Compounding the injustice of Tuam

Irish Current Affairs Blog of the Year 2018

Standing together on the weekend of the Pope's visit last year

Why bother writing about the struggle for justice of those who were treated so appallingly by the Irish State?

Why not move on?

Why bother going to events organised by the families and survivors of the "Tuam Babies" when many media outlets don’t bother?

Why spend an hour or two with them on a Sunday afternoon when a news editor shrugs and proclaims, “Arragh, sure, didn’t we cover that event last year?”

(Even though they didn’t – as you can remember how few journalists there were among the small number of people who congregated in that lonely graveyard 12 months ago).

One of the most striking aspects of the scandal of the 796 ‘Tuam Babies’ is the widespread belief among survivors and family members that “official Ireland” has no interest in granting them the truth and justice they crave.

And the story of Tuam is replicated for the survivors and children of those who were incarcerated in dozens of other institutions all across the island of Ireland.

In Tuam, business people express regret that the scandal unearthed by local  historian Catherine Corless has damaged the image or reputation of the town. They have made it known to her, via third parties, that they wish she would have left well enough alone.

It’s not good for business, you see, to be the subject of scandalous headlines from San Francisco to Sydney when the economy is in “recovery” and there’s money to be made.

People whisper to Catherine on the street when they talk about "the home", and she can sense shame, fear, or guilt in their voices when they approach her to applaud her for the research which has made headlines across the globe.

Only for her determination, the story might never have been known.

Catherine Corless: her research was "not good for business" in Tuam

When it comes to the victims, though, the perception in some quarters is that these people are getting old now and it’s time to move on.

Forget about the fact that the mortality rate in the Tuam Home – where up to 796 babies may or may not be buried in a cesspit – was five times that of the general Irish population or that 126 of the 796 babies died within the first six months of life.

Forget about the fact that 35,000 women and girls were locked up in Mother and Baby Homes between 1904 and 1996 – hardly ancient history – and that those who are still living have never received a proper apology for how they were imprisoned for their “crimes”.

Or that some of them were asked to produce time sheets for the hours they worked in laundries where they were imprisoned and forced to work as slaves, with the collusion of the state, by cruel and judgemental nuns.

Forget about the fact that some older people still know what went on in these institutions, but are too afraid or too ashamed to come forward.

Or that a local councillor in Tuam, Cllr Donagh Killilea, has berated the current Minister for Children, Katherine Zappone TD, for daring to suggest that people with some memory of what happened should come forward with information, even at this late stage.

He's offended by the idea that anyone in the town might still know why these bodies were discarded or disposed of in such a heartless fashion.

Forget about the fact that the Bon Secours nuns, in their infinite wisdom, hired a prominent PR person and paid her handsomely when the scandal of the “Tuam Babies” first broke in the Irish media.

“If you come here, you’ll find no mass grave, no evidence that children were ever so buried, and a local police force casting their eyes to heaven,” wrote Terry Prone, still the Goddess in Chief of “communications” for “official Ireland”.

And still she coaches or grooms our richest and most powerful politicians in terms of how to deal with our media.

And still she hasn't apologised to the families for the hurt she has caused.

A sign erected in North Galway this week

Forget about the fact that the Bon Secours nuns run private hospitals for a handsome profit and have never dealt directly with the families of their victims.

Forget that the pain of the survivors was compounded by a Fianna Fail TD, Anne Rabbitte, when she stated that the estimated €13 million cost of excavating the site of the “Tuam Babies” home could not be justified when it could be spent on the children of today.

“It’s a wilful waste of public money that could be spent on the children of today,” Deputy Rabbitte told The Sunday Business Post last weekend.

The FF spokesperson on children, who is running for the European Parliament this month, seemed to have little concept of the anger these remarks would ignite among survivors and family members who are finding it so hard to obtain the truth from “official Ireland”.

For them, the story of the "Tuam Babies" is very much alive.

Bad enough to discover only in your 70s that you had a brother or sister you never heard about, only to find it next to impossible to find out what happened to them.

Forget about the fact that Ms Rabbitte's party, Fianna Fail, was in power for most of the lifespan of the Mother and Baby Homes and Magdalene Laundries, when a harsh and judgmental Irish State asked religious orders to imprison and enslave thousands of Ireland’s most vulnerable women.

Let's just forget that these poor women were locked up with the full knowledge of both the Irish State and their own families.

Or that the fathers of these children could get on with their lives while the mothers spent decades washing the dirty laundry of the elite of Irish society.

Wtih Peter Mulryan at his mother's grave in Galway 

Peter Mulryan, Chairman of the Tuam Home Survviors Network, contrasts the reverence of the Bon Secours nuns for their own members, removing their bodies from the Grove private hospital before being re-interred with dignity, with how callously the bodies of up to 796 babies and children were discarded at the home.

