Loose Cannon Buchanan

From current affairs and science to poetry and ancient history.Beer, sweat and queers ranted and whispered at you by a white-trash know-nothing from Dublin,Ireland. 

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WHY THE OLD TESTAMENT GOD IS A FALSE IDOL

Yahweh, or Jehovah, is the name of a Bronze Age Babylonian storm god who became the main deity of the Kingdom of Israel and thus became the monotheistic Abrahamic supreme being, the God of the Jews, Christians and Muslims. 'Yahweh' roughly translates as “He Brings Into Existence Whatever Exists”. Yahweh was romanised/Hellenised to `Jehovah' by Christians.

Ever wonder why the Christian churches never teach you about where he came from? Could it be because they want you to believe it existed since before its creation, instead of barely a few thousand years? Millenniums after human civilizations emerged. Real gods are eternal, false idols are as mercurial as the humans who beg, sacrifice and wish upon them.

He has many titles, in addition to the 21 sacred titles, he has in the Torah. He is mainly referred to as YHWH (the Tetragrammaton) Jehovah, Elohim, El Shaddai and Adonai.

The Old Testament in the Christian Bible roughly equates to the Jewish Torah. Within Exodus, we see he is not the exclusive god of the Israelites. Yahweh was just part of a polytheistic pantheon of gods. He was originally associated with metallurgy during the Bronze Age ( 3500-1200 BCE). His first cult was ancient copper miners in the Timna Valley.

He was also idolised and sacrificed to by the Canaanites, Edomites, Moabites and Midians to name a few. In fact, the Edomites were the people who created the aforementioned mines at Timnah. They were so enamoured with Yahweh that they even converted a temple for Hathor ( part of the related Egyptian pantheon) to worship him.

The Babylonian and Canaanites' main god was called "El" (lord/god). Canaanite inscriptions mention a lesser god Yahweh and even the biblical Book of Deuteronomy opaquely acknowledges that El was “the Most High" but he broke off a few responsibilities to his assistant manager. Deuteronomy says “Yahweh's portion is his people”. EL was basically outsourcing some lesser HR tasks to YHWH! This Canaanite god "El" actually lends his name to the title `Israel' (He Who Struggles with God).

During the Second Temple Period (515 BCE-70 CE) when the Israelites escaped Babylonian captivity they began defining their identity and thus their patron deity. A massive issue for this previously enslaved race was unsurprisingly

a liberating Messiah, who would be sent by Yahweh like the result of some holy Bat-Signal. In answer to this particular promise, a small Jewish apocalyptic sect called the Essenes would eventually build a cult around a messiah called Joshua Ben Josef aka Jesus of Nazareth. The rest is history, unfortunately. The followers of Islam and Mohammed honour Jesus as an important prophet (though not the last). And Muslims are effectively the third branch of the Abrahamic faiths, praising the same supreme and singular deity under the title Allah.

But Yahweh had publicity outside the Abrahamic faiths too. He is name-checked on an ancient

Moabite stone called the "Mesha Stele". King Mesha of Moab was basically slagging Yahweh off after his kingdom decisively defeated Israel in c. 840 BCE. Not only that, the Moabites desecrated and pillaged that local god's sanctuary and brought the booty to the temple of their own local magic fairy Kemosh. But the Israelites would have the last laugh on Moab. After later conquests, Kemosh's house found itself relocated in a temporary Israelite capital Samaria. Equally fascinating is the hypothesis that the Mesha's Moabites were actually repossessing Yahweh's relics originally owned by Moabites before the Israelites stole them (and borrowed their God).

The Moabite Stone was discovered in 1868 CE in modern-day Jordan. As the first extra-biblical inscription found to mention Yahweh, much was made of the discovery as the

This engraving lined up with an incident recorded in the Bible in II Kings 3. However, unsurprisingly, that Israelite record written centuries later claims a totally different outcome! Sometimes they even say he came from Edom as a warrior spirit (Deuteronomy 33:2, Judges 5:4-5)

Archaeologists excavating a temple in the ancient city of Soleb in Nubia discovered inscriptions on a pillar declaring the power of “Shasu of Yahweh”. What's more fascinating is that this temple was built by the notorious Pharaoh Amenhotep III (1386-1353 BCE). So Yahweh was being worshipped and slandered centuries before his supposed debut in the Torah! Being nomads, they likely adopted him whilst drifting through the Levant.

The famous Battle of Kadesh under Ramesses II (1279-1213 BCE) resulted in the enemies of Pharaoh being recorded and ridiculed in stone inscriptions. The Shasu of Yahweh are cited again. Along with derogatory descriptions that they are thieves and nomads. They ain't Israelites but they do worship that God and earlier!

Yahweh as a minor copper miners deity can also be seen in the Book of Zechariah when they say his symbol (or home) is two mountains of copper (Zech. 6:1-6). And he was described as some kind of metal robot in Ezekiel (Ezek. 40:3) `a man was there, whose appearance shone like copper' and being a metal smelter (Ezek. 22:20). It is amazing how this eternal omnipotent God liked to slum it for thousands of years before he got his big break! Then he was able to command blood sacrifices, both human and animal, and let's not forget about his bizarre fondness for foreskins….

So who first dreamed up, or embraced Yahweh? Who discovered this god of storms and metal if not the Israelites, Canaanites or the mysterious Shasu? Ironically the Old Testament's descriptions of him give clues to his desert weather magic origins. During Exodus, he manifests as a "pillar of fire by night and cloud by day". And of course the burning bush, fire and brimstone. All are aspects expected of a weather-deity. Predicting dangerous changes in the desert environment meant life or death. It makes sense for nomadic peoples to assign control, and hence prediction of and protection from said hostile climatic behaviour. In fact, to cement his priorities and powers Yahweh repeatedly guides his people to and educates them on how to find wells and oases and springs. Exodus 17:6 and Numbers 20 read more like a Bear Grylls survival guide passed on by folk memory than divine instruction. Minus the piss drinking. He was fairly rubbish at navigation though as the journey of 40 years he led them on could've actually been walked in 11 days…..mysterious ways indeed!

