Remembering Kevin Lynch On The 45th Anniversary Of His Death On Hunger Strike In The H Blocks Of Long Kesh.
Kate Rice ✍ On another day in the city, I accidentally wandered into the remains of an Orange march, with another one promised on the horizon.
I didn’t see the actual march. I didn’t want to. I had no desire to witness more of the spectacle that had made my dad so passionate, and ultimately, so small-minded. The march that had passed through earlier had left urban chaos in its wake - the street choked with rubbish and empty plastic bottles. Despite it, the air was tense with anticipation for the next. People lined the pavements, settling into folding camping chairs like they were preparing for Glastonbury.
I watched a crowd dressed in bright orange t-shirts, the Red Hand of Ulster plastered boldly across their chests. One woman stood out, completely smothered in the Union Jack - right down to a sparkling red white and blue bowler hat.
I know I am supposed to be here to learn. I know I am supposed to lean away from my inherent biases and view every side of this fractured city with an open mind. But as I looked at them, I realized my capacity for open-mindedness had a strict and painful boundary. I cannot look at the culture my dad came from with the same generous, seeking eyes I gave to West Belfast.
To me, Loyalism isn’t an abstract political identity or a different perspective on history. It is inextricably linked to my father’s alcoholism. It is the quiet backdrop to the violence of my childhood. The flags and the far away pattering of drums didn't feel like a cultural celebration, but the visual language of the beast that had lived in my own home. Standing on that littered street, trying to force myself to understand a culture that hurt me felt less like learning, and more like rubbing salt an old wound I had long thought healed. I had to walk away.
It makes me feel bad to write this down. I came here wanting to learn, wanting to be entirely equal and fair, but I just can't bring myself to do it. It feels selfish, in a way, to wilfully look away from an entire half of this city's culture.
But how can I look at a celebration of his identity and not see him? All I have ever learned or heard from my dad is bigoted rhetoric and pure, unadulterated hatefulness. When I see their flags and hear their songs, I don't see a community. I see my dad’s pride in being a British soldier, I hear his visceral hatred toward Republicanism, towards immigrants, towards Other.
My mind instantly flashes back to my developmental years - years spent in a perpetual state of terror, walking on eggshells just to appease a volatile man. I did everything I could to make sure he wouldn't abandon me, or worse, raise a hand to me the way he so easily did to my mum. The people lining the streets for the march might see a proud tradition, but to me, that pride is stained. It is the language of the man whose born history ruled my childhood. To ask myself to look at Loyalism with open, objective eyes isn't just a historical exercise, it's asking myself to forgive the violence in my own history before I am ready. For now, my open eyes are reserved for the places that don't look like him - though I hope with time, I can view the North in its entirety without my personal feelings covering my eyes.
Following Charlie’s advice, I dropped into the Rock Bar. The moment I crossed the threshold, the bartender caught my eye and smiled. The immediate ease of the place washed over me. I ordered a Coke and asked him where else I should visit. Without hesitation, he suggested the Felons Club. He told me it was a place where people who had lived right through the heart of the conflict gathered, and that many of them, on occasion, were happy to share a few words of their own personal history.
Buoyed by the welcome, I walked back to the house to collect my partner. I asked the woman at the bar if there was anyone who might be kind enough to talk me through the history of the photos dotted around the place. A man named Gerard, wearing a Celtic shirt, generously offered to show me the history lining the walls. He walked us through a gallery of memory and respect. There were pictures of famous rebels, the hunger strikers, the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising, and the tragic story of Tom Williams, a young man executed in prison whose body was later secured by the IRA just so he could be buried alongside his mammy, as he had wished. There was art depicting the coffin boats of the Great Famine, and then, upstairs, the most delicate testament to human endurance: harps, crosses, and chairs painstakingly carved and crafted by the prisoners of Long Kesh.
I’ll confess, I got a bit teary eyed. The woman behind the bar caught sight of my tears and looked genuinely surprised by my emotion. I realized then the vast distance between us. To her, this raw, heavy history was an everyday reality she had long learned to respect and live beside. To me, stepping into it with fresh eyes, the visual evidence of so much collective grief was a visceral, overwhelming shock to the system.
