Britain’s Royal Air Force has been compelled to bring the Red Arrow war show a half an hour forward to avoid the 99 Red Balloon Peace Event in Galway tomorrow. Both the war show and the peace protest by the Galway Alliance Against War were due to begin at noon. Now the RAF killers, all of whom have been involved in military combat, will take to the air at 11.30am.
Britain’s Royal Air Force has been compelled to bring the Red Arrow war show a half an hour forward to avoid the 99 Red Balloon Peace Event in Galway tomorrow. Both the war show and the peace protest by the Galway Alliance Against War were due to begin at noon. Now the RAF killers, all of whom have been involved in military combat, will take to the air at 11.30am.
One of the main reasons why the Salthill War Show had to be cancelled was insurance costs. In 2007 an RAF helicopter door fell off and injured two spectators. It is presumed the war show’s insurance premium soared, although the organisers blamed GAAW for the cancellation of the obscene event. The peace group gladly took a bow. One of the reasons given by an organiser was that GAAW had got “Niamh Comiskey to oppose the show” – he meant Noam Chomsky!
When Let’s Do It Galway, the organisers of the race events, applied for an events licence they were quizzed about the Red Arrows invite by Councillor Colette Connolly. The council meeting was told that an anonymous grouping called Fáilte Salthill had invited the RAF killers not the stopover company. This now appears to be untrue. According to information Cllr Catherine Connolly received yesterday from Galway Corporation the Red Arrows appears on the management plan linked to the stopover events licence, which was deliberately not shown to the city council.
This is not surprising. The gombeens of Salthill who clamour for the return of the war show would never dig into their deep, deep pockets to pay for anything. So it will be the Irish public that will be paying the huge insurance premium. How much it is we still do not know.
There is little doubt, however, that the gombeens are aching to see a return of their “moneyspinner”. GAAW will have a battle on its hands to prevent this criminal event from polluting Galway’s skies in the future.
Since GAAW has announced its 99 Red Balloon peace event it has received an email stating that 6 snipers with threatening to shoot the balloons before
At tomorrow’s peace event there will be poets, including Fred Johnston, traditional musicians Mary Staunton and friends as well as the US singer David Rovics. And then there are the balloons. Approaches have been made to the GAAW committee about the dangers to wildlife from the balloons and this will certainly be taken into consideration tomorrow.
The RAF in its statement claims it respects the right to protest – we can be sure the Iraqi and Afghani people wouldn’t agree.
