Shannon Blockade 1: Pluses & Minuses

by redflaremist Sun Dec 07, 2003 23:09

Dublin GNAW had a very well thought out blockade plan.

The first mention at all of the Prison thing was in Borris in Ossary. NEVER mentioned at any point either here, in the IAWM bulletins, or from reports we heard of the steering committee.

Considering the amount of cops v. protestors we did OK.

by IAWM member Sun Dec 07, 2003 23:17

I think that the IAWM were more effective than the GNAW yesterday. The IAWM did disrupt traffic (eventually). I think it would have been much much better if those involved in the GNAW also participated in the protest. We need far more co-operation between the two groups- it's ridiculous and farcical that 2 groups blockading will not work together for a common aim, instead of dividing the protest in 2.

by redflaremist Sun Dec 07, 2003 23:48

Does the title say it all I wonder?

Yep next time you call a direct action we'll probably be back there again. Can you say the same?

Cue extensive thread BELOW about previous stabs in the back, SWP, etc etc.

by Ciaron Mon Dec 08, 2003 00:52

Thanx for the debrief.

Seems like minimal arrests is a Garda tactic to starve the issue of oxygen. We're pretty much back to where we were last year when the Gards didn't arrest the Catholic Workers for creating a shrine of the wing statue at the airport with spraypaint, red dye, photos of Iraqi kidz.

There was a point for the bulk of this year following the disarmament actions that the Irish Army were full time deployed to Shannon. They were withrawn 6 weeks ago when the state regarded the movement defeated.

Regular (weekly) vigils at Shannon and regular civil disobediece (every 2 or 3 months even at the Good Friday potato planting level) would have kept the army deployed. and the present situation of "normalisation" at bay.

There was a lot of good stuff around D6 and a lot of room for improvement in terms planninig, community/solidarity building and nonviolentdirectaction training/prpearation.

There needs to be a specific nonviolent resistance Shannon campaign roughly modelled on theTrident Ploughshares campaign at Faslane, Scotland. Personally don't think IAWM is the vehicle for this.

by Maratist - Conspiratorially Skulking Collective Mon Dec 08, 2003 09:12

Analysis and stocktaking on Shannon and the peace movement after December sixth.
Generally I was expecting a degree of a return to “normalisation”, low key policing so as not to draw attention to the Shannon issue. This was manifestly not the case. We can compare policing levels with March 1st:

This time there were far more riot suited cops.

We were blocked before we got to the archways, obviously necessary on this occasion but this has happened at previous demonstrations also, like June 21st, so may be now an eternal.

Most buses were stopped and searched – this has happened on previous occasions to individual buses, I think this is the first time there was an effort to stop all buses. Cars were being checked also – this was not the case on March 1st – at least not in the direction I was travelling from.

There were a lot of police around everywhere - i.e. stationed in little out of the way places – just in case.

In other words policing levels are radically different from what they were when there was successful mass direct action (October 12th 02) or potential for fairly painless mass direct action (December 8th 02/January 18th 03).

The police have had a learning curve. So have we.

At least parts of the grassroots outfit were organised into “affinity groups”, tuned into to a degree of secrecy and people were effectively de-arresting.

At least parts of the IAWM are going down the road of civil disobedience.

There was proper and effective de-arresting. Which is a very significant and welcome change.

We had a map, which was not the case previously.

We had indicated legal monitors (previously you didn’t necessarily know who they were).

Despite months of de-escalation we were able to bring as many people to Shannon for something billed as direct action as we have ever had.

Today the argument in favour of direct action is within the IAWM not within the grassroots.

However the learning curve of the police has been far higher than ours.

Effectively like the French army we are ready for 1870 in 1914 and for 1914 in 1939. So we need to think outside the box, rapidly.

(1) We need more secrecy. We tried to do the unexpected, but obviously need to do so when we are unexpected. For reasons of anti-state the rest of this paragraph has been deleted ; )

(2) We need to diversify our range of targets to include things intimately linked to Shannon, but not necessarily in Shannon – to a degree this has started. This is particularly pertinent in the North and Dublin – due to distances we can more effectively mobilise people there for actions there.

