Anthony McIntyre's Blog, page 1181
October 19, 2017
Belfast And Derry - Capitals of Culture
Via The Transcripts, Adrian Flannelly speaks to the Lord Mayor of Belfast, Nuala McAllister, and to Richard Wakely, the Director of the Belfast International Arts Festival, as they are in New York to launch the festival and to garner support for Belfast and Doire being designated the 2023 European Culture Capital.
Belfast Lord Mayor Nuala McAllister & Richard Wakely The Adrian Flannelly Show 23 September 2017
The Adrian Flannelly ShowIrish Radio Network USA
Where’s the audio? To listen as you read along please click here
Adrian: I am delighted to welcome Councillor Nuala McAllister, who is the Lord Mayor of Belfast, and – Lady, Lord Mayor – how do we address you?
Nuala: It’s Lord Mayor, yes.
Adrian: It’s Lord Mayor.
Nuala: Yeah, so we don’t gender discriminate it’s ‘Lord Mayor’.
Adrian: Yeah. There you go! This interview is going so terrific already I think! You’re on a trip to the US and now you’re in New York. But what was the purpose of this trip primarily?
Nuala: The purpose of this trip is twofold: It’s to launch the Belfast International Arts Festival, which we’ll come on to, but also to consult with the Irish diaspora over our bid for Belfast and Doire to be the European Capital of Culture in 2023 so we’re going about that bid at the minute. It’s very intense and we want to put together our best opportunity that we can to ensure that we can be successful.
Adrian: Well it sounds attractive in the sense that you’re talking about Belfast and Doire because obviously that would be a huge boon to Northern Ireland.
Nuala: Oh, it would be huge! Actually, it would be quite huge. I think that’s a bit of an understatement in that the entire spotlight will be shone in our region and it will be coincidental that it’s twenty-five years from the Good Friday Agreement so it’s our chance in Northern Ireland to make sure that we can embrace our diversity and celebrate our success as a region through the culture of the people who live there and the people who have come to live in our two cities. So it’s a fantastic opportunity for us to showcase our local talent and for us to welcome our new people that live in our cities.
Adrian: Yeah. Yep. And the diaspora, you know – that’s a big group.
Nuala: It is a huge group. You know, I’ve been seeing so many people and meeting so many new faces over the past few days. I was in Chicago before New York and one thought that I had was: Are there any people left in Ireland? Because we have such a huge population of Irish people here in the United States and what’s so heartwarming to see is the connection that everyone makes with each other to ensure they can retain their links to back home.
Adrian: Let me ask you, first of all, a couple of things: You represent the Alliance Party. Can you tell us what the Alliance Party is?
Nuala: Okay so for those listeners that maybe aren’t aware, I’d say most people maybe aren’t aware, in Northern Ireland we have a Unionist and Nationalist population and that dates back from our conflict before the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. The Alliance Party is not Unionist nor Nationalist. It is the only cross-community party and we believe that the constitutional question, whether Northern Ireland becomes part of a united Ireland or we remain in the United Kingdom, has been answered by the Good Friday Agreement in that it is up to the people. And so what we’re focused on is the integration of people in Northern Ireland – not to just simply tolerate but to integrate – because separate but equal, and you know in the United States through the history here, that separate but not equal is simply not good enough.
Adrian: I would assume that you wouldn’t be offended if we were to group you into something which is very noble in that in conflict resolution that would be you know, a…
Nuala: …it’s what people should – yeah, it’s what people should aspire to really after conflict. People should be aspired to integration. And Northern Ireland is examined throughout the world. It’s looked upon as a peace process to admire because we set up peace in Northern Ireland. We ensured that we could get government and we ensured that our violent past remained in the past and we are seeing the benefits now from that now twenty years later and the first people born after the Good Friday Agreement had just voted for the first time but we still, in essence, do have that separation in politics. A lot of questions in politics relate back to identity in Northern Ireland but we have a lot of aspirations regardless of that and our people work together quite a lot.
Adrian: How and how close do you think that the political parties in Northern Ireland will get or will find a common ground and have the Assembly up and running which has to happened?
Nuala: Yes, we currently, as you just said, we don’t have government, regional government, because it collapsed. And I do think that the political parties are closer together than what the media portray them to be because, of course, whenever you go into negotiations I’m sure that they have their conversations and once they go outside to the media that might be a different story that they tell. I think they are closer together than what we see in the media but what we need to do is, essentially, is set aside red lines and ensure that we can move forward for the benefit of everyone in Northern Ireland. Belfast City Council, I represent Belfast as Lord Mayor, and it has become a responsibility for us to pick up pieces that are left behind because we have no functioning government and I think as a city council we’re making great strides in representing Northern Ireland as the capital. We’re the economic driver. We are doing great working in ensuring that Belfast does not lag behind.
Adrian: Your goal is to globalise Belfast. Can you tell us about it?
Nuala McAllister
Photo: Belfast Telegraph
Nuala: So my theme, or agenda, for this year as Lord Mayor is ‘Global Belfast’. So it’s about assuring that my city is profiled internationally – that means internationally at home as well as abroad. I want to promote a city that is open, welcoming and inclusive – that’s open for business, investors, tourists and open for those who seek refuge. It’s welcome to those who have come to Belfast and inclusive for everyone once they are here – no matter where they are from, no matter their walk of life, whether it is business or tourism and I’ve been doing that by linking-in with the diaspora whilst I’m here in the United States and I’ve been doing that whilst I’m at home to ensure that everyone does celebrate our diversity back home.
Adrian: Just to maybe pursue a little further: As we look at southern Ireland many would perceive Dublin as being the hub of southern Ireland whereas that would be offensive to many of us. Is Belfast considered to be the hub – that’s where everything happens?
Nuala: It is the hub of Northern Ireland I think, yes, but maybe is that because I’m biased because I’m Lord Mayor of Belfast? We have some beautiful places in Northern Ireland. Doire was the UK Capital of Culture a few years back. And we have the Giant’s Causeway which our American tourists love to visit which is just beautiful. We have the great mountains of Mourne that sweep down to the sea – Northern Ireland is just so beautiful and green. But Belfast is the economic driver. That’s the reality. It’s where we have the most opportunities in Northern Ireland and we have really seen it flourish in just the last five years. And of course, Belfast was also home to the Titanic – and she was fine when she left Belfast I will just add – and we do like to celebrate that significance of our shipbuilding history and so we’ve kind of had the advantage to rebuild that area where the Titanic was once built so we’ve moved forward in industries and had a new industrial revolution turn digital revolution back home.
Adrian: Yeah, maybe you’re best to introduce my co-guest on the programme in the person of Richard Wakely.
Nuala: So Richard Wakely is with me here today. This evening we’re going to launch the Belfast International Arts Festival. So this is happening because of Richard and his hard work. Richard has just a small team of people that put together the programme – one of the most successful and longest standing in Belfast history so – over to you then, Richard.
Richard: Well thank you very much, Lord Mayor. It’s a pleasure to be with you here in New York and Adrian, lovely to talk to you, too.
Adrian: Your bio, and we see a lot of them, are there areas that you haven’t covered? You know, it reminds me somewhat of in the west of Ireland when there was a call for – there were like a couple of parish priests who came into areas that were minding their own business and they built churches and they really riled people up. And this was great! And then they were called to do the same thing over and over again. But there are – you have served in such a tremendous and great areas of leadership, not just in Northern Ireland, but you know – tell us a little bit about it.
Richard: Well I’ve been very, very fortunate in my career, Adrian. I suppose at the end of the day I’m a cultural activist. That’s what I am. I’ve been fortunate enough to work in London for nineteen years. I’ve produced, co-produced, presented eighteen West End productions and a production here on Broadway, Frank McGuinness’ great Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me. That came out of the theatre that I worked in in London. It was a great honour to return to Ireland and to be offered the job of managing director of our national theatre, the Abbey Theatre, where I was for several years. I was very…
Richard Wakely
Photo: The Irish News
Adrian: …And you were there for the rejuvenation of the…
Richard: …it was a golden age, I think, when I was there. I mean I’m very proud of the time that I had at The Abbey and you know delighted that The Abbey still goes from strength to strength so it holds a very special place in my heart. But I’m back in Belfast where I was educated – although my family’s a Dublin family I have a Northern twang as you can hear and I was educated in The North – so to be able to return to Belfast at this time, twenty years on from the Belfast peace agreement, and to I suppose use that experience in terms of creative entrepreneurship to help reshape our society is a great privilege. And I’m very, very lucky in what I do in running this wonderful festival.
Adrian: When, and most representatives recently anyway, have come to America and to North America have made great inroads in terms of investment and trade. The culture, the cultural aspects, of what you are obviously an expert in doing – is there a separate degree of support from the diaspora and particularly from North America? Obviously what you undertake is huge, it is costly and do you have a separate route in terms of funding from that or does it go through government?
Richard: Well a large portion of our funding comes from the public sector and that’s because we have public sector ideals and values so we’re lucky to get money from the tourist authorities, from the Arts Council. And we haven’t actually mined, financially, the links over here in America. But our festival, Adrian, has the strongest cultural links of all the festivals on the island of Ireland with America. And we regularly bring over artists to work with us, to work with our communities, from North America. So that has been the basis of our relationship up until now but the diaspora, as the Lord Mayor was saying, has a very important role to play in the future for us and as part of the civic engagement to build support for the bid for European Culture Capital designation in 2023 we’re asking our diaspora to actively get involved in backing the bid. And that’s terribly important and that’s why the Lord Mayor and I are here today and marking the submission of our bid in a few weeks time with a special reception here in New York this evening.
Adrian: The Belfast festival, the International Festival in Belfast, it pretty much stretches through the month of October.
Richard: Yeah. It’s been going for fifty-five years and it takes up most of the days and nights in October.
Adrian: Yeah. A huge undertaking when you figure that most festivals a week is, you know, is a stretch, yeah.
Richard: Well we’re ambitious! We’re ambitious! I mean the Belfast International Arts Festival is a major European festival. It’s not just a festival about Northern Ireland. It’s not just a civic festival. It’s a major European festival. It’s part of the cultural calendar, one, indeed, of the highlights of the cultural calendar, for the island of Ireland every year. And we’re very proud of that fact. And we’re very proud of the fact that we are ambitious for ourselves and for the city and our people. So that’s why we spend time searching out the best acts from around the world. Artists from fourteen countries are appearing with us this year over the twenty-two day period in all disciplines. You don’t have to travel to London or Edinburgh or New York to see these people – you can come to Belfast.
Adrian: Yeah. Tell us about the categories again – you’re talking about the disciplines, the categories – ranging from?
Richard: Theatre. Dance. Literature. Film. Music, both classical through to roots music. We have a lot of talks as well. A lot of it’s based around contemporary arts practice – so living artists – and it’s a very wide and expansive programme. We’re very proud of the fact that many of our events are free, Adrian, so you know that’s a very important part of our character because we believe that art is for everyone. So access and inclusivity and diversity are the cornerstones upon which the festival operates.
Adrian: Yeah. Now you have actually, obviously the history of the festival covering more than a half century, grew before, during and after the Good Friday Agreement. What is the common theme? Something just comes to mind: We were always very impressed here with, again pre-Good Friday Agreement, say the Cross Border Orchestra of Northern Ireland where actually artists, musicians, got together without any affiliation with, or we should say maybe despite the political situation, got together and actually produced something which again, they were very proud of and that had had a lot, obviously, to do with the border. How far and to what degree does the festival incorporate, say, outside of Northern Ireland, say – into The South?
Richard: We’re an international festival and so as I say we have fourteen countries visiting us
throughout the year in this edition and we have many colleagues from the Republic coming to work with us. We co-produce and we co-commission with colleagues from The South and that’s a very important part of what we do. We’re about bringing people together in a civic space and in a creative space and we do that through working with like-minded artists and like-minded organisations, Adrian, across the city. So you will actually find us up the Falls Road and down the Newtonards Road, in the north of the city and in the south of the city. And the strength of the festival is its diversity and its ability to work with many partners. This year for example, the Lord Mayor and I were just talking about some of the funding that we’re on, we’re thrilled that the Irish government, in Dublin, are one of our sponsors this year. Indeed, this is the second year. So we get money from Westminster, we get money from Belfast and we get money from Dublin. We’re very fortunate. But that is a testament, I believe, to the values that we espouse of working together, of inclusivity – that civic dimension, I suppose, we’re talking about.
Adrian: We have through the years broadcast from Ireland from many cultural events and one of the most striking I think was covering Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann for their first time crossing the border, as it were, into Northern Ireland. And many would say at the time – and of course the naysayers would’ve said, you know, it’s a very bad decision and why would they do this and so forth – and we can say honestly that it was probably one of the most tremendous cultural experiences – everybody – okay – nobody cared, it was…
Richard: …Absolutely…
Adrian: …And that’s it. Now, in terms of the size of the festival, can you put some numbers on the number of visitors – you’ve already said fourteen countries – the approximate number of performances, acts?
