The Blindboy Podcast - The Return to Yurty Ahernes couch

Episode Date: November 1, 2023

I return to Yurty Aherne's couch. I also speak about the intertwining histories of Ireland and Palestine Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sweep the treacle from the sequined bedsheets, you spongy Michaels. Welcome to the Blind By Podcast. I'm recording this episode on Halloween night in the middle of Limerick City Centre. So you may hear the tortured and violent engines of stolen cars, black cat bangers, Roman candles and police sirens. I've done my best to put a limiter on my microphone and to soundproof the windows, but there may be unintentional cacophony, which hopefully won't interfere with your podcast hug. If this is your first one of my podcasts, please consider going back to an

earlier episode to familiarise yourself with the lore of this podcast. Speaking about the lore of this podcast, last week's episode was the sixth year anniversary of this podcast. Recently I took a cycle down to an area in Limerick that I used to mention an awful lot in the earlier episodes of this podcast. An area called Yarty's Couch in Limerick City. From about 2014 to 2018 I used to go to this area every single day on my bicycle to meditate. It's a little man-made beach, a small little area of sand on the Shannon River surrounded by trees. One of the most beautiful places in Limerick City. And I used to go there to meditate. I used to cycle down there with my bicycle, put my bicycle on its side and use the wheel as a seat, close my eyes and meditate for like 20 minutes. And I used to do it every single

day. It didn't matter what the weather was. when it was raining I'd meditate in the rain if it was freezing cold I'd meditate and the point of the meditation is to simply notice to notice that it's pissing rain to notice that it's freezing cold to notice that it's too hot

to notice that I'd rather be dry that I'd rather be warm and to sit with that discomfort and focus on it until I achieve an otherworldly sense of peace. And that's why I used to meditate down there. Of course, I had to stop meditating down there when I started mentioning it on this podcast, because the area of Yorty's Couch also happens to be at the back of the University of Limerick. And I had to stop meditating there because a lot of students were listening to my podcast. And then one day in like, I think it was like 2017 or early 2018, I was down there meditating.

And then I just heard a bunch of students behind me going, well, that must be blind boy without his bag meditating. And then they came down to talk to me and I ran away. I ran off into a bush. I had to come back and get my bike later. But I had to stop meditating there, because of that, I'd fucked it up for myself, so I couldn't return to Yarty's couch, a couple of weeks back, I went back to Yarty's couch, I'm like, look, six years have passed, I doubt anyone's hanging around, hoping to catch blind

by meditating without his bag, but I went back there because I don't think the podcast would exist without that three or four years of meditation that I did every day in Yorty's couch. That meditation brought me closer to my true creative voice and it moved me away from the rubber bandits and singing songs about fingering people at weddings. It helped me to find my creative voice and to move towards doing something that I actually enjoy. And while I was there, it brought me back to very special moments I had meditating by that riverbed. The most profound moment I had there, and I've spoken about it before, I had a very intense meditation experience there in about 2016, where I experienced

something kind of similar to how people describe taking ayahuasca. Obviously not as intense, but I opened my eyes to come out of meditation meditation and the first thing I saw was a nettle and I experienced a kind of cosmic empathy with this nettle. For a split second I felt a type of love for a nettle that you'd feel for a sibling, a member of your own family. And I felt this real deep certainty that me and that nettle were one and the same. Like the universe had revealed the great secret of existence to me, that everything is about a oneness and a connection. I know that sounds mad. I'm fully aware when I say that to you. I know that's mental. He went down to the back of the University of Limerick and achieved oneness with a nettle. I'm fully aware how mad that is.

But it happened and it felt fantastic. And I remember it with great fondness. So I don't give a shit how mental it is to be honest. Because it felt wonderful. And it was a peak experience of meditation. Like I love meditating, but sometimes I fall off the wagon and I'll go weeks or months without meditating regularly. And when I want to get back into meditation, I think of that moment with the nettle. I felt a feeling of love and empathy

and happiness and joy and wonder that you'd associate more with taking drugs that you'd associate with taking ecstasy but there was no drugs and there was no comedown what had really happened there is skillful practiced meditation had allowed me to experience the full wonder of simply being alive. The literal exact opposite of feeling insecure or feeling anxious or having excessive amounts of anger or feeling depressed. The opposite of envy or jealousy. The opposite of trying to control the present because you're worried about the future or fixating on things that have happened in the past which when you experience mental health issues that's kind of

how you are you're worried about the future you're focusing on the past and you're never truly present the literal opposite feeling of having mental health issues i got that when i achieved spiritual communion with with atle. I know how eccentric that sounds but I don't give a fuck because it's not harming anybody. It's not harming another person and it's not harming myself so I don't have a problem saying that out loud. Another quite profound experience I had in Yorty's couch while I was meditating. I was sitting there by the riverbed as close to the water as I could get with my eyes closed.

