The last person of the 10 Republican prisoners to die in the 1981 Hunger strikes died on August 20th but hunger strikes continued for a while until relatives began instructing the doctors to give the strikers alimentation.
What can be said about those strikes? Clearly, a tremendous sacrifice requiring immense courage and determination in a non-violent protest by national liberation fighters in jail in a struggle against British colonialism.
Certainly we lost individuals of great worth in that struggle. It may be asked whether the gain was worth the sacrifice or whether the prison struggle might have been fought in some other way.
The medieval Irish society practice of fasting as a means of protest may or may not have been original but it was an important part of the people of India’s struggle against English colonial rule. Palestinian prisoners have used mass and individual hunger strikes on a number of occasions.
The effects of the Irish 1981 hunger strikes were many and wide, most probably far beyond the intentions or expectations of the prisoners. The news went around the world, bringing expressions of solidarity from many regions, including actions by parliaments of various states.
The Islamic Republic of Iran sent delegates to Bobby Sands’ funeral and renamed the street in which stood the British Embassy in Teheran ‘Bobby Sands Street’. The British Embassy to Iran had to give that as their address until they moved their main entrance around the corner.
Bobby Sands Street in Teheran, Islamic Republic of Iran (Photo sourced: Internet)
Hunger strikers stood in parliamentary elections in Ireland on both sides of the British Border, winning some seats and coming very close to winning some others. One result was that the British changed their electoral laws so that convicted prisoners could no longer stand in elections.
In the Irish state there has not been an outright majority government since that year – every single Irish government since then has been a coalition of one kind or another.
In Britain, the hunger strikes made a huge difference amongst the Irish community there. The 1974 Birmingham Pub Bombings massacre had been jumped on by the British Labour Government to pass the Prevention of Terrorism Act 1974 (now the Terrorism Act 2000).
Probably already drafted, it was brought before Parliament and passed within days, giving the police power to hold suspects for seven days without charge, wide-scale powers of stop and search and interrogation, usually without legal representation for the victim.
Within the year a score of people from the community had been framed on serious charges, convicted and jailed: Birmingham Six, Guildford Four, Maguire Seven, Judith Ward. Subsequently many Irish people stayed away from Irish solidarity marches and meetings – just in case.
The hunger strikes of 1981 blew away much of that fear and the Irish community came out in their thousands in an attempt to save the lives of the hunger-strikers — and have never been cowed down to the previous degree since.
The Irish in Britain Representation Group was formed in 1981 after the refusal of the Federation of Irish Societies to even pass a motion of sympathy for the family of Bobby Sands, who had died only days earlier; the IBRG provided radical and resolute leadership for the next 20 years.
One of a number of songs arising from the 1981 hunger strikes was the Ballad of Joe McDonnell, by Derek Warfield. It is a good song in general but what is most excellent is its chorus, where it turns the accusation of terrorism away from the Resistance and back to British Imperialism.
And you dare to call me a terrorist, While you look down your guns! When I think of all the things that you have done: You have plundered many nations, Divided many lands, You terrorised their people, Ruled with an iron hand … And you brought the stain of terror to my land.
And it could just as well apply to US Imperialism, EU imperialism and their NATO military alliance.
I have sung the song many times over the years and did so again recently at the weekly Dubs For Palestine gathering outside Leinster House. And more recently still outside the British Embassy. I changed only a couple of words to provide a more optimistic line at the end.
End.
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The international conflicts around the world are largely explained by imperialism versus liberation struggles or, occasionally, as in two world wars, struggles between the imperialists themselves, as entirely in WWI and very largely in WWII. But not all control is by invasion or occupation.
The idea of an imperial power invading other countries, occupying and dominating them is easy to grasp, it being similar to the behaviour of feudal empires. But even in ancient times, kingdoms could be controlled by a stronger power without occupying them – by intimidation and bribery.
That kind of collaboration is easier and cheaper for the dominant exploiting power to manage and certainly less risky. Conquered populations can remain resistant for generations and rebellions can break out again and again as has been the case par excellence in Ireland.
Also the taxes and rents extracted by feudal empires from subject kingdoms are largely replaced today by high profits on finance invested in the extraction of natural resources from client nations and often in exports to those very nations, often fabricated from their very plundered resources.
And that latter example is where from comes the word ‘comprador’, i.e ‘buyer’; the client economies exported raw resources, made little themselves but bought finished products from the dominant power. “Gombeens”1 is an Irish appellation for native foreign-dependent capitalists.
Gombeen Denis O’Brien, owner of many known companies including construction, telecommunication, water infrastructure, fuel and media.
Of course, in a later stage, the dominant power exported not only finance to invest but whole factories, with resulting production declining within the former industrial powers.
Analysing the imperialist capitalist system internally, it becomes less and less productive, increasingly parasitical and dominated by finance capital, whereas the colonies and client states may even become more productive but only in such ways as are required by the imperialists.
Production of their own necessities, even their very food may decline in client states and colonies as they are driven to concentrating on export-orientated cash crops and minerals instead. The ruling classes in such countries are merely economic/political managers for the imperial powers.
They are comprador capitalists, neo-colonials, typically orientated culturally towards the imperial power, often venal, contemptuous of their own nation’s people and their history, contemptuous enough often to flaunt their ill-gotten wealth.2
There are many examples of such people and behaviour around the world, some of the more famous being Lavalle (France), Vidkun Quisling (Norway), Mahmoud Abbas (Palestine), Daniel O’Connell and Michael Collins (Ireland); which last brings us nicely to the Gombeens ruling the Irish State.
Anti-Treaty cartoon, 1921, depicts Ireland being coerced by Michael Collins, representing the Free State Army, along with the Catholic Church, in the service of British Imperialism. (Sourced: Internet)
From right of image, Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority poses shaking hands with the representative of his US master, Antony Blinken. (Image sourced: Internet)
The Irish State came into existence after centuries of English occupation and resistance after which the colonial power offered more autonomy but partition. The Resistance refused acceptance and the new State defeated the national liberation forces in the ensuing Civil War (see History Appendix).
Ireland is a partitioned nation: one-sixth of its territory (the Six Counties colony) is occupied by the UK, policed by a sectarian colonial police force and garrisoned by British armed forces and is part of the European imperialist military alliance of NATO.
Yet the invaders’ chiefs, including military and monarchy are welcomed by the leaders of the Irish State and the invader’s Royal Air Force patrols skies of the Irish state.3 The State’s police works in close cooperation with the sectarian police force of the colonial administration.4
The Irish economy is comprehensively penetrated by companies of foreign ownership: The State’s carrier Aer Lingus is owned by British Airways. The former state telecommunication networks is owned by Eircom, 64-65% owned by a French company and most of the rest by a US company.
Foreign-owned companies dominate the retail sector, accounting for roughly 30% of employment and over 50% of total turnover and retail gross value. It terms of food products retail the figures are the same with British and German monopolies dominating the rest.5
Most food consumed in Ireland is now imported, a country that two centuries ago could feed a larger population and yet still export some.
