Songs and tunes, I remember a Sunday in May, because of the "foot and mouth" scare, the St Patrick's Day parade was delayed and held in May. We were headed for the Sunday session at O'Donaghues. We walked up Grafton Street as we'd been told it was a great place to hear street music. All pretty disappointing until at the top end near Stephens Green we saw three people playing, whistle/Flute, guitar and a button melodian. The box for the button melodian was open for those passing to drop money into. They were good and we had to wait for the rest of our gang to join up.

Two guys went over and put some money in the box, up until now nobody was paying much attention and there did not appear to be much in the box. Next thing, these guys start to sing accompanied by the three buskers. First song "Fields of Athenry" a crowd starts to gather, money starts dropping into the box. The buskers themselves ask the guys to do another, "Peggy Gordon", the crowd continues to build, even more money goes into the box. The crowd ask for another, "Town I love so well", by the middle of the song the street is packed solid and the box now looks like it would not have been out of place in Captain Kidd's cabin.

Don't know what happened after that as the guys wandered off and so did we - but I did get it all down on film, the last shot I had to take with the camera held at full stretch above my head pointed in the general direction - the one thing that was illustrated that day was that tunes are OK, but it is songs and their lyrics that grab hold of people.