The Dublin Community Blog

The Old City, New Dreams event last night at the Mill Theatre in Dundrum was very characteristic of its host, The Dubliner magazine: a little satire and humour, a little serious intensity (actually quite unusual for The Dubliner), and a little controversy – though decidedly far less controversy than the debacle with Tiger Woods’ wife last autumn. The general idea of the week’s Main Event was a) to hear from a variety of public figures in Dublin about how to make the city a better place to live and b) to elicit participation from the audience. In fact, The Dubliner’s editor, Trevor White, actually invited the audience to interrupt and throw things such as “popcorn or old socks� at the presenters if there was any disagreement. Unfortunately, to this blogger’s great disappointment, no such drama ensued. Had there been a contingent of England Premiership fans, I’m sure it would’ve been a different story.

DJ and concert promoter, Gerry Godley, started out with a rather vague answer to all of Dublin’s problems by quoting The Beatles – “all you need is love.� Though it later became clearer that he was suggesting a public agency to promote culture in the city centre (I think), Trevor summarized his answer numerous times throughout the evening by saying “Gerry Godley wants to promote more free sex – is that what you were getting at Gerry?�

Next up was comedian Arhondia and, as you might expect, she rose from the table to present her solution with a mini stand up comedy act. It didn’t go over very well, though I’d be willing to give her a second chance at Battle of the Axe on a Tuesday night. Her solution was free elocution lessons to give all Dubliners North Dublin accents.

Human rights expert and politician Valerie Bresnihan gave an emotionally intense plea to reduce crime and poverty by sending mental health workers from the state into the homes of patients. Though her tone didn’t exactly match the winsome atmosphere that Trevor tried to establish at the beginning, in the end her argument won the audience over.

Feargal Quinn submitted his recommendation to put a roof over the Grafton Street and Henry Street shopping districts. Irish Daily Mail’s Paul Drury put in his bid to preserve the traditional Irish pub in Dublin with a return to traditional Irish music and Guinness served at room temperature. In contrast, cheeky columnist Max McGuinness put forward his recommendation to leave nostalgia behind and ban the Irish language, Bloomsday, and Guinness altogether. Sarah Owens used the occasion to launch her own personal campaign to elect Mr. Tayto as Mayor of Dublin. (She is, afterall, in the advertising business.) And finally, Senate candidate, Stephen Douglas, suggested a plan to “evaporate traffic� in the city centre.

After the night got rolling, there was some response and interaction from various members of the audience. However, it probably could’ve used a handful of football fans or even WTO protesters to spice things up a bit. Overall, it was good craic and a great idea from The Dubliner magazine. The free cocktails at the end were a particularly nice touch. Old City, New Dreams continues for the next two nights at Dundrum’s Mill Theatre.

The study of 4,000 adults, published today, reveals that 27 per cent considered the Irish accent most attractive. A Northern Irish accent was considered most attractive by only 8 per cent of those surveyed.

And our own Colin Farrell gets a mention. Some Dubliners might suggest that he has a fake Castleknock accent, however, as a big fan myself I can look past that

Asked to name the celebrity with the sexiest accent 26 per cent said Scotland’s Sean Connery, followed by fellow countryman Ewan McGregor on 10 per cent, England’s Hugh Grant, also on 10 per cent, and Dublin-born actor Colin Farrell who was favoured by 7 per cent of those surveyed.

Full article can be found on ireland.com and the full survey can be found here, although I’m having difficulties getting to that site at the moment.

Just to follow up from the Dubliner mag post about “saving Dublin,” there’ll be a series of talks and debates at Dundrum Shopping Centre’s Mill Theatre every evening this week. CLICK HERE for more information.

If you’ve been holding back on adding your ideas to the last post about saving Dublin, you might consider showing up at the Mill Theatre for Wednesday evening’s event where the audience will “knock out” the luminary who’s ideas for saving Dublin are least popular. Should be an interesting series of events.

