Saying sweet prayers for the gang below my window

IN DUBLIN to promote my book, the taxi drops me at a Georgian house-hotel next to the Dáil.

‘Great’, I think, yawning. ‘Early night for me’. The evening is so hot it doesn’t seem like Ireland, so I open the window. It’s not just air that comes in. Hail Marys through a megaphone come in, too. Then Ave Marias, then invocations for all the saints of Ireland to intercede. Crikey.

I go down to have a look. On the pavement, outside the Dáil entrance, is a group — middle-aged women in pastel clothes, a priest, and youngish chaps, who are wearing red t-shirts printed with the words ‘Youth Defence’. They are holding up a banner that says ‘Rosary Crusade For Ireland’, as the priest drones the Hail Marys into a microphone and the small crowd call their response. On the other side of the gate is a handful of young women, sitting on the pavement, holding up a homemade sign: ‘Keep Your Rosaries Off Our Ovaries’.