CHATEAU EXCURSIONS Episode No. 7: Dublin with Seán Hewitt, Author and Poet
I moved to Dublin at the end of 2017, and fell in love with its old Georgian Streets, the tiny cottages, the dimly-lit and bustling pubs, its aspect between the rising blue hills of Wicklow and the sea-swept villages of Ireland’s east coast. Beautiful on a rare sunny day, and atmospheric and cosy in the mists of winter, it’s a city for all seasons.
Where to have breakfast:
Start the day at Bread 41, which is tucked under the railway bridge on Pearse Street. Get there early to snatch a table before the pastries run out. The cruffins are (forgive me) mandatory.
What to see:
When I have visitors, I always make it my mission to get them to the National Museum of Archaeology. Make a beeline for the Celtic gold, particularly the Broighter Boat, which looks impossibly delicate, and my personal favourite object, the Corleck Head, which has three faces, and probably represents a Celtic god associated with the harvest. And you can’t leave without going into the ‘Kingship and Sacrifice’ exhibition, in which exhumed bog bodies are laid out in circular viewing rooms, many of them so well-preserved as to collapse the sense of time altogether.
Where to have lunch:
The Pepper Pot, a Dublin institution, is upstairs in the Powerscourt Centre, a magnificent 18th century building which was once the Dublin home of the Viscount Powerscourt. Get a bacon and pear sandwich, and leave room for the Victoria sponge.
Where to shop:
While you’re in the Powerscourt, go to Cloon Keen, the Irish perfumer, and pick up a candle or a new scent. My favourite is Castaña. Or wander down to Drury Street, where the design and interiors shops are, or cross the road into George’s St. Arcade and look for books in the beautifully-musty antiquarian and collectable bookshop, Stokes’s.
A favourite lesser-known spot:
Though of course I’m reluctant to publicise it, my local pub, The Villager in Chapelizod, is a second home. There’s great trad sessions, a cocktail bar upstairs, a gorgeous 1970s atmosphere, and big booths, perfect for reading a book with a pint of Guinness.
A favourite walk:
In the city centre, you might be forgiven, on a grey day, for seeing the Liffey as a silty, thick river lurking with shopping trolleys and old bikes. But, just 10 minutes from Heuston Station, Dublin’s waterway is still a beautiful pastoral. Head into the War Memorial Gardens at Kilmainham, stop for a browse at Mac’s Salvage Yard on the way, and then join the river at the Salmon Pool, before walking along its banks – full of overhanging willows, herons, and marsh marigold – up to the medieval village of Chapelizod, where you’ll be met by one of Dublin’s timeless vistas, the church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin rising out of the trees ahead. Then, when you reach Chapelizod, you can stop for lunch in one of the cafes (Baa Baa and the Twirly Gate both do brilliant food) – and then nip through the turnstile gate into the Phoenix Park, where you can walk for hours through the woods, seeing the deer, and come out on the north side for a pint in ‘The Hole in the Wall’, which has Dublin’s longest bar, peat fires, and some of the most zany Christmas decorations you’re likely to find on the island.
Where to have drinks:
Dublin is all about the pints. My favourite spots in the city centre are Bowes Bar, a beautiful Victorian pub just off D’Olier Street, and the Lord Edward, particularly the upstairs, which has big bay windows overlooking Christchurch Cathedral, and which has resisted all modernisation, as every good pub should. Or, if you’re feeling fancy, nip into the Horseshoe Bar at the Shelbourne hotel (stopping to look at the art collection in the lobby). They do gorgeous cocktails – a boulevardier for me - and the bar is dimly-lit, and sometimes, if you’re lucky, has a fiddler or two playing in a lamplit corner.
Where to have dinner:
The best food I’ve had in Dublin is at Variety Jones, a tiny (now Michelin-starred) restaurant in the Liberties district. You’d hardly notice it if you walked past. There’s no name on the sign, just a sketch of a face. The food is locally-sourced and season, and meant for sharing, and the portions are unexpectedly generous. The best thing is that it feels friendly, local, and there are only two sittings per night, so you won’t be turfed out or feel rushed. And if you’re feeling like carrying the night on, head over the road to Love Tempo, a bar with good music and very good drinks.
An excursion out of the city:
Get the Dart out of the city and along the southern coast, and after only twenty minutes you’ll start to pass through a series of beautiful seaside villages. Here, the city gives way to blue waters, steep cliffs, and grand old houses with gardens full of the Mediterranean and tropical plants that can thrive in Dublin’s temperate and wet climate. On a good summer’s day, you’ll feel like you’re in Greece, not Ireland. I’d get off in Dalkey, nip into Gutter Bookshop for a browse, get some provisions from The Country Bake, and then go down to Vico Road (passing Enya’s castle, Manderley, hidden amongst high walls), and you’ll find a set of steep steps leading down to a sheltered bathing area. It’s always cold, even in summer, but very much worth a dip.
Listen to:
For the sound of Dublin, I’d recommend John Francis Flynn’s album Look Over the Wall, See the Sky. The opening track reinvents an old folk song into something incredibly eerie, and ‘A Mile from Dublin’ makes me feel like starting a revolution. And then Sinéad O’Connor’s Gospel Oak EP, which is probably my favourite of all her records, though Universal Mother comes a close second.
Good Dublin reading:
Not for the lovely echoes of the titles alone, I’d suggest Flann O’Brien’s comic masterpiece, At Swim-Two Birds; and then Jamie O’Neill’s epic historical novel, At Swim, Two Boys, which follows the love story of two boys in the lead-up to the 1916 Easter Rising.