Archive for the ‘Prince Charles of Britain’ Category
‘Lost Boys’ Film Adds Fuel To Kincora Fire And One Question: ‘Why Did The BBC Drop This Film?’ – Re- Blogged Posts which originally appeared on Ed Moloney’s site, The Broken Elbow
Introduction :
On Wednesday September 27 a world premiere takes place in Dublin’s Irish Film Institute
World Premiere
During the winter of 1969, young boys started to disappear from the streets of Belfast, never to be seen again. By 1974, as the Troubles were reaching a bloody and vicious peak, five boys in total had vanished within a five-mile radius. Fifty years later, as the disappearances remain unsolved and families continue to search for answers, filmmaker Des Henderson (How to Diffuse a Bomb) reopens these largely forgotten cold-cases, unearthing disturbing revelations in secret state documents to tell an extraordinary tale of abuse, trauma and potential cover-up.
Notes by Sunniva O’Flynn
Ed Moloney offers the recommendation below. Chris Moore, a journalist who has researched the subject thoroughly for many decades, wrote a fascinating (and chilling) background story about state collusion and child abuse on Ed Moloney’s blog in June 2023. it is reprinted below.
‘Lost Boys’ Film Adds Fuel To Kincora Fire And One Question: ‘Why Did The BBC Drop This Film?’
I had the opportunity yesterday to watch the new Kincora film made by Belfast’s own film company Alleycats. Called ‘Lost Boys’ it asks a simple but necessary question: was the disappearance and murder of four Belfast schoolboys in the 1970’s linked to the subsequent Kincora scandal, which broke some few years afterwards, revealing that all the employees at the home for wayward boys had been abusing inmates for years?
Read the rest of this entry »Doctor Matt Barrett saves a little of Ireland’s honour at the absurd coronation of a British King called Charles III
The French socialist Jean-Luc Melenchon spoke for many when he branded the coronation of the new English king Charles III “nauseating”.
A Dublin cardiologist, Matt Barrett, is the partner of an Irish politician Leo Varadkar (currently the Fine Gael Taoiseach, Prime Minister). Matt had to attend the recent coronation of an English king called Charles. While Varadkar and other attending Irish forelock-tuggers (such as President Michael D Higgins and the Sinn Féin leaders Mary Lou McDonald and Michelle O’Neill) dutifully swallowed the nauseating royal guff, Matt broke ranks.
Ten out of Ten to Matt Barrett! :
“Varadkar’s partner, Matt Barrett, however, did not get the memo. In the VIP motorcade and in Westminster Abbey, he posted a series of irreverent comments on Instagram to his private group of more than 350 followers.
“Holy shit I think I’m accidentally crowned king of England,” he posted from the taoiseach’s car as they approached the abbey on 6 May.
The posts, reported in the Irish Times on Saturday, have embarrassed the government and landed Varadkar in a fresh diplomatic blunder.
Once inside the abbey, Barrett, a consultant cardiologist, ignored an injunction in the order-of-service booklet to switch off his phone and posted jokes and observations on the ceremony.
A paragraph from page 38 in the booklet caught his eye. “The queen’s sceptre and rod are brought from the altar by the Right Rev and Right Hon the Lord Chartres GCVO and the Right Rev Rose Hudson Wilkin CD MBE, Bishop of Dover. The queen touches them in turn,” it said.
Barrett posted a photo of it with a green line around the last sentence. “Sounds like the script to a good night out, tbh,” he said.
In the list of participants, he noted the Right Rev James Newcome, who has the title Clerk of the Closet. Barrett highlighted this, saying: “Had this job until my early 20s.”
Later he posted a photograph of Charles wearing his crown and compared it to the sorting hat in the Harry Potter books. “Was genuinely half expecting it to shout ‘GRYFFINDOR,’” he wrote.”
The source is the Guardian, a British newspaper.
