Jobstown verdict is no victory for radical left
WHEN the ‘not guilty’ verdict rang out through the courtroom, Paul Murphy’s face lit up, his shoulders visibly relaxing at being relieved of the burden of a high-profile court case. His five comrades were similarly exultant at being cleared of false imprisonment charges, allowing them to leave the court as free men.
Not even the most ardent card-carrying revolutionary wants a prison sentence, even if it is a road to certain martyrdom and, in their wildest imaginings, could see them join Castro, Danton and Robespierre in the pantheon of socialist heroes.
But while their acquittal spared them the horror of mixing with common criminals, the Jobstown Six are sadly misled if they think they have achieved a victory in any other sense.
Predictably, they are now set on turning the verdict into a propaganda coup – making it a victory of the oppressed working classes against the powerful Establishment. They point the finger of blame at Garda evidence to suggest they were framed. But it is the people who marched peacefully under the banner of anti-water charges who have, if not been framed, then certainly betrayed by the shameful carry-on at Jobstown.
The vicious thuggery which saw water bombs hurled at the then-tánaiste Joan Burton and her assistant Karen O’Connell pelted with eggs, while a stream of coarse and repulsive epithets rained down on them, is a style of behaviour that is intolerable to civilised society. It confirmed what the violent scuffles between Irish Water workers and gardaí – and louts who seemed to have nothing to do other than travel between housing estates stirring up trouble – had suggested; the hijacking of a perfectly decent protest campaign by low-life rabble-rousers who had no respect for anyone.
Thanks to the long-running Jobstown trial, the degeneration of a mainstream protest movement into an unruly mob baying for blood is now etched in public memory.
The peaceful mass protests around the country were an eloquent display of the level of opposition to water charges.
Hardworking families took to the streets in the sincere belief that they could simply not afford another tax. It was this rise of Middle Ireland that prompted Fianna Fáil into a Uturn and helped put water charges into abeyance.
But the ugly Jobstown antics – where gardaí were spat and kicked at, where a man whose face was contorted with rage roared ‘get the c**ts!’ at the fleeing tánaiste and her assistant, and where hothead Michael Banks, as shown on video footage, smiled and gave two fingers to Ms Burton adding ‘Up your a**e Joan’ for good measure – achieves the reverse.
Most of us run a mile from gurriers. We want nothing to doKIcKEr: with the per-Xyt son who, according to Garda evidence,yxt called a garda who helped ayxt woman to her feet during the melee a ‘woman beater, a disgrace, a uniformed scumbag and a coward’. The aggression at Jobstown helped polarise the debate about water charges, and drained the protest of the sympathy of moderate opinion. It raised the terrifying spectre of what Ireland would look like if hardleft activists and their trailing mob gained the upper hand. ‘Thanks, but no thanks,’ we thought as the foul-mouthed jeering unfolded on our TV screens.
The irony of the Jobstown Six is that while they have harnessed support in certain pockets, they have also turned potential supporters away from the radical left and back into the waiting arms of mainstream parties.