Lesson summary

Hi there everyone, I’m Jeff and this is Plain English, where we help you upgrade your English with lessons every week about current events, trending topics, and useful English expressions. Every so often, we talk about a travel destination in the English-speaking world, and today we are going to talk about Dublin, the capital of Ireland. I visited in October 2019; it was my last vacation before COVID, so it was fun reflecting on this trip while I wrote the lesson.

The expression we’ll talk about is “plan ahead” and we have a song of the week. This is lesson number 539, so that means you can find the full content, including a free transcript, at PlainEnglish.com/539. Let’s get started!

Dublin: music, literature, whiskey, beer, and more

Dublin is the capital of the Republic of Ireland. It was first settled in the ninth century; the Vikings named it Dubb Linh, meaning Black Pool. The city today is home to over a million people. Dublin is English-speaking, in a time zone that overlaps with North America and Asia, and it’s relatively low-cost compared to London; Ireland’s corporate taxes are low, too. Those factors combined to attract a lot of international companies, from accounting firms to tech companies like Google, Facebook, and Airbnb.

Dublin is on the eastern coast of the “emerald isle,” as Ireland is known. It’s the capital of the Republic of Ireland, an independent country that’s part of the European Union. (Northern Ireland includes six counties on the island that opted to remain part of the United Kingdom.) Dublin is located where the River Liffey meets the Irish Sea.

The river divides the city between north and south; the center of Dublin straddles the river. Several bridges cross the river; the most famous is the Ha’Penny Bridge. Before the bridge was built in 1816, residents crossed the river by ferry . The bridge was built by a private businessman; the city gave him the right to charge a ha’penny toll, a half a penny, to all pedestrians for a hundred years. The toll was removed in 1919, but the bridge is a popular way for pedestrians to cross the river even now.

I recommend you start your day in Dublin with a full Irish breakfast. You can get them in pubs, restaurants, and cafés. Come hungry : a full Irish includes bacon , eggs, potatoes, baked beans , toast, tomatoes, mushrooms , and pudding —and in case you’re curious , the pudding in Ireland is not a dessert, but a form of sausage . This hearty dish used to give farm workers the energy they needed for a full day’s work; these days , it’s more likely to be consumed on a Saturday or Sunday morning. If you want the true Irish experience, skip the coffee and get an Irish breakfast black tea instead.

One of Ireland’s greatest gifts to the world is its literature. James Joyce, Oscar Wilde, Frank McCourt, and Jonathan Swift were Irish. Some of my favorite Irish writers are William Trevor, John Banville, Colm Tóibín, and, recently, Sally Rooney.

A new museum called the Museum of Literature Ireland shows the history of writing in Ireland over 1,500 years. You can also visit the James Joyce Center, the National Print Museum, and the pubs that these famous writers frequented .

One thing I liked about Ireland is that there are bookshops everywhere. One rainy day, I ducked into a pub in the early afternoon. I ordered a pot of Irish breakfast tea; I had a book with me, but I noticed there were books on the shelves next to my table.

It was a bookshop inside a pub. I picked one book off the shelf: “ Bullfighting .” It was a collection of stories by Roddy Doyle. I had never heard of him before. I started reading and I got hooked ; I bought the book and Roddy Doyle is now one of my favorite Irish writers.

If you like beer, then I recommend going to the Guinness Storehouse, the site of the original Guinness brewery . Arthur Guinness established his brewery in St. James’s Gate, Dublin, Ireland, in 1759. This was a man who planned ahead : he signed a 9,000-year lease , at 45 pounds a year.

The company later purchased the land outright—you can never be too sure!—and then they expanded the facility . Guinness was once the world’s largest brewer; it no longer is, but it’s the largest brewer of stout . The tour takes you through the history of the company, the history of the product, and you can pour your own Guinness beer, too.

If you prefer whiskey, Dublin has something for you, too. You can visit the Jameson Irish Whiskey distillery , where you can take a tour, learn how to make a good cocktail , and enjoy a tasting session . If macro distilleries aren’t for you, then there are whiskey tours that will take you to the city’s many smaller distilleries.

But honestly, the best place to drink in Dublin is at one of Ireland’s famous pubs. “Pub” is short for “public house.” Years ago, upper-class men went to private clubs to drink; the entrance fees were too high for the working man—and you can forget about letting women in. So the working classes went to the public house, or the pub.

The Irish pub is famous as a community center , a place where anyone is welcome . During the day, you’ll find people sipping a beer and reading a book; at night, groups of friends come in after work. As the night goes on, the crowd gets rowdier .

The pub is also a great place to enjoy one of Ireland’s other gifts to the world: its music. In many cities, if you want to enjoy live music , you should find a web site or a magazine with times, dates, and locations .

In Dublin, you just walk around and pop your head into the many pubs. They all seem to have live music. Some have traditional Irish sessions, others more modern bands. Stop in at a pub, order a beer, and listen to a few songs. If you want to hear something else, then just wander down the street until you hear something you like. “Temple Bar” is the popular neighborhood to go out and visit the pubs.

There are some non-alcoholic things to do in Dublin, too. St. Stephen’s Green is a magnificent public park in the center of Dublin. Grafton Street is a delightful pedestrian street with the city’s best shopping. The food in Ireland is excellent: there are six Michelin-star restaurants, but you don’t need to go to a famous restaurant to get a good meal in this city, which is truly a European melting pot .

