I’m feeling lazy in the morning and resist getting out of bed, but another buzz on the intercom gets up in a rush. It’s a parcel delivery containing another sheet set that I wasn’t expecting until later in the week. Then the usual morning routine gets underway — coffee, breakfast, reading the news. I boil more deionized water for my CPAP. Despite the blue skies out the window, there’s rain forecasted for later in the afternoon, so I motivate myself to get out the door for a good walk before the weather turns wet.
I’m soon rewarded with a bright rainbow looking northward. A full arch is visible over the campus of Trinity College Dublin, and I snap other photos looking down a couple of streets:
My destination is the Merrion Square park, which I haven’t visited since my arrival. It’s surrounded on three sides by classic Georgian brick townhouses. Some social distancing spaces in the shape of hearts have been freshly painted on the grass.
At one entrance to the park is an Irish War Memorial in the form of a modernist pyramid sculpture:
Placed inside the pyramid are four statues of Irish soldiers, glimpses of which can be viewed through the memorial’s narrow windows, but unfortunately they aren’t easily photographed due to the glare on the glass.
At one of the corner entrances to the park is a memorial to Oscar Wilde commissioned in 1997 by the Guinness Ireland Group (yes, that Guinness), 100 years after his death. At the time, it was the first statue commemorating the poet anywhere, and the site was chosen close to Oscar Wilde’s childhood home at No. 1 Merrion Square (another famous Irish poet, W.B. Yeats, lived at No. 82). In addition to the main statue, there are two smaller statues on polished granite pillars upon which some of Wilde’s words have been engraved in the handwriting style of three other Irish notables (including the poet Seamus Heaney). The handwriting reminds me of the kiss marks and written messages in lipstick previously left by visitors on Oscar Wilde’s tomb in the Paris Père Lachaise Cemetery. As an aside, the tomb was eventually scrubbed clean shortly after I last saw it in 2011 and protected by a glass barrier on which new messages can now be written. Ireland’s Office of Public Works paid for the cleaning and the barrier for the tomb, since it is considered to be an Irish monument located overseas.
A few other sculptures in the park… the figure of Éire (Ireland in female form) holding a harp:
“The Joker’s Chair”:
It’s not a sculpture, but the green color of this tree’s trunk caught my eye:
Dublin’s crest of three castles engraved on a paver stones at one of the park’s entrances:
I catch a small leftover of the rainbow that’s still visible above the Georgian townhouses:
I head back towards home, stopping by the Dunnes Store at the Stephens Green Shopping Centre near Grafton Street for a few things from their basement “food hall” grocery department; all the other departments are cordoned off with yellow tape marked with some “COVID” messaging, since clothing and housewares are not considered “essential.” I emerge into a light rain that my water-proof jacket had been anticipating and walk back to Temple Bar. I have a mid-afternoon lunch and lounge the rest of the afternoon, goofing off on my phone, texting friends, and calling AT&T to downgrade my U.S. wireless plan since I’m not using it much over here.
As I settle into the evening, I decide to check out the streaming options for RTÉ television. Other than listening to news radio and reading the Irish Times online, I haven’t really consumed much of the local media and instead have been sticking to my U.S. streaming services. Similar to the BBC, there is an RTÉ “Player” app required to view live broadcasts and recorded shows. I download the RTÉ app first to my iPad and then my iPhone, thinking the best approach would be to stream the video feed from a device to the Apple TV, but it doesn’t seem to work well on either device (it keeps playing ads and then nothing). Only then do I discover there’s an app especially designed for Apple TV, and much to my relief, it works much better without any ads. I tune into the 6 o’clock news to follow in the background, then check out “The Late Late Show” which apparently is the second longest-running late night talk show in the world after The Tonight Show, although it is only broadcast once-a-week on Fridays. In reading up about the show, I learned that the host contracted COVID-19 in March during the first wave of the pandemic, but he returned after a guest host filled in for a few episodes. Speaking of COVID, the daily new reported cases in Ireland has bounced back in the 700s. It is not expected that the Level 5 restrictions will be lifted early.
Tomorrow’s U.S. election day is of course foremost in my mind. No confirmation yet that my ballot has been received and counted, but that’s a trifling matter compared to other election concerns.
All for today, cheers!
