Tag Archives: Doire (Derry)

Six Degrees Of Paramilitary Separation

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Hrrrm… A number of newspapers representing the British Unionist minority in the north-east of the country are stirring up controversy over the appointment of Rosa McLaughlin as the vice-principle of St Mary’s College in Derry. The cause of their vociferous outrage is Ms. McLaughlin’s conviction in 1998 by a British no-jury, counter-insurgency court in the North of Ireland on the basis of an alleged ”confession” given to British paramilitary police (the RUC) where it is claimed she admitted to being an Intelligence Officer of the Irish Republican Army. Rosa, who was 26 years of age at the time and a local school teacher, was immediately released having already served 17 months in prison while awaiting trial (and as a nod to then ongoing Peace Process).

So, just as a matter of historical balance, I present below a picture of Peter Robinson, the head of the DUP, the largest Unionist political party in Ireland, a former member of the British Parliament, a current member of the Stormont Assembly and presently the Joint-First Minister of the North of Ireland. Here he is in 1987 attending a rally of the Ulster Resistance (or UR), a British terrorist organisation later involved in the smuggling of arms and explosives from the Lebanon to Ireland with the support of the then Apartheid-regime in South Africa, and under the direction of the British Security Service MI5. Robinson is wearing an Ulster Resistance red beret alongside others in UR paramilitary uniforms, including one Noel Little. The latter was a former British soldier (in the notorious UDR militia) and chairman of the Armagh branch of the Ulster Clubs, a quasi-military organisation which helped found the Ulster Resistance terror group, and like Robinson a member of Ian Paisley’s self-made Free Presbyterian Church. At this time Little was also a senior member of the UDA/UFF, the main British terrorist faction in Ireland, and was later arrested in Paris with two other UDA men selling stolen British missile parts to South African agents in return for further arms shipments from the White supremacist regime in Pretoria.

A year before this picture was taken, on the 7th of August 1986, Peter Robinson had led 500 Unionist militants, including members of the Ulster Clubs and Ian Paisley’s Third Force grouping, in the invasion of the small Irish village of Clontibret in County Monaghan. During the incursion, which terrified the inhabitants of the village and surrounding areas, the local station of the Gardaí (the unarmed, Irish civilian police service) was attacked, two Gardaí were taken hostage and beaten, and a “military parade” was held on the main street. The invasion was only repulsed when Garda reinforcements arrived, Peter Robinson and his supporters fleeing back across the border during which a number of shots were fired.

Peter Robinson leads Ulster Resistance militants in a rally

Peter Robinson leads Ulster Resistance militants in a rally, British Occupied North of Ireland, 1987, including Noel Little, UDA terrorist and arms smuggler

The second photograph below is a more recent one of Peter Robinson with John Smyth Junior, taken in 2010. Smyth, a former DUP election candidate and member of the Orange Order, recently pleaded guilty to a bomb attack targeting the home of a Polish family in Antrim claimed by a faction of  the UDA/UFF. Coincidentally he is also the son of the prominent DUP Councillor John Smyth who was convicted for terrorist offences in the 1970s, including a fire-bomb attack by a UVF British terror gang on the home of a Nationalist family.

Former DUP member John Smyth Junior pictured with his party leader Peter Robinson in 2010

Former DUP member John Smyth Junior pictured with his party leader Peter Robinson in 2010

Rosa McLaughlin’s past is known. To her family, her friends  her community and her employers. But there are many others in the north-east of Ireland whose pasts remain wrapped in shadows.

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Britain’s War In Ireland – Learning The Lessons

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Bloody Sunday Massacre, Derry, Ireland, 1972

Bloody Sunday Massacre, Derry, Ireland, 1972

The Irish journalist and author Finian Cunningham examines the conflict in the north-east of Ireland during the late 1960s and early ‘70s and draws some lessons in relation to France’s present military intervention in Mali. His description of the origins and early years of the Northern War are particularly noteworthy:

“This week sees the anniversary of one of the worst massacres in modern Irish history, when British paratroopers murdered 14 unarmed civilians in cold blood.

On 30 January 1972, the British troops opened fire on a civil rights march in Derry City, Northern Ireland’s second city after Belfast, in full glare of the international news media.

Half of the victims that day were teenagers, shot in the head or in the back by British snipers. Some of the fatally wounded were shot multiple times as they tried to crawl to safety. Others were cut down in a hail of bullets as they tended to those lying wounded, bleeding on the ground.

One iconic image from that horrific day shows a Catholic priest, Fr Edward Daly, holding up a bloodstained white cloth, pleading with the British soldiers to cease-fire as he helped carry a dying youth.

Bloody Sunday, as it became known, was a watershed event. From then on, the conflict in Northern Ireland exploded. Some 3,000 people would lose their lives in the ensuing decades of violence – a huge death toll for the tiny population, equivalent to 240,000 in Iran or 900,000 in the United States.

Many Irish citizens, outraged by the British army slaughter, went on to join the ranks of the newly formed Provisional Irish Republican Army, the armed guerrilla movement that would kill hundreds of British troops and police and take the war to the very streets of London, with massive bombing campaigns in the British capital and other major cities.

Prior to the arrival of the British troops, the British-controlled Northern Ireland saw an outbreak of violence in the summer of 1968 when Nationalists began agitating for equal civil rights under the corrupt pro-British Unionist administration. Peaceful demonstrations by Nationalists were subsequently attacked by Unionist gangs and paramilitaries, aided and abetted by the sectarian state police force. Many civilians were killed as Nationalist communities were shot at and burned out of their homes and workplaces in reprisals over their political demands.

The Unionist-dominated province of Northern Ireland brought international disgrace to the United Kingdom, and the London government was obliged to post thousands of British soldiers “to restore order”. At first, Nationalist communities welcomed the British troops when they were deployed in August 1969, believing the army to be affording protection from marauding Unionist paramilitaries and police.

When the British army went into Northern Ireland in 1969, it soon became apparent that the intervention had nothing to do with protecting Nationalist civilians, under the boot of the Unionist statelet, and everything to do with suppressing the political challenge being posed by Irish separatism, which wanted to dismantle the British partition of Ireland and to create a united, independent country, free from London’s political control.

The pretext used by London for despatching troops to Northern Ireland concealed its real purpose. That agenda was to target the Nationalist population with state terrorism for political ends. Whereas in previous years, the Unionist paramilitaries could rely on the collusion of the local police force to terrorise, from 1969 onwards these forces had the full might of the British army to ramp up the violence against Nationalist civilians and thereby intimidate them from supporting political opposition to the British government’s presence in Ireland.

The year before Bloody Sunday, in August 1971, British paratroopers shot dead 11 unarmed civilians in the Ballymurphy area of West Belfast. Among the dead was a 50-year-old woman, Joan Connolly, who had been standing peacefully on the street. Another victim was a priest, Fr. Hugh Mullan, who was shot dead while trying to assist a man wounded on the ground. [ASF: Click on the link for more on the Ballymurphy Massacre]

On 9 July 1972 – six months after Bloody Sunday – British troops again shot dead five unarmed Nationalist civilians in another area of West Belfast, Springhill. Three of the victims were children, including 13-year-old Margaret Gargan, who was shot in the head by a British sniper as she was walking to her home. The two adults who died that day, Patrick Butler and Fr. Noel Fitzpatrick, were killed with the same bullet, it ripping through one man’s head into the other. One of the survivors of the Springhill massacre later told how, as he lay wounded, bullets were ricocheting off the ground near his head, fired by British soldiers who had taken up position in a nearby timber yard that overlooked the residential neighbourhood.