And it's a lovely shallow part of the Shannon River. So the swoosh of the water sounds so wonderfully trickly and gentle. And I opened my eyes and directly across the river amongst the reeds for like a split second like a millisecond I saw my dead father now before again I'm not being mental I'm not being mad I'm not trying

to say to you I literally saw the ghost of my dad there down by the river when I was meditating nothing supernatural happened I didn't see a ghost meditation is a very unique state of mind and it can get quite dreamlike but a very focused and aware awake type of dream state and sometimes like when you wake up from a dream where the dream world and reality can blur a little bit or you might get confused between what's the dream and what's reality that little state between dreaming and waking up sometimes you can get a little bit of that experience with meditating and one day I was meditating by that river I opened my eyes and for a split second I just saw my da from behind my da who I hadn't seen in 10 fucking years I saw my da from behind for a quarter of a second

and I got this huge feeling of love and the words I'm okay came into my head. And it meant an awful lot to me in the moment. I felt like I was letting go of grief. And again, just so, a disclaimer, so I don't sound fucking mad. Like what happened there was, through meditation, I had gotten to such a calm, safe state of emotional regulation. I had gotten so calm and safe within my emotions. That very, very painful grief from my father's sudden death. Pain that was locked away.

That pain bubbled up and released like a tense muscle relaxing during a massage. Deep, painful, tough emotions that I couldn't access in a conscious state, the type of things that fuel dreams. That pain bubbled up and left me and I experienced it as quite a beautiful feeling of letting go of grief and visually for a flicker of a second I saw my dad that's how my brain decided to communicate that to me and I don't need to think about that in any supernatural way I didn't come away from that going oh my god I think I saw my dad's ghost I don don't really believe in that shit, but it doesn't matter. What matters is that it had quite profound meaning for me in the moment and I genuinely let go of grief. And that's why I'm meditating.

I meditate to experience a real calm type of inner safety which then allows me to be emotionally literate and that experience there is also it's a good opportunity to always say meditation isn't for everybody some people some people could be harboring trauma or quite painful memories and sometimes meditation can bring that up and people aren't ready for it. Also, meditation can bring up bodily trauma in people. So meditation isn't for everybody. But the reason I called this area in Limerick Yorty's Couch is because one day I was meditating there and it was a beautiful autumn evening.

I think it was early October. It was about seven o'clock in the evening and the sun was going down and it was fucking blood orange sun and the ripples of the water looked like fire and I opened my eyes from meditation and I saw the silhouette of an otter playfully jumping on the banks of the river. And I'd never seen an otter before. I didn't even know there were otters in Limerick City. And I felt so privileged to be watching this otter just pouncing around and having crack. And one of the beautiful things about the first few minutes when you come out of meditation

is those first few minutes when you come out of meditation, you're very, very calm and still and observant. And you experience time in the present moment. And that otter jumped around for maybe 15 seconds, but it felt like 20 minutes because I was fully present in the moment. And in that moment, I named the otter Yartia Hearn. The name just came to me. And I watched him jump into the water as his little head bobbed above the meniscus of the water and it made me think about the model of the human mind in accordance with psychodynamic psychology, Freudian psychology. The otter's head became the human conscious mind, the things we can think of right now and immediately recall.

The otter's shoulders became our pre-conscious mind, Memories that we're not thinking of right now, that we can recall. And then the otter's body, which was underneath the water, the largest part of the otter's body, that was the deep human unconscious mind, where all our fears are, where dreams come from. And then the river that the otter was swimming in, that became the collective unconscious, the collective unconscious human mind. Carl Jung's theory that all humans share a collective unconscious mind. And that whole story there, it became my first proper podcast. It was like my fifth podcast episode from 2017. And the episode is called Yarty a Harn from November 2017. And that episode is always pure special to me

because for me, that's when the podcast found its tone. I remember at the time going, you can't do a fucking podcast about seeing an otter and then how this otter's fucking body reminded you of the human unconscious mind. You can't do that. That's too mad. And then I said, fuck it. Do it. What's the worst that can happen? No one will listen to it. Who cares? Fucking do it if it feels right. And I did. And people really enjoyed it. And then the author, Yorty Hearn,

became part of the lore of this podcast. And people would send me paintings of Yorty Hearn and drawings of Yorty Hearn. and I called the area where I meditated Yarty's couch because the area where an otter lives is known as its couch. Otters have quite complex kind of living situations and from the way I saw that otter frolic I kind of said fuck it this place must be this otter's couch. So this is Yorty's couch. So when I went there a couple of weeks back to revisit that area, to sit down at my bicycle and meditate. Afterwards, for whatever reason, I took out my phone and I had to go onto Google Maps.

