The Garden Of Delight is going to be shut down in a few days and by the time
you read this it may well be. For those morons out there who've been living on
another planet or just been taking way too much of the wrong (or right!) drugs,
the Garden is a cafe/bookshop/place for leftie and other wierdo happenings
across the road from Burdocks chipper (over-rated chips in our opinion) up at
the end of Dame Street. 

Its been open for the past year, and Dublin needs a place like this where
people, of "different" political opinions to the bullshit this country normally
spoon feeds the masses, could go and plot the downfall of the Dail and also sit
down and have a cup of tea and a jam scone while taking a break from it all.
The Garden also stocked loads of "underground" comics, books, zines,
newspapers, pamphlets, music, freesheets (yay!), and regularly put on films,
and held meetings organised by hackers, greens, anarchists, dadaists, artists,
writers, and every other opinion under the sun, except fascists maybe. 

It was/is a cool place to sit down and relax and meet other people of similar
opinions. In their own words th e place was "beyond being a cafe and a book
shop.. we function without a boss or a profit motive, everyone working here is
unpaid. We exist as a self-managed space or centre, the book shop and cafe
provide an anchor on which space and funds are provided for cultural, political
and social projects that might not otherwise happen.. The Space is not intended
to be passive and reproducing the values of a sick society but rather radical
and based on action. It is intended to bring different people together and to
be open to other organisations that operate in a similar fashion, particularly
those in the local community. It arose not as a set of abstract ideas but
because a space became available to fulfil a need many people already felt. The
exact use of this space is an area for discussion and experimentation with and
between those who are creating and working in it... our project is also an
experiment, in working together for a greater good, in maximising potential, in
the breaking of new ground. The success of this pro ject will be determined in
the long term by its existence in the collective memory, in the short term by
its ability to attract and inspire others. We want the challenge of this space
and its alternative way of organisation (self-management against
leaders/bosses) and motivation (solidarity against greed/charity) to sa y
ENOUGH! to those who tell us there is no alternative to hierarchy and
exploitation".. [taken from the leaflet entitled "Where is there space in this
city to conspire?"]

S@E being the thorough journalists that we are, went up to the Garden one day
armed with a trusty tape recorder (a Sony, we regret to say) and poked our big
noses around and prodded the employees with long hunting knives until we got
some answers out of them. They were quick to point out that if we asked
different people, we would get different opinions and that there were many
reasons why the Garden was closing down and that we would have to talk to
everyone if we wanted to get a real picture of why the Garden was waving
goodbye. This was imp ractical for us cos we are very, very busy people and
also there would have been a massive overlap in the answers, e.g. the main
reason for the Garden closing was because the owner of the building wanted to
change it into apartments, so we talked to three people, and we have printed
the interviews below more or less word for word on the tape (apart from stuff
like "umm" and "yeah" and repetition of words for the sake of the reader), so
you out there can take what you want from the interviews and make your own mind
up why the place was closing down. 

The first person we talked to was Miriam who had only been working in the
Garden since July so she couldnt really answer much questions about the
background of the place. The second bloke was Simon, who had an English accent
and blonde dreadlocks and he was very positive about the future of the
collective, and how it would continue in other shapes or forms. The last person
we talked to was an Itali an called Marino, who Miriam told us to talk to cos
he had been there longest, and there was a note of bitterness in Marino's voice
when he talked about the Garden closing down. They all have interesting things
to say, we think Marino had the most to say and his advice makes for
thought-provoking reading indeed. The Garden, even though the members have said
that it will continue on in thought s and ideas, will be sorely missed. As
Simon said, a city this size needs a place for off-centre books to be stocked
and heads to conspire in. 

