Thousands on Saturday (24th) witnessed Palestine supporters demonstrating outside the Israeli Embassy in Dublin’s Ballsbridge, their reactions for the most part ranging from neutral to applause, some having their photos taken alongside the picketers.
On this Saturday there was no Palestine solidarity march in Dublin and some instead attended a picket of the Zionist Embassy.
There were also a handful of hostile provocative reactions, ranging from mention of “the hostages” to cheering “Israel” and one who tried to make an issue of Jewishness but was firmly told that opposition to Zionism has nothing to do with anti-semitism.
Palestinian solidarity flag displaying designed by Brazilian political cartoonist Carlos Latuf during an earlier attack by the Zionist State on Palestinians.The building housing the Israeli Embassy is in the background. (Photo:Rebel Breeze)
Those who mention “the hostages” refer only to the 130 or so prisoners taken by the Palestinian resistance in their operation of October 7th, never to the thousands of civilians, including children, taken prisoner by the Zionist state and, if judicially processed, tried in Israeli military courts.
Initially the crowds leaving the Rugby game between the Irish and Welsh teams, seemed neutral as they passed the picketers but gradually grew warmer.
The handful of passersby who expressed support for the Zionist state were militantly denounced by the picketers as “Genocide supporters” but much more common from the crowds were signs of approval such as applause, thumbs-up and occasional cheers and clenched-fist gestures.
A few in the crowd also shook hands with or gave a fist-bump to a demonstrator and some also thanked the picketers.
Some asked to have their photos taken alongside a picketer, one also waving a borrowed Palestinian flag. A woman approached one of the demonstrators, removed her Ireland rugby colours scarf and wrapped it around the picketer’s neck, saying “We support you” before walking away.
One of the Palestine solidarity picketers wearing the Irish rugby colours scarf with which he was presented by one of the Irish team’s fans returning from the game. (Photo: Rebel Breeze)
The nearly non-stop chants of the picketers, led by a young man of Middle Eastern appearance in a keffiyeh were directed at solidarity with the Palestinians and denunciation of the Israeli State, including calls for boycott and sanctions and the expulsion of the Israeli Ambassador.
One of the female demonstrators, a regular at the site, is garbed in white “blood-stained shroud.” At least half the picketers appeared Irish by appearance and accent. A majority were female, which seems to be the pattern in pickets, rallies and marches in solidarity with Palestine.
The thousands who passed the picketers were in contrast to the earlier near-deserted Shelbourne Road, as the Gardaí had closed the road to vehicular traffic in the vicinity of the Aviva Stadium where the Ireland rugby team was playing the Welsh one.
A fragment of the rugby fans leaving the Aviva Stadium after the game and passing the picketers. (Photo: Rebel Breeze)
The Israeli Embassy moved in 2019 to its current location on the fifth floor of a multiple-business-occupied building at 23 Shelbourne Road. Formerly the zionist embassy occupied an upper floor at Carrisbrook House, Northumberland Road, with every other floor unoccupied.
Some of the occupants of the current building, which is protected by a Garda presence, have reportedly asked their landlord to remove the Embassy but the request was denied.
When Gardaí reopened the road a senior Garda officer directed the demonstrators, ‘for their safety’, to remove from the road in front of the Embassy building to the side. However, it is the Gardaí who have barricaded off the entire section of pedestrian pavement in front of the building.
It seems likely that this will become an issue at some point in the future.
The scene outside the Israeli Embassy in Dublin shortly before the commencement of the protest, showing the pedestrian footpath completely fenced off by Garda barricades. (Photo: Rebel Breeze)
THE RUGBY
The Irish team beat the Welsh one 31-7 on Saturday. The Irish rugby team is a 32-County team, unlike soccer, where the Irish state and the colony each has their own ‘national’ team and are obliged to compete against one another internationally.
However, the song played for the Irish rugby team is the anodyne Ireland’s Call and not Amhrán na bhFiann/ The Soldiers Song, which is played for the Irish soccer team and in Gaelic Athletic games.
Rugby has gained in wider popularity in Ireland in recent decades but formerly in most parts of Ireland was considered a game for Anglophiles or “West Brits”.
Also, with the exception of Limerick, socially a game of the upper middle class, being played in Anglican colleges and in Catholic colleges of the English public school model.
Until the advent of the now-defunct Irish Press(1931-1995), neither of the main national newspapers, TheIrish Times nor TheIrish Independent reported on Gaelic Athletic Association games, reporting instead on the minority rugby, hockey and cricket matches.
On a day when the Irish Attorney General repeated Israeli Zionist lying propaganda in the ICJ and the Irish State’s expenditure of at least €8.5 million on Israeli military equipment was reported, people protested the Irish Dept. of Transport’s complicity at Shannon.
Around 30 protesters gathered with flags, banner and placards at short notice this afternoon outside the Irish Dept. of Transport’s office in Leeson Lane, Dublin 2 (very close to Stephen’s Green). They chanted: Irish Government you can’t hide – You’re supporting genocide!
View of some of the Palestine solidarity demonstrators outside the Dept. of Transport Thursday afternoon. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Slogan chanting specific to the Dept. of Transport and to Ireland generally included: US warplanes – Out of Shannon! US Military – Out of Shannon! From Ireland to Palestine — Occupation is a crime! No peace – On stolen land! No justice – No peace! Resistance is an obligation – In the face of occupation!
Other chants included the now-familiar: 1, 2, 3, 4 – Occupation no more! 5, 6, 7, 8 – Israel is a terrorist state!1 From the River to the Sea – Palestine will be free! Free, free – Palestine! Boycott – Israel! Sanction – Israel! Saoirse don – Phalaistín! In our thousands and our millions – We are all Palestinians!
The Irish Department of Transport has Government oversight on the safe and appropriate use of airports within the Irish state. USA military use of Shannon airport in violation of Irish neutrality has repeatedly been witnessed and reported for decades.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
The position of Irish Governments has been, without proof and in the face of collected evidence, that the US are not flying military material through the international airport. However, The Village magazine reported a significant increase in exemptions on such US traffic during the current war.
The Irish state, its deference to the world’s major superpower (as repeatedly shown by Government and even Opposition parties), declines to board the planes for inspection, though it is entirely legally entitled to do so and, in defence of neutrality, obliged, declines to do so.
Three people took turns to read out a short letter the organisers, Dublin For Gaza, had delivered to the Department of Transport, calling attention to the increased military flight exemptions through Ireland granted and on it to prevent military air traffic through Irish airports and Irish airspace.
Another view of some of the Palestine solidarity demonstrators outside the Dept. of Transport Thursday afternoon. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Irish Attorney-General repeats Israeli lies in the ICJ
While many will be glad that the Attorney-General of the Irish State was in the International Court of Justice presenting a case that the Israeli State was colonising Palestinian land, unfortunately he repeated zionist propaganda against the Palestinian resistance.
Israeli accusations of rape against the Palestinian resistance fighters on October 7th, among other items of Israeli propaganda, have been thoroughly debunked but Fanning, the Irish Attorney-General repeated them as allegedly established fact in his presentation of the Irish case in the ICJ.2
He repeated the false accusation of rape against the resistance but also included others which ignore the effect of Israeli military bombardment, tank shells and Hellfire missiles fired from Israeli helicopters on October 7th against fleeing and captive Israelis.
As usual, he also ignored the thousands of Palestinian civilian hostages held and tortured by the zionist authorities, to exchange for which was the main reason for taking Israeli prisoners.
View of some of the Palestine solidarity demonstrators with the Dept. of Transport in the background Thursday afternoon. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
ELSEWHERE
UN: “… a UN report released on Monday by a group of UN experts expressed alarm over “credible allegations” of Palestinian women and girls being subjected to “multiple forms of sexual assault … by male Israeli army officers”.
The allegations include rape and detention of Palestinian women in cages, in addition to “photos of female detainees in degrading circumstances … reportedly taken by the Israeli army and uploaded online”
USA/ UN: The exposure of Israeli lies and western government acceptance of them continued with a US Intelligence briefing that the Israeli claims of UN refugee aid agency (UNRWA) workers participating in the Hamas operation “could not be independently verified.”
