PROTESTER BLOCKS NATO CHIEF’S ARMED GUARDS CONVOY

Clive Sulish

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

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.

DEATH OF MUSICIAN AND DOUBLING NUMBER OF HOMELESS

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

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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FOOTNOTES

129th July 2026.

2 Musical partner in the Swell Season duo.

3https://www.thejournal.ie/apollo-house-homeless-3144658-Dec2016/

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.

SOURCES

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/music/2026/07/29/glen-hansard-dies-in-dublin-motorbike-crash

https://www.thejournal.ie/apollo-house-homeless-3144658-Dec2016

IRISH STATE REPRESENTATIVES DECLINE TO CONDEMN SLAVERY

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

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 European states 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)

Sixth

USA 1865 at end of American Civil War

FOOTNOTES

1https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/4106660

2Ibid.

3https://www.oireachtas.ie/ga/debates/question/2026-04-14/284/ Written response by Minister for Foreign Affairs to Eoin Ó Broin TD.

4https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOsHlDbKC2s

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

Oireachtas question following Ireland’s abstention: https://www.oireachtas.ie/ga/debates/question/2026-04-14/284/

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

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.

3https://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

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

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

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

PEACE WITHOUT JUSTICE IN PALESTINE

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

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 Aramin addressing 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.

SOURCES

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apeirogon_(novel)

“YOUR HANDS ARE BLOODY TOO” – Drumming, Whistles and Chants Disturb Conference of Irish Coalition Government Party

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

The Ard-Fheis1 of the Fianna Fáil political party, one of the main two parties in the Coalition Government, on Saturday was visually and aurally disturbed by Palestine solidarity protesters outside the Royal2 Conference Centre in Dublin.

Section of the protesters at the side gate to the Conference Centre. From here the protesters could see and be seen and heard by many of the Ard Fheis attendees. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

At College Green a broad group broke away from the monthly national march of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign and headed for the Conference Centre booked by the Fianna Fáil party for its annual conference, to protest Government collusion in ‘Israel’s’ genocide.

The Irish state is the single biggest importer of ‘Israeli’ exports, flights of military-use material are permitted regularly through its airspace and US military flights regularly refuel at Shannon Airport in violation of the formal neutral status of the State.

A placard held by one of the protesters at the side entrance to the Conference Centre. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

To the frustration of Palestine activists, this continues to be the case despite the overwhelming majority public’s feelings about Palestine, ranging from sympathy and horror at the carnage to outright solidarity, accompanied by hostility towards the actions of the ‘Israeli’ Zionists.

Chant leaders using megaphones led the protesters in the usual call-and-answer chants of From the River to the Sea/ Palestine will be free! Enact/ the Occupied Territories Bill! Mícheál Martin, you can’t hide/ You’re supporting genocide! and Your hands are bloody too!

The depth of the genocide collusion of the State is clear from its constant shelving of the Occupied Territories Bill, a very mild measure which passed through both Houses back in 2018 but, despite promises and weakening further, is yet to be brought on to the floor of Leinster House for a vote.

Calls on the Government to Do your job! are mistaken and unfair – they ARE doing their job, their real job as representatives of the neo-colonial, neo-liberal Irish Gombeen class. What we need is for them to be unable to do their job and to be replaced by a people’s socialist government.

Garda violence had erupted earlier in the day when protestors sought to take advantage of an unsecured gate to bring their protest closer to the FF conference, Gardaí hurling people away and pepper-spraying a number.

No headlines such as “Protesters batoned and pepper-sprayed at Fianna Fáil conference” appeared and the fact received no mention in the media. Protesters expressed hostility towards a press photographer wearing a FF conference lanyard but others stepped in to his defence.

Presumably protesters want media coverage? The reporter was seen earlier inside the conference centre grounds attempting to approach the barrier where the protesters gathered but was repeatedly refused by the chief security person. He then came out to take photographs from among them.

Section of the IPSC march passing the main gate of Trinity College (the couple in foreground are probably just crossing the road here). Another section has passed and has reached and possibly passed Dawson Street. (Photo: D.Breatnach)

The IPSC had advertised a protest at the FF ard-fheis for earlier in the day and presumably this was the one where people had tried to gain entry and had been attacked by the Gardaí. But most of those protesters had departed to join the IPSC march at 1pm from the Garden of Remembrance.

