Matt Treacy ➤ The left, far and near, are still vexed over last Saturday’s protest outside Leinster House. ‘Anti Fascist Action’s’ Facebook page is like what you might find when a soccer hooligan firm loses face after fleeing ignominiously from some “tasty geezers.” 

They refer to someone at the rally as wearing the “cheapest wig in the shop,” and to the large crowd as consisting of “alt shite carpetbaggers.” Intellectuals they are not. Perhaps they ought to start a running club?


Not to be outdone, the eclectic Brendan Ogle has posted a badly written and incoherent diatribe on the Unite union’s website. According to Brendan: “There was a fascist demonstration outside the Dáil last Saturday in pursuance of building an Irish Nazi Party.”

Everyone else thought it was about the influence of Peter Tatchell on Irish policymakers and Minister for Children’s plans to introduce legislation to facilitate medical intervention in the cases of children under the age of 16 suffering from gender dysphoria.

Ogle does not mention that, and perhaps he sees his next career move as a sort of Irish Pasionaria leading the fight against those whose “forebears” he claims threw “rotten fruit and vegetables” at the men of 1916!

Ogle once saw himself as a potential Irish Arthur Scargill but messed that one up when frightening the bejaysus out of other ESB union reps by threatening blackouts. Not to mention his once describing his own members as “spoilt.”

Then came the water charges campaign which seemed to offer an alternative path to political importance.

I was present, along with Dublin Sinn Féin city councillor Daithí Doolan, at a meeting during the water charges campaign with Ogle and Dave Gibney of Unite.

Ogle was angling for a free run at a Dáil seat which would have meant Sinn Féin and the far left parties not standing wherever he planned to. Myself and Daithí were there at the behest of the commissars who were anxious to know how serious an electoral threat Ogle was to the Shinners. We assured them that a bigger threat would be if the Monster Raving Loony Party threw their hat in the ring.

In March 2018 Ogle declared his intention to form a new party, but that did not last much longer than the press conference.

When his remarks on Saturday’s rally were described on the twitter machine as “disgusting,” Ogle responded with a reference to “made up Irish names.” Now I have a weird vision of him asking Eamonn Ryan for a Senate nomination …

Fergus Finlay is another who has joined the fray in defence of Roderic O’Gorman. As an interesting aside Finlay wrote a piece for the Irish Examiner in December 2013 defending Ogle when he was under attack from more sensible union people.

Finlay describes those with the temerity to criticise O’Gorman and his plans as “the most repellent political cave-dwellers in the country,” and “rodents” to boot. In a typically grandiose “open letter” in Tuesday’s Examiner, Finlay warns O’Gorman that “the system” will be trying to wreck his rainbow buzz along with the ‘alt right’.

If you were not familiar with Finlay’s career you might form the impression that he had spent decades in the Dublin mountains with only the support of the beleaguered liberals of Dalkey and Sandycove to keep him supplied with tofu and cigars while he battled the forces of obscurantism. And with no thanks for it either.

Finlay’s heroism took him from being among other things chef de cabinet with Labour to CEO of Barnardos. He retired in 2018. Barnardos in common with most NGOs and charities is heavily dependent on state funding and the main conduit is coincidentally the department under the responsibility of the Minister for Children. No point in pissing up against the tent as Fergus well knows.

In 2018 Barnardos received €16 million from the state; the bulk of it from TUSLA which comes under the children’s department. It employs 430 people so it is safe to assume that most of that money goes to pay salaries and wages. It has a low footfall it would seem among actual children and 42% of its 2018 cases were referred to it by TUSLA.

Finlay was on a salary of €117,591 in 2014 which was found to be in breach of HSE limits as agreed in the 2013 Haddington Road deal.

That aside it is apparent that Barnardos regards itself as a liberal advocacy group, campaigning in support of gay marriage.

It has no official policy in Ireland as far as can be told on transgenderism, but one of its main administrators and fund raisers is Alexis Riva who is a director of Transgender Equality Network Ireland.

So, it is not difficult to see why Barnardos former CEO should be defending O’Gorman and his plans that have been discussed and formed by transgender activists, and without any parental consultation. You know, the annoying people who actually have children that will be subjected to this unnecessary interference in their education.

