Credit: Irish Left Archive

Yesterday (27/08), Andy Burnham took a trip to the capital of his colony in Ireland. The colony’s condition at the time of his first official visit is looking dire; a lack of adequate funding is causing public services, particularly the health and transport sectors, to collapse in on themselves, a mental health crisis looms over us along with perpetual, inflation-induced stresses, foreign nationals are being forced from their homes, and Stormont, the institution placed to administer British rule in Ireland, hasn’t agreed on a budget for the 2026/27 fiscal year (the least of what is expected of them).

Burnham will hope for luck from the auld reliable method of grabbing Sinn Féin, and whichever Unionist party it is elected at the time to argue against every word that leaves a Sinner’s mouth, both by the ears, and forcing them to shake hands and say sorry. And that would have been the headline, a ‘water’s wet!’ story about how Stormont doesn’t work, and people in the six counties, both Green and Orange, are suffering for it, if not for Burnham himself, when he described a referendum on his government’s occupation of Ireland as “off the table.”

Credit: BBC News

Not to say I told you so, but I’ve been calling Burnham a wolf in sheep’s clothing since the path was being cleared for him to take on the role at Downing Street. The fact is that no politician worth his salt would get that job so easily- just look at Corbyn, and how far into the mire the British establishment was prepared to go to bring him down as soon at it was clear he had a sniff of winning an election. Despite the hypocorism, the accent, and the business-casual savoir-faire, Andrew Burnham is ultimately a Zionist, a coloniser, and an enemy to Irish Republicanism.

What else was he supposed to say then, when asked by the BBC if he might “be the man in Number Ten to press the button for a border poll”? What more can we expect from the political head of the Union? And in all honesty I’m glad he shut the prospect down as it acts as a stark warning of the dangers of complacency- although the country feels united culturally, and it feels like a referendum is coming, Britain occupies Ireland regardless and it’s going to take more than a few fleadhs and Paul Mescals to put an end to it.

Credit: The Times

I have enjoyed the visceral reaction this has generated from both sides of the border, and I believe it to be a positive one, but there is a lot of discourse arguing that Burnham, or indeed any Prime Minister, has in fact no say at all on an Irish border poll. This includes Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald, who claimed, “the right to referendum, the right for Irish people to decide our future, is one that is contained within the Good Friday Agreement, and Andy Burnham as Prime Minister or otherwise has no authority and no right to set that aside.” This is not true.

The Good Friday Agreement is intentionally vague, but it clearly states that the decision on a border poll lies with the British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. Chris Bryant has recently taken up this role; at a point in history, he would have been a Viscount, and when he was asked last month about a border poll, he described himself as “deliberately avoiding answering the question.” This is the attitude of the man responsible for assessing when it appears, “that a majority of those voting would express a wish that Northern Ireland should cease to be part of the United Kingdom and form part of a united Ireland.” To suggest that Bryant, or any Secretary of State, would make such a decision without the consent of their Prime Minister is frankly ridiculous.

Chris Bryant. Credit: Ham & High

And what if we do get a referendum, and the result is a ‘no’? Do we wait the mandatory minimum seven years and try again? Do we keep the same method going, keep begging the Brits to let us go? In fact, why is it I have to vote for my independence at all? Have I not a right to self-determination? Why does anyone at all get to vote on whether I should be free of colonial rule?

The Good Friday Agreement does not legislate for, “the right for Irish people to decide our future.” We made our decision long ago and it was declared at the GPO in 1916, “In every generation the Irish people have asserted their right to national freedom and sovereignty; six times during the past three hundred years they have asserted it in arms.” The only thing that has changed since then is the goalposts.

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Photo Credit: Áine McKiverigan

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This interview was conducted on Saturday, 16th May.

Mikey Cullen

Mikey Cullan, a Dublin bunscoil teacher and popular poet, spoke to me while anchored at a small Greek island off the coast of Turkey. He has been at sea, part of the Irish delegation of the Global Summud Flotilla, for nearly three weeks. Leaving from Sicily first, the journey has taken him to Crete, Marmaris, and now he intends to sail past Cyprus, and on into Palestine, breaking the decades-long illegal siege and blockade of the Gaza Strip. Through this, the flotilla aims to highlight Israel’s aggression and flagrant violations of international law, and open a humanitarian corridor to allow for the further flow of aid.

“Especially now with Trump’s Board of Peace- the fucking Orwellian doublespeak shit of Tony Blair, and Donald Trump, and Netanyahu being associated with peace, and planning to turn the Gaza strip, once ethnically cleansed of Palestinians, into a Mediterranean Riviera, it’s horrific, so the world needs to get in now.

We hope to open up a humanitarian corridor, somehow establish a fortification to be able to hold on, and allow the world to flood in after us. I do believe if we can break the siege, although we may not be able to maintain an operating corridor ourselves for a whole host of reasons, I do believe the symbolism of us actually reaching Gaza will shatter this kind of invincible, omniscient illusion that Israel has around itself.”

Of course, these objectives, should they be achieved, will be hard-won, and there are serious risks and dangers involved. The flotilla has already been attacked by Israeli state security forces, and I was curious how these events have affected the flotilla’s aims and planning:

“We had to adapt in response to the attacks and the kidnapping of my comrades in the Mediterranean a few weeks ago. The escalation of violence from the Israelis on my comrades in captivity was at an unprecedented level in terms of [being] inflicted upon the flotilla, and not seen since the Mavi Marmara in 2010, when ten comrades were murdered by Israel during those interceptions. Israel has increased its violence against the flotillas, and obviously attempted to stop [them], incredibly far into Europe, and much earlier. The threat of sexual violence being weaponised is obviously quite scary, especially for comrades who have experience with that, so there was talk of maybe changing course and changing tack.

Obviously, there was criticism [of] the flotilla from Francesca Albanese. Not criticism, but just people saying that maybe it's not the right time to sail, and we could do something else. However, the reality is that this is the best time to sail, and in spite of the dangers, and, to speak plainly, there has been talk of risk to life, and lethal force being used against us. That's exactly why we must sail, because we owe it to ourselves. We owe it to the Palestinians as guests in their struggle. We owe it to the Palestinian solidarity movement around the world not to bow to Israeli aggression, because if we do it once, then we'll have lost so much ground, you know? And it could be another generation before we are able to re-establish the footing lost. So we press on [despite] the violence levelled against us. People may criticise the flotilla, [claiming] that it's symbolic- it's a hell of a way to go for pure symbolism.

This flotilla has a legitimate chance of tangibly having an impact in terms of breaking the siege, but just even at this stage, we have highlighted again the lengths Israel will go to uphold its genocidal, apartheid, oppressive state, and that includes attacking innocent civilians and ordinary humanitarians wherever they see fit. So how have we adapted? We haven't really. We're keeping going. We've taken all the risks on board, but we came here to break the siege, and we're still going to do that. We're not going to bow to Israeli aggression.”

I asked Mikey then for an update on the security situation regarding the Isreali ‘Defence’ Forces:

“The security situation regarding the Israelis is that they are threatening and manufacturing consent through the media that they may use lethal violence against us. In particular, because of the Turkish contingent who are sailing, Israel tries to link them to terrorism, so they seem to be trying to manufacture consent and approval from their audiences that there may be violence. They broke eight of one of my comrade’s ribs in captivity after they attacked us, and kidnapped my comrades in Greece. They fired rubber bullets at people. They systematically used sexual violence in a way that they haven’t particularly done with previous flotillas. [Before], any sexual violence tend[s] to be more isolated, whereas this time, it seems to have been weaponised. They kept people in stress positions, which amounted to torture. They inflicted serious violence. They broke someone’s nose. They broke someone’s eye socket. Although it pales in comparison to what Palestinian prisoners are faced with.

The situation escalated when they went to remove Saif [Abukeshek] and Thiago [Ávila] specifically, and my comrades tried to block them, and then all hell broke loose, and there [were] shots fired into the air as well- live ammunition.

The security situation is that Israel knows that they can’t let us break the siege, because if we do, the dam will burst. The illusion of their invincibility and supremacy will be shattered, and the world will pour into Gaza if one boat touches soil. They can’t let us through, and I do think that they will use any means to prevent us. I think obviously they’ll try [to] detain us, but we haven’t ruled out that they will use lethal force if necessary, I mean, they’ve murdered over half a million people, according to recent estimates, at this stage. So, we’re under no illusion of what could happen.

At the end of the day, this is a battle for humanity, and it’s a battle for all of us, as individuals, for our very souls, you know? One must have the conviction in their beliefs and stand for what they believe in. I’m a student of history, I’m an Irish Republican, and I believe firmly that this is the cause of our time. If Palestine is allowed to die, then the entire world has passed a point of no return. I firmly believe that.”

Mikey and Saif Abukeshek

Mikey happens to be a good friend of mine, and he has been for a number of years. Naturally then, I have a personal concern for his wellbeing, physically and mentally, so I was anxious to learn how he was feeling personally:

“I’ve never been more grounded and more present, and more alive. Never more vibrantly, and richly, and viscerally alive than being out here and around like-minded souls. Not having to explain oneself all the time, and just the connection rooted in a shared struggle and a shared purpose, is very life- affirming, and it has restored my faith in humanity to a large extent, and hope in the possibilities of what we can collectively achieve. The struggle against the system, broadly speaking, isn’t futile; there is hope there. I’m profoundly grateful to be here.

