In Ireland or, “the Emerald Isle” as it’s called, you’ll find a culture steeped in the art of storytelling. Ever since I first read James Joyce’s The Portrait of An Artist as a Young Man in high school I knew I wanted to visit Ireland. I remember reading the novel in the living room of our family’s small apartment in Salinas and imagining what that streets of Dublin and Ireland looked like. In reading this work I also came across a language that was critical of power structures and empire (not to mention catholicism). Later I would discover Mexican American and African American literature, but since my high school English class curriculum did not include a diverse selection of authors, Irish literature was a starting point for exploring these themes.
What I found most fascinating about Joyce was his obsession with creating something new and beautiful from the weight of history and the past. Thus: modernism and the possibility of transcendence! Now, years later after reading Joyce, I recognize that transcendence is the stuff of the imaginary and not exactly of our socio-political realities. It would be incredibly naive to say we can transcend racial profiling, unequal pay, and many other socio-historical problems that need to be fully understood in order to be addressed and changed. However, while the tenets of modernism may not speak to the tumultuous times of today, I do love the idea that the ordinary can become the extraordinary, and that our everyday life, with its prosaic moments of little tragedies and victories, are plot points of an epic life unfolding. That is what Joyce’s literature teaches us.
So, it was a dream come true when my friend “Busy P.” (let’s call her that since she loves the actress, writer, comedian Busy Phillips), also a fellow Joyce enthusiast, asked me one day if I wanted to attend the Bloomsday festival that year. Is this a garden or flower festival, you ask? Nope. The Bloomsday festival is a literary social event celebrating Joyce’s masterpiece Ulysses (1922), a modernist novel that retells Homer’s The Odyssey by portraying the day-in-the-life of an ordinary man named Leopold Bloom on June 16th, 1904. Dubliners and Joyce enthusiasts have been geeking over this 700 + page novel and Bloom every year since the 1950s.
What follows is an itinerary filled with catching-up with friends, walking the streets of Dublin for literary references, and signing-up for a Game of Thrones tour in Northern Ireland—thus our journey from what started as normal-level literary enthusiasm into “cosplay” or costume play, which is the act of dressing up as a favorite character from a work of fiction. It was the nerdiest of vacations.
Getting There
June came around and Busy P. and I flew out from the Bay Area to London Heathrow. Our first stop in a very long journey. When the customs officer at Heathrow greeted us with that driest of British tone, asking us for the purpose of our travel, I earnestly answered: “We’re here for a literature festival!” My friend looked at me with a silent message coming through her eyes of, “wait, why are you sharing that?!” The customs officer responded by turning up his dry tone to a degree that surpassed the recognizable boundaries of irony, where I couldn’t tell what was real and what was sarcasm, and said in his British accent: “A literature festival…Sounds interrressssting.” Was he messing with us? Probably.
I didn’t mind. I was on my way to the Emerald Island and as we flew into Dublin and approached the large expanses of green and misty atmosphere that Ireland is known for, my own earnestness and excitement reached a new level. We landed and, because we were tired from our long flight, we went straight to our rented VRBO place, which was a high-rise apartment in the Grand Canal Square area of Dublin part of the Dublin City Apartments company. Our location was close to Google and other tech companies headquartered in Ireland. Given that we were there during tourist season and there are very few big hotel chains in Dublin, this three bedroom apartment rental was quite a deal at $188 per night (imagine you split cost with people). After dropping off our luggage, we headed over to The Marker Hotel for a delicious burger at the bar and then stopped by for some groceries at the Fresh Grand Canal supermarket to stock up on breakfast foods and snacks.
Day One
The first stop on our itinerary was Trinity College to meet up with friends we knew from graduate school and to visit the library and the Book of Kells, which is one of the world’s most famous illustrated medieval manuscripts. I recommend making a stop at Trinity since it’s not only one of the oldest universities in Europe and the UK, but some of the greatest writers like Oscar Wilde, Jonathan Swift, and Bram Stoker studied there. The Trinity library is beautiful and reminiscent of the one you see in a Harry Potter film.
