Giro’s was a fairly legendary social centre or collective space opened as a beacon of hope and a non-sectarian zone of engagement in the rather bleak Belfast of the 1980′s. This documentary was made by Northern Visions, a community media organisation that broadcasts up Norf and churns out quality material at a remarkable rate.

I remember once heading up to the War zone festival, a punk and DIY festival in 2003 or so, we slept on the floor of the centre through out the festival, lots of us – on the Sunday, everyone at the festival woke to a maddening come down attenuated by the baneful roar of an Orange Order parade drumming past.

I came away with some real classic photos of a Crass style chaos punk, spiked jacket and hair, standing watching the parade pass. It was an image from another world. Pity I pressed format on my camera later by mistake. It’s nice to see the memory of such places preserved and documented, I’d love to see something similar emerge about the Resource Centre in Temple Bar that operated in the late 70′s and 80′s.

It looks like someone’s moving to open a similar project in Belfast again.