(3) We need to recognise the extent to which numbers in the spring were down to the media having a story and doing our propaganda job for us, e.g. liberal anti-war journos on Pat Kenny and Today FM, peace campers on Pat Kenny, a big article in the Irish Times on F15 before F15, etc… Even the extent to which THE WAR was everywhere – it need not be so, remember barely reported sanctions plus regular bombing from ’91 onwards killed far, far, more than the chapter in March and April.
We need to develop and sustain our own media quickly, if only to reach the broader anti-war constituency beyond the usual suspect(s) activoids. This would mean something along the lines of a sustained referendum style campaign i.e. knocking out the flyers on a continual basis. The only ‘everybody’ that reads indymedia is everybody in Garda stations in Clare. This is particularly relevant to Limerick, Clare and Galway. We need to build up a strong base close at hand for sustaining us into the long term. We need to place as great an importance on propaganda as on action, as without mass there is no democracy, without mass there is no social chance and without mass the whole thing is dangerously dependant on a small number of people.

There is no necessary contradiction between the first point and the third. In fact they compliment each other. Through getting people involved on a local level through media/local protests we can then have actions embracing a wider section of the public but covert. At the moment we are having announced actions, letting the police know we are coming and only getting for the most part the same people who stuck up the posters/have gone to all the demos/were at the organising meeting.

We need an effective strategy. An effective strategy is one that has a means that can achieve our ends. There is only two possibilities. One is to blacken Fianna Fail and the PDs as much as is possible and hope for anti-war parties to give a good showing in the next election and then be in coalition with enough pull to shove the military out of Shannon. Those of you with no interest in history and no desire to look into the old dusty tomes on the history of German Social Democracy can take a look at the anti-war anti-NATO and anti-nuclear German Green Party. That would be a part of the German government with bombers over Serbia, troops in Afghanistan, diplomatic moves to a Euro-NATO, and exporting nuclear power to the east. It started out a thousand times more radical than any of the leftist, green or republican parties in Ireland. That is where the parliamentary road leads. We don’t need roads to parliament, rather tunnels under it.

The second is direct action, without it you wouldn’t have a vote anyways!!! Direct action forced 3 American troop carrying charter companies out of Shannon in the spring. Jane Fort, the then acting head of the US Embassy, admitted as much and directly referred to the two acts of disarmament and March 1st as their reason for fleeing. For another recent success off the top of my head it also brought a halt to road development in Britain.

You can’t expect people to march next year, when marching this year had no practical effect. You have to convince people of their power to effect change, not the opposite – reinforce popular ideas that we have no power by promoting futile strategies.

If influencing public opinion would work to influence government then we should have the finest health service in the world.

We have to reach the stage that a massive level of security befitting a military base is in Shannon all the time and costing the government all the time and that there is a continual security threat to the charter companies. Blockades are not the most appropriate way of achieving this.

Firstly it only hits them on the cost factor – there isn’t a security issue really if you are well away from the perimeter fence. Secondly blockades are not a good idea from a public opinion point of view – the trip to Lourdes factor.

Total security doesn’t have to stop us, normal military bases in normal countries, have, one would imagine, real security all the time – some are still subject to continual peace actions.

Finally, a thing problematically absent on Saturday was a designated non-direct action area where people not wishing to take part in the blockade, but wanting to stand in solidarity with it, could be present. This could quite usefully have been placed before the police blockade by the flats just ahead of the archway.

It is important to establish a spectrum of resistance with a variety of different forms of participation, to be inclusive, while never sacrificing the cutting edge.

by pc Mon Dec 08, 2003 11:10

neither the gg or iawm blockaded the three neceessary roads
but it was a good try but not a success

by ipsi-tactic Mon Dec 08, 2003 11:16

good thing for protesters. Really, you don't only do protests to get arrested / get on the news where RTE say you were arrested. Nope you _cost_ the state money.
Now ye have all cost the state a dollop of cash, and there were no scenes of shocking violence, you've got home with out the arrests and sillyness which also is a sure sign of "prosecution fatigue" on the side of the state. Anyway, hope everyone had a great time, didn't let the radar into the brain, you'ze looked really cute in the winter time hoodies, and Ireland is a better place with youngsters like yourselves. Be proud of yourselves.
& do it again.
keep doing it till it gets really boring.

