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Ireland Out of Gas – HotAir

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April 9, 2026
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Things have been dicey for a while on the Emerald Isle.

But great googly moogly, do they look just awful right now.

Mass protests have broken out across the country over the cost of living and the exorbitant price of fuel, with a paralyzed, intransigent government seen as unsympathetic and unwilling to do anything to relieve the suffering of the Irish working class. Fuel taxes, nut zero climate policies, and now the price shock of the Strait of Hormuz closure.





For three straight days, convoys of farmers, their tractors, truck drivers, and many other angry citizens have been queuing on highways and city streets, effectively blocking traffic, although they have attempted to leave a lane free for emergency vehicles and the like.

It’s not always successful, and the results have been gridlock across the country.

Protesters calling for further government help to lower the cost of fuel clogged up busy thoroughfares ‌and motorways with parked lorries and tractors across Ireland on Wednesday, disrupting commuters and public transport for a second successive day.

Convoys of vehicles began converging on Dublin’s city centre and other towns and cities on Tuesday, with protesters, including hauliers and farmers, complaining that a 250 million euro package to temporarily cut taxes on petrol and diesel did not go far enough to cushion the ⁠knock-on cost of the Middle East conflict.

“With the price we’re paying for fuel, I’m probably two months away from my business folding,” said Christopher Duffy, 46, an agricultural contractor who was part of a group blocking Dublin’s main thoroughfare of O’Connell Street that is calling for the price of diesel to be capped at a lower rate.

“It’s not a lot to ask for really… We’re just backed into a corner.”

The general feeling of abuse they are all suffering has only been further increased by the fact that the representatives of the government have refused to meet with any of them. They’re not the groups the government chooses to engage with, you see.

…Ministers said they would not agree to the protesters’ demands to meet with them as they did not belong to representative groups with whom the government has been engaging on supports. Organisers pledged a ‌third ⁠day of disruption on Thursday.





It reminds me of the farmers’ protests of a few years ago in the Netherlands and France.

Travelers stuck in traffic have resorted to leaving their vehicles and walking to the airport in an attempt to catch their flights.

While others search for fuel and form their own lines.

By this morning, the government had had enough and called in the armed forces to begin removing protestors and vehicles.

Those who watched what the Canadian government did to the Freedom Truckers were struck by how similar the language used to justify the call-up of the army was.





It turns out, the top Irish cop is a Canadian import from Toronto.

And there are now armored vehicles moving on Irish streets.

The native Irish aren’t backing down, though, and are planning more protests. In addition to roadways, organized groups have also taken to blocking ports and fuel depots.

Ireland has called in the army to deal with farmers and truckers who have blocked major roads in protest at sky-high fuel prices.

Helen McEntee, the defence minister, said the use of soldiers to support the police was “not the norm”, but claimed that escalating disruption had now “crossed into criminal behaviour”.

The army will deploy four heavy-lift recovery trucks to help the police remove vehicles involved in blockades, which have been in place for three days.

Jim O’Callaghan, the justice minister, said the owners of those vehicles “should not complain later about any damage caused during removal”.

It comes after Ireland was hit with the same punishing squeeze on diesel and petrol as Britain and mainland Europe after the war in Iran, with motorists paying up to €2.20 (£1.91) a litre for diesel and as much as €2 for petrol.

Unlike elsewhere, though, the fuel crisis has boiled over into widespread unrest. Protest organisers have used Facebook and TikTok to rally farmers and hauliers on to the streets, in a campaign for more government action.





THE GOVERNMENT IS MORE OR LESS ACCUSING US OF HOLDIN’ THE COUNTRY TA RANSOM – IT’S THE GOVERNMENT HOLDIN’ THA COUNTRY TA RANSOM

Deploying the army may well prove to be a catastrophic miscalculation for a government unwilling to talk.

Bus drivers have walked off the job in solidarity, further complicating the gridlock.

THERE’S GROUPS IN EVERY CORNER OF THE COUNTRY I’VE NEVER HEARD OF

Well-known names are passing information.





The protests are still peaceful, but both the number of protests and the number of attendees are growing. The government is still refusing to discuss the issues with any of the groups involved.

Fuel protests: Minister says Government not meeting protesters; Cork forecourts ‘badly hit’

  • Some 100 forecourts were dry on Thursday evening, said Fuels for Ireland. Cork was “particularly badly hit”, with panic buying in the city worsening shortages.
  • Jim O’Callaghan warns protesters are being manipulated and could face penalties – read more 
  • Gardaí say blocking fuel depots is illegal and enforcement is imminent – read more 
  • A fuel protester confronted Taoiseach Micheál Martin in west Cork – read more 
  • Micheál Martin accused of avoiding protesters in Macroom – read more

And the Irish Taoiseach (their prime minister) was excoriated for scuttling through a back door to avoid mingling with fuel protesters out front.

Taoiseach ‘shows zero’ respect’ after using back entrance to avoid fuel protesters in Macroom 

Taoiseach Micheál Martin has been accused of showing “zero” respect for protesters after he entered an industrial estate in Macroom through a back entrance to avoid them.

They claimed they’re are people who are putting food on the table and the reason why they are protesting against rising fuel costs is so families won’t have to pay €5 for a loaf of bread.

More than 20 men gathered this morning outside the entrance to the IDA industrial estate in Macroom, where Micheál Martin was attending the opening of an €8m plant extension by Cygnum, a firm specialising in the manufacture of timber frame structures.

Gearóid Crowley, who described himself as “an extremely small contractor, a one-man operation” from Bantry, said the fact that Mr Martin had entered the estate by a rear gate, avoiding the protest, was a mark of the respect he had for the protesters, “which is zero”.





Someone had best start talking across the road soon, as the situation is already extraordinarily volatile, and there may have been a bit of a breakthrough in the offing.

A ‘large government meeting’ is scheduled for tomorrow with protest organizers. In response, the groups have pulled back from some of their blockade efforts.

One of the fuel protest organisers, James Geoghegan, has told RTÉ’s Prime Time that protest negotiators will join a large meeting at Government Buildings tomorrow at 2pm or 2.30pm after receiving a phone call this evening.

Geoghegan called it a “breakthrough.”

He said other groups such as the IRHA and the IFA will also be in attendance along with Ministers. He described it as a “quite large group meeting.”

He also they had “pulled in the protests off O’Connell Bridge and released kerosene oil from the refineries” this evening.

“The word has gone down to lift the blockades off kerosene.”

Despite this, he said there will still be disruptions tomorrow morning because “we have a list of demands going into the Government tomorrow…very reasonable demands,” he said.

It looks as if Friday is going to be lit.

Hopefully not in the flaming sense.

Things are explosive enough as it stands right now.


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