COMPRADORS, NEO-COLONIALS AND GOMBEENS

On August 30, 2026August 31, 2026 By rebelbreezeIn America Latina, British imperialism, Current Affairs Comment, History, Imperialism, Ireland, irish history, Latin America, National Liberation, National Sovereignty, NATO, Political Analysis, TortureLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time main text: 5 mins.)

The international conflicts around the world are largely explained by imperialism versus liberation struggles or, occasionally, as in two world wars, struggles between the imperialists themselves, as entirely in WWI and very largely in WWII. But not all control is by invasion or occupation.

The idea of an imperial power invading other countries, occupying and dominating them is easy to grasp, it being similar to the behaviour of feudal empires. But even in ancient times, kingdoms could be controlled by a stronger power without occupying them – by intimidation and bribery.

That kind of collaboration is easier and cheaper for the dominant exploiting power to manage and certainly less risky. Conquered populations can remain resistant for generations and rebellions can break out again and again as has been the case par excellence in Ireland.

Also the taxes and rents extracted by feudal empires from subject kingdoms are largely replaced today by high profits on finance invested in the extraction of natural resources from client nations and often in exports to those very nations, often fabricated from their very plundered resources.

And that latter example is where from comes the word ‘comprador’, i.e ‘buyer’; the client economies exported raw resources, made little themselves but bought finished products from the dominant power. “Gombeens”¹ is an Irish appellation for native foreign-dependent capitalists.

*Gombeen Denis O’Brien, owner of many known companies including construction, telecommunication, water infrastructure, fuel and media.*

Of course, in a later stage, the dominant power exported not only finance to invest but whole factories, with resulting production declining within the former industrial powers.

Analysing the imperialist capitalist system internally, it becomes less and less productive, increasingly parasitical and dominated by finance capital, whereas the colonies and client states may even become more productive but only in such ways as are required by the imperialists.

Production of their own necessities, even their very food may decline in client states and colonies as they are driven to concentrating on export-orientated cash crops and minerals instead. The ruling classes in such countries are merely economic/political managers for the imperial powers.

They are comprador capitalists, neo-colonials, typically orientated culturally towards the imperial power, often venal, contemptuous of their own nation’s people and their history, contemptuous enough often to flaunt their ill-gotten wealth.²

There are many examples of such people and behaviour around the world, some of the more famous being Lavalle (France), Vidkun Quisling (Norway), Mahmoud Abbas (Palestine), Daniel O’Connell and Michael Collins (Ireland); which last brings us nicely to the Gombeens ruling the Irish State.

*Anti-Treaty cartoon, 1921, depicts Ireland being coerced by Michael Collins, representing the Free State Army, along with the Catholic Church, in the service of British Imperialism.* (Sourced: *Internet*)

*From right of image, Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority poses shaking hands with the representative of his US master, Antony Blinken*. (Image sourced: *Internet*)

The Irish State came into existence after centuries of English occupation and resistance after which the colonial power offered more autonomy but partition. The Resistance refused acceptance and the new State defeated the national liberation forces in the ensuing Civil War (see History Appendix).

Ireland is a partitioned nation: one-sixth of its territory (the Six Counties colony) is occupied by the UK, policed by a sectarian colonial police force and garrisoned by British armed forces and is part of the European imperialist military alliance of NATO.

Yet the invaders’ chiefs, including military and monarchy are welcomed by the leaders of the Irish State and the invader’s Royal Air Force patrols skies of the Irish state.³ The State’s police works in close cooperation with the sectarian police force of the colonial administration.⁴

The Irish economy is comprehensively penetrated by companies of foreign ownership: The State’s carrier Aer Lingus is owned by British Airways. The former state telecommunication networks is owned by Eircom, 64-65% owned by a French company and most of the rest by a US company.

Foreign-owned companies dominate the retail sector, accounting for roughly 30% of employment and over 50% of total turnover and retail gross value. It terms of food products retail the figures are the same with British and German monopolies dominating the rest.⁵

Most food consumed in Ireland is now imported, a country that two centuries ago could feed a larger population and yet still export some.

Retail banking is ‘highly internationalised’ i.e. dominated by foreign-owned institutions and has been so since the founding of the State, accounting for 24% of sector earnings. International financial services from Ireland is even more foreign-dominated, accounting for +90% of jobs.

Irish whisky production is divided between a US-based and a French company (which also owns Cork Dry Gin), while Irish beer, stout (including Guinness) and lager are produced by the British company Diageo. In addition, beers and spirits are imported large-scale from abroad.

Some of the money from roads collecting tolls goes to foreign companies, eg. French and Spanish. While the Irish State owns the infrastructure and collects the revenue of Dublin’s LUAS, the day-to-day operation and maintenance are contracted out to German and French companies.

Roughly 21% of hospital beds are in the private (non-state) sector and a significant portion of that private market—alongside specialized diagnostic and sports clinics—is foreign-owned or backed by international private equity and multinational healthcare groups.

According to AI, non-resident institutional and foreign-backed real estate companies buy a significantly higher share (over 50%) of newly built multi-unit apartment developments in urban centres like Dublin and Cork. ⁶

Approximately 60% to 70% of total assets in the Irish banking and financial system are linked to foreign-owned institutions or cross-border non-resident claims. However, the domestic retail banking market is heavily concentrated among a small number of groups with Irish headquarters.⁷

Following the exit of major foreign retail players like Ulster Bank and KBC which were active in banking with the Irish state, Irish-headquartered groups like AIB, Bank of Ireland, and PTSB came to take a large share of retail banking in Ireland but these too have foreign connections.⁸

The colonial history of Ireland and neo-colonial evolution of the Irish State has been deepened by its suppression of forces of national resistance⁹ and by opening its internal markets, national resources and State networks to foreign penetration.

It is hardly surprising that the national bourgeoisie of Ireland is incapable of asserting sovereignty and independence not only in relation to the UK and the USA but also in the face of the western imperialist alliances of the EU and NATO.

The images of four reformist Irish politicians which City Managers of Dublin City Council erected over the Bank of Ireland building (former Irish Parliament under British rule) in College Green as a riposte to the commemoration of the 1916 Rising. Not only were these politicians not revolutionary, each one failed completely to even win the limited autonomy he set out to win. From top left around the clock: Henry Grattan, Charles Parnell, *John Redmond* *and Daniel O’Connell*. (Image sourced: *Irish Times*)

Contemporary examples of this lack of sovereignty is permitting US military flights through Shannon Airport and, despite overwhelming popular support for Palestine and against ‘Israel’, the Irish state continuing to be the second-largest importer of ‘Israeli’ exports.

Describing the problem is useful to an extent but mainly if we then direct ourselves to resolving the issue. A Gombeen class will never deliver independence or sovereignty – it is incapable of doing so. But it is not incapable of repressing those who actively seek independence and sovereignty.

Perforce, the struggle against imperialism most also strike at neo-colonialism and conversely, the Gombeens must be exposed and overthrown in order to be free of imperialism and colonialism.

End.

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HISTORICAL APPENDIX (Reading time: 2 mins.)

The foreign occupation of Ireland¹⁰ promoted the use of the English language and culture and from the reign of Henry VIII onwards this included religion, a branch of Christianity of which the Monarch of the realm was also the Head of the Church.

That was resisted not only by the indigenous Irish and descendants of Vikings but by most of the Anglo-Norman lords’ descendants in Ireland too. Their English-based contemporaries excoriated them for having become the ‘degenerate English’ and ‘more Irish than the Irish themselves’.¹¹

The cultural-political struggle continued with the Irish and Gaelicised Normans being dispossessed and suppressed until a section of the occupying settlers sought to unite people of all cultural backgrounds in Ireland in order to establish an independent Irish Republic.

Following defeat and suppression of the United Irishmen, the native Catholic bourgeoisie began to slowly rise, their main efforts at first being to legalise the Catholic Church as an institution and to abolish the discriminatory Penal Laws against Catholics (i.e. the majority of the indigenous).

While O’Connell and his followers also sought the return of an Irish Parliament,¹² they did so as part of the British Empire. Their Repeal Movement leadership totally eschewed the use of force and this led to the ‘Young Irelanders,’ their most progressive component, splitting from them.

Subsequently the native Irish bourgeoisie participated in pressurising the Occupation and the landed aristocracy into giving greater security to the peasantry renting agricultural land. However this struggle too was presented in non-revolutionary terms, as a resolution within the British Empire.

The Parnellites and their political heirs evolved over time into the Redmonites of the Irish Nationalist Party,¹³ still very much for remaining within the Empire. After the 1916 Rising these were all but wiped out as an electoral force in the 1918 UK General Election.

The party that won the vast majority of Irish seats in that election was a coalition of revolutionary and radical non-revolutionary nationalists of various types, calling itself ‘Sinn Féin’ although it differed from the original party of that name in being avowedly Irish Republican.¹⁴

Many of the party’s representatives in the Dáil, the Irish Parliament, strongly endorsed the armed struggle of the newly-created Irish Republican Army.¹⁵ But not all, although eight months into the 2^nd year of the War of Independence the Dáil formally claimed the IRA as its military wing.¹⁶

When the British, in order to stop the armed and political struggle against them offered the new Sinn Féin Government leadership a deal with partial autonomy as one of the British Dominions but with the country partitioned, it split the movement and one part of it attacked the dissenting part.

During the ensuing Civil War, the State forces were armed, supplied and even clothed by the British and executed more Irish Republicans than the British forces had done during the War of Independence. Activists were interned without trial and a number of organisations banned.

In addition, the State police and Army kidnapped, tortured and murdered opponents.¹⁷ Although the Sinn Féin party that opposed the Anglo-Irish Agreement split to form Fianna Fáil, the party longest in government, the Irish State that exists today is in an unbroken line of descent from that of 1922.

FOOTNOTES

SOURCES

https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/i-have-no-intention-of-bringing-stormont-down-michelle-oneill-1939251.html

https://www.thejournal.ie/new-affidavit-lodged-in-high-court-claims-fresh-evidence-that-lays-out-raf-use-of-irish-airspace-7077898-Jun2026

1From the Irish language Gaimbín, a pejorative description of Irish individuals who took advantage of the poverty and debts of Irish people during and after the Great Starvation of the mid-19th Century to acquire land cheaply.

