Riotous Assemblies

by William Sheehan

  The period of no arrests, but off-camera violence, ended in 2009. Though a full clarification of this strategy must await the release of state papers, the ending of the ‘no-arrests’ policy and the use of the military can hardly have been within the discretion of local commanders, and presumably represented a decision that the time had come to force the pipeline through at any cost. To this end, a substantial part of the Irish navy was brought in to protect the ship laying the pipeline. Fishing boats and kayaks had previously been used to prevent this; now there were targeted arrests of protestors with access to these skills and equipment. Leading protestors were given severe sentences, and a local judge even required a psychiatric examination of one protestor. When the mass arrests of less high-profile campaigners were brought before higher courts, however, twenty-five out of twenty-seven people had their cases withdrawn or dismissed, with criticism both of the local judge’s refusal of bail and of the unlawful detention of another activist; evidently the breach between police and courts was not so easily mended.23

  In this new strategy, media attacks on protestors continued – no doubt reflecting the fact that much of the broadcast and print media is owned either by the state or by individuals with interests in offshore energy exploration. As before, most journalists assigned to the case were still crime reporters, reliant on the police for information. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that by 2010, some eleven years after the saga began, despite the best efforts of the police and corporations, planning permission had still not been granted for the onshore section of the pipeline. Let us now return to the three questions we asked earlier.

  1. Why criminalise the alter-globalisation movement?

  Police respond differently to different protest groups; and the treatment of campaigners involved in the anti-globalisation movement changed substantially around 2001–2. How should we understand this? Neo-liberal states reject on principle the kinds of investments and concessions needed to win popular consensus. This policy entails an attack on gains won by previous movements from below, including, importantly, political rights such as the right to protest or to exercise control over government policy.24 This thus marks a shift from consent to coercion.

  From this perspective, it is no coincidence that at this point in history a global anti-capitalist movement should develop, with a critical approach to state power and a willingness to adopt disruptive tactics as popular movements become increasingly distanced from decision-making; nor is it a surprise that these movements against neo-liberalism encountered an approach to policing protest that had not been seen since the early 1970s. The recent standard policing of transnational, alter-globalisation protest involves:

  The use of ‘less-lethal’ arms; databanks of ‘travelling troublemakers’ have been constructed; special anti-insurgent units have been created; and in some cases the military has also been deployed for public order tasks.25

  Even though this shift came from the executive arm of the state, it had to overturn previous norms in the media and courts. To this end, alter-globalisation protestors were branded as terrorists, by association with foreign ‘anarchists’ or dissident republicans. Just as, in the USA, the end of the Cold War created the need for a new campaign – the ‘war on drugs’ – to legitimate the neo-liberal increase in state coercion, so in Ireland the alter-globalisation movement was chosen, we suggest, to fill the gap created by the Northern ceasefire.26

  2. What conditions enable or prevent legitimation of the use of force by the police?

  The failure of the Irish establishment to legitimise the use of force on May Day 2002 can be explained in part by the use of activist media, and in particular the ability of activists to produce TV-quality footage of police assaulting people who fitted popular images of ‘young, middle-class students’. While the Irish police had a clear idea that RTS needed to be beaten down, as anti-capitalist subversion and as a threat to the free flow of private traffic in Dublin, journalists did not agree that it was acceptable to use such force against these particular groups.

  Gramsci writes that power consists of ‘consent armoured by coercion’: in other words, the routine deployment of coercion against particular groups depends on the consensual relationship between the state and other groups. ‘Bad’ protestors, in the sense of protestors subject to heavy policing and the sudden use of force, are a social category rather than a category representing a particular type of behaviour. It is worth reiterating that very few demonstrations in Dublin show any propensity to violence or rioting; not a single window was broken on May Day 2004.

  While the new Irish policing tactics followed international models, they could not be successfully applied without a shift in the way anti-capitalist protestors were perceived by Irish society. Hence the anticipatory coverage of the EU protests, aimed at discrediting anti-capitalists and generating a moral panic to justify massive policing; hence too the media smear campaign in Erris, aimed at delegitimising the community through accusations that they were pawns in a subversive plot against the state.

