Tag Archives: Dara Quigley

The late Dublin-born blogger and journalist with the Dublin Inquirer Dara Quigley

On Saturday, Conor Feehan, in the Herald, reported that the guard suspected of recording video footage of Dara Quigley being arrested and dragged into a Garda car while walking naked in Dublin city centre “will not face prosecution”.

Dara, who was battling mental health issues, took her own life within days of the video being shared on Facebook by a separate person.

An investigation by the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (GSOC) into the incident is ongoing.

Mr Feehan reported:

“The matter was referred to the Garda Siochana Ombudsman Commission (GSOC) and an investigation into the conduct of the garda began.

“It is believed the garda at the centre of the investigation was suspended at the time of the incident.

“A spokesperson for the GSOC said the investigation was still ongoing. However, the Herald has learned from other sources that the garda who is suspected of recording the footage is not to face criminal prosecution.

“The garda could, however, still face disciplinary action when the GSOC investigation is completed.

“It is understood that when the investigation was first launched, the possible criminal aspect of it was looked at first, and the decision was made by the Director of Public Prosecutions that there would be no criminal charge stemming from the incident.”

Garda who filmed tragic blogger Dara to avoid prosecution (Conor Feehan, The Herald)

Meanwhile…

Sam Tranum, of Dublin Inquirer – where Dara worked – has contacted An Garda Síochána, GSOC, the Department of Justice, the Minister for Justice Charlie Flanagan, Fianna Fáil’s justice spokesperson TD Jim O’Callaghan and Sinn Féin’s justice spokesperson TD Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire to check this story’s veracity.

Mr Tranum has also contacted the Director of Public Prosecutions.

He is tweeting his responses, as he gets them, here.

Today marks a year since the untimely death of social activist Dara Quigley.

This Saturday, a Night For Dara will be held at The Hut, 159 Phibsboro Road, Phibsboro, Dublin 7.

The organisers say:

The night will comprise music, poetry and readings of Dara’s work which explore the themes of inequality and discrimination which were central to Dara’s inimitable social conscience.

Among those speaking will be Harry Browne, Izzy Kamikaze, Eamonn Crudden and more.

GSOC are continuing to investigate alleged garda mistreatment prior to Dara’s death.

A Night For Dara

Remember Dara

Thanks Naomi McArdle and Johnny Keenan

The following is a column written by Dara during the height of the irish Water dispute,

They said, when the water charges protest began, that it was a threat to democracy. As a human being, standing in front of a sea of humanity, it’s safe to say, they got that one wrong. We’re the ones saving democracy.

The government, the regime – they’d love to take voices, like mine, out of the equation. Voices at the sharp edge of austerity, voices at the sharp edge of a thousand economic cuts.

Let me save them some trouble. Tonight, I’ll be sleeping in a psychiatric hospital. Up until two months ago, I was dependent on methadone.

I’ve spent most of my life being controlled in one way or another.But, that does not make what I have to say any less important, any less valid or any less legitimate than what comes out of the mouths of the clowns and failed school teachers currently playing at being leaders.

They aren’t even a government. They are a glorified press department for EU officials, civil servants and insiders who operate under a veil of secrecy. Vulture funds and multinationals who operate in a protected environment of shadow economies and brass plates.

But we are seeing through the smoke and mirrors to what lies beneath.

The government, NTMA and NAMA have the cheek to tell us that they are acting in the best interests of the taxpayer. Which taxpayers? Because the people benefiting the most don’t seem to be paying much, if any, tax or contributing anything to this society.

We have a state broadcaster RTÉ, the R must stand for Regime because the state is the people.

RTÉ is outsourcing its responsibilities to the BBC. It took the BBC highlighting money bags changing hands to expose the corruption of NAMA. Selling our country off to vulture funds for the benefit of a select few….

…Natural diamonds are formed under extreme pressure and time. This regime has created a generation of diamonds who sparkle because of their flaws, not in spite of them. Diamonds are also tough and if you think feet on the street scare this government, voting terrifies them.

It’s time to take our responsibilities as citizens seriously. I’ve been to hell and back but the devil met his match and there is nothing in any of this to be afraid of, unless you have something to lose and that isn’t anybody standing here today.

…I know how much voting terrifies this government, I tried to collect more than one voter registration form at Rathmines Garda station. I was told it’s limited to one per person, this is simply not true. Who are the Gardaí protecting by limiting voter registration forms? Certainly not the citizens.

We are taught, from an early age, to fear revolution, we are told it leads to civil war. Does this feel like civil war to you?

