Mick the taig and the lads go to the cinema to watch the newly released Hard Peace. It is directed by Aaron Sorkin and it will be a household tradition to watch every Easter in your average english protestant middle class home.

Subscribe now

I just want to give a Happy St Paddys Day to everybody in the world!

This is the first entry of Here I am Amongst Ye. I will be posting more casually here, using it like a journal spouting shite I am pasionate about (corrupting the youth with subliminal fenian messaging)

If you followed me on twitter back in the day, hows it going? its nice to see you again. Cheers for still rolling with us.

I was born in Downpatrick, a town situated in the South Eastern region of County Down. It is one of the oldest towns on the island of Ireland. And it is the resting place of Saint Brigid, Saint Colmcille and Saint Patrick. So I get to feel a bit holy no matter what time of year it is.

Outside of Downpatrick in Saul sits the largest statue of Saint Patrick in the world. I like to call him the Big Paddy. They light him up in green around this time of year and at night he looks like a gigantic radioactive cucumber being launched into space.

It’s a time of year to think about the Irish people we love. And also the Irish we fucking hate. And I want to use an example of something negative and piggyback off it to turn it into something positive. I promise it will end on a nice hopeful note.

The snivelling little free state manlet Micheál Martin is heading to the Great Satan for St Paddy’s day to grovel at the feet of the Epstein’s clientele. It is an unfortunate disease that some Irish are born with, the inoperable Tongue in Arse.

Like some secret fraternity hazing ritual, leaders go to Washington to be humiliated by the grand paedophile, so the citizens of their nations know their place in the world in relation to the US empire. I believe the Freemasons call it riding the goat.

Of course these are the types of people our Taoiseach wants to rub shoulders with. After all, he’s looking to get Ireland into “the big boys club” and sit with the other US client states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. You’ll have a chance to bring your own daughter and son back in a body bag from some foreign war soon enough.

The US empire flexes its influence across the world causing death and destruction in Latin America, Palestine and Iran. And you can all always count on a Paddy, like a jester waiting by your side to do a wee song and dance for ya at least once a year with his wee bowl of shamrocks, with his spine back in Ireland.

I’ll say this about your man Micheál Martin, he would never have picked up the Pike.

As the Taoiseach visits these bastards in Washington who kidnap Latin American men and women from their homes and send them off to some El Salvadoran death camp, over in Mexico the people hold their very own Saint Patrick’s Day parade on the streets of Mexico City.

The Mexican people use the day of Saint Patrick to commemorate a band of Irish men who saw Yankee manifest destiny similar to the British conquest of Ireland.

Poor Catholic Mexicans being subjected to white Anglo-American aggression hit too close to home for a lot of the Irish soldiers having just arrived off the coffin ships themselves from Ireland during the British manufactured famine, killing around 1 million of the Irish population. Another million left the country for a better life, never to return.

The arrival of poor European Catholic immigrants during the 1800s threatened the Anglo-Saxon Protestant hegemony. In the US, Catholics were seen as idol worshipping pagans whose allegiance lied not with their country, but with the Pope. The Irish left their homeland in Ireland to flee one form of persecution for another. With the promise of economic security and land, the Irish joined the US Army in their droves.

The Irish in the US military were treated with great disdain by the protestant dominated higher ranks. Reports of Irish Catholics whipped and branded with hot pokers were common. Men were refused mass and denied access to Catholic clergy.

Just before the beginning of the American-Mexican War, a Private called John Riley from Clifden County Galway of the 5th US Infantry Regiment, saw the mistreatment of his fellow Irishmen in the Army and the aggression waged on the Mexican people as the final straw.

He could have bitten his tongue and continued to be an instrument for the US empire, like many Irish have done before and after, absorbed into the Anglo terror machine, becoming the very thing they fought against. But through his strong conviction in his catholic faith and the weight of the struggle of his fellow Irish men and women, he could clearly see he was on the side of an evil aggressor similar to the one his own people fled from back home.

John Riley and 200 Irish men as well as catholic immigrants from other European countries shedded their US military uniforms and pledged to fight for the Mexican people.

These men are known in Mexico as Los San Patricios. The Saint Patrick Battalion.

Due to their previous military experience in the US and British army, the San Patricios became a very effective military artillery unit causing many yank casualties on the battlefield.

At the end of the American-Mexican war the San Patricios were captured and charged with desertion in a time of war. Over all 50 San Patricios were hanged for treason by the US Army. 16 men hanged in San Ángel 10 September 1847. 4 men hanged on the 11th September in Mixcaoc and 30 hanged in Chapultepec on 13th September. It is considered the largest mass hanging in US history.