Could the main march not have been brought past the Conference Centre, even if continuing to the IPSC’s stage in Molesworth Street? Of course, many might have stayed to protest the FF event. Would that have been so bad? What has been achieved by the monthly ritual march up to now?

Possibly a shawl, carried by one of the women, possibly West Asian, who was happy for me to photograph it, on the IPSC march. (Photo: D.Breatnach).

In any case, the party faithful attendees at the annual conference of a senior member of the neo-liberal, neo-colonial Coalition Government were made unmistakably aware of what a section of the population – representing a great many others – think of them.

However the genocide continues without visible end. As does the Irish Government’s collusion. Wednesday will see a bill proposing sanctions against Israel being debated in the Irish Parliament; despite its broad support, the Government Coalition usually has the necessary numbers to beat it.

end.

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FOOTNOTES

1Annual Conference

2Strange name for a venue chosen by a party with a Republican past history and which recently enough was claiming to be the ‘REAL Republican party’! The party was formed in a split in 1926 from the abstentionist Sinn Féin party on the issue of its elected representatives taking seats in the parliament of a partitioned Ireland.

SOURCES

Brief coverage of some of the FF Ard-Fheis protest: https://www.thejournal.ie/protest-fianna-fail-palestine-dublin-7041797-May2026/

Coverage of the main IPSC march only: https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2026/05/16/palestine-solidarity-march-calls-for-sanctions-on-israel-and-boycott-of-fai-match/

1Annual Conference

2Strange name for a venue chosen by a party with a Republican past history and which recently enough was claiming to be the ‘REAL Republican party’! The party was formed in a split in 1926 from the abstentionist Sinn Féin party on the issue of its elected representatives taking seats in the parliament of a partitioned Ireland.

TWO RECENT EVENTS CONNECTED DECADES EARLIER

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.

Photo: Joel Robine/ AFP

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).

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

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

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

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

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

Sources & Further reading

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

REVOLUTIONARY BLOC IN DUBLIN MAYDAY MARCH

Clive Sulish

(Reading time: mins.)

Composed of Socialist Republican, Communist and Anarchist contingents, along with independent activists of various tendencies, a broad Revolutionary Bloc marched among other groups and individuals in the annual May Day march in Dublin on May 1st.

Eden Quay, as the march turns off O’Connell Street, heading for Beresford Square, by the tall Liberty Hall building in the left background. (Photo: R.Breeze)

At intervals the banners of the Communist Party of Ireland, the Independent Workers’ Union and flags of the Anti-Imperialist Action contingents could be seen and a number of flags denoting specific groups or campaigns were on show but the Bloc was mainly identifiable by its slogans.

Led in call-and-answer almost non-stop from departure point at the Garden of Remembrance to Beresford Place in front of Liberty Hall,1 slogans called on workers to strike work and fight, to oust imperialist states and NATO from Ireland, for resistance unity, revolution and a socialist republic.

Section of the Revolutionary Bloc, centre image. (Photo: R.Breeze)

It was notable that an Irish Tricolour and a number of Starry Plough flags were visible among the Bloc and indeed one of the chants was against the appropriation of the Tricolour by ‘traitors’. They also called for funding for education and not for big corporations and for a hotel-free city centre.

At least one of the flags was of the Revolutionary Housing League and the march passed an empty building appropriated three years earlier by the RHL who were then evicted by a Garda force of 100 with helicopter and armed unit as backup. The building remains empty to this day.

People in Dublin stopped in the early Friday evening to watch and in the northern reach of O’Connell Street an elderly man stepped off the pavement to march along with the Bloc, though in silence while further along, two teenage girls in school uniform joined the Bloc also.

The Priory Market, Tallaght, Dublin prior to opening (Photo: Supplied by supporter)

Led by a long piper, the various contingents marched into Beresford Place, where a stage had been set up in front of the SIPTU2 headquarters building but most of the Revolutionary Bloc marched past to congregate for a group photo around the nearby monument to James Connolly.

Using the Bloc’s megaphone, one of the group then sang the Be Moderate song (also known as We Only Want the Earth) composed by James Connolly3 and, as the singer informed his listeners, published in the Songs of Freedom songbook by Connolly in New York in 1907.

