The resurgent strength of Catalan nationalism is a political phenomenon that has taken the peoples of the Iberian Peninsula and most of Europe by surprise. Since 2012 we’ve seen ever larger demonstrations in favour of independence for Catalonia with one event in Barcelona attracting over one and a half million people to the streets of the Catalan capital demanding freedom for their nation. Now we have another impressive show of nationalist sentiment in the cities, towns and villages of the country. From RTÉ:
“Hundreds of thousands of Catalans have held hands in a 400km human chain across their region to press the Spanish government to let them vote on breaking away and forming their own country.
Demonstrators in yellow T-shirts and draped in blue, red and yellow separatist banners raised their joined hands through cities and along rural roads.
Polls show backing for secession has risen steadily in Catalonia, with some registering support as high as 50%.
Organisers said they accomplished their goal of forming an unbroken line from the Pyrenees in the north to the border with Valencia in the south, and television footage showed huge segments of the completed chain.
The act was inspired by a similar 1989 demonstration that helped the Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania win independence from the Soviet Union.”
Could one imagine hundreds of thousands of people in Ireland uniting in a human chain from the cities of Dublin to Belfast demanding the reunification of their island-nation and supported by the political and media establishments within the country? No, neither could I. Unlike the Catalans (or the Basques) the majority of the Irish people form part of the most thoroughly colonised and self-hating nation in Europe.
“Proud to be Irish” me arse…
AN SIONNACH FIONN 
Let’s hope the Catalans inspire the more subservient nations of these islands to take control of their destinies!
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Agreed!
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Well youv’e got the world’s mightiest military machine next door do you seriously think people are going to come out and protest every week……….
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No, but people are not out every week protesting in Catalonia.
The point is, I suppose, that the desire for full freedom or complete independence is much stronger and visibly so in Catalonia than the desire for full freedom and reunification is in Ireland. But then we’ve had four decades of our national news media and politicians telling us why the latter is such a bad thing. Not to mention questioning the validity of the very state they are citizens of.
Why did the Irish political, financial and media elites throw away Irish sovereignty so readily? Because they were subject to decades of propaganda telling them that the state they lived in wasn’t a proper or legitimate one on the first place. Of course they didn’t give a damn when they handed over the keys of the state to the EU-ECB-IMF protectorate. They never believed in this state in the first place.
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can you imagine a ring of ireland demand? One day, for a couple of hours . Everybody from cork through galway to donegal, derry/londonderry, linking hands and banners through to belfast and dublin! Population not big enough,did you say??!!!
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I can imagine it, I just can’t imagine the Irish doing it. Or their political and media masters permitting it 😦
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