After visiting Trinity College, we had a bite to eat at Dunne and Crescenzi for Italian food before taking Dublin’s local train (DART) to the seaside town of Sandycove. Not only is Sandycove a cute suburb of Dublin, you will also find Martello Tower, which was built in the early 19th century by the British when they thought Napoleon was going to invade Ireland. Standing as a symbolic fortress of the country’s many negotiations with colonial powers, Martello tower was also featured in the opening scene of Ulysses and it has now been repurposed as a James Joyce museum since the author at one point lived there with a roommate. Admission to the museum is free and you can walk right up to the roof of the tower. Busy P. and I walked up the staircase to the roof where you’ll find a stone wall overlooking the Irish sea and the neighboring village. You’ll also see the Forty Foot in the distance—a swimming area where locals take a dip in the chilly waters throughout the year.
Day 2
I always dedicate at least one day to the well-known tourist spots. In Dublin, those spots include the city’s largest park St Stephen’s Green, which is located near Merrion Square, a neighborhood known for its Mary Poppins-style-homes that is typical of Georgian architecture. Nearby you’ll also find the St Stephen’s Street Shopping Center on Grafton Street and if you walk a bit more toward the Liffey river you will find the Dublin Castle. To see more of the city, I recommend taking a ride on the Hop-on and Hop-off double decker bus. It takes you to other tourist spots in the city as you learn about Ireland’s long-fought struggle for independence from British imperialism. You also learn about Dublin’s famous residents including the author and satirist Jonathan Swift whose estate founded St. Patrick’s Hospital, one of the first psychiatric hospitals in the world. After learning a little bit of history, we got off the bus at the Guinness Factory stop. Though I’m not a huge fan of Guinness beer—the “black stuff” as they like to call it—I did appreciate learning about the history of this spirit and you’ll be pleased by the beautiful rooftop view of the city at the end of the tour. The Jameson Distillery was nearby so if you’re more of a whiskey fan you might opt for that tour.
If you do happen to love beer, you’ll be in heaven since the pubs in Dublin are impressive. Per a friend’s recommendation, we visited O’Neill’s Pub, a warm and inviting atmosphere of European football league enthusiasts and traditional Irish food. Busy P. opted for the traditional with Shepherd’s Pie and Corned Beef offered at the “Carvery station.” I was struck by the nachos on the menu and have a long-standing curiosity for how Mexican cuisine is prepared around the word. Wherever I am in the world, I am bound to try Mexican food at some point just to see what it tastes like. Word to wise: just stick with the food offered at the Carvery station. Peas in nachos don’t really go together.
The day would not be complete without visiting the Temple Bar area for nightlife activities. There are plenty of bars and pubs in this district but my heart was set on finding a place with live music and singing. We went to the Stag’s Head bar on Dame Lane— you’ll find a classic Victorian pub on the ground floor and performance space in the basement. We had a great night listening to music played by a charming acoustic guitar player who took requests from the raucous international crowd.
Day 3
While searching for tours online we came across The Game of Thrones tour on TripAdvisor. I was definitely a fan of the show and knew that they shot scenes in Northern Ireland but it had never occurred to me that we could go on a day-long tour of Winterfell Castle and other locations in the fictional North of the House of Stark family. The concept of dressing up to momentarily live in and enjoy a fictional world was so foreign to me that I appreciated the challenge of doing something so out of character. Hey, I was already going to Bloomsday, so engaging with another literary world wasn’t too off course!
The bus tour started first thing in the morning at 7 am at a hotel near the Liffey river. We met our tour guide, who also happened to work as an extra for the show. As we left Dublin for Belfast, she prepped us with Game of Thrones insider information and trivia; if that wasn’t enough, episodes of the show were playing during our bus ride, and when we took a break from the video, the theme song “A song of Ice and Fire” transmitted from the speakers on loop. It was GOT 24/7. You’d think this would be annoying but it actually builds the suspense of traveling to Northern Ireland and arriving at Winterfell. After meeting the Stark dire wolves along the way and also taking a GOT trivia quiz to determine who deserved to carry the Valyrian sword for the day, we landed in Winterfell and were outfitted with faux fur-lined cloaks and wooden walking sticks. We learned that the property is the farmyard from Castle Ward, and while they did shoot the first episodes there, a lot of the Winterfell we saw on the small screen was brought to life through CGI.
