Occupy Dame Street, a hamster's eye view

Are there freedoms worth making sacrifices for and principles worth making a stand over?  Michael D. Higgins began his Presidency reminding us that "egotism based on purely material considerations ...was our loss, the source .. of our present difficulties.  Now it is time to turn to an older wisdom that.. the most valuable things in life cannot be measured....The demands and the rewards of building a real and inclusive Republic in its fullest sense remains as a challenge for us all, but it is one we should embrace together".  Because the old republic, as Vincent Browne commented, "was stolen from the people after the foundation of the State”. 

Occupy Dame Street University

Philip O’Neill in the Irish Examiner spells it out. " "We have grown to live with the corruption of politics and the inflated significance attributed to senior bank officials, judges, TDs and ministers of the state, represented by shamefully exorbitant salaries, expense accounts, bonuses and severance awards....We have on our hands a new fight for Ireland’s freedom — freedom from the abuse of power and wealth and from the continued failure to spell out and commit ourselves to a vision of Ireland’s future that is essentially moral".

So while more and more are homeless without choice, the Occupy movement in Dame Street, Dublin is a testament to the willingness of many to sacrifice 'material comfort' and to be homeless by choice in order to do their bit to build a proper republic.  They stand "against political and economic corruption and for equality and social justice".   They also believe that Irish oil and gas belong to the people and the bank debts don't.  Hard to fault.

Sandra, "the most photographed woman in Ireland" welcomes visitors

But some do fault it.  Terry Prone, establishment spin doctor in chief, finds her inner hamster and writes about the "tented towns of the workless and disaffected" while claiming to represent the majority. "The rest of us are mad as hell but we have no choice" she writes. "We HAVE to take it, no matter what . We have to keep working harder for less money to stay ahead of the mortgage.  Little hamsters on a caged wheel, we are. Good little hamsters, resigned to running faster on the wheel when Michael Noonan hands down the latest instalment of misery in the Budget".

A good litle hamster leans on her wheel

And why occupy the Central Bank?  As protestor Sean Creagh told the Guardian  "You have got to remember that inside that building there is a full-time official from the IMF who, unelected by anyone in Ireland, is actually running our country's economic policy. That person is in there carrying out the IMF's diktats to the Irish people. This is why we are here. It's the symbolism of that."


The lads in the conical tents

While the protestors sleep below, we "wistful little hamsters, shamed by our own subservience and good behaviour, look... slightly enviously at the lads in the conical tents".  Terry Prone.

Ensuite accomodation at the rear