Category: Religious Sectarianism

PATRICIO Y EL COLOR DE LA REBELIÓN

On By rebelbreezeIn Análises Político, Canción, Canción en Lucha, Comentario Cultural, DIa de San Patricio, Diaspora Irlandesa, Historia de Irlanda, Religious SectarianismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Tiempo de lectura: 6 min.)

Mucha gente sabe que el 17 de marzo es el Día de San Patricio, una fiesta nacional en Irlanda y un día festivo en algunos otros lugares del mundo donde la diáspora irlandesa ha tenido un impacto (1. ¿Pero por qué? ¿Y por qué el trébol y el color verde?

Al cristiano San Patricio, un esclavo galés fugitivo de los irlandeses que regresó como misionero cristiano a Irlanda, se le atribuye el papel principal en la conversión de los irlandeses de sus religiones paganas al cristianismo. Como tal, es venerado por las iglesias católica y protestante.

A diferencia de muchos lugares de Europa, la conversión parece haber sido en gran parte pacífica, sin evidencia del fuego y la espada con los que se impuso en muchas otras tierras. Quizás debido a esto, los monjes irlandeses registraron gran parte de la rica mitología y leyendas de la Irlanda pagana.

Pero no existe razón histórica cualquiera para asociar a Patrick con el trébol. La afirmación de que lo usó para demostrar el tres en uno de la Trinidad cristiana es una fábula y las copias de su Confessio, ampliamente aceptada como la auténtica autobiografía de Patrick, no lo mencionan.

La referencia a esta fábula no se registra hasta siglos después, pero un argumento mucho más convincente en contra de su veracidad es que los paganos tenían muchas trinidades deístas y los irlandeses no fueron una excepción, entre los cuales la diosa Mór-Righean2 en la saga Táin3 es la mejor recordada.

De hecho, parece que hay pocas razones para creer que los druidas preferían el trébol y la búsqueda en Internet hace años no arrojó ninguna referencia hasta que más recientemente apareció una sola referencia que no proporcionó la fuente de su afirmación.

Entonces, no hay una razón auténtica para el trébol, pero ¿qué pasa con el color verde? Resulta que la asociación de los irlandeses con el color verde también es históricamente reciente, y el azul tiene una asociación anterior. Incluso hoy, solo una de las cuatro provincias, Leinster, tiene verde en su bandera.

Una bandera similar a la de Leinster, un arpa dorada sobre un fondo verde, fue ondeada por primera vez e introducida por Eoghan Rua Ó Néill a la Confederación Católica, la alianza de irlandeses y colonos normandos contra Cromwell y el Parlamento inglés en 1642.

Siguieron varias versiones de Arpa y Corona en banderas, pero la primera organización republicana irlandesa de masas, los Irlandeses Unidos, volvieron a colocar el Arpa sin la Corona sobre un fondo verde para su bandera, con el lema “está recién encordada y se escuchará” al lado del arpa.

El emblema de los Irlandeses Unidos; el arpa fue reproducida dorada sobre fondo verde para la bandera. (Imagen de origen: Internet)

John Sheils, presbiteriano de Drogheda e Irlandés Unido, en su canción The Rights of Man de estilo aisling compuesta en algún momento antes del levantamiento de 1798, reunió los íconos de una Irlanda femenina, el arpa, el color verde, San Patricio y el trébol juntos en su llamado a la unidad contra Inglaterra.

Aludiendo a “la planta de tres hojas”, Sheils hace que San Patricio declame que

“es tres en uno,
para probar su unidad
en esa comunidad
que aguanta impunemente
a los Derechos de la Humanidad.”
(Traducido del inglés por DB)

El “tres en uno” es una referencia obvia a la unidad de “católicos, protestantes y disidentes4” buscada por los Irlandeses Unidos y vocalizada por Wolfe Tone entre otros líderes. Sin embargo, no hay evidencia de un uso a gran escala por parte de los ‘Unidos del trébol para significar esa unidad.

Y el verde puede haberse inspirado en el color que Camille Desmoulins pidió a los parisinos que usaran en sus sombreros como señal de revolución dos días antes de la toma de la Bastilla en 1789, aunque pronto eligieron el azul para emular la Revolución Americana.

El fracaso de los levantamientos de los Irlandeses Unidos en 1798 y 1803 fue seguido por una severa represión, lo que refleja el temor de la Corona y sus leales colonos de perder su colonia irlandesa. El débil Parlamento irlandés fue abolido por sobornos e Irlanda se convirtió en parte formal del Reino Unido.

Como festividad cristiana, el Día de San Patricio podría haber parecido un día de fiesta inocuo, aceptable para el gobernante y los gobernados, por lo tanto, seguro para celebrar y usar el trébol como algo inocuo.

Llevando el Verde

Me parece probable que en una atmósfera de represión a gran escala, las personas que simpatizan con los republicanos irlandeses podrían optar por vestirse de verde en público al menos un día al año, en forma de trébol en “St. Día de San Patricio.”

La canción The Wearing of the Green hace referencia a la represión que siguió al levantamiento de los Irlandeses Unidos de 1798 con la letra “Están ahorcando a hombres y mujeres por llevar el verde” y “La ley prohíbe que el trébol crezca en suelo irlandés“. (6) (Traducido del inglés por DB)

La Hermandad Republicana Irlandesa, formada el día de San Patricio de 1856 simultáneamente en Nueva York, EE. UU. y en Dublín, Irlanda, adoptó el arpa dorada sobre un fondo verde para su bandera, aunque también usaron el Sunburst, que se cree que es el símbolo de los legendarios guerreros Fianna.

(Imagen procedente de: Historia de Irlanda)

La formación de la IRB, o “los fenianos”, como se les conoció tanto por amigos como por enemigos, se produjo en una época de gran emigración irlandesa, entonces mayoritariamente católica en religión y superando con creces la de la mayoría protestantes y disidentes de finales del siglo XVIII a los EEUU y a Canadá.

Oleadas de emigrantes irlandeses siguieron a quienes lograron salir de Irlanda durante la Gran Hambre de 1845-1848. Cada vez que iban a un país o colonia de habla inglesa, los irlandeses católicos sufrían discriminación por parte de los protestantes anglosajones blancos (WASPs) que se habían establecido allí antes que ellos.

Los irlandeses que formaron un batallón para luchar contra la segunda guerra expansionista de Estados Unidos contra México (1846-48) pueden haber enarbolado la bandera verde y el arpa; ciertamente llamaron a su unidad el Batallón de San Patricio y eran conocidos por los latinoamericanos como “Los San Patricios”.

En el Extranjero

El Día de San Patricio se convirtió en uno de celebración de la identidad irlandesa, más étnica que religiosa, una forma incluso de hacer alarde de esa identidad frente a sus detractores y perseguidores. Los irlandeses que luchaban en gran número en el Ejército de la Unión lo celebraron durante la actual Guerra Civil Estadounidense (1861-65).

En su primera invasión de Canadá en 1866, los veteranos de la Guerra Civil Estadounidense organizados por una rama de los fenianos ondearon una bandera verde con un arpa y, se dice, con las letras “IRA” en ella, el primer uso de este acrónimo en historia.

Pintura representando la Battalla de Ridgeway, la invasión Feniana de Canadá, 1866: observe la bandera irlandesa (Imagen obtenida: Internet).

Después de la guerra, los irlandeses en los EE. UU. celebraron el Día de San Patricio en desfiles masivos con sus veteranos del Ejército de la Unión en sus uniformes de regimiento, arrojando su identidad y su contribución a los EE. UU. frente a sus perseguidores, no solo los intelectuales WASP sino también los nativista “Know Nothings”7.

Los convictos irlandeses en Australia celebraron la fiesta en 1795 y, desde que fueron sentenciados en 1798 y 1803 los Irlandeses Unidos y fueron enviados allí encadenados, probablemente celebrados a menudo después por ellos, así como por los presos políticos posteriores, los Jóven Irlandeses en 1848 y los Fenianos en 1867.

La diáspora irlandesa en Australia, que fue calumniada debido a la oposición de muchos a luchar por el Imperio Británico en la 1a Guerra Mundial, marchó en un desfile el Día de San Patricio en 1921 con veteranos de la Primera Guerra Mundial en uniforme al frente,10 pidiendo la autodeterminación de Irlanda.

Como activista de la comunidad irlandesa en Gran Bretaña, nunca hubo dudas sobre dónde estaría yo el 17 de marzo: celebraría el día de la fiesta con la comunidad en el evento que habíamos organizado, ya sea un desfile o una recepción.

Durante una época de bombardeos del IRA y represión generalizada de la comunidad irlandesa11, hubo algunos llamamientos para abandonar los desfiles de San Patricio, pero otros y yo sentimos que era más importante que nunca celebrarlos en público en un momento en que la comunidad estaba bajo ataque y lo hizimos.

James Connolly debe haber experimentado la celebración del Día de San Patricio en su comunidad de la diáspora irlandesa en Edimburgo, más tarde como inmigrante en Irlanda, nuevamente como inmigrante en Nueva York y nuevamente como inmigrante en Irlanda.

Monumento a James Connolly, Beresford Place, Dublín. (Foto obtenida: Internet)

En marzo de 1916, un mes antes de su conjunto liderazgo del Alzamiento por el que sería fusilado por un pelotón de fusilamiento británico, escribió apoyando la celebración por parte de los irlandeses del Día de San Patricio.

“… la mente irlandesa, incapaz debido a la servidumbre o esclavitud de la raza irlandesa de dar cuerpo y existencia material a sus pensamientos más nobles, crea un emblema para tipificar esa concepción espiritual por la cual la raza irlandesa trabajó en vano.

“Si esa concepción espiritual de la religión, de la libertad, de la nacionalidad existe o no existió en ninguna parte excepto en la mente irlandesa, es sin embargo una realidad histórica tan grande como si estuviera incorporada en un libro de estatutos, o tuviera una existencia material garantizada por todas las páginas de la historia.”

“Por lo tanto, honramos el Día de San Patricio (y su leyenda aliada del trébol) porque en él vemos la concepción espiritual de la identidad separada de la raza irlandesa: un ideal de unidad en la diversidad, de diversidad que no entra en conflicto con la unidad“.(12)
(Traducido del inglés por DB)

No pidió, y ciertamente habría repudiado, la celebración del día de la fiesta por parte de una unidad del ejército británico con ramitas de trébol o por políticos irlandeses neo-colones que lo celebraran con líderes del imperialismo estadounidense.

Al comentar sobre el viaje inverso de ese tipo cuando el presidente estadounidense Reagan llegó a Irlanda (en medio de una represión de la oposición anti imperialista a gran escala por parte del Estado irlandés), el bardo irlandés de la canción folklórica Christy Moore cantó en Hey Ronnie Regan:

Estarás llevando el verde
Abajo en Ballyporeen,
El ‘pueblo de la patata pequeña’;
Pon tus brazos alrededor de Garrett
Y cuelga tu zanahoria
Pero nunca lograrás que me une a la OTAN.
(Traducido del inglés por DB)

El poeta anglo irlandés y premio Nobel de Literatura WB Yeats escribió en una reflexión sobre el levantamiento de 1916:

Ahora y en el tiempo de ser,
Dondequiera que se use verde,
son cambiados, cambiados por completo:
Nace una belleza terrible.
(Traducido del inglés por DB)

Debería ser “terrible” solo para los enemigos de la libertad y la autodeterminación irlandesas, para los imperialistas, los colonizadores y sus partidarios fascistas y racistas, pero verdaderamente hermoso para todos los demás.

Al despedirnos, volvemos nuevamente a las palabras de John Sheils de la década de 1790 que puso en boca de Irlanda, la diosa Gráinne (traducido del inglés por DB):

Que cada comunidad
detesta la desunión;
en amor y unidad
camina de mano;
Y crée a la vieja Gráinne
Que esa orgullosa Britannia
Nunca más les robará
de los Derechos de la Humanidad.

Trifolium dubium, el Trebol Menor o Amarillo, an Seamair Bhuí, candidato más seguro de lista de treboles de ser el “shamrock” tradicional. (Photo: Internet)

Fin.

Notas al pie:

1Terranova en Canadá y la isla caribeña de Monserrat. También es el más celebrado de todos los días festivos nacionales por todo el mundo.

2Suele traducirse en inglés como la “Morrigan”, una trinidad compuesta por tres hermanas, a veces Badb, Macha (número de lugares que llevan su nombre, incluido Ard Mhacha [Armagh]) y Nemain, otras veces Badb, Macha y Anand. A veces se las representaba como hermanas de otra tríada, Banba, Éiriu (de donde se deriva el nombre del país Éire) y Fódla. Las tríadas pueden ser tres aspectos de la única Diosa en cada caso.

3Táin Bó Cuailgne/ The Cattle Raid of Cooley, parte del Ciclo Ulster Cycle de cuentos, protagonizada por el legendario guerrero Sétanta o Cú Chulainn.

4Católicos (la gran mayoría de los irlandeses), Anglicanos (la pequeña minoría pero el grupo religioso reinante) y las otras Sectas protestantes, en particular los presbiterianos, que tenían muchos más seguidores que los anglicanos.

5 Los Irlandeses Unidos fueron muy influenciados por la Revolución Francesa, por supuesto.

6 La versión más conocida es la del dramaturgo Dion Boucicault, adaptada para su obra de 1864 Arragh na Pogue, o La Boda en Wicklow, ambientada en el condado de Wicklow durante la rebelión de 1798 (Wikipedia)

7 Bandas ‘nativistas’ de los primeros colonos estadounidenses que se movilizaron violentamente contra los irlandeses y los afroamericanos; cuando fueron juzgados en la corte, afirmaron “no saber nada”.

