TWO weeks ago, on the morning of its official opening, the family-run Barron’s Spar at Blackwater, Ardnacrusha, was burgled and robbed. Today, its Circle K fuel forecourt ran out of diesel as a consequence of the fuel protest blockades.
It’s been a baptism of fire for manager Alannah Barron, who said today she did not know when her diesel pumps will run again.
“For the last two days, we have seen an awful lot of people panic buy, people are stocking up with jerry cans and everything,” Ms Barron said.
“Unfortunately we are now out of diesel, and I have no idea when our next delivery is going to be.”
Motorists queued up to fill up their tanks throughout the day, but were only able to do so if they had petrol vehicles. Diesel owners were met with signs strapped to the pumps reading: “Out of fuel. Sorry for the inconvenience.”
“Our customers are like myself, we just don’t know (when it will end), hopefully we will get some answers soon, but I suppose nobody knows,” said Ms Barron.
Across the border into Limerick, filling stations reportedly placed a cap on how much fuel motorists could purchase.
Long queues of vehicles outside filling stations were reported across the Mid West.
Three residents of Bloodmill Road, Limerick, decided to show solidarity with protestors by purchasing and preparing food for them.
One of the residents involved, Ciara Doheny, sacrificed fuel in her own car to ferry the food and refreshments to the truckers, farmers, and agricultural contractors who set up camp on the M20 motorway.
Ms Doheny and her daughter Ellie (12) were joined by neighbour Gerry Donovan to prepare and ferry the food to the protestors.
“We went to Dunnes Stores this morning and we bought bread, ham, cheese, crisps, soft drinks, doughnuts, cookies, biscuits,” Mr Donovan said.
The trio also made sandwiches from five sliced pans and presented the platter to the protestors anchored outside Ballysimon.
“We did it as a show of solidarity with the protestors, because we heard on the media that when they were leaving the motorway to get food, they were not being left back in again,” Mr Donovan added.
“So we decided to chance it and see would we be left onto the motorway with food for them and we were.
“The Gardaí were very nice and left us on, and we drove the food on ourselves. We spoke to the drivers and they were very appreciative of the food and refreshments.
“It was a load of food, fit for an army, we used five loaves of bread – t’was like the five loaves and the fishes in the Bible – so we spread the love,” added Donovan, who is a sacristan at his local church.
“It is a biblical event and everyone is human, no matter what, so we brought them food.”
Donovan said the protests had “divided” opinion, but that, in his opinion, if the protestors didn’t take to the roads, they would not be able to afford to continue producing and delivering food to supermarkets.
“Look, if they didn’t do it, the bread won’t be delivered, the milk won’t be delivered, and it meant a lot to them when we got out of the car with boxes of food for them.”
Buoyed on by the success of ther food drop, Donovan pledged: “We’ll do it again.”