Shannon Airport and ICE deportation flights raise fresh questions over Irish neutrality

ICE deportation stopovers at Shannon Airport reignite debate about neutrality, accountability and Ireland’s complicity in US removals

A US Hercules Transporter parked at the side of the Shannon Airport in 2003. File photo: AP/John Cogill

There is an image at the centre of the latest story regarding US state use of Shannon Airport that is difficult to shake.

Palestinian men, taken from their families in the United States, bound in shackles, sitting aboard an aircraft on Irish soil — before being abandoned at a checkpoint in the occupied West Bank with no support, no legal process, and no dignity. Even if they never stepped off the plane, even if the stop was “technical”, Ireland was part of the chain.