8https://www.nma.gov.au/exhibitions/not-just-ned/about/about/st-patricks-day

9Tal fue la oposición popular que los británicos temieron imponer el servicio militar obligatorio y, en cambio, celebraron un referéndum en el que se votó por no tener servicio militar obligatorio. Un segundo referéndum fracasó nuevamente, aunque por una mayoría más pequeña. Sin embargo, muchos voluntarios australianos de procedencia murieron luchando por el Imperio Británico.

10 Por supuesto, tal identificación con el ‘nuevo país’ de asentamiento puede ser problemática en sí misma, particularmente si ese país es o se vuelve imperialista, como de hecho ha sido el caso con los EE.UU y con Australia).

11Especialmente a partir de 1974 hasta el resurgimiento de la comunidad en apoyo de los Huelgistas de Hambre en 1981.

12Subrayado por mí, seguramente un mensaje apropiado para estos tiempos.

Fuentes:

How the harp became the symbol of Ireland | EPIC Museum (epicchq.com)

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

(84) Judy Garland- Wearing of the Green(1940) – YouTube

https://www.marxists.org/archive/connolly/1916/03/natlfest.htm

THE LID LIFTS ANEW ON THE SEETHING VIRULENCE OF LOYALISM

On By rebelbreezeIn Cultural Comment, Current Affairs Comment, History, irish history, Mass Media Criticism, Political Analysis, Religious Sectarianism2 Comments

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time main text: 5 mins.)

Many public figures have been condemning the content of a video live-streamed from an Orange Order Hall in which people were singing lyrics mocking the murder of an Irishwoman on her honeymoon in Mauritius.

There is nothing new I can add to the condemnations of this disgusting exhibition. But what a great many of the condemnations lack is context; i.e they treat this exhibition as though it were some aberration from the norm of Loyalism – it was not, it was exactly in line with and an expression of the backwardness, sectarianism, right-wing racism, homophobia and general phobia that is the very essence of Loyalism.

BACKGROUND OF LOYALISM AND THE ORANGE ORDER IN IRELAND

The planters and settlers that English1 colonialism installed on Irish soil were intended to control the indigenous population along with those “gone native” descendants of the Norman conquerors. A number of attempts were made to correct those Normans who had been ‘corrupted’ by the Irish and had become “more Irish than the Irish themselves” and one of the most infamous attempts through law, the Statutes of Killkenny in 13662 laid out a long list of behaviours expected of the “degenerate English”, mostly in terms of things they were to cease doing: in sum they were to cease integrating with the indigenous people in custom, language and law.

Outside of the Pale3, the cities, such attempts failed in the main and the next big effort was the Plantations. Using the failure of the Norman Irish and Gaelic lords to adapt to the Reformation, now an English state religion, their lands were confiscated and parcelled out to big landlords who then rented them out to smaller landlords and small-holders – and none of those were to be Irish. In fact, they were required to be English-speaking, Protestant in religion and to build their towns and important buildings as strongholds4. And not to even employ native Irish, in case these should corrupt the settlements from within.

The intentions of the Plantations were made quite clear and the settlers were, from the outset to be a means for a tiny minority of feudal and financier elites to control and exploit the vast majority indigenous population through the use of a middle stratum which was to be separate from and considered superior to natives in religion, culture, custom, landholding, legal rights – and allegiance.

These plantations met with mixed success – one of the problems being the scarcity of labour against a prohibition to employ the natives – but the problem of a conquered but not reconciled native majority remained, even after its cultural, legal, political and military leadership had been eliminated. And then a section of the settlers themselves, many descendants of Cromwellian conquerors and their supporters, began to have aspirations to control their own markets. They attempted to expand the Irish Parliament – then open only to adherents of the State religion, the Anglican communion — to include representation from the larger group of dissenting Protestant sects5 and of the huge majority of Irish Catholics.

The attempt, under the leadership of the moderate and ultimately Crown-loyal Henry Grattan failed, through a mixture of sectarianism, fear of being eventually dispossessed of their stolen lands – and outright Crown bribery. The most determined of the Protestant patriots then turned to revolution and led the United Irishmen in the uprisings of 1798 and 1803, with a credo of unity for an independent and republican Ireland, regardless of religion6.

CREATION OF THE ORANGE ORDER

But the British ruling elite saw which way the wind was blowing, foreboding its overthrow in Ireland if its garrison population joined with the majority and, as well as making military and spying preparations, the British took important ideological and social action.

Created in 1795 as what might be seen today as a kind of independent Ku Klux Klan organisation to keep down the ‘uppitty native niggers’7, the Orange Order quickly became (as the Klan did in some areas too) a police force on its own dissidents. And, as the Klan enjoyed the tacit support of the patrician Southern US elite, the Orange Order has been supported by the settler elite in Ireland from its inception. This was formalised with the Order’s central control over all previously independent lodges in 1798, the year of the first United Irish uprising.

After the defeat of the United Irish uprisings, the Order became an active persecutor of any sign of resistance not only among the native Irish majority, the Catholics but also – and in some areas chiefly – a hunting down of any signs of Protestant allegiance to the United Irish or other ‘suspect’ behavour such as tolerance of Catholics. Those Protestant followers of “Unitedism” that did not emigrate to the USA and Canada had to keep their heads down or face the consequences, as did Roddy McCorley, hanged on Toombridge in Co. Antrim on 28th February 1800.

March 1995: Two future First Ministers of the colonial statelet on the sectarian Orange march along the Garvaghy Road: David Trimble (left), First Minister from 1998 to 2002, and the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) from 1995 to 2005; Ian Paisley (right), leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) from 1971 to 2008 and First Minister from 2007 to 2008. (Sourced: Irish News)

REACTIONARY IN INSPIRATION AND TRADITION

The Orange Order drew its colour and other visual paraphernalia in association with William of Orange (1650 – 1702), who was crowned King William III by the British Parliament, the forces of which, along with his own Dutch ones, he led in the British civil war against those of King James II of England and the latter’s Irish and French allies. Orange was the colour of the Dutch royal family of Orange-Nasseau and therefore of the royalist party in Holland, in opposition to the republican party there8.

Following his defeat of the Jacobite forces in Ireland William III brought in the Penal Laws, the body of Anglican supremacy and anti-Catholic legislation which were to survive in greater or lesser form from 1695 to 1829.

Loyalists celebrate annually with sectarian triumphalist parades in the Six Counties the victory of the Williamite forces at the Battle of the Boyne on July 12th 16909. Loyalists imagine the Boyne victory was of the Protestant religion over Catholic “Papism”, unaware that the victory was celebrated by special mass in the Vatican and in some other Catholic cities. The Jacobite war in Ireland was part of the Nine Years’ War in Europe and forces of Protestant principalities and kingdoms could be found on either side, as could those of Catholic persuasion.

Loyalists attacking their own colonial police for eventually, in 2002, impeding their “right” to march in triumphalist sectarianism around Drumcree and to harass and terrify children attending a nearby Catholic school. (Sourced: Belfast Telegraph)

Their unequivocal message to their non-unionist neighbours is “This is our place, not yours. If you want to live here, accept what we give you and keep your heads down.” This fostered sectarianism has penetrated even trade unions, ensuring that wages and social conditions in the Six Counties have been the worst in the whole of the UK.

Mickey Hart and daughter Michaela celebrating the Gaelic football 2008 All-Ireland victory of Tyrone over Kerry (Sourced: Internet).

WHY THE LOYALIST MOCKERY OF THIS MURDER?

The video which directed such recent public attention on the behaviour of some Loyalists was of a song sung communally in which the lyrics mocked the murder of Michaela McAreavey who apparently surprised a thief in her Mauritius hotel room on 11th May. Probably not a single person celebrating that murder knew the woman or had any reason to hate her for anything she had done. What they knew was that she was the daughter of Micky Harte and that he was the manager of the Tyrone County Gaelic Football team10. Gaelic football11 is an Irish traditional sport and, since Loyalists eschew anything knowingly Gaelic, Harte is also probably of Catholic background; therefore almost certainly would have been his daughter Michaela too. Incredible though it may seem to many, that was enough to inspire that outpouring of hatred – a hatred that is always and has always been there in Loyalism.

The scene in the Orange Hall with Loyalists singing in mockery of the murder of Michaela McAreavey (Sourced: Internet)

It seems clear that the song, the lyrics with which much of the audience in the video seem familiar, was sung in the Orange Hall in Dundonald12, Co. Down which, like Tyrone, is one of the Six Counties currently forming the British colony in Ireland.

According to media reports, “a spokesman for the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland criticised the video and also confirmed that an investigation would now take place. “The video currently circulating on social media relating to the murder of Michaela McAreavey is utterly abhorrent and the Orange Institution condemns the content without reservation,” a statement read. “The behaviour of those involved and their actions have no place in our society and certainly do not reflect the ethos of our organisation.”

On the contrary, as people who live in or near areas where the Orange Order holds sway will know, the behaviour exactly “reflects the ethos of the organisation” and of the general ideology of Loyalism.

Dundonald Orange Hall photo on its FB page (Sourced: Internet)

The central ideology of the Orange Order has always been not only a phobic hatred of Catholics but also of anything that might smell of egalitarianism, equality or progressive social ideas. It and its adherents for generations have held triumphalist sectarian marches deliberately routed to march through predominantly Catholic residential areas and past Catholic churches, these marches escorted by the sectarian colonial gendarmerie13, often forced through against local opposition.

For decades, the Orange Order and Loyalism in general opposed equal treatment and civil rights for Catholics in terms of employment, housing, franchise, education and law. That breeding ground gave rise to the Loyalist terror murder squads, operating for decades in conjunction with colonial police and British Army14.

True to its reactionary origins, the Orange Order and Loyalism in general have a strong emotional attachment to British Royalty and to an ethos of British Empire and colonialism. But Loyalism has also opposed all progressive social innovations and legislation, even those emanating from its supposedly ideological homeland, the rest of the UK and, in many cases delayed its implementation in the colony for years15.

Loyalism has been a sectarian influence in the game of soccer not only in Ireland but in Britain, with a triple alliance of sectarianism and racism between fans of football clubs Linfield, Rangers and Chelsea.16 The racism and reactionary ideology of “Hillbillies17” in the USA are also attributed to origins in Irish Loyalism.

Loyalism has also been characterised by racist attitudes and attacks on ethnic minorities in parts of the Six Counties independently of religion. Loyalism lines up to oppose anything they feel that is supported by the hated “taigues” or “Fenians” (their codewords for Catholics), for e.g Palestinians, Basque nationalists, inquiries into killings by the British Army ….

Despite the scrambling of Unionism – the Orange Order, politicians, Linfield FC management — to disassociate itself from the disgusting exhibition of anti-Irish and anti-Catholic hatred expressed in their ‘humorous’ mocking of the murder of a young woman, the song and video were a completely cogent expression of Loyalism, the social prop of Unionism. They were a true reflection of the history and underlying ethos of the Orange Order and of the sectarian statelet created by the British ruling class as a garrison and permanent foothold in Ireland.

End.

FOOTNOTES

1Later one can talk of British colonialism and imperialism but in the beginning it was the English feudal and financier classes that set out to conquer their neighbours in Britain and across the sea in Ireland. The Crown was always primarily the English Crown, even when it became also formally that of Scotland and, later, of Ireland.

2i.e not even two centuries after the Norman invasion in 1169.

3The area of administration of the occupation, originally a fortified area with Dublin Castle at its centre.

4One can still see the pattern of settler towns with the buildings constructed around a square or “diamond” becoming easily converted into the walls of a fort, the main roads leading in and out fairly easily barricaded even with carts and waggons. Native Irish towns had no such construction, often running along a street or gathered around a crossroads, river bank, port etc.

5In particular the Presbyterians but also Methodists, Unitarians, “Quakers” (Society of Friends) and others.

6The unity of “Protestant (i.e Anglican), Catholic and Dissenter”.

7“Uppitty niggers” was a racist white term in the USA to describe Americans of African descent who were unwilling to be treated as second-class citizens or even worse. For such people to become thought of as “uppitty” frequently meant a range of punishments that included beating, jail and lynching. The Ku Klux Klan is a white Protestant supremacist and extremely right-wing organisation in the USA, formed after the defeat of the Confederacy and understood as having three distinct phases, the last one being also current. Despite a history of using extreme violence, it is not banned in the USA.

8Such as the Patriots of 1785 (https://ern.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriottentijd).

9July 1st according to the old-style calendar.

10 Mickey Harte (born 1952) is a Gaelic football manager from County Tyrone, Ireland who currently manages the Louth county team, having managed the Tyrone county team from 2002 and, at his resignation in 2020, was the longest-serving manager then active with the same team in inter-county competition.

11Gaelic football is one of four traditional sports regulated by the Gaelic Athletic Association/ Cumann Lúthchleas na hÉireann, with 2,200 clubs spread over all of Ireland and, with high community involvement is the largest amateur sporting association in the world

12Their FB page is currently down.

13Armed police force, formerly the Royal Irish Constabulary, later the Royal Ulster Constabulary, currently “Police Force of Northern Ireland.”

