The Many Executions of Roger Casement.

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

Gearóid Ó Loingsigh

(Reading time: 5 mins.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

End.

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

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NOTES

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time main text: 5 mins.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

RECENT YEMENI MOBILISATION

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE FALSE ‘GOVERNMENT OF YEMEN’

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

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

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

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

PAKISTAN THREAT?

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

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

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

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

End.

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APPENDIX: BRIEF HISTORY OF YEMEN

(Reading time: one min.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

FOOTNOTES

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

8At an estimated combined cost of $369.6 million.

9Pakistan, Egypt and Turkey.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SOURCES

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

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

Understanding the Pakistan–Saudi Defense Agreement

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

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

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

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

What to learn from 1,000 days of genocide

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

end.

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ABOUT “GET THEM OUT”

On June 17, 2026 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, RacismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

Cycling along the Liffey quays some time back I saw a crowd waving Tricolour and other flags and heard a roar of “Get them out!” No mystery about the origin: the far-Right racists that crawled out into the light in recent years, targeting migrants.¹

The same cry has been heard outside proposed IPAS centres and in other demonstrations that can mostly be characterised as anti-immigrant and anti-refugee.

Scene with cars set alight by racist Loyalist mobs in Belfast on 6 June. *At least three houses were also set ablaze.* (Photo: *Getty images*)

But why should we be “getting them out”? In answer to that question all we get is lying propaganda. “They are getting housing instead of Irish people.” No, they are not. Some refugees are getting hostel accommodation and many are not, even though Ireland has signed up to accept some.

If refugees are getting such good treatment, why would so many be living in tents on streets, parks or along canal banks? And why are far-Right fascists threatening them and slashing their tents? Are they claiming that refugees are doing them out of living in tents themselves?

In fact we never had widespread affordable decent housing but high emigration made it less noticeable. All the same there were struggles in the 1960s and 70s led by the Dublin and Dun Laoghaire Housing Action Committees, involving occupations of houses and fighting evictions.

Another claim is that migrants are a threat to Irish women. Why would that be the case? Yet, every day in the mass media we read of cases of rape, sexual harassment and controlling behaviour of women — by Irish men!

The far-Right also claim that migrants are a threat to children (actually, they often claim that LGBT people are also, calling them ‘paedos’). Fact: the major threat to children in Ireland have been Irish institutions including the Catholic Church, which is strongly defended by the far-Right.

Sociological research shows that most sexual abuse of children happens in the family or friend circle and we regularly read in the media of those cases also – nearly always by Irish men.

Then there’s the “military-age single men” mantra – what does that even mean? Military age is usually understood to be between 17 and 45 years of age. It is in other words the age at which most men emigrate to work in other lands. The age at which most Irish emigrated!²

It’s also an age of most health and physical ability to travel, to work and to send money home, as hundreds of thousands of us Irish did, whether single or married, or the optimum age to risk the dangers of being a refugee trying to find somewhere safe for one’s family to follow.

Research shows that the “military-age single men” mantra is a recent addition to Irish far-Right discourse, some believing it an import from the far-Right in the USA, along with the racist “great white replacement” conspiracy theory, adapted here to “replacing the Irish” conspiracy theory).

Which reminds me that the arrival of migrants is often characterised as “an invasion.” Really? When we emigrated in the past or today for work or safety from persecution, were or are we invading England, Scotland, Wales, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand? Or other countries?

We are not being invaded by refugees or migrant workers. But we have been invaded by British troops and colonial police, foreign multinationals, and US and NATO flights.

The far-Right in Ireland hate foreigners and their imagined ‘invasion’, but not it seems the reality of British troops occupying one-sixth of our country and patrolling it with their colonial and sectarian police force. Nor the reality of the RAF and the USAF violating our airspace.

Nor the foreign multinationals and vulture funds controlling our housing market, taking over Irish firms and public infrastructure and plundering our national resources.

Get them out? Well if migrants and their contribution to Irish society were to be ‘got out’, there would be a massive task facing the far-Right.

We should then get rid of the Tricolour, as it was presented to us by foreigners: revolutionary Republican women in Paris in 1948. We should also reject the Irish Republic flag, which was created on domestic material in the home of Constance Markievicz, who was born in London.

Yes, and she delivered it in 1916 to the GPO so that it was raised on the Princes Street corner of the GPO by a man who was born in Argentina. Of course, inside the GPO were Thomas Clarke and James Connolly, the first born in England and the second in Edinburgh (where he was raised too).

I do recall a racist recently denouncing the Save Moore Street From Demolition campaign for pointing out the foreign origins of those two signatories of the 1916 Proclamation and insisting that it was where their parents came from that mattered.

What then of Patrick and Willie Pearse, whose father was English or Tomás McDonagh, whose mother was English too? Or Thomas Davis, whose father was Welsh? Clearly there’s a massive job ahead with “getting them out”, all these foreign connections in our resistance history.

