Shane Harrison's Blog
July 30, 2023
Edinburgh - The Writers' City - 4
At the end of Grassmarket the road divides. Straight on and you pass under the bridges that buttress the Old Town. Candlemaker Row slopes upward to join George IV Bridge with the wall of Greyfriars Churchyard along one side. The Grey Friars themselves were Franciscans whose monastery was dissolved in 1560 as Scotland was gripped by the Reformation. It was a place of free assembly and The Covenanters signed the National Covenant here in 1638. This asserted the primacy of the Scottish Presbyterian Church but their revolt was soon defeated in the Battle of Bothwell Bridge. Following the battle, four hundred prisoners were held in a section of the churchyard, and it became known as the Covenanters Prison.
Most famous of the kirkyard’s former residents is a wee dog. Greyfriars Bobby. A Skye Terrier, he belonged to a nightwatchman with the city police, John Gray. When Gray died in 1858, it is said that Bobby, his watchdog, kept watch at the graveside until its own death fourteen years later. By this time he had become well known, to the extent that Edinburgh’s Lord Provost, William Chambers had the dog licensed and collared. A year after Bobby died, English philanthropist, Lady Angela Burdett-Coutts was so touched by the story that she had a statue erected in is memory. Outside the gates you’ll find the granite fountain surmounted by a lifesize bronze statue of Bobby.
The legend has grown. I saw the Disney film back in the early sixties. This was based on Eleanor Atkinson’s novel of 1812 and has a different version of events. Here, John Gray is a farmer who comes to Edinburgh and dies. A major character is Mr John Traill, of Trail’s Temperance Coffee House, who in real life claimed Jock and Bobby were regular visitors. As the coffee house was opened four years after Gray’s death, it may be something of a shaggy dog story. A more recent film in 2005 controversially starred a West Highland Terrier playing Bobby, an example of cultural appropriation. The Temperance Coffee House was located outside the gates, and is now, thankfully a bar. Greyfriars Bobby’s Bar is an old style pub, with outside tables to catch the midday sun
Around the corner on Forrest Road is Sandy Bell’s, another pub on the Rankin Rebus Pub Crawl. This is a folk bar with evening sessions featuring Irish and Scottish traditional music. It’s a century old and was first known as the Forrest Hill. Blossoming in the folk heyday of the sixties, Barbara Dickson, Billy Connolly and Gerry Rafferty are amongst its alumni. In the 80s a landlord installed a puggie or slot machine, bane of British pubs, but the regulars delivered an ultimatum, either it goes or we go, and it lasted all of a day. Sandy Bell’s became the official name in the nineties, as that’s what everyone called it, dating back to the twenties when the pub was owned by a Mrs Bell.
Across the street is the Scottish Museum. This is two buildings. The Royal Museum was built in the 1860s and houses displays of industry, science, technology and natural history. The modern building from 1998 is a formidable and concrete slab in the Le Corbusier style, which paradoxically concentrates on history and antiquities. Admission is free. The old building has that Great Exhibition air to it; the Grand Gallery of cast iron and light was inspired by the Crystal Palace.
The statue guarding the entrance is of William Chambers, who asides from his love of dogs, had a notable career. Born in 1800, he opened his first bookshop at nineteen and established a publishing empire with his younger brother Robert. As Lord Provost of Edinburgh in the 1860s he initiated major street construction projects hereabouts.
Chambers Street connects to the North and South Bridges joining Old and New Towns and bisected by the Royal Mile. I’m searching for the Royal Oak, another stop on the Rebus Pub Crawl. Hidden down Infirmary Road, its modest entrance leads to a welcoming traditional bar. The pub is two centuries old and is long established as an informal folk music venue. It features in Rankin’s Set in Darkness, eleventh in the Rebus series set during the birth of Scottish devolution. A duo discusses politics at the upstairs bar while I am engaged by the young lady serving. She tells me tales of growing up on Scotland’s east coast and I can thread in vague experiences of my own including Inverness and the shores of Lough Ness. There be monsters and dragons, and bagpipe festivals, and ancient standing stones where you might catch a glimpse of Catriona Balfe flitting through timezones in a diaphanous shift. But I digress. The lady merges the two conversational groups and now we argue over the travails of Mister Trump and his chances of reelection. There’s a smoke break, and I’m left alone with the mirrors and memories, and haunting lines of musicians who have gone or yet to visit.
Last on Rankin’s list is Bennetts, another old style pub on the southern approaches. It’s on my route home to Morningside, retracing my steps back to Tollcross and onto Leven Street. Bennetts is next door to the King’s Theatre, currently closed for renovations. There’s been a pub here since 1839, its current incarnation dates to the start of the twentieth century, about the time the theatre first opened. It’s a beautiful Victorian bar with high windows, wood and brass fittings, an open fire and snug. Here I spy the bagpipe busker from outside the Academy, his weaponry laid out on the table on his LGBQT flag. The barman proposes a chocolate flavoured stout which hails, I think, from Skye. Meanwhile, beyond Bennett’s huge windows, the sky above has opened and the deluge pours upon all without. I should stay sheltered I suppose.
Further on, Bruntsfield Place rejoices in the high, neo-gothic architecture typical of the city. Bruntsfield is birthplace of Muriel Spark. Her novel the Prime of Miss Jean Brodie was published in 1961. It was filmed in 1969 starring Maggie Smith. The film depicts Jean living in this area with the school based on nearby Morningside. On one of my all too many days off school I snuck into a Dublin cinema to catch this, becoming lost in a world of Scottish schoolgirls, bohemian art and some challenging social political theory. Maggie Smith won an Oscar. I’m in m’prime!
Bruntsfield Links provides a welcome slice of greenery on the city’s edge. It is, perhaps, the founding place for the ancient game of golf. The Golf Tavern boasts of dating back to 1456. Certainly, the Links were the playground of the Edinburgh Burgess Golfing Society, now known as the Royal, which claims to be the oldest golf society in the world, formed in 1735. They became a club and moved to their own course in 1890. There is still a pitch and putt course on the Links, but most is now a public park.
From the seats outside I have a view across the links to Arthur’s Seat. Arthur’s Seat is a remnant of the ancient volcano, along with Calton Hill, and the Castle Crag. It has featured frequently in the city’s literature, with many appearances in the Rebus series. One particularly evocative scene occurs in James Hogg’s fantastical novel the Confessions of a Justified Sinner of 1824. A broken spectre on the misty mountain makes for an eerie culmination in the struggle between the two sibling protagonists, George and Robert. Robert and his evil alter ego, Gil Martin is another inspiration for Jekyll and Hyde.
The Arthur in question is said to be the legendary king of the Britons who halted the AngloSaxon advance in the sixth century. Those events and their people are lost in the mists of time. Rather as Arthur’s Seat is now. A fog, or haar, has swept over the Old Town, so that as I turn to say farewell, the spires and peaks and castle of Auld Reikie float on its murky cushion, slipping off towards the horizon. And are gone.
Most famous of the kirkyard’s former residents is a wee dog. Greyfriars Bobby. A Skye Terrier, he belonged to a nightwatchman with the city police, John Gray. When Gray died in 1858, it is said that Bobby, his watchdog, kept watch at the graveside until its own death fourteen years later. By this time he had become well known, to the extent that Edinburgh’s Lord Provost, William Chambers had the dog licensed and collared. A year after Bobby died, English philanthropist, Lady Angela Burdett-Coutts was so touched by the story that she had a statue erected in is memory. Outside the gates you’ll find the granite fountain surmounted by a lifesize bronze statue of Bobby.
The legend has grown. I saw the Disney film back in the early sixties. This was based on Eleanor Atkinson’s novel of 1812 and has a different version of events. Here, John Gray is a farmer who comes to Edinburgh and dies. A major character is Mr John Traill, of Trail’s Temperance Coffee House, who in real life claimed Jock and Bobby were regular visitors. As the coffee house was opened four years after Gray’s death, it may be something of a shaggy dog story. A more recent film in 2005 controversially starred a West Highland Terrier playing Bobby, an example of cultural appropriation. The Temperance Coffee House was located outside the gates, and is now, thankfully a bar. Greyfriars Bobby’s Bar is an old style pub, with outside tables to catch the midday sun
Around the corner on Forrest Road is Sandy Bell’s, another pub on the Rankin Rebus Pub Crawl. This is a folk bar with evening sessions featuring Irish and Scottish traditional music. It’s a century old and was first known as the Forrest Hill. Blossoming in the folk heyday of the sixties, Barbara Dickson, Billy Connolly and Gerry Rafferty are amongst its alumni. In the 80s a landlord installed a puggie or slot machine, bane of British pubs, but the regulars delivered an ultimatum, either it goes or we go, and it lasted all of a day. Sandy Bell’s became the official name in the nineties, as that’s what everyone called it, dating back to the twenties when the pub was owned by a Mrs Bell.
Across the street is the Scottish Museum. This is two buildings. The Royal Museum was built in the 1860s and houses displays of industry, science, technology and natural history. The modern building from 1998 is a formidable and concrete slab in the Le Corbusier style, which paradoxically concentrates on history and antiquities. Admission is free. The old building has that Great Exhibition air to it; the Grand Gallery of cast iron and light was inspired by the Crystal Palace.
