Category: Cultural Comment

THE TRICOLOUR: A WEAPON FROM THE MOMENT IT WAS SEWN

On By rebelbreezeIn Cultural Comment, Current Affairs Comment, Internationalist Solidarity, irish history, Irish Republicanism, National Liberation, NATO, Political Analysis, Song, Uncategorized1 Comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 6 mins.)

Recently the Taoiseach1 of the Irish State criticised people protesting the Government’s plans to slide the state into external military alliances of “misappropriating” the Irish Tricolour and, incredibly, even of “weaponising” it.

The Irish tricolour was a weapon from the moment it was sewn – a psychological weapon, laden with political meaning, sewn by French revolutionaries, presented to and flown by Irish Republican revolutionaries from generation to generation.

Painting by Philoppoteaux depicting the revolutionaries of the French 1848 Revolution outside the Paris Town Hall and Lamartine rejecting the Red Flag in favour of the French Republican one. Women participants in this revolution presented the Irish Tricolour sewn in silk to Young Irelanders including Thomas Francis Meagher (Source photo: Wikipeda) [When Paris rose again in 1871 under the Paris Commune, the preference was for the Red flag.]

Prior to the advent of the Tricolour, the Irish Republican flag was typically the gold harp on a green background2 but when a group of Young Irelanders went to Paris in solidarity with the revolution of 1848 there, the Tricolour sewn in silk was presented to them by revolutionary French women.

The symbolism of the Tricolour was firstly in its form; the French Revolution adopted a tricolour in opposition to the monarchist Fleur-de-Lison a blue background and different tricolours became popular as flags of new republics.

In the Irish Tricolour, the ancient Irish and the Norman-Irish, basically Catholics, were represented symbolically by green, with orange for the settlers (after William of Orange) of one sect or another of the Protestant faith; the colour white, symbolised peaceful national unity in an Irish Republic.

And it presented an equal unity, as opposed to the unity of Scotland and Ireland with England but under the clear domination of the latter, as represented in the Union Jack, which incorporates the St. Andrew’s and St. Patrick’s crosses with the English one of St. George.

THE TRICOLOUR UNFURLED IN IRELAND

The Irish Tricolour we know was first unfurled by Thomas Francis Meagher “of the Sword” at the Wolfe Tone Club in Wexford on 7th March 1848 and in Dublin in Lower Abbey Street on 13th April 1848.

Meagher’s nickname was due to his renunciation of the Gombeens of his day trying to deny the right to resort to arms if necessary to win freedom3.

Meagher and other Young Irelanders were arrested around the failed uprising of 1848, just after the worst year of the Great Hunger and, after wide-scale international and domestic protests at the sentences of execution, transported to penal colonies, from which many escaped.

Taking his Republicanism and inclusivity seriously, both in Ireland and abroad, Meagher raised and commanded the Irish Brigade (composed of five regiments4) in the United States, fondly nicknamed Mrs. Meagher’s Own, to fight for the Union against the Confederacy and slavery.

As the years of struggle progressed, the Tricolour took its place among the ranks of Irish Republicans alongside the older Harp on Green or, for some Fenians, the gold or orange Sunburst on a blue background and so it was in the 1916 Rising when it began to be the most chosen.

Other flags were flown during the 1916 Rising also but the Tricolour was one of two erected on the roof of the GPO, headquarters of the Rising and became the most prominent during the War of Independence (1919-1921).

The Irish Tricolour in modern times flying over the General Post Office building in Dublin City’s main street (Source photo: Internet)

During the Irish Civil war by the British-supported, armed and provisioned Free State Army against the Republican movement (1922-1923), it was flown by both sides. Even after the defeat of the Republican movement and repression, it was not immediately named the state’s flag.

Though it was displayed by the Free State when joining the League of Nations in 1923, and denounced by the Republican movement as an usurpation, it did not seem that the new state was too attached to it5 and some Irish ships flew the British Red Ensign until 1939 and WW2.

The first time the Tricolour was formally adopted by the Irish State was in the 1937 Bunreacht (Constitution) which was brought in by De Valera’s Fianna Fáil6 Government and even then it was under a pretence of Republicanism with claim laid to the whole of Ireland.

Display of the Tricolour was suppressed in the Six Counties colony from 1922 and officially banned under the Flags and Emblems Acts (1954). Many a battle was fought with the colonial police by people asserting their right to display it, the Act not being repealed until 1987.7

“A FLAG OF INCLUSIVITY, MISAPPROPRIATED BY A MINORITY”

One must agree with Varadkar that the flag signifies inclusivity and was misappropriated by fascists and other racists in recent years but it is shameful of him to attribute similar exclusivity to Republicans, who in many cases fought those same fascists to which he referred.

Leo Varadkar, current Taoiseach of the Irish Government, who accused protesters for Irish neutrality of “weaponising” the Irish Tricolour (Source photo: Internet)

Not only fought them in recent years but also back in the 1930s, when Irish fascists were called the Blueshirts. Surely Varadgar is familiar with the latter’s history also, since they were one of three reactionary groups that joined to create Fine Gael – yes, Varadkar’s own political party.

And the first Irish Republicans, the United Irishmen, sought the unity of “Catholic, Protestant (Anglican) and Dissenter (other Protestant sects)” for an independent Republic, an ideology carried on by all Republican groups thereafter and given expression in the 1916 Proclamation.

But this is not the first time that people in authority have tried to equate Irish Republicans with fascists, as a few years ago Garda Commissioner Drew Harris issued a press statement in which he accused Republicans of having organised a far-Right demonstration — which he later recanted.

One would think Drew Harris, ex-Assistant Commissioner of the British colonial police force, the PSNI8, well-known for their sectarianism and collusion with the colonial brand of fascism, the Loyalists, would be able to distinguish between Irish Republicans and fascists with ease.

Varadkar is ridiculous in accusing Republicans of “weaponising” the Tricolour since it was always an ideological weapon from the moment of its creation and then eventually used by the State to try, with monumental lack of success, to deny it to Republicans.

But Varadkar is right in that the Irish Tricolour has been misappropriated by a minority; but rather than Republicans, that minority is the Gombeen ruling class, foreign-dependent, neo-liberal, selling out the country’s resources and networks to foreign capitalist monopolies.

And causing homelessness, or rent and mortgage hopelessness, emigration and austerity for the vast majority of the people in the Irish state, both native and immigrant, for the benefit of a tiny minority of parasites incapable of even developing a viable Irish national economy.

Republican groups, like all groups are minorities but so are the elites, though even smaller. But in representation? Republicans, whatever faults they may have from time to time clearly represent a much larger and wider section of society than do the Gombeens.

This has been evidenced by the militant opposition of wide Irish society to triple water taxation and privatisation, repugnance for the celebration of British occupation forces and the wide opposition to joining a military alliance, all projects pushed by the Gombeens in different governments.

The Irish Tricolour has been commented upon in a number of Irish Republican songs, sometimes even in the song title: White, Orange and Green and Green, White and Gold.

Probably it is most appropriately referenced in the chorus of a song directed at the Gombeens, the very minority who have misappropriated it:

Take it down from the mast, Irish Traitors,
It’s the flag we Republicans claim;
It can never belong to Free Staters
For you’ve brought on it nothing but shame9.

