CHRISTMAS IS PART OF WAR IN WEST ASIA

On December 31, 2025January 2, 2026 By rebelbreezeIn Catholic Church, Cultural Comment, Current Affairs Comment, Massacres, Middle East, Political Analysis, Popular Resistance, Religious Sectarianism, Traditions & Folk CustomLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 5 mins.)

Writing about Christmas and war tends to focus on Christmas celebration as a counter to war,¹ or alternatively on how hard it is to be celebrating Christmas in the midst of war. However, in much of West Asia, Christmas is now very much a part of the war.

This is certainly the case in Lebanon, Syria, Gaza and the West Bank and even inside ‘Israel’.

Among the peoples of this majority Muslim region the festivities are primarily those of Christian communities. Yet the broad Muslim population has no issue with the religious aspect of the festival, nor even with the iconic symbolism of the Holy Family and the birth in a manger of Jesus Christ.

The latter, among Christians believed a human incarnation of God, is also revered among Muslims but as a prophet, though of course lower in ranking than their highest-ranking prophet, Mohammed (c. 570 – 8 June 632 CE), allegedly of the Banu Hashim clan of the Quaraysh Arab tribe.

Among the Judaic religion, Jesus Christ is also believed a prophet.

It is important – and not just for historical reasons – to note that the major perpetrator of religious persecution from the Middle Ages on has been Christianity, led by European Christian elites persecuting followers of Judaic and Islamic religions and employing the Inquisition² against them.

Earlier of course Christianity had its internal divisions resulting in one part of Christianity persecuting another (the East-West schism) and then later the split of the Reformation, with religious and temporal powers in war and in persecution of one another and of subject populations.³

The chief object of Christian religious persecution overall was the Jews and the objects of that persecution found sanctuary in many Muslim countries and, in general, within the Austro-Hungarian Ottoman Empire.

Leaders of a number of Muslim states today are traditionally at pains to demonstrate their acceptance of Christian communities and this Christmas both Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, Prime Minister of Iraq and President Masoud Pezeshkian of Iran once more did so publicly.

Mohammed al-Sudani attended a Christian service and Masoud Pezeshkian visited a Christian family.⁴

Of course, Christmas as celebrated generally across the West is more – and one might say also much less – than a Christian or even a religious festival, with emphasis on feasting, alcoholic consumption and expenditure on presents.

Much of the symbolism too owes more to pagan religion than to Christianity.⁵

With a number of those aspects, including consumption of alcohol (traditionally forbidden by and to Muslims), pagan symbolism and more than a nod to western imperialist culture, many Muslims may take exception but even then not at all to celebration of the alleged birth of Jesus Christ.

However, for those wishing to cause divisions in predominantly Islamic societies, or in imposing their sectarian absolutist rule on society, the celebration of Christmas has become a hostile target in Lebanon, Syria, Gaza, the West Bank and even inside ‘Israel’.

LEBANON

Lebanon is the most ethnically-diverse of the West Asian states, approximately one-third Christian, one-third Shia Muslim and a third Sunni Muslim. For years, Christmas has been celebrated not only by the Christian community but also, to varying degrees, by the other ethnic groups also.

It is extremely worrying therefore when a primary schoolteacher taught her girl pupils and filmed them not only renouncing Christmas as ‘non-Muslim’ but calling its celebrants the equivalent of heretics. There was widespread shock when she uploaded the video she had made of the girls.

Not surprisingly, the teacher was sacked but this too was orchestrated into a controversy with extreme religious sectarians coming on to the streets to protest, including former sectarian terrorist and ex-convict for bombing a church Samir Geagea of the sectarian Lebanese Forces militia).⁶

SYRIA

Under the new regime in Syria, celebrating Christmas can get people killed.The celebration was not controversial in the majority Islamic but secular state of Syria under al-Assad but that changed following that regime’s overthrow by western-supported Islamic fundamentalist jihadists.

During Christmas 2024 units of the fundamentalist jihadist coalition under self-appointed al-Julani (formerly Ahmed al-Sharaa of the Syrian chapter of ISIS) led attacks on Christians, forbade the erection of Christmas trees and knocked down and burned some that had been erected.⁷

Earlier this year Sayara Ahl Al-Sunnah, a Syrian terrorist organization split from the ruling Hay’at Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) of al-Julani in February carried out a suicide attack on the Mar Elias Greek Orthodox church in Damascus, killing 30 Christian worshippers.⁸

Not just Christian communities are targeted in this ‘new democratic Syria’ so beloved of the Western powers but primarily really the Shia Muslim offshoots of Alawites⁹ and Druze¹⁰ communities. Both these communities are now mobilising in self-defence against the new rulers.

PALESTINE

In Gaza, blockaded and besieged, starving, flooded, homeless, cold, bombarded, even thinking of a festive celebration seems a crazy idea yet some have attempted to celebrate Christmas this year¹¹ although any gathering of Palestinians seems an invitation to an IOF raid or even bombing.

In the West Bank, the Christian pastor¹² in Ramallah, Isaac Munther, faced with the accelerating genocide in Gaza in 2023 declared there would be religious observation only and no Christmas celebrations of lights etc … but his sermon and Christ-nativity-in-rubble scene went ‘viral.’

Munther did the same during Christmas 2024 but this year the West Bank faces its own escalation of Palestinian home demolitions, army invasions, settler attacks on homes, livestock, farmland. However the IOF attacked some Palestinians who did try to celebrate a western-style Christmas.

Palestinians of other Christian denominations also tried to celebrate Christmas but met with repression and in Bethlehem there were clashes with Palestinians in Santa costume assaulted and arrested by ‘Israeli’ Occupation Forces.¹³

Occupied Palestine (‘Israel’ sic) also saw a Palestinian ‘Santa Claus’ being arrested by the IOF and Palestinian celebrants assaulted in Haifa.

As the supposed Holy Land where Jesus Christ was allegedly born, Christian tourism makes a significant contribution to the income of the Zionist state.¹⁴ But even so, Palestinian Christians and even tourists have complained of being menaced and spat at by militant Zionist settler youths.¹⁵

The Israeli Zionist state likes to promote itself as culturally representing the West much more than the East – which it certainly does – but seeing this repression of Christians even celebrating Christmas, one has to wonder what kind of ‘western society’ is this?

Meanwhile, in Rome …

Discussion of Christmas entails a mention of the majority sect of western Christianity, the Catholic faith and of its leader, the Pope. And the relatively new Pontiff – and first USA-born one – did in fact refer to Gaza in the traditional Papacy Christmas message from the Vatican.

Leo XIV’s message has been lauded by some in apparent ignorance of the political position of the Vatican and of its Papacy, which has been always to support western imperialism, or in his advocacy of Zionist colonisation in the western support for a two-State solution (sic) in Palestine.¹⁶

But for democracy and anti-imperialist unity …

Republicans reject any religious role in the management of the state or of its institutions – including education¹⁷ – but should also protect the freedom to worship or celebration of festive period of any personal or organised religion — and indeed also the right to promote atheism or agnosticism.¹⁸

Anti-imperialist revolutionaries whether secular or not need to oppose religious sectarianism and promote unity in the face of imperialism. It is imperialism and colonialism that promotes inter-religious conflict and fosters fundamentalist sectarians in order to undermine anti-imperialist resistance.

End.

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FOOTNOTES

1For example the famous Christmas Day informal truce of 1914, when WWI hostilities between German and Allied troops temporarily ceased on parts of the Western Front and enemy combatants exchanged greetings and gifts. https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/heritage/the-1914-christmas-truce-fraternisation-of-an-extraordinary-kind-1.2048442

2Although it later became an instrument of Rome to ensure orthodoxy in religion, literature and science, the Inquisition was originally instituted in Iberia as a controlling agent over the forced conversions of Jews and Muslims to Christianity and later also operated as an instrument in control of the Spanish colonies.

3Of which we in Ireland have centuries of experience.

4 https://www.tehrantimes.com/news/522126/Top-officials-join-Iran-s-Christians-in-celebrating-Jesus-birth

5The ‘old man of the woods’ Santa Claus or God of thunder and lightning in a sky-chariot pulled by horned beasts (two of which are also allegedly named Thunder (Donner) and Lightning (Blitzen) and the Christmas Tree and/ or Yule Log, pagan symbols of a festival signalling the turn of the seasons.

6 https://youtu.be/b1yltoo3q6Q?t=150 almost from the beginning for part of the podcast.

7 https://www.jurist.org/news/2024/12/christmas-tree-burning-ignites-protests-in-damascus/

8This is the same group that carried out a suicide attack on the Imam Ali mosque in Homs this week, which left 8 people dead.

9Arabic-speaking ethno-religious minority group who primarily live in Syria and follow Alawism, a syncretic and esoteric offshoot of Shia Islam.