John Riley, having deserted the US army before the war started, escaped execution but was branded with a D for deserter on his cheek.

There is a plaque in San Jacinto Plaza, in San Ángel Mexico City dedicated to the men of Los San Patricios which reads:

“In memory of the Irish soldiers of the heroic St. Patrick’s Battalion, martyrs who gave their lives to the Mexican cause in the United States unjust invasion of 1847”

In the US, the San Patricios are seen as traitors and enemies. But in my opinion, it is one of the most noble acts committed by our people and an incredible act of sacrifice. It should be celebrated and embraced in Ireland with absolute pride. I am honestly near enough moved to tears any time I encounter the story of the San Patricios.

Subscribe now

And now with talks about a United Ireland, in an age of aggressive capitalist violence foreign and domestic, people often say what should a United Ireland look like?

I tend to look towards the immortal words of that sound aul protestant man from God Knows Where, who is humbly buried in Downpatrick not far from where Saint Patrick is laid to rest.

In Down Parish Graveyard lies Thomas Russell, a man from a protestant Ascendancy family who could have lived comfortably enough as a librarian or pastor for the Anglican church. But he could see the evil acts committed by the British empire onto the world and the native population of Ireland, and dedicated his life to freeing Ireland from its clutches helping to form the revolutionary Society of United Irishmen.

In his pamphlet A Letter to the people of Ireland, on the present state of the country, I like to use as a guiding light as to what being Irish should mean as opposed to mimicking the Anglo West and their crusade on mankind and I feel captures the essence of the San Patricios:

“…If the English, or any other people, think gold a sufficient cause to shed blood—if they are satisfied to fill the world with carnage and misery, that they may acquire cloves and nutmegs, and contracts, and slaves—let it not be so with us.”

A Chara, in the face of despair, individualism and nihilism, the San Patricios should inspire and uplift us. No matter the odds, no matter the cost. Nothing can break the indomitable human spirit. Mind your head. Clean your Arse. Change the world. Bigi Linn!

I no longer want to sit and think about doing it and not doing it. Microblogging sites like Twitter has ran its course for me I think. I’ll still use it, but it’s not really something I want to be spending too much time on anymore as it just pure drains me of any motivation.

I need a boot up the arse, to get things moving.

Why should I spend my limited time on earth not making stuff that is meaningful and fulfilling to me? I feel sites like Twitter can really dampen the creative spark.

Subscribe now

I have made attempts in the past to create a webcomic but they never really went anywhere and I’ve just never had the courage to commit to it fully.

What would people think? They’ll probably think it’s shite. There’s no point. Imagine putting effort into something. Imagine trying. Imagine all the people blah blah blah.

But I no longer what to live in fear of thoughts of other people. If people like it fair play. If they don’t, then all the best.

I want a big collection of work by the end of it.

I don’t know if Substack will be the permanent place I dwell in, but for now it seems the best place for me.

And to start it off, here is an old comic I made a couple of years ago.

The idea for this came to me awhile back after reading about Ballykinler barracks was being turned into a centre for excellence by the Down GAA.

Hope to see Palace Barracks next.

There has never been a good British government.

For every shadow in the world, you can guarantee it has been haunted by a spook of the British government lurking in the dark thirsting for blood. Starmer represents the snivelling, liberal English middle class who view themselves as polite and civil like Paddington Bear but one inconvenience away from Ian Paisley or Enoch Powell. The middle class of Britain can forgive the complete annihilation of Iraq and Libya, but not the unforgivable crime of leaving the EU. Starmer encapsulates this with his good neighbour rhetoric at the Labour conference, which basically boils down to:

“We may gun down or aid the murder of civilians in other countries, but also we thank the bus driver ”

His leadership reminds me of the Ulster Unionist government in the north of Ireland throughout the 60s in the lead up to the Troubles.

Terrance O’Neill became the prime minister of the Northern State in 1963, replacing the more blatantly sectarian Basil Brooke, who was the commandant of the Ulster Special Constabulary, often referred to as “The B Specials”, a fascist Protestant militia in the north of Ireland which recruited from the Orange halls and absorbed most of Edward Carson’s private army, the Ulster Volunteer Force.

O’Neill represented the “moderate” faction of the Ulster Unionist Party and often saw himself as a great liberal reformer.

