Monday, June 27, 2005

 

Dubliners

It's certainly not the city Joyce left on Bloomsday, any more. Dublin is a multiracial, multiethnic boomtown, half under renovation and its streets clogged with tourists, where you're more likely to hear Russian or Croatian on the street than Gaelic (though Ireland's radio and television, RTE, with its sappy Gaelic soap operas and dubbed kung fu movies, keeps up its valiant mouth-to-mouth). The city is so far north, twilight comes at about 9:30 p.m.; it's ready made for nightlife. However, what gets billed in the tourbooks as harmless good craic in the Temple Bar, looks more like Spring Break/Fort Lauderdale debauchery up close. I'll be blogging more about England and Ireland in the days and weeks to come, but just wanted to check in, as (I believe) our first "foreign correspondent."

posted by Michael 12:26 PM