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Anthony McIntyre ☠ Often, when I write about the attitude of the UK state to the genocide in Gaza, I focus on the role of Der Starmer.

At the very outset of the worst crime in the statute book Starmer approved the use of war crimes against a civilian population and has pointedly refused to call Israel out on its genocidal actions, instead arming the fiend so that it might maintain its military structure of domination and destruction. 

But Starmer did not magically appear in some Garden of Eden moment where he succeeded in a way that the mythical Adam did not: refusing to succumb to the charms of the strategically created wily serpent of Islamism. Starmer's arrival was the process of a long evolutionary trait within an institution usefully termed by Nicos Poulantzas as an Ideological State Apparatus, the British Labour Party.  Ludicrously, this body has on occasion been described as the party of organised labour. That's on a par with describing Jimmy Savile as the protector of children.

In a recent article, attention is drawn to this evolutionary process by the Guardian columnist Owen Jones who lashed the former British Prime Minister Tony Blair for his smear against the political left in Britain that it is part of an unholy alliance with Islamists . . .  that snake thing in the Garden of Eden again. The Great Liar of London broadened his observation to include the charge that the left's supposed embrace of Islamism was a manifestation of antisemitism.

Blair's real concern is the growing opposition to Israel which he sees mounting in the UK. Like Starmer, Blair is eager to deflect the charge of genocide away from Israel, trying to reduce it to a mere “barb particularly aimed at Jewish memories of the Holocaust”. Owen Jones asks for proof, stating:

Extraordinary accusations require extraordinary evidence. Yet unlike with his illegal war on Iraq, our former prime minister has not even troubled himself to assemble a dodgy dossier . . . What of the pre-eminent Israeli scholars of genocide who have reached precisely that conclusion, such as Omer Bartov, Amos Goldberg, Daniel Blatman, Shmuel Lederman and Raz Segal? Are these distinguished Jewish academics, who dedicate their lives to studying genocide, diminishing the charge and targeting Jewish distress over the Holocaust?

Shmuel Lederman, the prominent Israeli Genocide scholar referred to by Jones, identifies why so many people are opposed to Israel, and it is not because of its Jewishness:

Much of Israeli society either participated in it actively or gave it legitimacy . . . the majority of Israeli politicians criticising Netanyahu are not doing so on moral grounds—they're talking about hostages or tactical failures . . .  The dehumanisation and demonisation of Palestinians has been ongoing for a long time in Israel—especially when it comes to Gaza . . . For many young people, mocking the suffering in Gaza is almost a form of entertainment, revenge.

In case we forget, Tony Blair is a war criminal responsible for the crimes against humanity inflicted in Iraq. Along with George Bush he lied for the purposes of starting a war which resulted in the exponential growth of the Islamism he so ineloquently rails against.

Now he serves on the Orwellian named Gaza Board of Peace, an institution created by another GOP warmongering president. Moreover,  a Guardian article from 2023 showed the Tony Blair Institute continuing to milk the government of Saudi Arabia for cash after the regime had murdered in its own embassy in Turkey, the dissident journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, When homicidal Islamists are filling Blair's coffers they metamorphize into alright sort of guys, the type who are good for business.


Jones is unrelenting in his castigation of Blair:

Let’s be clear. If there were not a single Muslim in Britain, the left would still oppose Israel’s actions just as forcefully. And what Blair will not confront is that this position reflects mainstream public opinion. A recent poll found as low as 12% of Britons support Israel’s actions in Gaza, while an overwhelming majority supports an arms embargo on Israel, sanctions and the arrest of its leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, for war crimes.

In all of this I am reminded of an old joke:

A Labour Party member dies and goes to Heaven, where she meets St Peter:

Labour Party member:  What are all those clocks behind you?

St Peter: Each clock is for every human being born. It keeps a record of their honesty.

Labour Party member: Explain that.

St Peter: The hands of that clock closest to us have never moved. It belongs to Mother Teresa. She never told a lie. The next clock shows that the hands have only moved twice. That belongs to Abraham Lincoln. He only lied on two occasions.

Labour Party member: Where is Tony Blair's clock?

St Peter: Oh, that, we use it as a ceiling fan. 

