Workers Solidarity Movement

Six activists from the left republican group eirigi occupied the premises of the Anglo Irish Bank on Stephen's Green this morning as part of a protest at the more than 30 billion that bank is taking off Irish workers as a result of NAMA.

I got notification early on Saturday that some comrades from the left republican group eirigi had just occupied the Anglo Irish Bank offices so I hoped on my bike with my trusty camera to go down and get a few photos which I include with this post as a slide show. Anglo Irish Bank (not to be confused with Allied Irish Bank) was the super dodgy property developer bank whose collapse was a key feature of the crash in Ireland and which is going to cost workers in Ireland some 30 billion as we pay for the speculation of a couple of hundred of the superwealthy. That figure is based on the fact that 50% of Anglo's loans were to 147 or so accounts!

Saturday's occupation passed off without significant incident. Six activists from eirigi had walked into the lobby chained together (apparently the security gurad said something along the lines of 'ah come onlads this could get me fire') and chained themselves across part of the lobby. You can just make them out through the glass over the shoulders of the cops. There were 20 supporting them outside when I arrive and that crowd grew to about 60 by the time I left. No less than 8 secret police were watching us from the far side of the road in a little clump, also visible in one of the pictures. When I was taking pictures from near them I heard one say to the group in a jokey way 'Is there anything about Gardai pay in that leaflet'. Seven of them headed off together leaving one guy alone in the car to keep an eye on the protest. I headed off for another meeting and I think an hour or so later the eirigi activists left the building without any arrests being made. For drama fans there is some rather comical sectarian banter about the eirigi WSM relationship over on indymedia.ie under the report that the occupation was in progress.

I was also twittering from the scene to the WSM twitter stream including sending photos and video. There was more than the usual amount of retweeting going on and two responses. One in relation to the lynching image 'that's a fucking disgusting thing for a person to see if they've lost someone close to suicide, esp hanging. Shameful.' I'm not quite sure how to feel about that, I guess its why I see my US FB Friends sometimes label links as containing 'triggers,' don't quite think you can do the same for a protest. The second 'A bunch of nutters out on day release' had an interesting source, Stephen Kearon who according to his profile is 'Director, Wicklow Port Company; FF member and former Special Adviser to Minister Dick Roche.' I guess he would say that, wouldn't he!