Coolock Remembers the Hunger Strikers

31/08/2011

The 30th anniversary of the 1981 hunger strike was marked by the éirígí ciorcal in Coolock with a series of events last Saturday [August 27].

The day commenced with a public meeting at the Le Chéile community centre in Donneycarney. The meeting was chaired by Ursula Ní Shionnain and was opened by local éirígí member Eoin Quinn who read the Bobby Sands poem ‘The Rhythm of Time’. Belfast man Pádraic Mac Coitir then delivered an enthralling personal account of his time in the H-Blocks from 1978 to late 1980 during which he participated in the blanket and no-wash protest.

The several dozen people in attendance were enraptured as Pádraic took them through his life journey from a teenager battling the British army on the streets of Belfast to his eventual arrest, interrogation, torture and imprisonment first at Crumlin Road jail and then the recently built H-Blocks. It was an intriguing and brutally honest account of the life of an IRA activist incarcerated during the epic prison struggle of the late 1970s and early 1980s.

The conditions experienced by republican prisoners in the H-Blocks were brought to life as Pádraic recounted the regular beatings, the forced mirror searches, the privations of the no wash protest during the brutally cold winter of 1978. While conditions were bleak, there was also much humour and a great sense of camaraderie forged by the brutality of the H-Block regime. It was a story of the life of a Blanketman and it was evident that Pádraic is rightly proud to be amongst their ranks.

What was at stake in the H-Blocks was summed by one of the H-Block martyrs Kieran Doherty:

“The British and Maggie Thatcher won’t break me or my comrades. We are not criminals, we are Irish Political Prisoners of War and we will win in the end. Defeat is unthinkable after all that has passed. It is not just the 5 demands; the Republican Movement is at stake.”

Following the meeting it was off to the Inis Fáil GAA club in Balgriffin for a football match between éirígí teams from the Northside and Southside of Dublin. Prior to the match there was a tightly contested Poc Fada which was won by Scott Masterson. During the combative but generally good natured football encounter that followed, the Southsiders were given somewhat of a footballing lesson by a slick, well organised Northside team managed by the wily tactician Patrick Burke. The Northsiders ran out eventual winners 8-12 to 2-5 with several of the team surely staking a claim for a place on the Dublin panel for the upcoming all-Ireland final against Kerry.

Chair of the local éirígí ciorcal Ciarán Heaphey presented the winning Northsiders with the Hunger Strike memorial trophy, which will be held with pride until the return leg next year.

Speaking after the event, he said, “Today was an opportunity for the local ciorcal to pay tribute to the Hunger Strikers and we are delighted it went so well. The courage and selflessness of the Hunger Strikers continues to inspire. They are remembered with pride by freedom loving people around the world. On behalf of the local ciorcal I would like to thank Pádraic Mac Coitir for sharing his memories with us and for speaking with such humility about what was an epic prison struggle. The struggle to achieve the aims for which the hunger strikers sacrificed their lives continues.”

Cherry Orchard Community Clean-up

24/08/11

On Saturday [August 20] more than 30 people took part in a community clean-up in Cherry Orchard, which was organised by the local éirígí Ciorcal. In what was a great demonstration of community spirit more than 50 bags of litter, broken glass and other material were filled by local residents and éirígí activists.

In recent weeks a number of residents from Cherry Orchard had been in touch with éirígí to raise concerns about the lack of street cleaning and general maintenance work being carried out by Dublin City Council in the area. Following discussions with residents, éirígí agreed to organise a community response to the issue and the ‘Cherry Orchard Community Clean-up’ was launched. Following the success of the first clean-up it has been agreed this event will be organised on a monthly basis.

Speaking from Cherry Orchard local éirígí Councillor Louise Minihan said:

“Following requests from local residents I contacted Dublin City Council to raise concerns about the lack of maintenance work being carried out in the area. Due to cutbacks the council are now cleaning only the main roads. This represents a further abandonment of working class estates and communities by the state.

“In response éirígí organised a community clean-up which local residents made into a great success. In fact the clean-up has been such success that we are making it a monthly event. We aim to build on what has been started here today and spread the clean-up to other areas of Cherry Orchard. Everyone is welcome and I invite all residents to come along to next month’s clean up and take part in what is a great way of showing and indeed building community spirit.”

Minihan continued: “Today’s successful clean-up shows it is possible for communities to stand up for themselves and fight back once they organise together. For our part éirígí is committed to working with communities to organise and to make this fightback a reality.”

A Look at the European Financial Crisis

21/08/11

Last Saturday [August 13], the Progressive Film Club in Dublin held a screening of the documentaryDebtocracy, a Greek film about the European banking and financial crisis.

