The Irish folk singer Lisa O'Neill has a new single out today, a song of grief and protest called "Homeless In The Thousands (Dublin In The Digital Age)." The beautiful and heartbreaking track, which laments the state of O'Neill's home city, features a spoken word segment from the Libertines' Pete Doherty, who just announced a new solo album the other day.
A statement from O'Neill:
We write what we see. I have lived in Dublin City for 24 years. As winter 2024 approached, this is the song that came to me. And here are some thoughts on why I’ve chosen to put it out at the start of this new year. As our new Government make plans to rejuvenate our capital city centre, by spending to embrace the streets, its history, its buildings (occupied and empty) and its artists, I hope my song will help them recall what is truly at the heart of this, and any city or community around the world. At the heart of the city is the people of the city. They are the pulse. If the pulse stops, the heart stops.
Kindness is human strength.
Housing is a human need.January 2025, and Ireland has a housing crisis that is off the charts. It is 109 years since Padraig Pearce stood outside the GPO on Dublin’s O’Connell Street and read The Proclamation of the Irish Republic.
"The Irish Republic is entitled to, and hereby claims, the allegiance of every Irishman and Irishwoman. The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens, and declares its resolve to pursue the happiness and prosperity of the whole nation and of all its parts, cherishing all the children of the nation equally, and oblivious of the differences carefully fostered by an alien Government, which have divided a minority from the majority in the past."
Outside that same GPO today you will find several charities operating soup kitchens to help feed those in need.To name a few The Muslim Sisters of Eire, Hope in the Darkness Soup Run and Dublin Herb Bike - all of whom have been providing hot and nourishing meals, sleeping bags, care, attention and hope to people that need their services.These charities, amongst many others, have been operating for at least a decade…
Introducing by-laws to regulate these soup kitchens, as our newly formed government is trying to do now, will hide the harsh reality of homelessness from the eyes of society.
The problem will not go away by unseeing.
The problem can only be resolved by seeing and helping.
Listen below.
