DON’T MISS

There are questions to be asked about the recent trial, but protesters shouldn’t be allowed to rewrite history, writes Eilis O’Hanlon

Eilis O’Hanlon warns about the myths being peddled about Jobstown,

AS the fallout continues from the acquittal of the ‘Jobstown Six’ on charges of the false imprisonment of Joan Burton in November 2014, it’s worth wondering what might have happened had the gardai decided that day to draw their batons and clear a path through the protest to allow the then Tanaiste to go freely about her lawful business.

It would have sparked outrage for a few days, no doubt. There would have been angry scenes in the Dail. Social media would have lost its collective mind — though there’s nothing new about that. In a short while, though, the fuss would have been over.

Instead, officers on the ground opted to haggle with the mob over the terms under which Joan Burton and her adviser Karen O’Connell would be allowed out of Tallaght in one piece. The situation dragged on for hours.

The ensuing row resulted in legal action being taken against some of those who were there that day, and we’re still talking about it over two years later, during which time Solidarity TD Paul Murphy and his co-accused have been elevated to the status of righteous saints, persecuted by the State simply for exercising the right to protest, whilst the gardai have been caricatured as shadowy conspirators, concocting evidence at the behest of their political masters.

That narrative — so convenient to anti-water charges protesters who would rather that their riotous behaviour should be seen as mere high jinks in hindsight, when it was nothing of the sort — has also been helped in the days since the acquittal of the Jobstown Martyrs by the opening of the Charleton Tribunal into allegations of a Garda smear campaign against whistleblower Maurice McCabe.

The end of the trial almost overlapped with the start of that inquiry. As timing goes, there couldn’t have been a more pointed reminder of the questions surrounding the integrity of An Garda Siochana.

In one case, gardai were being accused of fabricating evidence against legitimate protesters. In the other, of, at best disseminating, at worst fabricating, false accusations about a former colleague whose honesty had become inconvenient to his superiors.

The truth of the allegations against senior gardai is yet to be determined by Mr Justice Peter Charleton, and the former remains in the realm of conspiracy theory chatter — but truth is almost irrelevant. Perception is all. It looked bad.

What couldn’t have been expected was that the Taoiseach would add fuel to the fire. In his interview with Prime Time last Thursday, the Taoiseach did not cast doubt on the evidence of the gardai in the Jobstown trial. He merely stated that he would be “very concerned if it’s the case that we would ever have gardai on a stand in the court giving evidence that is not in line with the facts”, adding that these questions should be looked at carefully to ensure mistakes were not made again.

It didn’t matter. It was enough to energise those who want to see in Jobstown evidence of wide-ranging subterfuge, collusion, corruption. Paul Murphy described Leo Varadkar’s words as “the first crack in the wall of opposition to a public inquiry”, and who’s to say that he’s wrong?

The Taoiseach has every right to be concerned at the question marks hanging over the recent trial. No one is arguing that the apparent conflict of evidence which exists should be ignored. But Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin is equally justified in criticising the Taoiseach’s remarks as “illjudged” in light of how they will be interpreted.

As Martin put it: “He has left an impression — although he heavily caveats what he says, to be fair — but nonetheless, he gives the impression that those gardai didn’t give the full truth in accordance with the facts.”

As such, it was leapt upon by revisionists who are gleefully rewriting history right now to suggest that the Jobstown protesters were the real victims that day, not the two women who were actually surrounded by a baying throng, hammering on their car, hurling abuse and missiles with equal gusto, or the gardai who were in the firing line, faced with savagery.

This new campaign against inconvenient facts found expression in a meeting at Buswells Hotel last week to demand a public inquiry.

It was attended by Opposition TDs, activists, academics, trade unionists, and what one news website described, with an apparent straight face, as “experts in media studies”.

“While there were many voices heard at Buswells,” that report continued, “they all spoke in unison.”

That’s never a good sign. It generally suggests that a myth is under construction. This fairy tale says that the Jobstown protesters, and those who whipped them up into a frenzy, did nothing wrong.

That, in fact, they behaved with admirable restraint by agreeing to a deal whereby the Tanaiste and her adviser could be “slow marched” out of the estate by a gang of yahoos. It’s perfectly legitimate to argue that the defendants in this case should either not have been charged, or at least charged with lesser offences.

Likewise, should it be decided that the trial of another job lot of Jobstown protesters, due to start in October, should not go ahead, few ordinary people will take to the barricades to demand that it must. The whole affair has been a shambles. Better to draw a line under it and move on.

But spare us the violins, for pity’s sake. Two women were, in Varadkar’s justified word, “terrorised” that day.

Other public representatives have faced equally intimidatory behaviour.

Shouting “peaceful protest” whilst unleashing disorder on the streets does not make one’s actions peaceful, any more than attacking police vehicles with molotov cocktails whilst shouting anti-capitalist slogans made heroes of the rioters at the G20 summit in Hamburg during the week.

The escalation was the fault of the police, claimed the rioters in Germany, in what has become a familiar pattern. Deliberately start trouble, then blame those whose job it is to protect civil society from total breakdown for any ensuing damage or injuries — the template is simple and effective, fooling the gullible into thinking protesters must be innocent because they say they are, and, besides, someone can always be relied upon to film some poor police officer losing the rag after being jostled and spat on for hours at the end of a stressful shift. There you are. QED. It woz the police wot dunnit.

These bullies invariably defend their indefensible actions by pointing out that nothing really bad happened to the victims, so what was the problem? Nothing happened to the Tanaiste because the protesters got their own way. That doesn’t make what happened right or admirable.

That two women’s safety became a subject of bargaining that day shouldn’t be forgotten or forgiven.

That they were, at the time, angry at being asked to pay for their own water is no justification. “Things got out of hand, but you provoked me,” is the self-pitying, insincere non-apology of bullies everywhere. There are worse things than paying for water. Harassing people is one of them.

Nor should they be allowed to claim that they represent the area whose name they disgraced, turning Jobstown into short hand for civil disorder.

The 2011 census numbers the population of that part of Tallaght at just over 16,000 people. The overwhelming majority of them got through that day without intimidating a single other human being. That a few hundred louts can’t say the same is a testament to their own failure to act in a civilised manner. They should not now be allowed to falsely imprison our collective memories in a pathetic bid to whitewash what they did.

‘But you provoked me, is the insincere self-pitying non-apology of bullies everywhere’