On February 24 2022 the biggest war in Europe since World War 2 began : Russia invaded Ukraine.
In London The British SWP promotes Marxism 2024 – like the fictional insular Brit Basil Fawlty, Alex Callinicos (and a supporting cast including Jeremy Corbyn,Tariq Ali, and Yanis Varoufakis) offer parody politics.
This event is planned as 100% free of Ukrainian left and social movements and antiwar Russians. No debate here and no solidarity with victims of imperialism unless it is western imperialism.
Biggest war in Europe since WWII but this event is planned as 100% free of Ukrainian left and social movements and antiwar Russians. No debate here and no solidarity with victims of imperialism unless its western imperialism. https://t.co/3K7cnIlof0
— European Network in Solidarity with Ukraine (@EuropeanWith) May 11, 2024
For a different perspective, on Tuesday May 14 join socialists from Ukraine, Russia and elsewhere who are campaigning for the freedom of a political prisoner Maksym Butkevich.
FREEDOM FOR MAKSIM BUTKEVYCH / LIBERTÉ POUR MAKSIM BUTKEVYCH / LIBERTAD PARA MAKSIM BUTKEVYCH / СВОБОДА ДЛЯ МАКСИМА БУТКЕВИЧА
ZOOM MEETING 14th May at 19.00 p.m. CET (check other time zones here: https://t.co/jXv4HADMzg).
The photographer Chris Reid tells us everything we know about “tent city” in Dublin :
Some views of the ‘Tent City’ that was removed from Mount Street only to regenerate phoenixlike along the banks of the Grand Canal. Both Mount Street and Grand Canal are now fenced off to prevent a return of the tents. I’m wondering where in Dublin ‘Tent City’ will reappear and what other parts of Dublin will consequently become fenced off. The photos were taken on Sunday last, May 5 2024.
Rows of tents occupied by male asylum seekers and refugees on the banks of the Grand Canal, Dublin. The tents were removed on the morning of 9 May 2024.Rows of tents occupied by male asylum seekers and refugees on the banks of the Grand Canal, Dublin. The tents were dismantled and the occupants removed on the 9 May 2024.Rows of tents occupied by male asylum seekers and refugees on the banks of the Grand Canal, Dublin.
The comments on Chris Reid’s facebook page say it all :
Tents were set up at the East Link and Ringsend last night but removed after locals intervened Chris. The problem will just move around.
I didn’t hear about the East Link/Ringsend. I agree, it will move about.
Phoenix Park would be spacious enough! I hope our government will be kind to them
Sure if they’re house-less, they still have to live *somewhere*. Where are they expecting those kicked out to go?
“Patrick Somers, 84, wondered what would happen to people he used to consider neighbours. ‘I feel sorry for them. Wherever they’ve come from, they have to live somewhere’. Somers recalled the taunts he experienced as a labourer in London in the 1960s. ‘They’d say: ‘Go home, Paddy, go home.’ I remember that when I see these poor people’.”
in the 60’s pubs in UK had signs displayed saying ‘ no blacks, Irish or dogs allowed’ petered out in the 70’s but the feeling was there.
No country is dealing with the immigrant problem. No one has any policies, hate to think where it will end up for everyone
It’s very sad and not humanitarian. Sweeping one place up and transferring to another, as if they are not humans. They spoiled the Ukrainians and deal with those in a very inhumane way.
I like the old man who make more sense.
They have to sleep somewhere while they are here. Exactly. They cannot make themselves invisible during the night, only because it doesn’t fit an image. I think they should set up in front of the Dail. Or on the front lawns of the politicians and property tycoons. I am sure they have nice big and spacey ones
Phoenix park. Not annoying anyone out there. Bylaws will prevent it. Government has made a complete balls of this.
All those billions in budget surplus yet they can’t build social housing ?
This crisis was caused by racist terrorists, who burned several buildings prepared to accommodate asylum seekers and refugees (in some cases buildings which were not going to be used to house migrants were reduced to ashes).
The state ceased to house people, and the voluntary agency Tiglin tried to fill the gap, by supplying tents.
More about Tiglin :
Tiglin is a registered charity in the Republic of Ireland that helps people overcome addiction, homelessness and other life-controlling issues. We have assisted hundreds of people and their families in improving their lives. This is because we believe and invest in each person’s potential. We work with anyone in need of help. Therefore we get results that benefit the whole of society. Tiglin provides a variety of social care services, such as street outreach, crisis homeless services, residential rehabilitation programmes, aftercare supports, supported housing, educational opportunities, employment upskilling, and family support for men and women affected by drug and alcohol misuse and frontline services for those seeking international protection. Our therapeutic programmes take an evidence-based approach to supporting people with life-controlling issues. We also want to equip those in our care with personal and professional skills to help them in the life beyond our care. This means providing life skills and training opportunities ranging from courses in further education courses, qualifying employment certificates, counselling, parenting skills, and family therapy and barista training in our social enterprise café café.
In some cases the state asked Tiglin to take on this job. Then the state sent in diggers and other vehicles which threw the new tents into skips. Migrants moved on to different parts of the city – and arsonist racists threatened them. The state effectively gave the thugs a green light.
In the run-up to these elections, Sunak tacked to the right. The government televised a roundup of migrants preparing for Rwanda flights. Sunak dramatically announced the threat of extremism after Galloway won Rochdale. He warmly welcomed the anti-trans Cass report. The Tories inaccurately attacked Labour as a party wanting to give amnesty to immigrants. They cut National Insurance to fool voters they may be better off amidst a cost of living crisis fuelled by huge rent and mortgage rises.
🗳️ *Total* councillors after 2024 local elections:
— Stats for Lefties 🍉🏳️⚧️ (@LeftieStats) May 6, 2024
Sunak is not a great political operator or campaigner. Suella Braverman urges him to go further right by leaving the European Convention on Human Rights and setting a more brutal cap on net migration. Some of her allies are trying to cajole former Prime Minister Boris Johnson back into a front-line role. Damian Green and Andy Street, representing the shrinking one-nation conservatives, call for Sunak to return to the political centre. The hard right has deferred replacing him before the general election, as the pretenders likely want to avoid getting tainted by leading the Tories to a big defeat. Everything is being prepared for a major post-election reconfiguration on the right.
Racist Dog-Whistles, Pro-Motorist Rhetoric and Anti-Woke Hysteria
Nigel Farage may be keeping his powder dry for now, aiming to mop up both the Tory Right and the Reform UK Party into a new outfit he can lead. The election results show that racist dog whistles, pro-motorist rhetoric and anti-woke hysteria are not resonating with the electorate. Susan Hall, the pro-Trump London mayoral candidate, led the Tories to an even worse defeat than last time.
People Before Profit is proposing a “Vote Left” transfer pact to operate in the June 2024 Local and European Elections, 26 Counties
Presenting this positive initiative Paul Murphy TD said
He was fully aware that there would be different perspectives and, but People Before Profit “sees this as just the start of a process to form a left alternative.”
Paul Murphy TD
PBP TD’s Richard Boyd-Barrett, Paul Murphy, and Brid Smith
In the article below, important points from the discussion are highlighted.
This is a serious matter, especially in a context where it is necessary to confront and defeat the extreme racist right.
