Archive for the ‘Dublin Governments’ Category
“Hate campaign over asylum seekers’ hostel drives French mayor out of town”. – Irish Parallels? – Grim Weekend in Dublin.
Contributors to the Cedar Lounge Blog are discussing a grim weekend in Dublin and other parts of Ireland. Racists are active :
That was a grim weekend in Dublin.
There have been confrontations between anti-immigration protestors and gardaí after protester marched to the International Protection Office on Mount Street in Dublin city centre.
Since March a growing number of tents have been pitched outside the office and in surrounding streets.
The protestors shouted at asylum seekers, telling them they were not welcome and there were also confrontations with gar
https://cedarlounge.wordpress.com/2023/05/15/a-different-strategy-from-the-protestors/#comment-828054
Contributors are asking if similar events are occurring elsewhere – this report from France concerns Yannick Morez, mayor of a small town in north-west France. Arsonist Racists have forced Morez to leave his elected office and town while the central government fails to confront the far-right criminals. There are disturbing parallels with current events in Ireland.
Hate campaign over asylum seekers’ hostel drives French mayor out of town
The mayor of a small town in north-west France announced his resignation this week following a vicious, months-long hate campaign whipped up by the far-right over the creation of a hostel for asylum seekers in a residential area close to a school. Yannick Morez, who is to move out of the town he has lived in for 32 years, said his decision was prompted by an arson attack on his home and the disinterest of the authorities to the successive threats made against him. The resignation caused a political storm this week, over both the apparent lack of support and protection given to the mayor, and the rising tensions and climate of violence in French political life.
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 :

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 »Confronting the Irish Far Right – Solidarity with Paul Murphy TD and Jess Spear – “this was a new low and should never happen again”
On Monday April 24 2023 a serious incident occurred outside the family home of Paul Murphy TD (People Before Profit, Dublin South-West) and his partner Jess Spear.
Our friends at the Cedar Lounge Blog have highlighted the story :
Fair play to Seán Crowe TD (Sinn Féin), a constituency colleague of Paul Murphy, who issued a strong solidarity statement. All other left wing deputies, elected representatives, activists etc should endorse Crowe’s statement. That is a minimum. Paul and his partner Jess Spear must be unconditionally supported, and the left should move forward, openly organising and marginalising far-right anti-civilization thugs.



Statement Issued by Seán Crowe TD (Sinn Féin, Dublin South-West) :
Read the rest of this entry »Family home of Paul Murphy TD targeted by protesters – “Far right protesting outside our home right now. We were literally preparing to give our newborn baby a bath”
April 24 2023 at 8pm – Far-Right protesters in Ireland’s capital city Dublin protested outside the house of an elected member of the Dáil (parliament), the People Before Profit Deputy Paul Murphy. This is a sinister escalation. Solidarity with Paul Murphy TD and his partner Jess Spear.

The Man Who Blew the Whistle on the late British IRA Spy Freddie Scappaticci
Ed Moloney has diligently reported on the Steaknife (Freddie Scappaticci) story for many years. Skeletons are falling out of cupboards : Link : http://thebrokenelbow.com/2023/04/11/the-man-who-blew-the-whistle-on-scap/
His name is Ian Hurst although for a long time this former intelligence officer in the British Army’s Force Research Unit (FRU) called himself ‘Martin Ingram’ whenever he met the media. A chirpy Mancunian who served with the FRU in Derry, he broke with the military and gradually emerged in public with secrets to tell, angered by what he believed was the shameful way an agent he ran in the IRA had been treated.
The Derry IRA’s quarter master’s department included in its ranks one Frank Hegarty, whose career in the IRA had been controversial. He had been expelled some years before by Ivor Bell, then the chief of staff, when it was discovered that he had been having an affair with the wife of a soldier in the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) and had failed to tell his superiors. And so it was that eyebrows were raised when the news filtered through that Hegarty was back, a move that had been arranged by Martin McGuinness.

Ian Hurst, pictured in his days as a soldier in the Force Research Unit
Hegarty’s exposure as a spy and death at the hands of the Internal Security Department – the IRA’s spycatchers – led to more internal speculation about McGuinness’ true loyalties. The Belfast-based veteran IRA leader, Brian Keenan was one who did not keep those doubts to himself. The pair had never got on and Keenan blamed McGuinness for facilitating his arrest in Northern Ireland and subsequent deportation to a London court where he received a lengthy sentence for IRA bombings in England in the early 1970’s.
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