All posts by Rob Fairmichael

Eco-Awareness with Larry Speight: National identities eschew ecological identity

Eco-Awareness, Nonviolent News, , ,

One thing that the twin forms of nationalism on this island have in common is that both eschew a sense of identity with nonhuman nature.

On a walk through Loyalist communities before this year’s 12th of July celebrations I was struck by the extent to which the murals and many of the flags are of a militarist nature and embrace Britain’s colonial past in particular the wars it fought not only in defence of the British Isles but of its empire. Nowhere did I see any indication that the Loyalist / Unionist identity encompassed a love of nonhuman nature.

Military victories and perceived military triumphs are celebrated in word and image but no homages are paid to nature as in depictions of woodlands, lakes, rivers and the animals we share the island with. I saw no reference to the four seasons that affect the annual cycle of our lives or even to the food we produce. These it seems don’t have a place in the sense of what it means to be a Loyalist / Unionist.

As in Loyalists communities the murals and flags in Irish nationalist communities are overwhelming militarist with a notable absence of depictions that express an affinity with the greater nature we are an integral part of. In the broader field of communal identity none of the main political parties, both North and South, other than the Green Party, have shown any interest in the welfare of the natural world until very recently.

Further, when ecological issues are on the agenda be it the decline of biodiversity, water pollution or the warming of the planet, one thing the main political parties agree on is that nothing must get in the way of economic growth as measured by GDP. This is their most sacred of sacred cows.

If this were otherwise we would not have had the Northern Ireland Assembly’s 2014 ‘Going For Growth Strategy’ in regard to the Agri-Food industry which has played a pivotal role in the blue-green algae that has devastated marine life on Lough Neagh, Lough Erne and other bodies of water.

If the national identity of people in Northern Ireland encompassed the biological reality that we are the very essence of what constitutes nature, and that nonhuman nature has intrinsic moral worth, the N.I. Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) would not have had to issue a report in mid-June informing us that in the past five years over 50,000 fish were killed as a result of 65 reported pollution incidents.

The DAERA figures for fish kills in Northern Ireland over the past five years are as follows. Farming accounts for 43% of fish kill incidents, 16% of pollution incidents are classified as other, 10% are attributed to industrial and chemical incidents, 4% to domestic incidents and 3% to Northern Ireland Water. The biological condition of waterways in the South of Ireland differs little from that in the North as illustrated by the case that in the 1980s, 500 rivers in the Republic were classified as pristine compared with 20 today.

These figures suggest that while some sectors of society are more responsible for the pollution of our waterways than others we all have a part to play in ensuring rivers, lakes and loughs are free from pollution by not dropping litter, not flushing sanitary products down the toilet, not pouring oils and paints into drains and not using toxic chemicals on pets as flea treatments.

If our sense of identity were as embracing of nature as that of Christ in Saint Patrick’s Breastplate Prayer (of ancient origin) then it is almost certain that the enormity of our ecological problems would be much less than what they are. Replacing the word ‘Christ’ with the word ‘Nature’ the prayer reads:

“Nature with me. Nature before me. Nature behind me. Nature beneath me. Nature above me. Nature on my Right. Nature on my left. Nature when I lie down. Nature when I sit down. Nature when I arise.”

Nature is all encompassing. It includes the estimated 38 trillion microbes that live on our skin to the entire cosmos. The minerals which compose the human body were formed on the occasion of the Big Bang some 13.8 billion years ago. The moisture in our bodies, we are 70% water, originates on the Earth. Some of the clouds you once gazed at could be in your veins having fallen as rain into a river or lough from where you draw your drinking water.

If a significant number of people lived life in the full knowledge that humans are nature then legislation rooted in this view would likely come into effect. We would be inclined to design the type of social and physical infrastructure that enables us to live rewarding useful lives in an ecologically sustainable way. Aware that all life-forms have interests, live in community and like us have an invested interest in the health of our shared, complex and vibrant ecosystem, we world likely treat all life with respect on all occasions.

It is apt when taking stock of our situation in this summer of extremely high temperatures, devastating forest fires, water-use restrictions and the large number of deaths attributed to the high temperatures to examine the mosaic of features that make up our sense of national identity. There would be no greater legacy if nationalists of every hue ditched the militarist component of their identity and internalised our defining feature which is that we are Nature.

Internalising this sense of ourselves would provide us with a life-affirming perspective from which to challenge the orthodoxy that economic growth triumphs over the integrity of ecological systems and social justice. If we don’t come to realise our sense of place in the larger picture and re-engineer the fundamentals of how we live we will inevitably discover that the biosphere can’t indefinitely satisfy our appetite for more and more things and that valuing military prowess over caring for the biosphere is utterly futile.

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The Peace Line with Kate Laverty: The gentle boundary – Everyday nonviolence and the courage to say no

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We often imagine nonviolence in its great and public forms. We think of marches, resistance, prison cells, speeches, movements and those extraordinary people who stood before systems of violence and refused to become violent themselves. But most of us will never stand at such a dramatic threshold. Our practice of nonviolence will happen somewhere quieter: around a kitchen table, in a difficult conversation, in the moment when someone asks too much of us, in the workplace when we have to say no, or in the family when an old pattern begins to rise again.

Perhaps some of the deepest acts of nonviolence are almost invisible. They are the moments when we refuse both aggression and surrender.

There is a temptation to think that kindness must always say yes. Particularly for those of us who work in community, hospitality or care, inclusion can slowly become confused with unlimited availability. The door is open. The kettle is on. There is another chair at the table. These are beautiful things, but an open door does not mean that every person may enter every room. There must also be thresholds.

A threshold is not an act of hostility. It is the place where one space meets another and both are allowed to retain their integrity. This is what a boundary can be. Not a wall. Not punishment. Not the withdrawal of love. A threshold. It says: you may come this far, and here we will meet one another.

There is something profoundly nonviolent about that. Violence, in its broadest sense, often begins when we cease to recognise the separateness of another person. We demand access. We insist. We control. We decide that our need gives us a claim upon somebody else’s time, body, attention or emotional life. But the opposite can happen too. We can commit a quieter violence against ourselves by continually abandoning our own limits in order to keep others comfortable.

Nonviolence asks something more difficult. It asks us to honour the dignity of both people. I do not have to diminish you in order to protect myself, and I do not have to diminish myself in order to welcome you.

That is a harder balance than it first appears. Sometimes maintaining an inclusive atmosphere means saying, gently, this particular space is not the right space for you. Sometimes it means saying, I cannot do that, but perhaps someone else can. Sometimes it means offering one form of relationship while declining another. Sometimes it means leaving the door open to conversation while closing the door firmly on a pattern that has become unhealthy.

The manner matters. There is a world of difference between saying no in order to wound someone and saying no because the relationship needs shape. A boundary offered without humiliation allows dignity to remain in the room. We can explain without accusing, redirect without rejecting, remain warm without becoming endlessly available, and refuse the request without refusing the person.

These are small disciplines, but perhaps this is where nonviolence begins to become a way of life rather than merely an idea. The great traditions of nonviolence have always understood that peace is not passivity. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of nonviolence as refusing both to inflict violence and to submit inwardly to hatred. There is strength in that middle place. It requires us to resist the seductive simplicity of two extremes: domination or capitulation.

There is another way: gentleness with firmness, hospitality with discernment, compassion with limits, love without possession.

And perhaps this matters especially in community spaces. An inclusive community cannot mean that every individual receives everything they want. In fact, without boundaries, the loudest needs can eventually consume the space intended for everyone. The task is not simply to keep the door open. It is to tend the room: to notice who has become quiet, who is taking too much space, who feels unsafe, who is always expected to give, and who has never learned that another person’s kindness has limits.

True inclusion requires stewardship. It asks us to protect the atmosphere in which belonging can grow.

Sometimes the gentlest thing we can do for a person is not to become indispensable to them. We can point towards another relationship, another service, another friend, another source of strength. We can resist the flattering temptation to become the answer to every need. There is nonviolence in this too, because dependency can quietly distort a relationship. What begins as kindness can become obligation; what begins as support can become expectation; what begins as generosity can become resentment. A healthy boundary interrupts that journey before either person becomes diminished by it.

Perhaps this is one of the quieter truths about peacebuilding. Peace is not merely learning how to live alongside the stranger. Sometimes it is learning how to live lovingly alongside those who are closest to us without consuming one another. It is learning the sacred distance from which another person’s life can remain their own.

There must be room between people: room for choice, room for responsibility, room for disappointment, room for growth. And within that space, affection does not disappear. Sometimes it becomes more honest.

There is great tenderness in being able to say: I care about you, and I cannot do this. Both sentences can be true.

Perhaps that is one of the gentler acts of nonviolence available to us each day: to remain present without taking over, to listen without absorbing everything, to welcome without surrendering the threshold, to say no without making an enemy, and to allow another person their dignity even when we cannot give them what they seek.

