South Dublin Read online

  The people who are simply stinking rich, as opposed to noxiously rich, have been forced out to Ranelagh, Clonskeagh and other parts of Dublin 6, which is trying to style itself as a kind of Dublin 4W, but with no success. The simple truth is: nowhere else in Ireland is like D4. Where else but this part of town could have four cricket clubs – and only one GAA club?

  The people you'll find at the end of D4's pebbled driveways know how to live – it's all corporate boxes, garden parties and endless days of golf with Dermot Desmond, John Magnier and JP McManus. A visit to this privileged corner of the world is an unforgettable experience. But do it soon. Economists predict that by 2056 it will be too expensive for even the wealthiest people in the world to live here – and it will become a desolate waste land.

  History of Dublin 4

  It would be true to say that Dublin 4 has existed for as long as Northsiders have smelt bad. It was founded some time around the seventh century as a sanctuary from Dublin's peasantry, who had turned the once respectable area north of the River Liffey into a lawless war zone. A few hundred people who wanted to live in peace and prosperity gathered up their meagre possessions – wine coolers, fondu sets, cappuccino frothers – and crossed the river, like the ancient Israelites fleeing Egypt, for a new life in a place where they suspected property prices would soon go through the roof. They called this beautiful land – close to the sea and within easy walking distance of fashionable Grafton Street – Dublin For The Wealthy, which was eventually shortened to Dublin For, then finally became Dublin Four, or D4.

  Famous Residents

  Sandymount has been home to two of Ireland's most well-known hellraisers – W B Yeats and Colin Farrell. Nobel Prize-winner Seamus Heaney also lives here, while former Taoiseach Albert Reynolds and former Tánaiste Mary Harney both live in D4. In separate houses, obviously.

  Stating the names of one's neighbours in D4 is a legal minefield. This smart corner of town is home to tens of thousands of people with tax exile status, who are allowed to spend no more than 183 days in Ireland each year. It's virtually impossible to state that anyone else lives in Dublin 4 without libelling them.

  Shopping

  Dublin 4 women are famed the world over for their lack of embarrassment. Just about the only thing that'll cause them discomfiture is turning up at a social event in the same outfit as somebody else – especially if the photographs are going to appear in Image magazine. This trait explains the proliferation of boutiques where women can buy something classic that isn't sharing a rack with forty other items of the same style in Coast or Oasis. Shops like Havana and Marian Gale in Donnybrook, Compagnie L in the Merrion Shopping Centre and Aura in Sandymount have been dressing posh ladies for donkeys’ years, whether it's evening dress, a frock for young Tiernan and Sophie's wedding or a trouser suit in ivory for that charity fundraiser.

  Massive televisions are all the rage in South Dublin, and they don't come any more massive – or expensive – than at Bang & Olufsen in Donnybrook. Power City this ain't! You can be assured there are no ‘Bush 32-inch televisions – only €99.99’ or ‘jug kettles – only €9.99’ in this joint. This is the home of the €4,000 CD player and the €20,000 television, although calling it ‘a television’ is like saying that Brian O'Driscoll plays the odd bit of rugby. These are plasma screen, HD-ready, home-cinema units, and there are people in this part of the world who sit and watch them for hours – without ever turning them on.

  Most busy D4 couples have time for just the one token child. During the latter stages of pregnancy, many mums- and dads-to-be head for Limari, a wonderful children's furniture shop in Donnybrook, to start preparing the royal bedroom for the arrival of The Chosen One. There, you can buy a custom-made cot with your child's name on it (hyphenated names are extra – they charge by the barrel) or a bed designed in the manner of a yacht – just the style for the kid who will one day take the wheel of the family Lürssen.

  In the Merrion Shopping Centre there is a shop that might well qualify as The Most South Dublin Shop In The Entire World. Amélie, an excellent shop with friendly staff, sells golf- and skiwear for ladies, which means pink plus-fours, snazzy sun visors in baby-blue, golf balls in your signature colour… Have you ever heard of a shop more appropriately positioned?

