Members of the Peace Camp which disbanded at Shannon Airport yesterday have vowed to travel to Baghdad to "bear witness" to the war on Iraq.
Protesters at the camp said they believed recent acts of vandalism on a US aircraft using Shannon meant their camp had become "a media circus and has detracted attention from the real issue, which is the US military's use of Shannon".
News that the protesters are to leave came on the eve of the Army being drafted in to patrol the perimeter fence at the airport. That move follows two embarrassing breaches of security in the last week during which a US navy cargo plane was badly damaged.
Aer Rianta was also expected today to continue to seek an injunction in the High Court restricting those at the Shannon peace camp from trespassing on airport property. Yesterday morning some of the protesters said they would resist any attempts to be moved on.
They said the land on which the camp lay, just outside the airport's entrance, is not Aer Rianta's property. But just hours later the decision was taken to disband.
However, some members of the small group yesterday said they would continue "in other ways" to protest at the US military's use of Shannon Airport as a stopover facility for troops and supplies to be used in the war on Iraq.
Despite the widespread media interest in the camp it was a lot smaller that many of the public realised.
In the last week The Irish Times visited the camp on three occasions. On the first occasion there were just two protesters and on the second the camp was empty, but numbers had swelled to around eight by evening.
Yesterday, as news broke that the protesters had decided to leave, and as an Army helicopter and gardaí looked on, there were seven protesters present, three of whom were children.
One of the youngest members of the group is 13-year-old Julie Kelly. She is the daughter of Ms Mary Kelly, who was jailed last week in connection with a hatchet attack on the US navy cargo plane.
Yesterday Julie said she would prefer to stay and protest. "We are not leaving here because we want to, not on my side anyway with Mum having been arrested and everything," she said.
"I feel quite upset and disappointed that we have to move after all the work that has been done.
"I think we are moving from here independently of the Army coming; maybe they are here because of us, maybe they aren't, I don't know. It is difficult to know what to do now".
Another protester, 23-year-old Ms Tracy Ryan, from Tipperary, who has been resident at the camp for over a month, said she intends to travel to Palestine "because they are going to suffer if war breaks out".
She added at least two other members of the group, Mr Ed Horgan and Ms Caoimhe Butterly, intend travelling to Baghdad to "bear witness" and that others would go to various parts of the Middle East.
"We moved in here to raise public awareness, to monitor the planes and make it a focus. When we moved, in nobody believed these planes were landing - now nobody questions it.
"I'm not that disappointed it's over, it was hard to live here and I feel we've made our point". Many protesters did not support recent acts of vandalism and those acts had detracted from the issue of refuelling by military craft at Shannon, she said.
It is understood the camp, which numbers two caravans and six tents, would be dismantled today and removed from the scene.
However, because one of the caravans donated came from Roscommon it will not be possible to disband quickly, one protester said.
Timber pallets covered with mesh wire had also been laid as makeshift walkways connecting the dwellings at the site and these would also take time to move.
