Category: Irish Left

Irish socialist and republican ideology, organisations, events

31st AUGUST 102 YEARS AGO — BLOODY SUNDAY IN DUBLIN 1913/ HOY, HACE 102 ANOS — EL DOMINGO SANGRIENTO DEL 31 DE AGOSTO 1913

On By rebelbreezeIn Capitalismo, Civil Rights, Dublin Lockout 1913, Historia, History, Ireland, irish history, Irish Left, Irlanda, Izquierda Irlandesa, Lucha obrera, Police Violence, Trade unions, Workers' StrugglesLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach (published originally in Dublin Political History Tours)

(Miren de bajo para la versión en castellano).

The 31st of August 1913 was one of several ‘Bloody Sundays’ in Irish history and it took place in O’Connell Street (then Sackville Street).

A rally had been called to hear the leader of the IT&GWU) speak. The rally had been prohibited by a judge but the leader, Jim Larkin, burning the prohibition order in front of a big demonstration of workers on the evening of the 29th, promised to attend and address the public.

On the day in O’Connell Street, the Dublin police with their batons attacked the crowd, including many curious bystanders and passers by, wounding many by which at least one died later from his injuries.

One could say that on that street on the 31st, or in the nearby Eden Quay on the night of the 30th, when the police batoned to death two workers, was born the workers’ militia, the Irish Citizen Army, in a desire that very soon would be made flesh.

La carga policial contra los manifestantes y transeúntes en la Calle O'Connell en el 31 Agosto 1913/ DMP attack on demonstrators and passers-by on 31st August 1913 in Dublin's O'Connell Street
La carga policial contra los manifestantes y transeúntes en la Calle O’Connell en el 31 Agosto 1913/ DMP attack on demonstrators and passers-by on 31st August 1913 in Dublin’s O’Connell Street

THE EMPLOYERS’ LOCKOUT

Bloody Sunday Dublin occurred during the employers’ Lockout of 1913. Under Jim Larkin’s leadership, the Liverpudlian of the Irish diaspora, the young ITGWU was going from strength to strength and increasing in membership, with successful strikes and representation in Dublin firms. But in July 1913, one of Dublin’s foremost businessmen, William Martin Murphy, called 200 businessmen to a meeting, where they resolved to break the trade union.

Murphy was an Irish nationalist, of the political line that wished for autonomy within the British Empire; among his businesses were the Dublin tram company, the Imperial Hotel in O’Connell Street and the national daily newspaper “The Irish Independent”.

The employers decided to present all their workers with a declaration to sign that the workers would not be part of the ITGWU, nor would they support them in any action; in the case of refusal to sign, they would be sacked.

The members of the ITGWU would have to reject the document or leave the union, which nearly none of them were willing to do.

Nor could the other unions accept that condition, despite any differences they may have had with Larkin, with his ideology and his tactics, because at some point in the future the employers could use the same tactic against their own members.

The Dublin (and Wexford) workers rejected the ultimatum and on the 26th began a tram strike, which was followed by the Lockout and mixed with other strikes — a struggle that lasted for eight months.

Dublin had remarkable poverty, with infectious diseases such as tuberculosis and others, including the sexually-transmitted ones, the city being a merchant port and also having many British Army barracks. The percentage of infantile mortality was higher than that in Calcutta. Workers’ housing was in terrible condition, often with entire families living in one room, in houses sometimes of 12 rooms, each one full of people, with one or two toilets in the outside yard.

In those conditions, 2,000 Dublin workers confronted their employers, the latter aided by their Metropolitan Police, the Irish colonial police and the British Army. As well as the workers, many small traders suffered, those selling in the street or from little shops.

On that Monday, the 31st of September 1913, some trade unionists and curious people congregated in Dublin’s main street, then called Sackville Street, in front of and around the main door of the big Clery’s shop. In the floors above the shop, was the Imperial Hotel, with a restaurant.

The main part of the union went that day to their grounds in Fairview, to avoid presenting the opportunity for another confrontation with the Dublin Municipal Police. Others in the leadership had argued that the police should not be given the opportunity and that there would be many other confrontations during the Lockout. But Larkin swore that he would attend and that a judge should not be permitted to ban a workers’ rally.
Daily Mirror Arrest Larkin photoThere were many police but nothing was happening and Larkin did not appear. After a while, a horse-drawn carriage drove up and an elderly church minister alighted, assisted by a woman, and entered the shop. They took the lift to the restaurant floor. A little later Larkin appeared at the restaurant open window, in church minister’s clothing, spoke a few words to the crowd and ran inside. Those in the street were very excited and when the police took Larkin out under arrest, they cheered him, urged on by Constance Markievicz. The police drew their batons and attacked the crowd — any man not wearing a police uniform.

 

THE UNION’S ARMY

The Irish Citizen Army was founded for the union on the 6th November 1913 by Larkin, Connolly and others with Seán Ó Cathasaigh/ O’Casey, playwright and author, including the first history of the organisation.

The Citizen Army at Croydon House, at the ITGWU's grounds in Fairview/ El Ejercito Ciudadano en su parte del parque en Fairview.
The Citizen Army at Croydon House, at the ITGWU’s grounds in Fairview/ El Ejercito Ciudadano en su parte del parque en Fairview.

As distinct from the Irish Volunteers, women could enter the ICA, within which they had equal rights.

Funeral of James Byrne, who died as a result of his imprisonment during the 1913 Lockout
Funeral of James Byrne, who died as a result of his imprisonment during the 1913 Lockout/ Procesión funébre de James Byrne, fallecido por razón de su encarcelamiento durante el Cierre de 1913, pasando por el muelle sur Eden’s Quay, partiendo de la Salla de la Libertad.

It was reorganised in 1914 as the union was recovering from its defeat during the Lockout, and 200 fought alongside the Volunteers in the 1916 Easter Rising, after which two of its leaders, Michael Mallin and James Connolly, were executed. Among the nearly 100 death sentences there were others of the ICA, including Markievicz, but their death sentences were commuted (14 were executed in Dublin, one in Cork and one was hanged in London).

The main fighting locations of the ICA in 1916 were in Stephen’s Green and in the Royal College of Surgeons, in City Hall and, with Volunteers in the GPO and in the terrace in Moore Street, the street market.

The Imperial Hotel on the other side of the street from the GPO was occupied too by the ICA and on top of it they attached their new flag, the “Starry Plough/ Plough and Stars”, the design in gold colour on a green background, the

The flag of the ICA, flown over Murphy's Imperial Hotel in 1916
The flag of the ICA, flown over Murphy’s Imperial Hotel in 1916

constellation of Ursa Mayor, which the Irish perceived in the form of a plough, an instrument of work. And there the flag still flew after the Rising, having survived the bombardment and the fire which together destroyed the building and all others up to the GPO, on both sides of the street. Then a British officer happened to notice the flag and ordered a soldier to climb up and take it down — we know not where it went.

 

TODAY

Today, after various amalgamations, the once-noble ITGWU has become SIPTU, the largest trade union in Ireland but one which does not fight. The skyscraper containing its offices, Liberty hall, occupies the spot of the original Liberty Hall, prior to its destruction by British bombardment in 1916.

The Irish newspaper the “Irish Independent” continues to exist, known as quite right-wing in its editorial line. Murphy’s trams came to an end during the 1950 decade and those in Dublin today have nothing to do with Murphy.

The Imperial Hotel no longer exists and, until very recently, Clery had taken over the whole building, but they sacked their workers and closed the building, saying that they were losing money.

In front of the building, in the pedestrianised central reservation, stands the monument as a representation of Jim Larkin. The form of the statue, with its hands in the air, is from a photo taken of Larkin during the Lockout, as he addressed another rally in the same street. It is said that in those moments, he was finishing a quotation which he used during that struggle (but which had also been written previously by James Connolly in 1897, and which something similar had been written by the liberal monarchist Étienne de La Boétie [1530–1563] and later by the French republican revolutionary Camille Desmoulins [1760–1794]): “The great appear great because we are on our knees – LET US ARISE!”

 

The Jim Larkin monument in O'Connell Street today/ El monumento de Jim Larkin in la Calle O'Connell hoy en día
The Jim Larkin monument in O’Connell Street today/ El monumento de Jim Larkin in la Calle O’Connell hoy en día

 

EL 31 DE AGOSTO EN El 1913 FUE UNO DE LOS DOMINGOS SANGRIENTOS DE IRLANDA Y OCURRIÓ EN LA CALLE PRINCIPAL DE DUBLÍN.

Hubo una concentración para escuchar al líder del sindicato de Trabajadores de Transporte y de General de Irlanda (IT&GWU) hablar. La manifestación fue prohibida por juez pero el líder, Jim Larkin, quemando el documento de prohibición en frente de manifestación grande la noche del 29, prometió que iba a asistir y hablar al publico.

El día 31 en la Calle O’Connell, la policía de Dublin con sus porras atacaron la concentración y a muchos otros curiosos o pasando por casualidad, hiriendo a muchos por lo cual murió uno por lo menos mas tarde de sus heridas.

Se puede decir que en esa calle en el 31, o en la cerca muelle, Eden Quay, la noche del 30, cuando mataron a porras dos trabajadores, se dio luz a la milicia sindical, el Ejercito Ciudadano de Irlanda, en deseo que poco mas tarde estaría fundado en actualidad.