Colm Breathnach offers a very good template :
Just a personal thing, but here’s my own general set of rules when it comes to voting where a Proportional Representation system is in operation (obviously First Pat The Post system is much more challenging in terms of decisions):
Start with the furthest left and keep voting until you reach the border of what you consider to be the left (for me, that’s social democratic or social liberal parties). Of course that border can shift – the Irish Greens were once inside my border of “left”, now they are definitely outside.
Exclude candidates who consistently hold reactionary positions regardless of their ostensible politics – favour genocide, homophobic etc etc. So the Daly’s of the world don’t feature or let’s say a centre left candidate who justified Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
Adjust to take account of specific concerns which one might deem important for progress to radical transformation of society. So for example you may alter your ranking to the take into account the candidates position on climate change or Irish unity etc.
A number of Irish human rights organizations and Trade Unions have issued a very strong statement following a stampede of racist publicity concerning “Open Borders”.
Here is an example from the Sunday Independent (May 5 2025)
Do you believe there should be checkpoints at the border with Northern Ireland to limit the number of asylum-seekers coming from the U.K.?
The newspaper published this summary of its survey :
Once again, Andrew Flood offers a devastating reply
With the trap carefully baited & Sinn Féin blundering into it here’s the spring being sprung. Farage & Dowson cackling with glee as their weird investment pays off. It’s a trap all the way down of course because …
Andrew Flood
It gets dafter – 82% want to go through an expensive deportation process to somewhere we have a common travel area with & where people deported can just walk back across any of the 400+ border crossing points again you can see where accepting this logic rapidly leads
— László Molnárfi (SU) (@TCDSU_President) May 4, 2024
Something to remember for all those giving out about using memorial benches as a barricade. They can be returned to their original position. The thousands of Palestine men, women, and children who have been murdered by Israel can not. They are gone forever.#DivestSanctionBoycotthttps://t.co/WOqBjb0FKF
— Niamh Ní Cheallaigh ☘️♿️🌻🇵🇸 (@NiamhbWalshe) May 4, 2024
#DivestNow #AcademicBoycott
Irish Times Report, May 5 2024; Ronan McGreevy, Fiachra Gallagher
Trinity College Dublin closed ‘until further notice’ as protest against Israel ties continues
Several dozen students who have set up camp on the university’s grounds, blockading entrance to Book of Kells, say they will remain ‘indefinitely’ until demands are met
Ireland’s Open(ish) Border – Sinn Féin on the Warpath
Sinn Féin’s is warning Irish voters about “Open Borders”.
The party is promoting relentless propaganda in the run-up to the June 7 2024 European and local elections in Ireland.
This leaflet from Balbrigggan (Dublin) is a local version of statewide propaganda.
Let’s ask ourselves a question : What’s wrong with Open Borders?
Andrew Flood calls the border in Ireland Open(ish) – and he is spot on. Here is why :
I say Open(ish) because for two decades black or brown people crossing that border have been stopped and told to produce ‘papers’ by the Garda (claiming to be doing random checks). Maybe they want such checks stepped up, if not what is the demand here?
The border between the EU and the rest of the world is so closed that 3,000 people died trying to sneak across it last year. Over 20 times the number of people killed crossing the Berlin Wall in the 28 years it existed. The border with the 6 counties is Open(ish) – is it that?
OK we all know this is a response to the far right working with FFFGGP to blame Sinn Féin on the government’s failure to plan & communicate for large number of Ukrainian refugees. But this shite is just going to underline that Sinn Féin are no more principled that the rest.
You could not make it up. The Irish Green Party Leader Éamon Ryan is a Minister for Climate Change in the FFFGGG (Fianna Fáil Fine Gael Greens and Gombeens) Dublin Coalition Government. In a display of pure gombeen politics, the Green Irish TD fought the “Swiss Grannies” (“Aînées pour le climat”) in the European Court of Human Rights (EHCR) – and lost.
The “Aînées pour le climat” won a historic victory.
Heat-related deaths were at the heart of a recent landmark legal case taken by the so-called ‘Swiss Grannies’ in the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). The group, representing 2,400 older women, had argued that senior citizens were more likely to die in heatwaves. Earlier this month the court found that weak Swiss government climate policies had violated their human rights.
On 9 April, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights handed down a historic verdict, ruling that Switzerland is violating the human rights of older women because the country is not taking the necessary measures to combat global warming. [Aînées pour le climat – Older Women for Climate]
The boss of An Garda Síochána (police force in the 26 county bit of Ireland), Drew Harris, was recruited from the cops in the 6 county bit of Ireland. The people running the two states in partitioned Ireland have developed very close social, political and personal relationships since the the 1998 triumph of the Good Friday Agreement. I recently circulated details of Harris’s “Hug-a-Thug” policy towards growing far-right violence in the 26 counties to a 6 county political activist, who commented this was “reminiscent of the historic style of policing up here”.
Ruling class forces were extremely happy about the continuation of partition guaranteed by the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. They did not foresee that the foundations of partition in Ireland are more rotten than their constitutional plan conceding a Unionist Veto to a majority of the voting population of the six county state. The Brexit referendum result of 2016 lit a slow-burning fuse under the GFA structure; in the meantime we are witnessing the creation of a possible “United Ireland from Hell” which consists of knitting together the most reactionary features of both partitioned states in Ireland.
The following article from the Cedar Lounge Revolution Blog powerfully illustrates the dangers arising from importing 6 county softly-softly policing methods towards the far-right (loyalist paramilitaries), fine-tuned by Garda boss Drew Harris.
Gardaí were called to the home of Children’s Minister Roderic O’Gorman on Thursday night when a gang of up to 12 masked men gathered outside his house and huge placards and banners were stretched across his driveway gate, along his wall and fastened to outside polls.
Far-right racists regularly target Paul Murphy TD (People Before Profit), Dublin South-West. These sinister activists picket the homes of elected politicians; a few days ago they targeted the home of Green Party Minister Roderic O’Gorman, who is gay and is responsible for the housing of immigrants.
Paul Murphy observes :
Good that some media is finally drawing the obvious link between the far-right and the disgusting intimidatory scenes outside Roderic O’Gorman’s house.
This isn’t a lack of civility in politics.
It’s an organised attempt to undermine democratic rights.
Picketing family homes is from the same playbook as burning 🔥 immigrants’ accommodation, city centre riots such as November 23 2023 in Dublin, and propaganda attacking the rights of specific national groups.
We offer one example: Ukrainians forced to live in Ireland, fleeing from Russia’s genocidal war.
Gerry Carroll, a People Before Profit member of the Stormont Assembly in Belfast, raises very disturbing questions.
This is a Suzanne Breen Belfast Telegraph Report, April 18 2024
People Before Profit MLA Gerry Carroll has slammed Michelle O’Neill and Emma Little-Pengelly for meeting a US engineering company which supplies the Israeli military with machinery to use in Gaza.
During their visit to Washington last month, the First Minister and Deputy First Minister met with Caterpillar, which provides its huge D9R armoured bulldozers to Israel.
The machines have a highly controversial history.
They were also used in the 2008-09 Gaza War, which left up to 1,400 people dead.
In 2003, American peace activist Rachel Corrie was crushed to death by a D9R as she tried to stop a bulldozer demolishing Palestinian homes in southern Gaza.
Rachel Corrie, crushed to death by Caterpillar armoured bulldozer in 2009
Mr Carroll lambasted Ms O’Neill and Ms Little-Pengelly for also meeting Israeli-founded cybersecurity firm Forescout, which has a contract with the US Department of Defense.
