David McCardle...Suaimhneas síoraí go raibh aige

An interesting blog has come to my attention,http://dmccardle.blogspot.com/ it is that of my brother in law David McCardle who lives in Essex. As well as being married to my sister Geraldine, David and I go back a long way, having been through the particularly ahem 'memorable' experience of an education in a school imbued with the ethos of the Jesuits.

IT IS WITH SADNESS THAT I HAVE TO INFORM ALL READERS OF THIS WEBLOG THAT DAVID MCCARDLE PASSED PEACEFULLY FROM THIS WORLD TO THE NEXT AT 2.25 AM ON THE MORNING OF FRIDAY THE 8TH FEBRUARY 2008. I AM ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN THAT DAVID WOULD WISH FOR READERS TO CONTINUE TO UTILISE HIS BLOG COMMENTS BOX TO OFFER THEIR CONDOLENCES TO GERALDINE, ORLAGH, AOIFE AND ALL THE FAMILY.
WHEN ALL ARRANGEMENTS ARE IN PLACE, I SHALL BE POSTING FULL DETAILS CONCERNING DAVID MCCARDLE'S FUNERAL ARRANGEMENTS IN THAT COMMENTS BOX ON HIS BLOG , SO PLEASE CONTINUE TO POST YOUR COMMENTS...

THE COMMENTS PAGE ON DAVID'S BLOG WILL NOW TAKE ON THE ROLE OF AN ONLINE BOOK OF CONDOLENCE AND COMMEMORATION TO A VERY BRAVE AND SPECIAL MAN... MANY THANKS TO ALL THOSE WHO HAVE POSTED ALREADY.I KNOW THAT DAVID WAS GREATLY TOUCHED BY THE INTEREST AND CONCERN HIS BLOG EVOKED.

Rodolfo Walsh- Argentinian-Irish Writer and Revolutionary Recalled

An interesting piece on RTE Lyric FM the other day introduced me to for the first time to the life and writing of the radical Argentinian writer and journalist Rodolfo Walsh. Walsh came, as his surname suggests, from the Irish community in Argentina, and is increasingly recognised throughout Latin America as a writer of considerable stature.

Rodolfo Walsh was born in Choele-Choel, province of Río Negro, the third son of Miguel Esteban Walsh (1894-1947) and his wife, Dora Gill. Miguel Esteban Walsh was the second son of Miguel Walsh (1866-1910) and Catalina Dillon. In his early years , Rodolfo Walsh was sent to the Irish school in Capilla del Señor and then to the famous Fahy Institute in Moreno, considered to be the centre of the Irish Argentinian communities educational world . "I was born in "Choele-Choel", he wrote, "which means heart of wood", and he added "many women have scolded me for my wooden heart!" The Walshes were typical Irish Argentines. One of his brothers is a naval officer and a sister is a nun. He inherited his love of literature from his mother, Dora Gill, an avid reader. When the family fell on hard times in one of Argentina’s recurrent crises, Rodolfo was sent to an orphanage-cum- boarding school "to learn reading, writing and arithmetic from priests who never forgot to use the stick". He also learned to stand up for himself against these abusive priests and bullying schoolmates . Los Oficios Terrestres and Irlandeses detrás de un Gato are stories about his school days and portray the pitfalls, cruelty and loneliness of boarding-school life. In 1951 he published Los Nutrieros about the ups and downs of otter poachers. The die was well and truly cast and Walsh’s concern all his life was justice for the physically weak and the socially excluded.

