The Wheelock family protest outside the Dáil on what should have been Terence's birthday. An extended interview with Laurence Wheelock, brother of Terence Wheelock.

Store Street Garda Station

I remember my 21st birthday. My friends all came out and we hijacked a large corner of a pub in town. There were cards, presents, pints bought and songs sung. That's nearly nine years ago for me. Your 21st is generally seen as a celebration of your arrival into adulthood. In your twenties you grow up more, make new friends, lose others, find more of your independence, switch jobs a few times, make mistakes, learn, maybe travel a bit, fall in love, start a family. This afternoon one Dublin family, the Wheelocks, will be marking the day of their sons' 21st birthday, were he alive, outside the Dáil with a protest.

Terence Wheelock died in September last year after being on a life support machine for three months. He had been in a coma since his arrest and detention on June 2nd in Store Street Garda Station, along with three other people on suspicion of car theft. The Garda Press Office made a statement, claiming that Terence had tied a ligature around his neck, and secured this to a "fixture" which was "counter sunk into the wall". The subsequent renovating of the cell after his death, and the lengths to which the Gardai went to prevent the family from accessing his clothes, has raised many serious and troubling questions about what happened to Terence Wheelock while in custody in Store Street on June 2nd, 2005.

I met up with Terence's brother Laurence in the family home in Summerhill, who told me about what is happening at the Dáil today at 2pm. "The protest is for people from the local and wider community who have an interest and who would empathise with our situation as a family," says Laurence. "Terence would have been 21 today, but he never made it to his 21st birthday. We're asking the Minister for Justice: Why? We'll be doing a birthday card protest. We cant present Terence with a card on his birthday, so instead we're presenting it to the Minister for Justice. In doing this, we're asking him - "Why is it that we cant give this to Terence today?" The card is going to have a key on it, a key to the door for his 21st birthday. People will be handing this in at the gate, in a democratic protest. This will hopefully draw attention to our campaign in a peaceful and dignified way."

Sarah Kidder & Jarrod, students protesting the war

"But, hark! a voice like thunder spake, The West's awake! the West's awake!" This is a first hand account of what is probably the first anti-war demonstration on the campus of Glenville State College since the Vietnam era protests. Students are fed up with President Bush and his illegal war in Iraq that is costing the lives of West Virginia's youth which are being exploited by the military in promise for scholarships. We have arisen from our slumber and shall no long stand idly by as Bush and his cronies are destroying not only our country but the world of which all of us live!

I have sat in pubs all over Ireland and I think I heard John Denver's hit song "Country Roads" being sang in nearly all of them maybe even sometimes hummed during sunday mass. Well, this is a story about the land so endeared to Denver and revered with utmost consideration by you guys.