Showing posts with label LEINSTER HOUSE. Show all posts
Showing posts with label LEINSTER HOUSE. Show all posts

Tuesday, 28 April 2015

BANKSTERS OWN FIVE LEINSTER HOUSE PARTIES




Michael Davitt (Irish: Mícheál Mac Dáibhéid; 25 March 1846 – 30 May 1906) was an Irish republican, nationalist, and Georgist agrarian agitator, an inspirer of Mahatma Gandhi, a social campaigner, labour leader, journalist, Home Rule constitutional politician and Member of Parliament (MP), who founded the Irish National Land League.[1]


Contents

1 Early years
2 Child labour
3 Fenians
4 The Land War
5 Travels and marriage
6 Labour Federation
7 Achievements
8 Legacy
9 Memory
10 Popular culture
11 Notes
12 Works
13 See also
14 References
15 External links
15.1 Institutions

Early years


Michael Davitt was born in Straide, County Mayo, Ireland, at the height of the Great Famine, the second of five children born to Martin and Catherine Davitt. They were of peasant origin, but Davitt's father had a good education and could speak English and Irish. Irish was the household language, and Davitt used it later in life on a visit toAustralia.[2] In 1850, when Michael was four and a half years old, his family was evicted from their home in Straide due to arrears in rent. They entered a local workhouse but when Catherine discovered that male children over 3 years of age had to be separated from their mothers, she promptly decided her family should travel to England to find a better life, like many Irish people at this time. They travelled to Dublin with another local family and in November reached Liverpool, making the 77 kilometre journey to Haslingden, in East Lancashire, by foot. There they settled. Davitt was brought up in the closed world of a poor Irish immigrant community with strong nationalist feelings and, in his case, a deep hatred of landlordism.
Child labour


After attending infant school the young Davitt began working at the age of nine as a labourer in a cotton mill but a month later he left and spent a short period working for Lawrence Whitaker, one of the leading cotton manufacturers in the district, before taking a job in Stellfoxe's Victoria Mill, in Baxenden. Here he was put to operate aspinning machine. On 8 May 1857 his right arm was entangled in acogwheel and mangled so badly it had to be amputated. He did not receive any compensation.


When he recovered from his operation, a local benefactor, John Dean, helped to send him to a Wesleyan school, which was connected to the Methodist Church and where he received a good education. Although he was an Irish Catholic emigrant, he did not suffer any form of sectarian abuse. In 1861, at the age of 15, he went to work in a local post office, owned by Henry Cockcroft, who also ran a printing business. In spite of his injury, he learned to be a typesetter. He was later promoted to letter carrier and book-keeper and worked there for five years.


Around that time, Davitt started night classes at the local Mechanics Institute and used its library. He became interested in Irish historyand the contemporary Irish social situation after coming under the influence of Ernest Charles Jones, the veteran Chartist leader, and his radical views on land nationalisation and Irish independence.[3]
Fenians


In 1865, this interest led Davitt to join the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) which had strong support among working-class Irish immigrants. He soon became part of the inner circle of the local group. Two years later he left the printing firm to devote himself full-time to the IRB, as organising secretary for Northern England andScotland, organising arms smuggling to Ireland using his new job as "hawker" (travelling salesman) as cover for this activity.


Davitt was involved in a failed raid on Chester Castle to obtain arms on 11 February 1867 in advance of the Fenian Rising in Ireland, but evaded the law. In the Haslingden area he helped to organise the defence of Catholic churches against Protestant attack in 1868. Having come to the attention of the police he was arrested inPaddington Station in London on 14 May 1870 while awaiting a delivery of arms. He was convicted of treason felony and sentenced to 15 years of penal servitude in Dartmoor Prison; Davitt felt that he had not had a fair trial or the best of defence. The trial is documented online.[4]


He was kept in solitary confinement and received very harsh treatment during the un-remitted portion of his term. In prison he concluded that ownership of the land by the people was the only solution to Ireland's problems. He managed to get a covert contact to an Irish Parliamentary Party MP, John O'Connor Power, who began to campaign against cruelty inflicted on political prisoners. He often read Davitt's letters in the House of Commons, with his Party pressing for an amnesty for Irish nationalist prisoners. Partially due to public furore over his treatment, Davitt was released (along with other political prisoners) on 19 December 1877, when he had served seven and half years, on a "ticket of leave". He and the other prisoners were given a hero's welcome on landing in Ireland.


Davitt rejoined the IRB and became a member of its Supreme Council. The British Government had introduced a concept of "fair rents" in 1870 as a part of the first of the Irish Land Acts, but he continued to hold that the common people of Ireland could not improve their lot without the ownership of their land, and frequently insisted at Fenian meetings that "the land question can be definitely settled only by making the cultivators of the soil proprietors".


In 1873 while Davitt was imprisoned his mother and three sisters had settled in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 1878 Davitt travelled to the United States in a lecture tour organised by John Devoy and theFenians, hoping to gain the support of Irish-American communities for his new policy of "The Land for the People". He returned in 1879 to his native Mayo where he at once involved himself in land agitation.
The Land War







A Land League poster from the early 1880s


Many people in the West of Ireland were suffering from the 1879 famine. It was one of the wettest years on record and the potato crop had failed for the third successive year. Davitt organised a large meeting that attracted (by varying accounts) 4,000 to 13,000 people in Irishtown, County Mayo on 20 April. Davitt himself did not attend the meeting, presumably because he was on ticket-of-leave and did not want to risk being sent back to prison in England. He made plans for a huge campaign of agitation to reduce rents. The local target was aRoman Catholic priest, Canon Ulick Burke, who had threatened to evict his tenants. A campaign of non-payment pressured him to cancel the evictions and reduce his rents by 25%.


On 16 August 1879, the Land League of Mayo was formally founded in Castlebar, with the active support of Charles Stewart Parnell. Meetings were every Sunday. On 21 October it was superseded by theIrish National Land League. Parnell was made its President and Davitt was one of the secretaries. This united practically all the different strands of land agitation and land movements since the Tenant Right League of the 1850s under a single organisation and, from then until 1882, the "Land War" in pursuance of the "Three Fs" (Fair Rent, Fixity of Tenure and Free Sale) was fought in earnest. The League organised resistance to evictions and reductions in rents, as well as aiding the work of relief agencies. Landlords' attempts to evict tenants led to violence, but the Land League denounced it.


