Workers Solidarity Movement

Last night (18 August) saw a protest against homophobic attack in Phoenix park take place at the Central Criminal Court at Parkgate street.

Last night we shot some video inside the squatted Debtors prison in Dublin - the courts have ordered those living here to get out by midnight on Sunday, 11.59 to be exact. The abandoned prison in Dublins inner city has been occupied to be used as shelter and an arts space. The prison lies just behind Capel st, the entrance is on Halston st. Many of those occupying were recently evicted from Grangegorman squat The occupation was announced via Grangegorman Resists Eviction page last week.

What may have been the largest squat in Europe, at Grangegorman in Dublin, was recently evicted for the second time. A major hardship for the 30 people living there but one that was rapidly improved on when many of them moved a kilometre down the road and occupied a long abandoned prison.

The Debtors Prison on Halston street was built in 1794 and actually lies between Halston Street and Green Street. The ‘U’ shaped 3 storey building is built of granite and limestone and was built as a luxury prison for the wealthy who had run up gambling debts. There were 33 such rooms / cells which were rented either furnished or unfurnished. If you weren’t rich you were thrown into the basement, Dublin at the time had 5 debtors prison and this one alone could accommodate 100.

An important demonstration against homophobia takes place tonight in Dublin in the aftermath of a frightening mob attack on a Polish gay man in the Phoenix park at the end of last month. The protest will take place on the steps of the Parkgate street court complex because of its location close to the scene of the attack and because of the Garda disinterest in investigating it.

As the organisers of tonights protest explain “On 30th July 2016 a gay man was viciously attacked in Phoenix Park by a gang of over 10 young men. They made homophobic threats and insults, chased him, hit him with an iron bar and made him fear for his life by beating him and attempting to run him over in a car. He ran, screaming for help until he found someone and the gang finally fled. He was taken to hospital and treated for his injuries.

O’Connell St, July 22nd - amid Ireland’s worst housing crisis in decades, people gather outside Lynam’s hotel to protest the eviction of five homeless families, including ten children. Fifteen of the twenty families granted temporary shelter at the privately ran hotel have already been pushed out by DCC, and now find themselves forced living off the couches of friends and family. The remaining families who do not want to leave, deciding to take a stand against the apathy and cruelty shown to them by the Irish state now find themselves under huge strain and uncertainty as their quality of life hangs in the balance.

Due to a small group of sexist whingers, the beautiful Repeal the 8th mural by Maser at Project Arts in Dublin has been removed.

Over 200 letters of support were sent to the centre thanking them for their support of the campaign to Repeal the 8th Amendment of the Constitution, which equates the life of a foetus to that of the mother and sees that anyone who has an abortion in Ireland will spend 14 years in jail.

Dublin City Council claimed the mural was in violation of the Planning and Development Acts and that the mural changes the tone of the street and impacts on the area. If they think a bit of street art is bad they’d want to take a look at how denying bodily autonomy to half the population and treating them like criminals impacts upon people.

July 4th in Dublin saw homeless people occupy a 40 bed hostel they are being evicted from so that it can eventually be turned into long term housing.  The Irish Housing Network which is supporting the residents posted that Johns Lane West provided shelter and accommodation for over 40 people. A few months ago DCC and Focus Ireland announced they were closing the hostel to build apartments on the site. On Monday July 4th when the hostel was supposed to close, residents with nowhere else to go refused to leave and occupied the building.

The loss of 42 beds means another 42 people at risk of sleeping on the streets. With no new beds opened, if Johns Lane closes permanently more people will be forced onto the street.

We are excited by the news that a new radical social centre opened 6th June in Squat City, Grangegorman named the Violet Autonomous Space (after Violet Gibson, the Irish woman who once shot at Mussolini!).

On Tuesday 10th of May eight homeless people (two women, one which was heavily pregnant) and six men with the support of An Spreach and housing activists occupied the Bru Aimsir homeless hostel on Dublin’s Thomas street. The hostel was opened in 2014 as a direct result of homeless man Jonathan Corrie dying, found frozen to death in a doorway just metres away from the Dail.The decision to occupy the hostel was made by the eight homeless people as they had been refused a bed in the hostel for that night, another 42 people were also refused a bed for the night. The beds were took away without warning. The beds were took away as part of the hostels “winding down” period towards its closure on the 29th of May. The building the hostel is in is owned by the government's Department of Communication.

A demonstration organised by United Against Racism took place on Tuesday 10^th on Nutgrove Way, Rathfarnham. Despite the wet and windy weather, a couple hundred people assembled to show solidarity with the Ahmadzai family - originally from Afghanistan - and to send a message to their assailants. 4 men, at least some of them local, carried out a vicious and pre-meditated racist attack on brothers Naqib (18) and Fazal (20), and their 13-year-old nephew Abdul, on Thursday 5^th at around 8pm as they walked home.