Dublin Disaster...Again!


Dilemma
I rang Steve in Dublin. It seemed logical to me to find out the true position first. He sounded depressed when he told me, unless the rent was paid up, he would be forced to close the business within two weeks. I thought for a while before telling him that I had the money to bail him out, but that there were conditions attached, namely that I needed to have a share of the company and financial control of its business. He needed to discuss my offer with Mary and Karen and said he'd get back to me. A day later he called to say we should talk in Dublin to reach agreement. I left for Dublin that weekend. We agreed, during our meeting at his offices, that I was to become the Financial and Sales Director, Mary and Karen would resign and that all my funds would be transferred to pay his debt. I was about to become the driving force behind the success of Internet Eireann, or so I thought. I returned to the UK to transfer funds, pack my few belongings and return to Ireland by the 4th of June. Steve was to send me a letter of confirmation. Having shook his hand in agreement, I wanted to trust Steve's word. So I sent the money off to his landlord to save the company, before the letter arrived. As I was making final preparations late in the evening on June 3rd, Steve phoned. He was distraught, saying that Karen, who was heavily pregnant, had become hysterical at the thought of my arrival and he was worried she was about to lose the baby. he pleaded with me in tears not to come, but to wait until the baby was born. Sensing a scam, I refused, but eventually told him, when he became hysterical, I would do as he wished, and left for Dublin the next day as planned. I seem to remember crossing my fingers as we spoke. I was damned if I was losing contact with my money. The promised letter of confirmation had not arrived.
False Start
On June 5th 1995, I wandered into Internet Eireann's capacious offices. There were two computers serving their customers, about twenty modems and two staff housed in the corner of a one thousand square foot room. I introduced myself to the staff as the new Financial Director and unpacked my belongings into an empty office. Within an hour there was a phone call. It was Mary. "You are to pack your stuff and get out of there, you are not an employee of this company and you have no right being there." She snapped, "If you do not leave, I will have the police remove you." I told her I was staying to fulfill my role as the Financial and Sales Director of the company as we'd agreed. Two hours later, the police came and escorted me from the premises. Thus battle was joined. Every day, I went into the offices, every day I got the same phone call and every day I left just before the police arrived. I thoroughly enjoyed being a nuisance to Mary, but knew it couldn't last because my money was fast dwindling away. It's a beautiful country, but very expensive to live there. After a couple of weeks of this merry-go-round, I did run out of cash. I'd taken legal advice and served them notice of my intention to fight to get what was rightfully mine. Steve had reneged on his deal with me, but somehow blamed me for coming to Ireland. I guess I should have been more circumspect, but thought I could trust him. So, no money, no way of getting any, what could I do but declare myself homeless and throw myself at the mercy of Ireland's welfare system.
Hostel For the Homeless
Despite its reputation, Dublin is a dirty city. Litter adorns the streets and slum-like conditions are never far away. All this is masked by the beauty of downtown Dublin. To declare myself homeless, I had to go to a dingy building by the banks of the river Liffy which divides the city north and south. I walked into the building which was guarded by a mean looking guy. Telling him I was homeless, he told me to sit in the waiting room. Here, there was about twenty rough looking people sitting on hard benches. The windows were barred and the walls covered in graffiti. Some glorified the IRA, some telling of love between two people. Smoke filled the room, despite the no smoking sign. I sat uncomfortably at what appeared to be the end of the queue. Two hours later, I was called into a cramped booth. A screen protected the interviewer from me as I told her of my problem. She listened and called somewhere to find me a bed. She must have been sympathetic, for when she put the phone down, she announced I had a room in the "best" hostel in town in Christchurch, just across the river. Taking a note from her, I jumped into the Spitfire and drove off to my new home. It was a tall tenement building of red brick, housing perhaps five hundred men. I was shown to a basement room, where I nervously unpacked my bags. I felt alone, slightly afraid of my new neighbours and totally lost for an answer to my problem. I'd missed dinner, even though it was only five in the afternoon. I looked around the room. Barred window, graffiti on the walls, closet in the corner and an uncomfortable single bed with dirty linen. It can't have been more than nine feet by six overall, but it was free and I now had a base from which to attack Mary and Internet Eireann. I wandered the basement, checking out the bathrooms, there were no plugs in the baths and no toilet paper in the washrooms. I saw a few co-inhabitants and nodded to them, before retiring to my room and beginning to write an account of Internet Eireann's deception. Sleep came eventually and fitfully.
The next morning, I walked into the canteen where about thirty men were noisily eating. The servery contained a basket of boiled eggs and some bread. Breakfast, it seemed, was not going to be a gastronomic delight. The egg was as close to being rotten as it could get. The bread was stale and the tea tasted as though the teabags were on their third cycle. After manfully swallowing my "meal", I collected the previous evening's work and went to see the lawyer again. He decided to write a stiff letter to Mary and Steve, telling them I was to be granted legal aid and that they had to restore me as Financial and Sales Director or repay the money I had given them. That sounded good enough to me, so all I had to do was wait for their reply. It took a week to arrive.