On another occasion during that year, a friend of this author told how when he was only a young boy he witnessed his father and a neighbour being shot at by British troops, while they were painting the family home in West Belfast. The neighbour was blown off the ladder when a high-velocity round slammed into his upper leg. It was fired by British soldiers dug in a couple of kilometres away on the Black Mountain looking down on the housing estate. Just one of countless acts of gratuitous violence committed against the civilian population by British troops.

During these gun attacks on Nationalist communities, the British army would often work hand-in-glove with Unionist paramilitaries, or death squads, as they fired into family homes, indiscriminately killing the occupants. That secret policy of collusion between British forces and Unionist death squads would later be refined with even more deadly impact.

It should be noted that this wanton state terrorism by British forces was taking place in a part of the United Kingdom, where there was supposedly the rule of law, human rights and due process.”

 

Bloody Sunday Massacre, Derry, Ireland, 1972

Bloody Sunday Massacre, Derry, Ireland, 1972

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Some Irish Gaming News!

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An Caife Craosach, Dead Hungry Diner – Black Market Games, Derry, Ireland

Two PC games for you, one old and one new – and both as Gaeilge.

The first is the multilingual platformer Dead Hungry Diner from the Derry-based Irish startup company Black Market Games, which is now available in Irish as An Caife Craosach. A report from TechCentral:

“Irish-speaking gamers will have something fun to look forward to for Halloween with the release of the first computer game as Gaeilge. Foras na Gaeilge, the North/South Irish Language Promotional Body, and Black Market Games have released An Caife Craosach (Dead Hungry Diner), funded through the Scéim Nuálachais.

The game is a fast-paced action-puzzler where the player chooses the character of Gabe or Gabby, orphan twins from Ravenwood Village, to serve the restaurant’s unique customers. The aim of the game is to seat, serve and satisfy a variety of monsters but you need be quick before they get impatient and leave without paying.

Lee Fallon from Derry-based Black Market Games said: “Given that we are an Irish gaming company we thought that a game in Irish would appeal to Irish speaking gamers. We were surprised to hear that it hadn’t been done before and were delighted when Foras na Gaeilge came on board.”

An Caife Craosach is available in DVD or through Digital Download. It can be purchased or downloaded from www.deadhungrydiner.com…”

Kú – bitSmith Games, Dublin, Ireland

Meanwhile the Irish Times reports on Kú, a new actioner from the Irish company bitSmith Games loosely based on Irish mythology:

“TALL, BROAD, bald and bearded, Owen Harris, lead game designer for BitSmith Games, could be one of the characters from Kú. The company’s new videogame takes inspiration from Celtic folklore, with a dash of steampunk, and is currently in the final stages of development, in Dublin’s Digit Games incubator. Here, Harris discusses the game’s Irish roots

Why the Táin and why the Cú Chulainn myth?

I’ve always been interested in Ireland’s ancient history. There’s so much there that hasn’t been exposed. People like Tolkien dipped heavily into our past for inspiration. Greek mythology is everywhere – I don’t know how many harpies I’ve killed in videogames. But I’ve never killed a púca, or fought a Fomorian. And these are interesting archetypes, so the chance to show that people in a game is exciting. When we showed it overseas, people had inklings of these cool stories and given the chance to be exposed to it, they jump at it.

Do you think audiences are more open to something they’re only vaguely familiar with?

The biggest surprise with international audiences was with the Irish language. You can play it completely in Irish. Very few people in this country seem interested in that, but Americans, Germans and Scandinavians are as interested in seeing the language… as much as our mythology …we’re talking about going back to these old, primal stories that are part of what built our people’s psyche. And I think if Irish people were exposed to it in a modern way, they would be much more interested than they currently are.

Is that why you’ve introduced that steampunk element?

We started building it over a year ago at the height of all the stories about economic doom, so I guess we pulled in what was going on at that moment. I think it fits quite well – the idea of Ireland returning to this tribal time.

Is there a fear of alienating Táin purists?

Some people will be upset that we didn’t do a more direct translation. My response to that would be that these stories grow out of an oral tradition where it was constantly changing. …We’re inspired by the Táin; we’re not trying to re-tell it.

How was Foras na Gaeilge involved?

They’ve been a tremendous support. They looked over what we were doing and they’re helping us make sure the Irish translation is to the highest standard. There’s a huge amount of people learning Irish in the US. We want to make sure that if it’s being used as a tool, that it is correct.

What about the game’s look?

Our artist Basil [Lim] spent a lot of time in pre-production going to museums, looking at the Book of Kells, our native plants, trying to bring all of that influence and create this style that looks somewhere between Mad Max and Cú Chulainn. It’s probably the thing we’re proudest of in the whole game – blending Celtic and futuristic style.

Kú will be available for iPad in November, with versions for PC and Mac to follow.”

Website World Irish has an audio interview with Owen Harris, bitSmith’s game designer, that is well worth a listen. As someone who works in Ireland’s IT industry, albeit exclusively with the big international brands, it’s great to see indigenous Irish companies like this establishing themselves. For assistance with the introduction of the Irish language into your business Foras na Gaeilge operates the comprehensive support service GNÓ Mean Business. Gaeltacht-based companies can also seek Irish language support and investment from Údarás na Gaeltachta.

For more on Irish and Celtic mythology see my articles here.

Celebrating British War Crimes In Ireland – The Orange Kulturfest

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The Not So Glorious Twelfth – Mocking The Dead Of British War Crimes In Ireland

In light of the attempts by the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland and other British Protestant fundamentalist organisations in the country to repackage their “culture” as the acceptable face of the British ethnic minority on this island, here is photo doing the internet and social media rounds. It’s from a Twelfth of July bonfire in Derry, atop of which is a representation of the Free Derry Wall with the names of the civil rights marchers murdered by British soldiers during the Bloody Sunday Massacre of 1972.

Apparently celebrating British war crimes in Ireland is also a part of the “culture” of the British separatist minority we share our nation with.

UPDATE 17.33: Thanks to CiarzyB in the Comment below for this link and the claim by NewsWire that the photo is from Lisburn in 2010. Counter-claims are also circulating that the photo is a recent one. I will update as I find out more.