EL CIERRE PATRONAL

El Domingo Sangriento ocurrió durante el Cierre Patronal de Dublín en el 1913. Bajo el liderazgo de Jim Larkin, el Liverpoolés de diáspora Irlandesa, el joven sindicato ITGWU fue yendo de fuerza a fuerza y aumentando en miembros, con éxitos en sus huelgas y reconocido en muchas de las empresas de Dublín. Pero en Julio del 1913, uno de los principales empresarios de Dublín, William Martin Murphy, llamó a 200 de los empresarios a mitin y resolvieron romper el sindicato.

Murphy era nacionalista Irlandés, de la linea de pedir autonomía pero adentro del Imperio británico; entre sus empresas le pertenecía la linea de tranvías de Dublín, el Hotel Imperial en la Calle O’Connell y el periódico diario nacional The Irish Independent.

Resolvieron los empresarios presentar a todos sus trabajadores una declaración para firmar que no serían parte del sindicato ITGWU ni les darían ningún apoyo en cualquiera acción; en caso de negar firmar, se les despedirían.

Los miembros del ITGWU tendrían que rechazar el documento o salir del sindicato, lo cual casi lo total no estuvieron dispuestos hacer.

Los otros sindicatos, pese a cualquiera diferencias tuvieron con Larkin, con sus pensamientos y sus tácticas, tampoco podían acceder a esa condición por que mas tarde se podría usar la misma táctica en contra de sus miembros también.

Los trabajadores de Dublín (y de Wexford) rechazaron el ultimátum y empezaron el 26 de Agosto una huelga de los tranvías, seguido por el Cierre Patronal, mixta con otras huelgas, una lucha que duró ocho meses en total.

Dublín tuvo una pobreza impresionante, con infecciones de tuberculosis y otras, incluido las transmitidas por el sexo, siendo puerto mercantil y teniendo muchos cuarteles del ejercito británico. El porcentaje de la mortalidad infantil era mas de la de la ciudad de Calcuta. Las viviendas de los trabajadores estaban en terribles condiciones, con a menudo familias grandes enteras viviendo en una habitación, en casas a veces de 12 habitaciones, cada uno llena de gente, con una o dos servicios en el patio exterior.

En esas condiciones 2,000 trabajadores de Dublín se enfrentaron al patronal de Dublín, con su policía metropolitana, la policía colonial de Irlanda y el ejercito británico. Además de los trabajadores, muchos pequeños empresarios, vendiendo en la calle o en tiendas pequeños, sufrieron.

Ese Domingo, del 31o de Setiembre 1913, algunos sindicalistas y gente curiosa se congregaron en la calle principal de Dublín, entonces nombrado Sackville Street, en frente y al rededor de la puerta principal de la gran tienda de Clery. En las plantas después de la primera, estaba el Hotel Imperial, con un restaurante.

La mayor parte del sindicato se fueron ese día a una parte de parque que les pertenecía por la costa, para evitar otra enfrentamiento con la Policía Metropolitana de Dublín. Habían argumentado otros de la dirección del sindicato que no se debe dar les la oportunidad a la policía y que habría muchos otros enfrentamientos durante el Cierre. Pero Larkin juró que lo iba a asistir y que no se podía permitir a un juez prohibir manifestaciones obreras.

Había mucha policía pero nada pasaba y Larkin no aparecía. Después de un rato, un coche de caballos llegó y un viejo sacerdote salió, apoyado por una mujer, y entraron en la tienda de Clery. Subieron en el ascensor hacía el restaurante. Poco después, Larkin apareció en la ventana abierta del restaurante, en el traje del cura y habló unas palabras, antes de correr adentro. Los de abajo en la calle muy entusiasmados y cuando la policía salieron agarrando le a Larkin, la multitud le dieron vítores, alentados por Constance Markievicz. La Policía Municipal sacaron sus porras y atacaron a la multitud – a cualquier hombre que no llevaba uniforme policial.

 

EL EJERCITO DEL SINDICATO

El Ejercito Ciudadano de Irlanda (Irish Citizen Army) fue fundado para el sindicato en el 6 de Noviembre del 1913 por Larkin, Connolly y otros con Seán Ó Cathasaigh/ O’Casey, escritor de obras para teatro y algunas otras, incluso la primera historia de la organización. A lo contrario de Los Voluntarios, el ICA permitía entrada a mujeres, donde tenían derechos iguales.

Fue reorganizada en 1914 cuando el sindicato se fue recobrando de la derrota del Cierre Patronal, y 200 lucharon con los Voluntarios en el Alzamiento de Pascuas de 1916, después de lo cual dos de sus líderes, Michael Mallin y James Connolly, fueron ejecutados. Entre los casi 100 condenas de muerte, habían otros del ICA, incluso Constance Markievicz, pero sus condenas de muerte fueron conmutadas (se les ejecutaron a 14 en Dublín y a uno en Cork, y a otro le ahorcaron en Londres).

Los lugares principales de lucha del ICA en 1916 fueron en el Stephen’s Green y en el Collegio Real de Cirujanos (Royal College of Surgeons), en el Ayuntamiento y, con Voluntarios, en la Principal Oficina de Correos (GPO) y en la manzana del Moore Street, el mercado callejero.

El Hotel Imperial al otro lado de la calle del GPO lo ocuparon también el ICA, y encima colocaron su nueva bandera, el Arado de Estrellas (“Starry Plough/ Plough and Stars”), el diseño en color oro sobre fondo verde, la formación celeste del Ursa Mayor, que lo veían los Irlandeses en forma del arado, una herramienta de trabajo. Y ahí ondeó la bandera después del Alzamiento, habiendo sobrevivido el bombardeo británico y el fuego que destruyeron el edificio y la calle entera hacía el GPO, en ambos lados. Entonces un oficial británico se dio cuenta de la bandera y le mandó a soldado hir a recoger la – no se sabe donde terminó.

 

HOY EN DÍA

Hoy en día, después de varias fusiones, el noble ITGWU se ha convertido en el SIPTU, el sindicato mas grande de Irlanda y parecido en su falta de lucha a Comisiones Obreras del Estado Español. El rasca cielos de sus oficinas, La Sala de la Liberta (Liberty Hall), ocupa el mismo lugar que ocupó la antigua Liberty Hall, antes de su destrucción por bombardeo británico en 1916.

El periódico Irish Independent sigue existiendo, conocido por ser bastante de derechas en su linea editorial. Los tranvías de Murphy terminaron en la década del 1950 y los de hoy en Dublín no tienen nada que ver con los de antes.

El Hotel Imperial ya no existe y, hasta hace muy poco, la empresa Clery lo tenía todo el edificio, pero despidieron a sus trabajadores y cerraron el edificio, diciendo que perdían dinero.

En frente del edificio, en la reserva peatonal del centro de la calle, está el monumento representando a Jim Larkin. La forma de la estatua, con las manos en el aire, lo tiene de foto que le hicieron durante el Cierre Patronal, cuando habló en otro manifestación en la misma calle. Dicen que en ese momento, estaba terminando una frase famosa que usó durante esa lucha (pero que también lo escribió Connolly antes en 1897, y que lo había escrito algo parecido primero el monárquico reformista Étienne de La Boétie [1530–1563] y luego el revolucionario republicano francés Camille Desmoulins [1760–1794]): “Los grandes aparecen grande por que estamos de rodillas – levantamanos!”

 

Fin

STILL MARCHING AGAINST WATER TAX — 100,000-130,000 CONVERGE ON O’CONNELL STREET

On By rebelbreezeIn Civil Rights, Current Event Report, Human Rights, Ireland, Irish Left, Political Analysis, Trade unions, Water Tax & MeteringLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

 

Any hope that the Irish capitalist ruling class and their current government had that people had given up — or even had just got tired of marching — were dashed on Sunday 29th August 2015.

Hundreds of thousands gathered again from far and near; banners were on display from the West, South, North-East and North-West, Midlands, and of course many parts of Dublin and the East coast.Water woman face on

Water woman looking to left

The main march columns started off from two train stations: Connolly Station, to the east of the city and Heuston, to the west. The latter contingent crossed the river at the station then marched eastward towards the city centre along the southern quays while the other marched westward along the northern quays and then crossed the river to the north side further upriver (Essex Bridge) and turned towards the city centre. Both columns had contingents and individuals joining them en route while others went straight towards O’Connell Street, they were greeted by a musical performance from the main stage by Don Baker and other musicians, also a performance by a rapper.

Aerial shot of rally in O'Connell Street (photo: Communities Against the Water Charge)
Aerial shot of rally in O’Connell Street (photo: Communities Against the Water Charge)

STATE REPRESSION

State repression was focused on at times: the Jobstown 23 banner got strong applause from bystanders at various points along the route, another banner denounced Garda violence including pepper-spraying and a number of speakers spoke about Garda repression, including one who talked about the Special Branch opening files on anti-water tax resisters.

This banner got strong applause from bystanders at various points along the route
This banner got strong applause from bystanders at various points along the route

Stop Garda Violence banner

As usual on large demonstrations of this kind, the Gardai refrained from violence or bullying and in fact were in very low profile, in stark contrast to their behaviour and numbers when dealing with smaller numbers in local resistance to water tax and the installation of water meters.

ELECTIONS, TRADE UNIONS

Among the speakers there was of course much mention of elections and getting rid of the current capiltalist government and also statements about the fight for the Republic in history, compared bleakly to the situation in Ireland today with unemployement, emigration, cuts to services, homelessness, privatisation. John Douglas, Gen. Secretary of Mandate and President of Mandate covered many of those issues, including the Dunne’s Stores dispute and the sudden closure of Clery’s in a rousing speech. However, those two are cases in point illustrating the weakness of the Irish trade union movement today: Mandate had one day’s strike in Dunnes’ many weeks ago and have won no gains as yet, while Clery’s managed to sack their workers without the union leading even a sit-in to hold the building and stock as a bargaining chip

Belfast Trades Council banner on the demonstration -- they also had a speaker on the platform
Belfast Trades Council banner on the demonstration — they also had a speaker on the platform

A new presence on this demonstration was Belfast Trade Council, who were made very welcome and who had a speaker on the platform. He said that there was no EU directive to tax the water and that in the Six Counties they had defeated the water tax. He was not long speaking when the heavens opened and rain poured down on demonstrators and bystanders alike.

