Anyone who has travelled to the northeast of this country will have noticed the profusion of Israeli flags marking out the boundaries of Loyalist areas.
Despite a rather unfortunate penchant for historical illiteracy among the self-identifying Ulster Scots, their identification with the Zionist state has some validity.
The two polities originate from an act of ethnic cleansing, and the similarities between the Nakba and the Plantation are stark.
Both of these historic crimes created dispossessed people who suffered multi-generational trauma.
The current ongoing genocide in Gaza is quite correctly viewed as Nakba 2.0 and a necessary step by Zionism to create a greater Israel, a homogeneous ethno-state with expanded borders.
That is undoubtedly the wish of the current Minister of National Security, Ben-Gvir.
The leader of the Otzma Yehudit party (Jewish Power) says the quiet bit out loud.
He doesn’t want a Palestinian about the place.
Moreover, the affection for Israel isn’t a recent fad among the PUL community.
There is a widespread belief among evangelical types in Narne Arne that the Protestants of Ulster are the lost tribe of Israel.
A settler worldview lends itself to othering anyone outside the colonial encampment.
Consequently, the recent racist violence in Ballymena shouldn’t surprise anyone.
The denizens of that place might not want to focus on how it was originally named.
An Baile Meánach (the middle townland) is, of course, Irish.
However, the colonists from Scotland set about wiping out anything of the native culture from the landscape.
Placenames were an inherent part of that process.
Even manholes in the 21st century…
Faced with Gaelige’s ubiquity, they had to construct a flatpack language to linguistically stick it to the Taigs.
Twenty years ago, the hostility of the “Ulster Scots” to even hearing an Irish name in Ballymena was something to be aware of.
To call any of this “sectarian” reminds me of this quote from Albert Camus:
“To name things wrongly is to add to the misfortune of the world”.
This island was the laboratory for the British Empire project.
England and Scotland had their own experiments here before they joined forces in 1707 to plunder the planet.
The British Empire, then reaching its zenith, gave its imprimatur to Zionist ambitions with the infamous Balfour Declaration.
The imperial elite’s thinking was centred on the lessons from colonial experiments on this island.
“Even though the land could not yet absorb sixteen million, nor even eight, enough could return… to prove that the enterprise was one that blessed him that gave as well as him that took by forming for England a little loyal Jewish Ulster in a sea of potentially hostile Arabism.”
— Ronald Storrs, Military Governor of Jerusalem 1917-20, commenting in 1937 on the rationale of the 1917 Balfour Declaration.
The headline in the Irish Times piece on the Ballymena pogrom is quoting North Antrim Sinn Féin MLA, Philip McGuigan: “It is akin to something from 1930s Germany”.
Now I don’t know if there is an “Ulster Scots” translation for Kristallnacht.
However, this one seems appropriate…
The settler colonial world view doesn’t just hate and fear the displaced native, but any perceived outsider.
Sadly, many decent people learned that harsh lesson in Antrim this week.
A genuine laugh out loud moment when Goy Bhoy said he had Christian values
I am not sure of the aforementioned demographics of the respondents to this article but I was 9 year old child in clonard when that same mindset attacked us in 1969….Bombay Cupar Lanark Streets burnt out. All ye are doing…actually can’t be arsed with folk with too much time, opinions and small mindedness to respond.
shameful behaviour
Someone needs to tell the planters that they are the immigrants and stop their uvf drug fuelled hatefests.
This flag 🇬🇧 is a flag heading for bygone days ….. A flag for head banging flag bangers. Scotland is on its way to independence & Northern Ireland will be no more. The reality is that THIS FLAG 🏴 IS A COMPLETE IRRELEVANCE & THEY ARE ONLY FIT ENOUGH TO ‘TROOP IN THEIR OWN BACKYARD CLOWN SHOW CALLED ENGERLEND.
Of course the knucklehead knuckle draggers 🤬 will be the last to acknowledge reality along with a certain football club no longer with us they still ‘somehow’ support As for the Zionist Antichrists occupying genocidal state of Israel created by Westminster, they are fast becoming the pariah state of the world more than their hated Iranian nemesis
Seriously? The reply from some people in this post is shocking, the things said about not wanting to integrate with the rest of society were said of the Irish immigrants when they came to Scotland. I can see now why my grandparents left Ireland, they can be such bigoted narrow minded people with very short memories.
Interesting input from Neil and goyboy. I’m assuming the daily mail website is down 🐟
I’m a big fan of this platform. Phil, you’re a mine of information and the nuggets you offer are of 24 carats. Nonetheless, I have read this one 3 times, still not understanding the direction you take us.