The statue guarding the entrance is of William Chambers, who asides from his love of dogs, had a notable career. Born in 1800, he opened his first bookshop at nineteen and established a publishing empire with his younger brother Robert. As Lord Provost of Edinburgh in the 1860s he initiated major street construction projects hereabouts.
Chambers Street connects to the North and South Bridges joining Old and New Towns and bisected by the Royal Mile. I’m searching for the Royal Oak, another stop on the Rebus Pub Crawl. Hidden down Infirmary Road, its modest entrance leads to a welcoming traditional bar. The pub is two centuries old and is long established as an informal folk music venue. It features in Rankin’s Set in Darkness, eleventh in the Rebus series set during the birth of Scottish devolution. A duo discusses politics at the upstairs bar while I am engaged by the young lady serving. She tells me tales of growing up on Scotland’s east coast and I can thread in vague experiences of my own including Inverness and the shores of Lough Ness. There be monsters and dragons, and bagpipe festivals, and ancient standing stones where you might catch a glimpse of Catriona Balfe flitting through timezones in a diaphanous shift. But I digress. The lady merges the two conversational groups and now we argue over the travails of Mister Trump and his chances of reelection. There’s a smoke break, and I’m left alone with the mirrors and memories, and haunting lines of musicians who have gone or yet to visit.
Last on Rankin’s list is Bennetts, another old style pub on the southern approaches. It’s on my route home to Morningside, retracing my steps back to Tollcross and onto Leven Street. Bennetts is next door to the King’s Theatre, currently closed for renovations. There’s been a pub here since 1839, its current incarnation dates to the start of the twentieth century, about the time the theatre first opened. It’s a beautiful Victorian bar with high windows, wood and brass fittings, an open fire and snug. Here I spy the bagpipe busker from outside the Academy, his weaponry laid out on the table on his LGBQT flag. The barman proposes a chocolate flavoured stout which hails, I think, from Skye. Meanwhile, beyond Bennett’s huge windows, the sky above has opened and the deluge pours upon all without. I should stay sheltered I suppose.
Further on, Bruntsfield Place rejoices in the high, neo-gothic architecture typical of the city. Bruntsfield is birthplace of Muriel Spark. Her novel the Prime of Miss Jean Brodie was published in 1961. It was filmed in 1969 starring Maggie Smith. The film depicts Jean living in this area with the school based on nearby Morningside. On one of my all too many days off school I snuck into a Dublin cinema to catch this, becoming lost in a world of Scottish schoolgirls, bohemian art and some challenging social political theory. Maggie Smith won an Oscar. I’m in m’prime!
Bruntsfield Links provides a welcome slice of greenery on the city’s edge. It is, perhaps, the founding place for the ancient game of golf. The Golf Tavern boasts of dating back to 1456. Certainly, the Links were the playground of the Edinburgh Burgess Golfing Society, now known as the Royal, which claims to be the oldest golf society in the world, formed in 1735. They became a club and moved to their own course in 1890. There is still a pitch and putt course on the Links, but most is now a public park.
From the seats outside I have a view across the links to Arthur’s Seat. Arthur’s Seat is a remnant of the ancient volcano, along with Calton Hill, and the Castle Crag. It has featured frequently in the city’s literature, with many appearances in the Rebus series. One particularly evocative scene occurs in James Hogg’s fantastical novel the Confessions of a Justified Sinner of 1824. A broken spectre on the misty mountain makes for an eerie culmination in the struggle between the two sibling protagonists, George and Robert. Robert and his evil alter ego, Gil Martin is another inspiration for Jekyll and Hyde.
The Arthur in question is said to be the legendary king of the Britons who halted the AngloSaxon advance in the sixth century. Those events and their people are lost in the mists of time. Rather as Arthur’s Seat is now. A fog, or haar, has swept over the Old Town, so that as I turn to say farewell, the spires and peaks and castle of Auld Reikie float on its murky cushion, slipping off towards the horizon. And are gone.
July 13, 2023
Edinburgh - The Writers' City - 3
The Edinburgh Writers’ Museum is a good place to get a grounding in the city’s literature. It features three writers who are prominent in the historical canon: Robert Burns, Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson. The building itself is well hidden, being off one of those many narrow, windie ways that drop down from the spine of the Royal Mile to the city of the plains below. Having missed it the day before, I find myself back at the summit of the Old Town again, clearer of mind and vision, determined to reach my target. The Old Town is, of course, crowned with the Castle fronted by the famous Esplanade, conjuring visions of strapping Scotsmen in kilts blowing a multitude of bagpipes. From here descends the Royal Mile, main street Scotland and a mixed wonderland. After the sedate aura of the Camera Obscura, the street is again thronged and rings with the refrains of serial bagpipers busking in doorways.
Helpfully, there’s a tourist pointing down the laneway by a souvenir shop, which turns out to be Lady Stair’s Close connecting Lawnmarket and the Mound. A close is a gated enclosure, for the posher sort who didn’t want to rub soldiers with regular folk. A wynde, meanwhile, was open to all. The narrow lane widens to reveal a quaint, but grand, turretted house. Lady Stair’s House was built in 1622 for Sir William Gray, and was long known for his widow, Lady Gray, who continued to live there after his death. Their granddaughter Elizabeth Dundas, became Lady Stair and that name is now attached to the building. In fact, the original house was largely demolished in an extensive renewal of the Old Town in the late nineteenth century. The new house is a cunning medieval pastiche by Arts and Crafts architect Stewart Henbest Capper. Other than the inscribed lintel little above ground remains from the original. All was passed on to the Burgh in 1907 for use as a museum by then owner, Archibald Primrose, the Earl of Rosebery. The house overlooks Makars’ Court. Makar is the Sots term for a writer, or bard. It was appled here in 1997 when twelve writers were commemorated with quotes from their work engraved on pavement slabs. There are over forty there now. Amongst them, one from Walter Scott:Walter Scott: This is my own, my native land.
I mooch around for a while, as the preceeding tourist points at various parts of the building. Entrance is free and offers a series of nestled portals into a number of worlds. There’s Robert Burns, Scotland’s Bard, who epitomises the traditional national identity in the music of language. Born in Ayr in 1759, he wrote in English, and the Guid Scots Tongue, and indeed often somewhere in between. Scots is the old English of the Anglo Saxon settlement of Britian and is preserved in Burns’s poetry. His first collection Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, includes To a Mouse, a startling ode to empathy.
Meanwhile, Address to a Haggis is the focal ceremony of Burns Night, another Scottish National Holiday in Winter. Saint Andrew’s Day in November, and Hogmanay on New Year’s Eve being the others. The Haggis, served with tatties (Potatoes) and neaps (parsnips), is a rite of passage for anyone wishing to eat their way through Scotland. White pudding is our equivalent, humbler than the exalted haggis; Great Chieftain o’ the Pudding Race, as Rabbie puts it. Burns is also responsible for Auld Lang Syne, which he adapted from an ancient source. It is a song of farewell, but implicitly of unextinguishable friendship. It is the standard farewell to the old year, and a welcome to the new throughout the English speaking world. And then there’s Jools Holland. Burns himself bade farewell to this earth in 1796, at the age of thirty seven.
The museum’s Walter Scott display includes the first edition of Waverley and the press on which the Waverley novels were printed, James Ballantyne’s handpress. There’s a lifesize tableau to bring you into that world.
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850 - 1894) completes the trio. An illustration for Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes 1879 is based on the quote:
I lay lazily smoking and studying the colour of the sky, as we call the void of space, from where it showed a reddish grey behind the pines to where it showed a glossy blue black beween the stars,
The line speaks to all travellers who have reflected on their travels. Writers should stensil it to their bedroom ceiling; make it the motto of their dreams, and their inspiration on waking. Consider also Treasure Island, Kidnapped, A Child’s Garden of Verses. There’s a ring Stevenson received as a present from a Samoan chief, engraved Tusitala, signifying the teller of tales. Stevenson was certainly a masterful weaver of tales, from the raw material of his travels, his imagination, and the humdrum of life. His wardrobe is here, made by the infamous Deacon Brodie. Brodie was a renowned cabinet maker and locksmith, skills he also harnessed when moonlighting as a burglar. His split life was a possible inspiration for the Strange Case of Doctor Jeckyll and Mister Hyde. Stevenson died in Samoa and is buried there beneath the epitaph: Home is the sailor home from the sea.
Drunk from the joys of literature, I feel an actual drink would be in order. I wind my way downhill past The Bow, and on to Grassmarket, a long plaza in the shadow of Castle Rock, with a concentration of eateries and drinking dens. Cobblestoned and tree lined, it’s perfect for an outdoor drink on a sunny day. Dating back to the late fourteenth century, the area for centuries operaed as a horse and cattle market. Some of the hostelries are indeed ancient and ripe with story. William and his sister Dorothy Worsworth stayed at the White Hart, as did Robbie Burns, and more balefully, the murderers Burke and Hare. Though not all at the same time. The Wordsworth’s stay is recorded in Dorothy’s Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland, 1803. The account features the six week sojourn of the Wordsworth’s through the Scottish Highlands with their friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Their journey by jaunting car was something of a Romantic epic, amd a homage to such Scottish literary and historic figures as Burns, Scott, Rob Roy and William Wallace. It was published posthumously in 1874.
