Hidden Dublin.

“Jeh ‘member when the 41c used leave from Eden Quay?” said one distinctive-looking aulfla’. In that he was distinctive, I mean that he was distinctively old.

“That I do, that I do,” replied a second accompanying aulfla’ and presumably an associate of the first. “And by the same token, jeh remember when Eden Quay (pronounce [ke] in IPA) wasn’t there at all at all?”

“What are on about now? Sure it’s always bin there. Wasn’t there. Would ye listen to yerself?!”

“As true and real as we’re sitting here (‘here’ being Insomnia coffee shop on Middle Abbey Street, Dublin 1), Eden Quay was only constructed about nine years ago. An’ now if ye don’t remember that, yer min’s goin’ places you’re not.”

“Sure, look, my Margaret’s dead now ten and a half years and it was there when she was walking the earth, God rest her kind soul. Are ye tryin’ to tell me that Eden Quay wasn’t there when she was?”

“You’re bang on. You were torn up by grief so you were, I remember it well. A fine woman she was and a fine wife I wouldn’t be shamed to have had if I was you. But the one think about her was that she never set eyes on Eden Quay. Let alone did she get the bus from it either.”

“Yer mad. Yer sayin’ they built it not ten years ago. An’ tell me this, what was there before this time in our glorious past when Eden Quay wasn’t there? Tell me that.”

“There was nuttin’ there o’ course. Sure isn’t it a river? Our own Liffey came all the way up as far as Liberty Hall and the Customs House down the road, or ‘down the river’ as we said then. Jeh not remember?”

“Your head’s done in for sure. The Liffey was up against the Customs House?!”

“Lapping up ‘gainst the windows, so it was. Y’kno little Johnny Sheridan’s father? Sure he worked for Local Govehment in the basement of the Customs House and he’d tell yeh that he’d drownded if someone left the latch off the air vent.”

“What’s Johnny Sheridan’s father got to do with any o’ dis? Look, don’t be telling me lies. You’re having me on an’ it’s not worth the time o’ day.”

“I can’t believe you don’t remember this. The Corpo were down there for months building on the quay and pushing the water back with great big machines and magnetic devices and the divil knows what. The achievement of the century they were calling it. Reclaiming Ireland for Dubliners they said. The bit of Ireland the Brits never ruled. Now, they didn’t make much use of it, I’ll tell yeh. A road an’ a few benches is all they put on it.”

“Like the Dutch?”

“Like the Dutch, wha’?”

“The Corpo reclaimed land from the sea like the Dutch?”

“No, no! They just sorta extended the city out about forty feet and put Eden Quay on it.”

“Are yeh sure?”

“It’s a Dublin fact,” said he in triumph. “Are yeh gettin’ another muffin?”