At the top of Swift’s Alley, near Dublin Castle, the other day, I heard one of the many tour guides who stop there telling his audience that these were the famous “forty steps”. And as often happens when I overhear Dublin tour guides, I was tempted to interrupt with a clarification.
Surely the forty steps were the ones that wound around St Audoen’s church, between the old city wall and High Street, a few hundred metres west of here, I thought?
Besides which, I wasn’t sure that Swift’s Alley, named for the literary Dean who lived at the bottom of it, even had 40 steps. Luckily, I bit my lip. Because a short fact-finding detour established that it did indeed have forty, in five flights of eight. I still believe that the forty steps are the other ones. But then, even if we allow both joint rights to the title, Dublin has at least one other claimant too.
At the western of the Liberties, the ominously named Cromwell’s Quarters in Kilmainham – once named even more ominously “Murdering Lane” until the city council somewhat yuppified it the 1890s – is also known locally as the “Forty Steps”.
Forty Step Programme – Frank McNally on how to cross Dublin without passing a pub
A History of Ireland in 100 Journeys – Frank McNally
Rise of the seaside sauna: ‘Sitting semi-naked with people I didn’t know was out of my comfort zone’
Altius, Citius, Hibernicus – Frank McNally on an ambitious Irish sequel to the 1924 Paris Olympics
There appears to be some disagreement among locals and tour guides alike about those ones, though, with a strong oral tradition (and some Wikipedia pages) insisting they number only 39. But I double-checked that this week too, up and down, and can confirm there are a full 40, in both directions.
What is it about this forty-fication of steps in Dublin? Perhaps the number has mystic powers for stonemasons or city planners. And why not? After all, forty is traditionally the number of days saints fast for; the duration of Lent; the prescribed quantity of winks for a decent sleep; the number of Ireland’s shades of green, etc.
It was also the number of layers, supposedly, worn by a well-known Liberties street character, Forty Coats. I even read somewhere that he used to hang around “on the Forty Steps”. It didn’t say which one, unfortunately, or it might have resolved a dispute.
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The most fashionable steps in Dublin these days, arguably, are the semi-circular set of seven at the Powerscourt Townhouse on South William Street.
A natural amphitheatre, they were the scene (and part of the cause) of some of those mass outdoor gatherings that scandalised the country during the pandemic. As a result, they were constantly being washed down then, to stop drinkers sitting on them.
Recently, they’ve provided a stage for those pop-up Summer-in-Dublin music performances organised by the city council, the effect marred only by the fact that cars still drive between stage and audience.
But at least the regular washing has stopped. The amphitheatre seems to have joined a seven-step programme of late. The steps are usually dry now, anyway, whatever about the people sitting on them.
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I don’t know how many steps Andrew Basquille and his fellow walkers covered on their Thursday afternoon tour of the city, but it was a lot. They were following a route first suggested by James Joyce, via Leopold Bloom, ie: “A good puzzle would be [to] cross Dublin without passing a pub.”
That puzzle was finally solved some years ago by a computer programmer named Rory McCann who devised an algorithm that worked out a pub-less path across the city: the verb to “cross” being defined as moving from north to south (or vice versa), and easy to west (or ditto), between the canals.
Other qualifications included ignoring hotels (and the bar in the basement of the Connradh na Gaeilge HQ on Harcourt Street), but otherwise staying a minimum of 35 metres from anything that looked like a pub.
The result has since been assimilated into certain Dublin tour maps, or at least one (yourdublinguide.ie), which made Basquille’s task of leading a group walk along the dotted line easier.
They started at Leeson Street Bridge and, avoiding the fleshpots on the street of the same name, headed via the totally abstinent Adelaide Road and Iveagh Gardens into medieval Dublin, then across the river into the stone-cold-sober parts of Stoneybatter, and finally up Aughrim Street to North Circular Road.
The most alcoholically dangerous section was just east of Stephen’s Green, where the walkers had to cut through a block of flats to avoid contamination from The Swan or The Lucky Duck, commanding the corners of York Street and Digges Street, respectively, like sentries against sobriety.
Emerging onto the busy Aungier Street, however, Andrew had a health-and-safety dilemma. He could risk his charges in the Dublin traffic, or cheat by walking to one of the aforementioned corners for a pedestrian light.
But perhaps the ghost of Father Mathew had joined the walk by then. Because – lo! – the traffic suddenly opened “like the Red Sea” to let them cross where they were, uncontaminated.
I was supposed to join the tour at some point and, alas, couldn’t make it in time. Instead, I rendezvoused with the group at their destination point, Hanlon’s Corner. Yes, that’s named for the pub located there. But it didn’t break Bloom’s rule because Andrew didn’t pass it, stopping in for a well-earned pint.