Joyous faces in the Galway rain

So what does it mean to be Irish?

And what’s the best way to celebrate on our national holiday?        

Awaiting the parade in the Galway wind and rain

Those questions hit me on a strange St Patrick’s Day this year, when I took in my city’s rain-swept parade, attended the funeral of an old friend’s sister, and somehow managed to survive a night as possibly the only sober person in a crowded Galway pub.

Is the best way to celebrate being Irish to get absolutely hammered, as so many did on our national holiday?

Friends in the service industries tell me they hate to work on this particular day.

The stereotype of the "drunken Irish" has become such a cliche that Amazon even tried to sell an offensive green 'Drunk Lives Matter' t-shirt this year.

In one fell swoop, they managed to insult the entire Irish race and the black people in the United States who have genuine grievances with the racist elements of their country's police.

I've long since given up on hard drinking on March 17, as it can be alarming to walk through Galway city centre in the evening and to see so many drunken "zombies" milling about the place.

And, normally, I'd give the parade a miss if the weather was foul.

But this year there were lessons to be learned from the way thousands of people made the most of atrocious conditions to celebrate our national holiday.

To be honest, like many people, I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with my native land. For most of my adult life, I have fantasised about leaving the cold and wet island behind in order to live in a place with a warmer, more welcoming climate.

As a young man in London in the late 1980s, I revelled the experience of leaving the confines and constraints of home behind. London offered freedom, wildness, and a multi-cultural environment which seemed alien compared to the confines of ‘Catholic’ Ireland.

Try telling people now that it was impossible to buy a condom or to get a divorce in the Ireland of my youth. That repressive country felt like a different planet from the one that voted for Marriage Equality in May 2015.

A view of the parade
by Turlough Moore

I experienced long breaks in places like Australia, Egypt, Spain and Thailand, and loved the experience of holidaying or scuba diving in hot climates.

I fantasised so much about moving to hot countries, I almost wished my life away.

If you decide in November that you are going to hate the next five months of your life then - guess what! - that invariably becomes your truth.

You don't make any room for joy on a winter's afternoon down by the Salthill prom.

Wanderlust, of course, is part of who we are. I have friends from Galway who are scattered all over the world.

They have made new lives in the US, UK, Australia, Norway, and Thailand, because they never saw their futures back home on the wet and windy rock.

In 2010, during a gap year, I lived out my ‘Bucket List’. A full year away from Ireland brought me unbrldled joy, the chance to live and work in Thailand and Nicaragua, and left me with a real sense of doom and gloom upon my return.

So I have to admit I had one of those dark days of the soul when I opened the curtains on Friday morning. I cursed the dark, grey sky and found myself wishing I hadn’t agreed to cover the Galway St Patrick’s Day Parade for a national newspaper.

It was with dread that I made my way to Eyre Square, wishing I could just close the curtains, put on a fire, and spend the day at home. But work is work, especially for a freelancer!

And there was a valuable lesson to be learned.

All around me were smiling people, making the most of the driving wind and miserable rain. Tourists and locals alike were determined to enjoy themselves, even though the rational side of any human being would say it was no day for an outdoor parade.

It was amazing to see such good humour among the 1,000 poor participants who were soaked to the skin as they approached the end of the parade route.

I didn’t see a single person cry or complain, although a politician joked to me that the Town Crier “must be crying now” with the kind irreverence and good humour us Irish can take for granted at times.

Could you imagine a British MP joking with an English journalist with such informal ‘craic’ in his voice as he sat outside in the cold and rain?

Given our country’s terrible relationship with alcohol – and how downright messy St Patrick’s Night can become – it felt so fitting to me that a young man who has battled alcoholism and addiction was the guest of honour at the Galway parade.

The weather was simply awful, but it was great for me to meet Gavan Hennigan for the first time.

This young man from Knocknacarra rowed solo across the Atlantic earlier this year and showed plenty of good humour as he surveyed the one hour parade from the viewing stand.

“If you can put up with conditions like this, that’s the best training you can get!” joked the extreme athlete in the relentless rain.

“The conditions are pretty tough. It’s as bad as it is out in the middle of the Atlantic, nearly. I think it’s incredible that so many people came out to enjoy the parade today, given the conditions.”

Gavan has been overwhelmed by the welcome he has received in his native Galway since completing his solo row.

What a role model he has become for the children of his native city. Gavan hit rock bottom in his late teens and early 20s, but he has shown us all what can be done with determination and the will to turn his life around.

“I was kind of worried that a lot of people wouldn’t know who I was, but a lot of kids were shouting out my name as I made my way through the city today. Overall, the reception has just been incredible since I got back,” he said.

