Davy Clinton ✒ Some, contrived, furore today over the non-attendance of the Irish President, though not my President as I can't vote for him or any other candidates. 

But leaving that aside - and I'll not be surprised if there is some backtracking on this, what concerns me is that Church leaders are rushing to this event. It's not a celebration we are told. Yes it fucking is. It's a celebration of this rotten undemocratic state. A state that for its first 50 years was openly run by a Protestant parliament for Protestant people. Where Catholic working classes were second class citizens controlled by the most Draconian laws in the world. Where the Catholics were refused jobs and housing. Where tens of thousands of them were forced to leave their homes in pogram after pogram. And when these people said Stop, that they wanted basic human rights they were batoned off the streets and then murdered in the streets.

And now we find " the great and the good" going to head soon to Armagh in celebration of all this.

I would never have doubted for a minute the the Protestant church leaders would be there. They never raised their voices when their Catholic neighbours were being treated as second class citizens. They stood square behind the status quo .... I would expect nothing less. But for the leader of Ireland's Catholics to attend this event is scandalous. But you know what, I expect nothing less from him either. That church will always support the status quo too.
 
Imagine all those Catholics over decades, driven from homes and workplaces, discriminated against in every facet of live, arrested, tortured interned, shot down in peaceful protest and treated as complete second class citizens. And now their supposed religious leader supports the status quo and the normalisation of all that happened. 

He is a disgrace.  

Davy Clinton is a life long Glasgow Celtic supporter. 

A Thundering Disgrace

Davy Clinton ✒ Some, contrived, furore today over the non-attendance of the Irish President, though not my President as I can't vote for him or any other candidates. 

But leaving that aside - and I'll not be surprised if there is some backtracking on this, what concerns me is that Church leaders are rushing to this event. It's not a celebration we are told. Yes it fucking is. It's a celebration of this rotten undemocratic state. A state that for its first 50 years was openly run by a Protestant parliament for Protestant people. Where Catholic working classes were second class citizens controlled by the most Draconian laws in the world. Where the Catholics were refused jobs and housing. Where tens of thousands of them were forced to leave their homes in pogram after pogram. And when these people said Stop, that they wanted basic human rights they were batoned off the streets and then murdered in the streets.

And now we find " the great and the good" going to head soon to Armagh in celebration of all this.

I would never have doubted for a minute the the Protestant church leaders would be there. They never raised their voices when their Catholic neighbours were being treated as second class citizens. They stood square behind the status quo .... I would expect nothing less. But for the leader of Ireland's Catholics to attend this event is scandalous. But you know what, I expect nothing less from him either. That church will always support the status quo too.
 
Imagine all those Catholics over decades, driven from homes and workplaces, discriminated against in every facet of live, arrested, tortured interned, shot down in peaceful protest and treated as complete second class citizens. And now their supposed religious leader supports the status quo and the normalisation of all that happened. 

He is a disgrace.  

Davy Clinton is a life long Glasgow Celtic supporter. 

10 comments:

  1. "Davy Clinton is a life long Glasgow Celtic supporter".

    Who writes these tag-lines?

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  2. From the Irish Times

    'Trinity College Dublin historian Dr Brian Hanley said: “I think the idea of ‘shared history’ was always flawed, leading to commemorative trade-offs that ignored questions such as imperialism, power and inequality.

    “There is absolutely no way that there could be a non-contentious commemoration of the establishment of Northern Ireland given that it was founded on discrimination and exclusion, backed up by state violence.

    “Perhaps President Higgins could challenge those commemorating Northern Ireland to discuss people like the so-called ‘rotten prods’, those workers driven from the shipyards and elsewhere for defending their Catholic workmates or standing up to sectarianism?

    “Perhaps his non-attendance will lead to an honest debate about the uses of history and why it cannot really be a tool for reconciliation.”

    I wonder what team or what sport Hanley follows?
    Does it matter?
    Would describing him as a 'life long Glasgow Celtic supporter' enhance or detract?

