The Big Smoke by Evelyn O'Neill

Sinead had been really looking forward to her birthday for such a long time.  Her mom had promised to take her to Dublin zoo.  So that meant a very early start and an exciting trip on the train. As the train travelled up the country, she admired the fields and countryside.  However, as the train got closer to Dublin city, she started to notice lots of rubbish, lots of cars and more and more smoke in the air.  She was disgusted by this.  When she got off the train in Dublin and emerged from Heuston Station, she was horrified to see the smokestacks in front of her, practically bellowing grey death from the chimney tops circling around her making it hard to breath.  She couldn’t imagine living like this.  Ever since then Sinead has been doing her part to protect the environment and helping her friends and family to do the same.