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Risk of going beyond either/or…
This is article was first published in Fortnight magazine back in February 2003. Chris Farrington is now a Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Fellow funded by the Irish Research Council for the Humanities and Social Sciences’ in the School of Politics and International Relations, University College Dublin. Although the circumstances it describes has changed radically and [...] read our review »
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Books: Listening to Van Morrison…
Great little review of Listening to Van Morrison by Griel Marcus… It’s a short book, not a biography or a career survey, but an attempt to follow those moments in Morrison’s music, as he’s made it from his first records with Them, from Belfast in 1965 to the present day, when something happens that breaks [...] read our review »
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Lessons in Cute Hoorism: “Graft was accepted, for you were taking from the British…”
I’ve been catching up on some reading, recently. Most pleasantly surprised by John Drennan’s latest opus from Gill and Macmillan, Cute Hoors and Pious Protestors… It’s early days yet, but I was struck by this paragraph, part of a dissection of Fianna Fail near the beginning: One of the more fatal consequences of our colonial [...] read our review »
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Comment on Titanic Quarter: ‘Building bridges’ can bring an irresistible momentum…
on 24 January 2012 at 10:57 am
“There is no traditional ‘speaker’s corner” – except the traditional speakers corner in the custom house square marked with a statue called ‘The Speaker’. Which coincidentally is situated in one of Belfast’s nicer areas of public space. Of course Custom House Square is joined in this part of the town by the Waterfront, Bank Sq even the front of city hall…
I suspect the Titanic quarter will become more akin to the IFSC in Dublin, London’s Canary wharf or Liverpools Albert dock, some high value apartments occupied by those working in the business in the area, a few fancy bistros that close outside of office hours, a single shop and very very little else.
Heck if they’re lucky they may have their own private security firm
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Comment on Belfast’s built heritage: under threat, or hindering progress?
on 22 November 2011 at 3:39 pm
Is the building listed?
After all that red phone box on the junction of North St, Waring St and Bridge Street is listed so surely if the Athletic stores are that important in heritage terms the usual route would have been followed? (although I must confess asides from the corner doorway I’ve never seen anything particularly striking about it).
As with many other things Belfast’s built heritage has been scarred by the recent preoccupation of some to blow bits of it to smithereens but as people move about in different ways now the barriers (mental, physical and security based) have come down the city need a new rationalised plan – the areas from king street up to royal ave is in serious need of regeneration and if residential units play part of that (as in almost every city) then fair enough
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Comment on “The vast majority of people in Northern Ireland consider a Bill of Rights to be important”
on 16 November 2011 at 5:32 pm
“There is no evidence that people’s understanding was tested. This makes the survey difficult to take seriously.”
…same logic applies to elections but sure we work with what we have.
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Comment on Talking to Occupy Belfast camp in Writer’s Square
on 24 October 2011 at 3:50 pm
ho ho, scruffy hippies, thats a good ‘un
god forbid a group of young people should be concerned about unemployment, the economy, public services, inequality, the practices of the financial sector etc etc
Better they go back to arguing about various anniversaries or demanding hero status for your armed wing of choice and generally the rest of the tribal one-upmanship that marks our ‘mature’ political discourse.
Silly young people, won’t they ever learn?
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Comment on Republicans and loyalists unite to mark centenary of James Connolly arriving in Belfast
on 24 October 2011 at 1:59 pm
The so-called physical force movement of today in like manner bases its hopes upon the disgust of the people over the failure of the Home Rule movement; it seeks to enlist the people under its banners, not so much by pointing out the base ideals of the constitutionalists or the total inadequacy of their pet measures to remedy the evils under which the people suffer, as by emphasising the greater efficacy of physical force as a national weapon. Thus, the one test of an advanced Nationalist is, in their opinion, one who believes in physical force. It may be the persons so professing to believe are Republicans; it may be they are believers in monarchy; it may be that Home Rule would satisfy them; it may be that they despise Home Rule. No matter what their political faith may be, if only they are prepared to express belief in the saving grace of physical force, they are acclaimed as advanced Nationalists – worthy descendants of ‘the men of ’98.’ The ’98 Executive, organised in the commencement by professed believers in the physical force doctrine, started by proclaiming its adherence to the principle of national independence “as understood by Wolfe Tone and the United Irishmen,” and in less than twelve months from doing so, deliberately rejected a similar resolution and elected on its governing body men notorious for their Royalist proclivities. As the ’98 Executive represents the advanced Nationalists of Ireland, this repudiation of the Republican faith of the United Irishmen is an interesting corroboration of the truth of our statement that the advanced Nationalists of our day are utterly regardless of principle and only attach importance to methods – an instance of putting the cart before the horse, absolutely unique in its imbecility and unparalleled in the history of the world.
