Just another Sunday afternoon at Shannon

The monthly peace vigil at Shannon Airport 

It’s just an ordinary Sunday afternoon at Shannon Airport.

Funny how, in an upside-down world, the small group of peace activists waving flags at a roundabout are made to feel like criminals while the police force ‘protects’ members of the most powerful military in the world . . .  just a few metres down the road.

It’s almost a pantomime at this stage, as everyone knows his or her role.

On the first Sunday of every month, the peace activists descend upon the roundabout on the fringes of the civilian airport.

They unfurl their banners and flags, and commuters, bus-drivers, or cars containing families honk their horns in support as they drive by in sunshine, hail, wind, rain or snow.

It’s some record. They haven’t missed a first Sunday of the month for over a decade now and, indeed, the protests have been going on for a lot longer.

They wish they didn’t have to meet at the roundabout, that they could find something better to do on a Sunday afternoon. But every month they feel a need to return.

One man makes the round trip from Donegal, it takes him ten hours by bus. Another comes all the way from Dundalk. He feels he has to make the effort.

Others have less of a journey. Former Irish Army man Edward Horgan and academic John Lannon, who never seem to miss a monthly Sunday gathering, make the short trip out from Limerick City.
Quite a few drive down from Galway.

Horgan and Lannon are the two main men behind Shannonwatch, the group of peace activists who protest at the airport every month.

Their mission is simple, to highlight the fact that a ‘neutral’ country is continuing to support the US war machine, to raise awareness, and to remind the Irish Government and international community that this civilian airport on the west coast of Ireland could be facilitating war crimes.

For them, Irish neutrality actually means something. With talk of a European ‘super army’ on the horizon and President Donald Trump set to visit in November, their monthly protest seems as timely and relevant as when they began to assemble outside Shannon over ten years ago.

Even today, as I write this, the National Security Advisor to Donald Trump has attempted to discredit the International Criminal Court. He has described the internationally recognised court as "illegitimate" and "dead" in the eyes of the superpower which uses Shannon every day.

It's pretty easy to discredit a court if you feel you have something to hide or you are in breach of international law.

A cargo plane contracted to the US military at Shannon

They know the routine.

The activists stand at the roundabout. A young lady sees the irony when she pops into the new Starbucks nearby to pick up a coffee. Drivers and their families honk their cars in support. And the Gardai maintain a safe distance, sometimes driving up close, though, to monitor the activists and their parked cars.

There are rarely confrontations, but the Gardai maintain a visible presence. After all, some of these activists have undertaken direct action – breaking through the airport’s perimeter fence in order to try to inspect the US military or chartered civilian planes. The protest starts at 2pm and finishes within an hour.

It’s a small but clear reminder that not every Irish person is happy with the fact that US troops land in Shannon on their way to and from their wars in the Middle East.

This month’s protest could not have been more timely. During the one hour vigil at the airport, two Omni Air planes on contract to the US military landed at Shannon.

Shannonwatch activists, who track the military flights in and out of the airport, told me that one of the planes was coming from a NATO base in the north of Norway. The other was on its way to the US from Kuwait.

They said they had no idea whether there were up to 600 troops or cargo on board, and they were pretty sure that the Irish authorities had no idea either.

Horgan, who has a camera with a powerful lens, invited me to join him at the perimeter fence. He focused his camera on the two planes, under the watchful eyes of plain clothes Gardai who pulled up alongside him as he took his photos.

The peace vigils at Shannon have gone on for over ten years

Now in his late 70s, with a respected military background, he told me he was banned from flying from Shannon. It’s a bit of an inconvenience, given that he lives just down the road in Limerick.

But he made headlines across the globe when he decided to inspect a US military plane as he was about to board a Ryanair flight to London. Ed does not believe in mellowing with old age as he is disgusted that nobody in Ireland has a clue about who or what is being carried on the military planes at Shannon.

