From Ireland's IE Indymedia, Dominick sends Joe Black's "It happened in the Phoenix Park all in the month of May" which is a strong article that we'll excerpt from. We will note all events that are listed in this post. From Black's article:
I stared this piece intending it to be little more than an ad for this Maydays anarchist picnic in the Phoenix park (details follow) with perhaps a little bit of context thrown in. But suddenly I found myself carried away by the political geography of this park which was after all originally built as a Deer park for a discarded mistress of Charles II (hence the high wall). If you know even a little of that history the park becomes a different place and suddenly the events of Mayday 2004 fall into a greater context of political protest and the control of space.
One year ago, on Mayday 2004, the summit of the EU heads of state took place in Farmleigh House in the Pheonix Park. The entire park was filled with surveillance cameras, ringed with fences, draped with barbed wire, buzzed by helicopters, rigged with motion detectors and surrounded with riot police. In the end water cannons were deployed to keep a protestors out of the park.
History is normally written by the winners and it is common to find each new generation of radicals having to rediscover the stories of those who went before them. Thus, it is not surprising that many of those who protested last year probably were unaware of the history of battles between radical movements and the state that the park played host to in the past.
While the park hosts many of the symbols of power in Ireland - past and present - from the monument to the arch-reactionary Wellington, to the US-ambassador's residence and the Garda Headquarters, it has also seen its fair share of opposition. The invincibles assasinated the British Secretary there in 1882, it was the site of many early 20th century trade union ralies and the magazine fort in the park was captured at the start of the 1916 rising and was raided again by the IRA in 1939. The phoenix park is, in many ways, a symbolic battleground for the soul of Ireland. In recent years radical movements in Ireland have re-energised Mayday in Dublin. This year, even without the pomp and grandeur of the EU heads of state, a series of radical events are planned to span the weekend. A festival of radical opposition that is once again bubbling to the surface. And once again the Phoenix Park is on the menu.
Mayday Radical Events: Anarchist 1st of May picnic in Phoenix Park DCTU May Day Demonstration - Solidarity with Migrant Workers including a Get up stand up block to help organise the unorganised Reclaim the Streets
[Note: The article is worth reading. I'm editing right at this point to drop down and include the other events in Ireland.]
May weekend events in Dublin
* May Day Demonstration - Solidarity with Migrant Workers This years May Day trade union demonstration will take place on Saturday April 30th meeting at 2.30 at the Garden of Remembrance in Parnell Square. The demo will march to Liberty Hall and is on the theme of solidarity with migrant workers. The march has been called by the Dublin Council of Trade Unions
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=69176
Join The Get Up Stand Up Bloc And Help Organise The Unorganised
This Mayday weekend, the Get Up Stand Up Campaign will be organizing a block on the Trades Council March In Dublin. After the march we will be returning to the roots of Mayday and parading through the city to distribute leaflets on basic workers' rights to people working in casualised labour. Join us in building the labour movement.
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=69495
Anarchist 1st of May picnic in Phoenix Park
This Mayday let us go back to the park and have ourselves a picnic free of all the state imposed hassle and madness of last year. This will be (at least) the fourth anarchist picnic held in the park. Meet up at the Wellington Monument at 1pm
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=69488
Reclaim The Streets
On Monday, May 2nd, starting from the Spike on O'Connell Street at 1.30pm, Reclaim The Streets and Dissent! Ireland, along with Critical Mass will be holding a free street party to help highlight the effects that the G8 leaders have on the world, and to help people mobolise to take action and travel to this years G8 Summit at Gleneagles, Scotland on July 6th.
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=69141
More information
The anarchist origins of Mayday in Chicago -
http://struggle.ws/about/mayday.html
The Peterloo massacre - http://www.24hourmuseum.org.uk/manchester/trails/TRA25555.html?trailpage=3http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/terrace/adw03/c-eight/distress/peterloo.htm
Original texts reporting on Peterloo
http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/terrace/adw03/c-eight/distress/peter3.htm
The 1820 revolt in Scotland
http://www.bbc.co.uk/legacies/myths_legends/scotland/strathclyde/article_1.shtml
Liam Brady and 1939 raid on the magazine fort
http://www.searcs-web.com/brady.html
The Invincibles
http://lark.phoblacht.net/shadowgunman.html
Larkin and the Invincible monument
http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/farrell/works/1940s/lestweforget.htm
History of the park
http://www.obeirnefamily.mcmail.com/issue4/History%20of%20Phoeniex%20Park.htm
About the park today
http://mbm.dotnet11.hostbasket.com/iis/zajms/phoenix.htm
A kids game based in the park
http://www.araskids.ie/html/park/
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