Archive for the ‘Media Sources – Reliable Versus Unreliable’ Category
“Stormont’s institutionalised sectarianism is beginning to look disturbingly permanent”
The Irish News columnist Patrick Murphy tells many home-truths about the Good Friday Agreement and the Stormont Assembly in Belfast.
This occurs in tandem with declining support for partition within the six-county bit of Ireland. A detonator of this trend was Brexit – the British state’s 2016 right-wing exit from the European Union.
Anti-Partition supporters of the Good Friday Agreement hope its referendum provisions will be enacted – forcing an electoral end on Ireland’s partition. These people need to address an ugly truth : an Irish unity referendum within the 6 county state can only happen with the permission of the British Secretary of State for “Northern Ireland” – an office currently held by Labour MP Hillary Benn.
Benn has categorically stated he will not authorise such a referendum. Credible opinion polls suggest that by the time of the next British general election (which must occur by 2029) the Westminster government could be controlled by the far-right ultra-Unionist Reform party led by Nigel Farage.
The best progressive way to end the partition of Ireland today can start with smashing Stormont. End institutionalised sectarianism and class collaboration – No coalition with right-wing parties such as the Democratic Unionist Party.
The way forward is :
1.Call for the formation of citizens’ assemblies which will draw up a political programme for the creation of a new 32 county Irish state
2. If the Irish state refuses to call a Citizens’ Assembly – something like the body which preceded the 2018 referendum in the 26 county bity of Ireland which repealed the anti-abortion 8th Amendment – the workers’ movement, women’s movement, trade unions, left-wing parties, and so on should take the initiative.
Read the rest of this entry »Alumina made in Aughinish, Limerick, is exported to smelters that sell aluminium to a trader supplying Russian arms manufacturers – Results of a Major Irish Times Investigation, March 24 2026 “Aughinish exposes a general trend in State attitude to Ukraine, Palestine, human rights …”
Evidence of Limerick-produced alumina entering Russian military supply chain ‘horrific and shocking’, says Labour party leader Ivana Bacik
Aughinish Alumina contributes to Russian war against Ukraine – Ivana Bacik, the Labour party leader, raised the issue in Dáil Éireann :
Link :
Inside the Supply Chain Funneling Irish Alumina to Russian Rockets – OCCRP
Yesterday Conor Gallagher in The Irish Times, working with the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, revealed shocking details about the supply chain linked to the Aughinish Alumina plant in Limerick.
His report outlined how significant quantities of alumina from this facility are being exported to Russia, where they are being used to make aluminium, which is then sold to a trading company supplying over 100 Russian weapons manufacturers. It is deeply alarming to see that shipments of Irish alumina to Russia have increased significantly since Putin’s brutal full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. It is horrific to see this. It is unconscionable that a plant operating in Ireland could be contributing to materials used in the destruction of so many communities and so much civilian infrastructure in Ukraine and can be used to kill children in Ukraine. This is appalling to see and I do welcome the Taoiseach’s commitment to review this report, but the question is clear: what urgent action will the Taoiseach take to ensure that no Irish-based industry or business is complicit in supporting Russia’s war machine?
Ivana Bacik; Aughinish Alumina plant aids brutal Russian invasion of UkraineIvana Bacik is right to insist that the Irish government must take “urgent action” on this issue – words and good intentions are not good enough.
In the letters page of the Irish Times (Friday May 27) Conor O’Neill – Head of Policy, Christian Aid Ireland; Chair, Irish Coalition for Business & Human Rights points out :
Aughinish exposes a general trend in State attitude to Ukraine, Palestine, human rights …
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Brendan Hughes, Gerry Adams, and a collapsed court case in London’s Royal Courts of Justice
Newspaper readers who followed reports of a very unusual Gerry Adams London trial were not surprised by its collapse.
