Thousands answered the call to prevent a resumption of an annual Orange Order march through the Garvaghy Road, which runs through a nationalist area of West Belfast, scheduled for 27 September and authorised by the Parades Commission.
The Orange Order takes its colour and sectarianism from the anti-republican Dutch royalty of William of Orange; the Order was founded in 1795 in order to disrupt and break the new patriotic unity between the descendants of the settlers and indigenous Irish forged by the Society of United Irishmen.
For many years this march of colonial settler domination by the sectarian Orange Order was escorted through the Garvaghy Road by the colonial and sectarian police force, formerly the Royal Ulster Constabulary, more latterly renamed as the Police Service of Northern Ireland (sic).
Garvaghy Road resistance to Orange Order march through their area October 2026 (Photo sourced: Internet)
It also led to the 2001 six month siege by Loyalists of the Holy Cross Catholic primary school with children and their accompanying parents jeered, threatened and shouted at while also being bombarded with bottles of urine and even packets containing excreta.
All with the Loyalists protected by the colonial police force. The sectarian atmosphere also led to 21 Loyalist murders including the death by firebombing of three Quinn children. All of that history was recounted as reasons why the Orange march should not go ahead.
But Brendán Mac Cionnaith, chairperson of Garvaghy Residents’ Association, recollected another historical connection. On 4th October 1936, he stated, another unwelcome march of bigots through an area was being planned and resisted, but on that occasion, in the East End of London, then an area of high Jewish occupancy, the target of the fascist anti-Jewish Blackshirts.
That was the nickname of the British Union of Fascists, led by Sir Oswald Moseley. Local socialist, communists, anarchists and the Jewish community mobilised to prevent the march and a detachment of Irish from nearby Wapping arrived to support them.
Seven hundred police, including all those mounted of London spearheaded the fascist march and attacked the resistance, eventually forcing their way through the first barricade but failing to overcome the second. The Battle of Cable Street was a historic victory for the antifascists.
One of the cries taken up that day was No Pasarán (They Shall Not Pass), echoing that of the then ongoing defence of Madrid, where antifascists from European states, including Ireland and the UK, prevented the initial fascist military coup and assault on Madrid.
The call was repeated in words and fact on the Garvaghy Road. As people mobilised to block the road, others mobilised to provide the resistance with shelter from the weather and with hot drinks and live music, while shops remained open past their normal hours to serve customers.
An early view of the protest outside the British Embassy 26 September. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
A broad protest in solidarity with Garvaghy Road resistance took place outside the British Embassy in Dublin’s Ballsbridge. Although called by the Éirigí socialist republican party, the picket was supported by a number of Republican and socialist organisations and individuals.
A legal application to overturn the decision of the Parades Commission was made to the High Court in Belfast but it rejected the application. However, its decision was moot since by that time Secretary of State Chris Bryant had banned the Orange Order march.
WHY NOW?
Why now, after an absence of 28 years, did the sectarian Orange Order wish to march through the Garvaghy Road? That was a question asked by many. Some have pointed to unionist apprehension as their population figures decline and a perception that they are losing their dominance.
That may be the Orange Order’s motivation but does not explain the authorisation by the Parades Commission. It is inconceivable that the latter’s approval came without previous discussion with His Majesty’s governor of the colony,, Secretary of State for Northern (sic) Ireland.
An later view from inside the protest outside the British Embassy 26 September. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
And yet it was ‘Sir’ Bryant himself who eventually banned the sectarian and provocative march. It seems likely that the British colonial rulers either suggested the march or decided on permitting the Loyalist provocation in order to test the mettle of the nationalist community’s resistance.
The colonial repression will now return to its normality with stop-and-search harassment of Republican activists and their families and recruitment of informers and agents, from which to proceed to arrests and jail through judicial decisions of the no-jury Diplock Courts.
However, nationalist communal resistance in Belfast and across the colony has been strengthened by the successful mobilisation, stand and victory and its lesson in message is percolating through the rest of Ireland.
End.
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300,000 unionised municipal and state-service workers struck work for one day on Wednesday 14th in pursuance of a living wage among the steadily rising cost of living. A second such day is planned for Wednesday October 21st.
This is the biggest action of its kind since the financial crisis of 2009 when the Irish Government bailed out the banking section and imposed austerity on worker’s wages and public services.
Picketers of a number of unions on Wednesday. (Photo: PA Media)
The 2024-2026 Public Service Agreement came to an end without agreement between Government and Trade Union representatives on the next stage, as the unions pointed to an effective 5%-7% loss in the purchasing power of their members’ wages due to rising cost of living.1
Workers in public health, teaching, sanitation, museums, libraries, parks and historical sites struck work with emergency cover. Not all public services participated, some being privatised or part-privatised, as for example with the telecommunication network, bus and rail passenger transport.
The strike was called by the Public Services Committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU), covering 19 unions.
The main unions included Fórsa, with over 100,000 public sector members; SIPTU (75,000 public service members), the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO -5,000), the teachers’ unions (INTO primary level – 48,25O; ASTI and TUI, secondary/ tech 43,000) and the Unite union.
The Government, having refused the workers’ demands during earlier negotiations, tried to prevent or delay the strike by calling for further negotiations which, in the absence of any further offer, the unions naturally refused and went ahead with their industrial action according to earlier ballot.
