Tag Archives: Ireland

News, March 2025

Nonviolent News,

Government poised to end Triple Lock

With the Defence (Amendment) (No.2) Bill listed for the spring Dáil session, its purpose described as “To amend the Defence Acts to reform the existing provisions concerning the dispatch of members of the Defence Forces for service outside the State”, the Irish government, spearheaded (sic) by Micheál Martin, is set to remove one of the key features of Irish neutrality and its protection. Without the need for UN authorisation for sending more than 12 troops overseas, the government can commit the armed forces to engage in any actions or wars it sees fit. More info on Triple Lock at https://swordstoploughsharesireland.org/triple-lock/ and see also https://people.ie/english1.html A number of groups are working together and have adopted the slogan “Save our Neutrality; Save the Triple Lock “; contact any of StoP, PANA, Transnational Institute, World Beyond War, Action Against War (Cork), Afri, Uplift, Lex Innocentium.

lNow, immediately, is the time for residents of the 26 counties to contact their TDs demanding that they stand by the Triple Lock. See also editorial in this issue.

lInternational peace organisations CODEPINK, International Peace Bureau (IPB), Transnational Institute (TNI), Veterans For Peace and World BEYOND War have written a collective letter to the Taoiseach asking for the retention of the Triple Lock.

Frank Aiken and the Irish contribution to international peace

This event, ‘Frank Aiken and the Irish Contribution to International Peace in Times of Risk and Uncertainty’ takes place in Loyola Building, Trinity College Dublin on Thursday, 27th March 2025, at 7.00 p.m. to 8.30/9.00 p.m. with speakers Prof Patrick Bresnihan, Maynooth, Prof John Maguire, Professor Emeritus, UCC and one other speaker. Chair: Carol Fox. Organised by Lex Innocentium, 21st Century and hosted by Irish School of Ecumenics. https://lexinnocentium21.ie and https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61560485884212

The Irish government and legacy investigations

Legacy issues North of the border have obviously had centre stage in recent years but there are also significant questions about how the Irish government handles matters within its jurisdiction. CAJ/Committee on the Administration of Justice and ICCL/Irish Council for Civil liberties have published the report on a seminar in September 2024 looking at how the Irish government should deal with legacy investigations. The 24 page report can be accessed at https://caj.org.uk/publications/reports/policing-for-peace-commitment-to-repeal-and-replace-the-northern-ireland-legacy-act/ and https://www.iccl.ie/news/human-rights-groups-victims-and-families-call-on-government-to-investigate-historic-human-rights-violations/ The report states that “Victims and survivors of outstanding violations from conflict-related violence in the South, including the Dublin and Monaghan bombings (1974) and the Sallins train robbery (1976), have not been provided with a formal and systematised approach to investigations and accountability.” It also says “Various UN treaty bodies have highlighted the lack of accountability and transparency for violations in Ireland, including concerns regarding the independence and effectiveness of GSOC to investigate instances of torture and ill-treatment…..The roundtable discussions revealed a general consensus on the need for a new legacy mechanism(s), or combination thereof, to investigate State and non-State actors in conflict and non-conflict related historical cases, to be established in consultation with survivors and families.” Conclusions include the lack of political will to proceed and the untapped potential of the inquest model. It calls on the Irish government to establish a Historical Investigations Unit (HIU) to investigate unresolved deaths and incidents of torture and ill-treatment, including (but not limited to) cases related to the Troubles.

CCI on Chernobyl drone attack and 3 years of war

When Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant was again attacked in February, Adi Roche, voluntary CEO of Chernobyl Children International (CCI), issued a statement which included “I appeal, on behalf of all humanity and as a first-step towards peace negotiations, that the deadly and toxic Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, with its thousands of tons and gallons of highly radioactive material, no longer be targeted, or used as an area of shelling, bombardment, and ground fighting under the Hague Convention. My worst nightmare in this conflict is that the tragedy of the Chernobyl disaster could be re-released on the world. I fear that this area…. could once again, have deadly radioactive contamination released which would spread everywhere, like a great and uncontrollable monster.” A further statement from Adi Roche came on 24th February for the third anniversary of the war; “The war in Ukraine and this recent attack on Chernobyl has highlighted the dire need to formally recognise ‘Ecocide’—the deliberate destruction of the environment—as a crime under the International Criminal Court (ICC)…….Ecocide is not collateral damage; it is a targeted and systematic weapon of war. The radioactive contamination unleashed by military activity in Chernobyl has already affected thousands, with rising levels of long-lived radionuclides detected on civilians, particularly children, in heavily populated areas. This environmental devastation will have consequences for generations, further underscoring the urgency of holding perpetrators accountable…..We urge the Irish Government to support Ukraine’s initiative in advocating for the recognition of ecocide as a war crime under the Hague Convention…..” https://www.chernobyl-international.com/

Central Bank of Ireland and Israeli war bonds

The Central Bank of Ireland (CBI) is acts as the regulator of Israel bonds in Europe, taking over that role from the UK after Brexit. These fund the Israeli Treasury and are now marketed as ‘war bonds’. World Beyond War Ireland states “By providing this gateway into Europe for Israel bonds, the CBI is making itself complicit in funding genocide and apartheid. Under EU law (Regulation 2017/18, Article 32), CBI has the power — and the responsibility — to refuse to validate Israel bonds on the grounds that the ICJ has found that Israel is plausibly committing genocide” (though a ceasefire began on 19th January). https://tinyurl.com/mvnkste7

lThe international report for World Beyond War/WBW for 2024 can be found at https://tinyurl.com/y558zdth

Terminal illness: LNG storage for Ireland?

Friends of the Earth/FOE are campaigning against a liquefied natural gas/LNG terminal for Ireland – LNG has been shown to be worse than coal burning for its carbon footprint by the time it is shipped here. FOE are organising email letters to the Taoiseach and Minister for Climate; they point out that the government plan to go ahead with an LNG terminal has not been backed up with analysis and it may be cosying up to President Trump. See https://www.friendsoftheearth.ie/act/make-sure-government-says-no-to-climate-wrecking-lng/

Race hate crimes in North hit high in summer 2024

Amnesty International has expressed concern at the level of racist hate crime in Northern Ireland, as new figures published show attacks hit an all-time high during summer 2024; these are in a report by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) and the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (NISRA), which tracked recorded hate crimes and incidents for the twelve months to the end of December 2024. The report reveals that there were 1,777 racist incidents and 1,150 racist crimes recorded by the police during 2024. There were 454 more race incidents and 292 more race crimes recorded in 2024 than the previous year. Six of the eight highest monthly levels of race incidents since records began in 2004 were recorded between May and October 2024. Amnesty International Northern Ireland director Patrick Corrigan stated ““Tackling racism and hate crime in Northern Ireland will require not just a more consistent response from the police but unambiguous political leadership and effective strategies from the Executive, something which has hitherto been lacking.” See https://www.amnesty.org.uk/press-releases/northern-ireland-latest-police-figures-show-race-hate-crimes-hit-all-time-high which has a link to the report.

Introduction to Eco Congregation Ireland

Eco Congregation Ireland/ECI produces a valuable monthly round up of religious/church involvement in green issues in all parts of Ireland and you can subscribe to receive it on their website. https://www.ecocongregationireland.com/ They also have a new flyer introducing ECI. https://www.ecocongregationireland.com/2025/02/23/eci-flyer-available/ and the possibilities for local churches to go green.

ICC summer school at Irish Centre for Human Rights

2025 is the 25th year that the Irish Centre for Human Rights in Galway has run a summer school on the International Criminal Court; this year it runs from 9th – 13 June. Participants follow a series of lectures given by leading academics, as well as by legal professionals, including those working at the International Criminal Court. The participation fee is €475 and further info is at https://universityofgalwayichr.clr.events/event/137231:summer-school-on-the-international-criminal-court-2025 The website also gives details of upcoming talks.

Uncertainty at Spirit AeroSystems, Belfast

What the implications are for jobs and involvement in military related production, including dual use, remains uncertain as Spirit AeroSystems (formerly Bombardier), Belfast’s largest private sector employer, faces the possibility of being broken up with Airbus purchasing the part of it producing its A220 aircraft wings while Boeing has been negotiating a takeover of Spirit AeroSystems. Wordsearch for further information.

Síolta Chroí programme

‘Tis the season to start growing again and the current programme at Síolta Chroí, Carrickmacross, Monaghan, includes a workshop on food growing with Joanne Butler on Saturday 24th March along with much else, e.g. a workshop on syntropic agriculture on 8th March. See https://sioltachroi.ie/

INNATE change of address

INNATE’s postal address is changing, with immediate effect, to 24 Broughton Park, Belfast BT6 0BD (from the previous long term address of 16 Ravensdene Park). Other contact details including the ‘landline’ (actually VOIP) phone number +44 28 90647106, web addresses and the email address innate@ntlworld.com will remain unchanged.

Editorials: Picking the Lock, Violence and nonviolence

Editorials, Nonviolent News, , ,

Picking the Lock

The term ‘to pick a lock’ means to open it without a key using a device to open it without breaking or cutting the lock. It is usually for underhand or nefarious purposes. This aptly describes what the Fianna Fáil government is doing to the Triple Lock in working to remove it and open the Irish army up to the service of EU and NATO militarism. Fianna Fáil were not even honest in their election manifesto when they promised ‘sensible reform’ of the Triple Lock since the only reform they will bring is its complete destruction.