They sold the building for €4.1 million in 2001 but, as so many survivors have discovered, religious institutions in Ireland have no interest in compensating victims and their families for the terrible times they put them through.

Mr Mulryan claims the “full horror” of what happened in Tuam has yet to be exposed.

Forget about the fact that survivors and family members, including Peter and Dublin woman Anna Corrigan, have no idea what happened to their siblings.

They still believe, rightly or wrongly, that their brothers and sisters could have been adopted (illegally) by families in the United States and cannot be persuaded otherwise until they have some proof of what happened to these children and babies.

Criminal acts were carried out to their family members and now they feel that there can be no closure to this terrible story until the full truth of what happened to the “Tuam Babies” is revealed to the world.

If the families believe that this can only be achieved through a full Inquest, isn’t it time “official Ireland” gives them the truth and the justice they have been calling out for?

Otherwise, we are compounding a terrible injustice and we are still betraying the dead children of Tuam (and their mothers and surviving family members) in the much more “enlightened” Ireland of 2019.

--  * Ciaran Tierney won the Irish Current Affairs and Politics Blog of the Year award at the Tramline, Dublin, in October 2018. Find him on Facebook  or Twitter here. Visit his website here - CiaranTierney.com. A former newspaper journalist, he is seeking new opportunities in a digital world. 

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Irish politicians warned of 'retaliation' for settlement goods ban

Irish Current Affairs Blog of the Year

Senator Frances Black celebrating with supporters after the Seanad
voted in favour of the Occupied Territories Bill in July of last year

Corporate lobbyists have issued a strong warning about the potential for “retaliation” by the United States if Irish politicians press ahead with a bill to outlaw goods and services from the illegal Israeli settlements in Palestine.

In a document which was “leaked” to me last week, the lobbyists warn that there could be significant consequences for the Irish economy if the Occupied Territories Bill becomes enacted into Irish law.

Although strong majorities in both houses of the Irish parliament have already voted in favour of the bill, members of the Foreign Affairs Committee were warned that there could be severe implications for the Irish economy when they discussed the bill on Thursday afternoon.

The briefing paper, commissioned by members of the Irish parliament, warns that the proposed ban could undermine diplomatic links between Ireland and both the US and Israel.

“Passing the Bill could remove Ireland’s objectivity in discussions on the peace process in the Middle East, as well as undermine the influence of the Irish Government in direct interaction with the Israeli Government,” warn the authors of the document.

“The Bill could undermine economic and diplomatic links to both the US and Israel. Israel has been outspoken in its criticism of any measures taken against the occupied territories. Some form of response by Israel or the US is a possibility.”

Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu

The document points out that more than 155,000 people are directly employed by over 700 US-owned businesses in Ireland, while these companies support a further 100,000 jobs – accounting for approximately 20% of all employment in Ireland.

Three of Ireland’s ten largest companies, in terms of annual turnover, are US businesses (Apple, Google and Microsoft) and any form of sanction by the US Government would have a serious impact on the Irish economy, they warn.

However, Gerry Liston of Sadaka Ireland, who drafted the Occupied Territories Bill, told me that it was an “absurd assertion” that the legislation could bring about the withdrawal of US foreign direct investment in Ireland.

He pointed out that the bill only relates to the illegal settlements beyond the internationally recognised 1967 border.

“The authors refer to the presence in Ireland of companies such as Apple, Google and Microsoft but omit to note the critical point that these companies have no dealings whatsoever with Israeli settlements and that the Occupied Territories Bill would therefore be of no concern to them,” he said.

Mr Liston said he was surprised that there was no reference at all to three separate legal opinions, obtained by Sadaka Ireland, which have found that the bill is compatible with EU law.

Indeed, Sadaka strongly assert that Ireland is fully entitled to press ahead with the bill to ban goods from the settlements which are deemed to be illegal according to international law. 

A talk about the Occupied Territories Bill in Galway last year

Israeli Government officials have condemned the legislation and it has attracted lobbying from a group of ten US Congressmen, the German-Israel Parliamentary Friendship Group, the Jewish Agency in Israel, and the Israeli Ambassador to Ireland.

Indeed, the briefing document presented to the Irish Foreign Affairs Committee this week echoes claims made by the group of ten US Congressmen, led by Peter King (Republican, New York) in a letter to Irish parliamentarians earlier this year.

The minority Irish Government, led by Fine Gael, has consistently opposed the bill in both the Dail and Seanad, but it has passed through both houses of the Irish Parliament thanks to the support of the main opposition Fianna Fail party, who are keeping the Government in power via a ‘confidence and supply’ arrangement.

It was first moved by Independent Senator Frances Black in July 2018 and has received support from a wide range of groups, including Fianna Fail, Sinn Fein, Labour, Independents, plus NGOs Trocaire and Christian Aid Ireland.

