Cassandra Voices

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  • What Lies Behind Ireland’s Abortion Referendum

    Is it cynical to suggest that Ireland’s ruling Fine Gael party is using the referendum to repeal the eighth amendment to the Constitution – which equates the life of a pregnant mother with the unborn – to deflect criticism from its hands-off approach to governance? One of the worst housing crises in the history of the state, a failing two-tier health system and a shameful environmental record all recede from view amidst the commotion.

    The end result will come at little cost, either way, to a government, some of whom, including the Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, have expressed contradictory views on the subject. That lack of enthusiasm is apparent from the Fine Gael party’s decision not to put up posters to support a ‘yes’ vote. Win or lose, the government will say: ‘we have listened to the will of the people’.

    Leo Varadkar’s belated conversion to abortion rights might also reflect an appreciation of the makeover his predecessor Enda Kenny received after coming out in favour of gay marriage in the Marriage Equality Referendum of 2015. Keeping debate focused on the private lives of individuals, rather than the performance of state institutions, appears to be an excellent political strategy in twenty-first century Ireland.

    Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Simon Coveney’s own volte-face from principled opposition to acceptance of a need for reform also bears an imprint of political calculation. Such flip-flopping is not surprising considering he once claimed that what he knew about the science of climate change sent shivers down his spine, before displaying no scruples about expanding Ireland’s dairy sector while Minister for Agriculture.

    Since arriving as the dominant centre-right party after the Economic Crash of 2008, Fine Gael has steered a course between a traditional rural power base, and an urban middle class that lost faith in its predecessor Fianna Fail, as the establishment’s self-fulfilling ‘natural party of government’.

    Fine Gael is now in a ‘confidence and supply’ parliamentary alliance with its erstwhile foe, which has moved to the left after recovering a social conscience; Fianna Fail’s is on a familiar ideological journey for one of Ireland’s crooked, main political parties, for whom commitment to social equality generally depends on distance from power.

    The government’s continued policy of agricultural expansion, despite the sector generating one third of all national emissions, keeps the farming industry on side, while a propertied metropolitan bourgeoisie benefits from low taxation on their assets, especially property. This formula is doused with liberal doses of virtue-signalling ‘tolerance’, personified in the half-Indian and gay Taoiseach Leo Varadkar himself.

    Varadkar unapologetically courts a thrusting middle class constituency. His tenure as Minister for Social Welfare saw him take out advertisements against ‘welfare cheats‘; as Minister for Health he effectively endorsed a two-tier health system in boasting publicly that he had taken out private health insurance; while as Minister for Transport, to the undoubted delighted of the motor car lobby, he dismissed rail transport as being for ‘romantics’. But an increasing class divide may be an unacknowledged factor in the forthcoming plebiscite.

    Taoiseach Leo Varadkar

    The referendum pits conservative, rural Ireland against the generally liberal, Dublin metropolis. But opposition to abortion may be a proxy for the insecurity felt by those living in dying small towns removed from the capital, or renters impoverished by another explosion in property prices. Holding a Pro Life position might be a transgressive reaction to the perceived success of elites, who appear ‘shameless’ in their exultant sexuality. The sight of bright young women wearing the popular black jumper emblazoned with the word Repeal could only serve to stiffen the resolve of resentful opponents.

    The long-standing failure of the state to develop a functioning transport system has brought the isolation of car dependency across Ireland, and small businesses fail as multinationals dominate the retail landscape. Distance from the fruits of Ireland’s uneven recovery explains a simmering resentment among the ‘silent majority’, as much as the residual influence of the Catholic Church. It’s a tale of two countries, where those who take their dinner in the middle of the day do not sit down with urban brunchers.

    The run on bread and other staple foodstuffs before the onset of the ‘Beast from the East’ snow storm in late February betrayed a deep sense of unease among the population. It assumed that neither the state nor the wider community could be relied on, leaving the individual to bowl alone.

    The issue of abortion in Ireland is now a full-blown fiasco, stemming from the eighth amendment to the constitution in 1983, which proved unconscionable once it encountered social realities. Enshrining the life of an unborn as equal to a mother’s is a fine-sounding principle until you meet a suicidal minor impregnated through rape, who sees an abortion as the only way out of her predicament.

    The Supreme Court in the 1992 X Case met such circumstances and overturned the High Court’s earlier decision to detain the young girl in the state. The court overlooked the provision’s explicit statement on equality of consideration, treating it as inconsistent with natural justice.

    This led to further constitutional referenda guaranteeing a right to travel, and to information on abortion legally available elsewhere: ‘an Irish solution to an Irish problem’, which exported the problem to another jurisdiction.

    Also in the wake of the judgment, some conservatives claimed Ireland had among the most liberal abortion regimes in the world, as there was no theoretical limits on abortions in the event of a threat to the life of the mother.

    The issue simmered along for another two decades with thousands of women taking the trip across to the UK in that time. It took the death of Indian woman Savita Halappanavar in 2012 from a septic miscarriage after having her request for an abortion turned down in an Irish hospital to re-ignite the debate.

    The Protection of Life in Pregnancy Act 2013 legislated for the decision in the X Case, but far from closing down discussion it preserved the ambiguity around what constitutes a threat to the life of the mother sufficient to justify an abortion. Finally this year, Varadkar’s government accepted the recommendations of a Citizens’ Assembly and a parliamentary committee, and announced the referendum to repeal the provision, to allow for the state to legislate for terminations on demand. It’s been a slow burn ever since.

    It is unclear whether the number of those seeking abortions will actually increase if it is available on demand in Ireland. That is not to say the ethics of the matter are irrelevant – as some suggest who seek to portray it as simply a medical question – or that the associated cost of travel and medical care are unimportant, but the context is relevant.

    Just as the marriage equality referendum was not as much about gay marriage per se but about attitudes towards homosexuality, this referendum also concerns respecting the right of women to choose. To describe abortion as ‘a licence to kill‘ is a grave affront to the thousands of Irish women who have already had abortions.

    Unfortunately the issue is now so divisive that meaningful discussion hardly occurs around what right, if any, the unborn should enjoys subject to the countervailing right of a woman to her bodily integrity.

    This referendum could be Ireland’s Brexit or Trump moment, when the forces of reaction stand up and are counted against a complacent liberal elite. Yet only by progressives engaging constructively with the arguments of their opponents, and understanding the origins of so much of their ire can a toxic political chasm be bridged. Unfortunately with each side adopting Machiavellian marketing strategies, any recognition of opposing arguments becomes impossible.

    There are serious ethical questions to be addressed around the genetic profiling of the unborn, and to describe ‘No’ voters as simply misogynists does not advance the discussion at all. It is a culture war that serves the interests of the government, and a press which sells opposing sides in print, claiming this to be in the interest of balance.

    On one point at least, the ‘No’ and ‘Yes’ campaigns should agree: no woman should feel obliged by economic circumstances to terminate a pregnancy. We should focus on building a more caring society for the living, where women are offered adequate support by the state in rearing their children.

    A simple alteration to the constitution that would instantly compel any governments to pay heed to the material welfare of all Irish citizens would be to make Article 45 containing ‘The Directive Principles on Social Policy’ cognizable by the courts. As it stand socio-economic rights, such as a right to housing, are not provided for under the Irish constitution. The article is merely for the consideration of the Oireachtas, which is as good as worthless.

    Unfortunately there is fat chance the ‘natural party of government’, whichever one that is, will sponsor a referendum to make a basic standard of living in Ireland a constitutional right, which would be an incentive to motherhood.

    The eighth amendment brought a toxic ingredient into the constitution that proved unworkable once confronted by the social realities of rape and medical necessity. It concedes nothing to a woman’s right to bodily integrity, especially if she is in dire financial straits, treating her as a passive incubator. It must go. Let us then consider the origins of the discontent, and address socio-economic causes.

    Frank Armstrong is the content editor of Cassandra Voices. An archive of his writing is available on www.frankarmstrong.ie

  • B Road Blues

    Born by the river, out in the sticks

    I was born on a bend on the Forty Eighty-six

     

    Making old friends, Rubicon tricks

    Much still to fix on the Forty Eighty-six

     

    Romans rode here, hear the hoof clicks

    Some see their ghosts on the Forty Eighty-six

     

    Journey’s the same, the dead and the quick’s

    Cutting through the mist on the Forty Eighty-six

     

    Executor, executrix

    Fresh eggs for sale on the Forty Eighty-six

     

    Love lasts forever, young love pricks

    Some are still searching on the Forty Eighty-six

     

    Stone and timber, timber and bricks

    Much to remember on the Forty Eighty-six

     

    Stacks with plenty, plenty with nix

    Weather unrelenting on the Forty Eighty-six

     

    Players pretend with frantic theatrics

    Not just teenage kicks on the Forty Eighty-six

     

    They fought before with axes and picks

    Fought a Civil War on the Forty Eighty-six

     

    The pain they pray is the lame and the sick’s

    May one day fade away on the Forty Eighty-six

     

    Some are flame throwers, swear like Bill Hicks

    Others grow church flowers on the Forty Eighty-six

     

    Hat-tricks won, missed penalty kicks

    Dislocating hips on the Forty Eighty-six

     

    Life ain’t a sweetshop just selling Twix

    It’s a big ol’ pic’n’mix on the Forty Eighty-six

     

    Simon called Peter, Richard’s nicked Dick’s

    Some names are made on the Forty Eighty-six

     

    Magicians vape smoke with their cash and card tricks

    Magic’s still a secret on the Forty Eighty-six

     

    Some write with quills, sharper than Bics

    Slanty-id italics on the Forty Eighty-six

     

    A thief may never know from whom he nicks

    Flash cars flashing past on the Forty Eighty-six

     

    Ringing guitars’ lickety licks

    Bending like Hendrix on the Forty Eighty-six

     

    Choose party sex over party politics

    Horny Burke’s dilemma on the Forty Eighty-six

     

    Peace wind blowing Vulcan aeronautics

    Once heroed Hurricanes on the Forty Eighty-six

     

    Hellfire statistics, bullet ballistics

    But now bombs won’t win wars on the Forty Eighty-six

     

    Some speak the truth, some speak synthetics

    Some don’t speak at all on the Forty Eighty-six

     

    Birds and beasts, lambs and chicks

    Nature’s an engraver on the Forty Eighty-six

     

    No slow runners, torched Olympics

    Silver, bronze, gold on the Forty Eighty-six

     

    Carabosse dusk dirt-track dominatrix

    Allsortsa country matters on the Forty Eighty-six

     

    Peacock feathers flair in fancy flicks

    Pride falls like darkness on the Forty Eighty-six

     

    Ain’t surprised the dead get more crosses than ticks

    Many miles of road on the Forty Eighty-six

     

    Paul Curran was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1975. He holds a degree in English Language and Literature from the University of Oxford and a Masters Degree from the Royal Central School of Speech & Drama. He has worked widely as a professional actor. His Only Sonnet loosely follows the pattern of the seasons, comprised of 100+ ‘alternative’ sonnets; Repeat Fees and its 80 sonnets and longer poems was published in July 2017.

  • Song Shorts

    “Iggy‘s not coming for lunch?” asked Ron.

