RALLY AND MARCH AGAINST GARDA REPRESSION IN DUBLIN

On April 10, 2025April 11, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Civil Rights, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Imperialism, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, NATO, Palestine, Police Violence, Political Analysis, US ImperialismLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 6 mins.)

Hundreds gathered Wednesday night near the rear entrance of Leinster House, home of the parliament of the Irish state, in a demonstration organised by Mothers Against Genocide to protest the police attacks on demonstrators of the previous week.

Background

Over four days the previous week the Gardaí, police force of the Irish State, had attacked demonstrators in a number of different locations in Dublin. On Monday the MAGS group at the front entrance of Leinster House was attacked as they neared the end of their overnight vigil there.

The women were calling for Government action to match the will of the Irish population by preventing military supplies sent to Israel through Irish airspace and airports, to end processing Israeli bonds through Irish banks and to institute sanctions against the Zionist Occupation.

*MAGS banner in Grafton Street later in the evening.* (Source: *Participant*)

Eleven women and three men were arrested and taken to different Garda stations where a number of women were strip-searched, including one in an apparent cavity search; three men were charged under the Public Order Act and women pressured to accept an official caution.

Two days later, at a protest organised by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Society of the Dublin City University against the official opening visit of the Taoiseach (‘Prime Minister’) to a University building, Gardaí arrested a student for knocking on the window of the building.

On Friday, Gardaí attacked six protesters engaged in a protest at the front entrance to the Belgian Embassy in Dublin, where NATO is represented. The Anti-Imperialist Action protest was against the Irish elite’s attempt to slide the State into membership of the military alliance.

Those protesters were pepper-sprayed into their eyes, forced to the ground, handcuffed and treated so violently that the ankle of one man was broken; the breast of one woman was also grabbed. Two more picketing outside were also arrested, all again distributed around different police stations.

On public order charges, six also on trespass, all eight were brought to a special late court sitting that early evening where a crowd of supporters gathered.

All were bailed on a range of bizarre bail conditions including banned from protesting at Government buildings and a requirement to give 12 hours notice to the Gardaí with details before attending an embassy protest.

Wednesday night’s Leinster House protest

The mood of the crowd of over 500 last night in Merrion Street was militant, being addressed by a woman on behalf of the Mothers group. The crowd was joined by a group flying Starry Plough¹ and Palestinian flags, bearing a banner of the AIA and a hand-painted one against NATO.

*View of the rally in Merrion Street before the march.* (Source: *AIA*)

The speaker introduced Aileen Malone, mother of Dara Quigley, a well-known blogger some years ago who appeared naked in public while suffering a mental ill health episode. One of the Gardaí dealing with the incident took a video of her and circulated it widely on social media.

Following that public shaming, Dara had taken her own life. Her mother pointed out that the offending Garda, instead of being dismissed, had been allowed to resign and keep his pension. She also condemned the Garda treatment of the women while extolling their courage in resistance.

Another speaker, introduced as representing Jews for Palestine Ireland spoke against the Irish State adopting the IHRA’s definition of antisemitism, the function of which, he stated is to protect the state of Israel against any criticism including regarding its genocide against Palestinians.²

He regretted the diversion from Palestine solidarity entailed in this focus, pointing out that genuine anti-Semitism is to be found among the far-Right while anti-racists and anti-fascists in Palestine solidarity, far from being anti-Semitic are on the contrary active against that variant of racism.

*One of the banners at the rally in Merrion Street*. (Source: *Participant*)

A woman from Mothers Against Genocide in Belfast spoke about the history of Irish resistance to colonialism and solidarity with Palestine which had no relation to the Irish Government, vehemently insisting also that being anti-genocide and for human rights is far from anti-Semitism.

Ruth Coppinger, Socialist Party TD, had signalled she wished to speak and was invited to so. She commented on Wednesday’s session in Leinster House when the Garda attack was defended by Mícheál Martin in respect of the right of access to Leinster House.³

A member of the Mothers in Dublin read a solidarity poem she had written and introduced the Resistance Choir, who sang Gonna Let No-one Turn Me Around, a lively song from the US Civil Rights⁴ movement of the 1960s, followed by slower lament about the Zionist slaughter in Gaza.

The energy in the crowd was dissipating by this point, almost an hour having elapsed and at last the direction to march was given. But where to? It was unclear. Earlier indications had been that one of the Garda stations would be the destination but now the Dept. of Justice was being mentioned.

The slogans shouted were those usually heard at Palestine solidarity events, with calls supporting the Intifada increasingly popular, and even one to Globalise the Intifada! US Warplanes out of Shannon! was another and NATO out of Ireland! was also heard.

Very appropriately also: One, we are the people! Two, We won’t be silenced! Three, Stop the bombing now, now, now, now!

*Some banners during the march, seen here on the east side of Stephens Green.* (Source: *AIA*)

The march proceeded, chanting, up Merrion Street, then into Merrion Row, turning left at the Huguenot Cemetery, then along the east side of Stephen’s Green, stopping briefly at the Dept. of Foreign Affairs building, then along the south side to the Dept. of Justice building.

But soon it was on the march again, perhaps heading for the Kevin Street Garda station … But no, along the west side of the Green now, past the Unitarian church where Edward Fitzgerald was married to his French revolutionary wife and then on again down through Grafton Street.

A meeting here was addressed mainly by one speaker, for some reason the crowd repeating his sentences. Not one speaker had yet referred to the attack on the anti-NATO protesters on Friday, much less their bizarre and repressive bail conditions. But perhaps we were heading for the GPO?

No, left and into Dawson Street, up to the Green again, then down Kildare Street to the front of Leinster House. There at last the crowd was addressed on behalf of the Anti-Imperialist Action group regarding the Garda attack on the anti-NATO protesters at the Belgian Embassy.

His talk was interrupted by cries of ‘Shame’ directed at the Gardaí and State. The speaker continued, referencing the resistance history of Irish Republicans and concluded by calling for unity of the Left against repression of any aspect of the Resistance, a call vigorously applauded.

To conclude the evening’s events a display concerning victims of Garda violence was presented, this including the case of Terence Wheelock, a working-class youth who died in Store Street Garda Station as a result of their violence, a crime then covered up by the State.

In Retrospect

It was important and a good act of resistance to organise an emergency protest⁵ this week and the eventual attendance of around 700 at such short notice was excellent. It is essential to meet repression of resistance with more resistance.

It was noticeable how low the numbers of Gardaí were and although uniformed and a number of plainclothes Special Detective Unit members followed the marchers, at no point did they attempt to stop the marchers or even to line up in numbers to protect the Government offices.

Most of the speakers at the commencing, intermediate and final rallies were clear that the Irish State had made a conscious decision to crack down on solidarity actions the previous week, using physical and sexual violence against activists, and of the need to continue solidarity and resistance.

The commencing rally was however too long and dissipated some of the energy. The lament as the last song just before that march, though no doubt appropriate in some contexts, continued that dissipation.

Coppinger, as a leading member of the Socialist Party was inappropriate as a speaker at the event. The party in the past has opposed boycotts against Israel and South Africa on the spurious grounds that it harms the oppressed people and works against solidarity between progressive settlers.

The Socialist Party also supports the Two-State proposal which would concede 80% of Palestine to the Zionist settlers. Coppinger personally and her party have also publicly condemned the Palestinian Resistance breakout operation of 7^th October 2023.

The marching seemingly for ever, at times to symbolic but empty Government buildings was not helpful and most of the people already detest the Government. A good destination would have been at least one of the Garda stations where activists had been held the previous week.

Marching from and to an essentially closed Leinster House and Government buildings runs the risk of replicating the routine marches every month or so of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

The value of the Mothers has been their departure from that increasingly sterile practice and continuing in that vein would be a useful contribution to the solidarity movement and resistance in general.

Unity against repression is a historically-proven necessity and, as called for at the final rally last night, increasing unity between newer and longer-lived elements of the Resistance is also needed.

End.

*An excellent riposte in the poster slogan/ meeting title. The design is based on the poster against strip-searching Republican women in the 1970s, design by Oisín Breatnach.* (Source: *Mid-Ulster IPSC*)

Footnotes

Sources and further information

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2025/02/05/ireland-is-signing-up-to-a-definition-of-anti-semitism-that-has-been-used-against-irish-politicians/

https://www.independent.ie/regionals/wexford/wexford-district/demonstration-at-wexford-garda-station-over-alleged-strip-searching-of-mothers-against-genocide-protestors-in-dublin/

1Flag of the Irish Citizen Army, first produced in 1914, the design is based on the Ursa Mayor constellation, including a plough in gold colour, with a sword instead of the ploughshare, all on a green background. A later version of the Republican Congress represents only the stars of the constellation in white on a blue background. The green and gold version was the one flown by the AIA.

2 https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2025/02/05/ireland-is-signing-up-to-a-definition-of-anti-semitism-that-has-been-used-against-irish-politicians/

3This was a spurious defence by the Taoiseach: a) It was before 7am and the Mothers were leaving at 7.30am; b) the pedestrian entrance was not blocked; c) the gates at the rear of the building were not blocked.

4But, like many of those songs, based on an earlier Christian song.

5There had also been an emergency protest outside Leinster House on last week’s Wednesday morning, Kildare Street being blocked for an hour without Garda action.