Micheál Martin and Fianna Fáil have been the frontrunners on this for some years now and the whole purpose of the Consultative Forum on International Security Policy in 2023 was to provide an excuse to proceed. The fact that this ‘Forum’ did not work in the way it was intended was no deterrence to proceeding. It looked like the move might have happened before the election but now that Martin is ensconced again as Taoiseach means that a move is imminent. It is included in business for the spring session of the Dáil https://www.gov.ie/pdf/?file=https://assets.gov.ie/319531/3760a815-ee4f-49ea-ba3b-e42244711ea4.pdf#page=null (see page 4)

The Triple Lock https://swordstoploughsharesireland.org/triple-lock/ entails UN, government/cabinet and Dáil approval for deploying more than 12 members of the Irish military abroad – but the Irish establishment want to fully integrate with, and have the army fighting with, the EU army. And since the EU, which began as an economic-led peace project, is increasingly a military project and the European wing of NATO, not joining NATO – which the bulk of Irish citizens oppose – is immaterial. In any case the Irish army is already cooperating with NATO through membership of the misnamed NATO ‘Partnership for Peace’.

Removing the United Nations support as an obligatory part of the Irish army being sent overseas means the government – which by definition has Dáil support – has no hoops to go through in committing the Irish army to armed action anywhere and any time. As the western world gears up increasingly for war through increased spending on arms and armies this is a sickening thought. And the EU is shaping up to become yet another military power on the world stage; as everywhere, the rhetoric may be benign but the reality is different.

It is almost beyond irony that Fianna Fáil, the party of Eamonn de Valera and Frank Aiken, should be in the forefront of ditching Irish neutrality. It is also fundamentally dishonest since the Triple Lock was introduced to get the Nice and Lisbon treaties agreed by the citizens of Ireland in referendums. Because, also dishonestly, this was not done as a formal protocol, no referendum is required to undo it. The honest course of action would be to hold a referendum on the issue but that will not happen since, Irish neutrality being popular with citizens, a proposal to radically alter it would be defeated. An Irish Times/ARINS survey (Irish Times 8/2/25) showed that even in the event of Irish unification only 19% of citizens in the Republic felt Ireland should join NATO (7% definitely join, 12% join) whereas 24% said it shouldn’t join and 25% definitely not join. But the leaders are taking their own path to militarisation.

The move to abolish the Triple Lock is a negation of democracy and may help get Ireland fully integrated with European war machines but it will do nothing for peace, in fact the exact opposite. Peace and democracy activists have been mobilising to defend the Triple Lock but it has been hard to get the issue the attention it deserves, not least because of mass media apathy or active support for militarisation and a clever game by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael in denying anything is happening. The government should hang it head in shame at abandoning Irish neutrality and refusing to consider how it, neutrality, could be developed as a real and active force for peace in the world.

Violence and nonviolence in an age of uncertainty

Change may be the only certainty in life but we, as a human species, are not always good at dealing within it. And our ‘common sense’ response to it may not be sensible at all. Thus with Russia’s war on Ukraine and President Trump’s bull-in-a-china-shop act in his second incumbency, we may react in ways which are not only unhelpful but actually detrimental to the cause of peace and justice.

The Western world is currently heading, in general, to the right and to increased militarism. More than one commentator has likened the situation to the lead up to First World War; then clashing imperialisms came to fight on the battlefield, and we already have the trench warfare in Ukraine, albeit with drones being a crucial weapon this time around.

The forces for peace can feel totally powerless when confronted with such massive pro-militarist action and propaganda. And such belligerence is backed by the mass media and some social media as well.

Powerlessness can be totally debilitating and push us into apathy. Instead we need to hold firm in our convictions and our work and be prepared so we can use any opportunities which present themselves to get or views across and to build the movement we need, in an alliance with other progressive forces, to bring transformation.

The forces of peace and nonviolence are not powerless, we should know that from Gene Sharp, Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan, among many othersi. But while we can make an impact with small numbers, to be successful we need to mobilise on a broad base and that requires cooperation across different sectors (trade unions, human rights, ecological, left of centre and so on), lots of preparatory work, a good tailwind, and seizing the moment when it comes. Awareness of the stages successful movements pass through (as with Bill Moyer’s Movement Action Plan) can help us plan and be prepared as well as perhaps avoiding depression when the going gets tough.

Billy King: Rites Again, 327

Billy King, Nonviolent News,

Billy King shares his monthly thoughts

You couldn’t make it up, explosive munitions at Lidl

https://www.flickr.com/photos/innateireland/54351562097/in/dateposted/ and an iPhone dictation bug that replaced ‘Trump’ with ‘Racist’ https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/feb/26/apple-to-fix-iphone-dictation-bug-trump?CMP=share_btn_url ……..manys a true word that was spoken in jest tech.

Fierce and farce in Dublin

OK, one was fierce but not a farce, the other was a fierce farce. My visits to Doubling tend to be either social or movement related so it was great to have a cultural visit recently. The first part of the visit was to the Hugh Lane Gallery in Parnell Square to see Brian Maguire’s “La grande illusion” exhibition there. The second was to see the stage production of Dr Strangelove. Both would get excellent marks from me.

We didn’t have enough time at the Hugh Lane because we hadn’t banked on spending three-quarters of an hour watching a video interview with Brian Maguire. It is at the entrance to his exhibition but once we started watching then we couldn’t pull ourselves away. Intelligent, humane, personable, concerned with justice, these are just a few of the terms that come to mind in describing the gentle but strong man in question from watching the interview. His work in prisons, at home and around the world, is remarkable.

In the video he quotes Lara Marlowe as saying he worked like a journalist and you can see that clearly in the video and his work (he can do much work to access photos of scenes of death or violence). But he gives more than that, he gives imagination, depth and humanity – where appropriate – to his subjects. The coverage in this exhibition includes Mexico and the devastation on lives by the drugs trade there, Syria, and migrants to the USA who did not make it. Regarding the first, one work looked like a stone or rock from a distance only on examination to reveal a severed head; shocking but a humane treatment of the topic. And regarding Syria his treatment of a damaged and abandoned street in Aleppo evokes the life which it once had and its emptiness now, it is an image that has stayed with me – I think you might have the same experience with any of his images. War and human rights are integral subjects to this work.

Brian Maguire’s exhibition at the Hugh Lane has had its run extended to 18th May (2025) and I certainly recommend it – but leave time for that video interview.

Doing Dr Strangelove as a stage production might seem a strange choice but it actually worked very well in the Iannucci/Foley/Coogan presentation of Stanley Kubrick’s original, and the stagecraft was good. Steve Coogan was to play 4 roles when we were attending at the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre – this compares to 3 roles played by Peter Sellers in the 1964 film – and obviously doing it on stage requires nifty timing and a bit of ingenuity (which mainly but not always worked in my opinion). Not performing due to laryngitis meant Coogan’s understudy, Ben Deery, had that challenge and managed it very well when I attended.

It is of course a sign of the times that Dr Strangelove is – tragically – as relevant today as when it was filmed in terms of actual and possible mass annihilation. The violent crazies and smooth talkers are running the shows and any interventions by people with a titter of wit may be ineffective. If we even consider nuclear accidents and near misses of various kinds we can shiver in fear. Add in further human error and possible malice and we are on the edge of the precipice or indeed various precipices.

One of the stand out lines in the play is where the US President advises the Soviet ambassador and a belligerent senior air force officer that there should be no fighting as “This is the War Room”! Sadly the world is still going in the direction of gross violence and pulling back from this requires the imaginative goodwill which many of our leaders lack. So we have to provide some sanity in these troubled times.

It’s a Doge’s life

I do believe there is such a thing as ‘evil’, but as it is such an absolute term it is one I rarely use to describe people or situations. I am usually moderate enough in how I express myself [Really? – Ed] however when I saw Elon Musk gloating on television news about the apocalyptic cuts to the USAid budget, and his proud claim to have put it through the shredder, I really felt I was looking at the face of evil, undiluted evil.

The USA spends far more money on its military – and 800 military bases around the world – than any other country, by far; the budget for this is over $900 billion, say $1 trillion. You could attack USAid spending in some places for its political bias – Ukraine and Israel are the largest recipients – but the fact is it does make a difference to some of the poorest of the poor and the sickest of the sick. $40 billion is not a huge amount for a large, rich country like the USA to share though the total spent on aid by the USA is $72 billion (possibly 8% of the military budget). https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2025/feb/20/how-will-trump-and-musk-freeze-on-usaid-affect-millions-around-world?CMP=share_btn_url The Trump/Musk justification for the attack was also false; three of the four projects named as wasting money by USAid were funded as cultural projects by the State Department, not USAid.

For the richest man in the world to be part of destroying help to the very poorest and sickest in the world is obscene and vengeful evil, full stop. Two thirds of soup kitchens in Khartoum, Sudan, closed as a result. Many essential health programmes in the poorest countries in the world have been decimated. And for a ‘Labour’ prime minister in the UK to subsequently cut their aid budget, already miserly as a percentage of GDP, to up military spending feels like another betrayal on the world stage. But then with Trump in the White House everyone seems to be getting in on dangerous and unjust behaviour.