Richard: Yeah. It’s a very, very big event this year, Adrian. So we’ve a hundred and ninety-one events taking place across the city. So it is huge. And I said fourteen countries, twelve premieres and we’re a festival of scale. Because as I said at the beginning of the interview, and this is important, is that we are ambitious. And I worry that, you know in Northern Ireland, that our history has made us rather parochial, rather inward-looking. But our festival is outward-looking. You know we’re a globally connected festival because we believe that Northern Ireland and the island of Ireland and the islands of the British isles need to be globally connected. We’re part of a wider global community and we reflect that through the stories that our artists bring to us through their creations.
Adrian: I want to come back to Lord Mayor, Nuala McAllister, and again obviously we cannot ignore the advent of Brexit and obviously how that is going to affect Northern Ireland. Just generally maybe give us your opinion on that first.
Nuala: We can’t ignore and nor should we ignore it. One of the key things to mention here is that currently Northern Ireland doesn’t have an Executive, a government, which means currently Northern Ireland does not have a voice in the Brexit negotiations. And I know that it’s up to the Prime Minister of the UK, Theresa May, but Northern Ireland currently doesn’t have that voice speaking up for us and what do we want to see because we all want to see a friction-less border. We’re the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a border with a country that will remain in the European Union. We have so much juggling going on at the minute. We have so many unanswered questions. And I’m going to be honest, I don’t think there’s anyone who has those answers right now. I don’t think there’s any person within the UK government, in Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland that can give concrete answers to people’s fears and worries about what will happen. All we can do is just hope that we get our government up and running, hope that the Prime Minister is speaking in our best interests.
Adrian: How though, in the meantime, obviously with your upcoming, now world famous, international Belfast cultural festival, that – you haven’t been waiting so who are you actually reaching out to? Who are you speaking with in terms, say in the UK, or is that something that you’re doing – obviously you’re doing it on your own without the representation but…
Nuala: …Belfast hasn’t been waiting at all. In fact, at Belfast City Council we’ve been providing excellent leadership and we have a fantastic team of people in our chief executive and we’re actually trying to pursue a city deal for Belfast and the wider area which would ensure economic growth for Belfast and, therefore, economic growth for the entirety of Northern Ireland. So we’re continuing to move forward because the world will go on, the world will continue. We are having conversations with Westminster regarding issues that we do have powers over. We cannot step, obviously, outside of where our powers do not lie but we’re still getting on with business because we have to and that’s just the way it works in politics – that sometimes you get the answers to votes that you perhaps don’t like but even within the difference within Belfast City Council we are providing excellent leadership and we’re moving forward regardless of what happens in two years or maybe even expand at this point with Brexit. Nobody really knows. It’s all a juggling game for both EU leaders and the UK leaders at the minute.
Adrian: You know we had Alastair Hamilton as a guest a couple of weeks ago on this programme who again represent the not only inward invest but the trade. As Lord Mayor of Belfast – yes obviously, you have the Alastair Hamiltons and you have many others, but how do you coordinate, as Lord Mayor, the great number – in the absence again I’m sure of the Northern Ireland Executive?
Nuala: Well we actually have great collaboration between both ourselves, the Belfast City Council, and Invest NI that you just mentioned whom Alastair works for. Indeed our colleagues here in New York – and once we’re here in New York we’ll be meeting with a number of people, those to welcome to Belfast and those to say thank you for as well as the diaspora, too. And we basically link in, organisation by organisation, at that kind of ground-work level and we have dedicated staff members and we are very open in terms of sharing of information and connections and everyone knows how vitally important that is. So we do a great job in Belfast. But at the minute it would be great if we did have ministers but actually investment is as high now as it ever has been even before.
Adrian: And of course we’re almost at this stage of the game take for granted the significance of tourism and the amasing advances that have been made in that that with or without a border or the hard border or any other border the island of Ireland has been marketed as such and that has to have to play a huge role.
Nuala: Oh! It – last year in Belfast I think the figure was at three hundred and thirty million from tourism. And we are seeing the effects of Game of Thrones – I’m not sure if you’ve ever watched it – but the majority of us are in Belfast and locations across Northern Ireland and that has created such huge economic growth for our region. And we have seen so many people taking tours across Northern Ireland. We’ve had more film studios now open in Belfast – people come in to actually film there which is excellent. And we have much more to offer, much more, in terms of our skills base, our location and what we have to offer for people coming outside in wanting to promote Belfast.
Adrian: Richard, I would like Richard Wakely who is the director and the person who can either be congratulated for big successes or, alternatively, will take the rap if it doesn’t turn out to be that, but just tell us about, again, the amount of, first of all the participation – how many thousands of people do you expect? And what’s the track record?
Richard: Well this year we’re expecting two hundred thousand people at least to engage at our festival.
Poppies: Weeping Window
Artist: Paul Cummins
Designer: Tom Piper
Installation at the Tower of London
Photo: Centenary News
And that’s primarily because we’ve been very lucky, very fortunate, to attract a very big, iconic, ceramic sculpture to Belfast and that’s called Poppies: Weeping Window. The full sculpture was first seen at the Tower of London and it’s a piece of work that is inspired by the First World War and speaks to the loss of life during the First World War. It’s the only place on the island of Ireland that is hosting it and we already know there’s a lot of people coming to see it. So it’s part of the, what the Lord Mayor was saying, it’s part of that tourism drive but it’s also unique, too – it’s the only place on the island of Ireland you’re going to get to see that and indeed many other wonderful events as well throughout the month of October.
Adrian: Can you give us the website?
Richard: www dot belfast international arts festival dot com. Very easy!
Adrian: I’ll leave the last word to the Lord Mayor and I know your time is very limited here and your handlers are going to wallop us if we don’t get you out of here but tell us about the Titanic Centre.
Nuala: Oh well – you mean the Titanic tourist attraction that just won Number One in the world? ! Yes, we are a leading…
Adrian: …Yeah! Don’t hold back now! (both laugh)
Nuala: Yes, we are a leading tourist attraction and celebrating our culture in shipbuilding is just part of our overall culture and identity in Northern Ireland. And part of that relates back to what we’re trying to do as a city council to build on the old industries of Belfast but also create opportunities through that both for those who visit and for those who live here. So the Titanic tourist attraction is excellent. If you haven’t been I surely suggest that you do – that whole area is re-generating within Titanic and you can see…
Adrian: …and it’s not a day trip, I can tell you!
Nuala: No, Belfast is not a day trip – it isn’t. And you know then we have, just Belfast, and outside we have our links to the Giant’s Causeway as yoou mentioned before and which people just love to visit and Bushmills, our distillery, which is not far from the Giant’s Causeway either, but Belfast has to be your number one and your first stop. And also City Hall, where I work, it’s a fantastic building. It dates back to 1906 when it was first opened to the public and so a lot of history there. And we have just opened the first exhibition of the history of Belfast. And you know I say that because it’s quite huge. We got political agreement that there was no narrative around the history of Belfast. It’s just, it’s there to show through sculpture, through art and through artifacts and so it’s an excellent opportunity – free – open to all in Belfast.
Adrian: The best website, again, for Belfast and for the bid on Belfast?
Nuala: So belfast city council dot co dot uk. (belfast city dot gov dot uk) Hashtag: #WeAre2023. We’re launching, for part of launching our bid, for the European Capital of Culture so I do suggest that you get involved by contacting Council.
Belfast International Arts Festival on Twitter
But also online, Facebook and social media, which everyone, at the tap of a button, you’re able to do it – Hashtag: #WeAre2023. And the question that I’ll ask you is, if you’re part of Irish-America: What does ‘home’ mean to you? And if you’re in the Irish diaspora: What does ‘home’ mean to you? If you’re from Belfast, you’re from Doire – just get involved and tell us exactly how you feel.
Adrian: Thank both of you. I want to thank both of you for being here.
Nuala: Thank you very much, Adrian.
Adrian: You’ve had a great story to tell.
Nuala: Thank you.
Richard: Thank you very much, Adrian. (ends)
You can follow The Transcripts on Twitter @RFETranscripts
Belfast Lord Mayor Nuala McAllister & Richard Wakely The Adrian Flannelly Show 23 September 2017
The Adrian Flannelly ShowIrish Radio Network USA
Where’s the audio? To listen as you read along please click here
Adrian: I am delighted to welcome Councillor Nuala McAllister, who is the Lord Mayor of Belfast, and – Lady, Lord Mayor – how do we address you?
Nuala: It’s Lord Mayor, yes.
Adrian: It’s Lord Mayor.
Nuala: Yeah, so we don’t gender discriminate it’s ‘Lord Mayor’.
Adrian: Yeah. There you go! This interview is going so terrific already I think! You’re on a trip to the US and now you’re in New York. But what was the purpose of this trip primarily?
Nuala: The purpose of this trip is twofold: It’s to launch the Belfast International Arts Festival, which we’ll come on to, but also to consult with the Irish diaspora over our bid for Belfast and Doire to be the European Capital of Culture in 2023 so we’re going about that bid at the minute. It’s very intense and we want to put together our best opportunity that we can to ensure that we can be successful.
Adrian: Well it sounds attractive in the sense that you’re talking about Belfast and Doire because obviously that would be a huge boon to Northern Ireland.
Nuala: Oh, it would be huge! Actually, it would be quite huge. I think that’s a bit of an understatement in that the entire spotlight will be shone in our region and it will be coincidental that it’s twenty-five years from the Good Friday Agreement so it’s our chance in Northern Ireland to make sure that we can embrace our diversity and celebrate our success as a region through the culture of the people who live there and the people who have come to live in our two cities. So it’s a fantastic opportunity for us to showcase our local talent and for us to welcome our new people that live in our cities.
Adrian: Yeah. Yep. And the diaspora, you know – that’s a big group.
Nuala: It is a huge group. You know, I’ve been seeing so many people and meeting so many new faces over the past few days. I was in Chicago before New York and one thought that I had was: Are there any people left in Ireland? Because we have such a huge population of Irish people here in the United States and what’s so heartwarming to see is the connection that everyone makes with each other to ensure they can retain their links to back home.
Adrian: Let me ask you, first of all, a couple of things: You represent the Alliance Party. Can you tell us what the Alliance Party is?
Nuala: Okay so for those listeners that maybe aren’t aware, I’d say most people maybe aren’t aware, in Northern Ireland we have a Unionist and Nationalist population and that dates back from our conflict before the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. The Alliance Party is not Unionist nor Nationalist. It is the only cross-community party and we believe that the constitutional question, whether Northern Ireland becomes part of a united Ireland or we remain in the United Kingdom, has been answered by the Good Friday Agreement in that it is up to the people. And so what we’re focused on is the integration of people in Northern Ireland – not to just simply tolerate but to integrate – because separate but equal, and you know in the United States through the history here, that separate but not equal is simply not good enough.
Adrian: I would assume that you wouldn’t be offended if we were to group you into something which is very noble in that in conflict resolution that would be you know, a…
Nuala: …it’s what people should – yeah, it’s what people should aspire to really after conflict. People should be aspired to integration. And Northern Ireland is examined throughout the world. It’s looked upon as a peace process to admire because we set up peace in Northern Ireland. We ensured that we could get government and we ensured that our violent past remained in the past and we are seeing the benefits now from that now twenty years later and the first people born after the Good Friday Agreement had just voted for the first time but we still, in essence, do have that separation in politics. A lot of questions in politics relate back to identity in Northern Ireland but we have a lot of aspirations regardless of that and our people work together quite a lot.
Adrian: How and how close do you think that the political parties in Northern Ireland will get or will find a common ground and have the Assembly up and running which has to happened?
Nuala: Yes, we currently, as you just said, we don’t have government, regional government, because it collapsed. And I do think that the political parties are closer together than what the media portray them to be because, of course, whenever you go into negotiations I’m sure that they have their conversations and once they go outside to the media that might be a different story that they tell. I think they are closer together than what we see in the media but what we need to do is, essentially, is set aside red lines and ensure that we can move forward for the benefit of everyone in Northern Ireland. Belfast City Council, I represent Belfast as Lord Mayor, and it has become a responsibility for us to pick up pieces that are left behind because we have no functioning government and I think as a city council we’re making great strides in representing Northern Ireland as the capital. We’re the economic driver. We are doing great working in ensuring that Belfast does not lag behind.
Adrian: Your goal is to globalise Belfast. Can you tell us about it?
Nuala McAllister
Photo: Belfast Telegraph
Nuala: So my theme, or agenda, for this year as Lord Mayor is ‘Global Belfast’. So it’s about assuring that my city is profiled internationally – that means internationally at home as well as abroad. I want to promote a city that is open, welcoming and inclusive – that’s open for business, investors, tourists and open for those who seek refuge. It’s welcome to those who have come to Belfast and inclusive for everyone once they are here – no matter where they are from, no matter their walk of life, whether it is business or tourism and I’ve been doing that by linking-in with the diaspora whilst I’m here in the United States and I’ve been doing that whilst I’m at home to ensure that everyone does celebrate our diversity back home.
Adrian: Just to maybe pursue a little further: As we look at southern Ireland many would perceive Dublin as being the hub of southern Ireland whereas that would be offensive to many of us. Is Belfast considered to be the hub – that’s where everything happens?
