Issue #12 Summer 2016. Published Whenever.

INSIDE Meeja Gemma O'Doherty opens up about the need for outsider journalism... RTÉ A straight up look at why it's so bloody shit... Comics Yup, it's our usual array of full on miscreants and lovingly drawn eejits...

BECKETT AND Gombeen BEHAN: TWO We finally get around to VERY DIFFERENT crucifying Ryan Tubridy in cutting prose... DUBLINERS Ringsend Arts Luas Are tech and global finance How the new rental realities Looking back at a history of remaking our city in their image? are killing all the DIY spaces... tram strikes in the capital... 2 Look Up {THE RANT}

With the two month long back and forth discussions going on something Story? in the manner of Roger Federer playing squash by himself, even the mainstream HOWDY FOLKS. RABBLE’S media began to lose interest, the same BACK WITH THAT FRESH lads who cream themselves at even a SMELLING PRINTY EDITION sniff of an election. The media gave JUST IN TIME FOR fuck all scrutiny of the obvious lack SUMMER. SINCE YOU LAST of any programme for government, no CAUGHT UP WITH US scrutiny of the fact that the electorate THERE’S BEEN A GENERAL offered a resounding rejection of Fine ELECTION, A MONTH Gael’s austerity mode political and OF HARANGUING OVER barely batted an eyelid at the rhetoric {EYE} THE FORMATION OF THE of stability and recovery that was being choked out by Fine Gael pre-election. NEXT GOVERNMENT, THE Glimpses Of A Lost World. ACCELERATED GROWTH So rabble once again is here to dust down the dictionary and cut through Dragana Jurisic's journey as a photographer began when her family apartment was consumed with fire, taking OF AN UNPRECEDENTED the bullshit. with it her father’s output as a die hard amateur photographer. She was left with nothing but fleeting memories of HOMELESS CRISIS, MORE her childhood in war torn Yugoslavia. She speaks of how “on that day I became one of those 'refugees' with no Stability (NOUN): Firmness or POLICING SCANDALS, steadiness of character. The state of photographs, with no past. Indeed, my memories of the events and people I encountered before that Sunday in AND THE POSSIBILITY OF being stable. September 1991 are either non-existent or very vague.” Jurisic's reponse to this, a book called Yu: The Lost Country, SO MUCH MORE LABOUR has been raved about far and wide. It's a journey through the former Yugoslavia retracing a route set by Anglo-Irish We’ve offered our dictionary to The Last Screening. UNREST THAT 2016 ALREADY Enda et al but they struggle with even writer Rebecca West in the late 1930’s and it’s full of other-worldly glimpses . The photo above was taken outside HAS MORE THAN A WHIFF the simplest definitions. Or as our Starigrad in Croatia and shows a man waiting for an ambulance to pick up a boy killed by a car. Describing the THE TELLY ONLY HAD TWO CHANNELS WHEN EOIN O'MAHONY LEFT CORK FOR OF 1913 ABOUT IT. good friend George Orwell might moment of capture she states "there’s a dandelion by the road. I take a picture. Don’t know what else to do. More THE BIG SMOKE. HE TELLS RABBLE HOW HE TRIED TO HIDE THE WHACK OF BENJY How’s that for recovery Enda? put it simply struggle with the truth, screams. The old man standing in front of me bends over and picks up the flower. Gently, he blows.” WITH GAULOISES AND ANGSTY FRENCH FILLUMS IN THE SOON TO BE DEMOLISHED “political language...is designed to The two month long negotiations were Head over to draganajurisic.com for more work. SCREEN CINEMA. no more about forming a government make lies sound truthful and murder than turkeys are for Christmas. Rather respectable, and to give an appearance we got a Tweedle Dee minority of solidity to pure wind.” had a real fondness for the Screen. When I was rent Speed's 1610 representation of the city shows nothing of value from the Real Capital of Ireland to Dublin in the late east of where Trinity College is located. government backed up by Tweedle So this issue, rabble is once here to cut HIGHLIGHTS a quickie Dum who were all about constructing through the daily dose of bullshit you 1980s, the 84 from my far flung suburb ended up on Speed's map shows a hospital where the Department Gombeen #12 the top of Pearse Street. I spent hours on the concrete a parliament that suppressed the receive from the mainstream media. of Health now administers a crumbling public healthcare p6. In our rabble babble I anti-riot space in the front of the Screen waiting for that formation of any significant opposition. If you want to stick two fingers up PEOPLE DON’T GET CORRUPTED BUT THEY DO GET system. Until the late 1950s, the Crampton Memorial marked with... section, Jamie Goldrick infrequent bus home. Despite Fine Gael getting a measly to “modern luxurious apartments” catches up with Risteard DECEIVED. THE GOMBEEN HAS BEEN TRANSFORMED a crossroads: the commercial city lay west of this point, the This is not an appeal for the retention of the building as 25 per cent of first preference votes, and “glorious 4 bedroom homes” O Domhnaill to talk FROM THE DAYS OF COLLECTING THE LANDLORD'S RENT docks and fishing village of Ringsend to the east. we have Fianna Fáil both propping some kind of heritage. It stands on ground once occupied by profiled in the Times, support rabble. about his new film TO NOW SOWING REGIME ILLUSIONS. College House (1974) on Townsend Street, Hawkins House SIMON PRICE SAT DOWN WITH up their programme of government We scrutinize the toxic relationship Atlantic... the Theatre Royal, itself the object of much hand-wringing by (1962) and the Screen (1972) were all the product of the GALWAY'S FEBRUARY AND MARS and still retaining the title of the main The monster propaganda machine (RRR T EEEE!!) has no more important Georgian Society types over the built environment in the late between property, government and p8. Seamus L. Moore imagination of Thomas Bennett (b.1887). The British colonial TO TALK ABOUT THEIR HEADY BREW opposition party. media. Not rely on it. takes a look at RTÉ role within it than to anchor the Late Late. The host, the self-confessed 1960s. powers did much to erase the old city since 1757. It was Bonkers Ted. and sets out to answer nerd, the Blackrock boy, the Peter Pan of Donnybrook, known to us as Ryan The entire block of buildings between Hawkins Street and Bennett that was brought across the sea in his dotage to echo OF INTERGALACTIC SPACE FUNK AND the age old question of Tubridy, is there to tell us what we should think. Witness Tubridy's hostile Townsend Street and Apollo House is slated for demolition the New Town movement of post-war British reconstruction PSYCHEDELIC ROCK AND ROLL. “why is RTE so shite”? trial by video of Paul Murphy on the Jobstown protest. Or and reconstruction. The Screen cinema building is a reminder in Dublin. After all, who could trust the independent natives to p12. Sean Finnan spoke him bristling in disbelief when John Connors says he thinks not only that Dublin is locked into these cycles of capital redesign a city block? Travellers are not fairly portrayed in the media. But the So Mojuba Records putting out a spacey record from Galway, how did to Smári McCarthy, formation but also that a collective pursuit called “cinema's The brutalist exterior stands in contrast to the claustrophobic one of the organisers greatest example came when Oliver Callan dared to talk about that happen? best days” are behind it. Smaller features are finding it harder lobby. Going up the intimate stairs deceptively implies that of the IMMI and also the business dealings of Denis O’Brien. Ryan stomps in to We were playing the same festival as Don Williams, Drop Everything out on to get screened. the building was entered through some kind of basement. The one of the founders say that DOB “is not here to defend his good name” and Inis Oírr. He expressed an interest so we passed on some music and he wanted In the days before the IFI, the Screen was an arthouse two screens were comfortable and small. The suited ushers of the Icelandic Pirate “big companies win big contracts”. Shutting down this to sign it. He actually heard us by accident during our soundcheck. Out on the cinema. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Screen (once and torchlights survived after others had gotten rid of theirs. Party ... momentary outbreak of truth island in the sunshine it really clicked. I think it was initially planned for his One rakish ticket checker kept an eye on proceedings with an p20. Alan O’Brien from the funnyman. A West The New Metropole) showed more foreign language flicks other label Wandering, which is more out there but when we were in Berlin than most other places. Swapping Hollywood fare for Polish efficiency that bordered on menace. The Screen was a cinema takes a look at two Wing fan, Ryan, knows the finishing off the recordings last summer, he said it would be coming out on and French productions made it pleasingly less glamorous. for pretentious college types like me who wanted to be treated Dubliners whose whose power of manipulation, and that Mojuba as part of their tenth anniversary releases. backgrounds couldn’t the system is operated by clever Too far from O'Connell Street and Stephen's Green, the like a grown up. contrast anymore fellows like him, in smart suits. Screen was out of the way. Overshadowed by the sickest It had enough self-confidence not to acknowledge the entirely... Definitely a vote of confidence in your music that such a well respected His deep DNA links to the building in the country, Hawkins House, the Screen is O'Connell Street columnated cinema glitz. Surrounded by drab house label would take a left turn from what they are more usually known p22. In his review institutional ruling party of this state positioned in a nowhere space. The grey facade, brightened office buildings, coming here for cinema made it feel more for. of the Fine Gael- Fianna Fáil, makes him a natural choice only in recent years by neon, was a commitment to something like a political project than an effort at visual distraction. The led coalition, Shane other than the usual fare. The building didn't matter: the film Screen never invited you in, but it was where you wanted to We never set out to be a particular kind of band as such, just started vibing Ragbags takes us through as the regime gombeen. For this he is handsomely rewarded, picking up did. go and see a movie. with the machines and we always appreciated music you could dance to. Dire how the Irish Straights, Fleetwood Mac even. Where there was attention paid to the rhythm eventually learnt to €723,000 in 2011. Eventually Tubs had The entire area was once a vital crossroads and the effective section. So not necessarily housey rock as this is a very electronic record. But hate the regime. to take a pay cut, He now pockets almost edge of the Norse city. The Long Stone was the boundary Photo by Paul Reynolds. upbeat and danceable is something we think is important. p24. Martin Leen half a million a year, and we are sure that marker, east of which is now largely reclaimed land. John looks at how new the voice of his dead mentor, Gerry Ryan rental realities are is there with him whispering, “you are And you actually sat down to make a full album in the traditional sense? killing art spaces... worth it”. We had about five tracks finished and two went on the EP so the rest became the start of the album. We were at it morning till night in houses out in Headford, Carraroe and then out to this plush state of the art recording complex in Berlin with high ceilings, grand pianos and the whole lot. And we had John Illustration: Daniel Greenhalg, Brian Burke. Paddy Lynch, About us. Daly working with us the whole way through. Recording first of all and then on Thomas McCarthy, Darren Masterson, Patrick Murphy, Katie production. He was as much part of the process. One third of the sound. Blackwood, Luke Fallon, Daragh Lynch, Matt Hedigan, Ronan O'Hanlon and Mice. rabble is a non-profit newspaper How has the reaction been so far? Photography: Paul Reynolds, Jamie Goldrick and Bit from the city’s underground. It’s Yeah good. Record is selling very well even by today’s standards and we’ve Thompson. collectively and independently run Ask us out at had a lot of love from radio and that. So it’s all just tour preparation now, hone Produced by the rabble editorial army council. by volunteers. rabble aims to create www.rabble.ie the craft. Our set up is kind of technical so if you're moving synthesisers and Layout Lackies: Rashers Tierney, Daragh Lynch and Bit drum machines around the place you want it to be done properly. Thompson. a space for the passionate telling of Words: Alan O Brien, Bit Thompson, Donal Fallon, Eoin O truth, muck-raking journalism and Mahony, James Beggan, Jamie Goldrick, Martin Leen, Mog Kavanagh, Oireachtas Retort, Paddy Ferris, Rashers Tierney, Distro Fairies: Alls y’alls. Yiz are stars. well aimed pot-shots at illegitimate The Febuary and Mars debut album is out now on Mojuba Records. They Sean Finnan, Shane Ragbags and Simon Price. authority. bring their live show to the Sugar Club on July 9th. Legends: All of us for putting out TWELVE FUCKING ISSUES! After the success of his first book, gaze over one of the darkest days Sick of hearing the powers the graveyards where the sewer of austerity speak The Black Witches Spys and Stockholm in Irish history, the Black Death. Last that be spew out the worn visionaries of the 1960’s and we hear daily. It’s called Syndrome, Fin Dywer is back Chirpy stuff. You can pick it up at Futures mantra that “there is no 70’s ended up in as a result. Last Futures, look it up. Death with that 'difficult second' book. irishhistorypodcast.com, or follow alternative”? Well, Derry lad And in the process resurrects 4 In his new opus he throws his on Twitter at @irishhistory. Douglas Murphy examines their thought against the 5 rabble {MUSINGS} fallon’s oldraker time fables

If Larkin was the shadowy figure Stop The responsible for disputes in the early twentieth century, the finger of blame didn’t move too far as the twentieth trams! century progressed... WHILE LUAS CROSS CITY WORK CONTINUES APACE IN DUBLIN, THERE WAS A NOTICEABLE OUR SOCIAL MEDIA PAGES HAVE BECOME SOMETHING OF A SPEAKERS' ABSENCE OF LUAS TRAMS AT TIMES. THE RECENTLY SETTLED INDUSTRIAL DISPUTE BETWEEN CORNER FOR ALL SORTS OF JIBBERING ANTI-ESTABLISHMENT BOO HA. THIS IS TRAM DRIVERS AND THEIR EMPLOYER GREW PROPER BITTER AT TIMES, YET AS DONAL FALLON OUR LITTLE ATTEMPT AT HIGHLIGHTING SOME OF THE GREAT AND GOOD, THE FINDS IT’S CERTAINLY NOT THE FIRST MAJOR STRIKE INVOLVING DUBLIN’S TRAM DRIVERS. WHIMSICAL AND THE DOWNRIGHT HILARIOUS SHITE YOU LOT POST.

