Tag Archives: Belfast

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

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

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

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

The Peace Line with Kate Laverty: Joy in the time of sorrow

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The easier story would be the violence of recent weeks. The shattered windows. The smoke-dark language of hatred. The ancient human instinct to turn fear into fire and direct it towards the vulnerable.

But that is not the story I want to tell.

Because beneath the noise of those early June nights, something quieter and infinitely more powerful was unfolding. Something the headlines rarely know how to hold. Nonviolence.

Not as theory.

Not as performance.

But as lived, breathing practice.

I think of the children first.

Children sitting cross-legged on living room floors, their small hands stained with marker ink and paint, making signs to place in windows and on doors. Bright drawings declaring that refugees and asylum seekers were welcome here. There is something almost sacramental about a child choosing colour in the face of hatred. A holy refusal to let fear become the loudest voice in the room.

And then the women.

Women who organised gatherings in community centres. Women who walked alongside their Muslim sisters, their Black sisters, not with grand speeches but with ordinary tenderness — cups of tea, shared food, laughter rising gently above anxiety. The kind of care that rarely appears in political analysis but without which communities collapse entirely.

There is an ancient strength in women gathering. A form of resistance rooted not in domination, but in protection.

And then the volunteers.

And threaded through all of it were the volunteers. More than one hundred people, coordinated largely by two women from Sudan, quietly sustaining over six hundred people every single day. Grocery runs. Pharmacy collections. Lifts to work. Safe transport out of dangerous situations. Helping families move between temporary accommodations carrying little more than bags and exhaustion.

This too is nonviolence. Practical. Organised. Fiercely attentive.

And perhaps this is what gives me hope. Because violence is always loud. It needs spectacle. It feeds on visibility. But nonviolence often works beneath the surface, like roots strengthening unseen beneath winter soil. It survives through ordinary people choosing care over contempt again and again and again.

I have come to believe that the universe bends itself quietly towards justice through these acts. Through stubborn human tenderness.

And there is something else we must remember too: rest is part of this work. Joy is part of this work. Creativity is part of this work. The systems of hatred and violence depend upon exhaustion. They thrive when people become hardened, cynical, disconnected from beauty and each other. So every act of laughter, every shared meal, every song sung loudly in community halls, every badly painted banner held proudly by children becomes its own quiet rebellion.

To choose joy while protecting others is not frivolous. It is resistance. Perhaps nonviolence is ultimately this – the refusal to let the human spirit become smaller in response to cruelty. And for all the darkness that tried to descend, that is the story I want remembered.

–

Kate Laverty is director of Forthspring Inter Community Group https://www.forthspring.org/

Readings in Nonviolence: Nonviolence – and plans for a Nonviolence Institute in Belfast

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by Kate Laverty

Nonviolence is more than the absence of physical harm; it is an active principle that shapes how we engage with the world, fostering compassion, understanding, and justice. In an era where violence—both in words and actions—permeates our societies, nonviolence stands as a necessary antidote, offering a way to cultivate peace in our daily lives.

At its core, nonviolence is about intentionality—choosing to respond to conflict with patience rather than aggression, with dialogue rather than hostility. It calls us to recognize the humanity in others, even when we disagree, and to resist the temptation to dehumanize those we oppose. Small acts of nonviolence—listening without judgment, speaking with kindness, refusing to perpetuate cycles of harm—create ripples that extend beyond our immediate surroundings, influencing communities and cultures. I’ve learned to practice this life in my work with the Nonviolence Institute Rhode Island. Here, Kingian nonviolence is taught over 3 levels in successive years. As a youth worker in St. Peter’s Immaculata Youth Centre, I’ve been privileged to accompany youths on their journey to the States to learn the key principles of the practice.

