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Daithi Hopkins ✍On a recent trip back to my ancestral home of North Mayo, with my mother, we attended a range of cultural events across the region.
 
From the Turas na mBan gathering in Erris, which featured various lectures and talks, to live music sessions in Ballycroy, alongside poetry, storytelling, and finally theatre in Belmullet. Looking back on it now, there was a common thread running through nearly all of them: love. Love of family, love of place, love of memory, love of one’s country, and the enduring human instinct to hold onto dignity even in the face of grief, loss, emigration, or authority. Oddly enough, it was a play that tied all of those themes together most clearly. 

On Sunday, 17 May 2026, I attended a performance of We Have Him Back! at Áras Inis Gluaire in Belmullet during what proved to be a completely sold-out opening weekend. Written and directed by Brian MacSuibhne, the play tells the story of Frank Stagg, the Mayo-born Provisional IRA hunger striker from Hollymount in Co. Mayo, who died on 12 February 1976 after 62 days on hunger strike — his fourth hunger strike overall. 

Frank had emigrated to Coventry in England in search of work and a better life for his family, eventually working as a bus driver before his imprisonment. In many ways, that detail alone says something important about Ireland of that era. Like countless others from the west of Ireland, emigration was not an abstract political concept. It was an economic reality for many a man from the West of Ireland seeking work. 

Before the performance, MacSuibhne explained the deeper purpose behind the production. As he described it: 

This project, this stage production preserves endangered oral history. Documented truth. And community memory of a censored event in modern Irish history. I wanted it to have an educational value as well as a reconciliation value. Telling of the love of a brother in the fight for a United Ireland.

The intentions of the play are grounded in the experiences of the Stagg family and the treatment they endured at the hands of the authorities in both London and Dublin. Rather than simply offering a historical retelling, the production revolves around a dying wish and a brotherly promise that was to be kept, told from the perspective of those who experienced the events directly. 

The play also addresses Frank’s close friend and comrade Michael Gaughan, from Ballina, who died on hunger strike on 3 June 1974 and was buried in the Ballina Republican Plot. His presence within the story deepens the emotional and historical weight of the production, grounding it further within the realities of Mayo and the sacrifices carried by families and communities during that period. 

One of the strongest aspects of the play is how it portrays the way authority can extend suffering far beyond the individual directly involved. The actions of both the British and Irish states did not simply impact Frank Stagg himself. The system deliberately affected his mother, his siblings, his wider family, and his community. Even small acts of control or denial can have enormous emotional consequences when families are grieving or enduring the strain of prison visits. What the Stagg family endured was portrayed not as abstract politics, but as an intensely personal form of suffering and cruelty. The play handles these themes carefully without becoming overbearing. 

At the same time, We Have Him Back! is not relentlessly bleak and dark. There are genuine moments of humour throughout, and the production is all the stronger for it. MacSuibhne introduces characters and exchanges that bring lightness and humanity into what is otherwise extremely heavy subject matter. 

In places, there are clear echoes of the great Irish theatrical tradition associated with Seán O'Casey and Brendan Behan — not in the sense of imitation, but in the way humour, working-class resilience, and sharp dialogue coexist alongside tragedy and political tension. That balance is important because it reflects real life. Even in periods of grief or conflict, people still laugh, joke, argue, and live as best they can. The humour in the play never undermines the seriousness of the story, instead, it makes the emotional moments hit harder. 

The performances themselves also deserve enormous credit. The cast is largely amateur, but in truth that adds to the authenticity of the production. The performances feel raw rather than polished, emotional rather than theatrical for the sake of theatricality. There is a sincerity to the acting that suits the material perfectly. At no point does the audience feel distanced from the people on stage. If anything, the rougher edges strengthen the emotional realism of the production. 

Another aspect of the play that stayed with me afterwards was the unmistakable presence of Mayo itself throughout the story. The quiet, steely reserve often associated with people from that part of the world is visible in nearly every scene. Landscape matters in Irish history, and particularly in stories like this. Place shapes people, outlooks, opportunities, hardships, and ultimately choices. The roads that led Frank Stagg from Hollymount in Co. Mayo to Coventry, and eventually towards imprisonment and hunger strike, cannot be fully separated from the social and economic realities of the Ireland he came from. 