  Tinned sardines were once considered the food of the peasantry, but now they're the height of chic. Dublin 4 has taken those big, fat, Brittany-bred sardines millésimées to its heart, and, even at €8 a tin, gourmet shops just can't stack their shelves quickly enough. Terroirs, the superb wine shop in Donnybrook, has started importing the famous Maison Albert Ménès brand that all of D4 is having on its toast on a Saturday morning.

  Ballsbridge Motors is where the locals go to celebrate their commission on that bonds deal or their astronomical fee from their work at that tribunal by buying a soft-top tank. How about the SL 350 in obsidian-black metallic with pebble-beige leather interior – only €136,000?

  A WORD FROM ROSS

  The RDS is where they have what we used to call the Ancient Geek Olympics, in other words the Young Scientist of the Year competition. Probably comes as a surprise to no one, roysh, that Fionn is a previous winner. He – and I'm reading this from an article about him in The Irish Times that I have pinned to a dort board – discovered a new compound similar to zinc that almost merited inclusion in the periodic table of elements. You can't say that's focking roysh! The goy was, like, fourteen. He should have been out, chorming the birds, trying to get his first bit of knocker, instead of whacking off to his science book in his room.

  I remember the day of the exhibition, roysh, because that was one scary day. The old man had been asking me for weeks what I was – get this – ‘putting forward’ for the exhibition, like I couldn't decide between the space rocket I made out of washing-machine ports that could orbit the Earth and the cure I'd invented for cancer. He used to mistake me for some kind of misunderstood genius, see. When he asked me that, I just blanked him – what with him being a total penis and everything – and he took it to mean that I was playing my cards close to my chest. He went, ‘Aaa-ha!’ and tapped the side of his nose. So I tapped him for two hundred sheets – materials, I told the stupid focker. Then I hit Ballsbridge.

  You should have actually seen the RDS that day? The Nerd Herd was there in force. This one goy – a kipper from Michael's – was driving around in a solar-powered cor, and I'm not yanking your chain here. Another had discovered a new vaccine for malaria that had no side-effects. I'd be shocked if any of these geeks know what a bird looks like naked – even today.

  Of course, I felt as thick as shite wandering around looking at all this stuff, so I decided, roysh, to basically steal somebody else's work and pass it off as my own. So I stole – you guessed it – the solar-powered cor. Stole is probably the wrong word. I suppose you could say I actually corjacked the little peach-fuzz focker who made it, hit him a few slaps around the head and threw him out onto the ground.

  So I'm pegging it around the Simmonscourt Pavilion on this little thing, wondering where the focking judges are, when all of a sudden these two security gords step out in front of me – the little focker had sung like a box of crickets, as Ronan would say. I took a shorp left to avoid them, clattering into – and basically making shit of – this bird's investigation into the effects of geography on elite athletic performance. All you could hear was the crash of glass and all this, like, screaming and of course the next thing I knew I was being dumped on my orse on Simmonscourt Road.

  I got four phone numbers, though – two Mounties, one Loreto Foxrock and one Muckross, while Fionn was still a virgin at twenty. So you tell me, who was the real winner that day?

  How to Get Around

  Dublin 4 is regarded by many as not so much a geographic location with set boundaries as a transcendent state of being. Happily, this liberation from the effects of karma and bodily existence is serviced by both bus and rail. There are Dart stations at Lansdowne Road and Sandymount (both about less tha
n ten minutes’ walk from Ballsbridge and Sandymount villages), and one at Sydney Parade (which is a five-minute walk from Merrion).

  As for buses, well, they throw those numbers at you like a bingo-caller on speed.

  Sandymount has the 2, 3, 5, 7, 7A and 18. Ballsbridge is serviced by the 5, 7, 7A, 7N, 8, 18, 27X and 45. You'll get to Donnybrook on the 7B, 7D, 10, 10A, 18, 32X, 41X, 46A, 46B, 46C, 46D, 46E, 46N, 46X, 58C, 58X, 84X, 145, 746, the Vengabus, the Magic Bus and probably even the bualadh bos.

