Esther McCarthy: For shame, Dublin! This is why the portal should have been in Cork (2024)

Land of saints and scholars, me arse! Or more accurately, the boyo who mooned Madison Square Park’s arse. This is why we can’t have nice things, lads.

One lady in our fair capital even had to be escorted away by the gardaí for humping the circle like a love-sick labrador going to town on its favourite cushion.

Madam, you were clearly missing the day we learned art installations created for the heartwarming connection of two cultures are not for one’s personal sexual gratification. For shame!

I can only imagine the self-administered forehead slap of poor Benediktas Gylys, the Lithuanian artist who invented the technology sculpture, as he watched a sham on North Earl Street proffer two fingers to the gawping New Yorkers.

Before the unveiling the artist said, “Portals are an invitation to meet people above borders and differences and to experience our world as it really is — united and one.”

The bould Benediktas failed to account for the utter gobsh*tery that happens when you stick a camera in front of a load of people on the street with an audience.

It’s almost like he’s never even heard of Tiktok. It was a lofty ambition, but alas, human nature prevailed, and it all went tit* up.

Quite literally, it seems, on the New York side. A shy and retiring OnlyFans model named Ava Louise posted a video of herself yanking her top up and presenting her breasts to the unsuspecting portal.

Looking at the footage though. I must say the Dublin side seemed appreciative of her impromptu performance. I can only assume that wasn’t the end of the yanking around that incident.

They’re lucky it wasn’t chilly in New York, she could have taken someone’s eye out.

Ava afterwards explained: “I thought the people of Dublin deserved to see two New York, homegrown potatoes.”

Thanks Ava, we’re grand for spuds here actually, and you should just thank your lucky stars, spangled or otherwise, that you didn’t get to see any homegrown meat and two veg from our side in return.

Thankfully, no one on the Dublin side was bitten by the spontaneous stripping off bug, that’s a flash mob we wouldn’t want to see, right?

A bunch of ghostly, goose-pimply Jackeens exposing their pasty flesh in public? Shudder. That’s what Dollymount Strand is for.

To be fair, the experiment started off sweetly enough. The visual bridge between those two iconic cities connected a mammy and daughter who were able to look and smile tearfully at each-other at the portal, holding up their hands across the continents, while speaking on the phone (someone might send them a link there to Facetime/Zoom/ Skype, they’ll lose their sh*t altogether).

We saw strangers delighted with themselves as they played Paper, Rock, Scissors with each other having the craic.

There were cute dance offs and a bit of light (fully-clothed) flirting.

And there was even a successful marriage proposal. That’s a story for the grandkids.

But the degeneration of the interactions — including but not restricted to the displaying of Swastikas, and some dickhe*d holding up his phone with images of the Twin Towers in flames on on 9/11 to the New York side — led to the temporary closure of the platform, in an attempt to find a solution to the problems of some people misusing the portal.

It was a good call by the city council. The world is in enough turmoil without adding Dublin and New York beef to the mix.

Some solutions such as blurring inappropriate images, time delays, and chemical castration were pondered but ultimately ruled out by authorities because of technical and legal limitations.

In fairness, the time difference probably doesn’t help. The horrors of closing time in Dublin is 6pm in the Big Apple.

Allow me to implement massive stereotyping using depictions from popular culture, and just picture Joey the Lips in knock-off cord Levis taking a slash on O’Connell Street, squinting at an aghast Carrie Bradshaw-type in front of the Flatiron in her tutu and tiara on her way to a dinner date.

Anyway, my real point is this kind of carry on wouldn’t have happened if they’d just put the portal in Cork city.

Because, as every Cork person knows, we wouldn’t have had the other side anywhere outside the county border. It would have just been The Grand Parade peering admiringly at Crookhaven.

Cousins shouting “Alright, langer!” at each other until their voices gave out and they needed boiled flat Tanora to revive themselves.

Now that’s art.