Low Expectations

Anthony McIntyre 🏴‍☠️ It was the orangish bivouac that caught my eye.

Crossing O'Connell Street during the week, just after the descent of darkness, I thought it was one of the city's homeless sleeping in the central isle, just across from the GPO. But for the stencil on the side of his shelter, I would have walked on. The combination of words - Hunger strike and 7 demands. Having both hunger strike and five demands burned into my memory, the scene immediately resonated with me.

I saw the occupant in conversation with a young woman who, it turned out, happened to be a journalist. Rather than journey on, I stopped to inquire and exchanged a few words with him. He was polite but a bit reticent until I showed him my press card. I guess he gets all sorts approaching him, some of whom might give him abuse.

I asked him if he would like to discuss his issues for publication on the blog, later giving him a contact card. I had no pen or paper with me, which is unusual, so had to ask the young journalist at the scene for both. She readily obliged. If he felt I was wholly unprepared, he was right, but seemed not to mind. Given the lack of any official interest, I suppose he felt it best to make hay while the sun shines.

Paul Lennon explained in an accent that was not typically Dub that he is not a party political activist - no alignment to any political party or movement. Describing himself as a citizen of the world who is deeply moved by the issues that plague the society we live in, he was into the 8th day of his hunger strike. The aim was to draw down attention to the issues which he had outlined under the rubric of 7 demands, ranging from housing to the minimum wage.

He had commenced his fast on the 17th October, International Day For Human Rights. There was enough public interest in the issues he was highlighting, so I was unsure of what he hoped to achieve. My expectations were low. I told him I felt his energy would be better expended on other types of activism rather than hunger strike which would only pick up some attention if he was close to death. Not much point in a hospital bed becoming available under such circumstances. Even a prolonged hunger strike has its consequences for the body, some of them irreversible.

He has been campaigning for years around homelessness and the shortcomings in the health service. His narrative is graphic in its description of the suffering he has witnessed people endure, and which he has felt driven to protest against: the misery of others seemed to play greatly on him, whether sustained as a result of oxygen deprivation in hospital or sleeping rough on a frozen mattress along one of the capital's canals. When he speaks of the people who have been marginalised and deprived by what he feels is an official attitude of indifference, he does so with passion. I was sure the phrase Wretched of The Earth was not unfamiliar to him.

Asserting that the government answer to housing is a sleeping bag, he then retreated into his shelter and changed into something akin to an old style prison uniform which viewers of Great Expectations might be familiar with.

I asked him the significance of his attire, to which he responded when you can't afford to buy food, or you can't pay bills you feel as if you are in a prison.

I explained to him that I had been in prison, during the blanket protest and hunger strikes. He ribbed that I should join him on hunger strike. I laughed, telling him that at 65 I didn't think it a good idea.

And so I left him in the company of the young journalist who had been there when I arrived. I was on my way home to the comfort of food and a warm bed, conscious that his night would be a comfort free experience. He was still on his fast coming into the weekend and an appeal had gone out for a tent or bivouac. Somebody had destroyed one of his. It made me think of protesting prisoners and screws. No good deed goes unpunished.

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