Emissions Kilian Doyle Eamon de Valera would have been in conniptions had he been as last week's Reclaim the Streets protest in Dublin.
This was hardly what he envisioned when he exhorted the masses to come dancing at the crossroads. And one look at the comely maidens and he would have had us all frogmarching down the street in Grenadier Guards uniforms reciting Rule Britannia at the top of our lungs. Tattooed, pierced, dreadlocked, bedecked in S&M outfits, they weren't exactly the symbol of Irish womanhood he had in mind. As for the four lads dressed up like Mrs Doyle's prayer group, fake moles, boobs, scarves an' all, God only knows what that sight would do to the poor man.
It was all very nice and well behaved. Smiley, happy people, the majority of them, turning a normally bustling city street into a wild party.
Even the hooligans itching for a repeat of last year's violent fiasco eventually dropped their tough-guy stances to join in the exuberant singalong to Cyndi Lauper's Girls just wanna have fun.
The only injury I noted was one protester with an absolute beauty of a black eye, sustained during over-exuberance in the mosh pit, while the sole arrest of the day was some clown who decided to daub paint around the IFSC, where the day's festivities ended with a rave around the Stonehenge-like stone circle in the centre.
(That said, a large bunch of artistic types spent most of the afternoon painting slogans on Parnell Street, which begs the question: do you only get arrested when you deface public property in areas used by rich people?)
It's quite tempting to take the mick. After all, what is RTS in essence other than an excuse to get wasted in public and jump around to drum'n'bass while blocking traffic? But that said, there's something quite uplifting about watching a couple of kids pogo-sticking their way around a street that's normally bumper-to-bumper with traffic, not to mention the people running around with water pistols and frisbees, and playing impromptu games of soccer in front of a huge car dealership. And anyone who plants saplings on manhole covers in the middle of busy junctions is grand by me.
But I do have a few minor complaints, which as you'll agree, is very out of character. Firstly, I've said it before, and I'll say it again - being able to play bongoes badly does not make you a revolutionary. It makes you a nuisance. Then, again, I hate jugglers even more than bongoids. (Perhaps it harkens back to the time my mother gave me three beanbags and a book on juggling during one of my many career crises. "You'll never starve," she hinted. Err, thanks.)
And as for the eejits smoking various combustibles in the forecourt of the petrol station on Amiens St that was "occupied" by protestors, I'll not waste my breath. No words are needed to describe their self-evident cretinism. I'm also beginning to suspect there may be a covert deal operating between McDonalds and the world's various police forces. Every protest I've ever been to has featured a ring of blue steel around the local "restaurant". Is there a "will guard for burgers" element to the Garda? Perhaps we should be told.
So, did the party people achieve anything?
Perhaps not, other than to reinforce the general public's view of them as a shower of anti-car loons.
But then again, the lead story on all the news programmes that night was the deaths of even more people, bringing the bank holiday weekend's fatalities to a horrific 19. Horrific though it is, perhaps that's the best endorsement the Reclaim the Streets movement could ever have.