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Gary Robertson ⚽ Paint me purple and call me an aubergine Scotland are coming home after the group stages of the World Cup. 

Who didn’t see that coming?
 
Another glorious failure to add to a long list of sporting disasters.
 
While I’m still on my #BoycottTheWorldCup mission being on social media means it’s difficult to avoid any talk of the tournament. So when I opened Bluesky and was faced with a barrage of criticism for the dubious tactics of Steve Clarke and annoyance at a 3-0 drubbing by an average Brazil  - yes an average Brazil could beat most teams but this latest incarnation is a mere shadow of the great Brazilian teams we watched in our teens - I knew we were, unlike Jeffery Donaldson, coming home. And rather like the “great and the good” of the Loyalist community of the occupied North much talk was of how we all knew there was something dodgy about the man but we all said nothing.
 
The man of course being Steve Clarke, and his dodginess being his woeful tactics. Scotland scored one goal at the World Cup and that was a deflection (I’m sure there’s room for another Donaldson/Loyalist joke here but that’ll need to wait). We just aren’t very good and despite the hype, the dare to dream attitude of the Tartan Army reality bites hard and it’s homeward bound.
 
I note with interest Charles Windsor asking Scotland fans to cheer on England. Further evidence, as if it’s needed, that the English monarch really doesn’t live in the same world as the rest of us. True, some Scottish Rangers fans are there supporting England but this is simply Stockholm syndrome in action and proof if needed that “Care in the community” (one of Tory Blair’s policies) failed miserably and there’s a case for reopening asylums. But the majority of Scots would rather cut out their tongues than ever wish England well. 

Now don’t get me wrong they have some great players with at least one “stolen” from Ireland in the form of Declan Rice (currently injured, we wish him well). It’s not and never has been the England team but instead the English media. Sky News would be on 24hr “England win the toughest World Cup ever in history says some road sweeper called John from Scunthorpe” watch, and Skinner & Baddiel would be on 24 hours a day on most radio stations across these islands. It’s a horror of unimaginable proportions. Subjected to continuous footage of the winning goal like a scene from “A clockwork Orange” before we knew it our kids would be sounding like cockneys and singing “rule Britannia”. No, if they could keep it in the bubble that is Englandshire, fine go on win it but it wouldn’t and couldn’t be. And that’s why those of us tenuously holding on to our sanities couldn’t bear England win the World Cup. Next up for England are the DR of Congo, a land they decided not to invade on their round the world empire building “exploits”, instead leaving it to the Belgians under their king Leopold to massacre ten million plus people. Again while I won’t be watching I wish the Congolese well and hope to see them in the last 16.
 
In other news Celtic have signed “set piece coach” Ross Grant from Hearts so I guess that’s something to cheer about. Providing they hang on to the likes of Engels then hopefully he can fine tune their skills and we will see more opportunities created from what is fast becoming an integral part of the modern game.
 
The friendly between Shelbourne and Celtic still goes ahead on July 7th in Dublin and tickets are still available at time of writing from Tolka Park, an ideal opportunity for young fans who aren’t able to travel to Glasgow to see their heroes close up and perhaps photos and signatures. With a six pm kick off it’ll still be light when the match finishes and just about the perfect treat for the kids.
 
So that about wraps it up for now of course. As the season approaches, hopefully we’ll have signings to talk about, pen put to paper and contracts signed until then let’s continue to speculate.

Til next time ….

🐼 Gary Robertson is the TPQ Scottish football correspondent.

Unimaginable Horror

Europe Solidaire Sans Frontières ★ Written by Christian Zeller.

The European rearmament drive is forcing a question the left has shelved for thirty years: what should socialists say about armies and conscription? 

Christian Zeller, ecosocialist theorist and professor at the University of Salzburg, argues that the reflexive rejection of conscription — however understandable — functionally endorses the professional army, historically the more reliable instrument of capital’s class power. Drawing on the democratic soldiers’ movements of the 1970s and 1980s, and on the experience of Ukrainian popular resistance, he makes the case for an emancipatory military policy that links defence of democratic and social rights to a strategy of working-class self-organisation — including inside the armed forces. [AN]

The entire left spectrum is unprepared for the challenge of defending democratic and social achievements in Europe against external and internal threats from authoritarian states and forces. The question of the character of armies and military service is increasingly at the centre of debate — a question that socialists have barely engaged with over the past thirty years.

Militarisation and conscription

Russia launched its war against Ukraine in 2014. On 24 February 2022, the Putin dictatorship began its full-scale invasion against the Ukrainian population. 

Continue @ ESSF.

Socialists And The Army 🪶The Military Challenge Conscription, Professionalism, And The Left: Towards An Emancipatory Military Policy

Louth For Ever ★ writing in Medium on 23-May-2026.

Four events in one week, and what they showed about the terrain the contest is being fought on.



Photo by Dimitry Anikin on Unsplash

Section I: The Week

On Tuesday 18th May, Israeli naval forces intercepted the Global Sumud Flotilla in international waters as it attempted to deliver aid to Gaza. Around 430 activists were detained. At least 14 of them were Irish citizens, including Dr Margaret Connolly, a Sligo GP and sister of President Catherine Connolly. On Wednesday and Thursday, the Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir released videos of himself walking among the bound detainees holding an Israeli flag, telling them welcome to Israel, we are the landlords, and pushing one detainee to the ground. The Taoiseach said the behaviour was appalling. The Tánaiste said it was despicable and could not be consequence free. Both declined to move the Occupied Territories Bill, which has been before the Oireachtas since 2018 and has been called for repeatedly by the opposition this week.

On Wednesday 14th May, the Residential Tenancies Board published its quarterly figures. There had been 7,062 termination notices served on tenants by landlords in the first quarter of 2026, a fifty-one per cent increase on the same period in 2025, and the highest quarterly figure since the data series began in 2022. On the same day, the Daft.ie report for the first quarter of the year showed that market rents had risen by 4.4% between December and March, the largest quarterly increase the series has recorded since it began in 2002. The new rent regime which the Coalition introduced on 1st March, advertised as a stabilising reform, had produced in its first quarter the highest rent rise in twenty-five years and the highest eviction figures on record. The country’s largest commercial landlord told its investors the new rules would produce a twenty-five per cent increase in its rental income over the coming decade.