The growing anger of the Catholic minority regarding inequality in all factors of life and the constant state violence from the Protestant-dominated police force saw the creation of the non-sectarian Northern Ireland civil rights movement in 1967.

When it came to putting his money where his mouth was, O’Neill proved to be all fart, no shite.

He delivered bare minimum reforms to the Catholic population. Terrance O’Neill tried to disguise his empty promises with gesture politics. Normalizing north and south relations, meeting with the Taoiseach Sean Lemass with great dismay of the unionist population and did very little to change the material conditions of the Catholic minority.

By the end of the 60s, his unionist base had grown tired of him. The crumbs he threw at the Catholics were going too far for the unionist community, who were beginning to show more favor to O’Neill’s rival, the radical hate preacher Reverend Ian Paisley.

Members of People’s Democracy, a socialist group led by students of Queen's University, set out to march from Belfast to Derry based on the US Civil Rights March led by Martin Luther King from Selma to Montgomery.

The Belfast to Derry march was for one man, one vote, the end of gerrymandering of boundaries and the end of the Draconian special powers act.

The marchers were attacked outside of Derry at Burntollet bridge by the followers of Ian Paisley, who descended the hillside armed with iron bars, stones and nail-riddled bats.

The police stood by as the marchers were beaten. Many of the attackers were part-time members of the B Specials.

After a series of false flag bombings on water supply by the recently reformed Ulster Volunteer Force in 1966, who had already killed the first victim of the troubles and Ian Paisley’s Ulster Protestant Volunteers were blamed on the dormant Irish Republican Army to show O’Neill had lost control.

Paisley attempted to dethrone O’Neill in his constituency in April 1969, while Paisley did not succeed; it was a strong enough performance to damage O’Neill’s reputation as the leader of Unionism and weakened his grip on government. This led to O’Neill’s resignation shortly after.

Nowadays, O’Neill gets his image rebranded and is often portrayed as the model for contemporary liberal unionism. It is often said he was ahead of his time. But in reality, when he had the chance to give the oppressed minority of the north its full rights, he did not. When he had a chance to demolish the orange monopoly in the north, he did not. He was quite happy leading the Catholic population on with promises as long as it did not threaten the Orange State.

In the brightest orange, O’Neill’s colors were revealed in the company and organizations he associated with. He was a member of not just the Orange Order, he was also an Apprentice Boy and the Orange Order's prestige organization, the Royal Black Institution.

Ian Paisley’s hate-filled rhetoric went on to influence pogroms, bombings and murders and is often not credited enough as one of the figures who contributed heavily to the start of the troubles.

One of Ian Paisley’s early moments in the spotlight was in 1964. Paisley threatened to march a loyalist mob down the predominantly nationalist Divis street to remove a tricolor that hung from the window of a Sinn Féin office.

Under the Northern governments Flags and Emblems Act, it gave the RUC the right to remove any flag that would be deemed a breach of the peace. Of course, this act excluded the Union flag. So only the flag of the Irish republic was considered provocative.

Fear was sent through the Catholic community that a pogrom could be impending as many times before throughout the northern states' history. The O'Neill government sent in 50 RUC officers to smash the Sinn Féin office and remove the flag before Paisley could claim the victory.

Nationalists flooded the street witnessing the removal of the tricolor from the Sinn Féin office. Paisley held multiple victory rallies throughout the week at Belfast city hall. Riots broke out and heavily armed RUC officers stormed Divis Street and the Falls Road. Hundreds were injured and around 20 people were arrested, including a mother of eight. Paisley got his way without moving an inch.

In 1971, Paisley founded the Democratic Unionist Party. Throughout the conflict, it had involvement in setting up a loyalist paramilitary group known as the Ulster Resistance Movement which had close ties to various loyalist paramilitary groups.

The Ulster Resistance aided in smuggling a large cache of Israeli weapons from the Apartheid South Africa regime into the North of Ireland in 1988. They were shared out among the loyalist death squads and were used as part of the loyalist terror campaign of the 90s in various pub shootings.

The Democratic Unionist Party are now the main unionist party in the Stormont government and as for the Ulster Unionist Party, they have gone the way of the Dodo.

Ulster Loyalist influence can be seen within the modern British Far Right, inciting pogroms and erecting union jacks, and the painting of the kerb stones red, white and blue as in what they call Operation Raise the Colours, often promoted by the likes of online grifters like Tommy Robinson.

It has been praised as patriotic by British party leaders across the board, including Starmer. The flags have very little to do with patriotism, they are nothing more than an unspoken threat.

