Photos from the anti-austerity march in Dublin

Saturday saw a major anti-austerity march through Dublin organised by Dublin Council of Trade Unions and the Campaign against the Household and Water Taxes.  The turnout was far larger than I expected, perhaps as many as 15,000 marched on a fairly miserable late Novemeber day.  I’ve a selection of some of the photos I took here, as usual there are much more in the WSM Facebook album for the event.

Saturday saw a major anti-austerity march through Dublin organised by Dublin Council of Trade Unions and the Campaign against the Household and Water Taxes.  The turnout was far larger than I expected, perhaps as many as 15,000 marched on a fairly miserable late Novemeber day.  I’ve a selection of some of the photos I took here, as usual there are much more in the WSM Facebook album for the event.

The Household tax camapign was probably the largest single contingent on the march, more than a couple of thousand and there was also a scattering of very odd placards indeed.  Sinn Fein did a ‘Shame on Labour’ banner drop and had a very large contingent.  There was controversy afterwards when union boss Jack O’Connor released a statement describing those who had booed unions leaders as ‘fascists.’  Not really sure what O’Connor thinks fascists did/do but that does show how above it all the union leadership are.

There was also some fantastic invention from the Sunday Independent, in their coverage they wrote – "the information indicated that a number of groups, including members of republican group Eirigi, various anarchist groups and others who termed themselves ‘anti-globalist’, were intent on taking the protest a step further than merely marching.

Gardai said there was an intention to hijack the peaceful march to mount a "Greek-style" riot and 18 garda vans were used to provide transport for gardai – an unusually large number of such vehicles for a demonstration."

The cops were spreading the same rumours before last Saturdays pro choice march too – Special Branch after some pre Xmas overtime or what?  One of the two journalists who signed off this piece is Jim Cusack who is a notorious mouth piece for the Garda Press Office and Special Branch but still this particular bit of fantasy had no basis in reality (OK some of us did break off early to skip the speeches and go to the pub!).