Protests — Much Ado About Nothing

The planned protests against President Bush’s visit to Ireland didn’t live up to the hype, as RICHARD DELEVAN discovered.

“I WILL shake your hand if you can get rid of Bush by demonstrating. Because it won’t happen. The only thing it might do is push him out of this country on his visit a bit faster.”

That was how one observer called Jim put it, speaking about the anti-Bush protests that organizers had spent months preparing for. 

As it happens, despite the fact that fewer than one-tenth the number of protestors expected by organizers actually turned up for demonstrations against the June 25-26 visit of President Bush for the U.S.-European summit, they succeeded in having one memorable effect.

Rather than hasten Bush’s departure from Ireland, they delayed it. For about an hour. 

On Thursday, Richard Boyd Barret of the Irish Anti-War Movement was chairing a press conference in Buswell’s Hotel, just across the street from the Dail (Parliament) at Leinster House. 

Opening the door to enter the press conference late, I was hit by a wall of hot air, and not just from the rhetoric. Flanking Barrett were not just the usual anti-war protest suspects from the alphabet soup of groups that have elbowed each other for their share of the limelight, but some prominent politicians as well. 

The Green Party and Labor were there. Hot Press magazine was there, with reporter Olaf Tyranssen (whose previous political claim to fame was an attempt to run for the Dail under the Legalize Cannabis Party banner) presenting a seven-point petition protesting the Bush visit. 

And of course there was Sinn Fein, who seem to have no problems advocating the immediate decommissioning of weapons or condemning misleading statements about them — so long as we’re talking about Iraq. 

Barrett — bird-like, speaking in the plumy vowels of a leafy South County Dublin suburb — denounced what he called a conspiracy to prevent the word from getting out about the protests. 

He pointed to a fundraising concert that had to be moved from the cavernous Point Depot to the more intimate Vicar Street venue (one-fifth the size), blaming the lack of radio advertising. But Irish broadcasting regulations prohibit advertisements for political purposes, meaning that his group were not able to run the ads in the end. Result: a fraction of the expected turnout.

Barrett also claimed that attempts to publicize the anti-Bush demonstrations were being suppressed, and asked the reporters present to get the word out by reporting the times, places and dates of the protests. 

The main one was planned for Friday night in Dublin for 7p.m. The second, more active protest, for Saturday, as close to Dromoland Castle as possible — though the expected “ring of steel” security cordon already included pretty much all of the armored vehicles, razor wire and anti-aircraft batteries at the disposal of the Irish Defense Forces.

After more than an hour of prepared statements from various speakers, the media were finally permitted to ask a question or two. How many protestors were expected?

On this Barrett and other organizers were coy, but when pressed conceded they hoped for numbers equaling that of the big Dublin anti-war protest of February 15, 2003.

That march was something. More than 100,000 people by any fair estimate had taken to the streets, far beyond organizers’ expectations. 

Entire middle class families turned out, pushing baby strollers, holding balloons. Toddlers were face-painted with anti-war slogans, shapes of B-52 bombers, and generally had a great time learning how to chant, “No blood for oil!” 

It was a street party atmosphere, blessed by good weather. And as long as you didn’t mind marching behind a Bush=Hitler sign or didn’t get caught in a newspaper photo behind a Sinn Fein banner, nobody seemed to mind very much.

Last Friday evening, as crowds filed out of Dublin, cars crawling home past the still-unfinished LUAS tram system, the air had a golden color, the still-high sun incandescing the haze of rush hour.

As 7 p.m. drew near, a crowd had gathered, but it was clear that despite having the weather on their side, and a focal point of widespread outrage in the presence of Bush — more than 65% of Irish people said they didn’t want him to visit in opinion polls — the numbers weren’t going to pile up.

Even organizers realized that it was far less than the 30,000 they were claiming.

“Still I think we did well,” said one of the march stewards, “but sure, it would have been nice to see as many as February 15. Maybe a lot of people thought the point had been made.”

As the march made its way to a platform on Merrion Square near Government Buildings, speakers queued up to cheer on the crowd. Firebrand socialist Eamon McCann came down from Derry to warm up the crowd. 

Dublin’s new Lord Mayor, Michael Conaghan, mounted the podium to speak against Bush in his official capacity. Various other local politicians shouted the same slogans.

But for a hard core, whose intensity of hatred for the American president has only grown in recent months, it would be fair to say that the gathering didn’t have the same level of energy as other protests past.

Down near Dromoland Castle, a few dozen protestors went down early on Friday morning to set up the “Shannon Peace Camp,” pitching tents in the Clare mud.

While having to drive circuitous routes to get there, they did eventually make it to the protest camp. But when they got there, fewer comrades than expected joined them. Eventually, around 1,000 protestors rather than the expected 10,000 turned out. 

A few members of the group were hardcore activists, including a dreadlocked Australian who had previously been jailed for overpowering a Irish police officer and attacking a U..S Navy plane at Shannon with a hammer. He and a few others wanted confrontation, but when the Gardai (police) raided the camp, they could have cared less about the dope-smoking hippies, except for the balloons.

I’m still not sure how the balloons posed a security threat, but police rifled through each tent looking for the black balloons, popping, confiscating or deflating them as they went.

“You know, we can just blow up some more, genius,” one taunted the police. The cop rolled his eyes and finished his task.

“Bring us back two pints of milk and 20 Major!” they chanted as they left.

On Saturday the crowd avoided a repeat of violence that marked prior demonstrations such as the one that took place on May 1, 2004 against the EU Summit welcoming the union’s 10 new members from Eastern Europe. 

On that occasion, when Gardai stopped a crowd of about 2,000 protestors trying to enter the Phoenix Park in Dublin, they deployed water cannon for the first time in the history of the state.

Instead, as President Bush was meeting with President Mary McAleese, Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Bertie Ahern and EU leaders at Dromoland, the protestors quietly stood their ground in small groups about a mile from the castle. 

To the embarrassment of the Irish organizers, one group managed to position itself on the planned route of a bus taking 50-odd members of the press corps, including much of the American media, there to cover the concluding press conference.

What was meant to be a 15-minute trip from Ennis to Dromoland took 1 hour and 45 minutes. When the coaches eventually arrived, those watching live saw a crowd of overfed, middle aged reporters running for their jobs to try and make it to the press conference. 

But if the delay hadn’t happened, it’s unlikely the president would have noticed the protests at all.