As the northern hemisphere turned eastwards and the majority western calendar turned to a new year, it has been customary for people to wish one another a ‘Happy New Year’, not just for the first day of January but for the twelve months to come.
Although the Celtic New Year will not begin until the first of February, and the new year begins with “teacht an Earraigh … tar éis na Féile Brighde”, I have done likewise but with deep feelings of ambivalence.
Because facing us as 2026 progresses is genocide in some parts of the world, growing fascism in some other parts, tighter squeezes on working people, smaller proxy wars and, almost certainly, a larger war, with desperate migrations of people, if surviving death to find racism and exploitation.
Faced with armed occupation and genocide, armed resistance is justified and arguably necessary, even were it not established as a right within the Geneva Convention. But even unarmed and peaceful resistance is being penalised and repressed, including in the ‘Western democracies.’
Support and solidarity organisations are being outlawed, people expressing legitimate opinions against genocide, racism, ethnic cleansing and armed occupation supported by those ‘democracies’ are being hounded in their jobs and private lives, beaten and arrested by police and even shot dead.
But where there is oppression there is also resistance. The struggles against the racist and genocidal entity, though supported in arms, finance and politically by the Western ‘democracies’ have awoken people in those countries to solidarity action in the face of their governments’ opposition.
(Cartoon by D.Breatnach)
Hugely important lessons have been learned: about the nature of the Zionist state, about the collusion of the ‘democracies’ in colonial occupation and genocide, about ‘the independence of the judiciary’ and the ‘free press’, along with the partiality and ineffectiveness of ‘international law’.
And also about the ineffectiveness of liberal opinion and organisations, even in their heartlands of the ‘democracies’, to achieve meaningful change or even stop the repression. And about how the State knows this and reacts most violently against direct solidarity action.
Organic links have become clear between war in Yemen and Somalia, the spread of Islamist jihadism and imperialism, between prison struggles in Palestine, Britain and Ireland, between the troubles of the world and much of their origins among the colonial and imperial powers.
Yes, where there is repression, there is also resistance and our duty lies in feeding that resistance in all the ways that we can, including being visible in protests at their trials and supporting them in jail. And impeding our ruling class’ attempts to tie us to NATO or other military alliance.
So what I wish for is an increase in the militant resistance of the masses and greater unity in struggle, simultaneously with greater disunity among the imperialist states and ruling classes, bringing us closer to the kind of world we need.
I wish that for us all throughout 2026.
End.
Note: If you found this article of interest, why not register with Rebel Breeze for free, so that you will be notified by email of subsequent articles. You can de-register any time you wish.
Five people sitting down to a meal were surprised by a knock on the door of their residence. What followed amounted to an hours-long Garda siege ending in arrests and the residents and supporters gathering outside being pepper-sprayed and beaten.
A housing activist who has witnessed many evictions said it was the most violent eviction they had ever seen.
A house empty for many years in the Phibsboro area had been occupied by around four people who invited a fifth to share a meal on Monday 15 December. As they were about to sit down to eat the Gardaí arrived and told the occupants that they were criminally trespassing.
The occupants explained that they had been living in the building for some time and had keys, so any accusation of trespass would be of a civil kind requiring court orders and not at all a criminal one on which Gardaí are empowered to act. The Gardaí however remained and more arrived.
Local people responding to a call for support against an illegal eviction began to arrive as did more Gardaí until there were around 13 Garda vehicles present, including the Public Order Unit; a number of attempts to batter the door down were made which were however unsuccessful.
People protesting what appeared to be an illegal eviction were pushed and shoved by Gardaí and after a while also pepper-sprayed and batoned. After some hours had elapsed the police succeeded in smashing a back window and battering down an internal door, gaining access to the building.
The people inside raised their hands to indicate no resistance being offered (some were reportedly even sitting down) but allege that they were nevertheless pepper sprayed and beaten. Four were dragged out to Garda vehicles and the remaining person was violently assaulted again.
The road outside had by this time been cleared by the Gardaí. The five arrested were taken to a police station where at least some, male and female, allege they were stripped and cavity searched, measures totally inappropriate in this kind of arrest or similar.
It will be recalled that a number of Mothers Against Genocide group protesting outside Leinster House complained of the same during their detentions in Dublin in June although the Government’s spokesperson denied to some TDs that this had occurred.
That same week anti-NATO peaceful protesters had also been pepper-sprayed and the ankle of one broken by Gardaí while a Palestine solidarity activist at DCU was dragged to the ground, with allegations of strip-searching among those too.
Video by Anti-Imperialist Action outlining the source of Dublin’s housing crisis.
All five residents of the house were charged with offences including causing fear (!) and criminal damage, kept in custody overnight and brought to court, where they were released on bail to return to court at a date in the New Year.
GARDAÍ HELPING MAINTAIN HOMELESSNESS
This Garda operation and abuse of legal powers took place in the context of the highest recorded number of homeless to that date, with 16,600 people in emergency accommodation, including morethan 5,200 children and over 4,600 women,1not counting those sleeping on the street.
And with well over a hundred thousand buildings lying empty,2 a situation constituting a paradise for property speculators, vulture funds, banks and big landlords – but misery for thousands renting, struggling with a mortgage, in unsuitable accommodation, sofa-surfing or on the street.
Indeed, the property at which the Garda violent eviction took place was reportedly empty for many years before its occupation.