Many of our martyrs and heroes, writers, song composers, musicians, flags, songs, poems, literature, documents “contaminated” by migrants will need to dumped if the far-Right are honest in their slogans. But they are not, of course – they only use them to fool the masses.

“But who is he writing this for? The organised fascists won’t care and their followers won’t read it.” A good question – to whom we speak and write is as important as what we speak and write. I don’t write it for the organised fascists of course, the debate with them will inevitably be a physical one.

Nor do I write it for their deluded followers, who would hardly be reading articles in the Rebel Breeze blog. I write it for you and you and you, to use in your discussions with the deluded followers, those who are willing to listen because you are neighbours, workmates or families.

And if you already knew all this or I have not written it well enough or you fail in using it and other arguments you use, I’m sorry, I and you did our best. In the end, the argument will be resolved in the street and on barricades. And we need to get ready for that too.

End.

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FOOTNOTES

1I wrote this quite some time ago but it never got posted for some reason or other. After the racist riots in Belfast seems a good time to dig it out and post it.

2Including myself, to London.

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

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

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘HEROES’?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

end.

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FOOTNOTES

SOURCES

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

TWO RECENT EVENTS CONNECTED DECADES EARLIER

On May 8, 2026May 8, 2026 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, France, History, Housing Struggle, Human Rights, Imperialism, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, National Liberation, Police Violence, Political Analysis, Political PrisonersLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 3mins.)

A recent arrest in France and concert in Dublin are connected by events in both countries a half-century earlier.¹

The arrest in question by French police was on 16 April of Mahmoud Khader Abed Adra, for alleged involvement in the 1982 attack on the Jo Goldenberg restaurant in the Marais district of Paris.²

The report of the arrest came less than a week after the Dublin commemoration by concert of another event, also half a century earlier. And strangely, there was a connection between both events.

On 11 April, a concert was held in Vicar Street to commemorate the arrest, torture, framing of three Irish Socialist Republicans and their jailing in 1986.³

Musicians, poets and journalists came together at the event, organised by musician Cormac Breatnach, brother of one of the accused, to commemorate the event and to press for an inquiry into three activists being tortured into making false confessions incriminating themselves.

And into how, despite their retractions and medical evidence of torture, they were then convicted of an event they had not committed. And how the legal system, from the Court of Appeal to the High Court, had all colluded in the injustice.

The trial in Ireland was for the Sallins Mail Train Robbery of 1976. The convicted three were Osgur Breatnach, Nicky Kelly and Brian McNally: Breatnach and Kelly were sentenced in the no-jury Special Criminal Court to 12 years, McNally to nine.

The day before sentence, Nicky Kelly jumped bail but returned nearly two years later when the convictions of Breatnach and McNally were deemed ‘unsafe’ and that their statements had ‘not been made voluntarily’.

However, the State insisted that the time period for registering an appeal had by then been exceeded and it took much campaigning and his own hunger strike before Kelly was finally released, on a Presidential pardon for a crime he had not committed.

A fourth, Mick Plunkett, had stood trial with the three on the same charges but having succeeded in not making a false confession under torture and threats, was finally acquitted. The French connection with the extradition of Mahmoud Khader Abed Adra, is Plunkett’s.

Mick Plunkett⁴ had decided that, despite his escaping the framing, that the Garda Heavy Gang⁵ would be out to get him and that a departure to other climes might he healthy. Plunkett settled in France but did not give up his politics.

The Jo Goldenberg restaurant was subjected to a grenade and firearms attack on 9 August 1982, killing six and injuring 22.

On 28 August that year, Plunkett, Mary Reid and Stephen King (not the novelist) were arrested by a special anti-terrorist unit of the Gendarmerie (perhaps Le Gang Lourd, the Heavy Gang a la Francaise!).

The police claimed that all three were part of a terrorist organisation and that leaflets confirming that had been found in their apartment. And also firearms. All the allegations were vigorously denied by the three Irish activists.

Eventually the case against all three fell apart and they were released with, in time, the Gendarmerie admitting that the evidence against them had been ‘planted’ and the special unit was disbanded.⁶

One of the acts which the French police had claimed for the organisation of which they had falsely claimed membership of Plunkett, Reid and King was the attack on the Jo Goldberg Restaurant — the same incident for which the French Police have now charged Mahmoud Khader Abed Adra.

The French state got Khader Abed by extradition from Occupied Palestine. The State of Israel does not extradite its citizens anywhere but the Palestinian Authority was willing to do the job for France, which last year had officially recognised ‘the State of Palestine.’

end.

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Footnotes

1This story was published recently in the Irish language-only weekly An Páipéar (available in newsagents and online).