The mood for action was overwhelming with returned ballots of over 90% of members in the high ninety percentages voting for action.2
As picketers gathered outside their workplaces, the air rang to the horns of solidarity blowing from passing traffic — private, taxis, firms and buses. According to reports, while they remained silent outside Mountjoy Jail, the horns burst into sound while passing the nearby Mater Hospital.3
DCC Sanitation Department workers outside their depot in O’Rahilly Parade (off Moore Street). (Photo: Rebel Breeze)
Some other protests in the city, such as for Palestine solidarity, continued but took on added features of workers’ solidarity. At the weekly Dubs for Palestine solidarity rally 12 noon to 1pm outside Leinster House, numerous supporting references were made to the workers’ actions.
Diarmuid Breatnach sang James Connolly’s song ‘Be Moderate’ there while Jimi Cullen sang the ‘Power to People/ Workers’ chant, both acapella with the audience joining in.4
SOCIALIST NOTES
For tens of thousands of workers, this will have been their first experience of a strike. Though many Irish migrants abroad built unions and struck, in Ireland for nearly all, Irish-born and workers from abroad will also for the first time be taking industrial action together.
Union density among workers is estimated at 22%-25% in the Irish state, with the private sector by far the lowest, a huge drop from the around 60% of the early 1980s, blamed on trade unions entering into decades of Social Partnership with Government and employers’ representatives.
While socialists celebrate the workers’ actions they are aware that trade union gains in wages are always temporary and will always fall behind the average costs of living – and even further behind the more rapidly rising costs of daily/ weekly essentials such as food and clothing.
Revolutionary socialists welcome the worker solidarity that trade unions tend to impart, in addition to resistance to impoverishment and fighting for safer and healthier working conditions but also know that trade union consciousness alone does not aim for socialism but for social democracy.5
The struggle for a shorter working week has advanced little since the fight for the 8-hour day began on May 1st 1866 across the USA, with the Chicago police Haymarket Massacre on May 4th followed by seven death sentences and a 15-year jail sentence of workers’ leaders.
Though the working week for most workers has been reduced over years of struggle from six or even seven days to five, 8 hours remain the contracted lot for many, leaving little time and energy for family, socialisation, study and training, especially with hours travelling for many.
While trade union militancy in Ireland now may be a passing phase it may also presage a return to (or even a surpassing) of the Irish trade union militancy of the past, prior to the Social Partnership and such union activity is considered necessary to achieve a successful social revolution.
End.
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3Both Mountjoy Jail and the Mater Hospital are on the North Circular Road and near to each other. Prison staff had pickets out while maintaining incarceration of inmates and presumably serving meals.
4Ironic title to lyrics of one of Connolly’s entries in Songs of Freedom (New York, 1907), sometimes referred to as We Only Want the Earth. Breatnach sings it to the air of a A Nation Once Again, which arrangement he says first heard from an English Communist. The Power to the People chant is often heard on demonstrations in particular from the PBP group; Cullen added ‘Workers’. Both singers are independent political activists.
5A form of goverment under capitalist exploitation with involvement of trade unions and some social benefits.
The efforts of the Zionist tech company Checkpoint to make inroads into the Irish tech sector1 are being dogged by public protests over its origins and connections to the armed and intelligence forces of the Zionist state.
On 15 October last year the company booked a whole day at the Westbury Hotel in Dublin’s city centre in order to promote itself. The protests in the earlier part of the day’s program were sufficiently fierce to force the abandonment of the evening’s presentation.2
There were complaints about the violent treatment of protesters by Checkpoint’s security team, which demonstrators believed Israeli and one British, from their accents.
Former Irish rugby international Brian O’Driscoll had been engaged to promote the event but the company failed to make touchdown.
Checkpoint company’s HQ in ‘Tel Aviv, Israel’. (Image sourced: Online)
The Your Tech, Their Death organisation has had the Checkpoint company in their sights for some time due to the company’s links with the Zionist armed forces.3 For the Westbury protest they teamed up with Action For Palestine Ireland, a direct action Palestine solidarity organisation.
On 25 August this year both organisations joined in action again, this time however also with Anti-Imperialist Action, a revolutionary socialist Irish Republican organisation. The target was another promotional attempt by Checkpoint at Beckett’s Lock Hotel, in Dublin’s north docklands.
A loud protest outside the building prompted the hotel’s management to close public access to their Reception but they also got their staff that the event was not taking place inside. However, some of the protesters were already inside and in communication with those outside.
In the event, the lies became truth as the organisers cancelled their event.
The Zionist tech company has chosen a macabre but appropriate name for itself. Checkpoints operated by the Zionist army in Palestine are locations of daily humiliation, long delays and threat to Palestinians, exacerbated at times by assault, arrest and even death.
There were very recently nearly a thousand Zionist checkpoints which Palestinians have to negotiate inside the West Bank alone, if they dare. Some are gate barriers, some permanent road checkpoints, some ‘flying checkpoints’, i.e temporary no-warning erections.
A very recent report, as this article was being written, documents the many ways in which these checkpoints fragment Palestine not only geographically but socially too and how they restrict access to friends and family, to land, to work and even to healthcare.4
Zionist checkpoints in the West Bank are now also AI-integrated.
That checkpoints are not merely control-and-repression erections for the Palestinian subject population but an offensive weapon in a war of subjugation is evidenced by their export into South Lebanon and Syria by invading Israeli armed forces.
Zionist tech companies and their intrusive surveillance programs have grown widespread around the world, being adopted not only by commercial companies but also by state service departments with concerns raised far beyond the genocide in Palestine.
At the moment it seems that the penetration of this Zionist company at least is being stopped or checked by Palestinian solidarity resistance. Whether the checks will result in checkmate for Checkpoint remains to be seen.
