no fixed abode

Good day for graffiti

2012-02-08T23:00:00.001Z

Saw this great Karma piece on the Nassau Street Gate of Trinity College:

Thanks to The Unfortunately Loyal Boyfriend for being my cyberspotter on this one via the unusually ininane Twitter. Got a photo of it undisturbed at about 4pm. It was scrubbed off later that day, which underlines yet again my first rule of graffiti photography: take it when you see it.

Ambled deliberately to Wellington Quay to photograph this quite large ADW piece:

Part of the campaign First Fortnight: Challenging Mental Health Prejudice Through Creative Arts. Took more photos of most of the rest of the First Fortnight street art back in January, have to get around to posting them.

More work by the cyberspotter via broadsheet.ie had alerted me to another piece, so I strolled directly across the Liffey to take some snaps of this large Canvaz pasteup:

A sad clown but a happy day for graffiti.

Many more photos in my graffiti set.

Firemen are the real heroes

2012-02-03T15:45:00.000Z

This was the view from my flat this morning:

And this was the scene a few minutes later out on Camden Street:

As this building is two doors away from my home, and in fact is in front of but next door to the far side of my building, this was a little worrying.

Luckily the fire was brought under control fairly rapidly, and most importantly no-one was hurt. The fire had spread to the top of an adjacent building but didn't seem to have done much damage to it or to the lower floors of the offices below where it had started, and it didn't reach as far as our building. I realised only after a few minutes that I'd just automatically assumed, perhaps because there were no ambulances present, that no-one had been injured. Perhaps because it's an office building, whereas if it had been a home, people's safety would have been the immediate concern. In reality, the office's occupant was lucky to escape unhurt, and people in flats next door to it were evacuated by the emergency services, told to grab their passports and get out immediately.

The solicitor's office on the top floor had gone on fire, the rumours being that he'd put on the kettle, gone to the loo and come back to flames, which rapidly led to a gas bottle exploding. There may have been a lit cigarette involved as well. I used to rent studio space in the back of this building, and that area was in good shape, but the upper storey of the building could fairly be described as a death trap, piled high with old newspapers and paper files, with the stairs and that whole part of the building looking on the verge of falling apart.

The explosion from the gas canister had shaken our building. This was the culprit later on:

Quite a scene to wake up to.

But you know, it's not like our building is almost entirely made of wood or anything. Oh. Wait a second. Though timber frame buildings can actually be more fire resistant that typical masonry houses.

But then it's not as if my building also houses a paper workshop, filled with enormous stacks of paper on two floors. Oh. Damn.

And of course, all my writing, photos and valuable documents are digitally stored and backed up in at least two off-site locations, including online. Of course they are. Yes indeed. They're not in notebooks or in stacked boxes of highly flammable prints and negatives (remember those?) or stuffed into drawers. At least the digital elements of my life are on a jumbled backup disk - an attempt to learn from a friend's experiences with multiple thefts last year - but naturally that backup is stored rather close to, and certainly in the same building as, the originals. That's alright then.

But we definitely have contents insurance, to ease the pain if the worst should happen. Oh. Right. Must get on to that.

So. No worries there then.

Carnival of Resistance to unfair debts

2012-01-23T23:16:00.003Z

The Carnival of Resistance began today in Dublin city centre to protest 1.25 billion Euro being "given" this week by the Irish people to Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide Building Society senior unsecured bondholders. This payment is just part of an astonishing 47.9 billion Euro that is scheduled to be paid over 20 years to cover the debts of these two now-defunct institutions, costs that are being unfairly socialised onto the Irish people, who did not incur or benefit from these debts, while the payment costs are causing immediate and unnecessary economic suffering across the country.

The following scheduled payment is 3.1 billion Euro on the 31st March, which is almost exactly equivalent to the Irish Government's recent budget cuts in health, social protection and overseas development assistance combined with the 'savings' in education. Or to put it another way, the money about to be handed to these bondholders, who we are under no obligation to pay and who are not included in the IMF/ECB bailout deal, could alternatively be used to run Ireland's primary school system for a year. The Carnival of Resistance aims to highlight and object to these payments, and the longer-term management of these debts.

The three day festival of music, talks and art will continue until Wednesday 25th January at the old Anglo Irish Bank building, on Stephen's Green in Dublin, now one of the offices of the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation, which was formed to wind up Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Nationwide. The payment is scheduled to take place on Wednesday 25th. The Carnival is organised by a diverse group of individuals and is supported by various groups, such as Occupy Dame Street and the Not Our Debt campaign. The Carnival is designed particularly to be family-friendly and all are welcome to attend.

There were live performances today by The Velvetones and Twin Headed Wolf, among others, and upcoming acts include The Barley Mob, members of Kila, the McVeigh Sisters, Jupiter and the Infinite, Eritrea and the Fibbs.

Occupy University will be hosting a series of lectures. On Tuesday at 1.30p.m. Mick O'Reilly will speak, and Conor McCabe will talk at 5.30p.m. Wednesday will feature Michael Taft at 1.30p.m., Andy Storey at 4p.m. and Siobhan O'Donoghue at 5.30p.m.

In related news, there will be a public meeting of the Anglo: Not Our Debt campaign tomorrow Tuesday 24th January in the Teachers' Club, Parnell Square in Dublin, at 7pm.

Street artist Canvaz did the above piece on Abbey Street, near Capel Street, to add his voice to the opposition to these unfair debts. It reads "Give a man an education and he will build a new world but give a man and loan and you can own that man forever. Not our debt."

More photos of the Carnival of Resistance.

Read more on Booming Back:
Give a Man a Loan and an article on Anglo: Not Our Debt.

And also see:
Anglo: Not Our Debt campaign.

Stop SOPA

2012-01-18T13:50:00.004Z

This site has gone dark today to protest the U.S. Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)/PROTECT-IP Act (PIPA).

More information at SOPAStrike.com

100 days of Occupy Dame Street

2012-01-15T17:09:00.001Z

Today is a celebration of 100 days of continuous occupation by Occupy Dame Street of the plaza in front of the Central Bank of Ireland in Dublin city centre. A lot has happened in these 100 days, much of which I am not going to try to review here, not least because I want to get back to the camp to support it and join the celebrations, and the reinvigoration of camp organisation and working groups that is planned today to help the protest, and process, move forward in 2012.

Good to remember how it all began on a sunny 8th October:

It has been a pretty amazing and often awful 100 days. It is impressive that the camp has managed to last over three months, and it's now one of the longest running Occupations anywhere in the world, following the forced evictions of many Occupies in the US. At the same time, along with many others, I have been reflecting on what it is or isn't achieving, and trying to figure out what level of involvement I'd like to have with it. That process is still ongoing so we'll see how it pans out in the next few weeks.

I took a break from writing about Occupy, though not from being at the protest itself, back in November, and while still being there quite frequently I tried to get back to making some progress in the rest of my so-called life. A great deal has happened there meanwhile. Re-reading my last post of 21st November 2011, we were waiting to see if a court order would be taken against Occupy Dame Street the following morning. That didn't happen, and indeed the concern and public support shown during that Monday helped the camp to consolidate and get more energised. It also brought into focus why people were there and what they would or would not be willing to risk to continue the protest.

At that time after three general assemblies on the topic and much internal discussion ODS had decided not to officially support the Dublin Council of Trade Unions anti-austerity march on 26th November. A lot of people were supportive of it and attended the march in a personal capacity. I felt it would be important in light of the decision not to formally link with DCTU that Occupy Dame Street take stock and come up with its next phase, the topics and areas of focus and alliances that it would pursue next, that it overcome the divisiveness of the issue and move forward in a way that a lot of people could get behind. That didn't really happen, though we did forge good links, for example participating in the wonderful Spectacle of Defiance and Hope on 3rd December.

Now at the start of 2012 ODS is taking stock in order to remain relevant. My gut feeling is that it now needs to become more of a mass movement than a symbolic protest, it always aimed to provide a platform for the 99% to come up with and start implementing their own solutions, rather than dictating and demanding allegiance to a rigid set of unachievable policies, and being that platform for the majority is something unique and very valuable. Hopefully we can find a way to expand, join with others and start facilitating those alternatives to happen.

There's a lot more to say and a much overdue review now that the camp is more than double the age it was when I last wrote. But that will have to wait for another day and ever-elusive sufficient time. Instead, a moment to mark that Occupy Dame Street is still here. This is what it looked like on day one hundred:

For now, to celebrate 100 days, I've posted all my photos from the last three weeks of ODS, including photos of Liam O Maonlai and other musicians playing at ODS on Xmas Eve, mince pies and Santa on Xmas Day, and the original statement we stuck up in October, still in situ on New Year's Day 2012. Those and 500+ photos and short videos of ODS from the last 3 months can be seen here. Here's to the next 100 days, and finding a way forward for us all.

UPDATE: changed the photo above from one during the week to one on day 100.

Dolphins dancing

2012-01-03T20:50:00.001Z

Saw the dolphins yesterday playing in the sea near Vico Road once again. A wonderful way to start the new year. Vico Road and White Rock beach together form one of my favourite places, so it was amazing to be there in the company of the dolphins, and in the company of a good friend who also loves this beautiful place.

Before we'd even gotten out of the car far above the beach we could see people pointing out to sea and we knew what they must be pointing at. Below us between the trees were at least two dolphins splashing in the water. They were swimming back and forth but mainly moving left towards Dalkey Island. A little difficult to spot:

We watched them for quite a while before heading down to the beach, with wonderful views en route of the curving bay backed by the Sugar Loaf.

We thought the sea creatures had continued north and that we wouldn't be able to spot them from the beach. Instead, while we were standing a little to the left of the beach, they suddenly reappeared, less than 50 metres away. Unbelievably close, one leapt out of the water, twisting to display her (or his) grey belly, seeming almost to stand on her tail, while the other two played nearby. An incredible moment. No photos of these acrobatics, but some of them swimming along.

I trained my camera on the waves to video them and they appeared as if on cue, a video I'll post once formatted. They hung out directly in front of us, two darting through the small waves together, fins aligned, the other one a little further off. It was about at this point that my camera ran out of battery. Didn't matter as it was something very special to share those moments in such close proximity to the dolphins.

They stayed playing around for ages, appearing further out to sea, over to the right, and at other locations at various times over the next hour or so.

It was hard to tear ourselves away, and I kept stopping as we climbed the steps back to the car, seeing their sleek shapes splashing out of the water far below. Amazing. Happy 2012.

Photos of the dolphins

Previous dolphiny posts about sightings in July 2011:
Seeing dolphins at Vico
Dolphins in daylight

Picturing 2011

2011-12-31T22:27:00.002Z

2011 was a year mainly untold in photos. It was a year of private pain, of hopes and dreams and plans not realised, of moments of joy, of unexpected optimism and active intoxication, of elections and real political engagement (little related), of few but breathtakingly beautiful travels, of taking things a day at a time to slowly recreate hope for the future. Few photos yet a year of cameras, the pleasure and security of using one, its inexplicable disappearance, the occasional frustrations of another, and an eventual and very recent replacement, beginning a slow repairing of a formerly reliable satisfaction. The photos do not tell the story of this year, and nor do the words, on this blog at least; this year is embodied in The Unfortunately Loyal Boyfriend and in me, in who we now are, and in who we'll gradually manage to be, perhaps, next year. Here are some moments from 2011.

A January stroll along the River Liffey:

Followed that afternoon by a first visit to a then-unknown restaurant called the Rustic Stone, which quickly became our favourite place to eat in Dublin and was frequently frequented over the coming year, illness be damned.

My leg injury and its impressive scar, acquired in December 2010, continued to slowly heal over the first four months of 2011 but I won't subject you to its contours now. I still plan to
make a gruesome photographic journey of its progress, beginning with the doctor's fingers inside my numb leg and perhaps ending with a Forty Foot swim, but that's just one of many photo projects that didn't get realised this year. Look forward to its appearance some other time, I will provide warning for those of a squeamish nature.

I finished work and thoroughly enjoyed the next month off, including jaunts around the country to see friends, chasing the aurora borealis in the Dublin Mountains and a stroll in Devil's Glen. Photos taken but also not yet uploaded. The year seemed to be cementing its brilliant beginnings when the Green Bay Packers won the Superbowl on February 6th:

One of the breathtakingly beautiful trips also took place in February, a week's travel to Connemara, in Galway on the west coast of Ireland.

As the Irish general election approached, Upstart adorned the city with art alternatives to election posters, leading to much enjoyment for The Unfortunately Loyal Boyfriend in photographing them and in taking a couple down afterwards. The election itself was won by Fine Gael and Labour, I believe - hard to tell with the amount that hasn't changed since, but at least formerly all-powerful Fianna Fail were defeated.

Then it was March. Then the pancreatitis appeared out of nowhere for The Unfortunately Loyal Boyfriend; then the hospital stays began; then we thought it would be ok; then it wasn't. March
was when everything changed. You can read my lengthy reflections on our great pancreatitis adventure; the experience that first month did not lend itself too well to photography.

On my way to the hospital one day I did dash in to the last day of the wonderful Crafted Creatures exhibition at the Ark.

It was a delight, with its touchable exhibits of felt chickens, a wicker bull, a soft wallaby and a giant wooden turtle, as well as less-touchable but no less delightful ceramic fish
plates, boats tusked like the animals they carried, fantastical insects made of bibles and clockwork cogs, plastic jellyfish and coral reminiscent of the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef, and a high wall covered in delicately pierced white marine shapes, bubbling towards the ceiling.

April rolled around with the hospital visits longer and the situation worse; yet alongside the pain and the grind of prognoses and pathologies that shifted almost daily there was beauty to be found, like this butterfly alighting in the grounds of the hospital alongside the altogether fake plastic grass:

The Dalai Lama came on a rare visit to Ireland, and I took advantage of my jobless status and flexible hospital visiting hours to drive to Kildare to see his orange-robed self:

Nothing like the amazing experience of seeing him in Dharamshala 13 years ago, but worthwhile indeed.

April was also good friends getting married, but those photos (even the flamingoes) will remain strictly private.

May was thinking things were getting better as The Unfortunately Loyal Boyfriend was out of hospital, but instead he was told he'd need major surgery at the end of the month. As we waited for his readmission we didn't walk 15 minutes into town to see O'Bama, ahem, Obama, address the crowds at College Green, despite having travelled to Washington DC in 2009 to see him inaugurated as the first black president of the United States of America.

There might have been a horse outside:

And beauty still struggled out of the rooftops of Camden Street:

The surgery went well, the hospital was left, hopefully permanently, and there was much rejoicing. And slow recovery. I cycled with hundreds of other people around the city as part of Bike Week:

And there was the all-important discovery of Wall & Keogh tea shop in Portobello.

July was an eventful month. Fantastically we saw dolphins swimming near Whiterock Beach at Vico Road in Killiney:

Then there was the skating, BMXing and graffiti of the Kings of Concrete festival at Dublin's Civic Office. The kids these days, what are they like.

To be clear, the lad on the bike has just gone up the ramp and jumped over the four other people sitting calmly at the top.

Alas also in July the pancreatitis came back. And now it'll be there in some form for life. So that wasn't great. But it's so far been mild. And no matter what we'll manage it. There isn't a photo for that, so you'll have to imagine one.

August played out well. My brother played piano, in Dun Laoighaire the Ukulele festival organised by a friend featured the West Cork Ukulele band playing Take On Me, and many good folks played at the Lunasa Games in Leitrim. The Irish Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef went on display at the Green House:

September brought with it the second trip to a place of breathtaking beauty - Venice for the wedding of two of my closest friends. There are hundreds of photos still to be sorted and uploaded from that trip, so this will have to suffice to provide a taste for now:

The city's beauty surpassed by far my assumptions that it might be too crowded, too superficial, too ostentatious, a caricature of its romantic reputation; instead it was a lovely, quiet, working, breathingly beautiful place in which to spend a week. Made much better by the milestone passed in health because The Unfortunately Loyal Boyfriend and I were able to be there together.

October, well October saw the start of Occupy Dame Street. And that was pretty much October done with. And a good October it was too.

I've taken at least 500 photos of this little protest, none can really sum up its importance for or effect on me; perhaps Ill work that out in 2012.

In November Dame Street was just as occupied but was occupying me a little less. What has stayed with me are the good people I've met and worked with there. It's a rare thing to meet a selection of strangers and want to spend so much time with them, and have such a good time doing it.

There was also another wedding of friends, this time in Cork, which meant a mere three visits in 24 hours to Occupy Cork:

December began with World AIDS Day, no photos, but it did motivate me to post some HIV-related photos from years ago. This was closely followed by the Spectacle of Defiance and Hope, an event created by dozens of community and youth groups, which was an energising and inspiring carnival from Dublin Castle to the GPO. And another opportunity to bounce my inflatable globe with hundreds of other people as we danced down O'Connell Street.

Despite a short and not too serious visit to hospital by The Unfortunately Loyal Boyfriend during December, the future looked brighter somehow because I continued one tradition:

Christmas cheese!

And returned to another after an enforced absence last year - the Xmas Swim:

No doubt next year will bring more changes, and some things remaining the same. And hey, perhaps the world will end, in which case no effort will be required on a photographic review of the year next December, or it won't, which will be such a cause for celebration it won't matter too much anyhow. This year any day we were both still alive at the end was counted a success, that's a reasonable metric to be going on with. In photographic and other ways, here's to a light-filled new year.

Street art stroll

2011-12-31T15:03:00.003Z

Street artists and graffiti writers in Dublin and around Ireland have been substantially increasing in number, skill and inventiveness in recent years, and have begun to gain more attention from the mainstream contemporary art world. Having photographed these art forms for at least a decade, it's great to see more beautiful, entertaining and thought-provoking pieces enlivening our streets, with the expansive expertise and finely-honed styles of experienced artists on display close by the enthusiastic developing efforts of those newer to the scene. It's also been encouraging to see the recent growth in interest in graffiti and street art from people of different ages and backgrounds, and to witness the appreciative surprise of friends returning to Dublin after a few years who are impressed by the scope and skill of artworks currently to be seen around the city.

As part of Culture Night on 23rd September, about 100 people took part in a "now legendary" guided tour of street art and graffiti around Dublin, with artists and interested aficionados of all ages in attendance. Props due as ever to The Unfortunately Loyal Boyfriend for finding out about it. The tour featured some street art and graffiti that had been in situ for a few months but mainly focussed on new pieces commissioned for Road Works, part of Dublin Contemporary 2011, a major international contemporary art exhibition that ran in multiple locations in Dublin from 6th September to 31st October. Road Works was a collaboration by Dublin Contemporary in association with Anewspace, an outfit that is hard to adequately describe but which aims to make street art more accessible and available in Ireland. It's an art dealer, exhibition organiser and all-round supporter of graff and street artists here and internationally.

The tour was led by Jonathan Lynn, the main force behind Anewspace, accompanied by Jota Castro, one of the two lead curators of Dublin Contemporary. They were expecting about 30 people to show up so it was entertaining being in a hundred-strong crowd wandering the city, stopping traffic, dodging death on busy streets (pedestrian crossings? Pah!) and attracting bewildered attention as we gathered on footpaths and down narrow lanes, gazing at art works that thousands of daily passersby hadn't noticed. Attendees included possible children who might have been 10 years old and definite adults who approximated 60 years of age, as well as everything in between, with an unexpectedly low ratio of hipsters:everyone else.

The group gathered outside the main Dublin Contemporary location on Earlsfort Terrace in Dublin 2 and as we'd jokingly predicted, the tour immediately headed to Camden Street and its environs, essentially an outdoor gallery that's within a few metres of our flat.

We looked at ADW's dove perched on a dynamite bomb, an excellent work that's not part of the exhibition (and hence illegal), it was painted this spring as a reflection on Middle East tensions.

The tour moved on to the first Road Works piece, part of the Potato Series by JOR (John O'Reilly) which adorns the shuttered door of Green Nineteen restaurant. When there isn't a restauranteur happy to lock in his customers to show it to a passing tour group, it's best viewed before the restaurant opens at 11a.m. This is by the same artist as a potato plant collaborative piece with another artist's text on emigration, which I'd photographed among a lot of great graffiti in the Tivoli carpark earlier in the year.

Onwards we strolled behind Whelan's on Wexford Street to gather in Liberty Lane, a street that hosts a constantly evolving multitude of pieces, some by established artists, others by young up-and-comers trying their hands. Despite being an illegal spot, walls on both sides of the road are completely covered by colourful and humourous (if occasionally rather scatological) works:

Here we entered into a self-referential loop, as I looked at someone looking at us looking at the art through their iPad. Curator Jota (in orange shirt) was just visible while Lynn (in black cap) educated us all.

The relative permanence of work on this street has led people to believe that the ESB has officially sanctioned street art on these walls, but that isn't the case, it's just that the local residents and businesses tolerate and to an extent encourage the exuberant spraying.

Moving on down Cuffe Street, wheelie bins were pulled back to reveal this small Solus:

Part of a series elaborated at the recent Solus solo exhibition in the No Grants Gallery.

A shortcut through Stephen's Green resulted in a rather longer detour due to a locked gate at the northeast corner, making me forget to check whether this over-enthusiastic little piece of tagging on a tree a few years ago was still growing there:

The extra walking proved well worth it when we reached Conor Harrington's fantastic mural on Merrion Court, a gigantic piece right opposite the opulent Department of Finance:

A street artist originally from Cork, Harrington later went to art school and is now based in the U.K. He paints phenomenally good gallery and outdoor pieces, this one commissioned for Road Works, entitled 'Dead Meat' and painted entirely using spraying. Harrington was described by tour guide Lynn as one of the top ten street artists working at the moment, a view certainly supported by the beauty, power and layered meaning of this complex mural.

On the way back past the top of Grafton Street we passed another Dublin Contemporary piece by Katie Holten, not part of Road Works, where the artist has attached hand-painted ceramic tiles in multiple locations around Dublin city centre, at ground level on curbs and steps. This one spelled out 'Why Clouds Make Sounds', a letter on each tile. As we walked by, Lynn commented happily that even though one of the tiles had broken off, the piece hadn't been stolen or damaged, instead the tile had been carefully laid back in place, leaning against the curb. An appreciative glow suffused the crowd. See, in Dublin we respect art, we don't vandalise it. Moments later one of the kids on the tour noticed the loose tile, grabbed it and stuffed it in his bag. Oh well.

Next stop was South William Street, looking up four storeys to see Mark Jenkins' slightly disturbing hooded man sculpture teetering on the edge of the roof. Lynn claimed it was not referencing either suicide or the 9/11 attacks, but I felt it gained power because it evoked a person contemplating the final step into oblivion.

Jenkins creates his sculptures using full body casts and this one was modelled on Lynn himself, so perhaps our tour guide was just nervous to see even a sculpted version of himself apparently about to plunge to his death. That's got to be a little unsettling. Evidently others had the same suicidal interpretation to a somewhat preposterous degree, as the fire brigade were called a few days later and used an extending ladder to "rescue" the "jumper", removing the artwork in the process. Hopefully it was returned. Another Jenkins piece was removed within a few hours of installation, following a report of the "death of an unknown homeless man" – in fact a sculpture of a seated man covered by a hoodie and sleeping bag, placed in the entrance to an abandoned building. Fairly compelling example of the value of street art as social commentary, I'd say.

Next stop was Fade Street, and a series of installations by the collective Prefab, faces and bodies made up on closer inspection of advertising slogans, logos and text. These pieces have a hidden feature that only appears at night when they're photographed. At the count of three everyone's phones and cameras flashed together, causing the portraits to ignite in bright white and seem to leap out of their brick frames.

There are more of Prefab's pictures for Road Works outside the Bernard Shaw pub in Portobello.

Nearby was a large and relatively old piece by James Early, that channelled his love of cycling. It was originally commissioned as a beer advertisement, prompting a brief diatribe from our guide about the influence of commercial, especially alcohol, advertisers on the street art scene. A contentious topic, worthy of more thorough exploration some other time.

Outside the Andrews Lane Theatre, the deliberately retro Maser Rask Sums tags had been joined around the corner by DMC's piece 'Missed Call Girls: her redundant heart'. Quite beautiful.

I noticed a photo of it later featured in The Irish Times culture review of the year, a sign of the increasing popularity of street art.

Another Road Works contribution a few metres away was Will St. Leger's 'One Day I Will Grow Wings', a nicely done piece stuck high up on the wall, depicting a body enclosed cocoon-like by a sleeping bag with angel's wings stretching out, again referencing homelessness and the desire for escape. Usually known as a paste-up, this was an example of a piece pre-prepared essentially as a cutout poster, better suited to its siting on brick which is notoriously unfriendly to spraypaint.

Nearby on Dame Lane was a beautiful tree by JOR. Apparently he'd started with a full tree and gradually painted out the branches to create this skeletal effect.

Further on the tour drew our attention to another difficult-to-spot Jenkins piece 'Blond', a sculpture of a tousled-haired woman taking an impossible step from nothingness onto the roof of a building. Best viewed from in front of the wonderful Why Go Bald? Sign on South Great George's Street near the junction with Dame Street.

In the gathering dark we paused to admire the first piece Conor Harrington had done in Ireland in a long time, a large mural of a cow and a thrown cowboy which he'd painted on Sycamore Street in June. The Lost Heifer? Perhaps. Certainly hinted at Ireland's current economic, political and social troubles. I'd seen it earlier in the year and later revisited it in daylight:

It was getting a bit too dark to properly appreciate the wonderful stag's head by James Early (Input/Out), painted for Road Works on Essex Street East but I went back to to see it a few days later in the sunshine. Really popped off the wall.

We'd lost a few people but gained others by the time the tour hit the two hour mark. Most people barely noticed the Maser/Damien Dempsey piece 'I's Rather Be A Dealer' on Crampton Court as we streamed down the narrow alley into a courtyard alleyway you wouldn't know existed. The tour attracted the attention of residents who opened their windows to see Lynn point out the final piece, another old Maser/Damo work.

As well as pieces I was already familiar with, the tour introduced a lot of work I'd never seen before, including most of the brand new Road Works commissions, and no doubt it likewise opened the eyes of many other attendees. I've found over the years that a large part of appreciating street art is training yourself to notice it in the urban landscape, whether down dark alleys or hiding in plain view. I love the way it makes me see the city differently.

The Road Works installations were documented in a live feed from Anewspace, which posted every 20 minutes when painting was happening, and you can still watch their evolution on the website. There is also a rather stylized map of all the locations, many of which are still in situ now, though you'll have to look hard to find them.

I originally drafted this blog post on 7th October 2011, when new art in Road Works was still appearing every few days. I intended to finish the post the following day, but on 8th October I went down to check out a little event called Occupy Dame Street, which I certainly wasn't going to get involved in and which anyway could surely only last a day, maybe two at most. Nearly 3 months later, Occupy Dame Street is still going strong, it absorbed much of my time (as you can tell from a few related posts) and this post is only getting finished now in a flurry of year-end activity. Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans.

Photos of Road Works street art tour
Anewspace
Liveblog of Anewspace projects
Dublin Contemporary

World Aids Day once again - keep on keeping on

2011-12-01T18:35:00.003Z

The 1st of December means it's World AIDS Day once again. This day to me is a time to celebrate life, to continue the struggle against HIV, to support those living with HIV and AIDS, and to commemorate those around the world who have been died because of AIDS. Wearing a red ribbon, I sometimes greet people with "Happy World AIDS Day" and they look at me strangely, thinking it's an odd thing to appear happy about. And while I wish that we didn't need such a day, I'm glad that globally we continue to acknowledge it, to stand together and not allow silence and discrimination about this disease to overpower us.

