Social Items

TPQ
Micheál Choilm Mac Giolla Easbuig ★The pathetic figure of the 'token Nationalist' Michelle O'Neill carrying the laurel wreath which symbolizes victory, achievement, and honour, to be laid at the cenotaph of Imperialism, in Belfast, is very sad. Sad but also disgusting.

 
What possible political gains are to be had by the Shinners by honouring those who fought in imperialist wars and slaughtered millions upon millions of civilians alone? Working class women and men (mainly men) conned by the purveyors of death around the world, into sacrificing themselves and their families, in wars of the wealthy and powerful. Wars to colonise weaker countries to rob them off their wealth and create new markets for their ever expanding capitalist markets. Nothing at all to do with the 'freedom of small or any nations'. And even less to do with, so called, democracy.
 
Then we have the 'Irish question', all 900 years of it. The slaughter, the imprisonments, the deliberate starving to death of at least one million Irish and the forced exiling of millions more. They even killed our language and culture.

Only thirty or forty years ago British troops were killing Irish people in the streets for daring to resist against occupation and colonialism. They slaughtered the Civil Rights marchers, they systematically killed innocent civilians all over the six counties; and in the 26 Counties.
 
When they failed to break us they pacified our, supposed, leadership. And the traitorous "leadership" fooled and pacified the Republican base. Now that same "leadership" honours the very same imperialist forces that subjugated, by ruthless force, the Irish Nation.
 
For what died the sons of Roísín . . .  was it imperialism? For what died the sons of Roísín . . . was it to denigrate our fallen volunteers? For what died the sons of Roísín . . .  to perpetuate a craven colonial mindset?

Micheál Choilm Mac Giolla Easbuig 
is an independent councillor on Donegal County Council.

Honouring British Imperialism

Anthony McIntyre ⚽ Going into the last game of their season, Drogheda United had a real chance of playing European soccer next year.


Three stars had to align for that to happen: Drogs beat Bohemians,  Shelbourne stop Pat's from taking three points, Shamrock Rovers defeat Cork in yesterday's FAI Cup final. 

Shels and Rovers successfully completed their assigned tasks but the Drogs proved incapable of lifting their game, unlike last season, and ended up being hammered. A 1-4 defeat at home is not a glamourous way to end a season. Many fans trudged out dejected, as for the second year in succession they experienced Droxit. There was some solace to fall back on this year as UEFA bureaucratese managed to find a way to deprive the Drogs of their rightful place gracing a European soccer pitch. But for next year, there is no one to blame but themselves. Drogheda United simply failed to do to Bohemians what they have done for the previous four games: play out of their skin and come away with a victory. 

As we travelled to the stadium for the game last Saturday afternoon, our ritual played out. Jay made a prediction that the Drogs would win 2-1 whereas I opted for the draw. Not for a second did either of us feel that the home side would be so comprehensively overwhelmed by the opposition. 

A 4.30 kick off on a Saturday is unusual but welcome given the bright weather which unfortunately the Drogs were unable to convert into a bright start. An early missed opportunity by the usually dependable Ryan Brennan hinted at worse to come  

With little to cheer the fans exercised their vocal chords on last year's conquering hero, Douglas James Taylor. It was gratuitous because were it not for the efforts of Dougie in last years cup run there would have been no Aviva final. A palpable cloud of tension developed to hover above the home support when the visitors took an early lead. Not part of the script which seemed to right itself when Conor Keeley headed home a perfectly delivered Shane Farrell free kick. How the player who gave away the foul was not shown a second yellow irked the home fans, particularly the Ultras. The Bohs cutely substituted him, sensing that the situation had become precarious. 


If the get out of jail free card left a bad taste in the mouth there was an even more bitter pill to swallow when Josh Thomas in the 77th minute saw red, lashed out, and whatever chance the Claret and Blue had of overcoming the by then 1-2 deficit, was seriously diminished by being down to ten men. A vote in the stadium would have been overwhelmingly cast in favour of evicting the referee. Josh Thomas deserved his red but so too did John Mountney who had been shown a yellow card only two minutes into the game. The Bohs, not a lot to beware Drogs bearing gifts, pocketed their freebie, before adding two more goals for good measure. After yesterday's victory for Shamrock Rovers at the Aviva, which we attended, the Dalymount Park men will now play European soccer in 2026 while the Drogs will rue their inability to perform to the level required.

