HEFFO'S HISTRIONICS:

EPISODE 1 - THE MONUMENTS OF JFK PARK (EYRE SQUARE)

A lot of ye reading this blog will know of the many history pieces I did for the Echo Newspaper's 'REWIND' Column.
Due to taking up fill-time employment, writing that column ceased.
I still have a burning love for all things historical and thus have decided to write the odd historical blog post in between my current affairs/political musings.

For this first such post I will focus on the monuments in John F Kennedy Memorial Park in Eyre Square Galway...

This iconic part of Galway City was developed by the then Mayor Edward Eyre, who gave this amenity to the people of Galway as a gift in 1710.
He was a major landowner whose Irish lineage began when a relation was gifted a substantial acreage by Cromwell as a gift for helping him defeat people who had rose up in anger at the restrictions on those who were members of the Catholic faith.
It was initially enclosed by wooden fencing which was replaced by iron railings in the 1700’s.
They were to remain in place until the 1960’s, when they were removed and now surround Saint Nicholas’s Church on Lombard Street.
The Square’s official title is “John F Kennedy Memorial Park” in honour of the late U.S. President who visited Galway City on Saturday June 29^th 1963, less than 5 months before he was assassinated in Dallas Texas.
A bust of him commemorating the visit now stands in the park named after him, and is one of a number of monuments dotted around this square space.

                                                                                                  
One of the first to be erected - and still in place - are two brass cannons which were gifted to the Connaught Rangers army Regiment as a thank you for their bravery in the Crimean War.

In 1881 a major review of the stature of the British Army led to major reforms being initiated and one of these led to the amalgamation of the 88^th and 94^th Foot Regiments into what became known as The Connaught Rangers.
In it’s early years the regiment saw action in the likes of Egypt, Sudan and the infamous Boer War in what is now South Africa.
The first and second battalions set out in 1914 to fight on the Western Front, but by the end of the First World War, so many of had been killed that the two had merged into a single regiment by then.
Another battalion saw action both in the ill-fated attempt to fight the Turks in Gallipoli and further south in Palestine.
There were two battalions that were held in reserve and had not been summoned to war by 1916.
When they were eventually summonsed they did not leave the Island as they were sent to Dublin to quell the Easter Rising.

However an incident most historians would recall when asked to talk about the Connaught Rangers, started in India at the foothills of the Himalayas on the night of Sunday 27^th June 1920.
Traumatised by various actions carried out by British troops against rebellious Indian citizens allied with reports from home about the actions of the black and Tans; many Irish troops had truly had enough. 
It was on this night that the soldiers mutinied and declared their refusal to serve the Crown from then on.

  On July 1st Two large battalions of Seaforth Highlanders and South Wales Borders arrived and quelled the Resistance.
While being marched off to a makeshift internment camp, a drunken Major Payne, who was in charge of the march ordered everyone to stop.
He then called out 20 names and declared they would be shot on site, when a Fr. Livens – a Belgian Priest who accompanied them on the march -  stood in line with the 20 men and said  if they died he would die too.
This defused the situation and the men’s lives were spared.   

 Given the dire conditions of the internment camp, most of the soldiers eventually relented and would continue to follow orders until it’s disbandment in 1922.

As you walk around JFK Park you will notice the statue of a man sitting down and deep in thought;  The man in question is the late Padraic o’ Conaire, reckoned by many to be the finest writer of works in the Irish language.

This writer of some renown was born in what is now Galway City in 1882, but sadly both his Mother and Father had passed away by the time he reached 12 years of age.
 Initially he lived with family in Connemara and Co. Clare before being sent off firstly to Rockwell College in Co. Tipperary and then Blackrock college in Dublin.He never really took to the Boarding School regime and left before his final exams to take up a Civil Service job in London.