On Friday 15th May, on Henry Street in Dublin city centre, a thirty-five year old Congolese man named Yves Sakila was held on the ground for approximately five minutes by five private security guards from a firm contracted to Arnotts, after an alleged shoplifting incident from which Sakila had attempted to flee. He had injured an elderly man in his eighties as he ran. The five men held him on the ground until he stopped responding. He was pronounced dead at the Mater Hospital. He had been in Ireland for over twenty years, had lived in a Salvation Army hostel in Dublin 1, and was described by staff at the Granby Centre as pleasant and quiet, with a deep interest in technology and a habit of attending prayer services. His family in the Democratic Republic of the Congo learned of his death online. The Congolese Community in Ireland held a vigil for him on Henry Street on Tuesday 19th May.

On Friday 22nd May, by-elections took place in two constituencies. Dublin Central was filling the seat vacated by Paschal Donohoe in November. Galway West was filling the seat vacated by Catherine Connolly when she was elected President in October. The counting began on Saturday morning. The first preference picture is now in.

This was the week

Section II: The week the framework spoke

The previous essay in this body of work argued that a hegemonic project, in the precise sense that it seeks to become the framework through which a generation makes sense of its political situation, is what is currently consolidating across these islands. It argued that this project operates on integrated terrains. Anti-immigration nativism. Patriarchal restoration. Anti-EU sentiment positioned as the recovery of sovereignty. The colonisation of working-class economic grievance through narratives that locate responsibility in external enemies rather than in structural failures. It argued that a counter-hegemonic project must hold the integrated terrain on its own terms, contesting both the political sphere and the ideological sphere, and that no party in the current Irish opposition holds the form the contest requires.

The week described in the previous section is what happens when the framework that essay named is operating in plain view across multiple terrains at once.

The flotilla story is the foreign-policy terrain. Israeli state behaviour towards Irish citizens, including the President’s sister, is condemned in the strongest available rhetorical terms by both the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste. The legislation that would translate the rhetoric into material action — the Occupied Territories Bill, before the Oireachtas since 2018 — remains unmoved. The Coalition is performing the position the political ground demands while declining the action the position would require. The gap between rhetorical position and material act is the gap.

The housing data is the economic terrain. The Coalition’s signature housing policy, introduced on 1 March as a stabilising reform, has produced in its first verified quarter the largest rent rise in twenty-five years and the highest eviction figures on record. The country’s largest commercial landlord has told its investors that the new rules will produce a twenty-five per cent uplift in its rental income over the coming decade. The policy serves a specific constituency, and that constituency is not renters. The economic terrain on which the far right is building hegemonic capacity is being made by Coalition policy more material every quarter.

The death on Henry Street is the ideological terrain made physical. A Black homeless man, a member of a community the far right has been targeting in pub conversations and on doorsteps and in podcasts for years, is held on the ground for five minutes by five private security guards and dies there. The Congolese Community in Ireland says it does not feel safe any more. What makes a community feel that, and what makes five men hold a man on the ground for five minutes for a shoplifting allegation, are connected to the same framework whose contest this essay is about. The ideological sphere does not stay abstract. It reaches the street.

The by-elections were the political-sphere test. The Dublin Central count has reached its third stage as this essay publishes. The Galway West first count has just landed. The first-preference picture across both is in, and the first-preference picture is what the closing section reads. Final seat allocations will arrive on their own time. The structural fact does not wait for them.

These are not four separate stories. They are one story, told across four terrains, in one week.

Section III: Henry Street

Yves Sakila was thirty-five years old. He came to Ireland in 2004, when he was thirteen. He lived here for more than twenty-two years. By the spring of 2026 he was homeless. He had been living for some time at the Salvation Army’s Granby Centre in Dublin 1, where staff described him as pleasant and quiet, with a deep interest in technology, and a habit of sometimes attending the Centre’s prayer services. He left the Granby Centre on the morning of Friday 15th May. The staff who said goodbye to him that morning were the last people there to see him alive.

Shortly before five o’clock that afternoon, on Henry Street, he was alleged to have shoplifted from Arnotts. As he attempted to flee, he knocked an elderly man in his eighties to the ground, leaving him seriously injured. Five private security guards contracted to the store gave chase, caught him, and brought him to the ground. They held him there for approximately five minutes. The footage that has been released shows him at the start of the five minutes audibly shouting in distress. By the end of the five minutes, he is motionless. He was pronounced dead at the Mater Hospital that evening.

His brothers and his uncle, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, learned of his death online. His family in Ireland, and the Congolese Community in Ireland, learned of it through phone calls and through the news.

On Tuesday 19th May, the Congolese Community in Ireland held a vigil for him on Henry Street. The vice president of the Community, Laure Zoya, said that he was more than a headline. He was a member of their community, a professional, a human being whose life mattered. Members of the community said they did not feel safe any more. Flowers were placed at the spot. Prayers and songs were offered. The vigil ended.

These are the facts of one man’s life and death.

They are also, and this is the only structural reading the essay will offer of them, the facts of what the ideological sphere produces when it reaches the street. The far right’s project, the project the sixth essay named as a hegemonic contest, has been building for years on the everyday terrain of who is seen as belonging here and who is seen as not. The conversations on doorsteps. The phrasings in WhatsApp groups. The cultural production around national identity and who counts as Irish. The slow movement of what feels like common sense about Black men in Irish cities. None of this is a direct cause of what happened on Henry Street. None of it can be. The Garda investigation will establish what happened. The case has been referred to the Garda Síochána Ombudsman, Fiosrú. The legal process will work in its time.

But the conditions under which a Black homeless man could be held on the ground for five minutes by five men in front of bystanders, in a country where the everyday discourse about who belongs has been moving in a particular direction for years, are not separable from those conditions. The Congolese Community in Ireland said that they do not feel safe any more. They are saying something the framework the previous essay named would predict them to be saying.