Down North

What are you to make of the sadistic that while 81% of nationalist/republican voters in the North believe extreme weather events are at least partly caused by climate change, only 29% of unionist voters believe that. So 4 out of 5 nationalists/republicans are aware of the connection while more than 2 in 3 unionist voters have their heads in the shifting sand. Is this explicable by the Catholic/Nationalist/Republican ‘community’ being generally centre or left of centre and Protestant/Unionist/Loyalist politics tending to be centre or right of centre? You might expect some difference due to that but the void is staggering. I couldn’t look at the details more because the story was behind a paywall in the ‘Tele’ https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/environment/just-29-of-unionist-voters-believe-climate-change-is-partly-responsible-for-extreme-weather-poll-reveals/a1145304503.html

Meanwhile it does seem the gap is closing between those who support staying in the UK and those who want a united Ireland. In an Irish Times/ARINS survey the figures were 48% to 34% respectively, and there were some changes in the non-headline figures https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2025/02/07/support-for-irish-unification-grows-but-unity-vote-would-be-soundly-defeated-in-north-poll-shows/ However a Lucid Talk/Belfast Telegraph poll showed figures of 48% and 41%, much closer, which begs questions about their repective methodologies. While the latter poll has consistently shown a high proportion opting for a united Ireland, both show the gap narrowing.

The conclusion is that there should be all sorts of explorations on what a united Ireland might look like and how it would initially fund, and economically develop, the poorer North, as well as guarantees on human rights and other issues. However there is a reasonable case that unionists can or could make for continuing in the UK and one start to doing that took place recently in Coleraine with a ‘Safeguarding the Union’ meeting. While demographics show the Catholic population increasingly outpacing the number of Protestants, certainly from middle age downwards, it can’t be assumed that the current direction of travel will automatically continue. What would happen if, as the Coleraine meeting heard, there was a big economic shock to the Republic? What indeed.

It is all to be played for. The hope is that the players won’t engage in fouls and that the respective supporters will temper their behaviour. Unlikely? Maybe, but not if there are processes which encourage intelligent and analytical thinking at all levels and in a variety of ways.

Global injustice: It’s rich

I didn’t read the Oxfam report concerned but Stephen McCloskey of the Centre for Global Education in Belfast did a very useful precis in the February issue of their e-Bulletin which I quote here in full:

“Oxfam have published their annual analysis of global economic inequality which this year is titled Takers not Makers: The Unjust Poverty and Unearned Wealth of Colonialism.  This annual report has become an indispensible tool for understanding the key economic forces driving poverty between and within the global North and South.  The report’s main headline is that billionaire wealth has risen three times faster in 2024 than 2023 with 204 new billionaires created.  Such is the global flow of wealth to the super-rich that Oxfam estimates that there will be five trillionaires within a decade.  Conversely, the number of people living below the World Bank poverty line of $6.85 is 3.6 billion people, the same total as 1990, which means poverty indicators are going in the wrong direction because of wealth accumulation by the one percent.  In explaining the concentration of billionaire wealth, Oxfam’s report cites two main factors: first, the rise of a new oligarchy that generates wealth through inheritance, cronyism (such as tax avoidance) and monopoly power (for example, Amazon controls 70% of online purchases in the UK); and second, both historic and ongoing colonialism of the global South through global institutions, financial markets and multinational corporations.  The report sets out the kind of systemic changes needed to address global inequities and they really should be seized by development educators as a platform for economic literacy, advocacy and activism.  The depth of the problems described in the report demand nothing less.” The report is at https://www.oxfam.org/en/takers-not-makers-unjust-poverty-and-unearned-wealth-colonialism and the Centre for Global Education is at https://www.centreforglobaleducation.com/

–

That’s me as we come up towards St Patrick’s Day, that national occasion when anyone or everyone can shiver in the open because wintry weather is still around. It’s a shame(rock) that the weather can be so poor…..the day marks the death date of St Patrick himself but whether 17th March is accurate or not I don’t know, perhaps it could be ‘discovered’ that it was really sometime in the period May to August that the man himself died….. Until we meet again next month, Billy.

News, February 2025

Nonviolent News, ,

Corrymeela 60

Corrymeela, the only existing peace and reconciliation group to predate the Troubles, is approaching 60 years at work. While the group that became the eponymous Corrymeela identified the site they wanted to purchase outside Ballycastle, Co Antrim, a former Holiday Fellowship venue, at the start of 1965, it was the summer of that year that they took possession and it only became an incorporated charity in December 1966. There will be Corrymeela Sunday events at Coventry (15th-16th March) coming up to St Patrick’s Day and then in the period 22nd – 31st August this year anniversary ‘open’ events will be held at the Corrymeela Centre that they hope will allow the generations who have been a part of the Corrymeela story to reunite and learn with people interested in carrying that story forward. 

Also look for more information to come around a planned trip to Taizé in early autumn; events in Dublin at the end of October 2025; a service in the Croí on 30 October to mark the anniversary of the centre’s 1965 dedication; a special anniversary concert in Belfast Cathedral on 22 November 2025; a service in Exeter Cathedral on 23 November; and a conference on Reconciliation for Easter 2026. Other events and ongoing programmes will also take place. Up to date information is available at www.corrymeela.org

Féile Bríde: Justice and Solidarity

Afri’s Féile Bríde takes place on Saturday 8th February at Solas Bhríde, Tully Road, Kildare with the title “Brigid’s Light: Illuminating paths of justice and solidarity”. Speakers are Niamh Ní Briain on Brigid’s call to action today: Defying militarism and protecting the Triple Lock, James Hennessy on Solar lights and the work of Development Pamoja, Catherine Cleary on Pocket Forests and Raghad Abu Shammala on Solidarity is key; musicians are Emer Lynam, Dee Armstrong, Lughaidh Armstrong, Gráinne Horan, Kate Moore and the Resistance Choir. The programme runs from 10.15 am registration and finishes after the final programme item at 4.20pm. Full price for the day, including lunch, tea and coffee is €35, concessions €25 (further donations to costs welcome). Bookings via https://www.afri.ie/category/feile-bride-2025/ or to Afri at 8 Cabra Road, Dublin D07 T1W2.

Sperrins gold diggers inquiry halted

The public inquiry into gold mining by USA-owned Dalradian in the Sperrins near Greencastle, Co Tyrone, was abruptly halted after two days in mid-January. Opponents of the mining were there in strength but Dalradian have been working on site since 2009 and first submitted plans to mine in 2017. Their commitment, under pressure, not to use cyanide there may hold but does not cover other toxic and environmental effects, or the possible use of cyanide elsewhere. The inquiry was halted over the failure of the Department for Infrastructure in the North to give the required notice across the border but may resume in late March. The NI Executive makes the final decision on mining. https://www.facebook.com/search/posts/?q=save%20our%20sperrins

Another miraculous appearance by St Brigid

In a stupendous and recurring miracle, around her feast day every year St Brigid puts in an appearance at the Department of Foreign Affairs at St Stephen’s Green, calling on the Irish government to act for peace (in accord with St Brigid herself), and, currently, to protect the Triple Lock which requires UN approval for Irish troops deployment overseas. https://swordstoploughsharesireland.org/ and https://youtu.be/hl4LHqSVU4o?si=4J4YiOaFBm7cpJRn

ICCL on new government programme

ICCL/Irish Council for Civil Liberties has looked at both negatives and positives in the Programme for Government with the former including the retention of the Special Criminal Court and the extension of police powers, and the latter comprehensively reviewing the criminal justice system, modernising the Coroner Service, and tackling the use of recommender algorithms. www.iccl.ie

Transformative approaches to housing

Housing is a critical issue in wellbeing. Housing ourselves in the wellbeing economy is an in person and online event on Friday 14th February taking place at WeCreate Centre, Cloughjordan Ecovillage, Co. Tipperary, E53 VP86 and online from 10am – 5pm. It aims to explore transformative approaches to housing that prioritise sustainability, inclusivity, and community resilience and is hosted by Cloughjordan Co-Housing in collaboration with the Irish Hub of the Wellbeing Economy Alliance which Feasta co-ordinates. Details at https://cloughjordancohousing.coop/making-neighbourhoods/housing-ourselves-2025/ and Feasta is at https://www.feasta.org/

Glencree on 50 years after Feakle talks

It is 50 years since Protestant church leaders bravely met the IRA in secret talks at Feakle, Co Clare, setting a pattern for dialogue which eventually paid dividends. Glencree marked this anniversary with an event in December. https://glencree.ie/events/feakle-1974/

CRIS/Community Relations in Schools at 40

Belfast-based Community Relations in Schools is marking 40 years work with schoolchildren in building understanding and friendship. They will be celebrating with a gala fundraising dinner on Saturday 15th March from 6pm to late at Titanic Centre Belfast, tickets £75. More details and about CRIS’s work at https://www.crisni.org/40-years-of-cris

WRI on Israel-Hamas ceasefire

A statement from the Executive of War Resisters’ International (WRI) on the Israel-Hamas ceasefire can be found at https://wri-irg.org/en/story/2025/wri-exec-statement-israel-hamas-ceasefire

Oisín Coghlan moving on from FOE

Oisín Coghlan who has been at the helm of Irish Friends of the Earth for 20 years has decided it is time to move on but with many achievements under his/their belt. https://www.friendsoftheearth.ie/news/announcement-oisin-coghlan-to-step-down-as-ceo-of-friends-of/