End.

The Irish Tricolour that was flown over the GPO in 1916 (Source photo: 1916 Rebellion Tours)

FOOTNOTES

1 Currently Prime Minister of the Coalition Government of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Greens.

2 Flag of the Society of United Irishmen, who led insurrections in 1798 and 1803.

3 Daniel O’Connell’s son intended to force a motion of that kind on the Irish Repeal Association founded by his father and also sought to have the motion passed without debate. O’Meagher said that while he did not exalt violence, neither would he allow his sword to be taken from him in case it should be needed. He and others such as Thomas Davis left the Association at that point and became known as “the Young Irelanders”, first mockingly and later with pride.

4 Including the 69th New York Infantry or “Fitghting 69th”. 7,715 men served in the brigade, 961 were killed or mortally wounded and around 3,000 were wounded. (Wikipedia The Irish Brigade)

5 A 1928 British document said: The government in Ireland have taken over the so called Free State Flag in order to forestall its use by republican element and avoid legislative regulation, to leave them free to adopt a more suitable emblem later. (Wikipedia)

6 The party was a split from the losers of the Civil War of which De Valera had been leader, formed in order to participate in elections for Government and presented itself as Republican. The 1937 Bunreacht also laid claim in Articles 2 & 3 to the whole of Ireland which were removed in

7 During a period of direct rule by the British Government.

8 The colonial gendarmerie, formerly the Royal Ulster Constabulary for the Six Counties, preceded by the Royal Irish Constabulary for the whole of Ireland.

9 Soldiers of ‘22 by Brian Ó hUigín, acclaiming the Republican resistance to the counter-revolution of the Free State during the Civil War.

REFERENCES

History of the Irish Tricolour: https://www.1916rising.com/cms/history/leaders-soldiers-and-poets/history-of-the-irish-flag/#:~:text=Irish%20tricolours%20were%20mentioned%20in,accorded%20the%20flag%20until%201848.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Ireland

THE LENINGRAD CAT

On By rebelbreezeIn Cultural Comment, History, World War TwoLeave a comment

(Translated to Spanish by unknown source and from there to English by D.Breatnach)

(Reading time: 2 mins.)

An amazing history of cooperation between a Russian woman and her cat to survive the starvation of the Nazi siege of Leningrad Sep 8, 1941 – Jan 27, 1944. History presentation in a Saint Petersburg museum.

“My grandmother always said that both she and my mother survived the Siege of Leningrad by the Nazis (1941-1944) thanks to their cat Vaska. If it hadn’t been for that cunning red-furred rascal, they would both have starved, as many others did.”

– Granddaughter and daughter of Vaska’s humans.

An image from the Siege of Leningrad (Sourced: Internet)

“Every day, Vaska would go hunting and bring home a mouse or even a big rat. My grandmother gutted the mice and made stew, while with the rats, she managed to make a good goulash.

“The cat always sat next to her (her grandmother) and waited for her turn to eat. During the night, the three of them got under the same blanket and he lulled them to sleep with his purring.

“The hunger was terrible. Vaska was hungry and skinny, like everyone else. All winter my grandmother saved crumbs for the birds, and when spring came she and Vaska would go hunting for them. She would spread the crumbs and then hide with the cat to ambush them.

(Image sourced: Internet)

“Her pounce was always surprisingly accurate and fast. But Vaska was as malnourished as they were, and he no longer had the strength to kill the bird. So, my grandmother would let him just catch it and then she would come to help him. So, between spring and fall, they only ate birds.

“He was aware of the bombing long before they could hear the noise of the planes. When Vaska began to fidget and meow in anguish, my grandmother knew it was time to take her clothes, water, my mother, and definitely Vaska too, and leave home at a run.

“When they had to run to a bomb shelter, being a member of the family, they would also take Vaska and watch him closely so that no one would take him and eat him.”

“At that point in the war, Vaska was very weak, but present in his family, like his story in Russian museums today. Rats abounded because bombing survivors ate cats. Hence, in the middle of the enemy invasion, plagues of rats were also unleashed that further complicated the scenario.

“When the blockade of the city was finally lifted and food came again, and even after the war, my grandmother always saved the best bits for the cat. She would caress him lovingly saying ‘you are our breadwinner’.

“Vaska died in 1949 and my grandmother arranged to bury him in the cemetery. So that no one would trample on his grave, she put a cross on it where she wrote ‘Vasily Bugrov’.

“When her time came, my mother buried my grandmother next to the cat, and later I buried my mother with them. Today, the three lie together under the same tombstone, as in the war, the three together under the same blanket.”

end.

Note: The Siege of Leningrad cost an estimated 800,000 of the city’s inhabitants, one of the statistics that goes to make the 24,000,000 Russian dead of WW2, of which less than half were military deaths.

The decisive turning point of the War was in Russia and all of Eastern Europe was liberated by the Red Army, though today most people in the West would be under the impression that defeating the Nazis was mainly the work of the USA and the UK.

SPOT THE SHAMROCK

On By rebelbreezeIn Cultural Comment, History, Ireland, Plants, Traditions & Folk CustomLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 2 mins.)

Can you tell which of the clovers growing wild in Ireland is the genuine Shamrock (Seamair óg)?

Now, while it is still in bloom, is a good time to spot the plant, the smaller leaves and the yellow (buí) flower on it is what really distinguishes it from its clover cousins, with their bigger leaves and flowers in white (S. Bhán, T. repens) or pink-red-purple (S. Dhearg, T. Pratense).

How do we know that the Seamair Bhuí (Lesser clover, Trifolium dubium) is the genuine “shamrock”? Well, perhaps we can’t be certain but in the 1890s out of a survey of opinions of people in a still quite traditional Irish society, T. Dubium emerged as the first choice.

The shamrock, Seamair Bhuí/ Trifolium dubium/ Lesser trefoil, about real size, photographed in Dublin city with grass growing through it. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

Amateur botanist and zoologist Nathaniel Colgan (1851-1919) asked people from around Ireland send him specimens of what they believed to be an Irish shamrock, of which the two most common were the yellow clover followed by the white.1

A hundred years later, Dr Charles Nelson repeated the experiment in 1988 and found that yellow clover was still the most commonly chosen.2 According to Wikipeida, the yellow clover is the species nominated by the Department of Agriculture as the “official” shamrock of Ireland.

If you want to pick your own for St. Patrick’s Day, you’ll need to learn to identify it by its leaves because in Ireland it won’t be flowering in March. However, you can spot it now by its flowers and get a mental picture of the size of its leaves to retain in your memory.

THE IRISH AND THE SHAMROCK

What is it with the shamrock and the Irish anyway? The children’s fable of the Christian missionary Patrick using the leaf to explain the Christian Holy Trinity is just that, a fable, although repeated in one of the Wikipedia entries for “shamrock”.

Neither the Celts in general nor the Gaels in particular needed anyone to explain a three-in-one deity, since they had their own pagan trinities (Éiriu, Fódlha, Banba; the Mór-Righean/ Morrigu). Researchers have found no reference to any importance of the shamrock prior to 1681.3

Patrick himself, in what is considered his genuine autobiographical Confessio, never mentioned the shamrock once. My suspicion is that the shamrock-Christian-Trinity fable was fancifully created either by British settlers such as botanist Caleb Threkeld or by native Irish Christians around 1726.4

Although a few sources on line have claimed medicinal properties or druidic use for the shamrock, they never quote the actual original sources which may indicate that the references are undependable or obscure, if they exist at all.