And then we return to the ordinary rituals of belonging. Put the kettle on. Pull out a chair. Ask how they are. Listen. Laugh. Share whatever can genuinely be shared. The boundary remains, but so does the welcome.

Perhaps peace has always depended upon these small things. Not simply upon the courage to stand against violence when it arrives loudly at our door, but upon the quieter courage to practise another way of being with one another every day: a way in which nobody has to disappear for somebody else to belong.

We haven’t gone away you know

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By Kate Laverty

Sometimes, I wonder if being nonviolent is being “too much” against the grain. But, nonviolence is all around us. We are not alone. We are not on the fringes. We are not fighting a losing battle. Here’s proof, on a global scale.

  1. 30 June — Cape Town, South Africa: standing between migrants and xenophobia. Around 20 organisations gathered at Salt River Circle under the banner “Workers of Africa Unite – Immigrants Welcome”, forming a human chain as a deliberate counter-presence to anti-immigration demonstrations elsewhere in Cape Town. What makes this especially interesting as nonviolence is what surrounded the protest: Muslim, Christian and other faith leaders convened emergency meetings, organised food, hygiene supplies, blankets and pastoral care for foreign nationals, and created a coordinated relief response. Here nonviolence was not merely opposing hostility; it was physically replacing hostility with hospitality. Muslim Views, reporting in July 2026. (Muslim Views)

  2. 2 July — Paris, France: marching in silence for Gaza. Several hundred people joined a silent march through Paris, carrying portraits of people killed in Gaza and walking behind a commemorative banner. Some participants dressed in black. Whatever one’s politics around the conflict, the method itself is striking: silence used as witness rather than shouting used as confrontation. Reuters Connect/Anadolu, 2 July 2026. (Reuters Connect)

  3. 5 July — Mallorca, Spain: a human chain to defend a landscape. Residents and environmental activists joined hands along Es Trenc beach to protest proposed changes they feared would weaken protection of the Es Trenc–Es Salobrar nature reserve. The symbol was beautifully simple: people using their bodies not to damage or occupy the landscape but to draw a protective human line around something they believed should be preserved. Majorca Daily Bulletin and Reuters imagery, 4–5 July 2026. (Majorca Daily Bulletin)

  4. 6 July — Washington DC, United States: an interfaith alternative rather than an enemy. Around 200 Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Buddhist participants marched across Capitol Hill as part of Interfaith Action for Palestine. The three-day gathering also included interfaith worship and visits to congressional offices. One particularly important detail is that organisers said that, unlike previous years, their emphasis was less on disrupting the organisation they opposed and more on creating an alternative vision based on equality, care and solidarity. That is almost textbook constructive nonviolence: don’t merely resist the thing you oppose; embody the alternative. Religion News Service, 8 July 2026. (RNS)

  5. 11 July — Hong Kong: remembering when public protest becomes impossible. Former Tiananmen vigil organiser Tang Ngok-kwan has continued acts of remembrance despite the disappearance of Hong Kong’s mass candlelight vigils and the imprisonment of colleagues. AP documented him returning quietly to former commemorative sites, bowing at Victoria Park and softly reading victims’ names. He has also repeatedly walked a route containing 64 steps—an allusion to 4 June—and while imprisoned once marked the anniversary by running 35 laps barefoot. This may be one of the most beautiful examples I found: when power removes the demonstration, remembrance itself becomes resistance. Associated Press, published 22 August 2026; AP photographed Tang on 11 July. (AP News)

  6. 18–24 July — New Delhi, India: fasting, human chains and keeping your own protest peaceful. Climate activist Sonam Wangchuk undertook a prolonged hunger strike amid youth protests over alleged examination irregularities. But one of the most interesting smaller stories came from the protesters themselves. On 23 July, demonstrators formed a two-layer human chain specifically to maintain discipline and prevent their own crowd moving towards security forces. Other volunteers formed chains to manage crowds while people collected rubbish from the protest site. That is nonviolence not simply as refusing to attack police, but as a movement deliberately regulating itself so anger does not become violence. Wangchuk eventually ended a 26-day fast on 24 July. Reuters, NDTV and Reuters Connect, July 2026. (Reuters)

  7. 16 July — London, UK: Muslims and Jews choosing relationship amid division. Muslim and Jewish leaders, interfaith activists and young people gathered in Westminster for the Together We Rebuild summit, jointly convened by the UK Muslim Network and the Board of Deputies of British Jews. The point was not pretending that profound disagreements had disappeared; it was rebuilding relationships after years in which the Israel-Gaza conflict had severely strained relations between the communities. This belongs in a discussion of nonviolence because remaining in relationship with someone whose community carries a radically different experience of the same conflict can itself be a disciplined act of peace. Jewish News / Board of Deputies, 16–17 July 2026. (Jewish News)

  8. 27 July — Israel/Palestine: refusing a hierarchy of grief. Palestinian peacebuilder Aziz Abu Sarah and Israeli peace activist Maoz Inon gave a remarkable joint interview to Le Monde. Abu Sarah’s brother died after being tortured in an Israeli prison; Inon’s parents were killed by Hamas on 7 October 2023. Yet they work together, tell both narratives and insist on equality between their losses. Inon explained that they deliberately use the same language to describe each other’s bereavement, refusing a relationship in which one person’s pain is treated as more legitimate than the other’s. This is a profound form of nonviolence: not denying injustice, but refusing to make empathy conditional upon identity. Le Monde, 27 July 2026. (Le Monde.fr)

  9. 28 July — Florida, United States: ringing a bell against execution. Outside the execution of James Duckett, opponents of the death penalty gathered peacefully. One person rang a bell and called out “not in my name”; a priest also rang a bell, while another protester held a sign calling for justice rather than execution. There is something powerful in the simplicity of it: standing beside an institution of state violence and answering it with a bell, presence and words. USA Today Network via Reuters Connect, 28 July 2026. (Reuters Connect)

  10. 29 July — Ecuadorian Amazon: teenage girls using law and persistence against environmental harm. The Guerreras por la Amazonía—the Women Warriors for the Amazon—continued pressing Ecuador to implement a landmark court judgment requiring the removal of harmful oil-industry gas flares near communities. Members include Indigenous girls and young women, some only 15 or 16. Their campaign has relied upon litigation, testimony, organising and international solidarity rather than retaliation, despite Amnesty reporting stigma and attacks against campaigners. Their persistence has already helped produce legal and political change. It is a useful example of nonviolence as stubbornness: continuing to return to institutions and demand that justice already promised be delivered. Amnesty International, 29 July 2026. (Amnesty International)

  11. 1 August — Wilmington, Delaware, United States: responding to a police shooting with a peaceful procession. Following the fatal police shooting of Kadir Skinner, protesters walked peacefully from the location where he was killed to Wilmington Police Department headquarters. It is an old nonviolent form but a powerful one: taking grief and anger—the emotions most capable of producing retaliatory violence—and turning them instead into collective movement, speech and public witness. Delaware News Journal/USA Today Network via Reuters Connect, 1 August 2026. (Reuters Connect)

  12. 18 August — Dhaka, Bangladesh: standing together against attacks on Indigenous people. Members of the Indigenous Forum formed a human chain at Shahbagh in Dhaka to protest attacks on Indigenous communities. Again, the human-chain method is significant: there is no weapon and no attempt to injure; the bodies of participants become the message—we will stand beside one another. Reuters Connect/NurPhoto, 18 August 2026. (Reuters Connect)

  13. July — Drumcree, Portadown: choosing not to march to the police line. For the first time in more than 25 years, Orangemen at Drumcree did not undertake their customary Sunday walk towards police lines at the Garvaghy Road. The decision was made while a High Court challenge was ongoing. Whatever one’s position on the underlying parading dispute, the act itself is significant: a tradition containing decades of confrontation was interrupted by a deliberate decision not to enact the confrontation that year. In thinking about everyday nonviolence, this is interesting because sometimes restraint is itself an action. Belfast Telegraph, 5 July 2026. Read the Belfast Telegraph article

  1. 6 July — Alexandra Park, North Belfast: friendships across a wall. An Irish News feature found residents on both sides of the Alexandra Park peace wall talking not simply about removing physical barriers but about the relationships that have gradually made removal imaginable. Carmeela Hamill, from the Antrim Road side, described making friends through a cross-community group with people from Tiger’s Bay and being invited to their Eleventh Night bonfire. Michelle McEwan from Tiger’s Bay talked about Protestant and Catholic children needing opportunities to meet rather than being taught implicitly that they cannot venture into one another’s areas. Community worker Kate Clarke described how relationships between residents on both sides have allowed problems to be resolved together, with consultation rather than decisions imposed on communities. This may be one of the purest examples of gentle nonviolence: friendship slowly making a wall less necessary. The Irish News, 6 July 2026. Read The Irish News article

