Smithfield Square

This guide to Smithfield Square in Dublin opens before dawn on the first Sunday of March or September, when traders still lead ponies and horses across the cobblestones for a fair that once ran every month until a 2013 bylaw cut it back. You'll hear from the people who keep showing up anyway, including an organizer defending the fair as heritage and an elderly regular who has watched the streets around the square change beyond recognition. It traces how a centuries-old livestock market survives, twice a year, in a city that has otherwise moved on from it.