We meet again, Dublin. It’s been some time. Last time I was in Dublin, I was part of a British Isles bus tour with my family, and only 17, so we saw what the bus tour wanted us to see, which did not include any of the non-tourist unadulterated real history we have been learning so far. I was also a stupid teenager with the usual goal of getting through the site-seeing just to get back to the hotel. I was more into Dublin this time, but I made a critical discovery for myself. I’m not terribly a city person. After our stay in Armagh, this feels like a mini vacation. But I’ve felt fairly tired here. I did explore a bit today, but I was very happy to return to the hotel and watch the hurling quarter finals. Congrats Dublin!

I’ve noticed, and talked with the others a bit about gentrification of cities while we’ve been here. Our arrival dinner was at a clearly gentrified area: a large factory was converted into apartments with brand new apartments across the way. The city is more diverse than Armagh, but the people seem to complain of people “taking our jobs” regarding minorities, as Sharea told me her Indian cab driver was insulted by a Dubliner from the sidewalk. It seems this kind of treatment can’t be escaped anywhere.

Lastly, I spent some time at the Collins Barracks museum to get some more information for my play while others went to the Guinness factory. It felt a bit like propaganda. Malachi said that it’s believed one shot was set off by protestors on Bloody Sunday; the museum said there were only auxiliary and paramilitary shots fired, as the auxiliaries were intended on causing trouble and getting revenge for an incident earlier that day. As I left the museum, there was a voting panel, asking how Ireland should use it’s forces in the future with only three options: peacekeeping, defending Ireland, and fighting terrorism. Chris felt that was not entirely inclusive and I agree: there are further uses for a body of trained people other than specific war-related instances. It just furthered the idea of driven propaganda.