WSM Vote No campaign on Munster's streets - 17th May to 7th June.

cork | eu | news report

Wednesday June 11, 2008 20:59

by Ray - Cork WSM

Limerick, Waterford, and Cork twice!

A photo-review of WSM activities in Munster cities during the Lisbon referendum campaign. The Cork WSM branch, with the help of other comrades from Limerick and Dublin, did 4 info stalls on the streets of Cork, Limerick and Waterford as part of our campaign activities. Each was blessed with good sunny weather and a public mood in some sympathy with our anarchist vote No message. We gave out thousands of leaflets, and made new contacts across the cities. It was also good to see what other campaigns were active on the ground across Munster.

May 17th, Limerick. early days in the campaign

When we did the Limerick stall almost a month ago, the mood among the public was in the middle of forming, but all of us on that stall could feel that there was a considerable No vote brewing out there. The ease of distributing leaflets was evident as we got through over 600 that day, a pace that never faltered as we moved from one city to the next. Thanks too due to our Limerick comrade Shane who gave us a big hand that day and brought along a friend to help.
The Waterford experience continued in that positive vein, and there we met a well-organised local No campaign comprised of the local left and republican parties (SF, WP, SWP and 1 Eirigi were the folks we met) doing a No leaflet distribution in the same square as ourselves! No matter, as there was room enough for us all, and anyway there was a Labour party Yes group up the other end of the square. I had a look at how the Yessers were getting on, and it was clear by their demeanour they'd rather have been doing something other than trying to distribute leaflets to an unheeding crowd. Boy, was I glad to see that!
The two Cork stalls happened in an atmosphere where you could surf the No-voting mood if it was a wave; it was sheer pleasure (if a bit dehydrating in the urban summer heat) to participate in those ones. We were delighted with the number of leaflets we distributed in Cork, especially since the city's people would've been heavily propagandised by us (lamp-post and letterbox) by the time we hit Pana on the 31st. It wasn't all cherries as we had a few rude, awkward and a couple of downright insulting customers come up to us, but these experiences were far outnumbered by the positive vibes we were getting off many people. On the day of the second Cork stall we were joined by SWP/PBPA and CAEUC in distributing Vote No literature on Patrick St. We also managed to distribute many papers, magazines and posters at our Cork stalls, and the final push from our Dublin comrades on June 7th (who happened to be in town that day) topped off what has been a month of prodigious activity in our Lisbon campaign.

May 24th, Waterford. Just started.