    He tasted his breathe while talking, it smelt surprisingly of milk.

    “Need to get a shower,” he said.

    A television was blinking upstairs. The automatic shutdown announced the television will be black in few minutes. Iggy was lying on the floor looking at the ceiling.

    He started figuring out what happened. Once again he put his dreams against reality. His stupid nature against facts. He thought about her as just a woman now. She could not have been a real woman. She was a symbol. She was definitely a sign of a possible redemption. My little China girl, you wore a beautiful uniform sitting straight on your back at the restaurant. Cheering discreetly. But redemption never arrives by chance. You have to work on it and even then there are people who will never find a proper one. There are simply people who needs to be against the wind at 300 km/h. I gave you a different room every night, so you would have never felt bored. I gave you the best wines with the most complicated aromas. I gave you the biggest television ever. But you see, the redemption I’m used to tends to collapse easily. And so it did. I need to be against the wind at 300 km/h. And I ruined everything you are. We’re people used to chewing other people, you know.

    The table is broken in the middle and unfortunately it’s my fault. When you cannot control your feelings and – more than everything – your fucking movements, those kind of things happen.

    Iggy stood up. Then he jumped twice as if there was an imaginary rope                           “No headache,” he said to himself.

    “ There is no point in telling the whole story…,” he said “it’s quite intellectual.”             “ What do you mean?” Ron asked.                                                                                                       “ I mean, not good things for us. Kind of painful.”

     

    WAITING FOR THE MAN_ VELVET UNDERGROUND

    https://youtu.be/hugY9CwhfzE

    It’s freezing and the rain is coming through my shoes. I’m standing at the corner in Lexington and I need to shit. I wait here like a street lamp with money clutched in my hand. He will be here in few minutes, sick as dawn. Then I will shit somewhere. I need to control the needs of my body and establish an order. But it’s going to be hard. Because everything makes me want to shit. Bricks are reflecting rain. Grey is everywhere. There is a prostitute on the other side of the street. I suppose she’s a prostitute. I hope, otherwise I can’t imagine why is she standing there. She’s young, she could be seventeen or eighteen. She doesn’t look particularly sick: she’s just waiting for something, trying to follow the right order of things. I need to shit.

    I start to think about God. I need a real God that fixes things, a fat reliable God living on my shoulders. It’s incredible how humans can build totally depressing spots. It’s fucking bad to be here. Your life is a guinea pig life without a wheel or anything like it. I need to shit. And a God, for fuck’s sake. I want to feel his dry breath behind me.

    No way. This idiot is never on time. Who is he? I don’t mind, I just have to be on time for him. But he shows no respect, no fucking respect. Twenty-six wet dollars clutched in my hand. Yes, we really have the worst Gods ever in this place. Never on time. Then the prostitute crosses the road. She’s coming towards me, slowly. Despite the rain her make up is really solid. It seems that you need to shit, she says. And she stares at me. Then her hands go through her bag and she shows me a small paper box. It’s brownish and dry. She reminds me of someone I met in school. Remember that you need to shit, she says. Luanne? I ask. She nods her head. I give her twenty-six dollars, it seems the most obvious thing. I open my hand with my crumpled twenty-six dollars. She takes them and puts them in a bag without even looking . I’m sure I have already seen her. She looks younger than seventeen or eighteen. But she could easily be in her thirties as well. And she’s so fucking dry.

    Are you waterproof? I ask. Sure, she answers.

  • Spain on Trial

    Writing in The Observer in 1961, Peter Benenson lamented that ‘in Spain, students who circulate leaflets calling for the right to hold discussions on current affairs are charged with ‘military rebellion’.’

    So what? You may ask yourself – that was 57 years ago under the Franco dictatorship. But that’s the point: six decades later in a liberal democracy, dozens of people in Spain have been charged with crimes such as ‘sedition’, ‘rebellion’ and ‘terrorism’ for offences such as blocking roads and bar fights with off-duty police officers.

    Benenson, who used his article as the launchpad for founding Amnesty International, added that ‘no government… is at greater pains to emphasise its constitutional guarantees than the Spanish, but it fails to apply them’. This observation rings true today, where the Spanish government and Madrid-based media react with apoplexy at any criticism of Spain’s handling of the Catalan crisis. Spain, they argue, is a modern and mature democracy with separation of powers and legal guarantees.

    By coincidence, the Spanish government’s recent travails with Catalan separatists have coincided this spring with the trial of eight youths from the highland town of Altsasu in Navarre. With about 7,500 inhabitants, it’s typical of the middling market towns that make up the Basque nationalist heartland straddling the Franco-Spanish border.

    5am bar brawl

    In October 2016, the youths became embroiled in a 5am bar fight. The two men they tussled with were off-duty police officers: one of whom suffered a fractured ankle. State prosecutors allege that the youths knew this and that it was an intentional assault; that they sent text messages to others to join in. The eight were arrested and transferred to Madrid, where three have remained ever since awaiting trial without bail.

    If convicted, they face sentences of between 12 and 62 years on terrorism-related charges. It is instructive to set out the draconian penalties just one, Oihan Arnanz, faces. Eight years for terroristic public disorder; two years for attacking agents of authority; eight years for non-terrorist lesions; and twelve-and-a-half years for making terroristic threats.

    Needless to say, the case has caused consternation in the town and wider Navarre. Locals feel the proposed sentences excessive and vengeful. Baltazar Garzon, the judge who earned fame for trying to extradite former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet 20 years ago, has claimed the trial ‘trivialises’ genuine terrorist offences and should never have gone beyond a circuit court.

    Human rights charities such as Amnesty and Fair Trials have criticised the use of anti-terror laws to deal with a bar brawl – which would lead to sentences of up to 60 years for a fractured ankle. To further highlight the absurdity of the charges, Rafa Mora, a Spanish reality TV star who was involved in a bar fight with off-duty police officers was fined €300.

    Ministers have openly commented on the trial. The Interior Minister has tweeted that the testimony of one of the officers was ‘disturbing’; meanwhile the conservative news website El Español has labelled the accused as the ‘children of hatred’, and the formerly liberal El País has described Navarre as a society that is ‘hostage to xenophobia’.

    Yet at the end of the trial, the judge finally allowed evidence from the defence that contradicted court testimonies by the victims and police officers on the scene. In mobile phone footage, one of the victims is seen pacing about outside the pub in a spotless white shirt – despite claiming to have been stamped on and kicked on the pub floor during the attack. The prosecution’s response was to suggest the footage had been edited, and summed up: ‘What we are seeing is fascism in its purest state by the Basque supremacists.’

    Brute force

    A short distance away, in another Madrid courtroom, hearings were taking place for an undoubtedly bigger event: the trials against the more than two dozen Catalan nationalists accused of ‘misappropriation of public funds’, ‘sedition’, ‘rebellion’ and ‘terrorism’.

    This case has received far more international coverage because of the shocking images of Spanish police beating would-be voters in the unconstitutional independence referendum called by the Catalan regional government on October 1, 2017.

    Rebuffed by the central government in Madrid after years of at attempts to negotiate a referendum, the nationalist-controlled regional executive decided to throw down the gauntlet. Quim Arrufat of the hard-left separatist CUP party telegraphed the strategy a year in advance: ‘A unilateral independence referendum would show up the undemocratic contradictions of the state, not just to our people but to the world; so that it resorts to some type of legal or even brute force.’

    The inflexible PM Mariano Rajoy took the bait and sent in the stormtroopers. Since then, Madrid has been reeling, especially as half a dozen of the accused have fled to other jurisdictions and extraditing them is proving to be far from straightforward.

    The lack of violence by the nationalists is the elephant in the room, though it hasn’t stopped the Madrid press from talking up the ‘violence’. It means that the legal case against them is, at best, flimsy. So flimsy, in fact, that a German court took fewer than 48 hours to reject as ‘inadmissible’ the charges of violent rebellion against Carles Puigdemont, the deposed Catalan president who was arrested in Germany on a European Arrest Warrant. It was a double humiliation for Spain: the court took two days to reject six months of legal work by Spanish prosecutors and it also questioned, by implication, the quality of the rule of law in Spain. 

    German hostages

    The result has been a spike in anti-German rhetoric by politicians and the Madrid-based media. The more restrained criticism was that it was an insult for a regional German court to rule against Spain’s Supreme Court, while the more volatile have called the decision ‘racist’ and suggested that ‘there are 200,000 German hostages in the Balearic Islands.’

    Meanwhile, El Español ran a piece on the Schleswig-Holstein’s ‘Nazi heritage’ – helpfully illustrating it with a triptych of mugshots featuring Puigdemont and Nazi war criminals. Germany’s embassy in Madrid was also on the receiving end, with 4,000 messages arriving per day, ‘many in an insulting tone’, to complain about the tribunal’s decision.

    Not ones to let the politicians, media and ordinary public make all the running, Spain’s Supreme Court also weighed in by accusing the German tribunal of a ’lack of rigour’. It also claimed, somewhat cryptically, that had police not intervened on referendum day, “it would have been very probable that a massacre occurred”. It didn’t specify who would have perpetrated the ‘massacre’. Nor did it explain the legal basis for a hypothesis of a crime that never took place actually being a crime. But this fits in with the Orwellian nature of the whole ‘violent’ rebellion charge: In their arrest warrant prosecutors blame the Catalan leadership for inciting civilians for violence on the part of the police, saying that ‘a gathering of approximately 250 people…impeded the access to the polling station…generating the aggression of the officers who intervened.’

    Siege mentality

    The Schleswig-Holstein ruling and the difficulties Spain has encountered in extraditing wanted Catalans from Belgium, Scotland and Switzerland, coupled with what it perceives as unfairly hostile media coverage abroad, has led to a siege mentality. It cuts to the bone even more so because the nationalists are routinely portrayed in the Madrid-based media as xenophobic putschists and even Nazis. Apparently, it doesn’t enter their heads that anyone could characterise them any other way.

    Narratives against Catalan nationalism are so widespread that Spain’s paper of record, El País, has taken to comparing Pep Guardiola, the Catalan manager of Manchester City Football Club, with Joseph Goebbels while pumping out op-eds labelling him a ‘liar’. Guardiola is, of course, a Catalan nationalist and delighted to make the point at every opportunity. It’s not just the media who are hounding Guardiola: his family has been subjected to official harassment with his private jet searched and a car his daughter was travelling in stopped by armed police and searched.

    The media and Twitter are alight with anger and dismay at reports in The Times – whose ‘Spain Again’ editorial got under the skin of quite a few – Le Monde, Washington Post and Der Spiegel criticising Spain. The message being put out is that it is Spain itself on trial, when it should really be the seditious Catalan putschists.

    The mainstream media bristles at this questioning of Spain’s democratic credentials; that Spain’s judiciary is a tool of government policy; and that anyone could think there are ‘political prisoners’ in Spain. They suggest that Spain is once again the victim of ‘black propaganda’ and characterised as Franco-landia.

    As the ultraconservative paper, ABC, put it: ‘On the other side of the Pyrenees, the image of an inquisitional and underdeveloped Spain, pseudo-African and intolerant, is as alive as ever.’