It's worth noting that some Gnostic texts like the Secret Book of John (2nd century CE) in the Nag Hammadi library use Yahweh as a title for Cain in Genesis. This Yahweh is the offspring of the Demiurge Yaldabaoth and Eve. Again Yahweh/Cain is a demigod of fire and wind. Engravings in Pompey even associate him with "The Jewish Bacchus", and hence also a form of Dionysus. A busy god with an identity crisis. And they say the devil makes work for idle hands!

SOURCES

Jewish Publication Society of America. The Holy Scriptures: A Jewish Family Bible According to the Masoretic Text. Menorah Press, 2018.

Mark, J. J. (2018, October 22). Yahweh. World History Encyclopedia.

Van De Mieroop, M. A History of the Ancient Near East ca. 3000 - 323 BC, 2nd Edition. Blackwell Publishing, 2006.

Wise Bauer, S. The History of the Ancient World. W. W. Norton & Company, 2007.

Kerrigan, M. The Ancients in Their Own Words. Fall River Press, 2018.

Kriwaczek, P. Babylon: Mesopotamia and the Birth of Civilization. St. Martin's Griffin, 2012.

Miller, J. M. & Hayes, J. H. A History of Ancient Israel and Judah. Westminster Press, 1986.

Holy Bible, New King James Version.

[theloosecannonbuchanan]

Review of Flower Press by Alice Kinsella

Flower Press may be Alice Kinsella’s debut collection, yet despite her relative youth she has already begun to make an impression across the broader Irish literary scene in prose and playwriting, as well as poetry. The collection is a loose eulogy to a lost love, refreshingly without the superficial sentimentality which makes similarly themed works too saccharine for serious digestion.

After the foreshadowing prologue “Bia”, which serves as both epitaph and an exorcism, Kinsella begins a journey of reminiscence. Flower Press is the roadmap of a relationship already irreversibly completed. We are invited along the lifecycle, as voyeur and confessor, from its figurative and literal youth to its conclusion via three parts: Bud, Bloom and Blood.

Peppered with allusions to the processes of nature, and her seasonal slaves of flora and fauna, Kinsella is subtle enough to avoid clichés less sincere poets stumble over when tying things natural to those notional. The palette of the collection is similarly organic; autumnal with splashes of red. The imagery is often visceral and pseudo-erotic without resorting to shock or vulgarity. The metre and vocabulary subtly increase in complexity and evolving awareness to match the ripening self-consciousness of the poet from childhood to maturity.

Flower Press has many standout pieces. “Boy” acts almost as a microcosm of the collection's leitmotif, with its bittersweet ephemeral youth caught somewhere between an inconstant Edenic garden and an eternal dispassionate celestial realm. “No lamb can take away the sins of this world” unsentimentally inverts images of innocence and creation with the reality of rot and utility. “Starlight” and “Confession” are modest and economic yet on rereading reveal a sophisticated femininity. “Imprints” in the final third of the collection brought tears to my eyes. The titular poem itself succinctly bookends the collection as a counterpart to “Boy”, refocusing and firmly reasserting that this was no puppy love hagiography but a sophisticated and painful rite of passage to womanhood.

Like the perennial nature of grief that is the backbone of Flower Press, the collection is evergreen enough to demand rereading. If there’s any fault to be found it’s in the brevity of the collection which leaves you both impatient and excited for the next offerings from this talented poet. A broadly singular theme inspired by a particular muse could give some poets difficulty in demonstrating their range. Thankfully Kinsella`s first book manages to beautifully put enough of her lyrical and imaginative wares on display to avoid any stagnation and to whet the appetite for what will doubtless be an impressive future oeuvre.

Flower Press is available from Onslaughtpress 

http://onslaughtpress.com/product/flower-press-by-alice-kinsella/

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[theloosecannonbuchanan]

St Mochtas : raising the dead and ancient graveyards in the heart of modern Blanchardstown

St Mochtas,  also known as Saint Machutus, was the last living disciple and friend of St Patrick. He founded a Benedictine site called The White Church in Coolmine in the 6th century. We know this from one of the earliest reliable historical sources, Bishop Tírechán, who wrote a list in the 7th century mentioning a church established by St Patricks disciples called Cul Mine (Coolmine) near Cluain Saileach (Clonsilla or The Sally Meadow). Sally was the Latin name for willows or salix , which grew on the borders of The Great Scaldwood.

It’s also interesting that Cluain was used because it doesn’t only mean a meadow but a place of silence. This backs up the notion of monastic and burial grounds. Other documents like the “Crede Mihi” in 1275, mentions a church of Culmyn and tax records for the years 1292 and 1294 show the church and area were involved in trade.

There are many legends about St Mochtas , one being that he could raise people from the dead. A thief was condemned to be drowned with a millstone around his neck by local chieftain/King Ailil. When the thief’s parents, who were apparently very holy, begged St Mochtas to do something he arrived on the scene too late and the thief was already dead. But after some saintly magic, the man was resurrected and went on to be Mochtas right-hand man.

After St Mochtas death his followers merged with the growing church and the White Church was eventually under the control of St Mary’s Abbey. Some sources say it fell in to ruin around 1429 but others, backed up by archaeological evidence, show that Christian power bases in Blanchardstown changed later with The White Church’s influence gradually declining till it totally vanished by 1490.  The nearby housing estate called White Chapel is named in its honour. St Mochtas Church in Porterstown and St Mochtas GAA are named after the man himself.

