“Good Friday. The death of Irish Republicanism” by Anthony McIntyre: a review
This was a book that I first reviewed at the same time as “Unionism Decayed” back in 2008.
Like Vance’s work, it is the author’s portrayal of a defeated political movement or ideal and as a Unionist it was instructional to read an interpretation of the immediate post-Agreement period from the other side of the fence. It was also interesting to read it again three years later to see how much and how little Irish Republicanism, as preached and practiced by the Sinn Fein leadership, has changed.
Despite his personal history and background (ex-IRA “blanketman”, imprisoned in his teens, served 17 years in the Maze), Anthony McIntyre’s writings and experiences have interested me for sometime. He is a leading voice for those within Irish Republicanism who have disagreed with the Adams Clique, arguing not for a return to the euphemistic “physical-force tradition” but a renewal of the Irish Republican ideals he believes the Sinn Fein hierarchy has abandoned.
So, yes, he is, like David Vance within Unionism I suppose, a “dissident”. A “dissident” as in the original definition (as opposed to the Peace-Process version) of the word, that is to say someone who refuses to accept the political orthodoxy laid down by those residing above in the control pyramid. However, the worst the likes of Vance straying from standard Northern Irish Unionist orthodoxy can normally expect is a proverbial smack across the bottom from the DUP’s Press-Office attack-hounds. Prior to when physically intimidating internal opponents became no longer politically expedient, McIntyre risked real physical injury for daring to challenge The Adams’ Family’s shibboleths
Like “Unionism Decayed”, “Good Friday, The Death of Irish Republicanism” is organised on a thematic basis, with chapters covering the Belfast Agreement; republican “martyrs”; The Colombia 3; decommissioning; the 1981 Hunger Strikers; the suppression of dissent; Robert McCartney’s murder; informers “Stakeknife” and Denis Donaldson; those who speak out against the Adams-McGuinness party line; the Northern Bank robbery; policing under the PSNI reforms and ultimately, the final failure, as he sees it, of the Republican Movement. Most of the pieces were written at the time of the various events and appeared originally in the ezine The Blanket and form a valuable historical record of the post Belfast-Agreement period, or at least history as seen through the prism of a non-Unionist lens.
I feel this thematic approach works better here than it does in “Unionism Decayed”. The one underlying thread of the book is the “death” of Irish Republicanism; a death largely brought about, in McIntyre’s opinion, by the complete and suffocating control Adams has demanded and received from the SF cannon fodder and this thread operates as an effective literary bridge between the various topics.
Despite the Spin and PR, Sinn Fein are no closer to their 32-county nirvana than the IRA were at the time of Sunningdale. The Adams’ Thought-Police has so stifled free-thought and debate within their own ranks that whilst the young Shinners of the 80s and 90s would have been knocking you back with quotes from trendy Bolivian revolutionaries and obscure Austrian philosophers, the present-day Ogras are restricted to painting post-boxes green for Ireland and falling off Orange-Hall roofs whilst nicking Union flags. The point made, time and time again, in this book is that any political movement which does not constantly question and examine its policies, targets and leadership will not be capable of progressing beyond their ideological and (in a Northern Ireland context anyway) communal ghetto. A truism which all of us involved or interested in Northern Irish Unionism should probably also bear in mind.
You’ve gathered by now this is a book (although I most certainly would not agree with a lot of its underlying philosophy) I’d have no problems recommending to all interested in both Northern Irish politics and the concept of the Open Society which should underlie all democracies. It would have, in certain places, benefited from updates and occasionally McIntyre employs the unnecessary verbiage of the political post-grad but in terms of the overall style of the book, these really are minor quibbles.
The only query I’d pose to McIntyre, like with Vance, is:
“”Yes, you’ve outlined well the problems facing Irish republicanism… if it’s not to be “Gerry knows best” then what’s your solution?”"
And having read both books in quick succession, the other main question that’s left in my mind is that with Messrs Vance and McIntyre both claiming their side lost the “Peace Process”… one of them must be surely wrong, but which one?
Or maybe they are, in fact, both right?
Lamhd.
This will do for openers, just back. I had this out for somebody else earlier in the week, it is a good overview.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=25635
CS Can you really afford the time to get involved in this debate ? It is not quite fair to leave your exalted leaded picking off those crowns from the prison uniforms all on his own. The man needs help and encouragement!
MV-@On Another Man’s Wound-Ernie O’Malley.Now there’s a book that every Irish person should read.
The cold spell before dawn,the morning star that often told us our watch was over as we lay under the ferns,and that the sun and not our sense of direction would be our guide ,then the massed clouds and the first cold,faint streaks,rabbits jerking their white scuts among the weeds and grasses,the undulating form of a weasal slipping by or the shrill scream as the death cry of a rabbit rang out,the thin squeal of a field mouse and birds worming.A hum of insects as they turned up for the days orchestra,the harsh rattle of the corn crake or his hurried trot in the meadows,the chirp of young birds,meadow larks soaring higher in sound and space making the air thrill,grass-hoppers noising,tweets of a zig-zagging snipe in bottom lands and the tall stilted gey blue form of a heron in the distance holding himself in dignified slimness.
Twilight,restful ease,the clear cut views of trees on skylines and the blurring of shapes,the thickening of the hazy plum-skin dusk,a swollen sun dropping quickly over the edge of sight,soft lowing cows driven homeward to be milked,house swallows diving from the eaves ,the rattle of a cart in the distance,sometimes the honk of wild geese swift flying in a “V”,and a wrench as i thought of the split wasted lives of our Wild Geese in foreign armies.
