Kathy Sheridan: Fuel protests were a display of mine-is-bigger-than-yours machismo
When Senator Sharon Keogan materialised among the fuel protesters on Dublin’s O’Connell Street on Saturday and positioned herself beside self-described leader James Geoghegan, her stream of consciousness wasn’t quite what people expect from a responsible public representative. Geoghegan’s tax judgments and convictions for egregious animal cruelty had been well aired by then, but Keogan’s disappointment was with the media for “demonising” him. “There’s not a businessman in this country that doesn’t owe the Revenue money. You have to get up early in the morning to owe the Revenue money ...” The other striking thing about Keogan’s appearance was that here was a female whose presence served to highlight the otherwise eerie absence of women from the relentless clamour of men and their humungous pieces of machinery. If social-media-driven protests are about vibe as opposed to fact, then the vibe of past week was the purest concentrate of mine-is-bigger-than-yours. The extreme machismo element was introduced by Christopher Duffy, the self-appointed leader who had “the country by the balls” . “They’re talking an army all day but we told them, we have a bigger f**king army. They were talking about moving machines into Foynes port – we moved in machines twice as f**king big. It takes weight to move weight. So we’ll go wherever we want …” READ MORECoalition suffers first major defection as Michael Healy-Rae resignsFuel protests live updates: Government faces confidence motion and vote on €505m support package Michael Healy-Rae resignation: Is the Coalition now under threat?Fintan O’Toole: Ireland’s far-right movement will emerge from the ‘breakfast roll-atariat’In social media exchanges, Duffy once opined that 23-year-old Greta Thunberg’s “only hope of getting the ride” was if she was raped. He commented over a post about the killing of a young mother, Renée Good, by an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officer in Minnesota: “F**k around and find out.” From this angle, the most telling part of the week’s protests was not that men like Duffy walk among us – surprise! – but that no one in that all-male domain publicly dissociated themselves from him. Nor did any of them publicly dissociate themselves from Conor McGregor’s offer of free food and support, despite the global knowledge of the civil court finding of sexual assault against him and his generally rancid politics. Journalists who asked the self-appointed leaders to consider the inevitable outcome of their blockade on the unreal people of Ireland – the women dealing with the suspension of their children’s Leaving Cert home economics practicals, or the ones finding alternative routes to their small kids’ Easter camps, or the ones getting people to their cancer treatment or long-awaited appointments – Geoghegan slung all the responsibility back on to the Government. “It’s their choice.” [ Ireland’s far-right movement will emerge from the ‘breakfast roll-atariat’Opens in new window ]A man who posted on X that a blockade had kept his terminally ill wife late for radiation treatment was advised in the comments to approach the protesters for permission to get through/to stop moaning as “a week without treatment wouldn’t kill her”. He was told he should have left the house earlier/“used the back roads”.As car fuel ran low, a carer told how she and colleagues were being asked to choose which of their very elderly clients they would prioritise. On Monday, while the lads were still out disrupting real lives, protest spokesman John Dallon – who has previous form for blockading parts of the city in 2019 – was on the Anton Savage show. Pushed to say what the plan was, Dallon said no one knew but he was now anxious “to clarify that I’m not one of the organisers, I’m one of the people that’s involved in the protests, just asked to do spokesman for the people of Ireland. This is the people of Ireland’s protest. They want their voice heard.” As for Geoghegan, he was next seen at 6am on Sunday, bewildered that gardaí had removed the protesters while he’d only gone for a few drinks and back to an apartment. What was it that attracted the likes of McGregor, Russell Brand, Elon Musk, Steve Bannon and Alex Jones – plus the usual desperate band of home-grown far-right agitators, grifters and flag-wavers complaining about money for Ukraine, lockdowns, the digital wallet (being the latest mark of the devil) or the climate change “hoax”? That so many controversial public figures saw fit to comment on the protests should raise questions for everyone of good faith who was involved. The test will be how many of the good-faith participants are bothered to examine how and why that happened. That includes political actors such as Independent Ireland – a heavily male-dominated party – who make an interesting distinction between not calling for the protests but supporting them. Independent Ireland’s leader Michael Collins TD, agriculture spokesperson Michael Fitzmaurice TD, general secretary Richard O’Donoghue TD and Ciaran Mullooly MEP were “standing with the people” according to their Twitter/X posts. The party also posted what it called an “iconic image” of by-election candidate Noel Thomas standing out front of Galway protesters. It’s worth noting that Mullooly’s previous posts included a March 23rd video from a Portlaoise hotel, described by him as “a major protest meeting” which nominated a working committee of more than 30 people to “now proceed with what was described as ‘armed negotiations’ with the Government”. The camera panning the room showed only a handful of women. In other words, well over half of real Ireland was missing. What could possibly go wrong?
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