When the powerful smear the powerless for the purpose of providing cover for genocide, no need to show them the door. The ceiling will do just fine.

⏩Follow on Bluesky.

The Great Liar Of London

Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières ★ Written by Antonín Hořčica.

Four years into Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Antonín Hořčica , a member of the Czech left party Levice — confronts a dangerous drift within the European left.

Parts of the left, he argues, have traded principled anti-imperialism for selective anti-Americanism, effectively supporting the aggressor under cover of pacifism or calls for “compromise peace.” 

Drawing on his own break with DiEM25, the European Parliament vote on the fourth invasion anniversary, and the example of Ukrainian socialist and anarchist organisations fighting both Russian occupation and their government’s neoliberal economic policies, Hořčica insists the only legitimate leftist position is unconditional solidarity with those under attack. 

Four years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, fatigue is blending with cynicism and a dangerous relativisation. Calls for a “compromise peace” are growing louder, yet they ignore the most fundamental question: who is the aggressor and who the victim. As a member of Levice (The Left), [1] I am proud that our party was among the first to protest against the Russian invasion — on Václavské náměstí (Wenceslas Square) on the very second day after it began. There was nothing to hesitate about: imperialism is always imperialism, regardless of which direction it comes from.

Continue @ ESSF.

Lessons from Imperialist Aggression: Why the Left Must Stand With Those Under Attack Against Selective Anti-Imperialism 💣 The Czech Left And Ukraine

Cam Ogie ✍ The GAA can no longer credibly claim neutrality. 

What we are witnessing is not passive inaction, but an active choice to avoid moral accountability — a choice that increasingly places it at odds with the values of many of its own members.

At the centre of this contradiction is the organisation’s continued relationship with Allianz, maintained despite sustained opposition from players, supporters, and county boards. More troubling still is the deliberate suppression of debate: motions curtailed, dissent marginalised, protest dismissed, and visible expressions of solidarity — such as Palestinian flags — actively removed. This is not administrative caution. It is political management.

The GAA, an organisation historically rooted in resistance and cultural identity, is now deciding which forms of solidarity are acceptable — and, more importantly, which must be silenced. That alone exposes the illusion that sport can somehow exist outside politics. Politics is not absent here. It is being controlled.

But the deeper failure lies not only with leadership — it lies with the counties themselves.

There are those who have spoken out. And there are those who have remained silent.

That silence is not neutral. It is strategic. It allows those counties to benefit — competitively, financially, and institutionally — while others take the risk of dissent.

Yet even those who have spoken out now face a defining contradiction. If they walk onto the pitch in this year’s All-Ireland Championship as if nothing has changed, they do more than undermine their own position — they actively reinforce the system they claim to oppose.

Because participation provides legitimacy. And more critically, it provides cover.

It gives silent counties the justification they have been waiting for: "If it was truly unacceptable, they would refuse to play."

And just like that, the moral pressure disappears. The system stabilises. And those who said nothing are rewarded for saying nothing.

This dynamic is not unique to the GAA. It reflects a broader pattern in how institutions respond to injustice.

Consider FIFA and its handling of global conflict.

Russia was rapidly excluded from international football following the invasion of Ukraine — a decision framed as a clear moral stance. Yet no such consistency exists elsewhere. The United States continues to host the FIFA World Cup. Israel remains fully embedded in international competition despite widespread global condemnation of its actions in Gaza.

This inconsistency is not accidental. It reflects power. Sport does not transcend politics — it mirrors it. And participation within these systems is itself a political act, no matter how often players insist: “It’s only football.”

It is not. It is a choice to continue within a structure that selectively applies morality.

And this is where the comparison with Palestine Action becomes unavoidable.

Whatever one thinks of their methods, their strategy is clear: they do not issue statements and then carry on as normal. They act in ways that disrupt the systems they oppose. They target infrastructure, relationships, and economic links. They impose consequences.

They understand something fundamental that many within the GAA now appear unwilling to accept:

Power does not respond to words alone. It responds to disruption.

The GAA, by contrast, is attempting to contain dissent — to allow just enough expression to release pressure, but not enough to force change.

