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This was a day of non-violent direct action called by the Grassroots Network Against War (GNAW), a loose network of groups & individuals who’ve been taking part in the Grassroots Gatherings.  The plan was simple to get a donkey load of people down to Shannon & tear down the fence to show the war machine that Shannon Warport is not secure & could they kindly get the rock out of there.

Well it should have been simple, massive marches against the war hit the streets of Ireland just a few weeks before. It’s clear there were serious anti-war sentiments in the country. However it didn’t quite work out!

During the week proceeding the demo politicians & the mainstream media went into overdrive trying to paint a picture of GNAW activists as a hate filled mob hell bent on an orgy of violence. Sinn Féin, The Green Party, & Labour asked people not to attend the action. Prominent figures from the anti-war movement condemned the planned action as violent & spoke of splits being created within the anti-war movement. On the day of the action the Irish Times front page had a picture of rolls of razor wire that would greet anyone trying to breach the fence.

That’s not to say that there wasn’t a great day with hundreds of people turning up at Shannon prepared to take direct action & not be taken in by party-political manoeuvring or mainstream media manipulation. Two separate actions happened on the day - the GNAW action at the fence, & the other an Irish Anti-War Movement march & speak out outside the terminal building. These actions were in no way mutually exclusive & many took part in both. Food Not Bombs (with groups now sprouting in Galway, Dublin, & Belfast) provided yummy cakes & sandwiches to all taking part in the action making sure no one went hungry.

The GNAW action was organised in two groups a ‘white bloc’ prepared to take action risking arrest & a ‘pink bloc’ providing support to the action but not taking part in any arrestable activity. Activists assembled in Shannon town & we marched the few kilometres to the airport under police surveillance. When we reached the airport we were greeted by more regular gardai, as well as mounted police, police with dogs & police in full riot gear. The sections of razor wire so prominent in the mornings paper were nowhere to be seen, but there was a small water filled trench on the far side of the fence & not far behind that were trucks with water cannons.

The police presence was frankly ridiculous & did a better job than we could ever of attracting attention to the fact that Shannon has been turned from a civilian airport to a Warport. As the ‘white bloc’ linked arm in arm and moved forward, the cops formed a line protecting the fence. Some of us had been here before! It turned out to be a bit of a stand off, or maybe a dance off with activists doing the hokey-cokey and Mexican wave in front of the police line & musicians kept us all entertained.

The media turned out in force hoping for a spectacle, & snapped pictures of the few people masked up in an attempt to portray us as an angry mob. Rather than anger or violence, a carnival atmosphere ensued for several hours by the fence. There was a general feeling that we did not have enough numbers to have an effective mass trespass. However there were a few attempts to take down the fence, with ropes being attached & activists trying to pull it down. This turned out to be unsuccessful & resulted in minor non-violent scuffles with police & a number of arrests. Shortly after this activists left en mass & had a ‘speak out’ about how people felt about the day outside the airport gates, with the general consensus being that Shannon Warport had not heard the last from us.

Overall I thought it was a great day & there was certainly a lot to learn from the experience. On reflection I think we could have taken the fence, & perhaps we were high on ambition but low on tactics. Something I think we will certainly improve on, as many of us in Ireland are new to this kind of mass direct action. There is a steep learning curve that I hope & believe we are climbing very fast.

As for our detractors in political parties this is nothing new. Political parties have nothing to gain from associating with networks & groups that advocate non-hierarchal organising & taking control of your own life through direct action. It doesn’t make for very fertile grounds for recruitment or support.

Some people criticised the action saying it could loose public support & that we should wait until we have more favourable publicity. It is unlikely that the mainstream press is going to show us much favour, & it is important as activists to set our own agenda rather than pandering to the media.

The concern of splitting the anti-war movement is also in my view a red herring. We don’t have an anti-war ‘movement’; we have anti-war ‘movements’ where many individuals & groups take whatever actions they think is appropriate & effective, whether that be organising/attending a march or smashing a plane. We should encourage a diversity of tactics where everyone can create a space & feel empowered to express themselves & take action. If we only concentrate on building a movement where every one agrees with everything we will never find the time to take action.

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