10Arabic-speaking ethno-religious minority in Syria, Lebanon, Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

11 https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/silent-christmas-in-gaza–grief–cold–and-a-genocide-that-w

12Of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land.

13 https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/12/25/christmas-under-occupation-israeli-attacks-against-palestinian-christians

14“While there is no precise figure for how much Israel earns specifically from religious tourism, estimates suggest that Christian holy sites alone generate around $3 billion each year to the Israeli economy under normal circumstances — with over half of all tourist arrivals coming from Christians — and a quarter of those visitors going to Christian holy sites.” https://religionunplugged.com/news/war-in-gaza-and-the-disruption-of-pilgrimages-to-jerusalem

15 https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israeli-forces-arrest-santa-clause-raid-palestinian-christmas-celebration and https://www.instagram.com/reels/DSp2Cs6FDXW/

16 https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/pope-leo-palestinian-state-only-solution-israeli-conflict-2025-11-30/

17This is an issue in many lands including Ireland where the Irish State and the colony’s both pay the salaries of teachers employed in religious-ethos schools. People have a right to religious education for their children should they wish it but in no way should the State facilitate such and, on the other hand, all children are required to attend formal education supplied by the State.

18The 1916 Rising Proclamation: “The Republic guarantees religious and civil iberty to all …”

SOURCES

https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/silent-christmas-in-gaza–grief–cold–and-a-genocide-that-w

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/12/25/christmas-under-occupation-israeli-attacks-against-palestinian-christians

https://www.instagram.com/reels/DSp2Cs6FDXW/

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israeli-forces-arrest-santa-clause-raid-palestinian-christmas-celebration

Alawite protests and new Syrian state repression: https://thecradle.co/articles/syrian-govt-forces-supporters-attack-alawite-protesters-calling-for-end-to-killings-kidnappings

Part of new Syrian forces repression of Christmas: https://www.jurist.org/news/2024/12/christmas-tree-burning-ignites-protests-in-damascus/

Islamist sectarians whipping up anti-Christian hatred in Lebanon: https://youtu.be/b1yltoo3q6Q?t=150 (early part of podcast)

LÁ FHÉILE STIOFÁIN or DAY OF THE WREN

On December 26, 2025December 26, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Cultural Comment, Folk Custom, History, Ireland, Irish Republicanism, Irish War of Independence 1919-'21, National Liberation, Song, Traditions & Folk CustomLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach (slightly edited repost from 2014)

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

In England it is called “Boxing Day” but in Ireland the 26th of December is “St. Stephen’s Day”. Despite the Christian designation it has long been the occasion in Ireland for customs much closer to paganism.

It was common for a group of boys (usually) to gather and hunt down a wren, a small songbird.

The wren can fly but tends to do so in short bursts from bush to bush and so can be hunted down by determined boys. The bird might be killed or kept alive, tied to a staff or in a miniature bower constructed for the occasion.

The Wren Boys would then parade it from house to house while they themselves appeared dressed in costume and/or with painted faces.

In some areas they might only carry staff or wands decorated with colourful ribbons and metallic paper while they might in other areas dress in elaborate costumes, some of them made of straw (Straw Boys) and these were sometimes also known as Mummers.

However a distinction should be drawn between these two groups. The Mummers in particular would have involved acting repertoires with traditional character roles and costumes, music and dance routines.

The simpler Wren Boys however might each just contribute a short dance, piece of music or song. In all cases traditional phrases were used upon arrival, the Mummers having the largest repertoire for in fact they were producing a kind of mini-play.

The origins of the customs are the subject of debate but a number of Irish folk tales surround the wren.

The bird is said in one story to have betrayed the Gaels to the Vikings, leading to the defeat of the former. There is a Traveller tradition that accuses the wren of betraying Jesus Christ to soldiers while another tradition has the bird supplying the nails (its claws) for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

Yet another tradition has the wren as King of the Birds, having used its cunning in a competition to determine who would be the avian King, hiding itself under the Eagle’s wind and flying out above the exhausted bird when it seemed to have won.

By the 1960s the Wren Boy custom was beginning to die out even in areas where it had held fast but it slowly began to be revived by some enthusiasts. Nowadays fake wrens are used.

Christmas Day in Ireland was traditionally a day to go to religious service and to spend at home with family or to go visiting neighbours.

It was not a day of presents or of lights or Christmas Trees, customs brought in by the English colonizers in particular from Prince Albert, the British Queen Victoria’s royal consort, who was German.

St. Stephen’s Day may have celebrated the turn of the season heralded by the Winter Solstice (the wren being a bird that on occasion sings even in winter) but moved to a Christian feast day.

In any case it produced colour and excitement at a time which did not have the religious and commercial Christmas season to which, in decades, we have become accustomed.

The lovely song The Boys of Barr na Sráide from a poem by Sigerson Clifford takes as its binding thread the boys in his Co. Kerry childhood with whom Sigurson went “hunting the wren” but follows also their fight against the invader and their subsequent emigration to England or the USA.

*Drawing of Wren Boys out on their round.*

I’ve been singing this song in private recently but also at the December gathering of the monthly 1916 Performing Arts Club in Dublin.

In this recording it is sung by Muhammed Al-Hussaini (then resident in London and part of the singing circle of Comhaltas Ceoltóirí na hÉireann, meeting in the Camden Irish Centre) in which I had the pleasure of participating on a visit to London in 2014 (see The London Visit on the blog).

There are recordings of others performing this song well but the unusual origin as well as its quality persuaded me to choose this one and, in addition the memory of participating in a singing circle with this lovely and modest singer in London, who greeted me in Irish.

Muhammed also plays the violin on this recording, accompanied by Mark Patterson on mandolin and Paul Sims on guitar.

*Mummers from Fingal, north of Co. Dublin*

Ends.

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The photo with the recording shows some of the Limerick fighters of the Kerry IRA in the War of Independence (1919-1921) or perhaps in the Civil War (1922-1923)

THE CHIEF CAUSE OF ANTI-SEMITISM IN THE WORLD

On December 21, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Anti-Fascism, Censorship & Witch-hunting, Cultural Comment, Current Affairs Comment, Genocide, Imperialism, Internationalist Solidarity, Mass Media Criticism, Massacres, Middle East, Palestine, Political Analysis, ZionismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

In the aftermath of the Bondi massacre, we might ask: Is anti-Semitism¹ on the rise?

It is hard to be certain, given that politicians and media keep conflating anti-Zionism and anti-Israel feelings with anti-Semitism, mixing acts against one with acts against the other, despite their being two very different things.

*People pay respects at Bondi Pavilion to victims of a shooting during a Jewish holiday celebration at Bondi Beach, in Sydney, Australia, December 15, 2025. REUTERS/Hollie Adams*

But would it be surprising if anti-Semitism were indeed on the rise? And if it is, who are the main culprits?

Undoubtedly, the western imperialists who support the Israeli settler colony and repress their own citizens for opposing genocide must contribute to anti-semitism.

Above all however the Israeli State itself and its genocide against the indigenous Palestinian people, while insisting that the Zionist State is the ‘national’ expression of Judaism, that their Zionism is Judaism, must be counted as particularly responsible.

Zionism is a late 19^th Century political movement for the creation of a Jewish state, founded by a small group of European Ashkenazi² Jewish background which received the support at the time of imperialist European capitalists, particularly the British variety (some of them anti-Semites too!).

A branch of Evangelical Christianity, especially in the USA has also become Zionist.³ Leaving aside religious and prophetic belief, this sector provides a strong base of political and financial support, particularly through AIPAC,⁴ for US imperialist support for the Israeli Zionist state.

Judaism is a religion, often described as ‘of the Book’, which it shares with Christianity and Islam, all of them with origins in West Asia but with Christianity recruiting most of its congregations and states in Europe (now also the whole West, with the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand).

Later, the main supporters of the Zionist project were the USA. A dedicated foothold in West Asia, secure from socialist revolution among its colonial Zionist settler population and with any nationalist Arab movement suppressed by this garrison, was of course attractive to the imperialists.

The project of conflating Judaism with Israeli Zionism has been underway for well over a century but even in the wake of the Nazi genocide, Zionism did not have the support of the majority of Jews around the world.⁵ This changed as the 20^th Century progressed but appears to be reverting now.⁶

ANTI-SEMITISM?

As more and more people, particularly youth around the world take to the streets and to educational establishments to denounce the daily genocide of the Palestinian people by the Israeli State and the collusion of the Western regimes, they face heavy repression of the states.

