Marian Price release

Because I’ve been holidaying in the West Country and away from TV and the papers, I’ve only just heard that Marian Price was released a week ago.  Mick Healy texted me that he was at a function in Dublin tonight for her.

Although the general coverage of the release – I’ve just been checking media – has centred on human rights, her health etc, the imprisonment was for political reasons and her release is a political victory for the unbroken and the unbought.

Now the energy that built up around Marian’s case needs to be focussed on Martin Corey, Stephen Murney and the other prisoners.

Death of Ruairi O Bradaigh

Mick Healy has just informed me of the death of Ruairi O Bradaigh.  I hope to get to the funeral but, in any case, I’ll be running a tribute to him as soon as I can.

In the meantime, there is an interview I did with Ruairi back in 1997, here.

The funeral is at midday Saturday in Roscommon.

 

Resuming transmission

I have been having a break recently, chilling out in the West Country.  I’ve seen my current favourite musician, Seth Lakeman, playing at the Bath Music Festival and then I went down to Newquay to see him play at Lusty Glaze beach.

Two memorable gigs, the Bath one an indoor gig at the Forum with a packed house of about 1300, the Lusty Glaze beach performance about 5-600 of us in this sandy cove on the outskirts of Newquay, dancing away as the sun went down.  Interesting audience at Lusty; next to me – I was right up front – was an old dear well into her 70s, dancing away with her walking stick.

Seth and his band playing ‘Setting of the Sun’, as the sun went down in the sea behind us at Lusty Glaze – spine-tingling.

Lusty Glaze is basically a little sandy cove, with cliffs on three sides, forming a sort of natural amphitheatre.  You go down over 130 steps to the little cove.  If you’re ever in Cornwall, catch the Sundowner sessions at Lusty.

Although I will be trying to get a few pieces up over the next couple of weeks, it may be early July before full transmission on the blog is resumed.

Mick’s filmed interview with Frank Keane is probably the next substantial thing we’ll get up.

 

 

No shared future: the north and the new sectarian dispensation

The following piece first appeared on the Socialist Democracy site, here

There is no mistaking the bookend manoeuvre inflicted on the Northern Irish administration at the start of May. At one end the British Secretary of State, Teresa Villiers, made threatening noises about cutting back the flow of grants unless there was some progress towards a more stable political structure.

At the other end of the bookend is a visit from President Obama, with the expectation that good news will be available about the growing maturity and stability of the Irish peace process.  One of its main uses outside Ireland has been to support processes such as the Middle East peace process and to get Palestinians to reduce their expectations about the future.

Let there be no confusion.  In Ireland itself, despite the absence of any formal opposition outside the small republican milieu and the far right of loyalism, the current settlement is in trouble and its imperialist sponsors are moving in with first aid. The fact is that the recent flag demonstrations have undone years of public relations work aimed at industrialists and the tourist industry and seen claims of impartial policing and a neutral democratic state exposed as false.

It is in this light that the space between the bookends, the latest initiative from First Minister Robinson and Deputy First Minister McGuinness, must be examined.

Despite attempts to talk them up, the new measures were met with disappointment, seen as timid steps that avoided the central problems. Criticism, even from the other capitalist parties supporting the peace process, was so harsh that it provoked a tirade of abuse from the dour First Minister.

In actual fact the situation is far worse than it appears. These emperors have no clothes. The steps announced are not attempts to counter sectarianism but a mixture of hot air and measures that accommodate sectarianism. The more contentious issues are kicked into the long grass, with very clear signs that Sinn Fein will once again capitulate to Loyalism and move the goalposts further to the right.

Many of the announcements focus on education and youth, shared summer schools, shared sporting facilities and shared campuses. They all have a long history, stretching back decades to “Education for Mutual Understanding” programmes. All were designed not to integrate education, but to provide a

Articles on 1916 figures

The éirígí site has been running a series of pieces on activists from the 1916 Rising, including those who survived and fought on.