14See for example Lethal Allies – British collusion in Ireland (2013) by Anne Cadwaller. Loyalists killed the most people in one day during the 30 years’ war with the Dublin & Monaghan Bombings, 17 May 1974. Despite their self-promotion as fighters against the IRA, nearly all of their victims have been unarmed civilians, often randomly-chosen in Catholic residential areas.

15For example, the 1967 Sexual Offences Act only applied to England and Wales – it was resisted in Scotland and the Six Counties colony. Decriminalisation reached Scotland in 1980 and, after a complaint to the European Court of Justice and a judgement against the statelet in 1981, homosexuality in private was finally decriminalised in the Six Counties the following year – 15 years after its original decriminalisation in England. Similarly with lesbian and gay rights to civil marriage, introduced in England and Wales in 2013; in Scotland in 2014 but couples in the Six Counties had to wait until 2020, seven years after its introduction in England.

16Linfield FC is based in south Belfast in the British colony, Rangers FC in Glasgow and Chelsea FC in SW London. But there are also sectarian divisions among fans such as those of Rangers/ Celtic to be found also in Edinburgh between and Hibernian and Hearts (Midlothian) clubs and even between Everton and Liverpool as well as Manchester City and Manchester United.

17As in “Billies”, i.e followers of King Billy (William of Orange) who are living in the hills.

SOURCES & FURTHER READING

Mass media report: https://www.thejournal.ie/michaela-mcareavey-video-song-criticised-northern-ireland-5782011-Jun2022/

The Ku Klux Klan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan

Social equality in the Six Counties:

https://www.bl.uk/lgbtq-histories/lgbtq-timeline

https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/northern-ireland/northern-ireland-in-dark-ages-on-equality-laws-commissioner-tells-mps-40967176.html

Bombing children at play

On By rebelbreezeIn British imperialism, History, Irish Civil War, irish history, Irish Republicanism, Massacres, Political Analysis, Religious SectarianismLeave a comment

(from The Treason Felony Blog le buíochas: The Weaver Street Bombing and not dealing with the past)

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

In Belfast, on 13th February 1922, some children playing in Milewater Street, at the corner of Weaver Street, off the York Road, were approached by two Special Constables and told to go and “play with their own” (Special Constables invariably being Protestant, the children were Catholics in a largely Protestant district). They joined other children in the mainly Catholic-occupied Weaver Street and played on a swing attached to a lamp-post. Ten minutes later, two men came to the North Derby Street end of Weaver Street (one eye witness claimed one Special Constable had just spoken to the same two men). They were about 20 metres away from where the children were playing. One of the men then threw a bomb into the middle of the children. As the bomb exploded, gunfire directed into Weaver Street from North Derby Street, covered the two men’s retreat.

Weaver St map
Map showing Weaver Street running from North Derby Street to Milewater Street (which isn’t named on the map)

The explosion killed or injured Mary Johnson (13), Catherine Kennedy (14), W.J. Dempsey (13), Annie Pimley (16), John O’Hanlon (16), Elizabeth O’Hanlon (11), Murtie O’Hanlon (16), Barney Kennedy (10), John McCluskey (12), Rose Ann McNeill (13), Mary McClinton (18), Mary Kerr (6), Susanne Lavery (14), George O’Connor (16), Joseph Conway (12), Patrick Maguire (14), Kate O’Neill (14), Robert McBirney (16) and William Connolly (13). All lived in Weaver Street. Adults standing in their doorways were also badly injured.

The force of the blast threw the children up into the air and caused catastrophic injuries, maiming many of those who survived. Mary Johnson and Catherine Kennedy died immediately. Eliza O’Hanlon died the next day. Statements made in the press and in Westminster indicate that three of those injured had died by the next day, the third being O’Hanlon. By the time the inquest was held on 3rd March, a fourth girl had died from the blast. Two adults were to succumb to their injuries. Margaret Smith died on the 23rd March, while Mary Owens (who lived in nearby Shore Street) died from injuries sustained in the blast on the 6th April.

This was not the first bombing of its kind. On September 25th the previous year, a bomb had been thrown into a group of Catholic children on Milewater Street, injuring nine, including four under six years of age. One man, George Barry, died from injuries he received. The bomb had such force that two houses were wrecked. A bomb had also been thrown by loyalists into a group of school children in Herbert Street on 12th January, injuring six (the Belfast Telegraph erroneously reported it as an IRA attack). The same month, a bomb had been thrown into Weaver Street from a passing taxi.

The Belfast Telegraph claimed the 13th February bomb was one of the largest ever used in the city. It also implausibly offered justification for the bomb attack, saying shots had earlier been fired at an armoured car in Weaver Street. In retrospect, the Belfast Telegraph’s link to an attack of an armoured car merely ties the Special Constabulary closer to the bombing (the ‘Specials’, created at roughly the same time, performed the Black and Tans roles in repression and reprisals in the north).

James Craig also included a reference to the bomb in a report sent to the Colonial Secretary, Winston Churchill and read in Westminster the next day. It stated that there had been…

..the indiscriminate throwing of bombs over a wall into Weaver Street, a Sinn Fein area, which resulted in the death of two children and the wounding of fourteen others. These outrages are greatly deplored by my Government, especially the latter dastardly deed, involving the lives of children.

Craig was more concerned about a gun battle in Clones between republican forces and Special Constables travelling to Enniskillen the day before the Weaver Street bombing. Joe Devlin fumed that Craigs wording was deliberately vague and that some international press had been led to believe that the bomb was thrown by republicans.

As sectarian attacks continued through 1921 and 1922, and even after the 13th February bomb, the (relatively) safe places for Catholic families to live in that part of the York Road had shrank to the area around Weaver Street. The attacks continued to intensify in early summer. On 18th May Thomas McCaffrey from Shore Street was killed. On the night of 20th May, Thomas McShane from Jennymount Street was killed. That same night the remaining Catholic residents of Weaver Street, Milewater Street, North Derby Street, Shore Street and Jennymount Street, some one hundred and forty-eight families, were forced from their homes at gunpoint. By the 21st May 1922 the Catholic community that had established itself around Weaver Street had fled. The 1924 street directory only shows one household remaining from the 1918 directory (in comparison, nearby Seaview Street had two thirds of the same households). Houses in Weaver Street remained occupied until the 1960s as Unilever and the Associated Feed Mills bought up property around Shore Street, Weaver Street and Milewater Street eventually enclosing all but the York Road end of Milewater Street.

The view today of where Weaver Street met North Derby Street. This is more or less where the bomb was thrown from.

Today, Shore Street and Weaver Street are gone, no longer visible on the streetscape of Belfast. Patiently neglected over the decades after 1922, their former occupants were dispersed around other districts of the city. Similarly, the detail of its own particular sadness, sectarianism and savagery are now, largely, long forgotten. The memory of the violence of 1920-22, mostly unarticulated, was indelibly etched into the psyche of the Catholic residents of Belfast.

Some 20-25% of those killed in the 1920-22 conflict died in Belfast but, with few notable exceptions, little was written or said about it over the decades that followed (even today only a handful of books have been written about it). So despite what has happened since 1969, few have considered how the memory of 1920-22 influenced communities. Even fewer have considered the role an absence of public discourse around the violence of 1920-22 may have had in later outbreaks of sectarian violence in the 1930s and 1960s.

Today, the very obliteration of Weaver Street from the streetscape of Belfast, somehow elevates it as an appropriate metaphor for the eclipse of public discourse on the violence of 1920-22.

end.

FURTHER READING

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/heritage/why-don-t-we-remember-the-weaver-street-massacre-in-belfast-1.4797959?fbclid=IwAR2rDtvRV9j1bM8p9SnIxfAEl5ejHHAutwFJG7-U3XtKGiaYPbfwRsiMa38

He won Israel a gold medal — but they won’t let him marry

On By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Religious Sectarianism2 Comments

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 4 mins)

Israel’s gymnastics gold medalist in the Tokyo olympics of this year, Artem Dolgopyat, only the second ever in the Jewish state’s 70 years, cannot marry in Israel. Taking advantage of the happy publicity surrounding his triumph, his mother brought the question out into the public arena. In an interview with 103FM Radio, Dolgopyat’s mother Angela Bilan said: “The state does not let him get married. He has a girlfriend and they have lived together for three years, but he cannot get married.”

Artem Dolgopyat’s mother Angela Bilan being interviewed in Israel after her son won a Tokyo Olympic gold (video screenshot).

The problem is not that Dolgopyat emigrated to Israel as a child – his father was the product of generations of Soviet Jews and he automatically has entitlement to Israeli citizenship. His difficulty is that his mother is not Jewish and so, according to religious law, nor is he, for the purpose of marriage.

The fact is that you can’t marry a Jewish person in Israel unless you’re Jewish too. Or a Muslim unless you’re a Muslim, Catholic unless you are a Catholic, etc. Marriage is considered exclusively a religious ceremony and mixed-religion marriages are not permitted. In a state that promotes itself as being “the only western country in the Near East”, it does not have a civil marriage ceremony or status, the only “western” state not to have such. Indeed, a number of countries of mainly Muslim population do have civil marriage too.

Artem Doglopolyat and his partner , whom he cannot marry according to Israeli law. (Photo crdt: FLASH90)

So what do Israelis do if one of the partners in a long-term relationship is not considered “Jewish” but wish to be married?

The answer is that they leave the state to marry outside or live as partners without marriage. Apparently both options are popular and many Jews do leave the State for a holiday and get married outside it – Cyprus is quite a popular destination for this and 1,500 to 2,000 Israelis a year get married there. That compares with about 28,000 weddings performed last year by Orthodox religious authorities in Israel. Israel does recognise civil marriages made elsewhere and indeed would get into a lot of trouble with other states if it did not.

But with regard to just living together one imagines that in the case of a relationship breakup and the absence of a recognised civil relationship, property ownership and child custody could become difficult issues to resolve. This would also be the case with same-gender marriage, since this “modern democratic state” does not recognise that class of marriage either – of course not, since its marriage service is based on Hebrew religious law.

Israel for all its modern protestations and some features is a religious state. Qualification for its citizenship is based on Judaism and the State’s recognition of that ethnicity, which is of at least one Jewish grandparent, no matter where born or raised. But for a Jew to marry in Israel both must be Jewish by Rabbinical – i.e Jewish religious – law; any child of a mixed union is not Jewish unless their mother was Jewish. Or one goes through a fairly lengthy period of religious indoctrination to be recognised by the State as Jewish.1 In effect, Israel’s citizenship and marriage laws are not only religious but racist too.

Dolgopyat’s difficulty won support from Tourism Minister Yoel Razvozov, himself an immigrant from the former Soviet Union and an Olympic athlete, which he expressed in a tweet: “Israeli citizens, no matter where they are born, should not need to undergo a tedious and humiliating process in order to get approval or rejection from the Rabbinate in order to get married.”

“The pride of Israel on the podium, but a second class citizen under the hupa,” he said referring to a Jewish wedding canopy.2 “It is not logical that the Rabbinate of the same country that Artem Dolgopyat represents with honour does not allow him basic civil rights like getting married in Israel,” Razvozov tweeted.

No doubt many Israeli Jews find all this archaic and irritating. Even though 74.2% of the population of the state is registered as “Jewish”, that number however contains four major sections, ranging from the ultra-conservative to the secular. The largest group is the “traditional” Jewish one, which would have a range of opinions within it on religion and society, some quite liberal and “let and let live” (at least for Israeli Jews). In in the Pew survey3, one in five Jews replied that they do not even believe in the existence of a God.

Mass wedding of Israelis of Russian origin in Cyprus, 2016 (Photo credit: Reuters)

But the fact is that for the sake of the political nature of the state, most of them have made a compact with the devil, the religious fundamentalism of the Zionists, a portion of which has infected every single Israeli administration and government coalition since the state was founded in 1948. While it is true that the religious fundamentalist part of Israel cannot get rid of the society’s more liberal and secular sections or rule without it, nor can the latter overthrow the fundamentalist religious dictatorship. Not without joining completely with the oppressed Palestinians and overthrowing the Zionist State – and even liberal and most socialist Israelis are not prepared to go that far.

End.

FOOTNOTES

1Despite the strong historical suggestion that Ashkenazi Jews are actually the result of mass conversion to Judaism in the first place.

2Obviously oblivious to those who are the most comprehensively second-class people in Israel, the Palestinians – but then they are not “citizens”, are they?

3See Source and References.

SOURCES AND REFERENCES

Israeli Olympic Gold medalist cannot marry in Israel: https://www.publico.es/internacional/medalla-oro-israel-opcion-matrimonio.html?

https://www.timesofisrael.com/israels-new-national-sports-hero-cant-marry-in-the-country-mother-laments/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_in_Israel#:~:text=Israel’s%20religious%20authorities%20%E2%80%94%20the%20only,the%20religion%20of%20the%20other.

https://electronicintifada.net/content/israel-steps-its-war-mixed-marriages/25051

Religious position of Israel Jews: https://www.pewforum.org/2016/03/08/israels-religiously-divided-society/

Citizenship and ethnic nature of Israeli State: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/7/19/israel-passes-controversial-jewish-nation-state-law

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_Return#:~:text=The%20Law%20of%20Return%20(Hebrew,an%20oleh%20%5Bimmigrant%5D.%22

CORRECT ANALYSIS, SHAMEFUL CONCLUSION

On By rebelbreezeIn Anti-Fascism, Current Affairs Comment, History, Ireland, Irish Left, Political Analysis, Racism, Religious SectarianismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 5 mins)

A leaflet from the Socialist Party of Ireland distributed at the antifascist rally in Dublin on Saturday 12th made a correct analysis of the source of the problems in Irish society of which the Far-Right are taking advantage in order to mislead people but also grow. But the leaflet text failed shamefully when it came to outlining the next steps to take.

