EVEN WHEN SHE was a child, amateur photographer Susan Weir used to go out of her way to see the street traders of Dublin and their prams.
Five years ago, she started documenting them with a camera. “It was during the Celtic Tiger, when everything was glass and steel,” she says. “I was concerned that they might start disappearing, that they would be moved away from the big shops.”
Happily they weren’t. Now, Weir brings her camera on trips to town and records the traders she meets, selling everything from fruit to flowers to Mother’s Day cards.
“That’s what I feel makes Dublin the city it is. It’s not the buildings. It’s the people, the characters who inhabit it. I think they’re taken for granted.”
Weir’s photos have now been collected for the first time in an exhibition at the Dublin Adult Learning Centre, on Mountjoy Square. The exhibition runs for another week, and we’ve got a taster of what’s on offer here:
Street traders... and their prams
Street traders... and their prams
Street traders... and their prams
Street traders... and their prams
Street traders... and their prams
Street traders... and their prams
Street traders... and their prams
All photographs by Susan Weir.
The exhibition at Dublin Adult Learning Centre is open from 9-10am and lunchtimes every day this week.
Susan Weir is currently collecting older photos of street traders, as well as any stories about them. If you think you may be able to help, email susanweir@eircom.net.
