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Caoimhin O’Muraile  ☭ Donald J. Trump may be a lousy war mongering President but one thing he is good at and that is taking candy from babies! 

His latest so-called initiative is the ‘Board of Peace’ which he will be Chairman of for life, unelected by any of those countries governments gullible enough to sign up. Even after he retires, if he ever does, from the Presidency his position on the ‘Board of Peace’ will not alter. Trump, like the late Idi Amin of Uganda will be ‘Chairman of the Board for life’, as Amin was ‘President for life’ of Uganda. 

How this scheme works is thus: countries are invited to join Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’ and will remain members, or subordinates, for three years. When this period is over these countries must then pay, it appears, Trump one billion dollars per annum thereafter to remain on the Board. This is plainly a money-making racket which all but a seriously retarded person would see through. It is amazing how many retards qualify as governments! Only Trump will have the power of veto so, as can be gleaned, this body is ultra democratic even by the weak standards of liberal democracy. So far thirty-five countries have been idiot enough to join the cash for Donald scheme and they include regional powers in the Middle-East; Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Qatar. Other countries which have signed up include; Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bulgaria, Hungary, Indonesia, Jordan and Belarus. Russia and China have received invitations but have yet to confirm. It should come as no surprise Israel, Trump’s cohort in international war crimes, would be a willing participant in this farce and no doubt, behind the scenes, the Israelis will hold much more sway over the ‘Chairman for life’ than would Jordan or Egypt. If these two countries think by signing up they will have some kind of veto or say over Israeli actions they are deluded.

The ‘Board of Peace’ will have an Executive Board which will consist of the following: Nickolay Mladenov, US appointed High Representative to Gaza, the area of Palestine the Israelis - supplied by the US - obliterated, murdering thousands of civilians. Marco Rubio, US Secretary of State, Steve Witkoff, US Special Envoy to the Middle-East, Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son in law, and former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair. 

There is something ironic about the Blair appointment to this so-called ‘Executive Board’ because he was the man who, under the directions of that other war mongering President of the USA at the time, George W. Bush, bombed - illegally - Iraq, claiming ‘weapons of mass destruction’ were present. This was despite an international commission appointed to search Iraq for WMD only finding a tractor trailer in an old barn. Hardly conducive to WMD! 

It might appear to some, me included, this ‘Board of Peace’ is just a way to mask the US and possibly Israel's real intentions on the global stage? It is the US who have supplied Israel with thousands of tons of ordnance to bomb Gaza and terrorise the West Bank. Now, the man responsible is setting up this joke. For Trump, who recently bombed Venezuela and kidnapped the countries socialist (in theory) President Nicolas Maduro, taking him to the US and a kangaroo court to face trumped up charges. For Trump of all the world's war mongers to set up this ‘Board of Peace’ is tantamount to Adolf Hitler establishing a body for restorative justice for Jewish people! This Executive Board is nothing more than an extension of the Trump Presidency and government along with his extended family. Blair just fits in nicely as a former war criminal himself. The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is wanted under an international arrest warrant and is awaiting prosecution in Israel for numerous charges including corruption. A right motley bunch of criminals here. The Chairman for life is thought by many to be a rapist, and the rest are all Trump’s partners in crimes around the globe or family members! It is more like a mafia set up than anything to do with world peace.

The Twenty-Six County administration have not yet signed up to this laughable ‘Board of Peace’ but the fact they were/are even considering doing so beggars belief. Fine Gael TD and Chair of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Health, Jerry Buttimer, said; “it is unlikely we will join”, hardly an endorsing rejection of such a barmy notion! The British Government are still considering their position but have reservations over Vladimir Putin possibly coming onto the field of play. This is not the major reason Westminster should kick Trump and his farce into touch. The British are not concerned about the corrupt nature and makeup of this ‘Board of Peace’ but moreover the possible inclusion of the leader of a world nuclear power, which Russia, love or loath them, are. The British Government, if they dare, should be trying to expose this can of worms for what it is perceived by many as a Board for War and a cash cow for Donald. I sincerely hope the Twenty-Six- County Government see sense, that would be a first, and have nothing to do with this joke. Of course, that will depend how low they are prepared to go in order to arse lick Trump. The British, Harold Wilson exempted, are well known for their subordination to Washington ever since 1945. Let’s hope Dail Eireann kick this farce into touch.

There are many sensible people who see Trump as trying to usurp the United Nations. Many of the tasks his ‘Board of Peace’ will, in theory, undertake are those presently tasked to the UN Security Council. Admittedly they do not perform their duties very well as Trump and Netanyahu have repeatedly told them, in not so many words, to fuck off. Could Trump be trying to replace the UN with himself and this ‘Board of Peace’? Well, although he would deny it at this juncture, the signs for such a usurpation are not good. Is Trump crawling in this field before he can walk? Like Hitler’s intentions of global domination he started off with what seemed not unreasonable demands. Unifying all German speaking peoples was his first tentative move, after reoccupying the Rhineland, then greater, more ambitious plans were unveiled. By then it was a bit late to stop him. Could Donald Trump be adopting a similar, in principle, position? 

