A long time ago when myself and Rebecca were Very New, Rebecca took a photo of a friendly looking graffiti figure painted on a wall on the north side of the quays, between town and East Wall. This was some time in 2010, I guess.

I’ve been using the image as an internet avatar since about 2023, I talked about it before.

In the years since, the transformation of Dublin’s riverside has changed the entire area beyond recognition, from derelict urban wasteland to shiny steel-and-glass corporate wasteland. The building with the cartoon has been demolished in sections over the course of several years, but was completely gone by 2017. That part of Dublin has changed so much that I couldn’t even remember which block it was on, but I found it again thanks to travelling up and down the road on Google maps. It seems that the Google maps car passed down that way about 14 times in the intervening years, from 2009 to the present.

When Rebecca took her photo, it must have been about this time, in 2010.

I’ve dubbed the character ‘East Wally’ after the area, which is where I lived at the time. For a while I called him ‘Happy Guy.’ We passed that way a lot coming and going from town. I’ve never seen the graffiti anywhere else on any other building, anywhere else then or since. I wonder who created him? Any why they didn’t tag more of the city with him (her?). Perhaps they did and I never noticed, perhaps they weren’t all that enamoured with the image. Who knows?

The only thing that remain is the lamppost just in front of the building, that appears to be largely unchanged, the original lamppost. In March 2009 on it was hanging a Diverted Traffic notice, related to the placing of the Samuel Beckett Bridge.

From March to September if you pan the other way and look upriver the bridge suddenly appears.

By September 2009 when Google had passed by again, the lamppost was pushing for a Yes vote in the Lisbon treaty constitutional referendum. The lamppost was clearly influential, and the referendum passed in the following month.

By July 2012, our guy was gone, painted over with by renowned Dublin artist Maser with lyrics from a Damien Dempsey song.

The Liffey cuts the city like a meandering blue vein;

ancient poetry echoes

The song is ‘Soft Rain’ which, appropriately for this blogpost, is deeply nostalgic for dear old Dublin, as she was back in the day.

The Liffey cuts the city, a meandering blue vein

Ancient poetry echoes and soft rain down the lanes

I see you in the city, your face is everywhere

All of our adventures reenacted so clear

By June 2014 half the building was gone, and mysteriously, the lamppost had been relocated a couple of meters down the street. I wonder what that was about?

Three years later, only the lamppost itself remains, with the entire building demolished and proper street hoarding installed.

A year on again and the slow wheels of construction are at work, but only the crane can be seen.

Another year on and the concrete shell of the nascent Salesforce headquarters is three or four stories high, being built by the incorrigible Johnny Ronan.

Two years and a couple of floors later, the glass is going in. By March 2022, it looks mostly complete, at least from the outside, but not yet occupied. No sign remains of the old building, or our guy. In November that year the last obvious change takes place with the installation of a street bench approximately in the spot where our East Wally graffiti was. Maybe it’s a memorial bench?

Lines written on a bench

erected to the memory of Mrs. East Wally

In 2023 the Salesforce sign has appeared, as have the lanyard-wearing smokers, a new traditional signifying of the gentrification of the neighbourhood.

For a long time Rebecca had it as her phone contact icon. At some point I started using a cleaned-up version of it as an internet avatar. Rebecca prefers her original photo version, finding my styling of it to be sanitised.

Google reverse image search doesn’t bring up anything that looks similar, but a couple of other people have taken photos too.

I’ve belatedly noticed that there’s an artist tag next to the image in the original - Grifto - I wonder who that is? All I can find is this blogpost

Anyway, there you go. A potted history of my internet avatar.