At the Liffey Trust Studios, a handful of people file into the multi-purpose community space behind the Point Village.

They climb two flights of stairs and enter a waiting area where they are greeted by the voice of an aerobics instructor barking orders in sync with a Lady Gaga remix.

Everyone not kitted out in fitness gear has come equipped with either a notepad, photographs or a guitar. They are old and young, choir singers, musical theatre aficionados, and former Dublin Port dock workers.

All have a mutual interest in the Docklands and all have the intention, before the day is out, to write a song about the area.

Before these Sing a Song of Docklands workshops, few had any experience of songwriting.

“It’s so different to what I normally do,” says Declan Byrne, a former dockworker. “I’m trying to get a message, a positive message across. That’s what I’m about.”

Byrne had submitted fresh lyrics ahead of what would be the third of four workshops.

Titled “Dublin Docker, No More to be Seen”, its opening verse reads:

“We were never known for being quiet/ But the picture painted is not quite right/ Drinkers, strokers, smugglers and robbers/ Fails to capture our way of life.”

For much more Dublin Inquirer delves into the past of the local dockland communities.