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Image of Ireland with a swirl of cocaine over dublin Illustration: Carl Godfrey/The Guardian

P atrick Murphy remembers very clearly the first time he took cocaine. "I was 19, and that first line, I just fell in love with it," he says. "The confidence it gave me, it was like nothing else. It was just so easy to keep taking it because it was everywhere. Even now, sitting here, I could get a bag in my hand in 10 minutes, faster than ordering a taxi."

It took seven years for addiction to destroy Murphy's life.

"Everyone around me was taking it, it didn't feel like anything bad could happen, but it brought me to my knees," he says.

"I lost my job, my relationship. My family had dealers knocking on their front door. Those last years of addiction were horrendous: just me, homeless, sitting in a van sniffing cocaine, and the only thing that mattered was that I could find a way to keep taking it. It took me to dark places I never thought I could escape from."

Now, as he finishes an eight-month stay at Coolmine, a residential drug and alcohol centre on the outskirts of Dublin, Murphy says he sees himself as part of a new generation of drug users in Ireland, one that is caught in the grip of a cocaine epidemic that is devastating lives like his across the country.

"There are just so many people like me; young people, but also people of all ages, who kid themselves that because we're not putting a needle in our arm we're not like those other junkies on heroin who end up homeless or dead," he says. "There are so many people I know who have no idea how much they are in addiction because nobody is taking it seriously."

Cocaine use in Ireland has soared in recent years, as record amounts of the drug flood through Europe's porous borders from South America, and social media platforms and encrypted messaging apps provide an efficient and low-risk marketplace for dealers.In 2023, the Irish authorities said they seized more than €210m worth of drugs - a record amount, most of which was cocaine. Yet, that was likely to be a tiny percentage of the amount getting into the country undetected.

Data from the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) shows an upwards trajectory in drug use across all age groups since 2016. Last year, the Irish were the biggest consumers of cocaine in Europe for people aged 15 to 34. But the drug is also becoming commonplace in older age groups, who may have never taken drugs before, says Prof Colin O'Gara, head of addiction services at Saint John of God hospital in Dublin and a clinical professor of psychiatry at University College Dublin.

"In Ireland, cocaine has become a public health emergency that shows no sign of abating," Gara says. "This is a drug that has somehow managed to keep its reputation as benign, even glamorous, but causes huge and fast addiction problems. Health issues that lead from heavy use are myriad, including strokes, heart palpitations, key arteries in the brain can blow. There are many new users in their 50s and 60s - people who have never taken drugs before - who are suffering serious health problems as a result. And across the board we're seeing devastating mental health impacts including depressive disorders, anxiety disorders and psychosis."

According to Ireland's National Drug Treatment Reporting system (NDTRS), which collects data on people coming into drug treatment services, the number of new cases reporting cocaine as the main "problem drug" increased by 258% between 2016 and 2022. Last year, NDTRS data showed that cocaine was the most common drug cited in new cases coming into treatment services across the country.

"For those of us working in addiction services, we've seen the situation just spiral out of control," says Pauline McKeown, director at Coolmine, where Murphy has been receiving treatment.

"Cocaine use is so very, very prevalent, and so many more families are being impacted across the country. It's a drug that leaps over socioeconomic barriers like no other drug I've encountered. It's rural as much as urban, in multiple generations of the same families, in sporting communities, farming communities - and [there is] so much more recreational, problematic and individual cocaine use than we have ever encountered with other drugs like heroin."

Patients and rehabilitation workers at Coolmine, a drug and alcohol treatment centre in Dublin, Ireland Photograph: Johnny Savage/The Guardian

Pauline McKeown, director at Coolmine Photograph: Johnny Savage/The Guardian

McKeown says that, historically, Coolmine has largely supported people seeking help for opioid addiction or heroin. In just a few years this has shifted dramatically. Now, she says, the biggest group of new clients coming through their doors are cocaine users.

"Last year, 36% of all of our admissions were for powder cocaine, and we expect this number to keep rising," says McKeown.

Murphy's mother, Sharron, says her son's descent into cocaine addiction was a terrifying experience for their family.

"With my son I saw how it went from one line to two lines, from one bag to two, to three, with him just thinking he was a casual user," she says. "At his 21st birthday party we found out he'd ordered €500 worth of cocaine. We could see him changing: he was an incredible football player but that just disappeared; he used to twitch all the time, his jaw would be shuddering; he was losing weight. He was always such a gentle soul but he turned aggressive, punching walls, it was frightening how he completely changed."

Sharron says that over the years, she and her husband paid off tens of thousands of euros of drug debts in an attempt to protect their son from threats from drug dealers.

"He was ordering cocaine all the time on social media. We'd look out the window and see people leaving bags of drugs on the wheels of our car or on window ledges for him. We had people start knocking at our door asking for money all the time. My husband would go out on his own to meet strange people to try to pay off [Patrick's] debts because we didn't want him to get hurt. He bought a pair of knuckle-dusters online because he never knew who he'd be meeting. Patrick said they threatened to petrol bomb the house. It was this constant living nightmare we couldn't escape from."

Even now, Sharron says, the sound of her doorbell ringing "just sends me into a panic. My husband had a mental health breakdown. We've lost years of our lives to this, but I just see it going on around me all the time. I work in a pub and everyone in there is doing it - there are solicitors, professionals, men in their 50s and 60s and the younger people, they just don't care," she says.

"They will just take a bag out and do it openly, none of this sneaking off to the toilet. For some reason it's now become acceptable to see someone shove cocaine up their nose while they're ordering a drink. My own family are doing cocaine all the time, at family birthday parties, at christenings, they have no idea the damage and pain that it can cause. Nobody is listening. It feels completely out of control."

Violence and intimidation of families and communities by people linked to the cocaine trade has become so prevalent that last year the government launched the Drug Related Intimidation and Violence Engagement (Drive) project: a multi-agency approach to tackling what is becoming a widespread criminal issue.

Siobhán Maher, coordinator at Drive, says: "Before I took this role at Drive I was a family support worker, and every second family member coming into our service was experiencing intimidation or violence linked to the drug trade. Cocaine is particularly linked to this because that's where the real money is being made.