Three heads plus Galway group

SUMMARY

What today showed is a strong will to resist across the country and across a great age spread, but with noticeably lower numbers across the teenage and young adult band, as well as a relatively weak leadership of the movement.

It remains to be seen whether RTÉ and newspapers will give a reasonable estimate of the numbers and coverage or instead do the usual of quoting ridiculously low figures or remain vague about them while giving minimal space to what was a large event, with participation from around the nation, as part of the biggest civil disobedience campaign in the history of this State.

End

Video of unaccompanied rapper Stephen Murphy at rally

At the Mayo v. Dublin GAA football game in Croke Park the following day, on Hill 16.
At the Mayo v. Dublin GAA football game in Croke Park the following day, on Hill 16 (Photo from Right to Water FB page)

 

(Postcript: In their on-line report, RTÉ showed a photo of a packed O’Connell St. and said the organisers were claiming around 80,000.  Also, at the Dublin GAA football match of Mayo v. Dublin the following day in Croke Park, attended by Enda Kenny, whose seat is in that county, Dublin supporters unfurled a giant banner of Right to Water).

 

(Photos unless otherwise stated: D. Breatnach)

ONE LEAVES DETENTION THIS MORNING; THREE DETAINED THIS EVENING

On By rebelbreezeIn Abortion, Civil Rights, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Human Rights, Irish Left, Police Violence, Water Tax & Metering, WomenLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

Anti-Water Tax protester leaves Dublin court today at liberty after two months but Gardaí arrest three Pro-Choice campaigners this evening, pepper-spraying at least one of them while held immobile on the ground.

Arrested impeding Irish Water vehicles

Stephen Bennet was brought from Mountjoy Prison this morning to Dublin Criminal Court to face “Public Order” charges relating to “obstructing” Irish Water vehicles in Dún Laoghaire and Dalkey and refusing to comply with Gárda instructions to desist. The Dún Laoghaire court had imposed conditions for releasing Bennet on bail which included a curfew, staying away from Irish Water vehicles and a large financial surety. Declaring the conditions unreasonable and a restriction on his civil rights to protest, Bennet had refused to agree to the conditions and the judge had taken to jail.

Some of the crowd of supporters welcome Bennet as he emerges into the court ground floor lobby. His daughter Saoirse can be seen the left holding Bennet's grandson. Unfortunately, Bennet himself is hidden by a supporter moving forward as photo was taken.
Some of the crowd of supporters welcome Bennet as he emerges into the court ground floor lobby. His daughter Saoirse can be seen to the left holding Bennet’s grandson. Unfortunately, Bennet is hidden as he moved forward as photo was taken.

Up to 30 supporters crowded into the court this morning to hear Bennet’s case being tried. There was also a large number of Special Branch Gardaí (political police in plain clothes) and a smaller number of uniformed police. A Garda Sergeant Gilmore from Dun Laoghaire station gave evidence of having confronted Bennet at York Road in Dún Laoghaire, where the accused had been sitting in the road and at Dalkey, where he had been “marching extremely slowly”. Sgt. Gilmore quoted the Public Order Act to Bennet and ordered him to desist but Bennet had declined to comply. Defence Counsel maintained that there was “a reasonable doubt” as to whether Bennet had been in violation of laws initially which would have rendered his subsequent refusal to comply with Garda instructions not an offence. Since there was no question of accusation of breaches of the peace, assault or criminal damage, the point at issue was whether the Public Order Act was applicable. State Prosecution Counsel argued that blocking or slowing traffic was creating “a nuisance”, to which Defence Counsel replied that causing a nuisance was part of the purpose of a protest, in order to make it effective. Sit-down and marching slowly protests had not been tested in Irish law, said Defence Counsel but quoted a number of cases from the European Court of Human Rights at Strasbourg where the Court had ruled in favour of applicants’ rights to protest even when the applicants’ states had found them in violation of their laws and penalised them.

Some of the supporters outside the Dublin Court today
Some of the supporters outside the Dublin Court today

The Judge retired to consider the case and when he returned he found Bennet guilty on all charges and sentenced him to a total of around €800 in fines, in default of which a total of 11 days in jail. One one charge, he sentence Bennet to two months’ imprisonment but, since that was time already served awaiting trial, Bennet was freed to cheers from his supporters, including his daughter Saoirse and his grandson, who had been born while he was in jail.

Belfast mother charged with giving her daughter an abortion-inducing pill

At 6pm this evening a protest took place at the Spire in Dublin in solidarity with a Belfast mother who facing criminal charged for having given her daughter a pill which induces abortion in very early pregnancies. The pill is freely available in Britain and legal there but the 1967 Act which legalised abortion in Britain has not been enacted in the Six Counties.

West side, O'Connell Street central pedestrian reservation, Dublin, just near Spire
West side, O’Connell Street central pedestrian reservation, Dublin, just near Spire

4,000+ Women Travel placard
The event had been organised by the Workers’ Solidarity Movement and Real Productive Health organisation in order to express solidarity with the mother and also to link the struggle of women in the 26 Counties with those in the Six, women in both parts of Ireland having to travel to another country, Britain, to avail of abortions and similar protests took place in Belfast and in Galway.

East side O'Connell Street, Dublin, just near Spire
East side O’Connell Street, Dublin, just near the Spire

A number of people spoke and soon afterwards some excitement stirred through the crowd and they began to examine the roof of the GPO where something was going on. Very shortly after that a Garda squad car with siren blaring and blue lights flashing tore along O’Connell Street and turned into Henry Street.

Another group at the protest
Another group at the protest
Sitters and Standers mid-way through the demonstration
Sitters and Standers mid-way through the demonstration

Violent Garda arrest scenes

People broke away from the pro-choice demonstration and gathered in Henry Street as other Garda squad cars, a motorbike, a cycle Garda and a number uniformed and Special Branch Gardaí on foot poured into the street. The scene was  was somewhat confusing for many but what was clear was that the Gardaí had torn the shirt off one one young man, handcuffed him and put him, stripped to the waist, in a squad car. Another young man was also handcuffed and ended up on the ground with a number of police on top, one of whom pepper-sprayed him while in that position. This action provoked shouts from onlookers and uncertain physical intervention. As a third was arrested and bundled into a police car, the word went around that these were pro-choice demonstrators who had got on to the GPO roof (presumably using the scaffolding to the side of the building) and that they had attempted to display a banner up there.

Man arrested after shirt torn off in squad car in Henry Street
Man arrested after shirt torn off in squad car in Henry Street can just be discerned in the back seat of the squad car
Another of those arrested in Henry Street; he ended up on the ground with a number of police on top before being put in the car.
Another of those arrested in Henry Street; he ended up on the ground with a number of police on top before being put in the car.

People gathered around the Gardaí, some of whom threatened to arrest those arguing with them. The Gardaí were then seen to be picking up a banner to put in the back of one of their vehicles when a woman cried sarcastically: “A banner! Oh, thank you for saving us from a banner!” Others joined in shouting: “Bad banner! Bad banner!” amidst other calls from protesters and passers-by generally expressing an opinion that the police action had been unnecessary, repressive and over the top in violence and in numbers. Indeed, the numbers of Gardaí present who had suddenly appeared did suggest to many that they had been kept in readiness to move on the pro-choice demonstration at some point or were aware that some publicity action had been planned. Protesters who attended Store Street Garda station soon afterwards were told that the accused would be charged and released on bail “in a couple of hours”. The wording on the banner apparently had been “ABORTION CHARGES ARE BOLLIX”.

WSM video of scenes at the arrests: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPwZlWYW3kE

WSM Video of the rally just prior to the arrests: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFp_AzsFIa0

Workers’ Solidarity Movement statement on the arrests http://www.wsm.ie/c/wsm-statement-garda-arrest-pro-choice-campaigners-july2015

Some in crowd beginning to argue with Gardaí as others look on amazed
Some in crowd beginning to argue with Gardaí as others look on amazed
Two placards in the crowd earlier, a reminder of what it was about
Two placards in the crowd earlier, a reminder of what it was about

End.

LINKING ARMS AROUND MOORE STREET TO PROTECT IT FROM SPECULATORS

On By rebelbreezeIn Current Event Report, History, Ireland, irish history, Irish Left, Irish RepublicanismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

The 28th of June was not a normal Sunday in Moore Street. On a normal Sunday, Moore Street is not a busy street, although it is not quiet either. The stallholders are on a day off to come back on Monday but a number of small shops are open as are the supermarkets and the ILAC shopping centre, one of which doors opens up on to Moore Street. But on this Sunday, crowds packed a part of the street for the event organised by the Save Moore Street from Demolition group.

Part of the crowd lining up around the 1916 Terrace in Moore Street
Part of the crowd lining up around the 1916 Terrace in Moore Street
Paul O'Toole, who played a number of sets, including singing some songs of his own composition
Paul O’Toole, who played a number of sets, including singing some songs of his own composition

As a crowd had gathered already by 1.30pm, a half an hour early, singer-musician Paul O’Toole responded to his performing instincts and started playing a set of compositions of his own and of others. A song against the Water Charges opened his set, to be followed by another of his own, We Shall Not Lie Down.

