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Edel Coffey: Is there a difference between being a city person and a Dubliner?

Take it from a Dubliner, there is a difference – from chatting to strangers in the supermarket and neighbours whose name you may not know; every interaction is an opportunity to connect on a human level

Grafton Street in Dublin: a Dubliner is never in too much of a hurry to stop for a chat or to observe something of interest. Picture: Getty

“I’m not a city person, I’m a Dubliner,” former archbishop Diarmuid Martin told Brendan O’Connor in a recent RTÉ Radio 1 interview after his retirement.

It struck a chord. Is there a difference between being a city person and a Dubliner, I wondered. But I knew there was. The very reason Diarmuid Martin had struck a chord was because he had spoken a truth.

I’m a Dubliner too, and have written about the experience of ...