2Some specific examples are Imelda Marcos’ shoes and Charles Haughey’s purchase of an island. Imelda Marcos, the former First Lady of the Philippines, became globally infamous for owning around 3,000 pairs of shoes, which symbolized lavish wealth and extreme government corruption during her husband’s rule. When protesters and officials raided the presidential palace in 1986, they found her massive collection alongside thousands of other expensive gowns and designer items. Charles Haughey held a number of Government portfolios but was Prime Minister of the Irish state Dec 1979 – Jun 1981; Mar 1982 – Dec 1982; Mar 1987 – Jun 1989; Jun 1989 – Feb 1992.

3 https://www.thejournal.ie/new-affidavit-lodged-in-high-court-claims-fresh-evidence-that-lays-out-raf-use-of-irish-airspace-7077898-Jun2026/

4Even without being on British payroll: Former Garda Assistant Commissioner Edmund (Ned) Garvey was named as a British intelligence “asset” by British whistleblower and former soldier Fred Holroyd, who claimed he met Garvey at Garda Headquarters in Dublin during the 1970s. Garvey denied being a spy, though official investigations like the Barron Report confirmed a meeting took place without Garvey reporting it to his superiors.

5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retail_in_the_Republic_of_Ireland

6 https://findqo.ie/blogs/foreign-investment-in-irish-property-what-the-latest-numbers-show/

7AI, citing Central Bank of Ireland as source.

8Bank of Ireland

The board features international leadership, including Chairman Akshaya Bhargava and non-executive directors like Pascal Boillat (who brings decades of global operational experience across institutions like Deutsche Bank and Citigroup), alongside international committee members.
Operates extensively across the UK and international markets.

AIB (Allied Irish Banks)

AIB operates subsidiary structures in the UK and maintains broad international institutional shareholding following full state exit.
Board members and corporate teams frequently hold background experience across major global financial hubs in London, New York, and Europe.

PTSB (Permanent TSB)

Following the €1.6 billion acquisition agreement by Austria’s BAWAG Group, continental European banking interests have direct representation and control over the institution’s trajectory.
The board includes directors with heavy international banking backgrounds, such as prior executive experience spanning EMEA, the US, and the UK.

9The Civil War/Counter-revolution 1922-’23 and repression until 1939, Fianna Fáil Government 1939-1945, Irish State repression campaigns mid-1960s, Section 31 Broadcasting Act 1971, re-establishment of the non-jury ‘sentencing tribunal’ of the Special Criminal (sic) Court 1972, use of the ‘Heavy Gang’ 1980s.

10Usually dated from the Anglo-Norman invasion of 1169, although the British did not succeed in totally dominating all parts of Ireland until the beginning of 17^th Century.

11 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statutes_of_Kilkenny

12
The Irish Parliament under British colonial rule was a thoroughly sectarian one, open only to members of the small minority Anglican community and the failed attempt to enlarge it to all religions in Irish was what had convinced Irish Republicans to form the revolutionary United Irishmen organisation. After the suppression of the latter’s uprising in 1798 the English administration had organised the Parliament abolishing itself and Ireland becoming part of the British Union in 1801.

13Charles Stewart Parnell formed most of the MPs elected in Ireland into a party to participate in the UK Parliament.

14Griffith, founder of the original Sinn Féin had argued for a dual-British-Irish monarchy but agreed to the change.

15Newly-created from former members of the Irish Volunteers of 1916 and Irish Citizen Army and with new recruits.

16August 1919 – the following month the British occupation banned the Dáil.

17In particular in and from Oriel House, located at the corner of Westland Row and Fenian Street.

The Many Executions of Roger Casement.

On August 7, 2026 By rebelbreezeIn 1916 Rising, British imperialism, Colombia, Executions, History, Human Rights, Ireland, irish history, Latin America, National Liberation, Political AnalysisLeave a comment

Gearóid Ó Loingsigh

(Reading time: 5 mins.)

Reproduced with permission of the author; edited to format for Rebel Breeze.

Just 110 years ago on August 3rd 1916 the Irish revolutionary Roger Casement was executed at Pentonville Prison in England, hung by the neck till dead.

However, it was not the only execution of Roger Casement, he has been executed many, many times, by diverse types ranging from the British State to right wing sections of Irish society and the West Brits that populate the Irish media and Dublin’s chattering classes et al.

Of course when I say executed many times, I am not referring to his physical execution, that only happened once, though the British Empire was an expert in cruelty and came as close as you possibly can to multiple physical executions.

One of its favoured methods was for a long time the sentence of Hung, Drawn and Quartered which entailed being hung till nearly dead, brought down, disembowelled whilst still alive and then decapitated: the pinnacle of British civilisation up until 1870.

But I refer to the assassination of his character which still continues to this day.

*Roger Casement portrait, hanged for his revolutionary work in Pentonville Prison, London, on 3rd August 1916.*
(Image sourced: *Internet*)

Casement was a British diplomat for much of his life but his activism in Ireland and his later role in the lead up to the 1916 Rising brought him to the attention of the British authorities that he worked for.

He was an internationally recognised figure praised by all and sundry for his work in Congo and also in Latin America for his work on abuses in the rubber industry.

Executing someone who was ostensibly one of their own was not as easy as executing the other leaders of the Rising and so the rumour mill of the Black Diaries was produced to denigrate his character at the time.

In the 1980s, some Republicans of the Sinn Féin variety reclaimed Casement as a gay icon.

Whether Casement was gay or not would be largely irrelevant to a modern Irish audience, but it was not so at the time. Gay sex was illegal and gays were pursued ruthlessly.

Even Alan Turing who played a key role in Britain’s war against the Nazis by cracking their codes was hounded and prosecuted. Were it not for Turing the course of WWII may well have been very different, but not even that could save him.

Casement who rose up against the British Empire could have expected nothing but the worst from the British. However, alongside the allegation based on the forged Black Diaries that he was gay is also the allegation that he was a pederast.

It is beyond the scope of this article to refute all the fabricated allegations against Casement of which there are many, though Angus Mitchell’s updated biography Casement is thorough in refuting the Black Diaries and the campaign against him.[1]

I was struck by the fact that Casement was under watch from German intelligence during his time there and yet they never recorded any of the behaviour Casement’s enemies ascribed to him, including during his period in Germany.

Why so many attempts to assassinate his character? Well, they needed to do so to justify his execution and have stuck to their murderous guns ever since.

But also, there are many myths about the 1916 leaders that portray them as insular, reactionary irredentist nationalists when in fact they were very open to other cultures and had a broad international perspective not only on culture but also on politics.

Casement’s internationalism, his outward looking view is a matter of public record. His stature as one of the great humanitarians of the 19th and 20th centuries is almost unassailable.

That the rebellion against the British Empire in Dublin could be linked to Casement’s work exposing the atrocities of the Belgian state and royal family or his work in South America in also exposing the atrocities of rubber companies cannot be tolerated.

Not by those who believe in the civilising mission of the White Man’s Burden as the reactionary vile poet Rudyard Kipling put it.

Casement is the only leader of the Rising who is both known internationally, and whose writings are available in various languages. His writings about the Amazon rubber industry are rarely out of print in South America.

The attempts to smear him got more “sophisticated” over the years as concerns about him being gay no longer had the same force and so his work is attacked. He has been accused of racism, being in effect an imperialist, despite all evidence and even part of the problem in the rubber industry.

The Murdoch press in 2010 even stated he was no humanitarian, though that particular press group is given to lying as a matter of course, one of the most infamous cases being the accusations they levelled with gay abandon at the Liverpool fans during the Hillsborough disaster.

But the Murdoch press’ accusations are not any less “serious” than some of the “academic” tripe produced by others.[2]

Casement makes for uncomfortable reading for many. You cannot consider his life, his work and the 1916 Rising without taking into account the international context, international politics and empire in all its nauseous rotten elements.

He inspired other anti-colonial leaders and his speech from the dock was such that it was referenced by independence leaders around the world.[3]

“When languishing as a political prisoner in the 1930s, Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India, commented how ‘it seemed to point out exactly how a subject nation should feel.’”[4]

His base in La Chorrera, Putumayo in modern day Colombia[5] still recalls Casement and they refer to Ireland simply as Roger’s Country.[6]

The debates about Casement are not about Casement per se, but rather his politics and what he did and sought to do in relation to the British Empire’s occupation of his homeland. Some of those who denigrate him would be happy for all of Ireland to become part of the British state again.

*Roger Casement statue on Dún Laoghaire waterfront, erected August 2021*. (Photo sourced: *Internet*)

On one level it does not matter whether he was gay, in the modern Ireland it is hardly an issue, his alleged racism and paedophilia would still be an issue however.

All of these are attempts by a state that cannot come to terms with how one of their own (initially), a man of world renown stature could rise up against their putrid empire.

As we go forward, we have not seen the last of the attempted executions of a man whose fame outlives that of all those who opposed him, argued against him, executed him physically, intellectually and ideologically.

As Angus Mitchell has pointed out about forgeries that they need to be controlled as the British did to a point that we cannot be even sure that the partial release in the 1950s and the later releases are the same documents.

The Black Diaries display the same signature. A consensus that was genuinely secure would not need the regular re-litigation it receives, nor the marshalling of reviews to maintain that consensus.

It would also not require the assurance of the Guardian correspondent that the forgery theory has been discredited when he knows full well that is not the case…

A genuine source needs neither secrecy nor maintenance. The Black Diaries have acquired both – concealed in their handling and defended ever since by a consensus that must be continually reasserted. The endless fascination is not evidence that the mystery is deep.

It is evidence that someone, somewhere, is still doing the work of maintaining the mystery and claiming it as history.[7]

What we can be certain of is that Roger Casement stood up to the empire, he fought against it and that his work is as relevant to modern Ireland and indeed the world as it was then and that is the biggest crime that Casement committed.

One we should be proud of on the 110th anniversary of his execution by the British, that led to multiple executions of his legacy at the hands of the British Establishment, West Brits and other apologists for empire.

End.

Note: You may wish to read other articles by Gearóid Ó Loingsigh on his substack https://gearoidloingsigh.substack.com/

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NOTES

[1] Mitchell, A. (2026) Casement. Haus Publishing. UK.