Horgan took legal action against the Irish state in 2003, on the basis that the US military’s use of Shannon violated Ireland’s status as a neutral country.

He finds it strange to be under scrutiny from the Gardai every time he brings his camera along to his local airport, but he’s determined to continue annoying those in power.

To him, the criminals are inside the airport fence, not those trying to document their movements from the outside.

As the wind howled around us, Lannon told me that the Shannonwatch people had no intention of giving up their monthly protests.

They will be back at Shannon next month and they hope to organise a huge demonstration if, as expected, President Trump used the airport when he visits Ireland, and nearby Doonbeg in particular, in November.

“Two planes arrived here today which have been contracted out to the US military. One of them has just arrived in from a military base in northern Norway. We believe it may have been involved in some NATO exercises,” he tells me.

“We track these planes as best we can on websites. We photograph them. These are military planes. We have our own way of tracking these planes. It’s not just with cameras, we use software to track them. We believe they are involved in NATO exercises even though Leo Varadkar and all our Ministers promise us that the planes that land here have nothing to do with NATO.”

Shannon has served as a refuelling stop for warplanes and protests have taken place there ever since President George W. Bush began his ‘war on terror’ with the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

Most of the military flights since then have been to or from countries in the Middle East, including Iraq and Syria.

Ed Horgan holding a photo of a Syrian girl murdered in
a US bombing last year

A decade ago, concerns were raised that Shannon was used for rendition or torture flights by the CIA.

In 2006, the Irish Independent reported that a cargo playing carrying Apache helicopters had landed in Shannon on its way to Israel.

In 2008, Irish activists became suspicious about a C-130 Hercules plane, normally based in Little Rock, Arkansas. They linked it to white phosphorous, a weapon known to cause horrific burns, which originated in Arkansas and was used in the bombing of Gaza.

Given Irish people’s traditional support for and empathy with the people of Palestine, such claims would alarm many Irish people in a supposedly ‘neutral’ country.

Few Irish people want to be associated in any way with war crimes.

But of course the peace activists have no proof.

Nobody does, because no inspections have ever been carried out on US military or contracted planes during their stopovers at Shannon.

Please click on the 'Subscribe' button at the top of this page if you would like to be notified every time I publish a new blog. I usually post a blog about once a fortnight ... so you won't be bombarded with emails! 



Ciaran Tierney is a journalist, blogger, and digital storyteller, based in Galway, Ireland. He's available for hire!

Find his website at http://ciarantierney.com/ Find him on Facebook at http://facebook.com/ciarantierneymedia

Debasing the prize

“War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”

In his bleak vision of a totalitarian future, conjured up long before the era of social media and “fake news”, George Orwell depicted with alarming prescience the way in which war could be used to debase the English language.                                               

A little girl takes shelter in war-torn Aleppo

In his dystopian novel, 1984, Orwell did not want to depict his central character, Winston Smith, as a hero, but rather an unfortunate victim who dares to question a terrible system in which language has been twisted far beyond its original meaning.

Political life in Western Europe may not have turned out exactly as Orwell predicted – those who question the authorities are generally not “vaporised” or forced to disappear from sight in 2017 – and yet he would be impressed by the 21st century vocabulary of war.

“How could freedom be slavery or war be peace?” a modern reader might ask.

And yet when you look at terms like “friendly fire”, “carpet bombing”, or “collateral damage” it’s clear that the language we use has been twisted completely to avoid describing the terrible reality of modern warfare.

There is nothing friendly about friendly fire, described as the act of killing people on your “own side”, no carpets involved in carpet bombing, and not much collateral in collateral damage. To those preposterous terms, we might also want to add the term “peace prize”.

In recent years, the notion of a peace prize seems to have lost all meaning.

Last October, for example, the then US Secretary of State, John Kerry, flew into Ireland to collect the Tipperary Peace Award.

Remembering a Syrian child, murdered in a US
air strike, during a protest at Shannon Airport

As he was just two months away from the end of the Obama presidency, you might have thought he had more pressing concerns on his mind. But he was delighted to fly to Ireland to pick up his award.