I don’t want to die, but I don’t think it will happen. I feel protected, and I know that I can handle any brutalisation or any torture that they inflict on me. Because I don’t think that they’re real, you know, they’re evil. I’m protected. I’m not going to be affected by their evil, because I’ve confronted it within my own soul already. So I don’t fear that. I fear for my comrades, especially people I’ve grown close to. You build special connections here. I really just pray that everyone gets home safely and that we do a bit of good. But I’m feeling determined. You asked how I was feeling, I’m feeling determined. I feel my spirituality and belief in a higher power, an individual, higher power, as it should be, like, not in a religious sense, but I feel like my belief in something bigger than myself, in God, in a force, in Allah, or whatever you want to call it, has really gotten greater in this experience and I’ve gotten closer to my dad, who died a few years ago, and I feel his presence more actively in my life. It’s been a spiritually transformational experience.

I’m exactly where I need to be. I [haven’t] felt more myself since I was a teenager. I haven’t felt as grounded, as happy, as in tune with myself and with other people, and as connected, and rooted to something in my entire life than I have in the last month of being here. And everything is telling me this is where I should be. This is this mission has liberated me far more than I could ever hope to liberate Palestine. And I feel so alive here. I’m just honoured to be a part of it, and privileged, so I want to see it through. So that’s how I’m feeling. I feel like whatever is meant to be, will be, and we’re in the hands of God now. We don’t know what will happen but I feel protected. I feel on the right side of history. I feel like we’re doing a noble deed. None of us are saints, I’m a little bollocks myself, but I feel like we’re trying to do good and it’s in the attempt. There’s a lot of solace in that, regardless of what’s happening.”

Despite his admission of an uncertain fate for himself and the rest of the flotilla, I was curious as to Mikey’s own thoughts on how things will play out in the end:

“I think it will end [with] us getting intercepted, but I think one boat is going to break. I think a few boats have a great chance of breaking the siege. I think the majority of us will be intercepted, but I think that we do have a great chance. I think a number of our boats, if we play our cards right, if we have a bit of luck, the sea, the winds, God on our side, I think we can break the siege. We need people at home to mobilise in our support. I think if they do that, if we break the siege, or even if Israel is brutally aggressive against us, I think this flotilla has a chance to catalyse and reoptimise the solidarity movement around the world, and take it to a new level. I think people have gotten a bit lethargic, and a bit disillusioned, and fatigued over the last number of years organising and mobilising, seemingly to no change, and to things only getting worse, you know, it is disheartening. l think if this flotilla can be anything, hopefully it breeds new life into the movement and capitalises our collective will further into real change, and into boldness, and into bravery for Palestine. For the whole anti-colonial, anti-imperial, and anti-capitalist struggle in general.”

At the time of writing, Mikey has reported via his Instagram that, due to recent threats made by Israeli security forces, he believes he and his comrades will be attacked by Israeli security forces tonight. Drones are currently circling his boat. Please support them in any way you can.

Ádh mór Mikey!

Art by Aoife Cawley

Since the age of sixteen, a large majority of the girls or women I was ever in a relationship with had disclosed to me that they were a victim of gender-based violence. And I am without a doubt that every Irish person reading this article will know multiple women who have been abused physically, psychologically, and/or sexually at some point in their lives.

In fact, a 2023 study by Ulster University (UU) and IMPACT Research Centre found, “98% of women in Northern Ireland have experienced at least one form of violence or abuse in their lifetime, with half (50%) experiencing this before they were 11 years old.” And while the research found that a great amount of the abuse suffered was committed by a stranger (29%), most often the abuser was known to the victim (friend or acquaintance, 19%; romantic partner, 23%). In that same year, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (RUC) was called to a domestic violence incident every 16 minutes.

Much like suicide, gender-based abuse has risen drastically in the six counties since the Belfast Agreement, and as Vicka Heidt of the Georgetown University Institute for Women, Peace and Security questions, “When nearly half of the population has experienced a life-altering event of violence, how can a society be classified as ‘post-conflict’?” And it’s not only an issue for the occupied state, on the other side of the partition line, in terms of domestic violence alone, 35% of women have also suffered abuse at the hands of an intimate partner.

Art by Belfast Shooter

Now, before I go any further, I would like to make it clear that I don’t intend to position myself as some sort of white knight. As a teenager particularly, I engaged in behaviour that I can see with hindsight was crass and misogynistic. However, I’ve never done anything heinous or unforgivable in that respect, which is a trait it seems isn’t commonly shared with other fellas in the north- if it’s ninety-eight percent (!) of women, how many men are causing that harm?

I’ve never harrassed or violated a woman, or raised a hand to one, but I have made inappropriate remarks, made and laughed at crude jokes, engaged in relationships in ways that I now regret, and, perhaps most detrimentally, allowed problematic behaviour to go on unchecked around me.

But, as important as it is for a fella to take responsibility for their mates’ troubling behaviour, it is perhaps even more important for a feen to take responsibility for himself. You don’t need to communicate your intrusive sexual thoughts, you don’t need to pester a woman for her number, and you don’t need to put your hands on her hips or her lower back when you’re passing behind her (these are just three examples of behaviour that one woman I know personally has experienced in the past week alone). It is weird and pathetic, and surely, in terms of women wanting to wear you, ineffective?

Fortunately, as I’ve grown older, I’ve gained a fair bit of cop on, and I cringe now looking back at my younger self, which is a good thing. But again, that doesn’t necessarily happen to a lot of other feens, and after a certain point in a man’s life, you can no longer use the naivety of your youth or the influence of your upbringing as reasoning for you being a creep. When micro-aggresive, surface-level, abusive behavior goes on freely, in the office, in pubs (on both sides of the bar), in gaff sessions after, it creates a moral vacuum to be filled by more abhorrent forms of abuse- the sort there’s no going back from.

Art by Glic Designs

Another important thing a fella can do is stop giving women so much hassle when they take action to protect themselves and each other in the various ways they see fit. I can nearly reason with an argument against believing all women on the basis that, statistically, if a million people claim something happened to them, it’s unlikely that each and every one of them will be reporting all the details honestly and/or correctly. However, a study has found that, statistically speaking, a man has a 0.00021281% chance of being falsely accused of rape (and a 0.3% chance of being raped). So, with these statistics in mind, what is the sense then, in rather than believing all women, believing none of them? And worse even, actively attempting to repress them in public spaces when they speak on the things they know and experience?

One last thing in particular I cannot stand, and would love to see rid of, is when people wash their hands of these women who speak out, and kick them down the road by signposting them to the police. The aformentioned UU/IMPACT study found, “Overall, only 1/3 of the participants felt able to speak about, or report, the violent incident that had occurred with shame and embarrassment the greatest barrier to reporting.” This alongside the fact that in the area I grew up, we were told not to speak to the pigs about anything- don’t cooperate, say nothing.

This disdain for the RUC is warranted beyond the sectarian divide- in terms of the subject at hand, a query answered in October 2024 by the NI Policing Board disclosed that 78 RUC officers were reported to the Professional Standards Department for allegations of domestic abuse, sexual assault, or rape in the thirty months prior. Fourteen were suspended, and only one was dismissed. This is on top of the fact that it’s not uncommon for an abuser to exist in a socially and/or financially advantageous position, favouring them in the public and the courts. So it can’t be níl fáilte roimh an RUC from one side of your mouth, and ‘go to the police’ from the other.

Anyway, I have no real words to conclude this article. The issue is snowballing. We live in one of Europe’s most dangerous places to be a woman and there is no conclusion in sight. The numbers I’ve quoted here are horrendous. They’re shameful, and when they’re that high in the place we live, we all have some responsibility to bring them down.

Art by Eimear Níc Roibeaird

Helplines:

Six Counties: 0808 8021414

Free State: 0808 2000 247

Photograph by The Belfast Shooter

In his Christmas address to the nation, Kier Starmer stood stiff and tieless (because he’s chill like that), speaking of “Christian values”- “Peace,” he said, “charity, and goodwill to all. That is the promise of the season.” He delivered the speech in a manner that somehow seemed both condescending and childlike, reminding me at times of some primary school-level performance in the Nativity.

I’m unsure, given the Jewish influence in his family, whether Starmer enjoyed any turkey the following day, but while he no doubt enjoyed his time off anyway, Teuta Hoxha (fifty-three days*), Heba Muraisi (fifty-seven days*), Kamran Ahmed (fifty-two days*), and Lewie Chiaramello (thirty-one days*) all remained on hunger strike while on remand in British jails, awaiting trials that won’t begin until May 2026 “at the earliest.”

On Christmas Eve, Amu Gib paused her protest after forty-nine days, accepting food on day fifty. She joined Qesser Zuhrah, Jon Cink, and Umer Khalid in coming off the strike. These activists refused food for forty-eight days, forty-one days, and thirteen days, respectively. Aside from Khalid, who suffers from an underlying health condition, the prisoners have stated their intention to resume their strike in the new year.

Some of the hunger strikers are accused of breaking into property owned by Israeli-linked defence technology company, Elbit Systems, in November 2024. Others allegedly broke into RAF Brize Norton in June 2025 and caused millions of pounds worth of damage. To this I say, if they did commit these ‘crimes’, then fair play to them.

Via The Times

On St. Stephen’s Day, United Nations experts expressed “grave concern” for the hunger strikers, raising questions on whether the British Government is complying with international human rights laws in their handling of their prisoners. UN special rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, Gina Romero, and UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, stated,

“Hunger strike is often a measure of last resort by people who believe that their rights to protest and effective remedy have been exhausted. The state’s duty of care toward hunger strikers is heightened, not diminished … Authorities must ensure timely access to emergency and hospital care when clinically indicated, refrain from actions that may amount to pressure or retaliation, and respect medical ethics.”

