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New shoes on and high, dry feet, I walk out onto the Dun Laoghaire water break. East and west bands in the shape of a horseshoe hook into the bay. Each band looks to be almost
a half mile long. They are wonderful promenades and while only 9-10 people are out on the east band, it is obvious from the width of the upper and lower levels that hundreds of people can stroll at one time with ease. The wind threatens to pull my umbrella out of my hands and blow
it inside out a number of times, but I walk the full length, and upon my return one old gentleman greets me and says, "Bracing morning, it 'tis. I've counted only six people." He seems to delight in the foul weather. I trudge around puddles and dog shit and walk
around the bay to Sandycove and the Martello tower that James Joyce lived in for seven days with his friends Samuel Trench and John Gogarty. As I come around a wall by the little Sandycove Beach, I watch an elderly man and woman emerge from the water after a swim in the howling morning. The tower has a great deal of Joyce memorabilia; it also replicates the second floor sleeping room that the three men shared until the night Trench had a dream about a leopard, grabbed a pistol, fired a shot in the darkened room,
and then Gogarty grabbed the pistol and fired numerous shots above the head of Joyce. Joyce left the next day. I buy post cards depicting Joyce, write a letter to Marcia and have dinner at a Chinese restaurant where the help barely understands Irish English, let alone American English. It is a dinner marked by a number of false starts. |
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