‘The morning after in Temple Bar is quite a shock’ – the cost of cleaning up after St Patrick’s Day

Thirty tonnes of waste was collected in Dublin on St Patrick’s Day last year, more than two times what is collected on an average day.

It costs Waste Management Services around €48,000 for the St Patricks Day parade clean-up.

In the weeks running up to this year’s festivities, four teams of 222 staff are involved in placing 600 bins across the city centre to prepare for the city’s biggest event.

“It’s a tough day for the lads,” said Seamus Brady, Waste Management Services Coordinator at Dublin City Council.

“Our objective is to ensure city centre is Grade A – which means the complete absence of litter – by 9am the next day.

“The morning after in Temple Bar is quite a shock. People stay until 4 or 5 in the morning and you can’t go in until they’re all gone. At 6am, we’re in there with a whole crew and it’s a sight to behold.”

Before the parade begins, the streets have a final power wash at 2am. After the roads are closed off and the barriers are put in place, the machines are no longer allowed into the city centre to ensure the safety of the crowds.

During the parade itself, it’s entirely up to the cleaning crew to do the litter picking on foot.

The council urges people to take personal responsibility during the parade and on their night out.

“Please use the litter receptacles that are there for you. If one is full, go to the next one. Please don’t throw your rubbish on the ground,” Mr Brady said.

“When the parade is gone, we are under pressure to open the doors again as quick as possible but the more waste on the ground, the longer it takes us to get the city back working again.

“We just hope that people will be respectful to our staff when they’re doing their job – because it’s a lot of work for them.”

On the night before St Patrick’s Day, a night shift team provide a 24-hour street cleaning service. They work with An Garda Síochána to strategically place 100 additional waste barrels where they are most needed.

On the day itself, the team begins with the parade on the staging area at Western Way and another team begins at the south at Lord Edward Street. They meet in the middle, cleaning after the parade in real time.

For Clive Lawless, a member of the council’s cleaning crew, it’s the busiest time of the year.

“I’ve been working on the day of the festival for 13 years now. I work on the evening shift and there’s a massive clean up after,” he said.

“You see everything from pizza boxes and vapes to every kind of St Paddy’s Day hat soaked in alcohol from the night before. People are very drunk by the time we’re there but it doesn’t bother me, I just do what I have to do.”

Another member of the cleaning crew, Robert Henry, has been working during the festival for 19 years and has even been a part of the parade himself.

“I was afraid of participating in the parade at first, I didn’t know where to go. But now I just have a bit of banter with the crowds and they really enjoy it,” he said.

“At the end of the day, we have a job to do and I’m happy to do it. We’ve found some funny things over the years cleaning up after the parade.

“In the early 2000s, I found one of those millennium glasses and I’ve kept it to this day. Once I even found a handbag with a blow up sex doll inside it.”

Coordinator Mr Brady added: “The bins fill up constantly throughout the day. Our guys go into the square in Temple Bar hour after hour after hour to empty the barrel and bring the next one.

“That’s going on through the entire day, the volume of waste is incredible. It’s constant, you’re never quite done, you have to keep it going.

“The bulk of our staff are in at 6am that morning because of road closures and won’t finish until 9pm that night.

“There are breaks, but it’s still a tough one so we bring in more people to make sure nobody is under too much pressure or overworked.

“When we finish at nine, our night crew come in and take over. It’s never a case of nobody being there,” he added.

The council works with gardaí to protect staff members and everyone is buddied up on the night shift to ensure they are safe from anyone acting violent.

However, if the atmosphere changes, particularly near certain parts of the city, the crew are instructed not to clear the bins even if they are full.

“There’s a certain point in the night where you wouldn’t want to go to the boardwalk on the Liffey,” Mr Brady said.

“We have one of our officers in the traffic control room, monitoring everything, talking with the guards and local management team. Even in Temple Bar, if it’s getting too boisterous, we take our staff out.

“You can feel the atmosphere turning so we say we understand the bins are getting full but we just don’t feel safe letting our staff in there.

“The only thing in our favour is that there are so many guards about and we have a great working relationship with them.”

Despite all the work waiting for him, Mr Henry said he is excited for his 19th parade.

“I will never say no to being a part of the parade. There’s so much energy in this city on St Patrick’s Day,” he said.

“The parade is always a bit of a laugh and everyone is enjoying themselves. We’ve got a great cleaning team here and we always get the job done after.”