Helpfully, there’s a tourist pointing down the laneway by a souvenir shop, which turns out to be Lady Stair’s Close connecting Lawnmarket and the Mound. A close is a gated enclosure, for the posher sort who didn’t want to rub soldiers with regular folk. A wynde, meanwhile, was open to all. The narrow lane widens to reveal a quaint, but grand, turretted house. Lady Stair’s House was built in 1622 for Sir William Gray, and was long known for his widow, Lady Gray, who continued to live there after his death. Their granddaughter Elizabeth Dundas, became Lady Stair and that name is now attached to the building. In fact, the original house was largely demolished in an extensive renewal of the Old Town in the late nineteenth century. The new house is a cunning medieval pastiche by Arts and Crafts architect Stewart Henbest Capper. Other than the inscribed lintel little above ground remains from the original. All was passed on to the Burgh in 1907 for use as a museum by then owner, Archibald Primrose, the Earl of Rosebery. The house overlooks Makars’ Court. Makar is the Sots term for a writer, or bard. It was appled here in 1997 when twelve writers were commemorated with quotes from their work engraved on pavement slabs. There are over forty there now. Amongst them, one from Walter Scott:Walter Scott: This is my own, my native land.
I mooch around for a while, as the preceeding tourist points at various parts of the building. Entrance is free and offers a series of nestled portals into a number of worlds. There’s Robert Burns, Scotland’s Bard, who epitomises the traditional national identity in the music of language. Born in Ayr in 1759, he wrote in English, and the Guid Scots Tongue, and indeed often somewhere in between. Scots is the old English of the Anglo Saxon settlement of Britian and is preserved in Burns’s poetry. His first collection Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, includes To a Mouse, a startling ode to empathy.
Meanwhile, Address to a Haggis is the focal ceremony of Burns Night, another Scottish National Holiday in Winter. Saint Andrew’s Day in November, and Hogmanay on New Year’s Eve being the others. The Haggis, served with tatties (Potatoes) and neaps (parsnips), is a rite of passage for anyone wishing to eat their way through Scotland. White pudding is our equivalent, humbler than the exalted haggis; Great Chieftain o’ the Pudding Race, as Rabbie puts it. Burns is also responsible for Auld Lang Syne, which he adapted from an ancient source. It is a song of farewell, but implicitly of unextinguishable friendship. It is the standard farewell to the old year, and a welcome to the new throughout the English speaking world. And then there’s Jools Holland. Burns himself bade farewell to this earth in 1796, at the age of thirty seven.
The museum’s Walter Scott display includes the first edition of Waverley and the press on which the Waverley novels were printed, James Ballantyne’s handpress. There’s a lifesize tableau to bring you into that world.
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850 - 1894) completes the trio. An illustration for Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes 1879 is based on the quote:
I lay lazily smoking and studying the colour of the sky, as we call the void of space, from where it showed a reddish grey behind the pines to where it showed a glossy blue black beween the stars,
The line speaks to all travellers who have reflected on their travels. Writers should stensil it to their bedroom ceiling; make it the motto of their dreams, and their inspiration on waking. Consider also Treasure Island, Kidnapped, A Child’s Garden of Verses. There’s a ring Stevenson received as a present from a Samoan chief, engraved Tusitala, signifying the teller of tales. Stevenson was certainly a masterful weaver of tales, from the raw material of his travels, his imagination, and the humdrum of life. His wardrobe is here, made by the infamous Deacon Brodie. Brodie was a renowned cabinet maker and locksmith, skills he also harnessed when moonlighting as a burglar. His split life was a possible inspiration for the Strange Case of Doctor Jeckyll and Mister Hyde. Stevenson died in Samoa and is buried there beneath the epitaph: Home is the sailor home from the sea.
Drunk from the joys of literature, I feel an actual drink would be in order. I wind my way downhill past The Bow, and on to Grassmarket, a long plaza in the shadow of Castle Rock, with a concentration of eateries and drinking dens. Cobblestoned and tree lined, it’s perfect for an outdoor drink on a sunny day. Dating back to the late fourteenth century, the area for centuries operaed as a horse and cattle market. Some of the hostelries are indeed ancient and ripe with story. William and his sister Dorothy Worsworth stayed at the White Hart, as did Robbie Burns, and more balefully, the murderers Burke and Hare. Though not all at the same time. The Wordsworth’s stay is recorded in Dorothy’s Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland, 1803. The account features the six week sojourn of the Wordsworth’s through the Scottish Highlands with their friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Their journey by jaunting car was something of a Romantic epic, amd a homage to such Scottish literary and historic figures as Burns, Scott, Rob Roy and William Wallace. It was published posthumously in 1874.
June 15, 2023
Edinburgh -the Writers' City - 2
Edinburgh’s Old Town rises south of Prince’s Street, an audacious signature across the sky. The Castle occupies the high, westernmost part of Castle Hill. This is a volcanic plug, formed when magma cooled in a massive volcano that stood here three hundred million years ago. The hill that remains stands four hundred and thirty feet above sea level, surrounded by cliffs on three sides. Rising two hundred and fifty feet above the surrounding plain, it made for an ideal defensive location in ancient times. Picts, Gaels and Anglo Saxons have taken advantage of that and abided here. Its Gaelic name is Dun Edin, the fortress of Edin, though who, or what, Edin was, nobody knows. It was established as a burgh by King David in 1124. David ruled from 1124 to 1153. He subsequently became a saint, the only avenue of promotion open to a king, and seldom granted. In the real world, he introduced Norman style administration to Scotland, superceding the Gaelic system that prevailed.
More coloquially, Edinburgh is also known as Auld Reekie, or old smoky as we would say. Being built on a rocky outcrop, and this being the north, the fires of the citizens smoke could be seen from twenty miles away. And country folk do refer to the big city as the Big Smoke
Beneath Castle Hill lies the New Town, with Prince’s Street marking its northern edge. Edinburgh’s principal street is lined with imposing commercial buildings, though a grumpy Dub might say it is like O’Connell Street with one side missing. That, of course, allows for the view, probably the best urban panorama you are likely to see. The serrated skyline of the Old Town topped by the Castle, viewed across a sylvan park dotted with choice statues and grand buildings.
The eastern end of the street is dominated by the Balmoral Hotel and Calton Hill with its monument strewn summit. Edinburgh is also known as the Athens of the North, eighteenth century travellers noting the similarity between the cities, particularly the Acropolis floating above the lower city and Castle Hill. Artist Hugh William Williams held an exhibition in 1822 with his sketches of Edinburgh and Athens displayed alongside each other for comparison. Calton Hill became the focus for this notion with the design of the National Monument of Scotland modelled on the Parthenon in Athens. Begun in 1826 as a monument to Scotish soldiers and sailors who had died in the Napoleonic Wars, lack of funds meant it was left incomplete in 1829. This might also recall one tourist’s comments on first seeing the Acropolis; hmmm, it will be nice when it’s finished
The view over the city from here is certainly iconic. The Balmoral Tower nearby is a dominant feature on the skyline. The building was designed by William Hamilton Beattie, and completed in 1901. It operated as the North British Hotel until the early nineties, when it became the Balmoral, just in time for my arrival in Edinburgh. At least, I dreamed of staying there, while lounging with M atop Calton Hill back in the day, furiously smoking into the mist, wondering which improbable tower we would most like to occupy for the night. One writer who made her dream real was JK Rowling. She was then just beginning her series on the exploits of tyro magician Harry Potter.
The Philosopher’s Stone began life in Porto, ultimately seeing the light of day in Edinburgh where she lived from 1995. Her haunt then was the Elephant House coffee shop, its magical views of Edinburgh Castle inspiring the fantastical setting of her work. She completed her series in a room at the Balmoral, something of a point of pilgrimage for the more fabulously well to do Harry Potter fan. It will cost you a grand a night. It would take me nearly a week to spend that amount on accommodation here. Which is plenty. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows brought the epic to an end in 2007.
The Elephant House is set further south on George IV Bridge, one of a number of bridges connecting the Old Town with its surrounding lowlands. The bridge is mostly lined with buildings, but there’s a gap at the Elephant House where you can gaze into the gloomy chasm of Cowgate. A terrace to the rear of the coffee house gives wonderful views of the castle, and here Rowling liked to sit and let her imagination run riot. Sadly, the building was giutted by fire last year, and there has been no movement since towards reconstruction.
Other than the Balmoral, the south side of Prince’s street is devoted to parkland and spectacle. The main rail station, Waverley, is next door, recessed in the hollow between North Bridge and Waverley Bridge. The Mound, leading up to the Old Town, was made from excavated ground, and the lower slope hosts The Scottish National Gallery and the Royal Scottish Academy. Prince’s Street Gardens makes a wonderful foreground for views of Castle Hill. All of this was originally a stagnant pool, the North Loch, filled in on the construction of the New Town.
The Scott Monument marks the eastern entrance to the gardens. It is two hundred feet tall, the largest monument to a writer in Europe and was designed by an amateur, George Kemp. He won the competition to design a fitting memorial to the recently deceased writer and work started in 1838. The dark, gothic masterpiece was completed in 1844, but Kemp never saw that, having drowned in the Union Canal some months earlier returning home from work.