Its departure will leave a yawning hole in the underground in Dublin (if such a
thing exists)... personally the only problem we here at S@E ever had with the
Garden was that t he books they stocked were a bit inaccessible and difficult
to read but thats what education is all about.  If its still open when you read
this (as we write this the print date is still uncertain due to possible work
commitments and lack of cash) go up there and buy yourself a fucking book and
read the damn thing and stick with it even if you dont understand it all. The
books that we bought there (Good Vibrations Guide to Sex, Revelation X, among
others) were all entertaining and opened our minds up that little bit more..
not that theres much left of them after this summer's excesses in London mind
you.. 

normal S@E services will re sume with #25 with all the usual bollocks we put
in, we just wanted to get this interview printed up relatively soon so people
could read it before the place closes down on the 21/9 (when theres a huge big
book auction, bring your dough along and buy! buy! buy!). Thats all until #25
then, contact us at slanted@redbrick.dcu.ie. STOP PRESS: Some of the lovely
people from Borderline Records have decided to go it alone and open up their
own shop, stocking the best in indie, garage (surely some mistake there??) and
punk, with tons of U.S.  Import, 7"s and vinyl for the masses to feed on. The
opening day they also had a huge big jar of lollipops on t he counter so if you
run there now you still might get one. Its located at 16B Fade Street, which is
the next paralell street south of Wicklow/Exchequer Street, just off Georges
Street. Its called Road Records, funnily enuf.  Oh yeah and they give you this
stamp thing every time you spend a tenner in the shop, just like the petrol
tokens, which gives you a discount some time in the distant future. Isnt that
nice of them :)  See you later...

Miriam: For a variety of reasons it was going to close down, and I dont fully
understand all the ins and out of it, but its a shame, and everybody involved
in it at the moment, theres a core of at least thirty or so, we're all going to
go on and do other things so this has been a stepping stone. Some people might
go into another cafe or bookshop..  

S@E: so there might be something similar to the GOD in future?  

Miriam: Of course.. its inspired lots of other people to set up their own zines
or stalls to sell alternative stuff..  

S@E: So you think there is a future then for the ideas inspired by the GOD?  

Miriam: Oh yeah, its turned a lot of people onto way of organising themselves,
and its kind of proved that there are people out there who were willing to work
voluntarily, for what they think is a good thing.  

S@E: Do you think that the GOD has had any influence on Dublin?  

Miriam: Yeah, especially with the books here, theres a lot of specialist stuff
that you wouldnt find elsewhere, politics, literature..  

S@E: Have you been losing money in the past few months? Has that been one of
your problems?  

Miriam: Yeah..  

S@E: Why would you think that was the case? Was there a good level of support
or..? As far as I can see the place has been reasonably successful.. and a lot
of people know about it, yet its still closing down, whats happened?  

Miriam: Well, I've only been here since June or something, so I dont really
know every single reason behind it, I was never involved in the finances of the
place, but different kinds of structures were set up to control the finances
and sort it all out..  I really dont know what happened there..  

S@E: Its a shame really cos when you think of all the good stuff that the GOD
tried to do, it wasnt just a bookshop and a cafe, it also put on talks,
parties, theme mights, films or whatever.. do you know whats happening to the
building itself now?  

Miriam: Yeah I think its going to be turned into flats.  

S@E: Apartments, like.  

Miriam: Yeah not flats, apartments, like everywhere else these days..  

S@E: Anything else you want to say?  

Miriam: Yeah, just that it will carry on in different guises, and the core of
thirty people or so, theres even more than that, theres been more than a
hundred people who've come through this place and who some time in the future
will set up their own proj ects, so its just going to spiral out everywhere.  

S@E: So you think that the Garden has been a good thing overall then?  

Miriam: Yep, absolutely.

S@E: Simon the Garden is closing down around the 21st of September, why is
this? What has caused the present difficulties? In your knowledge, anyway..

Simon: Well, its closing as far as I am aware because.. well, you talk to
different people you get different answers basically, but as far as I can see
there are two main reasons. One is that the guy who owns the building is
redeveloping it, all 3 floors so its being changed into flats, so we're out of
this location.  The other reason is that theres a few people moving away and
the people that are still here are interested in doing other things, like new
forms of protesting and demonstrating and trying to bring people together.
Theres other stuff planned like squats.  

