Going AWOL

So I've left the blog to my old mucker zero_zero_one over the last few days. It's mainly due to a combination of trips to Dublin to sort out visas, job applications, and being all "writed out" from trying to finish off my damn thesis. Seriously, if I never have to read an article about cultural relativism again, it'll be too soon.

Anyway, I wasn't much impressed by Dublin, although I suspect it's one of those places that grows on you. What was most interesting about it was how similar it was to Glasgow and Liverpool - obviously the Irish connection. It had that same style of quietly magnificent Georgian architecture, the same mixture of poverty and new-found uber-development from European money, and the same sort of people - friendly and talkative but with an undercurrent of genuine steel.

It was especially similar to Liverpool in that it seems to rely heavily on past cultural glories for a sense of identity: in the case of Dublin it's James Joyce and W. B. Yeats; in the case of Liverpool, it's the Beatles and Roger McGough. Admittedly Dublin's references are slightly more highbrow. But there's the same sense of being defined more by the past than the future.

One thing about Dublin is that if you've studied a bit of Irish history you recognise most of the place names from dim memories of school text books. I enjoyed seeing Pheonix Park, site of the famous murders, for instance. It was also nice to be in the spiritual home of Irish Republicanism, given that my dad's side of the family are so into that aspect of Glasgow life, being Celtic-supporting mass-attending weejies. So I took a look around the Sinn Fein shop in honour of them, and also the Japanese connection, Shunsuke "He eats Chow Mein and he votes Sinn Feinn" Nakamura.