Holding Court With the People of Dublin : From Pub to Port, the Irish Capital’s Citizens Can Make Any Encounter Memorable

I’ll tell you about the pints in smoky pubs and gray-satin skies over Georgian streets. I’ll tell you about solitude in St. Stephen’s Green, the sound of horse hooves on cobblestone, the smell of coal and turf fires on the outskirts of town hastening you toward the comfort of stew, brown bread and tea.

I will tell you about all those things people imagine when they imagine Dublin. But chances are, you’d find those things anyway. First, a little detour.

There I was last September, wandering around Dublin on my own, feeling conspicuously alone. It was what the Irish call a “soft day.” That means carry an umbrella. I had none, and the drops had already started to fall. Where to duck?

Well, I happened to be near the Four Courts, Dublin’s grand old halls of justice on the River Liffey. I figured I’d go in for a few minutes, browse. You know, be anonymous. What I was forgetting, as I eased myself into a trial in progress, was that this was Dublin.

“In you go, Love!” said one scruffy-looking character, as he slid aside to make way for me on the spectators’ bench. “You’re in luck. It’s a good one,” he said, flashing me a minimally toothy smile, and a wink.

That got the guy in front of us going. “Ah, sure, this judge is a tough one,” he said, swiveling around in his seat, obviously not one to stall at a chance for conversation.

“He is that,” another chimed in. “Aye, aye,” a couple of our neighbors agreed, delighted.

I felt my reserve start to melt. This is a trial? It felt like a pub. And the few minutes turned into over an hour as we leaned forward in our seats and listened to the plight of a ruddy-faced grocer named Gavin, who had purchased tomatoes, lettuce and other vegetables at half the normal price from a man who usually delivered his newpapers. The trouble was the goods had been stolen from another grocer. Did Gavin knowingly buy stolen produce?

We listened to Gavin’s impassioned denials, and the near amnesia of the guy he bought the vegetables from.

“Oh, go ‘way ye!” groaned Mr. Scruffy to my left, getting knowing nods all around.

We watched Gavin’s face grow redder as the judge reached new depths of probing jurisprudence.

“Ah, I told you he was a tough one,” Mr. In-Front murmured.

And, finally, we listened as the judge delivered his verdict.

“Here you have a van that deals primarily in newspapers, and here He arrives with vegetables one day at the right price,” said the judge, fixing a steely gaze on Gavin.

“Mr. Gavin,” continued Your Honor, voice mounting, “you bought a considerable amount of vegetables for a considerably reduced price from a man who mainly deals in selling newspapers. If you ask me, it’s the classic definition of something falling off the back of a lorry. Guilty!”

The courtroom exploded.

“Way hey!” my fellow court buffs crowed.

“See, I told you it would be a good one!” my scruffy friend said.

To a chorus of “Bye, Love!”, I left the court, happy, dry and laughing half the way home. All for a little jump into the human circus that I might have missed if not for the rain.

That circus and all its denizens, happy, sad, mad and in between, are what Dublin is about. It’s a chance encounter, a sight you didn’t expect to see, a turn of phrase or a conversation you’ll replay in your mind for years. Dubliners call it having the craic, the Irish word for a state that has to do with talk and laughter and all manner of good times. For all the times I’ve been to Dublin, it’s people I remember most.

Sure, you’ll say, that’s what visitors always say about Ireland. The friendliness of the people. Well, that’s not what I had in mind.

Dublin, you see, isn’t like the rest of Ireland. The Irish would be the first to tell you that. During a recent Gaelic football championship, underdog Donegal enjoyed a wellspring of support. The whole country was rooting against Dublin.

Now, it probably doesn’t help that the Dubs consider everybody who’s not from Dublin a culchie --a hick. But Dubliners do have an attitude, actually several of them. What it comes down to is a highly cultivated kind of irreverence, a certain delight in flouting the rules. Sure, the pubs officially close at 11:30 p.m., but that doesn’t stop anyone from ordering thrEe pints at last call and staying until the barman turns out the lights and Booms, “Ladies and gentlemen, please! We’re closed!”

And sure, Dubliners are proud of their history and well versed in it. But that doesn’t keep them from having a little fun at its expense. On O’Connell Street, that wide, wide boulevard on the north side of the Liffey, there’s a monument to James Joyce’s Anna Livia Plurabelle. It’s a woman lying in running water. To most Dubliners, it’s just “the floozy in the Jacuzzi.”

Speaking of history, Dublin is not always comfortable with the contradictions in its past and present. While Dublin remains very much an old city, modern office monoliths have been built despite extreme controversy. And the sort-of-yuppification of Grafton Street, Dublin’s fashionable shopping street and the location of some of its most famous pubs, draws nostalgic sighs from some natives.

Irish society is being forced to re-examine itself, as well, especially on the illegality of abortion and divorce. In February, 1992, when a 14-year-old Dubliner raped by the father of a friend was initially barred from traveling to England to get an abortion, a long-painful debate in Ireland exploded in the world’s headlines. And though Dublin and the rest of Ireland react quickly and generously to famines across the globe, it has only been in the last decade that Dublin has been made to start confronting its shameful, not-in-my-backyard treatment of the traveling people, Irish itinerants or Gypsies.

Despite these and other tensions, Dublin remains a cohesive city, complex and full of grit, sparkle and surprise.

“They don’t get any bigger by looking at ‘em, Love,” said a street vendor to a browsing customer. The subject was bananas, and this razzing, delivered with a grin, is what passes for salesmanship at the hawking stands along northern Dublin’s Henry and Moore streets. Don’t let it unnerve you. Just smile and give in.

