My friend S., whom I had not seen since Christmas, came for a visit to Dublin for the weekend. I met him at the Spire after his train arrived in the afternoon, then we had lunch at a Japanese place, Musashi, on Capel Street — bento boxes with katsu curry, sushi and gyoza. On a whim, we decided to go see a one-man theatrical performance in the evening by Gabriel Byrne, a well known Irish movie actor / director / producer. The show, “Walking with Ghosts,” is an adaptation of a memoir of the same name and was staged at the Gaiety Theatre near St. Stephens Green. Our seats were in the upper-most section, but we still had a decent view. Although theatres are allowed to be at full capacity now that COVID restrictions have been relaxed, audience members are still required to wear masks.
The show ended relatively early. For dinner, I made pork medallions with lemon thyme cream sauce served with air fried tenderstem broccoli and pre-made red cabbage. For the remaining of the evening we took advantage of my mini-home theatre and watched “Belfast” directed and written by Kenneth Branagh. It’s a semi-autobiographical film, mostly in black and white, that chronicles the life of a working class family and their young son’s childhood during the tumult of the late 1960s in the Northern Ireland capital. The cast features Caitríona Balfe, Judi Dench, Jamie Dornan, Ciarán Hinds and Colin Morgan. The child actor, Jude Hill, who played the central role of a young version of Kenneth Branagh gave an Oscar-worthy performance. On Sunday, we went out for a late brunch at Chimac, a Korean fried chicken place that does its own take on chicken and waffles (we just ordered waffles on the side) and bottomless slushy mimosas. Later in the afternoon, we stopped in The George for a few rounds, enjoying the near-normal atmosphere of the full bar.
Today is the 50th anniversary (to the day) of Bloody Sunday, January 30th 1972. The deadly event occurred after 15,000 people gathered in the Northern Ireland town of Derry to take part in a civil rights march. A summary of the event from Wikipedia: “Bloody Sunday, or the Bogside Massacre, was a massacre in the [predominantly Catholic] Bogside area of Derry, Northern Ireland, when British soldiers shot 26 unarmed civilians during a protest march against internment without trial. Fourteen people were murdered: thirteen were killed outright, while the death of another man four months later was attributed to his injuries. Many of the victims were shot while fleeing from the soldiers, and some were shot while trying to help the wounded. Other protesters were injured by shrapnel, rubber bullets, or batons, and two were run down by British Army vehicles. All of those shot were Catholics. The march had been organised by the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA). The soldiers were from the 1st Battalion, Parachute Regiment, the same battalion implicated in the Ballymurphy massacre several months prior.”
The shootings led to widespread anger in Derry and beyond. The British Embassy in Dublin was burned to the ground by an angry crowd. Bloody Sunday precipitated an upsurge in support for the Irish Republican Army (IRA), which advocated violence against the United Kingdom to force it to withdraw from Northern Ireland. It wasn’t until after the Good Friday peace accords of the late 1990s that Prime Minister Tony Blair announced that a new inquiry would be held, headed by judge Lord Saville (hence it was known as the “Saville Inquiry”). It was set up in 1998 and reported back only in 2010, becoming the longest-running inquiry in British legal history and costing about £200m. The outcome of the inquiry was an apology made by Prime Minister David Cameron who said the killings were “unjustified and unjustifiable.” However, no British paratroopers involved in the killings have been brought to trial, although family members of those who were murdered continue to press for justice. As recently as July 2021, the UK Public Prosecution Service announced that one of the former paratroopers would not be put on trial for his alleged killing of one of the protesters. For anyone who might be a U2 fan, you can check out an acoustic version of the song “Bloody Sunday” performed by Bono and The Edge here:
https://twitter.com/U2/status/1487823990592782336
Until next time….
