Murderholes at the Goat Castle

At the first sign of daylight, I headed for the docks. I suppose in another place or time this would have said something about my character - the girl who gets into a new town and goes straight to the docks. Heh. As it was, I figured where there are docks there is waterfront, and where there is waterfront there is ocean. Or bay. Or whatever body of water that is at the end of the River Liffey. Turns out that sturdy gates block the way long before one actually reaches the mouth of the river, and it looked to be another hour's walk north to get to the nearest beaches. With the overcast sky slowly clearing, I turned back toward the city center along the wide river promenade. Alongside that muddy crick one finds the monument to the great famine - four of five gaunt statues, one carrying a lifeless child, followed by a bony dog, all headed for the port and, one might assume, the ships leaving for America.

I had wanted to get out of town and see a bit of the countryside that's been kind of lacking in my city-bound existence in London, and with the clearing skies, I decided today might be only chance. After some wandering, I found the DART station (sort of like BART, but for Dublin) and caught a train south toward the coastal town of Dalkey - a remarkably convenient journey that got me well out of the city limits for just a couple of euros. The tracks pass through some of the less posh suburbs of Dublin, then burst out of the city along the tidal flats of the Irish Sea.

I stepped off the train at Dalkey, I small town that predates Dublin's hegemony as the only local trading center of note. With a tide-scoured channel between the town and Dalkey Island, ships offloaded there rather than brave the shifting shallows of the Liffey River mouth. I was smirkingly pleased to learn what a profound impact the industry of dredging had on this particular enterprise - so rare that any reason comes up to think of dredging as anything other than a boring job that pays the rent!

On my arrival, my first order of business was to find a restroom, so I stopped into what looked like a historical site. This turned out to be Dalkey castle, so I paid five euros for entrance. The self-guided tour started out with a nice middle-aged woman who described to myself and another couple in very sweet tones that the fortifications of the castle had consisted of such lovely inventions as tightly spiraled staircases that could only accomodate the swinging swords of those coming down the stairs, as well as a little contraption called "the murderhole" - a trapdoor above the main entrance where a defending soldier could throw rocks, spears, or all manner of boiling liquids directly onto the marauders coming in the door downstairs. I have decided that if I ever get around to selling my condo and buying a house, I'll have to install a murderhole, just so I can say that I have one. I'd install one in my condo in Portland, except that the main person I want to banish is the neighbor to the right, who generally doesn't approach from beneath my door. Too bad.

Before I went into the castle, the introduction continued on to reveal that the edifice was nick-named Goat Castle after the Cheever family. I looked kind of puzzled until she started to explain that they were French. Of course - Cheever is just a mangled version of chevre, French for "goat." She also mentioned that the area surrounding Dublin to the north, south, and inland to the west was settled very early on by Anglos, Normans, and other invaders, who booted out the original Irish inhabitants. This settled area was called The Pale, and its name gives rise to the contemporary phrase "beyond the pale." I hadn't know this at all, but in essence, that phrase is a slam at the displaced Irish outside the Pale, who had the temerity and lack of civilized mores to exact revenge at regular intervals against the wealthy traders who had taken their land. It struck me then - and I learned more later to the same end - that the history of imperialism in Ireland goes back farther than I have any sense of, and is far more complicated than the English-versus-Irish story that you might get in a basic history class.

I continued on through the castle, then took a long walk toward the waterfront, which was largely blocked by luxury gated housing developments. I didn't know til I read it later in the guide book, but Dalkey has become one of the homesteads of choice for wealthy Dubliners looking to escape the city but still live close enough to commute in for the day. Fortunately, this also meant there was a small shopping district with plenty of little cafes and bars to choose from. I found one cafe on a side street and ordered a grilled sandwich from a Spanish waiter who was playing Mexican rock music in the background. Ah, globalization...makes an American feel at home no matter where we are.

After lunch I decided to go one stop further south to Killeney. There wasn't much of a town right near the DART station, so I hopped down to the beach and started walking. This adventure ended in one of those two- to three-hour forced marches that are fun if you know what you're getting into, but not always so much when it's because you're lost. Once I got tired of trudging on the cobbled beach, I quickly lost the sense for where I was going. I had seen another small town toward the south end of the bay that I was on, and figured there must be a DART station there. The bay was about the size of Half Moon Bay, and I was starting at the north end of it. I like walking, but at some point I realized that this may not end with a train station, and heading back before I got too exhausted was probably a better plan, especially with a light misting rain starting up. By the time I practically crawled back into the DART station, I was ready for a long nap, but got just a little sleep on the short ride back into downtown Dublin.

Back in Dublin, I woke myself up as best possible, and headed back to the hostel just to use the restroom and wash up. Back out on the streets, I stopped the same food court I had been at last night, only this time I was there to try the fish and chips. Yummy. Greasy. So greasy, in fact, that I had to stop before they were gone. But still, yummy.

From there I walked toward the area of the city where the two folks I saw at the airport yesterday were staying. I had mercifully learned the name of the one I couldn't remember, since another person from our mutual class had emailed the small group we're working in to present some material at next week's class meeting. By process of elimination, I managed to figure out her name. Whew! I swung by quickly, and a little bit early to catch them according to the time we had said we might meet if we all happened to be around, but there were no messages. I hoped they weren't waiting for me later, but left anyway. They're very nice people, but I'm never sure about traveling around with people I don't know - I hate to drag others into the forced-march version of travel that I tend toward. Most people agree that they like walking; most don't think that means upwards of seven to ten miles a day, with breaks only for eating if that.

I killed a little bit of time in a bookstore around the block from their hostel, where I found a section of Irish literature. I always try to read something somewhat local when I travel (even at work - though if you've ever tried to find something to read that is local to east Texas and is not a manual on refinery management, you know that's sometimes more idealistic than realistic), so I picked up a book by Roddy Doyle (the same guy who wrote The Commitments) named A Star Called Henry. Too worn out to do much more walking, I took the book and myself and found (after a fair search) a coffee shop where I could sit and read. Good book, by the way - if you're looking for something to read, it's a good one to look up. From there I went back to the hostel, read for a few more minutes downstairs, then crashed in my shared room by 10 pm and didn't stir at all til morning.