Summer in the city came abruptly to an end on August 31st. On that night, 18-year-old Brian Murphy was kicked to death outside Annabels night club at the Burlington Hotel, in the affluent Leeson Street area, south of the city centre. In the immediate aftermath, newspaper headlines focussed on the expectation that up to five youths from a fee-paying south Dublin school Blackrock College in fact were likely to be charged in connection with the incident.
The revelations about the death of Brian Murphy sparked another investigation. Less than a week previously, on August 25th, another youth, David Langan, from the upper middle class suburb of Castleknock, had died in similar circumstances, shortly after he left the Palace Disco in Camden Street. At first, police seem to have accepted that the head injuries which killed him had resulted from an accidental fall. But with the death of Brian Murphy occupying the headlines, a different version of the events leading up to David Langan s fatal injury began to emerge.
It is too early yet to say for certain precisely what led to either death. There seems to be little doubt about the fact that Brian Murphy was brutally beaten on the night and that his body had extensive bruising to prove it. In contrast, David Langan, according to Gardam investigating the case, showed no signs of having been savagely attacked; there may, it seems, have been a greater element of misfortune involved, though in truth it doesn t make him any less dead.
The media has latched onto the co-incidence of these deaths to paint a somewhat lurid picture of life in middle class, and upper-middle class, Dublin. In the rush to find explanations for what happened, we have been warned of a culture of violence among Dublin s affluent rugby-playing schools. Reports have emphasised not just the brutality, ruthlessness and aggression of the game of rugby itself, but also the increasing reliance among schoolboy players on performance-enhancing drugs.
Undoubtedly there s a combination of factors at work here, some or all of which may contribute to specific incidents in which people are hurt, or worse. There is no question but that the use of steroids can lead to bouts of aggression, and the same may well be true of creatine, the legal dietary supplement which is currently in common use in sports circles. But the biggest common factor in all crimes of violence in Ireland is alcohol and alcoholic drink was certainly involved in the deaths of both Brian Murphy and David Langan.
In that sense, there is nothing new in any of this. People drink too much, and some of them do things that they d never dream of doing sober.
In certain people drunkenness triggers a capacity for violence. The phenomenon isn t confined to teenagers either. It doesn t require anything more scientific than reading the regular court reports in newspapers to confirm this: the abuse of drink can lead to the most awful crimes imaginable, and it matters not what age the guilty parties are. Most run-of-the-mill killings are perpetrated by people under the influence of drink.
Besides, there s been little reliable scientific evidence against which we might usefully test the question: are things really getting worse on the streets of Dublin? Is it now a more violent city than it used to be?
In relation to issues of this kind, Garda statistics are utterly unreliable. Forget for a minute the fact that the Gardam have a vested interest in creating the impression that we are in the midst of a crime wave (and therefore extra resources and manpower are required): the plain fact is that more crimes are reported now than ever before. Thirty years ago, to take the most obvious example, there was a stifling inhibition about reporting crimes of sexual violence. So, a hugely greater number of rapes is reported now. But are there more rapes? Almost certainly not.
The same question applies where crimes of violence, including the deaths of Brian Murphy and David Langan are concerned. Is there any reason to believe that Dublin really is a more violent place than, say, in the 1970s?
I doubt it. The seventies began with skinheads hunting in packs on the streets of Dublin and the decade ended with the punk explosion. People who survived that era will remember well the murder of a young punk at a gig in Belfield that featured The Radiators From Space and The Undertones, among other fledgling punk acts of the time.
On another occasion, The Jam were scheduled to play in a cinema in Cabra, on the north side of the city, and gangs roamed the streets on the night, engaged in running internecine violence and sporadic confrontations with the police. It was a foul period, in which violence became one of the norms, and middle-class dilettantes playing at being hard men were among the biggest fools involved. Knife-fights, bottlings, and amphetamine-fuelled clashes were commonplace. It was sordid, reprehensible, and stupid.
People forget too easily. In a modern context, teenage confrontations are as old and as familiar as West Side Story. The media likes to create a sense that civilisation is grinding towards a grisly meltdown, and that things have never been so bad. Where violence on the streets of Dublin is concerned, however, I doubt that a painstaking review of the evidence would sustain that interpretation.
This much is true: over the past few years, the dominance of ecstasy as the teenage drug of choice severely curtailed the likelihood of violence. Cannabis has a similar capacity to induce a mellowness and feeling of well-being. Neither drug encourages aggression.
In contrast, a popular shift back to alcohol, and in particular to the caffeine-loaded
mixers that are currently popular among
clubbers is likely to lead to an increase in aggression and violence. Legislators don t
like to hear this or to acknowledge it but it s true: in general, the use of soft drugs
creates a softer, more mellow atmosphere. (Ergo, if you want to decrease violence
among youths, legalise cannabis and
ecstasy.) Either way, I suspect that, in fact, there is no crisis: in the ebb and flow of these things we have been in a flow period recently, but ebb tide will follow.