Just a couple of hundred yards away, the patients of St Patrick's psychiatric hospital, founded in 1745 from money bequeathed by Jonathon Swift, author of Gulliver's Travels, hadn't yet been given their breakfast. Most of the early inmates were alcoholics - incarcerated right next door to what was once the world's biggest brewery. An ambulance siren from several miles away pierced the empty air. I felt as if I was being assaulted by the scent from the flowers. The grinding of the forklift trucks was so piercing it was almost painful.
Markets are men's business, from very young boys to very old codgers.
Fresh faced and pimply young bucks pushed trolleys piled with paper sacks of Irish tatties. Their dads arranged the cabbages. Most of the fruit and vegetables eaten by the Irish nation pass through the Victorian Fruit Market. At least we were in tune with this place. Breakfast at 8am was the market traders' equivalent of lunchtime, when they had the main meal of the day.