Dublin

by Ray Hyland

For as long as I’ve been a resident of dear Dunboyne, there has been a tenuous but definite link back into Dublin City. An artery if you will, which pumps from the heart of the City Centre back to the edge of the old green belt.

I’d guess I’ve been on the 70 bus or one of its variants at least 5000 times since 1985 or ‘86.Probably more actually. I remember all subtle route changes. Did you know its original terminus was just by the Ha’penny Bridge beside an old carpet shop? From there it would wrap around to Liffey Street back onto Lower Abbey Street, pass the old O’Connor’s denim shop ( complete with weird mural that nobody remembers) back onto Capel Street, over Grattan Bridge and back to the still familiar route.

For the past two weeks I’ve been stuck in a mini-post rut. I dilemma if you will.

A couple of weeks ago my grandfather passed away back in Ireland, which meant a return home at short notice. I brought Herself and +1 along too, because Herself really liked my grandfather and we’ve a lot to be grateful to him for. We could hardly have left +1 at home now could we?

The dilemma has been how to write about it, because initially I wanted to say something about it. I’ve already started a 1,500 word post on this experience, but it is just a stream of and-then-this-happened-and-then-this-happened-and-then-this-happened. Maybe you or someone else would have liked to read this, but I just couldn’t finish writing it and had to stop. It’s not because it made me sad, it was something else.

Founded
Dublin – 988 AD
Seoul – 1394 AD

Area
Dublin – 114.99 km2
Seoul – 605.25 km2

Population
Dublin – 525,380
Seoul – 10,464,051

Density
Dublin – 4,398/km2
Seoul – 17,288.8/km2

Population of metropolitan area
Dublin – 1,801,040
Seoul – 23,616,000

Citizens
Dublin – Dub, Dubliner
Seoul – Seoulite, 서울시민(Seoul simin)

Ethnicty of population
Dublin – 90.85% White (81.25% White Irish, 9.23% White Other, 0.37% Irish Traveller), 3.34% Asian/Asian Irish, 1.12% Black/Black Irish, 1.47% Bi-Racial/Other, 3.22% Not Stated
Seoul – 285,618 foreigners registered in city at end of 2011 (186,631 of these were citizens of the People’s Republic of China with Korean ethnicity)