Monday 27 June 2011

Ballyhea 17th protest, Charleville 2nd

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June 26th 2011

BALLYHEA BONDHOLDER BAILOUT PROTEST – 18th march this Sunday, 10.30pm

We’re not rocking the world, our protest is getting barely an inch of recognition, but on Sunday June 26th and for the 17th week in succession, we marched in Ballyhea in protest against the continuing bondholder bailout.  This week also, and for the second successive week, Charleville took up the baton.
The Ballyhea march, two young Mackessey brothers in front, flanked by their grandmother Eileen and Michael O'Sullivan

The Charleville Brigade
As should be obvious from the photos we’re not a radical group, we are - quite literally - your average man/woman/child on the street. Don’t underestimate our protest on that account, however; we feel strongly about this massive and unjust burden that’s been placed on our shoulders, very strongly.  It’s not a case of whether or not we can afford to pay this odious debt, it’s not a case of trying to get a reduction in the penal interest rate charged by our new masters in the ECB, nor is it a case of getting a time extension; this is a simple question of right and wrong.  Is what’s being done to us right, forcing under threat (and we now know for certain that threat is there – ‘A nod is as good as a wink…’) billions of private bank/bondholder debt on to the balance sheet of a sovereign people?  Compounding that injustice, is it right to do so without even giving those same people a choice?
We say NO!, emphatically no, and so every Sunday in Ballyhea and now in Charleville we march; eventually – hopefully, as the cuts bite ever deeper so the bondholder billions can be paid – we will be joined by our friends and neighbours in every adjoining parish/village/town.  We would like to see this government refuse point-blank to pay another cent of the bondholder debt; failing that, and at a minimum, we demand a referendum.
Yours sincerely,
Diarmuid O'Flynn.