Corn and hay cocks,chestnut flowers,the dripping mustard of locust trees shared the flaxen or gold hue with yellow rag weed and the heavy gold of meadow sweet.Lilac scented blue near tufted clusters of mauve rhodo-dendron,oak leaves in a now startling green twisted their paler backed powder,tall avenues of beeches burnished smooth stems and brown twigs.
Ernie O’Malley came within a week or so of joining the British Army,and imo probably epitomized more than anyone else the great mass of contradictions that exist(ed),on the entire island of Ireland at the time,certainly as much as Pearse,who once said it ‘twas the English blood in him that made him brood,and the Irish blood in him which made of him a dreamer.However,with the exception of people like Irish Citizen Army Volunteer James Joyce,who hailed from Rathgar,the vast majority of ‘Volunteers’ who died in the 1916 Rising,the ‘War of Independence’ and the Anti-Treaty side in the ‘Civil War’,were Factory workers and Labourers.95% of the Irish Citizen Army came from the slums of Dublin.The whole notion of ‘Petty Buergeoise Nationalists’ being the driving force behind the Rising is nothing more than ‘Revisionism’,and although ‘Petty Buergeoise Nationalists’,aka Cumann Na nGael eventually took power,it doesn’t mean that the ‘Volunteers’ of the ICA/Cumann Na mBan/IRA were motivated by ‘Petty Buergeoise Nationalism’.There’s a difference.For example,in 1922 we find that all the Anti-Treaty soldiers executed by the ‘National Army ’ on the 19 December in Kildare,and also those executed in Dublin on the 24 December all had one thing in common,they were all,to a man,Labourers,Railway workers,and Factory workers.Richard Towhig certainly wouldn’t have been motivated by ‘Petty Buergeoise Nationalism’.No,’twas more likely the fact that his father had died in the ‘Great War’,when the red poppies danced,and they really believed that that war would end wars’.
Dublin
Vol. Peter Cassidy 24 Nov. 1922-Corporation worker
Vol. John Gaffney 24 Nov, 1922-Corporation worker
Vol. Richard Twohig- 24 Nov. 1922-Factory worker
Vol. James Fisher- 24 Nov. 1922-Factory Worker
Kildare
Vol. Patrick Bagnel 19 Dec. 1922-Labourer
Vol. Joseph Johnson 19 Dec. 1922-Railway worker
Vol. Patrick Nolan 19 Dec. 1922-Labourer
Vol. Patrick Mangan 19 Dec. 1922-Labourer
Vol. Brian Moore 19 Dec. 1922-Railway worker
Vol. Stephen White 19 Dec. 1922-Labourer
Vol. James O’Connor 19 Dec. 1922-Labourer.
and that peice, convinced you Mv. not much in it.
“a position of republican purity”.
I don’t think there is any such thing and the McKearney family or what is left of them (Margaret, Tommy etc) would be closer to it than many others still within the Provisional Alliance.
McIntyre did 17 years inside. That is serious time and few do it without being changed. That is as true for Gerry Kelly and Mandela (the African not the Derry one) as it is for McIntyre., who was always a pawn and not a player. Ditto The Dark, who obviously had an operational head on his shoulders as had King Rat, The Jackal, Sepp Dietrich and a host of other nasties.
Dietrich was a great leader but almost functionally illiterate; according to Wehrmacht commanders, he could not even read a map.
The SS were tough country boys who, as Joachim Piper said, were semi-literate but could handle their arms.
Ditto many of the Provos. They too knew enough of their leaders’ ideologies (Jews/Brits bad, National Socialism/ Provoism good) for their needs.
If McIntyre had to be put into the pantheon of Republican saints, I would put him nearer George Gilmore or someone like that than to Connolly. His was not the lead role. He heard the piper and got 17 years and a hard experience as a result.
I am thinking of the quote about how many had to die to make Caesar/Adams great but it escapes me. Either way, McIntyre gave 17+ years to Adams’ success. The crumbs left to him, Boston and Coalport were, given everything, predictable enough in retrospect. The corrupt Republican gravy train.
Pat Mc “…The poster sliabhluachra,….”
You mean ‘the poser’ Sliabhluachra ?
I am rather surprised that you you and others who should know better from experience, could have allow yourselves to be used like this !
sliabhluachra (profile) 20 November 2011 at 1:49 p.m.
First off please take a look at this post ‘The poster sliabhluachra,’ and the subject matter covered and the concerns as expressed in the opening paragraph. There is only one identifiable poster here who have those specific concerns, and who,when a baited trap is laid, will instinctively rush in and defend this specific religious/national concern. and who is also expert in anti-Republican bile.
Go to the posts of departed ‘Maskey’ ‘Limerick’ or to the one that came into a brief existence ( I cannot recall the ‘pseudo used ) when a C of I former pupil of a leading Southern Protestant School started posting here with something useful to say regarding Southern /Northern Protestant experience, for the express purpose of cyber bullying her off the site.
I knew her school, her community and exchanged a few posts with her as did greenflag and some others. It suddenly seemed that from within the Southern Protestant Community, this poster could demolish a lot of useful myths paraded here regarding Southern Protestant Oppression, so she had to be bullied off slugger and she was without too much protest may I add. Among the tactics used was the claim that this poster was a ‘pseudo’ that I had personally originated
Fact matters little in propaganda, what matters is 1)….. what you force your opponent to deny and then deny again, as even if they are right, when they are explaining they are loosing, and
2),….. what you can get the ‘target audience’ to believe about your opponent to demolish their credibility and sow doubts as to their ability, intelligence etc. The ‘pseudo poster’ ‘Masky’ gave some striking, if albeit chilling examples of this ability.
All these posts have one thing in common; they are all so obviously penned by the same poster, who it can at least be said picked an apt ‘handle’ for his main effort. However for the discerning person these ‘Clever Charlies’ cannot keep a sustained act together and leave tracks that are readily apparent.
