Cemetery Sunday for your parish of origin.
I savored every word of Colum McCann’s elegant new novel, TransAtlantic. McCann has always been a writer who aims for a perfect image or a poetic turn of phrase, TransAtlantic is told in a gentle, unhurried style, almost a series of reminiscences, and the format allows McCann to give full play to his poetry.
TransAtlantic by Colum McCann (US Cover) –source: www.colummccann.com
The novel is anchored by three historical events (in the order they appear in the novel: Alcock and Brown’s first transatlantic flight from Newfoundland to Ireland, Frederick Douglass’s reading tour of Ireland during the great famine, and Senator George Mitchell’s negotiations that lead to the Good Friday Agreement that enabled power-sharing in Northern Ireland and brought about the apparent disarming of paramilitary organizations), but the meat is in the story of four generations of Irish women whose lives intersect with these famous men and events briefly (the herstory to balance the history, if you like).
If any novel can be said to have a single theme, or central focus, perhaps the unifying factor behind the stories in TransAtlantic is the individual’s desire for a freedom from external hinderances. The characters work for the abolition of slavery, the defeat of the Germans in two world wars, the end of religious strife in Ireland, economic independence, equal rights for women, the right of a woman to publish under her own name, the freedom to be accepted as an unmarried mother, the right to have ones’ children and grandchildren grow up safely, and centrally, the abolition of distance (physical and metaphorical): the normalization of crossing the Atlantic and the vast improvement in humanity’s ability to understand and help each other that this represented.
In 1845, Frederick Douglass inadvertently inspires a young woman, a maid named Lily Duggan, to leave Ireland and go to America in search of a better life. Lily survives a horrific passage on a coffin ship, to find life in the teeming streets of New York City much less hospitable than she hoped for. A survivor, Lily eventually marries an ice-farmer in the upper mid-west, and becomes the matriarch of a line of women whose story drives the novel. Her daughter, Emily, who lives to write, yet must publish under a male pseudonym for years; her daughter Lottie, who takes to photography as her art; and finally Hannah, who must deal with both the death of her son during the troubles, and the economic ruin of the current financial crisis.
TransAtlantic by Colum McCann (UK/Irish cover) –source: Bloomsbury.com
The novel looks at a long series of characters trying to better themselves and their fellows, often in some way that unites Ireland and America: Douglass raising awareness of the cause of emancipation, Mitchell negotiating for peace, Lily making a better life for her children, Lottie quietly working to support the peace process. But it is the final characters who enter the tale, a very modern Irish family — an inter-racial marriage, never mind an inter-denominational one — that wraps up the story, and brings it firmly into the present day. In this, McCann with his characteristic hope and optimism points out the small but potentially significant seeds of change being sown in modern Ireland: a nation now absorbing an increasing number of immigrants, with new ideas, bonds, and possibilities taking root under the surface. In his more-inclusive conception of family, McCann seems to be observing that the future will depend less on family solidarity and dynastic inheritance (the cornerstone of Irish politics and community), and more on communal support, the exchange of new ideas, and an enlarged sense of community, beyond religion, beyond race, beyond blood ties.
The last lines of his early story “Wood,” (from his excellent book Everything in this Country Must) in which a young boy watches trees “going mad in the wind,” the branches mindlessly “slapping each other around like people,” before the 12th of July marching season, have always struck me as one of the most apt metaphors for the discord in Northern Ireland ever put to paper. That McCann can now write a novel that is so optimistic, and chronicles such change a mere 15 years or so later, speaks volumes for how vast the changes in the political climate in Ireland have been. If novelists truly hold a mirror up to society, then it appears that the society McCann is reflecting in TransAtlantic is becoming a much less polarized one than he had to depict two decades ago. In TransAtlantic, McCann captures the great arc of globalization that increasingly shapes our age through the lens of one family’s history and some of the pivotal events that helped shape it, and leaves the reader with the hope that a corner has been turned, that Lily Duggan’s dream of a better life is finally coming to pass.
If you haven’t seen it, Once is a brilliant film about a guy and a girl who have been disappointed in love and are at a kind of lay-by on the road of life, but through their friendship find the strength to try and get back on the road again. For me, the film is almost a chronicle of my life at one point, as most of the shooting locations were part of my daily life when I lived in Dublin. I wasn’t a musician, but a young writer, so busking to make ends meet wasn’t an option for me. But, I had many musician friends who did, so I knew that scene well. Watching Once for the first time brought me right back to my early years after college, and the bustle of Dublin in the movie is the next-best thing to being there.