Debtocracy looks at the origins of the Greek and wider European crisis in terms of the development of capitalism under the auspices of the European Union. It charts the development of the EU as an economic system wherein the ‘core’ countries such as Germany and France have used their considerable political power and influence to benefit greatly at the expense of the working class peoples of the ‘peripheral’ countries that include those countries that make up the PIIGS, i.e. Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain. What clearly emerges from the economic and political overview provided by this film is the fact that the EU has been very good indeed for the ruling political elites and big-business interests in Europe.

The film also looks at the experience of a number of countries where the IMF has intervened. The cases of Argentina and Ecuador clearly show, in the former, how the IMF is used to deepen the penetration of neo-liberal policy and further the interests of the oligarchy, and in the latter, how a principled government can actually resist this plan and use the fact of intervention as a means to mobilise people against the excesses of capitalism.

What this film also does particularly well is explore the concept of ‘odious debt’. It looks at the historical precedent that exists for countries to repudiate debt that has been accumulated by the political and ruling classes in the name of the people but in contrary to their interests.

The issues tackled in Debtocracy make it a ‘must see’ film for all of those people who wish to better understand the nature of the crisis prone and contradiction-ridden economic and political system that is capitalism.

Ballymurphy Massacre – Set the Truth Free

09/08/11

Thousands of people took to the streets of Belfast on Sunday [August 7] to mark the 40th anniversary of the Ballymurphy Massacre and to demand an independent international investigation into the killings.

As internment without trial was introduced to the Six Counties in August 1971, soldiers from the British army’s Parachute Regiment ran amok in the Ballymurphy area, killing eleven people and injuring dozens more. Five months later, the same regiment would be responsible for the murder of fourteen civil rights marchers in Derry.

Although the events of Bloody Sunday were filmed by the international media, and the horrors perpetrated were obvious to all but the most wilfully blind, it still took thirty-eight years of tireless campaigning for the relatives of those killed to receive some measure of closure through the long-delayed Saville report.

There were no media crews present in Ballymurphy in August 1971, and the victims were quickly written off as republican gunmen and forgotten about by all but their grieving families. They were left with deep pain and hurt, but also a strong desire that the truth of those events would see the light of day.

Around 100 éirígí members and supporters participated in Sunday’s march, which began in Springfield Park at the spot at which Father Hugh Mullan and 19-year-old Frank Quinn were gunned down.

Local youths carried banners bearing the images of the two from that spot and when the march reached the Springfield Road more banners marked the spot where mother-of-eight Joan Connolly and father-of-thirteen Daniel Teggart were killed. It was also the spot where 19-year-old Noel Phillips and father-of-twelve Joseph Murphy were injured by British gunfire – Noel was taken away by British soldiers and summarily executed while Joseph died a few weeks later from his wounds.

The march then made its way to the top of the Whiterock Road, where father-of-seven Joseph Corr and 20-year-old John Laverty were shot and killed, before making its way through the Ballymurphy estate, where local workers Paddy McCarthy and John McKerr were killed. The march then passed the spot on the Whiterock Road where father-of-four Eddie Doherty was shot dead before concluding with a rally at the nearby O’Donnells GAC.

Speaking at the rally, cathaoirleach éirígí Brian Leeson said, “It’s clear from the march today that the Ballymurphy Massacre families and their supporters will not be deterred in their quest for truth.

“They have not been deterred by the British government’s attempt to pawn their campaign to the discredited HET or by the same government’s desire to stifle any new inquiries in the aftermath of Saville.”

Leeson continued, “The British government must be well aware that any real investigation into the Ballymurphy massacre will only serve to topple the convenient myth of Saville – the myth that responsibility for Bloody Sunday lay with British soldiers on the ground alone and not with any of their superior offices.

“The myth that the Parchute Regiment lost control on the streets of Derry would be revealed to the world as a lie if the British government were to admit that the very same regiment had carried out a very similar massacre just a few months beforehand. The British government does not want the truth of Ballymurphy to be revealed; however it’s a truth that must and will come out in the end.

“éirígí supports the families and survivors of the Ballymurphy Massacre in their quest for the truth and completely endorses the families’ demand for an independent international investigation into the deliberate murders of eleven unarmed civilians. It’s a case that no-one can genuinely argue with.”

 International Brigades Remembered on 75th Anniversary of Spanish Civil War

30/7/2011

It was standing room only as almost 200 people packed into the hall of the Teachers’ Club in Dublin on Friday 15 July to mark the 75th anniversary of the start of the Spanish Civil War.

On 18 July 1936 General Franco, supported by the Catholic Church and wealthy landowners, led a fascist revolt against the left-wing Popular Front government. Backed domestically by powerful institutions, Franco was also supported by the international fascist states of Germany and Italy.

Support for the Spanish Republic came from thousands of volunteers who joined the International Brigades, including over 200 from Ireland who joined the international fight against fascism. The éirígí-organised event celebrated the role of the International Brigades, remembering their sacrifice and honouring their struggle.

