Workers Solidarity Movement

‘The Liberties’ gets its name from a number of areas which were outside the medieval walls of Dublin City. This doesn’t mean that they were somehow free - it just means that instead of being under the city’s jurisdiction they were ruled by a different group of masters. The Archbishop of Dublin was the boss of one section, the Earl of Meath was in charge of another, and so on. These men of wealth and power taxed the areas they controlled and made money from them but didn’t really care about anyone who lived there.

Issue 2 of the WSM newsletter for the Liberties and Portobello.

• The Liberties -then and now – same as it ever was
• The Afghan Hunger strike and immigration in Ireland
• Asylum Seekers blamed by the rich and lying politicans
• Facts about Asylum Seekers in Ireland

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Residents in the vicinity of the construction being undertaken on the site of the recently demolished Fatima Mansions today protested at the entrance of their estate over the inadequacy of a long time promised traffic management system which had been promised to them prior to construction work beginning. Two simultaneous blockades were mounted at either end of Lorreta Road, residents joined and left with a fluctuating prescence of anywhere between ten and fifteen maintaining the line on either side of the estate. Marylands is an estate located close to the canal, just off Marrowbone Lane beside Cork Street. Traffic on any given day on Marrowbone Lane is hectic, with cars using it as a route to cut through the Liberties to reach Cork St, leaving a very narrow artery dangerously clogged with passage for cyclists generally untenable at peak hours without using the paths.

Being a resident of the Liberties, getting accepted into the National College of Art and Design was a wonderful thing. Not only is it one of the top colleges of Ireland but it is a ten minute journey from my house each morning. NCAD has been one of the main landmarks of the Liberties since it moved there in 1980. However, if the plans of the college director go ahead it will be moving to the cultural wasteland of UCD's Belfield campus. The move to UCD is opposed by staff and students alike in both of the colleges.