Michael Moynihan: Using the built environment to tell the story of a city and its people

Social historian Donal Fallon has followed up on his Three Castles Burning podcast with an accompanying book, Three Castles Burning — A History of Dublin in Twelve Streets.

Nothing human is alien to me, says the poet. Not even matters in the capital. Regular readers of this column will appreciate that a template sourced in foreign fields can often be a fruitful starting point. Hence my keen interest in Donal Fallon’s Three Castles Burning podcast, and now the accompanying book, Three Castles Burning — A History of Dublin in Twelve Streets.

This is a combination irresistible to me, certainly, the story of a city filtered through the prism of particular streets and stories. When I tracked Donal down, though, he flipped that combination back at me.