And only our rivers run free

Editorial Comment - Cormac Burke, IFSA

"Only Our Rivers Run Free" is a famous Irish republican ballad written by Fermanagh man Mickey MacConnell in 1965, inspired by a protest in Enniskillen he witnessed when he was aged 10, seeing defeat in his father's eyes, leading to him to write the song when he was 18.

Expressing a longing for a united, free Ireland, with lyrics about rivers running free when the land is free, famously recorded by artists like Paddy Reilly, Christy Moore, and perhaps most famously by The Wolfe Tones. It remains a powerful patriotic song, reflecting on lost youth and the struggle for Irish unity, and to this day is often performed at significant events

But it’s the lyrics of this 60-year-old ballad that take on a completely different relevance at this time as those in the Irish fishing industry turn to the politicians they voted into power not long ago but who seem to have abandoned them now in their hour of most need following an organised and most corrupt attack on Ireland’s rural coastal communities by the EU Commission and certain EU Member States who have infiltrated that body and turned it to their own advantage.

“Oh, where are you now, when we need you? / What burns where the flame used to be? / Are you gone like the snows of last winter? / And will only our rivers run free?"

Personally I am not a supporter of any Irish political party, nor have I ever openly commented on the possibility unification of a united Ireland some day and I try to keep my opinions to myself on such matters but as far as the fishing industry goes perhaps a bit of the passion seen in generations of republicanism would be no harm at this stage if Ireland as an island nation were to stand up to the EU.

As Independent Ireland leader Michael Collins said on social media in the past 24 hours “what nation in the world would stand by and readily accept having its territories and its resources taken from it and not fight back?… Indeed not only is our government accepting it but they are smiling and shaking hands with the people who are doing this to us…”

And one can’t help noticing that of Ireland’s 14 elected MEPs in Brussels at this time, only one, Ciaran Mullooly, seems to be actively refusing to accept this outrageous attack on the Irish fishing industry while the rest of his MEP counterparts seem to be ‘missing in action’ —- giving credence to the old saying that politicians are ‘invincible at election time but invisible once elected’.

Meanwhile Sinn Fein TDs are also rowing in behind the shocked fishing industry and demanding a strong reaction from Government…. But, as for the many other politicians, both independent and of the two main coalition parties, who had plenty to tell us on our doorsteps in the run up to election about how much they ‘cared about the fishing industry’, their silence is deafening at this time.

So, as with any nation in a time of crisis, we’re now supposed to turn to our leaders for guidance and support…. And when we do we find that last Saturday morning, as the full horror of the outcome of the EU corruption against Ireland was coming to light that Tainiste Simon Harris (leader of a Fine Gael party who in the last election included fisheries in its manifesto for the first time in the history of the party) was too busy making a public appearance turning on Christmas lights to even issue a statement acknowledging the crisis that had befallen people of the coastal communities…

…meanwhile the nation’s leader and Taoiseach, Fianna Fail’s Michael Martin, made no response and STILL, four days since the probable terminal news for the Irish fishing industry, has nothing to say.

Never were the words “Where are you now when we need you?” more apt than they are at this minute in time as yet another Irish government refuses to stand up to its fattening overlords while Irish people will go hungry…

Conor D. McGuinness TD Pádraig Mac Lochlainn TD Michael Collins Independent TD Ciaran Mullooly Sarah O'Reilly Manus Boyle Seanad Ireland FG Charles Ward

* Many people in the Irish fishing industry, myself included, are not particularly anti EU but the feeling represented in the image below is the understandable reaction of Irish coastal communities who feel last week’s farce was the final straw in the raping and ‘mine stripping’ of Irish marine resources by the EU.