Blogging is Free: Ballyhea Bondwatch Anniversary March

"A pivotal moment in Irish history"

"Sowing confusion, misinformation, disinformation... and threat" said organiser Diarmuid O'Flynn, (election website Diarmuid O Flynn.com) speaking in Ballyhea on 4th March about the role played by the Irish media in damping dissent to the payment of unsecured bondholders. Writing earlier this month on his "The Chattering Magpie" blog, sports journalist O'Flynn invited others to join the people of Ballyhea, County Cork on Sunday to mark the anniversary of their first march against the payment of bondholders - payments set to reach the staggering sum of over 19 billion Euro in 2012 alone.

"With our own Central Bank set to destroy €3.1bn of our money on March 31st we are reaching a crisis point, a pivotal moment in Irish history. ....join us, please, and share this invitation with anyone you think would like to do likewise."

Declan Ganley and Constantin Gurdgiev join the march
The citizens of Ballyhea have been marching every Sunday for a year to 'end the bank bondholder bailout'. Although the march has been more reported in Australia and the UK than at home, thanks to publicity on social media many came to join them on the 4th. The stalwarts of Ballyhea, a small village on the Cork to Limerick road just south of Charleville, were followed on their anniversary march by protestors from around the country including businessman Declan Ganley and economist Constantin Gurdgiev. The event was covered by the BBC, TG4, and the Irish Examiner amongst others.

The march

Diarmuid O'Flynn spoke to protestors afterwards, making the case that Irish politicans had failed to represent their own people. "We thought we elected them to take our interests to the ECB. What they are doing is bringing the ECB's interests to us". Diarmuid named the politicians who are 'our new overseers', following in the tradition of the Irish landowners who profiteered during the famine while ordinary people suffered. "Kenny, Gilmore, Noonan, Rabbitte, Varadkar, and sugary Sean Sherlock from up the road. These are our new overseers, lads... Some of them are there for fear and cowardice, some of them are there because they are self servers - they know exactly what is happening, it serves their own needs".

He set out the stark but astonsihing facts once again. For those without a calculator the figures are hard to take in. Here, from the Ballyhea Bondwatch blog is how much of Irish taxpayers' money is being given to unsecured bondholders, with no established legal claim to it, over the next four years. These payments, together with interest payments on the loans from the ECB (4 billion in 2012) to make them possible, are responsible for destroying an otherwise healthier economy, and imposing 'austerity measures' which without them would not be necessary.

"No playing around with the terms" Diarmuid writes - "this load is crushing us, remove it. Its imposition was wrong, unjust; it's not just a gross abuse of power by the ECB and the EU, it is a cynical, deliberate and calculated attack on our independence, on our sovereignty".

The Ballyhea anniversary march in pictures

The protestors carried an array of banners and placards telling their own story. Here are a few...