“If we get what we want, we’ll have to call it the f**king Burger King deal because we’ve been in there all day,” farming contractor Christopher Duffy told fuel protesters on O’Connell Bridge in Dublin city centre on Thursday night.
He was in high spirits. It had just been claimed the Government would meet protesters on Friday after a week of fuel price protests.
“We said if we got a meeting, we’d go home. Well, we’re not. We’ll go home when we see what we get at the meeting,” he said to cheers. “There’s not one f**king oil truck moving in this country until we get what we want,” he said. “We have the country by the balls.”
Over the course of just three days, protesters had brought much of the country to a standstill. In response, the Government had said it was sending in the Army to remove the protesters’ trucks and tractors. But the Army never appeared. Not one protester had been arrested nor a vehicle removed.
RM Block
To the group on O’Connell Street it seemed the Government had blinked first. But how did this happen?
‘Astonishing and frightening’
Last month, after fuel prices began to increase dramatically in the wake of the US-Israel attacks on Iran, the Coalition announced a €250 million cost-of-living package, including excise cuts on fuel and a diesel rebate scheme. But hundreds of angry farmers, hauliers and agricultural contractors still felt short-changed and they said as much at tense meetings around the country, including at the Midlands Park Hotel in Portlaoise on March 28th.
“They feel they’re not being listened to and not represented, and that’s a big problem,” says Independent Ireland TD for Roscommon-Galway Michael Fitzmaurice, who attended the Portlaoise meeting.
In a letter sent to all TDs before Easter, an organisation calling itself the Irish Haulage Farming Construction Contractors Amalgamation (IHFCCA) outlined what have since become the core requests of the Government: suspension of the carbon tax and capping of fuel prices, along with other measures.
The letter said the “frustration and annoyance” expressed at the Portlaoise gathering was “astonishing and frightening”.
Online, momentum was building. Ciarán O’Connor, a senior analyst with London-based think tank the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, says one Facebook page – The People of Ireland Against Fuel Prices – has been particularly active.
The page was set up in 2021 and originally called Irish Truckers and Haulage Association against fuel prices. In recent weeks, it has gained a huge following; it now has more than 60,000 followers.
O’Connor says it has been running ads about the protests since April 6th, which in turn encourage people to join locally focused WhatsApp groups used for information sharing and planning. “What has been surprising has been the offline spread and hosting of protests in big cities, arterial roads and smaller towns,” says O’Connor.
The page is run by Sonny Boyd, a tow-truck operator from Co Kildare. He said he was not a leader of the protests but willing to act on the movement’s behalf in negotiations. “My business is gone anyway so I don’t really mind; I have nothing to lose,” he told The Irish Times. The online ads were paid for by “thetowtruck.ie”, one of Boyd’s online handles.
The WhatsApp groups became hives of activity, with protesters discussing the most effective routes around the country to block to cause the maximum disruption. There was also bickering, misinformation, AI-generated images, jokes and reams of anti-Government invective in the groups. Occasionally there has been anti-migration content and criticism of Government funding for Ukraine.
The groups quickly became self-governing, with wildcat actions taking place around the country.
Boyd is one of a number of men who have become the public face of the protests. Another is James Geoghegan, an agricultural contractor from Westmeath who sits on the Irish Farmers’ Association’s environment and rural affairs committee.
“I would be one of the leaders,” he told The Irish Times. He said he was asked to act as the public relations officer for a committee established in Portlaoise. “The media says no one is in charge. That’s false. That’s to discredit us.”
Geoghegan said his group has nothing to do with Boyd’s Facebook page and that Boyd was not on the committee.
In 2006, Geoghegan, whose address in court records was listed as Cornahar, Kilbeggan in Westmeath, was convicted in Tullamore District Court of 13 counts of animal cruelty and neglect involving his cattle herd the previous year. He was fined a total of €6,250, the records show.
Also on the committee is Christopher Duffy, an agricultural contractor from Meath with a long history of involvement in farming protests. In the aftermath of a protest in Athlone in early 2024, he entered a hotel where then minister for agriculture Charlie McConalogue was speaking, angrily confronting the Donegal TD.
Duffy, who has given a large number of media interviews on the protest, has a history of making inflammatory and far-right statements on his Facebook page. “I could care less if she got raped or beaten and I make no apologies for saying that,” he posted last year in reference to climate activist Greta Thunberg.
He was one of the main speakers at the Portlaoise meeting two weeks ago where he declared: “They’re waving free Palestine flags. Well by the time we’re finished with them, they’ll be waving free Dublin flags.”
Another spokesman, John Dollan, a farmer and contractor from Kildare, was among dozens of farmers who blockaded parts of the city in 2019 in protest over beef prices.