As Saturday’s large turnout and the reaction to O’Gorman’s actions prove, perhaps there is more resistance to the next move in the liberal playbook than they expected. The hysterical reaction of the melange encompassing antifa, Ogle and Finlay among others is more proof of their petulant intolerance of dissent.



Matt Treacy has published a number of books including histories of the Republican Movement and of the Communist Party of Ireland.
He is currently working on a number of other books; His latest one is a novel entitled Houses of Pain. It is based on real events in the Dublin underworld. Houses of Pain is published by MTP and is currently available online as paperback and kindle while book shops remain closed.

The Sulking Of The Sanctimonious ➤ How The Left Reacted To A Child-Protection Protest

Matt Treacy ➤ The left, far and near, are still vexed over last Saturday’s protest outside Leinster House. ‘Anti Fascist Action’s’ Facebook page is like what you might find when a soccer hooligan firm loses face after fleeing ignominiously from some “tasty geezers.” 

They refer to someone at the rally as wearing the “cheapest wig in the shop,” and to the large crowd as consisting of “alt shite carpetbaggers.” Intellectuals they are not. Perhaps they ought to start a running club?


Not to be outdone, the eclectic Brendan Ogle has posted a badly written and incoherent diatribe on the Unite union’s website. According to Brendan: “There was a fascist demonstration outside the Dáil last Saturday in pursuance of building an Irish Nazi Party.”

Everyone else thought it was about the influence of Peter Tatchell on Irish policymakers and Minister for Children’s plans to introduce legislation to facilitate medical intervention in the cases of children under the age of 16 suffering from gender dysphoria.

Ogle does not mention that, and perhaps he sees his next career move as a sort of Irish Pasionaria leading the fight against those whose “forebears” he claims threw “rotten fruit and vegetables” at the men of 1916!

Ogle once saw himself as a potential Irish Arthur Scargill but messed that one up when frightening the bejaysus out of other ESB union reps by threatening blackouts. Not to mention his once describing his own members as “spoilt.”

Then came the water charges campaign which seemed to offer an alternative path to political importance.

I was present, along with Dublin Sinn Féin city councillor Daithí Doolan, at a meeting during the water charges campaign with Ogle and Dave Gibney of Unite.

Ogle was angling for a free run at a Dáil seat which would have meant Sinn Féin and the far left parties not standing wherever he planned to. Myself and Daithí were there at the behest of the commissars who were anxious to know how serious an electoral threat Ogle was to the Shinners. We assured them that a bigger threat would be if the Monster Raving Loony Party threw their hat in the ring.

In March 2018 Ogle declared his intention to form a new party, but that did not last much longer than the press conference.

When his remarks on Saturday’s rally were described on the twitter machine as “disgusting,” Ogle responded with a reference to “made up Irish names.” Now I have a weird vision of him asking Eamonn Ryan for a Senate nomination …

Fergus Finlay is another who has joined the fray in defence of Roderic O’Gorman. As an interesting aside Finlay wrote a piece for the Irish Examiner in December 2013 defending Ogle when he was under attack from more sensible union people.

Finlay describes those with the temerity to criticise O’Gorman and his plans as “the most repellent political cave-dwellers in the country,” and “rodents” to boot. In a typically grandiose “open letter” in Tuesday’s Examiner, Finlay warns O’Gorman that “the system” will be trying to wreck his rainbow buzz along with the ‘alt right’.

If you were not familiar with Finlay’s career you might form the impression that he had spent decades in the Dublin mountains with only the support of the beleaguered liberals of Dalkey and Sandycove to keep him supplied with tofu and cigars while he battled the forces of obscurantism. And with no thanks for it either.

Finlay’s heroism took him from being among other things chef de cabinet with Labour to CEO of Barnardos. He retired in 2018. Barnardos in common with most NGOs and charities is heavily dependent on state funding and the main conduit is coincidentally the department under the responsibility of the Minister for Children. No point in pissing up against the tent as Fergus well knows.

In 2018 Barnardos received €16 million from the state; the bulk of it from TUSLA which comes under the children’s department. It employs 430 people so it is safe to assume that most of that money goes to pay salaries and wages. It has a low footfall it would seem among actual children and 42% of its 2018 cases were referred to it by TUSLA.

Finlay was on a salary of €117,591 in 2014 which was found to be in breach of HSE limits as agreed in the 2013 Haddington Road deal.

That aside it is apparent that Barnardos regards itself as a liberal advocacy group, campaigning in support of gay marriage.

