We're never short of something to say. From sex to Sinn Féin, Iraq to the
Irish language, the Orange Order to Osama bin Laden, people here like to
tell it as it is.
So should we consider a Speakers' Corner from where we could pour forth?
London's Hyde Park already provides such a venue and last weekend Dublin
started its own Speakers' Square.
For four hours every Sunday afternoon, poets and politicians, psychologists
and psychopaths, will have free rein in Temple Bar. Opinions here are
generally a lot stronger than they are south of the Border or across the
water.
What London and Dublin can manage, surely Belfast can do 10 times better?
Speakers' Corner doesn't involve a rant in front of a passive audience. The
crowd is free to heckle - a practice we would accomplish rather well.
Of course, we already have several other forums in which to give out.
There's Talkback, the letters' pages of our newspapers, and that wonderful
weblog Slugger O'Toole.
But there's something special about being able to do it on the street as you
look into the whites of your audience's eyes. Angry from Ardoyne, Raging
from Rathcoole, and Militantly Moderate from Malone could at last have their
10 minutes of glory at City Hall or Corn Market.
All those frustrated taxi-drivers would be able to vent their views to more
than their passengers and the Stephen Nolan Show. It mightn't quite end up
as big as the Giant's Causeway but I reckon street democracy Northern
Ireland-style would be a hit with the tourists.
Undoubtedly, there would be plenty of mediocre speakers. But there could
well be a few oratorical gems out there - a young Ian Paisley or Bernadette
Devlin, just waiting to be discovered.