    Lashing out like that is an example of what award-winning writer John Carlin – who is half-Spanish – calls the ‘insecurity’ of Spanish nationalism. Carlin experienced first-hand the backlash against foreign criticism when he was sacked by El País after two decades as a columnist, for criticising the handling of the Catalan crisis. ‘I do not support separatism,’ he told Catalan news site Vilaweb, ‘But that is not enough. You must absolutely scorn secessionists, almost hate them and systematically disrespect them in a visible manner.’

    And Carlin is not alone. Another half-Spanish journalist, Tom Burns, was on the receiving end of a reporter’s ire in a recent El Mundo interview, after he bemoaned police brutality. Asserting that it was a journalist’s job to report the truth, the reporter asked: ‘Why are foreign media portraying Spain as a Francoist country, without separation of powers?

    In tatters

    While the Schleswig-Holstein tribunal gave short shrift to allegations of ‘violent’ rebellion, it asked for more evidence to back up the claims of misappropriation of public funds. But as German magazine Der Spiegel revealed: ‘In their arrest warrant, the Spanish checked the box for corruption but there was no reference in the warrant text indicating that any corruption had occurred.’

    Despite a lack of fundamental evidence to ground the charge, the German court nonetheless sought further particulars, leading Der Spiegel to conclude: ‘the Higher Regional Court ruling was still too merciful with its treatment of the Spanish arrest warrant.’

    While the rebellion charge against Puigdemont is in tatters other Catalan leaders remain in Castilian jails awaiting trial. The former still faces a maximum eight years on the misappropriation charge, although this is seen as insufficient punishment for daring to declare independence.

    But even this is at risk after a bombshell interview by Spain’s finance minister, Cristobal Montoro. El Mundo, the conservative paper he spoke to, didn’t even lead with the claim, preferring to headline on a nothingburger about Rajoy. But his comments were picked up by the Catalan press and the lawyers of the accused.

    Montoro was only repeating what he and PM Rajoy had told Parliament in February: ‘I don’t know with what money they paid for the Chinese ballot boxes,’ he said. ‘But I know it wasn’t public money.’ At a stroke, the man pulling Spain’s purse strings had discredited the prosecutors and police investigators, who, while admitting that they have been ‘unable to determine’ how the referendum was paid for with public funds, claimed that up to €1.9m was misused for such ends. It appears the police have found invoices but have been unable to establish that they were actually paid as no monies were debited to accounts.

    It’s hard not to overstate the anger at Montoro in the Madrid press. Terms such as ‘clumsy’, ‘irresponsible’, ‘unforgivable’ and an ‘own-goal’ were among those that made it to print. Some even thought he was covering his back and called for him to resign. The previously hawkish finance minister is now a marked man, seen as an enabler of putschists.

    Is this a case of a politician being savaged for telling the truth? The police reports are full of holes. The interior minister has admitted that police quadrupled the number of injuries they received while beating would-be voters and, incredibly, the chief leading the investigation has been tweeting about it under the name Tacitus, disparaging the Catalan leaders and making accurate predictions about the legal process, a habit the justice minister Rafael Catala shares. So much for the separation of powers.

    Lack of credibility

    Nowhere is the lack of credibility in police claims more obvious than in the case of the ‘village’ of Sant Esteve de les Roures. A report on Catalan ‘violence’ on referendum day detailed this hamlet as being particularly vicious, with brutal attacks on police officers. Someone spotted that there is no such town and, in the only witty moment of this whole saga, created a Twitter profile claiming to be the town hall.

    They then trolled the police for a month. But, amid the laughs, the fact that the police fabricated violence against them appears to have been forgotten.

    Of the 315 acts of ‘violence’ in that dodgy dossier, almost 200 were nothing more than road blocks in which nobody was physically hurt. But in the current climate, where jeering the national anthem is considered ‘violence’, anything is talked up to support the extradition of Puigdemont & Co.

    Another to bear the brunt of this hyperbolic definition of ‘violence’ is Tamara Carrasco, a 32-year-old Catalan nationalist activist, alleged to be a leader of the Committees for the Defence of the Republic (CDR). She took part in the blocking of a motorway and was charged with terrorism and rebellion. State prosecutors labelled her ‘a clear threat to the established constitutional order’, who carried out ‘acts of rebellion, aimed at normalising disobedience and confrontation with the state, bringing the Catalan sovereignty process to the streets with violent acts’. In a rare outbreak of common sense, the judge dismissed the charges and settled for disobedience. The State has appealed.

    While it would be churlish to compare democratic Spain with Apartheid South Africa, it does bear an uncomfortable similarity in one respect: the use of exaggerated, even spurious, criminal charges to punish and put away for a long time political, to use Benenson’s phrase, non-conformists – and to send a warning to anyone who might think of emulating them. Nelson Mandela, remember, was charged with four counts of sabotage and conspiracy to violently overthrow the government, and served 27 years in jail.

    The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has five criteria for defining a political prisoner. Arguably, all of these apply to the Basque youths – though the Spanish government will point to the caveat that ‘those deprived of their personal liberty for terrorist crimes shall not be considered political prisoners’ – and Catalan politicians and activists, meet three of these, without the aggravation of terrorism.

    Slap in the face

    So, why the outlandish accusations? Well, as in Stalin’s Russia, it makes for a better show trial. But the real reason is that they prefer to lock away Puigdemont & Co for decades rather than eight. The same goes for the Basque youths.

    The Spanish government has been caught flat-footed by the tenacious and tricky Catalan leadership. From being goaded into the PR disaster of sending in police to beat voters to the escape by some to other countries – which has required embarrassing extradition hearings that have humiliated Spain’s justice system – Madrid has looked ham-fisted and authoritarian.

    The problem has been that the government has only one strategy: criminalisation. It worked against ETA terrorism but is proving ineffective against peaceful Catalan nationalism. Hence the constant need to portray Catalan nationalists as xenophobic putschists, which bears similarities with the Russian propaganda campaign against Ukraine.

    It’s likely that the Catalan nationalists expected such a response to their antics. They have always seemed to be one step ahead of Rajoy and his ministers. Even when it looked like they had suffered a setback in Puigdemont’s detention in Germany, the Schleswig-Holstein ruling ended up being a massive slap in the government’s face.

    With no legal mechanism for achieving independence while the government in Madrid refuses to negotiate, the only hope Separatists cling to is that the EU will force Spain to the table. But so far other European powers has shown no inclination to do so, lamely claiming that it’s an ‘internal matter’. Naturally, Madrid rejects the idea out of hand. Foreign Minister Alfonso Dastis said that ‘mediation through a third party would be a victory for Puigdemont.’

    Separatists must either tempt the government into further repression or ‘internationalise’ the problem. In other words, put Spain on trial. The Spanish government’s draconian response to a political impasse and amateurish attempts at securing extraditions have drawn the eyes of Europe to a justice system that appears to be at the beck and call of the government.

  • The Subversion of Subversion

    Professional experience as a criminal lawyer has shaped my appreciation of the interplay between political subversion and its criminalisation. I have observed how real subversion often emanates from those state authorities inflicting punishment against the supposedly subversive.

    This has come into sharp focus since a German court declined to extradite the deposed Catalan president Carles Puigdemont on foot of an arrest warrant requested by the Spanish government. Puidgemont is alleged to have used the public purse to fund the referendum, this despite Spain’s Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy actually admitting to parliament that he had not done so. Nonetheless, he faces the charge of rebellion in Spain carrying a prison sentence of up to 30 years, despite the non-violent approach. Fortunately, the German court decided that the offence was not the equivalent of treason under German law, which requires actual violence.

    Subversion is deviation from a social construct or norm and, of course, a positive law. But the norm or law may in itself be morally fallible or sanctionable, and even subversive, an understanding state authorities generally refuse to permit.

    In staging the referendum, Puidgemont was initiating a measure for which he received an electoral mandate from a large proportion of the Catalan people. The Spanish government responded in a manner that suggested it was reacting to a violent uprising, when there was no such thing. State violence is ongoing.

    Spain has long been an aggregation of regional entities run from the centre, often in autocratic fashion. Under the Franco dictatorship (1939-75) non-Spanish identities were actively suppressed. Many inhabitants of the Basque country and Catalonia now regard themselves as belonging to distinct nations. Catalan separatism is not purely atavistic nationalism however, it also flows from a shared belief in republicanism, socialism and anarchism, and a repudiation of the political heirs of Franco operating in the ruling Partido Popular (PP).

    Throughout history states have behaved criminally and used the law to justify it, as we are witnessing in Spain today.

    The norm of Inca civilisation was the blood sacrifice of human victims. Euphemistically phrased, the norm of Nazi law was the ‘evacuation of the Jews’ or the ‘final solution of the Jewish question’. The norm of law enforcement in the Deep South of the United States until the 1950s was the lynching of African-Americans. The norm of the Irish police seems to be to frame people for sexual abuse. These norms are all anathema to fundamental human rights, but were carried out, or at least permitted, by state institutions.

    A deviant and subversive state projects deviancy and subversion on its victims. Contrary views are tightly controlled. Thus the dissident or conscientious objector is prosecuted, sometimes for treason, as a deviation from an oppressive norm. For example, Andrei Sakharov, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning scientist and dissident, was imprisoned by the authorities in the Soviet Union for subversion.

    Increasingly, protesters, leftists, and even human rights lawyers are labelled subversives by authorities subverting the institutions of the state. In Ireland politically-motivated prosecutions have been brought against elected representatives taking part in demonstrations. The Irish judiciary have to some extent resisted the subversive tide, but we may ask how long their independence will endure.

    II

    How are we to explain why more Spaniards are not resisting their government? We may assume that what Michel Foucault describes as the internalisation of punishment for deviant or unorthodox behaviour occurs. There is no need for a secret police force if people are disciplining their own inclinations to resist.

    Foucault said that the direct punishment of earlier times had been internalised, and made more insidious by the exercise of social control in schools, hospitals and factories. In a 1978 interview he said:

    In my book on the birth of the prison, I tried to show how the idea of a technology of individuals, a certain type of power, was exercised over individuals in order to tame them, shape them and guide their conduct as a kind of strict correlative to the birth of a liberal type of regime. Beyond the prison itself, a carceral style of reasoning, focused on punishable deviations from the norm, thus came to inform a wide variety of modern institutions. In schools, factories and army barracks, authorities carefully regulated the use of time (punishing tardiness, slowness, the interruption of tasks) activity (punishing inattention, negligence a lack of zeal); speech (punishing idle chatter, insolence, profanity); the body (punishing poor posture, dirtiness, lack in stipulated reflexes) and finally sexuality (punishing impurity,)

    Right-wing conservatives across the world have always been concerned about the radicalisation of youth, and seen universities as hotbeds of opposition and free thinking. This is leading to the marginalisation and demonisation of left-wing scholars, but the internalisation of control has a more dangerous outcome.

    In colleges, universities and schools we find widespread suppression of free speech and discourse. Discussion is increasingly confined to narrow parameters, with potentially divisive subjects avoided. A generation of rote learners, not critical thinkers, is on the rise. We are in an age of conformity, where obedience has become a sine qua non for career advancement, as Noam Chomsky reminds Andrew Marr in this interview for the BBC in the 1990s.

