‘I don’t know what I care about anymore, Pauline,’ Molly said.

‘Fair enough, good point. Sorry.’ Pauline said, and she cut Molly an extra-large slice of coffee cake. ‘Here you go,’ she said, dolloping on the cream.

Five days later Pauline sent out a Facebook message to tell the residents the meters were being installed on a Tuesday morning. She asked for all those willing to participate in a blockade/strike to contact her. Two people signed up, an eighty-four-year-old ex-librarian called Thomas Kelly who was on two walking sticks and had a hearing aid, and Nicole Donohoe, a retired shopkeeper in her sixties who was a little bored and very angry. Pauline’s post received one hundred and twenty-one likes and two actual volunteers.

‘We can’t do it with three of us,’ Pauline lamented, sitting on Molly’s front wall while Molly used her free Thursday afternoon to cut the hedges.

‘I’m in, then,’ Molly said.

‘Are ya sure?’

‘Yeah, go on. Bleedin’ cheek of them, coming in here and destroying our property. I read about an estate where they came, put in their meters and the bloody place sprung a leak as soon as they left. That was six weeks ago, and the council hasn’t done a fuckin’ thing about it.’

She was annoyed, Pauline could see it. ‘There ya are, Molly.’ Pauline said, enjoying her old pal’s fighting spirit.

‘Don’t start,’ Molly said, before mumbling, ‘As if we don’t pay for water already, in our taxes and VAT . . . bleedin’ cheek of them.’

‘It’s not just about metering us, Molly. They’ve created Irish Water as a company so that down the road they can privatise it.’

Molly sighed and nodded to herself. ‘Well then, Pauline,’ she said, standing up from the wall, ‘they can take our pensions but they’ll never take our water.’ Pauline clapped and stamped her feet. ‘God bless you, Molly Hayes.’ Before she knew it Molly was part of an Irish revolution.