Twitter Ye Not - Arthur Guinness
A regular piece for the Daily Mail Weekend magazine about how figures in history might have twittered or tweeted or whatever, had they the chance, inclination and technology.
On New Year's Eve 1759, Arthur Guinness took out a 9,000 year lease on a site in Dublin for a fixed rate of £45 per year and began brewing Guinness. Here, we imagine the impact of that event on the New Year's Eve Twitter feed.
On the left hand side stands Arthur Guinness, chuffed and raising a pint of 'plain' in salute. Across from him, wheeling her infamous bivalve-bulging barrow through the Dublin streets (both wide and narrow), stands Molly Malone, also raising what in Ireland is termed a 'glass' (or half-pint) of the black stuff. Behind Mr G stands (anachronistically - it wasn't started until 1786!) the Four Courts (in Irish; Na Ceithre Cúirteanna), centre of Irish Law.
Between them both stand the gates of the Guinness brewery on St James' Gate. Between 1992 and 1997 I was a student at the National College of Art & Design (NCAD) on Thomas Street, just down the road. On most days you could smell the warm, sickly Guinness fumes emanating from the brewery. And on most days we would retire to The Clock pub next door and down a few scoops of the stuff - to help us through those difficult, taxing art school days ;-) !
A statue of Molly Malone was erected outside Trinity College on the corner of Nassau and Grafton streets whilst I was there, and was immediately dubbed, as only a Dub can do, the Tart with the Cart. A perfect accompaniment to the Anna Livia statue, nicknamed the Floosie in the Jacuzzi, that in honour of James Joyce (the prick with the Stick), &c., &c..
I loved living there, back in its dirty and different pre-Celtic Tiger nonsense heyday, and miss it still...
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