Kieron Brady, the Scottish-born ex-Republic of Ireland internationalist, today launched an attack on those tasked with eradicating racism in Scottish soccer.

Brady himself an Anti-racist Educationalist called on Irish players in Scotland to disassociate themselves from anti-racist publicity campaigns.

“In light of the inaction of certain bodies to comprehensively challenge the ongoing anti-Irish racism in Scotland I would ask Irish players to disassociate themselves from the Show Racism the Red Card organisation until such time as more efforts are seen to be made in relation to this ongoing racism in Scotland

James McCarthy and Aiden McGeady, two Scottish born Irish internationalists are being compelled to endure anti-Irish racism almost on a weekly basis in stadia in Scotland and in three Show Racism the Red Card publications since last June this has not been alluded to, nor has the racist ‘Famine Song’.

The absence of any reference let alone condemnation is staggering and is more and more becoming an illustration of anti-Irish racism not being viewed with any merited consideration. The fact that SRTRC Scotland have been discourteous in refusing to pass comment on this issue in a worthwhile manner despite requests, as well as the impolite refusal to engage in further dialogue with Irish community representatives after their meeting last May has also been contributory to this request.

As the first Scottish born player to decide to play for Ireland when still in his mid teens as far as I know, as well as all three of our Irish ancestral homelands being in and around Cloughaneely, Gweedore and the Rosses I have an interest in both James and Aiden, as well as being someone who has five years experience in the area of anti-racism and Equality.”

Brady was an employee of SRTRC in England and has persistently claimed since his resignation last year from the organisation that it was unwilling to tackle the issue of anti-Irish racism in Scottish soccer. He pointed to the fact that recently launched anti-racism DVD by SRTRC included no interviews with Irish players in Scotland.

Billy Singh campaign coordinator for SRTRC denied that the omission of Aiden McGeady and James McCarthy from the recently launched DVD was not an indicator of the organisation’s weakness on the issue of anti-Irish racism in Scottish soccer.

The DVD has interviews from Thierry Henry, Rio Ferdinand and Scottish players Barry Ferguson and Stephen McManus.

Brady pointed to the fact that SRTRC made no mention of the “Famine Song” controversy in the organisation’s newsletter last month.

SRTRC did state on its website last year that they considered the “Famine song” to be racist. Since the organisation redesigned their website that statement has been removed.

Ged Grebby the Chief executive of STRC responded to Brady’s claims:

“ I admit we were slow on the Famine Song issue, but that was purely pressure of work in Scotland. We are working behind the scenes with Rangers FC about the Famine song. We have re-vamped our website and we will put right the fact that our statement on the Famine Song was lost from the site. The song is racist, it is anti-Irish and we have said so and will continue to say so”

Grebby pointed out that SRTRC had a long association with Irish soccer players including Niall Quinn as patron.

“We employ John Anderson Ex-West Brom and Republic of Ireland international. John uses his experiences as a young Dublin kind in Birmingham in the 1970s as a way of engaging with youth around Islamophobia issues.”

 It was a great headline for a great story in the Irish Times.
“GAA and Rangers unite to promote Gaelic games.”
The piece was by John Fallon and Paul Cullen.
The piece was breathless in its enthusiasm.
An almost identical piece was in the Indo the same day by Brian MacDonald.
 “The GAA and Glasgow Rangers had joined forces to promote Gaelic games in the Rangers heartlands of the West of Scotland!”
It gushed about the Glasgow club’s army of community workers opening doors for Gaelic games in what had been, heretofore, hostile territory for the Gah.
It seemed a great story that probably the only major football club in Britain who has never fielded a Republic of Ireland international was working with Cumann Lúthchleas Gael.
Surely it would only be a matter of time before Glasgow Rangers were playing Crossmaglen Rangers in a friendly in South Armagh!
There was only one problem.
It wasn’t true.
This journalist spent an interesting day last month unpacking a story that had been run in both the Irish Times and Irish independent on Monday 2nd March 2009.
I called Rangers FC’s PR department and I spoke a very helpful and very young sounding press officer.
He told me that he had been fielding phone calls from “across the water” all morning.
I believed him. He sounded at the end of his tether.
“We don’t have any official link with the Gee Gee Ay!” he pleaded.
I believed him.
He told me the kids had been “treated” to a visit to Ibrox where they had witnessed the Light Blues trounce lowly Hamilton 7-1.
He then kindly sent me the following club statement.
“There is no official link up with the GAA as such but we were delighted to welcome pupils from Glaschu Gaels and Tír Conaill Harps to a recent anti-sectarianism workshop at our Study Support Centre which is based at Ibrox Stadium.
This involved a group of school children from Glasgow and Co. Meat, Eire – primary and secondary school age – coming together for the workshop followed by a tour of the stadium and tickets for the Rangers v Hamilton SPL game on October 25 last year.”
I hadn’t the heart to return the call and point out that Rangers had been away to Hamilton on October 25th.
At that match the racist abuse of young Irish player James McCarthy was so bad that it made it onto Sky news.
Rangers did host Hamilton on December 6th and duly won 7-1.
As I was checking this out Rangers supporters message boards were going into meltdown. This wasn’t a positive development for the Shankhill Loyal.
I called Croker and spoke to Alan Milton in the press office. I told him who I was and that I was calling about the rangers story.
“News to us.” He sniffed.
I told him that the story was in both the Irish Times and the Indo (hence must be true).
“Yeah, that’s where we heard about it.” Another sniff.
I called the GAA president in Britain Bernie Keane.
“I don’t know much about this!”  Bernie joshed.
“You’ll need to speak to John Gormley. He’s yer man!”
I duly called John Gormley-no-not light bulb banning John Gormley, but the ex-president John Gormley of the GAA in Britain.
If it is possible to sound ashen faced on the phone then that’s a fair reflection of John as he was heading from Luton to Glasgow for county board meeting. He had the Times ands the Indo on his lap.
Finally I caught up with John Fallon of the Irish times who was in Castlebar on the fateful night that the marriage of Glasgow Rangers and the GAA was announced.
A 25-year veteran of the quote unquote business Fallon confirmed the story. He had checked the quotes after the AGM with Gormley. The Irish Times man and me then quickly shared “source remorse” experiences.
I left this story with John Gormley getting back to me to confirm what he had been told by a GAA administrator in Scotland.
I’m still waiting.
It was a great headline though…………….

