Posts Tagged ‘history’
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.
“Progressive parties and civil society groups should jointly campaign to force the Government to drop the annual St. Patrick Day’s visit to the White House” – No Irish grovelling in Washington DC on March 17 2026 – Michael Taft’s Call is Spot On
Michael Taft, a researcher employed by the SIPTU trade union makes a very good proposal.
The President of the USA is backing reactionary genocidal actors in many parts of the globe – Ukraine, Palestine – and threatening the people of Iran, Venezuela, and Greenland – the list is growing.
Notes on the Front
Commentary on Irish Political Economy by Michael Taft, researcher for SIPTU
Abandon Paddy’s Day
January 12, 2026
Progressive parties and civil society groups should jointly campaign to force the Government to drop the annual St. Patrick Day’s visit to the White House. There is almost nothing to gain from such a visit and it can only perpetuate what Eoin Burke-Kennedy describes as the ‘Fawning, sycophantic, obsequious [and] “strategic self-emasculation’ approach to the US Administration pursued by Europe and Ireland.
How do you deal with a Head of State who says:
“I don’t need international law . . . [the only limit to my power] is my morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.’
In the last year the US bombed Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Somalia, Venezuela, Syria and Nigeria. It has threatened to invade or annex Panama, Canada, Mexico, Columbia, Cuba and Greenland. It armed the Israeli government’s genocidal attacks on Gaza.
It has withdrawn from 66 international organisations (a full list is here), including vital climate change bodies such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
The Trump Administration’s ‘2025 National Security Strategy’ made clear the current US government’s intention to interfere in European democracies. As the Brookings Institute put it:
‘The document points to the “patriotic European parties”—a reference to the hard right as represented by France’s National Rally, the United Kingdom’s Reform party, and the Alternative for Germany—as America’s real allies in Europe. Its stated goal of “cultivating resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations” amounts to a policy of constitutional regime change . . . it is the language of tyranny.’
Indeed, Trump’s document directly references Ireland, stating:
‘America is, understandably, sentimentally attached to . . . Britain and Ireland. The character of these countries is also strategically important . . . we want to work with aligned countries that want to restore their former greatness.’
And it just so happens that Steven Bannon, an important Trump ally and MAGA organiser, is already in Ireland:
‘I’m spending a ton of time behind the scenes on the Irish situation to help form an Irish national party , , , [Ireland is] going to have an Irish Maga, and we’re going to have an Irish Trump. That’s all going to come together. That country is right on the edge thanks to mass migration.’
And it so happens that the US Ambassador attended a recent far-right conference in Meath.
Trashing international law, bombing countries and threatening others, pursuing ‘constitutional regime change’ throughout Europe and Ireland: does this deserve a bowl of shamrock?
Humiliation Redux
It’s not as if the Irish Government is ignorant of what could be in store for them on St. Patrick’s Day. Remember the humiliation it received last year. The Taoiseach received an invitation to the White House late in the day (only 12 days’ notice) and it wasn’t even for St. Patrick’s Day. Of course, the President might have been too busy to meet with the Taoiseach. But Trump and Elon Musk had time to meet Conor McGregor on the day, despite the fact that McGregor had been found guilty of rape by a High Court civil jury.
So why would Trump meet McGregor on St Patrick’s Day rather than the elected representative of the Irish people? According to The Times:
‘The Trump family have deepened their business connections with Conor McGregor with the promise of a $23 million investment in one of the form MMA fighter’s business ventures . . . MMA Inc., an American listed martial arts training company . . . Last September Donald Trump Jr. was announced as a “strategic advisor” to the company.’
The Irish Government will have to come up with something special to compete for the US President’s attention.
What’s the Point?
It is difficult to understand what can be achieved with a visit to the White House on St. Patrick’s Day – that’s if the Irish Government even gets an invitation. There is little political influence Ireland can exert given that Trump has scant regard for international opinion (especially European opinion), never mind international law. If anything, a shamrock-as-usual approach is likely to feed Trump’s belief he can act with little blowback. And it is highly unlikely the Taoiseach would sit down in the Oval Office with the US President and, in front of the cameras, lecture him about a rules-based world order.
There is the foreign investment angle; namely, that Ireland needs to maintain inward US investment and, therefore, refusing to meet the US President could stem the flow of US investment. This doesn’t stand up. Over the St. Patrick’s day holiday, Irish Ministers and representatives can continue to meet with American CEOs, as they have done in the past, based on the work of Irish civil servants in US consulates around the country.
