If ever you go ...

"Shaming the Custom House" Liberty Hall
Click on any image for a larger version

I have taken my title from a verse of Paddy Kavanagh's

If ever you go to Dublin town
In a hundred years or so
Inquire for me in Baggot Street 

And what I was like to know.

That was the title for last year's "One City, One Book" and John Dorman has taken some of the poems in the book and sketched the locations described in them.

His exhibition is currently in Raheny library till the end of the month (April). It is well worth a visit. The sketches incorporate buildings and maps of their environment, a sense of object and of place.

The one above is quite obviously Liberty Hall and the accompanying poem by Austin Clarke (below) only goes a small bit of the way to expressing how I feel about this monument to 1960s' hubris and pretentiousness. Anyway, give it a read yourself and see.

Poem written during the construction of Liberty Hall

Part of the exhibition in Raheny library

You can see more of Dorman's sketches on his website, both in this series and albums covering a wider range of subjects.

My own comment on Liberty Hall is fully captured in this visual (not in the exhibition !).

Dubliners

Dublin: One City, One Book is an initiative of Dublin City Libraries, where a different book with links to the capital is chosen each year. Citizens are encouraged to read the book during the month of April and a number of events are organised around it.



This year's choice is James Joyce's Dubliners: fifteen stories about the lives, loves, small triumphs and great failures of the ordinary citizens of Dublin.



One such event is a series of lunchtime lectures in City Hall on the theme, Dubliners - in their own words. They are held on four Tuesdays in April starting at 1pm.



City Hall is now in prime nick and entering though the grand foyer, in the august company of the likes of Thomas Davis and Daniel O'Connell (above), instills a great sense of awe and anticipation.



It's only a small step then into the intimacy of the Council chamber, where, last Tuesday, Dr. Criostóir MacCárthaigh, was preparing to give his talk on Tales from the Tenements - The Dublin Folklore Project. This is part of the wider Urban Folklore Project in the UCD Department of Irish Folklore (now the Delargy Centre).



The chamber was packed, the talk very interesting and the Q&A very lively. A good way to spend a lunchtime and well worth skipping lunch for.

Two talks remain: 17/4/2012 - The North Strand Bombing, and 24/4/2012 - Tales from Dublin's Liberties.