Retail banking is ‘highly internationalised’ i.e. dominated by foreign-owned institutions and has been so since the founding of the State, accounting for 24% of sector earnings. International financial services from Ireland is even more foreign-dominated, accounting for +90% of jobs.
Irish whisky production is divided between a US-based and a French company (which also owns Cork Dry Gin), while Irish beer, stout (including Guinness) and lager are produced by the British company Diageo. In addition, beers and spirits are imported large-scale from abroad.
Some of the money from roads collecting tolls goes to foreign companies, eg. French and Spanish. While the Irish State owns the infrastructure and collects the revenue of Dublin’s LUAS, the day-to-day operation and maintenance are contracted out to German and French companies.
Roughly 21% of hospital beds are in the private (non-state) sector and a significant portion of that private market—alongside specialized diagnostic and sports clinics—is foreign-owned or backed by international private equity and multinational healthcare groups.
According to AI, non-resident institutional and foreign-backed real estate companies buy a significantly higher share (over 50%) of newly built multi-unit apartment developments in urban centres like Dublin and Cork. 6
Approximately 60% to 70% of total assets in the Irish banking and financial system are linked to foreign-owned institutions or cross-border non-resident claims. However, the domestic retail banking market is heavily concentrated among a small number of groups with Irish headquarters.7
Following the exit of major foreign retail players like Ulster Bank and KBC which were active in banking with the Irish state, Irish-headquartered groups like AIB, Bank of Ireland, and PTSB came to take a large share of retail banking in Ireland but these too have foreign connections.8
The colonial history of Ireland and neo-colonial evolution of the Irish State has been deepened by its suppression of forces of national resistance9 and by opening its internal markets, national resources and State networks to foreign penetration.
It is hardly surprising that the national bourgeoisie of Ireland is incapable of asserting sovereignty and independence not only in relation to the UK and the USA but also in the face of the western imperialist alliances of the EU and NATO.
The images of four reformist Irish politicians which City Managers of Dublin City Council erected over the Bank of Ireland building (former Irish Parliament under British rule) in College Green as a riposte to the commemoration of the 1916 Rising. Not only were these politicians not revolutionary, each one failed completely to even win the limited autonomy he set out to win. From top left around the clock: Henry Grattan, Charles Parnell, John Redmondand Daniel O’Connell. (Image sourced: Irish Times)
Contemporary examples of this lack of sovereignty is permitting US military flights through Shannon Airport and, despite overwhelming popular support for Palestine and against ‘Israel’, the Irish state continuing to be the second-largest importer of ‘Israeli’ exports.
Describing the problem is useful to an extent but mainly if we then direct ourselves to resolving the issue. A Gombeen class will never deliver independence or sovereignty – it is incapable of doing so. But it is not incapable of repressing those who actively seek independence and sovereignty.
Perforce, the struggle against imperialism most also strike at neo-colonialism and conversely, the Gombeens must be exposed and overthrown in order to be free of imperialism and colonialism.
End.
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HISTORICAL APPENDIX (Reading time:2 mins.)
The foreign occupation of Ireland10 promoted the use of the English language and culture and from the reign of Henry VIII onwards this included religion, a branch of Christianity of which the Monarch of the realm was also the Head of the Church.
That was resisted not only by the indigenous Irish and descendants of Vikings but by most of the Anglo-Norman lords’ descendants in Ireland too. Their English-based contemporaries excoriated them for having become the ‘degenerate English’ and ‘more Irish than the Irish themselves’.11
The cultural-political struggle continued with the Irish and Gaelicised Normans being dispossessed and suppressed until a section of the occupying settlers sought to unite people of all cultural backgrounds in Ireland in order to establish an independent Irish Republic.
Following defeat and suppression of the United Irishmen, the native Catholic bourgeoisie began to slowly rise, their main efforts at first being to legalise the Catholic Church as an institution and to abolish the discriminatory Penal Laws against Catholics (i.e. the majority of the indigenous).
While O’Connell and his followers also sought the return of an Irish Parliament,12 they did so as part of the British Empire. Their Repeal Movement leadership totally eschewed the use of force and this led to the ‘Young Irelanders,’ their most progressive component, splitting from them.
Subsequently the native Irish bourgeoisie participated in pressurising the Occupation and the landed aristocracy into giving greater security to the peasantry renting agricultural land. However this struggle too was presented in non-revolutionary terms, as a resolution within the British Empire.
The Parnellites and their political heirs evolved over time into the Redmonites of the Irish Nationalist Party,13 still very much for remaining within the Empire. After the 1916 Rising these were all but wiped out as an electoral force in the 1918 UK General Election.
The party that won the vast majority of Irish seats in that election was a coalition of revolutionary and radical non-revolutionary nationalists of various types, calling itself ‘Sinn Féin’ although it differed from the original party of that name in being avowedly Irish Republican.14
Many of the party’s representatives in the Dáil, the Irish Parliament, strongly endorsed the armed struggle of the newly-created Irish Republican Army.15 But not all, although eight months into the 2nd year of the War of Independence the Dáil formally claimed the IRA as its military wing.16
When the British, in order to stop the armed and political struggle against them offered the new Sinn Féin Government leadership a deal with partial autonomy as one of the British Dominions but with the country partitioned, it split the movement and one part of it attacked the dissenting part.
During the ensuing Civil War, the State forces were armed, supplied and even clothed by the British and executed more Irish Republicans than the British forces had done during the War of Independence. Activists were interned without trial and a number of organisations banned.
In addition, the State police and Army kidnapped, tortured and murdered opponents.17 Although the Sinn Féin party that opposed the Anglo-Irish Agreement split to form Fianna Fáil, the party longest in government, the Irish State that exists today is in an unbroken line of descent from that of 1922.
1From the Irish language Gaimbín, a pejorative description of Irish individuals who took advantage of the poverty and debts of Irish people during and after the Great Starvation of the mid-19th Century to acquire land cheaply.
2Some specific examples are Imelda Marcos’ shoes and Charles Haughey’s purchase of an island. Imelda Marcos, the former First Lady of the Philippines, became globally infamous for owning around 3,000 pairs of shoes, which symbolized lavish wealth and extreme government corruption during her husband’s rule. When protesters and officials raided the presidential palace in 1986, they found her massive collection alongside thousands of other expensive gowns and designer items. Charles Haughey held a number of Government portfolios but was Prime Minister of the Irish state Dec 1979 – Jun 1981; Mar 1982 – Dec 1982; Mar 1987 – Jun 1989; Jun 1989 – Feb 1992.
4Even without being on British payroll: Former Garda Assistant Commissioner Edmund (Ned) Garvey was named as a British intelligence “asset” by British whistleblower and former soldier Fred Holroyd, who claimed he met Garvey at Garda Headquarters in Dublin during the 1970s. Garvey denied being a spy, though official investigations like the Barron Report confirmed a meeting took place without Garvey reporting it to his superiors.
The board features international leadership, including Chairman Akshaya Bhargava and non-executive directors like Pascal Boillat (who brings decades of global operational experience across institutions like Deutsche Bank and Citigroup), alongside international committee members.