  2. 14 July — Ardoyne, North Belfast: one drumbeat past an old flashpoint. The Ligoniel Orange lodges’ return parade passed Ardoyne peacefully after the Parades Commission scheduled the return for the following morning rather than the previous evening. This is an interface that has witnessed serious violence in earlier years. Instead, the bands passed with a single drumbeat, a small police presence and no incident. There is something almost symbolic about that image: where there could once have been competing noise, anger and confrontation, there was one restrained drumbeat and people simply passed one another. The Irish News, 14 July 2026. Read The Irish News article

  3. 15 July — Ballymena: answering horrific violence with silence and solidarity. After the deaths of a woman and her eight-year-old daughter in a suspected double murder-suicide involving their family, scores of people gathered at the Braid Arts Centre for a vigil. The family had Polish roots, and organisers Youth Ambassadors Northern Ireland issued their invitation in English and Polish, asking people to come together for quiet reflection, light and unity and explicitly standing alongside the local Polish community. Prayers were also offered at All Saints. It is an example of a community responding to violence not with spectacle, blame or suspicion, but with silence, flowers, prayer and presence. The Irish News, The Irish Times and UTV, 15–16 July 2026. The Irish News report | The Irish Times report | UTV report

  4. 24 July — Stranmillis, Belfast: Israeli and Palestinian girls playing on the same team. Seven Israeli and Palestinian girls, mainly from East and West Jerusalem, came to Belfast as members of one of the Middle East’s few integrated basketball teams. They joined young people from across Northern Ireland at PeacePlayers’ annual Interface Games at Stranmillis College. The young people played Gaelic games, rugby, football and basketball together and talked about the parallels between divided societies. One participant described friendships that otherwise would never have happened; PeacePlayers’ Gareth Harper said reconciliation had to be worked at every day. That sentence is important: peace was not being treated as an agreement signed 28 years ago, but as something practised repeatedly through relationship. The Irish News, 24 July 2026. Read The Irish News article

  5. 9 August — Belfast: 10,000 young people at a dance rather than destructive bonfires. This is perhaps one of the strongest examples for your purposes. More than 10,000 young people attended Féile an Phobail’s Dance Night in Falls Park on 8 August. Organisers explicitly described it as a diversionary event intended to draw young people away from the destructive anti-internment bonfires and antisocial behaviour once associated with that night. Belfast was reported to have had no republican bonfires that evening. This is nonviolence as constructive programme-building: you do not merely tell young people don’t build the bonfire; you create somewhere else to go, something better to belong to, music, celebration and community. Belfast Media and The Irish News, 9 August 2026. Belfast Media report | The Irish News report

  6. 9 August — Belfast City Hall: a Shankill flute band welcomed at the Fleadh. On the final day of the Fleadh, the Shankill Road Defenders flute band performed at the City Hall Gig Rig. Afterwards, band representatives described receiving an “extraordinary welcome” and stressed that the Belfast Bands Forum had not simply been included symbolically: representatives had been involved in planning, listened to when concerns arose, and given genuine ownership. This is worth distinguishing from tolerance. Nobody was being asked to hide their tradition. A loyalist flute band was able to perform within the world’s largest festival of Irish traditional music and be received warmly. The Irish News, 12 August 2026, reporting the 9 August performance. Read The Irish News article

  7. 12 August — Bogside, Derry: asking for “level heads” when confrontation was possible. Following the removal of controversial bonfire material near Lecky Road, tensions rose. But Bogside Community Support appealed explicitly for calm and urged young people not to give anyone the reaction they might be seeking. The group had been working with young people around the bonfire issue and attempting to reduce tensions ahead of the August 15 period. This is the kind of nonviolence that is easily overlooked because success often looks like something not happening: community workers entering an angry situation and trying to prevent grievance becoming confrontation. The Irish News, 12 August 2026. Read The Irish News article

  8. 21–22 August — Inner East Belfast: community representatives doing the work of de-escalation. Groups of young people from rival factions gathered around Bryson Street and Pitt Park and threw bottles and stones at one another; objects were also thrown at police. Yet the PSNI specifically reported that officers “worked with local community representatives to reduce tensions”, remaining until the young people dispersed. That brief sentence in a news report conceals a great deal of work: people knowing the young people, talking, negotiating, crossing an interface, moving groups, staying present and preventing something worse. The Irish News and Belfast Telegraph, 24 August 2026, reporting incidents beginning 21 August. The Irish News report | Belfast Telegraph report

Nonviolence is not weakness, and it is not silence in the face of injustice. It is the stubborn refusal to let hatred decide who we become. It is the courage to stand firm without dehumanising, to resist without destroying, to protect without humiliating, and to keep making room for the humanity of the other even when that humanity is difficult to see.

Our communities do not need more people skilled in outrage; they need people brave enough to interrupt it. So let us be the ones who lower the temperature, who cross the road, who make the phone call, who hold the boundary, who refuse the insult, who stay at the table, who stand beside the threatened and who build another way when violence tells us there is no alternative.

Nonviolence begins wherever we are. It begins in the next conversation, the next disagreement, the next moment when we are tempted to wound because we have been wounded.

Choose peace there. Practise it there. Make it visible. And keep choosing it until the gentler way becomes the stronger way.

Christianity’s Missing Peace

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Book review

Christianity’s Missing Peace – Pope Francis, Gospel Nonviolence and the Renewal of the Irish Church by Martin McMullan

Publisher: Wipf & Stock, 2025, Paperback ISBN 979-8-3852-6195-6, 134 pages.

Reviewed by Sylvia Thompson

This book by Martin McMullan, a Dublin-based teacher, has a foreword by Mairead Corrigan Maguire and reached me in February 2026 so a review is long overdue. Martin, the author, was known to me since the Pax Christi Ireland launch of Pax Christi International Catholic Nonviolence initiative on the 14th October 2023 in the Loyola Institute at Trinity College Dublin. This is referenced in the book (p.100).

In her foreword Maguire says “the church is in urgent need of a clear, courageous and prophetic moral stance”. This book is certainly a contribution to that. The preface gives the reader a helpful overview  and the Introduction says explicitly that the “book is aimed first and foremost at the church faithful from a Catholic persuasion” and McMullan believes this to be “an urgent task to awaken people to a central but forgotten and misunderstood tenet of Christianity that has the power to truly transform the world”. Although I am personally coming from the Catholic tradition, I believe that the message given in this book applies to all Christians.

The book has six chapters and 134 pages so it’s a short read but there’s a lot condensed in those pages, for example Chapter 1, Jesus and Nonviolence. This shows the scholarly background to this book and here the author concludes that nonviolence lay at the heart of Jesus’ teaching and practice. Indeed Chapter 2 outlines that the practice of active nonviolence for the first three centuries was ”taken as a given for the building of the kingdom of God” until the “Constantinian shift” which took place with the conversion of the Emperor Constantine and the beginning of the Christian Roman Empire which in turn lead to the beginning of the ‘just war’ theory.

This book is calling for a return to Gospel nonviolence and sees a papal encyclical on this as one significant step. This could not be more timely and we can now see from the strong pronouncements of Pope Leo X1V that the church seems to be edging towards this as he follows the lead of Pope Francis.

In Chapter 4 there is an examination of various papal pronouncements on War and Peace since Vatican II and McMullan writes that they have shown a gradual accepting of the centrality of nonviolence to Christian peacemaking in the world…a most interesting chapter.

In the final chapter entitled Gospel Nonviolence and the Renewal of the Irish Church there is a particular reference to Ireland and the gap in the teaching on gospel nonviolence is highlighted. It documents the work of the Peace People as exemplaries of this but does not reference the work of Pax Christi Ireland including its Belfast branch and other peace activists within the Christian tradition e.g. Fellowship of Reconciliation over many years especially in the lead-up to the Good Friday Agreement.

The closing words of the final chapter entitled A New Heaven and a New Earth, “It is time for brave and prophetic leadership to give hope to a very troubled humanity” is McMullan’s call to the Irish Church…is it listening?

Billy King: Rites Again, 342

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Billy King shares his monthly thoughts –

Welcome to my first Colm of the autumn, my least favourite time of the year, don’t get me wrong, I like the weather generally speaking, it is the restarting of the treadmill of regular engagements that puts me off. But once into the swing of things and routine again, well, life goes on.

Did anyone ever get done all the tasks they had set themselves to do in ’the summer’? Not likely, not me anyway, but then ‘our’ summer is likely rather shorter than meteorological summer [Excuses, excuses – Ed]. But here we are, and the autumn equinox comes later this month after which we enter the darker half of the year. But still there is light, physically and metaphorically, and we go on.