[2] For an analysis of these “debates” see Gerry Fitzpatrick’s articles on Casement. https://socialistdemocracy.org/RecentArticles/RecentReviewRogerCasementAndHistoryPartOne.html;https://socialistdemocracy.org/RecentArticles/RecentReviewRogerCasementAndHistoryPartTwo.html;https://socialistdemocracy.org/RecentArticles/RecentCasementAndHistoryPartThree.html ;

[3] See Roger Casement: Speech from the dock. https://www.nootherlaw.com/archive/casement-speech-from-the-dock.html

[4] Mitchell, A. (1916) 16 Lives: Roger Casement. O Brien. Dublin para 21.108

[5] The Putumayo region in which Casement travelled straddled the borders of Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. Land borders have changed since then, particularly after the 1932-34 war. His base was then and still is now in Colombia, some of the other parts are in Ecuador and Peru and others have changed between the countries.

[6] Irish Times (30/07/2016) Why Roger Casement is still remembered by the people of the Amazon. Sorcha Pollak. https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/heritage/why-roger-casement-is-still-remembered-by-the-people-of-the-amazon-1.2737575

[7] Mitchell, A. (2026) Casement Debasement. Village 88. https://www.academia.edu/170403173/Casement_Debasement

AN EXISTENTIAL THREAT FOR EACH

On August 5, 2026 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Middle East, National Liberation, National Sovereignty, Palestine, Political Analysis, US Imperialism, ZionismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 8 mins.)

As we face the possible escalation of an extended regional war in West Asia it is worthwhile to consider what’s at stake for some of the various ‘players’.

‘Israel’ constantly claims existential threats to its state but Iran has stated the same with regard to attacks upon it by the US and ‘Israel’. The Resistance in Palestine and in Lebanon have also spoken in those terms with regard to themselves.

It might seem that the US is the only major participant in the wars in Western Asia which is not itself threatened existentially. However, in a sense it too is facing a kind of existential threat, the threat to its continuing existence as a superpower.

Dr. Mohamad Hasan Sweidan, one of the panel of regular news updates on YouTube for The Cradle online media regularly states that in reality, all of the principal actors are indeed fighting a threat to their existence, though the weight of threat being of varying degrees for each.

The ‘Israeli’ state

The Zionist state of ‘Israel’ came into being in 1948 as a Zionist-led European settler project to impose itself on the indigenous Palestinian people of all ethnic groups. Supported by the USA, Zionism gathered force since 1945 to the full-blown terror and ethnic cleansing of the 1948 Nakba.¹

Despite claims of recovering ancestral lands, the culture of Ashkenazi colonisers and their languages were European, not West Asian, in keeping with their origin. Citizenship was opened to any Jewish person around the world but not to the Arab Palestinians who had been driven out.

The Zionist state is of course completely dependent on western imperialism for its defence and its very he existence. But ‘Israel’ is not content with that alone and in the logic of all settler colonialism, is constantly fighting wars of expansion with its neighbours.²

The location of this settler colony makes it of important political and military value to western imperialism and in particular to the USA superpower. It is a dagger at the throat of West Asian sovereignty, let alone socialism and in the region is totally free of both those dangers internally.

The settler colony is never secure until it has either wiped out the indigenous people or totally broken their resistance and scattered them. Consequently the indigenous people will resist and if they can, logically, aided by their threatened neighbours, will overthrow the occupation.

Therefore the Zionist State is truthfully facing an existential threat.

The Resistance

The Resistance to imperialism and Zionism in West Asia is wide and multi-faceted but for the purpose of this examination we’ll look at sum of the factions inside Palestine, both Islamic and secular factions as one Resistance; and Hizbollah and political allies in Lebanon as another.

Because of its practices, its origins and attitudes to the cultures of West Asia, ‘Israel’ is viewed by Palestinians and most people of the region as an occupier. It has functioned as a proxy of imperialism, particularly the US variety, in the region since it came into being.

Like settler colonies in general, the Zionist state has been expanding its territory since its inception.

It has also waged war on its neighbours for most of its existence: 1948 against Palestinians and Arab states, 1950s-1960s against the Palestinian Resistance; with France and UK against Egypt (Suez) 1956; 1967 against Egypt, Jordan, Syria; 1973 against Egypt and Syria.

And in 1971-1982 in South Lebanon.³ In September 2024 it attacked Lebanon with assassinations and exploding pagers and in December of that year, invaded Syria⁴ (though it had regularly bombed it previously) and attacked Iran (during peace negotiation) in February 2026.

The Zionist military carried out a great number of major attacks within Palestine including against the West Bank and Gaza in between what the Zionists call ‘mowing the lawn’, i.e. regular assassinations, raids, arrests and imprisonment of hostages.

The attitude of the ‘Israeli’ occupation to the Palestinian resistance is typified in its attitude to Hamas, the political party elected by significant majority across Palestine in 2006: it totally rejects the people’s choice and attempts to eliminate it in Gaza through economic and military means.

In the West Bank the Occupation’s proxy, the Palestine Authority refused to accede to the popular vote and collaborates with the Occupation, even though the even more extreme elements in ‘Israeli’ government and society despise it, regularly denouncing it and calling for its elimination.

The PA represses criticism by Palestinians in the West Bank, jails critics and fighters, sets them up for ‘Israeli’ jailing and has even murdered Resistance fighters.

‘Israel’ and the US are in concert attempting to use elements of the Lebanese Government against Hizbollah and political parties close to or friendly with them, attempting to turn the Lebanese Army to that purpose. Were they to succeed this would result in another Lebanese civil war.

It is a fact that the state of ‘Israel’ has no formal borders, except where its present territory reaches the borders of Egypt and Jordan.⁵ The ‘Greater Israel’ concept⁶ and Zionist aspiration exceeds far beyond even those,⁷ including Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and swathes of Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Many Israeli political leaders including Ze’ev Jabotinsky,⁸ Menachem Begin⁹ and Benjamin Netanyahu, Smotrich and Ben-Gvir¹⁰ have openly promoted the ‘Greater Israel’ (sic) concept as an objective and seems to have the support of US foreign policy and the ‘Israeli’ opposition.¹¹

In all ‘peace’ proposals the ‘Israeli’ establishment seeks the ‘disarmament’ of the Lebanese and Palestinian Resistance, while itself remaining the most heavily armed state in the whole of West Asia, the only one with a nuclear weapon and a long history of committing massacres and genocide.

Hizbullah and the Palestine Resistance are therefore indeed facing an existential threat.

The USA

The USA is the chief world imperialist power and in order to maintain that position has a number of requirements, among which are that it can direct or at least influence events around most of the world and that its military might is seen as impossible to defend against.

The Warsaw Pact bloc, a former impediment to expansion of US dominance has gone, though the Russian Federation remains. However the rising economic power of China already threatens the world dominance of the US imperialist ruling class.

But it has faced a new threat to its hegemony of West Asia. Although the non-compliant regimes there of Iraq and Syria (and Libya in North Africa) have been overthrown, US influence in Iran¹² had been defeated by uprisings and founding of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979.

Despite war against the Republic (1980-’88) by then western-supported Saddam Hussein, the Islamic Republic survived and supplied resistance organisations in Lebanon and in Palestine with weapons.

The US failed to subdue Iran with decades of sanctions or to instigate popular or separatist insurrection against the ruling elite during unprovoked attack in February, having to accept the stability of the Republic and to agree to ceasefire terms, losing much of its mythos of invincibility.

Not only were its military installations in West Asia shown to be vulnerable but they became regular targets in retaliation for US strikes against Iran. Client regimes began to wonder whether they could even afford to have such failed protection US military bases on their soil.

The repercussions of that will extend right around the World.

Iran

The Islamic Republic of Iran came into existence in 1979 in a revolution against the Pahlavi monarchy, its repressive Savak secret police and against Iran’s client status of US imperialism (such that the CIA’s head office for the whole of West Asia was located there).

The revolution found the CIA desperately shredding their spy documents (many of which were later painstakingly stuck back together by the Iranian revolutionaries). The revolutionary leadership and its followers were immediately targeted by imperialism, in particular by the USA.

The imperialists instigated Saddam Hussein (at the time their client) to have Iraq invade Iran in a war which lasted eight years during which 188,015 to 217,489 Iranians were killed (about 70 people per day).¹³ Hussein used gas attacks¹⁴ as well as bullets and explosives.

In addition, US imperialism has imposed sanctions on Iran since 1979, which is to say threatened sanctions on any state prepared to sell to or trade with the Islamic Republic and these have had a heavy negative impact on the population, in particular in the area of health treatment.¹⁵

In January 2026 the USA manipulated currency trading and the value of the Iranian rial fell. Protest demonstrations took place which Israeli and US intelligence operatives in places turned into armed attacks on police, government buildings and even some place of religious worship.

The Iranian authorities issued figures of 3,117 killed during the disturbances,¹⁶ which included civilians and agents acting under foreign direction, without identifying which was which. A significant number of those killed were State employees, including public security and police.

Sources sympathetic to the West have issued a range of fatal casualty numbers, rising to 36,000. It does not seem possible to separate real figures from propaganda, certainly of Western sources and possibly too of the Iranian State.

However the involvement of agents working for foreign powers to destabilise Iran has been established, not only in results of raids by Iranian State security forces but also in statements by US and ‘Israeli’ authorities¹⁷ and in admissions of Starlink-linked devices smuggled into Iran.¹⁸

Trump admitted that the US had supplied weapons to Iranian Kurdish pro-independence groups at this time also and complained that the Kurds had failed to use them against the US. Probably Baluchistan separatists were similarly urged to rise but did not do so in any numbers.¹⁹

The presence of foreign agents in Iran was also evident not only by intelligence possessed by the aggressors during the following war but also by when drones were launched against targets in Iran from within the country.

‘Israel’ accompanied by the USA,on 28 February, during negotiations, assassinated the religious and political supreme leader, Ali Khamenei and others, along with families and launched air strikes across Iran, including killing 124 schoolgirls with their teachers in a ‘double-tap’ strike.

The USA is too far away for a retaliatory strike but their military assets are distributed around the Gulf and Iran’s response struck those hard, US defences proving inadequate in action. Iran also closed the Strait of Hormuz, cutting the flow of essential gas and oil from the region to the West.

