The Cedar Lounge Revolution

Our Rising – Cabra 1916 Book Launch October 31, 2016

Saturday, November 19 at 2:30 PM

Fitzgeralds “the Homestead”
Quarry road cabra, Dublin, Ireland 7

Our new limited edition 230 page book which profiles over 40 local men and women who participated in 1916, which covers the battle at the Cabra bridges, uncovers some great stories and even prints rare photos for the first time. Sure we even highlight the local links to the Rising in Galway and Louth.

Our guest speaker at the launch will be Liz Gillis, the noted historian and author.

Music will be by Paul Stone, a great singer of ballads.

Join us as we continue to celebrate and commemorate our local men and women who fought for freedom in 1916.

Edited by historian and author Dr Brian Hanley with contributions from fellow historians Donal Fallon and Hugo McGuinness and local resident Ado Perry.

If you want a scare this evening! And speaking of horror… October 31, 2016

East Wall Halloween Festival 2016 – Details here.

There’s a Parade from 6pm and then a spectacular display in the sky (cough, cough) and then a dance show followed by a Haunted House (sponsored by Aldi no less). First haunted house I was ever in was at this festival about four years ago and I’ve got to be honest it was kind of creepy. And exciting. Me and horror have a mixed relationship. Anything more science fictional and I’m happy, anything tending to the supernatural and I’m not. I’ve always been fascinated by it but never enjoyed the way it gets in my head. Anyone ever read King’s Danse Macabre? Some of that stuck with me for years after. Hellraiser too. And yet watching Buffy mainstreamed it for me in ways that I’m surprised by. The other night at John Carpenter there were clips from the films shown above the band, a fair few of which I’d missed. What struck me was how taken out of context they were still fascinating but questions kept coming up in my mind like ‘how’d he do that effect?’! Perhaps getting older it has been more a case of the world can be so effing awful at times that the stuff in a book (last one I really loved was Dan Simmons Carrion Comfort, though that too could be seen as close to science fiction) or on screen hasn’t quite the same punch.

But I’ll pay my €2 and take a walk with the ghouls. It’ll be fun. Fingers crossed.

It may happen. It may not. October 31, 2016

I’m not sure what to make of the headline on the SBP this weekend which trumpeted:

Tax take to plummet as 1 in 3 shoppers break for the border.

If that sounds worrying, well so it should. The article continued:

The state is facing a haemorrhage of tax revenues with new figures revealing that one third of all shoppers the Republic plan to cross the borer to the North for their Christmas shopping to take advantage of the slump in sterling. The situation is amplified in border counties with … 56 per cent of people living in those counties will travel north.

And:

The scale of the shopping exodus revealed in a Red C poll for the SBP is a massive blow to the exchequer which will lose hundreds of million of euro in VAT and excise.

Isn’t this a little premature? What do people think?

Left Archive: Conference Notes/Irish Workers Group Tendency at Socialist Labour Party conference. October 31, 2016

To download the above please click on the following link. slp-doc-iwgt

Please click here to go the Left Archive.

Thanks to Jim Monaghan for forwarding this document which includes corrections and notes on the motions and procedures for the conference.

The document is entitled “Why the SLP needs a broad revolutionary Workers Tendency” and is sponsored by the Irish Workers Group Tendency (SLP).

It notes that:

In the seven months of the Party’s existence, despite having a number of fighting policies against unemployment and redundancy from the first Party Conference, the SLP has been unable so far to translate these into coherent and nationally guided forms of action. There is no guarantee that any similar fighting places for direct action passed by the membership this weekend will fare any better.

It continues:

We must not let this happen. The SLP must become an organisation geared for direct action int he struggles of the working class. In order to do this all those within the party committed to turning the party outwards in a fight for revolutionary policies must unite and organised within the party to give a clear lead in debate and action nationally.

And it advertises a meeting at SLP headquarters to be addressed by Jim Larragy and E. McWilliams of the Derry branch. Both were members of the IWGT.

The corrections are extremely comprehensive and include one relating to Derry motions on Women which it suggests were ‘presented in a distorted way’. A fascinating insight into the SLP at an early stage in its development and groups within it.

1973: the All-Blacks tour of Ireland and… October 30, 2016

Thanks to the person who forwarded this link, from the New Zealand Herald website, an intriguing story:

A new book has revealed the All Blacks were threatened by the IRA during a tour to Ireland in 1973.

The book claims a letter of “advice” was supposedly sent by Sinn Fein to one of the All Blacks players Bob Burgess during the tour of Great Britain and France.

Read on for a most curious tale.

Any thoughts? Mischief making by someone else, a cack-handed effort or?