    The era of uninhibited and rambunctious debate in campuses is drawing to a close. One reason is the so-called ‘snowflake’ phenomenon, where anything remotely controversial is deemed too upsetting for the listener. This is a method of thought control, which often serves to diminish criticism of vested interests. All of these cultural factors are yielding a generation (with many honourable exceptions) who are technocratic and dangerously compliant: a growing body of amoral ‘yes men’ who willingly carry out orders.

    Moreover, within the college structure, promotion and preferment is linked to an increasingly controlled discourse where ideas that cut across dominant norms are penalised. The new paradigm is neoliberal and knee-jerk conservatism, which morphs easily into the kind of authoritarian rule we see mustering in Spain – a democracy with the trappings of a dictatorship.

    An indicator of a growing educational void in that country is the current investigation there into irregularities into the seemingly corrupt way a master’s degree was awarded to Madrid regional premier Cristina Cifuentes. The scandal has extended to another representative of the ruling Partido Popular (PP) whose qualification did not require him to attend class or take exams. The public university King Juan Carlos University has strong ties to the conservative government: he who pays the piper calls the ideological tune. Across the world, it is increasingly advantageous for academics to adopt right-wing viewpoints.

    In conjunction with a compliant Spanish media – including, regrettably, the once liberal El País – it means views offending a dominant norm are characterised as deviant or dissident, or subversive. Yet the norm itself may be subversive, as in the Spanish government’s reaction to Catalan separatism.

    III

    Treason has always been a political prosecution by the victors. Sir John Lavery’s famous portrait of the Court of Appeal trial of Roger Casement springs to mind. He was charged with high treason and executed by the British for attempting to end their rule in Ireland. Mr Justice Darling gazes down on him with barely concealed contempt. The accused looks depressed, as well he might. Casement, once the terrorist, is today held up as a hero and martyr in Ireland. One should always interrogate who is accusing whom of treason, and why.

    Sir John Lavery’s painting of the trial of Roger Casement.

    The great Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca was brutally murdered in 1936 for his opposition to the violent imposition of an authoritarian quasi-fascist state in Spain. The rebel who wins becomes a national hero: to the victor the spoils of office, including the judicial arm.

    Woe betide his enemies, such as Lorca. Ironically in the Spain Civil War (1936-39) it was traitors who murdered him: traitors against a legitimate left-wing coalition government. The Nationalists rebelled, invaded Spain from colonies in Morocco and took Lorca’s life, along with hundreds of thousands of others.

    During and after the Civil War, the victorious Nationalists charged thousands of vanquished Republicans with treason for defending a legitimately constituted state. Thus we found the subversive justice of the traitorous victors against the constitutional losers.

    High treason is generally a dubious classification intimately connected to power. The Spanish government has the power in Spain today, and is ruthlessly subverting the law for political ends.

    In an age of ascendant nationalism and irredentism, the vectors of centralisation and monolithic control are growing more resilient as transnational agencies fragment. The EU has looked on at what is happening in Spain with the insouciance of a latter-day Neville Chamberlain.

    This even after Pablo Casado the Prime Minister Rajoy’s spokesman warned that Pudgemont would end up like Catalan Civil War independence leader Lluís Companys. Companys was handed over to Franco’s regime by the Gestapo and shot by firing squad in 1940. Considering the lack of independence of the Spanish judiciary, any prosecution seems likely to be a show trial.

    At least the Schleswig-Holstein court scrupulously examined the extradition warrant against Puidgemont to assess whether the Spanish offence of rebellion was at idem with an allegation of high treason under German law. For a European arrest warrant to succeed, the court must be satisfied that there is an identical offence under domestic law. This involves a comparison of the matter and detail of the laws operating in each jurisdiction.

    The loose definition of violence under the Spanish law of rebellion indicated it was not equivalent to the German law of treason. That objective assessment has unleashed a hysterical response from members of the Spanish government and media, including El País, amidst claims that the decision was politically motivated. More substantively, an appeal has been lodged with European Court of Justice in Luxembourg.

    German courts enjoy a reputation for impartiality. But given the extremely political nature of the charge, one may wonder whether political pressure was applied to the court. The political motivation would surely have been to favour the Spanish government’s argument. So hurrah for the presiding judge Martin Probst and his colleagues Matthias Hohmann and Matthias Schiemann.

    Subversion of political objectives, where the judiciary upholds human rights, may have negative consequences for individual judges who feel the pinch of state control, seen starkly in Poland. But as Foucault observed, modern punishments act more subtly through the internalisation of subversive norms.

    IV

    An Enemy of The People is perhaps Henrik Ibsen’s most overtly political play. The premise is simple: a prominent and well-connected local engineer, whose brother is the town mayor, is asked to conduct a survey of the municipal water supply. The town in question is famous as a spa resort, attracting a great deal of tourism. But when the tests are carried out, he finds serious impurities and informs the townsfolk of the results.

    The reaction is revealing, and dispiriting. Rather than lauding his wisdom in carrying out the analysis, vested interests turn on him with ever-increasing ferocity. A storm of hatred is unleashed.

    He will destroy the local economy. Livelihoods will be effected. The industry of the town will suffer. The whistleblower is shunned, ostracised, victimised. His family is torn apart and he becomes an enemy of the people. The mob descends in all its unfettered glory.

    Those that seek to expose corruption – its multi-hydra tentacles which reach the highest levels of power – are often disposed of by whatever means necessary. They have drawn the enmity of the powerful: the ones who matter.

    Puigdemont is no money launderer or expropriator of public funds, as many in the highest ranks of the PP have been revealed to be. He is no traitor, but an elected representative who endeavoured to offer the Catalan people the chance to declare a desire for independence, only to see the attempt attacked by the central government, whose violent excesses recalls the the Franco dictatorship.

    We often see mismatches between crime and punishment. The fictional John Valgean in Victo Hugo’s Les Miserables is maliciously persecuted for his theft of a loaf of bread. On the other extreme, those companies that now systematically plunder the world’s environment and usher in an era of unheard of inequality escape punishment having manipulated democracy.

    It’s quite simple. Subversives among the corporate elite would prefer a centralised Spain. An independent Catalonia or Basque country could spell trouble for transnational commerce.

    So let us take stock and assess carefully the use of terms such as dissidence, subversion and deviance which are bandied about. Let us consider who are the real traitors.

    Rebellion may be rebellion against tyranny, or it may be a counter-revolution involving those who are resistant to genuine democracy. So let us be wary of subversion by those who are themselves subversives.

    This article was written in collaboration with Frank Armstrong and A. Reynolds.

  • The Slow Death of Irish Nature

    ‘Blade Runner 2049’ is a sci-fi follow up to the 1982 cult classic starring Harrison Ford and Sean Young. Our future hero is Ryan Gosling who navigates a lonely, desolate world amid general dystopian bleakness. The viewer is told that by 2049 all ecosystems have collapsed, leaving a sterile planet, allowing humans to survive only due to our air and water purifying technology. Food is the produce of industrial laboratories and citizens eek out their pointless existences huddled in soulless (and loveless) cities. It’s not pretty, and 2049 is only 30 years off – eek!

    Although evidently a work of fiction, the idea that we stand on an ecological precipice is very much the stuff of daily news. Two studies in particular, one on the decline of insect populations in Germany, the other on the disappearance of farmland birds in France, really let the headline writers out of the traps.

    Scientists warn of ‘ecological Armageddon’ after study shows flying insect numbers plummeting by 75% warned the London Independent; Europe faces ‘biodiversity oblivion’ after collapse in French birds howled the Guardian, which went on to say that “intensive farming and pesticides could turn Europe’s farmland into a desert that ultimately imperils all humans”.

    Environmentalists lap this up – it bolsters what we’ve been crying about for years (and decades in some cases). Maybe, now that we’re all about to die a horrible death, politicians and policy makers will finally take us seriously and do what’s necessary to avert calamity. But hold up a sec. How exactly does turning Europe’s farmland into a desert imperil all humans? Sure, flying insects pollinate crops – and I’ll miss apples and strawberries when their price rockets because pollination has to be done by people with feather dusters – but I’m not going to starve! Where are the facts behind these doomsday assertions? What does it even mean when an ecosystem collapses?

    II

    Surprisingly, the idea of ‘collapse’ is not nearly as well studied as you might imagine. The book of the same name, by polymath Jared Diamond, looked at the collapse of societies, or human civilisations, which generally features environmental change as one of a number of factors.

    For instance, the collapse of the Viking settlements in Greenland was largely due to the inability of the farmers, with their cows and oats, to adapt to colder conditions – even thought the Inuit alongside them did just fine hunting and gathering.

    The Maya civilisation of Central America may well have collapsed primarily due to environmental changes, but it did not mean that all the Maya people died out – many people of Maya descent live in Central American countries today.

    We have our own example right here in Ireland – the Céide Field dairy farming community on the north coast of County Mayo made a living from the land up to about 5,000 years ago. Some believe that the collapse of their society was partly due to deforestation, which made the soil wetter, and promoted the spread of bog and the loss of nutrients. Yet farming in Ireland continued.

    Instances where all life has been destroyed are rare if non-existent – the only example I can think of are the oceanic dead zones where so much farm and human waste has been dumped in the sea that bacterial action has sucked all oxygen from the water (none of these thankfully are anywhere near Ireland). Even deserts are not dead.

    The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is the global body which monitors the health of Earth’s ecosystems and it is best known for its conservation assessments of individual species, which results in endangered species lists (or ‘red lists’ as they’re known). Its assessment of habitats – that is, the environments in which species live – is much less developed. It does however provide a useful definition to allow us to tell when a whole ecosystem has collapsed:

    “An ecosystem is considered collapsed when it is virtually certain that it’s defining biotic [living] or abiotic [non-living] features are lost, and the characteristic native biota [i.e. the plants and animals] are no longer sustained. […] Collapse is a transformation of identity, a loss of defining features, and/or replacement by a different, novel ecosystem”.

    As an example it shows how the Aral Sea in Central Asia, which was once the fourth largest inland water body in the world. Extraction of the water for agricultural irrigation meant that by the late 1980s  most of the water had disappeared along with the community of plants and animals which once lived there. The Aral Sea today is not a dead zone, plants and animals continue to live there, but it is drastically different to what it was. It no longer supports the livelihoods which once sustained themselves by fishing, and salt intrusion from deep in the soil means that it may never recover.

    Another example of ecosystem collapse is the Grand Banks cod fishery off the coast of Newfoundland. There, despite the ending of all fishing in the 1990s, the cod have not returned. In both cases, the loss of the ecosystem led to devastating social and environmental disruption. Yet nobody died and life in these areas goes on (of the human and non-human kind), and a new normal has settled in. Sad tales to be sure, but it’s a far cry from Hollywood disaster zone.

    III

    To get a glimpse of what it’s like to live in a collapsed ecosystem just take a trip to Iceland. When the first human settlers arrived there around the end of the first millennium AD they found a country that was up to 40% covered in forest. The rest of Iceland was covered in a near-sterile ice sheet or bare volcanic rock.

