"If I had one hundred men who loved this country like I do then we could chase the Yankees into the sea," said Nicaraguan patriot Augusto Sandino battling a US Marine invasion in the 1920s; "There are one hundred men and more who love this country like you do," said a friend, "they just don't know each other yet."
Sandino by Gregorio Selser
Rob Hopkins was active in the British roads protests in the early 1990s, fighting to preserve scenic routes earmarked for conversion into super-highways. "When the State wheels out its heavy machinery it's a terrifying thing," he says, recalling how the British government introduced new laws, tapped phones and criminalised the protest, forcing activists to abandon their efforts or face jail.
Hopkins now lives in the peaceful surroundings of a 56-acre farm in Enniskean, west Cork, which he purchased with others who wanted to establish an eco-village. Although planning permission for the village was denied, the farm is now a centre for alternative farming, housing, economics and community development. "In Seattle and Prague, you have one glorious day when the cops are on the run. Then next time, they've doubled the numbers and sealed off borders," says Hopkins, who prefers "solution-driven activism" to street protest.
He praises the tenacity of his fellow protesters, "some of the bravest people I've ever met", but wonders how the anarchists are planning to survive when they smash global capitalism.
"They couldn't cook, sew or build a home," he says, "What happens when the dole cheque dries up?"
Hopkins isn't alone in pondering the big issues. Even as the Celtic Tiger has roared, there have been growing pockets of resistance to the economic model all over the country. Protesters went to jail in Cork city this year for rejecting bin charges while environmentalists face prosecution in Wexford for ripping up GM crops and anti-racist groups face similar sanctions for occupying the Taoiseach's constituency office last year.
Tomorrow, hundreds of people will converge on the Old Head of Kinsale to hold a picnic on a corporate golf course which has banned public access to a historic walking route.
One of the findings of the Government survey on attitudes to and awareness of the National Development Plan, released this week, was that 22 per cent of people have protested on a local issue - and this rises to 32 per cent among 50 to 64 year olds. Eighteen per cent of people have protested or signed a petition on a national issue and in the AB social group this figure rises to 28 per cent. The survey thus disproves the stereotype of protesters as young, dreadlocked freewheelers.
The emerging alternative movement has spread its tentacles throughout Ireland, including activism on health issues, the environment, education, farming, food security, racism, child care, wages and militarisation. The general disaffection has also found expression in a renewed longing for freedom and peace beyond material benefits, a spiritual hunger which has inspired greater exploration beyond traditional religion.
The search for Irish radicals took me from Derry to Dingle, Cork to Clare, Dublin to Roscommon. The drive to keep incinerators out of Ireland has mobilised thousands of people in dozens of communities, while the recent Supreme Court ruling on Jamie Sinnott, a disabled adult denied education rights, stirred the entire population in disgust.
Irish people are wondering how can it be that in a time of unprecedented prosperity, the country cannot provide for its most vulnerable citizens and has not been able to deal with the crisis in medical care.
Rob Hopkins swapped the permanent revolution for permaculture, "a practical tool kit for sustainable living", settling six years ago in west Cork with his wife Emma and children Rowan, Finn and Arlo.
The fruits of their labour were put on show at the Mallow Garden Festival in May when 20,000 people marvelled at a straw-bale house built by 15 volunteers for well under £10,000. The materials were all local, including timber, stone and earth, while insulation came from sheep's wool, making a "breatheable" construction perfect for the Irish climate.
"It touched a chord with old people," says Hopkins. "They lived in homes like that 70 or 80 years ago." Back on the farm, his family grow a remarkable array of vegetables, which provides all their food between April and December.
"Permaculture is much more powerful when it's organised where the people are," says Hopkins. "That's why the most exciting developments are in crowded urban areas."
Naomi Klein, author of the counter- globalisation classic No Logo, has described activists like Hopkins as "engaged dropouts", withdrawing from the rat race but engaging in practical resistance to the dominant economic model.
The lessons of self-reliance have fuelled rebels worldwide, notably the Zapatistas in south-east Mexico, whose guerrilla fighters feed themselves from small plots close to their training camps. In Cuba, one third of the nation's vegetables are produced in the garden plots of Havana.
When the Hopkins family arrived in west Cork six years ago, they called a public meeting and outlined their vision of healthy food and alternative building. "What's wrong with my farm and my home?" asked one indignant local, sensing an implicit accusation against his lifestyle.