2 https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/17/france-arrests-suspect-over-1982-attack-on-jewish-restaurant

3 https://www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/commentanalysis/arid-41819201.html

4See report on his funeral https://rebelbreeze.com/2022/05/04/death-of-a-retired-warrior/

5 https://sallinsinquirynow.ie/heavy-gang-named/

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

Sources & Further reading

Home

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/false-arrest-victims-call-on-judge-to-act-against-french-police/26257140.html

Irishman Among Activists Against Genocide Jailed by the German State

On April 25, 2026 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Human Rights, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, NATO, Police Violence, Political Analysis, Political Prisoners, ZionismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

An Irishman, Daniel Tatlow-Devally is one of five people who allegedly damaged equipment in the Israeli arms company Elbit in Germany last year. They are charged under anti-terror legislation and kept in solitary confinement in separate jails.

Daniel’s mother complained that for a month friends and relatives were prevented from making any communication with the detained: “They thought we’d disowned them.” By the time the trials are expected to conclude, the five will have spent around around 11 months in custody.¹

Two weeks ago Daniel’s father addressed the weekly Dubs for Palestine rally outside Leinster House in Dublin to raise awareness of his son’s situation and to ask for support. A protest at the German Embassy has been organised for Monday 27 April at 1pm.²

In recent years the German state has earned a reputation for repression of freedom of expression of pro-Palestine sentiments or criticism of the Israeli Zionist state, including banning demonstrations, classifying anti-Zionism as ‘anti-Semitism’ and arresting people for wearing the kiffiyeh.

A 2025 report “documents how German authorities systematically curtail freedoms of assembly, expression, academia, and art when it comes to anti-genocide protests and advocacy for Palestinian rights …

… from legal repression, criminalisation, and surveillance to delegitimizing dissent within the educational sector, arts, and media. Such measures …. form a pattern of political persecution that undermines democratic principles and international human rights obligations.

European legal expert Alice Garcia of the European Legal Support Centre (ELSC) cautioned that current practices in Germany are “unequivocally comparable to practices of authoritarian regimes.”

The Civic Space Report 2025 by the European Civic Forum identifies Germany as one of the most repressive EU states in relation to Palestine advocacy, highlighting the systematic misuse of public order laws and excessive use of executive and police power (European Civic Forum, 2025, p. 20).³

Their police have been widely accused of violence towards peaceful demonstrators and a video circulated widely on 28 August 2025 showing a Berlin police officer punching Kitty O’Brien twice in the face, causing her to bleed and the same officer snapped the humerus bone in their arm.⁴

O’Brien was charged with assault but the circulation of video of the incident caused the police to change the charge to ‘insulting the police’ by calling them “genocide supporters”.

Speaking on RTÉ’s News at One on 5 August, Kitty described their injuries after arriving home from hospital the previous day: “I have a broken nose, a broken humerus bone (with 11 screws holding the bone together), and potentially long-standing radial nerve damage.”⁵

Last year an independent protest took place outside the Dublin German Embassy about the treatment of Kitty O’Brien, other Palestine solidarity protesters and the German state’s collusion with the genocide of Palestinians by the ‘Israeli’ state, its biggest supplier of arms after the USA.

HISTORICAL GENOCIDE ‘GUILT’ USED TO JUSTIFY GENOCIDE TODAY

Ironically, Germany’s ruling class uses the Nazi history of its state’s genocide of Jews (also Roma, Disabled, Gays & Lesbians, Communists etc) as justification for its support for the Zionist state’s genocide of Palestinians today. But that ‘guilt’ also infected the Left resistance movement.

For many years large sections of the German Left would counter calls for solidarity with struggles of national liberation abroad with their support for anti-nationalismus (anti-nationalism), erroneously identifying that as the source of fascism, rather than just a factor exploited by fascists.

In the mid-19th Century and up until the 1930s, most observers expected Germany to be the first socialist state, so powerful were its communist and social-democratic movements. Even after the Communist Party had been banned by Hitler, it received around 4.8 million votes.

After the defeat of Nazism in the Anti-Fascist War (WWII) the USA recruited not only Nazi scientists but also Nazi intelligence agents for its anti-Soviet campaigns and built NATO as an imperialist military alliance and a specifically anti-communist alliance, with Germany at its heart.

The USA built military bases across Germany and, after the fall of the USSR, began to spread NATO membership in states eastward to encircle Russia.

The German state has hard economic motivation for supporting the Israeli state in addition to any ideological reasons; after the USA, Germany is the biggest arms supplier to the Zionist State⁶ and approved $7.8 million in arms exports to Israel during the USA and Israel’s strikes on Iran.⁷

Daniel can be written to:
Daniel Tatlow-Devally,
JVA Ulm,
Frauengraben 4,
89072 Ulm,
An Ghearmáin.

End.