In Ireland, beside the famous “You Are Now Entering Free Derry Wall”, the English king is not welcome :
Dozens of British Police Confiscate Anti-Monarchy Banners in London, May 6 2023
The site “Leeds for Europe” reports :
Yesterday Suella Braverman’s new, draconian anti-protest laws were used to their full extent to surpress anti-monarchy protestors.
The rest of the world was watching, this is how the English service on France 24 reported it – “While many criticise the price tag of the Coronation as ordinary Britons struggle to put food on the table.. The police arrests of peaceful protesters are scenes you’d expect to see in Russia, not in the UK.”
Leader of Britain’s anti-monarchy group Republic arrested at coronation protest
Gopal Priyamavda Observes :
From a plundered economy to a police force ready to crush protests, Britain today looks like its colonies once did. It had to happen.
https://www.europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article66450
Priyamavda published her article on the Al Jazeera website on May 5 2023; One day later her prediction concerning “a police force ready to crush protests” came true.
Meanwhile several leading Irish politicians are tugging the forelock to the British Monarch : Shame on the leaders of Sinn Féin Mary Lou McDonald and Michelle O’Neill and President Michael D Higgins – their behaviour is politically unprincipled. Leaders of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil – Messrs Leo Varadkar and Micheál Martin are not betraying their principles – they believe in celebrating the crimes of the British Empire.
Source : https://www.europe-solidaire.org/spip.php?article66449
Republic’s Graham Smith held at protest on King Charles III’s procession route in central London
Read the rest of this entry »The British Royal Family is “unequal, outdated, and should be consigned to the dustbin of history” – Agree or Disagree?
Read the news items below and decide for yourself if the statement above – written by West Belfast Stormont Assembly member Gerry Carroll (People Before Profit) – should be supported by everyone on the anti-imperialist left in Ireland.
I think the answer is Yes – and this should not be a controversial opinion, especially in Ireland. Unfortunately, some prominent public figures disagree. Lies about the British Royal Family resemble a mountain of dead dogs, and fresh stinking corpses are added daily.
Reliable news reports tell us that the English Prince Andrew, brother of British King Charles, is getting support from a convicted child abuse criminal.
A courageous woman, Virginia Giuffre, successfully won substantial damages in a USA court from the British Prince, who was a close associate of the convicted child abuse criminals Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell.
“Maxwell, who paid out millions to Giuffre herself in a separate lawsuit in 2017, was jailed for child sex trafficking in connection with Epstein.
But she claimed in an interview with CBS that Ms Giuffre’s claims are unfounded, and that she did not introduce her “dear friend” Prince Andrew to the teenager as had been claimed.
Ms Giuffre said: “My goal has been to show the rich and powerful are not above the law and should be held accountable.” Source : https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/prince-andrew-overturn-claim-by-sex-accuser-virginia-giuffre/
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Readers might assume that no self-respecting Irish political leader would risk getting close to the sinister Buckingham House royal parasites.
Read the rest of this entry »Snow Black – A Modern Fairy Tale – English Monarchy Dissected by Irish Feminist Rosita Sweetman
Meghan Markle as Snow Black; England’s Wicked Queen as England’s Wicked Queen and so on – all are present in this dark fairy tale.
Snow Black – A Modern Fairy Tale
Once upon a time there was a beautiful Queen. One day she pricked her finger. Three drops of blood fell on her black windowsill. Looking out at the winter snow the Queen said, I wish for a son with golden red hair, a black daughter in law, both with hearts as white as snow.
The Queen gave birth to a baby boy with golden red hair.
Then the Queen died. Everyone thought it was an accident but actually the Queen was desperately unhappy. The King was not a good man. He had deceived the Queen into marrying him while all the time he was having sex with another married woman. As soon as the beautiful Queen was out of the way he and the other woman got married.
Read the rest of this entry »Changing of the Guard 💂♀️ in London’s 10 Downing Street – British Prime Ministers 2022
Brilliant Satirists are superb political analysts – getting the message across, injecting lethal poison into the heart of a terminally ill body. Examples :
Solutions? Smashing Brexit would be an excellent start!