Yet despite the darkness of much of the story, the play ultimately leaves room for dignity and humanity. Without revealing too much for those who have not yet seen it, there is emotional power in the simple fact contained within the title itself: eventually, the family did get Frank back, through a promise made by George Stagg to his brother. That emotional core is what elevates the production beyond politics alone. 

This is a play that should be seen by a wide audience. Certainly, those with an interest in Irish republican history or the political history of the 1970s will find much to engage with, but the appeal of the production stretches well beyond that. Students, academics, historians, and anyone interested in oral history, grief, migration, family, or the effects of institutional power on ordinary people would find something worthwhile here. 

Importantly, productions like this matter because oral history fundamentally matters. Stories passed through families and communities carry emotional truths that official records alone often cannot capture. Future generations deserve access not only to dates and statistics, but to the lived experiences of those who endured these events directly. That is where theatre, storytelling, and community memory become important cultural acts in themselves. 

In the end, what stayed with me most about We Have Him Back! was not simply the politics or even the historical tragedy at its centre. It was the humanity of it all. During a week in Mayo filled with music, poetry, conversation, and reflection, this play seemed to gather many of those wider themes together: love, grief, resilience, emigration, humour, authority, family, and memory. 

And perhaps that is its greatest achievement. It tells one family’s story honestly enough that it begins to speak to something much larger than itself. 

If you wish to see We Have Him Back! for yourself, the nationwide tour continues throughout 2026, with further dates potentially still to be announced. 

Confirmed performances currently include: 

  • Esker Arts Centre, Tullamore, Co. Offaly — Saturday, 23 May 2026 
  • The Island Theatre, Ballinamore, Co. Leitrim — Saturday, 6 June 2026 
  • Swift Cultural Centre, Trim, Co. Meath — Saturday, 13 June 2026 
  • An Grianán Theatre, Letterkenny, Co. Donegal — Saturday, 5 September 2026 
  • TF Royal Theatre, Castlebar, Co. Mayo — Friday, 25 September 2026 
  • The Garage Theatre, Monaghan Town, Co. Monaghan — Saturday, 14 November 2026. 

Further performances are also expected across Dublin, Belfast, and Cork as part of the continuing nationwide tour, with additional dates likely still to be announced.

⏩Daithi Hopkins is a republican socialist activist.

We Have Him Back!

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of One Thousand Nine Hundred And Eighty

 

A Morning Thought @ 3154

Gearóid Ó Loingsigh ☭ writing in Substack on 16-May-2026.


The proposals to eradicate coca always include some version of crop substitution. The debates are usually around how it is to be done and whether to include some proposal for the development of the regions, such as roads, schools and so forth. They rarely look at why there is an increase in illicit crops and how the proposal for substitution contributes to it.

The peasant didn’t choose the wrong crop. The decision to grow coca instead of manioc, for example, is not an erroneous decision by the peasant. It is an economic question. The peasant calculates which of the two crops has a greater market or is more profitable. This aspect is accepted by almost everyone. So the state proposes an alternative crop to compete with the profitability of coca. The state implicitly accepts that there are other factors to be borne in mind and acknowledges that the poor state of the roads is an important factor in most regions and often there is a lack of infrastructure relative to the crop, processing plants, wholesale collection points etc. But the proposals ignore a fundamental aspect. What bankrupted the Colombian countryside and impoverished the peasantry was neoliberalism.

In the history of the expansion of illicit crops and their use to make cocaine we can point to key moments in different countries. Many academic texts talk of the collapse of the price of tin in 1986 and the impact it had on the Bolivian economy. But it is not true. The price of tin did not collapse but rather it was collapsed. Until 1985 there was in place an international agreement that regulated the price. The termination of that agreement provoked the fall in the price of tin, and up to 20,000 miners went to the Chapare region to grow coca for purposes other than traditional use, amongst them one Evo Morales the future president of the country. And coca production took off, and Bolivia became, for a period, an important player in the cocaine business.

