‘He was a lovely man, just fell on hard times’: Tributes to homeless men who died in Grand Canal

In a basket on Grand Parade, close to Charlemont Luas stop, among candles, empty bottles of gin and whiskey, and handwritten notes taped to flower bouquets, two photo frames carry images of Donal Scanlon (49) and Alex Warnick (42).

The improvised shrine marks where the two friends more than a week ago became the latest fatalities among Dublin’s ever-increasing homeless population.

“It feels like it’s something that shouldn’t have happened,” said Alex’s half-brother Josh Warnick (27), speaking from British Columbia in Canada. “It’s been a huge tragedy for our family.”

On July 6th the bodies of Mr Warnick and Mr Scanlon were recovered from the Grand Canal by gardaí after emergency services responded to reports of a body in the water at around 8.15am. They had been sleeping in tents close to where their bodies were recovered.

Authorities believe one of the men fell into the canal in the early hours of the morning and began to struggle. The other attempted to help and entered the water, but also got into difficulty.

A celebration of Mr Warnick’s life will take place on Tuesday at Glasnevin Crematorium. Funeral arrangements for Mr Scanlon are yet to be published.

Josh grew up with Alex in Oregon, on the west coast of the US, before the latter left the country to live in the UK about two decades ago. Alex Warnick arrived in Ireland seven or eight years ago, according to friends, and fell into homelessness during the Covid-19 pandemic. He was a chef by trade and had a keen interest in psytrance music and DJ-ing.

His brother described him as a “caretaker”.

“[He] didn’t care about anybody’s beliefs or sexuality, religion, anything, he was just very open-minded, loved everybody,” he said.

Josh said he and his family stayed in touch with Alex over the years, particularly in recent times, although he was unsure how exactly his brother fell into homelessness. “I’ve a younger brother as well, and we [were] all trying to get together to plan a holiday and go and visit him and see him.”

Mr Scanlon was from Ballybunion and is understood to have regularly travelled to the Co Kerry town to visit family. He had spent the majority of the past 20 years living in the capital.

Chris O’Reilly, who runs the Liberty Soup Run, said Mr Scanlon did not like living as a homeless person.

“He was a lovely man, just fell on hard times,” he said. “[But] he had plans, he never gave up. He always had a plan, wanted the next thing.”

One of those plans, Mr O’Reilly said, was to buy a boat to live on. He recalled one phone conversation with Mr Scanlon during the pandemic when he asked for help transporting a boat from Donegal to Dublin.

“It was a ragged auld thing,” he said of the boat. “[Mr Scanlon] wanted me to go down to Donegal and tow a boat up, and put it in the canal where they were staying, he was going to live on that.”

Mr Scanlon spent most of the pandemic years in a tent very close to where he died earlier this month, Mr O’Reilly said, before later moving into Ranelagh. He was a regular visitor to soup runs in the south inner city. “[He’d] more so just come up for the conversation, and just to say hello, and we’d give him a few bits,” Mr O’Reilly said. “He never asked for much.”

Glenda Harrington, founder of the Friends Helping Friends soup run, echoed Mr O’Reilly’s words. She knew Mr Scanlon from her weekly stall at Bank of Ireland on College Green, describing him as a quiet, mannerly man who was proud of his Co Kerry roots.

On Saturday afternoon, at a volunteer soup run close to the Garden of Remembrance, several of Mr Warnick’s friends gathered for some food and conversation.

One of them, Brian “Beezer” O’Reilly, said the past week was “tough, really tough”. In the wake of Mr Warnick’s death, with no next of kin living in Ireland, gardaí made contact with him and Alex’s other associates at an inner city hostel he was known to stay at, he said.

Brian O’Reilly said he had lost about 20 friends, all under the age of 50, since 2012. “That’s the streets,” he added.

Josh Warnick is keen to express gratitude to those in Dublin who got in touch with his family, sharing kind words about his brother. His hope is that Alex’s death might shine a light on a crisis that has steadily deepened over the past decade.

“I know there’s a big homeless problem there in Dublin, and hopefully this at least, as tragic and horrible as it is, is a good eye-opening experience for people to realise that there’s a situation that needs to be addressed, and hopefully that this doesn’t happen to anybody else.”