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Christopher Owens 🏴“You wanna hear something really heavy? You Wanna Hear Something That’s Gonna Kick Your Balls Off?”

So said Conrad ‘Cronos’ Lant, bassist vocalist for Venom when on stage at Trenton Gardens, New Jersey in 1986. Although funny in isolation, the attitude sums up Venom: defiantly loud for the crowd and oozing self-confidence.

Something that Cronos had in abundance.


Born in London but moving to Newcastle Upon Tyne at a young age, Lant made a name for himself working at Impulse Studios in the city as a tape operator/assistant engineer. He later recalled that having to work with so many small-time bands who merely wanted to be clones of what was already going on at the time fuelled his rage and desire to make Venom stand out.

And stand out they did.

By fusing punk rock (with an awareness of the nascent UK82 acts like Discharge and The Exploited), heavy metal and the theatrics of Alice Cooper and David Bowie, they created something that was faster, uglier and much more evil sounding than the likes of Iron Maiden.

Lant told the Guardian that he:

. . . had that snot and piss and shit element, which I wanted to put back into metal. I saw more and more bands shoving socks down their pants and putting lipstick on, and I just was disgusted by that, to tell you the truth. Fucking hell, if heavy metal was anything it had to be raw and dangerous and in your face.

In terms of the theatrics, he once wrote that himself, guitarist Mantras and drummer Abaddon:

. . . had decided on using stage names very early on. I thought it would be lame to be singing about Satan and Demons and all the dark forces, and to have basic normal names. I felt it wasn't right, we needed names to fit the personalities, something more formidable and demonic. That was always my problem with Ozzy. He’d sing about dark figures then spoilt it all by going, 'Oh God, help me!’ Duh, Wrong! That was stopping one step short of where I wanted to take this band. We were prepared to go beyond the Hammer Horror of Black Sabbath.

 


I discovered Venom in 2006. Like many a thing that has influenced me in my lifetime, it was thanks to Killing Joke.

A review of their (then) recent album Hosannas... compared it to Venom (which was a bit off) so it made me track down Welcome to Hell and Black Metal. Two astonishing records that blurred the lines between Iron Maiden and Discharge. Pretty much ground zero for thrash metal, death metal and black metal. Later records were more miss than hit, but this year's 'Into Oblivion' is actually a great record so at least they went out on a high.

Because of that drive and determination to do something different, he was a divisive figure.

Cro-Mags guitarist Parris Mayhew recalled that:

Cronos was a jerk to Cro-Mags when we played with Venom. Our bass failed and we were on stage standing in front of a hostile Chicago metal audience with a bass that didn’t work with an audience chanting “fuck you go home!”. We asked to use his bass and he said, “$200.” And put out his open palm. Dick.

In his book Get in the Van, Henry Rollins wrote that:

Venom took almost an hour to get onstage. They had roadies tuning their guitars and shit. Finally, they hit stage. They were hilarious. It was like seeing Spinal Tap. The drummer had a guy that held an electric fan next to him and kept him high and dry. The singer/bass player was named Kronos [sic]. He had some great raps. He got the crowd to chant what I thought was 'Black Funky Metal' over and over, which I thought was pretty cool and then I thought that maybe I was wrong about these guys. I found out later that it was 'Black Fucking Metal.' Oh, excuse me. I expected them to go into [the Spinal Tap song] 'Sex Farm' at any second.

Regardless, they changed music for the better with their first two records and praise will always be forthcoming from me.


⏩ 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 and is the author of A Vortex of Securocrats and “dethrone god”.

Conrad “Cronos” Lant

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of Two Thousand One Hundred And Ten

 

A Morning Thought @ 3281

Paudie Sullivan ✍The stand-off on Garvaghy Road—where thousands gathered to prevent an Orange Order parade from forcing its way through the community—was not a staged political demonstration. 


It was a collision between a community refusing to yield and a political establishment caught totally off guard.

The Orange Order’s historical presence on the Garvaghy Road was never a neutral exercise in civil liberty. It was a coat-trailing exercise from its inception. The march was deemed "traditional" only because it established a route designed to project power into a Nationalist enclave. A parallel route of similar distance and timing exists nearby through a Unionist area where the parade would be warmly welcomed. The persistence on this route—historically marching outward through Obins Street to Drumcree Church before forcing its return journey down Garvaghy Road—was built on the explicit logic of an orange state that treated Irish Catholics in Portadown not as neighbours, but as a population to be contained.

Garvaghy was not merely a housing estate; through decades of systemic discrimination, disenfranchisement, and violence, it was a sanctuary. It was where a marginalized community could live, rest, and exist away from the daily structural violence of a state designed against them. To demand that this community absorb an unwanted procession—historically accompanied by Loyalist bands and at times masked paramilitaries, and set against a backdrop of local Catholics murdered during periods of heightened parade tension—was to demand that they accept the visual and physical language of their own subjugation.

This isn't an old grievance being dragged out for an annual airing. The Northern State was constructed by the British state as a sectarian entity. Its schools, housing, social relationships, party politics, and physical infrastructure were engineered to keep two national identities in permanent, unequal opposition. The Orange Order was mobilized at key historical junctures precisely to preserve that arrangement—whether fuelling the dockside pogroms during Partition or breaking the working-class solidarity that briefly unified Protestant and Catholic workers during the Outdoor Relief strikes of the 1930s. Whenever material conditions threatened the ruling unionist establishment, the sectarian valve was opened to realign class interest along tribal lines.

The Good Friday Agreement was supposed to have drawn a line under that structural dominance. For twenty-eight years, the prohibition on the Garvaghy Road parade functioned as a practical recognition of that reality: that the triumphalism of the orange state could no longer be forced upon a community that had borne the brunt of its violence. In Derry, where a unionist majority was absent, the parade issue eventually settled into a manageable reality, with the vast majority of annual marches passing without conflict. But Portadown was the citadel.

