Hopes of Iceland's "Saucepan Revolutionaries" Dashed

I recently watched 'God Bless Iceland' a television film documentary on Iceland's economic meltdown. Very thought-provoking and very heart-rending as it followed over many months the daily routine of ordinary people who took to the streets in the 'Saucepan Revolution' to protest against the oligarchy that controlled the Icelandic banks, parliament and the economy, and whose actions were directly responsible for the spectacular financial collapse of a country that was until recently amongst the wealthiest in the world. The programme interviewed all strata of society in their everyday settings from billionaires, bankers, police officers through to those that lost all their life savings.

It covered protestors such as Sturla and Eva, whose hopes were spectacularly raised when popular demonstrations led directly to the government resigning in a fantastic display of 'people power'.

Yet their dreams were quickly dashed, as it soon became obvious that little would change under the new regime.

Sadly the disillusioned Sturlas and Evas, once the heroes of the nation, became part of the huge numbers of Icelanders who are emigrating in droves, something that the country has never before experienced in modern times.

Very very sad.

I Love Iceland!

I have a special affinity with Iceland, having lived there for over two years. There is an awe-inspiring spiritual and natural beauty in its primeval landscapes and seascapes found no-where else in the world. Yet the people share many traits with the Irish. Traditionally, they were family-orientated, hardworking, nationalistic, proud of their rich literary heritage with a respect for nature that was indicative of a people that relied on the land and sea for their survival.

But, as with the Irish, they succumbed in recent decades to the get-rich quick mentality of property speculation, importing low-paid Eastern European workers to build the houses of a construction boom that was unsustainable and nothing more than a facade. For it was the new arrivals that populated so many of the accommodation units that they themselves built rather than to meet the needs of the small indigenous population. As was the case in Ireland, politicians, bankers and developers were trumpeted as ‘role models’ not just at home but also on the world stage.

Members of this ‘nouveau riche’ arrogantly flaunted their new wealth, milked the public coffers via tax breaks and state contracts, and invested their monies in personal aggrandisement and overseas acquisitions. Both countries took their ‘eye off the ball’ and let their natural strengths, that were carefully built up over so many years and which originally provided the foundations of their economic development in modern times, wither away due to the lack of sufficient investment.

In Iceland, it was fisheries.

In Ireland, it was manufacturing, agriculture and tourism. Many Irish people did not want to work in factories, or in the hospitality trade, thinking it was beneath them; farmers abandoned farming and they sold their arable land to property developers. Tourists that use to come for the enjoyment of our countryside and for fishing stayed away as they witnessed an Ireland being contaminated by urban sprawl, high-pricing, pollution and where it was hard to find an Irish pub or restaurant where you could get served by an Irish man or woman.

It has been said many times since 2008 that the only difference between Iceland and Ireland is one letter.

Galway city's Largest Community Garden To Be Officially Launched by City Mayor on Sat

Michael Tiernan & Pete Maye Planting Potatoes using traditional Irish farming methods

Michael McDonnell Harvesting the first potato crop!

I am pleased to announce that Galway city’s largest community organic garden will officially be launched at 12.30pm this Saturday (July 17^th) by the Mayor, Councillor Michael Crowe. Located in Terryland Forest Park adjacent to the Lus Leana housing estate, the Ballinfoile Mór Community Organic Garden has become a wonderful example of how neighbourhood-managed initiatives can secure long-term social, health and environmental benefits.

Teas for the Volunteers!

Funding and resources for this local community-driven project was provided by an array of agencies, including RAPID, Galway City Council, HSE, VEC, Respond and the Galway City Partnership. Caitriona McMuiris of the latter organisation has been absolutely brilliant in supporting the local committee in this initiative.

Many of the garden's founding members (including myself) are local community environmentalists and members of the 'Galway Friends of the Forests' NGO that successfully fought to save the Terryland Forest Park from being sacrificed to road development (Headford Road Framework Plan).

For over a decade, we have promoted many environmental community initiatives in Galway including heritage cycle tours through rural landscapes in the locality, school and community tree plantings, outdoor eco-arts projects, nature field trips and the protection of wildlife habitats in our city.

