Archive for the ‘Mainstream Media’ Category
Racism: The socialism of Fools; Racist Cancer Spreading from Ballymena in Ireland
Introduction :
The writer Fearghal Mac Bhloscaidh offers very valuable insights into the June 2025 pogroms spreading from Ballymena in North Antrim to other towns in the 6 County bit of Ireland, notably Larne and Portadown. These vile events are related to similar sewer eruptions in the 26 county bit of Ireland and fit into a global rise of genocidal-racist powers such as Putin’s Russia, Netanyahu’s Israel, and their protectors such as Donald Trump’s USA. The latter is still a capitalist bourgeois democracy – but credible analysts now ask – for how long?
Below Fearghal’ s timely article – which contains very useful warnings from history : relevant references are made to the Marxist scholars and activists August Bebel, Victor Serge and Ernest Mandel :
We add :
A chilling report of an interview with the DUP Westminster MP for the Upper Bann constituency, Carla Lockhart.
A stark report from the 6 County bit of Ireland headlined “Week of Violence in North “Akin to 1930s Germany”
Fearghal Mac Bhloscaidh
Link :
Ballymena; Racism the Socialism of Fools; Fearghal Mac Bhloscaidh
I recently discussed three interconnected issues on Raidió na Gaeltachta: reform to the South’s rent caps benefiting landlords and international funds, Trump’s authoritarian militarization of US protests, and the racist attacks in Ballymena/Larne.
Read the rest of this entry »Gerry Adams Wins Libel Case Versus the BBC concerning the 2006 killing of IRA informer Denis Donaldson – Dublin Jury Awards €100,000
This is a result which does not surprise close observers of the proceedings.
A very strong argument was advanced by Tom Hogan, counsel for Gerry Adams.
Source :
Tom Hogan, Counsel for Gerry Adams in BBC/Denis Donaldson libel case, puts forward extremely strong argument
The BBC Spotlight reporter Jennifer O’Leary failed to convince the jury about the quality of her 6 anonymous sources.
Any reasonable juror was bound to say to themselves : “It is irrelevant that Adams was, or was not, in the IRA. This claim is not proven – we are asked to take one person’s word for it, and that is not good enough”.
In short, the BBC case was extremely flimsy as it relied on anonymous British intelligence sources.
In this respect, see Anton McCabe’s incisive article below –
Adamned if he does, adamned if he doesn’t
Gerry Adams didn’t order spy’s murder, and ‘Spotlight’’s agent didn’t even say he did
British intelligence sources are serial liars – and the background news is :
The British Northern Ireland Secretary of State Hilary Benn is scrambling to prevent a public enquiry into
the Sean Brown 1997 murder involving 25 – yes 25! – people connected to British intelligence.
Tánaiste Simon Harris has come out firmly with the Brown family, the GAA, thousands of Derry demonstrators, the Irish News etc – against the British state’s cover-up protecting MI5 murderers.
We are well used to British government cover-ups in Ireland. We are even more used to Dublin governments bowing, scraping, and capitulating to Westminster diktats.
So, it is notable that the Dublin government has grasped the Sean Brown cover-up must end.
John Meehan May 30 2025
After the libel trial result was made public, Gerry Adams called on the Dublin government to meet the family of Denis Donaldson. Jane Donaldson, the daughter of the killed IRA informer, issued a public statement which has the ring of truth.
Pensioner (Sue Pentel) arrested during pro-Palestine protest outside Belfast bank ‘will not stay silent’, lawyer says – Belfast Telegraph Report
A Belfast Telegraph report is below :
Source :
A pensioner arrested during a pro-Palestine protest outside a bank in Belfast will “robustly contest” any charges that are brought, her solicitor has said.
Sue Pentel was one of two women held on suspicion of criminal damage after an incident on Saturday.
The 72-year-old Jewish grandmother is a high-profile campaigner against Israel’s military action in Gaza.
Her solicitor said she was arrested “whilst peacefully protesting against the ongoing genocide in Palestine at Barclays Bank”.
According to reports, the two women were arrested after stickers promoting a boycott of the bank were allegedly placed on an ATM.
Read the rest of this entry »The British State and the 6 County Bit of Ireland – Hilary Benn’s Three Cover-Ups Are Protecting State Killers
Hilary Benn is the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. He is very busy, scrambling to protect state killers.
Appalling vistas have come to the surface.
Three major scandals will not go away, public pressure is building up.
Number 1, The murder of Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) Chairperson Sean Brown in 1997
The Sean Brown case is extraordinary – Hillary Benn is covering up the involvement of 25 people connected to British intelligence in a case that dates back to 1997. Let that sink in.
Campaigners for Sean Brown are very clear on what they want. We are well used to British government cover-ups in Ireland, and are even more used to Dublin governments bowing, scraping, and capitulating to Westminster diktats.
