Category Archives: Billy King

Only the Billy King columns from 2021 onwards are accessible here. For older columns by Billy King please click on the “Go to our pre-2021 Archive Website’ tag on the right of this page.

Billy King: Rites Again, 341

Billy King, Nonviolent News, , , ,

Billy King shares his monthly thoughts

The Headitorial in this issue deals substantially with the recent racist violence in Northern Ireland so I won’t do more than mention it – and Kate Laverty’s piece in her column portrays community resistance to hate so wonderfully. Racial hate is just one other issue that has to be dealt with in the North and while the stick of the law needs to apply to those involved in racist violence, the carrot of positive multiculturalism needs to be dangled too and is most important in the long run. It is fair enough to believe ‘our’ culture is the best or at least what we want to be mainly a part of. However there are many slow learners of the lesson that we already benefit from the presence of other cultures and people. The health and care systems in both the North and the Republic would fall apart without workers who have come from elsewhere. While not advocating meat eating, meat factories – providing an economic outlet for farmers – would cease working without migrant workers.

And one of the most obvious but sometimes overlooked features of ‘foreign’ culture present in our society is food. It began with Italian chippies and ice cream. Today Chinese, Indian and Middle Eastern cuisine is on the menu for most people – and probably for the vast majority of those involved in the recent racist rioting! We need to learn to appreciate what we have. There is a wonderful couple of lines in a satirical song by Scottish-Australian singer-songwriter Eric Bogle where the racist man in the song says “I never eat wog meat / I always eat at the Chinese caff / Just across the street”; in other words ‘the other’ has become so much a part of ‘us’ and what we want that it goes unnoticed and unappreciated.

Black and white tales from the dark lake

The Doolough ‘Famine’* Walk, organised by Afri, is a unique event. It is an amazing combination of detailed analysis of violence and injustice – sometimes with considerable emotion such as when a Gazan has spoken, along with solidarity, camaraderie, scenery, physical exercise, sociability, and maybe even a bit of craic unwinding in the evening. Some photos of this year’s event, which took place in mid-June, can be found at https://www.flickr.com/photos/innateireland/55335011397/in/dateposted/ and photos beside that. *’Famine’ is in inverted commas here because ‘there was no famine’ – food was being exported in great quantities but the peasantry, dependent on the potato, had no access to it or had to sell what they had to pay rent.

Happening this year in June, it turned out excellent walking weather, dry and not too hot. My companion in life remarked on the fitness of President Catherine Connolly who participated in a personal capacity (as she has done before being president); a fast walker, come to a hill and, instead of slowing down, she accelerated, virtually running up it. Wow. She is 70.

There is a big contrast between the life and health of the walkers today and the plight of the original starving, and dying, walkers in 1849, condemned to death by an exploitative system that washed its hands of helping the people it exploited. The parallels with affairs in the world today are always explored and it is both memorialising and acting in solidarity with struggles in the world today.

You learn something new every year, not just from the information and analysis from the speakers/walk leaders but also the participants who you chat to on the way. This year one story I learnt was of Affy Dillon. Sitting on the bus to the start beside Imelda O’Grady who lives locally, she told me about Affy Dillon and the song written by her husband, Michael O’Grady, about him. https://michaelogrady.bandcamp.com/track/affy-dillon Affy was a babe in arms, well a babe strapped to his mother’s back on the Doolough ‘famine’ walk – the route we were travelling on – when his mother died and he was still alive, strapped to her back, when found; he was rescued by a local family and fed on ewe’s milk but lack of sustenance previously had left him blind. So while Affy lived a normal lifespan, as Michael O’Grady’s song says he “never viewed the pleasant scenes that abound around Clew Bay / The sunset red on Old Head hill, Croagh Patrick’s stately cone / Like luxuries were unknown to him though amid them he had grown.“ It’s a fascinating and tragic story but also one of local care and resilience.

The title of this piece is partly a reference to Afri’s 18-track CD of music associated with the Doolough walk, “The Doolough Famine Walk – Music from the dark lake” which I would recommend – available on the Afri website www.afri.ie Afri has had brilliant singers/musicians contribute over the years, as it does at other events it organises; this year it was Declan O’Rourke singing and his moving song ‘Connaught Orphan’ is on the CD.

The Phoenix falls to earth and burns

I am very sad to see the end of the fortnightly Phoenix magazine whose circulation, like so many printed publications of various sorts, has nosedived over the last couple of decades. While often described as the Irish equivalent of the British Private Eye, it had its own unique features – and an uphill struggle to survive in a relatively small country like Ireland. I was only once in their higgledy-piggledy office upstairs in south central Dublin; I was looking for an old Phoenix cartoon on the North and staff were welcoming and friendly, I was coming by arrangement.

It covered numerous issues that the mainstream media were afraid to touch and in particular took a courageous stand for Irish neutrality when the mainstream media has been bending over backwards to back EU militarisation, NATO, and pro-government stances on an issue such as the Triple Lock. It was, for example, scathing about the government-sponsored so-called Consultative Forum on International Security in 2023 which was a Department of Foreign Affairs stitch up. It also covered news about some NGOs and other bodies that, again, the mainstream media did not handle.

It will be missed. Whether anything like it arises from the ashes, a phoenix arising again, I doubt though there may be opportunities online. And on a more humorous note, as a cartoon aficionado [I thought you were a bit of a cartoon character yourself Billy! – Ed] I will miss it too. Here is a couple of them almost at random. “My wife didn’t give them a good reception” says a man as he returns a pair of boxer shorts to a clothing store returns desk; the cartoon is titled “Dodgy boxers” (the issue of ‘dodgy box’ illegal TV streaming is an ongoing one in the Re:Public). And regarding a mega-Euro Lottery jackpot, a guy in a bar says to another guy, “Apparently the rumour started that I had won the €250 million when I was overheard in the state agents enquiring about a one bed apartment in Kanturk!”.

Something fishy

The guilty verdict for Jeffrey Donaldson, two years after he was charged with child sexual abuse concerning two young girls, including rape, is a shocking turnaround for someone who was once top of the pile in Norn Iron. It has dominated news. There has been that much commentary and coverage of the trial in Ireland, and the guilty verdict, that I won’t add much more. It must have taken a huge amount of courage for the two women concerned, now adults, to confront such a towering figure when, years after the events, it was largely their words against his, and he was top dog.

It is also a feather in the cap for the PSNI to have investigated such a case and be proven right against the then most powerful political figure in the North. I won’t say much more except to note that throughout the lead up and the court case itself he wore his evangelical Christian ‘fish’ badge. This was an early Christian symbol, a fish, ichthus in Greek, which was an acronym for “Jesus Christ, God’s Son, Saviour”. It became a Christian symbol in the second century CE and it also fitted since (loaves and) fishes also appear in the Christian story; the fish became identified as a secret or not so secret Christian symbol.

The simple ‘line drawing’ Christian symbol badge tends to be an evangelical Christian symbol in this part of the world these days. Did Donaldson continue to wear it because he wore it before he was charged with the child sex offences, did he wear it because he thought it would show his ‘Christian’ moral character – and therefore proclaim that he was innocent? However before his conviction I thought it is not a very good advertisement for Christianity, or its fish symbol, if he was guilty. As it turned out there was something rotten and it stank. Commentators have explored whether he weaponised his proclaimed Christianity to try to silence the victims. There might be a few less people wearing the fish symbol these days and the DUP which Donaldson led is wondering how it escape the repercussions – and who knew what about him within the party.

I expected the jury to take longer than it did to reach a verdict though a journalist who covered all the case thought it was open-and-shut and would be shorter; having been on a jury I know it takes a while even to agree that everyone is agreed. However to me it is an indication of the jury’s certainty in accepting the testament of the women victims/survivors and the prosecution case, especially in finding him guilty on all 18 charges. Meanwhile the stories and the speculation will run for quite some time.

Chickening out

Why do I feel the need to say “I am not a meat eater” before I go on to say I think there is something severely amiss with a society which gets its protein and favourite meat from the abuse of animals. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c982d389em7o Ireland is awash with chickens and Moy Park in the North, population 1.9 million, produces 6 million chickens a week. It would only take it 9 days to produce one chicken for everyone on the island.

And of course the industry has its own ‘standards’ which, typically for such non-independent voluntary regulations, is a con job. I find it difficult to fathom how such ill treatment of animals, and I presume antibiotic use entering the food chain, is tolerated. Not a good advertisement for unregulated capitalism. Of course people have a choice to buy more expensive organic and relative cruelty free chicken but with the advertising industry at work, and the price differential, it is not a choice that crosses many people’s minds. With so many vegan protein sources available – some very cheap such as pulses – it is very sad but the chicken industry sees itself as responding to the demand for cheap food – excuses, excuses.

I also object to the description that most chicken is produced on ‘family farms’ – free range chicken being the exception. This conjures up a cosy image rather than the nightmare reality. They are not on a ‘farm’, they are on a cruel production line which is so unlike what I would call a ‘farm’ as to be preposterous. In the children’s story, Chicken Licken is afraid the sky is falling down; the poultry producers do what they want and know that the sky – that their chickens never see – will not fall on their heads and there will be no restrictions or repercussions for their cruelty to living beings. And this is a sad state of affairs for the chickens – and for the morality of humanity.

–

Hopefully we are coming to an end of war in relation to Iran though it splutters on. The USA may have had the big guns, metaphorically and practically speaking, but the stupidity of that country going to war is incredible and it has lost far more than it has ‘gained’. When you have a doctrine of ‘might is right’ you are not only likely to end up in the wrong morally but exacerbating the situation. The human and ecological cost of the war is incalculable and the economic cost, for the USA and the world, has been massive. The War Resisters’ International motto/basis is that “War is a crime against humanity” (you can get a fine print great ‘broken rifle’ poster by Lynn Finnegan at https://warresistersint.teemill.com/product/war-is-a-crime-against-humanity-art-print/ and this was never truer.

Anyway, on to the summer and I wish you a peaceful time and hopefully a chance to get your head showered – which with typical Irish weather may happen naturally in the open….. There is no full issue of this e-steamed publication in August, just a news supplement, so I will talk to you [‘talk at you’? – Ed] again in September – the summer is only here and I am talking about autumn already! Billy. l

Billy King: Rites Again, 340

Billy King, Nonviolent News, , , , ,

Billy King shares his monthly thoughts

Hello, I was hoping that this Colm [I think you are trying to be Uncle Colm from Derry Girls? – Ed] would be a TFZ – a Trump Free Zone – but it proved impossible. However I will keep it short and sweet and not mention the Donald again, this issue, I promise. You may have read that according to Atlantic magazine, the occupant of the POTUS post has stopped comparing himself to Abraham Lincoln and George Washington and decided he is more in the league of Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar and Napoleon. Maybe that makes him a bit of a dick-tator but on a serious note it also makes him incredibly dangerous when in his last few years of insuperable military power he can obliterate what he wants to destroy with no repercussions for him personally.

So we may be in for a rollercoaster ride at best and a downward spiral at worst. Lets hope he gets wrapped up and obsessed with his boorish monuments to himself so he can’t be obnoxious and violent to others. He is a walking illustration of the perils of militarism (the egotism perhaps goes without saying though I have just said it) – as have many US presidents before him. Actions can have a myriad of consequences; for example, the US blockade of Cuba has doubled of even tripled the infant mortality rate there, with much other hardship too.

Meanwhile here we are into meteorological summer which in Ireland means the rain is warmer, or if you are logical and look at a clear night sky long enough you are likely to see a meteor. Well, you never know what will be thrown at us. Cue the old old story about someone from Norn Iron trying to book holiday accommodation in Britain by phone “for the Twelfth fortnight in July” and wondering why they were getting an incredulous response…. The longest day comes later this month and it always strikes me as strange – though obviously not meteorologically – that ‘summer’ comes when the days are already getting shorter. Mind you we have had a few days of record heat in late May which for most people in Ireland were pleasant – but not as a harbinger of ongoing global heating, and not in some places in Europe where temperatures were 10°C or more hotter than in good old Atlantic facing Ireland – tourist slogan “Come for the craic and stay for the cool”….

Own goal

There are own goals and own goals, and would you like to own a goal? [I will keep you goal posted on that – Ed] But the biggest own goal of the last month in relation to Northern Ireland was scored by Kemi Badenoch, leader of the Conservative Party in Britain. Her office issued a social media post on the usual – and totally discredited – theme that there is a vendetta against British army personnel, veterans, who operated in the North and that Labour government proposals would facilitate that. In fact the number of cases taken show that this is a non-issue but it has become an English/British nationalist shibboleth (as well as a means to try to avoid state culpability).

However the post carried film footage of British soldiers in Derry during Bloody Sunday in 1972 when 14 unarmed people were shot dead by the British army. Her post was withdrawn when it was pointed out that this was what the clip showed. But by including this what it unintentionally said is that the full rigour of the law should be applied to soldiers who were involved in shootings and violent activities outside of human rights law. This was bad enough for her and it was the opposite of what Badenoch and her office were trying nothing should exonerate those much higher up the military and political chains of command who set the parameters for engagement and sent the soldiers in, but that isn’t how these things work, is it? If anyone gets done it is the people at the bottom and in the Norn Iron case that hasn’t even been happening.

Dream time Fianna Fáil

As the two recent by-elections in the Republic show, it is not a dream time for Fianna Fáil, even losing their deposit because their vote was so low in the Dublin election. As regular readers will know, I try to take an interest in polly-ticks on both sides of the border [Shouldn’t that be ‘regular reader’, singular, rather than ‘regular readers’? – Ed] [That is just you being singularly unpleasant again – Billy]. However I was surprised by a recent dream and its vividness in remembrance of it on waking; in the dream I was responsible for putting up an exhibition about Fianna Fáil with various panels and these included accounts of FF misdemeanours and mishandlings – but activists from said political party had stolen the panels which were especially critical of them. I had to threaten that I would publicise their theft if they didn’t return them – which they did, considering that that was the lesser of two evils.

