Archive for the ‘History of Ireland’ Category
Nell McCafferty’s Funeral from Derry was broadcast late on RIP.IE – Minus an Eamonn McCann Eulogy, Gay Rainbow Flags, or any personal memories of a woman who “changed Ireland for the better”
Many people who knew Nell McCafferty could not get to her funeral in St. Columb’s Cathedral, Derry. An alternative was offered on RIP.IE – a live broadcast starting at 12.30pm. When interested viewers tuned in, they were mystified, seeing only a blank screen. The livestream did not start until after 1.00pm, as a priest shared the altar with three men conducting a religious ceremony containing no stories about one of Derry’s most talented writers, Nell McCafferty. At one screening venue a small group of Nell’s fans – including Máirín Johnson who travelled on the legendary Dublin-Belfast contraceptive train with Nell in 1971 – were not impressed. We learned later that Eamonn McCann delivered a eulogy in front of the altar – A report is below. Source :
Nell McCafferty “Changed Ireland for the Better”
Eamonn McCann delivers a eulogy for Nell McCafferty, St Columb’s Cathedral Derry, August 23 2024
Nell McCafferty ‘changed Ireland for the better’, mourners at her funeral in Derry’s Bogside told
Campaigning journalist and author, who focused on women’s rights, poverty and social injustice, died on Wednesday aged 80
Nell McCafferty “changed Ireland for the better”, mourners at her funeral have been told.
Delivering an elegy in advance of her funeral Mass in Derry’s Bogside on Friday, the veteran civil rights campaigner and journalist Eamonn McCann said it was “given to very few of us to actually change the world”.
Read the rest of this entry »Irish Times Tribute to Nell McCafferty, March 28 1944 – August 21 2024 – Hold the Front Page – Nell has a story
An excellent tribute : Web Link :
Nell McCafferty Obituary – Journalist and Feminist Campaigner
Update, Dublin Gathering, Friday August 23, The Teachers’ Club, 36 Parnell Square West, at 12.30. Nell McCafferty’s funeral will be livestreamed.
RIP.IE Notice :
https://rip.ie/death-notice/nell-mccafferty-derry-derry-city-566175
- Born: March 28th, 1944
- Died: August 21st, 2024
- Nell got to the front page in the end :
“Nell”, she called her autobiography, and that was how she was known.
Small, fierce and feisty. That mop of curls, the waft of cigarette smoke, the tongue in cheek smile and her distinctive walk, like a sailor ashore. Everyone soon knew her smoky Derry voice, laconic, challenging, always ready to break into laughter. You never knew what Nell was going to say next. It was often outrageous. She was a character, and she loved to play herself to the hilt. She was also one of the most important Irish journalists of the latter half of the twentieth century. She listened. She paid attention. She told the truth.
She was, wrote her friend, the historian Margaret Mac Curtain, “unequalled in the extraordinary breadth and fearless candour she has brought to bear on controversial subjects.” Her journalistic career started in The Irish Times in 1970, when the paper’s late Northern editor and editor, Fergus Pyle, commissioned her to write about the new bathroom in her family home in Beechwood Street in Derry’s Bogside.
Home was her touchstone. She vaunted her street-cred. She was part of a Bogside aristocracy that included Martin McGuinness, Eamonn McCann, Seamus Deane, Paddy Doherty, John Hume, Dana and Phil Coulter. Her mother was her biggest fan and harshest critic.
McCafferty was born in 1944. Her father, Hugh, was a clerk for the British admiralty by day and a bookie’s clerk at the dog track at night. Her mother, Lily, reared six children. Another daughter died at birth.
Her parents had to work hard to keep poverty at bay. She was fascinated and frightened by the poverty of the tenements where her father was raised. One of his brothers had died as a British soldier at the Somme. Her mother’s parents were Sergeant Duffy, a Catholic RUC man, and his wife Sarah, a Protestant who “turned”.
Read the rest of this entry »Hotel Lux: An Intimate History of Communism’s Forgotten Radicals; Dublin Book Launch, Books Upstairs, Thursday August 22 2024, 6.00pm
A recommended book launch :
Link :
Book Launch, Dublin, May O’Callaghan, : An Intimate History of Communism’s Forgotten Radicals
Books Upstairs
17 D’Olier Street,
Dublin 2,
D02 RX06,
Ireland
LAUNCH: Hotel Lux by Maurice Casey
Thursday 22nd August 2024 at 6:00pm
It is our pleasure to present the launch of Maurice Casey’s new book Hotel Lux: An Intimate History of Communism’s Forgotten Radicals, which follows Irish radical May O’Callaghan and her friends, three revolutionary families brought together by their vision for a communist future and their time spent in the Comintern’s Moscow living quarters, the Hotel Lux. This fascinating history history of international communism will be launched at 6pm on Thursday 22nd August. Join us to celebrate!
