Thinking outside the box gives you double vision - Try it. You'll Like It!
Not so long ago my brother and I had a row. It was one of those spats between two very determined males that often ends up in blows being struck - but for the fact of course that we are brothers and share a very strong fraternal bond.
The subject of the row is not important but what is important is how we very quickly became reconciled again. I went away and thought about it. He went away and pondered on it. He didn’t quite admit that he was completely in the wrong but never mind...
Humour aside, my point is that we both reflected and apologised for our behaviour. For digging our heels in as deep as Australia.
This, on the face of it, very simple human transaction has implications for the whole of mankind.
Now, given what I have just said, I can hear a lot of you saying -
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Phil Kelly - In Ómós - En Memoria - In Memory
Phil Kelly – Dathadóir/Pintor/Painter
Born September 7th, 1950; died August 3rd, 2010
An inspirational light has gone out in the world with the passing of Mexico City based Irish painter Phil Kelly. Mo chara, mi cuate, my mate is now ar slí na fírinne - on the final path of truth and enlightenment. What a privilege to be able to call a man who was an artistic genius a mate.
The official cause of his death was renal failure but there were previous complications.
Like Mexicans, our Celtic belief is that we are bigger than death itself. However the physical wrench of death is not to be gainsaid and must be pondered and celebrated in all its mysteries. A corrupt priesthood may come and go but we still have our artists, both physically and spiritually.
After a holiday in Mexico in the year 2000, I approached an RTÉ executive about the possibility of making a film about this wonderful painter and image poet Phil Kelly.
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Journalism and the Orange Broederbond
Picture this
We are still in South Africa. The World Cup is still on and a right wing, fundamentalist Protestant militia called the Broederbond (a white supremacist organisation which has fraternal links with Ireland’s Orange Order and related masonic lodges) has decided to exploit the media vuvuzela around this international soccer tournament to profess its right to hold a “Trek” through a black township. Why? Well because when the whites first planted the country this was one of their traditional routes and their rights as white settlers have to be upheld at all costs.
The worldwide liberal media is up in arms with correspondents waxing indignantly about racism, the history of white colonialism and the curse of social systems based on Apartheid. The heroic struggle of the indigenous blacks, whose dress, languages and customs were banned, gets special features in all media outlets.
Meanwhile in the North of Ireland, the British settler militia... Léigh an t-alt uilig - Read Full Article....
Embracing life whilst claiming to prepare for death
Book review - "A Preparation for Death" by Greg Baxter, Penguin, Ireland 2010.
Greg Baxter is a complete liar.
Perhaps I should explain this bald comment, as I consider the author of "A Preparation for Death" to be a friend and a comrade in writing (he will hate that statement). Greg Baxter is also a damn good writer, and the students who attend his very popular “Someblindalleys” writing courses in Dublin are fortunate indeed to be tutored by such a passionate champion of the written word as an art form.
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Bloody Sunday and ideology – once again journalists prefer not to look
The Irish Times carried an interview recently with that grand old man of British journalism Harold Evans. In keeping with our "paper of record’s" craven attitude to all things imperious, the paper’s London correspondent Mark Hennessey positively gushed over Harry’s stature. God the man is just…well, a God. This article, which contains a special section on Bloody Sunday, is fundamental to understanding how today's journalists see themselves and their work because, like Harold Evans, it purports to be free of that nasty, brutish thing called ideology. Real journalists you see, are impeccably impartial. They take no sides and just tell the truth. The article can be read here:
Article - Irish Times
Furthermore, in an article which lionizes a “legendary” British journalist a few days before the Bloody Sunday report was due to be published, it ironically highlights the role of powerful states like Britain in suppressing basic rights and the failure of journalism to do its job as the Fourth Estate.
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The reason I run
I run with a painstaking stride
mile after aching mile
I run to reverse
my amputated father's
alcoholic thirst
To kiss his wounds
Each step excruciatingly
Stitching back together
Digit by digit
Foot by foot
Ball and socket
Limb and shank
Restored to humanity
at some point
where time is in joint
beyond sense and infinity
Salving the gangrene
with a sacred prayer cloth
steeped in the bitter vinegar
of my blood sweat and tears
My utter belief
@ Paul Larkin
Páirc an Fhionn Uisce
Park of Bright Water
(Phoenix Park)
Baile Átha Cliath
Mí an Mheithimh 2010
After Israel kills Gaza activists in open seas; a question -
How and why did the Star of David turn itself into death dealing Goliath?