Wildlife-friendly Organic Garden

An organic community garden with a biodiversity ethos has been part of our philosophy for a a number of years inspired by green urban neighbourhood initiatives in the USA and Cuba but also with the work undertaken in the nearby Galway suburb of Ballybane.

Harvesting Nettles for Soup & Salads

Since its inception late last year, ‘An Ghardín’ has become a magnet for residents of all ages from across the Ballinfoile/Bóthar an Chóiste locality to work together in the development of this extraordinary resource.

School Children & Parents from the local Scoil San Phroinsias planting flowers & vegetables

One of the partners in the project, the local primary school Scoil San Phroinsias, recently held a weekend planting day when circa 150 parents and children came along to plant vegetables and flowers.

Watering the Plants

The VEC and a nearby child daycare centre too are using it as an outdoor classroom. We are also encouraging disability and older people groups, residents’ associations, the nearby Lisbrook Asylum Seekers Hostel and youth organizations to use ‘An Ghairdín’ as a facility for nutrition and organic farming classes, crafts workshops, nature studies, social interaction and physical education activities.

Katherine Admiring Mike McDonnell's (second from right) work in producing Disability-friendly Raised Beds

Committee members and local volunteers have in a few short months transformed a barren field into a fertile oasis consisting of vegetable beds, a herbal garden, a fruit tree orchid and a poly-tunnel overflowing with crops of corn, peas and tomatoes.

Erecting the Poly-tunnel

Volunteers have laid the foundations of a large pond to nurture indigenous aquatic flora and fauna such as frogs; have provided water piping and electrical cabling and constructed a stage for outdoor cultural performances.

Creating a Pond for Aquatic wildlife

The committee has also made a commitment to promote and utilize traditional rural crafts in the ongoing development of the garden. Hence many of the vegetable beds were planted using old farming methods. Courses were held last week on willow/hazel hurdling with the resulting natural fencing created by the participants being used as perimeters within the garden.Jack planning out the traditional dry-stone wall

Traditional drystone walls will become a feature of the garden over the next few months.

The site for the ‘An Ghardín’ was provided by Galway City Council in the grounds of the Terryland Forest Park as our project complements the wildlife and environmental ethos of this proposed ‘ecological corridor’ due to the fact that our charter includes the promotion of biodiversity by for example constructing traditional hedgerows of Irish trees such as Hawthorn and Hazel around the garden perimeter; by using only organic fertilizers as well as by planting native wild flowers to attract bees and other insects.

Children with their completed Competition Questionnaires on the Wildlife of the Garden & surrounding Terryland Forest Park

Over the coming year, hundreds of local residents will avail of this remarkable green resource that will do much to improve the quality of life in our locality. It is expected that the garden will have many beneficial effects for the Ballinfoile Mór community by its provision of an outdoor nature classroom, by contributing to building up good neighbourliness, by increasing awareness of food nutrition and a healthy living lifestyle and by creating a source of locally produced organic foods. It is expected that many of those that use the community garden will create their own organic household gardens.

So we hope that as many residents as possible turn up for the official launch at 12.30pm on Saturday!

Site for the Ballinfoile Mór Community Organic Garden

Early days- Digging in the Garden

Early days: Cennis & other volunteers from the Lisbrook Asylum Seekers Accommodation Centre preparing the ground for planting

Garden Starting to take shape

Des & co Offloading the Seaweed Sourced from a local Beach & to be used as a natural Fertiliser

Planting the first Fruit (Gooseberry, Blackberry & Raspberry) Bushes

The First Planted Fruit Trees

Working on the garden paths

Herbal Garden takes shape, using timber perimeters made from hazel trees produced by local volunteers

Francis, Jack, Frances standing beside the raised bed being used by the children from the local pre-school.

Felicia & friends from the Lisbrook Asylum Seekers Accommodation Centre weeding the potato beds

Myself & Willie Needham holding some of the first crop of potatoes dug from the garden!

Bloody Sunday: Truth & Justice at Last!

June 2010 was an historical month for Ireland & Britain. Truth and Justice finally won out over decades of state propaganda and blatant lies as a British government finally admitted that the 14 people killed in Derry by the British Army on Bloody Sunday 1972 were unarmed innocent civilians taking part in a Civil Rights march.