As this cash cow for Donald eventually leads to some form of global conflict will the world watch on, yet again, and let it happen? Just as Neville Chamberlain appeased Hitler the European leaders are appeasing Trump in much the same way. So much for “never again” which really means in all probability, let’s hope it never happens again because we could do fuck all about it! Unfortunately, and if this is the case, it is already happening before our very eyes. This President of the US is a man who justifies his Immigration Control and Enforcement (ICE) agents killing US civilians for protesting against his racist policies, the latest victim of ICE being an ICU Nurse in Minneapolis. Is he really the ideal man to form this ‘Board of Peace’? I’ll leave that to the imagination!! One thing it will achieve and that is even greater wealth for Trump and his family as countries line up to pay their one billion dollars to stay friends with Donald, like taking candy from babies!
 
Caoimhin O’Muraile is Independent Socialist Republican and Marxist.

Trump’s Latest Farce 🪶 Taking Candy From Babies

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of One Thousand Nine Eight Hundred And Sixty Five

 

A Morning Thought @ 3042

Cam Ogie ✍ When the U.S. administration unveiled its Gaza “Board of Peace,” the name sounded cynical. 

With each new detail, it now sounds actively misleading.

Peace, under any serious definition, requires consent, accountability, and representation. This board offers none of the three. Instead, it concentrates power in the hands of political and financial figures far removed from Gaza, while excluding Palestinians from meaningful authority over their own future.

At the top of the structure sits Donald Trump, with Jared Kushner playing a central architectural role. Their approach to conflict has long favored leverage, securitization, and deal-making over rights and self-determination. Previous “economic peace” proposals explicitly sidelined Palestinian political agency, offering investment frameworks in place of sovereignty. The Gaza board reflects the same philosophy: development without democracy, rebuilding without consent.

To understand why this matters, it is necessary to look not only at Gaza, but at how this administration has exercised power elsewhere — including at home.

In the United States, under this same leadership, federal immigration agents have fatally shot American civilians during enforcement operations, with the administration defending those killings under contested self-defense claims even as video evidence and local officials raised serious questions. Oversight has been resisted, independent investigations delayed, and criticism framed as hostility to “law and order” itself. The message is clear: coercive force first, accountability later — if at all.

That governing logic has extended beyond U.S. borders and onto the open sea. In late 2025, U.S. forces conducting maritime counter-narcotics operations killed individuals aboard vessels designated as suspected drug-smuggling boats. Subsequent reporting revealed a serious internal controversy over a follow-up strike in which survivors from an initial attack were reportedly killed. Senior officials, including Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, publicly denied giving any unlawful order to open fire on survivors, while anonymous military and defence sources told journalists that such an order had been issued or implicitly authorized. The administration defended the overall campaign as lawful, but the episode exposed a familiar pattern: lethal force deployed, responsibility disputed, and accountability absorbed into a fog of denials rather than clarified through transparent, independent review.

That same pattern is visible in the administration’s actions toward Venezuela. U.S. forces have seized multiple oil tankers carrying Venezuelan crude in international waters, rerouting or confiscating them under sanctions and enforcement authorities. These actions were publicly justified as economic pressure and law-enforcement measures, even as senior U.S. officials openly acknowledged that the broader objective was to deprive the Venezuelan state of revenue and enable American access to its energy resources. While defended as lawful by Washington, the practice has been described by legal scholars and international observers as indistinguishable from maritime coercion: the use of naval power to expropriate another state’s resources without judicial process. When resource seizure becomes policy, the distinction between enforcement and piracy becomes a matter of power rather than principle.

This is the context in which the same administration now claims authority to shape Gaza’s future.

The inclusion of Benjamin Netanyahu on the Board of Peace deepens the legitimacy crisis. His government has consistently defended the killing of Palestinians, both during major military operations and in daily enforcement across the occupied territories. International organizations, UN bodies, and Israeli human rights groups have documented repeated cases in which Palestinian civilians were killed by Israeli forces with little or no meaningful accountability.

This pattern is not limited to large-scale warfare. In the West Bank, settler violence against Palestinian farmers and communities is extensively documented: attacks during olive harvests, destruction of property, intimidation, and land seizures. These acts frequently occur with impunity and, in some cases, in the presence or protection of Israeli forces. At the same time, Netanyahu’s government has continued to authorize and expand illegal settlements, including recent announcements of new construction and the retroactive legalization of outposts built on privately owned Palestinian land. Violence clears the ground; policy formalizes the theft.

The conduct of the Israel Defense Forces reinforces these concerns. While Israeli authorities point to internal accountability mechanisms, those processes have been widely criticized by human rights organizations as opaque and ineffective. Investigations are slow, prosecutions rare, and convictions rarer still — creating what critics describe as a system that performs accountability without delivering justice.

Alongside Netanyahu sit figures such as Tony Blair, whose post-conflict governance record emphasizes security coordination and market-led development while deferring responsibility for past harm. Financial leadership on the board includes Ajay Banga, whose experience in global finance is tied to compliance and sanctions regimes that human rights groups have long criticized for disproportionately restricting humanitarian access in Muslim-majority contexts. There is no evidence of personal religious animus; the concern is structural. In Gaza, where aid access is already precarious, such frameworks risk turning reconstruction into another instrument of control.

