South Dublin Read online

  The language is far too complex to enter into any detailed examination in this book. Visitors who want to understand adults would be best advised to read the collected Jeeves and Wooster books by P. G. Wodehouse before they travel to South Dublin. To understand young people it might be helpful to watch a DVD box set, or two, of Dawson's Creek or Sex and the City.

  Here are a few general guidelines to get you started:

  The hard T sound in the middle and at the end of almost all words becomes a sibilant ‘sh’, e.g. trout becomes troush, right is roysh and marketing is morkeshing.

  Linguistic crutches, such as ‘like’ and ‘roysh’, are ubiquitous in spoken South Dublin, so be liberal in using them.

  The harsh-sounding ‘ar’ sound is softened to become ‘or’. Thus, harsh becomes horsh. Arts is Orts. The bar is the bor. The car is the cor. The Star is a newspaper read by poor people.

  The ‘ow’ sound is numbed to sound like ‘ay’, as in what's known as BBC English. Loud becomes layd. Pound becomes paynd. Crowd becomes crayd. Roundabout become rayndabaysh.

  Young people, in particular, tend to raise the intonation at the very end of their sentences so that statements of fact sound like questions. For example, you might overhear a young man tell a friend, breathlessly:

  ‘I was, like, sitting at the bor? And this, like, total honey came in, wearing, like, pretty much nothing? c And she was, like, totally checking me out and shit?’

  This particular inflection is of Australian origin and was adopted into the language of South Dublin thanks to the popularity of television soap operas like Home and Away and Neighbours. In Australia, I it's called the HRTs, or the High Rise Thermals.

  In conversational South Dublin, young people also tend towards US vernacular forms of speech attribution, e.g.

  I was like, ‘Look at the state of the girl,’ and he was there, ‘I know. She has a face like a bucket of smashed crabs.’

  Another feature, English in origin but now common currency in South Dublin, mixes the singular subject with the plural verb form, e.g. I goes, ‘She really is sinfully ugly. She looks like her face caught fire and someone put it out with a focking golf shoe,’ and he goes, ‘I know. Why did you marry her then?’

  Young men, in particular, use a lot of cockney-style rhyming slang, but with an Irish flavour. Britneys are beers (Spears). The Daniel Day is the Luas (Daniel Day-Lewis). An Allied Irish is an act of self-harm believed to induce hair growth on the palms of one's hands.

  (Note: some of the more common phrases used in South Dublin are contained in the ThesauRoss at the back of this book.)

  A WORD FROM CHRISTIAN

  Did you know there's an actual language called Jawa? I'd like to learn it, even just to have enough to get by, in case… It's hard to get the tapes, though. The looks they give me in Hughes & Hughes in Dún Laoghaire. I know that Ootini means ‘Come on’ and I know that hubba gourd – this, like, fruit they live on – means ‘staff of life’. I suppose you'd want to know more than that if you ever found yourself on Tatooine and you needed, like, directions or fuel for your Landspeeder…

  Shopping

  South Dublin is a shopper's paradise, a nirvana of consumption, a consumer heaven, where all major credit cards are accepted and where being ‘maxed to the hilt’ is not a dirty expression.

  For generations Grafton Street was the most prestigious shopping street in Dublin City Centre. In terms of commercial activity, however, it has been eclipsed in recent years by the Northside's Henry Street, which has been rejuvenated since the opening of the Jervis Shopping Centre and the arrival of marquee high-street names, such as Zara and H&M. At the same time, the only retail growth in the South City Centre is in the area of mobile phone retailers and newsagents, which have succeeded in attracting an unwelcome number of peasants to what was once the city's most upmarket strip.

  Grafton Street may no longer be the wonderland once immortalized in song, but most South Dubliners still find it reassuring to know that there is somewhere they can go on a Saturday afternoon to pick up those essential bits and pieces, such as fur coats, boxes of Havanas and Rolex watches. Best of all, Grafton Street has Brown Thomas, the world's smartest department store, where you can buy everything from a Louis Vuitton handbag for €2,000 to a Hermès handbag for €4,000. ‘BTs’, as it's fondly known to its habitués, exudes class, from the commissionaire who holds open the door, to the stunning Gráinne Seoige-lookalikes carrying out extensive plasterwork on the faces of middle-aged posh ladies at the many make-over counters.

