TOXIC LOYALISM IN IRELAND – WORSE THAN DANGERS OF 12th JULY BONFIRES

On By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Human Rights, Indigenous or Original People, Ireland, irish history, National Liberation, Political Analysis, Popular Resistance, Racism, Religious Sectarianism, Traditions & Folk Custom1 Comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

If it turns out that the fire destruction of homes in Greenisland, Carrigfergus was caused by Loyalist bonfire embers,1 there may be renewed calls to ban their construction in the cause of safety.

Or even to prevent the deaths of people from Loyalist bonfire tower construction.2

If so, such calls will miss the main point, which is that Ulster Loyalist bonfires are an expression of sectarianism and racism. It is Ulster Loyalism itself which is toxic and more lethal than any mismanaged fire. That is what is expressed in burning Irish Tricolours, Palestinian flags, images of Irish individuals, representations of migrants and of Islam.

A Loyalist bonfire with Irish Tricolour and Palestinian flags to be burned along with images of the popular rap group Kneecap and an attempt at some message aimed at them in Irish. The rejection of SDLP and Alliance colonial political parties is clear, while that of Sinn Féin is taken for granted. (Photo: Niall Carson/ PA Wire).

The record of Ulster Loyalism is as the communal enforcers of settler colonialism upon the indigenous Irish. When the United Irishmen, mostly led by Protestants, were organising in unity with Irish Catholics for Irish independence, the Orange Order was founded in 1795.

At that time it was not controlling the indigenous Irish that was of greatest concern to the British ruling class as much as the Republican Protestants, in particular the Republicans among the Presbyterians and the Orange Order targeted them too with propaganda and intimidation.

Once the threat of Protestant Republican rebellion was contained through intimidation, repression and emigration, the Orange Order concentrated on the majority mostly Catholic indigenous Irish, with general repression and periodic pogroms, continuing after Partition of Ireland in 1922.

The colonial Statelet institutionalised in law and practice discrimination against Catholics, enlisting the help and support of the majority of the Protestant working class, with the result of the worst housing and generally lowest wages in the UK – for workers of both communities.

The Loyalists mobilised against the Civil Rights campaign in the Six Counties, a campaign led by liberal Protestants as well as Catholics. During three decades of war that followed, Loyalist militias with British colonial army and police help, carried out bombings and sectarian murders.3

At this time of year people concerned for their safety or just peace of mind temporarily leave areas near to those under Loyalist control and not only in the Six Counties colony but in parts of Scotland too.

A REACTIONARY FESTIVAL

Unionist and liberal propaganda tell us that some of the bonfires are just good community fun, without flags, politician faces, migrant boat or mosque replicas on top. But the historical excuse for the marking of the 12th of July is the victory of William of Orange’s forces at the Boyne in 1690.

Loyalist mural probably in Belfast depicting at top gable end King William at the Battle of the Boyne. (Photo source: https://petermoloneycollection.com/category/events-people/king-billy/)

The Unionists celebrate this chiefly because they perceive it as a victory of Protestant forces over Catholic but also because it facilitated the destruction of the remnants of the Gaelic Order, breaking the power of Irish resistance in Ulster and completed the British conquest of Ireland.

Even without a single representation of person, country or religion on top of the bonfires, their very nature and what they intend to celebrate is reactionary, sectarian and colonial.

Most Ulster Protestants are probably unaware that although William was a Protestant and James II a Catholic, from whom Irish Catholics hoped to gain relief from repression, the Battle of the Boyne was actually part of the Nine Years War with William fighting for the League of Augsburg.

And one of the supporters of that League was none other than Pope Innocent XI because of what he and the League saw as the threat of King Luis XIV of France. The News of William’s victory at the Boyne was celebrated with high mass in a number of Catholic countries.

This year’s Loyalist Bonfire in Moygashel, Co. Armagh, with a representation of a Mosque to be burned on top and a placard calling for ‘secure borders’ against emigration. (Photo sourced: Sky News)

Loyalism has gone on to extend its hatred of Catholicism to Islam, of indigenous Irish to migrants from other lands, for example in the recent riots in Belfast.4

‘ONE MILLION PROTESTANTS IN A UNITED IRELAND’

We are frequently counselled to tolerate Ulster Loyalism, told that we must make Loyalists welcome into a united Ireland, that we need to accept their culture on equal level with others and are also subtly threatened with the potential violence of ‘One million Protestants’ if not accommodated.

The culture of Loyalism is toxic. It is intolerant, racist, homophobic, sectarian and violent. Might as well ask black people or native Americans to accept the Ku Klux Klan – after all, the KKK too have a community culture and they live in the USA along with everyone else.

A united 32-County Ireland should of course accept everyone as citizens. That is not at all to say that it should tolerate religious sectarianism, racism or homophobia. On the contrary it should oppose those evils through education and if necessary through application of the law.5

As for the implied threat of “one million Protestants”, that is to assume that all are sectarian Loyalists or at least that such are in leadership over the rest. Not all those reared in Six Counties Protestantism are Loyalists nor in fact even necessarily Unionists.

Removing the military, ideological and structural support for Unionism and Loyalism and also the control exercised by Loyalists on sections of communities will reduce Unionism and its most virulent expression, Loyalism, to a much smaller core who will have to make their choice.

Adjust to get on with your fellow citizens, or leave.

End.

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FOOTNOTES:

1https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/fire-which-destroyed-homes-likely-caused-by-embers-from-nearby-bonfire-1925794.html

22026 https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2026/0711/1582923-bonfire-death/

2022 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-62111760

3According to Wikipedia, Loyalist paramilitaries killed 1,027 people during the 30 Years War, approximately 30% of all conflict-related deaths. 911 according to https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/issues/violence/sutton.htm (a biased source) including 33 in the no-warning Dublin and Monaghan Bombings of 1974.

4https://www.politico.eu/article/anti-immigrant-terror-takes-northern-ireland-back-darkest-chapters/

5In the wording of the 1916 Proclamation: “The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty to all …”

SOURCES:

https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/fire-which-destroyed-homes-likely-caused-by-embers-from-nearby-bonfire-1925794.html and https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2026/07/12/fire-that-destroyed-antrim-homes-likely-caused-by-embers-from-nearby-bonfire/

2026 https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2026/0711/1582923-bonfire-death/

2022 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-62111760

IRISH STATE PRESIDENCY OF THE EUROPEAN UNION — PROTEST CLOSES DUBLIN CITY CENTRE STREET

On By rebelbreezeIn Anti-War, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Imperialism, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Irish Left, National Liberation, Political Analysis, ZionismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time:4 mins.)

As the Irish State marked the start of its six-month Presidency of the European Union, a protest march calling for Irish neutrality and an end to EU collusion with ‘Israeli’ genocide in Palestine headed for the formal event, closing a principal street to traffic.

Section of the crowd at Central Plaza. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

A Call to Action poster had promoted the protest to take place at the Plaza in Dublin’s south side city centre in front of a multi-story building, formerly HQ of the Central Bank of Ireland. Curiously, the name of no party, campaign or collective convening the protest appeared on the poster.

Groups of various Palestine solidarity or of pro-Irish neutrality nature, anti-war and left-wing nature, along with many individual activists congregated at the Plaza while a group from the weekly broad Dubs for Palestine meeting outside Leinster House1 marched to meet them there.