One of the actions the Land League took during this period was the campaign of ostracism against the land agent Captain Charles Boycott in the autumn of 1880. This incident led to Boycott abandoning Ireland in December and coined the word boycott. In 1881 Davitt was again imprisoned for his outspoken speeches when he had accused the chief secretary of Ireland W. E. Forster of "infamous lying". His ticket of leave was revoked and he was sent to Portland jail. Parnell protested loudly in the House of Commons and the Irish members protested so strongly that they were ejected from the House. The government passed the Irish Coercion Bill.
Travels and marriage


In an 1882 by-election Davitt was elected Member of Parliament forCounty Meath but was disqualified because he was in prison, where he had developed the theory that land nationalisation, and not peasant proprietorship, was the key to Ireland's prosperity. Upon his release in 1882 he travelled to the United States with William Redmond to collect funds for the Land League, then campaigned for land nationalisation and an alliance between the British working class, Irish labourers and tenant farmers. This alienated Parnell and even many of the tenants, but after a meeting with Parnell at his house, Avondale, in September 1882 he agreed to co-operate with Parnell and set aside his plans for land nationalisation.


Davitt's support of the Irish National League, now under Parnell's and the Party's control, earned him a final spell in prison in 1883, and by 1885 his health had broken. Although only in his forties he had become a post-revolutionary figure and began lecturing on humanitarian issues in extended tours which included Australia, New Zealand, Tasmania, South Africa, the Holy Land, South America, Russia and most of continental Europe including almost every part of Ireland and Britain. In 1886 Davitt married Mary (b. 1861), daughter of John Yore of St. Joseph, Michigan, United States. In 1887 he then visited Wales to support land agitation.[3] The couple returned to Ireland and lived for a while in the Land League Cottage in Ballybrack,County Dublin that was given to them as a wedding gift by the people of Ireland. They had five children, three boys and two girls, though one, Kathleen, died of tuberculosis aged seven, in 1895. One son,Robert Davitt, became a TD, while another, Cahir Davitt, became President of the High Court.


Despite his differences with Parnell on the land question, he was a strong supporter of the alliance between the Liberal Party and the Irish Parliamentary Party and maintained this position in 1890 when the party split over Parnell's divorce case. Davitt, however, sided with the anti-Parnellite Irish National Federation faction in the House of Commons at Westminster, where he became very hostile towards Parnell and was one of his most vociferous critics. He also became increasingly impatient with what he saw as the inability or unwillingness of Parliament to right injustice.
Labour Federation


To further those ends he founded and edited a journal, Labour World, in September 1890, then initiated in January 1891 in Cork the Irish Democratic Labour Federation, an organisation which adopted an advanced social programme including proposals for free education, land settlement, worker housing, reduced working hours, labour political representation and universal suffrage. The Federation reflected his conviction, to which he adhered to all his life, that peasant land proprietorship must go hand in hand with land nationalisation.


Davitt was subsequently elected for North Meath in the 1892 general election,[5] but his election was overturned on petition.[6] However he was promptly elected unopposed for North East Cork at a by-election in February 1893,[6] but resigned from the Commons on 9 May 1893.[7] At the next general election, in 1895, he stood in South Mayo, where he was returned unopposed.[8] He welcomed Gladstone'sSecond Home Rule Bill as a "pact of peace" between England and Ireland.[3] He supported the British Labour leader Keir Hardie and favoured the foundation of a Labour Party, but his commitment to the Liberal Party for the sake of Home Rule prevented him joining the new party – resulting in a breach with Hardie lasting until 1905.[9]


Davitt resigned from the Commons again on 26 October 1899[7] with a prediction that no just cause could succeed there unless backed by massed agitation.[citation needed] Parliament alleviated this need by granting full democratic control of all local affairs, a form of "grass roots home rule", to County and District Councils under the 1898Local Government (Ireland) Act. Davitt then co-founded in 1898 together with William O'Brien the United Irish League and organised it in Mayo and beyond. In 1899 he left his seat in parliament for good in protest against the Boer War, visiting South Africa to lend support to the Boer cause. His experiences inspired his Boer fight for Freedom, published in 1902.[10]


Davitt's ambition that the ownership of the land would be transferred from the landlords to the tenants finally materialised after the 1902Land Conference under O'Brien's Wyndham Land (Purchase) Act (1903), but not as he had campaigned for. He condemned the act that offered generous inducement to the landlords to sell their estates to the tenants, the Irish Land Commission mediating to then collect land annuities instead of rents, on the grounds that landlords should not receive any compensation for land which Davitt felt belonged to the state. He never gave up his adherence to land nationalisation. Later in 1906 after the Liberal Party came to power, his open support for their policy of state control of schooling, rather than denominational education, merged into a major conflict between Davitt and the Irish Catholic Church.[11]


Davitt died in Elphis Hospital, Dublin on 30 May 1906, aged 60, from blood poisoning. The fact that the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland attended the funeral was a public indication of the dramatic political journey this former Fenian prisoner had taken. The plan had been not to have a public funeral, and hence Davitt's body was brought quietly to the Carmelite Friary, Clarendon Street, Dublin. However, the next day over 20,000 people filed past his coffin. His remains were then taken by train to Foxford, County Mayo, and buried in the grounds of Straide Abbey at Straide (near Foxford), near where he was born.
Achievements


Michael Davitt's unceasing efforts were instrumental to future Irish Land Acts after the Gladstone First Land Act of 1870. The most important of these was the Land Act of 1881, which finally granted "the three Fs" under Davitt's "Irish Democratic Land Federation". The next stage was the 'Ashbourn Act (1885)'. The Ashbourne Act was the most effective land act as it offered tenants the choice to purchase their land from the government with a fixed rate, easy to pay back loan. Vast tracts of land were bought up by the government to be sold to tenants. This Act was passed by the Conservatives as an attempt to appease the Home Rule Party, although it failed to do so.