End.
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FOOTNOTES
SOURCES
1 Its head office is in the USA, according to its website.
3The company claims to be committed to making the world a safer and more secure place, and this commitment applies to our work both on the internet and the physical world alike. We promote a safe, healthy, supportive and diverse work environment, with training and development opportunities for all employees. Except for Palestinians of course, who are actually targetted by Zionist tech while their own access to the Internet is simultaneously monitored by Zionist tech and restricted by Zionist power cuts.
An impromptu demonstration in solidarity with Gavin Bazuno, the Ireland team goalkeeper, attracted many participants on late Sunday afternoon 27 September in Dublin. The call-out had only been posted the previous evening.
Irish language poster calling to stand with Gavin Bazuno and the courage to act according to conscience.
24 year-old goalkeeper Gavin Bazuno declined to play against the team of the genocidal Israel state, against which the Irish team were drawn in the UEFA Nations competition, despite the controversial decision of the team’s management and the Football Association of Ireland to go ahead.
Responding to the overwhelming majority sentiment in Ireland and of the members of the Association, the FAI executive in November had requested UEFA to exclude the Israeli team from the competition, which UEFA executives refused to do.1
Until September, long after FAI members’ fears were realised and in February the Irish team had been drawn to play ‘Israel’, the UEFA board had also refused to exempt Ireland from being drawn against ‘Iosrael’ (which they have the power to do)2 in future games.
Attendance at the Dublin rally drew from a broad pool without any clear political party or indeed solidarity organisation dominance. Placards were not plentiful but some home-made ones could be seen and indeed the banner calling for solidarity with Bazuno was sprayed on white sheets.
A placard appeared showing an IOF sniper, referencing ‘Israeli’ player Said Abu Sarchi taking the ‘sniper position’ after scoring against Austria, for which he was sent off, to his apparent great surprise (after all, it’s normal in ‘Israel’ to actually shoot, not just mime shooting Palestinians).3
In order to comply with Palestinian society’s request for a boycott of ‘Israel’ to include sports competitions, a number of groups have been specifically campaigning against firstly ‘Israel’ being permitted to enter the competition and secondly for the Irish football team to refuse to play them.
The main ones have been League of Ireland fans, Stop the Game and Ireland Sports for Palestine. Over 160 Irish sports people signed a letter asking the Irish team not to play and Jacinta O’Keefe, registered to compete in the Pondevedra Triathlon withdrew due to ‘Israeli’ athlete participation.
The Show Israel the Red Card banner seemed the only printed one present at the rally, whereas a number of sheets had been spray-painted in order to together spell out Stand with Bazuno 4 Gaza.
A home-made placard read: Nice Save, Gavin! The flags flown among the crowd were mostly Palestinian with some Irish Tricolours and one Starry Plough.
Section of the crowd outside the GPO with one of the megaphone speakers, chant leaders etc. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
There was hardly a Garda uniform in evidence, nor was any stewarding organised or required: the main group occupied the GPO side while a smaller group stood on the central pedestrian reservation. A street person danced a bit in the road but generally withdrew as vehicles approached.
The ad-hoc nature of the rally and absence of any organisation’s control was illustrated by the lack of printed placards or banners, by much of the speeches from people with megaphones and in particular by the slogans chanted.
Specific slogans included: Don’t play the Game! We Support Gavin Bazuno! FAI, you can’t hide – You’re supporting genocide! There’s Only One Bazuno!
But there were also other chants relating to Ireland more generally, such as against British Unionists and their attempted Orange Order march on the Garvaghy Road4 and the slogan referring to both occupation of Ireland and of Palestine: Irish people understand: No peace on stolen land!
The more usual slogans of Palestine solidarity were also chanted: Free, Free: Palestine! From the River to the Sea – Palestine will be free! From the Sea to the River – Palestine will live for ever! In our thousands and our millions – We are all Palestinians!
There is only one solution: Intifada revolution! 1, 2, 3, 4 – Occupation no more! 5, 6, 7, 8 – Israel is a terrorist state! Saoirse – Don Phalaistín!
A recording of Martin Leahy’s Don’t Play was amplified with the crowd joining in on the chorus, which repeats the title of the composition.
The air of Don’t Play has been used earlier for many songs and chants, first recorded in 1864 as the air for Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, a song composed by George Frederick Root to give Union troop captives of the Confederacy hope of liberation in the American Civil war.
Not long after its USA composition, the air was used for the God Save Ireland! song by Irish nationalist MP, journalist and poet T.D. Sullivan in honour of the Manchester Martyrs, the three Fenians who were framed, convicted and hanged in front of a baying crowd in Manchester in 1867.
The title is taken from the words shouted by the three as they were sentenced to hang and the song became very popular, particularly in Ireland where, for decades it was the unofficial national anthem until eventually replaced by Amhrán na bhFiann.5
The home-made banner made from sections of spray-painted white cloth, displayed on the pedestrian reservation, seen from the pavement outside the GPO. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Wide fallout followed the decision of the FAI that the Irish team would play the fixtures drawn against ‘Israel’. UEFA scheduled the games to take place in Serbia (without any Irish fans) and Hungary. RTÉ€6 declined to accept advertising or to provide commentary on the games.
In the run up to the game, attempting to project the decision to play in a positive light, the Ireland team manager Heimar Hallgrimsson said that rather than playing with genocide, they were ‘playing against Genocide’.This comment drew a tirade of abuse from the ‘Israeli’ Football Association.7
However at a subsequent press conference, Hallgrimsson withdrew the ‘Genocide’ comment, ascribing his use of it to the popular Irish pressure not to sportswash ‘Israel’ and the demand of ‘Don’t play with genocide.’