  Further up the street, the Powerscourt Townhouse Centre is a mansion stuffed to the gills with trendy women's fashions, antique jewellery, designer silverware and fine food, which means the people who shop there quite literally feel right at home.

  Grafton Street has jewellery shops to suit all pockets. Ernest Jones has Tag Heuer watches for €2,500, or, if you re in the market for an expensive one, Weir & Son has three windows (shatterproof and alarmed) of Rolexes, which average out at about €35,000 apiece. And yes, that is a comma you're staring at, not a decimal point.

  If books are your thing and you're looking to get rid of the last of your holiday shrapnel, Cathach Books on Duke Street has a first edition of Finnegans Wake, signed by James Joyce, for €14,000. The shop also stocks a range of collector's editions from Flann O’Brien and other famous Irish authors, which couldn't be shifted when they first came out but now sell for as much as the price of a Hermès vanity case.

  A visit to Grafton Street wouldn't be complete without a trip to Barnardo, purveyors of fine furs. A word of warning: it is not to be confused with Barnardo's, the UK-based charity that cares for vulnerable children and operates a large number of ‘op-shops’. While both sell second-hand clothes, in the case of Barnardo the previous owners were foxes and baby seals. If you can brave the occasional spotty adolescent protester outside its doors, you can browse through the finest collection of furs in Ireland. And about €5,000 is all it'll cost to kit you out like

  DUBES

  Docksiders, as the name suggests, started out life as boat shoes, worn by yachtie types. Now, marina chic has crossed over into mainstream fashion and Dubarry's signature leather deck shoes – in either navy or brown – are the most popular choice of footwear for young men and young women in South Dublin. They suit tracksuit bottoms and jeans as well as they do chinos, which is why they're regarded as the anytime shoe. Wear them to the cinema with your sloppy O’Neill's tracksuit bottoms, or to school, or to that all-important job interview – with total confidence. The even better news is that their price tag – €100 a pop – puts them well out of the range of poor people.

  A WORD FROM ROSS

  Dubes are quite simply the footwear of the gods. I've been wearing them since I was basically ten. But it's, like, SO not

  cool if you don't know the secret of the perfect deck-shoe knot:

  Double the lace back on itself.

  Holding half the length of the double lace together, take the loop end and twist it at least four times around the doubled part.

  Pass the loose end through the remaining loop.

  Holding the twists firmly, pull the shoe end of the lace back through the twist until the loop is tight over the loose end.

  Easy, huh? And don't forget, I got nul points in the old Leaving Cert.

  Cruella De Vil. Just think of the looks of horror at your next dinner party when you tell them how many chinchillas had to die to make it!

  The suburbs of South Dublin are also crammed with top-quality shops, which are dealt with on a region-by-region basis in the second section of this book.

  South Dublin Shop Girls

  Despite the region's obscene wealth and prosperity, many teenage girls in South Dublin are forced to work. This is sometimes at the behest of socially conscious parents who think it's important for young Sophie or Chloë to learn self-sufficiency and pay for her own UGG boots and Polo Sport Tote handbags. Most of these unfortunates end up working behind the coun
ter in clothes shops or department stores.

  South Dublin Shop Girls are famous for their ability c to maintain two conflicting moods at the same time: one of sulky indifference towards the customer, and one of over-the-top chattiness to a friend, who will be either at the next cash register or on the other end of the mobile phone into which the South Dublin Shop Girl will almost inevitably be talking while serving you. South Dublin Shop Girls believe that working is ‘like, SO, below’ them and accordingly take it out on the customer, whom they regard with disinterest, if not downright contempt.

  South Dublin Shop Girls speak in a type of codified language that can be difficult to break down, but it's definitely worth learning a few key phrases if you intend going on a shopping trip. If, for example, you hand a South Dublin Shop Girl a €50 note for an item that costs €45.65, you will usually be asked: ‘Have you got the sixty-five?’ This literally means, ‘Despite my expensive private education and Saturday morning maths grinds, I'm too lazy to do even simple arithmetic.’

