Independent Media Centre Ireland     http://www.indymedia.ie

Surveillance in Clontarf

category national | miscellaneous | news report author Thursday February 06, 2003 11:40author by Kitty-Kat

The cops in these here parts seem to have a lot of time on their hands... to harass anyone who knows the Catholic Workers

I was minding the flat of one of the Catholic Worker 5 for the week…
On Monday morning I called in sick to work, needed to catch up on some shut-eye. The phone in the flat was hopping. Didn’t answer it. Despite getting no answer on the phone, the local Gardaí decided to call over anyway. Ban Garda rang the doorbell maybe half a dozen times. Nursing a hangover, I tried to ignore her. Someone else in the building let her in and she hammered the door, this girl was persistent!! So eventually I relented and opened the door. Blah blah blah can you confirm she lives her etc etc. What’s your name? Where are you from? No comment no comment. Where is she from? Dunno dunno dunno. So I thought, well, it was inevitable someone had to confirm her address after she got arrested - back to bed.

So why did another plain clothes cop arrive at 11:30 last night again doggedly determined to get into the building? I’d a splitting headache and had no intention of letting whoever it was in, assuming it was someone ringing the wrong number. In the quiet of the building I could hear her buzzing all the other flats. My question… if no one answers from the flat she’s going to, why get into the building? Another hammering on the door. What’s your name? What’s your relationship to the detained? Are you living here? How long are you staying? Oops… now why didn’t I know someone had already been around, sorry, um… miscommunication. So my question… I’ve been in since six this evening, no-one called, so why wait til the middle of the night to hammer the door, get me out of bed and flash some I.D. at me in a dark hallway and ask questions, not about Deirdre, but me????

A friend called over on Tuesday night, he left pretty late and as he wasn’t familiar with the area I kept an eye out the window to see he got a taxi. Thought I saw him across the street, but after a little scrutiny realised it wasn’t him, but as a result I noticed a lot of detail about the bloke. The guy was walking north by the flat, very slowly, despite it being freezing out there. I happened to look out again a little later, feeling guilty that I’d sent my mate packing on such a cold night and there was the same big burly guy. Again he was walking north real slow, so he’d obviously walked by the place twice already, this time he stared right up at my window so I walked out onto the balcony to get a good look at him and possibly scare him off … once he saw me come out he sped up alright and quickly ducked around the corner. Thing was, my mate was still down there, waiting on a taxi, he said the guy had dumb undercover cop written all over him.

Now maybe I am jumping the gun here, putting 2 + 2 and getting 5 but it wouldn’t surprise me if they were up to their post-street party tricks. They are trying to make sense of all this and I guess they want to root out “the network” ha ha ha!! fucking morons.

And as they are no doubt trawling through this site.. if i'm wrong call me paranoid, if i'm right call me ... on to you...



Indymedia Ireland is a media collective. We are independent volunteer citizen journalists producing and distributing the authentic voices of the people. Indymedia Ireland is an open news project where anyone can post their own news, comment, videos or photos about Ireland or related matters.