TD 1
Like a vintage car, it takes constant care to mai
ntain it to a standard. the Twelfth Lock in Castleknock. “The guys up there are really inspirational,” Matt says. “A real driving force since this kicked off.” The lock teems with life the Sunday after I visit Gary. Residens bathe. Kids dive into the Royal Canal from a gate that had been chained shut for months. A family sits up on their deck, drinking pints of Guinness, while a young woman plays guitar for her blind elderly mother. In the trees are bird houses. By the banks are some men fishing and on his boat, Luis Gomezcala hammers beams into the walls, which are lined with foil, “for the aliens,” his partner jokes. In all, fifteen liveaboards are moored in Castleknock on this particular Sunday. Of those, two belong to Luis. The second, he is renovating as I arrive. Speaking over a stereo which blares Kiss and The Eagles, he explains that this task would take four months if done professionally. But in his case, it will take about 18. This is how he spends weekends as he works for an IT company from Monday to Friday. “I like building things with my hands. When I work, I find myself behind a computer. So I like grabbing a hammer, a drill.” “People just want to live differently,” he says. “We have people living minimalistically, living with a smaller footprint. We lived through a recession. I had close friends who lost houses. I don’t want to commit to a 30year mortgage when I don’t know what is going to happen in the next five years.” Reflecting on the changes in Castleknock, he says that five years ago there were only three boats moored here. “Now there are 25.” Luis and his boat, photos Killian Broderick It is a change that he only sees as good news. “The community is everything,” he insists. “If you want to see a place that has no boats, go down to where Broom Bridge is and walk the canal there. You will see shopping carts. Everything is horrible. People have picnics here!” Once I leave the lock, Luis sends me a series of photos he took around Broom Bridge in Cabra. They show litter on the banks and in the water; cans, traffic cones, plastic packaging, a mattress. But among these is an image of a plaque mounted to the bridge. It reads: “Here as he walked on the 16th of October 1843 Sir William Rowan Hamilton in a flash of genius discovered the fundamental formula for quaternion multiplication i²=j²=k²=ijk=-1 and cut it on a stone of this bridge.” Luis wants this plaque to be seen. He doesn’t want dumping to deter people from walking along that stretch of the Royal Canal and never find out what Sir William Rowan Hamilton discovered “in a flash of genius”. He wants people to spot this, to marvel at their surrounding environment. And as far as he is concerned, one way to do that is to up the number of mooring permits. 22