IRELAND Where the River Shannon Flows

River Shannon Callows. This is a long diverse site which extends for approximately 50 km from the town of Athlone at the southern point of Lough Ree to the town of Portumna northern point of Lough Derg. The site mainly consists of seasonally flooded, semi-natural, lowland wet grassland along and beside the River Shannon. Smaller areas of lowland dry grassland, drainage ditches, freshwater marshes, reedbeds and wet woodland also occur within the site along the River Shannon. The study area also lies within the boundaries of the Middle Shannon Callows. The site covers the same area as the River Shannon Callows and therefore consists of the same habitats. The site is of international importance for wintering waterfowl and of national importance for breeding waterfowl.

ECOFACT have extensive experience of environmental studies on the River Shannon, and are looking forward to working with Waterways Ireland on this important and interesting project.


The Video of Ireland below is great

but the amadain of a woman

 narrating,

 knows feck all about Ireland's

 people with her sectarian war

nonsense and Londonderry. It is a

 war of liberation and its Derry ! 

LIA FAIL

Fr John Fahy 1893-1969: Radical Republican 

and Agrarian Activist

John Fahy (Wiki) 8 June 1893 - 19 July 1969 was an Irish priest, republican, agrarian and radical

Fr Fahy was born in the townland of Burroge, in the parish of Killeenadeema, Loughrea, County Galway. He was one of a number of sons of John Fahy, a strong farmer and feverent member of the Irish National Land League, and Honoria Davock. He was ordained on 28 September 1919, serving in Dundee, Scotland, between 1919 and 1921. He served as the chaplain for a battalion of the Irish Volunteers and involved himself with the Scottish

nationalism movement. He supported Terence MacSwiney's fatal hunger strike, and traveled back to Ireland to attended the funeral of Michael Griffin (Irish priest) in November 1920. He was recalled to the diocese of Clonfert where he served as curate of Eyrecourt, Closetoken and Bullaunfrom 1921 to 1929.

From 1928, Fahy became involved with Peadar O'Donnell, who brought his campaign into east Galway. Fahy was arrested in 1929 on charges of obstructing a bailiff rescuing seized cattle. He refused to recognise the court, citing Irish republican legitimatism, and was imprisoned in Galway. This brought him to national attention, and raised important church-state issues. Fahy's bishop, John Dignan, invokedprivilegium fori, allowing Fahy to submit to him. He was tried and sentenced to seven weeks already served, and released. Bishop Dignan

transferred him back to Clostoken, where he would serve till 1932, and forbade him to publicly express political views. It is believed that the republican sympathies of Dignan and Monsignor John Bowes (Fahy's uncle), saved him from more serious consequences, despite Fahy's continued involvement in the IRA.

In 1945, he was transferred to Lusmagh, County Offaly, where in the late 1950s he was involved in ruralagitation. Farms were burned, cattle seized, and five activists arrested were forcibly freed from Lusmagh Garda station, which led to the Gardai raiding Fahy's house. He was moved to the parish of Abbey in Galway but remained active in republican circles until his death in 1969.







Fr John Fahy was born on June 14, 1893 near Loughrea, Co. Galway. He was educated at St Joseph’s College, Ballinasloe, trained at Maynooth, and ordained in September 1919.


Following ordination he went on loan to the diocese of Dunkeld. There he served in two parishes in Dundee: St Joseph’s from 1919 to 1920 and St Andrews’s/Pro-Cathedral parish from 1920 to 1921.


Most of the parishioners were descendants of Irish migrants. They were in menial occupations, had poor working conditions and were victims of anti-Catholic and anti-Irish bigotry. Instinctively opposed to injustice of any kind, Fahy set about improving their social conditions and in so doing he had as a close ally, Robert Stuart, a local communist well-known for his campaigning on behalf of the slum-dwellers of the city.


Betrayal


In November 1920 Fahy returned home for the funeral of his friend and fellow Clonfert diocesan priest, Fr Michael Griffin, who had been kidnapped and murdered by members of the crown forces. Thereafter he frequently spoke on behalf of the Sinn Féin club in Dundee and was a leading speaker at protests about the atrocities of the Black and Tans. At this time he also joined the IRA in Dundee and eventually was elected president of the Scottish Division of the Irish Republican Movement.


