A thousand thanks to everyone who voted for me on Friday. Ok 1032 thanks. Thanks also to the crew on the leaflets in Malahide Portmarnock Howth Baldoyle & Sutton Park, not forgetting the 3 brothers in Bayside. Thanks to all the comrades who gave their all. While we didn’t win a seat the vote is holding strong and we will fight on, not just for seats but the bigger picture, our collective struggle. Thanks one and all.

Congrats to Joe Higgins MEP and thanks for voting for him on the European ballot paper.

Final election appeal of Joe Higgins - a fighter for workers, young people and the unemployed.

Joe Higgins is standing for the Dublin Constituency in the Euro Elections to be held on Friday, June 5th, to give people throughout Dublin an opportunity to strike a real blow against this governments attacks on working people.

Joe is well known as a fighter for working people for the last thirty years, and as being the real opposition when in the Dail from 1997 to 2007. Now more than ever we need to elect fighters like Joe.

Two key reasons to vote Joe Higgins No. 1
- Wipe out Fianna Fail, & strike a blow against the entire political establishment
- Elect a a real fighter for working people - a workers’ MEP on a workers’ wage who will lead the fightback

For more check out:
http://www.joehiggins.eu/ideas

Best of luck to all the postal workers who are moving out of College Street and down to the Baldoyke Industrial estate. We will miss you, but we will drop up to sell you copies of the Socialist (news paper) from time to time

reblog: from www.irishpostalworker.com
BALDOYLE SORTING OFFICE

After serving the hinterland of Baldoyle in a most effective manner for over thirty years now, the Dublin 13 Sorting Office is to close at the end of May and its function transfer to an industrial unit at The Baldoyle Industrial Estate.  Perhaps this is a timely opportunity to look at the site on College Street (formerly known as “Back Street”) and its tenants heretofore.

The building in 1960s

Mrs. Isabella Duff had a public house in College Street before 1885. This was known as Seaview House (as late as 1925) and later The Cyclist’s House (my 1960’s memories in above sketch as I have not been able to locate a photograph!).  It was an elaborate spacious premises with a large ballroom, snugs and parlours and an assortment of outbuildings. Seaview House which was on the site of the present postal sorting office, also doubled on occasion as a morgue, for the law relating to death in the streets dictated that any persons found dead on the road or washed up on the beach be brought to the nearest tavern, there to await identification or post mortem examination.

So it was that Bella Duff was obliged to receive a few corpses in her time and these were invariably placed on a couple of stout planks supported by two barrels in the corner of the ballroom. A constable of the R.I.C. had to attend guard over the body, and was wont ? when the body was a decomposed one – to “bless” the victim with liberal and regular sprinklings of a mop which stood nearby in a bucket of Jeyes’ Fluid. 

It often happened that a corpse and his or her guard rested in the ballroom while a dance was in progress but as neither the corpse nor the dancers took offence the revelry went on.  The late Joe Burns once told me that he had attended a wedding there and that there was a corpse in the corner ballroom all the while the wedding was in progress.

The premises were used extensively for weddings and socials and were especially busy on days on which the Baldoyle horse races were in progress.   

Mrs Duff also had the privilege of having a seven day licence when the other inns in the village were limited to 6-day, Monday to Saturday trading.  In the 1960’s after Paddy Carroll had purchased both the “Trigo” (now Grainger’s) on Main Street and the “Cyclists’ House” he opened the latter on Sundays only until he went through the courts to have the licences exchanged.

A Baldoyle lady has told me that as a young child she often witnessed fights at night as people left the “Cyclists” and a not uncommon sight was people helping drivers of horse drawn vehicles onto their seats as they were too intoxicated to mount the carts.  No breathalyser in those easygoing times.

After the inn closed down completely a school friend of mine came to live with his mother in the ballroom.  They divided the spacious, albeit draughty room into sections for sleeping, dining, and cooking and I went there frequently to play after school. 

