Lisa O’Neill releases a new single today, via Rough Trade Records “Homeless In The Thousands (Dublin in the Digital Age)’ featuring Peter Doherty. This is not the first time O’Neill has written about social injustices on the cusp of a change. Songs like Rock the Machine about unemployment in the Dublin dock lands, When Cash Was King about the move to a cashless society and Violet Gibson about the Irish woman who attempted to assassinate Mussolini in 1926 – this new song was written in response to the growing issue of homelessness in Dublin and Ireland.

Lisa met Peter Doherty last summer and this is the second song they have collaborated on.  She also joined The Libertines onstage at the Dublin Olympia last September for a moving rendition of ’Night of the hunter’ Watch the video directed by Johnie Lyons here. Lisa also performed the song on The Tommy Tiernan Show on
January 18th.

From Lisa O’Neill:

“We write what we see. I have lived in Dublin City for 24 years .  As winter 2024 approached, this is the song that came to me. And here are some thoughts on why I’ve chosen to put it out at the start of this new year. As our new Government make plans to rejuvenate our capital city centre, by spending to embrace the streets, its
history, its buildings (occupied and empty) and its artists, I hope my song will help them recall what is truly at the heart of this, and any city or community around the world. At the heart of the city is the people of the city. They are the pulse. If the pulse stops, the heart stops. Kindness is a human strength.

Housing is a human need. January 2025, and Ireland has a housing crisis that is off the charts. It is 109 years since Padraig Pearce stood outside the GPO on Dublin’s O’Connell Street and read The Proclamation of the Irish Republic. ‘The Irish Republic is entitled to, and hereby claims, the allegiance of every Irishman and Irishwoman. The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens, and declares its resolve to pursue the happiness and prosperity of the whole nation and of all its parts, cherishing all the children of the nation equally, and oblivious of the differences carefully fostered by an alien Government, which have divided a minority from the majority in the past’ Outside that same GPO today you will find several charities operating soup kitchens to help feed those in need.

Introducing by-laws to regulate these soup kitchens, as our newly formed government is trying to do now, will hide the harsh reality of homelessness from the eyes of society. The problem will not go away by unseeing. The problem can only be resolved by seeing and helping.”

Musicians who helped make this track – Peter Doherty for vocals and lyrical contribution, Brian Leach on Hammered Dulcimer and Banjo, Joseph Doyle on Double Bass, Colm Mac Con Iomaire on Violin, Cormac Begley on Concertinas and David Odlum for production and mixing.

Order “Homeless In The Thousands (Dublin in the Digital Age)” HERE