Through three events on Saturday, New Year’s Eve in the city centre, Dublin sent a solidarity message to the Palestinian people and also to the solidarity activists on hunger strike in British jails, referencing also those of the Irish Resistance in 1981.
The Millennium Bridge on New Year’s Eve. (Photo: IPSC)
Chronologically first was a protest in the Starbucks café1 in Stephen’s Green Shopping Centre obliging the management to close for hours and a balcony walkway banner drop calling for solidarity with the Elbit accused on hunger strike, referencing also the Irish hunger-strikes of 1981.2
I had not read the poster carefully and arrived at the Starbucks at the north end of Grafton Street, where there were a few other confused people also. By the time I made my way up to the southern end of Grafton Street, the protest there was about to leave and I was about to head elsewhere.
Two main banners present at protest outside the Stephen’s Green Centre on New Year’s Eve, after closing down the Starbucks café inside. (Photo: Bas)
The solidarity crowd continued to demonstrate in the shopping centre’s main doorway before marching away, then went into the Zara3 big shop and demonstrated there awhile before heading on to MacDonald’s in Grafton Street where the Gardaí began to let their nasty side show a little.
Palestine solidarity protesters leaving the Stephen’s Green Centre on New Year’s Eve, heading down to Zara to protest there (Photo: D.Breatnach)
Then another Starbucks, this one on Dame Street got a Palestine solidarity visit before the demonstrators went on to the iconic pedestrian Ha’penny Bridge, where the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign holds a Palestine solidarity protest every New Year’s Eve.
Closeup of banner-drop inside the Stephen’s Green Centre on New Year’s Eve, during protest after closing down the Starbucks café inside. (Photo: G.O.L)
There the demonstrators thronged the Ha’penny and Millennium Bridges and spilled out along the quays. I was elsewherefor the first time in years as it was a Wednesday and therefore Jimi Cullen’s weekly protest with songs at the US Embassy in Ballsbridge, this one to be his 97th straight.
As usual there were police on guard there and one in uniform approached myself and Jimi as we were talking and asked Jimi how long the event would be, how many attending etc. Then she suggested I removed my bike which was leaning against a bollard.
Conducting the protest inside the Stephen’s Green Centre on New Year’s Eve which obliged management to close down for some hours the Starbucks café inside. (Photo: G.O.L)
I told her I was happy with where it was, thank you. Then she said that it might fall on someone (but not, of course, if across the road!), then that someone might steal it, all of which was nonsense of course then said: ‘I am asking you to remove it’ to which I replied ‘And I am declining.’
She was getting quite angry but decided to walk it off. I have attended supporting Jimi’s protest perhaps a score of times and in the early days had a similar approach from a Special Branch4 officer who accused me of causing ‘a security risk’ to the Embassy’s ‘curtilage’ (on a public footpath)!
The Ha’penny Bridge on New Year’s Eve. (Photo: IPSC)
Some police just like to throw their weight around even with regard to things that have nothing to do with the law or causing harm to anyone and over which they have no legal power.
Anyway we unfurled the flags, Jimi had a placard displayed, got out his guitar and we sang through week 97 to frequent waves, clapping, thumbs up, clenched fists, shouts and horn blowing of appreciation and solidarity from passing motorists, pedestrians and cyclists.
Section of northern quays/ Boardwalk on New Year’s Eve, during protest after closing down the Starbucks café inside. (Photo: IPSC)
Jimi began this weekly protest outside the Israeli Embassy but when they left Ireland he moved up the road to the nearby US Embassy, representative of the world leader in terrorism and biggest supporter, politically, financially and militarily of the world’s leading genocider entity.
Usually there are more supporters present. Jimi has a fine stock of protest and solidarity songs, some of which he composed himself and performs them well. Today we did mostly Irish songs of struggle but also one from the black civil rights struggle and Jimi’s own about Palestine.