A couple of years ago a group called the Revolutionary Housing League occupied empty Dublin buildings and called for people across Ireland to do the same. Sadly, their call was not followed and Gardaí mobilised huge operations including helicopters to evict a handful of occupants.
Three chief Irish Government Ministers some years past (one still in place) and Gardaí photoshopped on to 18th Century eviction scene in Ireland (original photoshopping of Gardaí by Spice Bag). (Image sourced: Internet)
HUMILIATION AND VIOLENCE
Strip and cavity-searching are demeaning psychological and physical invasions and should have no place in most policing actions. Even in jail, an x-ray chair is available. However strip-searching has been a constant over the years in use against political prisoners.
As violent and degrading actions become normalised in political repression they will be extended further, spreading to all kinds of policing operations.
Cartoon by D.Breatnach
Gardaí normalising the use of pepper-spraying against Palestine solidarity and anti-NATO direct action activities are now extending this to other types of activities of which they disapprove, even those in the sphere of civil law and outside criminal law.
As the State increases its repression, the democratic and revolutionary movements will need to increase their resistance, calling also for the active solidarity of wider society with the victims and in condemnation of the State and its police force.
End.
Note: If you found this article of interest, why not register with Rebel Breeze for free, so that you will be notified by email of subsequent articles. You can de-register any time you wish.
The Save Moore Street from Demolition campaign group gratefully accepted an invitation to participate in the Comrade Corner on Sunday 3rd January in order to spread the word about the campaign and to make further contacts.
The Comrade Corner is part of the Libertine Market Crawl that takes place on the first Sunday of each month 12-5pm and is spread through a number of pubs, mostly in the Liberties area of north Dublin city: The 4th Corner, Dudley’s, Lucky’s, Molly’s Barand Peadar Brown’s.
Front of the Peadar Brown’s pub building, Clanbrassil Street. (Photo: R. Breeze)
The Comrade Corner’s section of the monthly market take place upstairs in the Peadar Brown’s pub, open to campaigning and community groups to book a table to promote their campaign or group on which they had campaign leaflets, a QR to sign on line and campaign badges.
The latter represented a grotesque on the roof of No.55 Moore Street, missing wingtips shot off by a British bullet during the battle there in 1916.
Two of a number of visitors tothe Comrade Corner engaging with the Save Moore Street From Demolition campaign stall at which campaign activist Orla Dunne is seated. (Photo: R. Breeze)
“Over the 12 years of our group’s existence campaigning on the street we have engaged in outreach work often enough,” said one of the two staffing their table in Peadar Brown’s, “including taking our banner to protest marches, giving talks, interviews and conducting history tours.”
The group has been campaigning with a weekly Saturday table for conservation and against demolition in Moore Street since September 2014. “We want to see a busy street market with small independent shops, not chain stores,” said Orla Dunne, also staffing their table in Peadar Brown’s.”
One of the team staffing the Darragh Ó Faoláin stall in Comrade Corner. (Photo: R. Breeze)
“And the history of the 1916 Battleground properly commemorated,” she went on to say, alluding to the fact that of the Seven Signatories of the Proclamation, no less than five spent their last hours of freedom in the Moore Street houses before taking the painful decision to surrender.
Those were Patrick Pearse, James Connolly, Tom Clarke, Seán Mac Diarmada and Joseph Plunkett, all shot by firing squad, along with Willie Pearse, also late of Moore Street as were another ten prominent figures, including Roger Casement, though hanged in Pentonville Jail somewhat later.
The team staffing the Statue of Pearse by the GPO campaign stall in Comrade Corner. (Photo: R. Breeze)
The GPO Garrison had left the burning building on the Friday of Easter Week and, heading to relocate at the Williams and Woods factory, got only as far as Moore Street before they came under intense machine-gun and rifle fire from the encircling British forces in Parnell Street.
Pausing to take a breath and plan their next moves, around 300 men and women occupied the whole central terrace (Nos.12-25), tunnelling through the walls, along with some other buildings. The leader of a failed charge on the British barricade died in a lane now named O’Rahilly Parade.
As he lay dying he wrote a farewell letter to his wife and children, the magnified script reproduced on an impressive monument in the lane-way.
The current Hammerson plan includes at least seven years of construction on the site (with no food stalls possible meanwhile), a new street cut through the 1916 Terrace to O’Connell Street, a hotel in Moore Lane and a Metro entrance in O’Rahilly Parade additional to the O’Connell Street one.
INSIDE PEADAR BROWN’S
The Peadar Brown’s stall in Comrade Corner. (Photo: R. Breeze)
People drifted into the upstairs room in twos and threes, stopping at some or all of the stalls to examine the literature or merchandise on display and to chat to some of the groups. In addition to SMSFD’s, Peadar Brown’s had their own merchandise of badges and T-shirts.
Also selling merchandise within that range was a revolutionary anti-fascist stall, while another table was held by a group campaigning for the erection of a monument to Patrick Pearse in O’Connell Street, near to the GPO where he was located in 1916 before evacuation to Moore Street.
T-shirts merchandise near the Darragh Ó Faoláin Stall in Comrade Corner. (Photo: R. Breeze)
It was notable that the latter group also directed people to the SMSFD group’s table. Many of the visitors had origins outside Ireland, a sector for which perhaps this kind of event would be more usual. How did the SMSFD team feel their table had done for their hours there?
“We did alright,” said Dunne, “though it wasn’t very busy today.” “If we had boosted our online petition signatures alone, which we did, it would have been worth it,” said Breatnach. “Besides, I always wanted to see the famous Pub,” added Dunne, smiling.
Mural on the side of the Peadar Brown’s building. (Photo: R. Breeze)
Much artwork of an Irish Republican nature decorates the inside of the pub downstairs, including a mural along the wall behind the small stage area. The Irish Tricolour, Starry Plough and ‘Irish Republic’ flags hang from the exterior along with anti-racist posters in the outside drinking area.
Last year officials in Dublin City Council sought unsuccessfully to have Peadar Dunne’s remove the large Palestine flag painted on the side of their building. It has a reputation not only as an Irish Republican pub but also of decidedly internationalist solidarity and antifascist character.
Also last year, some fascist and far-Right elements threatened the pub with a demonstration which failed to materialise, to counter which antifascists had packed the pub to overflowing. The far-Right’s anger was aroused by the banning of a musician for allegedly uttering racist comments.
The Peadar Brown’s T-Shirt rack by their stall in Comrade Corner. (Photo: R. Breeze)
End.
Note: If you found this article of interest, why not register with Rebel Breeze for free, so that you will be notified by email of subsequent articles. You can de-register any time you wish.
A lesson today: an important truth was demonstrated to a number of us protesting by visible presence and song outside the US Embassy (at the weekly Wednesday afternoon Palestine solidarity event there organised by Jimi Cullen).
We were accosted by a woman who said she was Palestinian, didn’t agree that we were supporting Palestine and insisted we should be pushing for peace.
‘Peace with Zionism?’ someone asked.
‘What is Zionism – do you know?’ she responded.
‘Yes, it’s a belief that Jewish religion gives them the right to occupy someone else’s land and kick the indigenous out.’
‘No, that’s not what it is!’ (but failed to elucidate for us what she claims it is).
Then: ‘That flag is not for freedom for Palestine! Do you know when it was created?’
We were saying ‘Yes’ when she started running down Hamas (which didn’t even exist when the flag was designed and popularised).
She kept saying: ‘I’m a Palestinian!’ (as though that meant she must be right and also that we had no right to contradict her).
Just in case we were confused about her wider ideology, she began to attack Venezuela under ‘communist rule’ (sic).
Most of those attending on 7th January, some time after our encounter with the person under discussion. (Photo source: J.Cullen)
THE LESSON
Her intervention and her manner were annoying but she underlined an important point in political discourse: Nobody’s nationality, ethnicity or residency status gives them guaranteed possession of the truth, nor the right to assert that other opinions must for that reason be wrong.
In every country there is a variety of people, including social classes and a range of opinions on important political and social questions. It is likely that some will have very progressive ideological positions, some less so but still progressive, some conservative and some others, reactionary.
It is more complicated even that that, for some might be progressive on some issues but conservative or reactionary on others – and vice versa.
Of course we fight for the right of Palestinian voices to be seen in print and heard on mass media, as a question of justice and also as the voices of witnesses, those who have experienced the genocide at first hand, or at close second hand through family and community.
We disagreed with silencing Palestinian voices objecting to the Palestinian Ambassador (she was a Palestinian too!) addressing a Belfast meeting organised by Sinn Féin in February ‘24 not because they had to be correct as Palestinians but because their objection was an important one to be heard.
The Ambassador does not represent Palestine but rather the Palestine Authority, which in turn cannot claim to represent the Palestinian people, if for no other reason than that it has not held elections for its Presidency in twenty years.
In fact there are many other reasons including financial corruption, nepotism, repression of any kind of criticism, collusion with the Zionist Occupation, jailing Resistance fighters and actually killing some. Those critics – even had they not been Palestinian – should have been heard instead of being ejected.
It would have been instructive, educational even, to listen to the condemnation by Palestinians of an official who claimed to represent them. But of course, the Sinn Féin party, like nearly all states and all western political parties of any size, supports the Palestinian Authority and its Embassy.1
In this case, it appears from what they were saying and what we can verify, that the Palestinian critics were correct and we know too that the Ambassador is wrong and in fact illegitimate, both in representation status and also in terms of national sovereignty.
But when people claim possession of the truth and immunity from criticism solely on the basis of where they are from or to what ethnic or other group they belong, we need to oppose that undemocratic cloak very resolutely as they use it to close down debate and education.
It’s not only the person claiming a kind of ethnic certainty we must beware of but often also the one who claims to speak for them, who takes a position as their defender and therefore their spokesperson for the truth. Apart from being patronising, such a position is wrong in principle.
And usually opportunist in essence.
This general principle holds true with regard to individuals or groups from any social or ethnic group or community, whether Palestinian, West Asian, Muslim, Six-County, 32-County, homeless, Traveller, working class, disabled, migrant, Irish speaker … etc.
end.
Note: If you found this article of interest, why not register with Rebel Breeze for free, so that you will be notified by email of subsequent articles. You can de-register any time you wish.
On Saturday morning, Dubliners checking messages or news on their phones or laptops, or listening to or watching news on TV or radio – or even reading a newspaper, learned that the USA had bombed Venezuela and abducted its President.