Davitt is commonly regarded[citation needed] as one of the founders of the British Labour Party; his support for socialism in his latter years was based on the premise that Ireland could only achieve independence with the support of the British working class. This, along with his call for land nationalisation, often made him much misunderstood in Ireland.[9] But he remained an inspiration for many others, such as for D. D. Sheehan's Irish Land and Labour Association(ILLA), and years later Mahatma Gandhi attributed the origin of his own mass movement of peaceful resistance in India to Davitt and the Land League.[1]


Davitt was a frequent visitor to Scotland where he was closely associated with the crofters' struggles in the Highlands and Islands. He also urged the Irish immigrant population to integrate into the politics of their adopted country and in particular the infant Labour Movement rather than to pursue a particularly Irish agenda. InGlasgow, where he had a strong following, Davitt's prestige was attested to by the fact that he was invited to lay the first turf of the stadium of Celtic Football Club in 1892. The turf was stolen overnight giving rise to a poem which began: "The curse of Cromwell blast the hand that stole the sod that Michael cut; May all his praties turn to sand – the crawling, thieving scut"!


Davitt was a brave and proud man; an ascetic who accepted no tribute for his work; on occasions impatient with those who disagreed with him; sometimes expecting too much from the farmers, as in 1885 when he described them responding in 'self-interest' rather than 'self-sacrifice’.[3] He supported himself with writing and lectures and as a journalist defended the underprivileged, in 1903 publishing the book Within the pale: The True Story of Anti-Semitic Persecutions in Russia. This was based on reports made by him to an American newspaper in 1903 on anti-Semitic outrages in Russia and travel to Russia to investigate the incident. A pogrom was initiated in the town of Kishinev in the Russian province of Bessarabia, resulting in 51 people being killed and over 500 injured, see the Kishinev pogrom.


Back in Ireland in 1904 his Kishinevan experience of antisemitism inspired Davitt to unequivocally and passionately oppose the Limerick Boycott organised by the Redemptorist priest John Creagh: ‘I protest as an Irishman and as a Catholic against the barbarous malignancy of anti-semitism which is being introduced into Ireland under the pretended regard for the welfare of the Irish people.’[12]
Legacy


Extracts from an article to mark the centenary of Michael Davitt's death:[13]





He was only 24 years when he was imprisoned as a convicted felon for terrorist activities. Yet, Davitt learned from such adversity while in prison. He came to the conclusion, as he records in his Leaves from a Prison Diary, that violence was self defeating, and that membership of an underground, armed conspiracy merely invited the counter-productive attention of State agents infiltrating the movement and recruiting informers.


These insights became the bedrock of Davitt's conviction to become an apostle of non-violence, though he could use incendiary language on occasion and in further brushes with the law. Lastingly, however, he emerged as a symbol of human solidarity.


Pertinently, the historian Carla King, in her forward toDavitt's Collected Writings 1868–1906, Edition Synapse, remarked that during seven years of a brutal prison regime, Davitt turned, with a greatness of soul and a power to forgive reminiscent of Nelson Mandela a century later, from physical force terrorist to a constitutional politician. Davitt inspired Mahatma Gandhi in his campaign against the British Empire.








Indeed, Davitt, the one-armed Irishman who spoke with a pronounced Lancashire accent, is best remembered in history books as a leading figure in the 19th century Home Rule movement, and especially for his role as a revolutionary founder of the Land League. Successive Land Acts passed by the House of Commons gave Irish tenants not just Davitt's three Fs – fair rent, fixity of tenure and free sale – but allowed them to buy their land from oppressive, but mainly absentee landlords . That class was worn down by 'Captain Boycott'.








While Parnell was venerated posthumously as a martyr, Davitt was excoriated as a Judas. Remarkably, by 1916, just 10 years after his death, Davitt had been deliberately air-brushed out of the script for Irish freedom. 'Republican' Ireland declined to acknowledge him as among 'the Greats'.Pearse did not assign Davitt a place in the Republican pantheon of Theobald Wolfe Tone, John Mitchel, Fintan Lalor– or even Parnell.


Insufficient attention has been paid to Davitt's role as an ex-Fenian who took the road of peaceful, democratic politics by renouncing his Fenian oath and taking a seat in the House of Commons at Westminster. He (would have) totally excluded violence as a means of advancing Irish unification.



Memory


At Straide, Davitt's birthplace is now a museum that commemorates his life and works. A life-sized bronze statue stands before it. The bridge from Achill Island to the mainland is named after him. Over Davitt's grave a Celtic Cross in his memory bears the words '’Blessed is he that hungers and thirsts after justice, for he shall receive it'’.


The town of Haslingden has also commemorated Davitt's link with it through a public monument erected in the presence of Davitt's son. The inscription reads as follows:


"This memorial has been erected to perpetuate the memory of Michael Davitt with the town of Haslingden. It marks the site of the home of Michael Davitt, Irish patriot, who resided in Haslingden from 1853 to 1867. / He became a great world figure in the cause of freedom and raised his voice and pen on behalf of the oppressed, irrespective of race or creed, that serfdom be transformed to citizenship and that man be given the opportunity to display his God given talents for the betterment of mankind. / Born 1846, died 1906. / Erected by the Irish Democratic League Club, Haslingden (Davitt Branch)."


Haslingden also organised a 'Exile & Exiles' Festival in 2006 which did much to celebrate the life of Michael Davitt, as well as place it in the context of other immigrants to the community. This included 'The Jail Bird', a performance about Davitt, created by Horse and Bamboo Theatre with local school students.


Of the people cited as inspirations by northwest Mayo's Shell to Seacampaign, such as Ken Saro-Wiwa, Martin Luther King and Mohandas Gandhi, Davitt is the sole Irish person. On their release from prison, the Rossport Five laid a wreath at his grave in Straide.


