The Irish right
The use of the term "right" here
is to have a way of referring to these people,
in the absence of a better term.
The left uses "right-wing" as a
pejorative term,
but obviously I do not regard it as such.
I would be happy to describe myself as
somewhere on the "classic liberal" right, for example.
I have elements of both left and right in my beliefs.
What this page is about is listing some of the
defenders of the West in Ireland
- the people who broadly support
the democracies
against the
non-democracies.
Whatever this makes them, it makes them not "left".
By "right" on this page I mean people that broadly support
the democracies
against the
non-democracies
- that
broadly support the West
against its enemies.
Not all the people
on this page could definitely
be called "right-wing".
In fact,
I'm not even necessarily "right-wing" myself.
But we need some term for these people, and for people like me.
|
- Alan Shatter (FG), Minister for Justice and Equality, Minister for Defence.
-
Government must find the courage to say we support forces fighting
tyranny,
28 March 2003,
The Irish Times
- "The Government did the right thing in resisting pressure to close Shannon
to US military planes. Having done so, it should have the courage to go a
step further and to clearly say that we side with the democracies in this
war and oppose tyranny."
- "In this State, we now have a Labour Party opposed to action to bring about
the fall of a tyrannical regime with an appalling record of human rights
violations; a Green Party willing to tolerate the continuation of a regime
which has not only developed but which has used biological and chemical
weapons and which could in the future facilitate their use by terrorist
groups; and, to cap it all, a Sinn Fein party opposed to the use of force
by everyone except its own private army."
- Charlie Flanagan (FG)
(see twitter),
Minister for Foreign Affairs.
-
Charlie Flanagan, Nov 2012,
criticises the Catholic "charity" Trocaire
for its anti-Israel campaign.
"It is my belief they are now engaged in a very partisan political campaign that is beyond their remit."
- He is quite different to his father
Oliver J. Flanagan,
who is famous for an anti-semitic speech in 1943 during the Holocaust.
-
Charlie Flanagan, Aug 2013:
"Israel has been demonised by an Irish media slavishly dancing to the Palestinian drumbeat for decades [yet] Israel has a far better and more progressive record on human rights than any of its neighbours."
-
Great news: Charlie Flanagan becomes Minister for Foreign Affairs, July 2014.
After
Brian Cowen, Dermot Ahern and Micheal Martin,
at last someone better.
A glimpse of a world where Ireland has a decent foreign policy.
- Mary Harney
-
Speech, 21st February, 2003
(and discussion)
- "For a long time, there were crude anti-British attitudes in Ireland that got us nowhere.
Now we see the stoking up of anti-American attitudes.
...
The extreme left in Ireland has always been virulently anti-American"
- Avril Doyle's speech on neutrality
is impressive for its all too rare (in Ireland)
scepticism about the UN
as the source of all moral legitimacy:
- "There are some ..
who make out that NATO
is the bogeyman of the world and that the United Nations
is the panacea to our global ills. However, if we are to be a truly independent and neutral country
.. then we cannot allow the veto of one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council
to prevent Ireland from participating in EU missions if we believe that they are appropriate,
necessary and in accordance with the principles of the UN Charter.
What I'm saying is that Irish foreign policy decisions do not and should not
require the agreement of Moscow or Beijing."
-
Senator Feargal Quinn
talks some rare sense on Israel in the Seanad,
in contrast to the usual mob of anti-Israel extremists like David Norris.
- Gay Mitchell
speaks out about the
persecution of Christians
in the Islamic world.
- A rare example of a western politician caring about this
untrendy issue.
- The late
Conor Cruise O'Brien
took a tough line on Islam and jihad.
He seemed to know more about Islam than all Irish intellectuals put together.
-
Conor Cruise O'Brien, 12 Aug 1994:
"There is no distinction, in Islam, between the spheres of religion and politics ... For infidels to seek 'harmony' with Islam is an illusion. The only way of attaining harmony with Islam is by conversion."
-
Conor Cruise O'Brien, 6 Jan 1995:
""Fundamentalist Islam" is a misnomer which dulls our perceptions in a dangerous way. It does so by implying that there is some other kind of Islam, which is well disposed to those who reject the Koran. There isn't.
Islam is a universalist, triumphalist and political religion. It claims de jure dominion over all humanity; that is God's will.
...
What is going on today in the Muslim world is not the advent of some aberrant thing called Islamic fundamentalism but a revival of Islam itself - the real thing - which Western ascendancy and Westernised post-Muslim elites no longer have the capacity to muffle and control. The jihad is back.
...
The Prophet Mohamed did not offer his followers a chance to live in harmony with their neighbours. He taught them to fight their neighbours, if they were unbelievers, and kill them or beat them into submission. And it is futile to say of those Muslims who faithfully follow those teachings today that their actions are "not intrinsically related to Islam"."