Jimi Cullen and myself at Jimi’s weekly event outside the US Embassy on New Year’s Eve. (Photo: J.Cullen)
We had a number of Palestinian flags there but also two Starry Plough flags and there were some Irish Tricolours to be seen on the other protests among the many Palestinian ones. It is from our own struggle that we stand in solidarity with Palestine.
End.
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2Ten Irish Republican prisoners, seven IRA and three INLA died on hunger-strike in a British jail in 1981 in a struggle against criminalisation and for political status
Last Saturday’s IPSC “Hands Off Gaza” march, advertised as being to the US Embassy, reached a new low in compliance with the wishes of the Irish ruling class not to embarrass the USA, currently the world boss.
The IPSC led the march from Baggot Street through residential roads and streets to reach not the front of the US Embassy but near its side, far from the main road (where a small group of non-compliant people lifted Palestinian flags to the view and often beeps of support of passing traffic).
Section of the IPSC march – some of those carrying big printed placards joined a smaller group of protesters in front of the main entrance of the US Embassy. (Photo cred: IPSC)
The IPSC agree their march routes and rally locations with the Gardaí in advance, a different process than merely informing them in the interests of safe traffic management.1 The extent to which the IPSC leadership integrates with Gardaí wishes is not required by Irish State law.2
The understanding is that the Gardaí don’t want a large protest at the main entrance of the Embassy and beside the main road and those who did gather there were approached by Gardaí with the suggestion that they move down to the IPSC rally, which suggestion was declined.
No doubt the leadership of the IPSC considers that by compliance with the desires of the Gardaí, by not offending the authorities or frightening them, their organisation is regarded by the ruling circles as “responsible” and therefore placed in the best position to influence policy on Palestine.
Could they be right? Well, let’s check the actual concrete gains from their “responsible” leadership. Has the Irish Government barred Irish airspace to flights of US/Israeli munitions to fuel the Zionist genocide of Palestinians? Are US planes being checked at Shannon airport for military contents?
Has the Irish Government adopted a policy of Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions towards the genocidal state? Has the Occupied Territories Bill, a relatively mild piece of legislation entirely in line with international law and UN resolutions, though approved in 2018/ 2019 been enacted?3
The answer to all those questions is a resounding NO. Well then, what has this “responsible leadership” actually achieved in changing Government policy? The answer is simply Nothing. The IPSC however have brought thousands on to the streets to demonstrate solidarity with Palestine.
And that would be a great achievement if it were to employ those numbers in a way that exerted real pressure on the Government and the ruling class it represents. How far the IPSC leadership is from any such intention is demonstrated by their shameful capitulation around the US Embassy.
As most people in Ireland are aware, the USA is not only the biggest backer of the genocidal Zionist state but its essential backer, its very life-pump. Without the backing of the USA, the European colonist settler state of Israel could not have survived as long as it has.
Photo of the distant IPSC rally taken from in front of the US Embassy’s main entrance. (Photo cred: Rebel Breeze)
The IOF could not sustain its level of genocidal bombing of Palestinians for more than a week without USA supplies of bombs, shells and missiles. The ‘Israeli’ economy would long ago have collapsed without US financial support.
Politically the USA has used its veto in the UN Security Council, that undemocratic supreme ruler of the United Nations,4 against motions calling for a halt in the genocide. The US also employs its considerable economic pressure on other states not to oppose the Zionist genocidal state.
In view of the crucial role of the USA in maintaining not only the source of Zionist genocide but in its essential weekly supplies, one would imagine that US institutions and businesses in Ireland would be subjected to strong pressure from the Palestine solidarity movement.
That has not largely been the case and its symbolic representation, the US Embassy in Dublin, has been the target of large demonstrations led by the IPSC only twice in over fifteen months of genocide. And on each occasion in a side street, away from the main road.5
Rear view of the IPSC rally stage facing the marchers, photo taken with the US Embassy main entrance some distance up the residential street behind the photographer. (Photo cred: IPSC)
All of the main Irish political parties, those in coalition government and those aspiring to government, maintain cordial relations with the ruling circles of the USA and even formally celebrate the Irish national day with them in the USA on US Government premises.