Interestingly, writing a little before the 1798 Rising, Drogheda Presbyterian and United Irishman John Sheil used the shamrock as a reference for a different trinity, i.e that of Catholic, Protestant (Anglican) and Dissenter (all the non-Anglican Protestant denominations).

“ ….. the three-leaved plant ….
It is three in one
To prove its unity
In that community
That holds with impunity
To the Rights of Man.”5

However, green was the colour of the United Irishmen and at times of repression by the occupation forces and the Loyal Orange Order, a sprig of shamrock on St. Patrick’d Day could be a useful way of indicating resistance while also claiming it was a harmless obeisance to a Christian saint.

Nevertheless, even wearing it on St. Patrick’s Day might have been dangerous in some quarters as when The Wearing of the Green reported, in reference to the shamrock, that

“… It’s the most distressful country that you have ever seen
For they’re hanging men and women for the wearing of the Green.”

end.

FOOTNOTES

1https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathaniel_Colgan

2Ibid.

3“Thomas Dinely, an Englishman travelling through Ireland in 1681 noted that people of all distinctions wore crosses to commemorate the saint on this day, but noted that only the vulgar, as he called them, wore shamrock.” https://www.museum.ie/en-IE/News/From-shamrock-and-rosettes-to-Patricks-Pot

4https://www.dib.ie/biography/threlkeld-caleb-a8548

5The Rights of Man, by John Sheils. The air to which it is most commonly sung is that of the Irish Language song Eanach Cuain/ Anach Cuan but I have composed an original air for it and sing it a little faster than the song about that boat sinking tragedy.

SOURCES

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

https://www.dib.ie/biography/threlkeld-caleb-a8548

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

https://www.museum.ie/en-IE/News/From-shamrock-and-rosettes-to-Patricks-Pot

https://droghedalife.com/news/weaver-and-song-writer-john-sheil-the-topic-of-next-walking-tour

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

A Basque Town Remembers Its Bombing by Fascists

On By rebelbreezeIn Anti-Fascism, Cultural Comment, Current Event Report, History commemoration, Spanish Civil War, Spanish State1 Comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

On 26 April 1937, the Basque town of Gernika was bombed during the Spanish Anti-Fascist/ Civil War on the orders of leaders of the military-fascist coup against the elected Government of the Second Spanish Republic. 

The townspeople remember this in an annual candlelit procession.

In the foreground, panels in Gernika with contemporary photos of the bombing destruction; in the background the stage in front of the Kultur Etxea (the Culture Building) with performance. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

Wikipedia gives the numbers of dead as between 150 and 1,650, a huge variance reflecting the politicisation of the historical event very much still in the present.1 The military-fascists were the victors and a four-decade fascist dictatorship ensued, never overthrown but amended in the 1980s.

Another source agrees with the higher figure and points out that a third of the town’s population then of 5,000 inhabitants, were either killed or injured.2

A tradition has grown to mark the bombing with the sounding of a siren at 4pm, the time when the bombing began. The siren sounded this year is a survivor from the Astra handgun factory of the time which strangely, was recently discovered in Catalonia and returned to the town Council.

In the evening, outdoors theatre presentations are held and the town centre is circled in procession by people carrying lit candles, led by a group carrying a giant Basque flag. I was fortunate (and honoured) to be invited by a Basque friend this year to participate in both events.

Four young women ballet dance as part of the performance. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

BOMBING AND LIES

The actual bombing was carried out by external fascist allies, the Nazi German Luftwaffe’s Condor Legion and the Fascist Italian Aviazione Legionaria, under the code-name “Operation Rügen”. It was one of theearliest cases of the mass-bombing by air planes of an urban population.3

It has remained infamous for that reason but also because the Catalan artist Pablo Picasso made a famous painting about the atrocity, though he called it by the Spanish-language name for the town: “Guernica”. Planes also carried out strafing runs over fleeing civilians, shooting them down.

Gernika bombing panel.

As has become a regular facet of fascism, the military-fascists lied, denying culpability. In a more specific kind of fascist lying, they tried to blame the damage on arson by their opponents, i.e by antifascists. An English journalist reporting on the war for the London Times went to investigate.

He was George Steer and provided evidence from bomb fragments and eye-witnesses that the bombing was by fascist planes.

Gernika bombing panel.

Despite the known active support of the fascist countries for the military uprising, the western powers promoted ‘non-intervention’, even blockading assistance to the embattled Republic. The Soviet Union and socialist Mexico were the Republic’s only external allies.

Historians since have argued about whether there was a straightforward military rationale for the bombing or whether it was a question of terrorising the Basque people. It is undeniable that the 26th was a market day and that Gernika was of particular national historical importance to the Basques.

Gernika bombing panel.

Gernika is in the Basque province of Bizkaia, which had joined in with the Second Spanish Republic in opposition to the military-fascist coup attempt, as had Gipuzkoa and Alava provinces – the latter however was taken quite early by fascists.

The remaining Basque province inside the Spanish State (there are another three inside the French state) was Nafarroa (Navarre) where the national Carlist movement was reactionary and joined the fascists, their militias murdering around 1,000 Nafarroan Republicans and Socialists.

Gernika bombing panel.

The military-fascist uprising, supplied hugely with armaments, transport and personnel supplies overwhelmed the isolated Second Republic and all the areas that had stood by the Republic were placed under military occupation, followed by the worst repression of all.

Gernika and surrounding areas were occupied by Spanish, Italian and German troops and the whole Spanish state, after April 1939, entered four decades of dictatorship under General Franco. After a while, resistance broke out in strikes and in armed guerrilla struggle.

Gernika Bombing panel.

But to commemorate the bombing of Gernika in a broad appropriate and popular act only became possible some years after the death of Franco in 1975.

ANNUAL COMMEMORATION

In addition to the public performance of theatre, dance and music, the people bring candles or collect them let and walk in procession around the town, led by a group holding a spread giant Ikurrina (Basque flag).

Small section of the audience. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
The audience become part of the performance as they collect candles to begin the procession around the town. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Section of the parade near the start of the procession. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
These young women stood there with lit candles at the beginning of the procession, perhaps signifying renewal. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

People in various parts of the Spanish State had been pushing for recovering historical memory, commemoration of events and disinterment of mass graves, whether secretly or in the open. In 2017 a number of groups working in historical memory got together in the Gernika Lumo area.

Their intention was to coordinate their efforts so that Gernika would become a focus for considering aspects of justice and peace, not just in the Basque Country but internationally. Among their objectives was the relocation of Picasso’s “Guernica” painting to Gernika itself.4

While the current annual commemoration then has been developing for only five years, work has been going on by constituent groups and others for years before that and, of course, the inspirational events occurred 86 years ago in what some consider the opening stages of WW2.

These commemorative events would be of great importance in any conceivable period but are more so in the current one of the rise once more of fascism across the world.

End.

