Dublin’s North Circular Road isn’t anything the casual tourist might pick up on, even upon glancing at a map when visiting the city. It’s not a North American idea of what such a name might imply — an interstate loop or pre-interstate U.S. highway bypass.

But in Dublin, it’s a dividing line between “downtown,” the historical, touristy part of the city, and the northern suburbs. It’s very old, dating from when British engineers conceived it in the mid-18th century. And it’s historic, a way of telling the story of the city, the people and their struggles and the music they made to preserve that history.

“North Circular” is an elegaic black and white documentary that has singers and assorted locals remember that history through ballads and laments, and who tell of what is here and what used to be here — from Mountjoy Prison and St. Brendan’s asylum in Grangegorman, to long-gone O’Devaney Gardens housing estates, the famed Cobblestone folk club and a football (soccer) pitch where the “Bohs” (Bohemians) face off with their hated rivals, the (Shamrock) Rovers to this day.

Writer-director Luke McManus takes us from Phoenix Park and its monuments all the way east to “the docks,” which terminate the road (more or less) at Dublin Bay.

The music is simple and unadorned with studio refinements — a capella singers, pipers, tin whistle players reviving ancient ballads and more modern tunes recalling the ways the authorities (the Brits) in their historic zeal for “institutionalizing” the Irish, trumped up charges against women to imprison and then ship them to “Van Dieman’s Land” (Australia) because the new British colony “needed women,” other hardships and love stories and history.

“North Circular” is geographically and emotionally evocative, just gorgeous to see, to hear and to immerse yourself in, enveloped in an ancient city’s lore via its music.

Rating: unrated

Cast: Lisa O’Neil, Gemma Dunleavy, John Francis Flynn, Johnny Flynn, Ian Lynch, Eoghan O’Ceannabháin and Séan Ó Túama

Credits: Scripted and directed by Luke McManus. A Lightdox release.

Running time: 1:25