Many fans began leaving Sullivan And Lambe Park before the final whistle. Licking my lips after the last dregs of the Jack Daniels hip flask warmed my throat, we stayed to applaud the disappointed players, coach and staff. Dejection not rejection prevailed. With 2026 season tickets already secured, come February we shall once again take our seats in the hope that over the close season a cure will be found for defenderitis, and the team allowed to play a more creative attacking brand of football. It would be great to go the full season unbeaten but not if the cost is thirty six draws. 

⏩Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.

Drogs ⚽ Bohs ⚽ Droxit

Dr John Coulter ✍ Just as Christmas celebrations begin as early as June, the time has come for the traditional wearing of the poppy to be made a year-long commemoration and not just a few weeks in October and November.


Yesterday was Remembrance Sunday and across the British Isles, services of commemoration and wreath laying took place as many folk remembered those who served and sacrificed, especially in the two world wars.

It’s also a very personal family occasion for us. Each year at a war memorial, we lay a small wooden cross with a poppy on it detailing the names of loved ones who are now sadly gone.

They include my late dad, Rev Dr Robert Coulter MBE, who served with the Ulster Special Constabulary, affectionately known as the B Specials or B Men, and who in later life was president of an USC Association.

The others on the wee cross are William Ferris, my wife’s grandfather, who served on the Western Front during the Second World War; my grandfather John Coulter, who served with the Royal Flying Corps in World War One; my great uncle Billy Coulter, who served with the Northumberland Fusiliers in the Great War and the Home Guard in World War Two.

There is also my great uncle Ricky Coulter, who served with the RAF during World War Two and was shot down over Europe, but his body was never recovered. There is also another great uncle, William Holmes, who served with the British Army and was killed at the Battle of Cambrai in 1917, but his body was never recovered as he was hit by a German shell and blown to bits.

And in more modern times, there is the name of my cousin Arthur Henderson, an RUC Reservist, who was murdered by a Provisional IRA booby-trap car bomb whilst he was on duty in the Co Tyrone village of Stewartstown in the Seventies.

While the ceremony of planting the wee cross lasts only a matter of seconds, it is nonetheless a very moving occasion for myself and other family members with me.

I have the freedom today in 2025 to do this because of the service and sacrifice of those family members and tens of thousands of others. Can we even contemplate the type of Northern Ireland we would be living in if the German Kaiser had won the Great War, or Nazi tyrant Hitler had won World War Two, or the Provos had driven the British out?

As the years go by, there are less and less veterans alive from these conflicts. Very few, if any, veterans exist who served in the Great War. Likewise, it is only a matter of time before there are no veterans alive from the Second World War.

Similarly, while many veterans are still with us from the Troubles conflict, how many security forces veterans still remain from the IRA’s earlier border terror campaign of 1956-62 which the RUC and especially the B Specials played such a vital military role in defeating?

To ensure the freedoms for which they served, died or were maimed remain, the time has come to make the poppy worn all year round. There should also be more Armed Forces Days to mark the vital role which our veterans - alive or dead - have played, and our existing security forces still play.

A situation must not be allowed to develop as existed in Southern Ireland for decades when many who fought with the British forces were snubbed when they returned from the fighting, or lay in unmarked graves militarily.

During my time in the tabloids, I had the privilege of being part of a campaign to have Irishmen who had won the Victoria Cross, the British forces’ highest award for bravery, honoured by having the VC carved on their headstones.

Even dating well back beyond the Great War, there was a number of ex-military VC heroes buried in Southern Ireland whose honour had not been recognised.

Similarly, I was also involved in the campaign to have the names of soldiers from Ireland cleared who were shot for cowardice during the Great War when in reality they were suffering from what became known as shell shock.

They became known as the Shot At Dawn soldiers who were executed during World War One by firing squad. More than two dozen Irish soldiers have had their names cleared.

Tomorrow, Tuesday 11th November, is Armistice Day when at 11 am that day the guns of the Great War officially fell silent.