When the Parades Commission abruptly overturned nearly three decades of precedent, it struck at the foundational premise of the post-1998 settlement which ironically had managed sectarianism for almost three decades.

Sinn Féin’s leadership was blindsided. Operating in executive mode, managing Stormont's optics, and preparing to navigate an upcoming Assembly election in May, the party leadership was accustomed to managing and triangulating such crises. But the working-class residents on Garvaghy Road left zero room for political manoeuvring.

Outside the court, Breandán Mac Cionnaith anchored the community's resistance directly in the dead left behind by decades of loyalist violence:

21 people, 21 deaths, 21 families... every one of those murders impacted deeply on our community. For somehow or other we felt that we were to blame for standing up for our rights that those people had to die... we are going in there on behalf of those 21 families who lost their lives at the hands of loyalists.

Addressing the wider mobilization, he cut through any idea that this was an isolated local dispute or a bargaining chip to be managed: "Ireland's behind us. Ireland's standing for justice here." To the PSNI on the asphalt, his message was stark: there would be "no negotiation" over forcing the march back down the road.

That unshakable stance turned the road into an existential red line for Sinn Féin. The party leadership—including First Minister Michelle O’Neill—did not stand on that asphalt to lead a movement; they were dragged there by the sheer weight of community anger. To have stayed away, or to have offered the usual muted calls for calm and dialogue while an Orange parade marched down Garvaghy Road, would have meant political annihilation in the very working-class nationalist communities that form their bedrock. They had to stand on the road because the residents made it impossible for them to be anywhere else.

For the DUP, the flare-up provided a convenient distraction, diverting public scrutiny in a week where former leader Jeffrey Donaldson faced pre-sentencing for serious historical sexual offenses. But the spectacle also exposed the party's hollowed-out authority. Standing alongside Jamie Bryson—an unelected loyalist campaigner acting in a self-styled legal capacity outside the courts and at Drumcree—senior figures like MP Carla Lockhart and Upper Bann MLA Jonathan Buckley allowed an external activist to set the pace and command the microphone. Alliance Leader and Stormont’s Justice Minister Naomi Long captured the absurdity of the arrangement, calling on DUP leader Gavin Robinson to "focus on doing his job, rather than abdicating responsibility for leadership of unionism to Jamie Bryson."

It poses an inescapable question for mainstream unionism: has the party of government effectively abdicated its political strategy to the street? In attempting to cover its right flank, the DUP leadership visually confirmed that they no longer direct the movement—they simply follow behind the microphone held by unelected loyalist agitation.

The PSNI issued its legal warnings, and unionist politicians cited statutory duties and the rule of law. But the law can only regulate a confrontation; it cannot explain it, and the law in the North of Ireland belongs to an inherently sectarian state apparatus.

The argument on Garvaghy Road was never genuinely about a stretch of tarmac, nor was it a procedural dispute over public order. It was the physical manifestation of an unresolved contradiction at the heart of the GFA: an attempt to reassert historical dominance inside a settlement that was supposed to end it, met by a community that refused to let their political leaders compromise away their sanctuary.

It was not the past returning—it was the working-class base exposing the limits of political management, and proving that when the foundational mechanics of the state reassert themselves, the ground is held by the people standing on it, not the politicians trying to direct them.

⏩Paudie Sullivan is a socialist activist.

Drumcree Crisis 🪶 Walking Back The Clock

Simon Smyth ✍ I was at the paperback launch of Omar El Akkad's book One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This. 

The author was interviewed by the award-winning novelist Michael Magee. A portion of the proceeds were given to the worthwhile cause, MAP (Medical Aid for Palestine).

Apologies for anything factually incorrect below. I am going by my memory of tonight's event and not a recording or notes so I'm perhaps not telling it right at all. I also haven't read the book yet. This piece is heavy on paraphrasing and my own thoughts thrown in. So be warned.

There were so many profound, thought-provoking ideas from the author I was getting lost. It was a little like listening to a complicated radio show in another language, not knowing a word, thinking about it briefly, working the word out and then finding you've lost the track of the conversation.

He gave an interesting back story on his work as an journalist. He reported on Afghanistan, Guantánamo Bay military trials, the Egyptian Arab Spring, and Black Lives Matter protests in Ferguson.

He used to be a tech correspondent as well and he said the only thing that mattered was Amazon Corporation's quarterly profits and that they must be higher than the same quarter the year before. Which is another story but interwoven in the anti-social fabric of today's neoliberal world where the middle ground is the problem.

He made a convincing argument for replacing the current geo-political system, arguing that it is destroying the planet. It's a world where billionaires are accommodated but nobody else. The system of international law has broken down and it has directly led to a genocide where no-one intervenes.

A Palestinian lady from Gaza asked the first question. She spoke for a few moments and explained how, when her father told her (when she was safe in a Western country) that she was the last of their bloodline, she didn't feel sad but a kind of warm feeling knowing the importance and purpose of that. It was immediately shocking because I knew that this was not only the truth and a natural feeling it was something I would never have considered because of my comfortable life here.

The author spoke a lot about the middle ground and of turning a blind eye, and how it is in many ways worse than the vocally pro-genocide person. The people looking the other way are dishonest, like a smiling assassin I suppose. He gave the example of Ed Sheeran, and it confirmed the criticism he got from others. The 'nothing to do with me' attitude.

He said the honesty of Trump, not mentioning human rights on his state visits to Saudi Arabia, compared to Biden's insincere forked tongue when he gave short speeches on the subject, was in many ways better as you knew what you were dealing with.

