The defendants were called to the stand in the order in which they were arrested, meaning O'Reilly was up first. &ldquoMy lawyer said it should last 25 minutes. They had me up there for four hours. The judge made seven objections to my testimony, which is not his role… When the prosecutor finally made an objection, the judge turned around and said, 'I've been waiting for you'.” [The judge's intervention here drew protest from the defence team. Grimes & Horgan say: &ldquoThe judge or justice may also intervene in clarification of points raised” but make no mention of raising objections to testimony.Generally speaking the judge may object, but repeated objections that
might influence the jury are not allowed. For court reporting see: court reporting indymedia Ireland] &ldquoI think the government would like to strip our action of any context and reduce it to vandalism or egomania, and, like in the second Mary Kelly trial, rule that the war is irrelevant, the US military troops in Shannon are irrelevant, to the action.” [Mary Kelly took part in her own disarmament action at Shannon not long before the five.]
&ldquoThere's always tension in Ploughshares groups between the legal team and the defendants, you know. The legal team are professionals and their focus is to get you off and I guess, being in Ploughshares, if that was our focus we probably wouldn't have done the action in the first place [laughs]. So there are compromises to be made by both sides.”
In his evidence before the court O'Reilly said they had hoped the gardaí would join them, as German police had joined citizens demolishing the Berlin wall. This did not happen and I asked him about the Irish gardaí. &ldquoThey have a kind of inspiring name, an Garda Síochana, 'guardians of the peace,' a name that was probably in response to the police force that preceded them and I don't think it's an unreal expectation to think that they would fully investigate what's happening in Shannon and to obey international law and the Hague convention that rules out a belligerent force moving through a neutral country… I think generally there's been a lot of sympathy amongst the average gardaí but obviously there are elite intelligence groups who see us and Mary Kelly as causing … major international embarrassments for the government.” [&ldquoNo troops or convoys of either munitions of war or supplies must be moved through neutral territories” (Detter, quoting Hague V, article 2).]
The action the five carried out, preceding a march of some 100,000 people in Dublin against the war, was not without wider effects. &ldquoThree weeks after our action three commercial airlines transporting troops through Ireland pulled out and the US ambassador said it was specifically in relation to these two actions that that happened. So it was quite dramatic. It was the only piece of US military equipment that I know of that was turned around by the peace movement, that didn't make it to Iraq, was sent back to Texas.” Airlines that had used Shannon in January 2003 included World Airways, American Trans Air, Miami Air International and North American. One of the biggest of these companies, World Airways, announced it was pulling out of Shannon for good within days of their action. The US embassy expressed its outrage at their &ldquocowardly and violent attack” (Irish Independent, Feb. 4th and 8th, 2003).
I ask O'Reilly if the withdrawal of these airlines might have been America's idea of &ldquopunishment” for Ireland's perceived unruliness but he is inclined to think it was connected with security (which World Airways denied at the time).
O'Reilly is scathing about the peace movement in Ireland. &ldquoWhen they [i.e. the powers that be] have a war they expect protest and the liberal position is 'it's okay for you to have your protest as long as we can have our war.' Most of the movement have accepted that and it's like this co-dependant dance. People get up and make speeches and look morally superior and lift their media profile but I think in Ireland if 1% of the people who marched against the war went into non-violent civil disobedience and the other 99% supported them financially – fed the cat, put up with the parents freaking out – you would have had a thousand people willing to go to prison and you would have had a dynamic opposition in Ireland to the war.” (Two of the other four are not from Ireland and it has, O'Reilly says, been tough for them, with their lives effectively on hold for two years. He himself is Australian, but of Irish descent: &ldquoI have a lot of first cousins and family here and I've always wanted to live in Ireland for a period anyway so it's been the most geographical stability I've had since 1986,” he laughs.)