And those counties who have spoken out, but continue to participate unchanged, risk becoming part of that containment. They become the acceptable face of protest — vocal, visible, but ultimately ineffective.

All of this unfolds against a backdrop of escalating global violence.

The devastation in Gaza has been marked by mass civilian casualties, widespread destruction of infrastructure, and the collapse of basic living conditions. Hospitals, schools, and refugee areas have been repeatedly impacted. This is not abstract geopolitics — it is sustained human catastrophe.

At the same time, tensions involving Iran have escalated into direct confrontation, raising the risk of a wider regional war. The language used by political leaders in this context — often strategic, detached, and devoid of empathy — reveals how easily human suffering is reduced to calculation.

And consider the calibre of those shaping this reality. Donald Trump speaks in terms of dominance and resource interest. Benjamin Netanyahu continues military expansion under the language of necessity. Mohammed bin Salman — widely linked to the murder of Jamal Khashoggi — is welcomed and legitimised at the highest levels of global power. These are the actors defining the current moment.

And still, institutions like the GAA behave as though remaining “neutral” is a defensible position. It is not. Because neutrality, in this context, is not the absence of politics. It is alignment with the status quo.

This is why the responsibility now rests with those counties and players who have already spoken out. Because they are at a point where words are no longer enough.

To continue participating without consequence is to absorb moral outrage without producing change. It is to remain inside the system while claiming to challenge it.

But refusal — real, tangible refusal — changes the equation.

  • It removes legitimacy.
  • It forces confrontation.
  • It denies silent counties the cover they currently rely on.

There comes a point where protest must evolve or it becomes performance. The GAA has reached that point. And so have its counties. Because if those who claim to stand for something are not willing to act —then those who stood for nothing will continue to prevail.

Quietly. Comfortably. And justified — not by their own courage — but by the inaction of those who claimed to oppose them.

⏩ Cam Ogie is a Gaelic games enthusiast.

A Message To Gaels Against Genocide 🪶 Play On Or Stand Up 🪶 The Moral Failure At The Heart Of The GAA

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

 

A Morning Thought @ 3106

1916 Societies ✊For the most part, the 1916 Societies do our best to ignore Sinn Féin and their antics.

To us, they represent little more than another vestige of a movement that long ago departed from genuine Republican principles in favour of pursuing neo-colonial power, a story that is, after all, nothing new on the island of Ireland. However, the actions they have taken recently, and the lengths to which they have gone to undermine our activists and the projects we are engaged in, are becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.

As an organisation, the 1916 Societies are accustomed to facing petty hostility from Sinn Féin. But the latest actions have escalated into something far more serious, ranging from outright intimidation to political censorship. It is one thing to be harassed while handing out flyers for an event to commemorate our Republican dead, or to be barred from meeting in local community halls. But in the most recent incident, attempts have been made to prevent us from creating a mural in Beechmount, West Belfast, in collaboration with international comrades. When local intimidation failed to stop the project, Sinn Féin turned its attention to our comrades abroad, exerting pressure on the political party to which they belong, the Catalan ERC (Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya).

Following a barrage of phone calls, the activists involved were forced to withdraw the party logo from the mural. Yet even that did not satisfy Sinn Féin. They continued their campaign of harassment until the young activists' trip to Ireland was cancelled altogether. The question, then, is what explains such a low and cowardly response from Sinn Féin? Why would a party that claims the mantle of Republicanism act in such a vile manner, so utterly antithetical to the principles it purports to uphold? As far as the 1916 Societies are concerned. The answer lies in an article published in the Irish News by Patrick Murphy, which suggests that Sinn Féin have found itself stuck in a cul-de-sac, and that their actions are now serving to cement partition rather than working to eliminate it.

Sinn Féin have reached its "emperor has no clothes' moment, as it becomes increasingly clear that they are acting as a harbinger of British rule in Ireland. Rather than engaging in any form of self-reflection or critical self-analysis, they behave like the schoolyard bully, lashing out at everyone else when things go wrong. Sinn Féin are doubling down on its harassment of anyone they perceive as a threat to their project or to their grip on power. This includes those who are genuinely working to bring about a sovereign Irish Republic. Gone are the Republican political aspirations; all that remains is self-interest and ego.