Apparachics, irrespective of what system they trained in or serve, are the same everywhere, limited people who would not be doing what they are doing if they had other above average abilities. Spies, spooks and their like may have a glamorized TV and film Personas, yet initevably when their covers are blown and they stand exposed, they are seen, in the main, to be very unremarkable and limited people indeed.
******************
While Mick and editorial allow this farce of one poster, posting under a half dozen or more different ‘psudos’ this poster/poser is not alone giving a ‘two fingers’ to opponents such as myself, they are also doing so to every genuine poster on Slugger!
This goes well past an insult to the intelligence of the average reader, it also devalues each and every contribution made by genuine posters and it interferes with any meaningful exchanges that can take place. The latter of course is the real intent.
****************
That of course and anti-Republican propaganda, but just not any kind. Republicans up to the Ceasefire and for some time after came down a united road. As I have posted elsewhere once politics and the logic of politics fully took over from the Armed Struggle and this was accepted by Mainstream Republicans, distinctions and differences became inevitable.
However there still should be a commonality of interests and a shared ideal if not methodology, just as there is in certain Nationalists/Republican concerns and interests in the North and among Republican/ Fianna Fail people on the ground in the South.
When the Nationalist Revival movement began to emerge in the last quarter of the 19th, cent in the South, Britain worked furiously behind the scenes through agents to foment splits, divisions and suspicions. If they were to prevent an Independent Irish Nation emerging, then it was necessary to play up the social, cultural and historical differences. They often succeeded as in the Parnell Split.
The particular poster here, under the guise of castigating Britain for denying Ireland’s rights, use the facilities of slugger to in fact attempt to get groups inside the broad Republican family at each others throats, and externally to portray them and in particular the IRA as at best ‘misguided fools’ At every opportunity he portray the infiltration of the IRA by Brit intel.
( In fact that this same poster is a holder of a dual Israeli/ Irish citizenship and has in his Israeli capacity, probably served in the Israeli Forces { a reasonable assumption unless and until he states otherwise } then in that capacity he has been party to Oppression of The Palestinian Peoples using the very same tactics as the Brits used against the Nationalist Communities in the North…. and are still doing. At very least time and again he has personally and unconditionally backed Israeli activities in the West Bank!
It is a blatant two faced demonstration of rank hyprocicy to purport to condemn British Methodologies in the North while supporting these same tactics and strategy against the Palestinian Peoples in the Occupied West Bank and this alone says all there is to say about the sincerity of this particular poster on any subject.)
I have yet to see a full account from him as to how this same IRA leadership managed to tap into the main signals cable that was for the exclusive use of the British GOC in Northern Ireland and his top Brass giving the IRA Northern Command GHQ all the Generals signal traffic from his Whitehall masters until the ‘ Intel listening post was accidently blown by a third party unconnected with the British or the IRA..
This was the same IRA that Alias would have us believe the British were ‘running rings around’ and duping at all stages of their existence. Other details of successful IRA taps into Northern and Southern Security sources are now emerging in the ongoing Southern Tribunal and detailed in Phoenix Magazine and other media. But of course Alias also know this……. his purpose is, where possible, not to share this withthe general readership here as his purpose is anti-republican propaganda, not disclosing overall fact or imparting full information!
Republicanism is, like National Socialism, a discredited creed. Both had their Romanticist wing, both had failed chicken farmers, land grabbers, clumsy rewriters of history, self-servers, the tin foil brigade (the higher echelons of the SS and the Prophesies of Malachy crowd). Both, as this thread makes plain, had virulent anti-Semitic strains. The Austrian house-painter, for example, said Jews who fought in the Great War, were not real Germans (irony was not his strong point). Land grabbers believe Irish Jews are, well, not Irish.
It is the old, manipulative trick of driving a wedge between faith and fatherland. Ironic, of course, that Ireland’s most famous fictional character is a Jew but how and ever.
Republicans have not been on the same road in living memory. Some republicans stopped buying the Irish Press after Dev had Kearns hung and after George Plant, a Protestant, was shot by firing squad. The old non sectarianism of the Irish Citizen Army and of the Republican Congress time was displaced by the Provo Alliance, who gunned down all opposition as they took over “their” turf.
The word pogrom has been thrown about. But the Official Republican Movement wrote a pamphlet with that word in the title, detailing how members of the Provisional Alliance hunted them down in Belfast on the orders of The Bearded One, himself a deserter from the Official Republican Movement. Let us also remember the post PIRA ceasefire visitations to members of the IRSP (not INLA), RIRA etc as well as the sanctioned executions in Ardoyne and Short Strand. Then there is the narco terrorism
Provo Republicanism is a warped tree that can bear no good fruit. It that sense, McIntyre is also a victim. Their populist rants are just that, empty, opportunistic vote begging noise.
To again quote the veteran Irish Republican, Mairin de Burca, a curse on all their houses. That said, here is a good song about true republicans:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wQmdrx9uGY
MV, the problem with you burying your head so deeply in the sands of delusion and reality-avoidance is that you can’t see who is kicking your ass at any given time. sliabhluachra is Maskey but not Limerick. Limerick is another poster begining with D.
Getting back to the point on hand and away from an t-uas Walter O’Mitty, I have just spent a pleasurable few minutes on youtube listening to tributes to the fallen OIRA and INLA Volunteers. Though The Army of the People song has a nice air, both groups seem to prefer the Red Flag, done with an attractive Irish twang to it (pipes, wind instruments etc) as their Rolls of Honour roll out.
