Blair faces protest at book signing

Shoes and eggs were pelted at the former prime minister as he arrived at a Dublin book store to promote his controversial memoir, A Journey.

The missiles did not hit Mr Blair, who was heckled and jeered as he emerged from his car.

Angry activists then clashed with gardai as they tried to push down a security barrier outside the Eason store on Dublin's main thoroughfare O'Connell Street.

One activist managed to confront Mr Blair and attempted to make a citizen's arrest over alleged war crimes. A small number of arrests were made.

Richard Boyd-Barrett, of the Anti-War Movement, accused Mr Blair of making blood money from the memoirs.

"It really is shameful that somebody can be responsible for the death and destruction that he was responsible for in Iraq and Afghanistan and walk away without any accounting for that and become a very wealthy man off the back of it," he said.

Security was tight as up to 300 campaigners carrying flags and banners chanted "arrest the butcher Blair", "hey hey Tony hey, how many kids have you killed today?" and "Tony Blair war criminal".

Hundreds more queued quietly in the rain by a side door to meet Mr Blair, who arrived at about 10.30am - some abused by protesters as they left the store.

Kate O'Sullivan, who attempted to make a citizen's arrest on Mr Blair, said: "Immediately five security people grabbed me, started dragging me off. I cried out 'there was half a million people dead in Iraq, how can you live with yourself, you've committed war crimes'."