AIMSIR
Bhí sé fuar go leor, agus tais. A very cold day in Moore Street today but nonetheless we had many people stopping to sign the petition.
DAOINE
Our foireann today was Bróna, Orla, Eileen, Daniel with young Ben and Steve came along to help later. One of our supporters was off with ‘flu (as had been Steve for a couple of weeks) and unusually Diarmuid had to take the day off due to other commitments.
Despite the cold, the street looked lively with the tent stalls erected again (until Christmas only, apparently) and of course Henry Street at the south end and Parnell Street at the north have been since the beginning of the month.
On cold days like this, the stall-holders have had no heaters; not even lighting, often enough and, when provided by DCC, was of poor quality. When some of us were on the street enforcing the Blockade to prevent demolition for 6 weeks in Spring of January 2016, from 6.30am to 4pm Monday-Friday, we wore two pairs of socks and plastic bags over them inside our shoes – and our feet still felt frozen!
An unusually high number posing for solidarity photos: Mark, Stephen and Charlene had individual photos taken while Eva and Clara posed together.
Doing this and sharing the photos on your own social media is a great way to help the campaign, you show your contacts that you support the campaign and can encourage them to follow the campaign and to keep themselves informed.
Among the many stopping to sign was a family from Tullamore in Co. Offally. The Moore Street 1916 battlefield and ancient street market belong not only to the people living in Dublin but to the rest of Ireland and, in fact, the world. The headquarters of the first uprising against world war was here and among the insurgents were the first workers’ army in the world, the Irish Citizen Army (a number of whom died here) and the first female revolutionary military organisation, Cumann na mBan.
One man with three children told us the kids’ great-uncle wrote about Moore Street in Irish; in fact we know the bilingual book and have sold copies on our stall: “The Battle of Moore Street”, bilingual, in English by Ray Bateson and in Irish by Seán Ó Maitiú.
We’re still selling campaign badges but have only one left; we’ve ordered more but have to await delivery.
UASDÁTÚ
As we informed our readers weeks ago, An Bord Pleanála notified us it will not give a judgement until January on our appeals against Dublin City Council’s Planning Department approving the Hammerson applications. Meanwhile, the property speculator has made two new applications (total of 5 on the whole area) and we’ve lodged objections to those too – one of the applications is under consideration by DCC’s Planning Department but another was declared invalid. Sadly, only because Hammerson did not display sufficiently visible notices, apparently which presumably means they can re-apply.
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