A Dublin woman revisits the city centre she hasn't seen in 25 years, with Frank McNally at her side
Gertie Kennedy is enjoying the novelty of being able to walk up the middle of Grafton Street. The last time she was here, anyone walking in the street would have been in danger of being run over by a bus. So not for her the complaint about how jaded the street looks these days, with its eurobrick and shops that could be anywhere. "Sure this is lovely," she says, still impressed by pedestrianisation.
Until yesterday, Gertie hadn't walked the city centre for at least 25 years.
She had her reasons. One is that she lives in faraway Dalkey, eight miles south of the GPO. Another is that she's 88 in April.
For a woman as lively as this, however, age is no excuse, so she explains her boycott of the city by asking why she should leave her own area anyway. There's nothing in Dalkey, she admits. "But we have everything you could want in Glasthule."
Gertie revealed her self-imposed exile in a letter to RTÉ's Ryan Tubridy on Tuesday, when his radio show was broadcast from Temple Bar. Temple Bar was earmarked for a state-of-the-art bus garage the last time she frequented the city.
Finding a Dubliner who hadn't been in Dublin since then was not quite like finding one of those Japanese soldiers who didn't know the war was over, but it was close. So yesterday, The Tubridy Show's Katriona McFadden brought her on a tour of her old haunts. Not that there were many left. There was Bewley's and there was Arnotts, and that was about it. There was no McDonald's in the Grafton Street she remembered. The pharmacy she worked in is now a clothes shop. And what was that apparition at the end of Harry Street? The Westbury Hotel? "That's new," she said.
Then there was the Luas, beside which Gertie was being photographed until security staff informed us that we needed prior permission and that - contrary to our belief - the platform we were on was not public property. No sooner had Grafton Street been liberated, it seemed, than a piece of Stephen's Green had fallen. You win some, you lose some.
It's not that Gertie has led a sheltered life. A daily visitor to the bookmakers, she produced a wad of €50 notes yesterday that she had relieved Paddy Power of the day before. She is also a card-shark who has played poker with the mothers of the rich and famous, including Nan Smurfit, something she'll be reminding young Michael of when she tries to blag tickets for the Ryder Cup.
A regular correspondent of Gay Byrne, she once appeared on The Late Late, and she featured on Joe Duffy's Christmas broadcast from Duke Street last year. But they sent a taxi, apparently, and drove her straight home afterwards. Oh, and she was the first person to suggest disposable coffins (during a call to Pat Kenny), as a result of which Keith Massey has given her a voucher for her own no-frills funeral.
All this seems perfectly plausible, as does her indifference to the city centre. Asked what she thinks of the Spire, she says "not much" and regrets they didn't rebuild the pillar and put Gay Byrne on it. On the other hand, she's impressed by the rising docklands, even if they only confirm that the city's getting bigger "and I'm getting smaller". O'Connell Street looks "lovely" too.
But Dublin is for young people, she says, after a quick visit to the bookies in Moore St, where her selection in the 2.35 at Limerick can only finish second. There had been no time to see Temple Bar, but Gertie isn't complaining. "It's very nice, but it's not for me," she says of the city generally. "I won't be in again."