The footpath outside the Irish embassy in London is covered in more than 200,000 little white chalk marks.
They were made by pro-choice campaigners on Saturday and each line represents one of the 205,704 Irish people who have traveled to the UK for an abortion since 1983.
The 8th amendment to the Irish constitution was passed in 1983, making it illegal to have an abortion in almost all circumstances, including cases of rape and incest.
Abortion is only legal in Ireland if there is a substantial risk to the mother's life, including suicide. According to the , every working day 12 Irish women travel to the UK to access abortion services.
A few hundred demonstrators gathered outside the embassy chanting, "34 years since '83, stop sending women across the sea", while in Dublin thousands of people took part in the .
"These journeys, which are often taken in silence and are very stigmatised and shameful in the eyes of our government, we wanted to make them visible by making these physical marks on the pavement here today," Maeve O'Reilly, from the London-Irish Abortion Rights Campaign, told the .
Ms O'Reilly said pro-choice campaigners had been encouraged by recent polls on the issue, which show that "most Irish people want to see a liberalisation of Irish abortion laws".
"We're really confident that the Irish public will engage with this issue, we have a good debate and people will begin to see that abortion is already happening. It's just not happening in Ireland," she said.
"And the time has come to kind of wake up to that and do better for our women and offer this care at home, rather than exiling them to other countries."
Saturday's event, which was organised by the London Ireland Abortion Rights Campaign (LIARC), comes after the Irish government last week confirmed that a referendum on repealing the 8th amendment in the Republic of Ireland will be held in May or June 2018.
Sophie Walker, leader of the British Women's Equality party, says the time is right to build a movement.
"A woman cannot have full equality so long as she does not have full control over her body," Ms Walker told .
"It's time for people to come together as a movement right across the United Kingdom, in Northern Ireland, and in the Republic of Ireland. Because the more that women take up space, the more that women shout together, and the louder they are, the clearer we will be heard."
