Dublin and Bray, Ireland 1999

Some of my old, non-digital photos. In 1999 I lived in Bray and commuted to Dublin by train. Ireland was in the EU, but it still used the Irish pound, although the exchange rate to ECU - the precursor of the euro was fixed. The Republic gave up the claim to the northern counties and the political arm of the IRA joined a coalition government in Northern Ireland. The Troubles were ending, but still very fresh. The animosity between the Irish/Catholic and the British/Protestant was very real and very personal for some people. A British girl from Northern Ireland told me a story. I don't remember if it happened to her or her friend, but it went something like that: The girl was on a date in a pub with a man who was Irish. She left her purse and went away for a moment. When she came back he was gone. When she opened her purse there was sh*t there... A number of years earlier, I think in 1990 a bomb went off while I was in London. The extraordinary thing was that the Troubles ended by talks.

Sugarloaf

The water was always cold.

Dublin:

DART - Dublin Area Rapid Transit

The tallest building in Dublin.

Howth?

Saturday mornings meant rubbish in the streets and sometimes cars with broken windows after Friday night out.

The office park where I worked. Btw, Sheila, if you ever happen to read this, sorry for the trouble I caused you at work - I didn't know it at first, but I was a wrong person for that job and it was stressing me like hell. I tried to suppress it, but it was an emotional rollercoaster.

This was a time when American companies were moving European headquarters to Dublin, mainly for tax reasons. This office park had Oracle, Sun, and others. The historic trend of graduates emigrating for work reversed and the Irish started coming home from the US and the UK. They were joined by people from all over Europe showing up to work for international companies - I was one of them.

We could either walk or wait for the free shuttle bus from the train station to the office park.

James Connolly was executed for taking part in the 1916 Easter Rising against British rule in Ireland.

Vandalised monument to the victims of UVF bombings.

Dublin still had a long way to go to reach prosperity. In 1999 I remember stickers on buses and plaques in various places with "Partially financed by the European Union". Today Ireland's GDP per capita is twice that of Germany.