SMALL PRINT:STORYMAP IS the innovation of two young Dublin filmmakers, Andrew Flaherty and Tom Rowley, who are interested in the secret histories of the city. Using a live map of Dublin, they have developed a brilliant interactive digital storytelling archive, in which visitors to their website can click on marked sites – Bow Street or Newmarket, say – which link them to a recorded story directly related to the area. Rowley explains, "It is a chance to create a collective vision of the city, told by the people of Dublin themselves."
The stories range from the old-world charm of Dublin’s past to the seedier, wackier sides of the present-day city. For example, activist Tonie Walsh relates a late-night encounter at a gay sauna off Aungier Street, which is part humorous romp, part horror story.
It seems no accident, however, that pubs are the site for several of the storytelling sessions. Barman Tommy Smyth, who has owned Grogan’s pub for more than 40 years, relates the history of drink and debauchery that the famous literary pub has witnessed, while comedian Shane Langan takes up residence in “the smallest pub in Dublin”, the Dawson Lounge, for a strange bedtime story. And at the Olympia Bar, Maureen Grant tells tales of the venue’s old music hall days.
For Flaherty and Rowley, the storyteller is as important as the story, and they have sourced a crew of fascinating characters from all walks of life, some of whom will be familiar to Dubliners, as will some of the stories’ beginnings. In one of the most recently uploaded stories, Tom Mathews, whose cartoons often feature in this newspaper, gives a personal history of the Why Go Bald? sign that has smiled down on passersby on Georges Street for decades.
Ultimately, Flaherty and Rowley hope to secure funding to develop the Storymap project into an iPhone app, so that Dubliners and tourists alike can experience the stories while exploring the city’s secret sites in an even more intimate way.
“It’s a way to get to know the city through its people,” says Rowley.
Storymap launched on February 1st and a new story, sourced by Flaherty and Rowley, is uploaded once a week.
*** Members of the public are also invited to send in stories to storymapdublin@gmail.com
See storymap.ie