‘Tuesday was going to be a problem’
The first signs of real trouble began on Good Friday. Kevin McPartlan, chief executive of oil industry lobby group Fuels for Ireland, said that on Friday of last week, Good Friday, he began receiving screenshots of social media content, as well as from Telegram channels and WhatsApp groups indicating big protests were planned for this week. “At the weekend, we knew that Tuesday was going to be a problem,” he said.
By Saturday, he had contacted the Department of Energy, but while he was satisfied they grasped the seriousness of the situation, he grew increasingly frustrated with what he said was a “stunningly casual” Garda approach.
“We were trying to contact senior gardaí over the weekend – none of them came back. We were telling them we had a particular anxiety around fuel terminals and expected them to be targeted,” he said.
Over the long Easter weekend, Ministers were also seeing similar screengrabs. But it wasn’t clear how big the demonstrations would be. “The scale of it ... that wasn’t something that was clear at all,” said one Cabinet source.
By Tuesday, protests began to choke roads. With the bank-holiday behind them, some Opposition politicians addressed the protest on O’Connell Street from the back of a truck, including Sinn Féin’s Matt Carthy, Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín and Independent Ireland leader Michael Collins.
Later in the week, Tóibín, while lobbying the Government privately to meet the protesters, confided that he wasn’t happy the protests were continuing or going on at all, but said he had decided to address them as it was happening anyway. Tóibín told The Irish Times he would rather the protests were cleared and was trying to use his influence to get a dialogue going with Government and protesters.
On Tuesday evening, the oil depot at Galway port was blockaded. Again, McPartlan was frustrated with the policing response. By Tuesday night, he said the terminal operator was given the number of a garda to act as liaison but said: “He just didn’t answer his phone.”
With the port at Foynes in Co Limerick also blockaded on Tuesday, the options to reroute fuel were narrowing and the prospect of petrol stations running dry materialising. By Wednesday morning the scale of the crisis was clear.
Within the Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael Government, tensions were also mounting, with some increasingly frustrated at the slow speed of the policing response. Fianna Fáil Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan visited the Garda control centre in the afternoon – dismissed by one Fine Gael source as a “blurry picture in a f**king command centre looking at things on screens”.
Government figures were also exasperated by the silence from some business and civil society groups which were privately urging them to take action but saying little publicly.
There was frustration, as well, with an appearance by Independent Minister of State Michael Healy-Rae on RTÉ Radio’s Morning Ireland, where he appeared to support the demands of the protesters. Both Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Tánaiste Simon Harris were said to be annoyed.
It was decided that Martin, Harris and Independent Minister Seán Canney would speak to the media. The protests were intensifying, but within Government the attitude was hardening.
Martin and Harris had already spoken on Wednesday morning, and both strongly criticised the protests in statements to the media. There was an almost instant reaction on the protest WhatsApp groups, lambasting the Government and mocking Martin and Harris.
Meanwhile, Ministers had gathered for a planned meeting on energy security, but much discussion was given over to the protests. One participant said the attitude was “we’re not negotiating with them and we can’t have a gun held to our head even in the face of mass disruption”.
The meeting was optimistic about Ireland’s oil supply, even more so in light of news breaking overnight of a ceasefire in the gulf. But the protest situation was deteriorating by the hour, causing consternation for gardaí.
Those who were spokespersons for the group had little real power, in the assessment of one security source. “Whatever little control they had, they’ve lost it,” this person said, adding: “It’s moving into a different space.” Gardaí were also noticing more activity on the ground and online from far-right actors.
Around Sligo town, someone was driving a trailer containing a mock noose with a sign reading: “Don’t let the tanks go dry, hang em high.”
Despite pleas from organisers for protesters to keep hard shoulders clear for emergencies, some were blocked. “I’ve the Limerick tunnel blocked off here,” said one protester in a WhatsApp group before appealing for help to block the hard shoulder.
“F**k them c**ts,” posted one well-known far-right agitator in response to reports of people being prevented from getting to hospital appointments. “Keep at it.”
Geoghegan said he has not heard complaints from any gardaí. In fact, by Thursday, senior gardaí were publicly stating the blockades were severely affecting emergency workers and people with medical needs. The HSE warned about an impact on homecare and critical care.
Some of the protesters “probably blocked up more than they were told to”, Geoghegan conceded. Boyd said the blocking of fuel depots “is not what we signed up for” but that “people’s backs are against the wall”.
He said the protest was about fuel prices with no room for fringe elements making it about issues such as immigration. “We have always said we are doing to distance ourselves from them. We have tried to do this the correct way.”