Operates extensively across the UK and international markets.
AIB (Allied Irish Banks)
AIB operates subsidiary structures in the UK and maintains broad international institutional shareholding following full state exit.
Board members and corporate teams frequently hold background experience across major global financial hubs in London, New York, and Europe.
PTSB (Permanent TSB)
Following the €1.6 billion acquisition agreement by Austria’s BAWAG Group, continental European banking interests have direct representation and control over the institution’s trajectory.
The board includes directors with heavy international banking backgrounds, such as prior executive experience spanning EMEA, the US, and the UK.
9The Civil War/Counter-revolution 1922-’23 and repression until 1939, Fianna Fáil Government 1939-1945, Irish State repression campaigns mid-1960s, Section 31 Broadcasting Act 1971, re-establishment of the non-jury ‘sentencing tribunal’ of the Special Criminal (sic) Court 1972, use of the ‘Heavy Gang’ 1980s.
10Usually dated from the Anglo-Norman invasion of 1169, although the British did not succeed in totally dominating all parts of Ireland until the beginning of 17th Century.
12 The Irish Parliament under British colonial rule was a thoroughly sectarian one, open only to members of the small minority Anglican community and the failed attempt to enlarge it to all religions in Irish was what had convinced Irish Republicans to form the revolutionary United Irishmen organisation. After the suppression of the latter’s uprising in 1798 the English administration had organised the Parliament abolishing itself and Ireland becoming part of the British Union in 1801.
13Charles Stewart Parnell formed most of the MPs elected in Ireland into a party to participate in the UK Parliament.
14Griffith, founder of the original Sinn Féin had argued for a dual-British-Irish monarchy but agreed to the change.
15Newly-created from former members of the Irish Volunteers of 1916 and Irish Citizen Army and with new recruits.
16August 1919 – the following month the British occupation banned the Dáil.
17In particular in and from Oriel House, located at the corner of Westland Row and Fenian Street.
An Irish Palestine solidarity activist momentarily blocked NATO ‘Supreme European Commander’ Alexus Grynkewich’s armed convoy as he left the Dublin US Embassy on Wednesday, escorted by his bodyguards.
The activist was bashed against a wall by Gardaí, arrested and taken to Irishtown Garda station, released on Garda bail to attend court 2nd September.
The protest action appears to have been unplanned and came at the end of a weekly event, an hour of displaying flags and singing songs of resistance in front of the US Embassy’s main entrance organised by singer-musician Jimi Cullen which moved from the Israeli Embassy over a year ago.
A recent one of the weekly Wednesday musical protests at the US Embassy organised by Jimi Cullen (on extreme left of photo), this one on 5th September 2025 (Wk 158)
The event began as usual with a handful of people gathering at their usual spot at the triangular junction of Pembroke Road and Elgin Road. It appears that an RTÉ (national broadcaster) team were noted entering the Embassy from the Elgin Road side which alerted the activists to some unusual Embassy activity.
The activists moved down to direct shouts at the Embassy staff and military, shouts such as “US military out of Shannon!”, “US military baby-killers!” and “Free Palestine!”. A car collecting a leaving official was momentarily blocked by an activist who was removed by Gardaí.
Some time later the event was coming to an end with the usual group singing of An Dord Féinne with the chorus “Óró sé do bheatha ‘bhaile” etc and some of the group dispersed. Those who had not yet left however noticed a convoy of Garda and unmarked vehicles arrive.
It was at that point that Alexus Grynkewich, the NATO supremo, emerged from the Embassy building, escorted by his bodyguards and entered one of the vehicles. Before the convoy could take off, the activist ran in front of it, waving a Palestine flag and was grabbed by Gardaí.
After the activist’s detention and removal to Irishtown Garda Station and other activists attended the station, the activist was charged and bailed in his own recognisance and another activist arrived to give him a lift back to where his car was parked near the US Embassy.
Cartoon on the incident by D.Breatnach
NATO & IRELAND
Alexus Grynkewich is no stranger to US Imperialism/ NATO’s wars in the Levant and in Ukraine and his role in Ireland is to push for Ireland to join NATO and continue facilitating US military flights through Shannon. As far as the Gombeen class is concerned he’s pushing an open door.
Not so with the general Irish population, however, who have made it clear on a number of occasions that they wish the Irish State not to be a part of any external military alliance. The campaign to retain the ‘Triple Lock’1to prevent the Government abandoning official neutrality is ongoing.
While the occupied colony of the Six Counties is part of NATO, the Irish State is not. However it was revealed not long ago that the State has given permission to the Royal Air Force to patrol Irish skies and for many years, US military plains have been observed refuelling at Shannon Airport.
General Alexis Grynkewich, Supreme European Commander NATO (US/EU imperialist military alliance). (Photo source: Wikipedia)
In addition, the Ditch online media has logged planes being permitted to fly towards ‘Israel’ through Irish airspace while carrying weapons-grade material. NATO warships dock at Irish harbours a number of times a year.
Ireland’s current Presidency of the EU seems to be accelerating the State’s slide towards foreign militarisation and has already seen restrictions on the right to protest, with Gardaí closing a part of Dame Street to protest one day and moving protesters from in front of Trinity on another day.
A number of organisations have stated an intention to increase their protests against NATO and US imperialism while some regular broad pro-Palestine groups have indicated they will move their regular protests to outside the US Embassy in solidarity with the arrested activist.
Resistance is often met with State repression but in turn that too often generates more resistance. Voices of broad support for the activist have called for assembly outside the US Embassy at 2pm Wednesday 19th proceeding thereafter to the British Embassy to at 3pm where Jimi Cullen has temporarily relocated.
End.
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FOOTNOTES
1Before more than 12 Irish military may be sent on an external mission, it has to be 1) a formal Government Cabinet decision, 2) with Irish Parliamentary approval and 3) on a UN mission.
Reproduced with permission of the author; edited to format for Rebel Breeze.
Just 110 years ago on August 3rd 1916 the Irish revolutionary Roger Casement was executed at Pentonville Prison in England, hung by the neck till dead.
However, it was not the only execution of Roger Casement, he has been executed many, many times, by diverse types ranging from the British State to right wing sections of Irish society and the West Brits that populate the Irish media and Dublin’s chattering classes et al.
Of course when I say executed many times, I am not referring to his physical execution, that only happened once, though the British Empire was an expert in cruelty and came as close as you possibly can to multiple physical executions.
One of its favoured methods was for a long time the sentence of Hung, Drawn and Quartered which entailed being hung till nearly dead, brought down, disembowelled whilst still alive and then decapitated: the pinnacle of British civilisation up until 1870.
But I refer to the assassination of his character which still continues to this day.
Roger Casement portrait, hanged for his revolutionary work in Pentonville Prison, London, on 3rd August 1916. (Image sourced: Internet)
Casement was a British diplomat for much of his life but his activism in Ireland and his later role in the lead up to the 1916 Rising brought him to the attention of the British authorities that he worked for.
