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TPQ
Maryam Namazie ✒ CEMB organised picnics at embassies that persecute those who refuse to fast during Ramadan on 18 March, including of Iran, Morocco, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.


On Atheist Day, 23 March, we also asked atheists to take a shot of Rum for atheists and ex-Muslims across the globe. Since it’s Ramadan, we will use the hashtag #AtheistDayRUMadan.













Maryam Namazie is an Iranian-born activist and Spokesperson of the
Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain and One Law for All.

Fast-Defying Picniics And Atheist Day Ramadan

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of Nine Hundred And Seventy Three

 

A Morning Thought @ 2126

Gearóid Ó Loingsigh ☭ writing in Socialist Democracy.

Leo Varadkar resigned as the high king of Ireland, sorry, I meant to say Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) and in true regal fashion his successor was chosen by a select cabal of the chosen Blue Shirts who have been in charge of this country for some time.

The anointing of Simon Harris as the new Taoiseach was a decision taken by a deeply unpopular party and was not the result of the balance of forces resulting from a general election. The south of Ireland has a parliamentary system, which means that it is parliament and not the people who chose the leader, though the only eligible candidates are those who have been elected to this parliament by the people.

New Taoiseach Simon Harris.

None of this formal democracy actually comes across as democratic. It comes across as what it is, the manoeuvres of hucksters, the corrupt, the so called great and good of society. Deals are done by businessmen, bankers, independent T.Ds who legally sell their vote to the biggest huckster in exchange for some local deal. So, the paving of roads in a small part of the country, could and does in practice determine the national outcome in choice of Taoiseach. It has been like this for quite some time, ever since Fianna Fáil lost any possibility of ever winning a majority and ever since Fine Gael lost the ability to do a deal with the treacherous Labour Party, which has proven itself willing to sell out time and again. Now a deal must be struck between three parties, FF, FG and the Greens plus a smattering of independents.

So, Harris’s anointment is not any less democratic than that of Varadkar’s or Martin’s before him i.e. it is quite undemocratic. We have put up with years of rotating Taoisigh without any election and instead the inner circle of the corrupt choosing from amongst their ranks. But this time the loyal “opposition” smell blood in the water and like sharks they begin to circle round, claiming correctly that the government was unpopular and that this in their view apparently necessitated a new election. It seems for the moment that this will not happen. All the claims and pushes for a new election have centred around the democratic value attached to his anointment. No party has been able to bring itself to say why the government should go. It is a right-wing government that has presided over a collapse in the health service, a housing crisis, cut backs, spiralling costs in the Children’s Hospital, not to mention the sheer wilful incompetency of an intellectually and culturally challenged coterie of corrupt landlords in thrall to international capital. But this is not the reason why an election should be called now as opposed to last year or in two months’ time.

The real reason that shows how unpopular and out of tune the government is, was the crushing defeat it suffered in two referenda in March. The government proposals were overwhelmingly rejected by the biggest margins ever recorded in referenda in the history of the state. The defeat was such a shocking blow to the government that its plans for another referendum on allowing the country to sign up to a European wide patents court looks like it will be shelved. Though patents and patent law can be complex it was the type of referendum the government would have been expected to comfortably win. But following its recent disasters, it is taking no chances.

The loyal “opposition” of Labour, Social Democrats, Sinn Féin and People Before Profit cannot bring themselves to demand the government stand down following the referenda failure because they were also defeated. All of the loyal “opposition” supported the government’s referenda proposals and did more campaigning than the actual government parties. Were they to use the referenda results as the reason for calling an election they would have to look in the mirror as the vote was also against them, in some areas of the country even more so. They have supported this government in all of its attempts to roll back women’s rights, housing rapists in women’s prisons, allowing men to participate in women’s sports, use women’s changing areas, erasing the word woman and female from legislation and from information leaflets from health authorities. They have supported and called for the imposition of the legally binding use of pronouns and self ID, something which has failed so far.

They have also supported the government in its attempts to introduce Hate Speech legislation. Hate was not defined in the legislation, the examples given to justify refer to actual acts of violence already covered by incitement to hatred or criminal harm legislation. Following the referenda defeat Sinn Féin saw the writing on the wall and has called for the government to withdraw the Bill it had previously supported, though the rest of the loyal “opposition” are still gung-ho for it all.

