I'm looking for photos of the Liberties, where I grew up, for a book that I'm trying to put together. My father always had the camera with him. He took photos of everything in the area and that was bred into me as well, so between the two of us, we have six boxes of photos and slides, but I need more.

Looking at them recently made me realise how much the area has changed. It gave me the idea to write a book about the Liberties down through the years and the people who lived there. There are parts of Dublin disappearing that most aren't even aware of. For example, a lot of people don't remember the butchers in the Liberties that had pheasants and rabbits hanging outside but I do. They very were characteristic of the area and most of the street traders that I knew growing up are well gone. It's a shame. Concrete apartment blocks overshadow some of the terraced houses now. A lot of the changes haven't been for the better.

My experiences as a young fella growing up in the Liberties were good. We lived in a one-bedroom cottage in Pimlico, just off Meath Street.

Everyone helped each other. If my mother had food left over she'd hand it in to the next-door neighbour or vice versa. Times were poor but we made the best of it.

My mother was a great seamstress. She'd never throw anything out. If a shirt needed a new collar, she'd cut it off, turn it around and make a new collar. She even made coats from blankets. That woman could fix anything. Both of my parents worked very hard. Everybody in the Liberties worked hard. They wanted to better their lot and make a decent living for the family.

My mother used to work Saturdays at the Iveagh Market in a butcher's shop and in the evening she performed in cabaret shows. She'd go to what they used to call "singing pubs" around Dublin and do a singing spot. She did that for 30 years and spent what she earned on the family. My father's wages on the night shift at CIE were very small at the time, so we needed the extra money.

We had relations in America who used to send us clothes parcels, so we were lucky in that regard. In fact we were probably the best-dressed kids in the Liberties. We had blue denim jeans, white t-shirts and white socks before anyone else.

I remember there was always something to occupy us as kids in the Liberties. We collected jam jars and papers to earn a few bob to go to the Iveagh Baths. Some evenings we'd go to the Phoenix Park and play a football match or we'd take the push-bikes out to Blackrock or go up to the Pine Forest for camping.

I started work as a carpenter when I was 15. By the time I was 19 I was married. If people think the work situation is bad now, well it was worse in 1975.

If you were trying to rear a family, you only had two real choices: join the army or go to England. I chose the army. I went to the Lebanon in 1978 and did my service. Then I came back, finished in the army and started working again at carpentry and general handyman stuff.

The kids are grown up now and my wife and I have since separated. But we've both moved back to the Liberties. They say people who are from the Liberties never really leave it. I think it's the friendliness of the people and the hardworking ethics that you never forget. When you grow up there, you have this lifelong bond to the people and the place. I don't think I could settle anywhere else.

They say you're in the Liberties if you can hear the Christ Church bells. I always make sure I can hear those bells.