Palestine | Internment | Defend the GPO | Kneecap Abú | Féile an Phobail – A festival extravaganza

Palestine

The Israeli forces as part of their on going genocide, in the last 24hrs have killed 142 Palestinian civilians, and injured 487. 

Internment

A British Supreme Court judgement in 2020 ruled that almost 400 internees were unlawfully detained under British law in the 1970s.  These internees are now elderly and some are quite poorly.  They were victim of appalling treatment at the hands of the British state forces and were held in shameful conditions.

‘British Prime Minister Keir Starmer made his views clear earlier this year when he told the British Parliament that he would block compensation.

Internment was an abuse of power and a denial of human rights by the British state.  This was compounded for these 400 because the British government breached even its own law.

The original injustice endured by the internees will be deepened by the stupidity of a vindictive British government which doesn’t accept its own law.  Another example of the British waiving the rules when it suits their political agenda 

Defend the GPO

The Dublin GPO and the streets and laneways around it are forever linked with the Easter Rising of 1916. This is a Battlefield site of major historic and international significance which successive Irish governments have failed to develop properly. Successive promises of investment and planning in Moore St have come to nothing. Succesive governments have reduced the National Monument to four houses leaving the rest of the historic area to be destroyed by a London based developer.

In keeping with this shameful approach the Irish government last week published a 10-year plan which will see the General Post Office (GPO) become a mixed-use development. The spin from Government is that the GPO will become a flagship project, including retail and office components with a Designated Activity Company being established. 

Uachtarán Shinn Féin Mary Lou McDonald TD described it well when she said the government’s proposal as “another shameful betrayal of Ireland’s proud revolutionary history.” 

In any other city in the world we would see visionary, ambitious plans to develop the site, preserving our history with a national museum, arts and culture, education, tourism and homes to make it a living, breathing area.

So, join the battle to Save the GPO and Moore St. Sign up to the petition and support the campaign of the Moore St. Preservation Trust for a modern historical quarter – shaped around the GPO, Moore Street Battlefield site and O’Connell Street. The link is: https://outreach.sinnfein.ie/save-the-gpo/ 

Kneecap Abú

Well done to Kneecap and those other performers at Glastonbury who stood up to the British political and media establishment and courageously spoke out against the Israeli genocide in the Gaza Strip and the west Bank. Well done also to the tens of thousands who applauded and cheered as Mo chara, Móglaí Bap and DJ Próvaí, demanded ceasefires, an end to the mass murder of Palestinian people and stood up to the censorship of the British Broadcasting Corporation. 

Féile an Phobail – A festival extravaganza

This week I was given a copy of the minutes of a meeting held on the 22nd June 1902 in the Catholic Boys Hall on the Falls Road to establish a league for junior hurlers. The venue was the Catholic Boys Hall. So far I have three locations for this hall. One is off Dunlewey Street not far from