Dublin's heart and charm is cluttered, cluttered with atmosphere not fecking 'quarters' with their chrome and their Costas. Dublin is a good second-hand shop, a Freebird records, Dandelion market, Kehoes, Mulligans, Marks Bros, where folk gather, share and hunt for diamonds....
It's Bewley's and the Savoy and tara street station and the piano at Pearse and Chapters bookshop and get the last of your wrapping paper and the walk to Croker and the canal end heaving and Patrick Kavanagh chilling on the canal..
It's the glow of the Aviva and the dart rattling in and the excitement of Grafton Street and the velvet of the Gaiety, the sticky floors and sounds of the Olympia and Thomas street with artists and those that might be drinking pints as the toilet rolls are sold on the street
It's the badges on the bridges and the magic of the halfpenny or standing and looking down towards the Four Courts and the glisten of the lights of the Liffey, deep green and maybe an old trolley.
It's the bus stops and the runners damp with the puddles and the rotunda pregnant and the Gate and the Abbey and the havoc of the shops and the poor and the jagged and your man coming towards you and the guilt and what can I do but turn a corner..
It's Stephen's Green in the summer and the ducks and Merrion square and all the posh offices and the dead zoo and the real zoo and the smell of the reptile house and the excitment of the wishing chair
It's bedsits, students, busking and the stag heads then busking again, the Project with a bucket hanging from the ceiling. Henry street, Grafton's tearaway and edgy younger sister, fond of danger and living on the edge and making a few quid and trying the makeup on in Arnotts
It's the North and the Southside and the Liffey in between but most of all its the people from North Wall, Ballybough, Ringsend, Rathmines, the suburbs as they travel seeking adventure and solace.
It's meant to be cluttered. The women of Moore Street, The flower sellers on Grafton, the badge sellers, the hawkers, the buskers, the dreamers, the lost, the lonely, Dublin was made for us all. Not for mammon but for ramblin' and dreaming. That gives Dublin it's saunter
Not the big companies with shallow innovations. Not the progress that spits more and more people out onto her streets or hides the homeless in hotels. Not the constant chatter of what is wrong and whose fault. The children lying on streets aren't looking to blame but for shelter