Walsh started his career as a journalist, and from 1959 to 1961 he worked for the agency Prensa Latina in Cuba. Back in Buenos Aires, he wrote for Panorama, La Opinión and Confirmado. His political activity led him to the Leftist Montoneros group, where he acted as an intelligence officer. Walsh played a key role in the bombing of the cafeteria at the police headquarters in 2 July 1976. "On the first anniversary of Jorge Rafael Videla’s dictatorship, 24 March 1977, he committed the unforgivable crime of accusing the dictatorship in an open letter of "toppling an elected government…banning political parties…hampering trade unions…gagging the press…installing the worst reign of terror ever known in Argentina… imprisoning thousands of people without due process…brutally torturing and summarily executing them…disappearing 15,000 people and exiling tens of thousands more …throwing prisoners into the ocean from aircraft…creating concentration camps where judges, lawyers, journalists, and international observers cannot enter… plunging millions of people into preplanned misery by destroying industry, freezing wages and increasing prices…without hope of being listened to, I know I will be hunted down, but I am faithful to the commitment I assumed to give testimony in times of difficulty".The latter 'open letter' is considered by Gabriel García Márquez 'one of the jewels of universal literature'. But 'the day after Walsh decried these atrocities', writes US historian, Donald C. Hodges, 'three army tanks demolished his home in the capital’s suburb of San Vicente and disappeared him as well'. He was murdered in broad daylight in downtown Buenos Aires by a military death squad whose instructions were to capture him alive, but had to kill him when he pulled a gun to return their fire. His dead body was dumped into the boot of a car, taken to the notorious Navy Mechanics’ School (ESMA), gloated over, desecrated and never seen again" (Geraghty 2002).
Rodolfo Walsh is credited with being the father of investigative journalism in Argentina. In 1957 he published Operación Masacre - based on an interview with a survivor - which tells the real story of how a group of 34 men, most of whom had no connection with a recent revolt against the Aramburu dictatorship, were taken to a garbage dump in José León Suárez, a suburb of Buenos Aires, and summarily executed in a hail of machine gun fire.

In 1969 he had published ¿Quién Mató a Rosendo? which tells how trade-unionist, Rosendo García, died in an Avellaneda pizzeria in a shoot-out between rival unionists, Raimundo Ongaro and Augusto ‘Wolf’ Vandor . In 1973 he published ‘El Caso Satanovsky’ which tells the sordid tale of the murder of a leading lawyer who was litigating against the military government. None of these cases were ever solved and Rodolfo Walsh became unpopular with many powerful people for having investigated them.
He was also a master of the short story genre and Esa Mujer, published posthumously in 1986 is considered by many one of best short stories in Argentine literature. It evokes the memory of Eva Perón without ever mentioning her name. In it Walsh illustrates brilliantly through an interview with a drunken army colonel the immense power for good and for evil she exercised on Argentines even after her death. Unfortunately many of Walsh’s unpublished manuscripts were destroyed in the 1977 military raid on his house in San Vicente.

In September 1976, his oldest daughter María Victoria, also a member of the Montoneros, was killed in a shoot-out. Walsh was shattered emotionally and he penned Carta a Mis Amigos about "the short, hard, marvelous life" of his dead daughter "whose true cemetery is our memory. It is thought that after the violent death of his daughter at the hands of the repressive government that he too probably sensed his end was near, and he founded Cadena Informativa, a two-page newsletter. He typed it himself on his battered, portable Royal typewriter, mimeographed and distributed it however he could. It always ended telling readers "terror is based on the absence of communication, defeat it by breaking the isolation, so copy and circulate this information and rest assured tinhorn dictators surrounded by bayonets and truncheons are terrified by spoken words and stirring thoughts".
His second and surviving daughter, Patricia Cecilia Walsh, was elected to the House of Representatives in the last election on a leftist ticket and on 19 March 2002 she delivered on a campaign promise to table a motion in Congress to have the "full-stop" and "due obedience" amnesty laws repealed. However only 46 out of Argentina’s 257 legislators turned up to debate the motion which was dropped because of lack of quorum. Argentina continues to be a country with a great capacity to forget its own tragedies and is therefore irrevocably condemned to repeat them. Rodolfo Walsh fought to prevent the tendency to forget the atrocities of the right wing military dictatorships, and immolated his own life in the process. May he rest in peace wherever he lies.

Among his published works are Diez cuentos policiales (1953), Cuentos para tahúres, Variaciones en rojo (1953), Antología del cuento extraño (1956), Operación Masacre (1957), Secuencia Final, the plays La granada and La batalla (1965), Los oficios terrestres (1965), Un kilo de oro (1967), ¿Quién mató a Rosendo? (1969), Un oscuro día de justicia (1973), and El caso Satanovsky (1973).

Mikhail Gorbachev 'might' see "Presidents Holiday"