Nuala: It is the hub of Northern Ireland I think, yes, but maybe is that because I’m biased because I’m Lord Mayor of Belfast? We have some beautiful places in Northern Ireland. Doire was the UK Capital of Culture a few years back. And we have the Giant’s Causeway which our American tourists love to visit which is just beautiful. We have the great mountains of Mourne that sweep down to the sea – Northern Ireland is just so beautiful and green. But Belfast is the economic driver. That’s the reality. It’s where we have the most opportunities in Northern Ireland and we have really seen it flourish in just the last five years. And of course, Belfast was also home to the Titanic – and she was fine when she left Belfast I will just add – and we do like to celebrate that significance of our shipbuilding history and so we’ve kind of had the advantage to rebuild that area where the Titanic was once built so we’ve moved forward in industries and had a new industrial revolution turn digital revolution back home.
Adrian: Yeah, maybe you’re best to introduce my co-guest on the programme in the person of Richard Wakely.
Nuala: So Richard Wakely is with me here today. This evening we’re going to launch the Belfast International Arts Festival. So this is happening because of Richard and his hard work. Richard has just a small team of people that put together the programme – one of the most successful and longest standing in Belfast history so – over to you then, Richard.
Richard: Well thank you very much, Lord Mayor. It’s a pleasure to be with you here in New York and Adrian, lovely to talk to you, too.
Adrian: Your bio, and we see a lot of them, are there areas that you haven’t covered? You know, it reminds me somewhat of in the west of Ireland when there was a call for – there were like a couple of parish priests who came into areas that were minding their own business and they built churches and they really riled people up. And this was great! And then they were called to do the same thing over and over again. But there are – you have served in such a tremendous and great areas of leadership, not just in Northern Ireland, but you know – tell us a little bit about it.
Richard: Well I’ve been very, very fortunate in my career, Adrian. I suppose at the end of the day I’m a cultural activist. That’s what I am. I’ve been fortunate enough to work in London for nineteen years. I’ve produced, co-produced, presented eighteen West End productions and a production here on Broadway, Frank McGuinness’ great Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me. That came out of the theatre that I worked in in London. It was a great honour to return to Ireland and to be offered the job of managing director of our national theatre, the Abbey Theatre, where I was for several years. I was very…
Richard WakelyPhoto: The Irish News
Adrian: …And you were there for the rejuvenation of the…
Richard: …it was a golden age, I think, when I was there. I mean I’m very proud of the time that I had at The Abbey and you know delighted that The Abbey still goes from strength to strength so it holds a very special place in my heart. But I’m back in Belfast where I was educated – although my family’s a Dublin family I have a Northern twang as you can hear and I was educated in The North – so to be able to return to Belfast at this time, twenty years on from the Belfast peace agreement, and to I suppose use that experience in terms of creative entrepreneurship to help reshape our society is a great privilege. And I’m very, very lucky in what I do in running this wonderful festival.
Adrian: When, and most representatives recently anyway, have come to America and to North America have made great inroads in terms of investment and trade. The culture, the cultural aspects, of what you are obviously an expert in doing – is there a separate degree of support from the diaspora and particularly from North America? Obviously what you undertake is huge, it is costly and do you have a separate route in terms of funding from that or does it go through government?
Richard: Well a large portion of our funding comes from the public sector and that’s because we have public sector ideals and values so we’re lucky to get money from the tourist authorities, from the Arts Council. And we haven’t actually mined, financially, the links over here in America. But our festival, Adrian, has the strongest cultural links of all the festivals on the island of Ireland with America. And we regularly bring over artists to work with us, to work with our communities, from North America. So that has been the basis of our relationship up until now but the diaspora, as the Lord Mayor was saying, has a very important role to play in the future for us and as part of the civic engagement to build support for the bid for European Culture Capital designation in 2023 we’re asking our diaspora to actively get involved in backing the bid. And that’s terribly important and that’s why the Lord Mayor and I are here today and marking the submission of our bid in a few weeks time with a special reception here in New York this evening.
Adrian: The Belfast festival, the International Festival in Belfast, it pretty much stretches through the month of October.
Richard: Yeah. It’s been going for fifty-five years and it takes up most of the days and nights in October.
Adrian: Yeah. A huge undertaking when you figure that most festivals a week is, you know, is a stretch, yeah.
Richard: Well we’re ambitious! We’re ambitious! I mean the Belfast International Arts Festival is a major European festival. It’s not just a festival about Northern Ireland. It’s not just a civic festival. It’s a major European festival. It’s part of the cultural calendar, one, indeed, of the highlights of the cultural calendar, for the island of Ireland every year. And we’re very proud of that fact. And we’re very proud of the fact that we are ambitious for ourselves and for the city and our people. So that’s why we spend time searching out the best acts from around the world. Artists from fourteen countries are appearing with us this year over the twenty-two day period in all disciplines. You don’t have to travel to London or Edinburgh or New York to see these people – you can come to Belfast.
Adrian: Yeah. Tell us about the categories again – you’re talking about the disciplines, the categories – ranging from?
Richard: Theatre. Dance. Literature. Film. Music, both classical through to roots music. We have a lot of talks as well. A lot of it’s based around contemporary arts practice – so living artists – and it’s a very wide and expansive programme. We’re very proud of the fact that many of our events are free, Adrian, so you know that’s a very important part of our character because we believe that art is for everyone. So access and inclusivity and diversity are the cornerstones upon which the festival operates.
Adrian: Yeah. Now you have actually, obviously the history of the festival covering more than a half century, grew before, during and after the Good Friday Agreement. What is the common theme? Something just comes to mind: We were always very impressed here with, again pre-Good Friday Agreement, say the Cross Border Orchestra of Northern Ireland where actually artists, musicians, got together without any affiliation with, or we should say maybe despite the political situation, got together and actually produced something which again, they were very proud of and that had had a lot, obviously, to do with the border. How far and to what degree does the festival incorporate, say, outside of Northern Ireland, say – into The South?
Richard: We’re an international festival and so as I say we have fourteen countries visiting us
throughout the year in this edition and we have many colleagues from the Republic coming to work with us. We co-produce and we co-commission with colleagues from The South and that’s a very important part of what we do. We’re about bringing people together in a civic space and in a creative space and we do that through working with like-minded artists and like-minded organisations, Adrian, across the city. So you will actually find us up the Falls Road and down the Newtonards Road, in the north of the city and in the south of the city. And the strength of the festival is its diversity and its ability to work with many partners. This year for example, the Lord Mayor and I were just talking about some of the funding that we’re on, we’re thrilled that the Irish government, in Dublin, are one of our sponsors this year. Indeed, this is the second year. So we get money from Westminster, we get money from Belfast and we get money from Dublin. We’re very fortunate. But that is a testament, I believe, to the values that we espouse of working together, of inclusivity – that civic dimension, I suppose, we’re talking about.
Adrian: We have through the years broadcast from Ireland from many cultural events and one of the most striking I think was covering Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann for their first time crossing the border, as it were, into Northern Ireland. And many would say at the time – and of course the naysayers would’ve said, you know, it’s a very bad decision and why would they do this and so forth – and we can say honestly that it was probably one of the most tremendous cultural experiences – everybody – okay – nobody cared, it was…
Richard: …Absolutely…
Adrian: …And that’s it. Now, in terms of the size of the festival, can you put some numbers on the number of visitors – you’ve already said fourteen countries – the approximate number of performances, acts?
Richard: Yeah. It’s a very, very big event this year, Adrian. So we’ve a hundred and ninety-one events taking place across the city. So it is huge. And I said fourteen countries, twelve premieres and we’re a festival of scale. Because as I said at the beginning of the interview, and this is important, is that we are ambitious. And I worry that, you know in Northern Ireland, that our history has made us rather parochial, rather inward-looking. But our festival is outward-looking. You know we’re a globally connected festival because we believe that Northern Ireland and the island of Ireland and the islands of the British isles need to be globally connected. We’re part of a wider global community and we reflect that through the stories that our artists bring to us through their creations.
Adrian: I want to come back to Lord Mayor, Nuala McAllister, and again obviously we cannot ignore the advent of Brexit and obviously how that is going to affect Northern Ireland. Just generally maybe give us your opinion on that first.
Nuala: We can’t ignore and nor should we ignore it. One of the key things to mention here is that currently Northern Ireland doesn’t have an Executive, a government, which means currently Northern Ireland does not have a voice in the Brexit negotiations. And I know that it’s up to the Prime Minister of the UK, Theresa May, but Northern Ireland currently doesn’t have that voice speaking up for us and what do we want to see because we all want to see a friction-less border. We’re the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a border with a country that will remain in the European Union. We have so much juggling going on at the minute. We have so many unanswered questions. And I’m going to be honest, I don’t think there’s anyone who has those answers right now. I don’t think there’s any person within the UK government, in Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland that can give concrete answers to people’s fears and worries about what will happen. All we can do is just hope that we get our government up and running, hope that the Prime Minister is speaking in our best interests.
Adrian: How though, in the meantime, obviously with your upcoming, now world famous, international Belfast cultural festival, that – you haven’t been waiting so who are you actually reaching out to? Who are you speaking with in terms, say in the UK, or is that something that you’re doing – obviously you’re doing it on your own without the representation but…
Nuala: …Belfast hasn’t been waiting at all. In fact, at Belfast City Council we’ve been providing excellent leadership and we have a fantastic team of people in our chief executive and we’re actually trying to pursue a city deal for Belfast and the wider area which would ensure economic growth for Belfast and, therefore, economic growth for the entirety of Northern Ireland. So we’re continuing to move forward because the world will go on, the world will continue. We are having conversations with Westminster regarding issues that we do have powers over. We cannot step, obviously, outside of where our powers do not lie but we’re still getting on with business because we have to and that’s just the way it works in politics – that sometimes you get the answers to votes that you perhaps don’t like but even within the difference within Belfast City Council we are providing excellent leadership and we’re moving forward regardless of what happens in two years or maybe even expand at this point with Brexit. Nobody really knows. It’s all a juggling game for both EU leaders and the UK leaders at the minute.
Adrian: You know we had Alastair Hamilton as a guest a couple of weeks ago on this programme who again represent the not only inward invest but the trade. As Lord Mayor of Belfast – yes obviously, you have the Alastair Hamiltons and you have many others, but how do you coordinate, as Lord Mayor, the great number – in the absence again I’m sure of the Northern Ireland Executive?
Nuala: Well we actually have great collaboration between both ourselves, the Belfast City Council, and Invest NI that you just mentioned whom Alastair works for. Indeed our colleagues here in New York – and once we’re here in New York we’ll be meeting with a number of people, those to welcome to Belfast and those to say thank you for as well as the diaspora, too. And we basically link in, organisation by organisation, at that kind of ground-work level and we have dedicated staff members and we are very open in terms of sharing of information and connections and everyone knows how vitally important that is. So we do a great job in Belfast. But at the minute it would be great if we did have ministers but actually investment is as high now as it ever has been even before.
Adrian: And of course we’re almost at this stage of the game take for granted the significance of tourism and the amasing advances that have been made in that that with or without a border or the hard border or any other border the island of Ireland has been marketed as such and that has to have to play a huge role.
Nuala: Oh! It – last year in Belfast I think the figure was at three hundred and thirty million from tourism. And we are seeing the effects of Game of Thrones – I’m not sure if you’ve ever watched it – but the majority of us are in Belfast and locations across Northern Ireland and that has created such huge economic growth for our region. And we have seen so many people taking tours across Northern Ireland. We’ve had more film studios now open in Belfast – people come in to actually film there which is excellent. And we have much more to offer, much more, in terms of our skills base, our location and what we have to offer for people coming outside in wanting to promote Belfast.
Adrian: Richard, I would like Richard Wakely who is the director and the person who can either be congratulated for big successes or, alternatively, will take the rap if it doesn’t turn out to be that, but just tell us about, again, the amount of, first of all the participation – how many thousands of people do you expect? And what’s the track record?
Richard: Well this year we’re expecting two hundred thousand people at least to engage at our festival.
Poppies: Weeping Window
Artist: Paul Cummins
Designer: Tom Piper
Installation at the Tower of London
Photo: Centenary News
And that’s primarily because we’ve been very lucky, very fortunate, to attract a very big, iconic, ceramic sculpture to Belfast and that’s called Poppies: Weeping Window. The full sculpture was first seen at the Tower of London and it’s a piece of work that is inspired by the First World War and speaks to the loss of life during the First World War. It’s the only place on the island of Ireland that is hosting it and we already know there’s a lot of people coming to see it. So it’s part of the, what the Lord Mayor was saying, it’s part of that tourism drive but it’s also unique, too – it’s the only place on the island of Ireland you’re going to get to see that and indeed many other wonderful events as well throughout the month of October.
Adrian: Can you give us the website?
Richard: www dot belfast international arts festival dot com. Very easy!
Adrian: I’ll leave the last word to the Lord Mayor and I know your time is very limited here and your handlers are going to wallop us if we don’t get you out of here but tell us about the Titanic Centre.
