In the sub-zero temperatures of the cold snap, Dublin’s homeless seek refuge from the cold wherever – and however – they can.
About 15 people can be counted sleeping rough between St Stephen’s Green and Henry Street in Dublin city centre between 6.30am and 7am on Wednesday when the air temperature is minus two.
On Grafton Street, in the doorway of Thomas Patrick shoe shop, a man in his 30s lies on three small sheets of cardboard. A loose, thin duvet covers his legs. His hood is up and a scarf is over his face. His hands, clasping his face, are in black gloves.
Further down, at River Island, the clothes shop, a couple lie facing and holding each other, sleeping bags covering them and hoods pulled up around their heads.
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In the doorway of an upmarket boutique opposite Trinity College Dublin, a young man is curled up in a half-open sleeping bag. His ginger-blond hair and unshaven face are visible.
Down towards Westmoreland Street, on the pavement at College Green, two people can be heard talking inside a large, blue Quechua-branded tent.
At the GPO a young woman, wearing a brown gilet, is sitting up, a fleece blanket over her outstretched legs as she examines something in her hands.
Around the corner on Henry Street, in the doorway of Arnotts department store, a man snores as he sleeps, almost fully covered by a black sleeping bag. A wrapped breakfast toastie is on the ground beside him.
At about 7am, the dark morning is still icy cold. A delivery truck pulls up outside Next, the clothes shop.
As a young woman emerges to talk to the delivery driver, just opposite the former Debenhams shop, another young woman unzips a khaki-coloured tent.
The woman, from Donegal and in her 30s, says she isn’t “really coping” with the cold. “I have plenty of blankets, and four or five jackets, but it’s still very, very cold,” she says.
She says she would prefer not to be in one of the hostels offering shelter to rough sleepers.
“Some are really bad and I’m trying to stay away from them ... My daughter is in care in [a town in Ulster]. I am hoping she’ll come out of care in the next couple of weeks and we’ll get into a family hub.”
She says she had weekly access visits but had to stay in Dublin where she is registered as homeless.
“They [homeless services] were trying to put me in a hostel in Lucan, but if I go there I end up sleeping out anyway because I won’t make the curfew when I go to my access visit.”
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A little further down the street, three men sleep, covered in sleeping bags with flattened cardboard boxes beneath them. One has his feet and head sheltered by cardboard boxes on their sides; another has fashioned a windbreaker around himself with opened-out boxes.
Nearby two men from Romania are packing up. Nicolas (50) explains that the layers of cardboard beneath him were “soft and warm ... I have two bags for sleeping”.
“Today is not good. It is very cold, very freezing ... I go now for small drink tea, coffee in Capuchin,” he says, referring to the Capuchin Day Centre on Bow Street, next to Smithfield in Dublin city centre, that opens at 7.30am and feeds Dublin’s homeless and hungry.
His friend Ion (44) says his night’s sleep was “not good – maybe three hours’ sleep”.
He was in pain, he says. Inside his tent about 10 used tea-light candles are visible. They helped his pain.
“I work in the building. I have accident in September, now no work. It is bad, my chest and ribs bad,” he says.
Around at the entrance to the Ilac Centre, a man packs his belongings into a trolley. Approached, he made it clear he does not want to talk. “Get yourself away,” he shouts.
Seeing 15 people on Dublin’s streets in the lowest temperatures of recent years – when almost 200 additional emergency beds are provided by the Dublin Region Homeless Executive (DRHE) – shows the need for checks on people sleeping rough, says Niamh Brennan, senior manager with Dublin Simon emergency accommodation sector. It also shows the need for emergency accommodation “that meets people’s needs”, she says.
“Our outreach team is out from 7am to 1am, encouraging people into emergency accommodation. Some will resist. We give them cold weather packs, keeping checking on them, and, if necessary will call for medical attention.”
The DRHE has put in place 192 extra beds. These are provided in addition to the 4,789 beds already occupied by homeless adults (without children) in Dublin, according to the latest figures published last week, for November 2024. This represents an 11 per cent increase on the 4,316 a year before.
Also published last week, the twice-yearly Dublin rough-sleeper count found that, between November 4th and 10th, there were 134 individuals sleeping in streets, parks, on canal-banks, and in wooded areas and cars – compared with 118 in November 2023 and 91 in November 2022.