Meanwhile the Save Moore Street from Demolition (non-political party) group, had set up their stall as they had done the previous day there and on another 41 Saturday afternoons in Moore Street. The folding table, covered in a Cumann na mBan flag donated by a diaspora supporter, was staffed by Bróna Uí Loing, a relation of 1916 veterans and of Fenians involved in the famous Manchester prison van escape, and Vivienne Lee, another early activist in the campaign. On the table was a petition to save the street and leaflets were being handed out by helpers. Nearby, some Irish tricolours, the Starry Plough and the Irish Republic flag fluttered and a number of placards indicated the concerns of the campaign: “NÍL SAOIRSE GAN STAIR (“There is no freedom without history”) stated one, while another said “NO TO SPECULATORS”.

MOORE STREET IN HISTORY

Moore Street is the sole remaining street of a market quarter going back hundreds of years comprising three parallel streets with many lane-ways in between, all the rest of which are now buried underneath the ILAC shopping centre and a Dunne’s Stores; people lived in those streets and laneways and clothes and shoes, meat and fish, fruit and vegetables and furniture were sold there.

But in 1916, Moore Street, its back yards and its surrounding streets were host to history of a different kind: in the last days of the 1916 Rising, the GPO roof burning and the ceiling unsafe, around 300 Irish Citizen Army and Irish Volunteers evacuated the building and made their way through a side door, across a Henry Street made hazardous by flying bullets, and into Henry Place. It was probably here that the English revolutionary socialist, Weekes (also variously Weeks, Wicks) who had joined the Rising, fell dead.

The insurgents’ evacuation group included three women: Elizabeth O’Farrell, her life-long friend Julia Grennan and Winifred Carney, James Connolly’s secretary who, on leaving Liberty Hall on Easter Monday, had packed a Webley pistol along with her typewriter. All three had refused to leave as the other Cumann na mBan women made their own earlier hazardous way helping the wounded fighters to Jervis Street hospital.

As the evacuees made their way hurriedly through the Henry Place laneway, they encountered a storm of machine-gun and rifle fire at the intersection of the lane and another, now named Moore Lane. The fire was coming from a British Army barricade at the top, in what is now Parnell Street. Here Michael Mulvihill fell, mortally wounded; he was also fresh over from England but originally from Kerry. Volunteers broke into a yard and dragged a car out, placing it across the gap and taking a breath, they ran across, mostly one by one. Connolly was being carried on a makeshift stretcher, his ankle shattered earlier by a ricocheting bullet in Williams Lane, ironically just next to Independent House, owned by leader of Dublin “nationalist” capitalists, William Martin Murphy and also ironically, across the road from the former office of the Irish Socialist Republican Party, founded by Connolly in 1896, sixteen years earlier.

Shortly before the evacuating group were making their way across that murderous gap, Michael The O’Rahilly had led a dozen fighters who had volunteered for the task in a charge at another British barricade and machine-gun a the top of Moore Street, also in what is now Parnell Street. Since the GPO was being evacuated, there was no covering fire from the top of that building and the fire coming down the street must have been terrific. None made it as far as the barricade. The O’Rahilly was apparently unharmed and got quite close; he sheltered in a doorway on the west side of the street and then ran across to a lane on the other side. A burst of machine-gun fire caught him and in the laneway, now named O’Rahilly Parade, he died, after having penned a note to his wife. The note is reproduced now on a bronze plaque in that street.

The other group, having made it through Henry Lane and prevented from further progress by the firing of that same machine-gun, broke into the first house of a Moore St. Terrace on the north side of the terrace and began to tunnel northwards from house to house, occupying in time the whole terrace by the time their leaders gave up their plan of breakout and, in an attempt to save further loss of civilian life, surrendered themselves and all the garrisons of the Rising on both sides of the Liffey on Saturday of Easter Week.

The surrender party of Pearse and O’Flaherty met General Lowe in what is now Parnell Street (exactly where is disputed but from the photo of the event it would appear to be outside of where In Cahoots café is now). The GPO/ Moore Street garrison marched up O’Connell Street and surrendered their arms outside the Gresham Hotel and were kept prisoner in the garden of the Rotunda, the building where the first public meeting to found the Irish Volunteers had been held in 1913. A British soldier posed later for a photo with the Irish Republic flag held upside down in front of the Parnell Monument and at some point a whole group of British officers posed for another photo, also holding the flag upside-down to signify the defeat of the rebels.

From that tunneled-through terrace in Moore Street, six were among the 14 shot by firing squad, including five of the signatories of the Proclamation: Tom Clarke (whose tobacconist shop was where the Centra shop is now, across from the Parnell Monument), Patrick Pearse, James Connolly, Seán Mac Diarmada and Joseph Plunkett. Another, William Pearse, was also executed.

MOORE STREET ON THE 28th JUNE 2015

Jumping forward to June 28th 2015, while Paul O’Toole was playing and singing to keep the audience interested, shouted slogans from the Henry Street end of Moore Street announced the arrival of the Dublin Says No weekly march, come to support the campaign.

Paul O’Toole’s place was taken later by Kev and Dwayne, who played and sang a set of Dublin and 1916 ballads, to be followed by a performance of two of his pieces by John Cummins, Poetician, champion of the Slam Poetry competition. His piece on Moore Street was particularly well received.

John Cummins, poetician, performing his Moore Street piece
John Cummins, poetician, performing his Moore Street piece
Kev and Dwaine, who also provided entertainment with a set of Dublin and 1916 songs
Kev and Dwaine, who also provided entertainment with a set of Dublin and 1916 songs

Diarmuid Breatnach of the Save Moore Street from Demolition group, who had been MCing the entertainment part of the event, then called on the crowd to line up on the street and stretch arms in a symbolic act of: “Love for Moore Street and our heritage and resistance to the plans of property speculators to destroy it”. Paul O’Toole came back on and played as the crowd eventually stretched around all four sides of the “1916 terrace”, areas where in 1916 bullets flew and people died as a relatively small group of women and men took on the British Empire. Cries could be heard of
“Save Moore Street, save it all,
Save the Terrace and the stalls!”

When the ‘Arms Around’ exercise had been completed, photographed and filmed, Breatnach called the participants to gather back around to the Moor Street terrace and introduced Mel Mac Giobúin, to speak on behalf of the SMSFD group and to MC the final part of the event.

Mel thanked the crowd for encircling the 1916 terrace in defence of “ ‘me jewel and darlin’ Dublin’ as Éamon Mac Thomáis would say”. Mel explained that the small group of which he was part had run an information and petition stall “every Saturday for over 40 weeks in Moore Street, in rain, cold and now sunshine” and paid tribute to all those who had campaigned over the years. He spoke of the support of ordinary people who shop in the street, who come up to the stall not only to sign the petition but to tell us their memories of shopping or working in Moore Street, of relatives who were involved in the 1916 Rising and/ or in the War of Independence.

The line stretching around from Moore St, to the corner of Moore Lane with Henry Place, then (out of frame) up Moore Lane to O'Rahilly Parade and back into Moore St.
The line stretching around from Moore St, to the corner of Moore Lane with Henry Place, then (out of frame) up Moore Lane to O’Rahilly Parade and back into Moore St.
Mel Mac Giobúin, speaking on behalf of the Save Moore Street from Demolition group
Mel Mac Giobúin, speaking on behalf of the Save Moore Street from Demolition group

Enumerating some of the advances that had been made over the years, Mel denounced the Chartered Land giant “shopping mall” proposal and the NAMA process through which property speculator Joe O’Reilly was now going and Moore Street along with him. (Joe O’Reilly was, at €12.8 billion, top of the list of NAMA debtors not long ago but is now at No.6 of the Top Ten. He is still in business and being paid €120,000 annually by the State to manage his debts; also was recently involved in bidding for another big property site — DB). Dublin City Council had received a large number of submissions, Mel said, and was now beginning to think that another shopping mall might not be the best idea for Moore Street.

Bróna Uí Loing and Vivienne Lee, members of the campaigning group
Bróna Uí Loing and Vivienne Lee, members of the campaigning group with the campaign table displaying petition and leaflets

“We should continue to recognise the important significance of the 1916 Rising and the long tradition of the street market” Mel said and, in concluding, he thanked the crowd but asked them to be ready to be called out again in defence of the Moore Street historic quarter.

Next to speak was Donna Cooney, representing the 1916 Relatives Association, who spoke of the Cumann na mBan women in Moore Street in 1916, one of them being her great grand-aunt, Elizabeth O’Farrell. Donna recounted how O’Farrell had tripped in Moore Lane during the evacuation but had been caught and saved by Sean McGarry. On entering No.10, the first thing O’Farrell remembered seeing was Connolly on a stretcher and went to tend to him (she was a nurse by profession).

Donna spoke of the perilous journey O’Farrell had to take twice in the negotiations with General Lowe and then later, more danger in the unhappy task of taking the surrender instructions from Pearse and Connolly to insurgent strongholds in various parts of Dublin. “The Government needs to do much more”, said Donna, referring to Government plans to commemorate the centenary of the Rising in 2016 and was warmly applauded by the crowd.

