Shannon Round-up

clare | anti-war / imperialism | news report

Monday July 21, 2003 17:41

by Tim

brief report on the latest goings-on.

don't have time to report on everything individually so here's a quick-ish round up of What's happening at Shannon from an anti-war point of view. The military charters continue to go through, both passenger and cargo aircraft.
but here's some of the other news for a change.

The big story for june -july was obviously the Mary Kelly trial.
What some of you might have missed was that the day before the trial started, an Israeli Air Force KC-135 made an emergency landing at Shannon.
this was briefly reported in some newspapers such as the Irish Mirror on June 30th.

The aircraft had no markings on it other than the number 248.
The aircraft was crossing the Atlantic and had to shut down an engine as it neared Ireland, it then made an emergency landing at Shannon.
reportedly 23 Israeli secret service agents surrounded the aircraft until it was fit to fly again.

I don't have a link to a photo of that KC-135 but if you want to see what a KC-135 looks like, there's a good photo of one refuelling some military jets at www.arsaginc.com

Another story, not widely reported is the closing of the back road at the airport. This road was used by lots of people

1>Locals who live on the road, or use the road to get to Shannon aerospace or the Industrial Estate.
2> hobby planespotters
3> anti-war planespotters
4> couples looking for a romantic spot to 'park' for a while.

Normally if the council wants to close a road they hold public consultations, and then publish a notice and put up some warning signs to the public. and THEN close the road.

Well, as we all know, things don't quite work like that in Shannon.

No one I spoke to had heard anything about consultation on a road closure. There was no road sign warning motorists about the closure.
because there are houses at either end of the road, the road was not closed at the junctions but beyond the houses, (and at spots not visible from the junctions.)

One person found out the hard way.
While driving his car down the back road, he came over the wee bit of a hill and crashed straight through the temporary gates that had been erected across the road.
(I think this happened at night too and the road has no public lighting.)
The speed limit on the road was 30 mph, (which is 44 feet per second) by the time the driver saw the gate he would have little chance of avoiding it.
Apparently he escaped serious injury.
It is not known if he is suing the council for this, but I hope he does, it should teach them to do things right the next time.

According to the Clare Champion the gates were replaced but within a few days they were removed by person or persons unknown, and thrown into a ditch.

At the other end of the road, a more substantial blockade was erected with poles and fences and ditches. there has been no report of a crash there. Also there was no sign explaining the ditches.
Before the fence went up, Conor went for a spin past the ditch on his bike. Here he was stopped and harrassed by his good pal D.Sgt Houlihan.
Given that there was no notice or warning, Conor was within his rights to cycle down the road, but, this is Shannon, and rights count for less there.

eventually, the Council put a notice in the paper on July 11th that the "Public Right of Way has been extinguished" under the Road Act 1993 section 73(7) (I'm sure the numbers 737 are pure coincidence - plane joke)

one council member was quoted as saying that "sometimes travellers would camp by the road and they'd have animals and we'd be worried the animals might worry onto the airfield"
(y'know travellers dogs, not people with paint or hammers)

It was also claimed that detailed public consultation was carried out, and that the current security situation had not motivated the decision to close the road.

Local hobby planespotters have also complained about the road closure and are not as happy with the view from the remaining bit of road. They said they had heard nothing about the road closure beforehand.

In other news, it may be of interest of anyone who was named in February's High Court injunction that there has been some interesting developments in constesting Aer Rianta's claims.

Some people consented to the injunction which restrained people from trespassing at the airport.
Of course with the airport being a public place and a transport hub, merely going to the airport is not automatically trespassing, although Aer Rianta (and some Gardai) have tried to give the impression that the injunction forbids us to ever enter the airport again.
After much correspondence with Aer Rianta's lawyers we have repeatedly asserted our rights to go to the airport for lawful purposes (including peaceful protest, attending public meetings and to escort friends landing or departing etc)
read more at
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=51020

Most recently Ed Horgans lawyers despatched a formal letter to Aer Rianta;s lawyers, complaining that he had been told by the Airport Ops Manager he could not even go to the airport to collect his daughter and infant grandson who were shortly flying in.
read more at
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=60279&search_text=Shannon

Aer Rianta's lawyers sent a quick reply stating that "We confirm that our client accepts that your client ins entitled to be in the public areas of Shannon Airport for any lawful purpose"

Now, if you were named in the injunction and still have any doubts about whether you can legally return to Shannon airport, I'm sure the nice folks at Arthur Cox solicitors would be glad to clarify it for you.