On news that Simon Harris is to be Minister of On Fine Gael’s Kate O Connells election video. hile much has changed in recent decades, some or damaging their property”, before boldly predicting “a stampede of has rightly noted “turned out to be a liability and hurt the workers’ things haven’t – there was nothing new about some the strikers to get their jobs back before it is too late.” That stampede cause.” Newspapers filled up with advertisements for bicycles, and Health. She claims to be a business person but admits to buying of the discourse around the recent Luas dispute, never came, and the bitter dispute dragged into 1914, before a Gardaí complained that the theft of bikes was reaching epidemic A 29 year old with a degree in journalism from an IT is assets at the worst possible time and then complains that depicting workers as overfed and underworked. crushing defeat. levels. The 1935 tram drivers ultimately succeeded in winning running the most important ministry in this country. The the government didn't know what they were doing? This W concessions from the DUTC, something which their predecessors one that deals with life and death. Let that sink in for a hardly screams competence to me, Kate! If anything would surprise Dubliners of old about the current Post-independence, the tram strike of 1935 witnessed eleven dispute, it is perhaps the fact there are tramlines at all. When the last weeks of unrest in the city, when three thousand workers from the could not boast. minute. -Stephen Ray Dublin United Tramways Company route closed in July 1949 (the DUTC walked away from the trams and buses of the city. The DUTC If Larkin was the shadowy figure responsible for disputes in the - Rowan Clarke No.8 to Dalkey, for any pub quiz aficionados) many believed they operated both services with a virtual monopoly, a private enterprise early twentieth century, the finger of blame didn’t move too far were waving goodbye to a form of public transport for ever. controlling a vital public service. On paper, the dispute emerged from as the twentieth century progressed. During a transport dispute in On our report on Pegida getting run out of Dublin. In the Sunday Independent, one writer made it clear that “I am the unfair dismissal of a single bus driver, though in reality there were 1962 which saw Dublin Bus drivers on the picket lines, the Sunday On Ryanair’s Micheal O Leary debunking climate I wonder how frightened bystanders would be to see sorry for the demise of the trams, but as a motorist I just cannot weep longstanding issues of bitterness and contention in the workplace, Independent pointed towards Communist Party infiltration, believing change. fascists chase muslims, blacks, gays, jews or whoever for them. They had become an incorrigible block to modern traffic, with one conductor complaining that “you could be sent home if you that in Ireland there were a thousand active communist agitators, who Man on an emission. they felt empowered to attack, down the street. As indeed holding always, as they did, the middle of the road…Yet, the trams turned up without shaving, thus losing a day’s pay.” The presence were "led by some 20 Moscow-trained exports." While the Spanish - Sean Thomas Gallagher they would as that is the nature of fascism. Too many are dead, and it is time for them to lie down.” By the 1940s, the tram of William Lombard Murphy on the board of the DUTC certainly Civil War veteran and committed Communist Michael O’Riordan bystanders, that seems to be the problem and that is all seemed a relic of the past. wouldn’t calm tensions. was a bus conductor at the time, rumours of a red coup on the Dublin transport system were greatly exaggerated. No doubt he and his it takes for fascism to take hold. If it did take root here In Irish labour history, the tram will always be synonymous with Son of the 1913 tycoon, the younger Murphy retained interests in what would all these bystanders say then, 'who will stand many of the same industries (print media and transport among others) comrades could only dream of a day when such a news report was On the Healy Raes, standing on top of a car outside the most iconic and defining labour dispute to date. It was the men of true! up against these fascists?' perhaps. It's starting to look a the Dublin United Tramway Company who walked away from their that had helped his father prosper. For Seán Lemass, Minister of Leinster House, blocking traffic with Danny playing lot like 1916, when the bystanders of that time roundly Commerce and Industry, the dispute proved something of a nightmare. Industrial action, for any worker, is the last course of action. the accordion. posts at 9:30am on 26 August 1913, pining the red hand badge of their condemned those who stood up against those who would union to the uniforms. Newspapers decried the radical ‘syndicalism’ He accused the drivers of “deliberately embarking on a policy of While Luas drivers may enjoy relatively good working conditions Is this what politics means to these two gobshites. oppress us. of James Larkin, and his attempts to build a radical general union, yet causing the maximum degree of public inconvenience”, though and wages, such conditions are won over time, and defended. The People are dying on hospital trolleys because of choices - Elaine O Sullivan the employers of the city demonstrated a grá for syndicalism of their effective industrial action by its nature causes inconvenience. tramlines laid down in recent months may be new, but the industrial made by politicians and these moronic parasites jump own kind. Lemass attempted to circumvent the dispute, with the state dispute on the sidelines is anything but. and dance around the place. They are a joke act. And as providing alternative transportation. Lorries driven by army personnel a person from Kerry, I can only apologise to the rest of One after the other employers followed the lead of William Martin Murphy, the owner of the tramway system, until a point where four appeared on the streets, and so did the chalked slogan “don’t use the Illustration by Luke Fallon. Ireland for the moronic choices of the electorate here in Where was this level of intensity and passion when the army lorries – you’re Kerry banks and government were bending people over? hundred employers were locking out their workforce until they consented scabbing if you do.” In - Sheila Daly - Damien Moore to leave their union. Not unlike an ill-conceived form the contemporary dispute, of sympathetic action, On Donald Trump defending the size of his penis. Murphy’s DUTC attempted IRA Volunteers were ordered to fire on the He may not have a big penis, but if elected as On that article on the hipster-bourgeoise and the to present the workers as wheels of these lorries President, he will Fuck the entire world. Luas strike. being in conflict with the public, by inconveniencing – a highly dangerous - Official Crumlin Shopping Centre All workers don’t support the Luas workers, but those the masses. He stated his hope act, which transport who don’t are the ones who fall victim to the ISA, “that the public will help us by historian and trade reading and believing pure rubbish printed in newspapers assisting in giving into custody unionist Bill that pride themselves in bringing ‘The Truth’, to the anyone interfering with McCamely unsuspecting masses. All the TV stations produce the On Pat Kenny engaging in shameless Dole Bashing the company's men same drivel and misinformation through their news and on Newstalk. talk shows. TV and Radio hosts who supposedly are not Well, clearly the major problem with our country's allowed to voice their opinion bring on guests to do it for finances isn't €63bn worth of bank debt, but a handful of them. The total bias seen on RTÉ regarding Irish Water is deadbeats scamming the system for a couple of hundred a perfect example. euro. That's me told. - Lorcan Conroy -Richie Smith

On the infamous video of Alan Kelly getting re- elected Sad sad day for Irish people when a gimp like this gets re elected, what are the people of Tipp thinking. GET IN TOUCH -Dougie Esox [email protected] www.rabble.ie Danny Healy Rae, the big thick is in charge of the weather and we Oh Danny eejit is really in the business of here can’t do anything about it ”. making the Green Party look good Boy again after he got up after Eamonn 7 Ryan and argued that “God above babble

ROY SCRANTON RECKONS THAT CARBON-BASED-CAPITALISM HAS LED US DOWN THE PATH OF NO RETURN. JAMIE GOLDRICK CAUGHT UP WITH HIM Sometimes I like to AND HAD A NOT-SO-POSITIVE CHAT ABOUT HIS BOOK LEARNING TO DIE IN THE fantasize about the ANTHROPOCENE. ou open your book with scenes from Baghdad It's carbon-fueled capitalism that is destroying the world. disempowered rising after the American invasion, and describe As awful as capitalism can be, it's not what's going to kill how the 'grim future' that you saw in Iraq us. Humanity could live on Earth for millennia more being up to take control wasY now coming home in the form of climate change. just as brutal and unjust as the Ancient Greeks were, and You mention that you marched against the invasion in even capitalism could go on for centuries and centuries Iraq but then ended up serving in Iraq yourself, how just like it is, except for the fact that we've destabilized the from the elites who did this come about? planet's geophysical rhythms by transferring millions of I talk about Baghdad at the beginning of the book for tons of carbon from underneath the Earth into the seas and run global capitalism, several reasons. First, it's a way to hook readers: it offers skies. violence, war, an exotic locale, and a strong narrative sure, but my book voice. Second, Baghdad after the American invasion offers You describe how carbon based capitalism gave a vision of our own future: a modern, secular city reeling power to the working classes through societies reliance isn't about feeding from catastrophic damage, sliding into ethno-nationalist on labour intensive carbon extraction such as mines. strife while Big Oil's hired army--by which I mean here the Concessions given to the disempowered down through that fantasy or giving US Army--protects the petroleum industry's assets. Third, history have been made through violent means. You being a hired thug in Baghdad gave me the opportunity critique marches and petitions as being non-effective. to reckon with my mortality--a problem we all must face Is this book then to be read as a call to action for the it form... sooner or later. We need to understand that civilizations die disempowered to ready themselves for the coming too, just like people, and not even humanity lasts forever. storm? I didn't march against Iraq before the war but after, My point about the ways that energy production gives though before I joined the army I had been an activist and rise to political infrastructure was made to help illustrate even protested Bush in 2002. The main reason I joined the why political technologies that worked for a coal-driven military was because I was a college dropout working in economy, such as strikes, marches, petitions, and mass food service and living in poverty with little prospect of democracy in general, no longer work in a primarily turning things around on my own, and my teeth had been oil-driven economy. The difference is in how power messed up in a bike accident. So I joined the army for the flows through society, and the fact that oil needs far fewer job, dental care, and college money. I also joined because, workers than coal did, which means far fewer people are after 9/11, I wasn't as sure that American imperialism was JAMIE GOLDRICK CAUGHT fisherman, this opened my eyes to the parallels There is a non-economic value to fishing for tourism operating there. These places should be actually involved in producing power, so only a tiny elite as evil as I had assumed it was, and I wanted to see what giveaways that were happening in Irish fishing the coastal Atlantic communities, values that booming. can actually leverage control. UP WITH RISTEARD O George Orwell called "the dirty work of empire" out where and definitely an even bigger scandal. For some are bound up in history, tradition and meaning. Sometimes I like to fantasize about the disempowered DOMHNAILL TO TALK ABOUT it happened, to judge for myself whether or not it was context, I looked to Norway and Newfoundland, These values do not hold any currency for the rising up to take control from the elites who run global HIS NEW FILM ATLANTIC. HE Is it a struggle making films that highlight worth it. similar coastal communities. The story just got super-trawlers and those invested in them. Can capitalism, sure, but my book isn't about feeding that EXPLAINS HOW THE ROOTS uncomfortable truths in society? You mentioned bigger and bigger and bigger. It’s such a dense and these two perspectives be reconciled? The answer, in case you're interested, is no, it's not. The fantasy or giving it form. My book is about coming to OF THIS PROJECT STARTED that you are having trouble finding a broadcaster huge and information heavy doc, you can’t stretch it Iraq War was part of the immense boondoggle the US terms with reality. To adapt the famous phrase from There can be, it all goes back to having a for Atlantic. You appear to have taken on the IN ROSSPORT WHILE FILMING out past 75 minutes as you may lose audience. The has been running in the Middle East for decades, which Friedrich Engels and Rosa Luxemburg, carbon-fueled transparent democracy, oversight, and the right label of 'activist-filmmaker', do you find this THE PIPE, HIS EXPERIENCE documentary could have been 3 hours long. involves oil, weapons sales, and propping up both the capitalism stands today at a crossroads between barbarism ownership. There is a justification for super- term restrictive? WITH CROWDFUNDING, trawlers, but they should be managed. Thousands inhumane Israeli occupation of Palestine and the brutal and barbarism. It is a struggle, I’m four years at this, doing tyrants who run Saudi Arabia, and no part of that is worth AND THE STRUGGLES OF of small boats can overfish the ocean too. Laws What is happening in the sea, seem to be something that should of taken about a year. There the vast destruction, suffering, and death the US unleashed FINDING BROADCASTERS FOR should benefit the people. The current laws are a reflection of what is happening globally is a constant of trying to scrape money, going here on the people of Iraq. What would you say to those on the left currently benefit to the very powerful and that is the problem. POLITICALLY SENSITIVE ISSUES. today. For example, current species collapse is and there basically cap in hand to different bodies organising for a more egalitarian society? currently more rapid than when the dinosaurs The share of fish that Irish fisherman can catch looking for some kind of funding. I work separately I would say that the struggle for peace, compassion, and became extinct, rainforests are being felled at an is scandalous, it’s somewhere around 12%. Now So how would you describe what is known as the o finance the film, you raised a as a cameraman. The documentaries don’t sustain reflection must go on in full knowledge of the fact that it is extraordinary rate, the global target for reduced remember when our economy collapsed and the Anthropocene? substantial amount of funding through me. There is definitely not enough support for these doomed to fail. carbon in the atmosphere becomes less realistic rug was pulled out from under the banks, it was the crowdsourcing. Would you be in a kinds of documentaries, the same way there is not The idea behind the term 'Anthropocene' is that we T everyday. Is it fair to say that capitalism is the Irish people who bailed out the banks. Laws were enough support for investigative journalism for have entered a new epoch in Earth’s geological history, hurry to go this route again, do you see it as a changed very quickly, laws were changed because it the problem? Can a successful Green movement stories that are uncomfortable to the establishment. one characterized by the advent of the human species as a What would you say to the techno-utopians of the sustainable way to make films? is necessary. Look at what Newfoundland did, they tackle these issues without tackling capitalism geological force. The biologist Eugene F. Stoermer and the day? Has this blind belief in technology and progresses changed laws. There is no agreement that can’t be Uncomfortable stories for government bodies or It is very difficult, there is a lot of time involved. head on? Nobel-winning chemist Paul Crutzen advanced the term in blinded us to contemporary global realities? We put a good six weeks work into it, plus renegotiated. These companies are so powerful, it broadcasters, can create a lot of hassle and work. Human nature is the problem, capitalism is a 2000, and it has gained acceptance as evidence has grown Progress and techno-utopianism are dreams fueled preparation. For the amount we wanted to raise, the won’t be an easy struggle. You will definitely have I think in a time when territorial broadcasters manifestation of human nature, the greed of people that the changes wrought by global warming will affect by cheap energy. With coal and oil, we've developed best thing to do is to go get broadcast or film fund a winner and a loser in this, and the loser being the are losing ground to digital and online, there is a created and facilitates, there has to be change. The not only the world’s climate and biodiversity, but its very funding. We raised 56k in total. Yes, I would go big companies, their lobbying power is massive. need to take some risks. Filmmakers all over the technologies that let us fly through the air, feed the world, problem is, and look at history, if we are waiting geological structure. In another way, it helps us understand and put men on the moon. It's completely rational to back to crowdfunding, but for smaller projects. So it’s hard to see a resolution for that reason. country looking to produce good content are getting on people to become less corrupt, to make our that the post-Renaissance division in Western culture believe that we're powerful enough to do almost anything Rebalancing will benefit coastal communities but it knocked down because the stories would not make lifestyles more sustainable before they have to, between "Man" and "Nature" is no longer tenable, and must will be hard, very hard to achieve. the lives of the broadcasters any easier. I think this we might imagine. The problem is that our power comes The film has three distinct stories in it. You it just doesn’t happen, change has come about is a big problem. be abandoned. from burning carbon, and continuing to burn carbon tell an incredibly complex story from three when we hit catastrophe point. We are tweaking is going to destroy the conditions for contemporary I don’t know why there is no interest in Irish perspectives. Was there pressure just to keep the and rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic really, In your opinion, what would be an ideal civilization and possibly for human life as we know it long broadcasters to show this story. It has been the most You identify carbon based industrialisation as the total time at 75 minutes? like just look at our own politicians, and their situation for the coastal communities of Europe? before we'll develop the technologies needed to save us. successful project on the Irish crowdfunding site defining factor of the emergence of the Anthropocene, response or lack of response to climate change. And what would be the best way to get there? This started off the back of The Pipe, that was a Fundit.ie to date. There is massive support out there and argue that global decarbonisation is irreconcilable We are a country that could benefit massively local intimate story of the community at the centre Fishing can sustain a foundation of coastal with global capitalism. Would the term 'the from technologies and responses to deal climate and a big demand to see this film yet it hasn’t been Learning to Die in the Anthropocene: Reflections on the of the Corrib Gas controversy. I wanted to tell the communities but we shouldn’t just think of it as covered properly by the media. Capitalocene' not make a more fitting label for this change, low population density, massive renewable End of a Civilization is out now on City Lights books. bigger political story about Ireland’s oil and gas, about fishing. Look at Castletownbere in Co Cork. epoch? so I started looking offshore and going out with resources, it all comes back to short term politics. What an incredible place to live, imagine not only No, it would not. Capitalism's not the problem: carbon is. fishing but marine tech, marine biology, marine Check out theatlanticstream.com for more.