Archaeological evidence of building and a large amount of human remains was discovered in the raised hill near the site of the White Chapel which is now inside the Blanchardstown Millennium Park. This is not to be confused with the nearby ruins of Coolmine House which are also in Millennium Park. All that remains of that original property are walled gardens, laneways and the associated field system.

The White Chapel graveyard site is an oval earth mound approximately 50m east-west by 30m by 0.60m in height. It is surrounded by some large sycamore trees which are a familiar picnic and playing spot for generations of Blanch locals. The graveyard was partially excavated in 1975 when a considerable discovery of human bones were found by a farmer ploughing the area. He notified the landowner who ordered them to be collected and reburied at an unknown location and prevented any further ploughing of the field. As it was an ecclesiastical site the remains likely belong to monks. The White Chapel graveyard site is a nationally registered location, if you want to learn more about it the reference is AC93.

[theloosecannonbuchanan]

Martin Savage : Ambush at Ashtown

Ireland 1919 and The War of Independence is in its opening stages. George V rules the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland via his Prime Minister David Lloyd George. On the 28th June that summer the Treaty of Versailles had been signed and as the Great War closed the British Empire felt moderately assured that it’s oldest, closest and most rebellious colony would soon come to heel. But the insurrection had only begun. On January 21st of that year, with the tragedy and glory of Easter 1916 still haunting the islands collective consciousness, a renegade Dail Eireann met for the first time in the Mansion House in Dublin.

 19th December 1919 Ashtown, a townland of Castleknock. An IRA volunteer column lead by Paddy Daly and consisted of Mick McDonnell, Tom Kehoe, Sean Tracey, Seamus Robinson, Sean Hogan, Vincent Byrne, Tom Kilkoyne, Joe Leonard, Dan Breen and Martin Savage plan an ambush on the highest authority of the British Crown in Ireland. Their target was the British Viceroy, Lord Lieutenant and Supreme Commander of the British Army in Ireland himself, Lord John French.

Savage was a volunteer officer in the 2nd Battalion Dublin Brigade of the IRA. The son of a Fenian activist he had originally chosen life as a grocer, his employer described the shy teen as "a steady, sober and industrious young man, gentlemanly in manner and extremely courteous.” However, he would find himself leaving civilian life behind and being caught in the crucible of the fight for Irish freedom. Having moved to Dublin from Sligo as a teenager he fought in the Rising at the tender age of 17. He was taken prisoner in Richmond Barracks and escaped execution by deportation to Cheshire in England where he was detained at Knutsford Barracks. On his release, he returned to the fight in Ireland obtaining the rank of Lieutenant.

 Attempts at tracking Lord French to a viable vulnerable ambush point had been frustrated for three months. Ashtown was chosen as French was scheduled to get off a train from Roscommon at the nearby station before being escorted in a two car convoy to the Vice-Regal Lodge in Phoenix Park. IRA intelligence reported that French usually occupied the second car in the armed convoy. It was a daring plan against considerable odds, however, the risk was considered worth it as killing the Viceroy would strike a huge blow against the British occupational forces and be a massive rallying call for the fledgeling Republic.

Breen formulated a plan where Martin Savage, Tom Kehoe and Dan Breen would partially obstruct the road with a cartful of hay at the crossroads where the Halfway House now stands, and where the Martin Savage memorial is located. When the first car had passed the cart the squad would completely block the road, signally the beginning of the attack on French in car two using Mills Bombs, a type of WW1 grenade. The volunteers had some revolvers and automatic pistols. They expected heavy resistance but a successful outcome would send shockwaves through the British Empire.

However on that faithful day luck would not be on their side. Synchronising with Frenches train arrival at 11:40 a.m., the volunteers left Kelly’s pub (The Halfway House) and took their ambush positions at the crossroads. Unexpectedly a Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) officer appeared on the scene and spotted the men with the cart. He ordered them to stop. Thinking on their feet they threw a grenade at him. Although it didn’t detonate knocked the man unconscious and he was dragged off out of sight in to the undergrowth.

Critically, when the vehicles arrived disaster struck a second time that day as French had chosen to use the first car in the convoy.  With French on the safe side of the blockade, when the IRA attacked the second car their quarry made his escape and the two RIC officers D/Sgt Halley and Constable O’Loughlin in the second car began to fire.  The driver of the second car and volunteer Dan Breen were wounded in the initial exchanges of the fierce firefight, Breen taking a non-fatal hit to the leg. The volunteers regrouped under the hail of bullets. Savage positioned himself behind the hay cart and began to return fire with his automatic pistol. Alerted by car one, reinforcement British forces in another car swiftly arrived with rifles. Savage tried to throw a grenade at the newly arrived crown forces but as he broke cover Sgt. Rumbold saw his chance and fatally shot him through the neck. With his last words "I'm done, but carry on...." Savage died in the arms of his comrade Dan Breen. He was 21 years old.

 Seen by many detractors at the time as a hopeless act of folly, the bravery of the attempt however doomed, demonstrated that the British had their weaknesses and hammered another nail in the coffin of imperial rule over Ireland. Savage`s sacrifice succeeded in helping catalyse a generation of Irish men and women to take up the cause of Irish independence. His memorial at the scene of the ambush, the roundabout at the old Phoenix Park racecourse and the Halfway house, was erected in 1948 by The National Graves Association at Ashtown Cross. Martin Savage’s remains were buried with full military honours in his native Ballisodare, Co. Sligo

[theloosecannonbuchanan]

Mysterious Traveller : the man from Taured

If parallel Earths exist, why haven't we met visitors from these hidden realms? Perhaps we have. One bizarre incident at an airport in Tokyo in 1954 hints at the tantalising possibility of a mysterious other reality. Strange encounter or urban legend, you can decide yourself. It's weird and intriguing nonetheless. 