Fleadh-tering

Mary Ann Mc’Craic’en https://www.flickr.com/photos/innateireland/53584007477/in/photolist-2p79PmQ-2pD33zT had a ringside view of the main outdoor stage at the Belfast City Hall during Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann in early August, even if she did have to look out the side of her eyes. And it was difficult to believe the sight of her or our eyes. Who would have believed forty years ago https://www.flickr.com/photos/innateireland/3337979064/in/dateposted/ that such an event and celebration would have been possible in Belfast? Not I anyway.

It was celebration of Irish music and dance on a broad basis, including a bit of the Ulster Scots tradition, plus other cultures – Macalla’s fusion of Irish and Middle Eastern musicians and music was amazing, they were working with Mshakht Collective from Iraq. It showed not just a city celebrating but welcoming people from all over the island and further afield. There was a great atmosphere that did this long term resident of Belfast a power of good. And the preservation of many traditional melodies was thanks to some of the citizens of (the then) said neat little town, mainly Presbyterian, who identified a need to preserve a priceless tradition in 1792 – and succeeded in doing so. I don’t want to harp on too much about the fact that this most important cultural event in Irish history, the Belfast Harp Festival, happened not in Dublin, Cork, Galway or Derry….but in Belfast.

The Ulster Scots Commissioner praised the inclusiveness of the Fleadh; there was a big Ulster Scots event at the shipyard and inclusion of bands and Scottish dancing at the main stage. I welcome that inclusiveness. But I do have a problem with loyalist – or any other – marching bands which are military-uniform wearing and military-style. Shankill Road Defenders Flute Band, for example, put on a good show and made an effort with the medley or Irish melodies they presented on the main stage, and their sergeant major (if that was the position of the guy wearing three military-style chevrons) was a dab two-hand with twirling the baton. It might seem churlish, and I admire their musical skill and dedication, but their military name and style I don’t go for.

The Fleadh could make you believe that Belfast and Norn Iron were normal places where people also knew how to party and celebrate. It was, as the headline above suggests, fleadh-tering. But said Norn Iron remains severely dysfunctional in its politics and decision-making at Stormont which means that many of the problems that exist in the Wee North are not tackled or dealt with adequately, for all the smiles of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister. That makes me sad. But more importantly it makes for problems and pain for many of the citizens of the jurisdiction.

The blockage of course is the sectarian divide and resultant political divisions, especially those manifested through the party political system and aspects of the consociational system at Stormont. Parties are also unwilling to make necessary but partly unpopular decisions (that is common south of the border too), but could do so if they acted together. And decisions could still be made on the difficult questions – I am not even talking about the constitutional question but issues such as increasing funding so that problems in health, education and the environment can be tackled – with the goodwill of the parties and better decision making structures. And without bordering on the boring in mentioning it again in these pages, some of the voting and decision making mechanisms advocated by the de Borda Institute www.deborda.org could help mightily there. But that might remove some of the power and control of particular political parties and, without massive public clamour, they are not going to have that.

So Norn Iron remains in limbo, a post-conflict society that frequently goes from pillar to post and back again in moving on from the divisions of the past. And, unlike the Fleadh, that is definitely not something to celebrate.

Four pence a day

Four pence a day …..that is how much we paid for electricity used for May, June and July in our household (the standing charge was extra, three times as much)…….because we have solar panels and 10 kW of storage in batteries. Admittedly this was probably exceptional weather, at least some of the time, but it brings home the advantages of renewables. The previous three months we paid probably half of what we would otherwise have been billed. And that was with using some of the generated electricity for heat in our kitchen living area plus cooking and kettle included.

Getting a new roof on our house two years ago this autumn, we decided to get solar panels at the same time and have the two projects coordinated so the fittings for the panels went on before the slates and the solar installers didn’t have to drill through slates. In the North there is only one body, a charity, who will buy solar generated home electricity and what you get paid is small, but taking that into account there is much of the year when we are actually making money with the solar panels as well as having ‘free’ electricity.

We were lucky to have the saved money to pay upfront for the solar installation but in the Republic there are grants you can avail of, and various schemes. Unfortunately with an older house with chimneys and the time frame we were working on, a heat pump didn’t appear to be an option but never say never when we should be saying ‘yes’.

The Irish way of death

One of the most important aspects of Irish culture and life, yes, is its way of dealing with death. The wake is alive and well, and in the countryside attending funerals can be a way of life. Celebrating renowned popular figures and troubadours who have died has been seen in relation to Sinéad O’Connor, Dolores O’Riordan and most recently Glen Hansard with thousands attending a lying in state and an extraordinary funeral. https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2026/08/04/glen-hansard-funeral-dublin-live-stream/

However it is small but significant gestures which can make a big difference to the grieving, which is all of us at some time or other. My own father died far, on this island, from where was his home. Returning with his body to his homeland, his friends and neighbours travelled 30 km to meet the hearse at the city we passed through en route to his return, funeral and burial. That accompaniment of honour on his final journey home still brings a tear to my eye and a lump in my throat. And of course everyone of the males present wanted a ‘lift’ of the coffin on the way from the cemetery entrance to the grave.

The wake is a place for celebration, reminiscences and sometimes maybe a bit of song. A loved one singing one of two of the deceased’s favourite songs is guaranteed to leave not a dry eye in the house. A wake is a strange kind of enjoyable experience with sorrow and joy likely to be competing emotions if not wonderfully simultaneous.

It is a grave state of affairs to miss out on such gestures and ways of life in death which can mean so much. The dead may not know but for the living it is a rite of passage, the passage of that person from their lives and the solidifying of memories, as well as helping the grieving process. As such it is a celebration not just of the life of the person who has died but of life itself. The West’s a-wake…but then so too is some of the North, South and East….and not forgetting the Midlands (who so often get forgotten about).

1737

1737 is a long time ago, the best part of three hundred years. The Belfast News Letter began publication then and it is the oldest continuously published English language newspaper in the world. In the eighteenth century and at the time of the ‘98 rebellion its politics were very different to today. Despite changing hands a number of times in recent years it politics remain stridently unionist though it did go through a more liberal phase a few decades ago.

However, startlingly, it now only sells 5,000 copies a day of the print version, shrinking rapidly over recent years. And ‘the editor’ has been given the boot, seemingly not to be replaced except by an overall publishing group editor-in-chief. A newspaper without an editor? You’ve got to be kidding. In https://www.pressreader.com/ireland/belfast-telegraph/20260801/281586657397585 the renowned journalist Sam McBride gives the low down. Of course there are a variety of factors at work; the general decline in print in the era of digital media, the decline in the Protestant proportion of the population in the North, and the fact that those identifying as British in the North may just buy a British newspaper, if any.

Context is everything and some republicans may welcome the decline in the proportion of Prods in the North and of a venerable unionist institution like the News Letter. But unless you are looking at a humiliating defeat for one side or the other in the North – and resultant discontent and violence – you actually need ‘the other side’ to be strong enough and confident enough to strike deals and compromise (that dirty word in Northern Ireland). I certainly don’t agree with the News Letter’s often narrow unionist and conservative stand with its tunnel vision but leaving any side of a side without a voice can be counter-productive and dangerous.

And the cessation of the print publication of a newspaper on the go since 1737 would be a sad event and situation.

Peace People 50

The tragic Troubles incident which led to the start of the Peace People happened in August 1976, now just over fifty years, a half century, ago. Tempus fugit et cetera. That incident involved the IRA and the British Army and it was the latter who fired the fatal shot that caused the fatal crash. The story of the Peace People is a more complex one than many, on all sides, saw. As well as what the Peace People did themselves there were also many people who were conscientised and thrown into a broad range of community activities, even where they did not continue involvement with the Peace People structures.

It arose from a spontaneous mass movement, see e.g. https://www.flickr.com/photos/innateireland/28364007554/in/album-72157613614963634 but it only remained a mass movement for a very short term, a number of months. It was however the largest peace upsurge against the violence of the Troubles in the North though there was also a complex picture as to what and whose violence it stood against or was seen to stand against – even if the leadership were clear it was against all violence. It continued as a sizeable organisation for a couple of decades. Of the three most publicly identified leaders, Ciaran McKeown and Betty Williams are now dead, dying in 2019 and 2020 respectively; see https://www.innatenonviolence.org/editorials/ed273.shtml#obit for an obituary in this publication on Ciaran McKeown. Mairead Corrigan Maguire is the one remaining member of the these three early leaders still alive and she continues to contribute as she can including speaking at pro-Palestine rallies in Belfast. As is well known, Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1977.

There were many controversies during the story of the Peace People and the earlier ones are explored in a 1987 research pamphlet by the editor of this publication which is available on the INNATE website in the pamphlets section https://innatenonviolence.org/wp/pamphlets/ That includes significant information on the local group story and the Peace People finances (yes, it was relatively well off early on but there was far less money than popular perceptions held).

