Dublin in February: The Long Room

Dublin is built along a river that is not trying to impress anyone. The Liffey is narrow, brown, and tidal, and it runs through the middle of the city between stone walls with a line of Georgian fronts standing shoulder to shoulder on either side. In late February the water sits almost perfectly still by five in the afternoon, and the whole sky drops into it, cloud for cloud, until you cannot quite tell which half of the picture is real.

I walked back and forth across it and it was different every time. Low gray cloud in the afternoon, scrubbed blue in the morning, and then that long slow blue hour that northern cities get in winter, where the light leaves for forty minutes and takes its time about it.

The Liffey at dusk between stone quay walls, the thin Spire monument rising above the rooftops in the distance — The same river, twice. Dublin gives you a lot of sky for a city its size.

The Liffey looking downstream on a bright morning, blue sky and modern office blocks beyond the quays, a small boat on the water — The same river, twice. Dublin gives you a lot of sky for a city its size.

Getting in

I got in around midday and went straight out, because there is no point being in Dublin and indoors. Lunch happened somewhere with a wall of wine and dark wood tables, quiet at that hour in the way that good rooms are quiet before they fill up. On the way there I passed the first proper Dublin pub front of the trip: deep red paint, gold lettering, and the Guinness name repeated along the fascia like a chorus.

The red and gold facade of Doyle's pub on a Dublin street, Guinness lettering repeated along the front, dark windows below brick — Arriving, just after midday. A pub front on the way, and a room still quiet before lunch.

The interior of a quiet wine bar, wooden tables set for lunch under orange pendant lamps, shelves of bottles covering the back wall — Arriving, just after midday. A pub front on the way, and a room still quiet before lunch.

An afternoon at Trinity

It rained on and off that afternoon, which turned out to be the best thing that could have happened, because Trinity College in the wet is a much better building than Trinity College in the sun.

You come in off a busy street and the noise stops almost immediately. The square opens up, cobbles and flat wet granite reflecting whatever gray the sky is doing, and the Campanile stands in the middle of it with nothing around it, which is an unusual amount of room to give a bell tower.

The stone Campanile at Trinity College standing alone in Parliament Square, wet cobbles reflecting the gray sky, red brick buildings behind — Trinity College in the rain. The Campanile gets the whole square to itself.

What I liked about the campus is that it refuses to settle on one century. There is a gray classical portico with columns two stories high on one side of the square, and directly across from it a long red brick range that looks like it was built by people with an entirely different idea of what a university should feel like. Both are right. Between them a bare February tree stands on the lawn with its branches still completely empty, and the grass underneath is that startling wet green you only get this far north.

The gray stone portico of Trinity College's Exam Hall, tall columns under a pediment, wet cobbles in the foreground — Four sides of the same college, and no two of them agree on a century.

The carved stone facade of Trinity's Museum Building across a wide green lawn under a blue sky — Four sides of the same college, and no two of them agree on a century.

In one of the squares there is a bronze sphere with another sphere showing through the gaps in its surface, broken open in a way that looks deliberate and slightly unsettling. It sits on wet flagstones catching every light around it. I circled it twice.

Close view of the bronze sphere sculpture at Trinity College, its cracked outer shell reflecting the surrounding buildings — Sphere Within Sphere, on the wet flags outside the library.

Then I walked into the Museum Building, looked up, and stopped. The hall is roofed by two domes lined edge to edge in mosaic, dark blue and gray and cream in zigzag bands, each one opening at the top into a glazed circle of actual daylight. The arches underneath are striped in red and cream stone. It is Venice and Byzantium and Moorish Spain all arguing politely inside a nineteenth century Dublin university, and it is one of the most surprising interiors I have walked into anywhere.

Looking straight up into two mosaic-lined domes in the Museum Building at Trinity College, each opening into a glazed octagonal skylight, striped red and cream arches below — The Museum Building ceiling. Two domes, two circles of sky, and a lot of very small tiles.