Procedurally. for this category of case, there is a 3 year time limit. People injured in three IRA bombings – Old Bailey 1973; Docklands and Manchester 1996 – put Gerry Adams in the dock seeking nominal damages of £1 on the grounds that the former Sinn Féin president had been an IRA leader.
Claimants were well aware of these rules, – they did not have a leg to stand on legally. The only issue was whether Judge Jonathan Swift (yes, same name as the famous Irish satirist who wrote Gulliver’s Travels!) would apply the rules. Judge Swift would have looked a bigger fool than Lemuel Gulliver if he ignored the regulations, and an appeal court later overturned his verdict. [1]
Mark Hennessy contributed this analysis in the March 19 2026 issue of the Irish Times :
Read the rest of this entry »Six County Top Cop Jon Boutcher Says IRA Volunteers who killed Black and Tans (Royal Irish Constabulary) during War of Independence were “Terrorists”
PSNI boss Jon Boutcher is interested in recent Irish history – and he wants to know more about events which occurred over 100 years ago. He heads an organisation which has an extremely bad reputation. He wants to clean up the image of the police force operating in the six county bit of Ireland – but has run into serious problems.
He recently described the killing of members of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) in the 1919-21 War of Independence as acts of “terrorism”.
In January 2020 Fine Gael Minister for Justice Charlie Flanagan TD (Laois-Offaly) proposed a state commemoration of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC), whose members included the Black and Tans. A tsunami of public protest forced Flanagan’s government to drop this plan. Flanagan desperately pretended that he was only proposing to commemorate the 1920 police force – the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) – and not the Black-and-Tan or Auxie terrorists. This distinction was ridiculed. The row seriously damaged the Fine Gael government, and was a factor in its disastrous General Election result on February 8 2020.
Readers may be interested in contemporary assessments of the RIC/Black and Tans expressed in the First Dáil.
Pride of place goes to Eoin Mac Néill TD, a government minister. Mac Néill was a grandfather of Senator Michael MacDowell, a former Minister for Justice.
Here is a summary of MacNéill’s Dáil speech, delivered on April 10 1919 :
““Now, it is the determination of the English Government at present, and it is not only their determination but their last resource, to make the police supreme in Ireland, and it is not to relieve our feelings that we have this discussion, but to defeat this infamous policy. We can, and will, and must, defeat it, and to this end we must pledge ourselves, pledge our children, pledge our friends, and pledge our country on no account to submit in any shape or form or at any future time to be police-governed by the English Government. The police in Ireland are a force of spies. The police in Ireland are a force of traitors, and the police in Ireland are a force of perjurers. I say these things, not that your feelings might be roused, but to convince you of the necessity that exists why you should take such measures as will make police government in this country by the enemy impossible.”
More details are below.
A series of Tributes to the Investigative Journalist Ed Moloney – “A strong voice against censorship: both that of the state and the more insidious self-censorship that had crept into journalism”
A number of tributes to the investigative journalist Ed Moloney are published below.
Also included is an account of how Ed published sensational evidence about the role of William Stobie (at one time a quarter-master in the loyalist paramilitary Ulster Defence Association), in the political murder of Belfast human rights lawyer Pat Finucane. The British state’s unsuccessful attempt to obtain details of the journalist’s confidential sources were defeated.
It is refreshing to read tributes about about a man I knew well that are kind, affectionate, and that do not pretend Ed was a saint.
He had a short fuse!
A tribute to the outstanding journalist Ed Moloney, who passed away in New York Aged 77
Ed was a great friend and will be missed.
Condolences to Joan McKiernan, and all friends, colleagues, and comrades.
A reminder : Ed Moloney’s work on issues concerning child abuse in the six-county bit of Ireland which remain unsolved :
John Meehan October 20 2025
“Businessman behind smears against Jim Gavin previously spread false claims about rival” – Irish Times report on Kieran Kelly, far-right targeter of Irish presidential candidate
Far-right activist Maria Steen, who failed to secure a nomination for the 2025 Irish presidential election, agrees she spoke with Kieran Kelly.
