As Christmas shoppers rushed around Dublin city centre to pick up the last of their presents an ensemble from the Belvedere College jazz band provided the musical backdrop on Monday.
An annual tradition for more than three decades, some 80 students and volunteers from the north inner city Dublin fee-paying boys school took part in a sleep-out outside the GPO on O’Connell Street and the Bank of Ireland at College Green, to raise funds for three homeless charities.
The students spend two nights on the streets in sleeping bags and fundraise during the day from the 22nd to the 24th of December in aid of Focus Ireland, the Peter McVerry Trust and Home Again.
Harry Hamlet McGuire is a sixth-year student from Drogheda, Co Louth, and this year is his second time taking part in the sleep-out.
Donations
“We’ve had better weather than we had last year, it rained a lot last year. Obviously it’s still cold out but it’s a lot more manageable when you’re not soaking wet,” he told The Irish Times.
“While it is difficult in the grand scheme of things compared to the people who have to do it 365 nights a year it’s really nothing,” he said.
The students collect donations until about 3.30am to catch the last of the late-night revellers, and are then back up shaking buckets again by the time the shops open in the morning.
“After doing the sleep-out, crawling into your bed, the thing is we get to all go back to our beds tomorrow night when we finish this, there’s people that won’t be in the same situation,” he said.
Last year the sleep-out raised €185,000 but students hope to top that this year as the dry weather brings more shoppers into the city .
For fifth-year student Oisin Keating MacDermot from Knocklyon, south Dublin, this was his first sleep-out.
Difficult
“I didn’t realise how difficult it would be, just trying to get to sleep was the hardest part, once I was asleep I kept waking up it was really difficult,” he said.
“We really get a sense of what it’s like to be homeless, [but] it’s not just one night for them,” he said.
During the first night he got about half an hour of sleep due to the cold weather and the sound of sirens through the night, he said.
Sean Brady, a fifth-year Belvedere student from Santry, north Dublin, said the volunteers had the advantage of sleeping rough somewhere dry, which some homeless people might not.
While somewhat underestimating how difficult the sleep-out would be it was worth it as it was all “for a good cause”, he said.
