WHEN several campaigners get together it's sure to be a good party, certainly the get together in Mother Redcaps on Wednesday night showed all the signs of good planning. Wearing a new nose ring, musician Eleanor McEvoy, who has campaigned vigorously for the East Timorese as well as for more record sales, was the first to welcome Wolf hound Press's Campaigns And How To Win Them, written by three ardent campaigners, Clare Watson, Micheal O Cadhla and Cristiona Ni Dhurcain.
Actress Pauline McLynn, who was there with her fiance, Cat Laughs comedy festival director Richard Cook, revealed that she had previously worked with Wolfhound Press, compiling their Evening Class Guide and was thus a three time best selling nonfiction author.
Seventeen year old Sara Mahon made the most moving and impressive speech of the night, describing the campaign she began last year to make safe the stretch of road in Enfield, Co Kildare that has claimed the lives of three of her family and friends.
Other speeches were made by Tom Hyland, co ordinator of the East Timor campaign; Mark Deary, one of the four plaintiffs involved in action against BNFL; and Kieran Rose of the Gay and Lesbian Equality Network. Adi Roche, who wrote a foreword to the book, couldn't be present as she is madly busy planning her next mission to Chernobyl, but Earthwatch's Sadbh O'Neill; Gerry Boland of the Animal Rights Watch and Bronwyn Maher of the Green Party all came along to applaud the book.
Other familiar faces showing their support were Shay Healy, Jonathan Philbin Bowman, Alan Gilsenan (who had just finished his series, God Bless America for Granada Television) and film maker Martin Duffy with daughter Ellen asleep on his shoulder. It is to be hoped the party didn't go on too late into the night as, true to form, one of the authors, Clare Watson, was due in court the next morning, having attempted to suspend a banner on Butt Bridge as part of her campaign against genetically modified crops.