The Workers’ Party have accused Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney of prioritising Donald Trump’s foreign policy ahead of Irish neutrality. Cllr. Éilis Ryan, the Workers’ Party candidate in May’s European Parliament elections, said:

“Simon Coveney has, for the first time in our history, given formal backing to United States overseas aggression. Successive governments under Fianna Fáil, Labour and the Green Party have facilitated US overseas aggression by allowing the use of shannon Airport, but this move marks a new departure, leaving behind even the facade of neutrality.

“It flies in the face of the values of anti-colonialism and sovereignty which Irish people are so rightly proud of.” read full story / add a comment

We are publishing this piece by PANA explaining what PESCO is about and how it means the loss of our neutrality. Unfortunately since then on Dec 7th the Dail voted by 75 to 42 to join PESCO.
Some key points are:
1) PESCO is a binding agreement because it says so. The government claims it is not. It is.
2) PESCO commits us to spending 2% of GDP on military spending by 2022. This is a figure of € 5.5 billion. We currently spend 1/10th of that on defense. This makes a mockery of "fiscal space"
3) PESCO in the event of crisis places under NATO's command. Therefore we are no longer neutral.
4) PESCO is the side door to Ireland joining a EU Army / NATO and would have us involved in "humanitarian" bombing and "peace making" -in other words imposing the demands of the corporate interests that rule above all else.
The Irish Government is considering joining PESCO. This will be one of the most important decisions this FG/Independeny Alliance will ever make. There needs at the very least a serious debate on the issue, and in any genuine debate form all sides in the corporate media. On the evidence so far this is highly improbable, as is their total lack of coverage of the use of shannon Airport by US troops read full story / add a comment

SUMMARY: I arrived in Ennis without pen or notebook to support the action of Margaretta D'Arcy and Niall Farrell who protested on the runway of shannon against the US military use of the airport. The following is a colour story of happenings on the day relying on memory only. I hope that someone else may provide a fuller report and my apologies for any errors in this report which are entirely my responsibility. read full story / add a comment

Magaretta D'Arcy, a 79 year old peace activist who is also undergoing cancer treatment was arrested at home in Galway but NOT for bankrupting the country and saddling it with billions of debt, NOT for corruption and other white collar crime, but for the crime of having a conscience and actually caring about her fellow human beings. That's correct. In this country you can destroy it in all sorts of ways and you will be fine as no banker, politician, developer, bond holder or other types of people who have been involved in economically destroying this country, and causing widespread austerity, hardship and misery which in itself has led to many suicides and so forth. None of these people have come before the courts or been jailed. However for the really serious crimes of still having your humanity at 79 and doing something about it instead of shutting up and doing nothing, for these crimes, the state will bring the full force of the law against you and will always find some narrow argument to shut out the wider context of your action, to convict you and get you quickly behind bar. In that way the state quickly ensures that this dangerous contagion doesn't spread and it serves as a lesson to all as to what might happen to them. read full story / add a comment

The Irish government has been complicted in the murder of innocent people for almost a decade now via the wars of aggression in Afghanistan and Iraq. They are completely hypocritical when for so many years they condenmed the acts of murder in the North, but now not only remain slient about these mass murders in far off lands but actively support it through the apparatus of the state in the form of providing resources -shannon Airport, policing to go with it and of course welcoming back in 2004 the war criminal Bush and more recently Obama. We are supposed to cheer when the US and NATO drop daisy-cutter 4,000 lb bombs or when drones fire missles and say oops! when innocent civilians get killed.

And to counter the propaganda spewed a few weeks ago about the so-called ending of the war in Iraq. It is not over. There are still troops there. And contary to statements at the time of only 64,000 killed as if that was just a few, the figure is well over one million people, as estimated by internationally peer reviewed Lancet study that was done twice to confirm the initial findings.

We are so immersed in the propaganda that we have all forgotten our true values and the difference between right and wrong. Fortunately there are a few individuals willing to stick by their convinctions.

