Easy And Slow [Updated]

at






4km per hour.

No one’s getting fed tonight.

EARLIER:


This evening.

Farmers leave Dublin city to begin a slow tractor protest down the M50.

It’s their country.

We’re just kipping in the barn.

Earlier: Be Grand

Farmers plan slow tractor protest on M50 (RTÉ)

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56 thoughts on “Easy And Slow [Updated]

      1. millie vanilly strikes again

        Yes, bravo to all the farmers who attacked the everyday worker on their way home from work.

        Good to know you count yourself among the shower of fools left supporting them.

          1. millie vanilly strikes again

            No, sweetie. I’m not self important. I am very important. Get it right or don’t bother.

  1. Ff

    90% of beef is exported so why are irish supermarkets to blame? These goons have lost public support, all they ever do is whinge and moan about grant aid.

    The majority of farmers are part time
    Almost a third have a pension to supplement their farm income
    Average farm income after business costs is 31,400

    Farmers are not poor, just greedy

  2. broadbag

    They are subsidised up the ying-yang so if they can’t make a business out of it while drowning in free cash they should fupp off.

    1. Stan

      I’ve lived without beef for 35 years. I don’t think I or anyone else would starve without beef farmers.

      1. broadbag

        Most people don’t get massively subsidised incomes and yet protest by inconveniencing everyone, if you want to play the ‘most people’ game.

      2. millie vanilly strikes again

        You’re doing a fine job of showing the kind of ‘wisdom’ we’re currently seeing from the farmers.

  3. kellma

    sitting in this right now. The quays is a carpark.. these people need to get with the basic economic laws of supply and demand and retrain. Coal miners want to keep mining coal etc….

    1. Zaccone

      +1. Its not even just the basic laws of supply and demand (though which is a reasonable argument by itself – why don’t other industries get to lobby the government for price increases to help them out?), its the environmental factor. Beef farming is going to have to shrink massively in the next few years either way, even if its not economic factors that drive this shrinkage.

    2. ZeligIsJaded

      Car Park?

      As in a park made of cars?

      There’s a cure for that. Don’t take your car into the city.

      If there’s one cohort who deserve to be inconvenienced, it’s motorists.

      May the delays become more frequent and longer in duration.

      Turn up your radios, beep your horns and relax.

      No one gives a flip!

  4. Slightly Bemused

    I learned to drive on a tractor. An old Ferguson T20 – fantastic machine! Nearly killed myself figuring out the accelerator and the brakes, but that thing could literally turn in its own circle!

    Admittedly changing the clutch and the brakes on it was not for the weak hearted!

    1. Paulus

      Ah c’mon…the accelerator was up behind the steering wheel: Difficult to mix up with brakes. I used to stand up to depress clutch…at 12 years of age.

    2. GiggidyGoo

      I used to buy magazines about such tractors – on order monthly from my local newsagent. It kinda was a bit repetitive so i gave up, and switched to magazines about air conditioning. My newsagent asked me why, and I told him I was now an Extractor fan.

      1. Paulus

        Farmer calls to his neighbour; finds him in the shed in front of farm machinery, radio playing, slowly taking off his clothes:
        “Jeez Paddy what are ye at?” says he.
        Neighbour says;
        “I told the doctor that the wife had lost interest in lovemaking, so he suggested I do something sexy to attract her”

  5. Kolmo

    Historically voting en-masse for a party that ideologically opposes state intervention or even regulation in the markets and then protesting the lack of socialistic state protections of family business incomes..

  6. dhod

    I’m a retailer and when something stops selling or getting the price it once got I drop it. it’s very simple and effective

  7. GiggidyGoo

    Looks like the farmers got a bit of training from the french farmers in how to pressurize the government.

    1. Rosette of Sirius

      Curious all the same. All those fancy tractors and not a pot to piddle in. Rentals?

      Actually. Wife’s childhood best friend’s hubby is a beef farmer.

      Sent a contractor up to the big smoke today. Apparently many others did the same.

  8. Someone at Google Viewed Your Profile

    CAP = Climate Action Plan and Common Agricultural Policy. Well done FF and FG for pandering to the boghopper bourgies down the carvery.

  9. BS

    Scumbags. Tempted to park in front of a farm for the weekend. See how they like their livelihood being affected.

    One good thing has come of this. It’s made giving up eat beef a lot easier.

  10. Truth in the News

    This type of demonstration is totally wrong at this stage when there is a General
    Election called, use the Ballot Box not the tractor, all this does is erode the support
    they have in urban Ireland,, traffic congestion is bad enough around Dublin
    why lose that support base, put up candidates in selected constituency’s and
    knock out the two parties that have sold them out and done nothing about monopolies
    in the meat and dairying processing sectors,

    1. Lobster

      I don’t think that farmers really have a support base in Dublin though, seems lots of urban based people don’t understand why farmers are needed at all, though food production is obviously important. I know beef gets a bad rep at the moment, but I don’t think the comments here about retraining intend tillage as the goal.
      If there is no perceived support, there is nothing to lose.

