IMAGINE IT’S 8AM on a Monday. You’re an exhausted New Yorker just off the subway. You’re on your way to work at a building on 23rd and 5th. The sun is in your eyes and you’re sweating.

All of a sudden, you catch sight of 20 Irish faces ogling you through a giant Stargate device that wasn’t there yesterday. You think you spot one of them giving you the finger. And yes, one of them is mooning you. 

Modern technology has allowed us to achieve this dream. This week’s installation of the Portal on Dublin’s North Earl Street – a large tunnel-shaped screen that transmits video from midtown Manhattan to Dublin City Centre – is already yielding results. Within hours, we saw footage of a man in high-visibility trousers mooning a crowd of shocked onlookers across the Atlantic while the Irish crowd cheers. You think he’s going to be the last one? Well, he’s not.

The Portal – and yes, we are overjoyed that there is now an object in Dublin City Centre which we can refer to mononymically as ‘the Portal’ – was installed to mark Dublin as the 2024 European Capital of Smart Tourism, though of course anyone who has ever spent any time in Dublin knows that the phrase “smart tourism” is an oxymoron. 

From here on, one of two things will happen: either the people using the portal to do breakdancing and wanking gestures will eventually get tired of these antics and leave everyone else to enjoy it, or they won’t get tired of it, and we spend the rest of our days locked in a fierce battle with the citizens of New York over who can do the most shocking or obscene thing in front of the portal. In game theory, this is what’s known as a win-win situation. 

The easy thing to do is to predict that the portal will end in tears in one way or another, but that’s all part of the appeal. Sure, people on Twitter and Liveline will make comments like, “This is why we can’t have nice things”, but maybe having fun is the point of having nice things. Let’s just see what people do with it, like when they set up mirrors in the jungle and the gorillas run headfirst into their own reflection. Sure it would have been nice for Dublin to get a few more public toilets instead, but you never know, the portal could end up chipping in on that front too.

Benediktas Gylys, who created the Portal art installation, has said his portals – which have featured in other cities – “are sculptures that form a global network that is going to act as a bridge to a united planet”. Contrasted with events in Ireland this week, this seems like a rather optimistic perspective.

THE PORTAL: a visual bridge connecting New York City to Dublin

A public technology sculpture known as The Portal was unveiled this morning in New York City’s ’s Flatiron neighborhood. The sculpture has a real-time, visual live stream connecting New York City to Dublin, Ireland. pic.twitter.com/ATNBq63QeC

— Noel Y. Calingasan • NYC (@nyclovesnyc) May 8, 2024

This symbolic erosion of borders is particularly ironic during a week when international protection applicants in Dublin were once again shunted around the city like livestock.

Had the portal been set up along the Dublin’s canal, for example, it would have captured the removal of dozens of tents, replaced by steel barriers to prevent access to the banks of the canal. If the portal had been set up in Crooksling, it would have seen the basic accommodation that is being provided to those who do accept relocation to the Dublin mountains, an hour from the International Protection Office, to a site that has already been the target of an arson attack. This rudimentary accommodation comprises of weatherproof tents, toilets, showers, health services, an indoor eating area, phone-charging facilities, and 24-hour security. 

Ireland ratcheted up the spectre of deterrence, warning asylum seekers that they can be arrested and prosecuted should they decline an offer of accommodation and instead opt to establish an encampment. 

In calling for a cross-department and cross-agency response to the matter, Taoiseach Simon Harris said: “The days of people saying that’s not my issue, that’s for that department, that’s for that agency, I don’t want to hear. This is Government. This is Ireland. This is Team Ireland.” How do we usually fare with team sports, by the way? 

The Taoiseach’s rallying cry sounded like an attempt to get everyone pulling in the same direction, but it’s clear that Harris’ own government is struggling to find its feet. The Fine Gael leader has said that “makeshift shantytowns” cannot be allowed to develop, but there are currently 1,825 asylum seekers in the state without accommodation. Without an increase in liveable accommodation for asylum seekers, Ireland will remain at an impasse, with vulnerable individuals moved around like board game pieces while public spaces continue to be cordoned off with heavy steel railings. 

In one breath, Simon Harris spoke this week of the need to meet the humanitarian needs of those seeking asylum in Ireland. In the next, he said that the operation to remove hundreds of asylum seekers from Mount Street “was also an important day for the laws of our land, because this is a country that does have laws, and as Taoiseach I expect those laws to be enforced”. Where that actually leaves anyone arriving into Ireland to seek asylum is not entirely clear, but it certainly isn’t anywhere comfortable.

With all of that taken into account, members of the public mooning scandalised New Yorkers doesn’t seem so bad. It could be worse, we could be showing them what Ireland is really like.