, Dublin,
October 1997Home --> Holidays 1997
, Dublin,
October 1997Being an account and historye of ye voyage of Arwel Parry, esquire of thysse parishhe, to ye European Science Fiction Convention of 1997, held in ye Castle of ye fair citye of Baile Átha Cliath in ye Emerald Isle from ye twenty-fifth to twenty-seventh days of October.
The date: August 1995. The event: The World Science Fiction Convention. The place: The vast cavern of Hall 4 of the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre, Glasgow, where whilst wandering around the various tables my eyes beheld a small group of Irish fans selling memberships in something they proclaimed to be "EuroOctocon 1997". Having heard nice things about the Octocons held in Dún Laoghaire, I decided this was all the excuse I needed to prompt me to go back to Ireland for the first time since about 1984. In olden days, as a member of British Rail staff I was occasionally minded to go to Dublin at no cost for a day trip - we would catch the "Irish Mail" out of Crewe just after midnight on Friday night, and by changing to the ferry at Holyhead we would arrive in Dublin around 8 a.m. and proceed to have about twelve hours of sightseeing and sampling the Guinness before heading back to the ferry and reaching our beds about 3 a.m. on Sunday... Unfortunately in 1984 the Sunday morning train from Holyhead was dropped from the railway timetable, and the following year my father died, so he no longer had a need for the duty-free tobacco I used to buy for him, and there was no particular incentive for me to undertake this mad exercise; incipient middle-agedness tends to discourage trying to stay awake for 44 hours at a stretch, too!
Despite hearing very little from the folk at Octocon, I was able to check their website and confirm that I was on the membership list, even if they did mis-spell my first name. (sigh!). Rumours began to reach my ears that the organisation of the con was a little haphazard, but did I let that discourage me? Well, not particularly - I was having the better part of a week off work and was determined to enjoy myself come what may!
By July 1997 I started to plan how I was actually going to get to Dublin (the con having moved to Dublin Castle as the management of the Royal Marine Hotel in Dún Laoghaire decided they were too high-class for mere SF fans, fandom decided to move in with the Irish Government). Memories of the Irish Sea in winter quickly persuaded me to investigate the possibilities of flight, and I was able to get a ticket on Ryanair from Manchester to Dublin and back for UKP 59 (+ UKP 5 tax). Next problem: somewhere to stay. In the absence of any accommodation information from the con I took a look at Dublin Tourism's web site; this was a little discouraging as it appeared as though few hotel rooms can be had in Dublin for much less than IEP 50 a night, but nil desperandum, I decided to give a few candidate hotels a shot at my custom... and found that they all claimed to be fully booked (there must have been something on in Dublin that weekend!). Never mind. One lunchtime while I was at home, I phoned up Dublin Tourism and asked them to find me somewhere to stay. After quickly finding there were no hotels available, we moved on to a search of bed-and-breakfast accommodation and I was offered en-suite accommodation at Mrs Marie Brannaghs' establishment, St Raphael, at 128 Stillorgan Road, Donnybrook, Dublin 4, for IEP 25 a night (phone +353 1 269 3701 in case you're interested). A phone call to Mrs Brannagh the night before my journey for directions elicited the response that it was "the sixth house past the TV station, a Tudor-style house". E-mail discussion with my UK Babylon 5 newsgroup crony, Dónal Cunningham resulted in a conclusion that the number 10 or 46A buses were likely to run in this general direction. And so to bed the night before the flight
Thursday morning dawned clear. Frantically throwing any clothes I might need in the next five days into my rucksack and case, I was out of the house at 0900 for the seven minute walk to Crewe railway station. A leisurely walk onto the 0918 train to Manchester, and 25 minutes later I was at Manchester Airport station. A stroll led me into the departure level of terminal 2 by 1000 where I noted that check-in for Ryanair FR553 was at desks 16 and 17 - but the desks were unstaffed. Fifteen minutes later the desk opened up, and I was first in the queue: "any chance of a window seat?" - "Sorry, we don't allocate seats, it's all a scrum at the gate" oh well, what did I expect for 59 quid?
