Liverpool Irish Centre faces closure
Sheila Coleman of the Liverpool Irish Centre is accusing
receivers and the Liverpool police of engaging in a racist
campaign to have the city's only Irish Centre closed down.
The centre on Mount Pleasant has been the target of a number of
aggressive police raids, including incidents when armed police
surrounded the premises and threatened to shoot a member of staff
on 27 March this year. In a previous raid on 8 February the
police were called to the centre after Sheila Coleman was
attacked. When armed police arrived they behaved aggressively
towards Coleman, arrested the centre coordinator who called them
in the first place and beat up and CS gassed a man who was
attending a separate function, then arrested him. The police
refused to take any actions against the family who were
originally fighting.
``The Liverpool Irish centre effectively operates under a state of
siege,'' Coleman said. ``There has been a direct correlation
between political events and the policing of the Irish community.
From the time that Canary Wharf was bombed we have been subject
to intense and differential policing''.
However, the Centre has now been targeted by the receivers who
are determined to sell it into private ownership. At present the
Centre is run on a co-operative basis which has made it
accessible to the Irish living in Liverpool and to other minority
groups who use the Centre on a regular basis.
On Saturday 31 May the receiver forced the centre to cancel one
of its most lucrative nights, the Totem Night, which is extremely
popular with Irish students and claimed they were acting on
police advice.
The co-op has attempted to nurture an environment in which debate
can flourish and in the past Sinn Féin representatives Francie
Molloy and Joe Austin have visited the centre as has Gerard Rice.
``This centre has been an asset to the Irish of Liverpool and to
young Irish people travelling over here to study or to work. It
has also been a valuable resource to other groups,'' Coleman said,
``it'll be a shame to lose, but we're determined to keep it going
despite the police and the receivers''.
A number of Irish students who used the Irish Centre when they
travelled to England to study told An Phoblacht that without the
centre they would have been stranded in England.
Said one, ``the people in the Centre gave us advice, helped us to
get digs and without their help we would have been lost''. They
told us that the Centre is much more than an Irish drinking club,
``it is an important cultural and social centre for the Irish
community in the city. Before the club was run by people who were
content to go with the flow and not raise any contentious issues,
but that's changing. The Irish in Liverpool are now prepared to
stand up for their rights as Irish people and it's because of
that that the Irish Centre is being targeted''.
![[An Phoblacht]](http://republican-news.org/graphics/title_gifs/aprn.gif)