Photos by Jamie Goldrick Sick of staying in overpriced Palestinian territory. It’s a sharing Be The hotels when travelling to the Holy economy, for some. A lame duck Land? AirBnB are to the rescue so! Holy Offering accommodation on Illegal organisation, Jewish settlements on occupied 9 rabblerabble paralysed by an ineffective funding raker mechanism that serves the interest of an inner circle very well indeed... shipThe ofregime's fools

MOST OF US ARE FAMILIAR WITH indigenous material was indicative of the financial there are exceptions, like the Rubberbandits 1916 alone have them apply it to the archives they built RTÉ’S BIAS, BE IT THROUGH struggles and lack of confidence within the new sta- special, or Pat Collin’s Living in a Coded Land, but and hold on behalf of the people here”. tion in 1961. This was the compromised foundation these get buried in late night slots. Where is Richie COSYING UP TO GOVERNMENT Of course for RTÉ this is the best of both RTÉ was built on. By 1980 RTÉ was showing more O’Donnell’s new film Atlantic? It’s the highest ever worlds, the dual funded model ensures that a rev- QUARTERS, LAMBASTING SINN imported programmes than any other broadcaster in crowdfunded Irish film and asks difficult yet -im enue stream is enabled, but also ensures it’s one FÉIN, OR CONSTANT UNDER the European Community. portant questions on the exploitation of our natural that can be censored and restricted to protect their resources- certainly not on RTÉ. REPORTING OF ANTI-WATER RTÉ, the sole broadcaster on the island naturally brand. Viewers and civil society lose out because became so dominant that it was scaring away po- This is what the captive Irish viewer has had to of the inaccessibility of the material and the dif- CHARGE PROTESTS. SEAMUS L tential investors in the emerging game for contracts put up with down through the years, usually coped ficulty and restrictions around sourcing anything MOORE TAKES A LOOK AT THEIR in commercial TV and radio licenses. The 1988 with by uttering a disparaging remark, or a resigned which RTÉ may deem sensitive. ROLE AND SERVICE AS THE Broadcasting Act, introduced by the disgraced Ray shrug. RTÉ’s overtly commercial bent is mirrored Burke solved this and other problems for the Fianna NATIONAL PUBLIC BROADCASTER This apathy becomes more tangible and irritating internally by its behaviour towards it employees. Fáil led government. RTÉ’s maximum advertising once individuals start to deal with RTÉ on a profes- A common trend among staffers (ex and current) AND SETS OUT TO ANSWER THE broadcast time was halved from 15% to 7.5%. This sional basis. Ciaran Moore of Dublin Community that I have talked to is the spread of rolling AGE OLD QUESTION OF “WHY IS also served to undermine RTÉ’s apparent agenda TV, a not-for-profit community television channel, contracts throughout the organisation. Taken in RTÉ SO SHITE”? against the Charlie Haughey led Fianna Fáil Gov- cites numerous difficulties he had with RTÉ: conjunction with their use of the highly contro- ernment of the day. These restrictions on advertis- “A key problem was the fundamental difference versial Jobsbridge scheme, this repeatedly points ing were repealed in 1993, yet the incident points to in ideas of media between community or alterna- to an organisation with an onus on profit rather oel Curran, the outgoing the precarious position that the broadcaster holds. tive media and commercial or public broadcasting than public service. Director General at RTÉ, Commercially independent, yet all the while subject (which operates from a fairly purely commercial In fact, RTÉ is especially willing to bend over recently delivered a speech to the whims of the government of the day. viewpoint in these matters). We made films to backwards for the sake of 'objectivity’, when it at DCU lamenting cuts to This leaves us with a national broadcaster surviv- show people and wanted to be able to repeat the may affect their commercial interests. We saw the public broadcaster. He ing on one hand in a restricted commercial sense broadcasts and share with other non-profit and this when RTÉ pathetically handed over €85,000 spoke of the vital need for and on the other with an onus and obligation to community channels without having to pay further to the Iona Institute over the PantiGate affair. RTÉ’s dual funded model serve as a public broadcaster. This compromise license fees. RTÉ and commercial outlets see media Ryan Tubridy nearly shat himself on the Late to continue in order to provide “a full, quality explains the current state of the broadcaster today N as an asset you create and extract rents from. So we Late show when Oliver Callan mentioned Denis service at low public cost”. Now Montrose is only which is personified by... always had problems licensing their content as they less than 5km from the centre of Dublin, but for all O’Brien’s name. Fairness and objectivity at RTÉ, I’m not going to name-names but RyanTubri- couldn't understand our 'business model' or why intents and purposes, he may as well be living on but only if you can afford to sue. dyKathyrnThomasJohnMurrayMarianFinucanJo- we couldn't afford to pay fees according to their another fucking planet. So what are to we make of all these accounts, as eDuffyBrendanOConnor. structures”. RTÉ was always there in the background growing anecdotal and vague as they may appear? A con- The fact that these same few personalities are left Ciaran explained how RTÉ made things difficult up: The Den, The Works, Glenroe on TV, Gerry flicting picture of the broadcaster develops. On masterfully segwaying across different subject mat- when DCTV wanted to use archive material from Ryan, Pat Kenny and Joe Duffy on the radio. Sights one hand, as a lame duck organisation, paralysed ter just plays the taxpayer for an idiot. Today Tonight for a documentary on the Concerned and sounds that Irish households grew up with. by an ineffective funding mechanism. There is a cost-cutting and lazy managerial culture Parents Against Drugs movement. The footage Some friends and contemporaries may even still Yet on the other hand, and to those on the out- in RTÉ that gives primacy to filling time-slots over highlighted an anti-republican bias held by the watch it to take the piss. It’s never too far away, side, RTÉ appears as a ‘big fish in a little pond’ sourcing presenters with specialised knowledge or national broadcaster. from familiar jingles during your visit home or in that can throw its weight around anyway it sees funding good quality investigative material. Even though the RTÉ Archive department is - fit, and its long suffering license payers will just the next waiting room you find yourself in. What considered independent and producers are told this ever our changing engagement with the national RTÉ is full of jacks of all trades and masters of have to put up with it. when looking to purchase footage, a non-trans- broadcaster, there’s one constant on the tip of none. The same individuals get paid an extortionate But not for long. As a more digitally literate parent process exists whereby sensitive footage is everyone’s tongue “why is RTÉ so shite”? amount year after year, some in fact get paid more population emerges and alternative modes of than heads of state. In the grand scheme of things subject to restrictions. The ills and shortcomings of the broadcaster entertainment and news present themselves, RTÉ though, with the cost to commision a one-hour There is something deeply wrong about RTÉ can be found in the dual-funded model that RTÉ will find itself struggling to stay relevant. investigative documentary running at €60,000, the using publicly funded equipment to capture events has been based on since 1961. A funding model One thing's for sure, in these uncertain times €416,000 that Joe Duffy received in 2014 does not and then insisting on selling it back with restric- between the public service broadcasting of the BBC RTÉ will continue to look after itself. seem so outrageous. Thus the blandness and vacu- tions to communities when they wish to use it in a and the commercial stations of the US was chosen. ousness of RTÉ’s performers is merely a symptom non-commercial endeavor. Yet this is the end result The Television Authority’s first Director General of an underfunded and cash strapped organisation. of the compromise of having a public service broad- of choice was Irish-American Catholic Eric Roth The prevalence of light inoffensive banter is a nod caster, operating in the commercial sphere. who came from the world of commercial networks Illustration by Mice. to the lazy and commercially sensitive vision that Ciaran succinctly pointed out that “it’s difficult in the US. Roth’s preference for importing Cold characterises anything the broadcaster touches. Sure to find any real notion of a public good in RTÉ, let War subsidised American shows at the expense of The Dublin Tenants Association has With Twitter as a platform they’re #rentripoff an online campaign highlighting sharing storied from tenants about abuses in Ireland’s rental sector and the abuses of power and wealth that they want you to get involved. sees Ireland’s renters under increasing 11 pressure to avoid homelessness.

welcome to the Nothing symbolizes the potent power of this reshaping of the city than the phenomenon of wiping out older, locally held places names in favor of one’s dreamed up in the marketing departments SDZ of such regeneration schemes society...

WHEN OUR OBERSTURMFÜHRER FOR PROPERTY DEVELOPERS, SIMON COVENEY DESIGNATED THE FORMER GAS BOTTLE PLANT A STRATEGIC DEVELOPMENT ZONE, THERE WAS PLENTY OF CELEBRATORY HOO HA IN THE MEDIA FOR THE 3,000 HOMES PROMISED AS PART OF THE SCHEME. HOWEVER FAR FROM BEING AN ANSWER TO THE CAPITAL’S HOUSING PROBLEM, A LITTLE DIGGING WOULD LEAD ONE TO UNCOVER THIS NEW SDZ REPRESENTS A BREWING TRIUMVIRATE OF SOCIAL EXCLUSION, VULTURE FUNDS AND TECH SECTOR WORSHIP THAT IS QUICKLY RESHAPING OUR CITY. The back story to the Glass Bottle site at the centre of this developers and getting loans repaid for the state. However, value quality living and a finer lifestyle" and is lead by a ublin needs houses and by god, the regime is going to structures itself to attract investment. Referring to the firms setting in come Google and Facebook, no local jobs, house prices going new SDZ is one of those pillars of Celtic Tiger madness. It if its brief was changed, it has enough land already zoned former cop struggling to throw off his image as "the shoebox deliver them conjured up through the utterance of a up in the South Docklands area he said: through the roof, crazy rents all our young people forced out of our was bought for €412 million in 2006 by a Bernard McNamara and, if emergency legislation was introduced, we could build king" back home. magical formula known as an SDZ. Despite much media community our village is disappearing.” D “This grouping seems to have developed without a formal policy led consortium with the state’s Docklands Development houses quite quickly on it.” Nothing symbolizes the potent power of this reshaping of flatulence about the major regeneration happening in the Docklands targeting the area as a tech hub. However, since the grouping has Poolbeg West is not the first SDZ in the city. Back in May Authority putting in a 26% stake. Fast forward to 2011 and It's damn hard to discern anything too exact on how all the city than the phenomenon of wiping out older, locally (usually attributed to the presence of the ever shiney tech sector) developed, the IDA, NAMA, and others have influenced urban 2013, DCC and the Dublin Docklands Development Authority the whole thing was valued at €45 million. If there was a these houses are going to come about. Even if NAMA were held places names in favor of one’s dreamed up in the this SDZ term is bandied about with little explanation. Plainly put policies such as the Strategic Development Zone in Docklands to held a conference on the future of docklands with the tagline of “a reward for the biggest clusterfuck taken over by NAMA this to get down and dirty and build the units themselves, a look marketing departments of such regeneration schemes. in the legislative language that birthed the whole thing, it’s an area continue to make the area attractive to international tech companies. community for all.” was in sharp contention. at the residential portfolio of gaffs it boasts about on its “where, in the opinion of the Government, specified development is So far, this has mostly been about fast-tracking the delivery of This rebranding of the map is evident on a quick scan of It was described as “a core component of the SDZ consultation Against the busy hum of the Roasted Bean Cafe on Talbot website might give some inference of what we can expect. of economic or social importance to the State.” ‘Grade A’ office space, rather than about necessarily catering to the some of the websites of those leading out in the so-called process” for the area. Rather ironically, given that cuddly conference St, architect and activist Mark Price told me how "alarm It deals in developments in places like Honeypark in Dun Whatever about recent talk of 3,000 houses, when it comes to employees of the companies.” Silicon Docklands. For one there’s that much talked about title, Dr Andrew MacLaran of Trinity College Dublin completely bells immediately went off" when he’d heard of Coveney’s Laoghaire and marketed at €670,000, Malahide’s Coill Dub the whole Docklands area we’re talking about a legally mounted new SOBO district based on Windmill Lane and Sir John Let’s take a glimpse into some of the forces driving older SDZ’s slammed the whole SDZ for having precisely the opposite effect. announcement. fetches €445,000 or there’s the “absolute luxury” ones at framework that represents the state’s geo-spatial desire to attract Rogerson’s Quay. like those in the North Lotts and Grand Canal Dock, two other “So, we have this fast tracking of development - one of which is in Hazel Brooke Square in Churchtown for anywhere between financial and tech capital to the city of Dublin. Secondary of course He’d just spent the previous Sunday involved in a protest Unfortunately, our media giddily goes along with this. planning schemes approved in 2014. Dublin City Council explicitly front of you now - which in my view will remove the rights of third €450,000 to €695,000. This is hardly houses for the people to this, is a huge array of knock ons as our lived environment and meeting organised by The Irish Glass Bottle Site Housing Take for example RTÉ news reporting on the rezoning of set out their higher level working themes by citing how: party appeal from anybody,” he said at the time. is it? NAMA after all is profit driven. culture gets reshaped in the aftermath of this game of corporate Action Group. The local residents were demanding that the Glass Bottle site in Ringsend, when they opted for the “Google and Facebook not only employ thousands of people but seduction. Just think of the ratcheted up recovery rhetoric and rents “Therefore the very delineation of this Strategic Development 100% of the Glass Bottle site houses be social, Mark went "The SDZ in conjunction with NAMA is a blueprint for development led term Poolbeg West rather than just plainly have put the Docklands on the international map. The Docklands that drove even Paypal Ireland boss Louise Phelan to complain. Zone is problematic to me,” continued Dr MacLaran, “because it on to explain how the state was involved in an ideologically being ridden roughshod,” ex-Trinity professer MacLaran stating it was in Ringsend. Something which is pissing locals SDZ area is ideally placed to promote for the full range of zones out Sheriff Street, East Wall, Ringsend and Pearse Street”. driven fire sale of its own assets as owned through NAMA to says, “I would also say that if you sup with the devil, use a off no end. On the surface, nothing signifies our courting of international international, national, and local enterprise, by virtue of the variety Elsewhere MacLaran has gone as far as to call the Docklands site huge international financial institutions. very long spoon”. capital more than a grinning Enda Kenny ringing the NASDAQ of sites available, the proximity to the city centre, a unique waterfront For Mark Price who works teaching drawing to students a delimitation, “clearly gerrymandered to exclude concentrations of “A key element of all of this is the use of development So, who is this devil? Well, there's a number of ways bell at the Web Summit alongside its founder Paddy Cosgrave. setting, and the potential for collaboration with employers in the out in UCD’s School of Architecture, this plays itself out in poor indigenous Docklands residents.” NAMA can deliver on its residential programme, one of This astonishing piece of marketing was digitally bounced to the area.” land, part of the nation's assets which can be flipped by the even the style of buildings being developed. iconic sign in the heart of Times Square and broadcast into the Extreme language. Having now retired from Trinity college, I government thanks to the financial crisis and NAMA. These these includes working with debtors on commercially viable The announcement of the Poolbeg West SDZ is just the latest in "You can see very much with the kind of architecture, the NASDAQ studio itself. It perfectly surmised the state’s foreign reached out to MacLaran to see if his opinions had changed in the are state assets which we can cash out on really quickly." jobs or the outright sale of sites for development. Or as a line of these regeneration projects on speed. The upshot of this is kind of housing, the kind of buildings. Just the very style direct investment strategy in recent years, just as the Web Summit three years since the conference. The state is desperate to attract capital to regenerate it’s December SDZ and Residential Delivery update put it excited talk of a new city on the Liffey, with plans announced for of this stuff, its hermetically sealed looking stuff. It doesn't fecking off tempered it for the cynics. “NAMA may enter into joint ventures with other credible, 3,000 homes on the glass bottle site as part of the Poolbeg SDZ “I would not change anything in the presentation. If anything, had distressed assets in the city and bulk up its GDP figure. And meet the street at all. Talking of a social mix in the glass at the moment these are in and around the hot bellies of our well-capitalised platforms to develop sites". If a place like the Digital Hub in the south inner city, was a being the latest bait for coverage generous to the regime in the I had more time, I would have included more examples and greater bottle site in Ringsend is complete bullshit and completely international technological hinterlands, with all their cries Project Wave might be a good insight into that route, planned intervention by state actors to attract tech companies, then middle of a housing crisis. detail of how working-class communities have been poorly treated disingenuous, what does that mean? How would 90% of tech the successful haul of big fish like Facebook and Google led to the in comparison to the feather-bedding of business and property for better accommodation and office space. whereby a 2.2 hectare site on North Wall Quay is being workers or whoever else it’s going to be, the unaffordable However, the lack of any firm commitment to actual affordable unplanned development of a digital cluster desperate for office capital.” To understand this and one reason why NAMA might be developed. NAMA keep a freehold lease on it but a 90%, how are they going to be mixing?" housing as part of the scheme leaves residents of Ringsend and space in the south Docklands area of the city. The state had to start driven to sell off rather than try answer these demands itself, subsidary of Singapore's Oxley Holdings Ltd put up the Irishtown feeling like they are being pushed out. As one Ringsender “It's not just the tech sector though. If you look at the take-up If a new city is being built on the Liffey, the next obvious learning the art of accommodation. dosh to develop it alongside Seán Mulryan’s Ballymore you can turn to the words of Ruth Coppinger who recently question is for whom? involved in local organising said: of space in the docklands over the years, legal, financial and other Properties. Oxley Holdings specialises in clients described Cian O'Callaghan works in Maynooth Geography Department business services have been very important. The high-tech sector told the Dail Committee on Housing and Homelessness: “For too long we have been a dumping ground for Dublin and as "young and trendy home buyers and entrepreneurs who and looks at the intersection between industry and how the city DCC (waste treatment plant, incinerator, Docks) and so on. Then just happens to be the flavour of the month.” “The brief of NAMA is run along profit lines, bailing out Photos by Paul Reynolds and Martin Leen Sick of the the draconian net. He’s been pressured to take it Badman restrictions on accessing the down, and being the bauld boy he notorious TTIP documents, Ming is, he’s giving them the two fingers. We worked on the Ming Flanagan decided to video the The documents have since been 12 whole process and put it up on the leaked, sickener. Panama Papers and we got record traffic. It was excellent but now we’re two weeks down the line and everything is back to normal and nobody cares anymore... aImagi digital mediane safe haven...

