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As a city, Dublin sits in the background: a patch
work of areas featuring the same houses and flats, the same crap paint, the same old everything. Except that it’s not. Many of these buildings are no longer there now. Same with the communities and the young people who were their heartbeat. This collection preserves a part of Dublin that is recently gone. Not gone long enough to be noticed or missed, yet too far gone to preserve. Thankfully we had artists like Barry Delaney there to see and appreciate what was happening at the time. This collection then, is many things. A record of a city and the people who live in it. An invitation to a staredown. An unfiltered portrait of childhood and adolescence on its own terms. But it is also a glimpse into what it means to be part of a city. That is, to live a life that, as John Peel once put it, is ‘always different, always the same.’ Stars and Souls of the Liffey Dublin 2006–2016 barry Delaney Stars and Souls of the Liffey (Dublin 2006-2016) by Barry Delaney is published by Hi Tone Books this month along with an exhibition of the work in the GPO. barrydelaney.ie hitonebooks.ie 48