Unfolding the giant Basque flag. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Half-way around the town centre. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
A male dancer in traditional costume performs the honour dance, the ‘aurresku’, caught here in one of the high kicks that are part of the dance. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
The female dancer in traditional costume also dances the aurresku but not caught performing the high kick here. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Some of the candles returned after the procession. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

FOOTNOTES

1“But, based on the testimony of medical personnel in Guernica on the day and in nearby hospitals that received casualties, the Basque government estimated that 1,645 people were killed and a further 889 injured in the attack.” https://www.lse.ac.uk/canada-blanch/Assets/Documents/media/media2017/27Apr17BBC.pdf

2https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/bombing-of-guernica/

3It is often quoted as the first such case but it wasn’t: On 29 March 1936, Italian Fascist planes bombed the Ethiopian city of Harar. Seeing Gernika as the first may represent a Eurocentric viewpoint. Coincidentally, journalist George Steer covered that war also.

4The painting is permanently on exhibition in Madrid, 422 km. away.

SOURCES & FURTHER READING

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

April 26, 1937: The Bombing of Guernica

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

Link commemoration committee: ​​​​ https://guernicagernikara.eus/memoriaren-lekuko/gernika-lugar-de-la-memoria/

https://www.deia.eus/bizkaia/2023/03/31/gernika-perfila-actos-aniversario-bombardeo-6632888.html

A DANGEROUS DISEASE

On By rebelbreezeIn Creative writing, Cultural Comment, Current Affairs Comment, irish history, Satire3 Comments

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: One min.)

A deadly disease has struck some people in Ireland, affecting tendons in the legs, control of the tongue and causing partial amnesia. By a strange twist, some of those affected are attracted to the very site of the first outbreak of the disease.

The effect on the tendons in the legs of those affected is dramatic: they can no longer stand up straight and find themselves bending a knee or even collapsing on to both knees, the tongue protruding in bizarre licking motion.

Less visible but in many ways more striking is the amnesia effect. Those affected lose memories of parts of what they learned in school or what they themselves thought and said in the past – even in recent years.

According to Dr. P O’Neill of the Institute of Research and Adjustment, a new symptom was observed recently: “Affected people spent four hours staring vacantly at a film of some anachronistic ritual”.

Dr. T.W.Tone, who has been studying similar outbreaks in the past observed on the affinity of the disease for people of higher social classes: “No-one is guaranteed immunity but it does seem that the lower the social class, the less likely the person is to contract this disease.”

Commenting on the low recovery rate of those who contract the disease, Dr. J.Connolly pointed to the crucial importance of prevention, for which community programs of education can be very effective. “We rely especially on Volunteers,” he said, “men and women who are dedicated to preventing the spread of this disease.”

end.

THE 1st of May, INTERNATIONAL WORKERS’ DAY OF STRUGGLE

On By rebelbreezeIn Britain, Cultural Comment, History, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Massacres, Popular Resistance, Workers' StrugglesLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 5 mins.)

Revolutionary greetings on the First of May! It is International Workers’ Day, for recalling of the struggles of working people down the centuries past and of resolution to carry the struggle forward until we succeed in building and defending a socialist society.

On that Mayday too we are aware that in some parts of the world, those wishing to mark the date in public will be subject to intimidation or worse: arrest, baton charge or being fired upon. Possibly even trial and death sentence.

HISTORY OF MAYDAY

The day dates from an incident in Chicago 1886, USA, when trade unions and socialist groups of various kinds organised a campaign in many cities of the USA to exchange the common 10-hour1 working day for the 8-hour day. May 1st was set for the start of the campaign

On May 3rd in Chicago, a city central to the campaign for an eight-hour working day, a demonstration as part of the campaign took place outside the McCormick Harvesting Machine company. The police opened fire on striking workers, killing one of them and injuring many.

The anarchists and anarcho-syndicalists organised a demonstration for May 4th to protest the killing of workers. When the police advanced on the peaceful crowd ordering dispersal, a bomb was thrown at them and police opened fire on the crowd, some of whom returned fire.

Some of the police are believed to have shot some of their colleagues by mistake.

Sixty police were injured and one killed; the police chief gave his opinion that more than that number of demonstrators were injured. The media was mostly hostile and many demonstrators wounded would have feared to attend hospital for fear of arrest or worse by police.

Contemporary engraving of the seven originally sentenced to death (Image: Wikipedia)

Subsequently, amidst a wave of police repression, including raids on union halls and people’s homes, eight Anarchists were framed, charged with conspiracy to murder and convicted. One of them was sentenced to 15 years in jail.

The sentences of Schwab and Fielden were commuted to life imprisonment. Linng took his own life in jail but August Spies, Albert R. Parsons, Adolph Fischer and George Engel were hanged by the Chicago State authorities.

Artist’s impression of the hanging of the four (Image: Wikipedia)

In 1889 the (Second) International Workingmen’s Association, a federation of trade unions and socialist organisations, agreed that in memory of that struggle and its martyrs, the First of May should be marked by all socialists around the world as International Workers’ Day.2

The site of the incident was designated a Chicago landmark in 1992 and a sculpture made in 1893 was dedicated there in 2004. In addition, the Haymarket Martyrs’ Monument was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1997 at the defendants’ burial site in Forest Park.

THE FIRST OF MAY BEFORE THAT

In European agricultural society the First of May was celebrated firstly as a pagan festival and later as an allegedly secular one or named for a Christian saint. It celebrated the coming of summer, of growing of crops and of livestock.

Industrial workers originated in agricultural societies or, in the case of early miners, were located near to such. It was natural that they should participate in such festivals and also even generations later create their own around a similar calendar.

European settlers in the USA, many of them from agricultural societies3, brought those traditions with them. That was probably one of the reasons for the date of the Chicago demonstration, although certainly there had been others on other dates.

MAYDAY IN IRELAND

My father took me as a child on my first Mayday march in Dublin. He was an active member of the NUJ and some members of his union and of others participated in a small march through the city centre led by a brass band.

Returning to Ireland in 2003 after decades working in England and marching there on May 1st, I was disappointed by the very small size of Mayday demonstrations in Dublin, though I participated in some and on at least one occasion as part of a Basque contingent.

The oppositional movement to the status quo in Ireland, because of our history of anti-colonial struggle, is dominated by Irish Republicanism. And though all of that movement’s parts would claim to be socialist too, the First of May is not of great importance in their annual calendar.

This is unfortunate because the mass of Irish workers who are not members of the Republican movement need leadership for their class and also, as it happens, most Irish Republicans are workers. And practically all immigrants are workers too.

While fighting for an independent Ireland, do we as workers want to exchange one group of exploiters for another? And is a struggle for an independent Ireland even remotely winnable without enlisting the working class fighting as a class in its own class interests?

James Connolly thought not and our history since his day has certainly attested to the correctness of his view.

NATIONAL HOLIDAY?

On 1st of May for years I took the day off work – unpaid, of course and went into the centre of London, the city in which I was living and working. My destination was usually Hyde Park Corner and if I was then in an organisation I met up others and if not, just joined in as an individual.

Thousands of people met there to rally and perhaps to march and I was aware that around the world not just thousands, or hundreds of thousands but millions were marking that day also. As a day to recall struggles in their own particular countries and in solidarity with others around the world.