Well, how do you interpret that dream? Where did it come from? I consider said party should have gone out of existence entirely after the economic crash debacle of 2008; Bertie Ahern and the powers that were in Fianna Fail (sic) stupidly did nothing to rein in the property and housing bubble and they made the boom times boomier – which then led to the crash times being crashier and very significant hardship for many different kinds of people.

Their current embrace of NATO and EU militarisation is, I feel, a negation of the positive foreign policy which it has undertaken at various times in its existence, and also a betrayal of what soul it possessed – if a political party, especially a populist conservative one like FF, can have a soul. Micheál Martin being friendly with, and to, unionists is a Good Thing – but not at the expense that he refuses to plan for what a united Ireland would look like. On the latter, let the people decide, as is their right – but they need to know what they are deciding on and such thinking is best done outside the febrile atmosphere of a referendum vote or votes (north, south, east and west) on a u-nighted Ireland.

I am a political animal but not a party political one and I don’t think I could toe the line to be in a political party; I made that choice while (just) still a teenager. So I could do the same critique of many’s another political party. But that was what I dreamt about (see also my next two items which concern FF…) and I have provided a dream interpretation which is not dreamy. Maybe I should dream on. [Are you sure it wasn’t a large dram you had rather than a dream, even a bottle of Dreambuie? – Ed] [That would make me sic – Billy]

T-shock* and nuclear power

Micheál Martin has said Ireland should think seriously about nuclear power, e.g. Irish Times 4/5/26. I have a one word response to this; ‘Rubbish’ – nuclear rubbish or waste that is. Would he like nuclear waste in his back garden needing to be guarded for ten millennia? Of course fossil fuels need to be eradicated from Ireland’s energy mix but the idea that Ireland with its wind, waves, water and sun (yes!) might need to rely on what is the dirtiest fuel of all (and not all it is cracked up to be in terms of carbon dioxide emissions too) is unimaginative and extremely expensive nonsense. High tech junkies keep coming up with their feeling Ireland needs nuclear power – when what it needs is green energy and devolved green energy at that.

*In this case the ‘T’ is for ‘Threat’. I have told you before about a mention of the word ‘Taoiseach’ in the British Parliament many decades ago, at the start of the Troubles, before the word was known on that island; it could have been Gerry Fitt but anyway a Norn Iron nationalist mentioned “a speech given by the Taoiseach in Sligo” – and this was reported in Hansard, the official parliamentary record, as “a speech given in a tea shop in Sligo”!

There has always been hype and spin about nuclear energy from the very beginning. The attractions of small modular reactors is the latest in that hype. There remains the dangers of accidents, environmentally or humanly caused, or even sabotage or attack. Costs can go through the roof. Waste issues haven’t even begun to be resolved. We would do well to steer clear of dangerous white elephants even if that dangerous white elephant is smaller than previously proposed white elephants.

INNATE’s photo album on nuclear power issues, much of it on the 1970s anti-nuclear power movement, is at https://www.flickr.com/photos/innateireland/albums/72157607158367565/with/53807053772 See also Caroline Hurley’s article in this publication https://innatenonviolence.org/wp/2024/02/01/nuclear-power-is-a-regrets-industry-some-facts/

Proud of lethality

Irish people in general have been proud of the role the Irish army has played in international peacekeeping of the military variety. This has been as part of a contribution to peace in the world and has been done without fear or favour and for altruistic reasons. Those of us of a nonviolent persuasion would of course like to see support for unarmed civilian protection (UCP) and other involvements in creating and maintaining peace – including urgent work at home to prevent further climate change which is likely to cause so much conflict on a global scale in the next century.

However the Irish government has been changing tack to align the Republic much more with NATO and with EU militarisation. This has been done by a process of stealth moves so that it does not look like neutrality is being affected – but each chip at the block of neutrality wears it away; removing the Triple Lock on the deployment of Irish troops overseas is just one ingredient in the stage we are at with this. Part of this has been active and increasing engagement with NATO while not formally being a member – to the extent it won’t or doesn’t matter whether we are formally a member of not, that it makes no difference.

While public opinion is clearly in favour of neutrality, the government and Irish elite (sic) have usually been skilful in moving things in their direction; ‘Nothing to see here’ they continually opine while they know damn well they are not just gilding the lily but actively deceiving the population because they, stupidly, imagine that to be a ‘good European’ you have to be a good European militarist. This has repercussions for the Irish army and for expenditure on the military which has, thankfully and rightfully, until now been low by international standards.

But one illustration of the change that has happened appeared in that paper of establishment record, The Irish Times of 21/5/26 https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2026/05/21/it-was-embarrassing-for-them-irish-army-crew-beats-us-military-teams-at-their-own-game/ An Irish army team is proudly recorded as beating the USA in military ‘games’ in the USA which was defined as a “lethality competition”. And you know what ‘lethality’ is – killing people, and in war or military engagement that usually includes women, children and men who are not engaged in armed action, i.e. those traditionally labelled as ‘innocent’.

The Sullivan Cup after a week of military competition was won by an Irish army team and, as the IT proudly recorded, “In the end, the most “lethal” team came not from the US military but from Ireland”. This was despite the Irish team never having previously operated the M2 Bradley, a 35-tonne tracked vehicle, used for the exercise. Yes, armies are trained to be able to kill people but in a neutral state like Ireland which has not been under threat the main active role, international peacekeeping, has been the prevention of lethality. Taking part in a ‘lethality’ competition is a new and unwelcome departure and just one sign of a changed role for the Irish army, and taking part in one organised by the army of the most belligerent – and unlawfully belligerent – country on this planet is disgraceful.

–

That’s me for now as summer is a-comin’ in and in a short while it will be July, aye, and holliers for many. But if you are a peace or political activist there is never a shortage of things to do at any time of the year….which is why we all need a break. Cue Christy Moore’s ‘Lisdoonvarna’ which emphasises that we all do need a break….and which I usually quote around this time of year with the best description of a holiday ever – “When summer comes around each year / They come here and we go there”. See you soon, Billy.

Billy King: Rites Again, 339

Billy King, Nonviolent News, , , ,

Billy King shares his monthly thoughts

As more and more US citizens try to acquire European citizenship, with Ireland certainly well up in the list, isn’t it heartening to know that for the 250th anniversary of the USA if you are a citizen you will be able to purchase a commemorative passport which includes a page with a picture of President Trump. In other words on the cover the eagle has landed whereas inside the ego has landed. And Ireland, Republic and North, in the shape of Shannon and Aldergrove airports, continues to facilitate the US military machine and its warmaking. Blessed be the US$. Speaking of which, the Iran war has reputedly cost the US state $25 billion to date; what an obscene and abhorrent use of such a sum of money..

On another matter, it is good to see Ireland will be co-hosting, with Tuvalu, the second meeting of the ‘coalition of the willing’ 60 or so countries working apart from the COP process on fossil fuel phasing out. This will be early next year and a follow up to the first meeting, with petrostates absent, in Colombia which has just finished. Ireland has talked the talk all right but it hasn’t yet walked the walk; let’s see some serious action that the government can brag about at the start of next year.

Don’t mess with messiahs

OK, OK, a million and one people have already reflected in all sorts of media on D Trump’s brush with messiahdom in the shape of a traditional-image picture of him as Jesus healing the sick …with various other things going down in the background. When the reaction to that got too much he then shared a best buddy picture of Jesus giving him a cuddle; more than the best of mates then. His excuse for the first, that he thought it made him look like a doctor, was so lame that that in turn caused all sorts of cartoons and other comparisons or memes of doctors and messiahs. There is of course a 0.01% chance that he believed it made him look like a doctor, that is if he is the most visually illiterate person in the western hemisphere….oh, on second thoughts, given his extreme kitschy tastes, increase the chances there incrementally…

But, while I am not a psychologist [You don’t need to tell us, it’s pretty obvious but that won’t stop you going on to psychologise – Ed] I did want to explore messiahdom a bit. There are many kinds of messiahs. You don’t have to think you are Jesus to ‘be’ a messiah and other religious backgrounds than Christian get it too. I don’t think Trump thought he was Jesus, rather ‘just’ (!) like Jesus in being divinely appointed and infallible despite continuous failures. The second picture he posted, of Jesus giving him a cuddle, is probably closer to his thinking even though he may see himself as a healer of the sick – and how ironic is that when he is busy cutting rights to medical care and funding for medical research. In my barometer for measuring D Trump’s compatibility with Christian thinking he gets approximately 0 out of 10.

Messiahdom is probably more common than you think. I have talked before [Often – Ed] about meeting three people in Norn Iron, from outside, who thought they were ‘a’ messiah – though one of these saw himself as the father of the messiah…… However feeling you are a ‘chosen people’ has a messianic aspect to it, and the ‘manifest destiny’ beliefs of the USA, and the puritan founding fathers (sic) approach to things has led to the USA seeing itself as ‘chosen’ – e.g. as the world’s ‘policeman’ (= military bully in other people’s thinking). So the USA and Israel under a right-wing government, where the leaders of the latter believe they have a divine right to take all the territory around them that they want, are a perfect match – a perfect match made in hell that is.

While ‘Manifest Destiny’ is thought of as a 19th century US expansionist ideology, it has never gone away. The Monroe Doctrine of 1823 – opposing European intervention in the Americas – was an anti-imperialist statement but it was also part of an imperialist statement that ‘the Americas’ essentially belong to the USA, and of course the USA’s westward and southward expansion was itself imperialist. The term ‘manifest destiny’ may not have been used in the 20th century but US official thinking largely remained the same despite some variations. Amazingly – or not considering his outspokenness – Donald Trump used the term in his inaugural address in 2025. US imperialism is not just living it is, tragically, thriving even if the result of US intervention in Iran has been to make the situation far worse for Iran, the USA itself and the world.

So when you have a narcissistic megalomanic like Trump as president of the USA it is a lethal combination of a fatally flawed individual and a fatally flawed national consciousness (there are of course many people in the USA who totally and actively reject this thinking and are working away for peace and justice so it is not a ‘national’ national consciousness) with the two reinforcing each other. And we are all suffering from that but the real victims have been the Palestinians, especially Gazans, and the peoples of Iran and Lebanon. Yes, the attacks on Lebanon have been the doing of Israel but one word from the USA could have stopped them before they started (that word was ‘no’ – “No more support of any kind if you attack Lebanon”).

Nuke them

Numerous commentators have pointed out that if Iran hadn’t been trying too hard to get nuclear weapons before the current USA-Israeli onslaught that they sure as hell (sic) would in future, this would be on the same basis that the North Korean regime has nukes as an insurance policy against attack. Moving beyond the MADness of nuclear weapons has become much more difficult in our current belligerent world.

But a balance of terror is no way to run a world. It is not just a question of living in fear and wasteful expense it is is also a question of when something will go wrong. Gradually, gradually, more countries will seek to join the nuclear club and that increases the risks which are already astronomical. It is only through a combination of good luck and occasional humanity that we have not already faced nuclear armageddon and a possible (in that case probable) nuclear winter. How ironic that would be! A world facing global heating meltdown and food shortages due to lack of water through humanity’s stupidity instead freezes and most people die of starvation through cold and an inability to grow crops.

There are those who say the nuclear standoff in the Cold War prevented war. That is nonsense; there were lots of wars and proxy wars but they weren’t in Europe. We now have war in Europe again, currently in Ukraine, occasioned partly by the expansion of that western military alliance, NATO, and nuclear weapons did nothing to prevent that. Far from preventing war, NATO’s policy contributed significantly to the Russian invasion. It has been pointed out numerous times in these pages that the USA and NATO were expecting Russia to accept a situation which was intolerable for the USA. The USA threatened nuclear war in 1962 over Russian missiles in its neighbouring island, Cuba. Yet the USA and NATO expected Russia to accept NATO weapons and missiles in Ukraine, an immediate Russian neighbour with historically extremely close links. This was crass stupidity and there is ongoing crass stupidity in the USA and European countries not acknowledging their role in the tragic debacle that has led to the Ukraine war.

It is not long ago, 2017, that ICAN, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, https://www.icanw.org/ received the Nobel Peace Prize. But psychologically, and very sadly, it feels a long, long time ago given the direction things have taken since then. Even the January 2021 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), making nuclear weapons illegal, feels a long time ago.

Not for the first time I have spoken about valuable coverage of issues by the New Internationalist. https://newint.org/ The main feature in their January-February 2026 issue is on ‘The new nuclear arms race’ and there is a good run down on the situation regarding this both globally and in relation to individual situations. It covers South Africa being the only country to develop its own nuclear weapons and then dismantle them; “Under Mandela, Pretoria championed non-proliferation and the once pariah state became viewed by many as a pillar of peace.” Regarding British surveillance of activists, the CND solicitor to the ‘Spycops’ tribunal, Paul Heron, makes the cutting point that “…we are told we live in a democracy, and the people shape how society should be. [But] when people build mass movements the state treats them as a threat.”

Getting rid of nuclear weapons is an essential part of building a peaceful world – indeed this is impossible without their removal. Building collective peaceful security is possible but the lack of imagination involved in politicians’ militarist thinking makes it brutally hard to imagine let alone bring it about. And that is where those mass, popular movements are essential – and mass movements grow from the work and actions of concerned individuals building and building on the zeitgeist.

Arms trade ding dong in the North

The ‘agin-us’ nature of politics in the North (nothing to do with going for a pint of a well known brew…) is nowhere better illustrated than by recent ding-dongs about developing the arms trade in Norn Iron. Oh, if we could make money from irony, the people of the North would be all millionaires; going from a society where people were killing one another, well some people were killing some other people, to making money from weapons to kill people elsewhere, you couldn’t make it up.

