Trevor White introduces the September issue of the magazine
Did a city ever greet a recession more cheerfully than Dublin today? The rich can well afford their smugness (“A little realism will do no harm”) while the poor are happy to see the middle classes suffer. And so the merry cycle of life – boom, bust, offstage cackling – continues.
If Dubliners are united, it is in 1. schadenfreude, and 2. the pursuit of value. To observe the latter phenomenon, make the journey – on foot, of course – from the Grand Canal to Dame Street. The Bernard Shaw, a pub near the southern tip of Miser’s Row, now offers pitchers of Buckfast for €12. Its monthly car-boot sales are enjoyed by the people who once kept Habitat in business.
And the charity shops have never been busier. As someone whose shirts have always come from the Simon Community shop on Camden Street, I report this phenomenon with particular bitterness.
Closer to town, Jay Bourke proves his zeitgeist-divining credentials by opening a bar/restaurant that is the epitome of elegant squalor. Shebeen Chic reminds me of this really bad party that a model once threw in a damp flat on the South Circular Road. The food is cheap, the service is awful, the furniture is second hand and the customers all look starved of nutrients. (Strangely, it’s a lot of fun.)
Even among the very rich, value is suddenly chic: reviewing Bentley’s on page 88, Helen Lucy Burke recommends half a lobster for €18. Who needs a tiger when lobster is so damn cheap?
Elsewhere in this issue, we continue our quest to alienate, insult or irritate everyone in Ireland by publishing a field guide to Irish women. The fact that it was written by a woman, Nikki Walsh, will not appease some readers. And while the ten questions for Irish men that accompany the article are supposed to expose male folly, they will also offend the ladies.
Still, at least our guide will appeal to misers. God knows Dublin is full of them.
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