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Donal Fallon

Wood Quay veteran, hero of the Liberties John Gallagher's death has deprived Dublin of one of its champions

Gallagher, who passed away recently, kept Dublin and the Liberties in his heart.

THE DEATH OF John Gallagher has deprived Dublin of one of its great champions. A former Deputy Lord Mayor of the city, Gallagher was a veteran of the Save Wood Quay campaign and many other battles to preserve the heritage of the city, in particular the south inner-city which he knew so well. John Gallagher was, as the song would have it, “as Dublin as could be.”

He was born in the hungry years of the 1930s in one of the last old Weavers houses of the Coombe, and the promotion and preservation of the history of Dublin’s Liberties would remain one of his great passions throughout a long and active life.

In his 60s when he was interviewed by Kevin Kearns for his landmark study Dublin Tenement Life: An Oral History of the Dublin Slums, he remembered there was a stigma associated with the area, as “at one time to mention that you lived in the Liberties around the Coombe, that was the lowest place to live. Now the Liberties is very famous, but back then down the Coombe, you had tenements, terrible poverty.”

Dedicated to the Liberties

Many readers will no doubt remember him from the tireless shifts put in at the Liberties Community Information Centre on Patrick Street in the 1980s, where together with a team of enthusiastic volunteers he helped local people – from the elderly to the young and unemployed – untangle red tape and gain access to whatever supports were available to them.

As chairman of the Liberties Association, Gallagher was a leading light in the heroic campaign to save Dublin’s Viking heritage at Wood Quay. The decision to construct offices – and Civic Offices no less- on the founding footprint of the city led to demonstrations, as well as the occupation of the Wood Quay site by protestors, in a daring occupation known as Operation Sitric, in honour of the one-time King of Viking Dublin, protestors, including the writer James Plunkett and architect Michael Scott, seized the site in June 1979 in an attempt to stop construction.

Writing in Wood Quay Operation News, the very-DIY publication of the protestors, Gallagher maintained that in relation to the local community, it was “houses these people want, not office blocks or a dual-carriageway, that turn communities into dangerous traffic islands. If you care about Dublin and the inner-city, support the Save Wood Quay group, who by their efforts are trying to make our capital city a more pleasant place to live in the future.”

Wood Quay was a crushing defeat, but there were victories too. The saving of local landmarks, including the Tailors Hall, now home to An Taisce, was brought about by the same spirit of activism. That time of wanton vandalism of the built heritage of Dublin – often by those who were supposed to protect the city – was perfectly captured by journalist and author Frank McDonald in the title of his study, The Destruction of Dublin.

90342684 Counting the Votes. European and Local Elections 2014. Pictured Labour supporters and brothers John and Michael Gallagher from the Liberties in Dublin at the RDS in Dublin for the Count of the European and Local Elections 2014. Photo: Sam Boal/RollingNews.ie Sam Boal Sam Boal

Dublin for Dubliners

The functionality of the city – and questions of just who the city was being laid out for, and who it was designed to serve – greatly concerned Gallagher. In the 1980s he was involved in the Dublin Inner-City Games, which highlighted the absence of sporting facilities in inner-city Dublin. Houses, he insisted, “are no good unless there is space for recreation for the children who live there.”

A reporter who walked the Liberties with Gallagher when researching the games was amazed that he was constantly mobbed by the young, children and teenagers, who recognised the level of work he did in trying to provide amenities for them.

Gallagher utilised the local political structures to draw attention to the issues facing his community – he stood for election to Dublin Corporation in 1985 specifically to highlight the heroin crisis gripping the south inner-city.

He became the rarest of things in Dublin – a broadly popular local politician – and utilised his council seat over many years with the Labour Party to highlight issues of great local concern in the Liberties.

Historical preservation remained high on his list, and he was particularly passionate about the saving and restoration of the Iveagh Markets, which are sadly still currently in a state of limbo.

Not one expense filed

It was reported in 2013 that Gallagher’s council expenses for the previous thirteen years stood at €0.00, Gallagher telling the Evening Herald that “I don’t broadcast the fact that I don’t claim expenses. It’s a decision I’ve stuck with over the years and it’s one I believe in personally. I feel I have independence as a community worker when I don’t claim expenses.”

It was a cruel twist of the current pandemic that the people of the Liberties could not line the streets that Gallagher fought so hard for over many decades to see him home on his final journey.

Singer Imelda May posted that “He was a huge part of my childhood and my local community… I remember watching him cycle off to swim in the sea as he did every day. He swore it was the secret to long life.”