Anyway, just one aspect of this is that the British government wants to develop the arms industry in the North – in a similar but different way to what the Irish government wants to do in the Republic – in the Northern case with a well funded ‘Defence Growth Deal’, which I would consider sick and obscene. I have no proof but I suspect that for the British government, investing in and promoting the arms industry in Northern Ireland has the perceived bonus of helping to keep unionists sweet (and binding it tighter to the British economy). If the total pot for this deal is, as reported, £250 million for the whole UK, Northern Ireland‘s take of £50 million is 20% of the total for a Norn Iron population my calculations say is 2.7% of the total UK population. Something strange there.

And unionists welcomed this deal, e.g. Emma Little-Pengelly, the Deputy First Minister who proudly said “Sector turnover has more than doubled over the past decade, rising from £1 billion in 2013 to £2.2 billion in 2023.” Sinn Féin ministers did not attend the launch, however, which omission was then criticised by unionists. Michelle O’Neill then came out saying she did not support the militarisation agenda and the money could have been better used in areas that really needed it. And that in turn led to further criticism of the Sinners by unionists. The fact that Sinn Féin can be considered the ‘peace party’ in this might be considered ironic in relation to the history of the second half of the 20th century – but realities change.

Unionists seldom miss a chance to castigate Irish neutrality and the broken CD from there and many sources on the right in Europe about Ireland not doing its bit for ‘European’ defence is grating. It could be countered that the UK and EU are not doing their bit for demilitarisation…..but then M Martin’s Fianna Fáil is not doing very much for that either. DUP leader Gavin Robinson said “that the sector in 2026 “isn’t all about bullets and tanks” but also about advanced manufacturing and cyber-security, which he said will “undoubtedly help cover the gaping hole in Europe’s defence that is the Republic of Ireland”. (News Letter 25/4/26) Norn Iron Secretary of State Hilary Benn weighed in on the militarist side – it is his government’s spending – speaking about the first duty of the government being to secure the safety of the nation. Of course such funding does no such thing.

However in this ding dong there is the danger that it is seen simply as a case of unionists-for-arms-production and republicans-against-arms-production. There are other kinds of people too and some of us others are appalled. The term ‘making a killing’ has never been so apt.

Consensus….against consensus

An article by Peter Emerson of the de Borda institute www.deborda.org in the April issue of the CRC/Community Relations Council monthly publication https://mailchi.mp/nicrc.org.uk/crc-ebulletin-april-2026?e=dc08e218e6 ends with a nice or not-so-nice story about Belfast City Council: “Well, in 2004, I managed to get a consensus in Belfast City Council. The question was, would these’uns like to adopt a methodology which would facilitate consensus decision-making with those’uns. And, yes, I achieved what some might have thought was impossible, a consensus. Neither side wanted to be in consensus with the other side, so there was a consensus… against consensus.” Oh well….

You can sign up to receive the CRC digital monthly news bulletin at https://www.community-relations.org.uk/publications/e-bulletin-e-news

McKeown and I

I sometimes wonder what makes a ‘good song’ and why some amazing songs, and others that are not so amazing, take off while others are left in the shadows. In terms of the construction of songs, one Irish song that stands out for me is McKeown and I by Mickey and Cormac MacConnell. Mickey MacConnell is best known for his song ‘Only our rivers run free’ which was written when he was 17 and he said about it that “It was never a republican song per se but a song about the love of one’s country.” McKeown and I is on an oul CD I have of Mickey MacConnell’s, ‘Peter Pan and me’ (Spring Records) and you can find different versions online. Mickey MacConnell died in July 2025.

The chorus is fascinating in that it has in summary form the story told in the three verses:

We’re men of straw

We’re men of sand,

Our castles crumble,

Never meant to stand

We’re two born losers,

Sure to failure we’ve begun,

We’re snowmen built

For melting in the sun.

The ‘I’ of the story is accompanied by McKeown in the first and third verses but ‘O’Neill’ in the second. Kids from a deprived urban environment, in the first verse they build a sandcastle on a day at the beach – this is then washed away by the tide. In the second verse they build a scarecrow in the farm of the reformatory where they are incarcerated which the wind then blows away. In the final verse they build a snowman in the prison yard where the year before the judge has told them “Rot in a cell / Until you’re dead” – and they dread seeing the snowman melt away.

We don’t know what ‘I’, McKeown and O’Neill have got up to apart from where they are placed and the judge’s sentence. But the power of the song is in the imagery and the contrast between ‘society’ judging they should be locked up (and the key thrown away) and the innocence of them building a sandcastle, a scarecrow and a snowman. Very affective and effective imagery I think and an amazingly well constructed song.

–

I was in the wrong part of the country to join in with Lelia Doolan’s walk at 91 years young (News, NN 338) but it was demonstrably a great occasion and joyous arrival in Dublin at the end of the long traipse from Shannon for peace. See e.g. https://www.instagram.com/walkwithlelia?igsh=eGlveXczdGFnYWVx It just shows you are never too old – or too young – to do something meaningful. That meaningful act might not be getting your walking boots on, it might be something else entirely. Anyway, for now, I remain, Billy (the kid, I am not quite 91 yet….).

Billy King: Rites Again, 338

Billy King, Nonviolent News, , ,

Billy King shares his monthly thoughts

Well, it is back again to war, death, environmental destruction on a MAGA scale, and potential world recession thanks to POTUS. I do believe Donald Trump is very keen on getting awards for his (dire) contributions to humanity and human history. I apologise if I don’t have a golden eagle to give him, at golf he probably cheats to get an eagle anyway. However I can proudly announce that the inaugural Billy King Award (First Class) for Sociopathetic Dangerous Eejit is hereby awarded to Donald John Trump.

I was going to substitute the work ‘Chump’ for ‘Trump’ but that did not seem appropriate given his victim count is growing all the time – and he knows what he is doing but is devoid of empathy, it is a concept unknown to him. It is all so sad and so very, very, unnecessary and unwarranted.

On another note, the news section mentions a video on French/NATO warships in Cork. There are lots of things I don’t get but ‘friendly’ visits by warships is beyond me. How is a visit by warships ‘friendly’? They are not designed to be friendly. If you want to be friendly, please send a mobile patisserie or an exhibition of your best contemporary artists. Warships have a different purpose altogether.

Fear and consternation

The more I look at it, the more amazed I am at it as a photo. It was used as the visual for INNATE’s online session entitled “Was nonviolence an option in 1969?” as part of the Imagine! Festival in Belfast. The photo is by (Nonviolent News columnist) Larry Speight and shows two soldiers in Castle Street, Belfast, in autumn 1972. It clearly shows the fear and consternation in their eyes. And we more typically get the fear and consternation in the eyes of civilians, or children, so seeing it in soldiers can be somewhat unusual, maybe even powerful or is it them powerless to cope with the situation they have been dumped in.

www.flickr.com/photos/innateireland/18063000674/in/album-72157614893100575

British soldiers were thrown into a situation in the Troubles which, largely speaking, they were not trained or properly trained for, and they were certainly at risk. That in no way excuses military policies and ill treatment by soldiers, nor should it be used as a ‘keep out of jail’ card as veteran and pro-military parties in Britain wish to do. You would expect ‘state-sponsored’ soldiers to act in a more responsible and accountable manner than non-state paramilitaries. But it should raise questions about what these soldiers were tasked to do by their political masters.

Fear and consternation. Bitterness. Hatred. Revenge. All these are words associated with violence and war. But we do well to remember that on all sides in war there are human beings, most of of whom find themselves in situations they would have wished to avoid. Northern Ireland has moved past the Troubles but not yet ‘beyond’. And if this was the result in a little war with a few thousand deaths over thirty years, it is difficult to imagine what it is like when that many are killed in a much more violent situation over a day or a couple of weeks.

War is a crime against humanity.

People with greenhouses shouldn’t throw scones

With an average suburban garden I was wondering whether to get a moderate sized greenhouse both to grow a bit of summer veg and bring on little seedlings, mainly summer flowers but some herbs as well. I was hoping to buy local but in the end I decided just to get a modest (1.8m square) lean-to greenhouse for against a wall only just taller than that – you don’t enter it at all, it is only half a metre deep. And to acquire that I had to go online. Maybe I shouldn’t have been swayed by aesthetics (ascetics?) but I decided a larger, freestanding one would ‘take over’ the space in our back garden. It was all pondered long, and at my age I wondered in the expense was worth it.

As I have written here before, I grow herbs in tubs or window boxes outside, most of the ones we might want at least as far as fresh ones growable here go; parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme, chives including an early and later variety, garlic chives, Welsh onions (like a larger chive with stems like scallions), red veined sorrel and a bit of wall rocket, if they counts as herbs, oregano, tarragon, mint. With the greenhouse I hope to grow basil there – to date it has had to be indoors as slugs liked it as much as myself when grown outdoors. Maybe coriander will be an option in the greenhouse, it just went to seed before when I tried it outdoors.

Clearly I have personally gone to seed. Though constructing a kit greenhouse, even a small one, has been a challenge, I hope the rewards will be worth it. I did build a large cloche, the clochasaurus as I called it, from scrap wood years ago, that in due course rotted and fell to bits and that is a Bargain Solution if you fancy doing it. This one is metal, mainly aluminium, and will see me out. It is beside our picnic table so I would hope to have the odd scone there or cup of tea and enjoy watching nature at work. People who have greenhouses shouldn’t throw scones, they should sit down in our beautiful warm weather [What country are you in? – Ed] [Sarcasm seems to pass you by – Billy] to take a break and eat one.

The devil’s buttermilk

I am not the only commentator to note the DUP’s opposition to minimum pricing on alcohol in the North (e.g. John Manley in the Irish News 25/3/26), particularly in relation, and contrast, to their founder’s (who later foundered or was foundered out of the church he founded) opposition to “the devil’s buttermilk” (alcoholic beverages). Not many people drink buttermilk now so the phrase is totally archaic, it even was in Ian Paisley Snr’s time but he had a clever and nifty if often brutal turn of phrase.

Anyway, the DUP stand is totally illogical. Spokespeople for the party point to minimum pricing being only one part of an appropriate response to alcohol abuse but don’t go on to say “but one part is better than none”. They also point to more research being needed whereas research from as close as across the nearest water shows it can have a positive effect. With deaths attributed to alcohol rising in the North surely it would be better to act now and review the matter, if required, at a later time. Minimum Unit Pricing exists in the Republic and in Britain.

Speaking of buttermilk and its origin in the dairy industry, and pollution arising from agriculture including the devastation of Lough Neagh (“Say Neagh to pollution”) it is fascinating that the DUP has also been responsible for the failure to have an independent environmental protection agency in the wee North. Whether in both cases, alcohol and pollution, change is held up by DUP pandering to its supporters plus the farmers’ lobby and the alcohol industry, well, I couldn’t possibly comment but if I did I would say ‘quite possibly yes’. However all the larger parties in Norn Iron backed intensive farming previously so they have company, or did, on that or a closely related issue.

None of this reflects well on Storm-ont’s atrocious reputation in failing to make effective decisions on issues that matter.

Corrymeela 60+

There is only one peace and reconciliation group in the North which predates the Troubles, and still is going strong, and that is Corrymeela, founded 1965. One fact it is also notable for is that ‘the founder’, Ray Davey, and many of the early members and supporters were Presbyterian. The Presbyterian Church in Ireland has been in the news for all the wrong reasons of late but there have always been progressives in its ranks though, it would seem, their number has been depleted in recent years.

Ray Davey developed his thinking on community and had a commitment to reconciliation growing from his experience as a prisoner of war in Dresden (including during the bombing) in the Second World War (see e.g. https://innatenonviolence.org/readings/2015_09.shtml ). A community grew around him as Presbyterian chaplain at Queen’s and a slightly ramshackle former holiday centre on a small cliff edge outside dulse and yellowman Ballycastle (Co Antrim) was purchased; cue the old joke about early visitors who were staying there being told they would have to make their own beds….and being handed a hammer, nails and wood.

Anyone who was even of student age in 1965 would be at least around the 80 years old mark now so many of those people involved from those times are, sadly, dying. But Corrymeela has been pro-active in recording and archiving its story and the story of those involved. You can find out about current work at www.corrymeela.org and there will be an exhibition on the Corrymeela story in the vertical gallery in the Linen Hall Library in Belfast running until mid-May (see news section this issue). A publicly accessible archive on Corrymeela can be found at https://corrydocs.028ni.org.uk/index.php/documents but serious researchers would need to get accredited for documents mainly available to Corrymeela members. And a short history of Corrymeela House in Belfast appears in these pages at https://innatenonviolence.org/readings/2014_11.shtml with our photo album on Corrymeela being at https://www.flickr.com/photos/innateireland/albums/72157654407818544/

Anyway congratulations to Corrymeela on being over 60 years young and all the best for the next 60……I look forward to visiting the exhibition at the Linen Hall Library.

Divis-ion

You’ve heard this one before from me but given the news item in this issue about the exhibition in the former St Comgall’s in Divis Street, Belfast, I’ll repeat it. The reason is the location of the story was outside the school in 1980 in an interaction with a school crossing warden in this inner city Catholic neighbourhood. A group of Buddhist monks (and one nun) came to Ireland on a peace pilgrimage https://www.flickr.com/photos/innateireland/19216126103/in/photolist-vh4EP2 and while their visit in the context of Norn Iron was focussed on reconciliation, more generally they addressed issues of nuclear weapons and uranium mining (which was a possibility in Donegal at the time).

I borrowed a book from the monks at their Belfast meeting, some of the attendees are pictured in the link above, as there was a Hiroshima illustration I wanted to copy it professionally for possible use as a poster. I said I would return it to them the next day when they were doing a walkabout in north-west Belfast. However I couldn’t find them on either side of the divides; I hadn’t allowed for them taking a sandwich break in Woodvale Park which I hadn’t ventured into. Anyway, frustrated at not finding them I was on the (old unreconstructed) Divis Street and stopped to ask a school crossing warden. As Buddhist monks wandering about the place were not that common in Belfast I hastened to add to my enquiry that the monks were dressed in orange robes. Quick as a flash, with dead pan humour and inwardly smiling but with little hint of an outward smile, he replied “It’s the wrong road for orange men!”.

