"The Dalkey dynamic "

The Literati Glitterati

I have walked around Dalkey and up to Killiney several times and it always proves most gratifying - as satisfying as a pearly horizon which never fades into oblivion. Located on Dublin's south coast - known as the Green Coast - it's a place steeped in history, claims to fame and Gaelic essence - its name being derived from Deilg (a composite of the Gaelic word for thorn and the Viking ay or 'eye').  But it's its literary connections - especially George Bernard Shaw and James Joyce, I'd like to particularly explore - and which has become a kind of a trail for me. Just after the village on the Dun Laoghaire side, if one takes a left turn, ascending a hill, about halfway up on the right hand side is a house called Summerfield House, owned by a member of a famous Irish band of the 70's called Horselips, famous for their fusion of Celtic ambience and rock music. Back at the start of the twentieth century, it was The Clifton Lodge School where James Joyce himself worked for about three months (having lived in both Bray and then subsequently Blackrock, Joyce would have been very familiar with walking along the south coast). He of course typically immortalised it in Ulyssees setting the second chapter here - in which Vico Road is mentioned - featuring Stephen Dedalus and using its headmaster as the basis for Deasy - an omnipresent technique or device of his, to weave real events, timelines, places and characters into the fabric of his writing. The house is situated on lovely grounds and it is my first stop on this trail! (The poet Denis Florence McCarthy lived here for a while).

Summerfield House - formerly Clifton Lodge School, at which James Joyce had his first and only job in Ireland from March to June 1904. Echoes of his famous character Stephen Dedalus resonate around here.

If one heads back down and towards the centre of Dalkey, on the west side, close to one of the three castles - Bullock Castle - one will see Colliemore Harbour, which from the late 1500's to the late 1600's, was amazingly used as Dublin's Port! Before the Port and Docks were moved to the city, it was here - which seems only fitting, considering that an old fishing village, with a rich pedigree, was located here. This is what I earmark as the second stop. (Just as well Dublin saw little drama or historical turbulence in the seventeenth century - the Cromwellian invasion and subsequent Confederate wars did touch Dublin but not initially, as Cromwell landed elsewhere!). Considering that Dalkey Quarry was a thriving Quarry (the stone used in the construction of Dun Laoghaire Harbour was extracted and sourced there), it's not that hard to visualise lots of boats, merchant sea vessels and trading going in, in the vicinity.

Bullock Castle - one of three in Dalkey, illustrating its importance in the middle ages.

Coliemore Harbour - Dublin's first verifiable harbour and port!

Coliemore Harbour - remnants of a once thriving Fishing Village with Dalkey Island in the background (a Hermitage used by a fifth century Celtic holy woman, Saint Begnet).

If one walks past the Dart Station, and takes the next right, crossing the bridge, one comes to Torca Road, and this really is starting to follow in the footsteps of George Bernard Shaw (Ireland's second Nobel Laureate and arguably one of the greatest Playwrights/Dramatists of the twentieth century). For after about a ten minute walk, ascending the incline of Torca Road, one reaches Torca Cottage, the summer holiday home of Shaw! It was owned by the music composer, George Vandeleur Lee (his mother's consort and his surrogate father), whose town residence at Hatch Street, was effectively Shaw's last home in Dublin (both places Shaw described as 'National Colleges of Life' along with the National Gallery of Ireland!). What influences and inspirations, must Shaw have garnered here? Everyday in the summer months from 1866 to 1874, looking out, with a spectacular view of Dublin Bay a mere stone's throw away?! Just across, virtually opposite, is the enigmatic Cat's Ladders - a series or flight of steps leading down to Vico Road which wouldn't be out of place like the Spanish Steps in Rome or some other exotic place (this would be the fourth stop on this trail!). The plaque at the entrance of the cottage is inscribed with a famous quote by him: "An Irishman is mortal and temporal but his hills are eternal". Spending one's summers as a teenager around here, must surely have planted this philosophising in his mind!

The aforementioned Plaque with Shaw's famous quote

Full View of the Plaque's Inscription

THE LONGTERM VIEW OF SHAW AND THE PARADIGM OF SUCCESS FOR THOSE WHO WAIT!

Standing outside the cottage on the few occasions I've been there, I've often mused in one of my soul contemplations of a young Shaw, at the cusp of his teens, roaming around here. Was he plotting a grand scheme, to prove all and sundry wrong - the orthodox academia - glorying in his 'mitching' from school? Did he grasp the taut and strong-willed essence of resilence, resolution, self-will and destiny whilst here? (By the age of 40, Shaw had only earned £50 from writing but kept persevering, persisting and retaining patience; in five years he was world-famous!). Was it here that he formulated the stratagem of being an autodiktat, in which he planted the seeds in his mind, that would ultimately bear fruit, thirty to thirty five years later?

Facade and Steps of Torca Cottage. Did a young Shaw dream up the nucleus of Pygmalion or Saint Joan whilst here?

THE LITERATI GLITTERATI

What is it exactly about Dalkey? It has such connections with George Bernard Shaw, lesser connections with James Joyce, was chosen as the setting for The Dalkey Archive and The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien, and at least one other contemporary Irish writer has hailed from here - Hugh Leonard being to name but one. Is it the spectacular views of Dublin Bay that can be seen? (A curious fact is the number of Italian names of roads: the aforesaid Torca Road, the aforesaid Vico Road, Sorrento Road, to name but a few; this is accounted for, by the fact that in the early 1800's many of its citizens, had done the 'claim to fame' of citizens of the past - the Grand Tour - taking in Naples, and its Bay; it reminded them of Dalkey Bay, so when they returned, they coined many Italian place names for the area!). Or is it what I've often speculated generally for the abundance of writers, Ireland has produced - as abundant as the rich seeds in some field of plenty - that it's something in the soil, in the earth, which results in such a flowering of creativity and literary prowess? Perhaps that axiom or supposition could be applied to the nearby Killiney Hill (where megalithic tombs were located at one time), that Torca Road leads onto? Whatever the reason or explanation, Dalkey certainly can lay claim to being a launching pad for two of Ireland's and the world's literary greats! Literati Glitterati showers its confetti here! The Emerald Isle has many strings to its bow; this is but one of them!

In the footsteps of GB Shaw - ascending Torca Road, with Dublin Bay - part of the Green Coast - in the background.