Some banners among the crowd at Central Plaza. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

The ‘Granny Squares for Gaza’ quilt was unrolled, featuring up to 2,900 squares, each one representing 10 Palestinian children killed by the IOF and volunteers, along with its custodians, held it at around waist height.

Soon afterwards, the crowd of several hundred took up the westward traffic side of Dame Street and began to march towards Dublin Castle,2 where the Irish Government was marking the first day of its EU Presidency. However a police line blocked progress at the junction with George St.

After a temporary stand-off, the marchers moved to occupy both sides of Dame street and traffic could no longer proceed westward or eastward along the street. The crowd continued with slogans in solidarity with Palestine, against ‘Israel’, for peace, against war, for warplanes out of Shannon.

Another banner at the Plaza. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

The Irish State is the second-biggest single importer of ‘Israeli’ exports, next only to the USA. Permitted flights over Irish airspace have been identified carrying war material to ‘Israel’ and US warplanes regularly refuel at Shannon Airport, despite the state’s ‘neutral’ status.

Richard Boyd Barrett of the People Before Profit, which seemed now to be leading the demonstration addressed the crowd informing them that the police had said earlier that they could proceed to the square immediately before City Hall and hold the protest event there.

They had reneged on that which is the reason why traffic was now blocked in the street, Barrett told the crowd and introduced Jimi Cullen to perform for the crowd. Cullen, who has performed at a US Embassy picket for 122 weeks up till then, sang his We Are All Palestinians composition.

Jimi Cullen in full voice. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

The crowd joined in the chorus, words with which they have become familiar in chants through many demonstrations.

A police officer approached Barrett requesting to speak to him and both went aside as one of the Dubs for Palestine group took up leading the chants. Barrett returned later to inform the crowd that the police had offered a different route down side streets, which had been rejected.

Cullen then performed his song defending the Irish State’s neutrality status with which the Irish ruling class are trying to dispense, after which Barrett invited the crowd, while the megaphones sounded sirens to lie on the ground in evocation of the many Palestinians being killed by the day.

Also another banner at the Plaza before the march. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

COMMENT

It was good that the capital city saw agitation opposing the Irish State joining military ventures of the EU and USA imperialist alliances and also against Irish collusion in the genocide in Palestine.

Those leading the march were unwise to accept the police assurance that they would allow the march to proceed to just before City Hall. A PBP-led march to protest Hillary Clinton’s 2012 visit to Dublin Castle had been told they could proceed there but were stopped just before City Hall.

Wednesday’s march was stopped even further from the Castle, which is a step further in curtailing protest, ensuring those inside the Castle will not even hear a hint of opposition. The police obstruction could have been bypassed by diverging through side streets but it was not attempted.

Though individual members may have been there, no Irish Republican organisation was notably present which probably accounted to an extent for the very scarce presence of Tricolour flags (and only one Starry Plough). PBP and their followers do not generally fly those flags.

However their absence cannot be attributed to any ambivalence: Irish Republicans are in strong antipathy to the Irish Government and to the institution of the European Union.

Only one of the slogans called from the front of the march referred to the colonial occupation of one-sixth of Ireland, viz. ‘From Ireland to Palestine/ Occupation is a crime!’ but it was from the Dubs and as is usual with PBP, in none of the speeches was there a mention of it.

Not one word of Irish language was spoken through the PA, not even the Saoirse don Phalaistín slogan.

The lie down to conclude the protest. The Gardaí may be seen in the distance blocking any advance of the march towards Dublin Castle or even the square beside City Hall. People are in most cases lying on the quilt of which each square represents 10 Palestinian children killed by ‘Israel’. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

MOVING FORWARD

For the defeat of colonialism, imperialism and capitalism in Ireland, a revolutionary mass movement will be essential. For that in turn, construction of an anti-imperialist broad front is an essential task.

That requires those claiming Irish Republicanism to be present on mobilisations alongside those claiming revolutionary socialism or just anti-imperialism.

If use of the Irish language is to be popularised and the civil rights of Irish speakers in Ireland protected, Gaeilge must be heard in particular among the most progressive sections of society.

End.

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FOOTNOTES

1This broad group meets every Wednesday from 12 noon to around 1.00 pm. listening to speeches, songs and poems. Two of their major campaigns are seeking to have the genocide-funding Allianz company kicked out of the Gaelic Athletic Association and, more recently, to prevent the Irish soccer team playing the ‘Israeli’ one.

2For centuries centre of administration and repression of Ireland by the English occupation.

What to learn from 1,000 days of genocide

On By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Indigenous or Original People, Israeli Zionism, Mass Media Criticism, Massacres, Middle East, National Liberation, Palestine, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Human beings can be amazing and none more so than the Palestinians. Dr. Munir Al-Bursh Director General of the Ministry of Health in Gaza released the following short statement, posted by Resistance News Network on Telegram today. Diarmuid Breatnach.

One thousand days was not just a number on the calendar, but 1,000 days of torment, pages of pain, and stories that were never written.

1,000 days of loss and betrayal, and the worst betrayal is the betrayal of kin. Humanity has stripped itself of its humanity in these days.

Cartoon by D.Breatnach from September 2024 (’04 is an error) and still true today.

Killing children has become fleeting breaking news, bombing hospitals a recurring scene, starving civilians a method of war, and preventing medicine, water, and food a matter discussed without shame.

Since the agreement, more than 1,000 martyrs have been killed, most of them children and women.

We are living through a suffocating medicine crisis; more than 52% of medicines are missing, and more than 59% of medical supplies are missing.

The citizen can no longer find a drink of clean water. The occupation began with killing, and now it kills silently.

Gaza has taught me that victory is only born from the womb of patience, and that peoples who believe in their right cannot be defeated by any power, no matter how intense the siege and how great the sacrifices.

Gaza has taught me that starvation, thirst, bombing, burning, displacement, and forced removal are but tools of helplessness before a people who loved freedom and believed that dignity cannot be bought or sold.

Gaza has taught me that homes may be demolished, hospitals destroyed, and schools bombed, but the will that dwells in hearts cannot be buried under the rubble.

Gaza has taught me that a doctor may treat a wound while bleeding, a paramedic may carry the martyrs while waiting for his turn, and a journalist may write the truth with his blood before his pen.

Dr. Munir Al-Bursh, Director General Gaza Health Ministry. (Photo source: Resistance News Network on Telegram).

Gaza has taught me that all conspiracies break before the unity and steadfastness of the people, and that the most dangerous thing the enemies want is for us to be divided, while the greatest thing we possess is to remain one front.

Gaza has taught me that the world may be silent, the law may fail, and justice may be delayed, but the truth does not die, the rights of peoples do not lapse, and history does not show mercy to those who witnessed the crime and chose silence.

end.

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EPIC LEBANESE RESISTANCE TARGETS INVADING COMMANDERS?

On By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Guerrilla Action, Indigenous or Original People, Israeli Zionism, Middle East, National LiberationLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

The operations of Hizbollah in defence of South Lebanon against the IOF, the most powerful military power in the region, have been epic enough. But now the ‘Israeli’ military fear their commanders are being specifically targeted by the Resistance.1

It may be unlucky coincidence that two commanders have been seriously wounded and one killed in a matter of weeks but the High Command of the Zionist army don’t think so, according to media in the Zionist entity, speculating instead ofn high level Hizbollah intelligence to target IOF commanders.

