OscailtA Hidden History of Social Centres In Ireland…Ireland & Social Centres: Synonymous?
Breaking news: Italian MP, Sgarbi denounces the Statistical Fraud on COVID-19. The speech of the Member of Parliament Vittorio Sgarbi in the session of the Italian Camera, Meeting no. 331 of Friday 24, April, 2020. Vittorio Sgarbi, denounces the closure of 60% of the businesses for 25,000 COVID-19 Deaths, of which the National Institute of Health says 96.3% died NOT of COVID-19 but of other pathologies. That means only 925 have died of the virus. 24,075 have died of other things.2008-04-05T18:54:30+00:00Indymedia Irelandimc-ireland@lists.indymedia.iehttp://www.indymedia.ie/atomfullposts?story_id=87044http://www.indymedia.ie/graphics/feedlogo.gifSome photos of former social centres in Dublinhttp://www.indymedia.ie/article/87044#comment2252862008-04-05T18:54:30+00:00William(Photos by various people). (Photos by various people). More photos of Dublin social centreshttp://www.indymedia.ie/article/87044#comment2252892008-04-05T19:13:10+00:00William..Resources Centrehttp://www.indymedia.ie/article/87044#comment2253072008-04-06T00:56:46+00:00B. TravenThe Resources Centre operated from a room at a student religious house at 168 Ra...The Resources Centre operated from a room at a student religious house at 168 Rathgar Road from about 1977-1979. It had a small book and zine stall. It hosted meetings of women's consciousness-raising groups, prisoners rights campaign, allergy self-treatment group and the nationwide anti-nuclear movement. There were duplicating facilities. It faded when seed money ran out and some core people around the prisoners campaign got money together and bought a dilapidated premises opposite the Fire Station in Buckingham Street, where local community groups also congregated. It was still there ten years ago, although the prisoners group had long since folded and its leading light Joe Costello went into Labour politics.<br />
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Could The Catacombs in a Merrion Square basement that hosted informal literary readings and drinking sessions of writers like Paddy Kavanagh, Tony Cronin or Brendan Behan be called an "alternative" center? It operated late 40s through the 50s.<br />
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And what about a cafe-cum-magazine shop at Crow Street that, although commercially run in the 1980s until (?), was a busy magnet for assorted radicals and seekers after ideas, particularly dietary and ecological?Marlborough St & Crow Sthttp://www.indymedia.ie/article/87044#comment2253322008-04-06T15:19:24+00:00Well fedIn the mid nineteen-eighties Dublin anarchists operated a small bookshop for a c...In the mid nineteen-eighties Dublin anarchists operated a small bookshop for a couple of years in Marlborough Street, along the part of the street now used for parking by Dublin Bus. It was upstairs in a small windowless room.<br />
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The (vegetarian) cafe and bookshop in (6?) Crow Street was a collectively run affair. It consisted of the 'Well Fed Cafe', the 'Well Read Bookshop', and there was a bicycle repair and parking facility in the basement (This was accessed by a wooden ramp in the street to the rear).indeedhttp://www.indymedia.ie/article/87044#comment2253402008-04-06T17:47:07+00:00moderate anarchistyes , I remember the Dublin Resource Centre well . I remember fondly its delicio...yes , I remember the Dublin Resource Centre well . I remember fondly its delicious ,lovingly prepared veggie food , and the long hours of talking with concerned fellow anarchists at its long wooden tables . For me those bench tables symbolised the true democratic ,sharing compadreship of anarchism . <br />
We all shared then a sense of a better future to come and a healthy , robust disdain towards the cowboy and indian games being played out by the nationalists of either ilk on another part of this island at that time . Such distractions we either laughed at or simply ignored .<br />
Complete equality was observed at all times in the DRC -even towards the staff . A lecturer from Trinity could drop in for a quick salad there and find his or herself sitting at the same table as a bohemian artist or architect . Many a wild bohemian maelstrom of ideas,many of the inchoate anarchist dreams which today we take as given found their early manifest form on those sympathetic benches . <br />
The DRC has now gone ,but if buildings have a spirit , I feel that the spirit of the Dublin Resource Centre lingers in the free collective democracy that is the Seomrai Spraoi .Take it higher compadres !Picking and Choosing.http://www.indymedia.ie/article/87044#comment2253422008-04-06T18:03:02+00:00d'otherThere's something of a picking and choosing here that tries to paint a picture o...There's something of a picking and choosing here that tries to paint a picture of a coherent social centre movement in Ireland out of scattered projects that may carry over some common impulses but apart from recent years carry little continuity of personal or ideas between them. If the Queerspace is in there then why not Out House? <br />
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And then of course there's the possibility of sketching this sort of movement for democratically ran social space to include local GAA club houses in rural areas, and then the classic Working Man's clubs that play an integral part in many communities around the country to this day. And what of Republican Clubs? What of that club for Irish speakers in Dublin too?<br />
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A hidden history of social centres would have to include these as well. If what is attractive about these is the democratic nature of them, something that we then use to flag a window into tomorrow for a larger swathe of the population -then we are really rooting around for things that fit our own images of that society aesthetically. The other option is to other option is to push for an intellectual vision that imagines a deepening of the democratic structures that are already there in large co-operative ventures and social spaces out there.<br />