  The success of these strategies has been uneven. One suggestion is that the tabloid media had to be ‘turned around’ or influenced by some agency to change them from their 2002 hostility towards police violence to their 2004 crediting of implausible stories about the protests.27 The serious media have been somewhat more resilient, and have on occasion used this process for an attack on tabloid journalism. In the case of Rossport, however, the apparent interest of economic and political elites in the transfer of offshore wealth to multinationals has seriously constrained both print and broadcast media, whether owned by the state or by wealthy individuals.

  The courts present a similar picture: district courts, in which the police are routinely the de facto prosecutors and the only witnesses, have on the whole been more receptive to the police version of events, whereas higher courts have been willing to crack down on serious challenges to state interests but have shown little willingness to criminalise ‘ordinary protestors’ on the evidence of gardaí alone.

  Public opinion, finally, remains contested and contradictory: at one point accepting the use of the navy against a small rural community, at another point outraged by the imprisonment of members of that same community; willing to provisionally believe scare stories about EU protests but also to enjoy serious journalists’ demolition of those same stories; less willing to engage in protest themselves but more willing to come out to defend the right to protest. In this respect, the right to political protest in Dublin probably remains better supported than the right of marginalised communities to resist development by large business interests.

  3. What do police and protestors learn from these encounters?

  Firstly, the Europeanisation of the policing of protests was part of a general ‘professionalisation’ of the gardaí, reflected in tactics like borrowing water cannons from the PSNI, using training by the London Metropolitan police, collaboration with Interpol in the use of spotters and the identification of known activists, the use of the military and the militarisation of police functions. At the broadest level, of course, it was reflected in the identification of anti-capitalists as ‘the new subversives’.

  This strategy, however, has met with limited success. There were severe constraints on using force of a kind unusual in UK or continental protest policing. On the other hand, a media offensive relying on police interdependence with crime journalists and local socio-historical factors helped to delegitimise protestors’ claims. In particular, in the case of Erris, the argument that protestors were influenced or infiltrated by republicans and were against development (and hence jobs) made this offensive easier.

  By contrast, there is little evidence of any improved police strategy in the courts: interdependence between police and judges in low-level proceedings continues to produce some convictions, but police are still failing to convince senior, or more sceptical, judges in higher court appearances. Nor have police efforts at public relations proved uniformly effective at influencing �
��serious’ media. Rather, political controls – such as the refusal by Radio Telefis Éireann to broadcast the AfrI (Action from Ireland) advertisement campaign about Erris, or the private ownership of much of the Irish media – have meant that silence has been the more common ‘serious’ response.

  Finally, the apparent outsourcing of state violence to private companies in Erris represents a worrying trend, perhaps a response to this blockage. Some aspects, such as night-time attacks on local campaigners by masked groups, have apparently been too sensational for ‘serious’ journalism. Independent media journalists have raised questions over IRMS (Integrated Risk Management Services), a security company which operates in conjunction with the gardaí in policing protest and whose staff appear to have very dubious records abroad, but again mainstream journalists have avoided this story.

  Movement activists, for their part, have shifted towards disruptive but non-violent protest as an effective strategy in a neoliberal context where access to decision-making is increasingly constrained. This move is supported by the development of independent media sources in place of state and corporate media, and the development of solidarity and alliances with other groups on a national and transnational level, replacing two decades of ‘partnership’ politics in which most alliances were at best confined to a single sector.

  The use of video technology and legal observers, with careful documenting of police behaviour, has become important in attempts to limit coercive policing, as has an increased willingness to engage with media and courts. An awareness that in such battles protestors are sometimes successful also raises the costs (in both money and legitimacy) of attempts at repression. Attempts at widening the arena have also been significant, such as the use of human rights observers, academic and non-academic researchers, and the development of trade union and international links.

  As in the past, the right to protest – and, when institutions block effective democratic control of decisions, the attempt to disrupt their normal functioning – remains an inherently contested area. What stands out most obviously from this Irish experience is that the result is not a foregone conclusion, but depends on the attitude of other social groups – themselves internally divided – and the learning processes of both police and protestors.

  NOTES

  Chapter 1

  1. Many thanks to David Edwards and John Walter for discussion of protest and references and to Bill Frazer for comments. Thanks also to Donal Ó Drisceoil and Gillian O'Leary for assistance in sourcing the image.

