The West Wing actor, Martin Sheen, has issued a "presidential pardon" to five Catholic Worker peace activists facing charges of criminal damage to a US military aircraft in Shannon.
Sheen, who is holidaying with family in north Tipperary, held a mock ceremony with the five in the Yanks Bar in Borrisokane last night, declaring his support "as a fellow Catholic peace activist". He also expressed his "growing alarm" at the US administration "whose legitimacy was questionable from the start".
He noted that in the year after the September 11th attacks the US moved to a "paranoid" position by declaring "a new first-strike policy, including nuclear first strikes, against any nation it perceives as a threat".
He added: "Contrary to its stated intentions in Iraq, this war has only served to further destabilise an already destabilised Middle East."
A close friend of Father Daniel Berrigan, a founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, Sheen - best known for his TV role as President Jed Bartlett - famously remarked: "Mother Teresa drove me back to Catholicism, but Daniel Berrigan keeps me there."
A former participant in direct-action peace protests in the US, he declared in the mock ceremony that "as the acting president of the United States, I hereby grant full pardon . . . to these so-called Pitstop Ploughshares activists".
The five - Ms Karen Fallon, Mr Ciaran O'Reilly, Mr Damien Moran, Ms Nuin Dunlop and Ms Deirdre Clancy - are to appear before Kilrush Circuit Court for a pre-trial hearing on June 24th.
Sheen visited the villages of Terryglass and Kilbarron to commemorate the 100th birthday of his late mother, Mary Ann "Babe" Phelan, with a special family Mass on Thursday evening.