No to discrimination, HIV poster, Mozambique, May 2009

Today is about celebrating life and about connecting with the millions of people around the world who are living with HIV, and the millions more who are affected by it, all those who continue to work today and every day to end of the pandemic. Probably I've said all these things before, but sadly, 30 years since the Human Immunodeficiency Virus was first identified, it is still with us, and millions of people die every year because of AIDS-related illnesses. We have no cure, but we can prevent HIV, and we do have treatment. Anti-retroviral drug treatment is finally being made available to about half of those who need it worldwide. A massive increase in just a few years, which many said could not be done and wasn't even worth trying. Yet that change is now saving hundreds of thousands of lives, and has saved over 2 million lives since 1995. Now we have to reach the other half.

Fashion made of condoms, at the International AIDS Conference, Bangkok, Thailand, July 2004

UNAIDS, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS, released a report last week showing that there were 34 million people living with HIV globally at the end of 2010, more people than ever before. In 2010, a total of 1.8 million people died due to AIDS-related illnesses, and another 2.7 million people became newly infected with HIV during the year. These are huge figures, and they should remind us that this fight is far from won.

World AIDS Quilt commemorating some of those who have lost their lives because of AIDS

But there is good news. The number of people living with HIV is greater because people are living longer with the disease, mainly because of the availability of treatment. The annual numbers of deaths and of new infections have decreased substantially compared to when they were at their highest, in 2005 and 1997 respectively. Some media articles have reported only that there have been drops, without mentioning the shockingly huge figures that still remain. Or simply don't report on it at all, because who wants to hear about things getting better, about concerted global efforts actually having a massive positive effect? Who is interested in how years of activism, research, medicine, community involvement, education, political efforts and hard cash have actually saved lives? Perhaps the global climate change talks struggling to make progress right now in South Africa could learn a thing or two.

EZLN, tranvestites and transexuals walking together towards the Zocalo as part of the All Women, All Rights HIV march, Mexico City, August 2008.

For the future, sufficient political commitment, funding, awareness, prevention and treatment could build on this progress and eventually make HIV a thing of the past, but not if we become complacent. Now is the time to eradicate HIV, not to abandon the struggle when we're finally gaining ground. The improvements are things we should celebrate today and learn from, but we cannot forget how enormous the numbers still are, how many millions of people, families and communities are still affected by HIV and AIDS, and how much work is still left to do.

AIDS - it's not over. Mexico City, August 2008

Events in Ireland for World AIDS Day 2011 and next week – including the annual concert at Christchurch tonight at 8p.m., lighting of the Mansion House in red and an exhibition at the Gallery of Photography.

My previous post on World AIDS Day 2009.

An excellent post by Unkie Dave on boomingback.org on the Irish and global HIV situations and the lack of media coverage.

Week 6 gets real at Occupy Dame Street

2011-11-21T02:44:00.001Z

It appears that tomorrow morning the Central Bank of Ireland will seek a Court Order against Occupy Dame Street. What exactly this will be for is not yet clear, whether it is to clear the site completely, remove the newly built kitchen or for some other purpose isn't yet known but will presumably become clear at some time tomorrow. People are worried about eviction, and more people are definitely needed on site - both to stay and to simply work on maintaining the space and taking the movement forward. My own feeling is that not much actually will happen tomorrow, but that remains to be seen when the details are brought out in court tomorrow. Hopefully people can provide support, and ensure that any response remains non-violent and peaceful, true to the principles of the movement.

I was away from the camp for the week, and dropped in briefly only a couple of times. On Monday things seemed somewhat strained in advance of the decision-making General Assembly that evening on whether to join with the Dublin Council of Trade Unions march on 26th November. After giving some intensive, high-speed facilitation training to the only person who was willing and available to facilitate the GA, I had to leave, but apparently the marathon three hour Assembly went relatively respectfully and managed to reach some decision. Ultimately the block was exercised by around 8 people and the final decision was for people to attend the march in personal capacities and that people were welcome to come to Occupied Dame Street afterwards, without banners. People seemed engaged but more worrying earlier in the day was the sense of people being tired and wondering where the movement was headed overall.

I dropped by for a few minutes on Thursday, in time to see the new kitchen under construction.

This had been contentious, with Central Bank employees calling in almost immediately to object and say that it should not go ahead. It's a large wooden structure, so who knows how that is being construed. From Thursday the wait was on to see what would happen.

I also dropped by briefly on Friday and caught Fintan O'Toole speaking - eloquently and inspiringly as usual, if somewhat depressingly seeing as things are always revealed by him as being just that bit worse than you thought/hoped. Have extensive video, still getting it processed and organised, but will be up on Occupy University eventually.

This evening, having seen the news of the court order suddenly appear online, I went down to talk to people and see what was really happening. Essentially the answer is head to court tomorrow, see what's actually being ordered, and then go from there. Specific individuals will be in court to record what's being said, and everyone else is encouraged to come to either the camp or the Four Courts at 9.30a.m. tomorrow to show their support outside. It seems unlikely any further move on foot of what's discussed at court will be made tomorrow, but depending on what the order is, more may happen in the coming days.

Meanwhile major structural changes had taken place at camp, with the tents all moved to one side, the kitchen finished and open space with a pallet fence all around it at the front of camp.

The kitchen had been completed:

And the first shack had been built!

It was somehow discombobulating that some of the earliest tents had moved, making the place feel radically different in just a couple of days.

I just hope people take this opportunity to discuss carefully what they are and are not willing to do. Also if it comes to a direct resistance situation, that people are clear on what non-violent resistance is, in keeping with the movement's principles. Now is a time when we need to be clear on what we are doing this for, what this movement is about, and how we are prepared to act. For me, Occupy Dame Street is about saying we as citizens want to change the political, economic and social system in this country and that we're willing to take a stand and occupy public space to start making that a reality. I want a society and a country that is fair, equal, participatory, transparent, honest and respectful of everyone, one that does not put the demands of the few, in this case the bankers, big businesses and politicians, ahead of the many, the citizens of Ireland and people of the world.

Fiddling Week Five at Occupy Dame Street

2011-11-13T00:21:00.001Z

Wonderful traditional fiddle playing at Occupy Dame Street tonight, using a fiddle that was very amazingly sent over by Occupy Pittsburgh. There were some adventures for a camp member collecting this fiddle from customs yesterday and then a livestreamed 'fiddle off' was held tonight, with fiddleplayers over in Pittsburgh playing away and ours being joined by other traditional musicians on the street.

The videos cannot capture in any way the quality of the music and skill demonstrated for over an hour and a half.

Originally we'd hoped to project the Occupy Pittsburgh livestream here simultaneously, but problems with the generator since yesterday and lack of power meant we could not get the projectors working in the end. Internet hitches delayed the start of the concert but didn't dampen anyone's spirits on an unseasonably mild evening. Meanwhile people from Florida and even further afield were tuning in and commenting on the livestream.

Plus someone at Occupy Pittsburgh tweeted "Occupy Dame Street is OWNING us in this fiddle-off." Irish pride intact.

We got in some Irish dancing (as I tried to recall my primary school and Gaeltacht experiences...ar ais do tri...backwards and forwards...now spin around...hmm). Ungainly, fun and a great evening.

In this pic you can just about see the photo of Occupy Pittsburgh with the fiddle before they sent it from the US, just behind the shoulder of the fiddler on the right, who is playing the Pittsburgh fiddle in Dublin. Demonstrating again that this is a global movement, and we are all connected.

Have been down at the camp most days this week while also getting on with some of the rest of my so-called life. Facilitators group is working pretty well, we did some training on Monday night and have more and more people getting involved with facilitating the General Assemblies which is great. I ended up facilitating three General Assemblies this week though as other folks just weren't available, and three is way too many, both in terms of being tiring and a lot of work, and because it's not a good idea for any one person to be in the same position too much. But we have more people involved now for next week at least. We did have a good General Assembly on consensus and decision-making, which both clarified the consensus process and engendered a pretty good discussion – less contentious than I'd anticipated and no-one advocating for abandoning or even majorly altering the current form of the consensus system that we use here at Occupy Dame Street, at least for now. Maybe when we have 3,000 or 10,000 people coming to General Assembly...We can only hope. More discussion will no doubt take place in future.

Lots more happened during the week including the Carnival for 11/11/11, which featured a fleeting visit by Kristen Hersh of Throwing Muses (cue swooning by the over 30s, not myself though, people were shocked I didn't recognise her). Temper-mental Misselayneous and Third World Records were both excellent, some good reggae and rapping there, and Raven delivered some poetry to much acclaim. We also had an open mike with people saying why they're here, which was really positive and quite emotional, ending perfectly with a young boy aged about 9 or 10 saying 'I'm here because I want a better world.'

And later on there was some meditation for 11/11/11 - yes there are some hippies about. And more power to them.

Occupy Cork had also planned to do some meditating from 11-11.30a.m. For 11/11/11 - apparently everyone not directly involved with the meditation thought it was planned for 24 hours, not half an hour, and were concerned at how they'd keep up the oms for that long...

The march took place today with a few hundred people apparently, and a good public forum style not-quite-General-Assembly afterwards.

Apparently Christy Moore is confirmed to play at 2pm on Monday. And there will be a week of facilitated reflection conversations about Occupy Dame Street at 3pm on Tuesday and Wednesday and 8pm on Thursday.

Didn't have time to post my photos during the week and unusually for me I didn't even download them from my camera. Then my camera went missing last night, ironically not while in the dodgy urban locale of Occupy Dame Street but while I was in the quietly salubrious suburbs having dinner with family. Here's hoping it will show up tomorrow, photos intact. If not you'll just have to imagine everything that happened in week 5.

Lots more photos and videos of 5 weeks of Occupy Dame Street.

Occupy Cork loveliness by the River Lee

2011-11-06T23:11:00.000Z

Strolled up to Occupy Cork on Friday and Saturday and wonderful indeed it was. As exchange visitors from Occupy Dame Street we were very impressed. There was much we admired and many ideas we shared from our experiences as well as many more to take back to Dublin from the People's Republic. Lovely location, with actual actual grass and actual soil, the kind you can actually anchor tents into. Those tents were in straight lines and had a startling innovation tied on to each one - a number by which you could identify it.

Then you could check whether it currently had a resident on the handily located tent registry board.

The camp is sited around a war memorial, which they are in negotiations about, as 11/11/11 is the anniversary of Armistice Day from the First World War, and commemorations are planned, as well as that day happening to be a global day of action for the Occupy movement. Twas good to the see the potted plants. There is also a Hiroshima and Nagasaki memorial at the site.

Their camp is still open plan so anyone interested can walk through it, reaching the sturdily constructed large tarpaulined shelter at the back. This shelter was built by folks who knew what they were at and is fairly secure, though I imagine it is more difficult on windier and rainier days than when we visited. It has a large blue Doric-ish column in the middle which can be easily removed when the winds get too high.

The shelter houses the nicely arranged kitchen on one side.

I guiltily felt this kitchen put Dame Street's somewhat to shame, despite the sterling efforts of the food team, but when I returned the next day the Dublin kitchen had been transformed into a model of order and cleanliness - well done folks. Occupy Cork had an array of condiments (including Hershey's syrup!) for the delectation of its residents and visitors, and plenty of tea and coffee on the go. All the comforts of home (i.e. of Occupied Dublin). They have moved to using crockery and metal cutlery, though they are having to get people to take it off site to wash and then return it, so not ideal.

They have recycling and composting happening.

Nearby under the shelter are a noticeboard with lots of newspaper articles and other info, and the library. There are also whiteboards advertising the day's events.

They generally have more in terms of informational signage - something I'd love to see more of at Occupy Dame Street, it helps people to share knowledge and to engage with what's happening, especially new people who are appearing for the first time, as well as being a crucial communications channel to keep systems functioning.

A sturdy and waterproof sandwich board to dispense leaflets - simple genius.

They have a yurt, but they also have a liferaft:

Seeing as part of the camp is actually on the boardwalk over the River Lee with the water flowing a few feet below it, visible through the boards, perhaps a liferaft isn't such a bad idea.

They've had their share of random entertainment - for example a fleeing inpatient from Cork University Hospital showed up there yesterday morning, IV still stuck in their arm.

Interestingly they mentioned similar issues to the Dublin camp in terms of how to welcome and work with homeless people. They have similar security issues too, with people being on shift for far too long, and generally with participants' burnout. They have had problems with drug users, and dealers, coming on to camp, as has been a problem at Occupy Dame Street, and the less thorny issue of residents occasionally drinking excessively.

Storing and managing money and donations securely is something they've tackled through taking cash off site every day and they've opened a Post Office account, to avoid having a bank account - which would after all hardly be in keeping with a protest against the bailout of banks. Didn't get to attend a General Assembly but their are apparently still quite focussed on internal camp issues and logistics, sometimes tackling policy issues, and often going on for quite a long time. They had a silent protest on Saturday morning with people with tape over their mouths, and had a sit down protest in a bank previously which got a lot of positive media coverage. Lots of enthusiasm and good will from businesses and passersby, lots of people signing up, plenty of music (they too sometimes beat to the sound of the dreaded drumming circle) and lots of folks beeping their horns as they drive by. Lots of similarities, lots of differences, plenty to learn from each other.

Happy (4 week) birthday Occupy Dame Street

2011-11-05T23:59:00.001Z

Today was 4 weeks since the camp set up on Saturday October 8th, a small demonstration that gradually grew with tents starting to pop up on an unusually sunny October afternoon, and now here we are 4 weeks later still in situ, bigger and better and doing lots more, having reached and involved thousands of people. Technically today is 29 days, and Tuesday will be the actual month by date, but today was the day of celebration, and everyone was in great form and having a ball. A big tidy up of the site, transformation of the kitchen, lots of music and dancing, and lots of cake!

Only caught the end of the celebrations because we'd been at Occupy Cork - actually in the People's Republic for a friend's wedding, yet somehow ended up at the wonderful Occupy Cork on the South Mall three times in 24 hours.

Seems like things are going great with a great bunch of people and an excellent set up (and how on earth do they keep it so neat and tidy?) so big ups to everyone there, celebrating 3 weeks today. More to come on Cork later. For now, well done Occupy Dame Street, and here's to the next month.

Week 4 at Occupy Dame Street

2011-11-04T01:08:00.002Z

A week has gone in a moment and yet last Thursday seems an aeon ago. There is much too much to say and I am much too tired to say very much of it. I was away from ODS for the weekend, hard as it is for me and it seems many others to leave, even for a day or two, it just sucks you in. I did manage to fit in a trip to Dublin Contemporary, but with pieces like this one it seemed in tune with Occupy:

I also spent some time at the Presidential election and general bye-election counts, which was definitely interesting and quite inspiring, if limited. Hundreds of people working, thousands of bits of paper, this is what (one form of) democracy looks like:

Then something totally different, a trip to Leitrim and Roscommon and the Hunter's Moon independent and experimental arts and music festival in Carrick on Shannon, interesting, stimulating and slightly crazy (cue Circulus).

One image cannot come close to capturing it but the rest of the images and movies when I eventually post them may give more of an idea.

Then it was back to ODS, re-energised and somewhat rested. The camp is still there now so that seems like a successful week. It's hard to express what has been happening. Last Friday I wasn't present, but there was an apparently very contentious general assembly, partially focussed on a proposal to join with the Enough Campaign for the march the next day, a proposal which did not get consensus and was not passed, and there was no agreement for ODS and the Enough Campaign to hold a joint event, which a number of people were strongly against. The Enough Campaign involves various groups but is largely an initiative of the Socialist Workers Party in Ireland. The march on Saturday was small, about 300-400 people by some accounts, but mainly good humoured. There had been discussion at various General Assemblies during the week about whether to hold this march, considering the lack of time to organise or advertise it, an issue which was raised again this week. Again I wasn't there, but there seems at the end to have been some problems with people producing banners from the Enough Campaign and setting up an information stall close to the camp. These tensions in relation to political parties and involvement, particularly in relation to the SWP, continue to be an issue, and to be debated and discussed at the camp and at General Assembly. My own feeling, not being a member of any political party myself, and valuing the democratic, open and participatory nature of ODS, which is explicitly not affiliated to any political party, is that I'd like it to stay that way, at least for now. I also feel that it is by having a robust, democratic system operating, which is very transparent and respectful of all, and which requires energy, patience, sharing of information and honesty, that we can best hope to maintain these features, ensuring all voices are heard but that no-one's (and no one group's) voices dominate or drown out others. We have to demonstrate democracy in the Occupy movement, at all levels, as best we can - that is how people experience a different way of doing things, a different way for people to work and act together, and that's how together we can realise new possibilities for how we run our economic, social and political systems in this country and globally.

More prosaically, things seemed quiet enough the next day or two despite the antics of a bank holiday Halloween weekend in Dublin city centre, with the costumes, craziness and chaos that entails. When I was back there on Tuesday things were ticking over fairly well although there were few people around. General Assembly had been happening fine - worth remembering that is it often raining and always cold as these are held outside in all weathers. Worryingly that day there was no sign of a camp coordinator on shift and more distressingly the incident log book and coordination folder were missing - a major repository of institutional knowledge for ODS, not to mention contact details for dozens of participants and supporters.

On Wednesday there were pressing practical problems - a lot of tents, sleeping bags, clothes and other items still wet from the tempest of the previous week and getting wetter in the fairly heavy rain of that day. There were too few people around on site and everyone was stretched. I'd gotten a rare phone call asking me to come down and spread the word that more people were needed to cope with the rain. We don't have a way of reaching people that directly - everyone has a few phone numbers, and calls are put up on the website and Facebook, but we don't have a phone list. And what there was was mainly in the coordination folder. I'm still hopeful it will turn up though I looked for it during the last 3 days to no avail. Such is the difficulty of the physical environment and lack of capacity. Despite the difficult conditions and with few people there, a lot had been done to tidy the camp and sort wet things into bags, which we and many others took away to wash and dry.

People had been on security shifts for a long time, and in general there were just not enough people to maintain the camp. There was desperate talk of it all breaking down and not lasting two days, though these low points have been reached before and the camp has outlasted them - tomorrow it'll be in existence 28 days. Not only are more people needed to maintain particularly security and food, but most of all systems have to be created, re-started or maintained that explain clearly what is happening in the camp and with the movement, and give immediate, practical and maintainable ways for people to get involved. This has to include, at least, set meeting times when people can come and get involved, names of people who can be contacted, coordinators in each area to whom new volunteers can go, and rotas, on paper that people can sign up to. These systems have to operate or the majority of the 99% who are not already involved have no way to really participate in the camp itself, and they want to, and those struggling to maintain the camp need them too. Hopefully this can happen more, to everyone's benefit.

We managed to get the facilitator's group meeting regularly again and more facilitation in place for the General Assemblies. Happily more new people came along to the meetings (which are immediately after the 6pm assembly) and started to co-facilitate, and there will be a facilitation training session held next Monday after the 6pm assembly. Those facilitating and taking minutes also committed to getting the minutes of each GA up on the web as quickly as possible, usually the same day, which may sound simple but is a relatively big and time-consuming undertaking in itself. The lack of capacity, people and resources such as computers and reliable internet connections make all of this, like every are, more difficult. I co-facilitated a GA during the week where one man, who has previously physically attacked people, again threatened to become violent, and tried to attack us with a plastic sword before throwing a walkie-talkie which glanced off me. Strangely this didn't bother me that much, though it could have turned ugly, and it actually seemed to increase the number of people willing to volunteer as facilitators after that GA!

We also managed to get the themes for the next two days of GA up on the web in advance so that people can engage more. Today there was approval from GA for what the focus of Saturday's GA will be - the topic of consensus itself, and consensus decision-making, which often attracts attention and is not extremely well understood. And there were many good proposals passed and discussions had during the week at various GAs.

It is continually hard to get more people willing to facilitate, even though sometimes people like to criticise how a particular assembly was managed - this happens with each area, people criticise security approaches but are unwilling to be on security shifts, they don't like the state of the kitchen but aren't willing to work on the food group to clean it up, or they want marches to happen without being willing to work on organising or running them. So it's just a feature of something that is self-run. I'm trying to encourage people to move from saying 'you should do this' (there is no magical 'you', there is only all of us together) to saying 'I'd like this to be done and I'm willing to work on it, does anyone want to join me in doing this?' So the same issues with capacity have continued, or worsened, and during this week reached such a level that they have threatened to bring down the camp itself. It seemed like a low point was passed today though and that things will improve now, in time to celebrate a month of Occupy Dame Street on Saturday. With Occupy Waterford, Cork, Galway, Belfast and Letterkenny now all in situ, a suggestion came from Occupy Waterford to have a moving internet livestream 'programme' for a few hours that would go from camp to camp, highlighting the activities of each camp and with a band playing at each location. Let me suggest the name Rockupy.

There's also talk of a carnival for 11/11/11 the global day of action, as well as lots more artwork, and I hope these positive and celebratory elements will come to the fore once again in the coming week. Difficult as logistica, interpersonal tensions and differences of political or strategic vision can be, this movement is something very positive that is already changing people's lives, and I hope it can continue to improve and really make an impact. There is far more to say, especially about the topics of General Assembly, facilitation and consensus, how things are going with the worldwide Occupy movement, and much more besides, but my own capacity limits must be acknowledged and it's time for bed. Be back after the weekend.

Even more photos of Occupy Dame Street are here

Well into week 3 at Occupy Dame Street

2011-10-27T23:25:00.002+01:00

Three days have passed in a flash it feels like. My efforts to return to the three-weeks-neglected other aspects of my life outside of Occupy Dame Street have had some, rather limited success, and have mainly served to point up just how tired I really am. After some mopping up of my own abode on Monday night, Tuesday was spent dealing with the fallout from the flooding and the insurance company, and also trying to sleep - not very successfully. So wasn't down at Occupy Dame Street that day, apparently missed Michael Franti of Spearhead dropping by. The celebrity spotting has been going on for some time - Kevin Connolly (Eric from Entourage, for those of you who, like me, can't seem to shake an inexplicable liking for this sexist, shallow, unironic, everything-I'm-normally-against yet strangely engaging American fluff television show) passed by a few days ago, expressed support and said he'd come back, and Michael Moore was 'retweeting' Occupy Dame Street last week apparently (Twitter, another thing I'm not keen on - the clue is in its name - but that's another story). To be honest I'm glad that there's been relatively little attention paid to the alt-celebrities who often appear in the protest world - this is a movement of individuals, large masses of them, and about spreading consciousness and change among people from many walks of life, who speak with many accents but one voice. That's something I've really liked about this movement, the opportunity to meet and work alongside so many different people, all with a common purpose, who bring very different life experiences, approaches, hopes and pain to the struggle, and through their willingness to share themselves and be themselves within this, have endlessly enriched my own experience at Occupy Dame Street over the past three weeks. I've learned so much, laughed a lot, cried a little, and immensely valued those connections, and that sense of sharing something important through all our superficial differences continues to impart great joy and power to this movement.

Various things have happened over the last three days. A new kitchen area got built, which great if rather worrying insecurely sheltered, yet again with a large and not very wind- or rain-proof tarp covering it, I did express concern considering the dangerous and abrupt ends of the last couple of efforts at such construction. But it's better than some previous efforts and hopefully the high winds and torrential rains of the last week are now behind us. And Natasha, creator of astonishingly delicious raw chocolate delicacies in her eponymous Living Foods company, came down and sorted out the kitchen properly, which is great.

The yurt was moved, so that the local business owners could retain line of sight from Dame Street to their premises, as promised previously. The yurt is by all accounts very cosy and generally great, for meetings and sleeping. Usually not at the same time, though occasionally meetings have been held around an unconscious protestor, it's a tiring occupation situation.

The re-energised Facilitators' group is meeting regularly after the 6p.m. General Assembly, we put together a standard agenda that can be used for all General Assemblies, to ensure the basics of Occupy Dame Street, hand signals, the working groups etc are all mentioned at every one. It has also ensured that there are facilitators and themes in place for recent General Assemblies, to avoid the situation that does crop up, especially for the 1p.m. meeting, with someone running around five minutes before it's due to start (or five minutes after), trying to come up with a theme and find someone to facilitate. Instead we want to have the themes up online in advance so people can plan their participation as much as possible. Fairly slow going, and we've just gotten to being able to plan one day in advance, but overall progress is being made.

Got to attend some good workshops, one by Patrick Bond yesterday on the IMF, Africa and Ireland, during which people were informing themselves about key personalities using the entertaining medium of playing cards - Iraq's Most Wanted, as actually issued to American soldiers, if I'm not mistaken. Though they could have been the retaliatory cards depicting the rogues' gallery of Cheney, Rumsfeld, Bush et al. Remember them?

There was a really excellent workshop this morning with members of the Travelling community from Tallaght and Clondalkin. Very interesting for them and members of Occupy Dame Street to share experiences, find common ground, debunk myths and start thinking about how we could link further and more concretely together in future. As one Traveller woman put it, we all have hurt, we all have pain, and we all are alike and can share with one another in that regard, to find a place where we find what's common between us, rather than what separates us. The Travellers are an ethnic group in Ireland that is not recognised as such by the State, they have a distinct culture and traditions, and have traditionally lived travelling around the country, unlike the settled community that make up the majority of the population. It was a good discussion, and I hope it'll lead to something more.

On a couple of nights, there were again problems with some people within the camp drinking and becoming aggressive, which is difficult to control and manage but has to be dealt with effectively for the camp to continue to succeed. Hopefully this will continue to improve. There also seemed to be problems with interpersonal (and possibly class-based) conflicts between a few members. Some of this is inevitable, people are under physical and mental pressure almost constantly on some days, and conflicts have to be dealt with, not suppressed. But I hope people can recognise that everyone is under pressure at various points, people have different (and not always compatible) personalities, everyone's contribution may not be immediately clear but that does not mean it does not exist, everyone brings something valuable to the movement. Instead of getting caught up by the differences in our personal histories and the problems the current political, economic and social system has created for each of us, let's remember we are more united by what we share and the changes we hope to see happen, and only together can we move towards those better possibilities.

Photos of Week 3 are here.
And all the photos from Day 1 until now are here.

And then it rained, again - no floods at Occupy Dame Street

2011-10-25T02:31:00.000+01:00

Today it rained. And rained and rained and rained and rained. Torrentially at times. I took a much-needed break from the camp and didn't go there yesterday. I now have the impression a few other people also took Sunday, and Day 16, off. Little did I know there would be an extreme weather warning, with high winds and 70 mm of rain forecast over last night and today. Worried about how the camp was faring I went in today, which I hadn't intended to do and wasn't entirely up to or for, and it was wet wet wet.

I had tooled up in waterproof trousers, jacket and comical polka dot umbrella, and worked outside in the rain for about 2 hours, trying to fix things and also with a few others make a space where a promised 16 foot diameter yurt could go. I got given out to by someone because I'd had the temerity not to be at the camp yesterday. But at least she knew she was getting unreasonably angry and wisely took herself away. It's difficult on everyone, and tempers flare. I came home briefly and headed out again, to dinner and back to camp. The rain gradually let up, the yurt got built, we managed to separate the (small amount of) dry stuff from the (large amount of) wet stuff and salvage what we could. The Gardai admired the yurt. I watched a video on someone's phone of Dundrum Town Centre with water bursting 6 foot high through its glass doors and windows, and laughed quite a bit. Consumerism defeated by nature, but Occupy Dame Street goes on. And from the first time I crossed its threshold the dreaded DTC always seemed to me like an apocalypse waiting to happen. You can almost hear the zombies groan.

