Another year for Mayor Deke

Photo By Eugene Carolan

By Paul Carton
Reclining in his deck chair out the back of his office the newly re-elected Lord Mayor of Ringsend and Irishtown catches some rays from the midday sun. It’s after lunch hour and Deke Mcdonald serves me up a brew as we talk about his past year in the role and what changes he sees to come. Deke, always with a comedic twist on life can’t ignore what’s happening to his beloved community. “Alot of the people are worried about families being moved due to the commuter belt, there’s alot of development in the area, bit by bit we’re being colonized by the multinationals, they’re taking all the pubs, that’s our social outlets, also taking our accomodation buying people out, local people can’t afford to live here.Ringsend was always the indigenous people, that lived in the area and married, always! We’ve slowly seen that been eroded over the last 10 years. We were predominantly a labour force that used our hands and now we need to be a labour force that uses our brains and that means we need to be educated up to the google & facebook standard” said Mayor McDonald. In the surroundings of Deke’s Diner/The mayor’s office, the incinerator pumps out from its pipes into our air, as another 5 axle trucks turns the roundabout. Deke says the money from that fund has helped in a lot of projects in the community but that the volume of trucks we now see in the area was unexpected. Deke was inaugurated at the recent MayDay parade for a second term as the Mayor of Ringsend and Irishtown. Asked on what the role means to him,“The main thing with the Lord Mayor is to represent your community on different levels, but in general its nice to do it, it gives you some worth, I’ll be 30 years a community activist. I’ve never done it for any reward, but this is very rewarding in that your peers have actually voted you in for a second year and that says a lot”, said Deke. Never to be too serious for too long or humble for that matter, Deke reiterates his acceptance speech, “Last year I said I was gonna build a wall between Pearse Street and Ringsend as a joke and this year I’m saying yeah ok I’m originally from Pearse St but just because your born in a stable doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a horse”.