Yves Sakila has been denied human dignity in death by some of the framings of the days that followed it. This section has tried to refuse that denial. He was a person. He had a name. He had been in this country since he was thirteen years old. He died on Henry Street on Friday 15th May 2026 and that fact does not become smaller because it is also the fact that the framework the essay is engaging is operating.

Section IV: The position and the act

The Occupied Territories Bill has been before the Oireachtas since 2018. It was first introduced by Senator Frances Black to give material expression to Ireland’s stated position on the illegality of Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territory. The bill has passed stages in the Seanad and the Dáil at various points in its history. It has been called for by every Irish opposition party, by civil society organisations, by international legal scholars, and by Palestinians themselves. It has not been moved into law. Successive governments have argued that the legal advice they received from the Attorney General concluded the bill was incompatible with EU competence. Successive governments have declined to publish that advice or to enact the bill in a form that would address the legal concerns. The bill has sat where the bill has sat.

On Tuesday 18th May, Israeli forces intercepted the Global Sumud Flotilla in international waters. Around 430 activists were detained. At least 14 of them were Irish citizens. The Taoiseach said the interception was absolutely unacceptable. He said that it was no longer tenable that it could be business as usual with Israel. The Tánaiste said that the actions of the Israeli government were despicable and could not be consequence free. Both said that they would discuss with EU partners how to ensure the safety and wellbeing of Irish citizens.

On Wednesday and Thursday, Itamar Ben-Gvir released videos of himself walking among the bound detainees holding an Israeli flag, telling them welcome to Israel, we are the landlords, and pushing one detainee to the ground. He told Prime Minister Netanyahu in a second video to give them to him for the terrorist prisons. The Taoiseach said he was appalled and shocked by the footage. The Tánaiste said it was a further clear breach of international law and disgusting. The Coalition continued to decline to move the Occupied Territories Bill. The Taoiseach explained in the Dáil that passing the bill would not change Israel’s behaviour.

This is the structural pattern. The Coalition can describe Israeli state behaviour in the strongest available rhetorical terms — appalling, despicable, disgusting, unacceptable, breach of international law — and decline to translate the description into material action. The rhetorical position is performed at the level the political ground demands. The action is withheld at the level the position would require. The gap between the two is the gap.

The sixth essay diagnosed this pattern in Sinn Féin’s procedural absorption of structural critique. The same pattern is operating here, from the other direction. Cullinane absorbed the reproductive rights question through procedural framing about the bill’s specific provisions. The Coalition absorbs the Occupied Territories question through procedural framing about EU competence and the bill’s expected effect on Israeli behaviour. In both cases, the position is performed and the act is withheld. In both cases, the procedural framing is not invented — it is the form the structural feature produces every time the substantive question is hard.

The bill that would translate Ireland’s stated position on illegal settlements into material consequence has been before the Oireachtas for eight years. The President’s sister was among the detainees Ben-Gvir was filming. The bill still has not moved.

Section V: The terrain Coalition policy is making

The Coalition’s reform of the rental sector came into effect on 1st March 2026. It was advertised as a stabilising measure that would protect renters by introducing six-year minimum tenancies and a national two per cent annual cap on rent increases inside Rent Pressure Zones. The Taoiseach and the Minister for Housing said the reforms would bring greater security to tenants and stimulate investment in supply.

The first verified quarter of the new regime is now in the record. The Residential Tenancies Board reports that 7,062 termination notices were served on tenants by landlords in the first quarter of 2026, a fifty-one per cent increase on the same period in 2025, and the highest quarterly figure since the data series began. Sixty per cent of the notices were issued because the landlord intended to sell the property. The Daft.ie report for the same quarter records that market rents rose by 4.4% between December and March, the largest quarterly increase the series has documented since it began in 2002. Average market rent for a two-bedroom apartment has now passed €2,100 per month. The economist Ronan Lyons, who compiles the Daft.ie series, described the initial impact of the new system as an increase in market rents larger than any seen over the past twenty-five years.

In its preliminary results for 2025, Ires Reit — Ireland’s largest commercial residential landlord, owner of 3,627 rental properties — told investors that the Coalition’s reforms could produce a 25% potential rental income uplift with minimal added costs across its portfolio. The company’s chief executive said its existing rents had been assessed as approximately 20% below market value, and that the new framework would allow them to be gradually reset. The Coalition’s signature housing policy serves a specific constituency, and that constituency is not renters.

This is the economic terrain the previous essay named as one of the four terrains the far right’s hegemonic project is integrating. The colonisation of working-class economic grievance through narratives that locate responsibility in external enemies rather than in structural failures. The structural failure on this terrain is in plain view. The Coalition’s reforms have produced, in their first verified quarter, the largest rent rise in twenty-five years, the highest eviction figures on record, and a documented twenty-five per cent uplift in income for the country’s largest commercial landlord. The grievance the far right is colonising is being made more material every quarter by the policy.

The Coalition is, in a precise sense, the supply line for the project it claims to oppose. The economic conditions on which the far right is building hegemonic capacity are the conditions Coalition policy is producing. The policy is not failing to address the grievance. The policy is the source of new grievance the project has yet to colonise.

Section VI: What two electorates answered

On Saturday 23rd May, the counting in Dublin Central reached its third count by the late afternoon. The Social Democrats’ Daniel Ennis topped the poll on the first count with 4,903 first preference votes. Sinn Féin’s Janice Boylan was second on 4,348, a margin of 555 votes. The political correspondent Gavan Reilly described the seat as a done deal by midday. By the third count Ennis still held the lead. The seat will be filled by the Social Democrats. In Mary Lou McDonald’s own constituency, in the week the Coalition’s housing policy delivered the largest rent rise in twenty-five years and the highest evictions on record, in the week of Sakila, in the week of the flotilla and the Occupied Territories Bill still unmoved, Sinn Féin has come second.