He was asked about armed resistance and he said that he was a pacifist but not a committed one, as his tax dollars pay for the genocide yet he still pays his taxes to avoid going to jail. He said he can't tell people who are suffering how to resist and he said if half his extended family were wiped out he really doesn't know how he'd react. Some people, he said ,internalise and others fight back.

He was also asked if he had hope, and he said he often gets asked that. He went on to explain that if the people getting slaughtered in the ongoing genocide still have hope, who the fuck is he to say he doesn't have any?

He talked about the invisible people, the people from South and South-East Asia who work in places like Qatar. who are brought over to work in a system a little above people smuggling. The disenfranchised. They are promised more money than they make at home and when they arrived find it is less than promised - those who died every day when the stadiums were being built for the World Cup.

He gave an analogy of a house where there are termites gnawing away in the basement and the majority are at ground level with the billionaires in the master bedroom. If you look out the window and see other people building a different house, but they don't have strong carpentry skills but there's no termites in the basement what would you do?

⏩ Simon Smyth is an avid reader and collector of books.

Termites In The Basement

Caoimhin O’Muraile ☭ The United Nations does do some sterling work around this troubled planet we are pleased to call home for now. 

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) does Herculean work helping children across the globe who have no water, no education, no parents, and are constantly coming under attack from so-called grown-ups in air-planes. These supposed adults drop bombs on civilians, including the elderly, children, schools, and hospitals, kill their parents and friends, deny them doctors and nurses leaving these Palestinian and other children in war torn countries to become self-reliant pretty quickly. 

Children are always the innocent victims of war, still at a stage in life’s development, which most of us go through, when they should be mastering Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic at daily class. Instead they are learning the art of survival. Gaza, in Palestine, is coming under daily attacks from the Israelis usually, though not exclusively, from the air and it is the children who are bearing the brunt of these adult activities. They suffer daily due to the lack of education facilities and when needed medical care. While doctors and nurses not yet killed are doing their level best under impossible conditions the children of the Gaza Strip often have to travel miles to secure very basic health care and fresh water, sometimes even this essential is in short supply and carries parasites and diseases.

Wherever war hits a region the UNCEF personnel will be found doing trojan work helping these otherwise orphaned children. This area of UN work cannot be questioned they are beyond reproach. Another of the UNs high commissions is the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) set up in 1950 by the United Nations General Assembly, originally to help millions of Europeans who had fled or lost their homes during WWII. In 1951, the UN adopted the Refugee Convention, which became the legal framework guiding UNHCR’s work by defining what a refugee is and outlining their rights. UNHCR personnel like those of UNICEF are all doing yeoman’s work in their own right and many people alive today would be not so without them.

When, in 1945, the UN Charter was drafted and Article 2 of this document explicitly established the “sovereign equality of all its members” questions should have been asked. The contradiction to this apparent egalitarianism is highlighted in Article 27 which simultaneously granted obscene Veto powers to five permanent members (the P5). These countries were and are; the Soviet Union, the United States, the United Kingdom, Tawain, and France. Tawain would be replaced by the Peoples Republic of China in 1971 somewhat belatedly as more and more countries recognised the government of Mao Tse Tung including three of the P5, Britain, France, and USSR. 

The creation of the P5 is considered a huge anomaly because the countries which comprise this gang carry absolute unquestionable right of veto and no such powers apply to the rest of the 193 in total (including P5) member countries. There is a two-tiered membership at the UN with countries like Belgium, Ireland, Holland, Australia, Kenya, India and so forth not holding the same level of membership as the P5! This loophole is plain to see and means states tasked with enforcing global peace can themselves violate the UN charter and block enforcement actions against themselves. 

For example, the United States say they are trying to stop the Iranian nuclear programme, the existence of which is questionable, by bombing the crap out of them. The Iranians were tricked into believing they were involved in talks over its nuclear programme with the US when Trump struck! The US President then states he could “obliterate” the “Islamic republic” by bombing them out of existence and nothing can be done by the UN to stop him. Trump would, as a P5 member, just veto any such move against the US or any actions by that state bombing Iran. 

In Russia Vladimir Putin is in a similar position with his often termed ‘illegal war’ in Ukraine. Putin, like Trump, continually breaks international law simply because it does not apply to him or any of the P5 countries. Recently Moscow stated their military objectives in Ukraine will be reached “no matter the circumstances”. They can afford to make such grandeur statements because even if the other 192 (including the remaining four P5 members) voted against Moscow Putin would just use his veto. 

When Trump kidnaped Venezuelan President, Nicolas Maduro, who was a member of the ‘Socialist League’ and later when the League merged into the ‘United Socialist Party of Venezuela’, ranted on and on about Maduro being involved with drug trafficking with no evidence to support such claims. Evidence or no evidence was an irrelevance because Trump has his veto which overrides even the strongest evidence against the US claims making the UN powerless to stop the madman in the White House. 

Trump disagreed with Maduro purely on ideological grounds and the fact Venezuela had gallons upon gallons of oil which the US considered to be theirs and would have irrespective of the UN. Any proposed UN actions against the US would be vetoed by the Trump administration. Under the rules of the UN Trump or any other P5 leader can basically do what the fuck they like with no repercussions. Essentially if the US had invaded Greenland there would have been nothing the UN could have done about it except perhaps voice opposition to such an invasion. Britain has committed many crimes in the Six-Counties and got away scot-free, certainly from the UN, because in no small way they are Permanent Security Council members. France, another one of these ‘laws unto themselves’ gang, in Algeria and other former colonies of the Fifth Republic, have committed countless crimes against humanity in these lands. China, and Tiananmen Square in Bejing springs to mind, and the massacres of protestors there in 1989 - if the UN wanted to do anything China would use its veto. Once again, no action was taken against the misleadingly called, very misleadingly, ‘Chinese Communist Party’ which are anything but! Why? Because the Chinese government would simply veto any proposals to chastise them.

