A short while after arriving in Dublin a few years ago, armed with little
more than a daft and fragile dream and an enthusiasm for the verbal art I
know rubs some up the wrong way but which I have no real control over or
wish to alter - I slowly began to learn how and why some of the city's
numerous characters transcend the quotidian to become legends. 

An understanding, which - I suspect - only comes by being a witness of what
occurs when - in the famous Cuchullan phrase - "the music of what happens,"
happens, here on the ground.

Dublin is a strange place. Just at the point you need to meet someone, you
will - as often as not - bump into them on the street, so one learns to
trust in the unknown and leave to chance, as things seem to happen here in
their own good time. There is a quote - I forget whom - that in Ireland the
predictable rarely occurs, but the unexpected always. What in other
countries does not, does so here, which is why I suspect one only grasps the
nuances of the culture fully by being witness to it in situ.  

Among the most famous from the poetical pantheon of literary greats is
Kavanagh, whose name - though known when alive - only became of mythic
proportion after his death, and there are some around today whose lives have
seized my imagination as being not dissimilar to his. James Kelly is one,
who I first heard of the week I arrived, but did not meet until seven months
later, poetically enough on the day I first sold my own poems on the street. 

He is one of the few poets in Ireland who supports himself solely through
poetry, by selling his chapbooks on the street - and he travels all over the
country doing so. He is a Kerry man whose live performance is mesmeric and
who Mairead name checks in one of her poems. A man whose reputation, it is
tempting to believe, could eclipse those of his better-known, state
supported contempories in years hence.

It was near Valentines day and I printed up two of my - his and hers - love
poems on 90gm marble-gold bonded paper, which I then rolled round 1 1/2 inch
pipe and sealed with wax. I sat in the disused Bewleys doorway on
Westmoreland Street, selling them for 2 quid each, thus being able to say I
was a publisher making a 1900% profit on each unit.

Just before I set out I went to the Homeless charity drop in centre, where
they sell a full hot lunch - choice of two courses - for 1 euro fifty cent,
with the irony being that it is top quality fare made with the freshest of
ingredients, whilst less than 8 yards away a restaurant sells far inferior
food for 12 times the price.

This was where I met James Kelly for the first time, and we swapped our
goods, he a chapbook and me a poem. He refused to take the fiver I offered
him, and since then I have managed to record him at the art gallery the only
time he came a few weeks back.

But this is off the point. The yarn I want to spin and question to ask,
relates to the Temple Bar Centre you mentioned Mairead.

~  

One legend I am yet to encounter is Aidan Walsh aka "Master of the
Universe," who - I believe - set up the Temple Bar Music centre. The story I
have been told by many different people is that he and another man took over
a decrepit building in Temple Bar and turned it into an artists' collective.
Everyone handed in a photo of themselves he cut in half. You kept one and he
the other, which he pasted onto a board and the only way to get in was to
show the matching half of your photo.

People said you could be talking to him and say

"I'm just going to the shop I’ll be two minutes"

You would then return and Aidan would be on the door asking.

"Have you got your photo?"

"But it's me Aidan. I only left you 40 seconds ago to go the shop."

"How do I know it's you and not an alien who has taken over your body."

Basically I heard that his power of reasoning is such that he deals with
people only on his terms, such that they end up having weirdly hilarious
interactions with him.

Temple Bar Music Centre is now very successful and I was told that his
partner was the business head who edged him out of the picture and made all
the money, but he is the real legend.

Here is a link to the award winning cult documentary made about him and one
to his website.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0446269/plotsummary

http://www.aidanwalsh.com/   

Do you have any stories about him or James Kelly please Mairead?