IRISH STATE RAMPS UP REPRESSION

On April 6, 2025April 7, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Civil Rights, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Imperialism, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, National Liberation, NATO, Palestine, Police Violence, Political Analysis2 Comments

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 6 mins.)

In the space of four days, Dublin has seen 23 activists in peaceful protests arrested and assaulted by Gardaí as the activists protested the slide of the Irish Gombeen¹ ruling class towards NATO and their complicity in the Genocide in Palestine.

Mothers’ Day protest against genocide – 14 arrests

The Mothers Against Genocide group organised a vigil for Sunday night of Mothers’ Day outside Leinster House, seat of the Irish parliament and Government. The intention was to hold the event that evening but for some to remain there overnight, leaving at 7.30am.

*At the gates of Leinster House, Kildare Street entrance.* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

Plasticised printed photos of murdered Palestinian children were laid out on the ground with children’s shoes, toys etc spread around symbolically against the main gates with battery-powered ‘candles’ lit among them. Nearby a refreshment stall was set up.

By the advertised starting time of 7pm many had arrived and more kept coming, a very large crowd by nearly 8pm when there were some speeches, a few songs and a poem performed by different people, then a projection was being arranged after 9pm at which point I left.

*Crowd at the event as dusk falls, approximately 8pm.* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

The event was dignified, without even chanting. Policing was very sparse and low-key.

Despite the organisers’ commitment to leave at 7.30am and apparent agreement from the Gardaí present not to interfere with that arrangement, at around 6.00am more Gardaí² arrived and demanded the clearing of the gates by removal of the icons to the murdered children.

In protest, some of the participants lined themselves up in front of the gates. The Gardaí approached the women, trampling over the photos and symbolic children’s items and began to remove the women, some of them quite violently, resulting in their arrests and those of three men also.

*Banner of the organisers at Leinster House wall, Kildare Street.* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

The 14 arrested were taken to different Garda stations where some women were strip-searched, an invasive psychological weapon used extensively by the British Occupation against Irish Republican women during the 30 Years War and still used by them against male Irish Republican prisoners.

All the women were obliged to choose right there and then between accepting a caution under the Public Order Act or to be charged and, under pressure, the women all seem to have been cautioned.

The three men were charged under the Public Order Act and will be obliged to attend the court to be processed. On Tuesday in Leinster House a number of TDs (elected parliamentary representatives) protested the treatment of the arrested. The Gardaí denied having carried out strip-searching.³

The Irish Council for Civil Liberties issued a brief statement to their network in response to the events, outlining the right to protest according to the Irish State’s Constitution:

We’ve heard from a lot of people who are worried by the Garda response this week to a peaceful vigil by Mothers Against Genocide. The fallout from this response along with potential new policing and public order laws and with the prospect of increased surveillance through facial recognition technology, risk undermining this fundamental democratic freedom. Today, as threats grow to restrict protest rights, defending this fundamental democratic freedom is crucial.

Protest isn’t the problem – it’s the solution:

You can protest – The Irish Constitution and European law protect peaceful assembly
You can film – Documenting interactions with Gardaí is allowed
You can’t be moved on without reason – Gardaí must give you a reason when asking you to move

The Irish Constitution guarantees your right to freedom of assembly, subject to public order. However, recent commitments in the Programme for Government have raised alarm.We continue to highlight how measures – including the expansion of police powers, banning face coverings at protest and the introduction of facial recognition technology into Irish policing – endanger our rights and freedoms.

*The display outside the gates of Leinster House, Kildare Street entrance.* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

On Wednesday morning a protest, composed mostly but not completely of women, at the treatment of people on Monday morning blocked the street outside Leinster House for a period of at least an hour⁴ without action by the Gardaí.

Protest at complicity of Irish Government in Dublin City University – another arrest

On Thursday evening Tánaiste (equiv. ‘Prime Minister’) Mícheál Martin’s visit to publicly open a building at the Dublin University Campus, accompanied by a heavy Garda presence was met with a protest organised by the Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions campaign branch of the University.

One of the students in the protest was arrested apparently for knocking on the window to convey the anger outside to those inside, Gardaí claiming at the time that he was damaging the window. The activist was released on bail amidst a crowd gathering in his support at the Garda station.⁵

Protest against NATO in the Irish State – 8 arrests

On Friday, a protest against attempts to push Ireland into joining the NATO military alliance was held at the latter’s representative facility in Dublin, the Belgian Embassy. Gardaí were very quick to respond and indeed had accosted and assaulted two of the participants a little earlier.

*Protesters and Gardai in doorway of Belgian Embassy just before the attack of the latter on the former.* (Photo source: *Anti-Imperialist Action*)

Six protesters lined up against the Embassy entrance at the Anti-Imperialist Action event were pepper-sprayed into their eyes and brutally assaulted, as were another two outside. As with those arrested on Monday morning, they were held in three different police stations in the city.

One of protesters, face down on the ground with his arms handcuffed behind his back, had his legs forced up behind, breaking his ankle.

(Photo source: *Anti-Imperialist Action*)

Supporters arrived to picket the police stations. After a few hours the arrested were taken to court, where supporters congregated also as the detained were processed for a late sitting of a judge. The charges were of criminal trespass or Public Order Act violation, both together for some.

In court they had legal representation and all were bailed in their own recognisance of 500 euro, which seemed fairly routine but the bail conditions were anything but. They were required to give 12 or 24 hours’ notice to the Gardaí of attending an embassy protest, supplying the details of the event!

The conditions for some included a ban on attending any state’s embassy in Dublin or demonstrating at any Irish Government building, while another is required to give notice – also of 12 hours — if crossing into the State from the Six Counties.

Facing a prospect of being locked up for the weekend otherwise, they did not decline the conditions for the moment and were released to meet a crowd of supporters outside the court in the early evening. As they lined up for a photo, all sang part of the Irish language Gráinne Mhaol song by Patrick Pearse.

*The arrested and supporters outside the court after the former were released on bail.* (Photo: *D. Breatnach*)

Repression of Palestine solidarity throughout the Western World

Throughout the Western world the response to the genocide being carried out in Gaza has had similar features: The complicity of the ruling classes, solidarity with the Palestinians of sections of the masses and the consequent repression by the ruling elites.

Within the territory of the Irish State the response of the masses has been marked in active solidarity with and public sympathy for the Palestinians, with little repressive action by the Irish State despite the proven collusion of the Irish ruling class.

The indications from this week are that the latter situation is changing and repression is being ramped up. This in turn indicates that the neo-colonial Irish ruling class feels threatened by action in Palestinian solidarity, other than routine marches through Dublin every month or so.

It is removing the liberal gloves and revealing the underlying sharp claws of a class that gained a state created in collusion with the British occupation to divide the country and to repress and control the insurrectionary forces upon the backs of which that neo-colonial class rode to power.

During the Civil War,⁶ the Irish state executed many more revolutionary fighters than had the British during the War of Independence⁷ and has executed a number since. Huge numbers have been imprisoned over years and it has colluded in covering for the bombers of its own capital city.

Where there is oppression, history teaches us, there will also arise resistance but that in turn usually results in more repression. Resistance rises to meet that repression and the movement must organise to educate, organise and unite that resistance, going forward until the masses achieve victory.

End.

FOOTNOTES

SOURCES & FURTHER INFORMATION

Press: https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/oireachtas/2025/04/01/women-protesting-outside-leinster-house-strip-searched-one-subjected-to-cavity-search/

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/gardai-deny-woman-was-cavity-searched-after-leinster-house-gaza-protest/a711142261.html

DCU University Times: https://universitytimes.ie/2025/04/dcu-student-arrested-during-campus-protest-against-taoiseach-micheal-martin/

Mothers Against Genocide: https://www.instagram.com/mothersagainstgenocide

AIA https://anti-imperialist-action-ireland.com/blog/2025/04/06/republican-anti-nato-protest-violently-attacked-by-free-state-in-dublin/

1A term somewhat equivalent to ‘carpetbagger’ describing opportunists amassing wealth through taking advantage of people’s misfortunes. Its origins are in the Irish language Gaimbín, applied to such Irish capitalist financiers during and in the wake of the Great Hunger of the mid-19th Century, now used to describe the neo-colonial capitalist Irish bourgeoisie.

2 The (mostly) unarmed police force of the Gombeen Irish ruling class.

3 https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/oireachtas/2025/04/01/women-protesting-outside-leinster-house-strip-searched-one-subjected-to-cavity-search/

4Though underplayed in the report by the Irish Independent, which also sought to bolster Gardaí denial of strip-searching: https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/gardai-deny-woman-was-cavity-searched-after-leinster-house-gaza-protest/a711142261.html

5 https://universitytimes.ie/2025/04/dcu-student-arrested-during-campus-protest-against-taoiseach-micheal-martin/

61922-1923

71919-1921

DUBLIN SEES LARGE PALESTINE SOLIDARITY MARCH ALSO FASCIST PROVOCATION AND GARDA REPRESSION

On March 26, 2025March 26, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Anti-Fascism, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Genocide, Imperialism, Indigenous or Original People, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Israeli Zionism, Middle East, Palestine, Police Violence, Song in StruggleLeave a comment

Clive Sulish

(Reading time: 5 mins.)

Dublin city centre on Saturday witnessed another giant Palestine solidarity march with a breakaway group; also a picket against internment of Irish Republicans; fascist provocations and Gárda repression resulting in the arrest of a demonstrator.

