People & Community

Jane Jacobs, the doyenne of urban planning, believed that the success of any city owed a lot to the “intricacy of pavement use, bringing with it a constant succession of eyes”. She wrote, in The Death and Life of Great American Cities: “There must be eyes upon the street, eyes belonging to those we might call the natural proprietors of the street. The buildings on a street equipped to handle strangers, and to ensure the safety of both residents and strangers, must be oriented to the street. They cannot turn their backs or blank sides on it and leave it blind.” However, what happens when the residents and strangers are themselves blind to the

They’re a group of lads from around the Liberties. Late teens to early 20s, bustling with animation. Bit of slagging about who is going to talk to Dublin.ie. Probably a bit of slagging about the guy from Dublin.ie. But these are decent guys. You could probably place a safe bet that one or two of them might be no stranger to a bit of mischief in their day. So what they are up to takes you a little bit by surprise. If someone outside the gate told you that these guys were making salad bowls inside the yard, “get up the yard!” would be your likely response. But this is the Yard Crew, part of the Solas Project. The

You may not realise it, but Capel Street is one of Dublin’s most historically significant streets. It doesn’t appear in tourist guides as much as O’Connell Street or Grafton Street, but it’s definitely worth spending some time here. The history of Capel Street Back in the 17th century, Capel Street was a fundamental part of Dublin’s expansion north of the river Liffey by Sir Humphrey Jervis.

Mary Louise ‘Maz’ Reilly, a sports development officer with Dublin City Council, plays rugby for Ireland. She was on the Grand Slam-winning side of 2013 and plays in her third World Cup tournament, hosted by Ireland, this month. It was always soccer and Gaelic football at home. No one played rugby. One day a friend asked me to jump in and give a dig out and I was like ‘there is not a hope, that sport is way too rough’. Anyway, she got the better of me and I got involved and realised that I actually really enjoyed rugby. For me, in work, it’s the same thing. Whether I’m out cha

I used to live a pretty isolated life. I’m not saying that my past was a straight line to Men’s Shed in Ireland but it definitely played a big part in my empathy for those who needed our services. I was an only child of a farming family and in my mid 20’s I ended up being a farmer too. I never wanted to be a farmer. It was just the obvious choice. The area was nice, really quiet, not much happening at all. So, I partied too much, I got into drink and drugs and it was very bad for my health. Farming was like that for me. I felt unhappy and isolated all the time. I badly needed something to change and I guess when I turned 27, I was in the right place then. I had devel

The popularity of spoken word is on the rise in Dublin and one of the stars of the scene is Elayne Harrington, AKA Temper-Mental MissElayneous. She’s a rapper and slam poet from Finglas and a standout female performer on a male-dominated scene. Dublin.ie first saw Elayne perform at a women’s storytelling night in Temple Bar’s Project Arts Centre. With her trademark hairdo of curlers in her fringe, the bold red lips and her warrior stance, she was defiant and gutsy. She set her words to the beat of h

I used to work in very tech heavy jobs, consulting with big tech companies like Capgemini and Avnet. Back then I was one of the first people amongst my peers to get an iPhone and iPad for use with work. I enjoyed the luxury of being able to follow up on emails from the comfort of my home and get the updates about ongoing projects instantly; but after a while realised that overuse of tech was having a serious impact on my productivity and wellbeing. As the borders between ‘at work’ and being ‘off’ began to vanish I started having issues with sleep and my relationships as I spent too much time online. I needed a change so badly that I decided to move sectors just to

On one count at least, the GPO is a disappointment to its visitors. ‘People come in looking for a big green post box. it’s a bit of let-down when I tell them there isn’t one’, says security guard David, who’s from Peckham but has Irish roots.

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

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

Wrapped from head to toe against the hostile elements, surrounded by a riot of colour which cuts a sharp contrast with the grey February day, meet the flower ladies of Grafton Street. They say the ladies are “the heart and soul of Grafton Street” and what helps save the road from becoming just another English high street. You’ll find the ladies bringing both wit and colour to the corners of Chatham, Harry and Duke Streets. Tina Kelly tells us she’s been selling flowers all her life, starting off aged 12 helping her mother when Grafton St still had two-way traffic. She has seen a lot come and go from her perch on Duke Street. Tina tells Dublin.ie that one time she even met The Duke himself. “Yeah I met John Wayne.” “Sure I met them all,” she adds. “Sean Connery… I was talking away to him, Liam Neeson, Pierce Brosnan, Lisa Stanfield. I met an awful lot of them. And sure Eric Clapton, well I was talking to him on the street for nearly two hours and I hadn’t a clue who he was.” A natural born story teller, you can tell Tina enjoys the banter that comes with the trade. Many of the customers are obviously regulars as there’s lots of first name usage. Sister-in-law Susanne, who mans the Harry Street corner, says “you have to enjoy talking to people.” And in case we hadn’t noticed, she adds: “Now I would be a talker!” The Kelly name is synonymous with flowers on Grafton Street going way back, Susanne says. “Now I married into the Kelly family,” she says adding that she comes from a family of boxers. My grandfather was Spike McCormick.”