This loyal “opposition” not only supports the government in pursuit of misogynistic policies on women’s rights but also on other options. In the midst of the housing crisis, for example, they don’t counterpose the government’s ponzi scheme of constant house inflation with universal public housing, but rather with subsidies and sops to the construction industry, talking of affordable, or really affordable or even more affordable housing. Anything other than a break with the market and the ponzi scheme in housing.

The loyal “opposition” differs on technical matters, exact wording of the referenda, a clearer definition of hate, how much money landlords should make from the housing crisis, and on this last point none of them say they should make no money. They all want landlords to make lots of money and FF, FG, Greens, Labour and Sinn Féin are full of landlords. No one justified the call for an election because they are all complicit with the mess we are in and all of them bear responsibility for the reactionary referenda proposals and the disaster that followed. They prefer to point to technical matters rather than policy, as they essentially agree with policy and bicker over minutiae rather than substance.

⏩ Gearóid Ó Loingsigh is a political and human rights activist with extensive experience in Latin America.

A New Taoiseach 🚥 The Election No One Dare Justify

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of Nine Hundred And Seventy Two

Christopher Owens 🔖 With April 15th marking the centenary of his birth, it’s fitting that Belfast’s literary circles are reappraising the work of Pádraic Fiacc.




Although celebrated by the likes of Michael D. Higgins, Terence Brown and Gerald Dawe, his work is often overlooked in favour of others that he would have deemed (unfairly in some cases) as “pee the bed poets”. Growing up in Hell’s Kitchen before moving back to Belfast ensured he did not suffer fools gladly.

Published in 1986, Missa Terribilis (a reference to the feast of Peter and Paul) is a howl of despair emanating from the darkest, loneliest forest imaginable. By this stage, the conflict had been going on for 20 years, it had been over 10 years since the murder of friend/poet Gerard McLaughlin and Fiacc’s alcohol intake wasn’t healthy. Hence the whole mood is one of bleak anger.

Consider the following poem, ‘A Slight Hitch’ (layout as per book):

“We wanted to think it was the quarry,

But the pigeons roared with the white

Smoke, black smoke and the ghost



-faced boy broadcaster,

Fresh from the scene, broke down

Into quivering lips and wild



Tears (can you imagine, and him

‘Live’ on the TV screen!),



Had to be quickly replaced

So that the news could be announced

In the usual cold, acid

And dignified way by the



Northern Ireland British

Broadcasting Corporation.”

Notice how the tone manages to encompass cynicism, sympathy, weariness and mock horror at the same time to create something so caustic? It’s quite impressive and the myriad of emotions help lift it beyond what could have been (in other hands) a simple polemic piece?

As a diversion, ‘The United Ireland of the Seventies/A Qui Tollis’ (dedicated to Henry McDonald) depicts a world where

“Behind backstreets of Belfast, bombings

And killings go on to maim

Today and tomorrow’s flint

-eyed ‘killer kids’, emerging

from brick-wall wombs with

Blood-drained faces, while, to the death

Choking on their own vomit from the booze,

The terrible great worry in Dublin is

Whether or not to legalise

The Wearing of the Sheath.”

By suggesting that nothing would change in a united Ireland, he (perhaps inadvertently) invokes Connolly’s line about hosting the green flag over Dublin Castle wouldn’t change anything unless there was the will to do so. It’s also worth wondering if this is where Robert McLiam Wilson stole his “description” of our own Mackers.

Adopting different voices and splicing elements of black humour throughout, Missa Terribilis still has a visceral power after nearly 40 years because of how unflinching it is in its depiction of violence and hatred. The imagery is hard to shift from the mind but, crucially, there is defiance running through the book which lifts it beyond the realm of confessional or polemic poetry.

With the recent launch of a new anthology, as well as his work being translated into Irish for the first time, this is the time to celebrate an underappreciated (and quietly influential) Belfast writer.

Padraic Fiacc, 1986, Missa Terribilis, Blackstaff Press. ISBN-13: 0-856403601

⏩ Christopher Owens was a reviewer for Metal Ireland and finds time to study the history and inherent contradictions of Ireland. He is currently the TPQ Friday columnist.

Missa Terribilis

A Digest of News ✊ from Ukrainian Sources ⚔ 15-April-2024.