And I noticed when I was using Google Maps at my actual location, it said Yorty's couch using Google Maps. At my actual location it said Yarty's Couch on Google Maps and I was like what the fuck? How does Google Maps know that this place is called Yarty's Couch? What's going on here? And what appears to have happened is people who listened to this podcast who wanted to go and visit Yarty's C I'd placed it into Google Maps for other people to find it and I thought that was just fucking incredible. I loved it and I tell you why I loved it, because it reminded me of Irish mythology and folklore. Like when I told the story of Yorty Arn six years ago or whatever it was in this podcast. That was just

what I wanted to talk about that week. The otter was a nice, fun, enjoyable storytelling device to speak about the human unconscious mind. But something about that story was enjoyable enough and memorable enough for some people to go, I want to visit where that otter lives and I want to put it into Google Maps for other people who want to visit. And that's how mythology emerges in an oral culture. In the absence of maps or the written word, the most interesting story will emerge about the landscape and people tell this story and it works as a little map, as a placeholder, as a history of the land. Like for example, if you were to take a boat from Yarty's Couch and just go a little bit up river, about a half an hour, you reach a huge lake called Loch Darg.

Now why is this called Loch Darg? It's called Lough Darg because the name derives from the Dagda. The Dagda in Irish mythology was a member of the Tuatha Dé Danann. The Dagda is a little bit like the Irish version of Zeus and the Tuatha Dé Danann are like in Irish mythology are a magical race or one of the first people on the island of Ireland. The Tuatha Dé Danann, this magical race of gods, were beaten by mortals and they got banished to the other world and became the fairies and ironically tonight on Halloween night the Tuatha Dé Danann are allowed to walk the earth for one night only as Pócha and fairies.

And all those teenagers now out in Limerick City right now who are out in the streets robbing cars, setting things on fire, putting off fireworks. This Halloween tradition. They don't know it. But what they're doing is they're trying to scare off the Tuatha Dé Danann. Because tonight they're free from the other world and they can walk the earth. That's Halloween, that's Samhain in Irish mythology. I spoke about them in detail about three podcasts ago, in a podcast called Irish Mythology and Simulation Theory.

But Lach Darg, about a half an hour on a boat up from Yorty's Couch, Lach Darg is named after the Dagda. So what that can half tell us is Lach Darg is associated with people who lived there a long, long, long time ago. I'm talking thousands of years ago. But in Lach Darg there's a cave and this cave is called Fintan's Grave. Now who is Fintan? and this cave is called Fintan's grave. Now who is Fintan? Fintan in Irish mythology belongs to the first ever ever group of people to come to Ireland

before the Tuatha Dé Danann, before the Dagda. Fintan Macbóchra or Fintan the wise was considered like a seer, a poet, a learned person. And Irish mythology starts with flood mythology. So the story goes, now this has been changed a little bit because of Christianity, but the story goes that when Noah, right, Noah from the Bible, was building his ark for the big flood that God was putting on the earth to punish the wicked, in Irish mythology, Noah had a granddaughter called Césair. And Noah said to Césair, Here, God is going to do a flood.

Why don't you fuck off somewhere before the flood happens? So Césair took a small group of people, they got on a boat before the flood happened and went to the most western part of the world which was Ireland and then they settled in Ireland the followers of Cessair and Fintan was on this boat but eventually God's flood did arrive in Ireland but Cessair and Fintan and other people on their boat they had a bit of a head start but the floodwaters still arrived in Ireland and a lot of them drowned except for Fintan because what Fintan did is he turned into a salmon and he found a little cave

in Loch Darg and he stayed there for a thousand years until the floodwaters went back down and then the sea level went down and Fintan shape-shifted back into being a human. But also, Fintan most likely became the Salmon of Knowledge. Now that's the bit we can't be sure of, but the Salmon of Knowledge in Irish mythology, the mythological salmon that whoever catches it and eats it gains all the wisdom of the world, that salmon's name was also Fintan so it's most likely that Fintan who came here with Noah's flood also became the salmon of knowledge because he could shapeshift into being a salmon. But the point I'm making is that in Lockdark half an hour's boat

right up from Muirty's couch is Fintan's grave. It's not just a cave in a lake. It's the site where the first ever humans came to Ireland and one of them turned into a salmon to wait out Noah's flood. But what I find fascinating about that is here we have a piece of mythology about a cave that's related specifically to the first ever people that came to Ireland. So most likely that story is very, very, very old. Thousands and thousands of years old. Something that's very special about the area between Loch Derg, Fintan's grave and Yorty's couch. And we're talking about a small distance here.