Arthur Cox
Earlsfort Centre
Earlsfort Terrace
Dublin 2

Tel 01 618999
Fax 01 6180618
e-mail: mail@arthurcox.com
web: www.arthurcox.com

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Comments (14 of 14)

whatabout the whatabouter

by mr jinks mr jinks

Fri Jul 25, 2003 19:40

thing is jinks i dont give a shit. im not the one moaning on indymedia or who ever will listen about how we should have been saving the North when most of us were in short trousers.
if all ye fucking troll clowns were so concerned about ye would have been protesting about the spanish inquisition and the American civil war, and the pillaging vikings.
ye dont really care bout the making sense, all you are about is getting up peoples noses and being obstructive. sad fucker

fraud

by mr jinks

Fri Jul 25, 2003 16:12

whatabout whatabout whatabout wasnt written by me so who ever did write it fuck off and use ur own pen name

ha ha

Fri Jul 25, 2003 16:07

thing is fools i dont give a shit. im not the one bleating to the press or who ever will listen about how we should save the children of iraq, if all ye fucking anti war clowns were so concerned about global peace ye would have been protesting about the northern ireland situation for the last 20 yrs or so.ye dont really care bout the iraqi children , all ye are about is getting up peoples noses and being obstructive. sad
fuckers

whatabout whatabout whatabout

Wed Jul 23, 2003 19:24

so many bolt holes to hide in
what about...?

you knock someone for trying to fixs things one step at a time rather than trying to fix everything at once. hope that armchair of yours is comfy for ya.

isn't it obvious from above posts that not all the anti-war crowd have gone away? ...duh...

what are you doing about it ?

by mrs jinks

Wed Jul 23, 2003 12:24

Well Mr Jinks?Are u going to start a campain,Do some fundraising to help the people who are suffering there or are u just going to sit on your fat ass in front of your pc slagging off people who do proactive work for global justise.
Mr Jinks you are right to ask Questions but you should look at yourself first.
What did you do for the people of Liberia today?
thank you vrey much!

one question

Wed Jul 23, 2003 11:26

now that the whole shannon debacle is subsiding, and all the idiots who were pro iraq and anti / war /america/ shannon airport have slithered back under theie stones i wonder why they all arent out fighting for Liberia's cause.. there has been as much genocide there as Iraq. Will ye idiots not get the same coverage on that issue as ye did on the iraqi one.
thought so..

the actual aircraft that landed at Shannon.

by Tim.

Tue Jul 22, 2003 14:56

Here it is in Miami last year, it also visits prestwick in Scotland.
According to the Scottish planespotter, usually they land at Prestwick at night, along with a bunch of hercs and take off early making them difficult to spot.

Miami, April 8 2002.
http://www.airliners.net/open.file/230291/M/

Scotland, 4 days later.
http://www.airliners.net/open.file/310350/L/

note, the aircraft doesn't appear to have the tail boom attached in either of these photos.

actually here's an Israeli tanker.

Tue Jul 22, 2003 14:25

I haven't got the photo available yet of the tanker at Shannon (284) but this one (275) is identical.

look at this photo of another Israeli 707, (290) and notice how this one is marked as being Israeli Air Force.

http://www.planepictures.net/netshow.cgi?93441

ooops.

Tue Jul 22, 2003 14:18

dunno what happened there.

here's the link.

http://www.planepictures.net/netshow.cgi?105517

You can clearly see the refueling boom at the back.

not quite the right plane.

Tue Jul 22, 2003 14:02

Sure it's an Israeli 707 but it's not a tanker.
the nukmber is close to the one at Shannon though.

this is a US Air National Guard 707 tanker (a KC-135E)

another photo. and this link is currently working

by big red scot, aye inda Skye.

Tue Jul 22, 2003 13:55

http://www.planepictures.net/netshow.cgi?119914

KC-135 = Boeing 707 in civilian quise.

by Kevin-Scott

Mon Jul 21, 2003 22:42

Here’s a photo:
http://www.highgallery.com/military-aircraft-kc-135.html

Mon Jul 21, 2003 22:03

Nice one Tim!

by Eoin Dubsky

Mon Jul 21, 2003 21:13

Thanks for the round-up, links and all. In a related story on the Indymedia newswire right now: the ICCL have published an updated guide for activists (well the public, but it should be helpful for activists). Pick up a free copy here: http://www.iccl.ie/

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Comments (14 of 14)