Godoy in Ireland. Dublin

I´m learning to read and write and I like to do it on my own. All help is very welcome

Dear fran,

My friend Godoy has come back from Ireland and he sent me his impressions:

«Tuesday, 19^th September 

Mary, last year, from my path through the Hadrian´s Wall, you asked me to send you more photos than I attached in my email. This time I will send you two or three picts for day. I hope you enjoy them.

As a year ago I had problems in order to call by phone my family, when I arrived to Dublin the first thing I did was to locate a Tesco for buying a prepay card. I had already read in Internet they are easy for using and you can put up five or ten euros. I check in at the B&B and go out to eat something.

I start to stroll around and Molly Malone is the first personage I run into with. A group of Italian schoolchild strive to polish the chest of the poor fishmonger. When the young leave the sculpture, a grey-haired man put something through her neckline. A coin?

It is cloudy; about 7pm it is getting nightfall and temperature has gone down. My city, 38º C; Dublin, 16º C. The contrast is notable.

When I find the Tesco, at Jervis, it is already closed. I will buy the card tomorrow.

I go for a stroll parallel the river and go up to the Merrion Square and Fitzwilliam Square, where the poet had lived. Was his personality developing here? Does personality ever develop?

I don´t want to upset my Irish new friends whom I have met —Ciarán, Mike, Rena and Ogmore— and future ones, but the first impression arriving to Dublin was I was in an English city —not only for the right-left-right crossing the street— but for its premises, wheather and some habits.

George´s Quay

However, when I entered a church, I looked over a little and went outside, a big picture of Pope Francisco said me goodbye. Then I understood that I was not in England.

Yes, I am in Ireland. The Madigan´s makes me more convinced that this is Dublin. A pint of Murphy. The waiter, an elderly man, is very kind, repeats me several times a pint, a pint, a pint; and he discovers he has not glasses. He washes some ones. There is no hurry. One of the vantages that the stout has is that it comes lukewarm.

There is a background music, soft, no strident and a football match is retransmitted on TV, but anyone is watching it. Three couples are finishing their drinks. They pay and leave. You can see them happy. This pub has a mixing of mature people in an area and young people in another one.

After my fright about the flight cancellations, I am starting to enjoy this isle. And I still have half Murphy!»

River Liffey

«Wednesday, 20^th September 

I bought an Irish mobil card and I have spoken to home. It is work!

I am interested in seeing the paintings of the National Gallery.

A Connemara Village, by Paul Henry. Observing the landscape I can have an idea of how the Connemara land is.

Why the plans of museums are so difficult to understand, Mary?

I am at room number 14 and, surprise, here they are the painting of our man´s brother! Among his paintings one can see The small Weir, Coole —I would go to Coole some days after— and describes a small weir where animals are grazing in.

The Small Weir, Coole

Twenty years after, Jack will paint The Music. Despite the glass, which reduces visibility, it is a painting that I love.

According to the writing … ‘Aston Quay had been a favourite location for street hawkers and stall holders for generation’, and Walter Osborne painted Dublin Street: a Vendor of Books, in 1885. You can see the vendor with the newly rebuilt O´Connell Bridge in the background.

Richard Thomas Moynan painted his Military Manouvres in 1891, ‘as they stroll along the main street in Leixlip, Co. Kildare.’ They are boys marching as a regimental band; they bring their buckets, tins, pots and wooden flutes.

Mass in a Connemara Cabin, by Aloysius O´Kelly, grabbed my attention for minutes. The label explains that ‘the celebration of the sacraments in private homes known as the Stations were conceived as a means of allowing Catholics to practice their religion in the face of religious oppression, the custom was widespread by the eighteenth century…’

Mass in a Connemara Cabin

By the way, Mary, this painting remained missing for 100 years. This ‘mystery’ is entirely in keeping with the life of the painter himself.

Helen Mabel Trevor has an interesting story. She painted The Fisherman´s Mother in 1892. We see ‘the religious devotion among local communities (…) is communicated in this picture by the prominence of the elderly woman´s rosary beads.’

Mary, the next work reflects the difference of classes across the history and the oppression suffered by the poor from the rich and powerful. I am speaking about The Gleaners, (1854), by Jules Breton, where ‘women and children gattering the remmants of the harvest under the supervision of a garde champêtre.’

(But what I'm going to tell you with what you've seen and what you've been going through.)

The Gleaners

In different rooms I could gaze at:

The Girolamo Troppa´s,  Adoration of the Shepherds, 1670s; ‘the Infant appears to radiate light drawing our attention to Him as the Light of the World.’ In 2012, Ireland put a stamp into circulation with this picture and the word NOLLAIG: Christmas.

Another of the paintings that impressed me was The Descent into Limbo, 1550-1570, by H. Bosch. You can see a man, probably Judas, hanging on the gallows. ‘Hanging committed suicide, strongly repudiated by the Church, he presumably cannot share in the redemption of the others.’

The last work I am going to speak you about is The Virgin and Child with Saints and Donors, (c1400), painted by Tommaso del Mazza. The Virgin´s face is the spitting image of Modigliani´s women´s faces.

I leave the NGI and enter in Merrion Square. It is raining and a little wooden house is my refuge. This ‘house’ is near a giant that is at the back of Oscar Wilde´s sculpture. The Selfish Giant? I will wait here.

Fitzwilliam Square is closed. I continue towards Stephen Green. As it is still raining I leap on a railings (about 40 cm) and enter into the First Aid Kiosk which was used to care for the wounded during the Easter Rising 1916. Two young boys were already there before me, they were eating and, suddenly, a ‘garda’ appeared and threw us out. I jumped that fence with due respect and in order to shelter me of the rain.

Flowers. Merrion Square

All people know that with the water noise and humidity one gets the urge to do a pee, so I started to look for an appropriate place and, luck!, I found it in the National Archive building. With the receptionist´s permission I became eased.

This evening I have come to the Murray´s, where I had breakfast —delicious breakfast— in the morning. One could hear live music yesterday; canned today.

The Murray´s is a complex pub. There are many areas and 'ins and outs'. When I am sit and waiting for my order I realize that today there will have a live music show but there is a obstacle: you have to dinner, and I don´t have intention to have dinner, of course.

On the street again, I am surprised because people are very wrapped up.

I enter into the Shakespeare 160 and order a stout; when I get to retire the beer, the waiter shouts me: wait!, wait! He finishes of filling my pint and then I understand the stout is served after two moments. The young boy near me has observed the ‘affair’ and when he is sit at his table, he shares the situation with his friends. I know it because all of them laugh at the same time and the majority of them look at me. The pint here is cheaper than in the Madigan´s.

Tomorrow I will travel to Sligo by train, but I am already thinking to come back to Dublin.»
Y. a.
Mary