A hastily-snapped, illegal photo of The Long Reading Room in the library at Trinity, Dublin. I spent two bleary afternoons in the city, after taking the early morning train down from Belfast. I’d been there years ago, as a teenager, and had vague romantic memories of wandering the streets by myself. But I was surprised by how little I actually knew about the place once I arrived this time, and it probably wasn’t until the second day that I warmed up to it. Which will happen when you just wander a town centre without really knowing what you’re looking for. (Not a U2 reference.)
I sat for a while in St. Stephen’s Green, which is pretty, but not remarkably so. I visited the grounds of Trinity and looked at its Book of Kells display, then poked around the bookstores on Dawson Street. I wandered the touristy area around Grafton Street and the Temple Bar area, crossed the Threepenny Bridge and went up to the General Post Office to look at the bullet holes from the Easter 1916 rising. In short, I did a bunch of the typical stuff and left feeling I didn’t know the place at all. It’s a curious, low-profiled town, and I get the feeling it needs at least a couple of weeks of exploration to even begin to scratch the surface. Then I went back to Belfast, which is a whole other story.