He said: “It is deplorable for the First and Deputy First Minister to meet these firms during Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
“Caterpillar is complicit in the Israeli occupation, enabling the illegal bulldozing of Palestinian homes. This is not reflective of Caterpillar workers, but of the horrific profiteering of Caterpillar bosses.
“Israeli-founded Forescout continues to do business with Israel’s chief military backer, and should never have been at that meeting.”
This week we are looking for help with a photograph taken at PAYE tax protest march on O’Connell Street, Dublin, on 22 January 1980. Anyone know the man addressing the crowd? How about those on the platform with him?
Any ideas?
The photographer was Des Gaffney.
Contact us at archives@rte.ie or on Twitter @RTEArchives
Two men – Jospi Strok and David Druzinec – working in Ireland, attacked for what appears to be no reason at all – apparently they weren’t speaking English.
But note that the father of Josip Strok has heard nothing from the authorities about his son’s death:
Josip Strok RIP and David Druzinec
“I can’t believe that no one from the Dublin higher authorities or the Irish embassy ever called or said anything to me about my loss. It was just Irish ordinary people.”
David Druzinec speaking on “Prime Time” to Irish broadcaster RTÉ
As bad is the initial response of the gardai as reported.
On Easter Sunday, after he [Druzinec] was discharged from hospital, he spent most of the day travelling around with the gardaí trying to re-trace their route.
Exclusive: Chris Heaton-Harris accused of ‘unprecedented political intervention’ in legacy inquest – Irish News Newspaper
Northern Ireland Office minister seeks to block information being passed to family of murdered Catholic man Fergal McCusker
Family Members of Fergal McCusker attend the Inquest at Laganside courts on Tuesday April 9 2024
News like this does not get the attention it deserves. Low standards of justice remain very common in the sick state of Northern Ireland.
Here are the details.
Secretary of State Chris Heaton-Harris has been accused of “an unprecedented political intervention” as it emerged he has written to chief constable Jon Boutcher questioning his actions.
Dramatic details came to light during an inquest hearing liked to the LVF murder of Fergal McCusker (28) in Maghera, Co Derry, as he made his way home from a night out on January 18, 1998.
No-one has ever been charged with the Catholic man’s murder, although four men were arrested and later released.
Livingston say Celtic fans displaying an ‘unapproved’ tifo was ‘utterly unacceptable’
This British Broadcasting Corporation report neatly summarizes a commercial corporate assault on the political and civil rights of Celtic soccer supporters, the Green Brigade. Most readers of this blog will recognize the faces of Ireland’s Easter 1916 Rising leaders on the large banner. The Green Brigade has regularly demonstrated with Palestine Flags at Celtic games.
These fans are now banned from Celtic home games :
Simon Pirani’s article is recommended. Unfortunately many Irish left-wing organizations and activists, such as People Before Profit and Clare Daly MEP, have adopted the policy advocated by the British Stop the War Coalition. In the conclusions section of this essay Pirani observes :
In May [2021], you wrote that Stop the War is “supporting the people of Palestine, who have a right to resist occupation”. I agree with that. But why no such statement about Ukraine?
And if Ukrainians, or Palestinians, have a right to resist, what does it mean? Does it only mean standing up to tanks with your bare hands, as Ukrainians have had to do? Does it mean throwing stones, often the only weapons that young Palestinians have? What about proper weapons? Do you think Palestinians have a right to those? And Ukrainians?
About the Author :
Simon Pirani is a British writer, historian and researcher of energy. He is honorary professor in the School of Modern Languages and Cultures at the University of Durham.[1] From 2007 to 2021 he was senior research fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies (with a period as senior visiting research fellow in 2017-19).[2]
In 2018 Pirani published Burning Up: A Global History of Fossil Fuel Consumption, in which he portrays consumption growth as a result of world capitalist economic expansion.[3] He argues that the relationship between technological systems that account for most fossil fuel use, and the social and economic systems in which they are embedded, is paramount. His articles and presentations on this theme are collected on his website.[4] He also writes about these themes on a blog, People & Nature Link : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Pirani
On the Easter weekend, on the latest gigantic march in London against UK complicity in Israel’s war on Gaza, a group of us took a banner that said “From Ukraine to Palestine, occupation is a crime”. We were welcomed by marchers around us, and people took up our slogan.
But beyond a slogan, what can we, in the labour movement and social movements in the UK, do about these conflicts that are transforming the world we live in, and heightening fears of bigger, bloodier wars?
Slugger O’Toole is a politically liberal site based in the 6 county bit of Ireland. One of its writers observes :
One of the great lessons in life is that the more someone publicly professes to be a ‘Christian,’ the more unchristian their private life is.
Years ago, I met one of the leading figures in the Save Ulster From Sodomy Campaign. I have a surprisingly good gaydar for a straight guy, and it was pinging off the chart. This guy had spent much of the 70s and 80s persecuting gays while himself being as gay as Eurovision. I felt sorry for him; he was a product of his upbringing. To live your life as a lie and with such self-loathing must be very tiring on the soul.
The Save Ulster from Sodomy campaign was a vicious anti-gay operation run by the Democratic Unionist party (DUP) and the Reverend Ian Paisley’s Free Presbyterian church. Paisley, a busy man, was leader of the DUP, and moderator of his church.
Ian Paisley’s DUP Tried and Failed to “Save Ulster from Sodomy”. Tarlach Mac Niallais led the Counter-Charge – a Man who Saved Sodomy from Ulster.
In Ireland, Christianity took over public life after the partition settlement of 1922. The Catholic Church controlled key parts of the state in the 26 county southern bit. In the North the Orange State was a Protestant State for a Protestant People.
In his final public sighting as DUP leader, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson was at Stormont for a Christian Easter service. It was Wednesday evening and there was a feel-good sense in Parliament Buildings. The DUP and Sinn Fein had been working together harmoniously for eight weeks, and now politicians were coming together for an uplifting ecumenical concert. With Donaldson in the audience, prayers were said for political leaders, and at the end the relaxed DUP leader went to have his photo taken with Eurovision winner Dana, who was singing at the event.
Sir Jeffrey Donaldson MP and his wife Eleanor are scheduled to appear in court on April 24 in connection with serious criminal charges (described below). In the next weeks and months we will see how this story unfolds. The context is important – what effect will this have on the the Democratic Unionist party (DUP) which Mr Donaldson led until Good Friday 2024?
In a context where extreme right forces are on the march in most parts of the world, it is useful to add some Irish cross-border detail to Jeffrey Donaldson’s “final public sighting as DUP leader”. Sir Jeffrey was pleased to pose for a photo with Eurovision winner Dana (Rosemary Scallon) who attempted (and failed) to revive the religious far-right in the 26 County bit of Ireland. In the late 1990’s Scallon had some brief electoral success in a Presidential election, and won a European Parliament seat. However by 2011 Scallon’s political green-devil comet crashed and burned. The extremist Catholic far-right had become deeply unpopular. Most people in Ireland had turned against the Catholic Church, deeply implicated in a succession of child abuse scandals and hatred of pro-feminist causes such as the legalisation of abortion , divorce, same-sex marriage, contraception and gay rights. Shrewder right -wing politicians such as Fine Gael Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Enda Kenny saw the writing on the wall ; In the Dáil (parliament) this leader of the Dublin government stated that the Vatican was responsible for the “torture” of Irish children.
