TODAY WAS OUR 400th SATURDAY ON THE STREET
So, 400 Saturdays in fair weather and foul since we started the campaign stall on the street in September 2014; some of the initial group are no longer with us on the street (health, jobs etc) but others have joined to take their places. 400 Saturdays of setting up the stall, banner, flags, distributing leaflets, explaining to people, listening to people’s stories, taking photos, writing up a weekly text, writing new leaflets as others are used up or go out of date. The broader campaign has been going for 18 years and some of us were in that too before we set up this weekly-on-the-street group …. and in 2016 some of us were also in the Monday-Friday six-week blockade preventing demolition.
AIMSIR
Bhí sé scamallach ach te go leor.
DAOINE
An foirean inniu or core team today was Bróna, Orla, Daniel and Diarmuid but Mary dropped by for a chat and Steve came by near the end, handing out leaflets and then helping pack up.
Just about everyone we met today seemed to be in a good mood and quite a few posed for SMSFD solidarity portraits. As well as Dubliners we had a couple of tourists from the USA, friends of Bróna, a Filipino woman (also a friend of Bróna’s) and two women visiting from Glasgow. With two, sometimes three leafletters out on the street, many passers-by were being engaged and directed to the table to sign the petition.
A mother and daughter signing gave their surname as “Ó Rathaille” so of course nothing would do Diarmuid but to take them up to the Monument in O’Rahilly Parade, all of them chatting a little in Irish on the way.
Wayne, passing by, wanted to pose for a solidarity photo and of course we obliged.
Errol came by, donated us some juicy mandarins – and disappeared before some of us could thank him.
UPDATES
1) No word yet from An Bord Pleanála and 2) the missing O’Rahilly Monument signpost has yet to be replaced.
