Be My Guest: Róisín Ingle leads her shipmates in a vocal attack on the capital's Celts, in the latest of our series in which Irish Times writers take on a tourism job for a day
First, a disclaimer. I have history with the Viking Splash. It used to be my tourist attraction of choice when any children came to visit. The last time I went it was lashing rain, the tarpaulin roof leaked and as we splashed into the Grand Canal Basin on our amphibious second World War vehicle, the Viking guide told jokes like this: "See that derelict warehouse over there? An estate agent once tried to sell it to a dyslexic pimp." Yes, there were children on board.
When I dared to complain afterwards, the guide, weary in his sodden wig 'n' horned plastic hat combination told me, "Don't take it so personal, love". He said he "didn't make up the stories" and that he was "only passing them on".
"Don't shoot the messenger," he grumbled. After that experience I wasn't in any rush back to the Viking Splash.
When I was asked to be a Dublin tour guide for this series, though, my first thought was that of all the many tours in the capital, the one where you get to travel on land and water while pretending to be a pillaging Viking would probably be the most fun. There aren't many occupations where roaring at random strangers is part of the job description. I put the past where it belongs and decided that the Viking Splash was the only tour for me.
Presenting myself for duty at St Stephen's Green on an overcast Tuesday morning, I crossed my fingers and hoped the guide I planned to shadow for the day wasn't the "dyslexic pimp" man. She wasn't. She was Lynn Walsh, a cheerful 26-year-old with flowing red locks who, when the bright-green vehicle we would be working on all day parked up beside us, exclaimed, "Oh great, I love that one, all my props are on there". "Props?" I asked hopefully. "You know, water pistols, a paddle, my axe," she explained. At that moment I knew I'd made the right choice. The axe swung it.
The adults and children who queue up for the Viking Splash - four vehicles take up to 450 people on tours of the city each day - range from the over-excited to the downright sceptical. "This thing is going to float?" you can almost hear them thinking as they climb the steps up into the vintage DUKW, known as the Duck, a six-wheeled, boat-shaped truck with an exhaust pipe sticking up from the roof. This is before Lynn tells them that the amphibious vehicle, one of 22,000 made by General Motors in the United States to help with the war effort, weighs almost 7 tonnes.
The children are more forthright. "Mom, you sure it isn't going to sink when we go in the water?" asks one little boy. Versions of this refrain will be uttered on all the tours we take today. His mother tries her best to convince him but doesn't look sure herself.
When all 28 passengers are settled on the bus-style seats Lynn, dressed now in ragged Viking robes that have seen a few battles, steps up to start the tour. This is her third season as a Viking - and it shows. In just a few minutes she has the audience in the palm of her hand, telling us that over the next hour and 15 minutes we will be on a Viking raid of the city - our aim to scare the Celts who are the people on the streets below us. She introduces herself by her Viking name, "Lynn the Red". TheViking name of the man sitting beside her on our "Viking warship" is "Jimmy the Driver". Jimmy gives the crowd a wave.
"We used to be able to kill Celts," explains Lynn, in full Viking mode. "But now it's illegal so we only roar at them. We especially like roaring at Celts in open-top buses who we call the 'competition Celts'. We try not to roar at cop Celts because they don't like it and we don't roar when we are at a red traffic light because then we are stuck there and that's just embarrassing."
After a few safety instructions we get a lesson in how to roar. "Now the Viking roar looks like this," says Lynn making a vicious face and putting her fists in the air, "and sounds like this" she says issuing an ear-splitting roar. We Vikings get the message and our debut roar at a group of tourists clutching maps - Lynn calls them "Lost Celts" - is gratifyingly loud. The "Lost Celts" look even more disoriented than before. Lynn tells us that in Boston - where the "Duck tours", as they are known, first began - you have to quack at passers-by rather than roar. The adults look relieved that they are not on holiday in Boston.
Before we began Lynn told me her aim. "I want to get people laughing and having a good time," she said. "Of course there is an educational part but there is no reason why history can't be funny." She infuses the tour with fun, whether it's talking about the Bank of Ireland on College Green, which has no windows because of a "glass tax" introduced in the 18th century - "daylight robbery," she mutters to the delight of the crowd who are mainly Italians and Greeks - or discussing the merits of our cultural quarter.
"Temple Bar's got the highest concentration of pubs in the city, it seems the drunker you get the more cultural you become," she says. Pointing out An Crann Orr, the sculpture at the base of the Central Bank, she quips "they say money doesn't grow on trees, it does in Dublin". Her patter is fast-paced and loud and I'm struggling to take note of all the historical facts and dates, conscious that by the end of the day the microphone will be in my hand. Watching Lynn, brimming with confidence and local knowledge, that thought scares me now.
UP DAME STREET and past Christ Church where we give a Viking roar to the staff in Burdock's fish and chip shop. "The finest Irish cuisine from Italy," says Lynn. The staff know the score and roar back through the window. Not everyone is as happy with the tours. "There's a dentist near Christ Church who always complains that the roars come at crucial times during his work, which I suppose is fair enough," Lynn told me earlier. "But there's another one on Dame Street who gives us a wave, so it all depends."