According to reports, out of the Irish team of 24, eight voted not to play, at a meeting from which it appears that Bazuno was excluded but the rest voted to play. They were then organised to wear armbands mourning the Palestinians killed and to lower their heads during the Zionist anthem.
On the field, the Irish team captain declined to shake hands with the ‘Israeli’ one. The FAI claimed that they had done well apart from their 3-0 win but many felt that to play at all was to lose something more important.
Many of the Bazuno and declining to play Israel at the rally outside the GPO, O’Connell Street, Dublin. (Photo by: Participant)
It may well have been a tactical campaign mistake not to include the players from the outset in the call for boycott of the game, giving them time to realise and prepare for the fact that if the FAI and Irish Government failed to call for the boycott, then it would come down to them.
The call not to target the players for action, even in that way, seems to have been mistaken. All those of sound mental state are responsible for their actions or lack of them. More importantly perhaps, young men and women of principle will be required to build the Irish nation that we need.
And nothing could be worse than genocide.
End.
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3https://www.instagram.com/p/DdvXWXBG6Y4/ Even more horrible is that he is of Palestinian Arab background. The discourse that it’s a harmless snooker game stance does not warrant entertaining (unless the apologists can show how snooker shots are taken by players of the game while on their knees).
4A road in the nationalist area of West Belfast upon which the British-loyal Orange Order are demanding to be permitted to march
5Original title, The Soldiers’ Song; but for the State, it is the air of the chorus alone that constitutes the ‘National Anthem’.
6Radio Teilifís Éireann, the national broadcaster for television and radio.
Two members of the Irish Parliament1 and four Dublin municipal Councillors2 accompanied Wheelock family members, neighbours and other campaigners in a march to Store Street Garda3 Station, where Terence Wheelock had received fatal injuries.
The event took place on the afternoon of Saturday 12th September and commenced with a rally outside the GPO. Despite the passing of an anti-Trump visit demonstration of reportedly 25,000 a little earlier, tens of supporters were present for the Wheelock protest.
Terence Wheelock was a young man of 20 years from a working-class area in Summerhill, in the north Dublin inner city in 2005. Leaving his home to purchase some paint brushes to decorate his room, he stopped to talk to some youths beside a recently-stolen car.
When a group of Gardaí arrived, the youths scattered, Terence among them, the Gardaí chasing and detaining four youths including Terence, bringing him to Store Street Garda station. When he left that station apparently some hours later, it was in a coma to the Mater Hospital.
He never recovered consciousness and died three-and-a-half months later.
According to the Wheelock family, the Gardaí who came to inform them of the young man’s whereabouts misinformed them of the location, therefore denying their ability to obtain Terence’s clothes or demand crime scene security of Terence’s cell, which was quickly redecorated.
Relatives and supporters of the Terence Wheelock campaign in front of Store Street Garda station a week ago on Saturday. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
OUTSIDE THE GPO ON SATURDAY
At the rally outside the iconic GPO building in Dublin’s O’Connell Street in the north city centre, one of Terence’s older brothers, Sammy, announced the purpose of the gathering to those present and the many curious passers-by, both resident and visiting.
Sammy took over as coordinator of the campaign for justice regarding Terence from an older brother, Larry, after the latter died of brain cancer in 2019.
Called first to speak was elected Dublin City Councillor Marie Sherlock, a member of the Labour Party, who commiserated with the Wheelock family on their loss and remarked on their persistence in the campaign over the years, vowing to continue supporting them until justice was achieved.
Marie Sherlock speaking at the rally outside the GPO. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Less welcome to my ears and probably to at least some others were her words that she would ‘support the Gardaí’ and ‘the Minister for Justice’ in seeking an inquiry into the cause of Terence Wheelock’s death. ‘Support’ for the Gardaí was far from the tone of most campaign demands.
Next to speak was Daniel Ennis, until fairly recently an elected Dublin City Councillor of the Social Democrats party, which he now represents as a TD (elected representative to the Irish Parliament). Ennis spoke mainly as a resident of primarily a working-class area of Dublin city.
Daniel Ennis TD addressing the pre-march rally at the GPO. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Sammy Wheelock also introduced Gemma Dunleavy, the petit rapper from Sheriff Street background on the north-eastern side of the city centre, who has highlighted the Terence Wheelock case in the past.
Dunleavy performed one of her pieces organised around numbers such as ‘Thirty-seven, the number of photographs taken of injuries on Terence’s body’ and ‘zero, the number of people held accountable for Terence’s death’.
Rapper Gemma Dunleavy outside the GPO performing her piece about the killing of Terence Wheelock. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
After Dunleavy’s performance, Sammy Wheelock announced the intention to march to Store Street Garda station, detention location for two hours of his younger brother Terence in September 2005 before admission to the Mater Hospital in a coma, followed by death three-and-a-half months later.
Sammy also referred to the harassment by Gardaí of the Wheelock family wanting to intimidate them from campaigning.
The march, with banners and placards, proceeded along O’Connell Street, the city’s main thoroughfare, chanting call-and-answer: Say his name: Terence Wheelock! For Justice to be imposed, the guilty must be exposed! What do we Demand?Answers! When do we demand them? Now! What do we want? Justice! When do we want it? Now! Guilty: Garda!