Nuala: Oh well – you mean the Titanic tourist attraction that just won Number One in the world? ! Yes, we are a leading…
Adrian: …Yeah! Don’t hold back now! (both laugh)
Nuala: Yes, we are a leading tourist attraction and celebrating our culture in shipbuilding is just part of our overall culture and identity in Northern Ireland. And part of that relates back to what we’re trying to do as a city council to build on the old industries of Belfast but also create opportunities through that both for those who visit and for those who live here. So the Titanic tourist attraction is excellent. If you haven’t been I surely suggest that you do – that whole area is re-generating within Titanic and you can see…
Adrian: …and it’s not a day trip, I can tell you!
Nuala: No, Belfast is not a day trip – it isn’t. And you know then we have, just Belfast, and outside we have our links to the Giant’s Causeway as yoou mentioned before and which people just love to visit and Bushmills, our distillery, which is not far from the Giant’s Causeway either, but Belfast has to be your number one and your first stop. And also City Hall, where I work, it’s a fantastic building. It dates back to 1906 when it was first opened to the public and so a lot of history there. And we have just opened the first exhibition of the history of Belfast. And you know I say that because it’s quite huge. We got political agreement that there was no narrative around the history of Belfast. It’s just, it’s there to show through sculpture, through art and through artifacts and so it’s an excellent opportunity – free – open to all in Belfast.
Adrian: The best website, again, for Belfast and for the bid on Belfast?
Nuala: So belfast city council dot co dot uk. (belfast city dot gov dot uk) Hashtag: #WeAre2023. We’re launching, for part of launching our bid, for the European Capital of Culture so I do suggest that you get involved by contacting Council.
Belfast International Arts Festival on TwitterBut also online, Facebook and social media, which everyone, at the tap of a button, you’re able to do it – Hashtag: #WeAre2023. And the question that I’ll ask you is, if you’re part of Irish-America: What does ‘home’ mean to you? And if you’re in the Irish diaspora: What does ‘home’ mean to you? If you’re from Belfast, you’re from Doire – just get involved and tell us exactly how you feel.
Adrian: Thank both of you. I want to thank both of you for being here.
Nuala: Thank you very much, Adrian.
Adrian: You’ve had a great story to tell.
Nuala: Thank you.
Richard: Thank you very much, Adrian. (ends)
You can follow The Transcripts on Twitter @RFETranscripts
October 18, 2017
Break The Chains
Sean Mallory reviews a recent book that critiques austerity and capitalism while promoting socialism.
From the outset, Venton seeks through this book to arm the reader with the nominal realities of poverty in modern Britain with specific focus on his home country of Scotland.
It seeks to be a handbook of facts that can be used as weapons in the hands of those principled people fighting for a decent standard of living for the working class majority population.
Stark realities between the gulf of rich and poor, that convey to the reader the depth and severity of the past and present effects of the harsh and brutal litany of austerity policies, enacted by Tory, Tory/Lib-Dem and Labour in equal abundance and severity. And on the most vulnerable section of British society – the majority working class.
Venton proceeds along an historical and concurrent political path of the rise of the working class through their representation by the Unions. Their eventual downfall, beginning under Thatcher and finishing with their current floundering and wallowing in a sea of extreme Dickensian poverty and unexplained Brexit.
A gravitas path, which at times, evokes extreme emotions of anger and a powerful desire for justice – not alone legal justice but moral justice also.
He highlights the past treacherous betrayal of the working class by the previous Labour leaderships of Kinnock, Blair and Browne, coupled with the cosy relationship of the wider Union leadership with big business.
Although Tory betrayal and disdain for the working class is similarly dealt with and analysed, for the majority working class this really needs no explanation.
For Scotland alone, he emphasises the treacherous neo-liberal actions of the Scottish Nationalist Party also through their cosy relationship with big business.
Within this infrastructure, Venton explains the extreme power of the Establishment and why the working class accept such conditions with relative unquestioning of the status quo, rationalised by Gramsci’s ‘cultural hegemony’.
From it we come to understand the current rise of the Tories in Scotland through demagogy and the systematic attempts to undermine the current Labour leadership of Corbyn.
He stresses the pernicious nature of zero contract hours and their particular detrimental and destabilising impact on the physical and mental health of workers and their families, and its responsibility for their inevitable downward spiral towards debt. The inherent contradiction of capitalism through its implementation of these zero hour contracts with the economic theory of demand and supply of goods – poor workers have less purchasing power!
To overcome this descending helix of poverty, Venton calls for a legally binding minimum wage of £10 per hour and lays out a very convincing, and detailed case for an amount that initially seems absurd. At the opposite end and demanding a levelling of the playing field in all quadrants, and in attempt to stymie the greed of the boardroom fat cats, Venton calls for an equivalent cap on their salaries and similarly, lays out a compelling case for such also. In essence a reality call for a more ethical distribution of the values attained through production.
He finishes the book with a series of measures that will lead us on a path to socialism and hopefully resolve this immoral and unethical society we current live in.
A path beset by the confines of capitalism, perhaps wrapped up in utopian wishful thinking rather than practically achievable, when considering the undulating historical nature of the rise and fall of the working class within the powerful capitalist system.
Nonetheless, Venton intends by this book to arm the working class with the historical knowledge of the root causes of their misery and with a plan through his series of measures, if applied correctly, that will finish what was begun many years ago and what was savagely and ferociously hacked down and curtailed by the subsequent ruling political parties of Great Britain.
What Venton brings to the table with this book is initially a potential way forward to ease the burden of debt and the everyday struggle for survival, currently heaped upon the shoulders of the majority of people on both sides of the Scottish border. And lastly, a method for cementing this potential way permanently in to the foundations of the State. What the book clearly is not is a call to man the barricades or storm the Bastille.
Although, as the book travels towards the end, there is detectable, an underlying current of militancy present and he does hint at the future possibilities of such actions:
….we shouldn’t be content with just perpetually battling for a slightly larger slice of a cake of a fixed size. We should demand control and ownership of not only the cake, but the bakery.
And with:
The scientific language of the revolutionary philosopher is not present in this book. It is written in a plain language that does not confuse the reader, but supplies him/her with comprehensible explanations for any stray Marxist terms that may inadvertently worm their way on to the page. This book is written for the working class and not written on their behalf.
Those who want to eradicate poverty and inequality need to square up to the conclusion that trying to do this on any lasting basis without also toppling the capitalist despots from their boardroom thrones is as futile as trying to rub out your own shadow on a sunlit day.
Although the book does not directly call for a revolution of sorts it stirs the reader with powerful emotions of the injustices imposed by the capitalist establishment. There is no Che Guervera hidden in the pages of this book nor is there a potential future Robespierre.
This book attempts to provide facts, figures, arguments and answers to some of the issues any genuine trade unionist or socialist will encounter in seeking to outlaw poverty, inequality and insecurity for the working class majority.
It is a book that needs read by all those who believe in the establishment of a fair and just society…….perhaps Venton’s socialist society.
Richie Venton, 2015; Break The Chains: of poverty pay casual labour and exploitation . Publisher Scottish Socialist Party. ISBN-13: 978-0957198661
Sean Mallory is a Tyrone republican and TPQ columnist.
Oireachtas Committee On Funding Domestic Water - A Collusion In Secrecy
A piece last month by James Quigley in Buncrana Together examines the secrecy surrounding the issue of water charges.A Freedom of Information (FoI) request sent by us on the 8th September 2017 to the FOI Co-ordinator, Oireachtas Service, has been refused by Mr Thomas Sheridan, Clerk to the Joint Committee on the Future Funding of Domestic Water Services.
We requested information on 21 private sessions, including voting preferences and agreements of members of the Joint Committee on the Future Funding of Domestic Water Services that concluded business in highly controversial circumstances in April this year.
We asked the FOI Services for:
Mr Sheridan replied
(Read Mr Sheridan’s full reply here)
Facts kept under lock and key
So other than an appeal of Mr Sheridan’s decision, (costing €30), it seems we are not going to be made any the wiser about the many private sessions of the water committee. We suspect that there were many private deals done between individual Oireachtas members and parties, such is the nature of the sordid political game. We know we will not unearth that information, other than some honest member with integrity divulging it. However, we should expect openness and transparency especially in any public representative body such as an Oireachtas Committee and it is a shame and indeed it is ‘fingers up to democracy’ when such a simple thing like knowing what our representatives agreed to or voted on, is being kept under lock and key.
What we do know is the fact that the most important session of all, that of February 15th, including the highly significant paragraph 9.4 of the Water Framework Directive, never got into any final committee report. (see references).
Mr Sheridan sheds light on secrecy
The collusion of all members of the committee in this secrecy and what can only be described as the deliberate omission of the Irish Exemption or any reference to the February 15th session was corroborated in a phone conversation between Thomas Sheridan (Oireachtas secretary) and Enda Craig (Buncrana Together) two weeks ago when Mr Sheridan revealed that contents of reports by the committee was discussed and agreed beforehand by the committee members.
If Mr Sheridan's explanation is the case then surely the corollary to that is that any omissions were also agreed.
Chairman gone AWOL
For a fuller picture of this overt 'collusion in secrecy' it might be interesting to know that a letter was also emailed a month ago to the 'independent' Oireachtas Chairman, Senator Pádraig Ó Céidigh asking why the February 15th session was completely omitted in any report. We have not receive a reply yet.
References:
The dilemma of paragraph 9.4, our democracy, the Oireachtas Water Committee and Right2Water Ireland
Clouds of suspicion over omission of 9.4 Exemption in Oireachtas Water Committee report
Michael Noonan 'Water Charges Required Under European Law' is a Lie
James Quigley writes for Buncrana Together, a website run on behalf of the Buncrana Against Irish Water, a democratic local group formed to organise locally to help the national campaign to put an end to the injustices of water charges and Irish Water Ltd.
Follow Buncrana Together on Twitter @buncranatogethr
We requested information on 21 private sessions, including voting preferences and agreements of members of the Joint Committee on the Future Funding of Domestic Water Services that concluded business in highly controversial circumstances in April this year.
We asked the FOI Services for:
all submissions, records and minutes of all Private Sessions and any information other than was made public through the Oireachtas site, relating to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Future Funding of Domestic Water Services, that took place between 13th December 2016 and 11th April 2017.
We believe there were 21 meetings in total and all had private sessions and submissions that were not made public.
We believe we have a right to know what took place in our name, who voted for what and what is the actual truth of events during those proceedings.
We are particularly interested in the 15th February 2017 sessions and all the 10 'Private Sessions' between 28th February 2017 and 11th April 2017.
Mr Sheridan replied
I have reviewed your request, and have considered all of the records to which you refer in the context of the specific provisions in the Freedom of Information Act 2014. Arising from that review, I do not believe that any of the records to which you have requested access falls to be released under the Act, as the Freedom of Information Act 2014 does not apply to those records.
(Read Mr Sheridan’s full reply here)
Facts kept under lock and key
So other than an appeal of Mr Sheridan’s decision, (costing €30), it seems we are not going to be made any the wiser about the many private sessions of the water committee. We suspect that there were many private deals done between individual Oireachtas members and parties, such is the nature of the sordid political game. We know we will not unearth that information, other than some honest member with integrity divulging it. However, we should expect openness and transparency especially in any public representative body such as an Oireachtas Committee and it is a shame and indeed it is ‘fingers up to democracy’ when such a simple thing like knowing what our representatives agreed to or voted on, is being kept under lock and key.
What we do know is the fact that the most important session of all, that of February 15th, including the highly significant paragraph 9.4 of the Water Framework Directive, never got into any final committee report. (see references).
Mr Sheridan sheds light on secrecy
The collusion of all members of the committee in this secrecy and what can only be described as the deliberate omission of the Irish Exemption or any reference to the February 15th session was corroborated in a phone conversation between Thomas Sheridan (Oireachtas secretary) and Enda Craig (Buncrana Together) two weeks ago when Mr Sheridan revealed that contents of reports by the committee was discussed and agreed beforehand by the committee members.
If Mr Sheridan's explanation is the case then surely the corollary to that is that any omissions were also agreed.
Chairman gone AWOL
For a fuller picture of this overt 'collusion in secrecy' it might be interesting to know that a letter was also emailed a month ago to the 'independent' Oireachtas Chairman, Senator Pádraig Ó Céidigh asking why the February 15th session was completely omitted in any report. We have not receive a reply yet.
References:
The dilemma of paragraph 9.4, our democracy, the Oireachtas Water Committee and Right2Water Ireland
Clouds of suspicion over omission of 9.4 Exemption in Oireachtas Water Committee report
Michael Noonan 'Water Charges Required Under European Law' is a Lie
James Quigley writes for Buncrana Together, a website run on behalf of the Buncrana Against Irish Water, a democratic local group formed to organise locally to help the national campaign to put an end to the injustices of water charges and Irish Water Ltd.
Follow Buncrana Together on Twitter @buncranatogethr
October 17, 2017
The End Of The Road?
Writing last month in Brocaire Books Matt Treacy was sceptical about the chances of the Northern talks leading to a resolution despite the ever increasing rightward drift of Sinn Fein.
Although talks between Northern Ireland Secretary James Brokenshire and the five main Assembly parties are due to begin on Monday, there is little optimism that they will lead to a resurrection of the Executive.
