At Shannon Airport five people took on the might of the US military – and put a Navy war-plane out of action. Astonishingly, they convinced a jury that to do so was not a crime.
The action of the Shannon 5 - a group of Catholic Worker peace activists, calling themselves the Pitstop Ploughshares - when they broke into a hangar at Shannon Airport and, swinging hammers and a pickaxe, did more than $2.5 million to a US navy transport plane, was the most daring anti-war action to happen in Ireland this century.
Nearly four years later, a Dublin jury decided they could have ‘lawful excuse’ for their action, because they did it to save lives in Iraq. They were found not guilty on 10 separate counts of criminal damage.
Former Irish Times journalist Harry Browne has now written a book about the group, its action, and the trial. The book, Hammered By The Irish, will receive its official launch in Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop this Friday at 6pm.
It features a short introduction from leading US anti-war movement figure Fr Daniel Berrigan, a Jesuit priest who helped to found the Biblically inspired Ploughshares tradition of disarmament actions.
Action from Ireland is the Irish distributor of Hammered By The Irish which has just been published in the United States by Counterpunch Books and AK Press. The book is available at selected shops and on amazon.co.uk and abebooks.com
Harry Browne worked for The Irish Times from 1990 to 2003, and has contributed to many other publications, including the Sunday Tribune, Sunday Business Post, and The Dubliner. He teaches journalism at Dublin Institute of Technology and is a frequent contributor to radio and television programmes.