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Footnotes

1 https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/germany-five-activists-held-alleged-elbit-systems-break-in-isolation-families-say

2The German Embassy’s address is 31 Trimleston Road, Booterstown in the south-eastern Dublin suburbs, about 10 minute’s walk from Booterstown train Station on the DART system. By BUS: Rock Road, Bellevue Avenue – Routes serving this stop: 4, 7, 7A, 8. CAR: No parking available on site – on-street parking (Pay & Display, max. 3Hrs).

3 https://elsc.support/resource_ext/repression-of-palestine-solidarity-in-germany/

4 https://www.rte.ie/news/2025/0905/1532044-irish-activist-berlin/

5Ibid.

6 https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2025/11/germany-arms-transfers-to-israel-reckless-unlawful-and-risks-complicity-in-israels-international-crimes/

7The approvals ran from 28 February to 27 March and were disclosed in responses from the Economy Ministry to queries by The Left party.

Links

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/germany-five-activists-held-alleged-elbit-systems-break-in-isolation-families-say

LEBANON PRESIDENT CITES IRA AS EXAMPLE FOR DISARMING HEZBOLLAH

On January 13, 2026January 29, 2026 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Guerrilla Action, Imperialism, Internationalist Solidarity, Irish Republicanism, National Sovereignty, peace processes, Political Analysis, Uncategorized, ZionismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 6 mins.)

In an 11^th January interview with state public television channel Télé Liban, Joseph Aoun, President of Lebanon, cited the disarming of the Provisional IRA with regard to the disarming of Hezbollah, which is being demanded by the USA and ‘Israel.’

Significant points from the interview were translated in summary and posted on The Cradle news updates channel on Telegram on the anniversary of Aoun’s election to the Presidency, for which he was constitutionally obliged to resign from his previous position of head of the armed forces.

In a post-colonial polity balanced between sovereignist and anti-imperialist forces on the one hand and pro-Western imperialist elements on the other, Aoun is widely regarded as the West’s man, a verdict justified by a constant thread in his Presidential statements and replies in this interview.

The whole issue of Hezbollah disarming arises mainly from the Zionist state and its main backer, US imperialism and has been much in the news for months.

*Samir Geaga, Lebanese politician of the Christian far-Right, back in his Christian Front days during the Lebanon Civil War.* (Photo sourced: *Internet)*

In addition there is an internal Lebanese element with a background of right-wing Christian fascist militias,¹ pro-Western imperialism and recruited as proxies by the ‘Israeli’ armed forces when they occupied Lebanon (1982-2000), before the rise of Hezbollah which led the liberation of the country.

Hezbollah’s last armed action was towards end of October 2025 after bombarding the Israeli occupation of northern Palestine in order to divert the Zionist armed forces from the accelerated genocide of Gaza, then in a defence of the IOF’s attack on Southern Lebanon.

*Cartoon comment on the constant defeat of Israeli invading forces by Hezbollah in 2024 and 2025.* (Cartoon: *D.Breatnach*)

This was so effective that the Zionist state sued for a truce.

Meanwhile Hezbollah had been weakened by Israeli-programmed exploding pagers and mobile phone devices, along with the assassination of its widely-respected and charismatic leader, Hassan Nasrallah and agreed to the truce which it has scrupulously observed to the time of writing,

However, the same truce has at the time of writing been violated over 10,000 times by the Zionist armed forces² in daily drone strike assassinations, bombings of homes and construction sites, troop invasions and checkpoints on Lebanese soil and even kidnappings of citizens.³

All without a word of condemnation from the truce’s guarantors, the USA and France, the former loud in its demands for Hezbollah disarmament along with threats by Trump and Netanyahu.

*Joseph Aoun (centre, in civilian suit) upon his inauguration as President of Lebanon, reviewing troops of which had only recently been Commander in Chief.* (Photo sourced: *Internet*)

SUMMARY AOUN’S STATEMENTS WITH COMMENTS

• The Lebanese army has many missions and cannot focus solely on one task. Israeli occupation persists, and attacks continue. Halting attacks and Israeli withdrawal would greatly help accelerate progress.

Yes indeed and people may wonder why a) the Lebanese state forces are not in action repelling that very ‘Israeli’ occupation and attacks and b) why the disarmament of the Resistance is even being contemplated in the current circumstances.

Any assistance to the army facilitates operations. The decision has been made, and implementation speed depends on army leadership and available capabilities.”

It is not clear to which assistance Aoun is referring but otherwise he is admitting that the Lebanese Army is unable to disarm Hezbollah, a Resistance better-armed and more widely supported than the State Army and that serious attempts to do so would result in civil war.

• “The [resistance] weapons were initially deployed for a specific purpose when the army was absent. Now the army exists, and Lebanon’s armed forces are responsible for national security.

Clearly Lebanon’s armed forces are either unwilling or incapable of defending national security, since Aoun admits to the occupation and attacks by a foreign entity, which have been ongoing since the October 2025 ‘truce’.