"Ireland has a history of terrible poverty and hardship and is now enjoying an artificial sense of wealth," says Hopkins. "How do you get across the notion that putting the brakes on growth is the next step forward?"
The need to develop appropriate language and tactics to recruit traditional farmers to an alternative economic project is not solely the concern of "blow-ins" in rural Ireland, but finds echoes in urban areas, where a resurgence of activism has accompanied the economic boom.
In the past two years, there has been a shift in consciousness as more people question the wisdom of uncontrolled growth, which has pushed Irish workers into a stressful lifestyle without the guarantee of enjoying a home to call their own.
The recent OECD report confirmed that the gap between rich and poor has grown dramatically in recent years. Two Irelands exist; the enormous business profits and the recent wage hike politicians awarded themselves contrast with the hardship faced by more than half a million people who live in poverty or others who face spiralling rents, impossible mortgages and runaway child-care costs.
The No vote in the Nice referendum was a wake-up call to the Tiger chieftains, particularly when seen in the context of general political apathy and distrust following years of corruption and tribunals.
Irish companies export millions of pounds' worth of weapons components to developing countries each year, with arms export licences up 500 per cent (from 81 to 416) in the past five years. The world's third-largest arms manufacturer, Raytheon, has established a software centre in Derry's Science and Technology Park, in the heart of the North's future Silicon Valley. Raytheon's wares include Patriot missiles and Tomahawk missiles, weapons used on the civilian population in Iraq and former Yugoslavia with devastating results.
"We cannot build our peace process on the back of a war process around the world," says Robbie McVeigh, a peace activist.
The Foyle Ethical Investment Campaign (FEIC) has organised street theatre and galvanised opposition to Raytheon. In a packed hall in Derry city last September, a local group held a mock trial in which Raytheon's presence in the city was held up to legal scrutiny.
Although company representatives were invited, only local councillors turned up to defend the arms company. The jury of ordinary citizens listened to the arguments then voted Raytheon out of the city, concluding that the arrival of the arms company would implicate the city in the "Bloody Sundays of the 21st century".
One country which knows all about Bloody Sundays is Nigeria - and it is not surprising that some of its citizens, and those of other brutal regimes, should turn up on the same shores that once dispatched priests and nuns to preach Christian values in Africa.
The reaction, however, from Government down, has been painful to witness, with asylum-seekers treated badly by the State and subjected to racism on the streets.
Residents Against Racism (RAR) is a support network for asylum-seekers that runs a 24-hour helpline to aid immigrants facing persecution in Ireland. Deirdre O'Shea and Rosanna Flynn run a shoestring operation relying on two mobile phones, anonymous tip-offs and an over-stretched legal aid network.
"The only way to help asylum-seekers is to find them before the Government sends them back," says O'Shea, a nurse in her 50s.
Last month, O'Shea had a call from a woman who saw a group of Africans being detained at Dublin Airport. The group, 12 men and one woman, had just arrived from Gambia, after fleeing internal conflict following a military coup.
The intervention of the passer-by gave the helpline volunteers time to contact a solicitor and begin procedures to allow the visitors to stay in the Republic. The Gambian group is now in Mosney, awaiting a verdict on their asylum request.
Members of RAR face legal sanctions after a peaceful occupation in March last year of the Taoiseach's constituency office, in protest at a proposal to house asylum-seekers in offshore detention centres called "flotels". The group is optimistic about shifting Irish attitudes to foreigners and runs a weekly stall in Dublin, handing out leaflets to generate awareness of immigrant issues.
If asylum-seekers want insight into their likely status in coming years they need look no further than the Travellers, Ireland's own ethnic minority. In 1963, a commission of inquiry found that 6,000 Travellers were living on the side of the road, a figure that remains unchanged today, while life expectancy is 50 - the same as it was for settled people in the 1940s.
"On the ground, nothing has changed," says Martin Collins of the Travellers' organisation, Pavee Point. "Although the language is more respectful." Talk of assimilation and "solving the itinerant problem" has been replaced by respect for culture and diversity. "We need to reclaim our identity," he says. We don't want to get sucked into partnership." Collins's first job was recycling refuse at Mullingar dump. "We've been recycling for centuries but no one noticed," he says.
In a caravan on the side of the road near Ennis recently, a group of Travellers commented on how the Government views their position in society: "If they had their way they'd put us all in a boat and send us off into the sea," says Margaret McDonogh.
To Weekend 2