The national demonstration march had been called by the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign as part of a solidarity and protest pattern that included fortnightly Dublin marches last year but is now generally monthly and at times with other events in addition.

*One of the banners just having crossed O’Connell Bridge on the IPSC-organised march* (Sourced: *IPSC Facebook*)

Numbers on these marches in a city of only around 1.5 million population are impressive, though they draw on some participation from outside Dublin but there also regular local pickets and demonstrations of much smaller numbers at locations of high visibility or of specific significance.¹

The march set off from the Garden of Remembrance in the north city centre proceeding towards Leinster House, seat of the parliament of the Irish State, near O’Connell Bridge passing a picket with an anti-Internment banner organised by the Anti-Imperialism Action organisation.

*Anti Imperialist Action displaying a banner against extradition to the passing Palestine solidarity march.* (Photo sourced: *Anti Imperialism Action Leinster FB page*)

As the march reached the non-pedestrianised stretch of Grafton Street a half-dozen fascists made their presence felt on the sidelines by throwing insults at a section of the marchers, who responded with louder From Ireland to Palestine – Occupation is a crime! and antifascist slogans.

Not just the Irish state but fascists and other far-Right elements in Ireland have a real problem with Palestine solidarity, claiming that’s because the protesters should be marching for Ireland. However those elements for the most part have zero track record in marching for Irish independence.

No, for them ‘Irish nationalism’ consists of demonstrating against immigration and burning buildings intended – or which they believe intended – for housing refugees. Clearly as fascists and far-Right what they detest about marches such as these is internationalist solidarity itself.

*Placard calling for what is surely the minimum we have the right to expect from the Irish Government, followed by some of the placards of Mothers Against Genocide.* (Photo sourced: *IPSC FB page*)

Incongruously for those who want only internal causes upheld, the fascists of the Loyalist variety in the occupied Six Counties uphold the Zionist state of ‘Israel’ and those inside the Irish state, as was seen in Dublin on Saturday too, laud and uphold as an example Donald Trump!

BREAKAWAY²

Mock Icon of Irish Central Bank carried against processing Israeli Bonds (Source photo: IPSC FB page).

Very shortly after the verbal exchange with the fascists, a section of the march diverted to walk up the pedestrianised section of Grafton Street. A couple of Gardaí, reinforced by the fascists, attempted to prevent this but the marchers flowed around the obstruction to continue up the street.

On Wednesday evening, some of those present had marched down that very street on their way to occupy O’Connell Bridge, bringing traffic in both directions to a halt for half an hour.³

Further along the pedestrianised street the breakaway, including Ireland Action for Palestine and Saoirse Don Phalaistín groups, joined with another section of marchers who had earlier broken away from the IPSC march, this one led by the Mothers Against Genocide banner.

The shouted slogans from what were broadly two differing sections tended to merge with regard to calls to stop the bombing, opposition to genocide and broad support for Palestine but differed in that one section was also calling for support for the Palestinian Resistance and resistance generally.⁴

Content of slogans from the groups differed less markedly in calling for Irish Government intervention in support of Palestine, with the ‘Mothers’ mostly demanding the enactment of the Occupied Territories Bill⁵ and others condemning Government collusion in Shannon Airport.

The whole breakaway mass marched along South Stephens Green and turned north into Dawson Street, to pause inside the junction with Molesworth Street, where the tail of the main march, was already beginning to reduce although speakers and artists were performing on the IPSC platform.

*Molesworth Street facing Dawson Street after the breakaway sections arrived and before the later incidents.* (Source: *R. Breeze*)

*View of the IPSC-organised march at its destination, the Garda barriers in Molesworth Street across the road from the entrance to Leinster House.* (Photo: *R. Breeze*)

On Dawson Street, across from the junction, the fascists had installed themselves, including a man in a red ‘Trump’ hat waving a “Make America great again” flag.

*Two known fascists from the group trying to harass Palestine solidarity marches from Grafton Street to Dawson Street.* (Photo sourced: AFA https://www.facebook.com/afaireland)

The Palestine solidarity protesters here – some distance from the diminishing main march crowd,⁶ with some IPSC stewards standing watching nearby, responded to the fascists’ jeers and Trump fan with jeers of their own, slogans and some bursts of song.⁷

According to a report form Anti-Fascist Action observers nearby and posted later that day, a senior Garda officer approached one of the fascists and had a quiet word with them, after which the fascists packed their banner and went away quietly smiling while the Public Order Unit arrived.

*Soldiers of the master race (ehem) packing up after notification from their friend in the Gardaí that the POU would soon be deployed against some of the Palestine solidarity demonstrators.* (Photo sourced: *AFA Ireland*)

These then began to aggressively push the demonstrators back towards Molesworth Street and as a demonstrator remarked it was the POU that were now blocking Dawson Street to traffic.

Soon the Gardaí seemed to decide to arrest one of the Palestine solidarity demonstrators and charged into the crowd, shoving, knocking down and even punching people who resisted strongly or just held on to the intended victim as long as they were able to.

A woman struck back at a POU man who had seized her by the throat but even so it took the intervention of one of his unit to get him to release his hold. The marks of his hand on her throat could be seen afterwards. Interestingly a press report later stated the Gardaí denied there was any incident.

( https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/cofounder-irish-government-dublin-ireland-international-holocaust-remembrance-alliance-b1218253.html)

Eventually the Gardaí succeeded in their intent and the protester was taken away to chants of Let him go! Numbers of the main march were dwindling greatly by this point but so were those of the breakaway section and people there were concerned to support their arrested comrade.

One of three police stations was the likely destination: Store Street, Pearse Street or Kevin Street. It was established that he was held at the latter station and was later released, given a few days to decide, under the Public Order Act whether to accept a caution or to be charged and face trial.

More confrontations of various sorts are likely as the Zionist genocide in Palestine ratchets even higher and frustration mounts at the Irish Government’s persistent refusal to end their collusion with the Zionist state and with its main supplier, US imperialism.

End.

FOOTNOTES

1Mostly by organisations not part of the IPSC.

2Breakaway actions by groups often take place when they seek another target to that of the march organisers or to spread the visual and auditory impact of the demonstration or to break the ‘normalisation’ pattern, as when protesters feel the IPSC leadership is organising set marches of minimum disruption, on routes agreed with the Gardaí (which is not legal requirement in the Irish state).

3See https://rebelbreeze.com/2025/03/21/dublin-traffic-clogged-up-as-palestine-solidarity-protesters-march-around-city-centre

4There is only one solution – Intifada revolution! From Ireland to Palestine – Occupation is a crime!

5 Agreed years ago in the Irish Parliament before but prevented from enactment by successive coalition Governments.

6As soon as the IPSC march arrives numbers always begin to leave, either to commence return home journeys or because they feel they are not going to hear anything new and their contribution was to be part of a visible mass, which they have now done.

7The Irish-language Gráinne Mhaol and English-language Come Out Ye Black n’ Tans.

RAISING DEFENCE FUNDS FOR RADICAL IRISH PALESTINE SOLIDARITY MOVEMENT

On March 18, 2025March 19, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Cultural Comment, Current Affairs Comment, Current Event Report, Folk Custom, History, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Irish Language, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, Israeli Zionism, Palestine, Performance Review, Song, Traditions & Folk Custom1 Comment

Clive Sulish

(Reading time: 4 mins.)

A night of resistance and other songs on Friday night in Peadar Browne’s Dublin pub raised funds to assist in fighting state repression of Palestine solidarity activists in Ireland, as Palestine solidarity activists face persecution across the Western world.

The evening’s performance consisted of a mix of political and other songs, a number of which were original material. However it was the political material that most drew interest, ranging from international struggles to the rich Irish Republican tradition.

*Olive and Fynn in performance at the fund-raising event* (Photo: *R.Breeze*)

To begin the event Diarmuid Breatnach explained the need to support Palestine solidarity activists against the repression of the Irish authorities, hence the fundraising event and announced that in addition to performing he would be standing in for the event’s MC who had been unable to attend.

Breatnach began his set combining two songs from the German antifascist tradition, three verses of Peat Bog Soldiers and three from the Hans Beimler ballad.¹ Then from the Spanish Anti-Fascist War he sang Ay Carmela!, the air of which he said was from an anti-French occupation folk song.

Next the MC announced a performance by two performers, half of the four-strong Croí Óg ballad band. During their performance with voice, guitar and banjo there was an incident from a couple of unruly elements nearby who had substantial drink taken and had been very loud throughout.

*Two members of the Croí Óg band performing at the fundraising event* (Photo: *R.Breeze*)

A man who had been refused permission to sing solo began shouting that the songs were not Republican, ironically interrupting Grand Old Country, a song about the Fenian tradition. It became clear that what he wished was to perform the Grace ballad, which he began to sing loudly.

A male confronted the interrupter; the latter’s friend, a big elderly Glaswegian protested; others took to the floor … but the incident wound down, the interrupters and audience resuming their seats. However, the putative Grace singer threw threats at his earlier confronter across the room.

The big Glaswegian then crossed the room to confront the audience member, a female audience member intervened, he brushed her aside and the audience section erupted, only the quick arrival of the pub’s landlady preventing a fight … And the musicians resumed their performance.

