Rainy Days and Songdays – Summer in Dublin

I remember that summer in Dublin and many since but as we mark 40 years since the classic Bagatelle song I reflect that I won’t be spending this summer in Dublin.

You don’t need a song to be nostalgic for you to feel nostalgic, but it helps.

Times have moved on from a bus to Dublin’s town port, Dún Laoghaire, to a DART train to Greystones in Co. Wicklow.

But you still get ‘drunks telling you how to get rich’… and I hope that never changes.

Grafton grafters

So what am I missing about Dublin?

Just the one thing… everything.

‘The young people walking along Grafton Street?’

Yes, and the buskers https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ij2zuAgB7ws, the exclusive Brown Thomas https://www.brownthomas.com/ store (BTs, as Dubliners know it) and Bewley’s Oriental Cafe…

Where you can clutch your hot chocolate and cinnamon swirl and people-watch from the balcony.

Grafton Street, the artery between Merrion Square and St Stephen’s Green is one of Europe’s great social hubs.

Busking in Dublin’s glory

Summer in Dublin was one of those specifically Irish pop songs as they were back in the day.

Just as the Boomtown Rats and U2 were bringing Irish pop and rock to the world’s attention and following the good work of Thin Lizzy.

And you can pose with Phil Lynott today outside the pub in front of which he used to play, Bruxelles, www.bruxelles.ie in one of the off-streets.

While Bono has been known to busk too, unannounced, on Grafton Street.

Trad dancing

You want some trad… well the snug in O’Donoghue’s, Merrion Row, https://www.brownthomas.com/ is where The Dubliners were formed, taking their name from a James Joyce short story.

Summer in Dublin didn’t get picked up across the water in Britain (shame).

But it did among the Irish-American community. Namely my Queens, New York cousins who were over in Dublin that summer.

I was a permanent fixture there in my teenage years.

A mere Bagatelle

So here’s Bagatelle’s Summer in Dublin… https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MMhWll_mfGk.

And I’m still waiting, like all of us, for them to release the song they mention in Summer in Dublin ‘Rock’n’roll never forgets.’

Unless they’ve forgotten.

And for more on Dublin, see www.visitdublin.ie and https://www.google.com/amp/s/jimmurtytraveltraveltravel.com/2019/08/26/city-delights-dublin/amp/.

You want more? Rugby central, it’s the InterCon… what a Ledge! And Raising the Bar.