Archive for the ‘Irish General Election February 8 2020’ Category
Ireland Fought for Freedom against an Empire – Now we on the Irish Left Support Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom – Global Week of Action Events in Ireland – February 21-26 2023
A global week of action for solidarity with Ukraine – Stop the Russian war of aggression! Peace for Ukraine!
Friday February 24 will mark one year since the Russian army invaded Ukraine on the orders of Putin and his regime. A year of indescribable suffering and bloodshed for the Ukrainian people.
The completely unjustified invasion has already cost the lives of many tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians and military personnel. Every day the Ukrainian people face brutality and violence. Millions of civilians have been forced to flee abroad, millions are internally displaced.
Entire towns and villages have been reduced to rubble by Russian bombing and airstrikes. Civilian infrastructure (electricity and heating networks, schools, hospitals, railroads, ports, etc.) is being systematically destroyed, making the country unliveable.
Calendar of Events
February 21-26 2023 Events Supported or Organised by ILWU
Tuesday February 21, 7pm
Why You Should Support Ukraine (via Zoom)
Speakers :
Vladyslav Starodubtsev (Sotisalniy Rukh); Vlad Dziuba (Ukrainian Action in Ireland)
Join us on Tuesday February 21 at 7pm to discuss Why you should support Ukraine – Hear two Ukrainian activists. Email irishleftwithukraine@gmail.com for zoom link
Friday February 24 2023 Dublin, GPO, 2pm.
Called by Ukrainian Action on Ireland : 1st Anniversary of Russian Invasion of Ukraine : “Fighting for Europe”
Immigrants Involved in Irish Radical Left/National Liberation Movements – Before, During and After the Easter 1916 Rising
A Maurice Casey Walking Tour – supported by Irish Left With Ukraine (ILWU)
Saturday February 25 – 1-3pm – Portobello to the GPO
1pm to 3.00pm, starting at Portobello Square (at 1 Portobello Harbour, opposite BelloBar), finishing at the GPO.
The route and the stories Maurice Casey will be covering at each stop :
Portobello Place – Harry Kernoff
Harry Kernoff’s woodcut of James Connolly in the uniform of the Irish Citizen Army, whose flag is on the banner of the ILWU.
Lombard Street West – The Harmel Family
St Stephen´s Green – Casimir Dunin
Mansion House – Sidney Aronson and Rose McKenna, WILPF Ukraine
delegates
National Library of Ireland – Nora Dryhurst and Georgian Independence, Kropotkin
Peterson´s Pipe store – Conrad Peterson, Helen Lena Yeates
Trinity College Dublin – Russian Department – Daisy McMackin
GPO – The Bolshevik delegation to Dublin – Point up to the Mater
Hospital – End with story of the Finn and the Swede in 1916
“Well, 4 of us protested against the far right this afternoon – It’s now got around 85 thousand views and rising” – A FÓRSA trade union official, Andy Pike, was in Parnell Square, Saturday 4.2.2023
Well, 4 of us protested against the far right this afternoon Lots of abuse from some but more support from passers by. We at least made a point. @forsa_union_ie @apike1.
It’s now got around 85 thousand views and rising. Over 200 abusive comments as well. Going to keep those comments open just to allow them to disgrace themselves even more. Keep it coming, you only show yourselves up for what you are #IrelandForAll
It’s now got around 85 thousand views and rising. Over 200 abusive comments as well. Going to keep those comments open just to allow them to disgrace themselves even more. Keep it coming, you only show yourselves up for what you are #IrelandForAll
Surprised a picture of 4 folk with a tatty banner and home made placards has 50k views. Its attracted so much abuse we are more convinced than ever of the need to support Refugees. That’s why we will be supporting @LeCheileDND 1.30 at the GPO tomorrow so do come along if you can twitter.com/apike1/status/…
The Irish Times published this Una Mullally report on Monday February 6 2023 :
“The State’s obligation to provide accommodation for tens of thousands of newcomers from abroad is a logistical dilemma but it is exacerbated by a housing crisis that governments have presided over for the past decade” – Justine McCarthy talks sense about Ireland’s political problems today
Justine McCarthy’s article appeared in the Irish Times, February 2 2023. She talks a lot of sense.
