Coffee Mornings were introduced to Ballykinlar by local artist Anne-Marie Dillon, as a form to claim wanted and not-provided community space ad-hoc and through direct action. Domestic furniture would simply be brought out and a coffee morning be announced.

” The first spatial situation for a community centre, was a series of ‘coffee mornings’, where A.M Dillon placed chairs, sofa, tables at the side of the road. An open-air living room prepared and decorated for ‘guests’. It was a very raw and naked protest, with a minimum of spatial definition, but high in symbolic and political value, and as an artistic happening. When it rained, ‘community’ didn’t happen.”

Anne-Marie Dillon is a mother of seven children, local resident, artist, activist and feminist (listed in her own order of priorities).