Reaching the Liffey river that bisects the city, the march turned left along Eden Quay,4 then left at Butt Bridge, passing Liberty Hall5 and the monument to James Connolly.6 As they neared Store Street, Sammy pronounced it ‘one of the most corrupt Garda stations in Ireland.’
One of the banners, seen here outside the GPO during the pre-march rally. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
OUTSIDE THE GARDA STATION
Family relatives lined the steps of and with their backs to the Garda station, displaying the campaign’s placards and banners while supporters gathered facing them to listen to speakers.
Dublin City councillors Conor Reddy of the People Before Profit party, Madeleine Johannson (non-party) and Janice Boylan of the Sinn Féin party addressed the crowd, along with James O’Toole of Red Media and, for the second time, Daniel Ennis TD (Soc. Dems).
Conor Reddy speaking outside the Garda station (Paul Murphy, TD may be seen behind, caring for his child which is out of shot). (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Reddy, Ennis and O’Brien all related their origins in working-class areas of Dublin and their familiarity with the hostile attitude of the authorities, especially the Gardaí, to the residents of those areas, particularly the youth. Reddy mentioned another family campaign around Garda violence.
James O’Toole referenced ‘the thin blue line’ used to describe the police and their defence of democracy but pointed out that people’s experience of that ‘blue line’ differed remarkably according to upon which side of the line they found themselves.
O’Toole pointed out that although people from working class areas tend to find themselves universally on the ‘wrong’ side of the ‘blue line’, at times, due to taking militant action, people normally on the ‘right’ side of that line can find themselves subjected to Garda violence.
Boylan, speaking briefly, apologised for her absence from the campaign heretofore but promised support for the future. Reddy spoke about the need for youth social provision, justice system diversion programs and drug prevention treatment facilities for young people.
Sammy Wheelock, brother of Terence and chairperson of the campaign, addressing the crowd outside Store St. Garda station. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Both Sammy and Robert Wheelock, another brother, spoke eloquently from their prepared speeches about the loss of their brother, the effect on their family and in particular on their mother, unable to be present for health reasons but who sent her thanks to those present.
The brothers spoke about the future that Terence never had a chance to experience and the loss also to the daughter he left behind. Both of them also pointed out that although their campaign sought justice in relation to Terence, it implied the need for justice across Irish society.
Sammy called Vera Lynch from Tallaght forward to speak about her own struggle for justice around the killing of her son Stephen Lynch by a hit-and-run driver but the Gardaí, who failed to investigate the crime with any rigour.
Speaking outside the Garda station, Lynch said her son, a father of three, had been knocked down by a car ten years ago and then reversed over but neither multiple phone calls attempting to speak to the investigating Garda nor an email to the Minister of Justice had achieved any result.
Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin in front of Store Street Garda station singing “Summerhill” by Sammy Wheelock. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Sammy introduced Eoghan Ó Ceannabháin to sing Sammy’s lyrics of Summerhill, his song to the air of Spancil Hill.7 Ó Ceannabháin of the PBP party sang the song well, which was no surprise as he is a talented singer in the traditional sean-nós style, from a musical family from Connemara.
At conclusion of the song, Sammy led the crowd in a few more chants directed at the Gardaí, thanked all for their attendance and promised to keep pushing for an independent inquiry into the killing of Terence Wheelock and for measures to ensure no similar experience for anyone in future.
Some youth supporting the rally outside Store Street Garda station – the next generation of Garda targets? (Photo: D.Breatnach)
FOCAL SCOIR
The State’s defenders tend to hope that the grind of the passing years will sap the energy of campaigners or that they will die of ill-health, trauma or old age before any question arises of acknowledging guilt over the behaviour of those defenders and responsibility of the State itself.
In July this year Osgur Breatnach received from the High Court, after decades campaigning, a Certificate of Miscarriage of Justice for his 1978 Sallins Mail Train robbery conviction on the basis of a ‘confession’ obtained, Breatnach has always maintained, through Garda ‘Heavy Gang’ torture.
End.
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FOOTNOTES
1Often incorrectly referred to as ‘the Dáil’ from the also incorrect official title of ‘Dáil Éireann’ (‘Parliament of Ireland’); it lost any claim to that title held since 1919 when in 1999 the State sponsored successfully an amendment to the Constitution of the State to abandon its claim to sovereignty over the Six Counties of the British colony. The two TDs included Paul Murphy, who was not one of the speakers.
2Including Ciaran Perry, non-party, who was present but did not address the crowd.
3An Garda Síochána is the official title of the police force of the Irish State, an officer of the force is a Garda (plural: Gardaí).
4Ironically this street was the scene of a fatal (to two workers) police (DMP) attack on a street rally of the Irish Transport and General Workers Union at the beginning of the Dublin Employers’ Lockout to break the ITGWU. Buildings along this street were damaged and partly demolished by British artillery during the repression of the 1916 Rising.
5Liberty Hall was the title of the HQ of the ITGWU which was demolished after artillery destruction in 1916; it is now the title of the successor to that union following a number of amalgamations leading to the creation of SIPTU which is a far cry from the militancy of even the post-1913 ITGWU.
6One of the Signatories of the 1916 Proclamation of Independence, Commander of Dublin in the 1916 Rising, for which he was one of the 16 executed leaders of the 1916 Rising. Also a leading official of the ITGWU during the Lockout and in the union’s recovery. But also a leading revolutionary socialist, anti-imperialist, historian, author and songwriter.
7Written by Sammy as a tribute to his brother Larry who had founded and chaired the campaign in 2005 until his death in 2019 from brain cancer, Sammy donated the song for all proceeds to go to the Irish Cancer Society.
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.