If you got in a boat on Yorty's couch, within between 15 minutes and a half an hour, you will be in Lock Dark. So in that small stretch of river between those two areas, on the banks of the river there, about 15 years ago, they found an ancient burial site that's 9,000 years old. 9,000 years old. And they found a ceremonial axe that's the oldest axe in Europe. And they found this right there on the river, on the riverbed in an area called Castle Connell, between Yorty's Couch and Loch Derg. And this is what I find fucking fascinating. So here you have in that area concrete proof, right, scientific proof of a 9,000 year old axe head. That means humans were living there 9,000 years ago. And then 15

minutes away you've got a lake with a cave about a shape-shifting person who comes from the first ever people that arrived in Ireland. And the entire theme of this story is about a person being able to turn into a salmon because there's a gigantic flood. Guess what else was happening in Ireland between 9 and 10,000 years ago? The ice caps were literally melting because of the ice age. Ireland for about 30,000 years, A huge amount of Ireland was covered by what was called the British Irish Ice Sheet and between roughly 15,000 and 6,000 years ago there was massive flooding known as glacial pulses when all this ice melted. So the people who left those stone axes there in the

burial site near Yartley's Couch 9,000 years ago, which we only found 15 years ago, those people that were definitely there, because we know how old the axe is, those people most likely experienced the glacial flooding of the Ice Age, and then 15 minutes up the river, there's a fucking, a lake named after the Dagda the Tuatha Dé Danann and then a fucking cave

about a magical fish that's escaping a flood from the first ever people coming to Ireland 15 minutes up the fucking river I think I think the name of that lake I think the name of that cave

the stories around that area are telling us stories that could be 10,000 years old all about flood mythology in Ireland and there's your fucking stone axe right there near Yarty's couch there's your stone axe that's 9,000 years old to show that yes people were there and we may still have the stories they told and the lives they experienced passed down through the names of the lakes and caves and that's why last week when I when I went to your T's couch and sat down and pulled open

Google Maps to see that someone else had had inputted that this area is to be called your T's couch I got very. Tears came up in me. It felt spiritual because the thing is, no one planned that. It happened organically. I had been meditating in this area for about three years to the point that I was experiencing empathy for a nettle. to the point that I was experiencing empathy for a nettle. And then one day, this otter emerges, and I was so calm and present with the environment that the flow state came upon me, and I called him Yarty Horn,

and he reminded me of the human unconscious mind, and it felt like I didn't write that story about the otter. The landscape wrote it for me, and then I told the story orally via this podcast. And it was entertaining enough and memorable enough for people to want to visit that area because of the story. And then for someone to literally change the name of the area on Google Maps. And it felt very special to me because it was organic.

Completely and utterly unplanned. The story that I felt the landscape and the animals told me was enough for other humans to agree upon it as being the appropriate name for that little small area of the river. And that's folklore folklore that's mythology it means that Yarty Hearn the otter entered a little piece of mythology and folklore there and one of the things about Yarty's Couch the actual literal area in Limerick so I've been going there for for 10 years and I can literally with my eyes, I can go into my fucking phone.

I've had an iPhone since 2011. I can go into my phone and I can look at photographs of that area that I take from 2014 and I can see the erosion each year that's happening to the sand and the soil because of global warming. That area doesn't look the way it looked 10 years ago. Each year you lose a couple of inches of soil. Each year a storm happens and blows down a tree that's 200 years old. To visit Yarty's couch the way that I visit it continually is to see the water levels rising and I thought to myself, fucking imagine in a hundred years.

No one knows what a podcast is. No one knows who the fuck Blind Boy is or what a Blind Boy is. But what if in a hundred years, some young person in Limerick says, are you going to Yarty's couch? What's Yarty's couch? What's that area over there? There was an otter there called Yarty Ahern

whose body was in the shape of the human mind. And that area is his couch. And that's why it's called Yarty's Couch. Like that story might survive in a hundred years. But Yarty's Couch won't survive. It'll be gone. Because I've watched the floods each year. Slowly eroded.

Over the course of a decade. It won't be there. It'll be gone. And yet 15 minutes up the river, there's names of lakes and caves that are still relevant, even though they're thousands of years old, because man-made global warming didn't alter the landscape. That's a new thing.

So something else I'd like to talk about this week is Ireland and Palestine. The world is talking about Ireland because as a nation we're showing so much solidarity with Palestine not only as people but even like our conservative politicians are speaking up in defense of the people of Palestine. And it's really making Ireland stick out compared to other Western nations. And people in America in particular are very confused by this. And unfortunately there's Americans, American journalists, speaking about Ireland having a big anti-Semitism problem. And it's so utterly fucking insulting.