Venezuelan national flags on Ha’penny Bridge during Venezuela solidarity portrait, seen here against sky and south Liffey riverside buildings. (Photo cred: Participant)
An emergency protest and solidarity demonstration was called for 3pm in the city centre and under a clear blue sky but in bitter cold, many attended to line the iconic Ha’penny Bridge, which only a week ago had hosted a New Year’s Eve demonstration in solidarity with Palestine.
Among the crowd on the Bridge, a few Venezuelan national flags fluttered against the sky or the riverside buildings, along with a number of Irish Tricolours and one green and gold Starry Plough,1 while placards were attached to the railings along the sides of the Bridge.
The well-known slogan of US military – Out of Shannon! was among the call-and-answer chants of course, along with the easily-imagined Hands off Venezuela! But there were some innovative ones too, such as the Irish-language/ English mix of Deirimís go léir le chéile – Hands off Venezuela!
Starry Plough flag on Ha’penny Bridge during Venezuela solidarity protest, seen here against sky and north Liffey riverside buildings. (Photo cred: Participant)Irish Tricolour flags and probably Cuban national flag on Ha’penny Bridge during Venezuela solidarity protest, seen here against sky and north Liffey riverside buildings. (Photo cred: Participant)
Entirely in Castilian Spanish there was also Viva, viva – La Resistencia! Another was USA – Nothing but thieves! – a specific reference to Trump’s nakedly-declared wish to grab the country’s oilwells.
People from a number of different political parties participated as did a large number of independent activists, constituting an ad-hoc and informal anti-imperialist broad front.
Among the crowd were veteran activists but also too many of the younger ones, grown in political awareness and action in recent years of Palestine solidarity, a deep educational experience, including some facing charges from actions in Dublin or Shannon to be tried in the coming months.
It is to be hoped that their support and solidarity will also be broad.
The Ha’penny Bridge during Venezuela solidarity protest. (Photo cred: Eddie O’Reilly)
The latest news is that the kidnapped President Maduro has been charged in the US on counts including drug trafficking and possession of weapon. As the President of Venezuela and titular head of its armed forces, presumably he does indeed hold weapons.
The very existence of the drug cartel of which Trump and his cabal claim Maduro is head is very doubtful, including even to views leaked from US intelligence departments and of course, not one iota of evidence has been produced to date of the alleged drug trafficking.
Mixture of flags and people on Ha’penny Bridge during Venezuela solidarity portrait, seen here against sky and south Liffey riverside buildings. (Photo cred: Participant)
In the lead-up of months of bullying to this invasion, US forces sank many boats, killing at least 115, including one survivor of a bombing in the water. No evidence of their alleged drug-running has been produced in a single case and even so would not merit death penalty under US law.
Following the US attack on Venezuela, Defence Minister Vladimir Padrino López, reportedly from his control bunker, broadcast in military uniform to the nation condemning the imperialist attack and promising resolute resistance.
Diosdado Cabello, Venezuela’s Minister of Interior, Justice, and Peace, was videoed in the street wearing helmet and body protection equipment, calling on citizens to place their trust in the political and military leadership and to give no assistance to invading forces.
Vice-President Celcy, now Acting President made her first ever broadcast demanding the release of the Presidential couple, affirming that “there is only one president in this country, and his name is Nicolás Maduro,” and insisting that Venezuela “will never be a colony of any nation.”
Earlier, mainstream media had reported that Celcy had fled to Russia and that Lopez had been killed, such errors perhaps being caused by the ‘fog of war’ but recalling also the part played by the mainstream media in preparing the ground for the US-instigated Chilean coup of 1973.
The US attack and kidnapping was condemned today by Russia and by President Petro of Colombia. Kallas, on behalf of the EU, while condemning Maduro’s rule, voiced some weak platitudes about the EU Charter but voiced no condemnation of this attack upon a sovereign nation.
President of the USA Trump boasted publicly about how viewing the attack and kidnapping operation had been like watching a TV show and proclaiming that the US are now “going to run” Venezuela for a while “and get the oil flowing.”2
Tomorrow, Sunday, the Anti-Imperialist Action organisation has called a protest demonstration to take place at the US Embassy in Ballsbridge, Dublin for 1pm, in defence of sovereignty and in opposition to imperialism.
End.
Note: If you found this article of interest, why not register with Rebel Breeze for free, so that you will be notified by email of subsequent articles. You can de-register any time you wish. Footnotes:
1The design of the flag of the Irish Citizen Army, a workers’ defence militia against police during the Lockout/ Strike of 1913 and that also fought in the 1916 Rising.
Through three events on Saturday, New Year’s Eve in the city centre, Dublin sent a solidarity message to the Palestinian people and also to the solidarity activists on hunger strike in British jails, referencing also those of the Irish Resistance in 1981.
The Millennium Bridge on New Year’s Eve. (Photo: IPSC)
Chronologically first was a protest in the Starbucks café1 in Stephen’s Green Shopping Centre obliging the management to close for hours and a balcony walkway banner drop calling for solidarity with the Elbit accused on hunger strike, referencing also the Irish hunger-strikes of 1981.2
I had not read the poster carefully and arrived at the Starbucks at the north end of Grafton Street, where there were a few other confused people also. By the time I made my way up to the southern end of Grafton Street, the protest there was about to leave and I was about to head elsewhere.