She says she barely has to think about remembering the historical details for the tour of Viking Dublin, she could recite them in her sleep at this stage. She waxes lyrical about the destruction of Wood Quay and scares the children on the tour - in a good way - by telling them that Vikings used to take children as slaves. "Can any of you use a shovel?" she asks the horrified children.
Later when we splash into the water at the Grand Canal Basin it's a magical moment straight out of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. "It floats, Dad, it really floats," says a little girl. This is where Lynn explains that the D in DUKW indicates a vehicle designed in 1942, the U stands for utility (or amphibious) the K signals an all-wheel drive and the W indicates the two powered rear axles. "They were made by women because all the men were at war," says Lynn.
"You'd know they were made by women because there are seven mirrors at the front and while they weren't built to last they just keep going on, and on and on."
After 15 minutes in the water we drive up the ramp again, squirt passengers on another DUKW with water, crawl through the traffic on Pearse Street back through Merrion Square and return to St Stephen's Green where it all begins again. "I wouldn't be able to do the job unless I loved it but some days are better than others," says Lynn as we go back to the Viking Splash office on Patrick Street so she can try on a new Viking Costume and we can have lunch in our half-hour break.
The company was recently taken over by the people who own Dublin Sea Safari, another popular water-based attraction. "When you are a guide you can't have an off-day. No matter what is going on in your personal life you can't let it show. You have to be on form all the time. So that can be hard sometimes," she says. A quick sandwich and it's back to work.
We've done four tours so far and now the last tour of the day is about to begin. It's my turn to wear the ragged robes and wield that axe.
Lynn explains to the crowd that I'm a trainee Viking but I'm aware the people sitting in front of me have all paid good money to go on the tour. Will they be asking for their money back in an hour and 15 minutes? Too late to worry about that now. I'm off down Dawson Street conducting the audience in a roar at some "competition Celts". My tour is mostly full of Irish and Americans but I was hoping for more Italians and Greeks. At least they mightn't have copped my inevitable blunders. I manage to remember about the Thing Mound at St Andrew's Church where the Vikings used to decide who would be king, I do the gag about An Crann Mór and wow them with the snippet that when the Central Bank in Dame Street was built it was higher than it should have been according to planning regulations and a small fortune was spent to make it comply.
I'M JUST GETTING into the swing of things, telling my rapt audience how the Vikings built the first Dublin Castle from oxblood and horse hair, when some interfering Celt on the street shouts up that I've got my dates all wrong.
And maybe I have, but I've also got a microphone. A massive Viking roar and we are off down the street again where I remember that there are the mummified remains of a cat and a rat in the crypt at Christ Church. "The Egyptians have Tutankhamun, we have Tom and Jerry," I say. The audience crack up laughing. This is brilliant! I sneak a look at Lynn. She looks proud.
I'm surprised at how comfortable I am at talking to the tourists but it's difficult remembering interesting things to say. This might be why I sort of lose the run of myself near Bath Avenue, pointing out the place where my father was born and reared. "He's dead now, " I tell the confused punters. "He's not famous or anything".
Then while we are doing the reconditioned DUKW's maximum six miles per hour in the Grand Canal Basin, I embark on an improvised riff about the ESB towers at Poolbeg, how they might not look like anything much but to me they're as wonderful as 10 Eiffel Towers. I get more blank looks, so I point out U2's studio and tell them about how I met Bono once in the snug in The Dockers pub. They cheer up again, thank goodness. I finish the tour at St Stephen's Green with Lynn's line about the statue of Wolfe Tone. "See those standing stones behind him? They are called Tone Henge." I leave them laughing. At me or with me I'm not so sure. But I do get some tips.
"There are people who want to have a good time and will laugh out loud, roar their heads off and hang on every word you say," says Lynn. "There are others who just sit there looking at you. It's a different energy on every tour and you just have to gauge the mood and go with it." After being a guide for only one tour I know what she means.
I now have a new respect for the "dyslexic pimp" guide who was obviously having an off-day and maybe the "energy" in our group didn't help matters. I take off my ragged apron and return the horned hat, reluctant to get back to the day job. I'd definitely be a Viking tour guide again. But I'd probably leave out the part about my Da.
Tickets for the Viking Splash Tours cost €9.50 for children under 13 and €18.50 for adults. A family ticket (two adults and three children) costs €52.50. For more information call 01-7076000
The final part in the series will run on Friday: Rosita Boland becomes a bean an tí at the Bunratty Folk Park
The tour guide: highs and lows
Highs
If you are a "people person" there is no better occupation to have.
You get to interact with tourists from all over the world and impart local history in a fun, entertaining manner.
The tips aren't bad either.
Lows
It can difficult to control those child Vikings, some of whom
are determined to throw themselves overboard.
The show must go on,
even on those days when roaring at strangers is the last thing you feel like doing.