  Where to Stay

  Accommodation key:

  Luxury ∗∗∗

  Seriously opulent ∗∗∗∗

  Pretty much palatial ∗∗∗∗∗

  ∗∗∗ The Herbert Park Hotel, Ballsbridge

  The Herbert ‘Pork’ is a seriously la-di-dah hotel in the heart of D4's financial district, described, in true estate agent-speak, as being ‘enclosed by an Eden of leafy trees’. Everything is designed for your comfort and convenience – king-size beds and PlayStations in every room, and a restaurant with a sun terrace that overlooks the famous Herbert Park. Despite the Eden reference and the hotel's close proximity to the canal, don't come wandering in here at 4.00am with a hooker. Hotels this swanky don't do rooms on a meter rate.

  ∗∗∗∗ The Berkeley Court Hotel, Ballsbridge

  ‘The Barkley’ is more than just a famous landmark in this old Georgian neighbourhood, it's also the heart that beats life into Dublin 4. This smart, five-star hotel, where Frank Sinatra once stayed, is as much a social institution as the Savoy is in London or the Ritz is in Paris, where socialites and professionals, sportsmen and stars of the silver screen come to relax and shoot the breeze over fine whiskeys or rare brandies. The hotel describes its service as reflecting ‘the charm and manners of times past’, which means that from the time you step into the big, opulent, chandelier-lit lobby, everyone talks to you like you're their lord and master, which is just how they like it around here. Get there early on the day of an international match at Lansdowne Road and listen to some of D4's finest bon vivants discussing rugby at an annoyingly boisterous decibel level.

  ∗∗∗∗∗ The Four Seasons, Ballsbridge

  ‘Location of cosmopolitan experience, blah blah blah, handsome architectural design, waffle waffle waffle, atmosphere of traditional comfort and ease, blahdy blahdy blah’… no adjective-happy copywriter could do justice to this little piece of heaven. This is a hotel so upmarket they practically give you a title with your room key. A suite here will cost you almost 600 bills a night, but for that they'll unpack and iron your clothes, clean your room not once but twice a day and shine your shoes while you watch the CNN business report in your complimentary terry bathrobe. There's a two-line telephone in your room and a limo waiting outside the door, ready to take you wherever you want to go, which, believe us, won't be far because downstairs you have the Ice Bar and Four Seasons restaurant. You'll never want to leave. Visa or Mastercard might eventually recommend it, though.

  Wesley Disco

  Wesley Disco is an institution in South Dublin. Without it, literally thousands of fifteen- and sixteen-year-olds would still be virgins today. A night out involving ‘Wes’ is the alcohol-fuelled precursor to many young teenagers ‘doing it’ for the first time, and the famous pre-mating rituals involved could occupy an anthropologist for a lifetime.

  The famous Wesley Disco has kept alive the time-

  honoured South Dublin tradition of teenage girls

  dressing up as hookers, drinking copious amounts of

  vodka, getting off with a best friend's boyfriend, being

  sick in the car bringing them home and then spending

  the rest of their teenage years claiming that – oh my

  God – their drink must have been spiked that night.

  It starts early in the evening, when hundreds of moms and dads arrive in a fleet of Volvos and Tourans and deposit their children outside Eddie Rocket's or Abrakebabra. The girls, sensibly dressed in jeans, boots and rolled-neck sweaters, occupy and secure every public convenience in the area to strip down into their real outfit for the night, which could best be described as not so much a strapless evening dress as a dressless evening strap. Once their parents disappear, Morehampton Road suddenly resembles a streetwalkers’ convention, as barely pubescent but heavily made-up girls in micro-minis and six-inch pencil heels totter around with their Crouching Tiger (Hidden Naggin) concealed about their person.

  The traffic grinds to a standstill as taxi drivers slow down to rubberneck and make inappropriately lewd comments to embarrassed passengers. The whole of Donnybrook chokes in a miasma of Issey Miyake as the young adolescents, having knocked back half their vodka, disappear into the disco.