Many people sleeping rough are regular users of about 24 volunteer-run, on-street soup kitchens from where, they say, they receive not only food but community.
The news this week that Dublin City Council plans to clamp down on this voluntary provision of food to the destitute has caused alarm, with some fearing the council’s end-game is to stop them operating altogether.
“That would be appalling,” says Peter (82), a retired builder who lives alone. He has just had a “beautiful” shepherd’s pie at the Friends Helping Friends (FHF) service, which operates at College Green every Tuesday from 8pm.
“I come here for the company for a start,” says Peter. “The people who run the soup runs are very nice and the food is first class.”
He says his pension is “at times ... just not adequate”.
The council says it does not want to stop “these activities” but to ensure “they are provided in a safe environment for both operators and users of the services”. They envisage a permit system setting out “operating hours, locations, restrictions and adherence to any other relevant regulations”.
Among about 30 people queuing is a boy availing of the soup kitchen on his fourth birthday; he is here with his father Mick.
Glenda Harrington, FHF founder, had a supermarket-brand chocolate cake ready for him. Four candles stayed alight long enough for all there to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ as the boy bobbed up and down in his buggy, grinning widely.
“They’re not just important, they’re vital,” says Mick, when asked how important services like FHF are.
Holding a carton of steaming coddle, he says there is “real community” at the trestle tables of hot food, manned by four volunteers. People arriving are greeted warmly, by their first names.
“I’ve been coming to Glenda’s one [service] so many years – when he’s not with me,” he says, gesturing to his son.
“Glenda comes out every week and looks after people. Me and my partner, we are housed now but the cost of living is a struggle. He is growing every day. The cost of food, clothes, heating. If it wasn’t for these people we’d be struggling to feed ourselves.”
Though several were clearly sleeping rough – queuing, wrapped in sleeping bags or carrying multiple bags of belongings – many have come from homes or emergency accommodation. One elderly man says he had a fire in his house last year and still has no electricity.
Alan, in his 30s, is in a hostel. He is off “methadone and weed” for 20 months, he says.
“I couldn’t have done it without the soup runs. When you are in that [homelessness] sector it can be a very lonely thing. I was months just walking the weed off me,” he says.
“There’s not much more you can do when you are in the hostels. The support of the lads here, especially when you are cold and you’re in withdrawal, you have to take your hat off to them. I’m very thankful they’re here.”
Those serving the food wear blue silicon gloves; their hair is short or tied back.
Harrington, who has run the service since 2018, cannot accept cash donations as FHF is not a registered charity but can accept gift vouchers to help pay for the food, most of which she cooks. She has HACCP [Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point] training in food safety. Services such as hers are “badly needed” because the majority of State-funded services close by 7pm, she says.
She is “insulted” by commentary that services like hers are “unqualified” to work with the poor, “undignified” and maybe “unsafe”, as suggested in a 2021 council-commissioned report.
“I don’t think you need qualifications to have compassion, or light a candle for a four-year-old on his birthday,” she says. “Poverty and homelessness are far more undignified than anything we do here.”
Lorraine O’Connor, founder of Muslim Sisters of Éire charity, which provides hot food at the GPO every Friday night, says demand has increased from about 220 meals a week before Covid to about 400 now.
“Poverty has no mercy. We have the homeless, which is increasing constantly, but people are crucified by inflation, rent, heating. People come to us at night, when nowhere else is open, soaked to the skin and freezing. We can give them a sleeping bag, clothes,” she says.
She would love to move her service indoors, she says. “If the Government gave me a premises, I would move in tomorrow.”
Dublin councillor Conor Reddy of People Before Profit is meeting a number of soup kitchen operators, including FHF, next week to respond to planned bylaws.
“The [food providers] I know work to very high standards. None has an issue with working with DRHE to ensure standards. My concern would be that they could be strangled by bureaucracy and red tape,” he says.
By 8pm Wednesday evening, it is bitterly cold, again.
The young man from early that morning is back, bedding down at Thomas Patrick shoe shop. He is almost asleep, lying again on thin cardboard but without any covering.
A passerby picks up a sleeping bag, in its pouch beside him, and asks if he would like it opened. He barely responds. She asks again if he would like it opened. He nods.
“Thank you,” he says, as she unfurls it and wraps it around him.
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