IN 2009, WIKILEAKS RELEASED A CONFIDENTIAL DOCUMENT LISTING ICELAND’S KAUPTHING BANK’S EXPOSURE TO MEGA LOANS. THE BANK HAD LOANED BILLIONS TO A GOLDEN CIRCLE OF MAJOR SHAREHOLDERS AND ATTEMPTED TO MANIPULATE ITS SHARE PRICE. THE STATE BROADCASTER, RUV, WAS GAGGED FROM REPORTING THE WIKILEAKS EXPOSÉ. AS A RESULT A RADICAL INITIATIVE CALLED THE INTERNATIONAL MODERN MEDIA INSTITUTE RECEIVED UNANIMOUS SUPPORT IN PARLIAMENT. SEAN FINNAN SPOKE TO SMÁRI MCCARTHY, ONE OF THE ORGANISERS OF THE IMMI AND ALSO ONE OF THE FOUNDERS OF THE ICELANDIC PIRATE PARTY.

Ireland’s national broadcaster was gagged with bills on these current issues. On the 16 June The comparison I have made is that in And the answer cannot be let’s just bring last year and lives in perpetual fear of one that year the parliamentary resolution proposal the 1940’s we saw the beginnings of social everything back here and start up the factories of our wealthiest businessmen. Ireland isn’t went through the parliament unanimously - a democracy movements and they basically again, close the borders and you know dump all alone in this new wave of oppression of the rare thing. took the entirety of politics and started to look the money in the healthcare system because that press though, is it? at it through the lens of public welfare. Then doesn’t solve the fundamental problem. Things have been getting pretty bad all in the late 50’s, early 60’s you started to see Ireland’s position within the EU denies us over Europe for a while now. Have you seen green movements popping up. They started off the chance to follow Iceland’s lead. Does the With the recent Panama Papers leaks what’s going on in Poland right now? A new as just environmentalist movements but then EU, in fact, hobble the rights of journalists? it seems that journalism is increasingly government took over after elections a couple they started to re-align to become mainstream becoming a conduit for leaks where it’s of months ago under the lead of Beata Maria The EU can be used to protect these rights as political movements and saw the entire world the actual means of taking information, of Szydło. It’s the Law and Justice Party which well in a way that a lot of the really bad stuff through the lens of environmentalism. taking uncensored data that is providing the will tell you what political angle they come that’s happening in the UK and in Hungary, Because our understanding is in order for you momentary shock to the establishment. Is this at things from. They’ve adopted new media Poland whatever... some of the worst of it has to have democracy as we understand that term where you see journalism going? laws which are modelled very strongly on the been prevented by EU law. So it’s both an asset you need to have two things: you need first off It’s tricky. To some degree journalism is about Hungarian ones from 2011 highly restricting and a problem. to have the information that is required of you to that, speaking truth to power and making sure media movement and putting heavy fines on I think what every country can do is make be able to make good enlightened decisions and that authorities are accountable. But there’s also publications that are considered to be ‘unfair’ or certain changes internally. Fix libel law so, secondly you need to have the authority to make more to journalism than that. There’s a degree whatever. for instance, telling the truth isn’t considered decisions. If either one of those things is missing to which it is a form of analysis of the current Then they did the double whammy thing of libellous. Guarantee freedom of information in then you have something other than democracy. social condition and understanding society media law and constitutional change - intended the ‘third generation’ sense. The first generation Once you start to look at the entire world that (of freedom of information is) where you’re and making sure that analysis is disseminated to cement their power and guarantee it. way then it becomes a question of how do you allowed to ask for any document but you need through society. guarantee people the greatest amount of control to typically ask for exactly the document you Looking for the structures, that’s what I over their own lives and how do you guarantee want and you don’t necessarily know which do for a living. I work with an organisation Turning Iceland into a haven for reporters, people the greatest amount of information upon a "Switzerland of Bits", could you tell our documents exist. The second generation said ‘ok that is [analysing] data to discover large scale which to make good decisions. Turns out that you can ask for any document and here’s a list of corruption and organised crime. And the reality readers a bit about the history of IMMI and that small bit of logic goes through everything how such a radical proposal got passed in the documents’. The third generation is, since we we talk about. I like it, it’s pretty cool. of that is right now it is really, really difficult to parliament? have this list why don’t we just make it clickable do that. It is incredibly expensive work and the So the project started in 2009 as a series of and publish everything a priori unless there’s reality is everybody gets excited about a big data conversations with various free speech activists a specific reason to hold it back. Currently Across Europe anti-austerity groups have leak. We worked on the Panama Papers and we and so on in Iceland. We decided that the best Norway is the only country that has that kind of been trying to protect what was, rather got record traffic. It was excellent but now we’re way to try and strengthen the media rights, the third generation law. than attempting to appropriate power by two weeks down the line and everything is back free speech rights and also transparency would rethinking how society operates. Would you to normal and nobody cares anymore. be to cherry pick the best things from different say the Pirate Party is different? So either it continues to get less funding and You were one of the founders of the countries around the world and make a big Yeah, I’ve got friends in groups like Podemos the entire thing becomes a competition about Icelandic Pirate Party. Can you tell me how proposal for legislative change. and these various, mostly anti-austerity parties clickbait, how many clicks can you get and how the Icelandic Pirate Party is connected to and I totally agree with what they’re trying much advertising can you sell or there needs We worked on that until the end of January IMMI and what is the idealism behind the to do but that the end result is something like to be some good economic mechanism which 2010 and then it got entered into the parliament party? on February 1. We decided not to make it a trying to keep social democracy on life-support quality journalism is funded alongside a change A lot of the people who were involved with bill because bills are very hard to get through instead of making something new. They aren’t in these assumptions. IMMI to begin with were also involved in the especially as our main sponsor at the time was really looking too hard at the economics of what founding of the Pirate Party. But the Pirate Party Birgitta Jónsdóttir who was in a minority party modernity looks like because we’ve got raging stands for a whole lot more than just IMMI. For more on the International Media Initiative (she and I and various others co-founded the populations, we’ve got massive migration of IMMI is very focused on media, on publication, check out their website at immi.is Icelandic Pirate Party in 2013). people all over the world, more globalization of on free speech and transparency whereas the the economy, Europe is no longer the industrial But in that project we put IMMI forward as Pirates are trying to approach the entirety of centre of the world that it once was so you know, a “parliamentary resolution proposal” to hand politics from a somewhat different holistic what is left? the project over to the government to come up model of understanding politics.

Illustration by Katie Blackwood What does a pipe smoking French the ideological state apparatus of obsession with shitting on the recent Martin Leen caught up with asylum 2016. Head over to rabble.ie to hear Hipster Marxist philosopher and the pied- course! We drafted in media lecturer Luas strike. Out Of Sight seeker Lucky Khambule to discuss him outline the steps some of those piper webshite of Dublin’s hipster Henry Silke to dust off some heavy the realities and frustrations of living seeking asylum have taken to ensure 1422 Bourgeoisie bourgeoisie have in common? Why tomes and probe Lovin Dublin’s under the Direct Provision system in their voices are heard. 15 {MEEJA} TALKNG TO G.O.D.

INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST GEMMA O’DOHERTY HAS GARNERED A REPUTATION AS A TENACIOUS OLD-SCHOOL REPORTER. SHE’S CURRENTLY CHAMPIONING THE CASE OF MARY BOYLE, A SIX-YEAR- OLD DONEGAL GIRL MISSING SINCE 1977. RASHERS TIERNEY CAUGHT UP WITH O’DOHERTY AFTER HER APPEARANCE AT THE JOURNALISM IN CRISIS CONFERENCE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF LIMERICK BACK IN APRIL.

In your keynote to the conference, you said the role of a journalist Print journalism is sadly on the decline and this is an obvious many journalists to turn into commentators and there's not enough is to be an “outsider” and to go home after a day’s work in the Dáil. route for reporters like me. There's this notion that investigative reporters just out doing old fashioned digging. Could you explain what you mean exactly by this? journalism costs a lot of money, I disagree with that. In Ireland, So that's an area we have to watch, so that the internet doesn't there are so many stories that haven't been told, so many victims become a talking shop for journalists. That it is used to tell other Good journalism can't be done in a pack. That's what happens who have never had the chance to tell their story, be they victims of people's stories through the internet, stories that affect the public. in Leinster House and within crime reporting. We have very close state abuse or very vulnerable children in foster care, being left in connections between the police, power and the press in Ireland - vulnerable situations. incestuous relationships - and that is really damaging to the public The cops have served warrants and seized journalists’ AV So really nowadays a journalist like me, for example, who's interest and democracy. material, photos from demonstrations etc - Eamon Farrell of worked mainly in print it's very, very exciting that we have the PhotoCall Ireland said it was an effort to turn the media into "an When you have reporters and editors out socialising with guards, opportunities through the internet to get our stories out directly. extension of the eyes and ears of the state" - how much of a game that is the wrong way to go about journalism. Irish people are telling us their stories, victims who have not been changer is that? That's when journalism turns into PR and we have an awful lot believed by the establishment media, by the gardaí, who have had of that in Ireland. We saw in Britain and in the Leveson Report how doors slammed in their faces - we can now tell their stories through Journalists see how vulnerable they are and if they don't have these toxic relationships between power, the police and the press the internet and we can cut out the middle man, and it usually is a support of management behind them, when disgraceful things like are so harmful to the public interest and in particular to people who man, stopping us from telling these really important stories of public that happen and gardai attempt to seize their material, they are in a When you have have been through traumatic experiences and who were victimised interest. very vulnerable position - but they are also very grown up people, by the press. they need to stand their ground. reporters and You made that point in Limerick about the myth of the cost of They need to make choices, is it journalism they want to be in You spoke about certain people in RTÉ seeing it as their role to investigative journalism, possibly as a reaction to some of the or is it PR? Journalists themselves need to start standing up for the editors out rehabilitate people who had been disgraced in the eyes of the public. fatalism in UL. Is a bus fare and good shoes all you really need? profession when they are targeted by elements within the state, Can you point to some examples? even if they don't have the support of their bosses, or else get out We have to see what these people are learning in journalism of the profession. One thing that struck me recently was the assault socialising with For example, the likes of Bertie Ahern has been wheeled out college. Are they being taught the old fashioned characteristics like of a cameraman in Talbot St, I believe it was an RTÉ cameraman. recently to comment on the formation of government and there being dogged and putting the public interest first rather than licking He was allegedly assaulted by a garda. There should have been an guards, that is the would be large cohorts of Irish people who would believe that he up to those in power? Are those characteristics being drummed into enormous outcry from RTÉ management but I didn't hear it if there didn't fully disclose his own private business dealings and that he them? was. left office in disgrace and was also responsible, with his colleagues, I challenged RTÉ on that. I challenge RTÉ on an awful lot on wrong way to go for a lot of the economic pain people are suffering. You know to be tenacious and to fight for your story and to have rat-like cunning and all the old Fleet Street traditional qualities but things but I never get any proper answers. Journalists need to stand And yet he is wheeled out as this great statesman whose combining that with your smartphone, your iPad or your Mac, using up against those who would destroy our profession and turn it into about journalism... opinion is one that we should all be listening to. RTÉ also wheel the facilities on those tools to just reach out directly. spin doctoring. They are not doing that. I know when I was fired, out yesterday's men and women who have been rejected by the Every single village and town in Ireland has a story that has not there was virtually a tiny handful of people within the profession electorate and are ignoring the new voices that have been voted in been told. And it will be a story of huge public interest…. and that’s who supported me. Most of them were from Britain ironically by the public as people they want to see bring about change that is a lot to do with the fact that our mainstream media are simply not Journalists only have themselves to blame in many regards for what needed. allowed to cover many stories of corruption. is happening to the profession and that so many of them are now We have a lot of new TDs in the Dail now but I'm not hearing ridiculed in the public eye. It's not expensive and if you’ve got a really important good story their voices particularly strongly on RTÉ or other establishment you can get it out there and if it’s good, it will spread and that is the outlets, and there is something very wrong with that. big fear of the internet among those who would try to silence people Illustration by Daniel Greenhalgh who are exposing corruption. That is their big fear and they don’t You've been moving into documentary filmmaking as a method for know how to contain it. investigative journalism. What’s prompted this? The downside of Twitter and Facebook is that it has caused too Souvenir Shop is one of the Arts house on North Great George’s St. Devery caught up with Rita to talk Revolution Council’s nine major Easter 1916 Rita Duffy has filled the shop with about the show for rabble.ie commemorative projects. The shop is subversive products inspired by the 16 For Sale located in a ramshackle old Georgian revolutionary 1916 period. Catriona {PROTEST}

By the summer of 2015, an old quip from an Athenian protestor broadcast on RTÉ that the Irish didn’t protest was a distant memory. As it turned out, resistance We Are Winning! had to rebuild itself anew outside of the old channels How the Irish Went Protest Mad. and the officialdom safety- IT FEELS LIKE A LIFETIME AGO THAT BRIAN COWEN SLURRED HIS WORDS ON THE RADIO, THE IMF LANDED AND BERTIE GOT COLLARED valves built up over the last OUTSIDE THE DAIL SIGNALLING THE BOOTING THEY WERE ABOUT TO GET. WELL IT’S NOT BEEN A LIFETIME, BUT IT HAS BEEN AN “ELECTORAL CYCLE” AS THEY CALL IT. IN THIS REVIEW OF THE FINE GAEL-LED COALITION, SHANE RAGBAGS TAKES US THROUGH HOW century... THE IRISH EVENTUALLY LEARNT TO HATE THE REGIME.

