Dublin

Dublin. Yes, it's really there. For those dwellers in the west who suspect that Dublin is a mythical place existing only in the imaginations of weathermen and TV advertisers, let it be known that we have made the journey to the fabled city. We have shopped in Henry Street and roamed the glittering aisles of the Blanchardstown Centre. We have seen Christmas lights shining down on Grafton Street and heard mystical voices singing Handel's Messiah (3 hours of it, while seated in the south transept amid kettle drums, trumpet and horns) in Saint Patrick's Cathedral.

As we wait, we raise our eyes to the high vaulted gothic ceiling we see decaying flags of empire hanging there. Why do British flags hang in the Cathedral, Pedro wants to know. We tell him the long history of British regiments in Dublin, a history that is preserved here in this cathedral. "But you Irish fought a revolution to drive out the British, didn't you?"

"Yes."

"So why are there British flags here? In Spain we would burn them."

We explain that the soldiers were Irishmen, Irishmen fighting British wars. These flags are their history.

Like Handel, Pedro surmises. "I read in wikipedia, Handel is a German born British composer. How can a German be British?"

Indeed.

It is a fact of life, in these islands, that if an Irish person, or indeed a German or an American who happens to be loosely connected with Britain, succeeds at anything praiseworthy, the British will promptly claim that person as British. Karl Marx, who studied in the British Museum and is buried in London, narrowly escaped being claimed as British. If the communist experiment had succeeded he would certainly have been embraced as theirs.

In the case of Ireland, our writers are the most obvious example of this phenomenon. They are so often called British that we forget they're ours. Here is a brief, incomplete list of British writers born in Ireland: Farquhar (whose hilarious The Recruiting Sergeant we saw on Saturday night), Steele, Sterne, Goldsmith, Stoker, Shaw, Yeats, Becket (and Oscar Wilde who was theirs briefly but was returned to us the moment he disgraced himself).

Pedro, versed in the history of Ireland as well as Spain, refers to the Dublin born Duke of Wellington, commander of British forces at Waterloo, who objected to being called Irish. Being born in a stable doesn't make you a horse, the Duke said.

Perhaps not. Nevertheless, being born in a stable made a Son of Man into a Messiah.

It's a thought worthy of the season but before I have time to pursue it, the timpani player thunders two separate drumrolls on each of his kettle drums. Horns, trumpet, and strings go meandering among celestial harmonies and high above these rise the soaring voices of angels. Our seats in the south transept are very close to Heaven's gate.