I’m a Scottish born Catholic and spent much of my childhood in the 26, Galway then Tipp from 1977 to 1985, before returning to Glasgow. I understand as best I can the Irish situation.
When i arrived aged 7 my Christian Brother teachers assumed I was protestant until I was spotted at mass by a lay teacher one Sunday morning. Thereafter most of my thrashings stopped. The undeserved ones anyway. I hadn’t a clue why they did it. I was too young. But I began to understand later. In fact I realised i was one of them and remain so.
Back to the article and my confusion…what’s happening in Ireland with migrant influx (and the UK and elsewhere) is rightly or wrongly simply unsustainable. Overwhelming in fact, to the point that the ‘Irish’ identity that you/we support and that you yourself hold dearly will inevitably be marginalised and fade into folklore, (if we are lucky). It is the sheer and undeniable numbers involved, who will know so little of the lands they land upon. A fate worse than any Irishman has ever defended himself against in the last 600 years.
Stop reading the Daily Mail.
Neil,
I just have to say…
This is the biggest load of bullshit I have ever read…
Are you familiar with the Irish Proclaimation..
If not, I suggest you have a look at it.
What is this Irish identity you are so worried about ? We managed to absorb the English more than once . We have had more black Irish who happily became “Irish” Phil Lynott and Paul McGrath.
The biggest groups of immigrants are Poles and Ukrainians and Romanians . White , Christian and European .
The only people worried about this are those who use it to put fear into the natives so they ignore the people who are really responsible for the housing and prices problems FF / FG. Other than that we have the fascists who would like to take us back to 1950s Ireland where the church , the police and and the employer ran everything and no one could question anything we do .
You need to stop listening to to Facebook for your need and start thinking about what is being said and by whom . All of this is to distract us from the fact FF / FG want to end neutrality and make us part of NATO and another US vassal state
Reading Phil over the years,he would always say follow the money. Well on this subject,I believe we should follow the trail to who benefits. FF/FG for the reasons you point out, they ve also put a massive hole through the working class vote. In Ballymena and Portadown where diversity dilutes unionist votes,who benefits from having sectarian strongholds?
There’s no way the Irish Times could go back to a more recent past to make comparisons because Bombay Street and even the house of the Quinn boys doesn’t fit the narrative of those who pay the pipers. If you are a Celtic supporter and your sympathies lie with these “defenders of our community” or those who call themselves “patriots” then I think you need to rethink your allegiances
Much as though I don’t condone the violence seen in Antrim these past few days surely anyone with a clear vision and mind can see the impending issues flooding what is a majority Christian Country with 1000 upon 1000’s of people who have no wish to embrace and imbed themselves in a Culture which their own cultural ideology doesn’t align or agree with?
This issue isn’t going away unfortunately but rather being compounded further by Politicians who frankly don’t seem to care too much for their own people but would rather protect those who have no wish to change.
That aside you cannot ignore the very real dangers of allowing this to get so problematic that you won’t have the resources left to deal with the fallout.
Most of these people aren’t fleeing anything but Central Europe having already fled the things that forced them to do in the first place.
In doing so it seems a number among them have brought those same issues with them.
What we are seeing now is a natural reaction to that.
The West doesn’t need these issues we have plenty of our own to deal with.
I’m sorry if that doesn’t quite fit the narrative of some of your readership Phil.
Apologies in advance.
You are aware that Northern Ireland has a much lower proportion of immigrants per head of population than any other part of UK or Ireland?
This fact rather undermines your argument and supports the author’s.
Goy Bhoy obviously doesn’t understand irony. The use of the wording “flooding with 1000 upon 1000s of people who have no wish to embrace and imbed themselves in a culture which their own cultural ideology doesn’t align or agree with” is a perfect description of the Planter community ( not 1,000s, but 100,000s) in Northern Ireland. Furthermore, the immigrants have as much right not to embrace Christianity as the those members of the native community who do not visit a church from one year’s end to the next. They may, perhaps, be neutral to Christianity , which is better than being violently opposed to other Christian communities.
It’s not only that they won’t embrace Christian values or culture but rather that their own ideology actually inhibits them from doing so.
If you want to go take a deep dive into that ( I have over the past 5 years or so ) then you will quickly realise all is not as it seems on that score.
If you look at other cultures who have over time succumbed to this ideology then the fate of Christians and Jews for that matter becomes dangerous.
Go have a look at the current state of affairs in Nigeria if you want some clarification on that.
There are many other cases of course but that particular one is very current and ongoing.
You can twist it of course and play the victim card or even the lazy right wing racist card but the reality is no matter what card you play the end result tends to be the same.
