The Nativity of Jesus could never have happened in 2026

 

Photo from the 'Vatican News' media

Earlier this month the Galway Advertiser newspaper published my letter entitled "The Nativity of Jesus could never have happened in 2026."

I, as with the vast majority of the Irish people and indeed of the whole world, am horrified by the utter brutality of the Israeli occupation forces (both the military & the colonists) in the West Bank and Gaza and had to 'put pen to paper' once again.

But I was inspired also by Pope Francis's inauguration during Christmas 2024 of the "Nativity of Bethlehem 2024" scene placed in the Vatican which featured the baby Jesus lying on a Palestinian keffiyeh. The scene was crafted by Palestinian artists Johny Andonia and Faten Nastas Mitwasi from Bethlehem and featured olive wood figures of Joseph and Mary with the infant Jesus swaddled in a black-and-white Palestinian keffiyeh. It gave due recognition to the present day sufferings of the Palestinian peoples whether they are Muslim, Christian or secular. 

 

My letter below:

The Nativity of Jesus could never have happened in 2026

 

It was only a few weeks ago on January 19th that Christmas Day was celebrated amongst the oldest Christian communities in the world, namely in the Middle East. It got me to reflect on the story of the Nativity or birth of Jesus and its significance in the 21st century.

The story is well known. Joseph walks alongside his heavily pregnant wife Mary sitting on a donkey as they journey across difficult terrain from their home in the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Joseph’s ancestral home of Bethlehem in Judea to register for a census required by the imperial Roman authorities. Once there they found there was no room available to rent for their stay. So they had to make do by taking shelter in a stable amongst animals where Mary subsequently gave birth, laying the new born baby in an animal feeding trough (manger). Singing angels appeared in the night sky and asked shepherds looking after their flocks of sheep in the hills above Bethlehem to go to the stable where the baby Jesus lay. Nearly two weeks later three magi or priests from lands far to the east of the Jordan River followed a star to Bethlehem to present gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh to the new born infant and family. As a result of their visit though, soldiers later came to Bethlehem to carry out the orders of King Herod (the ruler of the Roman vassal state of Judea) to kill all baby boys under the age of two in order to stop the fulfillment of a prophesy that one of them would become a future "King of the Jews". To save Jesus from certain death, the family fled Judea and took refuge in Egypt. They only returned to Nazareth after the death of Herod.

In spite of the poverty and terror in the ‘Holy Land’ during the reign of the Roman Emperor Tiberius and his local client ruler King Herod, it is unlikely that the Nativity could occur in 2026.

For a Palestinian Arab from Nazareth would be generally forbidden from traveling to Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank even if it was his ancestral home. The same holds for Palestinians going in the opposite direction. Even if they managed to get a permit from the occupying military power, they would have to go through multiple Israeli checkpoints, a eight metre high separation wall as well as encounter illegal settlements and their armed Jewish residents who are increasingly and violently taking over Palestinian lands (against international law) through attacking, evicting and killing the indigenous population. Where Palestinians have being forced by an Israeli campaign of ethnic cleansing and genocide to escape to nearby Jordan or Egypt they, unlike the family of Jesus who temporarily fled to Egypt to save their lives, would be able to return to their homes, which more than likely would be occupied by Jewish colonists.

Nor would the three Magi ever be allowed access to Bethlehem in order to give gifts to a new born child. It is probable that the Magi were members of the Persian priestly caste of Zoroastrianism, then the main religion of the Parthian Empire centred on what is now Iran (formerly Persia). Few if any Iranians today would be allowed to visit Bethlehem by the occupying state. Nor would frankincense and myrrh and be so readily available as gifts. Grown primarily in war-ravaged Somalia and Yemen, the frankincense and myrrh trees are facing major threats from climate change, over-exploitation and population growth.

The heavenly sounds of angels singing have been replaced by the sounds of armed drones.

But there are other aspects of Palestine/Israel in 2026 that evokes the story of the Nativity. As in the time of Jesus the people of Palestine use donkeys to transport people and goods, this time though in Gaza to flee Israeli bombardment.

