The photo above was taken around seven o’clock in the morning, which is my favourite time of day (please don’t hold that — or anything else in this post — against me). I was making my way to the Dublin airport and the rain from the storm the night before had the streets glistening. I was in Dublin last week for 48 hours, en route to a conference and wanting somewhere to get over the jet lag of my red eye flight, before reporting for conference duty. When I arrived in Ireland (my first time there) to a “status orange rain warning” and storm Babet, my plan for two days of walking city streets turned into mapping my way to shelter in pubs and to literature in a museum.
At the Museum of Literature Ireland (MoLI), my favourite exhibit was the immersive installation, Nightflowers, written and exceptionally well narrated by Claire-Louise Bennett (I got the print version of it to bring home with me). This collaboration with Ruby Wallis that I found online can give you a sense of Bennett’s approach to collaborative, multi-media work.
As for beer in the rain, it was Guinness every time (seemed the way to go), whether at The Long Haul, The Dame Tavern, The Old Storehouse or The Brazen Head (the last of these is Dublin’s oldest pub, evidently). One pint in each of those pubs, that makes four pints of Guinness in two days. That is a lot of Guinness, at least for me. But hey … when in Dublin …
a few words ... from Montréal 