IRISH ECSTASY

Buzzing crowds and a VIBRANT ambience, doused with a healthy dose of Guinness and that heartwarming Irish spirit—dublin is bound to envelop you in a bear hug, finds Aditi Sengupta

It’s not unusual for anyone, especially for me, to stumble upon things. Now, don’t take that too literally, not in this case at least. It’s true that I was not headed for Hodges Figgis, arguably Dublin’s largest bookstore. Standing a few blocks away from the lively Temple Bar area, the Irish capital’s famed pub district, Hodges Figgis finds a passing mention in James Joyce’s

Ulysses. I attribute my love for the Irish—be it beer, music, literature, and of course, men (please note the order)—to Joyce, GB Shaw, WB Yeats, and P.S. I Love You (the Gerard Butler-hilary Swank starrer). So it was the Joycean leaning that alerted my mind to the bookstore I was about to miss. I read the name aloud, half expecting it to ring a bell in the recesses of my Guinnesssoaked mind. It did, but only after I had stepped into the huge three-storey treasure trove for the bibliophile. All the windows screamed ‘SALE’, and going by the number of buyers at the cash counter, it wasn’t difficult to fathom how deeply Dubliners love books—that too, books at discounted prices.

I spent a good half-an-hour and more Euros than I should have at Hodges Figgis. With two paper bags full of books, I quickly drew a mental picture of my suitcase in the hotel room. It looked like a smörgåsbord gone amok, thanks to the Irish window-shopping fever. Viking caps, beer fudges, whiskey marmalade, oatcakes, mittens and berets, fridge magnets…the suitcase was already groaning under its weight, but there were more things to be accommodated: Cork dry gin, for example. A bottle of the smoothas-silk Bushmills whiskey. Another bottle of Saint Brendan’s Irish cream liqueur. Posters and postcards from the National Gallery of Ireland. And loads of creamy Wicklow Blue and Baun cheeses, other Irish favourites.

Out on the road, I quickly marched towards Grafton Street. In the Dublin lexicon, this stands for ‘retail therapy’. A strong

breeze accompanied by a persevering drizzle clearly hadn’t managed to dampen the spirit of weekend shoppers. I plowed through the busy street lined with showrooms of more brands than I can remember. A few yards down the road was the posh The Westbury Hotel, one of the city’s most luxurious hotels. That’s where, I was told, Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif, in Dublin for a shoot at the time, were staying. Had I not entered Hodges Figgis, I would probably have returned home with a first-hand Bollywood encounter.

What I found instead was a trio of female Irish gypsy fiddlers. All three of them played with such confidence that I felt compelled to stop and listen. Next in order was a hot cuppa and sandwich at Bewley’s, one of the oldest cafés not just in Dublin but the whole of Ireland. Its laid-back ambience was totally out of sync with the frenzied weekend shopping outside. Finding a table right next to the window would have been asking for a bit too much, so I settled down happily for the centre-of-theroom position, exchanging a few words with the elderly Irish couple across the table. The café’s beautiful stained-glass windows, created by noted Irish artist Harry Clarke, did their bit in my preparation for the arty affair that I was heading to next—one of the largest exhibitions of contemporary art in Dublin.

Dublin Contemporary Art, a one-of-its-kind venture that ran close to two months last year, had turned the already colourful and vibrant city into an open-air gallery. I chose to visit the Earlsfort Terrace, where, over a guided walk that lasted two hours, I redefined what I understood by art. A giant leaking squid made of porcelain, an installation made of women’s undergarments and vanity bags, a studio decorated with wires and silver foil, a stark white wall with ‘Love’ written across it in wrought iron… I left the venue a happy soul for having viewed some offbeat art. Some more refinement was lined up with an exhibition of Jack Butler Yeats, brother of the Nobel Laureate, at the National Gallery.

Before the pub crawl, scheduled to begin late that night (post 11P. M.), it was time to pay tribute to the iconic Guinness, ‘black gold’ in local parlance, with a pint (or two) straight from the tap at Gravity Bar. Guinness is something that you will find everywhere in Ireland, but when you have it at the rooftop bar on the seventh floor of the Guinness storehouse, it has the added bonus of panoramic views. That again is a matter of pure luck. On a clear day you can see Dublin as perfectly as you would see your little finger. If it’s cloudy, you wait for the skies to clear up as you down one pint after another. And if you’re up to it, bartenders at Gravity even let you pour the perfect pint, complete with a frothy top, for the thousands who come to this ‘beer Mecca’ every day.