Yesterday (Dec 28th), it was reported that Heba Muraisi, who is being held in West Yorkshire at HMP New Hall, is losing the ability to speak. In a statement released by Prisoners for Palestine, Muraisi complained that she is becoming weaker as the days pass, she can no longer lie on her side due to the pain in her face, she has bruising on her arm, her body is aching constantly, and she is struggling to “form sentences, and struggling to maintain conversation.”

Photograph by The Belfast Shooter

Imran Khan & Partners, representing the alleged Palestine Action-linked activists, issued a letter to the British Government on December 22nd, threatening legal action by the following day should Justice Secretary David Lammy continue to refuse to meet with the firm to discuss their clients’ demands and welfare. They have since commenced legal proceedings at the High Court, accusing the government of failing in its duty of care.

The Ministry of Justice explicitly told The Observer they would not meet with the activists’ representatives, later stating concerns about setting a precedent for negotiating with implementers of such action, or avoiding “perverse incentives,” as they put it. Prisons Minister James Timpson made it clear that government policy on hunger strikes is to follow a longstanding procedure, which can be found here, but to save you the trouble, it’s basically just Keep Calm and Carry On.

For as utterly grey and uninteresting as Starmer is, he is playing a dangerous game here. It is clear that David and Kier want to let this all blow over. They think that if they hold out for long enough, the activists will continue to come off their strikes, and this will all be forgotten about before long. But what if they’re wrong?

I believe that Starmer will let these people starve to death. Not out of some gross, Thatcher-esque show of power and lack of morality and soul, but as the consequence of his lack of a spine, his inability to take decisive action, and his general incompetence as the leader of a nation. The man is a fucking clown, and if one or more of the activists die on strike, the premier’s hands will be stained with fresh blood- for everyone to see.

Photography by Brian Lincoln

I wrote this article partly because information on the strikes is so sparse. Most media outlets were forced to cover the matter well after the action began. I would encourage the reader to have a look at the articles I’ve linked, and stay on the ball with keeping up with what’s going on. And people are taking action on the streets. Yesterday afternoon, activists rallied outside the Royal Courts of Justice in Belfast, and last night, protestors stopped traffic at King’s Cross. I would encourage the reader also to support this action when and where possible.

I break my heart reading about the strikers. I find it astounding to walk around in this day and age and see graffiti on the walls declaring support for another hunger strike in British gaols, but I shouldn’t, for history does not repeat, but it rhymes. It’s hard not to be reminded of The Dark, Bobby Sands, and their comrades in the early eighties, the women in Armagh, Terence MacSwiney in 1920, and our countless other ancestors who have been initiating the action of Troscad (fasting against your opponent) since the eighth century. I think of the letter smuggled out of Nafha prison in ‘81, supporting the Republican martyrs. And I think too, of the Christian values Kier Starmer spoke of- Matthew 5:6, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.”

Solidarity with the hunger strikers. Don’t let them die.

*Reportedly, at the time of writing.

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Seiya Tanase

I am not ashamed to admit that I had a tear in my eye last Saturday at Parliament Square. It broke my heart to watch demonstrators, there to protest the Labour Government’s proscription of Palestine Action, desperately pleading with members of the Met Police to stop following orders and put an end to their part in the British state’s complicity in genocide.

I wasn’t the only one crying. Even as I write this now, I feel a swelling of emotion when I remember the many tearful faces trying in earnest to reach out to the human beings lost somewhere behind the uniforms. And at one stage, early on, I watched a spent-looking policeman shake his head and dry his own eyes, before he was handed earplugs to block out the drums and chants of, “Over a hundred thousand dead and you’re arresting us instead.”

Earlier in the week, Novara Media reported an anonymous police officer felt “ashamed and sick” when arresting a disabled person at a previous protest, and this sentiment was evident on the faces of many of that officer’s colleagues on Saturday. They didn’t want to be there. And for a moment, I began to feel a growing sympathy for them.

It can’t be an easy job, standing there, listening to hundreds of people chanting, “Shame,” at you, calling you a Nazi, telling you that your family should be ashamed of you, or having screens displaying decapitated children shoved into your face. Not an easy job at all.

However, that touch of empathy was soon quelled when I watched a petrified-looking pensioner being carried by the arms and legs through the crowd and lifted into the back of a police van. And another man, soon after, who must have been nearly ninety, so frail he needed assistance walking.

The fact that so many who are arrested for supporting Palestine Action are of retirement age is not only terrible for the police in terms of optics, but it also highlights the absurdity of Yvette Cooper’s decision to proscribe the organisation in the first place. To think that the arresting officers actually looked these harmless, elderly people in the eyes and charged them with terror offenses is ridiculous. But to see it in person is horrific- these feeble pensioners dragged off the ground and carried away for sitting down and protesting peacefully, and in some cases, silently.

As the hours passed, hostilities heightened. The Met claims they received "an exceptional level of abuse," which I wouldn’t disagree with. On multiple occasions, small groups of officers were followed, surrounded, and cornered by mob-like crowds shouting, screaming, and chanting things like, “Met Police is IOF,” and “Tout le monde déteste la police”. Again, not an easy job.

However, the anger and resentment held for the Police is entirely justified. To bear witness to the horrors inflicted upon Gaza and follow still blindly the word of your morally corrupt, complicit paymasters is both abhorrent and detestable, and should be resisted vigorously.

At one stage, a young man beside me pleaded with an officer, telling him, “You know what you’re doing is wrong.” To which the policeman replied, “I don’t disagree with what you’re saying.” But these pigs must ask themselves, where is their line? How far are they willing to go to appease the whims of the state?

The UK police, as individuals, need to search for the humanity in themselves. And collectively, they must remember that they are not tools. They have control of their own bodies, and their own minds, and they must protect their souls just like the rest of us. It’s not an easy job, and it wouldn’t be an easy job defying orders or going on strike, but it would be the right thing to do, and certainly a much better use of their time than handing out terrorism charges to hundreds of elderly people.

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Friends of Al-Aqsa

It is seldom that you’ll catch me commenting on TikTok drama, but sure look it here we are.

Firstly, what the fuck is an influencer anyway? In my mind, it is generally an annoying, overly confident individual who is after garnering popularity in the form of likes and follows, and turning it into cash and gifts. The method often either: a) make a cunt of yourself, or b) be attractive.

Of course, over time, they’ll find the side hustles- podcast appearances, fashion design (poorly put-togther merch), food reviews, and brand deals, but I’m not sure I know anyone considered an influencer off the back of their art, or music, or, well… talent! I’ll gladly admit, however, that I’m really not an expert on these people- so maybe I’m wrong.

Anyway, given my limited understanding of what an influencer actually is, when I heard that a flock of Irish ones were brought to Electric Picnic by BDS target Coca-Cola, who put them up in ‘glamping pods’ (fancy tents) while they were there, I naturally felt the same way I do walking past a Starbucks or McDonald’s.

There, I peer through the windows and vehemently judge the customers with both my mind and my face. I don’t see them as evil, necessarily, except maybe the select few in the Six Counties and Britain who align themselves with the State of Israel. But in the Free State, I see them as slugs. They seem not to have the bandwidth to think outside of their own little world and adhere to the least of BDS requests. Or they think the BDS movement is woke nonsense. Slugs either way- slugs and scabs.

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZNdVEyGNs/

But, again, I’m not an expert on influencers. During the research for this article, most of the names and faces I came across were for the first time (and God willing, the last). So, I turned to Google, which told me an influencer is ‘a person with the ability to influence potential buyers of a product or service by promoting or recommending the items on social media.’

Sure you do get nothing for free. There is, of course, (always) something in it for Coca-Cola, and given their position in the global psyche, they needn’t worry too much about brand recognition. What will concern them, however, is public image, or, in other words, the blood on the company’s hands, widely recognised and acknowledged across the island of Ireland.

The people working at Coke’s Great Britain and Ireland marketing department watched these influencers’ videos in which they all but begged for a brand to take them to EP. And in this case, the ticket and tent came at the price of helping to scrub the brand’s filthy, genocide-enabling fingers in the eyeline of the Irish public. All in hope that slugs will think, ‘Well, if my favourite influencer, Sluggy McScab, says Coke is okay, then I can drink it to my heart’s content.’

This is particularly effective in the case of the shameless scabs who did the deal with Coke after previously raising funds or sharing fundraisers for Palestinian aid. As TikTok user @witchyfenian puts it, these influencers are “taking money from Coca-Cola in the middle of a genocide to influence us to break the boycott.”

Guide to BDS Boycott & Pressure Corporate Priority Targeting | BDS Movement

Online, I have seen a vast amount of arguments against these points. Not so much to defend the influencers (aside from in the case of Garron Noone), but more so to call out the hypocrisy of people upset by these influencers’ actions. Some of the main criticisms I have seen are:

1. “YoU HaVE aN iPHoNe!!”

   Well, I, too, have an iPhone, and when the time comes that I must get another phone, I’ll take into account what I know now about Apple’s values and how they align with my own, and I’ll make my decision based on that. I buy a new phone, ideally, with as much time between each purchase as possible, so it’s a lot handier to stop consuming Coke, Starbucks, and McDonald’s than it is to stop buying iPhones.

   Of course, I get the wider point; the BDS list is long, and I myself don’t adhere to boycotting every company listed. Eagled-eyed, anti-woke warriors will have already spotted my mentioned use of Google, whose parent company, Alphabet, is listed. However, as you’ll see at the link above, BDS has identified Coca-Cola as a primary grassroots target in order to maximise efficiency. And even at that, I know plenty of people who scab the BDS boycott, plenty of my friends and loved ones, but they aren’t actively involved in whitewashing the public perception of targeted companies. Nor are they assisting those companies in countering a boycott established to harm an apartheid, genocidal ethno-state.