At camp there was miscommunication about the domes that were also planned for building this evening, which was a shame. And overall the communication problems and lack of systems that have been plagueing it all week contributed to worse destruction last night and today. But we'll get there. We need way more people to be there and help out and to focus on the basics - shelter, security, warmth, food. Things seemed better when I left, cheerful, no rain, yurt intact, tents moved. I got home and discovered my flat had flooded while I'd been away for those hours trying to help the camp. The irony is too bleak; I'm going to bed.

Another World is Possible - Quinze Jours Occupy Dame Street

2011-10-22T23:58:00.001+01:00

A good day, and a good day to take a break after. We had the second march today, which had been decided by acclaim at the first march last Saturday. That Saturday was also the global day of action, with over a million people on the streets worldwide, whereas this one was solely Occupy Dame Street and people in Ireland marching once again to say 'we want change'. I hoped we'd have a good turnout but there was no way to tell. Happily the attendance looked even bigger than last week, I conservatively estimated 1500 people, RTE put it at 2000.

I'd have liked to go on the march and probably could have, but ended up staying at the camp again to keep an eye on things, feeling the anticipation building, as more and more people arrived, many photographers among them. It also provided the opportunity to inflate the giant globe which I'd had last week but hadn't gotten the time to pump up, it is about 6 foot in diameter. This globe burst while being bounced in the air and then entirely enveloped me in sagging rubber strips at Bangface music festival about two years ago, where many such things are thrown into the crowd for their amusement, I immediately decided to take its dismal carcass home and resuscitate it. My plan was to subtly reintroduce to Occupy the slogan Another World Is Possible, which was so common during the alter-globalisation protests worldwide from 1999 - 2001, and which were the closest thing I've experienced to the people's movement currently sweeping the world. Those protests also emphasized playfulness, theatre, humour and satire - does anyone remember the Carnival for Global Justice in Dublin in 2000 for example? The giant papier mache heads of despised presidents and bankers? The numerous samba bands? Such fun is also present here but strengthening these aspects would certainly enhance all our efforts, and make the protests more entertaining, reaching more people.

Thus, with the help of a few friends, an electric pump and the relative calm before the march arrived we blew up the globe, leading to many puns about global inflation, groans which only worsened when we tied the world to (the gates of) the Central Bank. This large ball also entertained folks at the Burning Man Irish Decompression party a while back, when it burst within seconds, leading to some radical surgery involving duct tape. So, a battered world, much like our own. Inflate it we did, and a hastily chalked sign was affixed, reading indeed Another World Is Possible. Protest forebears, ye are not forgotten.

And then, the march arrived. There were lots of people, lots of signs, lots of photographers, but strangely I didn't feel quite the same energy as last Saturday. There were more chants of We Are - The 99%, more general joyfulness, and it seemed quite a bit bigger than last time. And then, Billy Bragg played. After, for example, linking to Unkie Dave's blog post, he'd come during the week and suggested to us that he play here, which was nice. And play from the back of a truck he did to a very enthusiastic mass of the 99%. And then he led the crowd singing The Internationale, hundreds of fists raised, silhouetted against the hulk of the Central Bank. And that was pretty cool.

At some point someone asked if they could set the world free (from its tether to the bank's gates) and then it bounced over the crowd, beaming its (slightly saggy but effective) message of Another World Is Possible to all and sundry. That was nice too.

Then we had a General Assembly. We'd spent a lot of time trying to thrash out the structure and themes for this particular G.A. over the previous two days, in other assemblies and in meetings, but perhaps unsurprisingly in the end it was mainly made up of dozens of people all getting a chance to share their experiences and views on a multitude of topics. People spoke about the bailouts, austerity measures, communities affected by the financial crisis (and cowboy developers), fracking, the positivity of being at Occupy Dame Street, the IMF, many other things, many informative and well-informed contributions. While there was little possibility for discussion as it was a forum for anyone to speak who wished to, it raised a lot of topics and gave ideas for both future assemblies and more specifically ways in which the movement could go forward. Sustaining what is already there and building what comes next are now the two crucial questions.

I was lucky enough (read: willing when most other folks weren't) to facilitate this G.A. alongside two wonderful women. There are a few other women who are centrally involved in the camp or in Real Democracy Now who have been very important participants in Occupy Dame Street, but it was noticeable how few women got up to speak during the G.A., even following our pleas for more female voices to be heard. I think the involvement of women in this movement is absolutely crucial, and those female voices often bring a different viewpoint and a different tone to the debate. I don't think it's coincidental that the tenor of this movement, with many women involved, and of its meetings and way of organising, is something very different to the 'stand and be shouted at' format of many previous protests and political efforts, which tend to be dominated by and to appeal mainly to young men, at least that's often the case in this country. The positivity, the respect, the search for alternatives, the lack of closed minded-ness and the commitment to real democracy of Occupy are all features that have drawn me to it, and which I think attract and are promoted by the women involved. So sisters, find your voices.

Otherwise there were the same problems at the camp today with people not volunteering or turning up for shifts, people being on security all night, people not respecting the no drink or drugs policy of the camp, general disorganisation and untidiness leading to things getting wrecked or lost, and above all still woefully inadequate systems of communication. I feel Occupy Dame Street has already succeeded enormously, but it is the inability to communicate effectively and have systems in place that enable people to do things and, most importantly, to bring new people in, that could bring it down, sooner rather than later. It is improving, and the lack of any dry, wind-sheltered space in which to even maintain a noticeboard is still a big problem, but I hope the movement, both those camped at the Central Bank and active online, can find ways to resolve these issues. People want to volunteer but there is no-one to help direct them where they're needed, people need relief from working 30 hours straight but there's no way to ensure others take over the responsibilities. I'm doing whatever I can in this regard as are many others but we really need more to keep it going. It is getting better, albeit slowly. We keep saying, it's a learning process, and it is, for everyone. But we really need to start doing our homework, and turning up to class. We can pull together to do something incredible; let's not let the lack of coordination pull us apart.

Two weeks at Occupy Dame Street

2011-10-21T23:30:00.000+01:00

Two fairly productive days, I'm marginally less tired than before but still exhausted. I'm trying to reduce the number of hours I put in at Dame Street though today some of those got replaced by a couple of hours on the computer at home. Typing up fecking minutes of fecking meetings, this gets more like work by the day. But has to be done.

Somehow I ended up facilitating a G.A. two nights ago that somehow, again, became about the issue of political party and/or union literature and flags being appropriate or not to have on the march planned for this Saturday - an issue which has been very contentious here but which I have next to no interest in. Possibly that means it was lucky that I was the one who happened to facilitate it, but it was a long if quite tryingly entertaining hour trying to wrangle the group to an agreement. Good that it was only about whether or not a line about this could be included in the press release about the march, rather than the entirety of the issue itself. The arguing about the line was, rightly, strenuous. Eventually, with the messy, slow and participatory process that is democracy in action, a consensus was reached amid cheers. It does feel good when you get somewhere together - and everyone is cheering, even those who had the earlier objections.

Two good friends had arrived right as this began and I got to have some food and sit down to try and relax with them later on. With only occasional interruptions. I had chosen Sweeney's as the venue so only myself to blame, it's the heated, sheltered second home of many Campers, some of whom went by every few minutes. It was really only as I took a short break from camp business that the full scale of my tiredness hit me, I felt I was mumbling unintelligible inanities and unable to even keep my concentration for long. Got to bed fairly early that night at least - by which I mean after midnight.

Was impressed by a video of Occupy Galway - they built scaffolding! They have waterproof signs! They have a shelter! All within 24 hours. Ah young Padawan, you have learned much, while after 2 whole weeks we are becoming Grand Old Dame Street. It is strange the things that don't seem to take here - like we still don't have a sheltered table that can provide leaflets and information to passersby. And the log books aren't labelled as General Assembly minutes, or Comments book, or Incident log. But then have to remember that the camp never knew it would survive and it is in a very harsh environment with few anchor points, making constructing shelter very difficult. Plus the fact that some people come and go while others who have been here a good while and sort of know how things kind of work are themselves very overloaded. Meanwhile it's great to see the Occupy movement spreading elsewhere in Ireland.

Yesterday evening the legendary Jinx Lennon played, using amplification provided by two megaphones in the absence of a P.A. He played songs such as Houses Everywhere, a laugh as always. I found myself wondering how much the total cost of tickets would have been to see the people who have played here over the last two weeks. Some Campers and friends played guitar under the tarp, a few people piled in out of the light rain, myself included, and that felt like real time off. People here have so many talents and abilities and complex lives that occasionally emerge into the light, or at least into the orangey glow of the perpetually lit Central Bank plaza, and it's good to see. And hear.

Folks from the Camp desperate for a shower came back to ours last night for one, which again seemed entirely normal. Wish I could provide such luxuries for people more. I did wonder what they thought of us having seen our flat, it's like a different world, all of us down there know so little about each other, with none of the usual markers to guide us, of clothes, homes, jobs or even many conversations about the normalities of our lives or what we do. We talk politics, and social change, or else just camp logistics, and it's amazing to engage with people on the basis of what we want to do, or what we think about things, not being afraid to talk about things that seem to matter, immediately. What do you think of this? What could we do about this? How could we make this better? It's so refreshing and it also bonds you to people quickly. But odd when you reveal your 'ordinary' self to people, in a situation where having a shower seems like a novelty.

Yesterday despite being at the camp nearly all day, I managed to miss a friend who had brought a class of students down (because I was across the road typing something up), my brother (because I missed his text) and another friend (because I'd left the camp minutes before, about 10.30p.m. and then encountered him on the road). I did get to show another friend around, which was a real treat because it is quite up her street. She also happens to be visually impaired and in a wheelchair, the camp was proven not exactly accessible but not as inaccessible as I'd expected, which was encouraging. And she's not the only visually impaired knitter to be linked to Occupy Dame Street apparently - definitely an expanding niche.

Today we mainly planned for the march tomorrow. It is exciting anticipating it, though I've no sense of how it'll go or how many people will show up - everyone is hoping for more people than last week, but not having had much time to plan or advertise it, who knows. We just have to wait and see. 2p.m. from the Garden of Remembrance, and Billy Bragg is playing. Which ought to be fun.

We also tried to get more people to volunteer for various shifts - someone worked out it would in theory take 45 people each doing one 4 hour shift a day to fill the tasks that are needed just in coordination, security, food and construction. More passersby and supporters did offer to help in the coming days - the problem is being able to coordinate and direct them, we really don't have enough people, and definitely don't have a system to do that effectively. There needs to be a system that enables and empowers people to get involved, however they can, online, in person, a few minutes, hours or days, and slowly that system is forming, but we've a long way to go.

A man in a suit wanted to help, when I could only locate a broken pencil for him to try and sign up, he asked if stationery was needed, I said yes it definitely would, and he arrived back shortly afterwards with lots of much needed pens, paper and tape. Last night a somewhat drunk actuary who worked on the sixth floor of the Central Bank got into a long conversation with me and a few of us, it was quite entertaining, he and his friends (out on a stag night) stuck around quite a while even though they claimed not to be interested at all in what we were about. He told us to go home, have some hot chocolate and watch TV, we then established that none of us, including him, actually owned a TV. He and his friend (who said he worked directly for European Commissioner of Economic and Monetary Affairs Olli Rehn) both kept saying how what had happened in terms of the crisis in Ireland was obscene and terrible, so perhaps it made them think that maybe it was worth trying to do something about that, even if camping outside his place of work wouldn't be his choice.

It's entertaining, and it's good to have these conversations. I'm very tired, and I'll have to take it much easier after tomorrow, but just talking like this, making these points by and with our very presence, is something worthwhile.

Douze jours Occupy Dame Street

2011-10-19T23:59:00.003+01:00

Took a break from blogging and posting photos yesterday, though not from the camp itself (of course). At least I managed to only spend about 6 hours there so that was probably for the best. Arrived to a very windy general assembly at the side of the Central Bank, the third one to discuss health. There were good points being made by a person who had had depression and other mental health issues himself. It has been noticeable how many people who have suffered with mental health problems or with substance abuse problems have spoken very movingly and constructively at general assemblies, and also some are quite involved with the camp, and it is clearly having a transformative effect on their lives. It has been encouraging watch so many people gain confidence, and gain familiarity with ways of acting such as making decisions by consensus, the respectful conduct of meetings so that people don't speak over each other, and feeling empowered to take the initiative and act on something they want to see done.

Moments after arriving at this general assembly, someone thrust the minutes book into my hands and then vanished. I gave it to someone else but he quickly passed the book, and the buck, back. At the end I gave it to the facilitator, with no-one else around to give it to, and seeing as I was nothing to do with that assembly. Later on the current camp coordinator approached me and asked me for it, and after some brain-racking I was able to point him in the right direction. The question becomes who is responsible for such things. No-one and everyone is, and this is just one of the communication problems the camp has been struggling with, and which have been getting me down for the last two days. Communication mostly becomes a problem regarding important records of what is happening - ensuring that these records are taken, and that they are then effectively communicated later. Especially if those tasked with it for a given meeting aren't around later when those records are required, for example at the next meeting. This is not a criticism of the many individuals involved, it is just that we don't have the systems in place (yet) to make it happen reliably, sometimes at all, and we don't have the time, physical resources like laptops and printers or the continuity in personnel to make it happen, certainly not easily. Much more importantly, we have meetings where we have agreed to keep records, or where people need to brought up to speed on previous meetings, and this has not been happening consistently, or followed up on, so that is very difficult even for people heavily involved with or living at the camp to know what's going on, and pretty impossible for anyone outside the camp. As I said to someone today, this is generally not sinister, it's just ineptitude.

It is a struggle in an outdoor and still quite disorganised environment and interpersonal structure to ensure, for example, that records are taken of meetings and decisions. Because of the disorganisation of the central space previously, which was used for many things from meetings to music and often got trashed, followed by the loss of the central shelter altogether in the storm, we still don't have a space where information can even be displayed so that at least everyone could read it. In the last day or two we reached a stage where some minutes and records are typed up and distributed, and that not broadly. Tonight we started to hope we'd be able to put minutes on-line as well. Yesterday I felt quite disheartened at our continuing inability and slowness around communication. Many times over the past week, issues got discussed, decisions got made but not acted upon, and then almost the same discussion would happen again with next to no awareness of the previous discussion. There was also the secondary problem where issues were identified as areas that needed discussion, and even put on the agenda at meetings, but they were not discussed because the meeting ran out of time or simply didn't address them, and then these issues, which should have passed to the next meeting at the very least, ended up never being never discussed at all. In many cases these turned into problems due to them not being aired or dealt with. The communication problems also lead to things not being purchased for the camp that are needed - for example, the livestream was down for days because there was no internet connection on-site and those responsible didn't realise they could ask for some camp funds to purchase a mobile internet dongle to get it going again. After this was eventually sorted out and the livestream functioning, it appeared that someone had donated a dongle some days ago, but no-one knew about it. It is ironic for a movement that is so saturated with online communication technologies that its actual ability to make and communicate valuable information and decisions is often so poor. There would be numerous similar examples on a daily basis - the lack of knowledge, communication, and empowerment leading to an opaque miasma of inaction instead of powerful and effective action.

Another problem has been around people's actions or lack thereof, which the poor communication worsens. One aspect is people simply not doing much, not volunteering for security and other shifts, so that the burden keeps falling on a few individuals. The second dimension is people not feeling that they can do something or can take action on an area which concerns them and the camp, even though part of direct democracy is engaging and taking action on things that concern you, rather than thinking someone else is going to take care of it for you. The third dimension is people going ahead and taking action, but not considering others, or that further thought may have already gone into it or be needed, so that they undo the good work that others have already done, or they do something about which they know very little so that it ends up ineffective, wasteful or actually dangerous. These problems are all exacerbated by poor communication - people are not properly aware of the shifts and tasks where help is needed and it difficult to check whether people have actually done them; people don't know what tools, resources or other people might be available to help get something done; and finally people do not know what has already been attempted or suggested or discussed, or whether someone else should be directing a particular task. So that was all proving frustrating over the last few days.

I feel that communication and transparent information are essential to democracy, so I found these communication blocks quite problematic as they contradict some of the basic principles of Occupy Dame Street. For me, its direct democratic nature is one of the most important elements of the movement. So I very much wanted it get sorted out and was also frustrated by my own apparent inability to communicate my concerns or to effect change. And by others' apparent lack of interest in these dimensions.

Today I felt more sympathetic to the fact that Occupy Dame Street is gradually moving forward. It's not all going to be done quickly, even things that are pretty important. We are slowly getting better at communicating, keeping records, and communicating those records to ourselves. We're simultaneously getting better at taking action, and ensuring some things happen, a few key activities each day. People are realising that things have been discussed before, or attempts made to fix them before, and that without delaying forever, new action also needs to bring that knowledge to bear. We have fairly effectively had an on-site meeting every day, which has now happened almost every day since we began and is now starting to become regularized to people as something that has to happen daily, no matter what, and the meetings themselves are also going more smoothly and efficiently. Meetings are a communication tool, a way of sharing information, making decisions and building cohesion, and our meetings are starting to reflect these features more. Which aids democracy.

Meanwhile plenty of things happened. Apparently, unbeknownst to myself, two or more people from Occupy Dame Street took a banner from here to where the seven candidates for the Irish presidential election were meeting elsewhere in the city centre, and when some came out, shook hands with Martin McGuinness, a Sinn Fein candidate formerly in the IRA. Last night Mr. McGuinness posted a picture of this on his twitter account. Irrespective of the politics of the candidate involved - which I do not support - my problem with this is that it seemed like a contradiction of our stated principle of not engaging with politicians as politicians, and also questionable in terms of bringing an Occupy Dame Street banner to a different location, which would imply that those with it were in some way 'representing' the movement, which we have repeatedly argued and agreed no-one is. So that was problematic, and put on the agenda for the in-house meeting, but never discussed. This morning, with a courtesy warning last night from one of his staff, another presidential candidate David Norris visited the site. Anyone is entitled to visit the site as an individual, and apparently this was discussed at an emergency in-house meeting last night after the request came in. Despite his assurances that he wouldn't tell the media, oh so surprisingly they were out in force waiting for Mr. Norris that morning, with a number of film and radio crews. This in itself was not much of a problem - again anyone can come, and can film - but I was disappointed by the behaviour of a number of people in the camp, who raised their voices to him, talked over one another and others who wanted to speak, and who effectively dominated the conversation. They did not demonstrate a democratic approach or respect for everyone, or manifest the idea of a leaderless movement. While they no doubt gave a bad impression of the movement, my problem was not with how the media might represent this, or how it would inevitably be used, which cannot be controlled anyhow, but with how people in the movement acted. So that was sad.

However, overall today I felt like some progress was being made, even if it continues to be slow and incomplete. And hopefully that can be enough. This movement can be something great, if it can practise honest and effective communication, overcome the obstacles that direct democracy of necessity erects, and navigate a path that stays true to its principles. To thrive it must expand to directly include more and more people, and developing systems to communicate knowledge is essential if other people are to join in and continually change and enhance the movement. Despite the difficulties and the frustrations, I've learned a great deal, and want to see it thrive. I remain hopeful and excited by the actual existence of this movement, both its specific physical manifestation at a camp in front of the Central Bank of Ireland and the broader and greater importance of the movement and its principles in action worldwide. I'm excited to see how it develops in the coming weeks.

In other news, the Spectacle of Defiance and Hope played yesterday:

One guy showed his mettle by getting a tattoo with the date the occupation started (and he started living here) - now that's commitment:

Today kitchen shelves got built and a lovely dinner was had (well done, we finally have a food coordinator, in fact four of them):

My tarp from Burning Man somehow got put up (by someone else) on the not-very-sturdy temporary shelter in the central space:

Then, I got a different view of the Central Bank from a rooftop nearby during an interview:

Meanwhile, we're planning for the next march, which starts at 2p.m. this Saturday 22nd October at the Garden of Remembrance in Parnell Square and will reach the camp later that afternoon - where Billy Bragg is scheduled to play.

And, last but not least, it didn't rain.

Occupy Dame Street nearly blows away

2011-10-18T01:59:00.000+01:00

Today the camp came close to blowing away. After some recuperation yesterday, but not enough, , I decided not to go in for the on-site meeting but to actually attempt to attend a workshop that I really wanted to go to at 12 noon on Active Non-Violence. I was a bit late but when I arrived it didn't seem to be on, and nothing much was happening. The on-site meeting, again, had not taken place, so communication was faltering. The large patchwork tarpaulin roof was blowing like crazy in the increasing winds, and also seemed to have a lot of holes. People had worked for two days on the roof and it had evidently been put up some time last night when I wasn't there. I don't know anything at all about things like knots, tarpaulins, or making things fast against wind and rain, and therefore I've kept quiet and held on to ropes or tarps when instructed to do so. A few minutes later the wind started to pick up even more. The tarpaulin was looking increasingly dangerous and acting like a gigantic sail pulling at the ropes and poles. Then the wind really turned fierce. People who apparently do know about such things said we had to take down the roof because it was dangerous. Then it starting ripping away at one side and tore off a pole which possibly hit against someone. About 15 or more people all held on to the tarp above our heads to try and avoid it flying away. We quickly decided on a construction (or deconstruction) team of four people who vaguely knew about it, instructed by the only person who had actual festival rigging experience, but unfortunately he had to leave after about 20 minutes. While the rest of us held on to it, the four people cut the cable ties so as to avoid cutting the ropes, which took a while. It was sad considering how much work had gone into it, even if it had been perhaps a bad idea from the get go, but at least most of the tarps emerged intact.

Almost immediately the tarp was down, the tents themselves started blowing away. One almost lifted into the air, apparently unnoticed by anyone, and was grabbed, we then realised that a lot more tents in the camp expansion were also blowing away, two rolling over another two. After securing stuff in the main area I joined others holding onto tents and tying them onto pallets in the expanded camp, it was all crazy. The noise of the flapping tarps and howling winds was intense and it then started raining. What was really annoying was that people had obviously set up their tents without a thought, in some cases without securing them at all, in one case without putting on a roof. And then weren't around to fix them when crisis struck. We managed to secure all the tents by all pulling together as a group, in some cases literally. There was quite a good feeling of togetherness and random passersby also stopped to help grab tents that were literally flying into the air. In the midst of all this an Al Jazeera television crew arrived, and started interviewing people and filming the mayhem.

We had an in-house meeting where to just calm everyone down I suggested a go-round with everyone saying their name and what they liked about Occupy Dame Street. It was inspiring and encouraging hearing everyone talking about how they wanted a change, how much they liked everyone, that they wanted to learn and find out solutions, that they wanted to tackle our financial system. Then we set an agenda, and dealt with the first item, construction ie shelter. People also planned to talk about other items such as food, security, volunteering, rotas, health and safety and creating a registry of who was in the tents. Unfortunately immediately we'd managed to make some decisions about shelter half the people stood up and the meeting broke up in disarray. A few things got sorted and then it began to rain. I ran around covering stuff with tarps. Then it began to lash rain torrentially. Sort of unbelievable cataclysm. I grabbed an umbrella and three of us gathered under it, then another umbrella, then one blew inside out, then we watched the storm overtake the camp, then we took shelter in one of the larger tents. It was unzipped from the inside to reveal two people quietly playing chess on a giant board. Made me laugh. Eventually the rain let up a bit. We cancelled the 1p.m. assembly due to the necessity of trying to hold on to the camp. Damp I took shelter in the pub across the road, the second home for many at the camp. It felt decadent to order tea. The next workshop took place in the pub. Watched the videos of half a million people gathered in Madrid again and reconnected with this being part of a global movement. It was good.

Back at the camp not much had changed. But it had stopped raining. It was damn cold. Some people didn't want to have the 6p.m. assembly due to the weather but others did and eventually we went ahead with it, just as an Australian TV crew arrived with someone who seemed to be a financial whistleblower. It was all a bit confusing, he refused to talk publicly at the assembly (despite having his own TV crew with him) and then vanished before I could get his name. There was a good discussion of ideas and solutions and things people would like to see done. It was damn damn cold.

Someone lit a kelly kettle, burning wood below a conical cylindrical metal kettle that heats water. Genius. At exactly the right moment someone came by and donated two large bags full of brand new scarves, gloves, hats and socks. There was much rejoicing.

Then we finally had an on-site meeting where people could really talk about what was happening. Tempers had flared during the day, people were tired, wet and cold and communication was not going well. But the good thing about having such an emergency to deal with and then the communication problems was that everyone was realising that we really needed systems and needed to actually implement those systems. We'd agreed many of them before - such as a rota system, coordination, food times - but they weren't happening. A good few people all huddled in a large tent and managed to have a good discussion, though it didn't touch on many items. And unfortunately those that were most annoyed didn't go. It was good though and everyone seemed happier with the plans. Here's hoping they happen. The main architect of the giant tarp roof returned and it was discovered that the entire thing could have been taken down very rapidly by just releasing two or three ropes. But again communication breakdown meant that no-one on site when the winds built up actually knew that.

I was determined to do what I'd wanted to do since that morning, which was actually have time to go through the coordination incident book and check for contacts and important info. This was finally possibly at nearly 11p.m. I laughed when I read a note from the previous day - very high winds expected for 12.45p.m. tomorrow, with heavy rain between 2 and 5p.m. We have the knowledge. We're just still learning to use it well. Quite analogous to this entire protest, and its purpose.

Sunday R&R at Occupy Dame Street

2011-10-17T00:18:00.000+01:00

Quiet day today at the camp, at least when I was there up til about 5p.m. The march this coming Saturday 22nd October is now definitely going ahead, it was suggested and enthusiastically agreed at the march yesterday. It'll start at the Garden of Remembrance on Parnell Square at 2p.m.

Also went across to Coolock for a radio programme with Near FM, nice to be travelling around Dublin with a fellow interviewee from the camp who I didn't know 10 days ago. At the radio station gained some valuable experience in how to stop a conversation being dominated by the self-described right-of-centre trouble-stirrer invited on to liven things up. Good roundtable discussion overall and hopefully the two of us from the camp got across the main messages from the Occupy Dame Street statement.

Supposedly I and a good few others were taking time 'off' away from camp today yet we all ended up there for a while nonetheless. Just hard to leave - as another person commented, it really does feel like home. People were tired but seemed to have gotten some reasonable rest yesterday. Folks were continuing to wander up and express interest, take flyers, get talking etc. Muffins and much else were donated. And there was a very nice vibe, very chilled, everyone taking it a bit easier as it was Sunday. Against all odds the 'security' tent of stuff that I'd tidied yesterday had remained tidy for 16 hours while being used continuously. There were plans for a 6p.m. assembly which may have happened after I left. News was circulating about the numbers at over 1500 locations worldwide yesterday for the global democracy day. Another supporter played an incredible video of a glowing sea of 500,000 people gathered last night in Madrid. Wow.

There was a tarp stitching effort - let's call it a workshop, come on, people were learning - going on in the open walking area to the right of the camp, laying out all the tarps as they would fit over the camp, creating new eyelets with duct tape and cable ties. The somewhat ineffective bit of marquee that had been covering the main camp central space had been taken down and grandiose plans involving a latticework of ropes to be tied at intervals to the patchwork of tarps were being effected instead.