"We're seeing young people recruited to sell drugs and forced into criminal activities, firearms moving into communities, arson, attacks on homes, violence and sexual violence and the threat of it becoming widespread, families being targeted to pay off huge drug debts. It is manifesting in different ways across the country but it's everywhere, and no community is exempt."

Maher said that Drive is planning a national awareness programme on cocaine later this year in an attempt to show the devastation the drug is causing to families across the country.

"What we need people to know is that there is help and support. You don't need to deal with this on your own," she says. "But the general public need to understand the link between this drug and horrendous violence and abuse happening to ordinary families. It's not a problem that's going to go away. If we don't act now, it is only going to get a lot worse."

Have you or your community been affected by the issues raised in this story? You can get in touch by filling in this form or messaging us on WhatsApp on +447766780300.

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'We're seeing firearms, arson, attacks on homes': the families in the eye of Ireland's cocaine storm

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With use in the country soaring among both young and older people, it's not just the drug that is devastating lives but the violence and abuse that surround it

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speakeasy-news.com-Irish Referendum on Womens Role in Society

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A police car was set on fire at far-right protests in Dublin on Nov. 23. (Video: Adrian Weckler via Storyful, Photo: Clodagh Kilcoyne/Reuters/Adrian Weckler via Storyful)

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LONDON - Right-wing protesters, angered by a stabbing attack they believed had involved someone of immigrant background, rampaged through central Dublin on Thursday night, leaving behind a trail of burning destruction.

Ireland's police chief on Friday described the unrest, in which double-decker buses, trams and police cars were torched, as "scenes that we have not seen in decades."

The violence and looting through some of Dublin's most famous streets began after a stabbing attack outside a school that left five people hospitalized. They included three young children and a woman. Police detained a man who also is being treated for injuries.

Rumors spread online that the perpetrator of the attack was an immigrant or had an immigrant background. The BBC, citing unnamed sources, said the man was an Irish citizen who had lived in the country for 20 years.

People the police later described as far-right protesters disrupted the crime scene, chanting anti-immigrant slogans and took to the streets of Dublin, setting vehicles ablaze and clashing with police.

A Brazilian Deliveroo driver has spoken about intervening in the knife attack. Ciao Benicio told the Irish Times that the subsequent anti-immigration protests "[do not] make sense at all. ... I'm an immigrant myself and I was the one who helped out."

Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said that the unrest was "not who we are" and that those involved in the riots had "brought shame on Ireland."

The rioters did not do what they did "out of any sense of patriotism, however warped; they did so because they are filled with hate," he said.

The Irish government said in response that it would modernize its laws against hatred "for the social media age," and it would also introduce legislation related to CCTV access for police.

"What we saw last night was an extraordinary outbreak of violence," Police Commissioner Drew Harris told reporters Friday. "These are scenes that we have not seen in decades."

He said 34 people had been arrested.

Police blamed a "lunatic, hooligan faction driven by a far-right ideology" for the violence that broke out after a small group of anti-immigrant protesters arrived at the scene of the knife attack.

The "riotous mob" caused "huge destruction" in Dublin, police said. The rioters, some wielding metal bars, smashed windows and looted shops in the city center.

The Dublin Fire Brigade on Friday morning said firefighters were continuing to wet down smoldering vehicles.

Police said they were not looking for anyone else involved in the knife attack and were "keeping an open mind" about any motive for the assault.

Ireland has a deep housing crisis, and dissatisfaction has fueled a backlash against refugees and asylum seekers, with critics saying that foreigners are receiving preferential treatment. Protesters have held rallies chanting " Ireland is full."

Gail McElroy, a politics professor at Trinity College Dublin, noted that Irish society has changed rapidly in recent years. A few decades ago, Ireland was predominantly White and Roman Catholic. Today, around 20 percent of those living in Ireland were born in another country.

"It's very rapid change and some people at the margins of society and underprivileged are feeling aggrieved," McElroy said. "And people who are dissatisfied are seeking someone to blame."

The housing crisis has exacerbated tensions. The shortage of accommodation is such that Ukrainian refugees have been housed in tents. Rents have shot up along with a booming economy - many social media giants have their European headquarters in Dublin.

"Apartments are going for 3,000 to 4,000 euros a month, that's if you can find an apartment. People feel like they are being pushed out of the neighborhoods," McElroy said.

Still, she said, the outbreak of violence has "shocked everyone. You saw riots in London a few years ago or cars burnt in France. But to see the main thoroughfares in Dublin with buses on fire? It shocked people to the core."

During the riot, one police officer was seriously hurt and others were injured.

Varadkar sought to reassure Ireland's immigrant community, saying the country would be "vastly inferior" without immigration.

He told a news conference that "being Irish is more than saluting the tricolor [the Irish flag] and beating your chest and pointing to where you were born," he said. It means "living up to ideals represented by our flag" and "acting with compassion."

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Far-right protesters burn and loot in Dublin in worst violence 'in decades'

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A stabbing rumored to involve someone with an immigrant background became a rallying cry for right-wing protesters, who went on a rampage in Dublin city center.

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Bono discusses U2's "Sunday Bloody Sunday" for Louder Than Words

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Victory for Sinn Fein stokes fears of a united Ireland

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Nationalists on course to be biggest party in Stormont for the first time following Northern Irish elections

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LEELA VARGHESE, REPORTER: There's a lot to love about Ireland; the beautiful countryside, Irish dancing, the accent, leprechauns (OK, they're not real, but they're cool). But those aren't the reasons why Ireland is in the news at the moment. Right now, the Emerald Isle is making headlines because of Brexit (you know, the UK's plan to exit the European Union)! But we'll get to that in a bit. First, let's really get to know Ireland.

Ireland is this bit, and this is Northern Ireland. While it's on the same island as Ireland and half its name is Ireland it's actually not a part of Ireland, it's a part of the United Kingdom. Time for some history. The first people in Ireland were the Celts, but after the Celts came a whole lot of people who fought for control of Ireland. Eventually, it came under English rule. Lots of Irish people weren't happy about that, especially seeing as England's rulers were Protestant (a type of Christian religion), while most of the Irish were Catholic (a different sort of Christian religion).

