Posted by Jim on July 28, 2014
by Patrick Counihan at Irish Central
Molly Malone in a burqa among graphic images and warnings.
The Israeli embassy in Dublin has been slammed after grotesque images and warnings of an Islamic invasion of Ireland were posted on its Facebook page.
The images depicted the Molly Malone statue in Dublin wearing a burka and the embassy’s Facebook page claimed that Ireland would be the next state to fall under Islamic influence. Israeli media reports have accused Ireland of being far too pro-Palestinian in the current Gaza conflict.
Images of the Mona Lisa in Paris wearing a niqab and carrying a rocket launcher also featured in the propaganda.
Other images posted on the Dublin embassy’s Facebook page included Michelangelo’s David shown in Arab headgear and wired up as a suicide bomber with a warning to Italy and Copenhagen’s Little Mermaid shown holding a gun.
A spokesman for the Israeli embassy in Dublin has confirmed to the Irish Sun newspaper that the offensive images were posted from his embassy’s official social media accounts.
They have since been removed by Facebook and the report says Dublin was not the only city to come into the Israeli propaganda sights.
The Irish Sun reports that the Israel In Ireland Facebook and Twitter accounts have been blasted for sharing the series of controversial posts.
An embassy spokesman told the paper: “Yes they were sent from the official Facebook but they were taken down, I don’t know why.
“Often things get deleted for space reasons but it wasn’t taken down because of any complaints.”
Sinn Fein foreign affairs spokesman Sean Crowe told the Irish Sun he was shocked by the latest images.
He said: “On one hand it’s childish and lacks maturity, but when you consider 1,050 people have been killed, it’s wrong to be making light of the situation,” he said referring to the Gaza conflict. Criticism of the Israeli invasion has been wide-spread and fervent in Ireland.
“This is such a sensitive time, you would think an embassy would treat it as such and would send out messages of reconciliation, not fan the flames.
“I can’t understand why anyone would take time to post stuff like this.”
Posted by Jim on July 13, 2014
British Direct Ruler Theresa Villiers has intervened to block a new
inquest into the deaths of eight IRA Volunteers and a civilian shot dead
by the SAS almost 30 years ago in a decision branded as “profoundly
wrong” by Six-County Attorney General John Larkin.
It was confirmed to human rights group the Committee on the
Administration of Justice that Villiers issued a certificate blocking a
fresh inquest last month claiming it was “against the interests of
national security”, with the British Attorney-General being assigned
authority over the matter.
The eight IRA Volunteers were ambushed and killed by the SAS while on
active service in Loughgall, County Armagh on May 8 1987. Civilian
Anthony Hughes from Caledon in County Tyrone was also killed when he
drove unknowingly into the ambush.
The British government ultimately apologised to the Hughes family and
confirmed he was “wholly innocent of any wrongdoing”, but always denied
that the eight Volunteers were victims of a pre-planned ‘shoot-to-kill’
massacre.
In their letter to the CAJ, Mr Larkin’s lawyer said: “The Attorney
General wishes me to inform you that he considers the Secretary of
State’s decision to be profoundly wrong in principle and is currently
reflecting on the appropriate response to it.”
Relatives of those killed in Loughgall have spoken of their
disappointment at the decision. Mairead Kelly, whose brother Patrick was
one of the eight IRA men shot dead, said she wasn’t surprised by the
move.
“They don’t have to provide proof, do we know that there is something
there to prevent this going ahead,” she said. “The truth is going to be
damaging or they would let it go ahead.”
Director of the Committee on the Administration of Justice, Brian
Gormally condemned the decision.
“There is a relentless campaign, led by the UK Government and supported
by some elements in Northern Ireland, to suppress the truth about the
activities of state agents during the conflict,” he said.
“The aim is to ensure impunity for any crimes and human rights
violations committed by servants of the state, whether policemen,
soldiers or secret agents. This is the latest stage in this epic
cover-up, using the deliberately undefined concept of ‘national
security’ to stifle a proper investigation.”
Attorney General John Larkin had been considering the request for a new
inquest for almost two years after the European Court of Human Rights
previously found that there had been no proper investigation of the
deaths.
Mr Gormally said his organisation will challenge the move. �There is a
relentless campaign, led by the UK Government and supported by some
elements in Northern Ireland, to suppress the truth about the activities
of state agents during the conflict,” he said.
“The aim is to ensure impunity for any crimes and human rights
violations committed by servants of the state, whether policemen,
soldiers or secret agents. This is the latest stage in this epic
cover-up, using the deliberately undefined concept of �national
security� to stifle a proper investigation.
He said his organisation “don�t know” why the Loughgall case has been
singled out for the �national security� veto. “Is it because the SAS
were involved, or did a UK Minister give the green light for the ambush?