Indeed, Ireland might even get some quiet kudos from American CEOs. Trump has made it his business to humiliate CEOs who are reduced to bringing gifts of gold to the White House. The IDA reports that US companies are so cowed by the Trump administration that they don’t release information on investments and job creation here for fear of retribution from Washington. Ireland provides something that Trump derides – consistency and stability. A bowl of shamrock will not impact this dynamic.
A Coalition to Stop the Visit
According to the Minister for Foreign Affairs:
“Where we see challenging behaviour, we have to call it out, and unfortunately there’s been a lot of that from the US . . . So we will always use our voice, however small it might seem”.
What’s the best way to call out ‘challenging behaviour’? Refusing to visit the White House over the St. Patrick’s Day period. This would be a clear statement that Ireland opposes Trump’s arbitrary, chaotic foreign policy; a clear statement of support for a rules-based international order; a rejection of Trump’s ethno-nationalist portrayal of Europe (‘civilisational erasure’); and a determination to stop American nativist ideologues interfering in Irish and European democracy.
The parties that made up the ‘Connolly coalition’ should come together, with civil society organisations, to campaign against a St. Patrick’s Day visit to the White House – putting forward the arguments, mobilising public opinion and showing the power of progressive cooperation on a key foreign affairs event.
However, it is unlikely the Irish Government will concede. So the opposition parties should plan out an alternative St. Patrick’s Day visit with the participation of opposition party leaders and representatives along with civil society activists. This could include solidarity visits to cities that are under siege: Minneapolis, Chicago and Portland. The party representatives could meet with social constituencies that are struggling under Trump’s rule – in particular, the US trade union movement.
Indeed, there could be an alternative ceremony complete with a bowl of shamrocks Why not hold it in New York City and give the bowl to the newly elected Mayor, Zohran Mamdami? The symbolism would be profound, popular and progressive.
And, without interfering in US electoral politics, if the opposition to a White House visit provokes those sections of Irish America who previously supported Trump to re-think their political support – then we will have done the world a service.
That is how you make even a small voice speak loudly.
Link :
Some Extra Context :
Prosecution expected over killing of IRA informer Denis Donaldson – Dublin government minister Jim O’Callaghan makes a statement
This could be a very significant news story.
Link :
Crimeworld – Prosecution Expected over 2007 killing of IRA Informer Denis Donaldson
Press Association Story :
“A prosecution is expected in relation to the fatal shooting of Denis Donaldson in Co Donegal in 2006, the Irish justice minister has said.
Minister Jim O’Callaghan made the statement after meeting with Mr Donaldson’s daughter Jane Kearney.
“It has now been nearly 20 years since Denis Donaldson was killed near Glenties, Co Donegal in April 2006,” he said in a statement.
Read the rest of this entry »From Ukraine, Galina Rymbu’s Open Letter to Westminster MP Zarah Sultana – a feminist, anarchist and poet delivers a personal and political address to a leader of the British “Your party”
A feminist, anarchist, and poet living in Ukraine delivers a personal and political address to the leader of Your Party, inviting reflection on what contemporary anti-fascism and genuine strategies of solidarity with the oppressed might look like.
Link :
About Galina Rymbu :
Galina Rymbu’s poems employ history as a discursive tool to understand the present—stories of revolution, movement in time and space, life, and livelihood emerge. Rymbu seeks a radical feminist and leftist poetics that does not condescend to the oppressed, but rather embraces the complexity of every emotion and political position, and of language itself. She opens her poetry to the violence of propaganda, biopolitical manipulation, ideological pressures, as well as the violence of personal intimacy. Life in Space is Rymbu’s first full-length collection in English translation and includes poems selected from her three books as well as more recent work.
Dear Zarah,
Recently, several journalists and left-wing activists reached out to me asking for a comment on your position regarding the suspension of political and military support for the Ukrainian people. Whilst reflecting on how to respond, I decided to write you a personal letter instead. As a leftist and feminist activist from Russia who has been living in Ukraine for the past eight years, this seemed more appropriate than offering a dry neutral comment.
I am addressing you personally also because I see how people like you — those who appear on the global political stage — become a source of hope for many of the oppressed, whose voices and cries are still being drowned out by the speeches of dictators and the “pragmatic” calculations of capitalists who prefer to continue doing their dirty, bloody business with them.
For many younger generations of leftist activists, your name is associated with a promise of future and progress, as so many are tired of politics being made behind the closed doors of elite “men’s clubs,” to which we will never be invited. I know how important this is for my comrades in the UK, and during my visit to London on the eve of the pandemic, we spoke a lot about it —reading political poetry in squats and arguing in small bars about the future of our planet.