Grafton Street
Nearly all the locations in the movie are easy to visit, so it’s surprising that nobody is offering a “Once Walking Tour” of Dublin yet.
Looking through the Fusilier’s Arch in the corner of St. Stephen’s Green towards Grafton Street.
Busking Scenes – Grafton Street
The film opens near the top of Grafton Street just by Chatham Street in front of the Laura Ashley store, and the chase scene crosses the road and goes under the Fusilier’s Arch into St. Stephen’s Green, the large park in the center of the city (also featured — in even better weather — in the film Leap Year). Grafton Street is both a great street for shopping, a place to see and be seen, but also a main cut-through between the city center and Trinity College, and some of the residential areas on the South side, so it’s always thronged with people. And yes, the Hari Krishna’s come dancing and singing through it daily.
Repair Shop — Harold’s Cross
The repair shop scene was shot in Harold’s Cross on the south side of Dublin. It’s a real vacuum repair shop, so you can walk by and have a gawk if you care to. My wife loves the way the Da is always in his chair by the stove in the kitchen. That’s exactly where my Da sits, and most of the Irish fathers I know have “their” chair in the corner by the stove. It’s those little details that make Once such an accurate depiction of Irish life.
The only real attraction Harold’s Cross boasts is a stadium for greyhound racing, which is a spectacle everyone should watch once.
Dragging the Hoover — George’s Street Arcade
“Guy” and “Girl” walk through the eclectic George’s Street Arcade dragging the busted hoover behind them (my favorite image from the film) and have a cup of coffee in Simon’s Place Cafe (22 South Great Georges Street). The arcade is an institution, full of oddball art, and random ephemera. The last time I was there I found a stall selling Japanese manga next to tacky college-dorm posters, and funky jewellers next to antiquarian booksellers. It’s a great place for a wander.
Music Store — Walton’s
“Falling Slowly” was shot at Walton’s Music, 69/70 George’s Street, Dublin. According to Internet gossip, the store has had to ban people from playing “Falling Slowly” on their pianos. I pity anyone who works in a music shop, the best way to lose your love for certain songs must be the hear them played badly over and over again.
Recruiting the Musicians — Harry Street
Rock God Phil Lynott statue on Harry St. (Photo: Wikipedia Commons)
The buskers they recruit for the recording session are playing on Harry Street beside a famous restaurant called Bruxelles. Out of shot is the excellent little pub McDaids, beloved of Brendan Behan and his literary cronies in the good auld days of Irish literary mayhem. It’s well worth having a pint there.
The statue is of the great Irish rock god Phil Lynott, lead singer and sonwriter of the band Thin Lizzy, who grew up in Dublin. He died as a result of years of drug addiction in 1985, but he’s not forgotten, and Thin Lizzy remain very popular in Ireland.
The idea that one can simply find quality musicians on any street in the city is not very far fetched. Dublin (and Ireland, really) is full of excellent musicians. Check out a pub like the tourist-friendly Oliver St. John Gogarty’s in Temple Bar. They have music every night of the week, and if you get chatting with the musicians, you’ll soon discover that most are professional session musicians who are often asked to record with various famous artists who happen to be recording in Dublin. One of my favorite CDs is a collection of popular songs, “Gogarty’s Music,” by those musicians. I’ve found Irish dance teachers in the wilds of NC using it, and got talking with complete strangers who visited Ireland ten years ago and listen to it all the time. You can buy the CD from the musician’s themselves, and it’s one of those mysterious things that you keep coming across to remind you that the world isn’t such a big place after all.
Final conversation — Temple Bar
Temple Bar Square
The morning after their triumphant recording session, guy and girl walk through Temple Bar, the trendy, cobblestoned heart of tourist Dublin. When I first lived in the city it was just beginning to be revitalized from a depressed zone of cheap rents and squalor, into the mecca of trendy bars, foreign films, art galleries, and expensive flats that it has become. I’m not entirely negative about the changes, as the area’s nightlife and galleries played a big part in my life once upon a time. But the old, authentic Dublin pubs have gone, and been replaced by some of the most-expensive pints in the city, so I generally choose to drink elsewhere now. One of the best bookstores in the city, the Gutter Bookshop, can be found in Temple Bar, along with the fabulous Project Arts Center, and the aforementioned Oliver St. John Gogarty’s pub, for which I retain a soft spot.
