50 YEARS OF DAMAGE – VICTIMS SEEK INDEPENDENT STATUTORY INQUIRY

On September 26, 2023September 27, 2023 By rebelbreezeIn Civil Rights, Current Event Report, History, Human Rights, Ireland, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, Police Violence, Political PrisonersLeave a comment

Clive Sulish

(Reading time main report: 6 mins.)

“Six innocent men” … “Garda oppression and perjury’ … “Longest case in the history of the State”

Four leading human rights organisations this week delivered a petition to the Irish Government asking the Minister for Justice to establish an inquiry into the abuse suffered by six innocent men in the Sallins case almost half a century ago.

Not to do hold such an inquiry, maintained Liam Herrick of the Irish Council for Civil Liberties at a press conference on Tuesday, is to continue the abuse of the victims’ human rights and to fail to prevent such an abuse in the future.

*Osgur Breatnach, Liam Herrick and Nicky Kelly at the petition launch press conference* (Photo: *Rebel Breeze*)

Apart from the ICCL, the other three organisations pushing the petition are the Committee for the Administration of Justice (CAJ), the Pat Finucane Centre (PFC) and Fair Trials; the first three are Ireland-based organisations and Fair Trials is a global criminal justice watchdog.

The six innocent men were named as Osgur Breatnach, Michael Barrett, John Fitzpatrick, Nicky Kelly, Brian McNally and Michael Plunkett (deceased^¹).

At the time in 1976 all were members of a legal political party (the Irish Republican Socialist Party) but were tortured and some jailed in the Irish state.

In the longest series of trials in the history of the State, three of the men were sentenced at the end of 1978 to prison terms of between nine and twelve years each on the basis of no ‘evidence’ but their confessions obtained by torture and which in court they completely retracted.

Michael Plunkett, who had signed no confession walked free while Nicky Kelly absconded the day before the sentence, eventually reaching the USA where he remained until a strong campaign saw Breatnach and McNally freed, whereupon Kelly returned to Ireland and was immediately jailed.

Although the nature of the ‘evidence’ against Kelly was of the same kind as that which had been declared ‘unsafe’ for Breatnach and McNally, Kelly remained in jail forfour-and-a-half years, despite another strong campaign^² and was only freed eventually on ‘humanitarian grounds’^³.

PRESS CONFERENCE

ICCL’s Liam Herrick chaired the conference in Buswell’s Hotel^⁴ flanked by survivors Osgur Breatnach and Nicky Kelly, while Chris Stanley of KRW Law sat nearby, all facing the audience which included Sinn Féin’s Pa Daly TD^⁵ and Fionna Crowley of Amnesty International.

Opening the proceedings, Herrick listed the four organisations backing the call for an inquiry and pointed out the present-day relevance of that call, both in terms of the survivors and their families and in terms of wider society.

Not to have that inquiry would be an ongoing violation of human rights, Herrick maintained and pointed out that the ICCL was founded arising out of concerns regarding the post-Sallins robbery arrests and the activities of the Garda CID unit colloquially known as the “Heavy Gang”.

The ICCL Director stated that they could not rest until the demand for an inquiry was met and referenced also “crucial legislation before the Oireachtas”^⁶ and recognition of past injustices in a series of TV documentaries linking the cases, in particular through actual Garda individuals.

Introducing Osgur Breatnach, Herrick acknowledged the leading role he had played in keeping the demand for the inquiry going over the years.

Breatnach read from a prepared statement that there had been cases of torture, perjury and framing innocent people in England, Northern Ireland and the Republic.

It was wrong and hypocritical of the State raising concerns about cases elsewhere not to hold an inquiry into the Sallins case, of which there had been five trials, one the longest in the history of the State.

Breatnach said he went through the process expecting to be jailed but to expose the political nature of their persecution; his and McNally’s convictions were overturned, the ‘confessions’ having been obtained by oppression but despite that none were indicted for that oppression.

Breatnach concluded saying that the State’s refusal to hold an inquiry amounted to cruel and inhuman treatment of the victims and their families and that without the investigation of an inquiry a similar scenario could be repeated at some point ahead.

Nicky Kelly, introduced by Herrick thanked the ICCL for organising the events that day. Speaking apparently ex-tempore with perhaps reference to some bullet-points, he expressed the opinion that the State wanted the victims to die so that they had no need to hold an inquiry.

“Ireland has an impeccable reputation with regard to foreign relations,” Kelly said, but not so within the state. He believed that the Sallins case is “too big in its implications for politicians, judiciary and police force” and all attempts to investigate were obstructed by successive governments.

Liberal politicians in government have been “no different from the rest”, the Wicklow man said and referred to his own personal battle even to get out of jail after the ‘evidence’ to convict him had been discredited and how he had been obliged to undertake a hunger strike to be freed.

Now, rather than hold the inquiry into what went on, they were waiting for him “to be over and done with” Kelly said in conclusion.

Herrick introduced Chris Stanley of KRW Law who said that cases such as the Birmingham pub bombings and the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, like the Sallins one, all related to the recent conflict and required investigation for the sake of the victims.

*Chris Stanley of KRW Law speaking at the petition launch press conference* (Photo: *Rebel Breeze*)

Stanley commented that perhaps the State had been too reliant on the Good Friday Agreement for resolution of these matters.

Commenting on the UK’s new legislation blocking much resolution of historic cases, all but become law, the solicitor regretted the UK had chosen to disengage from Europe but remarked that that they remained signed up to the European Commission of Human Rights.

From among the seated audience, Fionna Crowley of Amnesty International spoke to underline the importance of having an inquiry into the case and that her organisation had been in support of the victims’ campaigns and was fully in support of the current petition for an inquiry.

Breatnach acknowledged that within one week of the arrests, Amnesty had raised public concerns about them.

DELIVERY OF PETITION TO DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

After the conclusion of the press conference with Herrick’s summing-up and thanks to those in attendance, Herrick and ICCL staff along with Chris Stanley, Breatnach, Kelly and a couple of others walked to the Dept. of Justice’s offices on the south side of Stephens Green.

*Delivering the petition to the Department of Justice: (from bottom up) Nicky Kelly, Osgur Breatnach, Chris Stanley, Liam Herrick.* (Photo: *Rebel Breeze*)

Pausing for some photos to be taken, a delegation entered the building and presented the petition. Then some more photos were taken outside and Breatnach was interviewed by a TG4 reporter in Irish and Nicky Kelly in English while a light rain began to fall.

*TG4 (Caoimhe Ní Laighin) interviews Osgur Breatnach outside the Department of Justice in Stephen’s Green (Diarmuid, brother of Osgur is centre photo and Nicky Kelly to the right).* (Photo: *Rebel Breeze*)

The group split up into smaller groups then, the ICCL staff returning to their office to issue a press statement and others to hope, perhaps with further pushing, for positive developments further – but not too far – down the road. For all and for some much more than others, it’s been a long haul.

End.

*Outside the Department of Justice with copies of the four-agency petition (right to left): Liam Herrick of ICCL, Chris Stanley of KRW Law, victims/ campaigners Osgur Breatnach and Nicky Kelly* (Photo: *Rebel Breeze*)

APPENDIX (A): BACKGROUND

The IRSP was the result of a split from what had remained in Sinn Féin after an earlier split in 1969, the group leaving the party then calling themselves ‘Provisional Sinn Féin’.

Not all who had become unhappy with the direction of Sinn Féin departed into Provisional Sinn Féin because they perceived the new group as being much more nationalist than socialist and being also socially conservative.

After some internal struggle that section remaining within what became known as “Official Sinn Féin” left in 1974 under the leadership of Séamus Costello to form the IRSP.

The armed wing of the Republican movement had split along the same lines into Provisional IRA, Official IRA and the Irish National Liberation Army, the latter loyal to the perspective of the IRSP.^⁷

Bernadette Devlin (now McAlliskey) and Tony Gregory (now deceased) were on the IRSP’s Executive but however departed soon afterwards from the party on what they perceived as the dominant relationship of the armed group INLA to the political party.

It appears that the Irish State at that time viewed the IRSP as more dangerous than the two Sinn Féin parties and determined to ensure its demise, framing them for the Sallins Mail Train Robbery in March 1976.^⁸ And framing, rather than mistaking, it was.

The 40 arrested included IRSP members who, tortured by the SDU Garda unit known colloquially as the “Heavy Gang”, confessed to participating in the robbery but who could not possibly have been there. The State decided to put on trial those whose only alibis were with family.

The court chosen was the Special Criminal Court, set up under the Offences Against the State Act in the panic of the 1974 Loyalist and British Intelligence Bombing of Dublin and Monaghan which somehow got blamed on Irish Republicans. The SCC has three judges and no jury.

Until the SCC moved to the court building near the main gate to Phoenix Park, it was located in Green Street, in the very same building where Robert Emmet was tried in 1803 and sentenced to death, his sentence carried out in public in Thomas Street, in the Dublin Liberties area.

The Four IRSP eventually selected for the second of what became four trials included senior member of the party’s Executive and the Editor of its newspaper, The Starry Plough, Osgur Breatnach.^⁹

In the second trial, one of the three judges hearing the case was regularly seen to be sleeping. Only after the judge died suddenly was there another retrial ordered.

In the fourth trial, Kelly being tried in his absence, the judges accepted as fact^¹⁰ the Prosecution case that the injuries of the accused were due to beating one another up (in Breatnach’s case, that he’d beaten himself up) and that their withdrawn confessions were true.

Mick Plunkett, in the absence of a ‘confession’, was found not guilty but the other three were sentenced to 12 years in jail. In May 1980 Breatnach and McNally were freed by the Appeal Court on grounds that they had suffered ‘oppression’ and that their confessions could not be relied upon.

No investigation took place into who had carried out the ‘oppression’ or how the judiciary had jailed the victims purely on withdrawn confessions and Garda perjury or which political decisions by whom were behind it.

Nicky Kelly returned to Ireland in 1980 — but to jail.

He was only freed by a Minister of Justice on ‘humanitarian’ grounds after four-and-a-half years in jail, a strong campaign seeking his release and finally a hunger strike of 38 days which pushed the European Court of Human Rights to agree to hear his case.

He received a presidential pardon in 1992 from Mary Robinson and in 1993 Breatnach, McNally and Kelly were awarded compensation, allegedly a six-figure amount. But to get that, they had to forgo any litigation on torture or police brutality.

No official inquiry has ever been carried out in the whole set of State actions and in fact some of the Heavy Gang went on to force false confessions from others, most notably the Joanna Hayes and relatives case.^¹¹

APPENDIX (B): SUPPORTING STATEMENTS FROM OTHER ORGANISATIONS

Also speaking elsewhere on the day, Director Daniel Holder of the Campaign for the Administration of Justice said they support this call and that

“an inquiry into the case of the Sallins Men is long overdue.”

He went on to say that “Over the last few years inquests and other legacy mechanisms in the north have been finally delivering like never before for families who have had to wait decades.

“They are providing important historical clarification for victims and accountability for past human rights violations but now face being shut down by the notorious UK Legacy Bill.”

Pat Finucane Centre (PFC) Director Paul O’Connor said that

“PFC welcomes this demand to the Irish Government for a human rights compliant investigation into the miscarriage of justice that followed the Sallins Trains Robbery 1976.

For too long human rights violations that occurred in the Republic of Ireland during the Conflict have been at best marginalised or at worst ignored.

Successive Irish governments have either relied upon the British to address the investigatory deficit of the Conflict or deflected it as an inconvenient non-issue.

“Now the human rights deficit created by those successive Irish governments is clear – and will be clearer when the legislative effect of the British Legacy Act starts to bite.

The Irish Government was right to challenge the British about the use of torture suffered by the Hooded Men; now it must look to its own police and criminal justice system and acknowledge the torture suffered by the Sallins Men.”

Verónica Hinestroza, Senior Legal Advisor at Fair Trials said:

“According to international standards, States must investigate complaints and reports of torture or ill-treatment.

We call on the Minister for Justice to ensure that a prompt, impartial and independent investigation is conducted into the allegations made by Mr Osgur Breatnach, Mr Michael Barrett, Mr John Fitzpatrick, Mr Nicky Kelly, Mr Brian McNally and Mr Michael Plunkett (deceased), considering that torture and ill-treatment violations are not to be subject to any statutes of limitation.”

FOOTNOTES

1 Michael Plunkett died last year; his memorial services were reported on in Rebel Breeze: https://rebelbreeze.com/2022/05/04/death-of-a-retired-warrior/

2 The campaign PRO was CaoilteBreatnach, a brother of Osgur’s and was supported by many people in the fields of politics and culture, including the band Moving Hearts who performed Christy Moore’s song about the Nicky Kelly case, The Wicklow Boy.

3 By Minister of Justice Michael Noonan after Kelly’s hunger strike of 36 days. According to law, Kelly had exceeded the time period after conviction permitted for registering an appeal and it was claimed that only a ‘pardon’ could set him free.

4 Buswell’s is across the road from Leinster House, the Irish Parliament building and is frequently host to political meetings and press conferences.

5 Recently appointed to Sinn Féin’s front bench as spokesperson on Justice, he is by profession a solicitor.

6 The title of the parliament of the Irish state.

7 The history of the IRSP is a separate and contentious story but suffice it to say that of the ten hunger strike martyrs in 1981, three were INLA; at one point a number of INLA factions were feuding within it leading to a number of fraternal murders. After the Provisional prisoners embraced the Good Friday Agreement and left the jails renouncing armed resistance, the much smaller contingent of INLA prisoners did the same. The IRSP remains a legal though much reduced political party.

8 The robbery was carried out by a unit of the Provisional IRA which however did not acknowledge operations carried out within the Irish State, to which ion 27^th April 1980 they made an exception in a public statement taking responsibility for the robbery. The Irish State chose to ignore their statement as had the British State when the Balcolme Street group ibn 1977 admitted in court their responsibility forthe Guildford Pub Bombingsfor which the UK had jailed the innocent Guildford Four and Maguire Seven.

9 Apart from anything else, the notion that prominent Executive members under constant police surveillance, including one regularly working on the newspaper in the Dublin office (in the days before this could be done from anywhere else), could carry out such an operation, was clearly ridiculous.

10 According to the Court of Criminal Appeal in the “Madden” Case in November 1976, Appeal Courts should usually accept as a finding of fact anything decided by the Special Criminal Court (SCC) to be a fact. Therefore although a court verdict of guilt or innocence can be overturned on appeal, a decision as to fact made in the non-jury Special Court cannot be overturned in any appeal court.

