The Standing Stone opposite the Garda station on Townsend Street has vanished, and Molly Malone pushed up her cart to the tourist office. Maybe there are more customers here for her cockles and mussels. There are more tourist buses than before – at least as many as during Celtic Tiger times. Dublin now even has one of those obnoxious miniature road trains, shuttling Germans in Goretex from Christchurch to the Four Courts and back. ‘THE BEST TOUR IN TOWN’ is stenciled on its side. I am not sure I agree.

Above the bushes and trees in the Irishtown Nature Reserve, hundreds of crows are riding the winds coming in from Dublin Bay, barrel-rolling and playfully swooping down on each other.