Fair City

I'm not gonna bang on about Dublin. It's a great city and you've may well have been there, although if it was for a stag night in Temple Bar then it's possible you haven't seen it at it's best. Instead I'll give you a couple of snapshots:

Molly Malone - the bronze (or brass?) at the top of Grafton St

Dubliners are fond of iconoclasm. They happy to nickname Molly "The Tart with the Cart" or "The Trollope with the Scallops", and they enjoy tearing into Oscar Wilde, James Joyce and WB Yeats in a similar vein. An expression of affection really. Although judging by the colour of Molly's boobs, they've been polished rather more enthusiastically than the rest of her so perhaps the affection isn't all innocent.

Dublin has a fantastic art gallery (although it seems to be beyond them to display anything like a reasonable portion of the collection when it's under refurbishment) and the Irish collection is magnificent. Jack B Yeats (brother of the more famous William) is especially well represented, with the Liffey Swim and other key works in the canon. My favourite picture, though, is this one by John B Yeats (father of the more famous William...): 

The sitter is the family priest and Irish language etymologist/lexicographer Padraig Ua Duinnin - or Patrick Stephen Dinneen in non-vernacular talk. Author of the definiive Irish-English dictionary and namesake of your gentle author. Nice looking feller, too.