Lockdown Dublin

To prep for the arrival this morning of Queen Elizabeth II the city of Dublin has pulled out all the stops, but with good reason. Before she landed the Gardai had found two pipe bombs, which were disposed of safely.

They blocked off O'Connell Street, the main north/south road in town, and have blocked off street-side parking everywhere in city centre. According to one of the papers there are over 8,ooo uniformed police around for the visit, the first time the sitting monarch has come to the Republic. There was apparently a near riot (with only a couple of arrests) near the Garden of Remembrance, the park north of the river that serves as a memorial to those that died in the rebellion and civil war. The pictures that have come out have not helped out the protesters, who were, apparently, just the normal sweatpants and tracksuit wearing thugs that populate the north Dublin scene.

The Guardai also spent the last week going around and sealing every manhole, water main, and hole in the sidewalk. They actually went around twice. The first pair went around with a can of spray paint and a wrench, saw an opening to the sewers, dropped the wrench on top of the cover, sprayed the wrench with paint, picked it up and moved on. The second pair followed up in a couple of days and actually sealed them.

Note that it's not even the end of the first day, and there are two more days of this. And then we do it all over again with Obama, which should be a comparatively easy time.