Whilst Jesus was born in an animal’s stable, today so many Palestinian women in Gaza give birth in the unsanitary conditions of tents made from plastic and tarpaulin as their homes and hospitals had been deliberately destroyed by the Israeli military.

Shepherds like those that came to worship Jesus at his birth still live in Bethlehem but their lives, lands and sheep are threatened daily by armed Zionist colonists.

The narcissism and tyranny of Tiberius and Herod emulates in so many ways that of Trump and Nethanyahu, both groups of rulers accepting or implementing a collective slaughter of civilians.

Two thousand years after Jesus, Christianity faces extinction in the land of its birth due to colonisation and ethnic cleansing against the indigenous Christian and Muslim populations in the occupied West Bank and genocide in Gaza.

Jesus message of peace and ‘love thy neighbour as thyself’ in 2026 is more important than ever before

Galway’s Role in introducing Science into the Irish Primary School Curriculum, 2002-2005.

As part of last Nov’s Galway Science & Technology Festival I organised a very special event in the Galway Education Centre with its director Liam Mitchell. Bernard Kirk my good friend & internationally renowned educationalist, acted as Master of Ceremony.
The occasion was a re-launch of science films made by the children & teachers of 35 Galway city & county primary schools involved in the Fionn School Science project, an inspiring pioneering government-funded initiative that operated from 2001/2002 to 2004/2005. As well as the viewing of the project films, there was an exhibition on the night comprising equipment, media coverage, awards & even science exhibits made by the young participants all those years ago.

Fionn led the way in successfully pioneering the introduction of science into Ireland’s primary school curriculum by having participating schools make a series of highly informative child-centric science & technology online videos during the period 2002-2005.

I was delighted to see so many fellow veteran STEM & Science Festival stalwarts in attendance as well as so many of the great teachers I had worked with on the Fionn projects all those years ago.

We were also honoured to have present at the event the family of the late Noel Treacy TD who, as Minister for Science, Technology & Commerce, secured the government mandate & funding for Fionn. Noel was one of the most ‘lets get things done’ politicians that I ever had the privilege to work with.

Over the last few years I spent much time searching for & gathering up these films that were on old VHS tapes, DV cassette tapes & DVDs in order to digitise them & make them available online once again after a gap of nearly 20 years for the benefit of present & future generations.
With over 110 videos digitised & to be made available shortly on the BEO heritage website (provided by Insight Centre for Data Analytics in association with University of Galway and the Heritage Office of Galway County Council) they show the children of Galway city & county schools of nearly a quarter of a century ago as vanguards in bringing science into the Irish Primary Educational Curriculum which occurred in autumn 2004.

Many of the themes of these films include topics so relevant to today’s educational world e.g. air quality, waste management, biodiversity restoration, peatlands, reforestation, heritage protection, water pollution, renewable energies, communications, optics, circulatory system, geology & farming.
Nor surprisingly these videos became a valuable online resource for schools nationwide over a number of years. Furthermore, for 4 consecutive years the Fionn schools also formed the major educational component of the annual exhibition of the Galway's Science Festival which was held during this period in Salthill(Leisureland & Galway Bay Hotel). Up until 2001, there was usually only one school having a stand at its exhibition finale. In 2002, there were 28 Fionn schools exhibiting & their presence remained constant for the following 3 years & beyond.

Encouraged by Jimmie Browne I applied for & was appointed coordinator to help develop, under the stewardship of the Galway Education Centre, what turned out to be an innovative & pioneering project. It was my first re-entry into Irish education after a gap of over 10 years which included spending a few years working outside Ireland & in other sectors within the country.

