Water charge protest something of a damp squib

Despite the activists being compared to ISIS, there was no violence, the only strong language was spoekn in the Dail, and the Right2Water coalition is crumbling faster than our ageing pipe system.

SO, that’s what ISIS looks like close-up, is it? Despite claims from one Fine Gael TD that the anti-water-charge activists were threatening to bring to Irish shores the mayhem that the self-styled Islamic State has imposed on large swathes of Syria and Iraq, the mass protest passed off remarkably peacefully.

Yes, the usual idiots threw things at the guards blocking the end of Kildare St, and it must have been maddening to be trapped on a bus for three hours while demonstrators, pointlessly, blocked O’Connell Bridge, but no journalist was publicly beheaded by the mob; no minority religious group was enslaved; indeed, the only real casualty was this Government’s credibility, which was, of course, a self-inflicted wound.