The ideas I’d had about it being a conflict of ideals and politics was sort of slapped straight out of my head. Just crosses and harps, carved by the hands of ordinary men in cells, often dressed only with a blanket as part of their humanitarian protest to be treated as prisoners of war.
On another day, I visited the Falls exhibit at an old primary school and listened to an audio archive of the curfew implemented on the Falls. How Belfast had started as a small town, the linen mills, and the inequality in job and housing allocation between the Catholic and Protestant communities. Inevitably, I cried again. There’s this bit where they show you a ten minute film of footage from the curfew, and other events including when police broke into a Sinn Fein office in 1964 and confiscated the tricolour from the window, and the burning of homes in the area. You can see families just carrying their furniture through the street while these great big orange flames burst through window frames and lick up the brick sides.
On the 15th, we travelled to Drogheda by train and met with Christopher Owens and TPQ’s patriarch himself, Anthony McIntyre. We sat in a gorgeous little pub garden and spoke the world. I gave my thoughts on some things but it was an honour to sit back and listen to these two men who had both experienced the conflict in some regard speak of their personal history - and their taste in music, books, and drinking spirits. For this I must give my thanks to both gentlemen for their welcoming hospitality, their endless patience for my naive questions, and Christopher’s suggestion of a pre-pub Dominoes.
I fly home on the 17th, and already the thought of leaving is saddening me. There’s still so much I wish to see and hear and listen to. I am both pleased and embarrassed to say that my naive optimism and view of a complicated history remains intact - I hold hope for a United Ireland, a peaceful future, and many more such naked conversations about the burden of heritage. Belfast, you have been a dream to me. No longer will I imagine a shadowed beast and whispered history, inaccessible to those who didn’t live through the days of gunfire and fear. Thank you for your patience with me. One day I will come back with both eyes open, unburdened by personal history so that I might properly appreciate yours.
I watched a crowd dressed in bright orange t-shirts, the Red Hand of Ulster plastered boldly across their chests. One woman stood out, completely smothered in the Union Jack - right down to a sparkling red white and blue bowler hat.
I know I am supposed to be here to learn. I know I am supposed to lean away from my inherent biases and view every side of this fractured city with an open mind. But as I looked at them, I realized my capacity for open-mindedness had a strict and painful boundary. I cannot look at the culture my dad came from with the same generous, seeking eyes I gave to West Belfast.
To me, Loyalism isn’t an abstract political identity or a different perspective on history. It is inextricably linked to my father’s alcoholism. It is the quiet backdrop to the violence of my childhood. The flags and the far away pattering of drums didn't feel like a cultural celebration, but the visual language of the beast that had lived in my own home. Standing on that littered street, trying to force myself to understand a culture that hurt me felt less like learning, and more like rubbing salt an old wound I had long thought healed. I had to walk away.
It makes me feel bad to write this down. I came here wanting to learn, wanting to be entirely equal and fair, but I just can't bring myself to do it. It feels selfish, in a way, to wilfully look away from an entire half of this city's culture.
But how can I look at a celebration of his identity and not see him? All I have ever learned or heard from my dad is bigoted rhetoric and pure, unadulterated hatefulness. When I see their flags and hear their songs, I don't see a community. I see my dad’s pride in being a British soldier, I hear his visceral hatred toward Republicanism, towards immigrants, towards Other.
My mind instantly flashes back to my developmental years - years spent in a perpetual state of terror, walking on eggshells just to appease a volatile man. I did everything I could to make sure he wouldn't abandon me, or worse, raise a hand to me the way he so easily did to my mum. The people lining the streets for the march might see a proud tradition, but to me, that pride is stained. It is the language of the man whose born history ruled my childhood. To ask myself to look at Loyalism with open, objective eyes isn't just a historical exercise, it's asking myself to forgive the violence in my own history before I am ready. For now, my open eyes are reserved for the places that don't look like him - though I hope with time, I can view the North in its entirety without my personal feelings covering my eyes.