On Saturday/ Sunday night the Deputy Commander of the Commando Brigade’s Maglan unit was among 13 IOF injured by a Resistance drone strike and one killed.2 On Friday Lt. Colonel Dor Gedalia Ben Simhon, commander of the 52nd Battalion of the 401st Armored Brigade, was killed.3

Three members of Ben Simhon’s crew were killed with him after their tank was struck during operations near Kfar Tebnit in South Lebanon. The 52nd Battalion is the unit implicated in the killing of 6-year-old Hind Rajab while she called for help after the killing of six family members.4

Northern Command’s Major-General Rafi Milo had a very lucky escape when his car was hit by an explosive drone minutes after he had left it in South Lebanon.5

Of course, assassinations are and have been a regular part of the offensive package of the IOF – not only assassination of military leaders but also civilian administrators, technicians, first responders, news reporters, writers, artists and poets. But the IOF are unaccustomed to being paid in kind.

It won’t be in kind from Hizbollah, for the Lebanese Resistance is hitting tanks, armoured troop carriers, military personnel and, when they killed an ‘Israeli’ civilian and injured his son, the man was driving an earth remover for the military, demolishing South Lebanese homes not yet bombed level.6

Hizbollah has been carrying out around 30 operations a day against the invading IOF, employing rockets, guided missiles and drones but also IEDs, RPGs and small arms fire. Hardly a day passed without their drones striking at least one Merkava tank, a Namer troop carrier and an earth-moving machine.7

Despite failing militarily, the IOF have killed at least 4,192 people (mostly civilians) in Lebanon since the current round of hostilities began, and displaced more than 1.2 million people, reports the Lebanese health ministry, as the IOF applies its Gaza destruction plan to South Lebanon.

According to a UN report, the IOF completely destroyed 11,095 buildings, affecting 17,891 housing units, while 2,242 buildings were partially damaged, equivalent to 5,219 housing units. The report also revealed that 9,311 buildings sustained minor damage, equivalent to 18,282 housing units.8

D.Breatnach cartoon drawn prior to the 2026 resurgence of February, during previous IOF invasion of South Lebanon, prior to the ‘exploding pagers’ and assassination of Nasrallah

Career progression from entry to NCO ranks in the IOF is largely based on service length rather than merit and for commanders, also based on meeting the requirements of command training school, so it is not easy for them to replace commanders injured or killed in battle.

The greatest damage perhaps will be to the IOF’s morale, already at far from optimum level.8 Personnel know that they will be required to remain on active service longer than normal and that they are outmatched on a level field, while currently the Haredim9 are exempted from service.10

Typically the IOF retreat quickly from contact with the Resistance and call for shelling or bombing but now Hizbollah’s mortars and rockets can bombard them too and thoughts of small explosive-carrying quadcopters appearing out of nowhere to hunt them down is really scaring them.

In some cases an explosive drone has followed running IOF into buildings, in one case into an IOF operations room. A drone targeting a covered IOF Humvee filmed two leaping out the back without attempting to shoot it down, leaving it to explode against the rest in back and against cab at front.

And what if the Resistance really can track commanders in the battle area, determine where they are and strike them down? IOF soldiers will be uncertain and nervous without leaders, (feelings which might be even worse if they are required to spend time close to possibly targeted commanders!).

D.Breatnach cartoon, June 2026

Zionist fragmentation is breaking out inside the Zionist entity with some arguing that the IOF should bomb Beirut, others claiming that the IOF is being held back from effective action in South Lebanon and a third group claiming that the IOF should retreat from Lebanon completely.

And hostility towards what Vice President Vance called their “only powerful ally” and sole superpower in the world currently sympathetic to the Israeli state, has grown hugely among the Zionists as they perceive the US-Iran agreement under current negotiation as shattering their military and expansion illusions.

End.

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Footnotes:

1https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-900206

2https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-899975

3https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/hezbollah-attack-kills-israeli-soldier–wounds-13-commando-t

4On January 29 2024 – Two paramedics who set out to save her were also killed by the IOF unit.

5https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-900206

6https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israel-security/2026-04-28/ty-article/civilian-contractor-working-for-defense-ministry-killed-in-southern-lebanon/0000019d-d5ca-d9f6-a1dd-ddca943a0000

7https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/israel-largest-tank-losses-40yrs-ambushes-21-merkava

8https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/lebanon-building-damage-in-israeli-attacks-estimated-at-138b/3974843

9https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israeli-army-calls-reserves-amid-fears-low-turnout-and-lower-morale

10Fundamentalist Orthodox ‘Israeli’ sect who have been exempt from employment and military conscription, though including 10% of ‘Israel’s’ military age males. Their political representatives are part of Netanyahu’s coalition but are calling now for dissolving the Government and new elections, after other parts of the coalition passed an ordinance removing the Haredim exemption from conscription..

11https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-880294

Sources:

Targeting IOF commanders: https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-900206

IOF looting homes in Lebanon: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israel-security/2026-05-20/ty-article-magazine/.premium/it-was-okay-to-be-crazy-idf-soldiers-discuss-moral-decay-in-lebanon/

Declining IOF morale: https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israeli-army-calls-reserves-amid-fears-low-turnout-and-lower-morale

https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/israel-largest-tank-losses-40yrs-ambushes-21-merkava

IRISH STATE REPRESENTATIVES DECLINE TO CONDEMN SLAVERY

On By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, History, Human Rights, Imperialism, Ireland, Political PrisonersLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

On 25th March 2026 the Irish State’s UN representative declined to vote in favour of the UN Declaration of the Trafficking of Enslaved Africans and Racialized Chattel Enslavement of Africans as the Gravest Crime against Humanity.1

The voting patterns reveal much about the world and the position within it that is occupied by the Irish state. The total voting membership present was 193, out of which 123 voted YES, i.e. in favour of the resolution. But where was the Irish State? It abstained, along with 51 other states.2

The Western Powers, its chief the United States and including Australia, Canada and all western Europe, including of course all EU states, abstained.

But most of the eastern European states also abstained: Albania, Armenia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Ukraine.

Voting YES in Eastern Europe were Azerbaijan, Belarus and the Russian Federation,

In Africa, including North Africa, all states voted YES for the motion.

In East Asia, China, Mongolia, North Korea and South Korea voted YES but Japan followed the Western Powers in abstaining (Taiwan is not a UN member state).

In S.E. Asia only Cambodia abstained, the rest of the states in the region voting YES.

In Central Asia, all UN member states voted YES.

In Western Asia (previously termed ‘the Middle East’), only Oman abstained, all other states in the region voting YES, i.e. in favour of the resolution.

In the Western Pacific only Palau and in the Southern Pacific, only Fiji abstained (along with Australia and New Zealand, as noted earlier, as medium powers within the Western Bloc).

In Latin America, only Paraguay abstained and as we’ll see, Argentina voted No to the motion. All other Latin American countries vote in favour.

Yes, Argentina actually voted against the motion, one of only three states voting NO, the other two being the United States and Israel.

The Irish state’s excuse for their abstention included3 “ … concerns regarding certain legal references and assertions that are either inaccurate or inconsistent with international law.”

While the Minister’s response seems to indicate concern over terminology and legality, the Irish representative’s abstention coincided with the whole of the EU, as the Minister indicated but also with most European states and with the Western Powers.