In a recent article of The Dubliner magazine, a variety of Irish “luminaries� were asked what they would do to “save Dublin.�  The answer came from politicians, artists, property developers, authors, historians, etc. and the quality of answers ranged from daft/silly/“they can’t be serious� kinds of ideas to a more common sense/“yes, of course!� breed.

Here are some of the ideas that I found interesting (whether or not I agreed!):

Arts Consultant, Ciaran MacGonigal:
“Once a year, have a public flogging of all the planning officials for their bad decisions . . .�
“Directly elect a prefect or mayor for Dublin City for a term of five years.�  (See Dec’s post from a few days ago.)

Artist, Pauline Bewick:
“Rapists and paedophiles should be castrated.�  (Right.  I’m sure the UN Human Rights Council would turn a blind eye to that one.)
“All citizens should have a plot to garden to become vegetarian, lessening the gases from cow and pig farming.�

Novelist, Joe O’Connor:
“Introduce a charge for driving in the city centre.�
“There’s an urgent need for more music venues on the scale of Vicar Street.�

Director of Dundrum Town Centre, Don Nugent:
“If I could do just one thing to save Dublin, I would ban the importation, sale or use of chewing gum.�  (Now we’re dreaming big!)

Comedian, Eric Lalor:
“All vehicles should be banned from the city centre to be replaced with donkeys.  If it’s good enough for Jesus and Mary, it’s good enough for us.�
“What better way to travel to and from the city than by Roller Coaster?  It would be great fun and our public transport would be the envy of fun loving people all over the world.�  (Woo hooo!  Tear off the roofs of the LUAS trams and away we go!)

The litter problem and traffic congestion were probably the most commonly addressed issues in the article, along with the lack of Gardai presence on the streets. I found it interesting that nobody mentioned the cost of living in Dublin which is now the world’s 16th most expensive city to live in, according to this report.

How about you?  How would you “save Dublin?�

For a few brief hours last Friday (and probably Saturday and Sunday too), every wine bar in the city lay dormant as the entire middle class population of Dublin descended upon the beautiful Iveagh Gardens for this years Taste Of Dublin. Fortunately I managed to get my hands on a couple of cheap tickets too and so with 50 “florins” (Taste of Dublin currency) in one hand and my beautiful date in the other, I set off for some top notch grub.

The weather was a little on the soft side but this had no effect on the number of people who turned up and fifteen to twenty minute queues were the norm in order to get served by most of the exhibitors. I quickly discovered that the Taste of Dublin “currency” (florin) was a scam by greedy promoters to ensure that the squeezed the maximum amount of money from the crowd, as every tent I visited also accepted euro and indeed some wouldn’t even accept the florins.

The samples given by the main exhibitors cost an average of seven euro and were a little on the small side for that price, however we were treated to plenty of free samples by friendly staff at many stalls and I enjoyed some really tasty offerings especially from the nice folk at Donnybrook Fair.

In the end I had a good night with plenty of wine, beer and food (not so much song, though the Caribbean band in the pub tent were very good) and I’d recommend the event to anyone thinking of going next year – just don’t bother with the florins.

More pictures available at the Dublin Blog group pool on Flickr

Today sees a new government appointed in Ireland. The Green Party will enter government and have negotiated a program for government. Interestingly for Dublin is the following under Political Reform

We will introduce a directly elected Mayor for Dublin with executive powers by 2011

Interesting. Do you think a directly elected mayor would make things better? Does it matter who gets to live in that fancy house on Dawson Street and travel in that fancy carriage on St Patrick’s Day? Would you vote for a politician or a celebrity like say Bono should he run?

Having a sneaky early Friday in town, I rang Derv to see if she was around for lunch.
In a fantastic moment of inspiration she rang the Winding Stair to see if they had a table available!
So we trundled up to the small but airy restaurant for our lunch.
The room is really nicely decorated – simple and sympathetic to the building. You see the kitchen through the hatch at the back, and all there is lots of action around the bar on the side of the room.

