The Donnybrook years. Before living in the ridiculously swanky spot I do now (though my being there is a sign that the times are a changin') I lived down near a big park, with ducks and everything. The first halloween we were there we were inundated with trick or treaters and we hadn't prepared for it at all. I think we had maybe a pack of rolos and those fizzy cola bottles jellies that
The second year we prepared and spent a fortune on sweets. Then we sat down to watch some horror movies, switched off the lights and somewhere around midnight realised that we hadn't had a single visitor. We were having fun sized snickers bars for every meal for a week.
Rialto - the twin town to fallujah. For two years we lived in a house on a street where most of the houses were owned by a major criminal. I can't remember which one it was but he's dead now. It was the monk or the penguin I think. Note to the foreign: yes, our villains do have a certain batman style naming convention. The irish love a "chancer" (read: psychotic bastard) so we give them cute nicknames. If we were more accurate and called them things like "kiddie dope dealing, kneecap smashing c**t" then the cops might have a bit more support from the fine folks of Ireland.
Anyway, this lent the street a certain level of protection, no one was mad about throwing bricks through our windows in case the landlord was "the teddybear" or "Mr Fizziwig" and the vandal ended the day under three feet of cement. Most of the houses had bars on the windows anyway, including ours. Surprisingly the kids here were the best of any place I've ever lived. This came as a surprise after...
Finglas. About five years ago now I spent a while in Finglas with