In circumstances where public morming can be as much an act of bravery as a source of solace, thousands showed their support for Steve Collins, writes RUADHAN Mac CORMAIC
IF HE had to mark the one-month anniversary of his son’s death by marching to City Hall alone, Steve Collins had said before yesterday’s rally, that that’s what he would have done. And in circumstances where public mourning can be as much an act of bravery as a source of solace, the word among sceptics in Limerick was that fear and weariness would mean he might not have much company anyway.
Just in case, Mayor John Gilligan took care to include in his speaking notes the words “irrespective of the size of the crowd”. Yet when it came to delivering his fiercely passionate speech on the steps of City Hall yesterday afternoon, the mayor was made to improvise a little.
Standing alongside Collins, the bereaved father a picture of quiet dignity, they could barely see the tail of the 5,000-strong crowd – most of them, at Collins’s request, wearing vibrant Munster red – that stretched to the edge of the grounds.
Last weekend, a raucous crowd of about the same size had stood here to cheer on the rugby team under big screens.
This time they gave their applause to the man whose son 35-year-old son, Roy Collins, was taken from him last month, and pledged solidarity in the fight against the menace of the city’s gangs. “This will have ended when Steve Collins and his family no longer have to look over their shoulder in fear, and the people who have inflicted these dreadful wrongs on them are no longer in a position to do so any more,” Gilligan said to loud cheers.
A large but discrete contingent of gardaí looked on as an uilleann piper broke an impeccably observed minute’s silence with Limerick’s Lament. On Merchants Quay, a Tricolour fluttered and the afternoon sun struck the shimmering water behind the speakers.
One woman in her mid-40s, from Corbally, said recent killings had shaken local people out of the illusion that that “gangland” was a place apart, a place whose imagined borders gave tacit protection to those on the outside.
“I wonder are a lot of us in denial. I would have thought I’m safe, it doesn’t affect me. If I didn’t live in one of those areas, I always thought I’d be safe.”
Then came the murder of Limerick rugby player Shane Geoghegan last November, and now Roy Collins.
“There’s definitely a huge fear. Innocent people have already been shot. It could have been our brother, our father, our son.”
People she knew had stayed at home yesterday out of fear. “It was all film stuff – “there’ll be snipers around” and all that. But we’ve been afraid long enough. It’s about time people got up off their arses and did something.”
Minister for Defence Willie O’Dea had heard of scores of people whose fear kept them at home, so he was “a little bit surprised” by the turnout. “They would love to march, their hearts are with the people here today, but they’re afraid to march. That’s an indication of how the problem has gone here, and how deeply the malaise has gripped the city.”
“They’re laughing at the police,” said another woman of the gangs. “And they’re probably passing in cars today laughing at us.”
That sense that the people of Limerick, the gardaí and the statute book were all being mocked came up again and again, as did the same proposals for a drastic solution: special courts, proscription of gangs, internment. Many wondered why a march like this hadn’t taken place two years ago.
The walk from Pery Square to Merchants Quay took place virtually in solemn silence, without slogans, chants or placards. Among those who took part was the soft-spoken Martin Fitzgerald, whose son Brian Fitzgerald was shot dead in 2002 after he refused to allow criminals sell drugs in the nightclub where he worked as a doorman.
There too were Tony Geogheghan, the uncle of Shane Geoghegan, and John Hennessy, the solicitor who has been under 24-hour Garda protection since the killing of his client, Baiba Saulite, in Dublin in 2006.
“I found it very emotional – very heart-warming,” Hennessy said afterwards.
When his turn came to speak, a determinedly composed and genuinely heartened Steve Collins took to the podium and waited an age for the longest, loudest cheer of the day to peter out. The time for talking was over; now it was for the authorities to take up the baton. “From the bottom of my broken heart, thank you all.” Yesterday’s march coincided with his son’s month’s mind, and yet Collins feels he hasn’t taken any sort of a rest since the funeral. If there’s a plan, it’s to put that right.
“I just need to take my family and put my arms around them and just have a bit of quiet time together,” he said when the crowd had dispersed. “It’s taken a toll, and I’m shattered from it.”