In Dublin’s fair city, things aren’t actually that fair any more. Homelessness in Ireland’s capital has reached crisis levels in recent years, so we launched a Christmas 2020 appeal for local homeless charity Dublin Simon, that would really hit home.

Dubliners love their city. They love its traditions, its places, its people, its accents and this became the insight around which we built our campaign.

But to execute it, we did something different to the more expected homelessness appeals: we took the things we love about our city and turned them on their head. We shone a light on the people who call our city home but don’t have a home, and make sure other Dubliners wanted to do something about it.

We created a radio campaign that captured the feeling of being homeless on the streets of a city we call home. We wanted to show what it’s like to feel ignored, lonely, terrified and unwelcome every minute of your waking day. Our heroine and hero are witnesses to the ways of the city and victims of its callousness. In their thoughts we can hear their terror and loss but also their courage and righteousness. Their words needed to have a certain almost Joycean grandeur but without sacrificing the speech rhythms that are unique to the city. We kept the sound design relatively bare, it is subtly impressionistic, the voices of our characters, the humanity, carry the pieces.  

Dublin is their home, and as we can hear in every syllable, no one should be homeless when Dublin is their home.