He was an internationally recognised figure praised by all and sundry for his work in Congo and also in Latin America for his work on abuses in the rubber industry.
Executing someone who was ostensibly one of their own was not as easy as executing the other leaders of the Rising and so the rumour mill of the Black Diaries was produced to denigrate his character at the time.
In the 1980s, some Republicans of the Sinn Féin variety reclaimed Casement as a gay icon.
Whether Casement was gay or not would be largely irrelevant to a modern Irish audience, but it was not so at the time. Gay sex was illegal and gays were pursued ruthlessly.
Even Alan Turing who played a key role in Britain’s war against the Nazis by cracking their codes was hounded and prosecuted. Were it not for Turing the course of WWII may well have been very different, but not even that could save him.
Casement who rose up against the British Empire could have expected nothing but the worst from the British. However, alongside the allegation based on the forged Black Diaries that he was gay is also the allegation that he was a pederast.
It is beyond the scope of this article to refute all the fabricated allegations against Casement of which there are many, though Angus Mitchell’s updated biography Casement is thorough in refuting the Black Diaries and the campaign against him.[1]
I was struck by the fact that Casement was under watch from German intelligence during his time there and yet they never recorded any of the behaviour Casement’s enemies ascribed to him, including during his period in Germany.
Why so many attempts to assassinate his character? Well, they needed to do so to justify his execution and have stuck to their murderous guns ever since.
But also, there are many myths about the 1916 leaders that portray them as insular, reactionary irredentist nationalists when in fact they were very open to other cultures and had a broad international perspective not only on culture but also on politics.
Casement’s internationalism, his outward looking view is a matter of public record. His stature as one of the great humanitarians of the 19th and 20th centuries is almost unassailable.
That the rebellion against the British Empire in Dublin could be linked to Casement’s work exposing the atrocities of the Belgian state and royal family or his work in South America in also exposing the atrocities of rubber companies cannot be tolerated.
Not by those who believe in the civilising mission of the White Man’s Burden as the reactionary vile poet Rudyard Kipling put it.
Casement is the only leader of the Rising who is both known internationally, and whose writings are available in various languages. His writings about the Amazon rubber industry are rarely out of print in South America.
The attempts to smear him got more “sophisticated” over the years as concerns about him being gay no longer had the same force and so his work is attacked. He has been accused of racism, being in effect an imperialist, despite all evidence and even part of the problem in the rubber industry.
The Murdoch press in 2010 even stated he was no humanitarian, though that particular press group is given to lying as a matter of course, one of the most infamous cases being the accusations they levelled with gay abandon at the Liverpool fans during the Hillsborough disaster.
But the Murdoch press’ accusations are not any less “serious” than some of the “academic” tripe produced by others.[2]
Casement makes for uncomfortable reading for many. You cannot consider his life, his work and the 1916 Rising without taking into account the international context, international politics and empire in all its nauseous rotten elements.
He inspired other anti-colonial leaders and his speech from the dock was such that it was referenced by independence leaders around the world.[3]
“When languishing as a political prisoner in the 1930s, Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India, commented how ‘it seemed to point out exactly how a subject nation should feel.’”[4]
His base in La Chorrera, Putumayo in modern day Colombia[5] still recalls Casement and they refer to Ireland simply as Roger’s Country.[6]
The debates about Casement are not about Casement per se, but rather his politics and what he did and sought to do in relation to the British Empire’s occupation of his homeland. Some of those who denigrate him would be happy for all of Ireland to become part of the British state again.
Roger Casement statue on Dún Laoghaire waterfront, erected August 2021. (Photo sourced: Internet)
On one level it does not matter whether he was gay, in the modern Ireland it is hardly an issue, his alleged racism and paedophilia would still be an issue however.
All of these are attempts by a state that cannot come to terms with how one of their own (initially), a man of world renown stature could rise up against their putrid empire.
As we go forward, we have not seen the last of the attempted executions of a man whose fame outlives that of all those who opposed him, argued against him, executed him physically, intellectually and ideologically.
As Angus Mitchell has pointed out about forgeries that they need to be controlled as the British did to a point that we cannot be even sure that the partial release in the 1950s and the later releases are the same documents.
The Black Diaries display the same signature. A consensus that was genuinely secure would not need the regular re-litigation it receives, nor the marshalling of reviews to maintain that consensus.
It would also not require the assurance of the Guardian correspondent that the forgery theory has been discredited when he knows full well that is not the case…
A genuine source needs neither secrecy nor maintenance. The Black Diaries have acquired both – concealed in their handling and defended ever since by a consensus that must be continually reasserted. The endless fascination is not evidence that the mystery is deep.
It is evidence that someone, somewhere, is still doing the work of maintaining the mystery and claiming it as history.[7]
What we can be certain of is that Roger Casement stood up to the empire, he fought against it and that his work is as relevant to modern Ireland and indeed the world as it was then and that is the biggest crime that Casement committed.
One we should be proud of on the 110th anniversary of his execution by the British, that led to multiple executions of his legacy at the hands of the British Establishment, West Brits and other apologists for empire.
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NOTES
[1] Mitchell, A. (2026) Casement. Haus Publishing. UK.
[4] Mitchell, A. (1916) 16 Lives: Roger Casement. O Brien. Dublin para 21.108
[5] The Putumayo region in which Casement travelled straddled the borders of Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. Land borders have changed since then, particularly after the 1932-34 war. His base was then and still is now in Colombia, some of the other parts are in Ecuador and Peru and others have changed between the countries.
As we face the possible escalation of an extended regional war in West Asia it is worthwhile to consider what’s at stake for some of the various ‘players’.
‘Israel’ constantly claims existential threats to its state but Iran has stated the same with regard to attacks upon it by the US and ‘Israel’. The Resistance in Palestine and in Lebanon have also spoken in those terms with regard to themselves.
It might seem that the US is the only major participant in the wars in Western Asia which is not itself threatened existentially. However, in a sense it too is facing a kind of existential threat, the threat to its continuing existence as a superpower.
Dr. Mohamad Hasan Sweidan, one of the panel of regular news updates on YouTube for The Cradle online media regularly states that in reality, all of the principal actors are indeed fighting a threat to their existence, though the weight of threat being of varying degrees for each.
The ‘Israeli’ state
The Zionist state of ‘Israel’ came into being in 1948 as a Zionist-led European settler project to impose itself on the indigenous Palestinian people of all ethnic groups. Supported by the USA, Zionism gathered force since 1945 to the full-blown terror and ethnic cleansing of the 1948 Nakba.1
Despite claims of recovering ancestral lands, the culture of Ashkenazi colonisers and their languages were European, not West Asian, in keeping with their origin. Citizenship was opened to any Jewish person around the world but not to the Arab Palestinians who had been driven out.
The Zionist state is of course completely dependent on western imperialism for its defence and its very he existence. But ‘Israel’ is not content with that alone and in the logic of all settler colonialism, is constantly fighting wars of expansion with its neighbours.2
The location of this settler colony makes it of important political and military value to western imperialism and in particular to the USA superpower. It is a dagger at the throat of West Asian sovereignty, let alone socialism and in the region is totally free of both those dangers internally.