Below we reproduce a handwritten communication we received from one of the members of the Peace Team that sabotaged a US troop transporter at shannon warport last Tuesday morning, 20th December 2011. We have verified that this person participated in this action. read full story / add a comment

On this 10th anniversary of 9/11 attacks there are many things to reflect on and in this article we are going to focus on the relationship between 9/11 and the political 'Left'. Today 10 years later, the public particularly in the US seems quite dividved as numerous polls show that a majority of US citizens don't accept the official story and a significant portion believe the government was involved in one form or another. The mainstream media though is still very much on page with the official version of events. The details of the topic itself are divisive and two clear camps have arisen with opposing views and very little common ground between. At this stage many people are simply tired of discussing it and wish to move on. This article does not intend to dwell on the mechanics of the event itself but examine the wider political effects. read full story / add a comment

Today’s peace vigil at shannon on 9 Jan 2011 was not a celebration but a commemoration of events that have been occurring over the past 11 years in Afghanistan and Iraq in which the United States waged unlawful and unjustified wars killing hundreds of thousands of people. It also commemorated and offered condolences on behalf of the many prisoners who were kidnapped, imprisoned without trial and in many cases tortured in Guantanamo and elsewhere. January 2011 also marks the 20th of the US led Gulf War in 1991, which led to the deaths of over two million Iraqi people in the decade up to 2001. read full story / add a comment

Every day the war machines roll through shannon, as the innocent populations of Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere suffer the brutal consequences of neo-liberal occupation. The Gardai react by mounting public displays of strength against half a dozen innocent protestors, while claiming to have no opinions or authority over the cargos and personnel passing through the airport. read full story / add a comment

After more than three months' deliberation, President Barack Obama has finally decided to commit more than 30,000 US troops to the Afghan war. The ‘Afghan surge’ is to be fast tracked over the next six months with a large bulk of the troops arriving before Christmas. The deployment will cost approximately $1 million dollars per soldier, per year, some $30 billion overall. This price tag is on top of the considerable costs (running into the hundreds of billions of dollars) of keeping over 100,000 US soldiers ‘in-country’, while maintaining other US global military operations as well as the on-going fiasco in Iraq. The combined deployment of US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan is close to 250,000 service personnel, which is augmented by the greatest number of private military contractors/mercenaries ever seen (some 100,000 in Iraq alone). read full story / add a comment

The abject disregard of the Irish political elite for Ireland's neutrality has been demonstrated by the routine transit of US military planes and troops through shannon Airport for most of this decade. With the re-run of the Lisbon Treaty referendum we are now being asked to accept EU promises that it will not affect or prejudice Ireland's traditional policy of military neutrality. But the ongoing support of the Irish government for US-led NATO exercises around the world clearly shows that we cannot trust our leaders to uphold Irish neutrality, with or without the non-binding decisions that have been tagged onto the Treaty in an attempt to have it accepted by the people of Ireland. read full story / add a comment

On Sunday 25 January 2009, what is probably a US Navy C-9B Skytrain logistics aircraft was photographed at shannon airport in neutral Ireland, at about 11 am. Even though it had no obvious military markings, it was being guarded by an Irish army security patrol. The registration number it is obliged to display was incomplete. The only number it displayed was 0050. As far as we can establish its full aircraft registration number is 160050. read full story / add a comment

Shannonwatch.org, a website set up in December 2008 to document US military traffic and rendition flights through shannon Airport has become the victim of organised international attacks. The attacks which started on January 8th are being repeated, and efforts to keep the website live are currently proving difficult. The website managers are determined that they will not be silenced however, and will continue in one form or another to publish information on military and suspect CIA flights through shannon. read full story / add a comment

More than two years have passed since these two cases began. On Thursday last, Conor was at a special sitting of Ennis District Court for the finale. read full story / add a comment

Jim Keys, a member of the Foyle Ethical Investment Campaign (FEIC), was arrested on Friday after their monthly peace vigil outside Raytheon’s Derry software facility. His crime? He touched up a three year old spray drawing of The Black Shamrock on the public pavement outside Raytheon! The charge? Criminal Damage? read full story / add a comment

Hammers back in the hands of anti-war activists. war continues as normal in Ireland.... read full story / add a comment

Reality check - the United States of America is an empire not a Republic. Go read some Gore Vidal if you need some convincing by someone a lot smarter and more charming than me. read full story / add a comment

Amnesty International have announced that they have irrefutable evidence that a prisoner was taken through shannon Airport in January 2004. read full story / add a comment

The Rhyming Subversives proved that the pen is mightier than the sword when they outwitted the security at shannon Airport on St. Bridget’s Day, the 1st of February. read full story / add a comment

A first-hand account of a meeting of the Department of Foreign Affairs Select Committee on Wednesday 19th December to discuss the issue of Extraordinary Rendition (the transport of abducted prisoners for the purpose of torture in another country) through Irish air-space. read full story / add a comment

PANA.ie published the results of a poll they commisioned on Irish people's views on the use of shannon Airport. The Poll was conducted nationally by Lansdowne Market Research Ltd. read full story / add a comment