Welcome TO our friends from Ulster! And an especially big hello to those Ulstermen who've come, swathed in tricolours, to Dublin to watch their team compete in the Railway Cup - welcome! You're in for a really interesting weekend, and after maybe an hour or two standing in an otherwise deserted Croke Park, you might realise that Ulster football comes in two varieties. This weekend, it's the other crowd who are enjoying themselves at the Edwardian tram-shelter called Lansdowne Road.
For some of that other crowd, it'll be their first-ever trip to Dublin, THE FREE STATE and perhaps a few were pleasantly surprised that they weren't waylaid at Amiens Street station by crowds of burly, brown-cassocked Franciscans armed with lead-ingot rosary beads, their children kidnapped for indoctrination into Roman Catholicism in a special Jesuit-run camp in Maynooth (jointly opened by the Pope and Gerry Adams) even as they themselves were being forcibly mass-baptised into popery in the Liffey. Well, we've a few more surprises in store for you.
The first is that some years ago the Irish Government, in order to discourage ungaelic lethargy, limited taxi licences to the number that existed in 1916, the year when the gallant sons and daughters of Erin gathered at the GPO on O'Connell Street to take arms against the heathen Sassen . . . no, no, on second thoughts, we'll skip that bit. The outcome of this splendid policy is that there are just about as many taxis in Dublin as there are Sinn Fein advice centres on the Shankill Road.
With one subtle difference. There are no signs on the Shankill Road saying "Sinn Fein advice centre" which of course might have caused enthusiastic locals to queue eagerly for a quiet word with Gerry or Danny or Alex, or whatever Shinner of their fancy. But in Dublin you'll see numerous signs indicating "taxi-rank", often surrounded by skeletons. Don't be too perturbed by these old bones - few of them are the result of cannibalism, which erupts annually at Christmas when some of the more intemperate citizens of the city, having queued for a week, have grown peckish. Remember, Ulsterfolk, you'll be here just for the weekend, and if need be, you can return home on foot.
Alternatively, while here, you Ulsterfolk might queue for a bus, and discover what a friendly and fun-loving city Dublin is! Watch at your queue as its pedestrians collapse with laughter, watch as its car-drivers, wiping tears of mirth from their eyes, swerve slapbang into statues, watch as its lorries, with dying howls of joy from the cabs, topple into the Liffey!
I have bad news. These Dubliners are laughing at innocent optimism, just as people once laughed at birdmen leaping off the sides of high buildings, flapping their arms. Dubliners know: our buses run on time briefly around noon, then depart, like boys out of school, to some wasteground near Bray to play pitch and toss and smoke pot.
Have you understood this message yet? You haven't? Okay, it comes down to this: this weekend you'll be doing what you Northerners seem to be rather fond of doing. Walking.
When tired of walking, you can try and refresh yourselves in any of Dublin's ancient public houses, most of which were built in the past three years on the lines of the Irish theme-pub dreamt up by English breweries, to make way for which so many great old Dublin pubs were systematically destroyed.
But mark me well; try is the word. Pubs tend to be crowded, for publicans, like taxi drivers, have an unearthly control over Dublin governments. They are like aliens with telekinetic powers that cause Irish legislators to become zombie-like on command, intoning "Yes Master" as they slither off to vote against any further pub licences. So Dublin has about as many pubs as it had in 1916, the year that its gallant sons and daughters gathered in the GP . . . oops, sorry, forgetting myself again.
By the way, once in a pub, have the title deeds of your Northern property with you. A house in Sandy Row, say, will probably cover you for a full round (no chasers, mind), whereas one of those ritzier Malone Road addresses (with scullery and conservatory) might also stretch to a chicken supper (plus onion rings) afterwards as well; and as for North Down, Nawthun Ahlund's answer to Bognor Regis, one of thim thah Edwardian lough-facing houses might later just cover the cost of dinnah for faw.
Ah yes, Dinner in Dublin. The friendly geriatric waiter called Jimmy who always looked after you, any hour, day or night, and who always remembered your name no matter, is now regarded as being incompatible with Celtic Tigerdom, and was taken out and shot. Today your Irish waitperson is called Emma, studying to be a model and is as kyool, witless and laidback as the resident of a mortuary.
She won't remember your name - she has trouble remembering her own. Emma's professional repartee is limited to "No problem", and her personal conversation to "and I'm like," (with exaggerated facial and bodily imitation denoting imbecilic incredulity). Your presence in the restaurant will obstruct her anecdotal I'm likes and contortions of disbelief, and she'll try to ignore you completely.
Will she succeed? No problem.
The non-Irish waitperson, if American, will be cool and clinical, "Hi, my name's Jay, and how may I help you today?" If it's Bosnian, it'll probably ask you for political asylum. If it's . . . no, no, there are so many other nationalities working in Dublin restaurants . . . If you want a steak, ask for it rare, then prepare yourself for banana custard on toast, unless Emma's serving, in which case, starve.
Your fathers probably told you what it was like down here, a bit backward but charming, and you always thought they were talking through their hats. Now you know they were.
Oh, and by the way: C'mawn Ollsshter.
