A 1981 press statement from the Anarchist Workers Alliance about a fascist meeting in Dublin’s Gresham Hotel. This small meeting was attended by a few AWA members, who kept asking embarrassing questions about the fascist connections of the invited speakers. The result was that the audience scurried off and the organisers gained nothing, not even a few addresses to add to their contact list.
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The hosts were the Christian Community Centre, a group of about 50 mainly elderly fundamentalist Catholics led by TCG O’Mahony, a solicitor whose offices at 22 Merrion Square also served as the CC Centre. This group appeared in the early 1970s and was last seen during the 1997 Presidential election when the Irish Independent reported (17/08/1997)
“Among Dana’s backers is the curious figure of TCG O’Mahony, an elderly Dublin solicitor, who has urged a “national prayer crusade” to get her elected. He is targeting 37 Fianna Fail and 23 Fine Gael parliamentarians, hoping optimistically that they might nominate her.
Mr O’Mahony is best known for a bizarre row in Dublin courts over his attempts to erect a basilica for rosary prayers to the Virgin Mary in the middle of O’Connell St. When he lost he carried on the worship over a loudspeaker while driving up and down O’Connell St with the Virgin Mary statue strapped to the roof of his pink Mercedes.”
In the 1982 general election O’Mahony stood in Dublin North Central, getting a mere 214 votes (0.5%).
On another occasion they tried to take over the assembly point for the Dublin Council of Trade Unions May Day march, parking a van at the Garden of Remembrance and blaring out very loud hymns on a PA system. After about 10 minutes some anarchists and Trotskyists disconnected their PA and sent them on their way.
O’Mahony also operated a pirate radio station, CC Radio, from his offices. This was on air for a year or two in the early 1980s and it’s output consisted of religious music, tapes from American extreme conservatives and monologues from O’Mahony himself railing against abortion, divorce, contraception, Vatican II, socialism, liberalism and secularism. It was finally closed down by the Department of Posts & Telegraphs after repeated complaints of interference.
They were a bit like Youth Defence, but without the violence or the youth.