The rest of that hour was small things. A poster in a first floor window reading Without geography you're nowhere, which is the kind of line a geography department earns the right to put up. A tall arched window with a bare tree reflected in the glass so completely that for a second I thought I was looking through it. And past the buildings, the college playing fields, empty, marked out, goalposts up, waiting for a Saturday.

A poster reading Without Geography You're Nowhere taped inside a tall arched window of a stone building — Trinity, in details. The geography department gets the best window.

A tall arched window in carved stone, a bare tree and cloudy sky reflected in the dark glass — Trinity, in details. The geography department gets the best window.

The Long Room

The Old Library is the draw, and it earns it in about one second.

You walk into the Long Room and the ceiling goes up and away from you in a barrel vault of dark oak, arch after arch after arch, with two tiers of bookshelves running the whole length underneath and marble busts standing guard along both sides. The floor is pale wood and it throws the light back up into all that brown.

And hanging at the far end, filling the space where the vault ends, there was an Earth. A huge illuminated globe, blue and white, turning very slowly in the dark.

The Long Room of Trinity College Old Library, a long dark oak barrel vault over two tiers of bookshelves and marble busts, with a large illuminated globe of the Earth hanging at the far end — The Long Room, with Gaia hanging at the end of it.

I did not expect to find the planet indoors. Standing under it and looking up, you get the whole Atlantic swinging past overhead in blues and whites, the vault going black behind it, and the shelves dropping away below into shadow. Nobody in that room was talking much.

A large illuminated globe of the Earth seen from directly below, blue oceans and white cloud, hanging in the dark barrel vault of the Long Room — Under the globe, and along the shelves. Every bay is lettered, and there is a ladder for the ones you cannot reach.

A bay of the Long Room's bookshelves filled with old leather bindings, a wooden ladder against them, letters of the alphabet marking the shelf columns — Under the globe, and along the shelves. Every bay is lettered, and there is a ladder for the ones you cannot reach.

On the way through there is a quote on a dark wall, in Irish first and then in English, from Borges: I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library. Put that on that wall, in that building, and it stops being a nice line and starts being a straightforward description of where you are standing.

A dark wall panel lit from above carrying a Jorge Luis Borges quote in Irish and English, reading I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library — The Borges line, on the way into the library. Hard to argue with in that particular building.

The rest of the visit is the things the library is actually famous for. The Book of Kells, shown as enormous reproductions of the pages so you can see what is happening in them, gold and red and interlaced animals wound so tightly around the letters that you lose the letter. A medieval harp in a glass case, dark wood worn smooth, the shape that ended up on the side of every bottle of stout in the country. And a room where the vault of the library is projected overhead in white light while the shelves glow along the walls.

The medieval Brian Boru harp displayed in a glass case, its dark wooden frame curved and worn smooth — The harp, a page of the Book of Kells at a size you can actually read, and the vault projected overhead.

A large reproduction of a Book of Kells page showing Christ enthroned within elaborate Celtic interlace in red, blue and gold — The harp, a page of the Book of Kells at a size you can actually read, and the vault projected overhead.

The pub when the light goes

By five the light was gone off the river and I went looking for somewhere with a door and a fire.

Dublin pubs are properly dark inside. Not dim in a designed way, just dark: low ceilings, wood that has been polished by shoulders rather than by anyone with a cloth, mirrors and old signs going up the walls to a height nobody has dusted since the sixties. One wall I stood next to had a framed notice for a lost dog, three legged, blind in one eye, missing an ear, answering to Lucky. I hope somebody found him.

The dark wooden interior of a Dublin pub before the evening crowd, bottles lit along the back bar, polished floor and empty stools — Five in the afternoon, before it fills. The lost dog was called Lucky.

A pub wall covered in framed vintage signs and advertisements, including a Lost Dog notice and an old Dogs and Ice sign — Five in the afternoon, before it fills. The lost dog was called Lucky.

The instruments on the walls are not decoration in the way you would assume. A clarinet and a brass horn nailed to the boards over my head, a painted guitarist in a yellow frame in another room, and in a third an old enamel sign hanging over the bar with the same line the brewery was using in the newspapers a century ago: Guinness is good for you. Nobody in the room was checking whether that was still medically supportable.

An old Guinness is good for you sign hanging above a dark pub bar, two men standing at the counter with their backs to the camera — The same slogan the brewery ran in the papers, still hanging over the bar.

And then the thing itself. Two pints on a table, one settling, one ready, that particular deep red brown that shows once the light gets behind it, with the cream sitting flat on top. It takes as long as it takes. That is the entire point.

Two pints of Guinness on beer mats on a dark wooden pub table, cream heads settled flat, the pub lights blurred behind — Ten to six. No notes.

Walking west

A morning arrived scrubbed and blue, the kind of winter sky that makes every brick in the city look freshly cleaned, and I walked west across the whole center.

The streets that survive from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are the best of Dublin at ground level. Cobbles, granite curbs, four stories of brick, and then a shopfront that somebody spent real money on a hundred and thirty years ago. One of them stopped me completely: a bay window in deep blue, painted ironwork, stained glass in the upper panes, and Rebuilt A.D. 1895 picked out along the beam.

A cobbled Dublin street on a bright morning, Georgian and Victorian buildings on both sides, two figures walking away in the distance — Walking west in the morning. Somebody in 1895 wanted you to notice that window.

An ornate Victorian shopfront painted deep blue with stained glass and painted ironwork, the words Rebuilt A.D. 1895 along the beam — Walking west in the morning. Somebody in 1895 wanted you to notice that window.

At the Ha'penny Bridge the river was doing its trick again. It is a small white cast iron arch, barely wide enough for people to pass each other on, and it has been throwing that same curve into the water since long before anyone thought to photograph it. There was one cloud that morning, sitting directly over the bridge, and it landed in the river almost exactly underneath itself.

The white cast iron Ha'penny Bridge arching over the Liffey under a bright blue sky, a single white cloud above it reflected in the still water below — The Ha'penny Bridge, and one very well positioned cloud.

A bit further west the ground rises and Christ Church appears through a screen of bare trees, medieval gray stone against that hard blue, with the covered bridge running across the street to the old Synod Hall beside it. The trees had not started to think about spring yet. Everything was still branches.

Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin seen through bare winter trees, medieval gray stone under a deep blue sky, the arcaded Synod Hall building to the right — Christ Church, still waiting for the leaves.

Past the cathedral the city changes character. The Liberties is lower, plainer, and more industrial, brick warehouses and long blank walls and lanes running downhill between them. You can tell you are getting close to the brewery because the streets start belonging to it.

A cobbled lane in the Liberties district of Dublin running downhill between brick warehouse buildings under a blue sky — The lanes west of Christ Church, on the way down to the brewery.

St James's Gate

The gate itself is the correct amount of dramatic: a long curved black wall, and on it, in gold, the harp and the words Guinness, St James's Gate Brewery, Dublin. No pictures, no slogans. They have been at this address since 1759 and the sign behaves accordingly.

What I did not expect was that my favorite part would be the advertising. There is a whole floor of it, and it is genuinely brilliant work. A gallery of clocks and surfboard shapes hanging over a stairwell spelling out tick, tock, followed, and then the wall at the end of it: Good things come to those who wait. A bronze fish riding a bicycle, cast full size, under the line a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle. And in a frame nearby, an old newspaper advertisement in dense gray column inches, explaining that Guinness builds strong muscles, enriches the blood, and is a valuable restorative after influenza, over the words Guinness is good for you. They were not messing about back then.

An installation of large illuminated clock faces and white surfboard shapes hanging over a blue steel stairwell, spelling out the words tick, tock and followed — The advertising floor. A fish on a bicycle, and a newspaper ad promising to see off your influenza.

A dark wall carrying the Guinness slogan Good Things Come To Those Who Wait in large white lettering — The advertising floor. A fish on a bicycle, and a newspaper ad promising to see off your influenza.