The then US Secretary of State might have been shocked, even, to get this recognition from the Tipperary Peace Convention as he looked up the tiny village of Aherlow on a map ahead of the awards ceremony.

After Kerry flew into Shannon, effectively a US military base for the past 16 years, before being whisked to Aherlow, it is doubtful that anyone mentioned the seven wars the US had engaged in – and countless lives lost – during the eight years of the Obama administration.

Such talk would hardly have been appropriate in the context of this glittering prize, presented at a star-studded event in rural Tipperary.

There was no mention of the “terror Tuesdays” when President Obama would sit down with his advisers to plan bombings across the globe from the relative comfort of Washington DC.

We tend not to see the victims of those bombings on our TV screens, so their lives don’t matter in the greater scheme of things.

In Tipperary, nobody cared to mention that Obama dropped 26,171 bombs in his last year in office. And it’s doubtful that anyone expressed concern that even a few innocent civilians lost their lives due to these bombings by the administration which won the 2016 Tipperary International Peace Prize.

The Tipperary committee were dazzled to have such a giant on the international stage in their midst last October and Kerry himself was clearly delighted to pick up their award as he came to the end of his term of office.

Local heroes don't make international headlines

It seemed that nobody, apart from a few vocal protesters outside the gates, expressed concern at what it meant to give the representative of such a Government a “peace prize”.

It’s doubtful if the organisers sought feedback from civilians in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, and Syria, where over two million people lost their lives in wars involving the Obama administration.

Just days before John Kerry’s award was announced, 85 people in a tiny Syrian village were murdered in a US air strike in an atrocity which was barely mentioned in the Irish or British media.

John Kerry, the 2016 winner of the controversial
Tipperary Peace Award

Those villagers were not on anyone’s radar when Kerry arrived in Aherlow to collect his prize.

Garnering publicity and rubbing shoulders with the powerful were far more important than showing any understanding of the meaning of the words "peace prize".

So now the Tipperary Peace Award is in the headlines again this month, with Syria’s White Helmets in line to pick up the 2017 prize.

The 3,000 volunteers who constitute the White Helmets are said to have saved more than 60,000 lives since the outbreak of the terrible civil war in Syria in 2011.

An estimated 160 members of the Syria Civil Defence (the 'official' name of the White Helmets), who are based in rebel-held areas, have lost their lives in the civil war.

They have shown great bravery on the front lines in places like Aleppo, a city which faced relentless bombardment from Russian military aircraft last year.

There is no doubt that the men who volunteer for the White Helmets are immensely brave, but does it not devalue their “peace prize” that the 2016 winner was part of an administration which brought so much death and destruction to countries such as Syria and Iraq?

And isn't it amazing that a small committee in Tipperary knows enough about the war in Syria - where the truth is so hard to find - that they can give their coveted "peace prize" to a controversial group which faces questions over its founding, its funding, and even links to radical groups?

Ironically, when John Kerry flew into Shannon in October 2016 he was faced by a small group of protesters who have staged a monthly protest at the airport every month over the past 16 years.

Ireland is supposed to be a “neutral” country and respected academics at Shannonwatch have been highlighting Shannon Airport’s role in the US “war on terror” since 2001.

They have documented every plane carrying US troops and possibly munitions landing at or leaving Shannon over that period, despite indifference or downright hostility from the Irish authorities.

These local heroes give up their free time in a bid to stop bombings in countries such as Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq.

They are kept under surveillance outside the airport fence, while nobody in authority ever stops to search the planes, bringing so much destruction to the Middle East, inside.

Respected academics like Edward Horgan and John Lannon, who are regularly filmed by undercover Gardai just for staging a peaceful monthly protest, might not generate the same international headlines as the White Helmets or John Kerry.

I guess that’s why they are never in the reckoning to pick up a Tipperary “peace prize”.