Everyone was in good form. A few more tents had appeared overnight and there were about 70-80 people sleeping at the camp last night. A few folks who'd been there since Saturday left for a night at home. The excess of adrenalin over the last nine days has brought me so beyond tiredness that I've been inhabiting some kind of pleasantly altered physical unreality. After getting to bed only after 5a.m. this morning, my body thought it would help matters to wake up at 8a.m. Yay. I have now spent a strange evening in my flat doing unusual things like eating at a table, off plates, with cutlery, while seated on a chair. How weird. Tomorrow, it's onwards with week two. So different to how we felt last Sunday evening, heading into only the second night, giving impromptu legal advice workshops in case the Gardai decided to boot us out early on Monday morning, wondering how long the camp could possibly last. It's already been better than most people had dared hope. Day 10 tomorrow, and sustainability will be the watchword, of people as well as the camp.

Welcome home Occupy Dame Street

2011-10-16T04:53:00.001+01:00

Today was a good day. Today at least a thousand people marched to Occupy Dame Street, and truly occupied the street. Today we'd been there a full week. Today it really reached people. 15th October was the Global Democracy Day of Action internationally and the organisation Real Democracy Now!, one of the main initiators of Occupy Dame Street, had spent the last two months planning a march, in synch with hundreds of other events worldwide. During a general assembly during the week we'd agreed to join with Real Democracy Now! in the march. Originally scheduled to finish at Wolfe Tone Square off Jervis Street, now of course it was planning to finish at the camp. So this was a major event that we'd known about since the start, and it was the week celebration of the occupation. A big day but we didn't know how it would go, things had changed so much since it was planned.

It was a wonderful if slightly strange day, a day we'd been sort of building up to for the last few days but at the same time we weren't entirely sure how to be with it and weren't entirely prepared for it. The camp was expanded even further overnight, and was quiet when I arrived before 11a.m. Last night had been fun, musical and energised, and evidently some Sleepers were crashed out. Yesterday I felt so happy I could have stayed there all night, and coming back felt sort of like home. In the still warm and rain-free morning a few folks debated having an on-site meeting, especially as not that many people were around, and another meeting was going on in the main camp space. It's amazing we manage to do anything considering the space is so ad hoc, small and not protected from the rain, and it's constantly filled with people and random stuff. Meanwhile a talk about alternatives to the EU started at the newly created Universal University space, lined with books, with the couch and chairs pulled around. I've barely attended any talks but those I've heard bits of have been great, and there's another schedule being planned for the coming week.

Eventually we had an on-site meeting with whoever was around. Mainly it had to focus on security, which hadn't worked that well the previous night, with same lads being left on double and triple shifts during the night, and various problems with the typical drunken Friday night city centre crowd. It's a constant difficulty and it's been the practicalities, not the philosophies, that have drained people. The coordination system had also broken down, with no coordinator on during most of the night or that morning. The meeting also had to plan who would stay at the camp while others went to the march. What we did put on the agenda but didn't really deal with was what would actually happen when the march arrived. It was thought that Real Democracy Now! had a plan with speakers and it was to be structured as a social forum. At least everyone got together and the key security issues were sorted, as well as some on food. And we made sure 4000 leaflets were photocopied - people are desperate for information and we could give out many more than we have the capacity to make. It all sounds so mundane but without getting to grips with some of the logistics nothing would really work.

At 1p.m. we had a mini general assembly really just to tell people about the march, which a person from Real Democracy Now talked about. People had been making banners all week and all morning.

There was then a mini-march to the march, as all those planning to attend headed off from the Central Bank, en masse, with 'Occupy Dame Street' and 'We are the 99%' handmade banners. I stayed behind, though in two minds about going. It was eerily quiet and empty at the camp, with a palpable sense of anticipation. There both seemed to be a lot to do and very little. And various things that seemed fairly essential, like ensuring we had a P.A. system, or organising the space in case a large number of people showed up, got half done. But as we keep repeating, it's early days and it's a learning process for everyone. No-one has done this before, and Dublin has never seen something like this before.

In the lull before the storm I went to buy a sandwich. I've found when I leave the camp to do something normal like go for food or to buy something in a shop, I find it hard to decision and even to know how to do 'ordinary life' activities. I started down the street towards one shop, then crossed it to go to another, then thought it was too far away, thought of another cafe, stood motionless on George's Street wrestling with this conundrum, then decided that I didn't want to go too far away or for too long in case by some awful fluke I'd miss the march arriving. So I went into the closest shop and got strange sandwiches of mashed potato, stuffing and cheese, and another with beetroot. I got back, and within minutes the noise of the march could be heard and then the line of it could be seen, stretching fully across Dame Street. As I looked out over the mass of people, it felt like, they've reached where they're meant to be, they've come home.

And then it was here. And it was incredible. There were so many people, so many more than we'd possibly hoped for. A huge cheer went up as the crowd gathered directly in front of the Central Bank, filling the street. Working together a huge group had done this, and I felt really proud to be part of it. Everyone was chanting "We are the 99%", and "All day, all week, Occupy Dame Street." It was brilliant. We all stood wondering at it, standing in and near the camp, looking out at all these people. It could have stayed chanting and cheering there for a long time. Relatively rapidly though the security moved the crowd around to the right of the bank where the P.A. was set up. It appeared there wasn't a very solid plan, and a kind of open mike set in. Most of the initial speakers were at least pretty involved with the event. Helena who had been involved with the talks programme read an excellent piece about the history and importance of the movement, it was both knowledgeable and inspiring.

Various folks were randomly getting up to speak and someone came up and asked if I'd say something, as we needed speakers from the camp, along with Lee who has been speaking frequently and very brilliantly to the media. I wasn't sure whether I should do it but someone had to. None of us really knew quite what to do. After some rather rushed discussion with a few folks I got up and spoke to about one thousand people. Which was nuts. And we were doing the human microphone so I'd say a few words and then most of the crowd would repeat them after me, it was an astonishing experience. The one thing I'd wanted and just about managed to say was "Welcome home, Occupy Dame Street." After a few halting statements off the cuff - funny how it's hard to find the right words when there is the expectant quiet of a street filled with people - I read the Occupy Dame Street statement, which we'd discussed at a general assembly during the week, had a group work on, and then discussed, modified and passed by consensus at another general assembly. Almost a model of the model we aspire to. It was quite amazing reading it and it lasted for a long time, due to the human megaphone. I felt very glad that The Unfortunately Loyal Boyfriend had found out about the demonstration last Saturday and that we'd both gone.

Lots more people spoke, many very powerfully, most without notes, and ultimately the public discussion open mike went on for about an hour and a half. It was great to have that space and that energy. I was so excited and felt quite emotional and could barely take in what people were saying. But the positivity was palpable. At some point I had to leave to deal with logistics and things were quietening down when I was called back. We announced some basics about the camp and had people from the various working groups talk quickly and invite volunteers. We just about wrapped it up about 5pm and the music started booming out, which was great. People were grooving under the Central Bank overhang. It was over and it had just begun.

It looks small but it wasn't.

Then and only then did it start raining, the first real rain of the entire week. If one was of a superstitious frame of mind (and I'm not) one could have said the universe was on our side, and after enjoying sitting out in t-shirts and even getting sunburned during an unheard-of October week, many people were saying just that. March over, within minutes it was lashing. We all piled into the camp, sheltering under the sagging makeshift tarp, with everyone getting soaked, as the rain intensified. We grabbed more tarps and started holding them up ourselves above our heads, making our own roof. Poles from the gazebo - in fact two gazebos mixed together, making it impossible to put them up properly - were used to hold it up, or just our hands. As the tarps moved they sluiced water down on to people, notebooks, food. Ah it was messy but quite fun. Lots of people were photographing this comical scene from the street. After a little while of watching many things getting soaked because they had been left outside during the unseasonbly mild weather, and getting pretty wet, myself and a couple of others suggested that anyone not holding the tarp up move to under the Central Bank canopy. Later I regretted this as it was a lot of fun being packed together in the ridiculous weather, minutes after the high of the crowd at the assembly. We didn't manage much improvement but the rain almost stopped and trusty construction 'group' Richie rigged up another tarp. Some tents, not properly taut as they could not be pegged in, were soaking inside and out. The camp seemed totally different in the wet. But we'll find a way to manage it.

There were millions of people participating in events around the world, maybe a million in Madrid alone. Most passed off without any incidents although the media seemed to focus on the one or two that had problems. Meanwhile in Ireland another campaign had rather obtusely rescheduled a march from last week for an hour before ours today, finishing at government buildings in Kildare Street. Apparently around 100 people attended. Speakers there went on reference the Occupy efforts worldwide, and were covered by Irish media as if they and not us were in fact Occupy Dame Street. Hopefully soon some willingness to work together will be found, and we can focus on what is shared rather than what people like to split over. Meanwhile no mainstream television crews covered this march. Their loss. Michael Moore retweeted (what a word) Occupy Dame Street, so that was pretty cool. And most importantly the independent and citizen media were there in spades.

Afterwards things went almost back to the routine of dealing with minor crises, trying to fill security and coordination rotas, and chatting to interested supporters, but with the emotional and energising euphoria of the afternoon sustaining us all. We didn't have our planned general assembly at 6p.m. as we'd just had the lengthy open mike and so the evening went free form. There was plenty of music, including live bands and freestyling rap, a passing trumpet player and general merriment. I didn't get to hear too much of it but sort of managed a short break when my sister-in-law arrived. Other friends have been calling by all week and I've felt bad as I've barely gotten to speak to any of them. But that's just how it's been. Later we got pizza for everyone as for once hot food wasn't donated by a local restaurant. Music continued for quite a while. By 9.30p.m. it felt much later. It was quiet and somehow satiated, with a great vibe throughout the camp. Town seemed much quieter than last Saturday night.

After hanging out with people quite a bit I decided to finally sort out the misnamed 'security' tent, where basically everything that is donated except food keeps getting thrown. It also houses things that we use daily so it is in chaos all the time. Sleeping bags are mixed up with pliers, flyers and wires, paper plates and art materials are mixed in with extra socks. Last night there was a large drum in it, today it had actually filled up to the roof. Things can't be found when they're needed and are frequently lost entirely. Two hours later I was ridiculously proud of the results:

Quiet but happy I left camp about 1.15a.m. It had been an amazing day. Yes we perhaps could have done more, made more of that moment, had more of a plan for when the march arrived, there are those aspects, but I refer to my earlier statement about early days and learning processes. It was great. Truly amazing to be part of. And the next march will be even bigger. It's astonishing to think about what has happened in this last week: open public discussion twice a day on a busy street in the centre of Dublin, and thousands of people responding positively, getting involved, donating time and resources. It's opened up a conversation that has been absent for too long in this country. And it's made people see, things can be different. And most of all a directly democratically run, non-violent, peaceful camp has been set up and endured in the city centre, practising its principles, demonstrating that another world is possible, another way of living, another way of being, and that it can be positive and educational and fun and fantastically energising. It's hard to believe how normal it seems when it's actually extraordinary. Thank you everyone who has made this happen, which is everyone, from those watching online at home, to those holding a tarp over my head on Dame Street. Thanks for making this a reality. It's good to be home.

Sit down for day 7 - Occupy Dame Street

2011-10-15T03:55:00.000+01:00

Day 7, it doesn't feel like a week, it isn't quite, but last week feels like a lifetime ago. I can't quite believe how my life has transformed, it seems completely normal to get up, have breakfast, and cycle into a makeshift encampment on the main street of my city and spend 8 to 12 to 14 hours there, outdoors, talking with people I barely know anything about and yet feel like I'm sharing something very powerful with. Right now I'm sitting here at 3a.m. with my body aching yet I feel happy, it feels right and that's a good way to be.

Today was a pretty good day, though the Sleepers reported a rough night, with some hassle during the night and then an attempted robbery this morning, foiled by a sprint and flying tackle from one of our curly-headed residents. The massive tidy up of the residents' area that I'd done last night naturally hadn't lasted, probably not even through the night itself, and the so-called security tent, more accurately the donations, random stuff and chaos tent was filled almost to the top in no order whatsoever. We have lots and lots of duct tape, plenty of bedding, ubiquitous cable ties and a strangely enormous number of wet wipes.

There did seem to be endless meetings today - the 11a.m. in house meeting had to be followed by an over the time limit 10 or 15 minutes trying to get the agenda for the general assembly ready, a coordinator meeting while the assembly went on from 1 til 2p.m., a facilitators meeting at 3p.m. which butted straight into a consensus decision-making meeting at 4p.m. with a little break before the 6p.m. general assembly. All a bit messy and the decision-making and structures for the group are still a bit all over the place but that's not that surprising on day 7 of an event? experience? encounter? that is made of individuals coming together rather synchronously and trying to work it all out as a very loose group. Progress is being made. And chess is being played.

Many conversations and such positivity all around. A few people lost the plot last night or in the course of the day but everyone regained their composure fairly promptly. I felt today had two facets, instead of being about the issues or why we're doing all this, it was about trying to make organisational structures function, and it was about emotional lives being lived in the open, in a crowded, crazy campstreet in the middle of the city, interacting with people whose personalities, foibles or approaches to problem-solving may not always be in synch with one's own. Pretty typical group and interpersonal dynamics stuff, along with everyone being tired, overloaded and under much more pressure than they realise. It has been strange to feel the purpose getting less prominence in my experiences with this occupation, and indeed I seem to spend an inordinate amount of time on organisational issues that don't have much to do with what we're struggling for, except for those of direct democracy and consensus decision-making, issues that could apply in an adapted form to many situations and which I'm sure if I bothered to look I could find an Occupation 101 handbook that would provides some guidelines for half of them. But the organic process is a good one and it's good to remind ourselves that it's early days, we're learning, and things are constantly being improved upon. It's not about trying and inevitably failing to make a really great solution work right now, but about doing things a bit better and ensuring they actually happen.

It was great to return to the camp in the morning and see its expansion, as if it had always been there, with another few tents added overnight. More people arrived during the day, at least 10 during the latter part of the night. Some had tents, some only sleeping bags, all were accommodated. There was great music at night, with a generator having finally been hired in the course of the day. We had leaflets to give out though some of the 3000 printed the previous day had either vanished, or more likely, been distributed. Quiet earlier on in the day, the Friday night in town become hectic with plenty of people, but all interested and most very supportive. There was bongo playing (it was always going to happen), music jams, poetry readings when the amp blew, and some good freestyling. I didn't get to sit and enjoy too much of it, and we took a rapid trip to Block T for the final exhibition of Upstart posters, just for a dose of previous life unreality, before returning and having a great evening doing many things around camp.

There were some interventions by the Guards today and tonight, which went basically fine, not involving camp residents. At one point two men came into the central camp area, and were refusing to leave, interacting with a couple of the lads in a way that threatened to escalate. Wearing coordinator hat again I got up to check what was happening, moving people away from the area, clearing the inevitable circle of concerned onlookers etc. A couple of our security came in and were starting to deal with it when three Gardai seemed to metamorphasize out of thin air in the middle of the camp. They had been on the street and seen these guys come in. Within moments some calls of "mike check" had everyone in the camp sitting on the ground while a couple of us remained standing to deal with it. The sitting technique immediately calms any situation, allows everyone to see what is going on, and avoids anyone else becoming embroiled. The three Gardai knew these men, who they said were sound guys, but they were clearly of the opinion that the two men needed to be removed immediately and very rapidly they had them out of the camp with almost no interaction from us. The incident was over and everyone began to cheer. The men and police were gone, I looked around at the whole camp and surrounding area filled with seated quiet people all focussed and together on what was happening, and I felt very proud. Of what we're doing here, of what we're all learning and teaching each other, and of how we are managing to be against all the odds in the harsh immediate, national and global climate.

Occupy Dame Street Day 6 - Expansion!

2011-10-14T03:52:00.000+01:00

Aerial view of the expanded camp

Today we expanded the camp! That was definitely the high point. More people and tents were arriving in the course of the day and towards evening it was decided that it was urgent, and opportune, to expand the camp. The 7.30p.m. in-house meeting focussed exclusively on that, including drawing a map of the camp on the whiteboard laid on the floor, and all poring over it, definitely a situation room situation. Plan was agreed, people went and did it, put up a new windbreak barrier to the left of the existing camp, the camp doubled in size. It was amazing once the windbreak went up, magically the space had been transformed. Then the first tent was carried in, there was much celebration. Soon there were 10, arranged in two lines with military precision. And like that, the camp had almost doubled in size and had advanced around a second side of the Central Bank. Wonderful.

The expansion involved lots of tying of ropes and tarps, and trying to find people who knew knots - few and far between for the iPod generation. Though I did once see a website that had super slow animations of knot-tying. Doesn't seem to be available on the iPhone though. And as the live footage from TV3 last night specified, this is clearly a Mac-only camp - people aren't charging laptops and phones at a nearby friendly flat, they're charging Macbooks, iPads and iPhones. And during the dayThe Unfortunately Loyal Boyfriend got compared (in a good way) to Steve Jobs.

Overall it was a long day but a good one. The lowest point for me was after the in-house meeting, which no-one had been willing to volunteer to facilitate so I ended up doing it. It went generally well but there were a few difficult points, particularly with fairly valid but poorly directed criticism from one person and a rather odd criticism from another. I'm no expert facilitator and certainly being very tired didn't help, plus having a meeting stretching over an hour and 40 minutes, where some people wanted to stop talking and others wanted to keep talking, apparently indefinitely, even as we got to within minutes of the general assembly having to start. Frankly we're all new to this and just do the best we can, but I didn't feel that I was being given that understanding or simple support and coming out of the meeting I felt exhausted. I stood on the concrete and felt like just walking away. Tired and emotional was definitely starting to kick in. But I didn't walk away, these kind of swings and roundabouts are all part of the process, and I did some other things and mainly forgot about it later.

Serious jazz hands at 1p.m.

Meanwhile we had the 1p.m. assembly, which was facilitated very well by The Unfortunately Loyal Boyfriend, with good discussion if not quite on topic. There wasn't too much media around, though quite a few independent radio journalists. I did half a security shift, mainly because I was seriously worried about a fellow protestor having a heart attack if he continued to stand on security. He'd already spent a night in hospital earlier in the week due to heart problems, and had returned from the hospital directly to the camp. Such are the concerns you form for people you didn't know a week ago. And on reflection perhaps quite an emotional day. The weather continued amazingly mild and rain-free, as it has been throughout, bizarre but wonderful for October in Dublin.

Legal workshop with mounted Garda escort

Managing to get 3000 leaflets printed was a major achievement. Listening to a man give a very well-informed workshop on legal rights while mounted Gardai watched from their horses was amusing. The miscommunication, eventually resolved, around the 6p.m. general assembly I won't even go into. But it got sorted in the end. Later tidied up the place around the residents' chill out space, which made me feel a lot better. Friends called down and the Gramophone Disco sent out some tunes, as the banner-making went on into the night, and people continued to stream by. I settled a blind homeless woman and her guide dog and her sighted friend with his guide puppy-in-training into a donated tent, as accessible as possible in the newly expanded camp, and thought, Occupy Dame Street is doing something no-one else in Ireland is doing. And it's great. Tonight got to talk more with people about what this is about, and I found myself thinking, it is already a success, it has already achieved so much, simply providing a forum where hundreds of people are discussing important topics together, publicly, openly, creating the kind of real debate that is often lacking, and learning so much from each other. Saying, it's time for something different. Tomorrow we'll have to get ready for Saturday, for a march in town that will end at Dame Street, and for potentially dozens or hundreds of people to camp here. As was emphasized repeatedly today, to everyone out there, come, bring a tent. You are the 99%.

Still only day 5 of Occupy Dame Street

2011-10-13T02:04:00.000+01:00

Another good, and different, day occupying Dame Street. Another 12 hours or so in our second home. On arrival about noon most residents were up and active, and it was clear that people had gotten some serious sleep. One reminisced about the joy of having slept for 12 hours and many others had gotten a good night's sleep. A big contrast to yesterday at 12 noon when many people were still asleep or barely conscious, there were 3 camera crews on site and only about 5 people conscious to talk to them.

Shift coordinator system still in place though some were finding it a struggle to know what they were at least in theory meant to be doing. Security was a bit stretched, the limits of having about 30-50 people staying there beginning to show. As one person who has done many shifts looking out for the camp calculated, 4 hours shifts of at least 4 people each means in 24 hours you need 24 people just to run security, and that is too much of a burden on those staying.

Today I hoped to chill out a bit, not take any direct responsibilites on and actually get a chance to talk to people more about the issues. Essentially just be at the camp and help out in whatever way was possible. I found however that people kept asking me things like about media, organising security, what should be on the agenda for the general assembly, various organisational things which over the course of the day became a bit tiring. This was partially my own doing and partially just happened from other people. This kind of thing is pretty inevitable in a movement where we are all doing everything, and happily no one is directly responsible for anything or 'in charge', which is brilliant and a major strength of the whole endeavour, everyone wants reassurance from others about things that none of us really have a clue about, we all have to learn as we go. So we do the best we can and as I tried to remember, this is only day 5, and we're all new to this, indeed this is a new thing for Dublin.

Some work had been done overnight to organise the internal camp space, to provide a somewhat private space for those camping there. This seemed to help with focus and having some space to chill out or talk more seriously. Obviously random people would still come in and I am filled with admiration for how those who are there 24/7 deal with being surrounded by people, especially strangers, almost all the time. Not to mention the traffic on the extremely busy street which someone said had become, after 4 nights, like the soothing sound of a river - though there were slightly gritted teeth when he said it.

1p.m. assembly went fairly well, much needed more thorough discussion about relationships with political parties and with trade unions. There was an interesting point in the process when a proposal about how to relate with political parties didn't reach consensus, and some in the group wanted to rush to counting those who agreed, as if we had a majority vote system. It was pointed out that we currently still have a consensus decision making system, and if consensus can't be reached in a reasonable timeframe and something still requires discussion, then it is moved as 'pending' to a later meeting or general assembly. This was then done, with the two motions concerning political parties and trade unions to be discussed further at the 6p.m. general assembly, but unfortunately this was forgotten at the later general assembly which focussed on different issues. But it's a learning process.

The meetings were moved outside the immediate camp area, off to one side, which seemed to work quite well. Though it can create a security hassle trying to monitor the camp with so many people outside. The series of workshops seemed to go very well. I caught some of Gavin Titley's workshop which was very interesting. And great to have the academic presence and a lot of learning being shared.

There had been many offers to do photocopying but during the day we still had no copies of the press release to give out, the agreed statement coming from the camp. I had some fruitless conversations with a printer across the road who said that as the Central Bank was one of their main customers they couldn't donate any copying for us. I later had a surreal, lengthy but lovely encounter with an elderly copy-shop owner around the corner who did the copying for half price and spent a long time getting the pages to print 4 to a page in such a way that they could be cut properly, eventually resorting to the tried and tested method of scissors and Tippex. You can facebook all you like but sometimes you have to cut it old school. Simultaneously the other photocopies made good on their promises so we eventually had somewhere around 1500 leaflets to give out.

We had a short organisational meeting which most people didn't want to have even though everyone wants the issues to be sorted out, it's alway a conundrum, you want things to run smoothly but it's hard to do the work to make that happen. Meanwhile TV3 were filming live from the camp, having been a little trepidatious about how they might spin the story it was actually a great piece, sympathetic, encouraging, intelligent and generally accurate (well kind of). Then the music started which was brilliant. A really good trad band played first, followed by The Mighty Stef who was also great even if the first song of his I caught seemed to be called 'We want blood'. We'll let the non-violent vibe cope with that. Then there was a general jam and singalong which was really great, including a spontaneous blues riff with call and response from the whole crowd, led by a young bloke who'd never done anything like that before but just went for it. And there is a really strong and really amazing spirit at this place, we sat talking about how we didn't know each other 5 days ago, and how sound people are, in very different ways, and how you feel like you can spend a lot of time with these people, strangely enough. There is a quite amazingly special vibe. It is extremely positive and fun. It's very tiring being there but simultaneously energising. But right now it's close to 2a.m. Again. And time for bed. I go to bed thinking of the best quote of the day, from a facilitator at the assembly: "It's actually great craic having a revolution."

Two things:
Unkie Dave's amazing (and humourous) blog posts are really worth reading for a day by day account of the camp, if I haven't linked to them before go and check them out now.

I have included some videos in my Flickr stream, such as this one showing the human megaphone in action from the start of the demonstration on Saturday afternoon:

And this one showing the national debt clock projection onto the Central Bank on Sunday night:

Day 4 Occupy Dame Street - getting (more) organised

2011-10-12T00:42:00.001+01:00

The camp reached the three day mark at 2pm today, it was nice to announce this at the end of the 1p.m. assembly, to much cheering. The camp is settling in and the residents getting more organised. Naturally also coming up against the limitations of its initial setup and the change from being pleasantly surprised that it had lasted even a day to moving to implement some structures that can help sustain it. I felt like I learned a lot about the practicalities and logistics of such a action, some that would be specific to this setting and some applicable in others. And many decisions made very consensually and with good listening, as well as a great deal of learning by doing. We had an in-house on-site meeting last night which was a much needed innovation, to get everyone who is staying there or heavily involved in support to discuss logistical issues for the sustainability of the camp. With some good chairing from an experienced supporter and good input from those currently undertaking different tasks we decided to implement some new systems.

Security has already been operating constantly throughout the day and night since the camp began, people posted to watch over the camp at all times, keeping dangers away, deterring robbery, handling any difficult situations before they go out of control, using soft tactics to enforce the no alcohol rule, etc. These people have done a sterling job and there have been remarkably few incidents for such a city centre location, with hundreds of (often very drunk) people passing by hourly. We changed the security arrangement from one that rotated once an hour, with two sets of 6 people changing every hour for 12 hours, which the security team had put in place first but felt was completely wiping them out, to simple 4 hour shifts, with 4-6 people on at a time. I have to admit that while I thought about security a little bit, I didn't realise just how important it is, especially for a camp like this in this spot.

We also decided to implement a changing camp coordinator, who is also on, with an assistant coordinator, for 4 hours at a time. This person holds the all important 'book of hours' containing contact details, incident logs, rota of coordinators and security, notes on those offering support, media requests and many other important pieces of info besides. For their 4 hour shift the coordinator is the point person at the camp, who has an overview of what is going on, is responsible for keeping the book safe, and to whom all major requests can be directed, if they can't be handled by others or if they need to be written down. All this information is thus held for the camp and it avoids duplication or things being lost on scraps of paper or forgotten in the general chaos.

Considering we came up with this system at about 9p.m. and then implemented it, it had been running extremely well by the time I came in at 12 noon today to take a shift. Quite crazy immediately seeing as RTE 1, Primetime on RTE, and TV3 were all there with their TV cameras simultaneously. All did interviews with various camp residents and the later coverage on the 6-1 News and Primetime was reasonable and quite measured.

Press release at the 6p.m. general assembly

We also had to organise for the 1p.m. general assembly which I ended up co-facilitating. It was relatively painless, especially as it was conducted from the comfort of a couch. At that meeting the media team presented the new wording of the updated press release, which was very powerful, even if I don't agree with every dimension of it, it was a very good expression of the initial goals and reasons for the camp. After some discussion it was approved by consensus.

We also brought the new shift system to the general assembly for their approval which it met unanimously. There had been a initial tinkle of concern because very importantly this is a leaderless democratic movement and wants to remain so, but once it was made clear that the shift coordinator is not in any way a leader but only a temporary logistical organiser, who helps but does not represent the group as a whole, and who anyway is rotating every 4 hours, everyone was behind the new system. It seemed to work extremely well in its first 24 hours.

Lots of other things happened, including the first series of workshops (announcing and meeting the speakers of which was another coordinator job). The workshops seemed to go very well, covering topics such as radical media, the history of the Central Bank and anarchism in Ireland (rather than the advertised talk on the Irish Financial Services Centre as a tax haven), and social credit as an alternative to currencies.