WBW course on Unarmed Civilian Defense

Among others, World Beyond War (WBW) has a 6 week online course (time recommendation 3 – 6 hours per week) on Unarmed civilian defense instead of war beginning on 12th May, course fee $100, concession as little as $25. It has a focus on the role unarmed civilian defense can play in resisting military force, invasion, occupation, dictatorship, and warfare. See https://tinyurl.com/84j96z3p for details. The WBW website is at https://worldbeyondwar.org/

Diasporas and peacebuilding

The January 2025 issue of Peace in Progress from the International Catalan Institute for Peace looks at the role of diasporas in peacebulding. https://www.icip.cat/perlapau/en/magazine/42-2/

Global Day of Action to #CloseBases, 23 February

World Beyond War, backed by many other organisations, is organising a global day of action to close military bases since they are “a critical piece of the war machine that must be dismantled. “ https://worldbeyondwar.org/closebases/

Organic Centre Rossinver

The Organic Centre in the heart of rural Rossinver, Leitrim looks forward to 2025 with the hope of brighter days ahead. As an educational charity, it specialises in promoting all things organic, sustainable living and biodiversity. The Organic Centre was founded in 1995 by local organic growers, and farmers. Developed on a 19-acre green field site at the foot of limestone hills beside Lough Melvin, it became a pioneering organisation, at the forefront of organic growing, and action for climate change. In the beginning there were 6 weekend courses which took place in 1997. Now, the centre looks forward to almost 40 courses ranging from growing to recycling workshops, stone wall building, cheese making, pizza oven building and more.

The calendar year now hosts a multitude of free seasonal events, including one to mark Brigid’s Day, Apple Day, Samhain, a Green Christmas fair, a large range of activities in Biodiversity Week in May and Heritage Week in August, to name but a few.  And coming soon is Potato Day, a free family friendly event, on Sunday 2th March from 12-4pm, with demonstrations, tours, and an onsite craft and food market. Regarding training for growers, the centre also hosts a now adapted, part time, funded course in organic horticulture, an opportunity to learn and be part of a movement, as policy makers nationally and internationally start to recognise the importance of organic agriculture for planet and health. The MSLETB Level 5 in Organic Horticulture closes for applications on Feb 10th https://www.theorganiccentre.ie/Learn/now%20part%20time%20horticultural-course

You can organise a tour of the centre as an away day with your work, school or family – just ring 0719854338.  You can go for a walk on the new Fowley’s Falls trail that links up with the Organic Centre, and end at the Grass Roof Cafe for tea and coffee. Check out the Organic Centre’s website and social media channels for more information on courses, events, and the onsite and online shop. https://www.theorganiccentre.ie/

Death of Ken Mayers

We regret to record the death of US peace activist Ken Mayers. Edward Horgan writes: “Ken Mayers, peace activist, member of Veterans For Peace US, and VFP Ireland Chapter, passed away at his home in Santa Fe New Mexico on 27th January. Many of you will have met Ken while he was virtually imprisoned in Ireland for almost 9 months after the peace action that he and Tarak Kauff undertook at Shannon airport on St Patrick’s Day in 2019. Ken was an inspiration to peace activists in Ireland, in the USA and worldwide, and in addition to his activism in Ireland he also attended and helped to organise peaceful protests in the US, Palestine, Korea, Japan and elsewhere. I have no doubt that Ken in Resting in Peace and the world is a better place because of his life’s work.” For photos of Ken Mayers in action, see e.g. https://www.flickr.com/photos/innateireland/48187813206/in/album-72157616378924274 and https://www.flickr.com/photos/innateireland/48863510693/in/album-72157616378924274

Principles and practices of peace education

The Open University has a free introductory short course (12 hours study) produced in collaboration with Quakers in Britain on how peace might be built in everyday classroom practice. It introduces layers of peace education for children and young people, including inner-peace and wellbeing; interpersonal peace through positive relationships and constructive approaches to conflict; and critical thinking about the world beyond the classroom. See https://www.open.edu/openlearn/education-development/principles-and-practices-peace-education/content-section-overview?active-tab=description-tab for details.

Tribute to Tom Hyland

Nonviolent News, Readings, , ,

by Joe Murray

We previously recorded the death of Tom Hyland; he died in Dili on 24th December 2024. There was a memorial mass and civic ceremony in Ballyfermot, Dublin in January and this was the tribute made by his good friend Joe Murray, former coordinator of Afri –

I think that anyone who knew Tom Hyland will agree that he was a unique human being. While not seeking to beatify him, he definitely had a rare combination of gifts, talents and flair.

Tom was kind, caring and generous and deeply felt the suffering, not only of other people but also of animals.

I remember walking with him through Ballyfermot or through town and he would rarely pass anyone who was looking for money without helping. His love for animals led him to be a dedicated vegetarian and his concern for people led him to be a great humanitarian – and to his setting up the East Timor Ireland Solidarity Campaign.

He had an extraordinary level of determination and commitment and once he took on the cause of Timor, nothing would stand in his way. He read, studied, listened and learned everything possible about East Timor and then threw himself completely into the cause of freedom for the Timorese people.

While he never lost his sense of humour or his humanity, he was single-minded and completely focussed on the cause. He was a regular visitor to Afri and often he would’ve heard about another atrocity committed by Indonesian troops and he would be devastated but, rather than giving up – he’d be even more determined to continue to support the struggle. I didn’t really believe that Timor would achieve its independence – the grip of the Indonesian occupation was so tight – and I used to wonder why Tom continued to put himself through such distress and trauma. But his example is a good lesson for those of us campaigning today on issues such as the genocide in Palestine and the numerous mindless wars happening around our world. We must never give up the fight!

He was creative when it came to campaigning. There are many examples of this but a particularly significant one was when Australian Prime Minister, Paul Keating made a nostalgic visit to Ireland, the land of his ancestors in 1993. Keating’s family left Ireland around 1855, as a result of evictions. To highlight Australia’s support for Indonesia, Tom organised a candle light vigil outside Dublin Castle, while the Prime Minister was being wined and dined inside, highlighting parallels between Keating’s ancestors and the eviction of people in East Timor under Indonesian occupation. A source within the Australian embassy told Tom afterwards that the Prime Minister was furious by the fact that his nostalgic lap of honour was marred by this protest.

Tom was extremely popular both at home in Ireland and in East Timor. I was privileged to have visited Timor on two occasions – once as the people prepared to vote for Independence and again in 2015 to accept an award from the President of East Timor on behalf of ETISC. I stayed in Tom’s house for the second visit and met many of his friends, students whom he was helping through college and his cats, of course.

I travelled into Dili with him on the back of his Honda 50 and it was like travelling with a global celebrity. Dozens of times on the short journey people waved and shouted ‘Mr. Tom’. When we arrived near his office, and were walking through a busy shopping area, Tom made a noise like he was calling chickens and this was echoed back numerous times…obviously a secret language that Tom had developed with the people in the market. I attended his class where he was teaching English to future Diplomats in his own unique way. During the class, one of his students asked him ‘Mr. Tom, can I take a half day’? Can you take a half day, Tom repeated… ‘you can in your bollix’!

So, if you hear this term being used by the Timorese delegation in UN negotiations, you’ll know exactly where it originated.

He was advised to speak to a solicitor in a company called Potter and Anderson. He asked the receptionist if he could see Mr. Potter. The receptionist asked who will I tell Mr. Potter is calling? Without a second’s hesitation, he said ‘his son, Harry’.

This sense of fun was perhaps Tom’s most distinctive feature. He had an exceptional sense of mischief and humour. There are many other stories of moments like these, far too numerous to mention.

In conclusion, Tom was a kind, compassionate, generous, determined, creative and funny man. He was a great friend and we miss him greatly. Ní bheidh a leithéid arís ann.

Billy King: Rites Again 326

Billy King, Nonviolent News, , ,

Billy King shares his monthly thoughts –

There’s gold in them thar hills…

…and that’s where it should stay… While gold does have some practical usages in fine tech and so on it mainly considered valuable for being valued, i.e. it is valuable as a store of wealth, a bit like crypto currency but in metallic form and less volatile in value – it is also comparable to celebrities being famous because they are famous. Humanity’s actual need for gold is relatively small today and could be met hundreds of times over by what is already extracted from the ground. Some of the uses of gold, such as the ‘gold standard’ or its use in dentistry (gold mining is a different kind of extraction but can be very painful) have been superseded by economic and technological advances.

So what is the point in ruining the Sperrins so Dalradian can make a profit? None. There are always less jobs than promised, they will disappear after a decade or two, while meanwhile farming and other developments, such as in tourism, are stymied or ruined. The recent public enquiry into the proposed goldmining there was quickly halted after a technical error by the relevant Northern Ireland government department not doing what they should have done. Two of the groups involved in struggling against an unwelcome extraction that you can look up are Save Our Sperrins (SOS) https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=save%20our%20sperrins (see the entry for 15th January 2025 on the collapse of the public enquiry) and Friends of the Earth in the North https://friendsoftheearth.uk/northern-ireland I have quoted before the Saw Doctors’ words (in ‘The green and gold of Mayo’) on prospective gold mining beside Croagh Patrick – “Do they think our greatest asset / Can be mined, dug up, and sold….” As with coal, oil and gas – ‘Keep it in the ground!’

