Balbriggan, County Dublin last Sunday
This morning.
Further to the house fire in Balbriggan, County Dublin blamed by some as a racially-motivated, gang-related arson attack..
Jakub Zarkowsk on Gofundme writes:
My very close friend Dare lost his house on August the 9 to a fire. The news and media is making it out to be some sort of gang related incident. Honestly it has nothing to do with that. This was a complete accident.
Thankfully his mother and sister weren’t home, his step dad and little brother were in the house at the time but made it out safely. Thank god there all safe but they left behind everything in that house. Any help (at link below) would be greatly appreciated thank you.
€5,030 to date.
Monday: Putting Out The Fire
Sponsored Link
Just curious, wouldn’t they have had insurance?
They will need somewhere to live immediately and for quite some time as well as new clothes etc. An insurance payout doesn’t come overnight and a house takes quite a while to rebuild.
I would think insurance would make an initial interim payment?
Since when does concrete burn like petrol?
Jet fuel can’t melt steel beams.
lots of household furnishings are extremely flammable
Since 9/11.
Last I heard it was an electrical fire in the shed that spread to the oil tank in the back garden. Black smoke was fairly thick.
The supposed gang business was a whole heap of unrelated things piled together to make a ‘narrative’. The fire drew out a pile of rubberneckers, some of whom were not keen on each other so had a fight out on the green. Usual teenage nonsense, all wearing the same tracksuits, hard to tell who was who. One person involved in the scuffle apparently lived on the street of the fire so a connection was formed that it was a punishment burning. I mean, we’ve plenty of problems with teenagers in Balbriggan, some muggings, stolen bicycles and brawls but they’ve not reached the stage where they are lighting each others houses on fire.
Tragic for the family involved, not only to lose everything but then to have their loss twisted up into a larger and infinitely more stupid story.
I’m curious Paul, what is actually going on in Balbriggan? Is there a gang problem? If there is, is it drug related?
Or is the level of crime nothing out of the ordinary?
I don’t know about the drug angle (though, search enough teenagers and you’ll find something) but it’s just the sheer amount of kids packed into a badly designed and serviced part of the town. Bigger groups, bigger peer pressure, bigger dares and a police force completely ill-equipped to be dealing with it. These kids are now teenagers who know, until they turn 18, are untouchable. The ‘joke’ I’ve heard is that if there is a problem in that part of the town, the lawyer gets to the crime scene before the police.
There is more in the town than there ever was, clubs, sports, entertainment, gyms, cinema etc but it doesn’t seem to make a difference.
People poke their head up and say racist things about the large groups of teenagers and, I will admit, the groups are predominantly black but skin colour has nothing to do with it. It’s an ‘acting-out’ teenager thing and unless there is a proper response to it, it’ll become an adult thing and after that a multi-generational thing and a much harder problem to root out.
I have to say though, seeing smaller groups of teenagers wearing t-shirts with music band logos and the few goths around the town fills me with hope. These are people who are now the breakaway group and I wish them luck battling the waves of grey/black tracksuits, knock-off Canada Goose and petty crime.
thanks for that comment, Paul
interesting and fair
+1
I’d tend to agree with what you are saying.
From what I’ve seen its not gangland crime it large groups of unruly teenagers causing hassle.
I suspect part of it is they have been out of school that long and with covid there has been a lack of activities so there is pent up energy built up since march.
But it does need to be nipped in the bud before it gets more serious.
Very sad. Media reaction and attitude towards people as ‘others’ was appalling.
This was a complete accident
elaborate?
There was already a 10k gofundme for this set up and reached by the local youth reach.. why is there another one.. 3rd one ive seen now..
A SF conspiracy?