After long deliberations I ordered devilled kidneys and Derv had a poached duck egg with hollandaise and asparagus. And we splashed out on a bowl of homemade chips with aioli. The meal arrived in perfect time (too quick – I get suspicious, too long – I get cranky!).
My kidneys were presented on toast with a extremely simple but delicious green salad.
They were perfectly cooked and had a really great flavour. I really took my time over them to savour the taste.
Dervla’s egg was perfectly cooked, which for me makes the dish! The chips were piping hot, and tasted as if they were cooked in animal fat. YUM!

Not long after we received our food we decided to have a glass of wine each. We ordered the Riesling from the blackboard behind us. Two very generous glasses arrived and it was very (too!) drinkable.

Meal finished we ordered coffees – I have to say mine was a little cold, but after jumping on the chips when they arrived and burning my mouth… I didn’t really mind too much.

The staff were friendly and attentive. Our waiter attempted to schmooze two ladies beside us. He was under the impression that it was working, but they didn’t seem that impressed

I could have ordered ANYTHING from the menu, it all sounded really delicious. Right up my street. The focus seems to be on good ingredients cooked simply. I cannot argue with that!

I will DEFINITELY be back!

Rating: food: 5/5, ambiance 4/5, service 4/5 and value 3/5 All in all 16 out of 20.

Screwdrivers at the ready, IKEA has finally gotten the go ahead from An Bord Pleanála. A 30,000 square foot shop can now be constructed in Ballymun subject to 30 conditions “aimed at preventing traffic congestion, protecting the visual amenity of the area and promoting sustainable development”. Visual amenity? So that’ll be a multi-story grey concrete warehouse then?

Update: One of the reported conditions was that the store did not open until after the M50 upgrade completed in 2009. The IKEA manager was on Matt Coopers show and believes this is not the case. He hopes to negogiate with others to get the store open in 16 months time, late summer 2008. In fairness to them if they had to wait for the M50 to be completed they could be waiting for a long time after 2009.

Anyone who lives in Ireland knows it’s a damp country. I wont say it rains every day, but it’s fair to say most days would see a drop or two of water somewhere in Ireland. Unfortunately if you live in Dublin you also know that it only takes a couple of sunny days before the city council is declaring a drought and cutting off water to some part of the city or other.

Of course for years it has not been their fault. It was people like you and me who watered our gardens, washed our cars or left the tap on while brushing our teeth. In Dublin water was a precious commodity and we were wasting it. Now it turns out that Dublin Council is doing a little bit of maintenance on some pipes. 100 year old cast-iron pipes that have some problems.

Dublin City Council deputy city engineer Tom Leahy says because of the pipes’ age and increased workload, “many of the old water mains are leaking or corroded, resulting in millions of litres of high-quality drinking water being lost every day and poor water pressure in some areas”.

800 kilometers of pipes will be updated over the next 5 years. That’s a lot of work, and a lot of taps left on while brushing teeth. Ok, I should not be so sarcastic towards them, we all knew the pipes leaked and we all wanted them to fix the mains but it’s nice to hear them admit the problem was so bad.

As Brandon previously mentioned there are lots of events happening in June. Just so happens that a lot of them are on this weekend. To add to that list is Taste of Dublin taking place in the Iveagh Gardens from June 14th-17th. I’m still not convinced that this event isn’t a rip-off but if you go, I’d be delighted to be proven wrong.

Also taking place on Sunday are two very exciting football games in Croke Park. At 2.20pm Louth play Wexford. And at 4.15 sees a replay between Meath and Dublin. As far as I know tickets are sold out but keep an eye here just in case some more go on sale. May the best team win

Ticket Update: Seems I underestimated the interest in the Meath v Dublin replay this weekend. Tickets are being sold on ebay for up to 4 times their cost price!