There was a lot of fighting over a long time. A really long time. Eventually, the Southern part of Ireland broke away from the UK and became the Republic of Ireland. Northern Ireland, however, chose to remain with the United Kingdom. But the troubles didn't end there. In fact, "The Troubles" is the name given to the decades of violence that went on in Northern Ireland right up until the 90s. Groups that were loyal to the UK fought with groups that wanted to leave. Including one called the Irish Republican Army who fought UK soldiers and carried out bombings. Innocent people were killed by both sides. But eventually, in 1998 on Good Friday, the Republicans and the Unionists came together and agreed to stop the fighting. Since then, things have been pretty peaceful.

But some are worried that peace will be threatened by Brexit. Yep, back to that. You see at the moment both the UK and Ireland are a part of the European Union. Because of that, people and things can go across the border without anyone stopping you or checking your passport, so it's basically like there's no border. But that could change after Brexit. Because there'll be different trade and immigration laws. There might need to be border guards and passport checks for people and goods travelling between the UK and Ireland. That's something most people in the UK and Ireland want to avoid. Aside from making it much harder for people who live and work around here, there are worries it will remind people of the bad old days when there were armed guards on the Irish border, and maybe stir up old tensions.

So what's the answer? Well, one possible solution would be for the UK to give Northern Ireland its own special trade rules that are more similar to the EU's, so there'd be no need to check people and goods at the border. Instead, they'd be checked when they've crossed the Irish Sea. But some people don't like the idea of Northern Ireland being treated differently to the rest of the UK and Northern Irish politicians haven't supported the plan. It's a really tricky problem to solve. In fact, it's one of the main reasons why Brexit still hasn't happened.

The deadline has already been extended to October 31st (This week) and while the British Prime Minister wants it to go ahead as soon as possible, he's had to ask the EU for an extension, on the extension. Now he wants to call an election. So basically, no one knows what's going to happen. And people here in Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK have some uncertain times ahead.

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LEELA VARGHESE, REPORTER: There's a lot to love about Ireland; the beautiful countryside, Irish dancing, the accent, leprechauns (OK, they're not real, but they're cool). But those aren't the reasons why Ireland is in the news at the moment. Right now, the Emerald Isle is making headlines because of Brexit (you know, the UK's plan to exit the European Union)!

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Why I fell in love with Irish dancing - BBC News

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Shine Bright 2ndes escape game

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Celtic legends

escape game

START

You are a trainee historian doing some research in the maze -like cellars of Dunluce Castle in Ireland.

You are studying the carvings on an ancient mysterious stone called an Ogham .Suddenly a thick wooden door slams behind you!You are trapped.To escape, you will have to find your way through various rooms, solving enigmas and collecting clues and code cards.Beware! You have to meet all the challenges in the right order to obtain the code cards. You also have to fill in the mystery grid to reveal a clue which will help you escape.Good luck.

Introduction

click on the red words to see the translation

In each room, you will find ONE word. Note them down, You will need them to escape the final room.

Start your mission and enter the first room

labyrinthe

épaisse porte en bois

scultpures

caves

ROOM 1: look for information in this room and find the mysterious password (look at all the objects)

enter your password here (important: it has to be in capital letters)

GO TO ROOM 2

Find the common point between 3 of the creatures mentioned in the video. You are looking for an animal. You will get another clue by looking under the stone.

ROOM 2: Find the mystery word

GO TO ROOM 3

ROOM 3a: You enter a dark, yet comfortable bedroom... There is a book on the bedside table. Open it and get ready to find the mystery word.

GO TO ROOM 3b

When the time comes, the father doesn't want to give his son to the sea-maiden. At his son's request, he asks the blacksmith to make a sword. With the sword and his father's black horse, the son ventures out into the world. On his way, he meets a black dog, an otter, and a falcon, arguing over the carcass of a sheep. After the young man has divided the prey for them, they all pledge their help to him when needed. The son becomes a cowherd for the king, but the land where he grazes the cows belongs to two giants.

loutre

On the next day he went grazing with the cows; and at last he came to a place exceedingly grassy, in a green glen, of which he never saw the like. But about the time when he should drive the cattle homewards, who should he see coming but a great giant with his sword in his hand? "HI! HO!! HOGARACH!" says the giant. "Those cattle are mine; they are on my land, and a dead man art thou." "I say not that," says the herd; "there is no knowing, but that may be easier to say than to do." He drew the great clean-sweeping sword, and he neared the giant. The herd drew back his sword, and the head was off the giant in a twinkling. He leaped on the black horse, and he went to look for the giant's house. Into the house went the herd, and that's the place where there was money in plenty, and dresses of each kind in the wardrobe with gold and silver, and each thing finer than the other. At the mouth of night, he took himself to the king's house, but he took not a thing from the giant's house. And when the cattle were milked this night there was milk. He got good feeding this night, meat and drink without stint, and the king was hugely pleased that he had caught such a herd.

Back

garde-robe

sans se priver

vallon

vacher

bétail

promettent de l'aider

proie

loutre

paître

épée

forgeron

en un clin d'oeil

(ancien) you

ROOM 3B : The room was so dark that you hadn't notice a new tape... Listen to it and find a portrait where the hidden word is hidden...

GO TO ROOM 4

ROOM 4: Look on the floor! There are pieces of parchment. If you manage to reorder them, you will get the code to unlock the mystery word ...

GO TO ROOM 5

enter pin

You can also read the story in your book page 184

ROOM 5: you are now in a dark corridor. A note is stuck on the wall...

FIND THE WAY OUT

You have one more mission to accomplish .... Imagine the end of the storywrite it here

LAST ROOM: you are almost there. To get out, you need to write the first letter of the five words you found in the rooms.

write your answer in capital letters

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Celtic legends 2NDE 3 GROUP A by caroline.yaich on Genially

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Celtic legends escape game START You are a trainee historian doing some research in the maze -like cellars of Dunluce Castle in Ireland. You are studying the carvings on an ancient mysterious stone called an Ogham .Suddenly a thick wooden door slams behind you!You are trapped.To escape, you will have to find your way through various rooms, solving enigmas and collecting clues and code cards.Beware!