Following his return to Ireland in late 1921 Fahy was appointed as a curate in Eyrecourt and then to Clostoken. He regarded the Anglo-Irish Treaty as a betrayal, became recruiting officer for the IRA in East Galway and was involved in an attempt to purchase arms and ammunition from soldiers in the Free State army.


After the defeat of the Anti-Treatyites he channelled his energy into a campaign against the payment of the land annuities. He invoked the assistance of Peadar O’Donnell who had initiated the campaign in County Donegal, and thereafter they became life-long friends. For his illegal activities in connection with the anti-annuities campaign he was arrested and committed to jail for six weeks.


Influence


Despite the warnings and sanctions of Bishop John Dignan, Fahy continued his active involvement with the IRA until the election of the de Valera government in 1932. However, it is in connection with Lia Fail that he will be mostly remembered. He established this Association in November 1957.


The seven points setting out its aim were summed up in Ireland for the Irish. As it spread its influence to more than a dozen counties the first issue of its newspaper appeared in August 1958. It was edited initially by Fr Fahy and he was responsible for much of its content, including some of the most inflammatory contributions to it.


It demanded the re-distribution of the land of Ireland and railed against the Land Commission and the government for the failure to do so. Its attacks on those who were other than the ‘Plain People of Ireland’ were extremely bitter and intemperate.


In 1959 young men who were associates of Fahy drove cattle from land distributed by the Land Commission. They were arrested, but escaped from custody. The Garda searched for them in Fr Fahy’s house. This incident along with several others in east Galway, created headlines in the press.


Turbulent


Bishop William Philbin asked Fahy if he was involved with Lia Fail or the men sought by the Garda. He denied both suggestions. Philbin, however, was eventually constrained to move against Fahy. He dismissed him from his parish, and re-assigned him as a curate.


Fr. Fahy’s remaining years were not unpleasant. He continued to be active with the East Galway Hunt and occasionally travelled abroad. His devotional tract, The Sacrifice of the Mass: the greatest thing on Earth, was well received when it appeared in 1957; but he did not succeed in having further written work published.


Complex


Only the complexities of Irish life could explain the huge attendance of clergy and people who attended the funeral of Fr. Fahy, following his death on July 19 1969. For many he was a patriot, for others a turbulent priest.

- See more at: http://www.irishcatholic.ie/article/fr-john-fahy-1893-1969-radical-republican-and-agrarian-activist#sthash.1VnfGKkm.dpuf

IRELAND

About this community

Everything Irish and Ireland! It's all about the craic! Make friends and have a wonderful time! Try to keep politics down to a dull roar. There are categories at the left and placing posts into the most appropriate category would be helpful to everyone. The Google Terms Of Service apply everywhere. No hate speech, no pornographic material, no spamming etc. Basically, rules that already make good sense. The Community is moderated by Susan Prediger and Dirk Talamasca. If you would like to be a moderator, drop one of us a private message and we shall try to make that so. The Ireland Community features News and Information on Irish Artists, Irish Photographers, Photographs of Ireland, Festivals, Culture, Music, Literature, History, Wildlife, Agriculture, Economics, Business, Irish Tourism, Pubs, Restaurants, Recipes, Hotels and Heritage Centre locations.

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All Ireland Gaelic Hurling Final 2012 Galway vs Kilkenny Full Match

Che Guevara Galway Irish Times Debate

It’s easy in Cuba to find critics of the ageing but authoritarian Castro brothers, but Che Guevara is still revered, writes CONOR POPE 

THE HOWLS of outrage that have greeted tentative proposals to erect a memorial to Che Guevara in Galway have been both predictable and misplaced. It is entirely fitting that a sculpture honouring the most instantly recognisable, socially aware revolutionary of the 20th century be given a little space in the city.

The family of Che’s grandmother, Ana Lynch y Ortiz, fled Galway in search of a better life in South America in the mid-18th century. By the time their most famous son was born in 1928, the Lynches of Argentina had become comfortably middle class.

It is not simply because of loose family ties to the west of Ireland that a memorial to “El Che” would sit comfortably there.