–

Meanwhile the issue of the terrible level of femicide has been aired in relation to the North with judgement in the Natalie McNally trial and around the same time the killing of Amy Doherty in Derry. It is not just at the societal or international level that us humans have problems with violence. Most women in our society who are murdered are killed by someone known to them, even their partner as in the Natalie McNally case. We have a long way to travel in relation to violence at all levels of life – and us men in particular have the furthest journey to make.

Well, that’s me for another month, we are now into Summer Time and the brighter half of the year, past the spring equinox. Long brighter evenings beckon even if we cannot say they will be warm or dry. And for another change I wish the world some peace, not very likely, but more likely if we hold to our principles and our struggles for dealing with conflict in a humane manner and not beating the tripe out of other humans and the environment. C u soon, Billy.

Billy King: Rites Again, 337

Billy King, Nonviolent News, , ,

Billy King shares his monthly thoughts

Welcome again and I hope it has stopped raining in your neck flood of the woods. What a month or two it has been for precipitation. It has been “Avec nous, le déluge” as opposed to France’s Louis XV and Charles de Gaulle’s “Après moi, le déluge” (“After me, the flood”). Right, that has got talking about the weather out of the way, so on with the rest of the show….

Renaming and shaming

The last issue of Nonviolent News was out of date almost as soon as it was issued and way before the paper edition reached people. There was a news item in the last issue about events at the Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice at Queen’s University Belfast and it was ditching the Mitchell part of the name given links between Senator Mitchell and Jeffrey Epstein. In addition a bust of Mitchell was also removed from the front of QUB, the square in front of the old Lanyon building. QUB had gone big on the Mitchell link because of his important role in the Good Friday Agreement of 1998; he was chancellor of the university from 1999 for a decade and Queen’s celebrated their link through the bust and even involvement in a documentary film about him. They are not celebrating the link any more.

It is to Queen’s credit that they have now taken decisive action on this, perhaps helped by the fact the interim director of the former Mitchell Institute is a woman and a lawyer with impeccable human rights credentials, Prof Louise Mallinder. The statement from Queen’s said “While no findings of wrongdoing by Senator Mitchell have been made, the university has concluded that, in light of this material, and mindful of the experiences of victims and survivors, it is no longer appropriate for its institutional spaces and entities to continue to bear his name.” This seems a fair judgement.

It is indeed progress that at least some men are suffering consequences for sexual abuse which destroys lives, sometimes literally as with Virginia Giuffre. If George Mitchell is guilty as charged then he should have the book thrown at him. If not guilty then he suffers from his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein and perhaps unwise judgement on his part; but he also had continued contact with Epstein after he had said he had stopped such contact (like Trump, Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and others trying to distance themselves from the current international bête noire). Virginia Giuffre did withdraw an accusation against one man she had previously named and if you were on the receiving end of a conveyor belt of men willing to have sex with you, no questions asked, mistaken identity was possible. But it literally destroyed her life. How you deal with uncertainty of identification in such cases is a thorny issue.

However renaming and shaming is not only for sexual crimes. Trinity College Dublin renamed their Berkley Library because of philosopher George Berkley’s involvement in slave-owning and advocacy for slavery. There was a renaming process and the result was it became the Eavan Boland Library after the poet, the first woman to be so honoured in that university with a named building. Eavan Boland was a ground-breaking poet and had a close association with TCD, among other academic institutions; she died in 2020.

If someone is already dead or a monument or artefact is sufficiently old, there is the option of adding a modern inscription or addendum to what is there. This would not have been an option in relation to the George Mitchell bust at Queen’s since he is still alive and the issues concerned are not resolved. In some cases additional labelling may be the best option in that it acknowledges ‘history’ in relation to what was there and why it was put there but points out why they or some aspects might not be celebrated today with what we now know. This was what INNATE did on its photo site in relation to a former Irish ‘peace movement’ figure who, it transpired, violently ruined lives through paedophilia. https://www.flickr.com/photos/innateireland/46714717942/in/photolist-2eb298q

There are no easy answers but answers have to be made and judged. There were anti-slavers and anti-slavery ideology was around in George Berkeley’s time but the practice was legal internationally. Awareness of sexual abuse and rape was there as a crime in the past but there was not the same awareness of the way it could, and did, totally destroy lives.

And renaming may not work. Belfast’s City Airport became the “George Best Belfast City Airport” in 2006 in a rebranding rather than than shaming exercise but virtually no one calls it that and even the airport itself, while not dropping the moniker completely, doesn’t necessarily use the name. Tens of thousands turned out for George Best’s funeral in 2005 because, at a time Norn Iron was going down the tubes with the Troubles, his footballing skills had been the only local bright light on the international stage. But apart from making an already perfectly good name, Belfast City Airport, longer, perhaps naming an airport after a wife beater and painfully chronic alcoholic was not a wise move.

One conundrum I have though is why the man previously known as Prince Andrew chose the surname Mountbatten-Windsor when he was being de-princed even if it was a version of the underlying ‘family’ name. He could have become Andrew Smith if he wanted. OK, ‘Dickie’ Lord Mountbatten was King Charles’ much loved great-uncle but the issue is that there is credible evidence he was a relentless child sex abuser (word search if you want the gory details) including in relation to the notorious Kincora House in Belfast. And regarding Kincora there was probably involvement of different wings of British intelligence in using it to blackmail people rather than intervene and save children. That is altogether apart from Mountbatten’s tragically botched organising of the independence of India and its partitioning.

So choosing the name ‘Mountbatten’ as a change from ‘Prince Andrew’ seemed to be a jump from the sex abuse frying pan into a well stoked fire. Mind you, the financial and other indiscretions of the man previously known as ‘Prince’ look like they have been coming home to roost with his arrest in February, and his ex hasn’t done very well in that department either.

Putting the cartoon before the horse

I have been told, and passed on this information before, that cartoons stimulate the same parts of the brain as cocaine. I would think you might need to ask a specialist neurologist – one specialising in looking at cartoons and looking at people who look at cartoons? – for confirmation of this. However I will share with you that part of my daily routine is to look at a few cartoons at https://www.gocomics.com/comics/a-to-z nearly all of which emanate from the US of A which is where that website is based. I won’t share the few that I follow but it does give me a bit of a lift as I am getting into my daily routine. However if you overdose and/or become addicted and start looking at them all then you will never get to your daily routine at all so I restrict my viewing to three or four favourites. I don’t want you to become hooked.

Seriously…….

….pretty much all approaches to, and disciplines in, life can be the subject of humour. Of course caution is needed – and my sense of humour has at times got me into trouble (cringe) – and if you are dealing with fundamental subjects close to people’s heart, such as their religion or beliefs, then great sensitivity is required and awareness of what is culturally acceptable, what is borderline, and what is a definite no-no. I have dropped a piece I had written for this issue, based on a Times of India video, about major problems with the sewage system on board a US aircraft carrier which has been part of Donald Trump’s flotilla to intimidate and/or attack Iran – did he always intend to attack? In any case with current killings by said warship and flotilla on Iran, including the death of school children, the piece now felt cruel rather than amusing, a belittling of the suffering being inflicted, despite the fact it was about the perpetrators – so it was dropped.

There are debates and have been books about Jesus’ sense of humour, and a metaphor like the chances of a camel passing through the eye of a needle sounds on the humorous side to me. Humour often gets left out of official accounts of anything (the Christian bible could be considered such) because the writers want things to look ‘serious’. And yet ancient Irish monks working on important manuscripts made whimsical additions in the margins. If INNATE had the money and the time, which it doesn’t, I would like this publication or at least my column to be stuffed with cartoons.

And that gives me a chance to tell about the cartoon of the guru on the mountaintop. [Again? – Ed] The guru is sitting on the mountaintop, not looking too happy. A couple of acolytes are talking below. One says to the other “What is wrong with the guru?” and gets the response – “He has forgotten the secret of the universe again”….

When it comes to ‘disciplines’ in life, nonviolence and nonviolence training gets a going over at https://www.flickr.com/photos/innateireland/46378480811/in/album-72157678685228508 on the INNATE photo site – and you can click on the ‘Humour and satire’ album at that entry if you like for others in the peace field.

Dramas (more so) and comedies about lawyers are ten a euro/pound/dollar and some are excellent, some pretty poor, the usual gamut of quality. But I hadn’t seen a comedy take on mediation and mediators until I stumbled across an Australian Broadcasting Corporation/ABC series….about a lawyer. Helen is a likeable and well-meaning but somewhat hapless lawyer down on her luck when she joins a small law firm dealing mainly in wills and probate. The series is primarily about her and other aspects of her life, though mainly work. But she has a boss, Roz, who gets suspended as a lawyer, develops an interest in mediation and sets up a mediation business sharing the same office. Roz is not too great at the basics of mediation, leading to problems, but then, misinterpreting a conversation with Helen, develops a ‘beat them into submission’ approach to mediation. I don’t think saying that is too much of a spoiler in relation to the series.

The humour there is of course in the contrast between what mediation – medi-a-shun – is meant to be, a collaborative process, and what Roz develops, the exact antithesis. And in recent years a lot of lawyers have got into mediation as well so as not to miss that perceived gravy train. Anyway the series is called after the eponymous surname of the main character, ‘Fisk’ (eponymous is a word I like to show off with in writing though not speaking) and it’s on Netflix at the moment. There are 18 programmes in all over three short series of six episodes each, and Roz becomes a mediator in series 2, episode 2 although her interest is flagged up before that. In the programme, Roz is definitely a law unto herself.

Blinking blinkers

We all have things we see and things we don’t see or don’t want to see. I am personally very good, indeed excellent, at ignoring some things until I have to deal with them. The only thing I learnt in one workshop was the word ‘scotoma’ which, while it can mean a blind spot in your physical vision, was interpreted metaphorically as hidden things we don’t know or see about ourselves. Mind you I was at the concluding session of another workshop where people were asked their learnings from it; “Never to come on one of your workshops again!” was a contribution to this closing round – the programme had been totally inflexible despite repeated requests for change from participants.

But, widening the concept of blinkers, I wanted to talk about a couple of short promotional videos for the arms trade – no, I haven’t gone over to the other side. https://www.facebook.com/reel/1211542574295018 and https://defenceinvestment.campaign.gov.uk/northern-ireland/ Let’s take a look at what the videos include and don’t include. The first point is that both feature young women; this may be because they want to get more women involved in making armaments but presumably it is also to give the work a ‘soft’ look in a way while at the same time promoting it as a career choice. And of course they are talking about the benefit of job creation.

Another thing is that at no point do they talk about making armaments or weaponry components. It is about engineering, at the most ‘defence engineering’. There is no mention of making arms components or weapons that kill people. That would definitely be a no no. So the arms industry gets wrapped in cotton wool as simply an engineering opportunity and good for the community. In other words it is a lie by omission.

But the final point I wanted to make comes from the first video mentioned where the apprentice interviewee makes an absolutely amazing comment which portrays the blinkiest of blinkers, or is it a blindfold? In relation to having a high standard of work they say “You can’t just let one little thing slip by because that one little thing could cost someone their life.” The whole point of arms production work is to potentially deprive people of their life! But the only concern expressed is for those involved with producing and using the ‘product’, and there is no awareness of what it is being used for. It is sad, and sad propaganda.

–

Well, that’s my profundities [!!!!!!!!! Are you serious? – Ed] for another month, brighter days are coming meteorologically speaking and with a lot of work and hope perhaps eventually in the world too….

In closing, if you are wanting to hear both sides of the Triple Lock arguments, you can listen to a debate between Niamh Ní Bhríain (Transnational Institute, Neutrality Roadshow) and John O’Brennan, Jean Monnet (i.e. EU-funded) Chair of European Integration at Maynooth University. It’s on Newstalk with Ciara Doherty from early February, go to https://www.newstalk.com/podcasts/newstalk-daily/the-triple-lock-what-happens-if-it-goes

That’s me for now, Billy.

Billy King: Rites Again 336

Billy King, Nonviolent News, , ,

Billy King shares his monthly thoughts

Hello again for my first sharing of thoughts for 2026. And my first thought, looking at Afri’s Féile Bríde programme is the contrast with the Irish government which proclaimed a public holiday in Saint Brigid’s name but totally ignore anything about her such as her peace and sanctuary making and aspects of her mediation. Yes, it is indeed the first public holiday honouring a woman and to be welcomed but they avoid looking at what kind of woman she was. Anyway, on with the rest of the show –

But not before telling you, if you haven’t already listened to/seen The Neutrality Song written by John Maguire and performed by JoeBlack Ryder, do so NOW at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A87_exf8inQ

Tyred out

They were both Scottish and basically invented the same thing but it was the later person who succeeded in popularising the invention. It had been patented in Scotland by the first person but it was the second whose name became known widely around the world associated with it – and it transformed the world of transport. The second invention was in Belfast in 1888.

What was it? Most of us use the invention every day in one form or another if we are travelling by bike, bus or car. It was, of course, as those looking at the title of this piece will have realised, the pneumatic tyre and the successful re-inventer was John Boyd Dunlop, a Scottish vet who developed the air filled tyre for his son Johnnie and his tricycle when they lived in central Belfast.

The INNATE peace trail of the centre of Belfast and the Ormeau Road covers the invention as it passes the former North of Ireland playing fields, now Lavinia Square, where a plaque marks a significant event in the popularisation of the invention (the trail includes some culturally or technologically significant items as well as the stories of those working for peace, justice and inclusion) There were cycle races there in 1889 and Willie Hume was a competitor in a few races – all of which he won. And that was because he had Dunlop’s pneumatic tyres. So ‘everybody’ decided they should get them and the rest has been history (initially some cycle races banned pneumatic tyres they gave so much of an advantage).

