The Dublin Community Blog

I’VE just spent the afternoon at IMMA at the Magnum Ireland exhibition, so if you haven’t gone already it might be something to check out tomorrow on the Bank Holiday.

Considering how quiet Dublin feels this weekend the place was packed out and the layout of the exhibition made it very uncomfortable.
It is laid out in two parts, one in the main square of IMMA and more in the new gallery out the front.

When we went in a pregnant woman (her gestating status has nothing really to do with the story) was standing right slap bang in front of the first photograph which is a large Henri Cartier-Bresson completely covering the subject, I mean completely.

Despite moving to the right and left around her, she just stood there like a big obstructing thing looking over my head. All while her child drove a car around the walls. Now I hate to give out but the child should have been told off and the mother should have realised she was obstrucing the entire picture.

And it pretty much followed that theme, so we found it hard to really enjoy or appreciate the collection in the way we normally would have particularly considering some of the photographs are absolutely exceptional.

I also somehow managed to miss Eve Arnold’s contribution, though this could be the (bad) way the photographs were titled. Just a note to IMMA it would be worth captioning each picture because sometimes they were all at one side of a large wall and it was impossible to battle your way through the crowd to see the caption and then back again.

Okay my moany post is over now and even though I have moaned do go see the exhibition if you are in Dublin because it is worth it and IMMA is a beautiful place to spend a few hours.

  

There’s two words that spring to mind every time I think about one of my favourite restaurants in Dublin…Chicken Wings!! The Elephant and Castle (18 Temple Bar, Dublin 2, Tel +3531 6793121) is famous for it’s baskets of chicken wings.

However, you would be mistaken if you think that Chicken Wings are the only thing that they do well in there. Their burgers, salads and omelettes are devine also. It’s all about simple food, just done well. And then there’s breakfast!! As Rick said here recently, the California Sunrise Breakfast is without a doubt the best breakfast in town (I met Rick leaving there having had his this-morning, so, he’s obviously addicted!).

One word of warning about it however, the restaurant don’t take telephone bookings, you generally have to call in and put your name on a table. I’d always advise leaving about an hour or so to spare, as you may well end up waiting that long during busy periods (and in fairness, it’s always pretty busy). However, if you call over, they will happily put your name on a table, and tell you to wander off to one of the local pubs in Temple Bar for a drink whilst you wait. Believe me though, it will be well worth the wait!

Some helpful advice however….don’t be fooled (as so many unfortunate tourists are) into thinking that despite the fact that the Chicken Wings appear under the starter section of the menu that they are simply a starter. I’ve seen the hungriest of people with huge appetites struggle to finish a whole basket, they really are huge! And remember, when eating them, only ever use one hand as otherwise things will start to get very, very messy! Trust me on this! And another bit of helpful advice, no matter how cool it is never go here on a first date! I’ve watched so many first dates go horribly wrong in a messy, messy way as both people try and be polite and refined and not get messy…there’s nothing refined or clean about eating these!!

And, whilst your there, check out the picture’s of New York on the wall, there’s a sister restaurant in Grewnich Village, NYC, and listen to the music, which is always very funky, or, just stare out the window at the madness of Temple Bar, or look around for a celebrity, everyone from Colin Farrell, to Bono and many many more frequent this place.

Ex-Boyzone member and Corrie star Keith Duffy gathered together some of his celebrity chums on Monday for his annual Celebrity Pro Golf Classic and Gala Dinner, which took place at the Citywest Hotel and Country Club. The day commenced with a host of names, including infamous cad James Hewitt, Steve Staunton and actor Johnny Briggs taking to the course. (I expect that Johnny will be playing a lot of golf in the future, since his character Mike Baldwin was killed off Corrie.)

The gala dinner, now in its fourth year, is a firm favourite among charity glitz set, making it a key date in the social diary. The evening kicked off with a lavish champagne reception where guests were indulged by the irresistible temptations of an exclusive Magnum chocolate fondue fountain and the brand new HB Magnum Mint ice creams. With magnums all round, the girls were well impressed.

