Save Moore Street Awareness Week 440 – 25 February 2023

AIMSIR
It was cuíosach fuar inniu on Saturday ach grianmhar as our team assembled our campaign table and hung out the flags and banners for our four hundred and fortieth Saturday on the street.

DAOINE
Bróna, Orla, Deirdre, Christian agus Diarmuid were the foireann don lá, with Steve dropping in later.

Ethel Doherty came by and told us she was born in Moore Lane – actually in the lane itself, not in a house. Her father had to carry her mother and her to the Rotunda hospital. Her granddaughter Deirdre Doherty was with her today and told us her father had been in the 1916 Terrace as a Safety Officer for Dublin City Council and saw some of the signs of tunnelling in the walls from the Rising.

They were related to Katy Tunney who sold flowers up near Henry Street (there are flowers sellers there still today; they have to wheel buckets of water all the way from the north end of the street to keep the flowers fresh). Also related to Big Mary who sold fish on the street.

May Brennan stopped to sign the petition; she is a grand-niece of Molly O’Reilly, who James Connolly asked to raise the green flag with golden harp above Liberty Hall the week before the Rising. Liberty Hall was the HQ of the Irish Transport & General Workers’ Union but also functioned as a kind of community centre. Molly had broken a window while playing and when Connolly sent for her, thought she was going to be told off, instead of which she was given the honour. Molly ran messages for the insurgents in 1916, during the War of Independence (1919-1921) and during the Civil War (1922-1923), when she took the anti-Treaty sign.

Noel Kenny, who also signed the petition, and his sister used to clean their wares for the fruit stall-holders. He used to be homeless he told us but managed to get himself out of that; now he busks and writes songs and was very supportive of our work.

Collecting those stories is a very enjoyable part of our work.

Some people we know passed by on their way to a rally in solidarity with the Palestinian people, due to start at 1.00pm but we pack up every Saturday at 1.30pm. One of those, Aislinn Wallace from Wexford, posed for a Moore Street solidarity photo.

UASDHÁTA
The sign erected by DCC pointing towards the O’Rahilly Monument is still there (see piece about the signpost in last week’s album text).

We got through the last of our leaflets today. We will have to write and design a new leaflet and pay a printer from our donations (which is also how we fund the purchase of the campaign equipment and charges to register planning objections).

Other than that, we have no update.

Ná déan dearmad – you can support the campaign by sharing our posts from time to time.

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