That history is actually quite complicated as is revealed by my source – a concise but detailed pamphlet by Jim Cooke (Dreoilín, 2000). The tyre and tube combination that we know for the bicycle today went through various stages and inventions by Dunlop and others (the two-way valve was one important development, Dunlop’s original valve was one-way only). The business development was equally complicated and Dunlop, already prosperous from a very successful veterinary business made money but not the fortune he could have from his invention – as is so often the way for inventors, others profit more. Initial business development was in Dublin and Dunlop moved there from Belfast and lived in that city until his death in 1921.

Johnnie, his young son for whom he initially developed the pneumatic tyre (Dunlop père coined the phrase ‘pneumatic’ for the air-filled tyre), died of meningitis aged 42. But his son, John Boyd Dunlop’s grandson, also John Boyd Dunlop, was an important figure in Irish medicine and helped to develop the Central Remedial Clinic in Dublin.

Meanwhile the ‘second age’ of the bicycle is coming even if providing the infrastructure to allow it to happen is so slow. Young Johnnie Dunlop was allowed out in central Belfast late at night in 1888 to try out his new pneumatic tyres on his tricycle…..it would be a foolhardy parent who would allow that today anywhere on the island of Ireland but maybe that day will come again….

But I will share a final conundrum which those on the Belfast peace trail are asked: what did John Boyd Dunlop invent at the same time as the pneumatic tyre. Well, it’s a bit of a (flat?) joke really because the answer is “the puncture”…….[If I can get my spoke in, some tyred jokes just keep getting re-cycled – Ed]

Not so Nobel

I am again revisiting the issue of who receives the Nobel prize for peace. No, it is not because of a winner passing on their Nobel medal to the current president of the USA (which says a lot about both the recipients and the awarding body) but rather what was said by figures in Norway about the prize.

I first covered this issue quite some time ago https://www.innatenonviolence.org/billyking/bk206.shtml when writing about Fredrik Heffermehl’s “The Nobel Peace Prize – What Nobel Really wanted” (Praeger, 2010). To recap from there, Alfred Nobel stipulated that the Peace Prize “should be for champions of peace, the confraternization of nations (‘confraternization’ is a difficult term and Heffermehl’s interpretation of putting ‘brotherhood among nations’, written in Swedish, into modern language), the abolition or reduction of standing armies, and the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” This is almost totally ignored in the modern awards.

As I stated then “Originally members of the Nobel Committee included a strong representation of peace movement people; now it is elected according to the strength of parties in the Norwegian parliament and, Heffermehl argues, is used as a tool of pro-NATO Norwegian foreign policy.” So we shouldn’t be surprised at reactionaries and war criminals (e.g. Kissinger) receiving it. In fact the award is often totally at odds with Nobel’s intentions – not so Nobel or noble indeed.

However my triggering in writing this piece was reactions in Norway to María Corina Machado’s Nobel award being passed on to POTUS. Obviously, as was stated in Norway, ‘the prize’ cannot be given away although the medal can (Mairead Corrigan Maguire has given hers to the Ulster Museum in Belfast, a suitable holder). A former mayor of Oslo who is now secretary general of Norwegian People’s Aid, said the situation could damage the reputation of the Nobel peace prize and the Nobel committee. “This is unbelievably embarrassing and damaging to one of the world’s most recognised and important prizes. The awarding of the prize is now so politicised and potentially dangerous that it could easily legitimise an anti-peace prize development.” (Guardian 16/1/26)

Yes, the Nobel Prize for Peace is still the most prestigious award, possibly of any kind. It certainly outranks the Tipperary Peace Convention/Prize. Many of the recipients are admirable people, some are not. But for those who look at the Nobel prize in relation to the original intention, and more generally in relation to the promotion of ‘peace’, its reputation, and that of the Nobel committee, is long since damaged. And why should Donald Trump worry about not being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize – after all he has the totally bizarre FIFA peace prise (sic) by sycophantic FIFA President Gianni Infantino – though this has become not only a widely considered joke but also a political football….

Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism is usually defined as believing in the greatest happiness of the greatest number of people (as proposed by Jeremy Bentham and James Mill in 18th – 19th century Britain). This is of course distinct from 21st century capitalism where the aim is frequently the greatest wealth of the smallest number of people. But as you know from this Colm, I might start talking about one thing and end up on a complete tangent. Though utilitarianism does have a fair bit to recommend it.

My tangent is going to talk about a recent interaction with a utility company where, at the end of an initial contract

our household was being shoved onto their most expensive rate. So, I had a phone call to get me back where we were. Mention the possibility of leaving and you are nearly there. But said company, who have their call centre in the city where they are based, seem to try to stand out from the crowd. The first point is that the music when on hold in the queue to get a human being includes a raunchy punk number associated with the city concerned. Unusual, certainly.

And their call assistants seem to be encouraged to be human beings; on my recent call I received a strong recommendation to see a film which seemed relevant in the utility-arian’s mind given a personal detail of mine which was shared during the conversation. I have duly noted said recommended film and may view it when possible to do so. But a personal touch like that makes you feel said company has at least a bit of a soul even if it is a profit driven enterprise.

But God be with the days – or not – when you had no choice on your utility supplier – take it or leave it. The ESB (Electricity Supply Board) was the one electricity supplier in the Re:Public. And none of the utilities were private companies you could own or partly own through shares. So the ironic comment from your parent for leaving the lights on might have been “Have you shares in the ESB???!!!” when such was impossible. Of course something stronger might have been said too but that is another matter.

Our ancestors

We have have hopefully long moved on from the idea that the lives of our ancient ancestors were nasty, brutish (oops, I typed ‘british’ there, better correct that quick, ‘i’ and ‘u’ are beside each other on the qwerty keybored….) and short. They may at times have been nasty, they may have been short or shorter, but for brutish you could well look at some people’s and countries’ behaviour today.

Positive and progressive traits and skills which we associate with modern humans are all the time being found to apply to our ancient ancestors, including varieties of creativity. And the complexity of the bushy bush rather than the family tree of so-called homo sapiens keeps getting more complicated. How many varieties of hominins were around altogether? More and more seem to be discovered and our emergence is probably the result of good luck as well as good management of lifestyle and resources apart from any possible genetic advantage.

Rutger Bregman’s ‘Humankind’ is just one of the books that looks at the nature of humanity and our cooperativeness.

The Céide Fields in North Mayo is one great example of people living harmoniously and cooperatively in our pre-history on this island, 5,000 years ago. But I was struck by a paragraph from Bill Bryson (he of “A short history of nearly everything” from 2003, with a new version coming out). Asked about the complexity of the human family tree he said: “The thing that fascinates me as a complete outsider is, how did these people all get around? I mean, how did they disperse and what happened when they came upon each other? There’s a tendency to think they would have been fighting, but actually there was a lot of interbreeding. I think it’s kind of heartwarming, the idea that these people were living side by side for long periods. Because we modern home sapiens don’t do that very well at all.”

That was from the ‘New Scientist’ of 27/12/25. And a final quote from Bryson which also says a lot in a few words is “I was terrible at science in school.” And look where he got. That reminds me of the old adage that “Behold the turtle – it only makes progress when it sticks its neck out.”

But to finish off on our ancestors, it has usually been thought that towns ‘proper’ only came to Ireland with the Vikings. Monastic settlements were thought to be the nearest thing. However archaeological excavations near Baltinglass in Co Wicklow may be revealing a much earlier town as revealed at https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clyw59v8978o with info from Antiquity archaeology journal. The excavation is of Brusselstown Ring (SW edge of Wicklow mountains). A bronze age ‘village’ had already been identified elsewhere in Ireland with 74 roundhouses but in Brusselstown Ring there is the possibility of 600 roundhouses and Dr Brandherm of QUB said “We’re talking a proto-town of sorts, and that’s 2000 years before the Vikings.” There may also have been a stone lined cistern for storing fresh water. There are always new and exciting things to learn about our ancestors and about human innovation. And that can make us wonder why modern humans have progressed so little on areas like conflict and common concern for each other.

–

Well, we are now fairly long embarked on the year 2026 but at the end of January I and you can see and feel the daylight getting longer which is a lovely feeling. Winters are getting shorter with global waming (sic) until, catastrophe of catastrophes, havoc is caused to our weather with the Gulf Stream/AMOC disappearing when We Have Problems, and we don’t need to journey to Newfoundland any more cos Newfoundland will have come here. In the meantime storms are getting stormier and rain rainier. Always look on the bright side of life….

But if you want a bit of a laugh before you go, try Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah as an Irish folk song…..https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUQEzWCknLo There are different Cohen lyrics for the song and I leave you to debate whether it’s about religion, sex or both, but the ‘Irish’ version will do you good though you need to watch the visuals too…. There’s more of MurtR Guitar at https://www.youtube.com/@MurtRGuitar/videos though I think Hallelujah is the best of the bunch and heading for half a million views…

Until we meet again, Billy.

Billy King: Rites Again, 335

Billy King, Nonviolent News, , , , ,

Billy King shares his monthly thoughts –

It was sad to hear about the death of Margaretta D’Arcy. I only met her a couple of times, once in her home in Galway where she was very forthright (good for her) in demanding to know why I wasn’t sitting down or doing other things deemed unlawful by the state at Shannon AirWarport. I had or have no good answer to her question except I know that in doing so the legal charges can put your life on hold for some years and prevent you doing other things that you deem important.

It is fitting that the day before her death another three people entered the guarded space of that (effectively) US military base. My congratulations and thanks go out to them and all those who have put themselves on that line. As the Simple Flying (‘simple’ is the word) website says, “Shannon holds an exclusive role as a de facto logistics node for US military operations.” https://simpleflying.com/three-arrested-van-breaches-shannon-airport-us-military-aircraft/ And as The Ditch (Dia duit) said at the end of last year “The US government uses Irish territory as a critical hub for its illegal transport of munitions to the Israel Defense Forces and Nato member states. “ https://www.ontheditch.com/irish-airspace-a-critical-hub/

But on another matter, aren’t shortages terrible, when a desired product comes in short supply. Just look at the shortage of TNT in Europe. Ooops, TNT is the major component of most military munitions. I read that NATO is facing a critical shortage of explosives after much of Europe’s TNT supply was used in the bombardment of Gaza. Poland’s state-owned Nitro-Chem, Europe’s only large-scale TNT producer, is struggling to keep up with demand. This is just one of the many ways Europe has been complicit in the genocide in Gaza.

Love Orange, Love Green

I have been digging out a few oul books. This month I look at something a bit different: “Love Orange, Love Green – Poems of Living, Loving and Dying in Working-class Ulster”, Whitcor Publications, 1974. 178 pages; this was compiled by Marion White and Jim McCorry (their surnames presumably providing, in abbreviation, the publishing name) with some help from Sam Smyth.

It is an amazing publication which can take you back to the exceedingly raw emotions of that time in Northern Ireland. As its name suggests it is poems by working class people, presumably mainly or entirely from Belfast, some proclaiming a militant loyalism, some a militant republicanism, and some a sardonic view of everything or something specific around them. There are no punches pulled and no toning down of anything, what the editors/compilers got is, I imagine, pretty much what they published. It cost 50 pence at the time, the equivalent of about £5 in 2025.

Thus you can have a loyalist viewpoint cheek by jowl with a republican one:

“Hark, it’s the sound of battle, in action we must go

As we defend old Ulster from each rebel foe

Loyal Ulster calls her faithful sons, as we together join

To fight like good King William’s men at the battle of the Boyne…..”

and then in another poem –

“Men of the North, Thraldom who scorn

Never shall bend the knee,

Defiance we throw at the old foe

Free men we wish to be…..”

These expressions nearly makes you think that old lie, that all our wars were merry and all our songs were sad (a saying accredited to G K Chesterton), has something going for it. But there is much more than paramilitary-supporting bravado. A loyalist attacks moderates for, effectively they say, supporting the Provos. A republican attacks the Irish government. Laments for some who have died. Tragedies that should not have happened. Some poems are somewhat and perhaps surprisingly subtle in their support for one side or another, although support was presumably intended, so that it is difficult to say which foot they kick with and which side they kick.

It is divided into sections – Men behind the wire, Belfast, Some who paid the price, Emotions, Incidents, Miscellaneous, The conmen, Soldiers all, Songs.

My favourite is a non-political poem entitled “The people’s taxis”, taxis which acted somewhat like buses that took off in both republican and, to a lesser extent, loyalist areas when buses were hijacked or destroyed and bus services withdrawn. There is no author/poet attribution.

“When the earth has spun a few more years upon its axis

One of the things we’ll talk about will be the people’s taxis

And we’ll look back in fondness on those stalwarts of the road.

Who wouldn’t know the meaning of the phrase “to overload”

For who would travel poe-faced on a bus that’s so inanimate

With windows closed on smoke and smells

Our best friends won’t refer to.

We jockey for position…..but complain?…we wouldn’t dare to

And who would keep their hauteur…and who would want to try.

When you are sitting cheek to cheek, and even thigh to thigh

When conversations feelers have established friend and foe

We debate politicians…and decide who’ll stay or go

We’re not afraid to speak our minds or commit a social gaffe

And always there’s a nut on board who’ll give us all a laugh

So though we long for peace to come, when trouble is no more

Then neither will the taxis be…

Just buses….what a bore…”

All aboard a very evocative poem (punctuation as in the original). In fact the “people’s taxis” have continued though, thankfully, bus hijackings are few and far between. The book was denied an Arts Council grant for effectively not being “work with aesthetic content”. This is rather sad since one of the meanings of ‘aesthetic’, which went through various transmogrifications from the Greek, is to perceive by the senses or the mind, and another is ‘attractive or appealing’ which the poems would be to lots of people. No, certainly it is not your conventional published poet-tree but heartfelt thoughts effectively expressed, a window on the real emotions of the time and a testament to both people’s humanity and their divisions. And the level of violence as in 1974 has gone but the divisions largely remain.