The US was forced to negotiate and to agree to Iranian terms in a Memorandum of Understanding for peace talks, most of which the US has yet to carry out in practice and much of which it has violated. But it is difficult to see what final options it has other than compliance.

The intentions of US imperialism to the Islamic Republic of Iran are irremediably hostile, proven in sanctions, assassinations, war, subversion attempts, rhetoric and threats, wishing the Iranian revolutionary regime overthrown and Iran dismembered, i.e. indeed an existential threat to Iran.

CONCLUSION

The mutual existential threats of antagonists do not usually cancel each other out. Rather, one of the antagonists must fall. Liberal solutions of ‘peace’ between them are illusory and chasing such mirages is not only fruitless but diverts attention from the necessary resolution.

In fact, wars where none of the antagonists feel they can afford to give way are complicated and very hard to resolve.

In the short term, for relative peace in Western Asia, both the US imperialists and the Israeli Zionists need to be severely weakened and those who wish for that relative peace must logically wish success to the struggles of the Islamic Republic of Iran and of the Resistance organisations.

In the medium term, the existence of the state of ‘Israel’ needs to cease and the democratic state of Palestine to come into being with US Imperialism weakened further or overthrown.

The ruling class of the strengthened Iran will need to see how they can manage Iran’s new status and the Resistance organisations how they develop and grow their respective nations as independent and sovereign states.

In the longer term, new threats and new conflicts will emerge throughout the world. As long as capitalism exists, parts of it will grow into monopoly capitalism and that in turn will seek to maximise its profits by venturing abroad in competition and/or in coercion.

End.

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FOOTNOTES & SOURCES

1During the 1948 Nakba (Arabic for “catastrophe”), approximately 750,000 to one million Palestinians were displaced from their homes, and an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 Palestinians were killed.

More than 80% of the Palestinian population living in the territory that became Israel was forced to leave.At least 530 villages and towns were destroyed or depopulated.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency reports that this initial displacement grew into an ongoing crisis, with nearly 6 million Palestinian refugees registered today. Historians and organizations generally estimate that 10,000 to 15,000 Palestinians were killed. Deaths occurred during combat, in dozens of targeted massacres, and from the general violence of the war.

2 https://thecradle.co/articles/israels-permanent-security-doctrine-turns-war-into-the-states-condition

3From 16 to 18 September 1982, the IOF’s proxy, the Lebanese Forces, one of the main Christian militias in Lebanon, massacred between 1,300 and 3,500 civilians—mostly Palestinians and Lebanese Shias — in the Sabra neighbourhood of Beirut and in the nearby Shatila refugees camp, with the support of the IOF.

4As the Syrian regime collapsed in early December 2024.

5 https://campaigns.acri.org.il/50yearsen/

6 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Israel

7 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Greater_israel.jpg

8An early leading Zionist ideologue and activist.

9Leader of Zionist terrorist group Irgun, founder of political parties Herut and Likud, Prime Minister of ‘Israel’ 1977-1983.

10Respectively in order: Leader of Likud party of current ‘Israel’ government coalition; leader of Religious Zionist Party and current Finance Minister since 2022; National Security Minister since 2022, leader of Otzma Yehudit (“Jewish Power”), an Israeli far-right, Kahanist and anti-Arab party which won six seats in the 2022 legislative election and is part of the thirty-seventh government of Israel (Wikipedia).

11 https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/2/26/what-is-greater-israel-and-how-popular-is-it-among-israelis

12 Formerly referred to internationally as ‘Persia’ until 1935.

13 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23981159/

14Western media were not interested at the time – Hussein was attacking Iran and was therefore one of ‘the good guys’. Journalists who tried to get western media to cover the wiping out of a Kurdish village Halabja by gas attack in 1982 were getting nowhere. However, many years later, when the Saddam Hussein had switched and started defying the western imperialists, western media suddenly found the story valuable even though years old by then.

15 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanitarian_impacts_of_U.S._sanctions_against_Iran

16 https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/2/5/questions-after-irans-government-releases-victim-list-in-protest-killings (Qatar-based Al Jazeera, while hostile to Israeli Zionism, is also hostile to the Islamic Republic of Iran. However other online sources I found in a quick search were even worse.)

17 https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/1/14/iran-accuse-foreign-intelligence-behind-protest-movement

18 https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgzk91leweo and https://www.aa.com.tr/en/science-technology/us-sent-thousands-of-starlink-terminals-to-iran-after-january-protest-crackdown-report/382849

19 https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/trump-claims-he-disagreed-with-arming-kurds-against-iran-ill-remember-that-kurds/

“AIRPORT FOR AIRPORT, PORT FOR PORT, BLOCKADE FOR BLOCKADE”

On August 3, 2026August 3, 2026 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, History, Imperialism, National Liberation, National Sovereignty, Political Analysis, Popular ResistanceLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time main text: 5 mins.)

The words are those addressed to Saudi Arabia’s Monarchy by the Ansar Allah leadership of Yemen. They indicate a coming change in the whole of Yemen, responding to a changing of the balance of power in the rest of West Asia.

Ansar Allah went on to list the Saudi airports, ports and oil facilities within reach of Yemen’s missiles.¹ And as of 20^th July, Ansar Allah announced a maritime blockade of Saudi Arabia.²

The Yemenis were responding to an attempt by Saudi military planes to enforce its blockade of Ansar Allah’s Yemen by preventing through bombing an Iranian plane landing at Sanaa Airport on 13^th July.³

*The Saudi bombing of Ansar Allah’s Sanaa Airport.* (Photo sourced: *Internet*)

The follow-up was a bombing of the Saudi airport in retaliation for the Saudi bombing of Sanaa along with hitting two Saudi tankers on 22^nd July for ‘violating the blockade.’ The Saudis foolishly bombed Hodeidah port in retaliation and the Yemeni’s response in turn is still burning days later.

Yemen’s Ansar Allah bombed Saudi’s AramCo oil installation with a black smoke plume visible from cameras in space causing damage which may take years to repair.

The 13^th July Iranian passenger flight to prevent which the Saudis bombed Sanaa Airport had challenged a 12-year long Saudi blockade, Mohamed al-Bukhaiti, senior official and politburo member of the Ansar Allah Government explained recently.

Speaking in a ‘Rock the Cradle’ podcast interview by Sharmine Narwani⁴ of The Cradle online media, al-Bukhaiti revealed that in discussions with Iranian and Omani government figures it had been decided to send a plane to collect Yemen’s delegation for Iran’s Supreme Leader’s funeral.

Those discussions took account of the changing power relations in West Asia, al-Bukhaiti related, the rise of Iran as a regional power challenging the imperialist domination of US and of its client states, of which the Saudi Arabian rulers are a prime example.

No doubt the falling out between former regional partners-in-crimes Saudi Arabia and the UAE also seemed to present a good opportunity for Yemen to break out from their joint blockade.⁵

But al-Bukhaiti stated that Ansar Allah had been preparing for that challenge when the October 7^th 2023 breakout by the Palestinian resistance had occurred and shifted their focus into solidarity action with Palestine instead, bombarding ‘Israel’ at different junctures from 2024 to 2025.

*Yemen’s Ansar Allah acting directly against ‘Israel’ due to latter’s genocide in Gaza 2024/ 2015* (Cartoon by *D.Breatnach*)

RECENT YEMENI MOBILISATION

That some kind of initiative was planned by the Ansarallah Government was evident when it recently organised and called for national mobilisations but also when an Ansar Allah attack was reported on a Saudi occupying military outpost 3-5 July, killing 14 occupation soldiers.⁶

Prior to the bombing of Sanaa Airport, the specific purpose of the internal preparation by mobilisations was unclear, nor was it clear whether the short military action was a prelude to further action, a probe or limited action under a local command.

But after Ansar Allah’s declaration of intention to break the blockade and to respond in kind to any military attack or blockade of their country, it seems likely that their Government will not be content with a relaxation in the application of sanctions but intends the liberation of all Yemen.

It seems clear that Yemen’s actions now are based on what is widely seen as a new balance of forces in West Asia, with western imperialism and in particular its chief, the USA, in decline while much of the axis of Resistance – in particular Iran, Yemen and Hizbollah – are in ascendant.

But according to Prof. Mohamad Hasan Sweidan on The Cradle’s news round-up podcast on YouTube,⁷ Yemen is also ensuring that it is a participant in the ongoing war in the region and will therefore be a party to its ending, with attendant benefits for Yemen and its people.

Trump of course has threatened to attack Yemen, though it’s difficult to see what different result he can expect a from his previous bombing campaign of March-April 2025 from which he had to walk away on May 6th without success but the loss of many Reaper drones and two fighter aircraft.⁸

Saudi Arabia has been joining a consortium to free the Red Sea ports from the Ansar Allah blockade. Most of the Gulf States included do not have a navy and only three members can contribute much⁹ Pakistan, Egypt and Turkiye. The EU has wisely stayed out.

However, some members such as Nigeria could contribute substantial ground troops. And Saudi Arabia is reported about to attack Ansar Allah on land too.¹⁰

*Huge plume of smoke from Saudi Arabia’s Aramco refinery in Jazan after being hit in retaliation by Ansar Allah’s Yemini missiles.* (Photo cred: *Getty Images*)

THE FALSE ‘GOVERNMENT OF YEMEN’

When we read of the ‘Government of Yemen’ in the mass western media¹¹ it may surprise some that the entity to which being referred is not at all what one would think with such a title. It is in fact nothing but a proxy of Saudi Arabia and of the western imperialists, the USA chief among those.

The real Government of Yemen in effect is actually Ansar Allah, to which the aforesaid media tend to refer as ‘the Houthis’, controlling 75% of Yemen’s population¹² with strong internal societal allegiance, something that cannot be said for the region under the proxy ‘Government’.

If we acknowledge Ansar Allah as a national state, which it clearly is, we must also acknowledge that it was the only state in the world that has taken clear physical action to end the Zionist genocide of the Palestinians, which it did without any interests of its own in its attack on ‘Israel’ in 2024-’25.