The death of Glen Hansard, Oscar-winning Irish musician in accident on his motorcycle in the early hours of Wednesday1 shocked and saddened many, not only in the Irish music community but among campaigners against Dublin homelessness too.
Hansard first gained fame playing Outspan Foster in The Commitments, the 1991 Alan Parker film based on Roddy Doyle’s first novel but developed his career in music, first with The Frames band, then as part of the duo The Swell Season and later as a solo artist.
Hansard, while often traveling to perform around the world, lived in both Kildare and Helsinki, home also of his wife, the poet Maire Saaritsa. Hansard won an Oscar in 2008 for the song Falling Slowly, written with musical partner Markéta Inglová2, featured in the John Carney film Once.
The musician was also one of a group of high-profile individuals who occupied the Apollo House building in a protest against homelessness and as a shelter for Dublin’s homeless in December 20163 (ironically the centenary year of the 1916 Rising against British occupation of Ireland).
In the decade since the Apollo House protest occupation, the number of homeless in Ireland has significantly more than doubled.4 Housing is of course part of the property sector in a capitalist society and the current situation benefits speculators, big landlords and financing banks.
January 2016 rally in support of Apollo House occupation in Poolbeg Street, Dublin. The large banner read ‘Homes Not Hostels.’ (Photo: D.Breatnach)
The Irish national ruling class serves those finance-capitalist interests and therefore successive governments have made no impact on the problem other than allowing it to grow. Some politicians are themselves landlords as are also a number of Gardaí and ex-Gardaí.
Clearly the Irish ruling class feels no incentive to end the homeless crisis, though it could do so, even without ending its capitalist system. Glen Hansard admitted in an interview with him I recall viewing that he had been somewhat naive in his hopes of the Apollo House occupation.
The obvious solution, restated many times, is to provide universal rented accommodation through the State and municipal authorities. The rents should be affordable, with the spread of the higher ones helping to maintain those lower income or on social welfare.
Rental income over time finances not only maintenance and repairs but also new building. Employment is provided in construction, maintenance and administration. Streets can become cleaner and safer and more attractive. Addiction problems become easier to address.
But that setup, though not destroying the capitalist system, would cut the swag-bag of the unproductive finance and property parasites so the crisis stays and grows. And the alternative Left movement is not threatening the Gombeens’ overthrow so they have no incentive to change.
Glen Hansard, Damien Dempsey and other musicians performing outside Apollo House. (Photo sourced: Internet)
Many years ago, home in Dublin on holiday from London, someone I was walking and talking with stopped a young red-haired man and they began to chat. I remarked that I had seen the man before — or had we met? Perhaps he thought I was kidding but admitted his role in The Commitments.
He mentioned The Frames also – he was Glen Hansard of course. Naturally I had seen the film in London but never heard of The Frames. As we parted company I felt a kind of disconnect from Dublin but also remarked that I hoped Hansard hadn’t thought I was ‘taking the piss.’
Decades later, as I gathered at rallies outside Apollo House (and sang at one of them) that episode did not intrude on my memory – because it was the homelessness protest upon which I was concentrated and not the famous people fronting it – but it comes to me now.
One of my brothers, Cormac, had a connection with Hansard as in August 2023 the latter requested of Dónal Lunny to play at a friend’s wedding the air of his composition Across the Hill, aired in a Seán Ó Riada Retrospective in 1987. Lunny replied he couldn’t play it but recommended Cormac.
Cormac got a trio together to play the air at the wedding but mislaid his sunglasses when leaving so had to return another day for them and they spent a short time together.
Two years later, in October 2025, Cormac met Hansard again on the occasion of the funeral mass for Manchán Magan, a gathering of many in the fields of Irish language, writing and music.
Glen Hansard (Photo sourced: Wikipedia)
Back in 2023 when Cormac had returned to Hansard looking for his sunglasses, Hansard gave him a Songbird whistle in low D made by Phil Hardy as a present.‘I can’t play it’,said Glen Hansard.‘You might as well have it.’ Cormac demurred, Glen Hansard insisted.
‘I’ll accept it,’ said Cormac eventually, ‘on condition that I record something for you, gratis, or we get together some day and record playing some music together.’ Hansard laughed. ‘That could happen’, he replied.
But now it can’t. Not on this plane of existence, anyway.
End.
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4The number of homeless people in Ireland was approximately 6,900 in late 2016 (and around 6,189 in mid-2016), and has risen to a record high of 17,447 people in state-funded emergency accommodation as of May 2026. But there are also people ‘sofa-surfing’, facing eviction or in otherwise insecure accommodation or even sleeping on the street.
On 25th March 2026 the Irish State’s UN representative declined to vote in favour of the UN Declaration of the Trafficking of Enslaved Africans and Racialized Chattel Enslavement of Africans as the Gravest Crime against Humanity.1
The voting patterns reveal much about the world and the position within it that is occupied by the Irish state. The total voting membership present was 193, out of which 123 voted YES, i.e. in favour of the resolution. But where was the Irish State? It abstained, along with 51 other states.2
The Western Powers, its chief the United States and including Australia, Canada and all western Europe, including of course all EU states, abstained.
But most of the eastern Europeanstates also abstained: Albania, Armenia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Ukraine.
Voting YES in Eastern Europe were Azerbaijan, Belarus and the Russian Federation,
In Africa, including North Africa, all states voted YES for the motion.
In East Asia, China, Mongolia, North Korea and South Korea voted YES but Japan followed the Western Powers in abstaining (Taiwan is not a UN member state).