2. (D4 accent) “Em, actually, EP was sponsored by Coca-Cola, so really you’re just giving your money to them by going.”

   It was, but you’re not. It’s Coca-Cola that pays EP to sponsor the event. You would be, however, right to point out the issues with the organisers at EP in that case, as well as the issues with performers for not boycotting the event, an action which has been seen to be successful at other festivals. But the thing is, none of the people making these points are doing so from a place of genuine concern for the BDS movement. Instead, these arguments are being used as gotcha artillery. So I beg, if that’s you, please, please, ask yourself why that is, and why you think it’s helpful.

   ---

Justin Sullivan via Getty Images

I assumed at first that the influencers must be thick (slugs), given that working with Coca-Cola is such a blatant PR nightmare in Ireland, particularly when you’ve been grifting off Palestinian fundraisers. But to give credit where it’s due, many of these influencers have a fair amount of cop on when it comes to cash and public relations. These people have teams behind them, they’re brands themselves, and they’ve likely worked out that this will soon blow over and be forgotten.

One particularly popular influencer, however, must be commended for going above and beyond to ensure she was, in fact, doing the right thing. Lauren Whelan (@laurenwhelxn) yesterday stated,

“Before agreeing to this collaboration, I did my research, and any questions or concerns that I had with the brand in terms of their ties with Israel, I asked them directly, and with the answers that they gave me, I continued with the collaboration.”

Fair play now to Lauren for checking with Coca-Cola, who told her not to worry, sure it’s grand!

Ultimately, in fairness, these people are stupid, young, and human, and we can’t expect them to always hold the same values as ourselves as individuals. Is it a great surprise to anyone that someone who spends years cultivating a false image, to then rent it out as a billboard to whichever brand bids highest, might be liable to making mistakes, or even moral corruption, here and there?

Stop drinking Coke and smash your parasocial relationships.

Gaza Cola

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“'Tis the song, the sigh of the weary
Hard times, hard times, come again no more
Many days you have lingered all around my cabin door
Oh, hard times, come again no more”

-Stephen Foster

In late 2024, after two mental breakdowns, I found myself in Altnagelvin A&E department, on suicide watch. I was in a rough auld spot, so I turned to my writing to lift me out of it. The writing I produced became Responsibility for Suffering: The View From Suicide Watch, and before I published it, on several occasions, I had considered deleting the bloody thing altogether. But I didn’t.

After I posted the work, I cringed at myself. The things I had written about were incredibly vulnerable, uncomfortable, and off-brand for the public image I had been crafting for myself in the media and online. Also, aside from that, it is plainly a difficult thing to post details of your own physical, mental, and sexual abuse online. But I was wrong to cringe. I was being harsh on myself.

In the end, the response to Responsibility for Suffering was incredible. The number of people who read the piece, interacted with it, and reached out had blown me away. I soon realised it was important work, and its vulnerable nature, rather than being met with judgment, was instead met with respect. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t proud. I’m still proud.

“Marianne had the sense that her real life was happening somewhere very far away, happening without her,” -Sally Rooney

In Responsibility for Suffering, I detailed a hesitance to seek out therapy. So, I thought it hypocritical of me then, if I didn’t go out and find myself a few counseling sessions.

I hated them. Every week, the thought of cancelling the session would flash in front of me like pop-ups on the internet. But I never did. I installed the auld mental ad-blocker and forced myself to go in every time.

I hated the awkwardness. There was nothing Collette, the counsellor, knew about me if I didn’t tell her, and I hated having to tell her. I found writing about my trauma to four thousand followers much handier than speaking about it in a room with some strange, middle-aged woman. And as kind as she was, Collette made the matter worse by staring at me blankly, silently, waiting for me to divulge. But I told her anyway.

I started with my childhood, or lack of it, then I told her of my problems now, and I told her that I knew already that the two were linked. I told her there was little point in describing these links to me, or showing me how the past connects to the present and guides it into the future. I already knew. I told her that I needed to be told what to do. I told her that knowing the roots and sources of my present problems did nothing to help me sort them out. And in fairness to Collette, she listened to that.

“Is fearr an timreas ná an tuaigneas.”

(Quarrelling is better than loneliness)

Before, when I heard the words ‘inner child,’ I would have an inner eye roll. It made me cringe a bit, and I’d think, ‘Would you ever shut the fuck up like?’ That was until Collette told me about my own inner child.

She told me of the three selves: The child-self, the adult-self, and the parent-self. The parent self, she said, is unlocked upon the birth of your child. That lovely feeling that freshly made parents say they can’t describe, and the instinct, the parent-self is created with all of that.

The child-self and the adult-self were my concern. Collette told me that we grow into our adult-selves, but our child-selves remain alive within us. She told me to imagine an old man on a pogo stick, laughing and enjoying himself. That isn’t his adult-self, hopping about with the joy pouring out of him; that’s his child-self, alive and well.

She told me that when the child-self, that is, yourself when you were a child, has been consistently hurt, neglected, and abused, it learns to protect itself, and when we grow into our adult-self, those protections remain. As adults, when we find ourselves in certain situations, the child-self comes to life and enacts these protections and coping mechanisms.

“When you were a boy,” she said, “You probably spent a lot of time hoping that someone would come and save you, didn’t you?”

I did. I prayed to God religiously. I prayed for a teacher to do something, or a neighbour, or a superhero, cape flowing, NSPCC across their chest, to pick me up and fly me away. I prayed for Pugsy, Doctor Who, Supernanny, anyone. I prayed for God himself, if he wouldn’t send anyone else, to come to his creation and knock on my door to free my soul. In the end, no one came at all.

“Your child-self is still within you now, waiting for someone to come.”

That’s when I thought I was fucked. I was cursed, burdened with a child within me, begging for help that would never come, but I was getting ahead of myself.

“The beauty of it all is that you have become your adult self.”

Collette told me to imagine a boy who had visibly been abused, standing in front of me in the room, and she asked me what I would do. I would help the boy, of course, reach out to him, protect him. “That’s the instinct of the adult-self.”

I couldn’t see that boy, but he was in the room. He was within me, crying out for help, desperate. But it wasn’t hopeless, because now, after all this time, his cries have been answered, someone has come for him, and the saviour is himself.

“It’s a queer world, God knows, but the best we have to be going on with.”

-Brendan Behan

An article of mine has recently been confirmed for publication by a major broadcaster. My writing, for the first time, will be on the public record, something I have worked hard for and am very proud of. Still, however, after such achievements, I often feel a sense of deflation. I’m not too sure why (trauma, no doubt), but the milestones of my career are generally followed by periods of feeling unworthy and depressed.

I’m also writing this on Mother’s Day, an occasion I find mentally bothersome. It’s a complicated thing to miss your mam, when she’s after abusing you. I feel a deep sense of wanting her arms around me, and I want to say, ‘I forgive you.’ But I know now that these are the wants of my younger self. And I know that in these moments, I must take care of myself, as that’s all there is to do, and I’m the only one who can.

So, here I am, writing about it.

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ROGER CASEMENT, charged with treason for his part in the Rising, was executed in Pentonville Prison, London, on August 3rd, 1916. His body was buried in the yard.

Republicans were years campaigning for his remains to be returned, and a Glasnevin plot was purchased for him by his sister in 1925. De Valera took a particular interest in the matter as Taoiseach but ultimately failed to bring home the goods, so to speak.

In 1964, the centenary of Casement’s birth was fast approaching, as was the 50th anniversary of the rising. Dev’s successor was therefore determined to, once and for all, resolve the matter of repatriating Rodger’s remains. So, Seán Lemass wrote to the British Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, requesting consideration on the issue.

For the Brits, however, it wasn’t a simple request. If they appeased the Tea-Sock, they ran the risk of establishing “an undesirable precedent.” As RTÉ explains;

“They were particularly wary of the political implications. The return of Casement’s remains might prove contentious in Britain (due to its likely unpopularity), in Ireland (due to its inevitable popularity potentially giving rise to anti-British sentiment), and also in Northern Ireland (the location of Casement’s preferred final resting place Murlough Bay in Co. Antrim).”

During negotiations, it was made clear that a Dublin burial for Casement was a British red line. The Northern Irish ethnostate relied heavily on the demoralisation of its indigenous minority, and repatriating a mythologised Ulster martyr wouldn’t fly.

These negotiations came to mind when GAA president Jarlath Burns complained of a “very hostile environment” when speaking on the redevelopment of Páirc Mhic Asmaint (Casement Park), the rightful home of Antrim GAA. His remarks were a public jab at the DUP, who are subtly giving it the auld Deir Ulaidh No to Casement and creating a difficult job for GAA negotiators.

I was once dead against the plans to modernise Casement Park. When initial planning permission began in 2013, I sided with the Andersontown residents who did not welcome the radical changes proposed for their community. Ultimately, I found it hard not to sympathise with those affected by the stadium blocking sunlight from their gaffs.

However, in 2017, plans were reduced from a 38,000 capacity stadium to 34,500, and in 2022, a residents’ group lost its legal challenge against the proposal. These days, the issue of the residents and the sun seems long forgotten as the new, more troublesome issue looms over Casement’s depressed, derelict stands.

Jarlath’s experience working with the DUP should be no surprise to him. Being an Ulster man, he will know already the fear and disrespect held by sections of Unionism for the GAA.

In recent times, Unionist politicians have expressed their regret at unsuccessful attempts to defund the organisation, they have described the games as “sectarian and Republican,” instructed staff to reserve the word ‘football’ for referring to soccer, condemned RUC pigs for celebrating their own county’s success in an All Ireland football final, and sure couldn’t I be here all day giving examples of suggestive, sectarian, political stunts?