Read the rest of this entry »British General Election 2024 – Highlights and Lowlights – Loveless Landslide, Sandcastle Majority. Far-Right Hiding in Plain Sight, House of Paisley Falls in Antrim – and a Message of Hope from new MP Shockat Adam, Leicester South
Let’s start with positive news :
Shockat Adam MP, Leicester South – “This is for the people of Gaza”.
When you listen to this June 25 car-crash interview with former Leicester South Labour MP Jonathan Ashworth, you would be forgiven for thinking he was a member of the far-right racist party, Reform.
Shockat Adam was not alone. Five pro-Gaza independent candidates (including former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn in Islington North) are members of the new Westminster parliament :
Read the rest of this entry »The Irish Left Must Unite to break the old stranglehold – Paul Murphy TD (People Before Profit, Dublin South-West), Irish Times, July 4 2024
Paul Murphy’s opinion piece in the July 4 2024 edition of the Irish Times makes a strong case :
“Another five years of FF/FG rule would be disastrous for the country. Left parties and Independents must come together to stop it happening”
There is a bottom line :
No coalition with Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael.
Time for a new united left alliance to topple Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael
Another five years of FF/FG rule would be disastrous for the country. Left parties and Independents must come together and stop this happening
A general election is looming. If the local election results are repeated, it will mean a return of this Government but with the Greens replaced as the third wheel by right-wing Independents. The 100-year rule of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael will continue.
This would be a disaster.
Another five years of their rule would mean a deepening of the crises in housing and health, with more children growing up in emergency accommodation, more adults trapped in their childhood bedroom unable to move out, as well as growing hospital waiting lists. It would mean continued inaction on the climate and biodiversity crises and large numbers of workers in low-paid, precarious employment without the right to collectively bargain.
Read the rest of this entry »A Stormont law said it’s a criminal offence to say “Jimmy Savile was a paedophile” – Judge ruled this is perverse, Minister Naomi Long launches appeal
On the face of it this is political loony-land – and so much for the liberal reputation of Alliance Party leader Naomi Long, currently trying to take the East Belfast Westminster seat of DUP leader Gavin Robinson – the result will be known in the early hours of Friday July 5.
Political Journalist Sam McBride explains the background in two articles below.
One correspondent asked McBride a relevant question, straining to give Long the benefit of the doubt :
Read the rest of this entry »Birds of a Feather Flock Together – Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, Nigel Farage and Sammy Wilson MP (DUP, East Antrim)
There is more to this story than initially meets the eye. Much capitalist development is based on Ethnic Cleansing of original populations and the plantation of new non-indigenous populations – it happened in the United States of America (USA) and Australia – naming just two. It did not happen so brutally in Ireland – but British imperialism made a significant effort.
Links :
Plantation of Ulster
Ethnic Cleansing of Ireland – Wikipedia
The Northern province of Ulster was “planted” in the 1600’s, but the native Irish were not completely exterminated. Waves of native Irish emigrated – especially in the 19th century after a misnamed Famine (in reality a “Great Hunger” caused by British Imperialist Policy) drove millions of the native Irish to the four corners of the globe. These emigrants kept alive the idea of Irish freedom, and played a significant role in every attempt to rid Ireland of British rule.
The stubborn Irish “national question” remains on today’s agenda because of the 1922 Anglo-Irish Treaty which divided Ireland into 2 sectarian states. A key feature of extreme Irish Unionism is identification with plantation/ethnic cleansing forms of capitalism – and that goes a long way towards explaining Irish far-right Unionist sympathy for the present day attempted ethnic cleansing of Palestine and Ukraine. We should situate recent pro-Putin and anti-Ukraine statements by the British far-right politician Nigel Farage and Sammy Wilson within this framework :
Link :
The Russian imperialist occupation of Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk is ethnic cleansing capitalism in action – accompanied by child stealing and abuse similar to the behaviour of the Catholic Church in the 26 county bit of Ireland from the 1930’s to the 1990’s.
An excellent Ukrainian blog, Ukr-Taz, covers the story of Putin’s ethnic cleansing dreams in Ukraine, and Donald Trump’s enthusiastic support :
Trump on Putin’s “dream”
29 06 2024
For all that can be said about Thursday’s debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump — including about the former’s dismal performance and about the boundless creativity of Trump’s fabrications on almost every topic under the sun — Trump’s curious note about Putin’s “dream” stood out to me:
Read the rest of this entry »Is Tory General Election Extinction Coming to Britain on July 4 2024?
Extraordinary numbers are appearing from reliable opinion poll surveys in Britain.