11 Three separate cases of false confessions obtained by Gardaí, including the Sallins and Joanna Hayes cases, were covered in the three-part documentary series Crimes and Confessions by the Irish TV channel RTÉ July 2022- January 2023: https://www.rte.ie/player/series/crimes-and-confessions/SI0000012595?

SOURCES & USEFUL LINKS

Sallins Men deserve independent inqury – human rights organisations

https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/social-affairs/2023/09/19/human-rights-groups-call-for-inquiry-into-sallins-train-robbery-trial-in-the-1970s/

https://www.irishlegal.com/articles/irish-government-urged-to-establish-inquiry-into-sallins-train-robbery

TV & Radio:

https://x.com/nuachttg4/status/1704558300228980980?s=48

https://www.rte.ie/news/nuacht/2023/0919/1406193-imscrudu-reachtuil-faoi-iomrall-ceartais-cailiuil-a-eileamh/

https://www.rte.ie/radio/radio1/drivetime/programmes/2023/0919/1406233-drivetime-tuesday-19-september-2023/ (from 1.39 minutes)

The Campaign site: https://sallinsinquirynow.ie/

Timeline of events: https://sallinsinquirynow.ie/timeline/

Cormac Breatnach’s multimedia production about the case: https://www.thewhistleblower.ie/

PROTESTING DEATH OF YOUTH AT HANDS OF GARDAÍ

On August 26, 2023June 9, 2026 By rebelbreezeIn Capitalism, Current Affairs Comment, Human Rights, Police Violence, Political Analysis2 Comments

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 9 mins.)

Friends and relations of Terence Wheelock and supporters of the campaign for justice for his family rallied outside the GPO Thursday afternoon before marching to Leinster House and on to the Department of Justice.

Terence Wheelock was 20 years of age when he was arrested by Gardaí following a car stealing by others in Dublin and taken to Store Street Garda Station. Subsequently he was removed to hospital in a coma from which he never recovered, dying three months later.

*People gathering outside the GPO for the rally and march* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

*Supporter of the campaign holds a placard* (Photo: *D. Breatnach*)

The cause of the coma? A severe beating. Not that it should be relevant but he had nothing to do with the car stealing and has been officially cleared of involvement. On the day of his arrest, Terrence was on his way to buy a paintbrush to decorate his room and stopped to talk to some youths he knew.

Though this occurred 18 years ago the family has not ceased seeking acknowledgement of the Garda crimes and are now insisting on an independent official enquiry.

MARCH THROUGH CITY CENTRE & THREE RALLIES

Wheelock family supporters, including people from Terence’s north inner city area, socialists, socialist republicans, anarchists and independent activists gathered at the advertised rally point outside the iconic building of the General Post Office on Dublin city centre’s main street.

James O’Toole of Rebel Telly briefly addressed the march supporters outside the GPO before the march set off, speaking about antisocial behaviour in the city and its connection to deprivation of working class areas, a fact admitted by the Gardaí in a report, a copy of which he held aloft.

*James O’Toole addressing the rally outside the GPO* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

Large printed placards were provided with a variety of texts – one also carrying Terence’s image – and most participants carried one for a group photo and again as they crossed O’Connell Street to march southwards to Leinster House, seat of the Irish Parliament.

Many tourists and shoppers watched with interest, read the placards and listened to the chants of call and reply led by Sammy Wheelock, older brother of Terence: “Say his name!” “Terence Wheelock!” “For justice to be imposed, the guilty must be exposed!” “Guilty:” “Garda!”

“What do we want?” “Justice!” “When do we want it?” “Now!” “No justice!” “No peace!” “Say his name!” “Terence Wheelock!” The driver of an occasional passing car or taxi blew its horn in solidarity as the march crossed O’Connell Bridge and swung around Trinity College.

*The march after leaving the GPO* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

Outside Leinster House the marchers stopped for a second rally which was addressed by Sammy Wheelock and the slogans were repeated there too. Senator Marie Sherlock addressed the crowd also, promising her support for the campaign.

Cllr Madeleine Johansson, one of a group who recently fought a successful holding action against a mass eviction at Tathony House, also spoke at the rally outside the Dept. of Justice and quoted James Connolly as having stated that ‘an injury to one is an injury to all’.

Sammy Wheelock then led the crowd on again chanting slogans in a march up Kildare Street, left at the Shelbourne Hotel and right again, along the buildings facing Stephens Green to the Department of Justice building, where another rally took place.

*Supporters of the campaign being addressed by Sammy Wheelock in front of Leinster House.* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

GARDA HARASSMENT OF THE FAMILY

Larry Wheelock, another brother of Terence’s, had been the driver of the campaign but died in January last year. Outside the Department of Justice building Sammy read a letter from his widowed mother Esther, who felt unable in recent years to attend the protests.

“When this whole ordeal first happened it left a hole in my heart so big that for me it’s like a window … or a door that won’t close because as his mother I refuse to let it go, our family refuses … my son was stolen from me at such a young age …” Mrs. Wheelock had written.

For a long time during the campaign for justice, as Sammy told the rally outside the Dept. of Justice Thursday afternoon, the Gardaí harassed the family home by passing at night in vehicles blowing their horns and riding police horses on to the road outside their house.

In addition the Gardaí also stood in the family’s garden and shone lights on to the windows, raided the house and struck their pregnant sister in the stomach, knocking her to the ground, also stopping and searching Trevor’s brothers in the street.

The Gardaí also drove slowly in their vehicles past Trevor’s younger siblings, laughing as they made ‘hanging’ gestures at them through the windows. Despite the harassment and intimidation of the family, they “are not going away”, Sammy said.

*Garda vehicles and personnel present while rally held outside the Dept. of Justice* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

The initial ‘independent’ Garda investigation into Terence’s death, Sammy told his listeners, was headed by an officer who had spent 15 years of his career stationed at Store Street Garda station and it was no great surprise that he found that Gardaí had committed no wrong in the case.

Due to Terence’s case being in the public eye in 2006 when the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (GSOC) was set up, it was the first case to be examined by them, Sammy Wheelock told the rally but once again the Gardaí were exonerated.

The Wheelock family believe such investigations, Sammy told the rally, are a case of “friends investigating friends”.

Announcing he was going to deliver a letter to Minister for Justice McEntee, Terence’s brother read its content out to the participants before mounting the steps to deliver the letter by hand to the Department of Justice, stepping inside for a period.

*Sammy Wheelock delivering letter addressed to Minister for Justice McEntee to the Dept. of Justice* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

Shortly thereafter, Sammy Wheelock once again thanked the participants for their solidarity on that day and in the past and assured them that the campaign for an independent public enquiry would continue.

DEATHS IN GARDA CUSTODY

There were 34 fatal incidents in 2001 in which people died either in or shortly after Garda custody, official figures show; this represents almost three per month. The statistics also reveal a steady increase in such deaths over the years.

The Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (GSOC) compiles a database of what are known as Section 102 referrals, which involve situations where the conduct of a member of the Gardaí may have resulted in the death of, or serious harm to, a person.

However, GSOC has not separated referrals for deaths from those of serious harm, meaning the number of people who have died in garda custody is not available.

Vicky Conway, Associate Professor at DCU School of Law and Government, who sadly died prematurely last year, attempted to compile the data on deaths in custody and expressed concern last year that this information is not readily available and broken down into categories.

*Three youths from the area hold placards on the steps of the Dept. of Justice* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

COMMENT:

The fatal treatment of Terence Wheelock by the Gardaí 18 years ago may or may not be an extreme case but the discriminatory treatment of working-class people is a pattern, of which violence often forms a part, followed by official collusion by ensuring impunity for the Gardaí.

The treatment of the family in their long campaign is a disgrace. It is said also that Terrence’s parents were told that he was in St. James’ hospital, which gave the Gardaí time to get to him first in the Mater and remove his clothes, which have never been produced for forensic tests.

It is of course of great importance to support campaigns to hold the repressive forces of the State to account, as pointed out by Conor Reddy (People Before Profit) to the rally at the Department of Justice building across from Stephens Green.

The message that revolutionaries give in such campaigns is of great importance in reflecting and strengthening the spirit of resistance of the working people, that it may serve them beyond overcoming individual injustices towards achieving justice for the class as a whole.

The reference at the rally outside the GPO by O’Toole to antisocial behaviour in the city, though a live subject at the moment, was inappropriate for the occasion since it could be understood to indicate that Terence had been engaged in such when he was arrested, which was not the case.

*Conor Reddy addressing rally outside the Dept. of Justice* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

Marie Sherlock, a Labour Party Senator, addressing the rally outside Leinster House, of course put forward the liberal positions of “Garda accountability” and the equivalent of the “few rotten apples in the barrel” analysis of the police force of the Irish State.

While the support of a senator in Leinster House is to be welcomed, revolutionaries have to ensure that social democrats are not permitted to steer campaigns towards unhealthy compromise and that the liberals’ view of the State is countered by the more realistic revolutionary one.

The Gardaí were founded to be a first-line repressive force of the Gombeen Irish State, replacing the repressive police forces of the British occupation, the Dublin Metropolitan Police Force, the Royal Irish Constabulary, Black and Tans and Auxiliary Division.

Their second Commissioner appointed , Eoin Duffy, was the founder of the Blueshirt Nazis in 1932 and the force has amply demonstrated its anti-working class and anti-Irish Republican bias repeatedly since; if the “apple” analogy is to be used, we’d have to say that the orchard itself is rotten!

The death of a teenager is a devastating experience for any family but the importance of this case goes far beyond that of one family as was pointed out by a number of speakers and as is clear from some of the statistics quoted earlier.

Garda violence towards sections of the community followed by impunity cannot be tolerated and must be combatted. In that respect it is sad to note the low number of Irish Republicans in the campaign, though they tend to be the chief political target of Garda repression.

End.

References & Further information:

https://www.facebook.com/justicefor.terencewheelock

https://www.hotpress.com/film-tv/trailer-released-for-spicebags-first-documentary-the-death-of-terence-wheelock-22971565

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/courtandcrime/arid-40919204.html

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-40872935.html

One Year of Petro

On August 15, 2023August 15, 2023 By rebelbreezeIn America Latina, Capitalism, Colombia, Current Affairs Comment, Environmental, Human Rights, Indigenous or Original People, Latin America, peace processes, Police Violence, Political Analysis, Political Prisoners, Popular ResistanceLeave a comment

Gearóid Ó Loingsigh

(07/07/2023) (Reading time: 8 mins.)

The Petro government has reached the end of its first year in which it promised a lot, came through on some things and changed a lot of other things, particularly its position on certain issues.

Before taking a look at it, it should be pointed out that the Historic Pact (PH) is not the first left-wing government in Colombia. The country is still waiting for that. It is a remould of liberalism in the style of Ernesto Samper.

Even so, it is worth looking at its proposals and what it did in this year, as unlike Samper, it did give a lot of hope to the people.

It is generally accepted that Petro would not have been elected President if it were not for the big popular revolt that began on April 28^th 2021, an uprising that cost the life of over 80 youths.

We don’t know the exact number of dead and disappeared and less still of the number of young women who were raped and sexually abused by the Police as part of the repression. Even the number of political prisoners is a matter of dispute.

Not due to the absence of the number of people detained but because the amongst Prosecutor’s Office, the press and sections of the PH there are those who seek to divest the detained youths of any political motivations.

They simply paint them as criminals and vandals, the last of these words having been covered in glory during those protests.¹

*The heroic ‘vandals’:* *Demonstrators clash with riot police during a protest against a tax reform bill launched by Colombian President Ivan Duque, in Bogota, on April 28, 2021.* (Photo cred: *Juan Barreto/ AFP*). (Photo choice and caption by Rebel Breeze)

So, it comes as no surprise that Petro, like Boric in Chile, did not free the political prisoners from the revolt. He made a few lukewarm attempts to get a handful of them out, but a long way from all of them.

They are still in prison, despite his electoral victory being thanks to their struggle and actions that led them to prison.

It is perhaps the most symbolic transgression as it says sacrifice yourselves but don’t expect anything from me, not even when I owe you everything. Petro has defended himself by saying that it is not his decision to free or imprison anyone.

Recently he stated:

There are still many youths in prison and I get blamed, as if it were up to me to imprison or free them. State bodies and people inside them have decided that these youths should not be freed.

Not because they are terrorists, who would think protesting is terrorism? If not a dictator or Fascist. No, but because they want to punish the youths who rebel.²

Some may feel that he is right in a technical sense, i.e. that it is the Prosecution and the judges who imprison them. But that is to ignore reality.

He himself denigrated them when he referred to them as ‘vandals’ during the protests and since taking office, neither Petro nor the PH have been the visible heads of any initiative to free the prisoners. They washed their hands of the issue.

He didn’t even disband the specialised riot squad, the ESMAD. Unlike other proposals he didn’t even try to.

He changed its name and promised a couple of human rights courses for its members, as if the problem was their lack of attendance at a course or two given by some NGO and not a deep-rooted problem. The ESMAD is a unit that murdered many youths.

It is a body whose name is synonymous with violence, torture, sexual abuse and murder. A name change won’t wash away the blood.

… the promise to put an end to the ESMD was just lip service during the presidential campaign. It wasn’t carried out and the government will fail to carry through on its commitment to the youths who brought the president to power, through the existence of a repressive violent force like this one.

The temptations to infiltrate the marches in order to justify confrontations with the kids will continue to be part of the landscape.³

*Petro gives his voters a clenched fist on his inauguration as President in August last year but many remain in jail and the rest get little or nothing.* (Photo sourced: *Internet*) (Photo choice and caption by Rebel Breeze)

In economic terms the government promised a lot during the campaign, but once in power, it quickly softened its proposals and in some other cases they didn’t get a majority of votes in Congress.

The lack of votes in Congress is not a simple one of not coming through, nor is it due to betrayals by the PH nor manoeuvres by other forces that Petro can’t control.

The PH is a coalition of sectors of the right with sectors of what passes for social democracy in Colombia. It was not inevitable, but rather Petro actively advocated that it be like that.

It is worth recalling that at first, he wasn’t going to choose Francia Márquez as his vice-president but rather a right winger like Roy Barreras.

However there are economic aspects that are under his control, but for the moment they remain as just proposals, rather than real policies that have gone through Congress. On the land question, Petro proposes monocultures and agribusiness.

This was clearly to be seen in the proposal to buy three million hectares from the cattle ranchers.

Petro’s vision of the countryside is one of it being at the service of big money and the promotion of cash crops, despite some references to the production of foodstuffs for internal consumption and the so-called bio-economy.