In Colombia the economic aperture of César Gaviria wrecked the countryside, and later came the collapse of the international agreement on coffee. The price of green coffee fell, whilst the price of roasted coffee rose. As Colombia, is even today, a producer of green coffee and not so much roasted coffee this impacted the Colombian countryside. It is the third largest producer of green coffee in the world in terms of volume and value after Brazil and Vietnam. 

In 2024 Colombia exported 655,611 tonnes of green coffee, but the real profits are made with roasted coffee and Colombia barely exported 12,064.78 tonnes compared to Switzerland’s 111,185 tonnes, Italy’s 294,476 and Germany’s 258,672. Switzerland exported roasted coffee worth USD 3,91,239,000, Italy USD 2,748,238,000 and Germany 2,189,120,000. Colombia barely exported USD 105,998,000. This means that Colombia, the third largest producer of coffee in the world, exported coffee worth about 1.2% of the value of the three European countries where the only coffee plants are in the botanic gardens. In fact, the value of all Colombian exports of both green and roasted coffee is just 40% of the value of roasted coffee exports of those three countries in the north. But these countries, as strange as it seems, export green coffee that they obviously don’t produce. Their botanic gardens couldn’t even produce one sack of it. For example, Germany exported almost half the green coffee of Colombia. Its exports were the equivalent in value of 46% of Colombia’s exports (USD 1,609,535,000 compared to USD 3,439,384,000). In terms of volume, Germany exported 321,425,320 tonnes, almost half that of Colombia’s 655,611,110.[1] Berlin’s botanic garden must be very productive or better still the European companies dominate everything. I should point out that here I have not included figures from the USA as their production is for internal consumption, though it is the largest market.

It is worth remembering that coffee is one of the products that they say will save the peasant when he replaces the coca. The proposal makes no sense if you really believe that they aim to save the peasantry. It only makes sense when you realise that it is not about saving the peasantry but rather transforming the countryside. Francisco de Roux who was the head honcho at the Programme for Development and Peace in Magdalena Medio was clear about it:

The peasant has to associate with the large scale processes that make the land of Magdalena Medio interesting for large investments. And those projects are the permanent tropical products. If the peasant doesn’t get into this, he is going to leave the region.[2]

It is an ideological proposal to deepen the process that began under the government of César Gaviria: a countryside without peasants but rather rural workers. It is a proposal from the Colombian right including the paramilitary groups that set it out in their proposal Plan for Regional Macroeconomic Integration for Sustainable Human Development, the Substitution of Illicit Crops and Peace for the Municipalities that make up the Civil Association for Peace in Colombia, more popularly known as the Macroeconomic Integration Plan.[3] It is also a proposal from a wide range of foreign governments, NGOs, journalists and of course agribusiness companies.

Through the tale of crop substitution the PDPMM managed to establish large scale African palm crops in Southern Bolívar and expand cocoa, rubber, and coffee crops there and in other parts. Also in Tibú when the right wing paramilitaries supposedly demobilised they came in with full force to plant palm. Before the paramilitary demobilisation there was just 500 hectares in all of North Santander and now there are 43,859 hectares, mainly in Tibú. As much in Magdalena Medio, Tibú and other parts the beneficiaries of the crop substitution programmes were not necessarily coca growers. Palm, cocoa, rubber and other cash crops were imposed where there was no coca. It was just an excuse and in many cases they did not keep their word with the peasants as one peasant rubber farmer from Santander explains:

It came here as crop substitution but in this area there wasn’t any [coca]. They came along with the tale, saying in the workshops that it was the pension for the people that planted it. That it was one of the most profitable crops in the world… They guaranteed its sale, something which never happened, those who extract rubber have to see where they can sell it and those who sell it have to wait three months for payment.[4]

Nowadays, with or without the excuse of crop substitution, the promotion of cash crops is state policy. Petro never stops talking about it. When he proposed buying land from those who financed the right wing paramilitaries in order to share it out amongst the peasants he said it was so the peasant would grow cash crops. The idea is of a Colombian countryside full of rural workers producing those crops that are raw materials for northern multinationals. In exchange Colombia imports basic foodstuffs that it used to produce. The problem the country has is that Europe and the USA can stop consuming the produce of Colombia but Colombia cannot stop importing its food. Now with the crisis in the Persian Gulf, Europe can decide that that cash crops from Colombia are a luxury that it no longer needs, but Colombia needs rice, beans and other foodstuffs and it has to import them regardless of the price of fuel.