Ciaran Tierney is a journalist, blogger, and digital storyteller, based in Galway, Ireland. You can check out his Facebook page here

To hire a ghost blogger for your website, check out http://ciarantierney.com/

Find Ciaran on Twitter, https://twitter.com/ciarantierney

Banned from the land that made us refugees ...

“Where e’er we go, we celebrate
The land that makes us refugees
From fear of priests with empty plates
From guilt and weeping effigies"

‘Thousands Are Sailing’, The Pogues


Between 1847 and 1850, a hundred ‘coffin’ ships sailed out from Galway Bay. The people who made it onto those ships were desperately impoverished and full of fear, and yet they saw themselves as hugely fortunate compared to those who were forced to stay behind.

They were the equivalent of today’s Syrian or Iraqi refugees. Their land had been stolen, the crops had failed, and they dreamed of new lives far removed from the conflict and turmoil which raged across their homeland.

Many were less fortunate, such as little Celia Griffin, aged six, from Connemara. Celia never had a chance in life and was found lying on the side of a road, just one of hundreds of thousands to die of starvation.

The ships were destined for the ‘New World’.                    

Not much empathy for the children of Syria
in President Donald Trump's USA

Poor country people from villages and townlands across the West of Ireland, many of whom could barely muster a word of English between them, sailed across the western ocean in search of a chance in life which had been denied them under the British Empire.

I think about those people most weeks when I bring foreign English students on a walking tour of Galway. I think of how forgotten they were for decades in Galway City, their point of embarkation.

It was only when a returned emigrant, the late Mark Kennedy, kicked up a fuss that the city and region honoured them with a wonderful Famine Memorial Park which opened eight years ago.

For many, the collective memories are still too painful … of poverty, of families torn apart, of the pain of long-term emigration. Most of those who made it to the other side – many died during the lengthy crossing – never got the opportunity to go home and visit their loved-ones again.

The Irish fugitives were near the bottom of the barrel in 19th century America. As they flocked into the Bronx, Hell’s Kitchen, or South Boston, it would have been unthinkable to imagine how their lives would have turned out if they had been denied entry at the US border.

Had the US president taken a hardline on emigration, had there been 19th century equivalents of Donald Trump and his “extreme vetting”, then countless Irish would have been turned back as soon as they reached the east coast of America.

They wouldn’t have had enough food to survive the return journey and, if they did, the numbers who died in the Great Famine would have been vastly higher.

Given our terrible history, it was shocking to wake up this weekend to discover that “extreme vetting” – bordering on fascism – has now been introduced just an hour’s drive south of where those coffin ships departed from Galway Bay.

Last October marked the 15th anniversary of Shannon Airport’s complicity in the US ‘war on terror’
At the stroke of a president’s pen, Muslims from seven countries have been banned from entering the US.

Marking 15 years of Shannon Airport's use
as a US military base last October

Persecuted in their own country and no longer welcome at the end of an arduous journey, Syrians refugees in 2017 have quite a lot in common with the Irish who escaped from the discrimination and hardship imposed by the British Empire.

The Irish died in their thousands on coffin ships in the 1840s and now Syrians are dying on makeshift boats as they make their way across the Mediterranean.

Back then, the Irish were seen as a threat, deeply unpopular, rebellious spirits, who could not be trusted on the streets of New York or Boston.

Today, Muslims are the new “enemies”, even though, strangely enough, Saudi Arabia (who provided the vast majority of the 9/11 bombers) is not on Trump’s list of seven banned countries.

Amazing, too, how Yemen is on the list, considering it has been bombed to bits by US “ally” Saudi Arabia over the past two years. Yemen is on the verge of famine, but any Yemeni who turns up at a US border will be deported and sent back home.

The targeting of an entire race, nation, or religion has brought up understandable comparisons with 1930s Germany.

Back then, good people were afraid to speak out while their Jewish neighbours were being forced to wear yellow stars to make them more identifiable in a growing climate of hatred and intolerance.