The stunning and ever glamorous hostess Lisa Duffy set the tone of the evening, in a fab knee length white dress which flowed effortlessly. Lisa Fitzpatrick was a vision, as she graced the red carpet in stunning Grecian style multicoloured ball gown. Beautiful TV presenter and musician Myleene Klass encapsulated natural elegance in a stunning powder blue sleeveless floor length ball gown. She was more than happy to showcase her stunning diamond engagement ring to friends and later joked that she had left her Irish fiancé, Graham Quinn, at home to plan the wedding.

Others out in force to support this worthy cause were Coronation Street stars Susie Baker (Bev Unwin) and Sally Lindsay (Shelley), gravel voiced former Eastenders star and Celebrity Love Island contestant Michael Greco, celebrity magician Keith Barry, Sinead Ryan and Joanne Byrne and UTV’s Gerry Kelly.

Among the deserving charities to benefit from the golf event and gala evening were Irish Autism Action and autism charities SPEAC and ABACAS. Pauline McLynn and Deirdre O’Kane saved the night as they stepped in to MC the event after comedian Des Bishop fell ill.

Maybe his recent public gaffs are a symptom of Foot In Mouth disease?

I’m delighted to inaugurate my membership of the Dublin Community Blog as one who, despite being up from what many jackeens conceive amorphously as “down the country”, is very fond of our nation’s capital. So many great bars to prop up, bookshops to spend hours in, eateries to grow fat in, galleries and museums to stroke one’s beard in. And all the best bands come here.

In order to get my foot on the property ladder, I have had to leave the southside where I was formerly wont to make my lair and come north to take up residence in the vicinity of the national cemetery. And it is here I have encountered the 40 bus service. It was never like this on the southside kids.

The 40 runs along a QBC – quality bus corridor – which is capable of delivering your humble narrator to O’Connell Street in about 15 minutes on a good day, and it would be great were it not for one or two little problems. The first of these is capacity and the second is the weird timetabling issue which means that during certain times of the day, the buses seem to enter the Twilight Zone. I have rather, ahem, flexible working hours, but according to my girlfriend only one 40 goes to Stephen’s Green in the morning, that is to say is cross-town, which sucks, especially as, by the time it gets down to where we are, it is choc full of commuters from Finglas and simply wafts past on a noxious cloud of diesel fumes. Hundreds of apartments are being built and occupied along the N2, but the service hasn’t remotely caught up. Perhaps it hasn’t changed at all. Frustrated workgoers can watch three buses pass them full after 7.45 a.m. and not catch one until well after eight.

At other times of the day, one can get to the bus stop and read on the timetable that the next bus will supposedly have begun its journey 15 minutes ago and be due to arrive in five – the journey time this stop being 20 minutes. But it doesn’t show. Over 25 minutes later, the next bus comes. Why does one leave early and the other late? Beats me. After this massive, frustrating hiatus in the service, it is a regular occurence to be passed by a full bus (surprise, surprise, the passengers built up at the stops) whereupon three more come along in convoy. The last two will be completely empty for the trip to town. Why weren’t they staggered? What are the drivers up to at their terminus?

I often wander to the nearby 19 and 83 services instead which run in a much more clockwork fashion, not least, I suspect, because they’re on their way to the southern ‘burbs. While a lot of the drivers on the 40 route seem quite sound and friendly, others are appalling. They drive like lunatics and in a rough and jerky manner. I have never heard a driver address a passenger in Rathmines, Ranelagh or Ballsbridge the way I’ve heard them speak to some over here. I had a right hop off a particularly ill-favoured fellow one day for the outrageous disrespect he showed to an elderly woman. What a prick. Perhaps people on the northside don’t deserve the same level of respect and customer service as those in the even numbered post codes.