In S.E. Asia only Cambodia abstained, the rest of the states in the region voting YES.
In Central Asia, all UN member states voted YES.
In Western Asia (previously termed ‘the Middle East’), only Oman abstained, all other states in the region voting YES, i.e. in favour of the resolution.
In the Western Pacific only Palau and in the Southern Pacific, only Fiji abstained (along with Australia and New Zealand, as noted earlier, as medium powers within the Western Bloc).
In Latin America, only Paraguay abstained and as we’ll see, Argentina voted No to the motion. All other Latin American countries vote in favour.
Yes, Argentina actually voted against the motion, one of only three states voting NO, the other two being the United States and Israel.
The Irish state’s excuse for their abstention included3 “ … concerns regarding certain legal references and assertions that are either inaccurate or inconsistent with international law.”
While the Minister’s response seems to indicate concern over terminology and legality, the Irish representative’s abstention coincided with the whole of the EU, as the Minister indicated but also with most European states and with the Western Powers.
Or in line with the ‘Global North’, in other words. And against the votes of the overwhelming majority of the states of the ‘Global South’. Ireland is geographically located in Western Europe but as a neo-colony (and direct colony in the Six Counties), Ireland belongs much more to the Global South.
In declining to join the vote for the Declaration, the representatives of the Irish State not only aligned themselves with the Western Powers and took a shameful stand in modern times but also went against the history of the Irish people and even of the Irish bourgeoisie itself.
In one of the two recorded writings of 5C St. Patrick, he wrote fiercely denouncing Coroticus, the British Celtic leader who was raiding Ireland and taking slaves.4
Cromwell in 1649 after his sack of Drogheda had Irish men and women sent as slaves to English colonies in Virginia and Barbados.
Yes, I say SLAVES. Although later Irish people were transported to the British colonies as contracted indentured servants, bound to their master for up to 10 years, the notion that Cromwell managed some kind of servant recruiting service among surviving captives in 1649 is ludicrous.5
Irish patriotic songs are full of hostile references to symbolic slavery, for example The Soldiers’ Song: No more our ancient sire land/ Shall shelter the despot or the slave and Who Fears to Speak of ‘98: He’s all a knave or half a slave/ Who slights his country thus …
Many Irish Republicans of the late 18th Century including the United Irishmen abhorred slavery and boycotted sugar because it was harvested by slave labour from sugar cane on colonial plantations.
Daniel O’Connell (1775–1847), better known for campaigning for an end to the anti-Catholic laws of the English occupation, was nevertheless a tireless campaigner against chattel slavery. Escaped slave and campaigner Frederick Douglass recorded hearing him mentioned by Irish labourers in the US.
Douglas came to Ireland to escape slave-catchers, staying from 31 August 1845 to January 1846, being welcomed into upper class private houses across Ireland and to address meetings and congregations. In Dublin, Douglass attended a Repeal Association meeting to hear O’Connell speak.
Frederick Douglass (Photo sourced: Internet)
At the meeting at Conciliation Hall on September 29, 1845, learning that the famous abolitionist was in the crowd, O’Connell invited Douglass to join him on stage and to address the audience, which experience made a deep impression upon Douglass’ life.
Although Irish migrants enlisted in the US Army and fought in wars of conquest, in the US-Mexican War (1846-1848) a significant number had deserted to form the St. Patrick’s Battalion and fought on the Mexican side against the USA.
Mexico had abolished slavery in 1829 while many states in the US still upheld it, including Texas which the US had conquered earlier from Mexico.
The Young Irelanders received the Irish Tricolour from women activists of the 1848 French revolution in Paris. They supported the Second French Republic and its Abolition of slavery.
Although John Mitchell, one of the Young Irelanders’ leaders, espoused the Confederacy other Young Ireland leaders supported the Union in the American Civil War (1861-1865), including Thomas Meagher as Captain in the 69th New York Militia, later as Brigadier-General in the Union Army.
Thomas Francis Meagher as Union Army officer and Governor of Montana. (Photo sourced: Internet)
The vast majority of Irish young males who survived emigration to the US from 1845 to 1866 fought in the Union Army in the American Civil War, which is to say on the anti-slavery side.The Fenians in the USA too, as an organisation, mostly fought on the Union side.
The Irish capitalist bourgeoisie, now the neo-colonial Gombeen class, has degraded so much, sunk so far that it cannot even stand by its own weakly progressive strands, never mind by the principles of the earlier Irish Republican bourgeoisie or those of the democratic populace today.
end.
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APPENDIX
First modern abolition of slavery
Vermont Republic (later a State in the USA) 1777
Second
Republic of France 1794 but reinstated briefly by Napoleon 1802
Third
Haiti Revolution and Independence (1791), 1804.
Fourth
Mexican Republic, 1810-1829
Fifth
UK 1833/ 34 (but the UK undermined the US Union during the American Civil War by building warships for the Confederacy, contraband smuggling and raids from Canada. See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trent_Affair)
5Unlike the case of the imported black slaves, their slave status continuing on to their children if occurred at all, would have been rare unless of course the children were visibly part-African.
SOURCES
2026-03-25 UN General Assembly Resolution on the Declaration of the Trafficking of Enslaved Africans and Racialized Chattel Enslavement of Africans as the Gravest Crime Against Humanity: https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/4106660
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
Two famous people addressed a crowd outside Leinster House, home of the Parliament of the Irish State on 25th May. Rami Elhanan, an Israeli graphic designer, and Bassam Aramin, a Palestinian scholar, had forged a remarkable friendship.
