'How To Disappear' - 'Sunset Connoisseur'

"Sunset Connoisseur" is an instrumental track on Limerick musician Paddy Mulcahy's latest vinyl album How To Disappear, which is "printed on recycled material - every copy will be a different colour," he says.

The track also has a superb new video by Dave Fox. It's shot around modern warts-and-all Dublin, on an old Super 8mm camera that he recently inherited. Enjoy.

The 'Pigeon House' of Stoneybatter

Pigeons of Discontent is a superb new documentary by Paddy Cahill about the pigeons of Stoneybatter. It was inspired by Cónal Thomas's report in the Dublin Inquirer two years ago about the birds that congregate around the "Pigeon House" on Manor Street.

Despite the film's title and a few dissenting voices, it's essentially a celebration of the wee flockers. Among those taking part is Mary Barnecutt from the band Mary and the Pigeons - who also provide the atmospheric music at the start.

For more on Paddy Cahill's brilliant work, check out this post on my other blog about Long Now, his Amanda Coogan documentary.

Billy in the Bowl, the Stoneybatter Strangler

Above: "Billy in the Bowl" by Shota Kotake, part of the @DublinCanvas series of painted traffic-light control boxes

One of Dublin's most infamous killers is surely Billy in the Bowl, aka the Stoneybatter Strangler. He's a local ledge in our hood, as the young ones say.

But this being eighteenth-century folklore, bear in mind that the following facts might get blurry here and there...

'Dancing Bug' in Oxmantown

Yet another music vid shot in Stoneybatter's back streets. It's for the single "Dancing Bug", a collaboration between Aoife McCann aka Æ Mak on vocals and Le Boom - electronic duo Aimie Mallon and Chris Leech.

Prominent from the start is Carnew Street, also used by the Spice Girls two decades ago for their "Stop" video. Watch out for the fleeting but excellent drone shots of the grid of terraced streets of Oxmantown.

Mahon Printers and the fabric of society

1. The Huguenots

Dead industries and ways of production linger on in Dublin's street names. Some names reflect the Huguenots who settled here in Ireland, and their descendants in the city's growing middle classes. Many of them came as refugees from France, particularly after the Edict of Nantes was revoked in 1685.

Rainbows over Stoneybatter

Has Stoneybatter really become the "gay capital" of the Irish universe? Here are two possible answers...

Benburb Street art (another update)

Benburb Street in Stoneybatter continues to have its little stretch of open-air gallery, which is one bright thing amid all that dilapidation and dereliction.

Tommy May's and the Liffey Swim

The corner shop, that endangered species... One such local institution in Dublin 7 is - or rather, was - Tommy May's. Remember May's, near the bottom of Infirmary Road, on the wild western fringe of Stoneybatter, where Pat Kenny - the Pat Kenny - was born?

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.

More on the docks, and Leo Varadkar

Ireland's latest taoiseach (prime minister) happens to be gay, young (38) and have a dad from India. Cue plenty of international headlines making out like our country has suddenly become ultra progressive. As if.

The Jobstown House, Jobstown

The Jobstown House gets a quick mention in book #4 of the Moss Reid series, The Rebel Type. I first found out about the Dublin pub via its brilliant viral videos, starting with its entry in the "Mannequin Challenge" last year (above).

A map of Stoneybatter (sort of)

As far as I know there's no official map of Stoneybatter, but here's one I made earlier (as they say on the best cookery shows). Click here for a much larger version.

As I explained in an earlier post, some of its borders are fairly clear-cut and uncontestable, others - particularly to the east where it meets Smithfield - are much less so.

The horseman of Stirrup Lane

Less than a month after the tribute to Stormzy went up in Dublin's Smithfield district, another cool mural has arrived just around the corner, in Stirrup Lane. It's brilliant too.

Smithfield's mural to Stormzy

This mural tribute to rapper Stormzy has appeared overnight on the wall of the old Block T building on the Haymarket side of Smithfield in Dublin.

The Hungry Tree in the King's Inns

"Inosculation," Wikipedia tells me, "is a natural phenomenon in which trunks, branches or roots of two trees grow together."

The Barbers pub, Grangegorman

A quick update on the pub on the Lower Grangegorman road that I wrote about in 2014, when it was still known as The Grange.

The Infant of Prague, the Lady on the Rock

An earlier post deals with 83 Manor Street in Stoneybatter, with its magnolia tree and Austin Clarke connections and the work of master craftsman James Beatley. While James's instruments are beautifully handmade, the following two slices of popular culture are mass produced.

Next door at 84 Manor Street is a bed and breakfast. Pride of place in the fanlight above its front door is a statue, sometimes illuminated by an electric light. It's an Infant of Prague, also known as a Child of Prague.

The magnolias of Manor Street

"When the magnolia begins to blossom." It's almost like one of those much parodied movie moments in which the secret agents exchange their code phrases...

'Educating Rita', from Zoom to Mooz

Believe it or not, an upmarket new Italian grocer in Stoneybatter called Mooz was once a location for a very famous film from 1983.

A virtual tour of Walshes pub

Walsh's pub in Stoneybatter (or "Walshes" with an "e" if, like me, you go by the spelling on its splendid stained glass) is a frequent setting in the "Moss Reid" series. The following virtual tour from Google Maps gives a good idea of its interior layout; pity it can't give a flavour of one of the best pints of Guinness in Dublin...