It has no official policy in Ireland as far as can be told on transgenderism, but one of its main administrators and fund raisers is Alexis Riva who is a director of Transgender Equality Network Ireland.

So, it is not difficult to see why Barnardos former CEO should be defending O’Gorman and his plans that have been discussed and formed by transgender activists, and without any parental consultation. You know, the annoying people who actually have children that will be subjected to this unnecessary interference in their education.

As Saturday’s large turnout and the reaction to O’Gorman’s actions prove, perhaps there is more resistance to the next move in the liberal playbook than they expected. The hysterical reaction of the melange encompassing antifa, Ogle and Finlay among others is more proof of their petulant intolerance of dissent.



Matt Treacy has published a number of books including histories of the Republican Movement and of the Communist Party of Ireland.
He is currently working on a number of other books; His latest one is a novel entitled Houses of Pain. It is based on real events in the Dublin underworld. Houses of Pain is published by MTP and is currently available online as paperback and kindle while book shops remain closed.

8 comments:

  1. Matt’s piece seems more a deflection of the issues. When he should be providing clarity he actually distorts.

    Neither Ogle nor Finlay are anything other than bit players in the matter who have inexplicably been placed centre stage in this piece. Whatever Ogle’s faults, he is on the right side on this one.

    It is easier to believe that the protest was about building an Irish Nazi party than it is to see it as genuine concern against child abuse. While I don’t believe it was about building such a party it certainly attracted people who would be at home in a Nazi party. If O’Gorman can be judged by the company he kept then Barrett and Kelly have been in some very dubious company including Nazis.

    Morevoer, if the real concern was about protecting children, we would be at the very least expect that the protestors would be demonstrating at every Catholic Church the length and breadth of the country.

    Nor was the protest against Tatchell’s influence on childcare policy. There is not the slightest evidence to support the notion that Tatchell has any influence whatsoever.

    Tatchell in his day expressed some very odd views. But they were calls for an intellectual exploration of alternative ideas and were not inciting or approving anybody abusing children. The age of consent changes over time and it is different from country to country. There can be nothing wrong in challenging Tatchell for his views in that letter to the Guardian views. He said things that we regard as obnoxious but to smear O’Gorman over them is hardly appropriate.

    Gript editor John McGuirk addresses the issue in a more plausible and nuanced manner. There is also a piece by Michael Nugent to follow on the blog tomorrow night which in my view is a much more grounded appreciation of the issue.

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  2. Anthony,
    There's no need for that vicious slur on the one true church. A lot of good work goes unnoticed, i.e just during the lockdown I meet a priest who was willing to provide childcare to key worker's young sons so they could carry on safe in the knowledge their sons were looked after. Did he get a thank you?, Did he fuck, none of them even took him up on his fine offer.

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    1. David - this is the amazing thing about child protection protestors who have not yet protested outside a Church.

      While I think labels like Nazi and fascist are sprinkled around all too easily, this protest was for the most part driven by right wing Catholic sentiment which harbours an antipathy towards gay people and freedom of choice for women.

      Child protection concerns - a mere flag of convenience.

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  3. Matt Treacy says

    Will get back to this, but I do take issue with Anthony's depiction of the protest as being "homophobic" due to O'Gorman being the target. (One of main speakers is a gay man.)

    The issue is as the title suggests, the arrogance of the sanctimonious liberal left and their not so liberal "anti fascist" bouncers.

    Tatchell made comments on children having sex with adults that are clearly, one hopes, beyond the pale. And yet he was greeted as a hero at Dublin Pride.

    Mostly though, people are objecting to the push - against the advice of leading medical experts, as opposed to activists, in the area of gender dysphoria - to open the way to children under the age of 16 embarking on a life altering path that if it involves medical intervention in the shape of puberty blocking or surgery at a later stage, is irreversible.

    If we had all been allowed to do as we wished when 14 or 15 and had the backing of our parents, the world would not be a better place. Certainly not if it was anything to do with me at that age!

    As I say it was mostly the reaction of the far left and the likes of Finlay that prompted the piece. Neither can tolerate dissent and certainly do not like being opposed. AFA were also clearly miffed at the size of the crowd and the fact that their infantile plan to drown out speakers with their former sound system was stymied.