          Titled “OPPOSE RACIST DIVISION — Organise to stop the far right”, the leaflet correctly identified the haphazard Government restrictions as the cause of insecurity and confusion about the Covid19 virus, which fed the negationist movement. It also stated that the Far-Right was manipulating these people and working to infect them with racism and homophobia.

It was correct also to point to the need for socialists to expose the real issues and organise to resolve them.

However, the leaflet text went on to state: “Recent experiences have shown that small counter demonstrations with confrontational tactics have jeopardised the safety of anti-fascist protestors and can drive some some people further into the arms of the far right.”

Perhaps the Socialist Party can tell us what kind of counter demonstration would not be seen as having “confrontational tactics”. In fact since to their credit for the first time some of their comrades actually took part in one such counter-protest, on Custom House Quay on the 22nd August, they could inform their party that the counter-protesters were attacked almost as soon as they stepped on to the Quay, before anything at all was said by them. Also, the Far-Right have been staging regular street protests since last year, many of them centred around the racist and conspiracy theorist Gemma O’Doherty, who recently unfurled a banner calling to “Make Ireland Catholic Again”. Should the Far-Right have been permitted to continue without public opposition?

Some of the armed fascists that attacked a counter-protest on Custom House Quay on 22 August 2020.
(Source Image: Internet, then cropped)

The counter-protests were small because the majority of the antifascist movement did not participate in them. It was independent anarchists, socialists and Irish Republicans who first took up that task and at that time the Far-Right protests were quite small. When the Far-Right called a larger one for Leinster House, in a coalition of fascist parties and organisations, a fairly large force of Irish Republicans and independent antifascists confronted them and a number of the Republicans were arrested. Following that event, on 14th December 2019 a larger combined force of antifascists including Irish Republicans, Antifascist Action and socialist parties occupied the protest ground planned by the Far-Right outside Leinster House and outnumbered the latter by about ten to one.

The small ad-hoc antifascist coalition of various political and social threads has been left to confront all the other fascist gatherings on their own. A Far-Right group called QAnon occupied the GPO forecourt for Saturday rallies as soon as the Covid19 restrictions were introduced and were left largely unmolested by antifascists to establish themselves as a weekly event, supported by fascist activists who travelled from different parts of the country to attend it. They were left unmolested by the Gardaí too, who nevertheless used Covid19 powers to harass Debenhams picketers around the corner in Henry Street and also by the Special Branch, Ireland’s political police, who harassed pickets held in solidarity with Irish Republican and Basque political prisoners, demanding the names and addresses of the picketers.

All subsequent rallies, pickets and meetings of the Far-Right were left entirely to the small aforementioned coalitions to oppose but when the Debenhams workers staged their march and rally on 8th August, the QAnon group abandoned their Saturday spot and took to Phoenix Park instead, showing the antifascist potential of a large gathering of the Left.

HISTORY OF ANTIFASCIST STRUGGLE IN IRELAND

          The rise of the fascist movement in Ireland in the 1930s was defeated by Irish Republicans, who confronted them physically on the streets to the extent that the ruling class feared revolution and mostly acquiesced with De Valera’s government banning a Blueshirt march, after which the Blueshirts became integrated into the Fine Gael party and ceased to have a separate existence.

Eoin O’Duffy exchanges fascist salute with Blueshirt rally in 1930s Ireland.
(Photo source: Internet)

Every attempt to establish a fascist party since then has been promptly squashed by antifascists. In 2016 the European islamophobic fascist organisation Pegida tried to launch itself in Dublin and was driven off the street by massive mobilisation of both those advocating peaceful opposition as well as those favouring physical confrontation (by the way four Republicans still face serious charges arising out of those events). The tiny group of native Irish fascists was attacked on its way into the city centre and the East European contingent had to run or be brought to safety in Garda vans.

Attempted Pegida launch February 2016.  After some short battles between antifascists and fascists with Gardaí moving in to protect the latter, they spirit them away in police vans while staging a diversion in O’Connell St.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)

IN BRITAIN

           The fascist movement of Sir Oswald Moseley’s Blackshirts was physically opposed in numerous battles on the streets of British cities throughout the 1930s and after WW2, Moseley himself being knocked to the ground in Manchester and hit by a flying brick in Liverpool. Numerous battles took place in London too of course, the most famous being at Cable Street, where a coalition of Irish and Jewish antifascists, along with local Communist Party activists, fought a battle of several hours on 4th October 1936, principally with 7,000 London Metropolitan Police and all the mounted police of the city. The police got through the first barricade but failed to penetrate the second and the Blackshirts had to turn away, many being ambushed at other points such as at Hyde Park Corner.

Scene from the antifascist Battle of Cable Street 1936, fought mainly against the police who were trying to clear the way through the Jewish migrant area for the fascists.
(Source photo: Internet)

Section of mural near the scene presenting an artist’s impression of the Battle of Cable Street, East London 1936.  (Photo source: Internet).

After WW2 all attempts of Moseley and other fascists to organise were suppressed by robust action on the streets, the most serious being in 1958 in London’s Notting Hill area. Many of the post-war migration of Afro-Caribbean people to London lived in that area. Moseley’s Union of Fascists and the White Defence League organised and whipped up gangs of white youths to attack first migrant Caribbean males, then the white wife of a Caribbean man and finally Caribbean families. The Caribbean migrants and Irish and British antifascists organised defence and battles went on for two weeks. According to Wikipedia: “The riots caused tension between the Metropolitan Police and the British African-Caribbean community, which claimed that the police had not taken their reports of racial attacks seriously. In 2002, files were released that revealed that senior police officers at the time had assured the Home Secretary, Rab Butler, that there was little or no racial motivation behind the disturbance, despite testimony from individual police officers to the contrary.” (That pattern of police denial of racism and neglect of targeted communities became a repeated pattern and has also been seen in many other countries).

When fascists began to organise again in Britain at the end of the 1960s, the parties of the Left first advocated ignoring them and when they did eventually mobilise counter-demonstrations, marched them away from confrontation with the fascists. Meanwhile fascists were attacking sellers of socialist papers, socialist meetings, migrants and ethnic minorities. Some elements of the Left after a while adopted the slogan of “no platform for fascists” which became popularised among students and some staff in institutions of third-level education, eventually becoming policy of the National Union of Students.

A coalition of antifascists of various political backgrounds, including some acting unofficially outside their party discipline, mainly in AFA (Anti-Fascist Action) and small groups of revolutionary communists, anarchists, Irish Republicans and antifascists expelled from their parties (e.g. Red Action) took on the National Front, the League of St. George and the British National Party in numerous battles and smashed the ability of the fascists to take possession of any significant physical space in order to organise.  On September 13th we passed by the anniversary of one of those battles in Lewisham, SE London in 1977 and we are nearly at the the anniversary of another, on the 18th in 1992 at Waterloo (the London Underground and train station, not the site of the 1815 battle in Belgium).

Scene from the antifascist Battle of Lewisham 1977. Left groups and Afro-Caribbean youth successfully battled mainly against police to prevent the fascist National Front marching through the borough’s centre.
(Photo source: Internet)

Throughout that period the main parties of the left (with the exception for a period of the SWP and the IMG) refused to confront the fascists physically and instead concentrated on organising events to attract youth away from fascism, principally through the Anti-Nazi League. It was however clearly the physical confrontations by antifascists on the streets, as had been the case in the 1930s that again defeated the rising fascist threat in Britain – for a time. Clearing the fascists from the street not only prevented the intimidation of Left activists and ethnic minorities and prevented the creation of fascist areas but also made it much more difficult for fascists to recruit and marshall forces.

LEARNING THE LESSONS?

          Rather than draw on the lessons of those struggles in Ireland and in Britain, the leaflet text advocates repeating the mistakes. In effect, the leaflet advocates leaving the antifascist mobilisations for the moment and concentrating on the class struggle against the system. That strategy entails allowing the fascists to become established and grow unhindered, making it much harder to root them out later. But not only that – the Left in Ireland has a pretty poor record of taking on the capitalist system and is particularly weak at the moment, with the trade union movement largely supine. The leaflet points to the just struggle of the Debenhams workers, with which the SP is particularly closely connected, at least in Dublin; however it is well to note that those workers have been sacked, their workplaces closed and the struggle is a last-ditch defensive one for redundancy pay. In other words, we are nowhere near a situation where the overall struggle against the capitalist system is such as to cut the ground from under the Far-Right.

Because those loose antifascist networks currently active are not under the control of the SP and are hardly likely to heed their call, the effect of the leaflet text is to advocate a continuation of the current situation, where counter-protests will be outnumbered by mobilisations of the Far-Right, despite the fact that the fascist parties actually have tiny support, bussing in people to swell the numbers. Fascist attacks will continue and may well even escalate. Fascists will continue to arm with Garda impunity for their attacks but it is certain that when the antifascists arm likewise, they will be arrested for “possession of offensive weapons” and even jailed.

Finally, the leaflet failed to give any specific indication of a short or medium-term way forward except to “join the socialists”, i.e the Socialist Party. The leaflet could have advocated building a broad antifascist front and called on people to help in that work, to bring in people not currently active, to ensure large turnouts to counter mobilisations of the Far-Right. But it didn’t.

End.

NEGATIONIST MARCH LED BY FASCISTS & FASCIST VIOLENCE

On By rebelbreezeIn Anti-Fascism, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Ireland, Irish Left, Political Analysis, Religious SectarianismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 7 mins.)

An antifascist and anti-racist march in Dublin on Saturday 12th September ended without any major incident. However a handful of counter-protesters who attended a negationist protest outside Leinster House were assaulted by a mob of fascists, a woman being struck on the head with a blunt object causing an injury requiring hospital treatment. Photographs and some video footage shocked many as the Gardaí were seen to take no action against the assailants and instead, to usher the counter-protesters further away from the fascists, with a woman bleeding copiously from her head.

Left: Ms Izzy Kamikaze being pushed by Gardai down Kildare Street after being struck on the head with a club by a fascist. Right: Closeup (Photos sourced: Internet)

View of the antifascist rally northward (Photo: D.Breatnach)

          The Irish Yellow Vests, led by notorious islamophobe Glen Miller and the fascist Catholic fundamentalist and racist organisation Síol na hÉireann, led by Niall McConnell, cooperated in staging a rally and march from Custom House Quay to Government Buildings in Merrion Street. Custom House Quay was the scene of another IYV-organised event on 22nd August when a counter-protest of men and women was attacked by mob of masked and often gloved men (supporting an anti-mask rally!), many armed with clubs and metal bars. On that occasion too the Gardaí had arrested none of the attackers but pushed and shoved the counter-protesters away, threatening them with uplifted batons. On that occasion too a counter-protester had required hospital treatment, having been knocked unconscious.

The anti-fascist demonstration on O’Connell Street was called by the United Against Racism organisation and the People Before Profit/ Anti-Austerity Alliance and, since it had received threats of attack from fascists, it was supported too by independent antifascist activists from Anarchist, Republican and Socialist backgrounds.

(Photo: D.Breatnach)

(Photo: D.Breatnach)

A number of speakers addressed the rally though the sound did not carry very well towards the rear of the rally but also many were distracted by keeping an eye out for fascists. One IYV activist approached the rally to photograph participants and soon got into an altercation with them, whereupon Gardaí arrived and removed him to the side of the road. Another brandished a placard, which was promptly seized by antifascists and torn. Some fascists were seen passing by, presumably on their way to Custom House Quay or Leinster House – one was observed carrying a thick length of wood with the Irish Tricolour attached to it — but did not engage with the antifascists.

A view southward of the anti-fascist rally
(Photo: D.Breatnach)

The “Refugees Welcome” flag accompanies the Irish Tricolour and Transgender flags with the GPO and its Tricolour in the background. The Proclamation read out in front of that building in 1916 included the words: “The Republic guarantees civil and religious freedom to all ….”
(Photo: D.Breatnach)

Across on the other side of the road, at the corner with Princes Street, two or three older people had set up a couple of banners protesting about ill-treatment of the elderly in nursing homes — an entirely justified cause for protest however it is known to have been adopted by the Far-Right in Ireland. A very high proportion of Covid19 deaths in Ireland were in nursing homes and linked to Covid19 infection through lack of effective controls, which is a strange issue for the Far-Right to embrace since they variously claim that Covid19 is a hoax or that it is not at all a serious virus.

LED BY FAKE PATRIOTS BUT REAL FASCISTS

          The rally on Merchants Quay, organised by the Irish Yellow Vest seemed somewhat larger than the one in O’Connell Street but a number were brought in from other parts of the country. Their promotional video showed the crowd being addressed in an energetic style by a man with a North American accent. His message was to refuse to wear masks, using exceptions permitted in the legislation, not to be afraid and to remain united. At one point he seemed to be arguing for anti-racism, which was somewhat bizarre while standing next to him was the mc of the event, Glen Miller, notorious racist and islamophobe.

After a little, the crowd formed up behind the colour party of Síol na hÉireann, a tiny fascist, racist and fundamentalist Catholic party from Donegal led by Niall McConnell. Apparently without any sense of irony, the party flew the Irish Tricolour, the “Irish Republic” flag and the golden Harp on a green field flag, with “Erin go bragh” (sic) of the Fenians.