Or does it feel like fun? Have some fun, report these crimes, march on your local station to register your whole area to vote and get out next Saturday for Repeal the Eighth march in Dublin.

Our economy and society is modeled on the behaviour of pigeons, survival of the fittest, everybody out for themselves.

The reality is more complex and beautiful than this regime can possibly imagine. In reality, we are more like a flock of starlings, producing intricate, amazing patterns all arising from one fundamental rule: no one bird is allowed to get lost.

This is the type of society I want to see, where no one person is allowed to fall between the cracks, nobody gets lost and no person is homeless. Jobstown are innocent.

Sparkle like the natural diamonds you are.

Diamonds Are Forever (Dara Quigley, September 2016)

At 5.30pm.

Outside Leinster House on Kildare Street, Dublin 2.

A vigil will be held for the late campaigning journalist and activist Dara Quigley.

Justice for Dara vigil (Facebook)

Previously: Disgusting

A Rare Diamond

Reclaiming The Right To Dignity

Mum tells of heartbreak of daughter who took her own life after nude footage allegedly filmed by a garda leaked online (Stephen Breen, The Irish Sun)

UPDATE:

This evening.

Family and friends gather to remember Dara Quigley outside Leinster House.

Meanwhile…

Pics: Mick Caul, Death Cab For Cute Lee, Tony Groves

This afternoon.

In the Dáil.

During Questions on Promised Legislation.

Sinn Féin deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald spoke about the late Dara Quigley and her question was responded to by Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald.

Mick Barry, of the Solidarity-People Before Profit party, also spoke about Dara and Fine Gael’s Minister of State for Mental Health Helen McEntee responded to him.

Their exchanges:

Mary Lou McDonald: “Tánaiste, yesterday, the Taoiseach indicated that you would be more than happy, in fact delighted, it seemed, to come before the House and make a statement on the matters surrounding Templemore and some of the issues that we touched on and Leaders’ Questions. You also indicated that you would be quite happy to take questions in that regard. So I want to know, when you propose to do that.

“And can I also say, Tánaiste, when you take to your feet  on that occasion, I would like you also to shed some light on the case of Dara Quigley. A young woman who died by  suicide on April 12. She had been detained by gardaí some days previously, under the Mental Health Act. She had been walking naked on a Dublin street when detained and Garda CCTV footage of this detention  was posted on Facebook. A really deplorable and revolting turn of events and something that has brought great hardship to her family and clearly brought very, very great distress to Dara. So we mark her passing and when we talk about Garda culture and reform and accountability, I suppose this the rawest end, the sharpest end of deplorable, a deplorable culture of humiliation and disregard for human beings.”

“So, Tánaiste, I hope that you will, as the Taoiseach promised, come before the House, make your statement, take questions and I hope also that you might shed some light on the accountability that will be held for the life of Dara Quigley.”

Frances Fitzgerald: “Well, in relation to the individual case that you mention, deputy. Everybody would be totally disturbed and appalled by the story that has been reported in the media and actions are following on from that. As you know, that has been reported, there is an investigation and there is a GSOC inquiry but, just to say, of course our thoughts are with, are with that young woman’s family, given the appalling and very, very sad sequence of events. No doubt, the business committee can discuss the question of ministers appearing before the Dáil and, certainly, I want to make the point that, I don’t want to cut across in any way the work that the Public Accounts Committee is doing in relation to Templemore.”

…

Mick Barry: “There has been media comment on the circumstances leading up to the death of the journalist and blogger Dara Quigley. Very serious questions have been raised about the Garda Síochána and their treatment of the most vulnerable in society. I want to leave those questions for another day.”

“Today, I want to ask you a question on dual diagnosis. Dara suffered and struggled with both addiction and mental health problems. She received help from many agencies but what was available was not sufficient. A particular problem was the lack of dual diagnosis services for psychiatric and addiction problems are treated together in a professional and properly funded manner. My question to the Tánaiste: does she see a legislative pathway to addressing this problem?”

Helen McEntee: “Just to join you in offering my condolences to her family and to her friends. This is, you know, it’s an absolutely terrible situation and it’s deplorable what has happened consequently since. The issue of dual diagnosis is something that we haven’t dealt with in the past and we know that in a significant number of suicides, there is a link between drug or alcohol use as well. We’re currently developing a clinical programme on the issue of dual diagnosis.”

“We’ve appointed a national clinical lead who will be working to develop a programme which means that if somebody is suffering from either a drug or alcohol problem that is leading on to a mental health problem, that there will be a clear clinical pathway for our doctors and nurses within our acute hospitals but also in our primary care settings so there’s work well underway and we’d be hoping to continue that into the year.”

