When the bus stopped outside the chapel on Bachelors Walk we paused to ‘pay a visit’, lighting a candle for blessings on us and our friends and families back in Aotearoa-New Zealand, the two entwined as always. A quick walk around the block and the sights and sounds of Dublin come tumbling back.

The tide was out on the Liffey, the thick lime green slime beckoning for a strong bleach! A young woman carrying a baby asks Jack for some euros and we crane necks peering up at our old shoe box apartment.

There’s time for a quick catch up with the ‘hags with the bags’ and we bustle alongside the lunch time walkers on the Ha’penny Bridge.

A loud ‘eruption’ of inimitable Dublin street shouting comes from three women and yer man ‘giving out’ to each other, while the banner on the Liffey River wall asks us a pertinent question, ‘What would you ask yourself?’.

I smile at the complexity and craic of Dublin, and love reliving it.

 Ring a ring a rosie, as the light declines,

I remember Dublin city in those rare auld times.

 There are changes too – the roadworks and excavations we lived through have borne fruit and the Luas is working up and down Henry Street. The ‘Hop On – Hop Off’ buses are now bright green and the faces rushing past me represent multiple ethnicities.
As we wait to catch the bus to Sandymount I say out loud several times ‘I would so love to come back and live here!’ while whispering quickly to my children and grandchildren in case they are listening ‘but I probably won’t!’