A tweet from Michelle O’Neill on Saturday proposed that any “talks be focused and time limited,” but anyone seeking to divine a positive element in that would have had to weigh it against the increasingly cold relations between Sinn Féin and the DUP.
Arlene Foster had rejected the demand for an Irish Language Act, but promised that the issue, and others like gay marriage, would be addressed in a “time limited period” if the Executive is revived. O’Neill’s use of the same phrase could be taken as an ironical dismissal of the offer.
A more formal Sinn Féin response to the DUP accused it of failing to “embrace the principles at the heart of the Good Friday Agreement, of equality, of mutual respect and of parity of esteem.” They specifically referred to marriage, language, economic and cultural rights.
While it is true that the GFA referred to “equality of civil, political, social and cultural rights,” that was clearly in the context of “equal opportunity,” generally understood as equality before the law, rather than a more radical interpretation that implies some nebulous concept of absolute egalitarianism. It was more John Locke than Pol Pot.
The other problem with that is that while Sinn Féin has substituted the nominal pursuit of “equality” as a cover for its effective acceptance of Partition and the subservience of Irish sovereignty to London and now Brussels, its record in the Executive since 2007 belies its claim to be a radical egalitarian party in the traditional socialist sense.
Equality is now defined no differently than it is among liberals on the “left” of the American Democratic Party, to mean the privileging of sectional rights for separate, and indeed often competing, identity groups rather than the notion of a commons as traditionally understood by the republican and socialist left.
There is a scene in one of the episodes of West Wing which encapsulates the attitude of many such liberals. Toby and Josh, who get all emotional about gay rights, and abortion and prayer in school, sneer at the suggestion that the White House might support workers who were objecting to an undermining of their employment conditions.
Similarly, Sinn Féin whilst trumpeting the virtues of “equality,” agreed in the Stormont House deal of December 2014 to reducing public sector employment by 20,000, reducing public service wages, cuts to education and health, and the sale of public assets including Belfast Harbour. The total cost of the budget and welfare cuts amounted to £1.5 billion. Indeed they had already, in coalition with the DUP, presided over cuts of £3,7 billion.
While the leadership was able to get the agreement approved by a docile Ard Comhairle, they had under-estimated the reaction of wider society, including a significant proportion of its own support base. They were forced to back track in the face of trade union mobilisation and further talks were required to keep the Stormont Aspidistra flying.
They were successful, and in November 2015 Sinn Féin signed up to an even worse deal than that which they had allegedly decided to reject when their hand was forced in March. It was clear in fact that Sinn Féin had hoped that they could engage in some gesture politics and smoke and mirrors to conceal their desire to get back into “power.” They had also secured a formal agreement to cut corporation tax to 12.5% by April 2018. Some even justified this on the basis of creating “equality” with the 26 counties. Clearly “equality” can mean whatever you wish it to mean.
As part of the “Fresh Start” agreement which revived the Executive, Sinn Féin also agreed to ‘benchmarking’ for teachers and health service workers. It is a mechanism used to allegedly link public sector pay to performance, and is key to reducing the public sector wage bill.
Curiously, the Shinners were vehemently opposed to the introduction of benchmarking for public sector workers in the south. At the 2013 Ard Fheis Mary Lou McDonald attacked the Croke Park agreement which embodied benchmarking as a threat from the government: “Take this deal or we’ll really hurt you.”
Then again they were also opposed to welfare cuts, privatization, sacking public servants, and cuts to the education and health services. Austerity in Dundalk bad. Austerity in Dungannon good. Apparently.
Sinn Féin’s acceptance of austerity in the six counties since 2007 has clearly not changed. All of the key “red line” issues in their demands on the DUP since the Executive collapsed last January have been to do with “cultural rights.”
There is also the possibility of course that they deliberately put up front the demands for symbolic language legislation and gay marriage in the certain knowledge that the DUP would reject them. That would serve two purposes; firstly to consolidate Sinn Féin’s position as the primary representative of the Catholic nationalist population, even though hardly any of them actually speak Irish, and secondly to allow them to focus on their attempt to become part of a coalition in the south after the next general election which they and others seem convinced will be next Spring.
So, the intervention of Brokenshire is unlikely to bring the Chuckle Siblings back together. Both have arguably bigger fish to fry. The DUP has the enhanced bargaining power emanating from their deal with the Tories. Sinn Féin wants to be in coalition in Dublin. They have already begun softening up the membership.
London might threaten to cut off funding for the northern parties, but the DUP has as much interest in maintaining that as the Shinners, and is in a position to ensure that. Besides, the Brits are unlikely to want to further exacerbate the situation by taking away the trough.
Matt Treacy’s book A Tunnel to the Moon: The End of the Irish Republican Army is currently available @ Amazon.
Follow Matt Treacy on Twitter @MattTreacy2
Although talks between Northern Ireland Secretary James Brokenshire and the five main Assembly parties are due to begin on Monday, there is little optimism that they will lead to a resurrection of the Executive.
A tweet from Michelle O’Neill on Saturday proposed that any “talks be focused and time limited,” but anyone seeking to divine a positive element in that would have had to weigh it against the increasingly cold relations between Sinn Féin and the DUP.
Arlene Foster had rejected the demand for an Irish Language Act, but promised that the issue, and others like gay marriage, would be addressed in a “time limited period” if the Executive is revived. O’Neill’s use of the same phrase could be taken as an ironical dismissal of the offer.
A more formal Sinn Féin response to the DUP accused it of failing to “embrace the principles at the heart of the Good Friday Agreement, of equality, of mutual respect and of parity of esteem.” They specifically referred to marriage, language, economic and cultural rights.
While it is true that the GFA referred to “equality of civil, political, social and cultural rights,” that was clearly in the context of “equal opportunity,” generally understood as equality before the law, rather than a more radical interpretation that implies some nebulous concept of absolute egalitarianism. It was more John Locke than Pol Pot.
The other problem with that is that while Sinn Féin has substituted the nominal pursuit of “equality” as a cover for its effective acceptance of Partition and the subservience of Irish sovereignty to London and now Brussels, its record in the Executive since 2007 belies its claim to be a radical egalitarian party in the traditional socialist sense.
Equality is now defined no differently than it is among liberals on the “left” of the American Democratic Party, to mean the privileging of sectional rights for separate, and indeed often competing, identity groups rather than the notion of a commons as traditionally understood by the republican and socialist left.
There is a scene in one of the episodes of West Wing which encapsulates the attitude of many such liberals. Toby and Josh, who get all emotional about gay rights, and abortion and prayer in school, sneer at the suggestion that the White House might support workers who were objecting to an undermining of their employment conditions.
Similarly, Sinn Féin whilst trumpeting the virtues of “equality,” agreed in the Stormont House deal of December 2014 to reducing public sector employment by 20,000, reducing public service wages, cuts to education and health, and the sale of public assets including Belfast Harbour. The total cost of the budget and welfare cuts amounted to £1.5 billion. Indeed they had already, in coalition with the DUP, presided over cuts of £3,7 billion.
While the leadership was able to get the agreement approved by a docile Ard Comhairle, they had under-estimated the reaction of wider society, including a significant proportion of its own support base. They were forced to back track in the face of trade union mobilisation and further talks were required to keep the Stormont Aspidistra flying.
They were successful, and in November 2015 Sinn Féin signed up to an even worse deal than that which they had allegedly decided to reject when their hand was forced in March. It was clear in fact that Sinn Féin had hoped that they could engage in some gesture politics and smoke and mirrors to conceal their desire to get back into “power.” They had also secured a formal agreement to cut corporation tax to 12.5% by April 2018. Some even justified this on the basis of creating “equality” with the 26 counties. Clearly “equality” can mean whatever you wish it to mean.
As part of the “Fresh Start” agreement which revived the Executive, Sinn Féin also agreed to ‘benchmarking’ for teachers and health service workers. It is a mechanism used to allegedly link public sector pay to performance, and is key to reducing the public sector wage bill.
Curiously, the Shinners were vehemently opposed to the introduction of benchmarking for public sector workers in the south. At the 2013 Ard Fheis Mary Lou McDonald attacked the Croke Park agreement which embodied benchmarking as a threat from the government: “Take this deal or we’ll really hurt you.”
Then again they were also opposed to welfare cuts, privatization, sacking public servants, and cuts to the education and health services. Austerity in Dundalk bad. Austerity in Dungannon good. Apparently.
Sinn Féin’s acceptance of austerity in the six counties since 2007 has clearly not changed. All of the key “red line” issues in their demands on the DUP since the Executive collapsed last January have been to do with “cultural rights.”
There is also the possibility of course that they deliberately put up front the demands for symbolic language legislation and gay marriage in the certain knowledge that the DUP would reject them. That would serve two purposes; firstly to consolidate Sinn Féin’s position as the primary representative of the Catholic nationalist population, even though hardly any of them actually speak Irish, and secondly to allow them to focus on their attempt to become part of a coalition in the south after the next general election which they and others seem convinced will be next Spring.
So, the intervention of Brokenshire is unlikely to bring the Chuckle Siblings back together. Both have arguably bigger fish to fry. The DUP has the enhanced bargaining power emanating from their deal with the Tories. Sinn Féin wants to be in coalition in Dublin. They have already begun softening up the membership.
London might threaten to cut off funding for the northern parties, but the DUP has as much interest in maintaining that as the Shinners, and is in a position to ensure that. Besides, the Brits are unlikely to want to further exacerbate the situation by taking away the trough.
Matt Treacy’s book A Tunnel to the Moon: The End of the Irish Republican Army is currently available @ Amazon.
Follow Matt Treacy on Twitter @MattTreacy2
Sinn Fein: Oh No, Not That Kind Of Solidarity
Finnian O Domhnaill is critical of Sinn Fein MLA Raymond McCartney over his attitude to radical Derry artwork.
As most know, the Free Derry wall has been used for decades to raise awareness on political issues in Ireland and around the world. The amazing thing about the free Derry wall is that it is still being used today to raise awareness on political issues. History is continuing to be made today instead of sending the wall to the archives of the past. Recently, a non-Sinn Fein artist painted a powerful painting on the Free Derry wall supporting Catalonia’s struggle for independence.
Another artistic expression of solidarity for Catalonia came in the form of yellow and red illuminating lights being shone on the old siege walls of Derry city. A very imaginative piece, supported and posted by Sinn Fein’s Raymond McCartney.
He could have left it there but he just couldn’t help get a dig in with what seems to Ray, a competition of who’s the best in solidarity with Catalonia. On his post he slated the artistic piece of the Free Derry wall.
Both pieces, to many, are compelling and show how much support there is in Derry for Catalonia. Using the decades old Free Derry wall as a platform for spreading the message as well as taking a more modern approach of using red and yellow lighting, to represent Catalonia’s flag, on the old siege walls show that Derry’s activists are using both old and new ways to promote and raise awareness on issues. This should of course be celebrated and commended. However, Raymond McCartney seems to disagree.
To many, it will show that Sinn Fein has hit a new low in their ever decreasing republican traditions. It seems Raymond McCartney has lost touch with his fellow Derry republicans by demonising the artwork on the free Derry wall.
A Derry woman commented on the post which may have made Ray to see the light on what he said was wrong and was only an invitation to stoke the flames of division within his own community.
Perhaps Raymond McCartney has seen the error of his ways. Perhaps his deleting of his post on the social media pages has made him realise his massive cock up. Perhaps its too little too late for some and has only put a bigger stamp on their thoughts of Sinn Fein and their isolation of the grassroots?
No doubt the Shinnerbots will gather in their masses to attack me and this piece.
Here Come The Shinnerbots. Imperialist Defenders
➖ ➖ ➖ ➖ ➖ ➖ ➖ ➖
Finnian O Domhnaill
is a political writer from Donegal, currently living in Derry. He is the creator of the political page No Bones About It.
As most know, the Free Derry wall has been used for decades to raise awareness on political issues in Ireland and around the world. The amazing thing about the free Derry wall is that it is still being used today to raise awareness on political issues. History is continuing to be made today instead of sending the wall to the archives of the past. Recently, a non-Sinn Fein artist painted a powerful painting on the Free Derry wall supporting Catalonia’s struggle for independence.
Another artistic expression of solidarity for Catalonia came in the form of yellow and red illuminating lights being shone on the old siege walls of Derry city. A very imaginative piece, supported and posted by Sinn Fein’s Raymond McCartney.
He could have left it there but he just couldn’t help get a dig in with what seems to Ray, a competition of who’s the best in solidarity with Catalonia. On his post he slated the artistic piece of the Free Derry wall.
Both pieces, to many, are compelling and show how much support there is in Derry for Catalonia. Using the decades old Free Derry wall as a platform for spreading the message as well as taking a more modern approach of using red and yellow lighting, to represent Catalonia’s flag, on the old siege walls show that Derry’s activists are using both old and new ways to promote and raise awareness on issues. This should of course be celebrated and commended. However, Raymond McCartney seems to disagree.