The Galway West first count was completed in the early evening. Independent Ireland’s Noel Thomas led the count with 10,007 first preference votes. Fine Gael’s Seán Kyne was second on 9,647, a margin of 360 votes. The seat will be decided on transfers and the count will adjourn into Sunday. Whichever of Thomas or Kyne takes it, the seat goes to a Coalition party or to a party explicitly campaigning on cost of living and immigration from the political terrain the far right is colonising. Sinn Féin’s Mark Lohan finished seventh with 3,208 first preference votes. Behind the Social Democrats. Behind one independent. Behind Labour. Behind Fianna Fáil.

These are the answers two electorates gave to a question the political ground had spent the week putting to them. The question was whether the political form representing the constituency the Coalition is failing exists in the current Irish party system. The Dublin answer was the Social Democrats — the party clean on reproductive rights, compromised on climate, the party closer than any other major opposition formation to the framework the previous essay named. The Galway answer was a contest between the governing party that produced the conditions and the anti-immigration party that promises to restore control over them. In neither answer was Sinn Féin the form.

This is what the previous essay’s structural argument predicted. The absorption pattern is constitutive of how Sinn Féin operates. The pattern is not contingent on the issue. The pattern produces electoral consequence on the terrain where the political ground is most favourable to the party, in the week when the conditions for an opposition project building on cost-of-living grievance are most legible to voters. The argument has now been tested by two electorates on a single day and the test has produced the result the argument anticipated.

The Coalition is in a precise sense the supply line for the project it claims to oppose. The Social Democrats hold the progressive terrain in Dublin but did not hold the climate terrain on Wednesday 13th May. Labour and the Greens and People Before Profit held both terrains but the constituencies they currently mobilise are insufficient to the scale the contest requires. Sinn Féin has the scale and not the form. The form a counter-hegemonic project requires does not exist in any single party.

What the week showed is that the framework is operating on every terrain at once. The flotilla. The policy. The death on Henry Street. The two by-elections. None of these is a separate story. They are aspects of a single contest for the framework through which a generation makes sense of its political situation. The far right is contesting that framework with an integrated project across all the terrains. The Irish opposition is contesting it with parts of the framework distributed across parties that cannot or will not hold them together.

The Social Democrats won a seat on Saturday. Independent Ireland is positioned to take another. Sinn Féin finished second in McDonald’s own constituency and seventh in Galway West. The body of work is seven essays long now. The argument the previous essay made has been answered by two electorates on a single day. The form that could hold the framework does not yet exist. What is built from here is now being built by the people the argument is engaging.

References

The Global Sumud Flotilla. Reporting from RTÉ, The Irish Times, the Irish Examiner, IrishCentral, and the Associated Press, 18–22 May 2026.

Itamar Ben-Gvir video statements. As reported by RTÉ, The Irish Times, and the Irish Examiner, 20 May 2026.

Statements by Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Tánaiste Simon Harris on the flotilla interception and the Ben-Gvir video. As reported in The Irish Times and RTÉ, 18–21 May 2026.

The Occupied Territories Bill. Introduced in the Seanad by Senator Frances Black, 2018. Statutory history available at oireachtas.ie.

Residential Tenancies Board, quarterly data, Q1 2026. Reporting by The Irish Times, the Irish Examiner, RTÉ, and The Journal, 14 May 2026.

Daft.ie quarterly rental report, Q1 2026. Reporting by The Irish Times and the Irish Examiner, 20 May 2026. Compiled by Professor Ronan Lyons, Trinity College Dublin.

Ires Reit preliminary results for 2025, as reported by RTÉ News and The Irish Times, February-March 2026.

The death of Yves Sakila on Henry Street, 15 May 2026. Reporting by RTÉ, The Irish Times, The Journal, and breakingnews.ie, 15–20 May 2026. Statements by the Irish Network Against Racism and Laure Zoya of the Congolese Community in Ireland.

Dublin Central by-election, 22–23 May 2026. First-count results as reported by RTÉ News (Samantha Libreri) and The Irish Times. Tally reporting by Gavan Reilly (Virgin Media News) and Simon McGarr.

Galway West by-election, 22–23 May 2026. First-count results as reported by The Journal and RTÉ News (Pat McGrath). Tally reporting by Gavan Reilly (Virgin Media News).

🞹The sixth essay in this body of work, No Form To Hold It, published on Medium 15th May 2026.

⏩Louth For Ever writes on Irish politics and constitutional change. Follow for analysis of Ireland’s democratic future as it’s constructed by those actually engaged in the work.

The Week The Framework Spoke

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of Two Thousand And Eighteen

 

A Morning Thought @ 3191

Frankie McKillen ✍ I was playing around with Claude Fable 5, new release from Anthropic, and I wondered what AI thought of TPQ. 

So I asked it two questions:

Tell what you think about the blog TPQ and do a deep dive and tell me what you think about the commenters--Go as far back and a deep dive as you can

13:36----Searched the web--I can see one result that looks likely — "The Pensive Quill" (thepensivequill.com). Let me dig into that. 

Fetched: TPQ--Now let me dig into the history and the comment culture — fetching an older post with comments. Searched the web---Now I have enough for a thorough, meaty response. Let me write it up.

  The Pensive Quill (TPQ) — A Deep Dive by Claude... What Is It? The Pensive Quill.

(thepensivequill.com) is one of the most distinctive and genuinely independent political blogs in the Irish/British sphere. It was co-founded by Anthony McIntyre, a former IRA man who served 18 years in jail for the murder of a UVF man in 1976. McIntyre left Sinn Féin after it signed up to the Good Friday Agreement and became a vocal critic of the party. He earned a PhD after leaving prison and is regarded as an important voice in questioning republican circles. He founded The Pensive Quill blog in 2008 as a platform for unfiltered analysis of Northern Ireland politics. 

Before TPQ there was The Blanket — over more than a decade, McIntyre was one of the most consistent and insightful critics of Sinn Féin, and as a historian, former IRA member and onetime party activist with extensive contacts in the organisation, few were better placed to examine and evaluate the transformation of the movement from armed insurrectionists to tame reformists. He regularly published his uninhibited opinions on his website or in the press. 

