The Gallery
But along with the new look - and the sky-rocketing salaries and rents - comes a darker side: Dublin police recently reported an alarming increase in drug busts and gun-related crime.
Dolphins Barn, by contrast, has stayed the same: its inhabitants mostly unemployed, its streets ill-lit and derelict. In all likelihood, Roy will stay there and grow up up to be just like his dad, Paul, who believes it's something that's ingrained in the Irish working class. “We hand things down through the generations. The family sticks together, and we'd gladly die for what we believe in.”
Roy can back that up. His grandfather was a karate expert, who taught his son how to fight. Paul, in turn, passed on the moves to Roy. “He's taught me how to take care of myself. Not just karate. I can do hand-to-hand combat, one-arm wrestling, and judo.”
“And back-flips,” says Paul, proudly ruffling his son's hair. “Go on - get up on the bar and show us your back-flip.”
All text and photographs copyright of Our Forgotten Children
Republic of Ireland
A Sunday in Dublin. Down by the docks, the menfolk gather at O'Shea's Tavern for an afternoon of bar talk, surrounded by pints of gleaming Guinness. For Roy Smith, hanging out with his best mates is one of life's undisputed pleasures.
Except Roy is only six years old.
“O'Shea's is like my home” says Roy. “Me and my cousins have been coming since we were little, and as long as we don't get to fighting, it's okay with the dads.” As for the mums - they don't have much say on the matter: on Sundays they congregate separately in another bar a few blocks away.
Dolphins Barn is a grimy working class section of Dublin, where the families of dock workers live in much the same conditions as their forebears did a hundred years ago.
Across town, it's a different story. The smart boutiques and restaurants that have transformed Grafton Street are testament to Ireland's startling emergence as the success story of Europe. Sparked by huge subsidies from the European Union, the last decade has seen the country transformed from a rural backwater to a high-tech haven for software companies and investment bankers.