I don’t know whether you are aware but there is a very real upsurge in demonstrations in the Republic right now so this isn’t just a problem in the North.
The only difference is in the North there has been a historic tendency to be volatile to any change and that’s on both sides of the traditional divide.
What we are witnessing right now is both sides of that divide reacting simultaneously to the same issues.
That’s a real problem for those who control the region and are ultimately responsible for the destabilising effect of an influx of young males of fighting age coming in in large numbers to be houses,fed and watered at the expense of the tax payer.
Don’t kid yourself we aren’t all walking into massive issues in the future if this continues because history tells us that we are.
Yo can of course choose to ignore it or alternatively you can choose to oppose it.
Sleepwalking into it with your eyes wide shut isn’t going to stop it.
It’s time for an adult debate on the matter at hand rather than hiding behind historic grudges or past mistakes made decades and centuries before.
This is the here and now and the now is getting very real very quickly.
This sentiment is rife throughout society in Ireland atm.
You need to take a good hard look at yourself and your fascist ideology.
Do you condemn the attacks on innocent families?
I’m a Christian not a fascist.
I condemn any act of violence unless it is in self defence or the defence of those who are themselves incapable of doing so.
Like young girls for example .
Hence why I chose to speak up about the very real dangers of the ideology currently flooding into our shores.
I used Nigeria as an example of what is to come and trust me there are many other cultures who have suffered a similar fate.
You clearly do not understand what is at stake here.
Might I suggest you read a history book on Ireland and why for many decades our greatest export was our people. You don’t get to be Irish and anti immigrant. It’s not so long ago we had the No Blacks, No Dogs, No Irish signs.
There is a reason why, wherever you travel across the planet you will find an Irish diaspora.
In what way can you describe the racist pogrom behaviour in Ballymena as Christian?
It’s moronic and just the start of what inevitably will come.
Now I will flip the argument and ask you in what way do you describe what is happening to Christians in Nigeria ?
There seems to be a strange silence on that issue and that’s been going on for decades.
Like I said there needs to be an open and frank adult debate without the constant playing of the usual cards of Racism,Fascism or Right Wing blah de blah.
Our infrastructure is already at breaking point ,our norms no longer norms and apparently we just have to roll over get our tummies tickled whilst all that we know hand has been built gets eroded in the name of so called progression.
If you want a look at where this progression is headed re plenty examples to draw upon.
Societies who have been totally overran by a so called ideology of peace.
That’s where this is headed and at a tremendous rate of acceleration.
Ask yourself this one question:
Why is it we are led to believe that the majority of these people are fleeing some form of persecution and yet the vast majority of them have arrived from a place in Western Europe and from within the EU ?
This means they have traveled across Europe to cross the Ocean to be on these Islands.
Passing through Nations that have no war,have no oppression and have no real threat to life.
Make that make sense.
To me it simply doesn’t when the excuse is escaping whatever it is the claim they are escaping.
Of course there will be genuine case among the many but exactly how many are genuinely here to make a life,fully integrate in to OUR SOCIETY and prosper as a result?
These are legitimate concerns and questions that need addressing.
Meanwhile in Nigeria the head count increases on the daily and no one blinks an eye .
Why do you continually mention Nigeria? If thats the best you can do then you are really scraping the barrel. And why mention Christians when you are as un-Christian as there is.
You are aware that most asylum seekers (illegal migrants in your lingo) arrive from war torn countries and others from economically depressed countries. You maybe not aware that southern European countries have, due to geography, far more asylum seekers than UK and that there is no legal requirement for asylum seekers to stay in first country they arrive in.
Legal migration is a different case where migrants are filling shortages in employment market.
Many East Europeans have moved to UK due to EU freedom of movement and the recent census had shown that they are far more likely to be active Christians than the locals.
Your ‘research’ on this subject would appear to have led you to believe in the Great Replacement Theory promulgated by right wing fantasists.
If you want to understand a real Great Replacement I would suggest you study what happened to native Aborigines in Australia and native Americans in North & South America at the hands of Christian invaders.
Spot On Phil…
I was born and reared in this area and left as soon as I was old enough.
Despicable place then and it still is.
I moved to the 26 counties thirty years ago.
We can now see a certain amount of this white supremacy brewing down here also.
It’s time the right thinking people of this Island mobilised against this fascist scum.
Here is mine from 2023 on exactly that point.
https://philmacgiollabhain.ie/2023/11/26/racism-in-ireland/
Phil
Shocking unforgivable scenes to be honest says it all about them racist gits trouble makers if ur not allowed say a name out loud then something up just shows you there just scum causing trouble I feel for the forginers who want to work there