By | Gan Mairéad M. Cullen
I was born on the South side of Dublin. My family moved to Sheriff St. on the North side when I was four years old. I attended St. Laurence O’Toole’s Girls’ Primary School until age 13. I began working in the kitchen of the Brown Thomas store and,…

By | Gan Gary Brown
This poem looks back at what working life was like for one of the thousands of casual labourers who worked at the Dublin docks in the mid-twentieth century. The foreman, or Stevedore, allocated work to men daily. Those labourers would often be left…

By | Gan Gary Brown
The wives and families of dockers had to face deprivations that often went unnoticed or unreported. Because of the dangerous nature of work in and around the docklands areas, work accidents where very common. Almost on a daily basis, men were…

By | Gan Mick Foran
This poem addresses Anna Livia, a carved keystone figure. Keystone heads were carved by Edward Smyth in the late eighteenth century. Anna Livia keystone heads grace Dublin's Custom House and the warehouse at 30- 32 Sir John Rogerson’s Quay.Anna…

By | Gan Gary Brown
Tethered, tossed and twinkling,A beckoning beacon between bar and bull,Paving pathways in a bending bay of swirlingsurf and smiling shores.Invitation to our harbour of doubtFailte, céad mile, come surge like a stormin our settling stout. Tested in…

By | Gan Gary Brown
Get to bell before the low tideSlow down the pipe mind your stride.Compressed air makes the breathing hardWorking for hours in heat and dark.Levelling out the seabed get it rightQuay stones to be laid before the night. Six in our gang in our metal…

By | Gan The Ports, Past and Present team
The modern history of Dublin Port begins in the early 1700s, when a bank was constructed to protect the south side of the channel at the mouth of the harbour, enabling ships to reach the city even in high winds. This was replaced by the South Bull…

By | Gan Declan Byrne
At one stage in Dublin Port, roughly as many ships were worked outside the dock gates as inside. Ships were worked on the North Wall and along the South Quays. Cranes would lower their gibs into the ship's hatches, where cargo would be put on…