I put my rucksack on the scales, and my heart sank as it showed 19.5 Kg when my total allowance was only 20 Kg, but the check-in girl didn't charge me any excess, and just waved me through to boarding at gate 201 at 1115 for a 1130 take-off. Time for a quick cup of coffee and to buy a magazine before heading airside - does anyone ever manage to walk through the metal detector without setting it off? I know I don't. I was the fourth person at gate 201, at the far end of the terminal. The mad scrum worked to my benefit and I got a window seat next to the port engine of the Boeing 737-200; the seat was reasonably comfortable but wasn't wide enough for my arms to fit - oh well, the flight is only 40 minutes long, and at 1215 I set foot on Irish soil for the first time in 13 years.
Dublin Airport seems to be being rebuilt at the moment, and it was a long trek from the arrival gate to baggage reclaim. Reunited with my luggage I headed out through the blue channel and saw the welcoming face of Dónal Cunningham who had kindly offered to meet me and shepherd me across Dublin, since his boss and co-workers were all in Greece he could slip out of his office in Trinity College! No sooner were we out of the terminal than a 41C bus arrived - to avoid throwing paper money at the driver, Dónal used his multiride ticket to cover my fare, and we discussed life, cons, and soft drinks on the way to "An Lár" (The Centre); "You've just come from England! Drat, why didn't I ask you to bring some Dr Pepper - you can't get it here!" said the hopelessly addicted Dónal. Dónal was keen to point out that the people organising the Con are not the people who've run it in the past, and apart from losing their Guest of Honour, Robert Jordan, (replaced by Harry Harrison) they've also just lost their Chair, who was fired for not doing anything! If I get bored with the con, he offers to take me to a fleadh ceol he'll be going to in Donegal over the weekend. Dónal was also unimpressed with the committee for having organised Octocon a few weeks later than usual, so that it clashed with Gaelcon, the national gaming convention.
At the end of the bus ride we got off and Dónal did his native-born Dubliner tourist guide bit, directing a couple of American girls to the youth hostel, and leading another couple and myself to O'Connell Bridge. After a walk across the Liffey he led me round the front of Trinity College, familiar from earlier visits, and showed me where the number 10 and 46A buses stop, on the way toward Donnybrook. I got on the first reasonably-empty number 10 bus that came along, going to "Ollscoile" apparently (I found out what this means later!). I asked for Donnybrook and was quoted a fare of 80 pence, and handed over a £5 note. I asked if the driver would yell when we got to RTE, and he said "oh, it's 20p more to RTE", and punched up another ticket. About ten minutes later I was nearly the last person on the bus when RTE was announced. "Which stop do you want?" asked the driver; "I don't know, I'm looking for the sixth house after RTE" I replied. "Oh, it'll be on that road over there" he said, nodding toward the six-lane N11 highway heading south out of the city. I got out at the next stop and found myself by house number 140; I walked back a little, and sure enough number 128 is "St Raphael". It was 1405, and I reckoned things had run pretty much to plan as I had told Mrs Brannagh that I'd be arriving between 2 and 3 p.m.. I introduced myself to Mrs Brannagh and was shown to a very comfortable en-suite room with cable tv, well worth £25 a night. At this stage my standard booking agreement with Dublin Tourism required me to pay the rest of the accommodation bill apart from the 10% deposit they'd already charged my credit card, so I gave Mrs B. £112.50, which nearly cleaned me out of Irish cash.
After settling in, and a change of t-shirt and jumper, I headed for the bus stop back into the city (crossing the N11 is quite an exercise in itself!). This is where I find out the significance of "Ollscoile". It means "University" and University College Dublin is two stops down the road, so despite the no. 10 running at a ten minute frequency the double-decker bus was absolutely crammed with students. I had to stand for the several miles back into the city, but I had quite an interesting conversation with a middle-aged lady who was also standing - "if you haven't been here for 10 years you won't have seen Temple Bar - you really must go and see it".
It's the last week of the Presidential election campaign, and judging from the placards lining the streets the bus is passing down, it's a close-run thing between Mary McAleese and Adi Roche, with Mary Banotti supported by a few buses - the polls tell me a completely different story, Mary McAleese is going to win by a landslide from Mary Banotti with the other three candidates nowhere!
