Showing posts with label Arbour Hill. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Arbour Hill. Show all posts

Saturday 29 July 2017

The Sheela-na-gigs of Stoneybatter



There's no general agreement on how to spell them (Sheela na gig, Síle na gcíoch, Síle na gCíoc...) or what they stand for.  But there are at least four tiny stone-like figures that might very well be sheela-na-gigs in Stoneybatter, making it the sheela-na-gig capital of Ireland.

Wednesday 17 August 2016

Worldwide Discount Airfares, Arbour Hill


Ghost signs are a recurring motif in Ghost Flight, such as this one - an abandoned shopfront at 58A Arbour Hill in Stoneybatter. The book only mentioned it in passing, but it deserves far better, because since the start of the recession the building has become, well, a sort of lovable local landmark.

Sunday 5 June 2016

Christy Brown's coal lorry, Arbour Hill



Dublin writer and artist Christy Brown was born on this day in 1932. My Left Foot, Jim Sheridan's award-winning film from 1989, tells the semi-fictional story of Christy (brilliantly played by Daniel Day-Lewis), and this is a famous scene shot in Stoneybatter, around Arbour Hill.

Saturday 5 March 2016

Arbour Hill Cemetery #1


Arbour Hill's military cemetery is the last resting place of 14 of the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising. It is currently undergoing a revamp.

Tuesday 1 March 2016

A little patch of (UN) sky blue


The UN memorial garden in Arbour Hill in Dublin will be an early location in the fourth Moss Reid book. A small garden with at least three entrances/exits - one directly onto the street - yet secluded, tranquil and rather special.

Tuesday 12 January 2016

Arbour Hill Church, Stoneybatter


Arbour Hill's church and cemetery will feature prominently in Dublin's Easter 1916 centenary commemorations. And in Book #4 of the Moss Reid series too, as it happens. You heard it here first.

Thursday 22 October 2015

The Belfry, Stoneybatter


You'd be forgiven for thinking that the Belfry (mentioned briefly in Black Marigolds) is one of Stoneybatter's oldest pubs.

It's on a prominent street corner, hard to miss, an old landmark with its red-and-blue paintwork and those four splendid light-globes at the front saying "Shortts General Store".

Yet with its big screens and Sky Sport and pool table, the Belfry is/was in fact a relative newcomer. In the 1980s and early 1990s it used to be known as Daly's.

Tuesday 5 May 2015

Stoneybatter says 'Yes'

I've seen stranger turnabouts in elections before, but surely the SNP will take most - possibly all - of Scotland's seats this week, and on 22 May Stoneybatter will produce an overwhelming "Yes" vote in Ireland's same-sex marriage referendum.

I've only anecdotal evidence for the latter: friends and neighbours, several prominent pub and shop fronts, every second lamp post, so many canvassers, yet not a "No" in sight. It's a bolshie old place alright...

Friday 17 April 2015

Brendan Behan's Cowtown

You don't come across many films showing the massive old cattle market in Stoneybatter, aka "Cowtown". But you do get glimpses of it (around the 23-minute mark) in this documentary called "Brendan Behan's Dublin".

Monday 26 January 2015

Greek Orthodox Church, Dublin


The occasional tourist might ask you for directions "to the church on Arbour Hill". They're probably looking for the Church of the Sacred Heart, with its burial ground and monument to the 1916 rebel leaders.

But there's another church on the hill in Stoneybatter: the Greek Orthodox Church.

Wednesday 3 September 2014

Walshes snug, Stoneybatter

To get a good idea of Walshes pub on Manor Street in Stoneybatter, check out this superb new video by award-winning director and music documentarian Myles O’Reilly.


It's a ballad called "Way Up On The Mountain" by Ye Vagabonds - brothers Diarmuid and Brían Mac Gloinn. The duo currently play Walshes every Monday night.

Monday 25 August 2014

Things looking up at the Joinery?


Update: just weeks after I wrote this, in September 2014 the Joinery announced that it would be closing down for good the following December. It has archived its online material at thejoineryarchive.org

Wednesday 2 July 2014

Benburb Street #1: the old red-light district

A Dublin map showing Benburb Street or Barrack Street as it then was


Over the years Benburb Street has certainly been through the wars. Literally.

If you stroll, jog, cycle or take the tram along its route on a fine summer's day it can seem like a lovely spot today. Most of us can be forgiven for not knowing - or simply forgetting - about the street's sordid past.

But I deal in crime fiction, and this happens to be a real street in Stoneybatter with countless real crimes.

Saturday 7 June 2014

Thursday 5 June 2014

Lilliput Stores, Rosemount Terrace, Arbour Hill

Lilliput Stores, Rosemount Terrace, Dublin 7
Talk about timing. It was May 2007, just months before the Irish economy would implode dramatically like a neutron star. I can't imagine a more difficult time to start a new business in Dublin.

Yet that's the very time that a tiny greengrocers and deli called the Lilliput Stores first opened its doors. Or, strictly speaking, door (singular).