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Free Wednesday is going, going, nearly gone!

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Free Wednesday is going, going, nearly gone!

This week it is not a really “odd” topic, but some bad news. If you follow the daily Dublin Event Guide posts on Facebook, you already found out that the Free Wednesday, the one day a month when in the past all state owned and OPW (Office of Public Works)-managed heritage sites were free, did get hollowed out in a bad way for us in Dublin.

Last year the hugely popular Kilmainham Gaol was taken off the list: No more free visits to the Gaol. Because of the very much increased interest due to the 1916/2016 festivities and after a very expensive renovation I could see where they were coming from with that decision. But now Dublin Castle was ALSO taken off the list of free sites on the first Wednesday of the month and I can see that just being the start!!

My prediction is that other sites outside of Dublin will follow in the next few months.

The Free Wednesday (originally it was just called “First Wednesday”) was introduced by Brian Hayes, the junior minister in charge of the OPW, in 2011 to get more people to visit heritage sites. It had exactly that effect! So it worked! If you live in a place, most of us visit the sites less than if we go on holidays somewhere else, so it was mainly for Irish people to learn more about the country and cities around us. Sure, the visitors benefit from it as well, but I think that was an accepted consequence, not the main purpose of the introduction of the First/Free Wednesday.

Is it a coincidence that just a few days after a new junior minister takes over responsibility for the OPW the rules for the First Wednesday get changed? Kevin Moran (who oddly calls himself “Boxer” because he punched and knocked down another boy on a  football field when he was 12) took over at the end of June and immediately the rules changed. Do I think that he CAUSED that change? No, probably not! Maybe the OPW management disliked the (politically motivated) First Wednesday for a long time and took the opportunity to railroad the new an inexperienced guy as soon as he arrived.

I think it is a wrong decision!

Just a few days before that not-at-all publicised decision to take Dublin Castle off the list (I only found out because I smelled a rat and rang Dublin Castle.) another decision was publicised WIDELY and without holding back: Children until the age of 12 will get free admission to OPW sites from now on. Before the age limit was 6 years of age. This is a good decision, but I’d say it costs MUCH less than the Free Wednesday and it consequently saves people who are interested in going to heritage sites much less as well.

Dublin, Events, Tourism, , , , ,

Ryanair – Nice is over!

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Ryanair – Nice is over!

A few years ago, Ryanair realised (with some surprise!) that being nice and customer friendly has positive effect on their business. But it seems this realisation came to an end.

Last week I flew on a Ryanair flight and Something substantial has been changed: In the past, two or more people checking in together were usually put next to each other EVEN if they didn’t pay the EUR 4 for seat reservation.

Now, Ryanair will intentionally place people apart!! If you travel on a short flight with a friend or your partner, this might be a little annoying and certainly will leave NO warm feeling towards Ryanair, but you will survive. But if you travel with kids, it is now extremely likely that you will be separated from your kids during the flight.

A German journalist asked Ryanair for a statement and they CLAIMED that nothing had changed, but on the flight the journalist was on 3 couples were separated and I flew last week ans despite being No 54 to check in (so there were plenty of seats still available) Ryanair assigned seats in different rows.

Back to their old customer unfriendly behaviour just to make a relatively small amount of money? Typical Ryanair!

Tourism, , , ,

Dublin’s Wax Museum is back …or maybe not?

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Dublin’s Wax Museum is back …or maybe not?

The Wax Museum Plus is on its way back (or will be back soon), but oddly it won’t be a museum anymore, according to its director. I wasn’t invited to the launch (which happened without a single wax figure!), so I can only go by what others wrote about it, but it seems that the Wax Museum Plus (the plus stands for museum elements that were not wax figures) will re-open its doors again soon at a different location, but still in the City Centre.

The museum originally started in 1983 on Granby Row, near Parnell Square. That building was sold around 2000 and replaced by a hotel. The content of the museum was also sold to a Patrick Dunning and in 2009 the museum re-opened at Foster Place off College Green. In December 2016, it had to move again because the Irish Stock Exchange bought the building and now in Spring 2017 (probably around April) it will re-open in Westmoreland Street in the former Manchester United shop (later the the Lafayette night club).

