{"id":392490,"date":"2026-04-11T01:00:06","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T01:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/392490\/"},"modified":"2026-04-11T01:00:06","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T01:00:06","slug":"cafe-owned-by-partner-of-blocked-foynes-port-ceo-delivered-food-to-protesters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/392490\/","title":{"rendered":"Caf\u00e9 owned by partner of blocked Foynes Port CEO delivered food to protesters"},"content":{"rendered":"

A caf\u00e9 owned by the partner of the CEO of the blocked Foynes Port<\/a> wrote “shame on the government” as it posted about delivering food to protesters blocking motorways.<\/p>\n

Pat Keating<\/a>, the CEO of Shannon Foynes Port Company, is also a director of Seventeen Square Catering Ltd, which trades as Delish Caf\u00e9s, alongside his partner Evelyn Raftery.<\/p>\n

Delish has two caf\u00e9s in Limerick, with branches in Raheen and Castletroy. The website notes that it was set up by Ms Raftery and a friend in April 2004.<\/p>\n

A now-edited post on Delish Caf\u00e9\u2019s Facebook page accused the Government of being \u201call take and no talk\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cShame on the Irish Government for failing to communicate and be respectful to these guys,\u201d the post read.<\/p>\n

\n These people are a voice for the small businesses, individual traders and the average squeezed Irish citizen.\u201d\u00a0\n <\/p>\n

It continued: \u201cI wish them success and I truly hope that the Irish government listens and engages with them to help get a resolution for all.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The video shows two women driving a \u201cDelish\u201d van dropping \u201chot tea and sammiches for these hardworking men of Ireland\u201d.<\/p>\n

The song Eye of the Tiger plays in the background as the camera shows the workers dropping food to tractors and lorries parking on the road.<\/p>\n

Directorship searches for Seventeen Square Catering Ltd shows the company has two directors. These are Evelyn Raftery and Patrick Vincent Keating, with an address listed in Kildimo, Co Limerick.<\/p>\n

\u201cPat Keating\u201d, with the same Kildimo address and date of birth, is listed as a company director for Shannon Foynes Port Company.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for Foynes Port did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n

Mr Keating has been CEO of Shannon Foynes Port Company since 2008. He previously worked as its Financial Controller.<\/p>\n

Delish was contacted for comment last night.<\/p>\n

The entrance of Foynes Port in Limerick has been blocked since Tuesday evening as part of ongoing fuel protests<\/a> that have impacted the delivery of fuel into the country and led to some garage forecourts running out of petrol and diesel<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Government has urged protesters to \u201cstep back from the brink\u201d and remove their blockades from Foynes, Galway Harbour, and Whitegate Oil Refinery<\/a> in Cork.<\/p>\n

On Friday, Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin warned that Ireland was \u201con the precipice\u201d of having to turn oil away from the country due to blockades.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A caf\u00e9 owned by the partner of the CEO of the blocked Foynes Port wrote “shame on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":392491,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[943,63615,61,60,43,58],"class_list":{"0":"post-392490","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-cost-of-living","9":"tag-fuel-prices","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-social-media"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=392490"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392490\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/392491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=392490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=392490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=392490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}