“We Need Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael to be Decimated”
Readers can note a welcome statement here in solidarity with Ukraine against the Russian imperialist far-right invaders :
In terms of the broader issues facing Europe, the EU has largely gone for a containment strategy against Russia in the Ukrainian war. It’s difficult to see too any other viable approach, given that the continent is faced with such a dangerous – not to mention nuclear-armed – adversary in Vladimir Putin. It truly is an absolute nightmare.
“It is,” nods Hearne. “Europe has responded in the best way it could. We rightfully absolutely opposed the horrific invasion of Ukraine. There’s no question the Russian invasion is imperialist, and it was horrific watching it. I would support how the EU has responded, and I’m proud of Ireland taking in Ukrainian refugees. What I’d say is we have to continue to support Ukraine. I think we also need to find ways of peace, and ways of not creating a permanent war there.”
A guest post by JOHN LAWRENCE, from the People and Nature Blog hosted by Simon Pirani.
This article is relevant to the European Parliament Election campaign in Ireland and other parts of Europe.
“Genocide is genocide, a mass grave is a mass grave. We are with the people who are in there, and against the people who put them there”, journalist Ed Vulliamy told a discussion meeting in London on Monday.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine, and Israel’s war on Gaza – both of which have settler colonial and genocidal dimensions – had thrown an unusually clear light on the hypocrisy of people who oppose one, but not the other, Vulliamy said.
In the United Nations, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky abstains over Gaza, and South Africa abstains over Ukraine, Vulliamy said.
“Large sections of the left wonderfully support Gaza but, having denied and justified [the massacre in 1995 of Bosnians by Serb troops at] Srebrenica, at best indulge, or support, Vladimir Putin and his imperial endeavour,” he continued.
A number of Irish human rights organizations and Trade Unions have issued a very strong statement following a stampede of racist publicity concerning “Open Borders”.
Here is an example from the Sunday Independent (May 5 2025)
Do you believe there should be checkpoints at the border with Northern Ireland to limit the number of asylum-seekers coming from the U.K.?
The newspaper published this summary of its survey :
Once again, Andrew Flood offers a devastating reply
With the trap carefully baited & Sinn Féin blundering into it here’s the spring being sprung. Farage & Dowson cackling with glee as their weird investment pays off. It’s a trap all the way down of course because …
Andrew Flood
It gets dafter – 82% want to go through an expensive deportation process to somewhere we have a common travel area with & where people deported can just walk back across any of the 400+ border crossing points again you can see where accepting this logic rapidly leads
— Jenny Maguire (SU) (@TCDSU_President) May 4, 2024
Something to remember for all those giving out about using memorial benches as a barricade. They can be returned to their original position. The thousands of Palestine men, women, and children who have been murdered by Israel can not. They are gone forever.#DivestSanctionBoycotthttps://t.co/WOqBjb0FKF
— Niamh Ní Cheallaigh ☘️♿️🌻🇵🇸 (@NiamhbWalshe) May 4, 2024
#DivestNow #AcademicBoycott
Irish Times Report, May 5 2024; Ronan McGreevy, Fiachra Gallagher
Trinity College Dublin closed ‘until further notice’ as protest against Israel ties continues
Several dozen students who have set up camp on the university’s grounds, blockading entrance to Book of Kells, say they will remain ‘indefinitely’ until demands are met
Ireland’s Open(ish) Border – Sinn Féin on the Warpath
Sinn Féin’s is warning Irish voters about “Open Borders”.
The party is promoting relentless propaganda in the run-up to the June 7 2024 European and local elections in Ireland.
This leaflet from Balbrigggan (Dublin) is a local version of statewide propaganda.
Let’s ask ourselves a question : What’s wrong with Open Borders?
Andrew Flood calls the border in Ireland Open(ish) – and he is spot on. Here is why :
I say Open(ish) because for two decades black or brown people crossing that border have been stopped and told to produce ‘papers’ by the Garda (claiming to be doing random checks). Maybe they want such checks stepped up, if not what is the demand here?
The border between the EU and the rest of the world is so closed that 3,000 people died trying to sneak across it last year. Over 20 times the number of people killed crossing the Berlin Wall in the 28 years it existed. The border with the 6 counties is Open(ish) – is it that?
OK we all know this is a response to the far right working with FFFGGP to blame Sinn Féin on the government’s failure to plan & communicate for large number of Ukrainian refugees. But this shite is just going to underline that Sinn Féin are no more principled that the rest.
The boss of An Garda Síochána (police force in the 26 county bit of Ireland), Drew Harris, was recruited from the cops in the 6 county bit of Ireland. The people running the two states in partitioned Ireland have developed very close social, political and personal relationships since the the 1998 triumph of the Good Friday Agreement. I recently circulated details of Harris’s “Hug-a-Thug” policy towards growing far-right violence in the 26 counties to a 6 county political activist, who commented this was “reminiscent of the historic style of policing up here”.