My Honest Assessment of TPQ as a Blog. The Good: 

TPQ is genuinely unlike almost anything else online. It is messy, prolific, and completely unsponsored by any party or ideology. The front page on any given day can contain: a forensic take-down of Sinn Féin, a piece on Scottish football from a Celtic-mad correspondent in Glasgow, a Marxist essay on London transport and climate targets, dispatches from a Drogheda United match, feminist analysis of the Iran war, a Unionist commentator poking fun at republican colour parties, and a curated "Lynx" link roundup — all sitting side-by-side without apology. 

The motto "Before We Conform, Or Condemn, Let Us At Least Be Curious" runs through every lynx post. That phrase sums up the editorial ethos better than anything. 

 The blog has a genuine plurality that is rare and earned. McIntyre doesn't just tolerate opposing views — he actively courts them. He describes himself as anti-violence, but not a pacifist, and the blog reflects that internal tension constantly: it is neither cheerleader for armed republicanism nor for the peace process establishment. That independence costs him, but it also gives the blog a credibility that tribal outlets simply don't have. The writing by McIntyre himself is notably sharp. His football pieces — about Drogheda United, Liverpool, the League of Ireland — are written by someone who genuinely goes to the games, argues with himself about whether to show up, and writes about sport as a portal into community, politics, and mortality. His piece on the Liverpool 4-0 mauling by Manchester City (the "Getting Away With It" post on the homepage) is a good example: it starts as football criticism and becomes a meditation on accountability, fair wages, and what loyalty actually means. That's hard to do.

The Weaknesses: The sheer volume is overwhelming. TPQ publishes at an extraordinary rate — the archive shows months with 150, 170, even 197 posts — and quality inevitably fluctuates. Some pieces are very short, more like broadside tweets than essays. Others are reprints from elsewhere. The lack of curation means you have to do a lot of sifting. The blog also lives in a somewhat self-referential world. Much of its most passionate content assumes readers who are intimately familiar with the granular factions, feuds, and personalities of Irish republican politics — who "the Fenian Way" is, what the Boston College tapes meant, the significance of a particular person having been on the blanket in a particular block. 

For outsiders it can feel impenetrable. There's also an occasionally sharp edge of personal grievance — understandably so given McIntyre's biography, but it occasionally shades into score-settling that can read as repetitive. 

The Commenters — A Deep Dive This is where TPQ gets genuinely fascinating. The comment section has historically been one of the most intellectually alive in Irish political blogging, and going back through years of threads reveals a community with its own distinct culture. 

Who They Are: The commenter base is a rare mix. You find former prisoners, ex-combatants, academics, diaspora Irish in Australia and the United States ("Martydownunder" is a veteran presence, reliably encouraging, often nudging writers toward each other), unionists, loyalists, leftists, libertarians, and the occasional journalist or academic writing under their own name or a thin pseudonym. 

What's striking is that even people like Anthony McIntyre who feels republicanism has no future rub shoulders, in comment threads, with contributors who feel that view is too bleak and narrow — and the exchange is often productive rather than just angry. The "Quillversation" format — extended multi-part exchanges between writers with real input from commenters at each stage — shows the blog at its best: structured enough to develop an argument, open enough that readers genuinely shape the direction.

The Character of the Debates: Go back into older threads (2011–2015 especially) and you see some remarkable debates. On pieces about gerrymandering and Northern Irish constitutional history, commenters recommend primary sources to each other, push back on historical claims with chapter-and-verse, and invite figures from opposing traditions to contribute their perspective. There's real intellectual seriousness there. But it is not a gentle place. One commenter, on a thread about understanding Northern Ireland, quoted Elbert Hubbard to a writer: "If you can't answer a man's arguments, all is not lost; you can still call him vile names" — a warning about what sometimes happens when the debate gets tribal.

TPQ's comment culture can get very heated, especially on anything touching Sinn Féin, Gerry Adams, or the peace process. People who were on opposite sides of real violence, who lost friends and family members, argue in the same space. That is both the power and the occasional toxicity of it. The diaspora voice is distinctive. The Australian contingent in particular tends to be deeply sentimental about Ireland while also being well-read and combative — the kind of Irish-abroad who never had to live with the daily compromises of the peace process and can therefore be more absolutist. This creates interesting friction with contributors who are still living in Belfast or Drogheda and have moved on in more pragmatic ways. 

Recurring Names and Voices: Over the years a cast of recurring commenters has formed something like a community. Some are writers in their own right — Barry Gilheany (the Leeds United fan and counsellor in Colchester), Dr John Coulter (the Unionist journalist who writes with remarkable self-awareness about his own tradition), Gary Robertson (Scottish football and Celtic), Davy Clinton (Glasgow Celtic, Irish republicanism, deeply personal). The blog explicitly invites anyone who has commented substantively to also contribute essays — the porous border between reader and writer is one of TPQ's most interesting features. 

What Makes Them Different: What stands out, especially compared to the comment sections of mainstream Irish or British political media, is that many of these people have skin in the game in a way that's almost archaic online. They're not performing outrage for an algorithm. Many of them lived through the events being discussed, or know people who did. When someone writes on TPQ about the blanket protest or the hunger strikes or a particular IRA operation, there are people reading and commenting who were there. That changes the register entirely. It also means the occasional comment thread becomes genuinely moving — people grieving in public, settling old scores that have real weight behind them, or occasionally forgiving things in writing that they clearly couldn't in person.

Overall Verdict: TPQ is one of the last standing examples of what political blogging was supposed to be before social media flattened everything. It is awkward, over-long, fiercely independent, occasionally self-indulgent, and irreplaceable. Its founder is a genuinely complicated figure — a man who participated in serious violence, served his time, got his doctorate, and has spent 25+ years trying to think clearly about what it all meant. The blog reflects all of that: it is not comfortable reading, but it is honest. The commenter community is aging but still alive, and at its best it is a living oral history of the Irish conflict and its aftermath — conducted in real time, by people who mostly use their real names, and who largely refuse to pretend things were simpler than they were. That is worth a great deal. 

