Rubbish – St Patricks Day
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Gardaà have appealed for witnesses to come forward after at least four young men smashed up to 25 windows on a DART train at Howth Junction in Dublin at teatime yesterday.
Gardaà and the ambulance service were also called to break up a fight between around 25 people on an evening train. Gardaà have appealed for witnesses to come forward.
In another incident in Bray, Co Wicklow, two security guards were assaulted.
It was actually much worse yesterday. The 252 people arrested were for specific public order offences. In total almost 500 people were arrested in Dublin yesterday and even then you have to take into account that the vast majority of incidents were not reported to the police. I’m sorry to say this but there is an underclass in Ireland and it’s gripped by a boiling rage.
From Boards.ie
Quote
“Walking up Grafton St. today I felt like i was in some different city or a parallel universe, almost everyone was drunk, people were drinking out of cans or bottles, people were either falling around the place or being held up by their friends and others were trying to pick fights with passers-by! Meanwhile the Guards stood by just waiting for something to happen…which it did a number of times! In the space of 3 hours I saw an ambulance on Grafton St. 4 times and I saw people being handcuffed by the Guards 5 or 6 times!
Myself and my friend decided to see if Temple Bar was as bad as Grafton St! We were Just crossing Dame St. over to the Bank of Ireland when we saw a group of 5 girls (no more than 17 years of age) getting into a fight with 2 other girls…..several men stood by cheering and another man was recording the whole thiing on his camera!! One of the girls was being kicked and when her friend tried to help her she was turned on by the group of 5 girls, punched in the face and thrown against the gates of the bank!
Eventually the 2 girls got away! At this stage we had gotten across the street(the lights had been red) and we were walking behind the 2 girls towards the Temple Bar area! Myself and my friend realised that neither of them were Irish! We stopped them to ask if they were ok,one of them was crying her eyes out and the other was in complete shock! They had been set upon by the 5 for NO reason! One of the thugs stuck a sticker on one of the girls backs and she took it off & threw it on the ground, when the group saw her throwing the sticker away they started to hit her!! This was the ONLY reason…the girls had just been walking along looking for somewhere to go for food!! We brought them into the toilets in the Bank bar to get them some ice for their badly beaten faces and to calm them down a bit! The 2 girls were Canadians in Ireland for the week specially for St. Patricks week! These girls will not be back! Im sure our attempts at telling them that this is not the norm fell on deaf ears! They are here until Monday and will not be back into town…they are going to stay around Clontarf (where their B&B is) for the next few days! We stayed with the girls for around an hour and got a taxi for them!”IsI,the description U quote SHOULD be released worldwide by any Irish Citizen worthy of the title.
The events of St Patricks Day were perhaps the best advertised and fortold Public Order offences ever in the City.
It is worth bearing in mind that the average Garda is highly reluctant to use his/her power of arrest.
Several reasons dictate this,paperwork,time,the immediate probability of a court appearance and of being treated as an oppressive thug by the JUDGE !
However probably the single greatest reason for the Gardai`s “A sure he`s from a good family” attitude is that once placed under arrest the miscreant is now the TOTAL responsibility of firstly the arresting member and then the Station Officer as the arrestee is processed.
Most of the “Regulars” on the City Centre circuit are totally conversant with the workings of the Gardai and usually on rirst name terms with many of the Members themselves.
Some particularly concientious re-offenders even have preferred Gardai whom they actually like being arrested by due to quirks in the Members character which allows for a simpler or more rapid processing thus allowing for a more efficient use of the young criminals time.
Last year whilst in Paris for the 14th July parade and fireworks I was struck firstly by the far lower amount of Underage/Adolescent drinking in Public but also of a somewhat different and far more clear cut relationship between the Citoyens and the Polis.
Whilst standing along the entrance to the Pont D`Alma underpass we (The Crowd) were prevailed upon by members of the Parisian Police to move back from the kerbside and onto the footpath proper.
Many of the Foreigners were unable to undrerstand the request and were reluctant to move from a good vantage point .
Their reluctance was reinforced by some locals who argued the toss with the youthful “Flic” who returned several times,each time becoming more agitated at the refusal of the ever emboldened group.
Eventually one of the senior officers came along and spoke sternly with the locals who argued passionately back.
The issue however was decided quite rapidly in the end by the Senior officer telling the Parisian Lady who was leading the resistance that he was having no more of this nonsense and was instead handing it over to the CRS. who are a very different kettle of fish inded it seems.
