This is the final blog in the series 'Spatial Justice in Dublin 8' (SJD8 #15), as a contribution to Maynooth University Social Justice Week 2022 in partnership with Maynooth Geography and Common Ground. Common Ground has been working since 1999 as a local arts organisation in the complex, constantly changing inner-city areas across Dublin 8 from Inchicore to Rialto. Since our establishment we have formed relationships with artists and community through partnerships that work through collective responses to issues of spatial and social justice, communities of care, housing development, climat ..read more

This is the fourteenth in a series of blogs on 'Spatial Justice in Dublin 8' (SJD8 #14), as a contribution to Maynooth University Social Justice Week 2022. This is the second part of ‘A Conversation with artist Kate O’Shea’ (Figure 1), in which MA Spatial Justice, MA and PG Diploma Geography students at Maynooth University asked Kate about her work and 2020-22 Common Ground ‘Just City-Counter Narrative’ residency.[1] Kate reflected upon a series of questions asked by the students; she also guided the students in creative writing activities as part of this conversation. In ‘Part 1’ of the con ..read more

This is the eleventh in a series of blogs on 'Spatial Justice in Dublin 8' (SJD8 #11), as a contribution to Maynooth University Social Justice Week 2022. In the world today, many women experience different types of violence, such as sexual assault, physical violence, and emotional violence. Violence against women (VAW) often starts in a place where women should feel the least vulnerable, their home. If a woman cannot feel safe in her own home, she cannot be expected to feel safe anywhere. Spatial justice plays a key role in understanding domestic violence in the city, including in places lik ..read more

This is the ninth in a series of blogs on 'Spatial Justice in Dublin 8' (SJD8 #9), as a contribution to Maynooth University Social Justice Week 2022. Introduction Kitchin and Hubbard (1999: 5) discuss how different approaches in human geography are committed to exposing ‘the socio-spatial processes that (re)-produce inequalities between people and places; challenge and change those inequalities; and bridge the divide between theorization and praxis’. The Irish economy is widely regarded as a spectacular success story, but inequality exists in many aspects of our society. The policies of suc ..read more

This is the seventh in a series of blogs on ‘Spatial Justice in Dublin 8’ (SJD8 #7), as a contribution to Maynooth University Social Justice Week 2022. Overview This blog is an effort to map the social granularity of Dublin 8, in particular the New Kilmainham Ward (NKW) in 1911, with a specific focus on the area covering modern day Inchicore. Social granularity is a measure of how spatially homogenous a community is (Kearns, 2021a). In other words, it is a way of measuring the likelihood of people with different backgrounds (by class, ethnicity or both) living in close proximity with each ot ..read more

This is the sixth in a series of blogs on ‘Spatial Justice in Dublin 8’ (SJD8 #6), as a contribution to Maynooth University Social Justice Week 2022. Introduction The establishment of the Railway Works (RW) at Inchicore in 1845 by the Great Southern and Western Railway Company (GS&WR) transformed Inchicore from a predominantly rural area, on the periphery of Dublin city, to a small industrial village central to the processes of commercialisation that would occur in post-Famine Ireland (see also Kearns, SJD8 #3 ‘The Urban Palimpsest of New Kilmainham 1911’). One of the major spatial trans ..read more

This is the fifth in a series of blogs on 'Spatial Justice in Dublin 8' (SJD8 #5), as a contribution to Maynooth University Social Justice Week 2022. Dublin 8 is an area that should be of great interest to all advocates of spatial justice. The social and economic challenges faced by working-class communities, in the past and present, starkly reflect the growing inequalities that can be seen across Ireland today. Yet as geographer Edward Soja (2009) surmises, it is much easier to identify and describe the outcomes of injustice than to understand the spatial processes leading to the initial pr ..read more

This is the fourth in a series of blogs on 'Spatial Justice in Dublin 8' (SJD8 #4), as a contribution to Maynooth University Social Justice Week 2022. This blog post will discuss the historic iconographies of Goldenbridge Cemetery in Inchicore, Dublin 8, and Mount Jerome Cemetery in Harold’s Cross, County Dublin. Iconography is a process of describing and contextualising representations of the landscape as socially constructed to situate them in ‘their cultural, historical, and political contexts and interpret their symbolic meanings’ (Hoelscher, 2020, 132). After an overview of their respe ..read more

This is the second in a series of blogs on 'Spatial Justice in Dublin 8' (SJD8 #2), as a contribution to Maynooth University Social Justice Week 2022. Geographies of Injustice Geography is the study of the Earth as our Home. Three central concepts in Geography are Environment, Place, and Space. All three of these concepts are implicated in studies of geographies of injustice. Environmental Justice Environment describes the physical and biotic conditions of existence for the web of life. All living things depend upon these external relations for their metabolic function. To make the Earth a ..read more

This is the first in a series of blogs on 'Spatial Justice in Dublin 8' (SJD8 #1), as a contribution to Maynooth University Social Justice Week 2022. Human geographers at Maynooth consider ethical research relationships and respect for local knowledges as central to our publicly-engaged teaching and learning. We teach our students about the importance of community-based partnerships for conducting research about pressing issues in our world, including social and environmental injustice. Critical to this approach is building relations of trust over years with community partners who produce l ..read more