To many, it will show that Sinn Fein has hit a new low in their ever decreasing republican traditions. It seems Raymond McCartney has lost touch with his fellow Derry republicans by demonising the artwork on the free Derry wall.
A Derry woman commented on the post which may have made Ray to see the light on what he said was wrong and was only an invitation to stoke the flames of division within his own community.
Anonymous: Compare this? why are using a message of solidarity to encourage division in your own city. Getting a dig in on Facebook is pretty low.
McCartney: My intention was to commend not divide. But in fairness your point is well made.
Perhaps Raymond McCartney has seen the error of his ways. Perhaps his deleting of his post on the social media pages has made him realise his massive cock up. Perhaps its too little too late for some and has only put a bigger stamp on their thoughts of Sinn Fein and their isolation of the grassroots?
No doubt the Shinnerbots will gather in their masses to attack me and this piece.
Here Come The Shinnerbots. Imperialist Defenders
➖ ➖ ➖ ➖ ➖ ➖ ➖ ➖
Finnian O Domhnaill
is a political writer from Donegal, currently living in Derry. He is the creator of the political page No Bones About It.
October 16, 2017
The Christine Connor I Know
Writing in his own blog Julian Ichim expresses solidarity with imprisoned republican, Christine Connor.
Over the last year the media has gone all out to attack demonize and criminalize Christine Connor. In a usual sexist manner she is being portrayed as some sort of femme fatale. And instead of dealing with her politics, like most woman she is being attacked sensationalized and commodified, based on her gender as opposed to what she stands for.
Even in progressive circles this type of slander - that only a woman would face - is not only allowed to be spread but actually believed. The idea that she somehow convinced young men to engage in armed struggle not only demeans Christine and her beliefs but demeans the political stands that people have taken and basically states that men have no minds of their own and whatever political views they held are irrelevant because Christine somehow cast a spell on them and they no longer could think for herself. I'm surprised that they have not yet accused her of witchcraft and burnt her at the stake.
I myself know Christine Connor first as writing to her in jail and later talking to her and her family extensively over the phone etc. We first really started taking to each other while she was on house arrest and G4S would do everything in their power to make her life miserable. From home invasions to constant harassment, the shit her and her family went through at the hands of the G4S - used as a proxy by the British state - was some real next level shit that had it happened in some Muslim Country we probably would be at war with them to bring them democracy and all that shit.
After that we would talk about all sorts of things most of which were political. And while she was dealing with all sorts of shit from the state she would take the time to talk to me about the shit I was (and still am) going through at the hands of Homeland Security which pales in comparison to the shit she was dealing with. She always struck me as a principled Republican who always put politics in command and her honesty and openness about her politics and her views on things was a breath of fresh air.
We would also talk about everything from my health to the latest police bullshit to the present political situation globally and she always struck as a person who is kind caring and her hatred for injustice of any kind was inspirational.Ironically, given the way that the media is treating her, one topic we discussed several times is the sexism in the revolutionary movement as whole and the bullshit way woman in any political scene get treated.
Her conversations were honest open and principled. I am glad to have been able to talk and learn from her and consider her political views very well-developed, thought out, logical open and inspirational. I stand with Christine Connor and am very glad to have been able to talk to her learn from her and grow politically.
Julian Ichim is a political dissident and blogger who has previously been jailed for his activism.
Over the last year the media has gone all out to attack demonize and criminalize Christine Connor. In a usual sexist manner she is being portrayed as some sort of femme fatale. And instead of dealing with her politics, like most woman she is being attacked sensationalized and commodified, based on her gender as opposed to what she stands for.
Even in progressive circles this type of slander - that only a woman would face - is not only allowed to be spread but actually believed. The idea that she somehow convinced young men to engage in armed struggle not only demeans Christine and her beliefs but demeans the political stands that people have taken and basically states that men have no minds of their own and whatever political views they held are irrelevant because Christine somehow cast a spell on them and they no longer could think for herself. I'm surprised that they have not yet accused her of witchcraft and burnt her at the stake.
I myself know Christine Connor first as writing to her in jail and later talking to her and her family extensively over the phone etc. We first really started taking to each other while she was on house arrest and G4S would do everything in their power to make her life miserable. From home invasions to constant harassment, the shit her and her family went through at the hands of the G4S - used as a proxy by the British state - was some real next level shit that had it happened in some Muslim Country we probably would be at war with them to bring them democracy and all that shit.
After that we would talk about all sorts of things most of which were political. And while she was dealing with all sorts of shit from the state she would take the time to talk to me about the shit I was (and still am) going through at the hands of Homeland Security which pales in comparison to the shit she was dealing with. She always struck me as a principled Republican who always put politics in command and her honesty and openness about her politics and her views on things was a breath of fresh air.
We would also talk about everything from my health to the latest police bullshit to the present political situation globally and she always struck as a person who is kind caring and her hatred for injustice of any kind was inspirational.Ironically, given the way that the media is treating her, one topic we discussed several times is the sexism in the revolutionary movement as whole and the bullshit way woman in any political scene get treated.
Her conversations were honest open and principled. I am glad to have been able to talk and learn from her and consider her political views very well-developed, thought out, logical open and inspirational. I stand with Christine Connor and am very glad to have been able to talk to her learn from her and grow politically.
Julian Ichim is a political dissident and blogger who has previously been jailed for his activism.
We Need To Talk About John Turnley
With lots of talk about the impact of Fianna Fail seriously organising in Northern Ireland and contesting elections, controversial commentator, Dr John Coulter, uses his Fearless Flying Column to analyse what Sinn Fein’s response should be.
This year marks the 40th anniversary of the formation of the IIP whose Protestant leader, the ex-British Army officer John Turnley, was shot dead by the UDA near Larne in 1980.
Turnley had previously been a leading SDLP politician, but split with the then Gerry Fitt-led party because it wasn’t a republican party first.
The success of the IIP was that it was the first real effort by republicans to follow a purely constitutional and democratic route to achieving a united Ireland.
Unlike SF, it did not have the baggage of being the political apologist for a republican terror group.
Unfortunately for the IIP, it was the murder of Turnley, followed by the republican hunger strikes of ’80 and ’81 which effectively killed off the party.
Within two years of its formation, the IIP was starting to eat into the SDLP vote. Had Turnley lived, the IIP – like SF today – would have overtaken the more socialist-leaning SDLP as the leading voice for Northern nationalism.
Turnley may have been a religious Protestant, but he was also a committed constitutional republican and followed a long line of politicians from the Protestant community who believed in an all-island solution.
His Protestant background gave him a unique insight into the Unionist mentality – and what needed to be done to coax Unionists into a power-sharing Executive with republicans.
Maybe that was the primary reason why the UDA murdered the Larne councillor as he sat in his car with his wife in the picturesque east Antrim coastal village of Carnlough.
SF can honour Turnley’s memory by making the IIP the political model for the modern republican movement. The IIP would have become a movement even the most vehement of the DUP’s anti-Belfast Agreement faction could have done business with at Stormont. It poses the question – if the IIP had survived, would the peace process have been implemented a lot sooner than 1998?
The huge mistake which Unionism made in 1974 following the success of the Ulster Workers’ Council strike, which collapsed the power-sharing Sunningdale Executive, was to have no alternative to put in the Executive’s place. Later, the London Establishment simply went back to the political drawing board having learned the lesson of how to outwit Unionism when the latter takes to the streets.
If what is left of the SDLP is to survive for another generation, it can only combat the dominance of SF by formally merging with Fianna Fail in the weeks – not months – after any deal between Sinn Fein and the DUP is reached over Stormont. Direct Rule will also condemn the SDLP to the political dustbin of history.
The last thing the SDLP needs is another Assembly poll as that would probably reduce the party to complete fringe status, with the potential embarrassment of coming back to Stormont with less seats than the Alliance Party.
Turnley’s long-term strategy was once he had eclipsed the SDLP, he too, would formally merge the IIP with FF to establish an all-island political movement.
But the real fundamental reason SF should re-design itself as a 2017 IIP is to encourage even more constitutional nationalist SDLP supporters to defect to the republican movement.
With the dissident republican movement constantly threatening to oppose SF candidates in many of the North’s constituencies, there is the real danger a split republican vote will allow Unionist candidates to win additional seats in traditionally republican strongholds.
The next poll, whether Assembly, Westminster or local government, will be unique in the history of the North. It will not be about power-sharing or policing, but will decide for the next decade at least who firmly speaks for Unionism and republicanism. If the last Commons poll is taken as a benchmark, it’s the DUP and Sinn Fein.
Both communities will have their backs to each other if there’s no deal between Sinn Fein and the DUP and the Assembly is suspended.
If middle class Northern Catholicism is to have a decisive voice in any future Stormont, it must send back a single nationalist party with a clear mandate.
A split republican vote will not mean the moderate SDLP will grab the seats. If dissident republican candidates standing on, for example an anti-PSNI platform, even pick up as many as 800 to 1,000 votes in each of the constituencies, it could potentially rob Sinn Fein of up to a dozen seats even at local government level.
The SDLP might pick up one or two at most, but the majority could swing to the DUP.
This will leave Unionism with a massive mandate, creating a future Stormont chamber more akin to the original Unionist Party majority rule government which ran the North from the 1920s to 1972.
Republicans have a lot of heavy thinking to do in the coming weeks. Their former war cry of ‘one man, one vote’ may have to become ‘one party, one vote.’
As for Sinn Fein, the real trouble could come if dissident republicans decide to take their electoral campaign south of the border for the next Dail elections.
If that’s the case, its ‘bye, bye’ to any Sinn Fein coalition with Fianna Fail in the next Leinster House government.
John Coulter is a unionist political writer.
Follow John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter
This year marks the 40th anniversary of the formation of the IIP whose Protestant leader, the ex-British Army officer John Turnley, was shot dead by the UDA near Larne in 1980.
Turnley had previously been a leading SDLP politician, but split with the then Gerry Fitt-led party because it wasn’t a republican party first.
The success of the IIP was that it was the first real effort by republicans to follow a purely constitutional and democratic route to achieving a united Ireland.
Unlike SF, it did not have the baggage of being the political apologist for a republican terror group.
Unfortunately for the IIP, it was the murder of Turnley, followed by the republican hunger strikes of ’80 and ’81 which effectively killed off the party.
Within two years of its formation, the IIP was starting to eat into the SDLP vote. Had Turnley lived, the IIP – like SF today – would have overtaken the more socialist-leaning SDLP as the leading voice for Northern nationalism.
Turnley may have been a religious Protestant, but he was also a committed constitutional republican and followed a long line of politicians from the Protestant community who believed in an all-island solution.
His Protestant background gave him a unique insight into the Unionist mentality – and what needed to be done to coax Unionists into a power-sharing Executive with republicans.
Maybe that was the primary reason why the UDA murdered the Larne councillor as he sat in his car with his wife in the picturesque east Antrim coastal village of Carnlough.
SF can honour Turnley’s memory by making the IIP the political model for the modern republican movement. The IIP would have become a movement even the most vehement of the DUP’s anti-Belfast Agreement faction could have done business with at Stormont. It poses the question – if the IIP had survived, would the peace process have been implemented a lot sooner than 1998?
The huge mistake which Unionism made in 1974 following the success of the Ulster Workers’ Council strike, which collapsed the power-sharing Sunningdale Executive, was to have no alternative to put in the Executive’s place. Later, the London Establishment simply went back to the political drawing board having learned the lesson of how to outwit Unionism when the latter takes to the streets.
If what is left of the SDLP is to survive for another generation, it can only combat the dominance of SF by formally merging with Fianna Fail in the weeks – not months – after any deal between Sinn Fein and the DUP is reached over Stormont. Direct Rule will also condemn the SDLP to the political dustbin of history.
The last thing the SDLP needs is another Assembly poll as that would probably reduce the party to complete fringe status, with the potential embarrassment of coming back to Stormont with less seats than the Alliance Party.
Turnley’s long-term strategy was once he had eclipsed the SDLP, he too, would formally merge the IIP with FF to establish an all-island political movement.
But the real fundamental reason SF should re-design itself as a 2017 IIP is to encourage even more constitutional nationalist SDLP supporters to defect to the republican movement.
With the dissident republican movement constantly threatening to oppose SF candidates in many of the North’s constituencies, there is the real danger a split republican vote will allow Unionist candidates to win additional seats in traditionally republican strongholds.
The next poll, whether Assembly, Westminster or local government, will be unique in the history of the North. It will not be about power-sharing or policing, but will decide for the next decade at least who firmly speaks for Unionism and republicanism. If the last Commons poll is taken as a benchmark, it’s the DUP and Sinn Fein.
Both communities will have their backs to each other if there’s no deal between Sinn Fein and the DUP and the Assembly is suspended.
If middle class Northern Catholicism is to have a decisive voice in any future Stormont, it must send back a single nationalist party with a clear mandate.
A split republican vote will not mean the moderate SDLP will grab the seats. If dissident republican candidates standing on, for example an anti-PSNI platform, even pick up as many as 800 to 1,000 votes in each of the constituencies, it could potentially rob Sinn Fein of up to a dozen seats even at local government level.
The SDLP might pick up one or two at most, but the majority could swing to the DUP.