Recently I had cause to travel to Omagh on consecutive nights. My daughter Aislinn was on stage at the Omagh arts centre in the Lyric theatre’s production of Brian Friel’s play  “the Home Place.” 

My little one was, of course, brilliant in the part of little Maisie McLaughlin.

It was-at the tender age of 12-her first professional role.  Despite working alongside luminaries like Ian McIlhinney and Aislin McGuckin my princess wasn’t out of place.

There are no thespians in either familial line. The kid, however, seems “to have it”. 

As every parent has to, by dint of having issue, part of the parental contract is that you have to sit thru your kids play and clap wildly at the end.

Most children shouldn’t be near any of the performing arts and schoolteachers aren’t cut out to put on theatre productions or concerts.

Sitting in the wings over those two nights I was able to look at the work fine actors speaking the words of a master dramatist.

After my Aislinn’s final performance I chatted briefly with Stuart Graham who played Con Doherty the local Fenian leader.

Anyone who has seen the film “Hunger” will have seen Stuart play the role of the prison officer who, on a daily basis, batters Blanketmen for a paycheque.

I told him that I had watched the film in the Irish Film Centre in the company of people who much better than me knew what it was to be a resident of the H-Blocks. They were of the opinion that Mr. Graham got the character perfect.

I passed that on.

It is fair to say that he left the interaction mildly delighted.

Unlike the stage there is no immediate feedback for a film actor. Moreover the film performer has no idea what will be changed in the editing suite.

An enthusiastic audience cheered the cast of “the Home Place” to the rafters.

A film actor has no such immediate feedback after “cut”.

Many of Con Doherty’s fraternity ended up in English dungeons. Like Bobby Sands they refused to accept their criminality.

Neither the Fenians in the 19^th century nor the Blanketmen of Long Kesh accepted that they were behaving in a criminal fashion.

I suspect that the verdict of history will be more important than the verdict of a judge without a jury.

The play had toured the four corners of the island and had ended the production in Brian Friel’s home place-Omagh.

The play is set in a big house of the British Raj in Ireland when Britain was actually was “Great”.

The play deals with the concept of home-the dual identity of the Anglo Irish.

Where is, for the lordly Gore family, is home?

They have been in the big house for 400 years, but have never married out into the “mere Irish”.

Set in the time of the Land War Friel also deals with the scientific racism of the Victorians towards the conquered people of the empire.

An excellent review of first production of the play in 2005 can be found here.

http://www.culturevulture.net/Theater/HomePlace.htm

On the first night we were unsure of how to get to the arts centre in Omagh and having negotiated the one way system several times we spotted a small sign pointing a walk thru to the centre.

I pulled into the side and parked. As I got out I looked up the street to the imposing building that makes the T-junction. It was then I realised that I had seen this vista before.

I had to be very close to where the Omagh car bomb had been left ticking more than ten years ago.

As we made out way to the centre I pulled my little one into my side-it was an instinctive act of protection.

“Who in their right mind” I thought “ would leave a car bomb here?”

The answer is, of course, no one.

One the way back on the Strabane road, just at the Newtown Stewart slip road two friendly PSNI officers were waving people through a roadblock.

The following night-at exactly the same spot-at around the same time they were there again.

I wondered if the battle hardened RUC would have committed such an error?