Drill for the truth, baby, drill for the truth

‘There are none so blind as those who will not see’ is an aphorism about a disability, physical blindness, which does not insult those who have that condition. People who are physically unable to see usually develop other skills which compensate and many skills which sighted people are unlikely to have. The aphorism actually criticises sighted people who do not, because they refuse to, see what is in front of their eyes.

I do believe there is such a category as a ‘climate criminal’. Donald Trump, the most powerful elected leader in the world, fits that description with his denial of the human-based nature of climate change and his “We will drill, baby, drill” approach – which was even included in his inaugural address as president of the USA in January 2025, all happening at the time of the destruction by fire of significant bits of Los Angeles. The oil and gas industry bosses and owners are of course highly complicit in engineering cover ups and obfuscation of what is happening and why, and refusing to take the world and the vast majority of people into account due to their own selfish and destructive interests. Trump’s tech billionaire buddies are also climate criminals for permitting untruths to be told. Climate heating is, and will do, untold damage to our earth and its inhabitants with the poor, of course, suffering most.

It is difficult to come up with imagery about where we are. The best I can do is that the rich and powerful are driving a train with the rest of humanity on it. They come to a junction. One direction is clearly ‘Hell’ while the other is ‘Not hell but not quite heaven either’ (we are already far down the global heating track). The powerful are choosing to travel with the rest of the world to ‘Hell’ because they are, unlike everyone else, in Super First Class Climate Protected carriages which they believe are immune to the effects of Hell, and to travel the other direction they would have to transfer to slightly less comfortable carriages and they don’t want to do that because they know they are superior.

Getting the truth of climate heating across to those in denial is a subject much pondered in these pages by Larry Speight in his Eco-Awareness column. There are no easy answers. Telling the truth in different ways is of course part of it. But using personal relationships and getting people in the public eye to use their influence are important. And we, individual and ‘ordinary’ citizens, can show by our own example what to do in our travel and consumer habits. We ‘ordinary people’ in the rich world are highly complicit in global heating too.

Eventually, the truth of climate heating will trump denialism. But whether we arrive at the station marked ‘Hell’ before then is still a possibility.

Room for great improvement for Belfast Assembly Rooms

There is a wonderfully historic building in central Belfast which is in a woeful condition. It is historic for a number of reasons – the rejection of slavery, its connection with the 1798 rising, and with the preservation of Irish traditional melodies, and simply for being a prime meeting place when Belfast was ‘the Athens of the North’. In fact, in relation to the preservation of Irish traditional melodies, you could say it is perhaps the culturally most important building in Ireland. But it is currently, and very sadly, unused and near derelict. However one sign of the awareness of the risks to the building comes from its inclusion recently on the World Monuments Fund 2025 Watch List and it has been on the Ulster Architectural Heritage at risk list for a couple of decades.

It is where the 1792 harp festival took place, organised by the good Presbyterian citizens of Belfast, with Edward Bunting commissioned to record the music and thus preserve it for future generations – the old harping tradition was on its death bed after their prime sponsors, the Irish aristocracy, were long defeated and gone. It is where Henry Joy McCracken was court-martialled in ‘98 following the failure of the rising before being taken to be hung nearby. It is where Thomas McCabe intervened against a move to set up a slaving company (i.e. dealing in and transporting slaves) in 1786, a successful intervention in that Belfast continued to have no direct involvement in the slave trade though it did have trade involvement in selling salted beef and clogs to slave plantations as well as through individuals.

On a more prosaic and contemporary note the Assembly rooms are on INNATE’s Belfast peace trail where the INNATE coordinator loves to gently shock participants on the walk in telling of Thomas McCabe’s interjection by bellowing out his message “May God wither the hand of any man who will sign that document!”.

Used as a bank for a long time, the building then had intermittent cultural use – and it being a cultural centre is surely the appropriate course of action for the future. But it needs major work first. Belfast City Council has purchased a couple of iconic buildings, No.2 Royal Avenue and the wonderful art deco former Bank of Ireland on a corner of Royal Avenue for civic purposes. The Assembly Rooms building is currently privately owned but going to wrack and ruin. It needs urgent attention and deserves it. For more info see https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c87d8121lj3o and https://sluggerotoole.com/2025/01/17/the-inclusion-of-belfasts-historic-assembly-rooms-on-world-monuments-funds-2025-watch-list-is-a-game-changer/#respond

A migrant story

She came from a war torn country where she had been married young. We can call her Anna because that is certainly not her name. After her father and eldest child were killed in the strife in her home country, she sold everything she had and eventually ended up in Northern Ireland where she claimed asylum. One of her other children has a disabling medical condition. The first place she lived in the North she had to leave because it was attacked. Then in the racist riots of August 2024 she was personally assaulted and injured in the street with lasting effects, and she had to move again. During her time in the North her ex-husband, the father of her children, was killed in the strife in her home country. Thus she had the violent deaths in three generations of her immediate family.

She eventually received refugee status. Any one of the deaths mentioned above could break someone. While obviously deeply affected, she has been determined to keep moving forward and do the best possible for her children despite attacks in a place where she had escaped in order to be safe.

Not all migrants have as dramatic and traumatic stories and experiences as Anna. However we should of course be ashamed that in “Ireland of the welcomes” the welcome (hellcome?) she received included physical attacks on her and where she lived, inhumanity when extreme humanity was called for. Where some saw an unwelcome alien there was a resilient but hugely suffering human being who had been through tribulations which her attackers could probably not even imagine, and someone who has much to contribute if allowed to do so. Meanwhile some people reached out to try to help her.

May she now live in peace and be able to establish the life she wants for herself and her children.

Contrast

The names ‘Donald Trump’ and ‘Gustavo Gutiérrez’ are seldom uttered in the same sentence, I would imagine. Donald Trump is the president of the USA and aged 78. Gustavo Gutiérrez was a Dominican priest from Lima who died in October 2024, aged 96.

INNATE is a secular organisation which is happy to carry material or organise events in relation to connections between humanism and nonviolence or particular religions and nonviolence, and respect people of whatever secular or religious beliefs while being critical of the practices associated with any of these which are contrary to building peace and justice. In terms of parity of esteem I usually avoid sharing on my own religious beliefs and background which would be a variety of Christian. However, in moving some books recently I came across the Gutiérrez book, from the 1970s, “A Theology of Liberation” – he was one of the founders of the ‘theology of liberation’ movement in Latin America at that time, even called the “Father of Liberation Theology”, and I thought of the contrast with Trump.

Donald Trump has monetised the Christian bible, as well as made it nation-specific, in his Trump Bible; the bible is clearly a book he has little knowledge about, effectively thinking of it as a MAGA-manual. Monetising the Christian bible sounds rather like being moneychangers in the Temple, i.e. turning religion into a commercial enterprise. JC drove the moneychangers from the Temple in what to me seems like a good example of determined nonviolent action (though one conservative Christian once told me Jesus shouldn’t have done that as it gave Christians a bad name!). One joke about Trump and his desire to cut things (taxes, environmental regulations etc) is that he has already got the Ten Commandments down to six, and is working on the rest. He uses the bible and Christianity as a political prop and tool.

He also accused an Episcopalian bishop of being nasty in a presidential inaugural service when she called for him to exercise mercy in relation of migrants and people who are LGBT; mercy is usually considered a Christian virtue but Trump made it sound like a dirty word. Making the bible nation-specific, as the Trump bible seemingly does in relation to the USA, seems contrary to the ‘neither Jew nor Gentile’ part of the Christian New Testament. Trump was surrounded by billionaires at his January 2025 presidential inauguration whereas Jesus had plenty to say about those who loved riches. It was the German revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg who stated that the early Christian church was communist in consumption if not in production.

Gustavo Gutiérrez was an important and founding figure in liberation theology which opts for solidarity with the poor, something which seems totally in accord with Christianity and the ‘Sermon on the Mount’, while for Trump – where money is usually the bottom line – his beliefs seem to be more in relation to the ‘Sermon on the (Financial) Count’. Gutiérrez’ book, mentioned above, is overflowing with biblical references. He states clearly that “In the Bible poverty is a scandalous condition inimical to human dignity and therefore contrary to the will of God.” and that “Poverty is not caused by fate: it is caused by the actions of whose whom the prophet condemns….” (and then quotes Amos 2:6-7).

I stand with Gutiérrez.

Youphemisms

We all use euphemisms but sometimes there are ones we dislike or refuse to use, and what you use may not be something I would use. Language is always evolving so this is all a natural human process. The US English ‘restroom’ for what is commonly here called a toilet seems an unnecessary and inaccurate euphemism – and yet I might quite happily use ‘loo’ or even the southern terms ‘jacks’ (which may be medieval English in origin and also relate to the US English term ‘the john’, although the latter may also be connected with one of the inventors of the flushing toilet).

One US euphemism I refuse to use however is that someone has ‘passed’ when they have died. Passed what? Their final exams? To glory in heaven? From this earthly coil? No, not a term I find acceptable. And yet if referring to someone’s status in relation to being living or dead, e.g. on a letter coming for someone who is ‘no longer with us’ (another euphemism), i.e. dead, putting ‘Now dead’ seems too bald a statement and I might write ‘Deceased’ – which is simply another way of saying ‘no longer with us’. Death is kind of final and it is difficult not to be euphemistic. But, it is clear, I find some euphemisms a load of crap.