The central argument for crop substitution is that the peasant chose the wrong crop before falling on hard times. He grew manioc or some other foodstuff and couldn’t survive on the sale of those crops and opted for coca as a very profitable crop. They say there are other crops that are profitable and don’t bring with them the social problems of coca, such as violence, prostitution, pollution and the disintegration of the social fabric etc. The softest version of this accepts that there are some structural factors such as the lack of quality roads, education, health services, etc. in the regions and they promise to do something about it. However, they ignore the central problem.

Neoliberal policies caused the crises in the Colombian countryside and in other countries. The plan was to turn Colombia into a pantry of exotic products for Europe and the USA. The plan has met with some success, as nowadays 70% of the arable land in Colombia is under six crops with coffee and palm accounting for 27.9%. The country imports basic foodstuffs that it used to produce and the regions are increasingly specialised in a small number of crops exposed to the ups and downs of the market, the rapid advance of infections in the monocultures, the loss of biodiversity and the complete absence of participation in value-added processes. They propose to speed up this process, inserting the Colombian countryside to a greater degree in the international market in exchange for little or nothing. If neoliberalism pushed the peasantry towards coca, the solution according to these nutcases is more neoliberalism.

Every country in the world exports a part of its agricultural production. It is normal and even desirable, depending on the conditions in which it is done. But if you want to substitute coca with other crops, not only do you need roads in good condition, but also native crops and a local, regional and national economic circuit where the crops are transformed within the country and what is exported is, insofar as possible, the final product. It is incredible that Colombia does not dominate the roasted coffee market or that it imports refined sugar, or that its rubber production is not of sufficient quality for the car industry. Having so much land, it is incredible that it imports basic foodstuffs. The required changes in the countryside are more than giving out free seeds or chickens to peasants but rather changes to the free trade agreements, that the food needs to be processed in the country. In other words the countryside just like industry requires a vision and real planning to meet the needs of the country and not those of the international monopolies of a handful of products. The countryside is for Colombians not for Nestlé or Unilever. Neither is it for the national monopolies in Colombia. Any half measure is another victory for neoliberalism and those who pushed the peasants into coca production with all the problems this has brought to the country.

Of course, to struggle against neoliberalism is to struggle against capitalism itself. There is no nice capitalism and the options are not between a neoliberal capitalism and one from some other golden age. Of course, those who talk of crop substitution never talk of socialism. This is not surprising. What is strange is the social organisations and the left don’t talk about socialism either in the context of drugs, illicit crops and the challenges to the peasantry and the working class. They believe that drugs and crop substitution is far removed from class struggle: naïve fools.

References

[1] All figures are taken from faostat.org

[2] Interview with Francisco de Roux April 2002.

[3] Ó Loingsigh, G. (2002) La estrategia integral del paramilitarismo en el Magdalena Medio. España. 

[4] Cited in Ó Loingsigh, G. (2019) Extractivismo y muerte en el nororiente de Colombia. EJP. Bogotá. pp. 131 y 132. 

⏩ Gearóid Ó Loingsigh is a political and human rights activist with extensive experience in Latin America.

Coca And Crop Substitution 🪶A Neoliberal Victory

A Commemorative event ⚱ to remember IRA volunteer George McBrearty, his comrades and the republican hungers strikers is to take place this weekend in Derry.


45th Anniversary George McBrearty Commemoration

Christopher Owens 🔖 Longevity and mystery really are rewarded.


Long overlooked in the tales of how post punk ended up becoming the mainstream, Matt Johnson is now rightly regarded as many things: a songwriting genius, a musical visionary and a true artist willing to swim against the current. It makes for a fascinating story and Neil Fraser must be commended for getting it all down on paper.

Published in 2018 as Johnson was going back out on the road as The The, one of the reasons that it works so well is because Fraser was never an obsessive fan. Rather, he encountered Johnson through his conservation work while East London was being regenerated (or gentrified) in advance of the 2012 Olympic Games. So it means he has a more critical eye than most and is likely to find interest in areas that others might not.

