Why Enoch Burke needs to run in the European Elections.
Bogs, referenda and using an election to break out of prison.
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Settle in, good folks. We’re going on a little windy stroll before we tackle into the sexy headline.
Last week, on a leisurely bog-walk close to where the three counties meet - I happened upon a long trail of gooey frog-spawn. Out of nowhere - there it was. Sitting atop some still water by the side of a grassy path. Bobbing up and down while also quivering with life, side to side. Thousands of jelly cells glued together. Each cell centred with a tiny black dot. In truth, the whole purpose of my little hiking excursion (straddling the borders of Galway, Mayo and Roscommon ) was to try and find some of this frog-jelly. To see if I might catch some of the old aromas, excitements and familiar flavors of my youth.
So, on discovery, I bent down and scooped up a few families worth of spawn into an empty cigarette packet. Pure delighted with myself, I should add. The fresh wind carried a hint of spring. Confirmed now by the pregnant possibilities growing quietly in the bog-belly of a Cloonfad pond. I was out of cigarettes but on the bright side of things I had the makings of a frog farm in my jacket pocket.
These walking adventures have helped me, no end, to blow-out the winter cob-webs and begin exploring new avenues of thought and also to eject myself from hermit mode and meet people. During one of my recent walk and talks a man confided to me that he often envisages himself in conversation with John Waters. The rationale for this exercise, I think, boils down to one of trust. To parse through the fast flowing river of thoughts in his brain he employs a conversational device. But, for the exercise to work in a beneficial manner the two-way internal dialogue must be with someone he trusts. Someone he trusts to listen and, I assume, someone he trusts to tell him the truth. I loved the simple genius of this idea. So much so I decided to give it a test-drive.
Very recently, on a long drive, I settled in for an imaginary natter with Enoch Burke’s mother. Martina Burke. In a weird way, I trust Martina Burke although I doubt we’d get on very well for too long. Maybe, another way of putting it, is to say, I’d trust Martina Burke with my soul, if a soul could be minded by someone other than one’s self. Anyway, about ten days ago, Martina Burke managed to ambush the Minister for Children, O’Gorman as he left the University of Galway. The continued scandalous incarceration of her son, Enoch, was obviously the subject matter front and centre of her mind. The four minute video of her interaction with O’Gorman unsettled me. Unsettled me in a very new way, though. So, with this in mind, off I traipsed for one of a number of imaginary chats with Martina Burke.
Now, my imagined conversations with Mrs Burke always takes place at the same location. Outside the front door of the Burke house, somewhere near Castlebar, in County Mayo. In the scene, she answers the door flanked by her husband Sean, with a gaggle of her whip-smart adult children in tow for back-up.
In my mind’s eye, I get the full fire and brimstone Burke treatment. Reserved for any passing hedonistic heathens silly enough to stop by and offer her advice about her family, or more specifically, about her son Enoch. But, I am persistent class of a nut-job scribe and wait patiently for the brief eye of the storm to arrive so as to ponce with my idea. I lob it in quickly with a cheeky twist, then try to grab hold of a concrete pillar as the full fury and outrage of the Burke storm descends again on top of my head.
“ Enoch, needs to announce that he is running as an independent candidate in the European elections in June from Mountjoy prison - Bobby Sands style.
Now, what class of a God does a man need to pray to around here to get a offered a cup of tay and a slice of sweet cake?“
Just before Martina can summon up a celestial lightening-bolt to smite me and my raggedy VW Passat from polluting her front driveway any further - Sean quietly intervenes and offers to stick on the kettle. I glance back to my car and give the thumbs up to the guitarist and flute player hidden in the back-seat. I might need a few songs to aide me but not just yet.
The Burke’s have a modus operandi when battling against the various forces of the Irish state in public. Shock and awe. Loudly berating, shouting and sometimes roaring at politicians, judges and barristers, or indeed, anyone else who stands in their way. Notwithstanding Enoch’s incarceration it is a strategy that has borne some results. Especially media-wise. It’s a tactic to discombobulate the arms of state, government and the judiciary at every point the family interacts with them, I believe. This tactic worked very well for most of 2022 and parts of 2023. But is now starting to fail.
