In the early days of 2024 thoughts turn to the next general election in Ireland which will create the 34th Dáil Éireann no later than February 2025.
Before that, in May 2024, voters in the 26 county bit of Ireland elect local authority councillors and members of the European Parliament.
All reliable opinion surveys suggest Sinn Féin will be the biggest party after the next Dáil general election, and that the current FFFGGG (Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Greens, Gombeens) coalition may stay in office.
Sinn Féin does not rule out coalition with the right-wing parties, and – once we ignore silly point-scoring – we can see that Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Greens do not rule out coalition with Sinn Féin. Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin is explicit on this point :
The prospect of such a government should send shivers down the spine of any self-respecting supporter of the radical left in Ireland.
Fianna Fáil (FF) and Fine Gael (FG), two tweedledum and tweedledee capitalist parties, have controlled every government running the southern 26 county bit of partitioned Ireland since a 1921 Treaty was signed with the former occupying power, Britain. A carnival of reaction followed on both sides of the Irish border.
Faced with a false choice between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, the only rational policy for the left was and is: no coalition, on principle, with any right-wing party.
A question to Garda Boss Drew Harris : How is the Hug-a-Thug Policing Strategy Playing Out?
In 2023, in his weekly Sunday Independent columns, Gene Kerrigan wrote devastating examinations of Garda Boss Drew Harris’s strategy for dealing with escalating far-right activity in Ireland. November 23 2023 racist riots in Dublin’s city centre prompted this sarcastic Kerrigan twitter comment :
“The classic part of their playbook,” Drew Harris said of the far right, “is an over-response by the authorities. We are not going to fall into that trap.” How’s the hug-a-thug policing strategy playing out, Drew?
Racist riots erupted on Dublin’s streets on November 23 2023. The “hug-a-thug” philosophy of Drew Harris finds its way into this Irish Times report :
Many Garda officers do not accept the disturbances on the night were “far-right riots”, saying the event was more nuanced. They say the trouble was whipped up by a small far-right element before opportunists with no ideology seized the chance to go on a rampage, taking on gardaí and looting shops.
Conor Lally, Crime & Law How far right-sparked violence dominated the year in policing during 2023, Irish Times December 27 2023
The Irish Far-Right is on an arson roll – its activists are burning unoccupied buildings which are earmarked to house homeless refugees.
Very often, like many others (in their millions), I walk into Dublin city centre, passing through Parnell Square. November 23 2023, shortly before 1.00pm seemed no different. That impression was soon shattered. I collected a monthly prescription from a chemist on Portland Row, off the North Circular Road. Proceeding into town past Mountjoy Square, I dropped into my former place of work – the FÓRSA Trade Union headquarters in Nerney’s Court off Gardiner Place – for a chat, a cup of coffee, and a visit to the jacks. The staff at reception were, as usual, very friendly. Then a woman in her 30’s entered, very shook. She told us about a big police cordon around Parnell Square and a horrible incident – news was spreading about a man who stabbed children and an adult outside an Irish language school. Rumours were circulating.
At this point I encourage readers to read and listen to a very good short Dáil speech of Paul Murphy delivered on November 28 2023. It explains a lot :
First, I send my thoughts and solidarity to the victims and the families of the victims of the stabbing attack. It is just horrifying and so nightmarish to think of children being attacked in such a way. In the response to that horror, we saw the very best of our city – Warren, Caio, Leo, Siobhán and others – people who were white Irish and immigrants coming together and putting their lives on the line to try to protect children. Our city and country should have now been uniting around the families of the victims in solidarity with them. Instead, sickeningly and disgustingly, far-right, racist and fascist agitators said this was their chance to incite a riot and to spread hatred and division. We know who incited this riot and called for people to come out on the streets. These people did not hide themselves or issue the calls anonymously. At 2.16 p.m., a white supremacist, Mick O’Keefe, issued his first tweet. He followed that at 2.50 p.m., saying that a foreign man entered the school and stabbed five children and he said the kids were dead. Fergus Power tweeted at 2.55 p.m. that a five-year-old girl was alleged to have passed away and that “This better get people off their arses and out onto the streets”. Phillip Dwyer, a crèche creeper and dog kicker, streamed a video at 4.04 p.m. in which he said he would be in town at 6 p.m. Gavin Pepper, another far-right agitator, called people onto the streets for 7 p.m. in town. Derek Blighe had a video in which he said “We are at war,” echoing the words of Conor McGregor. We know who called people out. We also have to look at the role of some people in this Chamber. I will mention one. Deputy Mattie McGrath earlier called for a “reasonable debate” on migration. Fine, let us have the debate but a part of that will be Mattie’s connections with the far-right. He has been photographed with Gavin Pepper; photographed with Andy Heasman; a street meeting with many of the people who were involved in organising this. He has been laundering far-right conspiracy theories using his platform in this Dáil repeatedly and he is not the only one.
