Vigil marks 25 years of Irish complicity in US war crimes

Peace activists travelled from all over Ireland on Sunday for an anniversary all of them hoped they would never see, as they marked 25 years since Shannon Airport was handed over to the US military to facilitate its wars of aggression throughout the Middle East and beyond.

It is estimated four million US troops carrying arms have passed through this civilian airport on Ireland’s western seaboard since the then Irish Government, then led by disgraced Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Bertie Ahern, agreed to make it available to President George W. Bush for his “war on terror” in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001.

Shannonwatch, formed in 2008, have held a vigil outside the airport every month for the past 18 years and have monitored troop movements through Shannon ever since. Protests have been a regular occurrence since then, with the first protest being organised by students from the nearby University of Limerick in November 2001.

The issue of the US military’s use of Shannon has grown in controversy over the years, particularly as Irish people have mobilised against the mass slaughter of innocent people in Gaza and as the Irish Government moved in recent weeks to remove a mechanism known as the “triple lock” which peace activists believe protects Irish neutrality.

Protest sign at Shannon Airport opposing U.S. military transit

Earlier this year, activists became further enraged when media reports revealed that Shannon Airport has been used to deport Palestinians from the United States. Opposition parties in Ireland said it was “reprehensible”, “deeply disturbing” and “outrageous” that eight shackled Palestinian men were deported by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to the Israeli-occupied West Bank, on a private jet owned by a friend of US President Donald Trump.

As a former colony of the British Empire, neutrality remains a hugely emotive issue for a significant majority of Irish people and the support of passing motorists was apparent from the number of beeping horns during the one-hour vigil which was organised by Shannonwatch, the Peace and Neutrality Alliance, and World Beyond War Ireland.

During huge protests against the genocide in Gaza over the past three years, with rallies regularly attracting up to 80,000 participants in the capital, Dublin, peace activists in Ireland have continued to highlight and question Shannon Airport’s links to the slaughter in Palestine, while Shannonwatch monitor the arrivals and departures of planes carrying US troops and armaments to the Middle East, despite the best efforts of the Irish authorities to keep these troop movements secret.

“It is really important that we are still after 25 years,” said John Lannon, co-founder of Shannonwatch. “In 2001, Shannon Airport started to be used for the illegal invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. It has been misused ever since by the US military. The vigils have grown bigger. Other people have come along and organised their own vigils, which we are delighted about as well. While we haven’t got the US military out of Shannon, I am quite sure that we and others in the broader anti-war peace movement have kept things at bay to some extent to ensure that Ireland is not fully embedded in NATO and not completely involved in direct support for the genocide.

“We are involved in indirect support for the genocide, which is almost as bad. There should be no planes coming through Shannon Airport to go to Tel Aviv, to bring diplomats over there, there should be no weapons parts going through Irish airspace, we shouldn’t be trading with Israel. There are so many ways in which we are complicit in what is happening in Palestine.”

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Lannon says he has noted a huge change in the attitude of motorists accessing the airport, one of Ireland’s three main passenger airports, over the years. People used to abuse the peace activists when they assembled at the roundabout on the access road in the earlier years, but now the vast majority of people accessing the passenger terminal are supportive.  

“The attitude has changed for the better. We used to get people shouting abuse at us in the first few years, around 2008 and 2009, but that has changed. As a result of the revolting policies of the west and of the Irish Government, people are supporting us far more now. I think Gaza has focused people’s minds on how immoral the whole thing is and how awful it is,” he said.  

Lannon has been particularly disappointed by the smaller, left-wing parties who supported protests at Shannon over the years, but then reversed their policies when they went into coalition governments in Dublin. He said that ordinary Irish people were broadly supportive of Irish neutrality, due to their country’s history of being colonised, and standing at an airport every month in all sorts of weather conditions was not much of a sacrifice compared to what people were going through in Palestine and South Lebanon as a result of US foreign policy.

Shannonwatch co-founder Edward Horgan, a former senior officer in the Irish Army, said it was ironic that Shannon was first used by the United States for the illegal overthrow of the Afghan Government, even though there were no Afghanis involved in the 9/11 attacks.

“Our leaders keep lying to us, the Irish people, that the US military use of Shannon Airport does not compromise Irish military neutrality. A neutral country cannot allow belligerent states to move troops and military materials through its territory. Between October 2001 and October 2026, at least four million armed US soldiers have transited through Shannon Airport and many more through Irish airspace. The reality is that Ireland has not been a neutral state in the 25 years since October 2001. This matters very much because of all the lives that have been destroyed,” said Horgan.

Throughout those 25 years, Horgan has monitored US troop movements through the civilian airport, keeping an extensive data base. He has also provided support for more than 100 people who have taken direct action at the airport and taken legal action against the Irish authorities.

Throughout the 25 years, successive Irish Governments have refused to end the arrangement which allows the US military to use Shannon as a refuelling stop for US warplanes or for OMNI Air, who are chartered by the military to transport troops across the globe. They have also refused to direct An Garda Siochana, the Irish police force, to investigate what arms or related materials are being carried on the planes.

As far back as 2006, the Irish media reported that a cargo plane carrying three Apache helicopters had landed in Shannon before flying to Israel. The idea that Ireland, seen as one of the most “pro-Palestine” countries in Europe, could be complicit in the slaughter in Palestine has enraged many Irish people.

But the Irish authorities remain determined to shield the US troop and arms movements from public scrutiny.

“Nobody has been held accountable for Irish complicity in wars and genocide, and US military aircraft are still not being searched at Shannon Airport,” said Horgan on Sunday. “Well over a million children have been murdered in US-led wars over the past 35 years. Israel is terrorising the people of Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, and Iran. Israel is a terrorist state. And Ireland is complicit because of what it allows to happen at this airport.”

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