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Ireland's political and cultural magazine
14June 2015
S
INCE it emerged in mid-
the water charges movement
has grown to become Ireland’s
largest social movement.
Beginning with small-scale,
self-organised resistance to meter
installations in Cork and Dublin, the
campaign progressed with the forma-
tion of RightWater to a kind of mass
politics unseen in Ireland in decades. It
successes include five protests of over
, in Dublin in six months, at
times daily events in communities
across the island, and the generation of
an atmosphere that has led to the reve-
lation of a number of scandals that have
occupied hours of airtime and pages of
print.
Through all of this little attention has
been paid to one of the most interesting
aspects of the movement. While the
media focused on the more established
public performers in the trade unions
and left-wing political parties, smaller,
newer organisations were co-ordinating
resistance across the country and grow-
ing steadily more influential.
The movement is approaching a
crossroads as the consequences of non-
payment become clear and as a general
election demands crystallisation of
agendas. Village looks at four of these
organisations, asking where they came
from and where they are going.
Dublin Says No derives its name from
the Ballyhea Says No group from county
Cork who have been marching against
the bank bailout since March .
The ‘Says No’ name has become a
motif of the resistance to austerity in
Ireland with hundreds of groups around
the country adopting it in local cam-
paigns of resistance. The Dublin version
began in February after a number
of activists were unhappy marching
behind trade-union leaders they saw as
“sellouts” in a demonstration against
the debt burden. One hundred non-
aligned protestors marched in their own
demonstration that Easter Sunday, and
a march of differing composition and
size has been held every Sunday since.
Dublin Says No’s strength as a politi-
cal organisation was built on Facebook,
where it has , likes on a page that
regularly sees its images, videos and
status updates mocking politicians
reach hundreds of thousands by shares.
The page positions the group against
“the corrupt political system”, while its
banner says it is opposed to “the prop-
erty tax and austerity”.
However, it is in the water charges
movement that Dublin Says No has
become really significant, organising a
January protest without institutional
support that drew , to Dublin’s
city centre and pioneered the now-pop-
ular tactic of marching from numerous
points and converging on O’Connell
Street.
Before this Dublin Says No had been
involved in a series of smaller protests,
such as an attempted ‘lockout’ of politi-
cians from the Dáil and occupations of
buildings like Dublin’s Civic Offices. But
itsmost famous and controversial activ-
ity has been confronting politicians in
the street, usually with the question
“how has austerity affected you?”.
These confrontations have drawn
condemnation from politicians, who
regard them as harassment, and have
even reached the national headlines on
occasion, such as when Dublin Says No
activist Derek Byrne called President
Michael D Higgins a “midget parasite”.
Byrne says that his videos are impor-
tant because they “show people putting
NEWS Anti-Austerity Groups
The politics of
disillusionment
An insight into some vigorous new anti-
austerity groups. By Ronan Burtenshaw
Dublin Says No
June 2015 15
it up to politicians”. “You look at the
opposition in the Dáil, getting involved
in ridiculous debates, not changing any-
thing, and people get frustrated. Dublin
Says No are actually holding people in
power to account”.
Activist Bernie Hughes, who is one of
the few affiliated with Dublin Says No to
have previously been involved with
organised Left politics, says the strong
language the group uses represents the
“vernacular” of many working-class
communities and is part of its appeal.
“There is an enormous anger out there at
Ireland’s politicians and what you see
with Dublin Says No is ordinary people
finding a way to express it”.
Byrne says the group deliberately has
“no structure”, with whoever joins the
discussions on the page or attends pro-
tests becoming Dublin Says No, much
like the modus operandi of Anonymous.
“It’s for people who are fed up with the
corruption in Irish politics and don’t
have faith in the political parties to sort
it out. A lot of people want to change
things themselves”.
Byrne says its politics are “left-wing”
but contrasts them with the Socialist
Party and Socialist Workers Party, who
he says preach “revolution” but “when
they get to the streets it’s a case of turn
up, have a few speeches and go home”.
Despite this Dublin Says No has been
drawn into co-operation with political
parties and trade unions such as Unite
and Mandate through the umbrella
RightWater campaign. They will sup-
port its march in Dublin city centre on
June th.
Communities Against Water Charges
(CAWC) describes itself as a “loose net-
work of activists based in Dublin
North-East”. It emerged after the area
became a heartland of the resistance to
water-meter installations in mid-to-late
.
Taking advice from Dr Paul O’Connell,
now lecturing in law at the University of
the School of Oriental and African Stud-
ies in London but originally from Dublin
North East himself, a group of local
activists convened a meeting in Kilbar-
rack in November to form the group.
Formed by residents of working-class
Dublin suburbs lincluding Coolock,
Darndale, Edenmore and Donaghmede,
the first focus of the group, according to
activist Cat Inglis, was to “counter the
media narrative that everyone protest-
ing water meters was a ‘layabout’ or
‘scum’. We wanted to have the commu-
nity’s voice heard”.