Following Gavan at the head of the parade were the Galway 2020 activists who secured European Capital of Culture status for the city and the Let’s Get Galway Growing network, whose community-based projects played a key role in securing the prestigious Green Leaf 2017 designation.

There's no rain like Galway rain .... !

The awful weather failed to dampen the spirits of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts, the oldest military company in the United States and one of three visiting groups from overseas.

Some of the more colourful floats were provided by representatives of the city’s ethnic communities, including a fantastic red and yellow dragon from the Irish Chinese Society.

The Galway Traveller Movement celebrated their recent designation as a minority ethnic group, while That’s Life Gamelan Players highlighted the wonders of performance theatre for people with special needs.

The most magical moment of the day came when a young man with special needs brought a giant love heart up to the politicians in the viewing platform, and then decided not to share his love with them.

That simple, wild, irreverent gesture prompted a huge ironic cheer.

Representatives of the city’s Filipino, Polish, South African, and Indian communities underlined just how multicultural my city has become, and every one of them seemed to be genuinely thrilled to be representing their communities in the driving rain and near gale-force winds.

I was amazed by the salsa dancers. They revelled in showing off their slick dance moves on the street in conditions which must have been totally off-putting for most of them. And they went through their dance moves with huge, beaming smiles.

There was a special round of applause for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Association, who marched behind a banner which proclaimed ‘Love for All, Hatred for None’.

“I haven’t seen the parade in years, because I’ve been away gallivanting on adventures, but the first thing that jumped out at me today was the diversity of the communities here in Galway. It’s great to see it,” Gavan told me afterwards.

It was a relief when the parade ended, I have to admit, and a joy to get home to put on a hot drink and change my clothes.

But it was still so uplifting to see the joy on so many faces on a horrible day in my native Galway, the kind of day which would normally make me fantasise about moving to sunnier climes.

The drunken steretype: one of the more offensive t-shirts
on sale in the USA to mark St Patrick's Day

Each and every one of the 1,000 participants in the parade, and the thousands watching them pass by, taught me a lesson about acceptance.

You can wish your life away, dreaming of beaches and sunnier climes, or you can leave the house with a smile on your face and celebrate the joy each new day can bring.

Attitude is so important and the people in Galway city centre on Friday could teach a cynic a thing or two about making the most of life in horrible conditions.

And that’s how I will remember a joyful St Patrick’s Day, 2017.

The true spirit of the Irish is in the beaming faces who embraced a  communal event despite in the rain, not in the scenes of drunkenness in the crowded pubs hours after the parade had ended.

Slainte!


Earlier blog post: Banned from the land that made us refugees .... http://ciarantierney.blogspot.ie/2017/01/banned-from-land-that-made-us-refugees.html


Check out Ciaran Tierney Digital Storyteller's Facebook page: http://facebook.com/ciarantierneymedia

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The biggest challenge facing us all

A friend of mine sent me a link to a feature-length documentary over the

Of all the contentious issues President-elect Trump stands for,
climate change denial might be the most troubling of them all

weekend and, after watching it last night, I have to confess I’m shocked that I hadn’t heard more about it or engaged in more of a debate about its contents.

Perhaps it got lost in the furore over the election of Donald Trump, the concerns over his racism, his xenophobia, his sexism, and how he pandered to hatreds and fears; because the whole world was in shock for days or weeks, the film didn’t get the attention it deserved.

But, given that this has been the hottest year on record, it was probably the most important film released anywhere across the world in 2016.

The stark message behind ‘Before The Flood’ concerns man’s propensity for self-destruction. UN Ambassador and Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio takes a harrowing look at how climate change is set to render the planet uninhabitable for our children and grandchildren.

What an awful legacy that would be from a species which has already caused the extinction of many species and decimated ecosystems across the planet over a couple of hundred years.

The film, produced by National Geographic, has been released free of charge in order to raise awareness and yet, because of the hysteria over Trump’s election, it didn’t get anything like the attention it deserved.

Here in Ireland, we love to talk about the weather. We can have four seasons in one day. But climate change . . . that’s another issue. It’s such a massive threat to all our futures, such a huge issue, that few of us want to sit down and talk about reducing our carbon footprints or eliminating our use of fossil-fuels.

We can see the effects of climate change every day. Our winters are colder – ironically, an impact of climate change in this particular part of the world – and we no longer seem to enjoy the hot and sunny summers which were at least an occasional part of life a few years ago.

Most of us drive to work and school, and then wonder why we are stuck in traffic jams. We burn coal, oil, and wood to increase CO2 emissions and we have seen a huge increase in extreme weather patterns, including flooding, over the past half-decade.