Given our own troubled history, it’s incredible to think that racial profiling is now taking place on Irish soil.

The US ‘pre-clearance’ at Shannon was supposed to make travelling easier when it was introduced in 2009, but now it could lead to people being discriminated against for no other reason than their country of birth.

It is unthinkable to imagine the kind of hostility a Yemeni or Syrian would have to deal with if he or she was to try to board a flight to the US at Shannon.

Imagine, the land where hundreds of thousands of people were made refugees is now about to let a powerful nation, motivated by xenophobia and fear, discriminate against refugees on Irish soil.

Of course, Irish people have already been turning a blind eye to what’s being going on at Shannon Airport for the past 15 years.

President Donald Trump's anti-Muslim measure has
caused huge controversy in Irealnd

Last July, for example, 85 civilians – among them almost a dozen children – lost their lives in a bombing in a small Syrian village.

Combatants had targeted a village in Northern Syria which had been held by Islamic State (IS) or Daesh fighters.

The combatants or “terrorists” who carried out this attack on Tokhar stop almost daily in Shannon to refuel their aircraft.

The terrorists were US soldiers. But there was no minute’s silence, no protest, and the bombing did not even merit a mention on BBC or RTE news.

People in Ireland or the UK only found out about it thanks to RT, the Russian channel, and Britain’s Channel 4.

How can we care about the loss of innocent lives when we are not even told about them by many segments of our media?

Most of us just shrug when we hear that over 2.5 million US soldiers have landed in ‘neutral’ Shannon Airport since the beginning of the ‘war on terror’ in 2001.

We didn’t protest when US soldiers who pass through Shannon murdered hundreds of thousands of people in Iraq and Syria over the past decade.

We didn’t protest when planes carrying munitions, helicopters, and even deadly chemical weapons to aid the Israeli occupation of Palestine passed through Shannon.

We didn’t protest when prisoners were renditioned through Shannon on their way to be tortured at Guantanamo Bay.

Mind you, we can’t be sure about that one … because not one person in authority in Ireland has ever searched a US military plane during 15 years of Shannon’s use as a military base.

But surely, finally, it’s time to protest now. Is it acceptable that people in uniforms standing in Co Clare can now prevent people from getting onto a ‘plane on the basis of their nationality alone?

The Americans have made a mockery of international law by effectively turning a civilian airport into a military base. Now they want to discriminate against refugees before they even leave Ireland.

In light of our own terrible history, can Irish people really stand idly by when we hear that racial profiling has become a fact of life just an hour south of where the ‘coffin’ ships once set sail from Galway Bay?


Shannonwatch, who have monitored the US military use of ‘neutral’ Shannon Airport for the past 15 years, have organised a protest at the airport this coming Thursday (6pm)

Find me on Facebook: http://facebook.com/ciarantierneymedia

Keep buying the leprechauns

Check out my business website: http://ciarantierney.com/

The horror of Syria: Irish people still don't connect
goings-on at Shannon with the "war on terror"

“Sure, as long as they keep buying the leprechauns . . . “

In October 2016, a significant increase in the number of US soldiers passing through Shannon Airport was noted by activists who monitor activities at the airport on a daily basis.

The increased activity has been linked to an onslaught against the Iraqi city of Mosul and a marked growth in the number of troops on the ground in both Syria and Iraq.

As Shannon’s role in the US-led “war on terror” enters its 16th year, it’s remarkable that their presence barely merits a mention in the Irish media.

No Garda has ever searched a plane, despite concerns that dangerous chemicals such as white phosphorous and prisoners on their way to and from Guantanamo Bay in Cuba may have been renditioned through Shannon.

We have to rely on the likes of Wikileaks and Trojan investigative work by Shannonwatch peace activists, who track the movement of military and chartered planes, if we are to have any inkling of what’s going on.

