Rethinking the Republic – Matt Treacy on Newstalk on Sunday 8 pm. August 21, 2011
Posted by WorldbyStorm in History, Irish Politics, Northern Ireland, Sinn Féin, The Left.72 comments
In what I believe will be a very interesting programme Matt Treacy, author of Rethinking the Republic is on Newstalk on ‘Talking History’ this Sunday at 8 pm. Definitely well worth a listen for any of us who are interested in that period in our history and its aftermath.
Sunday Independent Stupid Statement of the Week August 21, 2011
Posted by Garibaldy in Sunday Independent Stupid Statement of the Week.25 comments
First up, the Labour Party would be better worrying about people who dodge taxes rather than setting up what the Sindo describes as a Sweeny-style squad to look for benefit fraud. In fact, added to Rabbitte’s recent rant about natural resources, a large part of Labour should just get it over with and join Fine Gael. We can only dream about seeing the fringe benefits beyond the obvious that raising income tax would have.
Louise McBride, in the business pages, has decided that it’s time to deal with the debt holding back economic growth. How can we do this? Why, of course. Attack public sector pensions. If private sector works are getting screwed over their pensions, the public sector should too.
This is not simply an argument about private versus public sector. Despite the recent pensions levy, the State is still drowning in a public sector pensions bill that could be as high as €8bn a year.
This bankrupt country simply cannot afford that bill — particularly if it comes at the expense of hard-pressed taxpayers who are already sick to the teeth of cutbacks.
A bill like that will make it harder for us to shift the mountain of debt that will hold back economic growth for years. And it can’t be justified when three-quarters of the workforce are left high and dry with their pensions.
Notice the word “could” there. Notice the absence, too, of reference to small matters like the bank bailout that may just have added to the debt. Notice, in short, stupidity. Having said that, at least she is good enough to offer us advice on what to invest in next – fine wine, classic cars, the movie industry, and paintings. Obviously, she’s aiming helpful, realistic and practical advice at the public sector workers, as clearly no-one in the private sector has the money to do anything like this.
Eamon Delaney has a go at the left for not protesting against what the government is doing in Syria (he then proceeds to throw Libya and Iran into the mix too, somewhat less plausibly). He contrasts this with what he sees as the constant complaining about the US and Israel, grounded in an irrational hatred. Except he can’t make up his mind who it is that the people he is criticising actually hate.
The discrepancy is presumably because these conflicts don’t involve the US, or Israel, or the West in that one-sided, self-hating fashion of the liberal left.
I’m not really sure how Irish leftists protesting against Israel and the US is self-hating. And unfortunately, he doesn’t explain it to us either.
This week’s winner, Declan Ganley, has declared that Europe needs a hero to save itself. I wonder who he has in mind for the job? Before getting to the most quotable inanity, perhaps it would be worth reminding Ganley where Europe actually is. He starts his article with a description of what he claims was the first action by British troops in WWI, the first British Army action on the continent, he says, since Waterloo. Either his history or his geography needs some work, given the Crimean War. Anyway, he offers us this.
Across Europe, the charade of feigned government competence continues. It would seem that every one of them, to some degree or another, thinks that they can defy the laws of common sense and private responsibility, in denial of the fact that their beloved European ‘social model’ is insolvent and collapsing into financial and moral bankruptcy. It had been kept alive, artificially, by transfusions of private capital, in the form of pensions and savings entrusted to politically compromised banks, who then passed on the cash to insatiable government borrowers, eager to promise more of anyone else’s money, in return for the sinecures that are so part and parcel of Europe’s current political class.
I think what he meant to say was that the institutions of private capital has been artificially kept alive by a massive infusion of public capital. You can see how he made that mistake. Like many others, he suffers from a disease called neo-liberalism, so perhaps we shouldn’t mock the afflicted.
Punk and the Troubles… August 20, 2011
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Culture, Irish Politics, Northern Ireland.50 comments
Thanks to Garibaldy for this link which makes an interesting point about how punk introduced the Troubles as a political concept to many in the United States. It’s written by Duff McKagan – that Duff McKagan? Apparently so. Good taste that man.
Actually there must be a thesis or two, or at least a magazine article, in the effect of punk – from the North – on perceptions of the conflict south of the border. The Undertones were almost apolitical in that respect, their successor That Petrol Emotion anything but. Stiff Little Fingers were in that respect more intriguing [or intriguing in a different way]… and of course there were many more bands from the North than them… any thoughts.
