'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 Many of them came as refugees from France, particularly after the Edict of Nantes was revoked in 1685.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.