Marching for peace at Shannon Airport

“Sure, as long as they keep buying the leprechauns …”

It can be disconcerting to fly out of Shannon on a quiet midweek evening and find yourself surrounded by hundreds of US soldiers in uniforms.

If you are flying to London on a Tuesday evening, for example, you can sometimes feel like the only civilian in a military zone. 

When you look at the soldiers, you can guess whether they are coming or going depending on the mood.

If they are on their way home, there is a celebratory air in the terminal building as they queue up to buy leprechaun hats or bottles of duty free Irish whiskey they’d be unlikely come across in Syria or Iraq.

They queue to use the public phones and promise their loved-ones, excitedly, that they will be home in just a few hours.

If they are on their way to the Middle East, the mood can be a lot more sombre. There is an eerie silence across the terminal as they ponder on the long trips away from home.

It’s 15 years now since former US President George W. Bush asked “neutral” little Ireland to facilitate his troops in their endless global war.

As we celebrate 100 years since the Easter Rising, it’s incredible that the issue of Ireland’s complicity in war crimes in places like Iraq, Syria, or Afghanistan is rarely heard on the national airwaves.

In July of this year, 85 people – including almost a dozen children – lost their lives in a horrific air strike in northern Syria.

The “terrorists” who carried out the attack were members of the US military and could well have passed through Shannon.

The attack wasn’t even mentioned on RTE, the national news station, the following day. It didn’t merit a minute's coverage on the main evening news.

And hardly anyone ever joins up the dots to link the hundreds of US troops passing through Shannon and the appalling atrocities carried out in far-off villages like Tokhar.

“Sure, as long as they keep buying the leprechauns … “

Earlier this month, a peace conference was organised at Shannon to mark 15 years of the airport’s participation in the “war on terror”.

The respected academics and former military men who organise the monthly Shannonwatch protest at the airport decided to mark the anniversary by inviting guest speakers and encouraging debate.

So they decided to book a room.                                    

A small number of TDs joined the Shannonwatch
15th anniversary demonstration this month

And then the hotel cancelled.

They booked another room in another hotel.

And the second hotel cancelled.

And then a third . . . In all, three hotels in the Shannon region suddenly discovered they were “double-booked” when they discovered the theme of the peace conference.

Sure, we can’t criticise the Americans. They are good for business, no matter what the morality of the presence of so many coalition troops in a “neutral” civilian facility.

So the organisers were forced to hold the peace conference in a tent just outside the perimeter of the airport.

Amazingly, some people who travelled to the peace conference found that the rooms they booked in the three hotels were still available that weekend.

As it transpired, by a strange coincidence, only the rooms the organisers had sought for the peace conference were double-booked.

“The fact that three bookings in three different hotels were cancelled to me is an indication of success rather than failure, and the fact that we were harassed by the authorities here this weekend shows that we are making an impact,” said Dr Edward Horgan of Shannonwatch.

Dr Horgan said Irish people had to make a connection between the US military aircraft which land at Shannon and the bombings in Syria or Iraq which sometimes aren’t even reported on our TV news channels.

He doesn’t give up hope that the peace movement will succeed, even though his small group has been protesting every month for the past 15 years.

“But, but . . . what about the Russians?”

Peace activists in Ireland are often accused of being “anti-American” because they protest against attacks carried out by the US military, but seem silent in the face of horrific atrocities carried out by others.

In Syria, for example, the Russians have been linked to war crimes, such as the bombing of hospitals in Aleppo, which are every bit as bad as atrocities carried out by the Americans in Mosul or Tokhar.

I put this point to Dr Horgan during the recent peace conference.

He said that Veterans for Peace and Shannonwatch (he represents both) condemn Russian and Syrian bombings in Aleppo, just as they condemn US bombings in Mosul.

War-torn Aleppo: 2.5 million US soldiers have passed
through Shannon on their way to war over 15 years

“From our perspective in Ireland, killing civilians is always wrong,” he said. “But the main difference is the Russians are not using Shannon Airport in their war in Syria, while the US is using Shannon Airport several times a day at present to refuel its aircraft.”