Slaves No More - Time To Shout Stop
No to the Bank Bail Outs - No to the Croke Park Trade Union sellout
Seo thíos litir a scríobh mo chara is comrádaí Dara Mac Gabhann go forleathan chuig na meáin
Below I reproduce a letter sent to various media outlets by my friend and comrade Dara Mac Gabhann.
Scaip an scéal - Spread the word.
It is vital that as many people as possible attend the weekly protests at the Dáil - in order to maintain the fantastic momentum that has been achieved thus far - despite the best attempts of a largely gombeen and shoneen media to ignore it to death.
gombeen definition
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gombeen_man
shoneen definition
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/shoneen
It is also high time, in my view, that the people of the Gaeltacht and the language struggle generally got more involved. If Gaeil na hÉireann believe that they can stand aloof from this campaign (which is calling for exactly the same things being called for by Irish language activists), they may as well kiss the language goodbye.
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The English Tories, The Ulster Unionists and the Dublin “Intelligentsia”
Some personal friends and comrades have written separately to ask me to publicise a demonstration against the recent outrageous NAMA bail out of the banks. The demo is due to take place on Tuesday the 11th of May. I am more than happy to make my very small contribution to publicising this event but I cannot understand why senior Irish Times journalist Fintan Ó Toole has been billed as the main speaker. I explain this below.
The Enough is Enough demonstration is being organised by the Right to Work Campaign, which presumably is a Socialist Workers Party initiative, but it seems to have attracted a wider support base, from the “Unite” trade union and various left wing Teachtaí Dála (MPs) and should be applauded for that.
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For May Day 2010
Lá na n-oibrithe ar fud an domhain. A day for workers - en todo el mundo.
No to Fascism. No to Capitalism.
Ní neart go cur le cheile
El pueblo unido jamas sera vencido
The people united will never be defeated
Remember Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, the cowardice of the Catholic Heirarchy, RTÉ and the Irish Times. Remember that our leading writers and journalists censored news from the North. They are part of the problem not the solution. They are the sick bourgeoisie.
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The Easter Rising Meets The Life of Brian
(Republican Sinn Féin denounces the Real IRA as “traitors”)
In the understandable publicity surrounding the bombing of the British Security Service’s (MI5) building in Belfast, a revealing spat between the exploders of this bomb - the so called Real IRA - and the main Irish Republican anti peace process group of dissidents - Republican Sinn Féin - went unnoticed and largely unremarked.
First of all, with regards to the bombing itself. Given MI5’s nefarious exploits in Ireland, the harsh reality is that very few Irish nationalists would be concerned or surprised at attacks on the MI5 building, assuming that no person is injured in such attacks. Thus, many people might then raise half a cheer at news of the bomb and the Real IRA will congratulate itself on having perpetrated a devastating attack on the “Brits” and also at having dealt a blow to supporters of the peace process. Then, reality steps in.
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The welcome collapse of the Catholic priesthood
Søren Kierkegaard - (5 May 1813 – 11 November 1855)
On his death bed, the thinker and writer Søren Kierkegaard refused to take holy communion from an ordained priest, or any official man of the cloth. Kierkegaard’s strong belief was that officially constituted priests were simply glorified bureaucrats whose trappings of office and assumed air of authority had nothing whatsoever to do with the search for the divine.
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File na hAlban - Scottish Poet Don Paterson gets the queen of England's seal of approval
“It is apt to say, in the case of Paterson, that it never rains but it pours: his latest volume of poems, Rain, won the prestigious Forward Poetry Prize for the Best Collection last year and now he has been recognised by the Crown, not only for that book but also for his whole body of work.”
The Times newspaper of England, January 2010
----------------------------
Moonlight snuffed
Why would you want
the smarmy recognition?
Why would you want
the extraordinary rendition?
You with the power to turn Rain
into celluloid, blazing lines, and back again
You with the regal thread in your veins
Soul brother Celt and comrade
You who could roll out moonlight
along the shore of my mind
Why would you be wanting
a queen's gold medal?
Why would you not be a rebel?
None of this, none of this matters
in the realm of the poet’s Parallax
Be a man in your ain book
and send back the poisoned chalice.