While there he became active in the local branch of the Gaelic League where he taught Irish to others and wrote his first ever work a short story entitled “An t-Iascaire agus an File” (The Fisherman and the Poet in English)
O’Conaire mostly wrote about the harsh reality of ordinary life in Ireland, be it emigration, alcoholism or poverty and the like.
In 1906 he won the prestigious Oireachtas Literary Award for his short story “Nora Mhárcais Bhig” (Nora, Daughter of Little Marcus in English).
It is  harrowing tale of a women who is driven to prostitution by an addiction to drink which sees her being disowned by her Father back home. 
He continued to write until his passing in 1928 and his works are still dissected and discussed to this day.

The final monument we will visit is the statue dedicated to the late revolutionary Liam Mellows.
Mellows was born in Manchester, but his family soon after returned home and he celebrated his first birthday in their new lodgings in Fairview on Dublin’s Northside, when his father ran army Sergeant was moved there.
As a young boy Liam suffered from ill health and it was decided that living with his Grandfather in Inch near Gorey Co. Wexford might cure him.

At his father’s pushing he enrolled in the Wellington Barracks in Cork and continued his military training in Portobello Barracks in Rathmines.
However he did not stick around long enough to become a soldier proper, opting instead to take up a desk job in various firms in Dublin.

His first introduction to militant Republicanism came about after he had approached Tom Clarke, who owned a tobacconists shop on Amiens Street.
He was co-opted into Fianna Eireann, an organisation that agitated for Irish Independence while also embracing socialism after meeting  James Connolly, whom he had a number of conversations with.

He was one of the founding members of the Irish Volunteers, which was setup after a meeting was held in the Round Room of the Rotunda Hospital in response to the creation of armed militias in parts of Ulster.

His activities saw him placed in a prison cell on a number of occasions and eventually the authorities decided to deport him to England to serve out his sentence.
With the help of his brother Barney and Nora Connolly – James Connolly’s daughter – he managed to escape whilst dressed as a priest and was soon on a boat from Stranraer to Belfast.
During the 1916 Rising he commanded IRA forces in the west of the country, eventually fleeing to the USA to escape arrest when the insurrection failed.
In 1918 he was elected as MP for two constituencies – Galway East and North Meath – and when The Dail was later convened to debate the recently signed treaty agreement, he voted against the deal.

In June 1922, Mellows joined a band Anti-Treaty militants who had been occupying the Four Courts on Dublin’s Quays since April of that year;  many regard this event as the start of the Civil War.
After the Free-State army bombarded the complex with bombs fired from the Royal Navy warship the Helga, (whom the British had leant the Irish authorities as they anxiously wished a swift end to the siege), the insurrectionists surrendered.
Liam Mellows was imprisoned along with other from the Four courts occupation in Mountjoy Jail.
He was executed in December 1922 in reprisal for the killing of the Pro-Treaty TD Seán Hayles outside the Ormonde Hotel, which was ironically just 500m from the Four Courts.

Thursday April 13^th 2006 was a momentous day for Galwegians, as Eyre Square was officially reopened after lengthy renovations works costing almost €10M.
Upon viewing the finished project many locals concurred that it was worth all the disruption as they marvelled at the new children’s play area, 120 newly installed trees and the marvellous paving that now adorned the pedestrian walkways around the square.
It truly was a fine blending of the old with the new as many of the  magnificent buildings that look out on this popular thoroughfare, including Ceannt train station and the Hardiman (formerly Great Southern Hotel).

So the next time you get off the train or bus in Galway City, instead of legging it to the nearest pub, why not take the time to appreciate the true beauty that is JFK Memorial Park?

No home for serious initiatives to help the homeless in Fine Gael/Fianna Fail's plans.

An acquaintance made a comment to me just after the 2007 General Election which has stuck in my head since then - "o you ever notice that down the boozer noone will ever admit that they are planning to vote Fianna Fail, yet their candidates always top the poll"

The same can be said with regards Fine Gael today.
Many people claim in opinion polls that services, such as providing more houses for people to live in and more hospital beds are their main priority, but yet most vote for the two main parties Fine Gael and Fianna Fail, whom these voters know place more impetus in putting a small bit of money into your back pocket (While the rich keep waaay more due to various tax breaks that leave them with an eventual corporation tax bill of much less than the standard 12% for companies and   40% for high earners) then spend it on things to improve society overall.

