Our campaign group reached a milestone today, 444 Saturdays since we first came on to the street in September 2014. So of course we had to take a group photo to mark the event.
AIMSIR
We were ok with an aimsir for awhile but then had to move our table across the road under the glass awning as the leaflets and petition sheets were getting wet. Nothing like the monsoon that came down around 3pm however, by which time our shift was long over.
After their soaking last week, the flags had been washed and dried by Eileen and Orla collected and brought them in.
For some reason the “occasional market” of tent stalls was there today. We welcome it as it makes the street lively but just wished it was a regular, instead of occasional event.
DAOINE
Bróna, Orla, Deirdre and Diarmuid turned up for the campaign today and got a surprise when Lawrence appeared after being away from Ireland for years. He quickly got in the groove, handing out leaflets and chatting to people. Steve and Christian came a little later and joined in the work too.
Liam Cathcart told us his granduncle Barney Conway was Jim Larkin’s right-hand man. Larkin formed the Irish Transport & General Worker’s Union as a breakaway from the National Union of Dock Workers, the HQ of which was in England. Subsequently he and James Connolly led the union and other workers in resisting the attempt of William Martin Murphy and an agglomeration of employers to smash the union.
“For eight months we fought and eight months we starved,
We stood by Larkin through thick and thin;
But foodless homes and the cry of children
Broke our hearts and we could not win.”
(The Larkin Ballad by Donagh McDonagh).
The Dublin Metropolitan Police attacked the workers many times and killed at least two with truncheon blows in the first days of the Lockout/strike. Larkin and Connolly called for the workers to form a workers’ defence militia which became the Irish Citizen Army, the first workers’ army in the world and also the first insurrectionary force to recruit women and appoint some as officers.
They fought in the 1916 Rising too; their flag was the Starry Plough, a copy of which we display weekly at our table.
Some of the ICA were in the Moore Street battle and were killed and injured there while of course their leader, James Connolly, was there too and after the surrender, executed by British firing squad.
UASDÁTÚ
We still await An Bord Pleanála’s response to ours and others’ appeals against DCC’s Planning Department approving Hammerson’s planning application.
As we posted last week, Hammerson’s objections to the Council’s naming five buildings in “the 1916 Terrace” as of historical conservation status, “protected structures”, have not been heard yet in the High Court and they have not divulged the basis for their objections yet. When they do, we asked last week, can Dublin City Council managers be trusted to direct their lawyers to fight to defend the Councillors’ correct decision and the protection of the buildings?
Scaipeadh an scéil – spreading the word – on social media by sharing our posts from time is one great way to help the campaign. You can reach people we can’t and the mass media won’t.