Haneda airport was a fine example of post-war Japanese industriousness. Modern, professionally staffed and bustling with businessmen and holiday makers looking to exploit the new peacetime opportunities. When a plane from Europe arrived one of the passengers who disembarked was not like the others. The bald smartly dressed, bearded Caucasian seemed slightly unusual passing through customs. When questioned by airport security the man attempted to initiate conversation in several different languages, finally settling on excellent Japanese. He said he was on business, however, something about his demeanour made the guards suspicious. When his wallet was examined he was found to have a legal amount of foreign money, albeit in a dozen different currencies. The customs official’s curiosity was peaked and they took him in to an interview room for questioning.

  When they asked the traveller where he as from he said a country called “Taured”. Naturally, it didn’t take long to figure out that this country doesn’t exist, nor does any kingdom or micro-state fit that name. However, these were the days before global mass media and the internet so the possibility that there was a newly declared nation fitting the name given was not as outlandish a possibility as it might be today. The man said Taured was on the border between France and Spain. Some accounts of the story have him calling France “a kingdom”. He took out an official passport for the nation of Taured, which was described by 1950s era officials as looking “strange, futuristic”. The passport had been visa stamped backing up other recent visits which the traveller disclosed he had made. Suspecting criminal motives they detained him while checking the name of the company he said he was doing business with and the hotel he said he was staying at in Tokyo. Neither had heard of him. They tried to ring the bank whose name was on his chequebook but it didn’t exist.

 Whilst these background checks were going on some officials tried to get the man to locate Taured on a European map. They suggested he might be talking about the microstate of Andorra which is roughly in the same location as “Taured” .The man became angry and upset saying “I don’t understand, it should be right there! I’ve never heard of Andorra in my life. This map is wrong!” .He then appeared to become disorientated and unwell so a hotel was reserved for him to stay in whilst the investigation continued. The room was guarded by immigration officials all night. However next morning, you guessed it, when the authorities entered the locked and guarded hotel room it was empty. Some recounts of the story mention a strange odour in the vacant room and flu-like symptoms experienced by everyone who came in contact with the stranger. Both the man from Taured and his possessions were gone. A frantic search of the airport's security office found that all his confiscated paperwork and passports had also vanished.

 The lack of physical evidence or extensive newspaper coverage at the time points to the “Man from Taured” being either mere legend from a confusing time in global relations or maybe a genuine case of a regular spy with false papers who was sprung out of the hotel by secret service. However as bizarre and highly unlikely as the story is there have been other alleged encounters with travellers from non-existent countries or even unheard of cities within known nations. Seems like it might be as easy to suddenly appear in a new world as it is to vanish from one without a trace

[theloosecannonbuchanan]

The Evil of Gay “cures” in Russia

The sordid history of pathologizing homosexuality has many dark chapters. For decades men, women and children were electrocuted, poisoned, drugged, castrated and even lobotomised by Frankenstein-like Freudians and money swindling quacks.  All this torture and nonsense, labelled Gay Conversion Therapy, was an attempt to “cure” the “disease” of homosexuality. The motivations of people for seeking it were varied.Children obviously can be forced by their parents or church leaders. Adults are bending to social pressure ranging from placating their families, avoiding prison or out of actual fear of being murdered. This is where the current situation in the former Soviet Union comes in. 

Russia is experiencing a disturbing boom in those seeking or being conscripted in to conversion therapy. This snake oil mainly comes in the form of hypnosis and bizarre varieties of religious cleansing, analogous to a Catholic exorcism. There’s money to be made by these quacks and conmen too. Multiple costly appointments and more than a little blackmailing to keep the patient list private. To clarify, homosexuality is not officially classified as a mental disorder in Russia.  Being gay was taken off the list of recognised psychiatric conditions in 1999.Yet demand in the gay-hostile environment is soaring.LGBT people are being subjected to cruel Pavlovian response sessions and the malpractice of cognitive behavioural therapy; associating arousal with pain and nausea. Imagine a cross between Clockwork Orange and some Orwellian nightmare. 

A recent BBC investigation into the rise of conversion therapy there interviewed psychotherapist Yan Goland .He claimed he "cured" 78 gay men and 8 trans people using a combination of psychoanalysis, hypnotherapy and pressuring the patient/victim in to having heterosexual intercourse. And there are hundreds more charlatans, extortionists and well-meaning homophobic professionals.As well as the men in the white coats there are the ones in the funny hats and dresses. The Russian Orthodox Church enjoys levels of power in Putin’s Russian unseen since the time of the Czars.  Homosexuality is something these highly respected clergy views as a cancer in Gods creation. Also, Protestant pastors run an organisation called "Vosstanovleniye" the Russian for “rehabilitation/resurrection" using similar medieval mumbo jumbo. Gays are hit with canes, saturated with cold water and made to swallow holy water. They are locked in solitary confinement religious cells, screamed at with biblical verses and sleep deprived. All classic examples of brainwashing and psychological torture used to extract false information. Those exposed to these medieval rituals are inevitably left mentally broken, self-hating and suicidal. 