Though The Red Flag is probably as red as you can get, both groups have mass cards (for such as the late Joe McCann) and some other trappings of Hiberno-nationalism appended to them. Though, with both groups, some of them did try to articulate a left-wing Hiberno ideology of sorts, none of them were really up to it. And nor was McIntyre.
My youtube trawl also brought up this crap: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFz8zk4by5g&feature=fvwrel
Had some of the Hiberno nationalist ideologues been born elsewhere, they would be singing along to this and naming their marching bands after him. Lenny Murphy was a closet homosexual and the INLA killed homosexual (copper)s, much to the annoyance of the Official Homosexual Movement. Oly in crazy Ireland.
Irish Republicanism is, of course, not an ideology at all. Just look at the opportunists of Fianna Fail and Sinn Fein Provisionals to see that. Because it is a masonic flag of convenience (UI), the sooner the op killing cult of Irish Republicanism goes into the dustbin of history, the better for real politics
sliabhluachra
Murphy’s homosexuality and (presumably you mean deliberate ?) INLA targetting of gay RUC men – evidence ?
McIntyre did 17 years in jail for what? while mc Guinness in secret talks from1972 not one day behind bars NI. What was that all about? Today MMG British Stormont Minister- only good boys get rewarded lol.What happen to their cause united Ireland and the hunger strikers who died so the – the Godfathers could gain political power greed and control over the most vulnerable.It was a futile war. They said the sociopaths that they would never sit in the Dail -Stormont dictators rule, sociopaths are full of bullt.
RUC Officer Darren Bradshaw was shot dead by the INLA in the Parliament Bar, Dunbar Link, a Belfast gay bar,on 9 May 1997. The gay community lay wreaths at the well-known haunt and were aghast that vsome patriotic …… might have set up Bradshaw.
Prominent loyalists such as Skelly were also homosexuals and had to take special precautions on that account. The name of the East Belfast Provo escapes me, on Adams’ inner circle and did a few years late in the game.
I am not gay bashing here but just showing how grey are the waters. Lennie Murphy was full of self-loathing and it was not love that drove him or Skelly. Ditto many Republicans. I am not saying they got their kicks by dragging their defenceless prisoners into Fenian romper rooms but to say that the tracts of JF Lawlor, John Mitchell, PH P{earse and TW Tone were their main inspirations would be stretching it.
I was going to type that the more respectable lot came from republican families. This would inlcude the Moy McKearney/Fox family, many of the South Armagh Provo families (not too many tract readers there) and, to disprove the pouint, the extended Morrisson and Adams’ families.
Had the PIRA had the good sense to work by mafia rules, neither Danny Morrisson nor Gerry Adams would have been accepted into any wing of the Provisional Alliance.
Dixie Elliot, reality is a bitter drink
sliabhluachra
You are seriously sick, in fact, so much so I’m left wondering how the feck you can type while wearing a Straitjacket?
any other prooooof (sic), on the mull Mv?.
Point taken MV……
Dixie “…Point taken MV……”
Good let’s see if a few more take it on board also and this site may yet serve for genuine exchanges of views and shared dialogue as Mick intended !
Jimmy,
“You’re doing a grand job [to discredit Republicans].”
Before getting too caught up in rubber-necking (and I’d do the same if I were unionist), it might be worth recalling you did your own stretch on The Blanket with McIntyre et al.
http://www.google.com/search?&q=%22Jimmy+Sands%22+site%3Aindiamond6.ulib.iupui.edu%3A81
It made perfect sense for you, in terms of your political orientation and the intent of your writings, aiming to discredit Republicans.
It seemed to make much less sense for others, like McIntryre who ran the show, in terms of their ostensible orientation and intentions. One can only hope they got the gag.
Yet, politics does produce strange bedfellows, we’ve even lived to see the Chuckle Brothers perform at Stormont, something that seemed anathema to one and all at The Blanket.
Can we expect memoirs of your years on The Blanket? Or just rehash old material in collected works and give it a snappy title.
If it’s pitched right, you might appear on a dozen or more undergraduate reading lists (though it helps if you have friends in the business) . Don’t fall prey to false modesty; seize your place among the pantheon.
@Where does that leave the politicians in Leinster House? I’m not talking about members of FF or FG etc I’m talking about politicians in general who attack the corruptness of these parties yet remain part of the system they inhabit…
Imo it boils down to one thing,’Self-Interest’.The so-called left in the South are a joke.I tink a lot of the problems within ‘Republicanism’ stem from the fact that it’s been dominated by Belfast for the past forty years.Seamus Costello imo made one fatal error,aside from ‘armed struggle’,in his analyisis in the seventies when he said that it was essential to win over Belfast.I believe that Dublin was the key.The collapse of FF at the last GE and the failure of Sinn Féin has highlighted this fact,once again.The ‘Labour Party’,just like in the 1930s have been given a free hand.Cathal O’Shannon,’Labour Party’,when taking a swipe at the ‘United Front-Republican Congress’,of the 1930s, may as well have been talking last week when he said-
Quote-’Was it suggested that they exchange views with,say,Peadar O’Donnell?He had no views and never had any.The Worker’s Party and the United Front Movement were already split from top to bottom, nevertheless they want to unite and to exchange views with the Labour Party….If anyone wanted to exchange views let them come into the Labour Movement.’
What ‘Labour’ movement?
When asked on RTÉ the other night how many jobs they created since taking power nine months ago,the Minister for Employment start stuttering.100,000 jóbs plan?People are actually begging for work.They’re now taking money off ‘Single-Mothers’ in the next budget.Why?Easy targets.The ‘Socialist Workers Party-Socialist Party’ are another jóke.Advocating civil disobedience is well and good.Against what,and for what?They remain part of the system they inhabit….
