We have recently started a cricket team at the Kinsale Road Accommodation Centre. Just like our world music band, Citadel, cricket is offering refuge to many of the residents of Direct provision Centres, and we want to spread the news.

It all started quite innocently with one of the young Pakistani boys asking me if I could help him to find a cricket bat. He wanted to join a local cricket club, and I had also noticed that many of the residents were playing cricket with a tennis ball and self-created wickets in the evenings.

I thought about it for a while and decided to put out an appeal for cricket gear on Twitter. The response was fantastic. Cricket is a minority sport in Ireland, not many people play it, so when I said on Twitter that there was much cricket talent in Kinsale Road Accommodation Centre and that helping…