The Irish state is prosecuting activists for, allegedly, doing what our leaders refuse to do: confront Irish complicity in genocide. Tomorrow in Ennis the trial of Áine Ní Threinír, Aindriú de Buitléir and Eimear Walshe begins. Charged with trespassing and interfering with the operations of Shannon Airport, it’s alleged the three attempted to inspect a US war plane. The banner they unfurled at the airport last March had a simple demand: “US military out of Shannon.”
At The Ditch for the last year and a half we’ve reported on: the use of Irish territory to illegally transport munitions to Israel; weaponry touching down at the airport; a US general passing through the airport on his way to advise the state of Israel. Just last month we published a story about Darragh O’Brien’s Department of Transport granting an exemption to a plane carrying US troops and weaponry through Shannon Airport. Simon Harris’s Department of Foreign Affairs now maintains this plane – chartered by the US Department of War – didn’t need diplomatic clearance for its Shannon stop.
In the absence of meaningful action from the state others have been forced to act. “Inspect warplanes, not activists,” as a demand of the US Military Out Of Shannon campaign puts it.
To illustrate the scale of the US military’s use of Shannon Airport, the campaign has launched ShannonWarport. The Ditch supports ShannonWarport – you can check it out through the link on our homepage. It’s a website that records all US military flights over and through Shannon since January 2024. Conservatively more than 1,100 of these flights have taken place in the last two years.
The site collects data on all military aircraft within 60 kilometres of Shannon and Aldergrove airports and is interactive – users get information on flight paths, origins and destinations. As well as these US military flights, the site has also tracked 39 direct flights between Shannon and Israel during the same time period.
'Trying to do what the gardaí should be doing'
Also supporting Shannon Warport is peace activist and former soldier Ed Horgan, who spent 22 years in the Defence Forces, taking part in four overseas missions as a UN peacekeeper. “I feel obliged to do whatever I can to try and right the situation,” he told The Ditch.
He remembers the massive anti-war demonstrations in the early aughts. “There was a huge momentum behind the anti-war movement at that point. But then when the war in Iraq went ahead a huge number of people in Ireland and internationally got so fed up with the whole situation that they abandoned it for quite a number of years,” he says.
Over the course of his activism Horgan has been frustrated by the state’s failure to address its increasing complicity with US imperialism – compared with how it treats the likes of the Shannon Three.
“I find it appalling because at the moment we have nine peace activists before the courts for trying to do what the gardaí should be doing. I have submitted dozens of written requests over the years to the gardaí for planes to be searched and well over 100 verbal requests for specific planes, including CIA torture planes that I knew were at the airport at different times,” he says.
Horgan says all of these requests “have been refused with cynical comments saying that without concrete information, they can't search these planes”. This, he says, forces “citizens particularly the nine who are before the courts at the moment” to take action, “feeling obliged that they have to go into the airport to try to search some of these planes and highlight what's going on”.
Horgan’s feelings are “a dichotomy between optimism and pessimism” when he thinks of the world and Ireland’s place in it.
“When I see the protests in Ireland – almost every town and village in Ireland has protests almost every week. That's the optimistic end of it,” he says, paying tribute to “the younger people who are now very actively involved” in the movement.
“I am deeply pessimistic for the future of the Palestinian people, definitely in the short and medium term and over the coming decades. Because what I see going on, even right now, since the so-called ceasefire – over 104 people have been killed there just a couple of days ago. That's what we're up against and that's why we must be persistent and keep doing whatever we can, whenever we can,” he said.
ShannonWarport, now linked to on The Ditch’s homepage, can help us make these efforts. What it illustrates, says the campaign behind it, is the Irish government’s complicity in the Gaza genocide.
“We refuse to be complicit in genocide. We demand that the Irish government immediately sanction and impose an arms embargo on Israel. Ireland must not allow US weapons to be sent through its airspace and must definitively end the US military’s use of Shannon Airport,” they say.
The trial of the Shannon Three – Áine Ní Threinír, Aindriú de Buitléir and Eimear Walshe – begins in Ennis courthouse at 10.30am tomorrow. To understate it: much is at stake.
“The future of our younger generations is at major risk. I have eight grandchildren and I'm deeply worried about their future. Even if I had no grandchildren or no children, I would still be doing what I am doing for the sake of all the young people in this world. As many as 40,000 children have been killed in Gaza since October 2023. These children are just as valuable as my grandchildren. That's the attitude I think we should have,” says Horgan.