What unites these figures is not accountability to Gaza’s people, but experience administering populations from above.

Palestinians themselves are excluded from the board’s highest decision-making authority. Advisory or technocratic bodies may exist downstream, but real power — mandates, money, enforcement — flows from an external executive dominated by those who have enabled, excused, or directly overseen Palestinian suffering.

Peace does not work this way.

A government that defends lethal force against civilians at home, denies responsibility for deadly operations at sea, and openly seizes another nation’s resources cannot plausibly present itself as a steward of peace. A board that excludes the governed, launders reputations, and substitutes control for consent is not a peace project — it is a management strategy.

If power can be exercised with such impunity in Minneapolis, in international waters, or against a sovereign state’s resources, it will not suddenly become benevolent in Gaza. And with Netanyahu on the board, Palestinians are being asked to trust the very system that has spent decades justifying their deaths and dispossession.

Calling this a “Board of Peace” does not make it one. It only exposes how far removed it is from peace itself.

⏩ Cam Ogie is a Gaelic games enthusiast.

If This Is How Power Is Used At Home, What Will It Do In Gaza?

Jim Duffy ✍ The triple lock always has been insane.


All other neutrals think it nuts. How can a country that gives an effective veto on the use of its military to the US, Russia, China, France and the UK possibly think itself sovereign?

In every other sovereign state, parliament or government or a combination of both always decide on the use of a sovereign's country's military, as they are accountable to the voters. Some UN members with vetoes, notably China, Russia and the US under Trump, aren't even accountable to their own voters let alone Ireland's. Nor do they obey the UN charter. Trump despises it. Putin routinely breaks it.
 
In reality the existing model of peace-keeping is dead. Both Putin and Trump has made it clear that as part of their campaign to destroy the UN that they will veto all attempts at creating peace-keeping forces. Trump reluctantly let UNIFIL continue for a short time and that it was the last time - even if the result is a middle east war.

Not a single other country has something like the triple lock. Even our fellow neutrals think it is laughable rubbish, and utterly incompatible with national sovereignty. It may not even be constitutional, as the constitution specifically limits defence to the Oireachtas and the Government. Giving the UN veto powers the right to override the decision of the Oireachtas and the Government is almost certainly unconstitutional.
 
Nor is it remotely linked to neutrality. For most of Ireland's neutrality, the triple lock did not exist. For the first sixteen years, Ireland wasn't even in the UN.

⏩ Jim Duffy is a writer-historian.

Good Riddance

Seamus Kearney 🎤 Having established itself within the new IRA structures, the Internal Security Unit ( ISU), gained the trust and confidence of the IRA leadership to the point that it was seen as extremely efficient and beyond suspicion. 


The fact that the dead bodies were piling up was seen as proof of the efficiency of the unit.

In September 1981 a carbon copy of the Michael Kearney case was played out when IRA Volunteer Anthony Braniff from the Ardoyne area of North Belfast was arrested by the RUC and interrogated at Castlereagh, East Belfast.

Upon his release he immediately reported back to his unit and submitted his debriefing report, citing what had happened in Castlereagh. A few days later Anthony was approached by his Company Adjutant (ADJ), who was also a Special Branch agent and ordered to attend a second debriefing.

Anthony was unaware that his Adjutant had gone across to the Lower Falls and invited in the Internal Security Unit, specifically telling Freddie Scappaticci that he believed Anthony Braniff was an informer. Scappaticci on this occasion made sure that the earlier mistake he made concerning Michael Kearney and his missing debriefing report would not be repeated, then told the Adjutant to ensure Braniff brought his debriefing report with him and to meet him the next day, Saturday 26th September, at an address at Cullingtree Road, Lower Falls at 10am.

The next day Anthony Braniff left his family home and told his wife, ' I shouldn't be long love'. Little did he know that he was being set up, not by the Internal Security Unit, but by a British agent masquerading as an IRA officer.

When he met Scappaticci his debriefing report was taken from him and he was taken to a safe house in the Beechmount area of West Belfast, told to sit on a chair facing the wall, the chair being wedged between a sofa and the wall.

He was interrogated by members of the ISU, with his Adjutant feeding incorrect information in the next room. The IRA dumps captured and the personnel arrested as a result of the Adjutant were levelled at Anthony Braniff, in particular 'a Brigade dump in Jamaica Road' which Braniff actually knew nothing about.

The shadowy Task Coordinating Group (TCG), first formed in May 1978 and comprised of senior RUC and military personnel - but fully active by March 1979 when their first task was to monitor a major shipment of explosives from the Irish Free State to the Short Strand in East Belfast - was involved in monitoring the Braniff case. It was the TCG that would decide if Anthony Braniff or Michael Kearney etc lived or died, they were the architects of the Dirty War, the IRA leadership being duped into thinking otherwise.

Even though Scappaticci informed his military handler about the whereabouts of Braniff, it was the TCG that decided Braniff should die to scapegoat his treacherous Adjutant. The heat and suspicion had to be taken off the Adjutant.