Generally the various organisations and tendencies marched with those of their own affiliation but in the same demonstration, with the exception of the Workers’ Revolutionary Party, which on at least one occasion marched in as everyone was leaving.

The WRP was an extremely internally dictatorial and externally politically sectarian trotskyist organisation that at one time up to the mid 1980s was probably the largest socialist organisation,4 certainly outside the ranks of the Communist Party of Great Britain.

The latter organisation, with the support of some other socialists, many of them left social-democrats, began to push for Mayday to become a national holiday, an objective they achieved in 19785 (followed by the Irish State 15 years later)6.

So now I could go to the demonstrations and not lose pay. Great, right?

No, not really. For a start, the holiday was no longer on May 1st but instead on the nearest Monday to the date. More importantly, people tended to treat it as a holiday rather than a day of international workers’ solidarity. Of course people are entitled to holidays but the essence of the day was gone.

And rather than being larger, the demonstrations grew smaller.

Sculpture made in 1893 known as The Haymarket Martyrs’ Monument (Photo: Wikipedia)

A DAY TO RECALL AND AVOW WORKERS’ STRUGGLE

This is not a day for class collaborationists, politicians or union leaders who try to undermine the struggles, water down demands and act as the ruling class’ police on union activists. It is a date for those at minimum in support of militant resistance.

The essence of the day is what we need to keep. A day upholding our struggle, that of the working class against its exploiters, native and foreign. A day remembering our long history of struggle, of victories and defeats, of sacrifices and why the colour of the workers’ flag is red.

It is a day to remember our internationalist duty of solidarity, not as charity or altruism but as partners in struggle across the world, as on a picket line or demonstration we would shield the person beside us and strike out at the company goon, fascist or policeman attacking us.

And rightfully expect the same from those next to us as we ourselves are the subject of assault.

End.

Current mural in Portugal

Footnotes

1That was for a six-day week and 14-hour days were not unknown and in rural areas, even a seven-day week.

2Five years later, U.S. Pres. Grover Cleveland, uneasy with the socialist origins of Workers’ Day, signed legislation to make Labor Day—already held in some states on the first Monday of September—the official U.S. holiday in honour of workers. Canada followed suit not long afterward.

3That would certainly have included most Irish, Italians, Sicilians and East Europeans in the 19th and early 20th Centuries.

4The WRP was the result of a split in socialist organisations and by the mid-1980s was disintegrating in many smaller organisations. It exists still in name but as shade or sliver of its earlier form.

5May Day became an official public holiday all across the UK in 1978 with provisions for it being made in the Banking and Financial Dealings Act. Prior to that time it had been a holiday only in Scotland. The May Day Bank Holiday was instituted by Michael Foot, then the Labour Employment Secretary to coincide with International Labour Day.

6In the Irish State, the first Monday of May became a public holiday following the Public Holiday Regulations 1993 Act. The holiday was first observed in 1994.

Sources

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

https://www.britannica.com/topic/May-Day-international-observance

One of the songs of the time for an 8-hour day, recorded by Pete Seeger: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVWigCuq83w

SINGING IN THE STREET – IN BASQUE

On By rebelbreezeIn Canción, Cultural Comment, País Vasco, Personal Blog, SongLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 3mins.)

Earlier this month I attended a group singing in Basque, a language of which I only know a few phrases, as we walked through streets of the town of Bermeo, in Bizkaia province of the Basque Country.

I was invited by one of the organisers to whom I had been introduced the previous evening by a Basque friend as we walked on an errand through the narrow streets. At the appointed time and place I met the walking singers and about four guitarists, male and female.

Around 40 mostly women, the majority ranging in age from middle-aged to elderly with a scattering of teenagers met in the Town Hall square. Unusually, the Basque ikurrina (national flag) hung from a flagpole there without the legally-required presence of the Spanish State’s flag.

Singing around the port area

Spanish State law decrees that its flag must accompany any others on or in front of municipal buildings throughout the state, be they Basque, Catalan, Galician or other. And that the State’s flag be elevated higher than the others.

However, the municipal building was damaged by fire, it is not open for ordinary business while being repaired, so …

The singing group, Kanta, Kanta Lorue (‘Sing, Sing, Parrot’) was addressed at some length by a woman, apparently their Secretary or Chairperson with I guessed, from the names of towns and dates, a schedule for the month or so ahead. At least one location named is across the border.1

Each of the participants had a songbook or the lyrics saved into their Iphones or tablets and I was loaned a songbook by my contact, who was one of the guitarists. A local man (who could have been Irish by his features) led the singing with great energy, throwing his whole body into the role.

Picking up the airs, I joined in singing the lyrics in Basque of which, as noted earlier, I speak only a few phrases2. This is quite easily done as, like much of Irish, knowing the sound of the vowels one can read the words without knowing what they mean.

The consonants too are simple (unlike in Irish) providing one remembers that TX is pronounced like the TCH in English and X as SH; the J as the English J (not usually as the Spanish J, pronounced like the Irish lenited C, i.e Ch) and that the H is silent (as in Spanish and French).

Pronunciation of individual words is not the problem but what can be difficult is that the Basques often cram a lot of syllables into one line. At times I laughed helplessly as I stumbled to a halt while the rest of the singers pronounced each word to the air, passing on to the next line without difficulty.

Photo of some of the singing group from their Facebook page which is however unused with part of the port harbour visible behind (and also some banners that seem to be the work of the Amnistia prisoners’ solidarity group).

The group proceeded down to the port where the singing continued outside one tavern, then outside another (some wine and beer glasses appearing in the crowd); from there on to the central park area, stopping outside two more pubs.

I am given to understand that the themes of the songs were a mixture, as on might expect, of love for the land, the people, romantic love, seafaring and a few of opposition to foreign occupation and fascism (without naming any names!).

Sometimes the singing included some doing harmonies and once of different sections of the group singing one line behind the others.

Recovering from being unwell and feeling tired, I enquired politely how many more stops we were due to make. “Only a few more” I was assured but it soon became clear that I was being teased, this was the last stop. And here one of the guitarists was urged to play and sing an Irish song in English.

After a little reluctance, he did so and it turned out to be The Wild Rover3 ballad. I sang along and soon took over the verses as, to my surprise, I recalled lyrics I had not sung in probably over two decades, with some of the ensemble joining in on the chorus. Then it was agur, gabon and etxera.

There are around 140 such singing groups throughout the Basque Country, one of the participants told me, some meeting monthly, some more often and others still only on special occasions (such as local festivals). The accompanying instruments too may vary.4

The occasion was an enjoyable one for me and seemed so for the other participants, who take to the local streets one evening a month. This is an activity we in Ireland could easily emulate: we have probably many more songs (at least in English) and likely more musicians than do the Basques.

End.

Footnotes

1The Basque Country consists of seven (zazpi) provinces (zazpiak bat = ‘the seven [are] one’), three currently in the French state and four currently in the Spanish state.

2Although my mother was born and raised in the Basque Country, neither she nor her mother spoke the language and her father was German. The language was forbidden during the Franco dictatorship of four decades and her part of the family may not have had much Basque nationalist feeling. As a result, the language I learned from my mother is Castilian Spanish, with which I can converse with Basques from the Spanish state, though I try to use whatever Basque I have learned since. Hori da.