The settler colony is never secure until it has either wiped out the indigenous people or totally broken their resistance and scattered them. Consequently the indigenous people will resist and if they can, logically, aided by their threatened neighbours, will overthrow the occupation.
Therefore the Zionist State is truthfully facing an existential threat.
The Resistance
The Resistance to imperialism and Zionism in West Asia is wide and multi-faceted but for the purpose of this examination we’ll look at sum of the factions inside Palestine, both Islamic and secular factions as one Resistance; and Hizbollah and political allies in Lebanon as another.
Because of its practices, its origins and attitudes to the cultures of West Asia, ‘Israel’ is viewed by Palestinians and most people of the region as an occupier. It has functioned as a proxy of imperialism, particularly the US variety, in the region since it came into being.
Like settler colonies in general, the Zionist state has been expanding its territory since its inception.
It has also waged war on its neighbours for most of its existence: 1948 against Palestinians and Arab states, 1950s-1960s against the Palestinian Resistance; with France and UK against Egypt (Suez) 1956; 1967 against Egypt, Jordan, Syria; 1973 against Egypt and Syria.
And in 1971-1982 in South Lebanon.3 In September 2024 it attacked Lebanon with assassinations and exploding pagers and in December of that year, invaded Syria4 (though it had regularly bombed it previously) and attacked Iran (during peace negotiation) in February 2026.
The Zionist military carried out a great number of major attacks within Palestine including against the West Bank and Gaza in between what the Zionists call ‘mowing the lawn’, i.e. regular assassinations, raids, arrests and imprisonment of hostages.
The attitude of the ‘Israeli’ occupation to the Palestinian resistance is typified in its attitude to Hamas, the political party elected by significant majority across Palestine in 2006: it totally rejects the people’s choice and attempts to eliminate it in Gaza through economic and military means.
In the West Bank the Occupation’s proxy, the Palestine Authority refused to accede to the popular vote and collaborates with the Occupation, even though the even more extreme elements in ‘Israeli’ government and society despise it, regularly denouncing it and calling for its elimination.
The PA represses criticism by Palestinians in the West Bank, jails critics and fighters, sets them up for ‘Israeli’ jailing and has even murdered Resistance fighters.
‘Israel’ and the US are in concert attempting to use elements of the Lebanese Government against Hizbollah and political parties close to or friendly with them, attempting to turn the Lebanese Army to that purpose. Were they to succeed this would result in another Lebanese civil war.
It is a fact that the state of ‘Israel’ has no formal borders, except where its present territory reaches the borders of Egypt and Jordan.5 The ‘Greater Israel’ concept6 and Zionist aspiration exceeds far beyond even those,7 including Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and swathes of Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
Many Israeli political leaders including Ze’ev Jabotinsky,8 Menachem Begin9 and Benjamin Netanyahu, Smotrich and Ben-Gvir10 have openly promoted the ‘Greater Israel’ (sic) concept as an objective and seems to have the support of US foreign policy and the ‘Israeli’ opposition.11
In all ‘peace’ proposals the ‘Israeli’ establishment seeks the ‘disarmament’ of the Lebanese and Palestinian Resistance, while itself remaining the most heavily armed state in the whole of West Asia, the only one with a nuclear weapon and a long history of committing massacres and genocide.
Hizbullah and the Palestine Resistance are therefore indeed facing an existential threat.
Image by D. Breatnach
The USA
The USA is the chief world imperialist power and in order to maintain that position has a number of requirements, among which are that it can direct or at least influence events around most of the world and that its military might is seen as impossible to defend against.
The Warsaw Pact bloc, a former impediment to expansion of US dominance has gone, though the Russian Federation remains. However the rising economic power of China already threatens the world dominance of the US imperialist ruling class.
But it has faced a new threat to its hegemony of West Asia. Although the non-compliant regimes there of Iraq and Syria (and Libya in North Africa) have been overthrown, US influence in Iran12 had been defeated by uprisings and founding of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979.
Despite war against the Republic (1980-’88) by then western-supported Saddam Hussein, the Islamic Republic survived and supplied resistance organisations in Lebanon and in Palestine with weapons.
The US failed to subdue Iran with decades of sanctions or to instigate popular or separatist insurrection against the ruling elite during unprovoked attack in February, having to accept the stability of the Republic and to agree to ceasefire terms, losing much of its mythos of invincibility.
Not only were its military installations in West Asia shown to be vulnerable but they became regular targets in retaliation for US strikes against Iran. Client regimes began to wonder whether they could even afford to have such failed protection US military bases on their soil.
The repercussions of that will extend right around the World.
Iran
The Islamic Republic of Iran came into existence in 1979 in a revolution against the Pahlavi monarchy, its repressive Savak secret police and against Iran’s client status of US imperialism (such that the CIA’s head office for the whole of West Asia was located there).
The revolution found the CIA desperately shredding their spy documents (many of which were later painstakingly stuck back together by the Iranian revolutionaries). The revolutionary leadership and its followers were immediately targeted by imperialism, in particular by the USA.
The imperialists instigated Saddam Hussein (at the time their client) to have Iraq invade Iran in a war which lasted eight years during which 188,015 to 217,489 Iranians were killed (about 70 people per day).13 Hussein used gas attacks14 as well as bullets and explosives.
In addition, US imperialism has imposed sanctions on Iran since 1979, which is to say threatened sanctions on any state prepared to sell to or trade with the Islamic Republic and these have had a heavy negative impact on the population, in particular in the area of health treatment.15
In January 2026 the USA manipulated currency trading and the value of the Iranian rial fell. Protest demonstrations took place which Israeli and US intelligence operatives in places turned into armed attacks on police, government buildings and even some place of religious worship.
The Iranian authorities issued figures of 3,117 killed during the disturbances,16 which included civilians and agents acting under foreign direction, without identifying which was which. A significant number of those killed were State employees, including public security and police.
Sources sympathetic to the West have issued a range of fatal casualty numbers, rising to 36,000. It does not seem possible to separate real figures from propaganda, certainly of Western sources and possibly too of the Iranian State.
However the involvement of agents working for foreign powers to destabilise Iran has been established, not only in results of raids by Iranian State security forces but also in statements by US and ‘Israeli’ authorities17 and in admissions of Starlink-linked devices smuggled into Iran.18
Trump admitted that the US had supplied weapons to Iranian Kurdish pro-independence groups at this time also and complained that the Kurds had failed to use them against the US. Probably Baluchistan separatists were similarly urged to rise but did not do so in any numbers.19
The presence of foreign agents in Iran was also evident not only by intelligence possessed by the aggressors during the following war but also by when drones were launched against targets in Iran from within the country.
‘Israel’ accompanied by the USA,on 28 February, during negotiations, assassinated the religious and political supreme leader, Ali Khamenei and others, along with families and launched air strikes across Iran, including killing 124 schoolgirls with their teachers in a ‘double-tap’ strike.