The UN, despite what we are told, was and is not designed to be an ‘objective court of global justice’. The perception of the United Nations sitting magnanimously over global disputes and resolving problems without the need for war is for the politically naïve and illiterate. Since its birth in 1945 one of the organisations initial tasks was to ensure major dental surgery was carried out on itself by itself! The UN were themselves the Dental Surgeon who carried out the dentistry removing the teeth from the fledgling organisation, and the chief Dental Consultants were the P5. The whole farcical system was rigged from day one by the victorious allies of World War Two ensuring they would never face consequences for their own actions no matter how aggressive. 

Other countries not in the P5 club but who do enjoy the arm of protection. Israel protected by the USA, can, under that protection, also do what the fuck they please. A glaringly obvious example is the Israeli actions against civilians, bombing hospitals and schools in Gaza. Israel enjoys the protective arm of the USA, and particularly under Trump, know the US will use its veto preventing any action against Tel Aviv. 

In Ukraine Russia simply vetoed any action to be taken against itself and knowing Ukraine is not a NATO member country a confrontation with another major power was and remains unlikely. The Korean War (1950-53) was backed by the UN security council with the exception of the USSR. This was not because the Soviet Union was ignored by the rest of P5 but moreover because they were ‘boycotting the Security Council meetings’ therefore they did not cast their vote. Had they not adopted this policy and been in attendance the events which covered the Korean peninsula for three years and one month would not have happened; the Soviets would simply have used their veto preventing any UN action or backing against North Korea. As things turned out for the USSR it gave them a chance to pitch their Mig fighters against the US without going head-to-head in direct confrontation. The Soviet Union’s equipment fared favourably and the question could be asked regarding the Soviets boycotting the Security Council, was there an ulterior motive behind their actions?

This United Nations costing billions of dollars are presently (at the time of writing) meeting in New York. Benjamin Netanyahu has an International Arrest Warrant on his head. The USA, one of the P5, do not recognise this warrant so the Israeli criminal is safe. A similar warrant is also on the head of Vladimir Putin but he is not in attendance. This is not because he fears arrest but moreover because all Russian flights over the USA are banned by Congress. Trump could not lift this ban even if he wanted to. A high-powered Russian delegation is in attendance having travelled by alternative means. All Netanyahu had to do was avoid the airspace of those countries likely to enforce the ICC Arrest Warrant. This was done by hugging the Mediterranean coast avoiding such countries as Spain, who would ground the flight, and other hostile lands. This makes the journey much longer which is why cargo and personnel to save fuel was cut to the bare minimum. Once in US airspace the criminal is safe among fellow crooks.

In reality apart from the earlier vital facets of the UN, UNHCR, UNICEF, the organisation is a toothless guard dog. It can occasionally put in a pair of dentures to inflict bites on smaller countries it deems have broken the rules or international law and make examples. These are meaningless interventions compared with any attempt to stop a P5 member. If this crowd wish to hold little get togethers, like in New York at the time of writing, perhaps a little Lyons tea and coffee shop would be sufficient for their needs, not this expensive ritual which carries no weight of importance. 

Ideally the remaining 188 non-P5 members should be aiming to abolish this veto enjoyed by the P5 countries, will they do this? Well, this veto system has lasted eighty-one years, so why interfere with a working formula the P5 gang would in all likelihood argue! Any further attempts at reform would be met with? Yes, the veto!
 
Caoimhin O’Muraile is Independent Socialist Republican and Marxist.

The United Nations 🪶 A Toothless Monolith?

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of Two Thousand One Hundred And Nine

 

A Morning Thought @ 3280

Jim Duffy ✍ Neale Richmond made an interesting comment on Virgin Media on defence. 

Unless he misspoke, he suggested that Ireland intends to effectively double defence spending within the next two years. If he was mistaken, I would have expected the Taoiseach or the Minister for Defence to correct him. They have not done so.
 
He suggested that in two years, Ireland's defence spending will rise from €1.65b to €3b. That would raise Irish defence spending to 0.54% of GDP - still the second lowest in Europe but off the bottom. Ultimately it needs to reach 0.85%, which is the current average spend of neutrals. That number is increasingly all the time as Austria has passed 1% of GDP and aims to reach 1.2% - funded by special VAT imposed. Switzerland is increasing year by year to reach 1% by 2030. As the others increase the spending the average will increase. Even Malta, currently second from bottom at 0.38%, is finally increasing its defence spending.
 
That would be a credible achievement. Perhaps the humiliation of realising how inadequate Ireland's defence is when planning for the EU presidency woke up the government to the need to dramatically increase defence spending. In addition, it is worth saying that the previous Minister for Defence, Simon Harris, and the current minister, Helen McEntee, are taking defence seriously - despite having a very demanding brief with Foreign Affairs, Trade and Defence. (Eamon Gilmore had Foreign Affairs and Trade and said it was too much for any minister to both together. Leo, ignoring Eamon's advice, insisted in taking Trade into the brief again.)
 
In both Britain and Ireland, a similar phenomenon has happened. The Minister for Defence or Defence Secretary was highly critical of the chronically inadequate funding given to defence, with the British Defence Secretary resigning over it. Both men, Simon Harris and John Harris, then ended up in the job that had been blocking defence spending - Harris as Minister for Finance, Healy as Chancellor of the Exchequer.
 