- Who would I vote for?
It is sad to see people who see left-wing nonsense on economics and crime for what it is,
and then
sign up to left-wing nonsense on foreign policy.
- Michael McDowell, Minister for Justice 2002-2007,
provided leadership and moral clarity on terrorism and crime.
- But here he is in Jan 2018 supporting a boycott of goods from Israeli settlements.
Very sad to see him signed up with the Marxists and the Shinners.
I thought he was better than that.
- Rambling article in 2017
where McDowell, a leading opponent of terror in Ireland,
is concerned about any moves against the terrorist state of Iran
and its terrorist proxies Hezbollah.
He is a big fan of the useless Irish
UNIFIL mission.
His no.1 concern is that Hezbollah are not attacked.
It is bizarre to see, from a man who stood against terror in his own country.
- Michael McDowell bashing Israel, 27 Jan 2019.
He opposes the 0.6 million Jews who live in the West Bank.
He says the West Bank
"is properly described as occupied and, as a matter of international law, cannot lawfully be settled or annexed."
So he proposes a boycott of the Jews who live in the West Bank.
And this will achieve, um, something.
-
Michael McDowell, 21 July 2019, describes the radical left anti-Israel Democrats known as
"The Squad"
as:
"brave, outspoken and often insightful about the injustices, economic and social, in today's America."
McDowell
says he is:
"someone who took great joy in the election of Barack Obama".
Oh dear.
I'm not sure McDowell is "right-wing" at all.
-
Trump is a moral monster and a danger to humanity, hysterical article by Michael McDowell, 9 Sept 2020.
Sure, there are lots of bad things about Trump.
But Trump has just brought a
historic peace in the Middle East,
a real thaw in the cold war between Israel and the rich Sunni Gulf states,
and it is not even mentioned in this article.
-
Michael McDowell, 31 July 2024, calls Israel's war against Hamas
"a genocidal campaign of death and destruction"
and
"a crime against humanity",
like he is any other bog standard Irish leftist.
- Michael McDowell, 4 Sept 2024,
at a "Campaign to Pass the Occupied Territories Bill" event.
Just hanging out with Frances Black like any other anti-Israel Marxist.
- Shane Ross
is pro-market on the economy.
But runs with the leftists on other issues.
- Shane Ross, 1 June 2013, tweets about a softball RTE interview with fanatic
Richard Boyd Barrett.
Ross says:
"Great interview with Richard Boyd Barrett on Marian Finucane now. A leftie but a good leftie!"
- I replied:
"A guy who supports jihad in Israel and Iraq is a "good" leftie??
Are there any bad lefties in your world?"
-
Shane Ross supports boycott of goods from Israeli settlements, Jan 2019.
Though in the end he was persuaded by his government partners to abstain.
- Tom Cooney
-
Constantin Gurdgiev
-
Rory Miller
-
The Israel-Nazi Slander in Historical Context
- on the modern left-wing Holocaust denial:
-
"Israeli actions in the Occupied Territories have no relation to the horrors carried out by Germany
during the Nazi occupation of Europe
...
If you doubt this ask yourself the following questions: would it have been possible for Jewish schools
in German-occupied Holland, Poland, Hungary and numerous other countries, to indoctrinate their students
with the most outlandish anti-German propaganda and incitement?
Would these same school children fresh from their brainwashing classes have been free to enroll,
in the glare of the world's media, in summer camps dedicated to training a new generation of anti-German guerillas?
Would their religious and secular leaders have been able to go on their own TV channels
and call their occupiers the "sons of monkeys" with impunity?"
- Richard Aldous
- Sunday Independent
- Irish Independent
- Irish Times
- Formerly -
Kevin Myers
- Formerly -
Mark Steyn (syndicated)
- Formerly -
Charles Krauthammer (syndicated)
- Formerly - Tony Allwright
- The Irish Times
has become a left-wing echo chamber in recent years.
It was not always like this.
Though always spinning its news to the left,
it used to have a bit of diversity in opinion.
But that is now gone.
It used to have a syndicated column from the right.
But now it has syndicated columns only from left-wing partisans like
Maureen Dowd and
Garrison Keillor.
The Irish Times now has an extreme lack of diversity.
There is not much reason for any centre-right person to buy it.
- Sunday Times
- Sunday Tribune
- Magill
- The Irish Daily Mail
- The Observer
- Henry McDonald
-
Silence the bleating Left
- He predicted in Sept 2001 that
"Like the IRA in the Second World War who supported Hitler, the Irish
Left through its sullen paranoiac anti-Americanism will soon find itself
today objectively siding with theocratic fascists who throw acid in
women's faces just because they want to go to work or be educated."
And he was right.
To many people's surprise, the left did side with fascism.
-
Killer peaceniks
- on the "anti-war" marches in Ireland.