The USA is too far away for a retaliatory strike but their military assets are distributed around the Gulf and Iran’s response struck those hard, US defences proving inadequate in action. Iran also closed the Strait of Hormuz, cutting the flow of essential gas and oil from the region to the West.
The US was forced to negotiate and to agree to Iranian terms in a Memorandum of Understanding for peace talks, most of which the US has yet to carry out in practice and much of which it has violated. But it is difficult to see what final options it has other than compliance.
The intentions of US imperialism to the Islamic Republic of Iran are irremediably hostile, proven in sanctions, assassinations, war, subversion attempts, rhetoric and threats, wishing the Iranian revolutionary regime overthrown and Iran dismembered, i.e. indeed an existential threat to Iran.
CONCLUSION
The mutual existential threats of antagonists do not usually cancel each other out. Rather, one of the antagonists must fall. Liberal solutions of ‘peace’ between them are illusory and chasing such mirages is not only fruitless but diverts attention from the necessary resolution.
In fact, wars where none of the antagonists feel they can afford to give way are complicated and very hard to resolve.
In the short term, for relative peace in Western Asia, both the US imperialists and the Israeli Zionists need to be severely weakened and those who wish for that relative peace must logically wish success to the struggles of the Islamic Republic of Iran and of the Resistance organisations.
In the medium term, the existence of the state of ‘Israel’ needs to cease and the democratic state of Palestine to come into being with US Imperialism weakened further or overthrown.
The ruling class of the strengthened Iran will need to see how they can manage Iran’s new status and the Resistance organisations how they develop and grow their respective nations as independent and sovereign states.
In the longer term, new threats and new conflicts will emerge throughout the world. As long as capitalism exists, parts of it will grow into monopoly capitalism and that in turn will seek to maximise its profits by venturing abroad in competition and/or in coercion.
End.
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FOOTNOTES& SOURCES
1During the 1948 Nakba (Arabic for “catastrophe”), approximately 750,000 to one million Palestinians were displaced from their homes, and an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 Palestinians were killed.
More than 80% of the Palestinian population living in the territory that became Israel was forced to leave.At least 530 villages and towns were destroyed or depopulated.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency reports that this initial displacement grew into an ongoing crisis, with nearly 6 million Palestinian refugees registered today. Historians and organizations generally estimate that 10,000 to 15,000 Palestinians were killed. Deaths occurred during combat, in dozens of targeted massacres, and from the general violence of the war.
3From 16 to 18 September 1982, the IOF’s proxy, the Lebanese Forces, one of the main Christian militias in Lebanon, massacred between 1,300 and 3,500 civilians—mostly Palestinians and Lebanese Shias — in the Sabra neighbourhood of Beirut and in the nearby Shatila refugees camp, with the support of the IOF.
4As the Syrian regime collapsed in early December 2024.
14Western media were not interested at the time – Hussein was attacking Iran and was therefore one of ‘the good guys’. Journalists who tried to get western media to cover the wiping out of a Kurdish village Halabja by gas attack in 1982 were getting nowhere. However, many years later, when the Saddam Hussein had switched and started defying the western imperialists, western media suddenly found the story valuable even though years old by then.
As the Irish State holds the Presidency of the European Union now and for six months hence, ministers of EU governments met in Dublin yesterday and today, the latter giving rise to an anti-war and pro-neutrality picket near Dublin Castle.
Since the Irish State’s incumbency of the EU Presidency the Irish State has forbidden demonstrations from Dame Street/ Gt. George’s Street junction to Lord Edward1 Street, along with the display of flags along that stretch.
Demonstrators in favour of the retention of the Irish State’s formal neutrality took up position at the south end of Parliament Street, directly facing City Hall. The Gardaí closed most of the street entrance and had crowd barriers erected across it, which the protesters then lined with their banner.
View of some of the protesters and banner, also of the Starry Plough flag (centre photo) and pedestrianised Parliament Street leading to the river. City Hall is behind the photographer and Dublin Castle behind that again. (Photo: Rebel Breeze)
The letters on the Green, White and Orange banner read EU WAR MONGERS. NO MORE WAR. LEAVE OUR NEUTRALITY ALONE. Leaflets with the same colours on one side were distributed while the reverse expanded on the main slogan, in particular calling for retention of the Triple Lock.2
Some passing vehicles sounded their horns in solidarity.
The city was busy with pedestrian tourists and others enjoying the sun. The heat bore down on the demonstrators facing into the sun and on the backs of the Gardaí facing them and the demonstrators (some of whom had already picketed the Hatch St. EU office), packed up after an hour.
One flag alone flew over the protesters, the Starry Plough, flag of the Irish Citizen Army, the workers’ militia formed to defend the strikers and locked out workers in Dublin in 1913 and which later took part in the 1916 Rising, their leader, James Connolly,3 being overall Commander.
View of some of the protesters and banner, also of the Starry Plough flag (centre photo) and pedestrianised Parliament Street. City Hall is behind the photographer and Dublin Castle behind that again. (Photo: Rebel Breeze)
Coincidentally perhaps, City Hall was garrisoned by the Irish Citizen Army during the Rising and a steel plaque on its wall records the names of the Volunteers who fought there and in nearby buildings – half of which are women’s names (the ICA recruited women as well as men).
End.
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FOOTNOTES
1Named after Edward Fitzgerald (1763-4 May 1798), one of the leaders of the United Irishmen, the revolutionary Irish Republican organisation. Often incorrectly referred to as ‘Lord Edward’, he had renounced his title, his sister later saying of him that the only title he aspired to was that of ‘Paddy’. Edward Fitzgerald went into hiding from British occupation forces but remained in the Liberties area, where his hiding place was discovered and he was wounded and arrested, having killed one of his would-be captors and injuring another. He died in jail reportedly of neglect by the authorities of his wounds.
2A provision that no more than 12 Irish State armed forces personnel may be sent on active service anywhere outside the State unless on UN mandate, a decision of the Government and a majority decision of the Irish Parliament. The suspicion is widespread in Irish society that the Irish ruling class wishes to dispense with the ‘Triple Lock’ or even to ignore it in order to commit the Irish State to NATO (or an EU armed force).
3Trade union leader, historian, journalist, revolutionary socialist, one of seven signatories of the 1916 Proclamation of Independence. Born Edinburgh (1868), executed by British firing squad on 12 May 1916.
As the Irish State marked the start of its six-month Presidency of the European Union, a protest march calling for Irish neutrality and an end to EU collusion with ‘Israeli’ genocide in Palestine headed for the formal event, closing a principal street to traffic.
Section of the crowd at Central Plaza.(Photo: D.Breatnach)
A Call to Action poster had promoted the protest to take place at the Plaza in Dublin’s south side city centre in front of a multi-story building, formerly HQ of the Central Bank of Ireland. Curiously, the name of no party, campaign or collective convening the protest appeared on the poster.
Groups of various Palestine solidarity or of pro-Irish neutrality nature, anti-war and left-wing nature, along with many individual activists congregated at the Plaza while a group from the weekly broad Dubs for Palestine meeting outside Leinster House1 marched to meet them there.