Following Charlie’s advice, I dropped into the Rock Bar. The moment I crossed the threshold, the bartender caught my eye and smiled. The immediate ease of the place washed over me. I ordered a Coke and asked him where else I should visit. Without hesitation, he suggested the Felons Club. He told me it was a place where people who had lived right through the heart of the conflict gathered, and that many of them, on occasion, were happy to share a few words of their own personal history.
Buoyed by the welcome, I walked back to the house to collect my partner. I asked the woman at the bar if there was anyone who might be kind enough to talk me through the history of the photos dotted around the place. A man named Gerard, wearing a Celtic shirt, generously offered to show me the history lining the walls. He walked us through a gallery of memory and respect. There were pictures of famous rebels, the hunger strikers, the leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising, and the tragic story of Tom Williams, a young man executed in prison whose body was later secured by the IRA just so he could be buried alongside his mammy, as he had wished. There was art depicting the coffin boats of the Great Famine, and then, upstairs, the most delicate testament to human endurance: harps, crosses, and chairs painstakingly carved and crafted by the prisoners of Long Kesh.
I’ll confess, I got a bit teary eyed. The woman behind the bar caught sight of my tears and looked genuinely surprised by my emotion. I realized then the vast distance between us. To her, this raw, heavy history was an everyday reality she had long learned to respect and live beside. To me, stepping into it with fresh eyes, the visual evidence of so much collective grief was a visceral, overwhelming shock to the system.
The ideas I’d had about it being a conflict of ideals and politics was sort of slapped straight out of my head. Just crosses and harps, carved by the hands of ordinary men in cells, often dressed only with a blanket as part of their humanitarian protest to be treated as prisoners of war.
On another day, I visited the Falls exhibit at an old primary school and listened to an audio archive of the curfew implemented on the Falls. How Belfast had started as a small town, the linen mills, and the inequality in job and housing allocation between the Catholic and Protestant communities. Inevitably, I cried again. There’s this bit where they show you a ten minute film of footage from the curfew, and other events including when police broke into a Sinn Fein office in 1964 and confiscated the tricolour from the window, and the burning of homes in the area. You can see families just carrying their furniture through the street while these great big orange flames burst through window frames and lick up the brick sides.
On the 15th, we travelled to Drogheda by train and met with Christopher Owens and TPQ’s patriarch himself, Anthony McIntyre. We sat in a gorgeous little pub garden and spoke the world. I gave my thoughts on some things but it was an honour to sit back and listen to these two men who had both experienced the conflict in some regard speak of their personal history - and their taste in music, books, and drinking spirits. For this I must give my thanks to both gentlemen for their welcoming hospitality, their endless patience for my naive questions, and Christopher’s suggestion of a pre-pub Dominoes.
I fly home on the 17th, and already the thought of leaving is saddening me. There’s still so much I wish to see and hear and listen to. I am both pleased and embarrassed to say that my naive optimism and view of a complicated history remains intact - I hold hope for a United Ireland, a peaceful future, and many more such naked conversations about the burden of heritage. Belfast, you have been a dream to me. No longer will I imagine a shadowed beast and whispered history, inaccessible to those who didn’t live through the days of gunfire and fear. Thank you for your patience with me. One day I will come back with both eyes open, unburdened by personal history so that I might properly appreciate yours.
⏩Kate Rice is a peace baby.
“Guitar seems so fucking loud. People walking on the crowd. Diving off the P.A. stacks. Breaking ankles, necks and backs. Then the circle begins In the thrashing pit/Fists are flying/People getting hit/Tooth chippers left and right/Skinheads in another fight/Banging heads and broken jaws Because there are no laws/ In the pit!” - D.R.I
 |
| Horns up |
New Horizons
Butthole Surfers – After the Astronaut
Although some songs on here form the basis of 2001’s poor ‘Weird Revolution’, this record should have predated it. ‘After the Astronaut’ actually sounds like it was a fun album to make and still has high-quality production values and just enough weirdness to tempt back those fans who switched off thanks to ‘Electriclarryland’ and their bullshit lawsuit with Touch and Go.