Among the songs performed by Croí Óg were Crossmaglen and British Soldier Go on Home. The MC called for appreciation applause for them, made some barbed comments about the recent anti-social behaviour and welcomed the song-and-guitar duo Olive and Fyn to the stage.

*Sage Against the Machine performing at the fundraiser event* (Photo: *R.Breeze*)

The duo performed their own material in lovely harmonies, mostly non-political, also including their ironically titled Save the Landlord! After they had left the stage to applause Breatnach got up on stage again to announce a short break and to remind the audience to contribute to the funds.

His additional comment: “Remember when someone sang in a Dublin pub and everyone went quiet? Remember those days? Remember?” was followed by loud applause throughout the pub.

Breatnach restarted the second half, singing a capella again two songs celebrating Irish women’s resistance,² ending with songs in Irish including the ballad of Rodaí Mac Corlaí. After concluding he introduced Sage Against the Machine to take to the stage, singing solo with guitar.

Sage’s material was mostly original, sung in English but went on to Masters of War in a spirited concluding verse, followed by Gallo Rojo, Gallo Negro³ in Spanish from the anti-fascist tradition in Spain. The MC then presented Eoin Ó Loingsigh, also with voice and guitar.

*Eoghan Ó Loingsigh performing at the event* (Photo: *R.Breeze*)

Although no further incidents occurred, the volume of ‘conversation’ between a number of people not far from the stage was high. Loingsigh’s material included Only Our Rivers Run Free, Viva La Quince Brigada⁴ and a satirical song contrasting the fates of the rich and the poor after death.

The evening’s scheduled performances concluded with Seán Óg, also solo with voice and guitar, his selection including Ho Chi Minh, republican ballads Boys of the Old Brigade, The Patriot Game, Boolavogue and his own composition Boys of Gaza to air and structure of The Boys of Kilmichael.⁵

Breatnach thanked the attendance for their support, restating the context of the event and asked for another round of applause for all the performers, who gave their time and creativity for free, then called for people to stand for the Irish national anthem⁶ which he led with the first verse in Irish.

*Diarmuid Breatnach in performance at the fundraiser event* (Photo: *R.Breeze*)

At the concluding line of “seo libh, canaig …” the audience exploded to complete the words “Amhrán na bhFiann!” followed by launching into the chorus, also in Irish.

The event had been organised by two broad Palestine solidarity organisations, Saoirse Don Phalaistín and Palestine Action Ireland and among the attendance were a number of their activists, including some victims of state repression.

Most of the charges to date have been under the Public Order Act but also some around ‘criminal damage’ and the potential is there for more serious charges and possible jail sentences, as have been the case in some other European administrations.

In addition to actions of their own, including occupying and picketing the Israeli Embassy, Axa Insurance and picketing the Palestine Authority, Saoirse don Phalaistín and Palestine Solidarity Action organised Resistance Blocs to participate in mass demonstrations organised by the IPSC.

*Seán Óg performing at the fundraiser event* (Photo: *R.Breeze*)

Peadar Browns pub has become increasingly known as an Irish Republican tavern on the south side of Dublin city. Its small stage area is decorated with Republican artwork on the walls and on many of the bodhráns⁷ hanging there, along with some Glasgow Celtic celebratory material.

The side of the pub, on a minor street, carries a large mural representation of the Palestinian national flag, along with the slogan SAOIRSE DON PHALAISTÍN. However Dublin City Council have directed that it must be removed, to the anger of a great many people.

*Mural on the side of the Peadar Brown pub* (Photo sourced: *Internet*)

Historically cultural events of this type have a function other than to raise defence funds and to promote the cause: they are also occasions for replication of the cultural face of resistance and for expression of new cultural compositions but additionally for the creation of a community of resistance.

End.

Footnotes

1Both translated to English from German.

2White, Orange and Green (War of Independence) and Anne Devlin (United Irishmen, Emmet’s insurrection).

3Red Cockerel, Black Cockerel.

4About the Irish who went to fight against fascism in 1930s Spain.

5Also known as The Kilmichael Ambush, celebrating a famous event in West Cork during the War of Independence (1919-1921). However, the air of both songs is that of an older ballad about the 1798 Rising called Men of the West.

6The lyrics were originally written in English and later translated to Irish in which language it most usually sung today.

7A shallow one-sided Irish drum, same shape as a tambourine but much larger, played with a wooden striker on the outside with variation in tension achieved by hand pressure on the inside.

Useful Links

Saoirse don Phalaistín: isrmedia@protonmail.com

Action for Palestine Ireland:
actionforpalireland@gmail.com

DUBLIN COURTS INCREASINGLY TRYING POLITICAL CASES

On March 7, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Current Affairs Comment, Housing Struggle, Imperialism, Internationalist Solidarity, Ireland, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, Political PrisonersLeave a comment

Clive Sulish

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

The CCJ (Criminal Courts of Justice) in Parkgate Street, Dublin, are seeing an increase in political cases in recent weeks with activists in housing and Palestine solidarity as well as Irish Republicans fighting extradition to the British colony.

Eoghan Ó Loingsigh, who made the mistake of asking a Garda for his badge number while they were carrying out an eviction, appeared there in February only to see his case thrown forward to June.

*Picket anti-extradition display by Anti-Imperialism Action outside Heuston Station in February.* (Photo: *R.Breeze*)

Another housing activist’s charge of attempting to break into an empty property was dismissed. The property in question, empty for a number of years is leased to the Salvation Army and three years ago two RHL¹ activists were evicted from it by 100 Gardaí (some armed) with helicopter support.

Jack Brazil, a Palestine solidarity activist whom the Gardaí are trying, believe it or not, to tie into the racist and criminal riots of November last year, had yet another appearance in court without trial as he’s still trying for CCTV footage from Gardaí to support his alibi for the night.

At least the remaining bail restriction on Brazil was lifted: at the outset he had to sign on at Mountjoy Garda station once every week, observe a curfew of 12am-6am and not to loiter at any point in the Dublin city centre (D1 and D2). His case is now remanded to 26 March.

*Jack Brazil (in the suit) and other Palestine solidarity activists outside the CCJ after Brazil’s most recent appearance there.* (Photo: *R.Breeze*)

Jim Deneghan had a number of court appearances fighting extradition to the Six Counties on foot of charges alleging an act during the 30 Years War there – fifty years ago. He was unsuccessful and it appears that the only avenue open to him now would be to challenge it in the High Court.

Should they even grant him leave to do that which is not always the case.

*Some of the AIA-organised anti-extradition banner drop on the Fairview pedestrian bridge hold up placards against extradition.* (Photo: *R.Breeze*)

Another extradition case has been dealt with in the Special Criminal Court, which is located within the same building as the CCJ, distinguished from other courts by the glass-enclosed reception ‘box’ through which one must pass to gain entry, first satisfying ‘security’ provisions.²

Sean Walsh has been fighting extradition to the UK’s Irish colony, the Six Counties on a charge of membership of an armed Republican organisation, which is deemed illegal on both sides of the British Border. He is in custody in Portlaoise awaiting a decision from the ECHR in Brussels.

Independent Dublin Republicans organised solidarity pickets outside the court on the mornings of Denneghan’s appearances, while Anti-Imperialist Action held a picket against extradition outside the nearby Heuston Train Station and a more recent banner drop on the Fairview Pedestrian Bridge.

*Picket organised by Independent Dublin Republicans outside court where extradition of Jim Deneghan (Centre, next to State Harp) was being decided in February.* (Photo sourced: *IDR Facebook page*)

The CCJ courts, in particular those on the ground floor are extremely busy with what seems at times like industrial-scale processing of setting further dates for court appearances, granting or refusing bail, requiring ‘discovery’ and other documentation from the Gardaí and some sentencing.

The human subjects of these proceedings are mostly from what might be termed the under-class of Dublin with some migrants added for good measure. Most face charges of possession of drugs, anti-social behaviour, threatening behaviour, theft and breach of bail conditions.

A huge amount of court, lawyer and Garda time is taken up with processing people accused under these charges. On the other hand the processes also interfere hugely with the normal lives of those charged and in addition, in the case of political activists, disrupt some of their legal activity.

And can cost them loss of pay and even threaten their employment. Which might be deliberate on the part of the system or if not, at least something those who manage it will not regret.

*Banner drop by AIA from Fairview pedestrian footbridge.* (Photo: *R.Breeze*)

The sheer number of that social group being processed through the courts daily is an indication of something really wrong with Irish society and which worsens even through generations, while the major reaction of the State is to maintain the social conditions and repress its victims.

By and large the middle class only come into contact with that element of society when they are prosecuting or defending them in court, or professionally dealing with them in hospital or social services environments.

It is also where many of those who are trying to change the prevailing social and economic conditions, i.e political activists, will first rub shoulders with that group while next to them on court seating benches. Unless the political repression goes a step further and they meet in jail.

End.

1Revolutionary Housing League which had renamed the building, on Eden Quay, ‘James Connolly House’.

2The non-jury SCC was established under an Amendment to the Offences Against the State Act, pushed through Leinster House by Fianna Fáil amidst collapse of its opposition during a panic caused by (British Intelligence) terrorist bombing of Dublin in 1972 killing two and maiming many. The scene of many unjust decisions, its most famous was the conviction of the innocent ‘Sallins Four’ when the SCC was based at Green Street, appropriately enough the scene of many injustices under the British occupation, including the death sentence on Robert Emmet after his famous speech. The existence of the SCC is opposed by Amnesty International and Irish civil rights organisations and, until a few years ago, by the majority political party in Ireland, Sinn Féin, which no longer opposes it.

