In Stoneybatter, an annual tour of local cats – from the gentle giant to the chicken thief

On Saturday morning, a man crouched on the ground on Ostman Place in Stoneybatter, shaking cat snacks out of a packet.

He was trying to lure his cat, Lucozade, from under a car. The kitty had visitors. The attention had thrown him a little, said his owner. 

A lanky black-and-white kitty, Lucozade, poked his head out. He sniffed the treats, then tucked in, and a handful of visitors went, awwwww. 

Lucozade was just one of the cats available for strangers to admire on this year’s self-guided “cat crawl”, organised as part of Stoneybatter Festival – a weekend of community fun and togetherness to celebrate the neighbourhood, put together by local volunteer group Pride of Place Stoneybatter.

Those joining the cat crawl got a map marked with the cats' locations and names. Nearly 20 households took part. Crawlers could stop by anytime between 11am and 1pm, to grab a glimpse of kitties in the windows, perched on cat trees or curled up on cat sofas. 

Cats being cats, they might refuse to show up. But visitors could still read about them and admire their portraits on printouts affixed to their homes’ windows, said Sinéad Davis, the crawl’s organiser. 

Since last year, Davis has been organising the cat crawl, after learning about a similar community event in Toronto, Canada, she said, on Saturday morning, stood inside An Síol community development project centre on Manor Street.

Last year, it went really well, despite rainy weather, she said.

“I have five cats in my house, and one of them is very friendly, so I was able to bring him outside,” Davis said.

People took pictures and pet him, said Davis. “It's mad how passionate cat people are.”

Like the previous year, those who enjoyed the kitty crawl could scan a QR code on the map to donate to the Cat and Dog Protection Association of Ireland (CDPA). “So, last year we raised €454,” said Davis. 

The crawl is pretty popular, this year too, said Catherine Quinn, another festival organiser, who was standing nearby. “Monitoring social media, we get more queries about the cat crawl than anything else."  

Kitties from the block

At 17, Billy Edwards – not to be confused with the late British Jazz trumpeter of the same name, says a poster at the window – is the oldest cat of the crawl. 

When a few visitors arrived at her door on Murtagh Road, it was her lunchtime, and she had no time for much else.

The door was open. Billy was in the kitchen, down the hall. She stood next to her mum and gazing up at her as she prepared her grub. The woman looked up and smiled at the visitors. 

Billy is an orange-and-white kitty who used to live on Manor Place with her sister, but the two fell out, so she moved on, her bio said. “She loves butter,” it said.

On Ben Edair Road, a man has just spotted Kerry, who has finally decided to show up to do her bit for the cat crawl. “He’s slagging it,” said the man, chuckling.

Kerry is a young tabby who's “always rubbing shoulders with his crew,” his bio said. 

Through the glass on Prussia Street, Nala, aged five, is perched on a navy-blue imperial-style cat sofa. A calico with five siblings, but she’s a queen on “her throne”, according to her bio.

Nala was fast asleep. She loves to relax in quiet places, her bio said.

A few doors down, Lír, an orange-and-white boy, looked irked as he stood on a cat tree, peering at his visitors, and later, he took a nap with his back to the window. 

He is a “famous chicken thief”, his bio said.

On Arbour Hill Road, Mary Diamond, aged about eight – “best not to try and pin a number on such an esteemed lady”, according to her bio – stood next to a Lego lookalike. 

Her window overlooks the pubs and shops of Arbour Hill. Basically, “she’s in the thick of it”, and knows everyone’s tea, her bio said.

Mary, who has a black coat with patches of white here and there, stood motionless at the window the whole time, fixing her gaze at her visitors – as if she was sizing them up.

On Viking Road, Romeo, a formidable kitty with a thick, lustrous ginger coat, tilted his head at his admirers from a cat tree as they said hello and pulled out their phones to take his photo. He seemed into it. 

Romeo understood the assignment, a few crawlers said. 

“He’s a unit,” said local immigration solicitor and cat mama Wendy Lyon, who’d shown up for the crawl. Romeo’s bio described him as a “gentle giant”. 

Over and over, Romeo, aged two, who is half-ragdoll and half-Maine-Coon patted on a piece of paper attached to the window to play, almost undoing it.

“Gently tap the window if we are not there,” the paper said on behalf of Romeo and his half-sister Penelope. 

Penelope was sprawled on a human sofa nearby, grooming herself with such care. Romeo loves Penelope, and “chicken”, their bios said.

A Siamese cat with ocean-blue eyes peered out the window but wasn’t participating in the crawl, based on the map. A black-and-white kitty rolled on the sun-baked asphalt, then stood up and let out a wee meow before slinking away.

Pets like that kept bobbing up throughout the walk. Lyon called them “unofficial cats”. 

Won’t you stop by?

Neighbours who didn’t have cats or hadn’t enrolled their cats for the event had joined the festival in other ways.

A knot of plant pots and flower boxes sat outside some homes. One resembled an An Post mail box. 

That’s part of the festival, too, said Quinn, one of the organisers, earlier.

Some had attached results of the 1916 census onto their windows, telling passersby the story of their homes’ long-ago occupants. 

A few small boys sold old toys, faded Star Wars figurines, at a stall outside their home.

With the money, they would “buy cash”, said the smallest boy. “That’s gambling,” said an older kid. He wanted to buy a “car or clouds” with the profits, he said.

Back on Viking Road, cat crawlers kept doting over Romeo, the ginger half-Maine Coon. 

A woman with short white hair hollered from her car: “All morning, I see the people stopping at the doors, isn’t that lovely?”