Catholic families in the north who live on predominantly Protestant estates and mixed housing estates in Belfast are forced to flee their homes on a yearly basis because of unspoken threats, like the hanging of union flags outside the only Catholic homes on the estate.

It escalates to spoken threats like smashed windows, graffiti, death threats and a loyalist narco paramilitary show of strength on their doorstep and all done freely without intervention from the law.

As many have pointed out, the island of strangers' speech spouted by Starmer closely resembles Enoch Powell’s River of Blood speech. It’s important to point out Powell was welcomed with open arms as a member of the Ulster Unionist Party. And was placed in a Westminster seat in South Down for 13 years.

When I see civilians, young and old, protesting against the genocide being beaten and arrested by police, political prisoners thrown in prison, branded as terrorists and put on remand are left to starve, while the far right spreads their influence almost completely untouched, echoes back to the sound of batons, internment and collusion of the security forces and loyalist paramilitaries.

The brutality that was enacted by Britain onto nations across the world hidden only by distance is soaring across the waves on a return ticket to mother England.

It is coming home.

What I don’t see is Britain going through a rather bad moment. What I see is the true face of not just Starmer and his group of ghouls that surround him, but also the true face of British social democracy in its entirety.

The blunt force of the police baton, the incitement of hatred, the pandering to right-wing extremists, the pogroms, the suppression of protests, rubbing shoulders with apartheid regimes, the aiding of massacres of children, stepping on the poor and vulnerable to uphold the interests of the rich.

Such brutality and wickedness goes beyond one single bastard like Starmer, Johnson, Blair and Thatcher, who is installed in the core of the British state.

That’s real Britain.

Starmer will be eaten up by the very reactionary wave he is trying to suck up to. You can replace him with another miserable bastard and it will not change anything.

Much like O’Neill, who was replaced by James Chichester Clarke, who in August 1969 requested the British government to send in the British army, and the British government under Labour obliged, the soldiers went on to massacre Catholic civilians over a 30-year period in the name of maintaining law and order and keeping the peace.

In other words, maintaining the Orange state.

But you know, it was done “labourly.”

Chichester was then replaced by Brian Falkner, who was the man that introduced internment in 1971, which saw the mass arrests without trial or conviction of innocent civilians, mostly Catholics and put in internment camps. In 1972, the Stormont government collapsed. He was the last Prime Minister of Northern Ireland.

And now political prisoners are hunger striking within British prison cells for protesting against genocide. Starmer is about to have his Thatcher moment.

England, the ghosts of Ulster are knocking on your door.

Originally posted on Lasair Mhúrn blog a week after the death of Shane MacGowan

I needed some time to put into words my feelings surrounding the death of one of my hero’s,  Shane MacGowan. I normally wouldn’t feel compelled to write about the death of a celebrity but no one has had more of an impact on me than Shane. Ive read some obituaries from various British newspapers and its clear they didn’t get Shane MacGowan and never will. And that is their loss.

 At the age of 13 my interest in music blew with the wind. I had no particular genre of interest and felt no connection to the music that was being played on the radio. Nothing really grabbed me. People on the radio didn’t sing about any of the issues or problems I faced or anything I was passionate about.

My introduction to Irish folk was through my dad. I have fond memories as a child during summer holidays driving to places like Tramore, Cobh and Ballybunion with the smell of cigarette smoke and boke stained car seats filling the car. My dad would have his dusty cassette tapes he got at some car boot sale stacked up in the glove box. And that would be the soundtrack to my summer. 

The music was mostly Irish folk. Pangur Bán, Pecker Dunne, The Dubliners, Christy Moore and a large compilation of Irish rebel songs from various bands on one tape. Barleycorn, Wolfe Tones, The men without property and the Flying column. These songs would be burned on the back of my head and would resurface in my teen years and inform my taste along with my personality and politics for the rest of my life.

Shane MacGowan had always been in the background of my childhood too. The Fairytale of New York was played every Christmas. My grandfather would often tell me it was one of the greatest Christmas songs ever written. Family members would sing it after a couple of pints. But much like Irish folk music, it was there, but I didn’t fully appreciate it until I got older.

Irish Folk re-entered my life when I was going into Second year in High School. The dusty cassette tapes were replaced with playlists on my phone that I had ripped from Youtube the night before.