ince the 2011 election, we’ve forced through. would ultimately take such a hit that Eamonn fiscally “neutral”! They went so far as to declare somehow gone from the biggest Future Labour senator David Begg and ICTU had Gilmore would have to retire as Labour Party Austerity was over! Neither true, obviously, but the majority in the history of the been forced to call a demoralising protest of their leader and Tánaiste, for Joan Burton. eejits had demonstrated to the whole country that state - to the first ever minority own to keep a lid on things - it was, remarkably, In August, another tragic case of a woman being organised resistance works. government. This year the Civil in support of the government’s non-efforts at debt effectively denied a life-saving abortion was So, of course, they went protest mad everywhere. War parties couldn’t muster renegotiation. In the end, the state had to ditch the revealed. Migrant Y was a resident in a Direct Two similarly massive and self-organised 50% of the vote between them. charge and take the property tax through Revenue Provision centre, and her case highlighted the If we witnessed one historic “riot in a ballot box” protests in the following two months meant that the S from 2013. The campaign was smashed, but intersections between the patriarchal Irish state government’s support in opinion polls collapsed. in 2011, we’ve now witnessed two in succession. opposition to the regime was shown to be possible. and its contribution to the Fortress Europe border So, what happened? Hundreds of thousands joined together to say Blood had been drawn. regime. The pro-choice coalition returned to the “fuck the regime” and engaged in mass protest and “Labour’s way” turned out in fact to be 2012 was the anniversary of the X-Case ruling streets with its demand for a referendum to repeal a boycott movement that has all-but sunk water Frankfurt’s way. And pepper spray, as the chant which had mandated the state to provide for the 8th amendment, alerted to the institutional charges. went. Also: evictions, a housing crisis, bank racism of the state. abortion in cases that a pregnancy caused a threat Come the summer of 2015, an old quip from an bailouts and bonfires of the meagre social supports to the woman’s life. Twenty years of governments And at this time Direct Provision centre people have to pay for it all. A visit to Brussels Athenian protestor broadcast on RTÉ that the Irish including Fianna Fáil, the Progressive Democrats, residents themselves, losing years of their lives didn’t protest was a distant memory. As it turned reversed the election pledge that they would not the Greens, Fine Gael, Labour and gombeen interned under threat of deportation waiting for give one more red cent to the bondholders, and out, resistance had to rebuild itself anew outside of independents had managed to successfully ignore their applications to be processed, had enough. the old channels and officialdom safety-valves built made a new one that they would pay anything, in the ruling. In the spring, Clare Daly, one of several They took control of almost half of the centres full and on time. up over the last century. It was well symbolised new leftwing TDs elected in 2011, put forward insisting that the system of Direct Provision and by the image of Fr Ted kicking Bishop Brennan In their first budget billions more were cut, the first ever X-Case legislation which Fine Gael deportations should be abolished, and they at last up the arse which went viral in celebration of the including an increase in student fees and a new and the nominally pro-choice Labour Party batted be let participate in Irish life. In a contender for Marriage Equality referendum result. household charge. The Jobbridge scam was away. their most shameful moment, the Labour Party When the election came around, the old Two- launched, leading a whole new programme in government would use their relationship with Towards the end of the year, Savita and-a-Half party system of replacing tweedle-dum legitimising unpaid and precarious labour. NGOs to diffuse these protests with the promise of Halappanavar, tragically died in a Galway hospital Fianna Fáil with tweedle-dee Fine Gael and Labour “reform” which never came. The student movement had already been cleared for want of exactly such measures. It sparked an was gloriously dumped. Only that the movement off the streets by Gardai on horseback, while intense movement of protest across the state and Lockouts at Greyhound Recycling drew was demobilised by the autumn, could it claw a Labour and the trade union leadership had joined shone international attention on the constitutional confrontation in Dublin, which replicated the little back in the zombie resurrection of the undead the government, pulling a lot of the NGOs in with abortion ban. Eventually the government were spirit of effective direct action in the Paris Bakery Fianna Fáil. them. People had already been robbed at source forced into legislating a characteristically cruel occupation which preceded it. Both successful. This was consummated in the vote to suspend for things like the USC, their wages taken away in means of access to life-saving abortions, but a In the Spring, some organisers of the “People’s water charges and kick them to a committee, social partnership agreements, their jobs let go at a new generation of pro-choice activists intent on Assembly” protest held a conference opposing hopefully never to be seen again. Enda is back rate of thousands per week. Resist? How? repealing the 8th amendment had emerged. water charges and privatisation while people in as Taoiseach, but not for long. They’re dropping Ballyphehane started to block Denis O’Brien’s But a property tax on top of bubble-era mortgage By now, we had entered the centenary of the unpopular measures like pay-by-weight recycling, water meter installers. This spread to Limerick debt only highlighted the contradiction of a new Irish revolution and the Dublin Lockout of 1913. A the broadcasting charge, Jobbridge and promising and Dublin where blocking water meter vans had property tax to pay for services that no longer “Lockout” themed protest took place in September goodies at the rate of a minority regime that knows the benefit of lessons from the earlier blocking of existed. It needed a subtler man than Phil Hogan to drawing together groups that said ‘No’ to Austerity. it’s fucked. impose this while billions upon billions were being A group in Cork had inspired other groups in Greyhound trucks driven by scabs. All-in-all we’ve had nearly a decade of mass poured into toxic banks. In effect, it was going to Dublin and elsewhere to protest weekly against The conference had called for a broad anti-water unemployment, emigration and record levels of the bondholders of course. the debt. A protest in Wicklow in the summer of charges protest for after the election, initially in enforced deprivation - and Fine Gael-Labour 2013 managed to stop Bertie returning to pick up August, then September before settling on the So people mad as hatters across the state masterminded the last 5 years of it. In response, the Coillte forests for his vulture fund mates. A Saturday before the budget in October. In the self-organised to not pay the charge, creating to recall a memorable The Week in Politics from new networks of resistance independent of the modest “People’s Assembly” protest to welcome Autumn, blocking of meter installation and vans, the returning Dail a couple of weeks later modelled street meetings and local protests had engulfed February 2011, the “ragbags and misfits” have officialdom. Several important protests took place exacted some measure of revenge by clearing half on the successful Coillte protest brought these working class areas. These all came together in such as at the Labour Ard Fheis in Galway, the of them and their political system out. Fine Gael Ard Fheis in Dublin, the 2012 budget together. that October 10 protest where 100,000 more people protest with DCTU. It created the environment As 2014 got going, the defeat of the household turned up than even the organisers themselves had where public sector workers could reject the charge campaign had started to wear off as expected. Photos by Jamie Goldrick latest social partnership stitch-up - the same week resistance networks approached a critical mass. The government was rocked and scrambled in the Margaret Thatcher died! Jelly and ice cream were The summer local and European elections helped days before the budget to withdraw cut after charge had in celebration, though a new deal was later re-politicise the atmosphere. The government after cut to the point where they tried to sell it as

Photos by Jamie Goldrick

Huge sums are paid to individuals and organisations? from international finance services The consultancies to manage and Her project, the Troika Fiscal to non-corporate organisations. advise on tax avoidance. What Disobedience Consultancy does Caitriona Devery caught up with Troika if these strategies were made just that, and offers actual tax Nuria Gueill to see what it was all 20 available to non-corporate avoidance strategies borrowed about for rabble.ie On Beckett and Behan Two F-ing Bs

OPEN ANY ENCYCLOPAEDIA ON IRELAND AND INVARIABLY YOU WILL FIND TWO OF DUBLIN’S FINEST WORDWEAVERS, SAMUEL BECKETT AND BRENDAN BEHAN, EITHER ON THE SAME PAGE OR OPPOSITE PAGES EYEBALLING ONE ANOTHER. ALAN O'BRIEN TAKES A LOOK AT TWO DUBLINERS WHOSE BACKGROUNDS COULDN’T CONTRAST ANY MORE ENTIRELY.

eckett spent his childhood was a break away from the regular Dublin literary While Dublin’s snobbish high-brow hoards was enjoying while asking to be remembered “to in the sleepy-affluent and elite who Behan described as “the large and practiced feeble rejection/acceptance regarding the the new O’Casey”. sheltered area of Foxrock. formidable body of people who had once had a raconteur-writer, New York’s embraced him with Their contrasts were many but none more Behan, had his formative play done at the Abbey”. vigour. The rakish, alcoholic, boisterous behaviour noteworthy or intriguing than the contrasts of years in the overcrowded Those Dublin literary elites were where that dirtied-his-bib in Dublin was accepted (if not their drama. Beckett’s dark existentialism portrays Dublin metropolis of the Beckett and Behan’s contrasts couldn’t become expected) from New York artistic quarters and the human condition through a mixture of stark, 1920s and hungry 30s. more downright absolute. The majority of the Behan made quite the impression on them; his debased, pitiful, afflicted, and severe individuals. Beckett’sB education was of the highest standard literati revered Beckett. He was a man to be seen prowess there as a playwright expressed in New Their worlds are often simple, often dull, decayed, a well-to-do Protestant family could expect; with about town. A living genius. While all along, York poet Frank O’Hara’s poem The Day Lady and sometimes unwonted. Many of his characters attending Miss Elsners Academy, the Royal Beckett was repulsed by a large percentage of Died reflecting the regard in which he was held. reflect an older order whose values and beliefs Portora, Enniskillen and Trinners. While Behan’s them. Commenting specifically on the literati in a Yet before he tasted, essentially devastating- were debunked and them suffering the trauma that education was of the highest standard a working- letter to his friend the poet Tom MacGreevy (the success, and in similar vein to Beckett, Behan goes with such debunking. The World Wars had class family with Irish-republican politics (that man who was with Joyce at his deathbed), he said, found Dublin to be artistically stifling and tried put the pedal to metal regarding modernity, and was as much of a staple diet as tea, bread and “I dislike the whole lot without exception. I’ll Paris. While there, in his own testament in a large swathe of the older orders were left in the margarine) could expect; attending William Street drink in Phibsboro or in my rooms. Or I’ll stop Confessions of an Irish Rebel, he worked as a dust asking deep introspective questions, such as Convent, St. Canices Christian Brothers, Bolton smoking or drinking.” painter/decorator, wrote porn and facilitated sex- could it be that God is not really there? Street Tech and Jail. Dublin had an artistically stifling effect that was workers (basically he spent the day on the gargle Behan’s drama is dark and politically-charged And yet they had their similarities along with a fertile pasture for inducing a nervous breakdown, in a café where American tourists would often subject-matter, yet sympathetic to humanity their contrasts, such as the honour of having their and it also had the affect of turning Beckett into frequent and make a phone-call if a prostitute’s portrayed and palatable to ordinary people work banned in Ireland thusly guaranteeing them a snob, something he admonished himself for, service was enquired after). through utilising a crucial ingredient. One that international fame. Also similarly, both responded stating “...if the heart had not put the fear of death Then Beckett and Behan’s two spheres of cannot be learned fully or copied adequately in to the rise of fascism in Europe. Behan with the into me, I would be still boozing and sneering and existence came into one another’s orbit. It goes in universities, as it’s an ingredient that serves as a IRA; where he volunteered and was accepted to lounging around and feeling that I was too good Anthony Cronin’s biography of Beckett that one coping-mechanism for an entire class that is the go with Frank Ryan’s International Brigade to for anything else.” Like Joyce he legged it to night Sam and Suzanne Beckett were laying in bed blackness of working-class humour. Laughter is a Spain (he was aged just 15 years having lied about France, where above all else he could speak free in their apartment in the rue de Favourites, when free anti-depressant and therefore affordable and his age) only to have his mother furtively destroy and easy. Working for ‘the master of language’ they heard a crashing of some sort at their front used freely by the non-hegemonic classes when the letters of acceptance before he laid his eyes Jem Joyce as his personal secretary, undoubtedly door. On investigating, they found a dishevelled dealing with their traumas. And this calibre of on them. Years later Behan claimed to have been had a profound influence. bloodstained suit, containing an over-imbibed comedy flowed freely in most of Behan’s work deported from Spain after a journalist asked him Behan however, only received the same Brendan Behan. while counterbalanced with a well-crafted and what he would like to see most while on his visit to literati’s begrudging and jealous acceptance after Beckett bade Behan entrance to his home and empowering pathos. the country? Behan answered, "Franco’s funeral". the success in New York of The Quare Fellow sat for a few hours drinking whiskey and listening One can only imagine what the two would And Beckett was amongst a group of writers beforehand he had been generally dismissed. The to his anecdotes, until he managed to discontinue make of our nowadays? It’s more than possible asked to write their opinion on what was occurring snobbery Behan endured is perhaps reflected best the visit as he had rehearsals for Godot starting they’d be graciously impressed with the Irish for in Spain regarding the Civil War, he wrote in this comment relating to him that appeared in that very morning. The Becketts were quick in passing the Equality Referendum, but what would simply, “¡UPTHEREPUBLIC!”. Further to this, The Irish Times and said: “There are persons of recognising his knock in the subsequent weeks and they say about Ireland being the first country in during World War II, Beckett joined the French bourgeois respectability in the city of Dublin who generally avoided future midnight drinking-bouts. Europe where the people decided and asserted Resistance; which he characteristically played nourish a secret unease. It is that one day they may Beckett didn’t hold any animosity though. If he overwhelmingly that a gay couple can marry, down as a paltry and unimportant role (however, be proceeding on their middle-class way, chatting had, he hardly would have posted bail for him but a woman must embark on a pilgrimage to unimportant enough for him to have to go into smoothly with their employer or their bank when jailed for being drunk and disorderly (Behan somewhere within that continent in order to obtain hiding). Commenting on his decision to join, he manager, when suddenly across the street will said he “paid what I owed them, and he took me a legal abortion illegally? It’s ripe for imagination. said, “You just couldn’t stand with your arms come a loud and ebullient “View-halloo” followed away, and he gave me 10,000 francs and a double And finally and most importantly, it’s likely Behan folded”. And interestingly both had their plays by a colourful and uninhibited commentary on brandy and a lecture on the evils of drinking”) nor would embrace the smiley emoji, but what the introduced to Ireland by the same theatre producer, things in general.” corresponded to Alan Simpson congratulating him fuck would Beckett make of it? Alan Simpson and his Pike Theatre Club. Simpson on the success the production of The Quare Fellow

Illustration by Thomas McCarthy 23 Monkey Magic

GUERILLA STUDIOS STAKES A CLAIM TO BE THE STUDIO FOR UNDERGROUND BANDS IN DUBLIN. BIT THOMPSON CAUGHT UP WITH JOHN ‘SPUD’ MURPHY AND ASKED WHY THEY SET UP A RECORDING STUDIO WHEN THE ARSE HAS FALLEN OUT OF THE INDUSTRY.

