‘You came. You saw. You will conquer’

TEACHERS normally discourage telling tales out of school, but the crowd who gathered to protest against education cuts were agog to hear what Joe O’Toole had to say.

The independent senator, who himself used to wear a layer of chalk dust, had his ear to the ground in Leinster House all day listening to the occupants delude themselves about the gathering storm outside.

“They were saying you won’t turn out in the wind and the rain and the cold,” Joe confided in the 12,000 standing in the street, enduring those very afflictions. “They were hoping you wouldn’t turn out. They were praying you wouldn’t turn out. But you did turn out. You came here, you saw them and you will conquer them.”