The anti-metering campaign in the
area began when Raheny resident
Donna Thompson blocked Irish Water
from an installation in May. She put out
a call on Facebook which was responded
to by activists from Dublin Says No and
Edenmore. Later in the summer, when
Irish Water tried to install in Edenmore
itself, the activist base was already built
up to resist it.
Residents from Dublin North-East
continued to prevent water-meter
installations throughout the summer, at
first organising to stop Irish Water vans
by standing in front of them, but esca-
lating to embrace sophisticated
operations involving cars of activists
driving around suburbs blocking off
access from main roads.
Inglis points out that some of the tac-
tics involved in these activities were
picked up from the Greyhound strike
earlier in the year when local activists,
unaffiliated with the trade union SIPTU,
blocked ‘scab’ drivers from making col-
lections in Dublin North-East in support
of locked-out workers.
As the campaign continued into Sep-
tember there were significant increases
in Garda presence in the area. This
resulted in more confrontations with
local activists, filmed and circulated
widely on Facebook, and protests
against ‘heavy-handed”’ tactics outside
Coolock Garda station.
The core group of activists who keep
CAWC going is small – probably between
They
communicate
through
channels on
social media
that are almost
completely
missed by the
mainstream
press.
Increasingly,
they manage
impressive
feats of
organisation
“
stand-off
16June 2015
ten and twelve locals. But its reach is
significant: it holds weekly meetings in
different suburbs around the area. Like
many of Ireland’s grassroots anti-aus-
terity organisations it has few
structures, there are no members or
committees, only a code of conduct.
It aims to ensure “everyone who
wants to has a say” in the anti-water
charge campaign. This imperative, they
feel, can be stifled by more bureaucratic
organisations like political parties and
trade unions.
Most of CAWC’s activists and those
who come to their meetings are new to
politics. Some, like Gerry Kennerk, a
former official with the builders’ union
BATU, and Dublin Says No’s Bernie
Hughes, a long-time left-wing activist,
have previous campaign experience, but
most are picking up their skills for the
first time.
Despite their scepticism about politi-
cal parties, and the general
anti-political sentiment prevalent in
many of the newer grassroots anti-aus-
terity organisations, Communities
Against Water Charges places itself
firmly on the Left, with Inglis saying the
group’s politics are “socialist”.
The One Year Initiative, known as
Yi, is a campaign to have people-initi-
ated referendums inserted into the Irish
constitution.
Its founder is Mark McAuley, a small
businessman and former bank employee
originally from Belfast but now living in
the Republic. McAuley became inter-
ested in politics at the time of the
anti-property-tax campaign when his
family was beginning to feel the pinch of
austerity measures. At that stage, he
said, he began to “examine things for
himself to see what was going so wrong”
in Irish society.
Having never been involved in, or
even regularly discussed, politics, he
attended his first protest on October
th , the major RightWater
demonstration. Expecting to see “a few
hundred demonstrators” he was “blown
away” by the numbers that turned out
and “inspired” to get more involved in
activism.
He drew the conclusion that the prob-
lem in Ireland was “the political system”
which he felt wasn’t democratic and had
“taken power away from the people.
When you look at Irish politics it’s obvi-
ous it is controlled by a tiny clique
– there is hardly any transparency,
political parties are prioritised over
ordinary people and the opposition is
essentially powerless to stop unpopular
measures”.
After involvement in the water-
charges campaign for a number of
months he drew up a document sup-
porting people-initiated referendums in
January and began to solicit support for
a campaign. From this the One Year
Initiative formed, under the slogan “we
want our power back”.
The group gave it this name because it
is seeking a commitment to introduce
an amendment to the constitution
allowing for people-initiated referen-
dums within a year of the general
election. The campaign has a website at
www.yi.ie which allows people to sign
up to become supporters, to keep
informed about the progress of the
campaign, or become campaigners. The
latter category join an internal Face-
book group which discusses how to
move Yi forward.
By the time of the election it plans to
have a campaigner in each constituency,
signing candidates up to a pledge to
back people-initiated referendums.
Already the group has secured the back-
ing of independent, left-wing TDs Clare
Daly, Joan Collins and Mick Wallace.
McAuley describes Yi as a “non-po-
litical” organisation, whichwould
accept support from anyone willing to
endorse the initiative. However, he says
they are examining the radical demo-
cratic experiments in Greece and Spain
which are seeking to introduce people’s
referendums.
He acknowledges that critics worry
about such referendums falling victim
to “populist politics” or scapegoating of
vulnerable groups but says the aim is to
facilitate such referendums within the
context of existing laws guaranteeing
human rights, and allowing for the
input of “experts” in the various fields
into the drafting of amendments.