Two main banners present at protest outside the Stephen’s Green Centre on New Year’s Eve, after closing down the Starbucks café inside. (Photo: Bas)
The solidarity crowd continued to demonstrate in the shopping centre’s main doorway before marching away, then went into the Zara3 big shop and demonstrated there awhile before heading on to MacDonald’s in Grafton Street where the Gardaí began to let their nasty side show a little.
Palestine solidarity protesters leaving the Stephen’s Green Centre on New Year’s Eve, heading down to Zara to protest there (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Then another Starbucks, this one on Dame Street got a Palestine solidarity visit before the demonstrators went on to the iconic pedestrian Ha’penny Bridge, where the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign holds a Palestine solidarity protest every New Year’s Eve.
Closeup of banner-drop inside the Stephen’s Green Centre on New Year’s Eve, during protest after closing down the Starbucks café inside. (Photo: G.O.L)
There the demonstrators thronged the Ha’penny and Millennium Bridges and spilled out along the quays. I was elsewherefor the first time in years as it was a Wednesday and therefore Jimi Cullen’s weekly protest with songs at the US Embassy in Ballsbridge, this one to be his 97th straight.
As usual there were police on guard there and one in uniform approached myself and Jimi as we were talking and asked Jimi how long the event would be, how many attending etc. Then she suggested I removed my bike which was leaning against a bollard.
Conducting the protest inside the Stephen’s Green Centre on New Year’s Eve which obliged management to close down for some hours the Starbucks café inside. (Photo: G.O.L)
I told her I was happy with where it was, thank you. Then she said that it might fall on someone (but not, of course, if across the road!), then that someone might steal it, all of which was nonsense of course then said: ‘I am asking you to remove it’ to which I replied ‘And I am declining.’
She was getting quite angry but decided to walk it off. I have attended supporting Jimi’s protest perhaps a score of times and in the early days had a similar approach from a Special Branch4 officer who accused me of causing ‘a security risk’ to the Embassy’s ‘curtilage’ (on a public footpath)!
The Ha’penny Bridge on New Year’s Eve. (Photo: IPSC)
Some police just like to throw their weight around even with regard to things that have nothing to do with the law or causing harm to anyone and over which they have no legal power.
Anyway we unfurled the flags, Jimi had a placard displayed, got out his guitar and we sang through week 97 to frequent waves, clapping, thumbs up, clenched fists, shouts and horn blowing of appreciation and solidarity from passing motorists, pedestrians and cyclists.
Section of northern quays/ Boardwalk on New Year’s Eve, during protest after closing down the Starbucks café inside. (Photo: IPSC)
Jimi began this weekly protest outside the Israeli Embassy but when they left Ireland he moved up the road to the nearby US Embassy, representative of the world leader in terrorism and biggest supporter, politically, financially and militarily of the world’s leading genocider entity.
Usually there are more supporters present. Jimi has a fine stock of protest and solidarity songs, some of which he composed himself and performs them well. Today we did mostly Irish songs of struggle but also one from the black civil rights struggle and Jimi’s own about Palestine.
Jimi Cullen and myself at Jimi’s weekly event outside the US Embassy on New Year’s Eve. (Photo: J.Cullen)
We had a number of Palestinian flags there but also two Starry Plough flags and there were some Irish Tricolours to be seen on the other protests among the many Palestinian ones. It is from our own struggle that we stand in solidarity with Palestine.
End.
Note: If you found this article of interest, why not register with Rebel Breeze for free, so that you will be notified by email of subsequent articles. You can de-register any time you wish.
2Ten Irish Republican prisoners, seven IRA and three INLA died on hunger-strike in a British jail in 1981 in a struggle against criminalisation and for political status
A campaign for conservation of the ancient Moore Street Dublin inner-city street market area and 1916 Battleground, in its 11th year of Saturdays on the actual street is seeking to reach 2000 on-line signatures for the group’s petition this year.
The site was formerly under threat of construction of a giant ‘shopping mall’ from the ILAC to O’Connell Street. However ‘shopping malls’ are not making so much money nowadays so the new plan is largely a ‘shopping area’ with an hotel and a new road from the ILAC to O’Connell Street.
Picket/ lobby of Dublin City Council in 2014, petition stretch and posters organised by the Save Moore Street From Demolition Group, founded a couple of months earlier to prevent Dublin City Council City Manager giving property speculator Joe O’Reilly Nos. 24-25 in exchange for Nos.14-17, which would have allowed him to demolish from No.25-No.18. The campaign was successful in preventing that as councillors voted against the swap. (Photo: SMSFD archives)
Moore Street is of course already ‘a shopping area’ but what that means to property speculators is a street of chain stores, something like the Grafton and Henry Streets. Such streets are busy during shopping hours but largely deserted at night and anathema to the living social city centre.
Independent small shops and street stalls characterise a street market, typically with some cafes, a bakery and restaurant. But the agent of Hammerson, the speculator company, has closed down a bakery and a number of successful restaurants and cafés on the street.
On the Friday of Easter Week, 300 or so of the GPO garrison evacuated the burning building and occupied the central terrace in Moore Street to gain a respite, setting up their new HQ there and a field hospital caring for their wounded and for a wounded soldier of the British Army.
The new intended street would cut right through the historic 1916 terrace, the footprint and path traversed by much of the 300 or so GPO Garrison in 1916 as they evacuated their burning former HQ and prepared to relocate to William & Woods site in nearby King’s Inn Street.
