Seven days, seven nights, that's how long Dame Street has been occupied. I never expected it to last this long, I never expected that I would have lasted this long, and yet here we all are. I'm off to bed now after a long day of heavy lifting, cups of tea (requiring light-to-medium lifting) and an awful lot of standing around in and out of high-vis vests.
"The time has come," the Walrus said, "To talk of many things: Of shoes, and ships, and sealing-wax, of cabbages and kings...”
And toilets.
Thousands of people will take to the streets all over the world today in a demand for global democracy. In Dublin, protesters will march from the Garden of Remembrance to the occupied Central Bank plaza on Dame Street, starting at 2pm.
Ana Sofia Suarez and Shimri Zameret write in the Guardian:
There is some concern, much of it justified, around #OccupyDameStreet about suggestions it is ‘non-political’ or somehow above or ‘before’ politics.
But an antipathy towards politics, and the term politics – even if such antipathy is amorphous – will seriously hamper any attempts to grow this into a movement for changing how we organise and structure both our society and the economy.
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A grumpy post, those of a nervous disposition or particularly sensitive to scenes of internal bickering, politicking or general moaniness should skip this one.
A slow and tough morning for Unkie Dave on Occupied Dame Street. Someone posted a comment yesterday that I make everything here sound so positive, and I think there may well be some spectacles of a rosy hue obscuring my sight at times. Everything has been such an adrenaline rush, and the feelings of positivity that action brings may well be the shot of caffeine my system craves but is no longer allowed to have.
Breakfast of Champions
#OccupyDameStreet, Dublin, Wednesday 12th October
Newstalk interview being Livestreamed by #OccupyDameStreet
#OccupyDameStreet, Dublin, Tuesday 11th October
Day Four of #OccupyDameStreet saw a very tired Unkie Dave attend his first Media Workgroup meeting. While it cannot be denied that I have loved every backbreaking minute of work on the Construction group, given that I write a blog and post pretty pictures online I thought I should take a break from the world of tarp and cable ties and sit in to see how the group worked.
David Johnson has spent much of the past three days outside the Central Bank on Dublin's Dame Street taking part in the Occupy Dame Street
protest that started there on Saturday (8 October). Read his diary and view his pictures of the protest below. Please note his caveat: "It's important to say that I'm just a guy spending a lot of time at that camp, I'm not overnighting here and while I am involved in day-to-day tasks I'm not facilitating any meetings or speaking/writing on behalf of anyone."
Day one
Evenings on Occupied Dame Street are a strange affair, the calm of the afternoon gives way to the frantic energy of the second General Assembly of the day, currently held at 6pm, and the influx of interested people on their way home from work, college, school and the like.