I eventually bailed out of the bus at St Stephens' Green and wandered down Dawson Street in search of an ATM machine that takes MasterCard or Visa, and eventually replenished my wallet. Replenishing my stomach with a visit to an Italian restaurant, I then started wandering the streets at random to see what I could see. I walked past Leinster House, home of the Irish Parliament, and saw some politico being interviewed for TV on the lawn in front of the building. Realising that I was going to get lost if I wasn't careful, I called in at a bookshop and invested £4.50 in a detailed streetmap of Dublin. I then phoned Dónal as previously instructed (!) and agreed to meet him for dinner at 6 p.m. at the main gates of Trinity College. With over two hours to kill, I looked at the map and noticed that if I went down that street and turned left I'd find myself at Pearse Station. Quickly producing my pen, I wrote the date on my ex-BR-staff free ticket, validating it for two days unlimited travel on Irish Rail, and jumped on the first train to Dún Laoghaire, just to see what's happened in my old haunts in the ferry port. As it happened, it looked like there's been a complete reconstruction of the terminal building, but I didn't have much time to look around before heading back to the city, and Tara Street station. I found myself sitting on the railings outside Trinity College with ten minutes to spare.
Dónal emerged more-or-less on time, and we discussed what cuisine we fancied. Apparently Indian restaurants in Ireland are rather tame, and Dónal has to come over to our side of the water for a decent hot curry, so eventually we settled on Chinese, which is my preferred ethnic cuisine. Wandering down Wicklow Street, Dónal introduced me to "Past Times", a gift shop specialising in things like aprons and t-shirts with slogans in Latin. Dónal had a bit of fun stretching my knowledge of Latin which I acquired in 2 years' study 25 years ago, and have promptly forgotten; he exhibits quite a bit of linguistic knowledge, as he seems to have picked up a fair amount of Hebrew and Croatian while visiting his father, an Irish Army officer with the UN."Past Times" looks like fun, and I resolved to come back and take another look later. In a side street we found quite a tempting Chinese restaurant, "Chanze" in St Andrew Street, I think, where we had a very good meal for around £11 each. Dónal paid the lot on his credit card, and we agreed that I would buy the beer for the rest of the night - I think we came out about even!
Moving on from the restaurant, and crossing the busy Dame Street, we called in on some friends of Dónals' in the "Flying Pig" second-hand bookshop in Crow Street where we spent some considerable time inspecting the shelves and their contents, and helping move books around before the official opening at the weekend (a programme item at Octocon!). I remarked that except for the shelves being better quality, it's remarkably like the contents of my back bedroom. Padraig, the owner, urged me to buy the stock now, to replace my library as my house may have burned down by the time I go home - in fact, because it's at the crossing point of two ley lines it certainly will have burned down! To placate the evil spirits I bought a copy of Joe Straczynski's Demon Night for £3.50...
Moving on from the Flying Pig, Dónal lead me further into the restored Temple Bar district, which has become the heart of the city's nightlife. We ended up in what I somewhat naively initially termed a "pub"; it was in fact The Porter House, on Parliament Street - Dublins' (and possibly Irelands') only microbrewery. I committed the faux pas of asking for a Guinness, but quickly recovered (they only serve beer brewed on the premises) and we sampled most of their wares as the night went on (they do a very useful sampler of eight different beers for six pounds). For the next several hours Dónal and I spent a very convivial evening, among other things conducting a mutual language lesson - Dónal attempting, somewhat unsuccessfully, to teach me the rudiments of Irish, while I tried to teach him elementary Welsh; we discovered that though the two languages are supposed to be closely related they're certainly not mutually intelligible (particularly in the presence of alcohol)!
Eventually we decided to call it a night - another advantage of having a local guide was that I found out that although the regular buses stop running around 11.30 p.m.. there's a Nitelink system of buses which runs on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, leaving the centre of Dublin at midnight, 1, 2, and 3 a.m. for a standard fare of £2.50. Dónal put me on the midnight 46X bus, also known as bus K, and I consider it quite an accomplishment that I was only carried one stop too far, considering the fact that I was drunk, it was dark, and I'd only ever travelled the route once before!
And so to bed.
Following a leisurely breakfast, I headed back to the city centre, wandering around the St Stephens' Green/Dame Street area.
Given my condition at the end of the previous night, I was not too sure exactly where I had been, and the precise location of the Porter House and other sights, so I spent an hour or two wandering around Temple Bar fixing the layout of the area firmly in my mind, instead of having it floating in a pool of alcohol as it previously had been.
