Dublin 15 is full of rats. There is one crossing the four lanes of Snugborough Road, oblivious to the cars whooshing past and my shadow on the sidewalk. It just scampers along on whatever business large rats have in brought daylight, stopping at the curb for an instance before scurrying into the shrubbery next to the sidewalk. I walk further down the road past the National Aquatic Centre, with the ringing of the last ice cream van of the dead summer disappearing in the estates on my right. The shrubbery is rustling constantly, with every step I seem to startle another greyish-brown critter with a wormish tail, scampering away from empty packs of crisps deeper into the undergrowth. The midges dance on the Tolka river in the last rays of sunshine this September has to offer. In the shadows of the outer walls of the estates there’s the smell of rotten leaves, flat-trampled ice cream-wrappers and long-dead things.