SAYING GOODBYE

After two months in Dublin I am still making discoveries. The city authorities have, for some reason, changed the bus routes. 19 and 19A no longer runs down Camded Street through the city centre and into Parnell Square. So when I set out on Tuesday evening I asked the Driver,
"Do you go to the City Centre?"
he harrumphed and it was not until he turned left at the Connolly Street Bridge I realised that for him the City Centre was Trinity College, not the Spire. And the next stop was a long way down the quay, past the Halfpenny Bridge, past the Millenium Bridge.
I knew I was going to be late for Connor's lecture on writing about sex (don't ask!) but I was also going to have to walk through a part of Dublin I had not seen before.
On the way I found this pretty sculpture of a Viking Longboat. My guide book says is is by Betty Maguire and was erected after the 1079 discovery of the first Viking settlement.
I walked over the millenium pedestrian bridge. The tide was out and the Liffey was a series of puddles around flat black rocks between concrete walls with reminders of previous centuries, like steel ladders, and mooring rings long abandonned. On the other side of the river market stalls were closing up, people were hurrying along to bus stops. I walked past the General Post Office, the spire, on past Abbey Theatre, the blue steel gates of the Garden of Remembrance were locked. I haad to wait at both crossings and finally I tramped up the elegant georgian staircases at the Writers Centre to the third floor and crept in with whispered apologies.
WriConnor's examples from literature were definitely from a male point of view, and I thought he was brave even tackling the subject in only one hour. And because I was late I did not hear what he said.
It was very dark when we finished, so John hailed a taxi for me. This involves standing in the middle of the roadway and hailing approaching headlights. The driver was a cheerful Irishman called Oliver who told me about the resurgence of Camden Street from a derelict slum to the busy, interesting village it is to-day.























Settlement site. I crossed the Liffey on foot over the millenium bridg.