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I remember seeing the DART for the first time. I was 7 years old. It was 1984. I thought it was some impossible machine out of a science fiction movie. At that time, I lived with my family in the remote wilds of Blanchardstown, West Dublin, and as such, the DART wasn't likely to be a part of my daily life. But the very next year, we moved to Donaghmede. Howth Junction Station lay just around the corner from our house. And, from that moment on, if we were availing of public transport, we were hopping on the DART.

I blame my father. His Super 8 film projector got me where I am today. That, and his collection of one-reel highlights from all the great Disney movies. Since Cabra didn’t have a cinema anymore, I was forced to migrate... to Phibsborough. The building was once home to the Silver Skate Ice Rink, but to me it will always be the State Cinema - the jumping off point for a life-long addiction. The place where I saw Grease, Empire Of The Ants, The Cat From Outer Space and so many others. And then there was Star Wars, from which, I gather, none of us have ever fully recovered. There were times Phibsborough just wasn’t big enough. Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s Arnotts’ car park... sorry, formerly the Adelphi Cinema, on Abbey Street! In 1978, Superman: The Movie was a watershed. Outside of mass, I’d never been in such a huge building, filled with so many people. As John Williams’ music buckled my ears, I finally realised I was part of something far greater than myself.

There is unfortunately no blueprint for happiness, but a maxim to think about is ‘create, don’t consume’. Fighting Words is where Dublin’s children and young teens can learn to express themselves, but also get to grips with the tools that make that expression possible. Numerous studies have indicated that it’s our experiences that give us the most satisfaction and not the things we accumulate. That’s not always easy to remember when faced with the new car purchase that will change our lives, or the dress that makes you look like a better, slimmer version of ourselves but in our hearts we know it’s true.

After living in Jersey City for the first decade of my life, we moved to my mother's hometown, Dublin. My parents had divorced and the neighbourhood we were living in was starting to deteriorate rapidly. My father stayed on in his native city and we hopped on a plane to Ireland. It took a long time for me to find my peace with this place. The food here in the 80's was brutal and I quickly realised why. There was nobody here of any skin colour that wasn't lily white and freckled. Consequently, no proper New Jersey pizzas, bagels and barbecued chicken. These had been my dietary staples. And although I was well used to tough city kids, on my own I was no match for the lads from Charlemount street and Swan Grove, who on my first day of school beat me up because I asked the teacher if I could please use the "bathroom."

I believed up until relatively recently that I was a mixed-race Dubliner. ‘My dad is a North Sider, and my mother is a South Sider!’ I would declare, explaining away my propensity for Chipstix-and-cheese bread rolls washed down with a carafe of Amerone. My brothers and I have always joked that my Coolock-born dad must have nicked our Dun Laoghaire-born mother’s handbag, led the chase north of the Liffey and eventually coerced mam into staying there.

Dubliners… Think you’ve seen it all? Cast your eyes skyward. As charming as Dublin’s skyline is, it’s never exactly been noted for its towering buildings. Quite the opposite, in fact, with the highest towers in Dublin reaching an average of 60 metres. Although this may be changing. ‘The Exo’, a 73 metre high structure in Dublin’s Docklands, was recently built and permission has been granted for other high rise developments. For now though, Dublin is low-rise in nature. And it is perhaps because of this that neither inhabitants nor visitors t

In a random (and completely unscientific) study I asked several people to name five of the best known statues in Dublin. Merrion Square’s Oscar Wilde was name checked, as was Patrick Kavanagh’s canal bank sit‐down.

One sure sign of a flourishing city is the proliferance of new bars and eateries in town. The microcosm of South Great George’s Street, moving into Aungier, Wexford and Camden Street is a good example.

The other night, driving through the Phoenix Park, I remembered. Remembered what it is I love most about Dublin. Sometimes, it’s tough to retrieve all the good things about your native city – particularly when you’re surrounded by the aftermath of a general election, the consciousness of all those things that the city gets wrong, the awareness that so much about Dublin can be challenging. But on a lovely spring evening – the first, after a dismal, murky winter – the Phoenix Park unrolled itself in all its green, luscious glory.

The newest of the Liffey bridges is the Rosie Hackett Bridge of 2014. A bridge of its time, built of stainless steel and concrete, it caters for the living city, providing a crossing for the pedestrian and for public transport. In the name alone – it is the only bridge within the city limits named for a woman – there is the kernel of the history of the modern state and the tale of an heroic woman. The oldest bridge straddles the river in the western suburb of Chapelizod, a four arch stone bridge with royal connections of old and a more modern, Joycean inspired moniker: the Anna Livia Bridge dates to 1753.

You’ve probably heard that Stoneybatter has been gentrified. They wrote about us in The Guardian, so it must be true. As the fourth generation of my family living in the neighbourhood, the notion of gentrification sits uncomfortably with me. Certainly, we have seen changes in recent years, and some of my neighbours have been given the short end of the stick since “boomtime” passed. The people still living in the O’Devaney Gardens flats were abandoned without the new homes and services that they’d been promised. Like anywhere in Dublin, rents are soaring and building companies are buying up property by the handful, which has priced some people out of the neighbourhood.