Because the same people in Ireland who are out marching every Saturday to show support for the suffering of the people of Palestine these same people would absolutely hate anti-semitism and would call an anti-semite a Nazi. So it appears that on an international level so many people don't understand Irish and Palestinian solidarity. And it goes beyond shared colonial history or parallels. It goes beyond parallels. There's very deep and specific roots that connect Ireland and Palestine. And I'd like to chat about these.

And I'm going to do that after the ocarina pause. I don't have an ocarina but what I do have is a packet of chewing gums. A little box of chewing gums. So I'm going to shake these chewing gums and you're going to hear an advert for something. On April 5th. You must be very careful Margaret. It's a girl. Witness the birth.

Bad things will start to happen. Evil things of evil. It's all for you, no doubt. The first omen. I believe the girl is to be the mother. Mother of what? Is the most terrifying. Six, six, six.

It's the mark of the devil. Hey! Movie of the year. It's not real, it's not real. What's not real? Who said that? The first omen. Only in theaters April 5th. Will you rise with the sun to help change mental health care forever?

Join the Sunrise Challenge to raise funds for CAMH, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, to support life-saving progress in mental health care. From May 27th to 31st, people across Canada will rise together and show those living with mental illness and addiction that they're not alone. Help CAMH build a future where no one is left behind. So, who will you rise for?

Register today at sunrisechallenge.ca. That's sunrisechallenge.ca. That was the chewing gum shaking pause. Support for this podcast comes from you, the listener, via the Patreon page. Patreon.com forward slash TheBlindBoyPodcast If you enjoy this podcast, if it brings you distraction, solace, mirth, contemplation, whatever has you listening to this podcast, please consider paying me for the work that I'm doing because this podcast is my full-time job. This is how I earn a living. It's how I pay all my bills. It's how I show up each week and deliver

a podcast and have the time and space to do it. All I'm looking for is the price of a pint or a cup of coffee once a month. That's it. But if you can't afford that, don't worry about it. You can listen for free because the person who is paying is paying for you to listen for free. So everybody gets a podcast

and I get to earn a living. It's a wonderful model based on kindness and soundness. Patreon.com forward slash The Blind Boy Podcast. Also, it means this podcast is fully independent not beholden to advertisers no one can change the content here in any way i get to make the podcast that i want to make my new collection of short stories topography hibernica is coming out soon it's coming out on the 9th of november i believe, in Ireland and I think the 19th in the

UK. I'm unbelievably proud of this book. I can't wait to show it to you. I can't wait to read some of the short stories for you. I'm also doing it as an audiobook. I've composed music, I've composed a little score for each individual track for the audiobook. I'm unbelievably proud of this collection of short stories. I really am. I love the piece of work. I'm so happy with it. And you can pre-order it at Kenny's Bookshop. Kenny's.ie are doing a special edition pre-order for the next two weeks where you can pre-order the book Topography of Hibernica and get an exclusive signed print if you pre-order it from Kenny's Bookshop, Kenny's.ie and I think they do international shipping too. Also I'm doing a tour, a podcast tour slash book tour in November. There's tickets still available for Liverpool, Coventry,

There's tickets still available for Liverpool, Coventry, Belfast I believe. And also Vicar Street in Dublin. Which is going to be my Irish book launch on the 19th. And then in February 2024 I am gigging Oslo and Berlin. So come along to those fun gigs. So Ireland has been in the news quite a bit the past week. Because of our support for Palestine, because of footage of quite a lot of people out on the streets protesting, demonstrating, waving Palestinian flags and also because of the makeup of these protests. Just regular Irish people of all ages out supporting Palestine.

Like even here in Limerick, where I'm living, there's a big huge free Palestine mural. And then every Saturday at the Bardshit district, there's huge big rallies in support of Palestine. We have Palestinian butchers here in Limerick. And when you walk past the Palestinian butchers, it's just cars going past beeping their horns. So there's a lot of support for Palestine. In Ireland, it's just part of the cultural fabric. The Israeli ambassador for Ireland this week described Ireland as being one of the most challenging places in Europe, which people did not like because that language reminded us of how Britain would speak about Ireland. that language reminded us of how Britain would speak about Ireland.

