Updated at 4.55pm
THOUSANDS OF DEMONSTRATORS have turned out for today’s annual March For Choice by the Abortion Rights Campaign (ARC).
This is the sixth such march ran by the group but is seen as very significant following the announcement that there will be a referendum on the Eighth amendment in June or July of next year.
The crowd congregated at the Garden of Remembrance at 1.30pm and marched through Dublin city centre calling for the Eighth amendment to be scrapped.
As an indication of the size of the march, demonstrators at the front of the protest were gathered on Talbot Memorial Bridge, while the tail-end of the crowd stretched back along O’Connell Street.
Pro-choice campaigners are due to address the crowd at Merrion Square.
Young women and men, families with children, and pensioners took part in the march, with a few people dressed up as characters or in costumes.
Signs held by protesters included slogans such as “Parent by choice for choice” and “Abortion free Ireland is a myth”, referencing the number of women who travel abroad for the procedure.
Meanwhile, the pro-life campaign is holding an awareness event at the bottom of Grafton Street.
Similar events will be held at 21 locations throughout the country during the day, where volunteers of the pro-life campaign will distribute literature to members of the public.
In London, pro-choice campaigners said that 205,704 chalk markings were drawn on the pavement outside the Irish Embassy in London to represent the number of women who have travelled from the island of Ireland to the UK to access abortions since 1983.
- With reporting from Gráinne Ní Aodha
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