Big Brother was, in a sense, wary and a little frightened of meeting the Burke family head on. Indeed, I suspect, wary of their collective brainpower too. The giveaway that the screaming matches are a strategy can be seen in the O’Gorman video scene - by observing just how quickly Martina Burke transitions from histrionics to clear, calm and intelligent dissection of the facts surrounding her son’s imprisonment. This occurs immediately after O’Gorman escapes into his taxpayer funded car and departs. Now, I said earlier I was unsettled by the exchange and here’s exactly why: O’Gorman remained cold and icily undisturbed through-out the entire episode. It seemed as if he was suppressing a snigger as he strolled to his car with the aid of a supportive security “heavy”. In a microcosm, the scene revealed a huge universal truth about our government. The state gloves are well and truly off. They will trample right over the Burke’s in future and let Enoch Burke rot in jail before yielding an inch. In a nutshell, the Burke’s shock and awe tactics will no longer bear any fruit at all. They need to adapt and adapt fast methinks.
Furthermore, the O’Gorman incident signifies to me this government will pound all of their agendas through by any means possible. Including by force. As most of us know, O’Gorman’s ministerial remit bizarrely includes the housing of asylum seekers. The gloves are off in this arena too. Evidenced by the creation of a 950 person tented favela in County Kildare. The feature of this new temporary asylum centre is the unveiling of another new government tactic. Gone is even the pretense of consulting the local population regarding their plans. But, rather instead, the state arrive armed with injunctions seeking to thwart the ability of Irish men and women to freely protest the plantation of their county with favelas. The clear message sent is as follows:
“ We don’t care a damn how much screaming you do - the global agenda steamrolls ahead regardless. And we will literally steam-roll the Irish nation to complete our task “
Now, the reason I am a strong supporter of the Burke’s is not because I’m a disciple of their religious beliefs. But, because they are a family possessing the courage of their convictions. Imagine an Ireland where each county had one or two families like the Burke’s. Each family passionately inflamed on different issues. Issues great and small. Now, ask yourself a question or two.
How absolutely terrified would the Irish government be of its people and of stepping out of line in such a scenario?
Could any government sell our soul to the highest bidder in a nation built with families like this ?
For sure, it would be a difficult country to manage but equally it would be an impossible nation to destroy.
Enoch Burke has a quality that very, very few people are born with or foster. The word “ leadership “ often gets bandied about like confetti at a wedding, by all and sundry, in modern Ireland. Many different ingredients stew into the makings a great leader but one is rarely mentioned. Yet, for my money, it’s the defining characteristic only true leaders possess and its lack is why Ireland is devoid of any leader worthy of the name. These chosen few are the type prepared to walk the walk when absolutely no-one is prepared to follow or support them. They take the first steps into the wilderness alone to a backdrop of silence and not even the hint of following foot-steps. This type of leader has the courage to chart their path even when the likelihood is that no-one will ever follow them down the road. In essence, these types of people are not trying to be leaders but their integrity and principles refuse to allow them to be anything else.
One of the haunting feelings from observing the O’Gorman video was the sight of a mother so casually and contemptuously brushed aside for demanding that her son be treated fairly by the Irish justice system. It goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway, Enoch Burke should not be in prison. Instead, one of the finest young teaching minds in the country rots in a prison cell. As momentum fades and the Irish state doubles down on authoritarianism and brutality, I can’t help but note that his last line of defiant defence is his Irish mother.
In a couple of days referenda will take place to alter wording as it relates to family and care in our constitution. To remove the traces of words like” mother “and “ woman “ and to replace them with terms like “ durable relationships “ - Thankfully, I am not a legal expert and so do not offer to provide a legal opinion. But, the old bog-warrior in me does love chewing over words and phrases. So, I will re-print one of the proposed amendments here to make an observation.
“The State recognises that the provision of care, by members of a family to one another by reason of the bonds that exist among them, gives to Society a support without which the common good cannot be achieved, and shall strive to support such provision.’
The above is a sentence devoid of any Irish spirit. Or any traces of spirit at all. Removing the words mother and woman takes a slash-hook to her links with mother nature and beyond that to the eternal. A string of text not pregnant with the possibilities of future Irish springs or any other seasons for that matter. A contrivance of words designed by the spiritually spastic for the roll-out of an Ireland gutted of its soul. In addition, far from the madding crowd and luxuriating in the heather of the unmaddening bog, I wonder aloud to myself if a paedophile ring might be considered a durable relationship.