Beating with truncheons, use of irritant sprays, threats to academic study programs, arrests, strip-searching and serious charges are already occurring in the Irish state. To those must be added banning of organisations under false ‘terrorism’ classification in the UK and Canada.⁷

Special repressive measures are routinely taken against public displays of Palestinian solidarity in Germany, Austria and France. Journalists have been harassed and arrested, recording equipment confiscated and professionals have their careers threatened, all for opposing the Israeli genocide.⁸

Some of the resentment felt by the victims of such repression may be misdirected upon people of Jewish background, particularly since the Zionists and the Imperialists work so hard to identify the one with the other.

In addition there is a long anti-Semitic tradition in European Christian society from the Middle Ages⁹ which was employed and extended by fascist and Nazi movements in the 1930s, combined with a false and perverted nationalism. And currently fascist movements are once again on the rise.

It is instructive to see British fascist and Israeli flags side by side among groups counter-protesting gatherings of Palestinian solidarity in England, or British colonial Loyalists burning Palestinian flags alongside symbols of Irish Republicanism such as the Irish Tricolour.

AN ANTI-SEMITIC ATROCITY

Is is difficult, particularly in the absence so far of information from the perpetrators,¹⁰ to view the Bondi Beach massacre in Australia as other than an anti-Semitic atrocity. The victims were attending a Jewish religious festival when fired upon.

First panel shows the shooters, father and son, said to be linked to ISIS; Second panel shows one of the shooters being tackled and disarmed by Syrian-born Australian Ahmed al Ahmed who was later injured and underwent surgery. (Photo sources: *Internet*)

Had one of the victims, media-characterised as a saintly rabbi but in fact a Zionist supporter of the genocidal Israeli State (who had himself photographed among its soldiers while holding an automatic rifle)¹¹ been an intended target cannot justify the resulting civilian ‘collateral damage’.

In fact, such disregard for other casualties surrounding a targeted individual is a standard feature of Israeli Occupation Forces assassinations and can never be those supported by Palestine internationalist supporters or by any other democratic movement.

Western politicians and media now strive to employ this massacre and its attendant horror to further strengthen Zionism and to further conflate anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism, none more so than Netanyahu who claimed that recognition of Palestinian nationhood was a causative factor.¹²

And in Australia, the massacre is already being used in propaganda against the Palestine solidarity movement: Prime Minister Albanese has stated the intention to outlaw the Palestinian liberation and solidarity slogan: ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!’.¹³

The fact remains that the Israeli Zionists themselves are the greatest cause of any rise of anti-Semitism in the World.

End.

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FOOTNOTES

SOURCES

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Bondi_Beach_shooting

https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/bondi-beach-attack-how-western-allies-are-enabling-netanyahus-grotesque-logic

1Although the term ‘Semitic’ describes ethnic cultural groups including Jews and Arabs, the term ‘anti-Semitic’ has been taken largely to mean anti-Jewish, i.e. against people of Jewish religious background, despite its much more recent conflation with anti-Zionism.

2One of the European-based sections of the Jewish community, speaking European languages and the German-based Yiddish, using Hebrew only for religious purposes.

3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Zionism

4American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a powerful pro-Israeli Zionist lobbying organisation providing funding to most US Congress and Senate elected members.

5 https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/2019/01/12/a-partial-history-of-jewish-alternatives/

6 https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/one-third-american-jewish-teens-say-they-sympathise-hamas-israeli-government-poll-shows

7The direct-action organisation Palestine Action was declared a ‘terrorist organisation’ under UK law on 5 July 2005 and so far over 2,490 people have been arrested for declaring support for the organisation.

8e.g. https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-winstanley/professor-david-miller-fired-after-israel-lobby-smear-campaign and https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/30/mccarthyite-backlash-response-to-criticism-of-israel-alarms-rights-groups

9Jews in many Christian European countries were required by law to live in ghettoes or were expelled, such as the expulsion of Jews and Muslims by the Christian Monarchs of the Spanish Kingdoms 1492-1614.

10According to reports they were a father and son, the first killed at the scene and the second hospitalised, just now out of a coma.

11Manchester-born and raised Eli Schlanger, in media manipulation often paired with Matilda Britvan, the 10-year-old girl victim of the massacre (for example https://www.bbc.com/news/live/ckgk391yzm7t and https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/dec/15/what-we-know-about-the-victims-of-the-bondi-beach-terror-attack and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBUE4IXCk5g)

12 https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/bondi-beach-attack-how-western-allies-are-enabling-netanyahus-grotesque-logic

1 3https://www.aph.gov.au/-/media/Estimates/legcon/bud2425/AGD/11_Anthony_Albanese_issues_strongest_condemnation_yet_of_anti-Israel_slogan_from_the_rier_to_the_sea.pdf and a broader piece on the use of the massacre to embed Zionist defence in Australian society https://www.sydneycriminallawyers.com.au/blog/federal-antisemitism-plan-marks-the-death-knell-of-the-public-sphere/

JIMMY CLIFF, VIETNAM AND CARIBBEAN MIGRANTS

On November 25, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Cultural Comment, Latin America, Song, US Imperialism2 Comments

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

The death is announced on mass media today at 81 year of age of Jamaican reggae singer, songwriter and author Jimmy Cliff,¹ famous for songs such as The Harder They Come and for his role in a film of the same title.

As is usual in such cases, tributes have been posted on social media and quoted in the western mass media, including by Ali Campbell of the UB 40 band who was reported to be ‘so sad’² (which to be honest, seems a little strange as Jimmy Cliff lived to a good 81 years of age before he died).

I first heard a few of Jimmy Cliff’s nearly 30 recordings among the Caribbean community of SE London.

Jimmy Cliff grew up James Chambers in a family of nine in St. James in Jamaica, often mistakenly thought of as the largest Caribbean island (which it is not – that is in fact Cuba). Jamaica, like Trinidad & Tobago, another larger island and Barbados, were among the British colonies in the Caribbean.

The Caribbean islands and coastline³ were first European-colonised by the Spanish, then by the French, Dutch and British Empires, often in armed conflict against its indigenous people but also among themselves, also against slave uprisings and later against local struggles for independence.⁴

Since WWII the dominant imperialist power in the Caribbean is undoubtedly the United States of America, though France retains some colonial possessions and a few remain part of the British Commonwealth.

Today the Caribbean is in the news through a large force of US Naval forces posted there, along with nearby posting of bombers, along with the murder of over 80 small boat sailors, allegedly drug smugglers (without evidence and as though drug smuggling gets the death sentence).⁵

According to threats of President of the USA Trump, he intends to target Venezuela and its President Nicolás Maduro, whom he claims – without a shred of evidence — to be the leader of a drug cartel.

Migrant communities and the spread of Reggae

During the decades I spent in London I had a fair amount of contact with parts of the Caribbean immigrant and diaspora community, partly through working alongside some of its members, partly through socialising in SE London and through activity in resistance to fascism and racism.

I first came across Reggae music while living as a migrant in the SE London areas of Lewisham, New Cross and Peckham. There were large Irish and Caribbean communities there with some but not a great deal of interaction between both communities but little hostility between them either.

Both communities were subject to institutional racism and politicised communal racism as organised by the fascist National Front and British Movement, both of which had connections to British Loyalist paramilitary organisations in Scotland and in the Six Counties in Ireland.

I recall reading in a British 1950s sociological study on ‘deviant behaviour’ that ‘Teddy Boy’ gangs would target the post-War newly-arrived Caribbean immigrants (but also the ‘Micks’, i.e the Irish) and a Jamaican workmate told me about the gangs waiting for them on Childeric Rise.⁶

How he went out armed with a home-made knuckle-duster and how the police would come to the fighting, arresting mostly the Caribbean victims. “Them turn me away when dem see me,” a Caribbean migrant discussing racism told me, “but dem turn you away when dem hear you.”

In Caribbean shebeens⁷ or illegal ‘clubs’ in that SE London area, one could buy for a modest sum a plate of goat curry and rice, or a can of pale ale or Guinness, while listening to vinyl records of Bluebeat, Ska, Rock Steady, Reggae and, to a lesser extent, Calypso.⁸ And dance, perhaps.⁹

Jimmy Cliff composed songs and rode the rising Reggae tide, for a short while rivalling Bob Marley for most popular position. What launched him and the Reggae ship into wider seas was the film The Harder They Come based on the novel of the same name featuring Cliff’s own song.

The Harder They Come novel by Ekwueme Michael Thelwell charting the fictionalised career of a Jamaican who fails to succeed as a reggae singer and becomes a gangster is based on the real life of Jamaican folk hero and reggae star Rhygin.¹⁰

But the film’s hero was performed by Jimmy Cliff and his music played as soundtrack.

In Peckham I watched the film years later and enjoyed it but I also read the novel. The latter gives an interesting background of the hero growing up in his grandmother’s care in rural Jamaica, before he goes to Kingston, while the film opens only with the hero’s arrival in the city by bus.