People laughed at Teresa Mannion’s almost hysterical RTE report from Salthill this time last year, but the reality is we never used to have such extreme weather patterns before.

One of the most striking things about ‘Before The Flood’ was the way in which scientists who warned about climate change were consistently ridiculed by the Rupert Murdoch-owned Fox News.

Because of the fossil-fuel industries, there is a consistent campaign to denigrate those who raise concerns about global warming.

Teresa Mannion's memorable weather report for RTE last year

Trump ridiculed the same scientists during the US Presidential Election campaign and, now that he’s about to take power, he poses a real danger to the entire future of the planet.

The environment? Who cares! He’s going to restore jobs in the places where coal plants closed down and people are in despair. Climate change? A myth. There’s even a clip in the film which shows Trump complaining about the cold on the campaign trail.

“It’s supposed to be 70 degrees today, it’s freezing. Where is global warming?” laughs Trump, ignorantly making a mockery of the scientists who believe human behaviour poses a threat to the future of the planet.

Is climate change real? Of course it is. It’s evident in the unprecedented flooding in places like South Galway in recent years, where nothing like this ever happened before.

It’s evident in Asian cities like Beijing, Shanghai, or Bangkok, where merely breathing in the city air can cause damage to your lungs.

The polar ice caps are melting at an alarming rate

It’s evident in Greenland, where hundreds of cubic kilometres of ice no longer exist – they have fallen into the sea, where rising levels will eventually threaten places like Galway, Cork, or Miami.

It’s evident at coral reefs all across the planet. Ask any experienced scuba diver and they will tell you that the reefs are dying at an alarming rate. In the last 30 years, 50% of all coral has been lost. To suggest this is not due to human behaviour is simply absurd.

A friend of mine who worked at a dive centre in Asia for more than ten years says it’s too upsetting for him to return to familiar old dive sites, because so much healthy coral has disappeared.

The future of the entire scuba diving industry on the beautiful Thai island where I worked as a divemaster six years ago is now under threat because of plans to build a coal plant nearby on the mainland.

Tourism on Koh Lanta would be unthinkable without the dive industry which draws people back every year.                                                                              

An underwater protest against the proposed
coal plant for Krabi, Thailand

The Great Barrier Reef, one of the most spectacular places on earth, will not be around in a decade or two because of human behaviour.

There is no doubt that there are other major issues we need to deal with – homelessness, joblessness, inequality, and a deficient health service among them here in Ireland – but climate change is surely the biggest issue facing us all.

So what do we do?

We allow huge companies with an interest in fossil-fuels to spread misinformation because it suits their agenda not to pass legislation which could deal with the problem.

We elect a man who doesn’t believe in global warming to the highest office in the world because he says he will create more jobs and “make America great again”.

We drive to work or school, when it would be just as easy to walk or cycle, or jet off to holiday destinations for a week because flying is no longer a luxury for ordinary people.

We burn fossil-fuels in huge plants, to such an extent that horrible smog is now a normal part of life in some cities and people have to wear face masks every time they go outside.

There are no easy solutions, and change has to start at a micro level, but what’s really frightening is the way in which people like Trump and Fox News presenters can dismiss alarming scientific evidence so readily.

Already, before he has even taken office, Trump has announced that all climate change research conducted by NASA will be eliminated, because he wants to crackdown on “politicized science”.

At the moment, NASAs network of satellites provide a huge wealth of information about global warning.

Trump seems to suggest that scientists who are concerned about the sustainability of our planet have a political agenda, as though the corporations which rely on fossil-fuels for profits do not.
How many unjust wars have we seen being fought over oil?

And how many people have stood up and cried ‘halt’ when rainforests across the planet were being destroyed?

There is long-established evidence that burning fossil fuels and cutting down the rainforests causes the release of heat-trapping gases, raising temperatures across the planet.

Pollution is a huge problem in cities across the globe

The US has been the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases in history and now developing nations like India feel they have the right to catch up . . . they want electricity, heat, and all the trappings of 21st century life which those of us who live in Europe or North America already enjoy.

Trump’s election has clearly posed a threat to Muslims, illegal immigrants, Mexicans, and women in the US.

But, given he once said that climate change was a “hoax”, it could have a terrible impact on every living create across the globe. There has never been a bigger threat to the future of life as we know it.

How ironic that the man who railed against lobbyists and corporate interest groups during the US election campaign could speed up the destruction of the entire planet because he’s willing to pander to those very same lobbyists and interest groups.

It’s a scary time for us all.


Check out the feature-length documentary from National Geographic and the UN, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SU2rN2QYAK0&t=4996s

Ciaran Tierney is a journalist, blogger, and digital storyteller, based in Galway, Ireland. 