A debate has also started on the extent to which Davitt altered his recall of the events in his remarkable life. One of Michael Davitt's biographers, Professor Moody, remarked in 1982 that Davitt's habit of: "..reinterpreting his past actions and attitudes in accordance with altered conditions was partly the outcome of a longing for integrity in his political conduct".[14]


Popular culture
Fenian author William C. Upton dedicated his 1882 novel Uncle Pat's Cabin to Davitt: "Noble Felon! with the fire of past events yet burning, and my pen dipped deep into the bosom of that spirit of which you are the embodiment, allow me to dedicate (this novel) to your enduring memory."
Irish folk musician Andy Irvine's 1996 Patrick Street song, "Forgotten Hero", is a tribute to Davitt. In addition, Irish-born musician Donal Maguire has recorded an album of songs based on Davitt's life, entitled Michael Davitt: The Forgotten Hero?.
He is mentioned in James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
Notes

^ Jump up to:a b Dailey, Lucia (17 March 2013). "Irish patriot left worldwide mark". Scranton, Pa. Scranton Times Tribune. Retrieved 14 May 2013.
Jump up^ Val Noone (2012), Hidden Ireland in Victoria, Ballarat Heritage Services, p. 103. ISBN 978-1-876478-83-4
^ Jump up to:a b c d Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press (2004)
Jump up^ http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/search.jsp?form=searchHomePage&_divs_fulltext=&_persNames_surname=davitt&_persNames_given=&_persNames_alias=&_offences_offenceCategory_offenceSubcategory=&_verdicts_verdictCategory_verdictSubcategory=&_punishments_punishmentCategory_punishmentSubcategory=&_divs_div0Type_div1Type=&fromMonth=&fromYear=&toMonth=&toYear=&ref=&submit.x=58&submit.y=21
Jump up^ Brian M. Walker, ed. (1978). Parliamentary election results in Ireland 1801–1922. Dublin: Royal Irish Academy. p. 148. ISBN 0-901714-12-7.
^ Jump up to:a b Walker, op. cit., page 150
^ Jump up to:a b Department of Information Services (9 June 2009). "Appointments to the Chiltern Hundreds and Manor of Northstead Stewardships since 1850" (PDF). House of Commons Library. Retrieved 30 November2009.
Jump up^ Walker, op. cit., page 155
^ Jump up to:a b A New Dictionary of Irish History from 1800, p.105-105, D. J. Hickey & J. E. Doherty , Gill & MacMillan (2003) ISBN 0-7171-2520-3
Jump up^ Davitt, Michael: The Boer Fight for Freedom, New York, London 1902.http://books.google.com/books?id=nqNH-neQG8kC&dq=editions:PDU0ktSxAGAC&hl=en&sa=X&ei=eE2SUoSRB8mZtAaatIGwBA&ved=0CDsQ6AEwAw
Jump up^ Biography "The long Gestation, Irish Nationalist Life 1891–1918" pps. 83, 225, Patrick Maume (1999)
Jump up^ Kevin Haddick Flynn, The Limerick pogrom, 1904 (History Ireland, Vol. 12, summer 2004)
Jump up^ Michael Davitt: Still in the shadow of the gunmen, John Cooney, Irish Independent, 27 May 2006
Jump up^ Moody TW "Davitt and the Irish Revolution" (Oxford 1982) page 552.
Works[edit]





Wikisource has original works written by or about:

Michael Davitt

Michael Davitt, The Prison Life of Michael Davitt (1878)
Davitt, Michael (1882). The land league proposal. Glasgow: Cameron & Ferguson.
Michael Davitt, Leaves from a Prison Diary(2 vols) (1885)
Michael Davitt, Defence of the Land League (1891)
Michael Davitt, Life and Progress in Australasia (1898)
Michael Davitt, Within the Pale, The True Story of Anti-Semitic Persecutions in Russia (1903)
Michael Davitt, Boer fight for freedom (1904)
Michael Davitt, The Fall of Feudalism in Ireland (1904) ISBN 1-59107-031-7
Michael Davitt, Collected Writings, 1868–1906 Carla King (2001)ISBN 1-85506-648-3
Michael Davitt, The "Times"-Parnell Commission: Speech delivered by Michael Davitt in defence of the Land League (1890)
Irish Political Prisoners, Speeches of John O'Connor Power M.P., in the House of Commons on the Subject of Amnesty, etc., and a Statement by Mr Michael Davitt, (ex-political prisoner) on Prison Treatment (March 1878)
See also
List of people on stamps of Ireland
Young Greens (Ireland) This youth party is chaired by Michael's great grandson, Ed.
References[edit]
Bernard O'Hara: Davitt: Irish Patriot and Father of the Land League, Tudor Gate Press (2009) ISBN 978-0-9801660-1-9
Bernard O'Hara: Michael Davitt Remembered, The Michael Davitt National Memorial Association (1984) ASIN B0019R83VG
D.B. Cashman and Michael Davitt, The Life of Michael Davitt and the Secret History of The Land League (1881)
Francis Sheehy-Skeffington, Michael Davitt : revolutionary, agitator and labour leader (1908, etc.)
M.M. O'Hara, Chief and Tribune: Parnell and Davitt (1919)
Carla King: Michael Davitt, Dundalk (1999)
Fintan Lane and Andrew Newby (eds), Michael Davitt: New Perspectives, Dublin (2009)
T. W. Moody: Davitt and Irish Revolution 1846–82, Oxford (1981)
Kevin Haddick Flynn: Davitt – Land Warrior (History Today May 2006)
Laurence Marley: Michael Davitt Four Courts Press (2007) ISBN 978-1-84682-066-3
Jane Stanford, 'That Irishman The Life and Times of John O'Connor Power', The History Press Ireland, 2011
External links





Wikimedia Commons has media related toMichael Davitt.

