Ah, the Dub.

It's the morning after the day after a rough day in Dublin.

Yesterday the Ulster Unionists, aka Orangemen, were given permission to hold a pride parade in Dublin city--the first ever of its kind in the Republic. Their intention was to memorialize protestants who have been killed in the long-standing cultural clash here that is too complicated to try to explain here. Usually these folks march in the North and that's where most of the trouble has been in terms of violence and terrorism. But in the spirit of peace and in the hopes of proving that letting down the borders will result in unity, Dublin government, Fianna Fail, said, "Go ahead, come down here and march."

What you'll probably hear on television and read in the papers is that the Republicans, the IRA, had something else in mind yesterday. That it was the Republicans who organized the violence, the rioting, the looting that terrorized the city yesterday. That's what I heard in a report by a Northern Irish journalist on CNN.

It's bullshit.

That's not what I saw.

A small faction of IRA organized a peaceful demonstration before the march was set to begin. The march never happened.

O'Connell Street is under major construction and the bricks and barricades became weapons. Homemade bombs were thrown, five store fronts on O'Connell Street got bashed in, the mob moved up toward Grafton Street, bashed in a few more shop windows, and managed to shut down the city for a little while. I got locked into a cellphone shop while a mob of people went running past, Garda (police) chasing after them, Keystone Cops style.

3000 gards with riot gear showed up at the scene before any hint of violence broke out; about 20,000 people congregated in center city. When 100,000 people gathered for an anti-war demonstration last year, about 1000 gards went on duty.

As Michael, one of my friends' I'm staying with here, said, "The city is full of thieves and thugs, and they send the entire police force to one place. What did they expect would happen."

And that's the story folks. The rioting and looting was caused by the thugs and thieves of this fair city, many of whom were kids and foreign nationals--those who suffer from abject poverty amid a city and country of increasing wealth. You want to know what got stolen? Shoes. A couple of Lithuanians made off with boxes of sneakers after bashing in the Foot Locker on O'Connell Street. To say the IRA is responsible is like saying Al Qaeda is responsible.

Now riots have been set off in the north, a politician has resigned, and everyone's worried about how the riots in the middle of a football match weekend filled with tourists will affect the city's reputation.

Me? I still love the place for all the same reasons I always did. I'm saddened at what implications this has for the direction of the peace process in Ireland, and in a larger scale, on the ability to dismantle old, deep conflicts and wounds and move on to unity or at the very least tolerance. Anywhere in the world and on every scale.

When I realized what was going on, my first instict was to run right into the center of it, to start taking notes and taking pictures. Rumors were flying around like mad, and I wanted to see it for myself and tell other people what I saw as the truth. I guess no matter how I might fight it, I am a journalist at my core.

So, this is my piece. I'm not filing a story for the New York Times or anyone else, just for Divine Writes. My new digital cameral malfunctioned just as I was about to snap a shot of a garbage can on fire smoking up toward a statue of revolutionary Jim Larkin in front of the General Post Office on O'Connell Street, site of the famous 1916 Easter Rising's last stand. Oh well. The image will live on in my memory. And I fixed the camera.

***

In other news, I managed to stumble into a panel discussion of screenwriters and producers as part of the Dublin Film Festival on Friday. Learned me a thing or two. I haven't even been inside a pub, yet. I've been busy playing with Ben, my friend Aisling's beautiful little boy, and hanging out at home: drinking wine, eating well, sleeping in. . . . it's been grand, and I wouldn't have it any other way. I'll head into town today and do my own wandering a bit, maybe meet up with some other friends. I got an Irish SIM card for my cell phone, so I can keep in touch easier with my people here. Y'all can still call my old number and leave messages; but I'm not checking very often.

I hope all is well with you--I'll update as I can.