The album can be streamed and purchased
Mau Maus – The Battle Scars of Human Debris
The cult UK hardcore band return with their first album in five years. Now sporting Nick Wynch (Unholy Alliance, English Dogs) on guitar, the end result is a ferociously angry record that updates the UK82 sound for the 21st century. Songs like ‘Genocide’, ‘Memento Mori’ and ‘Poppy Day’ will get moshpits going in no time.
The album can be streamed and purchased here.
Deafkids – Cicatrizes Do Futuro
Sao Palo’s Deafkids remain one of the most esoteric, forward-thinking acts of today. Focusing on rhythm as opposed to riffing, we get a suitable follow up to 2019’s ‘Metaprogramação’. Tracks like ‘Cicatrizes’ and ‘Possessao Coletiva’ are the aural equivalent of being trapped in a crumbling mental hospital: danger lurks everywhere but it’s well worth the risk.
The album can be streamed and purchased here.
Maquina – Body Transmission
Two years on from their last LP, Portugal’s Maquina return with another record that takes the drive of krautrock and the mechanical rhythms of industrial rock but have turned up the volume on the guitar amp. It takes a while to get used to but songs like ‘collapsing’ groove like a bastard while the likes of ‘bizarro’ is the sort of track that HEALTH should be making.
The album can be streamed and purchased here.
Golden Oldies
Pete Sandoval sounds surprisingly good for someone who couldn’t play on Morbid Angel’s disastrous “Illud Divinum Insanus” because of back trouble. Musically, it’s certainly a lot more brutal than ‘Darker Days Ahead.’ Tracks like ‘Flesh to Dust’ and ‘Evolving Era’ are particular stand outs for drumming and guitar work.
Vektor – Outer Isolation
It’s clear that the group worship Voivod (note the sci-fi influenced artwork and a logo that borders on plagiarism), but that’s no bad thing, is it? The well-timed melodic break on ‘Venus Project’ is strong evidence that they know exactly what they’re doing and there’s enough punch throughout the LP to make you realise that Vektor stand on their own.
Orange Goblin – A Eulogy for the Damned
On this record, Orange Goblin left the stoner tag behind them and began to aim to elevate themselves to rock elders status. While it didn’t quite succeed, this is still a riff packed album, with a thick sound and bass and guitar locking impressively. Opener ‘Red Tide Rising’ is a surprisingly full and pulsating track while ‘The Filthy And The Few’ has an 80s cock rock drive.
Laibach – Spectre
The 2008 financial crisis, European austerity crisis and reemergence of Russia as a provocative state inspired Laibach no end. Although not an album where you can pick stand out tracks, as they don’t jump out at the listener the way they should. Taken as an album, it’s an exciting and dark electro/industrial piece that urges us to take up arms and join the state of NSK.
⏩ 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”.
Frankie Quinn with a poem from his expansive body of work.
Oppression
Oppression
Scream.
Is this life a fucking dream?
My body, it’s being crushed
Open up, take out this burning wrath
My arms are open wide
Give me love and fuck the pride
I need to see and feel my face
Not this hard stone front.
Come give me love,
And in return I’ll give you mine
⏩ Frankie Quinn is a former republican prisoner who is now a community activist. He is the author of Open Gates, a book of poetry.
On This Day In History . . .
Paris 1889: The Second International’s Founding Principle
On 14 July 1889, socialist delegates from across the world gathered in Paris to form the Second International. Their principle was simple: “The worker’s struggle has no borders.” because capital crossed them too.
Modern liberals have spent decades twisting that principle into an argument for the unrestricted movement of cheap labour. They are wrong.
Ask them what internationalism means today and you will hear about open borders, labour mobility and the free movement of people as an unquestionable good. What you will rarely hear is the word that mattered most to the socialists who met in Paris: capital.
Nearly 400 delegates from around 20 countries attended the founding congress. They did not meet to abolish nations. They met to stop capital using nations, and the workers within them, as weapons against one another.
That distinction has been buried. The left has paid dearly for it.
Modern internationalism asks workers to celebrate a system in which corporations move money, factories and labour wherever wages are lowest. When that movement drives down pay and weakens unions, we are told the resulting competition is solidarity.
Continue @ Heartlands.