Let us recall that Israel, which hates UNRWA for providing aid to Palestinians in need and from time to time criticising Israeli abuses of Palestinian human rights, claimed to have intelligence confirming the participation of 12 UNRWA workers in the Palestinian operation on October 7th.
Without even seeing the Israeli ‘intelligence’, the UNWRA bosses sacked 10 workers3 and 10 western states, including the US and most of the EU, suspended their contributions to the agency’s funding, in other words cutting off food, heating and shelter to the Palestinians under Israeli attack.
UK: The negative impact on democratic norms by Israeli allegiance of the western powers was demonstrate by subversion of Parliamentary procedures in London yesterday in response to a scheduled motion from the Scottish National Party calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
The norms laid down are that the proposer of the motion speaks first and, if not carried by the required majority, amended versions proposed will be discussed and voted upon. The British Labour Party proposed an amendment calling for the ceasefire requiring the surrender of Israeli “hostages”.
If the SNP’s motion had gone forward, the indications were that many Labour MPs would vote for it against the instructions of the party’s ‘whips’ (party discipline enforcers). The Speaker of the House however allowed the Labour motion/ amendment to go to vote before the SNP’s!
The result was uproar in the UK Parliament and that Labour’s motion, more hostile to the Palestinian resistance, was voted and accepted and the SNP’s was never discussed.
Since then 60 MP’s have signed a petition demanding the resignation of the Speaker, a previous Labour Party member who, in order to demonstrate the Speaker’s political independence, had to resign from Party when he took up the post.
Frances Black speaking at the rally prior to the vote in the Seanad, Wednesday. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Ireland: Though receiving little coverage in the mass media, a motion proposed by Civic Engagement Group members of the Irish Senate calling for an end to the Israeli genocide in Palestine and concrete Irish Government measure in support was passed without opposition.
Unreported by the media, a few hundred gathered outside Leinster House in a Palestinian solidarity rally and were addressed by two of the proposers, Frances Black and Alice Mary Higgins.4 A speaker for Healthworkers for Gaza, occasionally overcome by emotion, was given rapt attention.
A few minutes earlier, a colleague in blue surgical overalls was also applauded as she announced the group’s presentation of a petition signed by their colleagues. This action of support for their colleagues in Gaza however also underlined the abysmal failure of the relevant Irish trade unions.
The motion passed in the Senate has no enforcing effect on the Irish Government but adds its weight to that of a number of Opposition motions calling for the Government to support the genocide charge by South Africa in the ICJ and to expel the Israeli Ambassador.
Speaker for Health Workers for Palestine at the Palestine solidarity rally outside Leinster House prior to the Seanad vote Wednesday . (Photo: D.Breatnach)
It adds too the more widely demonstrated and visible solidarity with Palestine of the vast majority of the Irish population expressed in marches, pickets, demonstrations, opinion surveys and in beeps of support from passing vehicle traffic, from drivers of private, company and public transport.
The Irish state and government, like many throughout the world, continues in its failure to reflect the will of its people in this matter.
End.
Music piece composed for Gaza played at solidarity gig in the Olympic Theatre, Dublin, last November:
FOOTNOTES
1Though “fascist state” seems closer to the truth.
4Of the other two proposing Senators, Eileen Flynn was present outside Leinster House but did not speak and apologies were given for the absence of Lynne Ruane.
Diarmuid Breatnach: originally published in 2017, republished February 2024.
(Reading time:4 mins.)
The Wikileaks/ Assange persecution saga should teach us some important lessons.
In the first place chronologically, it should teach us the lengths to which allegedly democratic countries such as the United States will go to dominate weaker countries and attack movements of resistance.
Where the USA feels its imperial interests are threatened, i.e where anyone may attempt to loosen its grip on the markets, natural resources and strategic emplacements, or to prevent its grip from clawing further than it has already.
Wikileaks also exposed some of the extent to which the US will interfere in the internal or foreign policy matters of even its allies, including the European powers.
Possibly most instructive of all was the determination of the USA to hunt down the chief executive of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, flying in the face of US Constitutional principles and law, as well as international law, with politician statements confirming that determination.
Statements even from Presidents, senior politicians and Government appointees, such as former US Secretary of State and the Democratic Party’s candidate for the US Presidency last year.1
In the course of hunting him down, the USA turned to Sweden, subverting the country’s laws and criminal investigative procedures, then to the UK government (which, as a junior partner in many of the US crimes exposed by Wikileaks, was probably only too keen to assist).
Swedish Prosecutor Marianne Ny, who commenced an investigation after another Prosecutor had already investigated and decided there was no case for Assange to answer (Photo source: Internet).
Australia was brought to assist under threat and France turned away from Assange’s plight and his plea for asylum there. “No hiding place from the World Policeman,” seemed to be the message.
Eventually, however, he did find refuge (if not a hiding place) from Ecuador, a tiny power on the world political, economic and political stage.
In the midst of this, how did the mass media perform, that which we are often assured is the guardian of democracy, even more than the vaunted parliament? Badly, in a word.
Investigative journalism, intelligent evaluation, if they had been evident before, all went into the rubbish bin as print, radio and TV media joined in the lynch mob to a greater or lesser degree, including the British newspaper The Guardian.
The newspaper that had been given exclusive first use on the Wikileaks stories, “the greatest scoop in 30 years”, according to its Editor, not only refused to assist him but allowed its pages to be occupied by witch hunters and made money out of publishing a book about the affair.2
“Anti-journalism”, is what Australian film-maker and renowned journalist (Britain’s Journalist of the Year Award-winner in 1967 and 1978), John Pilger called it.
Assange learned some personal lessons too which should not be lost on us.
Sometime lovers manipulated by police, Prosecutor and media; a close working colleague denouncing him and flinging allegations against him (unsubstantiated but that did not prevent the media from publishing them).
Julian Assange on the balcony of his asylum quarters, the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, after receiving news of the dropping of the Swedish ‘investigation’ of allegations of ‘rape’ against Assange and the voiding of the International Arrest Warrant. (Photo source: Internet)
LESSONS FOR US SPECIFICALLY
Suppose for a moment that one did not take to Assange’s character. Suppose one even objected to his work. Still, he was entitled to fair due process. That he did not receive it from so many is obvious. Did he receive it from us?
That community of people who would lay claim to having an alternative view, to be opposed to the status quo and, most of all, to be for Justice?
Injustice meted out by those in power often needs collusion and the more independent of the power the colluders are, the more justified the witch-hunt is made to seem.
The media whipped up a passionate hue and cry against Assange, who had not even been charged and had cooperated to all extents reasonable with the investigation of allegations against him.
That hysteria sought to drown Assange but also to catch in its flood any, no matter how puny or how mildly, calling for justice and due process. The cry of the mob must be “Hang him!” and no dissenting voices must be heard.
The hysteria generated in some sectors, even among people who would normally insist on justice and who opposed the status quo, reached a very high pitch.
For the crime of suggesting on Facebook at the time that the case against him seemed “dodgy” and that besides he was in any case entitled to due process, a person called me a “rape apologist” in public while people I had considered comrades (and had thought one even a friend) remained silent.
Shortly after that, a clutch of FB friends (which I made FB ex-friends quickly) backed up the allegation.
That taught me a valuable lesson about comrades and solidarity but it pales beside the severity of the lesson Assange has been taught, the mark of which he may carry for the rest of his life.
But the function of such a process goes far beyond the personal; it is intended to make dissent very uncomfortable and even painful.
We may face the attacks of our declared enemies with courage or at least resolve and commitment but it is a different matter when we are attacked, politically and personally, by those we take to be broadly on our side against the oppressive powers.
Most people would say they are for justice. It is usually easy to say so.
But unless we can stand up for it whether we like the victim or not, whether we approve of his work or not and, even in the midst of the hysteria calling for a hanging, we are prepared to cry instead for justice, our declarations are worth nothing.
There are many lessons in the saga for us to learn — but will we?
end
Footnotes
1“Can’t we just drone this guy?” Hillary Clinton, quoted in the Pilger summary article.
A group of asylum seekers and refugees held a small protest earlier today in front of Leinster House (home of the Irish Parliament). They were supported by a couple of people from Social Rights Ireland1 and some independent activists.