On behalf of the Zionist State, the US in 2025 sent two aircraft carriers near to Yemen and bombarded the country but had to retire its ships further and further away from Yemeni defences, lost a number of piloted aircraft and drones¹³ and Trump soon gave in and pulled out on 6^th May.

PAKISTAN THREAT?

In what seem to be promising prospects for Ansarallah in particular and the people of West Asia in general, Pakistan is the fly in the ointment. This is despite its Government’s strenuous efforts in pursuit of a peace deal between Iran and the USA and its publication of the agreed MOU.¹⁴

In September of last year, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia signed a mutual defence treaty, in which an attack on one will be seen as an attack on the other, obliging the first to come to the military assistance of the second.¹⁵

Whereas repulsing Saudi attacks on Yemen and even on Saudi military assistance to their proxy there might not activate the mutual defence treaty provisions, it’s hard to see how sustained attacks on Saudi Arabia itself would not, even perhaps if in justified retaliation for attacks on Yemen.

However Prof. Sweidan observes that with the USA’s breaking of agreements and commitments, these generally are not being taken as seriously as used be the case and he predicts that, having nothing to gain from military intervention, Pakistan will let the Saudis fight Yemen alone.

End.

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APPENDIX: BRIEF HISTORY OF YEMEN

(Reading time: one min.)

The land of Yemen has an ancient history¹⁶ but at the end of the 19^th and early 20^th Centuries, had come under control of the Ottoman Empire with the British maintaining a mercantile imperialist foothold through the East India Company, officially extended by the victorious British after WWI.

A national liberation struggle forced the British to abandon their occupation of south-eastern Yemen and the port of Aden in 1967, to be replaced by the Marxist People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen, known as South Yemen, under the patronage of the USSR.

After the collapse of the USSR ‘South Yemen’ and ‘North Yemen’ unified and also came under US Imperialist influence. The USS Cole bombing in Aden in 2000 by an Al Qaeda offshoot sparked a war against the latter but President Saleh prioritised a brutal war against northern Shia.

The main tribe being targeted was the Houthi.¹⁷ In 2012 the US pressured the resignation of President Saleh (with immunity from prosecution for human rights abuses) and replacement by Hadi, who in 2014 was captured with his cabinet by an Ansar Allah (leading the Houthi) offensive.

Hadi and his ministers subsequently fled to Saudi Arabia which then led a war against the Ansar Allah-controlled North Yemen, with the support of the UAE, western imperialism and the UN Security Council’s Resolution 2216.

From that date Yemen has been under UN-led sanctions supported by the western Imperialist powers and a coalition of US client Gulf states which Mohamed al-Bukhaiti stated has been hard mainly on civilians¹⁸ including a Saudi-imposed ban on flights into Sanaa Airport.

FOOTNOTES

1 https://www.palestinechronicle.com/one-battle-yemens-military-announces-forthcoming-major-announcement/

2 https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/yemens-houthis-declare-naval-blockade-against-saudi-arabia-statement-2026-07-20/

3The Iranian pilot avoided Sanaa but went on to land at another Yemeni airport instead.

4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fvH1h1FzkU

5 https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/the-growing-rift-between-saudi-arabia-and-the-uae

6 https://thecradle.co/articles-id/38613

7 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDuyDX16GQM at 10.40 mins.

8At an estimated combined cost of $369.6 million.

9Pakistan, Egypt and Turkey.

10 https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/middle-east/artc-saudi-arabia-prepares-offensive-against-houthis-that-could-include-ground-assault

11And even, shamefully, by Al Jazeera. And the Saudi-occupied rump of Yemen is also often characterised in the media as “the internationally-recognised Government.”

12While the Ansarallah Government controls only about a quarter of Yemen’s physical territory, their zone of administration encompasses the most densely populated urban centres in the north and west, including the capital city, Sanaa, and the critical Red Sea port of Al Hudaydah.

13Two Boeing F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter aircraft and 7 General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper combat drones (Wikipedia)

14The famed Memorandum of Understanding, a number of terms of which the USA has violated to such degree that it is no longer in operation.

15 https://globalsecurityreview.com/understanding-the-pakistan-saudi-defense-agreement/

16Including coming under expansionist Persian, Arab and native rule and monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam overcoming the older tribal ones, then struggling for domination among themselves with attendant massacres and suppression.

17“Whom Saleh accuses of separatism and of trying to impose their religious orthodoxy on the state. The Houthis, in turn, complain of discrimination and disenfranchisement under Saleh’s autocratic rule. (Yemen’s population is 40-45% Zayidi Shia, with Sunni Muslims making up most of the remainder. Zayidi Shi’ism is distinct from Iran’s Shi’ism.) https://unfoundation.org/what-we-do/issues/peace-human-rights-and-humanitarian-response/yemen-a-brief-background/

18 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fvH1h1FzkU

SOURCES

Recent events: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fvH1h1FzkU&t=4s

https://apnews.com/article/yemen-houthis-airport-saudi-strikes-7bddae3006304df8bf7f89e980006b33

Understanding the Pakistan–Saudi Defense Agreement

https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/yemen-threatens-retaliation-over-sanaa-airport-restrictions

Biased of course but interesting: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/27/world/middleeast/houthis-saudi-arabia-iran-war.html?eafs_enabled=false

Sanctions (biased UN source): https://globalsanctions.com/region/yemen/

History: https://unfoundation.org/what-we-do/issues/peace-human-rights-and-humanitarian-response/yemen-a-brief-background/

TOXIC LOYALISM IN IRELAND – WORSE THAN DANGERS OF 12th JULY BONFIRES

On July 14, 2026July 14, 2026 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Human Rights, Indigenous or Original People, Ireland, irish history, National Liberation, Political Analysis, Popular Resistance, Racism, Religious Sectarianism, Traditions & Folk Custom2 Comments

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

If it turns out that the fire destruction of homes in Greenisland, Carrigfergus was caused by Loyalist bonfire embers,¹ there may be renewed calls to ban the construction of such bonfires in the cause of safety.

Or even to prevent the deaths of people from Loyalist bonfire tower construction.²

If so, such calls will miss the main point, which is that Ulster Loyalist bonfires are an expression of sectarianism and racism. It is Ulster Loyalism itself which is toxic and more lethal than any mismanaged fire. That is what is expressed in burning Irish Tricolours, Palestinian flags, images of Irish individuals, representations of migrants and of Islam.

A Loyalist bonfire with Irish Tricolour and Palestinian flags to be burned along with images of the popular rap group Kneecap and an attempt at some message aimed at them in Irish. The rejection of SDLP and Alliance colonial political parties is clear, while that of Sinn Féin is taken for granted. (Photo: *Niall Carson/ PA Wire*).

The record of Ulster Loyalism is as the communal enforcers of settler colonialism upon the indigenous Irish. When the United Irishmen, mostly led by Protestants, were organising in unity with Irish Catholics for Irish independence, the Orange Order was founded in 1795.

At that time it was not controlling the indigenous Irish that was of greatest concern to the British ruling class as much as the Republican Protestants, in particular the Republicans among the Presbyterians and the Orange Order targeted them too with propaganda and intimidation.

Once the threat of Protestant Republican rebellion was contained through intimidation, repression and emigration, the Orange Order concentrated on the majority mostly Catholic indigenous Irish, with general repression and periodic pogroms, continuing after Partition of Ireland in 1922.

The colonial Statelet institutionalised in law and practice discrimination against Catholics, enlisting the help and support of the majority of the Protestant working class, with the result of the worst housing and generally lowest wages in the UK – for workers of both communities.

The Loyalists mobilised against the Civil Rights campaign in the Six Counties, a campaign led by liberal Protestants as well as Catholics. During three decades of war that followed, Loyalist militias with British colonial army and police help, carried out bombings and sectarian murders.³

At this time of year people concerned for their safety or just peace of mind temporarily leave areas near to those under Loyalist control and not only in the Six Counties colony but in parts of Scotland too.

A REACTIONARY FESTIVAL

Unionist and liberal propaganda tell us that some of the bonfires are just good community fun, without flags, politician faces, migrant boat or mosque replicas on top. But the historical excuse for the marking of the 12^th of July is the victory of William of Orange’s forces at the Boyne in 1690.

*Loyalist mural probably in Belfast depicting at top gable end King William at the Battle of the Boyne*. (Photo source: *https://petermoloneycollection.com/category/events-people/king-billy/*)

The Unionists celebrate this chiefly because they perceive it as a victory of Protestant forces over Catholic but also because it facilitated the destruction of the remnants of the Gaelic Order, breaking the power of Irish resistance in Ulster and completed the British conquest of Ireland.

Even without a single representation of person, country or religion on top of the bonfires, their very nature and what they intend to celebrate is reactionary, sectarian and colonial.

Most Ulster Protestants are probably unaware that although William was a Protestant and James II a Catholic, from whom Irish Catholics hoped to gain relief from repression, the Battle of the Boyne was actually part of the Nine Years War with William fighting for the League of Augsburg.

And one of the supporters of that League was none other than Pope Innocent XI because of what he and the League saw as the threat of King Luis XIV of France. The News of William’s victory at the Boyne was celebrated with high mass in a number of Catholic countries.

*This year’s Loyalist Bonfire in Moygashel, Co. Armagh, with a representation of a Mosque to be burned on top and a placard calling for ‘secure borders’ against emigration*. (Photo sourced: *Sky News*)

Loyalism has gone on to extend its hatred of Catholicism to Islam, of indigenous Irish to migrants from other lands, for example in the recent riots in Belfast.⁴

‘ONE MILLION PROTESTANTS IN A UNITED IRELAND’

We are frequently counselled to tolerate Ulster Loyalism, told that we must make Loyalists welcome into a united Ireland, that we need to accept their culture on equal level with others and are also subtly threatened with the potential violence of ‘One million Protestants’ if not accommodated.

The culture of Loyalism is toxic. It is intolerant, racist, homophobic, sectarian and violent. Might as well ask black people or native Americans to accept the Ku Klux Klan – after all, the KKK too have a community culture and they live in the USA along with everyone else.

A united 32-County Ireland should of course accept everyone as citizens. That is not at all to say that it should tolerate religious sectarianism, racism or homophobia. On the contrary it should oppose those evils through education and if necessary through application of the law.⁵

As for the implied threat of “one million Protestants”, that is to assume that all are sectarian Loyalists or at least that such are in leadership over the rest. Not all those reared in Six Counties Protestantism are Loyalists nor in fact even necessarily Unionists.