Over the past few years I have read an avalanche of comments from people criticising the levels of homelessness in this country and the severe lack of action by the Fine Gael government in tackling this crisis (with the help of a number of not-so Independent TD's and the Fianna Fail who sat on their hands on this).

But yet in the last two election Fine Gael got the most votes and seats of any party despite the worsening housing and hospital crises.
At one stage this did puzzle me, but it does not do so anymore.
The sad reailty that has dawned on me in the past while is that a lot of people in this state simply do not care about it.
Going by the latest C.S.O. data 60-65% of the houses in this country are owner occupied with the mortgage paid off, while there is another notable chunk of people who still have a mortgage over their heads but are well able to financially meet  the mortgage repayments every month.
This figure would greatly exceed those who are in severe difficulty with their mortgages.
While the numbers of people who are renting a house is growing every year (And the stats show this is by far the main cohort of the under-30's category),

I’ve spoken to people from different parts of this island about this issue and while many at the start of  the conversation would agree that the homeless situation is worrying, when you start to delve into how we might sort it, the attitude of a lot of these people changed.

I’ve had been sternly reminded by regular mass going folk that “it is NOT the Governments money it is the TAXPAYERS money” and then asked me why someone should get a house for free (Very Christian of them right?), but most of this cohort were of the “I am working my backside off to pay my mortgage and these people want a free house from the state!...”

I think it is important to say the following before I move on – People DO NOT A GET a free house from the state.
For example: A husband of the household works as a printer on €30K a year and his wife works part-time for €15k a year, and they pay €600 a year rent for their council house.
Then their son graduates from college and is now earning €45,000 a year as junior solicitor, which the council is now aware of.
The rent of the house is now increased to €1,200 a month as a result of their sons income.
Does that sound “FREE” to you? –

You had Fine Gael tomorrow morning announced they had got the green light to borrow €3Bn from the European Central Bank at 3% to build over 10,000 houses, and that they would use part of the property tax to pay this loan back, this large % of the population who either own, or are well onto their way of owning their own house would be outraged – and well the Government know this.

These people would secretly much rather have €10 a week more in their back pocket than see Mrs Murphy down the road get her hip operation a lot sooner or the people living in the hotel up the road a house much sooner than is the case.
Thus they vote Fine Gael/Fianna Fail – and well both parties knows this.

 

In the immediate term this is why the current Government policy will continue (be it Fine Gael or Fianna Fail that get in on February 8^th) with regards the issue of housing.
More vulture funds will buy up whole apartment blocks, charging sky high rents in the process.

I feel the turnout in the election will be rather low as people who are being out to the pins of their collars by high rents/mortgage repayments become further disillusioned and decide not to vote at all, rather than vote for those parties that want to see radical change in the Governments housing policy/agenda.
The Government moved at lightning speed on the HPV smear test error issue as the country as a whole was angered in unison at the plight numerous women sadly suffered as a result of false results etc  -
The country is divided on the housing issue, which us a serous impediment to serious measures being taken to solve that issue.

In stating all the above I have to finish by thanking the numbers of people who have actively got involved in measures to try and force the Government’s hand on this issue.
I do of course hope and pray the next Government will start a large social housing building scheme, which will take many thousands off the housing list.
This will only happen if there is sufficient movement from below for it (as it has for the Climate Change issue) and as these young people grow older and start to take societal issues far more seriously and connect the dots to realise what is needed to make this change happen I hope this country will change for the better.

 

BRACIST

ALARMING RISE IN ANTI-IMMIGRANT/XENOPHOBIC SENTIMENT IN THE UNITED KINGDOM LINKED TO BREXIT REFERENDUM

As anyone who knows me personally will testify, I am a current affairs nut and gobble up all sorts of news, especially that of a political nature.
Hence I had BBC Radio 4 and 5 Live on a lot in the run up to and the immediate aftermath of the UK General Election.