Donna Cooney, great-grandniece of Elizabeth O'Farrell, speaking on behalf of the 1916 Relatives' Assocation
Donna Cooney, great-grandniece of Elizabeth O’Farrell, speaking on behalf of the 1916 Relatives’ Assocation

Proinnsias Ó Rathaille, called up next by Mel, is also a 1916 hero’s relative – his grandfather was The O’Rahilly, who died in the lane that now bears his name. Proinnsias spoke briefly of the international importance of the 1916 Rising, which had given such inspiration and encouragement for their own revolutions to nations around the world, particularly those under the British Empire. Turning to the importance of the Irish diaspora to the struggles, Proinnsias singled out Maeve O’Leary who continues to promote the cause from Australia where her home is now and who had recently returned to her native Dublin for a short while (and worked with the Save Moore Street from Demolition group — DB).

Proinnsias concluded by reading the moving poem written by Yeats to the memory of The O’Rahilly to great applause.

Proinnsias Ó Raithille, grandson of The O'Rahilly
Proinnsias Ó Raithille, grandson of The O’Rahilly and a campaigner for Moore Street

The final speaker introduced by Mel was Jim Connolly Heron, great-grandson of James Connolly, a long-time campaigner for the appropriate preservation of Moore Street. Jim spoke about how the Chartered Land plan to destroy Moore Street had been agreed by a Minister in the current government and how a land-swap deal, which would have facilitated the destruction of much of the 1916 terrace, had been voted down by elected councillors of a number of political parties and independents.

Jim Connolly Heron, great grandson of James Connolly and a long-time campaigner about Moore St.
Jim Connolly Heron, great grandson of James Connolly and a long-time campaigner about Moore St.

Jim went on to speak of the NAMA sell-off of assets due for the following day, when among other properties, Chartered Land’s stake in the ILAC and Moore Street was to be sold off to the highest bidder. “Moore Street is not for sale”, he said, to cheers. Jim went on to speak of “the golden generation” who had risen in 1916 and the need to honour their memory and to commemorate the event properly and how conserving the historic Moore Street quarter, the only surviving 1916 battle-site, is very important part of that. Jim concluded to loud cheering and applause by saying that “Moore Street will not be sold on our watch!”

Paul O’Toole then played and sang again his “We Will Not Lie Down”, with the crowd joining in on the chorus, after which he accompanied Diarmuid Breatnach singing “Amhrán na bhFiann”, the first verse solo and everyone joining in on the chorus.

And so the third Arms Around Moore Street event in six years (along with other types of campaign events) came to a close. Next Saturday, the Save Moore Street from Demolition information and petition table will be there again, for people to sign, to read, to share their memories, their anger, their hope that the market, the terrace, the quarter are saved. In the meantime, people will sign the petition on line and post supportive comments on the SMSFD Facebook pages and others. It is not just their past – it is their future too.

End

Section of the crowd of supporters in Moore Street
Section of the crowd of supporters in Moore Street

“PRO-LIFE” — REALLY? AND DO WE LEARN FROM YEAR TO YEAR?

On By rebelbreezeIn Civil Rights, Gender Equality, Human Rights, Irish Left, Political Analysis, social commentaryLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

They came down O’Connell Street in their tens of thousands – colourful banners and heart-shaped balloons, music in sections, black, brown and white faces and if many were old, many were also young – and not just the children brought by a parent. “Right to life” was the most common chant, obviously tailored to undermine their opposition’s “Right to choose”, from those who favour the unfettered right to abortion. And LIFE is the name of the organisation that brought these marchers together on their annual march through Dublin city centre.Separat Church & State top

Bad photo of approach of anti-abortion march in O'Connell Street
Bad photo of approach of anti-abortion march in O’Connell Street

“Nobody has a right to kill!” was the last line in another chant. So with that, the name of their organisation and “Right to life”, we have what they are about, right? They are for life and are upholding, apparently, the Christian Commandment “Thou shalt not kill”. Yes, it was there on the tablets of stone Moses brought down the mountain, Number Six – wayyy down the list. Actually, apparently in Hebrew it translates as “Though shalt not murder”. And defining “murder” is not so simple either. But anyway, the Jewish faith has the same prohibition. In fact, there is hardly a religion that does not. Of course, the Old Testament also calls for “an eye for an eye” and says that “you shall not suffer a witch to live”. But anyway ….

Interestingly, the highest leaders of organised religions across the world have blessed their soldiers as they went off to kill soldiers and civilians in other lands. Sometimes their victims were infidels according to the ones who were killing them but often they didn’t even have that excuse, as when the first Crusade attacked the overwhelmingly Christian city of Damascus, or when Catholic Spain fought Catholic France, or when Protestant England fought Protestant Germany, or Catholic Italy invaded Catholic Spain, Catalonia and the Basque Country. But presumably, those pastors, bishops, pontiffs, cardinals and mullahs can fall back on the dispute about the meaning – it wasn’t “murder”, it was legal killing.

Two Special Branch officers (political police) centre photo in sunglasses -- blue pattern shirt and brown T-shirt top next to him. There were eight SB identified, all watching the counter-protesters.
Two Special Branch officers (political police) centre photo in sunglasses — blue pattern shirt and brown T-shirt top next to him. There were eight SB identified, all watching the counter-protesters.  The blue-patterned shirt individual threatened a counter-protester without identifying himself.

The wiping out of the Guanches of the Canaries was not murder, the genocide of the indigenous American “Indians”, the enslavement and consequent killing of hundreds of thousands of Africans – they were not murder either. Nor the wiping out of every single Tasmanian and most of the Australian Aborigines. The West was exploring and, by the way, bringing Christianity and civilization to those poor benighted people.

I’d hazard a guess that compiling a list of Christian bishops in most denominations who condemned the wars in Malaya, Korea and Vietnam would a short one. Cardinal Spellman, notorious as anti-communist and anti-militant organized labour, a supporter of McCarthy’s witch-hunts, had the words “Kill a Commie for Christ” put into his mouth due to his enthusiastic support for the US waging the Vietnam War. Leaving out the maimed in mind and body, even in the wombs of their mothers, somewhere between 1.5 and 3.6 million were killed in that war – but presumably they weren’t murdered.

Billions of people are killed by unsafe working conditions, uncontrolled pollution, police and army repression, crime in slums, famine, alcohol and drug addiction, curable disease – almost all conditions that can be avoided except that doing so would cut into profits of local capitalists and/or foreign “multinationals” (read, monopoly capitalists/ imperialists). Those “entrepreneurs” aren’t murdering anyone either, even when their practices are illegal (even by their own laws) …. The ways of God are indeed mysterious, certainly so if the ways of his representatives on Earth are anything to go by.

Some suggested actions for lowering the abortion rate which involve caring for people instead of just foetuses
Some suggested actions for lowering the abortion rate which involve caring for people instead of just foetuses

I have digressed, mea culpa. I have gone down a well-worn philosophical and logical path to ask a particular question: Are those tens of thousands marching down O’Connell Street really for Life and against killing human beings? I doubt it and I have not seen among their number most people I see against the bombardment of Gaza or the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, nor vice versa. A few, certainly, but not many. So I have to assume that it is not life that they value so much, except the life of a foetus. And once born, it is pretty much up to luck what happens to that foetus, as far as most of these ardent defenders of life are concerned.

As I said, that philosophical and logical path of discussion has been well trodden before me and no doubt to better effect than mine here. But I wish now to take another path of discussion – I wish now not to criticise the opposition, the anti-abortion brigade, but rather ours, the pro-choice movement of which loosely I am a member.

All Irish surveys and opinion polls published show a rising trend of support for the unfettered right to abortion, even if that section is still a minority. The majority of those polled have been for a greater access to abortion than is currently available in this state. Furthermore, some scandals involving refused abortions, refused permission to travel and the death of a woman who needed an abortion have mobilised considerable passion which the pro-choice movement could enlist in its favour.

Yet, despite what the polls tell us, and despite those high-profile cases, the anti-abortioners succeed in mobilising much larger numbers in opposition to abortion than do those who are in favour of permitting it. Putting this conundrum to some pro-choice campaigners, they have all answered to the effect that the anti-abortioners receive huge funding from reactionary political and religious foundations, especially in the USA. They spend millions on advertising and propaganda, I am told.

I’m sorry, I don’t accept that reply. Because despite their well-funded advertising and propaganda, the opinion polls show a climbing majority for some access to abortion and a climbing minority in favour of unfettered access.

The Riot Squad were also there for the counter-demonstrators. Some may be seen in this misty image of them at the Princes Street end of the GPO.
The Riot Squad were also there for the counter-demonstrators. Some may be seen in this misty image of them at the Princes Street end of the GPO.

The Antis just seem to be better at mobilising their supporters – why is that? Well, the funding again, I’m told. They hire coaches and bus people in. So why can’t we do that? Are we incapable of raising money to hire coaches? Obviously not in the case of the Water Tax, for example. Republican groups hire coaches traveling to other parts of the country and pay their share as individuals; they often fund their posters, placards, banners public meeting-room hires, for example through fund-raising events. We don’t see many fund-raising events in support of the right to abortion. In fact, the public doesn’t see much evidence of the movement as a rule except when we come out to protest about a high-profile case or to oppose the march of the anti-abortioners. And our movement doesn’t seem to do much mobilising for the latter, either. And this march happens every year so it can easily be planned for.

Yet how many were there to show their opposition to these tens of thousands of anti-abortion campaigners? Maybe six hundred …. at a very long stretch, a thousand. Going by the opinion polls, in Dublin alone there are a great many more people who support unfettered access to abortion than appear on that counter-demonstration.

Nor did we even distribute our meagre forces in the most effective way.

