Saturday's march was not about rabble rousing; these were grown-ups whose patience had worn thin, writes KATHY SHERIDAN
THE LAZIER headline writers said this march was about austerity cuts. It was not. Apart from a slew of well-behaved dogs and babies, the vast majority of the 50,000 to 70,000-strong crowd assembling in the bone-chilling cold on icy, wet streets were “obviously grown-ups”, said a businessman tersely.
“ . . . Grown-ups with enough sense to distinguish between very necessary cuts and a national kneecapping. I doubt if there’s one person here who objects to taking some pain. But my tipping point was the news last night about the 6.7 per cent interest rate on the loan, which, by the way – all you shagging media and foreign commentators, please note – is a LOAN. NOT. A. BAILOUT.” He grimly declined a dozen leaflets from activists en route to Winetavern Street. He waved away the (free) fun whistles offered by Mandate union members.
He flinched at the sight of massed European, CNN, Al-Jazeera, Sky and – “sweet Jesus” – Korean camera crews and their sudden heedless darts towards a tasty, lewd-ish banner. And winced again at the news that RTÉ had a whopping six crews on the streets. He dreaded being rumbled by clients as someone who went on trade union marches.
“I don’t like trade unions . . . Far from it. But look – if I don’t like what’s being plotted in my name by a shower of deadeyed sharks behind closed doors, what do I do? ”
There were plenty more like him. “I’m not a union person. I don’t go to marches, but . . . ” was a common response from DIY banner holders.
People like Barbara Franzoni. “It’s not the short-term, immediate pain that worries me. It’s the secrets and lies – and now, the interest rate they’re threatening on us . . . I don’t want my toddler to end up in a sweatshop.” Or Marian McLaughlin: “I don’t feel there’s anyone there looking after us. I know that marching will do no good, but what do you do – stay in bed?” Or writer, Paul O’Kelly: “We have real power, why aren’t we using it? The IMF can close down a country, sure – but we can close down a continent. Terror should have been struck into them. A 3am call on Monday morning to say we’ve rejected the deal should concentrate their minds.” Or the business professional: “My tipping point came earlier in the week and so I’m here. But my concern was to be too associated with the unions. They had a big part to play in creating this mess over the past 15 years”. Or Paddy Harnedy from Artane: “I’m here for my kids and future grandkids and the crap they’re going to be paying back.” Or thirtysomethings, Ian McCarthy and Sheila Condon, reluctant emigrants to Canada after Christmas: “I can’t believe one in seven people voted for Fianna Fáil in Donegal . . . We still haven’t got away from Civil War politics.”
Or Marcus Harig, a dignified, middle-aged German with an Irish wife, living in Killarney for 10 years: “Bondholders are business people. They know the risks. They know that if it goes right, they get the profits, if it goes wrong, they lose their money . . . Or they should.” Almost as an aside, he mentions he will be laid off next May.
Rocco, a shih tzu “who wants to make a difference”, was there with his owners, three generations of the Moran family, Marguerite, Jenny and 10-year-old Anna. Nearby, small groups of students from Trinity and Maynooth held up banners bearing long quotes from renowned economists Paul Krugman and Joseph Stiglitz.
On Winetavern Street, Irish Times columnist and the day’s master of ceremonies, Fintan O’Toole, surveyed the masses filling the hill leading up towards Christ Church. Seventeen relaxed gardaí stood to one side while a couple of hundred, good-natured trade union stewards marshalled the crowds and a threesome of French drummers called Sarrago kept up a noisy, rhythmic cacophony.
Four unemployed tradesmen, Paul Flynn, John Nolan, Paul McGreal and Mark Doyle, stood aloof, hoisting banners inspired by Father Ted: “Down with this sort of thing”, “Careful now”. Outwardly cheerful, inwardly fearful. Three of them are off to Canada too. Flynn will also be gone if he loses his home, currently costing him and his wife €1,600 a month. As the Irish prison officers’ band led off the march with Down by the Sally Gardens and other traditional Irish tunes, a palpable undercurrent of desolation, loss and loneliness flowed through the banter and the black humour.
Later, they stood for speeches and songs in the numbing cold at the iconic GPO, and a sizeable number greeted union leaders with heckles and boos. “They were part of the cabal that got us here with their ridiculous benchmarking agreements,” explained one heckler. “They’re out of touch with reality . . . they earn too much. They have nothing to say to me,” said a factory worker. “They’re as weak as piss,” said Karl McGarvey, a member of the painters and decorators union. O’Toole struck a chord with an impassioned speech that focused on restoring national dignity and reclaiming the Republic.
“This has been a day when we’ve come back to show that we have our dignity . . . Fight for your country!” he finished to loud cheers.
Around the O’Connell monument, a separate rally of the newly launched United Left Alliance, including Joe Higgins MEP and Cllr Richard Boyd Barrett, was punctuated by the loud, sharp crack of flares being shot into the grey, snowy sky.
As the main event dispersed efficiently, several dozen gardaí manned O’Connell Bridge, with conspicuously-parked Garda vans and ambulances.
Meanwhile, some 300 protesters made their way to Leinster House. That was about 500 fewer than the freezing, five-hour queues snaking up Dawson Street from Waterstone’s bookshop, intent on a book-signing by a tattoo artist.
As the sky grew dark and the chill unbearable, the protester numbers quickly dwindled to about 20, by now outnumbered three to one by media.
Spurred on by the clicking cameras, and masked with hoodies and scarves, they chanted “Fuck Fianna Fáil” and set fire to a poster and a couple of trade union flags.
Brendan Devlin, who identified himself as a member of Republican Sinn Féin said there were “roughly 15 Republican Sinn Féiners and five or six Provisional Sinn Féiners present – and it’s the Republican Sinn Féiners who are burning the trade union banners”. A small splat of paint and a few eggs hit the gate pillars but there was never a sense of real menace. The little group doing the chanting were aged no more than 18 or 19, and exuded a scent of alcohol. As a Budweiser beer bottle sailed toward the massed ranks of gardaí guarding the gates, one garda performed a neat, one-arm catch, to admiring cheers.
A hooded youth standing in heroic mode, arms raised over the ashes, turned out to be a harmless 18-year-old called Anthony who thinks bottle-throwers and their ilk are “the scum of the earth”.
A grown man in a black jacket standing nose-to-nose in a staring contest with the gardaí turned out to be 56-year-old Aidan O’Béara, a self-described Sinn Féin member, up on the train from Tullamore.
He looks a bit bemused when asked what would he do if they let him past. After some random talk about “revolution” and buying some hats and scarves in Tesco to give away, he says finally : “I eh, thought I was going to just look at the gates . . .”
A little later, four youths remove their hoodies and reveal themselves as relatively polite boys, aged between 15 and 19, one studying to be a veterinary assistant, another to be a pastry chef, and another “just sittin’ on me hole”.
A man wearing an Irish Citizen Army badge approaches to say he has counted 255 gardaí in the immediate area. Meanwhile, out of sight, on Schoolhouse Lane, a little street just behind us, eight garda horses wearing plastic visors stand ready, their helmeted riders poised to quell the riot.