  When it comes to getting off with boys, the girls set each other targets for the evening. The bar is usually set at five, but the gold standard is said to be twenty-five. These young people then ‘get to know each other’ with tongues and full-body contact. Coupling usually takes place in a field or laneway or, if you're really lucky, on the sofa in a mate's gaff. The girls go home the following morning, having ‘stayed at a friend's’.

  A WORD FROM JP

  I don't want to come across as some kind of fuddy-duddy who's old before his time – and I know it's not realistic in this day and age to expect people to keep their virginity until the day they marry – but I find the level of licentiousness among young people quite disturbing. Young girls, in particular, seem to have no respect for their bodies, which are, after all, tabernacles for the Holy Spirit and only ours on loan. I can't say this without feeling like something of a hypocrite, for when I was sixteen I, too, sowed my oats indiscriminately. And yes, it satisfied me in that instant, but it left me feeling spiritually bereft. That's what led me to the Lord.

  I'm not one to go waving the Old Testament in people's faces, but there's a story in the Book of Genesis about two towns you may have heard of – we're talking Sodom and Gomorrah – which were wiped off the face of the Earth by God because of the wickedness of their inhabitants. A couple of years ago I was lucky enough to visit the Holy Land, and I went to the point at the southern end of the Dead Sea where those two towns once stood. It's true that no ruins have ever been recovered, but there are strange salt formations on the seabed that suggest they really did exist. Bitumen deposits have also been uncovered, which are mentioned in the description of the destruction of the towns in Genesis 14:10.

  A guy I met out there, who was a geologist, told me that an earthquake – caused by God, obviously – probably brought about a mass inferno that melted the bitumen and sucked Sodom and Gomorrah into the Earth. Now, I'm not comparing them to Donnybrook and Ballsbridge, but I think there is a lesson in there for all of us.

  Where to Eat

  Roly's Bistro in Ballsbridge might well be the most popular restaurant in Dublin – even if it is a bit too friendly and inexpensive for some Southside palates. Whether you're there for lunch, the early bird or evening à la carte, there's always a bustle about the place, and people come as much for the buzz as for the superb classical French cooking with a nod – more like a high-five – to honest-to-goodness Irish traditions. The atmosphere will be right up your street, especially if your street happens to be Shrewsbury Road, while the food – spiced Castletownbere crab won tons with avocado salad, or traditional Kerry lamb and vegetable pie – is simply wondrous. As they say in Dublin 4, you can't kid a Bistro Kid.

  Set in a red-brick terraced house, The Lobster Pot in Ballsbridge is one of Dublin dining's best-kept secrets. Its regulars sometimes finish a meal by toasting the continued success of Roly's next door, as it means this 25-year-old, family-run restaurant remains their exclusive preserve. The service is smart, the fish and shellfish out of this world – check out the Lobster Newburg – and the décor is stylishly olde worlde, all polished brass and tapestries, bathed in the glow from a big open fire that roars like… well, like a big red crustacean in a pot of boiling water.

  Louis Walsh has become The Four
Seasons’ equivalent of Fawlty Towers’ resident, Major.

  ROLY's BREAD

  Roly's Bistro's baked-to-order bread is famous in these parts, and now you can buy it ‘to go’. On Sunday evenings you'll see hundreds of women queueing around the block for a loaf, like they once did in Jaruzelski's Poland – except it'd be more spinach and raisin, or rye and linseed, these women would be after, for their children's school lunches, obviously.

  Fortunately, that hasn't stopped the hotel restaurant becoming one of South Dublin's favourites, which is down to the great food and the bang-on service. D4 types like to be waited on, but not fussed over. Here, the waiting staff have a preternatural ability to anticipate your every whim, see to it before you have to ask and disappear again as quickly as they materialized. Half of the residents on Ailesbury Road haven't used their Agas since this joint opened.

  As the name suggests, Itsa 4 is for people who know where they're from and aren't shy about advertising the fact. The down-to-earth food and the ergonomically designed baby chairs have made it a favourite lunch place for yummy-mummies meeting Judie Dench-type glammy grannies.