’Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house.
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
Shame the same couldn’t be said for Dublin City centre.
’Tis the night before Christmas. 7pm to be exact. Standing at the bus stop. It’s cold, dark, wet and the air reeks of Wintry damp and stale fat from the nearby Guest House. Bus comes. I go upstairs. Apart from a worse-for-wear looking Worzel Gummidge impresario it’s empty. I sit at the front. Quick as a flash, our anti-hero stumbles up the bus, landing with a thud on the seat behind me. I know what’s coming. Jesus, even the fly on the window knows what’s coming.
An arm lands beside my right shoulder as a hail of spittle flies past my ear and onto the glass pane in front of me.
There’s a litany of incoherent rambling followed by some shouting … because in his booze-soaked brain, shouting is the only way he can get through to me.
I have no idea what he is saying. Something about St. Jude and b**tards and a lot of question marks left hanging in the air.
I can see his face in the window, getting redder with each passing moment. His spit rate is now approaching peak velocity.
The bus stops. Starts up again. A young couple come upstairs. S. American. She’s laughing. He’s talking like Speedy Gonzales on Helium spiked with Acid.
Worzel turns his attention to them.
He wheels around and starts gesticulating wildly before getting up and unsteadily returning to his original seat.
Phew.
Earbuds in. EBTG. Eden. Nice and mellow. Relax.
Bus pulls up at my stop. I disembark. Christ town is empty. 7.30pm Christmas Eve. It’s like the deserted village. I walk towards Clarendon St..
Crossing Dame St. at City Hall, I suddenly notice a ‘hoodie’ walking towards me apropos of no reason other than a bad one. A Brazilian Deliveroo guy cuts him up. Hoodie shouts a string of expletives as Mr. BD circles around me and asks me if I’m ok. “Grand, thanks.”, I stutter. WTF just happened? Hoodie skulks off towards the Olympia. BD bids me Happy Christmas and I, ever so slightly shaken, go on my way.
I notice the Christmas lights in Dublin Castle. How pretty. A courting couple are walking slowly ahead of me. Holding hands. Looking starry eyed at each other. Bless. I finally feel safe again. Walking on, I soak up the warmth of the fairy lights and sound of music on the breeze. Singing, shouting, jostling. A group of merrymakers pushes past, laughing and bantering. I cross up to Exchequer St.. A smattering of pedestrians pass me by, carrying their last minute purchases and bunches of flowers from the Duke St. stalls.
I arrive at St. Teresa’s at 7.45pm. The once a year interlopers are here in their dozens. Here for the carol service and nothing more. They might be seen again at Easter. Lucky us. I take a seat at the edge of an empty pew. A few minutes in, a group of what looks like foreign students pitches up behind me. No room at the inn for Johnny late-to-the-parade so he takes a seat at the far end of my pew. Then, with literally minutes to go, a tall and saintly looking St. Joseph lookalike decides he wants to sit between us. Pushing his way past me, he walks his dirty wet shoes all over the kneeler without so much as an excuse me before plonking himself down with a satisfied “agh”.
Omni padre. It’s Christmas. We forgive those who trespass against us. So far so Christian. That is until the Carol Service kicks off and straight outta the blocks Holy Joe syncs in with the choir … “Angels we have heard on high ..” except they aren’t. On high that is. They are dragging their heels in a sub-baritone zone of key of X flat in what can only be termed ‘tone neutral’.
And this goes on, and on. I put my index finger into my right ear to block out the misfiring drone. To no avail. He is still drowning out the choir.
So.
There is nothing for it only to up and shanks pony to the shrine of the Sacred Heart and sit side-face to the altar for the duration. On the plus side, great view of the choir, albeit with a crick in my neck.
Order is restored and a sense of calm descends with Jean Joubert’s ‘Torches’.
Zen. Until Granny in the big Black Hat mic drops down beside me onto the little bench with a thud redolent of a bag of sand being dropped from a great height. Obviously one of those people attracted to the body heat of others, she sidles up beside me crabwise until our hips are practically co-joined. I move. She moves. I’m good at this game. Became an expert during Covid.
I swing my hips around 45 degrees and bring myself to a sharp stop with my back square to her left side.
“Check”, I say silently.
She tuts.
“Mate,” think I.
Game over.
The Coral Service is done and so is Granny.
Silent Night.
If only.
Kyrie & Gloria, Missa Brevis in G (KV 49 – exquisite).
Alleluia. Alleluia. Alleluia.
All rise.
Is that a whistle?
‘Phwwwwwhht’
WTAF?
Wumpf.
A body hits the bench and it shudders with the weight.
‘Twishwishwishwish’
It’s the whistle a man uses to rein in a dog or when he’s taken on more than he can chew with an IKEA “sure it’ll be no bother” flatpack.
I look around to find Samuel Pickwick, all largesse and curly hair. “IsthisakindofaMidnightMassthing”, he slurs.
Giving him my best Darth Vader death stare, I reply in my best ice-box voice, “Yes. Now can you please be quiet?”.
“Wha?”, he shouts.
“Be quiet,” I say doing my best Jean Brodie.
“Oh, quiet yeah,” he roars.
As I turn to face the altar he shushes the loudest “shhhh” I’ve ever heard.
He starts muttering to himself.
Within a few minutes the squeak, squeak of rubber-soled shoes begins to make its way across the marbled floors and over to the shrine to St. Theresa of Avila. What she ever did to him is beyond me but off he goes, having the chats, as you drunkenly do?
Exhale.
Where are we now?
The message of Christmas
Cantique de Jean Racine.
Faure.
Sanctus. Mozart.
Agnus Dei.
Holy Communion.
Cello. Sublime. Mc Donagh. Cuireadh oileanach do Mhuire.
