Rally For Buskers - 03/11/2014
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKTzsTlVxNs&w=560&h=315] Busking in Dublin’s Temple Bar, is as old a tradition as the wet cobble stones which line its alley ways. There’s a constant hum vibrating in the wet grey streets, filling the otherwise false Irish landmark with sincerity and ballads. People pause and listen and comment and join in. They dance and sing, and drop a few shekels for the bard. There’s a nod, a truly appreciative smile. All the worlds a stage and in Temple Bar there are few players who disappoint a crowd.
For myself, busking in Temple Bar gave a soundtrack to my strolls though its thoroughfare; it opens the space up, it fills the otherwise trite courtyard with a sincerity that’s chased all over the world, and which only really finds a home among the drunken revelers and shady dealers. There’s a gritty steel to the street performers who play in the often debaucherous world of Temple Bar, but there’s also a sense of community. Buskers are often seen as solitary creatures, their bags and hats are their shop fronts, inviting passers by to stop and listen, and to choose their fee. But there is also a warm sense of community, a sense of fraternity among them.
Earlier this week that sense of community, those romantic bardic notions were put in jeopardy when Dublin City Councilors put to a vote a ban on this tradition. In retaliation, and with warm and sincere concern, buskers from all over Dublin gathered to save their right to perform on the cobbled stage. Other proposed by laws, including the introduction of a permit, were met with more devise opinion. The proposed permits for buskers would cost €30, while the use of an amplifier would see the permit priced at €60. There were mixed feelings about the permit, some claimed it would regulate and thus improve the experience of buskers, others simply laughed at the idea, citing the transient nature of the art as the reason it could never be regulated.
A small stage was set outside the steps of City Hall; just a mic, a Cajon drum and an amplifier. Here buskers from all over Dublin took to the small stage to show the city, and the councilors debating within, the importance of their role in the maintaining the vibrating hum of culture that plays through the city’s veins. Following the rally, city councilors voted to withdraw the proposed ban on busking in Temple Bar.
We spoke to some of these buskers to understand, what they believed could be achieved by protesting, and the impact their disappearance from Temple Bar would have on the city.