When I think back on the 20 years I’ve called Dublin city my home, I’m smothered in delicious, nostalgic and frenetic memories. Dragging camping chairs on to the roof of the apartment building in Stoneybatter to watch the sunset. Walking, or rather sliding, to work on North Wall Quay at 6am during a Big Snow. Making eye contact with and inexplicably winking at Queen Elizabeth II as her motorcade travelled down Gardiner Street in 2011.
I can never think of my years as a Dubliner without one recollection intruding though. This one horrific memory returns to me again and again: The day I gave some tourists the wrong directions to Riverdance.
Picture the scene. I’m walking along Kildare Street, minding my own business. Two Americans stop me. I can tell they’re Americans immediately because they’re dressed like they’re preparing to go to the Superbowl and somehow ascend Croagh Patrick at the same time. They’re on their way to see Riverdance, they say, but are running a little late and struggling to locate the theatre. Can I tell them where the Gaiety is, please?
Now, I don’t know if it was that I had once seen Riverdance at the Olympia, or that I was dazzled by their big white teeth, or that I just had a malfunction of the grey matter, but I heard “Gaiety” and my brain went “Olympia”.
Big Aisling that I am, I immediately went into one of my favourite modes: helping visitors to our shores. I gave detailed instructions on the quickest way to Dame Street, where the Olympia sits.
Indeed I turned them around from the (correct) direction they were going on. “Down there now and follow the walls of Trinity College around – yes, the Book of Kells is lovely I believe but there can be fierce queues. When you get to the front entrance of Trinity College stand with your back to it. The street ahead of you is Dame Street. Don’t be getting distracted by woolly jumper shops and elaborate doughnuts (this was in the early days of Dublin’s fancy doughnut phase). Walk up Dame Street and it’s there on your left. If you hit Brogan’s pub you’ve gone too far, but only just.”
I told them to hurry, and they’d definitely make it.
Well, I was thrilled with myself. I’d given them loads of big smiles and lied a bit and said you couldn’t even tell it wasn’t Michael Flatley lepping across the stage. I was on Camden Street before I realised my grave, grave error. The Gaiety. They were looking for the Gaiety. Not only that, but they’d been running late, and I had sent them on a wild-goose chase to the wrong theatre. They’d been so close and everything.
I’ve imagined them so many times, arriving in their leisure wear and raincoats, Riverdance tickets in hand, so confused and wondering about the wolf in sheep’s clothing on Kildare Street who’d led them so far astray. Hopefully they were quickly informed of the error and directed back in the direction of the Gaiety, but they really were so American I can only imagine the hoo-ha they would have made coming in late.
There’s been a survey rumbling around the internet for a few months which names Dublin as the second most stressful city in the world. Data on travel times, cost of living, healthcare, crime and pollution was pulled from various online sources to put the list together but honestly the first thing I thought of when I saw Dublin’s ranking was the day I sent poor Barb and Stan to the Olympia instead of the Gaiety.
Whenever lists like this appear it’s always advisable to take them with a barrel of salt. Usually, they’re commissioned or collated as an excuse to issue a tantalising press release to promote a company or brand – in this case a financial services provider. The list places New York at number one, then it’s Dublin, then Mexico City, Manila and London.
Putting Dublin in second place is a dubious claim, but Dubliners couldn’t share the information fast enough, reeling from another day of being mocked by bus timetables, stressing about rent, getting attacked by seagulls and paying a fiver for a coffee. If there’s anything we love more than a list telling us how great we are, it’s a list telling us that Ireland is the pits.
They should have tracked down Barb and Stan for some quotes about how stressful they found Dublin. I’m sorry Barb and Stan. I hope Ohio state are scoring lots of baskets or touchdowns or whatever to make up for it.