Here in the Rabble Bunker we almost feel sorry for the government as it flops around like a hooked fish on the end of an IMF rod. With a kind of reverse Midas touch effect everything they touch seems to turn to shit. A fine example being their attempt at reducing the state’s burden in supporting around half of all rented accommodation through the Rent Allowance Scheme.
Gombeen #3: Sean Sherlock TD
Sheriff Sherlock has come to our lawless internet outpost, six shooter at the ready. Boy thinks he’s gonna fuck with our downloads.
{Expose} Who Benefits From The Homeless Crisis?
Following on from the focus on landlords in the last issue Stone E. Broke considers how owners of private emergency accommodation benefit from Dublin City Council’s “Pathway to Home” model.
[Radio Waves] Skull and Crossfaders
Quality pirates have always broken their asses to bring shows to eager listeners. From the 1960’s on, pirate radio stations operated in calm seas, filling in the gaps left by the dismal national broadcaster, with regular shows, presenters, even public contact info.
Original Pirate Material.
While much has been written of Ireland’s ‘Super Pirate’ radio stations like Radio Nova and Sunshine Radio, and some stations like Phantom have made the great leap to respectability, there is a whole hidden history to Irish pirate radio that has gone largely unexplored. The earliest pirate radio stations in Ireland were schoolboy efforts which the state wished to suppress quickly, and which in some ways were ahead of official broadcasting.
[Look Up] The Hidden Holocaust
In Look Up we like to encourage you rabble to briefly break from your daily scavenge for fag butts and lost change along the pathways of our durty oul town. Paul Reynolds asks you to make like a culchie and have a mouth at the second storeys of some of these buildings you pass every day.
Never Talk Cheap
For its February ‘Reality Bites’ series RTE showed a documentary on Ireland’s Rappers that hurled a version of Irish rap into the laps of the licence holders countrywide. Viewing figures for it were good but not as good as a rival station repeat show on gangland Ireland. RTE also focused on the so-called working class side of things. The resulting look at “a highly creative and dedicated subculture’’ was not welcomed outright either inside or outside the portrayed community. Paul Tarpey digs deep.
#folkMemory: People Stood Strong.
From pitched battles with Gardaí to partnership with Dublin City Council, Terry Fagan, of the North Inner City Folklore Project, discusses Dublin’s long history of housing struggle in with Peg Lesson.
{Mole} A Waiter Rants.
A broken waiter ruminates on the least appealing thing on offer in any given restaurant – the customers.
{Interview} The Radiators From Space return to earth
Thirty-five years ago Dublin punk band The Radiators From Space song Television Screen, became the first punk single to make the charts anywhere in the world. With their fourth studio album due on April 30th, Sam McGrath recently caught up with the bands ever stylish, Dublin born Philip Chevron to talk about life, music and his days in The Pogues.