I will certainly applaud the government if they bring Irish defence spending to 0.54% of GDP. However that has to be just a step on the road, and not an end point. Ireland needs to have a properly funded, staffed and equipped Defence Forces with 11,000 serving in it, a navy of 12 ships including frigates and not just patrol boats, enough personnel to reverse the steep decline in patrol days, and to have the proper number of ships to patrol our EEZ, with each ship double-crewed. The air force (as the air corps is being renamed in a new bill. Most countries dropped the old name 'air corps' a century ago. The US replaced the Army Air Corps by the Army Air Force in 1941 and in 1947 a new United States Air Force (USAF) was created.) needs to reverse the decision in the 1990s and create a proper military using jet fighters. It has been nuts expecting the Air Corps to police both the Irish sovereign air space and Irish-controlled space without jet fighters when the planes entering it are jet-propelled. It is like expecting the Gardaí on bicycles to chase criminals on motorways.
 
Martin as a dithering Defence Minister was opposed to having an air force with an intercept capability, being content to let the RAF do it (despite the RAF having a severe lack of planes itself). Harris quickly realised that Ireland needed to have a proper squadron of jet fighters to do the standard air defence done in all neutrals but Malta.
 
Add to that a new bill will fundamentally reorganise the Defence Forces - with the air corps being replaced by an air force, the naval service replaced a proper navy, and the three elements, army, navy and air force each with their own head, over which there will be a Chief of Defence replacing the Chief of Staff.
 
The result will give the defence forces a proper modern structure and not one stuck in the mid-twentieth century.
 
No doubt some people with their usual paranoia will conclude that this is all about joining NATO. Neither Ireland, not Austria, nor Switzerland, nor Malta have any intention of joining NATO. Nor is NATO wanting them to join. Of the neutrals, only Cyprus wants to join NATO, but it is likely to be blocked by its old enemy Turkey. Turkey invaded Cyprus in the 1970s and occupied the north of the island, setting up an internationally unrecognised state there.
 
Countries joining NATO have to accept international borders. For Turkey, recognising Cyprus's de-jure ownership of the island would probably be unacceptable to Turkey. Accepting Cypriot membership would delegitimise its already illegitimate state on the island.
 
The issue of borders is why ultimately Ireland decided not to join NATO in 1949. Recognising international borders would have meant Ireland accepting partition on the island, and that Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom. Ireland had been on the brink of joining, and then External Affairs minister Sean MacBride told both the Dáil and the Seanad that Ireland fully supported the creation of NATO and its aims and made it clear that Ireland was not neutral in the rivalry between the communist world and the West. He made it clear that Ireland was on the side of the West.
 
Yet, in 1955, when Ireland finally joined the UN (Stalin had repeatedly vetoed it, but he was now dead) as it all UN members it accepted all existing international borders, including partition.
 
The reason Ireland is increasing its military spending and re-organisation of its Defence Forces is to reach the standard of other neutrals.
 
That said, Ireland, Austria, Switzerland and Malta issue on caveat on NATO. Absolutely none of them have any intention now or in the future of joining NATO. However unknown events outside their control, or NATO's, may force them to make a decision they do not want to make.

If one had asked Sweden or Finland up to the 24th February 2022 whether they would ever join NATO the answer would have been clear. "Absolutely not." That remained the case even though Putin made aggressive threats against both. Sweden was flabbergasted why he was targeting them. They had never fought a war in two hundred years. They had been neutral all that time. Putin's bizarre fixation on Sweden seemed to be linked to the fact that his hero, Peter the Great, had fought repeated wars against Sweden. But the days of Sweden as a major military power with an empire were centuries gone.
 
Finland declared its independence from Russia with the fall of the Tsars. The Soviet Union had invaded Finland twice, and taken part of its territory, but it was flabbergasted that after a hundred years of independence Putin seemed to be questioning Finland's right to exist.
 
Both countries treated Putin's threats and his 'Russkiy Mir' vision as just posing to win the support of Nationalists, but which he had no intention of acting on. Experts all over believed that - until 24th February 2022, when he did carry out one of his threats and invaded Ukraine.
 
That stunned and worried both Sweden and Finland, plus the Baltic states, and Poland (attacked by Russia 19 times in its history). Sweden and Finland were so concerned that they did the unthinkable. They decided to join NATO for protection. Public opinion swung from opposing joining NATO to demanding they join NATO faster than political opinion.
 
The one concern for Ireland, Austria, Switzerland and Malta is that specific threats against them by Putin could force them to do the one thing they didn't want to do, and join NATO for their own protection as they could not protect themselves.
 
In reality, only two of the four are under any risk: Austria and Ireland. Malta is tiny (eight times the size of the Aran Islands) and geographically irrelevant. Switzerland is as always protected by its geography with its mountains.
 
Putin's 'Russkiy Mir' (Russian world) has as one of its basics something he put this way: 'If Russian soldiers were ever on your territory, you belong to us and we are taking you back.' Unfortunately, Soviet Red Army soldiers occupied eastern Austria from 1945 to 1955 following World War II. That means that he could claim Austria according to his own warped logic. Some years ago the then Austrian Foreign Minister unilaterally proposed that Austria join NATO. The reaction was overwhelmingly "absolutely not." However Austria was shaken by the aggressive threatening Russian response that stressed the Soviet Union's presence in Austria and implied that because of that it had the 'right' to intervene. Its tone was "You are ours."
 
As a neutral, unlike Ireland and Malta, Austria is well protected. Its military 16,000 to 22,000 active-duty personnel and roughly 125,600 reservists. Austria requires all able-bodied male citizens to complete mandatory military or civilian service upon turning 18. The fear is though that Austria may face more Russian threats and bullying. Its doesn't want to left exposed as Ukraine was when Merkel with crass stupidity blocked Ukraine joining NATO.
 
The reaction is Austria is unambiguously "we have no intention of joining NATO. None whatsoever." Leaders however say "but threats by Putin may leave us with no choice."
 