Within 24 hours of his abduction IRA Volunteer Anthony Braniff was facing the death penalty on trumped up charges. Contrary to customary belief, alleged informers could be executed on the orders at Brigade level, as was the case with Michael Kearney. So too in the case of Anthony Braniff, when Scappaticci and another compromised member of the ISU went to the Belfast Brigade OC for approval to have Braniff executed. The OC merely 'rubber stamped' the death penalty based on the information supplied by Scappaticci and his companion and a false statement prepared.

Meanwhile, Anthony's Adjutant headed back to Ardoyne with the knowledge of his imminent execution, an execution which he knew would scapegoat him and his treacherous actions. When he reported in to his Company OC in Ardoyne and informed him of Anthony's fate, the OC was outraged and blurted out: 'That's rubbish, I need to get over there and sort that out', which rattled his Adjutant who replied: 'No, we'll both go over in the morning', knowing that Braniff was due to be executed that same evening. The Company OC reluctantly agreed.

That same evening, 27th September 1981, IRA Volunteer Anthony Braniff, after being interrogated by British agents masquerading as IRA personnel, was executed with a gunshot wound to the head in an entry off Odessa Street, West Belfast. He was aged 22, married, with 3 young children, Jolene, Anthony and Marylou.
 
Immediately after his execution a false statement was released from the Irish Republican Publicity Bureau, claiming that Anthony was a paid Informer who had compromised a number of IRA dumps in the Ardoyne area.

Significantly, one of the main charges levelled against him was the capture of a Brigade dump in a house in Jamaica Road. Once his Company OC was informed about this he personally went to the house and checked under the floorboards to find the dump still intact and undisturbed. The lie about Anthony Braniff just got bigger.

As a result of an IRA leadership investigation in 2003, IRA Volunteer Anthony Braniff was cleared of any suggestion he had been a paid informer or had compromised IRA war material. His good name was finally restored.
As for his Adjutant, he fled the country by 1990 with the assistance of his Special Branch and MI5 handlers and is still under their protection.

The killing would go on with the Task Coordinating Group at its heart, making life and death decisions on who lived and who died, much like the Roman Emperors watching the gladiatorial combat, with mostly their thumbs in the down position.

Seamus Kearney is a former Blanketman and author of  
No Greater Love - The Memoirs of Seamus Kearney.

Stakeknife 🕵 The Rise And Fall 🕵 Act Ⅲ

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of One Thousand Nine Eight Hundred And Sixty Four

 

A Morning Thought @ 3041

Gary Robertson ⚽Never a red card.

Never in a month of Sundays.

Hardly touched him.

A few moments later.

Nutjob
 
Stupid challenge to make.

This ref is strict. I mean, clearly he was getting booked and already on a yellow - fecking eejit.

Or so the conversation went as I watched O’Neill's ten men valiantly hold on for a 2-2 draw against a relentless Bologna.
 
Its painful to think Celtic were 2 up in this game and with a full battalion would have probably won the match quite convincingly but Reo seeing red didn’t help the cause. True, Trusty’s goal to make it 2-0 came when they were already a man down but in all honesty it’s difficult to express exactly how I feel. I mean sure I take pride in their result but it’s also a “what could have been?” for Celtic.
 
We will never know however the history books have been written and 2-2 it remains.
 
On the other side of the city it looks like Rangers continue to improve under Rohl. A strong Rangers team faced Ludogorets and whilst in the terms of their season the result is a little too late, a first win in Europe for the beleaguered blues shows they are still a force and can perhaps use this as a springboard for the rest of the season. They do have the “dead rubber” of Napoli ahead so who knows, with this win under their belts and confidence returning the Rangers might give their fans a European night to remember.

Saturday brought with it abandonments, most notably at Dundee Utd and Montrose. However, fans of the Highland league were hit hardest with four of the seven fixtures falling foul to the weather. What football that went ahead surely satisfied even the most difficult of palates.

Let’s begin with Falkirk (it's something I’ve never said before yet here it is 🤣) and their 21 year old wonder kid Barney Stewart, a young man with a bright future; and with no disrespect to Falkirk surely a name that’ll line up one day for a bigger club. Stewart having never scored before today managed to grab himself a hat trick against an awkward looking Hibernian team. His first a tap in (that looked suspiciously offside - both I and Falkirk Tv commentators were surprised it stood), before a well placed shot low past the despairing Hibs keeper, before Rocky Bushiri pulled one back for Hibs, giving them hope. However, the day belonged to Falkirk and most notably Stewart who scored in the 83rd minute to seal his hat trick before Grant Hanley put through his own net mins later to hand the hosts a 4-1 victory.

Aberdeen v Livingston looked like the perfect opportunity for the Dons (on paper at least) to continue their resurgence. All looked well for the Reds as Bilalovic stabbed home after some sloppy defending to give them a lead in the 9th minute. Kevin Nisbet then thought he’d put the home side 2-0 ahead before VAR ruled the goal offside. This seemed to spark renewed hope in the league's bottom side who managed to score twice through Susoho and Muirhead, and suddenly things started to look rosy for Livi. But alas this was a brief moment of joy as Nisbet then scored twice in the 4th and 8th minute of stoppage time in the first half to restore an Aberdeen lead.
 
