100,000 marched in Dublin against a cut in the social wage - a pension levy in this case. Roughly speaking that's equivalent to getting something like 1.25 million Brits out on the street. The TU's are condemning the governing elite and the bankers as 'economic traitors' to the nation. This sounds very like Iceland.
I couldn't help picking up via a discussion at the Cedar Lounge Revolution that there is one little remarked on difference between Iceland and Ireland: Ireland has an army. & its generals are determined to do their duty if there are widespread strikes. But the solders 'staff association' - the wonderfully named Permanent Defence Forces Other Ranks Representative Association (Pdforra) - were on the demo. So were reps from both the Garda associations.
If I were Brian Cowen I'd be thinking very carefully about how best to casually drop this point into discussions with the ECB and the IMF - it might help him get better terms for a country hovering a little too close to sovereign default for comfort.
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