In this week’s bulletin

⬤ Ukrainian socialists on life in the army.
⬤ Ukraine in Russian imagination.
⬤ Russian prisoner’s speech from the dock.
⬤ Plus forced disappearances in Crimea.
⬤ Plus war crimes investigations.
⬤ Plus Russian crackdown on LGBT+.

News from the territories occupied by Russia

Russian traffic police used for enforced disappearances and FSB terror in occupied Crimea (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, April 12th)

‘He called to set Kremlin on fire’ (Tribunal for Putin, April 12th)

Crimean Tatar imprisoned for refusal to ‘publicly repent’ protest over Russia’s war against Ukraine (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, April 11th)

Russia admits to holding Ukrainian journalist Dmytro Khyliuk (Kharkiv HRPG, April 9th)

Russia sentences abducted Ukrainian Baptist volunteer to 20 years on insane ‘terrorism’ and ‘spying’ charges (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, April 8th)

How Russia cracked down on the LGBTQ+ community in Crimea (Zmina, April 7th)

The situation at the front

Ukraine could face defeat in 2024. Here's how that might look (BBC, April 13th)

Tanks but no tanks Russia makes breakthroughs along the front line in Ukraine, but its equipment losses could be a point of vulnerability (Meduza, April 9th)

News from Ukraine – general

Independent Trade Union of Mineworkers mission to the front (12 April, Confederation of Free Trade Unions of Ukraine)

Children of the Underground: How Kharkiv’s schoolchildren study in the subway amidst constant Russian shelling (The Insider, April 12th)

Over 600 civilians killed and injured by Russians in March (Ukrainska Pravda, April 10th)

Ukrainian medical students fight for their rights (Ukraine Solidarity Campaign, April 9th)

Roma also defend the country and suffer from the war – Tetiana Pechonchyk (Zmina, April 8th)

Ukraine initiates war crimes probe after Russians kill unarmed Ukrainian POWs in Kherson oblast (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, April 8th)

In Kyiv, human rights defenders discussed with international organisations the necessary steps for Ukraine to protect victims of the war (Zmina, April 5th)

A theatre from Mariupol is being reborn in Ukraine, the director of which ZMINA helped take out of the occupation (Zmina, April 4th)

War-related news from Russia

‘Children behind bars’ Russian minor detained for anti-war statements (Meduza, April 12th)

Volunteers (including one who helped Ukrainians cross the border) (The Russian Reader, 12 April)

A Russian soldier’s story: ‘He had no chance’ (Meduza, 10 April)

Russia’s propaganda lies to accuse Ukraine of its own terrorism (Kharkiv HRPG, April 10th)

How Russia manufactures FPV drones to kill Ukrainians (The Insider, 9 April)

Russia recruited women prisoners to fight in Ukraine. Six months later, they’re waiting to be deployed (Meduza, April 9th)

Speech from the dock by Azat Miftakhov, Russian political prisoner (The Russian Reader, 31 March)

The Russian Orthodox Church Declares “Holy War” Against Ukraine (Understanding War, March 30th)

Analysis and comment

“If we didn’t join the armed forces, the left in Ukraine would cease to exist,” says Taras Bilous (Europe Solidaire, April 13th)

Leaving Ukraine unable to defend its skies makes Russian invasion of other countries a question of time (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, April 12th)

Dmytro Vovk: Is it possible to ban the Ukrainian Orthodox Church? (Kharkiv HRPG, April 12th)

“Ukraine is much closer to those countries that undergo transformation processes” Oleksandra Romantsova speaks about event she attended in South Africa (Centre for Civil Liberties, April 10th)

«Democracies have to support each other even stronger» – Oleksandra Matviichuk at Nobel Prize Dialogue Brussels (Centre for Civil Liberties, April 9th)

Palestine, Ukraine and the crisis of empires (People and Nature, April 8th)

No path to peace in Ukraine through this fantasy world (People and Nature, April 8th)

Ukraine in the Russian imagination (Hanna Perekhoda, Ukraine Solidarity EU, April 2nd)

Ukrainian authorities’ legitimacy when elections are impossible (Opora, April 2nd)

Research of human rights abuses

‘I saw a plane drop a bomb on my house’ (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, April 12th)

‘240 houses were razed to the ground, and 700 were damaged’ — resident of the village of Zahaltsi (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, April 10th)

Upcoming solidarity events

UCU members for Ukraine webinar: Ukraine’s economy and post-war reconstruction, Thursday 25 April, 7.0pm UK time.

