Sunday morning Dublin

Dublin doesn't really wake up until 11 on a Sunday. Hardly anyone's around at 10.30. I am walking to pick up my car from beside McGrath's of Drumcondra, because I had been drinking there last night and got a taxi home.

In Cabra, cans blow up the empty street like tumbleweed in a Western. A boy tries to fly a kite.

At Phibsborough town centre, a Traveller boy rides a horse bareback down the main street, dodging in and out of the traffic. The horse is shaking its head in fear, but the boy keeps it in control. He and I turn right towards the Royal Canal, but the horse refuses at the entrance to the footpath.

Along the canal, building work continues on the banks. Modern apartments are going up next to the walls of Mountjoy prison. The building debris is dumped into the canal. I wonder if the canal is still navigable. I also wonder about damp in the apartments, as well as escaped convicts appearing at the French windows one stormy night.

Piles of vomit abound on the footpath. The locks are overflowing. At the Drumcondra end of the canal, there is a huge scum of bright green algae. Overlooking it is a bench with a life-sized statue of Brendan Behan on it. Next to him sits a man, chugging a two-liter bottle of cider. It looks like he's sharing a drink with Brendan. "The auld triangle, goes jingle jangle, all along the banks of the Royal Canal", wrote Behan when in Mountjoy.

On Drumcondra Road, two girls are running down the centre of the street dressed in team colours. One of them holds a torch aloft. They have a police escort and the traffic has been halted. The girls make a right turn along the canal, towards Croke Park, looming in the distance. A car hoots and points down Drumcondra Road. They point at Croke Park, but realise they're now running down a cul-de-sac. The driver shakes his head and points again. They realise their mistake, giggle, and return to the main street.

I get to my car and drive home. In Iona Road, a newspaper seller is constructing a shelter opposite a church to sell papers to exiting Mass-goers. An elderly Rastafarian gentleman, dreadlocks stuffed in his woolly hat, stops and buys the Sunday Independent. I buy a chicken and vegetables from the supermarket, and return home to coffee and Sunday quiet.