As most of the Bloc dispersed, speeches were being made from the nearby stage and a group of mostly younger people from Turkey were assembling at the Connolly Monument also for a group photo.

The May Day march and rally in Dublin is traditionally organised by the Dublin Council of Trade Unions. However the participation of union banners was low in numbers and those present mostly of the FÓRSA union.

Section of the march showing FORSA union flags being carried. (Photo: R.Breeze)

Distinct from other European states, the foremost struggle in Ireland for centuries has been on the national question which has entailed less development in the forces devoted to socialism, so that in general May Day does not bring out the numbers one can see in the capitals of the EU and UK.

However, Ireland’s long history of resistance to colonial occupation has entailed a greater history of insurrection than most European states and it has also produced a remarkable number of leaders of labour struggles among the Irish diaspora in Britain, the USA and Australia.

End.

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FOOTNOTES

1A highly-visible very tall building on the site of the original Liberty Hall, HQ of the IT&GWU, now of SIPTU.

2One of the largest (possibly the largest) trade unions in Ireland, formed by amalgamation of other unions on the base of the Irish Transport and General Workers union, of which James Connolly had been an officer and for a period, its overall leader.

3James Connolly (5 June 1868 – 12 May 1916), born and raised in the Cowgate area of Edinburgh, revolutionary socialist activist-theoretician and Irish Republican, author, journalist, historian, union organiser, executed by the British occupation along with another 15 prominent insurrectionists of the Easter Rising.

FOR NEUTRALITY AND SOVEREIGNTY – WITHOUT THE NATIONAL FLAG?

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

Last Saturday (26th April) in Dublin a march took place in support of Irish neutrality and in opposition to Irish Government attempts to remove an obstacle to joining some future imperialist military alliance.

The march was organised by the Irish Anti-War Movement, an organisation that flickers into life on occasion as desired by the leaders of the People Before Profit organisation, although some of its activists are not members of PBP. And not all marching by any means were members of either.

I have a regular commitment on Saturdays elsewhere until 1.30 and it’s at least 1.45 by the time I’m free. I caught up with the march as it began to wheel around Trinity College. At its destination1 I looked around to see how many flags were representative of the Irish nation.

I counted three Irish Tricolours and one other which was also combined with a Palestinian flag. I was carrying a Starry Plough flag (the original version of gold design on a green background).2 A total of four Irish national flags in a march of several hundred amidst lots of Palestinian flags.

The stupidity is almost beyond belief. The march was not organised primarily to express solidarity with Palestine but to call for Irish neutrality and for remaining outside NATO. However, one-sixth of the nation is inside NATO without even the pretence of democratic agreement.

The other five-sixths are what constitutes the Irish State, the one upon which the march was focused, to save the Triple Lock,3 to prevent the Gombeen Government from driving us into NATO or some other military alliance. But apparently to be done without symbolising the Irish nation.

Again, the stupidity stretches credulity. We have passed through a number of years in which the Far-Right and outright fascists, in order to disguise themselves as Irish nationalists, have appropriated primarily the Tricolour but also the Irish Republic flag which was created in 1916.

A situation was permitted to arise whereby to see many Irish Tricolours being carried was to suspect a far-Right event — and usually to have that suspicion confirmed as accurate. This occurred because the broad anti-fascist anti-racist movement in general allowed it to happen.4

The fault is primarily that of the Irish socialist Left and their dislike or distrust of nationalism and their association of the Tricolour with the Irish State. They fail to recognise it as a democratic, anti-colonial, anti-imperialist republican symbol of national sovereignty and resistance.

The design was presented to the Young Ireland movement by revolutionary women in Paris in 1848, the ‘Year of Revolutions’ in Europe. Its colours represent national revolutionary unity (White) between the indigenous Irish (Green) and the descendants of colonial settlers (Orange).

Unlike its presence among racist and homophobic gatherings, the Tricolour was completely appropriate for a march in support of Irish neutrality. But somehow this did not occur to the organisers of the march nor, apparently, to most of the participants.

There would be no need to exclude flags representing the socialist or anarchist movements nor indeed of struggles in other countries but on this march they should have been outnumbered by Irish Tricolour and Starry Plough flags.

The Republican movement, for all its faults, would not have failed in this representation. Sins of omission in politics can be as bad as those of commission and the almost absence of Tricolours on this march epitomises how badly some of the movement in defence of neutrality is being led.