Freedom for Maksym Butkevych: on line campaign event, Tuesday May 14th, 7.0pm UK time

🔴This bulletin is put together by labour movement activists in solidarity with Ukrainian resistance. More information at Ukraine Information Group.


We are also on twitter. Our aim is to circulate information in English that to the best of our knowledge is reliable. If you have something you think we should include, please send it to 2U022ukrainesolidarity@gmail.com.

We are now on Facebook and Substack! Please subscribe and tell friends. Better still, people can email us at 2022ukrainesolidarity@gmail.com, and we’ll send them the bulletin direct every Monday. The full-scale Russian assault on Ukraine is going into its third year: we’ll keep information and analysis coming, for as long as it takes.

The bulletin is also stored on line here.

To receive the bulletin regularly, send your email to:
To stop it, please reply with the word “STOP” in the subject field.

News From Ukraine 💣 Bulletin 93

 

A Morning Thought @ 2125

News Letter ✒ Kingsmills was a “war crime on a par with Bloody Sunday and Ballymurphy” according to the writer and historian Anthony McIntyre – who was once a member of the Provisional IRA himself.

​Mr McIntyre rejected previous republican attempts to deflect from the IRA’s responsibility for the massacre – which last week’s inquest ruled was an “overtly sectarian attack by the IRA”.

He said: 

I have heard a prominent Sinn Fein member speculate that the INLA might have been responsible. I regard this as spurious nonsense, designed to deflect.
My view is that truth and reconciliation calls from Sinn Fein are a subterfuge to mask an ongoing strategic thrust against the British and political unionism.

He said this:

reinforces the hierarchy of victims phenomenon by effectively proclaiming that the victims of the British are entitled to the truth but the victims of republicanism are not. It is not logically possible to ethically square that circle.
I have said publicly on a number of occasions that Sinn Fein meeting British monarchs cannot be about reconciliation. If Sinn Fein was motivated by authenticity on the issue of reconciliation, it would, at the very least, tell the victims of IRA war crimes such as Kingsmills that the IRA was responsible for them.
The Kingsmills war crime, much like the Disappeared, projects very dark blemishes onto the sanitised narrative of republican armed struggle.
Demands from any quarter for half the truth are transparently insulting and belittle any notion of reconciliation.

Sinn Fein’s Gerry Kelly said the Kingsmill families “are entitled to truth and justice” in a statement dominated by demands for an end to the UK Legacy Act.

⏩Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.

Kingsmill Was War Crime On A Par With Bloody Sunday And Ballymurphy, Says Ex-IRA Man

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of Nine Hundred And Seventy One

Caoimhin O’Muraile ☭ When I was a lad football made the world go round. 

Throughout working-class areas of England, Scotland, and Wales (the six-counties were a different scenario, a war was raging) various cultures from Pigeon Racing, Greyhound racing and training, to keeping and breeding whippets and bare-knuckled fights were present in many areas but the overarching meaning of life was football.

As the late great Bill Shankly, our nemesis but well respected, once remarked, ”football is more than a game, it is a matter of life and death.” Very true Bill because that was literally the case! All we lived for were Saturday afternoon and Tuesday or Wednesday nights if we had a game. Missing a match, come what may, was not an option. All that mattered in life for me was Manchester United FC, and all which went with following them. School and later work came secondary to the match and we had no time for those middle-class irks who claimed to support a team but never took the trouble to go to games, “part time supporters” of the highest order in our view were these despicable souls. It didn’t matter who the team was and where the fan or fans may have lived as long as they attended games was all that counted.

For example, a couple of lads from Aberdeen, Scotland, travelled regularly down to watch York City play, a fourth division side, now that was dedication! Standing on the terraces and being part of the culture as the atmosphere built up created by the fans themselves was almost as important as the game itself. My team, as mentioned, is Manchester United and back in those days I would be at every game, home, away and abroad, even friendlies, plus occasional reserve and junior games. On our travels, we would often get into altercations with the supporters of Liverpool, West Ham, Leeds etc, it was all part of the ‘awayday’. 