Radical Media workshop in process

After the many requests, questions, offers of support, fielding of media and writing down of contact details, as well as regular checking on security and the general state of the camp, with pretty much not a moment's break, when I completed the handover to the next two coordinators more than 4 hours later I was pretty tired. Analysing my state of mind in a precious 45 minutes break away from the camp, I realised that the main problem was that it felt a bit too much like work. Which I'm not too keen to plunge into. But we'll see how it feels in the coming days. I certainly learnt a lot. And it feels really right to be on Dame Street doing this.

Banner making

The 6p.m. general assembly was extremely well attended and an American speaker whose name I didn't catch but should probably know spoke about the Occupy Wall Street movement spawning sister actions across the world. I haven't looked into exactly how many places already have occupations, which embarrassingly the TV3 reporter asked me about, though happily not on air. My impression has been that there was a call out in about 600 locations to start on occupation on Saturday, some think there are now over 1000 worldwide, and the largest figure for America alone is about 1200. But the realistic one is probably closer to 100 cities actually occupied in the US as of today, according to Occupy Together which collates this info, with, impressively, Dublin listed as one of just 5 cities occupied around the world, the others being Brussels, Toronto, Manchester and Copenhagen. The problem with the other, much larger figures is that they include places where meetings have happened, which are planning or thinking about having an action, as opposed to those already happening. But I'll have to look into this much more to get any kind of fix on it.

Another good in-house meeting this evening which turned the worries about crucial issues of food and shelter, overlaid with tiredness, into immediate action. It also built cohesiveness and solidified a feeling that this is a long-term effort, and something that might become very big. And even if it ends soon, these 4 days have done so much. Meanwhile elsewhere in the city the 'troika' of the EU (European Union), ECB (European Central Bank) and IMF (International Monetary Fund) were in town today, possibly in the very building of the Central Bank hulking over the small collection of tents. As Primetime on Irish national television put it this evening, running footage of the visiting powers interspersed with footage from the camp, what more than their visit could underline how entirely Ireland has lost its economic sovereignty. But unlike many folks at the camp today, hoarse after 4 days talking in the cold and damp, Ireland hasn't lost its voice.

Occupy Dame Street updated press release, 11th October 2011.
Www.occupydamestreet.org updated website.

Over the 48 hour hump at Occupy Dame Street

2011-10-11T02:30:00.001+01:00

It is amazing to participate in this. Just came home, realised I spent around 11 hours at the camp today. Didn't seem that long. What's bizarre is that sometime during the first day I stopped really noticing the fact that it is on a main street, filled with people and cars, in an open square in the middle of our capital city. It seems entirely normal to be in a self-run, ad hoc space of tents and a tarp, camped out on concrete in the middle of a square in Temple Bar, which is the most touristy area of the city, and underneath the massive office block of the Central Bank. I've become entirely focussed on the camp space and forget that others are on the outside looking in, wondering what on earth is happening, and going about their normal business in town. In a matter of a couple of days this has become my reality, and I'd imagine it's the same for many in the camp.

We passed the 48 hour mark today and it was a subtle but significant milestone for Occupy Dame Street. The feeling and focus naturally changed to one of organisation and sustainability, moving from a situation of just getting here and trying to stay, wondering if we'd be confronted or pressured to leave, to thinking ahead to how things need to be done to keep the camp going, organise practicalities for those staying here, and also getting the word out. Once it was Monday morning and it was clear that the Gardai were not going to move in to move us on, things were more relaxed and almost seemed to take on a sense of permanence.

There are now two General Assemblies every day at 1p.m. and 6p.m. These are open to everyone to come along and hear more about what's happening, discuss the purpose and vision of the occupation and to have anyone who wants to make a point do so. Today's had 50 to 60 people at each, with many more stopping by briefly to check it out. It felt like a small but useful contribution to have printed up a few hundred leaflets and they were eagerly taken by passersby and indeed people at the camp itself. The text was simply that of last week's press release issued by those who originally made the call to occupy Dame Street, with contact details, as the group hasn't yet had much time to discuss and agree a new text that outlines its diverse views. After 48 hours this is normal, considering that part of the point of the movement is that it is leaderless and open to everyone, and not about taking a specific stance or prescribing narrow solutions, particularly not at such an early stage. Possibilities for an updated press release were discussed first at the general assembly and the media working group was delegated to work on this and present something back to the assembly tomorrow.

Arrived in the morning with hot coffees for the Sleepers who had spent the night. Was cheered by the arrival of four "robbers" from Cork identically dressed in masks, striped shirts, black trousers and little black caps, each emblazoned across the chest with NAMA, ECB, IMF and Govt and toting bags of tax swag. More clowning around and general tomfoolery to liven up the camp would be great. People have been coming in from all over Ireland to camp here, including Clare, Cork, Kerry and Galway, as well as various European countries.

Later in the day and well into the evening the working groups were in full swing. The food group arrived at about 8p.m. with an array of hot food for everyone donated by a local restaurant, they also sorted out the tent full of food and supplies which have been donated over the last two days. The construction group rigged up another tarp over the central area, as the existing one had come perilously close to blowing away, and also put up a much needed fence of tarp and rope on the other side of the camp, making it more self contained. The person in the serious-workman Snickers trousers who called by in the morning made good on his promise to deliver cable ties, rope, blocks and other supplies. The media team met for something close to three hours to hammer out the new press release, finding time in between to project again onto the Central Bank. As well as the many mainstream media pieces that appeared today, the protest was featured on dozens of blog posts, Flick photostreams, YouTube videos and even made it onto ABC News in the U.S.

Following the general assembly a small in-house meeting for those staying discussed issues such as coordination, security and avoiding burn-out. It was great to see how quickly things have come together and how people have moved to a position of planning for the future of the camp. Also how respectful and consensual the process was, and how there was a sense that there is a shared purpose and vision, one that is inclusive, non-violent and standing up for the 99%.

A shift system was agreed upon including having one person act as coordinator or central point person for the camp during each shift, and having security shifts. I spent a good bit of time assisting the first shift coordinator with determining what the key tasks of the coordinator would be - essentially the job of defining her job. While dealing with the multiple incidents and mini-crises that would arise every few minutes. Almost as if we were a chaotically organised collection of tents, banners and tired protestors right beside a busy urban thoroughfare.

Hundreds of people continued to walk past on Dame Street asking about the camp and many stopped to have longer conversations and express their support. People would rush over, blurt out something along the lines of, "It's so great what youse are doing, at last we're standing up and doing something, I wanted to say I'm sorry I can't stay the night but I'm with you!" This was often accompanied by pressing cash into the hands of those most involved, to be put in the kitty to support the camp. Others literally ran up, embarrassedly thrusting blankets, sleeping bag, duct tape, a couple of hot pizzas, you name it, at someone, muttering, "I just wanted to support you" before they would dash off back into the crowd and up the street. People were actually actively apologetic that they couldn't leave their jobs, families or courses to camp here, which just shows that the protest really is tapping into a shared feeling by many in Irish society who are unhappy with the current situation and are now delighted to see a stand being taken. All in all a good day, seems like here for the long haul. I'm very tired and unable to muster anything but factual non-sequiturs, so it's time to sleep.

Photos of just Days 2 and 3 are here.
The full photos of the occupation since Saturday are here.

Day 3 at Occupy Dame Street

2011-10-10T17:17:00.006+01:00

Some Government, ECB and NAMA "thieves" from Cork with their swag outside the Central Bank
Still going strong. Good group of probably 30 or more continuing to camp, with new people arriving while others who have been there since Saturday having to leave for work today. Very large numbers of people interested, cars tooting their horns as they drive past, hundreds of people coming up expressing support and enquiring. Restaurants donating hot food, a building supplies man came by earlier to find out what was needed and promised to drop off donated supplies later, camping shop giving tents and sleeping bags. Among the items donated by passersby today - duct tape, a box of Barry's tea, photocopied and laminated posters, hot coffee and muffins.

General assembly meeting at 1p.m. interesting and lots of people spoke. Printed up copies of the original press release from last week as it's an agreed statement, passersby were eagerly reading it. Gave out close to 400 copies in less than an hour.

Some fear-mongering last night that the police were going to arrive at 6a.m. this morning to evict everyone. Instead the Gardai who dropped around later this morning to say hello laughed at the idea that "riot cops" would be interested, and certainly not at 6a.m. Enormous amount of mainstream media presence today; RTE were there three times, Evening Herald, Irish Times. So it'll hopefully start reaching more people. Now that the camp has remained there into Monday morning looks promising that it will not be moved on.

Occupy Dame Street the second night

2011-10-09T23:54:00.001+01:00

Was just there for a few more hours, good to see still going strong. I was struck by how brave people are, taking a stand, and risking a lot for it. This event is just part of the ongoing conversation we desperately need to have in this country, but it is a great piece of that discussion. And those involved, particularly those staying and camping out overnight, really deserve our respect and appreciation.

They finally got the projector going and projected the Irish national debt figure onto the Central Bank. Good place for it. It does make your head spin watching the figure go up and up, faster than every second. And then there's the amount owed by each Irish person - 24,242 euro each, including every newborn baby.

A quite amazing 34 hours so far. Even they are not able to stay physically there for long, and I hope they will be able to remain, this action has still changed how our Irish story goes. Long may it continue.

Occupy Dame Street Day 2

2011-10-09T20:25:00.001+01:00

At least 50 people camped overnight last night on Dame Street. Around 100 were participating or watching the General Assembly meeting today at 3p.m. About a dozen large and small tents in situ plus a central sheltered area.

Wasn't too worried we'd be late for the General Assembly meeting at Occupy Dame Street, scheduled to start at 12 noon. We arrived about 1pm and 20 minutes later realised the meeting we were in was an organisational one that had clearly been going on for some time, and the GA had not yet started. Various sub-groups had been set up for food, construction, media, security, health and coordination. Yes kids, protest does involve a lot of meetings.

A number of those most involved had not slept at all during the night though things had been fairly quiet given it was a Saturday night in town. In other words, when we left past 4a.m. there were still hundreds of drunk confused people stopping at the camp who needed to be talked to or fended off. Many of them very positive and supportive and indeed a number of passersby had stayed to support the protest. A couple of minor incidents during the early morning hours apparently but nothing at all serious and Gardai (the Irish police) who had called by in the morning were also happy. In fact they had said that the protestors should call them if they had problems with someone causing trouble. Whether or not the police should be involved at any stage became a subject of (at this stage solely theoretical) debate later in the day, though friendly relations are being maintained from both sides. Gardai have been saying they don't have a problem with the occupation as long as it stays non-violent and doesn't obstruct access to the Central Bank or the pavement.

Meetings were going well if with the usual slowness that consensus decision-making requires to ensure everyone who needs to be heard is heard and that decisions are truly agreed. It was heartening to see dozens of people learning to use non-verbal consensus hand signals and everyone, in the main, quietly listening to one another. During the general assembly there were discussions that began with the immortal line "we need to decide how we make decisions." But in fact that is an early and important decision that has to be made in a free form, non-hierarchical group. The discussion centred on whether every decision would have to be unanimous (by which was probably meant consensual, they're not quite the same in terms of process) or whether some could be by majority. Those who seemed impatient to sort it out by a show of hands seemed not to realise that a show of hands in itself would be a decision by majority, and thus answering its own question. Ultimately it seemed that the group would aim for consensus, and possibly leave issues where a decision couldn't be reached as 'pending', though there was no definite outcome of this discussion. It did appear that most people wanted a fairly unanimous approach if possible to major issues, and if necessary organisational issues or day to day minutiae could be answered by majority or by those more directly involved. A Garda stopped by at one point and seemed bemused to see the protestors deep into a highly bureaucratic meeting. Perhaps not the threat or the hippies he was expecting.

Had a good time helping put up tie ropes to anchor tents to and a canvas 'wall' that marks one edge of the camp and also marks the pathway to the gate of the Central Bank. It's important that no-one is obstructed getting into or out of work there, which could be cause to shut down the camp. Though they don't really need a reason to shut it down, happily so far the police have said they're ok with it continuing, apparently. The issue of whether the square where the camp is located is on public or private land - it has been mentioned it may be private land - may be relevant. Another test may come tomorrow morning as people head into work on Monday.

A key issue is tents blowing away, last night's marquee blew apart early this morning. Guy ropes are snapping and tents billowing in quite high winds, and there are only a few points on the square to anchor it to. More heavy weights, bricks and the like are needed.

The policy of strictly no drugs or alcohol anywhere in the camp was reiterated to general acclaim, and everyone there seems completely committed to that. So far the policy has gone well and hopefully will continue. Likewise the non-violent nature of the protest is also clear. While it is not affiliated to any political party, another aspect that participants are keen to maintain, there was discussion about whether the action is political, many feeling it definitely is a political act. It was agreed that it is political but not to be hijacked by any organisation or party, which also means no banners or material from such groups. Perhaps the difference is that it is political with a small p, of people taking action and democracy, rather than the capital P Political of established parties and campaigns.

Image of Big P Political presidential candidate overlooking small p politics in action

Unexpectedly met many friends during the course of the afternoon, and it it's also great to see so many people there who are new to protesting. Come along, bring a tent, or just lend your support by showing up for a while. By showing up, express your dissent to what is currently being down politically and economically in our name. Start a conversation. There are alternatives, and we can create them.

Occupy Dame Street still going strong

2011-10-09T05:15:00.000+01:00

14 hours in and Occupy Dame Street is settling in for the night. Down there until 4a.m. and there were at least a dozen small tents, two large ones, a marquee and a lot of people, both staying and supporting. As well as many drunken inquisitive passersby.

More photos and video here.

More info in the previous post.

Occupy Dame Street begins

2011-10-08T23:33:00.002+01:00

Today a group of protestors and a lot of supporters began to occupy a space outside the Central Bank of Ireland on Dame Street in Dublin city centre. I was there from 2pm, when there were 30-50 people gathering.

Tents have been set up and people are settling in for the long haul, or at least as long as they can without getting evicted. It is still going on now at 11pm. During the afternoon many people spoke spontaneously, using the 'human megaphone' technique to amplify their words - to do this a group of people repeated in chorus the words a speaker said, in small phrases, so that a large crowd could all hear it. The crowd quickly grew to over 100.

In their own words:
"#OccupyDameStreet is one of dozens of sister occupations in the current movement initiated by Occupy Wall Street (occupywallst.org). This is a peoples initiative unaffiliated to any political parties. Like OWS, this is a "leaderless resistance movement" with people of many nationalities, backgrounds, genders and political persuasions. We will utilise tactics of non-violence and civil disobedience, akin to scenes of peaceful resistance in Tahrir Square during the Egyptian Uprising - part of the wider Arab Spring.

Now is the time for the spirit of the revolt in Tahrir Square to spread to other major cities and financial districts around the world. It is the duty of those of us living in western capitalist states to take up the fight against the endlessly greedy bankers and political & financial elites who cause so many problems for not only people at home, but the entire world."

More photos of Occupy Dame Street

http://www.facebook.com/OccupyDameStreet
Indymedia article
Occupy Dame Street Press Release

More to come...

Irish Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef - 3 days to go

2011-09-20T19:01:00.004+01:00

The Irish Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef is on display for only three more days at The Greenhouse/Cultivate/Eco-UNESCO, 17 St. Andrews Street, Dublin 2. This "woolly wonder" exhibition combines crafts with mathematics, marine ecology, community arts and the state of the world's coral reefs, in an accessible, beautiful and engagingly tactile way. The Irish Reef will be open late this Friday 23rd September for Culture Night, which will also mark the end of the exhibition in its current location.

Hyperbolic crochet was initiated by mathematician Dr. Daina Taimina to model hyperbolic geometry. The Irish Reef is a satellite of the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef Project created by Margaret and Christine Wertheim of the Institute of Figuring in Los Angeles. Their collectively worked crochet reef installations, alongside the "people's reefs" they've inspired in many countries, have toured the world raising awareness about coral reefs, the geometry of hyperbolic space, plastic rubbish in the oceans and ocean acidification. The community-created Irish Reef was established under the auspices of Science Gallery in 2010.

There are more of my photos of the Irish and international reefs from 2010, including the toxic reef, White Spire Grove, plastic corals, the Maths Chapel, the bleached bone reef and the Ladies Silurian Atoll. You can dive deeper in my previous blog post about the meaning of hyperbolic geometry, the extensive exhibition at Science Gallery last year, a lecture in Dublin by Professor Taimina (which featured hyperbolic pants) and my own experiences experimenting with crochet after a gap of 20 years.

Irish Reef blog at irishhyperboliccrochetcoralreef.wordpress.com
Photos of the 2010 exhibition
Photos of the 2011 exhibition
Blog post on 2010 reefs, hyperbolic space and Daina Taimina

Update 26/09/11: The Reefers have told me the Irish reef will be now be in situ and on display at The Greenhouse for a while longer yet, past its scheduled end date of 23rd September, so drop by and see it between the hours of 9.30a.m. and 5p.m. Monday to Friday.

Where water comes together with other water

2011-09-17T23:15:00.003+01:00

From the Grand Canal yesterday morning:

To the Grand Canal yesterday evening:

Eight days in Venice. One wedding of two wonderful people, both of whom individually I feel honoured and deeply happy to number among my closest friends, who in their ceremony and the time away together shared with us something truthful, brave, inspiring and very moving, about which it wouldn't be right to say more here. Nine months since I've been outside of Ireland, which was also the last time The Unfortunately Loyal Boyfriend and I were able to travel abroad together, a large amount of such travel originally having been our aspiration for March until approximately September, rather than the actuality of his extended solo sojourns in various hospitals around Dublin. Six months of craziness, living often day to day, returning to hospital at unpredictable intervals, unable to make plans, and feeling neither free in the present nor able to look forward to the future with any lightness of heart. In Venice all these figures added up to an amazing, intense and beautiful holiday that has renewed me in multiple ways.

Some of those renewals will become apparent in the coming days and weeks, as the waves from a boat's wake hit the canal quay sometimes after the boat had sped out of sight, and other times intersected unpredictably with the wave signatures of other boats coming and going. We'll see what remains, what can be built on, what can and will be maintained, from a week in a city that is constantly crumbling but continuously being rebuilt, refurbished, repurposed, a city whose fantastic existence has endured for well over a thousand years, that persists in spite of its ludicrous position, despite and because of the intense effort and determination required for it to exist at all. The city that is Venice, and appears only Venice can be, in a way that I did not know I did not know before I had rocked on its vaporetto until the swaying continued even in my loosely landlocked bed, laid my hand on the soft warm brick of its buildings, crossed or never reached tiny bridges on its many canals, and seen the sun and moonlight play over the water, wood and stone which intermingle to make this city up. A place of water that moves to the rhythm of water, a place of reflections that are rarely clear mirror images, of masks and drama, of floating and sinking and keeping your balance, of slow disintegration and long endurance due to the ravages and gifts of water. All of this has been said before, and better, by others, and it is hard to imagine saying anything about this place that hasn't been said in its long and extravagantly chronicled history and myth, hard to picture something that hasn't been photographed countless times before and will be again. I find myself happy Venice exists, happy to have been there, and happy to have come home to my own island, to work out how better to travel on, determined to persist.

How will it be not to blog about it?

2011-09-01T17:11:00.000+01:00

Are we falling victim to instant nostalgia? Even as we're experiencing things we're looking forward to the time when we'll be looking back on this moment. Similar to the phenomenon of experiencing life in the way you will later write about having experienced it. Related to doing and saying and going to things in order to be able to write about them later. This has always been the writer's curse - to observe, to watch, to experience as writer not wholly or solely participant - but now as so many people have blogs, communicate through on-line social networks, leave comments, take photos and videos with the cameras on their omnipresent phones, has the writer's curse spread? Is it starting to change society and the opportunity for experience, is our collective capacity for authenticity threatened?

Not a new thought but a persistent one.

Memento Mori: of bombs and barbs and knitted things

2011-08-23T15:46:00.001+01:00

The wonderful Caroline, a.k.a. An Snag Breac amongst her many aliases, has an exhibition 'Memento Mori' on until Thursday at the Roscommon Arts Centre. I'd struggled with exactly how to describe this show by her and her sister, a conundrum that has been solved by how she puts it herself: an exhibition curated by the two of them with work made by three alter egos of each.

It includes textile pieces such as the wonderful knitted dynamite bomb, which recently featured in Craft magazine, alongside Nollaig Dottirson's more recent additions of the knitted molotov cocktail and the 'classic' black spherical bomb, which can also be downloaded as a free knitting pattern.

There is also gigantic textile barbed wire which I'd love to get to grips with – so much more pliable than the real thing.

Puppetry, roadkill taxidermy and found objects are among the media used by An Snag Breac to create "assemblages of phantasmagorical creatures from the discarded detritus of the natural and manufactured world." A skeletal spine used in one piece references her chronic pain experiences, while the textile work of another nom de plume (Enda O'Rourke) is of handkerchiefs embroidered with words of advice.

The other half of the exhibition curated by Jennifer Walshe features the Community Choir Drawings of Turf Boon, a film by Freya Birren revisioning (or creating?) an earlier piece by Olia Lialina entitled 'My Boyfriend Came Back From The War', and the often-unplayable 'subliminal tapes' of treated sound recordings made by Caoimhin Breathnach.

If you're nearby Roscommon Town before the morning of Friday 26th August, check out Memento Mori.

All images above by An Snag Breac.
More information on the exhibition is here and here.

Solus street art solo exhibition

2011-08-18T14:30:00.001+01:00

Solus, an up-and-coming Irish street artist, has his first solo exhibition running in Temple Bar until Monday 22nd August. It's entitled 'Mis-Spent Youth (Call The Cops)' and is in the No Grants Gallery in the venue recently renamed The Culture Box.

I took some photos at the launch on the 4th August.

Having met Solus, this is probably a nod at a self-portrait:

We ended up going home with the first of these paintings:

Also like the way he signs them on the side.

Solus did a version of this piece as one of the graffiti artists at the Kings of Concrete festival in July:

I've been noticing street art by Solus around Dublin for the last 18 months or so. This was one of his paste-ups in April 2010 – Che Guevara crossed with Margaret Thatcher?

These have occupied a spot near the Grand Canal where he's painted a couple of times:

Worth catching the exhibition before it closes on Monday. While his work is at a fairly early stage, Solus has produced some interesting ideas and I'm looking forward to following his continuing development as an artist.

Photos of Solus exhibition

Solus Art

there and back again

2011-08-05T22:38:00.001+01:00

Ah, Pancreatitis. It appeared in our lives like a bloke we can't quite place but who seems to know us rather well, who shows up at our door out of the blue. He ends up sleeping on the couch, managing to make it seem, somehow, as if we've no real choice in the matter. We think it'll just be a day or two, but he ends up staying a week. He's pretty annoying, in the way of flakey perpetual couchsurfers, but he mainly perpetuates run-of-the-mill irritations - drinks all the milk and puts the empty carton back in the fridge, cracks a couple of CD boxes, has a taste solely for our pricey beers and foody treats saved for a special occasion, uses one of our towels but can't remember which one, demolishes 'just a couple of slices' out of the cake prepared for a friend's birthday. That kind of thing. Some more spectacular incidents, like vomiting down the side of the loo and 'forgetting' to clear it up, and an infamous attempt to take a piss in the corner of the kitchen. More than once he invites a couple of mates over who defeat our strenuous efforts to turf them out and keep us up all night with terrible, not even as good as the-kids-today music. After a few failed interventions over an interminable six days, Pancreatitis finally sidles to the exit, and we breathe a sigh of relief.

A few days pass, enough to start thinking that the week of Pancreatitis was just an unsettling but now safely concluded annoyance. Then we walk in and find him sprawled on the couch. Again. We don't know how he got in or why he's come back, but it's certainly depressing to see him sitting there when we thought he was gone. And this time he's meaner.

He's aggressive, he's not leaving and he's a lot more frightening. We immediately enlist some professional help to get rid of him but no dice, he seems to have a key to our gaff and he's treating the place like he owns it. He never seems to go out, and he takes over more and more of the living room and then the bedroom, spreading his rubbish around while breaking or 'mislaying' our stuff. He completely destroys a couple of projects we were working on. We call in more professionals but all they seem able to do is placate him while he becomes scarier almost daily. He is now living in our flat with us while we try, and fail, to continue normal life around him.

Pancreatitis starts to turn violent and unpredictable. He threatens us more than once and we can easily imagine it reaching a point where we'll be in fear of our lives. It seems that no-one can do anything to make him leave, and we now have to share our flat with him, our own lives shrinking to a daily grind of dealing with his unpredictable outbursts while desperately trying to get him to go. We get as much information as possible about who he is and what can be done to evict him, but nobody seems to know much – this surreal situation seems to be a poorly understood grey area, and no-one knows why he's here or what might make him leave. We try everything we can. Apparently there are hundreds of other people in a similar situation playing host to an unwanted, scary 'flatmate', but no-one provides any better suggestions that might get him gone.

Some days seem interminable, others pass in a rapid blur. In more reflective moments we feel grateful for what the experience is teaching about acceptance, small joys and the important things in life, but mostly we use all our energy to cope.

After six weeks when things are either bad or getting worse, the situation starts to improve. The noxious tenant is still there, but he's less invasive, he plays his 'music' fairly low and dumps his stuff around the place only once or twice a day, and we're able to start reassembling a semblance of ordinary life around him. A few more weeks, a couple more incidents, he's obviously not going to leave any time soon but we're starting to think he will go eventually.

Then the professional eviction agent who has been helping us from the start says that actually, things are worse than ever – while more innocuous on the surface, this living-room horrorshow has been secretly poisoning us, stealing our stuff from under our noses, and plotting to remain in situ for years. The only option is a wholesale attack, undertaken with surgical precision. The eviction specialist and dozens of others sweep into action, and it's all over in a matter of hours. Pancreatitis is gone.

Two weeks of mopping up later, and we can slowly start to get our space back. The specialist tells us it's almost certain Pancreatitis won't return. We're shell-shocked and worn out after dealing with this invader for the last three months, but we begin to believe we've really gotten rid of him, and that we can start to rebuild our lives. A month or so passes fairly quietly.

Then we start to notice a couple of things out of place – things that don't belong to us appearing in our flat; some food gone from the fridge; unexplained stains. We can't believe that he could be back; our resistance is so deep that we outdo each other concocting alternative outlandish explanations. The eviction expert comes by, a scheduled visit to make sure all is well six weeks on. He's concerned at what he sees. And surprised. We try to think it can't be what it seems it must be. But it is. A day later, Pancreatitis is back.

He's not as aggressive this time, almost nonchalant – a few days of hell-raising and then he backs off. But now, apparently, he's moved in for good. He might not cause much trouble in the future, or then again he might. Probably he'll go away occasionally, maybe for months or years at a time. This 'visit' could be as bad as when he moved in first, or it could be very different. Maybe he's changed. Eventually we'll learn what he's like, how to manage him, how to live with him. We'll have to and we will. He's there now, on our couch, occupying our gaff, part of our lives. This time there'll be no getting rid of him. We'll live with Pancreatitis, and no matter how awful he is, we'll live well.

***
So much for the analogy. This is the reality. About two weeks ago, The Unfortunately Loyal Boyfriend wasn't feeling that great. He had been doing well, if tired and quite weak as he continued recovery from major surgery, but then he had about a week of hit-and-miss not feeling good followed by a couple of days of pain. On what would have been the third day of pain he had a scheduled check-up with his surgeon, which had been in the calendar for six weeks after the operation. That was the operation that was supposed to take care of the pancreatitis and its attendant complications, the operation after which there was (and I quote) "close to zero" chance of the pancreatitis recurring.