THE REBEL WOMEN’S TOUR

On February 12, 2025February 12, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn 1916 Rising, Current Event Report, History, Imperialism, Ireland, Irish Civil War, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, Irish War of Independence 1919-1921, National Liberation, Political Prisoners3 Comments

Orla Dunne

(Reading time: 3 mins.)

Myself and my sister, Brenda went on the Rebel Women’s Tour in the General Post Office on Saturday, 1st February 2025. Our Guide was Kim.

Two women’s groups were highlighted: Inghinidhe na hÉireann which was founded by Maud Gonne in 1900 and inspired Cumann na mBan. Inghinide na hÉireann is Irish for “Daughters of Ireland”. It was founded solely for women and adopted Saint Brigid as their patron saint.

Cumann na mBan:

In 1914, Inghinide (modern spelling ‘Iníní’) na hÉireann was merged with Cumann na mBan (abbreviated C na mBan, translated in English as the “Women’s League”). It was formed in Wynn’s Hotel on Lower Abbey Street on the 2nd of April 1914.

Brenda’s husband’s grandmother, Christina Caffrey, was a member. Our Grand Aunt, Theresa Rudkins nee Byrne was also a member as was also an old neighbour of our sister Eileen, Mary Breslin. Cumann na mBan was then led by Kathleen Lane O’Kelley.

One key member whom we are all familiar with is Countess Constance Markiewicz who took an active role in the 1916 Easter Rising which I will come to later.

*Cumann na mBan uniform on display in the GPO Museum* (Photo: *O. Dunne)*

1913 Lockout:

During the 1913 Lockout by an employers’ consortium, women including Dr Kathleen Lynn, Helena Moloney, Delia Larkin (sister of Jim Larkin) and Rosie Hackett opened soup kitchens at Liberty Hall to assist struggling workers and families.

The 1916 Easter Rising:

It is estimated that approximately 200 women took part in the Rising and 77 were imprisoned.
The only woman sentenced to death was Countess Markiewicz who was second-in-command to Commandant Michael Mallin in St. Stephen’s Green.

*Constance Markievicz (colourised) in ICA uniform* (Source photo: *Internet*)

However due to her being female, it was then changed to life imprisonment. She subsequently served 13 months in prison in both Ireland and England. She was outraged that she would not be executed.

Winifred Carney:

Winifred Carney was named as the first woman to enter the GPO on Easter Monday 1916. It is thought that she entered the building wielding a typewriter and revolver.

Elizabeth O’Farrell:

Elizabeth O’Farrell was one of the last three women to remain with the GPO garrison along with Julia Grennan and Winifred Carney and all three spent their last days of freedom in Moore Street. Ms O’Farrell accompanied Patrick Pearse on his journey of surrender to the British forces.

There is a photograph of this and all that can be seen of her are her feet and the end of her dress, as she stood at the far end of Pearse from the photographer.

*Julia Grennan* (Source photo: *Internet*)

WOMEN DURING THE WAR OF INDEPENDENCE:

Women also played a significant part during the War of Independence. Over 300 women are believed to have assisted by smuggling weapons and ammunition into Ireland and relaying messages from area to area.

WOMEN DURING THE IRISH CIVIL WAR:

The Irish Civil War lasted for almost one year from June 1922 to May 1923 and again women participated in the struggle, believed to have been mainly on the Anti-Treaty side. Female members of the Irish Citizen Army were armed.

*Grace Gifford (colourised) with paintbrush and easel* (Source photo: *Internet*)

One such example is Grace Gifford Plunkett who married her beloved fiance, Joseph Mary Plunkett in May 1916 just hours before his execution. She herself was incarcerated in February 1923 in Kilmainham Gaol for her part in the Civil War.

While there she painted a copy of Mary and Child on the wall of the cell.

End.

“A March Travelling into the Future … a Beacon of Resistance”

On February 7, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn British imperialism, Censorship & Witch-hunting, Civil Rights, Current Event Report, Genocide, History commemoration, Human Rights, Internationalist Solidarity, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, Massacres, Peace Process, Political Analysis, Popular Resistance, Resistance ArtLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time main text: 6 mins.)

Thousands of marchers with flags, banners and three marching bands retraced the route of the anti-internment march in 1972 that ended in the infamous Derry Bloody Sunday¹, a massacre of unarmed civilians by the British Parachute Regiment.

The nearest Sunday to the date of the original march, which this year fell on February 2^nd has been chosen annually for the commemorative march over the 53 years since the massacre. People travel from different parts of Ireland and indeed from beyond in order to attend.

*Section of the march coming down from the Creggan.* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

The colour party (bearing the flags) traditionally precedes the marching band. (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

Derry is not well served by public transport from other parts of Ireland and there is no train station there.

There is a bus service from Dublin from the Translink company of the occupied colony but one would need to catch it at seven in the morning and then hang around in Derry for 3.5 hours waiting for the march to start. For this reason, many travel to Derry by car.

Equally, many others who would attend were the public transport available, stay home but an estimated over 7,000 participated in this year’s march. The theme this year was Palestine, once again as was last year’s too.

The day of the massacre

The original march was a protest against the introduction in August 1971 of internment without trial in the occupied colony. Almost immediately afterward the Parachute Regiment had massacred 11 people protesting against it in Ballymurphy, Belfast.²

*Ballymurphy campaign banner in the Creggan awaiting start of march with Kate Nash centre*. (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

The 1972 march, along with many others, had been banned by the sectarian colonial administration. The Civil Rights campaigners knew that their legitimate demands³ were being obstructed by use of the Special Powers⁴ of the statelet and that they could win nothing if they were to acquiesce.

After the previous massacres it took considerable courage to march that day but perhaps they thought that with an advertised march, in daylight, with many film cameras covering, the Paras were unlikely to open fire. In any case, they decided to risk it.

At 4.10pm the first shots were fired by the Paras⁵ without warning and by around 20 minutes later they had killed 13 men and youths and wounded another 13, one of whom would die weeks later. According to the Saville Inquiry in 2010, they had fired over 100 rounds.

Not one of their targets was armed.

To justify the slaughter, the British Army claimed that they were fired upon and returned fire, killing IRA fighters. The British Government, in particular through Home Affairs Minister Reginald Maudling, repeated the lies as did the British media.

Bernadette (then) Devlin⁶ MP, a survivor, was prevented from speaking in the Westminster Parliament and she walked up to Maudling and slapped his face. In Dublin a general strike took place with schools closing and a huge crowd burned the British Embassy down.

In London, a giant march reached Trafalgar Square as its end was still leaving Hyde Park. In Whitehall the police prevented them from laying the symbolic coffins outside No.10 and in the scuffles the ‘coffins’ were eventually thrown at the police or knocked to the ground.

And a number of construction sites in Britain went on strike also.

The judicial response varied wildly. Coroner Hubert O’Neill, an ex-British Army major, presiding on the inquests in 1973, called it “Sheer unadulterated murder” whereas Lord Chief Justice Widgery in the ‘inquiry’ he led ignored all the local evidence and accepted the British Army’s lies.⁷

“The last Bloody Sunday march”

Provisional Sinn Féin organised and managed the annual march for many years but in January 2011 Martin McGuinness announced that year’s march would be the last, because of the UK’s Prime Minister David Cameron’s public apology to the relatives of the 14 killed in Derry.

The apology followed quickly on the verdict of the Saville Inquiry⁸ which totally refuted the statements at the time by representatives of the Army and of the Political and Judicial establishments: the victims had been unarmed and the Army had not been “returning fire”.

*One side of one of the marching band drums* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

*Section of the march about half-way along its length*. (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

Despite the UK State’s acknowledgement that they had no excuse for the massacre, not one of those who planned, organised or carried out the atrocity had been charged, never mind convicted, nor had those who conspired to cover up the facts. To this day, only a low-level soldier has faced charges.

Nor had there been government admissions of wrongdoing in the other massacres by the Paras intended to crush the resistance to the repressive internment measure, at Ballymurphy and Springhill.

A number of relatives and survivors of the original march declined to have the annual march cancelled, among them Kate Nash and Bernadette McAlliskey. Kate Nash’s brother William was shot dead on Bloody Sunday and her father, William, was wounded trying to save his son.

Bernadette McAlliskey was a survivor of the massacre and also survived nearly a decade later an assassination attempt in her home, being struck by nine bullets of a Loyalist murder gang. Despite opposition by and denunciation from SF, volunteers have kept the march going every year.

Each year different themes have also been incorporated into the Bloody Sunday March for Justice, including ones in Ireland, such as the framed Craigavon Two prisoners but also ones from beyond, e.g. the resistance of the Broadwater Farm housing estate in London to Metropolitan Police attack.

*Section of the march in Creggan waiting to start, showing the Palestinian national flag and the Irish Tricolour in close proximity.* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

*Big drums of one of the marching bands getting a workout in the Creggan while waiting for the march to start*. *‘Saoirse go deo’ = Freedom for ever*. (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

Since 2011 Sinn Féin have boycotted the march but also sought to mobilise public opinion against it, claiming that relatives of the victims didn’t want the march to continue. The truth is that some hadn’t wanted it even when SF were running it, some didn’t afterwards but some did.

