Posted in Uncategorized on May 15, 2011| 1 Comment »
I love this effort from Paddy Power.
Last week I was giving a walking tour of the city and stopped outside the old Irish Parliament building on College Green. Out front a red ‘Crown Relocations’ truck sat parked, a royal crown and all on the side of the vehicle. Two Gardaí were checking the sewers next to us. What an image, and proof you should always carry a camera!
Posted in Uncategorized on May 15, 2011| 1 Comment »
I was saddened to hear of the passing of veteran sports commentator, proud League of Ireland man and all around good guy Philip Greene. Phil had recently celebrated his 90th birthday. The son of a Bohemian FC supporter, Phil himself was a Hoop.
This excellent video tribute to Phil from Shamrock Rovers supporters deserves to be posted. Some classic pieces of Phil’s commentary can be found here, from the RTE archives.
Born in Dublin, Philip Greene began his radio career in the 1940s. He was editor, producer and presenter of the popular “Sports Stadium” programme. His first commentary on a soccer international was the game against Argentina at Dalymount Park in 1951. He went on to cover many famous games for radio, including the 1957 World Cup qualifier against England. A life-long Shamrock Rovers and Manchester United supporter, he also wrote a column in the “Evening Press” newspaper. Although best known as a soccer commentator, Greene also commentated on athletics and cricket, and was Head of Sport in RTÉ Radio. He covered his last soccer international for radio in 1985, the year of his official retirement.
Posted in Uncategorized on May 12, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Now I’ve got the cheesiest title in the history of the blog out of the way, I can move on with the post….
I went down to Richmond Park earlier to see our A Team or reserve side in action. I’ve never been down to one of these matches before and wasn’t too sure what to expect. Alas, a crowd of us had decided it was worth venturing to, and it really did feel like any match night in McDowell’s. It might have been us against Shamrock Rovers, but outside the street was quiet.
Sticker spotted up in Palmerstown on way down to the match.
The next game is a derby, with the northsiders of Bohemian F.C, and the last game was actually Shamrock Rovers funny enough.We’ve no match to look forward to Friday thanks to Dundalk making it to the Setanta Final, so this game was designed to fill the hole in the week. We treated it like any encounter.
My Red Army Choir banner.
Unusually for us, we watched the game from the shed. We’ve been playing musical chairs around the stadium in recent years, but have made the mainstand home. It was nice to be down here. The shed is unusual in that now it houses the away fans on big nights. Taking up our place in the centre of it, a few dozen of us decided to make as much of a racket as possible.
Flags out.
Drogheda United’s Famous 45 Ultras recently showed just how much noise can be made in the shed with a small but vocal support. Some of the players on both sides clearly took to it, though the same can’t be said of poor Gary Twigg. Twigg has been out for a while for the hoops, and this was probably supposed to be a nice and slow-paced affair for him. It was almost surreal being so close to a familiar League of Ireland face without a steward or Garda officer in sight.
"It's like when the Red Army took Berlin."
Ultimately, the Saints won out by two goals,with a 3-1 scoreline. These matches are worth keeping an eye on. Free in, they offer a great chance to see the future of the club and get a better luck at some players who get the occasional run out in the top flight.
Wavey's out.
Having nowhere to go on Friday night, this was a nice midweek trip to Richmond. I’ll be keeping an eye on the A Team in future. Premier Divison, A Team, the kids or anyone else in the jersey is a saint worth supporting.
Posted in Uncategorized on May 12, 2011| 1 Comment »
Patrick Galvin,the renowned Cork poet, writer and socialist, has passed away. Patrick wrote many great poems and songs, among them James Connolly. With this the anniversary of Connolly’s passing (May 12) I thought it fitting to post post Patrick Galvin’s rendition of the song and a rendition I’ve always found almost haunting from one of Dublin’s finest,the late Liam Weldon. Enjoy.
Patrick Galvin (1927-2011)-Rest in Peace.
Liberty Hall, May 12 1917.
Posted in Uncategorized on May 10, 2011| 5 Comments »
Some images from the Shed End Invincibles last night at Richmond Park. Long may they continue to bring the Richmond Roar back. Sadly their section remains segregated from the rest of the Pats support owing to some bizarre security decisions, but they seem to work around it the best way you can – make enough noise and each week more and more people want in.
The southside derby is always an unpredictable affair. The result? A probably fair scoreless draw.
Posted in Football Articles, Politics, Uncategorized, tagged football, football and politics, Politics, soccer versus the state on May 9, 2011| 4 Comments »
“The revolution will inevitably awaken in the British working class the deepest passions which have been diverted along artificial channels with the aid of football.” Leon Trotsky.
A couple of weeks back, I got the oppurtunity to interview Gabriel Kuhn of PM Press, and author of “Soccer versus the State.” Anyone on here knows our views when it comes to football, keep it local, keep it real and forget about your barstool; a lot of that is covered in the interview. Not initially done for here, it was DFallon who suggested I put it up. If you’ve an interest in football, history and politics, read on.
Notorious Boo Boys
1) Football comes in for much negative criticism from the left, mainly criticisms similar to Trotsky’s above, deriding it as cathartic and a distraction. Yet in recent years, we’ve seen iconic events like the “Football Revolution” in Iran, the Greek riots following the death of Alexandros Grigoropoulos (where Panathanaikos fans fought against the police side by side with Anarchists) and the Al-Ahly Ultras in Egypt and their apparent hand in revolution there. How influential has football been in Rebellions and amongst the rebellious throughout history?