A photographer and reporter from the Irish Times and a freelance news photographer were in attendance. Speakers addressed passing pedestrians and people going into and coming out of the building and 4th Year schoolchildren on a social awareness course gathered nearby.
Event poster advertising the protest. (Image sourced: Social Rights Ireland)
The purpose of the protest was to highlight the plight of a large number of asylum seekers and other refugees who are not receiving the minimum provision of State services required by law: food, a safe place to stay, toilet and washing facilities.
Instead, many (up to 60) are living in tents, around 40 near the offices of the International Protection Agency, the agency which should be meeting their basic needs by law and where the refugees are sometimes threatened by far-Right and anti-social elements.
Last May, people in a spillover of this encampment to a lane in nearby Sandwith Street were threatened by non-local fascist activist Phillip Dwyer and some thugs. After the latter were resisted antifascists mobilised to resist a mob whipped up by the usual far-Right scaremongering and lies.
On that occasion the refugees in question were temporarily rehoused in an empty property by Revolutionary Housing League activists and their belongings transported by a street homeless outreach team who were threatened and their vehicle for a while blocked by hostile racists.
(Photo: Rebel Breeze)
In Kildare Street this afternoon, President for 2024-’25 of the Trinity College branch of the National Union of Students in Ireland gave an impromptu address, decrying the illegal inaction of the Government and urging university professors to speak out against the injustice.
Another impromptu speaker, with an Irish accent, reminded listeners of the history of the Irish people who had over centuries been refugees, asylum seekers and economic migrants to many parts of the world.
Quite apart from the legal requirements of the Government, he said, Irish people should extend solidarity and support on a human basis and in recognition of our history.
One of those who was noticed passing the protesters during speeches was Chris Andrews, Sinn Féin TD (parliamentary representative) for the area in which the IPO is located and around 40 refugees are living in tents.
A statement “words from an asylum seeker”2 was read out by a Social Rights Ireland activist with an Irish accent, pointing out that their arrival in Ireland involved a difficult journey across many parts of the world, leaving partners and children behind, a journey many had not survived.
They were not seeking to take anything from the Irish people and had been appalled to see Irish people also living on the street. The statement pointed out the large number of empty properties within the Irish state and declared that no-one should be having to sleep on the street in Ireland.
The organiser thanked people for their attendance and promised to return at a future date with a larger attendance.
End.
Current President of the Trinity College branch of the USI giving impromptu address (Photo: Social Rightis Ireland)
On a day when the Israeli military killed another 83 Palestinians, to bring the state’s death-tally since October 8th to almost 29,0001 known dead and thousands injured and missing,2over 50,000 people marched in solidarity through Dublin city centre.
The Israeli military is killing, on average, a Palestinian child every ten minutes.
Section of Mothers Against Genocide Ireland marching with bundles simulating children killed by Israel (Photo: D.Breatnach)
The national demonstration was convened by the Ireland Palestine Solidarity campaign and, though people came from all over the country and from many organisations, the numbers did not seem to quite match their last national demonstration, believed attended by 100,000.
As they marched from the Garden of Remembrance, the usual slogans were prompted and taken up in chanting responses: 1, 2, 3, 4 – Occupation no more! 5, 6, 7, 8 – Israel is a terrorist state!3 Gaza, Gaza, don’t you cry – Palestine will never die! Free, free – Palestine!
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
Taking over 20 minutes to pass through the north city centre’s O’Connell Street, they marched over O’Connell Bridge into D’Olier Street, through College Green and right into Dame Street, constantly chanting out the slogans4 of solidarity to which, by now, thousands have become accustomed.
From the River to the Sea – Palestine will be free! In our thousands and our millions – we are all Palestinians! Netanyahu (also Joe Biden, Western Powers etc) what do you say? – How many kids did you kill today? Zionist Ambassador – Out, out, out!
In some sections could also be heard: There is only one solution – Intifada revolution! Irish Government (also Western powers, USA), you can’t hide – You’re supporting genocide!
Section of the march about half-way through O’Connell Street, looking northwards. (Photo: D.Breatnach)Section of the march about half-way through O’Connell Street, viewing southward. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
The Irish Government, the EU and the Genocidal Israeli State
Among EU states, the leaders of the Irish Government have been the most pressing on the EU to call for a ceasefire and have now teamed up with the Spanish state’s current government leadership to press the EU to revise its preferential trade agreement with the Israeli State.
They are not likely to succeed since Germany and France have led the strident pro-Israel position of the EU, rejecting even a call for a humanitarian pause to deliver food, fuel and shelter to starving Palestinian refugees or any attempt to restrain the Zionists’ leaders from their genocidal bombing.
But in addition the main concern of the Irish Government ministers (probably Spain’s also) is that the whole situation is going to escalate further in Palestine and further, across the Middle East; in other words they are offering ‘good advice’ and concerned that it’s being ignored by Israel.
Children on the march – a reminder that the Israeli state kills a Palestinian child on average every ten minutes. Also Irish language flag and placard in this photo employing the “Saoirse don Phalaistín” slogan. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
In any case, although the USA is the main supplier of finance and arms to Israeli Zionism, the EU is by far the Zionist state’s largest export market and could stop the genocide tomorrow with an ultimatum to stop bombing or face an embargo on Israeli products.
The International Court of Justice determined that the Israeli State is plausibly guilty of genocide but declined to order a ceasefire and again during the week rejected a South African application to order a cessation of genocidal actions though it did warn the zionists not to commit genocidal acts.5
Meanwhile the UN court is to begin hearings on Monday to determine whether the Israeli occupation is guilty of practising apartheid but the verdict is months away and the Israeli State continues its genocide unabatedly.
Palestinian solidarity in the Irish language
Small banner, group unknown with what has become a common slogan in Irish. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
At the junction with South Great George’s Street the marchers turned left and continued up into Aungier Street and then left again into Cuffe Street with people gathered on the pavements and at junctions, sometimes applauding but never expressing hostility.
A number of slogans and messages of solidarity in the Irish language could be seen on placards, flags and banners; two of the latter calling for Saoirse don Phalaistín. One of the banners had a large group behind it which included marchers calling out slogans in Irish.
Ón dtalamh go dtí an spéir – Beidh an Phalaistín saor! Stad an slad!
The Mothers Against Genocide group used Irish too, singing the chorus from Róisín Elsafty’s song and video with Irish and Arabic: A Phalaistín, a Phalaistín, hosni alaikum ya falastin. (Good luck to you, Palestine) and mixed the singing with chants of solidarity.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
Once reaching the south side of Stephens’ Green,6 where the IPSC stage was set up near the Department of Foreign Affairs’ building,7 many marchers just stopped, began socialising, folding up banners or just going off for coffee etc (some also had long journeys ahead to return home).
Of course some stayed to hear speakers and performances but I didn’t.
Once again the thought struck me that this period could be used to advantage in small public meetings on the street but removed from the central stage; different currents in the solidarity movement could be discussed, along with basic principles and demands in our solidarity.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)
Collusion and Repression
As a Sinn Féin contingent self-identified by banners and placards marched in, some greeted them with Oh hey, oho! — No shamrocks for Genocide Joe! in a clear rebuke to the party’s leader’s intention to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with the US President at the White House.8
Passing through the southside’s city centre afterwards, people were frequently seen wearing Palestinian keffiyehs in various colours (black and white, red and white, green and white and the Irish green, white and orange version) as were people walking with furled Palestinian flags.
Indeed, action the health worker unions could have taken but failed to do so (Photo: D.Breatnach)
At least two people were arrested by Public Order Gardaí for demonstrating in the city centre outside Israeli-colluding businesses, to be bailed until their case in March, amid reports9 that activists have been threatened with charges and court for December’s Israeli Embassy occupation.
Although people came from many parts of Ireland, there were smaller solidarity demonstrations in many of those too.
2Another 7,000 are believed buried under rubble of buildings bombed by the Israeli military. Palestinians had very little undamaged digging and earth-moving equipment and the pieces of masonry are often massive but they do try and dig through it, often with their bare hands.
3I think “israel is a fascist state!” would be entirely appropriate.
