Pop In, I Can Help
The pharmacist in the window is beaming and offering to help. “Pop in, I can help & advise.” I don’t think this man checking his phone is a customer.
Lucky Leprechauns
The performing leprechauns are back, sitting next to the new raised flower beds that were installed by Cork City Council recently. They love the attention but they are loud.
Three People, Three Phones, One Street
Opera Lane on a Tuesday morning, and three people in a row are looking at their phones.
This Way Up
Three red things line up in this one. First the red arrow, a sticker on one of the big cardboard boxes in the Arnotts window display, pointing across at her. Then a red and white stick taped to the glass at an angle, aimed down at her too. And the red case on her phone,…
Christmas Eve on the Lee
Christmas Eve in Cork, and the fog had settled over the south channel of the Lee and stayed put all morning. It was 2005, and the banks of the river looked very different. The old tax office still stood on Sullivan’s Quay, and the Peace Park opposite still had trees and overgrown shrubs hanging over…
The Last Mass at St. Augustine’s
It was announced a few months ago that St. Augustine’s Church in Cork City would close on July 12th, with a final mass at 11:30 that morning. I arrived around 11:20, curious to see what it would be like, only to see every space on every bench taken and people standing at the back of…
Working the Façade
The manager had the best spot on the street: feet planted, hand on hip, watching three other men do the actual work. Two were up in a green cherry picker prodding at the glass of the HSBC building, and a third leaned on a rail inside and watched them. That’s two layers of supervision for…
North Main Street, in Yellow
On North Main Street the two buildings split the frame: grey-blue on the left, worn yellow on the right, with Barnardos and the old Edward B. Sheehan shopfront underneath. A man in a yellow T-shirt walked past the charity shop, a few paces in front of a woman in a yellow cap, phone in hand….
Legs Crossed, Work Paused
Two decorators taking a break against a shop hoarding on a London street. I love all the legs. 🙂
Cork Wash
The brushes spin past in blue and yellow while a black Micra sits in the middle of the cycle. This was 2005, so the driver had a newspaper open across the wheel to fill the couple of minutes it took. Water beads across the bonnet and the Cork plate, 98-C-6325, reads clearly through the spray….
A Long Trans Flag Across the City
We marched with a great crowd through the centre of Cork today for Trans+ Pride Cork. A trans flag big enough to need a dozen pairs of hands was carried down the street, past the shops on Grand Parade, St. Patrick Street, Winthrop Street and then up Oliver Plunkett Street to Grand Parade again. Pink…
Nobody’s Buying Peanuts Right Now
The nut seller had clearly decided the crowd could wait. Some behind him caught his attention and the crowd passing in front wasn’t buying his roasted nuts.