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4pm. O’Connell St. And it sounds like a Beckett play. Doom and gloom. Sitting and waiting. Waiting. Waiting for customers. “I suppose a fella gets to sit and read the paper all day. That’s what it’s come to,” says Austin Cregan, the third generation of his family to sell papers and magazines on the capital’s main street. Sitting in his kiosk near the Abbey St corner, Austin reaches behind him and takes out a laminated 2008 article from the Irish Times. It’s all about him and his father’s and grandfather’s life selling newspapers from the kiosk. “Read that,” he says to Dublin.ie. “Everything is in that. Excep

On St. Patrick’s Day 2017, Stephen James Smith sat a few rows back from Michael D Higgins in the presidential stand outside the GPO. Sitting beside his father, he watched as the parade passed by on O’Connell Street. He thought about how bizarre the whole situation was. He felt humbled by the experience. Aware of the risk of getting a swelled head, he knew he had to stay focussed on the next project. Stephen had been commissioned by St. Patrick’s Festival to produce a poem in honour of our national holiday. The parade was inspired by Stephen’s words. “It was surreal,” he says. “Almost 20 years ago

The old Jameson whiskey distillery is a beautiful and historic building in the heart of Dublin. It’s undergone numerous changes in its long life, the most recent of which has seen the building transformed into a spacious venue for distillery tours and events. As the project manager at the Jameson Brand Home, Paula Reynolds played a central role in the redevelopment of the site. “We were lucky in that the people working with us on the renovation managed to keep about 90 per cent of the original structures intact.” She points to the glass flooring we’re walking on. “Through the glass here you can see the original foundations of the distillery.” She points to

Mentions of Dublin’s Canals, both the Royal Canal and the Grand Canal, pour aplenty through Irish poetry and song. To each canal, a poet’s statue: The Royal has Brendan Behan, turned to look at you if you sit beside him; Patrick Kavanagh is on the Grand Canal, arms crossed and pensive. To each canal, a lyric: the passionate ‘Auld Triangle’ for the Royal; the contemplative ‘Canal Bank Walk’ for the Grand. They are the arteries running through the heart of Dublin unfurling into the countryside. The Grand bracing the city on the southside, stretching west 144km to the Shannon river and The Royal, on the northside, winding 146km to the same river. Yet despite their romantic depiction in poem and song – and perhaps as a result of their everyday lunch-breakiness – they’ve tended to get overlooked. All that is about to change. A small steady ‘friends of the canal’ movement is gaining momentum and these waterways encircling our city may soon be the focus of artful appreciation once more.

In conversation with Panti Bliss When the Marriage Equality referendum passed in May of 2015, Ireland’s dearest drag queen Panti Bliss took her place on the podium at Dublin Castle. Standing alongside Sinn Féin’s Gerry Adams and the then-Minister for Justice Francis Fitzgerald, she addressed the emotional crowd. Rory O’Neill’s alter ego, Panti, who had always been in the peripheral vision of the Irish people, was now front and centre having played a hugely important role in the Yes campaign. I don’t think Dubliners accept anyone as a Dubliner, unless they were born here. Today, Panti performs all over the world, but

A gang of lads. Shy, reserved, quiet. Just chewing the cud. Sure, every now and again, there is a bit of jostling. Just like you would expect from a group of healthy young males. However, there’s one thing you would not expect. And that’s the complete lack of interest in the women across the way. It’s almost like an old country ballroom. Men on one side. Women on the other. But come September, that will all change. Scents will be donned. Fights will be had. Women will be chased. Another generation will be born. So Park Ranger, Terry Moore, tells Dublin.ie as we cruise through a blustery Phoenix Park in his jeep.

‘Do you know the Five Lamps?’ If you’ve heard this question before - and been foolish enough to answer in the affirmative - you’ll know not to answer it again. Essentially it’s a peculiarly Dublin way to tell someone to shut-up or to feck-off: ‘Do you know the Five Lamps? Well go hang your bollox off them!’. No one actually knows how this old saying originated. Well, how could they? But hats off to whichever Dublin wit it was who came up with it. Now it’s part of inner city Dublin culture. The lamps in question are in Dublin’s North Strand area, situated at the junction of five streets: Portland Row, North Strand Road, Seville Place, Amiens Street and Killarney Street. There it is, sitting an island in the middle of the road: a decorative five-branched lamp-post.

How to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day like the Irish Below, Dublin.ie takes a look at some old traditions which take place in Irish homes, as well as what to expect from the modern St. Patrick’s Day Festival, which takes place across Dublin every March. St. Patrick’s Days past There is a tendency, when you’re Irish, to take the celebrations of St. Patrick’s Day for granted – until you spend it somewhere else. A couple of years ago, I was working in London’s Canary Wharf for St. Patrick’s Day. Looking out the window of a 15th-floor office, the only break of green in the glass and steel metropolis was some hastily painted shamrocks on

1966 was the 50th anniversary of the 1916 Rising. De Valera was president. Nelson’s Pillar was blown up. In the same year the Bishop of Clonfert protested about a guest on The Late Late Show who told host Gay Byrne that she hadn't worn a nightie on her wedding night. ‘66 also saw the opening of Ireland’s first shopping centre, in Stillorgan, south county Dublin. For generations of Southsiders – and especially their children - Stillorgan Shopping Centre was a place of magic, glamour and excitement. It gave us a glimpse of the USA: a wonderland of airy spaces and covered walkways arranged around a capacious car park.