Each year, it is the same. The anti-abortion people march down from the Garden of Remembrance, and the pro-choice people wait for them at the Spire. Most on the island, some on the east side pavement. The heaviest concentration of people is on the island (or pedestrian reservation), between the Spire and for about 20 or so yards heading north. Then the line starts to straggle. We didn’t even stretch quite to Larkin’s statue. Even those low numbers, properly distributed, could reach from the Spire down to O’Connell Bridge. But we don’t do that. We bunch up in a short concentration so that every section of their march is quickly past us and, what’s more, it allows them to focus their loudhailers and PA systems on our heaviest concentration in order to drown us out, as they were doing on Saturday.

The section containing most of the counter-demonstrators. The anti-abortioners were able to park two mobile PAs in front of them there to drown out their opposition as the march went by.
The section containing most of the counter-demonstrators, from left photo to the Spire. The anti-abortioners were able to park two mobile PAs in front of them there to drown out their opposition as the march went by.

Broadly speaking, we outnumber them but on most mobilisations, they outnumber us hugely. They appear more broadly militant and organise better. And they learn. I didn’t see anything like as many people in religious robes this year, which suggests to me that they are tailoring their presentation to avoid an over-identification in popular perception with religion. They can’t keep all their religious nutcases under wraps but I saw much less crosses or rosary-waving this year. They have adapted their slogans and chosen what seems the hardest argument to oppose, that which appears to be for “life”, and they ensure that they are all on message, chanting the same lines, again and again.

They are the reactionaries – how is that they seem better able to learn than us? Should it not be the other way around?

 

End

BAIL CONDITIONS — A POLITICAL WEAPON BOTH SIDES OF THE BORDER

On By rebelbreezeIn Capitalism, Civil Rights, Ireland, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, Political Analysis, Water Tax & MeteringLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

“In conclusion, it seems clear that both states in Ireland, the Irish one and the British colonial one, are employing refusal of bail and restrictive bail conditions in order to harass and intimidate political activists and to seriously disrupt their work.”

In excess of 50 Demonstrators formed three lines in Dublin’s O’Connell Street on Friday (19th June) to protest the continued incarceration of Steven Bennet, a political activist arrested while peacefully resisting the installation of water meters. Bennet was arrested on two consecutive nights – in the York Road area of Dun Laoghaire and in Bray – and on each occasion he was kept in custody overnight despite the Gardai knowing his address and where he could be contacted and despite the suggested charges not being particularly serious. Brought to court then, he was offered bail if he could provide a €1,000 surety, would submit to a nightly curfew between the hours of 10pm and 8.00am, would sign at a police station daily and would refrain from participation in political activity. A previous High Court ruling that his bail conditions should not interfere with his political activism was thereby changed by the same Court. Stating that these conditions were unreasonable, he refused and has been in jail now for nearly four weeks.

Protesters in Dublin outside GPO demand freeing of Steven Bennet (view northward excluding some on west side of central island)
Protesters in Dublin outside GPO demand freeing of Steven Bennet (view northward excluding some on west side of central island)

The Irish Government has imposed a Water Tax on the population of the state although they pay for the maintenance of the public water system already through their taxes (and bizarrely, it was recently revealed, through their Motor Tax also). The Water Tax is extremely unpopular in Ireland and has given rise to huge national demonstrations as well as to local resistance and to the most widescale movement of civil disobedience since the resistance to the Household Tax a few years ago. Most people believe these new taxes are a means of funding the banking bailout and also that the public water service is being prepared for privatisation (a likely benificiary being Denis O’Brien, part-owner of the company currently installing the meters and among the 200 top world billionaires).

Banner and demonstrators protesting jailing of Steven Bennet
Banner and demonstrators protesting jailing of Steven Bennet (photo Vivienne)

Some of the local resistance involves blocking the road to the water meter trucks or, more usually, walking slowly in front of them to slow down their work. People have also interposed their bodies between the meter installation crews and the spot where they intend to drill into the pavement in order to install the meters.

Selection GPO Free Steven Bennet
(photo Vivienne)

We should ask ourselves and interrogate the State about why it wishes to impose these restrictions on an arrested political activist. Keeping someone in custody is a serious step in any democratic system. If they have not been convicted, the step is even more serious. Let us not forget that the legal system claims that any accused is presumed innocent until that changes by being found guilty in court. Keeping an innocent person in jail is supposed to be an extreme step, justified only by one or both of the following circumstances:

The accused is thought to be

  • a serious risk of flight from the jurisdiction before trial

  • a risk of interfering with witnesses expected to testify against him/her at trial

The “seriousness of the crime” is sometimes raised but that seems related to the “risk of flight”, i.e that the accused might contemplate fleeing the jurisdiction because of the likely seriousness of the punishment if s/he were to be convicted.

As observed earlier, the default position should be that bail is granted.

Free Steven Bennet centre island
(photo Vivienne)

Conditions of bail

Conditions of bail are usually that the accused reside at an address supplied to the court – this relates to the defendant being found if required by the State. The accused may be released in his or her “own recognizance”, i.e without any sum being set.

Where sums of money are required to be placed as a surety for bail, these seem again to be related to “risk of flight” — in other words, the accused is thought less likely to flee if it will cost money to the accused or to the person guaranteeing the bail.

The justification for requiring a person to report at a police station every day at a certain time also seems also to have been conceived with regard to risk of flight – it is hard to see what other justification there could be for this. But in fact this makes no sense, since one can present at a police station at eight or nine pm (a frequent time given) but yet be out of the jurisdiction by midnight (in the case no curfew) or by 12 noon when there is a curfew imposed. One supposes it does permit the police to issue a warrant for arrest should the accused fail to sign in at 8pm or 9pm the next evening but that can hardly be a great advantage.

A curfew is sometimes imposed and it is difficult to see the justification for that either, unless it too is related to fear of the accused absconding from the jurisdiction but the same reservations apply to that as to the signing on at the police station requirement.

When these conditions and restrictions are imposed on political activists on charges which normally attract only fines if the accused were found guilty and only very short prison terms in worst case scenarios, what can the justification be? As a rule the accused is still politically active, highly visible to the police and without a history of absconding from the jurisdiction (in fact, often a history of the exact opposite, as in Bennet’s case). The witnesses against the activist are normally the Gardaí, who are supposed to be impervious to “interference” and even when they are others, there is usually no allegation of a fear that the accused is going to intimidate them).

It seems clear that the real reason for these restrictions and conditions are

  • to disrupt the life of the accused and thereby make him/ her pay a price whether or not s/he is later convicted in court

  • to disrupt the political life of the accused (interfering with organising, traveling, etc.)

  • to make it difficult for the accused to get bail (in the case of financial sureties), in which case

  • to make the accused suffer imprisonment for a period (through refusal of bail or through setting difficult and unreasonable conditions) even though perhaps not convicted later or, if convicted, not receiving a custodial sentence

  • to discourage others from following in the footsteps of the accused.

Increasingly, particularly in the case of Irish Republicans in the Six Counties, another requirement imposed has been to wear an electronic “tag” or bracelet which may not be removed until the State orders that done. This is usually explained as merely an enforcement of the above conditions but is a physical reminder, every minute of every day, a demeaning intrusion into one’s life.

Three lines of protesters in front of GPO, Dublin's O'Connell Street (view wesward), seeking freeing of Steven Bennet
Three lines of protesters in front of GPO, Dublin’s O’Connell Street (view southward), seeking freeing of Steven Bennet (Jim Larkin statue just visible in the background).

Also in the Six Counties, Irish Republicans on bail are being banned from use of the Internet, from having a mobile phone or, in the case where they are permitted one, being required to supply to the State the phone numbers dialed. Yet another condition has been not to reside within one’s own home town. Very common has been the requirement not to be in the company of others “convicted of terrorism” (if so, have they not served their time?) or merely “suspected of terrorism” (how would one know? The State will tell you!). In the Six Counties in particular, with its history of 30 years of war and subsequent political dissent from the Good Friday Agreement, not associating with anyone who has at some time been convicted of “terrorism” or is currently “suspected” of it, must be seriously difficult.

Apart from the restrictions on one’s personal freedom imposed by the above conditions, these are a massive interference with the facilities of a political organiser and there seems not even a pretence of any other justification for them. They are therefore unwarranted abuses of people’s civil liberties.

In conclusion, it seems clear that both states in Ireland, the Irish one and the British colonial one, are employing refusal of bail and restrictive bail conditions in order to harass and intimidate political activists and to seriously disrupt their work.  

Accept the conditions?

Steven Bennet is currently refusing to accept the unreasonable restrictions being required of him in order to avail of bail. In the past, particularly in the Six Counties, others have done so too. One example there was Stephen Murney, of the Éirigi republican party, who was expected to agree to curfew, daily signing at a police station, electronic bracelet, not to reside in his home town of Newry or to approach within five miles of it and not to attend any political events. He refused to accept those conditions for 14 months and eventually was released on bail without the conditions shortly before his trial – at which he was found “not guilty”, which was no surprise since the charges were completely spurious. But Murney had already spent 14 months in jail.

Stephen Murney happy to be out of bail as his trial collapsed -- but he had still done 14 months in custody before that.
Irish Republican Stephen Murney happy to be out on bail as his trial collapsed — but he had still done 14 months in custody before that.

In recent months, there seems to be a trend of people accepting the conditions in order to receive bail; this includes Republicans in the Six Counties and other water-meter protesters in Dun Laoghaire (on whom a variety of restrictions are being reported). Such acceptance represents in the short term a small victory for the State and in the longer term a significant defeat for civil liberties and the political opposition to the states.

One can hardly blame the activists who have accepted these conditions. The liberal civil liberties sector is silent on what is happening, as is largely the case with the organised Irish Left. When it seems that continued opposition to the bail restrictions can achieve no political objective due to lack of wide-scale protest, and one may be facing long months or even years in prison awaiting trial as a result of refusal, there seems little reason to continue the refusal to accept these restrictions.

