...... see SLIDESHOW below ........

Just one hundred metres from the real Lyndsay Hill, our tableau opens with a young boy walking the rail (it is still there) past the tiny tenement houses that used to line the south side of this steep rise up towards St Clare’s Avenue. There is a priest-like figure standing at a door. There is a Town Crier alongside holding a rolled-out scroll which contains a poem about life – along the lines of, though not as good as the old favourite , “What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare?”

I like this image. As young boys we used to attempt this tightrope-walking type feat, though I never achieved more than three or four steps. I have my reservations about the Town Crier’s dress – more “My Fair Lady” fantasy than Irish town reality – but that’s bickering! A good start!

Next is a mural entitled Days of North Street, which I presume applies to the full set. Three groups are featured, some boys playing “Ringsie” at marbles; a lad playing with a ball of thread; and a road-sweeper.

In tableau three a row of shops – featuring Pearce’s - is featured in the background, with a laden cart outside it. Some figures are in the foreground; a boy with a dog on a leash; a lad playing with a toy windmill; and a lady shopper.

Pearce’s shop is again featured in the fourth tableau. Two men are talking beside a stationary push-bike. There is also a man with two greyhounds on a leash.

The fifth tableau is outside “Woods Practical Bootmakers”. A lady with a babe in arms is featured as well as a cow (curiously out of perspective) and a milk churn.

We will reserve further critical appraisal until we have commented on all of the images.

……… more of this later ………

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