4“slogan” in English is of Irish-language origin, perhaps via Scottish Gaedhlig, from ‘slua/ slóga’ = “a host/ large gathering, troop” and ‘gairm’ to “call, address”. The original root is of Indo-European origin.
5Which the Israeli State has continued to do every single day since the ICJ initial judgement, killing thousands of civilians since then and bombing and invading hospitals.
6As in most parts of Dublin city the Green has been the scene of important historical events but this one perhaps more than most: it was a 1916 battleground, the location of a force of mostly Irish Citizen Army during the 1916 Rising before they were forced to relocate to the Royal College of Surgeons, where the garrison remained until the surrender. The Commandant Michael Malin and another senior officer, Constance Markievicz, were both sentenced to death by British Army military court. Michael Malin was shot dead by firing squad but Markivicz’s sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.
7A Palestine solidarity activist accused of ‘decorating’ the building with red paint in protest at the Government’s collusion with Israeli zionism was in court last week, having been raided at 7am, arrested and charged. The case has been deferred until next month.
8In a Belfast meeting organised by the party in Palestine solidarity recently a small group of Palestinians were ejected for pointing out that one of the speakers, the Palestine Ambassador is “a mouthpiece of the Palestine Authority” which is an undemocratic organisation working in collusion with the zionist occupation and has not held an election since 2006 (though supposed to do so every five years).
Videos doing the rounds of social media sites show a brief intervention by Palestinians at a Sinn Féin-organised meeting in Belfast about Palestine followed by the party’s heavies evicting them to applause from many in the audience.
The event at the Europa Hotel on Thursday evening was intended, according to the party’s National Chairperson, “… as an opportunity to demonstrate that Ireland stands with the people of Gaza and the West Bank and to reiterate calls for an immediate ceasefire, and an end to the occupation.”1
Actually Ireland is already – except for the Unionists — well behind the Palestinians as shown by attendance at marches and opinion surveys. What is needed is a) clarity on what we are calling for and b) direct action to put the States and companies under greater pressure.
The video of the intervention I’ve seen began with an apology for interrupting the Palestinian Ambassador, Dr. Jilan Wahba Abdalmajid, as “a mouthpieceof the Palestinian Authority” which, the challenger said, is an undemocratic organisation which has not had an election since 2006.
Boos and cries of objection followed from the audience as the Palestinian asked to be listened to, pointed out that those doing the intervention were all Palestinians but the party’s security men were soon hustling them out and periodically trying to block the phone camera.
When people don’t want to examine the issues or are feeling guilty about them, it’s always tempting to blame the critics, suggest they’re dissidents, trouble-makers, etc. That way the pointing finger is turned around and the actual issues don’t need to be thought about.
Of course this time some SF supporters commented along those lines, accusing their critics of being Loyalists, or as they have in the past outsiders, ultra-leftists, intelligence service agents, dissidents, malcontents, trouble-makers … or just plain Utopians.
“MOUTHPIECE OF … AN UNDEMOCRATIC ORGANISATION”
The intervention from the floor was challenging but what of the content? Palestinian Ambassadors are appointed and employed by the Palestinian Authority which, though never intended as a government is acting like one. So “mouthpiece for the PA”? Blunt — but entirely accurate.
Palestinian Ambassador to Ireland of the undemocratic and corrupt Palestinian Authority at a Sinn Féin meeting (note SF President Mary Lou McDonald applauding in the background). (Sourced: Internet)
The PA “has not had an election in 18 years”? Accurate also – though they’re supposed to have one every five years. The last time there were elections in Palestine was 2006 and Hamas won overall throughout Palestine. However Fatah, the losers, refused to give up their seats.
In 2007 in Gaza, Hamas moved against Fatah and after a short struggle, took the seats to which the electorate had voted them. However, they chose not to do that in the West Bank, where the PA’s HQ is and where EU and USA money comes flowing in to Abbas and his unelected cronies.
The reason for not holding elections is that Hamas would almost certainly win again. Meanwhile, “democratic Israel” refused to recognise the Gaza administration or the elected representatives of the Palestinians while the US, EU and UK followed suit and ‘Israel’ blockaded Gaza.
The Palestinian Authority, as well as being undemocratic, deeply corrupt, unrepresentative and repressive2 is also actively colluding with the Zionist state and feeding its masters intelligence on the Palestinian opposition and resistance while it represses their supporters.
That’s what most Palestinians think about the PA and, as is widely known and even tacitly admitted by the USA3, whether in the West Bank or in Gaza, Palestinians have no confidence in the institution.4
Some of the comments on the circulating videos criticised SF’s bad management of the event, opining that the Palestinians should have been allowed to speak and then the meeting could have proceeded as the organisers planned and the challenge would have got little publicity.
True … but SF is used to throttling dissent inside its party or in the communities it controls and managing dissent – rather than crushing it — is just not its style.
In any case, is ‘bad management’ the main issue with regard to SF and Palestine? More important than supporting partition of Palestine, the institutionalisation of a Bantustan “Palestinian State” under the guns of the Zionists – and the PA’s collusion with those same Zionists?
The Provisionals weren’t always pro-Palestinian; though it might shock some people, they originally mirrored Irish society’s position of support for Israel, the perceived ‘underdog’ up to the mid-1960s, Hollocaust survivors (Zionists) who had fought the British police and army.5
THE PROVO LEADERSHIP AND PALESTINE
For a while pieces by a Fred Burns O’Brien apparently based in the USA were featured in the Provos’ newspaper but some time after he revealed himself as a Zionist he was ‘let go’, probably through internal pressure from those who thought the Palestinians were the natural ally.6
One of the problems with taking a political position, physically or ideologically, is that you might get called on it someday. This is why bourgeois politicians try to give themselves wriggle and even retreat room in their statements – lots of good-sounding bites with little content.
The Provisionals owe a debt to some Palestinians but it’s a very bad one. I don’t mean when they got some arms for the struggle7 but rather their following Fatah/PLO down the pacification process, for which Fatah and the ANC sent fraternal delegates to SF’s Ard-Fheiseanna (annual congresses).
Subsequently, Ireland and South Africa were used as promotional examples of the pacification process and their delegates travelled as kinds of sales representatives8 — but Palestine got dropped from 2000 onwards because of the Second Intifada, when Palestinians rejected Fatah’s deal.
You can’t sell a process as ‘working’ when the youth have overwhelmingly rejected it and are fighting the Occupation in the street.
“ORGANISE YOUR OWN EVENT”
One prominent member of SF in the British colony told the Palestinian protesters they should have organised “their own event.” Er – was this event not advertised as being for solidarity with Palestine? But ‘Palestinians not welcome’? Or only zionist-collaborating Palestinians?
Imagine if back in the day some political party had been having a meeting about Ireland and were inviting an Irish State or British colonial minister as a speaker, would anyone have been shocked to see and hear SF activists challenging or even heckling the speakers during the meeting?
Would we not be reading statements from SF talking about ‘no right of colonialists to represent the Irish people’ and about ‘censorship of Irish voices’?
Cartoon by DB.
Gerry Adams, former President of the party was quoted as saying the calls are “inconsistent” because they are not making the same call with regard to the UK though “the Brits are up to their neck in this” and what is important for SF in the USA is Irish-America.
But SF long ago accommodated itself to the colonialist “Brits”, including its royalty. Irish politicians don’t flock to London for St. Patrick’s Day. Anyway the primary financial and military supplier – and political backer of the Zionist state in the UN Security Council — is the USA.
Why is the diaspora in the USA so important to Sinn Féin but not the diaspora in Britain or in Australia? It must be because the USA is the “boss of the world” and pathetic Irish gombeen politicians think their diaspora gives them them some kind of weight with the imperialists.
What would really help with the Irish diaspora would be if SF were to address the Irish-Americans and ask them to push their political representatives to call for the USA to stop supporting genocide in Palestine.
But of course there is no chance of them doing that because 1) some Irish Americans oppose imperialism from Britain but support it from the USA; also 2) because Irish gombeens, the political class to which SF aspire, are pro-western imperialism.