At the check-up, the surgeon was concerned. He said that a new pseudocyst (a sac of fluid near the pancreas) might have formed, though he also said that he'd never seen that happen. He wanted The Unfortunately Loyal Boyfriend to have tests, especially a CT scan, and thought it would be easier to do the tests as an inpatient. At the time this sounded plausible, if depressing because we'd hoped the hospital stays were behind us; later I thought that the surgeon was likely even more concerned than he was letting on and that in fact he was going the admitting-to-hospital route because of his suspicions.

So, last week The Unfortunately Loyal Boyfriend was admitted to hospital. Again. Where a day later the CT scan results came back and the doctor told him he had pancreatitis. Again. And after three days he was discharged from hospital, no longer in pain, with no cause found, to go home and hope for the best. Again.

That's the situation. The pancreatitis has recurred, a totally new bout, in a different part of the pancreas, the head this time. This bout has so far been very mild, probably milder than the initial week or so back in March. It is unusual for this to happen, and it has happened quickly, less than two months after the operation and less than five since the first bout began. It might just go away, or it might not. Whether this bout subsides quickly or not, it is now very likely that the pancreatitis will recur throughout his life. We won't know what that really means until much more time has passed. If it comes back once every few years, causes a few days of pain and requires some days in hospital followed by a couple of weeks having to take it a bit easier, that's one (not brilliant/not terrible) thing. If it comes back every few months and requires weeks in hospital and months of recovery, that is quite another thing. We have to wait and see.

The care he's received has been excellent so far, and probably the best in the country. Yes, we'll pursue all the avenues - thorough medical after-care, possible diet restructuring, getting second opinions, complementary therapies, medication possibilities – of course, we'll look at everything. But pancreatitis, especially the 20% of cases for which no cause is ever found, unfortunately is not well understood by medicine or any other science. And the treatment and management recommendations remain the same no matter what, and we've already done mnay of them. For now we'll cope and we'll hope. He has been out of hospital for a week. He's hurting a little today; maybe we'll be back at the hospital tomorrow; maybe not. But whatever happens we'll live with it. And live well.

The story so far:
Anatomical adventures
Home is where the pancreas is
Mr Whipple to the rescue

Dolphins in daylight

2011-07-12T23:01:00.004+01:00

Went back to Vico Road with The Unfortunately Loyal Boyfriend this afternoon, and the dolphins appeared again. Amazing. Was so glad he got to see them, and it was also incredible to see them in daylight.

There were two, perhaps three, and they stuck around for at least half an hour, which seemed remarkably munificent.

One twisted out of the water showing a white belly, and then they swam back and forth, first going south towards some yellow buoys near Killiney Beach, then back towards Dalkey Island.

Two lucky people in a kayak got very close to them.

We didn't go to the beach looking for the dolphins, but of course the possibility was enticing. After looking out for them the odd time over the past few months and then seeing them on Sunday, I worried slightly that it would make me constantly and even unconsciously search for dolphins every time I went to Vico, perhaps complicating my love of the place, which I didn't want to happen. Somewhat like my nervousness to try scubadiving years ago, because I loved snorkelling so much and was afraid that it would take some of the joy out of snorkelling, leaving me hankering to be diving instead. That didn't happen - I loved diving, and still love snorkelling just as much, they're different ways of seeing into the underwater world. This afternoon I felt I was enjoying my time at White Rock and happy whether or not the dolphins appeared, so it was a real joy when we spotted them. Though now I feel like trying kayaking in Dublin Bay...

More photos of these dolphins

Seeing dolphins at Vico

2011-07-11T16:52:00.001+01:00

Yesterday evening I saw dolphins swimming wild in Dublin Bay. It felt like a gift. Standing with a close friend on White Rock beach off Vico Road just after dusk, the sky still lit from the set sun with a three quarters moon hanging overhead, we were looking out to sea when the dark fin and arched back of a dolphin appeared in the water directly in front of us. A momentary shape cut through the ripples, coming from right to left, its fin beautifully outlined. Quickly another one broke the water, again just a little of its back and its fin out of the water. It was such a calm night that there were barely any waves. We saw it happen six or seven times in all, and there were definitely two and possibly three dolphins, judging from the speed and the places where they appeared. Wonderful doesn't begin to describe it. And it created a strong feeling of calm.

I love going to the beach at Vico Road at any time of the year, and am often there, huddled alone against the cold as the waves crash in February, or sitting in the sun with crowds of pale bodies while children splash in the waves in June. Yesterday evening we'd been talking about the possibility of seeing dolphins, which I'd been hoping for since a friend was lucky enough to kayak with them in Dublin Bay in September and November last year. He took incredible photos.

As for photos yesterday, unwilling to take my eyes off the water after seeing the first dolphin, I held my camera up to my chest, pointed it in vaguely the right direction, and snapped a photo without looking the next time one broke the water. Given the low light it wasn't surprising that the photo turned out like this:

That dark ripple in the middle, a little left of centre is in fact a dolphin.
I've been lucky enough to see dolphins swimming wild before, in the rather more tropical locale of Vilanculos in Mozambique. No photos of that either, or at least none identifiably dolphin.

As well as friends having seen them, the presence of the dolphins reached national consciousness about a month ago. Video footage on the RTE news and articles like this in The Irish Times reported that a pod of three dolphins seems to have taken up residence in this area between Dalkey Island and Killiney.

Last night was not at all about taking photos, and we didn't go to the beach to try and spot them, only for the pleasure of being at Vico, with its dramatic drop to the sea, sweeping views, clear water and many memories. It was simply a lucky bonus seeing the dolphins. It was tempting to strip off and run into the sea, as one day I would love to swim with dolphins, but my impression is that it's neither possible nor safe to try and swim with these ones. This morning I reported the sighting using the online surveillance system at the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group, which provides searchable maps of dolphin, whale and porpoise sightings countrywide, as well as ample information about cetaceans in Ireland. It's also where I learned that the bottlenose dolphin bears the delightful name of Deilf bolgshrónach in Irish.

The group advises against swimming with these dolphins, and extra care needs to be taken if kayaking or boating near them, as is the case generally while at sea, including in rubber dinghies. I'll admit now that I have taken to the sea on occasion, if only very close to shore, as proud co-captain of a "cheap inflatable dinghy" of the kind mentioned disparagingly in this article. And sure we only attracted the attention of the coast guard once.

Perhaps somewhere else I'll get to swim with or just come closer to these or other dolphins, when we know more about these wild animals. I know I'll be back to Vico Road soon, hoping to catch another glimpse.

Aerosol aromas

2011-06-26T18:10:00.007+01:00

Photographed the current graffiti in the Tivoli yesterday. Have been meaning to get down there since the All City Graffiti Jam in April, which unfortunately I wasn't able to attend this year. There are all new pieces in the rear carpark, and a few new ones as well as a lot of older pieces still in place in the front carpark, from the 2010 Graffiti Jam and earlier. Some of the walls had already been painted again since the Jam, so I'm not sure what I've missed. Such is the nature of the art form.

The Tivoli theatre on Francis Street has been very supportive of graffiti in Dublin, and allows some of the better writers to paint regularly on its carpark walls, as well as being a venue for the annual Jam. Apparently the security guards even prevent some of the, shall we say, "less experienced" graffiti practitioners from coming in and and spraying, so there are consistently very high quality pieces on display. Makes a change from the usual attitude of security guards towards graffiti artists.

Similar to those below, I have photos of every piece and all the walls. Eventually I'll put some of these photos together into a panorama, to give a sense of the scale and ambition of the larger walls. Then again, I've been saying I'll get around to doing that for at least three years, since the Graffiti Jam in 2008, but it shall eventually occur.

I'd also like to put together a before-and-after evolving video or slideshow, showing some of the many artistic incarnations of the walls. Another project for the list.

There were three artists painting when I went down there, who kindly let me photograph their works in progress.

Was nice to photograph with the sound of spray and the smell of paint in the air. Will have to revisit to see the finished articles.

I liked this mainly textual piece about emigraion, and its inclusion of a potato plant.

Half of this piece 'Be My Giver, I'm Your Taker' by Espo, a well-known graffiti artist from the U.S., has now been covered. I just discovered that this and his many other impressive pieces in the front carpark of the Tivoli were done when Espo was in Dublin on a Fulbright scholarship. Impressive again.

Now looking forward to Kings of Concrete next month. In the meantime will be back to the Tivoli to see how it evolves.

More photos of the graffiti at the Tivoli.

Map of Radical Ireland

2011-06-18T13:04:00.005+01:00

Found this good map of Radical Ireland, showing "sites of significance to current and historical struggles in Ireland". It has been created by Andrew Flood, an anarchist with Workers Solidarity Movement and the One Percent Network, among others - hopefully he will not mind this labeling.

The map includes sites such as the autonomous social centre Seomra Spraoi; a meeting on anarchism in 1886; the Garden of Delight radical bookshop and venue which had a brief existence in 1997 (the perfect place to spill endless coffee whilst reading Robert Anton Wilson); the location of the Reclaim The Streets event whose participants were attacked by Gardai in 2002; the James Connolly statue; and various squatted buildings, past and present. It also includes the stops and links to audio from three years of the annual Feminist Walking Tour of Dublin, which highlights the history of women in Ireland, and from a One Percent Network walking tour, which provides a guide to how the wealthiest 1% in Ireland live, both of which are valuable initiatives I hope to write further about at a later stage.

The map includes a little information about each location listed and usually links to further info and articles. While I don't agree with how some items on it are represented, and we could debate endlessly over what qualifies as 'radical' enough for inclusion, I'm glad the map has been put together. I found it interesting as a reminder of current and past struggles, it is like an historical overview of significant events and venues that are all too easy to forget about. It is currently rather heavily Dublin-centric but as it's a work in progress more sites from around Ireland will no doubt be added in future. Overall, its use of place as a way of engaging with radical efforts is stimulating and accessible.

View Radical Ireland in a larger map

Mr Whipple to the rescue

2011-06-10T14:18:00.002+01:00

It's been a long road, but we're hopeful that The Unfortunately Loyal Boyfriend has entered the last stage of full recovery from his pancreatitis. This experience was completely unexpected, pervasively uncertain and frequently changing throughout, with the situation and our knowledge of it altering fairly substantially every couple of days, and sometimes every day or every few hours. It continues to change daily even now. But it's evolving in a different way, towards full recovery.

He was discharged from hospital towards the end of May for the third and, we hoped then, final time, after a stay of only a few days. He was in quite good shape, judged by our radically revised pancreatitis-filtered version of 'good'. He still had the drain, a thin plastic tube surgically attached inside his abdomen that was taking out 100-150 ml of pancreatic fluid a day. As he put it, it took out about a Coke can's worth every three days, just to remind him that he was not allowed to drink carbonated beverages or caffeine. He was able to drink water, eat small amounts of a few foods, walk short distances and sleep relatively uninterrupted for five or six hours at night. He'd lost a large amount of weight and was quite weak and lacking in energy. He could only eat an extremely low fat diet as digesting fats put the most pressure on the digestive system and pancreas. He could have low fat milk and yogurt as he'd been given in the hospital, and we gradually introduced other low fat foods (less than 3 grammes of fat per 100 grammes) but avoided using any oil or butter in cooking, sticking to steaming and boiling food and grilling without oil. At the same time he couldn't eat foods in combination, but only very plain foods cooked separately, such as boiled potatoes, steamed carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus and the like, but over the next couple of weeks he was able to eat sauces and combined food – major progress.

Things went quite well and the community nurse returned to change the dressing in the first week, and it seemed then that it would need attention only weekly. Unfortunately a day later the dressing had to be changed again, necessitating a quick trip back to the hospital on yet another bank holiday weekend – sure what's a holiday without a hospital visit to hang out with our mates the nurses? As the drain seemed to be get blocked quite often, from then on the dressing around it had to be changed every day. The community nurse came to do this about twice a week and I did the rest, becoming proud of my novice nursing skills, filling a large medicine chest with extensive supplies, and gaining great familiarity with the intricacies of sterile dressing kits, sterile versus non-sterile gloves, saline, syringes, gauze and the versatilities of different types of clear plastic adhesives.

Things seemed to be progressing well and he was feeling better and better, able to eat more types and a larger amount of food, and overall we were hopeful that after a month or two of this he'd have the drain removed and be starting to fully recover. There was a second unexpected visit to the hospital when a consultant doctor checked up on him, kindly fitting him in as part of his rounds and for free, even though he was no longer a patient there. When we arrived, a nurse said, "why don't you wait in your old room?" He'd clearly made an impression as it was three weeks since he'd been on that ward. Somehow having a room in a hospital that is referred to by the staff as 'your' room doesn't seem like a good thing, it's not quite having a suite at the Chelsea Hotel.

After two weeks at home with a mere two hospital visits, it was high time for another procedure, namely an endoscopic ultrasound. This was done to give a better picture of what was happening in the pancreas and it could reveal microlithiasis, tiny pieces of gallstone 'grit' that had not yet formed into gallstones. This was the last remaining possibility in terms of providing a cause of the pancreatitis. While in theory the grit might have been revealed, with a relatively simply operation to remove it and cure the problem, I realised the night before the procedure that I'd no expectation at all that this might happen, I simply assumed the mystery would remain.

When we met the consultant two days later, he told us that indeed they'd found no grit, that the pseudocysts of fluid were smaller but still present, and that they had found a small amount of necrosis – dead tissue in the pancreas. This was not a good thing, and he told us he was now revising the description of the pancreatitis to 'severe' – also not a good thing. He told us that The Unfortunately Loyal Boyfriend would need major and quite complicated surgery to remove the dead tissue, remove the fluid, and make a new connection between the stomach and the pancreas. He also planned to remove the gallbladder, as he put it, "surely while I'm there it'll only take ten minutes" (or did he say five?). We were slightly in shock in this meeting, as surgery had not been a possibility prior to this. Apparently they never operate earlier than six weeks into pancreatitis, but this was now needed and it was also the optimal time to do it. The operation had a less than 1% fatality rate – small, but difficult to handle having to think about fatality rates at all. A list of complications "as long as your arm" that he wasn't going to tell us about. And it was a long recovery, "lucky" to get out of hospital two weeks afterwards. This was an excellent surgeon, one of the few in the country who deals with these kind of complex pancreatitis cases. If we hadn't been assigned to him in the first place, we'd have likely ended up with him anyway. He answered our questions, treated us with respect and we trusted him. Hey, he cycles every day between the four hospitals he works in, how could we not trust him? Asking if there were other treatment possibilities, the surgeon concluded by saying "you have no other options." Most importantly, this operation would take care of all the current problems and might prevent recurrence of the pancreatitis in the future, though that was unclear. After the operation, it was likely he would actually be okay.

The Unfortunately Loyal Boyfriend continued to feel better as we waited for the operation, and we even made it out for dinner on one wonderful day. A couple of weeks and he was admitted to hospital the evening before the surgery. The surgeon came around with his consent form. I asked for more information on whether there were any major complications that were likely, as opposed to just possible. He said "The only complication you have to worry about is death." Then he said he didn't mean to be flippant. And strangely I wasn't that worried. It could happen. But it was a slim chance and we had accepted that chance.

Thus two weeks ago at this time I was sitting in the lobby of St. Vincent's University Hospital, waiting for my partner to wake up after a major operation. I'd been there with him as he went from the ward, and had had to leave him, gowned and on a gurney, at the entrance to the operating theatre. A doctor, unprompted, promised, "We won't forget to call you." Three and a half hours later I asked the front desk of the hospital to call them; the receptionist held the phone telling me words that resembled "he's conscious, the surgery went fine." There were probably some other things said after that but I didn't take them in. He was awake and he was okay.

Other things happened after the operation. They called from the recovery room, told me it had gone very well, that he'd been out of surgery for over an hour, and that I could see him soon. He was moved to the High Dependency Unit, a room with three beds arranged directly opposite the nurses' desk, where patients are monitored closely, essentially a step below the Intensive Care Unit. He was there for four days, but only because he was on an epidural for pain relief, which has to be observed in such a unit. He was hooked up to a lot of machines and tubes, and the setting probably would have been a bit overwhelming if he hadn't recently spent over five weeks in hospital. At it was, this new situation didn't phase me at all, or him. Later we found out the surgery lasted an hour or so, much shorter than the three or four hours that it could have taken if it hadn't gone so well. The drain was gone, along with his gallbladder.

After a few days The Unfortunately Loyal Boyfriend was moved to a room in an ordinary ward.I learned that his strangely-titled Whipple operation was not an acronym as we'd assumed but named, fantastically, after Mr Whipple! Who'd pioneered an adapted form of it in the 1930s. And now it would have the result that he'd be able to eat ice-cream once again, among other rather more significant effects. In total he'd now lost about three stone (42 lbs or 19 kg) in weight. A week after the surgery, the last canula was removed from his arm, the first time he'd been tubeless in two months – no longer part cyborg. The surgeon crossed his fingers, made a nought and said that the chance of the pancreatitis recurring was as close to zero as he could say. And in keeping with the ever-changing nature of this whole process, the situation shifted again, but this time, for a change, for the better, when one morning the doctor suddenly said he was well enough to be discharged. It was three months to the day since the start of the pancreatitis. And now, surgery over, out of hospital, in the last phase of recovery, I feel that he's really going to be okay.

O'Bama

2011-05-23T16:39:00.010+01:00

President of the United States of America Barack Obama is in Ireland today, currently talking a stroll and having a pint in his 'ancestral home' of Moneygall. So I've finally gotten around to putting up the rest of my photos of Obama's inauguration in Washington D.C. on 20th January 2009.

The inauguration of the first black President of the U.S. was quite an important and powerful moment, and, to me, that first was the significant change that was worth being present to witness in person. Or at least to watch on a giant videoscreen in the freezing cold, standing on the National Mall in D.C. making a solid mass of over a million people stretching from the Lincoln Memorial just behind us past the Washington Monument to the Capitol building distantly ahead, where Obama took the oath of office.

As the candidate of one of the two major political parties in the U.S., I never expected too much else from Obama, and certainly not radical change. I thought it was a positive step for America to have elected him, and it was progress that Obama appealed to hope rather than fear. It was particularly powerful to see the pride in the eyes of thousands of African Americans in the inauguration crowd, some with placards reading 'We Have Overcome'.

Mostly I felt the feeling there was summed up by the pins simply stating 'Yes We Did'. But on a policy level, I didn't think he'd achieve a great deal. I've still been a little disappointed that he didn't do more, or attempt more. With such popularity he had the opportunity to continue the momentum from his election and translate it into some major policy successes, and he hasn't done that as much as even my very limited expectations led me to believe was possible. But he's intelligent and internationalist, he has managed to achieve something on health care in the U.S., he appears to love his wife and she him, and ultimately, let's not forget just how good it is that he's not Bush.

Photos of the Inauguration
Previous post on inauguration day, 20th January 2009

Home is where the pancreas is

2011-05-05T17:58:00.006+01:00

Happily, soon after my last blog post, The Unfortunately Loyal Boyfriend was discharged from hospital, after a stay this time of almost four weeks. At home we coped fairly well with the almost-no-fat diet, the tube sticking out of his abdomen draining pancreatic fluid into a (very this-season) bag, which had to be emptied twice daily, and the general gingerly-does-it approach to all activities that characterises slow recovery from serious illness.

We had the first visit from the free community health nurse (yay public health system) and, far more incredibly, a visit from other people. You know, those people rumoured to exist but not directly employed in the health care professions, generally encountered during what are commonly known as social occasions, but the existence of whom had started to seem doubtful to a certain pancreatitis sufferer due to a lack of personal evidence of same during the previous six weeks. This doubt had also been assuaged the day before his discharge when, with fairly major effort by all concerned, he was able to leave the hospital for a couple of hours to attend the wedding ceremony of good friends. A most festive occasion and one on which he was happily overwhelmed with the presence of about thirty friends and quite a lot of people corresponding to the category of other. So a positive and intense weekend overall and wonderful to have him home.

Unhappily he began to feel sick again soon and due to an infection was readmitted to hospital six days after leaving. So if you're wondering how we spent the Easter bank holiday weekend while the rest of the country was at the beach in the unseasonably warm weather, that's our answer. Infections are a very common feature of pancreatitis, especially with pseudocysts which he has, so this wasn't altogether disastrous or a major setback. His shortest stay yet, and after four more nights as an in-patient – bringing his grand total to a roundly-square 36 nights in hospital over the course of just over seven weeks – he was discharged for what I really hope will be the last time. It's now nine days later and this is the longest period he has been out of hospital since this all started, and while things are far from normal they are radically improved and, all extremities crossed, will continue to get better.

Of course, that doesn't mean we haven't been to the hospital in the past nine days, don't be silly, we could hardly have four or five days go by without hanging out with our good friends the nurses. Instead we've had two unanticipated and brief trips back to the ward to have various things checked, but so far looking good. It won't be this week or next week but I'm hoping soon to have an entire week go by without a hospital visit of some kind. Such are our radically revised holiday aspirations.

Meanwhile I'll continue my efforts to provide some insight into this illness. It was pointed out to me by the principal subject of these efforts that the illustration for my last post is, apparently, of a female body. I had failed to notice this despite looking at it quite a few times, and perhaps because, as he hypothesised, I automatically view a female form as the norm, as he probably does a male. So in the interests of anatomical clarity, and for reassurance to viewers who may have feared that a little-discussed side effect of pancreatitis could cause breasts and/or a vagina to spring into existence, here is another illustration of a probably male or at least gender-indeterminate digestive system:

Also, if you are looking for more information, I strongly recommend the PubMed Health overview of pancreatitis, as well as its more detailed subsections on Acute Pancreatitis and Pancreatic Pseudocyst. PubMed Health is "a consumer health Web site" produced by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the U.S. It's a source I have found to be excellent – evidence-based, factual, clear, up-to-date and lacking in the hysteria, fear-mongering and dubious efforts to sell you stuff that are all too common when looking for health information on-line. PubMed Health is related to PubMed, a massive, publicly accessible database of 20 million citations from academic journals and books, which I used to use almost daily in academic research and which is a good place to visit if you want to dig further into academic articles on any health topic.

In contrast, I don't recommend the Wikipedia article on pancreatitis – it is very unclear, is quite misleading and incomplete in its emphasis, lists possible complications without giving much indication of likelihood or seriousness, and has both far too much detail in some places and not enough in others. The U.K.'s National Health Service (NHS) section on acute pancreatitis is quite useful, provides a measured layperson's analysis and gives some indications about incidence in the U.K., though not Ireland. Another reasonably good source is the WebMD overview on pancreatitis, though the overview and subsections are quite annoying to navigate and there are lots of ads sullying it.

Again, it's important to remember while reading any of these sources that what we're talking about in this case is 'moderately severe acute pancreatitis' - essentially at the upper end of mild acute pancreatitis, not the more serious 'severe acute' and definitely not the quite different and much more serious 'chronic pancreatitis'.

That completes the Great Pancreatitis Adventure update for today. He came home, he's still home, he's not in pain, he can eat - these are good things. Have been taking things day by day for about two months now, so until tomorrow, the whole world is my home. Hmmm, that's actually The Littlest Hobo. Point still stands. On we go.

Anatomical adventures

2011-04-15T00:23:00.005+01:00

Do you know what the pancreas is?
Do you know what it does?
Or where exactly it's located?

A month ago, my answers to those questions would have been along the lines of:

Well, um, it's an internal organ, well, obviously it's an internal organ, you already knew that, but you know, isn't it something to do with the liver, or with the kidneys, or maybe both, isn't it? Maybe attached to one of them, possibly? Kind of small? I'm picturing it as red. Or possibly pink. An organy kind of colour. Possibly not that important, like, you could have it taken out, but also, possibly, vital, like you can't live without it, but, you know, I'm not actually sure about the quite important difference between those two options.

It's maybe something to do with processing blood? Or with the digestive system? Maybe? Enzymes, enzymes is coming to mind, not entirely sure why, maybe it does something with enzymes?

It's in the torso, that much I know, well, ok, that's pretty obvious too, no bonus points there. I'm thinking it's in the abdomen, lower part of the torso anyway. Again, thinking it's fairly small and sort of there (cue waving of hand around general tummy region). Ish.

That was pretty much the sum total of my knowledge of the pancreas a little over one month ago. Anatomy was never my strong suit, despite two years of Leaving Cert biology. Now, one month later, I know more than I probably ever would have wanted to.

Now I know that the pancreas is indeed an internal organ, and that it produces enzymes and hormones, particularly insulin. The enzymes go into the stomach to be used in digesting food. The insulin regulates blood sugar. The pancreas is in fact pretty large, seeming to be somewhere between 10 cm and 25cm (6 and 10 inches) long, and it kind of looks like a leaf, or at least is sometimes referred to as 'leaf-shaped', and it's sort of flattish. It is pretty much a vital organ. It is very much part of the digestive system, it is not in fact really much to do with the kidneys or the liver, and it has nothing at all to do with cleaning the blood. In terms of size, though not function, I was imagining something more akin to the gallbladder, which is very small, so I was totally off there. It's attached to the stomach via the bile duct and the enzymes go (well, are meant to go) straight from the pancreas into the stomach where they do their digestive work. It sits directly behind the stomach, on the left of the lower torso, and being quite large goes from the centre of the body out towards the left side, all the way behind the stomach. And probably, it is kind of red. Or maybe pink. That last bit, about the colour, I still don't know.

The reason for this rapid if still slightly vague increase in knowledge is that The Unfortunately Loyal Boyfriend (yes, he has approved this name, in fact, co-suggested and heartily endorsed it) has pancreatitis. Or more specifically, he has moderately severe acute pancreatitis. Pancreatitis is (because I didn't know this either a month ago, and probably neither did you) inflammation of the pancreas. Also, pancreatitis is not a good thing. And also, it's very, very sore. And also, pancreatitis is quite serious, and it can be very serious, but in this case it is only a bit serious. That last, at least, is a good thing.

So I also know quite a bit about pancreatitis. About 20% of the time they never discover what has caused it, and The Unfortunately Loyal Boyfriend is currently falling into that category. Most often pancreatitis is caused by severe alcohol 'misuse', which is in itself the severe misuse of a euphemism, as this is referring to, say, someone drinking ten drinks a day for a few years, very-probably-an-alcoholic type of misuse. Obviously that's not the cause in this case, as he drinks very little indeed, and has pretty much the opposite of, as he put it, "a life of bacchanalian excess." Another major cause is gallstones, which CT scans have revealed he also doesn't have. There are some other rare causes such as a couple of genetic disorders or reactions to particular medications, again these are not part of the picture here. So that currently leaves two main options: that a more detailed scan will reveal 'grit' or very tiny gallstones that are too small to show up on the CT scan, and that these are the cause of the inflammation; or that he is in the 20% of cases where they never find out the cause, and his pancreatitis will ultimately be termed 'idiopathic'. We're not holding out a lot of expectation for a cause or a cure, but we'll wait and see. Essentially we have an illness that appears suddenly, produces a lot of pain and requires hospitalisation, and no cause is likely to be found. Yay.

In terms of what has happened and is happening, he woke up one morning more than five weeks ago with severe pain in his stomach. Doctor thought it was duodenitis or gastritis, i.e. inflammation of the stomach or upper part of the small intestine, and prescribed medication accordingly. He wasn't able to eat and was generally very sick. When the pain got worse and then only a little better over the next couple of days, we went back to the doctor and then directly to hospital, where a CT scan showed inflammation of the pancreas.