In his article on The Journal.ie, Daragh Brophy describes an early media tour. He explains that there was no single wax figure in place yet and that the owner and director tried to convince the reporter that this is a museum that is not a museum, but was a museum but is now not a museum any longer. :-O He also mentions that there will be a new features, like an Augmented Reality aspect where your mobile phone will bring some of the figures to live. The article also includes a picture of Bertie Ahern with his wax figure…that doesn’t look like Bertie Ahern at all. :-O

 

Dublin, Events, Tourism, ,

Mountain Walking will NOT be banned – Important Court decision

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
Mountain Walking will NOT be banned – Important Court decision

The High Court made on Friday an EXTREMELY important decision for everybody who likes Hill Walking or Mountain Walking.

In August of 2013 a Teresa Wall from Swords went for a Hill Walk in the Dublin Mountains near the Sally Gap/Roundwood. In that area old railway sleepers (big wooden beams) are put together to form a boardwalk across wetland. But Teresa Wall had a mishap. She tripped accidentally and fell on her knee. This is nothing unusual and has happened to most of us at some stage in our life. You and I would probably hurt for a bit, maybe even have to go to a doctor, but we know that if we trip, then we didn’t pay enough attention and it was our own fault.

Mrs Wall was thinking differently and must have seen an opportunity to make some money. She sued the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) and the Circuit Court under Judge Jacqueline Linnane made the crazy decision that Wall deserved a payment of EUR 40,000 because allegedly the NPWS who put the boardwalk there was negligent because the wood had rotted at a place, which was a contributor to the fall.

Luckily and rightly the High Court disagreed and overturned the decision. Teresa Wall will now get nothing and importantly it was decided that SHE was negligent and not the NPWS. A great decision to stop people from trying to make money through compensations but also extremely important because if the NPWS had been given all blame, they would have to stop people from using the boardwalks as otherwise the law suits against them would never stop.

www.rte.ie/news/2017/0217/853394-teresa-wall-hillwalker-appeal/

Environment, Justice, Society, Tourism, , , , ,

1916-2016 Easter Rising Commemorations – Was it ok?

Written by Joerg Steegmueller
1916-2016 Easter Rising Commemorations – Was it ok?

In 2016 we commemorated the Easter Rising from 1916. Everybody had huge expectations and I think now that we have left 2016 behind, it is time to look back and to assess if the expectations were met or if the whole thing was a big disappointment.

In 2015 I had expected that the following year will be full of funeral re-enactments and other drama and re-lived pain. Sinn Fein were positioning themselves to be in charge of Dublin City (through the position of “Lord” Major) and it seemed that they wanted to run the whole show.

When 2016 arrived it immediately started with a flurry of events. Talks, discussions, tours, music, poetry, theatre etc and it looked as if this would continue throughout the year. The events were mostly of high quality with very dedicated and passionate people running it and it all culminated in a great (RTE-organised) event on Easter Monday that had whole Dublin buzzing with activity. The streets around Stephen’s Green and Merrion Square were packed with people, O’Connell Street was more than full and Smithfield Plaza was as busy as I had seen it never before. There were concerts, historic car exhibitions, historic trade demonstrations, talks, theatre and everything else you can imagine under the umbrella of “cultural commemoration”. It was an outstanding day.It was very surprising that RTE got overall responsibility as the event had nothing directly to do with TV or Radio, but they did a really great job in keeping all together in that one day.

After Easter Monday, however, it all ended very abruptly. The odd exhibition continued and for the rest of the year only a small number of talks popped up but otherwise it was all done and dusted.

This latter part disappointed me! I didn’t think that all was discussed and sorted by Easter Monday, so the rest of the year could easily have had more activities. Before Easter Monday it was nearly a bit much because all was crammed in the first four months of the year and Easter Monday was – as mentioned – a true highlight and couldn’t have been much better.

Luckily NO political party claimed “ownership” of the commemorations and no one party had bigger influence over it than another party. And luckily also, the commemorations were a celebration and not a sad, drab affair.

So all in all, I would give 2016 a 8 out of 10 as far as 1916 commemorations are concerned. I learned a lot, understood a lot better afterwards and was (for the first time since I live in Ireland) impressed by RTE.

Now we have to ask, what is next. The Irish War of Independence (1919-1921) is next, followed by the Irish Civil War (1922-1923) and history get a lot more controversial at that time. But maybe we can find some positive common denominator there as well?

1916, Dublin, Events, Tourism, ,
 
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