The long ledge outside the trendy Superdry clothes shop on Suffolk Street in Dublin city centre is popular with the homeless. It was next to this ledge, around the corner from Grafton Street, that Shane "Jack" Watson was found unconscious on the footpath at 4am on Thursday. He was later pronounced dead.
“Every morning you come to work, there would be people sleeping here, all weather,” said a worker on the street, sitting on the ledge smoking a cigarette.
Inside the shop window yesterday evening, staff at Superdry had moved seven bouquets of flowers. They had been laid outside in tribute to the homeless man known as “Jack” to the volunteers who fed and looked after him on food runs.
“I met him last on Monday night,” said Keira Gill, whose charity A Lending Hand gives out food and hot drinks at a makeshift counter outside the Central Bank on Dame Street every Monday night.
“He was at the table getting his hot chocolate. He loved his hot chocolate. He was in good form. There was nothing wrong with him.
“He was on the soup run the night before he died. They gave him a sleeping bag to go down the street. He wouldn’t use the hostels because they were desperate.”
The Garda Síochána do not suspect foul play in Watson's death. Originally from Ireland and an Irish citizen, the 50-something man had lived for a time in Australia but had returned in recent years and "fallen through the cracks" – words used by three people who knew him.
Outreach programmes
The Peter McVerry Trust, the homeless charity, had his name on records since late 2015 through their outreach programmes to help those on the streets, but his time in homeless accommodation was episodic, often just one night at a time.
Watson’s access to be registered for social housing on an Irish waiting list was complicated by specific issues in his case, possibly relating to property in Australia.
He listed his year of birth as 1966, the trust said, making him 50 or 51.
“The hostels that he was offered on the freephone, they were full of drink or drugs, and they weren’t safe for him,” said Gill. “His choice was to sleep on the street and that’s why he died.”
“Jack” was well known in the homeless community and to housing activists who occupied the vacant Apollo House office block on Tara Street last Christmas. He was part of the Home Sweet Home group of campaigners who took over the building. He was assigned to the kitchen because he had worked as a chef.
“We used to always laugh at him because he had specific places where everything went,” said Natasha Morgan, a volunteer with Feed Our Homeless Inner City Dublin who worked at Apollo House.
“When the chefs came in, he would always help them with the clean-up. He took great pride in the organisation of the kitchen. You’d always ask him, ‘where is such and such?’ The kitchen was his forte.”
Chef Temple Garner remembers Jack assisted him in the kitchen, peeling potatoes and helping to cook dishes such as chicken curry and coddle for the Apollo House residents. He remembered him as “a bright, sensitive, smart and nice guy” who was well read and talked about Irish and Australian politics.
Sales pitch
Jack also spoke about an old job he had back in Australia selling electrical appliances such as fridges and cookers, and even discussed his sales pitch, said Garner. Others recall Watson’s love of music and remember him walking around with headphones either on his ears or around his neck.
He also spoke to Garner about being from Brisbane, fishing with his three sons and enjoying barbecues and beers on Sunday afternoons back home. "Just a normal middle-class Australia life," said Garner.
Watson had his battles with alcohol, said the Dublin-based chef, but he was vehemently anti-drugs.
“He was a nice guy but not afraid to stand up for himself; he got into scrapes in hostels,” he said.
Garner suspected he may have been through a marriage break-up but, at Apollo House, you did not pry.
“He never volunteered it and I didn’t ask him about it,” he said. “That was one of the unwritten rules of the place: you don’t judge people. If they don’t want to tell you about their past, you don’t ask.”
Earlier this year, Watson participated in an art project, A Beautiful Day In Dublin, by Hungarian-born photographer Geza Oravecz and Dublin barber Barry Caesar, highlighting the plight of the homeless. Watson and two other homeless men were given haircuts and new clothes, and photographed on the street.
“He was a lovely person,” said Oravecz. “We wanted to show people that if someone is homeless, it doesn’t mean that he is a bad guy. He has a face and is a normal guy like us.”
This article has been amended to correct Shane Watson’s first name