The Saville Report stated that the soldiers called before it had lied; that none of those killed were carrying weapons, that no warnings were given, that no soldiers were under threat at the time and that the soldiers were the first to open fire.

These findings totally contradict the statements of the British army and officialdom from the time of the killings onwards. Particularly scurrilous were the findings of the Widgery report published in April 1972 which was recognised at the time by independent minds as nothing more than a whitewash. For in spite of evidence to the contrary, Lord Widgery concluded that the soldiers were fired on first and blamed the marchers for participating in an illegal march (which was part of ongoing peaceful protests calling for an end to discrimination against Catholics in Unionist Protestant statelet of Northern Ireland).

Northern Ireland during the 'Troubles' (1969-1990s) was used by the British Army and the British secret services as a real laboratory for testing out methods, tactics and weapons that could be used someday to combat expected social unrest in Britain (and were to a degree used in mid-1980s in areas of British inner cities such as Brixton & Toxeth). Internment and non-jury courts were introduced. A series of miscarriages of justice took place where innocent Irish people were jailed for crimes that they did not commit. The most notable were the Guildford Ford and the Birmingham Six jailed in the 1970s and finally exonerated and released in 1991. (I played a humble and small part in this campaign, being chairperson in the laste 1980s of the West of Ireland 'Release the Birmingham 6 & Guildford 4' committee)

British forces, their agents and their loyalist allies also undertook a series of covert operations both in Northern Ireland and the Irish republic that included bank raids, shootings, secret assassinations, bombing, many of which were deliberately blamed on the IRA in an effort to discredit Irish civil rights activists and republicans. Some day the truth of the British establishment's secret and dirty war in Northern Ireland will be made known and published.

But in the meantime- Fair play to Prime Minister David Cameron for being the first British leader to apologise unequivocally over military crimes against civilians. Truly historical.

Finding the Truth in Netanyahu’s Speeches

My article below appeared as a letter in a recent edition of the Galway Advertiser:
One could agree with the sentiments of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when he says that an air, sea and naval blockade is necessary to “…prevent militants groups from getting weapons… whose only goal (is) to hit civilians and kill as many… women, children, old people…Under international law and under common sense and common decency, (there is a need to) interdict this weaponry and to inspect the ships that might be transporting them.”

Likewise Netanyahu could be correct in his analysis that allowing an aggressive Middle East state to obtain nuclear weapons “…threatens …world peace in a way that very few events could possibly threaten it. (This) nuclear challenge represents a ‘hinge of history’ and ‘Western civilization’ will have failed if (a Middle East state) is allowed to develop nuclear weapons…”

So it is time for the United Nations, supported by the Big Four Powers, to confiscate Israel’s nuclear arsenal and put in place a cordon to finally end the flow of 90 billons of dollars in US military and financial aid that has gone into the country since 1976 which has provided the IDF with the F16s, Apache helicopters and Sparrow/Sidewinder missiles necessary to kill thousands of civilians in its neighbouring states and facilitate the colonial occupation and settlement by racist fundamentalist settlers of Arab lands. Cromwell would gladly approve of a policy that has overtones of “To Hell or To Connacht”. Today the 1.5million civilians in the densely populated over-sized concentration camp known as Gaza can look out from bombed-out tenement buildings across the security walls onto the fertile fields and clean tidy settlements of what was, until only a few decades ago, their family lands.

Netanyahu talks of the ‘Jewish State’. But even in biblical times, the ‘Holy Land’ was never a land of Jews alone who were in fact only one of many indigenous peoples which included Canaanites, Amorites, Philistines and Samaritans. Jerusalem itself was a Jebusite city until conquered by a Jewish army under King David.

The Jewish people in Europe were almost wiped out 70 years ago by a regime that wanted to remove them from lands in Eastern Europe that it laid claim too based on racist myths. The Jews were forced from their homes, that were then given to German colonists (as with many other indigenous peoples in Eastern Europe), and herded into concentration camps where movement of food and other supplies was tightly controlled. Any individual resistance to this blockade led to a brutal armed response onto the entire population.
Ironic then that we see today’s descendants of that Holocaust behave like Nazis of old. They arbitrarily dictate what goes into Gaza and what doesn’t. Allowing canned meat but not canned fruit; allowing mineral water but not fruit juices. Banning computers, school books and cement is reminiscent of Hitler’s ideology of denying education and other basic human rights to ‘inferior’ races.

