Tynanwoods Day Sixteen

October 30, 2006
Day 16: Victorious Vikings and sweaty superheroes; Ava makes her stage debut

Today my cousin Christie ran the Dublin Marathon -- which was the original inspiration for this entire trip. We took the light rail to Ranelagh, a cute little neighborhood one stop south of our apartment that reminded me a bit of Oakland's Rockridge, and hustled down Sandford road 20 minutes until we reached the 19-Mile checkpoint.

There we found 20 of our dinner companions from the previous night, all wearing white Madden T-shirts. They had managed to catch Christie at two previous checkpoints along the race, making us the sluggards of the group. The runners varied widely in age and gait; many did not appear to be in shape to run a marathon (not that I should talk) and some did not appear to be long for the race. An ambulance zooming down the race route confirmed that suspicion. A few were dressed in costume -- Vikings, superheroes -- but not as many as I'd expected. No running priests or nuns were sited.

After about five minutes Christie came chugging along and we gave her a huge cheer. She stopped briefly to chat and then moved on, and so did we -- back up Sandford road, back onto the light rail to St. Stephens Green, and then a walk to the finish line at Trinity College. By this time the race was well into its 4th hour so the crowds had thinned. We stood by the fence cordoning off the route and listened to the announcer call out selected finishers from various countries and charitable organizations and urging us to cheer them for their efforts. Twenty minutes later Christie was one of them.

I was exhausted. I had never watched a marathon before and clearly hadn't trained sufficiently. Most everyone else felt the same way, so we headed back to the Burlington Hotel and collapsed in the lobby bar for the next four hours, eating butter-and-meat sandwiches and drinking pints until we managed to get our strength back.

That evening the Tynanwoods boarded the tour bus for the first time and headed with the gang to Taylor's Three Rock, a traditional music dinner theatre club about 30 minutes outside Dublin City Centre. And by "traditional," I mean in the same way Don Ho is traditional Hawaiian music, or Al Hirt was traditional Dixieland Jazz, or Beach Blanket Babylon is a traditional San Francisco stage show.

The show featured The Merry Ploughmen, four talented string players with passable voices and a well-rehearsed patter, and five impressively limber Irish dancers. The Ploughmen played the standards (Danny Boy, Jug of Punch, McNamara's Band), told funny stories, urged us to clap and sing along. The dancers did a lot of stomping alternating with high kicking; kind of like Riverdance meets the Rockettes. They also pulled several audience members onto the stage, including my brother-in-law Phil, niece Emma, and Ava. All of them looked like they were on the verge of wetting themselves, but they did a great job. Cole spent this portion of the show hiding under our table, and frankly I'd have been there with him if I thought we both could fit.

It was fun in a totally kitschy, staggeringly expensive kind of way. (There were no prices listed on the prix fixe menu, and now I know why.) Nonetheless I had a good time getting soaked, and that's what really counts. Right?