Some banners among the crowd at Central Plaza. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
The ‘Granny Squares for Gaza’ quilt was unrolled, featuring up to 2,900 squares, each one representing 10 Palestinian children killed by the IOF and volunteers, along with its custodians, held it at around waist height.
Soon afterwards, the crowd of several hundred took up the westward traffic side of Dame Street and began to march towards Dublin Castle,2 where the Irish Government was marking the first day of its EU Presidency. However a police line blocked progress at the junction with George St.
After a temporary stand-off, the marchers moved to occupy both sides of Dame street and traffic could no longer proceed westward or eastward along the street. The crowd continued with slogans in solidarity with Palestine, against ‘Israel’, for peace, against war, for warplanes out of Shannon.
Another banner at the Plaza. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
The Irish State is the second-biggest single importer of ‘Israeli’ exports, next only to the USA. Permitted flights over Irish airspace have been identified carrying war material to ‘Israel’ and US warplanes regularly refuel at Shannon Airport, despite the state’s ‘neutral’ status.
Richard Boyd Barrett of the People Before Profit, which seemed now to be leading the demonstration addressed the crowd informing them that the police had said earlier that they could proceed to the square immediately before City Hall and hold the protest event there.
They had reneged on that which is the reason why traffic was now blocked in the street, Barrett told the crowd and introduced Jimi Cullen to perform for the crowd. Cullen, who has performed at a US Embassy picket for 122 weeks up till then, sang his We Are All Palestinians composition.
Jimi Cullen in full voice. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
The crowd joined in the chorus, words with which they have become familiar in chants through many demonstrations.
A police officer approached Barrett requesting to speak to him and both went aside as one of the Dubs for Palestine group took up leading the chants. Barrett returned later to inform the crowd that the police had offered a different route down side streets, which had been rejected.
Cullen then performed his song defending the Irish State’s neutrality status with which the Irish ruling class are trying to dispense, after which Barrett invited the crowd, while the megaphones sounded sirens to lie on the ground in evocation of the many Palestinians being killed by the day.
Also another banner at the Plaza before the march. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
COMMENT
It was good that the capital city saw agitation opposing the Irish State joining military ventures of the EU and USA imperialist alliances and also against Irish collusion in the genocide in Palestine.
Those leading the march were unwise to accept the police assurance that they would allow the march to proceed to just before City Hall. A PBP-led march to protest Hillary Clinton’s 2012 visit to Dublin Castle had been told they could proceed there but were stopped just before City Hall.
Wednesday’s march was stopped even further from the Castle, which is a step further in curtailing protest, ensuring those inside the Castle will not even hear a hint of opposition. The police obstruction could have been bypassed by diverging through side streets but it was not attempted.
Though individual members may have been there, no Irish Republican organisation was notably present which probably accounted to an extent for the very scarce presence of Tricolour flags (and only one Starry Plough). PBP and their followers do not generally fly those flags.
However their absence cannot be attributed to any ambivalence: Irish Republicans are in strong antipathy to the Irish Government and to the institution of the European Union.
Only one of the slogans called from the front of the march referred to the colonial occupation of one-sixth of Ireland, viz. ‘From Ireland to Palestine/ Occupation is a crime!’ but it was from the Dubs and as is usual with PBP, in none of the speeches was there a mention of it.
Not one word of Irish language was spoken through the PA, not even the Saoirse don Phalaistín slogan.
The lie down to conclude the protest. The Gardaí may be seen in the distance blocking any advance of the march towards Dublin Castle or even the square beside City Hall. People are in most cases lying on the quilt of which each square represents 10 Palestinian children killed by ‘Israel’. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
MOVING FORWARD
For the defeat of colonialism, imperialism and capitalism in Ireland, a revolutionary mass movement will be essential. For that in turn, construction of an anti-imperialist broad front is an essential task.
That requires those claiming Irish Republicanism to be present on mobilisations alongside those claiming revolutionary socialism or just anti-imperialism.
If use of the Irish language is to be popularised and the civil rights of Irish speakers in Ireland protected, Gaeilge must be heard in particular among the most progressive sections of society.
End.
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FOOTNOTES
1This broad group meets every Wednesday from 12 noon to around 1.00 pm. listening to speeches, songs and poems. Two of their major campaigns are seeking to have the genocide-funding Allianz company kicked out of the Gaelic Athletic Association and, more recently, to prevent the Irish soccer team playing the ‘Israeli’ one.
2For centuries centre of administration and repression of Ireland by the English occupation.
A group mainly of relatives of the deceased are seeking an official inquiry into the Chinook helicopter crash at the Mull of Kintyre, Scotland in 1994 killing 25 intelligence experts and four special forces crew on their way to a conference.
The crash wiped out almost all the top officers in command of intelligence gathering and operations in the occupied Six counties of Ireland from MI5, Army, RUC Special Branch and state Security Service.
Photo of the crashed Chinook helicopter on the Mull of Kintyre 1994. (Photo: Sky News)
The first crash inquiry failed to confirm pilot error which was then overruled by State reviewers who blamed the pilots on the basis of supposition without any evidence. After campaigning by a number of people including families of the deceased pilots, a 2011 inquiry exonerated the pilots.
The current campaign wants to focus on questions as to the reliability of the aircraft but an alternative and darker interpretation developed at the time, alleging that the different departments of British spooks, MI5 and MI6 had a fatal falling out over territory and policy.1
The remit of MI5 is of domestic ‘UK’ matters while that of MI6 is external. However, the Six Counties, though being under the rule of the UK, was also geographically part of a foreign country, Ireland — and the Irish State, just across the border, a government foreign to the UK.
In addition, the Republican armed resistance groups frequently had contacts abroad and many people with connections to other resistance organisations in the world; both parts of Ireland were visited by representatives along with many media agencies in the pursuit of their reporting work.
Whereas a resort to assassination as a result of rivalry or difference in objectives between different arms of a state’s security service is no doubt extreme, the existence of the rivalry itself is quite likely and the stakes in terms of funding, staffing and operational management can be high.
If the rivals are working towards opposing ends, that will raise the stakes much higher. The secrecy of the State’s reaction to the event did nothing to dispel such theories and the mismanaged attempt to blame the pilots only lent added credence to such suspicions and belief.
The fact of the collusion of British secret service with Loyalist murder squads in the 6-Counties colony is well known and has been documented by a number of investigations. Such collusion from the Royal Ulster Constabulary, especially its Special Branch, is well known too.2
Quite a few familiar with the British colonial security forces in the Six Counties believe that there was an ‘inner force’ inside the RUC with the support of MI5 and British Army Intelligence, all colluding with or even managing assassinations and Loyalist sectarian murder gangs.
The British ruling class had set their sights on achieving the cooperation of the Provisionals in a pacification process and MI6 was in favour of this initiative. It is posited that MI5, the Inner Force inside RUC and Army Intelligence opposed this, believing that they could defeat the IRA.