Michael Davitt Portrait Gallery: UCC Multitext Project in Irish History
Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Michael Davitt
Institutions[edit]
Michael Davitt Museum, County Mayo, Ireland
The Irish Democratic Club, (Davitt Branch) in Haslingden, the town where Michael Davitt was brought up



Parliament of the United Kingdom


Preceded by

Alexander Martin Sullivan
Robert Henry Metge

Member of Parliament forMeath

1882

With: Robert Henry Metge

Succeeded by

Edward Sheil
Robert Henry Metge


Preceded by

Pierce Mahony

Member of Parliament forMeath North

1892

Succeeded by

James Gibney


Preceded by

William O'Brien

Member of Parliament forCork North-East

Feb. 1893 – May 1893

Succeeded by

William Abraham


Preceded by

Jeremiah Daniel Sheehan

Member of Parliament forKerry East

1895

Succeeded by

James Boothby Burke Roche


Preceded by

James Francis Xavier O'Brien

Member of Parliament forMayo South

1895–1899

Succeeded by

John O'Donnell






Authority control

WorldCat
VIAF: 64343543
LCCN: n50056866
ISNI: 0000 0001 0980 2008
GND: 118671219
SUDOC: 050574914
BNF: cb15906405p (data)
BIBSYS: x13001022
NLA: 35034023



Categories:
1846 births
1906 deaths
19th-century Irish people
Irish amputees
Land reform in Ireland
Irish journalists
Irish non-fiction writers
Members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood
Irish Parliamentary Party MPs
Anti-Parnellite MPs
United Irish League
Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Irish constituencies (1801–1922)
UK MPs 1880–85
UK MPs 1892–95
UK MPs 1895–1900
Gaelic Athletic Association patrons
Politicians from County Mayo

 

Friday, 6 March 2015

CROSSMAGLEN POLE DANCING



The main purpose of free speech, is to fight an authoritarian state peacefully. Currently, there is rampant censorship in Ireland, justified on the basis "that it's only purpose, is to offend." The Orange Order State has the veto on all freedom, so do battle against authoritarianism peacefully often requires the unorthodox. 
Now metaphorically speaking, the fiefdom of Conor Murphy, MP/Warlord of South Armagh is a good example of this. Everyone knows free speech is not allowed in South Armagh, after the execution of Paul Quinn, who tried to exercise that right, in opposition to the Murphys. 


So an Irish Blog reporter, took a trip over to a secret shebeen in Mullaghbawn, to investigate for himself, what the reality was, in the wake of all of the pole-dancing controversies there. Now as an Irishman from a Lily white background, the moment, he walked in the door, Jesus, Mary and Joseph he was mortified. There was a woman on stage called Orange Lily, pole dancing almost nude in her oily skin. The place was full and it was clear that everyone was from all over Ulster. He was going to to ask them, how many pence on the price of a litre of petrol, people were prepared to pay, in order see Orange Lily but thought better of it.

When she finished her gig, he made an appointment with her for an interview, for which she demanded a hundred pounds sterling, for her services for two hours. Now the place was full of the fumes of the people's duty-free whiskey, as opposed to the British Governments, pricey tainted stuff, which Murphy is currently protecting. It was unavoidable to inhale the ether of the wacky baccy, that engulfed the place. When he mentioned this to a fellow guest, he was reminded, that he did not have the right to demand, that South Armagh, throw away the principles of enlightenment, to kowtow to the outrageous, arrogant and risible demands of British Occupation and was politely asked, if I didn't like freedom of speech and it's practice, why he had I gone there in the first place? Fortunately at that point, Orange Lily arrived for her appointment and they retired to her chambers.



Her boudoir was well perfumed, with a very large bed. She ordered him to strip, shower and basically told him to roll onto his back and expose his genitals. While she worked on his resurrection, h interviewed her. She told him that Orange Lily, was not in fact her real name. It was in fact Lily Frazer, as baptized by the Pentecostal Church and that she had learned her pole-dancing in London's West End. She had been invited to return to South Armagh by Provo politicians, who used her services in London, when they came over to claim expenses, as MPs of the House of Commoners, and she was promised protection. She worked as a professional lobbyist by day and as a part-time pole dancer by night, in both London and South Armagh. She said most of the Provo politicians used her services in their extensive free time as a result of a point of principle, while not attending the House of Commoners, officially. She confided, that after the Queen's banquet for compliant Irish politicians, she had developed many new professional relationships in Ireland.


Asked if Gerry engaged her services, she replied, that he preferred his dog and tree show. When asked, if Marty engaged her services, she replied, that he was inspired by certain fetishes with royalty. So as he continued to ask her specific questions, the picture emerged, that most of theIrish establishment, used her services, which was perfectly legal, in her capacity as a lobbyist. Asked, if the British Secret Services employed her, she refused to comment, other than to say that she had a stick and carrot approach, with regard to the Irish establishment and that they were all feeding from the same trough in London. Lily said most of them were gobshites, who generally paid her for permission to lick her. 



Now at this point, our reporter being a paradigm of virtue, was forthright and asked her, if she had an assistant, explaining he preferred a sandwich. She told him, that unfortunately, she hadn't but she would be travelling up the Sinn Fein Party conference in Derry and would bring her assistant, if he cared to avail of their services, there. At this point, they were rudely interrupted by two heavies, wearing balaclavas, who apparently were listening, with some bugs in the bed. He was told, to pack his bags and fuck off. To which he replied, grow a pair and take off the balaclavas, or words to that effect. Now at this point, I must add, that our friend did not intend offence, to the fascist feminists, for the phrase 'grow a pair,' who regard it as misogynistic,  but our colleague was under stress.


The current situation in South Armagh, for most people, is horrendous and miserable, thanks to a bunch, of vile fascists political administrators, mentored by British Military intelligence, to extend Her Majesty's writ over South Armagh and collect taxes, from the Irish on the artificial, British border, they created. South Armagh today is much the same as it was 50 years ago. The people of South Armagh are regularly beaten, jailed and murdered for daring to express, differing opinions, in what is clearly a pseudo, peace process, environment. 