Europe should follow the example of the activists of the ‘Rachel Corrie’ ship (named after a female American peace activist who was crushed to death by an Israeli military bulldozer when she acted as a human shield protecting a Palestinian home from demolition) to ensure that history does not repeat itself. We owe it to the memories of the victims of the attempted genocides of the Jews, Armenian Christians, Kurds and Muslim Bosnians in the Europe-Middle Eastern region during modern times.

Cycling Across Beautiful Rural Landscapes of the city of Galway

Every cloud has a silver lining. The sudden but inevitable demise of the building boom-based Celtic Tiger has meant that the greedy property speculators and so-called 'developers', supported by friends amongst the political and civil service hierarchy, thankfully did not have the time required to bulldoze all of the Irish countryside and cover it with tarmac and concrete! Hence there is still much to enjoy in our famed natural heritage even in the urban sprawl suburbia of Galway city.So once again, I am organising, as a joint Galway City Council/ Galway City Community Forum venture, a cycle tour of the stunning beautiful rural countryside of Galway City as part of Ireland's National Cycle Week.
Entitled 'Off the Beaten Path' it will commence at 11am sharp on Sunday June 20th from the Centra Foodstore on Bóthar na Choiste, Headford Road.

The event will be a 4 hour leisurely cycle stroll through some of the most interesting historical scenic landscapes on the east side of the city. It will I hope be a journey of discovery for many of its participants.We will ignore the hustle and bustle of housing estates, shopping centres and highways.Instead we will travel along secondary roads to enjoy the sights and sounds of an increasingly threatened but none-the-less vibrant countryside dominated by small farms and natural features such as lakes and bogs.Commencing on Bóthar na Choiste (Irish = Coach Road), I will bring participants through townlands whose ancient names reflect the respect that Irish people once had for Nature -Ballinfoile (Town of the ridge), Ballindooley (Town of the black lake), Killoughter (High Wood), Menlo (Small Lake), Coolough (Hollow at the base of the cliff)...

We will journey over hills, along botharins, past abandoned farm buildings, ruined castles, karst outcrops, bogs, lakes, dykes, turloughs and meadows.
We will stop off in Menlo to enjoy a picnic along the banks of the River Corrib.
To liven the journey up, I will recount tales of headless horsemen, ancient battles, haunted ruins, tragic drownings, lost gardens and of the great forests and the once proud wolves that once roamed the area.

Though I have ongoing battles with City Hall over a myriad of community and environmental issues, nevertheless I can only heap praise on the city officials who contributed to the success of this event, particularly Cathy Joyce.
So I hope that Galwegians will take to their bicycles on Sun June 20th and enjoy the remaining vestiges of our once glorious natural environment, with its rich native flora and fauna

Will the International Community Ever Stand up to the Terrorist Aggressor State known as Israel?

Protests in Galway against armed Israeli attack on naval humanitarian aid convoy.
Location was the Liam Mellows statue at Eyre Square

This week’s armed pirate attack in international waters by the Israeli military on a peaceful flotilla bringing humanitarian aid to besieged Gaza, resulting in the deaths of civilian passengers and the hijacking of ships and their occupants, is another demonstration of the terrorism that is a key characteristic of the Israeli state.

In the last few days, Israel has arrogantly dismissed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty signed by 189 states to make the Middle East a ‘Nuclear Free Zone’; in the last few weeks, it has vowed to continue expanding illegal Jewish colonial settlements on Arab lands; in the last few months it has been shown to have stolen international passports (including Irish) to provide cover for assassins sent to kill an opponent in another country; in the last few years, it has invaded Gaza and Lebanon killing thousands of innocent civilians, deliberately obliterating urban areas, transport/government infrastructure and covering agricultural lands with anti-personnel cluster bombs; in the last three years it has organised an illegal air, sea and land blockade of Gaza that represents the longest siege in modern times; in the last decade it has built a huge fortified wall on Arab lands in order to confine Arabs into nothing more than large concentration camps; in the last few decades it has built up an illegal nuclear weaponry arsenal; consistently defied UN resolutions; introduced racists laws against Arabs; and has invaded, occupied and settled Arab lands with racist Jewish colonial settlers brought in from Europe and beyond, ensuring in the process that any indigenous peoples left are stripped of their personal/national dignity by denying them control of their own roads, food and water supplies.