The Irish parliament hired consultants John Spicer and Abdul Malik, of Europe Economics; and Mirja Gutheil, Quentin Liger and Harry Heyburn, of Optimity Advisors, to summarise the positives and negatives of the bill before it is scrutinised by the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade.

They point out that the immediate economic impact would be quite small, but that the bill could have a “domino effect” and that backers of the bill were inspired by the international boycott campaign which helped to bring about the downfall of the Apartheid regime in South Africa in the 1980s.

“It is likely that the State of Israel would impose retaliatory measures which would have a larger impact,” says the briefing document. “The largest potential negative impact of the Bill would be retaliation by the US. It is unclear whether this would materialise, but if they were to, the impact on the Irish economy would be important.”

Congressman Peter King has warned the Irish not to go ahead with the bill

The Fianna Fail spokesman on Foreign Affairs, Niall Collins TD, accused the authors of the policy document of using “inappropriate language” by claiming that “retaliation” to the Occupied Territories Bill would damage the Irish economy.

“The threats which have already been articulated by US Congressman Peter King and Richard Neal, in terms of how corporate America would act in the future towards Ireland, are overstating it in my opinion. I think they are out of touch with the moral and social responsibilities of corporations, their ethics, and how they have to act,” said Mr Collins.

He said that, despite being the Foreign Affairs and Trade spokesman for Ireland’s biggest opposition party, he had not received any correspondence from US multinationals based in Ireland.

“As public representatives, we get lobbied about all sorts of stuff, but nobody from Google, Facebook, or anybody else has contacted me to make their views known.”

With Palestinian cartoonist Mohammad Sabaaneh last week.
He spent five months in prison for his art.

An edited, and shortened, version of this article was published by Electronic Intifada, the largest Palestinian news site (in English) in the world, last week. The article has been shared 950 times on Facebook at the time of publication. The Occupied Territories Bill is due to be discussed again in May. You can find the link to my article at https://electronicintifada.net/content/business-groups-pressure-ireland-drop-ban-israeli-settlement-goods/27066

Please help to support INDEPENDENT journalism in Ireland by hiring Ciaran Tierney to write your business blog or content for your website. Contact Ciaran via ciaran@ciarantierney.com

* Ciaran Tierney won the Irish Current Affairs and Politics Blog of the Year award at the Tramline, Dublin, in October 2018. Find him on Facebook  or Twitter here. Visit his website here - CiaranTierney.com. A former newspaper journalist, he is seeking new opportunities in a digital world.  

A letter from America

Irish Current Affairs Blog of the Year 2018

Senator Frances Black with supporters in Dublin.

Dear --------------,

I understand that in recent days the Fianna Fail party has stated its intention to support the Control of Economic Activity (Occupied Territories) Bill 2018 when it comes up for a vote in the Seanad. I would urge you and your party to reconsider your support for the bill and work to prevent this bill from passing.

In today’s uncertain times it is critical that countries and leaders interested in facilitating a lasting peace amongst Israelis and Palestinians not serve to empower the most radical, who have no interest in seeking peace.

Senator Frances Black’s legislation does just that by undercutting Palestinians truly interested in peace and empowering Hamas terrorists and recalcitrant Palestinians who refuse even to approach negotiations.

If you and the members of Fianna Fail truly want to see lasting peace in the Middle East I would urge you to withdraw your support for this bill and call for a return to the negotiating table.

Thank you for your consideration of this important matter.

Congressman Peter King. 

..........................................

Senator Frances Black with the Palestinian Ambassdor to Ireland
during a talk in Co Galway earlier this year. 

It’s the arrogance that’s most striking.

This idea that a US Congressman knows better than an Irish politician about the measures required to bring lasting peace to the Middle East.

Even though the Irish politician who received this letter may actually have visited Israel and Palestine, and witnessed a terrible injustice with his own eyes.

Sometimes, when you look at the issues creating the headlines, it’s just as informative to examine those which aren’t.

Two weeks ago, a source within the Fianna Fail party provided me with an exact transcript of the above letter.

It was sent by a senior Irish-American Congressman, with a huge profile here in Ireland, in a bid to persuade his party to withdraw its support for the Control of Economic Activity (Occupied Territories) Bill.

To their credit, Fianna Fail supported Senator Frances Black’s bill last week, despite pressure from US Republicans and ‘informal’ visits from members of staff at the US Embassy in Dublin.

In many ways, they surprised us all.

But senior party figures visited the West Bank last July and saw for themselves the devastating impact the occupation and the settlements have had on Palestinian lives.

I expected the letter from Congressman Peter King, even though it was five months old, to cause a bit of a scandal.

Congressman Peter King wrote a letter to Fianna Fail

Here we had evidence of US interference in Irish politics, from a Congressman who is closely linked to US President Donald Trump and his controversial executive order to ban people from seven mainly Muslim countries from travelling to the US last year.