Something similar can be seen with his proposals for clean energy. He spoke a great deal about it during the electoral campaign and some of his proposals, or outlines as they stand, look good.

That Colombia no longer depend on oil and coal is not a bad idea and that it be replaced with alternative energy sources such as solar and wind power looks good, until we actually examine the details.

One of his first stumbles, in that sense, was with the Indigenous people, as La Guajira is a poor area that has suffered the consequences of coal mining.

He did not take them into account and they reminded him that what is proposed for their territory should have their support, though legally it is not quite the case, and that it should also benefit them.

He partially rectified the case, but the big question is, if he wants an energy transition why does he have to seek out French and other foreign capital to finance it. Does he want to hand over the wind and solar power as they are still doing with oil and coal?

It would seem so. According to Petro:

We need investments that help us carry this out: we would have a matrix of foreign investment centred on the construction of clean energies in South America, with a guaranteed market, if we have direct link to the United States and by sea with the rest of the world.⁴

If you substitute oil and coal for clean energy, you begin to see the problem: the resources of Colombia in the service of big money and the countries of the North.

If we are to have a real change and energy transition, we must end the idea of Northern energy consumption regardless of where it comes from as sustainable and that countries such as Colombia must supply energy for a planet-destroying consumption model.

Neither have there been great advances on the issue of peace. He did reactivate the dialogue with the ELN, but stumbled with something that is still an integral part of his policy, the so-called Total Peace.

In his proposal he compared the insurgent group, the ELN to the drug gangs and paramilitary groups such as the Clan de Golfo. It was not a mistake, Petro really does see the ELN as a criminal gang.

He made it clear in his speech to the military and he reaffirmed it when he named the blood thirsty Mafia boss and former Murderer-in-Chief of the paramilitaries, Salvatore Mancuso as a Peace Promoter.

With that he placed the ELN leadership on the same plane as the paramilitaries. And they have implicitly accepted it for the moment.

In Petro’s discourse Colombia is a violent country and there is no way to understand it and peace has to be made with everyone as they are all the same, the insurgency and the narcos. Not even Santos was that creative in delegitimising the guerrillas.

Mancuso took on his role and once again spoke of the land they had stolen, the disappeared etc. He has been telling us for two decades now that tomorrow he will reveal all, but tomorrow never comes.

When Uribe invited Mancuso to the Congress of the Republic, Petro had a different attitude.

His response was blunt and he described Uribe as a president that was captured by the paramilitaries and that Mancuso manipulated the Congress stating that “if under this flag of peace, dirtied by cocaine what is essentially being proposed is an alliance with genocidal drug traffickers and political leaders… then we are not contributing to any sort of peace.”⁵

And we end the year with a scandal. I have on many occasions compared Petro and the PH to Samper and the Liberal Party of the 90s. But not in my most fertile delirium could I imagine that Petro and his son would give us another Process 8000.

Samper managed to reinvent himself as a statesman and human rights defender, despite his government’s dreadful record, following the outcry over drug money in his election campaign. He has publicly supported Petro and the PH.

Now he can advise them on how to deny what is as plain as day. Illicit funds went into the PH’s campaign as has happened with all election campaigns.

Petro finds himself in the eye of the storm due to the manoeuvres of his son in asking for and receiving money. His ambassador in Caracas has boasted about obtaining 15,000 million pesos [3.3 million euros] that were not reported to the authorities.

Those on the “left” who gave Petro unconditional support defend him, saying that it all happened behind his back.

The only thing left to say about that is, a little bit of respect for Samper please! He established his copyright, authorship of that expression in relation to dirty money. They will have to come up with another one.

For the moment Petro says, I didn’t raise him, which is true. But his son is the beneficiary of a type of political nepotism. As was the case with Samper, the only doubt is whether Petro knew or not.

That a government which is supposedly progressive has found itself entangled in such a storm is revealing of a government in which politics is a family business.

Something similar happened to the FARC commander Iván Márquez with his nephew who turned out to be a DEA informant.

On the drugs issue it is clear that the discourse and reality do not match at any point. Petro went to the UN to announce a new drugs policy. He put forward various aims for his government and criticised the war on drugs.⁶

It seems like a bad joke that the said policy has not yet been published. What we have seen is that the fumigations continue, the Yanks smile on and occasionally there is talk of going after the big fish, without saying who they are.

We know that he is not talking about the banks, and less still of the European companies that supply the precursor chemicals. The big fish will turn out to be middle ranking thugs in the cities of Colombia, at best.

So, it has been a year that wasn’t that different to others. Yes, there were changes, some proposal or other that was half interesting, but even the right wing does that occasionally.

The vote of confidence cast in the ballot box is still waiting to see the promised changes. But we increasingly see a government without a clear aim and reinventing old policies as new ones, with the same results as before.

End.

FOOTNOTES

1 See Ó Loingsigh’s article Long Live the Vandals – R.B.

2 Infobae (06/08/2023) Petro se defendió por los casos de los presos del Paro Nacional: “Como si yo encarcelara o pudiera liberar”. Juan Camilo Rodríguez Parrado.
https://www.infobae.com/colombia/2023/08/03/petro-se-defendio-por-los-casos-de-los-presos-del-paro-nacional-como-si-yo-encarcelara-o-pudiera-liberar/

3 Pares (11/10/2023) Cambio de aviso: gobierno Petro echa para atrás desmonte del Esmad. Miguel Ángel Rubio Ospina. https://www.pares.com.co/post/cambio-de-aviso-gobierno-petro-echa-para-atrás-desmonte-del-esmad

4 Portafolio (18/01/2023) El plan que propone Petro para lograr inversión en energías limpias. https://www.portafolio.co/economia/gobierno/gustavo-petro-su-propuesta-para-lograr-inversion-en-energias-limpias-577102

5 See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wg3av8Oeujk

6 See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J35_vqekWcc

PLAQUE UNVEILED ON DUBLIN HOME OF JAMES CONNOLY

On August 4, 2023August 4, 2023 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, History commemoration, Ireland, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, National Liberation, Police Violence, Workers' StrugglesLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 5 mins.)

A new plaque commemorating James Connolly was unveiled on the morning of 31st July on 70 South Lotts, the house to which he returned from New York with his wife Lillie and children in 1910 and lived there until May 1911.

Connolly was born and reared in Edinburgh, left school at 10 and worked with his older brother John for the local authority as a carter, lied about his age and name to join the British Army, in which he first saw Ireland and where he met Lillie Reynolds; they were married soon afterwards.

Like his brother, Connolly became a militant socialist and trade unionist and returned to Ireland at the request of socialists to form the Irish Socialist Republican Party, the first socialist party in Ireland but left for the USA when the party failed to recruit significant numbers.

The ISRP’s office was in Middle Abbey Street, across the road from the premises of the Irish Independent, owned by Irish nationalist William Martin Murphy who was to become an arch-enemy from the Lockout and strikes of 1913 onwards¹.

Connolly was a historian and journalist as well as a socialist, trade union organiser and a revolutionary. A report in Breaking News on the unveiling infers that he reluctantly committed to the Rising with the Volunteers; in fact, he had been pushing them to rise for months!

Unveiling speeches

The event started late and in rain. Dáithí De Róiste², Dublin’s current Lord Mayor, opened the proceedings and commented that the plaque on the house was a reminder that Connolly lived a life in some ways like many ordinary Dubliners, living in a Dublin house and walking city streets.

*Dublin Mayor Dáithí De Róiste speaking at the event.* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

*Historian Conor McCabe, who did the research for the plaque, speaking outside No.70.* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

Historian Dr Conor McCabe, of Queen’s University Belfast, proposed the plaque as his research established the background that Connolly was living at the address around the time that his most famous work, Labour In Irish History, was first published in book form.

In deference to those in attendance standing in the persistent rain, Conor McCabe kept his speech very short. This was not the case with every speaker.

Joe Cunningham, General Secretary of Siptu³, an amalgamation with other unions of Jim Larkin’s ITGWU which Connolly had led for six years, commented in his speech that it was Connolly who ensured that the interests of working people were incorporated in the 1916 Proclamation⁴.

Also that, at the ceremony of raising an Irish flag over Liberty Hall⁵ in April 1916, had declared that “The cause of labour is the cause of Ireland, the cause of Ireland is the cause of labour.”⁶

*Section of crowd in front of No.70 waiting for event to begin.* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

Dublin City Council Commemorations & Naming Committee was responsible for the placing of the plaque, in consultation with the house occupants and its chairman, Councillor Mícheál Mac Donncha⁷ welcomed suggestions from the public for commemoration of people and events.

Sinn Féin Councillor Mac Donncha also commented that James Connolly was a personal hero of his.

Jim Connolly Heron, great-grandson of James Connolly, was called to say a few words and invited family members present to join him in front of the house while he spoke and commented also on the importance of commemorative plaques in protecting historical sites.

He did so in reference to the plaque on a house in Moore Street that had disappeared and come to light in a property developer’s office, raising concerns that had led to the long Moore Street conservation struggle.⁸

Music and song for the event was performed by The Pullovers ballad group but the amplification system had been removed by then which was a pity as it was needed for the music.

*Ballads were performed at the event by The Pullovers band.* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

The 1913 Lockout

James Connolly and family returned to Dublin when Jim Larkin⁹ offered Connolly a post in the young breakaway Irish Transport and General Workers’ Trade Union, which he took up in 1910. Three years later the union was in a fight for its life.

It is sometimes wrongly claimed that the 1913 Lockout was an attempt by employers in Dublin to prevent workers from joining a trade union but there were other unions operating in Dublin during the period and they were accepted by most of the employers.

Apart from the ITGWU recruiting large numbers of ‘unskilled’¹⁰ manual workers, it pursued its objectives militantly, using sympathetic solidarity action by other workers to increase the effectiveness of the workers who were in industrial dispute with their employer.

In August 1913 a combination of around 200 employers presented their workforce with a declaration to sign which committed them to having nothing to do with the ITGWU. En masse, the workers refused to sign, were locked out while others struck work and were locked out too.

Right from the beginning the Dublin Metropolitan Police¹¹ attacked the workers on behalf of the employers and in a baton charge on Eden Quay on 30^th August fatally wounded two workers, also beating strikers and onlookers the following day in O’Connell Street (‘Bloody Sunday 1913’)¹².

As a direct response, Connolly and Larkin set up the Irish Citizen Army as militant response to police attacks, dedicated also to Irish independence and their flag was the gold Starry Plough on a green background,¹³ which they flew over the Clery’s building in 1916.¹⁴

*The only Starry Plough flag unfurled at the event, brought by a member of the attendance.* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

Comment

The only Starry Plough to be seen at the event was one unfurled during the event independently of the organisers and speakers.

Many who claim to admire Connolly or even to follow his teachings do so on occasion in words but never in action and if Connolly were alive and acting as he did when he was, most of the speakers at the unveiling event would call, if not for his shooting, certainly for his jailing.

SIPTU is much larger than the ITGWU was but it and other unions are much less effective; as a result of the lack of active resistance by the leadership, union membership in Ireland is at an all-time low in modern times. Nor would Connolly have ever agreed to the partition of Ireland.

The Irish Labour Party, which Connolly and Larkin formed in order to give the working class a voice in municipal affairs, has been in coalition government a few times, always capitalist and most often with the right-wing Fine Gael, when they have joined in attacks on the working class.

Joan Burton, while Tánaiste¹⁵ of the Labour-Fine Gael coalition government in 2014, complained about working class people being able to afford video-phones and tried to get people jailed for organising an effective protest against her in Jobstown.¹⁶ She too attended the unveiling today.

*Joan Burton, who attended the event.* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

Fianna Fáil is a party of the Gombeen client class and has been in government more often than any other, whereas Sinn Féin in its current incarnation is seeking to replace it with more of the same.

It is a tribute to the memory of James Connolly held so dearly among the working people that these types, so far from Connolly in their reality, are obliged to pay public homage to the man and to his principles while their daily practice is in opposition to all that he stood for.

End.

FOOTNOTES

1An editorial in his newspaper, The Irish Independent (still one of two main newspapers of the state), after a number of British executions of a number of 1916 leaders, called for continued executions of leaders prior to the execution of Connolly and Mac Diarmada, the last of the 14 to be executed in Dublin (Kent was shot in Cork and Casement hanged in London).

2Fianna Fáil elected councilor.

3The largest union in Ireland, owner of the current Liberty Hall which stands on the ground of the original union building.

4There is no record that this is the case but it is a natural and widely-held assumption. It is a fact that the Proclamation was printed in Liberty Hall.

5Cunningham said it was “the Irish flag” which most would think a reference to the Tricolour. However that flag had not yet been accepted by the majority as the primary flag of the nation, which really occurred after the 1916 Rising. The flag raised instead by teenager Molly O’Reilly at Connolly’s request had the golden harp on a green background, the essential flag of Irish Republicans from the 1790s until the 1916 Rising.

6This was not a random statement by Connolly but rather a strategic one; on an earlier occasion he had observed that of all social classes in Ireland, the working class remained “the incorruptible inheritors of the fight for Irish freedom”. Connolly wrote that in his foreword to his work Labour in Irish History, clearly indicating that only the working class could be trusted to lead the national struggle through to successful conclusion.

7A prominent member of one of the groups campaigning for Moore Street Battlefield conservation, the Save Moore Street Trust, of which Mac Donncha is Secretary.

8That occurred at the beginning of this century and the struggle has been ongoing since.

9Like Connolly, also a migrant and member of the Irish diaspora but from Liverpool. He founded the Irish Transport & General Workers’ Union after his departure from the British-based National Union of Dock Labourers, for which for a time he had been chief organiser in Ireland. Most of the NUDL’s members in Ireland left to join the ITGWU but in Belfast there was a division along sectarian lines.

10This is the general appelation for work not requiring long periods of training. However, anybody who has been employed in work of this category soon learns that such work requires skill to achieve the objectives set, to pace oneself and to guard against injury. This is the reason those recruiting for such ‘unskilled’ work prefer ‘experienced workers’, a code for ‘skilled’.

11A police force of the period for Dublin City, most of its members being without firearms, unlike the armed all-Ireland colonial gendarmerie of the Royal Irish Constabulary (of which the Police Service of Northern Ireland is a descendant body). DMP minimum height requirements were 5ft 9” in a city where many working people were of low stature; this disparity gave substantial momentum to the swing of a truncheon.