 I had learned more about James Connolly and Che Guavara at this point in my life so my music sense began to develop a sharper edge in terms of class consciousness, I was no longer a mere irish nationalist. I was an internationalist and an Irish Republican. I understood that getting the brits out shouldnt be the only thing on my mind.  

Subscribe now

My playlist expanded as well as my world view. I learned about international struggles through the Irish folk tradition. Christy Moore covered songs about the Coup in Chile, The Cuban Revolution, Apartheid South Africa, El Slavador as well as the Trade Union movement in Ireland. I would listen to his albums on repeat like my dad would religiously on every long journey. 

On his album Unfinished Revolution the record is brought to a finish by a beautiful song called A pair of brown eyes. The song tells of an alcoholic in a pub retelling his experiences during the first world war only to come home to find the love of his life has left him.  

It sounded like an old song, something that has been passed down through generations. But I was surprised to find out it was fairly recent in the grand scheme of things. And it was written by the prolific songwriter and Pogues front man, Shane MacGowan. 

Combined with Shanes lyrical genius and distinct rugged voice I was taken instantly. And through this beautiful ballad covered by Christy Moore, I had discovered The Pogues and through the Pogues I had discovered punk rock.

My playlist began to be filled with bands like The Pogues, The Clash, The Dead Kennedys, Black Flag and Rancid. These bands filled the void of my teenage self that I had been yearning for. Punk became my new outlet.

The similarities between Punk and Irish folk is interesting. Around the same time as Ireland was seeing its Second Irish Folk revival in the 1960s and 70s with acts like the Dubliners, Christy Moore and the Clancys, punk was developing across the globe with acts like the Stooges, the New York Dolls and The Velvet Underground.

In Ireland the liberation struggle was often suppressed and censored heavily. In schools today in Britain and in the North of Ireland, Irish history is told from a very one sided view normally from the English side or not told at all.

In the north of Ireland the unionist junta introduced the special power act shortly after the partition of Ireland in 1922, it clamped down heavily on all things related to Irish culture. Publications, flags and music. 

Irish rebel music was a form of expression that would tell the stories of rebellion and political issues throughout the generations. At the beginning of the conflict in the North of Ireland rebel music was used as a vehicle for awareness, if no one was going to talk about what was happening here, we were going to do it ourselves.

When internment was introduced in the 6 counties under Operation Demetrius, British soldiers arrested on a mass scale, people they deemed as suspected members of the Irish Republican Army. For the most part innocent men were dragged from their beds in the early hours of the morning, rounded up, beaten and placed in internment camps. And thus the famous rebel song The Men Behind the Wire was born. As a testament to the power of this song it has been passed down through the generations and sung by young and old alike to this very day.

In a similar vein punk was a rebellion against the mainstream music industry in favor of a more stripped down DIY approach and was a vehicle to express political views. Much like punk and of course later on Hip Hop, Irish rebel music was and still is looked down upon by the establishment for challenging the narrative set by the British. It’s only natural that these two very rebellious genres would eventually be welded together.

Shane didn’t follow the same trend as his contemporaries who actively distance themselves from the people who were suffering in the north of Ireland. Shane didn’t just lean into the Irish struggle. He dived head first into it. At a time when it was incredibly dangerous to be Irish and political in England Shane wrote songs about British injustice historically and present day. 

Much like the Irish rebel songs that were suppressed and censored under the special power act, The Pogues would face their own form of censorship from the British Government.

In 1988 The Pogues released their best acclaimed album If I should fall from grace. On it was a song called the streets of sorrow/birmingham 6. First half of the song is about is about the pain and sadness that was going on in the 6 counties. The second half picks up speed describing the forced convictions and torture of the Birmingham 6.  This song got  banned by the independent broadcasting authority for promoting terrorism. The Birmingham 6 would later be released and proven to be innocent. 

Shane was the very definition of an unrepentant fenian bastard. Inspired by writers like Brendan Behan and James Mangan, Shane infused his Irish republicanism he developed through his family back in Tipperary, and his experiences of anti Irish sentiment in England with his music and used it to reach an even bigger audience. 

Shane has cemented himself in the culture as one of the greatest Irish songwriters. His songs much like the Irish rebel music will be passed down through the generations. By young and old alike.

Being introduced to Punk through The Pogues opened a whole new world for me. Punk had the rawness and heart of Irish folk. 

 I discovered a whole new form of rebel music. For many Shane gave people Irish folk. Shane gave me punk and a deeper appreciation for my own culture and tradition. 

And for that I will forever be grateful.

There will never be another Shane MacGowan.

Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam

Subscribe now