Imagine the controversy, for example, if a Russian member of parliament had lobbied a senior American politician in such a fashion in relation to US foreign policy.

Apart from extensive coverage in one Sunday newspaper, this letter was largely ignored by the media in Ireland.

I wrote about it for both Electronic Intifada, the leading Palestinian website in English in the world, and Irish Central, which mainly caters for an Irish-American readership in the United States.

But it hardly merited a paragraph of coverage here in Ireland.

Senators in Dublin passed the legislation to ban the sale of goods or services from the settlements last week, with little or no coverage of this international dimension to the story.

If anything, Congressman King’s letter is just ludicrous.

The idea that Trocaire or Christain Aid Ireland, who support Senator Black’s bill, would “empower Hamas terrorists” is quite simply bizarre to anyone who knows anything about these respected NGOs who operate in a number of countries.

With Shawan Jabarin from the West Bank earlier this year.
He won the Human Rights Prize of the French Republic this week.

There is absolutely no connection to Hamas in Senator Black’s bill.

Does it even need to be said?

It would ban trade with goods and services from beyond the internationally recognised 1967 border, where more than 500,000 Israelis live in settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The letter underlines the hypocrisy and double standards of Congressman King himself, who faced intense criticism in the 1990s for his attempts to bring Sinn Fein in from the cold.

Although he suggests that Hamas should be isolated, King encouraged dialogue with Irish republicans at a time when the British government was refusing to deal with them.

Senator Black told me last week that she condemned all violence.

It felt ridiculous even having to ask her. This is a woman who has dedicated her life to helping others, to entertaining people through music and song, through working as a counsellor, and inspiring people to deal with addiction issues.

In her short time in politics, she has been a shining example to others, by bringing varied groups together to find common cause. People are genuinely shocked that she received the cross-party support required to get her bill through the Seanad, bringing the likes of Sinn Fein, Fianna Fail, and the Labour Party together.

Indeed, the progress of this bill through the upper house could set a template for others.

No wonder politicians in Israel and the US are uncomfortable, because other countries are watching what's happening in Ireland - just as we led the way in the global campaign against Apartheid South Africa.

Senator Black pressed ahead with this bill because she wanted to respond to the call of civil society in Palestine for international solidarity, for measures to bring hope in the face of a brutal occupation which has now gone on for 51 years.

Both the UN and the EU consider the settlements to be illegal, but what exactly have they done in solidarity with the people who have had their land stolen by force over the past five decades?

What have they done for the villagers of the West Bank whose children have been terrorised by dawn raids for so long? For those who face degrading military checkpoints if they want to go to work or who are told they can only walk on one side of a street in Hebron?

In the last two days, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that the Government will authorise thousands of settler homes, built illegally on the stolen Palestinian land. So much for moving on with a "peace process" which has been a pipe dream for the past four years, as the settlements prevent any real chance of a "two state" solution ever occurring.

This Irish bill can and will set a precedent for other countries across the globe and is due before the Dail in the New Year.

Because of the current make-up of the Dail, it will pass if it continues to attract the support of Fianna Fail.

So it is disappointing, but perhaps not surprising, that pressure from a US Congressman for Fianna Fail to change its stance did not merit more coverage in the Irish media.

Aren’t we all guilty of hypocrisy, though?                             

Ireland is supposedly a ‘neutral’ country and yet we have allowed hundreds of thousands of US troops to pass through Shannon Airport over the past 17 years.

Perhaps our politicians are less forthcoming with the truth than US President Donald Trump, at least when it comes to prioritising jobs and the economy over justice and human rights.

When pressed over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Trump said he would not allow Saudi involvement in a brutal murder interfere with €110 billion worth of arms sales.

Who cares about the killings of thousands of children in Yemen, or the hacking to death of a columnist for the Washington Post, when there are billions worth of deals to be made?

Unlike Trump, who makes it clear that arms deals with Riyadh are more important than human lives, our Irish politicians would prefer if these kinds of awkward questions were never even asked in the first place.


* Ciaran Tierney won the Irish Current Affairs and Politics Blog of the Year award at the Tramline, Dublin, last month. Find him on Facebook  or Twitter here. Visit his website here - CiaranTierney.com.

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Palestine, politicians, and the passion of ordinary Irish people

A little boy flies a Palestinian flag at a demonstration in Galway
Photo courtesy of Skye McKee.

Of all the countries in Europe, Palestinians seem to have a special place in their hearts for the people of Ireland.

It was etched into the faces of the young footballers from Gaza when they were guests of honour at a game between Galway United and Dundalk FC two years ago.

What kind of country, they wondered, would allow them to take pride of place on the pitch before a big game featuring the league champions, mingle with the crowd, and even meet the President of Ireland afterwards?

