Dublin Deboonked: Top 50 Fake Facts about the Fair City

Meon investigates the ways in which Dublin City tries to mislead and confound its denizens through lazy misnomers, transparent veneers, mispurposed institutions, and thinly veiled money-grubbing.

1. The fact that the largest monument on the main street of the capital city is the Spire.

2. The statue base of Daniel O'Connell not being beneath his statue, but beneath a €600,000 sordid rainbow candlestick.

3. Dublin City Council being a body which grants planning permission, despite having its headquarters built atop a viking archaeological site.

4. Wetherspoons on Camden Street having its inscription read “Est. 1979” despite the fact that they only opened there this year.

5. ‘Traditional’ pubs having 'Killer Nachos' on their food menu.

6. Historic Guinness adverts on the walls of Irish pubs, despite the fact they never appeared as advertisements to the Irish public at their time of print.

7. Anne's Bar and Hardware not being owned by Anne, nor ever really selling hardware.

8. Mary’s Bar and Hardware not being owned by Mary either, and having books nailed into its bookshelves for some reason. 

9. Living in a nominal Republic but still having places called the Royal College of Surgeons and the Royal Dublin Society.

10. An Post postboxes just being Royal Mail postboxes painted green. 

11. Gay pedestrian crossings that don’t even go fully across the road.

12. Gay flags everywhere you look.

13. The gay flag with the black and brown arrows.

14. The Go-Ahead Ireland (GAI) bus with the black and brown arrows.

15. Go-Ahead Ireland electric buses using an 'eco-green' aesthetic to distract from their privatisation of public bus routes. 

16. The high price of public transport being masked by the availability of Wi-Fi and USB charging ports.

17. The Luas being slow despite luas being the Irish word for speed.

18. Public transport addressing passengers in Irish not in the plural sense of the word ‘you’, but the singular.

19. The ‘Welcome to Grafton Quarter’ Christmas lights despite the fact that no-one calls it that.

20. The plant-pots around Grafton Street not being plant-pots, but steel-reinforced vehicle barriers in case of a terrorist truck attack.

21. Gino’s Gelato despite the fact that Gino does not exist, and for charging €4.30 for a single scoop.

22. The relentless corporate renaming of venues: the 3Olympia Theatre, and not the Olympia; the 3Arena, and not the Point Depot; the Aviva Stadium, and not Lansdowne Road; the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, and not the Grand Canal Theatre.

23. ‘Compostable’ lids and cups being neither compostable nor composted.

24. Coffee shop in a shipping container having a makeshift aesthetic not because it is actually makeshift, but in order to capitalise on yuppy hipster culture.

25. The rate of inflation being masked by the proliferation of ‘luxury’ goods, and the slow removal of the cheaper and more basic alternatives. Eg. A ham and cheese toastie is now a delicious pulled ham, mature white cheddar, sliced tomato, pickles and scallions all in sourdough bread toastie. Cost: €9.50.

26. Having to pay €8 to enter and do a ‘Self-Guided Tour’ of Dublin’s largest cathedral, Christchurch.

27. Catholic priests in Dublin not believing in Catholicism but Liberalism, and putting up gay flags on their church.

28. Bricks around the city not being bricks, but 5G antennas.

29. The shoddy fake brick façades put on student pod-accommodation.

30. Student pod-accommodation lobbies with bookshelves arranged by colour.

31. Black people being in most public advertisements, despite only being a tiny proportion of the population.

32. BLM protests being stunning and brave, but anti-lockdown protests killing grannies.

33. The Douglas Hyde Gallery not being dedicated to the Gaelic Revival, but to “exploring heritage practices in Black and Mixed-Race communities” in Ireland.

34. Jumpers that say Trinity College despite not being worn by Trinity students. 

35. Art hoes walking around with 'REPEAL'  jumpers in 2021 as if it is still a radical statement.

36. Student Unions not representing the interests of students, but the interests of adult sex shops.

37. Trade Unions not representing the interests of organised labour, but the interests of illegal migration.

38. ‘English language schools’ not being schools, but allegedly visa factories for middle-class foreigners.

39. Asian shops on Parnell Street not being shops, but fronts for backroom casinos.

40. Chinese restaurants selling authentic Chinese delicacies like the Spice Bag and the Three-in-One.

41. Fake tan on moths.

42. Overpriced ‘vintage’ shops that just sell tat from the 90’s.

43. Pseudo-Gaelic fonts on shopfronts.

44. The Leprechaun Museum not being a museum but commercialised paddywhackery.

45. ‘Irish’ gift shops not selling Irish-made craft, but tacky knick-knacks that are mass produced in China.

46. The Liberty Market not being a market for local artisan goods, but just a reselling of cheaply manufactured products.

47. The fake promise that the Iveagh Markets would be refurbished, only to be left to dilapidate for over twenty-five years.

48. Donnybrook Fair no longer being a fair but a bourgeois supermarket.

49. The public health guidelines being fake because almost nobody cares about them except when having to engage in social life.

50. Our ‘independent’ government in Leinster House being a front for American capitalism, EU federalism, UN liberalism, British intelligence, and Irish gombeenism.