by Anti-WARior Mon Dec 08, 2003 11:28

I would agree with the assertion that Saturday's action was a limited success. Just because the stated objective was not achieved (to block access to Shannon for the afternoon), it doesn't make the action a failure. We could have called it "An Attempt to Blockade Shannon Airport" if we wanted to claim total success; instead, we have to think of the Shannon Blockade as an objective that will take more than one attempt. On our first attempt, plenty of disruption was achieved. And we'll be back. And we may eventually succeed. And then we'll do it again and again and again and again and again …

by pc Mon Dec 08, 2003 11:38

"Anti-riot gardai" as in the rts reports

never heard them being referred in that way before
as was being said at the weekend
thta there called riot police because there the ones that come to riot

by James Mon Dec 08, 2003 15:38

I think Domnic’s article is fair comment. On the communication thing, and this is very much a personal opinion, there is probably limited interest within Dublin Gnaw in communicating with the IAWM CONTROLLERS; a certain faction seems to have the ability to direct affairs. Not to publicise it much (in Dublin), deciding to go to Limerick fairly early. Only to block one road. We’re not that interested in spending half our time arguing with Trotskyites when we could be organising something positive. We’d have a problem with a “central committee” style of organising: we won’t be bound by what any central committee orders. Nothing would ever happen if we did.

But definitely we need to improve communication with the grassroots of the IAWM, groups such as Clonakility against War and the like. In fact we did make contact with some individuals with the IAWM who we’d consider less hostile to direct action and we invited them to our meetings. For various reasons some couldn’t turn up, though some did. Nevertheless, some of our people were in contact with them. No doubt communication could have been improved, but anyway this contact is of limited benefit if the decisions can be made “on the hoof” by others.

Communication is a two-way process, so if groups like Clon against war want to organise with us, liaise or whatever, we’d certainly be interested in co-operating with youse. If people are interested, there is a fairly large Dublin GNAW group and outside of there, well, contact your local libertarians and they’ll probably be only delighted to hook up with you.

This anti-war campaign is a learning curve for a lot of us, hopefully we can improve, but that means us making a lot of mistakes along the way both internally and in relating to other groups.

On the day itself I don’t think it necessary to consider one blockade attempt superior to another. GNAW’s one was intended to complement the IAWM, not detract from it. Probably a good thing that protest divided in two. Two roundabouts to police instead of one. More splitting may have been even better. There’s a good few routes to the airport, so we’d have needed to block quite a few roads. Personally I think the Guards have this sort of size demo well under control. We’d need a few thousand to succeed. That’s what we should be aiming for; to involve more people rather than rely on activists to succeed (when we obviously can’t!).

by IAWM supporter Mon Dec 08, 2003 15:44

The cops were out in force, it was going to be hard to get any reall effective blockade.

After a bit of messing about the IAWM did manage to block a roundabout for about an hour. This did cause some disruption

GNAW did not. they tried to take down a fence (which would not have had any real effect re shutting down the airport in any case) then arsed around in bushes 2 miles from the airport then congregated around an unused roundabout for a couple of hours.

Now people can make up their own minds about who was more effective

by Anthony - DublIn GNAW Mon Dec 08, 2003 15:52

I agree with a lot of what Dominic says above and most of what Maratist says but I don't have a problem calling Saturday's action a failure. At no stage, did we succeed in our aim of blockading the airport so that traffic was prevented from gaining access to it. But as with all such failures, lessons can be learned from the experience. We learned more of the geography of Shannon, where the rivers, drains, canals, fences, and other obstacles are.

We learned more about how to organise and plan for such actions. As a member of Dublin GNAW, we organised into affinity groups - for the first time ever - so that we could make decisions on the day in an effective, democratic and non-hierarchical way. It could have been done better but that's something that will come with experience.

I suppose the most important lesson we learned is that you just can't succeed in a mass action without the mass. It was similar to March 1st in that regard. It's kind of ironic that the most successful mass direct action was the trespass in October last year which happened by accident. Then again there's nothing wrong in leading by example with the hope of inspiring others as long as we don't burn ourselves out.

I disagree with Dominic in that tactics were poorly planned or implemented. The Dublin group did a lot of thinking about different possible scenarios and appropriate tactics. I've come to the conclusion that no amount of planning or co-ordination between the groups would have resulted in a successful action when we were so hopelessly outnumbered by the police. With their overwhelming numbers, there just wasn't any opportunity left open to us. We would have had to block off at least 3 positions with the industrial estate route being crucial but we barely had the numbers for the two positions that we did hold.

