No Good Deed

Most of Dublin’s popular tourist sites are located south of the River Liffey, the waterway that cuts the city in half as it flows east into the Irish Sea. But if you’re planning a trip, I’d urge you to make time for the north side as well—especially O’Connell Street, a historic thoroughfare that’s witnessed important events connected to the Easter Rising, the Irish Civil War, the 1913 Dublin lock-out, and much else besides.

Within the space of just a few blocks, you’ll find statues celebrating the street’s namesake, nineteenth-century Catholic nationalist (and renowned abolitionist) Daniel “The Liberator” O’Connell (1775–1847); trade union leader James “Big Jim” Larkin (1874–1947); and newspaperman Sir John Gray.

There’s also a soaring pin-like monument called the Spire of Dublin. I found it to be quite striking, even if derisive locals, taking a dimmer view, refer to it as the “Stiffy by the Liffey.”

There’s also a much-celebrated statue of Father Theobald Mathew (1790–1856), the teetotalling founder of what became known as the Catholic Total Abstinence Society—which once had half the adult population of Ireland reciting its membership pledge: “I promise to abstain from all intoxicating drinks, except used medicinally and by order of a medical man, and to discountenance the cause and practice of intemperance.”

For a time at least, his campaign transformed Irish society. A tribute to Father Mathew’s legacy, delivered by the British Women’s Temperance Association, relates the story of a group of fellow travellers who visited Ireland in 1840—at the height of the priest’s influence—and were shocked to observe that “the boatmen at Killarney, proverbial for drunkenness, insubordination, and recklessness of life”—a wonderful turn of phrase, we can all agree—“declined the whisky we had taken with us for the bugle-player, who was not ‘pledged,’ and after hours of hard labour they dipped a can into the lake and refreshed themselves from its waters.”

Alas, I fear Father Mathew would be appalled by the nocturnal debauch that unfolds around his limestone plinth. Having recently booked an O’Connell Street hotel for a spontaneous weekend getaway with some old high-school friends, I can attest that the neighbourhood gets especially raucous in the wee hours, when the bars shut down and their inebriated clientele spill out into the open air.

On the Saturday night, the crowd was so loud that I feared it had turned into some kind of riot—of which O’Connell Street has witnessed more than its share over the years. In 1966, Irish republicans destroyed the pillar-mounted statue of Horatio Nelson that once stood outside my hotel. Had their descendants, fired up by some anti-teetotalling barstool demagogue, returned to inflict similar violence upon Father Mathew?

“This happens every weekend after the bars close,” said Joash, the hotel’s night manager, upon observing my look of alarm. “It usually stops after an hour or so.”

I’d gotten to know Joash reasonably well by this time, as I’d spent two acutely jetlagged nights with him in his hotel’s small, otherwise vacant lobby. He’d given me travel tips, and kindly started up the cappuccino machine for me before the complimentary breakfast service officially began at 6 a.m.

Running a hotel in the middle of a party district is a difficult job. But as the events described below would demonstrate, Joash is a consummate pro.

By the point this misadventure began, my brief jaunt to Dublin was pretty much over. Saturday night had become Sunday morning, and the streets were now mostly quiet, though there were still several hours before daybreak. I’d evacuated my room, and was biding my time in the hotel lobby until the airport bus showed up for my (absurdly early) flight back to North America.

This is when a distressed-looking 30-something woman knocked on the hotel’s glass door, signalling by means of hand gestures that she had no key card but, well, could someone please let her in anyway.

I looked around for Joash but he’d apparently disappeared into the back office. So I opened the door for the woman, on the basis that I assumed this is what Joash would have wanted me to do. It was winter after all, and she didn’t seem dressed for the weather.

Then things got a little odd. The woman told me candidly that she was not a hotel guest, but then added, “I’m pregnant, and I need to use a bathroom.” When I failed to immediately respond, she roused me out of my jetlagged stupor by repeating the same words more slowly and at higher volume—perhaps unsure of whether I was an English speaker—while caressing her stomach for emphasis.

By way of aside, I should mention—as one of those “life hacks” that are popular on the internet—that a woman can cajole a man to do pretty much anything simply by telling him she’s pregnant, even if—as in this case—she really doesn’t look the part.

In fact, it struck me in that moment that here was something of a golden opportunity to act the hero’s role—and with no effort or expense.

This woman, whom I presumed to be a distressed or jilted traveller suffering unforeseen misfortune in a strange city, deserved more dignity than a public washroom could provide. I’d already packed up, and would soon be on a bus to the airport. So I suggested she just take my key card and use my room.

Days later, when I related this story on Facebook, the general response was that I was monstrously gullible. (“I cannot believe that at your age, you did something so unbelievably dumb,” was how one of my close relatives put it.) But upon further reflection, it strikes me that my gesture was at least as creepy as it was foolish: How would a woman in her position know that I didn’t possess a second room key, and that my generous-seeming overture wasn’t part of my own unwholesome scheme?

At the time, however, the idea made complete sense to me. In some ways, it still does. It seemed no different than getting two hot dogs for the price of one, and, not being hungry enough to eat both, handing the second to a ravenous stranger so that it wouldn’t go to waste. I feel like more of life should work like this.

So, apparently, did the woman, who agreed this was an ideal solution, and eagerly plucked the key from my hand. Then, somewhat unexpectedly, she got on her phone and began texting someone—a scruffy male companion, as it turned out, who immediately appeared at the hotel door, also seeking admission.

Naturally, I let him in, too—in for a penny, in for a pound—and the two of them disappeared into the elevator.

“I guess her friend needs to use the bathroom, too,” I remember idly thinking to myself as I returned to my stupor.