Trinity College was founded in Dublin in 1592 by Queen Elizabeth I, when Ireland was part of the U.K. The library at Trinity College is a major attraction today: there are two stories of floor-to-ceiling wooden bookshelves , the volumes only accessible from a sliding ladder . The stacks are also decorated with busts of famous Irish writers.

I also recommend taking at least one castle tour . Dublin Castle is the biggest, but there are others in the area. I went to Malahide Castle, about half an hour away . You can take a tour of the inside and later walk the extensive, landscaped grounds outside. Malahide Castle, for example, was built in 1185 and has had a tumultuous history .

St. Patrick’s Cathedral is the home of the Church of Ireland. You can stop in for a visit; Catholics can also attend mass there. The city has a number of good museums, including art and history. One other one to note: the Irish Emigration Museum, which tells the story of Irish people who have emigrated and brought their culture around the world.

Sliding ladders: my dream

I am 41 years old. One day, before I die, I want to have bookshelves with a ladder that slides left and right like at Trinity College. This is a dream of mine . I just love it, I love the whole idea of a sliding ladder. I also love literature, and Irish literature, so Trinity College Library was one of my top destinations in Dublin.

I told you about Roddy Doyle, the writer I discovered when I was in Dublin. If you want a really Irish book, get the book called “Love” by Roddy Doyle. The cover shows a pint of Guinness on a green background.

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In today’s lesson, you heard the Jeff “ducked into” a pub one afternoon. The purpose wasn’t to hide, but to move quickly inside because it was rainy that day. You can say, “After the rain started, I ducked into a restaurant to stay dry.”

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Today’s expression is to “plan ahead.” To plan ahead is to plan, to make arrangements , for something a long time in advance .

When you plan something, you simply intend to do it , typically at a specific time. I plan to see someone for coffee in two days. I plan to watch NFL football this Sunday. I plan to go to the gym this evening. These are things that don’t require a lot of thought ; they don’t require a large commitment; they don’t require me to think about them a long time before they happen. So because of that, we just use the word “plan.”

However, in those cases where we do have to think longer in advance, where there is more preparation necessary, or where we have to coordinate with other people, then we use “plan ahead.”

If I ever want to take a week off , I have to plan ahead. I create content for all of you every week, 52 weeks a year. So I do sometimes take time off. But if I do that, I have to plan ahead. I have to write and record two additional lessons the week before. This requires some effort , some advance planning, and I have to get JR’s permission before I do this. We both have to plan ahead.

You might have to do that at your job, too. Back when I was working in consulting , I couldn’t just take a week off whenever I felt like it . I didn’t need to ask permission, but I did need to plan ahead. It was my responsibility to look at my calendar, think about my clients, my projects, reschedule my meetings , prepare my team to work without me for a week, all those things. I was lucky in that I didn’t need to ask permission. But it was my responsibility to plan ahead. I had to make sure my projects got done and my clients were still happy even though I was away.

Traveling internationally is easier now than it was a year ago. A year ago, actually about 15 months ago, I went to Europe on vacation . I went to Vienna and Budapest. It feels like forever ago, but believe it or not that was before the Omicron variant came out .

At that time, you had to plan ahead for any international travel. You had to research the vaccination and testing rules. You had to get a test within , I think, 48 hours of flying. That means researching where you could get a test, make an appointment , get the test, print the test results. Then you needed to fill out an entry form , print that (!), and have your proof of vaccination ready.

And that was just leaving. If you wanted to come home—I didn’t, but I had to!—if you wanted to come home, you needed to do the whole thing in reverse , but with a whole other set of rules, and you had to find a test in a foreign country . To get this all done, you had to plan ahead. You had to think about it in advance, do the research, and make a plan.

In today’s lesson, I told you about the Guinness museum and tour . It’s at St. James’s Gate, Dublin, Ireland. That’s where Arthur Guinness first started his brewery. They have been brewing Guinness beer there for a long time, since 1759.

When you start a business, especially a manufacturing business , you want to make sure you control the land and building for a long time. It takes a lot of money to install the machinery you need. You can’t just move like you move to another house, so you want to control that land for a long time.

When he first opened the brewery, Arthur Guinness signed a lease for 9,000 years. And I made a joke, I said, this is a man who liked to plan ahead! The lease is no longer in place because Guinness later bought the property. However, 9,000 years was, I believe, the longest lease ever signed. It’s a joke, it’s ridiculous. Nothing lasts 9,000 years. Nine thousand years ago, for reference, England and Ireland were attached to continental Europe! So that’s why the joke is funny—to plan ahead means to make arrangements long in advance, to be prepared, to coordinate, whatever. And that describes Arthur Guinness when he signed the longest lease ever.

JR’s Song of the Week

Every Thursday, JR picks a song in English for us to listen to. It’s a good way for me to get over my musical paralysis . And for you, it’s a great way to get some more exposure to English. Because listen, you don’t want to hear me sing!

Today you can listen to Stephen Sanchez sing, because the song of the week is “Until I Found You” by Stephen Sanchez. He’s twenty years old! If you listen to this song, you can see he is really showing some good promise . He got his start on TikTok and eventually signed with a record label , after another singer spotted him on there. Wow. Good for him—and it’s a good song, too, “Until I Found You” by Stephen Sanchez.

See you next time!

And that’s all for today’s Plain English! This was lesson number 539, so you can find the full lesson at PlainEnglish.com/539.

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We’ll be back with a new lesson on Monday. See you then!

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