The Tricolour signifies cooperation between Irish of different religions which, as we will see, is something McConnell will have no truck with; in addition the original pattern was sewn by French revolutionary women and presented to Thomas Meagher in 1848. Meagher was a member of the “Young Irelanders”, composed of Irish nationalists of both Protestant and Catholic religious backgrounds and he himself led a Union Army brigade in the American Civil War.

The Harp on a green field was modelled on the flag of the United Irishmen who rose against the British in 1798 and 1803 – nearly every one of their leaders was Protestant. The Fenians were a mixture of religious backgrounds (and perhaps none) and were excommunicated by the Irish Catholic hierarchy. The Fenians in England were accepted into the First Socialist International, led by Marx and Engels.

The “Irish Republic” flag was prepared in the home of Constance Markievicz for display in the 1916 Rising; she was a Socialist Republican and fought in the Rising as an officer in the Irish Citizen Army, the first working class army in the world.

March organised by Far-Right in D’Olier Street Saturday. (Photo sourced: Internet)

COLOUR PARTY LEADER REVEALS HIS TRUE COLOURS

          Approaching the four Gardaí standing by a couple of unsecured crowd barriers at the end of the Quay, a little farce was played out in which the Gardaí seemed unwilling to move and then were “forced” to do so by the crowd. Those who have participated in protests over the years and seen the Gardaí in action and their barriers, when they truly wished to stop a march, would laugh to see the video recorded by the Far-Right of the event.

At a junction the procession stopped for people to catch up (some participants even complaining at Miller’s exhortation to give consideration to the elderly and children) and were addressed by a number of speakers. The man with the North American accent was in action again in revivalist style and Ben Gilroy, Miller’s lieutenant, also spoke. In a video during the week, Gilroy had minimised the Covid19 deaths by stating that all but 100 of them had been of people with underlying health issues. Given that according to the HSE over 30% of Irish people suffer from underlying conditions of ill-health, it was a shockingly uncaring statement to make in support of the negationist cause.

Here Niall McConnell spoke too, announcing himself as the leader of “Síol na hÉireann, a hard-line Catholic Irish nationalist party”, having the effrontery to quote, completely out of context James Connolly, revolutionary socialist and Republican. McConnell insisted that Ireland is for the Irish and, attacking the EU, hinted at the “Replacement” conspiracy theory, in which the EU is allegedly trying to replace Irish people with migrants. He also accused it of spreading “LGBT ideology”. “Ireland is a Catholic country”, he insisted and, in total contradiction to at least 220 years of recent history, ascribed the Catholic faith to the motivation of our ancestors in fighting for freedom. Then he got down on his knees and recited The Lord’s Prayer in Irish!

It was noticeable that only a small number followed him on to their knees and also that a number of his statements drew uncertain responses. Following his speech, Lorraine Eglinton of the Irish Yellow Vests spoke, stressing the need for unity, which might be taken as an implied criticism of McConnell for introducing religion and race into the equation or perhaps just for stating his beliefs so baldly at a shared event.

FASCIST ATTACK ON WOMAN COUNTER-PROTESTER

          While the major part of the Irish Yellow Vests march went to rally outside Government Buildings in Merrion Street, a smaller group of maybe 40 or 50 people went to protest a block away outside Leinster House, seat of the Irish state’s Parliament. This was apparently a split in the Far Right.

If this split was trying to attract less fascist and racist people what followed was truly bizarre. A couple of people who attended in a counter-protest but at some remove were approached by Far-Right supporters who appeared to argue with them, which is recorded on video. This soon attracted a mob, some masked (!) and one of which can be seen grasping a length of wood attached to an Irish Tricolour. They begin to push the couple of counter-protesters roughly and then one of them strikes the woman on the head, opening a wound with much blood running down her face and knocking her to the ground. She regains her feet and continues to stand as Gardaí move in and gently usher the fascists back, making no attempt to arrest any of them and soon pushing the counter-protesters down the road.

The woman received hospital treatment later, being released the following morning. In a press release following the event the Gardaí reported that no arrests or serious incidents had occurred! When they were contacted by journalists and shown video taken at the scene they changed their story to say that “some demonstrators had to be separated” and ultimately changing it again to say that “they are investigating the incident” and “had not received a complaint”. Are the Gardaí saying that although they witness an assault, or at least the immediate aftermath of one, they can take no action unless they receive a complaint?

Ms Izzy Kamikaze, an LGBT campaigner and writer, who had received the head injury, said that she intended to make a complaint, not just about the assault but also about the behaviour of the Gardaí. Some photos have appeared on social media allegedly identifying two of the attackers by name and as members of the fascist National Party. According to media journalists, the Gardaí have video camera footage tracing one of the assailants also which would be no surprise as the area around Leinster House is one of the most highly covered by CCTV video cameras in Dublin.

A PATTERN OF GARDA COLLUSION

          This is not the first occasion in recent times that the Gardaí have been accused of collusion with fascist violence. On July 11th a small counter-protest to the large homophobic rally outside Leinster House was physically attacked and their banners ripped without Garda interference for a period and, when they did intervene, arrested none of the assailants. On two different occasions fascists within the QAnon negationists outside the GPO attacked a peaceful counter-protester without being arrested by the Gardaí. However when, following these attacks, antifascists surged into the Qanon crowd, the Gardaí quickly intervened and arrested at least one of the antifascists. On August 22nd at Custom House Quay a mob of over 50 men, many of them masked and gloved (supporting an anti-masking rally!) and carrying wooden clubs and metal bars, attacked a peaceful smaller counter-protest and knocked one antifascist unconscious. A few Gardaí then gently shooed the fascists back while more, including the Public Order Unit, began to scream at the antifascists to get back, threatening them with raised batons and pushing them violently, knocking some over and preventing them from even assisting their unconscious comrade. Those scenes too were recorded on video and shared on social media, both by fascists glorying in their actions and by antifascists exposing the fascist violence and Garda collusion.

A Parliamentary Question about Garda behaviour to the Minister for Justice from Independents for Change TD Catherine Connolly was refused, she being told that this is an area within the competence of the Garda Commissioner.

End.

REFERENCES

Media report: https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/garda%C3%AD-investigating-assault-at-anti-mask-protest-in-dublin-1.4353875

FALSE FLAGS AND FAKE PATRIOTS: 1) The Irish Tricolour

On By rebelbreezeIn Anti-Fascism, Cultural Comment, Current Affairs Comment, History, Ireland, Irish Republicanism, National Liberation, Political Analysis, Religious Sectarianism2 Comments

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

This series of short pieces sets out to demonstrate not only that the “patriotism” claimed by the Far-Right in Ireland is profoundly fake but that so also are their chief symbols. It is not that the flags and songs are false in themselves – far from it — but that they are being employed falsely, i.e in disregard of their origins and in total contradiction to their historical context and meaning. The “patriots” displaying them are fake, not only in their use of the flags and songs but in the contexts in which they employ them, their discourse and the direction in which they wish to take the Irish nation.

OTHERS TO FOLLOW SEPARATELY:

  • Flag: The “Irish Republic” flag
  • Flag: The “Starry Plough”
  • Flag: The Harp on a green field flag
  • Patriotic song: Amhrán na bhFiann
  • Patriotic song: A Nation Once Again
  • The Far-Right creed of fake patriotism

The Irish Tricolour flag (Photo sourced: Internet)

1. THE IRISH TRICOLOUR

          This is the flag design most commonly associated with Ireland and the official one of the Irish State, though it was not officially adopted by the State until the Constitution of 1937. The flag gained prominence during the 1916 Rising, when it was flown on the Henry Street corner of the GPO roof and was the flag of the Republic during the War of Independence (1919-1921). The Free State which came into being in 1922 controlling five-sixths of Ireland was not the Irish Republic most people had fought for and, in fact, it went to war against those who upheld that Republic. However, the neo-colonial State feared to leave all the symbols of Irish nationalism in the exclusive hands of its enemies and therefore eventually appropriated the flag, adopted the Irish language as its symbolic first language and the Soldiers’ Song to represent it.

On the other hand its display in public in the Six Counties colony was held to be illegal under the Flags and Emblems Act of 1954 until its repeal in 1987 and a number of street battles took place there when colonial police moved in on people to confiscate it.

Although the first use of the colours of green, white and orange as a tricolour arrangement (on cockades and rosettes) was in 1830, when Irish Republicans celebrated the French revolution of that year restoring the French Tricolour as the flag of France, their first recorded use on a flag was not until 1848.

On 28th July 1846 a group of progressive Irish nationalists had broken from Daniel O’Connell’s movement to Repeal the Union, i.e to give Ireland an Irish parliament again but under ultimate British rule. Meagher was one who led the breakaway, opposing the Repeal Association resolution to refuse the option of armed resistance in any and all circumstance, in a famous speech about the right to use weapons in the struggle for freedom, which earned him the nickname Meagher “of the Sword”.

The group became known disparagingly as The Young Irelanders but, like many mocking names, became fixed with respect in Irish history. One of its leaders was Thomas Davis, co-founder of The Irish Nation newspaper and composer of such iconic works as A Nation Once Again, The West’s Awake (songs) and Fontenoy (poem).

Monument in Dame Street to Thomas Davis, Republican, Young Irelander, author, composer, journalist.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)

During what became known as “the Year of Revolutions:, 1848, Meagher went to Paris, which was in the hands of revolutionaries as an envoy to the Provisional Government and was there presented by revolutionary women with the Irish Tricolour, which they had sown in fine silk. They explained that its design was intended to reflect the revolutionary ideal of peace, represented by the colour white, between the Catholic Irish (indigenous and Norman descendants), represented by the colour green and the Protestants, descendants of planters and other colonists, represented by the colour orange.  But an active peace, a collaboration in national liberation from English rule and the establishment of a secular Republic.

It would not be surprising had those women been aware of Les Irlandais Unis (the United Irishmen), who had risen less than fifty years earlier for a secular and independent republic and had sought military assistance from the French Republic.

Returning to Ireland with the flag, Meagher unfurled it in public for the first time on 7th March 1848 while speaking from an upper-floor window of the Wolfe Tone Club in Wexford to people celebrating the revolution in Paris. In Dublin it was unfurled in the Music Hall in Lwr. Abbey Street on 15th April 1848 but there was another Irish flag which at the time was more popular and the question of which flag was to represent an independent Ireland (or the movement to achieve such) was left undecided.

Plaque in Waterford recording the first public unfurling of the Irish Tricolour in Ireland.
(Photo sourced: internet)

Plaque in Abbey Street recording the first public unfurling of the Irish Tricolour in Dublin.
(Photo sourced: internet)

Illustration of the trial of Meagher, McManus and Donohoe.
(Image sourced: internet)

Meagher was sentenced to transportation to Van Demien’s Land (now Tasmania), later freed on condition of not returning to Ireland and emigrated to the USA. He supported the Union in the American Civil War for the abolition of slavery and he and his wife actively recruited for the Union Army; he served as a Brigadier General in the Irish Brigade, of which one regiment, the 88th New York, became known as “Mrs. Meagher’s Own”. The Irish Brigade fought many important engagements against the Confederacy and suffered 4,000 dead in the course of the war; two of its commanding officers including Meagher were wounded and three killed. Meagher was believed drowned from a Missouri riverboat on a trip on 1st July 1867, leading some to suspect that he had been murdered, possibly by the nativist anti-migrant organisation known as the “Know Nothings”.1

Thomas Francis Meagher as Union Army officer and Governor of Montana.
Plaque in Waterford recording the first public unfurling of the Irish Tricolour in Ireland.
(Photo sourced: internet)

The Far-Right in Ireland, composed as it is of racists, fascists, Catholic conservatives and religious sectarians, seeks an Ireland far removed from the republican ethos of the flag, presented by French republican revolutionaries to their Irish republican counterparts. It is a flag symbolising inclusion rather than exclusion and explicitly, in its colours, rejecting religious sectarianism. It flies in declared opposition to those who seek an Ireland “made Catholic again”2, oppose immigration and seek an Ireland based on “Irish ethnicity” (meaning blood), a prescription that would have had no place for Thomas Davis’ Welsh father, nor for Meagher, who led thousands of Irish migrants who fought against slavery of Africans in the USA. Their Ireland would have had no place for the Young Irelanders who, like Thomas Davis, were mostly Protestant Republicans.

The Far-Right in Ireland wave the Tricolour flag outside Leinster House in this protest of theirs demanding “free speech” for racist diatribes in February 2020 in sharp contrast to the flag’s meaning and history.
(Photo: D.Breatnach)

 

 

 

 

 

The irish Tricolour in Kilmainham Jail (now museum) in the execution yard of 14 patriots of the 1916 Rising (Photo source: Aitor Munoz Munoz, royalty-free).

FOOTNOTES:

1A nickname they earned through their habit of saying that they knew nothing in answer to questions by the police or in court.

2Slogan put forward by notorious racist and conspiracty theorist Gemma Doherty in preparation for an islamophobic rally outside Croke Park on 31st July, supported by fascist organisations Síol na hÉireann and the National Party, both parties opposed to immigration and promoting a racist concept of “Irishness” based on blood.