Outside of politics, there is the constant hostility, threats, and security alerts suffered by East Belfast GAA, the looking-down-the-nose-over-the-garden-fence attitude of everyday Unionists toward the games, the fear of wearing my county colours in half of the estates in the Six Counties, and the restrictions on wearing them in pubs, and in the workplace, particularly in county Antrim.

The Executive’s Minister for Communites, Gordon Lyons, has pushed back on Jarlath’s claims and has denied dragging his feet on the Casement issue. But, of course, he’s talking shite, and in fairness to him, he’s just doing his job, at least in part.

The DUP knows what their voters like to hear, and they know that hostility toward Irish culture is what a lot of red, white, and blue voters go in for. The Casement whistle is being blown in the hope that their fleeing electoral support will come running back with their tails wagging and tongues hanging out, salivating over the prospect of an uncompromising position against anything Fenians enjoy.

The issue for them, however, is that although this stance may improve the DUP’s position in the polls, it may also hurt the broader goal of maintaining their pwecious wittle Union. As pointed out in one Irish News opinion article (that I’ve misplaced and unfortunately can’t quote), the Irish population in the Six Counties is ever-increasing and before long will be bursting at the seams, politically speaking. It will be difficult for the DUP to sell the United Kingdom to the new Green majority when, even in peacetime, Irish culture was scapegoated relentlessly by Unionism.

There is pressure on Sinn Féin to deliver a redeveloped Casement. This is inherent in their constitutional and symbolic position up on the hill, but it’s also pressure they have invited upon themselves.

Michelle O’Neill pledged that the new Casement would be built during her time as First Minister. However, the British Viceroy in Ireland (or whatever they’re calling it these days), Hilary Benn, said he thinks “other contributions are going to be required to get this going.” All the while, the DUP aren’t playing ball, so to speak, and are instead treating the GAA and the Casement conundrum as if they are engaging in negotiations with some sort of terrorists- a notion they’ve notoriously never been interested in.

This could all spell an end to the Casement Park dream. Planning permission is set to expire next year and the First Minister is in danger of falling short on her promise.

It makes me rather sad to see the sorry state Páirc Mhic Asmaint lies in. I often wondered why they couldn’t open the thing up in the meantime- fix it up and play the matches in it the way it is, or rather, the way it was. It’s much too late for that now, unfortunately. I have fond memories of being in the place as a teenager, and it pains me to see it rotting through the gaps in the fences.

It’s a shame. Antrim is the only county not to border a county in the Free State, and it feels like it. It feels landlocked at times, and it leaves Antrim GAA suffering. Ulster GAA’s decision to move Antrim’s home fixture against Armagh in the Championship from Corrigan to Newry is just the latest kick in the teeth for neglected and frustrated Antrim fans.

The decision also brings to mind Roger Casement himself, specifically his dead body. And, although it may be a small bit radical, I might have thought of a solution to the Casement Park problem, taking inspiration from the success of Seán Lemass.

See, if you’re sending the Antrim footballers an hour down the road, what’s another hour? Why not just relocate the new Casement Park to the middle of Glasnevin Cemetery? That will surely entice the DUP to get the ball rolling, incentivised by the prospect of ridding the place of GAA terrorism. And of course, if Casement is in Dublin, Hilary and the Treasury can pretend it doesn’t exist.

In fact, why not build Casement Park in Hell? Or even Connacht, perhaps?

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Image: Sky News

RECENTLY, I was described by a Troubles-specialising historian as a ‘Republican writer.’ Of course, I am a Republican, and I am a writer, but I’d be lying if I said I ever consciously set out to combine these aspects, at least not to the extent of it becoming a defining feature of my work. Not that I mind the description; I’ve been referred to as a lot worse.

It does, in all fairness, make some sense. The walls of my Cityside flat in Derry display photographs of my Grandmother standing alongside prominent, violent Republicans. One in which she’s posing with former Provisional IRA Chief of Staff, Joe Cahill, and another fella, significant for reasons I cannot disclose. In another photo, she’s with Mairéad Farrell.

For whatever reason she happened to be with these people is neither here nor there. The point is that Republicanism is essentially part of the infrastructure of who I am, prevalent in my family on both sides. It’s in my blood, my genetic make up, and much of my upbringing was experienced in the context of romanticized Republican propaganda.

My grandmother and Mairéad

This is common of course, particularly in West Belfast, where I arrived the year after the Good Friday Agreement, to be reared. Throughout the years, as the Nationalist enclave in the West developed into an insatiable landlord-infested Gaeltacht Quarter, I’ve had to unlearn the teachings of my youth and develop more organic perceptions.

Before long, I settled on calling myself an Anti-agreement Republican. This is not to say I’m an advocate for violence, but I do sympathise when men and women are condemned for violent acts, while other men and women are celebrated in Republican circles for similar acts, all for the exact same cause.

I sympathise also with men and women who are after giving everything for a free and independent Ireland, but have had to settle instead for Stormont- a colonial institution once considered a military target for the Republican movement, which celebrated its eventual collapse, wrongly thinking it an indication of forthcoming victory.

I don’t necessarily disagree with the concept of the agreement itself. I can see the value and necessity of diplomacy when reuniting our country. What I do disagree with, however, is the flaccid Republican representation in the Stormont seats so many are supposed to have died for. I disagree with Sinn Féin sitting back and letting demographics do its job while it lines its pockets and gets cosy with the Brits and wider International political establishment.

So often I hear that, thanks to the Peace Process, we now have a voice. We have representation, and we’re no longer second-class citizens in our own country. But I’m hardly going to be grateful for the least of which I should expect. What the fuck is this like? Why are we begging the Brits for Irish Language rights? Why are we begging for transparency and using the criminals’ own justice system to prosecute their war crimes? Why are we allowing British Security forces to cover in secrecy the alleged murder of a teenage boy? Why are we engaging with a political entity who’s entire purpose is to keep a colonial boot on our necks?

With all this being said, there may be a glimpse of an alternative modus operandi for achieving reunification in the distance, all thanks to the New IRA.

Image: The Sunday Times

The New IRA, who consider themselves simply as the IRA, is a failed attempt at uniting the various violent, Anti-agreement Republican organisations, known widely as Dissidents, under one banner. Obstacles like ego, logistics, and trust proved to be too problematic for the project, with the organisation mustering up a small amalgamation in 2012, made up of the Real IRA, Republican Action Against Drugs, and some independent Republicans.

Óglaigh na hÉireann, the INLA, and the Continuity IRA all decided against it, which, in the end, proved wise. Irish Republicanism is synonymous with loose lips and leaky ships, so the issue with uniting everybody is they are essentially consolidating the workload for Mi5. And right enough, in August 2020, the suspected New IRA Army Council was stung in a series of drinking sessions held in a bugged bar built by Mi5 rat, Dennis McFadden, in his home in Ardoyne.

Image: BBC

Now Allison Morris is reporting that the New IRA are in the latter stages of ceasefire talks with the British Government. Gone are the days of POW releases, but it is reported that negotiations are being held to secure reduced sentences, 50/50 terms (so a Republican prisoner would serve half of their sentence in British gaols, and the rest on remand), and an end to invasive state legislation applicable to Republicans following the end of their sentences.

The New IRA are denying the existence of these talks, which is to be expected. The Provisional IRA also denied their talks, as did Thatcher, infamously. Denying talks means nothing. What is important is the political climate, and at the moment, violence is not welcome or respected. It was not long ago an image was circulating on social media of two RUC pigs in the Creggan cycling bikes- the war is over.

The interesting thing, however, is what might happen after a ceasefire is agreed, and they’ll have to do something, so that it can’t be considered a surrender.

Image: Vice

Violent Republicans are wasting their energy on violence, and leaving a huge gap in the political market for a more determined method of achieving unity.

Already Dissident Republican groups are protesting public RUC meetings in Belfast and Craigavon. In the past, we’ve seen them protest outside letting agencies, and, despite the bad press, this is good news for us all.

It is possible to pressure the Union and its defenders without engaging to the extent of being part of the fold. We can agitate and resist from the outside, as we have done before- Parnell was a prominent man in Westminster but he was also President of the Land League. The point being, we can put up our own street signs as Gaeilge if we want to.

Of course, dissidents have an image problem, which will take some cleaning before anything significant can be achieved. The criminality has go, punishment beatings and shootings will have to go, and so will their see-through hard-line anti-drug policies. But plenty of Irish political parties have histories made up of skeletons, so these setbacks can be overcome, and hearts and minds can be won before long.

In an ideal future of Irish Republicanism, I see parallels to the English right wing. Just as hard-Brexit, woman-is-a-woman, stop-the-boats politicians have pulled the Tory Party away from the centre, I hope for a smaller, more uncompromising, radical form of Republicanism emerging from the IRA’s dying embers, and pulling Sinn Féin away from the Brits.

Image: The New York Times

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“THE GAA AT THE END OF THE WORLD”

‘A TRAGICOMEDY IN TWO PARTS’

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NI Executive Minister for Health Mike Nesbitt

On Monday (6th) evening, I watched the little ten-minute segment that the BBC dedicates to 'Northern Ireland’ at the tail end of the six o’clock news. It’s normally a dull affair- their bulletins often representative of the our wee-mindedness that exists in the occupied state. However, on Monday, things were different.

I was surprised to see a correspondent reporting live from the A&E department of Belfast’s Royal Victoria Hospital. I found it a small bit amusing, seeing them go back and forth between the studio and the scene of the crisis- on the Falls Road, as if it was some Ukrainian battlefield.