The second half began with a sending off for Livingston manager Martindale who clearly upset the fourth official. And whilst I’m no lip reader I’m pretty sure he told Martindale to “run along old chap” or something like that, anyway, but as I said no lip reader. What followed was madness - two red cards, one for either side - Milne & Bokila and a double for Dons Keskinen. What now for David Martindale? Fans of the West Lothian club must already be planning their future in the championship.
 
Motherwell's 4-0 thrashing of Kilmarnock comes as no surprise. As we’ve already noted, The Steelmen are playing superbly under Jens Berthel Askou, and whilst Maswanhise looked less than impressed to be subbed (the manager likened the disagreement to “telling your son it’s time for bed”) there’s no doubting this is a team with a future, and if they keep their star performers who knows. I make no excuses for being a fan of their manager's style of attacking football.

Saturday did not however end well for one member of our happy circle, and I think it’s safe to say that the grumblings are getting louder down Anfield way. Listening to “606” on 5Live, seems many fans have lost patience with Arne, and in the cutthroat world of the EPL he may be walking the plank soon, and few tears will be shed.

Sunday saw the top three in action with Celtic travelling to Tynecastle for a top of the table clash whilst right in the mix the Rangers hosted Dundee, a club with their own worries to seek and in 9th place in the league, and worrying close to a relegation playoff.
 
The afternoon started brightly for Celtic. With their new striker, Cvancara, on show for the first time hopes were high after a superb free kick from the much maligned Nygren dropped under the bar into the net past a despairing Gordon. Hearts however are in no mood to lose that top spot and their first top flight title in over 60 years. A strike from Findlay early in the second half was no less than Hearts deserved. Celtic were already under relentless pressure and failed to find many openings to create even a semblance of a goal before a wonderful cross from new bhoy Cvancara was met by the inrushing Yang and buried into the net. Hearts 1 - Celtic 2. Despite Hearts pressure and wave after wave of attack Celtic and particularly Schmeichel, who pulled off a few world class saves, looked reasonably comfortable.

However as we know it’s a dangerous place to be 2-1 ahead and half an hour to go. Then came the controversy, the turning point. Hearts continued their push for an equaliser, and in the 76th minute Trusty found himself chasing Kabore, bringing him down perhaps 30 yards from goal. Initially referee McLean showed Trusty a yellow, which at the time seemed the correct decision as Scales was behind Trusty, therefore, he technically wasn’t the last man. VAR had different ideas and called McLean to the monitor and the initial yellow was upgraded to red and the American found himself heading for an early bath. The impetus was now with Hearts, playing against 10 men. With plenty of time left the attacking became relentless and whilst Celtic defended manfully a bullet strike from Braga sent the Georgie faithful into dreamland. Now for Celtic at least it was a case of damage limitation and despite 8 additional minutes the ten men held on for a point. Perhaps enough on any other day but with what was happening back in Glasgow enough so see Celtic slip to third in the SPL.
 
Rangers faced Dundee at Ibrox. The home crowd expecting 3 points they were made to work hard in the first half and with the scores 0-0 at half time this seemed a fair reflection as both sides had chances but both appeared wasteful in front of goal. The second half a very different story unfolded.
 
Barely 3 mins old and Astley brought down Rangers' Raskin, and as is his wont captain Tavernier slotted away the penalty to make it 1-0 to the Rangers and a 100th league goal for the defender. Quite the achievement. Rangers were however made to work hard for their second which came from the boot of Danilo in the 91st minute, sending the home fans into raptures: the icing on the cake delivered in the 94th minute - a cross by Raskin met by Gassama - in it went and up went the Rangers to second spot in the table. Now four points behind Hearts and Celtic slipping to third a further two points behind Rangers fans can be satisfied how their team have progressed under Rohl. 

The title of course isn’t over. There’s plenty of twists and turns to come but from a Celtic view I cannot help but fear the days of Nancy will be costly come the end of the season. Indeed Motherwell in fourth are closer to Celtic than Celtic are to Hearts.
 
It’s football though and anything can happen. We’re all seasoned observers so there’s no chicken counting happening just yet. But I think it’s safe to say whoever wins the league this season will have had to work extremely hard for it. Right now my virtual cash is on Heart of Midlothian. It’ll take a good one or an implosion to knock them off their perch.

A week of “what could have been” for Celtic marred by indiscipline.
 
Winning against Utrecht on Thursday would of course be superb but I for one think a bigger achievement might be keeping eleven men on the pitch.

Late news: Livingston are to report Aberdeen for a racial incident involving Aberdeen players and Livingstons’ Bokila.
 
There’s no room for this behavior in football and anyone who’s found guilty of this whether that be player or fan should face the full brunt of the law.

🐼 Gary Robertson is the TPQ Scottish football correspondent.

Hearts In The Right Place

Anthony McIntyre ☠ Since the ostensible Trump-arranged ceasefire in Gaza the genocidaires of Israel have killed over 460 Palestinians, 100 of whom were children. 

