Wednesday, May 25, 2005

Noisy Neighbours

If you've been reading through my past posts, you might've caught a mention or two of my neighbours. The current site of the Irish Financial Services Center happens to be right next to one of the historically poorest areas of Dublin. In actuality the residents of the area are being systematically relocated to government housing further away from the city center, but there are still quite a few who enjoy their ghetto's location too much to pack up and do as the Taoiseach says.

Next year will be the fourth year for me in this apartment, and as I've had a nice little run of two years in the bigger room, the time came for me to move back into the smaller room with no ensuite bathroom. Its only fair, and we did play a videogame tournament to decide the order. Can't break them rules now. Anyway, this room is at the back of the apartment and directly overlooks the Sheriff street (the name of the most dangerous street in Dublin) children's playground. Its sometimes fun to just stand on the balcony and observe the little community of neighbours that we have.. drunken fathers stumbling around, angry mothers beating kids up, teenage girls pushing prams and young men fully engaged in a life of delinquency.

My direct concern is that damn playground, however. I've been studying for my exams at home for the past few days and those kids are driving me mental. Its not the screaming kids on the jungle gym that annoy me as much as it is the strange activites some of the other kids are involved in. All day today I was plagued with the loud noise of a motorbike in various states of motion. It was either idling and sputtering every once in a while, or it was whizzing away to some unknown destination only to be back five minutes later. Now, when you're studying you don't exactly focus on these things.. but the frequency and the variability of the noise was just pissing me off. Everytime the sound got louder I found myself scampering on to the balcony to try and catch a glimpse of my tormentor. When I finally did, I saw that it was a 5 year old kid with an oversized helmet sitting on a tiny-ass motorbike toy thing. He then stopped next to the playground fence and a bunch of older kids walked over, smacked him on the head and rode off on his little bike. Thank fuck for that.

Around 8.30 the kids are called in for dinner, and I hear the same mothers calling the same children they used to call three years ago when I used to live in this room. This one lady calls out her son's name at the top of her lungs for a good half an hour. Goddamnit Paddy, go home and eat your potatos if only to shut your mother up.

6 Comments:

At 6:18 AM , Blogger irasocol said...

that's a weird zone, but I know it's in too valuable a spot for the government to leave in the hands of the North Dublin Poor for long. Still, dangerous in Dublin has never felt very dangerous to me.

 
At 12:55 PM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

try to live in the sweepstakes its a huge compound ten minutes or less by bus to Grafton street (i don't know how to spell it but thats how the ARABS pronounce it), and you will never hear a voice in there it is a very nice compund :)

 
At 3:31 AM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

i am sexually attracted to you.
your jawline, your goatee, the way your head sits on your shoulders.
*sigh*
dreamy

 
At 12:06 PM , Blogger Mo said...

I have no jawline, just a mass of flesh hanging from my cheeks. My goatee is a poor attempt at facial hair. My head is kind of crooked, my left shoulder is higher than the right one.

Oh, and I'm taken.

 
At 2:49 PM , Blogger Mo said...

Oh snap! You people have computers too?!

 
At 9:23 AM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

Here in Canada, all too often the very same situations occur. Right now I'm listening to the conversation of the drug sellers across the street; (that's how loud they are speaking). I see someone suggested earplugs. Ten bucks (or pounds) says they never bloody well had neighbours or neighbourhoods like ours. Sometimes the best thing others can do is keep their mouths shut, especially if they can't relate to the situation!

 

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