A Cap of Dublin Tweed

Times can overlap, events become everyday. Every Sunday morning reminds me of being in Dublin with my brother, a day or so before I got married. He had come all the way from Vancouver for the wedding and we were able to steal a day or so away as a sort of stag party, although it was just me and my brother in Dublin, and anyone less likely to enjoy a stag do would be difficult to imagine. One of the best holidays I have ever had. Dublin on the Saturday morning, city walking and shops, the Book of Kells again, the long gallery and ancient books of the library afterwards. Lunch in an old haunt, O'Neill's, where the Trinity staff used to drink. Wanderings and occasional pints and old discoveries, back streets and cobbles and rooftops and an evening pub crawl through Martin's wish list of Dublin boozers; etched glass, shiny gas lamps and worn wooden tables and conversation, conversation, conversation. Guinness and talking and Dublin at midnight, walking home through musicians and crowds and rain for more Guinness in the Octagon bar before bed. And bright and early on the Sunday morning, the city deserted, the train to Blackrock half empty of people going home, best frocks, crumpled suits. Blackrock was town-grey and misty, a place of sea and rocks and dog-walkers alongside the waves. I came away with a battered copy of John Ackermann's 'Welsh Dylan', about Dylan Thomas's relationship with Wales; overpriced at three euros but worth it for the title page used as a bookmark - Shelley in Dublin, poems by Brendan Kenneally, signed by the author. Endless time in Irish souvenir shops, the leprechaun key rings, the Famine laments, but time spent with my brother was invaluable, a gentle, funny, kind man. A swirl of a journey home to the airport past churches and washing and Sunday afternoons the world over. So I thought an Irish ballad should be written but I am not the person for it; all that survives is the last two lines 'and all I have/ is a pint-potful of memories/and a cap of Dublin tweed.'