ell, how’s it going? So necessity on a couple of different fronts. be gained. But everything was mobile supposed to be recorded in Rathmines doing videos for The Practice Tapes There was so much pressure that as tell me how youse got And were youse actively seeking and we were just after bringing out and there was probably a year’s worth with bands like Orchestre Tout Puissant Wstarted in the recording out bands to record or how does that Katie Kim’s Cover and Flood and we of mixing from the mobile days to be Marcel Duchamp, Ten Past Seven, Don soon as there was four walls with business? work? wanted to get the next album done. But done… fuckin’ nuts… So we had to Vito, Molossus and a load more like I was driving from Cork to Dublin the bring stuff back to Cork just to get stuff Underline which was a three band live Well it started when I was in a We just kept getting asked to do more whole time to rehearse with her and it done whilst the studio was being built set that ran for over hour. a roof on it we just had to go for band called Ilya K and we’d won and more recordings as the word got was costing a fortune and was really and it was absolutely mental, mental, the Murphy’s Live competition. We around. We’re not trying to rip anybody So what does the future hold for impractical so I was like, “Fuck it, I probably one of the worst times in my it. We had to just go with and try went around pricing studios and they off and I was working in a studio in Guerilla Studios? need to move to Dublin.” life… were mad expensive. We all had a Cork, so all that money was going back Well I guess that the music that we’re background in engineering and said into building up Ilya K/Guerilla studios How difficult was it to find a space Now yizzer set up, in a fairly into and the stuff that we record are on to improve the place as we went “Fuck that, let’s set up a studio in the and maybe people just got wind of that to set up in Dublin? unlikely location, was it tough to get the periphery and wouldn’t generally gaff. We already have some stuff and and bought into that type of idea. I had a few contacts and there was a people into record? get that much airplay on national radio along... we can take our time and do it our own So, bands like Ten Past Seven and friend who met someone about taking We had stuff lined up, Hands Up Who so it’s fairly underground. So far we’ve way.” Percolator saw that the main interest over a huge space in Rathmines. It Wants to Die, The Jimmy Cake, the really been lucky to work with some So we did that and the first people to was the sound and equipment rather seemed to be a goer and Anna was next Katie Kim album was there. All great bands in that particular scene and come in were Los Langeros and we did than just making a bit of cash. We’re going to run a café out of it and a gig within the first few months of being in we have some idea of what those bands the Ilya K album, this was all in Cork lucky enough, so far, to be involved space for ambient stuff, film screenings the arch. There was nothing there really, want and we try to record things to the by the way, then we had Percolator with a great underground scene so a lot and we’d be set up in the rest. It was a table, a kettle and that’s about it and highest possible standard. Because the down and got on really well with them of the stuff we’ve done is stuff we’re some cleaning/security company. we just had to get on and track all this development of the studio has been and that’s when I met Ian and asked really interested in and love so that we We had started cleaning out the room stuff. That’s after we had cleaned up quite organic and we take our time over him to help out and learn a bit on the put everything we have both in terms and getting it ready and I was chasing all the oil and garage shite and divided each tracking and mixing we’re still job before starting into a college course. of time and care, into making the best yer man for a set of keys and after ages the place into three rooms. There was building this thing and investing in the But even then, even with all the weird possible recordings for who we work they just got back and said you’re not so much pressure that as soon as there space and the gear. It means that right or leftfield bands there wasn’t that much with. allowed do it anymore…. Shit! was four walls with a roof on it we just now it’s more a labour of love than a music. That was just before the crash had to go for it. We had to just go with steady income. This was all in Cork, yeah? How We had just got a gaff in North Strand and there was still a bit of money about and try to improve the place as we went did youse end up in Dublin? so we were freaking out. We were back I guess what we’re trying to do is but it was crap. We were still getting along. develop along with the underground and Yea, so Ilya K split and that studio on Daft that night and by chance there paid in cans of Galahad for doing the Apart from doing regular long expand the spaces and relationships and got divided up but there was all these was a place just off North Strand, a few Picnic. form recording you’ve also done get more Irish music heard, both inside other spaces we could still use, but it streets from the gaff, that came up. It So I guess the setting up of a some live recordings and there’s been and outside Ireland. I’d say that the was basically pouring all the gear into was the cheapest by half, everything recording studio was born from a good few videos shot in the studio, studio is probably seventy five percent. my van and bringing it to where it was else was €1,200 or more a month and necessity? tell us about some of that? For the future, I guess, we have to strike needed. So I was recording stuff all over out in the suburbs. It was part of a the right balance between getting paid Yeah. The first focus was really to and mixing it in my room. garage in an arch underneath a train Yea, so, we had known Sean Zissou do the Ilya K album and take it from line. So we took it and burnt through all from before and it turned out he was for doing the things we love and turning Yea, so the mobile studio was there. We’d a little cottage where most my money setting it up which probably living on the same street and after a around more recordings but for now interesting as we were doing all the of the band lived and we recorded took about 4 months! few pints the idea was hatched to do we have to keep the day jobs to pay the weird shite, everything from string everything there. I was offering to some videos in the space. We did The bills... quartets to drummers to orchestras and There was a huge backlog of stuff lend a hand in studios just to get some Jimmy Cake thing live, that was a Check them out at guerrillasounds.com shit so there was a lot of experience to due to all the delays. Crayonsmith was more knowledge. So it was probably a twenty minute track. And that led to 24

SMITHFIELD SQUARE’S GENERATOR HOSTEL IS FULL WITH INTERNATIONAL VISITORS. YET IT’S HARD TO SHAKE THE FEELING THAT SOMETHING IS MISSING. FOR A FEW YEARS THROUGH THE GLOOM OF THE RECESSION THERE WAS A HOPE THAT SMITHFIELD HAD THE POTENTIAL TO BRING SOMETHING OF THE VIVACITY OF BERLIN TO DUBLIN. MARTIN LEEN BELIEVES YOU CAN KISS THAT HOPE GOODBYE AS THE NEW RENTAL REALITIES ARE KILLING ART SPACES.

here was a sense of grassroots Broadstone Studios in Harcourt Street they can actually get ‘real’ commercial spaces etc. They often cannot generate Naomi says “Commercial rates are a big DIY activity around the place. closed after 18 years when their landlord people to come in. Many alternative income but contribute in other ways to problem for arts organisations. These are TBlock T and The Complex sold the property, Moxie Studios in places have closed.” the fabric of the city.” rates paid to a council for non-domestic brought energy and people to the area. Dublin 2, the Mabos Project on Hanover While funding will always be an issue These are not simply just “art spaces” space. Many alternative spaces have Up around the corner Flatpack Studios Quay and The Factory. The list goes on. for arts organisations Connect the Dots they are also important community closed in the last year or so because it and the Joinery held gigs, exhibitions Louise Marlborough of PrettyvacanT found that they also face other obstacles centres, works-spaces and educational was not sustainable for them to pay the and happenings. says “There is no easy solution to the such as a lack of supportive and flexible facilities. Laura Dovn of Block T feels rates.” You could stroll down by the fruit closure of art space and studios. In infrastructure in terms of advice, that “It is important to recognise that A start to getting to where Laura market and catch some performance art 2009 I saw an opportunity and set up champions, transparent information and creative self-expression is integral in is talking about is actually taking the in The Market Studios. With the closure PrettyvacanT Dublin, but it was born clear processes to encourage the growth everyone's life. Creativity is a part of social dividend promised by Nama. of Block T in Smithfield on March 30 out of the economic and property crisis. of new initiatives and current projects. sustainable living, and not just a separate That needs political will but it’s clear These are not simply just “art all of these places for one reason or The closures are part and parcel of the The ad hoc nature of their set-ups often domain that no-one outside arts industry the consensus of the current regime is to another will be gone, some gone from economic cycle. Unless this is broken leaves creative spaces vulnerable to is able to access or understand. I would marginalise the Arts further and bundle spaces” they are also important the area, some gone for good. or challenged and I believe this will sudden changes or to authorities, thus hope that in years to come government it together with Rural Affairs, Rural Block T having been in Smithfield continue to happen - the economy making economic viability and resilience officials, developers, representatives of Development and The Gaeltacht in a for over 6 years had to move out improves and property is in demand, challenging. the creative industry and community new mutant department. Meanwhile the community centres, works-spaces because they could not get a long prices rise and one of the first casualties Naomi feels an issue is, “space not workers can come together and re-define council rejects motions that call for new term lease and could not grow or are arts organisations, studios and groups being valued as an important asset to the how creative organisations and art developments to allocate a small percent and educational facilities... indeed invest in the space with any etc. It is an ever repeating cycle.” community. What’s come out of a lot of centres are supported and utilised.” of their space to cultural use. Naomi guarantee. They since found another Running an independent art space the discussions at Connect The Dots is Louise didn’t feel that “there was says: “The city needs to be inspired a home in Basin View, Dublin 8 but it is an unstable business, with the space that there are few ‘champions’ and little much support from government and bit by other examples in similar sized involves a big rebuilding process and itself in many ways being the most or no legislation that protects spaces local authorities. I spoke to and met with cities. It needs a really well thought out another huge investment of capital to insecure. During a recession, spaces for that may not have direct fiscal benefits many Departments and organisations strategic plan, informed by citizens, and refurbish the building via a gofundme arts organisations, are easier to find. The to the city, but do amazing work for the and although they were supportive in to then have an open door policy (more campaign. The Complex had to opposite is true in ‘recovery’. community and provide an important principle their actions were lacking.” of a 'yes, and how can we help', then a 'no, but..').” move because their building was Naomi Murphy and Marisa Denker are creative space for an area that would Surely this is something that the taken over by NAMA who wanted to Connect the Dots, an organisation that otherwise have none.” council can help with. Dublin City Arts As Laura told me when it comes to put a Tesco there. The Joinery had to brings diverse stakeholders together over While Dublin City Council provides Officer runs a Vacant Spaces Initiative, such spaces: "There is enough evidence close because of the precariousness a common cause or issue. Over the last some support through its Arts office, but at the moment there are 350 artists of their social and economic impact of running a not for profit arts space year and a half they have focused on the new grassroots organisations often find on the waiting list and only 2 places available to form a thorough case study year after year. use of vacant space in the city. Naomi it difficult to find support. Louise says, became available last year. There are which could act as a catalyst for a real Smithfield and Stoneybatter have says: “I think there is plenty that government so many empty buildings around that cultural reform in Ireland. And I trust we are ready for it." become gentrified, rents are going “It was easiest right after the economic and local authorities can do but I have could be used, many of them owned by up and there is no room for the crash, because it was a bit more flexible, seen little or no evidence of this. Arts NAMA who according to both Naomi organisations that brought life there were more spaces that were a and culture needs to be valued and and Louise are very difficult to penetrate. Look up Block T's Go Fund Me page to back to this place. This problem bit cheaper to get into. Now, with the nourished, especially at the early stages There are also some practical measures make a donation. is not just confined to Dublin 7. economy going up, people realise that e.g. fledgling organisations, artist led that can be taken by the council to help. Cormac Lally wrote a poem about and their views on Ireland today. Rising a dream he had in which a spirit Lynched's own Ian Lynch features on medium who becomes possessed uilleann pipes. Go look it up. 26 Voices by the ghosts of the 1916 Rising Brian Burke {FILM}

