One man who’s been involved has been trying to organise a social event on a nearby council football pitch, something the council says it’s “monitoring”.
On a local WhatsApp group in Dublin 8, neighbours try to ensure that stuff that’s still useable keeps getting used, rather than being thrown in the bin.
Some residents of Castle Court still aren’t back in their homes. “It’s awful to think … overnight this can just happen,” says local resident Helen Rooney.
It’s a change Dublin City Council’s planning committee has advocated for, passing a motion in April and writing to the minister in support of the change.
The idea is to tap into some of the profound feelings astronauts get when they gaze upon Earth from afar, says Zack Denfield of the Center for Genomic Gastronomy.
“That whole idea of capitalism and consuming more and more, we want to be the opposite of that, like as an antidote, I suppose,” says organiser Mary Fleming.
This challenge, epitomised by Clontarf, is cropping up all over Ireland and likely to become more common as efforts ramp up to adapt to climate change.