The things that childhood dreams were made of, as they represented their country, their people, with such pride.

There were tears in their eyes when the entire main stand rose to its feet to chant “Stand up for the Gaza boys!” in the second half of an exciting game.

They were made to feel so special.

It was clear from the pride of their coaches when they spent a day in Kinvara. The small rural community had boycotted Israeli goods while the tiny place where they live was being bombed to bits, causing the deaths of 2,250 people, in 2014.

The Al-Helal boys went to Kinvara, thrashed the local Irish teams, dazzling us with their skills, and were overwhelmed by the generosity of spirit of the local club who arranged for a community circus to perform for them.

These were ordinary people, showing extraordinary care for the members of a football club whose home ground has been bombed twice and whose underage players have experienced so much trauma and conflict in their short lives.

For the most part, they are locked into a little place, which is home to 1.9 million people despite being smaller than Co Louth. The kind of trip which Irish children of the same age take for granted became an extraordinary adventure and a celebration of the ties which bind youngsters who love a game of football together.

Their simple love for the beautiful game and pride in representing their communities transcended the language barrier.

John Griffin of Kinvara presents a Book of Condolences
to the Palestinian Ambassador to Ireland. Photo; Ciaran Tierney

This extraordinary love for Ireland was etched in the broad smile on the face of the Palestinian Ambassador to Ireland, Ahmad Abdelrazek, when he visited Kinvara last weekend. He was overwhelmed that almost an entire village seemed to turn out for a talk about Palestine on a sunny summer’s evening.

On a poignant occasion, when the people of KInvara handed over a Book of Condolences for those who had died in the recent massacre in Gaza, he smiled as he recalled the “secret missions” he has undertaken to Kinvara over the past four years.

He told the villagers how, unannounced and with no fanfare, he often brought international visitors to the South Galway village over the past four years.

His mission was to show them the place which organised a community-wide boycott of Israeli products in response to the sustained Israeli bombing of Gaza, one of the most crowded places on earth, in 2014.

All of them were taken aback by the compassion the people of the village had shown to those living under a brutal siege hundreds of miles away in Palestine.

It was clear from the happy response from the international human rights lawyer from Ramallah upon his arrival at Dublin Airport last month.

What was the purpose of his trip, the customs officer wanted to know.

“I am visiting my second home,” came the delighted man’s reply.

“Oh, do you have a home here?” asked the startled customs officer.

No, he replied. But he had always felt that Ireland was his second home since he studied human rights here for a year in 2005. Even after a travel ban prevented him from picking up a ‘Student of the Decade’ award nine years ago.

The customs offer laughed and gave him a warm welcome back to the land he referred to as his second home.

With Senator Frances Black and the Palestinian Ambassador
during a talk about Palestine in Kinvara, Co Galway, last month

It was etched in the faces of the people when I visited a Palestinian refugee camp in Jordan a decade ago. As the only Irish person in a small group of foreign visitors, I was singled out for attention. They all wanted to meet and greet the Irish man.

I was almost embarrassed by the attention. Once they heard I was Irish, the locals gave me a particularly warm welcome.

Almost every Palestinian person I have met has told me about this deep love for Ireland.

They know about our history, our story of colonisation and being treated as second class citizens in our own land.

They know about plantations, people being displaced from their land, and how it took so long for the Irish to see their liberation. As their own ‘Nakba’, or catastrophe, enters its 71st year they are moved by our story and inspired by the way our people resisted occupation.

They see the Irish as a shining light, an example of what they can achieve.

And sometimes it’s embarrassing when you try to explain to them that our politicians don’t always reflect the wishes of the people.

Young footballers from Gaza who love coming to Ireland

People like those in the tiny community of Kinvara who packed the town hall on a sunny Friday night to talk about Palestine.

People like the families who host their young footballers free of charge and the activists who go through so much bureaucracy to make sure the best of their footballing youngsters can live out their dreams by witnessing the green of Ireland.

By playing our best players, by enjoying the peace and quiet of places like Kinvara, or the joys of a circus in a rural field, the kinds of things our own youngsters take for granted, the Irish give them a glimpse of how good life can be.

You are almost embarrassed to tell them that our politicians are afraid of voting for a bill this month which would implement international law in Ireland.

Over the past few weeks, Senator Frances Black (Independent) has been travelling the country to tell small communities about her Occupied Territories Bill, which would ban goods from illegal Israeli settlements from Ireland.

When she explains the settlements at talks in Irish towns and cities – the fact that more than 500,000 people live on stolen land, beyond recognised international borders – she is overwhelmed by the support of ordinary Irish people.

Gaza footballers in Galway. Photo: Andrew Downes

When she talks passionately about the daily humiliations and harassments she has seen in the West Bank, people are angry and sad.

They want to do anything they can to help the children of Palestine.

