RE: Dublin (reply to Dave)

PATTY CULLITON ([email protected])
Sat, 16 Jan 1999 01:12:28, -0500

First off - I've been to: Ireland, England, Scotland, Wales, Italy,
France, Germany, Spain, and Africa. I've been in taxis and pubs in
all of them. I've never had anyone mention the Sears Towers to me.
I've had people in every single country, with the exception of Wales
(I looked back into my journals and I have dated documentations of
every time) ask me about the Bulls - particularly taxi drivers in
Ireland and Spain.
And for the record, I don't know much at all about basketball, so I
couldn't even give these people the answers they were looking for!

Onto business...

No, no flaming here from me. But...Dave, do you know that you just
contradicted yourself in your own reply? You basically made out as
if a Chicagoan didn't make the right assessment about what's the most
famous thing in their city - while at the same time trying to, as a
Dubliner, convince me that you have a better view of what people,
outside Dubliners, see as the most famous thing to come out of
Dublin!

For your other examples...

>>TRINITY COLLEGE<<

Among educated people, or people familiar with Ireland, yes Trinity
is famous. I WAS A TRINITY COLLEGE STUDENT FOR A WHILE. But not to
your average American (and we make up a huge part of this ��outside
world's�� point of view we are discussing here). You ask 100 high
school kids to associate something with Dublin and you think they'd
say U2 -- or you think they'd say Trinity College? Let me tell you
that I'd be surprised if 5/100 of them would even know where
��Trinity College�� was. We have a Trinity College in Chicago - and
I'm sure there are a dozen more ��Trinity College��s all over the
place.

>>The LIFFEY<<

Again, if you mention U2 or you mention ��The Liffey�� and I
guarantee you more than half the people wouldn't even now ��The
Liffey�� was a -river-!

>>JAMES JOYCE<<

Touche. But he's DEAD.

>>GUINNESS BREWERY<<

It's famous - but if you ask people ��Where's the Guinness Brewery?��
 They're gonna say ��Ireland.�� They're not gonna say ��Dublin.��
You ask someone where's U2 from, they're gonna say ��Dublin.��

>>PHOENIX PARK<<

Dave, people over here don't know what Phoenix Park is, either. You
ask someone where Phoenix Park is and they're going to think it's
somewhere in the state of Arizona. But you're not going to have
anyone guess that U2 are from Arizona!

>> you would be right if you had said U2 were the most closely
associated with Dublin by people who read WIRE<<

Dave, I don�t live in a bubble. I talk to a lot more people than
those on Wire, and let me assure you: NO. I used to work in an Irish
Import store here in the U.S. and your average person would come in
asking us for U2 records in our music section - no one asked for a
scale model of the Phoenix Park.

>>....but to say that THE MOST FAMOUS THING associated to DUBLIN is
U2 is almost insulting<<

I refer you to something you�ve already quoted me on from my last
note: �� I know from living there that there are plenty of Dubliners
who would not take kindly to the following comment that I'm going
make - but so be it.��

So fairfucks to you - I knew that would be the case. But, Dave,
being told something truthful *and* avoiding insult don�t often
happen at the same time.

In closing - did you know that your own Dublin Tourist Office had
been investigating some way of tracking how many tourists come to
Dublin to track U2 sites? I don�t know for sure, but I would have to
hedge a bet that they�ve never considered the need for a way to
measure how many people come to look at the Liffey.

Not a flame, not even just a reply, but a good-natured debate...

ITNOL, Patty

This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b2 on Fri Jan 15 1999 - 23:02:21 PST