Famous folk singer Bob Dylan is reported to have said that Jimmy Cliff’s 1969 song Vietnam was the best protest song he had ever heard. It is hard to credit that as a true statement; Pete Seeger, Dylan’s contemporary, many others and Dylan himself had composed many better.

Jimmy Cliff’s Vietnam song takes as its theme a US soldier in Vietnam writing about his impending return home at the end of his tour of military service in Vietnam and his desire for his girlfriend, followed by another missive to the soldier’s mother announcing her son’s death in Vietnam.

The tragic juxtaposition of youth, romantic love, violent death and parental bereavement is an inherent theme of war and of course works on our emotions. But the song says nothing about who sent the soldier there nor the reasons for the Vietnam War, though one line calls for its end.

The lyrics tell us nothing about the devastation of the US war upon the peoples of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, nor about the heroism of the people’s resistance.¹¹ Not even about the huge protests of many people in the USA — particularly youth — and in much of the western world.

Jimmy Cliff in performance (Photo credit Alastair Wison/ PA)

However, Jimmy Cliff’s performance of the song 20 years ago in Jamaica brings the point of the anti-war movement much more into context as in his introduction to the song on stage he castigates Tony Blair and George Bush and names a number of other imperialist wars.

It was a great performance of Cliff’s at the end of his sixth decade of life and I hope you enjoy it here on video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCc5jSw0bSQ

End.

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FOOTNOTES

1 https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/jimmy-cliff-dead-age-cause-songs-reggae-b2871220.html and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Cliff

2 Facebook · UB40 Featuring Ali Campbell So sad James chambers has left a void in reggae music, his voice and influence was exemplary. He was a reggae pioneer, RlP Jimmy cliff.

3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caribbean

4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Caribbean

5 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/top-military-lawyer-raised-legal-concerns-boat-strikes-rcna243694

6This rise gave on to the New Cross Road from terraced housing down below where a number of Caribbean families lived, in one house of which I shared a double room with another Irish migrant. Almost at the top of Childeric Rise itself was the entrance to The Harp Club Irish dance hall with an Irish pub on an opposite corner and another across the road.

7From the acknowledged Irish language word ‘síbín’, etymology uncertain but adopted as far away as the Caribbean and South Africa.

8Music mostly of Trinidad and Tobago, often accompanied by steel band instruments, based on folk dance music from a part of West Africa. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calypso_music

9Not very well to those rhythms, in my case.

10 https://groveatlantic.com/book/the-harder-they-come/

11Estimates of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians killed range from 970,000 to 3 million. Some 275,000–310,000 Cambodians, 20,000–62,000 Laotians, and 58,220 US service members died. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War#:~:text=The%20war%20exacted%20an%20enormous

SOURCES

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/jimmy-cliff-dead-age-cause-songs-reggae-b2871220.html and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Cliff

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

MIND YOUR LANGUAGE!

On November 11, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Cultural Comment, History, IrelandLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

If it is true that language at least influences the way we think, then surely it behoves us to pay more attention to our choice of words. But not only because of the influence of our words on others but indeed on us as we utter them.

Take the word ‘Ireland’ – surely a neutral one describing a geographical entity? But if we query “the population of Ireland” on line and receive a reply that the figure is 5.83 million, whereas we know it to be over 7 million, we experience at least puzzlement at the disparity in figures.

Of course, what has has occurred is that “Ireland” is being considered in political terms and the Six County colony’s population is being omitted. The reply may qualify that it is referring to “the Republic of Ireland” (as when commenting on the FAI’s football selection internationally).

But this does not really make everything alright semantically (i.e. in meaning) either. True, the Irish State holds regular elections and does not acknowledge a monarch, so it generally fulfils the description of ‘a Republic’. But that is not a historically or politically-neutral term in Ireland.

The word has a long history in Ireland as applied to the nation and was always imagined as referencing the whole geographical entity. The most influential use of the word in documentary form was probably the 1916 Proclamation, which did not in the least anticipate partition.

Even the 1937 Constitution, which formally baptised the Irish State a ‘Republic’, claimed sovereignty over the entire 32 Counties, a position that stood until the removal of Articles 2 and 3 from the Constitution by the current State in 1999.

The Football Association of Ireland is actually only the Association of the sport for the 26 Counties state and the use of “R.o.I” on the screen to refer to the State’s team during games is, as explained, deeply problematic. However the Irish Rugby Team is indeed an all-Ireland one.

As is the largest sports association of Ireland, the Gaelic Athletic Association. And also Tennis Ireland, Cricket Ireland, Table Tennis Ireland, and both Badminton Ireland and the Irish Judo Association organise on a four-province basis.¹

If we call the entity the ‘Irish State’ instead we would be correct. And we could call its territory ‘the Irish state’, with a lower-case ‘s’ to distinguish between the political construction and the territory over which, in constitutional and legal terms, it holds power.

Or we could call it the ‘26 Counties.’ Or, seemingly becoming increasingly popular in some quarters: ‘the Free State’.² But what about the entity’s parliament? That’s ‘the Dáil’, right?

That’s how we hear it described and, as “Dáil” is an equivalent of ‘parliament’ in Irish, that’s ok, right? No, not at all really; its full title is actually “Dáil Éireann” and we’ve already established that not even by Constitutional lip service does this parliament govern the whole nation.

The first time we had an all-Ireland parliament, open to election across the whole of the nation and open also to participation of all elected candidates was in January 1919 but it was banned in September by the occupying British authority, thenceforth operating under conditions of secrecy.

Then in January 1922, the pro-Treaty majority in the Dáil supported the British Treaty, including Partition, ending Dáil Éireann. There has not been a Dáil Éireann since. The most accurate brief description of the current institution is “Leinster House”.³

*Is this the home of Dáil Éireann?* *Leinster House, west-facing side.* (Image: *Wikipedia*).

Well, does it matter what we call them – we know what they are, right?

If it’s true that the words we use to describe things influence how we think about them, then it matters quite a lot. And how we describe them may also influence how others think about them, which also matters a great deal.

If we want to imply by the words we use that this state is independent and covers the whole nation – and that its parliament administers the whole nation – well then, there’s no need to change our words. Especially if we think that the extent of Irish sovereignty is fine or sufficient.

But if we don’t think along those lines then perhaps we need to examine our terminology more carefully and, where appropriate, amend it.

End.

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FOOTNOTES

1Interestingly, I note that the Irish Ten-Pin Bowling Association (ITBA) is in the process of becoming a 32-county association.

2This was the official title of the State following its adoption of the terms of the Anglo-Irish Treaty.

3The building is actually formally called “Leinster House” since it was the city resident of the Duke of Leinster, of the Cambro-Norman invader dynasty of FitzGeralds and FitzMaurices. The Duke was Lord Deputy and at times Chief Justice of Ireland under the English Occupation.

REFERENCES

https://www.bonn-institute.org/en/news/psychology-in-journalism-2#introduction-82539

THE BLOOD-RED POPPY – remembrance or militarisation?

On November 5, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Anti-War, Capitalism, Cultural Comment, History, History commemoration, Imperialism, Political Analysis, World War One, World War Two2 Comments

Diarmuid Breatnach (edited from article posted in Rebel Breeze 2014)

(Reading time: 6 mins.)

Part 1 – who and what gets ‘remembrance’

In the lands under the direct dominion of England, i.e. the “United Kingdom”, and in some others that are under its influence, the dominant class calls the people to join in a cultural event in November which they call “Remembrance”.

The organisation fronting this event in the ‘UK’ is the Royal British Legion and their symbol for it (and registered trademark) is the Red Poppy, paper or fabric representations of which people are encouraged to buy and display — and indeed often pressured to wear.

In some places, such as the BBC for personnel in front of the camera, they are forced to wear them. In many schools and churches throughout the ‘UK’, Poppies are sold and wreaths are laid at monuments to the dead soldiers in many different places.

Prominent individuals, politicians and the media take part in a campaign to encourage the wearing of the Poppy and the participate in the ‘Festival of Remembrance’ generally and of late, to extend the Festival for a longer period.

High points in the ‘Festival’ are the Royal Albert Hall concerts on the Saturday and the military and veterans’ parades to the Cenotaph memorial in Whitehall, London, on “Remembrance Sunday”. (Also a focus for commemorations by the British far-Right and fascists).

