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This gallery celebrates Dublin's Barbers, Hairdressers, Hair Stylists and 'Artists in Male Hair'. Dubliners have always been a fashion conscious crew and we hope these images bring back happy (or maybe not so happy) memories of perms, continental styles, beehives, quiffs, and mullets.

While Nordic authors and settings seem to dominate my crime reads, the list is not exclusively Northern European I am glad to say. I have even endeavoured to go beyond wider Europe, taking in the US of A, the Middle East, south-east Asia, and even Africa. And it is to Africa that I travel in this post, with two authors to mention, South Africa's Deon Meyer and Zimbabwe's Alexander McCall Smith.

For as long as there have been sporting contests, there have been men willing to make wagers upon them. The 'Turf Accountant' or 'Bookie' is as familiar a feature of Dublin City as pubs and churches. This gallery depicts some of the places where Dubliners put their money down and wished for good fortune.

This advertising sheet from the publishers Maunsel and Company, Abbey Street, Dublin, announces the imminent publication of James Joyce’s collection of short stories Dubliners. The collection was due for publication on 24 November 1910 at a cost of 3s.6d. It was due out in good company with illustrated books by Lady Gregory, Ella Young and Seosamh MacCathmhaoil, James Connolly’s Labour in Irish history, and Tom Kettle’s The day’s burden.Dubliners is a collection of fifteen short stories portraying the lives of mostly lower-middle-class Dublin characters. It focuses on themes of family, religion, and nationality, which are treated under the successive aspects of childhood, adolescence, maturity and public life. Joyce made clear that this was a deliberate scheme. From the very beginning he had Dubliners in mind as a title for the overall collection. Writing to the publisher Grant Richards, in October 1905, he stated; “I do not think that any writer has yet presented Dublin to the world.” Though the stories are saturated in the sights and sounds of early twentieth-century Dublin they have always carried a much wider resonance and have won the admiration of readers throughout the world.Joyce, using the pseudonym Stephen Daedalus, published early versions of  ‘The Sisters’, ‘Eveline’ and ‘After The Race’ in The Irish Homestead between August and December 1904. After leaving Ireland in October 1904 he continued to write stories, first in Pola then in Trieste and, following several rejections, had a collection of twelve stories accepted by the English publisher Grant Richards in October 1905. When ‘Two Gallants’ was added in April 1906 the printers refused to set it on the grounds of possible obscenity. After a protracted period of negotiations, during which Joyce endeavoured to meet the objections to this and other stories by making a number of changes while strongly defending the integrity of his work, Richards eventually withdrew from the contract. A succession of publishers then rejected the work which had been augmented by the addition of ‘The Dead’, written in 1907 following an unhappy period working in a bank in Rome.         In August 1909, while back in Dublin managing the short-lived Volta cinema, Joyce signed a contract with Maunsel & Company, the leading Irish publisher of the time. But difficulties arose when the firm’s managing director, George Roberts, took exception to references to real people and places in some of the stories. After a lengthy delay, from the announcement in 1910, the text was set in type by the summer of 1912 but, after more heated argument, during which both sides consulted legal opinion, Roberts refused to publish it. The printer, John Falconer, destroyed the entire print run with the exception of one copy which Joyce managed to rescue.Several publishers then rejected the work but, in January 1914, Grant Richards agreed to revive the original contract and Dubliners was published on 15 June 1914. Initially it sold poorly - a mere 379 copies in the first year - and early reviews were mixed. But gradually its reputation began to grow and it has remained in print ever since, being published all over the world in English language editions and in translation.

The natural sciences formed an important branch of science from the earliest times. Growing plants and crops to feed the population and for healing the sick were essential pursuits. Development of new crops or improving the yields of existing crops resulted from experimentation and the publication of research results.

‘We got the whiff of ray and chips and Mary softly sighed, Arah John come on for ‘one and one’, Down by the Liffeyside’. Like many major cities, Dublin has a strong association with food. From Molly Malone's 'cockles and mussels' to coddle - surely Dublin's signature dish - to the perennial Friday treat of 'one and one' (or fish and chips). This gallery celebrates some of the city's eatin' houses. We hope the chippers, cafes, and restaurants included here will bring back some happy memories.

Best selling American crime writer Patricia Cornwell is in Dublin today, here to take part in one of the opening events of the Bram Stoker Festival, happening this weekend. The event, The Anatomy of Fear - From Stoker to Scarpetta with Patricia Cornwell, takes place in Trinity College, and the author will be introduced by the state pathologist, Dr. Marie Cassidy! Very appropriate given the subject matter and the significant role forensic science plays in her Dr. Kay Scarpetta series.Cornwell has sold over 100 million copies of her books worldwide, and wouldn't you know it, you can borrow her books in our branch libraries and read away to your heart's content (check below).Right: Patricia Cornwell in Trinity College, 26th October 2012 (click thumbnail to enlarge)The 20th novel in the Scarpetta series (The Bone Bed) has just been published (25th October in fact), so while not yet on our bookshelves is on order and soon to arrive. In this latest, Chief Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta returns to solve the mysterious disappearance of a palaeontologist.But don't despair, unless you are a Cornwell fanatic and have already read the other nineteen in the series, you have plenty to keep you going in the meantime. So check the links below for availability of the series titles in the library catalogue:Post-mortem (1990)Body of Evidence (1991)All That Remains (1992)Cruel and Unusual (1993)The Body Farm (1994)From Potter's Field (1995)Cause of Death (1996)Unnatural Exposure (1997)Point of Origin (1998)Black Notice (1999)The Last Precinct (2000)Blow Fly (2003)Trace (2004)Predator (2005)Book of the Dead (2007)Scarpetta (2008)The Scarpetta Factor (2009)Port Mortuary (2010)Red Mist (2011)The Bone Bed (2012) (just published, to come)In the following video clip, the bestselling author is talking about her 18th Kay Scarpetta thriller, 'Port Mortuary'.Visit the Patricia Cornwell website.

The images show familiar Dublin scenes from within our collective living memory with a present day update. It is hoped that these images will resonate with people and trigger memories and conversations among the Diaspora prompting them to return to experience the new re-vitalised Dublin of the twenty-first century.

This image gallery is composed of images taken from Dublin After The Six Days’ Insurrection (Dublin: Mecredy, Percy & Co., Ltd, 1916). The photos were taken by T.W. Murphy (also known as “The O’Tatur”), the sub-editor of The Motor News. The images are reproduced by kind permission of the estate of T.W. Murphy.

Sophia ‘Rosamond’ Praeger was a Northern Irish artist, specialising in both sculpture and in illustrations. She was born in Holywood, Co. Down in 1867 to Maria Ferrar Patterson and Willem Emil Praeger, and was the third child of six and the only girl.