Hundreds attend Dublin May Day protests

Several hundred people gathered in front of the Irish Stock Exchange in Dublin this afternoon as part of the global demonstrations marking May Day.

In stark contrast to the violence that has flared up in various cities around the world, most notably Sydney, Berlin, London and Diyarbakir in Turkey, the 300 hundred or so who congregated in Anglesea Street were vocal yet peaceful.

A number of speakers from groups such as the Workers Solidarity Movement, anIrish anarchist collective and the French intellectual protest group Attac, addressed the crowd, consisting of various disparate groups and individual anti-capitalist activists.

Other movements present included the Socialist Party, the Socialist Workers Party, the Irish Missionary Movement, and the Ogoni Solidarity Movement, who support the Ogoni people of Nigeria, whose ancestral lands have been taken over by oil companies.

A bemused group of tourists watched, perched as this meeting was on the edge of one of Dublin's most obvious capitalist successes, Temple Bar.

In spite of TV pictures of violent confrontations around the world, the Garda presence was muted, but not forgotten.

"Remember Abbeylara!" the crowd shouted. The boys in blue merely looked on, unimpressed.

A garda spokeswoman told ireland.comearlier today while a number of extra gardaí were being deployed, as with any other similar public demonstration, no major disorder was expected. In fact, she seemed positively amused by the thought.

The rally was organised by Globalise Resistance, a loose network linking activists from throughout Ireland who are concerned with the effects of globalisation, such as Third World debt, corporate takeovers, the proliferation of sweatshops and environmental issues.

According to Ms Grace Lally of Globalise Resistance, they have chosen to demonstrate outside Dublin's Stock Exchange because "stock exchanges are symbolic of the corporate greed which is destroying our future and our planet."

The fact that the Stock Exchange was closed didn't seem important, somehow.

"We see this protest as part of the international movement that began in Seattle and spread across the world to Prague and Nice to challenge corporate globalisation," she added.

Her sentiments were echoed in one particularly vehement chant this afternoon: "Prague, Seattle and Dublin, we will fight and we will win."