Russia is certainly not the only place soliciting this damaging mental and physical hocus pocus. However, Putin's laws created a perfect storm of criminality and fear likely to force LGBT folk to submit to this sickening suffering. Other nations take a different approach to invalidate Queer identities. In Iran Ayatollah Khomeini issued fatwa decades ago allowing gender reassignment surgery. The result might seem like an act of tolerance. It fact it was to eliminate homosexual men. Gays in Iran are forced with the choice of death or sexual reassignment surgery to become Trans women, regardless of their identifications. There is a disturbing cottage industry in the US which includes summer camps for kids “to pray away the gay”. One of the biggest masterminds behind the American gay cure movement is Alan Chambers whose religious quasi-cult “Exodus International” has over 260 ministries promising to rid you of those pesky fag demons for a sizable fee. Paradoxically Chambers admitted that “99% of recorded cases this cure does not work”. Amnesty International and the UN have cited a sickening culture of “corrective rape” to “cure” lesbians in Africa and parts of Asia. I think the disgusting term is self-explanatory of the process used.

Unpalatable as it sounds, is there any actual proof that sexual orientation can be altered by these therapies?  The answer is a resounding no. Decades of empirical study have shown homosexuality is not a disorder and cannot be cured. Therapies are almost universally seen as unethical, unscientific and ineffective. Not to mention it is a major breach of the Hippocratic Oath. Earlier this year The Irish Council for Psychotherapy stated that “efforts to try to change, manipulate or reverse sexual orientation and/or gender identity change through psychological therapies with different theoretical frameworks are unethical ……this is usually pursued via non-scientifically proven and potentially harmful techniques.” This opinion mirrored the 2007 report from the Royal College of Psychiatrists in the UK which stated "Evidence shows that LGB people are open to seeking help for mental health problems. However, they may be misunderstood by therapists who regard their homosexuality as the root cause of any presenting problem such as depression or anxiety. Unfortunately, therapists who behave in this way are likely to cause considerable distress. A small minority of therapists will even go so far as to attempt to change their client's sexual orientation…. there is no evidence that such change is possible." 

The World Health Organisation called LGBT conversion therapy “a serious threat to the health and well-being - even lives of affected people”. The only accredited scientific paper which seemed to go against this trend was by Dr Robert Spitzer in 2003. However, since then Dr Spitzer has acknowledged his evidence was  “fatally flawed” and his conclusions were completely incorrect. He went as far as begging the LGBT for forgiveness, saying “I owe the gay community an apology”. Other studies citing a cure and LGBT as a syndrome are discredited Freudian theories, falsified pseudoscientific results and religious dogma. The overwhelming scientific evidence points to homosexuality being a natural and constant part of not just the human species but across the animal kingdom. Advances in neurology and genetics are coming every closer to showing detectable congenital differences in the brains of gay people and genetic models showing why LGBT people are adaptive and may be a necessary part of the passing on of DNA. One uncomfortable fact must not be ignored. There are LGBT people who sincerely want to be heterosexual. Should we impede their free will to seek help? After all, we would consider it immoral to prevent a Trans person from the right to medically alter themselves to match their identified state. I would ask LGBT people who want a “cure” to ask themselves these questions. Do you feel that your own individual homosexuality is discordant with your identity or do you think all homosexuals are sick? Do you want to because your family, friends, state or religion make you feel this way? Do you want to prevent yourself being bullied or fit in better to society, marry and have children? If your answer is yes to any of these things than I would suggest that this “cure” is not really your choice. It is coercion. You are not sick, the society pressuring you is. 

As unscientific as it is unnecessary, gay conversion therapy attempts to manipulate society in to a definite hierarchy putting male heterosexuality firmly at the top. Anything challenging heteronormative values is subversive and must be destroyed or discredited. Categorising being queer as a disorder is analogous to native peoples feeling their cultures were inferior to those of their colonial masters. That effect still resonates today. When the voodoo, whether it be psychiatric or religious, inevitably fails to alter sexual orientation it is the child or adults “fault”. Guilt at disappointing parents or culture, fear of angering God mixed up with all the natural confusion and self-hatred of young people frequently leads to substance abuse, self-harm and in many cases suicide. And there are serious implications in the wider culture which tolerates this butchery. If you can deceive heterosexual society into believing homosexuality is an illness or a choice then it’s a slippery slope towards coercing, criminalising and persecuting LGBT people without conscience.

[theloosecannonbuchanan]

3 Tales of Irish Resurrection

Body snatchers

The term body snatcher illicits chilling images of ghoulish men sneaking in to misty midnight cemetery’s to defile the newly dead. This gruesome occurrence was a fact of life for centuries in Ireland. Restrictive religious prohibitions on body donation forced doctors and surgeons desperate to learn the forbidden arts of anatomy to pay unscrupulous “resurrection men” to dig up the dead. Graveyards like Bully’s Acre in Kilmainham were raided regularly by Resurrectionists. Moonlit men hunted for cadavers to feed the hungry medicals schools flourishing in Dublin. They sold bodies by the inch. The fear of your recently deceased loved one being stolen and butchered was so widespread that the construction of Glasnevin Cemetery included watchtowers and bloodhound shelters to deter bodysnatching.

The most infamous body snatchers of all Burke and Hare were both Irishmen but plied their macabre trade on the streets of 19th century Edinburgh. The villains were particularly notorious as they decided to streamline their gory business. Rather than digging up the already dead they cut out the middleman and murdered at least 16 people to give to the anatomist Doctor Robert Knox. In its day Edinburgh was at the cutting edge of anatomical science. The demand for cadavers, no questioned asked, was high as like in Ireland there was no laws allowing a legal supply of cadavers except executed criminals. Though undeniably a heinous crime body snatching undoubtedly resulted in huge lifesaving advancements in medical science.