Kathleen Lynn: http://www.eirigi.org/latest/latest110513.html

Winifred Carney: http://www.eirigi.org/latest/latest050513.html

Eamonn Ceannt: http://www.eirigi.org/latest/latest070513.html

Michael Mallin: http://www.eirigi.org/latest/latest010513.html

Tom Clarke: http://www.eirigi.org/latest/latest290413_2.html

Padraic Pearse: http://www.eirigi.org/latest/latest210413.html

 

 

Transforming your care: Stormont preys on the elderly

The piece below is taken from the Socialist Democracy site, here

The news of the proposed closure of residential care homes across the North has led to political chaos. Health minister Edwin Poots has been under attack from the public, from the relatives of the elderly people affected, from Sinn Fein and from his fellow DUP MLAs. The first and deputy first minister have issued a public statement condemning the handling of the issue and, by implication, Poots.

Poots himself, in a manoeuvre typical of the Stormont Circus, has distanced himself from the issue, claiming that no decisions have been made and a simple consultation exercise has been botched by his underlings in the Boards. He is contradicted by the facts. Ten of the thirteen Belfast homes have been closed. Private firms are already discussing with government the latest tranche of closures. 

Yet what the Sherlocks of the local media miss is

Some home truths from the recent Kildare Turf Cutters Association / National Parks and Wildlife Service meeting

Below is an article the Kildare Turf Cutters Association has submitted to the Leinster Leader:

The Kildare Turf Cutters Association (KTCA) including representatives from Mouds Bog (SAC), Ballynafagh Bog (SAC), Hodgestown Bog (NHA) and Black Castle Bog (NHA Edenderry) met with three executives of the National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) at Sarsfields GAA Clubhouse on May 1st 2013. It was explained that the KTCA was attending the meeting under protest, to a great extent, as many members did not see any merit in the meeting, but that the KTCA would not give it to Minister Jimmy Deenihan to proclaim that the KTCA was in some way unreasonable and would not meet him or his agents.

The meeting lasted for three hours and the position of both sides on many issues was clarified.

Fairness of relocation

The NPWS considers that relocation is the main remedy for the cessation of turf cutting on the raised bogs it has designated as Special Areas of Conservation. It also clearly states on its website that “The Government is committed, as part of the social partnership process, to the payment of a fair and proper level of compensation to landowners and users for actual losses suffered due to restrictions imposed as a result of their lands being included in formal proposals for designation as NHA, SAC or SPA”. The problem here however is – what is fair? And why does

James Connolly commemorative events

James Connolly Commemoration

12.30pm, Sunday, May 12

Arbour Hill Cemetery, Dublin

Main Oration: Ursula Ní Shionnain

 

James Connolly Lecture

3pm, Sunday, May 12

The Cobblestone, Smithfield, Dublin

Speakers: Aindrias Ó Cathasaigh (Historian and Author)

Dick Carroll (Trade Union Activist)

 

Yes to industrial action, but a new political movement is needed too

ICTU head David Begg: an example of what Connolly thought of as the labour lieutenants of capital

by Philip Ferguson

Free State taoiseach Enda Kenny’s reaction to the public sector workers’ rejection of Croke Park 2 has been to declare that workers in this sector, by their vote, have stripped themselves of protection from redundancies.  In effect, on April 24 he was saying that public sector workers, no matter how they voted or how the bulk of people in the 26-counties see things, had to accept either pay cuts or redundancies.

Welcome to all capitalism has on offer to workers in Ireland, either side of the British state’s border.

Meanwhile the latest Red C / Sunday Business Post poll, the results of which appeared in last Sunday’s SBP (April 28), indicate that less than a third (30%) of respondents support cuts to public sector pay, while 56% of respondents said the government should accept the position of the unions following their rejection of Croke Park 2.  Just over two-thirds of people also thought that if there was any spare funds in the system these should be used to reduce taxes on working people.

The rejection of Croke Park 2 seems to have caught both government parties, Fine Gael and Labour, on the hop.  Labour’s Brendan Howlin, responsible for public expenditure, had already compiled budget figures based on acceptance of the deal; namely, €300 million of pay cuts.   On RTE radio’s This Week on April 28 Labour junior minister Alan Kelly reiterated that, while there was

Socialism and Irish republicanism – the discussion continues

I’ve added my rejoinder to Rayner’s rejoinder to me.  Scroll down from Rayner’s piece at: http://theirishrevolution.wordpress.com/2013/04/24/socialism-and-irish-republicanism-an-exchange-of-views-d-r-oconnor-lysaght-and-philip-ferguson/