For our part, the 1916 Societies remain as committed as ever to the cause of a 32-county, all-Ireland Socialist Republic. If you are interested in bringing about genuine radical social change, both nationally and internationally, we invite you to join the 1916 Societies.

Sinn Féin 🪶 The Harbingers Of British Rule In Ireland

Irish Times ★ Written by Mark Hennessy.

Jim McVeigh writes the apologia for Martin McGuinness’s life, while Danny Morrison’s revised memoir is emotional, sometimes mawkish.

Regardless of his actions in the IRA – ones he proudly admitted to, unlike some – Martin McGuinness was blessed with the gift of likeability, even by those who would have happily seen him dead in his earlier years.

In Our Martin, Jim McVeigh has written the apologia for the Derry man’s life, presenting the increasingly visible argument “that there was no alternative” – one directed primarily at a generation who were not born to see the horrors of the Troubles.

The book knows on which side of history it stands. “What politicised me was the Civil Rights protest. It wasn’t anything I heard in the house, or even in my grandmother’s house in Donegal,” McGuinness is quoted saying.

His political awakening is put down to an interview he had to become an apprentice mechanic in 1965, one McGuinness believed he did not get because he was asked which school he had attended.

Its defence of the IRA’s actions is absolute. There is no mention of Patsy Gillespie, forced to drive a car bomb into a British army checkpoint . . .

Continue @ Irish Times.

Our Martin And All The Dead Voices

Christopher Owens 🔖 It’s often said that the mundane shapes us.

The quiet, daily routines and how we handle them reveal a lot about our characters in a way that we don’t recognise. If that is the case, then I’m glad to report that Mike Coles is a busy, self-driven and reflective artist.

Jokingly describing himself as having spent fifty years in the wilderness, Coles is known for running Malicious Damage records which has released records from the likes of Killing Joke, Ski Patrol, Shriekback, The Orb and Headcount as well as being an artist and graphic designer. He’ll be hosting an exhibition in London soon to celebrate 50 years of Malicious Damage.

By contrast, this 70-page hardback (with a title borrowed from Jean Cocteau) slipped out last year to lower fanfare and deserves greater attention.

Described as a “...sneaky and whimsical peep at some of the things the artist does when he’s not doing anything else” in the format of a “...series of self-portraits drawn in late 2024-early 2025, in which the artist followed himself around his home and recorded what he saw” during the day, this is a moving, gently humourous and inspiring read.

With the combination of short stanzas written in the font of a Victorian tract and the pen and ink art that seems to reference German Expressionist art and Aline Kominsky Crumb, Coles depicts his life as one that may be solitary at times but also one where he is free and independent which, in this day and age, is an act of rebellion in itself.



There is an air of sadness that runs throughout: references abound to his late wife Luriko including the poignant line about how “Birthdays are very special to the artist as he gets older. His wife only had 59 so he celebrates for them both every year.” Items in his house remind him of long-gone friends and periods of time that are now written about in history books. Meanwhile, the art does a great job of capturing the home as a place where there are still endless possibilities but occasionally, the space in the room is noticeably bigger.

A tricky thing to accomplish, but Coles hits the mark.

Enough of the wilderness, it’s time for Coles to step forward and garner acclaim.

Michael Coles, 2025, Thirty-Five Drawings by Michael Coles. Privately Published.

⏩ 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”.

Thirty-Five Drawings By Michael Coles

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

 

A Morning Thought @ 3105

Kate Rice ✍😔 An educated modern audience can agree that the French resistance was a big factor in defeating Nazi Germany. 

Their campaign fought not only their oppression by the Nazi occupation, but the collaborationist Vichy government. A collection of groups of guerrilla fighters from all different backgrounds operated in underground networks to derail the occupation and publish newspapers, destabilising their occupiers from within. Without them, it’s hard to say the war wouldn’t’ have continued for longer.

The French resistance also killed civilians, informers and collaborators. They forcefully shaved the heads of hundreds of French women who had committed ‘horizontal collaboration’ - sleeping with the enemy. These punishments were enacted with little regard for circumstance: a woman acting under coercion, attempting to protect her family, or surviving sexual violence was treated no differently from a willing participant. Following the liberation of France, many who were accused of collaborating or assisting the Nazi/Vichy regime were executed without trial.

