AIMSIR
Bhí sé cuíosach gaofar on Saturday but despite some sprinkles of rain, d’fhan sé tirm.
DAOINE
B’iad Bróna, Deirdre, Steve agus Diarmuid an foireann don lá, with Christian dropping in for awhile.
Through an oversight we quickly ran out of leaflets but continued to amass signatures and even some donations (which is how we fund the purchase of the campaign equipment, printing of leaflets and charges to register planning objections).
Noel O’Connor came to sign and told us about his grandmother Chrissie Behan, presumably a member of Cumann na mBan, who had been a worker in Jacob’s Biscuit Factory and was jailed by the Free State Government during the Irish Civil War. Noel told us her story had not been generally related through the family until shortly prior to her death; this silence is something we often hear in relation to the stories of our heroes and probably even more often about the women who participated in these momentous struggles.
We sometimes feel it important to point to the contribution of migrants to Irish Republicanism and the struggle for independence and we displayed specially-printed posters of three of the seven Signatories of the 1916 Proclamation, all executed by British firing and they spent their last hours of freedom in Moore Street. James Connolly and Thomas Clarke were both migrants to Ireland (and each to the USA too). The third portrait was of Patrick Pearse, son of his English father.
A number of people we know passed by on their way to a marcy in solidarity with migrants and refugees and against housing and health service crises. It was due to start at 1.30pm which is around the same time we pack up every Saturday, so we did so about five minutes early on that occasion. (Later news reports gave a figure of 50,000 in attendance).
UASDHÁTA – THE SIGNS
Over the course of a year certainly hundreds of thousands of people pass by in close proximity to the unappealing O’Rahilly Parade, unaware of Shane Cullen’s monument marking the spot where Michael O’Rahilly died from British bullets in 1916. While dying, he wrote a farewell note to his wife; the monument reproduces in magnified form O’Rahilly’s words of that letter in his own hand.
Earlier during the week Dublin City Council had (finally) erected a signpost to the O’Rahilly Monument at the junction of Moore Street and O’Rahilly Parade. For four years in a number of forums we had been urging Dublin City Council to do that and had been given promises to do so, never kept. Until last year, when one appeared and disappeared after a few weeks.
Many months ago, our group had a printer run up some placard signposts of our own and erected them at that same junction and also at the junctions with Parnell and Henry streets, where they have been for many months. And we also hang a smaller version above our weekly stall.
While, unlike our sign, DCC’s signpost says nothing about the monument or the person it commemorates, it is good that signpost has been erected (and we hope, securely).
Don’t forget that you too can play a part in this conservation campaign by sharing our posts from time to time, whether from our Facebook pages or from our website smsfd.ie.