There were two big crisis points in the organisation, one in 1979 and another around 1994. After the latter date the Peace People was a much smaller organisation. While Betty Williams ended her involvement and went off to do her own thing within a few years of the start, and Ciaran McKeown came and went in terms of active involvement, Mairead Maguire continued her involvement throughout – and once she was free of child rearing responsibilities has made a very significant contribution to peace internationally. Mairead Maguire has been arrested in the USA and at Aldermaston in England and Faslane in Scotland, hit by an IDF plastic bullet in Palestine, visited traumatised Rohingya people in exile in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, and contributed widely through the Nobel Women’s Initiative, to mention just a few points of international involvement.

INNATE’s album of photos on the Peace People is at https://www.flickr.com/photos/innateireland/albums/72157613614963634/with/6968923928 and the Peace People website is at https://www.peacepeople.com/

–

Well, that’s it for another month and I wish you well for the autumn season…and I don’t wish you well for the autumn season if you happen to be reading this in the southern hemisphere in which case I wish you well for the spring season [How obtuse can you get? – Ed] [Do you want me to try harder???? – Billy]. See you soon, Billy

Hiroshima Nagasaki events, Dublin and Belfast, 5th & 6th August

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– Irish CND is organising its customary commemorative ceremony in Merrion Square Park, Dublin

The ceremony will take place at the memorial cherry tree in Merrion Square Park, Dublin, at 1.10 pm on Thursday 6th August. There will be short speeches by Lord Mayor of Dublin Daryl Barron, Japanese Counsellor and Deputy Head of Mission in Ireland, Mr Koji Hirohata, and Afri Board member, Dr Patrick Bresnihan (Maynooth University). There will also be contributions of music and poetry, and a wreath of flowers will be laid at the tree at the close of the commemoration.    http://irishcnd.blogspot.ie/  www.afri.ie

– There will be a commemorative lantern vigil held at the Big Fish/Donegall Quay/Lagan Weir in Belfast from 9.00pm – 11.30pm on Wednesday 5th August to mark the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings and stand for nuclear disarmament today. ( Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann is on in Belfast at this time) Bring a lantern or failing that a candle in a jar. The event is organised by INNATE innate@ntlworld.com and see flyer at https://innatenonviolence.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Hiroshima-Nagasaki-vigil-26.08.pdf Lantern vigils are being promoted by Pax Christi International https://paxchristi.net/lanterns-for-peace-from-hiroshima-to-the-world/ and this address includes instructions for making your own lantern……

August 2026 Supplement to Nonviolent News 341

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SUPPLEMENT to Number 341, Belfast, 1st August 2026

Please note this is a relatively short supplement with mainly time-limited or immediate information, not a full issue (the next one will appear at the start of September)

ICND: Annual commemoration of Hiroshima bombing, Dublin

This year will mark the 81st anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, which took place on 6th August 1945. Irish CND will be holding the customary annual commemoration in Merrion Square in Dublin. 

The ceremony will take place at the memorial cherry tree in Merrion Square Park, Dublin, at 1.10 pm o Thursday 6th August. There will be short speeches by Lord Mayor of Dublin Daryl Barron, Japanese Counsellor and Deputy Head of Mission in Ireland, Mr Koji Hirohata, and Afri Board member, Dr Patrick Bresnihan (Maynooth University). There will also be contributions of music and poetry, and a wreath of flowers will be laid at the tree at the close of the commemoration. Both Irish CND and Afri are members of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), so it is fitting that both organisations are involved in the commemoration.  

An estimated 80,000 people were directly killed by the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, with casualties reaching 140,000 within a year. Approximately 12,500 nuclear weapons remain in the world today, more than enough to destroy life on earth as we know it many times over.

ICND continues “Sadly, the dark shadow of the possibility of nuclear war looms more grimly than perhaps ever before. Spending on nuclear weapons reached more than $119 billion last year, a shocking new high, with more than half of this expenditure deriving from the United States. Nuclear weapons states are all engaged in modernising their arsenals and delivery systems. Five of the nine nuclear-armed states have engaged in international military attacks in the past year alone. It would only take a moment of madness to plunge the world into an irreversible nuclear war.

Yet there are positive signs of progress. More countries continue to ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons each year. The Treaty has now been signed or ratified by 100 countries, more than half the recognised states in the world. The first Review Conference of the Treaty will take place later this year. 

We must meet darkness with the light of positive hope and determination. We look forward to welcoming as many of you as possible to our commemoration in Merrion Square, remembering eight decades of the legacy of nuclear destruction. Wherever you are, even if you are not in a position to join us in person this year, please do join us in spirit to stand in solidarity with the victims of these horrific weapons of mass destruction, and to affirm our determination to work for their elimination, the only way to ensure that the ghastly events of Hiroshima and Nagasaki will not be repeated.”  http://irishcnd.blogspot.ie/ www.afri.ie

Hiroshima, Nagasaki lantern vigil, Belfast, 5th August evening

There will be a commemorative lantern vigil held at the Big Fish/Donegall Quay/Lagan Weir from 9.00pm – 11.30pm on Wednesday 5th August to mark the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings and stand for nuclear disarmament today. As Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann is on in Belfast at this time with a main stage at the City Hall, the Big Fish was chosen as an alternative venue….but attendees can combine a visit to the Fleadh with the vigil (or vice versa!). Bring a lantern or failing that a candle in a jar. The event is organised by INNATE innate@ntlworld.com and see flyer at https://innatenonviolence.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Hiroshima-Nagasaki-vigil-26.08.pdf Lantern vigils are being promoted by Pax Christi International https://paxchristi.net/lanterns-for-peace-from-hiroshima-to-the-world/ and this address includes instructions for making your own lantern……

Afri Doolough walk video, sponsored cycle in September

Afri’s Doolough ‘Famine’ Walk is always a powerful occasion and you can visit or revisit the June event of this year in a 14 minute video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayK0TILHiLk and there are photos at https://lightroom.adobe.com/shares/1e90b33ca4a643bfb8d64e8f7aa35e0f Donnah Vuma’s reflections at the walk are at https://www.rundale.org/2026/07/21/what-doolough-asks-of-us/ and Patrick Bresnihan’s at https://www.rundale.org/2026/07/21/republic-or-empire/ The 2027 ‘Famine’ Walk will be on 19th June next year.

Meanwhile on 12th September there is a sponsored ‘Famine’ Walk Solidarity Cycle on the same Louisburgh-Doolough-Louisburgh route (both ways) led by Joe Murray, former Afri coordinator, and Richard Moore, of Children in Crossfire. This will support Afri’s work for peace, justice, human rights and sustainability. The start will be in Louisburgh Town Hall at 12 noon. More info at https://drive.google.com/file/d/1O3vp3_a8Cy5MEXA2KTn6pVfZNyt57rN9/view

Demilitarise for the Just Transition!

The third annual Week of Action for Peace & Climate Justice, backed by a wide variety of groups, is taking place from 21st – 27th September and will address the links between war, militarism/militarisation and social, economic and climate injustice; the title of the week is Divest from War – Invest in The Just Transition! It will promote grassroots action and policymaking to confront both genocide and ecocide – for peace and a just systemic transition. As the Week of Action website states “amid escalating climate change effects and their disastrous toll on social and economic well-being, governments across the globe are militarising at pace. Over the last two years, a majority of NATO and EU states have committed to historic increases in military spending while gutting public funds for real climate and biodiversity action, overseas aid, social welfare, migrant justice, civil society and peacebuilding. This trend is echoed globally and, indeed, has global consequences for people and planetary health.”   See https://climatemilitarism.org/weekofaction/ Source: War Resisters’ International www.wri-irg.org

Peace News rides again

British peace publication Peace News (founded 1936) restarts publication in September with a relaunch pilot issue after a couple of years hiatus. The new ‘PN’ will be quarterly in full colour magazine format. They state “PN will continue to be a space for news, reflection, analysis and promotion of pacifism, anti-militarism, and nonviolence, of campaigns and actions for social, economic and environmental justice. We aim to have a wide range of contributors and book reviewers, and encourage broad discussion through comment articles and a lively letters page.” A new editor has still to be appointed – the post will be advertised in the first issue – but an admin worker, Maryam Namazie, is in place. Subscription rates are still to be announced. editorial@peacenews.info

From Othering to Belonging

john a. powell is director of the Othering and Belonging Institute at the University of California, Berkeley   https://belonging.berkeley.edu/ and a highly regarded thinker in the US on racism, identity, democracy and belonging. He visited Ireland in early June as a guest of Social Change Initiative and the Community Foundation Ireland. His thinking provides a very useful counterpoint to concepts about scapegoating and division, as in Northern Ireland. See https://www.socialchangeinitiative.com/from-othering-to-belonging-creating-a-world-where-everyone-belongs

l Attitudes in the Republic of Ireland towards immigration, trans rights, class, wealth and public housing are more progressive and inclusive than the narrative of polarisation dominating national debate – according to Hope and Courage Collective‘s first Ireland in Focus report, which tracks key developments, trends and events from 2024 to 2025. https://tinyurl.com/36sa3n7x with full report at https://hopeandcourage.ie/ireland-in-focus-mind-the-gap/