He expressed fear that Ireland could become a target for terrorists because of Shannon’s role in allowing troops, munitions, and weapons to be transferred to the Middle East for use in war crimes in civilian areas.

“It’s our responsibility as Irish citizens to stop Ireland's very direct involvement in these war crimes being committed by the United States. There is little we can do to stop Russian bombing except to get our Irish Government to use its influence within the UN to get a ceasefire in Syria.

“I am actually fearful. I didn’t go to Dublin on Easter Sunday for the 1916 commemorations because I was afraid it might be a target. I wouldn’t be surprised if Shannon Airport did become a target. At the moment, it is difficult for the terrorist groups to get to Ireland and that’s the only reason, I think, why we’ve avoided an attack so far.”

Shannon “becomes a target” …

Since the invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, when the US military first began to use Shannon for refuelling, it has been estimated that over 2.5 million armed US troops have passed through the airport.

In July 2016, the Irish Government confirmed in the Dail – the Irish parliament – that over 25,000 US troops had passed through Shannon in the first six months of this year.

Among the guest speakers during Shannonwatch’s 15th anniversary peace conference was US-born journalist Robert Fantina of the World Beyond War organisation.           

Calling for an end to Shannon Airport's collusion
in the US-led global "war on terror"

He said he was very surprised when he heard of the level of US troop movements through Shannon.

“By allowing US warplanes to land and refuel here, that violates Irish neutrality. Preventing the planes from refuelling here is not only good for Afghanistan or Ireland, it also shows the world that Ireland wants peace and does not support the US war machine,” he said.

He said that all across the world there needed to be a “cultural change” so that people could focus on peace time economies rather than the economies of war. There are strong vested interests in the arms industry who benefit from perpetual wars.

“People in Ireland might think it’s only a plane or two a week passing through, but they need to realise that these  planes are bringing death and destruction to people just like them. Men, women, and children who just want to go to work or school, live ordinary lives, and raise their families, are dying because planes are being allowed to land here,” said Fantina.

“Additionally, because US war planes are allowed to land here, Shannon becomes a target for organisations which are opposed to US militarism. People need to understand that the ‘war on terror’ is really a war of terrorism. Any place, including Shannon, which allows the US to perform those operations is part of that killing.”

“Sure, as long as they keep buying the leprechaun hats in the airport shops, we’ll be grand … !”

And this week, in Tipperary, some insignificant little committee is set to give the US Secretary of State, John Kerry, a "peace prize".

As if they were blissfully aware of all the atrocities his country has carried out - and the innocent lives lost - in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria over the past 15 years.

The whole concept of a US leader flying in to pick up an award in the current climate, days after another appalling attack on civilians in Iraq, devalues the very notion of a "peace prize".

Who cares about villagers in Syria, when the slaughter of 85 of them never even makes it onto our TV screens?

And, sure, isn't it a great way of putting a little Tipperary village on the map?

Sure, it's great to be on such good terms with the Americans, even those who cause endless pain to ordinary, innocent people across the world. But I guess that's another story ...



Find Ciaran Tierney Digital Storyteller on Facebook ...

Selling our 'neutral' souls

A disturbing video popped up on my Facebook timeline this week.

It showed two little boys, the younger aged no more than three, running from airstrikes, with terror in their voices and tears in their eyes.

They were crying out for their mothers, as a distressed adult bundled them into the back of

US troops at Shannon Airport

a van.

Behind them, the dust and debris disguised the fact that ten children had just been killed. Their school had been destroyed.

If it had happened in Europe, we would be expressing outrage and changing our Facebook profiles in sympathy with the victims this week.

If it happened in Europe, people would clamour for justice and contact their politicians to express their horror and despair.

But the little boys live in Syria, and to them and their families it must seem that the world doesn’t care. Their city of Damascus has been shelled countless times in recent weeks, but we never see the images of the destruction on our nightly TV news channels.