    Like farming communities everywhere they set about felling the trees to plant crops or graze animals. The forests were a source of fuel and fodder for people and their animals but nevertheless deforestation continued right up to the 1950s. The result was massive soil erosion which prohibits the growth of any vegetation, as well as destructive sand storms as the fierce sub-Artic wind whips up the loose soil.

    Today Iceland has virtually no forest left and establishing new woodland has proven to be extremely difficult. Much of Iceland is now technically a desert. Nevertheless, its small population enjoys a high standard of living and a consumer culture that is available to anyone else in the world on a middle-class income.

    It is currently enjoying a tourist boom, with more visitors perhaps than it can cope with, and these people are drawn primarily for its dramatic landscapes. Modern technology means that no one goes hungry or wants for freshwater. They have abundant geothermal energy which is even being harnessed to grow peppers and tomatoes in polytunnels outside Reykjavik. They also have a renowned fishing industry which, due to good management, is still productive.

    Visitors to Iceland scarcely notice that they are traversing a collapsed ecosystem but are nevertheless enthralled by its beauty and grandeur. So the question is posed: is it possible for the natural world to collapse all around us and, rather than provoking death and destruction, for it be met with a shrug? Maybe there will be no point of reckoning, no fulcrum upon which the attention of politicians will swing towards policies which are genuinely geared towards restoring the living world. Maybe it will happen and we’ll be too busy on our screens to pay any attention.

    IV

    Take a look at the environmental history of Ireland. It is believed that when people first arrived on our island the land was cloaked with extensive oak forests. In between there were wetlands (bogs, swamps and the like), lakes and rivers, and maybe the very tops of some of the higher mountains had no trees. The oceans teemed with life.

    Now-extinct Sturgeon in the Natural History Museum.

    5,000 years ago the first farming communities emerged and, just like in Iceland, this was associated with deforestation. Some species went extinct in this time, such as the brown bear, lynx and wild cat, and this is bound to have had an effect on the forests that remained. Up to 500 or 600 years ago, most of these ecosystems on land and sea were largely intact. Forest cover had reduced dramatically (one reference gives forest cover as about one eighth of the land cover in 1600) but our rivers ran free, great wetlands held flocks of cranes and wolves were widespread.

    By 1800 the forest ecosystem had collapsed completely, at this stage only tiny fragments remained while key forest animals like the wild boar had vanished (wild boar increase woodland biodiversity and help in the germination of tree seedlings by rooting in the soil). The wolf was also extinct. Most people appreciate that food webs are impacted when only one species is taken out, though oftentimes the exact impact can be hard to discern. Not the wolf – we now know just how important the presence of a top predator is in keeping all the plants and animals in check, not only deer but the smaller predators like foxes.

    By the end of the 1800’s not only the wolf but all the large birds of prey (two species of eagle, Red Kite, Buzzard, Osprey, Goshawk and Marsh Harrier) were also gone. By 1920 the extinction tally was added to further. Even the North Atlantic Right Whale – hunted off the coast of Donegal in the early 1900s – had disappeared completely.

    All the same, the rivers were still bursting with fish and pollution was virtually unheard off. Vast oyster beds around the coast had been dredged away but the sea’s bounty remained  immeasurable. There had been lots of turf-cutting for domestic fuel but there were still vast areas of intact bog and fen, and floodplains which attracted enormous numbers of birds – particularly those which laid their eggs on the ground, like Corncrakes, Lapwings, Curlews and Redshanks. In winter these areas hosted great flocks of wintering geese, ducks and swans. The air would have constantly been alive with their calls. Since that time let’s take a look at what has happened:

    • The area of midlands raised bog has been reduced to 0.63% of its original extent, primarily from industrial-scale open pit mining. There are no untouched bogs remaining and the best example (Clara Bog in Offaly) has a road slicing through it.
    Industrial scale peat extraction is a feature of many midland counties.
    • The Office of Public Works have deepened and straightened 11,500km of river channel under the Arterial Drainage Act of 1942, cutting rivers off from their natural flood plains. Impassable dams on the Shannon, Erne, Liffey and Lee (among others) mean migratory fish cannot access their traditional spawning grounds. Salmon and Eel populations have collapsed to the point where both species are threatened with extinction. There are virtually no Salmon in the River Shannon above the Ardnacrusha dam today.
    • Approximately half of water bodies (lakes, rivers, estuaries) are polluted while the number of ‘pristine’ water sites has dwindled from over 500 in the 1980s to only 21 today. There is no river left in Ireland healthy enough to allow Freshwater Pearl Mussels to breed in.
    Drainage has drastically altered many Irish rivers, leading to flooding.
    • Of the great peat bogs which stretch across the West of Ireland and other mountain areas, only 28% are ‘worthy of conservation’ – as the rest has been destroyed beyond salvation by conifer plantations and drainage, while fires, turf-cutting, wind farms etc. have left none of our upland habitats in ‘good condition’ according to the National Parks and Wildlife Service.
    Conifer plantation smother landscapes, communities and wildlife.
    • Fish are no longer present in coastal waters in any abundance – traditional fisheries for Herring, Mackerel, Cod, Whiting, Bass, Sole, Plaice, Turbot and other flatfish have all but disappeared. ‘Fishing’ today in these areas is not for fish but crustaceans (prawns, crabs and lobsters) while the real fishing is done by enormous factory boats far out to sea. Bottom trawling and dredging – which obliterate seafloor communities of plants and animals – is carried out practically everywhere, and sometimes more than once a year. It not only results in habitat loss but overfishing of non-target species and colossal waste (up to 90% of the contents of a prawn trawl can be dumped overboard).
    • Modern farming relies increasingly on inputs of chemical sprays or reseeding, which eradicates wild plants and animals with brutal efficiency. The next time you look at a farmer’s field see how many flowers or flying insects you can count.
    • 62% of sharks and rays occurring in Irish waters are threatened with extinction. Some, such as the angel shark, flapper skate and porbeagle shark, are critically endangered.
    Bumble bees are vital pollinators of wild plants as well as fruit crops.
    • Conservation assessments have been carried out for mammals, birds, moths, plants, mayflies, dragonflies, amphibians, reptiles, freshwater fish, butterflies, water beetles, freshwater molluscs, sharks, and bees. On average a third of all of these species are either ‘threatened’ or ‘near threatened’ with extinction.
    • There is documented evidence that about 115 species of plant and animal have gone extinct from Ireland since the arrival of humans. Many more have gone from common and widespread to the verge of extinction in the space of my lifetime, such as the curlew, the nightjar and the purple sea urchin (I’m 44).

    In the words of the IUCN all of our ecosystems – on land and at sea – have suffered a transformation of identity, a loss of defining features and a replacement by a different/novel ecosystem. They have all collapsed. Yet this has largely gone unnoticed, unremarked upon and even unappreciated by many environmentalists and ecologists in Ireland.

    IV

    Today, unlike the Greenland Vikings or the Maya, we draw on resources from across the entire planet. My ice cream might contain palm oil grown on land which once had rich Indonesian rain forest, the steak I order in my local restaurant may come from a cow raised on deforested land in Brazil or my smoked salmon may be indirectly resulting in overfishing of a fish species I’ve never heard of before, in a lawless part of the high seas.

    Many Irish cows, destined to be eaten in China, have been raised by eating not only locally grown grass, but soya products from South America. Much of the time it’s virtually impossible to know what the impact of our purchasing decisions has been. Does this mean that while we may live happy, cosseted lives in our own degraded environment, we are really just exporting ecosystem collapse to the farthest reaches of the planet? Are we living on borrowed time?

    Nearly 10 years ago an international team of scientists tried to answer this question and the answer was: probably. Their paper, Planetary Boundaries: Exploring the Safe Operating Space for Humanity, published in the journal Ecology and Society in 2009, identified nine planetary boundaries within which ‘humanity can operate safely’. These included climate change, ocean acidification, ozone depletion, use of freshwater, biodiversity loss and land-system change.

    For three of these, climate change, biodiversity loss and disruption of the nitrogen cycle, we have already broken through the limits of what is sustainable. In 2012 a study led by Anthony Barnosky of the University of California, Berkeley was published in the journal Nature. It asked whether humans are forcing a planetary-scale transition “with the potential to transform Earth rapidly and irreversibly into a state unknown in human experience”. It concluded that the plausibility of such an eventuality “seems high”. One of the authors told the New York Times that “the situation scares the hell out me”.

    In Ireland these arguments seem abstract despite the fact that the natural world has collapsed all around us. We rely entirely on purification technology for drinkable water as the water from rivers and lakes would otherwise make us sick. Thousands of people have been put out of work around our coasts after fish populations vanished, and continue to disappear (there is currently talk that traditional eel fishermen are in line for compensation in return for handing in their nets; the volume of exported lobsters fell by 20% in 2017 etc.).

    Extinction brings with it the irreversible loss of heritage, tradition and folklore. Across Ireland farming of any kind is increasingly a loss-making enterprise – according to Teagasc sheep, beef and tillage sectors rely entirely on state aid for an income. Even the much-touted dairy sector is heavily dependent upon subsidies which perversely promote pollution, habitat loss and further extinction.

    We have a forestry sector which is dominated by non-native conifer monocultures to produce cheap furniture and costs Irish taxpayers €100 million per year. Meanwhile climate change, along with ecological collapse, has left farmers and foresters more vulnerable than ever to extreme weather events, disease and other influences beyond their control. These changes will be calamitous for some, but for most it will unfold with a shrug.

    V

    Our lives are not quite as devoid of colour as the inhabitants of the imaginary city in Blade Runner but they are increasingly dependent upon technology and more divorced from nature. Few people today know the taste of wild salmon or hear the sound of the curlew and we are all the poorer for it.

    To bring nature back we need to change the story. We need to start talking more about the opportunities and not only about the threats. What if we planted enormous forests of native trees in which there could be food production, recreation and valuable timber? What if we could rebuild the health of the sea so that a net full of fresh Herring or Oysters or Turbot could be sold at the pier from a small, low-impact fishing boat? What if we restored our uplands and rivers so that anglers could once again catch monster Salmon; or if we had clean water to drink, and farmers could pick up a pearl (from a Freshwater Pearl Mussel) from the bottom of a sparkling river? What if we transformed the open cast peat mines across the midlands into a wilderness with bears, cranes, wolves and flocks of wild birds which darken the sky?

    Killarney National Park – under threat from invasive species and grazing by animals.

    These are experiences which would enrich our country not only for visitors but for the people who live in these areas. We have a long way to go before life itself is snuffed out and Ireland still has amazing wildlife spectacles. But these are getting fewer in number all the time. Dramatic changes are upon us and uncertainty lies ahead. We can shrug our shoulders and allow ourselves to be carried away, or we can be bold and create a future for our children which is not merely habitable, but rich and rewarding.

    Pádraic Fogarty is an ecologist and campaign officer with the Irish Wildlife Trust. His book, Whittled Away – Ireland’s Vanishing Nature was published in 2017 by Collins Press. He tweets under the handle @whittledaway

  • Earthsong – The Winged Moment as it Flies

    Earthsong camps assemble people of all ages, who converge in a natural setting to sing and dance their hearts out. Using the UK-based Unicorn camps as a model, Earthsong was engendered in Ireland by John Bowker and Angie Pinson in 2007. Other influences include Oak Dragon camps, and even Glastonbury.