E-pistemology

Epistemology is the study of knowledge. E-pistemology is the study of knowledge online including AI. [Did you just invent a new take on the word epistemology? – Ed] [Yes, but dozens have probably done it before. However here is another one I guarantee no one else will have thought up – ‘epissedemology’, the study of what people know and don’t know when drunk – Billy] [Are your puns trying to drive people to drink? – Ed] [Surely you know that no one should drive and drink – Billy]

Elon Musk has come up with his Grokipedia (Chokepedia?) because he thinks Wikipedia is too left wing – but then he probably considers Adolf Hitler was too left wing and a wishy washy liberal. But not only that, he clearly considers his creation will be perfect; “Musk was so enamoured of his AI-encyclopedia he said he planned to one day etch the “comprehensive collection of all knowledge” into a stable oxide and “place copies … in orbit, the moon and Mars to preserve it for the future”. (Quote from The Guardian 3/11/25.) Talk about hubris, talk about MAGAlomania. Unchecked by human hand or brain, a significant proportion of Musk’s Grokipedia is and will be a right wing travesty.

He is clearly elon-gating his place in the history of the distortion of knowledge for nefarious purposes, or taking a musk-et to shoot up recognised and scientific processes for arriving at knowledge. Taking the ‘piste’ out of epistemology, a piste is a slippery slope for skiing and Musk’s actions are a slippery slope to a world where knowledge is all in the eye of the beholder – and that beholder is a right wing billionaire/perhaps soon trillionaire bigot. And the rest of us will be thoroughly piste off.

Speaking of billionaires, Bernie Sanders had a nice line about the USA which I am sure many others use too; Abe Lincoln spoke of “Government of the people, by the people, for the people” but the USA was now “Government of the billionaires, by the billionaires, for the billionaires.”

On Tyranny

You are not getting away from the North American continent here either. I have already done an oul book, above, but here I am writing about one from 2017, “On Tyranny – Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century” by Timothy Snyder. It is a slim volume published a year into Donald Trump’s first, disorganised, term of office – that seems so long ago now. And the book seems particularly prophetic given what Thump and company have been doing in his second term. It is talking both universally and particularly – universal lessons but often especial mention of, or allusion to, Trump and the USA, and written by someone from that part of the world.

The author should know a thing or two about tyranny if you look at his numerous books focussing on Europe, especially in the Twentieth Century. Whether Trump is T Rex or T Wrecks, well there is still debate about the nature of the man and whether he is the primary mover and shaker with his MAGAlomania and egomania or a useful idiot for the far right – or both, and my money is on ‘both’.

Some of Snyder’s twenty points look major, some minor, but we don’t know what in particular will make ‘the’ difference so it would be unfortunate to say any of them are insignificant. It is scary in the US context how many of these twenty chickens have come home to roost; No.1 is “Do not obey in advance” and yet we have seen the tech giants, and others, rushing to do Trump’s will before being required to do so. No.6 “Be wary of paramilitaries” – people in Northern Ireland should not need reminded about that, whatever their persuasion – is not just about paramilitaries but also the transformation of the police and military. We have seen that with the deployment of the military onto the streets of the USA as well as Trump’s neutral or positive comments about the likes of the Proud Boys.

“Defend institutions”, “Remember professional ethics”, “Believe in truth”, “Listen for dangerous words” are just some of the short chapters in this book, which are then illustrated with historical examples – mainly of failures but also exhortations to positivity. “Make eye contact and small talk” might seem a strange injunction/chapter but it is about maintaining human contact and unspoken solidarity in the face of peril. All of this is important, wherever we are.

However I would feel there are some deficiencies in the book. Firstly, there is no mention of the USA as a colonial enterprise ‘internally’, well, what became internal as the settlers took native lands and also Hispanic lands; this is an important factor in macho politics and (the lack of) gun control which contributes to the right wing political situation. It is an essential part of the backdrop and something which if not addressed contributes to the kind of politics we see today. Secondly, while the law being used to undermine the law is covered, the inadequacy of the US constitution in relation to modern times is not really dealt with.

Finally, although the importance of ‘standing up‘ to authoritarianism is covered, there is no specific mention of nonviolence, nonviolent action and struggle, which is a bit remiss; there is a mention of the danger of terrorist/retaliatory violence (the attack in setting fire to the Reichstag in 1933 is covered and how Hitler used it to gain total control) but not of the importance of building a nonviolent movement or the possibilities of nonviolence including hidden disobedience. Nonviolence is not easy but avoids many of the pitfalls of violence, especially in confronting a power that has most guns.

Trump is keeping his (gun)powder dry before making a move to stay on as President when his second term ends. I consider it would be out of character if he didn’t. He also knows the legal immunity he enjoys as president would disappear if he was no longer POTUS or he would be dependent on having a MAGA-Republican presidency for pardons. What false emergency he can proclaim or use to try to justify an end to US democracy at a national level, such as it is, remains to be seen. But even if that doesn’t work out Vance is waiting in the shadows. Unfortunately watch this and lots of other spaces as to how things develop. US democracy isn’t and wasn’t great but it would be obscene (morally repulsive, disgusting) for it to disappear. They may have talked the talk far more than they walked the walk but it has had positives.

But we shouldn’t imagine we, elsewhere in the world, are immune to tyrannical impulses. Racism is the Trojan horse that the right wing works hard to use to further its agenda, and we see that in both jurisdictions in Ireland. And if you come to believe in racism then you can come to believe in ‘the great replacement theory’ and all the other far right conspiracy theories. And then we are heading to hell in a souped up handcart. All the imperatives in this book apply to us too.

Losing it

There are many things we can lose – our keys, our bank cards, or even our friendships and, in the extreme, our humanity. One story which I saw recently concerned the last two of these. It was a production of ‘Address Unknown’ written by Katherine Kressman Taylor as a novelette before the Second World War and later turned into a one act play. It largely portrays the interaction between two former friends through their letters. It was an excellent amateur production in November at the Southbank Playhouse off Sunnyside Street in Belfast.

The play is set in the period 1932-34 during Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in Germany and concerns two relatively well to do German friends who were art dealers in the USA, one of whom, Martin, returns to Germany and for reasons perhaps of herd mentality and lack of conscience but certainly self interest gets caught up in serving the Nazi regime. However his friend Max back in San Francisco is Jewish, watching at long distance the horror unfolding, including the horror for his younger sister who is in Germany. When Martin does not aid Max’s sister, Max plots ingenious long distance revenge. You can imagine what the curt message ‘Address unknown’ on a returned envelope implies in this context and it appears twice in the drama.

It is a fairly short book/drama but portrays how easily we can become caught up in things which we would previously have rationally rejected. No society is immune to this. The dehumanisation of others is also our dehumanisation. As we watch right wing violence in Ireland, North and South, we need to be imaginative and creative in how we support and portray the humanity of all. The tragedy of Ballymena race riots in the summer – with charges now withdrawn against the Romanian teenagers who were then-alleged rape perpetrators – is crazy; race riots with no ‘race’ to it.

It is too apocalyptic to say we are always on the edge of the abyss but it does not take long for a society with problems to become a society with extermination at some level – there are many examples of this including Northern Ireland from 1969. This of course means addressing those real problems while they can be dealt with and not leaving them to fester and become totally overboard. Ireland has much working out to do yet.

–

Well, perhaps that is not ending on a bright note but my first item, about Norn Iron, portrays the past there which was a load bleaker than the present. To say the North has problems would be an understatement but progress has been made in some areas which I hope will continue.

It’s now the race into Christmas, I hope you survive the pressures and get to enjoy your Christmas parties and festivities. I enjoy it when we get there and the lull afterwards. And speaking of lulls, there is no full issue of this e-steamed publication, just a news supplement, in January so I won’t see you again until the start of February. Meanwhile, as is my wont [Won’t what? – Ed] [Won’t give up on using that good old fashioned word ‘wont’ – Billy] I wish you and yours a peaceful Christmas and a preposterous new year – Billy.

Billy King: Rites Again, 334

Billy King, Nonviolent News, , ,

Billy King shares his monthly thoughts

Well, Michael D is finally about to up on his bikeldee and away and CC (cc Heather Humphreys), Catherine Connolly, will very soon be there in the Áras. She has been a staunch peace and neutrality supporter, sound on many social questions, as well as being a very unassuming and likeable person. The government indicated that her being elected would make no difference to plans to ditch the Triple Lock. But perhaps some Fianna Fáil TDs will look into their hearts, and that of voters in their constituencies, and find some backbone to resist Micheál Martin’s protracted and ill thought out onslaught on said Triple Lock, based on the support shown for Connolly.

The Irish presidency is primarily a representative rather than a purely political, and certainly not a party political, one. Michael D pushed the boat out in a different way to Mary Robinson who initiated the demand by Irish people for someone in the role who was not a time or place server. The office is in good hands with Catherine Connolly. It would have been interesting to have an Ulster (Monaghan) Presbyterian in Heather Humphreys in the role but on social issues and on peace she is a typical conservative Fine Gaeler so Connolly is streets or fields ahead on a wide number of issues. There were some deficiencies in the presidential election process, including the criteria to ‘enter the contest’, but Catherine Connolly won by a landslide.

Biodiversity and my-cology

The world is an amazing place. While we can get thoroughly depressed about many aspects of what is happening in the world due to the actions of Homo Sapiens (title open to dispute for a number of reasons), we can still share amazement for the wonder and adaptability of nature. We can destroy all the flora and fauna we want (or, rather, don’t want enough to alter our behaviour) but ‘nature’ will go on – and would go on even if we, Homo Sap, do not, and we are still being foolish beyond measure.

There were two stories in the Gordian recently that speak about the resilience of nature, one from Canada and one from Iceland. One is about the restoration of natural ecosystems on Toronto’s waterfront: “The century-old plants bursting from newly exposed soil initially made headlines, but it was only the first of a string of extraordinary discoveries. Pollen from the American chestnut, a tree now extinct in the area, was discovered in the dirt. So too was a seed from the 1500s. The remains of one of the largest and most important peat bogs in the region were rescued. Then, last year, the team submerged soil samples and made the astounding discovery of water fleas, trapped in the soil since at least the late 1800s, which had sprung back to life. So too had worms, larvae and zooplankton….” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/oct/09/toronto-waterfront-soil-plants-worms

And a new, volcanic island off Iceland has amazed scientists with the speed at which life has established itself after it began to emerge in 1963. “Scientists had expected algae and mosses to be the first colonisers, building up a base of soil that would eventually support vascular plants. But that step was skipped completely. More plants were washed ashore in the following years, and some clung to the island’s bare volcanic rock……..In the early 1980s, black-backed gulls started to nest on sections of the island, sheltering in one of the stormiest parts of the Atlantic Ocean. Their arrival kicked off an explosion of life. Guano carried seeds that quickly spread grasses along the island, fed in turn by the nutrients from the birds. For the first time, whole areas of bare rock became green….” https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/oct/13/nature-volcanic-island-surtsey-iceland-ecosystems-aoe

Meanwhile, coming not only closer to home but to my actual home, we have a patch of grass at the front of our house which is less than a couple of metres wide with a hedge before the suburban footpath. And a hornbeam tree there in the footpath. The grass might have last been dug up many decades ago and what grows there, including clover, is let grow. But what I saw this autumn amazed me; not one, not two, not three, but four varieties of fungi growing, a couple overlapping but mainly in succession, presumably in symbiotic relationship with the tree outside. I did check out the possibilities for the names of said fungi but not being enough of a fun guy to be a mycologist a) I am highly unsure of identifying them correctly, and b) because of that and this not being a mycology journal I will spare you the names. I will say one was smaller but somewhat similar to a field/edible mushroom, one a thin, pale ‘toadstool’, and one was a mottled globe headed fungi.

The appearance of such fungi is just part of a cycle but I did institute a ‘no mow September’ and longer to let them do their thing, and presumably spare the spores, it wasn’t a spore-adic reaction [Spore us the puns – Ed], apologies if any of them are allergenic. I would do the same next year. It was a brilliant example of biodiversity not in my back yard but in our small front garden. There might not be much room in our front patch of grass but there is enough, indeed ‘mushroom’, for fungi.

Do you want to die for NATO?

The answer that I would give, by the way, is ‘no’ [Surprise, surprise – Ed] – and I don’t want anyone else to do so either. But in my look at oul books – last month I covered Mary Condren’s “The Serpent and the Goddess” – I dug out my rather worn and tired looking copy of Patrick Comerford’s book with that title, “Do you want to die for NATO?”. This dates from 1984 (published by Mercier Press). How topical can you get? And this was 41 years ago.

Of course much has changed in those four decades and the Irish state, underhandedly and against the wishes of the broad mass of citizens, has cosied up as much as it can to NATO. I should point out that it is INNATE practice to refer to said entity in capitals rather than the cosier looking ‘Nato’ (cf The Irish Times, the change even being made in a published letter by the INNATE coordinator) – there is nothing cosy about NATO, its practice or its commitment to first use of nuclear weapons should it deem it necessary.

The Do you want to die for NATO? Book is short but packed with detail. The context in 1984 was the risk of nuclear war between NATO and the USSR/Russia, either because of deliberate policy or because of accident (the real possibility of this happening has been well documented, where one side believes an attack is coming). Plus ca change….. As to who is winning an arms race, Patrick Comerford says “No one wins a mad race over a cliff edge” (page 12). Plus ca change…

While the Wolfe Tone quote from 1792 is included (page 50) that “We should spurn the idea of moving an humble satellite around any power”, the book does deal with the times and people with whom neutrality can be particularly identified, and those times and people who opposed it or were prepared to ditch it of the time and terms were right. But the independent Irish state got off to a good start with involvement in the League of Nations and opposition to the Italian invasion of Ethiopia and opposition to (Blueshirt) pressure to support Francoist fascism in Spain despite its supposed ‘Catholicism’.

The book details how NATO and Warsaw Pact maps or exercises assumed that in a nuclear war there would be Irish targets; 23 potential targets, North and South, are identified in total by the author in the book. It looks at Irish involvement in communications networks for NATO, including Mount Gabriel in the Republic and the (then) Bishopscourt radar base, operated by the RAF, in Co Down.