Walter Scott was born in 1771. A writer, historian and public figure, he became a personification of Scottish literature and nationhood. He was amongst the first to use history as a basis for literary fiction with The Waverly Novels. These begun in 1814 with Waverley. Scott, then best known as a poet, published them anonymously, and subsequent novels had the byline: the author of Waverley. The narratives are frequently set in 17th or 18th century Scotland; such as Rob Roy, but also in Medieval England (Ivanhoe) and during the the Crusades in the Holy Land. They became hugely popular, defining narratives of the Romantic Age, establishing in our minds, or hearts, the exalted notions of romantic love, adventure, heroism and nationality. Something that Waverley Station, named for them, scarcely does. Walter Scott died in 1832.
The National Gallery of Scotland and the Royal Scottish Academy are at the base of the Mound. Both are in the neoclassical style and designed by William Henry Playfair. The Academy opened in 1826. Its annual exhibition, like our own RHA, features the work of contemporary Scottish artists. The National was built thirty years later and features leading traditional Scottish painters along with a good collection of international art; Peter Paul Rubens, Titian,Cezanne and Turner amongst them. The Impressionists are well represented, allegedly. However, as seems to be the case in most cities these days, half the gallery is closed for renovation, which put paid to the Impressionists. The gallery is rather small to begin with, but there is a fine display of Scottish masters.
From the National Gallery I head uphill towards the Edinburgh Writers’ Museum. This should be easy to find, but wasn’t. Edinburgh is a windie city, and I am distracted by the rain, the bagpipes and the sheer joy of it all. I find myself in Bow Street and seek solace in Ian Rankin’s Rebus Pub Crawl, remembering that the Bow Bar is number four on the list. The West Bow is an ancient Edinburgh Street, rising in two levels to the giddy heights of the Castle. The Bow Bar is a determinedly traditional brown bar, dark and timbered, with floor to ceiling windows. In fact it was refitted in this style in the early 1990s. I order an IPA from the young one behind the bar, a Belma and Louise, to be precise. The bar is packed but I make for the one vacant table by the window where I pose in the shaft of honeyed light sweeping down from on high, and lose myself in the moment.
More coloquially, Edinburgh is also known as Auld Reekie, or old smoky as we would say. Being built on a rocky outcrop, and this being the north, the fires of the citizens smoke could be seen from twenty miles away. And country folk do refer to the big city as the Big Smoke
Beneath Castle Hill lies the New Town, with Prince’s Street marking its northern edge. Edinburgh’s principal street is lined with imposing commercial buildings, though a grumpy Dub might say it is like O’Connell Street with one side missing. That, of course, allows for the view, probably the best urban panorama you are likely to see. The serrated skyline of the Old Town topped by the Castle, viewed across a sylvan park dotted with choice statues and grand buildings.
The eastern end of the street is dominated by the Balmoral Hotel and Calton Hill with its monument strewn summit. Edinburgh is also known as the Athens of the North, eighteenth century travellers noting the similarity between the cities, particularly the Acropolis floating above the lower city and Castle Hill. Artist Hugh William Williams held an exhibition in 1822 with his sketches of Edinburgh and Athens displayed alongside each other for comparison. Calton Hill became the focus for this notion with the design of the National Monument of Scotland modelled on the Parthenon in Athens. Begun in 1826 as a monument to Scotish soldiers and sailors who had died in the Napoleonic Wars, lack of funds meant it was left incomplete in 1829. This might also recall one tourist’s comments on first seeing the Acropolis; hmmm, it will be nice when it’s finished
The view over the city from here is certainly iconic. The Balmoral Tower nearby is a dominant feature on the skyline. The building was designed by William Hamilton Beattie, and completed in 1901. It operated as the North British Hotel until the early nineties, when it became the Balmoral, just in time for my arrival in Edinburgh. At least, I dreamed of staying there, while lounging with M atop Calton Hill back in the day, furiously smoking into the mist, wondering which improbable tower we would most like to occupy for the night. One writer who made her dream real was JK Rowling. She was then just beginning her series on the exploits of tyro magician Harry Potter.
The Philosopher’s Stone began life in Porto, ultimately seeing the light of day in Edinburgh where she lived from 1995. Her haunt then was the Elephant House coffee shop, its magical views of Edinburgh Castle inspiring the fantastical setting of her work. She completed her series in a room at the Balmoral, something of a point of pilgrimage for the more fabulously well to do Harry Potter fan. It will cost you a grand a night. It would take me nearly a week to spend that amount on accommodation here. Which is plenty. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows brought the epic to an end in 2007.
The Elephant House is set further south on George IV Bridge, one of a number of bridges connecting the Old Town with its surrounding lowlands. The bridge is mostly lined with buildings, but there’s a gap at the Elephant House where you can gaze into the gloomy chasm of Cowgate. A terrace to the rear of the coffee house gives wonderful views of the castle, and here Rowling liked to sit and let her imagination run riot. Sadly, the building was giutted by fire last year, and there has been no movement since towards reconstruction.
Other than the Balmoral, the south side of Prince’s street is devoted to parkland and spectacle. The main rail station, Waverley, is next door, recessed in the hollow between North Bridge and Waverley Bridge. The Mound, leading up to the Old Town, was made from excavated ground, and the lower slope hosts The Scottish National Gallery and the Royal Scottish Academy. Prince’s Street Gardens makes a wonderful foreground for views of Castle Hill. All of this was originally a stagnant pool, the North Loch, filled in on the construction of the New Town.
The Scott Monument marks the eastern entrance to the gardens. It is two hundred feet tall, the largest monument to a writer in Europe and was designed by an amateur, George Kemp. He won the competition to design a fitting memorial to the recently deceased writer and work started in 1838. The dark, gothic masterpiece was completed in 1844, but Kemp never saw that, having drowned in the Union Canal some months earlier returning home from work.
Walter Scott was born in 1771. A writer, historian and public figure, he became a personification of Scottish literature and nationhood. He was amongst the first to use history as a basis for literary fiction with The Waverly Novels. These begun in 1814 with Waverley. Scott, then best known as a poet, published them anonymously, and subsequent novels had the byline: the author of Waverley. The narratives are frequently set in 17th or 18th century Scotland; such as Rob Roy, but also in Medieval England (Ivanhoe) and during the the Crusades in the Holy Land. They became hugely popular, defining narratives of the Romantic Age, establishing in our minds, or hearts, the exalted notions of romantic love, adventure, heroism and nationality. Something that Waverley Station, named for them, scarcely does. Walter Scott died in 1832.
The National Gallery of Scotland and the Royal Scottish Academy are at the base of the Mound. Both are in the neoclassical style and designed by William Henry Playfair. The Academy opened in 1826. Its annual exhibition, like our own RHA, features the work of contemporary Scottish artists. The National was built thirty years later and features leading traditional Scottish painters along with a good collection of international art; Peter Paul Rubens, Titian,Cezanne and Turner amongst them. The Impressionists are well represented, allegedly. However, as seems to be the case in most cities these days, half the gallery is closed for renovation, which put paid to the Impressionists. The gallery is rather small to begin with, but there is a fine display of Scottish masters.
From the National Gallery I head uphill towards the Edinburgh Writers’ Museum. This should be easy to find, but wasn’t. Edinburgh is a windie city, and I am distracted by the rain, the bagpipes and the sheer joy of it all. I find myself in Bow Street and seek solace in Ian Rankin’s Rebus Pub Crawl, remembering that the Bow Bar is number four on the list. The West Bow is an ancient Edinburgh Street, rising in two levels to the giddy heights of the Castle. The Bow Bar is a determinedly traditional brown bar, dark and timbered, with floor to ceiling windows. In fact it was refitted in this style in the early 1990s. I order an IPA from the young one behind the bar, a Belma and Louise, to be precise. The bar is packed but I make for the one vacant table by the window where I pose in the shaft of honeyed light sweeping down from on high, and lose myself in the moment.
May 30, 2023
Edinburgh - The Writers' City
There are few cities that provide the spectacle and depth of Edinburgh. Its skyline is an imagined fantasy, ancient and ornate. Implacable of outline, yet harbouring a wealth of tales, written and being written up untill this very moment. Cities are as much a construct of stories as they are of stone, Edinburgh rejoices in both. Like Dublin, you can translate it through its writers, distant and contemporary wordsmiths honoured in various ways. Prince’s Street features the stunning spire of the Walter Scott Monument, rising two hundred feet into the sky. More discreet memorials too. The dark laneways of the old town speak of Stevenson’s Jekyll and Hyde. Above them rise a conspiracy of spires and turrets, the broken teeth of old volcanoes, the whispering stone of graveyards and kirk. Sleuths saunter in the shadows, from Sherlock Holmes to John Rebus, demons and wizards, killers and creators number amongst the cast of Edinburgh’s multitude of stories.
As one door into this maze, I thought of the contemporary world of John Rebus, that hardboiled detective created by Ian Rankin. Planning this trip to Edinburgh, only my second, I messaged Rankin if he could offer a tour of Rebus watering holes as a pathway through the city. Rankin obliged, so I had a list of seven pubs giving me a route through the streets of the Scottish capital.
It has taken me three years to act on it.The lockdown gave us our own version of the plague, locking us into awkward isolation. I had first visited Edinburgh in the mid nineties. Autumn is a good time to visit Scotland, grey, gold and auburn, and prey to mists. It was a treat for my fortieth birthday, which falls on Saint Andrew’s Day. Andrew provides the Saltire for Scotland’s flag, being the patron saint. And I am half Scottish. My father was born in Scotland, in the mining country of Blantyre, between here and Glasgow.