12The event wrongly named as leading to the death of two workers, whose deaths were caused by the previous day’s police attack on Eden Quay, just by Liberty Hall. However, a previously healthy Fianna Éireann boy, Patsy O’Connor, who was clubbed in the O’Connell Street police riot while he administered first aid to a victim, suffered frequent headaches thereafter and died in 1915 at the age of 18.

13The design has seven stars in the Ursa Mayor configuration, with the design of a plough following the stars and a sword as the ploughshare. There is also a plainer version flown by the Republican Congress of the 1930s, the outline of the Ursa Mayor constellation in white or silver stars alone on a blue background.

14The flag survived the shell explosions and raging fires along the southern half of O’Connell Street and is currently in the Military History Museum, Collins Barracks, Dublin, along with a number of other flags flown by the insurgents during the Rising.

15Title of the Deputy Prime Minister in the Irish government.

16A number of activists from different organisations, including Paul Murphy TD (member of the Irish parliament) were arrested in raids some time later and among the charges was “kidnapping” Burton. The untruthfulness of a number of witnesses for the Prosecution including a senior Garda officer were exposed (ironically by video taken by protesters) and the jury acquitted all the defendants of all charges.

end.

REFERENCE

https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/plaque-unveiled-at-james-connollys-former-home-in-east-dublin-1509431.html

Gardaí Arrest Republican Denouncing the Monarchy & British Occupation

On May 7, 2023May 8, 2023 By rebelbreezeIn Civil Rights, Current Event Report, History, Imperialism, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, Mass Media Criticism, National Liberation, Police Violence, Song, Song in Struggle3 Comments

Clive Sulish

(Reading time main text: 3 mins.)

An organisation by the name of Anti-Imperialist Action yesterday held an anti-monarchist march and rally in Dublin, including a mock execution of royalty, where their speaker was arrested by Gardaí.

The protesters met first at the James Connolly monument in Beresford Place and after some words marched up Abbey Street to Dublin’s main street and to the General Post Office building to hold their anti-monarchy rally.

Royalty and guillotine beside James Connolly monument at start of event (*Photo: AIA*)

At the GPO the gathering of socialist republicans, socialists and anarchists had grown. As the mock-up guillotine carried out mock execution of the dummy representing royalty, a large force of Gardaí arrested the speaker. Participants then went to Store Street Garda station to demand his release.

At Store Street the protesters were met by a line of Gardaí¹ drawn up in front of the entrance to the police station. In speeches and slogans, the protestors denounced the police for the arrest of the speaker at the GPO, also denouncing the monarchy and the State.

Line of Gardaí barring entrance to Store Street Garda Station (*Photo:Rebel Breeze*)

View of protesters outside Store Street Garda Station (*Photo: Rebel Breeze*)

Some speakers criticised also the national broadcaster RTÉ which was devoting four hours to the coronation.

The most frequent chants were: When Republicans are under attack – stand up, fight back!² One, Two, Three, Four – Occupation no more; Five, Six, Seven Eight – Smash the Free State!³ Brit King – Guillotine! No democracy – under a monarchy! No democracy – in the Free State⁴!

One of the protesters, accompanying himself on guitar, sang the Republican ballad popularly known as “Come Out Yez Black ‘n Tans”, the attendance joining in on the chorus. They displayed a banner with a slogan from Liberty Hall⁵ in WW1: We serve neither King nor Kaiser but Ireland.

Using a loudhailer, another protester read out James Connolly’s⁶ 1911 denunciation of the monarchy. Yet another speaker quoted Garda Commissioner Drew Harris’ recent words saying the Gardaí were the “biggest gang”, the protester calling them “an MI5-directed gang”.

Eventually news of the release of the arrested man reached the protestors and they marched up Talbot Street with Starry Plough⁷ flags and a Basque Ikurrina flying, back to the GPO, outside of which they held an impromptu rally.

Along with portraits of Irish hunger-strike martyrs of 1981 there was a portrait of Palestinian martyr Khader Adnan carried also in recognition of the international role of British imperialism and its Head of State.

Many looked on in interest while some applauded them, both in Talbot Street, where a taxi driver enquired the reason for the protest and wished them well and also outside the GPO. Gardaí arrived and stood across from the building to watch the protesters but in smaller numbers than before.

The protestors return to the GPO for an impromptu rally in place of the planned one interrupted by the Garda attack and arrest of speaker (*Photo: Rebel Breeze*)

Another speaker said the protesters were “health workers, working to rid Ireland of a dangerous disease affecting politicians, media and State forces, a disease that makes them go to their knees in front of royalty and a foreign state, extending their tongues to lick a certain part of the anatomy.”

Interest from the pedestrian reservation in O’Connell Street across from the GPO, including much smaller number of uniformed Gardaí (*Photo: Rebel Breeze*)

The speaker said they were working “to rid Ireland of this dangerous disease, to enable the people to stand up straight once more, to claim their Republic, celebrate their history and speak out against foreign domination and monarchy”.

He drew attention also to arrest of a Republican speaker outside the iconic GPO, headquarters of the 1916 Rising⁸ and which still bears the scars of British bullets⁹.

Reference was also made a number of times by protesters to the arrests of English Republicans in London who were prevented by from holding a protest against the monarchy.

The victim of the police attack returned from police custody and briefly spoke thanking those who had demanded his release; people who had stopped to listen applauded and the group dispersed without further arrest.

End.

Photo taken at GPO before police attack (*Photo: AIA*)

Footnotes:

1Police force of the Irish State.

2This seems adapted from a slogan often chanted by Irish socialist groups.

3This too seems an adaptation but from the Palestine solidarity movement.

4The new state of 26 Counties (missing six, which are in the British colony) and which fought a Civil War against the Republicans was called “the Free State” and though the name was changed (and to a ‘republic’) Irish Republicans and many nationalists in the British colony call it the “Free State” in irony and in negation of its legitimacy.

5Liberty Hall is a very tall building housing SIPTU but the trade union’s ancestor, the ITGWU had purchased the previous building on the same site which was destroyed by the British during the 1916 Rising. The slogan “We serve neither …” etc had been displayed across the front earlier during WWI.

6Revolutionary socialist leader, trade union organiser, writer and historian who brought the Irish Citizen Army to participate in the Rising, during which he was made Dublin Commandant, afterwards being shot by British firing squad.

7Originally flag of the Irish Citizen Army, the first workers’ Army in the world, formed to defend the workers in 1913 Lockout against police attacks and which also took part in the 1916 Rising.

8The rising 24-29 April 1916 was the first against world war and contained many other ‘firsts’ – six different organisations played a prominent part in it, including women. The Rising is regarded as leading to the War of Independence 1919-1922.

9One of many buildings in Dublin that bear the scars of conflict, this one is an imposing building in the city’s main thoroughfare, O’Connell Street. With the building in flames from British artillery on Easter Friday, the garrison, including five of the Seven Signatories of the Proclamation of Independence (which was read out at the start of the Rising) relocated to nearby Moore Street, where the decision was taken to surrender.

Useful link and Reference:

"We confess to having more respect and honour for the raggedest child of the poorest labourer in Ireland today than for any, even the most virtuous, descendant of the long array of murderers, adulterers and madmen who have sat upon the throne of England." – James Connolly pic.twitter.com/o8inKRr5Fi
— Anti Imperialist Action Ireland (@AIAIreland) May 6, 2023

https://twitter.com/AIAIreland/status/1654886335130263552?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet

https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/police-arrest-republican-leader-smith-ahead-king-charles-coronation-group-says-2023-05-06/

FOUNDING OF FIRST WORKERS’ ARMY IN THE WORLD COMMEMORATED IN DUBLIN

On December 7, 2022 By rebelbreezeIn 1916 Rising, British imperialism, Capitalism, Current Event Report, Executions, History commemoration, irish history, Irish Republicanism, National Liberation, Police Violence, Political Analysis, Political Prisoners, Socialist Revolution, Song, Song in Struggle, Trade unions, Women, Workers' Struggles1 Comment

Clive Sulish

(Reading time: 8 mins.)

The founding of the Irish Citizen Army, the first workers’ army in the world¹, was commemorated in Dublin at the site of Wolfe Tone monument in Stephens Greeen, in song and speech on 23rd November 2022.

Organised by the Connolly Youth Movement, the other participating organisations represented were the Irish Communist Party, Independent Workers Union, Lasair Dhearg² and Welsh Socialist Republican Solidarity (Ireland) – the Irish branch of the Welsh Underground Network.

In addition, a number of independent activists were also present.

CYM speaker beside the Wolf Tone Monument (by Edward Delaney) which was blown up by Loyalists in 1969; it was recast and the surviving head incorporated. (*Photo: Rebel Breeze*)

THE IRISH CITIZEN ARMY

The Irish Citizen Army was founded on 23^rd November 1913 on a call from Jim Larkin and James Connolly, both leading the Irish Transport and General Workers’ Union in its titanic struggle against the federation of Dublin Employers’ plan to break and disperse the union.

The call for the formation of the ICA arose due to the attacks of the Dublin Metropolitan Police on the workers and their supporters; already in August 1913 the DMP had killed two workers by truncheon blows and injured many, including a youth who would die later as a result.

The ICA’s initial organiser was the writer and dramatist Seán O’Casey, later succeeded by Boer War veteran Jack White.³ In addition to requiring its recruits to be union members, the ICA enrolled women as well as men and some of the former were officers commanding both genders⁴.

While the ITGWU was defeated in the eight months of the Lockout, it was not smashed and came back stronger in a relatively short period. The ICA faded away then but was reorganised over following years and approximately 120 took part as a unit in the 1916 Rising, alongside other units.⁵

SPEECHES AND SONG

A small crowd had gathered at the advertised location, the Wolfe Tone Monument in Stephen’s Green and the chairperson of the event called people to order.

Diarmuid Breatnach, an independent activist, was asked to sing one of Connolly’s compositions, ironically titled Be Moderate, often referred to instead by its refrain, “We only Want the Earth”.

An older man with a Dublin accent, Breatnach told his audience that Connolly published the lyrics in New York in 1907, going on to sing the five verses to the air of Thomas Davis’ A Nation Once Again⁶, using the chorus part to repeat the refrain that “ … we only want the Earth!”⁷

A representative of the Independent Workers’ Union, a young man with an Ulster accent, spoke about the need for workers to have a trade union and for that union not to align itself with employers or with the State.

In order to truly represent the interests of the workers, the union needs to be independent, he maintained and also democratic in its decision-making.

In conclusion, the speaker said that the IWU is the union that is needed and called on people present to join it and to support it.

“MAKE THE VISION A REALITY”

Amy Margaret, a young woman, also with an Ulster accent, delivered a speech on behalf of the organisers of the event, the Connolly Youth Movement.

“The Citizen Army was a direct response to the brutality carried out by the RIC and Dublin Metropolitan Police during the Dublin Lockout” she said; “the police killed two workers, injured hundreds more with baton charges, and frequently ransacked the tenements where strikers lived.”

“The Citizen Army fought back with some succes” she continued “and as one pointed out, a hurley has a longer reach than a baton. It was in the Citizen Army that the working-class stood up to the RIC and employers,” she continued.

“The same RIC that torched farmer’s homes during the Land war, the same employers who often owned the slums where workers lived; it was here at Stephen’s Green (and elsewhere in the city) that the Citizen Army stood up to the British Empire, alongside comrades in the Irish Volunteers.”

She told her audience that when, during a dockers’ strike in 1915, scabs were imported and police harassed picketers, Connolly sent a squad of the ICA with fixed bayonets to the scene, resulting in the dispute’s resolution with “a considerable increase in wages to the dockers concerned”.

“The Citizen Army was not simply workers armed with guns,” the speaker said, “but also armed with culture” and referred to weekly concerts in Liberty Hall (the ITGWU’s HQ) and to the dramatic acting history of Seán Connolly and whistle-playing of Michael Malin, both 1916 martyrs

“What the ICA stood and fought for in their own words, “… is but one ideal – an Ireland ruled and owned by Irish men and women, sovereign and independent, from the centre to the sea.”

“Connolly was clear however that such a Republic would have no place for the “rack-renting, slum-owning landlord” or the “profit-grinding capitalist”, but should rather be a “beacon-light to the oppressed of every land”.

“The most fitting tribute for the ICA then is to make that Republic a reality. To do so we must learn from the past and their examples. We can learn from them to never be cowed by the odds against us, we can learn from their comradeship to each other.

We can learn from how they combined political, economic and cultural methods to advance the cause of a worker’s republic. But more importantly we must be able to learn from their shortcomings.

After the Rising and the loss of its leadership the ICA began to devolve into a social club and whilst some members played an important role during the Tan War, the ICA was not the revolutionary workers’ army it once was.

Therefore we must build a truly mass movement – not just a committed core of activists, and we must build a movement not reliant upon key personalities so that it can function no matter what.

We all know that things must change in Ireland, and so we reaffirm the principle that the Citizen Army stood by; only the Irish working class is capable of waging the revolutionary struggle necessary to change things; not capitalists and landlords.

Helena Molony of the ICA, said, “We saw a vision of Ireland, free, pure and happy. We did not realise that vision. But we saw it.”

As the socialist-republican youth of today, we commit ourselves to make that vision a reality and to build a Republic that the men and women of the Citizen Army would gladly call their own.”

Some of the gathering at the Wolfe Tone Monument (out of shot to the right) to commemorate the creation of Irish Citizen Army (*Photo: Rebel Breeze*)

MARKIEVICZ: “RESOLUTION, COURAGE AND COMMITMENT“

Breatnach was called back to the microphone and talked about the lessons to be learned from Constance Markievicz, co-founder of Na Fianna Éireann, the Irish Citizen Army and of Cumann na mBan, born in Britain “as were a number of our national and class heroes”, he said.

“Constance was born into a settler landlord family, the Gore-Booths”, he told the audience and her experience of witnessing deprivation, along with her sister Eva, during the Great Hunger, had a strong effect on both, inclining them to social reform and they became also suffragettes.

The speaker said that in that latter aspect and as a poet Eva became well-known particularly in England but Constance was better known as a revolutionary and for her allegiance to the working class and to the Irish nation.

He reminded his listeners that Markievicz was artistic and apt to strike poses; O’Casey, founder of the ICA had been hostile to her and co-founder of Cumann na mBan and wife of Tom Clarke of the IRB, Kathleen Clarke, had found her irritating.

Breatnach said that Markievicz was 3^rd in 1916 garrison command at Stephen Green and had been accused not only shooting dead there a member of the DMP but of exulting in it; however according to witness accounts she had not even been present when the officer was killed.⁸

Bust of Volunteer Markievicz in Stephen’s Green (*Photo: Rebel Breeze*).

