Looking on through the lens of the virtual on Saturday I was stunned by the breath and depth of the live and parasitic (in a healthy way) critique of the action which unfolded alongside the action on O'Connell Street on Indymedia Ireland and throughout the hiberno-blogosphere. I quickly realised that this was definitely the first example of an ad-hoc flashmob of citizen journalists banding together with a decentralised diy publishing infrastructure, spontaneously, as live and with no pre-planning whatsoever and with no notice, flexing its muscles and absolutely wiping the floor with the methods of the traditional media. RTE had just about caught up with events by the time the (10 minutes later than scheduled) late evening bulletin came around. All of the blogs all day were choc full of dissatisfaction with the performance of the 'public service' broadcaster.

I, like almost everybody I know, didn't predict the events of Saturday. In fact the only person I know who did predict a major riot was a friend of mine who happens to hail from the wee North - in retrospect I should have realised that he had his finger on the pulse, for not only does he have much more experience of sectarian marches, but through his job he knows many of the people who were involved and has an unusual insight and sympathy for those people who most Dubliners write off as 'scumbags' and 'knackers'. This article is an analysis of what happened and why almost everybody got it so wrong. This article is a companion piece to the photo essay which I published yesterday.

A 13 minute video of the rioting in Dublin is now available on the global indymedia video site. You can download it by clicking here or by visiting the global indymedia website at video.indymedia.org. The file is made with the xvid codec and mp3 audio. It is approximately 100 MB in size, you will require a broadband connection to view it.

Rioting in Dublin in protest at the marching of the Orange Order on Sat February 25th 2006. Pictures and video. A crowd of 500 counter-demonstrators burnt cars, smashed British-owned businesses and threw missiles and a petrol bomb at Gardai in the center of Dublin as they attempted to stop the march by the loyalist paramilitary associated "LoveUlster" group. Several Gardai were hospitalised.

More breaking reports:1.Mon aboot toon ; 2.PhotoEssay ; 3.Elaine ;
Reports From Elsewhere: 1.DossingTimes blog ; 2.SluggerOToole ; 2.John W's Photoset on Flickr

"A thousand ordinary unionist people are on the buses heading back north right now - just passing Dundalk as I type - and their abiding impression of the Irish Republic is going to be one of being penned into Parnell Square by violent republicans with petrol bombs and of having their right to get their point across stifled - (jeeeez, I mean the irony of republicans penning Protestant protestors into Parnell Square, named after perhaps the greatest ever Irish Protestant proponent of tolerant Republicanism...)"
Comment from David Christopher a Unionist Poster

Sacked Shop Steward receives letter of reinstatement after campaign of solidarity pickets

Dunnes Stores have 87 outlets in the Republic of ireland. When they sacked a 22 year old shop steward from their Ashleaf store, the decision of one manager in relation to one worker seemed small beans. But three months after Joanne Delaney was first suspended and then sacked for wearing her union pin the campaign supporting her has placed pickets on more than twenty of these stores to date and grows week by week.

On Friday 24th of February, at the picket of the Ashleaf centre the company gave Joanne a letter saying that she should turn up on Monday morning at 8.45 and she would be rostered on.There was no mention of a uniform policy but Joanne will of course be wearing her union badge and the campaign, support group and wider labour movement is waiting to see if the companies capitulation is complete. In the last week Dunnes outlets as far away as Belfast and Cork as well as North Earl Street, Maynooth, Grafton Street , Donaghmede and the Ashleaf branches have seen pickets. The cross party support has included a Sinn Fein day of action today, Saturday the 25th along with solidarity and actions from a wide range of groups.

Eoghan Contradictions Harris Plays Both An Orange Protestant Card And A Green Catholic Card: A Story In Four Parts

Extract: "In the Sunday Independent Eoghan Harris played both an Orange Protestant card and a Green Catholic Card in an effort to explain away this historical context, in dealing with one of the last acts of the War of Independence. In so doing he sought to arouse sectarian feeling where there is little if any. It was the Republican side that overtly rejected an association of religion and nationality. The empirical evidence thus far uncovered supports this contention. In their courageous determination to keep politics separate from religion, and to sweep away centuries-old divisions, Republicans of the Protestant faith broke with the historical identification of their community, while Catholic Republicans defied the ultimate sanction of excommunication from their church. But in playing with sectarian fire, Eoghan Harris risks undoing 80 intervening years that have tended towards harmony and reconciliation."

An account of apparently sectarian murders by the IRA in Co. Offaly in 1921 was publicised by Eoghan Harris in the Sunday Independent in October 2005. The allegation of the sectarian murder of the apparently unassuming Protestant Pearson family of Coolacrease was made by William Stanley of Carlow in his "I met Murder on the Way - The Story of the Pearsons of Coolacrease" (2005). This account of events that took place during the Irish War of Independence was then promoted by Eoghan Harris and by the Sunday Independent.

In the course of his analysis Eoghan Harris criticised Protestants in the South for not supporting his analysis and that of the Reform Group: "a group which wants to dig up the buried British and Protestant parts of Irish identity", according to Harris.

This article gives readers the other side of the story, the side ignored by Harris and the Reform Group, and by the Sunday Independent.