What more evil does Israel have to do before the western political community has the courage to take on the powerful Zionist financial and political lobby in the USA, Britain and elsewhere, as exposed by that fine elder statesman ex-US President Jimmy Carter, and put an end to the aggression and expansionism of a state that is a central cause of instability in the Middle East and the world?

The Irish government should be praised for unequivocally condemning Israeli piratical action and calling for an end to the illegal siege of Gaza. But surely, Ireland should now go further by expelling the Israeli ambassador and calling for a EU trade boycott of Israel? Likewise it should demand the sacking of the European taxpayer-funded 'Middle East Peace' envoy Tony Blair, who is distrusted in the region from his term as British Prime Minister, who spends so much of his time on the lucrative US lecture circuit or by acting as a high paid consultant to financial institutions/corporations whilst seeming to go AWOL when Israel launches one of its regular terrorist campaigns against unarmed civilians. Sadly he lacks the moral conviction of those brave Jews and Israelis such as the ‘Rabbis For Palestine’ who took part in demonstrations this week in London and elsewhere against the Israeli state murder machine.

Ireland’s Only Computer Museum Exhibition Opens in NUI Galway

I finally got my wish! I coordinated the opening of what is probably Ireland’s only historical exhibition, dedicated to the development of communications and computer technologies, at the National University of Ireland Galway. The museum is appropriately located at my workplace -the on-campus Digital Enterprise Research Institute (DERI), which is the world’s largest Institute researching the next generation of the World Wide Web.The exhibition represents a collaboration between NUI Galway and the multi-sectoral ‘eGalway’ group of the Galway City Development Board. Under the chairpersonship of Dr. Chris Coughlan of Hewlett-Packard, representatives of GMIT, NUIG, Galway City Council, state agencies and the local business sector collected an intriguing array of vintage computers, telephones, microprocessors, data storage devices and other memorabilia that collectively illustrate how improvements in communications have dramatically impacted on society throughout the centuries.

This unique science heritage facility, which will be open for one month, tells the fascinating story of key moments in the history of communications. Yet it is designed to be more than just a tribute to the past and a collection of historical artefacts. For it has a central tenet of inspiring today’s youth to consider careers as scientists and engineers by highlighting the importance of ‘innovation’ to human progress and the crucial but oftentimes overlooked contributions of young people and of Ireland to advances in global communications technologies.

For instance, the invention of ‘Radio’ had a very strong Irish input. It was also avidly embraced by young people worldwide and spawned the birth of ‘Teenage Culture’ during the Jazz Age. This association has only increased over the decades leading to today’s digital world where many of the significant inventions in modern technology, from the personal computers to Google, Facebook and YouTube, have been created by innovators in the late teens to late twenties age bracket.

Chris Coughlan says, “a key aspect are the exhibits on IT companies that established significant manufacturing and research operations in Ireland and worked with the Irish third-level educational sector such as Verbatim in Limerick and Apple in Cork. Being based in Galway, we have of course given a special prominence to the Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) who became in 1971 one of the first such multi-national entity to establish an export manufacturing operation in this country and in many ways heralded a major shift in Irish economic development. From its Galway plant, DEC provided a range of mini-computers and software that became the backbone of many industrial and engineering plants across Europe. Its presence here acted as a catalyst for numerous other US high-tech and business companies to follow suit by establishing their primary European operations in Ireland.”

There are also exhibits on the development of the portable computer, the printer and the microprocessor. Equipment on display include DEC Vax, Digital Rainbow, Apple 11, Apple Macintosh, IBM PC, Commodore 64, Vic-20, BBC and the Sinclair ZX81

There is one section of the museum though that should be very popular with all those that consider themselves ‘Young at Heart’, namely the computers that allow users to play the legendary video games of the late 1970s, including ‘Pacman’, ‘Space Invaders’ and ‘Asteroids’!