A British officer at her court-martial after the surrender of the 1916 Rising had claimed that she begged for her life at the court-martial but the official British records published later gave the lie to that and her own account that she demanded equal treatment with the executed leaders rings true.

“Her life as an example,” Breatnach continued, “teaches us not to judge people only by their background or indeed by their idiosyncrasies but primarily by their resolution, courage and commitment, all of which Constance Markievicz had by the bucket-load.”

The speaker also reminded those present that the very Wolfe Tone monument beside which he stood had been blown up in a number of British Loyalist bombings of the city during the 1970s, a number of which would soon be commemorated on the December anniversary of one of them.

The Irish State had prosecuted not a single one of the perpetrators, not even for the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, with the highest death toll⁹ of any one day during the recent 30 Years War. Instead, they had used the 1972 bombing to pass emergency legislation to attack Irish Republicans!¹⁰

Speaking briefly as a historical memory conservation activist, primarily active in the campaign to save the Moore Street market and 1916 battleground from speculators, Breatnach remarked that it was fortunate that the area behind him was a public park.

Otherwise it would all have been a prime target for property speculators. People sometimes express surprise that Irish governments do so little to protect areas of insurrectionary history. He stated however that this was natural since it was not their history but that of the struggling people.

“The history of the Irish ruling class is of a foreign-dependent one”, Breatnach stated, “rather than that of a national bourgeoisie willing to fight for independence. The last time Ireland had such a bourgeoisie was in 1798, mostly led by descendants of settlers and planters.”

“This is why Connolly pointed out that the Irish working class are the true inheritors of the Irish struggle for freedom. National independence and socialism are two different objectives but interdependent in Ireland and for the struggles to succeed they must be led by the working class.”

CONCLUDING

Wreaths were laid on behalf of a number of organisations, including Lasair Dhearg and the chairperson thanked all for their attendance, leaving people to their various ways into the mild autumn-like afternoon.

End.

FOOTNOTES

SOURCES

1Clearly not the first army composed of workers, since these are the members of most armies; nor the first to fight for the workers, as did some for the Paris Commune in 18^th March-28th May1871. However, the ICA was founded specifically for the defence of workers, the first in the world to be so, though its constitution was largely Irish nationalist.

2Socialist and anti-fascist Irish Republican organisation mostly represented in Belfast. The name means “Red Flame”.

3A number of Irish were veterans of the Boer War, the British against Dutch colonists in South Africa, most like White were on the British side but some fought for the Boers, to the extent of forming an Irish Brigade for the purpose. Later, a number from both groups ended up fighting alongside one another in the 1916 Rising (and no doubt against others who remained in the British Army).

4This too was a ‘first’ to the credit of the ICA.

5The Irish Volunteers, Cumann na mBan, Na Fianna Éireann, the Hibernian Rifles and of course the Irish Republican Brotherhood, the chief architects of the Rising, its members fighting as members of other units, chiefly the Volunteers and the Fianna (the membership of both those organisations was exclusively male though its couriers were often female but Tom Clarke’s wife, Kathleen Clarke, was the IRB’s liaison from Dublin with the sister organisation in the USA.

6James Connolly (1868-1916) did not prescribe any air for the lyrics and they have been sung to several. A Nation Once Again was composed by leading member of the Young Irelanders, Thomas Davis (1814–1845) and published in 1844, for many years considered a candidate for Irish national anthem.

7“For our demands most moderate are: we only want the Earth!”

8Breatnach also said that least two and probably three members of the DMP were killed during the Rising, each one in an area under the control of the ICA, who no doubt remembered well the force’s actions during the 1913 Lockout.

91974: 33 male and female civilians and a full-term unborn baby.

10The Amendment to the Offences Against the State Act, including the introduction of the no-jury Special Courts, essentially for trying Irish Republicans with a much lower quality of evidence required to convict, including the unsupported word of a senior Garda officer.

Gustavo Petro and the Civic – Military Campaigns

On November 24, 2022November 24, 2022 By rebelbreezeIn America Latina, Civil Rights, Colombia, Current Affairs Comment, Environmental, peace processes, Police Violence, Political Analysis, Political PrisonersLeave a comment

Gearóid Ó Loingsigh looks at the new government in Colombia and how it talks of peace while increasing militarisation. English language version first published in Redline, 24th November, reprinted with kind permission of author.

(Reading time: 8 mins.)

The Petro–Márquez government is one which proposes to bring us to what they term Total Peace.

The term and the proposal as such have been subjected to justifiable criticism, not least because it places the insurgency of the ELN on the same footing as armed drug trafficking groups.

But there is another aspect of their government that calls upon us to reflect on what Petro – Márquez understand as peace and a demilitarized society that breaks with the past and the present of a repressive state where the answer to everything is a military response.

A first step would be to remove the military from civilian settings. But Petro has already made statements that indicate that neither he nor Márquez think that.

Shortly after taking on the presidency, he declared that the answer to deforestation of the Amazon was not only military, but Yankee.

In their electoral campaign their proposal was different, they did not talk about the military anywhere, but rather of democracy, autonomy, measures against drug trafficking and money laundering.

We will stop the deforestation and the burning of the jungle. We will dismantle the engines of deforestation, amongst them: displacement of the unemployed and landless peasants from the interior of the country towards the Amazon; land grabbers and promoters of extensive cattle ranching and other monocultures; corruption in public bodies; laundering of foreign currency through the purchase of deforested land, a by-product of drug trafficking and corruption; the uncontrolled extraction of wood etc.[1]

And he also said that the pacts to protect the jungle would be with the communities and not national or foreign militaries.

We will build a broad national pact of regional and global importance for the environmental defence of the Amazon, Orinoco and the biogeographic corridor of the Pacific. We will set up community agreements for the regeneration and ecological restoration of these eco-systems based on organisational processes, proposing to increase the size of collective territories, registry of plots and the strengthening of traditional and ancestral authorities. We will recognise the rural communities’ own lifestyle in strategic eco-systems and their own ecological and economic forms of production in these habitats, as well as their own environmental management.[2]

It all sounds very nice, but it goes hand in hand with militarisation. He proposed a sort of military alliance with the USA to avoid the burning of the jungle, copying the already existing model in Brazil where the USA has a base from which to put out fires.

Of course, in Brazil the mining and logging companies, etc. invade the territory with the approval of the government. The presence of north American troops never prevented any of the extractionist policies and less still poverty under the governments of Lula, Dilma and Bolsonaro.

As others have pointed out, it is nothing more than the militarisation of environmentalism and it is an old slogan of the imperialists that they should be in charge wherever they want and that includes the Amazon.

They used to brandish the anti-narcotics struggle as an excuse and now it is global warming. Al Gore once said that “The Amazon is not their property, it belongs to us all”. Of course, by us, this miscreant means Yankee imperialism: the USA.

It is the same discourse they have in relation to oil; it does not belong to the countries that have it but rather to all of us i.e. the US and European companies. Al Gore’s fame as an environmentalist is undeserved but his reputation as an old imperialist is completely justified.

Other governments have come out with similar feelings, Gore’s was not an individual outburst. Macron, NATO as such and the influential magazine Foreign Policy have argued for a military intervention in the region with the aim of protecting the planet.[3]

For the moment, Petro is not in favour of Colombia becoming a member of NATO, rather he proposes a regional military alliance.[4] Against whom would this alliance fight is not at all clear, or whether it would simply be an unofficial appendage to NATO.

We should be concerned and not just a little bit. In November he met with representatives of the US Embassy and the Subsecretary of Political Affairs, Victoria Nuland. Following the meeting Nuland tweeted.

Thank you, Gustavo Petro President of Colombia for our productive meeting reaffirming the importance of our continued partnership on security, peace, progress for Venezuela and protecting our planet.[5]

Bearing in mind the murky past of Nuland in Ukraine in 2014, we should be very careful with her, but there are those who believe that Petro is charge.

It is not the only issue where he proposes military rather than civilian solutions. Faced with the lack of access to healthcare in the territories of the Pacific, he also proposed to militarise the response. The Pacific is one of the regions with the worst indicators in the area of healthcare.

Nobody doubts about the need for an urgent and comprehensive response for the region. The military boat USNS Comfort visited Colombia to provide medical assistance.

It was not the first time, the said boat has visited the country four times as part of the Continuing Promise[6] mission, a medical and public relations initiative of the US, deploying its Soft Power.

This boat also took part in the two wars in Iraq as a military hospital, and in the invasion of Haití in 1994. Petro’s response on Twitter was:

I am grateful for this support in healthcare from the US government to the people of the Caribbean. It is important that we think about the Pacific. A mission for the National Navy, along with the building of the first frigate “made in Colombia” will be the building of a hospital ship.[7]

In a non-militarised state healthcare should be under the remit of the Ministry of Health and not the Ministry of Defence, but Petro – Márquez want to bring healthcare to the Pacific through military rather than civilian institutions.

Such incoherence with his public discourse!

In previous governments the military has used its economic power and civic-military days as part of its military and armed operations.

The mobilisation of troops and the demand for collaboration from the civilian population is justified on the basis of access to medical services that are provided for by civilians in Bogotá and other parts of the country without the need to explain themselves to military institution in the midst of a war.

The Petro – Márquez government is also going to continue with the proposal of the Santos government to build a military base on the Gorgona Island. It is worth remembering that Santos was one of these other men of peace that are in abundance in Colombia: hawks dressed as doves.

The Gorgona Island was, for many years, a penal colony, the Colombian version of the infamous Devil’s Island immortalised in Papillon film with Steve McQueen. In 1982 it was declared a world heritage site by UNESCO due to it high ecological value.

A deserted beach in Gorgona National Park, an island 21 miles off Colombia’s Pacific coast and a UNESCO World Heritage ecological site — Petro plans to put a military base there. (*Image sourced: Internet*)

Now they want to go ahead with the plan to place a military base there. What is new in the Petro – Márquez government is that there is a rumour that the USA will have access to the base.

It is not an absurd idea, as the project has anti-narcotic aims and is financed by the US Embassy in the country.[8] With absolute certainty, the DEA will at least have access to it.

There are alternatives, such as a warship as a centre of operations. Petro wants the Navy to build a hospital ship but is not up to telling them to build a ship for what does fall within its remit.

He says he wants peace but he wants to promote the military at every turn, even turning up every time he can wearing military caps.

So far, he hasn’t acted ridiculous like Iván Duque dressing up as a police officer in the midst of the National Strike of 2021, but as his supporters point out he has only been president for a little more than 100 days and we have to give him time.

In every circus you have to wait for the clowns to come in. We can’t always see the lion-tamer but clowns and clownish antics are always there.

Some social climbers from social and human rights organisations ran to take up posts in the ministries of Defence and also the Interior.

They used to be critics of the armed forces and police of the state, now they look out for its good name in the area of human rights and international humanitarian law. They also promote the military at each turn.

The recently appointed Alexandra González, a former functionary of the Committee for Solidarity with Political Prisoners, who is now the Cabinet Secretary of the Ministry of National Defence published an effusive tweet full of praise of the Ministry of Defence that stated “Military engineers will build tertiary road to benefit the peasant population.”[9]

She doesn’t understand that the armed forces are never for anything other than war, even in peace time they are preparing for war. It is their only function. In any case, no one can explain why the military have to the ones that are building those roads.

But as a good political opportunist she claims as her own that which does not belong to her. On twitter they replied to her, pointing out that those projects were old ones.

A retired military officer and former advisor to the High Commissioner for Peace pointed her in the direction of an article in the regional newspaper El Quindiano written by himself, speaking of the beginning of these civic – military projects in the 1960s.[10]

All governments have carried out infrastructural projects through the Ministry of Defence and in all governments, they were referred to as peace projects.

Perhaps the fugitives from the human rights organisations feel the need to say that it is new in order not to make evident that there is a continuity between this government and all of the previous ones.

I don’t understand why they signed up to the non-binding declaration on safe schools, if they are promoting the military presence in all other aspects of civilian life.

The ideal situation would be to not permit the military to use schools as bases or human shields in the midst of fighting nor use the military to build infrastructural projects.

If the government was really progressive (an imprecise term) it would remove the civilian contracts from the military, healthcare would be the exclusive responsibility of health bodies and not the military, it would not propose a military alliance in a world with an excess of them.

And the symbols that Peto would put on a pedestal would be civilian ones, from the people, the communities, even from some trade union, even if it were just out of pure nostalgia, as when he was Mayor of Bogotá he didn’t think much of unions.

End.

FOOTNOTES

[1] Véase https://gustavopetro.co/programa-de-gobierno/temas/propuestas-por-territorio/amazonia/

[2] Colombia Potencia Mundial de la Vida, Programa de Gobierno 2022 – 2024 pp 14 y 15 (disponible en https://gustavopetro.co

[3] Harris, R. (28/10/2022) NATO in the Amazon: Petro Plays with Fire https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/10/28/nato-in-the-amazon-petro-plays-with-fire/

[4] See https://twitter.com/mperelman/status/1592165003154853889?s=20&t=lUaSWKgD_-bO6wY-w4ELQA

[5] See https://twitter.com/USEmbassyBogota/status/1593757340737601544?t=bRqM8J-icRG6EKJuQMhCZA&s=35

[6] See https://www.msc.usff.navy.mil/Ships/Comfort/History/

[7] See https://twitter.com/petrogustavo/status/1592199983943802880?s=20&t=nEMFaz_35YUU4LQXXZz0zA

[8] El Tiempo (26/10/2022) Pese a cuestionamientos, la Armada construirá muelle en Gorgona https://www.eltiempo.com/vida/medio-ambiente/gorgona-pese-a-cuestionamientos-la-armada-construira-muelle-712305

[9] See https://twitter.com/alexandraG_Z/status/1593927119352078336?s=20&t=wY2X-DPk17I-e4hnsLAJ3w

[10] Castaño, C. (24/03/2022) Un plan militar para la paz https://www.cronicadelquindio.com/opinion/opinion/un-plan-militar-para-la-paz

DUBLIN ANTI-FASCIST CLEARED OF “VIOLENT DISORDER”

On October 31, 2022November 1, 2022 By rebelbreezeIn Anti-Fascism, Current Event Report, Ireland, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, Police Violence, Political Analysis1 Comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 8 mins.)

Donal O Ceallaigh walked free on Wednesday to congratulations of his supporters after four years under the threat of a ten-year jail sentence and/ or unlimited fine. He had been charged with “violent disorder” arising out events in February 2016.

The charging of antifascists with “violent disorder” was a first use by the State against political activists of this vicious piece of legislation with such a heavy penalty and for which the burden of proof seems very slight.