Moore Street, according to campaigners, is of great Irish cultural and historical importance but is also of international historical stature: surrender site of the first anti-colonial uprising of the 20th Century and of the first rising against World War and last location in freedom of five of its leaders.
Those five, Connolly, Pearse, Clarke, Mac Diarmada and Plunkett, were also five of the Seven Signatories of the 1916 Proclamation, a document of huge symbolic significance in history and still often referenced in contemporary discourse.
Campaigners point to the presence in the street of the Irish Citizen Army, which they claim as “the first workers’ army” and of its leader, Connolly along with three of the first women’s republican military organisation, Cumann na mBan: Elizabeth O’Farrell, Julia Grenan and Winifred Carney.
The Irish Citizen Army recruited women too, including appointing some of them as officers in command of male Volunteers, another first in world history.
Signed petition sheets sellotaped edge to edge in January 2016, stretched along Moore Street as the 6-day occupation of the endangered buildings came to an end and shortly before the 6-week blockade began. (Photo: SMSFD archive)
SUCCESSES AND DEFEATS
The campaign has had some previous successes, including four buildings being declared a historical monument in 2007, refusal of land-swap in 2014 (see photo), a six-week blockade of the site and a High Court declaration in 2016 of the whole area being a national historical monument.
However, the campaign insists the historical monument is all 16 buildings in the terrace, not just four. And the High Court decision was successfully appealed in February 2017 by the Minister of Heritage on the grounds that a Judge did not have the power to declare a national monument.
The campaigners, now in their 11th year of Saturdays on the street, say that they stopped counting hard copy petition signatures once they passed 380,000. But last year they started an electronic petition in which they aimed for 1,000 by year’s end — and exceeded their target.
Women Christmas shopping crowding around the petition table to sign hard copy and on-line petition last Saturday. (Photo from weekly SMSFDalbum 20 December 2025.)
This year they’ve aimed to reach 2,000 but, with nearly another 300 needed with a week to go before the end of 2025, reaching their target seems very unlikely.
The campaign group supporters say that they have held the line so long because of the support of hundreds of thousands, not only of indigenous Irish but also of settled migrants (the latter being the mainstay of the traditional fresh fruit and vegetable stalls) and want the signatures to reflect all that.
“At this stage, the strongest help we can get from ordinary people is to sign the on-line petition and to get their contacts to do so too,” said one of the campaigners on the street recently. “On-line signatures are identifiable to one person, verifiable and the total can be checked on line.”
“The authorities will remember that people took direct action in the past to halt demolition, as in the occupation and blockade of 2016 but thousands of online petition signatures are an indication that the activists represent much more than themselves alone”.
The Save Moore Street From Demolition campaigners are on the street every Saturday from 11.30am-1.30pm and their online petition is on https://my.uplift.ie/petitions/save-moore-street The group has Instagram and Facebook pages also.
end.
Note: If you found this article of interest, why not register with Rebel Breeze for free, so that you will be notified by email of subsequent articles. You can de-register any time you wish.
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 Dreoilín singing on a mossy rock.
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.
Straw Boys at a festival.
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.
Note: If you found this article of interest, why not register with Rebel Breeze for free, so that you will be notified by email of subsequent articles. You can de-register any time you wish.
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)
There were lively scenes today outside Dublin’s British Embassy in solidarity with the hunger strikers in British jails awaiting trial on charges arising out of Palestine Action’s operations against the Israeli arms company, Elbit Systems UK.
Two of the six hunger strikers are in their 50th days without food and approaching the point where fatal seizures are possible or suffering irreversible damage to body systems. Their demands are release on bail, a fair trial, de-proscription of Palestine Action and the closure of Elbit Systems.
Early shot of hunger-striker solidarity protesters outside the British Embassy compound today. (Photo: R.Breeze)
There have been daily solidarity protests in Britain, including those led by the Irish Brigade1 in London amid general mass media silence but the arrest of Greta Thurnberg today on ‘terrorism’ charges may bring a focus on the hunger-strikes for a change.
Today also The National newspaper revealed that Barclay’s had asked the British Government to ban Palestine Action and already the question is being asked: How is it that was not admitted by the Government when Huda Ammori took the Palestine Action banning to judicial review?
(Greta Thurnberg about to be arrested earlier in Central London). Photo source: Internet)
The rally today, like that outside the British Embassy last week, was organised by the Peadar O’Donnell Socialist Republican Forum, while another solidarity rally in Dublin last week but on College Green, in the City Centre, was organised Communities for Palestine.
The ‘corpses’ in the road outside the British Embassy compound today. (Photo: R.Breeze)
The chants led outside the Embassy today included the usual ones heard on Palestine solidarity marches, including those referencing the Intifada, the occupation of Ireland and the Irish-language Saoirse don Phalaistín! But there were also new ones and additions to older slogans.
A new Four, Five and Six was added to a previous only One, Two and Three: One – We are the people; Two – We won’t be silenced; Three – Stop the bombing now, now, now! Four – Free our people; Five – Free our land; Six – Kick Zionism out, out, out!
Some other changed and new chants included: One, Two, Three, Four– Support the Filton 24! Five, Six, Seven, Eight – Israel is a terrorist state. We are all Palestine Action! Victory to the hunger-strikers! Brick by brick, wall by wall – all the colonies will fall!