The majority of decisions in Ireland, whether in Stormont ot Leinster House, are made by a small group of people, who censor the views of large parts of the population. This is how the repressive Stormont Junta administers corrupt law and state-sponsored violence for the British. What protects people’s rights to say things objectionable, are precisely what protects the right to object. The “assassin’s veto, is the ultimate threat of murder, to silence any of those with whom we disagree. The attack and murder of Paul Quinn in South Armagh, was the ultimate censorship, by fascist hands, not republican ones. Censoring all debate, free expression, for one or the other, based on the absence of offence, results, not in less offensive speech, but no speech at all. It is the same intolerant Blueshirt fascism, that murdered more than 80 brave Irish republicans, overtly in the south of Ireland and approximately 50 covertly, in the north, during this phase of Struggle. British heavy weaponry, used by Blueshirts, bombarded the four courts in Dublin, starting the Irish Civil War in the south. Incidents like Loughgall, were used, in what the British term, "to sanitize" the republican movement, which in reality, was eliminating any opposition, to a neoliberal agenda, that facilitates Corporate Fascism.


What The BRICS Plus Germany Are Really Up To?


By Pepe Escobar

March 05, 2015 "ICH" - "RT" - Winston Churchill once said, “I feel lonely without a war.” He also badly missed the loss of empire. Churchill’s successor – the ‘Empire of Chaos’ – now faces the same quandary. Some wars – as in Ukraine, by proxy – are not going so well.

And the loss of empire increasingly manifests itself in myriad moves by selected players aiming towards a multipolar world.

So no wonder US ‘Think Tankland’ is going bonkers, releasing wacky CIA-tinted“forecasts” where Russia is bound to disintegrate, and China is turning into a communist dictatorship. So much (imperial) wishful thinking, so little time to prolong hegemony.

The acronym that all these “forecasts” dare not reveal is BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa). BRICS is worse than the plague as far as the ‘Masters of the Universe’ that really control the current - rigged - world system are concerned. True, the BRICS are facing multiple problems. Brazil at the moment is totally paralyzed; a long, complex, self-defeating process, now coupled with intimations of regime change by local ‘Empire of Chaos’ minions. It will take time, but Brazil will rebound.

That leaves the “RIC” – Russia, India and China - in BRICS as the key drivers of change. For all their interlocking discrepancies, they all agree they don’t need to challenge the hegemon directly while aiming for a new multipolar order.

The BRICS New Development Bank (NDB) – a key alternative to the IMF enabling developing nations to get rid of the US dollar as a reserve currency – will be operative by the end of this year. The NDB will finance infrastructure and sustainable development projects not only in the BRICS nations but other developing nations. Forget about the Western-controlled World Bank, whose capital and lending capacity are never increased by the so-called Western “powers.” The NDB will be an open institution. BRICS nations will keep 55 percent of the voting power, and outside their domain no country will be allowed more than 7 percent of votes. But crucially, developing nations may also become partners and receive loans.

Damn those communists

A tripartite entente cordiale is also in the making. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be in China next May – and ‘Chindia’ will certainly engage in a breakthrough concerning their bitter territorial disputes. As much as Delhi has a lot to benefit from China’s massive capital investment and exports, Beijing wants to profit from India’s vast market and technology savvy. In parallel, Beijing has already volunteered economic help to Russia – if Moscow asks for it – on top of their evolving strategic partnership.

The US “pivoting to Asia” – launched at the Pentagon – is all dressed up with no place to go. Bullying Southeast Asia, South Asia and, for that matter, East Asia as a whole into becoming mere ‘Empire of Chaos’ vassals – and on top of it confronting China - was always a non-starter. Not to mention believing in the fairy tale of a remilitarized Japan able to “contain” China.

Isolating the “communist dictatorship” won’t fly. Just watch, for instance, the imminent high-speed rail link between Kunming, in Yunnan province, and Singapore, traversing a key chunk of a Southeast Asia which for Washington would never qualify to be more than a bunch of client states. The emerging 21st century Asia is all about interconnection; and the inexorable sun in this galaxy is China.

As China has embarked in an extremely complex tweaking of its economic development model, as I outlined here, China’s monopoly of low-end manufacturing – its previous industrial base – is migrating across the developing world, especially around the Indian Ocean basin. Good news for the Global South – and that includes everyone from African nations such as Kenya and Tanzania to parts of Southeast Asia and Latin America.

Of course the ‘Empire of Chaos’, business-wise, won’t be thrown out of Asia. But its days as an Asian hegemon, or a geopolitical Mob offering “protection”, are over.

The Chinese remix of Go West, Young Man – in fact go everywhere – started as early as 1999. Of the top 10 biggest container ports in the world, no less than 7 are in China (the others are Singapore, Rotterdam, and Pusan in South Korea). As far as the 12th Chinese 5-year plan – whose last year is 2015 – is concerned, most of the goals of the seven technology areas China wanted to be in the leading positions have been achieved, and in some cases even superseded.

The Bank of China will increasingly let the yuan move more freely against the US dollar. It will be dumping a lot of US dollars every once in a while. The 20-year old US dollar peg will gradually fade. The biggest trading nation on the planet, and the second largest economy simply cannot be anchored to a single currency. And Beijing knows very well how a dollar peg magnifies any external shocks to the Chinese economy.

Sykes-Picot is us

A parallel process in Southwest Asia will also be developing; the dismantling of the nation-state in the Middle East – as in remixing the Sykes-Picot agreement of a hundred years ago. What a stark contrast to the return of the nation-state in Europe.

There have been rumblings that the remixed Sykes is Obama and the remixed Picot is Putin. Not really. It’s the ‘Empire of Chaos’ that is actually acting as the new Sykes-Picot, directly and indirectly reconfiguring the “Greater Middle East.” Former NATO capo Gen. Wesley Clark has recently “revealed” what everyone already knew; the ISIS/ISIL/Daesh fake Caliphate is financed by “close allies of the United States,” as in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and Israel. Compare that with Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon admitting that ISIS “does not represent a threat to Israeli interests.” Daesh does the unraveling of Sykes-Picot for the US.

The ‘Empire of Chaos’ actively sought the disintegration of Iraq, Syria and especially Libya. And now, leading the House of Saud, “our” bastard in charge King Salman is none other than the former, choice jihad recruiter for Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, the Afghan Salafist who was the brains behind both Osama bin Laden and alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammad.

