‘People are at breaking point’: on the road with the Irish fuel protesters
A fuel protester stood on top of a tractor waving a tricolor. In Ireland, everything is about nationhood and the price of oil is being contested here like a new war of independence. I got into the middle of a scrum of farmers and haulers blockading Whitegate oil refinery, a kamikaze sort of protest, for it has been stopping tankers getting in and out to supply the country, severely limiting supplies. Here on the windswept coast of Cork, traditionally dubbed the rebel county, working men have been sending out the message that they have nothing left to lose. The oil crisis sent this lot over the edge arguably because they