In addition to the mass murder, the New York Times has found that Israel has destroyed 2,500 buildings.

Through their penchant for infanticide - which included eight babies frozen to death over the bitter Gazan winter - the Israelis continue to send a message to Gazans from Tel Aviv that their future is being methodically killed off. This is the backdrop to Jonathan Cook's observation that Trump's new Peace Board is an Orwellian sales pitch. It does not do what it says on the tin, the label a mere mask for tarting up as "peace" the final eradication of Palestinian life in Gaza.

'Ralph Wilde, is the author of International Territorial Administration: How Trusteeship and the Civilizing Mission Never Went Away. He is suitably qualified to advise on the legality or otherwise of trusteeships. He was one of a group of UK based international lawyers who wrote to then British Prime Minister Tony Blair warning that the Iraq war would be illegal. Last October he stated that the Peace Board, where Blair will play a leading role, would also be illegal.

None of this seems to matter to all those agencies and states that have opted to support the Peace Board. Disgracefully but not surprisingly Egypt and Qatar, despite being excluded from a mediating role - later relented on in the case of Qatar - did not withdraw from the group of eight regional states that signed a declaration welcoming the Peace Board when it was first suggested in late 2025. Moreover, Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Jordan, Egypt, Indonesia and Pakistan never consulted with the Palestinians before agreeing to the imperialist initiative.
 
The Palestinian Authority - unfailingly aware of just how little Israel will permit it to do - has been rewarded with nothing less than contempt. Netanyahu demanded that it drop its cases against Israel in the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice.

Ominously Cook asserts: 

Some of us have long warned that Israel and the US view the Palestinians as lab rats, both for testing weapons and surveillance technologies and for changing the norms developed after the Second World War to safeguard against the return of fascist, militaristic and expansionist ideologies.

One diplomat succinctly explained the Peace Board: "It's a 'Trump United Nations' that ignores the fundamentals of the UN charter." As Cook asserts, 'For decades, Israel has been dreaming of this moment: of taking a wrecking ball to the UN and its legal and humanitarian institutions.'

An Israeli wet dream which in the discerning words of David Hearst three months ago:

No wonder Netanyahu had a big smile on his face. And no wonder he told Israeli television viewers: Who would have believed this?

Well, everybody following events in both Gaza and the international arena would have believed it. But only those genuine in their opposition to what they see with their own eyes will stand up to it. 

⏩⏩Follow on Bluesky.

Peace Board Bollix

Barry Gilheany 🎥 With the passage over two decades and allowing for the fact that I was not resident in Ireland then nor am now . . . 

. . . it is still stunning how fall out between Mick McCarthy, the manager of the 2002 World Cup qualifying Republic of Ireland team, and Roy Keane, the squad’s team before the start of the tournament held jointly between Japan and South Korea became such a binary Yes or No national referendum issue for the Irish people in general. 

To recall, the irreconcilable differences between the two led to one inevitable outcome – Keane was sent with his bags packing to his Cheshire home to walk his dogs while the Republic embarked on the third World Cup journey of their history. The saga of this spectacular denouement to the relationship between Mick and Roy and the sub-plots and backstories are told in the film Saipan which has just gone on general release (in the UK anyway) and which I attended at the weekend.

The tragedian aspect of the whole episode as depicted in the film lies in two conflicts: one between footballing cultures and the other between differing aspects of Irishness or Irish identity. Regarding the former, Mick McCarthy, played excellently by Steve Coogan, brings to the table the experience of a 57 times capped Irish international and a post-retirement managerial stint at Millwall (he would after the World Cup go onto manage Wolves, Sunderland, Ipswich Town, Cardiff City, Apoel Nicosia and Blackpool with varying degrees of success at a mostly English second tier level). He comes across as solid, pragmatic in a Yorkshire sort of way. He is a native of Barnsley and a “football man” who understands the culture of the dressing room and the wiles and foibles of the characters who pass through it. He has been a teammate of some of his charges but knows how to set the appropriate boundaries between him as the gaffer and players who come from a mixture of English Premiership and Championship.

Roy Keane, played equally convincingly in the film by Eanna Hardwicke, was then captain of Manchester United from 1997 to 2005 and for twelve years was the lynchpin of the most successful Manchester United side ever under the tutelage of Sir Alex Ferguson, the most prolific trophy winner in the history of the English game. He is easily the most honours decorated Irish international of all time, having won seven Premierships, four FA Cups and one European Champions League. He has made a reputation for perhaps the most effective box-to-box midfielder in the English game; a determined tackler, immaculate passer and a real nose for goal having scored 50 goals. Arguably the most combative midfielder at the top tier since legendary Leeds United captain Billy Bremner, Keane was a classic enforcer on the pitch and renowned for not suffering fools gladly. 

