Public Transport and the Duke of Wellington

location: Dublin, Ireland

"Next station: Pearse Street;

An chéid stad eile: Sráid an Phiarsaigh.

Next station: D'olier Street;

An chéid stad eile Sráid D'olier."

By now I was really getting sick of the amount of Irish which had assaulted my ears on this tiresome journey. At each stop, the tannoy loyally announced the station name in both Irish and English. That's manageable when the bus only stops every few minutes but on the 145 from Bray to Heuston Station the bus stops every twenty seconds. It travels on the most mundane route into Dublin City: the N11. Between each identical junction, the bus will stop two or three more times. According to Google maps, it takes as long to cycle from my house to Heuston as it does to take the bus. I tried to find out exactly how many bus stops there are en route using the Dublin Bus app, but was informed that “there are no stops on this route, sorry”. The company is clearly in denial about the sheer ineffectiveness of this particular service. 145s are monogamous (they have only one mate) and travel in pairs. It is not yet known just how many journeys a 145 takes in its life though it can't be a large number as it has been found to spend most of its time eating up large amounts of fuel while waiting at countless traffic lights.

I was running late for my train across the country to visit my girlfriend (hereafter referred to as Herself), but I suspect this was my fault, not the bus. I had spent too long running around the house packing frantically and this meant I was now silently willing the bus forward, drumming on the handrail. My predicament had been made worse when a woman sat behind me on the phone, describing her most recent hair appointment in great detail and at an unnecessarily loud volume. Eventually, her voice was drowned out by the most beautiful sentence in the Irish language:

"Heuston Station; last stop.

Sráid Heuston; an stad críocnaithe"

I had two minutes before the train was due to leave. I leapt off and ran to the ticket booth in my usual ostrich-style, suitcase bumping along behind me. By the time I had bought my ticket, I could see the train taking off slowly. I prepared myself for an hour's wait.

After exhausting the magazine section of Easons, I decided to take a walk in the Phoenix Park. Before I could do so, however, I was confronted by a young teenage girl. She mumbled something softly before handing me a sheet with faded writing to sign. I asked her to speak up.

“Just sign this, write your address and how much you'll be donating”.

I stared at her incredulously. After more questioning, it emerged that it was in aid of starving children. I waited for some indication of who exactly these starving children were and it was soon impatiently thrust into my hands once more. I was also informed that her mother owned the station. This was clearly a fib as it belongs to Irish Rail and I began to prepare excuses to remove myself from this situation. However, there was no need: she had clearly seen my disbelief and ran off to retrieve her mother. I slowly walked away and fled to the calm sanctuary of the park.

I soon reached the Wellington Monument, close to the park’s entrance. This monument is essentially a large, rectangular slab of rock with no general use. It has been patiently awaiting a statue of the 1st Duke of Wellington to grace it's pointed top since its creation a little under 200 years ago. It'll be waiting a good while longer: The Duke, a native of the Emerald Isle who won the Battle of Waterloo, is thought to have commented that "being born in a stable doesn't make you a horse" and the state conveniently ran out of funds for the statue soon after.

Today, it was surrounded by a fallen army of bodies. It was possible that they had all slid off the monument's ridiculously sloped steps but the lack of blood and the overwhelming smell of sun cream suggested they were sunbathing. I have never quite understood this sport, it feels like I am being cooked alive by the sun and frankly I'd rather not be. I couldn't blame them though, there's nothing else you can actually do when you go see the monument except lie beside it until either statue is finally added or the rain returns.

I sat under a tree to eat a sandwich but soon remembered that the case for my retainers was in my suitcase. This raised a dilemma as I didn't want to reveal the clothes inside my case to the hordes of sunbathers beside me, so I opened the zip a small amount and slipped my hand inside the case, looking to all intents and purposes like I was assisting a cow with calving.

Having eaten my lunch, I headed back to the station. To avoid being recognised by those I had previously walked away from, I made certain changes to my appearance, namely changing my jacket and carrying my suitcase rather than wheeling it (I had no fake moustache on me).

Unsurprisingly not pursued, I boarded my train. This is a very stressful part of the journey. Irish Rail has reserved seating which I and countless others never make use of. In a dramatic plot twist, the names of those who reserved their seats often don't come up on the screens, meaning you are never sure if you are sitting in someone's pre-booked seat. Other times they will decide to leave a carriage behind, leaving passengers to wander around trying to find seat 18 in carriage D to no avail. The effect of this is that every passenger sits on the edge of their seat at every stop, unsure about whether the seat is really theirs. To add to all this drama, passengers must locate their seat before the catering trolley starts serving food. Once the trolley sets out, those who are still searching for their seat must watch each customer order "tae, caife, Ceapairí agus snacanna" for half an hour as the trolley is designed to fit perfectly between the seats with no room to spare.

The initial drama aside, I enjoy getting the train for two reasons. The first is that I almost always get into conversations with strangers. Most people outside the pale (as well as those inside it, to be politically correct) are very friendly and once we have found an excuse to chat, the two hours pass very quickly. I have had conversations about football, cricket, poets and pharmaceutical companies, with no prior knowledge about any of these. On one occasion a woman leaned across the table saying “Habari gani?” (Swahili for "how are you") and we were soon discussing our individual past trips to Kenya. You never know what you will talk about next. I have been offered tea, sandwiches, jellytots and chocolate bars. It is 90% more likely for conversations to start when there are members of older generations present. I fear these conversations will be far fewer in twenty, thirty years time. I failed to find someone to communicate with on this particular journey, so I wrote this blog instead and looked out the window.

The second reason I like this train journey is that it is always a relief to be reminded that there is still so much countryside in Ireland after spending hours amongst the claustrophobic concrete of the city and its expanding suburbs. Within 20 minutes, the buildings had grown very sporadic, overrun by grassy fields and hedgerows dotted white with flowers. The American tourist in the seat behind me described it as being like Hawaii without volcanoes. A buzzard beat its wings to meet a thermal while jackdaws cascaded out of a castle ruin. Swallows hunted for insects beside clusters of farm buildings. Sheep browsed the meadows with their lambs, their white bodies making up for the lack of clouds in the clear, blue sky. There is always the chance of seeing something exciting. One morning, Herself had spotted a fox sitting in the middle of a field watching the train. I haven't yet had the privilege.

There is one small price I have to pay for all this apparent luxury: The Irish rail tannoy, a deep, slightly slurred and threatening male voice who sounds as though he has had a strong alcoholic beverage off the trolley.

"Dia dhaoibh a dhaoine uaisle, beidhmid ag teacht ag...."

The droning continues for several minutes at a time. 14 years of tortuous Irish lessons means that a single sentence sends shivers down my spine. Thank goodness the journey is only two hours.

"Almost as long as the 145," I muttered as I got off the train, delighted at the thought of a few days without a tannoy in sight.