Come Here To Me!

There is something about town at 6am on a Sunday morning. Traffic lights change with nobody to even notice, the taxi men have gone home for the most part and in that awkward three hours between the last Nitelink and the first commuter bus, even Westmoreland Street is quiet. You pass Supermacs, Abrakebabra and the sort and see workers cleaning up, but no activity beyond that. The maddest night of the week has passed for them, and unlike Londis on the corner their windows have made it through in one piece.

There is no real activity anywhere beyond McDonalds, where 6am appears a fine time to many Dubliners to grab breakfast. A bizarre mix of people await you inside, ranging from those who have finally given up the ghost on Saturday night and have made the decision to return home to those whose high-vis jackets suggest the working day is about to begin. Coffee flows freely, while the odd drunken youth demands a Coca Cola. Nothing works better with a Bacon Egg McMuffin, I imagine. It’s made fairly clear to punters that McDonalds does not a bus terminus make, and in the course of half an hour numerous people are moved along. I take the tip, grab a coffee and we’re off.

The base of the Daniel O’ Connell status resembles a public bin, but as such is just in keeping with the general vibe of the street behind him. You wouldn’t envy the street cleaners. Among the more unusual items discarded here, we find a swivel chair (where did that come from?), which is later spotted coming up the street with a merry youngster in the driving seat. Gardaí pass in groups of four or even five, but a lad on a swivel chair doesn’t seem too much of a threat to the peace.

We pass a father and son combination going from shop to shop to drop off the Sunday newspapers. The young lad is flying, Tribunes and Sunday Times left from shop to shop at record pace. His passion for the job at hand isn’t shared by many, and more than a few people on route to work can be heard to mutter “fucking hells…” and the like about the streetscape before them, in a rigged sheep competition kind of astonishment.

Catching the 7.05AM bus out-of-town, you can’t help but be surprised how many people are on the thing. So much for Sunday being a day of rest for workers, the vast majority of these people seem to be off to earn a living. A man who boards the bus on the quays is the ultimate ‘thing I don’t want to see on my way to work’ without a doubt, an idiot who proceeds to burst into song.

“WIMAX, ALL ACROSS THE NATION.
SOMETHING SOMETHING NEW SENSATION…”

This is followed by him telling everyone who will listen that his father from Tipperary “hates the blacks”, and him commenting on the amount of “gays” up by Georges Street. I didn’t have the heart to explain this one to him, and it seems to be rolling eyes all over the bus, at least from those who are awake. A Nokia alarm sound wakes one man who seems to have this to a second, and he’s awake and off the bus for work. When he gets the bus back to town, he’ll probably step out into an unrecognisable city from this morning, and WiMax man will likely still be in bed.

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