On democracy

Deciding how decisions are made is often the most important decision that people make. There is a new short exposition of the de Borda Institute www.deborda.org approach; “Democracy is for everybody, not just a majority, and definitely not just the majority. True democracy leaves no community behind.” See https://www.tasc.ie/blog/2026/07/24/democracy-is-for-everybody-not-just-a-majority-and-definitely-not-just-the-majority/

Síolta Chroí courses

Síolta Chroí run regular courses and you can sign up to receive their news at https://sioltachroi.ie/ and click on ‘Get updates’. Their aim is to “teach people how to grow food in ways that heal the land, strengthen communities, and create a healthier future.” Upcoming courses include ones on food fermentation (15th August) with Laura and Ruairí of Bio Cultures and one on 3rd October on seeds and seed-saving with Conor O’Kane, to mention just a couple. Facebook https://www.facebook.com/sioltachroi Síolta Chroí, Aghacloghan, Carrickmacross, Monaghan A81C998.

News, July 2026

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Monitoring as a response to racial tension in Northern Ireland

The Migrant Centre NI https://migrantcentreni.org/ recently ran a training series for monitoring (a k a observing) in situations of racial tension; the idea is in part to be able to report factually what happens, if anything, and deter violence by being present. Facilitation for the training was provided by INNATE – and ironically one of the training sessions took place the day after racist rioting. The Migrant Centre will provide time-limited follow up and it is possible Mediation Northern Ireland www.mediationni.org which in the past had an extensive monitoring involvement in situations of community tension, in partnership with TIDES and Belfast Interface Project, may pick up the baton. For further details contact julia@migrantcentreni.org INNATE will continue to promote monitoring, contact innate@ntlworld.com See also photo album on monitoring and accompaniment at https://www.flickr.com/photos/innateireland/albums/72157629555375796/

New Glencree CEO, NextGen4Peace

Dr Aisling Hearns is the next Chief Executive Officer of Glencree and has just taken up the role. She was previously Director of Services at Towards Healing, where she provides leadership for a national counselling and support service for survivors of religious, clerical, and institutional abuse; she previously held a senior leadership position with Spirasi – the Centre for the Care of Survivors of Torture, where she led therapeutic services supporting survivors of torture and forced displacement from diverse backgrounds. Her work has involved extensive engagement with refugees, survivors of human rights abuses, and communities navigating the challenges of trauma, identity, and social exclusion. See more at https://glencree.ie/news/

l Meanwhile Glencree has launched its joint programme with Mediation Northern Ireland, NextGen4Peace, which will bring together people from across Northern Ireland and the border counties, with a particular focus on those from marginalised communities. The programme aims to strengthen relationships, foster mutual understanding, and support the development of a more peaceful and inclusive society. https://tinyurl.com/mw5af6yu and Mediation NI is at https://mediationni.org

War in Sudan: IPB briefing offers clarity

While there has – rightly – been a mass movement in Ireland regarding the war on Gaza and on the Palestinian situation in general, and the war in Ukraine is continually in the news, another war which is more difficult to get to grips with has been taking place, with brutal consequences, in Sudan. A very useful 14-page briefing on the Sudanese civil war is available from the International Peace Bureau/IPB at https://ipb.org/ipb-situational-brief-the-sudanese-civil-war/

This includes a summary look at the background, the international support for the two sides, the perpetrators, the victims, and the lifeline of the 800 ‘Emergency Response Rooms’ (ERRs) providing all sorts of humanitarian support to the civilian population in the absence of state support. The report also looks at the failure of the international community to respond adequately and makes recommendations in a situation where over 12.5 million people have been displaced and upwards of half a million killed.

IPB is calling on the international community, among other things, to recognise and protect ERR volunteers as humanitarian actors under international humanitarian law, ensuring that protection is enforced and that both warring parties are held accountable for attacks on civilian aid workers: Pressure all foreign states – in particular the UAE – to cease arms transfers to parties engaged in documented genocide and war crimes: Support the expansion of ICC jurisdiction and the existing Darfur arms embargo to cover all of Sudan: Urgently restore and increase humanitarian aid funding for Sudan, reversing the devastating cuts of 2025: Call for an immediate, unconditional ceasefire and the protection of humanitarian corridors.

Éamon Ó Cuív on neutrality

Éamon Ó Cuív, senior Fianna Fáil figure – and grandson of Dev – spoke at Lex Innocentium’s Can Ireland remain neutral? conference in Dublin in March. While INNATE would not agree with his stand on a variety of issues, he was strongly opposed to ditching the Triple Lock (removing UN authorisation on the deployment of more than 12 Irish troops overseas) which the current Irish government is hell bent on doing. With 20 Fianna Fáil TDs raising questions about the move more recently, the issue is still running. His talk at the Lex Innocentium conference is available at https://innatenonviolence.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Eamon-O-Cuiv-paper-on-neutrality.pdf and the Lex website is at https://lexinnocentium21.ie with their conference recording at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEkw7PJ20Ug and Éamon Ó Cuív coming in at 1.22.25.

Chornobyl: Adi Roche speaks out on another reckless attack

Chernobyl Children International founder Adi Roche has again felt obliged to speak out about another attack, by drone, hitting a nuclear waste storage facility at Chornobyl in early June. “I appeal, on behalf of all humanity and as a first-step towards peace negotiations, that the deadly and toxic Chornobyl Nuclear Power Plant, with its thousands of tons and gallons of highly radioactive material, no longer be targeted, or used as an area of shelling, bombardment, and ground fighting.  We must invoke the Hague Convention which defines any attack on a nuclear facility to be a ‘war crime’. My greatest fear in this conflict is that the next Chornobyl will be Chornobyl itself….In the name of humanity, in the name of the children, please stop this war and declare Chornobyl and all Nuclear Power Plants as ‘No War Zones’ as a starting point.”   https://www.chernobyl-international.com/chornobyl-nuclear-power-plant-attacked-by-drone-statement-from-adi-roche/

World Beyond War: Call to Ireland on its EU presidency

World Beyond War and others have called on the Irish government to use its EU Council presidency for peace. The open letter to Thomas Byrne TD and Helen McEntee TD includes the steps to “Resist mandatory military spending benchmarks as an increasingly normalised condition for EU member states, and resist any weakening of EU arms export control frameworks under the pretext of ‘simplification’ and ‘efficiency’. Recommit the European Union to full compliance with international law and to its own founding values as a peace project……Place peace, conflict prevention and mediation on the agenda of the European Political Community summit, which will be hosted in Ireland in November 2026.” See https://tinyurl.com/mwtf7jbt

The CO issue becomes more critical

As militarisation progresses in Europe and worldwide, the issue of conscientious objection (CO) becomes even more critical with the possibiity of conscription coming to a country near you very soon. A new publication from four different organisations – Quaker Council for European Affairs, War Resisters’ International, Connection e.V., and Agir Pour La Paix – brings together testimonies of people who have refused participation in war and military service across different countries and contexts. Entitled “Voices of Peace – Stories of Conscientious Objectors from Europe and Beyond”, Türkiye, Israel, Russia, Eritrea, Belgium, Greece, Spain, and Finland all feature in this 64-page pamphlet. Available at https://wri-irg.org/sites/default/files/public_files/QCEA_Voices_of_Peace.pdf

What Pax Christi International has been up to, Hiroshima lanterns

You can read what has been happening with Pax Christi International (PCI) in 2025, its 80th year, in its extensive annual report at https://paxchristi.net/pax-christi-international-2025-annual-report/ You can also find information on the PCI interaction with Palestine and the Kairos II document, https://paxchristi.net/kairos-ii-and-pax-christi-international-from-reflection-to-concrete-action/ and about the campaign “Lanterns for Peace: from Hiroshima to the World”, developed by Pax Christi International and the Hiroshima Coventry Club (Touro Project). This is a global initiative inspired by the lantern ceremonies held each year in Hiroshima, the campaign invites communities around the world to organise local commemorative events using traditional lanterns as symbols of remembrance, peace, hope, and nuclear disarmament. See https://tinyurl.com/mu7awfav

ICCL: Facial Recognition Technology and the Garda Síochána

ICCL, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, is continuing to campaign on issues relating to FRT (Facial Recognition Technology) in the Garda Síochána (Recording Devices) (Amendment) Bill 2025 including tension with EU law. There is a petition form at https://www.iccl.ie/I-do-not-consent-to-frt/ and detailed analysis at https://www.iccl.ie/news/garda-ai-bill-iccl-trinity/