The general absence of the Republican movement from this march, whatever their reasons, is to my mind another part of this problem.

End.

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Additional source: https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2026/04/18/hundreds-demonstrate-in-dublin-to-demand-irelands-neutrality-be-protected/

1Molesworth Street, facing Leinster House, home of the parliament of the Irish State.

2Essentially the original design of the flag of the Irish Citizen Army, a workers’ defence militia during the 1913 Lockout which also fought in the 1916 Rising.

3A measure which does not permit the State to send more than 12 personnel abroad on a military mission unless with 1) a government decision, 2) a majority vote in the Irish Parliament and 3) a UN mandate. Recently leaders of the Coalition Goverment parties have been saying that a vote in the Parliament would not be necessary.

4This is not alone the fault of the PBP but also of the anarchists who did fight the fascists but also of the Republicans who, some notable attacks on the National Party aside, largely ignored the fascist and far-Right protests.

Gardaí Threaten Arrests to Remove Solidarity Picketers at Dublin Court

Clive Sulish

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

Participants in a small picket outside a Dublin court on 13 April were threatened with arrest by Gardaí unless they dispersed.

The picketers were supporting two activists facing charges after being pepper-sprayed by Gardaí on the Dublin docks in October last year.

The event in October had been to symbolically blockade Ireland against imports from the Zionist state due to its genocide of Palestinians. Ireland is the second-largest importer of Israeli goods next to the EU and the largest single-state importer of all, exceeding even the USA.

Some of the Garda vehicles attending the Garda repression of picketers. (Photo: R.Breeze)

Pickets outside the Court of Criminal Justice in Dublin have been a regular feature in recent years, not only in support of Palestine solidarity activists but also anti-NATO protesters, housing activists and Irish Republicans (the latter being brought through the no-Jury Special Criminal Court).

While some attend the actual court case others picket outside with flags, placards and banners. Until the incident being described there has been no recorded trouble from the Gardaí. However on the 13th picketers were approached by at least 15 Gardaí from five Garda vans.

More of the Garda vehicles attending the Garda repression of picketers. (Photo: R.Breeze)

First they went to a lone picketer who was standing with Palestinian flags on the line dividing west from eastbound traffic outside the court. It is not known what words were exchanged between them but they accompanied him to the roadside for some time before detaining him in handcuffs.

The Garda leader then told the picketers immediately outside the court to leave the area and when they asked what law they were accused of breaking refused to reply except to directed them under the Public Order Act to leave or he would arrest them.

Some of the Garda participating in the repression of picketers, some of whom have already crossed to the other side of the road. (Photo: R.Breeze)

Most of the picketers crossed the road to the north-east side but after the Gardaí departed, slowly drifted back. Gardaí returned, their previous leader visibly angered as he once again told them to leave, adding that should he find them in the area, he would arrest without warning.

Once again most picketers crossed the road away from the Court but shortly thereafter the court adjourned, both activists of the Dublin Port incident emerging along with their supporters who had attended inside and shortly thereafter all dispersed in various directions without incident.

The legal advice is that neither the individual picketer in the road nor the others nearer the court were breaking any law and that the Gardaí, under instructions from somewhere, exceeded their powers, including under the Public Order Act.

Gardaí in front of the Court after repression of picketers. (Photo: R.Breeze)

The picketers viewed the Garda actions as an attack in general on civil liberties, the right to peacefully assemble and demonstrate and in particular on the right to express solidarity with the Palestinian people and to protest Irish State collusion in Israeli State genocide.

A couple of separate incidents occurred prior to the Garda action. In one, a seemingly hysterical man appeared before the solidarity picketers, with two others videoing him while he brandished a tabloid newspaper with a headline alleging a sexual offence by a migrant.

He departed quickly shouting racist sentences. Later another in similar vein approached to within a foot of the picketers asking them where they were from, alleging that sexual assaults were committed only by immigrants and twice made an unsuccessful grab for a Palestinian flag.

The two Palestine activists are due back in court on 11th June and the arrested picketer, it is believed, on the 12th. It has been suggested that legal observers trained by the Irish Council for Civil Rights will be in attendance outside, as they were during the Garda attack last October.

end.

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Further related reading: