A silent movie, with its cast of mavericks – this is Dublin by night in the new old times

THE only ones out on the night street were two policewomen riding giant horses, cavalries of mounted takeaway porters, the homeless three and a quare hawk. It was Dublin in the new old times. This is a silent movie. There is no casual talking to anyone on hot Covid nights. No city bustle soundtrack either.

It’s like being in a foreign city. No one makes eye contact. People always look up around this part of Dublin because it’s the sort of place you could run into someone you know. The fear of mixing with the unclean could be seen in the eyes of the masked and scarfed passers-by.

The city near St Stephen’s Green was on dims. The lights were turned down to spare on the electricity.

Some people might call him a quare hawk. To me he was a man coming into his own and having the time of his life. There are many more like him who found the world too busy and too much.

He walked slowly past the Mansion House, taking it all in, like a tourist. He is the Lord Mayor of Dystopia.

The man who came into his own considered the stock in the clothes shop window. Took his time. The main offerings were jumpers and shirts with a polo player on the front. We knew for sure he would never sit on a polo horse or belt a polo ball. But I’d say he was happy just to be there, in this time of quiet chaos.

The three persons opposite the Stephen’s Green Shopping Centre tucked their homes under their arms. I don’t know where they got the cardboard boxes, what with all the shops being closed.

The street light yellowed the moraines on her face. She wasn’t old and she wasn’t young. It was hard to tell what age she was. Her cheeks were sucked in even when the homeless one wasn’t dragging the last hit out of a cigarette. Her hands had cuts on the knuckles.

But she was supple enough. Light on her feet. The men were in their mid-thirties. Skinny they were, with stick legs and baggy pants. They were speaking quietly and planning.

I fumbled for change, a safe pass to Grafton Street, but there was none in my pockets. No one carries any germy money any more. The three didn’t even see me. But I saw them and what I saw was not the destroyed, but the small boy and the small girl at the beginning. If the bookies were asked to give the odds when these kids were born, they would quote 100 to one to live a normal life, and 50 to one to get to 50.

But now, here alone in the richest street in the capital they had free digs where rents always go up, and the doped-up play dead when the shops open up in the morning. But tomorrow and every day for the last two months they had a lie-in.

I took a walk back to see the Gaiety. The old lady of Dame Street was dark; ‘Waiting for Godot’. The Gaiety is loved and the people will back the old mother when she reopens. Grafton Street was empty at first, but then the helpers came. They were setting up a mobile food stall. It’s more than the food. The broken ones get a little piece of humanity and the knowing that someone cares.

Suddenly I felt afraid. The drug dealer showed himself for a subliminal second from behind a street corner.

He is big and young. Looks like he can run. There were no taxis. No shops to escape in to. And no passersby to dial 999, or even intervene, if they came out in their capes.

Two huge horses stood sentinel at the entrance to one of the side streets. The one where the stall sellers keep the flowers of the May, on ordinary days.

I was wondering what were two horses doing here on a street with no more passing trade than on death row. The garda riders were chatting with a half-cut man who was trying vainly to pat the horses on the nose. The two lady riders were laughing and joking. It was the first sign of fun all night.

They were nice to the homeless. And it was then it dawned on me why the horses were deployed. It was because the gardaí sitting on their backs were well above the people they had to talk to.

“Well done,” I shouted over. “Thanks,” said one, and the other tipped the top of her safety helmet.

The homeless three checked in, and were drinking tea in the door of a shop. The girl wrapped both hands around her cup for heat and comfort. The night was warm for midMay, but she was shivering. I would say there was a bed for them but for some reason they chose to stay out. I didn’t ask why. The two metres was not the reason. They had no spatial awareness.

The young food delivery porters cycled past, pumping their legs fast, like as if the heat generated would keep the dishes inside their satchels hot.

None of the bike riders seemed to me to come from Ireland. There was no social distancing when they waited for the food from the restaurants. Is there anyone minding them? The empty, lit-up buses passed by College Green at the far end of Grafton Street. Not one passenger did I see inside any of them. The bus drivers looked nervous but they were making sure the workers who keep Ireland going were able to get home.

I made my way back to the hotel via Kildare Street. Trinity looked old, noble and of its time. The quiet and the dark must have been how it used to be.

Leinster House was shut down. Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.

The clean air was easy to breathe, and the birds were still singing in the canopies of the tall trees over the railings in St Stephen’s Green, opposite the temporarily closed Shelbourne Hotel.

I thought I heard a cuckoo but I was told after by a man who knows that it was a ring-tailed dove. Did I get the faintest scent of honeysuckle from the old Huguenot Cemetery next door to the hotel? There was no sign of Bram Stoker but Baggot Street was Gothic. All that was needed was a gargled gargoyle to stick his tongue out from up over a closed-up Toners, the best of pubs. And I got fierce mind for a pint and talk.

I headed off then for the huge hotel, where I was one-thirteenth of the guests.

The clean air was easy to breathe, and birds were singing in the canopies of the trees over the railings in St Stephen’s Green