From birth until the age of 27, I lived in Russia. I grew up in Western Siberia, in the workers’ settlement of Chkalovsky in the city of Omsk, in a poor working-class family of mixed Moldovan, Romanian, and Ukrainian descent. We lived below the poverty line; we didn’t even have money to pay for electricity, so our home was often dark and without food. My parents still live in Chkalovsky, in a place that successful Europeans would probably call “the social bottom.” My friends, classmates, and lovers still live there. I am now 35, and I am still poor. I remain connected to my class and to the people who are losing their minds in this “prison of nations.” Since childhood, I have faced multiple forms of discrimination and persecution based on my ethnicity—simply because of my name, surname, and appearance. Later, I lived in Moscow and St. Petersburg, where I studied literature and then turned to research in the “philosophy of war,” seeking to understand the foundations of the idea of transforming an “imperialist war into a civil one” (a development best traced in Lenin’s Clausewitz Notebook). [1]
Read the rest of this entry »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!
“If Northerners had a vote, Catherine Connolly would be our next president” – Justine McCarthy’s interesting comment on the 2025 Irish Presidential Election
This article was published in the September 26 2025 edition of the Irish Times.
If Northerners had a vote, Catherine Connolly would be our next president
Northerners have a vested interest in an election portrayed as seminal for the abolition of partition. But they don’t have a vote
Catherine Connolly’s presidential election campaign would be a stroll to the park if Ireland honoured all its citizens’ rights. Instead, the Independent candidate is being accused of lip service by two parties that have ensured the exclusion of hundreds of thousands of potential voters from choosing their head of state.
Irish citizens living in Northern Ireland are allowed no say in an election that is being billed as crucial to their future constitutional status. Sinn Féin insists the next president must “champion a united Ireland”. Fine Gael says its candidate, Heather Humphreys, as a Presbyterian from a Border county, would symbolically unite the island. Fianna Fáil presents its candidate, Jim Gavin, as being Border-blind due to his involvement with the all-island GAA. Yet those living in the North’s six counties are silenced in the election. Their continuing exclusion reduces them to nominal citizens.
Addressing his party’s annual conference last weekend, DUP leader Gavin Robinson rebuked the Republic for what he called its “institutional intolerance of Protestant culture and heritage” but the southern State’s starker prejudice is against its own citizens in the North. Under the 1956 Irish Nationality and Citizenship Act, affirmed by the 1998 Belfast Agreement, people in Northern Ireland are entitled to choose to be citizens of Ireland. As such, the Irish President is their president. Ever since Mary Robinson’s election to the Áras in 1990, the office’s holders have striven to represent them with their presence and their utterances. But across the Liffey in Government Buildings the realpolitik means that extending voting rights to Northern citizens would be electoral hara-kiri, virtually handing Sinn Féin the presidency on a plate.
Read the rest of this entry »What is the problem with Yanis Varoufakis’ appearance in Moscow?
Greek politician Yanis Varoufakis is listed as a speaker at the BRICS Urban Future Forum 2025 to be held in Moscow, Russia, from September 17-18. Jeffrey Sachs was well recieved at last year’s event. Ilya Mateev wonders what Varoufakis hopes to achieve.
1. Education for Russians is good and right. I have no idea of “cancelling those living in Russia” – my approach is precisely the opposite. I do a great deal for education, discussion and bridge-building in Russia, though for obvious reasons I won’t write about this in detail. Overall, I am OBVIOUSLY in favour of any constructive activity involving those in Russia, and I consider this very important.
2. There are no problems with Varoufakis’s book being published in Russian. The book is rubbish and not worth the time spent on it, but that’s another conversation. The very fact of translation can only be welcomed.
3. Varoufakis is a public intellectual and even an activist (well, sort of). He had various options for engaging with Russians. He could have organised a closed Zoom event for Russian readers of his book and spoken with them candidly. After all, his DiEM25 [1] could have taken an interest in Russian opposition and left politics, Russian political prisoners, and so forth. Solidarity at the level of society and grassroots initiatives is both possible and valuable.
4. Varoufakis and his organisation did nothing of the sort. Instead, he went to the Moscow government’s urban planning forum. Such events are dubious in any country – they are thoroughly business establishment affairs, no place for leftists. In Russia there’s an additional factor – war, censorship, the impossibility of even asking a question without risk of criminal prosecution [2]. In such a situation, joining with bankers, developers, Chinese and Saudi surveillance companies is really beyond the pale.
5. Of course, Varoufakis does all this consciously. I think this is how he represents anti-imperialist struggle against the damned West and evil NATO (plus money, attention, first-class flights, etc.). This behaviour (whilst completely ignoring Russian grassroots initiatives) is precisely campism [3] – I’ll hang out with the Kremlin against the White House and Brussels. A dead end in political evolution.