Morgan Gallagher, on rec.arts.sf.fandom, had previously invited members of the newsgroup to the flat she was staying in for drinks that evening, so I decided it would be prudent to find out exactly where it was before the event: the address was in Bertram Court, High Street. This should not have been much of a problem to find because Dublin's High Street is only about 150 metres long, and most of one side of it is occupied by a ruined church, but Bertram Court is so new it doesn't appear on my map. Dónal had puzzled things out and reckoned that it must be on a particular plot of land which used to be a car park, but when I circumnavigated this plot there was no sign of the place. Almost giving up, I wandered into the next stretch of road, the Cornmarket, and was passing the Spar supermarket when I noticed, almost hidden behind scaffolding, the entrance to Bertram Court - phew!
Having solved this potential problem I then walked down to the river and crossed over by the Four Courts, where I had the somewhat surreal experience of seeing fairly senior lawyers, in robes, giving directions to American tourists... turning left and then right I made my way to O'Connell Street where I bought a couple of postcards at Easons' store (the WH Smith of Ireland, as I think of them), then nip into the GPO next-door-but-one to get a few 28p stamps for them and admire the statuary while waiting in the short queue. I made a short diversion to Connolly Station to see if it has changed at all in the years since I was last there (it hasn't, though there's an architect's poster on the wall which implies it's going to be redeveloped in the not-too-distant future), and to make use of the conveniences, then down Amiens Street to the Busaras to see what the bus service to the Airport is like - there's a special Airlink bus every 15 minutes for £2.50, then I went on to the steps of the Custom House building, where I plonked myself down to write the postcards and make a few notes of what I had seen for this report.
Lunch was obtained in the "Kingsland" Chinese restaurant on Dame Street, which was very good, and as I was a little after the main lunch rush, I had virtually the undivided attention of the staff.
For the afternoon I decided to take a look at the Book of Kells in the Old Library of Trinity College. Last time I was in Dublin, the Book (a wonderful 1200-year old illuminated manuscript of the Gospels, for those who don't know) was displayed in the Long Room on the upper floor of the Old Library, and in the winter you could get in to see it for free. Things have changed in the meantime - they've built a proper exhibition displaying the history of the Book and of St Columcille (Columba) and of the Iona Community which moved to Kells after the Viking raids began. Unfortunately, you have to pay £3.50 to see it - Dónal had offered to use his Trinity College connections to get me to see it for nothing, but I didn't feel that this was really playing the game, so I paid up :-) The exhibition is well worth seeing as it illustrates the detail of various pages of the Book with an explanation of what you're seeing, before you get to the climate-controlled case which shows a couple of pages of the Book and of the smaller Book of Durrow. Then, on the way out, you climb the stairs to the Long Room where you can admire the architecture and all the old books (many, sadly, having to be restored now because of exposure to light from the library windows), before you go down stairs on the way out which are located at the precise point where the Book of Kells used to be displayed.
As the evening drew on, I phoned Dónal to find out when he was planning to go to Morgans' flat - we agreed to meet up about a quarter of an hour later and go there together, and we turned up at around 7 p.m. to be met by Morgan, Tre, Kathy from Boston and several others who my shocking memory for names will force me to omit with apologies... shortly afterwards we were joined by John Richards from Portsmouth who it turned out had been aboard the Ryanair flight which was taxiing to the terminal immediately in front of my plane the previous day. We then quaffed a liberal supply of Morgans' cider while discussing SF conventions, cooking, Babylon 5, the failings of various convention organisers, etc. The question of sustenance was then raised, and it was realised that most of us hadn't eaten, though some had. The problem of whether a party of 15 or so could turn up without booking at a Dublin eatery on Friday night and have some of them not eat was handed over to Dónal and his mobile phone, who tried a couple of places unsuccessfully, before we wandered out to try pot luck. The first place we tried was a pub which claimed to offer pub food - but only at lunchtime; the second place we tried was the Castle Inn, a converted church opposite Christ Church cathedral and just up the road from the Castle and the flat; we fell upon this establishment with glee and most of us carnivores settled on 10 ounce steaks in various sauces, while the Guinness seemed to be popular whether or not you were eating.
