Lar Boland’s photos of ‘The Hill’, Dublin’s grubbiest flea market, evoke echoes of the grim twilight world of Monto’s slum tenements, deprivation, shebeens, and prostitution for Alan Murdoch
A rotund woman drops a vast black plastic sack off her shoulder, tipping its contents onto the pavement. Old cardigans, shirts, trousers, sweaters spill out in chaotic heaps. Other women quickly gather round examining them with the intent look of serious bargain hunters.
The Hill brings a different perspective to the phrase down-market. A Corporation clean-up has now made it less anarchic, but for decades even the word ‘market’ seemed ill-chosen, implying organisation and regulation, neither of which were much in evidence. Turning right off O’Connell Street early on a Saturday morning at the Gresham Hotel into Sean MacDermott Street then left on to the sloping Upper Cumberland Street North, you arrive in the mecca of absolute junk. Until recently, traders arrived late on Friday night to claim the best spots with travellers, duvets clasped around them against the cold, and other junk dealers jostling for space. After locals complained about overnight noise, lines were painted on the pavement defining sales pitches, with gardai maintaining order
The National Library of Ireland recently acquired an album of thirty-six watercolours and prints made by James Cavanah Murphy in Portugal between 1789 and 1790. Michael McCarthy recalls the career and travels of this unusual draughtsman
The Smurfit Art Collection spans three continents and contains some of the best 20th-century Irish art. Ciaran MacGonical reviews a new catalogue of the collection