  2. NAUK, S.P. 63/58/25.

  3. J. Walter, ‘A “rising of the people”? The Oxfordshire Rising of 1596’, Past and Present 107 (1985), pp. 95, 137.

  4. J. Brewer and J. Styles, ‘Popular attitudes to the law in the eighteenth century’, in M. Fitzgerald et al. (eds), Crime and Society: readings in history and theory (London, 1981), p. 29; see also I. M. W. Harvey, ‘Was there popular politics in fifteenth-century England?’ in R. H. Burtnell and A. J. Pollard (eds), The MacFarlane Legacy: studies in late medieval politics and society (New York, 1995), pp. 155–74; J. C. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance (New Haven CT, 1990); E. H. Shagan, Popular Politics and the English Reformation (Cambridge, 2003); M. J. Braddick and J. Walter, ‘Introduction: grids of power: order, hierarchy and subordination in early modern society’, in idem, Negotiating Power in Early Modern Society (Cambridge, 2001), pp. 1–42; J. Walter, Crowds and Popular Politics in Early Modern England (Manchester, 2006); C. Hill, Change and Continuity in Seventeenth-Century England (New Haven CT, 1991), pp. 181–204; D. Underdown, Revel, Riot and Rebellion (Oxford, 1987), especially chapter 5; E. P. Thompson, Customs in Common (London, 1993); W. Beik, Urban Protest in Seventeenth-century France: the culture of retribution (Cambridge, 1997).

  5. S. Hindle, The State and Social Change in Early Modern England, 1500–1640 (Basingstoke, 2002), p. 67.

  6. R. Gillespie, ‘Negotiating order in early seventeenth-century Ireland’, in Braddick and Walter, Negotiating Power, pp. 188–205; Gillespie, ‘The political nation and political history in early modern Ireland’, paper presented at ‘Constructing the Past’ symposium, Hertford College, Oxford, 14 March 2008.

  7. D. Edwards, ‘Beyond reform: martial law and the reconquest of Tudor Ireland’, History Ireland 5 (1997), pp. 16–21; D. Edwards, ‘Ideology and experience: Spenser's View and martial law in Ireland’, in H. Morgan (ed.), Political Ideology in Ireland, 1541–1641 (Dublin, 1999), pp. 127–57; D. Edwards, ‘Two fools and a martial law commissioner: cultural conflict at the Limerick assize of 1606’, in D. Edwards (ed.), Regions and Rulers in Ireland, 1100–1650 (Dublin, 2004), pp. 237–65.

  8. Many of the records are reproduced in J. G. Crawford, A Star Chamber Court in Ireland: The Court of Castle Chamber, 1571–1641 (Dublin, 2005); on the ‘strategic allegation of riot and assault’ in the English Court of Star Chamber, see Hindle, State and Social Change, p. 79.

  9. C. Lennon, The Lords of Dublin in the Age of Reformation (Dublin, 1989); C. Lennon, The Urban Patriciates of Early Modern Ireland: a case study of Limerick (Dublin, 1999); A. Sheehan, ‘Irish towns in a period of change, 1558–1625’, in C. Brady and R. Gillespie (eds), Natives and Newcomers: the making of Irish colonial society, 1534–1641 (Dublin, 1986), pp. 93–119; R. A. Butlin, ‘Irish towns in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries’, in Butlin (ed.), The Development of the Irish Town (London, 1971), pp. 61–100; R. Gillespie, ‘Small towns in early modern Ireland’, in P. Clark, Small Towns in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 148–65; J. Bradley, ‘From frontier town to renaissance city: Kilkenny 1500–1700’, in P. Borsay and L. Proudfoot, Provincial Towns in Early Modern England and Ireland (Oxford, 2002), pp. 29–52; W. Smyth, ‘Ireland a colony: settlement implications of the revolution in military-administrative, urban and ecclesiastical structures, c.1550–1730’, in T. Barry (ed.), A History of Settlement in Ireland (London, 2000), pp. 158–86. On the meaning of civic freedom to urban populations, see J. Barry, ‘Civility and civic culture in early modern England: the meanings of urban freedom’, in P. Burke et al. (eds), Civil Histories: essays presented to Sir Keith Thomas (Oxford, 2000), pp. 181–96; P. Withington, ‘Two renaissances: urban political culture in post-Reformation England reconsidered’, Historical Journal 44 (2001), pp. 239–67; see also P. Withington, The Politics of Commonwealth: citizens and freemen in early modern England (Cambridge, 2005). A. Thomas, The Walled Towns of Ireland (2 vols, 1992) gives a good sense of the geography and size of Irish towns.

