I never mentioned this place on the tours.
Not because it was secret. It’s right there in the middle of Dublin. Thousands of people walk past it every day.
But when you do that job long enough, you end up keeping a few places for yourself.
For me it was a bench in St Stephen’s Green.
Nothing special about it. Wooden slats, green paint, one leg probably a bit shorter than the others. If you sat down too quickly the whole thing gave a small wobble.
I finished most tours somewhere near Trinity College.
People say thanks, someone asks where to find “the real Guinness”, someone else asks if Bono ever shows up around here, and eventually the group wanders off toward Temple Bar because that seems to be where every map points tourists.
That’s when I’d head the other way.
Across the road. Through the gates. Into the park.
Most visitors treat St Stephen’s Green like a quick stop. They walk through the middle, take a photo of the lake, look at the ducks, and head straight back out toward the shops on Grafton Street.
Fair enough.
But if you worked in the city every day, the park was different.
It was where you went to stop talking for a bit.
Five or ten minutes on a bench could fix a surprising amount.
You sit down and the noise of the city changes. The traffic turns into background sound. You hear bits of conversation drifting past. Gravel under pram wheels. Someone throwing bread to ducks even though the sign says not to.
And the swans, who look like they’ve been running the place for centuries. Clue: they have and they still do….
I must have sat on that bench hundreds of times.
Sometimes after a good tour when everything worked and the group laughed in the right places.
Sometimes after the other kind of tour, where one bloke asked such detailed questions about Irish history that I started wishing I’d revised a few things first.
Either way, the bench didn’t care.
You sit there long enough and Dublin settles down again.
That’s something you only really learn if you’ve spent years walking the same streets. Cities always have small places that keep the whole thing balanced.
You just don’t notice them until you imagine not having them anymore.
Which is where my brother comes in.
He keeps talking about Valencia.
Sunlight. People sitting outside in the evenings. Cafés that don’t require a coat and a small act of courage in winter.
At first I treated it like one of his usual ideas.
But lately, sitting on that bench, I’ve caught myself looking around properly.
At the trees.
At the lake.
At the mix of students, office workers, tourists and old Dublin lads all using the same paths.
You notice things differently when you think you might be leaving.
And that bench is one of the things I’d notice.
So I thought I’d write down a few of them.
Five places in Dublin that stuck with me during the years of doing tours.
Not the obvious places.
Just the ones that quietly became part of the routine.
This bench is the first.
Next time I’ll tell you about a pub where the barman never asked questions and the pint was always poured exactly the same way.