Watch Dáil proceedings live here

sun

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Dara Quigley (above) Today’s Irish Sun

Campaigning journalist Dara Quigley has been identified as the woman filmed being arrested and dragged into a Garda car after walking naked in Dublin city centre.

Dara, who was battling mental health issues, took her own life within days of the video being shared on Facebook allegedly by a member of An Garda Síochána.

Stephen Breen, in The Irish Sun, reports:

A major probe is under way after a woman who was allegedly filmed by a garda as she walked naked in a busy street took her own life just days later.

The officer has been accused of using his mobile phone to record CCTV footage of her arrest in Dublin last month and then sharing it in a WhatsApp group.

The north Dublin woman had been suffering from depression and was receiving treatment for drug addiction when she was detained in the city on April 7 under the Mental Treatment Act.

It’s understood the video clip was posted to Facebook three days later by another individual — and viewed 123,000 times within a 24-hour period.

Facebook removed the clip on April 11 after being contacted by senior gardai but the woman’s body was found in the Munster area the following day.

The officer at the centre of the allegation is suspended on full pay. It’s understood he denies the allegation and any wrongdoing whatsoever.

Irish woman took own life after CCTV footage of her walking naked in the street allegedly filmed by garda and posted online (The Irish Sun)

Previously: A Rare Diamond

Johnny

Sunday afternoon

The Back Room, Ryan’s Bar, Friary Street, County Kilkenny

Johnny Keenan (he’s on the telly!) writes:

A brief ceremony to honour the life of Dara Quigley, the music of The Stone Roses, and to celebrate the resurrection of 468,421 non-religious people in the Republic of Ireland (Census 2016)…

Fight!

Previously: In Kilkenny Tomorrow

dara

Dara Quigley

Dara Quigley, Dublin-born blogger, journalist with the Dublin Inquirer and online force, died this week.

Dara, whose struggle with drug addiction and constant championing of the underdog informed her journalism, wrote from the heart with grit and humour.

She took enormous pleasure in challenging and taunting Official Ireland.

Her articles were among the best we have published.

The following is taken from a column written last September from her hospital bed following a Right2Water rally in Dublin.

Dara tells the readers what she would have told the marchers:

…Natural diamonds are formed under extreme pressure and time. This regime has created a generation of diamonds who sparkle because of their flaws, not in spite of them. Diamonds are also tough and if you think feet on the street scare this government, voting terrifies them.

It’s time to take our responsibilities as citizens seriously. I’ve been to hell and back but the devil met his match and there is nothing in any of this to be afraid of, unless you have something to lose and that isn’t anybody standing here today.

…I know how much voting terrifies this government, I tried to collect more than one voter registration form at Rathmines Garda station.

I was told it’s limited to one per person, this is simply not true. Who are the Gardaí protecting by limiting voter registration forms? Certainly not the citizens.

We are taught, from an early age, to fear revolution, we are told it leads to civil war. Does this feel like civil war to you?

Or does it feel like fun? Have some fun, report these crimes, march on your local station to register your whole area to vote and get out next Saturday for Repeal the Eighth march in Dublin.

Our economy and society is modeled on the behaviour of pigeons, survival of the fittest, everybody out for themselves.

The reality is more complex and beautiful than this regime can possibly imagine. In reality, we are more like a flock of starlings, producing intricate, amazing patterns all arising from one fundamental rule: no one bird is allowed to get lost.

This is the type of society I want to see, where no one person is allowed to fall between the cracks, nobody gets lost and no person is homeless. Jobstown are innocent.

Sparkle like the natural diamonds you are.

Dara Quigley (RIP.ie)

Diamonds Are Forever (Dara Quigley)

Reclaiming the Right To Dignity (Dara Quigley)

90429923dara

From top: Irish Water protest in Dublin city centre on Saturday; Dara Quigley

What I would have told the thousands at Saturday’s Right2Water rally.

By Dublin-born activist and blogger Dara Quigley (full text at link below)

Dara writes:

If it had been possible to blag my way past security and onto the Right2Water stage on Saturday, this is what I would have said:

“They said, when the water charges protest began, that it was a threat to democracy. As a human being, standing in front of a sea of humanity, it’s safe to say, they got that one wrong. We’re the ones saving democracy.

The government, the regime – they’d love to take voices, like mine, out of the equation. Voices at the sharp edge of austerity, voices at the sharp edge of a thousand economic cuts.

Let me save them some trouble. Tonight, I’ll be sleeping in a psychiatric hospital. Up until two months ago, I was dependent on methadone.