“The concert culminates with Servicemen and Women, with representatives from youth uniformed organizations and uniformed public security services of the City of London, parading down the aisles and on to the floor of the hall. There is a release of poppy petals from the roof of the hall.¹

*An embroidered version of the poppy emblem* (Sourced: *Internet*)

“The evening event on the Saturday is the more prestigious; tickets are only available to members of the Legion and their families, and senior members of the British Royal Family (the Queen, Prince Phillip, the Prince of Wales, the Duke of York [not this year!] and the Earl of Wessex). ²

“The event starts and ends with the British national anthem, God Save the Queen³ (and) is televised. Musical accompaniment for the event is provided by a military band from the Household Division together with The Countess of Wessex’s String Orchestra.”⁴

The money raised from the sale of the “Poppies” and associated merchandise is said to be used to support former military service people in need and the families of those killed in conflict. On the face of it, military and royal pomp apart, the Festival may seem a worthy charitable endeavour.

Also one which commemorates very significant historical events — therefore a festival which at the very least, one might thing, should not be opposed by right-thinking and charitable people.

Yet the main purpose of this festival and the symbol is neither remembrance nor charity but rather the exact opposite: to gloss over the realities of organised violence on a massive scale and to make us forget the experience of the world’s people of war.

And to prepare the ground for recruitment of more people for the next war or armed imperialist venture – and of course more premature deaths and injuries, including those of soldiers taking part.

Video and song “On Remembrance Day” from Veterans for Peace lists British conflicts (including Ireland) and condemns the Church of England for supporting the wars, calling also on people to wear the White Poppy (see Part 3 for the White Poppy)

Partial Remembrance – obscuring the perpetrators and the realities of war

The Royal British Legion is the overall organiser of the Festival of Remembrance and has the sole legal ‘UK’ rights to use the Poppy trademark and to distribute the fabric or paper poppies in the ‘UK’.

According to the organisation’s website, “As Custodian of Remembrance” one of the Legion’s two main purposes is to “ensure the memories of those who have fought and sacrificed in the British Armed Forces live on through the generations.”

By their own admission, the Legion’s “remembrance” is only to perpetuate the memories of those who fought and sacrificed in the British Armed Forces – it is therefore only a very partial (in both senses of the word) remembrance. More recently it tries to hide this exclusivity.⁵

It is left to others to commemorate the dead in the armies of the British Empire and colonies which Britain called to its support: in WWI, over 230,500 non-‘UK’ dead soldiers from the Empire and, of course, the ‘UK’ figure of 888,246 includes the 27,400 Irish dead.

*Cossack soldier volunteers WWI. Imperial Russia was an ally of Britain and France; the war was one of the causes of the Russian Socialist Revolution 1917. The following year, the war ended.* (Image sourced: *Internet*)

The Festival excludes not only the dead soldiers of the British Empire and of its colonies (not to mention thousands of Chinese, African, Arab and Indian labourers employed by the army) but also those of Britain’s allies: France, Belgium, Imperial Russia, Japan, USA … and their colonies.

No question seems to arise of the Festival of Remembrance commemorating the fallen of the “enemy” but if the festival were really about full “remembrance”, it would commemorate the dead on each side of conflicts.

*German soldiers playing cards during WWI. Photos of Germans in WWI more readily available show them wearing masks and looking like monsters.* (Photo sourced: *Internet*)

That would particularly be appropriate in WWI, an imperialist war in every respect. But of course they don’t do that; if we feel equally sorry for the people of other nations, it will be difficult to get us to shoot, bomb or stab them in some future conflict.

A real festival of remembrance would commemorate too those civilians killed in war (seven million in WWI), the percentage of which in overall war casualty statistics has been steadily rising through the last century with increasingly long-range means of warfare.

Very recently, the Royal Legion has tried to claim that the “acknowledge innocent civilians who have lost their lives in conflict” but add “and acts of terrorism.” Since we know that that ‘terrorism’ is a highly politicised word and for imperialists has mostly meant resistance struggle, that is hardly welcome.

*Civilian war refugees in Salonika, NW Greece, WWI* (Photo sourced: *Internet*)

Civilians in the First World War died prematurely in epidemics and munitions factory explosions as well as in artillery and air bombardments, also in sunk shipping and killed in auxiliary logistical labour complements in battle areas.

And through hunger, as feeding the military became the priority in deliveries and as farmhands became soldiers.

In WWII 85,000,000 civilians died in extermination camps or forced labour units, targeting of ethnic and social groups, air bombardments, as well as in hunger and disease arising from the destruction of harvests and infrastructure.

Air bombardments, landmines, ethnic targeting and destruction of infrastructures continue to exact a high casualty rate among civilians in war areas.

One admittedly low estimate up to 2009 gave figures of 3,500 dead in Iraq during the war and aftermath and another 100,000 dead from western trade sanctions, along with 32,000 dead civilians in Afghanistan.

Another review up to 2011 gave a figure of 133,000 civilians killed directly as a result of violence in Iraq and “probably double that figure due to sanctions”.⁶

The number of civilians injured, many of them permanently disabled, is of course higher than the numbers killed. Most of those will bring an additional cost to health and social services where these are provided by the state and of course to families, whether state provision exists or not.

Real and impartial “remembrance” would include civilians but not even British civilians killed and injured are included in the Festival of Remembrance, revealing that the real purpose of the Festival is to support the existence of the armed forces and their activities.⁷

And contributing at the same time to a certain militarisation of society and of the dominant culture.

If the Festival were really about “remembrance”, they would commemorate the numbers of injuries and detail the various types of weapons that caused them.

But that might reflect unfavourably on the armaments manufacturers, who run a multi-billion industry in whatever currency one cares to name, so of course they don’t.

Australian soldiers who survived gas attack but injured by it awaiting hospitalisation, Northern France, WWI 1916. (Photo sourced: *Internet*)

And if really concerned about death and injury in war, they would campaign to end such conflict – for an end to imperial war.

But then how else would the various imperial states sort out among themselves which one could extract which resources from which countries in the world and upon the markets of which country each imperial state could dump its produce?

So of course the Royal British Legion doesn’t campaign against war. That’s not its role. Quite the opposite.

End.
(Parts 2 and 3 to follow).

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FOOTNOTES:

1Sourced from the British Legion’s website in 2014, its WW1 centenary year.

2Ibid.

3Now of course God Save the King.

4Sourced from the British Legion’s website in 2014.

5 “We unite across faiths, cultures and backgrounds to remember the service and sacrifice of the Armed Forces community from United Kingdom and the Commonwealth. We will remember them.” https://www.britishlegion.org.uk/get-involved/remembrance/about-remembrance

6 Civilian war deaths Iraq and Afghanistan to 2009 http://www.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/11/30/why_they_hate_us_ii_how_many_muslims_has_the_us_killed_in_the_past_30_years Civilian war deaths Iraq to 2011: http://costsofwar.org/article/iraqi-civilians

7“shoulder to shoulder with our armed forces” from the British Legion’s website.

SOLIDARITY AND RESISTANCE IN MUSIC AND SPOKEN WORD IN DUBLIN

On November 2, 2025November 3, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Cultural Comment, Current Event Report, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, National Liberation, Palestine, Police Violence, Political Analysis, Song, Song in Struggle, Workers' Struggles, World War OneLeave a comment

Clive Sulish

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

Thursday night (30^th), with almost non-stop downpour of rain was a dreary and miserable one in Dublin. Not so however inside the Cobblestone’s back room where solidarity and resistance resounded in song, instrumental and spoken word.

The event organisers, Solidarity Sessions collective, an independent organisation founded late last year have declared a number of times that they wish to contribute to “creating a community of solidarity and resistance through culture.”

Certainly the flags on the stage of the Tricolour, Starry Plough and Palestine conveyed some of the context, as did posters of 1916 martyrs Connolly and Pearse with text pointing out that the first was a migrant and the second, son of a migrant.¹

In addition a merchandise stall sold T-shirts figuring the Palestinian Resistance with funds raised going to Palestinian relief work on the ground. Solidarity Sessions have also donated to ‘buy’ a water truck from Uisce for Gaza and also donated to Streetlink Homeless Support in Dublin.

*Mark Flynn performing at Solidarity Sessions No.3 in the Cobblestone.* (Photo: *R.Breeze*)

The material performed on stage contributed much of solidarity and resistance also. This was the third event this year and the second at the Cobblestone pub, one other being at the International Bar and the fourth expected at the Peadar Brown pub on Southside’s Clanbrassil Street.

There was a lot of audience participation at times during the evening, with Alan Burke joined from the floor in the chorus of his spirited rendition of The Aul’ Triangle (to which he added a verse of his own) and Sive was accompanied on request by continuous refrain under her singing.

Mark Flynn was also backed by the audience in his adaptation of A Roving I’ll Go to a sailing to Portugal song he told his audience he had put together in minutes of a creative flash the like of which he ruefully admitted not having experienced since. Flynn also sang Bogle’s antiwar Waltzing Matilda.

*Alan Burke performing at Solidarity Sessions No.3 in the Cobblestone.* (Photo: *R.Breeze*)

The audience was extremely quiet during Dorothy Collin’s spoken word pieces about assassinations by the Zionist Occupation and Palestinian resistance, interrupting her performance with applause only after a haiku in Irish and at a point where she became visibly emotionally affected.