It was like going in to a modern Irish Bar to see the elaborate brass beer and porter pumps on the magnificent mahogany counter, and the  array of advertising mirrors on the walls.  Valuable antiques were they around today. Christy Kane and his family continued to live in the northernmost part of the premises for another twenty years until this too was demolished and a modern house built on its site.

What remained of the building in the 1980s

The last remaining portion of Duff’s Cyclists’ House about 1980 with the name of the inn just barely legible on the gable of the next house along.

About Michael J Hurley

Was born in Baldoyle in 1950, and went to local national school. Published the following books :Where Came Dark Strangers - A View From The Grandstand - The Train To Howth - Tales of Old Baldoyle - Baldoyle The Racecourse Village

Two DVDs: Dark Strangers - Baldoyle, Faces and Places.Most books had all proceeds donated to local charities.The only items stilla available are Faces and Places DVDThe Racecourse village,both available from Michael at 48 Abbey Park. Baldoyle

As a party that does not take corporate donations (of any kind) no brown envelopes etc. we receive 100% of our funding from supporters. 

This campaign is being run on an very economical budget but we require funding from all our supports that we meet. So if you are on FaceBook this Blog please support us.

You may have met me at a public meeting (yes we do face to face also! The Socialist Party have organised more public meetings in our ward than all sitting councillors put together over the past 5 years) postering leafleting and campaigning cost money. 

Please donate as generously as you can.  And thanks in advance.

[update: May 11th ] Council do U-turn on the depot. Under pressure from the residents and club, the council has been forced to u-turn and grant Dubh Ghall a licence to use the depot building! GREAT NEWS. The local councillors met with the relevant departments prior to the very last meeting of this council (before the elections) and the councillors extracted this ‘concession’ from the council.  Questions that need to be asked: Why was this such a difficult task for the community, as it is WIN WIN for Baldoyle AND why did this not happen a year ago? The answer to both those questions is that for many years Baldoyle has for all intents and purposes has been without representation at council. Elect a Baldoyle councillor on June 5th by Electing Brian Greene to FCC.

Following the Socialist Party public meeting (30/04) to discuss the abandoned depot & Seagrange park, council officials met with Dubh Ghall reps at the site. Unfortunately the council departments have still failed to offer the use of the building to the club.

The bigger picture is the councils intent for the Brickfield lands under the review of the next development plan. We continue to work closely with the community thorough residents associations & sporting organisations to halt any plan to build on the flood plain at Seagrange / Parkvale.

The depot has been is use for 30+ years I lived in Parkvale for 12 of these years, and it really became an issue when the council stopped using the compound 12 months ago when they left the gates wide open for serious anti social behavior. 

Brian Greene pictured outside the depot with local Dubh Ghall players after the medal ceremony at the recent Easter camp.

From malahide howth

via@JoeHiggins.EU

Fianna Fail has been found out – clearly and comprehensively – and it is hurting badly as a result. Never before in the 83 years since it was formed has the party stood so bereft of camouflage to cloak its real nature.

Fianna Fail lived a lie for so much of its history that it arrogantly assumed it could never be exposed in he way it now is. It was a party of the gombeen when that class had its fingers on the majority of greasy tills in the newly formed state.

It became the party of the speculators and the developers from the 1960s when groups of assorted cowboys of that ilk saw big opportunities with the ending of protectionism and the beginnings of economic development based on foreign investment. They bought Fianna Fail which has remained in their pockets through the bribed rezonings of the ‘Eighties and ‘Nineties. It went further in its most recent period in power since 1997 and handed 20% of the economy fully over to them to profiteer as they wished. Read the rest of this entry »

Far from being an F1 GP it is life in the sow lane for Dubliners under FF/GP. Dublin Bus have cut more runs on the 128 route that runs out of Baldoyle. The route that sparked the recent dispute where workers conditions and communities battered bus service was at the forefront of the minds of the bus workers. 