When the practice of neutrality was fearless and determined, e.g. with Frank Aiken, there were positive results, as with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which came into effect in 1968. However people on all sides of the Irish political scene could be positive or ambivalent; Charles Haughey is quoted from 1981 saying Ireland was militarily neutral but not politically or ideologically neutral – that old let out, much used since by those wanting closer involvement with NATO and EU military developments. On he other hand Garret Fitzgerald, from a party traditionally less inclined to support active neutrality, said in 1993 that Ireland “can also challenge the emergence of a European military super-power” (page 65) – while contemporary governments have attempted to jump on the militarist EU gravy train through involvement in the arms industry and the military-industrial complex.

The EEC, as it then was, is identified, rightly, as a particular challenge to neutrality. But neutrality was never just a bargaining chip to gain a united Ireland; in 1940 Dev refused Churchill’s offer to abandon neutrality in return for a united Ireland. The book also looks at some of what a non-aligned defence could be including the mining of ports and airports so to be useless to an invader.

The history of Irish neutrality is not straightforward but there is much to be proud about. Some of the historical and contemporary complexities of the time (1984) are explored in this book. Patrick Comerford says (page 89) that neutrality could be thought of as a unique contribution or gift “to an EEC seeking political union”. It is a shame and a waste if contemporary Irish politicians and commentators feel that Ireland would be better as a small cog in a large military machine rather than striking out fearlessly for peace. I consider that a failure of imagination, nerve – and backbone – in standing up to the powers that be.

Telling it like it is

There is one inveterate veteran when it comes to letter writing on peace issues in Ireland and that is former Irish army officer and Veterans for Peace and Shannonwatch activist Edward Horgan. He has more letters published than most of us have hot dinners. And all of them make sound sense. Here is one which appeared in different Irish newspapers in mid-to-late October:

“Instead of bringing peace to the Middle East the Trump dictated Gaza peace plan may end up establishing the virtual success of the Israeli genocide against the Palestinian people. Hopefully, the killing will stop in Gaza in the short-term. The 20-point peace plan makes no provision for justice for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, or the establishment of peace in the wider Middle East, especially in Lebanon and Syria. Israel has ensured by its environmental and physical destruction, that the Gaza Strip will be unsafe for anyone to live for decades. On 7th Oct 2025 the health ministry released details on Palestinians killed and wounded in Gaza. The recorded death toll since 7 October 2023 is now 67,183 killed, with 169,841 injured. These statistics include: 20,179 children killed, 44,143 children wounded, 4,900 children with amputations or disabilities, 51,196 children under five years old suffering from malnutrition.

This amounts to genocide, yet the present peace plan fails to hold Israel and its US and European supporters to account. The peace plan says that Gaza will initially be governed by a new international transitional body, the “Board of Peace,” which will be headed by President Donald J. Trump, and others including Former Prime Minister Tony Blair. President Trump and his predecessors, and Tony Blair, have been responsible for waging wars of aggression since 2001 that have caused the deaths of millions of people. An International Stabilization Force (ISF) will be immediately deployed in Gaza. A similar stabilization force was deployed in Afghanistan which brought twenty years of chaos to the Afghan people. The quote by Roman historian Tacitus seems appropriate “To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, they call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace.”

QCEA on EU

QCEA, the Quaker Council on European Affairs, always has interesting things to say about the way western Europe is heading, including the realities of the EU in what had been a ‘peace’ project becoming much more of a ‘war’ project. Their summary of Ursula von der Leyen’s State of the Union address on 10th September is “In her 10 September speech, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen spoke of peace mainly through security and defence, with 16 mentions of “fight.” We had hoped to hear more about peace as justice, dialogue, or cooperation, but competitiveness prevailed. Climate was framed as decarbonisation, overlooking nature and the environment. Migration was addressed in terms of management, without reference to the EU’s Anti-Racism Action Plan.” Von der Leyen’s speech is at https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/ov/SPEECH_25_2053 and the QCEA is at https://www.qcea.org/ where you can find out more about their work and read their publications.

Supporting genocide

I find unionist politics in Norn Iron sad in a different way to how I find some Sinn Féin policies sad – I understand why the latter support previous IRA actions but no, IRA violence was not necessary or unavoidable, it is that people on all sides saw no alternative – there were nonviolent alternatives that people did not see or know about. I recently wrote about unionist support for British militarism (they are joined by the current government in Dublin in their support of militarism). But on many questions, whether on education – dividing children into academic and less-academic schools at age 11 – or international issues, well words fail me. [That would be a first – Ed.] Support for Israel ‘to the hilt’ – appropriate as this is a sword metaphor – comes from ideological and theological but not-very-logical sources, as well of course for the all important reason of them’uns supporting Palestine.

Recently a unionist delegation went to Israel, paid for by the Israeli state (‘No expense to UK taxpayers, folks!’). The cross-party unionist group included Norn Iron Minister for Education Paul Givan and the amazing Sammy Wilson, both of the DUP. They visited an Israeli school in occupied East Jerusalem and Paul Givan had a photo put up on the NI Department of Education website. Naturally all hell broke loose with activists on Palestine and those who are not unionists and also teachers unions and bodies. The DUP are of course standing by their man or men. But I wanted to express how very thoughtful it was of the Israeli state in a war situation to offer an all expenses visit to look at educational approaches, obviously there were no ulterior motives whatsoever, and there is absolutely no question of the unionists themselves being political stooges……

– – – – – –

Well, it may not be meteorological winter until December but it feels We Have Arrived there. But every season has its pluses and minuses. Winter can be a time for relaxing at home, hopefully in the warmth, with a good book or film and maybe a pleasant chat with your partner or a friend or two. And winter weather is an excuse to stay put there rather than attend to other matters. The winter solstice is a wee bit away yet but, come the end of January, there is the chance to see days getting longer again and the process of regeneration begin. I hope you are sitting comfortably as you read this. I will see you again soon before what can be, for many people, the mad social whirl coming up to Christmas. Hibernia abu, Billy.

Billy King: Rites Again, 333

Billy King, Nonviolent News, , , , ,

Billy King shares his monthly thoughts

Hello – When I was writing my piece in the last issue about flagitis, the unfortunate and debilitating condition of using flags for ethno-nationalist purposes, I hadn’t referred to the fact that the disease had spread to the 26 counties, the Re:Public. This was remiss of me. The epidemic does not seem to be as widespread south and west of the border in Ireland but it is still present in many places, and it seems quite a virulent and nasty disease. I was writing about how it, obviously, has been endemic in the North but now spread to Britain where it seems to have spread like wildfire.

I hope that sensible precautions being taken will mean that it does not affect so many people and areas in the Republic; many people are already acting to welcome, and express welcome for, newcomers – who are actually needed as important parts of the economy and society. However we need to continue our research on developing effective vaccines for this terrible affliction of flagitis which poisons the whole of society.

And here we are with issue No.333 of this e-steamed publication. It is highly unlikely that it will ever reach issue 666, the supposed mark of the Divil himself, or indeed No.999 – at which point shouting ‘Help!’ might be appropriate – and at the current rate of production the latter would be sixty-odd years away. Anyway, on with my contribution to No.333…..

Jaw jaw and war war

The title of this piece is a reference to Winston Churchill’s supposed dictum that jaw jaw is better than war war, though it appears he actually said “Meeting jaw to jaw is better than war” and it was Harold Macmillan, another British PM, who actually said the “jaw, jaw…war, war” bit. In any case it is not a piece of advice Churchill necessarily observed himself.

Another relevant anecdote is about the man sprinkling salt on city pavements. When asked by a passerby what he was doing he said “It’s to keep away alligators.” The passerby responded “But there are no alligators!” and the salt sprinkler said “Exactly!” The absence of something does not prove a particular reason for that absence.

However you may have noted Donald Trump’s recent claim to have stopped a war between Cambodia and Armenia, two countries some thousands of miles apart who would be largely unaware of each other’s existence let alone engaging in armed conflict. He had however been involved with partially ending Thai-Cambodian clashes and for that we can be thankful (for small mercies which is what we are likely to get at best from the current US administration). Obama was – mistakenly – given a Nobel Peace Prize at the start of his presidency, something totally out of kilter with what the Nobel Prize for Peace is about. I have previously covered what the Nobel Peace Prize was meant to be about but hasn’t been, e.g. https://www.innatenonviolence.org/billyking/bk206.shtml However Trump’s response to some intemperate comments from a prominent Russian political figure was to send two nuclear submarines across the Atlantic and in my book that should automatically exclude him. But he continues to try to prise a Prize from the Nobel committee when his due is more a Nobel Piece of Rubbish Prize.

Trump’s UN claim to have ended seven conflicts is examined in more detail by different sources, e.g. https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2025/sep/23/donald-trump/trump-ended-seven-wars-un-general-assembly/ which concludes “The status of the seven conflicts — and the nature of Trump’s role in easing them — are more varied and tenuous than his statement portrays. We rate it Mostly False.” It is not that he and his administration have done nothing but that in none of these has he ended ‘unendable’ wars. We note that the USA uses its military muscle – with the best part of a thousand military bases around the world including, de facto, Shannon Airport – primarily for its own ends. But can he stop or will he start a very uncivil civil war in the USA?

Oul books: Patriarchy in Ire-land

One of the features of being old, not necessarily a unique feature however, is that you may possess lots of books which are also oul – read, unread, half read, dog-eared, or even in pristine condition, and ranging from much treasured volumes through to those which raise questions about your state of mind at the time of purchase. Even occasional purges of those you definitely don’t want to keep, to the hoped for benefit of a local charity shop, doesn’t seem to do the trick in keeping them under control. And we all want, but seldom, achieve, Control.

Anyway, I thought it might be illuminating in this column – for me anyway [ !!!! – Ed] – to occasionally explore some of the oul books I have hanging about. The first to hand is Mary Condren’s “The Serpent and the Goddess: Women, Religion and Power in Celtic Ireland” first published in 1989 and then in Ireland in 2002 by New Island Books and this had a lengthy new introduction. The book is a wide-ranging dissection of religion, culture and patriarchy in Ireland – with wider significance I could add.

When I hear the term ‘patriarchy’ I think of many things, including numerous different aspects of violence and it is this that is the most relevant in the pages of Nonviolent News and which I will concentrate on here. But I also think of ‘paytriarchy’ as in “Remember the Golden Rule – He who has the gold makes the rules.” The victims of patriarchy are primarily women but, and to a much lesser extent and in a different way, men are denied or deny becoming the whole people that they could be. But on to Mary Condren’s book which is a study in partriarchalisation [Is that another of your made up words? – Ed] [Maybe, but you know what I mean so it’s a viable word – Billy].

The story about St Patrick banishing snakes from Ireland is an interesting one because Mary Condren shows ‘the serpent’ as a symbol of old matriarchal and pre-monotheistic religions. The story is thus not just one of Patrick performing a miracle in banishing animals who weren’t here anyway but in banishing old pagan religions. Christianity was stamping its mark and stamping out snakes. But – snakes alive?! There are also some illuminating insights on Brigid, goddess and saint (both of these).

I am now going to be give a few quotes, to some extent out of context, which talk about patriarchy and militarism, and this piece is not a review of the book, merely picking up some points made on the themes involved. You can search out the original for the full meaning and context.

“Contact with women could weaken men’s potency when engaging in their two most powerful activities – hearing the word of God or going to war. In this we can see a very clear connection between the development of a militaristic culture and the development of a new male identity independent of the world of women or the world women had represented.” (page 18, 2002 edition).

Quoting some of Kuno Meyer’s writing on Adamnán makes a fascinating sub-text to the Law of the Innocents (page 52 and following). The mythology involved is too complex and long to include here but Mary Condren concludes “The story reflects a time when Irish women were greatly oppressed by the warrior elitist society. Christianity had come, yet obviously the priests, like Adamnán, needed drastic measures of persuasion before being prevailed upon to confront the ruling classes….”

In a chapter on clerical celibacy, she writes (page 145) “In the more stable from of politics, singular heroic acts would not be enough to support an ongoing kingly reign. What was needed was a much more reliable marriage of politics and religion that could be called upon at a moment’s notice. Standing armies would be one way of solving the political problem, but in the new arrangements between church and state, and with a church hierarchical structure based upon a military model, more symbolic changes would be needed……The priests, in effect, became the new heroes of the society. Previously their “heroic deeds” in the service of God simply would have been proof of great holiness. Now their great power enabled them to confer religious authority upon the kings…..male priests….became a permanent caste of heroes with a monopoly on religious power.”

And one of Mary Condren’s conclusions (page 198) is that “Instead of monotheism, we now have the working strategy of unquestioning obedience to military authority, which continues to sustain various forms of patriarchal power….Those soldiers willing to sacrifice their lives confer upon the military-industrial complex a new kind of theological status, that which represents the “whole” now that traditional religion seldom serves this purpose. Indeed, the inroads of secularism may have occasioned a “sacrificial crisis” or a “collapse of the sacrificial economy” in which the search for political absolutes now becomes dominant.” Seem familiar????

Anyway, the book is an oldie but a goldie and worth seeking out if you are interested in the themes explored – in great detail.

But I have a final thought arising from the book, and that is how the powers that be can dissemble and deceive. St Brigid’s Day has, for the last few years, been declared a public holiday in the Re:Public, the first named after/connected with a woman. Oh, how progressive! But does the Irish government pay one jot of attention to, let alone follow, what St Brigid was about? Peace, protection, mediation, welcoming, women’s assertiveness, all would be associated with Brigid. And what is Ireland doing? Cosying up to the Big Boys of militarism and power in NATO and EU militarisation, and doing less than the minimum for asylum seekers. So it is “Oh, how sad!” rather than “Oh, how progressive!”.

