Dublin is a city on the edge

At 1.30 p.m. last Thursday, a horrific knife attack was perpetrated outside a school on Parnell Street in Dublin’s north inner city. Three children and an adult female were viciously stabbed by the attacker who has now been confirmed to be an Algerian male who acquired Irish citizenship and has been living in the country for the last 20 years.

Both the attacker and his four victims have been hospitalised. One of those victims, a 5 year old girl, remains in a critical condition, while her female carer, who tried to stop the knifeman, remains in the Mater hospital.

Dublin’s north inner city has long been known as ‘bandit country’. Having seemingly been abandoned by successive governments, this part of the city, which stretches into Dublin’s main thoroughfare of O’Connell Street, has spent the last few years descending into a seemingly never-ending cycle of decay and despair.