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Basically I think this is a fantastic article, but it displays some of the faults typical of those into pursuing a social centre project, that is the desire to replicate aspects of fading social movements abroad on Irish turf without a real contextualisation of how these spaces emerged as a process of struggle and the accumulation of experience and resources in a movement over years. <br />
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Equally there needs to be some way of understanding the role these sort of spaces play in our political movements rather than side stepping the question of politics altogether. And I wager that the modes of management and internal operation between all those projects varies wildly too.<br />
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Anyway fair play and I look forward to the weekend if I get to knock up to it.<br />
get over yourselfhttp://www.indymedia.ie/article/87044#comment2253432008-04-06T18:06:48+00:00Fed up (with Seomra Spraoi)"Complete equality was observed at all times in the DRC -even towards the staff ..."Complete equality was observed at all times in the DRC -even towards the staff . A lecturer from Trinity could drop in for a quick salad there and find his or herself sitting at the same table as a bohemian artist or architect ." <br />
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!!My God!! How did they cope with it? <br />
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Thankfully in McDonalds and other city centre cafes there is strict segregation of tables by social class and pay packet, so Trinity Lecturers don't have to share tables with common human beings. But those crazy anarchists! Upending all the social rules!! <br />
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Well fed etc.http://www.indymedia.ie/article/87044#comment2253632008-04-06T22:56:27+00:00Merryragster"The (vegetarian) cafe and bookshop in (6?) Crow Street was a collectively run a..."The (vegetarian) cafe and bookshop in (6?) Crow Street was a collectively run affair. It consisted of the 'Well Fed Cafe', the 'Well Read Bookshop', and there was a bicycle repair and parking facility in the basement (This was accessed by a wooden ramp in the street to the rear)."<br />
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The bike shop, square wheel is still there, mad place.<br />
I did an interview with a woman involved in the well fed for the last issue of the Rag, how the place got started, how it was run and how it ended. I'll post it up if I can find it and anyone's interested...merrion r. communehttp://www.indymedia.ie/article/87044#comment2253682008-04-07T00:03:47+00:00B. TravenThen there was the short-lived commune at a former gate house tucked off the Mer...Then there was the short-lived commune at a former gate house tucked off the Merrion Road, about twenty years ago. A colourful ageing hippy and organiser of free concerts, Bill 'Ubi' Dwyer, kept a vegetable garden and lived uneasily with some dreamers who contributed nothing to the housework. The place disbanded after a Scottish bloke was busted for assault and cannabis possession. They were squatting in a vacant gate house. The place must fetch millions on the capitalist property market nowadays.<br />
A poster above rightly stresses that if community centres are to have social impact they must be well run and be partly financed. You can't run a chicken house on wood shavings and theoretical speculation.More on the Anarchy Centrehttp://www.indymedia.ie/article/87044#comment2255392008-04-08T13:35:43+00:00petesy via darrenJust recieved this by e-mail from Petesy who was involved in the anarchy centre ...Just recieved this by e-mail from Petesy who was involved in the anarchy centre & subsequently warzone/giro's...<br />
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As for the Anarchy Centre here's what I know...<br />
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The Belfast Anarchist collective (Just Books crowd) hired the Carpenters Club (owned by the Northern Ireland gay Rights Association) to create an alternative space for young reprobates who were hanging around Belfast city centre on Saturday afternoons getting hassled by the cops. The first gig was probably October 1981. The format was basically local bands playing and some sort of film screening (usually films that never made it to the cinemas).<br />
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There was also a wholefood cafe space and loads of leaflets and anarchist reading material. Everyone was made to feel like it was their place and that how they treated it would determine how long it lasted...Class!!! There were free membership cards give out which stated 'This card entitles you to no more than what you are prepared contribute and create yourself'. There was no licence in the place so there were no age restrictions (which was by and large a first for Belfast). Also, because it was afternoon gigs it meant people from out of town could come and get home easily. I think there may have been a no alcohol policy (probably stipulated by the owners) but I'm not 100 percent sure. There was however no no glue policy so the place at times became quite noxious, much to the dismay of the hippy type volunteers who ran the place. Still they handled it well and suggested the back alley as an alternative venue for the glue bags.<br />
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The collective were openly hostile to the cops anytime they turned up (usually getting refused admission). This got the piggies hot under the collar and they turned the local media onto the fact that there were all these under age kids off their heads in this pit of depravity blah, blah, blah. This adverse pressure and the subsequent hassle from the city council forced the owners to stop the place being used on a regular basis. I think all in all the regular gigs lasted a couple of months. There were a couple of one-off events in 1982, the first being the Poison Girls the second Crass. I think Crass was the last gig and definitely sealed the fate of the place as the first day they played the cops and the UDR sealed the street off and tried to provoke a riot. despite the short lived nature of the place it was enough to be the catalyst for the Warzone Collective and subsequently Giro's.<br />
gardens as spaces too....http://www.indymedia.ie/article/87044#comment2255532008-04-08T16:08:21+00:00dunkfuspey at yahoo dot co dot ukgood stuff darren, thanks
