Page 63 of A Very Irish Christmas
My hotel room overlooks one of the impressive bridges that span the water, and I spend forever staring out at it before I finally get to sleep. The bridges are old, and they would have been here even when Nanna Nora was a child. It’s strange and comforting to imagine her here, breathing this same air, walking these same streets.
Today, Ryan has been showing me the sights. We’ve visited churches and cathedrals, beautiful parks dressed in their coats of snow, and the grounds of the university. We’ve seen amazing graffiti art on the sides of buildings, and even been to the Butter Museum, which was a lot more interesting than it sounds. It’s been busy, which is exactly what I needed to distract myself from thoughts of Charles, and the decisions I need to make.
After a late lunch, we had a ride on an enormous Ferris wheel, and I video called my dad from the very top. I showed him the sights, and introduced him to Ryan. Dad had stared at him sternly, and said: ‘Ryan, is it? Well don’t be getting any ideas, son – don’t be stealing her away from me now, you hear?’
‘I can’t promise, Mr O’Hara,’ he’d replied, grinning. ‘But I’ll do my very best.’
After that, as dusk started to descend, we went up to the northern part of the river. We crossed one of the stone bridges, the water roaring mightily beneath us.
Ryan is obviously proud of his city, and gets a kick out of showing it to me. His accent becomes even heavier once he is home, and as we walk he tells me stories about his sisters and his nieces and nephews. One of them – an eight-year-old called Sean – has apparently asked Santa for a cow this year.
‘And will he get one?’ I ask, as we stroll along the riverside.
‘He just might. Spoiled rotten – only boy in a family of girls.’
‘Yeah, that kind of family dynamic sets him up to be pampered, doesn’t it?’
‘That it does, as I can well testify. It’s been gas to see all the kiddies again.’
We chat and we walk, bundled up against the savagely cold weather, and Ryan points out important landmarks – some more personal than others.
‘See that alleyway, across the road there?’ he says, pointing. ‘That’s where I had my first ever kiss. I was thirteen, and hername was Lucy Gallagher. We wore each other’s faces off, and I was in love.’
‘I’m amazed there isn’t a plaque, possibly a statue?’
‘I know, yeah. Maybe I’ll start a petition. And look down there, Pope’s Quay? Well, that used to be the busiest part of the docks, going back a few hundred years. More importantly, it’s also where I fell off my skateboard and broke my wrist when I was fifteen.’
‘Again, why is this not more widely known? I didn’t read that on any of the tour guides!’
‘Shocking. Ah now, I know one that might actually be of interest…’
We go further up into the sides of the city, the streets getting steeper, and he points out a fairly ordinary looking small house. This one actually does have a plaque, and I smile as I read it. This humble little building is the former home of a woman called Annie Moore, who travelled to New York as an emigrant. On January 1, 1892, she became the first person to officially pass through Ellis Island, starting a new life in a new world.
It makes me smile, this tangible connection between us all, and I quickly snap some pictures for my dad. I wonder what became of Annie, and hope that life in the US treated her kindly.
We wander on, passing packed bars with live music spilling out in bubbles of pipes and fiddles. Eventually we reach the bottom of a road that stretches almost vertically off into the distance, cars parked perilously at ridiculous angles, a big blue building visible at the very top of the slope.
‘This is St Patrick’s Hill,’ he says, gesturing up it. ‘Feel like a climb? The views from up there are savage.’
I nod, tell myself I need to channel my inner mountain goat, and we head on up. There are steps cut into the sidewalks but it is still tough. The snow is heavy and thick, and we trudge up and up and up, past houses of all shapes and sizes. Some arehuge, multi-storey mansions, others more humble. Ryan tells me it was constructed in the 18thcentury, and it shows – the steepness of the hill makes all the gorgeous buildings feel a little higgledy-piggledy, crushed against each other as they rise higher and higher.
We reach the top, and as promised, the views are amazing. The city is glimmering beneath us, the river shining in the moonlight, the Christmas Ferris wheel and lights dazzling pinpoints of colour in the distance.
‘It’s beautiful,’ I say, gazing down at the sights before me.
‘It is. We used to sledge down here on days like this. I’ve even known people to ski!’
‘Really? That sounds dangerous.’
He looks a little serious as he stares down the hill, his hands shoved firmly into his pockets and no trace of his normal smile. Not so long ago he was full of his usual charm and gabby energy, but it seems to have disappeared bit by bit as we climbed the hill.
‘You okay?’ I ask. ‘You seem a bit… off.’
He looks at me for a few moments, as though trying to make his mind up, and then replies: ‘I want to show you something.’
A statement like that would normally be my cue to raise my eyebrows, but his tone is not, for once, at all flirtatious. I nod, and he leads me to a little plateau off the main hill. I see a sign that tells me this is Audley Place, and wonder why we’re here.
After a few minutes he stops in front of a townhouse. It looks Georgian, like the others, and is three storeys high, set in the middle of a terrace. It’s painted white, and has grand windows taking in the views. The drapes are drawn, but light escapes from inside, casting a glow on the pretty courtyard garden.
