{"id":429207,"date":"2026-05-02T19:58:32","date_gmt":"2026-05-02T19:58:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/429207\/"},"modified":"2026-05-02T19:58:32","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T19:58:32","slug":"dublin-is-a-small-town-with-a-big-town-attitude-i-didnt-always-love-it-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/429207\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Dublin is a small town with a big-town attitude. I didn\u2019t always love it\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

I grew up in Tallaght<\/a>, in Kilnamanagh with my mam, dad and brother Alan. We had a dog called Shalako and I have the fondest memories of that dog. I don\u2019t even think Shalako had a lead. She\u2019d come everywhere with us, and she looked a bit like the dog from Little House on the Prairie, so I\u2019d imagine myself to be Laura Ingalls. <\/p>\n

I always had an active imagination. I\u2019d practise dance routines in the garage, and I\u2019d have talent competitions in the back garden. If Miss World was on we\u2019d do a beauty pageant with a few of the kids from down the road.<\/p>\n

Childhood in pre-Luas Tallaght was great craic. Where the Luas stop is now, that was what we called the fields. We used to go calling for people, where you would actually get off your bum and go calling in to people\u2019s houses and they would come down to the fields and get frogspawn and all those things you\u2019d read about in story books. It\u2019s a lost art. <\/p>\n

I have a memory from secondary school about the first time one of my peers told me to be quiet. I\u2019ll never forget that feeling of: \u201cHang on a second, you\u2019re supposed to be my pal! I can be loud and I can shout but it\u2019s only adults that usually tell me to be quiet.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the 1990s I did a PLC in media studies in Liberties College. My first job was in Dunnes Stores in The Square, but then the Dublin clubbing scene came calling. <\/p>\n

I did two years of media studies and then I did four years of clubbing and working in clothes shops. That\u2019s where the whole fashion thing then came from, because I started working in independent retailers on Liffey Street, which at the time was like a souk in Marrakesh but for jeans and flares.<\/p>\n

Then I worked in a shop on Trinity Street underneath the Hot Press office. Niall Stokes came down to me one day and he said, \u201cListen, you\u2019re into fashion, aren\u2019t you? We\u2019re doing a shoot with Ash the day after tomorrow, in a studio in Rathmines, and I need someone to style them. You could do that, right?\u201d<\/p>\n

So I did the styling for the shoot and it ended up being the next Hot Press cover. A friend of mine, who was a designer and a photographer, said to me, \u201cI didn\u2019t know you wanted to be a stylist.\u201d And I said, \u201cYeah, me neither.\u201d He was doing a shoot the next week and asked me to be the stylist, and that\u2019s how I got into being a stylist. I just kept going. <\/p>\n

I had dreams and illusions of going over to London when I was working in those independent boutiques because naturally enough, even though there\u2019s all that lovely camaraderie and everyone\u2019s looking out for you, it does feel a bit overpowering [in Dublin] sometimes. And you do end up thinking, I\u2019d love to just be anonymous. But I am a home bird.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t even know what day it was because all the days were melting into one<\/p>\n

\u2014 \u00a0Jan Brierton<\/p>\n

Dublin is a small town with a big-town attitude. It\u2019s still trying on a couple of big-town jumpers, I think, but it\u2019s not quite the right fit. I love Dublin, don\u2019t get me wrong, but I didn\u2019t always love it when I was living it. <\/p>\n

The people you love are the ones you can slag and have a bit of craic about and point out all their imperfections, but love all those things at the same time. That can be true of a city where you\u2019re living too. <\/p>\n

I wrote my first poem in 2021. We were a good year into Covid and lockdowns and I was browned off with the toxic positivity. All I wanted was to go out and have a cup of tea out of a proper cup and not have to stand two metres away from someone. And I wanted to just be able to drop everything and say, \u201cCome on, we\u2019ll go out for a bite to eat,\u201d or, \u201cWe\u2019ll go shopping.\u201d <\/p>\n

And I didn\u2019t even know what day it was because all the days were melting into one, and I thought, if another person tells me to bake banana bread or to put my feet in the grass I\u2019ll box them in the head. <\/p>\n

So that\u2019s where the poem came from \u2013 it was my internal dialogue. Now I still don\u2019t know why I wrote it down, and I still don\u2019t know why it was a poem, and I still don\u2019t know why it came out like that. My daughter was sitting in the bed beside me reading Harry Potter, and I just picked up a notebook and just went, \u201cWhat day is it? Who gives a f**k?\u201d Ironically, as much as I\u2019m not a fan of the idea of people going, \u201cOh, you know, there\u2019s always a silver lining,\u201d there actually was a bit of silver lining during that time for me. <\/p>\n

I do call myself an accidental poet, because I didn\u2019t really go, \u201cLet\u2019s sit down and write a poem today.\u201d<\/p>\n

In conversation with Niamh Browne. This is part of a series<\/a> of interviews with well-known people about their lives and relationship with Ireland. Jan Brierton will be performing around Ireland with fellow poet Henry Normal from May 10th to 16th; see @jbgoodtome on Instagram for dates. <\/p>\n

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