  Occasionally, the size of a particular item you are looking for will not be on display in the shop. You might ask, ‘Have you got this in an 8?’ and be asked in turn, ‘Is there not one out there?’ This literally means, ‘I am SO not going into that storeroom in these shoes. It's, like, I shouldn't even be here? Oh my God, I SO hate my parents.’

  A WORD FROM ROSS

  Just a quick word about sizes, roysh. They're totally different in South Dublin than anywhere else in the world, what with Southside girls looking after their figures the way they do. Your dress size might be a size 10 in the real world, but in South Dublin you probably wouldn't get a 10 over your head. As a rule of thumb, remember that Large means emaciated, Medium means skeletal and Small means advanced decomposition.

  Food and Drink

  Skobies have their curry sauce, culchies have their coleslaw – and South Dubliners have their sun-dried tomatoes. There's far more to the Southside culinary experience than these beguiling and versatile little gems, however, even if they do come with virtually every meal.

  It is a little-known fact, for instance, that, per capita, Southsiders eat more Provolone, Ligurian olives and roast pepper quiche than any other nation in the world, and that 40 per cent of the world's smoked salmon terrine with lefse and truffle cream is consumed here. The truth is that South Dublin is a c gastronome's delight, home of the famous goat's cheese- and prosciutto-stuffed shrimp with tomato and basil couscous. And where else but in this epicurean heaven could you walk into any streetside café or restaurant and have the chef fix you a chicken, % feta and ricotta bake inside a matter of minutes, washed down with a nice bottle of Château Lestage Simon Haut-Médoc 2000?

  South Dublin restaurants are well known for their sense of adventure and are not scared to wrap a piece of Parma ham around almost anything and charge you an extra €10 for it. Cured meats and soft cheeses are very popular, and takeaway gourmet food emporiums, such as Donnybrook Fair, Cavistons, Fallon & Byrne, The Unicorn and Avoca Handweavers, cater for the enormous demand for Mediterranean food, helping to bring a little bit of Puerto Banus to the Southside suburbs. Italy can claim credit for Parmesan, but South Dublin invented Parmesan shavings, which go with just about everything – at least on one side of the Liffey.

  South Dubliners eat more spinach in an average year than Popeye, though, interestingly, the cartoon is banned in most homes because of its glorification of processed food. In the South Dublin version of the story, the famous sailor gains his strength not by gobbling down a soggy, dark-green, tinned version of the foodstuff but by eating a spinach, red cabbage and green mango salad or – when Brutus has really incensed him – some spinach, carrot and white kidney bean pâté on warm focaccia.

  South Dubliners are unreconstructed snobs when it comes to their food. A pizza is called a tort, an omelette is a fnttata, and trifle is tiramisu. Play it safe and order a traditional Irish breakfast and you can be assured that the sausages will come spiced with tomatoes and olives. Say the word ‘rocket’ to your average South Dubliner and he will think not of a vehicle or device propelled by the ejection of fast-moving gas from within its engine but of a leaf vegetable that is an essential ingredient in any salad.

  Eating out

  When it comes to food, there's only one thing South Dublin men enjoy more than steak and chips – and that's steak and chips that cost a fortune. Shanahan's, on St Stephen's Green, is where you'll find Ireland's property developers, currency traders and captains of industry loosening their belt buckles a couple of notches and tucking into enormous Angus steaks that resemble a wildebeest with its head and legs chopped off. As a novelty, working-class staples such as onion rings and sautéed mushrooms are given the Shanahan's treatment – served on the finest bone china and with an eye-watering price tag.

  The name Patrick Guilbaud is synonymous with fine French cuisine, and Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud, in c the Merrion Hotel on Merrion Street – ‘RPG's’, or simply ‘Patrick's’ to regulars – is the perfect riposte to those who say you can't get a decent moÛles à la crème de Pernod or carré d'agneau aux pistaches in this town any more. The food, like its millionaire clientele, is dressed % to impress, and the entrées are such works of art that you will feel less of an urge to eat them than to photograph them. The dining experience is enhanced by those little bourgeois affectations – forks placed tines-down on the table – that are so loved by South Dublin's modern-day aristos.

  Thornton's at the Fitzwilliam Hotel, St Stephen's Green, has stars coming out of its ears – not only Michelin ones but C-list ones, too, all hoping to be spotted eating starters of soufflé of sole and crab with red chard, chive and cream sauce for €30 a pop.