One such example is when Johnson’s father notes the type of people that he worked with in the East End docks:

I’ve always been a voracious reader, but when I worked in the docks I was staggered at how many self-educated and literate men worked as stevedores, dockers and tally clerks. The bible for many of them was The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropist. Karl Marx was another favourite. One docker would recite and quote Congreve, Dante, Byron, whole poems and complete quotations; another man was fond of the Greek philosophers; others would talk of Proust, Kafka and Joyce. Some of the most enjoyable moments of my life were spent working in the docks, talking of life, politics and the infamy of the ruling class. It broadened my reading horizons, and I read Camus, Tolstoy, Dickens, Hemingway, Mark Twain, Mailer, Kingsley Amis, Sillitoe, Stan Barstow and others. But my real hero was George Orwell.

Encountering so many self-taught types not only influenced Johnson’s parents but also their three children who would go on to becomes musicians, artists and directors.

Devoting plenty of chapters to Johnson’s upbringing, his interest in music and his recordings, the reader is in heaven due to the forensic detail as well as the observations on how it all came about. When discussing the single ‘Heartland’, I was amused and elated to read this segment:

The song had been banned by Radio 1, for the use of the word ‘piss’, but as most intelligent observers noted, this was an accurate way of describing the sort of soulless shopping centres in the deprived heartlands of Britain. The moral arbiters of taste didn’t see it that way and demanded that an edit of the track with the offending phrase removed was done before airplay could be granted. ‘Heartland’ may well be Johnson’s greatest achievement. Historian and analyst of UK foreign policy, Mark Curtis, thinks so. “I heard Infected when I was a postgrad student at the LSE. It was probably ‘Heartland’ that really struck me first – just an extraordinary song and words.

Correct. How can you not love the end lyrical run of how:

The ammunition's been passed and the Lord's been praised/
But the wars on the televisions will never be explained/
All the bankers gettin' sweaty beneath their white collars/
As the pound in our pocket turns into a dollar
This is the 51st state of the U.S.A.

On the other hand when discussing the disappointing 1989 album Mind Bomb, Johnson lets us know that

Mind Bomb was done on magic mushrooms; I had piles of books… I was meditating… doing all sorts of really deep, freakish things and getting into all this heavy Islamic stuff. Also Daoism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism. I was trying to use consciousness as a type of microscope/telescope to delve deeper into the world around me. Ultimately, I did freak myself out a bit as I probably went too far but, in the end, everything seemed to simply boil down to love and fear and the realisation that all we see in this life is a manifestation of one of these opposing frequencies. I was also keenly aware, though, how the ego can pollute these kind of enquiries and mess everything up.

That might explain it.

Running to nearly 500 pages, this is a biography well worth tracking down.

Neil Fraser, 2018, Long Shadows, High Hopes: The Life and Times of Matt Johnson & The The. Omnibus Press. ISBN-13: 978-1785582301

⏩ Christopher Owens was a reviewer for Metal Ireland and finds time to study the history and inherent contradictions of Ireland. He is currently the TPQ Friday columnist and is the author of A Vortex of Securocrats and “dethrone god”.

Long Shadows, High Hopes 📚 The Life and Times of Matt Johnson & The The

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of One Thousand Nine Hundred And Seventy Nine

 

A Morning Thought @ 3153

Christy Walsh ✍ Step 1: Arrest a man in possession of a bomb at 1:35pm. Use the Parachute Regiment to keep custody of the bomb.

Step 2: Wait 15 minute.

Step 3: Arrest a second man at 1:50pm for possession of the same bomb.

Step 4: Secretly release Mr F and convict the second man. (Mr F was identified in undisclosed police files as a "known top IRA man").

Step 5: When the second man discovers undisclosed police files revealing the truth, construct a new version 35 years later: "joint enterprise and sequential possession".

This is not a how-to guide. It is the account that a High Court judgment, delivered in Belfast on 19th May 2026, asks us to accept as having occurred on Suffolk Road in 1991.

The Facts

At 1:35pm on 5th June 1991 a man identified as Mr F was arrested in possession of a coffee-jar bomb on Suffolk Road, Belfast. The Jar was placed on a wall, and soldiers took up cover positions.