The arrival of several brutish and paramilitary looking middle aged CRS officers prompted our Jeanne D`Arc to whisper to us that it is better now to move back without further delay.
Mind you she continued to mount a strong verbal resistance but she had lost the day….
It was obvious that few of the locals had any great liking for the CRS,and judging from the cut of the members that was entirely a reciprocated feeling BUT …….There was a very rapid change in mood from one of gay banter and ignoring of the ordinary Police request to a rapid compliance with the same request made with a mailed fist rather than a velveteen glove.
Michael McDowell is on record last year registering his dislike for the trappings of a “Military Looking” police force.
This sort of ethos is very desirable indeed IF the relevant Minister can point to a degree of effectivity by and respect for the Normal Police.
For far too many “Ordinary” poor bloody taxpayers the most commonly heard Garda response to a plea for assistance is along the lines of ……”Ye had it insured had`nt ye”………
Anyway Roll On Saturday………..24 Hrs R`n R shuld be enuf for any gouger…. 😀Updates:
714 people were arrested for public order offences throughout the country over the course of the St Patrick’s Day festivities.
Most of the arrests were in Dublin, but gardaà also detained a number of people in Cork, Limerick and Waterford.
I totally agree on the CRS issue Alek, it is known by people of all classes in France that the CRS are there to restore order and not to discuss issues, that is what the police are for in France, I was in Lille a few years ago and a distrubance broke out near where we were drinking, the gendarme politely informed us that the CRS were on route and that it was their advice to off the street . Unfortunately too many thugs in Dublin are quite aware that no deterent like the CRS exist for public order offences and general street crime/ anti-social carrying on.
Unfortunately the disproportionate use of force by Gardaà against middle-class twentysomethings at the reclaim the streets rally several years ago has led to a severe reluctance to use nightsticks. How many verbal warnings do you think are appropriate before an ERT should use his baton? I’d say three.
Is there any indication of how many of these arrests were drink related? Have the Gardai released any statistical data in this regard?
No but Dublin City Council estimate that 25 tonnes of rubish were generated by the 500,000 people who attended the event. The Gardai refused to give any breakdown on the number of gardai on duty nor the cost of the operation.
The reason I asked is because discussion about having a CRS style force in operation is futile as long as our culture is so orientated around alcohol.
25 tonnes of rubbish is pretty substantial alright.
@phil wrote:
The reason I asked is because discussion about having a CRS style force in operation is futile as long as our culture is so orientated around alcohol. .
I always think of a freind who used to get very drunk very often until one night he tripped over a footpath and shattered one of his knees, he has never been over his limit again. I think that many young thickos get drunker than they should safe in the knowledge that there is little chance of a meaningful sanction being imposed upon them. In France people who have a little too much to drink are generally advised by their freinds to calm down rather than being encouraged to misbehave.
@phil wrote:
25 tonnes of rubbish is pretty substantial alright.
It certainly is
From the Greens:
Time to make packaging reusable and returnable to end throw away littering after St Patrick’s day mega clean-up
20 March 2005
Littering is for losers on three counts, says Green Party Leader Trevor Sargent TD in response to the huge clean-up of Dublin city following St Patrick’s Day.
“Firstly, 25 tonnes of litter after one parade is a costly amount to clear requiring 56 people to be equipped and paid not to mention the loss of future revenue arising from damage to tourism.â€
“Secondly, litter creates health problems for people and pets as well as encouraging the rat population to flourish.â€
“Thirdly, litter contains valuable aluminium, glass, paper and plastic. Throwing these and other materials away is throwing away finite and valuable resources.â€
“To seriously tackle littering requires the stick of stiff on-the-spot fines but also the carrot of money-back deposits on cans etc. Returnable packaging is standard for many tourists in their home countries. Denmark alone has 10 times the number of bring centres for collecting recyclables compared to Ireland. With such a policy change a festive St Patrick’s Day could be both clean as well as green,†advocated the Green Party/Comhaontas Glas Leader.
Next from the Greens:
Pope: fond of Catholicism
Bears – “well I’m afraid its the woods for us”Any major event in any country is effected by this not just “aren’t the Irish dirty”
Was in Cardiff for the rugby last weekend, in the area where the big screens were the place was knee deep in litter and as for “Fast Food Alley” the less said the better, anyway there was only about 10,000 Irish so I doubt it was us.
A famous case was the Pink Floyd concert in St Mark’s Square Venice a few years ago Rubbish was 1ft deep throughout the square
So It’s not just us
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