The meeting was opened by éirígí’s Siobhán Curran who commenced proceedings with a quote from Dolores Ibárruri’s farewell tribute to the International Brigades as they departed Barcelona in 1938:

“For the first time in the history of the peoples’ struggles, there was the spectacle, breath-taking in its grandeur, of the formation of International Brigades to help save a threatened country’s freedom and independence… Communists, Socialists, Anarchists, Republicans – men of different colors, differing ideology, antagonistic religions – yet all profoundly loving liberty and justice, they came and offered themselves to us unconditionally…

“Comrades of the International Brigades! Political reasons, reasons of state, the welfare of that very cause for which you offered your blood with boundless generosity, are sending you back, some to your own countries and others to forced exile. You can go proudly. You are history. You are legend. You are the heroic example of democracy's solidarity and universality in the face of the vile and accommodating spirit of those who interpret democratic principles with their eyes on hoards of wealth or corporate shares which they want to safeguard from all risk. We shall not forget you; and, when the olive tree of peace is in flower, entwined with the victory laurels of the Republic of Spain – return!”

The meeting was addressed by historians Emmet O’Connor, author of Reds and the Green, a fascinating insight into the role of the Communist International in its attempt to establish an Irish communist party in the early decades of the twentieth century, and Harry Owens, who co-authored Brigadista with the late Bob Doyle. Both men provided fascinating accounts of the political conditions in both Ireland and the Spanish state in the mid-1930s. Emmet focused on conditions in Ireland and the profile of the Irish who joined the International Brigades while Harry Owens detailed the political situation in Spain and how the war progressed.

The meeting also heard an account of the very full life of Frank Ryan by éirígí members Ursula Ní Shionnain and Joe Keegan. Delivered in both Irish and English, the two éirígí member outlined his life as IRA volunteer, Irish language activist, radical journalist and socialist republican leader who led approximately 80 Irish volunteers as part of the Connolly Column, many of whom made the ultimate sacrifice in defence of democracy. Ryan was a founding member of the Republican Congress, many of whose members joined the International Brigades.

Prior to their departure to Spain, Ryan outlined the reason why they were travelling –“It aims to redeem Irish honour besmirched by the intervention of Irish fascism on the side of Spanish fascist rebels. It is to aid the revolutionary movements in Ireland to defeat the fascist menace at home, and finally, and not the least, to establish fraternal bonds of kinship between the Republican democracies of Ireland and Spain.”

Those fraternal bonds remain strong and several dozen people from various parts of the Spanish state joined Irish republicans, socialists, anarchists, communists and anti-fascist activists on an evening that proved to be a fitting tribute to the memory of the International Brigades and the struggle against fascism.

Minihan Slams ‘Bank Welfare Tax’ and Calls for Campaign of Non-Payment

27/07/11

éirígí Cllr Louise Minihan

éirígí Dublin City councillor Louise Minihan has slammed the new Twenty-Six County household tax and called on people to join a mass campaign of non-payment.

Speaking from her Ballyfermot constituency this morning, Minihan said: “Yesterday, the Dublin government confirmed its intention to introduce another regressive tax, which will once again hit working families the hardest. Instead of calling it a household charge, the Dublin government should come clean and call it a Bank Welfare Tax because that is exactly what it is.

“In any normal society, taxation is used as a means to redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor but, in this state, it does the direct opposite. Millions of people are being forced to endure very real hardship to fund a welfare system for the private banks. This generation and generations to come are being asked to pay hundreds of billions of euro of debt to protect the golden circle that has ruled the Twenty-Six Counties since the foundation of the state.”

Highlighting the unfair nature of the new household tax, Minihan added: “Phil Hogan’s new tax is being introduced at a flat rate, regardless of the financial status of a household or the value of the property in question. So a low-income family in Ballyfermot will be expected to pay the same amount as a millionaire banker living on Shrewsbury Road. Then, the revenue raised will be used to fund an unjust bailout of the private banks. Everything about this tax is unfair and unjust.

“The household tax, along with the other austerity measures that are being foisted upon us, will further widen the gap between the rich and the poor in this state. A just and stable society cannot be built upon such fundamental injustice and inequality.”

Encouraging people to refuse to pay the new household tax, Minihan said: “We in éirígí are encouraging people to resist the new household tax. The people of Greece have shown that organised mass resistance can produce results. We in Ireland need to take our lead from them and get onto the streets to challenge those who think they can impose endless austerity measures without sanction or resistance from the people.

“Unlike the previous tax hikes or cuts to public services, people have a very effective means of resisting this new tax – they can refuse to pay it. If sufficient numbers of people join the campaign of non-payment, the Dublin government will have no choice but to scrap the whole idea. Over the next few months, éirígí will be working with other progressive groups and within working class communities to build a mass campaign of non-payment of this tax.”