INTERNATIONALIST SOLIDARITY AND THE HOME STRUGGLE
I have commented in the past that the level of commitment to internationalist solidarity is one of the indicators as to whether an organisation is going to carry through its own revolution or instead is going to finish up in liberalism and abandon its struggle, ending in actual collusion.
It seems some others have the same idea.
As she was being evicted, the Palestinian woman called out for SF not to attend Washington on St. Patrick’s Day and also shouted, though she may have meant it the other way around: “There will not be a free Palestine without a united Ireland!”
Electronic Intifada co-founder Ali Abunimah put it quite succintly: “If you can’t say NO to the White House in the middle of a genocide, then you’d never be able to stand up, not even for Ireland.”
2“The PA has actively helped Israel to keep tight control over the Palestinian population. Many perceive the body as a tool of the Israeli security apparatus, its US-trained forces not only targeting those suspected of planning attacks on Israelis, but also arresting union figures, journalists and critics on social media.” (Al Jazeera – see Sources)
3Hence the USA’s post-war plan for Gaza, as expressed by Blinken, is to have it run by a “revamped PA”, i.e one that might have some credibility among Palestinians.
4“Today, a staggering 87 percent of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza believe that the PA is corrupt, 78 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_David_Hotel_bombingpercent want Abbas to resign, and 62 percent believe that the PA is a liability.” (Washington Institute — see Sources).
5On 22 July 1946, Zionist militias bombed the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, in which the British Mandate administration had offices including its police intelligence department, killing 91: “49 were second-rank clerks, typists and messengers, junior members of the Secretariat, employees of the hotel and canteen workers; 13 were soldiers; 3 policemen; and 5 were bystanders. By nationality, there were 41 Arabs, 28 British citizens ….” Forty-six were injured. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_David_Hotel_bombing
6The same kind of pressure from the support base that caused the SF leadership recently to reestablish their ‘expel the Israeli Ambassador’ position that Mary Lou had announced they were abandoning.
7In 1977 a consignment of arms allegedly from the PLO bound for Ireland was seized by the authorities at Antwerp.
8To the Basque Country, Kurdish Turkey, Colombia, Sri Lanka, Philippines etc.
A far-right march containing known fascists and fascist organisations opposed to immigration or to providing housing for refugees confronted an antifascist counterprotest half its size in Dublin city centre’s main street on Monday.
The counter-protest was convened for 1pm by the United Against Racism organisation (a kind of liberal anti-racist and antifascist confederation set up by the People Before Profit party) in order to confront an advertised mobilisation of the far-Right on a broad racist platform.
The racists had been building for this ‘national’ march since early January.
A view of the west side of the anti-racist gathering some time before the arrival of the anti-immigration march. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
The antifascists gathered on the central pedestrian reservation while a group of less than 20 strutted in front of the GPO waving Tricolours,1 an Erin go Bragh flag2 and, most unusually, a Cumann na mBan3 flag. Did they know or care that one of the founders of that organisation was a migrant?4
Or that the Tricolour was presented to us in 1848 by women revolutionaries in Paris? The far-Right in Ireland is replete with ironies, whether ignorant of them or aware while manipulating their ignorant followers in neglected cross-generational families and communities.
Among the anti-racist gathering, at first there were red, rainbow and some Palestinian flags but not one specifically Irish one apart from a white Starry Plough on a red background, until a little later when a number of Irish Tricolours made their appearance among the anti-racists.
East side of the anti-racist gathering some time before the arrival of the anti-immigration march. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
This gives the unfortunate appearance that it’s the far-Right that cares about the national struggle and not the antifascists, which is untrue since the fascists have never lifted a finger for Irish freedom and unity (as pointed out by one of the placards displayed by the anti-racists).
It seemed strange that the anti-racists had not occupied the space directly in front of the GPO, thereby not only denying it to the far-Right but also giving them a position with a safe rear and only exposed from the front and flanks, as distinct from the central reservation, open on all sides.
Many Garda Public Order Unit vehicles had been seen at the Garden of Remembrance where the far-Right were rallying along with two mounted Garda, with another two of those outside the GPO and many police in ordinary uniform, along with a few POU there also.5
A strong turnout of Gardaí lined up in front of the GPO with their backs to the fascists and facing the antifascists, a formation clearly anticipating antifascists moving against the far-Right. A number of shouts were traded between the opposing forces.
Early view of section of the anti-racist demonstrators showing in the background a section of the far-Right demonstrators outside the GPO before they left to join their rally at the Garden of Remembrance. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
A senior Garda officer approached an anti-fascist and obliged her to remove her mask, an action that exposed her not only to Garda photographers but also to media and far-Right snaps and video.
Unlike a number of other occasions prior to and during the Covid emergency, the police restrained the fascists from crossing the road or even engaging in sustained exchanges. After awhile, the latter departed to join the others at their rally at the Garden of Remembrance
The antifascist gathering listened to speeches (or ignored them and chatted among themselves) and a number of a cappella songs about Irish emigration and anti-racism, regularly joining in slogans of “Say it loud and say it clear – Refugees are welcome here!” and “Fáilte – roimh theifigh!”
Another slogan6 shouted was “When refugees are under attack – Stand up, fight back!”
THE FASCIST MARCH
Word reached the antifascists that the far-Right had finally got into their march and the whole anti-racist gathering moved to face the east side of O’Connell Street, where stewards packed them in tighter and tighter and Gardaí lined up facing them with arms linked.
Photo taken of section of anti-racist protesters on east side of central reservation shortly before arrival of anti-immigration marchers – note the Gardai linked arms against the anti-racists, possibly out of habit before they reversed their positions as the far-Right protesters approached. The flag centre photo is of the Second Spanish Republic during the Spanish Antifascist War. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
A little later, perhaps conscious of the size of the far-Right march, the Gardaí turned their backs to the anti-racists and faced the street upon which the racists were going to march. The POU also deployed around the area and both mounted police moved across on to the central reservation.
The far-Right began to proceed southward along the street a couple of feet only away from the anti-fascists, from which the slogans in support of refugees were chanted in unison but there were also individual comments flying back and forth, along with gestures, between both groups.
Their stewards were clearly keen to keep them moving, however. At one point a large group of the far-Right mounted the central reservation and approached the antifascists aggressively but between the Gardaí and their own stewards they soon resumed their march south.
The anti-immigration marchers pause in order to hurl abuse at the anti-racist counter-protesters, some of who respond in kind. (Photo sourced: Internet)
It became clear that the racist march outnumbered the counter-protest in the order of around two to one. When banners of the National Party and the Irish Freedom Movement were seen (and placards of Síol na hÉireann)7 a roar of “Nazi scum off our streets!” emerged from the anti-racists.
There were also some cries of “MI5!” at those. Some large placards bearing the legend “Ireland is full” drew the reply: “No it’s not – you don’t know your history or your geography!”8
A racist and a fascist trope side by side: The “Replacement” conspiracy theory originated in white European settler colonies in fear of being replaced by the indigenous people, while fascists regularly demand freedom of speech for racism and lies but shut down all freedoms when they get into power. (Photo sourced: Internet)
The march passed and according to information received made its way to Custom House Quay for a rally. The antifascists were then called on to the street to march to the Garden of Remembrance in a move that puzzled some (one suggestion was that it was to “disinfect” the site!).
Later and photos from Anti-Imperialist Ireland confirmed the sighting of a number of known fascists at the racist rally, including Derek Bligh (IF), Jim Ferguson, Herman Kelly (IFM) and Rowan Croft, all with connections to British Loyalism and British Intelligence.
Four prominent fascists from different groups who were present (some as speakers) at the anti-refugee and immigration rally on Monday. (Photo source: AIA)
EVALUATION
The question must be asked how a minority of far-right and fascist parties in Ireland can outnumber the vastly numerically superior anti-fascist mass in the country at a public (and publicised) event? Clearly the counter-protest organisers failed to mobilise the wide anti-fascist masses.
View of section of the anti-immigration march. (Photo sourced: Internet)
Or the wide anti-fascist movement failed to respond to the call. Where were the Irish Republican forces, the specifically antifascist organisations, the anti-fascist trade unionists – and the broad masses that they can mobilise?
