Although not written about Dublin, the song “Dirty Old Town” was made famous by The Dubliners in the late 1960s and by The Pogues in the mid-’80s, so it’s certainly Dublin-adjacent.
I thought often about this song after hearing comments about how dirty the city was during our last trip, the first by a study abroad student of Marilynn’s and the second set by a pair of travelers on a train between Dublin and Galway.
I’ve always considered Dublin one of the cleanest cities I’ve ever been in. Despite the constant crush of tourists, I always see maintenance workers emptying bins, picking up trash or leaves and using a Zamboni-like machine on the sidewalks and in the bicycle lanes. When was the last time you saw that happening on the streets of your city?
Marilynn’s student has lived in many places around the world, and I respect her opinion. But as a Georgia State University student, has she never been to downtown Atlanta? The streets are filthy, with overflowing trash cans and waves of unhoused people congregating in Woodruff Park that lend an air of squalor to the middle of an increasingly nice GSU campus. I’ve never seen anything remotely like that in Dublin. And don’t get me started on the dirty old MARTA stations, the floors of which look like they haven’t been mopped since the Atlanta Olympics.
In our own upscale suburban neighborhood of Decatur, I’ve seen public trash cans overflowing with dog waste bags for days before they’re emptied.
Marilynn and I shared a train table with the Galway-bound travelers who were complaining about Dublin. They were chatty and easily overheard, so I know they were from South Africa and Germany.
Although I’ve never been to South Africa, I can’t help but wonder whether that woman’s unease was related to the sheer diversity of tourists who come to Dublin. As for the German woman, I have been to her country a couple of times and have first-hand knowledge of it.
OK, in Decatur I have seen a man take a leak against the Decatur Library in broad daylight. But in Berlin, Marilynn, Declan and I had a front-row seat to what the French call les pipis sauvages, or wild peeing. We visited Berlin in 2017, part of a two-week swing through Europe.
It was a Saturday evening along the main avenue near the Alexanderplatz train station when we saw a guy with his back to us taking a forceful pee against a bush and in full view of the major roadway and tramway.
I’ve been to Ireland more times than I can reasonably remember, and I’ve never seen anything like that, either.
To Europe ... and Back 