Eoin Ó Broin: I am NOT the egg man
SF TD tells of attending anti-royal protest – but still denies charge
SINN Féin TD Eoin Ó Broin was arrested for throwing an egg at Prince Charles during a visit to Dublin in the mid 1990s, the Irish Mail on Sunday can reveal.
The Dublin Mid-West TD told the MoS yesterday he stood over his protest actions on the day but insisted he did not throw an egg at the British royal.
The housing spokesman was convicted of obstructing a garda and breach of the peace at College Green, Dublin, in June 1995. In court he admitted interfering when a garda tried to arrest an egg thrower, but denied throwing anything himself.
But Judge John O’Neill said he was satisfied with Garda Ciarán O’Neill’s evidence that he saw Mr Ó Broin throw the egg and fined the then 24-year-old IR£200.
Speaking to the MoS yesterday, Mr Ó Broin said he ‘strongly contested’ the grounds of his arrest and added he ‘didn’t throw any egg’.
Asked if he had any comment to make on the matter, Mr Ó Broin said: ‘Em, good question... I was
‘I didn’t do anything other than attend a protest’
attending a protest in support of the Bloody Sunday families and Prince Charles was the commander-in-chief of the Royal Parachute Regiment and Bloody Sunday families had travelled down to Dublin and had slept overnight outside the Mansion House, which was Prince Charles’s first stop.
‘So my attendance at the event was in support of the families’ call for a public inquiry at the time.
‘So I was arrested at a particular point in the protests, I strongly contested the grounds upon which I was arrested. I didn’t do anything wrong other than attend a protest.’
Asked if he still denies throwing the egg, the TD for Dublin MidWest said: ‘Oh, absolutely, I didn’t throw any egg and, interestingly, the press release from the gardaí on the evening of the incident listed the ages of people including those who they believed threw the egg and I was much younger than that, and when I tried to raise this at the court the judge wasn’t hearing any of it and I was fined.’
Newspaper reports at the time tell how three eggs were thrown at the prince as he stood chatting to a woman outside a travel shop on the corner of College Green.
Two eggs hit the prince’s Rover 2000 car while a third egg went over the roof of the car and hit the woman he had been chatting to.
Mrs Eileen McBain from Glenageary, Dublin, told reporters at the time she was relieved the egg hit her and not the prince – even if it ruined her clothes.
‘I am annoyed at these people. I’m just glad that Charles didn’t get hit. Charles had just turned away from me when the egg hit me,’ she said.
A newspaper report at the time said: ‘The men were quickly arrested at College Green after at least four eggs were thrown from the crowd as the prince was walking towards Trinity College. One egg narrowly missed the prince and struck a woman he had been talking to. Another glanced off the shoulder of government press officer Kate O’Toole and the prince’s Rover car was also hit.’
Mr Ó Broin had just joined Sinn Féin at the time of the egg-throwing and later that same year moved to Belfast where he got a job in the party’s An Phoblacht newspaper before working as the National Organiser of Ógra Shinn Féin.
Two years after the egg-throwing incident, Ó Broin was in trouble again, this time with the RUC in the North. He was arrested after taking part in a roof-top protest at Belfast City Hall in 1997. The protest was staged by Saoirse, the republican prisoners’ freedom organisation, and Mr Ó Broin and two other men climbed on to the dome above the front entrance with banners.
They were charged with trespassing, unlawfully displaying banners and emblems, and conduct likely to cause a breach of the peace. Commenting on this arrest, Mr Ó Broin said as part of the Good Friday Agreement negotiations ‘there was a variety of campaigning activities’. He said he was involved in two protests at City Hall, one more successful than the other.
‘There was a campaign called Saoirse calling for the release of political prisoners as part of the Good Friday Agreement,’ he said. ‘So we organised two protests. The first was probably more successful. Three of us dressed as painters and climbed on to the small roof at the entrance and held banners.’
The second protest resulted in Mr Ó Broin accidentally tripping a security alarm at Belfast City Hall and being arrested as they tried to reach the top of the hall.
‘We were taken to Musgrave Road RUC barracks and questioned by the CID and released without charge. From memory there was no charge on either occasion.’
‘Three of us climbed onto roof at City Hall’