The weapons no longer serve their role; their continued presence is a burden on their environment and Lebanon. This is not about Resolution 1701—the weapons’ mission is over.

To whom is the continued presence of weapons a burden? Are Lebanese people being attacked by those weapons? No, they are a burden only to the Zionist entity and its imperialist backers who wish to dominate West Asia – and of course to the domestic collaborators.

• “I want to tell others: it is time to be reasonable. Either you are truly part of the state or you are not. The state must take responsibility for protecting its citizens and land. The entire country bears this burden. Logic must prevail over force.”

This is clearly directed at Hezbollah and Amal, political forces represented in the Lebanese Parliament. If the state must take responsibility for protecting its citizens and land, then why not actually do so and demonstrate the alleged lack of necessity for the weapons of the Resistance?

What Aoun really means is that while there is an effective armed resistance, he will not be left in peace by the Zionist State or by US imperialism. And why not? Because they seek to dominate West Asia, which in itself proves the need for an effective armed Resistance.

• “Official positions are taken by official institutions. Lebanon will not be a platform threatening other states’ stability. During summer rocket attacks, the intelligence directorate apprehended the perpetrators quickly and warned Hamas officials they would be expelled if repeated. We will not allow Lebanon to be used for unwanted actions.”

The ‘Summer rocket attacks’ were not from Hezbollah but, if not from provocateurs, were an independent and unprofessional unit – this is well-known.

• “The appointment of Ambassador Simon Karam was made internally in Lebanon, not at the request of the US or any foreign party.”

Hmmm. Even if that were true, it cannot be denied that he is the choice of the USA.

• “Lebanon’s interest requires that decisions be made within the country. No one will fight or stand for us; all parties must cooperate with the state for Lebanon’s benefit.”

If the state wants cooperation for Lebanon’s benefit, surely it should first show itself deserving of that cooperation by standing up for its sovereignty against Zionist invasion, bombings and assassinations, along with Western imperialist threats and bullying?

• “Lebanon has three tools: diplomacy, economy, and military. We have tried war—it ended. Diplomatic paths offer a 50% chance of progress. Political negotiation, not war, resolves conflicts globally—Vietnam, Irish Republican Army, Gaza. Lebanon must pursue diplomatic solutions.”

The war cannot be counted as ‘ended’ with over 10,000 Zionist violations of the ‘truce’, nor did the State ‘try war’, it was entirely Hezbollah resisting the attempted Zionist invasion although as is its wont, the Zionists did bomb civilian homes and infrastructure in Lebanon.

Political negotiation works when the state with which being negotiating either a) would rather not have war or b) is afraid to attack. The first case clearly does not apply to the Zionist State, nor will the second if the resistance is unarmed and all they have to worry about is Lebanon’s Army.

The examples Aoun quotes actually work against his theoretical trajectory: one proves the exact opposite and another two are not at all functioning in the interests of the people nor of secure peace.

The US was forced to negotiate with the Vietnamese liberation forces because of the strength of the latter’s resistance, after nearly 20 years of war.⁴ Even so, the US dragged out the negotiations until the liberation forces entered Saigon and US helicopters left in a hurry.

The Zionists continue to attack Gaza daily although they have levelled most of it. The Provisional IRA has not won Irish independence or territorial unity, the aims for which it declared it had been fighting and its political arm⁵ is now serving the administration of the colonial Occupation.

As has been pointed out many times in Rebel Breeze, the imperialists and their stooges learn from and copy one another’s tactics which was demonstrated very clearly in the trajectory of the imperialist pacification processes and how they contaminated a number of resistance movements.

There is never any reason for a national Resistance movement to surrender any of its weapons before the establishment of a strong independent state, well-armed and led by determined and uncorrupted people.

People very different from Youssef Rajj, Foreign Affairs Minister of Lebanon, who in interview with Sky News Arabia stated that as long as Hezbollah holds on to weapons, ‘Israel’ is entitled to attack Lebanon. Apart from its traitorous nature, the statement is not even formally correct.

*Youssef Rajji, Foreign Affairs Minister of Lebanon* (Photo sourced: *Wikipedia*)

Officially a state of war still exists between the Lebanese state and ‘Israel’ so of course the Resistance is entitled to hold weapons. More fundamentally, no Government Minister should justify another state attacking their country (as for example Machado does in relation to Venezuela).

National servility, collusion and treason are seen around the world but fortunately so too is resistance.

End.

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FOOTNOTES

1Most of these were present in the ‘Lebanese Forces’ who carried out the massacres of the Sabra and Shatilla Palestinian camps of 1,300 and 3,500 civilians—mostly Palestinians and Lebanese Shias—in the city of Beirut during the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990).

2 https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2026/1/7/israels-continued-attacks-on-lebanon-could-derail-hezbollah-disarmament

3By October 2025 UN experts had recorded “At least 19 abductions of civilians from Lebanon by Israeli soldiers, which may amount to cases of enforced disappearances …” https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/10/un-experts-warn-against-continued-violations-ceasefire-lebanon-and-urge

4That was with the USA (also Australia). Before that the Vietnamese Resistance fought and defeated the French and Japanese.