However the downside of this aspect of his career was a disciplinary record of eleven red cards of which seven were received in the Premier League which is a record tally for that competition. A darker side to Keane’s character when in his autobiography he openly admitted to a deliberate foul on Alfe-Inge Haaland of Manchester City (father of current City striker Erling) in October 2001 which effectively ended his career; this was in retaliation for a tackle by Alfe-Inge on Roy Keane while playing for Leeds United at Elland Road four years previously and which had caused Keane to sustain an ACL injury which ended his 1997-98 season (Haaland stood over him and accused him of feigning injury). For his refusal to apologise (it was “an eye for an eye” was his candid admission) Keane earned a further five match ban from the English FA and a £150,000 fine on top of an earlier three match ban and £3,000 fine.

So Roy Keane brought to the squad not just the uber professionalism and an on-field reputation befitting the captain of one of the world’s preeminent football clubs and a passionate commitment to the cause of the Irish national team but also a capacity to hold grudges and an intolerance for those he deems to fall below the standards he sets for himself and others. It was a combustible mix which as the film patiently, perhaps tantalisingly, builds up to would inevitably lead to a confrontation which although tragic at the time for Irish soccer fans, had led to the double catharsis of the Irish team bonding in the aftermath of Keane’s departure and going on to enjoy a respectable World Cup, and for Roy Keane of slaying his demons around the incompetent organisational culture of Irish soccer.

But the tragic aspects of Saipan relate to the clash between two dimensions of Irish identity. The story of Mick McCarthy is the story of the Irish emigrant experience in Britain. Like tens of thousands of Irish men and women down the generations forced to migrate owing to the lack of work in the home country, Mick McCarthy’s father left to go down a coal mine in Yorkshire. Despite his birthplace, love and loyalty to his mother country burns deep in his heart and soul and he served it as a rugged centre half on 57 occasions (as well as for Barnsley, Manchester City, Celtic, Lyon and Millwall). As he says in a motivational flourish in the film, he reminds the squad that they are playing for the generations of Irish people forced to leave the old country for work. They are playing for the sake of the Irish diaspora as well as for the new and modern Ireland of the Celtic Tiger era. And it is Roy Keane who is an exemplar of this New Hibernia. The most successful Irish footballer of his or any generation who has played under two of the most iconic managerial figures in English football history – Brian Clough and Alex Ferguson – and he has internalised the success ethic of Fergie in particular. Having got to where he has through overcoming youth trial rejections and determination and hard work, he has little time for the way that things used to be done in Irish soccer (and perhaps in wider Irish society).

The stage is thus set for the slow burning but steadily rising discord which explodes so dramatically in the final squad meeting before departure for Japan. Before these set of ructions on Saipan, I confess to have only heard once before of this US dependent territory in relation to exploitation of labour in the garments industry. I have since learned that it was from Saipan that the Enola Gay set off to drop its terrible cargo on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on 6th August 1945. 

Having got these historical anecdotes out of the way, let’s look at how Saipan’s role in this history making moment is depicted on screen. The film starts with a pastiche of vox populi reactions among the Irish public to the sporting cataclysm that has leaked out from the camp onto the daily news bulletins on RTE and the front pages of the newspapers. Opinions are broadcast from all corners and sections of Irish society from the taxi driver to publican to kids at school to women out shopping right up to high politics in the person of then Taoiseach Bertie Ahern. Views polarise around the legalistic and professional position that the decision of the manager has to be final and that the maintenance of squad harmony is paramount to a more emotional allegiance to the Keane corner because of his totemic status as the most successful ever Irish footballer ever and sympathy with his fury about the facilities at the camp and what he sees as the lackadaisical culture within the camp. It is impossible to make a definitive assessment as to where the critical mass of Irish public opinion was eventually to be found but it is fair to say that there would have been near total unanimity in favour of Keane in his native county of Cork; the Rebel County always rallies to its own.

It is worth commenting that in a not so distant but vanished era in Irish history, that of the supreme hegemony of Gaelic games and the disapprobation of ‘foreign games’ the idea of any Minister of State never mind the Taoiseach getting into a lather about soccer matters would have been unthinkable. It is fair to ask where the concern from Irish governments was when a succession of dubious refereeing decisions in Paris, Sofia and Brussels conspired to keep what was then the best ever Irish international sides out of the World Cups of 1978 and 1982.

Anyway, the film continues with scenes of Roy Keane kicking a ball around the streets of Cobh as a boy; it cinematically narrates his steady progress through junior football; his breakthrough at local League of Ireland side Cobh Ramblers and then his journey to the stratosphere of English first tier football; first at Nottingham Forest and then for a then British transfer fee of £3.75m to the inaugural Premier League Champions Manchester United in the summer of 1993. The rest, as they say, is history. But along the way there is a hint of a grudge with somebody over Keane being passed over for an important selection at junior level.

The viewer’s sympathy for the dilemmas which Mick McCarthy has to handle surely rises in an evocative scene where prior to the second leg of the World Cup qualifying play off tie with Iran in Tehran in which Ireland hold a 2-0 lead from the first leg, he has to contend with a volley of F words on the phone from Alex Ferguson over Roy Keane’s fitness to play in Tehran. It is made clear from He Who Must Be Obeyed that a leg injury precludes any participation from his club captain in this qualifying decider. The extent and nature of Roy Keane’s injury is one of the sub plots of the entire imbroglio, but Fergie invokes the four-day rule whereby a club manager can mandate the withdrawal of a club player who has been selected for international duty on fitness grounds. But throughout the film, the exact reasons for Keane’s withdrawal are never made explicit which keeps the pot of suspicion brimming if not actually boiling over.