The point is, we don’t know and we won’t know if the UK Government has
anything to do with it.
“This situation is not just an assault on the right to truth and
transparency in a democratic society, but the lack of a proper
investigation is a continuing human rights violation. We will contest
this decision by all available means.”
Sinn Fein MP for Fermanagh and South Tyrone Michelle Gildernew accused
authorities of “denying truth and justice to the families of those
killed in the Loughgall massacre” and said she agreed with Larkin’s
description of the intervention as ‘profoundly wrong.’
“This is yet another example of the British government denying families
the opportunity to get to the truth about the deaths of their loved
ones,” she said.
“Once again this exposes the lie that the British government was not a
protagonist in the conflict. The British government is denying the
families of those killed at Loughgall their basic human rights by
blocking access to the truth.”
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Donald Clarke. Irish Times. Friday, July 11, 2014.
Here’s a question. Is the festival of stomping, shouting and sunburn currently being endured in parts of Ulster the only such patriotic celebration that doesn’t have a name? In Sydney they enjoy Australia Day. German Unity Day has been a holiday in that country since 1990. And so on. But the Ulster Protestant celebration is always simply “the Twelfth”.
How appropriate. This is a locale so devoted to austerity that – as evidenced this week – its bakers refuse to provide Bert and Ernie cakes for gay weddings. The non-conformist sects have always shunned frivolous decoration. There the event sits. Its well- scrubbed face is unadorned by make-up. Its blouse and tights are modest. Nothing so idolatrous as a name defies its ruddy purity.
A great deal has changed in the North over the past 20 years. The Twelfth has, however, remained largely the same. Continuing a conversation that has been going on since the time of the Trilobites, the Parades Commission was, this year, asked to decide whether the Orange Order could bark its way past the Ardoyne in north Belfast.
The commission said it couldn’t. The unionists sulked. Various politicians sighed. Meanwhile, the second Ice Age enabled the evolution of certain larger land-based vertebrates.
Yet the Orange Order and its satellite bodies will keep paying lip service to modernisation. The most hilarious manifestation of this urge occurred in 2008 when – catching up with a cultural phenomenon that emerged in the US between the world wars – a special committee devised a superhero to represent the Order’s aims and philosophies.
“There were many strong entries such as Sash Gordon, Sashman and the Boyne Wonder,” David Hume, the Orange Order’s director of services, said in a statement that immediately rendered all satire irrelevant.
They eventually settled on “Diamond Dan the Orangeman” but, sadly, the campaign fell apart when it was revealed that Dan’s image had, without proper authorisation, been plucked from a digital library. The proposed Orangefest faltered.
Fun for all the family?
The Twelfth does sound like fun for all the family. After pounding about the Province in clothes ill-suited to the summer months, you get to stand in some awful field and listen to lectures from red-necked clerics whose theological beliefs make the Witchfinder General seem like Hans Küng. Still, there doesn’t really seem much chance that the Twelfth is, any time soon, going to become this island’s version of Mardi Gras.
You can dress it up however you like, but the event remains profoundly entangled with exclusion and bigotry. “Today defending Protestantism is not so literal as it was in 1795,” the Orange Order says on its website. Yet it remains an organisation that does not welcome Roman Catholics (or their spouses). Good luck flogging that to a modern secular tourist constituency.
This is not to suggest, of course, that all Orangemen are dreadful people. Earlier this week, Dan Keenan, writing in this newspaper, addressed the challenges for Orangeism.
Neanderthal and archaic
The Rev Mervyn Gibson, Orange Order chaplain, in the course of a very civil conversation, made a comment that got to certain issues rarely addressed outside Ulster. “There are those who condemn the Order, they say it’s too working class, it’s archaic, it’s Neanderthal, it’s got a knuckle-dragging image,” he said.
They do say that. They say it within Northern Ireland. And many of those who say it were raised as Protestants. We can debate whether the Order is still fighting a religious war. But it is certainly fighting a class war, and not in the way that many Southerners might think.
Visit the leafy glades of middle-class south Belfast this week and you will discover a virtual ghost town. Along the residential avenues of the Malone Road and within the chi-chi eateries of the Lisburn Road, a soothing torpor reigns.
It is some time since these parts of Northern Ireland were Protestant enclaves. Indeed, more than 10 years ago, a Unionist politician guiltily told me: “Some of my less enlightened colleagues refer to it as Vatican City.”
But the mass exodus on “Twelfth Week” has gone on for as long as anyone living can remember. Urban middle-class Protestants in Northern Ireland have never had much time for all that marching, lemonade-drinking and empty bellowing. Seek the barristers and doctors on July 12th and you need look to the golf courses of Florida, Andalucia and Donegal.
The wealthier Northern Ireland gets, the less keen its citizens will be on irritating the blameless shopkeepers of the Ardoyne. It’s a slippery sort of argument. The Order is as much at risk from snobbery as it is from enlightened inclusivity. Oh well. You take your allies wherever you find them.
