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.

Grangegorman Military Cemetery

Grangegorman Military Cemetery is back in the news again. Yesterday morning Canada's Ambassador to Ireland, Kevin Vickers, pounced on a protester during a State ceremony to remember the British soldiers killed in the Easter Rising.

Cromwell's Quarters, Murdering Lane, or The 39 (or is it 40?) Steps

For most of its life, right through the Victorian age, it was known as "Murdering Lane" or "Murdering-Lane" with a hyphen. Or "The Murd'ring Lane". Like the title of a bloodthirsty crime novel.

Boqueria, Stoneybatter

"Whaddya mean, it's a destination restaurant?" Colley, a regular character in the Moss Reid series of novels, sounds more narky than usual this morning. "What's a destination restaurant when it's at home?"

Stoneybatter skyline

Music documentarian Myles O'Reilly shot his classy new video of Anna-Mieke Bishop and her band a couple of days ago. It gives a relatively unusual view of Stoneybatter from up on the roof, during a sublime sunset. The music's great too.

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.

Green Street Courthouse

Ireland's juryless courts are back in the news this week after two gangland shootings in Dublin, and Sinn Fein has made the abolition of the Special Criminal Court (SCC) an election issue.

Hangman, hangman...

Dublin has its fair share of bloody street names. Literally.

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.

Berlin #4: Smithfield's 'Checkpoint Charlie'

Back in 1965, Smithfield Square and other parts of the northside of Dublin were transformed into Berlin, to much excitement and hoopla.

Richard Burton was in town - with Liz Taylor in tow - to film The Spy Who Came In From The Cold.

Berlin #3: the 'real' Checkpoint Charlie

So I'm in Berlin, doing research for book #4. I have vowed not to "do" Checkpoint Charlie.

Waste of time. Give it a miss. Sure hasn't it been done ("to death" I almost added, before thinking twice) in gazillions of films and spy novels and documentaries?

Berlin #2: Year Zero

Before my first research visit to Berlin I did some desk research, as you do. Tripadvisor, Google Streetview, the usual stuff. And YouTube. A lot of YouTube.

I wanted a rough visual idea of what Berlin must have been like at the end of WWII, and during the Cold War as a divided city. So I'd still be a superficial tourist, yet having a better idea of the city's layers of history.

Berlin #1: a city of layers

So there's this billboard at street level on Oranienstraße in the Kreuzberg district of Berlin. Its posters have slowly built up on each other, layer upon layer upon layer, until the layers are about a foot thick.