Over 30 years of anarchist writing from Ireland listed under hundreds of topics
Shane OCurry
Bloody Sunday in Derry - Origins & Consequences of a Massacre
Date: Wed, 2012-01-25 12:23
On the 30th January 1972 British soldiers opened fire on protesters in the city of Derry, north-west Ireland. Twenty six unarmed protesters were shot, 13 died immediately or within hours, one more died just over four months later. Derry was in the section of Ireland claimed by the British state and the shootings happened in the context of the suppression of a growing civil rights movement demanding equality for Catholics in the 6 of Ulster’s counties claimed by Britain.
Review of Knuckle Ian Palmers documentary on Traveller bare-knuckle fighting
Date: Wed, 2012-06-13 10:55
I approached this film with a lot of trepidation, putting off watching it for weeks. Much of this was down to my being uncomfortable with boxing and fist-fighting of any kind - I just don’t enjoy watching people knocking the shit out of each other - but I was also uncomfortable about colluding with a project in which a settled film-maker would bring a settled audience to leer into Travellers’ lives. Such fears are not unfounded by any means. The media is full of such ‘Big Fat Racist’ selective framings of Travellers’ lives, served up weekly for the titillation of scoffing settled audiences. Will Ian Palmer’s 12 year labour of love prove to be different? Will he champion his subjects by turning his camera angle to break with our society’s pervasive and racist framing of Travellers as a problematic, and ultimately inferior culture? Or will he take the easy and well-worn path in the way that Channel 4’s “Gypsy Blood” did and grotesquely reframe Travellers (and Romanies, whom it doesn’t bother to differentiate from Travellers) as uncultured monsters?
Bloody Sunday 40 Years On – March For Justice - press release
Date: Wed, 2012-01-25 11:56
The Derry Anarchists and the Workers Solidarity Movement support the call for people to attend and support all Bloody Sunday commemorative events over the upcoming weekend, including the 'March for Justice' leaving Creggan shops at 2.30 pm on Sunday 29 January.We stand in solidarity with and salute the courage and dignity of all of the members the Bloody Sunday families and the Bloody Sunday Justice Campaign in their long struggle for justice and truth.
Support the Dale Farm families - Put a marker down to stop the racist onslaught against Travellers
Date: Wed, 2011-09-14 16:52
Dale Farm is a halting site which is also the largest concentration of Irish Travellers in Britain, being home to over 1000 people (about 100 families), many of whom are said to have their cultural roots in Rathkeale in Limerick. It was started in the 1960s when a number of families bought the former scrapyard site and Basildon council granted planning permission for 40 houses. This happened in the context of broad progress in race relations and a brief breeze of relative official tolerance for Travellers, epitomised in the liberal-sponsored 1968 Caravan Sites Act. Basildon Council have put aside an £18 million budget to bulldoze the site and forcefully evict the families (a staggering figure when you consider that in 2010 the total UK budget for providing Travellers with halting facilities was less than 30 million).