It couldn’t have been more than ten or fifteen minutes later that a fellow with an apron came striding purposefully out of the kitchen, set eyes upon me, and asked if I were the guest staying in Room 617. When I nodded in the affirmative, he instructed me to proceed to the sixth floor: “Joash needs to see you.”

It was at this moment that I began wondering if the woman I’d met really had to use the bathroom.

The night manager was standing outside my room, and seemed relieved by my arrival. Joash told me that he’d been dealing with multiple complaints from neighbouring rooms, to the effect that the occupants of Room 617 were having a loud argument, having loud sex, consuming loud pornography, or some combination thereof. They’d reportedly taken pains to lower the volume once Joash showed up. But even now, one could still hear muffled exclamations and ambiguous thumps.

Dealing with this sort of late-night contretemps was all in a night’s work for Joash, I’m guessing. But what made this situation tricky, he told me, was that the couple wouldn’t come out to account for their behaviour: The woman kept insisting that the room belonged to her “uncle,” who’d told her to use it as she pleased. Joash was hoping that, my being the putative uncle and all, I might break the impasse by asserting my avuncular authority.

To dispel any possible confusion, I assured Joash that I was not—to my knowledge—this woman’s uncle, and explained how she’d come to possess my room key. It is a mark of Joash’s professionalism that he greeted my explanation without betraying any sign of negative judgment, and simply nodded sympathetically as if I were not describing the actions of a complete idiot.

I then suggested to Joash that we resolve the situation without calling the woman out explicitly for her dishonest ruse, or otherwise humiliating the couple. Whatever they were doing in the room—and by now, I had my suspicions—they both had the look of people who’d put up with a lot in life; and I had, after all, given them my key of my own volition.

On the other hand, I was unwilling to go further by indulging the conceit that I was the woman’s uncle—as it felt weird to do so. And, who knows, it might even be interpreted as some kind of unsettling role-playing overture. Instead, I would just keep things friendly and vague.

Joash indicated his agreement with this approach. And so I knocked on the door and said, in what I intended to be a very nonchalant tone, “Oh hi… It’s me again.”

Then I paused, unsure of how to proceed. And I’m embarrassed to admit that the only follow-up line that eventually popped into my empty head was the same one that had just been used on me.

“I need use the bathroom,” I blurted out.

There followed an awkward discussion, conducted through the door, about whether the couple might be permitted to retain the use of the room for just a little bit longer. Sensing (correctly) that this farce would drag on all morning if I were left in charge of negotiations, Joash jumped in and quickly managed to secure a promise that the couple would be gone within five minutes. In the meantime, he let them know, we’d be waiting outside the room.

In a (failed) bid to distract myself from the (again, somewhat ambiguous) noises that began once again emanating from Room 617, I initiated some small talk with Joash—who, I learned, had been recruited for the job from India.

“Oh, how long have you been in Dublin?” I asked. (Thump thump.)

“About two years. I’m originally from Goa.”

“Ah, that’s the former Portuguese colony, isn’t it?” (Thump.)

“Yes, that’s right.”

I also learned that Joash not only serves as the hotel’s night manager, but also as its auditor. And that Goa’s official language is Konkani.

“Well, I’d love to visit one day. But you know how badly I deal with jet lag, right? Ha ha!” (Thump thump thump.)

We both pretended that I had said something very funny. 

The couple proved good to their word, and evacuated the premises amid strained (but not unfriendly) pleasantries. Joash and I then entered the room, which smelled like an ash tray. The twenty-euro bill that I’d left for the room cleaner was gone, of course. (On social media, one of my friends suggested that the loud argument overheard by other guests was a dispute about who should be permitted to keep it.) And there was a large carpet stain under the television.

I made a light-hearted joke about my irresponsible “niece”—though I was actually quite anxious that the cleaning charge would appear on my bill. For his part, however, the unflappable night manager remained very much unflapped. I sensed that he’d seen much worse.

Then, after apologising to Joash for at least the third time, I said goodbye, raced downstairs, and just managed to catch my airport bus—albeit without getting a chance to enjoy the complimentary breakfast then just being laid out for the hotel’s early risers.

Like much else in Ireland, Father Mathew’s O’Connell Street statue comes with a fascinating back story—centring on its creator, groundbreaking sculptress Mary Redmond (1863–1930), the daughter of an Ardclough limestone worker.

By the time Redmond began work on her creation, Father Mathew had been dead for almost four decades, and so she was required to rely on a studio model of roughly the same build—a destitute man whom Redmond had taken pity on at St. Joseph’s Night Refuge for the Homeless Poor.

Alas, as Redmond’s Irish contemporary, Oscar Wilde is (dubiously) reputed to have quipped, no good deed ever goes unpunished. In a darkly ironic twist, this impoverished stand-in for Ireland’s great Apostle of Temperance started showing up to work drunk. Redmond was forced to terminate his employment when he began acting out during one of their modelling sessions.  

When Redmond returned to her studio the next day, she found that the disgruntled ex-model had snuck back in and smashed Father Mathew’s unfinished likeness to pieces. That felon (whose name is lost to history, it appears) got seven years in prison. But this was little consolation to the sculptress, who now had to start work on a second version of the statue from scratch; and so ended up producing her life’s crowning artistic achievement at 50 pence on the pound.

Compared to Redmond, I got off quite easy. Upon my return to Toronto, I contacted Joash through social media; whereupon he assured me that he’d explained the situation to his bosses, and that they’d be letting me off the hook for the room damage.

My only real liability was that pinched 20-euro note—which I felt morally duty-bound to replace. While my misguided stab at chivalry ended in failure, I could at least ensure that no innocent chambermaid would be out of pocket due to others’ recklessness of life.