Living Inside The Pale – Or The Contemptible Nature Of Irish Journalism

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On June 18th 1994 in the small Irish village of Loughinisland a number of Irish men and women gathered together in their local pub to watch the Irish national soccer team compete in a match against Italy which was being broadcast live from the World Cup in the United States. Encouraged by statements issued by several politicians from the British Unionist community in the North of Ireland condemning ”provocative” public displays of support for the Ireland team by the Irish Nationalist community in the north-east of the country, two gunmen from the British terrorist organisation the Ulster Volunteer Force entered the bar and opened fire with automatic assault rifles. Several people were wounded and six killed outright. They were Adrian Rogan (34), Malcolm Jenkinson (53), Daniel McCreanor (59), Patrick O’Hare (35), Eamon Byrne (39) and Barney Greene (87), the latter the oldest person to die in the northern conflict. Within hours of the attack rumours spread amongst local people, politicians and the press that elements of the then British paramilitary police force in the North, the Royal Ulster Constabulary or RUC, had facilitated the assault by terrorists from their community, allegations which continue to the present day.

Now the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) has announced that it has agreed to a request by family members and survivors of what is known as the Loughinisland Massacre to allow members of the Ireland team to wear black armbands at their match against Italy in their scheduled Euro 2012 game in Poznan on June 18th, the 18th anniversary of the atrocity. Niall Murphy, a solicitor for the families of Loughinisland, has expressed the gratefulness of his clients to the FAI:

“The families are touched that this tragic event can be commemorated on such a poignant day, the 18th anniversary of the atrocity. We would like to thank the FAI and UEFA for their assistance in providing a forum to recall the awful event that took place on that fateful day when Ireland played Italy.”

But what has been the reaction of the “Irish” media to this news? How have our “journalistic” classes responded?

Louis Jacob in the Irish Independent:

“It’s taken me a while to get my head around the FAI’s announcement that the Irish team will wear black armbands against Italy next month to commemorate the Loughinisland massacre in 1994, when six people were shot dead in a bar where they were watching the Ireland v Italy US World Cup game on TV.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who was taken aback.

But even though I know how popular this gesture will be with a large section of the Irish public, to me it smells like cheap tokenism on the part of the FAI.

But what’s worse is that no matter how much you feel for the families of the victims and no matter which way you look at it, the wearing of the black armband brings with it distinct political undertones… undertones which have no place at a major sporting event.

Anyone who believes otherwise should take a long, hard look at the following statement, released by Niall Murphy, solicitor for relatives of the victims of Loughinisland: “We would like to thank the FAI and Uefa for their assistance in providing a forum to recall the awful event that took place on that fateful day when Ireland played Italy.”

The word that alarms me in that sentence is ‘forum’ because a forum is a place where things are discussed. Surely, if it’s a forum they are looking for, then the nature of this gesture should be considered as entirely political.

On Thursday, FAI chief executive John Delaney stated: “I would like to thank Uefa for assisting us in commemorating this atrocity and take the opportunity to remember all those who lost their lives in the Troubles.” I wonder if the victims of Omagh and London and all the other places where innocent people lost their lives will buy this statement? I seriously doubt it.

The FAI should ask themselves if ‘divisive’ is really the business they want to be in.”

Eoghan Harris in the Sunday Independent:

“The FAI is foolish to back the wearing of a black armband to mark the anniversary of Loughinisland. To single out the suffering of one community in Northern Ireland will inevitably be seen as tribal by the other. Put yourself in the shoes of victims of IRA terror, exercise some empathy and you will find your feelings about the armbands are more complex.

The FAI decision dodges a number of serious questions. Why does the FAI single out Loughinisland, apart from the anniversary? Will the FAI facilitate black armbands on the anniversaries of IRA atrocities like Enniskillen, Omagh and the murder of Garda Jerry McCabe?

As my friend Tom Carew points out, June 18 is also the anniversary of the Provo bomb which murdered a Protestant police officer, John Harrison, while he was checking for bombs. Harrison was only 30 and married. Are his widow, his family and friends any less deserving of being remembered by the FAI?”

Brian O’Connor in the Irish Times:

“The depths of inadequacy that allowed human beings walk into a pub in Loughinisland 18 years ago and shoot dead six people watching the Ireland-Italy World Cup match just because they were Catholic can only be guessed at. Remembering the victims is an entirely good thing. The FAI’s decision to commemorate them by wearing black armbands for the Euro 2012 match against Italy next month isn’t.

Also on June 18th it will be 40 years since the IRA planted a bomb in a derelict house in Lurgan which killed three British soldiers. And since this is Ireland, with our nasty, bitter history of sectarian division, an obvious conclusion for those admittedly aching to arrive at it will be that the FAI views one group of victims as more important than another.

In the circumstances the football link is too tenuous. Yes, it’s Italy, and yes, it’s the same date. But this is Ireland. Politically every move is parsed to within an inch of its life.

It’s hard to credit the FAI hierarchy didn’t think of those wider political implications before going to Uefa with the idea. It’s even harder to believe UEFA didn’t twig the precedent being set.”

There is more like this but I’m sure you get the general point. Yet I wonder, has anyone forgotten Iceland in September 6th 1997 when the Ireland team unexpectedly wore armbands at an international match to mark the accidental death of Princess Diana in France, a member of the British royal family? Have you forgotten the reaction of the Irish press pack? Look it up. To say that they were effusive in their praise is to put it mildly.

It would seem then that in the view of the Irish print media some lives are worth more than others: especially if those lives are Irish ones taken at the hands of British terrorists or British soldiers. Then they are utterly without value.

So… you still want to buy that “Irish” newspaper?

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Minding Your Language In Derry

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A new survey of local secondary students by Derry City Council has found a fair degree of both use and support amongst pupils from both communities for the Irish language while providing scant evidence for the existence of the so-called Scots-Ulster language (the dialect of English invented by certain fringe elements from the British ethnic minority in Ireland which has contributed, amongst other things, this gem as the official term for children with intellectual special needs: “wee daftie weans”).

None of the children surveyed from either community could speak Ulster-Scots and only a handful of respondents said anyone in their family could speak it either. 88% stated that they had not heard or were unaware of hearing Ulster-Scots in relation to music, 62% said they hadn’t seen Ulster-Scots on road signs, 57 % said they hadn’t seen Ulster-Scots in place names and 56% said they hadn’t seen Ulster-Scots in use by politicians or in any publications. The majority, 55%, believed that Ulster-Scots should not be treated as a language in the same way Irish or English is.

In relation to the Irish language 72% of those who spoke and read Irish came from Irish-speaking families. Meanwhile 64% of all students believed the language was relevant for Roman Catholics and Protestants, another 64% had encountered the Irish language in classes, 46% said they had heard Irish in conversational use, 50% had seen it in use in publications and 35% had seen it on the internet. 84% of all pupils were aware of the influence of the Irish language on people’s names and place names.

I’m awaiting the details of the raw data from the survey and will publish them here when I can.

In the meantime a new website, Connect 3, has been launched by the city council in Derry based on the results of the poll to provide further resources for students and teachers engaging in language learning and training in the region.

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The Truth About Bloody Sunday – Another Episode From Britain’s Forever War In Ireland

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Detention Of Irish Civilians By British Occupation Forces, Derry, Occupied North Of Ireland, 1972

Interesting article by Brendan O’Neill over on Spiked Online, examining the Bloody Sunday Massacre of 1972 when British troops attacked a civil rights demonstration in the city of Derry, murdering 14 Irish civilians.