Reports state that Israeli military forces have “intentionally killed” United Nations employees : Polish, Australian, Irish, and British.
Labour Party TD Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North) states :
Israel have just killed an Irish citizen working for the UN. 30,000 murdered Palestinians should have been reason enough. But immediate sanctions including expulsion of ambassador must be the reaction of govt. And if Dáil needs to be recalled to sanction it then so be it.
Aodhán Ó Ríordáin TD
For sure, many other TD’s will make the same call.
All need to show unconditional solidarity with the two women who came forward in the rape case which led to Sir Jeffrey Donaldson resigning from the leadership of the Democratic Unionist party in the six-county bit of Ireland.
In the Easter Sunday 2024 edition of the Belfast Sunday Life tabloid Lady Eleanor Donaldson is named as the co-defendant in the Jeffrey Donaldson MP rape case. Jeffrey and Eleanor are a married couple.
Two women came forward to the state authorities with allegations categorised as “historical”. In this context, what does the word “historical” mean, precisely? That is a very important question.
#DYK in the 1920s and 1930s, the O'Connell Tower doubled as a mooring platform for airships?
Passengers were allowed to climb the tower while their airship refueled, although due to the noise disrupting funerals, and the opening of Dublin Airport, the practice soon ended. pic.twitter.com/UijAEn3w1J
— Experience Glasnevin – Ireland's National Cemetery (@ExpGlasnevin) April 1, 2024
From May 1 next, Cork Airport will be renamed and rebranded as Cork Cillian Murphy International Airport.
The renaming/rebranding is to be made in recognition of the Golden Globe, BAFTA, Screen Actors Guild and Academy Award winning actor, who is a native of Cork city.
Sir Jeffrey Donaldson MP, leader of the far-right, homophobic, and misogynistic, Democratic Unionist party (DUP), deletes all his social media accounts
Donaldson’s party runs the recently revived Stormont assembly government in coalition with Sinn Féin and the Alliance Party.
“Yes, ruling by fooling, is a great British art with great Irish fools to practice on.” James Connolly
The far right and conservative Catholics claimed credit for the outcome but so have progressive disability rights and carers’ activists. So who is right? Was this a victory for reactionary or progressive ideas, or is the truth more complicated?
On International Women’s Day, Friday 8th of March, voters in the Republic of Ireland delivered two of the largest defeats in history for referendums put forward by the government. The Family referendum, which proposed extending the constitutional definition of the family to include families based on other “durable relationships” as well as marriage, was rejected by a margin of 68% to 32%. The Care referendum, which proposed replacing a sexist clause in the Constitution about women’s “duties in the home” with a gender-neutral clause pledging the state to “strive” to support family care, was defeated by a record 74% to 26%. Both referendums had been backed by the ruling Fine Gael-Fianna Fáil- Green Party coalition and supported, to varying degrees, by all the major opposition parties. The far right and conservative Catholics claimed credit for the outcome but so have progressive disability rights and carers’ activists. So who is right? Was this a victory for reactionary or progressive ideas, or is the truth more complicated?
Polling data shows that the Family Referendum was rejected by a significantly higher margin in rural areas, ranging from 80% in Donegal to 61% across Dublin. There was less of a clear urban-rural pattern with the Care Referendum but in Dublin, No votes were higher in working class than middle class constituencies for both referendums. An exit poll found that the majority of Fianna Fáil, Sinn Féin and (mostly right wing) Independent voters voted no to both referendums; Fine Gael, Green Party and Labour voters voted Yes-Yes and most People Before Profit and Social Democrat voters voted Yes to the Family referendum but No to the Care referendum. The 6% difference between the No votes in the two referendums suggests that around 6% of voters voted Yes to the Family Referendum and No to the Care Referendum. This compares to 68% of voters who voted No-No and 26% who voted Yes-Yes.
He will stay as Taoiseach until a new leader is chosen by the party, which it is hoped will be completed by the party’s ard fheis in early April. The Dáil will then, it is planned, elect the new Fine Gael leader as taosieach. However, the departure of Mr Varadkar will be hugely destabilisng event for the Coalition, and is likely to lead to calls for an early general election. Mr Varadkar will make an announcement in a press conference at 12pm outside Government Buildings, Mr Varadkar is understood to have informed senior Fine Gael colleagues on Tuesday and the leaders of the Coalition parties, Micheál Martin and Eamon Ryan, on Tuesday evening. The Government will remain in place, and will remain constitutionally unaffected, until Mr Varadkar resigns as Taoiseach. At that point all ministers are deemed to have resigned, and a new Taoiseach and Government must be elected by the Dáil.
Irish Times online, March 20 2024
Some reactions :
Paul Murphy TD (People Before Profit) retweeted this comment :
Potential reasons for #Leos shock departure. 1. Yet unknown pending scandal 2. Paul Murphys challenge to the #SIPO case 3. Israel had dirt on him and threatened to release it for speaking out on Gaza in the #Whitehouse 4. He’s genuinely just feels he has no more (unlikely) #FG
The writing is on the wall for this government, even the Taoiseach can see that. They’re failing on so many fronts. In housing, health, climate – the list goes on and on and on. A new Fine Gael Taoiseach isn’t going to fix that. We need a new government. We need an election.
We need a real change in Ireland, the kind that can only be brought about by an General Election, we need to give people a say in who the next person to lead this country will be –@HollyCairnsTD#LQs#Dail#LeoOutpic.twitter.com/frfxlE4Ia9
Meanwhile, the Irish President Michael D Higgins makes a good declaration about Israeli genocide in Gaza which the Irish government should endorse :
Statement by President Higgins on access to aid to Gaza
Date: Tue 19th Mar, 2024 | 17:35
“With a significant proportion of the population of Gaza facing famine at its most extreme level according to the latest IPC classification, it is important that the circumstances of those suffering are not reduced to any rhetorical battle as to whether or not the aid that has been made available is being blocked or delayed from those whose very life in so many cases depends on it.
It would be beyond immoral if the world sought to satisfy itself by the simple taking of sides in what are assertions and counter-assertions. It is in the interests of the most basic humanity and in the interest of all in the international community that the full facts are established, responded to, and that all of the aid is made urgently available.
In order to achieve this basic fact-finding, it would surely be of immense value for an international group to be allowed access to all of the points at which aid is located and to report their findings to all sides, including all of those anxious to be involved in feeding the people of Gaza, including through the UN, and that appropriate actions follow.
Such action would have the obvious benefit of being in keeping with the findings of the International Court of Justice and its instruction that civilians must be protected.
The establishment of what are the facts as to the availability of the necessities of life itself should be not only welcomed by all, but insisted upon by all of the international community, its actors and agencies. Failure to do so should not be rewarded with the immunity of silence.”
Mr Varadkar, knowing that a Presidential election in Ireland is due in 2025 at the latest, may be interested in taking over at Áras an Úachtaráin in the Phoenix Park. A horrible prospect!
The Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC) should provide answers.