Some of those may say that they don’t trust the UAR group, that they’re not serious about confronting fascists, etc. That may be but it would be a poor and shameful excuse for allowing a successful fascist attack on an antifascist gathering.
On the other hand, when the UAR was being founded, it deliberately excluded those forces – Republicans, antifascist activists, anarchists – who had already been confronting the far-right in Dublin and had been in a number of clashes with the fascists.
A placard displayed by a migrant solidarity demonstrator. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
This is a most serious situation in which the democratic masses to be as the racists and fascists mobilise their thugs and feel the wind behind their sails while simultaneously the State surreptitiously encourages them and the capitalist system seeks to make the workers pay for its crisis.
The racist march took place in the context of a recent fascist mobilisation in the city centre burning cars and public transport and ongoing burning of buildings across the country earmarked – or just believed to be earmarked – for housing of refugees.
Government Ministers can claim shock and anger at such fascist mobilisations but how is it that the wave of arson attacks is being permitted? And how is it that communications of the culprits are not being monitored by the State’s intelligence services?
How is that there is not one case of Garda or property security being on hand and apprehending the arsonists?
We need not believe any nonsense about insufficient personnel because the private security industry employs over 30,000 people across a broad range of sectors9 and the Gardaí can mobilise 100 with helicopter back-up to evict a handful of housing activists occupying an empty building.10
The State is clearly allowing the fascists a loose rein whilst at the same time permitting an atmosphere favouring repression to build up – repression which as is usually the case will be used not against the fascists but against the antifascists and against the Left resistance in general.
We are being given warnings and it is up to all of us whether we act upon them. If we don’t not only we but our children will pay the price.
End.
FOOTNOTES
1The green, white and orange flag that became the ‘national’ flag of the Irish State.
2Anglicisation for pronunciation of Éirinn go Brách (Ireland for ever!), the slogan in gold on a green background, usually also bearing the emblem of the harp in gold was a common flag seen among gatherings of the Fenians (Irish Republican Brotherhood) in Ireland, Britain and the USA during the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries.
3Possibly the world’s first female republican military organisation, it was founded in 1914 as an auxiliary to the male Irish Volunteers founded the year before; around 40 of them participated in the 1916 Rising. Later the organisation developed more independence.
4Constance Markievicz: A founding member of Fianna Éireann, Cumann na mBan and the Irish Citizen Army, she took part in the Easter Rising in 1916, when Irish republicans attempted to end British rule and establish an Irish Republic.
5And some in ordinary street clothes, clearly the political ‘undercover’ police (now officially the Special Detective Unit but still widely known among political activists (and some of its own officers) by their former name of “the Special Branch”).
7Three of the prominent fascist and racist organisations recently founded in Ireland, though not much of “Síol” has been seen for many months.
8Presumably a reference to the fact that in 1845 Ireland had a population of over 8 million and was not “full” even then while the population today is around 7 million.
Palestinian solidarity supporters demonstrated outside the Israeli Embassy in Dublin again this afternoon, calling for the expulsion of the legation and the Israeli Ambassador. The protest was maintained from around 3pm to after 6pm today.
Organised by Saoirse Don Phalaistín and Action for Palestine, supported by Anti-Imperialist Action and independent activists, the protest kept up an almost endless chorus of slogans in English, Irish and Arabic languages, calling for a free Palestine and an end to genocide.
(Photo: Rebel Breeze)
Slogans were shouted denouncing the genocide being committed by the USA, the EU, the “Western Powers” and the “western media”, along with the collusion of the Irish Government. As large numbers of Gardaí arrived their collusion with zionism was called out also.
The latest figures of the Zionist genocide have now passed 27,000 dead in four months, more than two-thirds of them women and children, 66,287 injured, with 70% of Gaza housing destroyed and over 85% of its population displaced, a quarter starving and without clean drinking water.
(Photo: Rebel Breeze)
17,000 children are without parents or separated, according to UNICEF. And now evidence is mounting of Israeli ‘field executions’ and random sniper killing of Palestinian civilians and an Israeli military murder squad shooting three young Palestinian men sleeping in a hospital.
Meanwhile, outside the Zionist Embassy in Dublin …
(Photo: Rebel Breeze)
No less than three van-loads of the POU Gardaí (riot police) and many uniformed officers were there eventually. Later one of the latter threatened all those sitting in front of the entrance as a group with arrest under the Public Order Act, though no public disorder was taking place.
For the rest of their time there, the protesters separated to each side of the Embassy building entrance and the event concluded without any arrests.
(Photo: Rebel Breeze)
Every few minutes car horns could be heard as passing drivers indicated their support, often with a clenched fist or thumbs-up sign out the window. Only two objected: a man walking his dog who said he only cares about Ireland and a woman who shouted from across the road.
It has often been remarked by activists that those who “only care about Ireland” and object to Palestinian solidarity are not seen on the many demonstrations in Ireland protesting lack of housing, health service in tatters or British occupation of the Six Counties.
The Israeli Embassy is in an upper floor of a building rented to the zionist entity by a foreign property company with Irish directors, Quanta Capital at 15 Merrion Square North, a location which has also been the subject of protests.
Other tenants in the building say they have complained about the Embassy tenancy to the company but “they don’t care.”
No doubt protesters will return and the pressure on the Embassy (and on the Irish Government protecting it) will be maintained. Some TD should surely ask in Leinster House how much the taxpayers are being charged for maintaining an official zionist presence in Dublin.
Led by four Republican marching bands and containing a number of organisations, around 6,000 people supported the annual march in Derry on Sunday commemorating the 1972 massacre by the British Parachute Regiment in the city.
This year a special focus on solidarity with Palestine had been called for by the organisers of the Bloody Sunday massacre commemoration and Palestinian flags mixed with ones of Irish Republican organisations decorated the march route.
The march begins at the Creggan Heights, overlooking Derry, a steep walk up from the Bogside, the city’s centre near the river and winds its way down (with a great view of the Foyle river and surrounding area) but then up Westland Street again and along Marlborough Terrace.
Rear banner of the AIA contingent on the Bloody Sunday commemoration march Sunday. (Photo source: AIA)
For a number of years this commemoration has taken place in heavy rain and high winds, or snow, or sleet but it was dry this year – until the march started! However after a short period of strong gusts driving rain it stopped for the rest of the march.
Down Creggan Road to the Bogside once more and past the Bloody Sunday and H-Block memorials to the rally at Free Derry Corner where Kate Nash, one of the main organisers of the march for years and a sister of one of those murdered in the massacre, welcomed the marchers.
The Bloody Sunday 52nd commemoration march makes it way along Lone Moor Road towards the Brandywell on Sunday afternoon. (Photo: George Sweeney via Derry News.)
RALLY AND SPEAKERS
Nash condemned the punitive EU/ UK/ USA cutting of funds to the UNRWA organisation carrying out relief and educational work in Gaza following an Israeli State intelligence allegation1 and also called for no Irish politicians to attend the annual US Presidential St. Patrick’s Day event.2
Kate Nash’s brother Willie was murdered by the Parachute Regiment during the massacre and her father was wounded by fire while trying to reach his fallen son. Kate called for a minute’s silence for the dead and wounded that day but also for those in Gaza, in particular the children.
Kate Nash also mentioned the Noah Donohoe case as being close to everyone’s heart.
The names of the dead and wounded by the Parachute Regiment were read out by Damian Donaghy,3 son of Damian Donaghy one of the survivors on that day. Paddy Nash performed the civil rights anthem “We Shall Overcome” which was popular among marchers of the time.
Section of the rally to the right as facing Free Derry Corner with a mural based on an iconic photograph from the massacre. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Kate Nash introduced Huda Ammori, a Manchester-based Palestinian activist and one of the Elbit Eight,4 who said she felt at home in Derry because of the people’s solidarity with Palestine.5 The State in Britain failed to convict all but one of any charges arising out of direct action against the arms company.
Ammori drew parallels between the Irish and Palestinian struggles against colonialism and stated that her grandfather had been assassinated for rising up against the British colonisation of Palestine in 1936, when it was a British “Mandate”.