Find Ciaran on Twitter, @ciarantierney

http://ciarantierney.com/

Cockroaches? How easy it is to forget

If UK newspaper columnist Katie Hopkins had been a New York socialite in the 1840s, she might have referred to the Irish as ‘cockroaches’.

Imagine the sight of them, thousands upon thousands arriving at Ellis Island on the ‘coffin ships’, many of them without a word of English or a dime to begin their new lives in the new world.

About 100 ships full of impoverished, desperate people left my home city, Galway, over a three year period between 1847 and 1850.

Most of the passengers were ill-equipped for the long Atlantic crossing or the massive changes they could expect when they completed the voyage.                            

Katie Hopkins: refers to migrants as 'cockroaches',
brought to Ireland to defend Trump's racist views

But they had little choice, they were escaping the Great Famine. It didn’t matter that the British Empire had driven them to starvation or that they were escaping gross injustice – they were seen almost as the dregs of humanity by some people in New York City at the time.

As they poured into Irish ghettoes such as Hell’s Kitchen and Woodlawn, they didn’t care too much about what the ‘natives’ – all immigrants or the descendants of immigrants themselves – thought of them.

They were just glad to have survived.

They were the equivalent of Syrians and Iraqis today; escaping war, poverty, and famine to fulfil the very human need of finding some sort of a decent life for themselves and their children.

The problem with calling people ‘cockroaches’ – as the UK columnist did so offensively earlier this year – is that they then become dehumanised.

It’s easier to hate people when you don’t see them as human beings any more. It's easier to justify attacking them on buses or trains, because people who do so are emboldened by "celebrity" racists like Hopkins.

It doesn’t matter that Ms Hopkins’ own country, the UK, has played a huge part in the misery which engulfed those same migrants.

The Famine Memorial Park in Galway

It’s fine for her British Army heroes to bomb civilians to smithereens in cities and towns thousands of miles from home, but not for those civilians – fleeing in terror – to turn up on makeshift boats crying out for help on our shores.

When Celia Griffin, a little six year old girl from Connemara, died of starvation in 1847 there were thousands of people all across Ireland desperately trying to put the money together to set sail for the Americas.

Many of them died on the ‘coffin ships’ before they got to the other side as they didn’t have enough food for the voyage.

Just like the Syrian and Iraqi migrants today,

Irish people would have given their last dollar to traffickers in the hope of finding a new life – and some hope – at the end of a distressing boat journey.

In Galway, it took us a century and a half to erect a memorial to Celia - and all the Great Famine victims - because nobody wanted a reminder of such a distressing time in our history.

It was left to the late Mark Kennedy, who passed away last month, to remind us that we should never forget this harrowing period in our shared history.

In London at that time, the equivalents of Ms Hopkins had a great time mocking the starving Irish in their ‘witty’ cartoons.

In 2016, according to Ms Hopkins, migrants who flee war and persecution don't matter.

"Make no mistake, these migrants are like cockroaches," she wrote in April. "They might look a bit "Bob Geldof's Ethiopia circa 1984", but they are built to survive a nuclear bomb. They are survivors."

And, according to national broadcaster RTE, there is nothing wrong with giving a platform to a person with vile, racist views on national television on a Friday night.

Hence, the decision to invite her onto the flagging ‘Late Late Show’ last weekend.

It didn’t matter that the invitation led to a flood of complaints in advance, or that her appalling views were going to be challenged. Presumably, what really mattered was that the increased ratings brought about by the controversy boosted the profile of a jaded show. She got people talking.                                                  

US President-elect Donald Trump: people are now trying
to justify some of his racist comments during the campaign

But does it matter?

Does it matter that the people Ms Hopkins referred to as ‘cockroaches’ are fleeing war and terror which her own country, the UK, is partially responsible for?

Of course it matters.

She was flown into Dublin from London to justify the racist views of a man who has just been elected President of the United States.

All week, people have been attempting to justify the indefensible from Donald Trump.

They have been wildly back-tracking and looking for glimmers of hope after an extraordinary campaign built on ignorance, hatred, and fear.

Is it wrong that the leader of a nation which was built on immigration can refer to Mexicans as rapists? What, all 122 million of them?

It’s wrong that illegal immigration is blamed for the troubles of a nation which has yet to face up to all the suffering it has caused to Native Americans. The United States of America were built on stolen land and the slave trade.

It’s incredible that the views of a man who boasted about groping and abusing women, because his wealth and fame allowed him to do so, can be defended so virulently by anyone.

Or that the national broadcaster would give a licence to someone who boasts of having racist views to do so.