The next stops were my favorite: the forest in Northern Ireland. This beautiful landscape served as a point of inspiration for C.S. Lewis’ forest in The Chronicles of Narnia. Misty and magical, the forest was the perfect place to go on a small hike with our walking sticks toward a large lake. Only miles away, across the sea, we could see Scottish land. The GOT tour concluded at an old abbey where we all received swords and participated in the knighting of the King of the North. The King for the day was a lucky young 20-something-year-old from Alabama who was given the Valyrian sword for his extensive knowledge of the show. Busy P. and I attempted to maintain an ironic distance from the entire ritual until we joined our fellow tour in shouting, “To The King of the North!,” as we knighted the young millennial.
Day 4
Another day of touring the country. This time our bus departed west to the Cliffs of Moher and Galway. While there is something otherworldly and magical about Northern Ireland, western Ireland offers you green pastures and idyllic flocks of sheep. Also, you’ll make a stop at the Barack Obama plaza station in Moneygall that is named after our 44th president to honor his Irish side of the family who hails from that region. While the bus ride takes many hours, the trip is worth it since the view of the Cliffs of Moher has one of the most dramatic coast lines. Once we soaked in the scenery and felt the strong winds of the Atlantic on our faces as we tried to take decent photos, we departed for the next stop, which was the city of Galway. Described as the “world’s friendliest city,” Galway was once invaded by the Anglo Normans and now standing as one of the most charming fishing village towns with a reputation for its art scene and great food. I recommend the clam chowder and other seafood delights. While I’m glad we took this day tour, we didn’t have enough time to get to know the city. One of the drawbacks of what I call “tourism-on-the-go” services.
Day 5
The last day in Dublin was reserved for the actual point of the trip: the Bloomsday festival. In preparation for this literary event, we made sure to visit the literature museum days before where you will find early editions of Swift, Shaw, Yeats and Wilde. We also stopped by the James Joyce Center museum. Because of these world-famous writers, UNESCO has dubbed Dublin as a city of literature. Fun fact: Iowa City and Seattle are the only two UNESCO city of literature locations in the US.
When we woke up that morning we made arrangements to meet with our friends from Trinity College that night for an one-hour play of Ulysses at the Stag’s Head in the Temple Bar area. That morning, however, we also had discovered that our fandom for Joyce had tempered a bit. What happened? Could it have been all the GOT costume-wearing or the visits to literary references that may have pushed us to the edge of geekdom? Had we overdone it? As we walked over to a public square for a reading of Ulysses, and saw people dressed in Edwardian costume, including men with Bloom’s Bowler hat, it occurred to us that we had reached the conclusion of our fandom. We had learned all that we needed to learn about Joyce, walked down the streets of Dublin as he once did, and saw the beauty of the Irish countryside and coast for ourselves that we had only read about. In other words, we had lived out our fandom. But the ultimate purpose of fandom one would argue is to not only collect all these experiences and nuggets of insider information but to find a community that is like-minded and that can share your passions. The experience of knowing the literature and having friends like Busy P. and our Trinity friends was enough. It was the end of a long journey that had started years ago when reading on my family’s green 70s-inspired couch. After the one-hour play finished with Molly Bloom’s iconic life-affirming lines of “yes I said yes I will Yes,” we all walked to the nearby Murphys Ice Cream for dessert.
The Critical takeaway: The tour-bus is great for seeing the Irish countryside and learning more about the history, but the visit to Galway was a bit short. The Chic takeaway: The Sansa-inspired cloak in The Game of Thrones tour of course!
Critical Chica 