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Walking along Belfast 's peace lines, Mark Ervine came to a sudden halt, pointed to the wall and warned: "It should be clear that we are now going into enemy territory; it's dangerous for me, so there's a need to be very careful".

The "frontier" between Britain and Ireland was demarcated by the change in the row after row of murals, the intrinsic art form which has charted Northern Ireland 's turbulent politics. The paintings, graphic, often beautiful, portray loyalty and faith, solidarity and revolution, and also acts of violence, death and grief.

Ervine, the son of a famous loyalist paramilitary leader, was pointing out that he was putting himself at risk by walking towards the nationalist Falls Road. He was, however, speaking mostly in jest. One of the first murals in the "hostile" republican side was by him drawn with Danny Devenny, a former IRA member who had been jailed during the Troubles.

The two men had first collaborated 14 years earlier, producing a local recreation of Guernica, Picasso's poignant masterpiece which is regarded as one of the most powerful cries against the sorrow and pity of war.

David Ervine, Mark's late father, was an active member of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) who was found guilty on charges of possessing explosives and endangering life. While in prison he and other hitherto hardline loyalist inmates like Gusty Spence and Billy Hutchison decided to put down the gun and turn to negotiations and politics. They, alongside Republican paramilitaries who had also taken that path, played a vital part in developing the peace talks which eventually led to the historic Good Friday Agreement, ending 30 years of bombings, shootings and 3,700 deaths.

But the shadow of sectarian strife is looming once again. In the nights leading up to last weekend's anniversary of the agreement, riots broke out in Belfast and elsewhere with petrol bombs thrown and buses set alight. The police used water cannons and rubber bullets: 88 officers were injured.

The clashes had started in loyalist areas, the result, say community leaders, of anger and frustration. The protestants feel they are being cut adrift by the Westminster government and that their British identity is being eroded. There is also anger at the decision by Northern Ireland's Public Prosecution Service not to bring any charges against 24 Sinn Fein politicians, including the deputy first minister, Michelle O'Neill, who attended the funeral of Bobby Storey, a senior figure in the Republican movement, over an alleged breach of coronavirus guidelines.

The establishment of a sea border under the Northern Ireland protocol following Brexit has added to the sense of alienation and uncertainty. The situation is likely to get worse, leaders have warned, with the marching season - which has seen violence in the past - fast approaching.

Murals have recently gone up in unionist areas bearing messages saying "No Irish Sea Border", "Loyalist Village Says No To Irish Sea Border" and "You Cannot Divide the United Kingdom" along with the traditional ones of paramilitaries, pledging allegiance to the crown and the union, and ones of heritage about William of Orange and the Battle of the Boyne.

The loyalist community is missing unity and direction, according to some observers and analysts. It has "lacked a political voice since the death of the charismatic leader David Ervine", wrote Jonathan Powell, who was the chief British negotiator in Northern Ireland under Tony Blair, in a newspaper article this week.

"My father would be very saddened by what is going on at the moment. So much effort had gone into bringing about reconciliation between the communities to try and have a normal society, and now we are seeing something very worrying," said Mark Ervine.

"People have causes to be angry. But it will be a huge backward step if the communities begin to turn on each other. So much time has been wasted by these divisions. Just a personal example - Danny Devenny and I grew up not that far from each other, we obviously have the same interest in art, in murals, in social issues. But the Troubles kept people like us apart from each other."

Ervine and Devenny have become known internationally for their work. They had both painted murals abroad, their trips bringing them into contact with the glitterati as well as politicians, academics and the media. Ervine is due to work in Chile, the US and England, among other places, when Covid travel restrictions are eased.

Devenny went to a grammar school and would probably have gone to an art college, he says. But the Troubles began and he joined the IRA as a teenager. He was sentenced to three years in prison in 1973 for his part in robbing a bank to raise funds for the cause. At Long Kesh, where paramilitary prisoners from both sides were held, and where David Ervine began his political education, Devenny's fellow inmates included those who would become the leading figures in the republican movement like Gerry Adams and Danny Morrison.

People have causes to be angry, but it will be a huge backward step if the communities begin to turn on each other. So much time has been wasted by these divisions

Devenny's life in the arts began in prison with drawings to illustrate a political column by Adams for An Phoblacht (Republican News). He got a job with the paper when he was released, but the entire editorial team was arrested by the authorities soon afterward the News got shut down.

Devenny went to Dublin to help set up a printing operation for Sinn Fein. While there he was shot by a loyalist gunman, allegedly from the Ulster Freedom Fighters. Accompanying him when the attack took place was Patrick Magee, who was to be later convicted for attempting to blow up Margaret Thatcher and her cabinet at the Conservative Party conference in Brighton.

It is a sign of the changes which have taken place since the Good Friday Agreement that Devenny painted the official portrait of the lord mayor of Belfast which hangs at City Hall, an edifice of Victorian certainty and Protestant Ascendancy. It is also a sign of changing times that the lord mayor was Niall O Donnghaile, of Sinn Fein.

Is there a danger of the clock being turned back? Talking about the loyalist protests, Devenny says that "these people need to make up their minds who they are really angry with, is it the British government, the DUP (Democratic Unionist Party, part of the Northern Ireland Executive), is it the police, is it Sinn Fein?

"They should be questioning in whose interest it is to stir up violence. You have the DUP putting blame on the Shinners [Sinn Fein] and then you get petrol bombs being thrown over the Peace Wall on Lanark Way.

"Whose interests are they really serving, the interest of the DUP? People in the British State whose interest it is to divide communities here? They have done that before, why shouldn't they do it now?"

Ervine and Devenny's meetings have been infrequent during the pandemic lockdown. Devenny was also unwell for a period.