Such an atrocity has of course huge personal impact on relatives of victims but its impact is also much wider on a society and beyond, historically and politically. That historical memory ‘belongs’ to the people of Derry but also to the people of the world (as do others such as Sharpeville SA).

Those in power in society are aware of that and the media outside of Derry gives little or no coverage to the annual march while promoting other events there of lesser numbers and significance.

The ‘Derry Peoples Museum’ ignores the march in its Bloody Sunday commemorative program.

This year’s march

Sunday just past was one of sunshine and little wind, as it was on the day of the Derry massacre. But regular marchers remember other Bloody Sunday commemoration days of pouring non-stop rain, of squalls, of snow and sleet, of wet clothes, socks and freezing fingers and toes.

The march starts in the afternoon at the Creggan (An Chreagáin) and winds down to just below the Derry Walls, then up a long slope again before eventually ending down at Free Derry Corner⁹, the destination of the original march, where speakers address the crowd from a sheltered stage.

*Marchers underway, led by people carrying 14 crosses to represent the unarmed civilians murdered by the Paras on that day 53 years before.* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

*The band members are itching to go up in the Creggan.* (Photo: *D.Breatnach*)

The sides of residential blocks in this area are also painted in giant murals to represent scenes from the civil rights and armed resistance period while nearby stands a monument to the martyrs of Bloody Sunday 1972 but also another to the 10 H-Blocks’ martyrs of the Hungers Strikes of 1981.

In this area, one needs to be blind not to be at least peripherally aware of the icons of proud struggle and of loss, of sacrifice.

Eamon McCann and Farah Koutteineh addressed the rally at the end of the march. McCann, a journalist and member of the People Before Profit political party is a survivor of the massacre. He is an early supporter of the Bloody Sunday March for Justice at which he has spoken on occasion.

Farah Koutteineh is a Palestinian journalist who was herself the news when in December 2023 she and a few other Palestinians were ejected from a Sinn Féin-organised meeting in Belfast being addressed by the Palestinian Ambassador as a representative of the Palestinian Authority.

Koutteineh had been denouncing the Palestine Authority’s collusion with Israel when she and the other Palestinians were hustled out to applause from many of the attendance. Not surprisingly from the Derry platform on Sunday she too drew applause in criticising SF’s position on Palestine.¹⁰

Speaking to this reporter after the march, Kate Nash said: “There is no chance the march will be ended. It will go forward into the future, a beacon of resistance against the injustices and crimes of states around the world.

“There are millions of us … people come from around the world to commemorate this massacre with us.”

end.

Series of images from the march (Photoa by D.Breatnach)

Footnotes:

1There have been a number of Bloody Sundays in the history of Ireland under colonialism and therefore the location and year are often incorporated into the name for clarity as to which is being discussed.

2There was substantial State interference with inquests during the period of the 30-years’ war in the Six Counties (and in some cases in the Irish state also), in order to avoid inquest juries finding the state armed forces culpable of homicide unjustified in law. The original inquest in 1972 on the Ballymurphy massacre recorded an ‘open verdict’ but a 2021 reopened inquest found the British Army killings “unjustifiable”. Even after the Derry massacre, in July of that year, the Paras again killed five unarmed people and injured two in the Springhill area of Belfast and again an ‘open verdict’ was recorded into the fatalities which included three teenagers and a priest.

3The demands were all of rights that were in existence in the rest of the UK, including an ending to discrimination in allocation of housing and employment and general enfranchisement.

4The Special Powers (Northern Ireland) Act 1922 gave legal powers to the authorities similar to martial law. Allegedly temporary, as is often the case the Act kept getting renewed until made permanent and its repeal was one of the demands of the Civil Rights campaign. The Act was finally repealed in 1973.

5There was a unit of other British Army soldiers stationed on the Derry Walls with special rifles and there has been speculation that some of the shots might have been fired by them but this has never been confirmed to date.

6Now McAlliskey then Devlin, she had been a candidate for the People’s Democracy party of the time, the youngest MP elected.

7And that was the ‘official record’ until the Saville verdict 38 years later. A clever contemporary lampooning of Widgery and playing on a soap powder advert, with excellent alliteration, had it that “Nothing washes whiter than Widgery White!”

8Although the Saville Inquiry delivered its verdict in June 2010, it had been set up in 1998, taking an inordinately long time (and a bonanza in legal fees for judge, barristers, lawyers and clerks) to reach a verdict already obvious to all the nationalist people of the Six Counties, most of the Irish people and probably millions around the world. The date of its setting up so near to that of the Good Friday Agreement suggests that its creation (and eventual verdict) was part of the ‘sweeteners’ of the Pacification Process and the Good Friday Agreement.

9A reconstruction of the iconic gable end of a small local authority house in the Bogside area of Derry which had been painted in 1967, during the Civil Rights resistance period, with giant letters proclaiming: YOU ARE NOW ENTERING FREE DERRY. The house was demolished during redevelopment of the area but the gable end was reconstructed as a monument to the resistance of the people of the city.

10Sinn Féin support the corrupt and collaborationist Palestine Authority and its backing political party Fatah and also celebrated St. Patrick’s Day with (then) President Joe Biden while the US was supplying the Zionist genocide with weapons, money and political backing.

3The demands were all of rights that were in existence in the rest of the UK, including an ending to discrimination in allocation of housing and employment and general enfranchisement.

6Now McAlliskey then Devlin, she had been a candidate for the People’s Democracy party of the time, the youngest MP elected.

Useful links:

Who are the political prisoners in Colombia?

On January 25, 2025 By rebelbreezeIn Colombia, Current Affairs Comment, Guerrilla Action, Human Rights, Imperialism, Ireland, Political Analysis, Political PrisonersLeave a comment

(Article originally written for the Political Prisoners Collective Asociación Arrakala)

Gearóid Ó Loingsigh January 19 2025 (Reading time: 6 mins.)

NB: Edited by RB from original article for formatting purposes

Who and what is a political prisoner is controversial, though it shouldn’t be. Once upon a time we all knew or recognised a political prisoner. It was obvious, evident.

But two centuries of legislative changes, the work of the press and more than one NGO seeking to please its master i.e. those who finance it, has disfigured the political prisoner and its corollary outside, the rebel, the dissident, the activist.

Before trying to vindicate the figure of the political prisoner we should be clear that the prison itself has not been a constant in history.

There have always been places of reclusion, but they were transitory, provisional, where the prisoner was held whilst they awaited their sentence, be it execution, or exile, the confiscation of assets or in the case to debtors’ prison, the payment of the debt or the taxes owed.

The idea of a prison as somewhere you serve a term of a number of years as a prisoner according to the gravity of the crime is novel. It is about 250 years old.

The seriousness of the crime and the proportionality of the sentence are not obvious. In many jurisdictions a bank robbery is more serious than the rape of a woman.

Historically, crimes against property were more severely punished than crimes against the person. There are exceptions to that but in general, in all judicial systems crimes against property are more severely punished.

Of course, murder usually carries a stiff sentence, but countries with long sentences or even life sentences usually consider such sentences for crimes against property and other crimes. In the USA that possibility exists in various states.

In a number of countries the crimes punishable by death include, blasphemy, adultery, prostitution, spying, bribery, corruption, drug trafficking, homosexuality.

Political crimes are also severely punished with harsh sentences and the death penalty, depending on the country. Such punishment for political crimes only disappeared where it was abolished for all crimes.

Political crimes

Margaret Thatcher the British prime minister (1979-1990) once declared that there was no political crime, only criminal offences. She said in relation to IRA and INLA militants in prison in Ireland that political murder, political attacks nor any political violence existed.

With this she aimed to ignore not just the long history of such crimes in national laws in many countries but also International Humanitarian Law.

The preamble to the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognizes rebellion as the last legitimate resort in the face of human rights abuses.

“Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind… if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law.”[1]

The Geneva Conventions, the basis of IHL in common article 3 to the four conventions reads “In the case of armed conflict not of an international character occurring in the territory of one of the High Contracting Parties, each Party to the conflict shall be bound to apply, as a minimum, the following provisions…”[2]

And goes on to explain the provisions that apply. With this the Geneva Conventions acknowledge the existence of organised and armed rebellion against a state as something more than criminality. Otherwise, it wouldn’t attempt to govern the behaviour of the parties to the conflict.

Though it is worth pointing out that the IHL never clearly defined what was an internal armed conflict nor a war of national liberation. However, it is clear that it can’t be reduced to mere violence.

There are those that raise high the figure of Prisoner of Conscience, not just as the highest expression of a political prisoner but as the only one. According to Amnesty International such a prisoner is in jail for their ideas without having used or advocated violence.

It is an absurd definition. For years they praised Mandela as a prisoner of conscience, but Nelson Mandela led an organisation with an armed wing and ended up in jail for conspiracy to overthrow the state. He was no pacifist.

The definition Amnesty uses can be summarised as They who opine but do not act are political prisoners, those who think but do not apply their thinking are political prisoners.

This excludes great figures from Colombian history such as Policarpa or José Antonio Galán who were executed following their capture. According to this definition José Martí was a political prisoner when he wrote, but a criminal when he returned to Cuba to free it.