The building itself is a former fermentation plant with the middle cut out of it, so you spend the visit walking up around a huge empty core. The finishes are all dark steel and low light and warm brass, corridors lit gold along the skirting, a red neon doorway marked The Tasting Rooms, and a harp shaped tap standing on a counter under two black spouts. On a wall somewhere near the top there is a paper cutout Dublin, all little gabled houses and a bridge and a delivery lorry, done in the flat illustrated style the brand has used for decades.

A dark doorway lit by red neon reading The Tasting Rooms, with a warm orange corridor beyond — Inside St James's Gate. Dark steel, gold light, and a paper Dublin on the wall.

A long narrow corridor lit gold along the floor and ceiling edges, receding into darkness — Inside St James's Gate. Dark steel, gold light, and a paper Dublin on the wall.

There is a bronze bust up there of a serious looking man in a high collar, and the small brass plate underneath says Sir Benjamin Lee Guinness, 1798 to 1868, grandson of Arthur Guinness. Three generations in, and the family were still the sort of people who got cast in bronze.

A bronze bust of a bearded Victorian man in a high collar and draped coat, on a black plinth with a small brass plaque — Sir Benjamin Lee Guinness, grandson of Arthur, keeping an eye on things.

At the top the walls turn to glass and Dublin opens out flat in every direction. It is a low city, so from up there you can see almost all of it: slate roofs, church spires, brewery vats, the hills somewhere past the edge, and a lot of weather coming in.

A wide view over the rooftops of Dublin from the top of the Guinness Storehouse, slate roofs and a church spire under a bright sky with cloud — Dublin from the top of the brewery. A low city, and a lot of sky over it.

The river after dark

One evening I walked east instead, downriver, to where Dublin stops being old.

The docklands are all glass and steel and money, and after dark they behave completely differently to the rest of the city. The convention center sits on the north quay looking like a glass drum that somebody tilted and then left, and at night it lights in bands of green and pink and blue that run the full height of it and then run again upside down in the water. The river goes perfectly flat for it.

The tilted glass drum of the Convention Centre Dublin lit at night in bands of green, blue and pink, the colors reflected the full height of the still black river below — The convention center after dark, and the Liffey doing the rest of the work.

Beside it the Samuel Beckett Bridge crosses the river as a single white curve with cables fanning off it, which is meant to be a harp lying on its side, and for once the comparison is honest. At blue hour the cables catch the last of the sky and the whole thing goes gold against navy.

The Samuel Beckett Bridge curving over the Liffey at blue hour, its white cables fanned out like harp strings, the lit convention center behind — The Beckett Bridge, from both sides of the hour. It really is a harp.

The Samuel Beckett Bridge lit gold at night, cables against a dark sky, colored light spilling across the black water — The Beckett Bridge, from both sides of the hour. It really is a harp.

Further back toward the center the quays are quieter and the reflections get long and broken, office windows dropping yellow lines all the way down into the water, the last blue draining out of the sky above the rooftops.

The Dublin quayside at dusk, apartment and office buildings along the far bank, their lights beginning to show in the water — Blue hour on the quays, which in February arrives around half six and takes its time.

A lit office building at night on the Dublin quays, its yellow windows reflected in long vertical lines on the dark water — Blue hour on the quays, which in February arrives around half six and takes its time.

Blood Brothers

That evening ended in a theater down by the docks, in a room that is aggressively, wonderfully red. Red ceiling, red walls, red seats in curved rows falling away toward the stage, with gold light boxes stacked up the side walls. I got there early enough to watch the place fill from the top, which is its own small pleasure: the stage set waiting under blue light, and the room slowly deciding to become an audience.

The interior of a modern theater before a performance, curved rows of red seats falling toward a blue lit stage, gold light boxes up the red side walls — Before curtain. Everything in that room is red except the stage.

The show was Blood Brothers, and the set is a street: two brick terraces facing each other across the stage, doors and windows and a bit of iron railing, with a painted city rising behind them in blues and greys. It is a small world, deliberately, and it stays the same all evening while everything that happens inside it gets worse. The stage floor was lit lilac and it threw the whole thing back up at itself like wet pavement.

