In the early hours of Monday 3 February 2003, five members of the pacifist Catholic Worker Movement cut their way into Shannon Airport, Ireland. The peace activists poured human blood on the runway that has been servicing U.S. military flights, troop and munition deployments to U.S. military bases in Kuwait and Qatar. They constructed a shrine on the runway to Iraqi children killed and threatened by U.S./British bombardment and sanctions. The shrine consisted of copies of the Bible and Quran, rosary and muslim prayer beads, flowers, photographs of Iraqi children and Brigid's crosses. They then began to take up the runway, working on its edge with a mallet.

The activists approached the hanger housing a US Navy plane under repair. They painted "Pit stop of death" on the hanger's roller door, and began the dismantling of the hanger. They then entered the hanger to disarm the repaired US warplane. The plane in question according to Ciaron was the same plane as Mary Kelly hit with a hatchet in the recent past. They then prayed together.

Karen Fallon, Deirdre Clancy, Ciaron O'Reilly, Damien Moran & Nuin Dunlop.
The five activists were arrested by Gardai. They refuse to co-operate with bail conditions, have initiated a fast for peace and a call for mass nonviolent resistance to Irish complicity in the forthcoming war on
Iraq.

Despite other media giving space to reports of a Garda being assaulted or overpowered, this was refuted by the protestors themselves.

Ciaron O'Reilly, one of the Catholic Worker activists arrested, said today that they had indeed met met a Garda who, rather than being overpowered, had had a kind of stress/panic reaction to their presence and had become upset. According to Ciaron the Garda was concerned with his job and with the reaction of his superiors. Ciaron Believes that the guards at tomb of the ressurection would have 'taken a stress attack also'. Ciaron made it clear that at no point had the Catholic Worker activists approached, attacked or restrained the Garda and that he was their arresting officer. Ciaran is further reported as saying that the five Catholic Worker protesters were themselves upset by the Garda's reaction and had attempted to comfort and reassure him.