Do the thousands up and down the country who march every couple of weeks or demonstrate weekly do so in order merely to feel good about themselves? I would submit that the majority desperately want to give real assistance to the Palestinians – to make a difference.
Those people are not getting any leadership from the IPSC. And though even at this late stage the IPSC could supply that, the indications are that it won’t.
The general attitude of the public within the Irish state is in solidarity with Palestine to a huge extent bemoaned by a number of ‘Israeli’ Zionist Ambassadors and Government ministers but that Irish feeling of Palestine solidarity does not generally translate into practical measures.
There have been some practical results in Palestine solidarity in divestment and boycott but these have been achieved, for the most part, by direct actions in occupations of college and commercial buildings not led by the IPSC and in most cases not even supported by them,.
Meanwhile, the State employs its repression on those who do dare to step beyond the “responsible leadership” of the IPSC, for example arrested in demonstrations at Shannon Airport and in actions in Dublin. The compliance of the IPSC leadership makes that repression easier for the State.
End.
Section of small crowd that gathered in front of the US Embassy main gate and by the side of the main road (instead of at the IPSC rally); around four people at first and then more joined them. (Photo cred: Rebel Breeze)
APPENDIX
Now Irishmen, forget the past! And think of the time that’s coming fast. When we shall all be civilized, Neat and clean and well-advised. And won’t Mother England be surprised? Whack fol the diddle all the di do day.6
In May 2021 the Gardaí rewarded IPSC’s consultative approach with a ban on a march to the Israeli Embassy, quoting Covid-19 legislation, with which the IPSC complied under protest. It fell to another organisation to announce the march and to ahead with it, in the event without arrests.7
In October 2003 the IPSC pulled back from calling for the expulsion of the Israeli Ambassador to Ireland (which in fact they had called for years earlier) and at the same time the Sinn Féin leadership was also pulling back from similar calls of the past.
The party was abstaining from such motions in councils and voting along with the Irish Government in Leinster House.
A speaker at the IPSC rally in the side street to the US Embassy in October 2023 (the only other IPSC one there in the current genocide phase) was asked by the IPSC not to call for the expulsion of the Israeli Ambassador in order not to embarrass a SF speaker. She correctly declined.8
Some IPSC stewards on that march were positioned near people calling for that expulsion in order to drown them out with non-stop leading of the more ‘acceptable’ slogans.
Shortly thereafter a rebellion of SF’s rank-and-file obliged the SF leadership to restore their original position of calling for the expulsion and the IPSC leadership returned to endorsing it too.9
Footnotes
1Some of their arrangements can actually cause higher risk of mischance, as when they pack large numbers tightly on the central pedestrian reservation in O’Connell Street, with a Luas tram line on one side and passing traffic on both sides. On one occasion I and some others with banners and flags on the west side, with the GPO behind us, were informed by Gardaí that we should join the packed crowd on the pedestrian reservation as that was what “our leaders” had agreed with the Gardaí. We had to insist that we were breaking no law and within our rights before they reluctantly went away.
2The Constitution guarantees the right to demonstrate, picket etc and the role of the police is supposedly essentially to facilitate that. Giving the police the power to decide on routes and even a veto on a destination not required by law is to collude in undermining civil rights and even encouraging further undemocratic restrictions. See also Appendix.
4Only votes of the UN Security Council are binding. It has a revolving membership but only five permanent members, any one of which can veto a proposal even if supported by the majority. The five Permanent Members are UK, France, USA, Russia and China.
6Whack Fol the Diddle by Peader Kearney, published 1917 (according to NLI). I don’t think Mother England would be surprised, nor yet father Gombeen Ireland – for are not the likes of these their very creations?
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