Lies, damn lies, and crowd estimates

I didn’t see the anti-water charge march on Saturday, but I know it was big because I had to cross its route at right angles in the immediate aftermath, with two children in tow. The Ireland-Gibraltar qualifier was a rare opportunity for a cheap(ish) family outing to an international(ish) football match. What we hadn’t calculated was the time it would take to get there.

Travelling west to east across the city centre, post-march, was like negotiating the backwash of an ocean liner in a dinghy. The Dublin Bus schedules were all askew. The footpaths were chaotic. A truncated no 13 bus route, followed by a foreshortened 7, divided by a manic, mile-long walk, added up to us being 15 minutes late.

So apart from the march’s effect on traffic, I’m not in a position to comment on how much the organisers were exaggerating when they claimed there might have been 100,000 involved.

All I can say is, if they weren’t exaggerating the attendance, it would be a first. March organisers always overstate their success – from wishful thinking, usually, as much as intention to mislead. And the only thing greater than their stated numbers afterwards is their indignation levels if anybody in the “establishment” challenges the figures.

I haven’t seen a mathematical basis yet offered for the 100,000 figure. The most common argument was how long it took the crowd to pass a given point, but that’s at least two elements short of a useful equation. You’d also need an estimate of the average walking speed, and of how closely packed the crowd was, before you had the basis for an educated guess.

The Garda didn’t venture an official estimate, I notice. Perhaps they’ve learned from the experience of others, like the US national parks service, which used to oblige before finding it too much trouble.

Back in 1995, the parks service suggested that a giant demonstration by African Americans in Washington had attracted 400,000. An impressive turn-out, you’d think – except the organisers had promoted the event, before and afterwards, as the “Million Man March”. The chief organiser, Louis Farrakhan, threatened to sue.

The go-to American for crowd estimates these days is an Illinois academic named Clark McPhail. In 2011, for example, when protesters in Cairo’s Tahrir Square were variously estimated as half a million, a million, and whatever you were having yourself, he made forensic calculations using Google Earth and the maximum likely crowd density (2.5 square feet per person, as in a packed subway carriage), and calculated it couldn’t be more than 200,000.

But Tahrir Square is a fairly simple space for calculation. The great thing about Dublin, for march organisers, is the winding route, with its varying widths and the multiple side streets you can drag into the argument if necessary.

The capacity for myth-making is boundless – hence the annual legend of the St Patrick’s Day parade, when “as many as” (a favourite media construction, devoid of both risk and meaning) half a million people may be said to have attended, but probably didn’t.

Saturday was a day for freakish statistics. Getting back to Ireland-Gibraltar, I was surprised it took a full 80 minutes before the successful launch of the game’s only Mexican wave. This was despite optimum wave conditions – an occasion devoid of tension, a high attendance of children, and – despite all the goals – long periods when nothing happened.

Maybe the phenomenon is finally dying out. Or maybe this was just part of the general austerity fatigue. Faced with water changes, perhaps even crowd waves are now being subconsciously rationed. When one finally happened on Saturday, it went anti-clockwise, which was also unusual.

Another odd statistic was the clustering of goals at the start of both halves. This caused me to set a personal record, unlikely to be beaten.

Because of the aforesaid protest, we arrived just as Robbie Keane was completing his hat-trick. Then, a scoreless 30 minutes later, I allowed myself to be talked into queuing for half-time food, something I usually avoid. This in turn caused us to miss eight minutes of the second half, and another goal rush.

We were reseated just in time to watch Wes Hoolahan’s neat finish. In other words, the game I saw was a one-sided but low-scoring affair, edged 2-0 by Ireland. On the basis of various proofs supplied afterwards, however, I can only accept the organisers’ claims, outlandish as they still seem, that in fact we won by seven.

@FrankmcnallyIT