The tiny anti-Bush demonstration at Shannon the day Bush arrived in Ireland on Fri. 25th June 2004, was so depressing that we – Jenny, Annie Clarke from Galway and my daughter Louise – decided not to drag our weary bodies out of bed the next morning to go on the second stage of the protest.

However my conscience kicked me out of bed at 7.0 a.m. after just a few hours’ sleep and I tumbled downstairs to see what level of depression Annie had sunken into about the whole dreadful state the Irish peace movement seemed to be in – and found that she had ‘looked up the stars’ and that they were very positive for that day, which was as good a reason as any for chucking ourselves out of the house and on to the streets once more.

It turned out to be an absolutely brilliant day and once again renewed our faith in how great things can be achieved by small numbers – given a little help from the Irish army and police.

Pardon? Well, it happened like this: after the very small ‘hard core’ of pierced, painted, dyed-hair, anarchist flag-waving, much-noise-making very brave and energetic marchers had spent hours duly marching hither and thither, encountering riot-police blockades at every turn, suddenly the determined crew swerved off the police-appointed route and swarmed across an embankment beside the deserted motorway. And we found ourselves in a housing estate. Face to face with a Very Strange Object. Given that we were on a housing estate that is.

A tank. What? Well, it might be called an armoured car as it had wheels, - I’m no expert on these things, not being accustomed either to housing estates or tanks. But there it was: a very large dirt-coloured metal object with guns pointing out and men’s helmeted heads sticking out the top. In a housing estate. With a line of riot police behind it.

Pure magic. I’m not sure whether some bright soul in the peace movement had secretly hired it or whether the Irish Army had made its biggest boob yet, or whether in fact the Irish Army wasn’t entirely comfortable with its new role as protector of US terrorists and attacker of Irish people on an Irish housing estate. The fact is, the visual and symbolic impact of this tank was a theatre director’s dream (I know – I run a small political theatre group in Colombia).

The marchers didn’t need any discussion group for this one: with great joy, the colourful crowd immediately surrounded this unexpected gift from the traitorous Irish government and suddenly all those odd flags – including Palestinian ones which now came into their own, as this new situation was eerily reminiscent of Israeli tanks on housing estates in Palestine – and all those strangely painted people looked entirely beautiful and apt next to this colourless metallic offensive weapon.

Now none of what happened next could possibly have happened without the total cooperation of the Gardai, (Irish police force), and I think Mr. Bush and his pal Bertie should be quite worried as to where these uniformed Irishmen and women actually stand in the people’s war against US-terrorism. At this particular event, it looked suspiciously as if they stood with the protesters.

For instance, the Gardai standing right next to Annie did not employ their potential might against her frail frame when she taped to the back of the tank one of the dozen posters I’d painted for this demo. This one simply said: “No to Bush and his Weapons of Mass Deception”, and it stayed there unmolested for all to see and the cameras to record, and was still there over an hour later when the tank finally drove off with its tail between its legs. I can’t think of a nicer home for my poster to go to.

And they did not stop peace flags and Palestinian flags being hooked into the tank so that they waved triumphantly from the sides of it. And they did nothing to prevent a large group of women leaning against the tank as it slowly moved away from its first position ... with everyone cheering as visually it looked as if the protesters were actually pushing the tank away.

And they did nothing to prevent a large group of protesters lying down in the road and getting into black plastic body bags in a symbolic die-in, while a tall figure in an excellent ‘Bush mask’ stood over them, and a passionate lad with a megaphone read a long, loud and very moving indictment of Bush’s crimes against the world’s population and declared him under citizen’s arrest, at the end of which two people ‘attacked’ Bush and pushed her – the figure turned out to be a tall lady! – to the ground, to cheering from the rowdy crowd.

One demonstrator gave a brief speech of commiseration with the heavily-beclad Army men sweltering in their tank on this hot Irish summer’s day, and the whole scene was visually one of the most powerful of the hundreds of demonstrations I have been on.

It was the marchers themselves who decided to end this particular part of the day’s events, and just as I turned to leave, a policewoman standing next to me spontaneously addressed me smiling all over her face, with: ‘Oh wasn’t that a colourful rally!’ Her enthusiasm just spilled out of her. I was completely taken aback and replied politely in my English accent: ‘Well, that’s very nice of you to say so’ as I walked off to join the throng, promising myself never again to be slain by depressive thoughts about the peace movement, nor to ‘count heads’ to measure the effectiveness of a demonstration. Small can also be very powerful.

Jenny James, Atlantis Community, Colombia and Ireland