We have an American narrative emerging that Ireland has a problem with anti-Semitism, which is completely untrue. So there's a very specific shared history between Ireland and Palestine, which seems a bit mad because we're so far apart. It's like, how the fuck can Ireland and Palestine have shared histories? That's really strange. And I don't just mean parallel experiences. So really what it comes down to is British colonization. It's because of the British and where I see it starting is 1879

in a place called Mitchelstown in Cork. In 1879, Ireland was a British colony. The whole island was under full control of Britain. We'd just come out of the Irish Potato Famine. We'd lost more than 50% of our population. In Ireland, the Potato Famine is considered a genocide where the system of British control and colonisation was so deeply unequal at a structural level that Irish people were effectively allowed to starve to death. Irish people lived in extreme poverty, solely subsistent on potatoes where the crops had

failed and because of the corn laws any food that wasn't potatoes was incredibly expensive, so it was beyond the reach of Irish people, and a fuckload of food was being exported. British rulers at the time in Ireland, like Charles Trevelyan, literally believed that the famine was the judgment of God, that the Irish were wicked people, and this famine was a good thing to wipe Irish people out. We lost 50% of the population. We view it as a genocide in Ireland. And our population still hasn't recovered.

So in 1879, Ireland was reeling from this. And the desire for independence from Britain was growing. And an Irish national identity was growing. In 1879, a huge problem was absentee landlords. Very wealthy aristocratic British people who owned massive massive plantations and estates in Ireland. They were charging insane rent. They were evicting people. The housing situation was in no way fair so a lot of Irish people took to civil disobedience, in particular rent strikes. Loads and loads of Irish people together would decide, we're not paying the rent.

This was led by Charles Stuart Parnell. So organised civil disobedience, such as a rent strike, that was real threatening to British power. You see, if the Irish were rebelling violently, if they were rioting or they were having an armed uprising, then that's easy to quash. Then the British power can come in with their far superior military might and just kill everybody. But on an international level, it becomes more difficult to do that when it's civil disobedience. It's hard to shoot a bunch of people who just refuse to pay their rent, who are boycotting, who are resisting in a

peaceful way. That changed in 1879 in Mitchelstown in an event known as the Mitchelstown Massacre. In Mitchelstown and Cork there was a gigantic estate owned by absentee English landlords and the tenants of which there was about 8,000, said we're not paying the rent. And they had demonstrations saying we're not paying the rent to these posh English absentee landlords. Peaceful protest, civil disobedience. Then British forces opened fire on those protesters and killed three innocent people. Now the reason I consider this to be the point where Irish and Palestinian solidarity begins is because of what happens immediately after the Mitchelstown Massacre.

The Chief Secretary of Ireland at the time was an Englishman called Arthur Balfour. And Arthur Balfour made it seriously illegal to peacefully protest against landlords, made it illegal to have civil disobedience, rent strikes, to democratically and peacefully disobey something that you consider to be unjust. In Ireland in 1879, Balfour made it okay for the police to just shoot you, to shoot protesters. Now that's 1879 in Ireland, but you see that in Palestine now.

The people of Palestine, they've been peacefully protesting for fucking ages. What happens when people peacefully protest in Palestine? They get shot by Israeli soldiers. They shoot peaceful protesters. That's what happens. So let's fast forward about 35 years to World War I. The area that's now Palestine and Israel, during World War I, lots of the Middle East was known as the Ottoman Empire. The borders of countries like Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, Israel, these places didn't exist, these borders didn't exist. The Middle East, the borders of the Middle East were very different. That was the Ottoman Empire. Well, the Ottoman Empire lost in World War I. They lost and then two very important things happened. The first one, I spoke about this a couple of weeks

ago. In 1916, there was the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement. France and Britain secretly went to each other and said, right, we're after beating the Ottoman Turks in World War I, so now this whole Middle East area is ours. So the French and the British divided up the Middle East and created new borders to benefit how they could extract oil. Because this is 1916 and they're going, Jesus, this oil and petrol stuff is going to become pretty important in this new century, isn't it? So the Brits and the French created new borders in the Middle East in 1916. The French took parts of South Turkey, the north of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and then the British, they carved up

borders in Jordan, the south of Iraq, and the area that's now Palestine and Israel. They also carved up these borders deliberately so that it would cause fighting in the area to create consistent destabilization so that the Brits and the French could maintain control. So what does that have to do with a massacre in Cork 35 years previously of people who wouldn't pay rent? Well Arthur Balfour, who'd been the Chief Secretary of Ireland back then, who'd made it okay to open fire on peaceful protesters. By 1916 he was Britain's Foreign Secretary. He'd really risen up in the world. He'd been Prime Minister and now as Foreign Secretary. He'd really risen up in the world. He'd been prime minister and now as foreign secretary he'd been a hidden hand in creating this Sykes-Picot agreement. A new area had been created

in 1916 called Mandatory Palestine. The area that is now Israel in 1916 was Mandatory Palestine and it was controlled by Britain. But this area of Palestine was full of Palestinian Arabs and the Brits didn't trust Palestinian Arabs. Britain really wanted to control the Middle East so they could get all that lovely oil that's there. But it's difficult to extract resources when you don't have a lot of colonisers in the area. Now back to Mitchelstown and Cork, 1897.

