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.

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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