I’ve spent most of my life being controlled in one way or another.But, that does not make what I have to say any less important, any less valid or any less legitimate than what comes out of the mouths of the clowns and failed school teachers currently playing at being leaders.

They aren’t even a government. They are a glorified press department for EU officials, civil servants and insiders who operate under a veil of secrecy. Vulture funds and multinationals who operate in a protected environment of shadow economies and brass plates.

But we are seeing through the smoke and mirrors to what lies beneath.

The government, NTMA and NAMA have the cheek to tell us that they are acting in the best interests of the taxpayer. Which taxpayers? Because the people benefiting the most don’t seem to be paying much, if any, tax or contributing anything to this society.

We have a state broadcaster RTÉ, the R must stand for Regime because the state is the people.

RTÉ is outsourcing its responsibilities to the BBC. It took the BBC highlighting money bags changing hands to expose the corruption of NAMA. Selling our country off to vulture funds for the benefit of a select few….

…Natural diamonds are formed under extreme pressure and time. This regime has created a generation of diamonds who sparkle because of their flaws, not in spite of them. Diamonds are also tough and if you think feet on the street scare this government, voting terrifies them.

It’s time to take our responsibilities as citizens seriously. I’ve been to hell and back but the devil met his match and there is nothing in any of this to be afraid of, unless you have something to lose and that isn’t anybody standing here today.

…I know how much voting terrifies this government, I tried to collect more than one voter registration form at Rathmines Garda station. I was told it’s limited to one per person, this is simply not true. Who are the Gardaí protecting by limiting voter registration forms? Certainly not the citizens.

We are taught, from an early age, to fear revolution, we are told it leads to civil war. Does this feel like civil war to you?

Or does it feel like fun? Have some fun, report these crimes, march on your local station to register your whole area to vote and get out next Saturday for Repeal the Eighth march in Dublin.

Our economy and society is modeled on the behaviour of pigeons, survival of the fittest, everybody out for themselves.

The reality is more complex and beautiful than this regime can possibly imagine. In reality, we are more like a flock of starlings, producing intricate, amazing patterns all arising from one fundamental rule: no one bird is allowed to get lost.

This is the type of society I want to see, where no one person is allowed to fall between the cracks, nobody gets lost and no person is homeless. Jobstown are innocent.

Sparkle like the natural diamonds you are.”

Degrees of Uncertainty (Dara)

Pic: Dara

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Journalist Dara Quigley

Dara Quigley, in the Dublin Inquirer, writes:

A few weeks after the equality referendum, I was sitting with a HSE counsellor in one of the drug outreach centres in the city.

“Well you have to admit,” she said in a nice, calm tone, “all that – addicts being treated with dignity and respect – I mean that was all a bit delusional. Wasn’t it?”

I tried to argue that even she had to admit that addiction is a complex issue and not one of moral absolutes, and sure hadn’t we just had a referendum to say we were all equal.

“That’s one of the things I like about you,” she replied. “No matter how bad things get you always manage to find humour in it.”

It wasn’t a debate I was going to win. And if it had been a few years earlier, and I had been a bit more impressionable, I might have believed and internalised her message.

However, thanks to a few special individuals, I had just about enough strength to hold onto my sense of self, and to think that maybe a better life wasn’t just something I deserved, but something that I and every other recovering addict and addict had a right to.

Today I can almost safely say that I believe that. And that is one of the unseen struggles of recovery from addiction. A constant battle between what you know is true, a desire to make it out the other side, pitted against a society which views addicts – particularly women addicts – as moral hazards to be contained and controlled.

Experts speak of clusters of addiction, almost as a contagion which needs to be neutralised. Or in some cases left on a too-high dose of methadone for decades: crime-prevention and a nice kick-back for the prescribing doctor and the HSE.

I can understand how easy it is to see the figures and reduce the people behind them to one label, one stereotype: junkie. It can be a struggle at the best of times. We live in a post-theocratic society, and, being a heroin addict, a junkie – even the most right-on liberals find it difficult to imagine anything other than the stereotype.

I know, I was surrounded by right-on liberals. To quote a Glaswegian MC and friend of mine, Darren “Loki” McGarvey, “I hang with middle-class professionals in spacious flats, who debate Irvine Welsh while I’m taking smack.”

Although once that started, friendships ended – sometimes in incredibly nasty ways.

Society has a way of preparing you for what’s to come, and socially I was being prepared to guard my own sense of identity – both from the drug and from the standard Irish tough-love model of shame and guilt. Respect and dignity were two things I was going to find myself piecing back together.