The 2025 Irish presidential election is toxic and dirty, and that is going to continue, TrumpSteen or no TrumpSteen.
“When contacted by The Irish Times on Monday, (Kieran Kelly) declined to share any evidence for the claims, saying it would be made available at a later date.
Mr Kelly said online that he had a call this month with Maria Steen, the conservative campaigner trying to enter the presidential election.
Ms Steen confirmed the call during a press conference on Tuesday.
She said: “As you can imagine, I’ve been getting calls from lots of different people who I have never met before and have never spoken to before.
“I had a call with Kieran Kelly. He mentioned nothing about Jim Gavin or any other candidate to me. He talked about, I think, that there’s an organisation called the Wild Geese, of Irish people abroad, who are taking an interest in Irish politics.
“That was the sum total of the phone call. I listened to what he had to say, and that was it.”
- Cormac McQuinn and Pat Leahy Irish Times, September 23 2025
The left-wing candidate Catherine Connolly needs to promote a positive anti-racist message.
The absence of Steen from the presidential ballot paper is tempting government coalition partners Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael to play the racist card in support of their candidates Jim Gavin and Heather Humphreys.
Read the rest of this entry »Dark Comedy Show : Will Maria Steen be a Far-Right Frankenstein Candidate on the Irish Presidential ballot? – It is odds-on, a racing certainty
Let’s have a little fun regarding the nomination campaign of the conservative far-right, anti-choice and racist candidate Maria Steen; Steen is a veteran or Ireland’s anti-choice movement; readers can stay up-to-date here :
“Independent Ireland is expected to make a decision tomorrow or Wednesday morning.
Their decision could influence whether other TDs or senators – rumoured to include a small number on the conservative wing of Fianna Fáil – would lend her their vote before the presidential nomination deadline of noon on Wednesday.” (RTÉ News Report).
The entire Fianna Fáil organisation is conservative – although occasionally it makes gestures towards the left. Between 2011 and 2018 the party leadership realised it had to dump a too close association with Catholic Church anti-feminism and the vile crime of institutional child abuse. It is continuing this tactic by nominating the high-profile Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) figure Jim Gavin to be President of Ireland. Gavin states he is pro-choice, pro same-sex marriage, and voted to lift the constitutional ban on abortion in 2018. These statements make him totally unacceptable to the Irish far-right, which includes Maria Steen and the Aontú party led by ex Sinn Féin TD Peader Tóibín, who is in charge of the Maria Steen bingo card. It is a racing certainty Steen will be on the presidential ballot – she has the nominations of 13 or 14 Oireachtas members plus 4 from the Irish Independent party.
Read the rest of this entry »Caucusus Colonels’ Fable in Dublin’s Phoenix magazine – real journalism versus pro-Putin deliberate misinformation
“Down the rabbit hole” is an English-language idiom or trope which refers to getting deep into something, or ending up somewhere strange. Lewis Carroll introduced the phrase as the title for chapter one of his 1865 novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, after which the term slowly entered the English vernacular. The term is usually used as a metaphor for distraction.[1] In the 21st century, the term has come to describe a person who gets lost in research or loses track of time while using the internet.
Down the Rabbit Hole
Fact check: Fake claim British Colonels were ‘captured’ in Ukraine
The fable spread among all usual tankie publications – that is, organs which uncritically peddle pro-Putin propaganda – and influencers (for example the former British Westminster MP George Galloway). It fitted in with The Phoenix magazine’s pro-Putin takes on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The magazine has form :
The story surfaced in the first week of August 2025. It is a media disinformation classic – 2.78 million views, spread in 53 countries, 17,800 posts, spread in 16 different languages.
A quick internet check revealed the story was not appearing on reputable news sites, and that it was spreading like wildfire on pro-Putin conspiracy organs.
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Tomás Ó Flatharta 