This will leave Unionism with a massive mandate, creating a future Stormont chamber more akin to the original Unionist Party majority rule government which ran the North from the 1920s to 1972.
Republicans have a lot of heavy thinking to do in the coming weeks. Their former war cry of ‘one man, one vote’ may have to become ‘one party, one vote.’
As for Sinn Fein, the real trouble could come if dissident republicans decide to take their electoral campaign south of the border for the next Dail elections.
If that’s the case, its ‘bye, bye’ to any Sinn Fein coalition with Fianna Fail in the next Leinster House government.
John Coulter is a unionist political writer.
Follow John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter
October 15, 2017
Black Echo
Anthony McIntyre reviews the first novel by Michael Connelly in the Harry Bosch series.
Mulholland Dam where the body of Billy Meadows is found immediately opens the memory bank where Mulholland Drive is deposited. A great movie even if it takes a second run at it to grasp the plot. So impactful is it that it almost seems like a great advertising ploy by Michael Connelly, the author of Black Echo. It isn’t. The book predates the film by almost ten years and breathes life into the character of Harry Bosch.
I am not sure it helps to have discovered another Harry. At my age confusion can set in. But maybe catching killers is a Harry gig. Dirty Harry Callahan, Harry Hole, Harry Bosch. A Harry phenomena, where the lead detective spends time harrying hoodlums who mean serious business.
I came to Michael Connelly and Detective Harry Bosch courtesy of a Belfast man, Gerry (not Harry) O’Halloran. The Michael Connelly novels were his crime fiction of choice. I had regularly seen them about the house as my wife was a great aficionado of the series, but they had never caught my fancy until Gerry made the recommendation. Having completed he first one while in Majorca, I am warmed by the knowledge that there is a ton of them in front of me. A bit like the glow that came my way when I first started reading Stephen King: the sure knowledge that throughout my jail time I would always have him as a companion, often on darkening October evenings once the Open University exams had finished. Now my daughter is reading him and was delighted when I arrived home in the past fortnight from the charity shops with an aggregated bundle of sixteen for her. Amongst their number, The Stand.
Harry Bosch is a former US soldier who served as a tunnel rat in Vietnam. The rats while not special forces nevertheless gained an elite status among their comrades due to the work they performed, burrowing into places where a quick death was probably one of the kinder outcomes. They went where few others would – deep into the network of tunnels the Vietnamese Liberation fighters had painstakingly constructed for carrying on their war against US invasion. The Vietnamese were not gentle with those who were intent on burning them alive. They had no reason to be.
When a body is discovered in the Mulholland Dam pipe detective Bosch Harry frowns on learning that it is the corpse of an old comrade from the tunnels. Who called it in and why? This is Bosch at his best. He thinks more clearly and cleverly than the rest. That might explain in part the animosity of police officialdom towards him. Bosch is not flavour of the month with the police hierarchy and he returns it in kind. He clashes with Internal Affairs for whom his contempt is as unbridled as it is unconcealed. He doesn’t care, not being a pack animal eager to defer to the leader. And the two goondas sent to harass him by IA elicit no sympathy from the reader.
Eleanor Wish is with the FBI. At first their exchanges are tetchy. Then Bosch undergoes a little wishful thinking followed by fulfilment as the two become lovers. It adds to the narrative without ever taking it over like creeping ivy, stifling the growth of a good tale.
Bosch likes a beer but in Black Echo he is not given to black outs like Harry Hole of Jo Nesbo fame. The booze seems to relax him and lubricates his thoughts while he sits in a chair in his hillside home mulling over the clues and leads. Why Vietnam vet Billy Meadows died and at the hands of who, Harry in his endeavour to find out, must once again go deep into the tunnels, only this time far away from Vietnam, but just as dangerous.
For a first novel it is quite an achievement. The complexity and layers of detail is what might be expected to come at the end of a successful literary career, the work of a writer who has been round the block more than once and knows where all the bodies are buried. Claiming a prestigious best first novel award was never going to lead to accusations of fraud.
The dominos set up by Connelly do not automatically fall once the first is clipped. The reader is made to work for their worthwhile reward. While the twists are brilliantly done and disappoint only in so far that some of the characters can let you down - human frailty with all the foibles - there is maybe too much meat packed into this single sandwich. The book is long and while it manages to avoid the sense of being needlessly stretched – it comes without tedium - there is a feel that the covers could have been pulled a little closer together without compromising the quality.
Black Echo is a work that will echo in the mind long after being returned to the bookshelf.
Anthony McIntyre blogs @ The Pensive Quill.
Follow Anthony McIntyre on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre
Mulholland Dam where the body of Billy Meadows is found immediately opens the memory bank where Mulholland Drive is deposited. A great movie even if it takes a second run at it to grasp the plot. So impactful is it that it almost seems like a great advertising ploy by Michael Connelly, the author of Black Echo. It isn’t. The book predates the film by almost ten years and breathes life into the character of Harry Bosch.
I am not sure it helps to have discovered another Harry. At my age confusion can set in. But maybe catching killers is a Harry gig. Dirty Harry Callahan, Harry Hole, Harry Bosch. A Harry phenomena, where the lead detective spends time harrying hoodlums who mean serious business.
I came to Michael Connelly and Detective Harry Bosch courtesy of a Belfast man, Gerry (not Harry) O’Halloran. The Michael Connelly novels were his crime fiction of choice. I had regularly seen them about the house as my wife was a great aficionado of the series, but they had never caught my fancy until Gerry made the recommendation. Having completed he first one while in Majorca, I am warmed by the knowledge that there is a ton of them in front of me. A bit like the glow that came my way when I first started reading Stephen King: the sure knowledge that throughout my jail time I would always have him as a companion, often on darkening October evenings once the Open University exams had finished. Now my daughter is reading him and was delighted when I arrived home in the past fortnight from the charity shops with an aggregated bundle of sixteen for her. Amongst their number, The Stand.
Harry Bosch is a former US soldier who served as a tunnel rat in Vietnam. The rats while not special forces nevertheless gained an elite status among their comrades due to the work they performed, burrowing into places where a quick death was probably one of the kinder outcomes. They went where few others would – deep into the network of tunnels the Vietnamese Liberation fighters had painstakingly constructed for carrying on their war against US invasion. The Vietnamese were not gentle with those who were intent on burning them alive. They had no reason to be.
When a body is discovered in the Mulholland Dam pipe detective Bosch Harry frowns on learning that it is the corpse of an old comrade from the tunnels. Who called it in and why? This is Bosch at his best. He thinks more clearly and cleverly than the rest. That might explain in part the animosity of police officialdom towards him. Bosch is not flavour of the month with the police hierarchy and he returns it in kind. He clashes with Internal Affairs for whom his contempt is as unbridled as it is unconcealed. He doesn’t care, not being a pack animal eager to defer to the leader. And the two goondas sent to harass him by IA elicit no sympathy from the reader.
Eleanor Wish is with the FBI. At first their exchanges are tetchy. Then Bosch undergoes a little wishful thinking followed by fulfilment as the two become lovers. It adds to the narrative without ever taking it over like creeping ivy, stifling the growth of a good tale.
Bosch likes a beer but in Black Echo he is not given to black outs like Harry Hole of Jo Nesbo fame. The booze seems to relax him and lubricates his thoughts while he sits in a chair in his hillside home mulling over the clues and leads. Why Vietnam vet Billy Meadows died and at the hands of who, Harry in his endeavour to find out, must once again go deep into the tunnels, only this time far away from Vietnam, but just as dangerous.
For a first novel it is quite an achievement. The complexity and layers of detail is what might be expected to come at the end of a successful literary career, the work of a writer who has been round the block more than once and knows where all the bodies are buried. Claiming a prestigious best first novel award was never going to lead to accusations of fraud.
The dominos set up by Connelly do not automatically fall once the first is clipped. The reader is made to work for their worthwhile reward. While the twists are brilliantly done and disappoint only in so far that some of the characters can let you down - human frailty with all the foibles - there is maybe too much meat packed into this single sandwich. The book is long and while it manages to avoid the sense of being needlessly stretched – it comes without tedium - there is a feel that the covers could have been pulled a little closer together without compromising the quality.
Black Echo is a work that will echo in the mind long after being returned to the bookshelf.
Anthony McIntyre blogs @ The Pensive Quill.Follow Anthony McIntyre on Twitter @AnthonyMcIntyre
The Feminine Stigma: Overcoming The Notion Of Impurity Perpetuated By Faith
Guest Posting on Michael A Sherlock's blog Caitlin Langley considers from personal experience the deleterious effects of religious indoctrination.
The religious superstitions of women perpetuate their bondage more than all other adverse influences. ~Elizabeth Cady Stanton
After nearly seventeen years, I can respond without hesitation when asked what experience has had the most profound impact on my psyche, and my life. Admittedly, exercising this confession has not been without trepidation. However, I have since recognised my response was learned from a culture of childhood religious indoctrination, one that crippled me from seeking help or comfort from those who I loved when I most needed it, following this incident of trauma.
Since having recognised the source of this shame I carried within myself, I have concluded that my struggle to navigate this experience has created a unique opportunity for me to become a wiser, stronger version of my myself – our ghosts can become our teachers – we can become capable of demonstrating to others how not to suffer in misguided shame and anguish for the sake of upholding empty notions perpetuated by faith. And importantly that it is often in our darkest moments that we find the courage to survive what can seem impossible circumstances.
I had what could be considered a privileged and idyllic childhood, a dual Australian/American citizen growing up in Boulder, Colorado with my two younger siblings and parents. There were not many memories I can recall as being negative in my childhood, apart from the generic struggles one would expect with adjusting to new schools. The exception to this was the constant source of weekly conflict – the tantrums that inevitably arose each Sunday when I was bade to attend church.Being raised as a Catholic and being a restless child, I was never a fan of the solemn, stuffy, cold building, or the sternness with which I was commanded to sit, stand, kneel, sit again. Mostly, however, I was always dubious of the irony of being told that Santa and the Easter Bunny were imaginary, yet this equally implausible Bronze-Age ‘God’ was real. He seemed, and still seems, as much an imaginary friend as any of the other popular fictitious characters children are tricked into fawning over.
Our family took a summer vacation to a nice village in the Rocky Mountains when I was 13 in Grand Lake, and being the independent and adventurous kid that I was, I set off to explore in the village while my family went shopping. I could never have imagined that I would end up in a white van being abducted by a stranger, and transported to a remote destination in the forest.
Being told to ‘drink this’ and after declining, and witnessing façade of the strange man change from a predatory smile to open scorn – In that moment, for the first time in my life, I was aware of an almost primitive fear that rose within me, and all at once I was certain that my life was in danger. I knew that I was captive, and being paralysed in a state of disbelief, I took the drink and consumed it as he commanded. The events that unfolded in my conscious memory has been inaccessible from that point on, except for flashes of running for my life in the hopes of navigating my way through the forest and back to the town. Limping, disoriented, and intoxicated, I made it back to the town after being offered a lift. At the time all I could think of when I got home was the dread in “what will happen if my parents find out”, and “how can I make sure they don’t find out how I have shamed them”?
The gravity of the situation I could not fully comprehend at that very moment. Although I was deeply haunted by my experience I was immobilised with shame, and the thought of confessing what had happened to me made me recoil with dread. I ardently believed that I would be judged for what I had gone through, that I was a stupid girl for letting it happen, and I was therefore incapable of bringing myself to what I believed would be perceived by others as making me dirty and stupid.
It was not until several weeks later when I returned to school that I had the courage to confide in a friend I had made. In the end, the only motive that compelled me to sharing this nightmare was the terrifying thought – could I be pregnant? I had no recollection of what had actually happened that day, but retrospectively, the symptoms lead me to some uncomfortable possibilities.
Like most girls my age, I was not comprehensively educated in sexual education, and was certainly not prepared for considering what the consequences of rape could mean for me. My life had all at once been turned upside down. Never had I ever considered pregnancy or motherhood, and I was certainly not prepared or willing to carry through with either.
I was so ill equipped to deal with the situation. I had no idea who I could turn to for questions, or if I was even entitled to confidentiality to ask for help. My primary concern was to ensure that nobody knew this awful secret.
Realising the horror of the worst-case scenario, I know without any trace of a doubt that I was absolutely prepared to follow through with whatever measures were necessary to ensure that my family never found out about what had happened. I was determined to take back control of myself, and to remove any evidence that this incident ever happened, regardless of the risk to my life. I ardently believed that a life of shame was not one worth living.
The enduring and pervasive stigma of feminine purity commonly perpetuated by all of the Abrahamic religions; Christianity, Islam, Judaism, or in my experience, Catholicism – compelled me to acquiesce into painful silence.
As a little girl I learned through active teachings a strict code of conduct for women and young girls – different to those expected of men and boys. This was preached by the Catholic church, passively conveyed through the popular media, demonstrated in my school, my neighbourhood and my community.