Luckily, Russian soldiers never set foot in Ireland so it isn't covered by Russkiy Mir. Its problem is geography. We have created a world in the West entirely dependent on connectivity. That connectivity depends on data cables. They are Europe's and NATO's biggest weakness. Seventy-five percent of data cables every bank, every business, every citizen, every hospital, everyone, depends on are located in and beside Ireland's Exclusive Economic Zone, in the Celtic Sea.
 
Ireland militarily could never defend them even with a full strength military. We asked NATO to police them, with we aiding them. Russia has made it absolutely clear that they are arguably one of its top three targets if a war starts. Russia's spy ship the Yantar has repeatedly surveyed them for attack points. The Russian navy has repeatedly appeared around them. A Russian nuclear submarine, possibly carrying nuclear weapons, based itself in Cork harbour. We have no sonar (though some is due to arrive next year) so we had to rely on the Royal Navy to inform us on the presence of the sub, and then we had ask it to drive it out of Cork harbour.
 
Another Russian target is to destabilise the EU. One way it tried was to encourage illegal arrivals of migrants along European borders to create a public backlash. Ireland is a net contributor to the EU budget, while, along with Malta being the least protected country. It is exceptionally vulnerable in terms of electricity supply. It depends for gas for its gas-powered electricity generation on three interconnectors in the Irish Sea. Those interconnectors have been repeatedly targeted by the Yantar. On one occasion the government had to get specialists to check the interconnectors amid fears the Yantar has planted explosives. No explosives were found but that may be because its mission was interrupted when the Royal Norwegian Navy alerted Ireland to the Yantar's presence and that it was sending down underwater drones to the interconnectors.
 
Ireland did a detailed study as to what the effects would be if the interconnectors were damaged. Russia had damaged interconnectors and cables elsewhere. The result of the study, named Operation Cathal, were stark. It would take six months to repair the interconnectors. Ireland's gas-powered electricity generation accounts for 48% minimum of Ireland's electricity. Ireland would face six months of rolling blackouts all over the state. Major employers who use lots of electricity would be cut off for the period to give priority to electricity supplies to homes, hospitals, etc. The economic cost, including loss of taxes, would be colossal. Vast numbers of jobs would be lost.
 
Ireland because of its weak defence is exceptionally exposed and vulnerable.
 
Ireland has been targeted for cyber-attacks. Russia attempted to build a major spy communication headquarters at its Dublin embassy. Russia legally owns the land the embassy is on, but not the area underground. The Irish government banned it from building it. Satellite images suggest that Russia may well have built it anyway.
 
Ireland's location is problematic for another reason. The 500-mile stretch of ocean between Iceland and Scotland forms a crucial part of the GIUK Gap (Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom), a premier strategic naval chokepoint. Russia has on a number of occasions had submarines based just off the Donegal coast for use in hostile actions in the GUIG gap. Again, Ireland's weak defence leaves an opening that Russia exploits.
 
Russia increasingly sends its so-called 'shadow fleet' through Ireland's EEZ. That is problematic in a host of ways. Many of the ships are barely seaworthy. They fly false flags, claiming the ship is registered in, and has been verified as seaworthy in, the country whose flag is flying. In reality that country has nothing to do with that ship and has never inspected it for seaworthiness.

Countries have a right to board ships in its EEZ and verify that its cargo is legal and all the required documents are possessed. Neither is the case with the shadow fleet. Nigeria finds its flag is regularly flown by the ships despite it having nothing to do with it, the ship not being registered there and never having been inspected for it.

Quite apart from the contraband cargo, the appalling state of the ships is a very real threat to Ireland. Should one sink, they would devastate Irish fishing grounds and the west coast of Ireland with oil, yet the ships are not insured, and in such a poor state that when one is seized by a state the owner never claims it, as it is not worth the effort.
 
Again, Ireland's inadequate defence means Russia knows it can use Irish waters for its unsafe unseaworthy ships carrying contraband.
 
Ireland's security has been repeatedly targeted by Russia. Between 2017 and 2020 Tupolev TU–95 bombers, nicknamed 'bear bombers', repeatedly entered Irish-controlled airspace - on one case they repeatedly entered Irish-controlled airspace each day for a number of days.
 
They did not enter Irish sovereign airspace. Irish-controlled airspace is a larger airspace than sovereign airspace. The Irish Aviation Authority has responsibility for monitoring and policing a much larger area than sovereign airspace.
 
The repeated entry of the planes was suspected of being an effort to test RAF reaction times in preparation for any war as Ireland has to ask the RAF to police its skies as it cannot itself. The behaviour of the Russian planes was deeply dangerous and irresponsible, especially when they turn off their transponders, making them effectively invisible to civil aviation surveillance systems.
 
Recklessness in the skies has long been a Putin hallmark. One place Russia no longer flies planes over is Turkey, as after repeat incursions the Turkish president told Putin that Turkey will shoot down every Russian military plane in Turkish airspace.
 
Russia has often used the Tupolev TU–95 bombers in other countries' non-sovereign airspaces as much for intimidation as anything else. However Ukraine has dealt Russia a significant blow by destroying a number of the seventy year old bombers. They are literally irreplaceable. The factory that made them closed in the 1960s and the designers are long dead, plus they require parts no longer available. Ukraine didn't have to destroy the planes, but just have a drone damage one part of the fuselage. Once that tiny spot was damaged the plane would never be stable enough to fly and that spot could never be repaired.
 
Earlier this month it was revealed that Ukraine had destroyed two Tupolev TU–95s. Putin considered his prized planes, a key part of the country's nuclear triad—safe at the Engels-2 airbase because it is so deep inside Russian territory. Ukraine reached them anyway, and they were not the first ones it destroyed. Putin had to move them again even further from Ukraine and hope Ukraine cannot destroy any more.
 
