Ireland
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Let us listen in, learn something of Imperialism, since the language allows it. The cleverest people in London discuss the world amongst themselves. Of course I don’t like nationalism, she says, in reference to Scotland; the concept of Britain, England’s drag name, allows her to live as if she is happily of no nation at…
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Macdara’s readers can look forward to future letters that touch on Sceilg Mhichíl and the Giant’s Causeway. Add in Brú na Bóinne and that is our three World Heritage Sites listed out. Three. No Glendalough, no Georgian Dublin, no Burren, no Rock of Cashel. These are all on the Tentative list, with others, and have…
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I In the lamentable 2020 Programme for Government signed by three parts of Ireland’s permanent Partitionist Party, we find that the English-language introduction ends with a single long sentence in Irish. Then at the end of the réamhrá that follows—this being the Irish-language introduction to the document, that is, a translation of the introduction that…
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VI We might feel that Palestine represents something of our past; that in Palestine we see the history of vicious European colonisation repeated in the media era. This is not untrue, but Macdara has been unsettled by the idea that in Palestine we see our future: an overwhelmingly asymmetrical relation between elites and the people.…
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III Macdara will never accept that the massive violence of colonisation can be equalled by any violence perpetrated by an anti-colonial movement. In fact this seems to him to be a matter where clarity may be gained from taking a quantitative approach: compare the victims of any single anti-colonial movement with the numbers of dead…
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I Living in the American-led Order, one is encouraged to imagine that there is a hardy group of thoughtful powers, clustered together in NATO, who are opposed by rogue entities abroad such as Russia, China, and Iran, not to mention the ragtag gang of proxies and clients that these villains have assembled to goad and…
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I While it was clearly the correct thing to do, not to mention a demonstration of a minimal ability to engage in diplomacy, the coordinated recognition by Ireland, Norway and Spain of Palestine came with a large serving of self-importance. Why the need for the leaders of all three cretinous Government Parties to stand side…
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As the Liberal Right continues to promote the Extreme Right in Respectable circles—looking for a local Führer to help them sell more papers and gain more viewers or votes—we find that the killing has started. Josip Štrok and David Družinec were attacked in Clondalkin by extremists on 30 March. Štrok, who was 31 years old,…
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I Tom Murphy’s Bailegangáire does not exist—town without laughter—but almost any town in Ireland could be called Bailegangaeilge—town without Irish—except that it would be known instead as Ballygongwailga. It surprises and disappoints this writer that the Irish people consent to live in a land of makey-uppy placenames. The worst recent example that your correspondent has…
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Your correspondent hesitates to comment on current events, preferring to write by the candlelight of Retrospect. Nevertheless recent developments in both parts of the country seem to require better commentary than Macdara has seen from the zombie media, so here are his thoughts. Of the permanent Partionist Party in the twenty-six county state, three wings…