All that seems required is for the State to prove that a situation of violence occurred or was threatened in which the accused were present (minimum of three) and “that would cause a person of reasonable firmness present at that place to fear for his or another person’s safety.”¹

The background to the charges was the boast of fascist islamophobic organisation Pegida in 2016 that it would organise a public rally – and founding meeting – in every capital city in Europe and the rally they planned to take place outside the GPO on 6^th February 2016.

In response, antifascists mobilised in Dublin with the intention of preventing Pegida’s launch.

IRELAND’S ANTIFASCIST RESPONSE

The mobilisation took a number of forms:

1) a large diverse group gathered outside the GPO, occupying the space well before the advertised time. A large proportion of these included religious and liberal organisations and individuals.

2) Another large group, of Republicans and Socialists of different organisations — and none — gathered in O’Connell Street, on the central pedestrian reservation and on the east side of the street.

3) Irish fascists arriving by Luas (tram system) were met on the tram itself by young antifascists.²

It appears that there were no confrontations between the GPO group and fascists which was fortunate, since some of the participants had publicly advocated non-violence and even encouraged bringing children to the event,³ no doubt in order to emphasise their pacifist nature.

The handful of known fascists of Irish background, whose intended movements were known in advance, apparently noticed or guessed the sympathies of some of the antifascist youth travelling in the Luas, addressed some unkind words to them and violence quickly resulted⁴.

The fascists concerned apparently abandoned their plan to attend the rally and some reportedly felt the necessity to attend A&E department in hospital instead.

There is no doubt that the longest-running conflict with the most people involved on both sides occurred around the east side of O’Connell Street and streets running off it, in particular North Earl Street and Cathedral Street.

The fascists who were involved there appeared to be all of East European origin. It seemed that they had not been spotted until some of them began to insult some women and when filmed, to make a negative comment along the lines of “your f..king communist filming”.

Once having identified themselves, a crowd of antifascists gathered around them and the situation developed quickly. The fascists were soon running, in the course of which one ran into a Euro-shop in North Earl Street with a number of anti-fascists behind.⁵

Some Gardaí lashed out with batons at people leaving the shop (which could clearly be seen on the police compilation of video footage shown in court), including an RTÉ cameraman.⁶

At least three of those fascists ran eastward down Talbot Street, which is a continuation of the short North Earl Street; two large white police vans appeared at the intersection with Marlsborough Street and the “robocops”, the Public Order Unit emerged.

The POU deployed with dogs in North Earl Street, clearing it and menacing both antifascists and shoppers.⁷

Shortly afterwards, word spread among the antifascists that some of the fascists were in a pub in the parallel Cathedral Street and had exchanged words with some antifascists who also happened to be in there;⁸ a crowd of antifascists flocked to the area concerned.

This area saw one of the sharpest confrontation between the Garda Public Order Unit and antifascists, with the former lashing out with drawn batons on largely unprotected hands and heads.

The Gardaí rescued the fascists from the pub and loaded them into one of their vans before driving off. A decoy Garda van was blocked in O’Connel Street by protestors and interested youth for a period but the fascists were spirited away to safety in another van.

Pegida had been prevented from holding their rally so the antifascists emerged victorious. The State actors sat down to decide how they would respond in the aftermath.

THE IRISH STATE SHARPENS ITS KNIVES

The first to be targeted by arrests were the antifascists in the confrontation on the LUAS tram. Visible in recordings of the CCTV camera which had remained uncovered throughout, they were identified, charged, convicted and heavily fined — as a deterrent, the judge made clear.

Next the Gardaí set about identifying antifascists active in the North Earl Street conflict and selected two Republicans from different organisations which, along with an independent antifascist from the pub in Cathedral Street, they charged with the serious offence of “violent disorder”.

This led to alarm in antifascist circles since, as outlined earlier the potential penalties with this charge are very high and it had never been used by the State before with regards to a situation of a political nature – in fact, it had hardly been used at all.

Two years after the events, one week to the day after he had been found “not guilty” on another political charge, Donal Ó Ceallaigh was charged with “violent disorder” in connection with the anti-Pegida protest too.

Through the intervening months and years, two of those charged with “violent disorder” separately agreed a deal to plead “guilty” to a lesser charge and avoid the danger of a ten-year sentence and this week at the commencement of the remaining two’s trial, another one did so.

Ó Ceallaigh then remained the only one of the original four on trial for “violent disorder”. His trial began on Monday 24th in Criminal Court No.7,⁹ six years after the events and four years after he was charged, with some supporters and his wife present in the public area.

TRIAL OF O’CEALLAIGH

Shortly after Ó Ceallaigh’s trial commenced, his defence counsel, Brian Gageby BL engaged by Sheehan & Partners, asked for a discussion in court in the absence of the jury and took the State’s witnesses through their process of protecting the chain of video evidence and identification of Ó Ceallaigh himself.

A compilation of six video clips was shown from: (1) the Euro Shop CCTV, (2) Garda cameras, the (1) TV cameraman’s footage (obtained by warrant) and (1) video taken by the shop’s security guard on his phone.

It emerged that 500 Gardaí have viewed the footage on an internal Garda system without identifying anyone on it.

The Garda officer responsible for ensuring identification then gave a convoluted account of how he had ended up going through associates of another activist to contacting another officer who had arrested Ó Ceallaigh in relation to water protests, who obligingly identified the activist.

That Garda said that he knew the defendant from a previous arrest and that it was he in a number of the videos, wearing a green hooded jacket and red scarf around his neck and that he has a tattoo there,¹⁰although only a very small portion of the man’s face is visible.

Another Garda who oversaw the identification claimed to have made his own statement a long time afterwards from memory alone but somehow included the exact times, in minutes and seconds on the video where the other’s statement had identified Ó Ceallaigh!

Defence counsel put it to him he could only have that precision from having written his statement to coincide with the other Garda’s, which he denied having done — of course that would have looked very much like conspiring to, as they say, “fit up” the defendant with regards to identification!

As Tuesday’s jury-less court session drew to a close, Defence counsel made two submissions to the Judge objecting to the challenged video identification evidence going to the jury, which Prosecution counsel defended and the judge retired to consider the arguments.

At resumption of the trial on Wednesday morning, the Judge announced her decision not to permit the challenged video evidence to go before the jury and the Prosecution counsel admitted that without that, effectively they had no evidence to place the activist at the scene.

The jury was then called in and the Judge directed them to return a verdict of “Not guilty”. Ó Ceallaigh was free to go and receive the embrace of his wife and congratulations of his supporters (and from some interested members of the public).

Though appearing glad he seemed to take it all quite calmly but admitted to the author that it had been “a bit of a strain”.

SUMMARY

As a result of the mobilisation and struggles on the day, Pegida was prevented from launching in Ireland, perhaps the only European country in which they failed to do so. This would have been important in any case but became especially so with the struggles around Covid to come.

The State had failed to protect the fascists’ “right” to hold their founding rally in Ireland and no doubt the Gardaí felt humiliated. They determined to recover ground and the State made a political decision of charging demonstrators with a very serious charge: “violent disorder”.

In that, the State hoped to establish a legal precedent with a view to its use against demonstrators in other situations in future. It did in fact establish the precedent in using the charge (and without an outcry from liberals and social democrats).

The State may have felt enough was gained for the moment in offering to accept a “guilty” plea to a lesser charge but when Ó Ceallaigh declined to accept the deal, they tried for a conviction, which would have given them the precedent they originally sought – but they failed.

However, many antifascist activists were punished and according to information received, 15,000 Euro in punitive fines was collected, not to speak of the worry and years spent in the shadow of the hanging sword.

Antifascists have hopefully learned the importance of going masked in similar situations and awareness of the role of CCTV cameras which are ubiquitous in the Dublin city area. The charge of “violent disorder” remains as a threat and punishment for demonstrators in future¹¹.

The wording of the charge ensures that no actual violence need be used and the “fear” surrounding a situation remains open to subjective interpretation and even manipulation of witnesses by police.

The RTÉ’s camera footage – ironically in view of the fact of his assault by a Garda – was obtained by warrant which raises issues of concern with regard to press freedom and safety. If verified media’s film is to be used by the State, how then is the media to claim independence?

And if demonstrators know or believe that media footage of them is likely to be used by the State, are they likely to tolerate the presence of such camera operators? Will we not all be the poorer if the media cannot produce film and photos of events of a similar nature?

This is surely an issue on which the press, along with the respective trade unions should take a stand, if they truly believe in their independence and freedom and think it worth defending.

While there is no current evidence of a resurgent attempt to found Pegida in Ireland,¹² a number of small fascist organisations have been founded in recent years, including Identity Ireland, the National Party, Irish Freedom Party and Síol na hÉireann.

History has shown that when the ruling capitalist class is in crisis, it suits it to use fascists as part of the repression of the people’s resistance struggles. Certainly there is something of a crisis in the capitalist system world-wide at the moment and repression is very much on the agenda.

Pegida does exist in Europe and as late as the 22^nd, the Saturday before the trial in Dublin, planned to publicly burn the Koran in Rotterdam, Holland,¹³ to which the State there responded by arresting their leader and accusing Pegida of disseminating “hate speech”.¹⁴

End.

FOOTNOTES

1 The 1994 Public Order Act (see Sources) and this section at least uses even the same wording as the 1986 Public Order Act of the UK (see Sources).

2 That group was of Identity Ireland, led by Peter O’Loughlin, a long-time Irish fascist who apparently planned to be chairman of the Irish branch of Pegida. According to recollections of antifascists to the author, there were also much smaller groups of anti-fascists roaming the south city centre attempting to coordinate and collate information while searching for groups of fascists.

3 Pacifism in the face of potential fascist violence seems dangerously stupid to me but that pales into insignificance when compared to the criminal irresponsibility of putting children in danger of such attack.

4 This was one of the areas which the Gardaí used to bring charges against anti-fascists and footage from the LUAS CCTV was used against individuals. The antifascists involved seem to have been from Dublin soccer club supporters’ associations and those identified were fined within a relatively short period of time.

5 This site was one of those used by the Gardaí to charge a number of antifascists and footage from the security CCTV were used in evidence against the latter.

6 The management of the TV channel complained as did the cameraman. Quite some time later the Garda in question was found guilty of assault and, despite the viciousness of the assault on a clearly unthreatening person and his lack of remorse, was given a suspended sentence but remained in the police force without facing a disciplinary hearing.

7 “I was coming back from reconnoitring around the Connolly Monument in Beresford Place, in case fascists had gathered there. Cycling westward along Talbot St. I saw three young men running west; they appeared East European to me and had hair cropped very short. I assumed they were fascists but there appeared to be no-one in pursuit and three was too many for me so I passed them and at North Earl St. junction found a large crowd with Public Order Unit with barking dogs and batons drawn preventing people from entering the area. The crowd was of mixed shoppers, passers-by and anti-fascist demonstrations.” (Recollection of antifascist to author.)

8 This site too became one to attract police charges against at least one antifascist.

9 On Tuesday it was moved to No.12 instead, right next door, coincidentally, to the Special Criminal Courtroom where a trial is currently underway. The SCC was from its inception a no-jury political court for decades but recently began to try some high-profile criminal trials.

10 He does in fact but you’d need x-ray vision to see it through a scarf! There had been a mass campaign against the proposed additional water charges and the belief that the public water supply system in the Irish state was about to be privatised. Protesting in the context that water charges were already being paid through two different public taxes, hundreds of thousands marched and smaller groups mobilised to disrupt the installation of water meters outside people’s houses (the locations of those unused meters may still be seen around Dublin city in particular). Most arrests took place in this latter part of the struggle, though a number of defendants fought a successful battle to prevent the State convicting them of “kidnapping” a Government Minister while protesting against her ministerial visit to a school in Jobstown. The additional taxation and privatisation plan was abandoned in 2015 – at least for the moment.

11 Note that there have been many situations of actual violence by fascists wielding clubs in Ireland in recent years in which the State chose not to charge any of the perpetrators with “violent disorder” and in fact only with great reluctance charged one individual, Michael Quinn of the National Party with assault after widely-circulated video evidence refuted Garda public statements that no violence had occurred.

12 According to Anti-Fascist Action Ireland from people viewing the fascist communication traffic, the Eastern European fascists who participated on the day denounced the Irish fascists of Identity Ireland as cowards and declared they would never work with them again.

13 Religious book of greatest importance to Muslims, equivalent to the Bible for Christian and the Talmud for Jews.

14 (See Sources).

SOURCES AND FURTHER INFORMATION

Violent Disorder charge in Ireland: Criminal Justice (Public Order) Act, 1994, Section 15 (irishstatutebook.ie)

In the UK: Public Order Act 1986 (legislation.gov.uk)

Pegida intent to burn the Koran in Rotterdam: Dutch police disperse planned Quran burning rally of Islamophobic group Pegida (yenisafak.com)

https://nltimes.nl/2022/10/23/anti-islam-group-pegida-attempts-burn-koran-rotterdam-leader-arrested

RTÉ cameraman struck by Garda at anti-Pegida protest: SUSPENDED SENTENCE FOR GARDA WHO ASSAULTED RTÉ CAMERAMAN – rebelbreeze

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE ISRAELI MURDER OF A JOURNALIST

On May 15, 2022May 26, 2022 By rebelbreezeIn Assassination, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Human Rights, Internationalist Solidarity, Mass Media Criticism, National Liberation, Palestine, Police Violence, Political AnalysisLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 8 mins.)

On Wednesday (May 11th), a Palestinian journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh was shot dead by Israeli military with one shot to the head. At the time of her murder, she was wearing conflict protective clothing clearly marked “PRESS” but the bullet entered her head under the helmet. Ms. Abu Akleh’s murder has caused outrage around the world, which has been intensified by the Israeli military’s attack on mourners, even on the bearers of her coffin (one of whom has since died) and their attempt to blame the Palestinian resistance for killing the journalist.

WHY THE OUTRAGE THIS TIME, ABOUT THIS JOURNALIST?

Ms. Abu Akleh was a journalist of nearly 25 years’ experience, employed since 1997 by the Qhatari-based news agency Al Jazeera and her reports were familiar to millions in the Arab and wider Muslim world. She was with other journalists, one of whom was also shot but wounded in the back and is expected to recover, covering an Israeli Army raid into the refugee camp in Jenin in Palestine. Both Al Jazeera and Associated Press agencies insisted that the shooters were Israeli military and mapping on-the-spot investigation has discredited the Israeli version firstly that the killer was a Palestinian fighter and then latterly, that it might have been.