"We still see each other from time to time, we argue about politics, not just in Northern Ireland," said Ervine. "There is a definite feeling in the loyalist community that they have been hard done by. They feel they are under siege, culturally if not physically, they are very worried about the future. But the rioting was wrong, they are just destroying things on their own doorstep."

Ervine agrees with Devenny that the community needs to look at where blame lies. "The DUP have been using the protestant people for their own agenda and Boris Johnson's government in London don't see beyond London, they don't care about what's happening in Northern Ireland", he says.

"The politicians in the UK and the EU between them are threatening to do what the IRA tried and failed to do with 40 years of bombing - divide the country. It's up to us to look beyond the politics of the past."

Walking down Northumberland Road along the peace lines Ervine pointed to the differences, which still remain, between loyalist and republican murals. The former are about British identity, Queen and country, service in Britain's wars. The latter have paintings of Irish nationalism, but they are more international in scope, commemorating the anti-apartheid movement, the victims of military dictatorships, the fight against colonialism.

"The unionists need to reassure themselves about their identity, who they are because they are under threat, I suppose," said Ervine. "But that is changing, there are some more outward looking ones, that will happen more and more hopefully if we don't slip back to the past."

There are, in fact, other issues on display in the murals, about the climate change emergency, women's rights, mental and emotional stress, modern music and culture.

Some commercial concerns are also keen to keep with the mural heritage. The current painting Ervine is working on is at the offices of Russell + co, a firm of solicitors.

As well as the scales of justice, they show images of the local community. Colin Haddick, the practice's principal, and a member of the Law Society Council, said: "This seemed the ideal way to use a plain wall. Murals are something which has become the part of culture here."

Mr Haddick is involved in charitable work with colleagues in Ireland, with meetings often taking place in Dublin. "We can't travel there now because of Covid, the restrictions are understandable but feel odd because we were so used to free movement," he said.

"The idea of a border seems so strange. We will have to see how the political process works out. Businesses, including us, have got through the pandemic alright so far, but this outbreak of violence is a matter of concern. Will people want to come to Northern Ireland, to invest here, after seeing these scenes? We have come through worse violence in the past, but this is quite worrying for us all."

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Belfast's murals brought them together - now their communities could be divided once again

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Mark Ervine and Danny Devenny grew up close to one another, but the Troubles kept them apart. They united to produce some of Belfast's stunning murals, but with tensions flaring once again, they explain why it's essential to look beyond the politics of the past

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100 Years Ago: Northern Ireland Came into Existence

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100 Years Ago: Northern Ireland Came into Existence

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1921 has been described as a year of anniversaries in Northern Ireland, marking 100 years since the partition of Ireland which led to the creation of Northern Ireland. But nobody seems sure which dates to mark or celebrate, or indeed if they should be marked at all. A century after the border was created, and in raised tensions due to the new sea border resulting from the Brexit negotiations, Northern Ireland is having a bit of an identity crisis.

The Partition stemmed from decades of demands for Home Rule from Britain by Irish Nationalists. A Home Rule Bill had finally passed in Westminster just as WWI broke out, but was suspended for the duration of the war. By 1918, the Nationalists had lost patience and set up their own parliament, leading to the War of Independence (1919-1921).

In the midst of this war, in December 1920, the Government of Ireland Act was passed. It laid out a partition of the island, with Home Rule for the south, and the six most north-easterly counties remaining part of the UK, as Northern Ireland, also with a self-governing assembly.

The six counties were part of the historical province of Ulster, where there was a Protestant, Unionist, majority. But three historical Ulster counties, Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan, were excluded in a compromise by Unionists determined to create an entity with an inbuilt Unionist majority. Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan each had small Catholic majorities that would have swung the balance.

The Government of Ireland Act came into force on 3 May 1921, and was followed by elections and the opening of the first Northern Ireland Assembly by King George V on 22 June.

The War of Independence ended in a truce on 11 July 1921, followed by the Anglo-Irish Treaty on 6 December. The south was now the Free State of Ireland.

Creating a Border
The border originally put in place was supposed to be negotiable, but three years later it was made permanent. During the "Troubles" in the 1970s and 80s, when the British Army was deployed in Northern Ireland, border crossing posts were highly militarised. However, they were dismantled after the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 which brought an end to the Troubles. Although mainland British ports and airports maintained passport control posts even for visitors from the European Union, an exception was made for the Northern Irish border with Ireland, which became control free. It's just one of the exceptions in this province. For example, anyone born in Northern Ireland has the right to both a British and an Irish passport if they wish.

The centenary of Partition was always going to be a thorny subject. Many in Northern Ireland do not consider it a cause for celebration, either because they would prefer a united Ireland or because it is a reminder of decades of sectarian violence. A recent BBC poll found that only 40% of the population thought it should be marked. Covid restrictions add to the complications, and most of all the Brexit negotiations that led in January to the effective creation of a border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK. Although it has no physical presence, placed theoretically in the Irish Sea, it has meant a lot of disruption in trade and the requirement of vast quantities of paperwork.

Many in Northern Ireland feel that the UK government showed its disregard of the province and its people (who voted against Brexit) in the negotiations and this has led to increased calls for a referendum on reuniting Ireland in the medium term. The same BBC poll found that while 55% of those polled in Northern Ireland and 59% in the Republic believed that Northern Ireland would still exist in 10 years, when asked to project 25 years into the future, 51% of people in the North and 54% in the Republic said they thought the Northern Ireland would have left the UK.

Shine Bright AMC File 17 Borderline asks whether Brexit is reopening old wounds in Ireland over the disputed issue of the border.

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100 Years Ago: Northern Ireland Came into Existence

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1921 has been described as a year of anniversaries in Northern Ireland, marking 100 years since the partition of Ireland which led to the creation of Northern Ireland. But nobody seems sure which dates to mark or celebrate, or indeed if they should be marked at all.

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Prince Charles takes starring role in Irish band ahead of jubilee visit

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Ahead of their trip to Ireland next week, the Prince and Duchess of Cornwall learn how to play the Irish drums and pull a pint of Guinness

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Des ressources sur la St. Patrick.