Back then, myself and M took the Hidden Edinburgh tour, which was a guided walk through the subterranean city of the Old Town. Gloomy indeed, especially in late November. It took off from the Royal Mile, the spine of the city. Our young guide was as charming, loud and funny as we expect a Scottish guide to be, they’re just born to it. Tales of ghosts and ghouls and graverobbers loomed out of the misty evening. We journeyed beneath the streets themselves, finding graveyards down there too, Stopping in a catacomb, our guide whispered this was once an entire street which had been blockaded in Plague times, the residents left there to die, or survive if God so chose. Now, that’s what I call Lockdown.
Rankin was born in 1960 in Cardenden, Fife, north of Edinburgh, on the far side of the Firth of Forth. He never intended to write a detective series. The first Rebus adventure was intended as a stand alone novel, as something of a modern day version of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mister Hyde. Titled Knots and Crosses it was published in 1987 and followed by Hide and Seek in 1990, also influenced by Jeckyll and Hyde. Hide, get it?
Rebus himself was born some years before his creator, in the later forties up in Fife and hardened in the smithy of Northern Ireland during the early Troubles. Exit Music, 2007, saw Rebus reach sixty, retirement age for a police officer. Rebus was buried, but not dead, and rose again five years later in the appropriately titled, Standing in Another Man’s Grave. Rebus now retired but unable to let the past, or the present go. Rankin has published twenty four Rebus novels up to the recent A Heart Full of Headstones 2022.
Rankin puts the Oxford Bar , Rebus’s most regular haunt, top of his list. Coincidentally, my trip to Oxford some years back, also took a writer’s prism. in this case Colin Dexter’s Morse, myself and M took a wonderfully entertaining tour in tandem with the adventures of Morse, and of course the long suffering Lewis. The Oxford Bar itself is in Edinburgh’s New Town. The idea of the New Town was first proposed by James VII when Duke of York (of New York fame) as a sophisticated extension to the overcrowded ancient city above. The Battle of the Boyne put paid to that, as James lost his crown, but the idea was refloated in 1766 and a design competition held. This was won by a young local architect James Craig and work soon began on the project.
Prince’s Street forms the southern edge. George Street is the central axis, along the apex of a low ridge from the Albert equestrian statue in Charlotte Square to the Melville Memorial in St Andrew’s Square. It is calm and wide, diners relaxing outdoors in the midday sun. Queen Street completed the northern perimeter. The narrower Rose Street and Thistle Street lie between, with the transverse streets at right angles, Hanover Street, Frederick Street and Castle Street The naming emphasises the theme of the unification of the two kingdoms, as some like to see the annexation of Scotland. It is all very Georgian and grandiose. But there are creeks and alleys.
The Oxford Bar is well hidden, an oasis in a cramped enclave of honeyed brick on narrow Young Street, north of George Street. It dates back to 1811 and retains the intimate structure of its origins. There’s a tiny bar inside the entrance, a few steps up to a larger room to the rear sparsely furnished in gloomy wood, aglow with honeyed daylight through the sandblasted Oxford window. It’s there I take my pint of IPA and sit as if in a sepia photograph, my only company the solid beam of sunlight, and a man reading a novel by its light. It’s a literary pub, to be sure. I noticed Robbie Burns presiding over the bars as I ordered my Deucher’sthe photo gallery features musicians and others, but most notably Rankin himself (natch). I see too that Colin Dexter is a noted visitor. On the way out, I receive a bookmark or two as souvenir from the pleasant landlady who served me,
Outside, I take in the atmosphere in the traditional manner before heading south along Castle Street. Rose Street, reminds me of Cork’s Oliver Plunkett Street, narrow, straight, cobbled and quaint.It’s pedestrianised and a busy mix of shops, cafes and bars. Abbotsford is at the eastern end. Named for the home of Sir Walter Scott in the Borderlands to the south. The pub is an Edwardian saloon, well upholstered beneath an ornate ceiling and around an imposing mahogonay island bar. There’s a restaurant upstairs. I order a Tennents, frothy and longlasting, the gift that keeps on giving. The bar is busy and I take my drink onto the terrace where I can catch the suns afternoon rays. A nearby busker rests his back against the railings of Rose Street Garden. This open air cafe and wine bar is a popular celbrity haunt. It les at the back of The Dome on George Street, a neo-classical building from 1847, once a bank and now a chic restaurant. Back on my stretch of pavement, more are following my lead in taking the air. It’s most pleasant. The busker’s repertoire is Dylanesque, with a tartan weave that includes The Proclaimers amongst others. He’s giving it the full nine yards, and might be better dialling it down a bit. I wonder should I ask him to sing Faraway.
Number three on the list is the Cafe Royal. This is beyond St Andrew’s Square on a secluded side street. The Cafe Royal is a lovely Victorian bar with towering glass windows designed by Architect Robert Paterson from 1863. It describes itself as an Oyster Bar. Though shellfish is poison to me, there are more edible alternatives including haggis, venison and other Scottish delights. The walls are adorned with glorious ceramic tiled panels by John Eyre and stained glass windows featuring famous inventors including Jamers Watt, a pioneer of the steam engine, and also the copying machine. I can imagine myself in an age of elegance, amongst the gleaming brasswork and gasslamps. Prince’s Street is just a block away, abuzz with the height of the tea time rush. But here is a place to shelter from the outdoors, however benign, and bask in the glow of crafted opulence, art and intimacy; and a fine malt whisky, of course.
As one door into this maze, I thought of the contemporary world of John Rebus, that hardboiled detective created by Ian Rankin. Planning this trip to Edinburgh, only my second, I messaged Rankin if he could offer a tour of Rebus watering holes as a pathway through the city. Rankin obliged, so I had a list of seven pubs giving me a route through the streets of the Scottish capital.
It has taken me three years to act on it.The lockdown gave us our own version of the plague, locking us into awkward isolation. I had first visited Edinburgh in the mid nineties. Autumn is a good time to visit Scotland, grey, gold and auburn, and prey to mists. It was a treat for my fortieth birthday, which falls on Saint Andrew’s Day. Andrew provides the Saltire for Scotland’s flag, being the patron saint. And I am half Scottish. My father was born in Scotland, in the mining country of Blantyre, between here and Glasgow.
Back then, myself and M took the Hidden Edinburgh tour, which was a guided walk through the subterranean city of the Old Town. Gloomy indeed, especially in late November. It took off from the Royal Mile, the spine of the city. Our young guide was as charming, loud and funny as we expect a Scottish guide to be, they’re just born to it. Tales of ghosts and ghouls and graverobbers loomed out of the misty evening. We journeyed beneath the streets themselves, finding graveyards down there too, Stopping in a catacomb, our guide whispered this was once an entire street which had been blockaded in Plague times, the residents left there to die, or survive if God so chose. Now, that’s what I call Lockdown.
Rankin was born in 1960 in Cardenden, Fife, north of Edinburgh, on the far side of the Firth of Forth. He never intended to write a detective series. The first Rebus adventure was intended as a stand alone novel, as something of a modern day version of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mister Hyde. Titled Knots and Crosses it was published in 1987 and followed by Hide and Seek in 1990, also influenced by Jeckyll and Hyde. Hide, get it?
Rebus himself was born some years before his creator, in the later forties up in Fife and hardened in the smithy of Northern Ireland during the early Troubles. Exit Music, 2007, saw Rebus reach sixty, retirement age for a police officer. Rebus was buried, but not dead, and rose again five years later in the appropriately titled, Standing in Another Man’s Grave. Rebus now retired but unable to let the past, or the present go. Rankin has published twenty four Rebus novels up to the recent A Heart Full of Headstones 2022.
Rankin puts the Oxford Bar , Rebus’s most regular haunt, top of his list. Coincidentally, my trip to Oxford some years back, also took a writer’s prism. in this case Colin Dexter’s Morse, myself and M took a wonderfully entertaining tour in tandem with the adventures of Morse, and of course the long suffering Lewis. The Oxford Bar itself is in Edinburgh’s New Town. The idea of the New Town was first proposed by James VII when Duke of York (of New York fame) as a sophisticated extension to the overcrowded ancient city above. The Battle of the Boyne put paid to that, as James lost his crown, but the idea was refloated in 1766 and a design competition held. This was won by a young local architect James Craig and work soon began on the project.
Prince’s Street forms the southern edge. George Street is the central axis, along the apex of a low ridge from the Albert equestrian statue in Charlotte Square to the Melville Memorial in St Andrew’s Square. It is calm and wide, diners relaxing outdoors in the midday sun. Queen Street completed the northern perimeter. The narrower Rose Street and Thistle Street lie between, with the transverse streets at right angles, Hanover Street, Frederick Street and Castle Street The naming emphasises the theme of the unification of the two kingdoms, as some like to see the annexation of Scotland. It is all very Georgian and grandiose. But there are creeks and alleys.