5The Sinn Féin party, which is also the party with the second highest representation in the parliament of the Irish State and seeks to form a governing coalition with one of the established neo-colonial parties.

SAVE MOORE STREET OUTREACH TO LIBERTINE MARKET

On January 13, 2026January 13, 2026 By rebelbreezeIn Cultural Comment, Current Event Report, History, Ireland, Irish Left, Irish RepublicanismLeave a comment

Clive Sulish

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

The Save Moore Street from Demolition campaign group gratefully accepted an invitation to participate in the Comrade Corner on Sunday 3^rd January in order to spread the word about the campaign and to make further contacts.

The Comrade Corner is part of the Libertine Market Crawl that takes place on the first Sunday of each month 12-5pm and is spread through a number of pubs, mostly in the Liberties area of north Dublin city: The 4^th Corner, Dudley’s, Lucky’s, Molly’s Barand Peadar Brown’s.

*Front of the Peadar Brown’s pub building, Clanbrassil Street.* (Photo: *R. Breeze*)

The Comrade Corner’s section of the monthly market take place upstairs in the Peadar Brown’s pub, open to campaigning and community groups to book a table to promote their campaign or group on which they had campaign leaflets, a QR to sign on line and campaign badges.

The latter represented a grotesque on the roof of No.55 Moore Street, missing wingtips shot off by a British bullet during the battle there in 1916.

*Two of a number of visitors to* *the Comrade Corner engaging with the Save Moore Street From Demolition campaign stall at which campaign activist Orla Dunne is seated.* (Photo: *R. Breeze*)

“Over the 12 years of our group’s existence campaigning on the street we have engaged in outreach work often enough,” said one of the two staffing their table in Peadar Brown’s, “including taking our banner to protest marches, giving talks, interviews and conducting history tours.”

The group has been campaigning with a weekly Saturday table for conservation and against demolition in Moore Street since September 2014. “We want to see a busy street market with small independent shops, not chain stores,” said Orla Dunne, also staffing their table in Peadar Brown’s.”

*One of the team staffing the *Darragh Ó Faoláin* stall in Comrade Corner.* (Photo: *R. Breeze*)

“And the history of the 1916 Battleground properly commemorated,” she went on to say, alluding to the fact that of the Seven Signatories of the Proclamation, no less than five spent their last hours of freedom in the Moore Street houses before taking the painful decision to surrender.

Those were Patrick Pearse, James Connolly, Tom Clarke, Seán Mac Diarmada and Joseph Plunkett, all shot by firing squad, along with Willie Pearse, also late of Moore Street as were another ten prominent figures, including Roger Casement, though hanged in Pentonville Jail somewhat later.

*The team staffing the Statue of Pearse by the GPO campaign stall in Comrade Corner.* (Photo: *R. Breeze*)

The GPO Garrison had left the burning building on the Friday of Easter Week and, heading to relocate at the Williams and Woods factory, got only as far as Moore Street before they came under intense machine-gun and rifle fire from the encircling British forces in Parnell Street.

Pausing to take a breath and plan their next moves, around 300 men and women occupied the whole central terrace (Nos.12-25), tunnelling through the walls, along with some other buildings. The leader of a failed charge on the British barricade died in a lane now named O’Rahilly Parade.

As he lay dying he wrote a farewell letter to his wife and children, the magnified script reproduced on an impressive monument in the lane-way.

The current Hammerson plan includes at least seven years of construction on the site (with no food stalls possible meanwhile), a new street cut through the 1916 Terrace to O’Connell Street, a hotel in Moore Lane and a Metro entrance in O’Rahilly Parade additional to the O’Connell Street one.

INSIDE PEADAR BROWN’S

*The Peadar Brown’s stall in Comrade Corner.* (Photo: *R. Breeze*)

People drifted into the upstairs room in twos and threes, stopping at some or all of the stalls to examine the literature or merchandise on display and to chat to some of the groups. In addition to SMSFD’s, Peadar Brown’s had their own merchandise of badges and T-shirts.

Also selling merchandise within that range was a revolutionary anti-fascist stall, while another table was held by a group campaigning for the erection of a monument to Patrick Pearse in O’Connell Street, near to the GPO where he was located in 1916 before evacuation to Moore Street.

*T-shirts merchandise near the Darragh Ó Faoláin Stall in Comrade Corner.* (Photo: *R. Breeze*)

It was notable that the latter group also directed people to the SMSFD group’s table. Many of the visitors had origins outside Ireland, a sector for which perhaps this kind of event would be more usual. How did the SMSFD team feel their table had done for their hours there?