@ Paul Larkin
Baile Átha Cliath
An Cháisc 2010
(I waited until Easter 2010 before publishing this poem, in the apparently vain hope that Don Paterson would announce that he could not accept the English Queen’s Gold Medal for poetry.)
The Times of London article quoted can be read at
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/poetry/article6972944.ece
Also see this useful biog at -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Paterson
Extended reaction to the previous blog on dissidents and drug gangs
Here are some rather more extended comments from regular readerd of Cic Saor. (Brief Translations and my own responses are marked as "PL")
START OF COMMENTS -
A Phablo,
léigh mé do alt agus tuigim duit.
PL -
I READ YOUR ESSAY AND I UNDERSTAND WHERE YOU ARE COMING FROM
Sin ráite, ó thaobh deiseanna faidhb na tíre a reiteadh,
is amaidí é ceapadh nach bhfuil ach aon treoir amhain polaitíochta poblachta ann.
Tá ACHÁN bhealach le brú a chuir ar forsaí eachtreach, (Breatanach nó Meiriceanach) tarraingt amach as an tír seo ceart, cóir agus dlíthiúl.
PL
(ALL MEASURES ARE ACCEPTABLE (ILLEGAL OR OTHERWISE) TO GET FOREIGN FORCES OUT OF OUR COUNTRY)
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The slaughter and corruption of Irish youth – North and South
Within the last fortnight, two young men have been shot dead in our country. One, Aidan Byrne (a drug dealer and rapist) was riddled with bullets whilst sitting in a car that was parked about two hundred yards from my front door. The other, Kieran Doherty (a member of the so called Real IRA) was found dumped in a country lane with his hands bound and stripped of his clothing. This second equally brutal and premeditated murder happened in a town I “love so well” – Doire Cholmchille – Derry. Again there was a drugs link to the murder.
I want you, dear readers, to forget about the faults of these two men, grievous as they might have been.
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As another RTÉ personality stands for Fine Gael - we discover that George Lee was on Leave of Absence
RTÉ – The political wing of the Blueshirt state.
The real scandal about the George Lee affair has very little to do with the man himself, nor does it really affect Fine Gael, though neither party comes out unscathed from this political and journalistic débâcle. The Phoenix magazine has shown that Lee and Fine Gael had been loving up to each other for some time. No, the biggest cause for concern is that RTÉ, as the state broadcaster, has once again displayed its complete lack of independence and journalistic integrity.
Last month, I posted an article on the Cic Saor site lampooning the fact that the then Fine Gael politician George Lee had been a guest along with senior RTÉ journalist Charlie Bird on Miriam O’Callaghan’s Sunday morning radio show.
See-
http://www.fadooda.com/index.php?blogid=1&archive=2010-1-10
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The Long Drive To Peace
For Gerry Adams and Peter Robinson
Limbs still juddering from the drive
Riddled with machine gun gears and tyres
The cruel tarmac suddenly stopped
And we were home.
I stepped out under a vault of stars
And staggered to the end of the world
Orion shaping his once mighty sword
To a ploughshare over Gola island
Peace descending all about me
And the once Bloody Foreland
@ Paul Larkin
Carraic -Gaoth Dobhair
5/02/2010
Stephen Collins and a parody of political analysis
In Saturday’s Irish Times (30th of January, 2010), political commentator Steven Collins served up possibly the worst example of political analysis I have ever seen in this our only ‘paper of record’ (allegedly). Stephen Collins does not like the Good Friday Agreement.
In fact his antipathy towards the Good Friday Agreement is so great that he does not even make a pretence of journalistic analysis but rather chooses to ignore the historical facts and vents his partitionist spleen at what he describes as pandering (I paraphrase) to the “extremes” of Northern politics. These extremes, needless to say, are Sinn Féin on the “Catholic” Side and Ian Paisley’s DUP on the Protestant side.
The article can be viewed here:
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2010/0130/1224263433498.html
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Nostalghia – Nothing holds a candle to Andrei Tarkovsky
“The question of my immortality is my own business and nobody else’s.”