Double Standards Applied to Irish Women’s Soccer Team : Jack Charlton 1 Vera Pauw 0 – Oh Ah Up the Mná
A gaggle of West-Brit politicians have denounced Irish Women’s Soccer Team Celebrations. Wolfe Tones songwriter Brian Warfield dismisses the reactionary chorus as “cranks and unionists or people who side with them”. Warfield is dead right.
Song Composer Derek Warfield Declares “Don’t tell that you can’t sing Celtic Symphony but you can sing God Save the King”
Jack Charlton was the best international soccer manager who ever worked for the Republic of Ireland – he encouraged his players to sing Irish rebel songs. Former kit-minder Charlie O’Leary recalls :
Sean South of Garryowen was his favourite.
Charlie O’Leary, kit-minder for Jack Charlton’s Boys in Green https://www.balls.ie/football/jack-charlton-rebel-songs-350401-350401
It got to the stage where it had to be played. It’s a rabble rousing song full of life, if you forget about the words; it was lovely.
“I had two tapes with me. One tape was all Luke Kelly songs and your man Moore [Christy Moore]. Going to Lansdowne, I’d come to around Haddington Road, and I’d stop that tape and I’d put on the other tape – Seán South of Garryowen. Just as we’d be arriving in the ground, we’d be at the crescendo of Seán South of Garryowen. So the lads would be really worked up by that time. They’d be singing at the top of their voices.”
Irish Times December 15 2014
In his book on the Charlton brothers and their relationship, Leo McKinstry recorded how there was hell to pay when news of the Republic of Ireland team playlist reached the English tabloids.
Teddy Taylor, the comically Eurosceptic right-wing Conservative MP from Glasgow, fulminated in public that Jack should be ashamed of himself for belting out such a ballad.
The FAI weren’t inclined to play up the fact that the Irish team used to sing songs celebrating the IRA’s 1950s Border campaign.
https://www.balls.ie/football/jack-charlton-rebel-songs-350401-350401
Jack Charlton 1 Vera Pauw 0
Public figures must stop bullying the Irish female soccer players. Manager Vera Pauw has a chance to follow in the footsteps of Jack Charlton.
Pauw’s game management strategy is a carbon copy of the Jack Charlton method “Yeah, of course,” Pauw says. “We need to develop further. We’ve got five clean sheets in a row. We’ve got four goals against, and that’s our strength. Because we always create chances, so we always score in a game. As long as you don’t get goals against and you score in a game you win, right?”
Charlton was a brilliant motivator, an extremely empathetic manager. He backed his players – even when they misbehaved – and bought into the Irish rebel ballad culture, our anti-imperialist culture, and sense of fun. After his team was eliminated from the Euro 88 tournament in Germany Charlton expected a barrage of criticism in Ireland. We did not win. Instead the manager and his team were greeted by hundreds of thousands of fans who did not give a toss about losing Euro 88 – we got to a major tournament for the first ever, and we beat England 1-0. The miner’s son from Ashington in the north of England, an unorthodox man of the left and the workers’ movement, understood this very profoundly.
Pauw failed to back her players – and appears to have no understanding of Ireland’s proud tradition of cultural resistance. She made a public statement which must immediately be withdrawn :
Pauw insisted that the release of the footage on social media by one of the squad was not the core issue, adding the player “was devastated and crying in her room”.
“I don’t want to hide behind that because it she hadn’t put it on social media and I had been notified about it and the significance, then I would have addressed it immediately.
“I’ve also told her that putting it on social media is not the biggest thing.
“The biggest thing is that it has happened. It doesn’t matter if you are in private room or a dressing room or if you are outside.”
European Soccer bosses in UEFA are threatening disciplinary sanctions against the Girls in Green. https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/63242412
Football Association of Ireland (FAI) blazers, assorted cranks and a talented soccer manager are profoundly wrong. Let’s hope Vera Pauw reflects on the successful methods of Jack Charlton, the miner’s son from Ashington who loved Irish rebel songs.