That’s the first thing you need to know about getting along in Dublin--don’t take yourself too seriously. Next is the difference between north and south--at least as far as Dublin is concerned. The Liffey doesn’t just divide the city into south and north, spanned by several walking bridges, including that Dublin signature, the Ha’penny Bridge, named for the half-penny toll it used to charge. The Liffey also divides Dubliners into Southsiders and Northsiders, and don’t you forget it. Each group swears by its own part of town. The Northside was the part of Dublin that Americans were introduced to in the recent movie, “The Commitments.” It’s seen as grittier, more working-class than the perceived-As-more-affluent Southside. That said, it’s time for a wander.

In the time that I’ve been coming to Dublin, I’ve wandered north and south and always found something I hadn’t seen before, or at least not in the same way. I remember a New Year’s Eve with the throng of singing, laughing revelers outside the stately Christ Church Cathedral. I remember the dizzy swirl of Trinity College students, businessmen and shoppers rushing in all directions at the end of day at College Green, off to pubs, home or dinner. I remember uniformed school kids flirting on the top level of a green double-decker bus. I remember the smell of fresh bread pouring out the door of a shop in the old Liberties section. I remember an old man with an ancient-looking key who unlocked the crypt at St. Michan’s Church to show us mummified corpses entombed within. I remember standing within the sober walls of Kilmainham Jail, where many Irish rebels spent their last days.

But I also remember a little girl who fed the ducks at St. Stephen’s Green, and fishermen sharing a bit of the day’s catch with two sea lions that had swum into the harbor at Howth, a port suburb at the northern end of Dublin’s DART electric train line.

The truth is, there is no one vision that holds Dublin. Depending on your inclination, you could wander through Viking Dublin, or mix among the city’s avant-garde galleries and clubs in Temple Bar. You could pick up the literary trail, tracing the footsteps of Leopold Bloom on a day in June, or spend hours in Dublin’s wonderful bookshops. You could people-watch for hours over coffee and cream in one of the Bewley’s Oriental Cafes, or you could take in fine theater at houses like the Abbey or the Gate. You could find yourself sipping a brandy in the grand sitting room of Dublin’s grandest address, the Shelbourne Hotel. Or you could be queueing up with the masses for the famous, wrapped-in-paper fish and chips at Leo Burdock’s chipper shop--when Mr. Burdock deigns to open for business.

The one place you will definitely find yourself, though, is in the pubs.

Dublin’s pubs are a culture in themselves, social centers, homes away from home, and no two are alike. There are traditional music pubs such as O’Donoghue’s on Merrion Row; there are cozy little spots like the Brazen Head on Lower Bridge Street, Dublin’s oldest pub; there are the mirrors and chandeliers of the Stag’s Head on Dame Court, and there is the honest, old pubby feel of Doheny & Nesbitt on Lower Baggot Street.

There’s one thing all these places have in common, and that’s Guinness. Despite attempted inroads by Murphy’s, a Cork stout-maker, and an unfathomable trend among some Dublin yuppies to order overpriced Budweiser, Guinness is a driving passion among Dubliners. You can get them going for hours over what barman “pulls the best pint,” an art form in itself, not to mention what constitutes a “grand pint” of “ durty Guinness.” Along the way, politics may come up, as well as sports, music, love, family gossip, numerous and colorful profanities, and then, perhaps, the Catholic Church. If you’re lucky, somewhere in the middle of all this, you’ll get pulled in.

Just remember: When it’s your turn, buy your round. Any Dubliner will tell you: There’s nothing worse than a mean (cheap) American. And true to their natures, the Dubs will tell you.

As best I could, I have tried to give you an idea of Dublin. Not a map; you can buy one when you get there, or read a tour book. What I wanted you to take with you is a way of looking at a place, and listening.

A footnote: Just in case you were wondering about the fate of Mr. Gavin, he got a six-month suspended sentence plus 120 hours of community service. my court-buff pals, as much as they enjoyed the rigors of justice, seemed relieved.

“Ah, sure, the poor man probably has a family,” one said.

And, so, who did I see on the street outside the court? It was Gavin and the guy who sold him the vegetables. They were smoking cigarettes and chatting, having the craic.

GUIDEBOOK

Dublin Your Pleasure

Getting there: Now through March, Aer Lingus’s lowest round-trip fare from LAX to Dublin is $678, connecting through New York; American Airlines, about $800 through London.

Lodging: The Shelbourne, St. Stephen’s Green, about $130 per person double, is arguably Dublin’s poshest address, with lots of Old World charm. The Georgian House Guest House, 20 Lower Baggott St., is homey at about $50 per person. The Irish Tourist Board in New York City, (212) 418-0800, can send brochures on bed-and-breakfasts and guest houses, which range from $20-$40 per person with full breakfast.

Dining: Gallagher’s Boxty House, 20 Temple Bar, about $40 for two; it features modernized boxty, a kind of potato pancake, and Irish-inspired cuisine. Tante Zoe, 1 Crow St., in the Temple Bar area, Cajun; $50-$60 for two. The Lord Edward, 23 Christ Church Place, in the Liberties, excellent seafood upstairs (downstairs pub); $100 or more for two.

Two treats in Howth: the King Sitric, East Pier, Howth Harbor, acclaimed seafood $140 and up for dinner for two, and the Abbey Tavern, Abbey Street, Howth, great food, atmospheric pub, about $120.

Great for fish and chips: Leo Burdock’s, 2 Werburgh St., and Beshoff’s, 7 Upper O’Connell St.

Tips: Save money by eating from the pub menu or taking your main meal at lunch.

When you arrive, get a copy of “In Dublin” at virtually any news agent (i.e., news stand). Kind of the “Village Voice” of Dublin, this weekly magazine offers listings of all that’s going on in the city, including theater, film and music.