Martin Meenagh blog

War Songs No reason.

The Half a Million March I happened to be at St Pancras yesterday, beneath its beautiful roof, heading out as the trains carrying protestors moved in. It is my favourite railway station in this hemisphere, as I like Grand Central and Union station more, and the Gare du Nord and Venezia only slightly less. The atmosphere was far less angry than people had a right to be, given how comprehensively shafted the country is; I saw families, fathers and children, and people of all ages, heading towards central London. I suppose that this is the point where one normally slips some mealy-mouthed condemnation of anarchists and troublemakers and the mob into the mix. This I find curious. On the one hand, people who think of themselves as radicals and democrats seem to believe that any movement at any time which resulted in change in the common law countries was peaceful and nothing to do with the 'thugs'. On the other, those who eagerly embrace police violence and who have fevered fantasie...

For My Aunt Patrick Mulvey has this up on his site, and I loved it, so, with a hat tip to him (and a cheeky change to the other Paddy Reilly) here's Come home Paddy Reilly to Ballyjamesduff . Lovely tune, that.

Chilean Readers Get Their Papers Quicker Though Goodness knows how. Courtesy of Martin in the Margins on Facebook, here is a bicycle race 'with a difference' from Chile which I have been cheered up on a long day by. VCA 2010 RACE RUN from changoman on Vimeo .

So I held to the Cross, after all.... I despise war. I think that, in a fallen world, people must sadly prepare for it, but only to keep out. Like many, I wish that people of reason and strength would not embrace it, but human beings are flawed and some want the badness and some want to fight it. Indeed, there are times when men must fight. Just not for the sake of it, or all at once. Many of my instinctive rejections of what is going on in Libya right now are, probably, illegitimate. The bombs which we are using cost a great deal, and the aeroplanes we are using to drop them on the sons of others cost more. A raid with stormshadows using three laden aeroplanes yesterday, as far as I can gauge, cost as much as a small hospital. But it is no objection to war to point to the cost of murdering others as the reason not to do it. Money is very rarely the measure of anything, and certainly not the reason to allow those brave rebels their death. Human history is a tale of badness. To embrace ...

A Nephew on St Patrick's Day My lovely little sister has gone to the hospital to have a baby on St Patrick's Day. Good luck in there Katie. Here's a song from Grandad, who is no doubt watchingxxx

Since I have been away.... The government here has been trying to involve itself in an Arab civil war without the troops, or weapons, or means , and armchair generals have touted a 'no-fly' zone without quite understanding what that means about preliminary strikes on air defences and over 500 Libyan aircraft ; a weird 'common law' rebellion against Magistrates' Courts has got going in the North West; a New Jersey politician has beaten a supercomputer (I wonder how George Cayley would have done); a new form of social security which will necessitate taxmen in everyone's bank account has been brought in; an Irish businessman has decided that democracy as it has been conceived is dead (and Eamon Gilmore has thrown away the chance to lead a genuine Irish opposition, which means that Fianna Fail will come back, insh'allah); and Egyptians have started behaving like Romans. It is funny how Americans since Dallas, or Ike, have been Praetorian, but Muslims across ...