Maratist mentions that both we and the cops have been on a learning cop but that the cops have learned faster than us. That's true but I think the issue of numbers and resources is a more significant one.

Regarding communication between the IAWM and GNAW, I myself had got in touch with some of the organising sub-committee and let them know that the majority of the Dublin group was in favour of engaging in diversionary tactics rather than sitting down on the blockade itself. I'm also aware of other links between the two groups. More communication between the two sides would be better but there is a fundamental difference between the two groups in how they are organised.

For example, Dublin GNAW came up with a member of plans but those who attended meetings still had to persuade those who didn't of the virtues of the the different plans and strategies. Any affinity group who wasn't happy with the overall plan which was decided between all the groups was free to dissociate themselves and participate in whatever manner suited them best.

Regarding the future of actions at Shannon, that's a difficult one to call. It will be hard to motivate people to come down to Shannon again when they know that they won't be able to achieve anything effective. The only possible gains for the foreseeable future are the ones listed by Dominic in his pluses.

Personally, I'd hate to give up on Shannon completely. I'd still advocate that we come back every so often and threaten direct action so that the state is forced to spend money on garda resources and the issue of Shannon as a military pit-stop is kept alive.

by Anti-War bod Mon Dec 08, 2003 15:53

"GNAW did not. they tried to take down a fence (which would not have had any real effect re shutting down the airport in any case) then arsed around in bushes 2 miles from the airport then congregated around an unused roundabout for a couple of hours."

If that was the case why was there traffic at one stage coming up the dual carriage way from the direction where the IAWM were supposedly blocking.
It's plain to see which way Kieran Allen was facing. Yet again the 'glorious leaders' are facing the same way as the cops.

by James Mon Dec 08, 2003 15:58

Well it wouldn't been unused if we had left. The cops could simply reopen it. Instead they had to hold cops there. Keeping it shut caused minor disruption. Not sure how much more disruption was caused by being at the other roundabout - there's plenty of choices for the cops to reroute traffic, so I don't see why everybody should throw their eggs into one basket.
Sure being at the second roundabout wasn't a major headache for the cops, but it did divert some of their resources from the main bunch, which was the thinking behind staying at there. It was felt that the iawm had enough people anyway.
As I said Gnaw's actions were aimed to complement the main action on the day, not outshine it or mess it up or anything. The more stuff going on the better.

by pc Mon Dec 08, 2003 16:07

its fact that the iawm went up the wrong road
and gg bb etc went through the wrong field

i was told in the afternoon by colleagues bowing to there slighlty greater knowledge of the area that we were blocking the round about to compliment the iawm action

and that was the best use of resources if it worked....
although who was supposed to go to which roundabout and whether they complimentarily blocked 2 out of three roads im not sure...

we need better maps and recon and twice the number of people

by jack white - gnaw and ting Mon Dec 08, 2003 16:10

Re: Dominic

"Preparations for the blockade and the action itself were hampered by on-going rivalry/antagonism and the total lack of communication between the two anti-war organisations in the South"

I certainly don't think we're rivals, we just do things differently. Most gnaw heads think that the IAWM is undemocratic and therefore not worth joining.The antagonism comes from this fact and the way the left here just can't get on anyway. Dublin GNAW did communicate with elements of the IAWM.


"Tactics for actually blockading the airport were a) poorly planned; b)badly implemented c) wantonly disregarded; d) hopelessly improvised."

I actually think we (Dublin Gnaw) had a pretty good plan. We can allways improve but essentially i think we were beaten by gardai numbers and resources rather than beating ourselves by fucking things up. I didn't see much of what the IAWM did so I can't comment.

"The democratic deficit within the IAWM was again demonstrated" and your next point just reinforce the opnion of most people in gnaw that the IAWM isn't democratic. People don't hate the IAWM or even dislike the people involved, we just don't think its a good or effective way to organise things. James has a point though, local groups should co-operate but its a two way process, don't just wait for us to come to you.



re: iawm supporter (lets look at this objectivly)
"After a bit of messing about the IAWM did manage to block a roundabout for about an hour. This did cause some disruption"

Yeah, and fair play for that. I'd like to see more of it (but i thought someone told me that ye didn't entirely close it? Maybe i have that wrong)

"GNAW did not. they tried to take down a fence (which would not have had any real effect re shutting down the airport in any case) then arsed around in bushes 2 miles from the airport then congregated around an unused roundabout for a couple of hours."