Obviously, I’m quite certain I don’t want to sign up for a world created by minister O’Gorman or any of the other elite lapdogs destroying the Irish nation for the benefit of global interests. But, I should say too, I probably wouldn’t be amenable to scribbling my signature down for a world manifest by the Burke’s either. But, that is to wholly miss the point, I think. Martina Burke and the rest of her tribe pulse the meaning of family and family spirit. Of sticking together in bad times and in good. They are quintessentially a family only Ireland could dream and conjure up. On a bog-walk, I wouldn’t be surprised to bump into a Burke whereas in O’Gorman’s case, I feel, I’d need to explain the meaning of an Irish bog to him. Along with a river of other fundamental Irish things, too many to mention.
For, the bog is a setting that spits out produce other than brown peat-sods waiting patiently to be winded into the promise of blackening baskets of turf. Not just a fuel to be set down beside an open fire or the hot of an old, white Stanley range. As delectable as that sounds to some of us, our ancient bogs are still much more. These are the Irish places where our nature and spirituality lie-back together on the beaten heather. Intermingling and intertwining with one another to produce a unique concoction of soft, bog-watery aromas and vapours that mists our Gaelic soul. Stamping us as people with a sacred, indelible and invisible ink. So, it‘s of little surprise our government seeks to outlaw these places and flood them with millions and millions of cubic tonnes of water. To kill a nation you must first drown out the sound of its soul.
As stated previously I do not believe the Irish nation is salvageable unless we go back to the very beginning and start building it on new, re-imagined foundations. So, in effect - voting - is a bit like getting excited about choosing the next song the band play on the decks of the Titanic. In Enoch Burke’s case, though, I would make an exception to this rule. The state have started to deploy the muscle. The Burke tactics need to be re-imagined. So as to assist in keeping the pressure on and to fight the injustice hammering down on him. He lives in the only constituency that retains a little of the wildness of old. A constituency filled with bogs and people who still recognise the importance of them too. It’s time for Enoch Burke, perhaps, to assume the leadership position in his family. His mother, father and siblings have done all they can in the face of an Irish state getting comfortable treating them uglier and uglier.
To break out of prison the young tadpole needs to consider that the best solution might be to swim through the iron bars.
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My brother, who's in the airforce, was once based down on the Falkland Islands, keeping the sheep – and a few locals - free from the dreaded 'Argies' over the water (for just £60 million a year, which actually sounds cheap these days, where you can't get a good war without dropping several billion, or hundreds of billion, if you're a Yank).
One of the most significant issues between the military and islanders was that the soldiers referred to islanders as 'bennies'. The reason for this was someone had made some connection between the locals and the short fat mentally challenged character of Benny Hawkins from the UK soap opera Crossroads (which ended in 1988 but was sustained by cultural memory), probably due to the preponderance of woolly hats on the island (Benny wore a blue woolly hat). Or maybe they viewed the islanders as "slow" (1980s term, used instead of the more common 'retarded', which itself had replaced something even worse).
Once the locals cottoned on, the word came down from the garrison's commanding officer that the term 'bennies' was now officially banned.
The soldiers, being good soldiers, did as they were told, and overnight, the term vanished, only to be replaced by the term 'Nots'.
When asked what this referred to, the officer class were told it stood for 'not bennies'.
Again, another warning went out, banning the term 'Nots'. And so, this term also disappeared overnight, only to be replaced by the new term: "Stills".
When asked what this meant, the officer class were told it meant 'still not bennies'.
This story, as well as the idea of Burke running for office, demonstrates why computer models designed to calculate a workable game theory of human motivations, interactions and outcomes will always be crap, once real - messy and funny - people get involved rather than punch cards. I think deep down, we know that in a perfectly ordered world, utopia, there's no place for creatures like us, only for sheep and the Bennies who watch over them.
Fantastic post Gerry. A few things of note. I suggest a talking parish tour is organised throughout the country organised by your good self with speakers like John headlining, but not top table stuff. In circle. The top table creates separation from the community. In the book I read many years ago, Brian boru, when he was asked by the vikings why he sat on the floor with his people he said, what do you mean? This is always how we are. Same as the the Native American Indians. In my Substack, eire rising-the return of the sacred circle way I’m delving into what came before, how meetings were held, what healing actually is, change ourselves change the world. We need to evolve, not revolve so that means stepping out of the box of the unnatural systems that were foisted on us through warfare and imperialism. We cannot ask others to accept change if we do not change ourselves. Let’s go back to simple. Sitting in circle and truly listening to each other. This builds trust and motivation for positive change at a local level.