Just how big was the march anyway?

Employing cutting edge technology and of course the best professional minds that the news-gathering world has to offer, we at The Rusty Wire Service can categorically state that today in Dublin, between 10,000 and 150,000 people marched in protest against the Irish government’s bailout plan.

It seems then that none of the media, national or international can get their story straight on just how many people marched in Dublin today.

According to the fearless Irish Indo -- which largely ignored the march in the main part of its website and barely gave it a breaking news mention -- an estimated 50,000 had taken part.

That Indo figure probably had more to do with Henry Street scuttlebutt than any of the Indo lags actually taking a headcount because it seems to be the number that most of the international press have been touting as gospel straight from some minion at the Garda press office.

A couple of North American publications even put the figure as low as 10,000 (maybe they went to the wrong Dublin). The New York Times reckoned it was below the 50,000 expected by the trade unions.

Al Jazeera played it cagey and called it 'tens of thousands', which was the same editorial line followed (funnily enough) by The Voice of America.

But the Wall Street Journal took a more daring and definitive view and felt able to tell its 'Masters of the Universe' demographic that 80,000 marched in Dublin; which was a lot closer to the Grauniad's contention that over 100,000 marched in Dublin today. Just for the record, it's been reported in some quarters that the organisers apparently put the final figure nearer 150,000.

But The Rusty Wire Service proposes more detailed enquiries to narrow the range a bit because our poor friends in the 'fourth estate' are much too busy for that kind of detail.

So marchers, just to make it easier for ye; would ye all have fit in at Tolka Park or would you have packed Croker to the rafters with some left over for Lansdowne Road? We need to know...

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