It may be interesting, then, to place before our readers the Socialist Republican conception of the functions and uses of physical force in a popular movement. We neither exalt it into a principle nor repudiate it as something not to be thought of. Our position towards it is that the use or non-use of force for the realisation of the ideas of progress always has been and always will be determined by the attitude, not of the party of progress, but of the governing class opposed to that party. If the time should arrive when the party of progress finds its way to freedom barred by the stubborn greed of a possessing class entrenched behind the barriers of law and order; if the party of progress has indoctrinated the people at large with the new revolutionary conception of society and is therefore representative of the will of a majority of the nation, if it has exhausted all the peaceful means at its disposal for the purpose of demonstrating to the people and their enemies that the new revolutionary ideas do possess the suffrage of the majority; then, but not till then, the party which represents the revolutionary idea is justified in taking steps to assume the powers of government, and in using the weapons of force to dislodge the usurping class or government in possession, and treating its members and supporters as usurpers and rebels against the constituted authorities always have been created. In other words, Socialists believe that the question of force is of very minor importance; the really important question is of the principles upon which is based the movement that may or may not need the use of force to realise its object.
Here, then, is the immense difference between the Socialist Republicans and our friends the physical force men. The latter, by stifling all discussions of principles, earn the passive and fleeting commendation of the unthinking multitude; the former, by insisting upon a thorough understanding of their basic principles, do not so readily attract the multitude, but do attract and hold the more thoughtful amongst them. It is the difference betwixt a mob in revolt and an army in preparation. The mob who cheer a speaker referring to the hopes of a physical force movement would, in the very hour of apparent success, be utterly disorganised and divided by the passage through the British Legislature of any trumpery Home Rule Bill. The army of class-conscious workers organising under the banner of the Socialist Republican Party, strong in their knowledge of economic truth and firmly grounded in their revolutionary principles, would remain entirely unaffected by any such manoeuvre and, knowing it would not change their position as a subject class, would still press forward, resolute and undivided, with their faces set towards their only hope of emancipation – the complete control by the working-class democracy of all the powers of National Government.
Thus the policy of the Socialist Republicans is seen to be the only wise one. “Educate that you may be free”; principles first, methods afterwards. If the advocacy of physical force failed to achieve success or even to effect an uprising when the majority were unenfranchised and the secret ballot unknown, how can it be expected to succeed now that the majority are in possession of voting power and the secret ballot safeguards the voter?
The ballot-box was given us by our masters for their purpose; let us use it for our own. Let us demonstrate at that ballot-box the strength and intelligence of the revolutionary idea; let us make the hustings a rostrum from which to promulgate our principles; let us grasp the public powers in the interest of the disinherited class; let us emulate our fathers and, like the ‘true men of ’98,’ place ourselves in line with the most advanced thought of our age and drawing inspiration and hope from the spectacle presented by the world-wide revolt of the workers, prepare for the coming of the day when the Socialist working-class of Ireland will, through its elected representatives, present its demand for freedom from the yoke of a governing master class or nation – the day on which the question of moral or physical force shall be finally decided.
- James Connolly, Physical Force in Irish Politics
(1899)
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Comment on Thoughts on the Liberal Dissidents
on 17 October 2011 at 5:35 pm
This whole thread is basically a massive facepalm
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Comment on Occupy Belfast – rebels without a cause?
on 5 October 2011 at 11:03 am
I’d be pretty proud if a kid of mine was aware of international politics/events at 13.
I think I was still playing computer games.
As for choosing city hall, why not? It’s long since assumed the role of a defacto speakers corner (or have I missed the powers Belfast City Council have over for example Palestine, Iran, dissident republican terror, water charges etc?)
Fair play to the organisers and best of luck
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Comment on And the winner was …
on 29 September 2011 at 4:44 pm
Any chance of sticking the questions up online ?
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Comment on Where have all Sinn Fein’s TD donations gone?
on 21 September 2011 at 4:48 pm
“Just curious but why do you feel any entitlement to that information?”
Because we live in a democracy
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Comment on The campaign always gets dirty near the end …
on 1 May 2011 at 8:26 pm
Thats great Ford but you must conceed that the photo at the start of this thread tends to suggest your comrades arnt as virtuous
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