The wizard of ID

It takes some doing to get all the parties in de Nort agreed on anything but all seemed to support the idea that Keir Starmer’s proposed UK digital identity card, even if for a mobile phone, is a Bad Idea. And even if this ‘BritCard’ was slightly hidden and you only needed to have it with you for certain occasions or services, listing your nationality – Irish, British, Klingon – is Not A Good Idea in a contested-identity region like Northern Ireland. Commentators pointed to the difficulty for cross-border workers. And unionists felt it would make no difference to immigration anyway – which, as you may know, is tiny in the North compared to the Republic or Britain and most other European countries/areas, despite the noise some of the right try to make to exploit the issue. However another unionist commentator said it was a mistake to reject the idea and playing into nationalist hands, presumably on the rationale that forcing people to have and/or carry British identification that they rejected was Good For The Union.

Identity cards have a chequered history in general. The public services card in the Re:Public might have been pushed further as a more general id card if people hadn’t pushed back against the Irish government’s moves on this. But in a society like Northern Ireland where the need is not to abolish people’s chosen identities but make those of less consequence than common humanity and mutual acceptance, it is a step backwards. Cue pictures of someone on a backstreet in the dark stopped by vigilantes or paramilitaries and asked to produce their id card. How it would actually be operationalised in Northern Ireland would be a nightmare but it would also be strange to leave the North out from an otherwise UK-wide scheme – but whether it will be identical remains to be seen.

We will wait and see what develops or founders on this, and opposition in Britain has been building. I pity any poor public servants tasked with introducing this in Northern Ireland, they would have a lot of sleepless nights on their hands; it is on the cards that it would not be very successful and any success that will be achieved will be hard won.

On another note about the UK, in a voting intentions survey or poll published in the 30/8/25 edition of the “i” newspaper, Nigel Farage’s Reform party had a 15% lead over Labour (35% to 20%) with the Conservatives on 17%; if replicated in four years time, the inequitable UK ‘first past the post’ voting system would give Reform a whopping majority… This might be welcomed by some Irish nationalists as likely leading to a united Ireland (it might) but it would actually be very bad news for the people of Norn Iron and Ireland as a whole with the likelihood of instability and chaos, whatever happened, with a far right English nationalist party in power in the UK. Any resultant transition to a united Ireland – and that couldn’t be assumed either – would be disorderly to say the least.

Speaking of the Wizard of Id, in the cartoons of that name my favourite is probably the one where the king is showing a visiting dignitary or neighbouring royalty around the kingdom. The visitor asks a peasant how they are doing and the peasant replies “I can’t complain.” A further question from the visitor about why they say that elicits the response – “It’s not allowed.” There are many dangers on this island and we are not at that stage but in many countries internationally authoritarianism is in the ascendant.

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Well, that’s me for now as winter weather is ready to kick in. September wasn’t too bad but we didn’t get a summer-like ’Indian summer’, unfortunately, that sometimes comes in the earlier part of that month. The shops are now displaying their Christmas tat, sorry, wares, so the year moves on, and I will see you again soon. There will be a new president-elect in the Re-Public before I write again but I have already had my say on that, Billy.

Billy King: Rites Again, 332

Billy King, Nonviolent News, , , , ,

Billy King shares his monthly thoughts

Hello again, summer doesn’t be long in going in, and before you know it again it is autumn and those autumn schedules. Well, the mysteries of time have still to be properly unravelled and all we can do is make the most of the time it is and the time we have. But I hope you had a pleasant time of it and time out over the summer. And it’s time for my first Colm of the autumn….

All the presidents, men and women

The post of President of Ireland comes up for filling in November as Michael D finishes his second term – with a presidential election before then. Let’s hope we get someone at least half as good. It is a largely symbolic role but that symbolism took on a much more dynamic character under Mary Robinson, the first woman president, elected in 1990, and it was built on by Mary McAleese and Michael D Higgins himself (he who, when Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht was the subject of a Saw Doctors’ song “Michael D, Michael D, Up on your bikeldy, Michael D Higgins, Up in the Dáil…..”) While party political support has been important in the victory of the last three presidents, most voters have looked for more than that.

Prior to Mary Robinson the role of president was essentially for retired – and tired – political figures though the very first President, Douglas Hyde, was primarily an academic and Irish language advocate, and significantly, a Protestant (as was Erskine Childers, president from 1973 until be died in 1974). Eamon de Valera was president for two full terms (1959-73), way past when he was physically capable of playing the role – he was 90 and in very poor health for some time when he retired (the exiting Michael D is 84 but still energetic enough). The ‘Hernia’ satirical page at the back of ‘Hibernia’ magazine marked Dev’s 90th birthday with the headline “De Valera at 90” and below that “Vroom, vroom, vroom!”

As to who will emerge as next president, well, the game is quite open and many names are floated but with intense scrutiny of candidates these days, their deeds and misdeeds, and it being easy to slag someone off, it is a brave or foolhardy person to put their name forward (I put Michael Flatley and Conor McGregor in the latter category of ‘foolhardy’, both unlikely to get the necessary support to appear on the ballot paper, and McGregor a civil case defined rapist – no thank you to him even being on the ballot paper).

Heather Humphreys, a former Fine Gael TD and Minister, is emerging as the likely candidate from the Fine Gael stable and as a Monaghan Prod, her grandfather signed the 1912 Unionist Solemn League and Covenant, she would be an interesting choice and a conservative with relatively broad support. However from a progressive peace and neutrality point of view it would be impossible to beat the credentials and views of Catherine Connolly, Galway West TD, and a plain spoken supporter of equality, inclusion and both peace and neutrality and opposition to NATO. It is all to play for yet.

Discerning the truth got rather more difficult

Two British colonels were captured by the Russians while on the ground directing Ukrainian military operations. This story started circulating some weeks ago and names and a picture were provided. There was just one problem with this story. It wasn’t true and the picture was a poor AI generated image. The names provided didn’t appear anywhere on British military records.

The first thing to say is that the story could have been true. What various western countries are doing to support Ukraine, beyond the obvious, is anybody’s guess. And if you look at what the British state got up to in Northern Ireland during the Troubles – within its own jurisdiction – then anything is possible; running a list of agents as long as a plethora of arms (or armaments?) with many of them recruited, presumably, through blackmail, even running a laundry, the Four Square Laundry, to gather intelligence when picking up and dropping off, and, handily, to be able to test clothes for any incriminating evidence; the Military Intelligence Museum website refers to it only covering ‘catholic’ areas. And to quote another account ““We were not there to act like an army unit, we were there to act like a terror group,” said one unidentified former member of the MRF* who didn’t disclose his name out of concerns for his safety.” https://www.coffeeordie.com/article/four-square-laundry-service *British Army unit the Military Reaction Force.

The old saying of truth being the first casualty in war is true as far as it goes but civilians including children are first, and probably last, casualties too. Propaganda is nothing new, e.g. at the start of the First World War stories about the Germans butchering Belgian babies (the label ‘Catholic’ added for Irish benefit) – there were German atrocities but magnified well beyond the truth by the Allies. But with social media just one person can start a lie/rumour and it can go viral very fast.

But let’s look at the above story about the colonels. Suppose there were British colonels captured by the Russians while fighting with Ukraine. Suppose they were secret agents who, while previously openly in the military had been ‘retired’ and given new identities. Suppose when they were captured the British secret services deliberately manufactured dodgy looking AI images of them so any discerning person would immediately assume the story was false. The possibilities are endless, particularly in the era of social media and AI.

We know some of the dastardly deeds that Russian forces and the Russian state get up to in Ukraine. But we also know that the Nord Stream gas pipelines sabotage in the Baltic in 2022, initially blamed on the Russians, was done by others (e.g. pro-Ukrainian). We simply don’t get to hear about all the activities the US, UK and NATO are doing to destabilise Russia, and you can be sure they are at it. We hear in the likes of the mainstream Irish media about the presence of dodgy Russian ships around the seas of Ireland – but not about dodgy NATO ones, here or around Russia We are fed only a fraction of the picture and propaganda gets more sophisticated all the time. And in some ways like in Russia, most people don’t read between the lines.

Discerning the truth has got more difficult and requires time, thought and investigation…but with social media a story like the British colonels one can get legs and be over the horizon before we have cottoned on that it is fake.

Unionist support for British militarism

I find it sad the way Northern unionists, the vast majority anyway, support British militarism without question. I know unionism tends to be right of centre but it seems obsessive to me. There are many positive British values that could be actively supported like Nye Bevan’s universal health service policy (not his anti-anti-nuclearism of 1957!) or some British policies and practice on multiculturalism (now seemingly in a sad state), and lots of British culture worth immersing in. Going back in time the DUP wanted Cruise missiles based in Norn Iron cos Britain was getting them. It all seems so sad in a society which suffered from armed conflict for three decades from around 1969 onwards – how can you wish what was inflicted on you on people in other countries and in much greater measure?

Unhelpfully in a variety of ways, it seems British politicians of all shades regularly use arms production in Northern Ireland as a means try to keep unionists sweet. For example, Ben Lowry reported, and commented on (News Letter online 16/8/25), a visit by Rachel Reeves, UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, where she is quoted “Ms Reeves said: “Northern Ireland is brimming with talent and ambition, from cutting-edge film studios to world-class defence manufacturing.” She said that the investments she announced were a “turning point”, adding: “Every pound we invest here supports good jobs, strengthens our economy, and boosts the United Kingdom’s standing on the world stage, with Northern Ireland at its heart.”

Ben Lowry went on to say “Last year, the influential centre-right think tank, Policy Exchange which is based in Westminster, issue a report that said that Northern Ireland is key to addressing the UK’s security concerns. The document called for the UK government to expand its naval and air presence in NI for “maritime patrol missions against Russian intrusion”. It also urged the UK and its regional partners to unite and “up the ante” in pressing Dublin to do its “fair share for collective security”. The then prime minister Rishi Sunak said that he would be “delighted” to examine the report and added: “I have seen, with my own visits, the vital role that Northern Ireland is playing through the location of firms like Thales and Harland and Wolff.” “

Lowry went on, in the typical militarist and British right wing fashion, to accuse the Republic of “defence freeloading”. Yes, the Republic should be doing much more on international peace and security but certainly not by dishonestly ending the Triple Lock on deployment of troops and getting as close to NATO as it possible can. Ireland’s role is ( = should be) to be a peace builder and peace maker – not a bit part player in the militarisation games of NATO and the EU. Security for Ireland comes from building peace not upping the militarist ante. And there is such a thing, in military related terminology, as ‘non-offensive defence’, aside from the possibilities of civilian based defence and planned nonviolent resistance which the 2023 Irish state-run Consultative Forum on International Security Policy refused to examine.

Flegs again

Flags including national flags can mean many things. The feeling is very different between a flag placed outside a house in a Nordic country for someone’s birthday and a flag – mainly loyalist but to some extent republican* ones too, in Norn Iron. Being resident in Norn Iron I felt (uncomfortably) ‘right at home’ when visiting the West Bank/Palestine some years ago and seeing the Star of David flags of Israeli settlers. Both tend to be marking territory, or claiming territory, in a not too subtle way. * While Irish tricolour flags are used in Northern Ireland, also to claim territory and proclaim identity, there isn’t the same culture of blanket flag raising on the Catholic/Nationalist side of the house.

While we should all be internationalists first, and nationalists with a very small ‘n’ second, pride in one’s country can be a positive thing – pride in ‘our’ culture and traditions – though not all traditions are pride-worthy and we need to be critical where ‘our’ country falls short on equality, human rights and relating to the world. Right wing nationalism and ethno-nationalism have been making strides and not just in the West – think of Hindu ethno- or religious nationalism in India.

And now we have the Northern Irelandisation of England with Union and especially St George’s flegs going up in abundance. Of course this is denied to be a racist action, and for some people they may not see it that way, but the overall effect is certainly that – England for ‘the English’, and that defined in a narrow way. For the far right it is a way to move their agenda forward in a seemingly ‘acceptable’ way. The pictures make me feel it is just like the oppressiveness of Norn Iron political culture.

Meanwhile the report of a commission on ways forward on issues to do with flags, emblems, culture and tradition in the North, with some very sensible analysis, has sat firmly and securely on the shelf since its completion in 2019 and publication in 2021. See https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-59266116 and https://www.executiveoffice-ni.gov.uk/publications/commission-flags-identity-culture-and-tradition-final-report It is another unfortunate illustration of the ineffectiveness of the Stormont Assembly on many issues where the 2+ sides can’t agree, and even some where they could if they faced reality (e.g. acting effectively to save Lough Neagh).

A flag on display is not a neutral object, it is an object that can be used in a thousand different ways. Overall I wish the support for fleg waving would flag. Some of the answers are blowing in the wind. But the issues involved, like flags left up for some time, leave society in the North ragged, torn and dishevelled, and stuck up a pole with difficulty in getting down.

–

Well there we go, that’s me for now and I hope you are prepared physically and mentally for autumn and winter and whatever they throw at you, which I hope won’t be too much. And however mad Ireland is you can be sure there are at least as bizarre, or bizarrer [That’s not a word – Ed] [It is now, say it out loud cos it sounds a bit bizarre – Billy] things going on elsewhere, like the guy in England arrested for sporting a ‘Plasticine Action’ t-shirt after the banning of Palestine Action under terrorism legislation – doesn’t sound like the police were modelling very good behaviour……or shooting the messenger when D Trump fired the head of an official US statistics bureau when he didn’t like the job figures given…..there are lies, damn lies, and Donald Trump.

September can still be a very pleasant month, weatherwise, in our neck of the woods, and with global warming winters aren’t as cold as they use to be either. In the damp cold of an Irish winter you may not notice too much difference though. Anyway, it is only the start of autumn, and there is plenty of time for you can catch a falling leaf and put it in your pocket, save it for a rainy day (to marvel at its construction and the passing seasons). Meanwhile International Day of Peace comes up on 21st September and International Day of Nonviolence on 2nd October – a useful hook to hang an event on if you are thinking of anything. I’ll be back next month with another dose of thoughts, until then, Billy. l