Nonviolence is also a practice of inner discipline. It requires us to confront our own tendencies toward anger, fear, and reactivity, replacing them with a commitment to understanding and reconciliation. This daily practice helps us build resilience in the face of adversity, allowing us to stand firmly against injustice without resorting to the same destructive methods we seek to overcome. In my decades as a youth worker, this has included democratic advocacy, peaceful protest, funding discipline lead contact sports such as Brazilian ju-jitsu where there are no strikes – only defensive grapples.

In a world filled with division and harm, nonviolence is not passive; it is revolutionary. It is the quiet, persistent force that counters cruelty with care, ignorance with education, and hatred with love. By embedding nonviolence in our everyday interactions in Forthspring Intercommunity Group, we contribute to a world that values dignity, respect, and true peace.

And I can delight in sharing how our vision in Forthspring is to step into nonviolence as the core methodology across our services which will see us through the next decade of our peacebuilding mission. In the coming year, we’ll welcome trainers from the Nonviolence Institute to deliver their Level 1 course in Forthspring, enabling people in the field to apply the practice in their daily work.

I’ve rejoiced in researching the emerging science of behavioural systems analysis to the practice of nonviolent struggle and civil resistance. I’ve found strength in recognising all the ways in which nonviolent action remains a viable solution; in ending violence against women and girls, in transforming racial hatred, in dissolving the walls of otherness between us.

But this is a call. I am asking for help. I am reaching in to a community already wise in the practice of nonviolence. I am asking you to meet with me, to talk to me, to teach me. If you would like to craft the Nonviolence Institute in Northern Ireland, call or email and help us in our goal to nurture a community at peace with itself.

– Dr Kate Laverty, Director, Forthspring, ph 07746984833, director@forthspring.com

Thales fact file

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Thales Watchkeeper drones are used to kill civilians

INNATE introduction

Arms company Thales is a large-scale employer in East Belfast (manufacture) and Co Down (testing) with plans to open a third site elsewhere in Northern Ireland. It is the largest arms manufacturer on the island of Ireland. Here John Eversley shares some facts about Thales – much more in general can be found in his hyperlinks in the text as well as searches online and in books on the arms trade – and more could be added about the current war in Gaza.

There are some photos of protests at Thales sites in Northern Ireland in the album “The arms trade in Ireland including Thales missile company, Belfast” at

https://www.flickr.com/photos/innateireland/albums/72177720297420924/

The irony of Thales being the largest ‘bomb factory’ in the North throughout the Troubles seems to be lost on most people. That a society which has undergone – and still suffers from – the trauma, collective and individual, of thirty years of political and sectarian violence should look to an arms company to provide employment beggars belief.

Thales

A fact file compiled by John Eversley

Thales has a joint venture with Elbit, an Israeli arms manufacturer to make Watchkeeper drones. Thales will say that these drones are for surveillance only so that only military targets are hit by other weapons. This is misleading:

  • The Border Force used Watchkeepers in 2020 in the English Channel. These were not used to rescue refugees trying to reach safety but to detect them before they were in international waters. Using drones avoids the obligation which sea vessels have to aid a vessel in distress.

In November 2024 the UK government announced that it would spend money on surveillance equipment to deter small boats from crossing the English Channel. In September 2024 they trialled a number of. surveillance drones in a NATO exercise. These included the uncrewed aerial vehicle Peregrine for which Thales is the prime contractor ; surveillance drones Puma manufactured by AeroVironment, and Ebee Vision made by AgEagle Aerial Systems. The Peregrine was originally bought by the MoD for .“protecting British interests in the Gulf”

  • The Torch 750 command and control software, Iron Sting and many of the IDF’s drones are made by Elbit Systems according to Forbes

  • Surveillance drones are used on civilian populations. Israel has used surveillance and armed drones in Palestine. One of the main drones Israel uses is the Hermes 450 which the Watchkeeper is based on. These drones have killed including, infamously, a group of boys playing football on a beach in 2014

  • In May 2021 Israeli air attacks including by drones damaging

When these things happen in Ukraine, we rightly say that they are war crimes

  • In 2020 the UK’s National Police Air Service said that it had made use of the Elbit Systems Hermes 900 as part of a wider trial’ presumably for controlling demonstrations

  • Thales makes biometric and identification equipment used by American and European immigration agencies. Thales funded research at Queen’s University Belfast on ‘object detection in cluttered urban scenes’. Such methods were used in policing the Black Lives Matters demonstrations in the USA.