  Il Primo on Montague Street is a modest little trattoria whose clientele are typically builders and stockbrokers who fancy a change from Shanahan's, but don't mind paying Shanahan's prices for pasta.

  With its modern art, mirrored dining room and European dishes with a subtle Eastern twist, La Stampa on Dawson Street is still the place for up-and-coming celebrities, media types and movers-and-shakers. Those who say it's a triumph of image over substance might be surprised to know that Louis Walsh eats there regularly.

  If you are in advertising or public relations, or you are a solicitor with one of Ireland's ‘Big Five’ firms, then it's likely The Unicorn on Merrion Court is your favourite restaurant. Sit back, observe the air-kissing, back-stabbing and unashamed insincerity of the clientele as careers are made and broken over tartale with duck and truffle oil and linguine con polpette.

  Ely Wine Bar on Ely Place is a London yuppie era-style gastro-wine-bar where you'll find the fun crowd from financial services – the so-called Nerd Herd. Town Bar and Grill on Kildare Street has been called the Treasury Holdings Staff Canteen, but its grilled sardines and clam linguine attract a wide range of very, very interesting people, from TDs to barristers. On an average Friday night, Bang Café on Merrion Row will have more beautiful people on its books than Giorgio Armani.

  If you are a minor celeb who enjoys spotting other minor celebs, then the chances are you are no stranger to the black Dover sole on the bone with saffron, caper and shrimp butter in Peploe's on Stephen's Green, while Bleu Bistro Moderne on Dawson Street caters specifically for yummy-mummies who drive Volvo XC90s.

  A WORD FROM ROSS

  If you asked me for my favourite place to bring a bird with a view to, like, getting her in the sack later on, I'd say somewhere like Guilbaud's, or Peploe's, or La Stampa. The problem is that Sorcha's old man goes to those places and Shanahan's and Thornton's are out of bounds as well because my old man goes there, the dickhead. Anyway, roysh, I've discovered this place, L’Gueuleton, which is this, like, bistro on Fade Street, of all places. Great focking nosebag, which explains why people are queuing down the street to try to get a table. See, birds love French nosh. I always have the snails. They're an actual aphrodisiac. Although I had a dozen there recently and one of them didn't work.

  Pubs and Clubs<
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  Renard's

  Women once outnumbered men by a ratio of 3:1 in here on most Friday and Saturday nights. You know what happens next. The men got word of it, and now men outnumber women to the point where it looks like a gay bar. It's still the place to be seen in Dublin, though. Not that you are guaranteed to be seen at all, of course. Someone apparently eyeing you up is more likely to be admiring him- or herself in one of the club's many floor-to-ceiling mirrors. Don't be put off by the members-only vibe at the door – it's part of its shtick. If you're ‘someone’, you'll be admitted upstairs to the private club, where you could find yourself playing pool with Val Kilmer, Brian O'Driscoll, Colin Farrell or any of the stars who regularly drop by when they're in town. Great music, delicious cocktails and wall-to-wall eye candy have made Renard's the most South Dublin club in, well, South Dublin.

  Lillie's Bordello

  The drink is expensive, the dance-floor resembles a squash court and the average punter has an IQ to match his Ralph Lauren collar size. In other words, this is a great Southside club. Guys called Tiernan and Trevor come here in their designer threads to make bold but vain efforts to click with stuck-up, emaciated South Dublin princesses who have neither personalities nor a sense of humour. Lillie's reputation as the place to be on a Friday or Saturday night had as much to do with its officious door policy as its status as an international celebrity hangout. Bono, Mick Jagger, David Beckham, Paul McCartney and Jack Nicholson all show their faces in here when they're in town. You won't get near them, though. The club operates a type of complex caste system: ordinaries are admitted to the first floor; B-list celebs and those on air-kissing terms with the bouncers are granted access to the second floor; while the private tables in the Library at the top of the building are reserved for the Champagne-swilling stars of the social pages. However, talking your way past the bouncers is no longer the job it once was, and, accordingly, Lillie's stock has fallen in recent times as the big spenders desert it for Renard's. Its current regulars are mostly hair stylists and River Island staff.