The Celebrity Corpse

What kind of madman would consent to be buried alive for 45 days to set a world record?  The answer was a brawny Tipperary boxer-turned-labourer living in 1960s London called Mick Meaney.The location for his macabre record attempt was the grim car park of a lorry depot. The event was promoted by eccentric Kerryman Butty Sugrue who owned The Admiral Lord Nelson pub in Kilburn. Sugrue himself was no stranger to sensational acts, styling himself as “Ireland’s Strongest Man” he was known for stunts like pulling a bus across Westminster Bridge with his teeth! Training for the record breaking stunt began in 1968 when Mick Meaney started sleeping in a coffin in The Admiral Lord Nelson pub. Eventually the specially modified coffin with its courageous captive was transferred with much fanfare to the lorry depot and buried.

But Mick Meaney was not the only action man looking for glory by being buried alive.  At exactly the same time in the US another character called “Country” Bill White was attempting to break the same record attempt. The BBC even organised a very rare for the time satellite link to allow the competitors converse with each other. Celebrities of the day came to visit the temporary grave of Meaney ,speaking to the cheerful stuntman using a pipe through which he also got his food, liquid and oxygen.  Listening to the recording the jolly Tipperary man’s accent is so strong as to be almost incomprehensible to fellow Irish people so it’s unlikely the BBC crew caught more than half of his meaning. The live burial was even discussed in the British House of Commons. The crazy Tipperary man’s poor wife and kids back home in Ireland only heard about the stunt on the radio. Meaneys regime underground involved waking at 7am in the morning in his tomb and doing some very careful exercises in his tight confines. He would be given a newspaper and breakfast down his air pipe. He defecated and urinated through a hatch beneath him which seeped in to bags of lime. Through some superhuman willpower and a lot of whiskey Mick Meaney reached the 61 day record, however sadly his herculean efforts were not recognised by the Guinness Book of Records because they had not had official monitors there to confirm his conditions. Despite that his surreal act earned him legendary status among the Irish diaspora in London and when he returned home to his wife and kids he was a hero who survived the grave.

The Twelve Apostles

The life and death of Con Carey in the little village of Brosna was unremarkable. What happened after his death though gave a rare insight in to love, friendship and a value on human dignity which is sadly rarer in modern Ireland. Con Carey passed away in the early hours of Sunday morning, April 2, 1978.  He was not a wealthy man but he was well known and loved in the community, especially for his willingness to help his neighbours. In fact his death from heart failure might have been hastened by him helping to dig the grave of another local the day before. For reasons unknown, possibly due to clerical errors or issues with the local church, the well liked man was buried with unusual swiftness the next day, Monday April 3, 1978. Talk in the parish was that Mr Carey had been haphazardly placed in his coffin, unwashed , still mud stained from where he fell dead. Something had to be done to amend this indignity.

On Tuesday, April 4, 1978 , a collection of friends and neighbours who would later be known as “The Twelve Apostles” crept out to the graveyard in nearby Mountcollins where Carey was hastily buried. “The Twelve Apostles” were 11 local men and one woman. Under a bleak April afternoon sky they exhumed the coffin and opened it beside the freshly dug grave. As they had feared the mortal remains of Con Carey were dirty with mud from where he had fallen and shabbily dressed. They tenderly washed their deceased friend. They dressed him in fresh clothes and prayed over him and then lovingly reburied him for the second time. News quickly spread of the exhumation and the Gardaí became involved and even sent a file to the DPP. The story hit the national news in conservative seventies Ireland. But the community closed ranks and remained silent, none of the Twelve Apostles was identified. The wider national opinion on the issue mirrored the parochial. People were sympathetic to this act of respect and love. This was not a crime and the investigation was dropped. This compassionate disinterment became the inspiration for songs and stories. Even John B. Keane wrote about the incident. A GAA cup was named after Con Carey and his life and afterlife adventures passed in to legend.

[theloosecannonbuchanan]

The Murder of Declan Flynn,Irish Pride is Born

Declan Flynn was a 31-year-old working for Aer Rianta. Were he living in 21st Century Dublin you might see him as just another good looking young gay lad smiling in a selfie on Facebook or maybe bopping on the dancefloor of The George with his mates of a Saturday night. But Declan , and countless others like him , lies cold in the grave now ,his young life brutally snuffed out by hatred and ignorance on a cold September night in 1982. Dublin in the early eighties was a grim place to be gay. Criminalisation made it extremely difficult to learn about other LGBT people, let alone actually meet them. Within this environment of dread and isolation there was an ongoing campaign of harassment, blackmail, assault and robbery against gays actively ignored by the Gardaí. Driven by desperation to connect, despite the risks, Fairview Park was a place where lonely men could meet. That fateful night Declan sat down on a park bench beside another young man. Before he knew what was happening he was set upon by a predatory gang who had lain in wait behind some trees. He managed to break free and ran terrified towards the gate of the park but he didn’t make it. They caught him and laughing they brutally battered him. They kicked and punched him and beat him with sticks. When he stopped moving and they had exhausted themselves they stole his watch and the £4 in his wallet .They left his horribly beaten body where it lay, choking on his own blood. Declan would pass away shortly afterwards in hospital. Of course Declan Flynns brutal murder was not an isolated event. Due to a combination of the draconian criminalisation of LGBT people and the environment of shame and silence there had been countless unsolved or unreported attacks and murders against gay men. The very same year that Declan Flynn died for example a man called Charles Self was viciously murdered, stabbed 14 times.   I’ve never felt the expression Gay bashing is appropriate. It seems almost dismissive in its simplicity, reductionist in its childishness. It doesn’t fully articulate the violence, the terror, the chilling effect the crime and its anticipation has on both the LGBT community and wider society as well as the direct victim. It doesn’t illustrate the gruesome wilful denigration, the robbery of the person’s safety and sense of self. To be set upon by a gang, to fear for your life and if you survive it to forever carry around the feeling that simply being what you are makes you a target for life threatening attack.   The ages of the perpetrators of the murder of Declan Flynn ( two 18 year olds   , a 19 year old , a 17 year old and a 14 year old)  and their names (with the exception of the youngest )  are a matter public record. When asked about the crime one of the killers blithely said  "We were all part of the team to get rid of queers in Fairview Park,”. But it was the deplorable comments of the presiding judge Justice Sean Gannon which most chillingly showed the opinion of the state towards the value of gay life. As he handed out suspended sentences and allowed all the killers to walk free he said "This, could never be regarded as murder."   Bonfires were lit and street parties were had in celebration in the neighbourhoods in Fairview as the five returned home to hero’s welcome. Tragically in 1992 one of the five who had walked free broke in to a flat in Ballymun and brutally raped a woman. She was seven months pregnant. But if the families of these thugs and the justice system would not respond to the horrific crime the wider Irish society was disgusted by it and the gay community motivated by both righteous anger and understandable fear of a reoccurrence began to come together and rise up. Disparate groups and concerned individuals were galvanised in to action.   A crowd of almost a thousand people marched from Liberty Hall to the scene of the murder in Fairview Park. Openly gay citizens and their straight supporters from unions, political parties and social organisations stood shoulder to shoulder to express their desire for justice. The likes of this had never been seen before in Dublin. The visibilty of so many LGBT people on the news, in broad daylight as it were was itself shocking to Irish society. Bonded by their outrage and desire for change a community was formed. The event lit the fuse on the Irish Gay rights movement and that summer the first Dublin Pride took place, more protest than parade. Two hundred brave vanguards of equality marching from Stephen's Green to the GPO. Irish Pride was born.    