“I’d do the same if I were unionist”
That’s where we differ. If I were a unionist I probably wouldn’t have written them. And if you can grasp that point I suspect you may be closer to answering your own question as to why (and this is my assumption, it was never discussed) they agreed to run them.
Still, so long as you enjoyed them.
Jimmy,
I do apologise if you were rubber-necking from a different lane, perhaps it’s a risk you take in irony, but it escaped me.
Your work at The Blanket displayed a lot more wit than others’; if that’s suitable for the blurb on a paperback, you’re welcome.
If I’ve misinterpreted your political orientation or intent, you could set the record straight.
To the poster Dixie Elliott,
it is your good self who is quite apt at giving your own version of what people earn or own or what they have achieved. It is your good self who wants to put on record what houses people may own or what they are employed at. This and other sites is testament to the tactics you employ. The proviso (no pun) is that those you lambast are connected to SF.
I am quite happy to have you wallow in that whingefest because you are irrelevant to the point at hand. The author of the book is quite happy to use the very tactics you employ. He is at pains to point out the records of anyone connected with SF that crosses his path.
In that respect it is right and proper to point out the feet of clay of the author, especially in the provision of fire traps for ordinary residents.
Unfortunately your latest post tails off into a bilious rant about my imagined friends in the USA. I always find that when a poster starts constructing fantasies from which to argue a point it is at that point thay are best left to chat to themselves.
Sliabhluachra-
@They’re National Socialists.
National Socialism is a very weighted term,and is a term used on a regular basis,by ‘Socialists’, to describe the ‘Socialism’ of ‘Republicans’.National Socialists like Adolf Hitler as we all know started with the Gypsys,and if anyone can be accused of ‘National Socialism’ i think the proof is in the pudding.Fianna Fáils Bertie Ahern calls himself a Socialist,and i’m sure he’s a Nationalist.A National Socialist.For example,before the Recession,at the height of the Celtic Tiger,the Roma Gypsys in Dublin got some Real Life Experience of ‘National Socialism’, Irish Style-
The Garda, acting on the instructions of Justice Minister Brian Lenihan,Fianna Fáil,served the Roma with deportation orders-By Claire Soares-Thursday, 26 July 2007
“Nearly a hundred Roma gypsies were flown from Ireland to Bucharest last night, bringing an end to a months-long stand-off that saw them living on a motorway roundabout in scenes more reminiscent of Delhi slums than Dublin suburbs. The group, all members of a single extended family, had journeyed to Ireland in the hope of taking advantage of Romania’s recent membership of the European Union. They wanted, they said, to find steady agricultural work in the Irish countryside and improve their standard of living.What they hadn’t reckoned with was legislation decreeing that Romanians and Bulgarians cannot work in Ireland without a permit, and can only stay legally for three months at a time before having to prove employment. Nor could they claim benefits, thanks to another law barring anybody – including Irish citizens – from claiming welfare until they have lived legally in the country for two years.And so the Roma set up camp on a roundabout in the middle of the M50, Ireland’s congested motorway, in the sprawling suburbs west of the capital. Here the group of about 90 people, including six-week old babies and sixty-year-old grandmothers, cobbled together makeshift shelters, pilfering tarpaulin, scraps of wood and rope from rubbish tips.”Conditions were very bad. The roundabout is in a sort of basin and with the horrific rain we’ve had, they were living knee-deep in mud and sludge, with no sanitation facilities,” said Sara Russell, the Roma co-ordinator for Pavee Point Travellers Centre, which has been assisting the group.The Roma are one of eastern Europe’s most persecuted people, but conditions at the site in 21st-century Ireland have shocked even experienced aid workers.With the smell of human excrement hanging in the air, the rotting food and piles of rubbish, two children from the camp were taken to a central Dublin hospital suffering from severe diarrhoea last week. Those youngsters that dodged disease could often be seen begging among the lorries, vans and cars on the motorway, prompting the AA in Ireland to warn about the dangers of a serious accident.”We were saddened that these people were left in this squalor for two months, while they waited for a minister’s decision,” Ms Russell said.”- By Claire Soares-Thursday, 26 July 2007.
Fine Gaels Darren Scully,has shown how ‘Nationalist’, ‘Democratic Rvolutionaries’ Fine Gael have become with his remarks about the ‘Blacks.’I wouldn’t help a Blackman.’-25/11/11.
Fianna Fáil solution to poverty-Blame it on the Gypsys. Fine Gael solution to poverty-Blame it on the Blacks.
Antoin : “…We were saddened that these people were left in this squalor for two months, while they waited for a minister’s decision,” Ms Russell said.”- By Claire Soares-Thursday, ….”
I have often represented Traveller Groups in their dealings with Councils, the last month long negocations that I was involved in only took place some months back.
I know that Dublin ‘site’ where the Roma camped…. if that is a word that could be used in this context. They should have not been allowed there for a whole day never mind the extended period that they were allowed remain there. The encampment was unsafe, it was unsanitary, it was an eyesore and it was a complete disgrace and another testament to the various Councils enforcing petty regulations such as parking to the hilt, while totally ignoring things that break a plethora of rules such as building regulations and campsites such as this.
While I have every sympathy for the Roma peoples and their discrimination, both historically and currently, certain activities of theirs are inexcusable and ‘camping’ on this site was one.
Their behavior was inexcusable, dangerous for themselves and their children on any number of grounds and it should not have been tolerated for a day, a couple of days or a week much less the protracted period it was and that transcends every other issue involved in regards to that site and whatever other rights they and the Roma peoples in Ireland collectively have.
