‘Someone had to speak up to them’ says farmer who threw cow dung at Government TDs

Fiona Frawley

Government Minister Anne Rabbitte speaking on a podium

A Netflix documentary is the next natural move in this saga.

The farmer who flung zip lock bags of cow excrement at Minister of State for Disability Anne Rabbitte and Fine Gael TD Ciaran Cannon has defended his actions, maintaining that “someone had to speak up to them.”

Speaking to the Independent this week, 38 year old Joseph Baldwin of Ballyaneen, Gort, Co Galway said:

Someone had to speak up to them two TDs. It will probably be forgotten about in two days…. There will be something else done somewhere else, and that’s the way the world works.

The farmer, who is said to be well-known in the town of Gort, threw the dung during a public meeting to discuss plans recently approved by An Bord Pleanala for a Biogas facility outside Gort.

Attended a meeting tonight and a bag of sh.t thrown a me and my government colleague !!!

— Anne Rabbitte TD (@AnneRabbitte) January 4, 2023

The Independent has also revealed that Mr Baldwin’s now-deceased father PJ ran unsuccessfully for local election in 1991.

When asked how he would have felt if someone had behaved similarly towards his father, the farmer said:

If he was a public representative, he would have been representing the people an awful lot better than they are.

They are from the other end of the constituency, and they come here looking for their votes, and when the election is over, they go away and do nothing for the place.

All our shops and businesses are closing down.

Speaking after the incident, Minister Rabbitte said “the feet were taken from under” her.

She said: “I was very disappointed that that incident happened. That person was very angry and annoyed with myself and Ciaran. I just felt very let down.”

Speaking on RTÉ Radio’s News at One, TD Ciaran Cannon said:

There was one gentleman at the very beginning of the meeting took it upon himself to launch into a tirade, essentially accusing minister Anne Rabbitte and I of being culpable in granting this planning permission.

And then proceeded to take two bags of what I now know was cow dung out from his pocket, walked over to me, threw one at me, then as he returned to his place in the room, threw the other at minister Anne Rabbitte.

The incident has been widely condemned by politicians.

Header image via Julien Behal Photography / RollingNews.ie