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Douglas Street Community Celebrates International Women's Day... In Style! cork |
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 Thursday March 11, 2010 12:23 by FSB!
 A community rouses itself to honour women and their struggles for a better world
Celebrating in Style!
A 'miracle' of grassroots community organising happened yesterday – the community of Douglas Street, Cork came together and hosted an incredible diverse and immensely satisfying celebration of International Women's Day!
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This was a remarkable day of events dedicated to the celebration and recognition of the achievements of women and to the celebration of the contribution of women down the centuries to the struggles for human rights, workplace rights, social justice and democracy worldwide. A programme of over forty events organised on a shoestring (a shoestring gladly supplied jointly by the Independent Workers' Union and the Cork branch of the Workers' Solidarity Movement) went ahead with almost no hitches, with a truly diverse range of talks, workshops, activities, performances and more that brought hundreds to Douglas St. From ten in the morning to very late at night.
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Comments (17 of 17)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17Photos from more events yesterday.
Dream catcher making, South Pres. school, afternoon
Buttons & wool from the dream catcher workshop, afternoon
Toy making workshop, South Pres. school, afternoon
Graffiti painting, Douglas St., early evening
Getting the Community Dinner ready
Yet more photos of a very special day.
A scene from the Community Dinner at Fionnbarra's, 6p.m. - 7p.m. A multitude of diners scoffed the lot!
An unscheduled street performance outside Solidarity Books, evening. Bravo, Kate!
Queueing at Loafers for the massage, fortune teller, etc., early evening
Banner on Solidarity Books, Douglas St., all day
Banner from the IWU on Douglas St., all day
What a day!
film showings and info stalls at the Cruiscín Lán, afternoon and early evening
Sandra McAvoy, Cork Women's Right to Choose campaign, early evening
Anne McShane of Hands Off the People of Iran, early evening
Deirdre Clancy, peace activist and former Pitstop Ploughshares 5 member, at her talk, evening
Maura Harrington, community activist and spokeswoman of Shell to Sea, evening
Last set of event photos from a wonderful International Women's Day celebration. I offer my aplogies to those speakers and performers etc. whose events I didn't get around to photographing. If you were at the events on Douglas St. and have photos to share, don't hold back - post them here. Special mention to DJ el Proud Mary, who finished the day's events with a DJ set at the Crúiscín. What a day!!
Kate and Caroline from Viva Palestina Cork talking about their experiences on the recent convoy to Gaza
Entertainment @ the Crúiscín Lán 1 - Cork bellydance troupe
Entertainment @ the Crúiscín Lán 2 - Ciara and Shailagh
Many thanks to Evanne for curating this art display. I must mention also the events organised for the day at the Munster Literature Centre on Douglas St. - the centre showed filmed readings from women writers who have visited the centre over the years. Many thanks too to all of the venues and people who contributed to a marvellous day of festivities for womankind. Here's hoping it will be the first of many!
Chalking out the Art Trail on Douglas St., morning
More works from the 2010 International Women's Day celebration, Douglas St., Cork.
More from the Art Trail, Douglas Street Community Celebrates International Women's Day 2010.
Installation on the grounds of the Quakers' Meeting House, just off Douglas St.
A couple of examples of ephemeral art works on the Douglas St. pavement. Happy International Women's Day!
Many thanks indeed to the Workers Solidarity Movement and the IWU . The yoga and diy religion seminars were my favourite parts of the day ; I hope they went some way to answering those who feel that yogic and Christian spiritualities are necessarily incompatable . Hopefully too the positive energies generated made up in some way for the cancellation of the WSM’s tribal drumming and spiral dance workshops . The good news for those who were understandably disappointed over the unfortunate mix-up which led to the last-minute cancellation is that the Presentation Sisters have offered the facilities of the convent for future workshops.
Sorry I didn’t give a mention to the exciting exposition of tapping and affirmation skills developed by Ken Parker and Rosita Kingston that were on display at Loafers during the course of the day. Rosita explained to participants at the workshop how, under the guidance of a skilled and trained consultant, these tapping skills release old and negative energy patterns using traditional acupuncture techniques and NLP (neuro linguistic programming).
I agree that this was a 'miracle' of grassroots community organising , and that is something that we should celebrate with great joy .In many ways it was a celebration of “miracle” itself . Miracle has come to be identified in the eyes of perhaps the majority as some sort of a tawdry, cheap conjurer’s trick - at the cost of the concept’s infinite and divine universality. A miracle can sometimes take place over the course of millennia, and sometimes in the course of a delightful day such as this one . The point was put eloquently to me in this way by one of the participants at the dream-catcher workshop.
“It's only by changing the experience that the majority has that we can change the experience of the minority.”
The important thing as Deirdre said is to now carry the momentum forward.
.... looks great!
thanks to everyone who got involved in the organising, all the venues who participated, all the people who helped out on the day and to everyone who brought beautiful energy to the many events and participated during the day! it was magic! :)
My full set of images here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hilaryaq/sets/721576235866...0146/
Contact me for high res versions of the files if anyone needs any via www.draiochtwebdesign.com!
Great day yesterday :)
The entire day was brilliant.
The idea of using all of Douglas Street was especially good.
Role on Douglas St Womens day 2011.
Hi, Great to read informative stuff and blog contain very enlightening information. I can see why so many people visit this blog and contribute to the meaningful comments and exchange of thoughts and ideas that it facilitates. Your post really useful to me…
Thanks & Regards
Caroline Brown
Project Manager
datarecoverysoftware.com
Hi, Great to read informative stuff and blog contain very enlightening information. I can see why so many people visit this blog and contribute to the meaningful comments and exchange of thoughts and ideas that it facilitates. Your post really useful to me…
Thanks & Regards
Caroline Brown
Project Manager
datarecoverysoftware.com
great to see,women's achievements,and social changes being recognised,as we know even when women were not allowed acknowlegment or status by their own merit,they were often used by their menfolk as muses,for their new ideas and inventions,which has only been acknowleged in the latter years,i did a women's studies course some years ago ,and was suprised at what i did not know on such gender issues,not just to do with recent work place rights etc,but how women and men were socialised very differently,often for simple common sense reasons of that time,but more often to affirm one
gender over another,which did not make sense and was later abolished often through pressure groups such as women's groups like these in ireland.
We still have a long way to to in order to achieve gender equality,there are a lot of problems with human trafficking of women and young girls forced into prostitiution in ireland,one of which i have come across, and this is often left unsaid,also in the workplace,when a woman gives birth even in 2010,she is ultimately doomed,i have come across many instances of this..