Removing the military, ideological and structural support for Unionism and Loyalism and also the control exercised by Loyalists on sections of communities will reduce Unionism and its most virulent expression, Loyalism, to a much smaller core who will have to make their choice.

Adjust to get on with your fellow citizens, or leave.

End.

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FOOTNOTES:

1 https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/fire-which-destroyed-homes-likely-caused-by-embers-from-nearby-bonfire-1925794.html

22026 https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2026/0711/1582923-bonfire-death/

2022 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-62111760

3According to Wikipedia, Loyalist paramilitaries killed 1,027 people during the 30 Years War, approximately 30% of all conflict-related deaths. 911 according to https://cain.ulster.ac.uk/issues/violence/sutton.htm (a biased source) including 33 in the no-warning Dublin and Monaghan Bombings of 1974.

4 https://www.politico.eu/article/anti-immigrant-terror-takes-northern-ireland-back-darkest-chapters/

5In the wording of the 1916 Proclamation: “The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty to all …”

SOURCES:

https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/fire-which-destroyed-homes-likely-caused-by-embers-from-nearby-bonfire-1925794.html and https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2026/07/12/fire-that-destroyed-antrim-homes-likely-caused-by-embers-from-nearby-bonfire/

2026 https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2026/0711/1582923-bonfire-death/

2022 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-62111760

IRISH STATE PRESIDENCY OF THE EUROPEAN UNION — PROTEST CLOSES DUBLIN CITY CENTRE STREET

On July 11, 2026 By rebelbreezeIn Anti-War, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Imperialism, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Irish Left, National Liberation, Political Analysis, ZionismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time:4 mins.)

As the Irish State marked the start of its six-month Presidency of the European Union, a protest march calling for Irish neutrality and an end to EU collusion with ‘Israeli’ genocide in Palestine headed for the formal event, closing a principal street to traffic.

*Section of the crowd at Central Plaza.* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

A Call to Action poster had promoted the protest to take place at the Plaza in Dublin’s south side city centre in front of a multi-story building, formerly HQ of the Central Bank of Ireland. Curiously, the name of no party, campaign or collective convening the protest appeared on the poster.

Groups of various Palestine solidarity or of pro-Irish neutrality nature, anti-war and left-wing nature, along with many individual activists congregated at the Plaza while a group from the weekly broad Dubs for Palestine meeting outside Leinster House¹ marched to meet them there.

*Some banners among the crowd at Central Plaza.* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

The ‘Granny Squares for Gaza’ quilt was unrolled, featuring up to 2,900 squares, each one representing 10 Palestinian children killed by the IOF and volunteers, along with its custodians, held it at around waist height.

Soon afterwards, the crowd of several hundred took up the westward traffic side of Dame Street and began to march towards Dublin Castle,² where the Irish Government was marking the first day of its EU Presidency. However a police line blocked progress at the junction with George St.

After a temporary stand-off, the marchers moved to occupy both sides of Dame street and traffic could no longer proceed westward or eastward along the street. The crowd continued with slogans in solidarity with Palestine, against ‘Israel’, for peace, against war, for warplanes out of Shannon.

*Another banner at the Plaza.* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

The Irish State is the second-biggest single importer of ‘Israeli’ exports, next only to the USA. Permitted flights over Irish airspace have been identified carrying war material to ‘Israel’ and US warplanes regularly refuel at Shannon Airport, despite the state’s ‘neutral’ status.

Richard Boyd Barrett of the People Before Profit, which seemed now to be leading the demonstration addressed the crowd informing them that the police had said earlier that they could proceed to the square immediately before City Hall and hold the protest event there.

They had reneged on that which is the reason why traffic was now blocked in the street, Barrett told the crowd and introduced Jimi Cullen to perform for the crowd. Cullen, who has performed at a US Embassy picket for 122 weeks up till then, sang his We Are All Palestinians composition.

*Jimi Cullen in full voice.* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

The crowd joined in the chorus, words with which they have become familiar in chants through many demonstrations.

A police officer approached Barrett requesting to speak to him and both went aside as one of the Dubs for Palestine group took up leading the chants. Barrett returned later to inform the crowd that the police had offered a different route down side streets, which had been rejected.

Cullen then performed his song defending the Irish State’s neutrality status with which the Irish ruling class are trying to dispense, after which Barrett invited the crowd, while the megaphones sounded sirens to lie on the ground in evocation of the many Palestinians being killed by the day.

*Also another banner at the Plaza before the march.* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

COMMENT

It was good that the capital city saw agitation opposing the Irish State joining military ventures of the EU and USA imperialist alliances and also against Irish collusion in the genocide in Palestine.

Those leading the march were unwise to accept the police assurance that they would allow the march to proceed to just before City Hall. A PBP-led march to protest Hillary Clinton’s 2012 visit to Dublin Castle had been told they could proceed there but were stopped just before City Hall.

Wednesday’s march was stopped even further from the Castle, which is a step further in curtailing protest, ensuring those inside the Castle will not even hear a hint of opposition. The police obstruction could have been bypassed by diverging through side streets but it was not attempted.

Though individual members may have been there, no Irish Republican organisation was notably present which probably accounted to an extent for the very scarce presence of Tricolour flags (and only one Starry Plough). PBP and their followers do not generally fly those flags.

However their absence cannot be attributed to any ambivalence: Irish Republicans are in strong antipathy to the Irish Government and to the institution of the European Union.

Only one of the slogans called from the front of the march referred to the colonial occupation of one-sixth of Ireland, viz. ‘From Ireland to Palestine/ Occupation is a crime!’ but it was from the Dubs and as is usual with PBP, in none of the speeches was there a mention of it.

Not one word of Irish language was spoken through the PA, not even the Saoirse don Phalaistín slogan.

The lie down to conclude the protest. The Gardaí may be seen in the distance blocking any advance of the march towards Dublin Castle or even the square beside City Hall. People are in most cases lying on the quilt of which each square represents 10 Palestinian children killed by ‘Israel’. (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

MOVING FORWARD

For the defeat of colonialism, imperialism and capitalism in Ireland, a revolutionary mass movement will be essential. For that in turn, construction of an anti-imperialist broad front is an essential task.

That requires those claiming Irish Republicanism to be present on mobilisations alongside those claiming revolutionary socialism or just anti-imperialism.

If use of the Irish language is to be popularised and the civil rights of Irish speakers in Ireland protected, Gaeilge must be heard in particular among the most progressive sections of society.

End.

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FOOTNOTES

1This broad group meets every Wednesday from 12 noon to around 1.00 pm. listening to speeches, songs and poems. Two of their major campaigns are seeking to have the genocide-funding Allianz company kicked out of the Gaelic Athletic Association and, more recently, to prevent the Irish soccer team playing the ‘Israeli’ one.

2For centuries centre of administration and repression of Ireland by the English occupation.

What to learn from 1,000 days of genocide

On July 4, 2026July 4, 2026 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Indigenous or Original People, Israeli Zionism, Mass Media Criticism, Massacres, Middle East, National Liberation, Palestine, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Human beings can be amazing and none more so than the Palestinians. Dr. Munir Al-Bursh Director General of the Ministry of Health in Gaza released the following short statement, posted by Resistance News Network on Telegram today. Diarmuid Breatnach.

One thousand days was not just a number on the calendar, but 1,000 days of torment, pages of pain, and stories that were never written.

1,000 days of loss and betrayal, and the worst betrayal is the betrayal of kin. Humanity has stripped itself of its humanity in these days.

*Cartoon by D.Breatnach from* September 2024 (’04 is an error) *and still true today.*

Killing children has become fleeting breaking news, bombing hospitals a recurring scene, starving civilians a method of war, and preventing medicine, water, and food a matter discussed without shame.

Since the agreement, more than 1,000 martyrs have been killed, most of them children and women.

We are living through a suffocating medicine crisis; more than 52% of medicines are missing, and more than 59% of medical supplies are missing.

The citizen can no longer find a drink of clean water. The occupation began with killing, and now it kills silently.

Gaza has taught me that victory is only born from the womb of patience, and that peoples who believe in their right cannot be defeated by any power, no matter how intense the siege and how great the sacrifices.

Gaza has taught me that starvation, thirst, bombing, burning, displacement, and forced removal are but tools of helplessness before a people who loved freedom and believed that dignity cannot be bought or sold.

Gaza has taught me that homes may be demolished, hospitals destroyed, and schools bombed, but the will that dwells in hearts cannot be buried under the rubble.

Gaza has taught me that a doctor may treat a wound while bleeding, a paramedic may carry the martyrs while waiting for his turn, and a journalist may write the truth with his blood before his pen.

*Dr. Munir Al-Bursh, Director General Gaza Health Ministry*. (Photo source: *Resistance News Network on Telegram*).

Gaza has taught me that all conspiracies break before the unity and steadfastness of the people, and that the most dangerous thing the enemies want is for us to be divided, while the greatest thing we possess is to remain one front.

Gaza has taught me that the world may be silent, the law may fail, and justice may be delayed, but the truth does not die, the rights of peoples do not lapse, and history does not show mercy to those who witnessed the crime and chose silence.

end.

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EPIC LEBANESE RESISTANCE TARGETS INVADING COMMANDERS?

On June 26, 2026June 26, 2026 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Guerrilla Action, Indigenous or Original People, Israeli Zionism, Middle East, National LiberationLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

The operations of Hizbollah in defence of South Lebanon against the IOF, the most powerful military power in the region, have been epic enough. But now the ‘Israeli’ military fear their commanders are being specifically targeted by the Resistance.¹

It may be unlucky coincidence that two commanders have been seriously wounded and one killed in a matter of weeks but the High Command of the Zionist army don’t think so, according to media in the Zionist entity, speculating instead ofn high level Hizbollah intelligence to target IOF commanders.