  10. On relationships between nobles/gentry, towns and the crown in England, see C. F. Patterson, Patronage in Early Modern England: corporate boroughs, the landed elite, and the crown, 1580–1640 (Stanford CA, 1999).

  11. Lennon, Lords of Dublin; C. Lennon, ‘Civic life and religion in early seventeenth-century Dublin’, Archivium Hibernicum 38 (1983), pp. 14–25; B. Bradshaw, ‘The Reformation in the cities: Cork, Limerick and Galway, 1534–1603’, in J. Bradley (ed.), Settlement and Society in Medieval Ireland (Kilkenny, 1988), pp. 445–76.

  12. Another attempt to take Youghal, in 1582, was eventually repulsed, though considerable damage was done. R. Bagwell, Ireland Under the Tudors (3 vols, London, 1885–90), 3, pp. 33–5, 107; R. Day, ‘Cooke's memoirs of Youghal, 1749’, Journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society 9 (1903), pp. 43–4.

  13. C. Brady, ‘The captains’ games: army and society in Elizabethan Ireland’, in T. Bartlett and J. Jeffrey (eds), A Military History of Ireland (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 136–59.

  14. S. G. Ellis, Ireland in the Age of the Tudors, 1447–1603 (London, 1995), pp. 186–8; C. Brady, The Chief Governors: the rise and fall of reform government in Ireland (Cambridge, 2002), especially chapters 2 and 6.

  15. These riots are dealt with in detail in C. Tait, ‘Broken heads and trampled hats: rioting in Limerick in 1599’, in L. Irwin and G. Ó Tuathaigh (eds), Limerick: history and society (Dublin, 2009), pp. 91–112.

  16. Cal S.P. Ire., 1586–1588, pp. 361–2.

&nbs
p; 17. Cal. Carew MSS, 2, no. 414.

  18. Tait, ‘Broken heads and trampled hats’.

  19. The deputy initially threatened to ‘discharge the cannon upon them as they stood upon the Castle bridge’, but changed his mind: NAUK, S.P. 63/152/45, S.P. 63/152/49. The names of Norreys’ men in April 1589 are listed at NAUK, S.P. 63/143/34; Cal. Carew MSS, 3, nos. 76, 78, 79, 80, 85.

  20. A foot cloth was ‘a large richly ornamented cloth laid over the back of a horse and hanging down to the ground on each side. It was considered a mark of dignity and state’ (OED).

  21. C. L. Falkiner (ed.), Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Marquess of Ormonde, new series (London, 1902), vol. 1, pp. 17–18; D. Edwards, ‘The poisoned chalice: the Ormond inheritance, sectarian division and the emergence of James Butler, 1614–1642’, in T. Barnard and J. Fenlon, The Dukes of Ormonde, 1610–1675 (Dublin, 2000), pp. 55–82; D. Edwards, The Ormond Lordship in County Kilkenny, 1515–1642: the rise and fall of Butler feudal power (Dublin 2003), especially pp. 287–8.

  22. Descant can mean a discourse, or to criticise or carp at someone (OED).

  23. Cal. S.P. Ire., 1588–1592, pp. 178–9; on Bingham, see R. Rapple, ‘Taking up office in Elizabethan Connacht: the case of Sir Richard Bingham’, English Historical Review 123 (2008), pp. 277–99.

  24. NAUK, S.P. 63/257/45.

  25. Cal. S.P. Ire., 1611–1613, pp. 344, 350, 360–64; Desiderata Curiosa Hibernica, or a select collection of state papers (Dublin, 1772) prints many of the papers relating to the elections, and also those recounting disturbances surrounding the election of a speaker and over precedence at the start of the Parliament; for the ‘British’ context of riots at elections, see L. Bowen, The Politics of the Principality: Wales, c.1603–1642 (Cardiff, 2006); in Wales prominent gentlemen would muster armed retinues to secure the result they desired.