The London based Man Utd fans, the Cockney Reds who were a law unto themselves, would regularly be fighting at Euston station on their way to Manchester because invariably one of the London clubs would be playing up north. Chelsea or Tottenham could be playing away at Everton or Sheffield for example so for them the day started before boarding the 7.45 to Manchester. The girls were as fanatical as were the lads, though in those days they were a minority, but those who did go were as barmy as their male counterparts. The packed terraces often provided an opportunity for sexual encounters between the lads and lasses as the terraces of the Stretford End at Old Trafford, the Kippax at Maine Road, the Kop at Anfield I dare say and the Gwladys Street End at Goodison provided perfect cover for a quick shag!! Urinating at half time was often done on the terraces as getting out to the toilet (bog, or trap stones) was easier said than done. Great days, great times.

Football was also a means of keeping fit. We all had local teams and played on the local green or in the street. Traffic was not as busy in the sixties and seventies as today and playing football in the street was a regular pastime. ‘Gratey’ was another version of football we played, involving two players and, as the name suggests, a grate or drain at the side of the road built into the kerb acted as goals and the ball was either a stone or a tennis ball. The tennis ball was the right circumference to stick in the grate if a player scored. Scrubbed knees were regular wounds suffered but crying to mammy was not allowed. We were all in our junior years in those days. I can still hear various mother’s voices, including mine, calling out, “get your arse in its school tomorrow” on those summer nights when we were playing football. Nobody took any notice of the first call but eventually a hand would grab the back of the neck and being dragged physically homeward was always the net result. 

There were five-a-side games played indoors and the ball could not go above head height. These were often on TV. A midweek sports programme called ‘Sports Night with Coleman’ was aired and presented by a great commentator of his day, David Coleman on BBC1. I can remember back in the early seventies Manchester United being on in the five-a-side final at the Empire Pool, Wembley. United fans caught the authorities off guard as about two thousand turned up. This was unprecedented at these games, usually watched by local neutrals. Not on this occasion, it was like a mini-Old Trafford indoors and as United had a shite season this tournament became a magnet for United fans. These were great days and a great culture ruined by the murderous aims of big business greed in modern times.

The nineteen-sixties and seventies could be described as the age when modernism came to the younger generation of the times. On the beaches of Southern English seaside towns in the early sixties mods and rockers would fight it out, often ruining people’s holidays. Another culture, or sub-culture, was also developing and that was the football fan of the times. Skinhead gangs (in those days multi cultured and mixed raced, unlike the gangs of the eighties) in the sixties were just beginning to appear on the streets along with a sub-division called Boot Boys and these gangs were replacing the immediate post-war Teddy Boys. Most of these new gangs were football fans and introduced something to the terraces, the terrace chant. Singing at matches had gone on long before but not in the coordinated way these newcomers mastered on the terraces. Hitherto most songs were sung by individuals in public houses, now they were brought to the terraces. 

The old school cloth cap brigade of the forties and fifties was slowly and, I might add, reluctantly making way for the teenage revolution. At the 1963 FA Cup Final played out between Manchester United and Leicester City, United winning 3-1 with two goals from David Herd and one from new signing Denis Law, the British national anthem was played for the last time after the game. From then on, the anthem would be played before the FA Cup Final kick off. The reason for this was the United fans celebrating their team’s victory, five years after the Munich tragedy, would not keep quiet and just kept singing in chorus their own anthems which had fuck all to do with the monarchy, apart from Denis Law being King! This was also the first game to be played under an all-covered Wembley Stadium so the roof acted as an amplifier thus giving the vocalists, thousands massed on the terraces, great acoustics. This was also the age of the wall art, or graffiti as some of our detractors wished to call it, the spray painting of whose team ruled and whose end was the ‘hardest’ began appearing on walls and buildings around large inner cities. On one estate in the early seventies on the wall surrounding a working-class enclave in Manchester was written; MUFC LOYAL SUPPORTERS WE RULE thus advising any visitor this was a United fans estate. Other club’s supporters did similar in their areas, Bootle for example in Liverpool, or Wallsend in Newcastle.

