Today I went on a walking tour of Dublin called “Sex and Society”. Fun and interesting it was.

The tour guide Peter was funny and informative. He took us through the history of the seaport brothels, the earlier scandalous writings and lives of authors James Joyce, Oscar Wilde and Brams Stoker.

The repression of the Catholic Church to modern times…sex shops like nice lingerie shops and fetish shops.. a regular meeting BDSM club…a real breakthrough for Ireland.

Of course, the brothel area was just for men..you could get girls or boys in another place. There was no equivelent for women. During the Victorian period, women were to be motherly and nurturing, but men could be very sexual and aggressive.

 

The really sad part was the Magdeline Asylum, the catholic homes for unwed mothers. Women were sentenced there as slave labor, their babies were taken away. There is a movie, Philomenia, about that occurrence. Recently they excavated one of those homes in Galway and found the skeletons of 800 babies, thought to have starved to death.

We really walked for that tour. On the way back, I stopped at the pub that’s I’ve been eating breakfast in and had a bite of dinner. Two Irish lads were playing guitars and sang old rock and roll tunes..everyone sang along. For me they played.. Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here”

It was a fun day. Tomorrow thinking about going to Galway.

Of note, I heard about this excommunicated Bishop Pat Buckley in Belfast. Northern Ireland. I sent him an email earlier today. I just got an email from Bishop Buckley.. I got the interview on Sept 11!! I keep secretly hoping that I will see Van Morrison walking down the streets of Belfast.