The thing is- it is not amusing. It is a crisis. And for the staff and many patients, it may as well be a battlefield.

I read in The Irish News that on Sunday, more than 400 people in A&Es across the six counties were told they must wait a minimum of 12 hours for a hospital bed. It was later reported that in a single week, close to 3,000 people waited more than 12 hours in A&E.

In the Royal on Monday, the BBC reported that two elderly patients had been left waiting for 5 days. On Tuesday, they reported that a woman waited for seven hours in an ambulance after she was cut out of her car following an accident . The Royal are asking for patients to turn up alone where possible, for a lack of space in the department.

In the Derry Journal I read that Altnagelvin Emergency Department was ‘extremely busy over the weekend’, with the hospital urging patients not to attend A&E with symptoms of influenza. Astonishingly, the Derry hospital has been making desperate, urgent pleas for shift cover, like some sort of short-staffed nightclub.

Credit: Derry Now

It is important here to look beyond the statistics. Each of these numbers is made up of human beings, left in an ambulance or on a trolley, waiting. Mamaí’s, daidís, grannies, and grandas- many are old and vulnerable, all of them are sick or in pain. They have paid their taxes and the state health infrastructure is failing them.

We have been warned of this failing system for time enough. Long waiting hours are nothing new, even outside of the flu season. Generally, I wouldn’t go near an A&E unless absolutely necessary, and if I did find myself in one, it would be with a book and a charger.

Since the back end of the Christmas, with these numbers coming out of the EDs, and the Royal College of General Practitioners NI claiming that GPs are operating ‘beyond capacity,’ it is safe to say the six county health system is well and truly fucked.

Who is to blame then so?

Mike Nesbitt. Credit: The Impartial Reporter

Naturally, your accusatory finger would find itself pointed firmly at Stormont’s Minister for Health, Mike Nesbitt, so let’s examine him.

Firstly, what sort of a name is Mike for an MLA? It’s uncomfortably American. However, that’s beside the point- Mike has been Health Minister since May 2024, so this is his first influenza season since being promoted from his role as private secretary, and it shows.

On Tuesday, before Mike attended an emergency Health Committee meeting, critical statements were made on his work by his peers. Mike then pointed out that their criticism contained little to help him. ‘It appears to me that certain MLAs engage only after the fact, when the opportunity arises to criticise without alternatives.’

Mike, sir, it is you that must provide a solution to the problem, that is in fact your job.

Mike says the flu is to blame. And it is the flu season, so this does add up, but it’s not entirely unpredictable. During the emergency meeting, he says in the six counties, ‘we have seen 3.6 times as many patients hospitalised with flu this winter compared to last year.’ Which is a fair jump alright. His answer is vaccines. ‘Flu vaccines will now be available to the over-50s, i.e., the age group 50 to 64.”

Credit: Derry Journal

He also informed the committee of his brave work visiting Altnagelvin and the Ulster hospital EDs. It was in those places he met a man that had been sitting in a chair for four days, as well as a terminally ill patient with no bed to sleep on.

Sick and sore patients are being asked not to bring their family into A&E with them, while Mike can turn up to appear like he’s doing a bit of work- if there was work in the bed this feen would sleep in the trolley.

Mike emphasised to the committee that the issue was not specific to the six counties. ‘Liverpool Health Trust has declared a critical incident. Two others have similarly declared critical incidents, Plymouth and Hampshire … Pressures are both serious and nationwide.’ -You’re so close Mike.

Credit: South Eastern Trust (X: @setrust)

There is a common denominator here. That filthy pack of charlatans in the Tory Party bled the NHS dry, and as a result, the occupied six are suffering alongside the Anglo-Saxons, under West Minister’s cruel cunt of a claw. The Brits are of course to blame.

Chief Operating Officer at the Department of Health, Tracy McCraig, claimed that the winter plan in place was working well until Christmas Eve, and everything went to shit then after. She went on to say, ‘From a resilience perspective and a capacity perspective, those two things, we would never have had the space or the resources to be able to manage that effectively.’

The NHS should have the space and resources necessary to manage a crisis more effectively than this. And in any case, a crisis should not be immediately met with collapse.

Myself, the MLAs, the public, and the workers all agree, the executive needs to do more. Mike is clearly struggling and it’s up to Government to take responsibility for the people that gave them their seats, and put some sort of emergency package together. How Mike Nesbitt can look a dying man with no bed in the eye and not march back to Stormont demanding this is beyond me.

Solidarity to the health workers.

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Photo credit: Daragh Drake

I KNOW an auld lady from Ballymurphy. A proud former member of Cumann na mBan and a lot more fortunate than some of her comrades- her family is still intact, supportive, and loving. She lives with her husband, himself, and her sons former volunteers themselves.

Funny, and light-hearted as this woman is, she is profoundly serious about mass. When it comes to confession in particular, there is no messing.

Not that she was ever religious. For a soldier, subjectivity is a necessity when considering one’s sins. But now, as her years are unfortunately thinning, and her mortality plays on her mind more often, she is starting to worry about the possibility of arriving below, in Hell, and meeting down there all the Brits she is after killing, or helping to kill.

For this article, you might say I have partaken in some on-the-ground, investigative journalism. That is, if on-the-ground, investigative journalism is drinking my fill in the pubs scattered across the branches of the Falls Road. For in those you will find many former volunteers (mostly male) that have found themselves in less prosperous conditions following the war (if a spade is a spade, then war is not ‘civil unrest’).

At a point in these men’s lives, they were our only hope- the armed representatives of an 800-year-old battle, mandated by the 1918 General Election, their belief by then burning below the symbolic Phoenix’s soaring wing. Some of them were, at one time, well-respected killers. Heavy of the head and hands, balls-of-steel maniacs. Some were delicate explosive experts. Genius, covert operators. Some were the OC of their parish, and a dog could not have shat on a Saracen without them knowing of it first.

Then, one day, it was all over.

Today, these same men are divorced, estranged, and riddled with cognitive and emotional problems which they were never given tools to deal with. In some cases, they are wet in the brain from the drink, confused, bitter, and barely intelligible. They gave everything to the cause and have been left abandoned by it in return.

Another friend of mine, also from the Murph, is about my own age, late twenties, all ahead of her. However, when she has drink taken, and gets talking about the war, she can become extremely upset. She can tell you of her uncles’ time spent in the Kesh, or of guns exposed from under floorboards. She can recall the Brits raiding her granny’s gaff, beating the door up the hall and her granda down it.

The thing is, she was never there when these things happened. She wasn’t even born. But through it all, her family stuck together, and so, these events exist now in her genetic makeup. She may not have been around at the time, but she is unfortunately traumatized all the same.

Other families did not stick together. Many crumbled under the weight left in a mother or father’s absence, whether they were dead, in gaol, on the run, or they held more grá and concern for the 32-county dream than for their kin. Many families were torn apart by malice and abuse, allowed to flourish in the murky dew of war. Other clanns met their end when the realities of battle came to bite after the fact, with PTSD, depression, addiction, and poverty.

Of course, I am not a member of the demographic to which I am calling attention, and I am no representative of such a group. I thought it best then so, to speak with a former member of the Blanket Protest, about his thoughts on the matter:

He reminded me of the first man on the blanket, Kieran Nugent, known for saying, “If they want me to wear a uniform they’ll have to nail it to my back.” Himself an alcoholic.

He then told me how people were, “abandoned, ostracized, and isolated if you did not agree with all aspects of the Peace Process.” He reminded me of another famous Republican, Brendan ‘The Dark’ Hughes, as the obvious example.

He told me also that the Republican Movement as it exists today is not doing enough to look after those who are essentially its veterans. “They need to get rid of the ‘old boys’ network. They need to organize day centers for people with alcohol and substance issues. They deserve workshops and help.

There should be a back-to-work scheme for people to find the purpose in life that they had before the conflict, and some kind of pension for ex-combatants.”

This last point is an important one. If you fought the Brits during the Tan War, and you could prove it, you would have been lauded as a national hero and qualified for a state pension. If you fought the Brits however, from the 60s right up until today, you are in fact a terrorist, and the best you should hope for is a ceasefire, representation in the state you have been fighting to dismantle, and maybe a black taxi for a few bob.

My heart breaks for the volunteers who in their older years are without the same care, or respect, as their enemy receives across the water. And worse again, to live and die without the same care or respect given to their ancestors, who fought the same enemy, for the same cause.

The neglect suffered by these ex-militants, what has become of so many of them- hallow, vacant, calcified in the pub, puts me in mind of Mr. Crippen. Who, in Brendan Behan’s 1954 Irish Press article, berates, “Did you ever hear tell of the dead who died for Ireland? Well, you’re looking at one of them.”

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I once knew a fella in a Loyalist paramilitary gang (call centres are funny places). He had gotten into the thick of it as a young fella, and that was that. The prospect of him walking away from it all was practically inconceivable.

One time, I asked this fella if he had any plans after work, to which he revealed his orders to retrieve a hammer, take it up to the house of some feen in debt, and break his fingers with it.

On another occasion, he disclosed that when RUC Land Rovers enter various (unspecified to me) Loyalist areas, they must give notice in advance to whichever paramilitary gang runs them.

The symbiotic relationships between British security staff and members of these militia-turned-mobs have existed since the days of B-Specials. So, you will understand my confusion then, in early October, when I left the train station in Derry and found myself glaring up at a state-funded billboard, declaring:

PARAMILITARY GANGS ROB LOCAL BUSINESSES BY TAKING THEIR HARD-EARNED MONEY.