“The 14 men who were killed, seven of whom were teenagers, had been part of a crowd of 10,000 protesters. They were demanding equal rights for Catholics in housing, employment and voting, in a sectarian, Protestant-run statelet where Catholics were two-and-a-half times as likely as Protestants to be unemployed. In the four years before Bloody Sunday, since a fledgling Catholic civil-rights march in Derry in October 1968 was brutally broken up by the local police force, tensions had been running high in Northern Ireland. The British Army arrived in August 1969 to back up Britain’s local Protestant allies and internment without trial was introduced in August 1971. All marches were banned. It was against this backdrop that thousands of Catholics in Derry defied Britain’s emergency laws and marched for civil rights on 30 January 1972.

The response of the paratroopers transformed the conflict. The belief of many Catholics that it was possible to reform Northern Ireland, to make it a more equal place, was shattered by the brutal force with which Britain seemed determined to preserve the sanctity of one of its few remaining colonies. Huge numbers of nationalists were radicalised by Bloody Sunday, coming to believe that it was only through the expulsion of British forces from Northern Ireland, and the unification of Ireland, that proper freedom could be attained. There followed a long, bloody war between the IRA and British military forces.

In recent years, however, the history of Bloody Sunday has subtly yet dramatically been rewritten.”

Read more here.

Bloody Sunday Massacre, Derry, Ireland, 1972

Bloody Sunday Massacre, Derry, Ireland, 1972

Bloody Sunday Massacre, Derry, Ireland, 1972

Bloody Sunday Massacre, Derry, Ireland, 1972

Bloody Sunday Massacre, Derry, Ireland, 1972

Bloody Sunday Massacre, Derry, Ireland, 1972

Bloody Sunday Massacre, Derry, Ireland, 1972

Bloody Sunday Massacre, Derry, Ireland, 1972

Bloody Sunday Massacre, Derry, Ireland, 1972

Bloody Sunday Massacre, Derry, Ireland, 1972

Bloody Sunday Massacre, Derry, Ireland, 1972

Bloody Sunday Massacre, Derry, Ireland, 1972

Bloody Sunday Massacre, Derry, Ireland, 1972

Bloody Sunday Massacre, Derry, Ireland, 1972

Bloody Sunday Massacre, Derry, Ireland, 1972

Bloody Sunday Massacre, Derry, Ireland, 1972

Mass Detentions Of Irish Civilians By British Occupation Forces, Derry, Occupied North Of Ireland, 1972

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No 11% Has The Right To Fix The Boundary Of A Nation

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According to the Irish Examiner the North’s deputy Joint First Minister, Martin McGuinness, has called for a northern referendum on the reunification of Ireland to take place sometime between 2016 and 2021, as Sinn Féin stages a series of conferences on the political and economic benefits of unification.

“In the party’s most explicit outlining of a vote timetable yet, the North’s deputy first minister says it is his ambition to see the referendum held during the next term of the Belfast Assembly.

“It just seems to me to be a sensible timing. It would be on the question of whether or not the people of the Six Counties wish to retain the link with what is described as the United Kingdom, or be part of a united Ireland. It could take place anytime between 2016 or 2020-21,” he said.

“I don’t see any reason whatsoever why that should not be considered.

“I think, in all probability, the people who have got the power to put that in place won’t even contemplate it this side of the next Assembly elections, which conceivably could be 2015 or 2016.”

The deputy first minister believes the Democratic Unionist Party can be persuaded to agree to such a dramatic move.

Under the Good Friday Agreement, the final say on when a referendum on the future of the North would be held rests with the British secretary of state.

The Nationalist government in Edinburgh has provoked a furious row with Downing St over its plans to hold a vote on Scotland leaving the UK in 2014.

Mr McGuinness does not think the financial and economic crash experienced by the Republic would put Northerners off voting to leave the UK.

“It’s a mistake to think people are going to decide their future on what has been a particularly disastrous period of the handling of the economy by the government in Dublin.

“People will make a decision on the potential that the reunification of Ireland can bring for them in terms of political stability and in terms of having economic levers in their own hands.”

Though population experts predict people from a Catholic background will form the majority in the North within a generation, Mr McGuinness said it was “too sectarian” to expect people to vote on strictly religious lines.”

Sinn Féin TD Pearse Doherty has echoed the words of Martin McGuinness, stating that he believes we would:

“… all benefit economically from a united Ireland.

“I don’t think that it is the case that the 26 counties would be broke if we had the six counties, actually the opposite,” he said.

“I see a lot of duplication, I see two economies that are struggling, but also see that there’s huge potential, particularly when you’ve got two out of the top four largest cities on the island of Ireland are actually in the North.””

Meanwhile the Derry Journal reports a large attendance at the Uniting Ireland Conference in the city:

“Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness were among the speakers along with Ulster Unionist Basil McCrea, former senior civil servant and economist George Quigley and trade unionist Inez McCormick.

Those in attendance also included Rev. David Latimer, Minister of First Derry Presbyterian Church…

Basil McCrea said unionists should not be afraid of entering the debate on a united Ireland and while acknowledging that some unionists might regard his decision to participate as “strange”, he felt it necessary to engage in debate. He added that traditional political ideas must be challenged in the face of economic uncertainty.”

It would seem that the so-called United Kingdom is under renewed political pressure from all those who live under its authority, forcibly or otherwise. Let us hope that the British state responds to these new developments with a respect for democracy and the ballot box that it has singularly failed to display in the past. We must never again have the situation where an 11% British minority, through violence and the threat of violence, are allowed to overthrow the wishes of the 89% Irish majority.

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An Irish Slam!

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Nice report from the Derry Journal on the recent All-Ireland Poetry Slam competition held in the Maiden City and its winner, Irish poet Séamas Barra Ó Suilleabháin. The only thing that mires the article is the apparent inability to record the champion’s name correctly: Seamus Barra O’ Suilleabhain is not Séamas Barra Ó Suilleabháin.

“A captivating poet performing only in Irish made history this week when awarded the prestigious title of All Ireland Poetry Slam Champion.

In an impassioned battle of words, Seamus Barra O’ Suilleabhain, representing Connacht, won first place and the admiration of all – despite the majority of the audience not speaking Irish. Although the precise content of his work remained a mystery to most, his passionate, animated delivery won over the entire room.

Local performer Conor O’Kane, AKA Teknopeasant, and Seamus Fox represented Ulster, Seamus Barra O’ Suilleabhain and Sarah Clancy represented Connacht, Karl Parkinson and John Cummins performed for Leinster, and Mary O’Connell and Fergus Costello for Munster.

Each performer wowed an enthusiastic audience, with Conor O’ Kane, Seamus Barra O’ Suilleabhain, Fergus Costello and Karl Parkinson all winning the round on points. The second round was mesmerising, with each poet leaving its audience awestruck and wanting more. After a great deal of deliberation and soul-searching, the three judges decided that Connacht-born Irish speaker Seamus Barra O’ Suilleabhain and Leinster poet Karl Parkinson would go head to head in the final round.

