RISING for a dawn ecumenical service celebrating Easter on Killiney Hill in Dublin yesterday was not without its small discomforts.
A small group waited at the gate on Killiney Hill Park Road. Inside, the wood was unlovely, dark and deep. And there were voices.
A cider party, heading for a conclusion? No, it was the 17th Dalkey Catholic boy scouts, emerging from the dark to carry a banner for the service.
"Christ is Risen", it read, over a rising sun, with "Alleluia" underneath. They had been out since midnight walking hills in the area, and had just come from a barbecue on Killiney beach.
The place began to fill with people, heading for the obelisk at the top.
Sunrise was at 7.03. But all was grey from Killiney Hill, a grey bay stretching to meet grey cloud. Microphones were set up while young girls, jumping from rock to rock, knocked wails from fiddles they were rehearsing on.
Off to the west Dublin city snored deep, its yellow street lights glowing in the lightening air.
There were seven clergymen from various denominations present for "Sonrise", a "united celebration of Easter by the Christian Church".
By the time it began, some 300 people had gathered. At 7.03, as the east glimmered with the first streaks of day, there was a trumpet call to announce Easter, and a new day.
Prayers and singing followed, with readings of Gospel accounts of the resurrection. "Since we came here first four years ago," said Father Desmond Forristal, "praying for peace has been top of our agenda, peace and unity of the kind we have here this morning.
A couple of young lads, who had escaped their adults, puffed on cigarettes behind a rock nearby. Soon the paschal fire, which was lit in a barbecue barrel, was smoking more furiously than they were. It blew into a mighty blaze, which even distracted an intent black Labrador from chewing loudly on a discarded plastic cider bottle.
When the service ended everyone was invited for "tea and a bun" to a local parish hall, and all set off heigh ho down the hill.