John Meehan October 13 2022
An interview with song composer Derek Warfield :
Irish team being ‘persecuted and bullied’ for singing ‘ooh ah up the ‘Ra’, songwriter says
Article Source https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2022/10/12/irish-team-being-persecuted-and-bullied-for-singing-ooh-ah-up-the-ra-songwriter-says/
Wolfe Tones songwriter Brian Warfield has accused those who criticise his song Celtic Symphony of being “cranks and unionists or people who side with them” amid controversy over the Irish women’s football team singing along to it.
Warfield wrote the song, which includes the refrain ‘ooh, aah up the ‘Ra’, in 1987 for the centenary of Celtic Football Club, which occurred a year later.
He claims the line was taken from graffiti he saw on a wall in Glasgow around that time, which read ‘we’re magic, up the Celts, ooh, aah up the Ra’. He said he was not necessarily referring to the Provisional IRA in the lyrics.
No excuses
Celtic Symphony was playing in the dressing room while the Irish team celebrated qualifying for the World Cup after winning at Hampden Park on Tuesday night. Players were filmed singing ‘ooh, aah up the Ra’ and a clip was posted on social media.
Read the rest of this entry »“If you hate the royal family clap your hands”
You can’t fool Celtic Soccer Fans :
Celtic fans disrupt minute’s applause for Queen Elizabeth II with anti-Royal chanting and banner.
From CNN :
“CNN
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Supporters of Glasgow-based football team Celtic FC chanted anti-royal sentiments during a planned minute’s applause for Queen Elizabeth II ahead of the team’s match against St. Mirren in Paisley, Scotland, on Sunday.
The minute’s applause had been organized after the home team, St. Mirren, chose to pay tribute to the late monarch, but Celtic fans unfurled a banner reading “If you hate the royal family clap your hands” and chanted the same words throughout the planned homage.
The Scottish FA said in a statement on Monday that “as a mark of respect and in keeping with the period of National Mourning, home clubs may wish to hold a period of silence and/or play the National Anthem just ahead of kick-off, and players may wish to wear black armbands.”
Sky, who was broadcasting the match, confirmed to CNN that it turned down the stadium microphones to limit the audibility of the chants during its broadcast of the minute’s applause.
After the applause ended, commentator Ian Crocker said, “Apologies if you were offended by anything you might have heard. Most people showed respect, some did not.”
It is the second time this week that groups of Celtic fans have expressed anti-royal feelings, with the club currently subject to an investigation by European football’s governing body UEFA after displaying a banner reading “F**k the crown” during Wednesday’s Champions League match against Shakhtar Donetsk.
CNN has reached out to the Scottish Professional Football League and Celtic FC for comment but did not immediately get a response.
Though Celtic is based in Scotland, its traditions are intertwined with those of anti-monarchist Irish republicans since it was founded with the aim of alleviating poverty in Glasgow’s Irish Catholic immigrant population in the 1880s.
Its crosstown rival Rangers, meanwhile, is traditionally more aligned with Protestantism and royalist unionism, heightening the antagonism between the two sides.
The Scottish FA, the governing body for football in the country, said to CNN that it didn’t have “any jurisdiction over fan behaviour at league matches.”
Booing during the minute’s silence was also audible in other matches held in the Scottish Premiership this weekend.
Dundee United released a statement, acknowledging that “a small section of the crowd chose to not respect the minute’s silence” ahead of its match against Rangers at Ibrox on Saturday.”
English Queen Kicks Bucket : Loyal Mass Media Bans Joke: “the shocking death of a 96-year-old woman from natural causes” – London Forelock-Tugging Mocked
American Columbia Journalism Review retaliates – reporting the Sky multinational media corporation
removed jokes including a reference to the Queen’s passing as “the shocking death of a 96-year-old woman from natural causes.”
