A Tale of Two Cities: Dublin and Zürich

My first footing in Zürich was just after Christmas, 1979. I had flown from Dublin which, in those days, looked permanently on its last legs. In Dublin you had the post-1973 oil crisis (and Iranian revolution) recession, the overspill of the Northern ‘Troubles’ and emigration. Zürich, a snarky German friend of mine once insisted, should be called ‘zu reich’ (too rich), which I thought displayed not a little envy of the wealthy, mountainous southern neighbour. Nowadays, there is quite a lot of movement between German-speaking Switzerland and German-speaking Germany. Less friction too, maybe.

What most impressed me about Zürich, on that first visit, was the snow (of course), the blue Zürcher trams (which had little metal plates inside showing manufacture and renovation dates) and the pristine shops. Not to mention the pristine streets. Dublin looked about two hundred years behind Zürich. On only one score, did Dublin excel Zürich  (in those days, that is): low heroin usage. Things hadn’t really kicked off in Dublin yet, numbers wise. What I didn’t get to see in Zürich , until a couple of years later, was the catastrophe being played out in, among other places, the Platzspitz, where heroin users were corralled, and Letten, the abandoned train station down by the Limmat River. The Platzspitz itself was almost invisible to outsiders, tucked away behind the main strain station and the Swiss National Museum.

Today, the situation is the opposite to Dublin, but a comparison is apposite. While Zürich still has a heroin (and other) drug problem, it pales in comparison to the reality of Dublin’s current situation. The main difference in Dublin now is one of diffusion. The Dublin problem is spread around the whole of the city centre and into the suburbs. It is a case of managed indifference. But it is as sad – and scary – to watch as the Swiss situation, contained in the Platzspitz in the 80’s. Unlike the ‘Troubles’, heroin and its bedfellows seem to be with us forever. We’re in the third generation.

Few young southerners can name the terrible high points of the ‘Troubles’, but they are all au fait with the terrible reality of the hard stuff swamping the streets of Irish cities and towns. The drug problem, initially born of the poverty and unemployment of the 70’s and 80’s, coupled with homegrown cottage narco-capitalism, seems undefeatable, in a way the ‘Troubles’ once did. But then, the same was probably true in 1979 Zürich.

The contrasts within Ireland itself stand out starkly over time though, when we contextualise them thus:

So, is it too much to hope even, that the drug problem might go the way of the ‘Troubles’ and Car Death figures? Not on its own, it won’t. The lowering of deaths from the Troubles and car accidents took patience, planning and a positive perspective. And civic courage (the suggested remedial measures in the Swiss city were initially resisted both by local forces and Geneva).

So where’s the plan?