The mill of photographers taking pictures of the Rossport Five outside Buswells Hotel yesterday aroused the ire of a Dublin van-driver seeking to park his vehicle.
"Yiz are worse than the Pavarozzi," he exclaimed, in an interesting amalgam of the name of opera-singer Luciano Pavarotti and the paparazzi who make their living taking pictures of celebrities.
The occasion was the launch of Our Story, a book in which the five protesters against the Corrib gas pipeline talk about their opinions and their experience of serving 94 days in jail last year for contempt of court.
One imaginative snapper got the former Cloverhill inmates to pose behind the bars of the hotel railings. "Don't smile whatever ye do," chief spokesman Micheál Ó Seighin instructed his four colleagues.
At a news conference later Mr Ó Seighin said that although none of the men would be standing for the Dáil, he was confident the pipeline would feature in the general election: "It will have to be an issue for many people."
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