Wet leaflets, stalls, African food, street signs …
AIMSIR
Bhí sé fliuch and as if that wasn’t bad enough, gaofar freisin. So if the rain didn’t get at placards and leaflets immediately, the wind blew them on to the wet street. And the flags got soaked and will have to be washed and dried again for next week.
We set the table up under an unoccupied tent canopy and placed our people’s bags on top of borrowed plastic crates to keep them dry.
DAOINE
Bróna was back today so with the addition of Orla and Eileen, but for Diarmuid it would have been an all-female foireann on our 460th Saturday on the street.
Despite the rain, people still shop from the stalls and for awhile the African hot food stall in across the road from us was busy, while people also bought fresh fruit from the traditional stalls on the street.
People came to sign the petition … and some even accepted a wet copy from our leafleters out on the street!
EILE
The African food stall, Mama Shee gave us free containers of food in solidarity today which was the right weather for spicy food. Oshe!
STREET SIGN
From our early days we have been telling Dublin City Council that they had the wrong name in Irish for the street, which was named after an English family (Henry Moore, 3rd Earl Drogheda) – that is not the same as the Irish clan Ó Mórdha, even though that has been anglicised as ‘Moore’. According to the database for place-names in English or in Irish, ‘Sráid an Mhúraigh’ is the proper name of the street in Irish but for years they ignored us.
Quietly though, at some point, they changed the name-plate on the north end of the street to the correct version in Irish – but left the wrong version on the name-plate on the southern end!
BAND PLAYING
Lads from the African food stall, Mama Shee, play in a band and they’ll be playing on the street next Thursday 20th for the new market’s venture into evenings, which began this week. We’ll be giving them a plug here when we get their poster.
We have always said that the market area should be open in the evenings also (the small shops always remain open) and that all the Dublin festivals should be included on Moore Street (History, Food, Culture, Writing, Trad. Music, Joyce, Bram Stoker, Architecture) as it has a connection with every one of the subjects. There is scope too for a Sunday farmers’ market here … We pushed all of that through a number of methods including the Moore Streeet Market Expert Group on which we were the only campaign group represented.
UASDHÁTÚ
MUSEUM We note no visible work in Nos.14-17 for the shoebox museum – perhaps they’re holding it back to open it with a big razzlematazzle to distract from the property speculator Hammerson getting to go ahead on their plan.
COURT CASE
We hear Hammerson was in court to agree a date for their case against DCC because of Councillors naming 5 buildings as of historical conservation importance. They must’ve agreed proceedings with Dublin City Managers of Legal Department because there was no sign of them on the court listings.
So we’ve written to a number of councillors saying we wish to know what date the full hearing was set for and what are Hammerson’s grounds for objection. Only one councillor replied and said they are ‘trying to find out’! What is this? An elected representative can surely walk into the Legal office (or phone) them and politely request the information and, if fobbed off in any way, DEMAND it?
AN BORD PLEANÁLA
Our appeal against DCC City Managers giving planning permission to Hammerson has still not been adjudicated due no doubt to internal problems there and backlog. However, we were turned down for the opportunity to present our appeal to an oral hearing by one of the two officials who are now in trouble as a result of allegedly violating planning laws so that decision should be reviewed. The grounds for having an oral hearing are that the site is “a particularly complex case, or if there are significant national or local issues involved”. So that’s at least two out of three, right?