Galway has long welcomed radicals. Noel Browne settled there after he was ostracised by the establishment for swimming against the tide, and through four decades the city repeatedly chose Michael D Higgins as its representative and watched with some satisfaction as he spent his pre-Áras career tormenting the right wing, challenging orthodoxies and supporting oppressed peoples at home and abroad.

There were furious protests against the visit to the city of US president Ronald Regan in the mid-1980s because of the US role in toppling democratically elected left-wing governments and propping up right-wing dictatorships across Central America. Galway has always been a haven for idealists, poets and dreamers.

Che, despite his flaws, was all three.

He was radicalised in his 20s by exposure to widespread poverty and corruption on a post-university road trip across Central America and quickly recognised that such inequities were a consequence of capitalism at its most crass and cruel.

He joined Guatemala’s social reform movement, but it was crushed in its infancy by the CIA, an organisation that developed a pathological fear and loathing of him. One former agent, Philip Agee, famously said there was “no person more feared by the Company [CIA] than Che Guevara because he had the capacity and charisma necessary to direct the struggle against the political repression of the traditional hierarchies in power in the countries of Latin America”.

Nearly 45 years after his death at the hands of the Company, he is still hated by some, and there have been dire warnings that the Guevara monument, if erected, would do untold damage to Galway’s reputation in the US. It won’t. Most Americans have far more important things on their minds and couldn’t care less if the city honours, in a low-key way, a long-dead revolutionary.

That does not stop the hysteria, however. It was turned up a notch this week on RTÉ’s Liveline programme. In the red corner was artist Jim Fitzpatrick, who was calm and lucid, while in the blue corner stood Declan Ganley, who labelled the revolutionary a “murdering psychopath”. Not to be outdone, Yale history professor and Cuban emigrant Carlos Eire compared him to Adolf Hitler.

A caller by the name of Eleanor, meanwhile, told Joe Duffy she had visited Cuba on six occasions and she suggested it was a utopian paradise.

Her comments were risible and utterly wrong. Cuba is by no means a socialist paradise – far from it. Political oppression and censorship are rife, travel is restricted, the regime spies on its citizens with an amateurish zeal that would be comical were it not so criminally repressive. State-sanctioned homophobia is rampant and a burgeoning sex trade sees wealthy tourists prey on those impoverished by a fatally wounded system.

But Ganley and Eire were wrong, too. For an Ivy League history professor to compare Guevara to Hitler is, frankly, ridiculous. Ridiculous but unsurprising. The far right in the US, particularly Cuban-Americans living in Florida, have long viewed Guevara as a monster and they rarely let facts get in the way of a good rant.

Nelson Mandela does not see him that way. He has described him as “an inspiration for every human being who loves freedom” and few people living in Cuba today will hear a word against him. It is easy to find critics of the ageing but still authoritarian Castro brothers – as long as the spies are out of earshot – but Guevara remains revered.

And so he should be. Cuba in the 1950s was bloated, corrupt and becoming a playground for wealthy US gangsters. There were huge disparities between rich and poor, and Guevara sought to end such inequities.

He tried and, while he did not succeed, and Castro’s Cuba never worked as it might have, things did improve significantly for its most oppressed people. It is one of the great tragedies of the 20th century that the country was never allowed to fulfil its great potential because of internal paranoia brought on, at least in part, by an unjust and malicious US blockade that has been widely condemned by governments of all hues across the world.

The longer the Castros have clung to power and the longer the US embargo has been in place, the more its people have suffered and the more desperate many have been to flee.

Cuba is a long way from where it should be, but that is not Che Guevara’s fault. He dreamed an entirely different dream for countries in the western hemisphere – and he should be remembered in Galway as its most famous and most influential son.

IRISH TIMES CHE DEBATE LINK HERE

IT'S THE BANKS STUPID : Learning from the Eurocrisis : Information Clearing House

Michael Hudson :  Learning from the Eurocrisis       : Information Clearing House

Tommy Tiernan - Drug Olympics

Mary Coughlan Band - Ain't nobody's business

This clip was recorded live on an afternoon show "Performers" with Siobhán Cleary as the host - Martin McElroy - Drums, Conor Barry - Guitar, Ritchie Buckley - Sax, Dave Murphy - Keyboards, Ger Kavanagh - Bass