Following the meal, most people retired, but Dónal and I had arranged to go to the bar of the Parliament Hotel, which was to be the official meeting place of the convention after hours, as Dónal wanted to say hello to various friends who would be at the con while he was in Donegal, and to introduce me to them. We got separated in the conversation, but I spent much of the evening in the company of author James White, a delightful man, and his American small-press publisher Michael Walsh, who as well as publishing James is currently doing the US edition of E.E.Smith's Lensman books. Michael was the Chair of the 1983 Worldcon, and I was interested to discuss the organisation of the Worldcon with him, as I was part of the cabal which decided the previous Saturday to bid to hold the 2005 Worldcon in the UK.
Eventually at about 12.20 a.m. we were all thrown out of the bar (not much of a bar if it closes so early!), and Dónal and I made our way to the Nitelink buses for the second night running, and I bid Dónal a fond farewell with thanks for all his help as he's off to Donegal tomorrow.
And so to bed.
Saturday dawned. At last the convention was due to begin! I arrived a little after 10 a.m. and so missed the opening ceremony. How many SF conventions are approached through the State Entrance of a castle, complete with (unmanned) sentry boxes? Following the signs to Eurocon I found myself in the entrance hall of the conference centre opened a couple of years ago for Ireland's presidency of the European Union. I immediately recognised Dave Stewart handling the registration desk (whom I think of as "Belgian Dave" because he used to work in Brussels, though he has been self-employed in Dublin since early this year), and I was quickly given my registration pack: I noticed that despite emailing them a correction, my name badge still had two 'l's in it (sigh!) - still, later on I noticed they have "Morgan Llwelyn" as a guest, so I can't complain too much!
I spent the first half hour or so looking around the convention site, to get my bearings. The main convention stream was in the conference hall on the lower level, equivalent to the original position of the moat. The hall is rather plush, with interpreters' boxes built into the right hand side of the room, and a remote controlled TV camera mounted on the wall, to the alarm of some early panellists! It still suffers from the inveterate problem of squeaky floorboards near the door, if you arrive late or are sneaking off early. The bottom of the stairs from the entrance hall also has access to those fannishly important areas - the bar, and the toilets! Beyond the bar is an area of comfortable seating which was used to host various kaffeeklatches and which leads on to the rather narrow staircase and lifts up to ground level and the first floor - ground level contains the two video rooms and the dealers' room, while the first floor holds the alternative programme and the workshop room. After experiencing the staircase a few times, I decided to use the entrance from the courtyard instead!
A quick perusal of the programme revealed that the first item was to be "Is "Is SF Dead?" Dead?" with Emmet O'Brien, Robert Rankin, Mike (Simo) Simpson, Diane Duane and Jonathan Cowie, which was an entertaining item - I'd never seen Robert Rankin (of "Brentford Trilogy" fame) before, and he turned out to be quite a raconteur - as well as continually plugging the Flying Pig which turned into a running joke throughout the weekend, as the owner is the chairman of his fan club!
Not seeing much that was immediately attractive in the next few hours (though I'm sorry I missed What If....? with Harry Harrison and Joe Haldeman), I decided to peruse the dealers' room to see if there was anything much I wanted to buy (not really - there were a lot of second hand books, but little new stuff), I had quite a lengthy chat with Morgan and Tre at the Wrap Party convention table and had (another!) Wrap Party Minbeari badge pressed on me, then I checked what was being shown in the video programmes (it was strange to see times described as "Irish Summer Time", but it's one of those little disorienting differences between Ireland and the UK, like the little green man at the pedestrian crossings walking in the wrong direction!). I settled down in the seating area to read the program book and the 1997 edition of the Concatenation fanzine included in the membership pack - this year's edition proclaims itself to be published in "English and Romanian language and Internet editions", but only the front cover this year is in English and Romanian, unlike a few years ago when the text of the whole magazine was in English, Romanian and Swiss-German.
Later in the afternoon I decided to see what was going on in the alternate program item on European SF, being a slight interest of mine. We were moved to a spacious room opposite registration, under the Chair of Bridget Wilkinson of Fans Across the World. There were about a dozen of us present - apparently Bridget and myself from the UK, one local Irish person, an Italian resident of Ireland, Piotr Cholewa and two colleagues from Poland, one person each from Belgium and the Netherlands, and five or six Germans busily promoting the virtues of Dortmund as the site of of the 1999 Eurocon! (I was actually a little disappointed that there were no Czechs present, as I'd heard that they were planning to bid Usti nad Labem for the 1999 Eurocon - I reckon I'm one of the few people in UK fandom who knows where Usti nad Labem is, and has actually passed through there a few times - it's the second stop inside the Czech Republic for expresses on the railway line from Berlin to Prague). We discussed the state of SF in various European countries, and the general consensus appeared to be that we don't see much of SF fans in France, and probably won't for at least another 10 years...
