LAST week, I temporarily shut down my X/Twitter account, such was the volume of the vitriol and bile directed towards me.

My crime, as far as these keyboard marionettes were concerned, was to complain about it taking more than five hours to reach Dublin Airport from Newry – a journey which normally takes 50 minutes thanks to the improvements on the M1.

Following a lot of gastro/colitis illness last year, I now curtail my holidays to short hops. It will be that way for the foreseeable future.

In planning our trip, we have always been uber-cautious. ‘Da Boss’ prefers to be early – even ridiculously early, enjoying people watching in the airport.

David Adams: I’m a former loyalist who supports a ‘New Ireland’, but why won’t anyone tell me what it will be like?

Tom Kelly: My missed flight and the fuel protests that risk missing the point

We heard very little about the fuel protests in northern media other than that they were to converge in Dublin for 11am on Tuesday past.

Now, before saying much more, we both actively support trade unionism. I was a strategic advisor to the Financial Services Union (FSU) for 15 years, and the better half has been in the Northern Ireland Public Service Alliance (NIPSA) for 45 years and stood on many a picket line.

So the right to protest is not and never has been in question in our household.

On the day in question, we planned to be at the airport by 9am for a 12.30pm flight. We had factored in the protest to delay us by an hour or two at most.

We eventually arrived at Lusk service station at around noon. (At the empty........

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