Remembrance Sunday and Armistice Day always provides us in the geographical island of Ireland to remember our real patriotic dead; those from Ireland who genuinely donned the military uniforms and fought for freedoms gained in the two world wars and in subsequent conflicts because there was no other alternative to confronting tyranny.

The service and sacrifice of these security forces personnel cannot in any way be compared to the murderous activities of terrorists. Terrorists who plant no warning bombs or murder off-duty security forces in their homes or butcher innocent civilians at random are not ‘patriotic dead’. They are criminals.

To call terrorists ‘patriotic dead’ is an insult to the tens of thousands of nationalists and unionists who donned the uniforms of the British forces and fought and died side by side against the Kaiser and Hitler and later in Korea, Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Irish history is currently going through a period of extreme revisionism, especially by republicans.

A situation must never be allowed to emerge whereby those from both religious communities in Ireland who donned the various uniforms of the Crown and fought to protect freedom and democracy are airbrushed out of that history only to be replaced by terrorist killers of the republican movement.

One way of ensuring that this heinous revisionism does not succeed is for the poppy to become a year-long symbol by it being proudly worn continuously.
 
Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter
John is a Director for Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. 

Wearing A Poppy Should Be A Year-Long Practice

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of One Thousand Eight Hundred And Eighty Three

 

Pastords @ 14

 

A Morning Thought @ 2962

Anthony McIntyre  ☠ Today there will be two vigils, back to back at the same West Street location.


Drogheda Stands With Palestine will gather at 1200 which will be followed by a vigil in solidarity with the victims of last week's racist murder attempt on defenceless people a few hundred yards from where we gather.  Along with my daughter I plan to attend both. 

It has not gone unnoticed that the self proclaimed warriors for women chose not to confront the so called men of miliary age they incessantly fulminate against. Instead, they targeted women and children. Something of the Zionist about them. These people claim to be promoting the tradition of Irish republicanism but it seems if they are motivated by the national flag at all it is only for the purpose of being Irish drug dealers rather than British ones.

If there are foreign nationals coming to this country only to cause strife and inflict violence then the Garda arrest of a foreign suspect in Portlaoise on charges pertaining to intent to destroy mosques and IPAS centres is a positive step. We still await the query from the hatemongers about the vetting procedure undergone by this man of military age.

While the focus of the Drogheda Stands With Palestine vigil is always on the genocide Israel is carrying out in Gaza, the ripple effect is against all forms of hatred, racism and every attempt to place people in queues for the purpose of separating out the chosen people from the Untermensch.

This is what makes our weekly vigil symbolically and ideationally beneficial. We value our right to assemble in defence of the targets of racist hatred and in opposition to those who hate them. It is a right won by earlier generations of concerned citizens, both nationally and further afield, many of whom were battered into the ground by the cops, military or fascists eager to ensure that the voices from below never emerged to be heard. In this sense when we stand here, we do so on the shoulders of the giants who have trodden this path before.

In valuing the right to protest we should never take it for granted or assume it is a right that cannot be eroded or denied altogether. In Britain, the government led by the anti-human rights lawyer, Der Starmer, seems intent on smothering the right to assemble against atrocity. Armed with new draconian powers the Labour government hopes to suppress opposition to genocide. It claims that the powers are needed because protests against genocide are frightening the Jewish community. The fright effect, if any, is nowhere near as intense or nerve wrecking for UK Jews as it is for the Gazans who experience the horrific effects of the military hardware Der Starmer's government has provided throughout the genocide to Israel's murderous regime. Terrified Palestinian children dreading the bomb that will end their lives or maim them seem not to matter to Der Starmer. He has chosen people to promote and others to abandon.

The Guardian Columnist, Owen Jones, perhaps expressed it best:

In today’s upside-down world, here’s what is actually going on. Israel – a foreign state – is committing genocide. Its war crimes have led the international criminal court to issue arrest warrants against Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister. Public opinion in the west has turned sharply against Israel’s violence. In Britain, a large majority of people believe Israel has likely committed war crimes. Most people would back a total ban on arms sales to the state, and support the arrest of Netanyahu.
Having long since lost the argument, Israel’s cheerleaders are now seizing on a vile antisemitic crime to try to silence a mass movement against a moral catastrophe. The British government are included in this. Ministers have failed to impose large-scale sanctions on Israel, and have allowed arms exports to continue. As the US author Ta-Nehisi Coates recently said of the Democrats, “if you can’t draw the line at genocide, you probably can’t draw the line at democracy”. The same applies to the Labour government.

