Whereas we used to gather at 1200 the time has been put back to 1400 to allow for the refugees to get their meals in the accommodation where they are housed.
I went along with my daughter, having missed the previous week's vigil due to being on holiday. It seems almost absurd to talk of holidaying in the midst of a genocide. Life goes on and all that, but there remains the vibe of incongruity to it.
Kids of all ages gathered under the watchful eyes of their parents, waving flags and other emblems of their homeland. Many of the mothers were attired in headscarves. The kids rushed about chasing their siblings and friends while making the welcome noise of children at play. So different from the noises they are used to hearing back home of children being warred upon. There, young ears are the receptors of deafening blasts from Israel's US-supplied bombs, followed by anguished moans, wails and a cacophony of frantic voices as family, friends and neighbours dig barehanded in a desperate bid to rescue anyone who might have survived the latest Kapo mass murder mission.
It is impossible not to think of Bobby Sands when observing children so familiar with such horror laughing now that they are away from it and in a location where they feel safe. Whether Bobby actually said it or if somebody in Sinn Fein made it up and attributed it to him because it had a soft focus to it, the phrase our revenge will be the laughter of our children has become irrevocably associated with the dead republican hunger striker.
When Simon Harris described Israeli violence in Gaza as a war on children he nailed the Israeli Einsatzgruppen led by SS officers like Lt. Col. Tomer Grinberg who, despite having children of their own whom they love dearly, never shirk from murdering other children in their racist onslaught. Despite the ongoing genocide it was deeply moving on Saturday to see so many children lining up to sing songs of resistance against the war waged on them. When the children sing, Bobby's Lark soars high across the mind's eye.
Vigil MC Stephanie Kirwan, brimmed with smiles as she succumbed to a deluge of requests from children to sing. Throughout she described Drogheda as a welcoming town for refugees. Last night watching the Luke McManus documentary on local election candidates in a North Dublin inner city constituency which has seen an upsurge in racist sentiment, it struck me that these children who Drogheda welcomes are the very type whose presence the fascist and the fishwife, both of whom featured in The Locals, are are so vehemently opposed to being accommodated in Ireland.
Vigil MC Stephanie Kirwan, brimmed with smiles as she succumbed to a deluge of requests from children to sing. Throughout she described Drogheda as a welcoming town for refugees. Last night watching the Luke McManus documentary on local election candidates in a North Dublin inner city constituency which has seen an upsurge in racist sentiment, it struck me that these children who Drogheda welcomes are the very type whose presence the fascist and the fishwife, both of whom featured in The Locals, are are so vehemently opposed to being accommodated in Ireland.
Not hard to grasp what the preference of Bobby Sands would have been when choosing between freedom's lark and fascism's vulture.
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