MV-( In fact that this same poster is a holder of a dual Israeli/ Irish citizenship and has in his Israeli capacity, probably served in the Israeli Forces { a reasonable assumption unless and until he states otherwise } then in that capacity he has been party to Oppression of The Palestinian Peoples using the very same tactics as the Brits used against the Nationalist Communities in the North…. and are still doing. At very least time and again he has personally and unconditionally backed Israeli activities in the West Bank!
With all due respect ‘MV’,i have jewish relatives.Irish-jews to be precise.In the 1980s they had to ‘Squat’ in a derelict house accross the road from my mothers,before they emmigrated,due to the fact that there was an unemployment rate of 80% where i grew up.One of them nearly lost their life after a bomb blew a bus load of kids to smithereens.He was sick and didn’t go into school that morning.Apart from the fact that there’s a 40% unemployment rate in Gaza,and an 80% unemployment rate in Limerick(Ballinacurra),70%(Brandywell),75%(Ballyfermot),why do you think it’s necesscary for posters to state their position on the ‘West Bank?’-I could understand the position of the ULA-Sinn Féin,if ’1′ of their relatives were actually living in ‘Squats’,or died fighting for ‘Palestine’,but they don’t have ’1′ between them,do they?No.Just empty rhetoric…Trot in out the same lines year after year….
I actually remember the very first Anti-Gulf war protest in 1990,there were NO POLITICAL OPPORTUNISTs.
Perhaps todays ‘revolutionaires’,should take a leaf from the pages of Marc Becker-
Ethnicity And New Guerrilla Struggles In Latin America.-Marc Becker.
‘On his motorcycle trip through South America,Che visited the Inca ruins at Machu Picchu in the Peruvian highlands.He was impressed with the ruins and Inca history,he read literature critical of the social and economic marginalization that Indians faced,and he observed the misery and exploitation to which the Inca descendents were subjected.Still,he never seriously considered that their ethnic identity could lead to a type of consciousness that would result in a movement with revolutionary implications.’
Antoin : “….MV-( In fact that this same poster is a holder of a dual Israeli/ Irish citizenship and has in his Israeli capacity, probably served in the Israeli Forces { a reasonable assumption unless and until he states otherwise } then in that capacity he has been party to Oppression of The Palestinian Peoples using the very same tactics as the Brits used against the Nationalist Communities in the North…. and are still doing. At very least time and again he has personally and unconditionally backed Israeli activities in the West Bank…..”
First off I made it quite clear in the foregoing post, I could not give the proverbial fiddler’s F*** as to whether the poster concerned is Jewish or a member of ‘The Militant League Of Atheists’ as far as his faith beliefs go.
I do have quite a problem however with any Jewish person who declare their Jewish interests and then raise the specter of ‘anti-semitism’ to avoid open debate or comment on their attitudes or opinions. This is especially so since they well know that becoming involved in accusations of ‘anti-semitism’ is one of a public media editors worst nightmare and that such editors will always erred on the side of caution and extreme caution at that.
That may be a good polemic ploy on behalf of certain posters and a very useful club to beat political opponents with. It is also one guaranteed to bring all the politically correct brigade swarming out of the woodwork.
Any comments I make here cannot be independent of my past and current Republican stances that I took on certain issues. Neither can ‘Jimmy Sands’ comments however reasonable they may appear on a specific issue be taken apart from his ‘blanket’ or other periods of polemic diatribes against Republicans. That particular leopard has not changed his spots, his anti-Republican agenda is still the very same now as back then and therefore it is a valid comparison to contrast his past writings on Republicans with his current views and point out the continuity.
Republicans have moved on and Mainstream Republicans in particular have over a decade and a half of peaceful political activity now behind them and they have played a meaningful part in helping to transform Northern Society and politics on this Island. Read any of the ‘Blanket’ pieces and some of the offerings here in Slugger in past months and then it is very easy to see just how much ‘Jimmy Sands’ has moved on. He is still in the same rut banging on the same old drum.
At least Turgan in his anti-Republican stance has a transparency and the sincerity of his convictions ( however wrong they may be) and like Luther that he so admires, ‘there he stands, he can do no other’
Back to Alias and his stance, he purports to have a Pro Irish Sovereignty, Anti British Interference in Irish affairs stance . If so it is also quite reasonable to raise the activities of the Israeli Occupation Forces in the West Bank and parallel these with the activities of the British Army in the North and the latter’s treatment of the Republican/ Nationalist /Catholic populace.
It is total dishonesty and rank hyprocicy to completely and unqualifingly support the activities of the Israeli Army and Government in their brutalization, oppression and ongoing murder of the Palestine peoples and then to purport to feign concern about similar British Activities, both historically and currently in the Six Counties.
If this concern is not genuine, then all we are left with is situations and events opportunistically availed of to make Anti-Republican Propaganda. That attitude do not advance dialogue or exchanges of views, indeed it impedes it and that of course is the very idea and the real agenda !
This ( Mick and editorial please note ) is not ‘Manplay’ it is a valid contextualization of Alias if readers are to have an informed opinion on his sincerity…..or otherwise!
If only I received a euro for every time you lovingly dropped my name into one of your dissembling posts, I too could own a yacht…
Alias :”….If only I received a euro for every time you lovingly dropped my name into one of your dissembling posts, I too could own a yacht…”
Your constant record of attempted ridicule, denigration and mockery is there in slugger for all to see, especially in the lead up to ‘Maskey’ no 1 showing slugger a similar clean pair of heels as the bombastic Dermot Ahern showed to Gerry Adams when he was given a direct challenge in his own constituency.
The first dose of your own medicine you got back resulted in a ‘truce offer’ from you that you would stop the insulting if I did likewise, this despite the fact that you had fifty or more of such derogatory posts against me while I ignored you and your attempt to ‘take the heat off ‘Maskey’ 1. In short Alias you can certainly dish it out, you have proven that but you cannot take it when you are at the receiving end.