A wide view of the theater from the back of the balcony, the lit stage set of brick terraced houses small in the distance, the full auditorium in silhouette below — Blood Brothers, from the balcony. The set is one street, and it never changes.

Four performers in coats on a lilac lit stage in front of a painted backdrop of a blue gray city skyline — Blood Brothers, from the balcony. The set is one street, and it never changes.

Then the curtain call, which in that theater on that night went on a while. The whole company came down to the front in a line, holding hands, the brick houses lit warm behind them, and the room stood up. There is a particular sound a full auditorium makes when it has been quiet for a long time and then decides not to be, and it is worth staying for.

The full company of a musical taking a curtain call in a line at the front of the stage, holding hands, the lit brick terrace set behind them and the audience standing in the dark below — Twenty past ten, the company taking the curtain call, and the room on its feet.

Temple Bar, which you cannot avoid

Everyone will tell you Temple Bar is a tourist trap, and everyone is right, and you should still walk through it at least twice.

By day it is a grid of cobbled lanes between low brick buildings, flags of a dozen countries strung across the street, delivery vans reversing, and roadworks. By night the whole of it turns on. The corner pub that gives the quarter its name wears its entire facade in fairy lights, thousands of them, with orange flags and painted shamrocks and a red front underneath, and it is so far past subtle that it comes out the other side as genuinely magnificent.

Looking down a cobbled Temple Bar street from above, international flags strung between the buildings, people walking on the cobbles — Temple Bar by afternoon and by night. The lights are not subtle and are not trying to be.

The Temple Bar pub at night, its entire facade covered in tiny green and gold fairy lights with orange flags, the red shopfront lit below — Temple Bar by afternoon and by night. The lights are not subtle and are not trying to be.

A few doors down there is a bar where the walls behind the bottles are papered floor to ceiling in banknotes, thousands of them, signed and pinned up by people from everywhere, all lit acid green with the football on above. It should be terrible. It is one of the best rooms I have stood in.

A pub back bar with the walls papered floor to ceiling in signed banknotes from around the world, lit bright green, a television showing football above the spirit bottles — Every note on that wall was left by somebody. The green light is doing a lot of work.

An unhurried day

One day went the way the good ones go, which is to say slowly and without a plan, and it started with a dragon.

Coming up a street of red brick and Victorian gables I walked straight into the Chinese New Year celebrations: red lanterns strung the length of the road, a drum going somewhere behind me, and a lion dancing in the middle of the street in red and gold while a crowd in red jackets watched from the pavement. Dublin was not the city I expected to find that in, which is exactly why it was the best twenty minutes of the day.

A Chinese New Year lion dance in a Dublin street, red and gold costume in the middle of the road, red lanterns strung overhead, a red brick Victorian building and shopfronts behind — Ten past twelve. Chinese New Year on a red brick Dublin street.

It ended back in the middle of town in the dark.

On a corner near the top of a shopping street there is a bronze woman with a barrow of cockles and mussels, cast at about life and a half size, standing under the lit windows of a pub with a stone wall behind her. Molly Malone has been sung about for a very long time and standing on that street for decades. She gets touched by everyone who passes, which shows.

The bronze Molly Malone statue at dusk, a woman behind a barrow of wicker baskets, lit pub windows and a stone wall behind her — Molly Malone at ten past six, with the pub lights coming on behind.

And then one last drink at a marble counter, which after all that stout felt like a reasonable change of pace. Tall glasses, ice, a bottle of tonic, and coasters printed Dublin, Ireland in case anyone had lost track.

Two tall gin and tonics on a white marble bar with striped straws and a bottle of tonic, coasters printed Dublin Ireland, bottles lit warm behind — The last one, on marble instead of wood.

Knowing a city takes longer than this, and I would not pretend otherwise. But it is enough to work out what it does well, and Dublin does two things better than almost anywhere I have been. It keeps its old rooms, the dark pubs and the barrel vaulted library and the mosaic ceiling nobody warned me about, genuinely in use rather than behind glass. And it has a river that lies still every evening and hands the whole sky back to you.

I would go again in February. The trees are bare, the light is short, and you get the place slightly more to yourself.