thanks to Bertie
By - Valerie Hanley and Nicola Boyes.
Lisa Feeney emerges from Tara tunnel after deal with
NRA - plea from Taoiseach
The Tara dig-in by protester Lisa "Squeak" Feeney ended last night after she stuck[sic] a deal with the NRA. Miss Feeney agreed to come out of the hole she had dug on the M3 route when the road agency agreed to halt work for another month, friends said.
By that time, the protesters believe, they will have appealed a recent High Court decision to let construction go ahead.
Miss Feeney, 26, came out of the hole - which she had "booby-trapped" to collapse in the event that workers tried to dig her out - shortly after 8.30pm. She gave her father a hug, walked over to the protesters' camp 20 yards away, explained the NRA deal and then drove home to Kerry.
On the way, she dropped off a contract at a local Garda station which, she says, guarantees the deal that was struck.
"She should stop - she's made her point"
"We wanted to look like adults, not children", said her ex-boyfriend Paddy O'Kearney. "I am delighted she is out and I am totally releived".
The drama came shortly after Taoiseach Bertie Ahern confirmed that he had known the Feeney family for years and appealed to Lisa - whom he said he had met - to give up.
The Taoiseach said: "She should stop that. She's made her point. Now stop it and forget it. She's made her point. She should mind her health".
Lisa's father - a respected businessman - spent part of yesterday trying to talk her out of the tunnel.
She had originally said that she would inhabit for two months unless work on the M3 near the Hill of Tara was halted.
Mr. Feeney was, until a few years ago, manager of the famous Kerry hotel Parknasilla, where Mr. Ahern has holidayed for more than a decade.
And Tim O'Sullivan, who thought Miss Feeney at Sneem National School, spoke of his shock at how his ex-pupil had hit the news: "When I saw her on TV, I wasn't sure if it was the girl I had taught. It surprised me".
He added: "When she was in school, she was a delight to teach. She was a very capable, very intelligent girl. She was naturally conscientious, dedicated and a hard worker".
"She didn't do anything in a half-hearted way and you can see that in her feelings about Tara".
But yesterday her ex-boyfriend Mr. O'Kearney revealed that Squeak had not been specifically chosen for the dangerous and controversial protest.
Sound engineer Mr. O'Kearney, 23, said she had simply got lucky - or unlucky: "She was on a shift of volunteers who had decided that when the workers arrived, they would get into the tunnel", he said. "And it was on her shift when the men arrived".
Miss Feeney - who got her nick-name Squeak when working with a Dublin courier firm - is determined that work at the Rath Lugh fort comes to an end.
"That could take weeks or months", the Trinity graduate said on Friday, speaking from the tunnel. "I'm as fit as I was when I first arrived down here. I'm in full health and I'm not leaving here until the preservation order is abided by".
On Friday night her father could be heard pleading with her.
He said: "I don't want to question your reasons for doing what you're doing but please come on out of there. Think of your family. Your mother is scared that you could be buried alive down there".
He even invoked the spirit of Squeak's late grandmother to try and persuade her.
Her father and one of her uncles also spent part of yesterday talking to her via a walkie talkie from the blue and green tent that has been erected at the top of her tunnel.
Miss Feeney was chained to a trap door that protesters said would collapse the tunnel onto her if anyone attempted to remove her. The seven-metre shaft was well equipped for a lengthy stay. Her living space measured two metres by three metres.
An air vent made from a plastic bottle and computer fan ensured she had enough air to breathe.
A small space was stocked with dried fruit, dried milk, canned food, plenty of chocolate, up to 20 gallons of water and even a little whiskey. Her accommodation also included a latrine and a basic wind generator that provides limited electricity to power a battery charger and a mini-DV camera on which she was to record a video diary.
The tunnel is 20 metres away from the protesters campsite, where around 30 protesters are based.
Miss Feeney studied psychology at TCD and graduated fours[sic] ago. She has not worked as a psychologist but is said to be keen to train as a music therapist. She applied to do a course in music therapy at UCC last year but was not offered a place.
"She is a very determined woman"
Mr. O'Kearney explained that the couple - who had met last summer - became interested in the Tara protest after cycling out to the site one weekend last November.
They subsequently both lived on and off at the Tara protest camp.
He said: "Before then, we had never been involved in such a high profile protest".
Both are keen cyclists and Miss Feeney has cycled her way across most of eastern Europe.
© Irish Mail on Sunday, 16th. March 2008.
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