After the scheduled business of the Con finished for the night, I wandered the streets for a short while before I found a chemists' where I bought something to attack the clogged sinuses I was developing. A quick visit to an O'Connell Street Burger King to stock up on calories for the night, then an early trip back to Donnybrook (about 10 p.m.) for an early night and an attempt to catch up on the sleep deficit I'd accrued in the last few days - helped by the end of summer time that night.
And so to bed.
Another day of fannish activity. I particularly enjoyed (as I always do) the repartee of Peter Morwood and Diane Duane. A panel on nanotechnology with Harry Harrison, Joe Haldeman and David Wingrove quickly degenerated into Harry and Joe swapping their war stories as nobody could think of much to say on nanotechnology... the official opening ceremony of the Flying Pig was timetabled for 4 p.m., which left some of the other panels poorly attended. For a change, I decided not to have a Chinese meal for lunch today, so I crossed the street to the Italian restaurant, Da Pina, where I was rather surprised to find that the veal escallope I ordered was served with a baked potato on the side! Must be a local addition to Italian cuisine....
Having been off-line for more than three days, I was starting to suffer email withdrawal symptoms, so I booked a session at the local Cyberia cafe, in Temple Bar, in the late afternoon, and promptly found I'd received nearly 20 junk emails, sigh...
During the day, news filtered out that the 11th SF Tage NRW in Dortmund in Germany had been given the 1999 Eurocon - (provisionally on 20-22 August 1999, but it may be brought forward a few weeks to allow people a chance to also go to Aussiecon in Melbourne), while because Spain had dropped out of holding the 1998 Eurocon, there will be no Eurocon next year, but Baltcon in Gdynia, Poland will be the 2000 Eurocon (rather to the surprise of the Polish visitors to Octocon, who had only gone there to drum up interest, as they expected the vote to be held next year!). I promptly paid up my IEP 19.99 to the persuasive German membership sellers, and I'm now looking forward to my first German con.
While eating breakfast that morning, I'd heard mention on the radio of some event being held on the Liffey at 8 p.m. between Capel Street bridge and the Halfpenny bridge. Being curious, I headed that way at around 7.30, and found a couple of searchlights being shone on the embankments and a large crowd on both sides of the river. There were some blazing floats on the river, and a frame about sixty feet long in the shape of a fish, which a man in a kayak was attempting with some difficulty to light. It transpired that this represented the "Salmon of Knowledge" as depicted on the Irish 10 pence coin, or as I came to think of it when the wind blew the paraffin fumes in my direction, the "Smoked Salmon of Knowledge" (delicious!). A music and speech presentation followed, telling the story of the Salmon of Knowledge, and also strongly making the point that pollution of Irish rivers has reduced the fish population by some 80% in the last 15-20 years, largely caused by failures in sewage treatment works. Despite the person with the collecting bucket going round wearing an Adi Roche campaign label as well as an environmental campaign one, I donated a pound or so to the campaign. A little after 9.30 p.m. it became apparent that the promised fireworks display wasn't going to materialise, and it being thoroughly cold by now, I adjourned to a nearby Burger King to warm up and put away a few calories for the night, and headed off to Donnybrook.
And so to bed.
The radio had warned that there would be some disruption to traffic today, because the Dublin Marathon was being run. I walked out of the house on Stillorgan Road and immediately noticed than the nearside lane of the road was coned off, and immediately concluded that we were on the route of the race. To be honest, I never took much interest in the Marathon, reckoning that it's for people who are insufferably fit and healthy, and I immediately distanced myself from such folk... I made my way to the bus stop, and just failed to catch a number 84 bus which pulled out just as I ran up to it. This was unfortunate, but I settled down to wait ten minutes or so for the next bus, in the company of a young lady also waiting for a no. 10. Half an hour later, at a quarter to ten, she proclaimed "oh, this is ridiculous, there's only been one bus in the last hour" (!) and promptly hailed a passing taxi. My offer to share was accepted, and off we went for the city centre. It was quickly clear what had happened to the buses, as the Gardái were directing traffic off the main road before we even got as far as Donnybrook bus garage - we found our way to the centre via quite a convoluted but interesting route, and the nearest I could get to St Stephens' Green was Merrion Street where I bailed out of the taxi. I walked to St Stephens' Green and was met by a childrens' "Minithon" coming the other way, though they didn't look terribly competitive. The mens' race in the full marathon had Kenyans in the first three places, and the womens' race was won by someone from Malta.