I arrived at the scene at 1:50pm and was arrested by the soldiers. I testified under oath in 1992 that the bomb was already sitting on a nearby wall when I was stopped. The soldiers denied being in crouched cover positions when I arrived.

In 2008, I recovered undisclosed police and forensic files that Mr F had been caught in “possession of an explosive device (namely a blast bomb)”, signed by Detective Superintendent, Derek Martindale on 5th June 1991.

In March 2010, with no evidential basis, the Court accepted Mr F was arrested at 3:35pm in a follow-up operation. The prosecution told the Court that the time of Mr F's arrest, hours later, made no difference to my alleged possession.

In a Judgment in December 2025, the Court finally acknowledged the truth - contemporaneous police files confirmed Mr F was caught in possession of the coffee-jar bomb at 1:35pm, 15 minutes before I arrived at the scene.

On 19th May 2026, the Court reaffirmed that Mr F had possession of the bomb at 1:35pm on 5th June 1991. But the narrative about me has now changed after 35 years. The Court concluded in its judgment that Mr F and I were in "joint enterprise and sequential possession".

Because it is raised in the judgment for the first time, I was not given any opportunity to put up a defence. I did not, and do not, know Mr F. I only discovered his existence while going through files in the NI Forensic Science Laboratory on 2nd February 2008.

The Judgment fails to answer a crucial detail - how did Mr F transfer the bomb to me while he and the bomb were already in custody for a full 15 minutes before I arrived at the scene?

The Court’s solution: "Joint enterprise and sequential possession". But that requires Mr F and I knew each other and came into contact to make the exchange.

The Judgment creates this absurdity, for the bomb in Mr F's possession to 'sequentially' pass into my possession 15 minutes later - members of the Parachute Regiment were the conduit.

Paradoxically, the Court’s reasoning now corroborates my own evidence in 1992: that the device was already sitting on the wall when I arrived at the scene.

One Man, One Bomb

The Crown prosecution's case from 1991 until 19th May 2026 was that I acted alone. No prosecutor, no respondent, and no court in thirty-five years of proceedings ever advanced a case of "joint enterprise and sequential possession" between me and anyone else.

I had no opportunity to answer a case I did not know was being constructed against me, because it was created in my absence for the first time in the Judgment itself, after the hearing had closed.

On 7th December 1992, I was wrongfully convicted of possession of an explosive device. On 16th March 2010, the Court of Appeal found my conviction unsafe. On 19th May 2026, the Court denied me victim status by finding me implicitly guilty of two entirely different charges that were never prosecuted, namely, 1) joint enterprise and 2) sequential possession of an explosive device - involving a 'top IRA man' who was never charged, tried or convicted, despite his identity and possession being known at least 15 minutes before I arrived at the scene.

⏩ Christy Walsh was stitched up by the British Ministry of Defence in a no jury trial and spent many years in prison as a result.

15 Minute Conduit 🪶 How to Transfer a Coffee-Jar Bomb

Anthony McIntyre ⚽Jay was In England with his mates watching Manchester City continue to breathe down the neck of Arsenal so didn't make this game.


Myself and Paddy walked over. He had things to do, didn't take the car, leaving us free to stop for one on the way to the game and maybe more than one after it. One led to another, causing us to be slightly late for the kickoff, but we didn't miss much. Paddy reckoned that if after the game we make our way home pub by pub the journey seems shorter. By the time I reached my front door I found myself in agreement with him.

In all, we hit four pubs on the night.

Derry was the opposition at Sullivan and Lambe so we were interested to see what reception former Drogs favourite Darragh Markey would receive. Drogs fans are not known for their generosity to former stars who return as opponents. We arrived a few minutes late so if there were any boos or jeers we missed them. When he was substituted in the second half a few of the home support on our side of the ground applauded him. So, so it seems he is not regarded as an out of favour prodigal son.

Sitting in the bar just before kick off I expressed my view that Drogheda would find it tough going but for Paddy, Derry had not been serving up top of the table performances, so he predicted a Drogs win. The stats appeared to be with him. Derry had come to Louth having won a mere two of their previous eleven league games, and had only beaten the Drogs once in eight previous outings.