New York based Irish-American Correspondent Joan McKiernan circulates real news :
These are just some of the things that have been canceled—or stopped, or banned, or discouraged, or quietened, or postponed, or revoked—somewhere in the UK since the Queen died last week, out of respect or to facilitate other people paying theirs. (When the British network Sky rebroadcast the latest episode of Oliver’s US late-night show, it removed jokes including a reference to the Queen’s passing as “the shocking death of a 96-year-old woman from natural causes.” Sky declined to comment to Deadline about the changes.) Beside those that have affected the media directly, all the cancellations have provided the press with a running storyline this week, alongside a packed calendar of official mourning. They have occasioned much comment on social media, too. A Twitter account called @GrieveWatch has grown in popularity, highlighting not only cancellations but overbaked expressions of public grief. Currently pinned to the top of its feed is a video posted by a prominent right-wing commentator—who once mocked Meghan and Harry for attending a “personal” remembrance event with a photographer present—showing him engaging in some “quiet reflection” outside Buckingham Palace. “The important thing is that you filmed it,” @GrieveWatch wrote.
Correspondent Jon Allsop decided to sacrifice 12 hours of his life – the things some people must do to earn a crust – life is often cruel :
“A banner in the Celtic end stated “F*** the Crown” while another one said “Sorry for your loss Michael Fagan”, a reference to the intruder who broke into the Queen’s Buckingham Palace bedroom in 1982.
Early in the match, there was a chant of “If you hate the Royal Family, clap your hands” but the Celtic fans quickly had some positive play to get behind as their team took a 10th-minute lead before being pegged back.”
Of course, the packed calendar of official mourning has been themajor storyline this past week across major news organizations. It’s been a huge deal globally, including in the US, with networks dispatching staff to London, cutting into programming to broadcast the latest ceremony, marveling at British “pomp and circumstances” (sic), and lining up plummy-voiced royal commentators straight from British-stereotype central casting. But British news outlets, as is only right and proper, have shown the way.
Yesterday, I settled in at 8am local time with the intention of watching twelve consecutive hours of British TV news coverage; the mourning calendar was relatively empty—King Charles III took the day off—but Britain’s mourning period still had days to run, and I was curious to see if major networks had run out of things to say yet. Reader, I did not quite make it twelve hours, though I gave it my best shot. I started on the BBC, where news from the outside world (the war in Ukraine, the retirement of the tennis great Roger Federer) occasionally punched through, but where the biggest story, to begin with at least, was the real-time progress of a line—soon known to Brits simply as The Queue—that snaked for miles through central London as mourners waited hours for the chance to observe the Queen’s casket lying in state. (The BBC is also livestreaming footage of the casket, “for people who want to pay their respects virtually.”) Reporters queued up themselves to interview people in The Queue. Some particularly intrepid journalists joined it themselves and reported back, including a science correspondent at The Times of London, who was the twenty-second person in line. His boss had decided there was “nothing happening in science,” he wrote. Nothing at all.
Back on the BBC, a reporter was talking to two women who had brought loved ones’ ashes to see the Queen. Half an hour later, the Archbishop of Canterbury appeared on-screen in a high-vis jacket and started to interview people in The Queue as a reporter tried to interview him. At 10:47am or so, the BBC cut away from The Queue for a video interview with a man who edits a newsletter called Our Corgi World. The man batted away concerns that the Queen’s death could tank the popularity of corgis as pets while shoveling treats into his own dogs’ mouths. “Edward, Mungo & Barney, corgis,” the on-screen chyron read. After that, I cut away from the BBC to watch Sky News, which was also interviewing people in The Queue: a woman with a net over her face in tribute to the Queen’s love of horse-riding; a man who was born on the same day as King Charles and claimed he’d received extra milk rations and similar “goodies” from the palace as a result. “There’s been a royal vein through my life from day one,” the man said. If he seemed happy to talk at length, the same couldn’t be said for interviewees in a different, faster-moving section of The Queue, with a reporter having to gallop to keep pace with them as if she were staking out a recalcitrant politician. (Talk about queue anon.)
Reader, if you can bear it, click the source for more :
Tomás Ó Flatharta 