FOE: Blow ins and blow ups – LNG Clare terminal case

Friends of the Earth is continuing its campaign to oppose the proposed Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) terminal in Clare – with them quoting the head of an oil and gas company pushing for LNG to be brought to Ireland admitting he wouldn’t want to live beside such a facility for fear it would blow up! As FOE say “At a time when the Government should be pulling out all the stops to end our dependence on fossil fuels – the very reason why all of us are grappling with high energy bills – they’re pushing for (new) dirty, expensive fossil fuel infrastructure.”  26 county residents can sign a petition to keep Ireland LNG free at https://www.friendsoftheearth.ie/act/stop-the-lng-bill/

Peace and climate justice – inseparable

The Global Week of Action for Peace and Climate justice takes place from 21st – 27th September this year with the theme “Divest from War – Invest in The Just Transition!” This will address the links between war, militarism/militarisation and social, economic and climate injustice and aim to promote grassroots action and policymaking to confront both genocide and ecocide. https://climatemilitarism.org/weekofaction/

Global Education in Ireland book, podcasts

Global Education in Ireland: Critical Histories and Future Directions edited by Eilish Dillon, Niamh Gaynor, Gerard McCann and Stephen McCloskey is published by Bloomsbury Academic and available to order at https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk and also available in an open access format online at: https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/monograph?docid=b-9781350380417 Meanwhile the Centre for Global Education (CGE) has four new podcasts including https://tinyurl.com/mztx8j9s and click on ‘See all episodes’ to see the rest. CGE website is at https://www.centreforglobaleducation.com/

Amnesty calls for enquiry into faith-based child abuse, safeguarding

Amnesty International and a clerical abuse survivors’ group have called on Northern Ireland’s First Minister and Deputy First Minister to establish a public inquiry into clerical child abuse, implement all recommendations from a government-commissioned report into abuse in faith settings and meet directly with survivors. The organisations said the Jeffrey Donaldson conviction demonstrates why allegations of abuse disclosed within a faith setting must be subject to robust safeguarding processes and independent scrutiny. https://www.amnesty.org.uk/latest/northern-ireland-donaldson-case-exposes-urgent-need-for-inquiry-into-faith-based-child-abuse-and-safeguarding-failures/

2,999 and counting

The INNATE photo site at https://www.flickr.com/photos/innateireland now has almost 3k photos or entries in 57 ‘albums’ (the best way to see photos you are most interested is to go to the appropriate album). Recent photos include ones of an anti-racist rally in Belfast and the Doolough ‘Famine’ Walk organised by Afri.

Editorials: Racism, Nonviolence

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Racing against racism

Northern Ireland seems to have moved from having sectarian disturbances in the summer to racist attacks and pogroms. These have now happened three years in a row. It is no accident given that sectarianism and racism are close relations and the North has traditions of violence; scapegoating and othering is a habit that dies hard, and one that is used by some people, particularly on the political right, to create unrest and try to create support for their vicious creeds. Sectarian attacks have decreased and racist attacks have escalated. Nor is the Republic immune from right wing racist thuggery, that is also clear from previous rioting, attacks, and the fear felt by people who are recognisably ‘other’ than the majority ‘white’ – pink – population.

It is clear from the most recent racist violence in the North that racists were and are primed ready to use any excuse deemed suitable to trigger violence and a pogrom against people from a minority ethnic background. Lists of addresses occupied by migrants had been already circulated over some months when the incident happened involving an attack by a Sudanese man, and we don’t know his motivation or situation regarding mental health. While the violence and rioting was not orchestrated by loyalist paramilitaries there were certainly loyalists involved, and the paramilitaries did nothing to stop it. However clearly many of those involved in the rioting and attacks on black and coloured people were very young and for some there was undoubtedly the thrill of engaging in arson and physical violence, so-called ‘recreational violence’.

One of the ironies involved, apart from in some cases people thrashing their own area (and a knock on effect on the North’s current reputation, such as it is), is that Northern Ireland has a much lower level of migrants living in the jurisdiction than either the Republic or Britain. Northern Ireland has a total of around 6% migrants, half of whom have ‘white’ skin, so there is only 3% black or coloured residents in the North. The Republic has 20% of its people born elsewhere. In the UK as a whole the proportion of migrants is around 17% though more than double that in London and ethnic minorities are much longer established in Britain than either part of Ireland with a much higher proportion of ethnic minority citizens born in the state. So Northern Ireland is the region of the UK with by far the lowest number of migrants but the highest level of pogrom-type violence, a factor emanating from its sectarian history.

Brendan McNally, the brother of murder victim Natalie McNally (killed along with her unborn baby in a deviously planned attack by her erstwhile partner, a white native of Northern Ireland) has made a pertinent point on social media: he slammed “patriots” following the racist attacks and questioned where they were when his sister was killed. He said “…the murder of women by a current or former partner is a grave and recurring phenomenon in our society…almost half of the murders in Northern Ireland in recent years have a domestic abuse motivation. I didn’t see much of the same angry outcry and mobilisation from so called ‘patriots’ then, using the toxic mudslide of distortion and misinformation of their social media platforms. I wonder what the difference is?”

It is no accident that racist rioting tends to happen in working class areas which in general receive a raw deal from the state. This is true North or South of the border. The lack of positive challenges and involvement through youth centres or detached youth work, the lack of decent job prospects, the poor level of education for many (and particularly so for working class Protestant males) in the North, are all factors in creating a culture of disenchantment which can be turned into violence. That is not an excuse for violence but it is certainly a contributory cause.

It is also noticeable that, while racism and racist attacks can be found anywhere on the island of Ireland, the racist violence and pogroms of the last few years in the North have substantially been in Protestant areas. There are partly ideological and historical reasons for this. Nationalism and republicanism are, in theory at least, inclusive even if that was not the case for violent republicanism in the Troubles; if you are here you are part, or potentially part, of the Irish nation. Some community groups of all varieties pride themselves on working hard to be welcoming and inclusive. However unionism and loyalism tend to more exclusive, if you are not with us you are against us, and that can spill over into racism. And, again, largely for historical reasons, PUL/Protestant Unionist Loyalist politics tends to be to the right of CNR/Catholic Nationalist Republican politics, and this is another contributory factor. But none of these factors have operated in racist violence in the Republic.

Migration is a natural phenomenon. Human migration has been happening since before the emergence of so-called homo sapiens. https://innatenonviolence.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Migration_swallow.pdf Europe and the rich world needs migration because of its low birth rates. We are not disputing that some regulation is necessary but scapegoating and penalising asylum seekers leaving impossible situations and migrants trying to build better lives for themselves is a cruel aspect of modern life. And rich countries have only a small fraction of the asylum seekers of the world.

The race against racism is to establish the right of everyone here to be respected, to contribute to society, and be free of fear, and to do so before new patterns of racism become totally established (e.g. pogroms when a migrant is perceived to have done a violent act). Unfortunately with three successive years of racist violence taking place in the North, and the link with sectarianism, it is possible that the pattern is already established. This creates issues for anti-racist civil society but in the recent racist violence in the North many rose to the challenge; Kate Laverty’s beautiful piece on support for those threatened by racist violence appears in her column in this issue.

Nonviolence, 1, 2, 3

Nonviolence is a multifaceted concept and practice. Like any approach to life it has weaknesses as well as strengths but for both pragmatic and moral reasons it is necessary; the pragmatic reasons include ensuring the survival of humankind, and assisting successful and less painful outcomes to conflict. There certainly is power that grows out of the barrel of a gun (weapons of all kinds) but that can take us back to a situation far worse than the law of the jungle, and humanity has perpetrated atrocities that no animal in the jungle would engage in. We are in a situation where pressing a few buttons and inputting a few codes and life as we know it would disappear. As it is, life for all of us will be transformed by global heating and the dislocation and violence arising from that.

People sometimes have the notion that nonviolence only works in ‘liberal’ societies where such action is tolerated. This is certainly not so as Chenoweth and Stephan’s empirical research clearly shows. Depending on the situation, however, the time frame for nonviolence working may be different to violence, and there is nothing to guarantee success in life, but it is as good as it gets for results.

It may depend partly on our temperament, it may depend on our sense of justice, and it may depend on the circumstances we find ourselves; we can be involved in nonviolent action as first, second or third parties. We may work only in one of these categories, we may be involved in all three in relation to different issues, but there is a distinction and a tension between being involved in third party action on an issue and the other two.