3In case there should be others, this is the one with the opening line of I’ve been a wild rover for many’s the year … Although it has been in the Irish repertoire for centuries, it’s actual national origin is unclear.

4For example, the Taberna Ibilitaria group in Bilbao includes acoustic and electric guitars, txistu (3-hole Basque flute), ordinary 6-hole flute or whistle (which they call “Irish”), piano accordion, trikitsa (small diatonic accordion) and pandera (small open one-sided drum like the tambourine but without the ringing pieces).

GAELSCOIL PUPILS PROTEST “THE CHAOS” IN IRISH LANGUAGE TEACHING

On By rebelbreezeIn Cultural Comment, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Education, Ireland, Irish Language1 Comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time main text: 6 mins.)

Hundreds of primary and secondary school students demonstrated on 29th April outside the Irish Parliament, to protest the decisions on the Irish language curriculum and lack of State support for education through the Irish language.

Teenagers and younger, many in their school uniforms, led by a few organisers, shouted slogans and some carried placards and banners. There was a sprinkling of a few older adults in their midst also, some long-time campaigners for the Irish language in society.

Primary and secondary school pupils attended from at least six colleges, all Gaelscoileanna, i.e those where instruction in all subjects (except English) is through Irish. Led in by an adult and spontaneously, they chanted slogans such as: Tír gan teanga, tír gan anam!

Confirmed in attendance were pupils from schools in three counties: Coláiste Íosagáin and Coláiste Eoin, from South Co. Dublin; Coláiste na Mara (Co. Wicklow); Coláiste Rachrann (North Dublin), Coláiste Chill Dara (Co. Kildare).

Julian de Spáinn, General Secretary of Conradh na Gaeilge (Gaelic League), a state-funded organisation for the promotion of the Irish language, speaking in Irish, said that the education system is “broken in relation to the Irish language.”

“A comprehensive policy needs to be developed for Irish within the education system from pre-school to third level”, De Spáinn stated. Irish within the education system has been surrounded by controversy in recent years from teachers, parents, students and language organisations.

Concretely, De Spáinn called for the immediate establishment of a working committee “composed of people who understand Irish within the education system and that have experience of it.” He said that the specifications and syllabus for the Junior and Senior Cycles are “nonsensical”.

He went on to claim that more than 90% of those teaching the Senior Cycle are unhappy with it and went on to criticise Minister Foley’s decision to move Paper 1 of the Irish exam for the Leaving Certificate to the fifth year (although its implementation has now been delayed).

In addition to criticising the lack of Gaelscoileanna throughout the state, De Spáinn stated that the exemptions from Irish language study are “out of control” and that pupils with special needs were not receiving the necessary service that they may be facilitated in studying Irish at school.

(Photo: D.Breatnach)
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
(Photo: D.Breatnach)

Shane Ó Coinn, Chairperson of An Gréasán do Mhúinteoirí Gaeilge, the website for teachers of Irish, stated that Irish in the education system was suffering, for which the main cause is that the Education Department had ignored the opinions of teachers and of pupils.

“It is clear from the results of SEALBHÚ”, he continued, “that an oral examination in the third year is urgently needed, the marks for which should account for 40% of the total.”

Gráinne Ní Ailín, officer of the Irish Union of Post-Primary Students, said that an integrated approach of the education authorities was missing and that a proposal from one agency was conflicting with another.

“On the one hand, the Education Minister is intent on moving Paper 1 of Irish to the fifth year, while the state agency, the National Council for Curriculum and Measurement is working on changing the entire curriculum specifications for the Leaving Certificate.”

“It is not possible to carry out both actions simultaneously,” Ní Ailín said and recommended taking a step back and putting together a comprehensive plan.

Pictiúr: Leon Farrell / Photocall Ireland

Status of the Language in the Irish State

Many may be surprised to know that Irish is not only an official language in the Irish state but, according to the Constitution, the language of first status. Nevertheless, Irish-speakers have become a minority in the state and the Irish-speaking areas are all shrinking.

Despite the official position of the State and which Governments and civil servants are obliged to support nominally, many people report a lack of services through Irish at all levels of State and in public services, with even official public notices in Irish often garbled or even incorrect1.

In the 1960s and ‘70s it was only through campaigns including civil disobedience and supporters being fined or even jailed that the State provided an Irish-language radio station and a TV channel and legislation obliged State departments to provide services through Irish on request.

When the Irish state joined the EU (formerly EEC) it did not request that Irish be an official language of the organisation but it became so on 31st December 2021 — and may well reveal a large gap in availability of translators.

The Gaelscoil (school teaching through Irish) movement may be said to be the only visible success for the language within the territory of the Irish state but, as the protests and many other factors reveal, it has struggled against the State system of which it is a part.

In 2020-’21 academic year, there were 152 Gaelscoileanna outside the Gaeltachtaí (Irish-speaking areas), with at least one or two in each county and catering for 7% of all children at that level outside the Gaeltachtaí in the Irish state.2

Out of 700 post-primary education facilities in the Irish state outside the Gaeltachtaí only 29 are Gaelcholáistí, or 2.8% of the total. Ten of those are in Co. Dublin, four in Co. Cork and some other counties have one or at most two.

But twelve counties out of the 26 in the Irish state do not have even one Gaelcholáiste (post-primary level), i.e. approaching half of the counties in the state.3 In a tragic irony, this includes Co. Clare, from which the Irish-speaking Aran Islands are believed to have been colonised4.

In addition there are some units and streams teaching through Irish in other schools and colleges but of course outside of the classroom, even within the school, the dominant environment is an English-language one.

Twenty-eight Gaelcholáistí, representing 18% of total Gaelscoileanna are DEIS, i.e addressing educational disadvantage integratedly. Although 31% of Gaelcholáistí are of Catholic ethos, 69% are multi-nominational or non-denominational.

However, outside the Gaeltachtaí, even with fully-immersive Gaelscoileanna, how is daily use of the language in society to be promoted when the pupils find themselves surrounded by exclusively English language in their lives outside the school gates?

The Irish Language in the Colony

The British colony in Ireland (incorrectly named “Northern Ireland”) from its creation in May 1921 was hostile to the Irish language, as indeed it was to all expressions of ethnic Irish culture. Unionist MPs openly mocked the Irish language even inside their parliament.

Nevertheless following substantial pressure, its parliament passed the Identity and Language (Northern Ireland) Act 2022, giving the language a legal status within the colonial statelet5.

However, as we have seen even in the Irish state, legal status is not necessarily followed by appropriate implementation and unionists have thrown up obstacles against even the erection of bilingual street names within the colony.

(Photo: Leon Farrell/ Photocall Ireland)

Comment

The Irish language has been a part of all movements for national independence of Ireland. The occupier sought to ban its use among its colonisers and degraded its importance and use in all legal, educational and religious spheres.

Though the Irish state formally defended and promoted Irish, it presided over huge emigration for most of its existence. This combined with lack of development of the rural Irish-speaking areas encouraged a drift away from Irish for those whose language it had been at home.

Despite the activity of earnest individuals no major political party in practice moves itself energetically to promote the language. It is not required of their members or even representatives and none run any major language acquisition program – even for their own members6.

