Featured Squatting on the rise in Ireland

[undine]

Hi, I am an Irish squatter, updating on how things are going in Ireland;

The squatting scene here is really taking off, its legally a civil matter until injunctions or ejectment orders are issued. So legally its very similar to the UK before the law changed. There is a massive homeless crisis at the moment and a huge amount of empty buildings. Over 300,000 nationally, around 76 for every 1 homeless person. A lot of housing activist organizations that are endorsing squatting and there is some public support.

There exists huge "ghosts estates" of empty houses in Ireland ready to be turned into squat villages
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14.5% OF ALL IRISH HOUSES ARE VACANT


Over the last three or four years, a squatting community in Dublin has grown and established itself to a point where it now has several long-term squats. There has been about 4 squat projects, a good network of support, and a wealth of knowledge and experience of the practical aspects of squatting. It put on the 2014 Dublin International Squatters Convergence, a four-day event which an estimated 100+ squatters from abroad attended.

For a time an autonomous social center called Seomra spraoi held practical squatter nights once a month. https://seomraspraoi.org/2014/11/practical-squatting-nights-in-seomra-spraoi/
After 10 years the seomra spraoi projected ended, mainly due to burn out of collective members having to raise donations for high rent every month.

The barricade Inn
A new collective emerged and squatted a hotel in an extremely central spot in Dublin city. Its called "The Barricade Inn" its an anarchist social center and infoshop. It has been squatted now for about 7 months, it is currently facing an injunction though. The barricade Inn hosts " Practical squatter nights" weekly
Inside there is :
An Infoshop/ library
A vegan cafe
A gig space
A computer lab
Meeting rooms
A free shop
A bike workshop
A screen printing / art room
There is two social center floors and two residents floors
https://www.facebook.com/barricadeinn/
https://barricadeinn.squ.at/
http://www.wsm.ie/barricade-inn
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Bolt Hostel
From this collective a project to squat a abandoned homeless hostel owned by the city grew. The squatted hostel was opened to offer accommodation to the homeless. This project was run by a collective formed of anarchists, squatters, socialists, ad a bunch of housing activist organizations.
This project was also evicted.
https://www.facebook.com/Bolt-Hostel-518802108270508/

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Squat City
A huge huge warehouse complex comprising of several warehouses and houses was previously squatted for over 2 years. There was a drink and drug free artist studio space called headspace, a community garden, cinema area, circus area, freeshop areas, houses being constructed etc and much more. There was a crazy attempted eviction that was successfully resisted, then an injunction. There was a lot of support then from the local community with hundreds of them visiting the squat over the course of a few days. A tripod was constructed and huge fortifications and barricades were made. The mayor of Dublin supported the squatters, as well as the local church. There was a petition from the kids in the local school to support the squat and dublin city council workers and fire division dropped food by. Locals donated loads of cash from there pockets to help. It was featured in mainstream media and cop helicopters circled the squat for days collecting info. Squatters trickled away to other areas of the city after the injunction was passed. A row of houses down the road were then opened by a crowd of squatters in broad daylight in front of the garda (Irish cops). These houses were squatted for a couple of weeks until an injunction came through for them too.
https://www.facebook.com/resistgg/?fref=ts
http://www.independent.ie/irish-new...ist-eviction-from-derelict-site-31090901.html
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This is how massive the squat was
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Squat robot
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Eviction resistance
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Circus area
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"The watchtower"
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Community garden
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squatters built these houses in the squat city warehouses
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Mad buzz
There has been squats starting in two cities besides Dublin and elsewhere in Ireland.

Some squatters have migrated over to Dublin from other countries due to how deadly it is, The squatting movement is only starting here!
You should come squat here! There is too many fucking gaffs for us to squat without you.



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Fuck private property,
undine

 

[Odin]

Amazing. Truly Epic. Thank you for sharing this.
The robot sculpture atop the building must of been a blast to construct.

 

[undine]

More Pics :
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[Tude]

Wow that IS pretty amazing. How did there end up being so many empty buildings?

 

[Kal]

Cool they need a place like Slab City.

 

[Anagor]

Very cool!

Perhaps I'll be in Ireland again soon ... and maybe find a squat.

 

[japanarchist]

This is so amazing and inspirational, please post more pictures if you have some!

 

[Matt Derrick]

This is one of the best (and few) reports I've seen on squatting in Ireland, although I've been hearing a lot of 3rd hand rumors about this stuff for years... I'd love to see an update to this for 2021/22; in the meantime, I've added this to our featured threads section!

 

[DdRyn]

Hello, is it possible to get in touch with whoever took the photo of Twin Headed Wolf at 'The Words in the Warehouse'?

 

[juniormustache]

Hey anyone have any updates on the scene in ireland these days? I’m gonna be there in august and would love to connect before I get there!

 

[japanarchist]

I

Hey anyone have any updates on the scene in ireland these days? I’m gonna be there in august and would love to connect before I get there!

i was there in 2019 and met some awesome squatters in Dublin who let me crash with them, but i dont know if they’re still around. I don’t know where to point you to search but if you can find any anarchist or punk events/shows happening there then there’s bound to be squatters around. Talk to everyone you meet when you go and ask around.

 

[Ynwdwndrr]

The art work

 

[jimi]

Hey anyone have any updates on the scene in ireland these days? I’m gonna be there in august and would love to connect before I get there!

I'm going to be flying into Dublin blind on July 26th as well. My very loose plans are to spend some time there getting a feel for it, then head to somewhere else in the UK (maybe London?) and make my way up to Fringe Fest, then fly out of Dublin again at the end of August. I don't know anyone there at this point, but do have connections in England and Scotland, so I'm about to get to work on figuring something out. Have you heard anything since you posted this?

 

[japanarchist]

i just found out there’s an anarchist bookfair in Dublin on May 20th (9 days from now), this would be a great place to look for squattas! Also check out Anew’s calendar for more info on events -> Dublin Anarchist Bookfair (Ireland) | anarchistnews.org - https://anarchistnews.org/content/dublin-anarchist-bookfair-ireland

 

[squatsthecraic]

Hey anyone have any updates on the scene in ireland these days? I’m gonna be there in august and would love to connect before I get there!

I just arrived and I'm looking to find out more of the current scene as well

 

[dubh]

I was at the Dublin Anarchist Bookfair this year, they are slowly growing a scene there. For squatting check out the Revolutionary Housing League, https://twitter.com/rhlireland

I squatted up north in Letterkenny on my own, big abandoned farm.

It's also easy to live illegally in Ireland, especially if Irish-American, I'm back in America now.