Bernadette McAliskey :
Was this march organised by Belfast ISPC? On what date did the platform change from the three speakers below and become a platform of primarily spokespersons for political parties of the NI Assembly,? On what date were the political parties first invited to speak? Why was the list of political party speakers including Sinn Fein not announced prior to the March and rally itself, allowing those who didn’t want to hear from political parties whose leaders were in the White House, or those doing little or nothing for Palestine to have stayed away? Who made these decisions, the consequences of which must have obvious to them at the time, given the depth of feeling from anger to disappointment? What did they expect from an unsuspecting audience when a Sinn Fein speaker was sprung on them? Did they, through naivety, expect Sinn Fein to decline or was the reaction foreseen and thought to OK?
Without some transparency and explanation of the who, when and why, the organisers have very little credibility left with independent activists who are daily raising awareness; building support for boycott of Israeli goods on the ground; fund raising for medical aid, for children, for food aid in Gaza and helping as best they know how, Palestinians living here to cope with the pain and trauma of their fear for family and friends at home as well their exile. Either lack of foresight and transparency, intentional deceit, or plain old-fashioned elitism needs to be owned up to, unless the organisers have a better explanation. This is no way to build any principled unity on Palestine, or anything else for that matter.
Vincent Doherty :
This is a moment of decision nationally for the IPSC. Sinn Fein would prefer if we all forgot their treachery in fine wining and dining with Biden in the midst of the genocide. Just like a few years ago when they were meeting with Likud despite having signed up to the BDS campaign. It’s the elephant in the room, and one that needs to be addressed.
“The cries of the innocent will haunt us forever if we stay silent.” These are the words of Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, speaking at an event in Boston this week about Israel’s devastating assault on Gaza. And who could disagree? What is taking place in Palestine now is one of the most profound and shocking moral catastrophes of our time.
Already for months on end, Israeli military forces have been pounding the besieged, starving and largely homeless population of Gaza with relentless aerial bombardment. Cut off from the outside world, Palestinian survivors have been forced to document the crisis in real time, sharing stories, images and footage of mass graves, destroyed buildings and abandoned bodies. And with no end in sight, the United States continues to pump money and weapons into Israel to prolong the onslaught.
US President Joe Biden (Genocide Joe) meets Irish forelock-tuggers Michelle O’Neill and Emma Little-Pengelly, the White House, Washington DC, Patrick’s Day 2024
Publicity for a Belfast protest stated ” ‘As Irish political leaders prepare to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with Joe Biden, the Gaza Genocide’s main sponsor, join us to show that the people of Ireland stand with the people of Palestine’” – but the event took a strange turn.
Ed Moloney is the first journalist who publicly unmasked Freddie Scappaticci. A strange coalition issued denials : Scappaticci himself, the British Government, and Sinn Féin. Shortly afterwards extraordinary proof emerged, which proved beyond any shadow of doubt that Scappaticci was a British informer.
Questions remain – above all whether the state organisations and the then IRA leadership – responsible for many Scappaticci murders – can be made accountable for their actions. The British state is determined to prevent this happening.
On March 8 2024 a cover-up Kenova Report does not name Scappaticci. In the same week we learned that an innocent civilian called Seán Brown, an active GAA member, was killed in 1997 by loyalists, with help from 25 members of the British state security forces. An inquest into the assassination of Seán Brown was stopped because the British State, covering up its dirty work, issued Public Interest Immunity Certificates.
presiding coroner Mr Justice Kinney abandoned the long-running inquest in Belfast and confirmed he would write to Secretary of State Chris Heaton-Harris to ask for a public inquiry.
He said Mr Brown’s inquest could not continue due to material being withheld by state agencies on the grounds of national security.
The PSNI and MI5 have made applications for multiple redactions to sensitive documents connected to the murder under Public Interest Immunity (PII).
Stakeknife ‘told TV crew that McGuinness ordered killings’
Army mole in IRA allegedly told reporters they had not revealed enough about Sinn Fein leader
Rosie Cowan, Ireland correspondent Monday July 14, 2003
Guardian
The Army/IRA double agent Freddie “Stakeknife” Scappaticci told television documentary makers Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness was a ruthless terrorist leader who sanctioned murder, secret tapes have allegedly revealed.
Mr Scappaticci was exposed two months ago as military intelligence’s top spy within the Provisionals, for whom he was deputy head of the notorious internal security unit, the Nutting Squad, responsible for torturing and killing suspected informers.
So far, Mr Scappaticci, whom the government paid more than £80,000 a year and whom sources have linked to more than 40 murders, has brazened it out, denying everything and returning to his west Belfast home after his security force handlers failed to persuade him to flee the country for his own safety.
Although many IRA members believe he is Stakeknife, the republican leadership has stuck by him, albeit at a distance, perhaps reckoning that the secret services would capitalise further on any IRA attempt to harm or exile him.
“The arguments made against the proposed constitutional amendments are akin to the owner of a 30-year-old banger, which keeps breaking down, refusing a 10-year-old car as a replacement because they were really hoping for a brand-new model.
When the perfect choice is not on offer, reasonable people take the best option available.
Vote Yes on March 8th to consign a few antiquated bangers to the scrapheap, where they belong. – Yours, etc,
JOHN THOMPSON,
Dublin 7.”
A number of left wing activists calling for a No vote in the Care Referendum are making a classic ultra-left mistake. They are not guided by a concrete analysis of the question on the ballot paper. As a result they advocate keeping reactionary, sexist, and partitionist wording in the Irish Constitution.
Let’s keep it very simple. These 2 constitutional provisions are symbolic.
The basic information is provided here : Electoral Commission Explanation of Care and Family Referendums in Ireland. We are concentrating on the Care Referendum, as some people on the Irish left are advocating a No vote, meaning that the existing reactionary sexist wording in DeValera’s 1937 Constitution will remain in place.
In any referendum you are only voting on the question you are asked – not on the question you would like to be asked.
Voters should ask themselves : Is the existing wording worse than the proposed changes?
Yes or No?
Any objective left-wing and feminist reading of the relevant texts can only come to one conclusion : The proposed changes are better.
Twenty seven years ago, and the British State is determined to prevent a true story being told.
Here is the Irish News report, published on March 5 2024.
A security surveillance operation on a leading loyalist and suspect in the murder of GAA official Sean Brown was lifted the night before the killing, a coroner has been told.
Details emerged as presiding coroner Mr Justice Kinney abandoned the long-running inquest in Belfast and confirmed he would write to Secretary of State Chris Heaton-Harris to ask for a public inquiry.
He said Mr Brown’s inquest could not continue due to material being withheld by state agencies on the grounds of national security.
The PSNI and MI5 have made applications for multiple redactions to sensitive documents connected to the murder under Public Interest Immunity (PII).
Loyalist Volunteer Force Killers Mark Fulton and Billy Wright
PII certificates are used by state agencies to withhold sensitive or top level security information they do not want in the public domain.
Last week the coroner heard that more than 25 people had been linked by intelligence to the murder, including several state agents.
Fearghal Mac Bhloscaidh is one of the most interesting political writers in Ireland. The article below is a detailed analysis of Ireland’s peace process, which begins with a speech delivered by Bernadette McAliskey the year before the Good Friday Agreement was signed in 1998. I remember it well. (*)
John Meehan
About the author : Fearghal Mac Bhloscaidh is a Belfast-based historian and the author of a number of important books, including Tyrone: the Irish Revolution, 1912-1923 (Four Courts Press, 2014).