It’s frightening that such a man can call from all Muslims to be banned from his country. There are 1.6 billion Muslims all across the planet and most of them, just like the rest of us, are trying to get on with happy, peaceful lives.

People seem to have forgotten already that this kind of abhorrent language was used to describe Jewish people in 1930s Germany.

It’s frightening that a man who can mock the disabled in front of millions of television viewers can be considered a suitable candidate for ‘leader of the free world’.

It’s scary that, in a nation which has a huge problem with gun crime, Trump is completely opposed to gun control.

It’s even more frightening that Donald Trump can dismiss the threat of climate change, surely the biggest issue facing humanity in 2016.

There is no doubt that Trump tapped into huge levels of anger towards the political establishment in America. That’s understandable.

What’s not understandable is how someone who can dehumanise so many people (Mexicans, women, Muslims, the disabled) can have racist or bigoted views uncontested.

Cartoonist Richard Chapman sums up Europe and America's
current attitude to migrants fleeing wars and persecution.

It was shameful that RTE chose last week, of all weeks, to invite a woman who sees no problem with describing human beings as ‘cockroaches’ onto its main weekend chat show.

Who cares about bad taste, spreading hatred, or fear-mongering? As long as the ratings are up, the national broadcaster seems happy to allow someone spread ignorance and racial intolerance.

Do we really learn from the past?

It’s a good job there wasn’t a ‘Late Late Show’ – or a Katie Hopkins – when Celia Griffin was dying of starvation in 1847.

Because imagine how horrified Irish people would have been if someone described a little six year old girl who died at the side of a road as nothing more than a cockroach.



Why not hire a ghost blogger?


Ciaran Tierney is a journalist, blogger, and digital storyteller, based in Galway, Ireland. 

Keep buying the leprechauns

Check out my business website: http://ciarantierney.com/

The horror of Syria: Irish people still don't connect
goings-on at Shannon with the "war on terror"

“Sure, as long as they keep buying the leprechauns . . . “

In October 2016, a significant increase in the number of US soldiers passing through Shannon Airport was noted by activists who monitor activities at the airport on a daily basis.

The increased activity has been linked to an onslaught against the Iraqi city of Mosul and a marked growth in the number of troops on the ground in both Syria and Iraq.

As Shannon’s role in the US-led “war on terror” enters its 16th year, it’s remarkable that their presence barely merits a mention in the Irish media.

No Garda has ever searched a plane, despite concerns that dangerous chemicals such as white phosphorous and prisoners on their way to and from Guantanamo Bay in Cuba may have been renditioned through Shannon.

We have to rely on the likes of Wikileaks and Trojan investigative work by Shannonwatch peace activists, who track the movement of military and chartered planes, if we are to have any inkling of what’s going on.

Marching for peace at Shannon Airport

“Sure, as long as they keep buying the leprechauns …”

It can be disconcerting to fly out of Shannon on a quiet midweek evening and find yourself surrounded by hundreds of US soldiers in uniforms.

If you are flying to London on a Tuesday evening, for example, you can sometimes feel like the only civilian in a military zone. 

When you look at the soldiers, you can guess whether they are coming or going depending on the mood.

If they are on their way home, there is a celebratory air in the terminal building as they queue up to buy leprechaun hats or bottles of duty free Irish whiskey they’d be unlikely come across in Syria or Iraq.

They queue to use the public phones and promise their loved-ones, excitedly, that they will be home in just a few hours.

If they are on their way to the Middle East, the mood can be a lot more sombre. There is an eerie silence across the terminal as they ponder on the long trips away from home.

It’s 15 years now since former US President George W. Bush asked “neutral” little Ireland to facilitate his troops in their endless global war.

As we celebrate 100 years since the Easter Rising, it’s incredible that the issue of Ireland’s complicity in war crimes in places like Iraq, Syria, or Afghanistan is rarely heard on the national airwaves.

In July of this year, 85 people – including almost a dozen children – lost their lives in a horrific air strike in northern Syria.

The “terrorists” who carried out the attack were members of the US military and could well have passed through Shannon.

The attack wasn’t even mentioned on RTE, the national news station, the following day. It didn’t merit a minute's coverage on the main evening news.

And hardly anyone ever joins up the dots to link the hundreds of US troops passing through Shannon and the appalling atrocities carried out in far-off villages like Tokhar.

“Sure, as long as they keep buying the leprechauns … “

Earlier this month, a peace conference was organised at Shannon to mark 15 years of the airport’s participation in the “war on terror”.

The respected academics and former military men who organise the monthly Shannonwatch protest at the airport decided to mark the anniversary by inviting guest speakers and encouraging debate.

So they decided to book a room.                                    