The National Citizens Movement
launched in August as an attempt
to bring together ‘Says No’ and anti-wa-
ter charge groups from across the
country. Its first meeting in Cork drew
over activists and agreed to focus
on “fighting Irish Water in the courts
and getting accountability from the
government”.
Its leading figures are Dermot
Murphy, who had previously been active
with Direct Democracy Ireland, Eliza-
beth Hourihane, who stood as an
independent in Cork in the local elec-
tions, and Alan Lawes, who was a
member of People Before Profit. These
are the admins of its popular Facebook
page, which has over , likes. Two
of them, Murphy and Hourihane, have
cases pending in the courts against
Irish Water.
Murphy’s case is about the safety of
the water meters that are being
installed around the country. He
believes that the Class C boxes which
NEWS Anti-Austerity Groups
Bernie Hughes
June 2015 17
hold the meters are sub-standard, won’t
hold the weight of cars crossing them
and can be tampered with to interfere
with residents’ water supplies. His case
follows a similar one by Tony Rochford,
who went on hunger strike against the
property tax in , and managed to
have his box replaced with a more secure
Class B box after court proceedings.
The National Citizens Movement,
which has its roots outside Dublin,
rejects the water charges and property
tax, and also campaigns for a people’s
right to a referendum, supporting a
reintroduction of Articles and of
the Free State constitution, which pro-
vided for direct democracy.
Murphy says it is also a “strongly
nationalist” movement. They support an
immediate referendum on membership
of the European Union, renationalisa-
tion of Ireland’s natural resources and
former state enterprises, and a “restora-
tion” of the constitution. “I think a
lot of people in this country just don’t
feel it’s Ireland anymore, it feels like
we’re run by Germany”, he says.
This nationalist line has attracted
controversy from left-wing activists who
have accused it of being xenophobic or
racist. Hourihane went on the record
during the local elections as having fears
that the Irish would “become a minority
in their own country” because of immi-
gration, and published a statement on
the National Citizens Movement page
calling for curbs to the number of
migrants.
But Dermot Murphy says the group
has no affinity with parties like UKIP in
Britain and situates itself “from the
middle to the left” on the political spec-
trum. “If anything our politics are
republican and in line with that way of
thinking”.
The National Citizens Movement
plans to run candidates in as many con-
stituencies as it can in the general
election, with an AGM to be held soon to
move the project forward. It recently
stood in the Carlow-Kilkenny by-elec-
tion but, despite the support of MEP
Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan, it received only
first preferences, a tenth of the
amount achieved by both People Before
Profit and the Anti-Austerity Alliance.
Murphy says the group isn’t so much
disappointed in this result as “in the
people who voted back in a Fianna Fáil
politician”, and that it wouldn’t deter
them from standing in a general election
campaign.
The development of autonomous, self-
organised organisations on a small scale
across Ireland is a new political phe-
nomenon, of which the above-named
constitute only a glimpse. To get a sense
of the breadth of the groups now organ-
ising, type “says no” or “against water
charges” into Facebook – hundreds of
results return from towns across the
country. There is little doubt that their
existence stems from a rejection of
existing models of representation.
Those interviewed express a belief
that not just the government, but the
political system and in many cases the
state itself is illegitimate: corrupt, cap-
tured by elite interests and in need of
radical overhaul. But they also articu-
late the incapacity of the traditional
institutions of opposition to respond to
new ways of communicating and organ-
ising which are emerging organically
from those at the front line of resistance
to austerity in Ireland.
The new community groups have
given thousands of people, predomi-
nantly from less-well-off segments of
society, an avenue of expression on
their own terms in a public sphere
which had previously excluded them.
They have also, through the collabora-
tions necessary to build and sustain the
water charges movement, significantly
broadened the audience for anti-estab-
lishment politics.
But, as the water-charges campaign
enters its second summer, will we see
limitations in the atomised and struc-
tureless nature of these groups? Can
such movements be sustained in the
absence of a more robust political
theory? Could they slip into right-wing
populism?
It’s not yet clear whether Irish politics
is on a course of permanent fragmenta-
tion or whether realignments, which
produce broader coalitions of opposi-
tion to the established order, are around
the corner.
Whatever happens, hundreds of small
groups around Ireland are engaged in
networked, daily resistance to auster-
ity. They communicate through
channels on social media that are
almost completely missed by the main-
stream press. Increasingly, they
manage impressive feats of
organisation.
A significant proportion of those
involved will not be bought off by pub-
lic-sector pay increases, income-tax
cuts or GDP growth figures. When the
political class realises this it will have to
confront a reality it has largely been
denying: disillusionment in the Ireland
they have created runs deep. •
Will we see
limitations
in the
atomised and
structureless
nature of
these groups?
Can such
movements be
sustained in
the absence of
a more robust
political
theory? Could
they slip into
right-wing
populism?
“
