Marching Against Heroin

Behind the squad car, kids on roller blades formed the front line of the
drugs march from Donnycarney church on Dublin's northside, to the home of
Robbie Murphy, an alleged pusher.

They were dancing to a different beat blasting over the two megaphones,
mounted on a red HiAce van leading the 1.500 strong crowd.

"What do we want?" prompted Cecil Johnson, Sinn Fein and Coalition of
Communities Against Drugs (COCAD) activist through his microphone from the
passenger seat.

"Pushers out," the kids sang.

"When do we want it?" he invited, as the van swung right past two Special
Branch detectives drinking coffee in a white Opel Astra parked on a side
street, the headlights on.

"Now," rallied the people marching arm in arm behind the layer of stewards
wearing syringe logos on their bibs and armbands.

Jimmy Marshall, an activist, steered the van down Clanmaurice Road.

The HiAce was plastered with posters of Robert Murphy whose eyes seemed
out of proportion to the rest of his features. They had been superimposed
from a strangers photo, to cover up the black bar used by a newspaper the
only picture the activists could get their hands on.

Behind the van, managing crowd control with his ear piece and mobile phone
was Ronnie Byrne, one of the men charged with the murder of Josie Dwyer, a
pusher and AIDS victim, kicked to death in Dolphin's Barn. "Slow it down,"
he urged as the megaphone bellowed out instructions to the people.

Their banners read: "Stop garda harassment"; and slagged the DPP. Fine Gael
was singled out from the other political parties for particular mention.

"Residents, don't let others do your work for you. Donnycarney is riddled
with drugs, come out and join us."

The lights in the front of the houses went out. Some peeped out from the
corner of their curtained windows, or watched from the doorstep. Dogs
whined behind front gates.

At the junction of Killester Avenue and Malahide Road the people were met
by another contingent of supporters headed by a horsedrawn float carrying
a huge tombstone. It said: "Rest in Hell Robbie Murphy." Children wearing
skeletal Hallowe'en masks sat on the cart, singing 'Drugs Around the
Corner' to the tune of 'School Around the Corner'.

Somewhere up ahead the Grim Reaper led the procession. Tony Gregory walked
behind, hands plunged deep in his trench coat.

"Robert Murphy is the criminal known as 'The Technician'. He is the
righthand man of 'The Boxer'," the people were told.

There was nobody home at their destination, No. 5 named "St Jude's" after
the patron saint of lost causes.

But the crowd packed into the street to catch a glimpse of the small
semidetached house with a nice garden and aluminium windows with pretty
stain glass flowers. Spotlights were taken from the van and shone at the
front of the house.

The garda plane criss crossed overhead.

"We rang Mrs Murphy today and she said that her son doesn't live here any
more and asked why we are doing this. And we told her, we are doing this
for all the mothers of drug addicts so you can let your son, who can afford
to fly in and out of the country, know what he has done to their families,"
the megaphone wailed.

A coffin was offloaded and delivered to the front door.

"We give you this coffin as a symbol of all the deaths that have been
caused as a result of heroin."

The people cheered.

"We give you the tombstone to show the end of Robbie Murphy's activities,
because Robbie Murphy we are informing you that as and from the 23rd of the
10th you will no longer be tolerated living in this area."

Huge applause rang out. Two kids in roller blades climbed a tree. A garda
radioed base: "It's busy but it's grand, no trouble."

"I now hand the mike over to the only genuine politician, his name is Tony
Gregory," said the man with the megaphone. Applause.

"I'd just like to say fair play to COCAD and ICON for making tonight
possible," said Gregory. "They all deserve one hell of a cheer," he added.

They headed home, two hours after they had first set out. "You'd think
they'd have got off their arses and come out of their sitting rooms," one
woman remarked on the way home.