On Saturday/ Sunday night the Deputy Commander of the Commando Brigade’s Maglan unit was among 13 IOF injured by a Resistance drone strike and one killed.² On Friday Lt. Colonel Dor Gedalia Ben Simhon, commander of the 52^nd Battalion of the 401st Armored Brigade, was killed.³

Three members of Ben Simhon’s crew were killed with him after their tank was struck during operations near Kfar Tebnit in South Lebanon. The 52^nd Battalion is the unit implicated in the killing of 6-year-old Hind Rajab while she called for help after the killing of six family members.⁴

Northern Command’s Major-General Rafi Milo had a very lucky escape when his car was hit by an explosive drone minutes after he had left it in South Lebanon.⁵

Of course, assassinations are and have been a regular part of the offensive package of the IOF – not only assassination of military leaders but also civilian administrators, technicians, first responders, news reporters, writers, artists and poets. But the IOF are unaccustomed to being paid in kind.

It won’t be in kind from Hizbollah, for the Lebanese Resistance is hitting tanks, armoured troop carriers, military personnel and, when they killed an ‘Israeli’ civilian and injured his son, the man was driving an earth remover for the military, demolishing South Lebanese homes not yet bombed level.⁶

Hizbollah has been carrying out around 30 operations a day against the invading IOF, employing rockets, guided missiles and drones but also IEDs, RPGs and small arms fire. Hardly a day passed without their drones striking at least one Merkava tank, a Namer troop carrier and an earth-moving machine.⁷

Despite failing militarily, the IOF have killed at least 4,192 people (mostly civilians) in Lebanon since the current round of hostilities began, and displaced more than 1.2 million people, reports the Lebanese health ministry, as the IOF applies its Gaza destruction plan to South Lebanon.

According to a UN report, the IOF completely destroyed 11,095 buildings, affecting 17,891 housing units, while 2,242 buildings were partially damaged, equivalent to 5,219 housing units. The report also revealed that 9,311 buildings sustained minor damage, equivalent to 18,282 housing units.⁸

*D.Breatnach cartoon drawn prior to the 2026 resurgence of February, during previous IOF invasion of South Lebanon, prior to the ‘exploding pagers’ and assassination of Nasrallah*

Career progression from entry to NCO ranks in the IOF is largely based on service length rather than merit and for commanders, also based on meeting the requirements of command training school, so it is not easy for them to replace commanders injured or killed in battle.

The greatest damage perhaps will be to the IOF’s morale, already at far from optimum level.⁸ Personnel know that they will be required to remain on active service longer than normal and that they are outmatched on a level field, while currently the Haredim⁹ are exempted from service.¹⁰

Typically the IOF retreat quickly from contact with the Resistance and call for shelling or bombing but now Hizbollah’s mortars and rockets can bombard them too and thoughts of small explosive-carrying quadcopters appearing out of nowhere to hunt them down is really scaring them.

In some cases an explosive drone has followed running IOF into buildings, in one case into an IOF operations room. A drone targeting a covered IOF Humvee filmed two leaping out the back without attempting to shoot it down, leaving it to explode against the rest in back and against cab at front.

And what if the Resistance really can track commanders in the battle area, determine where they are and strike them down? IOF soldiers will be uncertain and nervous without leaders, (feelings which might be even worse if they are required to spend time close to possibly targeted commanders!).

Zionist fragmentation is breaking out inside the Zionist entity with some arguing that the IOF should bomb Beirut, others claiming that the IOF is being held back from effective action in South Lebanon and a third group claiming that the IOF should retreat from Lebanon completely.

And hostility towards what Vice President Vance called their “only powerful ally” and sole superpower in the world currently sympathetic to the Israeli state, has grown hugely among the Zionists as they perceive the US-Iran agreement under current negotiation as shattering their military and expansion illusions.

End.

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Footnotes:

1 https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-900206

2 https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-899975

3 https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/hezbollah-attack-kills-israeli-soldier–wounds-13-commando-t

4On January 29 2024 – Two paramedics who set out to save her were also killed by the IOF unit.

5 https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-900206

6 https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israel-security/2026-04-28/ty-article/civilian-contractor-working-for-defense-ministry-killed-in-southern-lebanon/0000019d-d5ca-d9f6-a1dd-ddca943a0000

7 https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/israel-largest-tank-losses-40yrs-ambushes-21-merkava

8 https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/lebanon-building-damage-in-israeli-attacks-estimated-at-138b/3974843

9 https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israeli-army-calls-reserves-amid-fears-low-turnout-and-lower-morale

10Fundamentalist Orthodox ‘Israeli’ sect who have been exempt from employment and military conscription, though including 10% of ‘Israel’s’ military age males. Their political representatives are part of Netanyahu’s coalition but are calling now for dissolving the Government and new elections, after other parts of the coalition passed an ordinance removing the Haredim exemption from conscription..

1 1https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-880294

Sources:

Targeting IOF commanders: https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-900206

IOF looting homes in Lebanon: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/israel-security/2026-05-20/ty-article-magazine/.premium/it-was-okay-to-be-crazy-idf-soldiers-discuss-moral-decay-in-lebanon/

Declining IOF morale: https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israeli-army-calls-reserves-amid-fears-low-turnout-and-lower-morale

https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/israel-largest-tank-losses-40yrs-ambushes-21-merkava

THE FLAG, THE PEOPLE & THE PLACE: The ‘Irish Republic’ flag

On June 17, 2026June 21, 2026 By rebelbreezeIn 1916 Rising, Cultural Comment, History, Ireland, Irish Diaspora, irish history, Irish Republicanism, Irish War of Independence 1919-'21, National LiberationLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach
(Reading time: 5 mins.)

It was an Irish Argentinian who erected the “Irish Republic” flag over Dublin’s General Post Office during the 1916 Easter rising: Eamon Bulfin, born in Buenos Aires on 22 September 1892.

The flag in question was painted by Theobald Wolfe Tone Fitzgerald in the home of Constance Markievicz (1868-1927)¹ with the words “Irish Republic” in gold or yellow, edged with white on material of a green curtain or bed-covering.

This was the flag later triumphantly displayed upside down by the British in front of the Parnell Monument (of which photographs may be found by search of the Internet).

Colourised photo of Constance Markievicz in Irish Citizen Army uniform. The ‘Irish Republic’ flag was painted on material in her house and delivered by her to the GPO. The words declared to the world that the national liberation forces were fighting for an independent Republic. (Photo sourced: *Internet*)

Eamon was the son of William Bulfin (1864-1910) from Birr, King’s County (now Co. Offaly), who emigrated to Argentina at the age of 20 and was a writer and journalist who became editor and proprietor of ‘The Southern Cross’ newspaper. William also helped finance Pádraig Pearse’s Scoil Éanna (St. Enda’s School) which opened in September, 1908.

Bulfin returned to Ireland in 1909 with his wife, Anne O’Rourke, and their children Eamon and Catalina. William’s death in 1910 was a blow to his friend Arthur Griffith and the efforts to launch a Sinn Féin² daily newspaper.

Eamon was enrolled in St Thomas Aquinas College, Newbridge, before attending St Enda’s School (Scoil Éanna) in Cullenswood, Rathmines, from September 1908 at the age of 17.

He impressed the headmaster and school founder, Patrick Pearse, who noted his aptitude for Irish, French and English,³ though also that he was weak at mathematics.

Bulfin enthusiastically engaged with the ethos of the school, acting in dramas, contributing short stories to the school review, An Macaomh, and captaining the St Enda’s football team in 1909–10.

He was enrolled as a student at St Enda’s until 1910 but remained as a boarder at its new location in Rathfarnham; he became close to the Pearse family. Eamon enrolled in the National University of Ireland in 1911 to study for a science degree.

While at university Bulfin won both Sigerson and Fitzgibbon cups (in football and hurling respectively) on a number of occasions, captaining the National University of Ireland (NUI) football team that won the Sigerson Cup in 1915.

In his 20^th year Eamon joined the Irish Republican Brotherhood, being sworn in by Arthur O’Connor and, a year later, in 1913 joined E Company, Fourth Battalion (Rathfarnham) of the newly-formed Irish Volunteers

By 1915 he was involved in organising the volunteers in Dublin and Co. Meath, and in manufacturing munitions and explosives in St Enda’s, which activities continued up to the Easter rising, just prior to which he helped Kathleen Lynn transport these weapons to Liberty Hall.

Bulfin was promoted to the headquarters staff of the volunteers and, mobilised for the 1916 Rising, was under Pearse’s personal command and stationed at the GPO, where he hoisted the “Irish Republic” flag on the roof at the corner with Princes Street.

1916 Artwork in pastels by Edmond Delrenne, a Belgian refugee who had arrived in Ireland in 1914, he drew and coloured the ‘Irish Republic’ flag on the GPO (centre picture). The painting also shows Nelson’s Column, which was blown up in 1966. (Artwork source: *Whyte’s*)

After the surrender in Moore Street, Eamon Bulfin, as with nearly 100 insurgents was sentenced to death by British military court martial but most sentences (excepting the 15 shot by firing squads in the following days)⁴ were commuted to periods of prison incarceration in England and Wales.

On March 21, 1917, Eamon Bulfin was deported from jail under Britain’s Aliens Restriction Act of 1914.

The Argentine Government did not want to anger the British Empire, with whom they were already having problems, not the least with their long-standing argument over the sovereignty of Las Malvinas/Falklands.They therefore arrested Eamon Bulfin when he arrived in Buenos Aires and sentenced him to jail for leaving Argentina for the purpose of ‘deserting from military service’.

As Eamon had been a schoolboy when he and his family left for Ireland, the charge was an excuse for the authorities but suspicion of being a communist, which the British gave for his deportation might have been the real reason.

He was conscripted into the Argentine military and served in the army before transferring to the navy, being released after ten months as his mother was a widow, which qualified him for an exemption from military service.

One of two photos of the ‘Irish Republic’ flag being displayed upside down by British soldiers, symbolising the defeat of those who flew it. The site is the base of Parnell’s Monument in Parnell Street with the Rotunda in the background. (Source: *Internet*)

When Eamon Bulfin was released in 1919, the General Election in Ireland had resulted in an overwhelming victory for Sinn Féin⁵ which, in accordance with their manifesto, made a Unilateral Declaration of Independence declaring Ireland a republic and set up a parliament in Dublin.