Mural on a wall in the Bogside, Derry; the words “don Phalaistín” are obscured by a vehicle. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
AIA Short Video with Music Bloody Sunday Derry 2024 AIA Video.MP4 (viewable on FaceBook)
“The British signed away the land of Palestine in 1917,” Amori told the rally, “they colonised our lands and then they armed and trained the Zionist militia to commit a Nakba, to displace over 750,000 Palestinians in 1948, over half the indigenous population.”
Huda Ammori said weapons were used on Palestinians in Gaza and then marketed as ‘battle-tested’. She also praised those who had taken direct action in Derry against arms firms (e.g Raytheon).
Section of crowd gathering in front of the stage for the rally. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Geraldine Doherty, niece of Gerard Donaghy, youngest of the Bloody Sunday victims, also spoke from the platform, saying it was ‘sad’ but ‘heartwarming’ to see so many people attending the march.
“More than half a century since British troops committed this massacre on these streets, innocent children like my murdered uncle Gerard and hundreds of others as well are still being denied justice”, she said and denounced the British State attempting to prevent the trial of legacy cases being tried.
Doherty spoke of the remaining “trauma for Derry and for Ireland” from which many families have never recovered, with long-term post-traumatic damage such as depression, addiction and divided families.
“But while the people of Derry were battered and imprisoned, we were never broken,” she said to cheers from the rally participants. “Derry has rediscovered its … voice and we are using that voice to oppose the murder of children and women and men, and we stand with the people of Palestine.”
Section of crowd to the left of the stage at the rally.(Photo:D.Breatnach)
ON THE MARCH
Over the years since I returned to Ireland, I have marched in that commemoration many times, either as an individual or as a member of a solidarity committee and this year was glad to be welcomed as part of the Socialist Republican contingent, with Anti-Imperialist Action.
The bloc carried two banners: the one at the front was a new one in which the AIA called for anti-imperialist revolution and socialism, while at the rear the banner celebrated the Palestinian resistance. In between the banners marchers carried flags and placards.
New banner of the AIA in the organisation’s contingent on the march on Sunday. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
In the bloc men and women marched with a flags of the AIA, the Starry Plough, Palestine and Cumann na mBan. From the contingent on many occasions could be heard slogans of solidarity with Palestine and some equally applicable to that nation’s resistance or to Ireland’s.
“In the face of occupation – Resistance is an obligation!” and “No justice – No peace!” were in the latter category while “From the River to the Sea – Palestine will be free!”, “Free, free – Palestine!” and “Saoirse don – Phalaistín!” were specifically supporting the Palestinian struggle.
Most Republican organisations and some Irish socialist organisations attend the annual event, along with campaign groups and on occasion solidarity groups from abroad or Irish ones in solidarity with struggles abroad. Sinn Féin no longer attends but some supporters would as individuals.
Giant Palestinian flag displayed below the Derry Walls above the rally below. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
THE MARCH ROUTE AND HISTORY
The Bloody Sunday march covers the same route as the anti-internment march in January 1972 when the British Paratroopers murdered 14 unarmed marchers and injured so many others. Preceded by the Ballymurphy Massacre in August 1971, it was followed by another in Springhill in July ‘72.
The British military claimed that the Derry victims had been armed and fired first and an inquiry tribunal headed by Lord Justice Widgery exonerated the Army and blamed the victims although the Derry Coroner, an ex-British Army officer had called it “sheer unadulterated murder”.
In 1998, presumably as part of the Good Friday Agreement deal, the British State began a new inquiry which however did not deliver a published verdict until 2010,6 stopping short of accusing the Army of murder but exonerating all the victims except one about which it was equivocal.
At that point, Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness said that the march should not be continued; however not one British soldier had even been charged, to say nothing of the commanders and Government Ministers who had either given the orders or arranged the cover-up – or both.
Banner of the organisation combining representation of trade unions in Derry. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
A small group of veterans of the original march and relatives, Kate Nash prominent among them, however decided to keep the march going and have done so every year, often in the face of accusations and disparaging remarks from supporters of Sinn Féin and others.
In 2022, the Massacre’s 50th anniversary, 20,000marched in it while the Bloody Sunday Trust, an institution and museum supported by the colonial state and Sinn Féin, organised a small “memorial walk” and indoors event in the Guild Hall – the only one reported by the mass media.7
An independent group, badly needed since the Coiste na nIarchimí is controlled by the Provisionals. (Photo: D.Breatnach)Display below Derry Walls created by the Saoradh Irish Republican organisation, according to their social media. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Although veterans of the massacre and of the annual commemoration often meet one another only once a year at the commemoration, some having come from abroad, there are always new young people to be seen among them and hundreds come out to watch the march.
The march is an important commemoration of a massacre by British colonialism which still holds the colony of the Six Counties, a reminder no doubt inconvenient to unionists, neo-colonialists and those who have left the struggle, either through lack of will or for personal advancement.
In its championing and giving voice to other conflicts too, the commemoration march and other related events during the week are a strong expression of internationalist solidarity.
Wreath of the Bloody Sunday Commemoration Committee among others at the Bloody Sunday Monument. (Photo source:Bloody Sunday Commemoration Committee)
End.
FOOTNOTES
1The Israeli state intelligence agency reported that 12 out of 13,000 employees of UNRWA in Gaza had been implicated in the 7th October Palestinian raid following which at least some, possibly all, were sacked by UNRWA, apparently without any hearing or appeal process. The US, UK, Germany, Italy followed this up by suspending all funding to the relief organisation catering for 2 million people in dire circumstances.
2Traditionally, leading politicians of the main Irish political parties, both mainstream and Sinn Féin, have sent representatives to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with US Presidents, many of whom are of Irish descent. This year a campaign has arisen calling on them not to do so but spokespersons of Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin have insisted they will attend, which the SDLP has declared it will not.
3Not to be confused with the family of Gerard V. Donaghy (20 February 1954 – 30 January 1972), sometimes transcribed as Gerald Donaghey, a native of the Bogside, Derry who was murdered by members of the 1st Battalion, Parachute Regiment on Bloody Sunday.
4Eight activists of British-based Palestine Action, a direct action organisation, who as a result of their actions against the Israeli-based military technology company Elbit in Britain, were charged with a total of 12 charges which included criminal damage, burglary and encouraging criminal damage. The trial, which commenced on November 13th, related to a series of actions taken during the first 6 months of Palestine Action’s existence from July 2020 to January 2021. In December last year, one activist was convicted on one charge by 10-2 majority, two were completely cleared and jury failed to reach a majority verdict on the rest of the charges on six remaining activists.
5That would be true of the majority ‘nationalist’ population of the city but not so much of the unionist minority, where support for Israel is more dominant, due in part to susceptibility to British propaganda and also simply out of sectarian hostility to anything favoured by the ‘nationalist’ community.
6At a cost of nearly £200m (€227.7m), half of which went in legal fees, a lawyer’s bonanza, to arrive at a decision that just about everyone in Ireland knew and many abroad knew already and which established no safeguards against a similar massacre being carried out by British military in future.
7Browser searches throw up report after media report, including Al Jazeera’s, of “hundreds” attending the early event, without a mention of the many THOUSANDS who marched later in the day.
A call has gone out for Irish politicians, as part of pressure on the USA to stop supporting Israeli genocidal attacks on the Palestinians, not to attend friendship ceremonies with the President of the USA on St. Patrick’s Day this year.1
With the US Presidential election scheduled for September, “Genocide Joe” Biden will still be in office on March 17th, a man who apart from representing the major imperialist power in the world, ordered his state’s veto in the UN against a call for a humanitarian ceasefire.
A man who repeated ridiculous Zionist propaganda against the Palestinians of beheading children and rapes, who said that if Israel had not existed the US would have had to invent it, who received more Zionist lobby for his campaigns as Congressman than any other in the whole USA.2
Even without his personal history, after a US-supported slaughter so far of 25,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children and displacement of 85% of Palestinians, you’d think that this would be what UStaters call “a slam dunk”, that Irish politicians would feel too disgusted to make the trip.