Of course, these attacks are taking place on what the Left and liberal civil liberties sectors may see as the “fringes” — the Republicans and some unorthodox anti-water-meter protesters. Have we not learned the lessons of history? The attacks of fascism and the repressive State nearly always start at the “fringes”, from which they move in towards the core. Our silence on this now is in reality an assent to the State — “Go ahead if you like,” is the message the State is receiving, “we’re not going to do anything”. Unless the State goes for the core, of course. But will there be anyone left to mount a decent resistance when we finally decide we should?

End.

UP TO TEN THOUSAND MARCH IN SOLIDARITY WITH JAILED AND ARRESTED WATER TAX PROTESTERS

On By rebelbreezeIn Capitalism, Civil Rights, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Ireland, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, Water Tax & Metering1 Comment
Start of the march in Dame Street after rally in Central Plaza
Start of the march in Dame Street after rally in Central Plaza

On Saturday 21 February, at two days’ notice, somewhere between eight and ten thousand people gathered in Dublin in solidarity with those water tax protesters jailed by the State and those recently arrested.  They marched to Mountjoy Prison and packed the road outside it and in front of the local Garda (police station).

 

Dame St Start March V Repression Water Tax Protesters 21 Feb2015
The march gets going in Dame Street. Photo shows only the front of the march.

 

 

 

 

 

Parnell Square West from Granby Place. The front of the march has turned into Dorset Street and is marching there but the end has yet to come around the corner into the square from Parnell Street
Parnell Square West from Granby Place. The front of the march has turned into Dorset Street and is marching there but the end has yet to come around the corner into the square from Parnell Street

The crowd were addressed by relatives and friends of the jailed, anti-Water Tax campaigners as well as by Paul Murphy, Joan Collins and Clare Daly (both TDs of the United Left) and Dessie Ellis (TD of Sinn Fein).

All of the speakers denounced the politicians and the State for the jailing of the protesters while the bankers and politicians who created the crisis and colluded in the bank bailout went free. Most speakers called on the crowd not to pay the water tax and to build resistance on the streets. Dessie Ellis, in keeping with his party’s position, did not call for non-payment, though he did call for “unity of the Left”. The march was notable for the absence of SF banners and placards — apparerently they were having their own protest at Leinster House.

One of the protesters made an emotional appeal on behalf of two of the five who received jail sentences, who have gone on hunger strike, and on behalf of another, Derek Byrne, also on hunger strike, but who has declared his intention of refusing to take fluids from Monday if he is not released. (NB: Since posting that paragraph it has emerged that the demand of all three hunger-strikers is a return to Mountjoy [they had been separated and sent off to a prison facility near Clondalkin] and an end to 23-hour lockup in their cells. These are basic human rights.)

Large sections of the crowd seemed taken aback by this information and unsure how to react.

Paul Murphy pointed out that this use of the police to attack people protesting injustice has been a feature of the State since its creation and mentioned the threats of jail to striking workers, the jailing of the Rossport Five and of Margaretta D’Arcy. Clare Daly asked the Gardaí which side they were on, that of the polticians and bankers or of the people, saying that if they chose the former it is they who would become isolated, not the protesters. Joan Collins, Murphy and Daly all pointed to the need to create a socialist society. They also, along with most other speakers, called for a build up and huge turn out of support for the demonstration scheduled for March.  Many speakers declared that the increased repression is a sign of the Government’s or the system’s weakness, not of their strength and called on the movement not to falter now.

Robert Ballagh, who also spoke, called for the release of the five and pointed out that the class of people who rule and profit out of this society are not those who find themselves in jails.

Section of the march in Dorset Street, looking west
Section of the march in Dorset Street, looking west (another section is behind the camera — see next photo — but a large section of the march has yet to come around the corner from Parnell Square.)

 

The same road, photo taken a few seconds later but looking east.
The same road, photo taken a few seconds later but looking east.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The mood of the crowd in general was of good-humoured determination. The composition seemed to cross social groupings, ages and genders and a number had brought their children along. Some had come from other parts of the country.

Crowd outside Mountjoy. some have left and many are still further down the north Circular Road
Crowd outside Mountjoy. some have left and many are still further down the north Circular Road (the Mater Hospital is to the right of photo).

CATHERINE BYRNE, DUBLIN FINE GAEL TD, SAID “WE SHOULD TAKE BACK OUR FLAG”. MAYBE SHE’S RIGHT ….

On By rebelbreezeIn History, Ireland, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, Personal Blog, Political Analysis, Satire, Song, Water Tax & Metering, Workers' StrugglesLeave a comment

CATHERINE BYRNE, DUBLIN TD, SAID “WE SHOULD TAKE BACK OUR FLAG”. MAYBE SHE’S RIGHT ….

 

Dublin South-Central TD Catherine Byrne was warmly applauded when she said that they should ”take back our flag” from people who have been using it in protests against water charges and other issues.  She made the statement at the Fine Gael political party’s two-day conference in Castlebar, Co. Mayo, held under strict security.

Arts Minister Heather Humphreys supported that view and told delegates in a secret session on the 1916 commemorations (a session which exposed divisions in the party): ”Some have used our flag to portray a different message – it’s time to reclaim our flag.”

They are both right, in a way.

Listen to this:

WHAT SHOULD WE DO?

On By rebelbreezeIn Capitalism, Civil Rights, Ireland, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, National Liberation, Political Analysis, Political Prisoners, Socialist Revolution, Water Tax & Metering, Workers' Struggles2 Comments

“What should I do?” The anguish reached out to me; I felt it empathically. The cry of a person who is prepared to act and wants to change things for the better, to resist what is wrong around us on so many fronts – and that’s the problem.

There so many issues: the Water Tax, the persecution of Republican activists including framing and jailing them, the harassment and torture of Republican prisoners, the threat of fracking, privatisation of resources and services, cuts in services, cuts in salaries, high cost of private accommodation and low social housing provision causing homelessness, the decline of the Irish language and of the Gaeltacht …. and others. And that’s without mentioning international solidarity – and not because I don’t consider that essential, either.

Of course, we can put all these problems down to capitalism and, in the case of repression of Republicans (and with regard to international solidarity), to imperialism …. so let’s just overthrow those systems and then we can sort out those problems! But that leads to the question of “How” which in turn brings one back again to that anguished question, or to its variant “Which problem should I prioritise?”

Indeed, it is a question that cuts to the heart of the matter. For the issues call to us to act and since we can’t be everywhere at once we have to make choices. It is a question as old as class society and speeches are always being made recommending this choice or that while books have been written attempting to answer it. Lenin wrote a series of articles in the revolutionary newspaper Iskra (“Spark”) and published later as a booklet under a title that echoes that very cry above: What Is to Be Done? It had a subtitle too: “Burning questions of our movement” (by which he meant the socialist movement in Russia at the time).

Whether we choose to believe that work was absolutely correct, partly correct or completely wrong is in some ways irrelevant, for it was written for the movement in Russia in 1902 and published in 1905. I happen to think that it contains many useful ideas, although I am aware that there is a view that it has been mistranslated but, even so, in many ways, all that is beside the point. The fact is that today we have no blueprint and nothing more than perhaps the equivalent of a trouble-shooting manual: “for this problem, try this; if that doesn’t work, try that; while doing so beware of that other.” And that manual is cobbled together from older and more recent history of struggles, of analyses of the capitalist system and of how it behaves.

Scary, surely, to go up against a system that has ruled for around four centuries, that has spread across the world, that controls education, mass media, the State with its police, judges, prison and armed forces – and all without us having a blueprint. Well, if it’s any consolation, the capitalists don’t have a blueprint either … or if they do, they keep having to ignore it and react to events which they have not been able to predict, as well as to the extent of resistance for which they were unprepared. And they clearly make mistakes. Still, 400 years is a long time … a long time for them to learn tactics and strategy and to get comfortable in control and a long time to make us think that we can’t defeat them.

We can defeat them, of course and the indications from history and the internal workings of capitalism — and of its offshoot imperialism — are that we will. But what to do to make that happen? Yes, back to that question. And to the one that logically follows it: which issue to prioritise? For none of us is capable of being everywhere at once and even stretching over a few issues at a time begins to tear at our fabric.

The Marxist-Leninist approach argues for the creation of a revolutionary party that will make decisions on prioritisation and allocate resources to those struggles it chooses as it does so. Of course, the party will make mistakes from time to time and it will learn from those, getting better as it goes along. That’s the theory anyway. In application, or in alleged application, the results have not vindicated the theory – not in the long run, or even in the medium-term. Sure, we have been at it for less than 200 years: the first time workers captured a city was in 1871 and the first successful overthrow of the State was in Russia in 1917, very nearly a century ago. Much less time to learn, to make mistakes and to correct them but still ….

Of course, the alternative method of organising has even less to recommend it on results: amorphous, disparate collectives have not ever successfully overthrown a State and even their success in capturing a city (Barcelona, 1936) is debatable.

So, what is to be done? How to decide which struggle to prioritise? This is not a question I think can be answered by pointing and saying “That one and no other” or even, except at rare junctures, “That one and no other for the moment”. Individuals, collectives and parties will need to choose from the selection as a painter chooses from a palette: “this colour now, then that, no, scrub that one, now mix this with that, no, a bit more light …” and so on, always working towards the desired result which, although in the head, is also taking place on the canvas and making its own demands as it does so.