There are three key things I came away with after this election:
 

1.  Twitter is a complete and utter bubble and to consume just that media forum and not the proper old school media or TV, radio and newspapers etc will leave your viewpoint and thought processes totally off balance and possibly far from the real situation on the ground etc.
 

2. I was genuinely taken aback at the amount of people ringing into phone in shows, tweeting to viral hashtags on Twitter saying they were switching from Labour to Tories to "Take our country back" and also boot foreigners (and other takes on that narrative) out of the United Kingdom.

3.  Like many others I did not expect the election to do turn out as it did and am trying to work out how and why my predictions were so off kilter.

I had thought initially that it was a severe bout of media framing on TV and radio i.e. they were selectively searching for a small number of people who were switching from Labour to the Tories for jingoistic and at time racist reasons.
Alas as the election campaign rattled on it dawned on me that these were no mere hyped up isolated incidents, but the thoughts of a hell of a lot of working class people across the United Kingdom.

My mind is now filled with dread as I think of the things this Tory government will likely do to the British working class and that many will seek to blame their hardships not on the government but on foreign nationals living there instead.
  

What made me finally write a blog on this issue was a BBC report I stumbled upon from last summer.
the article reported that such was the increase in racist attacks across Wales, 24 councils had felt it necessary to appoint "cohesion officers" whose role it would be to help those who were victims of verbal and/or physical racism, while also undertaking efforts to try and educate people in an effort to try and curtail these attacks.
Official records from the UK police as a whole show that the number of racist attacks reported in 2018 was double that reported in 2011 at 70,000 complaints.
I wonder how many more went unreported?
If various NGO's are to be believed the actual number of racist attacks, be they physical or verbal that have occurred in 2018 could be many multiples of the official figure.
Another very visible sign of the increase in racist sentiments was seen in the fact the Brexit Party gained 29 seats in the 2019 European elections, more than Labour and The Conservative Party combined.

Another troubling aspect to all of this, in my view was the stance taken by a number of far-left groups in the United Kingdom. 
I have already discussed in previous blogs about the farcical pretendism that was LEXIT so I won't go over it all again.
Not long after the Brexit Referendum Result various NGO's recorded increased incidents of racist attacks in Britain and their reports were picked up by newspapers such as The Guardian, they were outright dismissed if not in fact derided by some of the far-left pro LEAVE organisations.
They claimed there was no increase in racism, it was all just a tissue of lies invented by the mainstream media to pin a false tail on the British working class for not voting REMAIN as they had wanted them to do.
The media they claimed did not what to admit the REAL reasons, as they claimed, why people supposedly actually voted LEAVE.
They were angry over EU Directives that led to state companies being sold, led to a lessening of workers rights and an increase in the amount of tax poor families had to pay due to EU laws on environmental taxes and so forth.

However later on when it became a starkly unavoidable and inexcusable fact that there WAS a sharp rise in racism since the Referendum result these groups then admitted it was true their was in increase in attacks; However they insisted these incidents were on the rise anyways ad had nothing to do with the Referendum result.

Given what has come out in various polls and surveys and the views that have been expressed by many on radio and television as well as the letters pages of newspapers in the run up the election it is now clearer than ever  that the sad rise in racism and xenophobism can be directly linked back to the Brexit Referendum Campaign and it's end result.

 But why have these Far Left Groups taken the position they did?
I personally feel that it was due to the fact that many of these working class folk were the types who gave donations to these far-left organisations on their city centre stalls and some may have helped them out at election time.
Rather than admit the truth and potentially alienate these folk, they decided to create a sand dune to duck their heads into.

Given what the Tories are likely to do over the term of this Government, I fear things are set to get a lot worse on all fronts.

I pray the spirit of the Poll Tax Campaign will resurrect itself in the left leaning members of the British Working Class and that there will be an enormous push back against the Government.
As thing currently stand I fear my prayers may go unanswered...