    Earthsong offers an escape from the humdrum: a temporary ‘liminal’ space to explore wildness and sensitivities. As the week progresses the feeling of separation from normality grows. At Earthsong there are no age restrictions leading to a mélange of generations. Families make up the majority of participants, and almost half of those in attendance are under eighteen.

    Some come simply for a family holiday, or to spend a sociable week camping; others seek to drop out of ‘reality’ for a period. It is a space where esoteric ideas flourish as like-minded souls celebrate shared outlooks. For some Earthsong counteracts feelings of negativity towards spiritual ideas, born out of compulsion in their religious upbringings.

    The field where Earthsong is located is found up a leafy lane-way set away from the road. On arrival participants are greeted by whimsical signs such as ‘Warning, fairies crossing’. Magic is in the air. At the top of the lane, a ‘gatekeeper’, in a fairy costume, greets new arrivals.

    Dropping off one’s car on the ‘outside’ before stepping into the arena is the first stage in a rite of passage. Upon arrival participants choose a circle in which to pitch their tent, where it remains for the duration. Each circle contains approximately twenty people. These clusters lie on the edge of the field, while social spaces such as the Big Top, yurts, Big White marquee, café and shop are centrally located.

    Throughout the week all live and cook as one over a central fire, and participate in a multitude of group activities. This type of communal living is novel for many – and can be challenging if one is accustomed to the usual separation from one’s neighbours.

    It can be intense, both physically and psychologically, but rewarding too. This is an extreme and concentrated example of community, providing insights into how wider communal and ecologically-minded societies could evolve.

    II

    Earthsong offers a space to explore essential characteristics of our humanity through workshops that are on offer throughout the week. These range from tribal-drumming, basket-weaving, ‘family constellations’, African dance, non-violent communication, laughter-yoga, yurt-making, group-singing, sound-healing to circle dance, depending on the camp. There are two seven-day camps each summer in County Tipperary, ‘Dance Camp’ and ‘Harvest Camp’, as well as two three-day camps in County Clare.

    Through altered language, behaviours and activities Earthsong generates separation from the ‘outside world’, or ‘muggle land’, as it is jokingly referred to1. This isolation contributes to the unique atmosphere of the retreat, allowing participants to forget aspects of their lives on the outside.

    A serious challenge is the absence of electricity, although, communal showers, heated by a wood-burning stove, are available in a wooden lodge. People are also encouraged to switch off mobile phones, or store them in cars or tents.

    There is a strict no alcohol or drugs policy, which provides a rare experience in Ireland, and is a defining feature of the Earthsong experience. ‘Natural highs’ are achieved through events such as drumming and group singing. Safety is the principal rational for this. The ban on intoxicants makes Earthsong family-friendly, and also means everyone is on the same ‘buzz’.

    Earthsong is respectful of all spiritual traditions, but is not affiliated to any particular belief system, and organisers consciously avoid dogma. Nonetheless, ritual plays a defining role, from symbolic hand-gestures to welcoming ceremonies, and the Firedance; these generate an aura of mystery and forge community.

    Earthsong is a patchwork of cultures and rites, holding each one in equal esteem. The musical practices at Earthsong include west African drumming and chanting, African dance, kirtan, circle dance, folk music, among many others.

    III

    What is it that attracts people to countercultural, alternative living, such as is experienced at  Earthsong, even temporarily? To some extent it is a way of life and set of attitudes that are consciously differentiated from any dominant culture.

    This may be born out of dissatisfaction with society as it has developed, where an increasing obsession with technology, a Neoliberal outlook, lack of care for the environment and stressful work-life imbalances leads to alienation, anxiety and a growing culture of fear or distrust. It also reflects a desire to restore spirituality and purpose, and discover alternatives to destructive patterns of unsustainable living2.

    An alternative standpoint is to view Earthsong in terms of what people are moving towards rather than what they are running from3. Many who attend Earthsong do not lack for community or a sustainable lifestyle beyond the camp. It often serves to affirm lifestyles rooted in nature and creative thought.

    The word liminality derives from the Latin ‘limin’ meaning ‘threshold’, and was first identified by Arnold van Gennep in 1909 in his study Les Rites de Passage. He suggested that customs within social groups are linked to sacred phases. In many instances the passage from one phase to another – whether ageing, illnesses or change in season – involve some sort of ceremony, or rite of passage.

    He suggests there are three stages to this ritual process; the first involves a separation from everyday life preliminaire; this is followed by the liminal, or ‘in-between’ phase liminaire, where status is removed and daily routine is replaced by devotion to the sacred. The third phase is reaggregation, or post-liminaire, where the initiate returns to everyday life, newly defined and ‘transformed’ by the ritual journey.

    Van Gennep’s description of the liminaire phase inspired Victor Turner in the 1960s to develop the term ‘betwixt and between’ to describe the liminal state of hippies and the Beat Generation (The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure, 1969).

    Van Gennep’s theory had been applied to non-Western societies, but Turner used them for modern society, applying the term ‘liminoid’ for a state of being that was ‘like-liminal’, but not quite. He cited the hippies of the 1960s as examples, especially those choosing to live in a society on the threshold of ‘traditional’, mainstream and structured society.

    Turner adopted the term ‘structural outsiderhood’ for a state of mind of ‘normal’ citizens who have yet to reach the ‘utopia’ they wish and fight for.  As such, they float in a liminoid space. It is perhaps this ‘liminoid’ element, in combination with the more ‘traditional’, ritual-based liminal element, that best describes the music found at Earthsong.

    IV

    Communitas is a Latin noun referring either to an unstructured community in which people are equal, or to the spirit of community itself. There are varying levels of communitas operating at Earthcamp, including existential (or spontaneous) communitas in what William Blake knew as the winged moment as it flies4. Ironically, it is the fate of all existential communitas to ‘decline and fall’ into structure.

    Loersch and Arbuckle5 argue that music evolved as a mechanism to create and maintain group structure by acting as a form of social communication – a tool to share a group’s mental state with others, without the need for direct interaction. They hypothesised that a musical performance uniquely influences the behaviours and emotions of participants, thus creating a coordinated group.

    There is evidence that synchronised movement in response to music amplifies this bonding process. This occurs in dance. Others suggest that ‘musicking’ provides a space where traditional status hierarchies no longer hold (Bergh (2010)6 and Boyce-Tillman (2009)7).

    Reilly, in her study of the Magi people of Southeast Brazil, suggests that to experience ‘musical communitas’ is to experience: ‘a sense of intersubjectivity, which neutralises structure and creates the illusion of anti-structure’8. She goes on to suggest that all musical activity entails ritualised behaviour, ‘obscuring the divide’ between the sacred and the profane.

    Therefore, ‘enchantment’ is not only found in religious contexts: any environment that encourages an experience of communitas through music conjures an alternative social reality into being.

    It is in this world of enchantment that participants construct and experience the ‘harmonious order’ that could merge with an external reality; a mystical vision which is often out of step with dominant ideas in our culture.

    In The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible, Charles Eisenstein develops the age-old concept of ‘interbeing’, the idea of everything in the universe being interconnected9. This ‘echoes the worldview’ of ancient tribes and traditions across time and space, challenging us to ‘look beyond the world of concepts and opposites’, and thereby put aside our differences.

    Eisenstein speaks of humans experiencing a ‘separation’ from interconnectedness, embodied in money, school, religion and politics, which have the potential to alienate and destruct. He warns against the contemporary ‘glorification of change…of constantly discarding the old’, which may become a form of escapism.

    While appropriation of native spirituality has been condemned as cultural murder, Eisenstein suggests this interest comes from a recognition that indigenous peoples have retained for millennia that which ‘we of the West are finally ready to hear, as our own rituals, myths, and institutions break down’.

    He uses the term ‘Age of Reunion’ to describe this reintegration. This also offers a defence against the charge of acquisition of anOther’s traditions; looking beyond borders and boundaries and acknowledging our dependence on, and connectedness with, all other members of our species (the important ethical considerations of this concept lie far beyond the reaches of this current research).

    V

    Throughout the camp Heartsong took place at 8.45 am each morning in the Big Top, after the kirtan session and Dance of Life. Heartsong means to sing ‘from the heart’, to sing one’s emotions out in full, alongside others.

    The songs chosen are traditional from a variety of sources as well as contemporary numbers written by Heartsong facilitators. Usually practised in simple four-part harmony in repetitive lines, Heartsong melodies and words tend to evoke powerful emotions.

    On one such morning during Dance camp I arrived at 8.40am, just in time to witness the gentle practice of lighting the tea-lights around the altar. It was a slow start, with participants trickling in through one of the four entrances of the tent. We were invited to stand in one of four sections (‘tops’, altos, tenors, bass) in a circle around a central column or ‘altar’.

    We were given a short background to the songs we were about to sing, and reassured that we did not have to be great singers. The precise cultural context of the songs was not always of primary importance. Similarly, Tríona Ní Shíocháin in her discussion of Irish traditional song, wrote that in the re-creation of oral transmission, the singer enters a ludic, playful space, where new ideas and interpretations come to the fore, and a collective identity is thereby reinvented10.

    In the case of Heartsong where most, if not all, participants are unfamiliar with the language of the lyrics, one is left to interpret feelings through the sound, rather than the meaning of the words. This can represent a space of empathy and imagination.

    That morning as we began to learn our parts, through repetition of the slow, simple phrases, more and more people joined the group. Once all the sections were up to speed, we were ready to begin singing in unison.

    We began by creating a space of safety, using a Maori signal. This involved placing one’s right hand on the heart and holding the other out in front, with everyone singing a collective ‘ooooo’, while wiggling the fingers of their left hand. Thus we sent a wave of energy from our fingertips to the people around us.

    We were reminded that the space of Heartsong might lead to powerful release of emotion. The importance of safety was repeatedly highlighted throughout: there was a recognition that what we were doing could be misconstrued beyond the gates.

    The gate-crew could be seen as guarding the entrance ‘over the limen’ into the space of Earthsong, enhancing one’s journey through the camp.

    Organisers spoke of our ‘tribe’, and the idea of sending the energy of songs to our ‘people’, be they ‘rivers, animals [or] trees’. We were encouraged to look out for participants whose emotions were triggered by the experience.

    At my first camp two years before, I must admit, it was an unsettling sight and sound. We are not accustomed to such raw emotions being on show, we are used to hiding these as we proceed on our generally solitary path through the maze of social life.

    Heartsong provides a caring, non-judgmental space in which emotions are welcomed and honoured.

    One evening there was a ‘Forest Songs’ session held below a circle of trees, which had a profoundly ethereal quality. It was a unique feeling to sing one’s heart out in the company of trees. On the night approximately sixty participants gathered under the canopy with the singing facilitators in the centre. Faces could only be distinguished by flickering candle-light.

    VI

    The Firedance, weather-permitting, takes place at the centre of the field as the festival draws to a close. During the day a huge fire of slab-wood and logs are constructed by volunteers.