Cue admission to hospital, intravenous (IV) fluids, IV pain medication and IV antibiotics. Also no food or water. The treatment for pancreatitis, it turns out, always involves admission to hospital, IV fluids, pain meds and usually antibiotics as prophylactic against infection, as well as giving the pancreas and digestive system a rest by not eating, so this was pretty textbook. He rapidly began getting better, the pain went away, and he was able to eat small amounts. After six days the inflammation was gone, he had no pain and he was off all the medications. He was in reasonably good shape, the doctors (and we) were happy (well, as happy as we could be), and he was discharged from the hospital. They said when he was discharged that there was a 20% chance of readmission within a week, that is just the way pancreatitis goes. Yay again.

So, he took it very easy at home, generally feeling okay and without any pain. It looked like he had had a fairly mild bout of acute pancreatitis and was recovering well, with maybe a couple of weeks ahead of slowly recovering to full strength. Actual yay.

Alas, five days after coming out of hospital the pain suddenly and dramatically returned. He had fallen into a second 20% category. He was back in hospital within a couple of hours and has remained there since, now 25 days. The pancreatitis was now being described as 'moderately severe', though it's important to realise that this is still in a very different category than severe or chronic pancreatitis, which involves hospitalisation in an Intensive Care Unit (which he has not needed) and which can be much more serious. Sometimes acute pancreatitis episodes resolve within a week to two or three weeks, sometimes they drag on for months, so he is currently somewhere in the middle of that spectrum. He has needed IV antibiotics, pain meds, fluids and drugs as before, but this time also some procedures to allow him to get IV nutrition, among other things. He didn't get to eat solid foods or drink water for days. Some of the time he was still in a great deal of pain, despite all the pain medication. One doctor told us that pancreatitis is one of the most painful things you can experience. And it usually takes a long time to get better. Really not so much yay.

Everything that was being done in hospital was helping him, and now he is much, much recovered. He has no pain, he's eating and drinking and most of the tubes are gone. He has even gotten to leave the hospital on a couple of days for a few hours at a time and finally they are talking about a discharge date in the very near future that seems likely to happen and not be delayed, as has already occurred. It seems like we are nearing the end of this acute phase, which is great, and we'll get through the next phases too, whatever they entail.

Writing here is to begin to explain some of this experience. Mainly to explain the facts of pancreatitis, the actualities of what's happened, to help make it clearer to others what it is about, at least the much greater though still limited understanding of it that I have gained. It will take me longer to write about how I feel, about how this has affected and will change our lives, about the many strangenesses and sadnesses and joys of going through this. Of going back and forth to the hospital every day, except today, of being there with him, and being home, without him. Of trying to understand what is happening and what it means, when we get new information from doctors and sometimes different predictions or explanations every day or couple of days. Of not knowing or half-knowing what the immediate term and longer term implications might be, and at the same time trying to ignore that quasi-knowledge and live only day to day. Of what it's like to see him get worse at times and now, thankfully, to get much better.

As he would say, this is now Day 40 of the Big Fat Pancreas Adventure, including 25 consecutive nights in hospital so far this time and 31 nights in hospital in total. As I would say, do what you can. As we would say, it is what it is.

And life, it's definitely an adventure.

Reasons why Ireland is great #1: Connemara

2011-03-24T13:09:00.006Z

Something beautiful when I can't begin to express how I'm feeling today:

Probably the Mweelrea mountains, viewed from the Renvyle peninsula in Connemara in County Galway, in February 2011. Sharing some joy by sharing something beautiful. Was like being in another country. Feels like another world now.

More photos of Connemara.
Each of the photos above is also a link to the full-size image.

Political questions old and new

2011-02-23T14:25:00.006Z

Yesterday was a day of politics. In the morning Red Sea Research called, again, doing a poll, again, on the upcoming Irish general election. Their questions were of the type "if the election were held tomorrow, how would you vote?" Considering it was Tuesday and the actual election will be on Friday, this premise didn't seem likely to offer many insights useful to the election process, especially as the poll doesn't seem to have been published yet today. Most of these surveys only interview about 1000 people across the country, so my responses constitute about 0.1% of the entire electorate supposedly represented by the poll. We can be sure I'm skewing the responses quite a bit, considering my track record of being largely out of synch with the majority of my compatriots in terms of voting behaviour over the years. The last survey I participated in a few weeks ago turned out to be for Paddy Power, the large Irish bookmaking chain – no bad thing, as frankly the betting there is a better indicator of how the voting is likely to go, compared to much of what passes for political analysis in this country.

What's really revealing about these polls is what questions are included. This one was fairly vanilla - how likely are you to vote (on a scale of 1-10 from dogged-antipathy "I definitely won't" to I-can-control-the future "Certain I will"), who did you vote for last time, who will you give your first and second preference to next time. The last poll, on the other hand, included the rather loaded question of asking how much I agreed with this statement: "Given their behaviour over the last year, I will never vote for Fianna Fáil again." There are so many things wrong with that as a survey question that it undermines the validity of the whole poll. The last one focussed quite a bit on trust, presenting the statement "I have less trust in politicians now" and also asking which coalition I'd most trust to handle the economy. The interviewers meanwhile couldn't correctly pronounce Finna Fail (no fadha, so just 'fail') or Eden Kenny (no, they couldn't get Enda's first name correct, possible future Taoiseach though he may be).

The range of possible answers also strongly shapes the type and power of the results. No simple yes or no, some questions asked you to rate your answer on a scale. Others asked you to remember and choose between five possible answers, which were along the lines of "I will definitely give my first preference to this party, irrespective of what is said before the next election," "I will probably give my first preference to this party, but I'm waiting to hear what is said before the next election," "I'm not sure who to vote for, but I'll probably give this party my first preference," "I'm not sure who to vote for, but they seem like the best choice overall," and "I definitely won't give my first preference to this party." Yet despite these types of answers being the only ones allowed, the survey results are usually presented as how many seats a party will win or what proportion of the votes they'll get.

Later in the day the political theme continued when my grandmother, now in her mid nineties, called from the nursing home where she lives to ask my advice on how to vote. This exchange happens with most of my family at some point in the lead up to an election or referendum – on at least one occasion a family member has actually phoned me from the polling station for an amusing last minute consultation before casting their vote. It's quite strange as I don't consider myself particularly politically engaged or knowledgeable. In all these situations, and particularly with my grandmother, my concern is to help her determine who she wants to vote for and help her feel comfortable with the process, and I really don't want to influence her voting decision, so it has to be handled carefully.

According to her, the nursing home staff had come in and told her that she was going to have to vote that day at 4p.m. – apparently she'd had only a couple of hours notice of this, it was three days in advance of when the rest of the country would vote on Friday, and it was before, for example, the final televised political debate that evening. One can only hope that privacy would be respected and that the same precautions against electoral fraud would be taken in the nursing home as in any other polling station. Given the scandals that have engulfed some nursing homes in Ireland in recent years – not, I should make clear, the seemingly very good one my grandmother lives in - this definitely raises concerns. My grandmother is completely compos mentis, but one also wonders what happens for the numerous residents who are no longer in full possession of their mental faculties. Do they vote? Does someone else essentially vote for them? Various aspects of this situation seem like they could undermine the political rights of nursing home residents. Definitely a process ripe for investigation.

Focussing on the task in hand, my grandmother and I went through the list of candidates in the constituency where we both live, and she decided which candidates should get her first to fifth preferences. In case anyone not steeped in Irish political process is reading this, Ireland uses a proportional representation system, so multiple preferences can be indicated and will count in determining who ultimately gets elected in our multi-seat constituencies. Each person's single transferable vote has a value well beyond just ticking the box for a single candidate.

There is a quota for each constituency – which (I think) is the total number of votes cast there divided by one more than the number of candidates, plus one vote. So in a four seat constituency with 40,000 valid votes cast, the quota would be 8,001, or 40,000 divided by 5, plus one vote. This is the minimum number of votes each candidate would have to get that would ensure that four candidates but no more than four candidates would have enough votes to be elected. If a candidate gets more first preference votes than the quota, he or she is elected, and the amount of votes over the quota are then distributed to the other candidates according to the second preferences indicated on the voting slips. So if a candidate got 8,601 votes, 600 votes would be distributed.

In practice, rather than just taking the last 600 votes counted and redistributing them (which wouldn't be necessarily representative of the overall second preferences of the people who voted for that candidate), either all of the votes or a random sample of the votes for that candidate are examined and the proportion of second preferences determined. So if say 50% of the second preferences were for another candidate in the same party, 20% for a different party, 20% for an independent candidate, and 10% had no second preference, then 50% of the 600 votes over the quota would go to the candidate in the same party, 20% to the independent, 10% would be set aside and so on. So another candidate could later get elected on the second preferences.

Another way each person's vote keeps its value is when the candidate with the least votes is eliminated during the vote count. All of that candidate's votes are then distributed according to the second preferences, where they are added to the second candidates' totals, and valued the same as a first preference vote. There is another count, and another candidate might then be over the quota and elected, or another candidate might be eliminated, leading to more redistribution of votes and further counts. This is why there are so many counts in proportional representation systems, and why it takes so long for the result to become clear.

This system also means that if you put down enough preferences your vote will contribute to electing those who actually get the seats, even if your first preference doesn't get in. Though many people don't consciously realise it, I think this aspect contributes to a greater feeling of participation, to the popularity of the system and to a slightly stronger sense that whoever is elected does in fact represent the electorate – there is less polarity. In theory, if you put down a preference for every candidate, down to your tenth or twentieth preference, you would have contributed to the election of who ultimately gets in, so you couldn't really claim that they don't represent you. Of course, lots of people will not put down any preference for some candidates, because they don't want to contribute to their election under any circumstances, so it's not the case that every elected candidate has some kind of total mandate. My grandmother decided that five preferences were quite enough, and many people would have a similar attitude. Both the system and the fact that constituencies have more than one seat have a big influence on how politics is conducted in this country, making it very different to the US or UK systems, for example. Something worth bearing in mind amid the talk of political and electoral reform that most candidates are endorsing as the election looms.

The final political piece of yesterday was watching the "leaders'" "debate" on RTE. Yes, every one of those inverted commas is intended. A few good points made by the current heads of the three most popular political parties, along with plenty of mudslinging, personal carping and talking over one another, predictably. Not much of substance was said, though some specifics were mentioned, and a number of opportunities were missed, particularly by Labour, to make their policies clearer or more convincing to the undecided voters.

What was depressing was that "social issues" were addressed for the first time at 23.06, four minutes before the end of a 90 minute debate. Two whole minutes were given over to it, in which each person responded to the presenter Miriam O'Callaghan's request to name a single social issue that they felt was important. Eamon Gilmore from Labour focussed on people with disabilities, from Fine Gael Enda Kenny, to his credit it must be admitted, said mental health including self-harm and suicide, and Michéal Martin of Fianna Fáil, after some side comments on other issues, said education. And that was it on "social justice" or any of the many social issues that are facing the country, apart from health which had been addressed at some length in its own section earlier.

There was no specific focus even on education though it was mentioned a few times during the debate. Nothing about foreign affairs, apart from some references to trade with India and China, even as revolutions are sweeping the Arab world and have toppled governments in the last month. The economy was discussed ad nauseam but very little mention of poverty and virtually none of inequality. There was no discussion of abuse in its many forms which have so damaged Ireland's people, nor were human rights really discussed, while climate change got an occasional nod, usually in reference to pursuing jobs in renewable energy and the green economy.

As with the whole election campaign so far, no mention of the Corrib gas deal with Shell, its potential €420 billion value, or of the possibility of renegotiating it, along with (and probably easier than) renegotiating the EU/IMF loan. Similarly no mention of the M3 motorway, Tara, Lismullin or the destruction of national monuments generally. Remember when we used to care about that stuff? Now it's just the banks, NAMA and pensions, all the time, to the exclusion of everything else.

There were a number of references during the debate to this election being the most important in the history of the state, although why exactly that should be has never been explained satisfactorily. Partially this importance seems to be attached to the possibility of a different party getting in than the one that has been in power for 14 years, though a change of government should be a possibility in any fair election, and it doesn't mean much unless they enact different policies.

I hope this election will lead to real change for the better – with much stronger assistance to those who are truly suffering in our society, and with real reform and determined efforts to create a better Ireland. The graffiti pictured above seemed a fitting illustration and a sentiment worth remembering on this day filled with politics. I just hope that the idea of the graffiti below, first put up in advance of the second Lisbon vote and still in situ today, doesn't reflect the value of the Irish people voting this time around.

Cheeseheads forever

2011-02-07T03:42:00.003Z

Green Bay Packers score a touchdown during the Superbowl

The cheeseheads have won. The Green Bay Packers just won the Superbowl. The Vince Lombardi trophy, named after the Packers' coach in the 1960s, will be going home to Wisconsin for the first time in a long time. I can't really tell you - I don't really know - why every year I watch the Superbowl, the final game in the annual American Football championship, no matter where I am, or what ridiculous time it's on at. I'm not much into sports, and it's usually the only sporting event I see all year. Watching the Superbowl is a strange tradition I've kept for something like 20 years. But I can tell you I'm a cheesehead. I've been a fan of theirs for almost ten years, nine seasons. Plus the Pack is the only team owned by the fans, not by a wealthy bloke somewhere. I'm a fan because a friend is a fan, and because of him I had a cheesehead to wear throughout the game tonight, a giant foam hat in the shape of a cheese, worn by Packers' fans the world over. Perfect. Yay cheeseheads, yay Packers, yay cheese.

Green Bay Packers' quarterback Aaron Rodgers raises the Vince Lombardi trophy

Career of freedom

2011-01-31T20:40:00.004Z

Today I feel free. This has been my dominant feeling for the last ten days and I have felt freer and happier than I have in a long time. The immediate cause is that I finished work Friday week ago and I'm delighted. Euphoric even. I liked my last job, it went well and I was pretty positive about doing it, but I'm excited and happy not to be working right now. I'm excited about getting to do what I want, about having the time and space to flesh out what that is, and some time off to simply enjoy myself and see what happens. Most importantly I want to regain or rediscover or perhaps create anew the passion for what I do which I feel has been weak or lacking over the last few years.

I'd like to write at length about this sense of freedom, but in this forum I'm not sure how to. I still have not worked out how to use this blog to express myself in a way that I'm comfortable with being completely public – comfortable with former and potential future employers reading in this case, for example. My assumption when writing here is that anyone I know, and of course people I don't, can and quite likely will read it. While I don't use my real name it would take minimal effort for someone who knows me to identify me as the author of this blog, and therefore what I write here is essentially under my own name. There's a lot more I'd like to write examining what I think about my blogging, but in an effort to avoid being too self-referential I'm going to leave that for another day, and a more in-depth exploration. I expect this period of freedom will also allow me to wrestle with that issue further, as well as writing a bit more often. So instead of either of these topics, I am reflecting a little on freedom as a whole.

What does it mean for me to feel free? And why do I feel freer this week without a job than I did 10 days ago with one? I'm not a slave. I'm not held in bondage, in chains or as someone else's property, as millions of people still are in today's world, more people according to some estimates than were slaves at the 'height' of slavery around 200 years ago. I'm not in prison, locked up against my will. I'm not being physically forced by anyone to do anything. I'm not even suffering from compulsion, mentally unable to control my own behaviour. I'm not an addict, where a substance is in control of me. And none of these things have changed in the last ten days – I've never been a slave or a prisoner, I wasn't in a situation where I was being physically forced or anything like it, I wasn't psychologically compelled and I wasn't suffering from addiction. I had not in any major sense given up my freedom or had it taken from me, simply by having a job. I wasn't even in dire financial straits, though in that case choice would still be being exercised. Yet I feel freer now because I do not have a job than I did when I had one. I feel a great sense of possibility and excitement, a sense that I can do what I want.

Perhaps it's simply that I have given up the major responsibility of working for someone else. I had made a commitment to do something, to complete my work, and I also felt a personal desire to honour that commitment. I also wanted to complete my work well, which can bring its own sense of commitment, but that's a different story. So when I had a job I had an on-going commitment to someone and a task outside myself, and now I have very purposely made no commitments. I have rid myself of the responsibility of a job. I can do what I want, when I want, in the way that I want. Certainly in a more direct way than I could when I had a job.

There is no such thing as 'have to', action is always a choice except – possibly, there is a bigger debate there too - in some of the cases above, where freedom has been explicitly curtailed. But once a commitment is made, there is the sense of 'having to' do various things to meet that commitment, though one knows that one still has the choice not to do them, and that the sense of 'having to' do those things is contingent on the larger commitment. So now I don't have even those smaller obligations or pressures to do certain things.

I'm not sure if this feeling of freedom comes solely from the removal of that large commitment to a job and the consequent responsibilities it brought with it. Perhaps it is that in this space I realise and feel my freedom more keenly. I was always free and felt free, I was aware of it and grateful for it, but here and now I feel it more strongly, and the desire to live and make the most of my freedom is more powerful. I'm enthused and excited by my own freedom and importantly I'm also enjoying the feeling of it, sometimes I feel almost giddy with potential. It's a good feeling and one I value. I think being more conscious and appreciative of freedom can only help me to do what I want and what is worthwhile, now and in the future. A commitment to being free? Quite possibly. Now, I'm starting out on my career of freedom, and it's definitely a job for life.

The more it remains the same

2010-12-31T20:20:00.003Z

Two thousand and ten, a difficult year to categorise. Good? Bad? I think 'not too bad' was my most common answer to 'how are you?' this past year, an answer was probably overly cautious and slightly pessimistic, but roughly accurate as a description of the twelve months almost past. Quite a lot happened, and quite a lot I thought would happen didn't. In 2010 I tried to become truly unemployed, and failed utterly – having finally freed myself of my last foolishly-felt commitment to the job I'd left over a year previously, and finally finished in the course of an entire year the 7 and a half days of work I'd been contracted to do for a second job, I then accepted another job a whole day after sending my goodbye, I'm really leaving, this will be my last meeting, I'm out of here email to that second job. So an evening of truly unemployed freedom enjoyed there. I'm grateful that I've had work, and interesting and worthwhile work at that, in this time of recession and budgetary gloom, but I worked hard for quite a lot of years and was looking forward to not having to work for at least a short time, as well as feeling it would be of inordinate help in increasing my own happiness, and now I intend not to work for as long as it is possible and feels worth doing, starting in January. In this past year I planned to travel, and did quite a bit but not as I vaguely thought I would – twice for work, once for politics, twice for family weddings, a little bit purely for fun. I thought I'd improve my health and tried quite hard to do so but my health was worse at times during the year than at the start of it and I've unfortunately added some miscellaneous albeit temporary ailments. I stayed living where I was living, in the same apartment in the same city, which was not definitely going to be the case a year ago. I suspect as a result of not working and other changes much will be different in 2011, in and for me, and I'm quite interested to see what will happen.

So what did the year look like? Much less do I feel the photographic record illustrates what of significance happened this year, and I also realise I have many photos still to post from the year, but here are some images nonetheless.

The year started and was to end with snow. From a snow ball fight on New Year's Eve, to running across the canal and watching giant flakes flurry in the air a year ago, there was extreme snow this year, and it was fun and frustrating. Here's some of it from January:

And this one taken from underwater, below the ice in the Iveagh Gardens:

In February there was lots of Hyperbolic Crochet – I made my first piece, below:

And some were exhibited with many pieces of much more amazing work as part of the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef at the Science Gallery, later in the year:

In March I went to Loughcrew at dawn for the equinox, a good time and place, though the photos don't do it justice:

April was a sunset from a friend's house in Rathmines, to which later we had sadly to say goodbye:

And a trip to The Village in Cloughjordan, to visit some interesting eco-houses and a very inspiring attempt at creating a more sustainable community:

May was a trip to London for some political excitement, though no-one quite advanced past the finish line of Big Ben's election projection that evening:

Also some slightly sinister phone boxes:

That was followed by some wandering around France, culminating in Carcassonne, where a game was played:

June was being underwater in Mullaghmore, Co. Sligo:

And also above water, camping in this tent:

It was also, significantly, returning to Glastonbury for it's 40th birthday having first gone there 15 years ago. We're all getting to be middle-aged now:

July was recreating photos taken by family members years ago in Israel, among the great strangenesses of being there:

August included a rapid trip to Berlin, and some sound recordings at Teufelsberg:

September was working, including working in New York:

And more importantly, not working in New Haven:

October there was quite a bit about graffiti, like much of the year. Not least this Maser and Damien Dempsey exhibition in Smithfield:

November was people finally getting out at the streets to protest how this financial 'crisis' is being handled by the government. It looked to me like there were about 80,000 people there, official estimates ranged from 50,000 to 120,000. Saying, in some way, there has to be a better, fairer way, or at least a different way:

And December was back to snow, ice and temperatures of minus 12 Celsius:

But there was still Christmas cheese to finish the year properly:

More and different types than last year, and already shared with many friends, who without doubt were one of the best and most important permanent features of 2010, and one I very much hope won't change.

National Day of Demonstration

2010-11-28T22:47:00.006Z

There is a better, fairer way. 50-150,000 people came together to say so, depending on your estimates of attendance at the National Day of Demonstration, organised by the unions and TASC, among others. Good to see some anger out on the streets. And some alternatives being presented, from the podium and, somewhat less convincingly, on various placards. And surprisingly moving to hear parts of the Proclamation read from the steps of the GPO. An energising afternoon.

Riot Gardai get ready not to be needed.

Protest begins to gather at Christchurch and down onto Wood Quay.

Ha.

One percent network.

Banners gather at start of the march.

Crossing the Liffey.

Happy retirement Fianna Fail.

Taking to the water in a currach.

There is a better, fairer way - march assembles at the GPO.

Jim Larkin looks on.

Just how high can this go?

is this the end?

2010-11-21T23:59:00.006Z

What a terrible day for Ireland. The crooks and their cronies in the Fianna Fail government, having blown up the bubble and amplified the boom, with the inevitable crash implied in both, have now finally handed Ireland itself to the European Union (EU), European Central Bank (ECB) and worst of all, the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The end of the first Republic, the end of our existence as a sovereign nation, people are calling it.

I never thought in my lifetime to see my own country about to come under the oversight of the IMF, with the "restructuring" and "austerity" that will entail. To give up control of our national finances, to be even brought close to the position where that would be a possibility, because this government will not allow its banking friends to suffer.

This situation sickens me. It is not for me about the loss of sovereignty that so many commentators are focussed on, but about a small group of men taking a country, flawed but essentially good, and in a matter of a few years driving it into the gutter, to a low point that will take decades to crawl our way out of. Decades that the ordinary people of Ireland will suffer through and pay for, despite gaining so little and losing so much during the boom times, and during the last two years of the crash.

“The key issue all the time for the Government is to ensure that we do not have a collapse of the banking sector," said Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan, in announcing tonight that the government has already applied for the loan from the EU/ECB/IMF and that the EU has accepted. That says it all - the priority has not been saving jobs, saving people's homes, safeguarding the health sector, or protecting education, it has not even been saving the economy as a whole - it's just about the banks. Including banks that we do not need (if we need any), that do not provide services to the majority of Irish people, like Anglo Irish Bank which even the other banks did not think deserved saving. Banks that can (and now anyway most likely will) be taken over by companies in other countries, without any major problems being caused to the Irish people, especially when our currency is already the Euro. Banks are private companies, making profits for shareholders. They are not worth destroying your country for. But instead of letting Anglo go to the wall, as it should have done two years ago, or letting our economy take precedence over the profits of a small number of companies in the banking sector, this handful of politicians, bankers and developers have instead let our country go.

Meanwhile no-one seemed to see fit to mention that this handful of country-wreckers are almost exclusively male - the Taoiseach, the Minister of Finance, most of the senior Ministers, an embarrassingly large proportion of all TDs (less than 13% of Irish national politicians are women), the heads of all the banks, the present and past heads of the Central Bank, most if not all of the major builders and developers. Does it matter that they're all men? Perhaps it does. It's simply a fact.

This government and its golden circle brought this country along a path I largely despised during the boom times, and have used the crash mainly to further the inequality and poverty in our society. Many Irish people feel humiliated and ashamed tonight, yet the people who brought us here and oversaw this ignominy show no shame whatsoever.

On Thursday the government admitted that the EU and IMF officials were already in Ireland to negotiate and look at the national books of account. Books which the Irish people is not entitled to see. The lies, denial and obfuscation by government Ministers and the Taoiseach of the previous weekend continued in other forms throughout the week and even this weekend, even as the announcement of the deal was made.

As if to hammer home the point, on Friday I visited the Dáil, the first time I'd gone beyond the foyer of our parliamentary buildings. It was actually inspiring, to hear about the struggle to achieve independence, the first Dáil, the War of Independence, the role of urban guerilla warfare in that struggle, the Constitution and the challenges taken to it. We were taken on a tour which very unusually allowed us to sit in the Seanad and the Dáil chambers themselves. I sat down in a seat in the Dáil chamber, indistinguishable from the others, then moved up a few chairs to allow more space for more of our group, but no-one filled it. Turned out this first seat was the one normally allocated to the Taoiseach. Even as the meetings were likely continuing elsewhere in the building or nearby at that very moment to hand over Ireland's right to financial self-rule, the corridors and chambers of our government did not echo with determined argument, but were richly silent. It did not seem ironic that the Taoiseach's seat remained empty. The question is now whether we'll remain silent, or whether we'll find a way to lead ourselves through this emptiness to a better future.

Above, the voting buttons indicating Tá and Níl in the Senate chamber of the Oireachtas. Similar ones are in the Dáil chamber. This is what democracy looks like. Sadly our democratic leaders seem to have forgotten that.

I suspect I am too angry and sad to write coherently. Hopefully tomorrow morning will bring a brighter view.

10/10/10

2010-10-10T20:12:00.003+01:00

Another arbitrary date coincidence. Why not celebrate? I was, at 10:10:10 a.m. this morning. If you missed it, get ready for 10 minutes and 10 seconds past 10p.m. this evening. Not quite as good, but how often do we get a second chance at something, on the same day? Meanwhile (simultaneously) as my even geekier friends pointed out, 101010 is 42 in binary. The answer to life, the universe and everything.

If only it were that simple. So for today, I'm trying to let it be.

Two dozen days

2010-09-29T22:56:00.002+01:00

Two dozen days of my life of late. Read as you will.

A double rainbow over Dublin. I had to take a photo, because when will I see that happen again?

Answer: three days later.

The first apple from the tree in the courtyard.

And the first beans from the courtyard vines.

Some bedroom fauna.

Then more time on a plane.

Empire State through the hotel window.

Say it with figures.

Upside-down constellations on the ceiling of Grand Central.

Look closer.

This is a massive artwork painted onto the multi-storey carpark, roofs, walls and even lamposts, that lines up perfectly when you stand on a certain spot.

Steamboat soup in Hangawi - vegetarian restaurant shrine.

A very large hole in the pavement, I mean, sidewalk.

Everybody get together.

What better place for neon art than in a carpark?

Above the cemetery.

It brings all the MILFs to the yard.

It's a letterbox R2D2. No more need be said.

Into the sunset and home again.

On beauty on planes

2010-08-31T23:14:00.004+01:00

I was on a plane the other day. Then I was on another one a few days later. And another a few weeks after that, and back again two weeks later. And another one a few weeks later and just a couple of days after that. A strange thing in these climate-challenged times, but I used to love flying. The physical act of being in a plane, of taking off from the ground, the feeling as the plane reached that point where its wheels leave the tarmac and you are no longer of the ground but of the air, the point where you no longer go along, but up. And up and up. The sensation as the plane climbs, but climbs nothing, only forces more air beneath its wings, only somehow pushes its way into the air, changing the path of the air so that it becomes no longer something we effortlessly move through and bat aside but something that holds us up, this air, this breathable substance, that a certain distance from the earth becomes breathable no longer. I used to love it, being in a tin can so seemingly miraculously staying in the air, above the clouds, holding us all aloft with it, separated from death and downwards only by this metal and plastic shell. And inside, this bizarre pantomime of ordinary life, with tiny drinks served by oddly-uniformed men and women, out of metal carts, with chocolate and perfume for sale at exorbitant prices, with its own stylized language of the seat pocket in front of you and overhead compartments and in-flight entertainment and turbulence and comes to a complete stop, and with everyone sitting facing the same way, except for the 'upper' classes where sometimes people get to face the opposite way, now, in a return to what was common in the lowliest horse and carriage a hundred and two hundred years ago, but throughout this plane, this cocoon of life above the clouds, we all act as if it's ordinary, normal, when it's extraordinary, astonishing, a continuing feat of immediate engineering and human-machine coordination and international planning and most of all this envelope of air, our air, surrounded only inches away by the expanse of air that will surely kill us if we go to it, yet which eems just as surely to keep us flying, here in our tin can. It's extraordinary, every time. That's why I used to love it. That and many other reasons. And I still find it extraordinary. Perhaps I love it still, some part of me does, still loves the feeling of flying. The feeling in my body and mind. Of course it isn't much approved of now to say so, that pleasure in the act of flying can feel tainted by the damage that flying does to our shared planet, the tonnes of carbon dioxide emitted by each flight. And those aspects are perhaps the most central ones of this act, now, in our better educated, more knowledgeable times. But I think I gained that love of flying when I was very young. I don't remember my first flight, so I must have been very young when I was first in a contraption that took me thousands of feet above the air and kept me there and took me back to earth safely. And I loved flying for many years before I knew the damage it caused. It does not go away, that love, that physical sensation. It doesn't go away because I know better now. Because I feel differently now. I used to love too, secondarily, simply being in a plane. The privacy in public, the aloneness in a contained crowd, the sense of movement while we were carried within something unmoving. I thought, I felt, I experienced many changes on planes, intensely, specifically, in ways that I did not feel at other times. I used sometimes to look forward to being on planes, to the time and type of time I'd have in the air, knowing I could accomplish certain things there, transform in certain ways, even as the plane moved me through space, I would find a different way of being, for a while. I used to fly quite often, I suppose, often enough that it was a part of my life, not regular but not so rare as to be an experience aside from everyday life, instead a part of life, of experience, repeated, differently, often. So I used to love flying. And it started so young and went on so long and often that the love and wonder I felt is not destroyed by what I know now, about the effects of this activity, previously a marvel, a wonder, a kind of joy. Perhaps it was a simpler time, or I was simpler, or I felt it differently. It was what it was, then. What it is now and means now is something different. Of course I am still wrestling with how to understand the much less flying that I do now in relation to what I know of its effects on the climate and our changing home. That is a much longer and more complex conversation, internal and external. I started this piece to write about something I came to on a plane, recently. I wanted to write about that, but to get to that somehow I wrote first about the love I used to have for flying, that in being on a plane a short while ago led me to what I wanted to say. So I've written about this love I used to have, this regular experience of the extraordinary, as a way of getting to what I had intended to say. On the plane I was thinking about what I could write about. What I could share. I had realised that sharing something was what this was about. Part of what being a person in the world is about, rather than a person alone. And what I came up with was sharing something beautiful. That that was something I could share, at the moment, as myself. And that that was something worth sharing. And I had that thought on that plane, that time, in that air. So now I've come home and I found some beautiful things, and I'm sharing them here. And somehow it started with the story of how I used to love flying in planes. And that is just how it was.

So here is something that I found beautiful, and nothing to do with planes.

That was a beautiful sunset at Seapoint in Dublin Bay. I got to go swimming in the sea in that sunset and that was beautiful too. I took a few other photos of that sunset; I found it hard to decide which was the best; perhaps you'll choose another one.

And here is something else beautiful.

The reflection of the clouds in such very shallow water at Sandymount, in Dublin Bay again, just nearby the Pigeonhouse towers pictured in the other photo. A different day, and beautiful too I thought. And other photos from Sandymount too that day, you might find another more to your liking.

From the air to the ground to the sea and the sun and the clouds; a beautiful planet I love more than planes.

Glastonbury turns 40

2010-07-02T18:42:00.004+01:00

Went to Glastonbury. Again. It was great. The sun shone. All weekend. Lots more to say, but for now, just enjoy lots of photos of Glastonbury celebrating its 40th birthday.

Set of Glastonbury Festival photos.

Notes on Mullaghmore, County Sligo

2010-06-21T19:01:00.007+01:00

1. The views from it are ridiculously, frighteningly, laughing out loudly beautiful.

2. There was a Catholic healing and renewal weekend with Father Dalton just finishing in the Beach Hotel when I arrived. 3. The Pier Hotel across the road has an outdoor hot tub with an astonishing view of the mountains and the sea, and is advertised as such in their foyer. 4. A biker guy in faded Harley Davidson t-shirt rides around the village on a brown and white horse, completing the ensemble with cowboy boots, spurs and a fancy but well-worn bridle. He is an occasional bouncer at the soon-to-be-reopened hotel nightclub.

5. I can hear the Atlantic Ocean from my room and see it from my bed.

6. The Quay Restaurant serves as its only vegetarian option a combination of two classic vegetarian options – a goat's cheese tartlet perched atop a vegetable stir fry.

7. The cliffs at Mullaghmore Head rank seventh in the league for highest waves in the world, according to a perhaps not entirely reliable local source. 8. There are two memorials on the cliff road above the village, one to Eamon, beloved father, and a second to Adrian, claimed by the sea, commemorated by the Garda Sub Aqua club and especially by one deep sea diver who never gave up hope.

9. There is a PADI dive centre in what is otherwise an old house divided into flats that looks as if it has been transported here directly from Dublin Six.

10. People here swear a great deal, creatively, and at volume. 11. I have not yet begun reading Nevil Shute's On the Beach. 12. The Tayto crisps in the pub are from Norn Iron and proud of it. 13. Portishead was on the hotel lobby soundsystem on a Monday at midnight.

14. I have watched the waves from above, floated on the surface of the sea, dived underwater breathing tanked air, jumped over streams, and camped beside the ocean.

15. At least one child, who looked to be about two years old, thought I was a man. More specifically, she thought I was her father.

16. Up the hill there is a B&B adorned with a house for sale sign that a neighbour said has been there for a year.

17. In Mullaghmore I am ridiculous, frightened, and laughing out loud.

More photos of Mullaghmore - above and underwater.

Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef, x2

2010-06-08T23:55:00.004+01:00

The Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef exhibition at the Science Gallery will end this Friday 11th June, so if you haven't already gone to see it, I recommend you high-tail it there in what remains of this week. You'll see a beautiful and fascinating display of a little known form of geometry made manifest in coral-like models fashioned from fibres of many kinds, which simultaneously illustrate the unfolding ecological peril of coral reefs worldwide. Hopefully that description with its minimum of hyperbole is enough to entice you to experience it directly – be reassured that it makes much more sense when you see and touch it yourself.

Hyperbolic crochet, in concept and reality, has been fascinating me for the last few months. I first heard about it from some crafter friends, when it sounded quite fantastical, and have since read up a little about its geometry and origins. I even went so far as to purchase my very own crochet hook and actually create a few tiny pieces, at first with informal and friendly instruction at a preparatory workshop for the exhibition, and later was almost unable to stop myself continuing to crochet at home, on the Luas and on the DART. Cue unending awful puns about getting hooked – you'll have to add in your own witticisms, because between the speakers at the exhibition launch and reading a couple of articles about hyperbolic crochet, I don't think I could bear to make yet another crochet-themed play on words. On the other hand, I can't say I've completely gotten my head around all the mathematical concepts, but it is scientifically fascinating, and very beautiful.

As far as I understand it, hyperbolic space refers to a third type of geometry, after Euclidean geometry (essentially geometry on a plane, the type you're subjected to at school about triangles, circles, squares and all the rest) and spherical geometry, the type that applies on spheres, which you could imagine might be important for us as the Earth is close to spherical. In Euclidean geometry, parallel lines never meet. In this familiar type of geometry, if you have a straight line and a point outside that line, a second straight line can be drawn through that point which will never intersect with the first line. In spherical geometry, on the other hand, if you have a straight line and a point outside that line, any straight line drawn through that point will eventually intersect with the first line. So in Euclidean geometry there is one parallel line, in spherical geometry there are none. So far, so familiar. But there are more options than zero and one – already a point worth remembering in our computer-obsessed age. In hyperbolic geometry, there are infinitely many straight lines that can be drawn through the point which will never intersect with the first straight line. This creates not craziness, but a third consistent form of geometry, which was called hyperbolic precisely because of its infinite 'exuberant excess'.

Why is this interesting and how does it relate to crochet? Well, for a long time, mathematicians tried to prove that such hyperbolic geometry was impossible – it seemed absurd, and possibly contradictory. Eventually in the 19th century mathematicians had to conclude that it was possible. But it is difficult for us to get our heads around, difficult to depict, and difficult to model. Henry Poincare drew diagrams of it, and MC Escher tried to depict it with the famous drawings of his Circle Limit series – discs of symmetrical fish chasing each other's tails, and of demons and angels, their wings spread wide. In the 1970s William Thurston made a paper model of hyperbolic space, but it was fragile, difficult to construct and hard to handle.

In 1997 Dr Daina Taimina, a Latvian mathematician, finally made the first robust and useable physical model of hyperbolic space, and she made it out of crochet. Is it coincidence that Dr Taimina succeeded where so many male mathematicians had failed? With crochet, adding stitches in a regular way creates forms which physically demonstrate the idea of multiple straight parallel lines that do not meet. These forms really need to be seen, and touched, to be understood, and that was one of Taimina's goals – to allow students to truly grasp this form of geometry. The resulting forms are both mathematically beautiful and tangibly useful. Or tangibly beautiful and mathematically useful, to put it another way.

Why crochet? It's a system where stitches can be easily added, and it quickly begins to exhibit the 'ruffled' crenellated shape of hyperbolic forms. It is also easier to handle than knitting, where all the stitches in a row are held on a needle at the same time, making it cumbersome and heavyto handle as the number of stitches increases, which is, of course, bound to happen with hyperbolic creations. In crochet, only one stitch is held on the hook at a time, so increasingly large forms are much easier to handle. When Taimina spoke at the Science Gallery last week, she commented that the first row of stitches in the first model she made was only 20cm long, which would have taken a couple of minutes to crochet (even for a beginner like me), but increasing every third stitch meant that the last row just eight or so rows later was so long that it took an hour and a half to complete.

How did a mathematical model become a travelling hyperbolic crochet coral reef? It is immediately noticeable that the models resemble coral, mainly because coral itself naturally exhibits an imperfect form of hyperbolic geometry. Kelp, 'lacy' lettuce and the tiny marine animals nudibranches (pronounced nude-ee-brangs) are other naturally occurring examples –though mathematicians until recently had failed to notice this, or perhaps they hadn't consulted with their biologist colleagues. Placing a few of Taimina's mathematical models next to each other, the similarity to a coral reef almost leaps out. As these models became more well-known through Taimina's work, academic papers and occasional exhibitions, they caught the interest of Margaret and Christine Wertheim, Australian sisters with an interest in both scientific communication and in handicraft. They began crafting some, both mathematically regular and in more natural irregular adaptations. As Christine Wertheim put it at a workshop prior to the exhibition, Margaret uttered the words 'why don't we make a crochet coral reef' and what became a five year global collaborative project was born. The sisters thought at most a dozen other crafters might be interested in participating; instead thousands of people took up their hooks and reefs have been made in Australia, the U.S.A, Latvia, England, Japan and now Ireland.

In advance of the visit of the hyperbolic crochet coral reef to the Science Gallery, a call went out for crafters to create an Irish “people's reef” as the collaborative community reef-making project is known. People all over the country contributed pieces individually, at knitting and crochet groups and through workshops. It was at one of these workshops that I picked up a crochet hook for the first time in 20 years and, after moments of helpful tutelage by some only slightly more experienced and less confused co-crocheters, created my first piece of hyperbolic crochet. This pride and joy is pictured below:

I say only slightly less confused as the first person I asked knew how to create the first row, or 'chain', which we both managed, but then found we'd no idea how to do the second, more involved row, which is where the 'real' crocheting starts. With the help of another person who understood the second row mystery we were all soon crocheting away, not very mathematically but with gusto. Some beginners nervously stuck to creating incredibly long chains, twirling on for metres, like a lengthy but miniature scarf. For me, it was heartening and inspiring to collaborate with people who were welcoming and enthusiastic to total beginners, and to feel part of a community of creative collaboration.

It was also strange but quite pleasant to be in the entirely female company of the workshop, which appeared automatic and unremarkable to most of its participants but for me was unusual. The workshop itself was open to all, yet no men had chosen to attend. Some people there were experienced knitters and crocheters from groups who regularly got together to craft, and it was clear that this was often, and perhaps always for them, a solely female activity. There was a familiarity and level of comfort with an entirely female setting that was perhaps noticeable to me precisely because of my relative lack of familiarity with it. The Wertheim sisters said that of over 3000 people who have contributed to the reef, only three have been men. My sense that there was an underlying assumption of female-only involvement, and the references by the Wertheims to crochet as one of what they called the 'feminine handicrafts', seemed to me to have contributed to the overall lack of male involvement. The process did not exclude men, nor did it invite them, and I don't think it should necessarily have done either. It's more an observation about what was said and not said, who was present and absent, what was explicit and what was assumed, and about which I haven't yet drawn any conclusions, but found quite interesting.

Having joined in the workshop reefer madness (ba dum tish, just couldn't resist a second pun), like dozens of other people around Ireland I made some more pieces and contributed them to the reef. Here they are:

The Irish people's reef went on display on 20th March with the launch of Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef: A Woolly Wonder at Science Gallery. The exhibition combined explorations of the scientific and mathematical topic of hyperbolic space with the ecological topic of coral reefs, as well as being a celebration of handicraft and the art of crochet.

The exhibition featured the Latvian people's reef, partially constructed by school children and appearing outside Latvia for the first time. Some pieces like the one below were hung next to the Irish reef.

The exhibition featured collections that travel as part of the international touring exhibition, such as the Ladies' Silurian Atoll and the White Spire Grove, pictured below.

The Beautiful Holy Jewel section had some stunning bead work and tiny pieces, and there were also some quite lovely wire and bead pieces in the Irish reef.

There was also the Bleached Bone Reef, an illustration of how coral goes white due to rising sea temperatures, a change that indicates the coral is struggling to survive or even dying. I've seen this phenomenon on real reefs and it is tragic.

There were also plenty of crochet pieces you could pick up or plunge your hands into. Enjoyable and educational.

And some of my pieces even appeared in the reef - can you spot it?

The lovely undulating structures of the people's reefs appeared above the toxic reef - imaginative and strangely attractive structures made of plastic and other rubbish, which highlighted the problem of massive accumulation of plastic debris in the Earth's oceans. I was struck by the curators' point that this plastic rubbish eventually breaks down into plastic sand which will sink to the ocean floor and form a permanent plastic layer in the planet's geological strata, making the idea of 'disposable' plastic even more of an oxymoron.

The above including a piece by the wonderful An Snag Breac

The only less than impressive aspect to the exhibition was that there wasn't entirely enough effort made by Science Gallery to inform and credit the dozens of contributors. For such a community-based project, such follow-through and communication is essential. Some contributors did not receive invites to the exhibition's launch, despite requests and assurances, and some contributors' names (including my own, as someone unfortunately pointed out to me) were left off the list of Irish contributors displayed beside the reef. There were over 80 crocheters around Ireland who contributed to the community reef. An additional sign with more names did appear in the last two weeks of the exhibition. More seriously, some submitted pieces were not displayed, and contributors hadn't been informed that this could happen nor did any signs indicate that not all the work was in the exhibit. Apparently all the Irish pieces will travel with the exhibition and they hope to exhibit them elsewhere if there is more space. Appropriately recognising the contribution of community members to collaborative art projects is an important issue, and my goal in airing these issues here is to improve that communication in future, not to take away from what was a beautiful and interesting exhibition of little-explored and significant topics. Taimina herself talked about how she started to really publicise her work in this area because her husband, also a mathematician, kept getting contacted by people who presumed it was him working on hyperbolic crochet. As she jokingly put it, “I understand that women don't get any mathematics credit, but at least get the crochet credit!”

Returning to the origins of hyperbolic crochet as a mathematical model, the Maths Chapel at the exhibition featured explanations of the nature of hyperbolic geometry and some of Taimina's mathematically exact models which you could handle, with sewn on lines indicating where to fold to demonstrate various features of hyperbolic geometry. Two original Escher woodcuts of the Circle Limit series were also on display. At the launch the Wertheims commented on how happy they were that the exhibition was appearing for the first time in a science museum, instead of in its usual venue of an art gallery, as they had always intended it to be a science communications tool.

It was a real gift that Science Gallery hosted Daina Taimina on 2nd June, towards the end of the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef's exhibition. She talked about how once she drew out what happens in hyperbolic geometry – one linked to two, two linked to four, four become eight – it was clearly a crochet pattern. She also pointed out that because it is impossible to describe the surface of hyperbolic shapes using equations, the whole hyperbolic plane cannot be computer animated. Another point worth remembering when ones and zeroes seem to be shaping every part of modern life.

Taimina observed that people often want to find a 'practical' use for mathematical ideas – thus the excitement about what happens when you fold a hyperbolic form in certain ways, fitting edges against each other – voila, “hyperbolic pants”:

What I found more exciting about this is that if the holes at each end were joined together (which merely requires a fourth dimension) what seems like a kind of wormhole would be created. Finding that hard to comprehend? Buy Taimina's book Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes and have some fun understanding it. And you can take pleasure in the knowledge that the book won the 2009 Diagram Prize for Oddest Title of the Year. You'll also be contributing to the good cause of increasing Taimina's wool stash – as it is she says she makes money from maths using the model “teach calculus so I can buy some more expensive yarn”.

I was certainly excited and inspired by Taimina's talk, notwithstanding the warning she quoted about the dangers of geometry:

Hyperbolic space, handicraft art, coral ecology and community collaboration – the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef expanded my understanding and my active participation in many ways. Thanks for making this experience possible go to Dr Daina Taimina, the Wertheim sisters, Science Gallery, the friends who introduced me to the concept, everyone who showed me how at the workshop and all the crochet crafters who created the Irish reef together. And if you haven't seen the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef yet, go right now!

More photos of the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef

Dublin All City Graffiti Jam photos

2010-05-31T16:57:00.005+01:00

The photos I took of the All City Graffiti Jam, which I thought I'd already posted, but apparently not. No time like the present, so here are a few of the best.

The main title for the Jam.

Gives some idea of what the overall event was like. It was in the carpark of the Tivoli and it was just a little rainy...

Really liked this piece, still in process when I left. Go on the gardening.

Calligraffiti - Crime Time Kings.

There's another dinosaur on the end of this wall, showing work by lots of writers.

This one's especially for you 2bit! Half-dead zombie pandas, who could ask for anything more.

Giving some idea of the effort (and equipment) involved.

Again some idea of scale. I've a lot of large size pictures of the wall that I need to put together into one large panorama.

There are about 100 photos and a video of the Jam available here.

Meanwhile, I've been away for a couple of weeks, so I will get around to writing about my travels in England and France, and posting some photos too. And hopefully sooner than the nearly two month gap between posts this time.

Graffiti jam

2010-04-02T22:20:00.004+01:00

Hoping to make it to the 3rd Annual Graffiti Jam at the Tivoli tomorrow. Took some photos at the first Graffiti Jam there in 2008, it was great. Missed it last year because I was away, looks like it's expanded for 2010. It's pay in now (5 Euro) instead of free, but hey that's the recession for you. Seems cheap for the chance to see so many Irish and international artists and writers at work creating lots of huge and beautiful pieces.

And the beat goes on

2010-03-30T15:36:00.004+01:00

So the sexism/don't accept sexism graffiti fight didn't stop there. We soon had a reaction to the reaction:

Thanks to Queen Roadkill for that pic.

And then there was a slight addition to (or deduction from) that, making the 'DON'T' into 'DO', and possibly losing some of the sense along the way:

Do we have to accept anything? Quite a statement.

But it didn't stop there, we then had the rather more humourous deflating of the 'Grow Up' comment (because after all, who is really being immature here?):

And there's an arrow pointing from 'Ageism' to 'Grow Up', in case you didn't notice.

The messages remain open to plenty of interpretation, because it still looks like it says 'DON'T' from some angles:

Quite entertaining. Pity we rarely have such a public debate in other media. Anyhow, good to see some responses happening on the walls.

More pics at:
lusciousblopster - Don't Accept Sexism - set on flickr

Sexism. It's never cool.

2010-03-23T15:48:00.003Z

About a week ago I was unimpressed by this “streetart” on a wall of the Bernard Shaw pub in Portobello:

Very unimpressed. It's just sexist. And boring. And not even very well done. To ram home the message, the text in the top left corner reads 'honk if you like'. But happily today I saw that someone had critiqued it very effectively:

Really encouraging – good to see that I wasn't the only one who found this objectionable, and great to see someone taking action, and using the same medium to do it. A suitable response executed in an appropriate way, in graffiti terms, that will reach the same audience.

I was originally disappointed not only because of the nature of the piece, but because I like the Bernard Shaw, it's run by a group of young(ish) folks who do a lot of music and art, including the Bodytonic music nights, and who provide space in the bar to exhibitions of interesting local artists. They're also big supporters of graffiti and street art, the wooden hoarding on both sides of the pub building are covered with frequently changing pieces, sometimes painted ads, but more often large pieces by individual writers or groups. In fact I've a large collection of photos of some great pieces on these walls, that I'll one day get around to posting, and also some before-and-after shots. I guess the photos above would fit in either collection. The pub's smoking area is also entirely decorated with graffiti and the carpark in a large yard round the back has its walls covered with some excellent pieces. So it was particularly disheartening to see this piece of sexism on their walls, effectively endorsed by them, and that such a place would think this was acceptable or even funny.

I'd also struggled with whether I should post the first photo, because while I wanted to criticise it, I didn't want to just draw attention to it. Now, in context with the second pic, I feel like viewers won't be as easily able to use it to bolster their own sexism.

Unkie Dave, to whom credit goes for first spotting the update, and I wondered if the whole thing might be a deliberately provocative awareness-raising effort – first the boobs pic to draw people in, letting them gauge their own reaction, then the effacing of it with a positive and challenging counter-message. But from the style, words, and handwriting of the second 'edit' it doesn't look to me like this response was part of the original intent. Instead it seems like the original writers and the Bernard Shaw, which presumably commissioned them or at least approved their use of the wall space, simply thought that bog-standard sexism was amusing or acceptable. How sad.

A couple more photos here:
lusciousblopster - Don't Accept Sexism - set on flickr

Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef

2010-03-20T14:25:00.002Z

A very few pictures of the Irish Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef at the Science Gallery are here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lusciousblopster/sets/72157623674640676/

More to come soon!

Green indeed

2010-03-17T18:39:00.005Z

So it's St Patrick's Day in Ireland. What does our national day mean for our country in these oh-so-troubled times? As we continue to dutifully swallow our super-sized portion of the global financial crisis, served with a side of home-grown banking crisis drowning in a jobless sauce, when the leadership choices are all devoid of flavour and public services have been sliced, diced and then minced beyond recognition, Paddy's Day means that the vast majority of Our Glorious Leaders TM are off serving up a taste of Ireland in exotic overseas locales, at the taxpayers' expense, usually while tucking into gala dinners. Said leaders are celebrating all things green and leprechauny in Berlin, Boston and Belgium, not to mention other locations well-known for their Irish connections, such as Dubai, Japan, Korea, Australia and Russia.

The Dáil in Dublin on St Patrick's Day 2010 - can't you tell it's empty?

Mary Harney, our ironically-obese minister for health, is undertaking a 15 day trip to New Zealand, the longest of any Minister. Maybe she could while away some time on those long flights looking at some of about 58,000 x-rays that were never examined by a radiologist or reading the unopened referral letters from Tallaght Hospital. You know, just some light reading material to keep her entertained on what's happening back home.

Conor Lenihan, now modelling at least his third recent junior ministerial hat, Science and Technology, has managed to wangle a trip to Vietnam out of his department. Unfortunately (for him? Us? Texas?) Government Chief Whip Pat Carey missed his flight to Houston on Wednesday 9th March as he had to stay in the Dáil that day dealing with what The Irish Times called “procedural wrangles” about the Finance Bill. As it appears that he simply missed his flight, presumably that means no refund for him, or the taxpayers – so we've actually paid for a trip that didn't even happen. Now that's sham-rocking.

Minister for Communications and Green Party TD Eamon Ryan is going to India and Singapore, and junior minister for the Environment Michael Finneran is going to China. At least another 38 local county councillors or council officials are also abroad for the festivities, most though not all paid for by their councils.

As a side note, the issue of airmiles will likely only be raised, if at all, in relation to Eamon's trip to India and Singapore. In a sane country with a passing concern about the humanity-threatening impending catastrophe that is climate change, would this amount of air travel by Government representatives for a single day ever be considered be acceptable? And wouldn't carbon-offsetting for all these flights be done automatically, as a small, even if flawed, nod towards mitigating their climate change effects. I wonder what the total carbon emissions are for our national day celebrating all things green – back of an envelope calculations welcome.

So meanwhile, back home, almost the entire government is out of the country at the same time on this not-too-rainy 17th March. As Unkie Dave puts it far better than I, this leaves only Brian Lenihan and John Gormley in situ, ostensibly running the country. Though Cheltenham races are on at the moment, so admittedly Ireland can't hope for their undivided attention. Popularity with the government is not at an all time low – Fianna Fail has risen in popularity since last year to a current uninspiring 27% and the Green Party is at 2% - but it's still rightly dismal. The citizenry want change, most people are depressed though strangely not angry, the economy has fallen apart (or more accurately been dismembered), we have no military forces to speak of, and the reigning leaders are all out of the country simultaneously.

What do these conditions logically suggest as a fun family activity now the Paddy's Day parade is over? Why, a coup of course. A bit of energy and enthusiasm, a few folks with a passing familiarity with “leadership” and “vision” or maybe just some green-themed costumes, perhaps a catchy Proclamation, a handful of fit former construction workers taking up positions around immigration in Dublin Airport, a few up-and-coming media hopefuls converging on Montrose to take over the national broadcaster, and a couple of unemployed accountants liberating the NAMA cash over at the Department of Finance, that should do it. Sure we'd have the country under new management and still have plenty of time for an actually-not-green-we're-Irish pint to celebrate before the day was done. Would certainly give a whole new and catchy angle to 17th March as Ireland's national day. Hopefully it's clear that this post is in the tradition of pub plots and bar room revolutions that have been talked about at least since a Welsh shepherd banished the snakes from our emerald isle. It only remains to toast the idea of a Paddy's Day (or Paddies' Day?) that could actually be worth the hangover. Sláinte.