As a young man, I listened to a speech by Bernadette McAliskey the year before the signing of the Good Friday Agreement – the pinnacle of what became known as the ‘peace process’. McAliskey did not object to peace, she had notoriously been subtitled by the BBC in a 1992 interview, when she said: ‘No sane human being supports violence. We are often inevitably cornered into it by powerlessness, by lack of democracy, by lack of willingness of people to listen to our problems. We don’t choose political violence, the powerful force it on us.’ (quoted in Curtis, 1998:297) By the time I heard her speak in 1997, the powerful had arrested her pregnant daughter, Róisín, with the intent to extradite her to Germany. By 2000, the powerful admitted that Róisín, who had never been charged, had no case to answer as there was ‘not a realistic prospect of convicting Miss McAliskey for any offence.’ (Guardian, 20 July 2000). What struck me at the time, was that the powerful had a vendetta against a woman and her family because she had stood up for socialist republican principles for thirty years at that stage. Last month, fifty-five years after the Burntollet march and her subsequent election as the then youngest female Westminster MP ever, McAliskey gave the main oration at the solidarity march in Dublin, where she told the crowd that ‘Palestine is the litmus test of our humanity’ and then urged those present not to vote for any politician who would legitimise the Biden administration, which was ‘enabling genocide’, by attending the St Patrick’s Day events in the White House (Irish News, 14 January 2024).
McAliskey’s speech from all those years ago stuck in my mind because in the questions afterwards she was asked about the peace process and used a powerful analogy that I hadn’t heard before at that stage, but I have heard and used myself on numerous occasions since. She welcomed an end to violence but warned that the provisional movement appeared to be going down a well-worn reformist path that would eventually denude it of any revolutionary potential. She compared the republican movement to a frog, which if placed in a pot of boiling water, will immediately sense the danger, and jump out to save itself, but, if immersed in tepid water brought slowly to the boil so that the change in temperature remains gradual, the frog does not realise it’s boiling to death. In line with their – soon to be – new mates in New Labour, Sinn Féin had swallowed TINA – there is no alternative. Plan A – armed struggle has failed, now we try Plan B. In Sinn Fein’s case, this meant the long march through the institutions, acceptance of the principle of consent and parliamentary reformism on the classical constitutional nationalist model. McAliskey had the temerity to ask for a Plan C, which might mean retaining socialist republican principles and challenging the powerful rather than getting into bed with them.
This matters, because under the terms of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement (GFA), if a six county (Northern Ireland) referendum results in a pro United Ireland majority, partition will be dead.
There is no reason to doubt the accuracy of this survey – it is consistent with many other recent opinion polls.
Under the GFA, the NI Secretary of State (currently Chris Heaton-Harris) has the power to call a referendum. This Westminster minister is not obliged to call a referendum unless a series of surveys indicate that a majority of voters in the six county statelet (NI) will vote for a change in the constitutional status.
This was a perfect arrangement for the Dublin and London governments in 1998 – a big majority of the people living in Ireland (on both sides of the border) voted to accept a Unionist Veto. No real prospect of a shift in attitudes seemed possible. But something big happened in 2016 which is having long-term results : Brexit.
An interesting political coalition is assembling in Ireland, the USA, and elsewhere calling on public representatives to boycott USA President Joe Biden’s annual White House Patrick’s Day celebration in 2024. As Bernadette McAliskey says :
Colum Eastwood’s decision to absent himself and SDLP from ‘rocking the sham’ in the White House is very welcome. The Irish government parties and Sinn Féin might want to reconsider their positions.
Bernadette McAliskey, Impartial Reporter, February 9 2024
A Pro-Palestine activist, Art Ó Laoghaire, has sent the following message to several Irish public representatives :
Do you believe that Israel is justified in its military campaign in Gaza, and that the US should continue to supply weapons to them? The last four months has seen more than 27,000 people killed in Gaza, including 10,000 children, and more than 60,000 wounded. South Africa believes Israel is guilty of genocide. Amnesty says today that Israel is committing war crimes. And António Guterres said that the people of there don’t have enough to eat, while Israel continues to block food supplies.
Yet today Joe Biden has asked Congress for billions of dollars to continue to supply arms.
How can you in all honesty go to Washington for St Patrick’s Day to enjoy Biden’s hospitality, while he continues to facilitate this carnage? Some may claim that face-to-face conversation gives them an opportunity to express Ireland’s views on the situation. But this is absurd. Biden knows our views. It would say much more to him if his celebrations were boycotted. It would also be a message to the Irish American voters he is trying to canvas.
If you have any moral principles you will stand by the Palestinians and refuse to join in Biden’s re-election party.
Art Ó Laoghaire
Bernadette McAliskey’s Article :
Sharing thoughts on Northern Ireland politics and American policy
Bernadette McAliskey, Impartial Reporter, February 9 2024
Thank You, Mr. Eastwood.
Colum Eastwood’s decision to absent himself and SDLP from ‘rocking the sham’ in the White House is very welcome.
Eamon DeValera’s 1937 Irish Constitution contains symbolic sexist wording – the “woman in the home” clause. Laura Cahillane explains why almost everyone on the Irish and feminist left is advocating a Yes vote.
On March 8 – International Women’s Day – Irish citizens will vote in a referendum on whether or not to replace the so-called “woman in the home” clause in the Irish constitution.
This clause, which dates from 1937, specifies that: “The State recognises that by her life within the home, woman gives to the State a support without which the common good cannot be achieved.” It goes on to say that: “The State shall, therefore, endeavour to ensure that mothers shall not be obliged by economic necessity to engage in labour to the neglect of their duties in the home.”
Originally, the purpose of the provision was to acknowledge the importance of care in the home, which was then provided almost exclusively by mothers. The purpose was to ensure that mothers could remain in the home and would not be forced to work due to financial reasons.
However, the state help implied by the wording was never actually put into practice – women were never supported to provide care in the home. Worse, the constitution was often used to bolster arguments that a woman’s place was in the home and that policies which excluded women from work were acceptable.
Now, as part of a double referendum, Irish citizens will have the chance to change the constitution to a more gender-neutral wording. This is alongside another vote on whether to change the constitution’s definition of “family” to expand it beyond marriage.
Recent political events in England and Wales suggest chaos : Support for Rishi Sunak’s Tories is dive bombing. The excellent Stats for Lefties site regularly updates numbers, and they are startling :
🗳️ Seat estimate based on latest poll:
🟥 LAB 515 (+315) 🟧 LD 63 (+55) 🟨 SNP 31 (-17) 🟦 CON 17 (-355) 🟩 PC 4 (=) 🟩 GRN 1 (=)
Starmer might be scoring an own-goal in Scotland. This Bella Caledonia article reviews the latest developments. Source : The Settled Will About the Author Mike Small : Mike Small
The Settled Will
How do you understand the latest polling from IPSOS which puts the SNP ahead of Labour by seven points and predicts they would pick up 40 seats in the next General Election?
At the last general election IPSOS predicted the SNP would win 48 seats (and were the most accurate pollster to predict the result). The SNP would indeed later win 48 seats. If the ‘extinction event’ that is predicted for the Conservatives this would mean the SNP taking 70% of available seats in Scotland. If Labour annihilate the Tories in England as looks very likely, there’s a possibility of the SNP becoming the official opposition.