    The drummers attend a practice earlier on the day, so the Firedance commences immediately. We are encouraged to think as a whole community, not just one, and to believe that by taking part in the Firedance we are welcoming ancient traditions, and acknowledging all indigenous communities, who form part of a collective ancestry.

    The dangers and force of the fire is not taken lightly, and as I experienced on a windy evening, the flames and smoke are highly unpredictable. The danger is acknowledged and respected, and we are all responsible for one another’s safety. We step into a dangerous environment, but that fire represents life and our wild natures, and reminds us to look out for one another.

    While liminal spaces are sites of togetherness and creativity they can also be unsettling, disturbing and dangerous as we confront what is missing from our culture11.

    The creation of safe spaces and the altered language and behaviours create a magical environment. This other-worldliness, togetherness and community are crucial factors in encouraging people to return year on year, recreating a temporary space in which to re-imagine themselves, their lives, and the society around them.

    I do not wish to overly romanticise Earthsong. It would be impossible to generate a fully ritualistic, liminal space for the duration of the camps. Being a mere week in duration, it is simply a taster of real magic.

    As with any gathering of people, festival, or communal living experience, issues arise, rules are broken and behaviours of ‘normal life’ are not easily cast off. Sometimes people sullenly sit in their cars, making phone-calls or updating their Instagram accounts. Children steal from the shop. Families squabble. A child attempts to set the compost loos on fire.

    The no-drink-and-drugs rule was broken once or twice (or more) the last time I attended. Complaints are made. Shelters collapse. Eyes sting from cooking over an open fire. Arguments ensue. Earthsong is both very different and quite similar to ‘normal life’.

    There are nonetheless pockets of togetherness and shared experience that bind the community, despite all the practical necessities, and mundanities. These are in fact part and parcel of the experience.

    Turner writes of the great difficulty in maintaining a permanent state of communitas and that it ‘must sooner or later come to an end. We thus encounter the paradox that the experience of communitas becomes the memory of communitas…’12.

    Acknowledgements

    I would like to acknowledge all those who interacted with me during fieldwork at Earthsong in July 2016, and am very grateful for the contributions they made to the research.

    Reference List

    1. Dowd, N. (2015). ‘The re-enchantment of the world: the transformative experience of Earthsong camp.’ Undergraduate. University College Cork.
    1. Ehrenfeld, J. (2008). Sustainability by Design. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, p.64.
    1. Holyfield, L., Cobb, M., Murray, K., & McKinzie, A. (2013). ‘Musical Ties That Bind: Nostalgia, Affect, and Heritage in Festival Narratives.’ Symbolic Interaction, 36(4), p.457-477.
    1. Turner, V. (1969). The ritual process. New York: Cornell University Press, p.132.
    2. Loersch, C. and Arbuckle, N. (2013). ‘Unraveling the mystery of music: Music as an evolved group process.’ Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 105(5), p.777-798.
    1. Bergh, A. (2010). I’d like to teach the world to sing: Music and conflict transformation. Ph.D. University of Exeter.
    1. Boyce-Tillman, J. (2009). ‘The Transformative Qualities of a Liminal Space Created by Musicking.’ Philosophy of Music Education Review, 17(2), p.184-202.
    1. Reily, S. (2002). Voices of the Magi. Chicago [Ill.]: University of Chicago Press.
    2. Eisenstein, C. (2013). The More Beautiful World our Hearts Know is Possible. North Atlantic Books.
    1. Ní Shíocháin, T. (2014). ‘Memory, Liminality and Song Performance: Understanding the History of Thought through Song.’ International Political Anthropology, 7(1), p.73-88.
    1. Tempest, S., Starkey, K., & Ennew, C. (2007). ‘In the Death Zone: A study of limits in the 1996 Mount Everest disaster.’ Human Relations, 60(7), p.1039-1064.
    1. Turner, V. (1982). ‘From ritual to theatre.’ New York, NY: Performing Arts Journal Publications.

  • The Man Who Lit a French Fire Under English Football

    Arsène Wenger is special.

    He enabled the Invincibles, only the second team not to lose once in an entire season in one of the most competitive leagues in the world. He fostered so many of the talents who shone not only for him but all their clubs and countries. His best teams played some of the loveliest soccer, fast, tough, and often breath-takingly skillful. He introduced modern diet and conditioning. He won most of the available competitions at least once, with the significant exception of the Champions League.

    He’s one of the most philosophical of football men. His great failing is that he is fundamentally an Economist.

    Wenger’s austere, intellectual, worldly yet kind approach, combined with his deep understanding, allowed him to alloy continental notions of diet and training with native English hard-running and combative effort. He gave out PhD’s in soccer. He maybe didn’t win enough, but he built a future not just for his club but for the game. He is a coach who could lecture a board of directors on amortization as easily as train a teenager in positioning.

    His best teams possessed great strength, speed, technique, and will. Doughty personalities worked hard for each other, with honesty and compassion. Composed of players from all over the world they were nonetheless clearly Arsenal players. They played for their shirt, their fans. They played for Arsène.

    The goals, so many great goals, my favourite Bergkamp’s spatio-temporal short-circuit:

    Henry’s goal is another triumph of outrageous athleticism, creativity, and skill:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qy5iZh86e4

    Wenger’s other great achievement was his facilitation of the move from the old Highbury stadium to the Emirates, all the while managing to avoid the vast debts that have impaired so many other clubs. He tended to buy young players and develop them, selling on those not quite his type, and only in later years splurged, unsuccessfully, on a few marquee names. He was truly a manager not a coach. Players speak of his trust in them to learn, his expectation of intelligence and willing curiosity.

    Throughout it all, his anachronistic, prickly, “didn’t see it,” demeanor both charmed and irritated. He could be kind and overbearing at the same time, like a tired old schoolteacher reaching deep for the patience needed to help his errant charges, and was often especially so with journalists. Perhaps unwittingly he provided a theatrical counterpoint to the gruff, over-manly, almost thuggish displays of other managers.

    In recent years his inability to spend, or spend wisely, has enervated his squads. They have done well to provide a reminiscent value, and a kind of tactical test, against which all other Premiership teams must measure themselves twice a season, but they have not looked close to being able to challenge for honours. They still have a ropey defense, their midfield is slight, and their strikers profligate if not disinterested. They flatter and deceive in equal measure. They have become an echo of an idea of a kind of football, and the world has moved on with typically robust lack of romance. Too much an economist to be a romantic Wenger nonetheless seems trapped in an ideological hall of soccer mirrors, forever seeing some variant of old reflections staring back at him.

    Au revoir Arsène, et merci.

  • A Garden Should not Require Permission to Live on Earth

    This article was triggered by events that took place at the Community Garden located on Oliver Bond Street, Dublin 8 before Christmas 2017. Our petition and a background story can be found here. 

    The average person living in a city centre has very little interaction with actual soil: city dwellers spend most of their time outside walking on pavement while visually surrounded by a concrete jungle. Exposure to city green spaces typically takes the form of manufactured parks, managed by The City, that are suited to the frameworks for gentrification. That is why it seems obvious to me, that the following conversation relating to the Community Garden spaces in the Liberties neighborhood’s, would not be taking place if the spotlight was on a Community Garden in Ballsbridge.

    Community Gardens in Dublin: the Current Model

    The political lock out of the Oliver Bond Street Community Garden, is an excellent demonstration of how something that should be natural – plants, living outside, in their native environment; can turn into a disaster once people with zero compassion, respect, or knowledge for the health and wellbeing of the environment, see an opportunity to validate their ‘power-over’.

    The current situation in Dublin regarding space concerns has manifested a ‘secret garden culture’ among Community Garden Growers and Inner-City Gardens.

    These independent green spaces are being seized before they have the opportunity to fully blossom beyond the developmental phase because success in the form of social economy would increase a garden’s staying power. During the developmental stages these gardens are still malleable – their roots are not as strong and are therefore easier to weed out. This internal pressure to maintain Green Space autonomy has skewed public opinion on the value of Inner-City Gardening by deflecting the positive impact that these spaces can have on communities. How can the public truly understand and reap the long-term benefits from something that has never been allowed to come into full fruition?

    What does this pattern really reflect? The Necessity for a shift in public opinion

    At its core, the primary challenge for gardeners in Irish culture is a lack of public respect. This devaluation is an unusual condition that does not seem to exist in any other major European city. In Dublin, Community Gardens have been categorized as ‘substandard green spaces’ in an effort by the City to demean and add further fuel to the existing stigmatization that paints Community Gardens as no more than part-time, temporary hobby plots. As a result, there is no culture of Inner-City Community Gardening in Dublin.

    Culture of Convenience

    Removing the soil from produce has removed society’s connection to nature. The soil that gave life to the food you eat is commonly called ‘dirt’ and is seen as an inconvenience. We want produce that is “clean” and shiny.

    Today’s supermarket shopping experience reflects the principles of a complacent nation, as it is no longer a sensory one. You cannot touch or smell half of the produce that you purchase if you shop in major supermarkets, because these products are pre-washed, and pre-packaged in plastic with a barcode to cater to you: the dis-engaged consumer, who expects an impersonal self-serve experience that is fast and easy. We live in a time where people expect instant gratification, and that often comes at an environmental cost.

    Gardens take time and work – people are impatient. Culture of convenience is a culture of laziness and corporations have groomed and now cater to this model. As a result, many people have zero awareness of how to grow their own food due to the reliance they put on everyone BUT themselves. People no longer take responsibility for themselves because they no longer know how to trust themselves and this manufactured condition becomes more dangerous when detachment from self-sufficiency correlates to people unconsciously giving their personal power away.

    Corporation stimulate demand in order to survive, and exert more power through the development of ‘hero worshiping’ (the corporation), which develops a victim mentality in the consumer. Linking back to independent spaces: if people are able to use Community Gardens to figure things out for themselves: experiment, learn, and generate ideas as solutions, then they can step back into their own personal power. Community gardens reflect creativity and rebellion and that challenges those that cling to the initials and titles next to their names.

    Control

    The space-race perception in Dublin is one that creates the notion that sharing is not possible. It suggests that because there is not enough room, that you can only have either housing or green spaces, not both. And because Community Gardens generally do not provide secure profit to the Council, they are the first to face extinction.

    It is very important to make the distinction that the space issue is structural – and if The City maintains the attitude that Independent Green Spaces are not valuable, then they are communicating to the public, that the wellbeing of its citizens is insignificant, when in the same race as profit. By making a mockery out of Green Spaces in order to shape public opinion, The City is participating in environmental injustice – more specifically, food injustice

    Community Gardens add a sense of “wildness” to a neighbourhood – plants can grow as they wish, people from all walks of life can equally come together and put their hands in the soil and get ‘dirty’; everyone is reminded that an object as small as a seed has the capacity and potential to grow into something more, when given the space and nourishment to expand and change. Community Gardens have endless potential just like the people involved in them – a simple reminder that it is the passionate people that make a city compassionate.

