The ironic thing about me answering the call of a friend to contribute to this new section of Teaandtoast.ie is the fact that I’m not a fan of tea. Never have been, never will be. I can feel people leaving this article in droves already. Let me redeem my self by affirming my faith in toast: it’s alright…sparingly.
I work in a shop on the Northside of Dublin (if you know me, you’ll know the shop; if you don’t know me, hopefully you’ll never know the shop). It’s because of the many ridiculous scrapes I’ve managed to find myself in over the last two years that I now find myself here - the stories of my unique brand of customer service have proved so popular that I’ve been asked to widen my gaze and offer till-bound perspectives on the whole of the Northside and beyond.
So, to begin with, I’ve decided to watch hurling re-runs and talk about them. But this wasn’t your typical hurling game (and I don’t even like hurling anyway). It seems a bunch of “unsavoury characters” (political correctness, right?) had themselves a little game on Henry Street last week. This amateur footage provides some key highlights from the day’s action (it has already been cleverly re-worked into a satirical tourism ad).
This video is 39 seconds long. According to one newspaper report, the game was a half hour spectacle of blood, sweat and tears - but mostly blood. It was hard fought anyway and I’m sure the best team won. The hurleys were “provided” by a bunch of school children who I imagine just let these lads have them, and quite rightly too. I’m sure for them this game was an education…in how not to play hurling.
Naturally, Henry Street being a high street, the match was played out before a diverse crowd, some of whom looked on from within the nearby tourist office. Who knows what they thought of the event transpiring before them. They’ll probably see pictures of hurlers in a paper now and get the wrong idea.
Since then, I’ve read Tourism Minister Leo Varadkar in the papers reassuring everybody that the streets of Dublin are perfectly safe, and while I would like nothing more than to believe him, I have to admit I have doubts about the truth of that statement.
Maybe I’m just warier since I was the victim of robberies in my shop, but I don’t feel as safe wandering through certain areas of the City Centre as I did a few years ago. Before, after a college night out say, I used to walk deep into Fairview before getting a taxi home in order to save money - there were nights when I even walked the whole way to the Northside. I look back on that now and think it was crazy (though financially lucrative from a student standpoint, you understand). This growing paranoia would be a natural reaction to being the victim of a robbery of any kind, but I can’t just put it down to that.
Take Abbey Street. In the last year, it has been painfully obvious to me (while waiting for buses) that the number of “unsavoury characters” loitering in this area alone has increased alarmingly. Whether tottering about the place in the grips of some self-induced Nirvana or in groups of threes and fours with a bag o’ cans each, they are always around Abbey Street. It’s a conversation I’ve had with a number of friends and the phrase “gone to the dogs” is one uttered all too often.
One friend of mine who works in a shop on O’Connell Street recently told me of the policy of appeasement he has adopted when it comes to dealing with these “unsavoury characters.” If one stumbles in, helps himself to a bar and leaves without paying, he simply lets it go. If the lad comes back, he kicks him out then, but if it’s been a while since he last pillaged and he returns, he might let him away with it again. Why? Because he doesn’t want to be syringed on his way home, or even there and then, for a chocolate bar. So far, it’s worked out for him.
If I’m with friends, I can forget the sense of uneasiness that creeps up on me sometimes when I’m wandering through the City Centre. But when I’m alone, my eyes dart ‘round as my hands dig deeper into my coat pockets. My head sinks slightly but not too far, lest I walk into a trap that may or may not be waiting for me. It’s silly to a degree; it’s a public place after all. I should be safe.
Until a bunch o’ lads have a game of hurling just across the road using hurleys that allegedly belonged to passing schoolboys. What should I think then? A couple of friends of mine have been mugged in some strange places in recent times, one just around the corner from his own home. What then? I’ve always been cautious in my own area (I’ve been known to act up and “give it loads” when talking about it, too) but I always thought I’d be safe when close to home. Until another couple of neighbouring friends had their houses broken into.
The sense I get is that there is growing desperation in the city. Specifically, I don’t know what for or of what (or maybe I do and I’d rather not think about it). But desperate people - really desperate people - will do anything that needs to be done to survive in their own way.
Because people don’t just put on hurling exhibitions on Henry Street for the craic.
This was published during my brief spell as a writer-in-residence with Teaandtoast.ie, a now seemingly defunct political and culture website (the Facebook page remains but is largely inactive). A good friend of mine who had become editor of the site in May asked me to contribute to the cultural aspect of the website she was developing, so I wrote slightly comedic feature/opinion pieces on various societal ills which occurred in Dublin between May and July of 2012.
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