VFP Delegation in Ireland

A Veterans For Peace delegation is visiting Ireland from March 14 to March 20, 2019. Below is Mike Ferner’s account of the first day’s activities.

Thursday’s highlight in Dublin was having lunch with Irish Parliamentarians Clare Daly and Mick Wallace, joined by Roger Cole, chair of the Peace and Neutrality Alliance, a group that has been working to ban U.S. military flights through Shannon Airport and on the wars in the Middle East.  The VFP delegation included Enya Anderson, Ray McGovern, Ken Mayers, Tarak Kauff, Ellen Davidson, Mike Ferner and the our delegation’s guide and fixer, Ed Horgan, coordinator of Ireland Veterans For Peace.  Mike Hanes flight from San Diego to the Isles (12 hours…ugh!) was late and he joined us that evening.

Mick graciously hosted a hearty lunch, savored by all. He and Clare, both independent members of the Dail, Ireland’s parliament, gave us an inside look at Irish politics and background on the years-long efforts to enforce Ireland’s neutrality and shut down the U.S. military flights through Shannon.

The Irish government will neither confirm nor deny the flights contain arms, upholding a thin excuse that only troops are flown in.  Clare and Mick were particularly interested in the fact that Enya and Mike, both former Marines, had themselves flown through Shannon and had indeed carried their weapons as everyone else on the plane did.  The government’s blind eye to the neutrality violations caught up with it in an ironic way when a contract cleaner lifted a pistol to sell to local gang members.  The Garda (police) caught up with him, but the government was placed in the untenable situation of trying to prosecute someone for stealing a weapon that supposedly was not there.  The case was dropped.

All at the meeting agreed that if a different Irish government would stand up to the U.S. and assert its neutrality, that would be a powerful inspiration to other nations to do the same.

Ed escorted us to the Dail where we received the standard public tour, complete with a copy of the original statement issued by the Irish Nationalists who led the Easter Rising against British rule in 1916.

That evening we attended a local Venezuelan solidarity committee meeting at the Ireland Institute, where Clare and Mick reported what they had witnessed on a recent trip to that country. Their primary observation was that of the Venezuelans they randomly spoke with from right and left, opinion was unanimous that their fellow citizens, not the CIA, were the appropriate ones to sort their nation’s considerable economic and political problems.

The day concluded at O’Shea’s pub for bowls of seafood chowder and a round, of course, of Guinness.

More photos:
Clare Daly and Mick Wallace Reportback on Venezuela
Lunch with Clare Daly and Mick Wallace