“We did alright,” said Dunne, “though it wasn’t very busy today.” “If we had boosted our online petition signatures alone, which we did, it would have been worth it,” said Breatnach. “Besides, I always wanted to see the famous Pub,” added Dunne, smiling.

*Mural on the side of the Peadar Brown’s building.* (Photo: *R. Breeze*)

Much artwork of an Irish Republican nature decorates the inside of the pub downstairs, including a mural along the wall behind the small stage area. The Irish Tricolour, Starry Plough and ‘Irish Republic’ flags hang from the exterior along with anti-racist posters in the outside drinking area.

Last year officials in Dublin City Council sought unsuccessfully to have Peadar Dunne’s remove the large Palestine flag painted on the side of their building. It has a reputation not only as an Irish Republican pub but also of decidedly internationalist solidarity and antifascist character.

Also last year, some fascist and far-Right elements threatened the pub with a demonstration which failed to materialise, to counter which antifascists had packed the pub to overflowing. The far-Right’s anger was aroused by the banning of a musician for allegedly uttering racist comments.

*The Peadar Brown’s T-Shirt rack by their stall in Comrade Corner.* (Photo: *R. Breeze*)

End.

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USEFUL LINKS

Peadar Brown’s pub: https://peadarbrowns.com/

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THE BLOOD-RED POPPY – remembrance or militarisation?

On November 5, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Anti-War, Capitalism, Cultural Comment, History, History commemoration, Imperialism, Political Analysis, World War One, World War Two2 Comments

Diarmuid Breatnach (edited from article posted in Rebel Breeze 2014)

(Reading time: 6 mins.)

Part 1 – who and what gets ‘remembrance’

In the lands under the direct dominion of England, i.e. the “United Kingdom”, and in some others that are under its influence, the dominant class calls the people to join in a cultural event in November which they call “Remembrance”.

The organisation fronting this event in the ‘UK’ is the Royal British Legion and their symbol for it (and registered trademark) is the Red Poppy, paper or fabric representations of which people are encouraged to buy and display — and indeed often pressured to wear.

In some places, such as the BBC for personnel in front of the camera, they are forced to wear them. In many schools and churches throughout the ‘UK’, Poppies are sold and wreaths are laid at monuments to the dead soldiers in many different places.

Prominent individuals, politicians and the media take part in a campaign to encourage the wearing of the Poppy and the participate in the ‘Festival of Remembrance’ generally and of late, to extend the Festival for a longer period.

High points in the ‘Festival’ are the Royal Albert Hall concerts on the Saturday and the military and veterans’ parades to the Cenotaph memorial in Whitehall, London, on “Remembrance Sunday”. (Also a focus for commemorations by the British far-Right and fascists).

“The concert culminates with Servicemen and Women, with representatives from youth uniformed organizations and uniformed public security services of the City of London, parading down the aisles and on to the floor of the hall. There is a release of poppy petals from the roof of the hall.¹

*An embroidered version of the poppy emblem* (Sourced: *Internet*)

“The evening event on the Saturday is the more prestigious; tickets are only available to members of the Legion and their families, and senior members of the British Royal Family (the Queen, Prince Phillip, the Prince of Wales, the Duke of York [not this year!] and the Earl of Wessex). ²

“The event starts and ends with the British national anthem, God Save the Queen³ (and) is televised. Musical accompaniment for the event is provided by a military band from the Household Division together with The Countess of Wessex’s String Orchestra.”⁴

The money raised from the sale of the “Poppies” and associated merchandise is said to be used to support former military service people in need and the families of those killed in conflict. On the face of it, military and royal pomp apart, the Festival may seem a worthy charitable endeavour.

Also one which commemorates very significant historical events — therefore a festival which at the very least, one might thing, should not be opposed by right-thinking and charitable people.

Yet the main purpose of this festival and the symbol is neither remembrance nor charity but rather the exact opposite: to gloss over the realities of organised violence on a massive scale and to make us forget the experience of the world’s people of war.

And to prepare the ground for recruitment of more people for the next war or armed imperialist venture – and of course more premature deaths and injuries, including those of soldiers taking part.

Video and song “On Remembrance Day” from Veterans for Peace lists British conflicts (including Ireland) and condemns the Church of England for supporting the wars, calling also on people to wear the White Poppy (see Part 3 for the White Poppy)

Partial Remembrance – obscuring the perpetrators and the realities of war

The Royal British Legion is the overall organiser of the Festival of Remembrance and has the sole legal ‘UK’ rights to use the Poppy trademark and to distribute the fabric or paper poppies in the ‘UK’.

According to the organisation’s website, “As Custodian of Remembrance” one of the Legion’s two main purposes is to “ensure the memories of those who have fought and sacrificed in the British Armed Forces live on through the generations.”