One both nights, despite being waved on, I stopped briefly and wished them well.

I fear they may need it.

The funeral of Stephen Paul Carroll, the police officer killed in Craigavon had yet to take place, as I drove back to Letterkenny thru the darkness.

Expelling Britain from this last corner of Ireland wasn’t worth his death.

It is certainly worth no more.

Let him be the last.

Britain is, of course, no longer “Great” no longer a world power. Even in the deluded worlds of the Daily Mail reading golf club chap in Surrey is Britain a major player on the world stage.

The historical period of “the Home Place” saw British troops take part in the first Afghan war.

They didn’t win that one either.

However Britain was then the world’s biggest economy and the planet’s only superpower.

Times change.

History takes a long time the colonial system that put the Gore family in the big house is now gone and gone forever. The backwash of Britain’s empire is still, of course, felt in the North.  Empires are messy things. They are constructed in a haphazard, violent fashion and they are de-constructed in much the same way.

The current situation in the North between native and settler is a messy squabble, but it is better than what has went before.

The concept of “home” and a sense of belonging is still a focus for conflict on this island. The work of the men and women of 1916 remains unfinished.

However, those two nights in Omagh allowed me time to consider that the final push to achieve Connolly’s Republic has no further need of a man like Con Doherty.

The following audio file is a Podcast Interview Phil done with Celtic Underground on 26th February.

[mp3]http://media.libsyn.com/media/celticunderground/cu36.mp3[/mp3]

Here is Celtic Underground’s introduction to the piece;

“A slight change in format this week in that we completely ignore the previous week’s game. Having endured it once was probably more than enough for you. It certain was for us. Instead this week Eddie Pearson is joined by Phil Mac Giolla Bhain, the noted Irish journalist who has worked tirelessly to shine a spotlight on the Famine Song and those that continue to sing it. We discuss Phil’s efforts to date, the reaction to the song in Ireland, Scotland and Europe. We look at the reaction from the Scottish Press to this song and we speculate about what will be required before we can consign this song to the dustbin of history. We also hear a cracking story about Jimmy Johnstone. Phil’s website can be found at www.philmacgiollabhain.com“

I have deliberately held back this blog until my anger subsided to the point that I could focus on what was important and relevant.

I had originally written a blog in response to the killings in Antrim.

Then two good young men lay dead.

Then came Craigavon.

Now three good men are dead who should be alive.

The people who planned and executed these operations clearly have a high degree of technical proficiency.

The security forces on both sides of the border are, as these words blink to life, hunting for them

I know where they reside.

I know where they are hiding.

They are inside a delusional bubble.

They know they are correct. The rest of us on this island are wrong, but they are right, damn right.

Damn them.

On this site there is a piece I wrote for Magill in 2002 after the first decommissioning event.

It is entitled “Ricochets of history.”

In article I detailed my own family’s history in the IRA during the War of Independence.

I remain hugely proud of the struggle that my family took part in.

Like most people in nationalist Ireland I consider cogadh na saoirse to have been just and worthwhile, but that was 1920.

Context is everything. Absolutely everything.

Only those in the hermetically sealed belief system of the nutter cannot see that.

Imperial Britain held my father’s Mayo as part of their first colony.

It was an Ireland where the people starved outside the walls of the big house.

For the most part the native people, where they could, resisted by peaceful means.

It is the county of Ireland that gave a new word to the English language.

The “Boycott”.

However there was, morally and justifiably, a place in the world for physical resistance.

Only the colonialist or the lackey could see it otherwise.

These days representatives, both civic and military, of the British government, attend the commemoration of the 1916 Easter Rising.

It is redolent of the cenotaph of Remembrance Sunday.

The ex-colonial power now pays homage to the insurgents of 1916 at the building where Padraig Pearse read out the Proclamation.

One of the classic processes of anti-separatist insurgency is the “asset to liability shift”.

The rationale is that the territory has been seized by the outside power for some benefit-perhaps raw materials, access to a port etc.

The insurgents, by their asymmetrical warfare, then turn that imperial asset into a colonial money pit and, perhaps, an embarrassment on the world stage.

Only a member of the Flat Earth Society (Marxist Leninist wing) could see Northern Ireland as anything other than a grotesque fiscal liability to the British state.

Among the mandarins of Whitehall the easiest way to get them gnashing their teeth, I am reliably informed by a fellow journalist in London, is to mention the problematic province to them.

Quite frankly the people who run the British state destest the place.

Asset?

Northern Ireland?

Yeah me neither.

Subsequently, there is nothing that these tiny delusional groups could do that would make Northern Ireland any more of a liability to Britain than it already is.

Finally the idea that nationalists in the North are in 2009 in any way “oppressed” by the local state is laughable.

This is 2009 not 1969.

Three good men are dead for no good reason.

Gunned down for no good reason whatsoever and that, dear reader, is murder.