The harrowing two minute film I saw came from Al Jazeera, rather than any European, Irish, or British network.

These are the invisible victims, the ones who do not seem to matter to those in power.

Their terror seemed in such contrast to the scenes of joviality in the House of Commons a couple of weeks back, when a majority of British MPs voted in favour of airstrikes across Syria.

As they laughed and voted for war, those who opposed their views were branded as “terrorist sympathisers”.

We don’t know from the video whether the boys live in an ISIL controlled area or not, all we see are two little boys with terror on their faces.

This is the reality of what our Governments in the West do in our name.

And the Irish can’t moralise, either, as none of us has a clue what has been going on at Shannon Airport for the past 13 years.

We know that American warplanes stop there every week to refuel, on their way to and from ‘renditions’, tours of duty, or bombing missions across the globe.

Nobody knows what’s inside those giant planes, because nobody in authority at Shannon has bothered to check.

And when two TDs took it upon themselves to try to inspect those planes, they found themselves in a ludicrous situation – facing the District Court, required to pay fines, and then facing an hour and a half to two hours in jail when they refused to pay those fines.

Such a waste of taxpayers’ money, such a terrible compromise of the concept of Irish ‘neutrality’ just months before we celebrate the heroes who fought for our freedom, and neutrality, back in 1916.

If you want to see how good the security is at Shannon, have a look for the old footage of Galway activists Margaretta D’Arcy and Niall Farrell trespassing onto the runway a couple of years ago.

It’s never a good idea to wander onto an airport runway on a Sunday afternoon, but the activists were determined to make a point.

To their huge surprise, nobody noticed that they had cut a fence and entered the runway – even though they were wearing bright orange boiler suits, as an expression of sympathy with the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay.

Shocked that nobody seemed to notice them, or that nobody approached them, Niall eventually rang the authorities to tell them what he’d done. Eventually, after taking the call, the Airport Police arrived to remove them from the runway.

The same Airport Police have never once, to anyone’s knowledge, boarded one of the US military aircraft to find out who or what is being carried on board.

If you are flying from Shannon on a midweek night, you can often find that civilian passengers are outnumbered three or four to one by US troops buying plastic leprechauns, shamrocks, and bottles of whiskey on their way home from Afghanistan, Iraq, or Pakistan.

For all you’d know, those same troops could have blood on their hands as a result of bombing missions all over the Middle East.

But we never hear about those missions and we didn’t hear much about the Medecins Sans Frontiers hospital which was destroyed by US air strikes a couple of months ago.

We don’t know who bombed the school in Damascus this week, either. 

And, doubtless, the two little boys in the video shared by Al Jazeera don’t care who bombed their school. Russian bombs cause the same damage, heartbreak, and destruction as British, French, or Syrian bombs and are unable to distinguish between fighters and innocent civilians.

The monthly protest at Shannon Airport

So, like the MPs who joked and ridiculed Jeremy Corbyn MP as they voted in favour of air strikes in a far-off land, we should hang our heads in shame.

Because, while US troops continue to use an Irish civilian airport to facilitate bombing missions across the globe, we, too, have blood on our hands.

But who’s complaining as long as Shannon keeps busy and the soldiers keep buying their plastic leprechauns?

Only Mick Wallace and Clare Daly and a handful of others, notably the Shannonwatch people who protest once a month, while the rest of us turn a merry blind eye to what’s really going on. 

Our authorities don’t seem to have the time, resources, or desire to find out what’s happening with the US military at Shannon, in a so-called ‘neutral’ country, but they can afford to send a TD to jail for two hours. 

It’s not today nor yesterday that the Irish began to sell out their principles in the pursuit of fools’ gold.

No doubt the children of Syria would find the whole thing ludicrous, if they hadn’t got far more pressing matters on their innocent minds.

My website 

http://facebook.com/ciarantierneymedia