This is classic ‘Empire of Chaos’ in motion (exceptionalists don’t do nation building, just nation splintering). And there will be plenty of nasty, nation-shattering sequels, from the Central Asian stans to Xinjiang in China, not to mention festering, Ukraine, a.k.a Nulandistan.

Parts of Af-Pak could well turn into a branch of ISIS/ISIL/Daesh right on the borders of Russia, India, China, and Iran. From an ‘Empire of Chaos’ perspective, this potential bloodbath in the “Eurasian Balkans” – to quote eminent Russophobe Dr. Zbig “Grand Chessboard” Brzezinski – is the famous “offer you can’t refuse.”

Russia and China, meanwhile, will keep betting on Eurasian integration; strengthening the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and their own internal coordination inside the BRICS; and using plenty of intel resources to go after The Caliph’s goons.

And as much as the Obama administration may be desperate for a final nuclear deal with Iran, Russia and China got to Tehran first. China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi was in Tehran two weeks ago; stressing Iran is one of China’s “foreign policy priorities” and of great “strategic importance.” Sooner rather than later Iran will be a member of the SCO. China already does plenty of roaring trade with Iran, and so does Russia, selling weapons and building nuclear plants.

Berlin-Moscow-Beijing?

And then there’s the German question.

Germany now exports 50 percent of its GDP. It used to be only 24 percent in 1990. For the past 10 years, half of German growth depended on exports. Translation: this is a giant economy that badly needs global markets to keep expanding. An ailing EU, by definition, does not fit the bill.

German exports are changing their recipient address. Only 40 percent - and going down – now goes to the EU; the real growth is in Asia. So Germany, in practice, is moving away from the eurozone. That does not entail Germany breaking up the euro; that would be interpreted as a nasty betrayal of the much-lauded “European project.”

What the trade picture unveils is the reason for Germany’s hardball with Greece: either you surrender, completely, or you leave the euro. What Germany wants is to keep a partnership with France and dominate Eastern Europe as an economic satellite, relying on Poland. So expect Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy to face a German wall of intransigence. So much for European “integration,” it works as long as Germany dictates all the rules.

The spanner in the works is that the double fiasco Greece + Ukraine has been exposing. Berlin as an extremely flawed European hegemon – and that’s quite an understatement. Berlin suddenly woke up to the real, nightmarish possibility of a full blown, American-instigated war in Europe’s eastern borderlands against Russia. No wonder Angela Merkel had to fly to Moscow in a hurry.

Moscow – diplomatically – was the winner. And Russia won again when Turkey – fed up with trying to join the EU and being constantly blocked by, who else, Germany and France – decided to pivot to Eurasia for good, ignoring NATO and amplifying relations with both Russia and China.

That happened in the framework of a major ‘Pipelineistan’ game-changer. After Moscow cleverly negotiated the realignment of South Stream towards Turk Stream, right up to the Greek border, Putin and Greek Prime Minister Tsipras also agreed to a pipeline extension from the Turkish border across Greece to southern Europe. So Gazprom will be firmly implanted not only in Turkey but also Greece, which in itself will become mightily strategic in European ‘Pipelineistan’.

So Germany, sooner or later, must answer a categorical imperative - how to keep running massive trade surpluses while dumping their euro trade partners. The only possible answer is more trade with Russia, China and East Asia. It will take quite a while, and there will be many bumps on the road, but a Berlin-Moscow-Beijing trade/commercial axis – or the “RC” in BRICS meet Germany - is all but inevitable.

And no, you won’t read that in any wacky US ‘Think Tankland’ “forecast.”Pepe Escobar is the roving correspondent for Asia Times/Hong Kong, an analyst for RT and TomDispatch, and a frequent contributor to websites and radio shows ranging from the US to East Asia.



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Sunday, 7 December 2014

SAVAGE CORPORATE IRELAND





Jonathan Corry a homeless man, died last week in a doorway, across from the Irish parliament, after spending 30 years sleeping rough in Dublin.

I too was a homeless man in Dublin 30 years ago and I probably crossed paths with Jon, as we moved in the same circles. Unlike Jon, I stayed in the Salvation Army and other hostels for the homeless but that was before the Government's austerity programme, cut funds to hostels for the homeless. Every time I begged in Dublin, I hated myself, because I knew from experience, that it was the decent people who gave me something. The more I hated myself, the more I drank and it just became a vicious circle, until it came to the point, where I decided the decent thing to do, was a hold-up. I held up a supermarket on Dorset Street one morning and because I was in no fit state to do so, I was arrested not far from Dorset Street. Even the Police and the Judge, could see my condition and I got just a 6 month prison sentence.

Fortunately for me I ran into a guy in prison, from a well known literary family, who read a lot and practiced yoga, during his 7 year sentence for picking up drugs at Dublin Airport. He got me into reading daily, a book called the I Ching, translated for Europe by Carl Jung. Before I left prison at the end of my sentence, we did one last reading together, which approximately told me, that fools like a dog chasing it's tail, keep repeating the same mistakes in life, over and over, without learning anything from them. My interpretaion of this was, that I should immediately get out of Dublin on my release, because I could see the streets were getting meaner, particularly, in the matter of drug addiction.

As I related in an earlier post, I headed for the island of Inishfree in Donegal, where there was a self supporting commune, based on the Primal Scream, which was an alternative to the nuclear family of society. Anyway it didn't work out, so I took to travelling the roads of Ireland daily, each day walking and hitching to a new town and sleeping rough. I slept in sheds, haystacks, old delapidated caravans, under trees, large dog houses, horses stables or just under the stars, if the weather was good, and my sole posession, was one torn sleeping bag, wrapped up in plastic, slung over my shoulder. I had a head full of broken dreams and a lonely heart, that demanded I just keep moving, rather than dwell on them. After travelling most of Ireland, I eventually found my way to a hostel of the Simon community in Galway. There were 12 of us there and it smelled of piss, rang to shrieks of men either drunk or in the DTs and was rough to put it mildly.