The Oxford Bar is well hidden, an oasis in a cramped enclave of honeyed brick on narrow Young Street, north of George Street. It dates back to 1811 and retains the intimate structure of its origins. There’s a tiny bar inside the entrance, a few steps up to a larger room to the rear sparsely furnished in gloomy wood, aglow with honeyed daylight through the sandblasted Oxford window. It’s there I take my pint of IPA and sit as if in a sepia photograph, my only company the solid beam of sunlight, and a man reading a novel by its light. It’s a literary pub, to be sure. I noticed Robbie Burns presiding over the bars as I ordered my Deucher’sthe photo gallery features musicians and others, but most notably Rankin himself (natch). I see too that Colin Dexter is a noted visitor. On the way out, I receive a bookmark or two as souvenir from the pleasant landlady who served me,
Outside, I take in the atmosphere in the traditional manner before heading south along Castle Street. Rose Street, reminds me of Cork’s Oliver Plunkett Street, narrow, straight, cobbled and quaint.It’s pedestrianised and a busy mix of shops, cafes and bars. Abbotsford is at the eastern end. Named for the home of Sir Walter Scott in the Borderlands to the south. The pub is an Edwardian saloon, well upholstered beneath an ornate ceiling and around an imposing mahogonay island bar. There’s a restaurant upstairs. I order a Tennents, frothy and longlasting, the gift that keeps on giving. The bar is busy and I take my drink onto the terrace where I can catch the suns afternoon rays. A nearby busker rests his back against the railings of Rose Street Garden. This open air cafe and wine bar is a popular celbrity haunt. It les at the back of The Dome on George Street, a neo-classical building from 1847, once a bank and now a chic restaurant. Back on my stretch of pavement, more are following my lead in taking the air. It’s most pleasant. The busker’s repertoire is Dylanesque, with a tartan weave that includes The Proclaimers amongst others. He’s giving it the full nine yards, and might be better dialling it down a bit. I wonder should I ask him to sing Faraway.
Number three on the list is the Cafe Royal. This is beyond St Andrew’s Square on a secluded side street. The Cafe Royal is a lovely Victorian bar with towering glass windows designed by Architect Robert Paterson from 1863. It describes itself as an Oyster Bar. Though shellfish is poison to me, there are more edible alternatives including haggis, venison and other Scottish delights. The walls are adorned with glorious ceramic tiled panels by John Eyre and stained glass windows featuring famous inventors including Jamers Watt, a pioneer of the steam engine, and also the copying machine. I can imagine myself in an age of elegance, amongst the gleaming brasswork and gasslamps. Prince’s Street is just a block away, abuzz with the height of the tea time rush. But here is a place to shelter from the outdoors, however benign, and bask in the glow of crafted opulence, art and intimacy; and a fine malt whisky, of course.
August 21, 2021
The Bridge by Iain Banks
The Bridge by Iain BanksMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Captured by the otherworldly nature of this. A whole city and society within a dream of the Firth of Forth Bridge. Flickering behind the eyes of the narrator are the memories of a distant life in the real world. Lose yourself in this, it's great.
View all my reviews
July 5, 2020
Kings on the Roof
This is something that happens every seven years or so, and it’s happening again. I’ve scratched the seven year itch and my latest collection of short stories, Kings on the Roof, is about to go live. Published by Forty Foot Press, it has eleven stories drawn from all across my universe.
Stories from Dublin in different manifestations in space and time. Stories from Wicklow and rural Ireland too. Bray seafront, Lough Crew’s megalithic tombs, and the Vale of Avoca all feature. Farther afield, there’s a time travel Western set in Cloud City, based on real and imagined towns in Colorado, notably Leadville. In the opening story, The Figurine, I return to Ciudad Sine Nomine, last visited in 2006 in The Apartment Opposite. Still it seesaws between the ancient Mediterranean and the cacophony of Latin America, a prism distorting our ideas of religion, love, obsession and life everlasting.
The title story, Kings on the Roof, is set around Dublin’s Amiens Street, with the Sorting Office in Sheriff Street, and Cleary’s Pub beneath the railway bridge featuring. There’s an autobiographical element to this story, as I worked in the Sorting Office with the P7T in the late seventies.
back then when everything seemed possible, even there in the Sorting Office, in the bowels of that clanking beast, amongst the trolls and elves of the workaday world. We’d climb onto the high gantry and up the fixed ladder to the roof, Alex, the Bishop and I. We were kings of the world up there, with Dublin spread out beneath us, above us only a rippling sky.
A more mythic Dublin features in The Secret Lover of Captain Raymondo D’Inzeo. Set in the late sixties in the Liberties, the narrative includes fanciful versions of Marconi, the Easter Rising, the Theatre Royal and the magnificent Italian showjumping team winning the Aga Khan.
Just past Cassoni’s I see the car, a red Alfa Romeo with the roof rolled down. Graciano is at the wheel, la Contessa Rossi languishing in the passenger seat.
“You,” she says, “you have set your sight on the Captain. You are good. A young girl with well turned calf. But would he set his cap for you, the Captain? In all probability. He can acquire what he likes.”
I can’t think what to say. “Will Italy win the Aga Khan?” I stammer.
La Contessa puts her head to one side, like a bird looking at a worm. When she speaks, it is not by way of a reply. “I see your man there. He is within your reach. Don’t take me wrong for, believe me, we both have love in our hearts. And yes, we will win.”
The cover illustration is realistic enough, based on a photographic time exposure of city traffic at College Green, Dublin’s dizzy fulcrum. This is the beating heart of Dublin. Whenever you stand there, you will experience the rattle and hum of the city. The song it makes is of all the songs that have been sung here, all the words written and spoken, the history of centuries and recent seconds. At night I find it something special, intimate in its inkiness, dangerous and comforting in that non stop firefly display. Stand and watch the lights of passing traffic going everywhere, fast, at the same time.
Kings on the Roof is published by Forty Foot Press, and is available on Amazon.
Stories from Dublin in different manifestations in space and time. Stories from Wicklow and rural Ireland too. Bray seafront, Lough Crew’s megalithic tombs, and the Vale of Avoca all feature. Farther afield, there’s a time travel Western set in Cloud City, based on real and imagined towns in Colorado, notably Leadville. In the opening story, The Figurine, I return to Ciudad Sine Nomine, last visited in 2006 in The Apartment Opposite. Still it seesaws between the ancient Mediterranean and the cacophony of Latin America, a prism distorting our ideas of religion, love, obsession and life everlasting.
The title story, Kings on the Roof, is set around Dublin’s Amiens Street, with the Sorting Office in Sheriff Street, and Cleary’s Pub beneath the railway bridge featuring. There’s an autobiographical element to this story, as I worked in the Sorting Office with the P7T in the late seventies.
back then when everything seemed possible, even there in the Sorting Office, in the bowels of that clanking beast, amongst the trolls and elves of the workaday world. We’d climb onto the high gantry and up the fixed ladder to the roof, Alex, the Bishop and I. We were kings of the world up there, with Dublin spread out beneath us, above us only a rippling sky.
A more mythic Dublin features in The Secret Lover of Captain Raymondo D’Inzeo. Set in the late sixties in the Liberties, the narrative includes fanciful versions of Marconi, the Easter Rising, the Theatre Royal and the magnificent Italian showjumping team winning the Aga Khan.
Just past Cassoni’s I see the car, a red Alfa Romeo with the roof rolled down. Graciano is at the wheel, la Contessa Rossi languishing in the passenger seat.
“You,” she says, “you have set your sight on the Captain. You are good. A young girl with well turned calf. But would he set his cap for you, the Captain? In all probability. He can acquire what he likes.”
I can’t think what to say. “Will Italy win the Aga Khan?” I stammer.
La Contessa puts her head to one side, like a bird looking at a worm. When she speaks, it is not by way of a reply. “I see your man there. He is within your reach. Don’t take me wrong for, believe me, we both have love in our hearts. And yes, we will win.”
The cover illustration is realistic enough, based on a photographic time exposure of city traffic at College Green, Dublin’s dizzy fulcrum. This is the beating heart of Dublin. Whenever you stand there, you will experience the rattle and hum of the city. The song it makes is of all the songs that have been sung here, all the words written and spoken, the history of centuries and recent seconds. At night I find it something special, intimate in its inkiness, dangerous and comforting in that non stop firefly display. Stand and watch the lights of passing traffic going everywhere, fast, at the same time.
Kings on the Roof is published by Forty Foot Press, and is available on Amazon.
May 20, 2020
Every Story Paints a Picture
And the Blessings of a Good English Teacher.
The life of the writer must begin somewhere. With biro chewing, gazing into space, the odd shout of eureka! And sometimes that’s the way it keeps going. In searching for the source of all this pleasure and pain, I find myself crossing that rubicon, the Long Mile Road to be precise. Time to enter the Land of the Christian Brothers, in the shadow of the looming tower of Drimnagh Castle.
It was there that the cogs began to engage, targets were set, adjudication became official and formative. Entering secondary school, my English teacher up to Intermediate, or Junior, Cert, was a Mister Diggin. Affectionately known as Milo, English class was a pleasure. Since most of our education was through Irish, it gave us a chance to speak and think, and write, in our first language. This might not always have been such a pleasure for Milo. But he could hide his pain, and was one of those genuine enthusiasts for the education of his charges.