We’re number 10. Ireland that is. Well a part of it. October 30, 2016

Not entirely surprised to find North Wales in the Lonely Planet’s best places to visit on Earth. Not sure though that appearing in lists like this does any great favours for some of these locations. For example…

Topping the list is Choquequirao, Peru, which is expected to see the opening of a new cable car next year and is home to a spectacular Inca settlement, which Lonely Planet describes as like “exploring Machu Picchu before the hordes and mass commerce.”

Yes. But for how long now the word is out? And Slate.com made a point that I think is very valid in a piece that I can’t now find the link to that for those who live in places on lists like this tourism can be profoundly transformative and not necessarily in a good way.

And we make an appearance too:

Choquequirao, Peru
Taranaki, New Zealand
The Azores, Portugal
North Wales, UK
South Australia
Aysén, Chile
The Tuamotus, French Polynesia
Coastal Georgia, USA
Perak, Malaysia
The Skellig Ring, Ireland

Never been to the Skellig’s – and I don’t think I particularly want to land. But a boat trip around would be good.

Debasing everything October 30, 2016

I can’t help but read the stuff online about Ken Bone the other day and think that it is – as was put to me, a ‘fable of the campaign’. But not just the campaign, a fable about life in an internet age. For those who haven’t quite got up to speed with this, and fair dues if you haven’t, I only learned about this after the event too – it may be the best place to be… well, Bone had the misfortune to ask a question at the ‘town hall’ Presidential debate. On energy policy.

Large guy, unassuming look, red jumper, asks ordinary question. Immediately he became an internet meme – a kinder gentler age when Presidential debates were about… oh, I don’t know, policy, etc.

Of course it was never quite as simple as that, but then it wasn’t entirely devoid of that either. I seem to recall posting up earlier this year a 2000 Primaries debate amongst Republican politicians that was – courteous, informed, right-wing (natch) but far from awful. You and I might not like the arguments but at least there were arguments. All gone. Gone with the Trump, and not just the Trump but a decade of ever increasing belligerence.

And Ken Bone is, in a way both icon and victim of this. For his hearkening back to that (supposedly) more innocent, more policy driven age meant that Response 1 was ‘awwwwww’, much in the way a creature will respond, say, to a particularly photogenic squirrel. It is perhaps to his credit (or at least evidence of his good sense) that Fortune in this rather good overview notes;

Quite unlike the middle-American bumpkin his vaguely condescending admirers seemed to take him for, Bone leveraged his sudden celebrity. He traded Uber some rides for a tweet, and started selling t-shirts, with a portion of the proceeds benefiting the homeless.

And so… Response 2 was, almost inevitably, ‘who the eff is one K. Bone?’. Because after all this is an age when the questioner is almost more important than any conceivable question or answer ever would be.

Following a Reddit AMA in which Bone used his longtime public account, the super-sleuths at Gizmodo dug up various past comments. They included some responses to adult content, one confessing to forging car insurance documents, and another providing advice to a fellow user considering a vasectomy.

Leading to quite mad stuff like the following:

The Daily Beast described the posts as “disturbing” and “unsavory.” Those are debatable characterizations, especially considering that Bone is still basically a private citizen.

The idea that, perish the thought, it just doesn’t matter what he does off the public clock, clearly never occurred to those doing the hunting. And let’s keep in mind he did literally nothing more in public than turn up, wear a red jumper and ask a question about an issue that excites probably no one. Nor does it matter that he had – frankly quite banal views on the Trayvon Martin case. Not mine, not yours I’d hazard, not entirely unthinking, not great, not entirely awful, just not important.

I think Fortune has it right in the following:

That process hinges on at least two things that don’t reflect well on public sophistication. First, it’s all painfully superficial, as we project our desire for innocence and optimism onto a cute man with a mustache and sweater, rather than thinking too hard about how exactly we reached a point like Sunday night. And even uglier, it seems we’re hungry for the downfall of the icons we create, turning the banal habits and opinions of a Redditor into “disturbing” character flaws.

And:

So yes, it turns out Ken Bone is just another guy, not some transcendent avatar of a better America. But that’s not his problem—it’s ours.

Not just America. All media. Near enough everywhere.

Ireland and the Spanish Republic (Donal Fallon Speaking) October 30, 2016

The photograph on the video is of Gardaí inside Connolly House, which was attacked by a mob in March 1933.(Thanks to Donal Fallon CHTM for the photograph)

Ireland and the Spanish Republic.

On the 80th anniversary of the Spanish Civil War.

Speaker: Donal Fallon. Remembering the dead, fighting for the living: the Republican Congress & commemoration in 1930s Ireland.

UNITE, Abbey Street, Dublin, Thursday 20th October, 2016.

Pat Flynn Retires October 30, 2016

Pat Flynn played his last League Of Ireland match on Friday night as part of the Longford team that lost 4-2 to Shamrock Rovers. He will be missed. To say he was popular during his time at Rovers would be an understatement……
His retirement statement is wonderful .