The Resistance Choir included in their performance an exuberant Bread and Roses, the lyrics originating in a speech at a mostly female textile workers’ strike in Massachusetts, USA in 1912 and Burke sang of an innocent miner framed on a murder charge and hanged – but pardoned posthumously.

Class struggle was also present in Burke’s singing My Name Is Dessie Warren, about a trade union activist with flying pickets² during the 1970s construction workers’ strike in England. Some were tried under the Conspiracy Laws and jailed, including Ricky Tomlinson and Des Warren.³

*The Resistance Choir about to perform at Solidarity Sessions No.3 in the Cobblestone, being introduced by the MC, Ru O’Shea.* (Photo: *R.Breeze*)

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Three imminent resistance events were announced from the stage: Friday morning, due to appear in court⁴ were two Palestine solidarity activists attacked by Gardaí at Dublin Port and a good show of numbers in solidarity was requested.⁵

On Saturday a picket in solidarity with Irish Republican prisoners would be held outside Kilmainham Jail⁶ and on Sunday a demonstration to blockade Dublin Port was announced, people being requested to gather at The Point on the north Liffey quays.

*Sive, who performed at Solidarity Sessions No.3 in the Cobblestone.* (Photo sourced: *Internet*)

The organising collective, volunteers on door duty and the performers all donated their services free of charge. Further donations will be made to causes considered worthy, the collective assured their guests and supporters.

Ru O’Shea, MC for the evening, thanked all the performers who gave their services for free, the audience for their attendance, supporters staffing the door, the Cobblestone and sound engineer. The next Solidarity Sessions night will be at Peadar Brown’s on Thursday 4^th December.

Ongoing “contributing to building a community of solidarity and resistance.” And outside, it had stopped raining for awhile.

End.
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FOOTNOTES

1James Connolly was born into the Irish diaspora in the poor area of Cowgate in Edinburgh and first came to Ireland as an adult in response to an invitation to found the Irish Socialist Republican Party. Subsequently Connolly went to the USA for a period before returning to Ireland (therefore 3 times a migrant). Patrick Pearse was born and raised in Dublin but his father was English. Both Pearse and Connolly were executed in Kilmainham Jail with another twelve by British bullets after their surrender of the 1916 Rising.

2‘Flying pickets’ operate in principle like the guerrilla ‘flying columns’, sending a large number of union picketers to specific locations chosen in secret, thereby reducing the opportunities for the police etc to mobilise at the spot in advance

3Ricky Tomlinson after release became a famous actor, mostly in comic roles. Warren developed Parkinson’s from forcible injections with restraining drugs and long periods in isolation in jail, dying not long after release. I remember the case and campaigns when I was working in England and a period afterwards when I was briefly active in the Construction Safety Campaign and read statistics about on average a construction worker killed weekly and one seriously injured daily on British construction sites.

4Yes, the Gardaí charging with criminal offences people they pepper-sprayed and batoned without warning.

5For report on that, see https://rebelbreeze.com/2025/10/31/strong-solidarity-support-for-arrested-port-blockade-activists/

6Kilmainham Jail was a British colonial prison in Dublin, also used for a while by the Irish Free State to imprison the Resistance during the Civil War/ Counterrevolution. It is now a very popular museum and holds the execution site of 14 prominent Irish Republicans after their surrender in 1916.

Dear Minister Humphreys,

On October 22, 2025October 26, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn 1916 Rising, Creative writing, Cultural Comment, Fan Letters, History, irish history, National Liberation, National Sovereignty, SatireLeave a comment

(Another one from the Rebel Breeze archives, this one from 2015)

I write to express my admiration for your work and my sympathies with regard to the criticisms with which you are currently being bombarded.

I hope you will forgive my ignorance of much of the work you have been doing in the area of Heritage, which is not really where my strengths lie. But I love the way you talk, the way you shoot down those critics, especially those TDs who ask those nasty questions.

And I’m sure you had something to do with removing Westport House from the NAMA sell-off, even if it is in Enda’s constituency. Such a fine example of our colonial architectural heritage!

*Heather Humhpreys, Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht*

But as we know, Minister, that wouldn’t be the kind of thing that would be appreciated by your critics. They’d rather you devoted your talents to a shabby row of Dublin houses of dubious architectural importance in a grubby street market.

A street which they say is “pre-Famine” — as if that were something to boast about! Laid down earlier than Sackville Street (now O’Connell Street) they say ….

Sure why would we want to keep a street that old …. or remember that embarrassing episode in our history either, when we lost a third of our population to over-reliance on one crop! We learned from that, though, didn’t we? Sure we grow hardly any crops at all now and get them all in from abroad.

And we live in cities now — who wants to be getting up at 6 a.m. in all kinds of weather and plodding through muck? If people like growing things that much, get a house with a garden, I say. And a gardener to do the donkey work.

Supporters at the symbolic Arms Around Moore Street event organised by the Save Moore Street From Demolition campaign in June this year. — Supporters at the symbolic Arms Around Moore Street event organised by the Save Moore Street From Demolition campaign in June 2016. This is the corner of Moore Lane and Henry Place, across which Volunteers had to run under machine-gun and rifle fire from Parnell Street (at the end of Moore Lane, to the right of the photo) and at least one Volunteer died here.

But I’m digressing, Minister, my apologies. Apparently the reason they want to save that shabby terrace, that “pre-Famine street” — and the backyards and surrounding lane-ways, if you please! — is for HISTORICAL reasons. Historical!

Sure have we not had enough of history – Brehon Laws, Golden Age, Clontarf, Normans, 800 years of British occupation, blah, blah, blah! Weren’t we sick of it at school?

I’ve never liked Labour too much (somehow even the word sounds sweaty) but I have to admire their Education Ministry’s efforts to remove history as a subject from the compulsory school curriculum.

I’m sure they’re doing it for their own reasons – after all, wasn’t their party founded by that communist James Connolly? Sorry, revealing my own knowledge of history there, ha, ha! But whatever their reasons, they are on the right track.

Who wants to know where we are coming from? It’s where we ARE and where we are GOING TO, that matters!

But some people just can’t let it go, can they? They trail history around like something unpleasant stuck to a shoe. So what if 300 of the GPO garrison occupied that terrace in 1916?

The Rising, if you ask me, was a big mistake and I know plenty of people agree with me, even if most don’t have the courage to say so. Wouldn’t we be much better off if we’d stayed in the UK? And kept the Sterling currency? And as for the War of Independence …. don’t get me started!

Aerial View Moore St. 60s — *Aerial view Moore Street, looking northwards, 1960s, before the building of the ILAC and the running down of the street market.*

And then there’s all that communist-sounding stuff about treating “all the children of the nation equally” — what kind of rubbish is that? Some are born to big houses with swimming pools and some are born to flats, or even rooms. That’s just the way of life.

And some will claw their way up to get to own big houses and if they are a bit uncouth, well that can’t be helped, they still deserve where they get to. And their children at least will be taught how to fit into their new station. That’s democracy! But everyone equal? Please!

Sorry, back to the Moore Street controversy. OK, after the mob pressured the Government, four houses in the street were made a national monument. But was that enough for the mob? Oh, no, not at all — eight years later the State had to buy the four houses to satisfy them.

Thankfully the specul ….. sorry, the developer, got back a good return on his investment – four million, wasn’t it? That’s the kind of thing that makes one proud to be Irish – buying run-down buildings and letting them run down more, then selling them for a million each.

That’s your entrepreneur! If only we had more like that, to lift this country up!

I must say I really liked that developer’s plan to build a big shopping centre from O’Connell Street into the ILAC, knocking those old houses in Moore Street down (although I know he had to leave those “national monument” four houses still standing in the plans).

I do hope whoever has bought the debt off NAMA and now owns those houses will carry on with that plan. Actually, I’d like the whole of O’Connell Street under glass if it were possible.

Wouldn’t it be great to do your shopping from the north end of the street to the south and from left to right, without ever having to come out into the weather? Of course, not much shopping there now, with Clery’s closed …. still ….

And then they’re going on about the market ….. traditional street market …. blah, blah. What’s wrong with getting your veg and fruit from the supermarket? Or getting them to deliver it your house, come to that? “Traditional street market” my ar….. excuse me, I got carried away there.

Those street markets are all very well for your Continentals, your Africans, Asians, Latin Americans and so on. Or for us to go wandering around in when we’re abroad on holiday, maybe. But back home? It’s the nice clean supermarkets for me any day.

Well now, if the mob insists on saving the street market, here’s an idea: why not provide a showcase stall or barrow, stacked with clean vegetables and polished fruit, right in the middle of the new shopping centre. After all, that’s heritage, isn’t it? And aren’t yourself the Minister for Heritage?