If it means passing a bill which merely makes international law the law of this land, they see no issue with it. In fact, they are proud that our land could set a precedent for others.

They understand what it would mean to the people of the West Bank. They agree with Senator Black, that it’s time to make sure these goods and services from illegal settlements, considered war crimes under the Geneva Conventions, do not end up on the shelves of Irish stores and supermarkets.

It might be a small thing, but it would send out a powerful signal across the globe.

Senior members of Fianna Fail visited the West Bank just last week to see the hardships imposed on people living under a brutal occupation for themselves.

All week, Irish people have been emailing and calling their politicians to express their support for this bill.

Of course, there are pressing issues which need to be dealt with here in Ireland, including the homelessness crisis and shortcomings in the provision of health care.

But the Irish people have never forgotten where they came from or that their voice can be a powerful one on the world stage.

Senator Black has given up on the Government, who she believes are too in thrall of their European masters to put international law into the laws of our own land.

But imagine, just imagine, the boost it would give to ordinary Palestinians facing daily humiliations at checkpoints across the West Bank if the Irish actually took the lead rather than wait for instructions from our European ‘masters’.

The prospect of any lasting peace, or ‘two state’ solution, is being erased with every new settlement built on occupied land.

The Gaza kids with the Galway United FC mascot
Photo: Sean Ryan. 

Years ago, a small group of women in a Dublin branch of Dunnes Stores made headlines when they refused to handle goods from South Africa at the height of the Apartheid regime.

Their bravery was instrumental in bringing about the downfall of a repressive, deeply unjust regime. It was no surprise when President Nelson Mandela sought them out, ahead of our leading politicians, when he made a visit to Ireland.

People don’t want to hear about trade deals or taking advice from our European leaders while land is being gobbled up by settlers in the West Bank and people in Gaza are trapped in what has been described as an open air prison.

On July 11, Ireland can set an example for countries all across the globe, but it will take courage from our political leaders.

All they have to do is show their support for international law by voting for a bill which finally would show the people of Palestine that our green little island deserves the special place they seem to hold for it in all of their hearts.

Maybe then we actually will deserve the adulation which a people who have suffered so much seem to reserve for this former colony on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean.

* UPDATE: Within 24 hours of this blog being written, the Fianna Fail party announced tonight (Tuesday) that they have decided to support Senator Black's bill on July 11. This is a hugely significant development and means that Ireland should become the first country in Europe to ban 'settlement' goods next Wednesday. What a powerful statement that will be from a small country which is aiming to take a place on the UN Security Council. Solidarity with a small country and leading the way in terms of turning international human rights law into national legislation could set a shining example for small nations across the globe. 

Find out more about Senator Black's bill at http://www.sadaka.ie/




Ciaran Tierney is a journalist, blogger, and digital storyteller, based in Galway, Ireland. Find him on Facebook at http://facebook.com/ciarantierneymedia

Hire a digital journalist or blogger at http://ciarantierney.com

Welcome to the City of Bluster

Did you know there was a "prayer crisis" in my city this week? No?

Well, I guess you might be more familiar with the homelessness crisis.                                  

It's festival season in Galway, but our councillors are
bickering over their pre-meeting prayers

At this time of year, Galway is buzzing with life. The pubs and restaurants are packed, the arts venues are heaving, but every night visitors are taken aback by the number of people they see bedding down in shop doorways.

They can’t imagine what it must be like to bed out in the most western city in Europe during the cold, wet, and windy months when tourists don’t fill the hotels and the rain and winds sweep in from the Atlantic seaboard.

The scenes in Galway this year are unprecedented, reminding me of the alarming level of homelessness I witnessed in San Francisco - where at least the climate is much better - two decades ago.

The problem in Galway has become more and more acute and more visible. Last winter, for example, homeless people could be seen to brave the harsh elements in a shelter in Salthill for the first time.

Photos circulated of the number of people lying in doorways on Forster Street on the morning of the funeral of a prominent campaigner for the homeless in the city. The sad irony was not lost on his family members and friends.

What the tourists don’t see are the women and children in distress, who have escaped from domestic violence in order to stay in safe houses run by charities at locations throughout the city.

Or how those safe houses can be full to capacity at certain times of year, forcing the members of some families to sleep in cars or on friends' couches.

You won’t see them lying in shop doorways, huddling together in sleeping bags, but they are homeless all the same.

On a special Facebook page, people literally beg for rooms and offer favours as students compete with workers to find places for the academic year.

There have been very few houses built since greedy bankers and developers bankrupt the economy almost a decade ago, putting a massive strain on accommodation as the economy continues to recover.

With rents rising alarmingly, and tourism booming, ordinary people feel they are being squeezed out of their own city and the waiting list for local authority homes includes hundreds of families and individuals who have been stuck in a limbo for years.

