Chronicle of the Effra

I arrived into the capital of Ireland, and the province of Leinster, with the entire country gripped by conversations of the European Union. The catalyst was Ireland being one of few countries in the union to hold a public referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, the fundamental document which codifies relationships between the member states, the peoples and the union institutions to a much greater extent than has ever been the case before. The HI hostel was the usual cosmopolitan mix of visitors and thus a haven from such political currents but as the photos show, every other street played host to placards and posters arguing both ways - sometimes next to each other.

The other event which occured during my visit was the European Championships of football, Euro 2008, made a surreal vista by the sight of the peoples of the British Isles searching for alternative teams to support in the absence of all five of the national teams from the islands. On my way out of the hostel on one day, I stopped into a pub for refreshment and found it virtually deserted during a live match. A virtually unheard of scenario.

Aside from politics and football, life carried on in its usual way. I have been a regular visitor to this country but largely through Dublin on my way into the countryside Counties of Laois, Carlow, Kilkenny and Cork rather than into the metropolis itself. As a port city, Dun Laoghaire has always held a certain fascination on arrival. Like an unreconstructed version of London's Docklands and one of two ferry ports through which the vast majority of my journeys from Lancashire were conducted, given the high cost of short-haul aviation at the time.

In my absence, Ireland built a more fully formed infrastructural skeleton and built wealth on the skeleton, primed by the pump of European Union funding for small, investment starved countries. The period, described by many by the Morgan Stanley-coinage "Celtic Tiger", is coming to a dramatic halt as the global financial crisis of 2008 hits hard.

Whilst I was there, much of the renewed self-confidence was evident in the centre of the city. The silvery bullets of the Luas tram, only born in 2004, glided smoothly down the city's streets and there was a similarly shiny sculpture called the Spike protruding from the centre of the city which the local tourism board even used as a metonym for the city in the same way as the Eiffel Tower is for Paris. An interesting choice, given the presence of a large stone monument in the city centre commemorating the founding of the Irish Free State, and the role of Charles Parnell within it. Parnell's IFS was the first successful breakaway from the governance of the entire island of Ireland by the UK government.

Outside of the inner core, the old city still breathes, including my home for my recent visit, the Dublin International An Oige Hostel on Mountjoy Street and the pub on Dorset Street where I found the football and a pint of lemonade. Not far from the hostel is the Garden of Remembrance, an eery reminder (especially for a British citizen) of the long and painful fight of self-determination for the people of the country. I did not venture forth. I was, however, struck by how unmarked and unremarked upon it was. Not even in the central area.

With my friend and companion Anna-Lilja Haefele, I headed down to the Temple Bar, another area more old than new where tourist haunts had nonetheless left room for a vibrant stream of live music including the multi-faceted street performers Slainte shown in the pictures. Where London's old marketplaces left Covent Garden to wide open spaces of performance, Dublin's narrow winding city streets have left Temple Bar as a labyrinth of sound.

I find Dublin's relationship with its founding river similar to London. But perhaps even more, the river Liffey defines the city. The people and districts are divided between "Northside" and "Southside" and the postal system serves up even numbers for the former and odd numbers for the latter. The bridges vary wildly in style, from functional to glorious.

Cead mile failte