Section of participants in the Dubs for Palestine noontime event outside Leinster House 27 May 2026. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Bassam Aramin, now a Palestinian scholar, had been sentenced to a 7-year term of imprisonment for throwing a grenade at Israeli soldiers when he was 17 and had lost his daughter later to a plastic bullet fired at short distance by an IOF soldier.
Rami Elhanan, an Israeli graphic designer, had also lost his daughter Smada but to a suicide bomber in 1997. Both men became advocates of peace and dialogue and friends to one another.
Their audience was the weekly Dubs for Palestine gathering outside Leinster House on Wednesdays 12 noon to about 1.00 pm, with speeches, songs and poetry and David Hickey as MC. This week’s was the 113th such weekly gathering and the duo had been invited to speak.
The broad group has of late been concentrating on parting the Gaelic Athletic Association1 from its sponsor and insurance underwriter, the former Nazi and since Zionist-friendly Allianz company, along with now campaigning for the Irish soccer team not to play the ‘Israeli’ team.
Rami Elhanan (L-R) and Basam Araminaddressing the Dubs for Palestine noontime event outside Leinster House 27 May 2026. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Rami Elhanan referenced his descent from Holocaust survivors and outlined the different living standards of the Palestinian and Israeli Jewish communities, commenting on the sickness in Israeli society, that they did not want to know what is being done in their name to the Palestinians.
Basam Aramin’s contribution was against the Occupation and claimed that without that, Palestinians and Israelis could live in peace (it was not clear whether he was referring to the ‘Two State’ proposal2). David Hickey, the MC of the group presented them with an Arum Lily each.3
After their speeches had been applauded, they were asked to comment on the recent Leinster House debate and the Government’s refusal to endorse a boycott of Israel. Rami Elhanan replied that boycotts entrenched opposing sides and that continuing to talk was the answer.
Singer and activist Emma Browne, invited next to the microphone, sang Keep the Little Flame Alive, among the lyrics of which Faye, Dolores, Bernadine, Table grapes and gasoline, Homemade rifles, kitchen knives, Kept the little flame alive riposted the previous speakers.
Soon afterwards, Paul Lynch read a poem of a Palestinian father mourning the killing of his child. Poet and activist Dorothy Collin declared that in order to have peace there must be justice first and that we must support the oppressed in whatever way they choose to resist.
Áine Ruttley reading her poem while addressing the Dubs for Palestine noontime event outside Leinster House 27 May 2026. (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Áine Rutley also upheld our duty of solidarity and the right of the Resistance movement to choose its own methods, as did Jimi Cullen who then performed his own song composition The Freedom Fighter about a fighter from Gaza.
As I was called to the microphone, I commented that my views had already been well expressed in song and speech and that one of the forms of resistance is song, of which we had more than probably any other people in the world and sang An Dord Féinne,4 which is banned in Germany.
A little later the event came to an end with another song from Emma Browne, Never Again Is Now and with group chanting for Palestine, against Allianz and against playing the ‘Israeli’ team.
IN CONCLUSION
It is a popular proposition in certain circles that all social conflicts can be resolved by discussion, by understanding our opponents’ view. It is an attractive idea but flies in the face of history and of contemporary reality.
The interests of Occupied and Occupier are opposed and cannot be reconciled through understanding. The Occupier understands that the Occupied wish to be rid of them. The Occupied do understand that the Occupier wishes to continue appropriating their land and resources.
In this kind of situation one must win and the other lose. Far from understanding leading to peaceful resolution, the more the oppressed understand the nature of their oppressor, the more resolutely they are likely to resist and this is surely true of the Palestinians resisting the Zionist settlers.
The false proposition of resolving irreconcilable interests through discussion is usually of liberal or social-democratic origin when applied to anti-colonial, anti-imperialist and anti-racist struggles and though appearing even-handed, always ends up disempowering the victimised.
The journeys of both these men is extraordinary and interesting but it should not be presented as representative of the Palestinian struggle against Occupation, Theft and Genocide. Each father lost a child but the Palestinian is losing a lot more on top.
Furthermore, a just resolution can only come about through the total defeat of the Zionist forces and the dismantling of their State, so that if we really want that kind of resolution we are called to support the Palestinian side, unequivocally and resolutely.
Of course, in reality there is no question of real peace without justice, for ultimately the oppressed (unless wiped out) will rise in struggle again and again. The proposition of accommodation of opposites by discussion can only undermine or distract the struggle of the oppressed.
We cannot take the story of Bassam Aramin and Rami Elhanan, however remarkable, as even a metaphor for a just resolution nor allow ourselves to be seduced from resistance nor our struggle undermined by it.
End.
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FOOTNOTES
1The management of the Gaelic games, including hurling and Gaelic football. The GAA has teams in every one of the 32 counties of Ireland, crossing the colonial border and is the biggest community sports association not only in Ireland but also in Europe and perhaps in the world.
2This proposal came out of the Oslo Accords, to give the Palestinians 20% of their land for peace with the Zionist settlers who would own the remaining 80%. Apart from its basic injustice the proposal was never realistic since Zionist settlers continued to construct settlements on additional land. Despite this, supporting that proposal is the formal position of most western imperialist states and the Irish State and of most parliamentary political parties.
3In Ireland these are often viewed as symbolic of the 1916 Easter Rising.
4Also known as Gráinne Mhaol and Óró Sé Do Bheatha ‘Bhaile, an Irish traditional song of some antiquity refashioned into an Irish resistance song by Patrick Pearse, a martyred leader of the 1916 Rising.