Another thing happened in 1897. The Zionist movement was founded. The Zionist movement was an effort by Jewish people from Europe to try and establish a homeland for Jewish people. A place for Jewish people to go and live, to have a state. Because Jewish people in Europe place for Jewish people to go and live, to have a state. Because Jewish people in Europe experienced massive anti-Semitism all through the Middle Ages and pogroms. So starting in 1879 the Zionists really wanted a place for all Jewish people to go to. They'd considered

Madagascar as somewhere to establish a land for Jewish people. They'd considered Argentina. establish a land for Jewish people they'd considered Argentina but what they really wanted was the area that's now Israel. So by 1917 this became very convenient for the British. So Arthur Balfour in 1917 says to the Zionists Britain controls Palestine this is our colony and we will fully support the Jewish people moving to mandatory Palestine and making it a Jewish national home. So it's a British plan to colonize the area of Palestine with Jewish Europeans. Now there's loads of Arab people living there and now you have a bunch of Europeans literally colonizing the area with British military might behind them and allowing it to happen. And that agreement there is called the Balfour Declaration.

The Balfour Declaration of 1917, which was written up by Balfour, who was the fellow who was the Chief Secretary of Ireland. So now what the fuck do you think happens? In a country that the British are controlling, mandatory Palestine, that's full of Palestinian Arabs? What do you think happens that now a bunch of European Jewish people show up and are just like, we're going to take your houses and live here now? Well, the Arab Palestinian people are not happy at all. And they start protesting and they start rioting. And they have a big problem with all these people colonizing their country

and this is all overseen by the British, by British forces. Does this sound familiar? Well it should because the British military governor of Palestine at the time, his name was Ronald Storrs, literally said we're trying to create a little loyal Jewish Ulster in a sea of potentially hostile Arabism. So in 1917, the British, in mandatory Palestine, were bringing European Jewish people into Palestine, modelling it deliberately after the plantation of Ulster in Ireland, so that they could create loyal subjects smack bang in the middle of the Middle East. The exact same British people who had been colonising and terrorising Ireland had designed and made what we now call Israel to be a British colonial outpost full of European people who were

deeply loyal colonisers with the specific intention of marginalising the Arab Palestinian people that lived there. Now I see a lot of British people in particular on the internet during the week and when they're speaking about the situation with Israel and Palestine right now I'm seeing British liberals saying imagine if Britain had carpet bombed Ireland because of the actions of the IRA. Imagine if Britain had collectively punished the civilian population of Ireland because of the actions of the IRA. And they're speaking about what Israel is doing to the civilians of Gaza right now because of the actions of Hamas. And I'm seeing British people taking this kind of upper hand, as if Britain has

historically shown restraint to Ireland. It hasn't, it's fuck. Britain has enacted repeated, massive acts of collective punishment against the civilian population of Ireland. That's the history of Britain in Ireland. I'm just going to give you one example. In the 1920s, during the Irish War of Independence, when the IRA was fighting for Irish independence from Britain, Britain created a force known as the Black and Tans. The Black and Tans were a terrorist force. The Black and Tans were British Crown forces whose sole purpose wasn't to fight the IRA but was to terrorise and murder the civilian population whenever the IRA killed British soldiers. shoot civilians indiscriminately. They burned down cities.

The Black and Tans went into a football match and opened fire on the crowd, killing 14 people. Indiscriminately opened fire on an innocent crowd of people. So the Black and Tans, who are hated in Ireland, were literally created as a terrorist force by the British to enact collective punishment on Irish civilians. That's all they were for. In 1922, Ireland won the War of Independence. Not really. The 26 counties the south of Ireland became independent from Britain. Britain maintained the north of Ireland, the six counties at the top. But what do you think happened to the Black and Tans in 1922?

What happened in 1922? Did the Black and Tans go out of work? Do you know what happened to the Black and Tans? Winston Churchill sent them to Palestine. Literally, like the actual Black and Tans who had been murdering and killing people in Ireland, civilians, Winston Churchill said, now go to Palestine and do that there, please.

European Jewish people are colonising that area, that area that we own. European Jewish people are colonising it. There's a lot of Arabs there who have a problem with this and they're rioting. So I need ye blackened hands to do everything you did in Ireland, but now do it to the Palestinians in Palestine, they're rioting so I need ye black and tans to do everything you did in Ireland but now do it to the Palestinians in Palestine in mandatory Palestine please

there's a brilliant book about all this called Balfour's Shadow by David Cronan who's an Irish historian so the black and tans are sent to Palestine to defend the Jewish colonizers and to brutalize the Palestinian people. And there's a quote from a black and tan called Douglas Duff, who was in Galway and then went to Palestine. And he said, Most of us were so infected by the sense of our own superiority over these lesser breeds that we scarcely regarded these people as human.

