Come Here To Me!

Firstly, I’ve been away. I left the good ship ‘Come Here To Me’ in the very capable hands of the other two lads. Why? Well, I’ve been involved in the campaign against the appointment of a certain (in)famous northside T.D by the National University of Ireland, Maynooth.

It all began with a few phone calls from The Irish Times. I went about my business as usual anyway, presuming a page 13 side-column mention. ‘My business’ means I spend my Wednesday nights in the city centre away from home, leaving the mother to the couch and the company of Vincent Browne. On Wednesday, the 25th November, Vincent Browne awoke my mother from her state of half-sleep with this:

Now, this petition was sitting right opposite her on the table. A few days, a few free hours on campus, and we’d collected 1,200 signatures. “Great, local papers will  love this!” was the general consensus. With 30 seconds on the telly, and a few hundred words on the front of The Irish Times, all was changed.

“Jesus lads, I dont want this thing in my house, if it goes missing I’m up shit-creek” -We’ll deliver it then.

On Wednesday morning we decided to meet up at 2pm, and deliver our superstar petition. 40 or 50 students handing the thing in, that’d send a message alright. What normally happens to those petitions on demonstrations anyway? You go on a mailing list, you get invited to talks, your name and email find a new home in a file cabinet somewhere. Not with this one. Well over 250 students, and something near 300, along with about 20 members of staff turned up. The phone starts ringing (Today, SUNDAY MORNING, and its still ringing)

Off the top of my head we’ve been in/on both free morning papers, The Irish Independent, The Irish Times, RTE radio , UTV, Newstalk (My five minutes with George Hook), all local media, The Phoenix, The Sunday Tribune, RTE RnaG, all over blogland and I’ve probably missed a few too. Its been an experience anyway.

Realistically, Ahern will sneak in during the exams and the one lucky photographer there will have a field day. I’m sure I’ve a file the size of Joe Duffys sitting in the security room after The Herald AM and breakingnews.ie saying I “spearheaded” the whole thing, and I did (along with a few others involved) get a nice wave from security on Thursday morning. Brilliant times.

The home of the church in Ireland, and the students are kicking off.  Nothing like a recession.