I've been busy moving so the blog has suffered, but I promise an update on the flat hunt, and the eventual find, shortly. For now, just a little observation about Dublin's current obsession with cleanliness. Everywhere I walk in the city centre, I keep my eyes open for fear that I will be swept away by a street cleaner. The pedestrian areas around Grafton St and Henry St. are the worst (or the cleanest) -- I don't think I have walked on either of them yet without seeing one of these puppies:
This is not a pedestrian-only street, but the fairly heavily trafficked Westland Row, so clearly they don't just keep to the cobblestones. I was walking around Trinity College the other day, and noticed, through the frame of my camera, an unprecedented number of litter bins within eyeshot. The naked eye may only be able to pick out SIX in this shot, but there are actually more of them in the distance.
And on the green across from the Book of Kells entrance, there are new-fangled bins (about one every 10 feet):
This sweeper almost ran me over as I exited a department store on Henry St:
And here are a few pics from earlier this evening, with the crews cleaning up the Moore St. market area after the day's sales, and a recycling cart touring down Henry St.
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It looks like you photoshopped the pics to make them look this way..all shiny and clean. Don't think I've ever seen anything so clean and tidy, other then where I live and you live of course!
ReplyDeleteI think Ottawa is pretty close...it's a reflection of how the city wants to present itself to the world. In the past, Dublin was known as "dear, dirty, Dublin" after a famous quote by James Joyce.
ReplyDeleteI am not sure if it's a national competition, but I remember people getting ready for the "Tidy Town" competition in Letterkenny when I was a child. It was more than keeping the streets clean; pubs, shops, and houses were painted, flowers were planted in gardens and window boxes, banners were raised, and squares were refurbished. I recall it being a rather big deal. Cleanliness is next to godliness, as they say, and, with Catholicism taking a hit in the country, maybe their refocusing their energies?
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