[theloosecannonbuchanan]

The Kingdom Must Come

The King Mob are a duo on a mission. Their album Must Come seems part punk-poetry manifesto, part celebration of self and subliminal hypnosis. Karl Parkinson provides the poetic lyrics and Conor O gives the beats and tunes. I`m not usually keen on poet-musician partnerships as they can feel mismatched and haphazard but I was pleasantly surprised by the symbiosis The King Mob have. Lush electro soundscapes and tidy hip hop beats weaving with the gritty but grandiose spoken word. This is poetry that has purpose. Think easy listening with a flick knife to your ear, a warm handshake from a bloke wearing knuckledusters.

Fans of counter culture and students of dissent will be familiar with the origin of the group’s name. King Mob were a loosely affiliated collective of anarchist artists in swinging London. Disenchanted with the vacuous shallow excesses of the post-war generation they pushed the proletariat to revolt, appropriating elements of pop culture as their weapons of choice. And it’s fitting that the veins of activism as art and vice versa are flowing through this namesake’s mandate, albeit The King Mob are advocating personal revolutions instead of societal upheavals.

The opening track Must Come is declarative, sardonic and gleefully self-contradictory. Being both a call to arms and exercise in hype when it comes to lyrical introductions to this particular colour of punk and hip hop poetry you`d find few better. Part polemic comment on consumerism, part pugnacious threat. The image that comes to my mind when I hear it is an audio version of Jeff Koons sculpture series “ushering in banality” only with skinheads instead of cherubs. And its spiritual step brother Must Come is equally uncomfortable with commodification but is likewise willing to use slogans and mind games as tools of expression.

I had the privilege of see the next track I am the revolution, performed live. It’s a generous self-reflective hagiography, but modest enough to not be a turn off.  The King Mobs manifesto is to impart positivity and a sense of self heroism in to the lives of ordinary people. Nothing as trite or transcendental as Kavanaghs idolatry of the commonplace. This is more accessible and useful. It’s getting folk to look in the mirror and say “yeah, I’m ok. I can change things”.

Atmosphere is a slower, discordant trippy ambient track which nicely raises another motif of the album, hypnotism. Both the self-inflicted variety and cultural. I have a dream  owes perhaps as much to Ginsberg’s hay day as it does to MLK , and once again we note a self-conscious celebration of the potential powers of hypnotic indoctrination on society through advertising and education. Which feeds nicely in to the next piece, Ode to me.  Cosy lazy breaks and light pops of piano, the lyrics are a nod to another lyrical master (to my ear anyway) with the declarative self-loving style of Whitman in Leaves of Grass`s Song of Myself. Though don’t mistake this for hippy trippy softness, it’s got enough self-awareness to sneer back after the smile fades.

It takes a good command of the classics of twentieth century modern styles in order to manipulate them to do something original and The King Mob eloquently exceeds at this. Blending punk poetry with more conventional modernism, served it on a bed of mellow and maddening music, ranging from atonally hypnotic beats to pre-orgasmic crescendos. A good smoke makes a welcome though not necessary companion to the album. One minute your relaxed in the cereal aisle listening to a supermarket tannoy, the next it’s a fire alarm shaking you to pay attention to aphorisms. .

Rap Hymn is a savage tuneful poem which I also had the privilege of seeing belted out live in Sine E. It’s probably my favourite piece from the album. Coke Brain is catchy and bombastic, preachy without being condescending. It’s more the big brother giving you the slaps than your aulfella doing it. It put me in mind of a more conservative and angry “Party On” by Damien Dempsey.

Few great works of art are totally flawless and this album is no exception. Positivity Manifesto disappointed me little, it’s the only minor blemish on a shining debut and even at that it may grow on me. It’s slightly uneven but gives a fitting flavour of naivety and vinegar. By no means a weak song, it just didn’t initially speak to me the way the other tracks did. The haunting Outro nicely brings us out of the trance with the closing soundscape. And you find yourself feeling that, unlike so many spoken word albums, it definite warrants multiple relistenings.

