2024: THE YEAR of the monkey.

No, we’re not referring to the Chinese calendar (the Year of the Dragon begins on 10 February, by the way). We are, of course, talking about little Charlie — the capuchin monkey who escaped from a monkey sanctuary in Wicklow. Because, apparently, there’s been a monkey sanctuary in Wicklow all these years that nobody told me about.

While there is concern for the monkey’s well-being, there is also hope for his survival in Ireland’s Ancient East. His carers have said that he is both a good forager and an excellent climber, but they are very keen to get him back safely. 

Rathdrum Monkey Sanctuary owner Willie Heffernan told the Sunday World that Charlie “thinks Wicklow is full of young female monkeys,” which is a statement that’s going to be very tough to beat as most memorable quote of 2024. Nevertheless, we must all hope that things end well for Willie, Charlie, and the monkey-bride that he might miraculously find in Glendalough somewhere.

Ah, if only it could always be about catching monkeys. If only it were always so simple (editor’s note: catching a monkey is not simple). It would certainly make my job a lot more pleasant. Unfortunately, life in Ireland is so rarely about mischievous critters who escape their enclosures to find love even at great personal risk.

Indeed, a story that is much more emblematic not only of this past week but of the past 10 years is contained within the most recently published homelessness figures.

Once again, the Irish state has broken its own record for the number of people in its care who are homeless. As of November 2023, 9,409 adults and a record 4,105 children were in emergency accommodation – an increase of 335 on the month before. 

This unabated upward trajectory of privation facing so many people looks set to continue as a source of nationwide despair and frustration throughout 2024, just as it was in 2023, and 2022, and 2021, etc. 

Overnight, firefighters were called to a vacant premises on fire in #Ringsend

6️⃣ Fire engines attended including a turntable ladder to fight the fire from above

💨 Smoke drifted across the area

Thanks to @DubCityCouncil who increased the water supply to the fireground pic.twitter.com/NgswSP6jhG

— Dublin Fire Brigade (@DubFireBrigade) December 31, 2023

Wayne Stanley, executive director of the Simon Communities of Ireland, referred to Ireland’s current housing crisis as a “preventable trauma,” a description that cannot be bettered for either accuracy or poignancy.

This state of affairs has decidedly not been aided by the arsonist or arsonists who targeted what they apparently believed to be proposed refugee accommodation in Ringsend earlier this week, only to end up burning down a building that had been earmarked as “emergency accommodation for families,” confirmed by the Dublin Region Homeless Executive. 14 families, to be exact. Nice work, patriots! How ever can we repay you?

Of course, burning down emergency accommodation – regardless of what you believe the emergency at hand to be – is unconscionable and downright bizarre behaviour. That such attacks are being perpetrated at homelessness emergency accommodation sites gives the lie to the arguments made by the “Ireland is full” crowd, who would apparently prefer that Ireland burn to the ground rather than repurpose any of its roughly 200,000 vacant homes, invest in increasing the capacity of its healthcare system, or any other solution that doesn’t involve a sociopathic lust for violence.

The Ringsend location is just one of several such suspicious fires that have taken place in recent weeks. On Wednesday night, a derelict primary school in Tipperary was set ablaze, and Gardaí confirmed they were “aware of possible misinformation, disinformation and rumour in relation to the use or proposed use” of the derelict building. 

The week before Christmas saw a building in Oughterard, Co Galway meet the same fate. That building had been a proposed housing site for up to 70 asylum seekers. All three fires are being investigated by Gardaí.

These incidents are not just a matter of this past week, or the past few weeks, but instead stretch back as far as 2018, when the Caiseal Mara Hotel in Moville was burned out just hours before a scheduled welcome party for asylum seekers.

Similar fires have mysteriously broken out at planned refugee accommodation centres in Rooskey, in Ballinamore, in Buncrana, at Rawlton House in Dublin 1, Ballincollig in Cork, and a makeshift tent village in Dublin’s Sandwith Street last summer. 

One might think that such a clear pattern would have enabled the state to put together some sort of robust prevention strategy by now. That has not happened. Not only has the state failed to prevent this escalation, but to date, not a single person has been prosecuted for a single one of these fires. If you are wondering why the culprits think they can get away with it, it’s because so far, they absolutely have.

Preventable trauma is the order of the day in Ireland at the outset of 2024. It would be nice if this is the year we finally take some preventative measures.