A small number of TDs joined the Shannonwatch
15th anniversary demonstration this month

And then the hotel cancelled.

They booked another room in another hotel.

And the second hotel cancelled.

And then a third . . . In all, three hotels in the Shannon region suddenly discovered they were “double-booked” when they discovered the theme of the peace conference.

Sure, we can’t criticise the Americans. They are good for business, no matter what the morality of the presence of so many coalition troops in a “neutral” civilian facility.

So the organisers were forced to hold the peace conference in a tent just outside the perimeter of the airport.

Amazingly, some people who travelled to the peace conference found that the rooms they booked in the three hotels were still available that weekend.

As it transpired, by a strange coincidence, only the rooms the organisers had sought for the peace conference were double-booked.

“The fact that three bookings in three different hotels were cancelled to me is an indication of success rather than failure, and the fact that we were harassed by the authorities here this weekend shows that we are making an impact,” said Dr Edward Horgan of Shannonwatch.

Dr Horgan said Irish people had to make a connection between the US military aircraft which land at Shannon and the bombings in Syria or Iraq which sometimes aren’t even reported on our TV news channels.

He doesn’t give up hope that the peace movement will succeed, even though his small group has been protesting every month for the past 15 years.

“But, but . . . what about the Russians?”

Peace activists in Ireland are often accused of being “anti-American” because they protest against attacks carried out by the US military, but seem silent in the face of horrific atrocities carried out by others.

In Syria, for example, the Russians have been linked to war crimes, such as the bombing of hospitals in Aleppo, which are every bit as bad as atrocities carried out by the Americans in Mosul or Tokhar.

I put this point to Dr Horgan during the recent peace conference.

He said that Veterans for Peace and Shannonwatch (he represents both) condemn Russian and Syrian bombings in Aleppo, just as they condemn US bombings in Mosul.

War-torn Aleppo: 2.5 million US soldiers have passed
through Shannon on their way to war over 15 years

“From our perspective in Ireland, killing civilians is always wrong,” he said. “But the main difference is the Russians are not using Shannon Airport in their war in Syria, while the US is using Shannon Airport several times a day at present to refuel its aircraft.”

He expressed fear that Ireland could become a target for terrorists because of Shannon’s role in allowing troops, munitions, and weapons to be transferred to the Middle East for use in war crimes in civilian areas.

“It’s our responsibility as Irish citizens to stop Ireland's very direct involvement in these war crimes being committed by the United States. There is little we can do to stop Russian bombing except to get our Irish Government to use its influence within the UN to get a ceasefire in Syria.

“I am actually fearful. I didn’t go to Dublin on Easter Sunday for the 1916 commemorations because I was afraid it might be a target. I wouldn’t be surprised if Shannon Airport did become a target. At the moment, it is difficult for the terrorist groups to get to Ireland and that’s the only reason, I think, why we’ve avoided an attack so far.”

Shannon “becomes a target” …

Since the invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, when the US military first began to use Shannon for refuelling, it has been estimated that over 2.5 million armed US troops have passed through the airport.

In July 2016, the Irish Government confirmed in the Dail – the Irish parliament – that over 25,000 US troops had passed through Shannon in the first six months of this year.

Among the guest speakers during Shannonwatch’s 15th anniversary peace conference was US-born journalist Robert Fantina of the World Beyond War organisation.           

Calling for an end to Shannon Airport's collusion
in the US-led global "war on terror"

He said he was very surprised when he heard of the level of US troop movements through Shannon.

“By allowing US warplanes to land and refuel here, that violates Irish neutrality. Preventing the planes from refuelling here is not only good for Afghanistan or Ireland, it also shows the world that Ireland wants peace and does not support the US war machine,” he said.

He said that all across the world there needed to be a “cultural change” so that people could focus on peace time economies rather than the economies of war. There are strong vested interests in the arms industry who benefit from perpetual wars.

“People in Ireland might think it’s only a plane or two a week passing through, but they need to realise that these  planes are bringing death and destruction to people just like them. Men, women, and children who just want to go to work or school, live ordinary lives, and raise their families, are dying because planes are being allowed to land here,” said Fantina.

“Additionally, because US war planes are allowed to land here, Shannon becomes a target for organisations which are opposed to US militarism. People need to understand that the ‘war on terror’ is really a war of terrorism. Any place, including Shannon, which allows the US to perform those operations is part of that killing.”

“Sure, as long as they keep buying the leprechaun hats in the airport shops, we’ll be grand … !”

And this week, in Tipperary, some insignificant little committee is set to give the US Secretary of State, John Kerry, a "peace prize".

As if they were blissfully aware of all the atrocities his country has carried out - and the innocent lives lost - in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria over the past 15 years.