Most sincerely,

Phillis Tine-Fumblytil

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DYSLEXIA – A COUNTRY WHERE SURPRISE IS EXPECTED

On October 13, 2025November 17, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Creative writing, Creative writing, Cultural Comment, Education, Satire, social commentaryLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 6 mins.)

(The author is known as a traveller to many exotic places, including expeditions in search of mythical lands, most famously “The United Kingdom”, the “Republic”, “Norn Ireland” and “The Mainland.” Here he writes about the land of Dyslexia).

Dyslexia is, as the suffix “-ia” suggests, a country …. think of India, Mongolia, Russia, California [now relegated to a vassal state], Hibernia [also something of a vassal state], Narnia [er .. no, that is an imaginary land in a series of children’s tales].

Strangely the existence of Dyslexia was not even suspected until 1881, when Oslawd Khanber¹ claimed to have visited the land. His discovery was widely doubted until confirmed by Ludorf Linber² in 1887.

The people of this newly-discovered land were distinguished by all having a difficulty to varying degrees in spelling and/or in remembering sequences of numbers.

Khanber and Linber both named this land (and the rest of the world agreed) “Dyslexia”, from the Greek root “dys” meaning “bad/ abnormal/ difficult” and “lex” meaning “word” (although in Latin it means “law”, understood as “written word”).

Dyslexia was, like many other lands and people, not named by the natives themselves, but by people from elsewhere. Such examples abound, for example “Australia”, “America”, “Scotland”, “Eskimo”, “Teddy Boys”, “Pagans”, “Celts”, “Saxons”, “Teagues”, “Gypsies”, “E.T.s” etc.

Attempts to identify what the Dyslexics themselves called their land have so far collapsed in confusion, with different spellings and even pronunciations hotly argued for against others.

In fact, there have been accusations of racism aimed at those who named the land “Dyslexia” and the people “Dyslexics” — it seems particularly cruel to create a word itself so difficult to spell to name a people with a known disability in spelling.

Previously, Dyslexics just called themselves “people” and the land “the land”, while those who came across migrants from there before Dyslexia was actually discovered called them other names: such as “stupid”, “slow”, “thick” or “people with ADD or ADHD”.³

However, most “Dyslexics” today have not only adopted the name and learned to spell it but are wont to proudly declare “I’m Dyslexic” (but rarely “I am a Dyslexic”).

When Dyslexia came to the attention of the rest of the World no-one seemed astonished that it should be discovered long after the North and South Poles, the Mariana Trench, the Matto Grosso Plateau and indeed a great number of planets.

What did astonish the World was that Dyslexia had apparently independently within its borders invented television, radio, Ipads, microwave ovens, central heating and hot showers and of course the internal combustion engine and nuclear power.

This proliferation of technology would have been normally amazing (if anything normal can be said to be amazing, or vice versa) in a previously undiscovered country.

But what was really, really amazing was that everyone in Dyslexia had overcome a disability to climb to such industrial heights. The obstacles must have been tremendous.

Imagine confusing, for example, sodium chloride, a common table salt, with sodium chlorate, which is used as a weedkiller.

Also by the way, as an ingredient in making home-made bombs, a curious fact since nitrogenous fertiliser, with a directly opposite effect to sodium chlorate when spread on weeds, is also sometimes used in making home-made bombs).

Anyway, shake sodium chloride in small quantities on your weeds and they probably won’t like it but most will survive – especially those that actually like a little of it, like relatives of the cabbages and such. Shake a little sodium chlorate on your food, however and ….

well …. no, don’t try it – without urgent and skilled medical attention you will die quickly and painfully.

For another example, imagine confusing “defuse” with “diffuse”: one goes to de-escalate a conflict and ends up spreading it around. Other confusions are possible between the noun or verb “ware”, the (usually) adverb “where” and the past tense verb “were”. And so on.

For physics, knowledge of and accuracy in mathematics is essential – algebra, logarithms, binary codes, sines and co-sines, square roots (these last are mathematical constructs, not mythical regulated-shape carrots as propagated by anti-EU campaigners).

In calculating distances, heights and depths, spaces and circumferences, ability in geometry, trigonometry and ordinary mathematics is required. Somehow, the Dyslexics, the inhabitants of Dyslexia, had overcome their disability or compensated for it in some way.

They had developed as flourishing and environment-poisoning an industrial society as the most developed parts of the world, such as the United States of America (most developed industrially, that is).

Dyslexics are said, despite this disability with letters and numbers, to be of above-average intelligence. They had to be, to develop all those complicated benefits of industrial society despite their handicap.

Strangely, one may think, many Dyslexics have become literary figures famous throughout the world, Hans Christian Andersen, Agatha Christie, F. Scott Fitzgerald and WB Yeats among them. Contrary to popular belief among non-natives, James Joyce was not from Dyslexia.

This prevalence of Dyslexics among so many giants of literature and indeed of virtually every other field of human endeavour has given rise to a group of Dyslexians who call their disability “the gift of Dyslexia”.

The Dyslexics are often garrulous and sociable and this is especially true when in Dyslexia itself. The difficulty in remembering telephone numbers for example makes every telephone call an adventure.

Say a native wished to phone another native called Cathy (also known as Cthy, or Ktay, Thyca etc), and the phone number was 731 1062 (please note, this is an imaginary telephone number by which neither Cathy nor anyone else can be reached).

The Dyslexic might phone 371 1026 – all the correct digits but in a different order (note, this also is an imaginary telephone number by which no-one may be reached).

The conversation, somewhat simplified, might go like this:

“Yes, hello?” (female voice, breathless with anticipation of another adventure).

Our caller: “Hi, is that Cathy?”

Recipient (giggling): “No, it’s not. There isn’t any Cathy here. I’m Wanda.”

Our caller: “Oh, hi Wanda, you sound very nice. How about going on a wanda with me?”

Wanda (with a little giggle but playing cautious): “Maybe …. What’s your name?”

Our caller: “Terry.”

Wanda: “Where were you thinking of wandering with me?” (A moment’s pause while both mentally translate the last part of that into “wandering on me”).

Terry (clearing his throat which has suddenly gone dry): “Well, there’s a nice new Indian restaurant opened up in town. Do you like Indian food, Wanda?”

“Ohhh, Terry, I love it. So spicy!” (Very slight pause as both translate “spicy” as a description for food flavouring into a metaphor instead). “When were you thinking of?”

“Er … tonight too soon?”

“No, I happen to be free tonight.”

“Shall I come and pick you up? Say …. seven pm?”

“That would be lovely, Terry. I live off the Trans City Road, tenth left, first right, eighth left, in Hopeful Street, the seventh house on the left-hand side if you’re coming from town, with a brown and white door and a hydrangea bush in the garden.”

“Got it – off the Trans City Road, tenth left, first right, eighth left, Hopeful Street, seventh house on the left-hand side, brown and white door and a hydrangea bush in the garden. At seven pm. I’m looking forward to meeting you.”

Most Dyslexics are always open to adventure, ‘going with the flow’. One never knows what a simple telephone call may bring or to what an appointment or written address may lead.

But as a result, Dyslexics are also philosophic about missed appointments, forgotten birthdays and so on; they waste little time mourning something lost and instead look forward to something gained.

Terry might or might not make it to Wanda’s but they both know the world is full of other possibilities.

Cathy, for example, who failed to receive a call from Terry to congratulate her on her gaining a dystinction in her dyploma, received later that evening what non-natives would term “a wrong number” call from a Sofia who had meant to call a Geraldine.

Sofia had intended trying to patch up a long-running difficult relationship with Geraldine and instead found herself making the acquaintance of Cathy, who seemed much nicer and more understanding than was Geraldine.

Putting her problems with Geraldine aside, Sofia agreed to Cathy’s suggestion to meet for a late coffee (which they both knew could lead to an early drink and who-knows-what from there). Cathy had by now forgotten that she was hoping Terry would call.

Dyslexia is not just another land, nor even just a strange one – it’s an entirely different way to live.

End.

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Footnotes:

1Adolph Kussmaul, to non-dyslexics.

2Rudolf Berlin, to non-dyslexics.

3A supposed disability the existence of which is hotly debated but has exonerated many teachers accused of bad teaching methods and states accused of having too large classes in their schools and which has been profitable for some educational psychologists and extremely so for some chemical companies.

AMERICAN FOOTBALL INVASION MEETS PALESTINE SOLIDARITY RESISTANCE

On September 29, 2025October 26, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Cultural Comment, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Genocide, Human Rights, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Ireland, Massacres, Middle East, Palestine, Political Analysis, US Imperialism, USA, Zionism1 Comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 6 mins.)

