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20/11/04
They came with cameras. Sad yes remembering fades far away. Hush rumours of old memories. Auld decency taking a final cup of tea. Fading Dublin soon to be forgotten. Young families bring their children you indulge their parents with words, �but why is it closing� and it�s nice here, isn�t it�.
Today Bewleys finally shut their caf� doors. First opened in 1840, five years before the height of the famine. The old Quaker family of Bewleys did Dublin proud but Dublin has let them down.
Sure there is the Save Bewleys campaign and who are they? They should have protested when Campbell�s ripped the heart of the Grafton street branch and replaced with over decorated gaudiness, smothering the Harry Clarke window. Or the should have seen the warning sighs when the Westmoreland street branch with give a bar licence. Romantic Ireland is dead and gone and that wonderful home of mine in Westmoreland street is going to become yet another pub in the alcoholic Disneyland of the Temple Bar area. Oh boy, just what we needed. And they will never get it back. Campbell�s have strip-mined the name; they had no interest or understanding of the importance of the caf� and shame on the crassness.
Yesterday I sat for the last time and watched shades of the old Dublin. Polite kids, decent people, well dressed and neat and thought of how you just don�t hear that old folks Dublin accent anymore unless you go the church or tea mornings. I miss them and honour their honesty, pride and understanding of a gentler time. You won�t see their like in the new scene in Dublin, they have no place because they remember what it�s like to be poor, to respect others and to share their good fortune. Bye, bye Bewleys, I�ve had lovers come and go but I always thought the one constant in my life would be the backbench in Bewleys of Westmoreland street. No so, now it's going to be a Starbucks. Oh well, such is the new Ireland.
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