Placard carried by a Palestine solidarity marcher in Dublin on 28 October. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Sadly this revulsion is not felt among most politicians in Ireland, who from from Varadkar in the Government to Mary Lou MacDonald of Sinn Féin in the Opposition have indicated that they have no intention of foregoing this annual pilgrimage to the Boss of the World
What is this strange Irish obsession with the United States of America anyway? Yes, of course, it is a (or the) major world power and yes, a number of people of Irish antecedence have become its Presidents – including the first Roman Catholic to reach that office.3
But really, what has the US concretely done for Ireland? Did it send us troops to help drive the English from our land? No, the Spanish Kingdom did that once and the French did it twice, once as Kingdom and again as Republic. But the US? Never.
It might be protested that the USA permitted Irish to emigrate there but a) it did so for many others too and b) only in order to populate its European colonisation of the Indigenous land and c) to compete against other European colonial powers – in particular the Spanish, French and Dutch.
It is true that it has on occasion served as a haven for Irish ‘on the run’ from British jurisdiction but so did France and in any event, those cases were nearly always when the USA was at war or in diplomatic conflict with the United Kingdom in the USA’s own interests.
WHEN THE USA COULD HAVE REALLY HELPED THE IRISH STRUGGLE
When the US-based Fenians raised an army to invade British colonial Canada in 18664, they had hopes that the government of the US would at least not impede them. The British had supported the Confederacy in the American Civil War which had cost 650,000-800,000 lives.5
That number represented the highest number of US dead in any military conflict before that (or since), fought to eliminate slavery, which the UK had abolished 50 years earlier6 – yet it supported the Confederacy7 in a number of ways including building warships for them.
The charge of the Fenians (wearing green uniforms) under Colonel John O’Neill at the Battle of Ridgeway, near Niagara, Canada West, on June 2, 1866. In reality, the Fenians had their own green flags but wore a very mixed bag of Union and Confederate uniforms (if they still had them, or parts of them left over from the Civil War), or civilian garb, with strips of green as arm or hat bands to distinguish themselves. (library and archives canada, c-18737)
The USA closed the border with Canada and arrested Fenian war veterans under arms8 waiting to cross but only after (perhaps to make a point with the British) an advance Fenian force had already entered British Canada, seized Fort Erie and defeated British soldiers of the line and militia.
The US President, Andrew Johnson issued the border closure and arrest of Fenians by Executive Order on June 5th 1866, which was enforced under orders from General Ulysses Grant9 and put an end to the operation, as the US did to subsequent attempts.
The British subsequently paid $15.5 million in 1872 for damage caused by the British-built Confederate warship, the Alabama, after which both states entered into friendly relations.10
The USA did not support the Irish insurrection of 1916 nor the War of Independence. After WWI, while the victorious imperialists held their “Peace Conference” to discuss the new world order and re-divide up the world, US President Wilson declined to meet the Irish Republican delegation.11
The USA did not support the Irish in the War of Independence (1919-1921) nor support the Republican side in the Civil War (1922-1923). Nor again during the Border Campaign, nor during the Civil Rights Campaign followed by armed struggle (1968-1998).
In 1992, after a long legal and political battle, IRA Volunteer Joe Doherty, in the US since 1983 was finally extradited to the Six Counties despite a) the political nature of his charge and b) the well-known low proof standards of the political courts in the British colony.12
It is true of course that, in deference to the feelings of its large Irish-American population and their representation in the US polity, that it has permitted certain Irish solidarity activities on US soil and, at times, issued statements of concern over British actions in Ireland – but nothing more.
The Irish-American political representation is for the most part US first and Irish second, i.e US Imperialist first and foremost. Ireland is also used by US monopolies as a side door into the markets of the EU and, through registering head offices in Ireland, for avoiding taxes in the USA.
NEO-COLONIAL ASPIRANTS TO THE GOMBEEN CLUB
So what is all this US homage in the Irish official polity about — and in particular among Sinn Féin? How can leaders of the party correctly criticise the genocidal actions of the Israeli State and yet speak no word against the main backer of the zionist state, i.e the USA?
It’s a new SF – two of the party’s leaders, Mary Lou MacDonald and Michelle O’Neill, smiling in joint photo with the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces occupying part of Ireland (and engaged in imperialist actions elsewhere) and a hereditary monarch. (Photo cred.: Irish Times)
The answer is simply that the new SF, which was never overall socialist nor even particularly anti-imperialist throughout the Provisionals phase, is now neo-colonialist and knocking on the doors of the established gombeens,13 asking for admittance, which they are sure to receive in time.
They are not the first to make the transition from revolutionary Irish Republicans to gombeen party. Fianna Fáil, representing some of the leadership of the losing IRA side in the Irish Civil War, was an Irish ‘constitutional’ party and became the preferred choice of the gombeen ruling class.
Fianna Fáil has been in government more often than any other party in the history of the Irish State and is there now, sharing government with their former binary opposition party, Fine Gael, along with the Greens. The FF party too considered the friendship of the USA to be important.
For the SF party leadership however the US is important also based on their perception of it being a guarantor in the Irish pacification process. In their twisted reality, US imperialism is forcing British imperialism and colonialism to do – what?
Remove the British colonialists? Remove the sectarian colonial government? Stop the penetration of the Irish economy by foreign multinationals, including those of the USA?
Of course not and in the unlikely event that thoughts of doing so ever crossed the minds of US imperialists, they would discard them instantly in favour of the continued alliance with the imperialist UK as their junior partner.
NO SOAKING THE SHAMROCK IN PALESTINIAN BLOOD
Although there are many other complicit states, the USA is the major supporter of the Israeli State, financially, militarily and politically, using its position as one of the five Permanent Members of the UN Security Council to veto resolutions proposed against the Zionist state.
The Israeli State represents a western imperialist foothold for the USA in the Middle East, the only one that is entirely safe from either internal national liberation or fundamentalist islamist uprising and it has continued to support Israel throughout the state’s genocidal history.
The role of the US in this conflict is to defend and supply the Zionist state but also to manage client states in the region and around the world get them to support ‘Israel’ (or at least to limit their opposition to the state), alongside preventing or hampering assistance reaching the Palestinians.
Placard produced in support of the demand, seen on recent Palestine solidarity march in Dublin. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Sinn Féin called recently for the Zionist Ambassador to be expelled from Ireland but initially, Mary Lou had declined to do so, saying it would not be helpful. She came under strong pressure from within the party’s membership and had to join the call for the person’s expulsion.
However, that’s easy to explain to Biden as the necessity of staying on top of a troublesome horse in order to bring it eventually under control. After all, the Government wasn’t going to expel the Ambassador, no matter what anybody said, was it?
There is a statement applicable here from the Christian Bible which has since become a proverb (if it was not already one at the time of writing), that “one cannot serve two masters”. One of the ‘masters’ is usually understood to mean money but that’s not what I mean here.14
The SF leadership cannot serve both Palestinian solidarity and US imperialism but there’s no danger of their even trying to do so – they know who their real master is. The Palestinian solidarity posturing is for their supporters and to show they can play their required role in the world.
Their President, Mary Lou did so when she offered the Irish pacification process as an example for the Palestinians15 and the whole of the SF leadership does so in supporting the imperialist “two-state solution” (sic) in which a colonial Palestinian state is to be set up under Israeli guns.
And on 40% or less of their original land, with the least water.
Neither the SF leadership nor the other politicians have any intention of missing the event in the USA in March when they offer their allegiance along with the symbolic tribute, the bowl of leaders’ shamrock which now, however, is soaked in Palestinian blood.
We should at least make it difficult for them by signing the petition and in other opportunities as may arise between now and that date.
11Or even to reply to their correspondence although interestingly he did reply to that of a young Ho Chi Minh of Vietnam in ‘French’ Indo-China (according to research presented in Dublin some years ago and noted by me)
12He had been a member of a unit in Belfast that killed a captain of an SAS undercover unit attempting to surround them.
13From the Irish language “gaimbíneachas”, a pejorative term describing the practice of those Irish with capital who took advantage of the hardships of the Great Hunger to appropriate land holdings and businesses, something similar to the disdained “carpetbaggers” in the defeated states of the American Confederacy. The term is now applied to Irish politicians and business people who facilitate foreign exploitation of Irish natural resources, labour, infrastructure and housing need.
14Although in that sense too the saying is applicable to the SF leadership.
rebelbreeze 