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    Replies
    1. I think it is more authentic to have a sharing of history rather than a shared history. It allows each of us to have our share of the history without trying to impose some overarching history narrative which we can all agree with. My attitude to history would be much the same as it is to truth. There is no compelling reason to think either can reconcile. There is more to suggest they can repulse rather than attract. Kipling's Neither The Twain shall meet seems more apt.

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  3. The task of tag lines falls to me Henry Joy if the author of the piece does not express a different preference. Davy is the person outside of family who along with Tony Maguire (Booker's Dozen and the occasional comment) I know longer than anyone else - so far in fact I no long remember when we first met. When we had lunch recently, I reminded him of some of his boyhood Celtic traits. We had a very interesting conversation about Celtic and his lifelong passion for it. He slags me off for not being a life long Liverpool supporter - we go so far back he can still recall me supporting Man City! An acutely intelligent person, he has never once shied away from his love of Glasgow Celtic and it is how I would define him in one sentence. He is very proud of it and would not want it marginalised or hidden away in pursuit of some pseudo respectability. He would feel that to do that would be to legitmise snobbery.
    When he first appeared on the blog in December 2020 that was the tagline. I imagine had he a problem with it he would have raised it by now as it has been used on a few occasions.
    It takes absolutely nothing away from the quality of his observations. And he remains free to be described in some other manner if he so chooses.
    An interesting point you raise re Brian - I do think if the tagline to Brian's piece was to be a lifelong Glasgow Celtic supporter it might well detract on the grounds that it would be the first time he had been described that way. if he had previously been tagged that way, it would not detract. It certainly would make it harder for the detractors to depict it so that it would detract.

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  4. Replies
    1. I wouldn't go that far - Liverpool fan would be better!! As a lover of the soccer (watching it at the minute - Villa and Everton) there is Sweet FA wrong with being a supporter. And after the smearing directed the way of the Liverpool fans I am totally comfortable to be one: wear it like a badge. In fact I do wear a Justice for the 96 badge.

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    2. Football unifies us, it's that powerful. Not at the corporatist level, but for us ordinary fans it's a passion, an escape, wee bit of banter over the game gets you through the day. I had an epiphany while reading about the slagging of not being a lifetime fan, I don't think I ever met a Celtic fan who chose to be one, we are indoctrinated at birth. Does that make us a cult?

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  5. The first of the 'Penal Laws' were passed in 1695. Being an island Ireland was spared the religious liquidations and inquisitions of Europe until after the Battle Of The Boyne. The Irish 'holy men' were not controlled by Rome and indeed it was the Irish who forced Rome to add confession to the playbook. I believe the Penal Laws were Ireland's Inquisition and it's no accident the Pope of the day had official Vatican celebration of the Williamite victory. The ensuing cultural genocide aimed at reducing the Irish population to compliant subjects was only partially successful but at the end the English gave Rome exclusive access to the minds of a captive audience. The 'special relationship' has been clearly evident ever since.

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  6. Worth noting the actual context of that quote..

    "The hon. Member must remember that in the South they boasted of a Catholic State. They still boast of Southern Ireland being a Catholic State. All I boast of is that we are a Protestant Parliament and a Protestant State. It would be rather interesting for historians of the future to compare a Catholic State launched in the South with a Protestant State launched in the North and to see which gets on the better and prospers the more. It is most interesting for me at the moment to watch how they are progressing. I am doing my best always to top the bill and to be ahead of the South.

    In 1935, the President of the Executive Council of the Irish Free State, Éamon de Valera, said that "Since the coming of St Patrick, fifteen hundred years ago, Ireland has been a Christian and a Catholic nation ... she remains a Catholic nation". During the Dáil debates on the Constitution of Ireland in 1937, the Fianna Fáil Minister for Finance Seán MacEntee described it as 'the Constitution of a Catholic State'.

    Neither State has an unblemished History, though I'm a bit surprised that people in the North can't vote for the President of Ireland.

    Steve R- Lifelong Hun bastard and Bluenose.

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