Once Walking Tour
So, you can walk from Grafton St. to St. Stephen’s Green, around the corner to George’s St. and have a pint on Harry St. beside the Phil Lynott statue, and then stroll down Grafton St. across College Green and into the Temple Bar area all without getting a leg cramp.
Map Key: Sites in blue=main city-center places featured in the film; Sites in orange=other locations used around Dublin & nearby major tourist attractions.
If I was a tour guide, the map above would be the key stops on my walking tour. You’ll have to zoom in to see the map properly — perhaps as I get more proficient with Google Maps I’ll be able to get it to crop to the relevant area automatically. The walking tour is designed for your two feet (and many of the streets are pedestrian-only. But, you’ll likely need a car to reach the couple of locations outside the city center where key scenes were shot.
Girl’s Flat — Mountjoy Square
The girl’s flat is in Mountjoy Square. This is the highlight of the film for me because that’s where I used to live before I moved the US (in fact you can see “my” building over her shoulder before she gets on the motorbike. I lived in the same kind of no-frills flat in a drafty, old Georgian building, but without the community of immigrant neighbors learning English from bad Irish soap operas. Perhaps, the best way to orient visitors to find Mountjoy Square is to suggest walking up O’Connell Street from the spire towards the Gate Theater (and why don’t you stop in and grab tickets for a performance when you’re passing — it’s a brilliant venue). Keep going straight when O’Connell St. turns into North Frederick St. for one more block. Here you can pause and stroll around the Garden of Remembrance (where the Queen laid a wreath to honor the Irish war dead). Across the street are two places well worth visiting: The Hugh Lane Gallety of Modern Art and the Dublin Writer’s Museum.
Turning right from N. Frederick St. onto Gardiner Place, you’ll walk two blocks to Mountjoy Square. Three sides of the square look basically the same: tall Georgian Townhouses with characteristic fanlight windows above the front door. The building used for the exterior of the girl’s flat is on the opposite side of the square from O’Connell St. Word to the wise, however, the area can be a little dodgy, so be careful.
“Do ya still love him?” — Killiney Hill
Killiney Hill over looking Dublin Bay
When they take their motorbike ride, the go to a place called Killiney Hill on the south side of the city. This is the area some of the big shots live, like Bono, etc. I once went to a great party on the beach just below where the scene where he asks her if she still loves her husband and she answers in Czech was shot. Just take the DART (Dublin Area Rapid Transit, a train) from the city center (it takes a while), get off at Killiney station and walk back along the beach. Or, you could get yourself down there by car (or motorbike, if you have connections).
Don’t be tempted to swim here; the Irish Sea is cold, cold, cold and it’s always windy. As a general rule, the best way to experience Ireland’s east coast beaches is with a large bonfire, a nagin of whiskey and a lot of friends with musical instruments. (And I can say from experience that Killiney beach is perfect for this — the only drawback is the distance from city center hotels and the paucity of late-night taxis. But, then odds are if you’re partying on the beach you’re likely to be with a group of local friends anyway.
Final Beach — Dollymount Strand
The beach at the end is Dollymount Strand, but if you already visited the beach at Killiney, then Dollymount will be second best. The beach is on Bull Island, basically a large sand bar connected by a bridge to the mainland proper. The island is a bird sanctuary, so twitchers flock there (sorry, couldn’t resist). There’s two golf courses, and the beach is a popular place for kite surfing, if you enjoy your extreme sports. One word of caution, however, the strand is a traditional place for Dubliners to learn to drive (at low tide, naturally), so keep your eye out for over-excited teenagers terrifying their red-faced, anxious parents by trying to turn donuts in the family people-carrier.
Once is one of my favorite Irish films ever, and probably the most realistic and accurate of them all. If you’re in Dublin anytime soon, and you’ve seen the movie, you should check out some of the real-life locations (whether or not you wander around with the soundtrack on your iPod is up to you).
– Rich
Notes
If anyone has noticed any other locations, please let me know in the comments. And, is the broadway show any good? I’ve been wary of going to see it as I fear it might disappoint without the authentic sights and sounds of Dublin.
‘Tis the season to process rhubarb like crazy! A mild winter and a wet spring have combined to give us an early start to the growing season in our part of NC. It’s late May, but looks like late June out there: the daylilies are hours from blooming, the gladioli are two feet tall, and the Columbine have been in flower for a couple of weeks. Likewise, the rhubarb stems are thick, very high, and rosy, so I’ve been trying to keep it picked so the bottom-most stems don’t rot from lack of light and space.