Or in line with the ‘Global North’, in other words. And against the votes of the overwhelming majority of the states of the ‘Global South’. Ireland is geographically located in Western Europe but as a neo-colony (and direct colony in the Six Counties), Ireland belongs much more to the Global South.

In declining to join the vote for the Declaration, the representatives of the Irish State not only aligned themselves with the Western Powers and took a shameful stand in modern times but also went against the history of the Irish people and even of the Irish bourgeoisie itself.

In one of the two recorded writings of 5C St. Patrick, he wrote fiercely denouncing Coroticus, the British Celtic leader who was raiding Ireland and taking slaves.4

Cromwell in 1649 after his sack of Drogheda had Irish men and women sent as slaves to English colonies in Virginia and Barbados.

Yes, I say SLAVES. Although later Irish people were transported to the British colonies as contracted indentured servants, bound to their master for up to 10 years, the notion that Cromwell managed some kind of servant recruiting service among surviving captives in 1649 is ludicrous.5

Irish patriotic songs are full of hostile references to symbolic slavery, for example The Soldiers’ Song: No more our ancient sire land/ Shall shelter the despot or the slave and Who Fears to Speak of ‘98: He’s all a knave or half a slave/ Who slights his country thus …

Many Irish Republicans of the late 18th Century including the United Irishmen abhorred slavery and boycotted sugar because it was harvested by slave labour from sugar cane on colonial plantations.

Daniel O’Connell (1775–1847), better known for campaigning for an end to the anti-Catholic laws of the English occupation, was nevertheless a tireless campaigner against chattel slavery. Escaped slave and campaigner Frederick Douglass recorded hearing him mentioned by Irish labourers in the US.

Douglas came to Ireland to escape slave-catchers, staying from 31 August 1845 to January 1846, being welcomed into upper class private houses across Ireland and to address meetings and congregations. In Dublin, Douglass attended a Repeal Association meeting to hear O’Connell speak.

Frederick Douglass (Photo sourced: Internet)

At the meeting at Conciliation Hall on September 29, 1845, learning that the famous abolitionist was in the crowd, O’Connell invited Douglass to join him on stage and to address the audience, which experience made a deep impression upon Douglass’ life.

Although Irish migrants enlisted in the US Army and fought in wars of conquest, in the US-Mexican War (1846-1848) a significant number had deserted to form the St. Patrick’s Battalion and fought on the Mexican side against the USA.

Mexico had abolished slavery in 1829 while many states in the US still upheld it, including Texas which the US had conquered earlier from Mexico.

The Young Irelanders received the Irish Tricolour from women activists of the 1848 French revolution in Paris. They supported the Second French Republic and its Abolition of slavery.

Although John Mitchell, one of the Young Irelanders’ leaders, espoused the Confederacy other Young Ireland leaders supported the Union in the American Civil War (1861-1865), including Thomas Meagher as Captain in the 69th New York Militia, later as Brigadier-General in the Union Army.

Thomas Francis Meagher as Union Army officer and Governor of Montana.
(Photo sourced: Internet)

The vast majority of Irish young males who survived emigration to the US from 1845 to 1866 fought in the Union Army in the American Civil War, which is to say on the anti-slavery side. The Fenians in the USA too, as an organisation, mostly fought on the Union side.

The Irish capitalist bourgeoisie, now the neo-colonial Gombeen class, has degraded so much, sunk so far that it cannot even stand by its own weakly progressive strands, never mind by the principles of the earlier Irish Republican bourgeoisie or those of the democratic populace today.

end.

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APPENDIX

First modern abolition of slavery

Vermont Republic (later a State in the USA) 1777

Second

Republic of France 1794 but reinstated briefly by Napoleon 1802

Third

Haiti Revolution and Independence (1791), 1804.

Fourth

Mexican Republic, 1810-1829

Fifth

UK 1833/ 34 (but the UK undermined the US Union during the American Civil War by building warships for the Confederacy, contraband smuggling and raids from Canada. See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trent_Affair)

Sixth

USA 1865 at end of American Civil War

FOOTNOTES

1https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/4106660

2Ibid.

3https://www.oireachtas.ie/ga/debates/question/2026-04-14/284/ Written response by Minister for Foreign Affairs to Eoin Ó Broin TD.

4https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOsHlDbKC2s

5Unlike the case of the imported black slaves, their slave status continuing on to their children if occurred at all, would have been rare unless of course the children were visibly part-African.

SOURCES

2026-03-25 UN General Assembly Resolution on the Declaration of the Trafficking of Enslaved Africans and Racialized Chattel Enslavement of Africans as the Gravest Crime Against Humanity: https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/4106660

Oireachtas question following Ireland’s abstention: https://www.oireachtas.ie/ga/debates/question/2026-04-14/284/

THE FLAG, THE PEOPLE & THE PLACE: The ‘Irish Republic’ flag

On By rebelbreezeIn 1916 Rising, Cultural Comment, History, Ireland, Irish Diaspora, irish history, Irish Republicanism, Irish War of Independence 1919-'21, National LiberationLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach
(Reading time: 5 mins.)

It was an Irish Argentinian who erected the “Irish Republic” flag over Dublin’s General Post Office during the 1916 Easter rising: Eamon Bulfin, born in Buenos Aires on 22 September 1892.

The flag in question was painted by Theobald Wolfe Tone Fitzgerald in the home of Constance Markievicz (1868-1927)1 with the words “Irish Republic” in gold or yellow, edged with white on material of a green curtain or bed-covering.

This was the flag later triumphantly displayed upside down by the British in front of the Parnell Monument (of which photographs may be found by search of the Internet).

Eamon Bulfin
Colourised photo of Constance Markievicz in Irish Citizen Army uniform. The ‘Irish Republic’ flag was painted on material in her house and delivered by her to the GPO. The words declared to the world that the national liberation forces were fighting for an independent Republic. (Photo sourced: Internet)

Eamon was the son of William Bulfin (1864-1910) from Birr, King’s County (now Co. Offaly), who emigrated to Argentina at the age of 20 and was a writer and journalist who became editor and proprietor of ‘The Southern Cross’ newspaper. William also helped finance Pádraig Pearse’s Scoil Éanna (St. Enda’s School) which opened in September, 1908.

Bulfin returned to Ireland in 1909 with his wife, Anne O’Rourke, and their children Eamon and Catalina. William’s death in 1910 was a blow to his friend Arthur Griffith and the efforts to launch a Sinn Féin2 daily newspaper.

Eamon was enrolled in St Thomas Aquinas College, Newbridge, before attending St Enda’s School (Scoil Éanna) in Cullenswood, Rathmines, from September 1908 at the age of 17.

He impressed the headmaster and school founder, Patrick Pearse, who noted his aptitude for Irish, French and English,3 though also that he was weak at mathematics.

Bulfin enthusiastically engaged with the ethos of the school, acting in dramas, contributing short stories to the school review, An Macaomh, and captaining the St Enda’s football team in 1909–10.

He was enrolled as a student at St Enda’s until 1910 but remained as a boarder at its new location in Rathfarnham; he became close to the Pearse family. Eamon enrolled in the National University of Ireland in 1911 to study for a science degree.