Paul Murphy TD (Dublin South-West), People Before Profit, Dáil Éireann, November 28 2023
This article comes with a strong recommendation from Joan McKiernan :
“This terrific article should be widely circulated….
“I must say that with all the classes I had long ago in the IS (International Socialists) on the Russian Revolution, I have no recollection of discussions of Ukraine. So the author’s discussion of that history is important for all of us involved in supporting Ukraine now.”
Paul Le Blanc is launching a new book in Dublin on Tuesday November 7 (the anniversary of the October revolution) in the New Theatre, behind Connolly Books in Temple Bar. Doors open at 7pm, with Paul Le Blanc giving a short talk on Lenin’s politics and theories starting at 7:30. This will be followed by an interview including opportunity for some questions from the crowd.
Paul Le Blanc reviews a critical thread of Marxist theory and history on the right of national self-determination, and the question of Ukraine, concluding that revolutionaries today need to defend the current resistance to the Russian invasion including its rights to seek arms.
In his critique of ultra-left sectarianism, Lenin denounced a tendency to present quotes from Marx as the basis for settling on a tactical orientation to guide us through the complexities of our own time. He insisted that “what is most important, that which constitutes the very gist, the living soul, of Marxism” is “a concrete analysis of a concrete situation.” That is certainly the case when we are considering realities so complex as the Russian-Ukrainian War.
I have attempted such a “concrete analysis of a concrete situation” in an 8900-word article entitled “Making Sense of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine” for the online publication Links: International Journal of Socialist Renewal. In the final 2400 words of the article, I seek to relate the larger analysis of the invasion to previous Marxist theory and lessons from revolutionary history. I urge readers to consult the first 6500 words of the larger article. At the same time, I am hopeful that my review here of some of the relevant history and theory will be useful for those working to sort things out regarding these momentous developments.
The vast majority of people, the world over, have concluded that the Israeli Defence Forces are the most likely culprits for the destruction of Gaza’s al-Ahli Arab Hospital. All credible evidence drives reasonable people to this conclusion. Al Jazeera has investigated. The story is below. This will continue.
Personally I recall British state claims about Derry’s Bloody Sunday in 1972. The vast majority of people in Ireland disbelieved this propaganda. A few days later a general strike spread across Ireland like wildfire, the British Embassy in Dublin was burned to the ground. Not many hesitated saying “let’s wait for an inquiry funded by the British government when the Westminster Prime Minister will apologize”.
The IDF blew up that hospital. The fact that they’re now lying about is just insulting to everyone’s intelligence. Netanyahu is a war criminal. Of course, he has been for 15 years now, but this is genocidal.
Steve Bell, for 40 years, has drawn brilliant cartoons for the British newspaper, the Guardian, which has banned this image from its site :
The Israeli Defence Forces have form on incidents like this :
Al Jazeera’s Imran Khan noted that some observers have questioned Israel’s version of events, with some pointing to Israel’s history of falsely attributing acts carried out by its own forces to armed Palestinian groups.
Several public representatives and supporters of the Irish left-wing party People Before Profit (PBP) attack the Dublin Government’s Double Standards over two major 2023 genocidal wars : Israel’s Genocidal Assault on the Palestinian People and Russia’s Genocidal Invasion of Ukraine.
For example Paul Murphy TD (Dublin South-West) declares on his Facebook page :
“Since Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, the right of an occupied nation to defend itself has been widely recognised.
Now as Israel begins to unleash hell on Gaza and governments prepare to excuse Israeli war crimes, it’s clear that right doesn’t apply to Palestinians. Why not?”
Big problem here : Paul and and others on the left are throwing a dangerous political boomerang : instead of using exactly the same principled framework for supporting Ukraine and Palestine, they operate double standards. When they add denunciation of mass media inconsistency, the government, the European Union, in supporting Ukraine while opposing Palestine, we witness inconsistency in reverse from the left, supporting Palestine while opposing Ukraine.
John Meehan October 10 2023
Aden Shaheen, a Palestinian living in Britain, offers a far better policy.
In this interview, Adeeb Shaheen shares his perspectives on the ongoing war in Ukraine. As someone who has experienced life under military occupation, he draws parallels between Israel’s actions in Palestine and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, speaking to the suffering of civilians under aggression from a more powerful military force. Interview by Fred Leplat.