Somewhere in first year, I think, a school essay was set to which I applied myself with the usual rigour. That is, let’s see how quickly I can get this done before turning to the real stuff of life: football, rock music. Drink, feck, girls was a bit later. The essay was dutifully prepared and I gave it to my sister to read through. I imagine that would have been at her insistence. Marie was my eldest sister, though both were of keen literary mind, Joan would have been diffident regarding my literary output. Marie was less than impressed. Yes, she said, it’s dutiful, but dull.
I was dismayed. Surely these things just had to be done. Don’t tell me they had to be good as well. So, now I had to apply such unused muscles as thought and skill to my school essay. And what for? The praise of my sister; was I mad? Still I did apply myself and carved out an essay that was full of incident, funny and concise. I cannot recall the gist of it. It was the usual what I did on my summer holidays or some such. But with feeling
Then, disaster. Milo was so pleased that he read it out. This excited a predictable response from my peers. Surreptitious slurping sounds, fingers drawn across throats, gimlet eyes. Oh no, I had joined the other side. Now, now, relax; no-one jumped me. It was a good class that looked out for one another, and I also managed to keep immune from physical ragging by cultivating ‘the look’. At the same time, and being typically racked by angst, I decided it was best not to push it.
I intended for my stories to take a downward slant, so Milo wold not feel the need to hold me up as an example every time. What I needed to do was to make them less and less acceptable, more and more outrageous. The nadir was reached, I think, when prompted to fill the roll of neighbourhood character, and fabricated a drunken Scotsman straight out of central casting. The details are vague but I am sure salacious, involving certain stereotypes of men and kilts. Milo didn’t baulk at this, but fortunately my standing was raised amongst my peers.
Milo was also fond of proclaiming his love for the sacred triumvirate of Shakespeare, Picasso and Sinatra. I, and my classmates, didn’t entirely share the joy. Oh, but you will, he said. True, up to a point. At least, two out of tree ain’t bad.
He put to me to more refined tasks. We were doing Wuthering Heights at the time, and he commissioned me, given the now dubious nature of my essays, to draw a picture of the house. Which I did, making a ruggedly gothic affair set atop the windswept moor, as might be seen by someone approaching over a nearby rise.
It was successful, as was that first three year period in secondary school. Ultimately I’m still bound by that loop. The picture tells the story, and then the story reveals the picture.
The life of the writer must begin somewhere. With biro chewing, gazing into space, the odd shout of eureka! And sometimes that’s the way it keeps going. In searching for the source of all this pleasure and pain, I find myself crossing that rubicon, the Long Mile Road to be precise. Time to enter the Land of the Christian Brothers, in the shadow of the looming tower of Drimnagh Castle.
It was there that the cogs began to engage, targets were set, adjudication became official and formative. Entering secondary school, my English teacher up to Intermediate, or Junior, Cert, was a Mister Diggin. Affectionately known as Milo, English class was a pleasure. Since most of our education was through Irish, it gave us a chance to speak and think, and write, in our first language. This might not always have been such a pleasure for Milo. But he could hide his pain, and was one of those genuine enthusiasts for the education of his charges.
Somewhere in first year, I think, a school essay was set to which I applied myself with the usual rigour. That is, let’s see how quickly I can get this done before turning to the real stuff of life: football, rock music. Drink, feck, girls was a bit later. The essay was dutifully prepared and I gave it to my sister to read through. I imagine that would have been at her insistence. Marie was my eldest sister, though both were of keen literary mind, Joan would have been diffident regarding my literary output. Marie was less than impressed. Yes, she said, it’s dutiful, but dull.
I was dismayed. Surely these things just had to be done. Don’t tell me they had to be good as well. So, now I had to apply such unused muscles as thought and skill to my school essay. And what for? The praise of my sister; was I mad? Still I did apply myself and carved out an essay that was full of incident, funny and concise. I cannot recall the gist of it. It was the usual what I did on my summer holidays or some such. But with feeling
Then, disaster. Milo was so pleased that he read it out. This excited a predictable response from my peers. Surreptitious slurping sounds, fingers drawn across throats, gimlet eyes. Oh no, I had joined the other side. Now, now, relax; no-one jumped me. It was a good class that looked out for one another, and I also managed to keep immune from physical ragging by cultivating ‘the look’. At the same time, and being typically racked by angst, I decided it was best not to push it.
I intended for my stories to take a downward slant, so Milo wold not feel the need to hold me up as an example every time. What I needed to do was to make them less and less acceptable, more and more outrageous. The nadir was reached, I think, when prompted to fill the roll of neighbourhood character, and fabricated a drunken Scotsman straight out of central casting. The details are vague but I am sure salacious, involving certain stereotypes of men and kilts. Milo didn’t baulk at this, but fortunately my standing was raised amongst my peers.
Milo was also fond of proclaiming his love for the sacred triumvirate of Shakespeare, Picasso and Sinatra. I, and my classmates, didn’t entirely share the joy. Oh, but you will, he said. True, up to a point. At least, two out of tree ain’t bad.
He put to me to more refined tasks. We were doing Wuthering Heights at the time, and he commissioned me, given the now dubious nature of my essays, to draw a picture of the house. Which I did, making a ruggedly gothic affair set atop the windswept moor, as might be seen by someone approaching over a nearby rise.
It was successful, as was that first three year period in secondary school. Ultimately I’m still bound by that loop. The picture tells the story, and then the story reveals the picture.
April 21, 2020
Putting Pen to Paper
With the verbal story already established, the story as object was coming into being. I could absorb all those stories flying around my head, but there was a specific compartment for them too. The stories became words, and the words sat on a page. They could be given to you, but as is the case with gifts, the compliment could be returned. And perhaps should be. When I first put pen to paper , it was more than likely in the classroom. Before that, I reckon I was
just fooling around with crayons. Both means are important, but there’s a difference.
I was always more a visual artist than a scribe. I don’t know why, it’s just the way I was made. Now, my memory is not so keen that I can visualise my first daubs, but they were probably of a muchness with most kids: giant parents, siblings - I was the youngest so even they towered a bit - our house and garden, and some random trees. I’m pretty sure my attempt at a tree resembled a giant broccoli, with a huge brown flared stump surmounted by a loopy green moptop head. I remember my sister telling me that the bark of a tree was grey, and that their spread of leaves was huge, apparently top heavy. Already, the dichotomy between what you see and what you know has inserted itself.
In school, it would have been High Babies or First Class, I recall drawing with chalk on a personal handheld blackboard. The teacher, Mrs McDermott, had set us the task of depicting a car driving along a roadway. I decided on a series of panels across my board, comic-book style, depicting a car passing a roadside billboard. So I drew front, side and rear elevations of the car while the billboard changed from oblong to a vertical line. The understanding of perspective had dawned. Also, people, both teacher and peers, were perplexed. What was I at?
Oh, I could do a seminar on that. I was exploring narrative in the visual form. I was subconsciously immersed in Hollywood and Americana - I don’t think there were many billboards in early 1960s Ireland - I was looking for shortcuts (probably, if you consider the shorthand of drawing a billboard as a vertical line). I was being the smart-ass. Again, very likely.
Another time, same class but maybe some weeks later, I was drawing an aeroplane, and I used hatching to show the shine on the wings and windows. A visiting student, that is, an ex-student of Mrs McDermott paying a visit from the CBS Primary across the road, was outraged. My rendering upset him, it seems. “That’s Pig-style!” he berated me. What exactly that meant, I was unsure, but now I understood the oft abusive nature of criticism. Or, having encountered it, was utterly perplexed by it.
At least Mrs McDermott kept some faith in my ability. Three of us, the best artists in the class, one presumes, were commissioned to render a particular bucolic scene: a wooden fence strung across a green field, with a farm in the distance; full colour with paper and crayons. Posterity beckoned. Most importantly, this rescued me from the sin bin where I spent a lot of my time. When the three of us were displayed for all to see, I couldn’t help feeling that there was something odd about mine, and I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing. The other two looked the same, and the same as the model from which they were drawn.Mine did not. The proportions were askew, the colours weirdly heightened, the proportions and composition were irregular while the others were very, um, regular. I was strangely put out by this, yet the notion dawned on me that I was making some kind of point. Was I? I don’t know, but I was aware that I was standing out and that this was uncomfortable but weirdly exhilarating.
And, I realise in writing this, that I have not yet put pen to paper. But, for all that, there were already stories inside my scribblings. Some of them are just escaping now. What people do, the decisions we make, how we each see things differently. Of course, slouching down the road towards me, was that great challenge of literature: the school essay, and what you did on your summer holidays. We’ll come to that.
just fooling around with crayons. Both means are important, but there’s a difference.
I was always more a visual artist than a scribe. I don’t know why, it’s just the way I was made. Now, my memory is not so keen that I can visualise my first daubs, but they were probably of a muchness with most kids: giant parents, siblings - I was the youngest so even they towered a bit - our house and garden, and some random trees. I’m pretty sure my attempt at a tree resembled a giant broccoli, with a huge brown flared stump surmounted by a loopy green moptop head. I remember my sister telling me that the bark of a tree was grey, and that their spread of leaves was huge, apparently top heavy. Already, the dichotomy between what you see and what you know has inserted itself.
In school, it would have been High Babies or First Class, I recall drawing with chalk on a personal handheld blackboard. The teacher, Mrs McDermott, had set us the task of depicting a car driving along a roadway. I decided on a series of panels across my board, comic-book style, depicting a car passing a roadside billboard. So I drew front, side and rear elevations of the car while the billboard changed from oblong to a vertical line. The understanding of perspective had dawned. Also, people, both teacher and peers, were perplexed. What was I at?
