An interview about the wave of occupations and evictions that took place in the first half of 2015 in Dublin.
Specialist topics: Squatting
An interview with a couple of the people involved in The Barricade Inn, the squatted social centre on Parnell street, including a video tour of the interior.
About 10 days ago three van loads of riot cops arrived at the door to No 2 Gardiner Place at around 9am, There they formed a Roman style tortoise shell shield formation and proceeded to start to batter the door down. Once in they stormed through the building, arresting the residents and dragged them down to the High Court for an eviction / injunction hearing at which they were forced to agree not to try and re-enter the house. No media outlet deemed any of this worthy of coverage.
Solidarity Times had been in the building the previous week, shooting some video in anticipation of a campaign in opposition to the eviction. We’re assembled a video report on the space from that footage as yet another example of the vast amount of empty housing that is around even inner city Dublin. Homelessness is not caused by a lack of usable buildings but by deliberately leaving such buildings empty and boarded up in order to create the scarcity that is seeing rent hikes and a new property bubble.
This video shows some of the violent eviction of a house on Phibsboro Avenue in Dublin during which the inhabitants were pepper sprayed and arrested on a ridiculous burglary charge. They had been living in the house two months and were of course later released without charge.
The Bolt is an abandoned hostel for the homeless that has been occupied and brought back into use by an alliance of 6 housing groups in Dublin.
In this video Solidarity Times interview one of the organisers in some detail about the building, support from local residents and what has been going on with the council.
Video report from the attempt to evict the new squatted emergency family accommodation center in Bolton street in Dublin on July 3rd. The building is now being referred to as The Bolt.
Right in the centre of Dublin city a new squatted anarchist social centre is up and running and open to all. It’s in a reclaimed building at 77 Parnell St that was formerly Nearys hotel, which had been left unused for many years, abandoned and left to slowly fall to ruin.
In a disgraceful if not unexpected scene the High Court has again taken the side of property speculators and ordered the arrest of the remaining squatters at Grangegorman – 19th May. The judge also imposed a 14-day prison sentence on one of the occupiers who said he had not yet vacated the premises because he wanted time to bring an appeal to the Supreme Court
This panel looked at the challenges and possibilities of popular self-organisation to reclaim our lives, our homes and our cities. Jenny and Zoe looked at recent occupations in Dublin, including the Grangegorman Squat in Smithfield where resistance to eviction is ongoing
The reactions to the attempted evictions of the 27 people who occupied the long vacant Grangegorman complex here and elsewhere online has been interesting. On the ground at the gates people passing have been curious, and overwhelmingly positive. Some have brought down gifts including the pictured fry up from council workers at the depot nearby.