I’m a born and bred southside boy, but no stranger to the mean streets of Dublin north.

Back in the 70’s and early 80’s - when, like today, money was a scarce commodity - my dad made a weekly trek through ten feet of snow, volcanoes, solar flares, heatwaves, and floods to pick up fruit and veg on Moore Street. Or so he likes to tell us (actually, he got the bus and carried the boxes and bags home).

Fast forward a few years to the 1980’s. My parents had a gaggle of kids now so they’d finally bought a car. Every Saturday, they piled us all in and drove us to Moore Street. The traders lined the length and breadth of the street, and Dad knew them all by name. The women would always throw in “a little extra”: a few apples, a couple of extra carrots or - if they were feeling particularly generous - a head of cauliflower (back then, people still ate cauliflower).

Dad also bought a packet of jam tarts, and allowed my two wicked sisters and I to choose one chocolate bar each. You could pick up four out-of-date chocolate bars for £1 (€1.27), just outside the world’s grottiest looking pub (now long gone). We’d all pile back into the car, shouting and fighting, and then share some bags of chips from Burdock’s. Those were our treats for the week. On the drive home, dad would brag and boast about how he’d got the best deals on the freshest produce, before launching into a rant on the evils of tinned, jarred or frozen fruit and veg.

A few weeks ago, Jean and I found ourselves on Moore Street to meet a photographer from the RTE Guide. It’s changed a lot since my yoof.

Read the rest of this entry »