  • In 2015 Thales entered into a partnership with WB Electronics in Poland manufacture ‘Gryf’ drones with a ‘strike capability’ based on the Watchkeeper and the Thales FreeFall Lightweight Multi-role Missiles (FFLMMs) which are made in Belfast – see below. Thales hoped that the British government would underwrite sales. Thales is currently trying to sell its Watchkeeper X drone to Poland. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is totally unjustified but not unprovoked. However, the sale of arms to eastern European members of NATO and armed drones to Ukraine are part of the narrative which Putin has used to justify the invasion.

  • In 2024 it was announced that the Royal Navy was ordering £176m of Lightweight Multirole Weapons (LMM) from Thales. In March 2025 the Government announced that it would buy 5000 LMM for Ukraine. Thales makes the detonators use to fire weapons on the RAF’s Typhoon aircraft

  • Thales has also developed a system for detecting drones called Eagle Shield .

Thales weapons are intended to be used against ‘soft’ targets too

In January 2022 the Royal Air Force flew 18 Next Generation Light Antitank Weapons, or NLAWs, made by Thales, to Ukraine. They are often described as anti-tank weapons. According to defence experts they are only useful at less than 6-800 metres when Russian strategy is generally to use tanks for long- distance barrage. However, NLAWs primary manufacturer, Saab says that ‘In Direct Attack (DA) mode NLAW can be used for non-armoured opponents and troops inside buildings, NLAW fires perfectly in confined spaces. It can be used against soft targets like trucks, buses, cars and helicopters. When fired directly through a window into a building, fragments will cause significant damage’.

People in Northern Ireland might be uneasy about these powerful weapons being used against buses, for instance, whether they have soldiers on board or not.

Thales makes Lightweight Multirole Missiles in Belfast. They are designed to be fired from Tactical and MALE (medium altitude, long endurance) unmanned aerial vehicle (UAVs), helicopters and ‘low cost’ fixed wing aircraft. Like the NLAWs they are designed to be used against soft targets too. Thales own publicity talks about using them against Rigid Inflatable Boats (RIBs) and jet skiers.

Damocles kills civilians in Yemen

Thales makes a laser-targeting system called Damocles. Thales says it has been used in Afghanistan, Mali, Sahel, Iraq, Syria and Libya. Thales itself says it is in service with the SU30, used by the Russians in Ukraine. There are various reports (mainly from the Ukrainian side) which say that Ukraine shot down to Russian SU30s.

One source says Russia is not using Damocles source says this never happened.

Thales mentions that the Saudi Arabian-led coalition in Yemen use Damocles and it is implicated in many attacks on civilians, including on a bus.

Academic links

Thales boasts of the research and training it supports at Queen’s and Ulster universities.

Alternative jobs: necessary and possible

The Watchkeeper has largely been a failure. The British Army originally ordered 54 of them. It is not clear that they were all delivered. According to the Ministry of Defence, five have crashed. Since 2010, Watchkeeper has only flown 3,000 flying hours or so. In 2020 a government minister said only ‘5 Watchkeeper airframes were in service as at 23 July 2020. 13 have flown in the past 12 months and 23 have been in storage for longer than 12 months’. In November 2024 the government announced that it would ‘‘retire’ the Watchkeeper drones which had proved unreliable.

In August 2021 Thales announced that it was selling its ground transportation (rail) division to Hitachi in order to ‘accelerate EBIT margin accretion and further deleveraging’. In English that means to increase its profits and reduce its debt.

Thales workers are highly skilled. Their skills could be used for work in which Northern Ireland excels, such as fossil free transport and medical equipment.

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