While at university Bulfin won both Sigerson and Fitzgibbon cups (in football and hurling respectively) on a number of occasions, captaining the National University of Ireland (NUI) football team that won the Sigerson Cup in 1915.

In his 20th year Eamon joined the Irish Republican Brotherhood, being sworn in by Arthur O’Connor and, a year later, in 1913 joined E Company, Fourth Battalion (Rathfarnham) of the newly-formed Irish Volunteers

By 1915 he was involved in organising the volunteers in Dublin and Co. Meath, and in manufacturing munitions and explosives in St Enda’s, which activities continued up to the Easter rising, just prior to which he helped Kathleen Lynn  transport these weapons to Liberty Hall.

Bulfin was promoted to the headquarters staff of the volunteers and, mobilised for the 1916 Rising, was under Pearse’s personal command and stationed at the GPO, where he hoisted the “Irish Republic” flag on the roof at the corner with Princes Street.

1916 Artwork in pastels by Edmond Delrenne, a Belgian refugee who had arrived in Ireland in 1914, he drew and coloured the ‘Irish Republic’ flag on the GPO (centre picture). The painting also shows Nelson’s Column, which was blown up in 1966. (Artwork source: Whyte’s)

After the surrender in Moore Street, Eamon Bulfin, as with nearly 100 insurgents was sentenced to death by British military court martial but most sentences (excepting the 15 shot by firing squads in the following days)4 were commuted to periods of prison incarceration in England and Wales.

On March 21, 1917, Eamon Bulfin was deported from jail under Britain’s Aliens Restriction Act of 1914.

The Argentine Government did not want to anger the British Empire, with whom they were already having problems, not the least with their long-standing argument over the sovereignty of Las Malvinas/Falklands.They therefore arrested Eamon Bulfin when he arrived in Buenos Aires and sentenced him to jail for leaving Argentina for the purpose of ‘deserting from military service’.

As Eamon had been a schoolboy when he and his family left for Ireland, the charge was an excuse for the authorities but suspicion of being a communist, which the British gave for his deportation might have been the real reason.

He was conscripted into the Argentine military and served in the army before transferring to the navy, being released after ten months as his mother was a widow, which qualified him for an exemption from military service.

One of two photos of the ‘Irish Republic’ flag being displayed upside down by British soldiers, symbolising the defeat of those who flew it. The site is the base of Parnell’s Monument in Parnell Street with the Rotunda in the background. (Source: Internet)

When Eamon Bulfin was released in 1919, the General Election in Ireland had resulted in an overwhelming victory for Sinn Féin5 which, in accordance with their manifesto, made a Unilateral Declaration of Independence declaring Ireland a republic and set up a parliament in Dublin.

The President of the Irish Republic, Eamon de Valéra wrote to Bulfin in May appointing him the official representative to Argentina. As Irish Consul, Bulfin was to “inaugurate direct trade between Ireland and the Argentine Republic… to co-ordinate Irish opinion in the Argentine, and to bring it into the Irish demand for a republic.”6

Bulfin began work, establishing close contacts with Argentine government officials, Irish Argentine leaders and he launched an Irish Fund to help the cause.

In 1920, during the county council elections, Eamon Bulfin was nominated in his absence for a seat on King’s County Council. He was not only elected but appointed Chairman of the council.

One of the first things the new Council did was to agree that the county’s name be returned to the region’s ancient Irish form of Co. Uí Fáille (anglicised as Offaly). Meetings were conducted with the Chairman’s seat in the council chamber left empty and with a Tricolour draped across it.

In 1922 Eamon Bulfin was finally allowed to return to Ireland where he set up home in his father’s native Derrinlough, Birr, Co. Offaly. He took the Anti-Treaty side in the Civil War and handed over 600 Stg from fund-raising in Argentina.

However the killing of Michael Collins affected him deeply and he stayed out of the Republican forces, telling them that he had refused an officer’s post in the Free State’s National (sic) Army.

On 16 February 1927 Eamon married Nora Brick (Nóra Ní Bríc) of Tralee, a former member of Cumann na mBan, in an Irish language ceremony in Drumcondra, Dublin (his occupation was recorded as a farmer). They had four children: Edward, Jeanne, Blanaid and Michael. 

Eamon Bulfin died of a cerebral haemorrhage in the Meath Hospital, Dublin, on 24 December 1968, and was buried in Eglish Cemetery, Co. Offaly.

Remnant of the ‘Irish Republic’ flag in the National Museum of Ireland (Photo: NMI)

His sister, Catalina, also born in Buenos Aires in 1901, had become secretary to Austin Stack (1880-1929). Stack was elected to the Dáil (32-County Irish Parliament) in 1918 and became Minister for Home Affairs from 1920-22.Stack accompanied de Valéra to London for the initial Truce talks but became a leading opponent of the terms agreed by Collins.

Catalina Bulfin married Seán MacBride (1904-1988), born in Paris and his first language French. Sean was the son of John MacBride, executed by the British in 1916 and of Maude Gonne.

Seán McBride is the only Nobel Peace Laureate to have also won the Lenin Prize; he was former IRA Chief of Staff (1936-1937), Irish Minister for External Affairs (1948–‘52) and Secretary of the International Commission of Jurists.

MacBride was a founder member of Amnesty International and Assistant General Secretary of the United Nations. He survived Catalina MacBride by 12 years after she died in 1976, her remains being buried in Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin. Some descendant of Eamon Bulfin live in Offaly to this day.

End.

FOOTNOTES

SOURCES

https://www.dib.ie/biography/bulfin-eamonn-edmond-a10114

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eamon_Bulfin

The flag: https://www.museum.ie/en-IE/Collections-Research/Collection/Resilience/Artefact/Test-4/8961f46b-5885-4aea-af9d-63894e2b76b4

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_flags_of_Ireland

The Irish Republic Flag

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/rising-from-the-ashes-irish-republic-flag-on-display-1.2573071

1Irish politician, revolutionary, nationalist, suffragist, socialist, the first woman elected to the Westminster Parliament, Markievicz was elected Minister for Labour in the First Dáil, becoming the first female cabinet minister in Europe. She served as a Teachta Dála for the Dublin South constituency from 1921 to 1922 and 1923 to 1927. She was a Member of Parliament (MP) for Dublin St Patrick’s from 1918 to 1922.

A founding member of Fianna Éireann, Cumann na mBan and the Irish Citizen Army, Markievicz took part in the 1916 Easter Rising in, when Irish republicans attempted to end British rule and establish an Irish Republic.

2The Sinn Féin party at the time was an Irish nationalist one advocating a dual monarchy, Irish and British.

3And no doubt Spanish too, having been reared in Argentina, a language acquisition that probably helped with the acquisition of Irish and French, which have a great number of similarities in structure.

4And the sixteenth execution was of Roger Casement, by hanging in London.

5Then a reformed and much-expanded party with a Republican constitution.

6  Kennedy, Michael and Joseph Morrison Skelly (eds). Irish Foreign Policy: 1919-1966 From Independence to Internationalism. Four Courts Press: England 2000, p.45. (Quoted in the Wikipedia entry on Eamon Bulfin)

ABOUT “GET THEM OUT”

On By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, RacismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

Cycling along the Liffey quays some time back I saw a crowd waving Tricolour and other flags and heard a roar of “Get them out!” No mystery about the origin: the far-Right racists that crawled out into the light in recent years, targeting migrants.1

The same cry has been heard outside proposed IPAS centres and in other demonstrations that can mostly be characterised as anti-immigrant and anti-refugee.