  • Westerlywind – A Short Story

    Worthless. Humiliated. Deeply uncomfortable. Skin crawling. Awful. Shitty shit shitty fucking horror shit shit cock horror. Hate. Disdain. Awful, awful. Sad. Afraid. Unwelcome. Outside. Other. Ugly. Repulsive. Grotesque. Agnes. She wondered how, every time she appeared to be enjoying her time in Greenpoint. How, when things seemed like they were generally ok, she ended up with this gut-wrenching awareness that she was a gorgon who smelled of menstrual blood and dirty clothes.

    Her old friend Derya is turning 25 and Agnes arrives at the apartment at the weird hour. The hour of semi-sobriety, of eyes open to who is coming and going at a party.

    She heads for the punch before she attempts to talk to anyone. Everyone is preoccupied and ambivalent. The initial vague panic sets in. Agnes moves from the punch and rejoins the group with whom she arrived. Her husband Jen and Jen’s buddy, Martin. They’ve been hanging out all day at this stage. They drove in together. They ate BBQ together. Their day has already happened. She feels shame for having fought with Jen in front of Martin twice and was looking forward to getting away from the two of them upon arrival. As they have all run out of ways of making jokes or poking fun or having any kind of laugh together, there are a lot of silences and looking around. They have been hanging out for eight hours. Five of which involved a drive. How could they be expected to like each other at this stage. Jen tells a terrible story about drinking insane amounts of Red Bull in college and burning a wooden deer in a parking lot. Martin laughs hard even though Jen has told this story one hundred times and Martin was there when the event occurred. Agnes widens her eyes in disbelief and decides to brave the party room, thinking, I married a total asshole. She slams back her punch and ventures out for more, pressing down the mounting fear that builds within her.

    There is a place Agnes revisits when a fissure appears in her emotional fabric. It’s buried deeply inside her heart. When she feels a certain way in a certain mood in a certain environment, it is back there she goes. It is a darkened cloak room in a Catholic school. St Pius X. It is a year after her father has died. She is 12 years old. She is confronted by a group of girls about her odour. She pretends to not understand that she does indeed stink. She pretends that her classmates are simply identifying her smell and trying to ‘help’ her in the same way that her condescending delusional mother tries to ‘help’ people on her case load as a social worker; only she knows these girls are meaner, because they are 12. They have not properly learned how to pretend to be kind just yet, or, they have not been properly trained in the art of transforming their dysfunction into judgement about other people’s pain. Professionally.

    Party. Panic attack worsens.

    The Dan Crowleys and Robert Roberges are plentiful in certain Brooklyn zip codes, at certain launches and parties. She is reminded of her station in life each time she visits this fucking place. Agnes epitomizes the very visible invisible. The wrong frame of mind and intrusive thoughts abound, corroding her ability to make the smallest conversational effort.

    “So, what else…” falls out of her mouth, an involuntary verbal spasm. Stopping her. Turning her to melting, pointless garbage. She is so easily embarrassed by herself. Her own words, or lack of words in this case, cause her very innards to burn. Her mouth, dry now, presses its lips to the glass in her hand. She is reminded of a high school assembly when an alcoholic and a drug addict came to speak to her 11th grade class. She is standing near the punch table yet again, as she is reminded of this. Then she thinks of what the alcoholic hilariously stated was her past self-abuse motto. Agnes decides this is a great way to break the ice with the man to her left fumbling with cracker crumbs on his shirt. She conjurs her best raspy Rhode Island accent to re-enact the remembered phrase to the stranger. POOR ME. POOR ME. POUR ME ANOTHER DRINK. She says as she smiles at him, directing her eyes toward her glass in a knowing manner. He moves swiftly away from her, pretending to have heard nothing. Hey, do you have the time? She yells after him in an attempt to recover from the obvious rejection. Just then the host of the birthday party appears. Fucking finally. DERYA!! Says Agnes. Agnes. Says Derya. They hug and kiss. Some party! Says Agnes. Derya has to go check the stove. The moment of affirmation ends abruptly.

    Astounding paranoia is the accomplice to this sorry state. Imagine someone walking through life wincing. That is an Agnes smile. That. All the time. Her husband, Jen, does not understand why she gets mad about things that are of no great importance. Why she feels affected by the slightest discomfort. Why her twinkle is infrequent. A callus formed over time. A hardness. A protective layer. And when a crack appears it reveals a heartache so great, no person could take it. She tries to keep it to herself. And sometimes at a gathering here or there her oddness takes hold. Her choking self-hatred rears its head, and she runs out of her external self. Her inner life surfaces, paralysing her. Reminding her of the collective experiences that have corroded her spirit. A lack of kindness can erode a person. Cause them to burn alive. Faces red from embarrassment. Faces red from too much wine. The tale is worn and it ages, as pain will. It wears through the skin. Hardship surfaces. It becomes apparent eventually.

    Smell.

    Agnes stands by the punchbowl and the peanuts and cheese and crackers, and reckons she is really quite okay with talking to nobody. Her inebriation is nearing wistfulness: in the company of old friends, she is forced to remember old friends. She remembers the cloakroom confrontation after prayer group with the Shultz family. George and his very religious mother, Ellen. She smells her sweater the entire way to the cloakroom. They all know she smells. So does she. She says goodbye and scurries away from them, and pretends she lives in the house next door to where she actually lives. The beat up old mansard hellhole. When they walk away, after she’s hidden in a backyard bush, and once the coast is clear, Agnes moves over to the apartment building she actually lives in. On the second floor. Where a dachshund named Boru has led the other creatures in a revolt involving copious amounts of waste on unread newspapers. The floor is regularly soaked with piss and shit, so much so that there is now no way of getting the smell out of the wood. Toxic and right outside her bedroom door. She climbs the apartment stairs, goes to the kitchen and toasts two bagels. She then smothers them with Philadelphia cream cheese and moves to the living room to sit down on the blue recliner purchased for her dying father and watch Gargoyles. A cartoon about gargoyles. Something stirs within Agnes. She gets up and goes into her older brother Stephen’s room. Has a look around. It smells like teenage boy. She goes to the kitchen and grabs a pile of papers. She re-enters Stephen’s room, places the Providence journal on the floor and pulls down her pants and takes a shit.

    This party is hilarious, Agnes slurs to Martin. Martin nods. He is a quiet person. Martin. Have you seen my purse? I just had it. Have you seen it? I just had it. I just had it. Where’s Jen? I want to put my new lipstick on. I want to. Oh Martin, let’s play that game where we look around at every appalling person at a party and decide if they would be a Nazi or a member of the Resistance. Where’s Jen, says Martin.

    Booze is a noose around our Agnes’ neck. A boring old piece of fraying rope that used to have a pleasant function. That rope was once integral to a tyre swing placed over a river. It wore down over time and has been left in a pile of leaves. To rot. Agnes picked it up. She made a knot. That ancient rope around her neck. Alcohol. A misused piece of rope. That once held a tyre and simple pleasure that is now a shabby lariat looking for a lighting fixture.

    Agnes has found herself a party stranger to talk to momentarily while Martin rubs Jen’s shoulders. Long drive my ass she thinks to herself. Oh me? I’m just down visiting. I’m here for Derya. You know? Quarter of a century the old gal…anyway. What do I? I work in a deli called Hudson St., we make grinders. That’s what we call sandwiches in Rhode Island. Have you ever had an Italian? GRINDER. Italian Grinder? Ahahaha. What is wrong with me? AHAHHAHA. It’s funny. You’re not laughing. An Italian grinder consists of provolone cheese, capicola (pronounced like this: gabeegole), oh you’ve seen The Sopranos? Well there are a lot of Calabrese and Sicilians in Providence. Ahem. So, what else… salami, boiled ham, lettuce, tomato, red onion, oil and balsamic on the bread and oh no go right ahead. I have to go to the bathroom, too. No you go first. You work in a magazine. I’m better at holding my pee in. AHAHAHAHAAHA!!!! You know. Well, lunch rush has taught me a thing. It was nice meeting…She is now standing alone trying to look unbothered by the fact that she thinks, where did I put my glass? It’s in my hand. More liquid. More liquid it is. I would drink toilet water if it had a splash of vodka in it. Look at me.

    There were these games. These games that they would play at St. Pius the X. The 12 year olds. These old games that they were too old to play imbued with new meaning. She understands them. Too old was she. There were no playmates any longer. Games meant so much more when you understood that you were a fat girl with braces and a wen on your nose. Games were meant to humiliate if you were not a pretty little figure. BUT HOPE. SWEET HOPE. Laughter. Kinship. Joy. She jumps in. Red rover, red rover let Agnes come over. RED ROVER RED ROVE’R LET AGNES COME OVER.

    There are seven of her classmates in a row. Holding hands. Creating a chain. She runs right for the hot spot, at the boys she hopes to astonish with her comedic genius thus winning friendship from them and respect from the rest of the class. Ryan Roberge and Daniel Crowley. She runs in SLOW MOTION screaming HEEEERE IIII COOOMMME. She should of added YOUUU STUPID MOTHHHHERFUCKERRRS. That was one of those verbal expressions of frustration that came later in life accompanied by the finger when someone overtook her on the highway. But alas she was a reasonably good-natured 12. In the absence of resolution to childhood trauma the world is a rage canvas. Oh you stupid motherfuckers. Agnes runs in slow motion and she slowly breaks through with everyone laughing. Victory!! Victory, she thinks, until she realises that Crowley and Roberge pretend to have broken arms almost before she gets to them. As she pierces through their false union with all her husky hope that crushing feeling envelops her. She is the joke. The joke on TOP of her fucking joke. Extra funny. The game is for the other children soon to be teenagers gaping at one another. That game of breaking the flesh gate is for them at that moment. They get to play a child’s game all but for the chance to touch in front of the lay teachers.

    There is an extra benefit to humiliating one tubby fool. The moment keeps recreating itself for the entertainment of the other children. They played that game of Agnes breaking arms for 30 minutes that day, and 30 minutes the next. And the next. And the next. It was just so funny, and then the joke got old. She was the rerun of a live sitcom for the week. Agnes didn’t stand up in frustrated defiance against her peers. She just let the pain of every recess wash over her, and then it stopped one day. Something else replaced it.

    No such thing as victory. Life’s beauty is reserved for the beautiful. Is it possible to be that child and then become a proper, fully-formed adult? She feels more kinship with pigeons than she does her fellow man. That’s why she has found herself outside Derya’s birthday party. On the fire escape, watching from above as some hammered suit flings change at cabs. Agnes glasses him.

    Moira Brady Averill (1983–2016) was a writer, comedian, and self-described “career waitress” from Providence, Rhode Island. She married a Dubliner, the composer Gareth Averill, and became a central figure on the offbeat fringes of Ireland’s comedy and theatre scene. For the Tiger Dublin Fringe festival she co-wrote and performed the shows Very Rich Hours and Flemish Proverbs, which won the award for Best Design in 2015. She created and MCed the script-tearing variety night Meat Scandal, and through the collective Change of Address she collaborated with artists in direct provision. Alongside her comedic work, Moira left behind many pieces of short fiction of a more serious tone, in varying states of completion. ‘Westerlywind’, in which her recurring semi-autobiographical anti-heroine Agnes goes to a birthday party in Brooklyn, is one such piece.