–

That’s me for now and the bold, bad January is over, I hope you weren’t badly affected by Storm Éowyn if you live in what was its path….unfortunately with global heating there is much more of that to come. But always look on the bright side, the snowdrops are well out, the daffodils are coming, some out, and we live in hope, so until next time, Billy.

INNATE Annual Report for 2024

Annual reports, Nonviolent News, , , ,

2024 was another year of ‘heavy going’ for those believing in nonviolence and the nonviolent resolution of conflict. Wars in Sudan, Ukraine and Gaza – and in particular European, including often Irish, responses to these illustrated a staggering lack of humanity, imagination and any meaningful resolve in moving to deal with them and then beyond them to grapple with the wider tragedies of global heating and global poverty and injustice.

In relation to INNATE’s media work, Nonviolent News was published in its full 10 monthly issues, with news supplements for the other two months. https://innatenonviolence.org/wp/category/nonviolent-news/ Issues for the email and web editions were typically 12 pages; the paper edition is just the first two pages of news. There is a huge amount of other material on the website and some of it is listed there (see home page). INNATE also published an account of Laura Coulter’s peacebuilding work in Northern Ireland context as a pamphlet, Building bridges, Bridging gaps https://innatenonviolence.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Laura-Coulter-Building-Bridges-Final-24.12.pdf

The INNATE photo and documentation site https://www.flickr.com/photos/innateireland seems to have become an overnight success – after 16 years! Before August 2024 there had been typically 1,000 photos opened a week (you can see photos without opening them but to see the accompanying text or more details in the photo then it needs clicked on to open). The rate at which photos have been opened tripled or quadrupled in August and the period since then. There are 56 album topics on the site including a new one on Lex Innocentium/The Law of the Innocents 697 CE / 1997 / 2024. The INNATE coordinator spoke on Irish peace history at the Birr launch of Lex Innocentium 21st C. https://lexinnocentium21.ie/

StoP/Swords to Ploughshares Ireland, an anti-militarist and arms trade network which INNATE was involved in setting up in 2020 on an all-island basis, continued its work including trying to raise the issue of protection of the ‘Triple Lock’ on the deployment of Irish troops overseas which much of the Irish establishment, including Fianna Fáil, is so keen to ditch in an effort to be ‘good Europeans’ (= believers in EU militarisation) and NATO fellow travellers. Through involvement with Afri, the INNATE coordinator was part of a presentation on the Triple Lock to an Oireachtas committee. https://www.flickr.com/photos/innateireland/53739610022/in/dateposted/

Although FOR England was the lead party in a webinar with Majken Jul Sørensen on nonviolent resistance in the context of Ukraine, based on her pamphlet on that topic, INNATE was a sponsor of this, along with Cymdeithas y Cymod in Wales, and initiated the discussion which led to the webinar. https://innatenonviolence.org/wp/2024/04/02/the-possibility-of-nonviolent-resistance-in-the-contemporary-world/

INNATE also hosted political philosopher Ramin Jahanbegloo during a visit to Northern Ireland in November in which he spoke at events for the Hume O’Neill Chair of Peace at Ulster University, Conflict Textiles, and INNATE, including an INNATE webinar on Nonviolence and Democracy Building. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sp0OJ8mH2fA We have also been involved in discussion to help find suitable speakers on Northern Ireland for a major peace conference in Germany.

Meanwhile peace movement materials from and collected by INNATE covering nearly fifty years and which were donated to PRONI, the Public Record Office in the North, are being catalogued – 481 pages to date….

While wider work on peace trails has been in abeyance since Covid, there were numerous Belfast city centre and Ormeau peace trail walks run for individuals and groups, including one for the Migrant Centre Peace Project for whom we will be running a workshop on approaches to conflict in early 2025. https://www.flickr.com/photos/innateireland/54080114989/in/dateposted/ As usual there was an INNATE summer social event in Belfast.

INNATE exists on a financial shoestring, is entirely voluntary, and depends on subscriptions and donations to keep the lights on, and we appreciate people’s generosity. A financial statement is available on request. There is the opportunity for anyone anywhere to be involved with work supporting INNATE, and most meetings are held remotely; if you might be interested in looking at involvement, we can have a chat. We also welcome unsolicited articles and photos for possible publication.

Rob Fairmichael, Coordinator, February 2025

News, December 2024

Nonviolent News,

Troubles victims: CAJ report on reform of ICRIR

With the change in government in Britain, what is Labour going to do concerning the infamous Northern Ireland Legacy Act which it promised to repeal, and the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR) established by it? Since coming to power Labour have announced they will keep the ICRIR (which already has an enormous number of staff) but with some changes, including ensuring its independence; this detailed 98 page report examines what substantive root and branch reform of the ICRIR might look like and whether it would be sufficient to gain public confidence and ensure ECHR compatibility. The report includes comparison with the Stormont House Agreement proposed HIU/Historical Investigations Unit and it is extremely valuable and detailed commentary.

https://caj.org.uk/publications/reports/what-could-substantive-root-and-branch-reform-of-the-icrir-look-like-and-would-it-be-enough/

PANA: Deliberate confusion in FF, FG election manifestos

In a press release in November well before the election, PANA/Peace And Neutrality Alliance, pointed to pieces in Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael manifestos which are “very vague and confusing”. Fianna Fáil in its manifesto says it will “‘continue to protect and promote Ireland’s military neutrality including sensible reform of the ‘Triple Lock’ legislation.’  PANA goes on to say “Abandoning the Triple Lock signifies a serious diminution of our commitment to the UN system, to UN peace-keeping efforts, and to multilateralism. This was borne out in the government’s March 2023 decision to withdraw approximately 130 defence personnel from the Golan Heights to ‘ensure that the Defence Forces have the capacity to fulfil their commitment to the EU Battlegroup 2024/2025’. “ Regarding Fine Gael, PANA goes on to say “Fine Gael appears more open in their support for this emerging EU military structure, through EU Battlegroups, and the PESCO agreement. …. the Fine Gael General Election 2024 Manifesto states, ‘we will enhance cooperation between our Defence Forces and international partners, including the United Nations, European Union, and NATO’. “ PANA website is at www.pana.ie    

Building bridges, bridging gaps – Peacebuilding in Northern Ireland

A new 14-page PDF pamphlet from INNATE chronicles the journey of Belfast woman Laura Coulter through a wide variety of peacebuilding activities in the Northern Ireland context, and in one case abroad, in Nepal. In this pamphlet Laura Coulter looks at how she became involved in the first place and the very different contexts she has worked in – before and during the ‘peace process’ in the North. It is on the INNATE website under Pamphlets, click on ‘Much more’ on the menu bar, or download directly at https://innatenonviolence.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Laura-Coulter-Building-Bridges-Final-24.12.pdf

Gaza, Palestine, Ireland

Afri have published a short but very powerful pamphlet ‘Palestine, Gaza and Ireland: a Shared History of Colonial Persecution’. The booklet contains the texts from the 2024 Afri Doolough Famine Walk leaders Faten Sourani and Donal O’Kelly, and a talk given by Iain Atack at Afri’s Féile na Beatha in Carlow. The publication is available on the Afri website in their publications section at https://www.afri.ie/publications/education-publications/

Afri also runs a solar lights campaign for Africa, see https://www.afri.ie/donate/

l A reflection by Centre for Global Education (CGE) director Stephen McCloskey after a year of the war in Gaza appears in Z at https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/a-year-of-israels-genocide-in-gaza-a-reflection/ The CGE website is at https://www.centreforglobaleducation.com/

Election asks, party analysis from ICCL, FOE

While the general election in the Republic is over, ICCL/Irish Council for Civil Liberties’ election asks or manifesto https://www.iccl.ie/2024/iccl-2024-ge-manifesto/ and analysis of the political parties’ policies/manifestos https://www.iccl.ie/digital-data/general-election-manifestos-iccls-human-rights-analysis/ make for very informative reading.

lMeanwhile Friends of the Earth’s analysis of party positions is at https://www.friendsoftheearth.ie/news/five-party-leaders-pledge-faster-and-fairer-climate-action-i/ but as FOE director Oisín Coghlan concludes there, “After the election it will be the negotiations on a Programme from Government that will actually determine the direction of Irish climate action.”

Corrymeela: Belfast office, appeal

While the Belfast office of Corrymeela acts primarily as work space for Belfast based staff, this is now at the Skainos Centre, 239 Newtownards Road, Belfast BT4 1AF (Ballycastle remains the primary centre). You can see and support Corrymeela’s ‘Shine a light for peace’ appeal at https://www.corrymeela.org/donate/shine-a-light-for-peace with full info on Corrymeela’s work at https://www.corrymeela.org/

Glencree 50, call for new directors

The Glencree Centre for Reconciliation has been marking the 50th anniversary of its founding. This has included a dialogue on ‘Between Memory and Legacy, Navigating The Dark Past of Irish History’ with a recording available at https://glencree.ie/events/glencree50-event-the-glencree-dialogue-series/ This reference also includes links to reports of an event which took place marking Glencree founder and prominent member Una O’Higgins O’Malley and to a reunion weekend which was held for former volunteers.