Well we definatly caused disruption. We went through the bushes to get into the airport, don't know where you think we tried to take down a fence... Yeah we spent time at an unused roundabout and prevented the cops opening it up. I was on the phone to someone i know from the SWP who gave me the impression that the kind of numbers we could add to the IAWM blockade wouldn't make much difference, by staying away we basically split the numbers of cops. (constantly trying to break through the lines into the airport also meant that they had to stretch lines even further).

Y'know this really shouldn't be a contest and no-one has to try and make themselves look better by lying about what others did. I actually think that the action on saturday is an example of how the IAWM and gnaw can compliment eachother. Rather than turn this thread into a sectarian hatefest we should be looking at how we can be more effective in the future.

by Interested - Cork Mon Dec 08, 2003 17:49

The disussion here is very constructive. But I'm confused by the notion that there were two protests at Shannon. I had no idea, since no-one communicated it to me, that the IAWM and GNAW were working apart. Someone should have told the rest of us: by that I mean both the IAWM and GNAW should have let us know what was happening. A good day, though. Here's to the next one!

by Maratist - Conspiratorially Skulking Collective Mon Dec 08, 2003 20:11

I think I overstated the need for organisation there, when I say organisation
I mean pretty basic stuff like scouting, a map and forming into a bloc. Too much organisation (i.e. endless discussion) is actually a bad thing cause it can be detrimental to spontaneity, and tending to activoid elitism (how many times can I remember that the people in the vanguard were local kids, random students, and crazed punks, all outside any anti-war network), and because we have no reason to suspect a co-relation between activoid skills
(e.g. public speaking, website construction, writing) and aptitude for direct action. The major improvement on the grassroots front was the prevalence of a more up for it attitude, particularly coming from today’s more fashion conscious demonstrators.

However, sorry lads, but the whole numbers thing is not on. I fully recognise we need to grow in the above piece, but this is not inherently necessary for successful direct action (it is necessary for other reasons).

We’ve tested this. 8/12/02 and 18/1/03 – our numbers on those occasions were massive in relation to Garda numbers (and I still heard ‘we don’t have the numbers’!). Too many times have I seen big numbers of people (relative) being passive spectators down in Shannon – that wasn’t the case this time (which is why I’m pretty up beat and positive) – despite massive police numbers, - and that has been our mayor problem up to this point, not organisation, not communication, but up for it attitudes.

by Eoin - IAWM Tue Dec 09, 2003 00:51

I think the day was quite positive even though we didnt blockade the airport. The cops were ready for us and we didnt have enough numbers. This is always gona be a problem for DA events though and Shannon is not such an issue as it once was. Everyone who went was up for it though. The different IAWM and GNAW bloks was a good thing as we covered more routes. As long as we arent so small that we can be pushed aside by the police, different groups seems to work as we split the police.

The blockade was different from other demonstrations I have been on as their was a more up front attitude. The lack of placards and all left our hands free to take more action. The IAWM blokade of the round-about was a good move. We had to run there to get ahead of the riot cops.They tried to block the road but we simply ran onto the grass and took another road. At first they didnt seem ready for this but we soon had to get into a scrum type situation with them.There was much pushing and pulling of perspect shields. Fortunatly we had enough people to secure the road and then the rounabout.

I learnt a lot and I hope many others did . We didnt blockade but we caused a fair bit of disturbance with a small number of people. If we get more people next time and more know-how we might just succeed.

Thankfully there werent many arrests and the de-arresting policy seems very successfull. The only arrests seemed to be of individuals on their own.(Black Pope) Anyway mabye next time?

by Captain Moonlight Tue Dec 09, 2003 15:46

Given the success of the IAWM in blocking one roundabout at Shannon, and the GNAW’s success at blocking a second, and having studied the map and counted the roundabouts, I calculate that we need to form three more anti-war movements in order to shut Shannon down completely. Or we could work together.

by Tim Tue Dec 09, 2003 17:30

It was a good action.