We see the French resistance as one part of a heroic front, because it can be mutually agreed by all that the Nazi party was an evil and genocidal organisation. Apart from the words of some tinfoil hat conspiracists and racists, the world agrees that Hitler’s faction erased the lives of millions, primarily Jewish people killed in concentration camps and labour camps. Nazi ideology sought domination and eradication. Not just Jewish people, but those who did not fit their agenda- homosexuals, people of colour, Romani people, etc. Their list of victims is endless over what is, in the grand scheme of things, a frighteningly short period of time. The defeat of Nazi Germany was thanks to, in part, the actions of freedom fighters and armed civilians. The word ‘terrorist’ is not used to name them.

The IRA is almost always on reflex described as a terrorist organisation. This is despite the fact that its campaign during The Troubles emerged from a context of political exclusion, sectarian violence, and British state control. Like the French Resistance, the IRA used guerrilla tactics, targeted infrastructure, and killed those it believed to be collaborators. Like the Resistance, it also killed civilians - sometimes deliberately, sometimes as a consequence of its methods.

So, where is the line? If civilian deaths are the defining line, then both fall on the same side of it. If the use of fear, violence, and coercion defines terrorism, then again, both qualify. Yet one is mostly condemned, whereas the other is memorialised. This is not because their actions were fundamentally different. It’s because their causes are judged differently - and, crucially, because one aligns more comfortably with dominant political narratives than the other. Why then can it be ignored as long as the cause is worth the cost in the eyes of the majority? Must all oppressed parties gain the favour and approval of a world audience before we can start using terms like ‘necessary evil’ and ‘casualties of war’? Must Winston Churchill smoke a cigar and declare over crackling radio waves that world salvation is worth their sins?

The history of the British Empire and its expansion undermines that. In Ireland, its legacy includes famine and systemic political and cultural suppression. During the 20th century, policies such as internment without trial and documented instances of collusion with loyalist paramilitaries further entrenched division and violence. And that’s just in Ireland - how much suffering was caused elsewhere? Imperial expansion was built on the theft of resource and relic, the reconstruction of societies to fit a British value, and violence to enact control. Despite that, the violence of an empire is rarely described in the same moral language as the violence used to resist it. Is their violence less important because it has existed over centuries instead of just a couple of years? Must we see genocidal rhetoric in pure, undiluted form - gas chambers and camps - before we name them for what they are?

“Terrorism” has come to mean something very specific in the modern imagination: indiscriminate, senseless violence inflicted on civilians - the bombing of an Ariana Grande concert attended primarily by children, a man in a Las Vegas hotel room firing indiscriminately into a crowd. These are acts designed purely to instil fear, absent of any coherent political struggle that most observers are willing to recognise as legitimate.

But when the same word is applied to groups engaged in political warfare, it stops clarifying and starts obscuring. It flattens fundamentally different contexts into a single moral category, allowing state and the public to avoid engaging with the conditions that produce violence in the first place.

The word “terrorism” is applied swiftly and decisively, often without the same scrutiny of context or proportionality. It’s a pattern we can recognise - violence by non state actors is instantly labelled as terrorism, whereas violence by the state is framed as a necessity for defence and security. I don’t see that as a neutral distinction, but as a political one.

None of this justifies the killing of civilians. It does not absolve organisations like the IRA of responsibility for their actions. But if we are willing to accept moral ambiguity in the case of the French Resistance - if we can acknowledge that a just cause can coexist with unjustifiable acts - then we cannot selectively deny that complexity elsewhere. Moral clarity has to come with some measure of consistency.

If the same actions can be condemned in one context and justified in another, then the word “terrorist” does not describe a fixed category of violence. It describes a judgement - one shaped by power, perspective, and, ultimately, whose side the world chooses to be on.

I don’t desire to dictate what people call organisations like the French resistance, or the Irish Republican Army. Freedom of speech is a beautiful thing, and I cannot speak over the voices of those whose lives were brutally impacted by actions committed during the Troubles. I merely mean to ask, by what action can we differentiate between a freedom fighter and a terrorist? Must it be a quick and inhumane extermination for people to take notice? The thousands of children dead by the hands of school shootings would suggest not. The people in power will turn their eyes away whether it’s a violent death or a slow one.