St Patrick's Day (Lá Fhéile Pádraig) is Ireland's national holiday but it's also celebrated in other countries. There are parades and festivals to celebrate Irish culture on this day. It is named for Saint Patrick (c. 387-461 AD), the most commonly recognised of the patron saints of Ireland. It originated as a Catholic holiday and became an official feast day in the early 17th century.

Article sur Saint Patrick's Day sur Learn English Teens

Ecouter ces fichier mp3 sur audiolingua Saint Patrick's Day in Ireland

ou The story of Saint Patrick's Day

des vidéos et informations sur history.com

La fiche sur EDU'bases langues vivantes

Le dossier du Café Pédagogique .

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Des ressources sur la St. Patrick. St Patrick's Day (Lá Fhéile Pádraig) is Ireland's national holiday but it's also celebrated in other countries. There are parades and festivals to celebrate Irish culture on this day. It is named for Saint Patrick (c. 387-461 AD), the most commonly recognised of the patron saints of Ireland.

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Walking along Belfast 's peace lines, Mark Ervine came to a sudden halt, pointed to the wall and warned: "It should be clear that we are now going into enemy territory; it's dangerous for me, so there's a need to be very careful".

The "frontier" between Britain and Ireland was demarcated by the change in the row after row of murals, the intrinsic art form which has charted Northern Ireland 's turbulent politics. The paintings, graphic, often beautiful, portray loyalty and faith, solidarity and revolution, and also acts of violence, death and grief.

Ervine, the son of a famous loyalist paramilitary leader, was pointing out that he was putting himself at risk by walking towards the nationalist Falls Road. He was, however, speaking mostly in jest. One of the first murals in the "hostile" republican side was by him drawn with Danny Devenny, a former IRA member who had been jailed during the Troubles.

The two men had first collaborated 14 years earlier, producing a local recreation of Guernica, Picasso's poignant masterpiece which is regarded as one of the most powerful cries against the sorrow and pity of war.

David Ervine, Mark's late father, was an active member of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) who was found guilty on charges of possessing explosives and endangering life. While in prison he and other hitherto hardline loyalist inmates like Gusty Spence and Billy Hutchison decided to put down the gun and turn to negotiations and politics. They, alongside Republican paramilitaries who had also taken that path, played a vital part in developing the peace talks which eventually led to the historic Good Friday Agreement, ending 30 years of bombings, shootings and 3,700 deaths.

But the shadow of sectarian strife is looming once again. In the nights leading up to last weekend's anniversary of the agreement, riots broke out in Belfast and elsewhere with petrol bombs thrown and buses set alight. The police used water cannons and rubber bullets: 88 officers were injured.

The clashes had started in loyalist areas, the result, say community leaders, of anger and frustration. The protestants feel they are being cut adrift by the Westminster government and that their British identity is being eroded. There is also anger at the decision by Northern Ireland's Public Prosecution Service not to bring any charges against 24 Sinn Fein politicians, including the deputy first minister, Michelle O'Neill, who attended the funeral of Bobby Storey, a senior figure in the Republican movement, over an alleged breach of coronavirus guidelines.

The establishment of a sea border under the Northern Ireland protocol following Brexit has added to the sense of alienation and uncertainty. The situation is likely to get worse, leaders have warned, with the marching season - which has seen violence in the past - fast approaching.

Murals have recently gone up in unionist areas bearing messages saying "No Irish Sea Border", "Loyalist Village Says No To Irish Sea Border" and "You Cannot Divide the United Kingdom" along with the traditional ones of paramilitaries, pledging allegiance to the crown and the union, and ones of heritage about William of Orange and the Battle of the Boyne.

The loyalist community is missing unity and direction, according to some observers and analysts. It has "lacked a political voice since the death of the charismatic leader David Ervine", wrote Jonathan Powell, who was the chief British negotiator in Northern Ireland under Tony Blair, in a newspaper article this week.

"My father would be very saddened by what is going on at the moment. So much effort had gone into bringing about reconciliation between the communities to try and have a normal society, and now we are seeing something very worrying," said Mark Ervine.

"People have causes to be angry. But it will be a huge backward step if the communities begin to turn on each other. So much time has been wasted by these divisions. Just a personal example - Danny Devenny and I grew up not that far from each other, we obviously have the same interest in art, in murals, in social issues. But the Troubles kept people like us apart from each other."

Ervine and Devenny have become known internationally for their work. They had both painted murals abroad, their trips bringing them into contact with the glitterati as well as politicians, academics and the media. Ervine is due to work in Chile, the US and England, among other places, when Covid travel restrictions are eased.

Devenny went to a grammar school and would probably have gone to an art college, he says. But the Troubles began and he joined the IRA as a teenager. He was sentenced to three years in prison in 1973 for his part in robbing a bank to raise funds for the cause. At Long Kesh, where paramilitary prisoners from both sides were held, and where David Ervine began his political education, Devenny's fellow inmates included those who would become the leading figures in the republican movement like Gerry Adams and Danny Morrison.

People have causes to be angry, but it will be a huge backward step if the communities begin to turn on each other. So much time has been wasted by these divisions

Devenny's life in the arts began in prison with drawings to illustrate a political column by Adams for An Phoblacht (Republican News). He got a job with the paper when he was released, but the entire editorial team was arrested by the authorities soon afterward the News got shut down.

Devenny went to Dublin to help set up a printing operation for Sinn Fein. While there he was shot by a loyalist gunman, allegedly from the Ulster Freedom Fighters. Accompanying him when the attack took place was Patrick Magee, who was to be later convicted for attempting to blow up Margaret Thatcher and her cabinet at the Conservative Party conference in Brighton.

It is a sign of the changes which have taken place since the Good Friday Agreement that Devenny painted the official portrait of the lord mayor of Belfast which hangs at City Hall, an edifice of Victorian certainty and Protestant Ascendancy. It is also a sign of changing times that the lord mayor was Niall O Donnghaile, of Sinn Fein.

Is there a danger of the clock being turned back? Talking about the loyalist protests, Devenny says that "these people need to make up their minds who they are really angry with, is it the British government, the DUP (Democratic Unionist Party, part of the Northern Ireland Executive), is it the police, is it Sinn Fein?

