'Route Irish' Feature Doc Now Available On Net
ec | 22.11.2007 22:07 | Anti-militarism | Iraq | Terror War
Route Irish, a new Irish documentary, was made from a comprehensive archive of material filmed by a loose network of political activists between 2002 and 2006 and is a vérite documentation of the emergence between 2002 and 2004 of a broad popular opposition in Ireland to the US military use of Shannon Airport in the buildup to, invasion of, and occupation of Iraq.
Its title refers to the name given to the road between Baghdad airport and Baghdad by the US military, and to the fact that Ireland was and remains the main transit point in Europe for US troops travelling to the war in Iraq.
The film follows a loose network of politicians, activist groups and individuals through the story of the rise, fracturing and sudden decline and disappearance of this movement and retraces the way in which their combined efforts, energies and strategies served to effectively tear away the Irish States' veneer of neutrality and non-alignment in the post September 11th era of the 'War on Terror'. It documents the part played in this process by a series of ploughshares style actions which took place in early 2003 at Shannon airport.
It takes the form of an essayistic reflection asking, from the perspective of one Irish individual caught up in the cycle of protests here, why the international pre-war wave of opposition to the invasion of Iraq appeared so suddenly, peaked so quickly, and failed to sustain itself despite the fact that, in historical terms, all of the predictions of that movement (and worse) were proved right in the course of the ongoing US/UK occupation.
It has also, because of the progress of political events in Ireland, become a very strange and surreal portrait of the Green Party pre their elevation to government in Ireland.
The film features noteable appearances by Willie O'Dea, Trevor Sargent, John Gormley, John O'Donoghue and Terry Leyden among a host of others.
Information on how to download the film is available at
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/85188
Screenshots are available at this web address: http://www.indymedia.ie/article/84775
The film follows a loose network of politicians, activist groups and individuals through the story of the rise, fracturing and sudden decline and disappearance of this movement and retraces the way in which their combined efforts, energies and strategies served to effectively tear away the Irish States' veneer of neutrality and non-alignment in the post September 11th era of the 'War on Terror'. It documents the part played in this process by a series of ploughshares style actions which took place in early 2003 at Shannon airport.
It takes the form of an essayistic reflection asking, from the perspective of one Irish individual caught up in the cycle of protests here, why the international pre-war wave of opposition to the invasion of Iraq appeared so suddenly, peaked so quickly, and failed to sustain itself despite the fact that, in historical terms, all of the predictions of that movement (and worse) were proved right in the course of the ongoing US/UK occupation.
It has also, because of the progress of political events in Ireland, become a very strange and surreal portrait of the Green Party pre their elevation to government in Ireland.
The film features noteable appearances by Willie O'Dea, Trevor Sargent, John Gormley, John O'Donoghue and Terry Leyden among a host of others.
Information on how to download the film is available at
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/85188 Screenshots are available at this web address:
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/84775
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