Smack is the drug which will cut right through any pretence and get ’em right in the middle-class sensibilities. One group of friends I had known for almost 10 years even found themselves a replacement token working-class woman: another mature student, studying the same subject as me, before making it clear that I had been replaced.

In retrospect it was all they knew how to do. The enormity of the problem was too much for anyone to take on, and it takes lot of effort to support someone who’s yo-yoing between addiction and bouts of clean living. Even the best of friends lose patience eventually.

And the guilt which comes from cutting a friend loose has to be justified. A law I’ve figured out is that the enormity of the moral outrage is inversely proportional to the time spent with you during addiction. Those who were most offended disappeared almost immediately.

Such is the stigma associated with chasing the dragon.

Again I found solace in hip-hop and Loki’s “2nd Wind” got me through a few tough days. “To re-enter a world where pariahs wait to greet me, maybe I’m confused have you not got a riot act to read to me? Apologies I’ll cover any damages, church mice bicker over crumbs from my sandwiches.”

The track, and the time he spent talking me down through the worst of it, it was the kind of support people in Ireland simply could not offer. Acceptance of your flaws and embracing them rather than the traditional 12-step “beg a higher power to remove your intrinsic defects”: it was the start of a life- and sanity-saving philosophy.

A few very special friends are still hanging in there. And fair play to you all, I was a selfish little shit. Past tense for the most part.

In the Kafkaesque world of recovery in Ireland, which at times seems designed to break you down until you are ready to be remade, sometimes there are still bad days. After reclaiming your autonomy from substance abuse, you have very little control over the path of your life, with never-ending waiting lists and seemingly random decisions being made on your behalf to balance a book somewhere.

And these days, instead of being remade in the image of whatever the name of the saint is on the roof you landed under, like true ideological soldiers of neoliberalism that we are, drug stabilisation programmes are CE schemes, where being technically employed doesn’t come with many rights for the participants, and if you don’t learn your place fast enough you could be bounced to any number of courses which aren’t particularly suitable.

After I had sworn and raised my voice a bit I was sent off for CBT. In the first class, one of the slides was in German. The facilitator laughed, “We do get them from Germany.” The next class, one of the slides encouraged us to think of ourselves as €100: you may not always feel like €100, and that’s okay, not everybody is €100 all the time. At that point I told them I was a journalist and happily enough it was decided that I didn’t need to be there.

Only a century of theocracy and a proud tradition of health care as charity while using the
weakest members as a disciplinary measure, the cautionary tale to keep the rest of the
population in check, can produce post-austerity hollowed-out drug programmes that have had their budget cut by 37 percent post-crash.

Still, the counselor who was busy – that day after the equality referendum – re-enforcing my position as “less than”, has been a lifeline. There was a lot I just may not have been able to deal with alone.

It had only been just over a two-month wait, which in public-service addiction-treatment terms is rapid response. “The first thing you learn is that you always gotta wait,” to quote Lou Reed’s “Waiting for My Man”. Through decades and space, addicts today listen to that and laugh.

Not that addiction is a barrel of laughs. The ones you have are gallows humour. Jokes and a vernacular riddled with references to death and decay, alliances dressed up as friendships, permanence a distant memory to be unwrapped at times when you need it most.

Now that sense of belonging is coming back, tai chi – not something I would have tried before – has turned out to be, along with writing, one of my most beneficial tools.

After the CE scheme decided that, even after taking a break, I “wasn’t a good fit”. At that stage, I was going to tai chi twice a week, slowly rebuilding the connection between my brain and my body as my muscles grew stronger. I’ve since proceeded to kung fu. They’re both incredible ways of rebuilding not just your body but your mind with long, standing-on-one-leg meditation sessions.

It was during one of those that I finally worked up the confidence to hit a few open-mic nights to, quoting Darren Loki, “push the envelope and cause a fuckin postal strike”. And I’ll be opening with the line, “You’re the revolution mate? I’m a full-sprectrum paradigm collapse on Russell Brand’s parade.”

It’s a long, slow road to building myself back up. I won’t lie and say I jump out of bed everyday with renewed hope.

Some days it takes every ounce of strength I have to get out of bed and eat, if I can eat at all. Others, the simple pleasure of sunshine on my face while I’m drinking coffee and doodling on a drawing pad, usually with a cigarette (but one thing at a time) is enough to make my heart swell and tears fall at the resilience of the human condition.

Some days I’m even proud of myself. Slowly, but surely, day by day, with every meal finished, every class of tai chi, every day I don’t pay some dickhead €20 to feel like a human being, I’m reclaiming my right to pride and dignity.

Dara: Every addict has the right to a better life (Dublin Inquirer)