By Manus Lenihan
On Monday 13 April Dominic Parker passed away after nearly a year of serious illness.
I first got to know Dom in the mid-2010s when he was fighting the good fight in Athlone against water charges. His sense of fun and mischief was on display when an RTÉ reporter was speaking on camera next to a flooding river Shannon. Dom photobombed the news cameras with a huge placard protesting against water charges. What was never caught on camera was the work he put in organising some of the largest protests seen in Athlone in recent years as people resisted water charges. He stood as a candidate for the Anti-Austerity Alliance, later Solidarity, a first in the town and constituency, and received over 500 first-preference votes.
I moved to Athlone soon afterwards and as members of the Socialist Party we worked closely and had many a fascinating discussion over a cuppa or a pint. After the Water struggle, Repeal of the 8th amendment was another major battle that Dom fought hard. He was an absolute mainstay of the May 2018 canvas in Athlone town and elsewhere, and his passing has been noted with great sadness in particular by local Repeal activists. His passing was marked also at a meeting of Athlone’s Palestine solidarity campaign, in recognition of his contribution to that cause over the years.
Dom read a lot, from fantasy to true crime, and was well-informed and thoughtful concerning political developments around the world. Meanwhile he knew the local gossip and lore inside out. His social media page was something close to a day-to-day photographic chronicle of the town. He volunteered with the local asylum seeker support network, New Horizons. Many years ago, he told me, he climbed the gigantic ESB tower in town. At another time in the past he used to drive a motorbike with a gang of other lads; I asked were they Hell’s Angels and he laughed and said “We thought we were.”
In 2023 bigots were invading libraries across the country, and showed up in Athlone. The presence of a group of local activists visibly keeping watch at and around the library, including Dom, most likely explains why the bigots didn’t even try to enter the library that day.
The final months of 2024 saw anti-refugee protests in Athlone. The low point came when a Palestinian man was hospitalised in a vicious assault. Dom was among the most active members of a loose network that pushed back against the racist narrative and welcomed the new arrivals. Dom’s calm, knowledgeable presence and sense of humour were highly appreciated by all involved in this intense work. All this was just a few months before his illness began.
This is not saying enough. But I hope it conveys a little what kind of person he was, cheerful and easygoing, and at the same time serious and utterly dedicated. He was grounded in his home town but always thinking global.
Rest in power, comrade Dom Parker.
