Ireland day 1059. Thursday 22 August 2024- Hollywoodgate

Today’s summary	Went into Dublin to see the “Hollywoodgate” at the Irish Film Institute. The film is a documentary about what happens to the “Hollywoodgate” military airfield near Kabul, Afghanistan, after it was abandoned by the Americans in 2021 and taken over by the Taliban. Had late lunch at the cinema café afterwards, then watched the closing episodes of the final season of “The Wire” in the evening.
Today’s weather	Overcast but mostly dry in the morning, rain in the afternoon becoming heavy in the evening. Moderate westerly wind. Appx 17c

Today’s overview location (The grey mark shows the location of our route)		Close-up location (The orange line shows where we walked) (Click button below to download GPX of today’s walk as recorded, or see interactive map at bottom with elevations corrected): Hills of Howth walk

Commentary

(Summary blog only. Last full blog was Day 0368).

We haven’t been to the cinema for a while, and as the weather didn’t look great for an outdoors expedition, we decided to correct that omission today. I had read a review of the film “Hollywoodgate” over my breakfast cup of tea this morning and it sounded good. As luck would have it, I discovered that it was currently screening at the Irish Film Institute (IFI) this week so after a bit of discussion, we decided we would make a trip into Dublin to see the matinee performance.

“Hollywoodgate” is the name of a military airfield on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan. It was abandoned by the Americans after the Allied withdrawal in 2021 and taken over by the Taliban. The film, with the eponymous name, is a documentary about what has happened to it since 2021 and it was made by an Egyptian producer, Ibraham Nash’at. He was given unique (if rather limited) access to film the activities at the airfield by the new Afghan military command.

We caught a train direct to Connolly about noon, and then walked across town to the cinema, in Eustace Street. The film itself started just after 1pm and was very thought provoking. We were both glad we’d seen it – though I don’t think either of us will be adding Kabul to our list of “must see” places in the near future. It was particularly interesting to see a new state in the process of forming – lots of grand ideas but no firm plans yet for their delivery.

The film was quite short at 93 minutes, so when we came out at about 3pm we decided we still had time for a late lunch. For convenience we went to the IFI café where I enjoyed a heritage tomato salad (very healthy) and Val had a Thai curry. Once we’d dined, we retraced our steps back from IFI to Connolly station and after a short wait we caught a DART to Malahide. Unfortunately, the DART decided to terminate at Clongriffin, so we had to wait a few minutes for a Drogheda diesel to take us onwards to our destination. But in the end, the delay was brief and only added a couple of minutes overall to our journey.

This evening, we’re going to watch the final two episodes of the last season of “The Wire”. It seems like an appropriately dystopian note on which to conclude our day’s viewing!

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


The scene which greets you after you cross the Ha’penny bridge and enter the Temple Bar area	Inside the IFI. It is undergoing major renovations at the moment to repair the roof. Apparently it took many years to get the requisite planning permission to do the repairs, which are scheduled to be finished “by October”

The narrow spiral staircase leading to the small but well appointed screening room upstairs at the IFI	Lunch venue. Lucky we booked!



Looking north towards the river up Eustace Street, from outside the IFI