First party action is where ‘I’ or ‘we’ (an individual, a family, a group, an organisation or a society or country) struggle for justice and equality. The civil rights movement in the USA or Northern Ireland in the 1960s would have been partly ‘first party’ action in that the people – black people and Catholics respectively – affected by injustice were struggling for their own liberation – assisted by others. These ‘others’ were committed to justice for all and involved in ‘second party’ solidarity. If we are directly affected by an issue or situation it is clearly in our interests to deal with it – but it may also be in the interests of the whole society, and inimical to anyone believing in justice. Many of those who campaign for just treatment for people with a particular debilitating life condition are likely to be the family and friends of those in that situation; they may straddle the line between first and second party activists.

We may be so done down by powerful injustice that we cannot stand up for ourselves. We may be bought off with bread and circuses, or by propaganda. But once we become conscientised on an issue we are likely going to stand up for ourselves. The level or oppression or apathy may determine what we can do for ourselves. But second party supporters may be of great assistance; this was the case with ending apartheid in South Africa when the issue became a global one with ramifications in South Africa itself which led to the possibility of change.

There are a million and one possibilities in second party, solidarity, action. We may get involved in support because we identify with a particular issue or struggle. Many in Ireland have become involved in solidarity with Palestine because they see clear injustice in the denial of a state and economic, political and military oppression; awareness of the history of Ireland may cause clear identification with the Palestinian cause. Of course there are Palestinians in Ireland involved in action for justice for Palestine and for them it is ‘first party’ action.

We may also get involved in second party action because of our human commitment to justice, peace and/or global sustainability. This general commitment then takes us towards more specific solidarity work. However green activism can also straggle first and second party action since ecological issues affect us all. The world is living on borrowed time in so many ways, in relation to violence, to climate change, and to overuse of resources.

Third party intervention is somewhat different in that our commitment to justice and peace brings us to work to bring different parties together to resolve their differences or to prevent further injustice or violence. As a mediator or conciliator our attention may be to a specific issue or more generalised conflict, and, as with all such situations, the ‘presenting issue’ (what is initially raised) may not be the major underlying concern or only one of many. The involvement of a third party might just be for a limited period such as a mediation process that the parties agree to undertake. A conciliation process may also be for a limited time, assisting communication and understanding between parties in a crisis – or it may be for a much longer time period as with the work of Quaker House in Belfast over a couple of decades in trying to develop understanding and interaction between sides in the North and more widely those involved.

The problem for third party intervention, which can include monitoring of one form or another as well as mediation and conciliation, is how ‘neutral’ or ’impartial’ is it to be? If you became directly involved in solidarity with one party in a conflict you would certainly no longer be considered impartial and your services would almost automatically be rejected by the other party or parties. But while you may privately be totally sympathetic to one party in a conflict your public manner demands that your involvement does not treat the sides differently. This does not preclude a mediator working with one party to help prepare their involvement when they are too weak or unprepared to do so. The term ‘balanced partiality’ is perhaps applicable here, at least to some extent.

The third party mediator’s commitment to justice means that they will not tolerate a fundamentally unjust agreement between the parties. But the agreement is fundamentally for the parties themselves to make and it may be a good or a poor agreement – a mediator will have pushed to make it an agreement which not only covers the issue but is likely to hold and be implemented.

The third party role is more constrained than that of the first or second parties. It is not value-less, it is value-able. INNATE has been involved recently in training monitors for situations of racial tension in Northern Ireland (and for decades in promoting monitoring concerning situations of political tension). Those involved are certainly not engaging because they are neutral between racism and anti-racism, they are certainly anti-racist, but, if deployed, they would equally ‘call out’ inappropriate by action by police, anti-migrant protesters or anti-racist protesters.

First, second and third party activism can all be part of nonviolence. Where you involve yourself may depend on your temperament, your politics and worldview, and the circumstances you find yourself in. All are needed. There are however boundaries, particularly between third party intervention and the other two which we need to be aware of and, where possible, respect. Of course it is possible that someone involved in third party intervention feels the need to jump to involvement in direct support on an issue, second party intervention, but they are then likely to forfeit the right and the possibility of continuing as a third party actor in the situation. While majoring on second and first party action, INNATE is involved in promoting the possibilities of nonviolence through all three approaches which can at times be a difficult balancing act – but all are appropriate responses depending on the situation.

And the situations which we face in life range from the interpersonal, the local and community, the regional, national and international. We may not personally face the issue of mediating between Iran and the USA but we do face different levels of conflict in our life. And we might be primarily a mediator or conciliator with family and friends while being a first or second party activist at a national or international level. We can occupy different spaces. But we do well to remember that old adage “The personal is political’ in all that we do and are.

Nonviolence and 1, 2, 3 modes of intervention. You choose.

Eco-Awareness with Larry Speight: Our failure to manage material waste

Eco-Awareness, Nonviolent News, , ,

Larry Speight brings us his monthly column –

A report issued on the 8 June, which is the UN declared World Ocean Day, states that an estimated 52 million tonnes of plastics enter the ocean every year. I challenge you to imagine the scale of this amount. What does 52 million tons of any substance look like? The truth is the amount is so vast we have no readily available reference points.

This, sad to say, is not the total sum of our waste. It is but the measure of one of the materials we use and discard almost without thought in the course of our day. We have a plastic wrapping in our hands one moment and if in a public space are likely let it fall at our feet or if in a moving vehicle throw it out the window. If you don’t believe this look around you. On seashores, river embankments, in woodlands, on the verge of country roads and on city pavements you will find discarded plastic along with other items such as cigarette butts and vapes. They are found on the top of mountains and at places that were traditionally considered sacred such as holy wells and wishing trees.

Throwing away plastic wrappings, bags, bottles and containers of every kind is for many as unconscious as the stream of unregistered thoughts involved in our physical dexterity such as walking or reaching for something. An exception is when we have suffered an injury and every move has to be consciously planned in order to minimise the pain.

Throwing away things we no longer want is an integral part of many a person’s mindset, something the archaeological evidence shows we having being doing since our species first evolved. For most of this time this was not an ecological or social problem as what we used was organic and decomposed. However, with the advent of the industrial age and the development of synthetic materials how to dispose of things in a way that causes the least harm is a major problem.

Are readers aware that in both Northern and Southern Ireland most landfill sites have reached full capacity and the waste is transported by lorries to mainland Britain and Europe to feed incinerators that generate electricity. This embeds waste management across our island in the global fossil fuel economy and every penny rise in the cost of liquid fuels means that Councils have less money to spend on meeting other public needs. This is a millstone around our necks pulling us ever deeper into the mire of economic and ecological dysfunction.

The challenge of disposing what we don’t want, which are often perfectly usable goods, is an educational and legislative one involving the chicken and egg scenario. Legislation is needed at all levels of government, including at the international level, to ensure that manufactured goods can be repaired rather junked for the reason that the items can’t be repaired and if they can it is more expensive to repair them than buy a new one. This applies to things as transparently simple and inexpensive as a pair of flip-flops as it does to items as sophisticated and expensive as mobile phones. Long passed are the days when you could leave electric devices such as a radio, television and tape recorder into a shop to be repaired.

Legislation is also needed to change the materials in which things are contained and carried. When I travelled in India in the 1990s train passengers were served tea in clay cups which were, as our ancestors would have done, thrown away after the liquid was drank. Today it is plastic cups that are thrown away. Food items were served in paper cones, on palm leaves, in newspaper or pages torn out of an old school text book.

The conglomerates that dominate the global economy should be compelled by internationally enforceable legislation to produce packaging that when disposed of will decompose and can be used as compost on gardens and fields.

Some progress has been made in producing carrier bags that decompose but the research shows that outside of laboratory conditions the decomposition takes more than a human life-span. The majority of the clothes that likely adorn your body at this very moment will exist somewhere on the planet long after your flesh and bones have been digested by the guts of our planet. Your legacy won’t be engraved on a block of polished marble but be all the things you purchased during the course of your life which, as in a horror film, never die.

Your body is wearing your ghost.

Your immortality is your life-long accumulation of all the inorganic things you have ever owned and fossil fuels you have ever used or used for your benefit. It is said that all of our good and harmful deeds are recorded in a ledger overseen by God and that our immortal fate will be determined by what is the ledger, in other words by our own deeds. What will be the magnitude of the harm done to nonhuman beings and our fellow humans, including the generations yet to be born, when the record of your deeds is set before you so that you know you have chosen your own type of eternity?

Perhaps, as in court rooms today, we might plead ignorance as a mitigating circumstance, except that in law ignorance is no excuse. This brings us to the chicken and egg scenario. In order to achieve effective waste management legislation we need to lobby our legislative bodies to pass the legislation. Start with your elected political representatives. We also need to ensure that the conglomerates fulfill their ecological responsibilities and educate ourselves about the ecological niche we occupy and the harm we do as well as the good we can do.

The Earth is being suffocated by the things we dispose of which means we are self-harming and this should stop. The first step towards restoring our collective health can be taken today. No excuses.