The President of the Irish Republic, Eamon de Valéra wrote to Bulfin in May appointing him the official representative to Argentina. As Irish Consul, Bulfin was to “inaugurate direct trade between Ireland and the Argentine Republic… to co-ordinate Irish opinion in the Argentine, and to bring it into the Irish demand for a republic.”⁶

Bulfin began work, establishing close contacts with Argentine government officials, Irish Argentine leaders and he launched an Irish Fund to help the cause.

In 1920, during the county council elections, Eamon Bulfin was nominated in his absence for a seat on King’s County Council. He was not only elected but appointed Chairman of the council.

One of the first things the new Council did was to agree that the county’s name be returned to the region’s ancient Irish form of Co. Uí Fáille (anglicised as Offaly). Meetings were conducted with the Chairman’s seat in the council chamber left empty and with a Tricolour draped across it.

In 1922 Eamon Bulfin was finally allowed to return to Ireland where he set up home in his father’s native Derrinlough, Birr, Co. Offaly. He took the Anti-Treaty side in the Civil War and handed over 600 Stg from fund-raising in Argentina.

However the killing of Michael Collins affected him deeply and he stayed out of the Republican forces, telling them that he had refused an officer’s post in the Free State’s National (sic) Army.

On 16 February 1927 Eamon married Nora Brick (Nóra Ní Bríc) of Tralee, a former member of Cumann na mBan, in an Irish language ceremony in Drumcondra, Dublin (his occupation was recorded as a farmer). They had four children: Edward, Jeanne, Blanaid and Michael.

Eamon Bulfin died of a cerebral haemorrhage in the Meath Hospital, Dublin, on 24 December 1968, and was buried in Eglish Cemetery, Co. Offaly.

*Remnant of the ‘Irish Republic’ flag in the National Museum of Ireland* (Photo: *NMI*)

His sister, Catalina, also born in Buenos Aires in 1901, had become secretary to Austin Stack (1880-1929). Stack was elected to the Dáil (32-County Irish Parliament) in 1918 and became Minister for Home Affairs from 1920-22.Stack accompanied de Valéra to London for the initial Truce talks but became a leading opponent of the terms agreed by Collins.

Catalina Bulfin married Seán MacBride (1904-1988), born in Paris and his first language French. Sean was the son of John MacBride, executed by the British in 1916 and of Maude Gonne.

Seán McBride is the only Nobel Peace Laureate to have also won the Lenin Prize; he was former IRA Chief of Staff (1936-1937), Irish Minister for External Affairs (1948–‘52) and Secretary of the International Commission of Jurists.

MacBride was a founder member of Amnesty International and Assistant General Secretary of the United Nations. He survived Catalina MacBride by 12 years after she died in 1976, her remains being buried in Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin. Some descendant of Eamon Bulfin live in Offaly to this day.

End.

FOOTNOTES

SOURCES

https://www.dib.ie/biography/bulfin-eamonn-edmond-a10114

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

The flag: https://www.museum.ie/en-IE/Collections-Research/Collection/Resilience/Artefact/Test-4/8961f46b-5885-4aea-af9d-63894e2b76b4

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

The Irish Republic Flag

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/rising-from-the-ashes-irish-republic-flag-on-display-1.2573071

1Irish politician, revolutionary, nationalist, suffragist, socialist, the first woman elected to the Westminster Parliament, Markievicz was elected Minister for Labour in the First Dáil, becoming the first female cabinet minister in Europe. She served as a Teachta Dála for the Dublin South constituency from 1921 to 1922 and 1923 to 1927. She was a Member of Parliament (MP) for Dublin St Patrick’s from 1918 to 1922.

A founding member of Fianna Éireann, Cumann na mBan and the Irish Citizen Army, Markievicz took part in the 1916 Easter Rising in, when Irish republicans attempted to end British rule and establish an Irish Republic.

2The Sinn Féin party at the time was an Irish nationalist one advocating a dual monarchy, Irish and British.

3And no doubt Spanish too, having been reared in Argentina, a language acquisition that probably helped with the acquisition of Irish and French, which have a great number of similarities in structure.

4And the sixteenth execution was of Roger Casement, by hanging in London.

5Then a reformed and much-expanded party with a Republican constitution.

6 Kennedy, Michael and Joseph Morrison Skelly (eds). Irish Foreign Policy: 1919-1966 From Independence to Internationalism. Four Courts Press: England 2000, p.45. (Quoted in the Wikipedia entry on Eamon Bulfin)

THE 1994 CHINOOK CRASH — AIRCRAFT MALFUNCTION, PILOT ERROR OR INTER-INTELLIGENCE ASSASSINATION?

On June 8, 2026 By rebelbreezeIn Assassination, British imperialism, History, Ireland, irish history, National Liberation, peace processes, Political Analysis, Song, Song in StruggleLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

A group mainly of relatives of the deceased are seeking an official inquiry into the Chinook helicopter crash at the Mull of Kintyre, Scotland in 1994 killing 25 intelligence experts and four special forces crew on their way to a conference.

The crash wiped out almost all the top officers in command of intelligence gathering and operations in the occupied Six counties of Ireland from MI5, Army, RUC Special Branch and state Security Service.

*Photo of the crashed Chinook helicopter on the Mull of Kintyre 1994.* (Photo: *Sky News*)

The first crash inquiry failed to confirm pilot error which was then overruled by State reviewers who blamed the pilots on the basis of supposition without any evidence. After campaigning by a number of people including families of the deceased pilots, a 2011 inquiry exonerated the pilots.

The current campaign wants to focus on questions as to the reliability of the aircraft but an alternative and darker interpretation developed at the time, alleging that the different departments of British spooks, MI5 and MI6 had a fatal falling out over territory and policy.¹

The remit of MI5 is of domestic ‘UK’ matters while that of MI6 is external. However, the Six Counties, though being under the rule of the UK, was also geographically part of a foreign country, Ireland — and the Irish State, just across the border, a government foreign to the UK.

In addition, the Republican armed resistance groups frequently had contacts abroad and many people with connections to other resistance organisations in the world; both parts of Ireland were visited by representatives along with many media agencies in the pursuit of their reporting work.

Whereas a resort to assassination as a result of rivalry or difference in objectives between different arms of a state’s security service is no doubt extreme, the existence of the rivalry itself is quite likely and the stakes in terms of funding, staffing and operational management can be high.

If the rivals are working towards opposing ends, that will raise the stakes much higher. The secrecy of the State’s reaction to the event did nothing to dispel such theories and the mismanaged attempt to blame the pilots only lent added credence to such suspicions and belief.

The fact of the collusion of British secret service with Loyalist murder squads in the 6-Counties colony is well known and has been documented by a number of investigations. Such collusion from the Royal Ulster Constabulary, especially its Special Branch, is well known too.²

Quite a few familiar with the British colonial security forces in the Six Counties believe that there was an ‘inner force’ inside the RUC with the support of MI5 and British Army Intelligence, all colluding with or even managing assassinations and Loyalist sectarian murder gangs.

The British ruling class had set their sights on achieving the cooperation of the Provisionals in a pacification process and MI6 was in favour of this initiative. It is posited that MI5, the Inner Force inside RUC and Army Intelligence opposed this, believing that they could defeat the IRA.

It was the clash of these radically different approaches (albeit with the same ultimate objective of ending Republican armed resistance) that is believed by some to have culminated in the assassination of the anti-pacification section in the Mull of Kintyre crash.

We may never know for certain and the Ministry of Defence (MoD) sealed key files relating to the 1994 Mull of Kintyre Chinook crash for 100 years, locking them away until 2094

‘HEROES’?

Sorcha Eastwood calls those who died ‘heroes’,³ confirming herself and the Alliance political party she represents as on the side of British colonialism and its violent repression of Irish resistance, repression in the forms of internment, no-jury trials, assassinations and sectarian murders.

Those features are the reality of colonial repression and were very much in evidence in the colonial war of three decades which was approaching an end at the time of the crash.

The leadership of the Provisionals had accepted that although they could not be beaten, nor could they win the war⁴ and so were ready to participate in a pacification process.

British Intelligence had compromised or recruited elements of that leadership at highest and medium levels and had targeted assassinations of the less malleable individuals.⁵ The leadership was heading for the process culminating in the Good Friday Agreement of 1998.

Up to 3,500 people had died violent deaths 1969-1994 as the hands of of British military, colonial police, colonial proxies and Irish Republican resistance.

There were no tears shed for the dead at Mull of Kintyre among the subjected population of the colonial entity nor in many quarters of the Irish community at home or abroad and resistance culture soon produced a dark mocking parody to the air of Paul McCartney’s ‘Mull of Kintyre’ song.⁶

Confirmed assassination and suspicious deaths by aircraft crash are not unknown, among UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld’s 1961 plane crash on his way to negotiate peace in the Congo,⁷ General Zia-ul-Haq⁸ and commander of Russian mercenary force Yevgeni Prigozhin.⁹

end.

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FOOTNOTES

SOURCES

https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/truth-being-withheld-over-raf-chinook-disaster-families-say-1907193.html
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/jun/14/northernireland.comment

1What is more often but inaccurately called ‘the Irish peace process’; inaccurate because it was not designed to address the underlying reasons for the conflict and approaching three decades later has not done so. It resulted in The Good Friday Agreement, signed in 1998.

2See for example the Stevens Inquiries, Barron Tribunal, Dirty War by Martin Dillona (1990), also Lethal Allies (2013) by Anne Cadwallader.

3 https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/truth-being-withheld-over-raf-chinook-disaster-families-say-1907193.html

4The war against a major imperialist power was concentrated in a territory one-sixth of Ireland and with a population divided along sectarian lines.

5See the cases of Denis Donaldson and Scappaticci (British Intelligence code name Stakeknife) for example and there are well-founded suspicions of a number of others that were never publicly exposed. See also the elimination of Volunteers Jim Lynagh and Padraig McKearney and their unit in the Loughgall Ambush/ Massacre.

6‘Mull of Kintyre, oh Brits falling into the sea’ etc

7 https://www.un.org/en/delegate/63-years-later-mystery-still-surrounds-death-dag-hammarskj%C3%B6ld

8 https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1988-08-25-mn-1417-story.html

9 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/05/hand-grenade-explosion-caused-plane-crash-that-killed-wagner-boss-says-putin