Last Friday I travelled to Nenagh for the funeral of Shane MacGowan. It was a sad and yet joyous event with family and friends lifting their voices and their hearts as a succession of musicians played some of Shane’s best known songs, including the exuberant Fairytale of New York. Cór Cúil Aodha, including Seán O’Sé and Seán O’Riada’s son Peadar also did what they do best.
I did a reading at the Mass and made a few remarks. This is what I said: “Victoria asked me to say a few words. That’s what Shane wanted. Mo comhbrón leatsa agus leis bhur gclann go h’airithe deirifiur Shane and a Athair, Siobhán agus Maurice. Go raibh maith agat an Athair Pat. My words are words of gratitude. Gratitude for Shane’s genius – for his songs. His creativity and his attitude. Gratitude for his humour and his intelligence and his compassion.
"Grateful for his vulnerability, his knowledge and his modesty. Gratitude for his celebration of the marginalised, the poor, our exiles and underdogs. Grateful for the Pogues and all our music makers, all our dreamers of dreams. Thankful to Shane’s carers. Proud of how Shane deepened our sense of Irishness and our humanity. Grateful for his rejections of the revisionism of time serving fumblers in greasy tills. Glad that he stood by the people of the North. In war and in peace and that he was proud of Tipperary’s fight for Irish freedom and his family’s role in this.
"Thankful for his poet’s eye for words of love and betrayal, justice and injustice, rejection and redemption. Grateful that Shane lifted us out of ourselves and that he never gave up. Delighted that he empowered us to dance and sing, to make fun and to shout and yell and laugh and cry and to love and to be free. Ar laoch thú Shane. Ar ghile mear. Fíle, Ceoltóir, fear uásal. Your music will live forever. You are the measurer of our dreams. Go raibh maith agat Shane MacGowan.”
DEHUMANISING PALESTINIANS
Last Sunday was the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It was a response to the horror of the Second World War, and in particular the holocaust of European Jews and murder of countless millions of trade unionists, gay people, socialists and others the Nazi regime regarded as inferior. Its first sentence encapsulation what many hoped would be the dawn of a new era – "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights."
That same year the Israeli state was born and Palestinian hopes for their future died in the Nakba – the great catastrophe when hundreds of thousands were evicted from their homes, forced into refugee campaigns and with thousands more killed.
In the 75 tears since then, the Israeli state has breached successive United Nations resolutions. Its treatment of the Palestinians, especially at this time, mimics what many suffered under fascism.
Today, the propaganda battle being waged by the Israel government in defence of its genocide in Gaza and its ethnic cleansing of the West Bank follows a predictable pattern used by colonial powers for centuries, including the Nazis.
The French writer Jean-Paul Sarte wrote: “How can an elite of usurpers, aware of their mediocrity, establish their privileges? By one means only: debasing the colonised to exalt themselves, denying the title of humanity to the natives, and defining them simply as absences of qualities – animals, not humans. This does not prove hard to do, for the system deprives them of everything.”
For centuries the Irish were depicted by the British state as stupid, ape-like, idle, work-shy, savage, not human. The 19th century Irish leader Daniel O’Connell was described as “scum condensed of Irish bog.”
Treating other human beings as animals and deserving of no respect makes it easy to slaughter them, to colonise and exploit them.
The British state, its writers and publications, promoted a racist view of the Irish that excused the widespread imposition of poverty and hunger. In 1846 The Times wrote: “For our own part we regard the potato blight as a blessing. When the Celts once cease to be potatophagi, they must become carnivorous. With the taste of meats will grow an appetite for them … “
One English writer wrote in 1860 as he travelled in Ireland: “I am haunted by the human chimpanzees I saw along that hundred miles of horrible country … to see white chimpanzees is dreadful; they were black, one would not see it so much, but their skins, except where tanned by exposure, are as white as ours.”
Treating other human beings as animals and deserving of no respect makes it easy to slaughter them, to colonise and exploit them.
In our own time the British propaganda machine was built on a strategy of merging all governmental structures: the judiciary, the law, the police and the media, into one structure with the aim of defeating republicans.
This meant policies of censorship and media manipulation that perpetuated the decades of conflict. It reinforced the conditions for division and violence. It deliberately covered up British state violence, its torture of prisoners and its collusion with unionist death squads. And it was a major obstacle to the necessary dialogue needed to chart a course toward peace.
And so it is in the Israeli state’s prosecution of a war they claim is against Hamas, but is in fact against the Palestinian people. The propaganda strategy used by British colonialism is at work in Gaza and the West Bank. Israeli politicians label Palestinians as "human animals."
According to the Israeli Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem, Aryeh Yitzhak King, they “aren’t human beings and not human animals. They’re subhuman and that’s how they should be treated.” His solution? Use Bulldozers to “cover all these hundreds of ants, while they're still alive.” He and others in the Israeli state defend the denial of the basic necessities of life – food, water, energy, medical care, shelter. Children are dying in their thousands from bombs and snipers and are now starving from hunger.
Netanyahu’s government believes they don’t deserve compassion. Palestinian journalists in Gaza are killed in their dozens. Broadcasters from other states are refused entry by Israel and disseminate their news from Tel Aviv and Jerusalem making it easier to control the narrative. Occasionally, some are allowed in as embedded journalists travelling with Israeli forces. And we know how that worked in Iraq and Afghanistan.
At a time when the media claims that the Israeli government is killing a greater proportion of civilians than in any other war in the last 100 years and prisoners are being killed in Israeli prisons, the failure of many other governments to take a stand against Israel’s genocidal policy is shameful. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights seems now just a distant memory.
CHRISTMAS CEOL
If you are looking for musical stocking fillers this column recommends two bits of ceol. First off is Fergus O'Hare’s new CD "Deep in my Heart."
Fergus is Belfast’s singing botanist, guitarist, Gael, teacher, broadcaster, long time activist and full time wonderful human being. He is in fine voice in this exceptional collection of his favourite songs, including Victor Jara, Aird Uí Chuain and We Shall Overcome. Deep in my Heart is available at An Ceathrú Póilí, An Cultúrlann, Bóthar na bhFál. Belfast.
Next up is Piaras Ó Lorcáin. Piaras is representative of today’s generation of young Irish singers. From South Armagh he is steeped in the Gaelic traditions of the Oriel. An active member of Gaelphobal Ard Mhaca Theas.
Piaras has made his mark at Irish singing competitions including this year’s under 35 Sean Nós Competition ar Oireachtas na Samhna. Bláithín Mhic Cana who accompanies Piaras on this CD took third place in the Women’s Sean Nós Competition.
Piaras has an exception singing voice wonderfully suited to the five Irish language songs in this collection which includes Tá ‘na Lá and Gráinne. You will not be disappointed with this fine CD.
Available also at An Ceathrú Póilí, An Cultúrlann. So make someone happy this Christmas. Give them ceol.
