Canal Reflections

The beauty of Amsterdam is that there are two cities, not one. For every stretch of Golden Age merchant's houses there is another reflected in the placid waters of the canals. The elms that raise watery green leaves against the skyline reflect again waving slowly in the silent depths.

Canals are elemental, a mixture of water and sky, made all the more profound by being angularly framed by man. A perfect picture of what lies above.

Ireland has a mere handful of canals to compare with those of the Netherlands. They stretch like a belt across the central plain and form a necklace around Dublin's girth. Those of Amsterdam ripple outwards from the Palace forming a maze of refracted and reflected worlds. The grachten are present in all the Western cities from Utrecht, to Leiden and the Hague. Each metropolis marked by a thumbprint of waterways. There seem too many to name.

Dublin has the Grand and Royal canals. The Grand ambles along the south of the city viewing Ballsbridge, Ranelagh and Rathmines on the way. Near Baggot Street a seat is set, allowing the observant to sit and watch. Here a statue of the country poet, Patrick Kavanagh, looks on. The bench was a response to his fantastic request, O commemorate me where there is water, Canal water, preferably, so stilly. The poet imagines the canal as a passageway and journey to Arcadia. In quite summer evenings his words come back to life: A swan goes by head low with many apologies... He ends the elegiac text with... ...O commemorate me with no hero-courageous Tomb - just a canal bank seat for the passer-by.

The Northside of the city boasts the Royal Canal. Sitting with his back to Drumcondra Bridge the statue of Brendan Behan sits vigilant eyeing passing ducks and the distant bulk of Mountjoy Gaol. A very different writer to Kavanagh, Behan circled the political, mocked the heroic and settled uncomfortably into his vision of Every (Dublin) Man. His poetry is all about Republicanism, prisons and politics. The anger of the little man in the larger scheme of things.

Both writers, although very different, share a genius for contemplation and it is this quality that inspired them to seek beauty and Arcadia and solace in these man made waterways. My canal pictures, I hope, do the same.

Warsaw Rose

I really like travelling and seeing new places but have learnt that what the location looks like often comes a poor second to how it feels. An important part of the atmosphere of a place is the way in which the locals treat you. When away on business or pleasure I usually travel alone which if you have never done it - can only be guessed at. You learn to take things easy and actually work out what you want to do for yourself. Small and nondescript activities become defining moments.

The twenty minute chat you have with the exhausted owner of a kebab shop on the Damrak at twenty past four in the morning where he tells you of his Lebanese brother's sons who like me are 'Irish' - because they go to Notre Dame (proud motto the fighting Irish) in the States.

Or the Spanish woman in the tourist centre who, having handled two irate customers who screamed at her, laughs when I wind her up and promptly sends me to stay with her sister-in-law in a stunning Art Nouveau castle leading down to the beach. It's these passing moments, the kindness of strangers as Blanche would say, that are when local culture truly comes into it's own. The least is expected and the most is gained.

On one of my trip's to Warsaw during an extremely warm summer I asked a young chambermaid whether she could find me some bottles of water so that I could take them with me during the day. She smiled shyly and left - returning quickly with an armful. I thanked and tipped her. I thought no more about it and set off in a taxi to visit customers all day.

Later, worn out from the heat, I returned to my room and I found this gift of a Warsaw rose from her on my bedside table.

For me, that's Poland.