Shireen Abu Akleh lies dead or mortally wounded while her terrified colleague fears the same fate (*Source: Internet*)

“This is one person,” remarked a commentator, “ but hundreds are being killed in the Ukraine war!” Another commented that the Russians have shot journalists in the Ukraine.

Thousands and millions and thousands of millions of people are killed in wars and as a result of wars. Yes and in a way their very numbers makes that difficult to grasp. In the war in the Ukraine before the Russian invasion, 14,000 is the number of estimated dead. Since the invasion, 9,599–24,599¹ civilians have been killed, such a wide disparity in estimates a reflection that the conflict is still ongoing and also of the propaganda battle being fought over almost every aspect of the conflict.

In Palestine, the conflict death toll began mostly from 1936 and rose to unknown numbers of Palestinians (due the huge expulsions and fleeing terror) in 1948 when the state of Israel was created, and between 2008 and 2020 alone the death toll is estimated at 5,850², not counting of course this year and last, with another three added since Sunday, including Abu Akleh. The overall figure of Palestinian civilians killed between 1936 and 2020, with huge gaps where the numbers are unknown, is 2,816,410.³

All three of the latest of Israel’s victims (unless they’ve killed more before I finish writing and editing) were unarmed civilians. Unarmed civilians are the group most likely to be killed in war (10 million in WWI; 50–55 million in WWII, whilst 2,000,000 civilians is the estimate for the Vietnam War). Even though the killing of civilians is an automatic result of war, there are all kind of laws and conventions agreed by most states, including major warlike ones, against the deliberate killing of civilians. But it does seem as though some states have carte blanche in that regard, international law or not.

Israeli police attack funeral of Shireen Abu Akleh, including beating pall-bearers — one of the injured died later. (*Photo credit: May Levin/ AP*)

For many people, every killing of a Palestinian announced adds to that ongoing toll by Israel, year after year for nearly eight decades. That’s one important significance of the death of Shireen Abu Akleh – she comes to personalise, to give a face to the millions of victims of Israeli Zionism.

Another significance of this murder is that Abu Akleh is the most recent of at least 45 journalists killed by Israeli military since 2000 – that’s more than two per year. The UNESCO Observatory lists 22 journalists killed by Israeli military since 2002 and the case remains “unresolved” in 19 of Israel’s judicial investigation — with no investigation at all listed in two of them.

One of the nearly 50 journalists killed by the Israeli military since 2000 — Yasser Murtagh in 2018 (*Photo: Reuters*)

Raising the issue of Russian armed forces’ alleged deliberate killing of civilians and of reporters, whether true or not, just does not compare. The allegations might be true, of course — an invading army is likely to encounter opposition in the course of which some of its personnel may kill civilians by intention and without justification. Indeed, armies before now have killed even those of their own country, their own ethnic group. In the currently relentless onslaught of western commentary, often quoting Ukrainian or NATO sources without question, along with the banning of much alternative comment, it is — and will continue to be for some time – difficult to say which is true and which is not. But the two conflicts do not compare, neither in scale nor in length of existence, nor does the death toll of civilians including reporters.

“WHATABOUTERY“

When Russia invaded the Ukraine, anybody who raised the issue of Palestine with regard to the other conflict, e.g “what about the US/NATO support for Israel?” was accused of ‘whataboutery’. ‘Whataboutery’ is thought of as a device to distract from confronting the actual issues initially under discussion by introducing another different or tangential one.

Of course, people do such things and rational discussion is frequently undermined and even shattered by such practice. But, in this case, when US/NATO was saying that it was supporting the post-Maidan Ukrainian regime for reasons of democracy and self-determination, was it justified to point out its record of war and invasion in the Middle East and its support of Israeli Zionist aggression? It seems clear to me that it was but that would not in itself be proof that the Ukrainian regime was wrong. Was it right to point to the regime’s attacks on Russian-speakers and in particular on the Crimea and Donbas regions? It seems to me that it was, in that gave context to secessionist feeling in those areas to which the Russian regime could well want to give military support, whether that were for protection of ethnic kindred or for its own selfish reasons.

None of that “whataboutery” takes away from the tragedy of war in the Ukraine, of course not, but it is valid in considering motivation, given that the US, the leading power in NATO, is also the biggest supporter of the Zionist state and that the EU is not far behind. Palestine exposed that whatever the rights and wrongs in the conflict, NATO and the EU’s motives were not about justice and peace.

When international sporting and cultural organisations of the western capitalist world began to ban Russian teams and individuals from participation, were people justified in saying “Hey, what about Israel?” Surely they were, for that ongoing struggle in which Palestinian land has been ripped from the hands of its people, in which the latter are daily oppressed and from time to time massacred, in which they suffer military occupation, daily discrimination, ethnic cleansing, racism and apartheid – have they not been calling for decades for banning and boycotting Israeli and its sporting teams? And what was the response? They they were bringing politics into sport! And those who did show their solidarity in sports competitions were often penalised for doing so.

When states began to apply economic sanctions to Russia and to Russian individuals, were Palestinians and their supporters not justified in crying out “Hey, what about Israel?” Of course they were.

The strange thing is that those who accused others of “whataboutery” in the past for raising the issue of Palestine in the context of the war in the Ukraine have now begun to cry “what about the Ukraine?” in the context of the international outrage about the murder of Shireen Abu Akleh. Former critics of ‘whataboutery’ have themselves become ‘whatabouters’ now – and without even the shadow of the justification of their accused predecessors.

‘INTERNATIONAL’ OUTRAGE

It’s worth asking what we mean by “international” in the case of the outrage over the murder of Shireen Abu Akleh. That “international” includes a large part of the Arab world. It includes a large part of the non-Arab but Muslim word⁴. It includes a large part of the non-Arab, non-Muslim world in western Europe and in the USA and in many other parts too. Certainly the Irish public in general has empathised with the Palestinians for decades.⁵

But it does not include what the western media mean when they use the words “the international community” – the outrage does not encompass the ruling classes of the Western European countries, much less of the USA, nor even the ruling classes of much of the Arab and Muslim world. In this they are being to a degree, honest. Because those ruling classes have either supported the Israeli Zionists directly, or have supported the USA which keeps Israel alive. Only seven elected representatives of the USA’s Democratic Party – out of the 225 it has in the US Congress, quickly expressed condemnation of the killing and called for a quick and independent investigation. Not one of the 210 Republicans expressed condemnation at the time – even though Shireen Abu Akleh was a citizen of the USA!

Protest in Delhi at the Israeli murder of Shireen Abu Akleh — and clearly not by Muslims alone (Hindus and Sikhs seen here also). (*Photo source: Interne*t)

Shireen Abu Akleh murder protest march passing through Grafton Street, Dublin, Ireland yesterday (*Photo source: IPSC FB page*)

Leaders of a few countries expressed regret but could not bring themselves to even say that she had been killed by the Israeli military. The authorities in Berlin banned an attempt to hold a vigil over the death of the Palestinian journalist, including it in their ban on any Palestinian solidarity events at this time of year, when people commemorate the Palestinian ‘Nakba’. That is what Palestinians call the ‘Catastrophe’ that resulted from the seizure of Palestine by the Israeli Zionists, the creation of its state and the mass expulsion of Palestinians.

It is worth noting too that the media we are reading, which at first either ignored this murder, downplayed it or repeated the Israeli lies that Shireen Abu Akleh had been shot, not by Israeli military but by Palestinian resistance fighters, is compiled by journalists too. On the one hand this points to the severe loss to the world when a journalist who exposes injustice is killed (or persecuted and jailed for extradition to another country, as in the case of Julian Assange). On the other, it points to what a large contingent of hired liars and prevaricators is included among the ranks of journalists, that they cannot even stand up for the truth and protest the murder of one of their own occupation or trade.

And it teaches us how much our sources of information are mediated and manipulated by the national and corporative news media. Years ago we were being told that social media would free us from their manipulation or at least provide a viable alternative – independent news and commentary sources would flourish and we could be our own media. Yet the bans and exclusions put in place by Youtube, Facebook, Twitter and governments have shown us what an illusion all that was – in terms of information, we are generally even more controlled and manipulated now than we were before the advent of social media.

Hopefully, those who did not know this already will have learned, both from the coverage of the war in Ukraine and from the murder of this journalist. Those who thought that there was any justice in Israel or generally in the western governments towards the Palestinians, will hopefully have been disabused of that illusion too. Shireen Abu Akleh cannot be brought back to life nor can she be replaced. What we can do is strive to pull down that State that killed her and to knock away all its props around the world.

End.

FOOTNOTES

1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Russo-Ukrainian_War

2“According to the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), some 5,600 Palestinians died between 2008 and 2020 while nearly 115,000 were injured. During the same period, around 250 Israelis have died while approximately 5,600 were injured” https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2021/05/12/the-human-cost-of-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict-over-the-past-decade-infographic/

3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_casualties_of_war

4Because a great many non-Arab Muslims sympathise with the Palestinians, who mostly ascribe to the faith of Islam and to Muslim culture. However, some Palestinians are Christian, some of Jewish (in the sense that a minority of the population of Palestine was Jewish for decades before the Israeli Zionist occupation) and some of no religion. Shireen Abu Akleh was baptised a Christian; her funeral service was held in a Catholic church and her remains were taken to a Protestant cemetery.

5The Irish cannot fail but be struck too by some parallels with the British occupation of Ireland – the impunity of the Zionist occupiers, for example and the attempt firstly to blame the resistance for those killed by the British Army, followed by a fog of conjecture and holding their own inquiry; the attack on mourners, the seizing of the national flag and attacking people for displaying it (the display of the flag was officially illegal under Israeli law in 1967 and unbanned in 1993 but as seen, is still often objected to by Israeli police).

SOURCES

Conflict deaths in Palestine 2008-2020: https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2021/05/12/the-human-cost-of-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict-over-the-past-decade-infographic/

Conflict Palestinian civilian deaths since 1936-2020: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_casualties_of_war

At least 45 Journalists killed by Israel since 2000: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/5/12/infographic-the-journalists-killed-by-israeli-forces-since-2000

https://en.unesco.org/themes/safety-journalists/observatory/country/223793

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/5/13/al-jazeera-condemns-israeli-attack-on-shireen-abu-aklehs-funeral

https://www.breakingnews.ie/world/pallbearers-drop-journalists-coffin-as-israeli-police-hit-mourners-with-batons-1304514.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shireen_Abu_Akleh#Early_life_and_education

DEATH OF A RETIRED WARRIOR

On May 4, 2022May 8, 2026 By rebelbreezeIn Current Event Report, Housing Struggle, Human Rights, Imperialism, Internationalist Solidarity, irish history, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, National Liberation, Police Violence, Song, Song in Struggle, Workers' Struggles4 Comments

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 12 mins.)

In mid-April (2022) Gardaí, the police force of the Irish State, broke down the door of Mick Plunkett’s home. They would not have been able to claim he resisted their entry or arrest (the usual explanation for injuries on the detained individual) – he was already dead.

To be fair to them, this time they were forcing entry in response to concerns from people that Plunkett had not been seen and wasn’t answering calls.

Still, Mick Plunkett’s door had been forced by police a number of times before – by the Special Branch, at least once by the Garda ‘Heavy Gang’ and another time by the special ‘anti-terrorist’ Paris police.

Mick was born into a working class family of ten siblings in Dún Laoghaire, in Kelly’s Avenue in the small area of council houses built for rent to the seaward side of the town’s main road.

These however did not overlook the sea itself, a view reserved for the big houses and hotels, later somewhat ruined by the DART wires and towers).

Dún Laoghaire¹, long-imagined as a area in which only the affluent or at least comfortably-off lived, nevertheless contained such council (formerly ‘Corporation”) houses in the nearby bottom of York Road, also Cross Avenue, Glasthule, Carriglee Gardens, Monkstown Farm and Sallynoggin areas.

As many of that era, especially among manual workers, Mick’s father died relatively young which left his widow Lilly to care for ten children with all siblings able to work and find employment contributing to the care of the rest.

Mick followed his father Oliver into a skilled manual worker trade, trained and qualified as a gas fitter-plumber and, by reputation, a good one; later he would often carry out repair jobs for neighbours free of charge or in exchange for fish caught nearby or by trawlers that docked in the harbour.

“We saw and ate fish that many other people never saw,” said one of his sisters at his funeral reception in the evening.

Amidst the student and youth upsurge of the 1960s around the world, of which Ireland was also a part, many Irish youth of the time became rapidly politicised.

The Vietnam War, Black struggles in the USA and South Africa, Civil Rights in the British colony, lack of sufficient housing in the Irish state (just as today!) were issues that engaged lively interest and which to people like Plunkett, called for solidarity and, in Ireland, direct action.

At his funeral, Niall Leonach², formerly of the IRSP, related how Plunkett, at the age of 17, had resisted the neglect of the young apprentices by his union and won improvements by organising a sit-in at the union’s office.

*April 1991 article Evening Mail on conditions in the Glasthule Housing Estate* (Source image: *CATU*)

HOUSING AND HISTORY

The Dublin and Bray Housing Action Committees were campaigning for an end to slums and for affordable rental housing around the city and Dún Laoghaire soon had its own Housing Action Committee too.

Nial Leonach, former comrade of Plunkett’s told the mourners at Mount Jerome that a large public housing building program was initiated as a result of this campaigning, a program that not only replaced derelict inner city tenements but created large new housing areas such as that in Ballybrack in south county Dublin.

The Housing Action campaigns not only squatted homeless families, they also fought evictions, held marches and public meetings. And in at least one case, became involved in a struggle for historical building conservation.

A Dún Laoghaire IRSP public agitation and information post pictured in the IRSP’S Newspaper (*Source image: CATU*).

The Dún Laoghaire group joined with conservationists wishing to save Frescati House, a large derelict building on acreage of the property planned by Roches Stores to demolish and convert into a shopping centre.

The original building dated from 1739 but had been purchased by the largest landowning family in Ireland at the time, the Fitzgeralds and had wings added and the grounds planted with exotic shrubs.

The house had been the childhood residence and favoured retreat of Edward Fitzgerald³, a much-loved leader of the first Irish Republican revolutionary movement, the United Irishmen, as late as 1797, the year before their Rising.

The figures heading the campaign were not only conservationists but fairly conservative too (Desmond Fitzgerald, son of a father of the same name who was Minister in a number of Fine Gael governments, was its chairperson).

