Eamonn McCann speaks at Protest Rally: Video

by John Jefferies - Workers party Wed Jun 18, 2008 10:26

Excellent speech, great report.

by Vinny Wed Jun 18, 2008 13:29

When a jury of ordinary people see fit to free McCann and his friends for their actions against Raytheon, but the leaders still have no shame in welcoming a man who is responsible for occupation, death and wholesale theft.

by ede Wed Jun 18, 2008 13:57

This video recorded the event in which McCann criticised the invitation extended to Bush by the North's senior. politicians ?
Gordon brown invited bush let the truth be told for a change, Brown nor bush are ever welcome by the Irish people to Ireland but while there here the must listen to our elected leaders Brian Martin and Peter.

Brown bush

by Sean Crudden Wed Jun 18, 2008 14:27 sean.crudden at iol dot ie Jenkinstown, Dundalk, Co Louth. 087 9739945

Technically the clip is well made and everything comes across clearly and distinctly - perhaps too clearly and distinctly. Eamonn's voice has the rasp of an old testament prophet and his attitude is about the same. This type of dismal rhetoric helps no cause. Eamonn could have told us what his point is in quieter and more modulated tones. So nobody likes George Bush. So what's new?

by Watcher Wed Jun 18, 2008 15:50

Let the truth be told indeed.

McGuinness and Paisley extended the invite for Bush whilst touring the US attmepting to drum up interest for their 'investment conference'.

Should this not suffice, both the FM and the DFM enthusiastically welcomed news of the visit in glowing terms.

Where's the issue with this?

He was invited and welcomed by Paisley, Robinson and McGuinness, which is disappointing enough, but the fact that none of them can take their medicine is just plain ridiculous.

by gravelisgood Wed Jun 18, 2008 16:12

Sean, you may not like the sound of Eamonn McCann's voice. But what matters is he that communicates his ideas and opinions clearly. He is not giving an aria at one of the concerts you are so fond of attending.
If you have any genuine observations on the issue at hand, i.e. George Bush and the war, do please enlighten us.

by Mike - Judean Popular Peoples Front Wed Jun 18, 2008 18:57

Eamonn and others quite rightly rounded on those who said we should welcome the Genocidal war criminal on account of the jobs (no doubt mainly minimum wage) and investment (no doubt mainly by defence contractors) his henchmen were supposedly going to bring.
But there was one point that he missed out on. Namely are all these mythical jobs going to replace the thousands that are going to be lost in Northern Ireland over the coming months as rapidly rising energy prices (mainly resulting from the war) and the recession (arising from his failure to regulate the US banking industry) drive dozens -perhaps hundreds of businesses to the wall ?

by T. Bassington Fotnartly Thu Jun 19, 2008 00:03

I couldn't agree more with Mr. Crudden.

Why cannot Mr. McCann learn to speak in more polite, middle-class tones?

This working class hoarseness is so passe, so 20th century. Mr. McCann badly needs a voice coach.

Whatever Mr. McCann's cause it is ill-served by such crude, semi-civilized locution.

In a globalised world, bare-faced, Old Testament prophets are an anomaly.

by Gary MacLennan - none Thu Jun 19, 2008 10:29 gary.maclennan at gmail dot com

I am not totally sure if Mr Crudden and T. Bassington Fotnartly are not pulling our legs. But let us assume they are serious. I disagree totally with them. McCann’s was a great speech and one delivered with the passion that the topic called for.
The point that they make was made long ago by Yeats about Countess Markievicz, the truly great Irish Socialist. Yeats did not at all like what she had to say, but he did not address the question of the poverty and misery of the Irish that she fought against,. No Yeats was more concerned with her speaking style.
He wrote in Why Should not an old man be mad of her as someone who had somehow betrayed her natural beauty. She became for Yeats

A Helen of social welfare dream,
Climb on a wagonette to scream.
But of course his was an aesthetic response to what was fundamentally an ethical problem. And he was answered in Brecht's To those who follow in our wake. There Brecht wrote of those who fought for against Nazism. He explained

For we went forth, changing our country more frequently than our shoes
Through the class warfare, despairing
That there was only injustice and no outrage.
And yet we knew:
Even the hatred of squalor
Distorts one’s features.
Even anger against injustice
Makes the voice grow hoarse. We
Who wished to lay the foundation for gentleness
Could not ourselves be gentle.
But you, when at last the time comes
That man can aid his fellow man,
Should think upon us
With leniency.
So Brecht responded to the aesthetic with an ethics which understood those who called for a better and more just world. I would call upon Sean Crudden and T. Bassington Fotnartly to make the same effort. I would ask them to contemplate for a moment the slaughtered innocents of Cana, a place that McCann visited and where he met the grieving families. It might be that if Sean and T.B.F. try to make that same journey in their moral imagination that just maybe their voices too would become a little hoarse and they too might forget to speak with their accustomed nicety. Who knows they might even forget to be concerned about appearing working class or passé.

by dunk Mon Jul 14, 2008 20:35

audio file: http://www.rte.ie/podcasts/2008/pc/pod-v-280608-dunphy-...s.mp3
source: http://www.rte.ie/radio1/podcast/podcast_eamondunphy.xml