From flying Tupolev TU–95s in Irish airspace to repeatedly entering Irish waters with nuclear-powered submarines that usually carry nuclear weapons, including having one in Cork harbour, off the east coast and off the Donegal coast, having the Yantar spy ship repeatedly behaving suspiciously over Ireland's interconnectors and over the data cables, apparently building their underground spy communication centre at their embassy (despite being told not to by the Irish government), and repeated cyber-attacks, notably against the HSE, Russia is clearly very interested in focusing on Ireland - partly because of its highly sensitive location, particularly because of its chronically adequate defence that earned the waters around Ireland the nickname "the wild west!"

None of what has happened is remotely likely to lead the Irish government to change its mind and join NATO. Ireland and Austria are still rock solid in ruling out joining NATO. Both however have the unspoken fear that Russia may in the future go too far in its behaviour and leave both states reaching the same point Sweden and Finland and conclude "we don't want to join NATO but we need to. We are too exposed without it."
 
By the way it is worth nailing two myths that are inevitably repeated when the issue of NATO comes out - though I hope it doesn't.
 
1. The oft repeated claim that 'neutrals are safe. Countries don't attack neutrals.'
 
The myth comes from the Second Hague Convention Hague (Titloe V: Convention on the rights of neutral powers and persons (1907), including the inviolability of the territory of neutral powers). To give an idea of the states participating, here is the list of heads named:
 
His Majesty the German Emperor, King of Prussia; the President of the United States of America; the President of the Argentine Republic; His Majesty the Emperor of Austria, King of Bohemia, &c., and Apostolic King of Hungary; His Majesty the King of the Belgians; the President of the Republic of Bolivia; the President of the Republic of the United States of Brazil; His Royal Highness the Prince of Bulgaria; the President of the Republic of Chile; His Majesty the Emperor of China; the President of the Republic of Colombia ; the Provisional Governor of the Republic of Cuba; His Majesty the King of Denmark; the President of the Dominican Republic; the President of the Republic of Ecuador; His Majesty the King of Spain; the President of the French Republic; His Majesty the King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and of the British Dominions beyond the Seas, Emperor of India; His Majesty the King of the Hellenes; the President of the Republic of Guatemala; the President of the Republic of Haiti; His Majesty the King of Italy; His Majesty the Emperor of Japan; His Royal Highness the Grand Duke of Luxemburg, Duke of Nassau; the President of the United States of Mexico; His Royal Highness the Prince of Montenegro; the President of the Republic of Nicaragua; His Majesty the King of Norway; the President of the Republic of Panama; the President of the Republic of Paraguay; Her Majesty the Queen of the Netherlands; the President of the Republic of Peru; His Imperial Majesty the Shah of Persia; His Majesty the King of Portugal and of the Algarves, &c.; His Majesty the King of Roumania; His Majesty the Emperor of All the Russias; the President of the Republic of Salvador; His Majesty the King of Servia; His Majesty the King of Siam; His Majesty the King of Sweden; the Swiss Federal Council; His Majesty the Emperor of the Ottomans; the President of the Oriental Republic of Uruguay; the President of the United States of Venezuela.
Article 1 states "The territory of neutral Powers is inviolable."

On paper, or rather parchment, that seems straightforward. But there is a rather big problem. The negotiations started in 1904, signed in 1907, came into force in 1910 . . . and was broken on the 2nd of August 1914, when the country whose head of state, the German Emperor, was top of the list, invaded a neutral. In invading Luxembourg Germany broke the convention.
 
Two days later, Germany invaded another neutral, Belgium.
 
It was brazen. When the German plenipotentiary, Baron Marschall von Bieberstein, the German ambassador to Constantinople, signed the text he may not have known that Germany already had plans to invade neutrals. That is not the case with another German delegate, Major General von Gündell of the General Staff. He certainty knew that a year earlier Germany had adopted the Schlieffen Plan - with the commitment to invade Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands. (A rewrite by Alfred von Schlieffen's successor, Helmuth von Moltke the Younger, changed the plan to drop the need to invade the Netherlands.)

So Germany signed the Second Hague Convention Title V already knowing that in any major European war, Germany intended to break it.
 
Those first two breaks were just the tip of the iceberg. In World War II, Nazi Germany invaded neutrals Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark and Norway. It would have invaded neutral Sweden except that Sweden broke the convention by actively aiding Nazi Germany, breaking Article 5. Neutral Finland was invaded twice by the Soviet Union, in 1939 and 1941.
 
Nor has countries breaking title V on neutrality ceased in the 20th century. Russia broke it in 2014 in invading Ukraine and taking Crimea - despite Ukraine at the time being neutral constitutionally. Modern Russia is bound by it as the successor state of the USSR, which was bound by it as a successor state of Russia under the tsars who originally signed it.
 
Ukraine signed and ratified the conventions in 2015, but it arguably was already bound as a successor state to the USSR. Its legal advice was that it was covered by it since the Russian plenipotentiary Baron Aleksandr Nelidow signed it on behalf of the Russian empire that included Ukraine. Nevertheless it signed up again in 2015.
 
As a result, for all the impressive words in Article 1, the Second Hague Convention's Title V on the protection of neutrals is worthless. It is nothing more than a gentleman's agreement that was broken within four years of coming into force and as been repeatedly broken.
 
Ireland does not appear to be a signatory to title V, on neutrality or indeed any of the titles other than Title I: the Convention for the pacific settlement of international disputes.
 
Of course it could be argued that Ireland is the successor state of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. That state signed Title V on 18-10-1907 but according to the official website never ratified it.
 
Only 36 countries have ever signed Title V. That may be because by the mid 1940s it had been repeatedly broken so thoroughly that all the neutrals invaded bar Finland (and uninvaded Sweden) were founding members of NATO. They both joined NATO in the 2020s after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
 
Its powerless can be seen in the fact that countries have the right to withdraw from it. Yet no country planning to invade a neutral ever withdrew from it. There was no point as they could break it with impunity.
 
