Cormac Fitzgerald Rockin' the Suburbs

In this series, journalist and spoken word artist Cormac Fitzgerald travels to a different town or suburb each week to write about the gigs and cultural experiences you rarely see covered by Irish media outlets. 

This week’s subject: A secret street tour through the heart of Dublin City.

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IT’S A BRIGHT Sunday morning in Dublin City.

At the entrance to Dublin Castle, currently closed to the public to facilitate Ireland’s European Presidency, tourists, locals and tour guides mill about in the sunshine, or sit outside Chez Max eating croissants and drinking coffee.

Kenny Eivers, dressed in a blue rain jacket and a black baseball cap, stands among them, smoking a cigarette and drinking a large takeaway coffee before he starts work.

At 11am, a small group of us gather around, and Eivers chats to us casually for a few minutes before introducing himself properly and kicking off the Secret Street Tour.

“I’m living proof that people can change,” Eivers says, as he begins his tour, which will take us around various locations on the south side of Dublin.

But as well as typical spots like Castle Street, St Patrick’s Cathedral, The Gaiety Theatre and Stephen’s Green, Eivers’ tour also explores a different part of the city.

Stopping at the corner of Castle Street and Werburgh Street, which backs onto Dublin Castle, Eivers points to a nondescript red brick building.

“That’s my old methadone clinic,” he says. “I spent so many years going there.”

Eivers describes himself as a recovering addict. Originally in from Swords, he spent many years homeless in Dublin, both staying in short- and long-term emergency accommodation (or “hostels”) and sleeping on the streets, or in parks.

He was also convicted in the past and spent time in prison, for stealing cars to make money to fund his addiction.

Kenny Eivers with his group at Dublin Castle. Siobhán Mooney Siobhán Mooney

Eivers describes how he reached rock bottom, overdosing and being admitted to hospital on a number of occasions. Just over seven years ago, after almost dying, he says he finally hit “rock bottom” and entered a recovery programme.

He has been in recovery ever since, and no longer uses illegal drugs or drinks alcohol.

Secret tour 

As he walks our group around Dublin, Eivers gives a potted history of the city interspersed with his own anecdotes about his life and the time he spent homeless.

He keeps things funny and lighthearted, commenting on anything from US politics, to the legacy of the Guinness family in Dublin, to government drug policy, Jonathan Swift, his opinion of the actor Jack Black, and his own life and past.

Secret Street Tours was originally founded in late-2018 by Trinity College Dublin graduate, Tom Austin, after he had taken a similar walking tour in Vienna.

As Austin explained it, the idea behind the tours “is that they provide a unique way for our guides to take back control of the narrative around homelessness, while offering customers an accessible and friendly channel to engage with this critical social issue”.

Tour guides are given training and support to design their own routes, which take in notable landmarks of the city, as well as places that relate to their own lives.

When Eivers was in recovery, he met another man who was training to become a tour guide, and decided to follow that path himself. He gave his first tour just before the Covid-19 pandemic effectively shut down the tourist and live entertainment industries.

He resumed working when the lockdown was lifted, and gives regular tours to tourists, secondary school students and different groups. He is also an advocate for those in homelessness and dealing with addiction.

Siobhán Mooney Siobhán Mooney

Layers of Dublin 

The tour has the uncanny effect of revealing different layers of Dublin as we walk around the city. A story about the difficulties of reducing dependence on methadone, might be followed with musings on Gulliver’s Travels or the architecture of St Patrick’s Cathedral.

On Longford Street Little, Eivers points out the York House Hostel, operated by the Salvation Army, where he lived for almost five years. From there, he brings us over the South King Street, and works through a brief history of the Gaiety Theatre.

Dublin is revealed as a patchwork city, where bars, restaurants, shops and tourist attractions are woven around clinics, hostels and other architecture supporting the city’s struggling population. Often, these latter buildings are like ghosts in the city, hiding in plain sight, much like the people who use them.

In Stephen’s Green, Eivers discusses the 1916 Rising, points out some terrapins in the duck pond of the park, and finishes his tour at the statue of Sir Arthur Edward Guinness.

“What I always say is I can’t make up for my past but I can do good going forwards,” Eivers says, explaining why he does what he does.

The four American tourists that make up the rest of our group thank him effusively, and head on to their next event – their eyes a little more opened to the complexities of the city they’re visiting. 

You can find out more about Secret Street Tours here.