The ‘Ending the Harm’ campaign is the latest attempt by the Department of Justice (DoJ) to brush from their epaulettes their inherent responsibility to prevent organised crime. Deciding it better instead that the taxpayer takes responsibility and looks out for itself.

The DoJ wants us to be vigilant, and rather than rely on it to do its job, it prefers we depend on organisations such as Community Restorative Justice (CRJ) to defend with mediation our kneecaps and shop windows.

The state tells us that the campaign exists for public awareness. To this, I say the public is more aware than the campaign gives us credit for, leaving the whole thing looking hollow, condescending, and primarily, hypocritical.

The Executive’s Programme on Paramilitarism and Organised Crime (EPPOC) claims it seeks to call attention to ‘child criminal exploitation, grooming, violence, extortion of local businesses and violence against women and girls.’ Which is difficult to criticise, in fairness.

However, it is also difficult then to understand why Paul Given, the Executive’s Education Minister, met with the Loyalist Communities Council (LCC) and allowed himself to be lobbied on the establishment of a Gaelscoil in East Belfast- the LCC is made up of representatives from several Loyalist groups, including but not limited to the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), Ulster Defence Association (UDA), and the Red Hand Commando.

It was then revealed a few days later that the DUP was at it again when Minister for Communities Gordon Lyons claimed he attended a meeting held ‘at the request of the LCC.’

It makes you wonder then, why key state figures are being summoned by what it considers violent groomers, who exploit and extort children, local businesses, women, and girls. How can anyone take seriously the lip service paid from both sides of the state’s mouth?

At least one billboard was torn down in Derry’s Waterside. Rather than the state standing its ground in the face of the culprits, a new advertisement for Belfast’s (extortionate) Titanic Musuem was erected in its place.

Now that the public awareness campaign has run dry, having informed nobody of anything new, the state has gone back to pushing tourism, and pretending violent paramilitarism no longer exists.

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Translink’s night service began on November 30th. The timetable is rolling out over four weeks, with trains running until midnight, and busses until 1.30 a.m.- a bit of a Christmas present from the Minister for Infrastructure, John O’Dowd.

The Christmas service is by no means a bad thing, but what is clear to customers is that, in terms of public needs, what Translink offer wouldn’t fill a gap in your tooth.

The late metro service is no doubt welcome in Belfast, but many other six-county cities, towns, and rural communities are left wanting for regular and reliable routes during the day, never mind the night.

As it stands, after the nightclubs close (around 3 am), you can’t get a train or a bus in the occupied state, even during the extension. Outside the festive period, citizens are essentially being left to fend for themselves after 11 p.m., in a State plagued by violence against women and minorities.

When it comes to the Christmas, O’Dowd is keen for the operation to tick over smoothly. He wants to maximise the cash flowing into the Farset’s greedy mouth. He wants busses loaded with bags for life, filled to the brim with bells and bulbs, bellies full of flavoured beer, and bladders full of seven-pounds-a-pint piss.

John O’Dowd (Centre) dressing up like a member of the working class. Credit: Down News

Public safety is a perpetual concern- not just for the Christmas.

In a state that has allowed for forty-two women to be murdered in the last eight years, making it one of the most dangerous states in Europe to be female, you’d think then the Executive would be doing all in its power to ensure women can be brought home safely in the night.

The night service issue is a mere jalopy in the congestion of Translink’s current shortcomings. A simple search into Twitter (X) will present you with countless complaints about public transport, and curses on transport across the six counties in general.

Credit: @superhansie (X)

My own experience is pretty much the same: I took a new job a few weeks ago in Belfast City Centre, and after just two days it became clear the service that (should have) best suited in the morning could not be relied upon to get me into work on time.

Of course then, I got myself up for an earlier bus, but sure what hope have we (and I swear to God this really happened) when the earlier bus and the later bus both pull up, late, at the same time?

I won’t be too specific, for fear of bringing bother to any hard-grafting bus driver, but there is another, alternative service that can get me to work. On more occasions than one, I have waited at the stop and passers-by have informed me that I’d be better off walking. If a bus does happen to turn up, it is boarded with celebration, and sarcastic, passive-aggressive remarks of commendation.

Credit: Translink

All of this is in the context of consecutive, exasperating price increases.

I was astounded when I visited London this year to find that I could get from Edmonton Green to Liverpool Street (more than the distance between Belfast and Lisburn, and then some) for just £1.75, while it costs me £2.40 to get from Cluain Ard to Castle Street.

Of course, the establishment of the new (£300 million) Grand Central Station can be pointed to as reasoning for robbing me blind for a two-mile, half-hour journey, on a twenty-minute-late bus.

For me, it works out at twenty quid a week to get to and from work, or I can get myself a weekly pass, and save myself a pound- the price to pay for a tacky new terminal. Thankfully now we can get our tickets from a machine, before bringing them to another machine with the job of scanning barcodes. God only knows what new technologies they’ll think of next.

Translink is seemingly aware of the negative position it holds in the public psyche. Alongside the price hike in May, they took an interest in local literature, eventually establishing the ‘Poetry in Motion’ campaign alongside Ulster University, ‘encouraging passengers to share their poems celebrating the rich literary and connections between people, places and things across the country.’

I am personally very fond of a lot of the poets in residence on Translink’s routes, including the face of the campaign, who I’ve been friends with for over a decade. In all, I think it’s a great idea.

In fact, I often wonder if Translink might have accepted a poem from this unhappy customer- they might even have made me the writer in residence at the bus stop, late for work in the lashing rain.

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Everyone knows of the famous King Billy mural in Belfast’s Sandy Row- the cut of it.

HOWEVER, some readers may not be aware of the widespread belief (amongst planters) that William of Orange himself crossed the bridge facing the mural. The Boyne Bridge, as we know it, was reconstructed in 1936 and has become a symbol of the Pope-backed King who came to Ireland and put the paddies in their place.

The bridge is now being dismantled to refurbish the streets surrounding Translink’s new ‘Transport Hub’ (bus and train station.) Translink has said that the site will host an archeologist to ensure that “the original Saltwater Bridge is not impacted”. Despite this, however, some unionists are terribly upset.

As they see it, demolishing the Boyne Bridge is another act of chipping away at their dominance. Gone are the days of having to worry only about Ireland’s place in the Union- today, Unionists must also worry about their place in Ireland.

Poetically enough, this all falls (today) on the twelfth (seriously) anniversary of perhaps the most infamous example of Loyalist supremacy being chipped away at, since the Good Friday Agreement.

Surely ye remember your one screaming '“NO SURRENDER” through the smashed window, sounding like some wild animal in great pain.

The City Council voted to limit the days the Union Flag could fly from Belfast City Hall (a climb down from Sinn Féin, who originally intended to get rid of the thing altogether). The protests go on pitifully to this day.

I was curious then, when someone sent me a photo of a flyer announcing a parade and rally on November 30th, which Loyalists owed to their “CHILDREN & GRANDCHILDREN” to attend.

Amazingly, some of these posters were advertised from the windows of shops owned by foreign nationals- incredible to think that Loyalism has come so far since the summer when businesses of this kind were burnt out of Sandy Row.

The action was to be a demand for “100% social housing on the Hope Street Site,” an act of protest, against proposed student accommodation to be built in Sandy Row, and condemnation of the whole Boyne Bridge business.

The flyer also declared ominously that “Other issues will be addressed.” Naturally, I thought I may as well go down for a gawk.

There were so few people at the demonstration (I head counted sixty-ish) that things began to feel a small bit awkward. The protestors themselves looked a bit embarrassed of their show of (no) strength, as the flute band marched in tracksuits toward the blocked-off Boyne Bridge.

Once there, a sight-seeing bus drove past, and William Dickson (swear to God, that’s his name) orated feebly- putting the poor turnout down to the fact that “the lads are away playing football.”

The urgency needed for social housing, the threat of a student invasion, and the tragedy that is the work being done to the bridge pales of course in comparison to the Amateur League.

Funnily enough, Sandy Row FC also suffered poor numbers that day, “A tough day for the club as with no less than 10 senior players unavailable both teams were severely depleted."

Before long, the demonstrators marched on. Not even in drips, just the drab, down to City Hall, and hundreds of people there already. These people however were mostly shoppers and tourists, enjoying crepes and kangaroo kebabs at the Christmas Market.

The first speaker at City Hall had dribble on his chin and his yarn was drowned by an exceptionally loud busker across the road. By this stage, I was actually starting to feel sorry for these feens. But then, the second speaker took the mic.

This fella, somehow, managed to sum up his discontent with the state of Unionist social conditions by concluding that the Irish language was getting too much money.

He gave off about the Gaelige training due for City Council staff, perplexingly announcing that everyone “in this country” speaks English, so why is so much given to such a small minority?

I found it ironic, and aggravating, that what began as calling for veneration of a bridge because it might have been crossed in 1690, ended in the bashing of a language estimated to exist since before 300 BC. It’s safe to say then so, that I didn’t feel sorry for the feens for long.

Credit: ‘TPM Don’t Have Your Money’ by TPM

Today, Free Staters can remove a hundred-year grip from around their throats.

AT THIS STAGE of the suffocation, the hands are tightened, and the country is fading- finding it difficult to figure out which hand belongs to Fianna Fáil, and which to Fianna Gael.

But margins are also tight, perhaps more so than predicted when the election was announced strategically by the Taoiseach- which could mean a potential exchange of the divil we know for one less familiar.

Credit: RTÉ

I’ve been keeping a relatively close eye on things, and with the previously overcrowded affair, I was glad on Tuesday night to see the debate feature a smaller cast, with just the big dawgs battling it out, and Simon Harris.