Speaking about the Palestinians. So the black and tans brought to mandatory Palestine, to that area, violent collective punishment. British forces who are effectively terrorists engaging in terror, collective punishment against a civilian population. The British controlled the area, against a civilian population. The British controlled the area. The British, along with Zionists, colonised the area.

And the British, Winston Churchill, Balfour, they very much set the tone. They set a tone that we still see today. Now I'm not trying to take Israel off the hook or pointing fingers and blaming the Brits, but what I'm doing is offering historical context to show that Ireland and Palestine, it's more than a parallel experience. We're talking about the same architects of violence,

the exact same people, the same architects of violence and colonisation in Ireland went on to do the same shit in mandatory Palestine. Arthur Balfour, Winston Churchill, the literal fucking black and tans who just moved on to a new country. The initial intention for Israel was for it to be a loyal British outpost like Ulster

that would make it easier for Britain to extract natural resources like oil from the other Middle East areas that it controls. So how did it stop being mandatory Palestine, controlled by the British, and then it became Israel? So I'm not an expert on any of this stuff. I'm just someone who absolutely adores finding out and reading and researching. And I know the difference between a reliable source and an unreliable source. So the short version is sometime around World War II,

around the end of World War II, the Jewish people who were in British mandatory Palestine, they weren't happy with how the Brits were controlling and running the place. The British had put restrictions on how many Jewish people could immigrate to the area. So the Jewish people started paramilitary groups and started attacking British outposts and killing British soldiers in Mandatory Palestine. They created groups like Haganah and Ergun which were a bit like the IRA and for a while in the 1940, the British called the Israelis terrorists. In 1948 then, the Brits kind of went, well fuck this.

We've just been involved in World War II. This fucking mandatory Palestine place is a lot of hassle. The Jewish people that we tried to colonise the place with, they're turning into the IRA and they're fighting us with guerrilla tactics. They're terrorists. So Britain quickly withdrew, left the area and then you've got chaos. 78% of the area that was mandatory Palestine is declared Israel

and the Israelis kill and expel 700,000 Palestinian people in an event known as the Nakba and that's where you get a lot of Palestinians just living in an open air prison in the Gaza Strip or as the Nakba. And that's where you get a lot of Palestinians just living in an open-air prison in the Gaza Strip or in the West Bank. It starts from there. But even on the Israeli side of things, there's a weird Irish connection there.

Like the current Israeli president, Isaac Hartzog, I think his name is, he's actually a second generation Irish. Like the president of Israel right now. His da was also a president of Israel in the 1980s and he spoke like this. What they were subjected at the time of when the Syrians were on top of our villages before 1967. In other words shelling every night. His name is Chaim Hartzog and he was the president of Israel in the 1980s and he's from Dublin. He grew up in Portobello in Dublin. He served in the British army but then in Israel he would have joined the Haganah so the British would have

considered him a terrorist at one point. He became the head of military intelligence in the IDF, the Israeli Defence Forces and then became president of Israel and he's the father of the current president of Israel. And his father, the current president of Israel's grandfather, was a father called Rabbi Yitzhak Halavi Herzog who was the chief rabbi in Ireland in 1919 and he was was known as the Sinn Féin rabbi. He was friends with Michael Collins, and he was friends with Eamon de Valera, and he was a huge supporter of the IRA,

and he spoke Irish. So that's the grandfather of the current president of Israel. So there's these mad Irish connections in that whole conflict. But on the issue of Irish solidarity with Palestine, it has fucking nothing to do with anti-Semitism. The same British colonisers, the exact same ones, who colonised Ireland and created a lot of misery

and terrorised the civilian population, those same British people founded Mandatory Palestine, were responsible for the Sykes-Picot Agreement, were responsible for the Balfour Declaration of 1917. So the Palestinian solidarity thing, it's there in our culture. It's just there. And I imagine a lot of Irish people don't know the specifics of that history. I'd say a lot of Irish people are real surprised to find out that the Black and Tans went to Palestine. And it must be difficult being Cara Delevingne. Because Cara Delevingne, the British model, her great-grandfather, her mar Greenwood,

he literally invented the Black and Tans. And now they had a hand in Palestine too. So that's all I have time for this week. In the meantime, rub a dog and wink at a cat, rock city you're the best fans in the league bar none tickets are on sale now for fan appreciation night on saturday april 13th when the toronto rock hosts the rochester nighthawks at first ontario center in hamilton at 7 30 p.m you can also lock in your playoff pack right now to guarantee the same seats for every postseason game and you'll only pay as we play come along for the ride and punch your ticket to rock city at torontorock.com Thank you.