6. The fact that I can’t even call on readers in Russia to ask Varoufakis some pointed question (because I have common sense) precisely demonstrates that he’s wrong to go and is engaging in nonsense. It’s shameful to speak at an event where the audience could get a two-year prison sentence [4] for their questions.
Ilya Mateev is one of the tens of thousands of anti-war Russians living in exile.
P.S.
Source: https://www.facebook.com/ilia.matveev
Translated for ESSF by Adam Novak
Footnotes
[1] DiEM25 (Democracy in Europe Movement 2025) is a pan-European political movement founded by Varoufakis in 2016, advocating for democratic reform of EU institutions and progressive economic policies
[2] Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the country has implemented increasingly harsh censorship laws, including criminalising “discrediting” the armed forces or spreading “fake news” about the war, with penalties of up to 15 years in prison
[3] Campism refers to the political tendency to reflexively support one geopolitical “camp” against another, often leading to uncritical backing of authoritarian regimes simply because they oppose Western powers
[4] Under current Russian law, individuals can face up to two years imprisonment for various speech-related offences, including “discrediting” the military or spreading information deemed “extremist”
Fine Gael Presidential Candidate Heather Humphreys – is her family’s Orange Order Background relevant?
Irish Presidential Elections – Dirty Personalised Attacks
Irish presidential elections have a history of dirty personalised attacks.
The 2025 campaign will feature similar personalised attacks. The Fine Gael candidate Heather Humphreys was a right-wing minister in recent governments. Her family background includes relatives who were members of a reactionary far-right organisation, the Orange Order. The problem here is that nobody can control their family origins. Every living Irish person can go back a few decades and discover nasty skeletons in the cupboard. Humphreys, who favours ending the partition of Ireland, is no exception.
Sometimes the personalised attacks work, on other occasions they backfired.
During the 1990 campaign Fianna Fáil discovered to their horror that their candidate Brian Lenihan was likely to lose the contest to Mary Robinson, a candidate nominated by the Labour party. Government minister Padraig Flynn stated that Robinson had “a new-found interest in her family”. It went down very badly. Robinson, a lawyer who had a civil rights and feminist background, became the Irish state’s first female president, and the first candidate who defeated a Fianna Fáil candidate in the race to live for 7 years in the luxurious Áras an Úachtaráin in the Phoenix Park.
In 1997 the canny Fianna Fáil party nominated a female lawyer and journalist, Mary MacAleese, who was born in the six-county bit of Ireland. The new FF candidate was anti-abortion and had a human rights record on other issues. This prompted an anonymous campaign claiming that MacAleese was a closet supporter of the IRA’s armed campaign during “The Troubles”. A separate campaign was launched against the Labour Party’s candidate Adi Roche claiming, amongst other things, that her brother was thrown out of the Irish state’s army in the early 1970’s for supporting armed defence of the nationalist minority in the six counties. The anti-Roche smear worked, but MacAleese stormed to victory. The Fine Gael party is the number one suspect for originating these personalised attacks, but this was never proved.
In 2011 an independent candidate Seán Gallagher seemed certain of victory until devastating evidence entered the public arena via a six-county businessperson, Mr Morgan from Armagh. Gallagher was a bagman for the Fianna Fáil party, and had relieved Mr Morgan of a substantial amount of money without returning a favour. Mr Morgan was wealthy, deeply involved in the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA), and was a sponsor of his county team, Armagh. In Mr Gallagher’s trade you don’t mess with wealthy men, a lesson the candidate learned to his cost.
“Approximately 100,000 on a far right march in London. A grim new milestone in post-war political history” – Great Article by A Very Public Sociologist
The writer angrily says “This is the culmination of Keir Starmer’s rancid approach to immigration” – and he is spot on. We have problems confronting a growing racist right in Ireland also, and can learn a very important lesson : Dog-Whistling and Pandering to racists creates a catastrophe.
Link :
Grim Political Milestone in London 13.11.2025 – A Very Public Sociologist
Bad Man Dies in Utah, USA – Sniper Kills Charlie Kirk, President Donald Trump Inflames Right-Wing Hatred
A close friend and comrade, Mark Findlay writes :
Seriously, nothing good will come out of this, save a bit of schadenfreude. It will only enrage the far right even more and replacements will be found. Just like the daft idea of shooting Trump. He survived and made the most of it propaganda-wise. I am completely opposed to any idea of assassination of our opponents.
Let’s wait to see the results of the police investigation. At the time of writing no definitive evidence is in the public domain about the identity of the assassin.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tomás Ó Flatharta 