Gallagher lived a remarkable and long life, and a glance at it shows us the incredible personal stories that can exist behind the numbers in the current Covid19 tragedy. His death notice on rip.ie notes that “when the current public health crisis has passed, John’s family look forward to welcoming you to a celebration of his life, which will rival the funeral of Daniel O’ Connell!”

Certainly, there will be much done in the Coombe and the Liberties when normality returns to honour one of the greatest champions of an area that represents the beating heart of the Hibernian Metropolis.

Donal Fallon is a historian and broadcaster. He produces the Three Castles Burning podcast, dedicated to Dublin history.

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    Mute Lance Taylor
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    22hours ago

    This is great to see and I im glad they were rescued. Touch and go for a bit they could have been stranded in outer space

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    Mute President Musk
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    18hours ago

    Amazing job Elon and President Trump heroes you are.

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    Mute Adam H2022
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    21hours ago

    Well done to Elon Musk a true hero of our generation. Looney leftists out damaging cars in Belfast while Elon is saving lives. We will be on the right side of history. More and more people can see this every day. MAGA.

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    Mute Chutes Idiot
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    21hours ago

    @Adam H2022: let’s hope President of Peace Trump really goes in hard on that mad dictator putin today. It’ll be so beautiful & joyous to consign that pointless proxy war to the history books & give those brave young Ukrainians the opportunity of reaching adulthood & old age

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    Mute Vincent Alexander
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    20hours ago

    @Adam H2022: No doubt he was well paid for his rocket and it was not done for humanitarian reasons. In the meantime he is condoning the unnecessary bombings in Gaza. His attitude is probably what do a few lives matter for a cheap bit of real estate.

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    19hours ago

    @Chutes Idiot: President of Peace sanctioned the killing of 330 Palestinians today.

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    Mute Adam H2022
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    19hours ago

    @FoxyBoiiYT: Biden administration is responsible for all of the deaths. Trump has been landed with two wars and the left think it’s Trumps fault lol. Just when I think you lefties can’t get any more stup1d you come out with comments like that lol

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    19hours ago

    @Adam H2022: So Biden is still in charge? You are so utterly braindead as to defy believe. Go simp for your billionaire masters elsewhere

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    Mute Adam H2022
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    19hours ago

    @FoxyBoiiYT: Biden was never in charge as he was actually brain dead. You didn’t notice either as you clearly are as well lol. Shut your leftie hole thinking your tough name calling on an app.

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    Mute Marie McPhillips
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    18hours ago

    @Adam H2022:

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    22hours ago

    We need about 8 billion ape masks for the joke of the millennium

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    22hours ago

    @Ian Graydon: Only need one.. and I’m sure the orange orangetan will be front and centre upon there return.

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    22hours ago

    @Brian: Orangutan*

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    22hours ago

    @Brian: it’s funny, but did you have this same energy when Biden refused to let Musk bring them back before the election?

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    Mute Matt D
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    22hours ago

    @Brian: he & Elon Musk are the only reason they’re even coming home. The astronauts themselves even said as much. The previous administration didn’t want Musk getting credit as he declared his support for Trump instead of Harris so a game was being played with the health & welfare of these astronauts.

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    22hours ago

    @James.s.: cool story bro, but it didn’t happen like that

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    Mute Karen Marten
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    22hours ago

    @Brian: their

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    21hours ago
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    Mute Adam H2022
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    21hours ago

    @Matt D: The poor astronauts. Can you imagine being used as a political football as your life literally hangs in the balance. Democrats and the left are the low of the low. Watch them try to find something wrong with Musk having a massive win again – The left remind of the DUP everyone is just laughing at them at this stage.

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    19hours ago

    @Karen Marten: that nonsense makes you the wnkr

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    18hours ago

    @James.s.: rubbish

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    10hours ago

    @Dermot Blaine: according to Musk and the astronauts it did. And seeing as he is the one responsible for bringing them back, I would believe him.

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    Mute Karen Marten
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    22hours ago

    I’m sure they will be just happy to be home with their families and sleeping in their own beds for a few weeks sureit will be weird for them .

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    @Karen Marten:
    Sure it.

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    22hours ago

    62 and 59? Hmmm. They must be fit. I presume they will be in wheelchairs for weeks what with the muscle atrophy of a zero G environment and the freeze dried dinners and recycled urine….

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    22hours ago

    @N.F. Court: But enough about the Oval Office.

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    20hours ago

    @Sherry Adams – Norn Iron Drag Artiste: it’s ok Joe is gone, getting the care he needs

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