An interesting piece on BBC Radio 4's "Start The Week" the other day about a play, 'The Presidents Holiday' by Penny Gold (Hampstead Theatre, London until 16th February) , a drama which examines the period when the fearfully deluded Mikhail Gorbachev was held hostage , whilst what is usually referred to as 'hard liners' attempted to reverse the course of his glasnost and perestroika reforms. I say 'fearfully deluded' because Gorbachev always claimed, well up until recently anyway, that he did not intend the replacement of socialism with capitalism, when he introduced the reforms which would in fact ultimately result in the collapse of the USSR. The fact that the Soviet Union ceased to exist is without doubt the greatest victory that imperialism had obtained in over 100 years, and its absence still reverberates throughout the world, in that there is no longer the progressive counterbalance to the whims of US imperialism which used to exist. What was most interesting about this interview was that Andrew Marr seemed intrigued by one of the play's main characters 'Plekhanov' played by Robert Demeger, who patiently explains to Gorbachev what would be the disastrous consequences of the process he set in train. Marr suggested that this character actually makes a pretty good case against the undermining of the Soviet Union to Gorbachev, and one of the other commentators also observed that most of the gloomy predictions enunciated by this loyal communist, in fact turned out to be pretty accurate, certainly for the disastrous Yeltsin years. Yeltsin's played a crucial role in cementing organised crime's hegemony over post-soviet Russia , Yeltsin will be best remembered as the drunken criminal buffoon, who was given such a heart felt send off by his western friends at his funeral, whilst the Russian people were only too glad to say goodbye to the rogue.

In the interview, the plays author Penny Gold said : 'The starting point for me of the play was realising the degree to which global capitalism seems to be winning everything and that there are many, many people who proclaim that Socialism is utterly dead and a discredited notion. So I started to ask whether it's possible to have a socialist, equal and just society that isn't based on coercion. I therefore wanted to look at revolutions and how they failed - the collapse of the Soviet Union being the obvious case. Then I came upon this extraordinary dramatic story with a thriller element to it - in fact every kind of element to it - the personal, the political, it has it all - of Gorbachev and his family under house arrest during the 1991 Coup.' Listen to interviewhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/starttheweek_20080107.shtml

The precis of the play which is on at Hampstead Theatre is reproduced below, some people were whispering that Gorbachev might be coming to see it, but I have also heard that this is largely 'wishful thinking' on behalf of the theatre, well no harm in trying to garner a bit of publicity is there? Nevertheless it is refreshing to see a play being staged that does not simplify things so as to assume that there were no serious minded people in Russia at the time, who did not have the gravest of misgivings about the path that Gorbachev was steering the USSR's ship of state.

"One late summer, afternoon a successful middle-aged man sits peacefully with his wife on the verandah of their summer house. Somewhere below them, their grandchildren are playing on the beach.
Half an hour later, all communication with the outside world has been cut off, and the house is swarming with secret police and heavily armed officers.The man is Mikhail Gorbachev, President of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and the date is 18 August 1991.Penny Gold’s gripping and deeply moving play takes place at a pivotal moment of world history. Part political thriller and part personal drama, The President’s Holiday draws on the diaries of Raisa Gorbacheva to tell the story of a family under siege and an idealist who unwittingly destroys everything for which he has fought."

Tickets for the play can be booked online on the Hampstead Theatre website-http://www.hampsteadtheatre.com/prod-productions_details.asp?PID=70

Trabant Alive and Well in Limerick

Its not often that a parked car in Limerick makes me stop and look again. However this vehicle achieved that rarity, and prompted me to at long last get to grips with the complexities of the camera embedded for some reason, (probably for occasions such as this I suppose) in my mobile phone. The photo remained embedded within the memory of the phone, until I worked out how to get it out, and that involved emailing it to myself. Oh how things have moved on since the days of the humble Trabbi, with its two stroke engine and its minimalist interior comforts. I undertook a trip from Berlin to a far away destination in the DDR in a Trabant, and I was struck throughout that it was unlikely to afford any significant protection in the event of a collision of even the most minor sort. Thankfully this did not occur, although the lady driving this vehicle at one point did seem to be hell-bent on sending us both on to the big politburo in the sky, when she raced to overtake an NVA (National Volks Armie) lorry on what I recall was a sort of pontoon bridge.Meanwhile, a large soviet made lorry bore down with relentless and undoubtedly utterly unstoppable speed in the lane we were now occupying for what seemed an aeon. The two-stroke engine of the Trabbi reached a screaming pitch of insane hysteria, and we just swerved in front of the NVA lorry in a split second before we were splattered on the huge radiator of the oncoming Russian lorry. Now that Trabant's first cousin seems to be living in Limerick here in Ireland, and is apparently much loved by its student owner for its extreme fuel economy, although the noise of its engine is still something of a shock. Astonishingly the owner did not know,where the car came from, so I started to tell the astonishing story behind her remarkable little car...'once upon a time a long long time ago in a country now almost forgotten, under a socio-economic system now replaced by capitalism....'
Happy New Year to you all, peace, health, and prosperity to all for 2008.