Søren Kierkegaard
By way of explanation for what follows – When I did my film training with the BBC, I studied the films of some “auteur” film directors from what was then Eastern Europe. (This was in the late 1980s when most of my loyal readers were nothing more than a twinkle in their mother’s eye.) In particular, Sergei Parajanov and Andrei Tarkovsky moved me to embrace film making as a medium for artistic and spiritual reflection and also for social change it must be said.
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The woman who had never been to Brazil
I was at a dinner party just before Christmas. It was one of those parties where everything falls into place. The ambience (cold outside, fire blazing in the grate), the camaraderie (a great mixture of people who have known each other for a long time) and of course there was a large array of drinks to be weighed and savoured.
After a wonderful meal, we sat round the fire with a relish that seemed to say that we had never been near a fire before. “Far from it we were reared”, as the saying goes. Then we began a blindfold beer testing session. I got a stout and lager right but confused two others – damn.
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The land of Mickey Mouse
In what other country, except Ireland, would we have two leading journalists - Miriam O'Callaghan and Charlie Bird - love bombing a right wing politician - George Lee of Fine Gael.
See -
http://www.rte.ie/radio1/miriammeets/
Miriam Meets...Charlie Bird and George Lee. January 10th 2010
(Cic Saor aficionados look forward to next week when Miriam's two guests are Gerry Adams and Niall O'Dowd of the Irish Voice.....not)
Pat Finucane – Lest We forget
The 21st anniversary of the UDA murder of Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane will soon be upon us.
The assassination of Pat Finucane took place on the 12th of February 1989. The Belfast solicitor received multiple gunshot wounds whilst being attacked in front of his wife and children as they sat down to enjoy dinner. Official history tells us that this gruesome murder was the act of the UDA but it was in fact carried out by a number of UDA members who were also British security force agents, including RUC Special Branch agent Ken Barrett who was the trigger puller.
In a week where we have been told that the UDA has decommissioned its weapons, it is important to remember the central issue surrounding Pat Finucane's death. That central issue is organised state murder, an issue which many commentators would like to ignore, or even deny took place.
Irish journalist Henry McDonald (a seeker of “clarity and truth”) tells us in the Guardian this week that the UDA, the biggest loyalist paramilitary group in Ireland, has decommissioned all its weapons.
See – “Ulster Defence Association destroys its illegal weapons”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jan/06/ulster-defence-association-destorys-weapons
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Palestine and the Ulster Plantation
My friend and fellow writer Danny Morrison has been kind enough to alert me to the fact that the Bobby Sands Trust website has posted an important article by the renowned journalist Robert Fisk on the parallels between land seizures in Palestine and in Ireland. The article, entitled “ History - A Great Punisher - Walls never work: in the Middle East or in Ireland" was recently published in the London Independent and can be read at:
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fiskrsquos-world-walls-never-work-in-the-middle-east-or-in-ireland-1855417.html
However, I would encourage readers to go to the Bobby Sand’s Trust website, details of which I provide after the short backgrounder below.
Historical Parallels
Regular readers of Cic Saor may remember that I won a film director’s award in New York (see –Cic Saor – “Flight of the Earls film feted abroad and ignored by Ireland's “Litterati” - 10th of May 2008).
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The Beautiful Squaw and the Visiting Brave
The country road where he walks with her is made long
By a wish that it may go on forever down to the sea
For miles around not a sinner to be seen
Gola island ahead of their gaze
Ancient cairns guarding their passage downwards
Observation posts for swirling constellations and the Gods
An eagle swooped on a rabbit just before they turned towards the shore
Tóin an Bhoid Bhuí - Arse of the Yellow Stack
Protruding from the heavy, moon-induced swell
A cock in fact.
Breathless on the steep, gravelly climb going back
Weighing the gap between them and distant snow capped Errigal
She took his hand
The brown winter-scorched heather quivered and shook
And turf smoke suddenly rose in rings all about the townland
Credo - Creidim - I believe
The story – the very heart and soul of humanity. Or – Why philosophers don’t do ordinary language
(Includes a bonus mini Christmas Panto at the end!)
In the times that are in it, I’ve been reading a lot about storytelling. Storytelling and what some fascinating and relatively modern philosophers have said about language and stories. These philosophers (Ludwig Wittgenstein and Stanley Cavell in particular) deal with the signs and symbols we use to communicate with each other, or indeed refuse to communicate with each other. However, I think that they are talking about storytelling. This, if you wish dear readers, is my discovery.
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