Manna from Heaven at Thorndale 

The Bible's first reference to manna is in the Book of Exodus as the children of Israel are fleeing from Egypt and following Moses into the wilderness. After six weeks of wandering, they began complaining to Moses that they are tired and hungry. What happens next is truly extraordinary:

Then said the LORD unto Moses, Behold, I will vain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day,

I imagine that the children of Israel felt something like ourselves when we were some months into the 1979 Postal strike. We were heading into the abyss with no sign of the strike being fixed, financial ruin, mortgage arrears piling up, four young children to be fed and clothed and one for communion in the middle of  May.

Postal workers on the north side of Dublin had a picket on the Department of Agriculture installation called Thorndale on Beaumont road in Whitehall. The picket was in place everyday of the week and was always well attended by the vast majority of local postal workers who were on strike. Thorndale was a bovine test centre (for bulls testicles) and before the strike, samples that were due for testing were sent through the postal system but now they were being delivered directly to Thorndale test centre hence the picket, which usually had some Gardai present.

We spent long days on the pickets in all weathers but the comradeship and peoples sense of humour kept us going. When things looked darkest the residents in the area of Beaumont and Whitehall were very generous to us and cups of tea and sandwiches were a feature of their kindness to us.

On one memorable occasion, late one evening a car drew up adjacent to the picket and a young man got out with a large package and we thought, here’s more samples for testing and we prepared to appeal to him to respect the picket.

One of the group asked him what he had in the package, expecting his reply to be samples and he said he had a tray of food for us. He was a Chef employed in the college of catering in Cathal Brugha Street and he told us that they were left over from a function that evening.

There were a variety of sandwiches with different ingredients and the smell of fresh bread filled the air. There were ham sandwiches, salmon, chicken, tomatoes and lettuce and scallion cheese and a mixture of all in the tray our benefactor bestowed on us. He lived locally and he said he had noticed the picket on his way to and from work.

To the picket on duty that night, May 2 1979 who early in the evening had been listening to an RTE  broadcast of a soccer international at Lansdowne Road by the legendary  Philip Green between Ireland and Denmark on the radio this was a welcome diversion from picket duty and was indeed our Manna from Heaven.The icing on the cake was that Ireland triumphed 2-0.

There were often instances that occurred like this and it kept our spirits high when morale was beginning to dip.