Life at the Lighthouse café at Christmas: 'If I touched your life ... I was like a hurricane'

THE LIGHTHOUSE CAFÉ in Pearse Street is a hub of activity, laughter, and the occasional dash of chaos six days a week (the doors only close on Sundays). 

Most days, there’s a queue outside for both the 8.30am breakfast service and the especially busy 7pm dinner shift.

Volunteers man the door, saying ‘hi’ to regulars, and keeping the operation moving as more and more people pour in. 

Inside, the first thing you see is cooks serving up fresh, home-cooked meals from the steamy open kitchen.

Further in, people from all walks of life stand chatting at the tea and coffee station. Beyond, familiar and new faces sit to eat, charge their phones and catch up. 

Some of these people are sleeping rough, some are in emergency accommodation with shared kitchen facilities they find difficult to use, and others have a roof over their heads. 

The rising cost of living means that more people who are earning and renting are in need of food supports.

The Lighthouse is part of Tiglin, one of Dublin’s major charities that works to help those experiencing addiction, homelessness, and resulting social exclusion. 

The charity’s work doesn’t just focus on immediate food supports. Often those who come through the door for meals are connected to other long-term services. 

The numbers who come through its doors have more than doubled in ten years, those who manage the centre say.

What makes the café unique is its social atmosphere; The Journal has called in at this time of year before and there is always a festive atmosphere, with unique dishes on offer and live entertainment. 

But it’s also the fact that many of those at the forefront of leading the service today got to where they are by availing of addiction services and homelessness supports themselves. 

That’s the case for the new manager of the café, Scotsman John Young, who took over in the fulltime position February of this year. 

“Ten years ago, I was with Bethany Trust in Edinburgh, I was offered the ‘housing first’ model – after your treatment programme, they offered you a flat, and they’d visit you once a week to support you,” John explained. 

From there, he ended up getting involved in volunteer work and eventually meeting his wife, who is Irish, which led him to Ireland, and eventually Tiglin. 

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The start of recovery

Though John’s progression from service user to manager sounds simple, when he looks back there was a point in time that he could never have imagined being in this position.

“I was on drugs for 15 to 20 years. I was chronically addicted for at least 10 of those years. I spent my time between Glasgow and Edinburgh. I was 33 then. If I touched your life, it wasn’t in a good way. I was like a tornado,” he says candidly. 

John’s drug of choice was whatever he could get his hands on. 

“I was addicted to heroin, but I was also taking alcohol, benzodiazepines and cannabis. Dealers don’t have to target people like that because the demand in general is so big, I think it far outweighs the supply.”

What changed for him was a personal connection to faith, and the hard work of people in support services. 

“I met people who had faith in me. I thought there could never be a solution, I thought I knew how I was going to die.

“But they were almost kind of nonchalant, they saw it as a problem that – if I showed up – was going to be fixed, that they had seen be fixed for other people many times before.”

Once John was further along in his recovery journey, he pursued working in services to help other people who were struggling. 

More people in need of food supports

Now, working from a services perspective, he has the same feeling when he sees young people come in whose lives have been torn apart by addiction. 

Though it’s not the case for everyone, and Tiglin is all too aware of people they have known and lost along the way, they have also seen many people have good outcomes, and gone on to work as volunteers in the service. 

John explains that giving someone a safe space they can come back to for hot meals can be the beginning of forming a relationship that helps them to start a journey of recovery. 

In the ten years between now and when he first came to Ireland and got to know the staff at the café, the numbers coming through the door have increased dramatically, he added. 

“Back then you’d have 100 to 150 people in a day, that’s more than doubled. We see between 200 and 400 people a day depending on the time of year,” he said. 

The charity has also become a touchpoint for people arriving into the country from overseas who are seeking asylum, and John says that the service has been targeted by some bad actors as a result. 

“We had one guy turn up here with a camera to make TikToks, and he was of this view that we don’t help Irish people. That is nonsense, it would be mostly people from Ireland who are in here each day, by far the majority.”

Tiglin will continue to be a service that welcomes everyone, however. 

“No one gets turned away here, and with the way things are going with more and more people in homelessness and emergency accommodation month on month, more people need us,” he said. 

You can support Tiglin’s work here.

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