This is Dublin!
Welcome to Dublin, contender for greatest European city
- Published: 7/02/2010 at 12:00 AM
- Newspaper section: Brunch
The definition of a top class city - a place that makes virtue out of vice, knows exactly where to find fun, and doesn't worry about getting any sleep.
Dubs can be brutally unsentimental about their city, which mightn't come across as quite so sexy or sultry as other European capitals, but Dublin, they'll tell you, has personality, which is way more important than good looks and will last far longer.
So, what is it that makes Dublin so special?
One, it's small. The city centre is bordered by two canals, north and south, and you can get anywhere on foot (or, as Dubliners might say, at least anywhere that's worth going). Two, it's lively. With one of the youngest populations of any city in Europe, Dublin is alive with bars, restaurants and nightlife and full of people who know how to live it large. Three, it's friendly. Lift a map to waist-level and you'll attract a host of locals who'll show you where to go and will probably walk part of the way with you. Four, it's cosmopolitan. Gone are the days when avocados were considered exotic and olive oil was only available from chemists. With a healthy and sizeable influx of foreign nationals over the last decade, Dublin has become a proper multicultural hub, something that has given the city's arts and culinary scene a good kick in the pants.
Oh yes, and there's the sights - although you'll be having such a good time you might not get to experience the wonders of the city's many museums and galleries, or take in the diverse architecture of its elegant Georgian squares and modernist docklands.
Dublin oozes character - it is a city whose sociability and soul will stay with you long after you travel home, and will guarantee that you'll soon be booking tickets for your return.
DUBLIN ENCOUNTER: 475 baht at all good bookshops.
LIFE AS A DUBLINER
More than 50% of Dubliners are under 30, and almost a quarter are teenagers - a fact that goes a long way to explaining the city's vibrant, liberal outlook. They are, by and large, a relaxed and easygoing bunch, generally more at home with informality than any kind of stuffiness. Dubliners may have known some good times in recent decades, but years of British rule fostered a healthy contempt for snobbery and it is generally money, rather than breeding, which impresses here.
Nevertheless, Dubliners aren't big on talking themselves up, preferring their actions to speak for themselves. Although not as pronounced as in rural areas, Dubliners are admirers of the peculiar art of self-deprecation, known locally as an beal bocht a chur ort, or putting on the poor mouth, the mildly pejorative practice of making out that things are far worse than they really are in order to evoke sympathy - or the forbearance of creditors, of vital importance in the days when the majority of the Irish were at the mercy of an unforgiving landlord system.
As a result, Dubliners can readily engage in begrudgery - although it's something they'll only admit among their own, and generally kept within the wider family. This is why Bono will get fiercer criticism for his goings on in his hometown than anywhere else in the world!
It'll take a keen ear and a well-honed sensibility to distinguish criticism from slagging (the Irish form of teasing), which is an art form in the city and an intrinsic element of how Dubliners relate to one another. It is commonly assumed that the mettle of friendship is proven by how well you can take a joke rather than the payment of a cheap compliment.
With 1.6 million people living in the wider Dublin area, that's a lot of teasing. Imagine the challenge for all of the recent arrivals to what was once a largely white, Roman Catholic city! Yet the assimilation of immigrants from Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe has been largely successful, and while some less enlightened minds will grumble about outsiders taking our jobs (a grumble that will surely get louder in the face of tougher economic times), most Dubliners agree that the city's growing multiculturalism has been of enormous benefit, giving greater weight to Dublins declaration that it is truly one of Europe's most cosmopolitan burgs.
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