Ruling class forces were extremely happy about the continuation of partition guaranteed by the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. They did not foresee that the foundations of partition in Ireland are more rotten than their constitutional plan conceding a Unionist Veto to a majority of the voting population of the six county state. The Brexit referendum result of 2016 lit a slow-burning fuse under the GFA structure; in the meantime we are witnessing the creation of a possible “United Ireland from Hell” which consists of knitting together the most reactionary features of both partitioned states in Ireland.
The following article from the Cedar Lounge Revolution Blog powerfully illustrates the dangers arising from importing 6 county softly-softly policing methods towards the far-right (loyalist paramilitaries), fine-tuned by Garda boss Drew Harris.
Gardaí were called to the home of Children’s Minister Roderic O’Gorman on Thursday night when a gang of up to 12 masked men gathered outside his house and huge placards and banners were stretched across his driveway gate, along his wall and fastened to outside polls.
Gerry Carroll, a People Before Profit member of the Stormont Assembly in Belfast, raises very disturbing questions.
This is a Suzanne Breen Belfast Telegraph Report, April 18 2024
People Before Profit MLA Gerry Carroll has slammed Michelle O’Neill and Emma Little-Pengelly for meeting a US engineering company which supplies the Israeli military with machinery to use in Gaza.
During their visit to Washington last month, the First Minister and Deputy First Minister met with Caterpillar, which provides its huge D9R armoured bulldozers to Israel.
The machines have a highly controversial history.
They were also used in the 2008-09 Gaza War, which left up to 1,400 people dead.
In 2003, American peace activist Rachel Corrie was crushed to death by a D9R as she tried to stop a bulldozer demolishing Palestinian homes in southern Gaza.
Rachel Corrie, crushed to death by Caterpillar armoured bulldozer in 2009
Mr Carroll lambasted Ms O’Neill and Ms Little-Pengelly for also meeting Israeli-founded cybersecurity firm Forescout, which has a contract with the US Department of Defense.
He said: “It is deplorable for the First and Deputy First Minister to meet these firms during Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
“Caterpillar is complicit in the Israeli occupation, enabling the illegal bulldozing of Palestinian homes. This is not reflective of Caterpillar workers, but of the horrific profiteering of Caterpillar bosses.
“Israeli-founded Forescout continues to do business with Israel’s chief military backer, and should never have been at that meeting.”
Two men – Jospi Strok and David Druzinec – working in Ireland, attacked for what appears to be no reason at all – apparently they weren’t speaking English.
But note that the father of Josip Strok has heard nothing from the authorities about his son’s death:
Josip Strok RIP and David Druzinec
“I can’t believe that no one from the Dublin higher authorities or the Irish embassy ever called or said anything to me about my loss. It was just Irish ordinary people.”
David Druzinec speaking on “Prime Time” to Irish broadcaster RTÉ
As bad is the initial response of the gardai as reported.
On Easter Sunday, after he [Druzinec] was discharged from hospital, he spent most of the day travelling around with the gardaí trying to re-trace their route.
Slugger O’Toole is a politically liberal site based in the 6 county bit of Ireland. One of its writers observes :
One of the great lessons in life is that the more someone publicly professes to be a ‘Christian,’ the more unchristian their private life is.
Years ago, I met one of the leading figures in the Save Ulster From Sodomy Campaign. I have a surprisingly good gaydar for a straight guy, and it was pinging off the chart. This guy had spent much of the 70s and 80s persecuting gays while himself being as gay as Eurovision. I felt sorry for him; he was a product of his upbringing. To live your life as a lie and with such self-loathing must be very tiring on the soul.
The Save Ulster from Sodomy campaign was a vicious anti-gay operation run by the Democratic Unionist party (DUP) and the Reverend Ian Paisley’s Free Presbyterian church. Paisley, a busy man, was leader of the DUP, and moderator of his church.
Ian Paisley’s DUP Tried and Failed to “Save Ulster from Sodomy”. Tarlach Mac Niallais led the Counter-Charge – a Man who Saved Sodomy from Ulster.
In Ireland, Christianity took over public life after the partition settlement of 1922. The Catholic Church controlled key parts of the state in the 26 county southern bit. In the North the Orange State was a Protestant State for a Protestant People.
All need to show unconditional solidarity with the two women who came forward in the rape case which led to Sir Jeffrey Donaldson resigning from the leadership of the Democratic Unionist party in the six-county bit of Ireland.
In the Easter Sunday 2024 edition of the Belfast Sunday Life tabloid Lady Eleanor Donaldson is named as the co-defendant in the Jeffrey Donaldson MP rape case. Jeffrey and Eleanor are a married couple.
Two women came forward to the state authorities with allegations categorised as “historical”. In this context, what does the word “historical” mean, precisely? That is a very important question.
Tomás Ó Flatharta 