{"id":63449,"date":"2025-10-06T13:31:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-06T13:31:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/63449\/"},"modified":"2025-10-06T13:31:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T13:31:07","slug":"independent-dublin-bookstore-damaged-in-arson-attack-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/63449\/","title":{"rendered":"Independent Dublin bookstore damaged in arson attack \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">A bookshop in Dublin city centre has been damaged  following an arson attack early on Monday morning. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Books Upstairs \u2013 Dublin\u2019s oldest independent bookstore \u2013 on D\u2019Olier Street was set alight at around 3am. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Store manager Louise Earls said the incident was \u201creally shocking,\u201d as staff began to arrive to prepare for opening later on Monday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cAll we know at the moment is that it was an arson attack. Our neighbours intervened, the fire brigade came and the guards came and secured the building,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" data-chromatic=\"ignore\" alt=\"A garda stands outside the fire-damaged Books Upstairs. Photograph: Claire Murphy\" class=\"c-image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/ISZJPAQTSREJRJTL5TPHPTH44E.JPG\"   width=\"800\" height=\"450\"\/>A garda stands outside the fire-damaged Books Upstairs. Photograph: Claire Murphy <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">\u201cThankfully the damage is mainly to the outside rather than the inside,\u201d Ms Earls said, expressing hope that the shop will be able to partially open.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">Fire damage is concentrated on the left hand side of the building\u2019s basement, where rubble can be seen outside.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Investigations are ongoing and no injuries were reported at the time, garda\u00ed said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">Books Upstairs was established in 1978 by Ms Earls\u2019s father, Maurice Earls, and Enda O\u2019Doherty, previously of The Irish Times. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Ms Earls was named Bookseller of the Year in February, accepting the O\u2019Brien Press award at the annual Irish Book Trade Conference held in Galway\u2019s Galmont Hotel earlier this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A bookshop in Dublin city centre has been damaged following an arson attack early on Monday morning. Books&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":63450,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-63449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63449\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}