Songs on the terraces of the sixties and seventies were, in many cases, works of lyrical art. The imagination and changing of words to the airs of many chart-topping hits of the day were something which the bourgeois elements who attend football grounds today could only marvel at! It was very much a working-class cultural thing of the times. Teenagers would often spend their school hours writing a song for Saturday's game, handing out their finished work at the Stretford End at Old Trafford or the Kop at Anfield turnstiles for consideration during the game. Some caught on, others did not. Whether the person's work was used or not, there can be no doubt a lot of imagination was used in composing them. An example of such imagination would be a remake of Max Boyce’s Welsh Rugby Song: Singing for the Songs Arias, our version Singing for the Munich Martyrs would go along these lines:

Down to Arsenal we did go for our annual trip
a weekend out in London Town without a bit of kip, 
two seats reserved for beer by the boys from Wythenshawe,
and it was beer, pontoon, crisps and fags and the King is Denis Law. (Chorus) 

And we were singing, for the Munich Martyrs, of Man Utd the Busby Babes. 

Into Euston we did roll with an empty crate of ale, 
Ron had lost at cards again and flogged his Daily mail, 
but he still looked very happy, and we all knew what for,
he’d swapped a photo of his wife for a picture of Denis Law (chorus). 

There were many more verses but the reader will get the level of imagination and this was only one of many Manchester United supporter’s songs of that era.

Many of the songs which reverberated from the terraces at Old Trafford and, I understand Anfield, were composed by the fans themselves. Many a school hour was spent writing songs for Saturdays game at the educational establishments of both Manchester and Merseyside. Liverpool fans tended to look to the very popular Merseybeat during the sixties for their inspiration, and many an altered version of popular songs could be heard on the Kop each Saturday.

At Old Trafford United fans tended to use any music, not least Irish republican songs such as “We’re off to Dublin in the Green, in the green” was altered in 1968 to “We’re off to Europe in the Red, in the Red, Denis Law will dazzle in the sun," to compose their songs around. Another one was Mary Hopkin’s 1968 hit “Those were the Days my Friend” which I understand was after a trip to Leeds who had just opened their new impressive Kop behind one goal, the Gelderd End, which Man Utd fans got on in 1968, repeated the following season 1969, “Those were the days my friend, we took the Gelderd End" became an altered version for many Reds something Leeds fans still have not forgot. It was altered again many times to accommodate a team’s end United fans took. 

It was a cultural pastime away from home, taking the host teams fans territory. At the Etihad, modern home of Manchester City, the song Blue Moon adopted by the Kippax Blues back in the day, Man City’s huge popular terrace at Maine Road is now sang by another very expensive PR man working for a company employed by the club. United fans list of songs in those days was limitless. After Arsenals FA Cup Final victory at Wembley over Liverpool in 1971, winning 2-1 (and the league FA Cup domestic double) in extra time with a blistering shot from Charlie George. The Arsenal fans made up a song, “he shot, he scored, and all the North Bank roared Charlie George, Charlie George, he shot, he scored….”

Today in the soulless stadia which were once our homes, full time PR companies are employed by the club owners like the Glazers to create an artificial atmosphere once created by the fans ourselves. At Old Trafford some burke sings Glory, Glory Man Utd and encourages fans to join in, what a fucking joke, who is this comedian nicking our songs and regurgitating them for supporters to sing along to? At Anfield many of us may have seen the flags on the stand which was once the Spion Kop before the game. These flags do not belong to the fans but the PR company who give them out to supporters sat in strategic places to maximise effects on TV. Once kick off has been blown these flags are taken back into storage for the next opportunity. Watch closely the next time a Liverpool night game is televised live as stewards can be seen taking these flags away. When Liverpool score at the one-time Kop End there are no flags, just scarves and they are less in number than the days of yore. All the scenery before the game, once genuine, are phoney. 

At Old Trafford singing anti-Glazer songs are banned, not that it makes much difference, and wearing anti-Glazer scarves is not allowed. One employee was dismissed for wearing the green and yellow scarf, which is the old colours of Newton Heath, Manchester United’s former name, because it was seen as being anti-Glazer. The once mighty and feared Stretford End is now becoming a joke, as is the Kop at Liverpool, the Gwladys Street at Everton, in fact all the old popular working-class cultural havens across the game. The end of an era as today’s game and atmosphere at any of the once mighty grounds is no match for the sixties, seventies and eighties.

Caoimhin O’Muraile is Independent Socialist Republican and Marxist.

Death of a Culture 👥 Murder by High Finance 🎬 Act Ⅰ

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of Nine Hundred And Seventy

 

A Morning Thought @ 2124

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