It was NOT poorly planned.
Whether or not it was poorly communicated and poorly executed is another discussion, but the plan was a good one.
It is based on the tried and tested Trident Ploughsares actions at Faslane. (I bet their first attempt wasn't 100% successful either)

Consider that when the planning was started for this that
- the Tola Park Road was open and the new dual carriageway was not yet open to the public, while on Saturday Tola Pk Rd was closed and the dual carriageway had been opened
- we were not certain of the numbers until the day
-it's a large area not familiar to most of the blockaders, and there's only so much maps can do, even for people who know how to read them, they're no substitute for seeing the land yourself.
- this was the first attempt by activists to blocakde the road. (the other blockades were done by the Gardai preventing marches from going past Drumgeely)
-it actually is a tricky task to completely blockade the airport, especially with 700+ Gardai, and the number of road junctions.

we had limitations on us that we can deal with in future,
-There was no mass meeting
-there was a lack of funds available
-there was little time available.
-There was little communication between groups, and little structure for that to occur.
We've had one good go at this, and any future blockade will have experience behind it.


What did we pull off?
A 3 hour blockade of 350 people, opposed by 700 Gardai, (with radios, riot gear, a helicopter etc)
We blocked the dual carriageway access to the airport and forced traffic to divert into a single lane road in the Industrial Estate.
Even the industrial estate was breached by blockaders a few times, so the Gardai weren't even sure of those roads.
And we gave a LOT of people some training and experience in non-violent direct action tactics... that can be put to use again.
If you think Aer Rianta was not nervous about this, then you'd be wrong.

As for the low arrests and stuff, there's a few other points worth noticing.
There was a different Garda given perational control of the Garda actions on the day.
(I won't go into why, but it's worth noting)
Some of the affinity groups worked well and used their NVDA training to good effect.
Most people followed the guidlines and were calm and self disiplined -less provocoation.
The Gardai, for their own reasons, were less interested in provoking any arrest situations.
Also, the blocking of an arrest van that was going from one roundabout to another might have had something to do with it... : )
The official spin was supposed to be that modest numbers of Gardai prevented us from being effective without having to get heavy.


Better maps can easily be provided, but to be honest, it;s not easy to just stick THE MOTHER OF ALL MAPS up on the net.

If a map has every drain, track and tree on it, it will be too detailed for many people to follow.
What can be done is that different maps of varying scale and complexity can be drafted.

Communication within and between groups needs to be improved.
Stewarding should be adapted as well when actions are involved.
Stewarding an actions and stewarding a march is not the same thing.

At the end of the day though, remember, the fact that we called an ACTION, and not a march, and found over 300 people willing to take part on a cold day, six months after the last demo, is a success in itself.


Make no mistake, this movement is still in good shape considering all that has gone before.

by no excuses Tue Dec 09, 2003 20:34

there is no such thing as a secure area or too many cops.
sod this we tried but there were too many of them...
have clear objectives & give it some welly.

the industrial estate road was not secure & was breached a few times. main problem was not by enough people to hold it.
here's the rub, i didn't think of just phoning & asking a bunch of people to come along when we got onto it, or just going back to the same point & trying again.
we could have done it.
doh! next time.

maps need terrain on them, important stuff like 6' by 10' ditches.

everyone needs to move faster ! there's no time to explain everything to everyone.
when gaps are spotted they close if there's hesitation.
if there'd been more people behind us on the footbridge we would've blocked that road.

irish cops don't run or react very fast
therefore a few cops does not make any point inaccessible.
they also don't tend to arrest people much.
take some risks!

by no excuses Tue Dec 09, 2003 20:44

the divisive argument comes up a lot.
here goes. i showed up despite the advance warning & guarantee of heavy police presence to support those elements of the iawm who called for a blockade, rather than those who prefer to listen to speeches.

for info on internal iawm split ask your steering committee & sub-committee & try to get some input into your organisation.

not being able to rely on the iawm to blockade anything & there was a suggestion to leave at 4 & go to Limerick jail, we formulated our own plans.
going anywhere near the airport was a mistake for both groups. the only road that needed blocking was the industrial estate one & both should have concentrated on that. only good thing was willingness of people to stand up to the police, a start.

by L Tue Dec 09, 2003 22:12

Just a few short points.
For those requiring info for future, I flew out of Shannon on Saturday morning. Even at 6.45 am they had an official garda roadblock but it wasn;'t the most efficient. As long as you could give the time of your flight you were left through.
Aer Rianta still controls all three airports. If you want to hurt them why not hit the real cash cow. Block Dublin on a Saturday afternoon. You would get much more in numbers, I think it could be even easier to block off and you would really cause chaos. Furthermore maybe the unions would come out for you there.