SOURCES:

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flags_and_Emblems_(Display)_Act_(Northern_Ireland)_1954

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

https://www.thejournal.ie/1848-irish-tricolour-waterford-meagher-819571-Mar2013/

USEFUL LINKS (independent and non-NGO organisations):

Dublin Republicans Against Fascism: https://www.facebook.com/pages/category/Political-Organization/Dublin-Republicans-Against-Fascism-104013457786981/

Anti-Fascist Action Ireland: https://www.facebook.com/afaireland/

CIVIL AND RELIGOUS LIBERTY vs RELIGIOUS BIGOTRY AND RACISM

On By rebelbreezeIn Anti-Fascism, Civil Rights, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Fascism, Human Rights, Ireland, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, Political Analysis, Religious Sectarianism1 Comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: main text 5 mins.)

Republicans and other local antifascists countered a Far-Right rally and “prayer circle” who were protesting a Croke Park letting on Friday to some Muslims to celebrate their religious festival of Eid.  When confronted by a handful of antifascists, the early fascists folded up their banner and cowered behind police protection, unfolding it later when many more reinforcements arrived. Later still there were some scuffles and a number of arrests.

The first shot fired on social media against the Croke Park letting was by Niall McConnell, leader of the tiny “Síol na hÉireann” group calling for a protest at the venue, followed by Gemma O’Doherty of “Anti-Corruption Ireland”, with other Far-Right posters quickly getting on the bandwagon. The main claim was that they were going there to prevent “creeping Sharia law” but also tacked on being against ritual animal slaughter, child brides, pedophilia etc. What they were really about however was Christian or even Catholic fundamentalism, racism and fascism and this became crystal clear during the morning.

Eid festival celebrants at prayer in Croke Park on Friday.
(Photo source: Internet)

In the close foreground, an antifascist displays both languge versions of the quotation from the 1916 Proclamation. Behind him a number of Far-Right protesters. (Photo source: Dublin Republicans Against Fascism)

WHO THEY WERE AND WHAT THEY SAID

          In contrast to many of the counter-protesters, none of the Far-Right seemed to be local and indeed many had travelled some distance to be there, some known to have come from Donegal and Mayo.

When calling out the responses of the Catholic prayer cycle of the Rosary1, Niall McConnell was roaring them out through a megaphone.  McConnell, a founder of the tiny “Síol na hÉireann” group based in Donegal, believes in an Ireland built solely on Irish ethnicity (by which he means of Irish blood) and that its ethos should be Christian. How Irish blood “ethnicity” is to be judged is not explained, given that the Irish people are a mix of the Celtic population with many others, including Viking, Norman, Scottish, English, Welsh, possibly Basque, Italian, Polish etc. This is being “patriotic” according to McConnell, who is never seen campaigning for an end to the partition of Ireland nor of foreign occupation of one-sixth of the country.

Unloading rifles at Howth, 1915, Erskine and Molly Childers in foreground. Erskine was English but would later join the IRA and was executed by the Free State regime in 1922.
(Source photo: Internet).

Patrick Pearse’s father being an English migrant did not prevent his two sons from being true patriots, promoting the Irish language, progressive education, national drama and literature and fighting for independence. Thomas Davis’ father being Welsh did not prevent his son from founding The Nation newspaper or from composing such songs as “A Nation Once Again” (a recording of which the Far-Right played!) and “The West’s Awake!” Erskine Childers being English did not prevent him sailing a yacht into Howth to deliver Mausers to the Irish Volunteers in 1914 nor in joining the IRA during the War of Independence and the Civil War and being executed by the Free State junta. And a missionary called Patricius being Welsh did not prevent him ending up as St. Patrick, a patron saint of Ireland!

Although billing himself as an “Irish Patriot”, McConnell calls for an alliance of “nationalists across Europe” and has posed for a photograph in a line-up of Far-Right European figures that included Nick Griffin, former leader of the fascist British National Party2. McConnell’s party’s website calls on people to join to “resist and turn back the new plantation”, a reference to a paranoid conspiracy in which the Far-Right claim to believe that the EU plans to replace Irish people with migrants.

A far-Right Lineup for meeting at the EU Parliament: Irish “patriot” Niall McConnell at the far right of photo (and in politics) with, among others, fascist Nick Griffin of the British National Party (fourth from left).
(Photo source: Internet)

Apart from promising any new members of “Siol nah Eireann” (sic, no such words in Irish) the fantasy of joining “local cumans” (they have none and there is no such word in Irish either), they intend to provide them with “education” (i.e propaganda), “ideology” (fascism), “physical fitness and self-defence” (training in being bootboys) in Ireland and abroad …..!

Another who believes in an “ethnic Ireland” is Gemma O’Doherty who started off as an investigative journalist but turned into a proposer of illogical conspiracy theories and propagandist of racism. Protesting in a tweet against the recent election of Hazel Chu as Lord Mayor of Dublin, she ranted that Ms. Chu, born and raised in Ireland, is part of the Communist Party of China (!) takeover of Ireland. Parts of the Far-Right claim to believe that CPC is taking over the world through the UN (where China has ONE seat on the permanent Security Council out of FIVE!3) and on the other hand, President Trump is wonderful.4

One of the banners displayed by later Far-Right arrivals. The man in the foreground assaulted a Republican some weeks ago in full view of the Gardaí but was not arrested. He was involved in a scuffle here too while filming.
(Photo source: Dublin Republicans Against Fascism)

Gemma O’Doherty has at times been caught out posting lying statistics to whip up racial fears and had two of her Youtube sites shut down by Google due to her continuous attempts to whip up race-hate. Since then she has been campaigning for “free speech” but for whom? Outside Croke Park she said that the country needs to become “a Catholic Ireland once again”. In this “Catholic Ireland” of her dreams, would there be “freedom of speech” for dissenting Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, atheists or agnostics? The “Catholic Ireland” State of the recent past censored films, banned books and newspapers and forbade not only abortion in all circumstances but also contraception and divorce, not to mention LGBT rights.

O’Doherty is another fake “patriot” who told her listeners that “our patriots died for a Catholic Ireland”, despite the fact that nearly every single leader of the United Irishmen was a Protestant, as were many of the Young Irelanders and not a few prominent members of the Irish Volunteers — and she totally ignored the words of the 1916 Proclamation.

Near the end of the event, some members of the National Party appeared, wearing green golf shirts with “NP” marked on them. Although their “Vision” for Ireland on their website claims to include “an Ireland united, Irish and free”, they have never been seen engaged in struggles against British colonialism and the partition of the country. The NP is against “replacement-level immigration”, i.e that racist conspiracy theory again and wants capital punishment for serious crimes, in which they include carrying out a pregnancy termination. Like most of the Far-Right, they oppose the “Black lives matter” campaign and the party’s founder, Justin Barrett (not there on Friday), tweeted that if he gets into government he will remove the Irish nationality of Hazel Chu, a woman who was born in the Mater Hospital in Dublin, was educated in Ireland and spent most of her life here.

The man on the right supports far-Right protests yet claims to be a Irish Republican. (Photo source: Dublin Republicans Against Fascism)

Praying in support of religious sectarianism and racism.
(Photo source: Dublin Republicans Against Fascism)

Also missing were racist and islamophobe leaders of the “Irish Yellow Vests” Glen Miller and Ben Gilroy, also Herman Kelly, founder of the tiny Irish Freedom Party, another “patriot” who believes in a “Christian and ethnic Irish Ireland”. Kelly has shared a platform with British fascist and Loyalist Jim Dowson and Irish fascist Rowan Croft (aka “Gran Torino”).

Aside from all that, on Friday one woman ‘innoculated’ the ground around the Far-Right protesters with sprinkled salt, apparently proof against “witches” (anti-fascist women). A few of them shook their rosary beads at the protesters while another woman seemed to go into ecstasy, praying with arms alternately raised high or spread. “I don’t know anything about politics,” she said to one of the counter-protesters, “I just come here to pray.” Of course, the handball alley entrance to Croke Park is a well-know prayer venue! (Perhaps for fans of other county teams hoping Dublin won’t win the All-Ireland yet again ….)

“I am not interested in politics, I just come here to pray”! said this woman of the Far-Right ensemble.  (Note the Síol organisation have unfurled their banner again with the arrival of more reactionaries).
Photo source: Dublin Republicans Against Fascism

One of their leaders, Dee Wall frequently seen at their rallies at the GPO, claimed she supported religious liberty for all but failed to explain how that squared with protesting at Muslims celebrating Eid at Croke Park. Unless that is she was in agreement with those whose reply to the slogan of “religious and civil liberty for all” was “for the Irish” and meant not only that, for some Muslims ARE Irish, but rather “for Christian, Catholic, several generations Irish only”. Another woman called an antifascist a paedophile (the Far-Right regularly call antifascists “paedophiles”) and told him that the Coronavirus was only in his head, i.e in his imagination – many of them believe that the coronavirus is just a scare to bring about “a one-world government”, one woman commenting that mask-wearers are part of the plot.

One of the Far-Rightists shouted that he never saw the antifascists protesting against the Government, which brought a chorus of incredulous protests from his opponents, the most telling being: “You’ve never seen us because you weren’t there!”

After the Muslims had left by another exit and as the antifascists were leaving, one woman called out antifascists that they were being funded by the millionaire Soros – another fantasy they pretend to believe. One of the antifascists shouted ironically back at her: “I haven’t received my cheque yet – can you have a word with him for me?”

Calling antifascists “paedophiles” might be useful in demonising their opponents but if believed by some could cause people real problems in their community. It is also ironic, given that these ultra-Catholics defended the Church hierarchy and its paedophiles right to the last, some even still maintaining that the scandal institutions were innocent and the targets of malicious accusations. Herman Kelly of the INP was for a time Assistant Editor of the Catholic Herald and maintained that the allegations were ‘fake news’. Also many of the Far-Right in Ireland and in Britain have been convicted in court of …. guess what? Yes, pedophilia.

WHAT WAS THE FAR-RIGHT FUSS ABOUT?

          There was never going to be ritual slaughter of any animals in Croke Park, of course, nor any of the other scares being thrown by racists and fascists.

Just as the venue has been let for other large gatherings, in particular pop concerts, a Muslim religious organisation obtained permission from the GAA to hold a celebration of their festival of Eid there in the stadium.

The feast Day of Eid is an important one in the Muslim religious calendar and its main features are obligatory acts of charity towards the poor, communal prayer followed by social feasting and visiting of relatives and friends. Areas of large capacity are usually required (and more so if observing social distancing), such as large mosques, community centres or hired halls. A sermon is preached by a religious leader, after which a prayer is recited asking for Allah’s forgiveness, mercy, peace and blessings for all living beings across the world.

As to “creeping Sharia law”, since Muslims account for less than 2% of the population of the Irish state, the fascists and other islamophobes have to talk them up into something bigger as a threat, hence the “creeping”. Nor is it the case that all Muslims would support fundamentalist Muslim law any more than all Christians support fundamentalist Christian law or all Jews support Jewish Orthodoxy.

With regard to “child brides”, an unfortunate feature of many civilisations, including past European ones and parts of the United States, there is an age of consent in Ireland maintained by law and, furthermore, a law supported by the vast majority of the population of all religions and of none.

The Catholic Arch-Bishop of Ireland and leading clerics of the Anglican and Jewish community attended the event, as did Government Minister O’Gorman whose car was surrounded by Far-Right protesters screaming at him and banging on the car despite a walking Garda escort. Among the speeches at the Croke Park event – in a mix of English, Arabic and Irish – was a talk by 21-year-old Abood Aljumaili, encouraging the attendees to try out the native Irish sport played at the stadium, like hurling.

Photograph taken from behind fascist lines. On the other side of the police line a home-made placard against racism is held up by some local people. Some other counter-protesters were also there but are out of the camera view.
(photo sourced: Internet)

SCUFFLES AND ARRESTS

          In a headline on a video posted on line by one of her supporters, Gemma O’Doherty exclaimed: “Antifa tried to attack me” but the video shows nothing of the sort. It does show a minor confrontation far from her between an antifascist and a fascist, the one doing the filming. In reply to a question, the fascist can be heard saying that Protestants will be admitted to their movement if they convert to Catholicism. It appears that the fascist pushes the antifascist, who pushes back and then the police are separating the two. The rest of the video records O’Doherty talking, talking ….

A month ago a Far-Right poster claimed that the homophobic rally outside Leinster House had been attacked by “Antifa”. However video footage showed a large crowd of rally participants, some of them threatening a tiny group of antifascist counter-protesters. A fortnight ago the leader of the Far-Right organisation the Irish Yellow Vests told a crowd on Custom House Quay that “the Antifa” had attacked the Far-Right with petrol bombs – another fantasy. But it was some of his supporters’ crowd of 500 that attacked the 40 or so counter-protestors. And McConnell of the tiny “Síol” group claimed at a Far-Right gathering in Europe recently that the Israeli secret services were threatening him due to his lip-service support for the Palestinians (in his case, based on anti-semitism rather than Palestinian solidarity).

While regularly practicing violence, fascists like to portray themselves as victims, especially on their way to taking power. A few weeks ago a fascist crossed the road from their rally at the GPO to attack a Republican while their speaker was shouting in her microphone that they would not be provoked by the violence of the antifascists! They also like to pretend that the police are on the side of the antifascists, while historically and in recent times, the reality is otherwise. After all, the police have been facing Republicans and Socialists in protests for decades, on issues as diverse as Republican prisoners, political repression in both administrations, gender and sexuality rights, the BP oil pipeline in Mayo, lack of housing, cuts in welfare …..

This was underlined when one of the Far-Rightists outside Croke Park shouted that he never saw the antifascists protesting against the Government, which brought a chorus of incredulous protests from his opponents, the most telling being: “You’ve never seen us because you weren’t there!”

