It’s the opening night of a new play and the curtains are about to go up.  You sit in the hazy darkness of the auditorium amongst wine-soaked theatre-goers, all waiting with anticipation for the show to begin. 

What do you get delivered in the post? It’s probably all the essentials – bills and insurance from organisations who won’t allow you to receive online correspondence, or urgent requests from companies whose emails you’ve neglected to respond to. The era of love letters, even postcards, barely exists anymore – we have Skype, Whatsapp and a myriad of other technologies for that now. The Internet has however increased deliveries of parcels to homes via online shopping, and the quiet thrill of an order being delivered is its own specific 21st century high.

For the 1916 Easter Rising Centenary Celebrations husband and wife Tom and Trisha Duffy were assigned an outpost at the craft village in St. Stephen's Green.

It’s 10 o’clock on a very crisp March morning. Duke Street, just off Grafton Street, is coming to life but at a languid, sleepy pace.

Everyone starts a new job with some amount of trepidation. You wonder about the new things you'll learn, about what the people will be like, and how you'll fit into it all.

We’re driving through town at a vantage point I’ve never experienced before. It’s higher than a car, but lower than the bus, with much more of a rattle than either. 

When you live in a place for a long time, sometimes not even a long time, you start to think you know it. The streets hold special things for you as do the places you visit, the shops, the cafes and restaurants, the bars, the parks, the galleries or the libraries - wherever you go, and if you’re lucky you feel a part of it. 

On the banks of the Royal Canal, stands an inconspicuous white building. It’s a single storey, long in length, with one narrow black door that could be the door to your house. 

Talbot Street on a Tuesday morning is already a busy place. At the top, where it turns into O’Connell Street, the most central thoroughfare of the city, tourists buzz around with roller suitcases while staff from open-top buses stand in colourful rain jackets with leaflets fanned out in their hands.

A woman walks into the shop carrying one of those cheery Henry vacuum cleaners with a smiley face on the front of it, and tells Fergus it's stopped working. He takes a look at it, writes up a docket, and tells her it will be fixed before the weekend. 

The building I stand in is beautiful by any standards. Victorian and red brick, it's vast and modest all at once. Tall, symmetrical arches ring their way around the whole building, littered with contrasting yellow brick work and occasional scrawls of graffiti. 

Somewhere in Dublin, at a top-secret(ish) location, I learn that a “road-kill freezer” is exactly what it sounds like and smells even worse. In the next few hours, I also learn that taxidermy will literally melt if it’s too hot; that every whale that washes up on Irish shores has its DNA taken and stored; that Roger Casement brought a range of nature objects to Ireland from his travels in Africa; that huge loggerhead turtles swim in Irish waters; and lampreys (eels with terrifying mouths that wouldn't look out of place in an Alien movie) are to be found in the Shannon on any given day.

We are standing inside a small shoe repair shop just off Baggot Street and John Miley is talking to us about machines. When we think of the word “machine” today, we often think of computers, cars, household appliances, and a million other things we encounter in every day life.

Leonard Fagan has pristine skin, a smart haircut flecked with grey, and a certain, straight-backed manner that puts you in mind of classic movie stars.