Slogans also castigated British Government collusion in the Israeli genocide, Irish state collusion through militarisation of Shannon Airport and Gardaí collusion through their defence of the British Embassy.
Numbers of Gardaí and one of their vehicles actually inside the British Embassy compound today. (Photo: R.Breeze)
On two occasions the MC asked demonstrators to line both sides of the road outside the Embassy, which is one of the main Dublin routes from and towards the South. Passing traffic frequently sounded their horns in solidarity, passengers often signing thumbs-up or with clenched fist.
But at one point, most of the demonstrators occupied the road, blocking traffic in each direction. The Gardaí moved quickly to break this up and were soon violently shoving demonstrators off the road, one in particular screaming with wild eyes so that he was twice seen restrained by colleagues.2
However part of the northbound road remained occupied in front of the Embassy entrance and at this point a new group of protesters arrived and, unpacking white curtain material, began to squirt red paint on it, then to lie down in the road under the material like massacre victims.
A number of speeches were made during the event and later a man called the crowd to remember also the 1981 hunger strikes in Ireland, for which he sang the Joe McDonnell3 Ballad, with its wonderful chorus lines: You dare to call me a ‘terrorist,’ while you look down your guns!4
Another man recounted the story told by Bobby Sands5 of the caged lark which would not sing for its captor and how that bird came to represent Sands himself, before reciting a poem of an Irish migrant in London in anguish as Bobby Sands lay dying.
The ‘corpses’ were moved from the road to immediately in front of the British Embassy compound today. (Photo: R.Breeze)
The current hunger-strikes are sometimes referenced as “the first coordinated hunger strikes in Britain” since those of the Irish Republicans in 1981. Of course, those strikes were not in Britain but in occupied Ireland and therefore currently part of the United Kingdom.
There are important differences of course. The Irish Republican hunger strikers were convicted, albeit by special non-jury courts, of armed resistance to British occupation; the current hunger strikers have not yet even been tried and none of the charges against them include armed action.
And the motivation of the Palestine Action accused is purely internationalist solidarity against a regime committing daily massacres in a programmed genocide.
Nevertheless, the British ruling class may yet come to regret the day they permitted anti-Zionism to become so strongly linked to anti-British colonialism, and anti-genocide internationalism so closely linked to the memory of Irish colonial resistance.
End.
Note: If you found this article of interest, why not register with Rebel Breeze for free, so that you will be notified by email of subsequent articles. You can de-register any time you wish.
FOOTNOTES
1An ad-hoc broad Palestine solidarity organisation composed of Irish migrants and diaspora in London.
2This may possibly be the same Garda who was seen wildly striking with his baton and pepper-spraying peaceful participants at a Palestine solidarity march to Dublin Port some weeks ago.
4And you dare to call me a terrorist, while you look down your guns! When I think of all the things that you have done: You have plundered many nations, divided many lands, You have terrorised their people, ruled with an iron hand – And you brought the stain of terror, to my land.
5Bobby Sands relinquished his elected post of Officer Commanding the Republican male prisoners in Long Kesh in order to lead the hunger strikes of 1981. On 5th May he was the first of the Ten to die.
It was great to see the Irish pacification process being referenced with regard to the Trump plan for Gaza1 because that is exactly what the latter is: a plan to pacify the Resistance while ensuring it gets none of what it fought for.2
In other words, exactly like the Irish pacification process.
(Cartoon by D.Breatnach)
Hamas and Palestine Islamic Jihad grew out of previous Palestinian pacification processes. The Madrid Conference (1991) and the Oslo Agreement (1993) were imperialist/ Zionist attempts to pacify the wide-scale militant Palestinian resistance period of the First Intifada.3
Fatah at that time was the leading group in numbers and influence in the Palestine Liberation Organisation (from which Islamic groups were excluded) but also in Palestinian society in general. But Fatah had agreed to recognise ‘Israel’ and also the two-state solution (sic).
In the Oslo Agreement, furthermore, the question of the return to their homeland of the refugees was left aside. It appears that the Fatah leadership had lost faith in the eventual victory of their people’s struggle and had decided to get what they could by using the struggle to bargain.
The Oslo Agreement: US Imperialism’s President Clinton oversees Yitzak Rabin, Premier of Zionist state of ‘Israel’ shaking hands with Yasser Arafat of Fatah, then leader of the PLO.
What Fatah got was Palestinian Authority control in the first elections (1996), with internal control over/ management of the Palestinian population of the West Bank and Gaza, but not of the Palestinians in Jerusalem (captured by ‘Israel’ in 1967): a far cry from a free Palestine.4
In the Algiers conference of 1988 Fatah had won majority agreement to recognise ‘Israel’ and to accept the two-state solution5 (sic), i.e. embodying a Palestinian state on 20% of Palestinian land, under the eyes and guns of their Zionist neighbour).
Fatah’s rule became known for corruption and nepotism, which then had to be protected and defended from the Palestinian masses, leading to authoritarian, repressive and often arbitrary rule. And repression of the Resistance, along with direct collusion with the ‘Israeli’ State.
Continuing ‘Israeli’ repression and settlement expansion in turn led to the Second Intifada; Fatah lost to Hamas in the Palestinian parliamentary elections of 2006 followed by defeat of Fatah’s attempted coup in Gaza in 2007 (but the West Bank remaining under unelected Fatah control).
Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah has refused to announce elections since, sitting in unelected control of the PA’s office in the West Bank, collecting the various international grants, presiding over corruption,6 repressing Palestinian resistance of deed or word and colluding with the ‘Israeli’ Occupation.
US Imperialism’s then Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and the PA’s Mahmoud Abbas in Palestine, soon after the start of the accelerated Zionist genocide in Gaza, December 2023
BUT WHAT ABOUT THE IRISH CONNECTION?
Starting with Palestine and South Africa in 1991, an imperialist pacification process spread to Ireland, Basque Country, Kurdish Turkey, Colombia, India, Philippines, Sri Lanka. With some variations the drive has been the same: to give up revolution and join the system.
One of the features of this process was the apparent need of a recognised leader to sell it to the resistance support base and to front it for the world: Arafat (Palestine), Mandela (S. Africa), Adams/McGuinness (Ireland), Ocalan (Turkish Kurdistan), Otegi (Basque Country).
The Provisional IRA was by far the major organisation in the Irish Republican resistance; it gave up armed struggle in return for vague promises and the release of its prisoners under licence.7 Another organisation complied also even as new ‘dissident’ fighters were being jailed.
Nearly 30 years after the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, Ireland is no nearer the Provisional IRA’s declared aims Irish reunification, independence and sovereignty. The Sinn Féin party helps run the colony8 and is attempting to become part of the neo-colony’s government.
Sinn Féin representatives Tina Black (Mayor of Belfast) and Michelle O’Neill, First Minister of the British colony, laying a wreath at the British War Memorial in Belfast, July 2022 (Cred: Liam McBurney/ PA Wire)
Neither the Spanish, French nor Turkish states were interested in other than crushing the Basque and Kurdish resistance and the corresponding movements disabled themselves without getting anything in exchange other than continued repression.9
The resistance movements in parts of India and Philippines continue to resist but in Sri Lanka was wiped out.10
One feature of the spread was the contagion-like way in which leaders of one infected resistance sought to entice others to follow suit: S. Africa and Palestine to Ireland; S. Africa and Ireland to Basque Country; Ireland to Colombia (where only the FARC but not the ELN accepted it).
In only one iteration of the pacification processes was there a partial achievement of the stated aims of the resistance: South Africa got national enfranchisement but the economy remained under imperialist extractive control and its working people under repression.11
In the course of giving up armed struggle, allegedly just changing the methods, the leaders gave up what they had fought for, the very reason for which they had first come into the struggle. Of course, they could still shout the slogans, just not make them real in any way.
The Irish version (and the Basque one) decommissioned their weapons, which makes it very relevant to the Trump Plan for the Palestinian Resistance, particularly Hamas and PIJ. No resistance movement should even discuss giving up their weapons until the defeat of the enemy.
(Image sourced: Internet)
It will be interesting to see what positions the former parties of Irish and Basque resistance, Sinn Féin and EH Bildu12 and their supporters take on this US/ ‘Israeli’ plan for the Palestinian Resistance.
One of the features of the pacification process was the apparent need of a recognised leader to sell it to the resistance support base and to front it to the world: Arafat (Palestine), Mandela (S. Africa), Adams/McGuinness (Ireland), Ocalan (Turkish Kurdistan), Otegi (Basque Country).
Who will the imperialists find to play this role in Palestine?13
End.
NB: If you found this article of interest, why not register with Rebel Breeze for free, so that you will benotified by email of subsequent articles. You can de-register any time you wish.
4“This mirrors Israel’s post-Oslo approach to the occupied West Bank in pacifying the population through economic incentives, avoiding political concessions, and entrenching structural dependence. This model, often dubbed “economic peace,” has transformed the Palestinian Authority (PA) into a subcontractor of occupation – flush with foreign funds, but powerless to deliver sovereignty.” https://thecradle.co/articles-id/34757
7Those released under licence could be returned to jail (and a number were) at the decision of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland without trial, hearing or details of why the individual was considered to be ‘a threat to public safety.’
8Its representative, Michelle O’Neill, is currently First Minister of the colony’s government. In the Irish State, the party has 33 TDs (MPs), only two behind the party with next largest representation, Fianna Fáil. They Party has abandoned its opposition to the repressive legislation of the State, welcomed British Royal visits to both parts of Ireland, supports recruitment to the colonial gendarmerie and its leader refused to rule out coalition with the neo-colonial political parties of membership of the British Commonwealth. https://www.thejournal.ie/mar-lou-mcdonald-commonwealth-4561600-Mar2019/
9The Basque leadership abandoned armed struggle unilaterally at the time without gaining even the end of dispersal of their jailed fighters throughout the state. The Turkish Kurdish PKK tried to make progress through political electoral means only under continuing repression. But their Syrian version of armed Kurdish forces got a new lease of life with the vulnerability of the Assad regime in Syria but ended up as a NATO proxy in the latter’s war for regime change. The PKK in Turkey very recently agreed to disarm while their Syrian part remains in difficult relationship with the new (formerly ISIS) regime in Syria and some other ISIS elements under Turkish influence.
11See The Marikana Massacre of striking miners by the ANC Government’s police.
12Both parties support the Two-State proposal for Palestine.
13Some liberal and social-democratic sections seem to have fixed on Marwan Marghouti in this role, which of course is no reason not to support his release on human rights grounds. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6IgjlHaaIs
rebelbreeze 