Fred Leplat – Adeeb, you describe yourself as a Ukrainian Palestinian and you are now in Britain. Can you tell us a bit about yourself and why you are now in Britain today?
I was born in Palestine and lived there until the Israeli occupation administration expelled my father to Jordan in 1968 for his activities against the occupation. My mother took us, her children, and left for Jordan to join him. I finished school in 1976 and set off for the Soviet Union to study electrical engineering. After finishing my studies, I went back to Jordan, worked there for a couple of years, and then moved to live in Palestine with my wife and son. In Palestine, I took part in the first Intifada and the resistance movement. In 1990, I was arrested by the Israeli occupants and sent to prison for four years. After jail, I resumed my life in Palestine, where the Palestinian Authority began to operate the civilian life of the Palestinians on the occupied Palestinian land. After two years of the second Intifada, I left my home town of Nablus with my family and moved to live in Jordan. It was difficult there as well. In September 2003, I received a job offer from an international trading company to work in its branch in Ukraine. I moved there with my family to Ukraine, to Kharkiv, where I finished my studies when Ukraine was a part of the Soviet Union. I worked there and had a normal life there until February 24, 2022. Putin’s war against Ukraine forced us to leave for Poland, then for the UK.
On Wednesday September 27 a world premiere takes place in Dublin’s Irish Film Institute
World Premiere
During the winter of 1969, young boys started to disappear from the streets of Belfast, never to be seen again. By 1974, as the Troubles were reaching a bloody and vicious peak, five boys in total had vanished within a five-mile radius. Fifty years later, as the disappearances remain unsolved and families continue to search for answers, filmmaker Des Henderson (How to Diffuse a Bomb) reopens these largely forgotten cold-cases, unearthing disturbing revelations in secret state documents to tell an extraordinary tale of abuse, trauma and potential cover-up.
Notes by Sunniva O’Flynn
Ed Moloney offers the recommendation below. Chris Moore, a journalist who has researched the subject thoroughly for many decades, wrote a fascinating (and chilling) background story about state collusion and child abuse on Ed Moloney’s blog in June 2023. it is reprinted below.
I had the opportunity yesterday to watch the new Kincora film made by Belfast’s own film company Alleycats. Called ‘Lost Boys’ it asks a simple but necessary question: was the disappearance and murder of four Belfast schoolboys in the 1970’s linked to the subsequent Kincora scandal, which broke some few years afterwards, revealing that all the employees at the home for wayward boys had been abusing inmates for years?
Paul Murphy TD (Dublin South-West, People Before Profit) has issued a deeply mistaken public response, consistent with his party’s previously stated opposition to any military anti-imperialist solidarity action in support of the Ukrainian masses’ fight against a genocidal Russian invasion. Source :
Remember when Micheal Martin called us puppets of Putin?
That was because I was asking for guarantee that Irish soldiers would only be involved in de-mining training.
In light of today's news that they are providing weapons training, his outburst makes a lot more sense. pic.twitter.com/xUK3c4yRwf
This is a grim PBP Left-Evasionist chapter, part of the shocking story: failure to show anti-imperialist solidarity with the masses of Ukraine who are resisting a genocidal Russian invasion.
On July 29 2023 the PBP helped to organise a well-supported anti-racist rally in Dún Laoghaire, a town which proudly hosts a magnificent statue honouring the Irish anti-imperialist gun-runner and human rights activist Roger Casement.
PBP speakers drew attention to the many reasons we honour Casement today : but they overlooked a vital fact : this Easter 1916 rebel imported weapons from Kaiser Wilhelm’s German Empire in order to strike a blow against the then mighty British Empire.
Sally Shovelin passed away on August 4 2023 after an 18 month battle with cancer.
Sincerest Condolences to Sally’s partner John Gallagher, her close friends Betty Purcell and Helen Mahony, her sister Nora Shovelin and many other friends and family.
I first met Sally in the mid 1970’s via membership of People’s Democracy (part of the Fourth International). From that time onwards she was a committed left-wing, feminist, trade union, and anti-imperialist activist – always courageous and willing to confront injustice.
Sally Shovelin holds a Poster “Dublin Women Support Women Prisoners”, Armagh, April 7 1979 – many thanks to Derek Speirs for the photograph
We remained in regular contact for many decades, our paths often crossing in political campaigns and many enjoyable social events. Sally had an impish sense of humour, and was great company.
Tomás Ó Flatharta 