Staying in a Whorehouse in Dublin

"All the pathos and irony of leaving one's youth behind is thus implicit in every joyous moment of travel: one knows that the first joy can never be recovered, and the wise traveler learns not to repeat successes but tries new places all the time."  Paul Fussel

Glass Blower in Dublin

In 1989 my 20 year old daughter and I were doing a 3 week trip that started in London, we took a side-trip to Paris, then back to England, across Wales and over to Ireland. We arrived in Ireland by ferry in Waterford. We spent that day touring the Waterford Crystal factory, where we purchased some crystal to be shipped home. We then got on the train and headed for Dublin.

When we arrived in Dublin I hailed a taxi and asked to be taken to a B&B that I had researched, but I had not made reservations. The taxi driver obviously had ulterior motives (probably a commission), but he said he knew a much better place for less money, and could he take us there instead. He was pretty persuasive, so I agreed. He took us to a place that looked nice enough. I did notice that the parlor area was done in red velveteen wallpaper, it was maybe a bit much, but they had availability, and it looked okay, so we decided to stay there a couple of nights.  Our room was nice, and it had a sink and a shower, but the toilet was down the hallway.

Molly Malone statue in Dublin

We spent the rest of that day seeing the sights of Dublin, we took a city tour, and we wandered the streets. There was a big soccer game, and a group of soccer fans who were a little tipsy surrounded us while we were posing for a picture in front of the statue of Molly Malone and her fish cart (also know as The Tart with a Cart), so we ended up with a group photo with them, that was kind of fun.

When we got back to our room Kim left to use the toilet. She came running back a few minutes later to tell me that when she got there the door was open, so she went in, and a man was there displaying himself to her. She got out fast, and she was a little upset. I went back to the toilet with her, and he was gone. We decided that we would go to the bathroom together after that.

Kim in front of Clontarf Castle

The next day we did more sightseeing and that evening we went to a dinner show at Clontarf Castle. It was a fun event. You sat at a long table with other diners and there was the table for the “royalty.” It was all done fairly authentically to medieval times, even eating with our fingers. And the atmosphere was great. We were sitting with an older couple, celebrating their anniversary, who lived there in Dublin. At the end of the meal we went out and were waiting for our bus to take us back into town when the couple pulled up in their car and asked if we'd like a ride. We got in and told them where we were staying and they both started laughing. They said we were staying in the heart of the red-light district and that our B&B was a known whorehouse, but that they always kept some rooms available for the gullible tourist trade, it helped fill in their vacancies. Things then started making more sense.

We were leaving the next day anyway, so we went back to the place and spent another night in the whorehouse. The room was clean, the breakfast was very good, and we didn't have anymore men in the toilet area, so we were fine.   We can now say that we have slept in a whorehouse.