Of all the bizarre sights during last week’s fuel protests, Athlone took the biscuit, or in this case, the Holy Ghost.

A priest was filmed sitting in a lorry trailer, a white sheet thrown over a makeshift table, saying Mass. Bless you, Father.

Open-air sermons rival the Covid days of priests cruising around in Ireland’s version of the Popemobile, blessing the faithful from afar.

Or the image of someone supposedly using a super-soaker to baptise babies at the height of the pandemic, making Father Ted look more like a documentary than satire.

Count on Ireland to create craic from crisis.

We also have a knack, though, for making a bad situation worse.

As demonstrators expressed anger over rising fuel prices and the government’s cack-handed response, they inevitably attracted unsavoury behaviour.

“We want a French invasion,” typed one supporter.

In Cork, a man in a lumberjack shirt pointed at gardaí and roared: “Michael Collins, if he was here, he’d have a machine gun at ye.” Charming.

On Friday, the Muslim Sisters of Éire, who run an outdoor soup kitchen at the GPO, were verbally and racially abused by other protesters who no doubt dub themselves warriors and patriots.

On Sunday, after bringing Dublin to a standstill for five days, another ringleader complained to camera that gardaí had taken men out of their tractor cabs and “left them shivering in the street”, poor lambs.

After a few drinks, a self-appointed spokesperson returned to find gardaí in control. He complained the government had broken “the rules”. Another moaned: “You wouldn’t see it in Russia, what’s happening here tonight.”

None of this nonsense was called out by protest organisers, who appeared unable to control those around them.

Some fuel protests were exemplary: Galway worked with gardaí, made their point, behaved peacefully, and knew when to retreat. Others did not.

Still, farmers have legitimate grievances. Despite a January report showing 61% felt positive about the future, tractors had already started rumbling before last week or January’s Mercosur protests.

People are feeling the pinch. A weekend poll showed 56% of respondents supported protesters. The Dublin government has now conceded a further cut to excise duty and a deferral to October in carbon tax increases.

There is an air of destruction percolating, from some who now have a taste for protesting, and for whom the recent agitation was not about fuel, but about fire, a magnet for myriad grievances and a platform for untethered individuals who think they are the next Irish messiah.

The protest became an easy bandwagon for Aontú, far-right agitators, and a rag-tag of independents.

Sinn Féin made hay off the protesters’ backs and will bring a motion of no confidence against the government.

It remains to be seen whether northern protests cause the chaos seen over the last week. You can bet the farm, though, that most protesters won’t know their John Deeres from Massey Fergusons.

Still, people are worried. A 37-week pregnant woman took to social media trying to find a route from east Belfast to the RVH, to make a 2pm maternity appointment.

What will happen to elderly people who need care visits, someone who needs emergency healthcare, stranded schoolchildren who live far from home and rely on transport, and people doing an honest day’s work?

In Wexford, a man with a microphone told the waiting crowd: “If we’ve proven one thing, lads, it doesn’t take a whole lot to stop this country.”

He wasn’t wrong. Cancer patients missed appointments due to the blockades. People initially had to plead to let ambulances though. We don’t need that here.

To head this off, the First and Deputy First Ministers wrote to Keir Starmer seeking reductions in fuel duty.

Yet the Executive has had years to take measures which would have eased the burden on those reliant on home heating oil.

Where were proper measures for utilising solar energy? Why is the Department for Communities only rolling out a warm home strategy now? Where are the rebates and support packages that NI controls?

Back to the protests. Many of their supporters are akin to MAGA mouths, spreading right-wing rhetoric like social media slurry.

How ironic, then, but perhaps unsurprising, that Trump, who caused the fuel crisis, is not the target of their ire.

Our society is fracturing further, and the less chaos we have the better. Unless farmers unlink themselves from such behaviour, we will all pay a price morally and financially.

After all, we reap what we sow.

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