Choosing a winner from this nail-biting finish proved incredibly difficult for the competition’s three judges – Eaman Craig (aka Derry rap artist, Wileman), myself, and acclaimed poet Jason Lee Lovell, founder member of University of Ulster Poetry Society.

In the end, Seamus Barra O’ Suillebhain was justly named as the All Ireland Poetry Slam Champion thanks to the fluidity and passion of his performance and his natural ability to make poetry in the Irish language as melodious as music. A bold, but well-deserved winner.

Following his stunning achievement, Ireland’s new Poetry Slam Champion for 2011/2012, Seamus Barra O’ Suillebhain said modestly: “This isn’t so much a win for me as much as a win for the Irish language.”

Organiser Abby Oliveira added: “Seamus is an engaging performer who writes his work only in the Irish language for an Anglophone audience. The fact that he was effortlessly able to engage and entertain the largely English speaking audience is testament to his deserving win.”

For more on the work of Séamas Barra Ó Suilleabháin you could try the compendium of poems “The Willow’s Whisper: A Transatlantic Compilation of Poetry from Ireland and Native America”, which includes his writing. A preview is available here.

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From Saor Doire To Saor Éire

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Martin McGuinness, who is looking more presidential with every photo op (have you seen Michael D. Higgins lately, not to mention poor David Norris?), was given a rapturous rally in his hometown of Derry on Thursday as he embarked on four weeks of arduous campaigning. According to the Irish Times:

“The Sinn Féin candidate, under election posters proclaiming “Martin McGuinness 1 – The People’s President – Uachtarán na nDaoine”, was given a rapturous send-off by hundreds of supporters in the Bogside area of Derry.

One of the speakers at Mr McGuinness’s send-off was Rev David Latimer.

The minister of the First Derry Presbyterian Church overlooking the Bogside, Rev Latimer has in recent years become a close personal friend of Mr McGuinness and he spoke in praise of the presidential candidate at the Sinn Féin ardfheis in Belfast earlier this month.

Others who attended yesterday evening’s Bogside rally included Waterside parish priest Fr Michael Canny, members of the Bloody Sunday families and the manager of Derry City Football Club, Stephen Kenny.

A promotional video for Mr McGuinness’s presidential campaign was broadcast on a big screen at Free Derry Corner…

Clips were shown of the Sinn Féin politician meeting national and international dignitaries and conducting media interviews.”

Last night’s Late Late Show debate will be the real test of the candidates. More of this anon.

Fulminating West Brits Go Nuts – Or Fun With Martin And Co!

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Ah, only a few days into Martin McGuinness’ presidential candidacy and the Irish media establishment, those paragons of right wing, unregulated free market capitalism (Celtic Tiger? Nothing to do wiv us, gov’nor!) and wannabe English, Neo-Unionist types have gone into a frenzy of righteous indignation. The Golden Circle is imperilled!

From your super, soaraway Evening Herald we have commentator-cum-television reviewer Andrew Lynch (quality…):

“Nobody should be fooled. McGuinness’s friendship with Ian Paisley may have caused them to be dubbed the Chuckle Brothers, but in fact one of his main characteristics is a total lack of humour. In reality, he is a cold-eyed, stone-hearted fanatic — and, barring a personality transplant, a completely unsuitable candidate to be the next President of Ireland.

McGuinness has also put forward the fiction that he left the IRA in the early 1970s, shortly after being imprisoned in the Republic for the possession of explosives. All serious historians of the Troubles agree that this is a total lie. As recently as 2005, justice minister Michael McDowell claimed that both Adams and McGuinness were on the IRA’s army council — suggesting that they were the military masterminds behind a campaign that eventually claimed over 1,800 lives.

The McGuinness for President campaign is based on the notion that Irish people have very short memories. Maybe, but they are surely not that short. If his sinister past is dragged out into the light where it belongs, then the Shinners may start wishing they had run a fresher face such as Mary Lou McDonald instead.

Martin McGuinness has got away with an awful lot in his life. Let’s not allow him to get away with fooling the people of Ireland as well.”

Nothing like the moral high-ground! Especially when you can assume it from a hundred miles down the road, in (relative) safety and you never experienced living with a foreign army on your streets. Well, you sort of did but hey, that was nearly a century ago and we don’t have it down here any more. But of course if we did you’d be resolutely opposed to it, right? Wouldn’t you Andy? Out there, resisting the enemy to defend Ireland’s democracy and freedom? Hmmm…

Then we have the wisdom of Ireland’s bravest of the brave intellectuals, Mr. Fintan O’Toole. Well, brave until it actually came to standing up for his beliefs and putting himself on the line in which case it all sort of fell apart. Nothing like talking the talk, Fintan, but when it comes to walking the walk? Well some men walk away. Of course Martin McGuinness didn’t, in his home town of Derry: in an Irish city in Ireland. He stood up for his beliefs. He (whisper it) actually fought for his beliefs. But according to fearless Fintan:

“I would like to think McGuinness is haunted by some of the obscenities to which he was a party. But shouldn’t that private grief manifest itself in a certain tact, a reticence about pushing things too far? Shouldn’t he feel extraordinarily blessed to have been allowed to escape the consequences of the deeds he has been party to? Shouldn’t gratitude for that blessing make him think twice about the hubris of putting himself forward as the leading citizen of this State, the embodiment of its better values?”

Hubris? As in “excessive pride, presumption or arrogance”? Sure, nothing you’d be familiar with, Fintan?

While it is perfectly reasonable for Martin McGuinness to be quizzed about his personal history, in all of its many facets, there is no doubt that there is an agenda here, a nasty partitionist one. The media establishment, a golden circle of journalists and commentators who spent the last forty years subverting and skewing journalistic independence and neutrality in pursuit of their own political aims and goals, are now out to undermine our democratic presidential election and they will use any means, fair or otherwise, to do so.

A fact that Martin McGuinness has recognised, as reported by the online Journal:

“Martin McGuinness has blamed “West Brit elements” in the media and in political parties for consistent references to his history of involvement in the IRA.

Speaking to Newstalk’s Chris Donoghue at the National Ploughing Championships in Co Kildare, McGuinness said he respected that there would be people who would “try to muddy the waters” regarding his previous activity.

“My faith is with the people… there are West Brit elements, in and around Dublin – some of them are attached to some sections of the media, others are attached to political parties and were formerly involved in political parties.I say to all of them: I go forward on my record. My record as a peacemaker, I think, is unequalled. Anywhere.

McGuinness added that he would not have been invited to the Oval Office, South Africa, Iraq, Sri Lanka or the Basque Country “if there were any question marks whatsoever over my work as a peacemaker.”

His previous involvement in the IRA, he said, had been “said by people who are hostile to my candidacy.”

In a nod to Fianna Fáil’s decision not to field a candidate of its own, the Sinn Féin MLA said he would be appealing to voters “who previously supported other political parties to rally to my flag.

“They have got a very important choice to make about who presents the new Ireland,” he said.

“I certainly do represent the new North – and I think I can represent all of Ireland in a way that brings great credit to the Irish people.””