The truth is that all of those issues I mentioned in passing at the start of this piece, all of those, need addressing. All of them need people to fight in them. That is because they are all part of the same problem and also because we can’t just allow a cancer to grow unchecked in one part of the body while we address the tumours in another. Some individuals and perhaps even collectives are better suited to fight on some issues than on others: for example, a factory shop committee is probably not best placed to lead the struggle against fracking in a rural area, while a rural environmental collective is probably not in the best position to lead the struggle against the Water Tax. Individuals will need to pick and choose according to their own situation, their locality, their own knowledge.

And that would be fine, if the resistance movement as a whole were integrated enough to make creative use of that disparity – for particular struggles to be able to call for temporary additional resources and to be heard by the whole resistance movement, so that it could try to allocate those resources to one or other sector as seemed appropriate. But the resistance movement is far from integrated – it is fragmented and, even worse, it suffers from something akin to schizophrenia.

There a number of ways to imagine schizophrenia and the most popular is to see it as the development of two or more personalities in the one individual. But another is to see it as a disintegration of the personality – where the various aspects in our minds break free and appear as distinct personalities in themselves. The voices that speak in our heads to say things like “You shouldn’t have done that” or “Please make that happen” break free and seem to become different personalities. At times they conflict with one another while the central core personality tries to make sense of what is going on. Something like that, anyway. It is in that sense that I think the resistance movement in Ireland suffers from schizophrenia.

The splitting off of aspects of the revolutionary movement in Ireland has been towards two major poles of attraction: the Socialist one and the Republican. Of course there are some elements who incorporate both to one degree or another but I think examining them as distant poles of attraction is useful and much closer to their concrete manifestation within the revolutionary movement.  In order to examine them as opposite poles I think it is also useful to imagine a stereotype individual inhabiting each pole. Let us then imagine a stereotypical Irish Republican and a stereotypical Irish Socialist.

The Irish Republican is probably working class or maybe lower middle class; he may or may not have done well at secondary education but in any case he is unlikely to have gone to university. He sees himself in a tradition of resistance to British Colonialism and Imperialism stretching back at least to the United Irishmen and perhaps even back to the Norman conquest which began in 1169. His priority is the removal of the British from Ireland. He experiences “political policing” (of which some socialists are now complaining) practically from the moment he becomes publicly active – he has had his name and address taken by Special Branch and/or RUC/PSNI and they have opened a file on him. The Republican’s recent predecessors have been jailed (as are some of his contemporaries now), beaten or even shot dead; they were engaged in armed struggle against the colonial and imperial armed forces in the Six Counties for 30 years and perhaps he looks forward to take the gun up again some day, to strike back at the colonial overlord. He will turn out on demonstrations and pickets against repression of Republican activists, in support of Republican prisoners, including framed ones. He will almost certainly attend mass demonstrations against the Water Tax and may participate in local direct action against it. The Republican’s idealogues are Wolf Tone, Patrick Pearse and Bobby Sands.

The Irish socialist is probably medium or lower middle class and has finished secondary education; she has almost certainly gone on to university. She sees herself as belonging to a tradition of only a couple of centuries, with an Irish tradition going back to the early part of the 20th Century, in particular to the 1913 Lockout and the Limerick Soviet of 1919. She may or may not give a high place in her history to the Irish Citizen Army in the 1916 Rising. Her priority is the defeat of the capitalist class, probably in Ireland first but will turn out in demonstrations against racism, gender discrimination and homophobia in Ireland. The Irish Socialist aspires to a general strike giving rise to a revolutionary take over of the State; in the interim she may or may not think electing left-wing TDs or trade union officials an important activity. She probably can’t conceive of taking up a gun. The Irish Socialist has never had her name taken by the Special Branch or been framed by the RUC/PSNI and may never even have been detained by the police, though she has probably been pushed around by them. She will almost certainly attend mass demonstrations against the Water Tax and may participate in local direct action against this Tax. Her idealogues are Karl Marx, Lenin, possibly Trotsky and James Connolly.

Granted these are stereotypes but they are not so far from reality as to be unhelpful in describing in turn many and perhaps most Irish Republicans and Socialists and therefore in identifying one of the principal fracture lines in the Irish movement of resistance.

If the Republican and the Socialist parts of the Irish resistance movement were to be combined, or at the very least to work on a more collaborative basis, the “What should I do?” question would be easier to answer. It would be simpler to be on a picket for prisoners one week and resisting water meters the next, even if one’s main sphere of activity were among Republicans. The socialist could attend a picket against cuts one week and one for the human rights of Republican prisoners on another, even if her main sphere of activity was among Socialists. But that is not the situation that exists at the moment and, though a number of attempts have been made to combine the two trends in one organisation, they have not met with any great success to date.

So, I have not yet answered the question, have I? Am I saying that what we should be doing is creating some kind of synthesis or at least a collaborative alliance between the the socialist and republican parts of the resistance movement? Well, yes, certainly. But also, and as a contribution to that, as individuals we should try and spread our activity between the areas of greatest concern of each of those sections of the resistance movement. We should, I think, take some time to support resistance to the water tax, demonstrations against cuts etc. in their own right but also find some time to support resistance to British colonialism and its repression of Republican political activists. “If we are not part of the solution, then we are part of the problem” may be a glib truism but it is particularly applicable in this case.

So, how will we find the time to spread ourselves around? How do we ever? We balance and juggle priorities between our politically active and our social lives, with employment thrown in when we have a job. Or upskilling or studying. And possibly cultural or sporting or other activities. But how to choose, how to prioritise? Each of us has to make those decisions herself and himself. Not a very helpful answer? Well, I did state earlier on that there wasn’t a blueprint, so I couldn’t have one myself, could I? This however I feel fairly confident in predicting: if we don’t find a way to support both those parts of the resistance movement to some degree, it will always be fractured. And while it is so, it cannot be successful in either ridding Ireland of our capitalist classes or in finally throwing off the colonial yoke.

end

New Song: They’re Stealing Our Water

On By rebelbreezeIn Capitalism, Current Affairs Comment, History, Ireland, Irish Left, National Liberation, Song, Water Tax & Metering, Workers' Struggles1 Comment
Black n Tans lorry plus RIC
British colonial police in Ireland, Auxilliaries and RIC in Dublin raid during War of Independence 1920 or 1921.
Cromwellian Massacre at Drogheda
Drawing depicting Cromwellian troops massacre at Drogheda 1649

A little bit rough in places but think I should get it out now and hopefully get people singing it ASAP.  I am surprised no-one seems to have used this tune, The Sea Around Us, and the mention of “water”, already.  Thanks to Ruairi O’Broin at the February session of Song Central for suggesting the “bank guarantee” line in the chorus, much better than what I had there originally.

Amended a little again since I wrote the above but still not sat down and really consistently worked at it.  Amended yet again slightly in 2020.

THEY’RE STEALING OUR WATER

Diarmuid Breatnach (To the air of “The Sea Around Us”, also known as “The sea, Oh the sea”)

Chorus:

The sea, oh the sea, a ghrá gheal mo chroí,

‘though long it may roll between England and me,

We’ve still got our gombeens* with a bank guarantee

and they’re trying to steal our own water!

(The chorus can go in after each verse, or each second, as people prefer).

1.

The Norse came to Ireland right outa’ the blue,

took us as slaves and plundered and slew;

But their days were all numbered from Clontarf they knew

— they never troubled us much for the after.

2.

Then the English came over our patience to try,

our land for to steal and our culture deny

And they took all that we had … I tell you no lie —

but at least they left us our water!

3.

‘Twas many a hard battle with the English we fought,

as used be our wont and indeed so we ought;

but as time went by, it all came to naught

and they put poor aul’ Éire in a halter.

4.

But we rose up once more and again and again —

we had stalwart youth and women and men;

We fought them in city and mountain and glen

and forced them their plans for to alter.

5.

Then those who at our struggle took fright

stepped in and took over the fruits of our fight;

The Gombeens and Church turned our dawn into night

and in a wink we were back under the halter!  

6.

The parasites live off our sweat and our blood — 

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

they’d tax the very air that we breathe if they could;

But our media says to resist is not good …

and compliance would get us much further.

7.

Our resources are for the people to share in —

is linne ar fad é, uisce na hÉireann;

and it’s now the baton and prison we’re darin’ —

they’ll not steal from our sons and our daughters!

8.

The people are standing firm and steady —

they know that we’ve paid for the water already!

Our banners unfurled and more things ready:

You can be sure this time we won’t falter!

February 2015.

Dennis O Brien
Denis O’Brien, a billionaire widely believed to have plans to buy Irish Water if/when it becomes privatised. He is a major shareholder in Sierra Construction, the company installing water meters and also in Independent Newspapers. The Moriarty Tribunal found that he had benefited from information from the Irish Minister for telecommunications whom O’Brien had paid €50,000 through circuitous channels. The information had assisted him in bidding for the mobile phone contract, which he later sold at a personal profit of €317 a few years later.
Brian Cowen
Brian Cowen, former Taoiseach (equivalent to Prime Minister) in the Fianna Fáil-Green Party coalition Government 2011, which began the bank bailout.
Joan Burton angry maybe
Joan Burton (Labour), Minister for Social Protection in the Labour-Fine Gael coalition Government at time of writing

                         

Enda Kenny winking
Enda Kenny (Fine Gael), Taoiseach (equivalent to Prime Minister) in the Labour-Fine Gael coalition Government at time of writing

 

!

Water Tax Demo crowd

* “Gombeen”, from the Irish “Gaimbíneach” is a profiteer, a venal person, a moneylender, a capitalist.