An interview about the wave of occupations and evictions that took place in the first half of 2015 in Dublin. It includes Grangegorman, The HSE houses, Phibsboro Road, Dream House, The Bolt, Avocado Bastard, Firehouse squat.
Video includes footage from many of the places mentioned and some rather random photos for the segments where we lacked video or photographs. [Read More]
Dublin: Summer of evictions – video interview
Dublin: Eviction in Phibsboro
This video shows the view from inside the house evicted on the last Tuesday evening June 2015 by a large gang of Garda in Dublin operating without a search warrant or eviction order.
This property had been left vacant for at least three years despite being in a reasonably habitable state. Two days previously, housing campaigners had entered it in order to reclaim it for housing purposes. [Read More]
Dublin: An attempt to liberate a vacant council flat for a homeless mother and her children
Myself and some comrades were approached by a young mother from Coolock that recently became homeless. The woman and her children became homeless a few weeks previous. While her kids are in school during the day the mother either walks the streets or calls into friends or family member’s homes. When school has ended for the day they have to rely on family and friends to let them stay in their homes. Sometimes the mother has to split her children up so that she’d definitely have a roof over all her kid’s heads for the night.
She had to leave the house she was renting because of the condition the house was in. She went to Dublin City Council (DCC) and because of the advice given to her by the council she registered herself as being homeless. She asked the council to be put up in one of the state’s homeless hostels or money for a hotel room or a B&B. She was told there is no more spaces left in the hostels, but the council would give her money for a hotel room or B&B. The young mother spent days then weeks trying to get a room in a hotel or B&B that would be suitable for her and her children, but to no avail. She had to survive from the good will of her friends and family. [Read More]
Dublin: Mutual Aid at the Bolt Occupied Hostel
“Mutual aid is arguably as ancient as human culture; an intrinsic part of the small, communal societies universal to humanity’s ancient past. From the dawn of humanity, until far beyond the Invention of agriculture, humans were foragers, exchanging labor and resources for the benefit of groups and individuals alike.” – Wikipedia
Since the establishment of the Bolt Hostel just over a week ago, there have been many people that have arrived at the door to donate furniture, cloths, bed linin, volunteering their time, labour and skills. There has been a communal kitchen area/ TV area created, all by the donations of fridges, microwave, washing machine, cooker, table and chairs, sofa, TV and DVD player by people. [Read More]
Dublin: End of Grangegorman squat
Despite the call for resistance, the Grangegorman squat (AKA SquatCity) has ended in silence. In June 2015, keys were handed to the Gardai, with no fuss.
Dublin: Interview with An Spreach housing activists
On Tuesday evening Garda in Dublin smashed their way into a house in Phibsboro in Dublin in order to evict housing activists who had recently occupied it. The stories we published about it attracted a lot of discussion from our readers so we decided to interview one of the activists involved so they could explain their stance in relation to this specific occupation and the housing crisis in general.
Q: Could you give a bit of context to the particular house that was evicted?
[Read More]
Dublin: Eviction stopped
An attempted violent eviction was successfully halted in Dublin’s North Inner city this morning when residents used mattresses to prevent two men armed with sledge hammers smashing their way through their front door. Although the two men continued to attack the door they halted when Garda arrived on the scene.
[Read More]
Ireland: What Housing Crisis? This is a capitalist crisis
Ours is a society in which, in every field, one group of people makes decisions, exercise control, limits choices, while the great majority have to accept these decisions, submit to this control and act within the limits of these externally imposed choices. Nowhere is this more evident than in the field of housing: one of those basic human needs which throughout history and all over the world people have satisfied as well as they could for themselves, using the materials what were at hand and their own, and their neighbors labor. The marvelously resourceful anonymous vernacular architecture of every part of the globe is a testimony to their skill, using timber, straw, grass, leaves, hides, stone, clay, bone, earth, mud sand even snow. Consider the igloo: maximum enclosure of space with minimum of labor. Cost of materials and transportation, nil. And all made of water. Nowadays, of course, the Eskimos live on welfare handouts in little northern slums. Man, as Habraken says “no longer houses himself: he is housed” – Colin Ward.
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Dublin: Grangegorman residents key points on the March 2015 attempt to evict
The text that follows was published by the residents of the squatted complex at Grangegorman on 24 March to describe the day long eviction attempt they successfully resisted on the previous day. It was initially published and handed out in leaflet form to people walking by the complex. The words are there own.
On Monday 23rd March, the squatted buildings at Grangegorman, where a community has been living for a year-and-a-half, was the subject of a violent attempted eviction by a large force of contractors and Gardaí. Here is a summary of the situation. [Read More]
Dublin: Update about Grangegorman eviction resistance
Yesterday (Friday 27th of March) we had court again, this time the judge had made a decision. He said the Injunction was successful, but he would delay it until May 4th.
This means they will not try to evict us until then, but after that they will try to evict us.
We are hoping that the time we’ve been given will allow people to travel to help us, and for us to raise support and prepare ourselves.
We’re expecting quite a heavy eviction so we’re preparing ourselves for that, and the more help we get the better chance we have of winning! [Read More]
Dublin: Grangegoman Eviction, report from after baliffs chased off
Interview with a Grangegorman resident shortly after their successful resistance to the attempt to evict them yesterday. Details what happened from when the bailiffs started attacking the defenders with poles, knocked them off the gate and then drove a van into them.
This level of escalation turned out to be too much even for the Garda who finally intervened to bring the non court mandated eviction to a halt. A deal was negotiated by which all the bailiffs, their vehicles and the construction workers would leave the site.
The resident also talks about how uplifting all the solidarity they received from other people living in the area was, which even included small businesses and social justice organisations that help the homeless.
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