new campaign & website launched

national | anti-war / imperialism | news report Monday March 13, 2006 04:32 by shane ocurry - wsm - personal capacity

wear a Black Shamrock!

There is an exciting if rather belated anti-war initiative, being prepared here in Ireland, for Saint Patrick's Day. It was thought up by a member of the Derry Anti War Coalition, and has been put into action by an ad hoc group here in Derry but the idea is really striking a chord with everyone who hears about it.

There is an exciting if rather belated anti-war initiative, being prepared here in Ireland, for Saint Patrick's Day. It was thought up by a member of the Derry Anti War Coalition, and has been put into action by an ad hoc group here in Derry but the idea is really striking a chord with everyone who hears about it.

The idea is really simple:

We are calling on everyone who is against Ireland being used as a stopping off point for planes going to war (or doing anything else to support Bush's war effort) to wear a black shamrock.

In the lead up to St Patrick's Day -it is an opportune way in which we can express our opposition to both the facilitation of US airplanes at Irish airports and to the presence of arms manufacturers in our economy, e.g. Raytheon in Derry. The black shamrock represents our mourning for the loss of Irish Neutrality and the losses of the tens of thousands of lives in Iraq and Afghanistan as a result of the US-led wars in which our leaders, north and south, have been complicit.

We are having the badges printed as fast as we can ship them. On the website there are images for badges and posters which can be downloaded and creatively used.

The website will be "officially" launched early this week with information and a facility for uploading and publishing photographs of the black shamrock image being worn by people or being displayed in a particular place - hoping for world wide coverage.

You can see the website here: http://www.blackshamrock.org (it is using the software that was created for IndyMedia Ireland). It is nearly finished, but not quite ready to be opened to the public yet. Suggestions for improvements welcome - up to the limits of the software!

We are asking people to have a photograph taken of themselves wearing the badge and have it uploaded to the site - connecting to the Irish diaspora and "a day for everyone to be Irish" , especially to tie in with the world - wide protest against the Iraq War on 18th March.

Publicise the Protest
If you can give the website some publicity on your site or in your newsletter that would be even better! It will have provision for groups to become distributors for the badges and images.

A very special thanks to the indymedia folks for helping getting this site up and running!

if you want to help in any way, distributing badges, tshirts, or becoming a site moderator please contact:

shaner at riseup dot net

or

click the 'contact us' button on the blackshamrock.org website