Ghosts of the Past

In an old city with a rich history, you have to expect to share the space with a few ghosts. In Dublin, the past is celebrated everywhere with monuments and plaques. There is much to celebrate. Many of my great literary heroes were touched by this city.


The great Johnathan Swift, writer and satirist, lived and worked here. There is a plaque erected close to the place where he is believed to have been born. We took a moment to pay our respects and brandish a copy of Gulliver's Travels. I was overcome with a rush of fanlike enthusiasm. If some random stranger had happened to be passing I might have asked for an autograph, mere proximity to the plaque enough to confer celebrity in my mind.

There is also a plaque erected in honour of Oscar Wilde, another of my literary heroes. Unfortunately it is on the grounds of Trinity College and the daylight escaped before we could fight our way through the traffic and I didn't have an opportunity to touch the talisman. I consoled myself with a rather formal salute as we drove past the spot.

There is, of course, the artistic history of Dublin that everyone knows and to which monuments like James Joyce House have been established. However, there is more artistic history in Dublin that I had any inkling of until I started reading monuments.


For example, did you know that the first performance of Handel's Messiah took place in Dublin in 1742? I didn't, at least not until I stumbled across a statue of a nude conductor. Presumably Messiah was not originally performed with a nude conductor, although I will now forever imagine it that way.

For all its love of history, Dublin isn't always terribly respectful of the past. Right next to the nude conductor is this garbage pile tribute to classical music. Perhaps the residents prefer modern music.

A walk through Phoenix Park reveals many more monuments, including the Wellington Testimonial. I'm a bit baffled by these enormous phallic, Prince Albert style erections.

Surely this sight from the streets of Dublin would be a more fitting tribute to the Duke of Wellington?

You come across the dead on every corner in Dublin, but there is unexpected life here too. In Phoenix Park, not far from the Wellington Testimonial, near the joggers and the dog walkers, we passed a herd of deer.