Glencree is seeking to add three new Trustees to its Board of Directors to continue leading on the work of the Board in line with its strategic plan; these are voluntary posts and they are particularly looking for people with experience in peacebuilding, marketing and communications, fundraising, and IT. The closing date is 15th December and details are at https://glencree.ie/featured/call-for-board-director/

Chernobyl Children International – address change, appeal

Chernobyl Children International’s address has changed….they have moved just three doors away from their previous home. Their postal address is now 4 The Stables, Alfred Street, Cork T23 VPX2 but other details remain the same. Meanwhile you can support their Christmas appeal at https://www.chernobyl-international.com/donate/

Mitchell Institute annual review

The comprehensive 2023-2024 annual review from the Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice at Queen’s University Belfast can be found at https://mailchi.mp/qub/annual-review-2023-2024?e=0cc0f657e5

16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence

This campaign continues until 10th December (Human Rights Day) and has already been marked in different locations in Ireland. See e.g. https://www.unwomen.org/en/get-involved/16-days-of-activism and https://www.who.int/campaigns/16-days-of-activism-against-gender-based-violence/2024

Muck map of the North

Friends of the Earth in the UK and others have produced a ‘muck map’ concerning intensive and factory farming waste, including coverage of Northern Ireland and how rivers and loughs are affected https://friendsoftheearth.uk/nature/muck-map-how-much-factory-farm-waste-does-your-area-produce NI firm Moy Park (whose ultimate owner is Brazilian) appears among the worst offenders. Most of the North appears as high on the production scale, and Lough Neagh is one of the worst affected areas. FOE-NI is at https://friendsoftheearth.uk/northern-ireland and https://www.facebook.com/foenorthernireland/

Church and Peace: Resisting war today

Reports and material from Church and Peace, a peace church network, on their European conference in October, “Resisting War Today – Preparing Collective Nonviolent Alternatives” can be found on their website at
https://www.church-and-peace.org/en/european-conference-2024/

‘Cultivating Solidarity and Hope in a Fractured World‘

The Social Change Initiative (SCI) has a webinar on this topic with with Eric Ward and Deepa Iyer, leading social justice activists from the United States, taking place on Wednesday, 4th December at 4:00 pm Irish Time with the platform being Zoom. Book at https://tinyurl.com/2k3xsevk The SCI website is at https://www.socialchangeinitiative.com/

Death of Derick Wilson

We regret to record the death of Derick Wilson, a major figure for many many years in the peace and reconciliation scene in the North, a mentor to many, and also a major figure in both youth work training and initiatives on conflict. Among his many inolvements he was Corrymeela Centre Director from 1978 to 1985 and co–founder of the Understanding Conflict Trust. The Corrymeela page about him is at https://www.corrymeela.org/news/248/derick-wilson-19472024 with links to a couple of tributes given at his memorial service. There is a photo of him at Corrymeela in 2015 at https://tinyurl.com/52cm6b8p

AI-NI annual lecture, on genocide in Palestine

Francesca Albanese will give Amnesty Northern Ireland’s annual lecture on the topic of Israeli genocide in the Occupied Palestinian Territory; online on Tuesday 3 December (6pm). Free registration is available at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/genocide-as-colonial-erasure-tickets-1086907111429

Billy King: Rites Again 325

Billy King, Nonviolent News, , , , ,

Billy King shares his monthly thoughts

Hello again, I start off on a culinary note this month, the first item being particularly relevant to the season that’s in it. Whatever about cooking from books, I am not in favour of cooking the books though I was just thinking that if a carload of chefs got done for speeding it would be booking the cooks…..

However before that I will make a comment or two about the elect-shuns in the Re:Public. It looks like we are back to the previous status quo with FF + FG in the driving seat and with others in place of the disappearing Greens (who, incidentally, didn’t come out greenest in the FOE study of election manifestos). I note the quotes from FF + FG in the news item from PANA in the new section of this issue. FF states that it will “continue to protect and promote Ireland’s military neutrality including sensible reform of the ‘Triple Lock’ legislation.” I take it ‘sensible reform’ here is a euphemism for ‘total removal’ since if you remove the UN approval part of deploying Irish troops overseas, as Micheál Martin is gunning (sic) to do, it just leaves the government/cabinet and Dáil. Once more the establishment is lying to the Irish people about the diminunition and removal of Irish neutrality.

Quizine

Why, with a title like ‘Quizine’, is this not a quiz about cuisine and only a question about the title? Why indeed, that is the question. The answer is of course my addiction to puns. Anyway, I begin below with a seasonal drink and proceed to something for a light meal, and another dish which is a meal in itself. It may have been Prussian king Frederick the Great who was the first recorded person saying “An army marches on its stomach” – to which I can add that a member of a ‘shanti sena’, satyagrahi or peace activist goes to work on their stomach, and they have to have a stomach for many things. I haven’t shared anything culinary for a while so ……

Mulling it over

‘Tis the season to be merry (or the season to be Mary if you are a young child chosen to be Jesus’ mother in a nativity play). Less people are inclined to drink alcohol these days, or if they do then they tend to do so in more specific circumstances. Catering for everyone can a nightmare but there is an easy mulled fruit juice drink which you can enjoy yourself or serve to guests, and in my experience it goes down very well, a very pleasant alternative to mulled wine – which I personally don’t go for that much. And one of the handiest things about it is that it is non-alcoholic but you can add alcohol (I use gin) at point of serving so it caters both for those enjoying alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks. I usually serve it hot but it is also a very pleasant drink served cold, you could even try it chilled for a summer party.

It needs to be boiled up once before you heat it to serve – this is to allow the flavours to properly penetrate the liquid and be absorbed. You don’t need a precise recipe (I don’t usually believe in them anyway) and can adjust as you go along. For ‘a crowd’ I use 2 litres of grape juice mixed with 2 litres of apple juice; you could experiment with a mixture of other juices but this works very well (grape juice by itself would probably be too sweet). Add a couple of mulled wine sachets (if you don’t have these simply add more of the other flavourings), a cinnamon stick or two (these vary greatly in size), 15 or so whole cloves, and a sliced lemon. I use an organic lemon if I can get one so you are not adding the chemicals which the skin of the usual ones are sprayed with. You can experiment with adding other spices.

Bring the mixture to the boil and simmer, lid closed, for 15-20 minutes. Leave it with the lid closed. Reheat when it is to be served. I serve it just below boiling point in wine glasses which seem to take the heat well – I wouldn’t use your most precious glasses though just in case the heat would crack them. You can use a small jug or ladle to put the mulled juice into the glass. I give guests a choice of alcoholic or non-alcoholic punch as well as whatever other drinks you have on offer; a majority seem to go for the punch at Christmas time.

If serving this with alcohol you simply add the measure of alcohol you are using, and I use gin, before pouring in the punch. Last year, having received a bottle of non-alcoholic spirit/’gin’, having a measure of that in the drink was another choice for those having it as non-alcoholic. If it looks like you will need more punch then you can add more juice, and if necessary flavourings, as you go along, simmering it as you go – if serving over a period of time you need to heat it periodically anyway.

It will keep unrefrigerated for some time, certainly a number of days, and I tend to use the same batch for Christmas and the days after, even for new year depending on how much has been used, maybe with some more juice and flavouring added. I am sure you will be pleased as punch with the result. And if you keep it non-alcoholic you certainly won’t be punch drunk. And even the non-alcoholic version has a bit of a punch.

Vegan French toast

French toast, usually sweet, is made with egg and milk, but there is no reason it cannot be savoury too, or indeed vegan. And this is a vegan savoury recipe using gram flour, that old staple stand by for vegans wanting to go on a batter (or indeed for people who are coeliac and can’t take gluten). For this basically you are making the same kind of mixture as for pakoras or bhajis but with more water. With gram flour you always need to sieve it to start or you end up with lumps, so don’t take the shortcut of not sieving it.

80 grams of gram flour (how appropriate to weigh it in metric measure!) should be sufficient for a couple of good sized slices of bread. Add half a teaspoon of chilli powder, a teaspoon of cumin powder, a teaspoon of ajwain (I use seeds but you can also used ground), a small amount of asofoetida if you have it (look or ask in your Asian store for this and ajwain, a k a “bishop’s weed” – maybe with that title it is a ‘high’ church bishop!), and half a teaspoon of bread soda to help the mixture rise. If you don’t have these spices, improvise, even just use curry powder. Salt is up to yourself, you can do this without. Then add cold water to make it slightly thicker than a pancake batter mix. Soak your bread in the mix so it is completely covered and then fry in oil until golden brown, being careful to lift or move it frequently and gently with a slice/implement to stop it sticking to the pan. Serve as is or with some tomato and/or chutney, or whatever else takes your fancy.

If you wanted a sweet vegan French toast, you could use apple juice instead of water, and maybe add honey (which is not vegan), sugar, agave or whatever is your favourite sweetener or syrup is, to add to plain gram flour. And maybe a bit of cinnamon and or amchoor (dried green mango powder). And if you omit the bread then you can have savoury or sweet pancakes with similar mixtures. You can serve the sweet versions as is or with your favourite jam or fruit.

