GIVEN THAT financial matters are a constant topic of conversation, it was no surprise that they surfaced yesterday when the Wrenboys staged their annual fundraising jamboree in Sandymount, south Dublin.
The worthy cause was the Order of Malta hospital in Bethlehem, and Dublin's lord mayor Eibhlin Byrne had very firm ideas on how revenue should be raised in these recessionary times.
Addressing the revellers from a stage in Sandymount Green, she said she was delighted to formally launch the Wrenboy "run-around'' in the locality.
"I would advise every household in the area . . . if you do not want to be tormented by the Wrenboys, to pay up well and fast,'' she declared.
"If you do not want to be terrorised, and suffer everything that that the Wrenboys can impose on you, pay up and do your dues.''
The lord mayor became the first politician to be applauded by the public as she sought a generous response to her plea for fiscal flexibility.
Alice Leahy, of Trust, a long-time champion of the homeless, was among the attendance who could readily appreciate the need for funding for charitable causes. On a sombre note, she remarked how the problem of homelessness inevitably worsens during a recession.
Former Labour Party assistant general secretary and economic adviser Séamus Scally, who was also enjoying the revelry, spoke in affectionate tones about the late Dr Conor Cruise O'Brien, a political colleague in the 1970s.
He recalled that despite Dr Cruise O'Brien's somewhat austere public image, he thoroughly enjoyed a pint of Guinness and the kind of sing-song featured yesterday in Sandymount.
Earlier, as the Wrenboys did their traditional march around Sandymount Green, with music and song filling the winter air, a local wag suggested that some of the lyrics of On the One Road summed up the current state of play in the Republic:
We're on the one road/Sharing the one load/We're on the road to God knows where/ We're on the one road/It may be the wrong road. . .
The day began with the usual gathering, for poetry and song, in Sandymount House pub. The beat of the bodhrán, an infrequent sound in Dublin 4, could be heard.
This year's grand marshal was Áine Holland from Ballymun, who gave a lively rendering of Biddy Mulligan, the Pride of the Coombe. "I've been involved in this for 12 years,'' she said. "I love it.''