The game was due to be part of the scheduled fixtures in yet another European international competition, the European Nations League. Due to the genocide being committed by the Israeli state against Palestinian civilians, including women and children, to say nothing of purposely targeting hospitals for missile attacks, this game is surrounded in controversies. There have been countless calls for a boycott of both fixtures, the game deeming Israel to be the home side is to be played in Hungary, while the game scheduled initially for Dublin has been transferred to Serbia at the Backa Topola which is a cop out by the Football Association of Ireland (IFA).
The FAI have decided at an emergency meeting that a boycott of these games by the team would have long lasting “damaging” effects on football in the twenty-six-counties. The call by many is in fact a demand that Israel should be kicked out of all competition controlled by Europe’s governing body for football, UEFA, which, if applied, would eliminate any fears in the future the team may draw Israel again. Russia was kicked out of all sporting competition including football after their invasion of neighbouring Ukraine but no such action is taken against Israel whose list of ‘war crimes’ are far greater than those of Russia. A rule for one but none for the other especially when the other are mates of the USA?
Critics and opponents of such a boycott point to anti-Semitism being levelled at them which is of course nonsense, and this is often used as an excuse not to criticise the Israeli state. Anti-Semitism is making profoundly hate fuelled speeches against Jewish people which is wrong and must be stamped out. Such orations include Holocaust denials and heaping blame on Jewish people for the world’s economic and political problems. Jewish people have suffered terrible anti-Semitism since the 12th century culminating in the horrific events in Nazi Germany and German occupied Europe during the Second World War and must be stamped on wherever it raises its ugly head. Criticising the Israeli government for their murderous actions in Gaza and the West Bank is not anti-Semitic and such criticisms are in fact levelled against the Netanyahu regime by Jewish people both inside and outside Israel.
The FAI have shown an unwillingness, inability, or a combination of both to organise a boycott of these fixtures. They have said such a boycott would cause “long lasting damage” to football under their jurisdiction. It could incur a €10.3 million fine on the association plus €5.3 million loss of revenue through gate takings. This revenue will be lost anyway because the games are due to be played behind closed doors in the so-called neutral venues Hungary and Serbia. It would almost certainly result in points being deducted and relegation for the team but so what? So, it comes down to the possible loss of €10 million in financial penalties and fines against taking a principled stance in support of the women and children in Palestine. Good to see the IFA have their priorities right!!
The FAI have shown an unwillingness, inability, or a combination of both to organise a boycott of these fixtures. They have said such a boycott would cause “long lasting damage” to football under their jurisdiction. It could incur a €10.3 million fine on the association plus €5.3 million loss of revenue through gate takings. This revenue will be lost anyway because the games are due to be played behind closed doors in the so-called neutral venues Hungary and Serbia. It would almost certainly result in points being deducted and relegation for the team but so what? So, it comes down to the possible loss of €10 million in financial penalties and fines against taking a principled stance in support of the women and children in Palestine. Good to see the IFA have their priorities right!!
The IFA claim to support the Palestinian people and now they have a chance to prove it by initiating a boycott of these fixtures and demanding the Israelis are, like Russia, booted out of the competition. To those who claim that politics should not come into sport, a ship which sailed a long time ago, I suggest they contact the good offices of Mr D.J. Trump who in all but name issued a presidential decree demanding a referee’s decision to red card a US player be overturned in the recent World Cup. Sport, all sport like everything else in life, is political in the broader sense of the word. This could also be an opportunity for the FAI to lead a campaign by individual football associations across Europe to have the Israelis booted out of the European Nations League and all other competitions for a period until the genocide stops. No need for UEFAs permission, they have already decided where their loyalties lie: just organise the boycott, refuse to pay any fines levelled at them and build support outside the governing body.
Given the FAI consider this fudge, moving the game to Serbia, as fulfilling their responsibilities towards the Palestinian people it may now come down to those players selected to play taking action themselves. This would be a last resort but it is the players who hold the ultimate card to have the matches played or not. Arguably footballers should not have these decisions, essentially administrative determinations, forced upon them but alas, like anything else in life, sometimes we have to do things not liked. I believe such a move would be popular among the footballing public and would have the desired effect. The Professional Footballers Association Ireland, the players trade union, would support such a boycott and are bound to defend any player who refuses to play against the Israeli national side should they suffer any repercussions related to their actions. I would strongly recommend the players keep in contact with their trade union if they decide on this course of action.
