Gay cruising phoenix park dublin
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“My second body came to find my first body when the river flooded my house… the river was in my house but my house was also in the river.”
Excerpt from The Second Body by Daisy Hildyard
The River Farset, which gave Belfast its name – Béal Feirste, meaning ‘Mouth of the Farset’ – was consumed by the city’s underbelly in Undone by the river’s own achievements in industrialising the Victorian town, this Venetian-style ferrier, cum general dumping ground, was shoved and rerouted into subterranean hollows. These sewer pipes forged new confluences between the Farset and its beneficiary, the River Lagan, who would accompany Belfast into its cityhood in only to be reacquainted with the dreary descendants of its donor’s builders in the twenty-first century.
I own lived with the River Lagan, and all that comes with it, for some time now; the viridescent shopping trolley stench of low tide; midwinter starling murmurations; gaudy, palm tree shaped wayfinding; and Buckfast bottles on the towpath tongue tied by adolescents asking what music I a
The garden of earthly delights
Michael Lanigan
Deputy InDepth Editor
Once darkness descends upon the Phoenix Park, an ominous cloud of silence hangs over the surrounding area, broken only by the odd jogger or a several people making their way home towards Chapelizod Thoroughfare. Still, if you are aware of the gay-bashing gangs that have been rumoured to roam the grounds, or the many accounts of sexual exercise beyond the Wellington Monument’s fencing, then this emptiness does not give you the sense of organism alone. Venturing out to the park at evening, intent on observing a hotspot for cruising in Dublin, I found there to be a certain degree of menace projected upon the surroundings, especially after November when Gardaí discovered the charred remains of a homeless gentleman, which although unrelated to the area’s prostitution, still provides sufficient enough of a reason for the park being somewhere you might not want to find yourself after hours.
That feeling of there creature something lurking around every corner is not exactly paranoia, because oftentimes there is something there. Most ti
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