Scene with cars set alight by racist Loyalist mobs in Belfast on 6 June. At least three houses were also set ablaze. (Photo: Getty images)

But why should we be “getting them out”? In answer to that question all we get is lying propaganda. “They are getting housing instead of Irish people.” No, they are not. Some refugees are getting hostel accommodation and many are not, even though Ireland has signed up to accept some.

If refugees are getting such good treatment, why would so many be living in tents on streets, parks or along canal banks? And why are far-Right fascists threatening them and slashing their tents? Are they claiming that refugees are doing them out of living in tents themselves?

In fact we never had widespread affordable decent housing but high emigration made it less noticeable. All the same there were struggles in the 1960s and 70s led by the Dublin and Dun Laoghaire Housing Action Committees, involving occupations of houses and fighting evictions.

Another claim is that migrants are a threat to Irish women. Why would that be the case? Yet, every day in the mass media we read of cases of rape, sexual harassment and controlling behaviour of women — by Irish men!

The far-Right also claim that migrants are a threat to children (actually, they often claim that LGBT people are also, calling them ‘paedos’). Fact: the major threat to children in Ireland have been Irish institutions including the Catholic Church, which is strongly defended by the far-Right.

Sociological research shows that most sexual abuse of children happens in the family or friend circle and we regularly read in the media of those cases also – nearly always by Irish men.

Then there’s the “military-age single men” mantra – what does that even mean? Military age is usually understood to be between 17 and 45 years of age. It is in other words the age at which most men emigrate to work in other lands. The age at which most Irish emigrated!2

It’s also an age of most health and physical ability to travel, to work and to send money home, as hundreds of thousands of us Irish did, whether single or married, or the optimum age to risk the dangers of being a refugee trying to find somewhere safe for one’s family to follow.

Research shows that the “military-age single men” mantra is a recent addition to Irish far-Right discourse, some believing it an import from the far-Right in the USA, along with the racist “great white replacement” conspiracy theory, adapted here to “replacing the Irish” conspiracy theory).

Which reminds me that the arrival of migrants is often characterised as “an invasion.” Really? When we emigrated in the past or today for work or safety from persecution, were or are we invading England, Scotland, Wales, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand? Or other countries?

We are not being invaded by refugees or migrant workers. But we have been invaded by British troops and colonial police, foreign multinationals, and US and NATO flights.

The far-Right in Ireland hate foreigners and their imagined ‘invasion’, but not it seems the reality of British troops occupying one-sixth of our country and patrolling it with their colonial and sectarian police force. Nor the reality of the RAF and the USAF violating our airspace.

Nor the foreign multinationals and vulture funds controlling our housing market, taking over Irish firms and public infrastructure and plundering our national resources.

Get them out? Well if migrants and their contribution to Irish society were to be ‘got out’, there would be a massive task facing the far-Right.

We should then get rid of the Tricolour, as it was presented to us by foreigners: revolutionary Republican women in Paris in 1948. We should also reject the Irish Republic flag, which was created on domestic material in the home of Constance Markievicz, who was born in London.

Yes, and she delivered it in 1916 to the GPO so that it was raised on the Princes Street corner of the GPO by a man who was born in Argentina. Of course, inside the GPO were Thomas Clarke and James Connolly, the first born in England and the second in Edinburgh (where he was raised too).

I do recall a racist recently denouncing the Save Moore Street From Demolition campaign for pointing out the foreign origins of those two signatories of the 1916 Proclamation and insisting that it was where their parents came from that mattered.

What then of Patrick and Willie Pearse, whose father was English or Tomás McDonagh, whose mother was English too? Or Thomas Davis, whose father was Welsh? Clearly there’s a massive job ahead with “getting them out”, all these foreign connections in our resistance history.

Many of our martyrs and heroes, writers, song composers, musicians, flags, songs, poems, literature, documents “contaminated” by migrants will need to dumped if the far-Right are honest in their slogans. But they are not, of course – they only use them to fool the masses.

“But who is he writing this for? The organised fascists won’t care and their followers won’t read it.” A good question – to whom we speak and write is as important as what we speak and write. I don’t write it for the organised fascists of course, the debate with them will inevitably be a physical one.

Nor do I write it for their deluded followers, who would hardly be reading articles in the Rebel Breeze blog. I write it for you and you and you, to use in your discussions with the deluded followers, those who are willing to listen because you are neighbours, workmates or families.

And if you already knew all this or I have not written it well enough or you fail in using it and other arguments you use, I’m sorry, I and you did our best. In the end, the argument will be resolved in the street and on barricades. And we need to get ready for that too.

End.

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FOOTNOTES

1I wrote this quite some time ago but it never got posted for some reason or other. After the racist riots in Belfast seems a good time to dig it out and post it.

2Including myself, to London.

MARCHERS PROTEST TERENCE WHEELOCK’S DEATH, AS YET ANOTHER DIES IN GARDA CUSTODY

On By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Ireland, Irish Left, Police Violence, Political Analysis, Song, Song in StruggleLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

As campaigners marched in Dublin on June 6th seeking justice for the death of Terence Wheelock in a Garda station in 2005, yet another death in Garda custody was announced in the media.1

Crowd gathering beside Remembrance Garden before Terence Wheelock protest (Photo: D.Breatnach)

Terence Wheelock was a young man from Summerhill, a north Dublin inner-city area housing many from a working class background. On that fateful day he set out to buy a paintbrush for a painting job but was ambushed by Gardaí lying in wait for youths who had stolen a car.

Terence had nothing to do with that but his protests were ignored and it may be that his insistence on his innocence merely infuriated the Gardaí further. In Store Street Garda station Terrence acquired his fatal injuries which the Gardaí claimed resulted from attempted suicide.

However, the Gardaí directed the family to the wrong hospital for Terence, which gave them the time and opportunity to dispose of his clothes (which were never produced in evidence) and quickly redecorated the cell in which Terence had been held.

Tension between youths and police is a well documented social fact but when the youth are from working class areas a certain dimension is often added to that antagonism. In addition, the Gardaí are aware that the families of the youths lack access to middle-class sources of social influence.

MARCH THROUGH CITY CENTRE TO GARDA STATION

Saturday’s protest began at Dublin’s Garden of Remembrance with a rally addressed by Sammy Wheelock, brother of the deceased Terence and campaigner for justice for the family over many years, taking over a leading role from another brother, Larry Wheelock who died a few years ago.

Campaign banner held up beside Remembrance Garden by (R-L) Sammy Wheelock and Mary Lou McDonald. (Photo supplied by S.Wheelock)

The march set off down along Parnell Square and into O’Connell Street, Dublin city’s main thoroughfare, down to the quays and left along to the Busáras, turning left again there and up to Store Street Garda station, the location where Terence Wheelock received his fatal injuries.

In front of the station Conor Reddy and Boyd Barrett of PBP both spoke, as did Janice Boylan of Sinn Féin, James O’Toole of Red Media and Sammy Wheelock again. Róisín Tracy read a poem and Jacob Guerin sang a song, both compositions regarding Terrence’s death.