  11. Frank O

    the farmers are also protesting the carbon tax which seems to be being buried in the usual divide and conquer from our media.
    shameful stuff. don’t fall for it.

  12. Daisy Chainsaw

    Disgraceful the way the gardai stopped cars getting on to the M50 in case they’d break up the tractor circle jerk.

  13. Steph Pinker

    Having read the comments over the past couple of days, I’m not surprised at the ignorance and negativity of most BS commenters towards people who live in rural Ireland, some of whom are farmers.

    What I don’t understand is, why?

    1. millie vanilly strikes again

      Really? The farmers had public support. They’re doing a fine job of squandering what goodwill people have for their cause. Today’s antics being a fine example.

      1. Steph Pinker

        Milly, there is no aspect of life anywhere in the world which doesn’t rely on agriculture/ farming/ animal husbandry.

        The photos of the protests you’re viewing in Ireland are a blip on the radar of what will potentially become the last of a dying industry in this tiny country of ours; we provide the tastiest and healthiest beef, lamb, pork, free-range poultry in Europe, and due to EU regulations, probably the best in the world. As an aside, we are reputable in many other areas; some of which include the best malt whiskeys in the world, not to mention we train and rear the best hunt and flat-racing horses in the world. You’ve no idea of how Irish agriculture and farming infiltrates and influences other cultures and industries which provides us with such a fortunate life in this country, is it wrong for farmers to ask for a decent price for livestock they’ve paid to rear and feed for years before they can actually sell them?

        I have a studious job during the day, family and animals to attend to in the yard and farm when I get home, I’ve unwanted dogs which I look after, after other people have *given* them to me.

        I have no idea, and I don’t care what you or other BSheeters’ think about farmers or rural people, but please do not display your blatant ignorance at the risk of insulting many people who don’t happen to live within the Pale; but, as Oscar Wilde said, ‘Ignorance is bliss.’

        1. millie vanilly strikes again

          My husband’s family are farmers who hail from Dublin, West Meath and Monaghan respectively and over Christmas I can assure you I had this discussion with a number of his uncles and cousins. The challenges faced by our beef farmers are indeed those faced by all farmers, and there is (or rather was?) a lot of support for them but I can guarantee that attacking the ordinary worker, a huge proportion of those who live and commute to Dublin, is no way of inspiring support for the cause.

          That’s my point. All this talk about people power means sfa if farmers are determined to alienate part of the population who may offer support without having any direct interest.

          1. Caroline. No.

            Who should decide what’s an effective or fair protest then ? Yes I’m really looking forward to hearing them opinions
            Silly billy!

        2. Spaghetti Hoop

          This isn’t an urban vs rural argument, Steph – and it certainly doesn’t involve stray dogs. It’s the manner in which these independent farmers protested and subsequently eroded any public support that existed for their agri-economic concerns.

          1. Listrade

            I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the farmers don’t give a tortoise head about public support in Dublin.

            The protest got prime time coverage. The people who support them and who agree with them in rural areas weren’t impacted and probably took some small delight in seeing the disruption caused to the “dubs”.

            They ain’t trying to turn the opinion of us townies, they’re mobilising so that the rural TDs see the support and hear the support when they go home.

            I’m ok with it. I don’t buy the spin about farmers, they have been bled dry by the major buyers. The whole agri-food sector is €14bn. It’s 10% of our exports and it’s 9% of our jobs. We’re letting a small few exploit those at the bottom to get an even bigger piece of that pie.

            There’s nothing on the telly anyway on a Thursday, so being late isn’t gonna kill me to let people have a voice.

          2. Spaghetti Hoop

            Well you’ve highlighted perhaps the pettiness of the farmers if they were ‘delighted’ in protesting outside a (now empty) Dail and disrupting businesses and commuters. There has always been a level of tolerance amongst the public and business community for Kildare Street protests, even despite the inconvenience – the right to protest and all that. This shower weren’t even mobilised under a unified banner, they were not supported by the IFA (legitimate rep body) and they had no tactical points of discussion to back up their protest. Without public support, who will listen to them? There will be some bye-law resurrected or created to prevent this from happening again I hope.

          3. Caroline. No.

            The more they annoy the like of you, the more I support them. I hope they bring the entire country to a standstill

    2. Caroline. No.

      Either way you are spot on Steph –
      Issues like this reveal the profound ignorance at the heart of them

    1. Cian

      huh? dunno what you mean.
      As I’ve said before – I’m not a member, or ever been a member, of any political party. I have no links to any party. I know I’m seen as a “FG apologist”, but it’s funny that any posts that are anti-FG and/or positive to other parties seem to be ignored ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ .

      1. V

        That bad huh ╯︿╰

        Some week in Pollyticks, this day last week I was saying FG would gain a handfull
        They’ll be lucky if all their Ministers get returned at this rate

  14. JR

    Would’ve thought the Gardai’s job was to prevent the tractors from getting on the M50

    But no they were let on

    What is the point of them?

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