So being a neutral does not make a country safe. If a country wants to attack a country they can - not withstanding title V of the convention.
 
By the way, for clarity the supposed protection only applies to neutrals who are signatories, and only supposedly protects those neutrals from attacks from belligerents who are signatories.
 
Another oft repeated myth is joining NATO would bring in conscription. In fact, only 29% of NATO members have conscription or national service. It is entirely a matter for each state, not NATO, whether they have it. Statistically it it is neutrals, not NATO members, that have conscription or national service, with 60% of neutrals having it.

I don't expect Ireland or Austria to join NATO unless Putin makes unexpected aggressive threats to them that they feel they need the collective protection of NATO membership. Given the reckless threatening behaviour of Putin, you can never anything out in a world dominated by madmen like Putin and Trump.

⏩ Jim Duffy is a writer-historian.

Neutrals Are Not Safe

Ukraine Solidarity Group ✊ A Digest of News from Ukrainian Sources ⚔  21-September-2026.

In this week’s bulletin

⬤  Torture of imprisoned journalist.
⬤ Russia’s humanitarian blockade.
⬤  Execution of POWs.
⬤  UN highlights Russia’s sexual violence.
⬤ What children suffer under Occupation.
⬤  Russia’s human trafficking.
Summary of Occupation in August.

News from the territories occupied by Russia

Disabled 69-year-old pensioner sentenced to 12 years for donations for Ukraine's defence (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, September 18th)

Russia seeks 17-year sentence for Crimean Solidarity in unrelenting persecution of entire Crimean Tatar family (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, September 18th)

Russian prosecutor demands 22-year sentence for political prisoner, 77 (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, September 17th)

Abducted journalist Iryna Levchenko describes torture in a Russian secret prison with slain journalist Victoria Roshchyna & Olha Kapralova (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, September 16th)

When a house is “abandoned”: how Russia seizes Ukrainians’ houses (Tribunal for Putin, Sept 16th)

Humanitarian situation in occupied Crimea (Crimea Human Rights Group, 16 September)

Weekly update on the situation in occupied Crimea (Crimea Platform, September 16th)

Trapped Oleshky residents face starvation in Russian-made humanitarian blockade (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, September 15th)

‘The most frightening moment is when you are left on your own’: How Crimean Solidarity supported people for 10 years (Zmina, September 15th)

Crimea women accused of ‘treason’: families persecuted (Crimea Human Rights Group, 15 Sept)

Oleksandra Strilets' infant daughter dies in occupied Crimea after Russia imprisons her mother for supposed ‘treason’ (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, September 14th)

Russian fighters execute two Ukrainian prisoners of war in Donetsk oblast (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, September 14th)

‘I just want to live here’: What children leaving occupied territories go through (Zmina, August 28th)

Life Under Occupation (Alter Pravo, August 2026)

Progress of the war

Largest Ukrainian drone attack on Moscow (Meduza, 20 September)

Russian forces pushed back at Lyman; troops massing for battles farther south (Meduza, 18 Sept)

News from Ukraine

The 2027 budget: a colossus with feet of air (ZN.ua, 18 September)

Ukraine needs a prosecutor general chosen for merit, not loyalty (Kyiv Independent, 18 September)

Practical Guide on Labour and Social Rights for Veterans and Families published (Confederation of Free Trade Unions of Ukraine, 16 September)

From defending students’ rights to an ‘informal chat’ with the Security Service of Ukraine – all it takes is one protest: What is happening to Priama Diia? (Zmina, September 14th)

War-related news from Russia

How to vote safely (The Russian Reader, 19 September)

Mobilisation 2.0: is it inevitable, what can it achieve? (The Insider, 18 September)

What remains of ‘Yabloko’ (Posle.Media, 16 September)

Ukraine War Environmental Consequences Group “undesirable” in Russia (UWEC, 16 September)

Truckers caught in Ukraine’s drone op released, but charges loom (Mediazona, 16 September)

Celebrated food historian sentenced to six years for anti-war posts (Mediazona, 15 September)

“Fairly disciplined workers”: Russia’s prison service is replacing penal colonies with forced labor centers — and making money from it (The Insider, September 14th)

Jailed anti-war partisan Ruslan Siddiqi faces treason charges (People and Nature, September 14th)

Comment and analysis

A Response From A Donetsk Resident And Ukrainian Leftist: Who Speaks For Eastern Ukraine? (Aontacht media, 18 September)

John-Paul Himka: “The politics of history is a disease shared by all post-communist countries” (Commons.com.ua, 18 September)

What Will We Be When We Emerge from War? (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, Sept 11th)

Research of human rights abuses

Shocking sexual violence amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine (UN Human Rights, September 18th)

Torture of Ukrainian prisoners of war in Mordovia: Number of victims in Russian medic’s case increases (Zmina, September 13th)

Recruitment of foreign nationals to fight in Ukraine amounts to human trafficking (Amnesty International, September 10th)

International solidarity

Build the International Solidarity Convoy to Ukraine (International Network for Solidarity with Ukraine). A call for the convoy downloadable here

The Scottish Green Party supports Ukraine (Ukraine Solidarity Campaign, 20 September)

International Solidarity Convoy to Ukraine launches €100,000 fund appeal for generators and stoves (Labour Hub, September 19th)

Bulletin for the TUC Congress 2026 (Ukraine Solidarity Campaign, 15 September)

Also not to be missed

Something I Learned Today: Drones, Diesel, and Don Jr.’s Bankroller (The Russian Reader, 14 Sept)
🔴This bulletin is put together by labour movement activists in solidarity with Ukrainian resistance. More information at Ukraine Information Group.

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News From Ukraine 💣 Bulletin 213

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