It was the clash of these radically different approaches (albeit with the same ultimate objective of ending Republican armed resistance) that is believed by some to have culminated in the assassination of the anti-pacification section in the Mull of Kintyre crash.
We may never know for certain and the Ministry of Defence (MoD) sealed key files relating to the 1994 Mull of Kintyre Chinook crash for 100 years, locking them away until 2094
‘HEROES’?
Sorcha Eastwood calls those who died ‘heroes’,3 confirming herself and the Alliance political party she represents as on the side of British colonialism and its violent repression of Irish resistance, repression in the forms of internment, no-jury trials, assassinations and sectarian murders.
Those features are the reality of colonial repression and were very much in evidence in the colonial war of three decades which was approaching an end at the time of the crash.
The leadership of the Provisionals had accepted that although they could not be beaten, nor could they win the war4 and so were ready to participate in a pacification process.
British Intelligence had compromised or recruited elements of that leadership at highest and medium levels and had targeted assassinations of the less malleable individuals.5 The leadership was heading for the process culminating in the Good Friday Agreement of 1998.
Up to 3,500 people had died violent deaths 1969-1994 as the hands of of British military, colonial police, colonial proxies and Irish Republican resistance.
There were no tears shed for the dead at Mull of Kintyre among the subjected population of the colonial entity nor in many quarters of the Irish community at home or abroad and resistance culture soon produced a dark mocking parody to the air of Paul McCartney’s ‘Mull of Kintyre’ song.6
Confirmed assassination and suspicious deaths by aircraft crash are not unknown, among UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld’s 1961 plane crash on his way to negotiate peace in the Congo,7 General Zia-ul-Haq8 and commander of Russian mercenary force Yevgeni Prigozhin.9
end.
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1What is more often but inaccurately called ‘the Irish peace process’; inaccurate because it was not designed to address the underlying reasons for the conflict and approaching three decades later has not done so. It resulted in The Good Friday Agreement, signed in 1998.
2See for example the Stevens Inquiries, Barron Tribunal, Dirty War by Martin Dillona (1990), also Lethal Allies (2013) by Anne Cadwallader.
4The war against a major imperialist power was concentrated in a territory one-sixth of Ireland and with a population divided along sectarian lines.
5See the cases of Denis Donaldson and Scappaticci (British Intelligence code name Stakeknife) for example and there are well-founded suspicions of a number of others that were never publicly exposed. See also the elimination of Volunteers Jim Lynagh and Padraig McKearney and their unit in the Loughgall Ambush/ Massacre.
6‘Mull of Kintyre, oh Brits falling into the sea’ etc
Outside the German Embassy in Dublin speakers denounced the German State’s repression of Palestine solidarity activists and their treatment as terrorists in solitary confinement in dispersed locations, increasing the visiting difficulties for relatives.
Organised by the broad group Dubs for Palestine, scores of people attended a lunchtime picket of the Embassy on Monday 27th April.1 In addition to the speeches and chants, songs were sung with particular relevance to the occasion and location.
The focus of this rally was in support of a group of five activists that includes a young man formerly of Dún Laoire, Daniel Tatler-Devally and have become known as the Ulm Five. They were alleged to have broken into an Elbit Systems facility in Ulm, Germany and caused damage inside.
Lynn Treacy, of the Devally-Tatler family support grou, speaking outside gates of the German Embassy, Dublin on Ulm Five solidarity rally April 29th. (Photo: R.Breeze)
Their action was in protest at the Israeli military systems company and its part in the genocide of Palestinians supported by the German state. One of the speakers was Daniel’s father, Conor Devally while Lynn Treacy, a friend of Daniel’s mother spoke on her behalf too.
Jimi Cullen, accompanied by Dermot outside gates of German Embassy, Dublin on Ulm Five solidarity rally. (Photo: R.Breeze)
The activists are being treated as terrorists, in seven months of solitary confinement, separated and dispersed throughout different jails long distances apart. Their trial is scheduled for separate days over a period from April to July, also causing relatives and friends great difficulty.
Jimi Cullen singing and playing guitar performed his own We Are All Palestinians, developed from the well-known chant on Palestine solidarity demonstrations, accompanied by Dermot Sheehan on drum.
Two prominent members of People Before Profit spoke, Richard Boyd Barrett TD and Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin, a political and cultural activist and noted singer in the sean-nós style. Raymond Deane, composer and founding member of the IPSC spoke too as did political activist and singer Diarmuid Breatnach.
Richard Boyd Barret speaking at Ulm Five solidarity rally at German Embassy April 29th. (Photo: R.Breeze)
Ó Ceannabháin spent some time demolishing the discourse that Germany has an excuse for its repression of pro-Palestine solidarity because of alleged guilt due to its perpetration of the Hollocaust. He pointed to its genocidal history in Namibia and its leadership of EU imperialism.
The PBP member and election candidate for a councillor vacancy in DCC told the rally of Germany’s banning not only some Palestinian solidarity chants2 but also the song known as ‘Óró Sé do Bheatha Abhaile’3 which he proceeded to sing, the participants joining the chorus with gusto.
Ó Ceannabháin at Ulm Five solidarity rally at German Embassy April 29th. (Photo: R.Breeze)
Diarmuid Breatnach pointed out that the German working class had a strong history of struggle and at one time led the world in socialist and social-democratic representation, even recording a vote of 4.8 million votes for the Communist Party in the midst of Nazi repression.
Hans Beimler, a communist trade union activist, Breatnach said, escaped from a Nazi concentration camp, went to Spain to fight in the Anti-Fascist War there and was killed. In his honour Breatnach sang two verses of The Peat Bog Soldiers4 followed by the ballad about Beimler.
Breatnach was accompanied on drum by Dermot Sheehan, a regular attendee at the weekly Wednesday Dubs for Palestine event outside Leinster House, seat of the parliament of the Irish State. An anti-Zionist Jewish activist spoke against Israeli Zionism and its support by Germany.
Naoise Dolan speaking at Ulm Five solidarity rally at German Embassy April 29th. (Photo: R.Breeze)
Speaking in German, Irish and English, Naoise Dolan, novelist, supporter of Palestine Action who was captured in piracy action by the IOF on the October 2025 Gaza aid flotilla, also spoke to denounce the attitude and actions of the German Government and Berlin police.
Ken Powell of Dubs for Palestine, who had acted as MC throughout, led the rally in chanting slogans of solidarity with Palestine including calling for the freedom of each of the Ulm Five by name before thanking all for their attendance and concluding the event.
end.
Early view of Ulm Five solidarity rally outside German Embassy April 29th as people are still arriving. (Photo: R.Breeze)
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FOOTNOTES
1The day the trial began in Germany but however did not proceed due to the presiding judge refusing to allow the Defence lawyers to sit with their clients and the lawyers’ refusal to proceed under those restrictions
2“From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free,” which they claim is ‘anti-Semitic’; also “Globalise the Intifada.”
3An Dord Féinne is the actual title given by Patrick Pearse in his adaptation of a traditional song in Irish.
4A translation from the German song of the Communists in Nazi concentration camps which was eventually banned by the camp authorities under pain of death.
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