The Revolutionary House League has been running the Anne Devlin Camp for homeless people for a number of weeks in the heart of the Liberties on School Street.
A number of rough sleepers have taken refuge at the encampment, enjoying the safety and respect provided there. The camp has met with universal support from the local community, who recognise the importance of exposing and challenging the housing crisis as well as alleviating the misery of homelessness. For working class communities across Ireland homelessness is not an abstract thing, it is a living reality for our friends and families, and an ever present threat, a sword dangling over our heads. Supporting the actions of homeless people to better their situation is a natural class instinct.
Unfortunately others, enemies of the community, have also been acting by the natural instinct of the class they represent. The Gardaí, acting in collusion with Dublin City Council, evicted the residents of the Anne Devlin People’s Park with an early morning raid on Halloween. A sizable force of Gardaí forcibly separated the residents from their tents and belongings, which were seized and removed by DCC workers. One of the homeless residents was arrested, charged and beaten, suffering multiple injuries.
However such repressive scare tactics by the state did not deter the residents who returned to the park and set up new tents. They do not want to languish in corrupt, dangerous hostels or live in danger on the streets. They have made the Anne Devlin People’s Park their home and they will not be bullied away.
For several hours the Gardaí carried out a campaign of harassment against the residents, intimidating them and threatening arrests. When a group of seven Gardaí were asked what they were doing at the camp, one replied ‘we’re here to piss you off’. No law could be cited to explain what crime was being committed other than section eight of the Public Order Act – which means you have to listen to what a Garda says. Basically they told the homeless residents ‘because we say so’.
The divide between Gardaí and working class communities is made crystal clear. They want to break up a camp for homeless people because it makes their landlord state look bad, exposing the housing crisis and the rotten system they sign up to defend. Meanwhile the working class support action taken against the housing crisis and have nothing but solidarity for those oppressed and fighting for their rights. The need for the working class to take control of our own communities and police ourselves, is made ever more obvious.
In spite of this harassment the camp lives on, in the spirit of Anne Devlin who rose up against occupation with Robert Emmet in 1803. Although the odds may seem against us, we fight on and victory will be ours. Our cause is just and theirs is not.
AIA stands shoulder to shoulder with the RHL and the Anne Devlin camp in the fight for Universal Social Housing, the only guarantee of Homes for All!