The wider party prediction seat prediction is: SNP 40 Labour 13 Conservatives 2 Lib Dems 2
Emily Gray from IPSOS Scotland said: “The SNP lead by 7 points on General Election voting intention, but Labour are narrowing the gap. There’s a Rise in public trust in Scottish Labour, including on the NHS and the economy – though SNP still the most trusted party.”
Basketball Ireland says comments were ‘inflammatory and wholly inaccurate’ and has raised them with basketball’s governing body
Unconfirmed reports suggested an Ireland v Israel Basketball match in Lativa, scheduled for February 8 2024, would not go ahead. Unfortunately the match happened, but it was not “business as usual” :
Ten out of Ten to Mary Hannigan for filing this report in the Irish Times :
As if there wasn’t already enough heat surrounding Ireland’s basketball meeting with Israel in Latvia on Thursday evening, the comments of Dor Saar, one of the Israeli squad, have added yet more fuel to the fire. Speaking to Israel’s official basketball site, which noted that the team isn’t “officially talking about the Irish and their behaviour lately”, Saar, a United States-based student, said: “It’s known that they [Ireland] are quite anti-Semitic, it’s not a secret, so we are expecting an intense game. We need to show that we’re better than them and to win. We speak about it between ourselves, we know that they don’t love us so we will leave everything on the court, as always. And especially in this game.” Basketball Ireland responded with no little fury to Saar’s comments, branding them, in a statement to the Irish Independent, as “inflammatory and wholly inaccurate”, saying that they had raised her remarks with Fiba, the International Basketball Federation. Fiba, meanwhile, have said that they will look into online posts by the Israeli federation which featured photos of the Israeli Defence Force’s mixed gender Bardelas battalion, dubbed the Cheetahs, visiting the team in the build-up to the game, one showing an assault weapon lying at the side of the court where they were training.
The Cheetahs include several female soldiers who have been active in Gaza since October. “We are moved by the connection between the Cheetahs unit and the Israel women’s basketball team, which reflects the support of civil society for the IDF,” said Nir Galili, chief executive of the team’s sponsor, Sonol Energy.
Ultra-loyalist blogger Jamie Bryson is live-tweeting the “secret” DUP meeting where Sir Jeffrey Donaldson is trying to persuade his party to return to Stormont.
NEW: DUP Party Exec meeting live:
JD just began speaking:
Says negotiations are over, and DUP aren’t going to get anymore.
Joe Brolly is tirelessly promoting the cause of the Palestinian people.
Readers familiar with political parties based in the six county state in the north of Ireland may be rubbing their eyes in disbelief – is it really possible that the SDLP is taking a stand on this issue, agreeing with most people on the Irish left, and against the Sinn Féin party? The answer is Yes.
The article below puts a remarkable story in context :
We thank Paul Le Blanc for advertising this series of valuable online meetings.
More about Paul Le Blanc : Paul Le Blanc has for many years been a teacher and activist in Pittsburgh. His writings include “Lenin and the Revolutionary Party” and “A Short History of the US Working Class”. Source ; https://internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?auteur181
Socialism or Barbarism – Why Rosa Luxemburg Matters Today
With Paul Le Blanc & Helen Scott, co-editors of the acclaimed Rosa Luxemburg: Socialism or Barbarism collection of writings. Rosa Luxemburg was one of the most brilliant minds ever drawn to the socialist movement – an outstanding theorist & a political activist. This forum will look at the relevance of her ideas for transforming a world in crisis today – & how her work was broad in scope tackling capitalism and socialism; globalisation & imperialism; war and peace; social struggles, unions & parties; class, gender, race; the interconnection of humanity with the environment & more. Part of the Socialist Ideas Series – presented by Arise – a Festival of Left Ideas & Labour Outlook.
Industrial Development Authority (IDA) boss reveals Sinn Féin plans to woo US firms on corporate tax
A daft idea promoted by many political commentators is that if a political party with a left-wing voting base moves to the “centre” (which in this context is a weasel word for “right”) it can win control of a government more easily, and “reassure” the owners of capitalist states at home and abroad. Once the leadership of a political party absorbs this idea, all sorts of radical policies are thrown into the litter bin.
Unfortunately the leadership of the Sinn Féin party is falling into this trap – the left message is : you are in a hole, stop digging.
This Sunday Business Post story shows that significant sectors of the capitalist class understand this dynamic.
The Sinn Féin Leadership Promotes Contradictory Messages
Mary Lou McDonald and Pearse Doherty on ‘outreach programme’ to reassure big business, but executives fear wealth tax
Sinn Féin has made it clear to top multinationals that it has no issue with Ireland’s corporate tax rate and will not raise it if elected, the new chairman of IDA Ireland has said.
However, Feargal O’Rourke has revealed that the party is determined to hike personal taxes on top earners, in a move that has prompted serious concerns among business leaders.
O’Rourke, the former head of PwC Ireland, said Sinn Féin has “been very much on an outreach programme” with big businesses since the last election to reassure them it will “not rock any boats” should it gain power.
Last week the left – alongside all decent people – was blaring a fanfare for the referral of Israel by South Africa to the International Court of Justice. And rightly so, of course. It is to be welcomed and it should be supported by the Irish government. All platforms and publications of the left are buzzing with it. South Africa is being commended effusively for their initiative and congratulated wholeheartedly for their solidarity with the people of Gaza. The left has, obliviously, great respect and faith in the International Court of Justice. The left sees it as very significant that a state should be brought to the International Court of Justice to answer for its crimes.
The BBC reported: ‘evidence submitted by South Africa claims “acts and omissions” by Israel “are genocidal in character because they are intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial and ethnical group”’. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67922346
The Irish government and many other governments are being accused, not least by the Irish radical left, of double standards, inconsistency and hypocrisy in their attitudes and responses to Russian crimes in Ukraine and Israeli crimes in Palestine.
January 15 2024 in Roscrea Co. Tipperary – Irish police protect Ukrainian immigrants entering accommodation as a racist mob howls abuse and threats of physical violence
Just so everyone is clear. the scenes from Roscrea show a mob shouting at tiny children as they cling terrified to their mothers. it is not about local services, it is not about resources, it is not about information. It is pure cruel hateful racism. no more excuses.
Rose Fleming on Twitter (X)
Paul Murphy TD (Dublin South-West, PBP) shows leadership :
These scenes are just the same as racist attacks on schoolchildren at the Belfast HolyCross School school in 2001 and 2002 :
For weeks, hundreds of loyalist protesters tried to stop the schoolchildren and their parents from walking to school through their area. Hundreds of riot police, backed up by British soldiers, escorted the children and parents through the protest each day. Some protesters shouted sectarian abuse and threw stones, bricks, fireworks, blast bombs and urine-filled balloons at the schoolchildren, their parents and the RUC. The “scenes of frightened Catholic schoolgirls running a gauntlet of abuse from loyalist protesters as they walked to school captured world headlines”
On Monday January 15 Gardaí defend immigrants entering accommodation in Roscrea, protecting them from a racist crowd. One Twitter (X) correspondent observes : “Roscrea. Hang your heads in shame. Thanks to Michael (Criminal) Lowry, Mattie (everything is a Conspiracy) McGrath and the two SF reps for emboldening this.” Racket Hall- John Madden
Horrific scenes this afternoon in Roscrea as terrified women and children are forced to run the gauntlet through a baying mob of anti-asylum seeking bigots. Gardaí and the Public Order Unit were in attendance in mass numbers. Gardaí remain at the scene. Racket Hall- Irish Rebel1965
The Irish Examiner report below gives us an example of Rosrea racist propaganda. The newspaper quotes a “Sinn Féin councillor” Michael Donovan. However, another SF councilor says Donovan is nota Sinn Féin councillor.
