Surprise element brings an end to battle of the Glen

In the end it was almost a quiet affair. The day for which the anti-roads protesters camped at the Glen of the Downs in Co Wicklow had prepared for over almost three years, enduring cold, mud, rain and even "sea-sickness" when their houses twisted and swayed in winter storms, arrived finally on Thursday.

But the protesters had miscalculated. They believed Wicklow County Council would delay felling until after Monday when the protesters were due back in the High Court to face contempt proceedings over their refusal to leave the glen.

By 11 a.m. on Thursday morning it had become apparent that the council was in the glen for the final conflict. The handful of protesters present could only watch in disbelief as the men wielding chainsaws laughed and joked with each other as they set about their business.

There simply weren't enough protesters to stand, as they did during previous felling attempts, in front of trees - darting from tree to tree - each marking a chainsaw, or climbing the bigger oaks.

On Thursday the tree-fellers had virtually a free hand as they started on the sensitive western section of the glen. The protesters climbed what trees they could but their numbers were occupied at the northern end of the glen. They didn't want to break the injunction and go to prison, they said, but they insisted the council workers were going beyond the lines of the proposed widening scheme.

In effect, the protesters did manage to save some trees - about 10 - but as the standoff at these trees continued all morning, the buzz of chain-saws could be heard elsewhere.

One woman who identified herself only as "Simon's mother" (Simon being one of the protesters in the glen), explained that she had had a bad feeling from early morning.

"My son left school at 17 to come here and live in the camp - he has been here ever since," she said, explaining that she had telephoned the gardai early in the morning, saying she was driving up from Wexford to the airport and asking if there would be any delays in the Glen of the Downs. When she was told to select an alternative route, she headed for the camp as fast as she could.

"I was worried about Simon. I told him when this started that the others might end up in Mountjoy but he would end up in St Patrick's Institution. I told him there were other people who would look after this protest.

"But he talked about how there is wrong in nobody doing anything and how that attitude allowed Hitler to rise.

"He wrote me a lovely long letter and said he wasn't pulling out of school and everything but putting it on hold.

"I was worried when he came here but I got to know the people and the cause and now I admire him."

In the event, Simon's mother did not have to worry about arrests. Supt Philip Moynihan, who was in charge of the Garda operations in the glen, explained: "We couldn't arrest them, that's a matter before the High Court, but we could restrain them for their own safety."

The action had been planned "long ago" but was scuppered when an article announcing it appeared on the front page of The Irish Times, the superintendent added, with a speculative gaze at this reporter.

At the main camp near the car-park two woman stood reckoning up the numbers. "Diarmuid is in his tree, I don't know where Phoenix is, this is terrible" said one, before disappearing off into the trees.

While felling continued at either end of the glen, the protesters' second camp on the western side remained untouched. It is here that the protesters had cordoned off areas warning people not to walk as tunnels had been dug. It was also here that the media expected to see some of the most telling scenes of protesters being carried from the trees.

But it was not to be. As council official Mr Brian Grennan commented, those tree houses were all in the wrong places. "They have been saving a tree for three years that's in no danger."

"But I won't tell them if you won't", he chuckled, moving on through the glen.

IT is all a long way from the heady days of the summer of 1998 when about 150 protesters were joined in the glen by druids for the celebration of the summer solstice.

It had seemed to the protesters then that this was the Carnsore Point of their generation. For others, the cause had been to protect Georgian Dublin from the property speculators. To the young people "bonding on the barricades" in the woodland setting throughout the last three summers, the Glen of the Downs campaign symbolised a clash between the Celtic Tiger economy and Ireland's environmental heritage.

According to Gavin Harte, an environmentalist involved with creating the State's first eco-village, the campaign was every bit "their Carnsore, their Georgian Dublin". Mr Harte, who has been involved with the glen campaign since the beginning, says the sense of shock is still the overpowering feeling this weekend.

"You have to realise there is a human cost here, too. People have shared their lives for the last three years, they live there, they have lost their homes as well as the trees. Friendships have been formed, people have been enormously affected and their lives will never be the same because of it".

However, he is convinced the "longest environmental campaign in the State's history" is not without its victories. "Now is the time to look back and see what has been achieved and it has undoubtedly been shown that there are still people here who are prepared to look at the bigger picture, to highlight the conflict between the Celtic Tiger and the natural heritage.

"If there had to be a place where that conflict between the needs of the economy came to a head with the environment, then the Glen of the Downs was that place. It was a key economic corridor meets major nature reserve.

"It has been an education for all of us", he insists, including in his comments the protesters, the council and even those who just observed.