Ploughshares action
comes to Ireland
The first ploughshares
action took place on September
9, 1980 when eight people
entered the General Electric
Plant in King of Prussia,
Pennsylvania and hammered
on nose cones from nuclear
warheads and poured blood
on documents. They did
this as a way of enacting
the words of Isaiah (2:4)
'to beat swords into ploughshares'.
They remained on site
and waited until they
were arrested in order
to accept full responsibility
for their actions. One
member of that Ploughshares
group, Molly Rush, was
a speaker at Afri's first
Féile Bríde
conference in Kildare
in 1993. Since that 'ploughshares
8' action in Pennsylvania,
others have taken place
in Australia, Germany,
Holland, Sweden and England.
By 2001, over one hundred
and fifty people had participated
in ploughshares actions
and the actions continue.
Among other ploughshares
activists are Chris Cole,
Andrea Needham and Jo
Willson, all of whom disarmed
British military aircraft
which were bound for Indonesia
for use against the people
of East Timor. Chris,
Andrea and Jo were also
speakers at Féile
Bríde conferences
in Kildare.
Now ploughshares actions
have come to Ireland.
In February 2003 five
members of the Catholic
Worker movement entered
the runway area at Shannon
Airport. They constructed
a shrine on the runway
to Iraqi children, who
are victims of war and
sanctions. They then began
to dig up the runway before
entering a hangar housing
a US military plane, which
was being repaired after
a similar action by Mary
Kelly. They painted 'Pit
stop of death' on the
hangar roller doors and
disarmed the repaired
warplane. The five activists
waited until they were
arrested by Gardai and
were put in Limerick prison.
Previous actions had
been undertaken by Eoin
Dubsky who spray-painted
a US air force Hercules
warplane at Shannon as
a symbolic act of disarmament
in September 2002 and
by Mary Kelly, who as
referred to above disarmed
the same warplane in January
2003.
Afri
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