By their own admission, the Legion’s “remembrance” is only to perpetuate the memories of those who fought and sacrificed in the British Armed Forces – it is therefore only a very partial (in both senses of the word) remembrance. More recently it tries to hide this exclusivity.⁵

It is left to others to commemorate the dead in the armies of the British Empire and colonies which Britain called to its support: in WWI, over 230,500 non-‘UK’ dead soldiers from the Empire and, of course, the ‘UK’ figure of 888,246 includes the 27,400 Irish dead.

*Cossack soldier volunteers WWI. Imperial Russia was an ally of Britain and France; the war was one of the causes of the Russian Socialist Revolution 1917. The following year, the war ended.* (Image sourced: *Internet*)

The Festival excludes not only the dead soldiers of the British Empire and of its colonies (not to mention thousands of Chinese, African, Arab and Indian labourers employed by the army) but also those of Britain’s allies: France, Belgium, Imperial Russia, Japan, USA … and their colonies.

No question seems to arise of the Festival of Remembrance commemorating the fallen of the “enemy” but if the festival were really about full “remembrance”, it would commemorate the dead on each side of conflicts.

*German soldiers playing cards during WWI. Photos of Germans in WWI more readily available show them wearing masks and looking like monsters.* (Photo sourced: *Internet*)

That would particularly be appropriate in WWI, an imperialist war in every respect. But of course they don’t do that; if we feel equally sorry for the people of other nations, it will be difficult to get us to shoot, bomb or stab them in some future conflict.

A real festival of remembrance would commemorate too those civilians killed in war (seven million in WWI), the percentage of which in overall war casualty statistics has been steadily rising through the last century with increasingly long-range means of warfare.

Very recently, the Royal Legion has tried to claim that the “acknowledge innocent civilians who have lost their lives in conflict” but add “and acts of terrorism.” Since we know that that ‘terrorism’ is a highly politicised word and for imperialists has mostly meant resistance struggle, that is hardly welcome.

*Civilian war refugees in Salonika, NW Greece, WWI* (Photo sourced: *Internet*)

Civilians in the First World War died prematurely in epidemics and munitions factory explosions as well as in artillery and air bombardments, also in sunk shipping and killed in auxiliary logistical labour complements in battle areas.

And through hunger, as feeding the military became the priority in deliveries and as farmhands became soldiers.

In WWII 85,000,000 civilians died in extermination camps or forced labour units, targeting of ethnic and social groups, air bombardments, as well as in hunger and disease arising from the destruction of harvests and infrastructure.

Air bombardments, landmines, ethnic targeting and destruction of infrastructures continue to exact a high casualty rate among civilians in war areas.

One admittedly low estimate up to 2009 gave figures of 3,500 dead in Iraq during the war and aftermath and another 100,000 dead from western trade sanctions, along with 32,000 dead civilians in Afghanistan.

Another review up to 2011 gave a figure of 133,000 civilians killed directly as a result of violence in Iraq and “probably double that figure due to sanctions”.⁶

The number of civilians injured, many of them permanently disabled, is of course higher than the numbers killed. Most of those will bring an additional cost to health and social services where these are provided by the state and of course to families, whether state provision exists or not.

Real and impartial “remembrance” would include civilians but not even British civilians killed and injured are included in the Festival of Remembrance, revealing that the real purpose of the Festival is to support the existence of the armed forces and their activities.⁷

And contributing at the same time to a certain militarisation of society and of the dominant culture.

If the Festival were really about “remembrance”, they would commemorate the numbers of injuries and detail the various types of weapons that caused them.

But that might reflect unfavourably on the armaments manufacturers, who run a multi-billion industry in whatever currency one cares to name, so of course they don’t.

Australian soldiers who survived gas attack but injured by it awaiting hospitalisation, Northern France, WWI 1916. (Photo sourced: *Internet*)

And if really concerned about death and injury in war, they would campaign to end such conflict – for an end to imperial war.

But then how else would the various imperial states sort out among themselves which one could extract which resources from which countries in the world and upon the markets of which country each imperial state could dump its produce?

So of course the Royal British Legion doesn’t campaign against war. That’s not its role. Quite the opposite.

End.
(Parts 2 and 3 to follow).

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FOOTNOTES:

1Sourced from the British Legion’s website in 2014, its WW1 centenary year.

2Ibid.

3Now of course God Save the King.

4Sourced from the British Legion’s website in 2014.

5 “We unite across faiths, cultures and backgrounds to remember the service and sacrifice of the Armed Forces community from United Kingdom and the Commonwealth. We will remember them.” https://www.britishlegion.org.uk/get-involved/remembrance/about-remembrance

6 Civilian war deaths Iraq and Afghanistan to 2009 http://www.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/11/30/why_they_hate_us_ii_how_many_muslims_has_the_us_killed_in_the_past_30_years Civilian war deaths Iraq to 2011: http://costsofwar.org/article/iraqi-civilians

7“shoulder to shoulder with our armed forces” from the British Legion’s website.