The whole concept of a US leader flying in to pick up an award in the current climate, days after another appalling attack on civilians in Iraq, devalues the very notion of a "peace prize".

Who cares about villagers in Syria, when the slaughter of 85 of them never even makes it onto our TV screens?

And, sure, isn't it a great way of putting a little Tipperary village on the map?

Sure, it's great to be on such good terms with the Americans, even those who cause endless pain to ordinary, innocent people across the world. But I guess that's another story ...



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Two tragedies, worlds apart

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I got home from work and turned on the BBC News last night, expecting to hear something, anything, about a tragedy I’d been alerted to earlier in the day.

But there was nothing, not a word.                                  

I switched over to RTE News, and it was the same. Nothing. Silence.            

Coalition forces bomb a populated area in Syria

I felt I was living in an Orwellian world, where the people in authority, the elite, the Government, the authorities, call them what you wish, wanted to control what news I heard or saw.

At 7pm, I switched to Channel 4 News, and in fairness, at last, a mainstream channel on these islands dared to report on a horrific tragedy which had happened the day before.

I had read it in the Daily Telegraph, I had seen it on Russian Television, but when I watched both the BBC and RTE I began to disbelieve what I’d seen and heard.

How could such a tragic loss of life be considered so unworthy of attention?

Just a day earlier, an estimated 85 civilians, including almost a dozen children, had lost their lives. Yet there was no condemnation from our leaders, no minute’s silence, no expressions of regret about the loss of so many innocent lives.

The dead were in Syria, killed by air strikes.

US combatants had targeted an area in northern Syria which had been held by Islamic State (IS) or Daesh fighters.

85 lives lost, a death toll which was eerily similar to the 85 lives lost when a terrorist in a truck ploughed through a crowd of revellers celebrating Bastille Day in the French city of Nice.

All across Europe, people were, naturally, in shock at the news of another terrorist atrocity on French soil, coming so soon after the relief of seeing the European Championships football tournament conclude without any major incident.

Malcolm X: his jaundiced views of elements of the media
seem even more appropriate in 2016

France was in mourning again, yet we hardly ever hear news reports about the bombings carried out by the French in Libya or Syria.

After the latest Syrian attack, there were no commemorative walks along the Salthill Promenade or books of condolences opened up in Dublin.

Editors at the BBC and RTE did not even deem the attacks worthy of reportage.

So why is this important?

Well, the ‘terrorists’ who carried out this attack regularly stop to refuel their war planes at my local international airport. Nobody knows what they carry through Shannon, because nobody dares to find out.

On the day after the atrocity in Tokhar, the Irish Government confirmed in the Dail - the Irish parliament - that over 25,000 US troops had passed through Shannon Airport in the first six months of this year.

Gardai won’t search their war planes and those “dissidents” who dare to do so, some of them respected academics, can expect to make a visit to Ennis District Court.

When over 120 civilians are killed in just a few days in Syria and Iraq, we don’t see their faces on the TV (unless we go looking for obscure channels) and we aren’t even told that the French or the Americans killed them on our behalf.

It is believed that eight families were wiped out in the attack on Tokhar on Tuesday, in one of the deadliest bombings by coalition forces since the outbreak of war in Syria.

Two days earlier, a woman, four children, and an elderly man were also killed by coalition forces in an air strike on the Syrian city of Manjib.

The US military says it is investigating the civilian deaths, which is more than can be said for the Irish authorities who haven’t a clue who or what has been flown through Shannon (in ‘neutral’ little Ireland) over the past 13 years.

The loss of any innocent human life, whether in France or Syria, is a tragedy.

But some elements of our media don’t even bother to report some of them and, when they do, they refer to the lives lost as “collateral damage”.

How dehumanising our language has become over the 80 years since George Orwell used to write about Big Brother and the brainwashing of the totalitarian state.

Now “we” use drones to kill people thousands of kilometres away – US President Barack Obama famously sits down every Tuesday with his advisers to decide who should be slaughtered this week.

We rightly condemn the Islamic terrorists who carry out atrocities on European soil, but we ignore or are afraid to condemn the “terrorists” in uniforms who carry out atrocities on our behalf.

We don’t see their victims and the perpetrators view them from the skies, or military bases hundreds or even thousands of kilometres away, as though they were playing video games.

How much easier it is to "dehumanise" a civilian victim in Iraq, Syria, or Afghanistan when you kill them by pressing a button far removed from the combat zone.

So over the past week we've had at least two tragedies, which seem to be worlds apart.

We stop to mourn the deaths of innocents in Nice, and rightly so, but our "masters" decide not to even
tell us about a tragic loss of life in a Syrian town.