S@E: But its the end of the Cafe though.  

Simon: Yeah this is the end of the cafe in what it was, and one of the
problems throughout the time within the co-op was the way that we spent a lot
of time dealing with mundane running of the cafe/bookshop, and its taken up a
lot of peoples time to organ ise that. We hadnt had as much time as maybe we
wanted to do other more important stuff like campaigning. In a way it needed
people to do all the mundane stuff, so that people could come in and use the
space.. Just in the last couple of days I've worked s everal shifts and the
amount of people who've come in and have been really sad that it is closing
down.. I didnt realise how many people were aware of the place and were using
the place just to meet informally, and have a cup of coffee.  

S@E: So you think theres been good support for the Garden?  

Simon: Um.. yes and no. At the start there was a lot of people, quite a variety
coming in, but it faded off in the summertime, and you could say that was
because there werent as many events on here, so people werent as up for coming
here, and the whole en ergy of the place faded a bit. There were several
attempts to try and ressurect that, by redecorating the whole place, back in
June or so, to get more people in, but as I said, by the end of July, August,
there was hardly anybody coming in. There wasnt as much support for the place
so there are loads of reasons for that ..  I've never been particularly happy
with this location as a spot for a cafe.

S@E: Where would you have preferred? Somewhere more central?  

Simon: Yeah its just that bit further out of town..  

S@E: Off the beaten track..  

Simon: Yeah so if you were in town and you fancied a coffee there are places
that you can go that are closer that maybe dont have the same sort of ethos
behind them, it was just an effort for people..  

S@E: Its not that much out of the way though, when you think about it, and
generally speaking people should have made the effort. Thats a bit of a lazy
attitude to have on some peoples part. They knew the cafe was here, and it is
literally only four minut es walk from somewhere like Temple Bar yet..  

Simon: Yeah.. Its like a lot of things. For a period theres a real buzz around
them, and to be a part of all that is really good.  Then after a while people
started getting used to the Garden being there, and they would think "Oh maybe
theres nothing parti cularly outrageous on there today, I'll just have a cuppa
in town". It would have been really good if the energy had been in the people
and had we not been splitting off as a group to do other things. There are
other projects in the pipeline for people to get involved with. Its been funny
cos at the start of this three weeks [the last three weeks of the Garden]
events, we wanted to go out with a bang, because at the beginning of August we
were just fading away and everyone was getting disillusioned with the whole
project. Now we've been putting on the events, and so many people have been
coming in.. there was a guy yesterday who came in and said our greatest
achievement is that people are now bumping into each other in the street and
saying, "well, where are we going to meet? Theres no p lace to go now". Theres
things that we didnt know were important to people about the Garden because
people didnt come in and tell us. Now we've had that impetus maybe there'll be
scope for another project..  

S@E: Any hopes for the future then? For the people involved? Could something
similar to the Garden work again?  

Simon: If people come in once or twice a month maybe, and are up for keeping in
contact.. there needs to be a place in town, or a forum, whether its a magazine
or an actual physical space where people can still get together and talk to
each other and plot and.. em.. do whatever they want to do..  

S@E: Leftie activities is it eh?? Ha ha..  

Simon: Yeah.. there are a couple of other projects.. a market stall, some
people are interested in setting up a market stall. Just a place where people
can come in and pick all sorts of literature up. Hopefully people will come in,
in the last two weeks, and people will give their name and address for future
projects, maybe a mailing list could be set up. After October, things will
still happen.

S@E: Could you give us a brief history of the Garden of Delight?  

Marino: The Garden was set up a year ago, and from Sept 96 to Dec 96 it was a
normal bookshop. It was about to close down at the end of last year, because of
debts.  At that point me and other people decided to keep going with the place
in a self-managed s ituation. That means, everybody was going to work
voluntarily, we were going to try and raise the money to pay off the debts, and
basically try to keep this place open. Self management means there is no boss,
no workers, but we are all on the same level of decision. We had a weekly
meeting where all the members of the collective were there, and we took
decisions about the running of the place, and everything else concerning the
place.  