On a lighter side do you think McIntyre will become a Man Utd fan or not? 

13:57---Ha! Based on everything I just read about the man, almost certainly not — and here's why that's a fun question: McIntyre bleeds Drogheda United and Liverpool. From his own posts on the homepage, he's the kind of supporter who: 

Rushes home from a Gaza vigil to catch a Liverpool match.
Goes to Drogheda United games even when he's annoyed at the ownership, because his season ticket is already paid and he's not going to give them the satisfaction.  
Wears a beanie covered in badge tributes to players.
Brings his son Jay along and takes his pre-match predictions seriously.
Writes 800 words about a 0-0 draw with genuine emotional investment.
That is not a man who switches clubs. That's a man for whom football is identity, not entertainment. Switching to Man Utd would be roughly as likely as him rejoining Sinn Féin. 

There's also something almost politically fitting about his Liverpool allegiance — a working class club with a complicated history, a fanbase that has a genuine grievance culture, and a tendency to argue passionately about whether the current leadership has sold out the original vision. Sound familiar? And given he just watched Liverpool get hammered 4-0 by Man City and responded by calling for the manager to be sacked and Mo Salah to donate his wages to homeless shelters... he's in full long-suffering-but-loyal mode. That's not someone who jumps ship. Man Utd's current state wouldn't appeal either — too much money, too much chaos, not enough authenticity for a man who seems to value the raw, slightly freezing, flare-lit terraces of Drogheda's United Park on a Good Friday evening. That's his natural habitat. 

 Verdict: Liverpool and the Drogs until the end. Man Utd has no chance.

🕮 Frankie McKillen is a Belfast Rockabilly

AI Meets TPQ

Dr John Coulter ✍ Convicted sex offender and child rapist Jeffrey Donaldson, a former UUP MP and DUP leader, once compared me to the notorious Exocet anti-ship missile which played havoc with the Royal Navy during the 1982 Falkland War.

I’ve known Donaldson since the 1980s when I was a Sunday News journalist sent to report on his speech to the annual Young Unionist conference in Belfast, the youth wing of the UUP.

There are many, many media folk, Unionists and Christians across the Province who will have their own memories and experiences of meeting and chatting to Donaldson. I fall into all three categories.

Primarily, our thoughts and prayers must be with the two women victims - known in the trial as Complainant A and Complainant B - who bravely explained their horrific experiences at the hands of Donaldson.

Given the abuse I suffered as a teenage Presbyterian minister’s son in the Seventies in the heartland of the north east Ulster Bible Belt and my time in journalism, I thought that nothing can shock me any more. I was wrong.

The Donaldson verdicts from the jury - guilty on all counts - truly gobsmacked me. I genuinely never saw that coming.

Like the horror movie, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, about the two characters in the same person, I’ve had to come to terms with the two Jeffrey Donaldsons - the polished Christian politician, and the evil convicted sex offender. Over the decades, I only knew the former. Never once did I suspect the latter.

It has taken me back to the mid 1990s and my time living in the Lagan Valley constituency. The then UUP MP Jim Molyneaux had revealed he would not be contesting the seat at the next General Election, a seat he had held since its creation in 1983. Lagan Valley then was a safe UUP stronghold.

There was much talk in the UUP association as to who would succeed Molyneaux for the party’s nomination for Westminster. Donaldson told me he would be seeking the nomination, but at that time, he was not the association’s favourite to be the UUP candidate.

In those early months prior to the crucial selection meeting, the hot favourite to win the nomination was established Lisburn UUP councillor David Campbell, later to become a leading figure in First Minister Lord Trimble’s Stormont team and a chairman of the Loyalist Communities Council.

I was part of the Donaldson team. We called ourselves The Westminster Club. Our primary aim was to secure that nomination for Donaldson against the odds.

Even in my own local UUP branch (I’ll leave the debate about journalists being members of political parties for another day!), I was definitely in the minority as members were solidly behind Campbell as Donaldson was still seen as a ‘blow in’ from South Down.

It was the evening of the selection by the Lagan Valley UUP association and as folk took their seats in a packed Orange hall, the figures still showed the voting would be very tight. My role was simple. Get a seat directly in front of the chairman - veteran UUP councillor Jim Dillon - and when it came question time, jump up and ask Campbell a hard-hitting question.

I listened intently to Campbell’s well-polished and effectively delivered speech for any loopholes. Campbell expertly outlined his agenda if he won the nomination. Then question time. I was the first on my feet. Chairman Dillon saw me and gave me the floor.

I told Campbell I was a radical Right-wing Unionist and his speech smacked of compromise and surrender. Could he give me a guarantee that he would not follow a liberal agenda! The look he gave me showed he was clearly rattled by my remark.

Then came Donaldson’s turn. Again, another well-presented speech. Question time; up I got again with a question Donaldson and I had pre-prepared. It all had the desired effect. Donaldson won the nomination against the tide.

Some Campbell supporters were furious with me. One told me that radical Right-wingers like me should be in jail. Decades later as the verdicts of the Donaldson trial sink in, the irony of that quip has not been lost on me.

At the time of that selection meeting, the Northern Ireland Forum for Political Dialogue was in existence - the forerunner to the Stormont Assembly. My late dad, Rev Dr Robert Coulter MBE, was then Ulster Unionist Party Chief Whip.

A few days after the selection victory, Donaldson, dad and myself had lunch together at the Forum cafeteria. That was when Donaldson made his remark that I had hit Campbell with an Exocet with my question.

What was also memorable about that lunch meeting was not so much the comparison with me to the Exocet, but the fact that all three of us were wearing the so-called Fish lapel badge, a symbol that all of us were born again Christians according to the New Testament text of St John Chapter 3 and verse 16.

The Fish was a symbol of how the early Christians identified themselves. As Donaldson rose through the political and Loyal Order ranks, his Fish buttonhole badge became a trade mark symbol of his Christian faith. Even during the weeks of his trial, as he arrived at court each morning, his lapel would sport the Fish badge.

