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The group has vowed to return next year Path

'We said it would be good to get 50': Homeless organisation collects over 1,000 sleeping bags left at Electric Picnic

The Path homelessness charity, which helps the homeless in Dublin, trawled through the campsite once the festival ended.

BY PICKING THROUGH the objects left behind by the attendees of this year’s Electric Picnic, one homelessness organisation has managed to collect over 1,000 sleeping bags, which will be distributed to voluntary groups over the country.

While the group expected that going to the campsite would be a good idea, the quantity of sleeping bags they managed to collect came as a big, but very welcome, surprise, Tom Duffy, a volunteer with Portlaoise Action to Homelessness (Path), told TheJournal.ie: “We said it would be good to get 50.”

Instead, the team walked into the campsite and saw thousands of tents left behind.

When three volunteers spent yesterday collecting in the Jimi Hendrix campsite, they brought home six two-man tents filled with sleeping bags, Duffy said.

And since then, the response has been “unreal”, with members of the community in Portlaoise volunteering to wash the bags and donations coming in of everything from biscuits to toiletries for the organisation to distribute.

Duffy has been storing many of the materials in his house, where he currently has 12 tents filled with sleeping bags waiting outside

My front garden currently looks like the picnic.

Homelessness crisis

Path goes to Dublin once a week, where it distributes essential goods, including hot food and drinks, to the homeless.

The organisation will keep 520 bags itself, and give the rest to other voluntary organisations. They’ll give 100 of these to another homelessness charity in Dublin, Billy Fitzpatrick, Path’s secretary, told TheJournal.ie.

In Ireland, the homelessness crisis has reached a new urgency after three homeless people died in the country last week.

Duffy said that the demand to go to Dublin with Path is so high that volunteers can only go once every few weeks.

What you see on a Saturday night in Dublin would make a stone cry.

The picnic

Environmental groups had been calling on attendees to bring home their camping gear before the festival began, and photos of campsites filled with debris that have emerged since it ended on 3 September have sparked online fury.

While Duffy notes that the “last thing [festival goers] want to be doing on Monday morning when 90% of them are hungover is roll up sleeping bags and tents”, more co-operation between charities and festival organisers could minimise the waste left behind.

He praised the festival’s staff, saying “they couldn’t do enough for us”.

“I couldn’t praise the staff at Electric Picnic more.”

The group plans to return next year to double their efforts.

Next year we plan to have 30 people waiting at 11 o’clock on Monday morning. We’ll get 2,000 sleeping bags in one campsite.

Read: ‘The impact on children is very severe’: 18 babies were born into a homeless charity’s services last year >

Read: ‘People shouldn’t be dying on the streets’: Call for action after another homeless person dies >

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    Sep 26th 2023, 10:42 AM

    Loved him as the Invisible Man. RIP.

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    Sep 26th 2023, 11:32 AM

    @Declan Gibney: I never saw him in the Invisible Man. Great actor though. Will be missed.

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    Sep 26th 2023, 1:32 PM

    @Declan Gibney: very fond memories of that series and the Gemini man as a kid.

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    Sep 26th 2023, 2:02 PM

    @: that’s because he was invisible! :)

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    Sep 26th 2023, 4:10 PM

    @Declan Gibney: Oh yeah, I remember that from when I was really young. That was great, and spooky.

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    Sep 26th 2023, 8:27 PM

    @Declan Gibney:
    I never saw him on that.

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    Sep 26th 2023, 10:56 AM

    RIP David, watched him for years on NCIS, going strong in current S20.
    Remember The Man from UNCLE fondly.
    A great age.
    May he rest in eternal peace.

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    Sep 26th 2023, 10:56 AM

    RIP David

    I loved him in Sapphire & Steel

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    Sep 26th 2023, 11:59 AM

    @Bruno: That was fun even if the intro annoyed me… They’re not elements…

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    Sep 26th 2023, 4:13 PM

    @Bruno: I was flabbergasted they hadn’t mentioned Sapphire & Steel. Anyways, mee too, loved him in that one.

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    Sep 26th 2023, 11:06 AM

    R.I.P AND WHAT AN ACTOR FOR HIS DAY

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    Sep 26th 2023, 11:35 AM

    Man from U.N.C.L.E – I was a club member as a kid. RIP David.

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    @Jimmy Wallace: Badge & ID

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    Sep 26th 2023, 3:49 PM

    @Jimmy Wallace: All of the above! They put coded messages in one of the evening papers and you had to use the code breaker to decode them. He was great as Dr. “Ducky” Mallard in NCIS. RIP.

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    Sep 26th 2023, 11:40 AM

    He was great in Sapphire and Steel. R.I.P David.

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    Sep 26th 2023, 1:11 PM

    Aww loved him in The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

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    Sep 26th 2023, 1:17 PM

    @Anne Collins: His favourite dessert was Strawberries and Cream !!! RIP

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    Sep 26th 2023, 12:59 PM

    David’s song from Kidnapped was v popular in the 70s and he was brilliant as Alan Breck Stewart. He was in so many good shows and made a great hero.

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    Sep 26th 2023, 3:28 PM

    RIP David.
    Brings back wonderful memories of the theme to the weekly series “Kidnapped” and the song David’s Theme. The uillean pipes in the series was played by another legend Liam O’Flynn. Well worth a listen to.

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    RIP Ducky

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    Sep 27th 2023, 2:12 AM

    Illya Kuryakin, a name that has stuck in my head.

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