Whatever floats your boat

John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men sits on a shelf in Brú's boat, his home, his castle. The ketch, built in a garden on South Circular Road in Dublin, is moored in Grand Canal Basin, across the water from a building used by U2.

The cranes that are making the band's new twirling glass tower and thousands of apartments swing busily all day. People stand outside the Ocean bar and listen to the strains of U2 practising, he says, but Brú isn't that bothered. He just loves his boats. For one reason or another - the drink, mainly - his wife threw him out a few years ago. The Liffey and Ringsend are his other great love affairs.

I met him at a literacy event at Ringsend Tech a while ago. He had written a story about a pet rabbit his family had when they were younger. Snowy, the rabbit was called. One day they saw a cat running along a wall with the rabbit in its mouth. Brú and his brother laid Snowy on straw and watched him breathe heavily until he died.

Brú, who never really went to school, started with the boats as a child. His first bit of work experience was helping a man with his fishing net on the river at Pigeon House Road. It was the days before East-Link Bridge. The days before apartment living. He takes out black and white aerial photographs taken of the area in the 1970s. He points out landmarks such as the Point, which was just another warehouse then.

When he was old enough, he went to work as a deckhand, sailing all over the world - to America and Africa and Korea. It was a struggle to read the letters his family and friends sent him. When he had the time he began to teach himself to read. He enjoys books like the Steinbeck novel, but mostly he reads about boats. When he gets time between fixing up his boat and fishing, he reads books here in the cosy ketch, which is stuffed with nautical knick-knacks. His life is stored in wooden boxes under the seats.

He is one of about 10 men around Ringsend who still have salmon licences allowing them to fish in Dublin Bay, permits that have been handed down from generation to generation. The season has been made shorter - it used to last nine months, but now they can only fish during four, from May to August - and when he sees the first salmon jump he will go out with the nets. He tries to sell his catch around town, but there isn't the demand for wild salmon that there used to be.

Last year he went to one fish shop with a few beautiful wild salmon - each one five or six kilograms, he reckons - and the man who ran the shop showed him a freezer full of farmed fish. It's what the customers want now, he told Brú. Brú can't believe it, but that's the way it is.

After he split from his wife he had a girlfriend for a while. After a few months she wanted to know where the relationship was going. He told her, "I don't know where you're going, but I'm going to Ringsend," and that was the end of that.

He has sailed to Spain and back on the boat with some like-minded friends, and he may just do it again. He is strong and fit, and the drink isn't as much of a problem, not in the way it used to be.

But he can't live on the boat all his life. He knows that. Thing is, since he and his wife sold the house he has had a bit of money in the bank, and having a bit of money in the bank causes problems with the Revenue and the labour exchange and the affordable-housing people. He spends it on buying and fixing boats. That's what makes him happy. They are like his children, he says.

Learning to write with his tutor, Carmel, gives him something else to do. Snowy the Rabbit is published in Write to Celebrate, a collection of stories by literacy students from across Dublin. There are stories of everyday triumphs and everyday challenges. Horrific accounts of war written by women from Somalia. Gentle nostalgia by tough men from the Liberties. There are childhood memories and lifelong secrets. One woman managed to keep the fact that she couldn't read or write properly from her husband for 20 years. "When I look at where I am now compared to those days I could jump over the moon with joy," writes Breda Mary. "No-one who can read could possibly know how I struggled with my secret."

Brú's story about Snowy offers much - you might say too much - food for thought. "My brother and I cried for the loss of our pet rabbit. My dad said that he would bury him. But I don't think he did because the next day we had rabbit stew. I still think about our rabbit Snowy."

It's easy to forget about people like Brú and Breda Mary. And then, sitting on a swaying boat in the basin, you are forced to remember. If we've lost our appetite for wild salmon, you can't help thinking, then there isn't much else to lose.