Posted by Jim on July 2, 2014
IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
Posted by Jim on
by Áine Ní Shionnaigh
as printed in “The Irish Echo”
Growing up in the West of Ireland, my exposure to the Fourth of July was limited to two iconic movies. As a young child, I remember watching the black and white grainy version of “Yankee Doodle Dandy” where the main star, George M. Cohan, was born on the Fourth of July, a fact which heightened the expectations about his destiny. This movie could not have contrasted more with Oliver Stone’s “Born on the Fourth of July” where as a young adult, I was deeply struck by the contrast between the idea of war and the reality of war. The atmosphere at the Fourth of July parade before Kovic (Tom Cruise) joins the Marines coldly conflicts with the horrific conditions that Kovic finds himself in at the Veterans hospital where he is admitted on his return from Vietnam as a paralyzed veteran. There is a dramatic sense of despair, disillusionment and disappointment. The experience of actually becoming a hero is a serious let-down. Some of the content of this movie became a reality for me this year when I became involved with some veteran organizations to discuss traumatic brain injury issues in conjunction with the Sarah Jane Brain Foundation.
Nine years ago, when I moved to New York City from the West of Ireland, one of the biggest observations I continually made was the sense of patriotism in this great country. I am gradually coming to understand and still learning about the intensity of the relationship between the U.S. and its military. America’s military history is at the core of the formation of the American Republic as we know it today.
The independence celebrated on this July 4th weekend was fought for by many who paid the ultimate price so that Americans could enjoy all the privileges and freedom that come with it. We also celebrate the Irish who fought so valiantly with General George Washington to win the War of Independence. When the American Revolution broke out, both Scotch Irish Protestants and Irish Catholics could be found in every contingent of Washington’s army. According to James O’Boyle’s “Life of George Washington,” one of the most daring group of soldiers during the Revolutionary War were the Green Mountain Boys, led by, among others, two Irishmen named Marion and Pickens. Men lie these later became the pioneers who would venture outside the range of the original 13 colonies and head west. The Scotch Irish from Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania were particularly prominent in the ranks of those Americans who took on and ultimately prevailed against the British. They had grown to love the country they had left, the northern parts of Ireland, and it was an affection that would see them bear arms in a bid to gain independence in their new adopted land. Their efforts did not go unnoticed. When things weren’t looking good for General Washington, he came out with a gem of a quote that showed the pride and trust he had in these sturdy men. “If defeated everywhere else, I will make my stand for liberty, among the Scots-Irish in my native Virginia.” But defeat was not something they had to worry about, and Washington would lead his army to victory and becomes the country’s first president.
In June 1776, representatives of the 13 colonies had weighed a resolution that would declare their independence from Great Britain. On July 2nd, the Continental Congress voted in favor of Independence, and two days later its delegates adopted the Declaration of Independence, a historic document drafted by Thomas Jefferson. One of the signatories was an Irish Catholic whose grandfather was born in Aghtery, a townland in County Offaly, interestingly the same county President Barack Obama traced his Irish roots to and visited in 2011.
Charles Carroll (September 19, 1737 – November 14, 1832), known as Charles Carroll of Carrollton to distinguish him from his similarly named relatives, was a wealthy Maryland planter and an early advocate of independence from Great Britain. He served as a delegate to the Continental Congress and Confederation Congress and later as first United States Senator for Maryland. He was the only Catholic and the longest-lived (and last surviving) signatory of the Declaration of Independence. He died at the age of 95 at his city mansion in the neighborhood of Jonestown in Baltimore.
Carroll was not initially interested in politics and in any event Catholics had been barred from holding office in Maryland. But as the dispute between Great Britain and the colonies intensified, Carroll became a powerful voice for independence. He wrote in the Maryland Gazette under a pseudonym. He became a prominent spokesman against the governor’s proclamation increasing legal fees to state officers and Protestant clergy. Eventually, word spread of the true identity of the columnist and Carroll’s fame and notoriety began to grow. He became a leading opponent of British rule, and served on various committees of correspondence. He also played an important role in the burning in Annapolis harbor of the “Peggy Stewart,” a ship which had been carrying tea to Maryland, and was destroyed on October 19, 1774 as part of the tea party protests.
Charles Carroll was elected to the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, and remained a delegate until 1778. He signed the official document that survives today.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt once noted something that I think speaks of the Irish contribution to the kind of loud and colorful celebration that marks the fourth day of the seventh month.
He told James Cagney: “That’s one thing I’ve always admired about you Irish Americans, you carry your love of country like a flag, right out in the open. It’s a great quality.”
I also greatly admire the love of country that every American possesses.
I hope you all have a wonderful Fourth of July.