But back to the capacity issue. For the Celtic Tygger has penetrated even unto Finglas and its ambitious, restive population needs buses in great numbers to get them to and from their places of employment. While it is in no way reflective of the range of occupations which Finglasians undertake in this great metropolis of ours, there is a graffito on one of the vehicles regularly servicing the 40 route demonstrating how the basic tenets of free market liberalism to which Irishmen and women now hold dear have not been lost on the young people on the city’s north western marches. This graffito takes the form of an equation which states simply and with economic elegance:

hard work + happy customers = €uros

It’s accompanied by a picture of a stick man smoking a fat, chronic blunt.

Diligent economic actors need more buses, but I won’t hold my breath. The Minister for Transport has said the bus capacity in Dublin is to be increased by 60% and that it is hoped this expansion in service will be achieved through private sector investment. Bring it on say I. Perhaps a bit of competition will focus the minds of the worst elements on the 40 and other benighted routes. However, the Minister appears to be refering to the opening of new routes. Dublin Bus will continue to service their existing routes exclusively rather than to face competition along them.

I’m saving up to buy a push bike.

Bonus Link for bus anoraks – The All About Buses dot Com Forums

Copernicus is a Dublin based civil servant and law student (at least until after he fails his forthcoming exams) who has lived in the capital for five years and two and half months.

Although he was born a startlingly beautiful child in the National Maternity Hospital in Holles Street Dublin 2, Copernicus does not consider himself a Dub. Not a wet week in the world, he was transplanted post haste to Munster where he was reared on the creamiest milk produced by contended Fresians on a cud of lush Golden Vale grass, fatted on Kerry lamb each spring and derived many boyhood-enhancing minerals from the swift, clear waters of the Shannon whose music may be heard in crystal cadence over the rocks at Doonas Falls below the ancient Limerick keeps and raths of his Norman and Gaelic forebearers.

On attaining a tender but serious three years of age, he entered Tullyvaraga Playschool to begin a programme of education which continues unabated some 29 years later at the Honorable Society of King’s Inns. However, he has always been a poor scholar and continues at his books more in hope than expectation.

Copernicus maintains blogs at The Midnight Court and Cruiskeen Eile and has made guest contributions to Fústar dot org to relate dark tidings on freemasonry, Christmas monsters and the inscrutable doings of the wee people. He received a best commenter nomination at the 2006 Irish Blog Awards and he would have won it too if it wasn’t for these pesky kids.

Despite an aristocratic mein and sedulously cultivated patrician air, Copernicus prides himself on being approachable and often condescends to respond enlighteningly to those members of the lumpen proletariat who comment on his posts.

It’s so vast I won’t repint all of it here but I was in Brussels on Tuesday speaking to a group of MEPs as part of my role as patron of Brainwave – The Irish Epilepsy Association. I’ve had epilepsy since I was 16 but I’ve only recently spoken publicly about it; it was the best decision I’ve ever made.

Have a look at the most extraordinary day I’ve ever spent HERE and if you’d like a little more information about epilepsy check HERE

R

Judging by the referral logs to this site for the past week, RTE’s Fallout, documenting the Irish reaction to a potential nuclear accident in Sellafield has caught the Irish publics attention. It was also a hot topic of conversation by water coolers around the country on Monday morning, after the first part of the documentary was aired on Sunday night.

Tonight, Environment Minister Dick Roche has joined the debate. He has accused RTE of acting irresponsibly in screening the documentary, and portraying Irish people as barbaric. The documentary portrays panic on Dublin’s streets as terrified residents scrambled to get out of the city, and showed a mini-riot at Dublin’s Busaras bus station as people fought to board buses out of the city.

“I was very sad. I thought it was a very poor programme,� said the minister.

“It was bizarre. They were suggesting there would be riots on the streets of Dublin. We have a very sophisticated society here in Ireland.�

Now, I find it very hard to believe that in the event of a nuclear disaster affecting the east coast of Ireland, that anyone would sophisticatedly gather their belongins and make their way out of town in an orderly fashion. Hell, getting out of town at 5pm on a Friday evening is a pretty barbaric and hair-raising experience as people try to get home at the weekend, the mind boggles at what it would be like if people were fleeing for their lives.