So, it is notable that Simon Harris – Dublin government Tánaiste (deputy prime minister) has grasped this cover-up must end. This news report is very telling :
Read the rest of this entry »Kincora House and Lord Mountbatten (grand uncle of King Charles) – Chris Moore and Suzanne Breen Say “It is long past the time that the full truth was told about what happened in the house of horrors” – they are 100 per cent right
We wish to again congratulate the dogged investigative reporter Chris Moore for putting so much dedicated hard work into a shocking story which will not go away.
This smoking volcano has become more active recently. The criminal scandal will not go away, and further political action is vital. We are duty bound to keep up the pressure and, above all, support the victims of horrendous British state crimes.
For decades the Belfast Kincora child abuse scandal has attracted false and unverified accusations. In my own case I refused to believe many rumours about the involvement of Lord Mountbatten in a child abuse ring because no credible evidence was placed in the public arena.
At the Dublin Irish Film Institute (IFI) launch of the stunning documentary “Lost Boys of Belfast” in 2023 I made this observation to one of the documentary makers, Chris Moore.
I had noticed there was no reference to Mountbatten in the sensational documentary. Chris confirmed that the documentary makers made no mention of the Mountbatten allegations because they possessed no credible proof.
Read the rest of this entry »County Meath Group Delivers 107th Vehicle to Ukraine for humanitarian use : Trim (Ireland) to Lviv (Ukraine)
This report, written by Tim O’Brien, comes from the Irish Times, May 16 2025
Meath-based Ukraine support group passes milestone of 100 vehicles delivered
‘Lviv is a very strange place now with almost no men, just women and young women tending the graves’
Link :
Meath Based Ukraine Support Group Delivers 107th Vehicle to Ukraine for humanitarian use
A Co Meath-based group has just returned from Ukraine where they delivered their 107th vehicle to the war-torn country for humanitarian use.
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine the group has delivered four-wheel drive vehicles, ambulances, buses and vans, most of them filled with medical supplies.
The vehicles are used by the army mainly in ferrying injured soldiers and civilians to hospital from either the front line or from Russian drone attacks.
The latest convoy of vehicles left Trim on May 3rd with 16 vehicles and 31 drivers taking turns to drive through France, the Netherlands, Poland and on to Lviv in western Ukraine.
Volunteer driver David Duignan of Dunderry, who has been on a number of such trips said the experience was emotional, having visited a cemetery in Lviv where more than 1,000 new graves of Ukrainian soldiers, added since the war broke out, are accompanied by images of the young men who died.
Read the rest of this entry »New pope breaks with Francis to support Kyiv and ceasefire push
Credit where credit is due :
New pope breaks with Francis to support Kyiv and ceasefire push – Financial Times
Christopher Miller in Kyiv and Amy Kazmin in Rome
Days after his election as head of Catholic Church, Pope Leo XIV calls Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy
Pope Leo XIV has called Volodymyr Zelenskyy to discuss Ukrainian children abducted by Russia and a western-backed 30-day ceasefire, in a shift from the previous pontiff who had struck a more neutral stance on Moscow’s war. Ukraine’s president said on Monday that his first conversation with the new pope, who was elected last week, was “very warm and truly substantive” and thanked him for his support.
“We deeply value his words about the need to achieve a just and lasting peace for our country and the release of prisoners,” he said. The Vatican confirmed the two men had spoken on the phone but declined to provide any further details. “I carry in my heart the sufferings of the beloved Ukrainian people,” Pope Leo said on Sunday, and called for “an authentic, just and lasting peace as soon as possible”. “May all the prisoners be freed and may the children return to their families,” he added. His explicit support for Ukraine in its years-long war against Russia’s invasion was met with appreciation from Ukrainians and especially the country’s Catholics.
Fish and chips? Pesce e pattatine fritte! – Italian Immigration to Ireland in the 19th and 20th Century
Link : Chippers in Ireland – Ralf Sotscheck, Taz
This story originally appeared in a German daily paper published in Berlin, die tageszeitung, on May 10 2025.
Deep-fried fish with chips, vinegar and salt is a favourite dish in Ireland. But it was the Italians who spread the dish there.
Almost all the tables are taken on this Saturday evening in Romano Morelli’s restaurant. The Italian restaurant on Dublin’s Capel Street is narrow but long. Hardly anything reminds you that Morelli’s family sold fish and chips here for over 40 years, when the store was still a chipper.
That’s the name of the snack bars that serve the Irish favourite, fish and chips. A dish that most people would probably not associate with Italy, although Italian immigration to Ireland in the 19th and 20th centuries had a significant influence on it.
Morelli’s grandfather was one of the last fish and chip vendors to come to Ireland with the first wave of immigration from Italy. He bought the store in 1948, which at the time was a snack bar with slot machines in the basement, says Romano Morelli. To this day, the chippers look almost identical: They are usually a bare room divided into two halves by display cabinets and deep fryers.
On one side, customers wait for the greasy goods, while the other side frantically prepares them. Italian is often spoken in these stores. Above their entrance doors hang the owners’ nameplates: Macari, Borza, Coffola, Fusco, De Vito, Cassoni, Caprani.