And in as much as yachts have anything to do with this, if I also had a euro for everyone of your insults and denigration’s I could afford to trade up ………and also have enough left over to fund a summer Mediterranean cruise as well!
“Their behavior was inexcusable, dangerous for themselves and their children on any number of grounds and it should not have been tolerated for a day, a couple of days or a week much less the protracted period it was and that transcends every other issue involved”
Good grief I think he’s finally got it.
And in as much as yachts have anything to do with this, if I also had a euro for everyone of your insults and denigration’s I could afford to trade up
Munsterview,
You have a yacht?
It’s called the Venus
Jimmy,
What was the Captain fit for?
JimmyS : “…It’s called the Venus…”
Just the one first letter of that name you suggested changed Jimmy and that about sums you up as far as the Republican community are concerned !
Genius?
Irish republicanism circa 2011:
The haves and the have yachts.
James Connolly-“Ireland as distinct from her people, is nothing to me: and the man who is bubbling over with love and enthusiasm for Ireland, and can yet pass unmoved through our streets and witness all the wrong and the suffering, the shame and the degradation brought upon the people of Ireland – aye, brought by Irishmen upon Irishmen and women, without burning to end it, is in my opinion, a fraud and a liar in his heart, no matter how he loves that combination of chemical elements he is pleased to call Ireland.”
@MV-”While I have every sympathy for the Roma peoples and their discrimination, both historically and currently, certain activities of theirs are inexcusable and ‘camping’ on this site was one.”
They were deported for being Gypsys,not because their ‘behavior was inexcusable’.
Fianna Fáil playing the ‘Gypsy card’.There was/is an estimated 30,000 millionaires in Ireland.There’s 2,000 Roma Gypsys.If by ‘certain activities’ you mean ‘the vagrancy law,1847,then i suggest you simply don’t put money in the cup.Irish Traveller Niall Dillon made a mockery of this ‘Law’ a few years ago,iirc,when it was found to be ‘unconstitutional’ for some bizarre reason.
Fine Gael are now playing the ‘Black card’.-i wouldn’t mind but the Dreadlocked kids playing outside my garden today with baldy skin head kids,don’t seem to notice a difference.Effectively what i’m saying is that yes,Fianna Fáil/Fine Gaelers are ‘stiring’ it.
@MV-Anti-semitism?-No.That’s one thing no Socialist Republican i ever knew could be accused of.I just think that there’s an element who ‘feign concern’ about the murder of the ‘Palestine peoples’ and ignore the Reality on the ground in their own back yard,ie.That your twice as likely to be unemployed in Ballinacurra-Ballyfermot or the Brandywell,as you are to be unemployed in ‘Gaza’.
harry_w
Someone once said that Scap was innocent….
As for Pat McLarnon, typically of Adamsism, he types a lot in reply, in order to hide the fact he has no answers…
Antoin : As I said I know that particular roundabout, I passed it a couple of times a month while it was occupied.
In blunt simple English, while farming practices in my childhood were primitive, never the less I have seen pigs in better conditions than people that roundabout. If any of the settled community or Irish Settled Travelers were in domestic house conditions that even in part paralleled the conditions there, it would have resulted would have resulted in an outcry from neighbors for the authorities to act.
MV : ”While I have every sympathy for the Roma peoples and their discrimination, both historically and currently, certain activities of theirs are inexcusable and ‘camping’ on this site was one.”
I still totally stand over that statement regarding the roundabout and the sanitary and other conditions there.
How the Roma were treated by the Irish Gardai and local government authorities is another matter. Did the authorities make use of the traffic island conditions as a justification and cover for their actions in rounding up Roma as ‘undesirables’ and shipping them back home ?
Very probably that they did but that do not change the fact that conditions on that site were unsafe for adults and children, were completely unsanitary and posed an unacceptable health threat for children.
Put it another way, if Irish Travelers were living like this on a site that an Irish Local Government council had statuary responsibility for, I would not have had the slights difficulty in organizing a whole raft of Court Orders for them against the Council concerned.
The Council were obliged to act in relation to the camp……. and they could have been sued for not acting! The wider issues raised, moral and legal are entirely another matter.
@MV-In blunt simple English, while farming practices in my childhood were primitive, never the less I have seen pigs in better conditions than people that roundabout. If any of the settled community or Irish Settled Travelers were in domestic house conditions that even in part paralleled the conditions there, it would have resulted would have resulted in an outcry from neighbors for the authorities to act.
As i’ve said-’ I just think that there’s an element who ‘feign concern’ about the murder of the ‘Palestine peoples’ and ignore the Reality on the ground in their own back yard,ie.That your twice as likely to be unemployed in Ballinacurra-Ballyfermot or the Brandywell,as you are to be unemployed in ‘Gaza’.
Man Shot Dead In Ballyfermot.Can’t wait to hear the outcry.
@If any of the settled community or Irish Settled Travelers were in domestic house conditions that even in part paralleled the conditions there, it would have resulted in an outcry from neighbors for the authorities to act.
One of my my earliest childhood memories,in ‘Life’,was being in a ‘Caravan’ outside my grand-mothers house,in a 2 x 3,in Drimnagh,before i ‘Emmigrated’ 2 the ‘Flats’(1 x 2),at the age of 3/4,and u can ‘Rest assured’,there waz No ‘Outcry’ then,nor has there been since,about,’Irish Settled Travelers’ livin’ ,’in domestic house conditions’, that ‘parallel’ those conditions,’from neighbors for,the authorities to act.’
Quite the opposite.