I really would like to know what the Minister is thinking! I presume most readers here are with me, but, please do comment and let me know!!

Another frightening thought has just crossed my mind too…Minister Roche, as part of his brief, is charged with leading the Irish planning for the eventuality of a nuclear disaster in Sellafield. If he think’s this way, I hazard that we are massively under-prepared for such an event!

There are reports coming through of multiple bomb-scares around the City. The GPO was evacuated around 4pm, though the all-clear has now been given. There are separate reports of Brown Thomas on Grafton Street, The Jervis Centre and The ILAC also being evacuated.

More detail if I get any. If anyone is around the city and knows of what’s going on, please let me know.

UPDATE: Apparently all scares have been cleared as hoaxes, still have no details as to where exactly was affected yet however…

THIS post is cogged together from various websites including Dublinks.

O Connell Bridge is the only traffic bridge in Europe as wide as it is long.

O Connell Bridge as originally made of rope and could only carry one person and a donkey at a time. This was replaced with a wooden structure in 1801. The current bridge was built in 1863 and called Carlisle Bridge.

There is a second O’Connell Bridge in Dublin, do you know where it is? Here’s a clue.

There are 12 Dublins in the United States and six in Australia.

Leinster House was built as a private home for the Earl of Leinster. The South side of the River Liffey was not a fashionable place to live at that time and when asked why he was building on the South side he said ‘where I go, fashion follows me’.

Henry Moore, Earl of Drogheda lived in Dublin in the eighteenth century. He called several streets after himself. Henry Street, Moore Street, Earl Street, Drogheda Street. Drogheda Street later became Sackville Street and is now O’Connell Street.

Tallaght is one of the oldest place names in Ireland and it means ‘The Plague Cemetery’.

There are many more, can you think of any?

As my previous post may have suggested Ryanair shafting Leinster Rugby, it appears they have decided to go the full revolution and shaft rugby. In a statement on their website today, Ryanair have closed their Dublin – Cardiff route with effect from May 1st … Yes, that’s right, 19 days BEFORE the Heinken Cup Final! It now seems rugby fans as a whole will now feel the pinch with Ryanair’s untimely closure of the Dublin – Cardiff Route.

RYANAIR ANNOUNCES CLOSURE OF DUBLIN – CARDIFF ROUTE
Ryanair, Europe’s leading low fares airline, today announced the cessation of its service from Dublin to Cardiff and the transfer of these services to Bristol International Airport with effect from Monday next, 1st May. Ryanair’s five year agreement with Cardiff Airport was due for renewal on that date but the airport has insisted on increasing its passenger charges by over 350%. In addition, the airport has reneged on elements of its current contract and is attempting to force Ryanair to pay extra charges for services which were covered under that contract.

Announcing the decision Ryanair’s Deputy Chief Executive, Michael Cawley, said,
“Cardiff Airport is pricing itself out of the low fares market. Cost increases of the order of 350% belong to an era when the lowest air fare from Ireland to the UK was €250. Ryanair has a wide choice of competitive airports available to it and, with effect from Monday next, 1st May, we will be transferring these services to Bristol International Airport. For those flights up to the 10th May Ryanair will provide coach services between the two airports.

In addition we will be offering refunds to any passengers who have already booked on these Cardiff flights and who don’t wish to travel to Bristol. We very much regret the inconvenience caused to our passengers but we are not prepared to tolerate these levels of cost increases on their behalf from airports whose only interest seems to be to gouge passengers with extortionate price increases.�

Ryanair’s map LESS the Cardiff destination

Many Munster fans residing in Dublin will now be left disappointed with being flown to the shed that is Bristol Airport over 60 mins commute from Cardiff.

Colm.