The May Bank Holiday in Dublin saw the traditional trade union May Day march and the Hope carnival held by radical environmentalists. The contrast between both events was extraordinary.
The union march which followed a route from Parnell Square to Liberty Hall via O’Connell st was poorly attended in comparison with recent years. The main reason for this is that the organisers were unwilling or unable to tell anyone when the march was to be held until only a few days before the event.
Sunday 3rd February 2002 saw the 30th Bloody Sunday march, held on the nearest Sunday 30 years after 13 marchers were shot dead by the British army and another 14 wounded (one fatally). Somewhere between 20,000 and 40,000 people (RTE "more than 20,000 people") followed the original route of the march from the Creggan down through the Brandywell to the Bogside
Around 300 people marched through the centre of Dublin on Saturday 16th Feb 2002 to mark the 10th anniversary of the ‘X’ case and to support a No vote in the latest anti-abortion referendum. 10 years earlier in 1992 the courts placed an injunction of a 14-year-old rape victim in order to prevent her travelling to England for an abortion. At the time not only was abortion illegal in Ireland but many activists had been prosecuted simply for providing the phone number of British clinics to pregnant women.
Workers at the Irish Glass Bottle plant in Ringsend have been in occupation of the plant for the last couple of months (July 2002). The plant is closing, making some 375 workers redundant and the company is refusing to pay redundancy at the level recommended by the Labour Relations Commission of, five weeks pay for every years service. It wants to only pay 10% of this level, or half a week for every year.
On Tuesday morning (March 2004) the second best kept secret of the Dublin libertarian scene came to an end when the council turned up to evict 16 Leeson street. Squatted in the aftermath of the violent eviction of the Disco Disco building at 42 Parnell square last summer No16 has been the focal point for lots of activity ranging from theoretical discussions to organic gardening. Today the eviction attempt was defeated.