Ooh Aah, Up the Ra!

Uproar over a chorus of “Ooh Aah, Up the Ra!” in the Belfast Feile
Cue the latest in Unionist/DUP/Do-Gooder attempts at censoring what bands play and what 10,000 people sing along to.
For those of you who missed it, here is what they objected to – the chorus of the Celtic Symphony that was written by Wolfe Tone’s lead singer and songwriter, historian Brian Warfield, in 1987 for the centennial of Celtic Football Club
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMjr5Z8m_F0

The chorus of one song in a concert that lasted for hours and featured other bands. Doors opened at 3pm and the Wolfe Tones didn’t get on stage until 10pm

If Unionists/Loyalists and Do-Gooders get their way in their calls to “End all funding for the Feile”unless the content is approved by them, Nationalist/Republican freedom of expression will be censored this year and the next, one song after the other.

NI will be back in the 1920s-1970s when you could be jailed or interned for waving a tricolour, meeting in groups of more than 3, singing Amhrán na bhFiann or any other “rebel” song.

The Wolfe Tones called the uproar right in designating it as Unionist “crankiness”.
Synonyms of cranky are:disagreeable, irritable, malevolent, ill-natured,captious,peevish,cantankerous,

Comment: Not one admirable trait in there!

Unionist/Loyalist crankiness is wearying, day in, day out.

Their nit-picking amounts to permanent objections to whatever Nationalists/Republicans do in NI
If it isn’t a funeral, it’s a song.
If it isn’t a song, it’s a mural.
if it isn’t a mural, it’s something somebody said
If it isn’t something somebody said, it’s something somebody might have thought!

Time to stop putting up with it!

Once and for all

Comment: There are no Croppies to lie down any more.There are no chocolates in Unionist boxes anymore
And there are no Diamonds in their Minds

UPDATE 18/8/2022: Potential Job Loss

Girl, understood to be from the Lurgan area, who sang ‘ooh ah up the ‘Ra’ at Feile na Phobail was suspended from her job at top NI car dealer the Agnew Group, pending further investigation. She was identified on a video from among 10,000 concert-goers.

Query: Are all 10,000 threatened with job losses?

Inquiring minds need to know!

Update 23/8/2022

Footballer John Herron has lost his job

Larne FC suspended Herron, formerly from Celtic FC, after photos appeared online that appeared to show him wearing a T-shirt with pro-IRA slogan when he was attending the concert at Feile. The T-shirt design referred to his old club and to the Celtic Symphony which was written to celebrate its centennial.

John Herron’s contract with Larne FC has now been terminated.

Payback time for the DUP

 Today, hardline Brexiteers in the ERG (a Conservative party group who will use anything and anyone, no matter what ensues, to fulfil their Britannia Unchained fantasies and ideology) and their henchmen and women in the DUP  had  their demands satisfied. They warmly welcomed the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill to Westminster parliament.

It shows that:

• the European court of justice will not have a role in Northern Ireland

• a green/red lane  set-up i.e. no checks on goods from Great Britain to Northern Ireland; checks for those going to the Republic of Ireland

Query:  What does a lorry with a mixed load do? Which lane does it use? British? Irish? Both?

• the NIP has no effect in the UK

• UK ministers reserve powers to override other parts of the NIP (and presumably any other International Treaty) if they deem it necessary.

Remember: 1) domestic legislation cannot overrule an international treaty – it if could, no government in its right mind would ever sign one.

2) Any attempt to vary the provisions NI Protocol by use of UK law is illegal as it violates  Article 27 of the Vienna Treaty governing Treaties. A party may not invoke the provisions of its internal law as justification for its failure to perform a treaty. This rule is without prejudice to article 46.

Back in 2017 the DUP negotiated a £1 billion“Confidence and Supply” agreement, as brokered by Jacob Rees-Mogg of the ERG, to prop up PM May’s minority government.Mutual interests converged and the deal was done.

True to their supremacist instincts and desire to wield power, the DUP and NI Unionism in general have carried on pushing with the ERG for the hardest of hard Brexits ever since.

The NIP blocked Unionism’s drive to conserve power and hegemony i.e.  Unionist /Orange Order leadership or dominance over all others, in NI.  The border shifted to the Irish Sea, thus subverting their place in the UK. NI remained in the Single market and Customs Union, thus  potentially subverting their unfettered power in NI.

Add in the SF victory in the May 2022 Local Assembly  elections, coming top in the number of seats, flanked by the constitutionally neutral Alliance Party of Northern Ireland. The only surprise was how long it took for the UK Government to prepare its long-announced NIP Bill to redress Unionism’s “manufactured grievances”.

Minister for Foreign Affairs and the EU, Liz Truss said the government is basing its move on the “doctrine of necessity,” saying it has no choice but to act.

The UK government’s “doctrine of necessity”  means the necessity of Johnson keeping his job by placating the ERG and DUP.

It means the necessity  for the ERG and DUP to lie,  cheat,  break the law, anything, to gain power and keep hold of it.

Remember: Legally, necessity rarely excuses a breach, and only when (inter alia) the State’s act is the only way to safeguard an essential interest against a grave and imminent peril, and when no other essential interest is seriously impaired by the breach

Well Unionism would say their essential interest in NI was in grave and imminent peril, wouldn’t they? Because it is, isn’t it?

 If the UK Govt  hadn’t acted to prop up Unionism in NI, they were facing a SF administration in Northern Ireland, further loss of Unionist supremacy and a probable SF administration in Dublin within a couple of years.

Which certainly wouldn’t suit the Minister for the Union, PM Boris Johnson himself.

Or the DUP which has no intention of ever playing “bridesmaid” to Sinn Fein in Stormont