Since it was announced that the Pope will be visiting Ireland, many people have began to express how they feel about the Pope, the Catholic Church and how we as a nation have been treated by the church for a number of decades.
The Pope will be arriving in Dublin on Saturday 25th of August and will be staying in the country for just under 36 hours. Within that time he will visit the President, Miggeldy Higgins, Dublin castle, speak in Croke Park, go to Knock, come back from Knock, and have holy mass in Phoenix park with hundreds of thousands of people watching him.
A Facebook page called 'Say Nope To The Pope' was set up just before the tickets became available for the Phoenix park with the sole purpose to encourage people to claim a bunch of the free tickets and not show up. After finding out that €20 million was being spent on the Pope's trip, and that families, and children living on the streets of Dublin, or in temporary accommodation, will be forced to leave the city to other surrounding areas of Dublin, to help with the influx of people due to be in Dublin at the time, people were more than happy to go along with the peaceful protest, that would stir the pot for sure.
Some people have claimed hundreds of tickets using numerous emails and fake names such as 'Jesus Christ'. You can claim up to 12 tickets at one time, which means some people have gone through the process a number of times to claim hundreds and hundreds of tickets. One man, Mr.Keane, spoke to the Irish Times and told them that he had bought 800 tickets and had not planned to use any.
With the Popes tickets for Knock and the RDS all being sold out, and it looks like Phoenix park might be on it's way, but the number of people there on the day may not reflect amount of tickets actually sold.
Although it seems Twitter is 100% backing this movement, a lot of people also think it's 'Anti-Catholic' and that it is unfair to take tickets away from someone who may have waited their whole life for this visit.
Richard Duffy tells @boucherhayes he has 692 tickets for the Pope's visit in the Phoenix Park in Dublin #Liveline
— Liveline (@rteliveline) June 26, 2018
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Have the max allocation of 12 tickets for the pope's mass.
Don't know if I'm going to burn them, piss on them, or give them to some of the 10,000 homeless being exiled from Dublin for the duration of the papal visit. Fuck the pope and fuck his €20 million mass. pic.twitter.com/kOtzePVVxf
— Gary Ó'Nualláin (@GazzaONuallain) June 26, 2018
Oh wow, you can sign up for up to 12 free tickets to see the pope visiting Dublin.. It'd be an awful shame for those free tickets to be snatched up by people who have no intention of going, wouldn't it x https://t.co/gj3D5yrTKh
— Holly x (@hollyshortall) June 25, 2018
if the money for the pope's visit was divided between everyone in the country we still couldn't afford a pint in dublin
— sarah xx (@_sarahdoherty2) June 25, 2018
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This movement is more towards protesting against the treatment of Irish people by the Catholic church, the Pope never following through with his promise to meet victims of abuse by to the Catholic Church in Ireland and the money the government has decided to spend on his visit rather than using it to help the thousands of people in need in their own country.
Protests you can do from the comfort of your own armchair: book 12 tickets to see the pope in Dublin & don’t turn up.
If they get really popular, you can scalp them & give the money to charities that care for abused children. Your call, here’s the link:https://t.co/qnXPKpz7mu
— Seamus Ryan (@meanderingtripe) June 25, 2018
Where is the budget for the pope visit coming from? Irish taxpayers? Whatever you're into if you want to see an old crone, pay for it yourself.
Ireland has enough things we need to fix, like the homeless crisis, affordable housing, investment in anywhere other than Dublin...
— Collie ?️? (@col_hun) June 25, 2018
All though it seems like a great idea, some people are making interesting points in favour of the Pope visiting.
This thing of picking up tickets to the Pope in Dublin & Knock just so you can bin them is ridiculous. Just because you dont want to go to the mass and dont agree with him coming to Ireland doesnt mean you should stop other people. It's petty and unfortunately typically Irish
— Mike Kelly (@kellymike87) June 27, 2018
Whether or not 500,000 people show up on the day or not, the protest has definitely made an impact and the Pope's visit is clearly not as welcomed today as it was back in 1979.