For example,when my head was used as a ‘Cricket Ball’,by the Gardaí,in front of 200 ‘Christians-Office workers’,in 2000,5 minutes from ‘DÁIL Éireann’, there wasn’t ’1 ‘Word Of Protest’.Nay,a ‘Hushed F+ckin’ Silence’.417B-Hope That U Remember ME.
@I still totally stand over that statement regarding the roundabout and the sanitary and other conditions there.
I’ll ‘Challenge U’,or ‘ANY MEMBER’(ADAMS,MCGuinness,etc.etc.,etc, ,of the’ , ‘REPUBLKICAN MOVEMENT’ to a ‘PUBLIC’ debate,regardinding ‘The Sanitary Conditions’ that ‘Travelers’ have 2 Liive in In Moder n Ireland.Anytime.Anyplace,u mad muppet…
and YES it ‘Twas Me WHO MADE the COMMENTS ABOUT PEADeophiles in FEBRUARY,during THE GE ELECTIONS-What have U got 2 say say ABOUT THEM…
What Is Sinn Féins Position About Peadeophiles In The South(AENGUS O’SNODAIGH,IN PARTICULAR)……
U want 2 Know Mine?……..Didn’t THINK SO-
I’LL B HONEST-I’D SHOO …….. Be Barred 4 Life….
U Mad Ra man T
May one respectfully suggest a possible change of Doctor and a definate change of medication for the New Year ?
Slainte!
@May one respectfully suggest a possible change of Doctor and a definate change of medication for the New Year ?
Slainte!
I haven’t taken drugs of any description for 5 years.
You may suggest what you like,a chara.The next time i’m approached by an active drug addict looking for ghossip,and info,which i haven’t got to give, outside the dole office,in Clondalkin,on behalf of the local village idiot,there’s going to be more than words exchanged.
This arguement goes back to the local elections in 2009,when ‘a’ local Elected by default,Sinn Féin representative had the neck to label me and others with labels that just didn’t fit.Your barking up the wrong tree.
Sinn Féin members attached to Lucan-Clondalkin are the ones who are’stirring it’.Your so far removed from the reality it’s a waste of my time and yours for me to explain myself.But believe you me,I Will React.Take what you want from that.I represent Nobody,But me.I’m all right in the eyes of my neighbours,and the community where i live.What you or anyone else thinks,doesn’t matter to me.
Slainte!
Mick Fealty-Could you kindly remove the following quotes please-
1)
29 December 2011 at 4:08 pm@May one respectfully suggest a possible change of Doctor and a definate change of medication for the New Year ?
Slainte!
I haven’t taken drugs of any description for 5 years.
You may suggest what you like,a chara.The next time i’m approached by an active drug addict looking for ghossip,and info,which i haven’t got to give, outside the dole office,in Clondalkin,on behalf of the local village idiot,there’s going to be more than words exchanged.
This arguement goes back to the local elections in 2009,when ‘a’ local Elected by default,Sinn Féin representative had the neck to label me and others with labels that just didn’t fit.Your barking up the wrong tree.
Sinn Féin members attached to Lucan-Clondalkin are the ones who are’stirring it’.Your so far removed from the reality it’s a waste of my time and yours for me to explain myself.But believe you me,I Will React.Take what you want from that.I represent Nobody,But me.I’m all right in the eyes of my neighbours,and the community where i live.What you or anyone else thinks,doesn’t matter to me.
Slainte!
2)
@I still totally stand over that statement regarding the roundabout and the sanitary and other conditions there.
I’ll ‘Challenge U’,or ‘ANY MEMBER’(ADAMS,MCGuinness,etc.etc.,etc, ,of the’ , ‘REPUBLKICAN MOVEMENT’ to a ‘PUBLIC’ debate,regardinding ‘The Sanitary Conditions’ that ‘Travelers’ have 2 Liive in In Moder n Ireland.Anytime.Anyplace,u mad muppet…
and YES it ‘Twas Me WHO MADE the COMMENTS ABOUT PEADeophiles in FEBRUARY,during THE GE ELECTIONS-What have U got 2 say say ABOUT THEM…
What Is Sinn Féins Position About Peadeophiles In The South(AENGUS O’SNODAIGH,IN PARTICULAR)……
U want 2 Know Mine?……..Didn’t THINK SO-
I’LL B HONEST-I’D SHOO …….. Be Barred 4 Life….
U Mad Ra man T
3)
28 November 2011 at 11:01 am
@MV-In blunt simple English, while farming practices in my childhood were primitive, never the less I have seen pigs in better conditions than people that roundabout. If any of the settled community or Irish Settled Travelers were in domestic house conditions that even in part paralleled the conditions there, it would have resulted would have resulted in an outcry from neighbors for the authorities to act.
As i’ve said-’ I just think that there’s an element who ‘feign concern’ about the murder of the ‘Palestine peoples’ and ignore the Reality on the ground in their own back yard,ie.That your twice as likely to be unemployed in Ballinacurra-Ballyfermot or the Brandywell,as you are to be unemployed in ‘Gaza’.
Man Shot Dead In Ballyfermot.Can’t wait to hear the outcry.
The Reason Is As Follows-I’ve become aware that the ‘guy’ that was killed was a drug dealer involved in the death of Liam Kenny-A local Republican,whom i never knew,but who i am quite sure was never involved with the drug trade.-I have no ‘Empathy’ whatsoever with the death in Ballyfermot-Im not condoning it either-
Yours sincerely,mise le meas,Happy New Year 2 You-
29 December 2011 at 3:42 pm
May one respectfully suggest a possible change of Doctor and a definate change of medication for the New Year ?
Slainte!
‘I would also like to confirm that the allegations made by Kieran Allen,the English Socialist Workers Party spokesperson in Dublin that ‘Republican Dissidents’ were involved in the Drug Trade is a lie’.-