The same is true of all Irish Left and Republican political parties and organisations at this time.

Most advances have been won by political activism and the work of volunteers, across a number of parties and none. The movement continues to call on the State to put its money where its mouth is, as the saying goes, or the equivalent in Irish, to commit “beart de réir a bhriathair.”7

Footnotes

1The State used incompetent translation for its Irish language version of its video on the 100th anniversary of the 1916 Rising. The whole video was withdrawn after wide-scale criticism of even the general content in English. Notices urging people to remain safe from Covid, when translated to Irish urged them instead to be saved!

2https://www.gov.ie/pdf/?file=https://assets.gov.ie/238364/41130d3c-23fa-4dc4-a8a5-12b58a00fc84.pdf#page=null

3Ibid.

4There are a number of indicators for this instead of from Conamara but one is the pronunciation of the lenited M followed by a broad vowel, which would sound like a W in Conamara but a V in the Aran Islands. This Clare dialect can be seen in place-names extending into Co. Galway, for example Cinn Mhara pronounced Kinvara (it would be pronounced Kinwara in Conamara).

5Even then, to placate Unionist opposition, it had to share equal space with the promotion of Ulster Scots dialect, widely known to be spoken in actuality by less than tens of people.

6This is true even of Sinn Féin, the political party most in support of the Irish language. Their activity in its support within the Irish state comes nowhere near matching the same within the Six County colony, suggesting that for them the Irish language is principally a useful stick with which to beat their Unionist opposition.

7 “Action in accordance with their words.”

Sources

Na céadta ag Teach Laighean ag éileamh go dtabharfaí aghaidh ar chás na Gaeilge sa chóras oideachais – Tuairisc.ie

‘The State invests in something that’s then lost at secondary school’: The challenges for Gaelscoileanna (thejournal.ie)

What are Gaelscoileanna? | Gaelscoil | Teaching Wiki (twinkl.ie)

Statistics : Gaelscoileanna – Irish Medium Education

https://www.gov.ie/pdf/?file=https%3A%2F%2Fassets.gov.ie%2F238364%2F41130d3c-23fa-4dc4-a8a5-12b58a00fc84.pdf&fbclid=IwAR3WpEBw3fV_tBQEQvuA6Kyzw90M_z9-Cn0PtlqWlqwCWOr_F98ziZbIX6w#page=null

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identity_and_Language_(Northern_Ireland)_Act_2022#:~:text

FOR A SOCIALIST REPUBLIC, AGAINST THE FREE STATE, ENGLAND AND NATO

On By rebelbreezeIn 1916 Rising, Anti-Fascism, Anti-War, British imperialism, Cultural Comment, Current Event Report, History commemoration, Ireland, irish history, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, National Liberation, NATO, Peace Process, Song, US Imperialism, World War One1 Comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time main text: 6 mins.)

On Sunday participants in a 1916 Rising Commemoration organised by the Irish organisation Anti-Imperialist Action were harassed by police as they gathered to march to the Irish Citizen Army Republican plot in Glasnevin Cemetery.

Six political police in plain clothes walked among those gathered beside Phibsborough shops demanding names and addresses of the participants, most of whom were fairly young. Four uniformed Gardaí also stood nearby and a Public Order Unit van parked at the cemetery entrance.

The participants declined to be intimidated and set off on their march, led by a lone piper playing Irish marching airs, followed by a colour party with different banners interspersed among the marchers, among which fluttered many flags.

Organisers had learned that the coach carrying members of the Republican Flute Band from Scotland that was to lead the parade had been prevented by police there from taking the ferry to Ireland.

Centre photo: Four of the six plainclothes political police violating the civil rights of the peaceful people commemorating the Easter Rising. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Centre photo, another two plainclothes political police. The bald man joked while he harassed people. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
(Photo: D.Breatnach)

Historical background

In 1916 a broad alliance the Irish Volunteers, Irish Citizen Army, Cumann na mBan, na Fianna Éireann and Hibernian Rifles1 took part in a Rising organised by the Irish Republican Brotherhood against British rule in Ireland and against world war.

Due to a number of unfortunate circumstances, the leader of the Volunteers cancelled the Rising which however went ahead a day later than planned and was for the most part confined to Dublin, where a third of the numbers in the original plan took part and fought for a week.

The occupying British Army shelled the city centre from a gunship in the river Liffey and also from artillery on land. Explosions and resulting fires destroyed much of the city centre including the General Post Office in the main street, which had been the headquarters of the insurrection.2

After a week with the city centre including the GPO in flames, the rebel garrison evacuated to Moore Street where the following day, surrounded and vastly outnumbered, the decision was taken to surrender.3 A British military court passed death sentences on nearly a hundred prisoners.

All but fifteen of those sentences were commuted to long jail periods but the seven Signatories of the 1916 Proclamation4 and another seven were shot by British firing squad in Dublin, a fifteenth in Cork and after trial months later a sixteenth was hanged in Pentonville Jail, London.

At Easter 1917 Irish Republican and Socialist women commemorated the 1916 Rising; ever since then Irish Republicans and sometimes Socialists in Ireland and in many parts of the diaspora have commemorated the Rising, whether legally5 or otherwise, in jail or at liberty.

The War of Independence began in 1919 with many of the Rising’s survivors participating6.

(Photo: D.Breatnach)
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
(Photo: D.Breatnach)

The Parade on Sunday – local and national historical memory marked

At Cross Guns Bridge over the Royal Canal the parade halted and flares were lit in memory of events there in 1916.

Marching along the Cabra Road, the wall and a watchtower of the north side of Glasnevin Cemetery on the left of photo. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

On Easter Monday 1916 a small group of Irish Volunteers had marched from Maynooth along the canal bank to join the Rising in Dublin and found guarding the bridge two Irish Volunteers who advised them to wait until the following day to go into the city centre.

The Maynooth group spent the night in Glasnevin and the following day marched into the GPO, passing an empty Cross Guns Bridge on the way. Back towards Phibsborough, British artillery had blown a barricade and killed Seán Healy, a Fianna member at the Nth. Circular Road crossroads.

Later, the Dublin Fusiliers unit of the British Army blockaded the bridge, preventing people from crossing it in either direction. They shot dead a deaf local man who failed to heed their challenge because he did not hear it.

We Serve Neither King nor Kaiser but Ireland declared one banner carried last Sunday, Britain/NATO Out of Ireland another, This Is Our Mandate7, Our Republic and Collusion Is No Illusion, It Is State-Sponsored Murder were another two.

A large banner also declared alongside the image of James Connolly that Only Socialism Can Be the Solution for Ireland. Some organisations also carried their own banners, such as those of Dublin Independent Republicans, Ireland Anti-Internment Campaign and Irish Socialist Republicans.

Flags fluttering included those bearing the logo of the organising group Anti-Imperialist Action and others bearing the slogan “Always Anti-Fascist”, green-and-gold Starry Ploughs, a couple of Ikurrinak (Basque flags) and another two of Red with Hammer & Sickle in yellow.

Basque and antifascist flags (Photo: D.Breatnach)

At the Monument: speeches and songs

At the monument (Photo: D.Breatnach)

Glasnevin Cemetery (Reilig Ghlas Naíonn) covers over 120 acres in North Dublin city and is in two parts, each with Republican Plots separated by the Cabra Road and contains the graves of both famous and ordinary people.