There is a transport crisis in my city.                                                    

The people who run this beautiful city spent 75 minutes
arguing over whether they should pray at meetings

In their infinite wisdom, city planners built hundreds of homes on the west side of the city for people who would then find work in factories on the east side.

They have planned everything around the car, in a city which was built for pedestrians or horses when it was founded over 500 years ago.

The roads are choked with traffic, to such an extent that friends living in Dublin tell us it takes them as long to get across Galway on a Friday evening as the entire journey from Dublin to the eastern outskirts.

Every morning, we hear about the huge tailbacks experienced by workers stuck in traffic on their way to the city from satellite towns and villages. They all sit, frustrated, in their cars for hours because nobody ever thought about providing decent public transport for them.

They rage against the city planners, because commuting times are comparable to those in cities ten times bigger than Galway. There is no sign of a decent bus service, safe cycle lanes, or the kind of light rail tram which would encourage so many people to leave their cars at home.
                             

The Catholic Cathedral dominates the city's skyline

There is a health care crisis in my city.

People living as far away as Donegal or Sligo have to come to Galway to spend hours upon hours waiting for treatment in our choked up public hospital.

The frustrations of dealing with illness, or visiting close family members or friends who are ill or in need of urgent treatment, are magnified by trying to negotiate gridlocked roads.

When they manage to make it to University Hospital Galway, they find the cost of parking prohibitive – if they are ‘lucky’ enough to find parking spaces at all. They don’t have the local knowledge to try to find a cheaper parking place in a city where the local authority views car parking as a serious source of revenue.

You’d imagine these important issues would be of huge concern to our local representatives, given that Galway is the European Capital of Culture for 2020 and this beautiful city relies so much on its reputation for friendliness to generate tourism revenue.

But, if you look at the local paper, the biggest issue to engage the members of Galway City Council before their lengthy summer break this week was a dispute over whether or not they should have a Roman Catholic prayer at the start of their regular meetings.

Flags flying over Galway City Hall, scene of this week's
enlightening 'debate' over the pre-meeting prayer

Housing, homelessness, or the health care crisis did not get a look in when the councillors managed to spend 75 minutes arguing vehemently over whether or not they should retain their Catholic prayer.

This week, before the break, they only had one thing to talk about – their precious Standing Orders and the prayer. The meeting had to be adjourned twice by Mayor Pearce Flannery (FG), on one occasion to allow the City Councillors to “cool off” during a heated debate.

There were even allegations of bullying and grandstanding among the pious Fianna Fail members of  Galway City Council, who were enraged that their precious prayer was being disposed of.

For non-Irish readers, these are the members of the political party which managed to bankrupt Ireland as recently as 2008. You might imagine they have more pressing issues on their minds.

So, to their shock and horror, the Councillors will no longer have a prayer in Irish before their meetings from September. They will replace it with a short period of silent reflection.

During the course of more than 20 years of reporting on the local authority, I always found it extremely odd that councillors, officials, journalists, and members of the public were expected to join in a Catholic prayer at the start of every City Council meeting.

I even felt distinctly uncomfortable about it during the 1990s, when the Irish people were being rocked by a succession of scandals involving the Catholic Church.

What kind of message did that convey to Protestants, Muslims, Buddhists, Pagans, or people of no religion, to see that those who governed them lived by an ethos of a “Catholic country for a Catholic people”?

Tourists enjoying the vibrant street culture of Galway

The council chamber hardly felt like the most inclusive or welcoming place when one religious group was given preference above all others at the start of every meeting.

Scrapping the pre-meeting prayer was surely a no-brainer in a society which may hope to welcome one million Protestants to a secular, pluralist United Ireland some day. It should have been abolished decades ago, despite the heated – and vocal – protestations of the Fianna Fail representatives.

They actually did not move on to any other issue because the councillors became so animated in their debates over the precious prayer.

If they can get so animated over a matter as trivial as a divisive prayer, imagine how heated the exchanges will be when they get around to solving the city’s housing and traffic problems.

Oh, wait … That’s not actually on their agenda!


Ciaran Tierney is a journalist, blogger, and Digital Storyteller, based in Galway, Ireland. You can find his Facebook page here

To hire a writer or blogger, contact Ciaran via http://ciarantierney.com

Perhaps this time, change really is in the air

During last May’s local election count, I interviewed Fianna Fail TD Eamon O Cuiv for the Connacht Tribune. In the midst of a discussion about how the count was going, he told me that there was “no such thing as right and left” in Irish politics.

It struck me as a very odd comment.

In virtually any other country in the world, there is a clear distinction between right wing parties (who favour big business and an open market economy) and those on the left (who feel that the poor should never be penalised for the wrong-doings of the rich).

Maggie Thatcher, for instance, was right wing. She sold off council houses, privatised as much as she could, and closed down the mines. She attacked the working class. Whereas the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, where I volunteered for three months, were idealistic left-wingers (at least in their early days) after overthrowing a right-wing dictatorship.