Bernard at the time was Director of the Galway Education Centre with Ciaran Folan as its technology advisor. Both powerful STEM advocates. The project was also generously supported by Jimmie Browne, Pat Morgan, Tom Hyland (RIP), Simon Lenihan, & Malachy Thompson in their capacity as members of Galway Science & Technology Festival committee.
Our remit was to help in what was really a RE-introduction of science into the primary school curriculum after an absence of nearly 80 years. For it was taken out to make way for the Irish language soon after the foundation of the Irish Free State.
We knew that teachers already had a packed daily schedule, providing a wide range of subjects as well as sport, health & social activities. Now they were expected, with very few additional long-term resources, to become familiar with & embrace a brand new & very important subject, one that was expected to help shape the country’s economic development.
Understandably there would be resistance from some within the teaching profession.
A difficult challenge lay before us.
Still we planned to capture the imagination of both teachers & children.
Our aim was to make science exciting, fun, hands-on, using high tech, easy-to-embrace, inclusive, relevant to their everyday lives, cross-curriculum, involving the whole class or school that they would enthusiastically want to sign up to as a pilot school!
So at the start of the 21st century, we came up with something completely different from anything that had gone before...(Part 3 is next post)

At a time (early 2000s) when the public perception of a scientist was oftentimes of someone who was male, old, grey-haired, ‘nerdy’ and dressed in a white lab coat, we adopted a logo (designed by Lol Hardiman) for Fionn that portrayed a happy boy and girl dressed in colourful clothing trying out science experiments together.

In an era before broadband, smart phones and social media immersion, we gave participating schools their first ever laptop (Apple iBook- Macbook's predecessor), their first ever high speed digital phone line (ISDN), their first ever hand-held video camera, their first movie editing software (iMovie) and their first training in video production in order for them to make a series of child-centric films every year for four years related to science and technology but also taking in other aspects of the school curriculum such as languages, music, history, geography and art. The completed films each year were hosted on a Department of Education website as well as on a specific Fionn website (developed by Diarmuid O’Riordan) that gave schools their first ever presence on the World Wide Web. A 'Directory of Science Experts' was compiled comprising scientists and other STEM advocates from NUI Galway (now University of Galway), GMIT (now Atlantic Technology University, Galway Atlantaquaria, Coillte, Teagasc, Western Health Board (now [Health Service Executive, the Western Regional Fisheries Board (now Inland Fisheries Ireland) and elsewhere who were available to support schools with their Fionn projects. We also funded artists Martin O'Ceidigh, Lol Hardiman, Diarmuid Mullen and Podge Daly to provide artistic mentoring to the schools for their projects.

Not surprisingly Fionn projects won many local and national awards and acted as a catalyst in the establishment of a Schools category within the inaugural Galway County Heritage Awards (now the Cathaoirleach Awards) launched in 2003 by its awesome Heritage Officer Marie Mannion.

Fionn’s legacy is a proud one. For I sometimes meet teachers, scientists and engineers who tell me that a Fionn science project inspired or reinforced their interest in what became their future careers. And today science is a key subject taught in all of the 3000 primary schools schools in Ireland. As the old proverb states, “Mighty oaks from small acorns grow”.

Photo on left shows my son Dáire at a Fionn stand in the Galway Science Fair 2003.

Photo on right shows Laura Porter (teacher & science advocate at New Inn National School) proudly pointing to herself on a Fionn film from 2003 when she was a senior infants class pupil at Ballymana National School. With Laura is Anne Murray, manager of the Galway Science & Technology Festival. Photo taken at the Fionn Science Films Launch.

We are living in an Age of Empires

The US government's illegal war on Venezuela was never about drugs or democracy.

It was always about oil and regime change.

 

Trump has made it quite clear that he does not care what Greenlanders, Canadians, Panamanians and Venezuelans think. For in his imperial mindset, their country’s natural resources belong not to them but to the USA (i.e big American corporations).

Imperialism is back with a vengeance. Trump wants total control of the Western Hemisphere; is happy to allow Netanyahu to integrate and colonise the Palestinian territories and control Lebanon; and for Putin to recreate the Tsarist Empire with puppet status and assimilation awaiting Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia.

International Law and the United Nations have being totally ignored by the USA, Russia and Israel.

As with Israel's genocide in Gaza and increasing colonisation of the occupied West Bank, the EU will behave spinelessly and will do absolutely nothing of substance to hold the USA to account.

With China expanding its territorial ambitions in the seas bordering Malaysia, Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia and having economic control over so many countries, we are sadly returning to an Age of Empires with their ‘Spheres of Influence’ where ‘Might is Right’ and small countries exist only to serve the Big Powers.