Potato and chick pea pot

This is a fast, easy, nutritious and tasty dish – what more could you ask for, and my take on a recipe received in a free magazine with another subscription, adapted a bit….. as usual I am, deliberately, lax on exact recipe directions.

Chop into medium pieces about 750g of potatoes and cook and drain them, their being cooked can coincide with the 20 – 25 minutes or so you need for doing the rest of the dish. Take a wok or heavy pot and add a couple of tablespoons of oil then for 30 seconds or so, when hot, cook 2 teaspoons of cumin seeds (if you don’t have cumin seeds you can omit this stage and add the same amount of cumin powder at any stage although the effect won’t quite be the same). Then add 1 or 2 chopped chillis, according to your taste, and 3 medium chopped onions and a couple of chopped garlic cloves, again according to taste.

When the onion is fairly well cooked and brown, add well chopped tomatoes, I would use 5 or 6 fresh but you can alternatively use tinned tomatoes, and possibly add some tomato puree. Reduce the heat under your pot and let this simmer until you have basically a tomato sauce. Add salt or soya sauce if you like. Then add a drained tin of chickpeas, or equivalent you have cooked yourself – not so difficult if you soak them and use a pressure cooker. Mix well. Finally, dump your drained cooked potato on top and half mash them into the mixture…..you want some of the potato to disappear into the mix and some to be still pieces of potato.

Serve and enjoy. This amount should serve 4 or 5 people by itself or possibly more if doing other things with it. But it is self sufficient as a meal, perhaps serving it with your favourite pickles or chutneys,

Talking about Frederick the Great as I was at the start of this piece, INNATE downloadable print-it-yourself posters https://innatenonviolence.org/wp/posters/ include another quote from said nongentleman – “If my soldiers began to think, not one would remain in the ranks.” Think about that. [The ‘Billy King Cookbook’ – it is not called that – can be found in the Pamphlets section of the INNATE website https://innatenonviolence.org/wp/pamphlets/ – Ed]

Dawn 50

Amazingly, some people still fondly remember ‘Dawn’ magazine though it is 50 years since it started (1974) and nearly 40 since the monthly publication ended. https://www.flickr.com/photos/innateireland/albums/72157609617432905/ Producing a publication then was an incredible amount of work in the pre-computer era and before desk top publishing (even that term seems dated or outdated because it is so much an assumed part of modern life and producing anything for others to read). One jokey slogan was that “Getting up for ‘Dawn’ leaves you exhausted by tea-time”!

The production quality of early “Dawns” was appalling by modern standards, sometimes only just legible. For the first nearly two years most of the magazine was duplicated, a cut-a-stencil system with the stencil being placed on an inked drum duplicator machine to run off the pages. As the attempt was to produce the magazine over a weekend, graphics were copied beforehand onto a stencil in a specialist shop, cut out and adhered to a cut hole in the typed stencil using correcting fluid as a glue. The hope then was that the stencil would hold together long enough to do the print run. Primitive or what? It sounds prehistoric now but it more or less worked.

With the magazine having found its feet, just about (at the end of its legs), it then moved to offset litho printing, see e.g. https://www.flickr.com/photos/innateireland/3048496288/in/album-72157609617432905 This entailed even more work over a longer time frame since even if layout was completed in the production weekend, which usually didn’t happen, it still had to be printed, collated and distributed. A key point in the process was not to lose any of the many bits of paper with the typing which were then stuck on a larger sheet with headings and graphics. The personnel involved changed somewhat – including through the tragic early death of lovely gentle man and key member Dermot Hurley in Dublin – but the enterprise had run out of steam after just over a decade.

To some extent INNATE picked up where Dawn laid off but it wasn’t a simple process or transfer and INNATE didn’t produce a monthly publication until 1994 (Nonviolent News had begun as an occasional publication in 1990), some years after its ‘dawn’ in 1987. Like INNATE, the Dawn group wasn’t just about producing a publication but had a wider remit on nonviolence, peace, and progressive social change. But certainly modern technology makes life, and publication production, far simpler. The good old days? Good grief.

The ace of Trump’s

The Donald’s victory in the US presidential election has been pored (and poured?) over enough in the mainstream media that I won’t say too much about it here. Part of it is that some people prefer compelling lies to prosaic truth, or are partial to partial truths. Part of it is that in the presidential election the Democrats were poor on vision and vague on detail, and both Democrats and Republicans are in hock to big business and the military-industrial complex so a plague on both their houses on that – but Trump was seen to offer more hope on economic matters for many despite what economic analysts might say. The effects for Ireland of the Trumpian victory for Ireland, and the Irish multinational goldmine, remain to be seen.

There are of course a huge number of dangers in a Trump presidency, the worst probably being his refusal to acknowledge, and act on, global heating. With the USA just as vulnerable to climate change as anywhere else, and with the results already manifesting themselves, it requires very particular shortsightedness or stupidity to ignore it. [I think you can add greed to that – Ed]. While Trump may have a certain astuteness in relation to some things, the previous two qualities are undoubtedly his much of the time. Perhaps MAGA could be spelt out as Make America Great Amadáns. But of course there are also the people who do know the risks/results of global heating but still refuse to take action.

One point where President Trump may well be better than the Democrats is a possible reluctance to go to war or support wars abroad. This is from his isolationist, US-first, MAGA standpoint. If he had a greater reluctance to go to or support war but also a greater commitment to global justice and peace then he could have done great things – I write in the past tense because I am making judgements about his future behaviour based on his past performance. Perhaps, just perhaps, his reluctance to commit millions of $ to warmaking abroad could yield some peace dividends but that is not likely in relation to the Israeli genocide in Gaza since Trump is even more supportive of Israel than the ‘send arms first and ask occasional polite questions afterwards’ Biden. Donald Trump’s greatest commitment is of course to Donald Trump and he will continue to serve that cause fearlessly.

Traditional and modern mediation

We sometimes forget that most – if not all – traditional societies had or have their own conflict resolution techniques, and these usually involved sitting down and talking – and listening, often with particular ritual or formats attached. Even the Brehon laws had the aim of restitution rather than retribution. You may think of modern mediation methods as having particular ‘stages’ that need to be completed before moving on to the next one but this is no less ritualistic than traditional society methods, only different and having more of a theoretical base.

I was sad to learn of the death of an old colleague-of-a-kind, Ali Gohar, who died in Bradford (England) at the end of September. He visited and talked for INNATE https://www.flickr.com/photos/innateireland/5044664047/in/photolist-7rJkCS-8FMdSk a decade and a half ago. Though living in Bradford for some years he was of Pashtun origin – the main ethnicity in Afghanistan – but from Pakistan. Part of what made Ali wax lyrical was the jirga, the traditional Pashtun elders council meeting to deal with conflict and work for restorative justice, and also for consultation – but updating it to the modern age by expanding it and including women was also part of it. A word search for Ali Gohar and ‘jirga’ will throw up material and a couple of books, one of them online.

Because of wars in Afghanistan and the current dire situation for women and human rights in general, Pashtun culture is sometimes considered intrinsically violent. Ali Gohar would refer to Abdul Ghaffar Khan, that great nonviolent leader who was sometimes referred to as ‘the frontier Gandhi’. Khan was a devout Muslim and a pacifist, and leader in his part of the world of a nonviolent movement for independence from Britain – but stood for Hindu-Muslim unity and against the partition of India. There is one remarkable quote from Abdul Ghaffar Khan, which Ali used to quote: “Is not the Pashtun amenable to love and reason? He will go with you to hell if you can win his heart, but you cannot force him even to go to heaven” – this definition of their strength and determination is one that that both the Russkies and the Yanquis would have been wise to heed, and might have led to much better outcomes for everyone in that part of the world.

There are many strands to mediation and in our complex world we should not rule out any method of mediation and dealing with conflict, including shuttle mediation which has at times been part of dealing with issues in Norn Iron. Nor should we abandon hope if mediation is impossible; longer term conciliation efforts (think Quaker House in Belfast) are possible as are approaches to conflict which don’t involve mediation, see e.g. https://innatenonviolence.org/workshops/anotherroad.shtml The only limitations are our imagination and our perseverance.

Bordering

Rowel Friers was a fairly gentle cartoonist but certainly the best or one of the very best in Norn Iron in the mid-20th century and through the Troubles (he died in 1998). One cartoon of his showed two decorators together, one of whom has just had a tin of paint poured over his head. This unfortunate house painter states – “All I said was I thought they would be better off without the border”!

But speaking of ‘borders’, and decisions about borders, there is also the de Borda institute on inclusive voting methodologies headed up by Peter Emerson. www.deborda.org The said gentleman is an inveterate overland traveller across borders, even over long distances, and having meaningful interactions as he goes. I am advised that his blog on his current travel to China can be found at https://deborda.substack.com/p/debordaabroad2 and you may be interested to Czech it out though Georgia is more on his mind, at least when I looked. Meanwhile his thoughts on democracy in Israel and the Middle East currently can be found at http://www.deborda.org/home/2024/10/17/2024-23-the-middle-east.html

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Well, that’s me for now and I will be back with you at the start of February (in January there is just a short news supplement to Nonviolent News and no Billy King column, awwwww). In the mean time I wish you a peaceful Christmas period – something denied to a huge number of people around the world, not just through wars but economic injustice and the effects of global heating. And is my wont I also wish you a Preposterous New Year – Billy.