By chance, while queuing for clothes one evening at the Vincent De Paul, I could see two fellows in the same position as myself from the Simon community, who were whispering among themselves and seemed to be in a better condition than me, which made me curious. The more I enquired, the more secretive they became, but I eventually learned, that they were going to a meeting of a recovery programe from alcoholism. This is how I found my first meeting. Other people's anonymity, demands that my story stops there. The two men who brought me, went out drinking later and both died from alcoholism, in a very similar way to Jonathan Corr, the other on an operating table, because his liver packed in. That is 27 years ago and fortunately for me, due to the Sunlight of the Spirit, it worked for me, from then on, which is rare. I could never have done it on my own and I would have wound up like Jonathan many years ago, I have little doubt about that.

Ireland is a very vicious place to be either an alcoholic or a drug addict, where life is cheap and the solution for drugs is often kneecapping. I was fortunate enough after a few years sobriety, to move to the Netherlands, where rehabiltation, rather than brute force and prison is the solution. In fact in the Netherlands, their prisons are empty. Because alcoholism and drug addiction carry many more social problems, they have found it more economical to give free drink to alcoholics and free heroin to addicts, in return for picking up the litter, than deal with all of the other problems of drug dealing and antsocial alocoholism. They are given decent accomodation and meals as well. This is why their prisons are empty. It must be cost effective, because I know the Dutch sufficently well, to know, that they would not do it otherwise.

Things have become so bad in Ireland and particularly Dublin, that even the English are more civilized. To be fair, there are some police in Ireland, who will give you the benefit of the doubt, if you pass the attitude test. However there is a crowd of thugs among them, who will first provoke a situation as in right2 water protests and then batter all round them, over the head with flailing batons. With austerity and because of the bailout of the banks, there are increasing numbers of homeless on the streets daily. The process of eviction is brutal and like the Irish Water story, the Irish police are more interested in serving the banks interests, rather than the people. As I said earlier it's far worse than England, the video below, explains the difference on how they handle situations of the banks, versus the people. Rest in peace Jonathan Corry, I believe you have gone to a far better place, than Corporate Ireland, where the people of no property are treated as trash.



Below is an account of Jonathan Corr's life by one of Denis O'Brien's papers, the same owner of Irish water. Read it with a cold eye, because he is currently demonizing Irish water protesters.


Homeless man who died in doorway yards from parliament spent miserable 30 YEARS sleeping rough

Heartbreaking facts of Jonathan Corrie's freezing life on the streets revealed in three-year-old interview with Dublin student



Jonathan Corrie
Protest: A candlelit demonstration was held at the spot that homeless Jonathan Corrie was found dead

A homeless man who died in a Dublin doorway just yards from Irish Parliament told of his miserable life on the streets before his lonely death.
And Jonathan Corrie, 43, revealed in the interview with a student three years ago that he spent THIRTY YEARS begging and sleeping rough after fleeing his Kilkenny home.
Jonathan told the student: "I've been homeless since I was 13-and-a-half; I'm 40 now. There’s a reason why most people are homeless... most people beg to support their drug habit."
In a tragic coincidence it also emerged Jonathan – whose death has sparked a political storm in Ireland – was filmed as part of RTE documentary The High Hopes Choir, reports The Irish Mirror.
Sophie Pigot, who discovered Jonathan on Monday at 8am, said the dad-of-two was "ice cold" and had been dead for at least an hour when she found him.
Irish Environment Minister Alan Kelly called an emergency forum to tackle the growing homelessness crisis in Ireland.


RTEJonathan Corrie
Tragic death: Jonathan Corrie interviewed for RTE's High Hopes documentary

Jonathan’s lonely death on steps just a short walk from Leinster House has been branded a “national disgrace”.
Episode one of The High Hopes Choir sees David Brophy, who is the former principal conductor of the RTE Concert Orchestra, walking around Dublin city in a bid to build a choir of homeless and unemployed people.
And Jonathan is approached near St Stephen’s Green. Asked if he is homeless the deceased man said: "Yes 100%, I am. For the last two years I am pretty much out on the street."
The programme also features appearances from stars Bressie, Shane Filan and Ed Sheeran.
A spokeswoman for RTE said: “I am aware of it but until the man outside the Dail is positively identified and his family have been informed then we will not be commenting further.”
Jonathan, who was known as ‘Teardrop’ because of a tattoo on his cheek, also told the student: "I’m staying in a hostel now, but it’s closing in two months due to funds being cut. I lived in a squat for one-and-a-half years and I’ve been in the hostel for one-and-a-half years.


Barbara LindbergJonathan Corrie
Paying respects: A man lights a candle in the doorway where Jonathan Corrie died

“Dublin is better than Kilkenny for begging, because I get food and more money. We get moved within two minutes in Kilkenny.”
Jonathan, who admitted using drugs, told how he could make €30 (£24) in the doorway.
He revealed: “I’ll make €30 sitting in here for three hours; that’s more than I’d get for working in a real job. Even if I wasn’t homeless, I’d still beg.
“There’s a reason why most people are homeless... most people beg to support their drug habit.”
Louisa McGrath spoke to him after finding him begging with a paper cup.
Ms McGrath, now a freelance journalist, recalled: “After we turned down his request for payment, he settled for an offer of tea and a sandwich. He requested his favourite: chicken and coleslaw on white bread.


Barbara LindbergEnda Kenny and Joan Burton
Angry response: Protesters made their message clear outside Ireland's parliament buildings

“His tired, weather-beaten face bore a teardrop tattoo on the right cheek and his hair was brown. He wore dark, worn jeans and a short black coat which wouldn’t provide much defence against the bitter cold.
“Speaking matter-of-factly and without any self-pity, Jonathan described how he was born in Dublin and then moved to Kilkenny when he was adopted. It was here that he became homeless after running away from home.
“He later decided to move back to the capital. He went on to say that he got more hassle staying in a hostel than sleeping rough, but he described the streets as tough and particularly hard during snowy weather.
“The saddest part of speaking with him was that after spending more than half his life without a home, he had no hopes or ambitions to get off the streets.
“The State had failed to help him during his 30 years of homelessness and for reasons unknown he didn’t want his family to know where he was.
“He wasn’t happy on the streets, but he had given up on any alternatives.”