S@E: Well, that was nine months ago, and the Garden is now closing down on the
21st of September..  

Marino: Yeah the main reason for this is that the owner of the
building wants the place back, we knew this from the start, that this was going
to happen at the end of September/early October.  

S@E: So you were only tenants here orginally.  

Marino: Yeah we only had the place temporarily. We knew this
already. This is the main reason. Another reason is we had internal
difficulties in the collective. There were different people, political
opinions, and these caused in the last few weeks a frac ture in the collective.
So, a few people left. Another problem was the lack of commitment, basically,
it was a very big commitment to keep this place open 7 days a week, you need
four people every day working here, all on a voluntary basis, and it was very
tiring. A few people just left because of this, they had othe r commitments.
Study, work, all these kinds of things. Basically this is why its closing down.

S@E: The Garden was more than a bookshop, it tried to create an underground
scene with films and talks, was there support for this?  

Marino: The underground scene in Dublin, it doesnt really exist. Yeah you see
people dressed in an underground way, but the support has never really been
there.  People here, especially young people.. I'm a critic as a foreigner,
even the punks, they seem to be very happy and content with what is around.
They seem to be very satisfied with going to a pub, having a few drinks,
organising the punk gigs in a bar where the bartender gets his money from the
band, who are playing there for free, he gets his mone y from the people who go
to see the band. You go there, you buy your beer, and the bartender doesnt care
who is playing, what you are doing. He gets his money. He doesnt care. A step
forward in Dublin should be to take a place, and organise a gig yourself. I'm
talking to people in the punk scene. Organise and self-manage a place yourself.
Your own gigs.  You wont be giving your money to someone else who is not
interested in what you are doing whatsoever... and pr obably there is no
history here. No background of self-management. When we had parties, we had
three hundred people, and we were selling alcohol. Why? To raise money to keep
the place open, to pay off the debts. This place is closing down in a week, so
I dont care, I can tell everyone we were selling alcohol illegally. When we
organised the party, we had 300 people coming down just for that though, but
when you were talking about running and being involved in the management of the
place, people were just like, whatever..  

S@E: So do you think the Garden has made any impact at all?

Marino: I suppose.. a lot of people, even when the place was closed for three
weeks recently, were stopping me in the street asking me what was happening
with the place, why were we closing, all that. Yes, it had an influence. When
it re-opened last Frida y we all realised that this place meant.. well, ok, I'm
using the past tense now.. but this place means a lot to quite a lot of people.
Even if they knew the place was here, just so they could come and have a
coffee, and sit down, and relax. Have a look through the books. Whatever. This
place had an influence but I thin k it was kind of a superficial influence. Its
been there long enough.. who cares. You know. People have been more or less
like this..  

S@E: Is there a future then for the Garden? Obviously not the building itself,
but the ideas and the people involved in the collective.. do you think anything
like this can happen again?  

Marino: My idea, being from Italy, and being involved in the self-managed scene
for years, it was something new over here. My goal was to spread.. you know,
its a sort of gospel, to spread this idea of the self-management, here in
Dublin. I hope that some one else, and I'm talking to the young people here
especially, will come up with a similar idea and does something, maybe a bit
different from the Garden of Delight. The important thing is to get up and do
something for yourselves, self-management, self-organisation and dont wait for
the institutions, either local councils, European Community and Government to
give you funding, or to give you pe rmission. Because money means control. All
the time. They give you money, they want to control what you do. They are not
going to let you do whatever you want to do. People have to get up and do
things for themselves in a self-managed way. As far as we ar e concerned, we
are going to stay together as a collective, which is now a group of friends.
The ideas are there now, and the friendship is there, there might or might not
be a future. I dont know at this stage, we certainly had a very human
experience, from a human point of view.