Given the FAI consider this fudge, moving the game to Serbia, as fulfilling their responsibilities towards the Palestinian people it may now come down to those players selected to play taking action themselves. This would be a last resort but it is the players who hold the ultimate card to have the matches played or not. Arguably footballers should not have these decisions, essentially administrative determinations, forced upon them but alas, like anything else in life, sometimes we have to do things not liked. I believe such a move would be popular among the footballing public and would have the desired effect. The Professional Footballers Association Ireland, the players trade union, would support such a boycott and are bound to defend any player who refuses to play against the Israeli national side should they suffer any repercussions related to their actions. I would strongly recommend the players keep in contact with their trade union if they decide on this course of action.
The FAI have somewhat hypocritically voted in favour of UEFA “suspending Israel from European competitions” while at the same time agreeing to fulfil their own fixtures and commitments against the far-right state. UEFA voted not to impose the same ban on Israel as they did on Russia, anti-Slavic racism perhaps? In view of this it is coming down to the players to make a stand by refusing to play in these fixtures until at very least the genocide in Palestine stops. If the team manager, Heimir Hallgrimsson, who has said he will “respect” any players decision in this regard, selects a second eleven then they too must refuse to play.
The players should invoke multilaterally what James McClean invoked unilaterally and use (what I call) the “McClean principles”. James McClean while playing in England refused to wear a poppy either as an appendage or superimposed into his shirt at the time of year called “Remembrance Day”. McClean refused and refuses to wear the poppy due to atrocities committed by British troops in the Six-Counties against civilians in much the same way, though on a smaller scale, as are Israeli soldiers doing against Palestinian civilians. The size of the massacre, though relevant, is in principle the same be it one innocent killed or one million.
This is now a decision I believe the players themselves must take as distasteful such a move may be. They owe it to the people of Palestine who have been killed including many sports persons and footballers. I cannot see any alternative but to take such a boycott of the Israeli games to UEFA telling them in no uncertain terms genocide against civilians will not be tolerated. If the governing body refuse to act then they, the Irish players, will take unilateral action! Will they do this? Time will tell!!
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| Caoimhin O’Muraile is Independent Socialist Republican and Marxist. |
Ten links to a diverse range of opinion that might be of interest to TPQ readers. They are selected not to invite agreement but curiosity. Readers can submit links to pieces they find thought provoking.
Before We Conform, Or Condemn, Let Us At Least Be Curious
♜One recognizes one's course by discovering the paths that stray from it - Albert Camus♞
It repeatedly targeted Irish-controlled air space (that is, not the sovereign airspace, as that would potentially constitute an illegal act under international law, but the international airspace a country had the legal obligation to police to secure international civilian airflight) between 2017 and 2020.
They were no accidental arrivals. At one stage Irish-controlled airspace was targeted twice in two days. Each time, as Ireland's chronically underfunded defence means its air corps cannot intercept planes it had to call out the RAF to intercept the bears and force them out.
Russia was sending a deliberate message to Ireland - you are a target for Russia. This was nothing to do with Irish support for Ukraine, the standard spin of the neutrality hardliners. This was before Russia's second invasion of Ukraine. All countries are Russian targets. Every one. Neutrals and NATO alike. Every country had the bear bomber message. Russia sent the message to neutrals 'Neutrality is irrelevant. You are a target.'
It is well known why Irish airspace and waters are a target. Russia in any war intends to use Irish airspace and waters to launch ballistic missiles, and potentially nuclear missiles. That is why potentially nuclear-armed nuclear submarines frequently are in Irish waters, as with the submarine in Cork harbour some years ago.
Knowing the Irish, through chronic underfunding, is unable to do basic defence, Russia knows Ireland is dependent on the RAF and Royal Navy. However they need to be acting on an Irish request or with Irish permission. That takes time. Russia needs to know how quickly can its bear bombers or submarines intercept and evict its bear bombers and submarines. That would tell it how much time it has to launch missiles, whether ballistic or nuclear, from Ireland.