Football has been attracting the masses around the world for over a century. Where masses gather, the powerful lose control – unless we’re talking about orchestrated mass gatherings, which are characteristic of fascist and authoritarian regimes. But this doesn’t really work with football, since it is hard to orchestrate a football game. Football is too unpredictable.
Authoritarian regimes have always used the prestige that derives from football victories for political purposes, but they have had a hard time to use football as a general propaganda tool. The Nazis abandoned national encounters altogether after an embarrassing loss to Sweden in Berlin in 1942. And it is not only the game that is unpredictable. So are football crowds. You never know which direction their desires might take. There is always a potential for rebellion – unfortunately, there is also always a potential for reactionary celebrations of the status quo. Neither football nor football fans are rebellious per se. We have radical supporters, we have fascist supporters; we have football teams that spur nationalism, we have football teams that spur international solidarity. At the right moments, the rebellious side comes through, as in the examples you mentioned and in many others: long before the current uprising in Libya, the terraces of Libyan football stadiums turned into spaces of dissent whenever Gadaffi-favoured teams were playing; in the 1980s, Polish workers made regular use of football stadiums to express support for the then illegal trade union Solidarność; in fact, the very first steps to regulate the game of football in the early 19th century was caused by regular antiauthoritarian riots in connection with the inter-village football games at the time.
Football does have the cathartic and distracting dimensions that many leftists deride, no doubt. But it also has a subversive dimension. The challenge for radical football-loving activists is to fuel the latter.
(more…)
Posted in Uncategorized on May 5, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Well done to the people at Dublin Community Television for this excellent interview with Sam Nolan, a man who has given decades to the trade union and labour movement. Brian Kenny’s Sam Nolan: A Long March on the Left has only recently been released.
There is an article in Dublin May Day’s I hope to get around to in time. Sadly the event has been in decline in Dublin for a number of years, with extremely small turnouts of several hundred people. Ironically I missed this years May Day with work commitments, but last year I got along and recorded Arthur Scargill’s speech:
Posted in Uncategorized on May 3, 2011| 5 Comments »
I have to say membership of the IFI is the best investment I’ve made in Dublin to date. As much as the great new films on offer though, I’ve been loving the re-releases. Seeing the Battleship Potemkin on a big screen was every bit as cool as I expected it to be.
This month, from May 13th to 19th, Taxi Driver gets an airing at the IFI. I’ve only watched this film once before, on a crappy portable DVD player. They were the thing to have about five years ago, presenting new and exciting ways to set a house on fire while you sleep.
The chance to see Travis Bickle on the big screen is something to seize I think. The May programme for the IFI is available to read right now.
Posted in Uncategorized on May 3, 2011| Leave a Comment »
I stumbled across this little gem from the Indo, relating to the 1998 league winning season in Inchicore, and the madness which brought Blue Flu Day to a very quick conclusion for the local guardians of the peace. Those were the days.
The story of how it all happened is a great one, retold on RTE’s Monday Night Soccer below. A draw for Shels would have been enough to give them the league. Alas…
Posted in Uncategorized on May 3, 2011| 2 Comments »
I got this interesting letter in the post this morning, about changes to the National Library. When a letter begins “with increased demand and fewer staff” you know the kind of road it’s heading down.
From now on books and items are no longer available on demand. While the library is currently open late, it is noted here that “…our figures show that numbers after 8pm are extremely low” and as such the library will now close at 7.45 on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. This one is a real pity as myself and a few other Maynooth students used to avail of the later openings after a day in college.
You can’t blame the staff of course, in the face of cutbacks across the board these things are inevitable. For a historymad people, I deemed this worth sharing here:
Posted in Uncategorized on May 2, 2011| 3 Comments »
The latest Lookleft is out, and it’s a good one. There are articles in it that should appeal to the historyheads, with pieces on the great Máirtín Ó Cadhain and The Irish Worker newspaper. On other fronts there are pieces on issues as diverse as Dublin street-art, international politics and more besides. This here parish is well represented with a piece on the emerging late night (why stop at 2:30am?) music scene in Dublin and a match night report on the southside Dublin derby between Saints and Hoops. It’s available from Easons, Books Upstairs and the vendors on O’Connell Street.
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The latest History Ireland should be arriving in newsagents and bookshops around Ireland this week. In it, you’ll find a brief piece from me on the role of Dublin firefighters in assisting Belfast following the bombings of that city during World War II.
The men were warmly welcomed to the city, with the Irish Independent of April 18th noting that “the fire brigades which attended from Éire have been greatly praised for their work, and as they passed through the city’s streets homeward bound after their errand of mercy they were heartily cheered by a grateful people.”
History Ireland are over on Facebook now by the way. My mother is perhaps the only person I know in real life still missing from the Facebook revolution.
Red Pepper April/May is still knocking about with a piece on radical Dublin in it. It’s available from Books Upstairs among other places. A British publication, I suppose it’s always nice to be given a platform from which to tell outsiders “Rumours of our demise have been greatly exaggerated.”
Posted in Uncategorized on April 30, 2011| 2 Comments »
Surely the best and cheesiest Dublin ad ever? Or at least since Dubliner cheese.
 | Aidan Convery on From McDaid’s to Grogan… |
 | Cormac Figgis on A divided Rathmines |
 | cian reardon on Dublin’s connection to t… |
 | Steven O'Shaughnessy on The Assassination of Kevin O… |
 | Sam on Crampton Buildings and the Dub… |
Click on the book for more.
Click on the book for more.
Donal
Ciarán
Come Here To Me! 