Sir, - A recent journey to Temple Bar, supposedly a cultural oasis in a city of increasing commercialism, has left me wondering if this area is losing its battle for art-chic status, or if it ever had it at all. There was a time when I thought that indeed it had something special to offer those in search of "left-bank" culture. The way things are turning out, however, the area is quickly becoming Dublin's equivalent of New Orleans' Bourbon Street, only without, as yet, 24-hour pub opening.
I much preferred Temple Bar during that brief interlude when it had a gritty Bohemian edge that, if nothing else, was authentic. Providing this edge, of course, were the artists and writers who flocked to the area attracted by cheap rents. They have long since been displaced, their purpose served. But their memory lives on from an era when walking through Temple Bar one did not feel an affinity with the inhabitants of a far-flung seedy city when the Sixth Fleet came calling. (Except that in Dublin's case, the sailors and marines are replaced by marauding gangs of drunken visitors on weekend R & R.)
In the days when cobblestones were more a nuisance than a fashion, it was possible to get into a pub without feeling like a Tokyo rail commuter at rush hour. Designer-clad doormen sporting secret-service earpieces were then unheard of. Back then, we looked to the barman for our common welfare, and he was oblivious to behaviour that today would instantly prompt a red card.
Temple Bar today wears its Bohemian garb to disguise the mechanics of mainstream consumerism, mainly the peddling of alcohol. Not that there is anything wrong with making money - but Temple Bar is about the culture of consumption, rather than the consumption of culture.
Apart from a couple of art galleries, a theatre, some good restaurants and a specialist shop or two, Temple Bar is nothing more than a drinking den. - Yours, etc.,
Michael Scanlon, Maynooth, Co Kildare.