As we settled into the game it soon dawned on us that the Drogs were going to assume their usual defensive posture despite showing what they could do at Tolka Park when they took a more assertive stance and rattled in four. While Derry seemed to have most of the play in the first forty five they failed to turn it into any real dominance, up front seeming lacklustre and toothless.


The second half opened up promising for the visitors, with Tally in the Drogheda goal forced to make a double block before Derry dozed off again. A penalty, sweetly struck home by Ryan Brennan, again wearing the captain's armband, aroused them out of their slumber. A rasping shot from one of the Candy Stripe subs smashed against the bar. The effort deserved a goal - and a great one it would have been - but it wasn't Derry's night.

While the Drogs just about won I fear for them. Losing to Waterford on Monday - the first victory for The Blues this season - on the heels of losing to Bohemians has placed the claret and blue in a precarious position. I seriously feel they face relegation. They currently sit one above the relegation zone but with uninspiring performances it is by no means certain that Sligo will not overtake them, leaving them to slog it out in the play offs. In their current form, they cannot be assured of the type of convincing victory secured against Bray Wanderers last time around. That came on the back of a cup win six days earlier, meaning they were buoyed up. Hard to see that type of exuberance this season.

Tomorrow night's home meeting with arch derby rivals Dundalk is a game the Drogs need to win if they are to inspire confidence amongst their fans that fingernails will not be bitten down to the quick come November.

⏩Follow on Bluesky.

Drogs ⚽ Derry ⚽ Just About

Caoimhin O’Muraile  ☭ As many readers and contributors to TPQ will probably be aware I have written several articles expressing concern for our planet as a few greedy capitalist profit mongering bastards continue their activities, putting their profits before the wellbeing of our home. 

Many of these activities which are detrimental to the Planet Earth such as more airplanes in the air, an increase in space exploration, are openly encouraged by world governments. We are witnessing what can only be described as accelerated climate change, meaning the actions of the global capitalist class are having a severe effect on the planet and the climate with changes happening on an almost yearly basis! I say this partly through my socialism and partly because I happen to live here just like the rest of the human race.

Global constitutional political leaders speak with what native Americans called a “forked tongue,” speaking with double meanings or, in plain language, telling lies. One moment they are encouraging the rest of us, those stupid enough to listen and believe them, to reduce our ‘carbon footprint’ and in the next sentence they are glorifying the vandalising antics of people like Elon Musk and Richard Branson along with other members of the space cowboy club. In the Twenty-Six-Counties we regularly hear politicians tell us how to help save the planet with some meaningless scheme, like paying for plastic carriers, while the next minute recommending another runway at Dublin Airport. When the CEO of Ryan Air, Michael O’Leary, demands the passenger cap be lifted on the number of passengers passing through Dublin Airport he gets his way. An increase in passengers means an increase in airplanes and the pollution they bring. All hypocrites every one of them. From New York to London, from Moscow to Dublin to Tokyo they are all a waste of space as they set about being seen to be concerned and doing something about climate change while all the while protecting the profits of the capitalist class. Every now and again we get an honest person: a rarity, granted, but they do exist!

One such man is British naturalist, David Attenborough, who turned 100 years of age on Friday 8th May 2026. Attenborough has been and continues to be a brilliant man in his field and has been one of the few to speak of protecting our planet, and meaning it. David Attenborough first came to prominence in 1954 when he produced and narrated Zoo Quest broadcast by the BBC between December 1954 and May 1963. Since he hosted Zoo Quest, his career has spanned eight decades (including the fifties) and programmes which include Natural World, Wildlife on One, Planet Earth, Blue Planet and Frozen Planet have proved very popular. 

On many of his programmes David Attenborough has stressed the fragility of our planet and the need to conserve and look after the place which provides us all with a home, Planet Earth. Instead of heeding this advice the capitalist class totally ignore it and continue making huge profits irrespective of the damage they are causing to the planet. Then they come up with looney ideas about finding another planet to live on after they finally hammer the last nail into Earth's coffin. While they look for another planet for a few of the mega rich to relocate and in all likelihood start the whole rotten process over again they are causing more and more damage to the atmosphere by constantly travelling through it. If they do find another planet, and it is a huge if, only a few thousand of the world’s richest and their chosen political lackeys will be allowed to make the journey. The rest of us will be left on a ball of overheating pollution to exist on. Attenborough tends to keep out of geopolitics but in its generic sense he says a lot politically which should be listened to. Politics generically speaking covers every aspect of life because the subject covers much more than party politics, parliamentary and non-parliamentary politics, but all walks of life including, even especially, the future of Planet Earth.