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Any John Wayne movie worth its cast of cowboys has a scene where the baddie sets light to the dynamite taper. As the flame sizzles towards the point of detonation, the audience prays to God and all the saints above in heaven to send someone, quick, to stamp it out before the whole damned town of Tombstone goes up in smoke. That is how it has felt this week watching the lit taper of Irish xenophobia pick up speed in its burn towards cataclysm. Heightening the fear is the absence of any star-billed hero dashing to the rescue.
As gardaí investigate the suspected arson of a 19th century former schoolhouse in Dublin, which had been wrongly identified on social media as a location being prepared to house people from abroad seeking refuge here, the response of Ministers has run the full gamut from tut to tutting. As a group of Irish-born men equipped with a German shepherd, a pit bull terrier and a baseball bat yelled “pack up and get out now” to men who were not born in this country at an encampment in another part of Dublin last weekend, Ireland’s most admired leader, President Higgins, was nearly 3,000 miles away in Africa.
Amid this paralysis of State leadership, two sides have gone to war. On one side are some residents of mainly non-privileged areas who are furious that the Government is trying to look after people fleeing their native lands while many of those born here struggle to pay their bills and to secure homes. Malign keyboard warriors are deliberately stirring this resentment with lies and innuendo for their own bigoted agenda, but there are also many kind-hearted residents who have justifiable reasons for feeling discriminated against. The disproportionate number of communities with inadequate public services that have been chosen to accommodate people from abroad is as provocative as the racist rhetoric.
On the other side are many residents in these communities who are sickened by the hatred being spewed at people coming from abroad to live among them and who, in numerous cases, have suffered unimaginable vicissitudes before arriving here. The prejudice pricks a folk memory of times past when desperate Irish immigrants were as unwelcome as dogs in other countries. Besides, it belies Ireland’s self-image as the compassionate land of the céad míle fáilte.
Read the rest of this entry »Zero Tolerance for intimidation – Anthony McIntyre reports on a Labour Party Public Meeting in Drogheda – Unity in Action Against a Common Far-Right Racist Enemy
Differences exist on the left-wing spectrum in Ireland – some of them concern fundamental disagreements about political principles. One clear example is opposition to entering any coalition government with right wing ruling class parties in Ireland such as Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, the Democratic Unionist party or the Alliance party.
Other issues place a duty on parties in the broadly left-wing spectrum to put aside tactical differences, and explore methods of practical co-operation. Building effective practical opposition to the dangerous growth of far-right racism in Ireland is on the agenda today. In this spirit we re-publish an Anthony McIntyre article which reports on a well-attended Irish Labour Party rally in Drogheda which tackled the issues of racism, immigration, and Russia’s fascist and genocidal invasion of Ukraine head-on.
Anthony pulls no punches discussing his political differences with the Labour Party!
John Meehan February 3 2023
link : https://www.thepensivequill.com/2023/02/zero-tolerance-for-intimidation.html
Zero Tolerance For Intimidation
Anthony McIntyre Wednesday, February 1, 2023
It has long struck me that the Irish Labour Party more than any other has abandoned the constituency that returns it in pursuit of office. It promises a left package then delivers the Rabbitte punch to the recipients of the promise so that it may become the prop sustaining governments which view left packages much as a dog does a lamppost.
Whatever the Labour leadership sought to project onto the screen, the filtering process left the electorate feeling that it had just viewed Pensions Before People. Last time out those who had voted the party in such numbers in the previous general election followed through on Eamon Gilmore’s promise, while still with the Workers Party, to destroy the Labour Party. Since then Labour has struggled to make any impact on the Irish political scene.