Christmas Greetings from Ireland....

The photographs on this post are of a ruined early Christian church in Kerry in Ireland, and are reproduced here to show the beauty of such places at this time of year, and perhaps allow some exiles from Ireland to glimpse their homeland, and to be reassured that not all that makes it so special has gone . They are also chosen deliberately to take us for a short moment away from the frenetic bustle of shopping malls and high streets, it is in such places you can regain a serenity that should also be part of this time of year. And it really is upon us again this festive season called Christmas.

Roman pagans first introduced the holiday of Saturnalia, a week long period of lawlessness celebrated between December 17-25. During this period, Roman courts were closed, and Roman law dictated that no one could be punished for damaging property or injuring people during the weeklong celebration. The festival began when Roman authorities chose “an enemy of the Roman people” to represent the “Lord of Misrule.” Each Roman community selected a victim whom they forced to indulge in food and other physical pleasures throughout the week. At the festival’s conclusion, December 25th, Roman authorities believed they were destroying the forces of darkness by brutally murdering this innocent man or woman.In the 4th century AD , Christianity imported the Saturnalia festival hoping to take the pagan masses in with it. Christian leaders succeeded in converting to Christianity large numbers of pagans by promising them that they could continue to celebrate the Saturnalia as Christians. The problem was that there was nothing intrinsically Christian about Saturnalia. To remedy this, the Christian hierarchy of the time named Saturnalia’s concluding day, December 25th, to be the birth date of Jesus’ Christ.

Now the festive period has returned somewhat to its saturnalian origins, except that now what is worshipped is consumption and excess. The purpose of this post is not however to cast a scrooge-like bucket of cold water on what for so many people, for whatever reason, is a special time of year. So I hope that all the readers of this weblog have a Happy Christmas, and a healthy and peaceful 2008. I hope that these images from rural Kerry evoke some sense of the timelessness, tranquility, and quiet remembrance of times, people and places, which was traditionally part of this special time of year.

Columbia Three- Jail Journal

I have just completed reading 'Columbia Jail Journal' by James Monaghan, the most senior member of the group of Irish Republican's, whose detention in Columbia led them to be dubbed the 'Columbia Three', more details of the case are to be found on http://www.troopsoutmovement.com/columbia3.htm

I must say that this book is an impressive account, Monaghan delivers a precise and well written book covering the full story of the groups travails in the Columbian prison system. His account is devoid of cliché and is very human in the way that he observes the behaviour of his captors, and fellow prisoners. He observes perhaps surprisingly that there were good and bad characters to be found amongst all the various prisoners they encountered, not all of their FARC/ELN comrades are portrayed as heroes nor are all the right-wing paramilitaries they had to share their imprisonment with cast, as villains. Though in reference to the latter it is made clear by Jim Monaghan, that given the right circumstances and direct orders, then these guys would have had very few qualms about cutting the three Irishmen's throats. It is evident too that it was in no small part their collective discipline and good humour that got the men through their ordeal, and of course in this context the support and contact they received from friends and comrades both abroad and in Columbia itself were crucial to maintaining their morale. There are lighter moments, too, in this fascinating account, as James Monaghan struggles with his lack of Spanish and tries to avoid the attentions of a homicidal fellow inmate, while Martin McCauley bargains all around him for cigarettes and matches. Although found not guilty on the charges of training FARC rebels, and released, an appeal by the prosecution saw them sentenced in December 2004 to 17 years in jail. Meanwhile, however, they had gone into hiding, and by August 2005 they had made their way back to Ireland.

Another impressive aspect of this book is the care which with the author takes in explaining the byzantine complexities of the Columbian political situation, its peace process and its progress or lack of progress, was clearly integral to their own fate. The deep understanding of the political situation in Columbia displayed by the author certainly added a depth to the account which was enlightening. The direct and blatant involvement of the USA in the political and judicial process in Columbia was even to this reader a total surprise. I had of course fully understood that the USA would be influential in the background, but the extent of its overt power in this and other central American states astonished me. This was perhaps most amply illustrated when, the initial forensic tests, which proved utterly flawed, were actually undertaken on the men and their possessions by an operative from the US embassy in Bogota. What other country in the world would have its embassy staff so directly involved in the investigative functions of another state?

The account is also greatly enhanced by Monaghan's own line drawings of various people and places they encountered throughout their time in Columbia. Its a good read and a story that needed telling, and I am delighted that Jim was in a position to create this account for posterity. It is clear that on a number of occasions these men could easily have been 'disappeared' as so many others have in the Columbian conflict. The high profile that their case attracted, and the subsequent attention of Irish people and other progressives throughout the world,was in all likelihood the crucial factor in ensuring that they lived to tell the tale.