MRP (Multi-level Regression and Post-stratification) surveys (explanation here :
MRP explained) are much more accurate than traditional opinion polls – and still : we must remember these numbers are just a snapshot, the real thing might be significantly different on July 4 2024.
All of that said : Gamblegate (Tory insiders placing insider bets on the surprise date of the British general election) and Brexit neatly symbolise the self-created swamp of the 2020’s British Conservatives.
Jeremy Corbyn Might Retain Islington North
This MRP survey makes some interesting predictions for untypical constituencies. For example here is the
Islington North Prediction : Expelled ex Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn (independent) might defeat the official Sir Keir Starmer candidate.
Bad six county News for the Democratic Unionist party
The site, unlike many, includes six county predictions, for example :
Fermanagh and South Tyrone Prediction
Belfast East Prediction
Antrim South Prediction
None of that is good news for the Democratic Unionist party (DUP). The flat earth dinosaurs of the six counties are tipped to win North Antrim (home of Ian Paisley Junior MP) but the numbers are getting tight :
Antrim North Prediction
A long shot : tactical nationalist voting might cause the first Westminster Paisley election defeat since 1970 when the reverend Ian senior first won the seat.
Rishi Sunak to lose his seat?
Overall, Tory Extinction might include Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who may lose his seat :
Richmond and North Allerton Prediction
John Meehan June 27 2024
Sinn Féin Election Disaster – The Price Of Putting Popularity Before Principle – Éirigí Analysis
Éirigí, a socialist-republican organisation, “is a political party that was formed in 2006 by a group of Dublin-based community and political activists. We believe that modern Ireland is a deeply undemocratic, unequal and unfair country not by accident, but by design.” Their analysis of Sinn Féin’s unexpectedly weak showing in the June 7 2024 Irish Local and European Elections highlights how the party was bounced into changing its position on immigration and racism :
With a few notable exceptions, this new talking point was propagated without context – with no detailed critique of migration in the modern world – no attempt to explain why the asylum process is in chaos – no robust defence of the core republican principle of equality – no assertion that racism, sectarianism and xenophobia are the enemies of republicanism – no calling out the peddling of hate and division by the far-right.
For potential Sinn Féin voters, the lesson was clear. The party could be bounced into changing its messaging if there were votes at stake, even when those doing the bouncing were far-right bigots. It seems almost certain that the ease with which Sinn Féin was bounced on the issue of immigration did them more electoral damage than their actual position on immigration.
Sinn Féin Election Disaster – The Price Of Putting Popularity Before Principle
Link :
Sinn Féin Election Disaster – The Price Of Putting Popularity Before Principle – Éirigí analysis
Two weeks have now passed since the Local and European elections in the Twenty-Six Counties. Despite Sinn Féin’s frantic spinning to the contrary, the election was nothing short of an unmitigated disaster for the party. The number of votes and seats secured by the party was even lower than the lowest expectations of pollsters, political commentators and Sinn Féin itself.
As recently as July 2022, support for Sinn Féin was at a level not seen in more than a century. The Irish Times/IPSOS opinion poll for that month found that 36% of voters in the Twenty-Six Counties intended to vote for Sinn Féin.
Fourteen months later, in September 2023, the same poll found that 34% still intended to vote for Sinn Féin. Among voters under the age of 34, support was even higher at more than 43%. Despite this, Sinn Féin secured less than 12% of the popular vote in the 2024 Local and European elections.
So, why have two-thirds of Sinn Féin supporters abandoned the party since last September?
Prior to elections the apparent answer to this question seemed obvious to many – immigration. Immigration, it was claimed, had recently become a red-hot issue for many Sinn Féin supporters., and these supporters were now walking away from Sinn Féin in their droves because the party was too ‘soft’ on immigration. It was an open and shut case. Until it wasn’t.
When the ballot boxes were opened on this day two weeks ago, it quickly became clear that the opinion polls had significantly underestimated the scale of Sinn Féin’s woes.
Read the rest of this entry »“Sinn Féin’s disaster was the standout story of the weekend’s count” – Cedar Lounge Revolution Blog starts important discussion
Overall, the June 7 2024 Local and European elections in the 26 County bit of Ireland were good news for the ruling coalition elected in February 2020. The Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael-Greens plus Gombeens (FFFGGG) combination scored an important victory, setting them up for a possible return to the seat of government in Dublin’s Leinster House in less than 12 months, when a new general election must happen.
Even worse, due to ominous rising support for Gombeen currents (primarily the Independent Ireland [II]) party and extreme racists, FFFG might be able to dump the Greens and rule on their own – or coalesce with the II gombeens and other toxic racist-right populists.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tomás Ó Flatharta 