This inconsistency is not an abstract idea on some humanitarian soapbox. It is happening now.

In 1945, the world reached a consensus that the systematic destruction of a people was intolerable. In the 1960s-90s, the conflict in Northern Ireland produced a far more divided opinion. In 2026, the ongoing ending of Palestinian life - widely described by UN experts and human rights organisations as constituting genocide - is largely denied or is met with no outcry at all.

An eye for an eye, and the whole world goes blind.

⏩Kate Rice is a peace baby.

Who Gets To Be A Terrorist?

Wales Online ★ Written by Anders Anglesey & Olivia Bridge. Recommended by Gary Robertson.

A woman who leapt from a window in a bid to take her own life after suffering a brutal gang rape has been granted euthanasia by the courts and has given her poignant last words on the matter.

Noelia Castillo Ramos, a 25-year-old woman from Barcelona, was left traumatised with aggravated mental health issues after she was subject to a harrowing sexual assault in 2022.

The young woman even attempted to take her own life, plunging from a fifth-floor window that left her paraplegic and wheelchair-bound due to sustaining a severe spinal cord injury.

Ms Ramos said she simply wanted to "leave in peace" after enduring years of pain and suffering. Now, the European Court of Human Rights and the Constitutional Court in Spain has granted her wish.

The decision comes as her parents have desperately trying to intervene for several years to prevent their daughter from making the irreversible decision.

According to them, Ramos suffers from Borderline Personality Disorder. She experienced different stages of her life under institutional care, and was "relying on ... the Spanish mental healthcare system" before she was raped.

Continue @ Wales Online.

Final Words Of Gang Rape Victim, Age 25, Before Death By Euthanasia

Caoimhin O’Muraile  ☭ On Thursday 26th March the Irish national team (representing 26 of Irelands 32 counties) were involved in a very important World Cup Play Off football game with Czechia.

The winner, if it were to have been Ireland, would be in the final of the same playoff series against Denmark on Tuesday night 31st March at Lansdowne Road – Aviva Stadium – but, alas, that team was not to be the Irish. Instead the team played in an unimportant, though contractually obligated, friendly against North Macedonia resulting in an almost predictable 0-0 draw. This was despite Troy Parrot putting the ball in the net late in the first half only, wrongly in my view, to be judged offside. Was the game pointless as many would call it? No, it was not. Though not a competitive game in its true sense of the word it gave the manager of the ‘Republic of Ireland’ team a chance to look at unblooded players as each team appeared to have countless substitutes to choose from! The manager, Heimir Hallgrimsson, can see what depth he has in reserve for what to me looks like a project, a work in progress at least I hope it is! Almost 40,000 fans turned up for this game and I would advise patience. Now back to last Thursday.

To many of the Irish fans who made the journey to the historic city of Prague the game was a disaster, which in my view it was not. Disappointing, yes heartbreaking, yes, disaster, no. the lads had done remarkably well to get to the playoffs in the first place against all the odds. The miraculous antics of Troy Parrot played a major but not the only part in getting us there. Parrot must now be rated among the best strikers in European football as his goal tally for club and country continue to rise. But Troy Parrot aside there were another nine outfield players and a goalkeeper involved in surprising the football world by getting us to Prague which, if we are honest, none of us expected! The result, 4-3 to Czechia on penalties, was bitterly disappointing but not a disaster. We went two goals up courtesy of a penalty scored by Troy Parrot and an own goal by the luckless Matej Kovar. The first was skill, the second luck but that’s football! The fans who made the journey, though disappointed and if my own trips abroad are anything to go by with Man Utd, would have had a great piss up and win or lose this was always the case. Firstly, and hopefully, drunkard celebrations but failing that drowning sorrows in alcohol. This was always the case but times and cultures do change. Somehow though I cannot see the ‘Green Army’ drinking cups of tea after the game!