I have outlined before exactly who those “elements” are. These people, the true subversives, are still there, gnawing away at the sinews of our democracy and our nationhood. It is time for the people of Ireland to stand up and to give the real Golden Circle in Ireland, the lying, cheating, deceitful two-faced men and women of our national news media who are implicit in the economic ruin of our nation the political bloody nose they so richly deserve.

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The Propaganda Of Deed, Born Of Frustration

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A Volunteer of the Derry Brigade of the Irish Republican Army armed with an American-supplied M60 general-purpose machine gun, Derry City, British Occupied North of Ireland, 1978

The propaganda of deed is an old revolutionary idea that was given new force in the violent political struggles of Latin America in the 1960s and ‘70s, and was soon replanted back to Europe (from whence it came). At its simplest it could mean that any action that drew attention to the aims being pursued by a revolutionary movement or organisation was worthwhile. It meant that there did not need to be immediate military or political gains from any specific violent action. The deed was the gain. In its most well-known form tactics like the assassinations of chosen targets gave minimal risk for maximum return by highlighting the existence of the organisation behind the killing and the cause they were fighting for. Later, as technology advanced, bombings of specific targets were similarly valuable especially if there was little or no loss of life (or the opposite, if that was the intent).

But even the smallest of deeds could serve a useful propaganda end. Of course, such tactics could reach ridiculous degrees of pettiness but all had their effect of publically proclaiming, both to the enemy and to supporters – or would-be supporters – that the source of the trouble, political or otherwise, still existed. Such ideas still inspire to the present day. It is perhaps in this light that we should view yesterday’s attacks by Resistance Republicans, possibly the Real Irish Republican Army (RIRA), on two targets in Derry, one a member of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), the British paramilitary police in the North, the other a medical officer with the PSNI. As the Irish Times reports:

‘BRITISH ARMY technical officers yesterday defused a bomb left in the garden of one of Derry’s best-known doctors.

The device was found by a PSNI patrol at the home of retired GP Dr Keith Munro at Learmount Road near the Co Derry village of Claudy at 2am yesterday.

Five hours later, about 16km away in the townland of Tamnaherin near Eglinton, a bomb exploded outside the unoccupied home of a Catholic police officer.

The explosion at Ervey Road caused blast damage to the front of the officer’s home but no one was injured in the no-warning blast. The officer joined the PSNI three years ago; his home is beside the grounds of Slaughtmanus GAA club and close to St Mary’s Church.

A senior police officer in Derry said he had no doubt that both attacks had been carried out by the Real IRA.

Dr Munro, chairman of the Foyle Hospice in Derry, has been a police medical officer for more than 40 years.

In that capacity he carried out medical examinations on suspects in police custody. A prominent member of the Baha’i community, he is also the author of a book, Building Bridges.

It is the first time a police medical officer has been targeted by a paramilitary group in the North.

Three men, two aged 36 and the third aged 28, were arrested in Derry yesterday morning and taken to the serious crime suite at Antrim police station for questioning about both incidents.’

Two Volunteers of the Derry Brigade of the Irish Republican Army on active service armed with an American-supplied M60 GPMG and an M16 assault rifle, Derry City, British Occupied North of Ireland, 1978

The seeming futility of these attacks would be challenged by those who carried them out. They would argue strong and cogent reasons why they were necessary and the greater strategic purpose they served. But to my mind, like earlier operations, they reveal a degree of pointlessness, a lack of strategic vision or purpose, that undermines any arguments to their validity – or necessity. Rather than the propaganda of deed they have become the propaganda of frustration. Frustration with two governments, and several political parties, who promised more in the Belfast Agreement than they have yet to deliver.

While we are undoubtedly moving towards a reunited Ireland, an inevitability waiting for its moment since 1920, the pace of that movement is so slow that it leads some to wish to hurry it along. Young Irish men and women, especially those in the North who live under the continued British presence, though they can see progress happening in front of them do not see enough. They are impatient for more and that impatience is feeding into the growth of the Republican Resistance forces who now offer the means and mechanisms to express the anger and frustration of an entire generation.

If we are to stem a return to the warfare of the last forty years (though this time on a far shorter timescale and with far more profound results), we must put in place concrete expressions of the benefits of the Belfast Agreement for the Irish community in the North. The Government of Ireland must become an advocate for unity and the facilitator of an Irish citizenship and nationality that transcends the border – and the old reasons for violence.

While we wait for the inevitable change that is coming the government in Dublin, and all Irish nationalist parties, need to spell out what they believe a reunited Ireland will look like and how they will accommodate and integrate the present structures in the North, the executive, assembly, etcetera into that new state. The full legal, constitutional and institutional arrangements need to be teased out, explored and agreed.

All Irish political parties need to organise on an All-Ireland basis, offering the same membership and representation to all Irish citizens regardless of where they live in the nation. All Irish social, sporting, media and business organisations need to be persuaded or encouraged to organise on a similar all-island basis.

A Volunteer of the Derry Brigade of the Irish Republican Army armed with an American-supplied M60 GPMG, Derry City, British Occupied North of Ireland, 1978

Stronger economic ties that make the border irrelevant, leading in time to a single All-Ireland economy with shared tax-raising and distribution powers, must be put in place. The logic for this is overwhelming especially after the crises of recent times.

MPs elected in the North must be given observer status or non-voting seats in Dáil Éireann, with limited speaking-rights and privileges, and access to Oireachtas committees. The election for the office of the President of Ireland must become available to all voters on the island of Ireland, and relations with the North should be moved entirely from the Department of Foreign Affairs to a new joint-governmental body.

And above all, the British separatist minority on the island must be given the guarantees it requires to feel protected and secure within an expanded all-island nation state.

We are all heading in one direction, towards the reunification of Ireland. The question is how do we wish to get there? Will it be through slow and steady political development and change, carefully managed and encouraged by the Irish government and all interested parties? Or another, but far bloodier, conflict?

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Sinn Féin’s Dual Strategy To A Reunited Ireland?

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Two Sinn Féin leaders, two stories. On one side is Gerry Adams T.D., president of the party, member of Dáil Éireann, and the leading advocate for a reunited Ireland in Sinn Féin’s renewed push to end partition. From the Belfast Telegraph:

‘Many people in Ireland are opposed to Britain, the European Union (EU) or the International Monetary Fund (IMF) “ruling” over Irish affairs, Gerry Adams has said.

“But there are many people in Ireland who want rid of outsiders ruling us whether from London or the IMF and EU,” he said. “They want a free and united and independent Ireland.”

The reference to the impact of the Republic’s multi-billion euro EU and IMF bailout came in a speech in which the Sinn Fein leader predicted growth for his party.

“The fact is that Irish republicanism is stronger today than at any time since partition,” said Mr Adams. “But to make further advances and to be able to exercise even greater political influence and power, we need to build our struggle.”

He said: “Thirty years ago there was an Orange State. The Orange State is gone. The Government of Ireland Act is gone. The right of citizens to opt for a United Ireland is equal to that of those who wish to retain the union.”

