In the last couple of days, we’ve had the Taoiseach Michéal Martin saying Shannon Airport is not being used by US planes involved in the bombing of Iran, and the Minister for Foreign Affairs Helen McEntee saying the same about Irish airspace.
Both are in the US at present. And the last thing they will do is criticise the Trump regime, even though they know it started an illegal, unnecessary and brutal war against Iran.
Lelia Doolan is encouraging us all to stand up (& walk) for peace. Join us from 31st March.
At 91 years, Lelia has seen too much of the devastation caused by wars, apartheid and genocide. She is donning her (ethically sourced!) walking shoes to blaze a trail from Shannon Airport to Dáil Éireann.
Joined by community groups and peace activists along the old road to Dublin, they will express the frustration, shame and anger felt by the many Irish stalwarts who have for over 30 years, (since 1981!), regularly protested at Shannon at the use of the airport by US military planes - whose personnel and cargos the Irish government refuses to inspect.
At least 153 people, most of whom were children, were killed in an airstrike on a school in Iran yesterday. The children who were brutally murdered were in the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ elementary school in Minab, and the ones responsible for their murder were the military forces of the US and Israel.
On the same day at 08.57, a US Navy air logistics flight left Shannon on its way to an air base in Sigonella, Sicily. It had arrived just after midnight on Thursday from Portsmouth International Airport. This is a joint civil and military use airport near Pease in New Hampshire.
Three days after reporting to the Gardai that there was another suspected ICE flight on the ground at Shannon Airport, we are still waiting for them to provide any information on what they did in response to our request to inspect the plane.
As reported here by journalist Gillian Brockell, the aircraft, a Gulfstream V operated by ICE charter Journey Aviation with registration N588TN, left the ICE hub of Mesa, AZ, at 2:28 am local time Wednesday, and landed at Shannon Airport eight and a half hours later. Half an hour before it landed, we called the Gardai at Shannon to alert them.
Reports have come to light of Palestinian men being held shackled on a plane at Shannon when refueling took place.
This shocking revelation came to light in reports in The Guardian newspaper, Common Dreams and elsewhere.
The reports explain that on the morning of 21 January, Israeli authorities left eight Palestinian men who were deported from the US at a West Bank checkpoint. They were dressed in prison-issued tracksuits and carrying their few belongings in plastic bags.
The men were taken through Shannon on a plane with registration N352BH. It is owned by the zionist MAGA billionaire Gil Dezer, who is a donor and friend of Donald Trump, and operated by Journey Aviation, presumably to allow the owner enjoy a hefty tax break.
Today a group of our friends gathered at the Peace Roundabout at Shannon, as they do most Sundays. Here's how they described the gathering.
"We gathered together today, on Brigid’s Day, to mark Imbolc, the ancient Celtic celebration of the turning from winter toward spring. Surrounded by such wonderful people, shared purpose, and gentle, hopeful energy, we came together to honour Ireland’s tradition of peace and neutrality, to call for an end to U.S. military use of Shannon, and to stand in solidarity with Palestine. We hung Brigid’s crosses in the Garden of Peace and had beautiful singing from Éisteacht. We also held a minute of silence."
In a week when US dictator Donald Trump was allowed to stop at Shannon Airport, we had multiple US military landings. All were approved by our Department of Foreign Affairs who seem to operate on the understanding that if the US Air Force, Navy or Marine Corp say they want to land at Shannon, they can do so.
The photo shows a US Navy Hercules C130 registration 16-5352 that landed at about 23.41 on Thursday 22nd Jan. It came from Bermuda. On Saturday 24th it flew on to Ioannis Daskalogiannis Airport in Chania, Crete. This is the location of a major U.S. and NATO military installation.
At Shannon today we marked 24 years since the opening of the Guantanamo Bay detention and torture centre. We also remembered Shannon Airport's involvement in the circuits flown by the rendition planes that brought prisoners there.
Guantanamo was set up under the George W. Bush presidency and has been kept open by every US president since. It was used to detain Muslim men and boys as part of the 'War on Terror'. Most of them were rounded up for bounties or kidnapped, and prisoners often faced rendition and torture at other CIA black sites before ending up at Guantanamo.
This list has been compiled from Shannonwatch records of aircraft that landed at Shannon Airport. While almost all are US military or military contracted aircraft, we have also included other foreign military aircraft, most notably German Luftwaffe landings.
As far as we know, none of these aircraft have ever been searched or properly investigated by Gardai or Irish government officials.
While only some of the aircraft went on to Israel, most of the US military and military contracted aircraft were on their way to or from forward operating bases in or near the Middle East. These are used for operations in the region, including in Palestine.
Allowing these aircraft to land at Shannon Airport is in clear breach of Irish neutrality, the Genocide Convention and the Genocide Act, 1973.
Shannonwatch calls on the Irish government to categorically condemn the illegal invasion of Venezuela, and the kidnapping of the country’s President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, by the US administration. Given this flagrant disregard for international laws and norms, we also call for an immediate suspension of the use of Shannon Airport as a transit hub for US troops and their weapons.
