A man approached me on a Dublin street during the week, asking for directions to what sounded like “the Quark District”. He was of Indian appearance and accent, I noticed. So tuning my ear, I asked him to say the name again, twice. But each time it sounded the same.
I had never heard of a Quark District in Dublin, and doubted the existence of one. Even so, it sounded like a great idea.
The man reminded me of one of those geeky physicists in the TV sitcom The Big Bang Theory.
And since we were close to the so-called “Digital Hub”, I wondered if the place he was looking for might be a similar development in the area – a concentration of quantum physicists and related start-ups.
I could easily imagine one of those gentrifying neighbourhoods around Guinness’s being renamed after the various kinds of quark. There might be an “Up” Street, for example, and a “Down” Avenue; a “Strange” Place, perhaps (I can think of several addresses that would suit) and a “Charm” Alley – and of course there would be a “Bottom” something, and a “Top”.
Vision
But even as the vision of this new, exciting quarter emerged, I also remembered a correction in the
New York Times
a few years ago, wherein they had to apologise for referring to a certain Irish city as “Quark”. Then the penny dropped. “Would it be Cork Street you’re looking for, by any chance?” I asked the man, referring to a place that was about a 10-minute walk from where we stood.
On reflection, he agreed it would. So with the vision evaporating, I sent him up James’s Street, down Meath Street, right at the bottom of same, and from there left at the top of the Coombe. Then, watching him walk off, as always happens when you give directions to a tourist, I found myself enjoying vicariously the strangeness and charm of Dublin, as it must appear in the eyes of a visitor.
Holiday
Mind you, when the sun shines for several days running, as it has done this week, Dublin can feel like a foreign city even to locals. The effect is heightened by any break in routine, however short. Then, with a bit of imagination, you can pretend you’re on holiday.
I had just this experience the same day while applying for a replacement driving licence. Under the newly privatised system, this required a visit to a part of Dublin called Fortunestown, the existence of which had hitherto escaped me. It’s on the Luas Red Line, as it happens, as is my almost-inner-city home. But it’s the penultimate stop, south-bound, so it was a journey into the little known.
Even the novelty of the Luas, with its Swiss-style efficiency (except during strikes), has never fully worn off for me. So en route to Fortunestown, when I scrunched my eyes up, the sun-drenched suburbs through which we glided could have been in mainland Europe somewhere, especially after we had left the Rondpoint de la Vache Folle (aka the Mad Cow Roundabout) behind.
Uplands
By the time we reached my exotic destination, the green uplands unfolding just beyond it might have been the Alps, or the Upper Vosges. The illusion survived even the process of applying for the licence, which was as smooth as the journey. But sometime during my brief visit to the Town of Fortune, fate was playing dice with the public transport.
When I retraced my steps to the station, due to a technical problem somewhere, the trams had stopped running. So after a futile wait, I joined other frustrated passengers in search of a bus stop. Thereafter, the change in circumstances became Cinderella-like, although in my case the pumpkin was a 77A, which instantly turned the surroundings back into Dublin.
Edges
Unlike the northbound Luas, which gets straight to the Point, the 77A’s route was, in local terms, all over the gaff. As we proceeded slowly in through the city’s frayed edges, the route was so unpredictable that it seemed to be obeying the laws of quantum mechanics rather than the sort of mechanics CIÉ used to employ.
But after what seemed like a week, we somehow reached the aforementioned Quark District.
And before the route could take another quantum twist (its very finite-sounding terminus was “Ringsend Road”, although I doubt it ever got there), I bailed out. Then I walked home wearily – thinking, as one often does at the end of a trip, that holidays are more stress than they’re worth.