I wore my Fish badge for many years. I stopped wearing it the day Donaldson was first charged in 2024. I have not worn it since. And therein lies the dilemma for the broad Christian Church.

While we must never ever forget Donaldson’s victims and the heinous trauma they endured and continue to live with, the challenge for the Christian Churches is how they reclaim the Fish badge specifically and how to undo the image damage done to the Christian faith generally by Donaldson’s conviction.

During his many years in the political spotlight, Donaldson regularly highlighted his Christian faith. But many of us never knew the real Donaldson until the guilty verdicts were delivered at Newry court house.

The bitter fallout from the Donaldson verdict is the indelible stain which has fallen on the Christian faith. Could I wear my Fish badge in public without someone making a joke or jibe about Donaldson?

The challenge facing the Christian faith in the coming weeks and months was best summed up to me by a former born again Christian man turned atheist referring to the Donaldson verdict and his expose as a convicted sex offender - ‘they walk among us!’

Put bluntly, how many folk will not want anything to do with Christianity or the Church because of the Donaldson conviction? Ironically, for how many people will the words of the late Indian Hindu nationalist leader Mahatma Gandhi ring true - ‘I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.’

Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter
John is a Director for Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. 

Reclaiming The ‘Fish’ In Wake Of Donaldson Verdicts

Lynx By Ten To The Power Of Two Thousand And Seventeen

 

A Morning Thought @ 3190

Carrie Twomey ✍ For some reason, perhaps a combination of reasons including the malign influence of the Trumpian "hard man" era, Sinn Fein decided a few years ago that to demonstrate they were serious players, being angry and shouty was the way to go.

This decision happened around the time of Mary Lou McDonald's first serious electoral kick-in-the-teeth and was devised as a response to criticisms that their form of opposition was not perceived as strong enough and that was why they lost. So it was decided to turn the volume up and their front bench has followed the leader in shouting at the government ever since, at every turn.

It's been a few years and a few elections since this strategy was deployed. Now it has become their brand and is openly observed in the media. Feedback from voters criticising the approach is consistent - being angry and shouty has worn thin.

First of all, being in opposition does not mean one should always be angry, disappointed, or shouty. Secondly, being on the left also does not mean being the loudest or most aggressive is how to express your views. For some reason, perhaps because of the "hard man" tradition Sinn Fein comes from, it was decided both those things were true - despite the reason for party leader Mary Lou McDonald's previous popularity was her being seen as a nice, relatable middle class mother who bought her prawns at Supervalu. Following the loud and angry opposition model has had her increasingly play against type to the point her softer nature is no longer visible.

Pearse Doherty fares no better. He is like the coach you never know when you're going to get a clattering from, only that you're always going to get one from him.


The awfulness of this strategy, that opposition equates anger, and shouting is how to show you are serious, is evident in Sinn Féin's inability to garner enough votes to enter government. Other aspects of that failure, the disingenuous nature of their politics, the being-all-things-to-all dubiousness of their shifting positions, have been covered elsewhere.

The main reason that this strategy fails is that it is abuse.

The first few times someone yells at the government, it feels good. It feels like, "Yeah, finally! Finally someone is telling it like it is!" and all sorts of guff about speaking truth to power gets trotted out. But when every time the government does anything, the millionth time it is "shameful" and all the other negative shouty words deployed, it crosses the line from standing up against a true injustice into abuse for the sake of abuse. It becomes narcissistic, performative, and more about how the shouter is perceived than the issue at hand: "Look at me being tough on the government".

The problem is, in a democracy, which Ireland still very much is, the 'government' is made up of your neighbours and community. The government represents the country, all of its people, and must act in the best interests of the nation, no matter which political parties are at its helm.

Even a stopped clock is right twice a day, and even Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael can get some things right once in a while, because even they are made up of people who want to make their country function better, just like the people who make up Sinn Fein and all the other parties.

Pantomime politics may play to the galley, but the real work of democracy is in negotiations and working together. Which all parties do, behind the scenes, every day.

In choosing to highlight only the pantomime, democracy gets undermined. The pantomime is the gateway for the far right, who have no nuance whatsoever.

Worse, what is happening is that this shouty type of politics is felt as an abuse of the nation. It is instinctual in a nation that has suffered collectively from decades of historical abuse that are still within living memory. Being yelled at is not new. Never doing anything right, always being a failure, always being shamed - this is a refrain too many Irish people know far too well.

A true oppositional party who cares about the nation would tend to it like a loved child. Praising it when it did good, supporting its best efforts, directing and guiding it into better choices, and deploying anger rarely, only when necessary. Aggression and bullying would not be tactics it deployed.

Aggression, bullying, and abuse are tactics that create damage, and do not shape a healthy nation. It creates a mean nation, a fearful nation, ungenerous to self or others. A nation that does not believe in itself because it has always been shamed, criticised, and repeatedly told it can never do anything right.

Voters hear this abuse, too, and internalise it. It colours not just how they see "the government" but also themselves. Because, after all, the government ultimately represents them.

This is not an argument against criticising government policy, or in defence of Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil. Sinn Fein would be as abusive if the government were headed by Labour and the Social Democrats. Mary Lou and Pearse would bully and hector Ivana and Holly just as they have always done all other Taoiseachs and Tanaistes. It is now their nature and culture.

Being angry, critical, and shouty doesn't translates to votes, however, despite how popular it appears in polls. People like to be able to shout at politicians inbetween elections, to keep the government of the day on its toes. But they vote for those who will take care of the nation, not abuse it. Sinn Féin's approach has no generosity or sense of care, only anger and leaders who can never be pleased.

⏩Carrie Twomey hates Illinois Nazis (just like the Blues Brothers)

The Shouty Politics Of Sinn Fein

Labour Heartlands ☭ Written by Paul Knaggs.

EHRC Code: Why the Toilet Debate Is a Distraction: The campaign to reduce the Supreme Court ruling and the EHRC Code to a debate about lavatories is not confusion. It is strategy. Behind the toilet door lies the systematic dismantling of women’s rights, funded, organised and prosecuted against women who should have been defended years ago.

