A musical lament to prosperity from an enchanting water protester

At a water protest in Cork, there was a woman with a loudhailer in her hand.

The only way to describe her, is that she was a gentle woman, with a nice smile, who had a beautiful lilting Cork accent.

But she stood out from the crowd.

What was most extraordinary about her was when she used her loudhailer.

Her favourite chant appeared to be, “Enda, Enda, Enda”, to which the crowd replied with “out, out, out”, but this woman seemed to develop magical, chameleon-like qualities.

It really was extraordinary, witnessing such a substantial transformation in another human being.

The gentle, musically spoken, lady just evaporated. She still looked the same, but the sounds coming from her vocal chords, every time she called through her loudhailer “Enda, Enda, Enda” was powerful, liberating, inspiring and so very empowering.

I thought to myself that Irish people are, overall, very obedient people.

I mean, we take it you know, and sometimes we take a lot, and it generally takes a huge amount to really make us grumble.

But then along came Enda Kenny, didn’t he? And we were all so beaten down after the shock of regulators not regulating, after the shock of Fianna Fáil selling us down the river, after the shock of the IMF, of the pure shock and disbelief of it all, we did what ‘normal’ and healthy people do in times of shock — we voted in a typical knee-jerk reaction style.

Why? Because we were scared. We knew what had happened was so very, very wrong, and we thought we needed someone to fix it. We were crying out for it.

And then along came Enda promising us that he would fix it. But since then, I think we have copped on to a few things. There is a reason why Enda wasn’t ever in power before. That is because the people instinctively knew, or felt, not quite right about Fine Gael, or him.

But our instincts were shot during the election of 2011, and in a sick, sick way, Enda knew this.

The truth is, Enda was not truly elected as Taoiseach. Just like the €64 billion of debt was foisted upon us, so, too, was Enda Kenny.

So when I saw and heard that gentle woman from Cork, with the lovely musical lilt in her voice I understood her conviction. I understood her strength — I felt it.

And I too, joined in with the thousands that were there, chanting, “Enda, Enda, Enda — out, out, out”.

Cáit O’Beirne

Knocknafí,

Tubbercurry,

Sligo