WOMEN ARE NOTORIOUSLY UNDERREPRESENTED IN FILM, BOTH IN FRONT OF, AND BEHIND THE CAMERA. MOG KAVANAGH TAKES A LOOK AT SOME FESTIVALS AND FILM MAKERS BUCKING THE TREND IN IRELAND. WOMEN ARE MAKING SPACES n The U.S. in 2014, of the top 700 theatrical releases, women competition and a panel discussion. recommended “to go along to as many female driven film events as accounted for a mere 13% of directors, 18% of editors and 13% One of the speakers at the Feminist Film Festival was Lelia Doolan, possible and meet like-minded people who might be interested in FOR THEMSELVES IN IRISH Iof writers. And the sad fact of the matter is that over the past two who is no stranger to stirring things up in terms of representation and pursuing a film project with you.” decades things have been getting worse. misrepresentation. She mentioned two well received events in particular. The first a CINEMA AND AS A RESULT Women in Film and Television Ireland, a voluntary body run by Doolan famously resigned from RTÉ, in protest against their Q&A at ADIFF with director Rebecca Daly about her second feature, film and TV professionals state: “Our closest neighbours in Directors political policies. Doolan’s film Bernadette, Notes of a Political Mammal, which received accolades on its cinema release. The second UK report that only 8% of all working directors are female. This Journey, was screened at the Feminist Film Festival to a packed out was a screening of Robert Altman’s 3 Women, followed by a critical IRISH CINEMA IS BECOMING represents a significant year on year decline. We are at an all-time audience, and is an absolute must see. conversation between artist Jesse Jones and Alice Butler of the IFI and low.” Karla Healion of Feminist Film Festival. She is now, along with Tracy Geraghty, building a cinema in A MORE WELCOMING PLACE Why does it matter? Film and television contribute significantly to Galway. Two timely and interesting women-helmed projects took place this shaping our culture and society. It is concerning then, if women don’t year. The first is Terminal by Natasha Waugh. A topical short film “Right now, if you want to see an Irish-made film you mostly have have equal access to creating film and television, then they don’t have about two women who meet in an airport as they travel to England to to make a three-hour drive to Dublin,” Doolan says. FOR WOMEN. equal access to power and influence. receive the healthcare they cannot get in Ireland. The second is The The Picture Palace is due to open soon, with some kitting out of the On the other side of the camera the lack of complex interesting Betrayal, by Kamila Dydnda and Natasha Waugh, it is a short drama space left to do. Doolan recently co-curated an event with a group female characters is damaging, because to put it simply, it’s hard to be about LGBT relationships and online harassment. what you can’t see. MNÁ 2016, where four Irish films made by women were shown, The Betrayal has the backing of a DCU based research group alongside talks from such greats as Hilary Dully, Anne Crilly, Margo specialising in sexuality studies, EROSS. Female characters in film are too often portrayed as one-dimensional Harkin and Pat Murphy. love interests, or are entirely absent altogether. Natasha had this encouragement for aspiring female filmmakers: This gives a glimpse into what to expect for the programming when “We’re fighting the fight, and have a long way to go but its not all And aside from being damaging to the identity and outlook of the Picture Palace opens its doors. Promising! female audiences, it’s also just plain boring and annoying. Women are bad. There is plenty of positive discussion happening on this at the just as capable of being witty, funny, bad ass, or adventurous, so why Doolan was the first female artistic director at the Abbey Theatre, moment. It’s a good time to try and turn a negative into a positive, so is it so rarely shown on screen? her influence there must have waned after she left, as recent events be part of change, be vocal and proactive." would imply. At the end of 2015, with the announcement of the One opportunity to do just that was at Deep Focus: Women in Recently in Ireland there’s been something of a renaissance in film Abbey’s centenary programme, it was glaringly obvious that women Film Festival at Triskel Arts in Cork in May. Programmed by Fiona with two Irish productions receiving Oscars (Brie Larson winning a had been overlooked. Only one out of the ten plays in the programme Hegarty, Naoimh Ní Luanaigh, Tara Brady and Chris O’Neill, the Best Actress Oscar for Lenny Abrahamson’s Room, and Ben Cleary was written by a female. winning Best Live Action short for Stutterer), and Lobster and The festival brought “the finest feature, documentary and short films from When the issue was raised, the director of the theatre, Fiach Mac Queen of Ireland getting wide releases. around the world [by] female directors who tackle a wide range of Conghail responded with a very dismissive "them’s the breaks". subjects with unique and distinctive voices”. This has drawn a lot of focus on Irish film resulting in a lot of This phrase is now the very apt title of a feature documentary coverage in the media locally and internationally. While these wins O’Neill says: “It is not only timely but also long overdue to be which is currently in production. The documentary, directed by Sarah have cast Irish film into the spotlight, there are interesting things hosting a festival dedicated to female filmmakers”. Corcoran and produced by Sarah Barr and Aoife Kelly, follows the happening within Irish film itself. In a microcosm of a movement that The festival opened with a screening of The Violators from novelist heartwarming events that unfolded after the unveiling of the Abbey’s is happening from Hollywood to Bollywood and beyond, women are turned director Helen Walsh. Starring Lauren McQueen as Shelly, a centenary programme. Masses of women got together, and through pushing themselves to the fore in film production. parentless teen trying to get by in a dreary Cheshire housing estate. various meetings and actions, demanded the recognition they deserve Women are making spaces for themselves in Irish cinema and as a There have been a number of individuals and groups, rising to within the arts. prominence here, that are championing women in film. The Feminist result Irish cinema is becoming a more welcoming place for women. Film Festival Dublin are one such group. Sarah Corcoran spoke about what drove her to make this film: “Once This reflects wider trends that show films directed or produced by we saw the passion erupting from the Abbey stage and its audience women tend to have more women in the crew overall. Founded by Karla Healion in 2014 as a fundraiser for Sasane, a members back in November, it seemed like an obvious choice to make It’s not just about getting women jobs either (while that is Nepalese women’s charity that supports victims of sex trafficking. The the film.” festival, now in its third year and growing steadily, knits a love of film important), it’s all key to women’s voices and experiences being with feminist ideas with interesting results. She continues to explain: “As a majority female team of filmmakers, better represented in wider society. And let’s not forget that having we’ve a vested interest in addressing gender inequality in the Arts. new voices and experiences can only lead to fresher, more diverse and The festival aims include counteracting the misrepresentation Since #WTF, we’ve already started seeing a spillover into other areas more interesting cinema. of women, supporting women filmmakers, and bringing fresh such as the Irish Film Board announcing their six point plan to address perspectives, stories and experiences of women to a wider audience the gender imbalance in Irish Film, and we’re passionate about the through film. impact it will inevitably have”. The most recent festival included screenings, talks, a short film When asked what advice she’d give to other filmmakers Sarah BEGGAN CHATS TO TWO COLLECTIVES CHANGING ALL OF THAT. OFFICIALDOM, THESCENE ISSTILL KICKING. HOWEVER, YOU COULD GOOUT EVERY WEEKEND AND NEVER SEEAWOMAN DJING. JAMES LAWS, EXORBITANT RENTS, HARSH DRUG POLICIES AND AGENERAL IGNORANCE OFELECTRONIC MUSICAND CLUBBING BY THOSE IN IN MANY WAYS IRELAND PUNCHES ABOVE ITS WEIGHT WHENITCOMES TO DANCE MUSIC.STRUGGLING AGAINST RESTRICTIVE LICENSING lineups. Negativeand underminingattitudestowards frustrated withthe massivegendergapinevent electronic music.Iwasgettingmore andmore are bothunderrepresentedandunderestimated in and thatofothers,shetoldus: producer ELLLL.Motivatedbyherown experience on International Women’s DaybyCorkbased initiative aimingtochangeitup.Gashwasstarted difficult togetahearing.GashCollectiveisanother a stepfurthertopursuetheirpassioncanfindit residents.” Dublin wheremostnightsalreadyhavetheirfillof yourself noticed,especiallyinasmallcitysuchas a DJ-whethermaleorfemale,it'sveryhardtoget 'scene' inDublin-whenyou'refirststartingoutas chance toshowthatwewereworthyofthemusic E “It’s beenmyexperiencethatwomen inIreland The scenecanbeintimidatingandthosewhotake “I wantedmyselfandmyfriendstobegivena August 2015.Jesstellsme: but hadn’t actedonitbefore and thelackofwomenoutDJing involved haddiscussedtheidea in theSouth William Bar. Those VE beganwithabasementparty which Ithinkinitself isaconfidencebooster.” to takecontrolofthenightsthatthey areplayingat with acomfortableenvironmentwhere theyareable mature asDJswegoalong.Eveprovides girls DJ's. Itallowsustoexploreourmusic properlyand for itsofarwithmoreconfidencein themselvesas For Jess: hone skillsandtasteisahugebenefitofcollective. the problem,havingsupportstructuresandspaceto that isveryencouraging.” solidarity yougetfrombeingpartofanetworklike inspiration behindthecollective. The supportand The FemalePressureorganisation wasalsoabig Siren inLondon, Apeiron CrewinCopenhagenetc. the successofothercollectivesacrossEuropetoo, her: spoke ofhowsomeinternationalgroupsinfluenced world doesn’t makeforpleasantreading.ELLLL festival andclubline-upsorlabelrostersacrossthe women intheindustrygeneral." ELLLL alsohas similarhopesforthoseinvolved “EVE hasprovidedthegirlswhohave played Of courseline-upsareonlythemostvisiblepartof “Discwoman havedefinitelybeeninfluentialand The situationinIrelandisn’t unique andalookat to ontheGASHwebsite too. We’ve alsogotaonce person relatingtotheir musicandwhatthey’reup promoters etc. There’ll beafeature abouteach the groundfocusingondifferent DJs,producers, that end,ELLLL says: preventing othersdetractingfromtheir ability. To a newaudienceandexpandingthescene, whilealso Collectives likeEveandGashplayapartincreating Martin havecautioned,the“FemaleDJ”gimmick. prone topropagating,asNightwaveandLauren vital. Howeverwiththatvisibility, promotersare a morewelcomingsceneandincreasedvisibilityis events/workshops inthefuture.” approached metoworktogetherwiththemhost initiatives haveshowngreatsolidarityand in particularareworryinglylow. Similarwomen’s girls involvedinproductionandmusictechnology to encouragegirlsgetinvolved. The numbersof get started. out there,shewantstopassontheskillsneeded community anddoinggigstoshowcasethetalent in GashCollective. Along withcreatinga “I’m workingongettingaseriesofmixes off Developing analternative infrastructure along with “I wanttosetupDJandproductionworkshops biggest clubsinDublin injustunderayear.” practicing inourroomstoplaying oneofthe Rooms hostinganall-womanline-up. ForJess, themselves havebeguna‘takeover’ intheOpium dance musicsceneisalreadyshifting. Eve and demandingchange,themakeup of Ireland’s the music.” takes thetimetolookupandseewhoisproviding do it?'and'ohmygodit'sagirlDJ'whensomeone to bethisstigmaattachedfemaleDJsof'canthey But Ithinkitisevenworseforagirlasthereseems play music-whichisalreadyaverypersonalthing. prospect gettingupinfrontofaroompeopleto at thebiggergigsincity. It'squiteadaunting girls shouldbegivenchancestoprovethemselves to comeplayinDublinandIthinkthatmore improvement, asJesssays: really positive,however, thereisdefinitelyroomfor Saturday ofeverymonth).” a monthradioshowstartingonRadionaLife(last “This isahugeachievement-wehave gonefrom Perhaps withnewgroupspushingtheboundaries “I thinkthatmorefemalesstillneedtogetbooked The responsetobothcollectivessofarasbeen cognotes clubbers raker rabble

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And asanintersectional over butalsoasstrong,enduring,nuanced, deeply of circumstancesandconflictsthatthey hadnocontrol move couldbeglimpsed-bothasvulnerable victims space wherethemultiplesubjectivities ofpeopleonthe as subjectsofpityorgrief.Iwantedtobuildavisual either asobjectsofthreat(inaright-wingnarrative)or dimensional framingandportrayalofthoseonthemove- of passage.Ialsowasdeeplyfrustratedbytheone- of lorriesbecausealacksafeandjustmeans people whohavedrownedorsuffocated inthebacks have directcausalitywiththedeathsofthousands containment ofpeople-itwassoclearthatthesepolicies only aroundapolicyofmilitarisationbordersand response ofEUmemberstates-whichhashadcohesion What madeyouwanttoshare thesestories? advocacy andforenduringsolidarity. providing aplatformformorein-depthreflection, accountability, itcanbeapowerfulmediumforarchiving, recognises thatifdonefromaplaceofsolidarityand that andhavecometoaplace-withinmyself- felt tooinvasive.Butoverthepastyear, I'vere-assessed community organisers Iworkedwith,butacamerajust about someoftheincrediblystrong,nuancedandbrave six photos.I'dwriteaboutwhatIwaswitnessing,and in Latin America andtheMiddleEast,Ihaveatotalof of theotherfolkswhoarefeaturedindocumentary. there wealsometIlham, Aisha, Sahar, Mohamedandall and volunteersIwantedtointerviewduringourtime The SeaBetweenUs,Ihadagoodsenseoftheactivists and migrantcommunities. trying to accompany (practically and emotionally) refugee so Ispeak Arabic- whichwasreallyusefulintermsof ten years, workingwithcommunity development projects, and extrapairofhands. solidarity structureswhilethereasavolunteerinterpreter in Greece,theBalkansandCalaisworkedwith to organise the logistics forsmallmobilemedicalteams working foroverayearwiththoseonthemove.Ihelped films. Hadyouvisitedtheselocationsbefore filming? Can youtellmeabitaboutthebackground tothese TOHER FIND OUT MORE. MOG KAVANAGH CAUGHT UPWITH HAS MET THROUGH THIS WORK. WITH AND ABOUT THEPEOPLESHE STARTED MAKING SHORT FILMS OVER THEPAST YEARSHEHAS WITH REFUGEESACROSS EUROPE. ACTIVIST WHO HAS BEENWORKING CAOIMHE BUTTERLY ISANIRISH The injusticeofthesituation. Witnessing the In thecumulativelyfourteenyearsIspentworking Because ofthat,beforegoingbacktoLesvosfilm I hadalsolivedinPalestine,IraqandLebanonforover Prior toexploringfilmasamedium,Ihadbeen Look upTheSeaBetween UsonVimeo. racism inothercontexts. Direct Provisionandthosestruggling againstongoing undocumented, thoselivingthrough the injusticeof refuge andthehumiliationtheyface- andalsowiththe more practical,enduringsolidarity-with thoseseeking used toraiseawareness,widenempathy andcatalyse be betterunderstood. And hopefullythatwitness canbe journeys andthoseworkinginsolidaritywiththemto the storiesofthosemakingtheseincrediblydifficult the intentionatleast-toprovideavisualplatformfor that peoplecarrywiththem,impactsviewers. That was hear thehopesandfrustrationsstrengthpain mediated, reductionistway, havingthetimetositand move areoftentimesonlyportrayedinsuchahighly- How hasthereception beensofar? and issomethingthatIhopewasfeltthroughout. they representthemselves.Self-agencyisfundamental boundaries, intermsofhowthey'rerepresentedand built upallowsparticipantstobehonestabouttheirown I hope,ifcontinuewithfilmasamedium,thatthetrust pain- becauseofthefriendshipandhumblesupport.But they onlywanttobeframedintheirresilience,not have withamoreconventionaljournalisttosaythat perhaps theydon'tfeelthesameconfidencemight of destinationorinlimbocampsGermany. So, solidarity networkswheretheyendedup-incountries films andamtryingtosupportthemintermsoflegal friendships establishedwiththosefeaturedinthefour footage tobeusedisenough.Inowhavelong-distance so myownjuryisstilloutonwhetherevenconsentfor of theinterviews. And that'stheversionI'llbescreening, seconds ofvulnerabilityandjustfocusedonthestrength Us lastweekintoa22minuteversionandcutoutthe distance participationintheedit. relationship wentbeyondtheinterviews-inpeoples'long curve with.Ihope-andbelieve-thattheconsenttrust archivist/rookie documentary-makerIwasonalearning a solidarityactivistIwasdeeplyconsciousofandasan in thefilmingandedit.Itwassomethingthatas, exploitation, forover-exposure, somuchpowerimplicit composure, humourandfragilehopeswereastheyspoke. distress inordertoconveyhowpowerfultheirstrength, to buildfortheinterviewsthatfollowed-aglimpseof the timeofeditIthoughtitwasanimportantcontext freedom ofmovementandtherighttoliveinpeace). 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DABBLEDOOMUSIC.COM DABBLEDOOMUSIC.COM

DABBLEDOOMUSIC.COM for schools and parents schools for Workshops and online courses and Workshops THE FUN WAY TO LEARN ABOUT MUSIC ABOUT TO LEARN THE FUN WAY DABBLEDOOMUSIC.COMDABBLEDOOMUSIC.COM By Brian Burke take five

WHILE THE REGIME TRIED THEIR DAMNEDEST TO DEPOLITICISE AND ADAPT THE CENTENARY OF 1916 TO THEIR OWN ENDS, THE BLUESHIRT CLASS OF SHOPKEEPERS AND BANKERS WERE FOUND ONCE AGAIN FUMBLING IN THEIR GREASY TILLS, SHUCKING HISTORY FOR A FEW PENNIES OVER THE ODDS. LET’S STARRY PLOUGH THROUGH SOME EXAMPLES.

01 CONNOLLY SHOT GLASSES Carroll’s brand of sheep clutching, flat cap wearing Guinness swilling leprechauns is hardly going to turn its eye to the rising with any sensitivity. If chocolate bar proclamations weren’t bad enough, one can only imagine what our lost labour leader Connolly would have thought of his mustachioed visage ending up emblazoned across a cheap shot glass. Well we don’t have to wonder too hard, Connolly was an avowed pioneer and so dismissive of the demon drink it’s believed he legged it to the states in 1903 sickened by his comrades wasting subscriptions money on liquor.

02 THE MAYO TAPESTRY You might have forgotten that awful banner strewn from the Bank of Ireland on College Green but we haven’t. We christened it the Mayo Tapestry on social media, after all Kenny's bloody own Department ordered it. The banner, which featured a range of constitutional nationalists like Henry Grattan, Daniel O’Connell, Charles Stewart Parnell and John Redmond, provoked confusion and conniptions among even those of us that spent most our Junior Cert carving Mitsubishi symbols into the desk. What’s so cash inny about this whole charade? Well, it goes to show what a racket those bastards in power are running. That’s your cash monies being wasted with revisionist nonsense shoring up their rule.

03 THE BUTCHER’S APRON Those that went out in 1916 did so in a fiercely desperate attempt to rid Ireland of the presence of the Butchers’ Apron. From Connemara lamb to Fermanagh Black Pig, butchers all over the country were shamelessly cashing in on the blood of those shed to sell on a few auld sossies. €19.16 for a leg of lamb? These victuallers really have made mincemeat out of our heroes memory. With all this talk of blood sacrifice, these cash-ins cut a little too close to the bone.