But this is not correct, a political prisoner may be a person who never even raised a rock, not to mention a rifle. They may even be pacifists. It is not necessarily a person linked to armed groups, though neither does it exclude them.

There are various types of political prisoners in Colombia.

· There are the militants of guerrilla groups, the majority of them in prison for armed actions, though there are those who played a political role in such groups, what the courts refer to as ideologues.

· There are also those who are victims of frame ups, the majority of them militants of one or other unarmed Left group, social organisation, trade union etc. The state imprisons them through frame-ups in order to limit their political work.

· Then there are those who are prisoners for things related to their political activity i.e. people who in the midst of protests, strikes, occupations of buildings break some law and are arrested, such as those who carry out pickets that are not permitted.

Amongst this group there are also the youths of the Frontline of the National Strike. Yes, throwing a stone is a crime in and of itself but these youths threw stones in response to state violence during the protests.

But, what distinguishes political prisoner from a common prisoner? Brandishing weapons or throwing stones is done by lots of people from narcos to drunks on a Saturday night. Pablo Escobar attacked the state with weapons and car bombs, but he was never a political prisoner.

He was always a criminal.

The first point is the political prisoner is captured in the struggle for a better world.

They seek changes in society that benefit a broad section of the population when their struggle is national in character or large group when the struggle is local or in the neighbourhood with specific demands.

So, a right-wing paramilitary could never be a political prisoner because they seek the status quo, or even a worsening of the conditions of the people.

A political prisoner acts altruistically, seeking no personal benefit though they may end up benefiting from the changes they seek for peasants, youths or neighbours because they are from that community.

But they never seek personal benefit for themselves but rather for society or a particular group in society. Once again neither the paramilitaries, nor the narcos or the Uribistas could ever be political prisoners because what they seek is always for their own personal benefit or small powerful group.

So a guerrilla may be a political prisoner, as may be the youths from the National Strike and similar protests. The environmentalist that blocks the entry of a mining company’s machinery is also one, even if they commit a crime such as damaging or destroying the company’s installations.

In 1976 eighty intellectuals and figures from the world of culture met in Algiers and proclaimed the Algiers Declaration – Universal Declaration of the Rights of Peoples. The document is entirely political and does not have the force of law but was and continues to be a moral reference point.

In Article 28 it states:

Any people whose fundamental rights are seriously disregarded has the right to enforce them, specially by political or trade union struggle and even, in the last resort by the use the force.[3]

Political prisoners are those who comply with this article.

Though the methods used, whether they are violent or pacific may have some influence, they do not determine who are political prisoners.

Of course, in the case of guerrillas, a war crime may wrest credibility from their status as a political prisoner, but in general the use or not of violence is not what determines who is a political prisoner.

It is the demands and the selfless commitment of the militant to the cause that defines whether they are political prisoners or not. Those who deny this are the ones who benefit from the capitalist system.

Their denial is nothing more than publicity and public relations for Julio Mario Santodomingo, Juan Manuel Santos, Gustavo Petro and the large NGOs. Colombia is full of political prisoners and those who deny this also deny the reality of capitalism in the country.

End.
NB: For more articles by Gearóid see https://gearoidloingsigh.substack.com

NOTES

[1] UN (1948) Universal Declaration of Human Rights. https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/eng.pdf

[2] See https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/gci-1949/article-3?activeTab=1949GCs-APs-and-commentaries

[3] See Declaration of Algiers https://permanentpeoplestribunal.org/algiers-charter/?lang=en

AWARD-WINNING DOCU-DRAMA LIFTS THE LID ON IRISH STATE CENSORSHIP

On December 12, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn Censorship & Witch-hunting, History, Ireland, Irish Left, Irish Republicanism, Mass Media CriticismLeave a comment

Clive Sulish

(Reading time: 5 mins.)

FEW CAN SEE – Censoring the Conflict was screened last week (Wednesday 4^th night) in the Irish Film Institute to a moderately-sized audience, followed by questions of film-maker Frank Sweeney and Betty Purcell by Ruairí McCann from Belfast.

Sweeney took a look at state censorship during the three decades’ war in Ireland which was effected through the introduction of Section 31 of the Broadcasting Act, the sacking of the entire RTÉ Board of Directors and the jailing of a journalist.

Henceforth, self-censorship was the rule.

Specifically, the State ban applied during this period in refusals to interview any member of the IRA (Provisional or Official) and was later extended to Provisional Sinn Féin. It was enforced within RTÉ by management including members of the Workers’ Party¹ who also led one of the unions.

Docudrama Few Can See focused on the application of the ban to spokespersons of people in the occupied Six Counties and of a number of campaigning groups: Gays Against the H-Blocks; Concerned Parents Against Drugs; the Gateaux bakery strike in Finglas (factory closed 1990).

*Gay rights activists in Cork also campaigned against the H-Blocs and were subjected to censorship under Section 31.* (Photo sourced: *ICCL website*)

Frank Sweeney said he had been intrigued by Betty Purcell’s memoir of her time producing programs for RTÉ and her battles with censorship there². Conducting interviews with people about their experiences of being censored, he then worked the material into a script.

The format was of a 1980s studio with a program presenter in the style of the times and smoking, intercut with grunge-style footage, electronic interference noise and visuals, then narrowing to interviews with actors playing the parts of victims of the ban at the time.

If the intention was to show how ridiculous it could be to apply a political ban aimed at alleged terrorists instead to community struggles against oppression and the heroin epidemic, the struggle of gays around legality and health and a bakery strike, it succeeded.

*The ‘RTE presenter’ in the docudrama screening* (Photo: *R.Breeze*)

However, the issues of whose interests the State was representing in that period of heavy censorship and why it felt threatened were not teased out. Nor why it was able do what it did.

Had those issues been addressed we might have observed a vulnerable neo-colonial ruling class during a high point of struggle against the very colonial and neo-colonial nature of the state and the colony of its imperial neighbour, which also imposed censorship on broadcasting at home.

An aspect of such censorship which might not occur to one but which was discussed in the documentary is the effect of censorship not only on struggles of the time but also on the lack of available footage for archives in the future, leaving history the poorer in material.

Few Can See film has been screening around the world this year and has won some awards including the Tiger Short Award at International Film Festival Rotterdam and is due in Barcelona next year, hopefully to be screened in Ireland again, followed by a fuller discussion.

*Film maker Frank Sweeney (centre) speaking during post-screening discussion at the IFI with Ruairí McCann (left) and Purcell (almost out of shot, right).* (Photo: R.Breeze)

In addition to exposing the State-led censorship of the past, Sinn Féin might benefit from the film as those who were being gagged were either members or were thought to be supporters of the party. However, SF has its own history of censoring critics both within the party and outside.

And as one member of the audience was heard to remark: “It’ll be the dissidents, not SF that will be getting censored now.” True, though no longer enforced by the State, rather voluntarily by program makers, editors and by the reporters themselves, as with the genocide in Palestine.

Indeed both Sweeney, Purcell and a member of the audience alluded to ongoing censorship around that subject. But it is not only suppression of the truth which is the problem but also the obligatory insertion of the false narrative that everything began on 7^th October with the Palestinian raid.

BACKGROUND: THE BROADCASTING BAN MECHANISM

Section 31 of the Broadcasting Authority Act 1960 empowered the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs to issue a ministerial order to the government-appointed RTÉ Authority not to broadcast any material specified in the written order.

The first order under the section was issued in 1971 by Fianna Fáil Minister for posts and Telegraphs Gerry Collins. It instructed RTÉ not to broadcast

any matter that could be calculated to promote the aims or activities of any organisation which engages in, promotes, encourages or advocates the attaining of any particular objectives by violent means.

Collins refused clarification when RTÉ asked for advice on what this legal instruction meant in practice and RTÉ interpreted the Order politically to mean that spokespersons for the Provisional and Official IRA could no longer appear on air.

The following year, the government sacked the RTÉ Authority for not sufficiently disciplining broadcasters the government accused of breaching the Order.

RTÉ’s reporter Kevin O’Kelly had referred to an interview that he conducted with the then Provisional IRA Chief of Staff, Seán Mac Stíofáin, on the Radio Éireann This Week programme. The recorded interview was not itself broadcast, nor was Mac Stiofáin’s voice heard.

*Premiere balladeer Christy Moore (right) marching with Provisional Sinn Féins Joe Cahill* (Photo sourced: Internet)

Mac Stiofáin was arrested after the O’Kelly interview and charged with membership of the IRA, an organisation listed as illegal by the State.

Soon afterwards O’Kelly was jailed for ‘contempt’ at the non-jury Special Criminal Court because he refused to identify a voice on a tape seized by the Gardaí as that of Mac Stiofáin. However Mac Stiofáin was convicted anyway in the “sentencing tribunal” of the SCC.

O’Kelly appealed to the Supreme Court and a fine was substituted as a means of purging O’Kelly’s alleged contempt. O’Kelly declined to pay the fine but it was said to have been paid anonymously and O’Kelly was released.

In 1976, when Conor Cruise O’Brien (Labour) Minister for Posts and Telegraphs amended Section 31 of the Broadcasting Act, he also issued a new Section 31 Order. This censored spokespersons for specific organisations, including the legal Sinn Féin political party, rather than specified content.

That prevented RTÉ from interviewing Sinn Féin spokespersons under any circumstances, even if the subject was unrelated to the IRA campaign in Northern Ireland conflict.