I finally reached the castle around 10.15, where I found that people hadn't been allowed into the conference centre by castle staff until 10.00 anyway, so I hadn't missed much!
Another day of typical con-type activities followed, rounded off with a charity auction which raised, if I remember correctly, something like IEP 900. The most spirited bidding was for one of L. Ron Hubbards' interminable books, where the competition was to bid most in order to have the book ceremonially shredded at the end of the auction - though unfortunately the actual shredding didn't take place! The closing ceremony included the presentation of various awards by both Octocon and Eurocon - I felt there was a gently sadistic air when Bridget Wilkinson announced the local fanzine Albedo 1 was the winner of a Eurocon award, they all trooped from their places at the back of the hall to receive the award, then went back; then they were called back to receive another award... and another award ;-)
After the formal close of the convention, Paul Dormer and I adjourned to the Kingsland for dinner (does something make you think I like that restaurant?), before then heading off to the bar of the Parliament Hotel for the evening, which I largely spent discussing travels in foreign parts with Jürgen Marzi, who has travelled in considerably wilder foreign parts than I have (He would seem to be almost the archetypical German tourist! ;-) ) and with Jonathan Cowie of Concatenation who was looking for advice on setting up a web site - he might have taken a look at mine, but I hope he doesn't pick up any bad practices! A little after 11 p.m. I had to say goodbye to everyone, and to the con, and head back to College Green to catch one of the last buses of the night.
And so, at last, to bed.
Typically, the last day of my visit was the nicest day meteorologically. The day dawned bright, clear and sunny. I finished packing, and made sure I hadn't left anything behind, then went down for my last breakfast from Mrs Brannagh. I wasn't too keen on the idea of travelling on a bus full of students while carrying a rucksack and another bag, so I carefully examined my map of the city and noticed that there was a DART (suburban electric railway) station about a kilometre away. Off I walked, and within a few minutes I arrived at Sidney Parade station, just in time to hear an announcement that trains were running 15-20 minutes late because of a failed unit at Tara Street - some things don't change whatever country you're in! Before long a northbound train arrived and I was wafted to Connolly Station where I left my bags in the left luggage office while I spent a couple of hours in the vicinity of O'Connell Street doing a little shopping before I went to the Busaras, the central bus station, to catch the Airlink bus just before noon. Half an hour later I was checked in for Ryanair flight FR554 back to Manchester, had set off the metal detector, again - I think it was the tin of sweets I'd just bought that did it! At 1335 the plane reversed off its' stand and a few minutes later lifted into the clear blue sky, from where I was able to follow local geography as the flight progressed - the shape of the Isle of Man was distinct, and as we crossed the coast just north of Liverpool I could clearly see all the way past Blackpool, then we passed over such exotic places as Bolton and Stockport before touching down at Manchester after 35 minutes in the air. A quick bus transfer to the arrivals hall and then to the railway station saw me back at the front door of my house an hour and 55 minutes after the plane started moving. Another holiday sadly over...
I really enjoyed my visit to Ireland and the Con immensely, and I'll certainly make sure it's not another 13 years before I go back again! I'd just like to conclude this little trip report with a few thanks:
To Dónal Cunningham, for taking the time off his work schedule to meet me at the airport, show me around central Dublin, be a good drinking and dining companion and attempted language teacher!
To Mrs Marie Brannagh for running an extremely comfortable home-from-home, and to Mindy, Catrióna and Laura at Dublin Tourism for finding my accommodation for me.
To all the folks at Bus Átha Cliath for running an efficient service (Monday morning excepted!) and getting me from Donnybrook to the City Centre and back efficiently, even at one in the morning.
To the Con Committee and all its workers and guests, for putting on a pretty decent convention!
To the staff and owners of the Flying Pig Bookshop, Crow Street, for being so entertaining!
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Last updated: 28-08-2001.
Redundant links removed: 08-06-2006.
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