Qualification secured after a nervy 1-0 defeat in Tehran, the action shifts to the departure of the Irish team bus to pre–World Cup base. Keane sits quietly at the rear of the bus; conspicuously not joining in the bonhomie and craic that the rest of the squad engage in. It is the same on the plane where he buries his head in a book, and the aloofness continues throughout the five-day sojourn in Saipan. But this aloofness soon morphs into discontent over the facilities for a team in preparation for the biggest team sport event in the world. The training pitch is pock marked with numerous divots which make five a side games, goalkeeping practice routines and round the pitch laps impossible. Only keepy-uppy training drills are possible. The most farcical defect is the absence of footballs for players to practice with the basic tools of their trade! The catering appears to consist of sandwiches for breakfast, if not for lunch and evening meal. Keane struggles to get the air conditioning on in his hotel room, a situation hardly conducive to the cultivation of cool, rational reasoning in the Pacific humidity.

He does not take part in the squad high jinks which could have come from the set of Mike Bassett Football Manager the highly claimed mockumentary starring Ricky Tomlinson as the hapless manager of the England World Cup squad which came out in late 2001. He relays his frustrations back to his partner in Cheshire. He has stand up rows with the FAI officials whose lackadaisical attitudes seem designed to permanently distort his vision with the colour red. McCarthy tries, in turn, to emolliate and cajole him by trying to get him to understand “where he is coming from” and inquiring whether he would talk to Alex Ferguson in the same manner that he is coming on to his international boss.

Eventually, matters come to a head for the first occasion when after a fractious debate within the squad about the facilities Roy decides he has had enough and announces his intention to depart the squad. Somehow Mick uses patient diplomacy to persuade Roy to stay. So has harmony broken out in time for the task ahead? The answer comes when after an off-the-record conversation in the hotel with a female journalist in which Roy candidly reveals the shortcomings of the Irish preparation, a newspaper is passed around the top table of the squad with the headline “Fail To Prepare, Prepare To Fail” despite the verbal promise of the honourable lady of the press to embargo publication until after the tournament.

Roy is called down from his hotel room to explain the provenance of this article and is asked to apologise. Roy refuses to apologise for telling what he believes to be the truth. The volume of the exchange between Roy and Mick rises to decibel shattering levels when Roy embarks on his notorious volleys of personal abuse against Mick who he describes as a “c..t”, “w…r” and most hurting of all, a “Plastic Paddy”; not a “real Irishman” at all. It does not require a sociological PhD in othering, racialised language to understand that the point of no return had been passed. On top of this invective, was disparagement of Mick’s career achievements and then the opening of the wound that Roy has carried since his early teenage years when Mick reportedly laughed at Roy’s failure to make the grade for that junior team selection all those years ago. Fisticuffs are narrowly averted by Roy being physically restrained by fellow squad members who all weigh in behind their manager. Keeping his calm and dignity throughout, Mick formally sends Roy home for this ultimate act of indiscipline.

It is reasonable to ask why the FAI did not do due diligence on Saipan as a World Cup preparatory venue. Why was the situation allowed to escalate when legitimate grievances over essentially working conditions which any shop steward worth their salt should have been able to make; which Roy articulated albeit sometimes in a passive-aggressive manner became the crisis which almost derailed Ireland’s World Cup campaign? What if serious injury had been sustained by one of the squad because of the glorified sandpit of a training pitch? Mick does one make one last ditch phone call to Roy saying a place is available for him in the squad and a plane is made available at Manchester Airport or him to fly to Japan. But Roy makes it clear that that particular ship has sailed.

As things transpired, it was “all for the best.” Ireland come out of their group with creditable 1-1 draws with Cameroon and Germany and a 3-0 win over Saudi Arabia. In their round of 16 tie with Spain they achieved another 1-1 draw but exited the World Cup through the dreaded penalty shoot-out.

Dissatisfaction with Irish football decision making and administration did not begin and end with Roy Keane; Eamonn Dunphy has been a particularly trenchant critic of the FAI’s stewardship of the Irish game and the subsequent scandals surrounding John Delaney’s tenure as that body’s Chief Executive Officer which he had to cede after investigative journalist probes into FAI finances. 

Keane’s own tragedy is his failure to find a permanent post-playing career anchor in the game despite spells as mangers of Sunderland (winning promotion to the Premier League in 2006-07), Ipswich Town and as assistant to the then Republic of Ireland manager Martin O’Neill. Frustration at the failure of others to live up to his high standards was a factor in his brief tenures at both Championship clubs. Surely, he has more to offer the game than punditry at which thankfully he is not a nodding dog.

⏩Barry Gilheany is a freelance writer, qualified counsellor and aspirant artist resident in Colchester where he took his PhD at the University of Essex. He is also a lifelong Leeds United supporter. 

Saipan ⚽ Tragedy Or Cartharsis?

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A Morning Thought @ 3040

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