Many political decisions taken to protect the reservoir in which the capitalist predatory fish swim and are taken to increase these brigands profits are also damaging to our planet. Though David Attenborough stays clear of outright criticism on these decisions he condemns them between the lines. It is not so much what he says but perhaps what he does not. Most of these political decisions are a farce and if not so serious laughable, for example, telling people to buy expensive electric cars to help protect the planet then giving the go ahead for more air transport to land at the already fuel emitting and planetary damaging airports. How do they keep a straight face?

Irrespective of what these parliamentary semi-imbeciles decide the international bourgeoisie and groups like the Bilderberg Organisation will do as they please anyway. For this reason these groups prefer right-wing governments to those with any left-wing credentials. Right-wing politics and corporatism, where countries are governed as a company, are preferred by the bourgeoisie and they keep such ideologies in their armoury in case, as was the case in Chile 1973, socialism is democratically voted for, when the electorate voted the wrong way against bourgeois interests. International capitalism appears to care very little for our planet probably because they believe their own bullshit about living elsewhere on another planet. Maybe this is the case, maybe not, but one thing is for sure when this planet finally calls time on us the bourgeoisie will perish with the rest of us as will their billions and science fiction ideas about living elsewhere will not save the greedy minority! If as much money was to be invested in sensible planet preservation schemes as are spent on these barmy ideas, we may have a fighting chance.

On one of his programmes dedicated to preserving our planet David Attenborough quite categorically stated regards looking after the planet; “Many individuals are doing what they can” to help our planet but “real success can only come about if we change our societies, our economics, and our politics”. This observation by the centenarian is spot on especially economics and economies geared solely to the profits of the few. The rest of us are blindly led to believe this economy belongs to all of us. It does not! When governments speak of the economy they speak of the wealthy and only the profits amassed by these planet damaging parasites. Attenborough continued; “surely we have a responsibility to future generations to leave behind a planet which is healthy, which is habitable for all species”. 

These responsibilities we are not honouring and not only the capitalist class but the rest of us for blindly going along with their polluting and damaging schemes. When Musk launches another space programme many of us, instead of being appalled, look on in stupid wonder at this great man who is burning our houses down! Leaving Musk and Branson aside in Brazil the tropical rainforests are being cut down to make space for developments at an alarming rate. The loss of the trees not only denies the natural fauna their habitat but also removes another chunk of the planet’s lungs. Without plant life, particularly trees, the human race and other mammals will be unable to breath. This should be of major concern to all of us, but is it? 

David Attenborough has seen many changes in the natural world, many not nice, since he presented Zoo Quest all those years ago. He has given over the years countless warnings about the fragility of Planet Earth very few of which have been seriously heeded. He is now 100 years old and with a lifetime dedication behind him should be listened to now more than ever before. His knowledge in this field is second to none and if he says our planet is in a perilous condition he should be taken very, very seriously. 

I remember watching him some months ago when his centenary was approaching and he looked very much at ease, much younger than his years, as he accepted his time was probably “almost up”. He still spoke, and, I hope, will continue to speak calmly about the planet he loves and the biodiversity, including humans, which share earth as home. 

Only one species, and a minority of them at that, are hell bent on global destruction accelerating the normal climatic changes which have occurred over the millions of years of Earth's existence so they now come at an unstoppable pace. Maybe there is still time with a complete change of direction away from profit, profit, profit moving the emphasis to preservation, preservation, preservation. 

David Attenborough maintains it “may not yet be too late” with a change in economic and political direction with the way we conduct ourselves in general changing accordingly. This direction of travel must begin now, right now, but will it? It is time David Attenborough and those who follow in his wake, other naturalists, be listened to and advice followed before the planet calls ‘last orders at the bar.’
     
Caoimhin O’Muraile is Independent Socialist Republican and Marxist.

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