Sheriff Street's farewell for local hero

As the world's eyes focus on Sheriff Street, where the funeral of local celebrity Stephen Gately will happen today, residents preparing for the inundation tell ALISON HEALYhow they have managed their area's bad press and mixed fortunes

A SMELL OF burning lingers in the air on Sheriff Street. The blackened footpath is all that remains of a burnt-out car. A new wall erected around the North Wall Community Training Centre in July has been vandalised and there are signs that someone tried to set fire to it.

St Laurence Street East, off Sheriff Street, is the focus of anti-social behaviour, much of it by people not living in the area. But, come this morning, that footpath will be looking much better. The residents of Sheriff Street and North Wall are determined that their neighbourhood will be looking its best when mourners file into St Laurence O’Toole Church for the funeral, at noon, of their local hero, Boyzone’s Stephen Gately.

Hundreds of reporters, photographers and television cameras are expected to descend on the north inner city for the 33-year-old singer’s final journey. One news agency – the Press Association – has a team of eight reporters and photographers covering the event, and a large number of British journalists are expected.

“The eyes of the world will be on the North Wall,” says local shopkeeper Gerry Fay. “That’s why we are going to make sure everything is right.”

On Thursday afternoon, photographers are scouting the area, looking for the best vantage points as local people sit on their doorsteps, watching with bemusement. There is a brief frisson when Boyzone members arrive at the church to discuss arrangements. Their former bandmate started his life in the Sheriff Street flats before the family moved to Canon Lillis Avenue, nearby. His parents now live on Oriel Street Upper.

Sheriff Street was a byword for deprivation in the early 1980s but then the International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) was built and the North Wall area became dwarfed on all sides by sleek glass offices and luxury apartments. “We were lost in the middle,” says Fay, who is chairman of the North Wall Community Association. “People thought we were benefiting and our troubles were over, but they were wrong.” It’s a strange feeling for Sheriff Street to be back in the news, he says ruefully. “We’ve been in the news for years, but mostly for the wrong reasons. We are a community with a troubled history.”

The North Wall community was booming in the 1960s because of the port and docks but when containers were introduced, the need for casual labourers declined. The £5,000 “moving-out” grant to encourage inner city dwellers to move to newer suburbs also led to the loss of families who could afford the move, Fay says.

Great promises for job creation were made when the IFSC was mooted but, apart from a few construction and cleaning jobs, they never materialised. More promises were made in 1997 in a master plan for the area. “We got 37 housing units in Clarion Quay and that has been the sum total of it all,” he says. “Over the years we’ve been promised cinemas, sushi bars, anything you can think of. We never go to sushi bars but we’d be more worried about the jobs and housing.” Social housing planned for Spencer Dock has not yet been built, and the prospect of a school promised by the Dublin Docklands Development Authority (DDDA) is looking more remote by the day. The DDDA says the school project will be in co-operation with the Department of Education and cannot proceed without its agreement.

SOME 51 SOCIAL AND AFFORDABLE units in the Castle Forbes/Mayor Street area are built but are “under review at the moment,” a spokeswoman says.

Before the Boyzone members call to St Laurence O’Toole Church on Thursday, a local policing forum meets to discuss problems. People speak of the menace of anti-social behaviour, joyriding and vandalism and say the problems are worse now than they were 10 years ago. It is a “no-go area”, says one resident. Proposals for CCTV cameras mounted on “anti-ram” poles are snorted at by some who say they would merely provide a challenge to vandals.

In the past 18 months, €48,000 has been spent on the daily cleaning of St Laurence Place East to remove the results of anti-social behaviour before the youngsters start arriving for school across the street.

These setbacks have made the success of Stephen Gately all the more important for the area, according to local independent councillor Nial Ring.

“When they see someone from this area becoming famous, it really gives them a source of pride. His mother [Margaret] and father [Martin] are lovely people,” he says.

“When Stephen became famous, you’d have all the young ones coming down, asking ‘where does he live?’ And Margaret Gately would bring people in and show them Stephen’s bedroom. She’d say, ‘come in and have a cup of tea’ to the young ones, up from the country. So there was great excitement around the area. And now it’s important to people, out of respect to the Gately family, that the area is shown in the best light.”

Ring says lots of good things are happening in the area and points to work done in the local community centres, youth club and creche. North Wall Community Training Centre manager Trevor Moore says 90 people have already completed training there this year and nine started at the National College of Ireland in September.

While people felt “let down badly” by the DDDA on housing, Ring says the authority has done a lot for education, with grants for schools and a children’s exchange programme with France. An inner city trust run by the IFSC gives 75 per of its funds to education and IFSC companies have funded various community initiatives.

A FEW STREETS away in St Laurence O’Toole CBS, a montage of pictures pays tribute to Stephen Gately “a super larrier”. David Bailey recalls how he taught him in second and sixth class. “He was a diamond, an absolute diamond and a very, very good kid at school.” The class was a tough one “but he was one of the good ones and he would have been very well liked in the class”.

He recalls how he taught sixth class several hymns for their Confirmation ceremony. "But on the day, no one sang except him. I suppose they got stage fright but Stephen ploughed ahead and sang anyway." He says the young singer was an icon for the area because he was a "cool, clean hero". Bailey is mentioned with affection by Gately in A Key to Our Life, Eugene Masterson's book about Boyzone.

Meanwhile, Gerry Fay is being inundated with offers of help from locals, who want to get involved in the clean-up effort. A team of women have been polishing and scrubbing the interior of the church, while painting and decorating students from the training centre have cleaned the church grounds and touched up the paintwork in recent days.

“This is a good community where everyone knows everyone. If you threw a stone over the wall, you’d probably hit your granny or a second cousin,” Fay says. He maintains there is no desire from the State to improve conditions for the people of North Wall. It is one of the most valuable pieces of real estate in Dublin, he argues, due to its proximity to the IFSC, the train stations, the new Point Village, the national conference centre and the National College of Ireland. “They don’t want people here. But we’re not going anywhere,” he says.

“After the funeral, the circus will move on and life will go on, but we will still be fighting the same battles we’ve always been fighting.”