*Visually impacting and clever punning in placard parade protest against Section 31*. (Photo sourced: *Internet*)

Bizarrely even a call-in show on radio about gardening was interrupted once because a caller was a member of Sinn Féin.

The changes undermined the relatively liberal interpretations by RTÉ of its censorship responsibilities under the original 1971 Order and encouraged a process of self-censorship and illiberal interpretation.

However in 1976 O’Brien attempted to extend the censorship to newspaper coverage of the conflict, targeting in particular The Irish Press, revealing his thinking in an interview with Washington Post reporter Bernard Nossiter, naming as a possible target Press Editor, Tim Pat Coogan.

Nossiter immediately alerted Coogan, who then published the Nossiter-O’Brien interview in the Irish Press (as did The Irish Times).

Due to public opposition the proposed provisions were amended to remove the perceived threat to newspapers.

But Fine Gael and Labour were not to be left out as the 1973-77 Fine Gael/ Labour Coalition Government also tried to prosecute the Irish Press for its coverage of the maltreatment (not to say torture) of republican prisoners by the Garda ‘Heavy Gang’, with the paper winning the case.

SOURCES

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

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt34242057/

1The Workers’ Party grew out of Official Sinn Féin which was declining after the split which led to the creation of Provisional Sinn Féin in 1970 and later another split, resulting in the 1974 creation of the Irish Republican Socialist Party. The WP was extremely hostile to the IRSP and PSF, in particular the latter.

2Inside RTÉ – a memoir, Betty Purcell, New Island Books (2014).

TO VOTE FOR WHOM OR NOT – AND DOES IT MATTER?

On November 27, 2024November 27, 2024 By rebelbreezeIn Capitalism, Current Affairs Comment, Imperialism, Ireland, Political AnalysisLeave a comment

Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 7 mins.)

The elections for a government in the 26-County state are only days away now and, while many are advocating a vote for this or that party or candidate, some are opposed to voting at all.

ARGUMENTS AGAINST VOTING

An amusing take on abstention advises: Don’t vote – it only encourages them! Anarchists have long been opposed to voting in national elections and I recall a poster in Britain exhorting people to Vote for Guy Fawkes – the only man ever to enter Parliament with honest intentions. ¹

Revolutionary marxists have also often called for a boycott of elections.

The position that they hold in common is that changing this or that party in government does not change the system and that it is that which is in need of change; as Connolly² famously declared capitalist governments to be “committees of the rich to manage the affairs of the capitalist class.”

However, it is possible to hold that opinion but yet to vote – and even to advocate voting – in some circumstances. However among some Irish Republican circles there has been a trend maintaining that voting in these elections is a recognition or acceptance of their alleged legitimacy.

A massive spoiling of ballot papers is often advocated by those who wish to ensure that the boycott may not be interpreted as apathy among the electorate. The number of spoiled ballot papers is supposed to be recorded and the papers available for inspection.

ARGUMENTS FOR

Those arguing in favour of voting in elections come at the question from a variety of points, including that voting is a democratic right for which our ancestors fought; that if we fail to vote we have no right to complain about government actions (or inaction).

They may maintain that not voting for some parties is equivalent to voting in favour of their opponents; or that voting a particular party into power can be used to overturn undesired legislation or conversely to promote desired legislation or to put them in power so that they may be exposed.³

The reformists and social democrats (often presenting themselves as revolutionaries) advocate for reforming or at least controlling capitalism under a Left Government. Despite the impracticability of the latter in many historical experiments, the hopeful and deluded keep advocating it.

Then of course, there is the ‘Lesser Evil’ argument, which is probably the most seductive; we witnessed that during the Harris-Trump USA Presidency competition. The Greens in Europe even appealed to Stein of the USA Greens, running against Harris on an anti-Genocide ticket, to desist.⁴

The claim that we might as well use our votes to elect a ‘lesser evil’ government is seductive precisely when we feel that no other option is available, combined with fear of worse economic and social conditions to be imposed upon us by the ‘worse evil’ party or candidate.

To follow the ‘lesser evil’ road is not only to perpetuate the system in one form or another but also fail to recognise our potential strength as the producers of all wealth; to fail to strengthen our energies to break firstly the mental chains, then the physical ones; to make fundamental choices.

THE TACTICAL VARIANT

Some argue that although in general national elections don’t change the system, they can be used at times to effect a tactical change: show rejection of a specific government position or individual.

They sometimes argue in favour of voting to put a specific individual or group of individuals into parliament for tactical reasons.

Can it be of use to have a few individuals in the Irish parliament who will attack the government and ruling class in speeches? Or to put specific issues forward on which to expose the ruling elite? Or to ask questions to gather government information? I am sure that it can and has been at times.

Can it be useful to have a handful of individuals elected to the Irish parliament who are prepared to seek entry to prisons to talk to political prisoners? Or who will head an investigation into some kinds of abuses and publish the results? Such can be and has been of use at times.

The important thing is to ensure that the message we give is that useful though such people and positions may be at times, they are not the solution, which can only be the overthrow of the system and the establishment of a socialist system with power in the hands of the working people.

ELECTIONS IN A CAPITALIST DEMOCRACY

What are known as ‘democracies’ are states concentrated across ‘Western’ regions, i.e western Europe and its former colonies of the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, with varying degrees of effect upon states on the African and Asian continents, along with ‘Latin America’.⁵

These are without exception, regardless of variety, systems of governing their working people without having to resort to wide-scale constant repression and suppression. For that project, the illusion of choice is essential, hence the regular elections and different political parties.

But the illusion of any fundamental choice is failing. Increasingly, governments in many European ‘democracies’ are becoming coalitions between a number of political parties and in Ireland, the main Government-Opposition parties for decades have exposed the reality by governing together.⁶

The effect of such exposure of the lack of real choice is impacting upon the consciousness of the populations concerned so that progressively less of them are willing to participate in the charade. In Ireland now more than one-third of the population do not vote.

This situation is of great concern to the ruling classes and to their intellectuals who are busy trying to devise schemes to offset the drift such as advocating voting from home, spectacles such as televised confrontations between competitors and ‘Citizenship’ programs in schools.

Clearly revolutionaries should not assist in any attempt to justify the system or to perpetuate the illusion of elections in capitalist ‘democracy’ being anything else than a periodic choice for slaves between the overseers employed by their masters.

DOES IT MATTER ANYWAY?

The nub of the question as to whether to vote boils down to what we hope to achieve and its prospects. If there were a massive abstention from the polls then of course that would be seen as a huge vote of no confidence in the parties standing and perhaps in the system itself – but from what perspective?

From the Right? From the Left? From apathy? In any case at the moment that looks like a moot question since there’s a likelihood of a turnout of around 60% of the registered voters.⁷

Will abstention make people more politically aware or conversely will participation in the elections turn people away from the possibilities of organising on the ground and ultimately of revolution? Perhaps for some – but overall, I think not many in either case, not on a longer-term basis.

From a revolutionary point of view, does it matter whether people vote or not? Or even sometimes who they vote for? Surely what matters is organising and supporting the movement for fundamental progressive change? Can that be done by people who vote as well as by those who don’t?

I’d say that is at least as likely.

During capitalist state elections the best we can do, I think, is to point out the inadequacy of the choices presented to us and to advocate stronger and more militant organisation as an alternative to the calls to vote for one party or another.

Whatever party or individual gets elected to Leinster House, the principal struggles remain: for a free united independent Ireland, for a socialist system, against the imperialist world system, against environmental destruction. It is on that we need to concentrate.

The newly-elected management committee of the capitalist class should be savaged mercilessly for its inevitably broken promises and its continuing attacks upon the economic and social conditions of the working people, and on Irish national neutrality.

Most of all, we need to improve our organising, strengthen our ranks and find ways to strike blows against the system to win victories in our march towards the overthrow of the neo-liberal and neo-colonial Gombeen ruling class and its foreign masters.

End.

1While amusing as a caption, given that Guido Fawkes plotted to blow up the English Parliament on 5^th November 1605, upholding Guido Fawkes as some kind of historical hero is problematic, as he was a militant Catholic and the date of capture, Guy Fawkes’ Day, was a regular occasion for the exhibition of anti-Catholic prejudice even into the 20^th Century in Protestant Britain, which more often than not, manifested itself as anti-Irish racism.

2James Connolly (1868-1916), revolutionary socialist activist, theoretician, journalist, writer and trade unionist, leading participant in the 1916 Irish Rising for which he was sentenced to death and shot by British firing squad.

3Lenin famously advocated voting the British Labour Party into government for the first time to ensure their exposure, supporting them “as a rope supports a hanging man”, advice misused by social democrats and others on the electoral Left and about which revolutionaries have argued ever since.

4 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/01/european-greens-ask-jill-stein-to-stand-down-and-endorse-kamala-harris

5And of Eastern Europe.

6Throughout the existence of the Irish State, the Fianna Fáil party has been the longest in government, with Fine Gael second, both socially conservative parties with strong loyal electoral bases. However now they are governing in coalition, along with the Greens. It is worth noting that there has not been a government of absolute majority by any party in the Irish state since 1981, when Irish Republicans stood as H-Block (e.g. hunger strike) candidates and two were elected with another having a near miss.

7Despite a trend of dropping percentages of the potential voters actually participating, in 2020 the turnout was a little over 62%.