OK, so I’m in the middle of Dublin on Saturday and just finished off a bit of lunch outside Dublin Castle. Next thing I know, there is a massive protest/parade passing by. The Spectacle of Hope and Defiance, organised by a lot of community groups in protest at the ongoing cuts to funding and budgets in Dublin.
The parade was led by children from the local community carrying tombstones for all the inner city projects that either had been closed or were threathened with closure.
People followed behind with slogans painted on butterflies or with placards. I think that the youth groups in the march had been working on them as projects.
Then we had a couple of floats – I liked the design of this one.
Ex-Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, who built the Celtic Tiger has retired with an annual pension of 152,331. Although to be fair, he did take a cut in it last week. He’ll really miss that 4,200 they lopped off it.
Of course, no protest is complete without drummers.
And a clown making balloon animals
And the bloody Socialist Worker.
Those stuck in the traffic jam didn’t mind.
The Scales of Injustice, complete with Marie Antoinette throwing cake out to those below.
One of the Marie Antoinettes. Cake not pictured.
Of course, the protest covers all of the people in Ireland. So here is a group of bankers on the way to the golf course.
And a banking fat cat, who threw cake at anyone photographing him (he was a good shot).
One of the EU Bondholders, who handed out Euros to the crowd.
The fat cat makes his way past the Bank of Ireland. The Bondholder shouts at him “Darling, look, it is our cash machine! Do you have the ATM card?”, which I thought was pretty funny.
Finally, the back of the parade was brought up by this huge phoenix.
All in all, good fun and quite uplifting to see the turn out and support, not just from the parade itself but the people it was passing by. Pretty much brought Dame Street to a halt, but it was all good natured and friendly. Special mention to the Gardai, who was more interested in keeping traffic moving – if this was the Met, it would have been truncheons, kettling and nicking of cameras. It really brought home just what a bunch of cunts the policing of protest in the UK is.
Out of My Tiny Mind 