Regarding some of the community gardening activities ...good stuff darren, thanks<br />
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Regarding some of the community gardening activities and spaces:<br />
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In Dublin, the first comunity garden was set up in april 2005 on squatted land along the banks of the grand canal in Dolphins barn. A diverse enough group formed from it and for nearly a year it existed as a "social space". For some it was an extension of the "seomra spraoi" project, it was an experiment in space, community, food production, health and much more. From day 1 ideas of breaking out of activist ghetto were explored and as things grew it became less of an "activist" space and more of a gardeners space. An exhibtion in the local library did attract locals and letters to the community as well as seeking out community networks were means to make the project a success. <br />
All in all about a hundred people, from all different types of worlds, were part of it or visited.<br />
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It could have been a far better used space, in terms of a physical space for activists to socialize, play, do stuff.... Suggestions were made for gatherings and the like but little happened apart from greenway bikeriders stopping to chat and share food, it was quite near the nicholas of Myra centre which was frequently used as a space for such activities. At the first anarchist bookfair there was a discussion about social spaces in the UK, a question was asked about the use of outdoor spaces like gardens, it was felt that they were important spaces and sometimes were critical to local struggles. <br />
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On Paddys weekend 2006 the start of the end came, within only a few weeks it was all over and the 1 year birthday / wake was celebrated / mourned, not an official eviction but just short of it. There was not too much fuss from the "activist world", perhaps it was not seen as a serious enough project or space, a pity, as for the ones who worked and spent time there for a while, it was a little paradise... It could have been a lot more. Anyway, lessons learned...<br />
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Some of the collective went and set up a new community garden in Finglas. The garden is in the grounds of St. Joseph’s National School for girls, on Barry Avenue in West Finglas and is still going strong. Others a bit with the Cursed Earth crew in Phibsoboro. <br />
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A year or so later, many of the first collective went back to Dolphins Barn and set up a second community garden. This one was @150 metres down the canal in another unused part of land, a sign was put up, local community was invited to participate, spuds were planted and for some weeks it looked like it was all go again. The collective were informed that their action was illegal and told to remove garden or face consequences, pre election Green party people visited the garden and talked about the importance of projects like this... <br />
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Around this time an official space was found and the gardeners are there since, Im not sure if its temporary or indefinate or if they have back up plans if told to move. Gardening for the next few weeks is on Saturdays at 12 pm. All are welcome. . . its on the corner of South Circular Rd and Place avenue in Dolphins Barn, Dublin 8.<br />
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It seems the Belfast anarchist plot has been a more well used space for the "activist" community, what struck me about it was that there was food being produced there but also fires for making tea and stirring up big meals for groups there, nice sessions happened there, whereas in Dublin this element was missing a bit, in my time anyway. Im sure Darren can comment more.<br />
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New gardens have started up @ Scariff in East Clare and Gort in South Galway. In Scariff, there exists an excellent space, the local co-op which is where the community gardeners from the island met to watch the excellent film from cuba "how cuba survived peak oil", the co-op has a fine cafe and spaces, im not sure of all that goes on there, again others might be able to contribute. <br />
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Gardening for the next few weeks is on Saturdays at 12 pm. All are welcome. Here is a map so you can find it . . its on the corner of South Circular Rd and Place avenue in Dolphins Barn, Dublin 8.<br />
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Stuff grows in gardens, including healthy struggles, its gentle but its also very powerful...<br />
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Dublin Community Gardens<br />
<a href="http://dublincommunitygardens.blogspot.com/" title="http://dublincommunitygardens.blogspot.com/">http://dublincommunitygardens.blogspot.com/</a><br />
www.dolphinsbarngarden.org/ <br />
the garden has been renamed, I think to South circular road garden, new site at: <br />
<a href="http://southcirculargarden.blogspot.com/" title="http://southcirculargarden.blogspot.com/">http://southcirculargarden.blogspot.com/</a><br />
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finglas<br />
<a href="http://finglasgarden.blogspot.com/" title="http://finglasgarden.blogspot.com/">http://finglasgarden.blogspot.com/</a><br />
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The Cursed Earth Garden<br />
<a href="http://www.indymedia.ie/article/75922" title="http://www.indymedia.ie/article/75922">http://www.indymedia.ie/article/75922</a><br />
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regarding the end of first garden:<br />
Dolphin's Barn community garden under threat<br />
<a href="http://www.indymedia.ie/article/75438" title="http://www.indymedia.ie/article/75438">http://www.indymedia.ie/article/75438</a><br />
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3rd time lucky for community garden in Dublin 8?<br />
<a href="http://www.indymedia.ie/article/84268" title="http://www.indymedia.ie/article/84268">http://www.indymedia.ie/article/84268</a><br />
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