Clive Sulish
(Reading time: 4 mins.)
Among Christmas shopping crowds in Dublin’s city centre, the calls for freedom of political prisoners rang out, while the Irish, Palestinian and Basque flags fluttered in the wind among festive lights and projected light-show.
The Ireland Anti-Internment Campaign was holding its annual political prisoner solidarity picket in the busy O’Connell street, supported by socialist Republican groups and independent activists.
December is a traditional month in Ireland for focus on Republican prisoners. However, the IAIC campaign has always made a point of remembering political prisoners elsewhere too, with Palestinian and Basque flags erected on its regular pickets.
This year the Campaign had especially requested Palestinian flags and these were present, both the national flag and that of the Peoples Front for the Liberation Palestine, fluttering alongside Basque flags and the green-and-gold Starry Plough.1
In addition, one of the IAIC’s banner displayed a large copy of an image depicting a Palestinian’s arm extended through prison bars to grasp the hand of an Irish Republican prisoner’s hand also from nearby bars, from the original by political cartoonist Carlos Latuf,.
A black banner had been rigged with lights to spell “Saoirse”, the Irish word for “freedom” and the picketers set up in a line with other banners and flags facing the GPO building.2
SHOUTS
A speaker using a megaphone informed passers-by that internment without trial had not ceased in Ireland and that Republicans were being charged and then refused bail by non-jury courts on both sides of the British Border, spending two years in jail regardless of their trials’ outcomes.
All the Republican prisoners, the IAIC speaker said, had been convicted in non-jury special courts. Palestinians were also being convicted in special courts, he said, military courts and many were in jail – in “administrative detention”, i.e interned without ever having been convicted or tried.
Over 3,000 had been arrested in Israeli Army raids since October 7th,3 the speaker said through the megaphone, bringing the overall number of Palestinians in jail to over 7,000.4
The recent exchange of prisoners between the Zionist state and the Palestinian resistance had resulted in liberty for 240 Palestinians, of which 1075 were children and 68 women.
There was regular chanting from the picket line including: “From Ireland to Palestine – Free all political prisoners!” “When there is occupation – Resistance is an obligation!” and “Free political prisoners – Free them now!”
At one point some kind of religious procession was briefly enacted in front of the GPO building and an elderly woman in apparent religious garb approached the picketers shouting something at them which they largely ignored, maintaining their solidarity slogans.
In addition to interested people taking photos or filming video of the protest on their devices, some approached the participants to ask questions and to receive a leaflet, after which a number actually joined the protest line for a while (some until the end).
Occasional passing traffic also sounded their horns in solidarity.
STATEMENT
As the end of the event’s allocated period approached, a representative of the IAIC asked the participants to gather around and spoke about how resistance brings repression and oppression brings resistance, resistance being the “crime” for which political activists are jailed.
The participants were thanked for their support, whether independents or activists of Ireland Anti-Imperialist Action and Saoirse Don Phalaistín organisations.
The event ended with the acapella singing of “The H-Block Song” by Diarmuid Breatnach, in an adaptation of the original air to the lyrics of what is “still a good song” he said, composed by a man who, along with his party, “no longer supported Republican prisoners”.6
The lyrics recall the struggle of Republican prisoners in the late 1970s against the removal of their ‘Special Category’ political status, which began with refusal to wear prisoner uniform. The struggle escalated to the “no-wash protests” and to hunger strikes in 1980 with ten martyrs in 1981.
As the protesters collected their flags and wrapped up their banners, the nature of current Irish society was underlined by the queues forming up across the road for free food being distributed by charitable organisations.
INDEPENDENT AND OPEN DEMOCRATIC ORGANISATION
The IAIC is “an independent organisation and open democratic organisation” of ten years’ existence and although it has held events for specific cases such as the framed Craigavon Two,7 its main activity has been regular public pickets in Dublin to highlight ongoing internment in Ireland.
The Campaign group encourages participation by democratic people in its regular pickets, regardless of political organisation affiliation or none and, according to one of the organisers, expects to hold its next one in Dublin in January or February.
The IAIC expects also to take part again in the annual Bloody Sunday Commemoration march in Derry on Sunday 29th January 2024.
end.
APPENDIX: ANNIVERSARY OF HANGING OF IRISH REPUBLICAN
Though not mentioned in the discourse, the above event took place within days of the anniversary of the British colonial execution of an Irishman in revenge for his killing of an ex-Republican who had turned informer.
James Carey, in the midst of a ‘witness protection program’ provided as a reward for his betrayal of his comrades in giving evidence in court to ensure the jailing of some and hanging of five others, was killed in a gunfight with Pat O’Donnell.
Carey had been a leading member of the National Invincibles’ (a split from the Fenians) cell in Dublin, and had given the signal for the fatal stabbing of British Under-Secretary Burke and Chief Secretary Lord Frederick Cavendish in Phoenix Park on 6th May 1882.
However, Carey turned “Queen’s Evidence” to testify ensuring the conviction of his former colleagues and even gloated in court at their fate. His reward, but for O’Donnell, would have been a new life with pension under an assumed name with wife and children in the South African colony.
O’Donnell was an independent Republican from the Irish-speaking Gweedore area in Donegal but had been to the USA, where he had cousins who were prominent in the “Molly Maguires”, an Irish-led resistance organisation among miners in the USA.
O’Donnell was hanged on 17th December 1883 but is commemorated in the satirical song “Monto” and also in the serious “Ballad of Pat O’Donnell”. His home town of Gweedore also holds a monument in his honour.
end.
FOOTNOTES
1Flag of the Irish Citizen Army, the first workers’ army in the world, founded to protect workers from the police during the Dublin Lockout/ Strike of 1913.
2The General Post Office, iconic building on Dublin’s O’Connell Street, which was the HQ of the leadership of the 1916 Rising, left a shell by fire from British artillery bombardment but rebuilt later.
3https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_detentions_in_the_2023_Israel%E2%80%93Hamas_war
4https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/11/29/why-does-israel-have-so-many-palestinians-detention-and-available-swap
575% had not been convicted of any crime https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_exchange_of_Israeli_hostages_for_Palestinian_prisoners
6Francis Brolly (1938-1920) of Provisional Sinn Féin, composed the song which was released in 1976. PSF abandoned the struggle in the imperialist-promoted pacification process towards the end of the last century and most of their prisoners were released under licence. However those who made public their disagreement with the colonial occupation and the pacification process were on occasion returned to jail while new “dissidents” were charged and refused bail in special no-jury courts, with tacit support of the PSF.
7Quoted from the FB page at https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063166633467
rebelbreeze 