People like ourselves who gather weekly to protest should remain vigilant against this creeping authoritarianism. Our instinct tells us that our own government, given half a chance, would implement an open borders policy that would welcome repressive tactics from abroad to be used on our streets against people of conscience.

So whether at one vigil or both in West Street today, appreciate the right to gather in protest while being be prepared to mobilise if politicians start suggesting a Great Replacement Theory that is real and not mere conspiracy fiction; one that would see our more lax right to assembly laws replaced with those of Der Starmer and his modern version of the Brown shirts. In the words of Owen Jones:

Our ancestors struggled, suffered and died to secure our freedoms. We will come to rue how casually we let them go.
⏩Follow on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre.

Assemble Against Atrocity

Belfast Telegraph ★ Tom Hartley speaks to James McNaney, reflecting on his decades of research, tours of Belfast’s cemeteries and how the secrets that they hold help in telling its amazing story.


Tom Hartley has held many roles in his life: republican activist, political advisor, city councillor, Lord Mayor and, in recent decades, local historian and tour guide to Belfast’s cemeteries.

Entering his ninth decade, Tom decided to finish up with the last of these positions, giving his last tour of the Belfast City Cemetery to a packed crowd during Féile an Phobail last month.

Speaking a few days after that tour, on a warm afternoon in Cultúrann on the Falls Road, he explains that he’s relieved to finish a “long journey.”

“It had to come to an end”, he says, “it’s over now for me, that part of my life. Old age, bad feet: there’s some things you can’t avoid, but that’s okay.”

Guiding groups around the cemetery was certainly physical work. His final tour took over two and a half hours, during which time he walked around the whole of the large cemetery, up and down a hill, on a very hot summer’s day.

Tour Guide On Final Cemetery Walk

Church And State ★ Written by David Madison.

Once upon a time—a very long time ago—four guys who had written stories about Jesus submitted their works to the Bible Screening Committee. 

They each received a notice to be near the screening committee’s headquarters on a certain day. By unhappy coincidence, they all chose to wait at the same bar, about a block away. They really didn’t like each other, but managed to be polite as they waited for word from the BS Committee. They each got a text message on their phones at the same time: “Congratulations! Your story has been approved for inclusion in the New Testament we’re putting together.” Each author was about to gloat—until they realized that all four versions had been given the okay, and even worse than that: the BS Committee was planning to print the four versions of the Jesus story together. They all knew that would be a disaster. At least there was potential for disaster. They had no clue that many centuries later, when lay people finally had access to the New Testament, reading the gospels carefully—comparing them carefully—would not become a habit.

Which Gospel Is the Worst Of The Four?

Right Wing Watch 👀 Written by Peter Montgomery,


Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts released a remarkable video Thursday defending Tucker Carlson’s friendly two-hour interview with far-right personality Nick Fuentes.

Carlson has been drawing some harsh criticism from right-wing political figures for platforming Fuentes, who has declared his love for Adolf Hitler and told Carlson that he has always been an admirer of Josef Stalin. Fuentes responded to those critics with an antisemitic rant saying his Jewish critics should “get the fuck out of America and go to Israel.” That makes Robertson’s decision to ride to Carlson’s rescue even more notable.

Fuentes is using his recent tour of right-wing podcasts to simultaneously downplay his bigotry and anti-democratic extremism while establishing that his racism, antisemitism, misogyny, and Christian nationalist fascism deserve a place at the conservative movement’s table.

Carlson’s interview was Fuentes’s biggest success in that effort – until Roberts gave it the endorsement of the enormously influential Heritage Foundation. No wonder Fuentes is grateful.

“I disagree with, and even abhor, things that Nick Fuentes says, but canceling him is not the answer, either,” Roberts said in his video.

Heritage Foundation’s Kevin Roberts 🪶 Conservatives Shouldn’t Cancel Nick Fuentes

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

 

Pastords @ 13

 

A Morning Thought @ 2961

Subscribe to: Comments (Atom)