Occupy Dame Street (Down With This Sort of Thing)

Such is my dreamy, submarine existence that I only heard about the co-ordinated international protests (inspired by 'Occupy Wall Street' which I was aware of) from my cousin, Fiachra. He headed downtown to photograph the march, which rallied at that hallowed old meeting point, Parnell Square. The destination was Central Bank on Dame Street, on the other side of the Liffey.

I made it in later in the afternoon, long after the march had ended. But I was pleased to see that there was quite a substantial crowd gathered beneath the Central Bank's enormous concrete grille (like a giant's stack of moolah) on Dame Street. Here were all the trimmings, including a little cluster of dome tents. I hadn't realised that this encampment had been in place for a week now. The protesters have been reported as being very polite (one commentator on an online report referenced Father Ted's placards: 'Down With This Sort of Thing', 'Easy Now').

There were few police, many children, some dogs, plenty of signs (some of which weren't quite so polite: Fu*k The IMF), loud speakers with loudspeakers and an appreciative audience. I had an interesting conversation with a man wearing a red nose. When I asked him what the objective was he replied, eloquently enough, 'this', and went on to explain that the main reason for the occupation was to raise awareness of the issues, to prove to people that non-violent protest was possible, and in fact could be a good thing. This argument made sense to me, considering how our previous government opted to bail out the hopelessly defective 'toxic' banks with nary a peep out of anyone.