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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
Lifestyle
Megan Nolan in New York

The New York-Dublin Portal is a testament to international idiocy. I couldn’t love it more

man in mets outfit waves at giant circle with a screen in the middle full of people
The Portal is a public sculpture that links Dublin city centre and the Flatiron district in Manhattan. Photograph: Caitlin Ochs/Reuters

There was a specific kind of brainless, base energy at the Dublin-New York Portal on Tuesday afternoon that recalled something from my childhood. At first I could not quite think what it was, and then I realised that it was the feeling of being in an all girls school and converging with the all boys school.

This would happen occasionally, back in Ireland where I grew up – we would be in plays or science competitions that involved overlap with the boys’ schools (in fact this was why we wanted to be in said plays and science competitions). There would always come a moment when we would all be revealed to one another and gawp at the spectacle of our equivalents, so like us and yet so alien. Those moments were filled with a giddy sense of anticipation and inherent disappointment, so that all either side could do was laugh and jeer and point at one another.

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