For unto us a child is born.
The cool air hitting my face is most welcome.
Homeless guy is sitting on the ground. Sober. I hand him a note, not for feel good, for respect. I read once that they say the worst is people not looking them in the eye. So I look into his face. He looks lost. And sad.
I walk on.
Wicklow St.
“Didn’t I fookin’ tell ya, ya eejah.”
Three drunks thumping a shop window.
I look over my shoulder.
“Whatdafukeutinkyerluckingatyasnottycow?”, one of them bellows at me.
“It’s f**king Pocahontas,” she screams laughing presumably at my fringed cape. But the laughter is short-lived as a shower of plastic bottles of water rain past me.
As I try to dodge incoming missiles a druggie wanders towards me. His look is mean and menacing. I can feel every muscle in my body tightening. I veer away from him and he hisses. I’m not wearing a bag. There’s nothing to rob. My pace quickens as I turn onto a bleak and desolate Grafton St.. I check the Dublin Bus app. Bus in 8 minutes. Walk, walk, walk.
In this moment, the streets are owned by the homeless. By the drug addled.
These are not the streets I remember as a young woman.
The safe streets of Dublin. The happy, carefree streets of back then.
Gone. Long gone.
I arrive at the bus stop. Christ, if I thought Grafton St. was bleak, this is beyond gloomy. There is no-one around. One or two cars pass by. One group of tired-eyed revellers. 8 minutes. 10 minutes. No bus. No bus at all. Nothing on the roads. They are empty.
12 minutes waiting for the bus due in 8 mins.
Penny drops.
There are no buses. It’s Christmas Eve. The buses stop early.
“Gotcha” said Dublin Bus. “Ours is a trick information board. We give you what you want but as Shakespeare said, “seeming isn’t reality”.” It certainly isn’t with these clowns.
I am standing on a dark and lonely Clare St. and there is no-one. No-one anywhere.
There’s just me.
“The next bus is due at 22.25,” offers the information board.
Fool me once.
Now more Carabosse than Lilac Fairy, I cross the road and turn past Kennedy’s onto WestlandRow. There’s a lone man walking towards me. We are the only two people on the street. My heart is pounding. He approaches. “Hullo” he says. There’s sweat on my brow. My hands are trembling.
As I’m walking past a doorway I suddenly notice two crouched figures. One is holding a hypodermic needle while the other is rolling up the sleeve of their jacket. I feel sick. They both look up at me, scowling. I’m trespassing. Invading their space. Night-time Dublin is owned by the homeless and drug addicted. I am not wanted here. A memory of a previous life now lost to them.
I quicken my pace.
I turn onto Pearse St and see a handful of people standing at a bus stop. They’re all foreign. I should stop and say “no bus” but I am terrified and stressed and all I want is to get home.
I walk past more drug addicts sitting on front doorsteps. Two smoking crack pipes. I remember years ago sitting outside the Duke on a sunny Summer’s evening smoking a joint with a group of friends. Is that how we looked to passers by? Their faces are ravaged by a life less ordinary. I keep walking. My pulse is racing. My breathing hurts. I am in full flight mode.
I arrive onto Westmoreland St. and exhale thanks. Life. Some people. Homeless. Arguing. Jesus. I practically run past them. There are tears in my eyes now. What the hell has happened to this city? Every part of me is shaking. I charge down the quays. Focussing straight ahead. I do no look sideways. I do not meet these people’s eyes. I act as if they are not there.
I get to the Clarence Hotel. There’s another small group of people standing at the bus stop. Again foreigners. They’re clueless. There are no buses you fools. I turn and see a taxi pull out from the kerb a few hundred yards down the street. I stick out my arm. He indicates. Pulls in. They move towards it. Not a hope folks. This one’s mine. I grab the handle and jump in. My heart is pounding. He asks where to. I start to cry.
He pulls over. Asking if I’m ok. I give him a snapshot of my story. He tells me Dublin is no longer safe at night. Especially not for women. Especially not on nights like this. The buses stopped at 9pm he informs me. Someone should have informed the Dublin Bus App and info boards.
He again asks if I’m ok. I’ve calmed down. “I’m ok,” I reply, thanking him for his kindness. He’s Pakistani. Muslim. They don’t celebrate Christmas he tells me, but they do have a big family meal and enjoy the day together.
“I’ll have to do the 100m sprint when we get to my house,” I tell him. “I didn’t bring any money with me.”
“That’s ok,” he says. “Don’t worry.”
He doesn’t charge me double. He just charges me the same fare Irish drivers charge me to Heuston Station. I get his money and give him extra out of gratitude for his kindness.
That’s twice tonight I’ve been shown the kindness of strangers, both foreign nationals.
Only the Irish intimidated.
It was the so-called migrants that showed me compassion.
There’s a moral there, if anyone is interested.
I close the door behind me. Slam it in fact. Double lock, the works. Then burst into tears. What the hell happened tonight? It was surreal, dystopian. This is not the Dublin I know (can’t say I love, but that’s another story). This is a Dublin owned by people of the twilight. People with no future, whose present is the next fix or can, for whom the message of Christmas has long since become the ghost of a life past.
As for me, well, while the Mozart was sublime and O, Holy Night exceptional, I’m afraid that come Christmas 2024, I’ll be going agnostic. There will be no evening vigil, no midnight mass, no trip to town of a Christmas Eve. Those days are gone my friend, long gone.
“But only dust silence sounds
The ashes float away
As the twilight ends and the night descends
’til the dawning of the day”.
It’s been a long time since I put a piece of music at the end of a blog, but hey, it’s Christmas, and just to show that I still have some good will towards the bulk of my fellow man, here’s some happy Haydn doing the wild thing in Paris to jolly us all along.
Peace.
dervswerve 