As events escalated, officials from the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) and Irish Road Haulage Association, two powerful lobby groups, felt justified in their decision to stay away. “Protesting like this is a very drastic measure,” said Seán Hennessy of the IFA. “We decided we would engage with Government first.”
An IRHA official said one of the reasons they opted not to support the protests were “concerns about some of the individuals involved” and their willingness to take extreme action. Before Government measures in March, the IRHA had planned its own protest, an official said, but not to “hold the country to ransom – nobody wants to see fuel depots closed down”.
As the blockages continued, Irish far-right figures joined protesters. In some cases, they were told they were not welcome. However, both Duffy and Dollan appeared multiple times on the livestreams of Niall McConnell, a far-right and anti-immigration agitator.
International figures also began to take notice, with anti-immigration activist Tommy Robinson accusing the Irish Government of “high treason”.
Eddie Mitchell, an Independent councillor in Leitrim, believes an anti-immigration element was present in protests from the start. He spoke at a meeting about diesel prices in Manorhamilton last weekend which was attended by some of the protest leaders, arguing an anti-war message should be part of the protest. He said he was shouted down in the meeting, which was also attended by several far-right figures, including McConnell. After the meeting, threats against the councillor began to appear online, including that his head “should have been cracked off the wall”.
By Wednesday afternoon, discussions were under way between the Defence Forces and the Garda about the protests and how they might respond.
The key point, according to several sources, was the blockade of the Whitegate refinery in Cork, while there were also concerns that protesters would target Dublin Port. The oil industry was intensifying its lobbying, going to the Taoiseach’s office directly to warn that if Foynes, Galway and Whitegate were locked down for any length of time a whole swathe of petrol stations would not be able to operate.
Supermarket trucking fleets and emergency services would also be impacted by fuel shortages, the Government was told. Security officials were made aware of threats to take petrol stations out of action by having protesters abandon their cars in front of the pumps.
Martin had flown to the Netherlands to meet his Dutch counterpart, but behind the scenes from about 5pm onwards, discussions intensified between Harris, Canney and Martin, involving O’Callaghan and Minister for Defence Helen McEntee. “There was a decision to say we can no longer tolerate the blockage,” said a senior Government figure.
The call to instruct the Army was a closely guarded secret even within Government, with work being done overnight on a “C70 request” – the name of the form used by the Garda to officially request “aid to the civil power” from the Defence Forces when the Garda is unable to handle a situation.
Gardaí regularly use them, but asking the Army for help removing protesters would be unprecedented and potentially escalatory. The initial plan, one Government source said, had been to issue a statement about the request midmorning on Thursday. But the chaos being relayed on morning bulletins moved the announcement forward, they said. This account is disputed by another Government figure, who said dialogue with the Garda dictated the timing.
By that stage, the Defence Forces still hadn’t received any request. Senior brigade officers, not privy to overnight discussions, rushed to seek clarity. They didn’t know if they were being asked to remove protesters or simply tow vehicles.
The request eventually came shortly after 9am. The Army was being asked to use its heavy lift vehicles; no armed soldiers were to be deployed. Officers breathed a sigh of relief.
The WhatsApp groups greeted the news with a mixture of disbelief and rage. Some doubted the Army would be deployed. Others shared videos of convoys of armoured vehicles moving around Limerick which were, in fact, pre-planned training exercises for soldiers deploying to Lebanon.
Some protesters tried to organise blockages of Dublin and Cork ports, while others advocated parking trucks at the gates of Army barracks. When there was no sign of the military by Thursday afternoon, protesters felt the threat had passed. “The Army is a threat that was put out,” Geoghegan told The Irish Times. “We’ve a bigger army than they have.”
‘You know who’s in control’
By Thursday evening – a day which had started with the seemingly imminent prospect of the Army on the streets – blockades remained and protesters seemed to be dictating access to ports. On RTÉ’s Prime Time programme, Geoghegan told viewers of a breakthrough, saying protesters would meet the Government on Friday.
It was not so straightforward. Demonstrators in Galway had been speaking to local TDs in the Government trying to act as intermediaries. It’s understood that during these discussions it was suggested protesters might be able to join planned talks for Friday between the Government and haulage and farming groups.
The Government insists it was only ever suggested that the protesters would attend the meeting as part of a delegation of an invited representative group. But the protesters seized on it as a big win, while it seemed the Government had rolled back on one of their core goals.
Confusion reigned on Friday morning. But in the WhatsApp groups Geoghegan was triumphant, telling one: “We’re running the meeting; laws will be changed tonight before we go home.”
In another, he said he didn’t need his hand held by the IHRA during talks: “Look around the country,” he posted. “Then you know who’s in control.”
