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Dirty Old TownThe Pogues15 March 2006 |
The Grand Canal
St. Stephen's Green
Grattan Bridge
Poolbeg Street
The Four Courts
Phoenix Park
Trinity College
The Temple Bar
Martello Tower at Sandycove
Sandymount Strand
St. James Gate and The Guinness Brewery
O'Connell Street The Moore Street Market
Davy Byrne's Pub
The Halfpenny Bridge
The River Liffey
The Abbey Theatre
The Custom House
Whelans
St. Stephen's Green
Grattan Bridge
Poolbeg Street
The Four Courts
Phoenix Park
Trinity College
The Temple Bar
Martello Tower at Sandycove
Sandymount Strand
St. James Gate and The Guinness Brewery
O'Connell Street The Moore Street Market
Davy Byrne's Pub
The Halfpenny Bridge
The River Liffey
The Abbey Theatre
The Custom House
Whelans
On the boat from Holyhead to Dun Laoghaire, 1980
I knew Dublin like the back of my hand long before I ever stepped foot in the city. Music and literature had prepared me well. Somehow the city already resided in my imagination and my heart. I can remember standing on the deck of the Sea Link ferry as the lights of Dun Laoghaire twinkled into view for the first time, and further north the twin red and white smoke stacks of the Dublin Power Station. The cold, salty spray of the North Sea splashed up the sides of the huge boat and stung my face. My cheeks and knuckles and the tip of my nose were cold, wet and raw, but this was a sight I wasn't going to miss for anything. Unlike my Irish ancestors who had sailed away from this (seemingly god-forsaken at the time) island years ago, I was sailing towards it with excitement, a tear in my eye, and some strange, primal sense of “coming home.”
The Pogues
I disembarked and in the dark, busy bustle of a port town that doubles in size four times a day, I tried to figure out my next move. “Didja jest get off da boat or sumthin', son?” Why yes, as a matter of fact I had. And thus began my first conversation in Ireland. I was traveling towards Dublin town in the upper deck of one of the city's yellow double decker busses. I had two things on my mind: a native pint of Guinness and a place to sleep. The Guinness I would find in a pub on Grafton Street just before closing time.
Consequentially my first night in Dublin would not be spent sleeping in a youth hostel as planned, but on a bench in front of the Drury Court Hotel after all efforts to charm my way into “even the storage closet where they stored the roll away beds” failed. The downside to my first night in Dublin? Cold. Inhumanly early last call in the pubs. No pillow. The possibility of being arrested for vagrancy. The upside? Day follows night and I had made it to Ireland at last.
The Pogues are one of my favorite Irish bands who absolutely look and play the part. Hard drinking. Fun loving. Poetic. Today's Happy Medium Song of the Day is their heartfelt version of “Dirty Old Town,” a song originally written by Kirsty MacColl's father Ewan MacColl about Salford in Lancashire, but transformed here by The Pogues into a haunting homage to one of my favorite cities in the world, Dublin.
Consequentially my first night in Dublin would not be spent sleeping in a youth hostel as planned, but on a bench in front of the Drury Court Hotel after all efforts to charm my way into “even the storage closet where they stored the roll away beds” failed. The downside to my first night in Dublin? Cold. Inhumanly early last call in the pubs. No pillow. The possibility of being arrested for vagrancy. The upside? Day follows night and I had made it to Ireland at last.
The Pogues are one of my favorite Irish bands who absolutely look and play the part. Hard drinking. Fun loving. Poetic. Today's Happy Medium Song of the Day is their heartfelt version of “Dirty Old Town,” a song originally written by Kirsty MacColl's father Ewan MacColl about Salford in Lancashire, but transformed here by The Pogues into a haunting homage to one of my favorite cities in the world, Dublin.
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