    For alleged rebels they have a curious tendency to turn out to support Government ministers - Flanagan's proposed "hate speech" having previously enticed them away from their bedsits. Defending ministers in Fine Gael led governments was where the Blueshirts began. But given the level of stupidity and graphic novel levels of historical and ideological comprehension amidst the far left it is doubtful that any of them have reflected on this example if history repeating itself, as a farce.

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  4. The sentiment of the Catholic right is invariably hostile to gay people.

    I don't use the term homophonic for the same reason that I don't use the term Islamophobic, seeing in the "phobic", Brendan O'Neill's observation, the pathologisation of dissent. But right wing Catholic sentiment seems to have been the moving spirt of the rally even if people who are not right wing Catholics (such as John Connors) were present out of what they considered good motives.

    Tatchell expressed no support for the abuse of children nor did he engage in the cover up of child rape. He has made this very clear. Instead he offered an intellectual critique of the prevailing view. While we might think that position bonkers, it is an opinion and nothing more. He was welcomed in Dublin with open arms not because of any views he expressed on child-adult sex, but for the work he has done on human rights issues not to mention the beatings he has taken in defence of rights in Russia and elsewhere.

    Everyone else thought it was about the influence of Peter Tatchell on Irish policymakers

    But why would everybody else think that when there is not the slightest evidence to support such a feeling?

    Moreover, it seems that they thought nothing of the sort. Most appear to agree with Ogle that it was a fascist rally. They might be wrong and are mirroring what the rally sought to do to O'Gorman - deeming him guilty by association (a notion rightly dismissed by John McGuirk, the editor of Gript) - by judging some of the speakers at the rally by the company they have kept. If company really damns people how can it therefore not damn Kelly and Barrett?

    The protest was never about Tatchell's influence because there isn't the slightest evidence that he has any influence. To state otherwise is an attempt to muddy the waters and blur the issue.

    As for being welcome in Dublin, those who have attended Nazi events across Europe were no less welcome at the anti-O'Gorman rally.

    As for the gender dysphoria issue it is not what Barrett referred to when he shouted from the platform “I see that there are people actually here on behalf of the paedophiles."

    We know the paedophiles Barrett was referring to were not the clergy and the inference to be drawn is that it was an effort to smear the work of O'Gorman.

    The far left have always been intolerant of dissent but no worse than the far right. But there is no mention of that in the above piece which we would expect if it were against intolerance towards a rally where according to Michael Nugent:

    Speaking at the protest, Kelly called the Irish media prostitutes, called Irish politicians morons, bastards, perverts, and scum of the earth who hate our country, and shouted that various people who he disagreed with could go fuck themselves.


    A video of the rally showed those present physically attacking those objecting to their presence.

    And as intolerant as the Left is (and I know it from experience because I have had it out with them over the Danish anti-theocratic cartoons) I think most people will see the Left less like the Blueshirts than they do the Irish Freedom Party.

    "Hands off our kids" from people ranting about paedophiles would be a more meaningful slogan if it were brandished in the faces of the bishops rather than O'Gorman's.

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  5. Interesting. I don’t think it’s wise to tolerate intolerance. And on that basis I believe their is a clear conceptual distinction to be made between “left” and “right”. Accusing anti-fascists of being “bullies” is facile. Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham both used violence - but I’m assuming we can discern the difference.

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  6. Anthony,
    Gender dysphoria is a mental illness to me. I know they'll be people thinking bigot the minute you say such, but for me objectively, people believing they were born the wrong sex being of sound mind doesn't make sense. I'll be the first to admit I don't know anything about it but from the outside looking in it's a contradiction.
    The idea that children can make life changing decisions is bonkers to me, though I do agree if you're worried about the welfare of children, the destruction of the Catholic church should probably be your first port of call.

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    Replies
    1. Many Christians think the same of gays - it is a mental illness for which there should be conversion therapy.
      I don't think your view is a bigoted one to hold as I don't think we safely know enough yet about gender dysphoria to have formed a firm view.
      I don't mind what people want to be but I do feel that such a life altering event with the potential for irreversible harm s something that should not be taken on as if it is another day at the office.
      If people feel uncomfortable in their body to the extent that they are tempted to end their lives, then we need to take it seriously.
      Like abortion I will listen to any counter argument other than a religious one. What Horatio or Horace claim the Unicorn might think on either is of absolutely no interest to me.

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