Dublin (5)
All official signage is Irish-first. None of the advertisements are in Irish. The latest reports say that despite massive government effort, the Gaeltacht are unlikely to remain so in coming decades. If it ends up a kind of liturgical language? R. tells me that she wishes people still believed in the Greek gods.
The two old fellows staffing the Joyce tower tell me to check out the National Museum, where the collection of ancient gold artifacts is among the richest in Europe. “You’ll get the impression that things were really quite good until around 1200, when our first wave of benefactors arrived...”
I don’t have kidchamp’s skill at talking to bartenders or cabbies, but one driver did tell me how freakily mild the last two winters in Europe have been.
Some Neck Guitars, a class establishment, let me play some great old Fenders (Jaguar, Tele Custom, two Tele Deluxes). Maybe they’ll cluster here, like the manuscript corpus that tucked away a bad age in the monasteries.