None of that stopped me from turning up at a Labour Party Town Hall meeting in Drogheda’s D Hotel on Monday evening. I actually left Dublin early to make the event which was attended by around one hundred people. I had never been at any of the party’s gatherings before although any time I have approached its elected representatives or party workers, the response has been nothing less than helpful. Their members also have been to the fore in defusing the moral panic that the far right has been trying to stoke and amplify over a range of issues, most notably refugees.
Fine Gael Minister Paschal Donohoe TD in trouble – he must go says Councillor John Lyons
Michael Stone, a businessman and personal friend of Finance and Public Expenditure Minister Paschal Donohoe paid for a team to do the postering in two general election campaigns in a row – 2016 & 2020. Stone gave Donohoe an enormous advantage.
John Lyons, a Dublin City Councillor (Independent Left) argues that Donohoe must go.
Paschal Donohoe is in trouble. Not bothering to declare hugely significant donations you receive from a businessman who was heavily involved in the construction industry, whom Fine Gael appoint to the Land Development Agency in 2019, is rotten and revealing of how power operates in Ireland.
Read the rest of this entry »Local politicians Smile for the Camera with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in the North of Ireland – Don’t mention the Elephant in the Room – Brexit
John Hurson brought this parody real picture to our attention. He chose a very appropriate James Connolly quotation to describe the scene.
James Connolly
“Yes, ruling by fooling, is a great British art with great Irish fools to practice on.”
James Connolly
John Hurson hits the nail on the head – this gaggle of politicians cannot agree a formula to restore Stormont. The reason is Brexit, which is opposed by a large majority of people living in Ireland.
Read the rest of this entry »“Wallace’s sympathy for Iranian regime strips bare his faux radicalism” Critique of speech delivered by an Irish Member of the European Parliament, Mick Wallace (Ireland South) – Justine McCarthy, Irish Times, December 9 2022
Two Irish MEP’s Mick Wallace (Ireland South) and Clare Daly (Dublin) have created a serious problem for themselves, the left in Ireland, and the left abroad. They analyse international conflicts using a politically poisonous method.
This politically poisonous method stalks the mainstream radical left and established anti-war organisations. That poison has a name : Campism. Justine McCarthy accurately observes that the Ireland South MEP is using “victim blaming… the lowest form of defence”. Many readers have not heard the term campism, and do not know what it means. Other readers do know what it means, but do not want us to learn anything more – because they know they use a less obvious version of the same poison and see nothing wrong with this chosen political method. Mick Wallace has given us a chemically pure example of this political poison by denouncing the feminist inspired uprising in Iran. Other practicioners on the left prey on ignorance and prejudice by – for example – refusing to engage in active solidarity with Ukraine – the victim of a violent imperialist, ethnic cleansing, and genocidal Russian invasion.
Pierre Rousset wrote an extensive article on this subject in October 2014. It is recommended reading today.
“Renewal of our solidarity with the people of Ukraine at Dublin’s Russian Embassy, Orwell Road : Nine months of Putin’s war hasn’t broken the spirit & resistance of the people”
VIGIL OF REFLECTION AND REMEMBRANCE IN SUPPORT OF THE PEOPLE OF UKRAINE
The vigil occurred from 2-4pm outside the Russian Embassy, Orwell Road, Rathgar. Despite awful weather – it rained cats and dogs – over 200 attended, and listened to readings of poetry & prose, as well as music including Christmas carols and traditional Ukrainian songs.
Irish Left With Ukraine (ILWU) activists attended, and were joined by Sinn Féin President Mary Lou McDonald TD (Dublin Central)
ILWU member John Lyons (Independent Left member of Dublin City Council, Dublin Bay North) reports
Source : https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=councillor%20john%20lyons
A renewal of our solidarity with the people of #Ukraine 2day at the #Russian embassy: 9 months of Putin’s war hasn’t broken the spirit & resistance of the people.
Great to see Sinn Féin Ireland president @maryloumcdonaldsf showing leadership, expressing her solidarity & support for the heroic people of Ukraine.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tomás Ó Flatharta 