Why would we mourn them?

We never, or hardly ever, see their anguished relatives on our TV screens.

The monthly protest against US military
use of Shanon Airpor

And then we wonder why people in the Middle East detest the western world?

The attacks on civilians in Syria or Iraq don’t justify the appalling scenes we have seen in France and Belgium over the past couple of years, but they do at least provide some sort of context which is dangerously lacking from elements of our media.

It’s easier to understand why there is so much hatred out there when our politicians and news channels make it clear that some lives don’t really matter.

There is no doubt that ISIS are murderous terrorists, who pose a threat to the entire world.

But the people who bomb cities thousands of miles away don’t always do so with good intentions, as the Chilcot Inquiry found when it investigated Tony Blair’s rush to war in Iraq.

Sometimes the “terrorists” are on our side, too, much as we choose to ignore the uncomfortable truth about what’s really going on in the unreported parts of the world.




You can watch an Al Jazeera report of the tragedy in Syria here:

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/07/led-air-strikes-kill-21-civilians-syria-160719045329897.html

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Imagine ... there is no war

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Today I read a post on Facebook by a Galway man who said he “did not feel safe near any Muslim” following the appalling terrorist attacks in Brussels.

“Can anyone blame me?” he asked, mulling over the fact that the person beside him in an airport, cinema, or train station could be just about to detonate a bomb.

When taken to task by anti-racism activists, concerned that he has a prominent position at a Galway sports club, the man refused to withdraw his words.

Imagine, just imagine, how disgusted people would be if a British person made such a sweeping generalisation about all Irish people during the height of the IRA bombing campaigns in the 1970s or 1980s.

Imagine how awful it would sound if someone made a comment about how unsafe they’d feel beside Jewish people. We saw how the demonization of that particular religion led to the insane killings of six million people in Europe in the 1940s. Well, never again.

There are 1.7 billion Muslims all across the globe, yet now some people in the US or Europe are prepared to demonise them all.

US Presidential candidate Donald Trump would prefer to turn all 1.7 billion of them away at the border, while ordinary people in Galway now say they don't feel comfortable standing beside them at the cinema or the bus queue.

Racism is unacceptable, so is ignorance. Views like that, based on nothing but racism and fear, lead to the kind of mentality which allows people like Donald Trump to demonise minorities.

There is no war between Muslims and non-Muslims.

How can we hate all Muslims? I spent three weeks on a Muslim island in January and the only thing that made me fearful was how crazy some of them were on the roads.

A few extremist yobs use the name of Islam to destroy innocent lives, just as the US military bastardises the word “freedom” when it bombs the hell out of innocent people in Yemen, Syria, Afghanistan, or Iraq.

What happened in Brussels yesterday is appalling and, yes, we should mourn the dead. 

But some lives are more important than others and we can be so selective in our grief. 

What kind of message does it send out when we mourn the loss of innocent lives in Paris or Brussels, but ignore those lost in Yemen or Syria?

George Orwell was right. Some animals are more equal than others. The media make that very clear in the wake of each and every atrocity. Some get wall-to-wall coverage, some are conveniently ignored. Sky News spend a full week reporting on a tragedy in Brussels, but hardly bother to mention the loss of innocent lives in Beirut.

We will have images from Brussels on our TV screens for the next week, before the networks move on to the next 'big story'. But we never, ever see the pain on the faces of ordinary children in Syria or Iraq. We hardly ever get to hear their stories, in contrast to the saturation coverage from the streets of Brussels, including interviews with neighbours where the Islamist terrorists lived.

We should mourn the loss of all innocent lives. 

 

How ISIS attacks are reported in the news

Most people, whether they are white Europeans or Iraqi Muslims, just want to bring up their children in peace and get on with their lives.

We should ask what motivates young men to blow people up in train stations or airports.

Just as we should ask why innocent people thousands of kilometres away are slaughtered in the name of freedom – and why we never see their anguished faces on our TV screens.

Often the truth is too uncomfortable to face. The young men who commit these atrocities in Europe grow up in our cities, attend our schools, and yet seem so alienated from the Western world. 

Most of them are not, as the Daily Mail might suggest, refugees from the war-torn Middle East who sneaked into Europe along with thousands of migrants, hell bent on destruction.

It's scary that these young Muslim men, after growing up in Europe, can be brainwashed into thinking that they will be whisked to Paradise if they blow up 20 innocent people in a busy airport or train station.

It's equally scary to think that they've seen through the hypocrisy of it all, that spilling blood in some cities generates far more publicity than the loss of life in other parts of the world. Because, most of the media tell us, that's just the way it is. 


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