The best way I can describe Simon is that he is a cunt- a watery one, and frankly, I find him embarrassing. The TikTok thing is pathetic. I was in Kilmichael last weekend, commemorating the ambush, and I caught myself thinking, what would Tom Barry think of Simon Harris?

A funny thought, but less so when you think of the other countless men and women that either lost their lives or had them permanently altered in the fight for the establishment and credibility of an independent government- just for this feen to end up running the shop.

Now, I must give credit where it is due. Simon is an incredible politician, for the Dáil has seen its fair share, of crooks, liars, and even what he would describe himself as ‘terrorists’, but in all fairness to him, Harris is probably the least likeable Teachta Dála that has ever slithered through the doors of Leinster House.

If I could give him any advice, it would be to learn the importance of optics, for Christ’s sake. The situation with the Cork care worker was of course a disaster. And in both debates, how he looked and spoke at Mary Lou McDonald was extremely uncomfortable.

Credit: @shauns_personal (X)

The two Taoiseachs looked ridiculous standing side by side during the first debate, like some comical, villainous duo. In fact, I suppose that is exactly what they are, so it suited them to be separated on Tuesday. But poor Mary Lou then, was stuck beside Harris and forced to endure almost constant castigation each time he addressed her.

It is not a great look for him to communicate with such venom to the only woman with the potential to take his job. On top of the misogyny, it’s clear that Simon Harris views Republicanism through a lens of disgrace. He projects shame on violent ‘terrorists’ who fought like dogs for the establishment of a free Irish Republic, seemingly unaware of the irony of this projection coming from the premier of the so-called, ‘Republic of Ireland’.

Sinn Féin decommissioned ‘Bobby Sands leaflet’ 2016. Credit: Slugger O’Toole

I’m no Sinner now, and this shouldn’t be read as an endorsement. My opinions of Sinn Féin have been published on this website and elsewhere, so don’t get anything twisted. But I think the party is in an interesting position.

They could potentially enter government, or more likely, come within a whisker of it, and Mary Lou will be credited then for managing to weather a pissing, political storm at the beginning of the election, and docking safe and dry once again at the fringes of the establishment.

Alternatively, and at this stage of the game, I think it unlikely, she might take a knock, and will be to blame then for blowing away her position of Taoiseach-elect before she is replaced swiftly with Pearse Doherty or the likes.

There seems to be a stubborn sentiment in the Free Sate that it is time to give Sinn Féin their go. After one hundred years, I can see why, but I would point to the six counties, where Sinn Féin has been enjoying ‘their go’ since the late 90s. A fact often conveniently forgotten by Mary Lou.

The six counties has the highest hospital waiting times in the UK, there is an ever growing housing crisis, cost of living crisis, and a perpetual drug epidemic, and just a few weeks ago, Westminster was giving out to its young subordinate over not having its books in order.

Credit: Removed Account (Reddit)

Micháel Martin seems like a good bet, and he knows it. He is positioning himself as a sensible, safe pair of hands (not the ones choking you), and a seasoned statesman; someone who has been here before.

This is a gamble, because as much as there are Free Staters that will go in for that sort of thing, there may well be a lot more that hold the people who have been running the country for the past century responsible for the state of it.

Back in terms of optics, Micháel seems like an asshole. He has an incredible talent for having something to say about everything all the time, in fact, more than something- he has everything to say about everything, all the time. The feen just loves the sound of his own (admittedly easy to listen to) Cork accent, and his approach to the debates, and the election itself, has him reeking of entitlement.

It should also be said that Micháel’s thoughts on Republicanism are equally as appalling and tone-deaf as Simon’s.

Credit: BBC

I know people like to vote tactically (which I would personally recommend), so here are a few honourable mentions of some of the smaller parties:

Mick Collins amuses me, but does the idea of a party of independents not defeat the purpose of independents?

The Social Democrats seem to be missing Holly Cairns and have found themselves looking relatively irrelevant. Still, of course, irrelevant parties can become kingmakers in the grand scheme of things.

I generally agree with Solidarity-PBP policy, and I like Richard Boyd Barrett. In fact, I met him in a Celtic pub in London during the summer, had a pint with him, and found him very amicable. But once he gets up on a soapbox, or in that Dáil, and starts giving out about something, regardless of how right he is to do so, most of the electorate tunes out, which is a shame.

Credit: The Irish Times

If you want a prediction, I’d say expect much of the same. Micháel Martin will be Taoiseach, Harris propping him up, and a Sinner opposition. But that is not to say that things are not still open.

In terms of a leader board, I’d say: 1. FF 2. SF 3.FG

I saw odds of 50/1 for a Fianna Gael/Sinn Féin coalition. Unlikely as it is, the optics of the Blue Shirts and the Provies running the partitionist state would be gas- might even be worth a tenner.

P.S. Get The Monk in ta fuck.

I should start by being very honest- I despise Amazon. Any time I see the logo, or the bald, billionaire, business-owner, it makes me think; shouldn’t ye rats being paying yer taxes?

I loath overwhelmingly that leech of a fella- ‘Union-Buster—I-Hardly-Know-Her’ Bezos. I think hoarding that amount of wealth is criminal, it should be an actual crime, and I would not be against the good use of a guillotine as a deterrent.

I was aware of course of the difficulties faced by the Amazon workforce in the U.S., but I was under the impression that here in Ireland, even in the Brexit-severed six counties, we were safe under strict and stringent employment laws, put in place by our lords and saviours in the EU.

Reddit: u/PB4WEGO

Where this notion came from I have no a clue, for it is a load of nonsense- A few months ago, it was brought to my attention that here too in the six counties, Amazon staff are working under cruel and intense conditions placed on them by their 2.15 Trillion USD paymasters.

And so, I have once again paddled around the shallow end of investigative journalism, in the form of sitting in on the job, in the passenger seat alongside a now former Amazon delivery van driver. They even let me smoke a joint. Sure I might as well just take my Pulitzer now.

My source told me of their intention to leave the job, and so, they agreed to become a whistle-blower of sorts- although all the details exposed are likely to be public information, they are not as prevalent in public discourse as they should be.

Of course, the identity of my source will have to remain a mystery, for fear of them being sued within an inch of his life.

They explained to me that technically, they were self employed. Their labour was sourced by a recruitment agency (of which there are several), who then provided it to Amazon. Their self employment status meant that they were left without key rights and entitlements, including sick pay, holiday pay, a payslip, and much more, all of which had to be signed away in a declaration seen above.

Now, as terrible as this all is, it would not be so bad if my source were in receipt of any of the benefits of self employment. They had no say in how many deliveries they were doing for the day, they were unable take a half day, or take a pay advance from the profits they were generating for the company.

“I mean, you’re able to have a break, but if you have a break, you’re going to be behind, and you’re going to get home later. That’s kind of where the pissing in bottles thing comes in like.”

“(The worst part part was) probably how long the shifts were. You’d start at half-eleven, so you’re like ah happy days, you get a lie in, but the amount of deliveries you’d have to do- I was there for a short time and the most stops I did (in a day) was one-hundred-and-fifty, which is kind of considered short for them.

You’re marked on performance, in a teamwork sense, so if you fuck up, that fucks up your team’s pay as well. Everyone’s busting their balls to get that bonus. If you’re driving and like, breaking red lights or something, or like, I don’t know, harsh acceleration, that can affect your teams score.”

“They monitor the van?”

“Yeah, so basically it’s like AI, like a camera on the dashboard, it’s called Netradyne Driver Eye, and that like pretty much monitors how you drive and everything- it’s pretty fucking mental. So there’s just a camera there the whole time.”

“So you would work twelve hours?”

“There were days I worked twelve hours. I mean, you’re able to have a break, but if you have a break, you’re going to be behind, and you’re going to get home later. That’s kind of where the pissing in bottles thing comes in like.”

The ‘pissing in bottles thing’ is well known across the Atlantic, but again, I, like many readers I’m sure, had no clue that the fella who drops parcels off in my street like he has a rocket up is arse, is also a victim of Amazon’s dignity-destroying workload.

“Did you piss in a bottle?”

“I didn’t piss in a bottle. I pissed in a field, but I’d say if I was there long enough it would come to a stage where I’d start pissing in bottles.”

“What percentage of the workforce would you say piss in bottles?”

“A lot of them. It’s so normalised.

I was delivering one day in County Down, and I was walking to the gaff , and this Royal Mail driver was delivering around the same time as me. He started chatting to me, he was all ‘What agency are you working for?’ This and that, and he was like, “It’s fucking grim man, I used to work for them and like, it doesn’t get any better. You’re just busting your balls to get home early. You’re pissing in bottles.’

Then he just goes like, ‘D’ya wanna see my van?’ Then he opened his van and it was a lot more palatable. He’ll start at like nine in the morning, and he’ll get home at half three. Royal Mail- they’ve a fucking union, we’ve no union.”

“Are the managers aware that their staff are pissing in bottles?”

“Yeah, a hundred percent. In the group chat, they would post pictures of piss-bottles outside the vans from the drivers that were working. And basically the next day you’d have your talk, and their attitude was like, ‘When you’re finished up just bin all your stuff.’ I.E. your piss-bottles. They were like, ‘It is not acceptable to be leaving your piss-bottles outside the van.’ So they know what happens.

I thought this only happens in like America and stuff, like all these horror stories.”

Amazon drivers pissing into bottles is not breaking news, but like the punishing packages they are forced to distribute, the problem is on our doorstep.

This Black Friday, which Amazon is extending into ‘Black Friday Week’, and is load of bollocks in itself, please get off your arse and into your town or city centre instead and do what you can to ease the workload on these poor bastards.