On the north side there is also access to the Botanic Gardens, both on the south banks of the Tolka river. The imposing Monument to numerous Republican uprisings and the Irish Citizen Army Republican plot is on the south side, across the pedestrian bridge over the railway line.

(Photo: D.Breatnach)

A man chaired the event for Anti-Imperialist Action and spoke briefly, introducing people for readings (all of which were from James Connolly) and for orations. The presentations of these were evenly divided between men and women, three of those being of young people.

Three songs were sung: a woman sang The Foggy Dew (by Charles O’Neill) and Erin Go Bragh (by Peadar Kearney), while a man sang Patrick Galvin’s Where Is Our James Connolly? Two women read out pieces by James Connolly and another read out the 1916 Proclamation.

Person chairing the event (Photo: D.Breatnach)

The words of the chairperson and of those giving orations were different but there were common themes: upholding the historic Irish spirit of resistance, the importance of the working class in history and the objective of a socialist Republic encompassing the whole of the Irish nation.

These words were balanced by denunciation of US and British imperialism and the colonial/ NATO occupation of the Six Counties by the latter; the Irish client regime; the special no-jury courts8 of both administrations in Ireland and repression by police forces and occupation army.

One of the singers (Photo: D.Breatnach)
One of the readers (Photo: D.Breatnach)
One of the readers (Photo: D.Breatnach)

Also denounced were those political parties that had abandoned the struggle for the Republic and instead had become part of the colonial and neo-colonial administrations or, in the latter case, were on their way to becoming so.9

Floral tributes were laid by representatives of a number of announced organisations and then others came forward to lay floral tributes also. The colour party lowered flags for a minute’s silence in homage and salute before slowly raising them again and the piper played Amhrán na bhFiann.

The other singer
Lowering of the colour party flags in homage to the fallen in the struggle (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Colour party raises flags again in symbolism of the struggle continuing (Photo: D.Breatnach)

The chairperson thanked all for attendance, listing organisations by name and cautioning all to stay close together as they left, due to the threatening presence of Gardaí and in particular the Public Order Unit. In the event, the celebrants exited the cemetery and dispersed without incident.

End.

(Photo: D.Breatnach)
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
(Photo: D.Breatnach)

FOOTNOTES

1A small unit, an armed wing of a split from the more socially conservative USA version of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, their participation in the Rising was notable.

2Photos of much of the destruction are available on the Internet and accessible by search browser.

3The terrace they occupied still stands and is the object of a historical memory and conservation struggle against property speculator plans approved by the municipal city managers and Government political parties (see smsfd.ie).

4A remarkable document, the text of which is available from many postings on the Internet.

5Irish women commemorated it in public in contravention of British WWI martial legislation in 1917 and 1918 and for decades the public commemoration of the 1916 Rising (and even the flying of the Irish Tricolour) was forbidden in the British colony of the Six Counties with attendant colonial police attacks on any attempt to do so.

6Sometimes inaccurately called “the Tan War” (reference to a special colonial police auxiliary force that became known as the “Black n’ Tans”), the war saw the birth of the IRA and lasted from 1919-1921. A British “peace” proposal opened deep divisions in the nationalist coalition and was followed by a Civil War 1922-1923, in which the pro-Treaty government and armed forces were armed and supplied by the British to defeat the Republicans in a campaign of repression and jailing, military actions, kidnapping and torture, murder of prisoners, assassinations and over 80 formal executions.

7Also displaying text referring to the First Dáil’s Democratic Program of 1919.

8The Diplock court in the colony and the Special Criminal Courts in the Irish State, political special courts in all but name, with low proof bar and abnormally high conviction rate and refusal of bail while awaiting trial.

9References to 1) the 1930s split from the Sinn Féin party, the Fianna Fáil political party that became a preferred Government party of the foreign-dependent Irish ruling bourgeoisie and 2) to the Provisional Sinn Féin party who endorsed the British pacification plan in 1998 and embarked on the road to becoming a party of reformist nationalism in the colony and is heading for neo-colonial (and neo liberal capitalist) coalition government at the moment.

(Photo: D.Breatnach)
(Photo: D.Breatnach)

DAMIEN DEMPSEY DRAWS DEEP FROM THE HOLYWELL

On By rebelbreezeIn Cultural Comment, Current Event Report, Imperialism, Ireland, irish history, Performance Review, Song, Song in StruggleLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 2 mins.)

The stage production of Tales From the Holywell, written and performed by Damien Dempsey, is currently running at the Abbey until the 18th – and possibly beyond. Once advertised it was booked out for three weeks (with possible access through cancellations).

It was through cancellations that I and a few others faithfully waiting got in to see the performance on the 7th (it was closed on the bank holiday of the 6th). I really enjoyed it and cried laughing at times.

The whole audience gave him a standing ovation at the end and joined in singing one of his songs during his encore.

The stage set was bare and without background, with stage lighting showing Dempsey alone at times and at others, revealing players of keyboard, violin, double bass and percussion. Dempsey accompanied himself, alternating between two guitars.

The production consisted of Dempsey talking about his upbringing, his difficulties with his father but with whom he went to live when his mother left home, childhood and adolescent battles, his struggles and desires as an artist – all interjected with humorous cracks and songs.

He comes across as a man committed to his art and with integrity.

Dempsey performing at Abbey Theatre (Photo sourced: Internet; audience photos were prohibited)

Dempsey was raised in Holywell Crescent, a collection of local authority houses constructed on the site of an ancient holy freshwater well. This was one of probably thousands of wells across Ireland, each thought to be inhabited by a pagan spirit and then given a saint’s name by Christianity.

The well after which Dempsey’s street was named was St. Donagh’s Well (probably misnamed, see Links below) near Killbarrack and as the area became anglicised, called only “the Holy well”, then “Holywell” and the pool itself filled in and built over.

Whether he can speak it or not I have no idea but the Irish language made an appearance from time to time in Dempsey’s narrative, always with respect and, one might say, even reverence. And I was amazed to hear him sing a verse from An Cúlfhionn a capella, totally in Irish.

His song Colony – some might say masterpiece – gives a clear indication of what Dempsey feels about the long colonisation of Ireland and its parallels elsewhere in the world. I hoped he might take the opportunity to comment on the growing racist mobilisations in Ireland but was disappointed.

Dempsey performing (Photo sourced: Internet)

Conor McPherson directed the production which was written and performed by Damien Dempsey.

Apart from Dempsey’s, other music was provided by Lucia McPartlin (fiddle, vocals), Aura Stone (double bass) and Courtney Cullen (drums, percussion, vocals). I noted no name given in the theatre program for the keyboard and vocals performer.

I’m a great fan of Damo’s lyrics but less so of his singing; a question of musical and cultural taste, I suppose. But still I rose, wholeheartedly with the rest, to applaud his performance.

Whether its run will be extended I don’t know but currently it’s advertised to end on 18th February. If you haven’t booked, it’s well worth getting there early and hoping for a cancellation.

End.

Damien Dempsey discography

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St. Donagh’s Well · Ireland’s Holy Wells County-by-County (omeka.net)