Getting out: Dublin Castle, coffee with M, steak for dinner

My DBT session went well. The material we’re covering pertains to interpersonal effectiveness. Specifically there’s a set of acronyms for some skills to use when asking someone else for your wants/needs: “DEAR MAN,” “GIVE”, and “FAST.” Here’s a link to a PDF that spells them out, in case anyone is interested (following the link will download the PDF).

The weather is much better today, and I’m feeling the need to get out of the apartment. I do my usual routine of coffee, breakfast, and news, but I don’t dilly-dally. After showering, I get a text from my friend M in The Liberties inviting me over to his place for some coffee and red velvet cake, which I gladly accept.

I run into my elderly neighbor Irene in the stairwell on the way out. Funny that I never saw her for 6 weeks, then all of a sudden I see her twice in the past few days. We have a brief chit-chat. She’s lived in Sprangers Yard since 1996. I also learn that the building is named after Spranger Barry, who was an Irish actor in the 1700s who opened the Crow Street Theatre on the site. After the theatre closed, it was apparently home to a circus before being bought by a medical school owned by the Apothecaries’ Hall company. Irene mentioned something about running her business out of a building that housed cadavers for the same school on Cecelia Street where Crow Street ends, now home to an Urban Outfitters. 

On the way over to M’s, I take a slight detour through the Dublin Castle complex, which I’ve walked by many times but haven’t entered since my arrival. Dating back to the post-Norman invasion period of the early 1200s, the castle was built by the dark pool (“Dubh Linn”) formed by the River Poddle, which is how Dublin got its name (the Poddle runs under the complex today). More background can be found in this Wikipedia article.

View of the Record Tower and Chapel Royal:

View of the Georgian courtyard:

Entrance to the State Apartments (former residence of the English “Lord Lieutenant” or “Viceroy” who was the presiding officer over Ireland, now used for ceremonial purposes):

Views of the Coach House Gallery (which originally housed the Viceroy’s horses but is now used as a conference center):

View from next to the Coach House Gallery looking back to Record Tower and the Dubh Linn Garden:

I meander through side streets on the way to M’s place, passing closeby to St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Along the way I come across a formidable red brick structure that is the Iveagh Hostel (formerly Iveagh House), part of the Iveagh Trust, bearing the same name as Iveagh Gardens featured in an earlier post. The Iveagh Trust was initially a component of the Guinness Trust, founded in 1890 by Edward Guinness, 1st Earl of Iveagh, great-grandson of the founder of the Guinness Brewery, to help homeless people in Dublin and London.

The block of row houses where my friend M lives (he rents the 3rd house in from the right):

I have a good visit with M for a couple of hours which pass by quickly. I want to stop by a couple of shops while I’m out, so we bid each other goodbye while he takes his two doggies out for a walk. I cut across The Liberties back towards St. Stephen’s Green and the Grafton Street shopping district.

A derelict building in The Liberties that caught my eye because of its Star Wars graffiti:

I stop into a Dunnes Stores location and also a smaller Marks & Spencers Food Hall off Grafton Street. I was thinking of making an enchilada casserole next week, but corn tortillas seem impossible to find; the stores only have flour tortillas. I’m also on the hunt for some egg white powder for use in making cocktails. I try a few health food / supplement shops, but no luck. I stop into the posh Fallon & Byrne Food Hall on the way back to the apartment and find some Angostura bitters, another cocktail ingredient I haven’t seen elsewhere. Only when I’m checking out do I realise it’s priced at €22.95 (!); the bottle is a larger than the standard size you find in the states, but that is quite a premium.