O Cuiv, of course, is steeped in Irish political history. His grandfather, Eamon De Valera, was Taoiseach three times and President of Ireland. Fianna Fail is in his blood.

People like him don’t like to be reminded that Ireland has effectively been run by centre-right parties since its foundation. If you took the Civil War out of the equation, can anyone really distinguish between Fianna Fail and Fine Gael?

If they were in Britain, both parties would be labelled as “Conservative”. It has never been a radical move by voters to replace one with the other. Instead, it has always boiled down to family loyalties and friendships. The parish pump has been the real driving force in Irish politics.

The danger is that a certain perception of the Irish political landscape can then somehow be deemed the one and only “reality”. If all the major parties support the ‘bailout’, you can be labelled a lunatic if you question whether there is another way.

The dominant narrative allows people to ridicule those who believe it is absolutely appalling that the low paid should have to bail out unsecured bondholders.

It allows an RTE newsreader to label idealistic protesters as “idiots” live on air.

It allows elements of the media to completely ignore the anger that is so prevalent across the country in the wake of seven years of austerity.

Images of Gardai confronting Irish Water protesters don't make the national airwaves, but those who do protest are labelled as the "sinister fringe".

An academic even claimed recently that people were only protesting over the Irish Water charges because things were getting better. He called it a “revolution of rising expectations”.

When the Troika came to Dublin in 2010, I was working as a volunteer in Central America. Canadians and Germans sympathised with me. Some wondered why there was not a greater spirit of rebellion among the Irish. I could not tell them why people back home were so down, so accepting of the imposition of austerity on ordinary people who had nothing to do with the “crisis” which followed the property crash.

People who never bought a second house or SUV were suddenly lumped with the Universal Social Charge, pay cuts, and the Local Property Tax, for no other reason than to bail out a tiny elite who had been consumed by greed during the Celtic Tiger era.

In 2011, support for the Fianna Fail-led Government imploded, but voters only replaced them with another centre-right coalition. Can anyone really claim that Government policies have changed since the night of the infamous bank guarantee in 2008?

It has been a horrible few years for the Irish, but now there are huge hints of change in the air.

In last year’s European Elections the people of the West, Midlands, and North West voted for two Independents, one Sinn Fein MEP, and one Fine Gael. The most conservative constituency in the country, supposedly, returned three protest (or left wing) candidates out of four – and only one from the ‘traditional’ parties (FF, FG, and Labour).

A protest against Irish Water drew 100,000 people onto the streets of Dublin a few months ago. That would have been unthinkable half a decade ago. These were ordinary people, fed up with austerity, fed up with quangos, and the ‘bonus culture’ and sense of entitlement of those who rise to the top of these kinds of organisations.

For many people, the obscene bonuses and the sight of water meters being installed in their estates came as a final straw. 

All around Europe this week, there were stark warnings from right wing politicians and mainstream media that the Eurozone was about to be plunged into turmoil if the left-wing party, Syriza, won the Greek general election.

Fair play to the people of Greece. They have had enough of austerity, unemployment, and job cuts. They are tired of paying a price for the sins of others. And they were not afraid to defy the stark warnings in Sunday’s elections.

Syriza have pledged to renegotiate the country’s €240 billion bailouts, just as businesses regularly restructure their debts. Greece’s debt is equivalent to 175% of its GDP and the Greeks, like the Irish, need some hope after years of cuts.

Of course, Syriza’s victory has sent “shockwaves” through the markets, with speculation that Greece will default and have to leave the Eurozone.

But, amid all the stark warnings, the Greek people still went out and voted for the hard left.

While our hospitals remain overcrowded, while homelessness continues to be a huge problem, and the jobless rate is disguised through JobBridge and community employment schemes, the rise of Syriza should provide a stark lesson to Enda Kenny and company in the Irish Government.

In the second half of last year, the Irish Water demonstrations all over the country showed that people here are prepared to get out and protest – in one of the least radical countries in Europe. 

It will be interesting to see what happens in Greece now and whether the stark predictions of a Eurozone exit will materialise. 

By choosing to vote for Syriza, Greek voters have dared to question the perceived “reality” in which it is perfectly acceptable for ordinary people to bail out bankers and bondholders. 

The people have spoken. All across Europe, in Spain, Ireland, and Portugal, change is in the air.

And perhaps people here are beginning to realise that replacing FF with FG, or vice-versa, is not the only answer come election time.

Nobody wants to see a host of Independents bring instability to the Dail. But, equally, voters want to express their anger at the establishment parties after putting up with austerity for so long.

The next year or two could be very exciting indeed in Irish politics as a “wind of change” brings an end, finally, to the politics of the Civil War. It has only taken us just under a century to fall in line with the rest of the world!

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