Sammy Wheelock commented also on the harassment and rough treatment meted out to young men from the area on their way to or from work or college, when they are identified by their casual street clothes of tracksuits, etc. This is also a theme taken up in an article by the Aontacht media.2

A clip posted on Facebook recently (believed to be from the Coolock area) shows two plainclothes Gardaí treating a youth roughly while they search him.3

According to a report published by Fiosrú, the office of the Police Ombudsman,4 incidents in or following Garda custody accounted for eight referrals in 2024, involving five deaths and three serious injuries. The report for 2005 is awaited.5

The Gardaí have also killed before any arrest, as with George Nkencho who was shot dead during a mental illness episode in the family garden in 2020, Mark Hennessy in a car park in 2018, Gareth Molloy (2009) and Ronan Mac Lochlainn (1998) both shot by undercover Gardaí.

In each of those cases and in others the Gardaí have been officially exonerated of any blame.

Solidarity with Palestine protesters, housing activists occupying empty property and anti-NATO protesters have all been subjected to Garda violence6 and humiliation7 during the past year.

As the State feels a growing necessity to increase repression and as economic conditions worsen, Garda violence will be on the increase with a probable increase also in deaths at their hands.

It is essential for all revolutionary, progressive and civil liberty sectors of society to unite against Garda violence, to protest incidents of Garda violence and to keep alive the memory of past incidents of violence by the police force of the Irish State.

There will be another public event in the campaign on Saturday September 19th with details to be announced nearer the time.

end.

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FOOTNOTES

SOURCES

https://www.fiosru.ie/news-and-publications/latest-news/fiosru-publishes-inaugural-report-on-incidents-of-death-and-serious-harm

https://www.facebook.com/share/1HCQNVHE6a

PROTESTING DEATH OF YOUTH AT HANDS OF GARDAÍ

https://aontachtmedia.ie/the-blue-wall-of-silence-around-terence-wheelock

1https://www.rte.ie/news/dublin/2026/0607/1577165-garda-custody-death/ Fiosrú said that they would not comment as an investigation was underway but that did not prevent a number of media outlets and the Gardaí from making public remarks about the deceased’s alleged character and alleged crimes, the subtext seeming to be that it’s all right that he died in Garda custody or at least that no-one should worry too much about where and how he died.

2https://aontachtmedia.ie/the-blue-wall-of-silence-around-terence-wheelock/

3https://www.facebook.com/share/1HCQNVHE6a/

4This agency is funded through the Department of Justice but claims to be independent, i.e not biased towards the Gardaí, a claim disputed by people including myself (from personal experience).

5https://www.fiosru.ie/news-and-publications/latest-news/fiosru-publishes-inaugural-report-on-incidents-of-death-and-serious-harm/

6Baton blows, rough handling such as throwing to the ground, handcuffs cutting circulation, pepper-spraying into the face from very close proximity and even breaking a foot.

7Strip-searched in each case.

THE 1994 CHINOOK CRASH — AIRCRAFT MALFUNCTION, PILOT ERROR OR INTER-INTELLIGENCE ASSASSINATION?

On By rebelbreezeIn Assassination, British imperialism, History, Ireland, irish history, National Liberation, peace processes, Political Analysis, Song, Song in StruggleLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

A group mainly of relatives of the deceased are seeking an official inquiry into the Chinook helicopter crash at the Mull of Kintyre, Scotland in 1994 killing 25 intelligence experts and four special forces crew on their way to a conference.

The crash wiped out almost all the top officers in command of intelligence gathering and operations in the occupied Six counties of Ireland from MI5, Army, RUC Special Branch and state Security Service.

Photo of the crashed Chinook helicopter on the Mull of Kintyre 1994. (Photo: Sky News)

The first crash inquiry failed to confirm pilot error which was then overruled by State reviewers who blamed the pilots on the basis of supposition without any evidence. After campaigning by a number of people including families of the deceased pilots, a 2011 inquiry exonerated the pilots.

The current campaign wants to focus on questions as to the reliability of the aircraft but an alternative and darker interpretation developed at the time, alleging that the different departments of British spooks, MI5 and MI6 had a fatal falling out over territory and policy.1

The remit of MI5 is of domestic ‘UK’ matters while that of MI6 is external. However, the Six Counties, though being under the rule of the UK, was also geographically part of a foreign country, Ireland — and the Irish State, just across the border, a government foreign to the UK.

In addition, the Republican armed resistance groups frequently had contacts abroad and many people with connections to other resistance organisations in the world; both parts of Ireland were visited by representatives along with many media agencies in the pursuit of their reporting work.

Whereas a resort to assassination as a result of rivalry or difference in objectives between different arms of a state’s security service is no doubt extreme, the existence of the rivalry itself is quite likely and the stakes in terms of funding, staffing and operational management can be high.

If the rivals are working towards opposing ends, that will raise the stakes much higher. The secrecy of the State’s reaction to the event did nothing to dispel such theories and the mismanaged attempt to blame the pilots only lent added credence to such suspicions and belief.

The fact of the collusion of British secret service with Loyalist murder squads in the 6-Counties colony is well known and has been documented by a number of investigations. Such collusion from the Royal Ulster Constabulary, especially its Special Branch, is well known too.2

Quite a few familiar with the British colonial security forces in the Six Counties believe that there was an ‘inner force’ inside the RUC with the support of MI5 and British Army Intelligence, all colluding with or even managing assassinations and Loyalist sectarian murder gangs.

The British ruling class had set their sights on achieving the cooperation of the Provisionals in a pacification process and MI6 was in favour of this initiative. It is posited that MI5, the Inner Force inside RUC and Army Intelligence opposed this, believing that they could defeat the IRA.

It was the clash of these radically different approaches (albeit with the same ultimate objective of ending Republican armed resistance) that is believed by some to have culminated in the assassination of the anti-pacification section in the Mull of Kintyre crash.

We may never know for certain and the Ministry of Defence (MoD) sealed key files relating to the 1994 Mull of Kintyre Chinook crash for 100 years, locking them away until 2094

‘HEROES’?

Sorcha Eastwood calls those who died ‘heroes’,3 confirming herself and the Alliance political party she represents as on the side of British colonialism and its violent repression of Irish resistance, repression in the forms of internment, no-jury trials, assassinations and sectarian murders.

Those features are the reality of colonial repression and were very much in evidence in the colonial war of three decades which was approaching an end at the time of the crash.

The leadership of the Provisionals had accepted that although they could not be beaten, nor could they win the war4 and so were ready to participate in a pacification process.

British Intelligence had compromised or recruited elements of that leadership at highest and medium levels and had targeted assassinations of the less malleable individuals.5 The leadership was heading for the process culminating in the Good Friday Agreement of 1998.

Up to 3,500 people had died violent deaths 1969-1994 as the hands of of British military, colonial police, colonial proxies and Irish Republican resistance.

There were no tears shed for the dead at Mull of Kintyre among the subjected population of the colonial entity nor in many quarters of the Irish community at home or abroad and resistance culture soon produced a dark mocking parody to the air of Paul McCartney’s ‘Mull of Kintyre’ song.6

Confirmed assassination and suspicious deaths by aircraft crash are not unknown, among UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld’s 1961 plane crash on his way to negotiate peace in the Congo,7 General Zia-ul-Haq8 and commander of Russian mercenary force Yevgeni Prigozhin.9

end.

