Written on the side of some tents are messages written in red paint. “Stop normalising cruelty,” read one. “We are not subhuman,” said another. A mixture of Palestinian and Irish flags tied to lamp posts and railings bluster limply in the driving rain.
Sleeping in their tents, some with small children and some all alone, they have come from all quarters of the globe. From Gaza to Afghanistan, Sudan to Nigeria, their journeys have coincided at Dublin’s growing tent city.
Descending the underpass behind the IPO, a steady drip feed of migrants line up in the rain for an appointment. They are let in slowly, in groups of five at a time. Some hold their documents in brown envelopes. Some have no documents at all.
Those who aren’t lining up mill around, many wearing no more than flip flops, T-shirts and tracksuit bottoms, waiting to be told if today is the day they get an appointment or chance of accommodation.
