In the early 1980s Larry Dunne and other members of his family introduced heroin to Dublin. They were efficient in their distribution, and very quickly large numbers of young people were addicted to heroin, in need of hundreds of pounds a week to feed their habit.

The arrival of heroin would change everything for the communities into which it arrived. These were communities which already had high unemployment and low education levels. Politician Tony Gregory said at the time, "The gateway to heroin is social disadvantage." It was a perfect storm.

Two years into the heroin epidemic, the people that lived there weren't going to just accept it. Suddenly dealers were living in their midst and children as young as 12 and 13 were reportedly being given heroin.

In 1982, a priest and a group of women met in a flat in Hardwicke Street.  The Concerned Parents Against Drugs was born. But to fight back against drug dealers in their area, they were going to need muscle. They found it when they approached IRA member Christy Burke. 

Feeling like the state had abandoned them, communities right across Dublin decided that it was time to take the law into their own hands. Huge meetings were held, dealers were named, crowds marched on dealers’ houses and demanded that they left the area.

In the mid-1980s Larry Dunne was finally apprehended by police and put in prison. The marches of the early 80s died down. 

But by the mid-1990s, a new drug arrived on the scene – ecstasy. With it came a new wave of heroin addicts.

For many of the people living in these communities, the problem was very personal. Bernie Howard’s son Stephen changed from someone who never drank or smoked to a heroin-addict in the space of a couple of years. Despite the fact that this was 1995 - fifteen years since the auhorities knew that heroin was a major problem -  Stephen still could not access treatment services to help him come off it. In desperation, he ended his own life, and change the course of Bernie’s. 

In this documentary we speak to the people who started the campaign and took part in it. But even forty years after these events, with a vicious feud now under way in the north inner city many people are too scared to even speak publicly about it. 

If you have been affected by issues of substance misuse and would like support, please contact the Family Support Network on (01) 8980148 or see www.fsn.ie 

Narrated and produced by Nicoline Greer

Special thanks to Rob Canning in RTE Radio Archives. 

First broadcast on RTÉ Radio 1, Saturday 11th July, 2020 @2pm 

Repeated RTÉ Radio 1, Sunday 12th September, 2020 @7pm

An Irish radio documentary from RTÉ Radio 1, Ireland - Documentary on One - the home of Irish radio documentaries