He added: “There is now an entirely peaceful way to bring an end to British rule. Our duty is to develop democratic ways and means to achieve and to unite behind the leadership and the campaigns which will bring this about.”‘

On the other side is Martin McGuinness M.P. and M.L.A., Joint First Minister of the North of Ireland (or Deputy First Minster of Northern Ireland, depending on your politics) and the party’s chief strategist in seemingly making the British Occupied North of Ireland a tolerable place for Irish citizens to live in while on the road to a reunited Ireland. From the Guardian:

‘Petrol bombs were thrown at police officers and vans by masked youths in the Bogside area, and at the Apprentice Boys’ Memorial Hall HQ in Derry at the climax of the loyalist marching season.

Dissident republicans were also believed to be behind a pipe bomb attack at police lines close to Derry city centre on Saturday evening. No one was injured during the disturbances, which lasted for several hours.

The violence erupted after supporters of the Real IRA-linked 32 County Sovereignty Movement attempted to make their way into the city centre. At the time up to 15,000 members of the Apprentice Boys along with their supporters were marching in Derry.

McGuinness said on Sunday: “What we witnessed last night in Derry was completely unacceptable. I challenge those who were behind this violence to come out and try and defend the incidents that occurred in our city.

“The attacks on the Memorial Hall were motivated entirely by sectarianism and whoever carried them out should know that such behaviour goes against everything about Irish republicanism.”

He added: “The vast majority of people in Derry want to get on with the job of moving this city forward. Those behind last night’s violence seem to be wedded to an entirely different agenda.”‘

So what are we to make of this dual strategy? A variation on the ballot box and armalite? A combination of working from without and within? Certainly there is little evidence that Sinn Féin is any less wedded to its long term goal, the reunification of Ireland through the ending of the British Occupation and partition, than it has always been. In fact with the re-emphasis on that project both at home and abroad the long-term agenda seems clear, even if the particulars of the actual strategy itself are slightly less so (though cynics might claim the new push is derived more from worries about lost support in Ireland and the Irish communities abroad to the various groups making up the disparate movement of Dissident or Resistance Republicans, than any real ideological commitments).

It is clear that the reunification of the north-east of the island with the rest of the nation will involve a considerable period of ‘home rule’ in the North. In other words the North of Ireland will continue for a period with some form of regional assembly and legislature while under ‘Dublin rule’. After all this is nothing new in a European context where local autonomies based upon regional or ethnic differences are commonplace across the Continent, from Italy to Sweden, Spain to Romania. Many Western European nations have made accommodations with local ethnic or national minorities without compromising their overall sovereignty or territorial integrity and there is little reason why Ireland will be any different.

In fact such a situation was foreseen long ago, even during the heady days of the Irish Revolution, with many envisaging a ‘northern parliament’ within a free Ireland as one solution to the accommodation of Ireland’s separatist British minority. Éamon de Valera certainly allowed for such a scenario in the 1937 Bunreacht na hÉireann, with its clauses facilitating exclusive language use, be it Irish or English, throughout the state at the discretion of the Oireachtas, one of many overtures to the British community on the island.

Sinn Féin, at least at the leadership level and those immediately under it, seem to be working on this basis by laying the groundwork in the North for such a constitutional arrangement (others of course will have another interpretation). However in the process they also seem to be undermining their own position, at least as far as some of the younger generation of Irish people in the North are concerned. These are the very ones that are turning to or sympathising with the counter-arguments being put forth by many of  the Resistance Republicans.

Like the armalite and ballot box policy of yore it is another difficult dual strategy that Sinn Féin (and what’s left of the Provisional IRA) has entered upon. However it may be one that proves, in the long term, to be as equally as successful. And it is worth remembering that it is in the long term that Gerry Adams, of all the Sinn Féin strategists, not simply thinks but excels.

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…Back Home In Derry

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Well another Apprentice Boys’ march through the city of Doire (Derry) and another day of street protests as the British separatist minority in Ireland celebrate their former status as the colonial ruling classes on the island of Ireland. From UTV:

‘Masked youths attacked police landrovers [armoured vehicles], throwing petrol bombs and a number of cars have also been hijacked and set alight.

Up to 5,000 supporters turned out to see around 10,000 march to mark the anniversary of the 1688/89 Siege of Derry, in the biggest loyal order parade of the year.

There is a continued heavy police presence in the city, with the dissident republican groups protesting in some places just metres away from where the parade passed.

…there are reports of other attempted hijackings and motorists are advised to be vigilant.’

Quiet a contrast to the good news that has recently come out from the City of the Oak Wood.

The Apprentice Boys of Derry is a fundamentalist Protestant organisation within the British ethnic minority in Ireland (like their counterparts in the Orange Order) and their triumphalist marches have been a continued source of violence throughout the last 150 years. Despite the optimism of some people events like those happening right now in Derry prove just how far we have to go in untangling Britain’s racist and sectarian colonial legacy from Ireland’s present – and future.

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In Praise Of The Cultúrlann Uí Chanáin

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Journalist Fionntán Ó Tuathail Fintan O’Toole writes a lengthy piece celebrating the award-winning architecture of the Cultúrlann Uí Chanáin in Doire (Derry), the heart of the city’s Irish language community.

‘MODESTY AND restraint are not the virtues one associates with Irish culture in the Celtic Tiger years. But one of the finest pieces of contemporary Irish design is brilliant in part because it is contained, understated, and so supremely self-confident that it doesn’t have to shout. John Tuomey and Sheila O’Donnell’s Cultúrlann building in Derry is on the shortlist for the architectural Oscars, the Stirling Prize. I was in it for the first time last weekend and it deserves all the praise and prizes it can get. Apart from its own merits, it points towards a kind of genuine austerity aesthetic, a way for Irish art to be modest and serious without being dull and impoverished.

The Cultúrlann is the baby of the Stirling shortlist, up against far more opulent projects. Most of the other buildings cost vast amounts of money. The former British Telecoms building in London was refurbished at a cost of £72 million. The refit of the Royal Shakespeare theatre in Stratford cost £60 million. The admittedly stunning Olympic Velodrome in London, which is widely tipped to win, cost around £93 million.

The Cultúrlann cost just £4 million. But it is a wonderful contemporary validation of Mies van der Rohe’s architectural dictum that less is more.

What seems to me to give the building its power is that it emerges, not out of the sense of amplitude that characterised pre-crash Ireland, but out of scarcity – of money and space.

The Cultúrlann was an even more constrained project, built on Great James Street in the old walled city. It had to fit into the site of a burnt-out bakery, on a street of Victorian and Georgian terraced houses. To make matters worse, an electricity substation occupies a third of the site’s street frontage and had to be incorporated in the façade. And there is only one entrance to the site – there’s no view from the back of the building.

In fact, you could easily walk by the building without taking a second look. The outside is wedged between existing buildings, respects the height of the street and is conspicuously inconspicuous. If you do stop and look, you’ll notice the clever way the façade is actually arranged to look smaller than it is, folding in and out, almost like corrugated cardboard. The grey concrete exterior is broken by angular arrangements of yellow-framed windows, so that no one thing presents itself to the eye with any great force. There’s nothing imposing about the way the building sits on the street.

The genius of the design, though, is that O’Donnell and Twomey compensated for this modesty with a lovely paradox – placing the facades on the inside.