But it was of course the activist supporters of the DHAC who occupied the building in protest at plans for demolition and were subjected to a baton-wielding police attack to evict them.⁴

Niall Leonach told the crowd in the Mount Jerome chapel that the criminal charges against the arrested were serious but that Plunkett’s stratagem of issuing a subpoena for Liam Cosgrave⁵ to appear as witness for their defence got the charges lowered.

The politician had been part of the conservation campaign, the more serious charges were dropped and, on the lesser ones, the penalties were lower-scale fines.

Much of DHAC soon became the Markievicz Cumann of Sinn Féin⁶, then a very socialist Irish Republican party, particularly in Dublin.

The Civil Rights campaign in the British colony of the Six Counties became a focus for activity and Leonach told his audience that Plunkett had been particularly affected by the colonial police killing of a child by indiscriminate fire from machine-guns at a nationalist housing estate, the Divis Flats.

In 1969 the IRA, the military wing of Sinn Féin, was caught unprepared and largely unarmed to face the pogroms in the British colony, which was one of the reasons for the 1970 split in the party, out of which emerged the Provisional IRA and Provisional Sinn Féin.

Plunkett and others in the Markievicz Cumann, the three Breatnach brothers for example⁷, viewing the Provos as socially conservative, remained in what was now known as “Official Sinn Féin” but tried to change their party’s direction.

Failing in that, they split, along with others such as the charismatic Séamus Costello⁸ and formed the Irish Republican Socialist Party in 1974.

It seems clear that the ruling elite of the Irish State viewed the IRSP and the associated INLA as a threat and decided to go beyond the standard and regular harassment, intimidation and petty and medium arrests⁹ with which they had been treating all Irish Republicans and some socialist activists.

FRAMED IN DUBLIN AND IN PARIS

On 31^st March 1976 the Cork-Dublin mail train was stopped near Sallins, Co. Kildare by armed men who netted around £200,000.¹⁰ The State decided to believe, at least officially that the operation had been carried out by the INLA.

As a result armed police raided the homes of 40 members of the IRSP and their families. The Gardaí beat up their victims and obtained “confessions” from a number of them – however, some who gave self-incriminating statements could not have been present and their prosecutions were dropped.¹¹

Eventually, a trial in the political Special Criminal Court proceeded against Plunkett and another three IRSP members: Osgur Breatnach, Nicky Kelly and Brian McNally.

Poster supporting the four framed and on trial for the Sallins Mail Train Robbery, depicting Mick Plunkett on far right of images. (*Source image: Internet*)

After many abuses of the legal system and the longest judicial procedure in the State, three of the four were convicted on the basis of their tortured “confessions” which they had denied.

Forensic “evidence” was provided against the only one who had refused to sign a “confession” – an alleged lock of Plunkett’s hair¹² was claimed to have been found at the scene of the robbery; that was insufficient and Plunkett was finally discharged.

The others were released after years of campaigning¹³ and were paid a financial compensation but an official enquiry into the arrests, trials and convictions was never held and currently a campaign for such is underway.¹⁴.

Mick Plunkett remained politically active but after his arrest in the vicinity of an armed training camp was charged with “membership” and scheduled to appear before the Special Criminal Court.

Plunkett, knowing the chances of acquittal in no-jury “the Special” were next to nil, decamped to France.

In Paris he and Mary Reid, a poet-activist and also formerly of the IRSP, shared accommodation. In the summer of 1982, their door was kicked down by armed police of the new special “anti-terrorist” French unit.

Both were arrested, along with another Irishman Stephen King and charged with possession of automatic weapons and explosives. This followed the bombing of a delicatessen in the Jewish quarter of the city which was later revealed to have had police complicity.

Plunkett, Reid and King were accused of being part of an Irish-Palestinian cell, a figment of the special unit’s imagination.

All three denied the charges, the accusation and the existence of such a cell, insisting that if any weapons and explosives had been found in their accommodation, it had been planted there by the police.

Niall Leonach commented to the mourners in Mount Jerome that Plunkett had gone from being involved in the greatest miscarriage of justice in the Irish state to being accused in the greatest miscarriage of justice in the French State’s modern history.

Fortunately for the Irish accused, the special police unit was in serious conflict with the main police force and that helped bring to public view the fact that the armaments had, indeed, been planted on the accused by the “anti-terrorist” police unit.

All three were released after nine months in jail and Mary Reid’s nine-year-old son Cathal had been taken into care.

The whole case was by then such as to convince the Irish State authorities to refrain from severely embarrassing their French counterparts by requesting Plunkett’s extradition to face his charges in the Special Criminal Court.

*FRANCE – OCTOBER 05: Michael Plunkett, Mary Reid, Stephen King in Vincennes, France on October 05th , 1983.* (Photo by Eric BOUVET/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images). *Note poster of the Sallins Trial behind them.*

Working in London at the time, I read the news about the arrests of Irish political activists in Paris and was shocked to see names I recognised.

I remembered the last time I had seen Mick; I had been back in Dún Laoghaire on holiday and with four of my brothers we set off in Mick’s brother Jimmy’s rowing boat from a pier, Mick himself in it too. We had fishing rods and lines and began to fish as we cleared the harbour.

Hours later as the sun dropped to the west, we turned back with our varied catch. Once inside between the piers it was quite dark; a large ship entering the harbour appeared to be bearing down on us and we couldn’t find our flashlight.

The incident provided more excitement than we had wished for but seemed to give extra taste to the pints in the local pub afterwards.

Mick found happiness for a time with Tracy out of which union came their daughter Natacha. After the Good Friday Agreement Mick felt safe to return to Ireland but Tracy remained in Paris with their daughter, Natascha visiting him and his extended family by arrangement on occasion.

Plunkett seemed to have retired from political activity and had also withdrawn from social contact with many of his former contacts. His health deteriorated significantly but nevertheless his death came as something of a shock to many.

Mick Plunkett’s coffin at the funeral parlour, officiated by his daughter Natacha. (*Photo: D.Breatnach*)

Many came to pay their respects at the funeral parlour where his coffin lay and to watch the wonderful collection of photos collected by his ex-partner, Tracy.

His daughter Natacha was there to receive condolences and to offer shots of Irish whisky over the coffin (where tobacco roll-ups were also placed irreverently on the crucifix attached to the woodwork – Mick was reportedly an atheist).

Natacha was also at the cremation service in Mount Jerome cemetery with her mother Tracy, where Plunkett’s coffin was covered in the blue version of the Starry Plough flag¹⁵ before being removed from the hearse, carried by relations.

The Seamus Costello Memorial Committee, in uniform and white gloves, providing a small ceremonial guard of honour.

Mick’s nephew Karl chaired the event and in turn called Jennifer Holland to give a short talk on Mick and his times followed by Niall Leonach, former General Secretary of the IRSP and close comrade of Plunkett’s, for a longer oration on Mick’s background and activism.

Karl provided many personal anecdotes from his association with his uncle and from within family stories, many of them amusing and some hilarious.

He did not however avoid the political and recounted that many of them were kept unaware of the reasons for Mick’s absence and his apparent inability to travel back to Ireland even to visit.

It was by going through some papers in his mother’s room that he came across the IRSP pamphlet on the Sallins case and was shocked; confronting his mother, the story began to be told.¹⁶

Recollecting the family’s trip to Paris to present two children for baptism in Notre Dame Cathedral which Mick attended, Karl spoke about their warm reception there and being tour-guided around by Plunkett, who had acquainted himself with much of the city’s history.

One wonders whether that included the “Wall of the Communards” where in 1871, revolutionaries of the Paris Commune were summarily executed by French firing squads under the command of Marshall Patrice McMahon.

The Marshall was a descendant of Irish “Wild Geese” refugees from Williamite-controlled Ireland. Plunkett would hardly have been unaware of that history and its irony for the Irish.

*The hearse carrying Mick Plunkett’s coffin arrives at Mt. Jerome cemetery, escorted by guard of honour supplied by the Seamus Costello Memorial Committee* (the photo is from their FB page).

SOCIAL, SONG AND FLAG

Later that evening in a large reserved section of the Rochestown Lodge Hotel (formerly the Victor Hotel) just above the large Sallynoggin housing estate, mourners and celebrants gathered to eat, drink and talk.

Some had not seen one another for decades.

Among the many reminiscences of the social and music scene in Dún Laoghaire in the later decades of the last century, including the remark that “our harbour is a marina now”, one of Mick’s sisters spoke of raids by the Special Branch on their family home.

Children would be ordered or pulled out of bed and the mattresses and beds tipped over, allegedly searching for weapons.

Strangely perhaps, there was no performance of musicians or singers or even sing-alongs at the event, though the traditional song The Parting Glass was sung to Plunkett’s daughter Natacha and a small unexpecting audience on the covered patio outside.

Later inside, by which time some had left and following a query about a ceramic badge of the Starry Plough worn by one those remaining, a whole length of the original green-and-gold version of the flag was unfurled, causing much interest and queues forming asking to be photographed behind it.

And a little later, a man sang Patrick Galvin’s Where Is Our James Connolly? to much applause.

*Securing the Starry Plough flag to the coffin on the shoulders of relatives of Mick Plunkett, about to be carried into Mt. Jerome’s chapel for a non-religious remembrance event.* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

This was fitting for as the mourners had been reminded in Mount Jerome, Connolly¹⁷ had been a great inspiration to Mick Plunkett’s political activism and to the IRSP too.

But not only that: a hostel in Dublin city centre empty for many years and very recently occupied by socialist Republicans had been named Connolly House and had that very day witnessed a rally held outside it to resist a threatened Garda operation to evict the occupants.

It seemed to me that something other than the remembrance of a retired fighter alone had happened at the Plunkett memorial events, something more than the appropriate marker of a past and finished period in Irish history, as had been suggested by Holland in her oration.

It seemed to me that the history of struggle in Ireland for national self-determination and social justice had to an extent been re-invoked, that it appeared to some extent as the ghost of struggles past but also as the gaining substance of struggles present and, in particular, yet to come.

I think Mick would have been pleased and, in any case, in defiance of the declarations of Fukuyama and such idealogues, history is nowhere near finished or dead. As some have commented, it is not even past.

End.

FOOTNOTES

1A harbour town seven miles south of Dublin city centre, in Dublin County but administered by DL-Rathdown Council for some years now.

2Which I heard pronounced as “Lennox”.

3He is more usually referred to as “Lord Edward Fitzgerald” which, apart from being somewhat historically inaccurate, does him a disservice. He was a republican, renounced his title and his sister Lucy said of him some years after his death in prison that “He was a paddy and no more; he desired no other title than this.”

4The Wikipedia entry on Frescati House and the campaign makes no mention at all of this sit-in, Garda attack or the subsequent court cases, of which there is ample documentary evidence. Hopefully someone will undertake its appropriate updating.

5Liam Cosgrave was a Fine Gael politician, son of the Leader of the Irish parliamentary Opposition from 1965 to 19873 and Taoiseach (Prime Minister) from 1973 to 1977, W.T Cosgrave.

6The Sinn Féin party has gone through many metamorphises, from being a reformist dual-monarchy party, to revolutionary republican to constitutionalist. Constance Markievicz was a socialist Republican who took part in the 1916 Rising as an officer in the Irish Citizen Army – the name of a socialist revolutionary woman chosen for the cumann (‘association’, a branch of the SF party at the time) indicated an inclination towards revolution, feminism and socialism.

7Osgur, Caoilte and Oisín.

8Séamus Costello (b. 1939) was murdered by the Official IRA in Dublin on 5^th October 1977.

9An example of the medium-seriousness was the charge of “membership of an illegal organisation” under the Amendment to the Offences Against the State Act, introduced in 1972 which required only the unsupported word of a Garda officer at rank of superintendent or above for conviction and a virtually automatic jail sentence of one to two years.

10€237,389.81 — without taking into account inflation — for today’s value

11Notably John Fitzpatrick, who years later publicly challenged the State to charge him with the offence to which he had “confessed” – there was no response.

12If it had been Plunkett’s hair, it had to have been planted by the Heavy Gang, since Mick had been nowhere near that scene and, in fact, the robbery had been carried out by the Provisional IRA. In addition, without the later development of DNA testing, all a sample of hair could tell, apart from its natural colour, was the blood-type of its owner and millions may share that.

13Some of those involved at the time, whether as victims or as campaigners, were present at some of the funeral events too, including Osgur Breatnach, Nicky Kelly, Caoilte and Peetera Schilders-Bhreatnach.

14 https://sallinsinquirynow.ie/

15The flag with a design in the shape of the constellation known as Ursa Mayor was of the Irish Citizen Army, formed to defend the workers during the strike and 8-month lockout of 1913 and later fought in the 1916 Rising. Originally the design was of the constellation in white or silver overlaid by the depiction of a plough in gold, with sword as the plough-share and all on a green background. A later version was the plain blue one with Ursa Mayor outlined in white stars. That version was the one in use by the short-lived Republican Congress of the 1930s and was for many years later, probably up to the end of the century, the main one displayed and therefore familiar to Republicans and socialists (even for years flown by the Irish Labour Party) but has now been largely supplanted by the original green version.

16This is not at all an unusual experience in Ireland and, whether by desire to protect the young, pain of reminiscence or even disapproval, much of our history has been concealed from generations for a time or even completely lost.

17James Connolly, revolutionary socialist, trade union organiser, historian, journalist, song-writer and one of the Seven Signatories of the 1916 Proclamation of Independence, was tried by British military court for his leading role in the Rising and executed by firing squad.

SOURCES & FURTHER READING

https://rip.ie/death-notice/michael-mick-plunkett-glasthule-dublin/494040

Edward Fitzgerald a republican: https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/heritage/praise-the-lord-and-pass-the-egalitarianism-1.1534895

‘Bolshevik tactics’: fighting for better housing in 1980s Dún Laoghaire

Frescati House (with the curious omission at the time of access of the DHAC sit-in, police attack and subsequent trials): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frescati_House

Call for enquiry into the Sallins case: https://sallinsinquirynow.ie/

Civil and human rights criticism of the Special Criminal Court: https://www.iccl.ie/2022/international-call-for-end-to-special-criminal-court/

Mary Read & Paris frame-up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Reid_(activist)
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/socialist-republican-and-poet-with-a-big-heart-1.349096
https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2020/0325/1126344-1982-irish-republicans-france-mitterrand-vincennes/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sallins_Train_robbery
Sallins frame-up: https://www.rsvplive.ie/news/irish-news/1976-sallins-robbery-saw-nicky-25971809
https://www.thewhistleblower.ie/booking
https://extra.ie/2022/01/17/news/irish-news/hunger-striker-nicky-kelly