Pit Stop ploughshares Trial, Day One

dublin | anti-war / imperialism | news report Monday March 07, 2005 17:13 by Harry Browne

Pit Stop ploughshares Trial, Day One

7 March 2005
Pitstop ploughshares Trial, Day One

That could really read 'Day Zero', because nothing much happened down there at the Four Courts, at least in terms of the case itself. But we don't really have to take our day-count from the inefficiency of the legal system, because it was a beautiful morning of solidarity with old friends, and conversations with new ones. Something definitely got started today, even if it wasn't exactly the trial.

Perhaps 120 people moved off from the Spire at about 9.15am, which doesn't sound huge but is pretty good for a Monday morning, and looks particularly ample when it's stretched out in single file. Those Catholic Worker stewards are pretty fierce pacifists, and I understood their desire for a silent dignified procession, but the Devil himself tempted me by situating Kathy Kelly, a great and good (and beautiful) American peace activist, just in front of me, and I'm afraid that became 'beside me' for a good bit of the walk down.

Our route was down the shadowy cavern of Abbey Street, with only the Luas and a few pedestrians for company. Happily we were joined just as we approached the courts by Bishop Thomas Gumbleton from Detroit, fresh from the airport. No, really - quite fresh and remarkably coherent for a 75-year-old who has just had perhaps two hours' sleep on the Redeye. Kathy Kelly had just been telling me about his parish in inner-city Detroit, and, in the rectory, his simple bedroom, which can easily be mistaken for the dog kennel. (She didn't have much time to elaborate on that remark, so you can imagine for yourself what precisely it might signify)

You can see in the photographs how the gathering looked, and hopefully the inadequacy of the sound system against the morning traffic and people's understandable desire to start chatting after the near-silent procession didn't lower the flow of supportive energy flowing into the small circle formed by Deirdre, Nuin, Karen, Damien and Ciaron (Happy Birthday Ciaron!) outside the courthouse. After short speeches by Gumbleton, Kelly and Ciaron, the five defendants literally ran off, into the maws of the system, to see what awaited them.

Some of us stood at the corner with signs. Others moved off in front of Gandon's pillars at the main courthouse entrance with more signs. Others again wandered around striking up conversations, finding an extraordinary number of American accents (some of them plotting pub crawls), many with the name Grady attached. A degree of confusion reigned about what exactly was going to happen officially this morning, and where exactly, so Fintan Lane and I took it upon ourselves to ask at the information desk just off the rotunda. After beginning to name off defendants, we just said something about 'the five', and the helpful chap told us it would be in Court 2, and not before 11am, with Judge Carney presiding. I vaguely thought that sounded odd, Court 2 being one of the big courts on the rotunda, and a High Court (or, in criminal cases, the Central Criminal Court), and the ploughshares trial was supposed to be Circuit Court. But what did I know?

More hanging around, and it was after 10.30am by the time I was chatting to a press photographer and hearing stories about Carney, who is apparently 'New School Old School, if you know what I mean'. Last week, it seems, some fellas let out a whoop after an acquittal in his court, and he rounded up five of them for contempt, ordering them to appear this morning. Ha-ha, good one'. Five of them? This morning? Carney? D'oh!

The social scene was all very well, but I was missing the trial! Another query at the desk, this time going clearly beyond 'the five' and mentioning in quick succession Shannon Airport, the Circuit Court and Catholics, established that they were outside and around the corner in Court 24. I told who I could and arrived into a small courtroom to find the defendants perched on a bench and Judge Michael White warning potential jurors, by a remote audio link, that the alleged crime in this case related to the Iraq war, and therefore if they had strong feelings about that they should disqualify themselves.

For whatever reason, two potential jurors did approach the judge and disqualify themselves before they could be sworn in. Another two got into the box, but before they could swear the oath, the prosecution objected to them, on the standard grounds that they looked like working-class young men, and therefore apparently predisposed to acquit.

The magic number 12 was reached, nine women and three men, as ordinary and decent looking as you could hope for. Then the judge told them and us that the trial would start tomorrow, in he-didn't-know-what-court, and before he-didn't-know-what-judge. (He did say it would be either himself, O'Donnell or McDonagh.) And then it was done, until 10.30am Tuesday, when we're to report back to the same place and see what is to become of us.

More info:
http://WarOnTrial.com