So, Irish negligence is not a threat to itself. It puts every potential target, including major cities in Europe, at risk.
People like Richard Boyd Barrett work themselves into a frenzy thinking Ireland is under pressure to join NATO. It is a figment of his paranoia and overactive imagination. I worked in politics in the area of defence. I know the private views of politicians on defence. I did not come across any TD who wants to join NATO. Not one. No party has any intention of joining NATO. Nor has NATO invited Ireland to join or even raised the issue. Neither Ireland, not Austria, not Malta nor Switzerland has any intention of joining NATO.
The pressure on defence is not to join NATO. It is simply "fix your goddamned defence. You are putting everyone at risk by your negligence."
They simply want Ireland to have standard defence neutrals like Austria, Cyprus and Switzerland have. Unlike Ireland they take defence as a neutral seriously. Austria has reached 1% of GDP on defence, and will reach 1.3% by 2032 - funded by an extra tax. Switzerland will reach 1% by 2030. Cyprus currently spends 1.8% on defence, excluding pensions. Even tiny Malta, more akin to the Aran Islands times six, spends 0.38% of GDP. Ireland spends a minuscule 0.27% of GDP - the third lowest in the world as a percentage of GDP. Only Mauritius and Haiti spend lower.
The pressure is simply on Ireland to have the sort of defence proper neutrals have. It has nothing to do with joining NATO. It is the sort of spending Ireland should be doing as a sovereign neutral state anyway. If you cannot properly secure your waters and airspace, and after one hundred years of independence still rely on your former colonial master to do your defence for you, are you really independent at all?
⏩ Jim Duffy is a writer-historian.
Bean an Tí
Half standing pissing against a tree
To hear lovers pass a stoney wall
And have breakfast tomorrow
With forgotten sorrow
♞♜♝
Oh the bar man had got sick
Two weeks maybe three
Bean an Tí
(Bean an Tí)
♞♜♝
So as the lovers passed the ancient script
And secured their sacred crypt
To fluff it out with beaten pillows
On the Willow branch
♞♜♝
Oh the bar man had got sick
Two weeks maybe three
(Bean an Tí)
♞♜♝
Bean an Tí.
⏩ Gowain McKenna is a Belfast born engineer and musician. He has an M.Phil, MS.c and B.Eng in Aerospace Engineering, but has somehow found himself working in the marine industry in Co. Donegal Ireland, the place from which he now calls home. Visit his website.
 |
The Watch
I often stood at the broken window hole
Keeping the watch in my sentry role
Once every month it was my turn at that spot
As the clock struck midnight you took up your watch
♞♜♝
Darkness and silence was my best friend through out the darkness of the long lonely night
Searching searching..looking with only grey barbed wire and tin in sight
Then a random noise in the distance, immediately set my Brain on fire
Was this the beginning of the dreaded attack, or just a bag blowing in the Barb wire
♞♜♝
Watching watching all night long, plays tricks upon your mind
The wind blowing through the small window hole… momentarily makes your searching eye go blind
But you cannot stop the watching…In case the enemy attack
Your sleeping comrades safety in you hands ,you can never sleep or slack
♞♜♝
Then tiredness and boredom breaks your awareness down
Your mind starts to drift and you stop spying around
Do I really have the courage to ring the hut emergency red bell
Sending the signal around the camp of impending civil war hell
♞♜♝
But the night turns to dawn as the mornings do
Peace again has blessed us like the soft morning dew
the birds songs lifts you…now it’s my turn for bed
Feeling relief the watch is over, and no one is dead
⏩ Brendan Curran, Irish conflict poems 
2020
2020
Ten links to a diverse range of opinion that might be of interest to TPQ readers. They are selected not to invite agreement but curiosity. Readers can submit links to pieces they find thought provoking.
Before We Conform, Or Condemn, Let Us At Least Be Curious
♜One recognizes one's course by discovering the paths that stray from it - Albert Camus♞
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