04 TOPAZ Ambiguous posters adorned Topaz stations throughout the country with a caption reading “1916-2016 celebrating the beauty and heritage of our land and the achievements that shaped modern Ireland”. How do we even begin "Neither Rua nor TMSV are messing around at deciphering this cryptic message? Topaz of course are experts in signifying one thing and doing another, all very neatly all right now." - Juno encapsulated by their greenwashed branding. To some, Topaz the gemstone is associated with healing and friendship, "The dutch producer applies some slick slow/ so what better name to give to a fossil fuel extracting fast pressure on the 2nd platter from Galway, multinational! In this light, we can take their 1916 message to read “TBH, we don’t give a fuck about 1916, just stop here IE’s Rua Sound after that wicked jungle/juke and spend some money, bitches.” strike from Sully in 2015." - Boomkat 05 CONNOLLY ON AIB TMSV - Fission Chips / Sound System James Connolly would have loved for the banks of Ireland to be nationalised. So, imagine a 1916 era republican, ushered away on the eve of the rising to our shiny present. The very thought of seeing Connolly’s image on the very OUT NOW! building where rebels seized a telegram machine and told the world of the republic. Surely this heralded the victory of the people over the financial institutions. Hardly. Imagine On Rua Sound From All Good Wax Dealers. explaining to this quantum leaping soul, that true the bank has been nationalised, yet to the backdrop of a bailout and the socialisation of private debt by NAMA. Horrorscopes 34 Tragic Terry and The Magic Cowboy (with a little help from Grand Wizard Sam Seed) Flash are back, sack and crack! Mercury is in the ascendant and the Sun is still villifying football fans. Summer is here and the depressed pasty hordes are turning the colour Fiction of ruby ripe rhubarb as the stars run rings around them. CANCER Jun 21-Jul 22 Sometimes it’s the least important things that turn out to be the most important things, Cancer, and on that note, the car registration that you saw today bearing remarkably similar numbers to your first girlfriend’s phone number was actually an important message from the cosmic switchboard. You should ring her, Cancer, and possibly kill her husband and lovingly curated collection of small children. But maybe not.

SAGITTARIUS Nov 22-Dec 21 CAPRICORN Dec 22-Jan 19 Your paranoia has you frozen A bit of trouble with the in a self-made hell, ALMOST old human beings there entirely of your own construction. again, Capricorn? You’ve We know because we’ve been been lurking around the watching your every move, shallow end of the friend Sagittarius. Twenty four seven. We’ve gone through pool again, like a sad bloated all your Facebook photographs and made note of shark complete with saggy grey every person you have been associating with, and skin, waiting to prey on the most let’s just say, Sagitarius, it doesn’t look good at all. emotionally vulnerable paddlers. It may be high Tell us it’s not true, Sagittarius. Really? In this day time that you finally unfriended the entire human and age? Sort it out. race, Capricorn. Finally. On a lighter note, go buy a YOU TOLD YOURSELF YOU routine is the bomb at getting out of them sticky Clipper. Creep. WERE GOING TO LAY OFF situations that serious fucking pissheads like me Leo Jul 23-Aug 22 get into when you know every fucking cunt’s AQUARIUS Jan 20-Feb 18 THE SESH FOR THE WINTER. Stop worrying Leo, Leooooo… face in the greater South William St area but There are no such thing as You think you’re so fucking IT’S JUNE, AND YOU’VE can’t on a daily basis remember their names. ghosts, especially genital ghosts, cool, don’t you? You think you BEEN ON THE YOKES EVERY You’ve got to be preemptive. You’ve got to get and just like the lion who was are oh, soooooooo great. You WEEKEND SINCE NOVEMBER. them on the defence. You’ve got to stick it to afraid of the mouse, you have just think you are the dog’s THEY MAY NOT BE ABLE TO them and say ‘Alright mate, fuckin’ story’ and an irrational fear of scrotum specters and fanny fucking bollocks, the tits, the you’re fucking set. They’re like ‘all righ’t and the phantoms and only one thing can pull that thorn knickers, the bee’s knees, the REPLACE YOUR SEROTONIN, out of your paw. A pliers. Now let the world hear wasp’s cock, the million dollar he shop was underground, a cavernous water of the Liffey when a strong-breeze hits it. It was fuckin anxiety is out the window. Spared me the you roar. hero. Well here’s a newsflash for you space of exclusivity for the chosen BUT THE SESSION PIXIES mortsos more times than I can tell you. So what as if a fist had been catapulted into her stomach. She Aquarius, as if you didn’t know already what even CAN OFFER SOME ADVICE I’m saying is why the fuck don’t I know you? few who trail home from the office, lurched over, unable to scream. the dogs in the fucking street know: YOU ARE! dressed in the kind of suit that a VIRGO Aug 23-Sep 22 FOR ALL THOSE TRIVIAL Warm regards, Yay!* culchie would be garbed in for their Luxury mashed potato. Chicken-fucking-kiev. The DEMENTED CONUNDRUMS Fintan (Raheny) Virgo...... funeral. words pulsed through her brain. Became images. The *Excludes Joan Burton and Axl Rose YOU FIND YOURSELF IN...... T front of her head pounded, and collapsed in on itself, ...... There was a corpse like quality to the beings that becoming reformed. Reformed meat masquerading as Dear Justin, ...... haunted the isles. Each one a spectre of loneliness, PISCES Feb 19-Mar 20 organic. She had transformed. Dear Session Pixies, ...... absorbed in haute-cuisine meals for one - the antithesis We’re pixies mate. We only exist on paper. The crises of Pisces are worst Something’s wrong with me. Ever since I came ...... ugh. of Sarah’s idea of what a meal should be. “Sacré bleu!” exclaimed the pretend-Frenchman. He on the high seas, as they say! had seen it before, of course. up on Sandymount Strand on my me feiner, Stop getting offended at Dear Session Pixies, Normally she would shop in Lidl, or Aldi, and their going there on the promise of some carry on, LIBRA Sep 23-Oct 22 every last thing going, you The transition of class before one was ready. It had fancy stuff was enough for her. Lobster bisque for €1.49, spending the night on a rock spattered with We’re first year nursing students in UCD and Dad?!! What are twat! Get off the internet and nearly happened to him when he had just begun this job. truffle oil for €1.79; it adds a bit of luxury to the most seagull’s shit and plugging away at a bag of we’re such big fans of you guys. You’re so cute you doing reading into the real world, where It formed a part of the contract that one was responsible banal of dishes, rescuing a meal reflective of her poverty dee until eleven the next morning staring away there with your little hats. We keep a cut out of this?! This isn’t people are actually rude to for one’s own change. from the deepest of doldrums, and, in truth, making her into the horizon, (like can you even see the sea your column on the fridge door and we even meant for you at all. one another on a factually daily basis. Your hyper vigilance towards feel a bit special. As if she was worth it, as that advert there?), that now a week later I’ve these weird started something called sesh soc where we go This is supposed On the floor lay a Chicken Kiev, on a bed of luxury every possible slightly mildly offensive for the hair product said. drony whale noises echoing about in my head to random gaffs and wreck them with a rake of to be for kind of mashed potato. She still moved, or at least attempted to. internet interaction has grown tiresome at this stage. going non stop. Will they ever go away? It’s non tesco vodka and Deadmau5’s bating from the In every single aisle was a collection of plastic dressed alternative types with vague left-wing leanings, On a more inspiring note... actually no, you’re right. The floor was an alabaster cream, and it casually stop. I’ve even given one of the whales a name. laptop. Last week Siobhan (mad bitch) even single-serving pre-prepared sadness. She had a new job, and an interest in recreational drugs. Maybe we can We should all bow to your expectations. Good job. absorbed the footfall of single-serving consumers Ben. made what she calls sesh soup and we’ve been and dressed like the others in here, but did they feel as chat to the lads and swing a feature on World War God, what were we thinking??! seeking a simple, yet higher quality serving of life than selling rakes of it on campus. We’ve put it in a lonely? Luxury mashed potato. Pre-prepared couscous. Warmest regards, II Airfix model tanks for the next issue, but you’ll others. jam jar and attached it. Can you guess what’s Chicken Kiev with gruyere. Cormac. Carrickmines. have to give it a while. Anyway, shouldn’t you be (SC)ARIES Mar 21-Apr 19 in it? Mad stuff altogether. We’ve been waiting Woe be to those who shop on lesser floors she off watching football, or espousing outdated racial How the hell is mash potato ever luxury? How can life murmured sarcastically. for Siobhan to get off the water tower since stereotypes or snoozing or something? As Saturn careers into the get so bad that someone sees couscous as hard to cook? Dear Cormac, Wednesday. garden of the fifth aeon The now redundant chicken kiev and mash were picked you may find yourself Chicken-fucking-Kiev? If I consume these things I will We’re with you. You’re not sure whether to check Gemini May 21-Jun 20 up, their burst packaging rendering them useless to the questioning yourself in change. yourself into John of God’s or for us to do it for world of contented cuisine. The luxury mash still had Your biggest fans, As Neptune does a U-turn and matters of yourself. Take a you. That’s fine. We called ahead. They’re on little time out this summer “Excusez-moi, Madame?” that distinct buttery yellow colour to it, along with a Sarah and Louise (Portlaoise) starts whipping shitties in the their way. Alternatively, you could always rip Aries, and put family matters whiff of finest English cream and just a hint of thyme. carpark of Crazy Prices, try and He was greasy, a sign of overwork, small, and had the those poxy ear phones out and stop continuously focus on nothing. Nothing at all. last. Despite sinister new-age look of being forced to feign concern 8 hours a day, I should have went to fuckin’ Aldi she thought, I should listening to shit ambient Spotify come down This shouldn’t be a problem for community based pseudo-philosophies becoming increasingly popular, and undermining your every day. Why is he talking French to me in Dublin? have went anywhere but here. playlists while crying about Free Willy to Dear Sarah and Louise, you as you are THE Empty Vessel of everyone on the top deck of the bus. the last few years. I think I can hear you from here. superego, remember that it’s all about you, Aries, “May I be of –” Eva Kozłowski, who had worked on the till for two Yiz are fecking mad altogether. Don’t have a On a positive note, violence is the answer to that and anyone who can’t see that is better off dead. years, later happened across the spoiled packaging in the fuckin notion what was in that. We were thinking problem that’s been addling you for the last while. “Listen very carefully pal”, she was surprised at her staff room, and put it into her bag to eat on her return Dear Session Pixies, there some whiff of petrol off it. Nitroglycerin Apr 20-May 20 coldness, as if she was transforming into that bitch Taurus home from work. I’ve been meaning to take you out on a certain anyway. Tell that girl Siobhan if ever she gets off Oct 23-Nov 21 Melissa from the office, “I need you to do one very SCORPIO Shove it up your hole, point. Like, for a while there I couldn’t get you the water tower she’s a fucking natural. Give her simple thing for me right now.” She was grateful, as payday was not for another three Big changes are ahead Taurus. That shit you came fuckers out of my head. Now listen I’m what the Nobel Prize. days and she was interminably broke. Scorpio, but when even out with last weekend is “Oui, Madame?” you’d call a serious sesh head. Like a serious Sincerely, small changes invariably such a complete pile of Sarah let out a muffled cry, as visions of the hell-fire of fucking sesh head. Out of the top drawer sesh “Fuck. Right. Off.” The Session Pixies. become a huge tantrum bollocks! I never said those a microwave blanketed themselves around her. head. Like 10 years hammering it so much riddled drama, consider things about Leo, and your handbag could have been in the Tears involuntarily flowed down her face, hitting her Words by Paddy Ferris. that I have my own routine at weddings, pubs, seeking the services of an untrained amateur. You smile-lines and taking on a life of their own, like the clubs, gaffs, fucking wherever you name it this P.S Keep her lit. finally got that colossus of a worry off your back, toilets in McDonald’s the whole but now it’s on your front. The hairy man is with time for all you know. And yes, I did say that Tracy you at all times and the brown gold still beckons. A was a complete BITCH, because she fucking well Illustration by Matt Hedigan bird came into my house. Hmmm… is. {Irish Water} Responsible Types

THE PROTRACTED PANTOMIME OVER GOVERNMENT FORMATION HAS SOMEWHAT OVERSHADOWED THE GRAVITY OF WHAT OCCURRED IN FEBRUARY'S GENERAL ELECTION. WITH REGIME SUPPORT AT HISTORIC LOWS, OIREACHTAS RETORT LOOKS AT HOW SOME MIDDLE GROUND COMMENTATORS CONTINUE TO DISMISS THE MOVEMENT AGAINST IRISH WATER.

s soon as ballot boxes opened in that is branded as "everything wrong with Irish right thing in contrast to the feckless ne'er-do-well February it quickly became clear politics". That several commentators also framed rouges of protest rabble. See most recently when that voters had delivered a kick in government inability to impose measures on an the European Commission leaked a statement for Athe teeth that neither politicians unwilling population as "a failure of politics" RTÉ to spin before Lynn Boylan had a chance to nor their media priests had predicted. The result is telling. This misdirection passes for serious publish her work. Olivia O'Leary on radio claimed genuinely came out of the blue for Ireland's ruling analysis. The official script remains the same with paying her bill was itself a protest at how the class and we should be proud that none of them absolutely no consideration for the questions our country has been mismanaged. These people have could attend 1916 events with their head held high. movement has posed. quite literally just been betrayed by Fine Gael and While most of us settled into a blissful 70 On the more sensational side the general theme Fianna Fáil on the issue but carry on believing days of no government, the future of Irish Water is "wah wah, why are we still talking about the fairytale about upgrades, affordability and no quickly emerged at the centre of political horse water when there is homelessness and a broken privatisation. Fools and their money are easily trading. A fact that was met with utter disbelief health service". This refrain has been repeated parted and as we head into a sham consultation by the very same individuals and organisations across hours of broadcast, opinion columns and period it will become evermore clear that the that called the election so wrong. For most of letters pages. Part of this is motivated by finding primary objective, far from conservation or public 2015 the only people raising the issue were those themselves on the losing side and part is an service, is to establish a revenue stream that can opposed to charges. With an election looming, unspoken unease that voters were dictating the been extracted on the pretence of water. the government were keen to avoid Irish Water, political agenda. Underlying all of this though is So to the adults we say this. There is nothing hoping spin around the budget and recovery would the fear that protesting works. clever about complying with Irish Water. There see people fall back into line. While media feasted Irish Water had been the centrepiece of a is no reason to believe, given the details of its on controversy around Siteserv, they did little to grassroots movement that was pivotal not just establishment, that Irish Water was going to work acknowledge that the scandal only came to light in annihilating the government but in reshaping even if it was intended to. There is no evidence because of our movement. The Eurostat ruling and expectations for years to come. This fact remains that Phil Hogan, Denis O'Brien and a team of boycott came as hammer blows but even as late as carefully unacknowledged however and even parasite consultants are on a mission to save the February, public broadcaster RTÉ failed to include before the fate of charges has been settled, the environment. There is nothing responsible or any question of water in their TV general election counter revolution has begun. reasonable about carrying on with a fiction when debates. in full position of the facts. No credibility with The intention is to divide people by playing awareness of in whose interest this state is run that The pro-abolition majority since elected to Dáil on ignorance, fear and slander. Alternatives are Irish Water is going to be different. Éireann remains scarcely reflected in the media. dismissed as populism because the opposite of Joe Duffy went into overdrive while newspapers course is continued elitism. There are those intent These same responsible ones did not see the published dozens of identical whiny columns with on the continued plunder of resources and rights protests coming. These informed ones did not no counter view. It should come as no surprise of those who live here but they cannot succeed see the election coming either. Having continued that most commentators found in their heart more without the compliance of a soft middle who are to delude themselves in an effort to deceive us, righteous anger over the potential abolishment appealed to as mature adults while infantilising these reasonable people are only opportunistically of water charges than they ever mustered in protesters, their demands and politics, as nothing waking up to what has happened in housing, in opposition to austerity. We have seen a slight of more than an unruly tantrum. health, when the rest of us, having withstood the hand where, invariably, it is government being coercion of politicians, media, gardaí and masked Supporters of the regime seek to paint faced down by ordinary citizens, rather than the security men, already see the same coming for themselves as responsible, as informed, as law manner in which Irish Water was established, water. abiding democrats prepared to stand up and do the

Poster A celebration of Dublin's amazing privatised waste collection rackets by Ronan O'Hanlon...