For a few days it has seemed a little like an invasion around Dublin city centre by Vikings and Steelers. Not Scandinavians as of old with some others¹ but fans of two competing teams of the American National Football League.

*One of the banners at the Drumcondra/ Clonliffe junction around 2.45pm.* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

There is little social following for the game called ‘American Football’ in Ireland, where we have a massive following for Gaelic football and soccer through their respective associations, the Gaelic Athletic Association and the League of Ireland (the latter in particular much underfunded).

Years ago, in his capacity as Minister of Arts at the time, Michael D. Higgins, presiding at an event, criticised what he called “US imperialist cultural penetration” of Europe. This has been ongoing for decades mainly through cultural products of films and soap operas, cartoon films and comics.

Prior to that, we were subjected mainly to British cultural products in magazines, comics, films and soap operas. And of course the Irish state only set up its own TV broadcaster in the 1960s.

For years these products have been impacting on our consciousness and subconsciousness, including on some of our speech patterns in English. But attempts to promote NFL have failed; however, never before has such a big effort been made and with such financial backing.

*The small group at the Drumcondra/ Dorset St junction and Canal/ Railway bridge as I approached it just after 1pm.* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

For this one game, the Irish Government has awarded just short of 10 million euro in funding – i.e. one third of their funding for the entire sports sector in Ireland last year. While of course this is being promoted as a revenue opportunity for business, there are stronger reasons.

The NFL is a strong supporter of the imperialist US military and the US itself shows signs of gearing up for another war – against whom is unclear but Venezuela, Iran or China are likely targets. In addition, the US is the main supplier of arms and political backing to Israel.

And where does the Irish ruling class want us? Why, with the USA of course! No more of this skulking around! Make Shannon officially a US military airport, have the RAF and UK Navy officially patrolling our seas and airspace, where arms for Israel can also fly through officially!

The often discussed ‘Triple Lock’ is all that appears to be holding back the Irish ruling class from dumping the state’s tattered neutrality² — and they are working on that. But meanwhile, they seek to orientate us towards the leader of the western imperialist pack – through US sport.

The NFL will be doing their part, apparently going to make sure every child in the Irish school system will receive an NFL pack. Hey! USA! Leave our kids alone!

This weekend, the Irish Gombeen³ ruling class, through their State, supplied extra police to keep the US visitors safe around the city and on Saturday around Croke Park, while police helicopters kept eyes in the skies. And there was extra Garda tolerance also for UStater illegal street-drinking.⁴

*At the Clonliffe/ Drumcondra Road junction at 1.00pm*, *announced rallying time*. (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

THE PROTESTERS

Many – including I – only learned on Saturday of the protest called by the IPSC⁵-allied Sports for Palestine campaign group against the NFL game programmed for Croke Park on Sunday between the Vikings and Steelers teams. A call-out to attend with flags and placards.

That seems a bit unfriendly towards visitors, sports enthusiasts, right? Fans just happy to support their teams and visit lovely Ireland at the same time, right?

Apart from the considerations of imperialism and war-orientation listed earlier, the USA is openly backing politically and supplying militarily a daily genocide against Palestinians. NFL is a significant cultural representation of the US and as such must be prepared to suffer for it.

*Small group of protesters further down Clonliffe Road at junction of road leading up to Croke Park entrance, approached by an NFL fan (Steelers?) who wants his photograph taken with them*. (Photo source: *Participant*)

While most of the Palestine solidarity protesters, maybe 60 at its highest point congregated at the junction of Clonliffe and Drumcondra roads, a small group of four took up position at the road leading to the Croke Park Stadium entrance and stood there with Palestine flags.

I headed for the railway and canal bridge at the Dorset Street junction, where I could see a Palestinian national flag and a placard calling to “Free America from AIPAC control.”⁶ On the way I passed NFL merchandise sales and young women handing out free canned energy drinks.

Greeting the other two at the Bridge, I extended my flagpole bearing the Starry Plough flag and took up station with them. Some passing traffic beeped our flags in solidarity.⁷ My standard litany to the passing NFL fans was: “Shame on the USA, supporting genocide! Shame, shame, shame!”

A comrade near me denounced “The United States of Israel”, alternating with attacking US responsibility for and complicity with genocide, while the other shouted about how wrong it is to be killing children. After awhile another comrade joined us but we never had more than four there.

*Two of the Special Branch of the Gardaí, ‘spotting’ for the State.* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

REACTIONS OF NFL FANS

The reactions of the passing fans to what we were saying varied considerably.

By far the majority of them attempted to ignore us while some looked at us with seeming curiosity but no other reaction. Some seemed embarrassed, covering the feeling with a smile. A small minority said they agreed with us, some even saying they were ashamed of the USA.

A tinier minority still exhibited hostility and outrage towards us, as in waving us away or giving the hand gesture for “blah, blah” (which a few verbalised also). A few laughed but that was their mistake, as I then shouted “Laughing about genocide? LAUGHING about GENOCIDE!”

One big man insulted us in an Irish accent but received as good from us, while an NFL fan who spoke in support of ‘Israel’ wilted under a barrage of “Genocider!” shouts. Another who mentioned “the hostages” was asked whether he was referring to “the 9,000 Palestinian prisoners?”⁸

Yet another accused us of generalising but received a response about arming Israel, to which he responded that we (Ireland, presumably) are feeding Israel. Another still wanted to avoid responsibility by saying that he’s “a Democrat” but was asked what that had to do with anything.

One other said he was from Belfast and yet another from England but the latter in particular got nowhere with that, considering Starmer’s support for the Zionazis. An older US man supported by two women claimed that we were being fooled by Hamas propaganda – there is no genocide!!!

It seems likely that those UStaters who encountered protesters and who are already opposed to what the US leadership is doing will return home at least a little strengthened in their position but also with some stories to tell people there about how the US is being viewed in a part of Europe.

Those who are unsure about what they think will probably doubt the leaders of the USA and dominant rhetoric even more. Some will be mostly unaffected and some may even harden their hostility to all critics of the USA. On the whole, I think the effects will be of a positive nature.

But even if so, of course nothing we did will be stopping the genocide for even one minute. Only states have the power to do that and were the Irish Government to ban all imports from ‘Israel’ outright, that would have a huge and immediate impact on the genocider’s economy.⁹

*Another of the banners at the* *Drumcondra/ Clonliffe junction around 2.45pm.* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

Sunday’s was a useful but minor action in the propaganda part of the liberation war – Palestinian national liberation, of course but also part of our own. However it could have had much greater visual impact. Drumcondra Road is on a much-travelled road including for Airport traffic.

The road also carries bus public transport routes from and to various Dublin destinations. There are three possible routes off it for access to Croke Park. We only covered two, one with a minimum presence. The size of the concentration at Clonliffe junction was understandable but unnecessary.

The source of much of this weakness appears to be the very late call-out to the protest – only the day prior for many, possibly most. Yet the NFL game must have been planned for many months.

end.

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Footnotes

Sources & Useful Links:

https://www.rte.ie/news/analysis-and-comment/2025/0928/1535663-is-it-good-economics-to-pay-10-million-for-an-nfl-match

https://www.gameoverisrael.com/en

https://www.facebook.com/IrishSportForPalestine/

1Ireland was raided by Vikings from Scandinavia from 795 CE, they later establishing settlements in Dublin and along the south-east coast, also along the Shannon river and in Cork. Viking power in Ireland was broken by the 1040 CE victory of Brian Boru’s coalition (which included some Vikings, probably Norse) over the Leinster-Dublin coalition of mostly Dublin Danes, Leinster Irish and Viking mercenaries from Manx and Orkneys. The battle lasted 12 hours not far from the Croke Park stadium and part of the Viking mercenaries were caught and killed on their retreat to their ships nearby.

2Three requirements to be met before the Irish Government can send a military mission consisting of more than 12 personnel from Ireland to any part of the world.

3A pejorative term from the Irish language Gaimbín equivalent in meaning to ‘carpet-bagger’, huckster, etc. applied to the Irish neo-colonial (and neo-liberal) capitalist ruling class.

4City regulations forbid drinking of alcohol in any public place.

5Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

6The mostly Christian Zionist alliance that plays a heavy financial role in promotion of candidates for election in the USA.

7Yet in one hour outside the US Embassy or standing at Annesley Bridge the normal count of solidarity car-horn sounds would be in the fifties – among the tide of NFL fans, we just weren’t that visible to approaching traffic.

8There may be more but of those, around a third are now held under ‘administrative detention’ orders, without even the farce of an Israeli military court trial.

9The Irish state, at $3,263.345m is the second-biggest single importer of Israeli goods with only the USA exceeding it. See https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/5/22/which-countries-trade-the-most-with-israel-and-what-do-they-buy-and-sell