"They should be questioning in whose interest it is to stir up violence. You have the DUP putting blame on the Shinners [Sinn Fein] and then you get petrol bombs being thrown over the Peace Wall on Lanark Way.

"Whose interests are they really serving, the interest of the DUP? People in the British State whose interest it is to divide communities here? They have done that before, why shouldn't they do it now?"

Ervine and Devenny's meetings have been infrequent during the pandemic lockdown. Devenny was also unwell for a period.

"We still see each other from time to time, we argue about politics, not just in Northern Ireland," said Ervine. "There is a definite feeling in the loyalist community that they have been hard done by. They feel they are under siege, culturally if not physically, they are very worried about the future. But the rioting was wrong, they are just destroying things on their own doorstep."

Ervine agrees with Devenny that the community needs to look at where blame lies. "The DUP have been using the protestant people for their own agenda and Boris Johnson's government in London don't see beyond London, they don't care about what's happening in Northern Ireland", he says.

"The politicians in the UK and the EU between them are threatening to do what the IRA tried and failed to do with 40 years of bombing - divide the country. It's up to us to look beyond the politics of the past."

Walking down Northumberland Road along the peace lines Ervine pointed to the differences, which still remain, between loyalist and republican murals. The former are about British identity, Queen and country, service in Britain's wars. The latter have paintings of Irish nationalism, but they are more international in scope, commemorating the anti-apartheid movement, the victims of military dictatorships, the fight against colonialism.

"The unionists need to reassure themselves about their identity, who they are because they are under threat, I suppose," said Ervine. "But that is changing, there are some more outward looking ones, that will happen more and more hopefully if we don't slip back to the past."

There are, in fact, other issues on display in the murals, about the climate change emergency, women's rights, mental and emotional stress, modern music and culture.

Some commercial concerns are also keen to keep with the mural heritage. The current painting Ervine is working on is at the offices of Russell + co, a firm of solicitors.

As well as the scales of justice, they show images of the local community. Colin Haddick, the practice's principal, and a member of the Law Society Council, said: "This seemed the ideal way to use a plain wall. Murals are something which has become the part of culture here."

Mr Haddick is involved in charitable work with colleagues in Ireland, with meetings often taking place in Dublin. "We can't travel there now because of Covid, the restrictions are understandable but feel odd because we were so used to free movement," he said.

"The idea of a border seems so strange. We will have to see how the political process works out. Businesses, including us, have got through the pandemic alright so far, but this outbreak of violence is a matter of concern. Will people want to come to Northern Ireland, to invest here, after seeing these scenes? We have come through worse violence in the past, but this is quite worrying for us all."

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Belfast's murals brought them together - now their communities could be divided once again

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Mark Ervine and Danny Devenny grew up close to one another, but the Troubles kept them apart. They united to produce some of Belfast's stunning murals, but with tensions flaring once again, they explain why it's essential to look beyond the politics of the past

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Joni Mitchell : Magdalene Laundries (KCRW 1994)

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This is a rare audio clip of Joni on KCRW radio in Los Angeles, 1994, on a program called Morning Becomes Eclectic. The video begins with Joni answering a question about her tunings and chords, then she sings "Magdalene Laundries" from what was her new release at the time, "Turbulent Indigo".

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Domination des femmes en Irlande

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This flood October. And in the early light her mother goes for her, rips her from sleep, takes her from a dream of the world. She finds herself arm-hauled across the room, panic shot loose to the blood. She thinks, do not shout and stir the others, do not let them see Mam like this. She cannot sound-out anyhow, her mouth is thick and tonguing shock, so it is her shoulder that speaks. It cracks aloud in protest, sounds as if her arm were rotten, a branch from a tree snapped clean. From a place that is speechless comes the recognition that something in the making up of her world has been unfixed.

She is drawn to the exit as if harnessed to her mother, her body bent like a buckling field implement, her feet blunt blades. A knife-cut of light by the door. Her eyes fight the gloom to get a fasten on her mother, see just a hand pale as bone vised upon her wrist. She swings her free fist, misses, swings at the dark, at the air complicit, digs her heels into the floor. Will against will she pits, though Sarah's will now has become more like animal power, a secret strength, she thinks, like Nealy Ford's ox before he killed it and left, and now her wrist burns in her mother's grip. She rolls from her heels to her toes as she is dragged out the door.

What comes to meet them is a smacking cold as if it has lurked there just for them, an animal thing eager in the dawn, a morning that sits low and crude and gray. Not yet the true cold of winter though the trees huddle like old men stripped for punishment and the land is haggard just waiting. The trees here are mountain ash but bear not the limbs of grace. They stand foreshortened and twisted as if they could find no succor in the shallow earth, were stunted by the sky's ever-low. Beneath them pass Sarah and her daughter, this girl pale-skinned, fourteen, still boy-chested, her long hair set loose in her face so that all her mother can see of her are the girl's teeth set to grimace.

Her mother force-sits her on the killing stump. Sit you down on it, she says.

It seems for a moment that a vast silence has opened, the wind a restless wanderer all times at this height is still. The rocks set into the mountain are great teeth clamped shut to listen. In the mud puddles the girl is witness to herself, sees the woman's warp standing over her gray and grotesque. The spell of silence breaks, wing-flap and whoosh of a dark bird that shoots overhead for the hill. She thinks, what has become of Mam while I slept? Who has taken her place? Of a sudden she sees what the heart fears most — pulled from out of her mother's skirt, the dulled knife. And then out of her own dark comes her brother Colly's story, his huge eyes all earnest, the story of a family so hard up they put the knife to the youngest. Or was it the eldest? she thinks. Colly, always with the stories, always yammering on, swearing on his life it was true. Quit your fooling, she said then. But now she knows that one thing leads to another and something has led to this.

She hears Sarah wheezing behind her. Hears the youngers creep open the door to peep. She thinks of the last living thing they saw put to blood, the unfurling of the goose into arching white as it was chased, rupturing the air with shrill. The eerie calm of that bird with its long neck to the stump and their sister quiet now just like it, the same blunt knife that made such long work. And Boggs that time waiting. The way he picked them clean. She sees the blade come up, becomes an animal that bucks and braces against her mother.

