Dublin squatters recieve Notice To Quit from Dublin City Council - effective immediately

dublin | anti-capitalism | news report

Thursday March 18, 2004 14:27

by k magpie - magpie collective (personal capacity)

Brief story about the house - and some old photos from August 2003, which have not been published until now.

Paint peeling from walls

When does the story of a house and its inhabitants begin? This particular story should kick off in August 2003, when half a dozen people decided they were going to live in No. 16 Upper Leeson Street.

It begins before that however. Paraphrasing (and altering) a question that's been asked before, "where is there space in this city to create?", the potential occupants of the house met regularly wherever they could over the summer of 2003 - in parks, in squares, on office steps - to discuss methods and means of creating a space in Dublin that could encourage meaningful and inventive ways of organising and living.

The Celtic Tiger era means that cheap rents are gone. The culture of money is all pervasive. The city spreads its tentacles into the western fields, soulless glass and chrome office blocks populate the city skyline, and the humanity of a city is choked to death. People spend half their lives in cars, spending half their income on property.

Two favourite topics of "canteen/water-cooler" conversation are the traffic chaos in Dublin, and the perpertual upwards spiral of house prices. Yet it never seems to develop past a clucking of tongues and shaking of heads. Sometimes the solutions are just outside the window. That derelict building across the street is huge. Why is it just sitting there?

Squatting is a form of direct action that challenges head on the evils of property speculation and neglect IMMEDIATELY.

The first night, we slept on a hard concrete floor. Breathing in dust that had lain silent for possibly a decade. The building had been left to rot. Windows were left wide open, and were smashed & cracked. The plaster ceilings had been removed, exposing the floor cross beams. The drains were clogged with weeds and dirt. The roof leaked when it rained.

We repaired and replaced the windows, including the large window in the front that had been boarded up. We tied sheets to the ceilings and took measures to stop the damp seeping in. We unblocked the drains which were causing damage to the outside brickwork and put in new plastic piping. We repaired the roof with sealant and woodstain. We scraped the walls clean and painted & carpeted the house from top to bottom. We built furniture from the wood panels used to mix cement.

Sleeping arrangements