Pól Ó Lorcáin
Paul Larkin
Chroniclers are privileged to enter where they
list, to come and go through keyholes, to ride
upon the wind, to overcome in their soarings up
and down, all obstacles of distance, time and
place.
Charles Dickens - Barnaby Rudge,
Chapter The Ninth
Re-mastered version of A Very British Jihad now available as an eBook
Cic Saor aficionados may be interested to know that my book on structured collusion between British state operatives and pro British death squads is now available as a Kindle eBook.
There were several problems with the initial e-version but these have now been all but eradicated and the Kindle version is now quite close to the original print version published by Beyond The Pale. In fact, once a searchable table of contents is in place, the eBook version will in some ways be better than the printed version, which suffers from not having an index – in spending time making sure the content was rock solid we simply ran out of time.
Part of my motivation for making the book available as an eBook comes from the fact that people are now charging outrageous prices for the standard book version, which is now sold out and therefore out of print. I of course have no control over this.
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Unwittingly Demonstrating the Limits of Collusion - Paul Larkin's reply
Professor Adrian Guelke
Several
Cic Saor readers have contacted me over the last six months asking me where my reply to Adrian Guelke's criticism of my book
A Very British Jihad has disappeared to. This is a good question. Any reader who Googles words like "Paul Larkin collusion" is immediately directed to the
Fortnight magazine article written by Guelke in May 2004. Guelke's wholly negative and, in my view, poorly argued review can be read here:
http://www.fortnight.org/guelke425.html
However my reply to Guelke's criticisms has mysteriously vanished off the face of the web. So for those readers from Counties Antrim, Derry, Galway and Cork who have asked for it, as well as for the historical record, here is my response. Guelke it should be added is Professor of Comparative Politics at Queens University Belfast.
The more Cic Saor readers share and post links for this reply, the more chance it has of regaining its position vis-à-vis Guelke's article.
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A BONE TO PICK WITH ADRIAN - Paul Larkin June 2004
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All the looters looked like Tony Blair
Look at the faces of what the media has dubbed" England’s rioters", when in fact they are “looters”. Look closely at the permanent smirks on their faces as they head off with those must have flat screens, Carhatt jeans, game consoles and designer gear. They are Tony Blair's Chav alter ego.
It is exactly the same plastered-on grin that faced the media and told us that the risk of mass murder of civilians in return for petro stability was a good, indeed an honourable thing. The Blair mask was the TV Joker to George "Dubya" Bush’s grinning Riddler, setting off on a macabre crusade against anything that smacked of community. Aint no profit in Welfare boy.
Nearly the first act of Blair's government, we now know, was to ease Rupert Murdoch into the nexus of New Labour’s power. Look at this for example:
“A deal had been done, although with nothing in writing. If Murdoch were left to pursue his business interests in peace he would give Labour a fair wind.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2010/feb/24/revealed-deal-between-murdoch-blair
Perfect! So we got in the media exactly the same culture we got in government – not only has the Welfare State, Iraq, Palestine and Afghanistan been sequestered and pounded it became part of the BREAKING NEWS franchise.
Yo Blair. Way to go!
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How understanding ancient myth could save your life
In this week’s never less than excellent Guardian review, there is a thought provoking feature on ancient myth by the English writer AS Byatt. The essay, entitled Ragnarök: the doom of the gods can be read here –
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/aug/05/as-byatt-ragnarok-myth
In my view, AS Byatt gets the most fundamental point about myth completely wrong but she does correctly identify the Norse myths as being of central importance in our attempts to understand our most ancient stories. Byatt tells us that she wrote the essay after being invited by Cannongate publishers to write a volume for its ongoing collection of books on human mythology and its origins. The full list of titles and authors can be seen here -
http://www.themyths.co.uk/
Very early on, she quotes Nietzsche approvingly (from his
The Birth of Tragedy) and this is a good pointer for the way she is going in her argument:
"Every culture that has lost myth has lost, by the same token, its natural healthy creativity. Only an horizon ringed about with myths can unify a culture."
This is a good quote as far as it goes. Imagine an Ireland without its
Táin Bó Cúailnge (Cattle Raid of Cooley) mythology, its ancient wells and fairy rings – these do indeed unify our culture and are inseparable from An Ghaeilge – the Irish language. If we lose these, we lose ourselves and may as well all move to Milton Keynes.
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