Almost all of these families or their ancestors come from Casalattico, a municipality in the central Italian province of Frosinone. More than 2,400 people whose families originally come from this village live in Ireland. Even today, the 800 or so inhabitants of Casalattico celebrate these ties every year and hold a festival on St. Patrick’s Day, the Irish national holiday, on March 17, with music, dancing, Irish flags and fish and chips (and, of course, vinegar and salt).
The connection between the community and Ireland is said to have started with Giuseppe Cervi in 1885, who accidentally left the ship he was on to the USA in Ireland. He hired himself out as a labourer in Dublin until he had earned enough money to buy a coal stove and a handcart with which he sold fish and chips outside the pubs. The business idea came from the north of England, where the meal was sold outside the factory gates.
Breen Reynolds, a former geography lecturer at Trinity College Dublin, doubts that this part of the story really happened in an interview on Irish television. However, it is confirmed that Cervi soon had enough money to rent a store. He ran it with his wife Palma, who is said to be the origin of the expression “one and one”, which is still used in Dublin today to order food. She always pointed to the menu and asked: “Uno di questo, uno di quello?”, meaning “one of this and one of that”.
The customer just had to nod.
Word of the Cervis’ success soon spread at home and many followed them to Ireland. By 1909, there were 20 fish and chip stores in Dublin run by Italians. However, the wave of immigration ended before the First World War.
Obituary: Cathleen O’Neill, witty, irreverent and tireless activist, author and advocate for social change – Lorna Siggins
We are delighted to publish a second tribute to Cathleen O’Neill on this blog – this time written by Lorna Siggins for the Sunday Independent, May 11 2025.
A link is here :
Cathleen O’Neill Tribute, by Lorna Siggins; Witty, Irreverent, Tireless Activist, Author, Advocate for Social Change – Sunday Independent
Cathleen’s Death Notice is here ;
Cathleen O’Neill, Death Notice, RIP.IE
All who attended the funeral will remember the hilarious stories and moving tributes. Cathleen, in lock-step with her campaigning friend and activist Joan Byrne, was fearless.
Cathleen O’Neill, who has died aged 76, was a witty, irreverent and tireless activist, author and advocate for social change whose passion for education and opportunity transformed countless lives.
Described as an “organic intellectual” by Professor Kathleen Lynch of UCD, she said she was one of a rare few experts whose ideas were informed by their own working-class background. She was born and reared in Ballyfermot, Dublin, as the eldest of 13 children, but said in an Irish Times interview in September 2012 that her life “began at 33”.
Read the rest of this entry »“It’s not personal, it’s just business.” – An Irish Beggar-Gombeen Michael Lowry TD who lost a defamation case against the journalist Sam Smyth
It seems a Fine Gael Minister in 2012 was a movie fan who liked the Godfather gangster series. Michael Lowry TD lost a defamation action against the journalist Sam Smyth, prompting this exchange between the writer and the politician :
A Fine Gael minister once explained to me how he categorised Michael Lowry losing a defamation action against me in the High Court back in 2012: “It’s not personal, it’s just business.”
Sam Smyth
The fictional inspiration :
I said to myself, this is the business we’ve chosen; I didn’t ask who gave the order, because it had nothing to do with business!
Hyman Roth, like his old friend Vito Corleone, never lets things get personal. At least, he tries not to and puts up a facade that he does. Of course, that’s not true, he goes after Michael for both personal and financial reasons, but not before pretending it’s never personal.
Source :
Sam Smyth has published a very full explanation of Michael Lowry’s business and personal dealings.
Link :
Sam Smyth Versus Michael Lowry – Beggar-Gombeen Corruption in Ireland
I am not so philosophical: It was very personal to me.
Had I lost, the disgraced former minister would have ended my career as a journalist and put me out of house and home.
Lowry contended that I had defamed him on the Tonight with Vincent Browne show on TV3 on June 24, 2010.
Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns, the High Court judge who considered Lowry’s allegations against me, repeated in his February 10, 2012 judgment what I said that so enraged Lowry that he sought to go after me personally in the courts.
This is the transcript of the show as taken from the Kearns judgment:
Sam Smyth: “But the first that we caught sort (sic) on video with hand in till was Michael Lowry and he resigned as you might remember as Minister for Communications which all this has led on from.”
Vincent Browne: “Now let’s be clear now, let’s be careful about the hand in till. There is no suggestion at all anyway that Michael Lowry used his position as Minister to extract public funds that weren’t, that he wasn’t entitled to.”
Sam Smyth: “No but was in receipt, in allowed? The biggest business in the country to pay for the refurbishment of his home. I mean…”
Vincent Browne: “There was a tax that was a tax fraud.”
Sam Smyth: “And that well, there was not only a tax fraud, I really don’t think most people think it’s a good idea for Ministers to have their bills picked up by businessmen.”
Lowry contended in his legal filings that these words meant he was “a thief, a corrupt politician, unfit to be a TD or Government Minister and was or is a dishonest or untrustworthy politician”.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tomás Ó Flatharta 