There were a number of incidents, one when a Far-Rightist threw water at a video photographer and, after the latter complained to the Gardaí, was taken aside and eventually could be seen walking away from the scene.

Altogether there were three arrests: an antifascist woman who was attacked by a woman on the Far-Right fought back. The police dived in but the Far-Right woman did not want to let go of her opponent’s hair even when the police were trying to separate them. It took three police about five minutes to get her away and into a police van. The antifascist woman walked calmly with a police officer to a patrol car. Some time later a young lad who seemed to be a local person but had not been with the counter-protest, pulled the cord on the Far-Right’s amplifier, silencing it temporarily. The police pounced on him and took him away. According to information received, all were released without charges and a Garda report is being prepared for the Director of Public Prosecutions.

Gardaí struggle to get Far-Right woman attacker of antifascist woman into Garda van. Her victim who fought back, also arrested is out of view standing quietly beside a Garda. Two Far-Right men protest to the Gardaí. (Photo source: Dublin Republicans Against Fascism).

WHAT DOES THIS ALL MEAN AND WHAT NEXT?

          All over Europe and the USA, the Far-Right is on the rise, as they sense an opportunity in ruling class austerity measures and popular dissatisfaction and disaffection. The latter is demonstrated in street mobilisations but also electorally, as votes for traditional political parties fall and the main parties in Government or otherwise are forced to abandon their false opposition and resort to ruling in coalitions of various forms.

Fascists attempt to mobilise the popular discontent against the established political class but to misdirect the popular anger and throw it against ethnic or social minorities, creating a false unity based on a notion of purity of blood and, in some cases, religion. If they can be seen to build a strong enough movement that seems capable of both mobilising people and attacking the resistance movements of the people to austerity and repression, the ruling class turn to them as they did in Europe in the 1930s and 1940s.

Aside from the difficult circumstances, it is generally accepted by historians that a number of errors were made by the antifascist forces in the past. The leaders of targeted communities often counseled not responding to the threat as that would draw further attention and hostility towards them, some even denouncing those in their communities who were organising resistance to the police. Some sections of targeted groups did not mobilise until it was too late, others argued that the fascists were a diversion from the anti-capitalist struggle. The antifascists did not all unite across ideological barriers. The fascists were permitted to get a grip at street level and intimidate some areas of their opposition, eventually receiving the full support of the ruling class and their State.

Those errors must not be repeated.

End.

8.45 am, early fascists of Síol na hÉireann confronted by small group of antifascists fold up their banner and cower behind Garda lines until more fascists and racists arrive.  (Photo source: Dublin Republicans Against Fascism).

 

 

 

APPENDIX

A HISTORY OF RELIGIOUS OPPRESSION

          Ireland has suffered different religions imposed upon it but none of those have been Muslim.

Presumably Christianity was imposed on a pagan Ireland of many centuries, although that seems to have been a largely painless process (unlike in many other parts of Europe). Subsequently the Celtic Church was suppressed across Europe by Rome and in 1155 Pope Adrian IV authorised King Henry II to invade Ireland, allegedly to bring the Irish Christian Church into conformity with Rome.

When Henry VIII of England broke with Rome in 1532 he tried to impose his religion not only on England but also on Ireland, a project continued by his daughter Elizabeth I and most other English monarchs. The administration of the Plantations of Ireland by colonists tried to ensure English-speaking Protestants were given the land taken from the Irish and that no indigenous Irish were allowed to live or work there. For a time priests and bishops were outlawed and hunted.

The Penal Laws (1607 in some degree right up to the 1840s) robbed Catholics of most civil and religious freedom and penalised also non-Anglican Protestant sects. The colonist Irish Parliament excluded Catholics and Presbyterians even after some were permitted to vote. From the moment the Irish Catholic Church stopped being persecuted, it collaborated with the foreign occupation of Ireland and its leaders condemned the Republican uprisings of 1798 and 1803 and every Irish resistance organisation since.

After the Irish national capitalist class joined with the Catholic Church leadership to agree to the partition of the country and Irish membership of the British Commonwealth Dominions and slaughtered those who had fought against foreign occupation 1922-1923, a puritanical conservative Catholic Church dominated the 26-County State while a sectarian, puritanical Presbyterian ethos dominated the 6-County statelet. Elements of anti-semitism were observed in the Church during the 1930s and the hierarchy supported Franco’s military-fascist uprising in Spain and blessed the fascist Blueshirts as they went to support Franco but condemned the Irish Republicans and Socialists who went to support the elected Popular Front Government. The Civil Rights movement in the Six Counties began a fight-back against sectarian oppression there at the end of the 1960s, about the same time as a slower struggle was breaking out in the rest of Ireland against the social and political domination of the Catholic Church.

The Irish people overall have shown that they wish to be free to make their own choices and decisions in matters of faith and social practice without being dominated by any religious authorities. The 1916 Proclamation of Independence declared that “The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberties to all” and, though that has yet to be realised, it seems to be what most people agree with. But clearly not the “patriots” of the Far-Right.

FOOTNOTES

1 The prayers that compose the Rosary cycle are arranged in sets of ten Hail Marys, called decades. Each decade is preceded by one Lord’s Prayer (“Our Father”) and traditionally followed by only one “Glory Be” and five decades are recited per rosary. Rosary beads are an aid towards saying these prayers in the proper sequence. There have been several Catholic devotional movements in Ireland that have emphasised praying the Rosary and, in modern times, most associated with Fr. Peyton’s “Rosary Crusade” beginning in the 1940s. In the 50’s and 60’s it was influential in Ireland and the phrase “The family that prays together, stays together” became well-known, which might be considered ironic at least in the physical sense, given the very high rate of emigration from Ireland, which included Fr.Peyton himself and his siblings. According to historian Hugh Wilford, “Peyton himself was deeply conscious of the political dimension of his mission, proudly proclaiming in a 1946 radio broadcast, ‘The rosary is the offensive weapon that will destroy Communism—the great evil that seeks to destroy the faith'” (Living memory and Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Peyton).

2  In addition to being a racist organisation against immigration, the BNP cultivated links with Ulster Loyalists in the Six Counties, Scotland and elsewhere, also with Nazi groups in Europe. It supported white colonist regimes in Africa and organised attacks on Irish community organisations in Britain and on Irish solidarity demonstrations.

3  The Security Council is the only body of the EU that can decide policy and any one of the five Permanent Members can veto a decision. The Five are France, UK, USA, Russia and China; the UK and France tend to vote in line with the USA.

4 The other permanent seats are held by the UK and France, which normally vote with the USA and Russia.

SOURCES:

The religious festival of Eid: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eid_al-Fitr#General_rituals

Also videos and photos of the event, eyewitness accounts and Far-Right organisation websites.

An observer took the following videos, including some interviews:

Locals and others: https://www.facebook.com/abdulaziz.almoayyad/videos/10158999347198487/?t=16

https://www.facebook.com/abdulaziz.almoayyad/videos/10158999283788487/?t=10

https://www.facebook.com/abdulaziz.almoayyad/videos/10158999283788487/?t=5

https://www.facebook.com/abdulaziz.almoayyad/videos/10158999283788487/?t=4

“Religious and civil Liberties for all” can be heard repeatedly on this one: https://www.facebook.com/abdulaziz.almoayyad/videos/10158999137098487/?t=26

A Nation Once Again played by fascists: https://www.facebook.com/abdulaziz.almoayyad/videos/10158999132093487/?t=62

 

DEFEND DEMOCRATIC LIBERTY!

On By rebelbreezeIn Anti-Fascism, Civil Rights, Current Affairs Comment, Human Rights, Ireland, Political Analysis, Religious Sectarianism1 Comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

The Far-Right, including racists like Gemma O’Doherty and fascists like Niall McConnell, have called for a protest against the hire of Croke Park for a celebration of the Muslim festival of Eid on Friday. These clowns posing as “patriots” who strut around waving the Tricolour and “Irish Republic” flags seem to have forgotten the words of the 1916 Proclamation of Independence (if indeed they ever bothered to read it): “The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all …”.

Monument Robert Emmett in Stephens Green (copy of another in Washington DC). Emmett gave his life not only for an independent ireland but for a republic, with separation of Church and State.
(Photo source: D.Breatnach)

SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE – A FUNDAMENTAL REPUBLICAN PRINCIPLE

          A fundamental principle of republicanism is the separation of church and state – it is as fundamental as the elimination of monarchic rule. It is what the Anglicans Wolfe Tone, Edward Fitzgerald and Robert Emmet believed in, along with the Presbyterians Anne and Henry Joy McCracken – and what they died for, along with independence from England. Anne Devlin and Michael Dwyer were typical of the Catholics who supported the republican ideal. No government should be telling its people what religion they must or must not follow — nor indeed that they have to be religious at all.

A far-Right Lineup for meeting at the EU Parliament: Irish “patriot” Niall McConnell at the far right of photo (and in politics) with, among others, fascist Nick Griffin of the British National Party (fourth from left).
(Photo source: Internet)

Gemma O’Doherty is calling for “a Christian prayer circle” at Croke Park at 9am as a protest against the muslim celebration. Christian prayers for intolerance, racism and fascism? These “patriots” think they have the right to decide which religion is acceptable and which not. That they dislike Muslim religion is their privilege but what is outrageous is that they think they have the right to dictate to people what their religion should be. These are the same people, let us not forget, who have been so stridently shouting about the “right to free speech”!

They say that they are doing this to “prevent Sharia law in Ireland”. Apart from the fact that the only religious domination we’ve had in Ireland has been various forms of Christianity, what kind of paranoia makes them think that there are enough Moslems in Ireland to get a Sharia party elected, even if Moslems wanted that, which many of them don’t? Not all Moslems are supporters of Sharia law any more than all Christians are fundamentalists — or all Catholics support the right of religious orders and clerics to abuse people over which they have control.

It was the Christian Pope Adrian IV in the 12th Century who, with the Laudabiliter document ‘authorised’ the invasion of Ireland by King Henry II of England. From the 15th Century we had Protestantism forced on us by the English Crown by the sword and plantation. In the second half of the 18th Century, Irish Republicanism sought to separate Church and State and to unite Catholic, Protestant (i.e the dominant Anglicans) and Dissenter (i.e Presbyterians, Methodists, Unitarians, Quakers). They failed but gradually Presbyterians and then Catholics won their rights (although Catholics continued to suffer discrimination in the Six Counties). In the 1930s the Blueshirts in the 26 Counties scapegoated Jews in order to divert the people from their real enemies and to build a fascist state, until they were beaten off the streets by Irish Republicans and socialists.

None of that religious persecution or strife was inflicted on us by Muslims.

Gemma O’Doherty supporters demonstrating for “free speech” outside the Dept. of Justice in November.
(Photo source: D.Breatnach)

TELLING US HOW TO LIVE OUR LIVES

          In the 26 Counties from 1921 we had a Catholic State and the Church dominated public and secular life, dictating laws and social rules about marriage, birth control, sex and sexuality, dance and socialisation, controlling also the education, welfare and health system. That would have been unhealthy enough but they abused their trust, not only physically, mentally and sexually abusing children, adolescents and adults, and exporting orphans abroad – but denying the victims and covering up for the abusers.

They told us what books and newspapers we could read, what films we could watch and what political parties we must not support. This is the kind of “free speech” sought by the fascists.

A fascist tweeter called Rionach has threatened to burn Croke Park down with the Muslims inside it!

All democratic forces need to oppose these reactionary gatherings, whatever the cover story under which they are calling them but under which the fascists are trying to organise their future stormtroopers. Already there have been a number of attacks on antifascist individuals and small groups.

If you disagree with what this collection of the bad, mad and sad are doing, with what they want to do to our country, you know where to be early on Friday morning. Bailligí le chéile!

End.

Prominent members of the United Irishmen, by unknown artist, print, 1798 or after
(Image sourced on Internet)

CIMARRON: GOING FERAL AND ETHNIC PREJUDICE

On By rebelbreezeIn British imperialism, Cultural Comment, Guerrilla Action, History, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Language Treasure Chest, Natural History, Plants, Religious Sectarianism, Spanish State, Traditions & Folk Custom6 Comments

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 15 minutes)

LANGUAGE IS A TREASURE CHEST – 2

I observed in Language Is a Treasure Chest 1 that it is full of wonders but that it has some horrors in it too. And I found it to be so again.

I was reading a novel in which the word “Cimarron” appeared and, doing some quick research on the word, I came across a 2004 query in an email website or page called Word Wizard:

What is the etymology of the word cimarron? I’ve always been told that it means “runaway slave” in Mexican Spanish. Can anyone verify this?

The reply is dated the same day:

From Greek. It refers to people who live in perpetual
mist and darkness, akin to the ‘land of the dead’.
Latin ‘Cimmerius’, Greek ‘Kimmerios’, Assyrian
‘Gimirri’ even the bible ‘Gomer’ Gen.10:2 and
Esk. 38:6.
In Western United States it refers to a stretch of 
land that gets rainfall when other near by areas are 
desert year round.

Apart from the topographical reference, I thought the expert’s explanation highly dubious. And in fact I happen to know something about the Spanish-language origins of the word.

The searcher replied:

Thanks, Jim. I just wonder what connection this word has to Hispanics of Mexican origin because it shows up in their surnames (although not as common as Lopez or Vargas or Garcia). Is it just Mexican in origin or did that also come from Spain? So the “runaway slave” theory has no foundation then?