We owe the headline to an excellent Justine McCarthy column in the January 12 2024 edition of the Irish Times :
Recent migrants found locked in a ship at Rosslare were Kurds and Vietnamese, people on the sharp end of global warming. This trend will only increase
This article, very commendably, gives us all stark truth. Here is a key extract :
When anti-migrant protesters set up their camps outside buildings designated – or rumoured to be designated – for asylum seekers, they drive to and fro, light fires and eat takeaway food, adding to the pollution that is making other people’s homeplaces in faraway lands uninhabitable. If they want less immigration, they should go home, switch off their clothes dryers, fix their leaking fridges, cancel their foreign holiday flights, eat less meat and, generally, reduce their carbon footprint. But they won’t do that. Why would they, when they know the Government is willing to bow to their pressure? First, it caved in to protesters ensconced outside the former JJ Gannon’s Hotel in Ballinrobe, where 50 men seeking international protection had been due to reside in its 12 bedrooms. On Monday, it emerged that the Department of Integration has changed its plan and, now, the building is to accommodate families. Tánaiste Micheál Martin denied this represented a U-turn. Two days later, there was a second Government change of heart with the announcement that 50 male asylum seekers – the same 50 men? – due to move into an old friary in Carlow town were, once again, being replaced by families. The news followed a protest outside the building. These capitulations have sent a clear signal to protesters – and the unadulterated racists out there too – that the Government is for turning. With council elections approaching, politics is acutely local. Now is the time to turn the heat up on councillors and political parties looking for votes. Fifty men rendered roofless are reckoned to be a small price for a council seat or two. There are already more than 100 male asylum applicants with no place to stay in Ireland and no imminent prospect of finding a bed because political parties know there are no votes to be gained from that, either in the summer’s local and European elections or the looming general election. The Government has lit a dynamite taper by rolling over for the protesters. Other communities have every reason now to expect that, if they shout “No”, the gates to their towns will be locked against people whom they deem undesirable to live among them.
The latest anti immigrant protest is happening in the Tipperary town of Roscrea and was the subject of a 24 minute RTÉ radio discussion on the January 12 2024 Today with Clare Byrne Show.
“Ireland must make decisions for itself – as a state party to the Genocide Convention, with a responsibility to act to protect humanity” – Maeve O’Rourke
Dr Maeve O’Rourke is a lecturer in Human Rights at the Irish Centre for Human Rights, University of Galway
Left wing members of the Dublin Dáil and Seanad (Irish parliamentary Institutions) are supporting South Africa’s case against Israel under the 1948 Genocide Convention.
Direct Comparison Between Russia and Israel :
Matt Carthy TD, Sinn Féin, made a direct comparison between Israeli genocide in Gaza and Russian genocide in Ukraine :
Ireland did make a referral to the ICJ against Russia in respect of the war in Ukraine and Sinn Féin supported that position. I have to say it smacks of double standards that have been all too evident since the war in Gaza began that governments – including Ireland – made the referral against Russia now refuse to join the referral against Israel
Matt Carthy TD (Sinn Féin Spokesperson on Foreign Affairs and Defence), Irish Palestine Support Campaign Press Conference, Dublin, January 10 2024
The evidence of intent to commit genocide is clear, we have it from top Israeli politicians and military, how dare we equivocate in the face of genocide, it is unacceptable that the Irish government have refused to join South Africa in its Application to the ICJ #GazaGenocidepic.twitter.com/L6uRpPGE1a
“And yet, despite the gloomy news, despite the rampant barbarism, despite the depression that pervades everything, there is still light and hope! And this light and this hope are the young people who are fighting at the same time on all the great fronts where humanity is measuring itself against death in its final struggle to exist: on the fronts of climate catastrophe and injustice, of Palestine and the Ukraine, on the fronts of the struggle of the poor, the oppressed and the humiliated throughout the world.”
And the most emblematic representative of this new generation resisting and counter-attacking is, of course, the young Swedish world citizen Greta Thunberg, who denounces and fights both the Israeli genocidaires of the Palestinians and the Russian invaders of the Ukraine, Putin’s obscurantist, imperialist Russia and militarist, equally imperialist NATO. And of course, above all, the capitalists and their governments who are methodically destroying our planet’s climate, preparing the most nightmarish future for humankind. And all this against the mainstream, despite the campaign of denigration and intimidation against her, fighting against all imperialisms without choosing one imperialism against another, one executioner and his victim more than another. And, above all, systematically putting her words into practice, even if they often land her in a police station or prison, handcuffed…
Message from Paul Murphy TD about a January 6 Far-Right Protest :
Far right protesters outside our home on Sat night while we’re putting our baby in bath. They have a sign about Irish homeless but I bet none have helped anyone fight their eviction. They don’t care about children or homeless. They just want to spread hate and division.
People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy has condemned a protest outside his house on Saturday evening.
Murphy posted on Twitter that “far-right protesters” gathered outside his house as he was putting his child into the bath.
The protesters could be seen holding signs that read “illegal male immigrants are housed before Irish homeless”, “why are military aged men fleeing war?” and “Ireland says no.”
Murphy condemned the protest, saying the protesters “don’t care about children or homeless, they just want to spread hate and division.”
“They have a sign about Irish homeless, but I bet none have helped anyone fight their eviction,” he remarked.
Murphy has repeatedly had protesters outside his home, with protesters gathering outside his home last April.
An Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Fine Gael Minister Simon Harris have also had their homes targeted by protesters in recent years.
Varadkar condemned the attack on Lewis’ home, saying at the time “whatever views people may have, there is no excuse for attacking any individual or attacking their property.”
“That’s absolutely wrong and should be condemned by everyone unreservedly.”
Former Lord Mayor of Dublin Hazel Chu, who has been vocal about intimidation and harassment she has faced in office, said “whether you agree with Paul’s politics it’s one thing, but harrassing him, his wife and their baby by standing outside their home holding signs that trumpet false narratives is quite another thing altogether.”
Fellow elected representatives condemned the protest, with Green Councillor Michael Pidgeon dubbing the protesters “utter losers,” Sinn Féin Councillor Daithí Doolan saying the behaviour is “totally unacceptable,” and Social Democrats TD Catherine Murphy calling it “unacceptable harassment.”
Last week, graffiti targeting An Taoiseach Leo Varadkar which claims “he sold out the Irish people” appeared in Drimnagh.
The first day of the Dáil sitting after summer recess last September was overshadowed by protesters depicting TDs hanging from mock gallows, forcing Leinster House to go into lockdown.
Announcing the allowance, Minister Kirean O’Donnell stated “this allowance has been introduced in light of increased security and safety incidents experienced by Councillors. I would hope that this allowance will support and ensure that current and future serving councillors can continue to carry out the excellent and vital work they do locally for their communities.”
“Unfortunately, due to the failure of this Government to tackle the far-right and to ensure sufficient safeguards to protect the safety of those who wish to put themselves forward for public office, we know that potential candidates for all parties are fearful of putting their home addresses into the public record. Who could blame them?”
Tomás Ó Flatharta 