This Weekend I’ll Mostly Be Listening to… The Pink Fairies August 20, 2011
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Culture, This Weekend I'll Mostly Be Listening to....8 comments
Proto punk… There’s a lot of people who fit the bill. From the Stooges, to MC5 – not, admittedly, much of a spectrum there – to Hawkwind, some Alice Cooper, the Sonics, the Seeds and so on, there are many possible – ahem – suspects. The latter are perhaps the most fruitful source to consider – garage rock in total had the edge. But if we cast our net wider then the Velvet Underground and a range of other groups have to be included, in attitude if not in actual sound.
But, for my money there’s one track by one band that stands out as the almost perfect precursor. Step forward English band from the years of zonk – The Pink Fairies. And for that track? Teenage Rebel which lyrically, vocally, and for much of its length instrumentally, is as close as makes no difference to the Damned or [and this is far from coincidental] Motörhead.
Sure, there are divergences, the twiddly guitar fills look back rather than forward. But if they didn’t then it would be punk and not proto-punk and this post wouldn’t be worth writing. Actually that’s not entirely true because Pink Fairies were even beyond that song well worth a listen. What’s particularly striking about them is that they were such a construct of hippy and yet they somehow were more than that.
How did this come to pass? Well perhaps because the Pink Fairies emerged from the psychedelic underground of late 60s London, being a successor band in part to the Deviants (three of their number came from them, Paul Rudolph, Duncan Sanderson and Russell Hunter). The Deviants were led by Mick Farren, almost the epitome of the Ladbroke Grove scene and later, though not much later, a pretty damn good science fiction writer – but perhaps wisely the other three jettisoned him. Former Pretty Things drummer Twink joined and that was more or less the first incarnation of the band. From there they built up an audience through judicious appearances at free festivals where they worked so closely with Hawkwind that on occasion the two bands played as one – Pinkwind. In 1971 their first album, Never Never Land was released and from their they continued to build on their already fairly solid reputation – albeit one which was presented as outsiders and rebels. This was cemented by naked live performances amongst other attention grabbing antics. 1972 saw the release of their second album What a Bunch of Sweeties and 1973 saw their final album Kings of Oblivion of that period.
What’s intriguing is that there was a fair degree of attrition with first Twink leaving before the second album and then Rudolph leaving after it was released, to be replaced by Mick Wayne. Wayne didn’t last that long and he was effectively replaced by Larry Wallis, late of UFO. And this churn of members seems to have bled somewhat into their sound with a degree of variation that while eschewing a clearly defined Pink Fairies sound, beyond perhaps being categorized not entirely correctly as heavy rock, made them a much more interesting proposition than many of their peers.
My own introduction to them was on a Polydor Special Price Series album which I bought second hand in 1983 or so. I haven’t got a clue why I bought it – possibly because I’d heard of a Motörhead connection. The Fairies weren’t frequent visitors to radio at that stage and their star had faded, had it ever shone really bright. Of course, I wasn’t to know when I got it, but it missed out on a range of excellent tracks including ‘Uncle Harry’s Last Freak Out’, I Wish I was A Girl [a strange and compelling cross between proto-punk, Alice Cooper and hints of early new wave] and many more.
I mention Motörhead because Wallis ultimately went on to join their original incarnation briefly, and listening through the Fairies output that makes perfect sense. There’s something of the same stripped down gruff aesthetic in their work, albeit the Fairies had a much broader palette.
From the almost New York Dolls like ‘Street Urchin’ with a fine descending riff and almost walking bass line underneath it, to the MC5 like ‘Do It’ – which was inspired by Jerry Rubin… natch [and has a most unpunk like instrumental opening on album]. City Kids sounds brilliant even now, so much so that it was covered by Motorhead when Larry Wallis arrived in that band for a brief enough sojourn. I like the Motorhead cover, but I prefer the original. And if it has something of Hawkwind’s ‘Urban Guerilla’, in sensibility if not in sound [though the lyrics are not that different], well that’s merely an example of great minds thinking alike. And the tambourines. The tambourines! But there was a real attention to craft here and oddly the music, apart from the vocals, reminds me of no-one so much as The Only Ones [again listen to the first minute or so of I Wish I Was A Girl]. ‘War Girl’ has an almost Santana like thrust to it, ‘Heavenly Man’ something approaching Pink Floyd. And that broadness of approach, a willingness to experiment, is also evident in the sound itself. There’s lots of reverb here and an expansive quality that gives them an oddly contemporary feel. Lyrically they were a mixed bag, self-deprecating [or taking the piss], rebellious, trippy and sometimes playfully attention seeking.
