For a street in the middle of Dublin city centre, Capel Street has a rare attribute, character. Heaving with small independent businesses from the jewellery pawnshop to the Louis Copeland menswear store, the narrow, sometimes pedestrianised street has retained the pokey appearance of an earlier Dublin from before the Celtic tiger. “You can buy a lightbulb, sexual lubricant, Brazilian rice, get a pint and go to a trad session,” drag queen Panti told the Irish Independent in an interview in 2016, capturing its diversity and vitality. Of course Panti, aka Rory O’Neill, has a stake in the street, running two…

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