The rush of Colly then, this small bull of a boy twelve years old, his cap falling off, yelling out his sister's name. Grace! She hears in his voice some awful desperation, as if to speak her name is to save it from the closure of meaning, that as long as he is sounding it no harm can be done. She feels the swerve towards an oncoming dark, Colly tugging at his mother, the way he gets an arm around Sarah's waist until she makes light work of him, puts him to the ground. Then she speaks and her voice is shaking. Colly, get you back into the house. Grace turns and sees her brother red-cheeked upon his sit-bones, sees the knife in her mother's hand as if she were embarrassed of it. Eye to eye they meet and she is surprised by what she does not see in her mother — any sign of madness or evil. Hears when the woman speaks a knot twisting in the cords of her throat. Enough, please, would ye.

Excerpted from Grace Copyright © 2017 by Paul Lynch Used with permission of Little, Brown and Company, New York. All rights reserved.

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Grace Excerpt: Read free excerpt of Grace by Paul Lynch

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This flood October. And in the early light her mother goes for her, rips her from sleep, takes her from a dream of the world. She finds herself arm-hauled across the room, panic shot loose to the blood. She thinks, do not shout and stir the others, do not let them see Mam like this.

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RTÉ's Paul Cunningham was asked to explain Brexit to children for RTÉ's news2day. However, his concise explanation of the issues in simple terms has found a much wider audience on social media - and it's not just children tuning in.

If you don't understand why the Brexit negotiations are difficult (I get quite a few correspondents on twitter saying 'Why can't we just leave? .... WTO ... or something) then this piece from a children's TV show in Ireland is very clear - even IDS might understand it! https://t.co/cs8bDIq4xX
- Brian Cox (@ProfBrianCox) September 28, 2018

Irish TV explains Brexit negotiations to kids in under three minutes. There's a fair few people in Britain could do with watching it. https://t.co/K3XpDAgMiQ
- Dave Clark (@DaveClark_AFP) September 28, 2018

Children's TV in Ireland providing a Brexit explainer that effortlessly exposes the basic ignorance underpinning almost every interview conducted with the likes of Rees Mogg, Davis & Johnson. (It's incredibly simple but, in fairness, probably a bit too complicated for Dorries) https://t.co/AZfW42JEiO
- James O'Brien (@mrjamesob) September 28, 2018

Here's the piece that's generating all the buzz:

What is Brexit?

The word Brexit means that Britain is leaving, or exiting, the European Union.

The British people voted in favour of leaving the EU in June 2016.

But the date Britain will actually leave the EU is March 2019.

Both the British and the EU are now trying to agree on what kind of relationship they will have after Brexit.

Single Market

The EU has a Single Market - this means stuff made in Ireland can travel around the EU without any checks or regulations.

Britain still wants to be part of that after Brexit.

If Britain chose a deal like Norway, it would be outside the EU, but still able to use the Single Market.

But it would mean that people as well as goods could travel freely across borders - and Britain doesn't like that.

If Britain chose a deal like Switzerland, it could still use the Single Market - but it would have to obey the same trade rules as the EU, and Britain doesn't like that.

Britain wouldn't have the problem with rules, courts and people, if it had a trade deal like Canada.

But it would only have limited use of the Single Market - and Britain wants more than that.

British Prime Minister Theresa May has another idea. Her plan is known as Chequers.

She wants a better deal than Canada, but without as many rules.

However, last week in Salzburg in Austria, the EU told her this Chequers plan will not work.

Border

The Irish Government is worried about what's going to happen between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

They want a backstop: an unbreakable agreement that there will never be a physical border in Ireland, whether there's a deal or not.

When you cross the border today, no one stops you to ask for your passport or to look in your car or any trucks.

Both the Irish and British governments say they want this to remain, even after Brexit next year.

However, if Britain wants a deal like Canada, then the EU will want to know what stuff is crossing the border.

Both sides are trying to work out how to do that without having to do checks at the border.

Both sides agree there should be a backstop - but they can't agree how it will work.

If they get that sorted, they'll have longer to work out a trade deal.

But they only have a few weeks to sort out the backstop.

The clock is ticking.

Ireland's version of Newsround with one of the simplest and most straightforward explanations of Brexit around. lots of people in Britain could do with watching pic.twitter.com/9uYM4MvgRv
- Matthew Champion (@matthewchampion) September 28, 2018

Given the clarity of this Irish TV children's programme on Brexit - thanks @rte - and how it compares with @BorisJohnson 's selfserving waffle - is there anyway we can get the leading Brexiteers to watch RTE News2Day so they at last begin to understand what's going on? https://t.co/1l5URFVQGf
- Gavin Esler (@gavinesler) September 28, 2018

A Brexit explainer for Irish kids and British cabinet ministers. https://t.co/TlHUFppvBV
- Eoin O'Malley (@AnMailleach) September 27, 2018

This is excellent. Well done @RTENewsPaulC and @news2dayRTE #Brexit https://t.co/F7ZPzWsaly
- Dr Clodagh Harris (@clharris_ucc) September 27, 2018

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Brexit for children (or anyone who needs a primer)

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RTÉ's Paul Cunningham was asked to explain Brexit to children for RTÉ's news2day. However, his concise explanation of the issues in simple terms has found a much wider audience on social media - and it's not just children tuning in.

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The Irish are sending relief to Native Americans, inspired by a donation from a tribe during the Great Famine

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The Irish are sending relief to Native Americans, inspired by a donation from a tribe during the Great Famine

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see also Native Americans

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the irish are sending relief to native americans

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inspired by a donation from a tribe during the great famine - cnn

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The Irish are sending relief to Native Americans, inspired by a donation from a tribe during the Great Famine

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In 1847, the Choctaw people collected $170 to send to people in Ireland who were starving as a result of the potato famine. Now, people in Ireland are paying it forward.

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video sur site Didier Full Swing 1ère