Dublin is now a modern city, but this Dubliner and celebrated Irish writer retains some nostalgia for the way it used to be

BY MARY KENNY

The Irish Minister of Finance recently said that he was shortly expecting at least one hundred British businesses – many from the City of London – to re-locate offices to Dublin. 

This would be one dividend for the Irish of the Brexit decision, I suppose. If City of London folk are looking for business locations remaining inside the European Union, and is, in addition, English-speaking, accessible, and with a bunch of well-educated young people available, then Dublin surely fits the bill.  

But in another way, oh dear, I’m a bit crestfallen. Dublin is my native city and I’ve seen it change enormously over the past few decades. When I was growing up there, back in the 1960s, it had the rackety charm of old Ireland, with a strong dollop of Bohemian life thrown in. You could walk through the old Georgian streets of Sean O’Casey’s tenements. You could wend your way, topographically, through Dublin following James Joyce’s Ulysses.

 Poor but interesting writers and artists lived all around Baggot Street, and along the elegiac, picturesque canals. The pubs were famous either for their thoughtful quietness (there was a pub guide call “The Quiet Pint”) or their scintillating conversation, and many featured that delightful niche known as “the snug”. The “snug” was bordered off from the main part of the pub by stained glass and saloon doors. Originally, the idea was to allow respectable women to have a private space, since unrespectable women were not expected to appear in the main part. (Doheny & Nesbitt’s in Merrion Row still has an enchanting “snug”.)

But a revenant from my girlhood years would scarcely recognise most of Dublin now. It is all frightfully smart and slick. The tenements have either been gentrified or replaced by modern blocks. No poor artists or writers could afford to dwell in Dublin today. The pubs often feature noisey television sets, or else loud disco music (which occludes conversation.)

To be sure, there are many improvements. There are any amount of excellent restaurants and eateries. There’s a tram system (although it’s undergoing some rather Irish restoration at the moment – that’s to say, they are joining up the two branches of the tram system, so that they actually meet) which has improved public transport.  Dublin is much more cosmopolitan than it used to be and the city fathers are considering nominating a part of the city near O’Connell Street as a formal “Chinatown”. There are always plenty of cultural events going on, and although young folk stare into their screens just as they do everywhere else, it remains, on the whole, a friendly and gregarious city. 

The old docklands – as in London – have been transformed into a flashy financial centre, and the old meat market, also called Smithfield  – just north of the Liffey – has an impressive art cinema complex and an array of cafes and restaurant. 

But like London – though on a smaller scale, obviously – Dublin is bursting at the seams. Housing has become wildly expensive because of the sheer pressure on space. If it’s like that now, what will happen if and when a hundred City of London businesses transfer to the Irish capital? Quite a challenge. Dublin Airport handled 26 million passengers in and out last year: it will shortly be looking at double that number. (Belfast has two commercial airports – Belfast International and George Best Airport, down by the docks – but Dublin has only one.) Dublin is, perhaps, the only capital in Europe which does not have a Metro or underground system. One was mooted some years ago, but by the time the plans were in place, it was considered too expensive, and then, it was considered too late to start – the disruption would be unbearable. 

There will be disadvantages for Ireland when Brexit gets going – especially for the Irish agri-business, which depends heavily on the British market – and there will be headaches over the border with Northern Ireland. On both sides of the Border, there are prayers – Catholic and Protestant! – for a soft Brexit.

But Dublin will boom and bloom. An astonishing number of Brits – even six months after the Brexit referedum – have discovered an Irish grandmother and have staked their claim to an Irish passport (only one Irish grandparent required).

In one way, I’m glad if my native city succeeds in finding opportunities in this new order – because it is a great city, and surely anyone would want to do business there.

But a small, nostalgic part of me looks back regretfully at a simpler, sweeter time, when “dear dirty Dublin” was an easy-going town where the rush hour – such as it was – started at about 9.am. (it now begins at 6.30am), and there seemed endless time to stop and stare and like O’Casey’s Joxer murmur at the night sky: “What is the stars?”

Mary Kenny is an Irish-born writer and journalist resident in Kent. See www.mary-kenny.com