I join one of the groups, and start walking along with them. It’s absurdly mild for October, but they go out in all weather, all year round. Why do they do it, I ask Declan Crowe, whom I’m walking alongside. “Giving back,” he says, which is an expression other members echo over the duration of the evening.
Last year, the group made 225 “interventions” with members of the public along the riverside. What do they define as an “intervention”? “People openly told us they were suicidal,” Carswell says.“There was a woman sitting at the water’s edge at the skateboard park one Friday night,” O’Hora recalls. “She was wearing a dressing gown, and there was a strong smell of alcohol from her. We said hello. There was no response. The next thing, she was in the water. She had just bum-shuffled off the quay.
“It was Christmas Eve, and a young girl was trying to enter the water. She did enter the water. We got her out.” As we walk back and forth, and over the bridges, members of the public walking by say hello. Any Garda passing in a van waves out the window. There is visible support for their presence, but not everyone the LTSP encounter appreciates close attention. A woman on a bench at Arthur’s Quay park with her dog has a couple of beer bottles in a bag, and is extremely exercised at the sight of the group.
Bridget Rowley and Jacob Tierney of Limerick Treaty Suicide Prevention on watch along the banks of the river Shannon river in Limerick City. Photograph: Brian Arthur
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