I am so at home in Dublin, more than any other city, that I feel it has always been familiar to me. It took me years to see through its soft charm to its bitter prickly kernel - which I quite like too.

Dublin stories

What had Gretta on?

The Conroys and the Blooms had something in common: a stranger, in one case a dead one, had wandered into their marriage. They also tended to wander into each other's books.

Amor and Psyche

A German traveller’s account of a visit he made to Dublin in 1850 reveals much about the politics and economics of being pretty and the life of a poor girl in Victorian Dublin

Tallaght, before Babel

Fionn Mac Cumhaill was well remembered until quite recently for his many exploits not too far off the route of the 65b from Hawkins Street

The Prussians are impressed

The German historian Friedrich Von Raumer, visiting in 1835, had never seen beggars, or popular amusements, quite like Dublin's.

A Dublin Poem

A no-man's land twixt Norse and Brit, chained to the granite quays.

Hormones Will Out

Trinity College students in the early twentieth century were denied association with women, so their energies found other outlets.

Morning Glory Beyond Rathmines

A Dublin poem, of going and returning, from Gerard Smyth.

Weeping for the Workers

The supreme place given to the national question meant some Dublin politicians had to affect a deep concern for the poor they did not necessarily really feel.

The Lady in the Dodder

A stroll along the banks of the Dodder recalls a murder committed in 1900, and its reverberations in two of Joyce's works.

Well Done Please

Like the famous literary character he created, Bram Stoker was a healthy feeder.

Supping with the Devil

Four generations ago Dublin had a vibrant and numerous working class Protestant community. For some of their middle class co-religionists they were too vibrant.

Larkin in Dublin

Philip Larkin visited Dublin for a library conference in 1967. He wasn't hugely impressed.

Categories