The expert’s reply did come back with a Spanish-language connection and he may be on to something with the topography, though I think he has it the wrong way around (as we shall see).

The “runaway slave” theory is not so obsolete.
Mexico did not have slaves (Outlawed in 1810)but
American slaves who fled to Mexico had to pass
through lands with water, or else parish (sic).
When relating their tales of woe to the locals
the word ‘cimmaron’ arose to describe their flight
through the South West desert.

Very curiously, there was no further contribution to the discussion. I tried to leave my own but had to register, which I have done (though wondering if worth the trouble) and am now awaiting confirmation1.

A view of the Cimarron National Grassland, the largest piece of public land in Kansas, a 108,175-acre property in the southwestern part of the state. It was recovered from the Dustbowl ecological devastation by soil recovery and management practices. (Photo source: The Armchair Explorer – Kansas)

THE FOLK MEMORY WAS TRUE

          Continuing with a little light online research I find that the Castillian-language (Spanish) origin is the explanation most often given, with rarely a reference to Greek or other classical or archaic languages. For example, in yourdictionary.com:

American Spanish cimarrón, wild, unruly ( from Old Spanish cimarra, thicket): probably origin, originally referring to the wild sheep (bighorn) found along its banks

While in Wiktionary:

cimarrón (feminine singular cimarrona, masculine plural cimarrones, feminine plural cimarronas).

  1. (Latin America, of animals) feral (having returned to the wild)

  2. Synonyms: alzado, bagual, feral

  3. (Latin America, of people) rural; campestral

  4. (Latin America, of plants) of a wild cultivar.

But …. what about the “runaway slaves”? Under the title Cimarron People, Wikipedia has this to say: The Cimarrons in Panama were enslaved Africans who had escaped from their Spanish masters and lived together as outlaws. In the 1570s, they allied with Francis Drake of England to defeat the Spanish conquest. In Sir Francis Drake Revived (1572), Drake describes the Cimarrons as “a black people which about eighty years past fled from the Spaniards their masters, by reason of their cruelty, and are since grown to a nation, under two kings of their own. The one inhabiteth to the west, the other to the east of the way from Nombre de Dios”. (location in Panama — DB)

While we may indulge ourselves in a sardonic smile at commissioned pirate Francis Drake talking about the cruelty of others, or about slave-owning by a country other than England in 1570, we remember also that at the time Spain was the main competitor with England in the rush to plunder the Americas – and had got there well before them.2 Both colonial powers were already plundering Africa for raw materials and slaves.

The meanings of animals having gone “feral” or “returned to the wild” would easily have been applied by the society of the time to escaped African slaves, a society which, despite evidence to the contrary including agriculture in Africa, would have considered indigenous inhabitants of Africa as people living in the “wild”. Once escaped and no longer under European control, they would be seen as “returning to the wild”.

So what happened to the Cimarron People? Their settlements were subject to punitive raids by the Spanish, killing people and burning crops, so that in the end they came to a treaty with their old enemy. The Wikipedia entry says no more except that the “Cimarrons” and the English quarreled (not surprising, given that they were of no further use to the latter). I believe some of their settlements in Florida were raided and burned by US “pioneers” and soldiers and that the remainder became part of the Seminoles, a native American tribe that resisted the USA in the longest and most costly of the USA’s wars against the indigenous people, the Native (North) Americans. The Seminole had many tribe members of part-African origin in their midst.

And here – a surprise: The word “Seminole” is derived from the Muscogee word simanó-li, which may itself be derived from the Spanish word cimarrón, meaning “runaway” or “wild one”!

So, in line with what that on-line searcher back in 2004 had heard, no doubt a folk belief, the word cimarron is, in Mexico (and in the USA), of Castillian (Spanish) language origin and is connected to escaped slaves of African origin.

Some of the sources for “cimarron” also give us “marron” or “marrón” which is also related to escaped slaves and, in English, became “Maroons”. The Maroons, escaped slaves who inhabited mountainous regions of Jamaica and elsewhere became a great problem to the English settlers (after they took the island from the Spanish) which they failed totally to quell, the Maroons emerging victorious in many military engagements. In the Cockpits area of Jamaica, I have read, there is a place called Nanny Town, which is believed to be one of the settlements of the Maroons; their chief was said to be a woman called “Granny Nanny”3, whether because of her former slave occupation or for other reason4. In the end, like the Spanish with the Cimarron People, the English had to treat with them. Sadly the treaty required the Maroons to return newly-escaped slaves, which they did and for which they received payment.

Marroons in treaty with the British, shown here in a reversal of the actual power relations in the “Pacification with Maroons on the Island of Jamaica, by Agostino Runias (1728-96).
(Source image: Internet)

However if instead of being a voluntary escapee to go to a wild place you were forced by people or circumstance, well then, like Alexander Selkirk’s “Crusoe”, you’d be “marooned”!

Well then, what about the “cimarron strips” in the southwest of the USA? Could the word refer to strips of land “gone wild”? Or could the expert replying to the question in 2004 have been on to something?

If the slaves escaping through the desert from the USA to Mexico did indeed make their way through strips of watered land (not just for the water, as the expert speculates but for vegetation to conceal them), then there is a connection between escaped slaves and these strips of land. But not as the expert sees it, rather the other way around: since the escaped slaves, the “cimarrones” were travelling the strips, they would be called by those who knew about it (escapee hunters, escapee helpers and just observers), “cimarron strips”, i.e “those strips through which the runaway slaves travel.”

CHRISTIAN ETHNIC PREJUDICE

          However, if the word comes from Castillian (Spanish) what were the origins of the word in that language?

Perhaps a year ago, I was reading a book that described the Spanish State as having been characterised, contrary to many other European states, by mass expulsions and exiles on a number of occasions throughout its history5. Naturally enough, first on the list of expulsions was the well-known example of the Moors and the Jews. Those who were not slaughtered by the forces of the “Christian Monarchs” of Ferdinand and Isabella in the “reconquest” were obliged to convert to Christianity or to leave “with only the clothes on their backs”. This also occurred in Portugal.

Those Jews who left were the Sephardim or Sephardic Jews, who spoke Ladino, an archaic kind of Iberian Romance6 language with Aramaic and Hebrew words, along with the Moors, who spoke an Iberian-Arabic mixture or Arabic. The key of their houses or gates have been handed down to this day in families of both groups.7

Many converted, often referred to by Christians as “conversos” (Jews) or “moriscos” (Arabs) but were constantly under suspicion of reverting to their old religion even with the threat and constant trials and torture of the Spanish Inquisition. According to what I have read they too were sometimes called “marronos”, i.e in the eyes of the Spanish Christian ruling class, those who had been “domesticated” (Christianised) but had “returned to the their wild way”, (Moslem) i.e “gone feral”.

Forced conversions that had to appear genuine: “The Moorish Proselytes of Archbishop Ximenes”, Granada, 1500 by Edwin Long (1829–1891). (Image source: Internet)

Wikipedia on Marrones in Iberia confirms: The (Spanish) Inquisition was aimed mostly at Jews and Muslims who had overtly converted to Christianity but were thought to be practicing their faiths secretly. They were respectively called marranos and moriscos. However, in 1567 King Phillip II directed Moriscos to give up their Arabic names and traditional dress, and prohibited the use of Arabic. In reaction, there was a Morisco uprising in the Alpujarras from 1568 to 1571. In the years from 1609 to 1614, the government expelled Moriscos.

THE BUSH FROM THE NUT?

          And is “ci” or “cy” in “cimarron” then merely a prefix? The word “marrón” exists as a colour in Castilian and a number of Romance languages and came into English as the colour “maroon”. Its development is taken as originating from the colour of the large ripe chestnut, rather than given to it later. Of course there are a number of words for colours or tints which have a botanical origin, “orange” being an obvious one.

Castanea Silva, the edible or Sweet Chestnut.
(Image source: Internet)

Alright, then the nut and tree might have been associated with uncultivated or “wild” areas, similar to those to which the “cimarrons” would escape. But where did the “ci” suffix come from? Somewhere in the midst of what I have been researching I came across an explanation, derived from Latin, meaning “towering”, “high” etc. But can I find it now?

The online sources are telling me that the relevant pages are up for deletion and I can join the discussion. No thanks, I do not have anything like sufficient knowledge to enter a debate on that, nor the patience of an academic to research it thoroughly.

But “high” and “wild” could easily correspond, given that valleys and plains lend themselves more easily to cultivation, as a rule, than mountainy areas, which might remain wooded or with with thick undergrowth. And that might also give us the “bush” or “thicket” referred to in a number of references for “cimarron”, which in turn might describe the “cimarron strips”. In parts of Latin America (and for all I know, in all of them) such as Chile, a “cimarra” is also a thicket or densely-grown area. The article in the Language Journal (see reference) comments that the “arra” cannot be a Romance language word-ending but even if true it seems to me that the author (or authors quoted) might be unaware that among those from Iberia who colonised or settled in the Americas, Romance language speakers were not alone. There were also Basques who spoke Euskera/ Euskara and for evidence, they applied a number of toponomics and left family names from the Basque Country (Basque descendants make up to 10% of the population of some Latin American countries). And “-arra” would be a common enough suffix or word-ending in Euskera.8

Opening title for the weekly TV Western series Cimarron Strip, starring Stuart Whitman, Judy Gleeson, Percy Herbert and Randy Boone. Though popular, only a years’ worth of episodes were screened.
(Image source: Internet)

OKLAHOMA PANHANDLE AND THE CIMARRON STRIP

          In the 19th Century wars between the Mexican Republic, the USA and the Native Americans in the area, it was carved up with less and less left to the Native Americans.   Prior to the American Civil War, white Texas wanted to join the Union as a slave state  and due to a US federal law prohibiting slavery north of 36°30′ parallel north, white Texas surrendered a strip of land north of that latitude. The settlement (temporary of course), left a strip as “Neutral Territory” (one can only imagine the temptation for African slaves in Texas to make for there).  After the Civil War big cattle ranchers moved in, disregarding treaties and named the area the Cimarron Strip.

Map of Oklahoma territory and “Neutral Strip” before the American Civil War.
Image source: Wikipedia, Texas Panhandle.

But that was because the word Cimarron was already in the area, from the “Cimarron Cutoff” leading to a crossing of the  Cimarron river.  And yes, there was a popular 1967-1968 TV series called “Cimarron Strip”, starring Stuart Whitman.  But, though I used to watch it, that is only faintly related to the story of the word that set me out on this journey.

End.

FOOTNOTES

1Which days later had still not arrived – perhaps the site is no longer in operation, which would explain the silence after those two posters.

2Columbus voyage to America 1641 and Spain’s first colonial settlement 1565 (now Florida); Mayflower expedition to America with English settlers 1587 (now Virginia). However, Europeans had founded settlements much earlier, as with the Norse in the 10th Century and very likely Irish monks in the 6th Century. But it was the English and Spanish who conquered most, the Dutch, French and Portuguese less. The descendants of the English settlers after gaining independence from England completed the seizure and colonisation of most of the North American continent, while English colonists remaining loyal to the English Crown seized land to form what is now Canada.

4All the folk tradition, albeit conflicting on some points, declares that she had not been a slave which leaves one to wonder how she might have reached Jamaica from Africa without having been enslaved.

5 I borrowed the book from the public library and cannot remember its title at the moment.

6“Romance languages” is the name give to the group on Indo-European languages such as Castillian (Spanish), Catalan, Galician, Portuguese, Romanian, Italian and French. They are sometimes called “Latin-based” or “Latin Languages” but there is some dispute about the origins and developments of these languages.

7 Ironically, the door or gate “key” is also a symbol of return for Palestinian refugees driven from their homes by Zionist massacres, threats and fear during the founding of the State of Israel.

8 Among toponomics of North America’s southwest Durango (Colorado and Mexico), Navarro and Zavala Counties (Texas) are perhaps the best known; while Aguirre, Arana, Bolívar (Bolibar), Cortazar (Kortazar), Duhalde, Echevarria (Etxebarria), García, Guevara (Gebarra), Ibarra, Larrazábal, Mendiata, Muzika, Ortiz, Salazar, Ugarte, Urribe and Zabala are but some among a host of family names of Basque origin from the American south-west to Latin America. And of course the country of Bolivia, from Simon Bolívar, a Basque surname from a Basque toponomic.

SOURCES, REFERENCES:

http://www.wordwizard.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?t=1342

https://www.yourdictionary.com/cimarron

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cimarr%C3%B3n

Excerpt on-line from Language journal, Linguistic Society of America, Leo Spitzer, Vol. 14, No. 2 (Apr. – Jun., 1938), pp. 145-147: https://www.jstor.org/stable/408879?seq=1

Cimarron People: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cimarron_people_(Panama )

Seminole People: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seminole

Marrons, Marrónes, Maroons: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamaican_Maroons

“Marronos” in Iberia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moors#Etymology

Marooned: https://www.etymonline.com/word/maroon

Marrón/ maroon as a colour, derived from the nut: https://www.etymonline.com/word/maroon

Basque diaspora to Latin America: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basque_diaspora

Family names of Basque origin in Latin America: https://www.academia.edu/7889462/Basque_legacy_in_the_New_World_on_the_surnames_of_Latin_American_presidents

Basque words ending in -arra: https://www.ezglot.com/words-ending-with.php?l=eus&w=arra

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_Panhandle#Cimarron_Territory