Columbia Jail Journal is available in most good book shops, further details are to be found on the Brandon Books webpage http://www.brandonbooks.com/book_info.php/cPath//products_id/185/authors_id/134?PHPSESSID=9b91705a3d0cee3e7491ff8adfbb5a3f

Bon Secours - "Good Help to those in Need"

I have'nt contributed a posting to the site in the past 12 days and the reason was that I fell victim to a relatively minor but nevertheless utterly debilitating health malfunction. We take our usual state of rude good health as pretty much a given, but when things go wrong its then that you realise just how essential excellent health care is. I am fortunate in that in my position a health policy provides me with access to that very precious commodity, outstanding medical care. How I wish that the standard of care extended in the hospitals of the Bon Secours foundation was attained in all the hospitals of the world.

I also became rather intrigued by the origins of this unique hospitalling order of catholic nuns which has now evolved into a large health foundation, still it must be said based upon all that is best in the Christian tradition, namely reflecting the fact that one of Christ's practical activities on earth was to heal the sick, ergo the duty of Christians today is to be concerned with this very same project fundamental to all our well beings regardless of creed colour or social status. But there lies the problem, not all can avail of this sort of health care due to social disadvantage and that surely is an evil.

The origins of this unique order lay in the years just after the French Revolution, a handful of young women began to nurse the sick and dying. The twelve young women stayed in the sick person’s home day and night, demonstrating the healing presence of God through their compassionate care.
They chose one of the group as their leader – Josephine Potel- - and in January 1824 were professed in the Church of St Sulpice. The word spread. People began to hear about the spirituality of the tiny group, and about the ‘good care’ (‘bon secours’) they offered to rich and poor alike. Other young women joined them. Even Josephine Potel’s death in her early twenties did not deflect the group from their mission. Led by her successor, Angelique Geay, the Congregation spread throughout France, driven by a belief that their foundation had been an act of compassion and that they must continue to show that compassion in action.The work and spirituality of the early Bon Secours Sisters attracted the attention of an ex-patriate Irishwoman, Catherine O’Farrell, who persuaded them to come to Ireland.In 1861, the first foundation outside of France was made in Dublin, when four sisters came to the city to care for the sick and dying in their homes. From Dublin, the sisters expanded their work to Cork, Belfast, Tralee and Galway. A decade later, Bon Secours had set up in London and another ten years later were working in Baltimore, USA. By 1900, healthcare was changing and Bon Secours changed with it. Care of the sick was moving from the homes of patients to hospitals, and so Bon Secours began to set up hospitals, together with nursing homes for elderly patients.In 1966, when Bishop Lucey of Cork and Ross asked Bon Secours to take part in the Cork Diocesan Mission in Peru, four Irish sisters opened a mission in Trujillo, a coastal Peruvian city. They faced a grim and complex challenge. Because no hospitals served the poor, diseases went untreated and many – particularly the young and the old – died each year as a direct result. Because vital operations were not provided for children, deformity was widespread.The Sisters developed a wide range of community health programmes, operating both in medical clinics and in the homes of the poor. But they widened their scope to respond to community need, teaching, taking care of and educating people with mental disabilities. To help improve the quality of life, they undertook home economics and pastoral care, becoming deeply involved in the life of the local community. Today, thirty eight Peruvian sisters, together with five Irish sisters, continue the work initiated in the sixties.

I was a direct beneficiary of that organisations mission, and it has led me to consider that whatever the source of the motivation, religion, or altruism, or ideology, there is a deep seated desire in humanity to assist one another, there are of course other traits present in humanity, destructive and evil inclinations. I still hope that a world can emerge one day, when the commitment to 'Good help to those in need' as expressed by orders such as the Bon Secours becomes the paramount value in all societies, that is what I still consider to be the fundamental concept underlying socialism, since selfless dedication to the needs of the unwell is not provided for within the parameters set on society by capitalist values and the pure exigencies of the market system . Whether the motivation towards doing good unto our fellow human beings is derived from religion, philosophy or politics, it is most likely to flourish in societies which reflect that the core values of human existence does not have to be greed and consumption. As Nick Lowe put it so well in the song Elvis Costello performed an exemplary version of , " Whats so funny about Peace, Love, and Understanding"?..... Quite.