Scenes from the analogue city - Memories of Limerick from the late 80s and early 90s

Joanne Betty Conlon’s pictures of Limerick in the late 1980s and early 1990s inspired author Kevin Barry to dip into his own memories of that era in his hometown

1. Then came the year of the Libyans. All at once there were hundreds of them in the city. They were in for a big construction job down the docks. They had great dark extravagant hair and a quality of skin tone beyond the usual currency of the place. The heads of the local banshees were turned.

The local boys were not happy. The local boys had skin like sour milk and hair like crows. The situation deteriorated. Soon on the hot summer nights there were running battles with the Libyans. There were random assaults with iron bars and knives. There were screams that ripped the sky alive. And the banshees wailed on the dockside stones.