"Barbara Pym"
A bizarre exchange that I had in Apr 2020 with
"Barbara Pym",
an anti-IRA account.
"Barbara Pym" was anti-IRA, but
blocked me for being anti-communist.
What a strange mixture.
Even more bizarre, in May 2021 it was revealed that the apparently sensible
Eoghan Harris
was behind the "Barbara Pym" account.
-
Despite my years of service to the anti-IRA cause,
Eoghan Harris
blocked me for being anti-communist??
- Nothing is clear.
Harris said on RTE that 5 or 6 people were operating the "Barbara Pym" account.
So maybe one of them blocked me.
-
But then he writes in a letter
to the Irish Times
as if he is "Barbara Pym"
and no one else was.
Nothing is clear.
- His use of Twitter was idiotic:
"One of the reasons I used a pseudonym was because my own name would filter how my tweets were received. I wanted to be read with an open mind."
- Ridiculous idea.
Harris would have got 10 times the audience on Twitter if he used his own name.
Instead he damaged his good name with this anonymous crap
and this stupid behaviour.
I prefer Ian O'Doherty when he is being
serious,
rather than when he is trying to be funny.
- Ian O'Doherty
-
When he is serious, and talks about atheism, Islam and religion, he can be very good:
-
Why the Israeli people have finally had enough, January 5, 2009:
"But there's a bigger picture here, something which Israelis have been trying to broadcast to the world, but which, thanks to their spectacular inability to accurately and sympathetically portray their point of view, has not been properly transmitted. It's this - Israel is the front line of the war between democracy and Islamic fascism."
- But he also writes some bad stuff, especially when he's trying to be funny:
- In this 2010 article:
Well, they do call it tough love, February 9, 2010,
he laughs at the most brutal
child abuse
of a 4 year old girl,
and (for comic effect) congratulates the abuser.
-
It's an especially emotional story because the girl has a grandmother who loves her.
See here
and here
and here.
"She wanted to go back to [her grandmother].
When we let her talk to [her grandmother on the phone] she was so excited she was crying."
- I wrote a
letter to the editor, 9 Feb 2010, complaining about this piece.
It was not published.
-
Update:
The father went to prison.
His military career is probably over.
The loving grandmother got custody.
The little child suffers from recurring nightmares about her father, and possibly permanent hearing loss
from being beaten by him.
O'Doherty made a terribly bad call here.
- I link to
other things O'Doherty has written.
George Dempsey, former US diplomat in Ireland,
is a good critic of the Irish left.
- RTE
"Questions and Answers",
17th Sept 2001
and broken
- This program is Ireland in a nutshell.
The American
George Dempsey is the lone voice of reason, logic and evidence.
The Irish audience are brainwashed with the Irish media's view of the world.
Despite the existence now of the Internet,
they make no attempt to read
foreign views - such as the neo-con or the Israeli views.
The Irish panel is little better.
Garret Fitzgerald's hostility to Israel.
Brian Cowen's tolerance of Arafat,
and endless waffle about the primacy of the UN.
Sean Donlon's utter lack of understanding of
the cause of Islamist terror.
- And nobody on the show - not even Dempsey
- utters the most basic truth:
that this is the start of a war against
Islamism.
-
From the Embassy: A US Foreign Policy Primer,
George Dempsey,
2004.
- It's America's War,
by David Gelernter, attacks the Irish Times
for one of its typical anti-American headlines:
- "The moment we saw those pictures [of prisoner abuse]
we knew (every last American knew) that
the punch in the gut is on the way.
People who never cared a damn what Saddam did
to his prisoners would be choking back tears of outrage.
... We could all anticipate headlines like the one that appeared in the May 8 Irish Times:
"The shaming of America. George Bush's boast of shutting down Saddam Hussein's torture chambers
in Iraq rings hollow now.""
- "The hell it does. Anyone who equates Saddam's bloody decades of torture and mass murder to the crimes at Abu Ghraib is the same kind of fool who once preached
the moral equivalence of America and Soviet Russia,
or of America in Vietnam and Hitlerism.
Imbecility is eternal, perpetually reincarnated."
- One of George Dempsey's main points can be parodied as
"The Irish Times and RTE are to blame for 9/11":
-
The majority of Americans agree with Dempsey and me.
71 percent of Americans agreed that negative media reporting in Iraq damages troop morale.
60 percent agreed that negative media coverage
damages prospects for success in Iraq because it encourages terrorists.
What should someone who is centre-right on foreign policy
(anti-jihad, anti-sharia, pro-West, pro-Israel)
read in Ireland?
Pro-West media in Ireland
The Irish media's lowest moment: The
Irish presidential election, 2011.
The Irish media failed to vet the winning candidate
Michael D. Higgins.
If you're confused as to who am I like,
I'm like these people:
Return to
The modern right.