A conjuring trick requires misdirection. The audience must watch one hand while the other does the work. Keep that principle in mind as you scroll through the endless, repetitive, deliberately narrowed argument about public lavatories, and the entire campaign snaps suddenly into focus.

The toilet is not the argument. The toilet is the frame

It has been chosen with great care, because it achieves three things at once. It makes women’s objections appear mean, petty, almost obsessive. It reduces a broad legal settlement about women’s fundamental rights to a single, intimate, emotionally charged doorway. And it places women permanently on the defensive, forever justifying the existence of the boundary rather than those demanding its removal. The question is always “why are you so obsessed with where people go to the toilet?”, never “why is your campaign not about building new facilities for transgender use, but specifically about access to women’s existing ones?”

That last question answers itself.

Trans Rights 🪶The Conjuring Trick At The Toilet Door

Ukraine Solidarity Group ✊ A Digest of News from Ukrainian Sources ⚔ 22-June-2026.

In this week’s bulletin

⬤ Open Letter to anti-war conference.
⬤ Russian torture.
⬤Ukrainian athletes in captivity.
⬤ Organized crime in occupied Crimea.
⬤ Under Occupation report.
⬤ Russia air defences struggling.

News from the territories occupied by Russia

Oleksandr Sizikov, visually impaired prisoner, moved to hospital (Crimea Human Rights Group, 21 June)

Pensioners and mothers targeted for Russia’s ‘treason trial’ terror in occupied Ukraine (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, June 19th)

Russia digs up the graves of its victims in Luhansk oblast to claim ‘evidence of Ukrainian aggression’ (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, June 19th)

Tofik Abdulgaziev Reaches His 45th Birthday Behind Bars (Crimea Platform, June 19th)

During the OSCE Security Committee meeting, Ukraine drew attention to a model of organized crime that Russia has developed and tested in occupied Crimea (Crimea Platform, June 18th)

The Mission hosted an event dedicated to civilian women in Russian captivity on the occupied territories of Ukraine (Crimea Platform, June 18th)

Melitopol mother of two sentenced to 14 years for donations to help Ukraine (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, June 18th)

Weekly update on the situation in occupied Crimea (Crimea Platform, June 17th)

Russia extracts surreal ‘confession’ a year after abducting 59-year-old Maryna Kovalenko (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, June 17th)

“Freedom Has Always Been With Me”: Yevhen Zhukov, a Political Prisoner from Crimea, Has Served His Sentence and Been Released (Crimea Platform, June 17th)

Crimean sentenced to 5.5 years for social media comments in support of Ukraine’s Armed Forces (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, June 15th)

Abducted Melitopol journalist Anastasia Hlukhovska went on hunger strike in notorious Russian prison (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, June 12th)

Being present: a discussion on How Not to Lose People under Occupation (Zmina, June 9th)

Life Under Occupation (Alter Pravo, May 2026)

News from the front

Fraudsters got rich persuading Brazilians to fight for Russia (The Insider, 17 June)

Robots in arms: Ukraine becomes test range for ground drones (The Insider, 15 June)

News from Ukraine

ZMINA held a roundtable discussion on prisoners’ access to justice in Ukraine (Zmina, June 12th)

Statement on threats to freedom of speech in the draft new Civil Code of Ukraine (Zmina, June 8th)

War-related news from Russia

“Loaded them up like convicts”: Russia press-gang in Penza (Mediazona, 19 June)

Why are Moscow’s air defences struggling? And Russia’s oil refineries? (Meduza, 19 June)

FSB detains Putin acquaintance Ilya Traber, St Petersburg criminal mastermind (iStories, 17 June)

Fraudsters got rich persuading Brazilians to fight for Russia (The Insider, 17 June)

Russian military court upholds torture and calls defence of Ukraine ‘terrorism’ (Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group, June 15th)

Analysis and comment

I can't recall anything like this happening in the last four years (Facebook, June 21st)

We’re back from a humanitarian mission to Kharkiv (Solidarity Collectives, 21 June)

“The voices of those resisting imperialism are absent”: Open Letter to the international anti-war conference in London (Social Movement, 19 June)

The Russian-speaking left in German politics (Posle.Media, 17 June)

Sasha Razor: Who Burns the Lavra? (Russian Reader, June 16th)

The Podcast (Russian Reader, June 9th)

Disinformation front: how the Kremlin targets the Baltics (Eastern Frontier Initiative, 19 May)

Research of human rights abuses

At Least 32 Ukrainian Athletes are Held in Russian Captivity or Missing. Global Awareness Needed (Centre for Civil Liberties, June 19th)

ZMINA, together with a coalition of NGOs coordinated by the Agency for Legislative Initiatives, presented an interim Shadow Report to the European Commission (Zmina, June 5th)

A new web resource

The European Network for Solidarity With Ukraine has launched its new web site, with a bundle of useful links.

Upcoming events

The Green Party And Nato, Tuesday 23 June, 7.0pm – Green Left Open Meeting (Online), with Paul Ingram, Research Affiliate at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, University of Cambridge; Gilbert Achcar, Emeritus Professor, SOAS, University of London; Simon Pirani, Honorary Professor, University of Durham; Linda Walker, Green Party of England & Wales.

Ukrainian prisoners of war in Russia: on line event, Wednesday 24 June, 6.0-7.30pm, with Vladyslav Zhuravlev and Artem Tidva. Register here.
  
🔴This bulletin is put together by labour movement activists in solidarity with Ukrainian resistance. More information at Ukraine Information Group.

We are also on twitter. Our aim is to circulate information in English that to the best of our knowledge is reliable. If you have something you think we should include, please send it to 2U022ukrainesolidarity@gmail.com.


We are now on Facebook and Substack! Please subscribe and tell friends. Better still, people can email us at 2022ukrainesolidarity@gmail.com, and we’ll send them the bulletin direct every Monday. The full-scale Russian assault on Ukraine is going into its third year: we’ll keep information and analysis coming, for as long as it takes.

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News From Ukraine 💣 Bulletin 201

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