A week ago, James Geoghegan was filling his TikTok account with weekly updates on the wins and woes of life as an agricultural contractor.
Then he suddenly became organiser of a national protest that brought traffic to a standstill on motorways, in provincial towns and across Dublin city.
Geoghegan, who runs his business from Tyrrellspass, Co Westmeath, was occasionally political with a small “p” on social media, standing firmly on the side of farmers on the nitrates derogation issue and the Brazilian beef controversy.
Mostly, however, his content was for machinery anoraks who love hearing about the spec and capacity of anything with very large tyres and hitches for specialist attachments.
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But then he began talking about the impact of the fuel price rises on the businesses around him.
Not just the agricultural contractors, he stressed, but “the plant men, the hauliers, the busmen, forestrymen, farmers”.
As the prices rose, so did his following, so that by Tuesday of last week his now near-daily posts were getting up to 70,000 views.
When he said action was needed to “wake the Government up”, he realised he had hit a chord.
“The reaction I got was overwhelming,” he said. His views came in at just under 200,000.
Friends and fellow agricultural contractors and TikTok posters, Dave Mulcahy and Sean Collins in Cork, tapped into similar sentiment in Munster.
A Facebook group, People of Ireland Against Fuel Prices Protest, which formed during the last fuel crisis after the Russian invasion of Ukraine and remained active, rowed in behind the idea.
Independent Ireland and Sinn Féin also threw their weight behind what quickly took on the shape of a national movement.
Farmers’ organisations and the Irish Road Haulage Association did not. They had been in separate negotiations with the Government and were working towards extracting support for their members.
But that did not stop many farmers and hauliers from showing their support and hitting the road. Not all are members of the representative groups and some feel unrepresented by them.
The central demand from this collective is a Government-subsidised cap on the price of fuel.
Geoghegan illustrates the issue from his own books. He was paying 86 cent for a litre of green diesel – the lower-taxed diesel supplied for agricultural use – a few months ago and now pays €1.48 per litre.
He calculates that the Government doubled its VAT take on green diesel from 10 cent to 20 cent per litre and is now giving back just 3 cent as a fuel-crisis measure.
He estimates his own fuel bill will be up €70,000 this year, so his message is simple: cap fuel prices or kill businesses and cripple households.
But other gripes are also in the mix, including the carbon tax, which is hated by certain sectors, whether in times of crisis or not.
Opposition to Government generosity towards foreigners has also slipped into the narrative.
Geoghegan himself posted questioning the financial support of Ukraine and complaining there was “money going left right and centre apart from to Irish people”.
[ Ireland to provide extra €40m in aid to Ukraine this yearOpens in new window ]
Others who have joined the protest are direct in their rejection of immigration support.
Geoghegan set out clear ground rules for the protests: co-operation with gardaí, absolutely no behaviour that could hinder emergency services, and if farmers wanted to pull slurry tanks, they would have to be empty.
But he was equally clear that the action was to have an impact. “We’re turning O’Connell Street into a car park,” he said of the plan to bring tractors, trucks, buses and vans into the heart of Dublin city.
On that goal at least, his mission was accomplished on Tuesday.
The following day, they were still there and the city centre was gridlocked.
With another protest planned for Thursday, it appears they are in it for the long haul.
