Clive Sulish
(Reading time: 3 mins.)
An Irish punk rock band, Mongolian throat-singers, a poet and Irish folk singers all performed at Solidarity Sessions No.2 to a good crowd in the International Bar, in in Dublin City centre Wicklow Street on Wednesday 17th..
An Irish and international resistance theme in decor was presented by flags of the Starry Plough and Palestine with Saoirse don Phalaistín as stage backdrop, while flags respectively of Cumann na mBan and Basque Antifa concealed the original decor’s ubiquitous photos of Michael Collins.
A PFLP1 flag was also taped to a wall. Hand-written signs on the stairs leading to the basement venue, alternatively in Irish and in English, asked for quiet/ ciúnas for the performance/ racaireacht. The Irish language was present too in some of the performances to follow.
MC for the night, Jimi Cullen, himself a singer-songwriter activist told the crowd the purpose of the organising collective was “to build a community of resistance and solidarity with our struggles and with struggles around the world” through culture in a social atmosphere.
Themes of love, nature and emigration were covered in song; however the dominant theme was resistance – to prison regimes, foreign occupation, fascism, class oppression, racial discrimination – and solidarity with the struggles of others, near and far.
Diarmuid Breatnach, singing acapella kicked off the night with a selection of songs from the Irish resistance tradition and a couple of short ones from the USA civil rights movement. Some of the melodies however, of particular interest perhaps to Back Home in Derry2, were his own originals.
Eoghan Ó Loingsigh, accompanying himself on guitar followed with more material from the same tradition, dedicating one to his late IRA father. A folk song Ó Loingsigh announced as ‘non-political’ performed acapella turned out to be very much political but on the issue of social class.
Áine Hayden followed with poems on a range of topics, from swimming in the Royal Canal during the Covid shut-down, deleting a personal relationship to a dedication to comedian and activist Mahmoud Sharab murdered with family in a “safe zone” tent by the Israeli Occupation Force.
The three performers were all introduced as activists as well as artists and the mostly-young crowd, apparently containing a strong representation of political and social activists, responded well to the performers with applause, yells of encouragement and often joining in on choruses.
More people arrived before, during and even after the break – including an elderly couple who had just arrived from the USA and could only pay in dollars but were admitted for free. Leaving later with thanks they promised a contribution to Palestine solidarity when they got home.
Also an activist, Ru O’Shea sang an Irish, Scottish, French and Italian selection, accompanied by bouzouki and guitar and performed a spoken word piece with a refrain of ‘Éire under attack’ before schooling the audience to sing the chorus of Robbie Burns’ Green Grow the Rushes Oh!
Nomads were the next act. Composed of two Mongolian musicians playing violins in the style of the viola and a Dubliner modulating on a sound deck they were unusual enough but it was the amazing throat-singing of one of the Mongolians that had the audience enthralled.
It was amazing to learn that there are three different kinds of Mongolian throat-singing and then to hear them performed, one of which was a kind of whistling with a vibrating bass undertone wavering through it. The applause, particularly when they concluded, was rapturous and sustained.
The evening’s entertainment concluded with Flesh B. Bugged, a punk rock Irish duo of bass guitar and drums with spoken voice pieces in Irish from the bass guitar player. Their volume and beat got some of the crowd up and dancing and the wider crowd responded well to them too.
MC Jimi Cullen went up on stage for the last time to thank venue, performers, audience, doorkeepers, poster designers Ríona and Azzy O’Connor, also Diarmuid for original artwork. At a prompt from the crowd Cullen also got a round of applause from the audience for his MCing.
Remarking they’d “had a great night” and encouraging his listeners to follow the organising collective on its Instagram page, Cullen told them that details of Solidarity Sessions No.3 and the collective’s decisions on recipients of donations from money raised would be posted on there.
Diarmuid Breatnach told the audience that each individual could help build a community of resistance through attending the Solidarity Sessions and encouraging others to attend. He welcomed any ‘competion’ from solidarity sessions around the country.
The downstairs area of the International Bar is not perhaps the best layout for this kind of event but it worked out well enough for the collective, audience and performers on the night. Their next event will be back at their launch venue,The Cobblestone, Smithfield on Thursday 30th October.
End.
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FOOTNOTES
1People’s Front for the Liberation of Palestine, one of two specifically secular armed resistance organisations in Palestine.
2Irish mega folk singer Christy Moore had organised Bobby Sands’ poem into song to the melody of The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald by Gordon Lightfoot.
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