This indoctrination teaches us as children to believe that female was dirty, impure, immoral and undesirable – it was demonstrated to me through popular (Christian) culture and through the use of common derogative epithets applied strictly to women, such as whore and slut, along with all of the other horrid terms used to smear “immodest” women who have “no dignity” by having sex outside of wedlock, whether that sex be consensual or not. The fundamental flaws I see in this stigma (apart from the fact it is an outdated and ridiculous religious ideology) in a modern context I will do my best to objectively unpack, having spent over a decade rationally reflecting upon and considering beyond the bonds of misogynistic religious idiocy.
The fundamental flaws I see in this stigma (apart from the fact is an outdated religious ideology) in a modern context I will do my best to objectively unpack, having spent over a decade of consideration, disdain, and frustration to rationalise through my own meandering experience.
It could be argued that the basis of such a law, as written in ancient texts was simply devised as a matter of practicality: ensuring that offspring begotten from the one of the most basic of human instincts, that of replication – were provided for accordingly. Thus, ensuring the mothers and children resulting from such communions did not become a burden reliant on the charity of the institution.
By creating the concept of virtue – it may have been considered in the interests of women by ensuring their security, and that of their children by deeming it socially unacceptable to fornicate before both man and woman were recognised through ceremony as committing themselves to being together before consummating.
Regardless of whether or not this is considered a valid explanation behind the creation of this lingering double standard – the fact still stands – this value has become obsolete in modern society – or at least in developed countries, where access to contraception and birth control is available to give people the choice as to whether or not they are prepared to commit themselves to the tremendous responsibility of bringing life into the world and becoming a parent.
This virtue of purity ‘The Virginity Stigma’ as I have come to identify, is the foundation for the undue shame and misery endured by so many who may experience sexual or emotional abuse for experiences that are beyond their control. I endured this shame silently for years – a shame that kept me from turning to those who loved me – who I would have otherwise looked to for support and guidance to deal with such a trauma.
The persistence of this lingering theocratic construct should be acknowledged for what it is, as it is simply not accommodating to those who are victims of circumstance. Additionally, it continues to permeate the fabric of the victims’ freedoms, by subjugating and denying reproductive autonomy to those already consumed with what in many cases already an emotionally impossible situation purely on the basis of outdated scripture which cannot possibly take into account the advances of modern medicine.
The effects of this toxic and outdated notion can result not only in a deeply held sense of shame, it can also result in the stunting your personal relationships with family and many cases it may render victims unable to trust their judgement enough to enjoy or even want to engage in meaningful, fulfilling sexual relationships as an adult.
Experiencing repressed sexual abuse can cultivate a self-loathing that can lead to anxiety and depression – and in the most extreme cases, suicide. In instances such as my own, where I was provided with an exemplary upbringing with supportive parents who I have no doubt would have done anything to ensure my safety and support – had they known – if not for theses religious teachings of shame and the cultural value of purity otherwise rendering me paralysed from seeking help, for fear of shame and embarrassment.
You don’t need to call yourself a feminist, nor even an atheist to acknowledge the derogative nature of this absurd and outdated idea, and I would add that most people who have suffered will never speak of their experience, and thus, I would be willing to wager that there is a good chance that someone who you know and love may have a secret like mine. They might even choose not to share it with you, but in displaying the courage to dispel the ‘Virginity Stigma’, you are telling them that it their value is not rooted in their virginity, but in their character and in the courage of their credible convictions.
The religious superstitions of women perpetuate their bondage more than all other adverse influences. ~Elizabeth Cady Stanton
After nearly seventeen years, I can respond without hesitation when asked what experience has had the most profound impact on my psyche, and my life. Admittedly, exercising this confession has not been without trepidation. However, I have since recognised my response was learned from a culture of childhood religious indoctrination, one that crippled me from seeking help or comfort from those who I loved when I most needed it, following this incident of trauma.
Since having recognised the source of this shame I carried within myself, I have concluded that my struggle to navigate this experience has created a unique opportunity for me to become a wiser, stronger version of my myself – our ghosts can become our teachers – we can become capable of demonstrating to others how not to suffer in misguided shame and anguish for the sake of upholding empty notions perpetuated by faith. And importantly that it is often in our darkest moments that we find the courage to survive what can seem impossible circumstances.
I had what could be considered a privileged and idyllic childhood, a dual Australian/American citizen growing up in Boulder, Colorado with my two younger siblings and parents. There were not many memories I can recall as being negative in my childhood, apart from the generic struggles one would expect with adjusting to new schools. The exception to this was the constant source of weekly conflict – the tantrums that inevitably arose each Sunday when I was bade to attend church.Being raised as a Catholic and being a restless child, I was never a fan of the solemn, stuffy, cold building, or the sternness with which I was commanded to sit, stand, kneel, sit again. Mostly, however, I was always dubious of the irony of being told that Santa and the Easter Bunny were imaginary, yet this equally implausible Bronze-Age ‘God’ was real. He seemed, and still seems, as much an imaginary friend as any of the other popular fictitious characters children are tricked into fawning over.
Our family took a summer vacation to a nice village in the Rocky Mountains when I was 13 in Grand Lake, and being the independent and adventurous kid that I was, I set off to explore in the village while my family went shopping. I could never have imagined that I would end up in a white van being abducted by a stranger, and transported to a remote destination in the forest.
Being told to ‘drink this’ and after declining, and witnessing façade of the strange man change from a predatory smile to open scorn – In that moment, for the first time in my life, I was aware of an almost primitive fear that rose within me, and all at once I was certain that my life was in danger. I knew that I was captive, and being paralysed in a state of disbelief, I took the drink and consumed it as he commanded. The events that unfolded in my conscious memory has been inaccessible from that point on, except for flashes of running for my life in the hopes of navigating my way through the forest and back to the town. Limping, disoriented, and intoxicated, I made it back to the town after being offered a lift. At the time all I could think of when I got home was the dread in “what will happen if my parents find out”, and “how can I make sure they don’t find out how I have shamed them”?
The gravity of the situation I could not fully comprehend at that very moment. Although I was deeply haunted by my experience I was immobilised with shame, and the thought of confessing what had happened to me made me recoil with dread. I ardently believed that I would be judged for what I had gone through, that I was a stupid girl for letting it happen, and I was therefore incapable of bringing myself to what I believed would be perceived by others as making me dirty and stupid.
It was not until several weeks later when I returned to school that I had the courage to confide in a friend I had made. In the end, the only motive that compelled me to sharing this nightmare was the terrifying thought – could I be pregnant? I had no recollection of what had actually happened that day, but retrospectively, the symptoms lead me to some uncomfortable possibilities.
Like most girls my age, I was not comprehensively educated in sexual education, and was certainly not prepared for considering what the consequences of rape could mean for me. My life had all at once been turned upside down. Never had I ever considered pregnancy or motherhood, and I was certainly not prepared or willing to carry through with either.
I was so ill equipped to deal with the situation. I had no idea who I could turn to for questions, or if I was even entitled to confidentiality to ask for help. My primary concern was to ensure that nobody knew this awful secret.
Realising the horror of the worst-case scenario, I know without any trace of a doubt that I was absolutely prepared to follow through with whatever measures were necessary to ensure that my family never found out about what had happened. I was determined to take back control of myself, and to remove any evidence that this incident ever happened, regardless of the risk to my life. I ardently believed that a life of shame was not one worth living.
The enduring and pervasive stigma of feminine purity commonly perpetuated by all of the Abrahamic religions; Christianity, Islam, Judaism, or in my experience, Catholicism – compelled me to acquiesce into painful silence.
As a little girl I learned through active teachings a strict code of conduct for women and young girls – different to those expected of men and boys. This was preached by the Catholic church, passively conveyed through the popular media, demonstrated in my school, my neighbourhood and my community.
This indoctrination teaches us as children to believe that female was dirty, impure, immoral and undesirable – it was demonstrated to me through popular (Christian) culture and through the use of common derogative epithets applied strictly to women, such as whore and slut, along with all of the other horrid terms used to smear “immodest” women who have “no dignity” by having sex outside of wedlock, whether that sex be consensual or not. The fundamental flaws I see in this stigma (apart from the fact it is an outdated and ridiculous religious ideology) in a modern context I will do my best to objectively unpack, having spent over a decade rationally reflecting upon and considering beyond the bonds of misogynistic religious idiocy.
Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity…and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. ~Galatians 5:19-21
The fundamental flaws I see in this stigma (apart from the fact is an outdated religious ideology) in a modern context I will do my best to objectively unpack, having spent over a decade of consideration, disdain, and frustration to rationalise through my own meandering experience.
It could be argued that the basis of such a law, as written in ancient texts was simply devised as a matter of practicality: ensuring that offspring begotten from the one of the most basic of human instincts, that of replication – were provided for accordingly. Thus, ensuring the mothers and children resulting from such communions did not become a burden reliant on the charity of the institution.
By creating the concept of virtue – it may have been considered in the interests of women by ensuring their security, and that of their children by deeming it socially unacceptable to fornicate before both man and woman were recognised through ceremony as committing themselves to being together before consummating.
Regardless of whether or not this is considered a valid explanation behind the creation of this lingering double standard – the fact still stands – this value has become obsolete in modern society – or at least in developed countries, where access to contraception and birth control is available to give people the choice as to whether or not they are prepared to commit themselves to the tremendous responsibility of bringing life into the world and becoming a parent.
This virtue of purity ‘The Virginity Stigma’ as I have come to identify, is the foundation for the undue shame and misery endured by so many who may experience sexual or emotional abuse for experiences that are beyond their control. I endured this shame silently for years – a shame that kept me from turning to those who loved me – who I would have otherwise looked to for support and guidance to deal with such a trauma.
The persistence of this lingering theocratic construct should be acknowledged for what it is, as it is simply not accommodating to those who are victims of circumstance. Additionally, it continues to permeate the fabric of the victims’ freedoms, by subjugating and denying reproductive autonomy to those already consumed with what in many cases already an emotionally impossible situation purely on the basis of outdated scripture which cannot possibly take into account the advances of modern medicine.
The effects of this toxic and outdated notion can result not only in a deeply held sense of shame, it can also result in the stunting your personal relationships with family and many cases it may render victims unable to trust their judgement enough to enjoy or even want to engage in meaningful, fulfilling sexual relationships as an adult.
Experiencing repressed sexual abuse can cultivate a self-loathing that can lead to anxiety and depression – and in the most extreme cases, suicide. In instances such as my own, where I was provided with an exemplary upbringing with supportive parents who I have no doubt would have done anything to ensure my safety and support – had they known – if not for theses religious teachings of shame and the cultural value of purity otherwise rendering me paralysed from seeking help, for fear of shame and embarrassment.
You don’t need to call yourself a feminist, nor even an atheist to acknowledge the derogative nature of this absurd and outdated idea, and I would add that most people who have suffered will never speak of their experience, and thus, I would be willing to wager that there is a good chance that someone who you know and love may have a secret like mine. They might even choose not to share it with you, but in displaying the courage to dispel the ‘Virginity Stigma’, you are telling them that it their value is not rooted in their virginity, but in their character and in the courage of their credible convictions.
October 14, 2017
A Decade Of Republican Network For Unity
A statement released yesterday by the leadership of Republican Network for Unity.
the following statement comes from the leadership of Republican Network for Unity.
A Decade Of Republican Network For Unity
Republican Network for Unity was formed 10 years ago this year. Originally formed as a pressure group of ex-republican political prisoners opposed to the promotion of the PSNI and British intelligence agencies, our membership reorganised as a republican political entity in 2007. Since our inception as a political organisation, our aim has always been to organise an effective, coherent and determined political movement, capable and willing to play their part in taking back Ireland and establishing a true democracy.
As we have evolved throughout the last 10 years so too do we look forward to the challenges and projects that the next 10 years hold. The priority for us and for all Republicans must be the creation of a 32 County united socialist Republic. On our tenth anniversary, we pay tribute to the POW's and the activists in Cogús who tirelessly look after their welfare. We continue to pledge our unwavering support to those Republicans who are incarcerated both North and South.
The last 10 years have seen many trials and tribulations for Republicans. Despite it all, the Republican people continue to oppose British imperialism in Ireland,. It is our hope that the next 10 years sees a renewed spirit of resistance and unity.
the following statement comes from the leadership of Republican Network for Unity.
A Decade Of Republican Network For Unity
Republican Network for Unity was formed 10 years ago this year. Originally formed as a pressure group of ex-republican political prisoners opposed to the promotion of the PSNI and British intelligence agencies, our membership reorganised as a republican political entity in 2007. Since our inception as a political organisation, our aim has always been to organise an effective, coherent and determined political movement, capable and willing to play their part in taking back Ireland and establishing a true democracy.
As we have evolved throughout the last 10 years so too do we look forward to the challenges and projects that the next 10 years hold. The priority for us and for all Republicans must be the creation of a 32 County united socialist Republic. On our tenth anniversary, we pay tribute to the POW's and the activists in Cogús who tirelessly look after their welfare. We continue to pledge our unwavering support to those Republicans who are incarcerated both North and South.
The last 10 years have seen many trials and tribulations for Republicans. Despite it all, the Republican people continue to oppose British imperialism in Ireland,. It is our hope that the next 10 years sees a renewed spirit of resistance and unity.
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