This is a great public building that is entirely without pomposity or grandiloquence. It has a genuine austerity, not just in the way it uses cheap materials like plywood and painted plaster in many of its rooms, but in the way it makes the most of every resource of space and light that’s available to it. This kind of austerity isn’t grim, slash-and-burn negativity. It’s the creativity of turning constraints into inspirations and limitations into inventions.’

Having visited the Cultúrlann several times now I think O’Toole has got it right and though my own architectural tastes are somewhat different there is no doubting the impressiveness of the building and the amazing use made of the space available. However, a bit more on what the Cultúrlann actually does, serving as a vibrant cultural centre for the region’s Irish speaking population, would have been appropriate. But then as the Ó Tuathail states:

‘The Cultúrlann is the first publically-funded Irish-language centre in the UK.’

So maybe we shouldn’t expect too much progressiveness from him (or Hiberno-English spelling either, it would seem). However he did deliver the annual lecture to this year’s Féile in the city that makes for some interesting (if familiar) reading.

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We’re Alright Paddy, To Hell With You

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Well a relatively peaceful night has passed in the North of Ireland, with violence down to what we might almost describe as ‘peace-time levels’. This is in contrast to the events of Wednesday night when widespread street clashes were still occurring (albeit mostly confined to Irish Nationalist communities) involving confrontations between local youths and the PSNI (the British paramilitary police in Ireland). Though on a smaller scale than in previous days and confined to smaller areas (mainly Belfast and Derry) the conflict on Wednesday was serious enough, involving as it did large numbers of young men and women, hundreds of PSNI officers, and considerable damage to local homes, businesses and vehicles. As reported by the BBC:

‘Police have been attacked with petrol bombs, paint bombs and missiles in Portadown, Belfast and Londonderry [Derry].

A police car and two private vehicles were damaged during the disturbances in the Garvaghy Road-Ballyoran area of Portadown on Wednesday.

Police were also targeted in west Belfast and Derry.

Petrol bombs and stones were thrown at officers during a four-hour period in the Brandywell and Gobnascale area of Derry city.

In Belfast a petrol bomb failed to ignite when it was thrown at Tennant Street PSNI station. A police spokesperson said nobody was injured during the trouble.

There were also reports of a number of hijackings.’

Additionally, though underreported by local or international media, there was a slow but steady stream of violent assaults on Irish communities throughout the North by gangs from the British Unionist population, as can be seen in some of the areas of trouble mentioned above. In North Belfast clashes between the PSNI and Unionists on Wednesday happened as the result of attacks on nearby Nationalist homes.

A separate incident is described in a UTV report:

‘Two members of an Ardoyne-based football team have been seriously injured after they were set upon by an armed loyalist gang in north Belfast on the Twelfth of July, it has emerged.

The Crumlin Star football team were returning from a trip to Dundalk in Co Louth, to escape the trouble surrounding the annual Orange Order parade close to their north Belfast homes, when they were attacked by the 30-strong gang.

A gang carrying knives, golf clubs and sticks beat several members of the team, leaving them with stab wounds, a broken leg and facial injuries.

One player was held down and jumped on until his leg broke and his foot was fractured.

Ciaran Smyth, who plays for a cross-community football team, was attacked with a golf club while trying to help a friend.

“It was still daylight when we were attacked. Most of them were wearing Rangers football shirts.

“That gang were out to cause serious injury or even kill the first Catholic they came across and it just happened to be us.”’

One of the more amusing aspects of the last few days has been the editorials and commentary of the British media, the majority of which have downplayed the trouble, usually by comparing it to the height of the conflict when IRA bombs were devastating British city centres and IRA units were targeting British troops. Which of course for the British is the only thing that really matters. For as long as British towns and city centres are left untouched and British soldiers unharmed the average British journalist, or politician or citizen doesn’t give a damn about Ireland or any trouble in Ireland. To them that is peace.

A fact that others know all too well.

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Fáilte Ireland – But Where Is Fáilte Éireann?

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News that in Doire (Derry) the Irish language culture centre, Cultúrlann Uí Chanáin, has won a prestigious award for promoting tourism in the region. As the Derry Journal reports:

‘The state of the art Irish language centre, which opened in 2009, was singled out for enhancing the visitor experience and integrating with other tourism products. The judges were particularly impressed with An Chultúrlann’s efforts at complimenting the tourism offer in the city and improving the image of the city as a whole.’

The article points out that:

‘the Irish language was becoming a key tourism driver: “The Irish language and culture is something that makes our region unique and that is what tourists are looking for when they plan a visit. Cultúrlann Uí Chanáin has developed a tourist package “Fáilte Dhoire” which is aimed at these type of cultural tourists to the city.

Through this package we have been able to tie all the elements of Irish culture that we offer into a single product for visitors to the city and work with other tourist providers to diffuse interest in the excellent tourist product available throughout the city. Our goal is to provide the ‘wow factor’ for visitors so that they leave excited, engaged and hungry for more information.’

Indeed. Tourists coming to Ireland want to experience something different from what they left behind at home (as I pointed out before). If you are an English-speaking tourist from England, Wales, Scotland, the United States, Canada, Australia or New Zealand you don’t want to visit a country where the people pretty much speak the same language as you do and with pretty much the same culture too.

You want different. So what does Fáilte Ireland offer these people? More of the same!

And what if you come from a non-English speaking country (like 94.5% of the planet!)? Do you really want to visit a pale imitation of Britain or the United States? If you want Cool Britannia or Americana then you can easily visit the real thing. They come to Ireland to experience something different from that.

Language tourism, Irish language tourism, is the great unrealised ‘wow factor’ of Irish tourism. By emphasising what we are (not what we are sort of like) we have the potential to open up and explore new and unexpected areas of tourist growth and development – while simultaneously contributing to the growth of our own native language and culture.

We want repeat visitors, the regular tourists that are the bedrock of any self-sustaining tourism industry, not the occasional fly-by-night, here-today-gone-tomorrow never-to-be-seen-again visitors of yesteryear. We want tourists who come to Ireland and then come back again – many times over. It is only by offering something unique that we will win the hearts and minds of these people and lure tourists here from the sunnier, technicolour delights of the Mediterranean, or Caribbean or beyond. Let us be honest. We don’t do glorious sunshine (really) or 24-hour bars and clubs. We’re not some North Atlantic Ibiza (thank God) or off-shore Los Vegas (yet).

We do a unique culture, ancient history, unspoiled nature and all the elusive stuff that tourists can’t quite get elsewhere (call it craic if you wish, old done-to-death cliché that it is). We appeal to the late teens and early twenties, and then jump to the middle aged. We appeal to the tens of millions of people around the globe of Irish descent. They want to visit something different, something not quite like anywhere else in the world, an Ireland of the myth as much as the reality. They want Irish and Gaelic and Celtic. All the things some here disdain but which make us unique, make us stand out from the crowd.

That is what Cultúrlann Uí Chanáin serves up, a cultural experience that tourists coming to Ireland clearly want, and expect. If we want to promote ourselves as the place to visit, and more than that, to experience, then let’s have a little less Ireland and a little more Éire.