There were a couple of reunions and even albums intermittently released through the late 1970s, through the 1980s and on into the 1990s, but you’d wonder whether was that missing the point. A proto-punk band has little currency post-punk – particularly in the 1980s, and this was a band that despite it’s innovative stylings was very much of its time. Indeed it’s only now, four decades later that I think it’s possible to get a real grasp of what they were about. With that thought in mind it’s worth noting that Jon Savage in England’s Dreaming doesn’t mention them at all, whereas the more recent An Oral History of Punk by John Robb has a number of contributors name-checking them as influences. But as with so many other examples they perhaps underline the reality that while punk was without question a defining moment it too had roots and influences that could be found sometimes in the most unlikely places.
Enjoy.
Teenage Rebel
Street Urchin
Do It!
City Kids
I wish I was a Girl
Heavenly Man
War Girl
Portobello Shuffle [some nice images from those aforementioned years of zonk on this one]
Noel Browne and others from 1979 August 19, 2011
Posted by irishelectionliterature in History, The Left.5 comments
Was given these photos by someone who had been involved with the Socialist Labour Party (Many thanks).
I thought that some of the people involved might stir a few memories here.
The first picture is from the 1979 Local Election Campaign of Socialist Labour Party candidates in the Artane / Coolock ward.
Pictured with Noel Browne are four children and the candidates Jim Maher, Mairin Breheny, Bert Bennett and David Neligan ( Neligan was a political assistant to Dr.Noel Browne from 1968 to 1982).
Bert Bennett polled 923 votes and missed on the last seat by 223 votes. Jim Maher polled 788 , David Neligan polled 689 whilst Mairin Breheny polled 448.
The Second picture is Noel Browne and the third picture is of Noel Browne, with Bert Bennett and two others that I can’t identify.
Whatever you say Professor Kelly… August 19, 2011
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Economy, Irish Politics.add a comment
Morgan Kelly is calling for debt forgiveness on mortgages, which is fair enough. But his rationale as to why this may become a pressing issue beyond the economic is unusual…
Prof Kelly outlined factors which could make it difficult for banks to recover mortgages including resistance from articulate middle class homeowners and Irelands “paramiliary tradition of agrarian violence”.
Ah, finally class war as the ‘articulate’ middle classes – so different, don’t you know from the inarticulate classes, and the agrarian paramilitaries march on the mortgage providers…
An Phoblacht now out… August 19, 2011
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Irish Politics, Northern Ireland, Sinn Féin, The Left.add a comment
Available from usual outlets, the August/Lúnasa edition of An Phoblacht is now out.
The editorial is on the extension of voting rights to all citizens on the island:
Extending presidential voting rights to Irish citizens living in the Six Counties is a natural outworking of the Good Friday Agreement, which enshrines the rights of people in the North to Irish citizenship.
And it points out as well that there’s many emigrants who have also been disenfranchised. There’s articles on Internment and more on the election in August of Owen Carron in 1981 as an MP while during the same month four hunger strikers died. Another piece analyses the issues facing the SDLP in a leadership challenge and also an analysis of Austerity. Féile an Phobail is covered.
There’s a lot more too. Well worth a read.
This Week At The Irish Election Literature Blog August 19, 2011
Posted by irishelectionliterature in Irish Election Literature Blog.Tags: fianna fail, Irish History, Irish Politics
3 comments
From the 1985 Local Elections Sean Walsh running for The Workers Party in Piltown , Kilkenny
From the 2011 General Election, The “Sinn Fein 10-Point Plan on Job Creation”
From 1961 “Fianna Fail’s New Deal for Rural Ireland”.
From the 1959 Referendum on changing the voting system to First Past The Post, some Fianna Fail material looking for a yes vote
and finally a 1977 flyer for Enda Kenny and Myles Staunton
Pat Rabbitte writing “..complete nonsense …” well I never! August 18, 2011
Posted by irishelectionliterature in Uncategorized.17 comments
You might have read Fintan O’Tooles piece in The Irish Times last week… Let’s make Norway joint owner of our oil and gas on the theme that
The State is about to sign away almost all our resources on terms by far the worst in the developed world
In this mornings Irish Times Pat Rabbitte had a response Oil firms will shun us if we have Norwegian-style taxes
THE CLAIM by Fintan O’Toole (Let’s make Norway joint owner of our oil and gas, Opinion and Analysis, August 16th) that Ireland “is on the brink of signing away almost all of the resources we have left on terms that are by far the worst in the developed world” is factually incorrect on both counts ….
Cue a response from Labour Councillor Cian O’Callaghan Response to Article by Minister Rabbitte on oil and gas deposit taxation
“In today’s Irish Times Minister Pat Rabbitte T.D. argues that Ireland’s tax take on our oil and gas: “compare favourably with all similar countries but not with Norway.” This is complete nonsense…
It will be interesting to see if any Labour TDs come out and side with O’Callaghan on this one.