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FOOTNOTES

SOURCES

https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/truth-being-withheld-over-raf-chinook-disaster-families-say-1907193.html
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/jun/14/northernireland.comment

1What is more often but inaccurately called ‘the Irish peace process’; inaccurate because it was not designed to address the underlying reasons for the conflict and approaching three decades later has not done so. It resulted in The Good Friday Agreement, signed in 1998.

2See for example the Stevens Inquiries, Barron Tribunal, Dirty War by Martin Dillona (1990), also Lethal Allies (2013) by Anne Cadwallader.

3https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/truth-being-withheld-over-raf-chinook-disaster-families-say-1907193.html

4The war against a major imperialist power was concentrated in a territory one-sixth of Ireland and with a population divided along sectarian lines.

5See the cases of Denis Donaldson and Scappaticci (British Intelligence code name Stakeknife) for example and there are well-founded suspicions of a number of others that were never publicly exposed. See also the elimination of Volunteers Jim Lynagh and Padraig McKearney and their unit in the Loughgall Ambush/ Massacre.

6‘Mull of Kintyre, oh Brits falling into the sea’ etc

7https://www.un.org/en/delegate/63-years-later-mystery-still-surrounds-death-dag-hammarskj%C3%B6ld

8https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-08-25-mn-1417-story.html

9https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/05/hand-grenade-explosion-caused-plane-crash-that-killed-wagner-boss-says-putin

PEACE WITHOUT JUSTICE IN PALESTINE

On By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Genocide, Human Rights, Indigenous or Original People, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Israeli Zionism, National Liberation, Palestine, peace processes, Political Analysis, Song, Song in StruggleLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

Two famous people addressed a crowd outside Leinster House, home of the Parliament of the Irish State on 25th May. Rami Elhanan, an Israeli graphic designer, and Bassam Aramin, a Palestinian scholar, had forged a remarkable friendship.

Section of participants in the Dubs for Palestine noontime event outside Leinster House 27 May 2026. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

Bassam Aramin, now a Palestinian scholar, had been sentenced to a 7-year term of imprisonment for throwing a grenade at Israeli soldiers when he was 17 and had lost his daughter later to a plastic bullet fired at short distance by an IOF soldier.

Rami Elhanan, an Israeli graphic designer, had also lost his daughter Smada but to a suicide bomber in 1997. Both men became advocates of peace and dialogue and friends to one another.

Their audience was the weekly Dubs for Palestine gathering outside Leinster House on Wednesdays 12 noon to about 1.00 pm, with speeches, songs and poetry and David Hickey as MC. This week’s was the 113th such weekly gathering and the duo had been invited to speak.

The broad group has of late been concentrating on parting the Gaelic Athletic Association1 from its sponsor and insurance underwriter, the former Nazi and since Zionist-friendly Allianz company, along with now campaigning for the Irish soccer team not to play the ‘Israeli’ team.

Rami Elhanan (L-R) and Basam Aramin addressing the Dubs for Palestine noontime event outside Leinster House 27 May 2026. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

Rami Elhanan referenced his descent from Holocaust survivors and outlined the different living standards of the Palestinian and Israeli Jewish communities, commenting on the sickness in Israeli society, that they did not want to know what is being done in their name to the Palestinians.

Basam Aramin’s contribution was against the Occupation and claimed that without that, Palestinians and Israelis could live in peace (it was not clear whether he was referring to the ‘Two State’ proposal2). David Hickey, the MC of the group presented them with an Arum Lily each.3

After their speeches had been applauded, they were asked to comment on the recent Leinster House debate and the Government’s refusal to endorse a boycott of Israel. Rami Elhanan replied that boycotts entrenched opposing sides and that continuing to talk was the answer.

Singer and activist Emma Browne, invited next to the microphone, sang Keep the Little Flame Alive, among the lyrics of which Faye, Dolores, Bernadine, Table grapes and gasoline, Homemade rifles, kitchen knives, Kept the little flame alive riposted the previous speakers.

Soon afterwards, Paul Lynch read a poem of a Palestinian father mourning the killing of his child. Poet and activist Dorothy Collin declared that in order to have peace there must be justice first and that we must support the oppressed in whatever way they choose to resist.

Áine Ruttley reading her poem while addressing the Dubs for Palestine noontime event outside Leinster House 27 May 2026. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

Áine Rutley also upheld our duty of solidarity and the right of the Resistance movement to choose its own methods, as did Jimi Cullen who then performed his own song composition The Freedom Fighter about a fighter from Gaza.

As I was called to the microphone, I commented that my views had already been well expressed in song and speech and that one of the forms of resistance is song, of which we had more than probably any other people in the world and sang An Dord Féinne,4 which is banned in Germany.

A little later the event came to an end with another song from Emma Browne, Never Again Is Now and with group chanting for Palestine, against Allianz and against playing the ‘Israeli’ team.

IN CONCLUSION

It is a popular proposition in certain circles that all social conflicts can be resolved by discussion, by understanding our opponents’ view. It is an attractive idea but flies in the face of history and of contemporary reality.

The interests of Occupied and Occupier are opposed and cannot be reconciled through understanding. The Occupier understands that the Occupied wish to be rid of them. The Occupied do understand that the Occupier wishes to continue appropriating their land and resources.

In this kind of situation one must win and the other lose. Far from understanding leading to peaceful resolution, the more the oppressed understand the nature of their oppressor, the more resolutely they are likely to resist and this is surely true of the Palestinians resisting the Zionist settlers.

The false proposition of resolving irreconcilable interests through discussion is usually of liberal or social-democratic origin when applied to anti-colonial, anti-imperialist and anti-racist struggles and though appearing even-handed, always ends up disempowering the victimised.

The journeys of both these men is extraordinary and interesting but it should not be presented as representative of the Palestinian struggle against Occupation, Theft and Genocide. Each father lost a child but the Palestinian is losing a lot more on top.

Furthermore, a just resolution can only come about through the total defeat of the Zionist forces and the dismantling of their State, so that if we really want that kind of resolution we are called to support the Palestinian side, unequivocally and resolutely.

Of course, in reality there is no question of real peace without justice, for ultimately the oppressed (unless wiped out) will rise in struggle again and again. The proposition of accommodation of opposites by discussion can only undermine or distract the struggle of the oppressed.

We cannot take the story of Bassam Aramin and Rami Elhanan, however remarkable, as even a metaphor for a just resolution nor allow ourselves to be seduced from resistance nor our struggle undermined by it.

End.

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FOOTNOTES

1The management of the Gaelic games, including hurling and Gaelic football. The GAA has teams in every one of the 32 counties of Ireland, crossing the colonial border and is the biggest community sports association not only in Ireland but also in Europe and perhaps in the world.

2This proposal came out of the Oslo Accords, to give the Palestinians 20% of their land for peace with the Zionist settlers who would own the remaining 80%. Apart from its basic injustice the proposal was never realistic since Zionist settlers continued to construct settlements on additional land. Despite this, supporting that proposal is the formal position of most western imperialist states and the Irish State and of most parliamentary political parties.

3In Ireland these are often viewed as symbolic of the 1916 Easter Rising.

4Also known as Gráinne Mhaol and Óró Sé Do Bheatha ‘Bhaile, an Irish traditional song of some antiquity refashioned into an Irish resistance song by Patrick Pearse, a martyred leader of the 1916 Rising.

SOURCES

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apeirogon_(novel)