Czechia pulled back to 2-2 after Ireland gave away an unnecessary penalty then the hosts equalised in the 84th minute. It went to a penalty shoot-out, never a great way to settle a game, and Parrott came coolly to score our first. Penalty taking is a skill as this shoot-out proved. Parrott possesses this skill as his first half penalty was evidence of as the keeper guessed the right way but Troy had no fears because he knew he put enough pace on the ball to beat any keeper. That is the skill, knowing how much pace to put on the ball, whether to shoot on the ground or go for one of the uprights, or straight down the middle, they are all calculations the player must work out with only seconds to do so. Many say penalty taking is luck which is clearly untrue as these shoot-outs went to show. After Parrott, Adam Idah then stepped up and again cooly put the ball into the net as did the experienced Robbie Brady. The Irish goalkeeper, Caoimhin Kelleher, then saved giving the ‘Boys in Green’ the advantage which unfortunately was not taken. The first three Irish penalty takers were composed, particularly Troy Parrott, but the last two through no fault of their own were less calm, it appeared to me watching on television. A lesson can be drawn from this experience, practice penalties because such shoot outs are always a possibility! No doubt Parrot, Brady and Idah practice at club level and this was evident as Troy Parrott showed calm in taking both his penalties.

In normal time this was a game of two halves. The first 45 belonged to Ireland while the second, as I expected, went Czechia’s way. The Irish Manager should have, and he may have tried to do this, prepared the lads for a different opposition team coming out for the second half. Czechia came out from the off and went for the jugular not giving Ireland a chance to settle. Ireland should have done the same, the moment they got possession keep the ball and go for the Czechian weak spots. Instead the ‘Boys in Green’ allowed a resurgent Czechia to come at them and as a consequence were on the back foot for most of the second half. I have seen this happen at Old Trafford back in the day, a visiting team have been shite in the first half, so bad they could not be any worse, then in the second half they come out like men possessed! I had a feeling Czechia were going to do just this, they could not be that bad in the second half as they were in the first. They weren’t and managed to equalise the scoreline the jammy fuckers!! 

Once Ryan Manning made his howler and gave away the penalty it was always on the cards an equaliser would come. If anybody were to ask Manning, why? The chances are the lad could not answer, he wouldn’t know, it happens and there is little the player can do to stop it stupid as the action was. It is just something which happens like jumping up for a header then instinctively using the hands to get the ball, totally illegal and can result in sending off a player who commits this offence if in an area which prevents an opponent scoring a goal. It can also be calculated like Diego Maradona with his ‘hand of God’ against England in the 1986 World Cup Quarter Final game. Another calculated handball was that of Thierry Henry against Ireland in 2009 in a World Cup Playoff. Manning’s handball was not a calculated deliberate move, just an unaccountable instinct.

Late in extra time Irish player, Sammie Szmodics, who had only been on the pitch a couple of minutes was knocked out cold by a challenge from Czechia’s Stepan Chaloupek. The scene was worrying but reports later said he had regained consciousness and was under observation. Notably the infernal VAR was present but made no interference to make judgement on the challenge, once again showing the inconsistency of something no sane football fan wants! Get rid of the fucking infernal nuisance!!

Ireland hit the woodwork twice, the first when Nathan Collins hit the crossbar then Jason Molumby, who had a good game, hit the post. This was pure bad luck for the Irish and had these two efforts been an inch lower or to one side the result would have been put to bed. However it was not to be but fans should take the positives out of the game. The first half we dominated and in the second despite Czechia being rejuvenated Ireland for the most part defended well. 

Supporters should perhaps look on this as a project with the European Championships in 2028 our next target to qualify. Seamus Coleman who has been a great asset at 37 years young will probably play no part in the Euros and young blood should be introduced now. This is not the end of this Irish side, their courage and commitment in getting to Prague proved this. To quote Winston Churchill after the allied victory in North Africa in the Second World War; “This is not the end, nor the beginning of the end, but it may be the end of the beginning”. This Irish team have proved beyond doubt their ability to respond and are still young enough to remain moulded together welcoming younger uncapped players threaded into the team over time. Give this manager time and opportunity and this team will, I believe, come good it is a work in progress.
     
Caoimhin O’Muraile is Independent Socialist Republican and Marxist.

Disaster Or Disappointment? Is This a Work In Progress, A Long-Term Project?

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