Saturday’s water protest was like St Patrick’s Day but minus the drink

There was a touch of St Patrick’s Day about Saturday.

With the rain and parades and the fancy dress, but without the drink.

The bus was crowded going into town. People seemed in unusually high spirits for a damp and dull Saturday. Two women boarded wearing fluffy pink head-boppers.

Nobody seemed too bothered when the driver announced he was going to have to take a detour because of the protests.

Up ahead, the last few flags from a demo that started from the Five Lamps in Dublin’s North Strand were up the road opposite Connolly Station.

There was a gallop for the doors.

“I hope yis’ll all be going on the march now,” laughed the driver to the departing passengers. “No to the water charges!”

And with that, they gave him a little cheer.

As it turned out, the Five Lamps protest wasn’t up to much. There were, at most, a few dozen people taking part, most of them with Sinn Féin banners and posters.

Nonetheless, it attracted a good deal of media attention because it marked the return to the spotlight of the party’s deputy leader. Mary Lou McDonald went uncharacteristically quiet in the embarrassing aftermath of the Maíria Cahill revelations.

But she gave a rousing address in Talbot Street outside the anonymous-looking offices of Irish Water, calling for the immediate abolition of charges.

“It’s the right thing to do. It’s the decent thing to do. Let us say with our voices that we’re not having it.”

Among the group were a number of men in hi-vis jackets with “Vote Mary Lou McDonald” across the back of them.

Also there was Peter Wall (70) from Summerhill in the north inner city, with his homemade coffin and resident skeleton. Peter is a paid-up member of the Labour Party, but it doesn't stop him from wheeling out his "RIP Fine Gael and Labour" corpse when he feels the occasion demands it.

“He was outside Leinster House for the budget the year before last. I’m just out of the hospital after taking a stroke, but I don’t agree with this tax.”

Does the skeleton have a name?

"Yeah, Eamon Gilmore. "

Back at Connolly Station, a much larger group was massing. They intended marching up and down Dublin’s quays, finishing outside the GPO. A second march from Heuston Station was also due to converge on the rally in O’Connell Street.

Brenda Murtagh and Rona Pears travelled in on the train from Leixlip to join the Connolly crowd. Rona was dressed as a winged “water meter fairy” while Brenda, gussied up as a giant leek, offered a play on words with her “Irish Water leak”.

“I have four children and these charges will be too much. It’s not like we don’t pay enough already” said Brenda. “It’s getting to the stage that people won’t be able to afford to feed their children. I’m not paying.”

Rona, who has two children and one grandchild, fears that once the charges come in, they will continue to rise.

She also has a worry about the security of individual meters. “Anyone can open your meter if they want and tamper with your water supply. They can put poison in and it could be in your tap 30 seconds later. It’s on YouTube – have a look at it.”

The two women said they had never been on a protest march until the water charges arrived – Saturday was their second. They were joined by a friend and her homemade placard: “Off to jail I will go/before I pay for my H20.”

It was difficult to gauge the number of people who turned out in Dublin. The crowd filing along the quays looked very impressive, but it seemed to have dwindled considerably by O’Connell Street.

The gathering was contained in the block between Henry Street and Abbey Street and it was relatively easy to walk around through the protesters.

But then, not everyone who attended a neighbourhood protest will have continued on into town. Government TDs will be well aware of this. The Right2Water umbrella group organised the local protests, while a different grouping that included Dublin Says No and The New Land League was behind the two city centre marches.

There was musical entertainment from a platform in front of the GPO. Two of the bands were called “Bravado” and “Manifesto.” The MC tried to keep spirits up, leading a rousing chant of “Don’t tax the Jacks!”

Bernie Gunning from Lusk, who was dressed as a shower, was getting a lot of attention for her outfit. She had a curtain rail around her neck with shower head spewing silvery tinsel rising above it. The curtain draped around her said: “Time to turn the tap off and shut this shower down.”

This was Bernie’s first protest. “I have two teenage children, my husband isn’t working at the moment, I’m in a low paid job and I’m paying out enough as it is. I want my free water. I’m not paying for it to come through my tap and I shouldn’t have to.”

She has no time for the Government. “Get them out!” And who would she put in? “God only knows,” says Bernie.

Apart from the strong Sinn Féin presence, the New Land League people were selling T-shirts and badges with the logo “Stop the sale of Ireland – water, oil and gas.” Members of another group, The Hub Ireland, were wearing T-shirts with “No way we already pay” on the front and images of the men who died in the Easter Rising on the back above the message, “1916 – We died for your right to water.”

The scenes in O’Connell Street were very different to what took place there last month, when tens of thousands of people took to the capital’s main street to protest against the water charges. But the Government would be unwise to conclude that one small, overly political demonstration means that opposition to the changes and/or the way Irish Water has gone about introducing them is on the wane.

Because on a wet day, all over the country, people still got out and marched in protest.

And they are still angry.