Photo owned by Who Remembers the Woman that danced on O’Connell St Facebook Page
When I saw the headline Tribute paid to Dublin character, by Olivia Kelly in the Irish Times, I feared that one of the few public witnesses to her gospel that I had ever warmed to was dead. Happily, Mary Margaret Dunne is still alive. The article was referring to a living tribute to her organised on Facebook
In my 1994 novel, The Fabulists., Ms Dunne features on the last page, as crowds wait on Lord Edward and Dame streets to cheer the newly-elected President Mary Robinson, due in cavalcade in her 1947 Rolls-Royce. Needless to say, everyone was behind barricades, watched over by the relaxed and good-humoured Guards (Irish police). And then, exactly as the passage describes, came one exception, and the Guards, to their eternal credit, just smiled like everyone else. Mary Robinson had been branded a communist by her more trenchant opponents, but this deeply religious woman created a moment of magic when all enmity seemed forgotten and toleration had displaced it. It was, I believe, a uniquely Irish moment, if such a thing exists.
For those who don’t understand Irish, Dia’s Muire dhuit means God and Mary be with you – ie Mary the Mother of God, not Mary Robinson, though for a fleeting moment the distinction was blurred.
Then there was a murmur of recognition from the crowd as the woman who danced with her cross in O’Connell Street seemed to come from nowhere. As usual, her grey hair was tied back neatly. As usual, she smiled brightly as she brandished the cross. But now she walked with happy abandon, though she never deviated from the white line in the middle of the road. As she showed her cross to the crowds to her left and right she seemed to chant something, and Tess thought it was a religious protest; but as she came nearer and was audible Tess broke into a happy smile. Everyone was smiling, even the guards, who made no attempt to move her.
`Ooh ooh,’ the woman was repeating happily, `a Lady President, Dia’s Muire dhuit. Ooh ooh, a Lady President, Dia’s Muire dhuit.’ And she continued down the road, unmolested, until she was out of sight.
`Isn’t that great?’ Tess said, turning to Mungo, her tears threatening to spill over.
`It is,’ he said. `It’s great.’