Fianna Fail & the Green Party are responsible for the following routes to dropped. 15x, 27c, 31c, 49x, 50x, 51a, 65x, 79x, 86, 115, 117, 129, 172, 201, 202, 206 These low level services were already in areas of most need and little service and now they are dropped. 

The following routes have have had service reductions (less buses) 14, 14a, 18, 27, 27x, 37, 37x, 38/a, 39/a/c, 39x, 41/a, 46c, 46d, 47, 48a, 51, 51d, 51x, 77, 77a, 77x, 84x, 84x, 116, 118, 128, 150, 161, 210
 

Dublin Bus Serving the entire community

The Socialist Party believes that a public transport system that is publicly owned should not be let run down by this FF/GP government. We stand shoulder to shoulder with communities fighting for services and also with bus workers fighting to protect services, their working conditions and their jobs. 

Dublin Bus is cutting 120 buses from the fleet. Some deluded members of the Green Party believe that bus routes would not be cut while the buses were scrapped and jobs lost. They can not call for jobs and public transport on the Northside and preside over this disaster. 

Dublin Bus Severing the entire community

PUBLIC MEETING

APRIL 30th 8pm
Boys National School, Brookstone Road.

DERELICTION: DUMPING : DRUGS
ABANDONED COUNCIL DEPOT
A SERIOUS PROBLEM

over the past 10 months the abandoned council depot at Seagrange Park has become more derelict, has experience increasing fly tipping and has now been raided by Gardaí with dogs looking for drugs. The perimeter wall has been broken and security compromised. What is surprising is that this is a Fingal County Council facility that has been left unattended and unlocked for the majority of the time.

We are seeing serious planned dereliction by the council, creating a security risk and a health hazard and an eye sore. Use of depot compound was promised to local GAA club Dubh Ghall as far back as last summer but provision of the site to the club has not materialised. The depot is on land which I am told is leased by the council and sits on an area of land that is zoned open space / recreational adjoining the Brickfield land and Seagrange Park that is prone to flooding and forms part of the flood plain.

Previous plans by the council and developers to rezone the land for development of high rise have be set back by the action of the community, local residents associations and the assistance of the Socialist Party Councillors and local rep. Brian Greene.

Their running down of this facility and the failure to date to see it put to better community use (which would help secure it) asks serious question for the councils intent for this area.

The Socialist Party is continuing to working with local sports associations and residents to put maximum pressure on Council and local Councillors to see that this depot is properly maintained cleaned & secured and put to better community use in keeping with its zoning.

From malahide howth

Read the rest of this entry »

As the economic crisis worsens and following the emergency budget at the beginning of the month the urgency to address the issue of Management Companies remains very high. The majority of residents object to paying the charge as a matter of principle. Now with rising direct & indirect taxes, pay cuts and job losses many more cannot afford to pay!. It is an absolute disgrace that the Fianna Fail / Green Party government has failed despite promises to bring forward legislation to deal with the injustice of estate management fees.  

On the completion of a residents door to door & postal survey of homes in Drynam Hall, a public meeting will discuss the findings and the way forward for the majority of residents seeking the removal of the management company. If you can get along please join us.

Kinsealy Inn
Thursday April 23rd
8PM

Brian Greene Socialist Party candidate Malahide / Howth Ward

‘Fairness must be the cornerstone of all our efforts to achieve economic renewal,’ so said Finance Minister Brian Lenihan in his Budget Speech.  A monstrous political lie because he went on to announce the most unfair, savage and immoral Budget in the history of the State.

With rising unemployment, the slashing of the jobseekers allowance by €100 per week is a vicious attack on young working class people. The workers on North Dublin are being asked to bailout the bankers, the builders and their government friends, we say NO.

Ninety years ago James Connolly said, ‘The time for patching up the capitalist system is past, it must go.’ and Brian Greene says this Fianna Fail / Green Party government should go with it.