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Walk down Dublin’s Moore Street today and you’ll find a snapshot of Ireland in all its ethnic diversity, but what do those who work there say about of its future

IF YOU had to choose one street in Ireland that has been a litmus test to the way the country’s population has changed in the last decade, Dublin’s Moore Street would be it. Cheap rents and a central location attracted a variety of people from the incoming immigrant community, initially led by the Chinese, who wanted to set up businesses. Now in 2009, the street is changing again. With the development of the former Carlton Cinema site on hold, and an entire row of shops shuttered on the south side of the street, there is an increasing atmosphere of transience there.