Oh, I could do a seminar on that. I was exploring narrative in the visual form. I was subconsciously immersed in Hollywood and Americana - I don’t think there were many billboards in early 1960s Ireland - I was looking for shortcuts (probably, if you consider the shorthand of drawing a billboard as a vertical line). I was being the smart-ass. Again, very likely.
Another time, same class but maybe some weeks later, I was drawing an aeroplane, and I used hatching to show the shine on the wings and windows. A visiting student, that is, an ex-student of Mrs McDermott paying a visit from the CBS Primary across the road, was outraged. My rendering upset him, it seems. “That’s Pig-style!” he berated me. What exactly that meant, I was unsure, but now I understood the oft abusive nature of criticism. Or, having encountered it, was utterly perplexed by it.
At least Mrs McDermott kept some faith in my ability. Three of us, the best artists in the class, one presumes, were commissioned to render a particular bucolic scene: a wooden fence strung across a green field, with a farm in the distance; full colour with paper and crayons. Posterity beckoned. Most importantly, this rescued me from the sin bin where I spent a lot of my time. When the three of us were displayed for all to see, I couldn’t help feeling that there was something odd about mine, and I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing. The other two looked the same, and the same as the model from which they were drawn.Mine did not. The proportions were askew, the colours weirdly heightened, the proportions and composition were irregular while the others were very, um, regular. I was strangely put out by this, yet the notion dawned on me that I was making some kind of point. Was I? I don’t know, but I was aware that I was standing out and that this was uncomfortable but weirdly exhilarating.
And, I realise in writing this, that I have not yet put pen to paper. But, for all that, there were already stories inside my scribblings. Some of them are just escaping now. What people do, the decisions we make, how we each see things differently. Of course, slouching down the road towards me, was that great challenge of literature: the school essay, and what you did on your summer holidays. We’ll come to that.
March 31, 2020
The First Story
I was thinking about my first introduction to writing and realised this might be difficult to define. Would it have been the first time I heard a story, or the first time I read a story? Or, if a story is just a story, whereas writing is to conceive of it as art, then was it in the analysis of story in the classroom? Or, again in the classroom, was it the good old school essay? Or perhaps some other construct or fiction, foisted on me by a contemporary, or where I conspired myself, telling tales and spinning yarns.
Stories surround us from birth, and if the appreciation of writing is not exactly hardwired it is sufficiently intrinsic in us as to be indistinguishable from our nature. I have used story and writing as interchangeable, which is a simplification. A storyteller does something that’s distinct from a poet or journalist or even a short story writer. I take it that writing is the constant, the common thread that binds all writers. Words on a page can become plays on the stage, film on the screen, poetry in performance, pages of a book and so on. Even in picture books and comics, or graphic novels, there’s a sense of order which can be referred to as writing. So, again, where did all of that begin, and take root?
I recall sitting on my father’s knee, as he conjured up yarns for my amusement. The Little Red Car and the Little Blue Car was an adventure series that kept me enthralled, even if the plot doesn’t come back to me now. I can recall the structure, beginning with the anticipation of adventure, the struggle against adversity throughout the middle and ending with triumph or resolution. This is still just the Little Red Car and the Little Blue Car, mind. Of course, the Little Blue Car was my favourite, and still is; still cheer for Chelsea, Dublin and Leinster.
Then there were the cartoons on the telly, Heckyl and Jeckyl, the mischievous crows. Thus, more complex narratives and character take root. Still only Heckyl and Jeckyl, mind. But I still love crows. Now stories were flying at me from all angles; from television and radio, from whispers and shouts, from tall tales and true, from teacher, tuismitheoir and an ever-widening peer group. And from books.
Once, snooping around the house in the days before a childhood Christmas, on the cusp of belief and doubt, I came upon a stash of used books. There was one that told of maritime tales, sailing ships in the South Seas, submarines at war, passenger ships carrying adventurers and spies. I recognised it as worn and wonderful, something I would most definitely want come Christmas morning. Come it did, from Santa at that.
When I was an early teen, my father would collect my mother who worked nights at a hotel in town. I would be moored in front of the telly and tuned to the BBC. Late night drifted to Samuel Beckett and Monty Python. I watched agape. What words were these, whispered into the wee small hours? They were well beyond my ken. I could feel them pulling at me, pecking at my conscious. I’d laugh involuntarily, recoil, stare in mute awe, dream of the shapes and words of the absurd. There were few I could share with, though in time aficionados become know to their kind, and anyway, there were all sorts of other clubs forming and fading. Books and comics shared, records swapped, a world of sound and vision and social weaving.
When I considered who to share my thoughts with and how, the natural answer was amongst friends and family. I was fortunate in a family that had a broad and open concept of art and literature, my friends were tuned in to those things friends are, the similarities and difference we desire. But when it comes to talking of those metaphysical things, the path to meaning is paved with words. Eventually, there was nothing for it but to put the words down on paper, to record the conversations in my soul.
Writing can be a refuge, so, or a search for meaning. But I think for me, and most others that use it, it is that other communication lying beyond our daily social transactions. Words are a cacophony, just circling like crows in a winter sky, until put in a meaningful sequence and sent out there, to be understood. Or maybe not quite so narrow a focus. The words have still hit the target when they astonish or mystify.
To what success this pursuit has been I can’t say. As a writer I spend a lot of time talking to myself. The trick is not to do it aloud. There are times that you can. With children of my own my past intruded, and as the light would fade I’d pluck stories out of the air. RoRo and DoDo were competing birds of dubious lineage, crows or hawks or whatever you preferred. They would embark on adventures and land in trouble, emerging triumphant if not unscathed at the end. Oh, I can’t remember how the stories went, but they went down well with my gaping audience. And that’s all that mattered in the end.
Stories surround us from birth, and if the appreciation of writing is not exactly hardwired it is sufficiently intrinsic in us as to be indistinguishable from our nature. I have used story and writing as interchangeable, which is a simplification. A storyteller does something that’s distinct from a poet or journalist or even a short story writer. I take it that writing is the constant, the common thread that binds all writers. Words on a page can become plays on the stage, film on the screen, poetry in performance, pages of a book and so on. Even in picture books and comics, or graphic novels, there’s a sense of order which can be referred to as writing. So, again, where did all of that begin, and take root?
I recall sitting on my father’s knee, as he conjured up yarns for my amusement. The Little Red Car and the Little Blue Car was an adventure series that kept me enthralled, even if the plot doesn’t come back to me now. I can recall the structure, beginning with the anticipation of adventure, the struggle against adversity throughout the middle and ending with triumph or resolution. This is still just the Little Red Car and the Little Blue Car, mind. Of course, the Little Blue Car was my favourite, and still is; still cheer for Chelsea, Dublin and Leinster.
Then there were the cartoons on the telly, Heckyl and Jeckyl, the mischievous crows. Thus, more complex narratives and character take root. Still only Heckyl and Jeckyl, mind. But I still love crows. Now stories were flying at me from all angles; from television and radio, from whispers and shouts, from tall tales and true, from teacher, tuismitheoir and an ever-widening peer group. And from books.
Once, snooping around the house in the days before a childhood Christmas, on the cusp of belief and doubt, I came upon a stash of used books. There was one that told of maritime tales, sailing ships in the South Seas, submarines at war, passenger ships carrying adventurers and spies. I recognised it as worn and wonderful, something I would most definitely want come Christmas morning. Come it did, from Santa at that.
When I was an early teen, my father would collect my mother who worked nights at a hotel in town. I would be moored in front of the telly and tuned to the BBC. Late night drifted to Samuel Beckett and Monty Python. I watched agape. What words were these, whispered into the wee small hours? They were well beyond my ken. I could feel them pulling at me, pecking at my conscious. I’d laugh involuntarily, recoil, stare in mute awe, dream of the shapes and words of the absurd. There were few I could share with, though in time aficionados become know to their kind, and anyway, there were all sorts of other clubs forming and fading. Books and comics shared, records swapped, a world of sound and vision and social weaving.
When I considered who to share my thoughts with and how, the natural answer was amongst friends and family. I was fortunate in a family that had a broad and open concept of art and literature, my friends were tuned in to those things friends are, the similarities and difference we desire. But when it comes to talking of those metaphysical things, the path to meaning is paved with words. Eventually, there was nothing for it but to put the words down on paper, to record the conversations in my soul.
Writing can be a refuge, so, or a search for meaning. But I think for me, and most others that use it, it is that other communication lying beyond our daily social transactions. Words are a cacophony, just circling like crows in a winter sky, until put in a meaningful sequence and sent out there, to be understood. Or maybe not quite so narrow a focus. The words have still hit the target when they astonish or mystify.
To what success this pursuit has been I can’t say. As a writer I spend a lot of time talking to myself. The trick is not to do it aloud. There are times that you can. With children of my own my past intruded, and as the light would fade I’d pluck stories out of the air. RoRo and DoDo were competing birds of dubious lineage, crows or hawks or whatever you preferred. They would embark on adventures and land in trouble, emerging triumphant if not unscathed at the end. Oh, I can’t remember how the stories went, but they went down well with my gaping audience. And that’s all that mattered in the end.