I compared notes with some Irish gardeners I know, and heard tales of woe and wet weather, so I gather we’re lucky to be enjoying fine growing weather — in fairness, we often get frost into mid-May, so this year is unusual. I’ve always consider rhubarb a typical staple of Irish gardens, as my parents and grandparents grew it when we were kids, and rhubarb crumbles were a staple of summer.
Rhubarb is one of the simplest fruits/vegetables (the jury seems to be out on where rhubarb stands — grown like a vegetable, served as a fruit) to grow, but people seem to not know what to do with it. I’ve introduced many to it’s distinctive tartness over the years. I remember our family grew it in a bed by a hedge, and the mossy grass had taken over the ground so that my father mowed up to the stalks themselves. It was a very easy plant to care for, and I doubt they even bothered to divide it every few years.
Irish Rhubarb/Strawberry Crumble Recipe
This is my favorite rhubarb recipe, and one that I’ve amended over the years to incorporate local ingredients.
1.5 – 2 lbs of stewed rhubarb
1.5-2 lbs of strawberries (fresh or frozen)
¾ cup sugar
¾ cup wholewheat flour
¾ cup rolled oats
½ cup walnuts or pecans (chopped fine)
1 stick of butter
The filling is simple: in a pie dish or small roasting pan (depending on how large a crumble you need) mix up the stewed rhubarb and strawberries. To my taste, a 50/50 ratio of rhubarb to strawberries should make the crumble sweet enough, other may want to add sugar to cut the tartness (but no more than ¼ cup).
A traditional Irish crumble usually has a pastry pie shell on the bottom and is topped with the crumbly mixture. However, somewhere in the anti-carb ‘90s I stopped including the pastry bottom, and now I just think of it as needless calories. The crumble topping is simply equal parts granulated sugar, steel-cut oats, whatever kind of flour you like, and butter. Bring the butter to room temp, and rub it into the combined sugar/flour mixture until the mix crumbles nicely between the fingers. (If you have a thick dough, you’ve used too much butter. Cut with equal parts sugar and flour until it crumbles nicely.) Apologies that this isn’t more precise, but the best Irish recipes are always “a bit of this, and the bit of that…” “How much, Mum?” “Ah, sure you know yourself.”
My other non-traditional innovation is to add about ½ cup finely chopped walnuts (or pecans if you have them — we’re in the US South, so they’re plentiful) to the crumble topping. It tastes great, and adds some protein.
Spread the crumble topping over the fruit, make a small “well” or two to allow the juices to bubble up, and cook in a pre-heated over for about 45 minutes at 350 degrees F (or until the crumble topping start to brown).
Serve with custard or ice cream.
How to Stew Rhubarb
Wash and chop the stems. Discard the bottom two inches and the leaves, as these are inedible (the leaves are poisonous, containing oxalic acid). Add a tiny bit of water to prevent the rhubarb sticking to the bottom of a thick-bottomed saucepan, but not much as the stems contain plenty of water, which will be released as they cook. How long and how much you stew them depends on personal taste. I like my rhubarb to remain chunky, but most people seem to prefer a uniform apple-sauce like consistency, so I aim for something mid-way between these extremes.
Stir often to prevent sticking, and either freeze in small batches or use soon after cooking. Stewed rhubarb is a great addition to muffins, so I like to keep some in the freezer throughout the year, as our youngest loves to cook muffins to bring to school.
Anybody got any other good rhubarb recipes to share?
After a couple of years posting casually as The Word Hoarder, I’ve decided to get more deliberate about blogging. So, I have changed the name of the blog to A Trip to Ireland, and bought the domain name. I’m going to refocus my writing on Ireland, the Irish culture I love and am part of, and perhaps write more about the oddities of raising Irish kids in a foreign land.
Subscribers/followers of this blog should be invisibly redirected by WordPress, and I’m hopeful that will work as promised. So, new name, new beginning, but hopefully I’ll keep up a similar focus and be a more frequent blogger in this new location. The comments and the odd discussions that get started therein are one of the most-enjoyable parts of bogging for me, so I hope everyone will make this transition with me.
I’m leaving the old posts in the archives, but may eventually repost some of the “work” pieces (on publishing and non-Irish book-reviews) elsewhere. Please let me know if I’m still showing up in the WordPress reader or whoever else you were finding out about new posts. And, thanks for reading.
The guardian have a great collection of authors’ annotations on hard copies of some of their books, revealing roads not taken, regrets, and the motivations behind some creative choices. Here are the Irish writers:
