At 3am this morning, Wednesday 8th March, exactly five months to the
day since #OccupyDameStreet was established, the area around the
Central Bank Plaza was cordoned off by upwards of 100 Gardai while the
#OccupyDameStreet Camp was destroyed and its residents evicted. Up to
fifteen camp residents were forcibly removed from their huts and
prevented from retrieving their personal belongings, as the wooden
kitchen and twelve sleeping huts were broken up with construction
equipment and carried away in lorries.
As dawn broke over Dame Street this morning, and despite the efforts
of the Gardai and the Central Bank to sweep away any trace of the
struggles this street has seen these last five months, we were still
here.
Born on October 8th, 2011, #OccupyDameStreet remained one of the
longest running protests active continuously in the same location in
the global Occupy Movement. Bound together by themes of social justice
and equality, #OccupyDameStreet has made four key demands:
1) That the IMF and ECB stay out of the affairs of Ireland
2) That the burden of private bank debt be lifted from the public’s shoulders
3) That Ireland’s natural gas and oil reserves be returned to sovereign control
4) That a system of real, participatory Democracy be introduced in Ireland
Despite the actions of the Central Bank and An Garda Síochána, we
remain no less committed to these goals, if anything our resolve is
even stronger.
#OccupyDameStreet is not just a camp, not just a series of tents and
wooden pallets, not just the street on which we gathered to discuss,
debate and learn, not just the vision of an alternative Ireland based
on fairness, equality and justice that we presented.
#OccupyDameStreet is the people, the people who gave up so much of
themselves for those who could not, the people who camped and the
people who came, the people who fed and clothed us, the people who
simply stopped by with a kind word of encouragement or those who
supported us from afar.
#OccupyDameStreet is the people. It is all of us, and we are the 99%
The Camp may be gone, but the Movement continues.
We are #OccupyDameStreet.