A written review does no justice to the coolness of this album. Buy it , buy all of it and get it in to your brains. If you want positive propaganda and intelligent irreverence you can’t go wrong with these lads.The King Mobs “Must Come” is highly recommended. You can download it on iTunes and check them out on Facebook.  

 https://itunes.apple.com/ie/album/must-come/id1102581016

 http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/thekingmob

[theloosecannonbuchanan]

Mental First Aid

One of the unexpected benefits of depression was it forced me to look in to different areas of mental health which I would never have considered before. I studied meditation and CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) to use in concert with the meds to give me additional control.

Another thing depression lead me to do was learn about the perceptual mental triggers which can create anxieties and negative feelings. Its surprising how many of these traps we fall in to daily and how easily they can be navigated if we see them for what they truly are. The experts call them "Cognitive Biases" , I call them my brain First Aid kit. Its a list of the lies our minds tell us and how you can hold them at a distance and see them for what they are.Kind of like a psychological selfie stick, only using it in public doesn’t make you look like a tragic muppet. I thought I’d share some of the lessons I’ve learned from my ongoing war with the other big D in my life. Hopefully some of it might be useful.

1 Prejudice

You could sum up how humans think about each other in one sentence: we judge ourselves by our intentions but we judge others by their actions .It seems deceptively simple, but this profound distortion in our perception effects all of our interactions. Being the star of our own life story it’s near impossible not to have this kind of sloppy solipsistic world view. Surprisingly, the roots of some forms of depression and morbid thoughts can help you understand some nasty human habits like homophobia and racism. The come from prejudices and coping mechanisms to rationalise reality and make it fit in to a certain framework inside us. It’s the lens of our ego and although it can't be removed fully when we are aware of it we can compensate for it. The reality we are perceiving is less of a true objective facsimile of the real world than it is a subjective representation. This is the very core of prejudice.

 This is not always a bad thing. It’s an essential survival mechanism we have evolved, unchanged from our days as hunter gatherers. In order to effectively process the data collected by our senses in to something practical our brain can interpret we need to generalise, predict, distort and even outright delete a large amount of sensory data. The same goes for our thoughts. The small tip of the massive iceberg of cognition which we call consciousness is equally full of generalisations and mammalian instincts often better suited to the savannahs of prehistoric Africa then coping with the realities of life in 21st century Ireland. Anyone starting out with meditation will be shocked and frustrated by the massive background chatter that the mind throws up when you try to silence it. The ego wants you to pay attention to it all the time and it will lambast you with bullshit to get your attention if it knows you’re ignoring it. So you beat it by not turning off the radio of the mammal brain, instead you tune yourself in to another channel, the egoless reptilian brain which doesn’t have an “I,we,me” mentality. But more of that in another blog.  

2) Generalisations

Generalisation is one of the human brains greatest tools and curses. Its tied directly in to this type of prediction and prejudice. It's when we clump together data sets as a short cut so we can guess future behaviour or results. I`ve been cheated on by my boyfriend therefor all lads are cheating bastards .Or only scumbags live in that estate because I’ve heard stories about a bad family. Generalisation evolved from our ancestors needing to make quick and dirty assumptions about their environment. For example Mr Caveman observed a tiger running very fast and then eating his uncle, thus in future when Mr Caveman or his tribe saw a cheetah they got the fuck out of dodge due to anticipating its deadliness. Those that could make these assumptions of danger bred and propagated the ideas and the tendencies. Those who didn’t ended up as tiger shit. Generalisation however might have led a less experienced cave man to see a zebra and instead of thinking dinner he generalises the zebra as a tiger because he thinks "four legs, stripes".

 In 2016 though generalisations unfortunately can lead us to thinking that "everyone is against me" "everything is always going to be bad”. And our unique ability to predict future scenarios based on past experience can lead to us obsessing over possible negative outcomes in the future. Tragically some people will lose all hope and unable to believe that the bad times will end, succumb to self-harm or suicide. We label people, we have to. You could take a lifetime doing nothing else but trying to understand the motivations and intentions of a single human (and most of us do just that ) and still be way off. So we label people for easy reference. We file them off and we then view their actions through the lens of the label. It's easy to see how generalisation in modern times can result in things like prejudice and discrimination. Man X is greedy so when the money went missing off the bar it must have been him. Woman Y is a bit of a slut , so she probably did lead him on. Inextricably linked to labelling someone is comparing them to ourselves in order to make sense of the world. So when youre feeling low or hopeless try and take a step back. Remember that the world is not as we see it ,but how we are . The best way to break through the illusion and worry is to reach out to someone you trust or to a counsellor and ask them for a reality check. You`ll see the different perspective on your problem can chop it down to size, can point you in the right direction or at the very least give you hope and comfort that the storm will pass.  

3) Binary Thinking

When our brains try to oversimplify situations in to two choices or two interpretations this is Binary Thinking. It artificially limits yourself to two choices, assuming everything is right or wrong, black or white. Remember even when superficially it looks like there are only two sides, two choices there are really at least four options. Yes, No ,neither or both. Binary thinking is often informed by our  past disappointment about something not going our way , and labelling it a lost cause. It can also be a handy excuse for giving up on something the minute it goes wrong because we really didn’t have our heart set on it or because we were afraid we would succeed. Its related to overgeneralisation too , were instead of thinking about the nuances and details of a person or a situation we use words like "always" "never". He must have robbed that because he's "always" lying about things. I`d "never" score anyone tonight etc.

4) Catastrophising

When we jump immediately to the extreme worst case scenario we are Catastrophising.It’s the faulty thinking which turns a poor performance in work to you and your family being forced to live on the streets. It turns a bad cold in to "oh god I’ve got AIDS!" The reasons why our minds tend to magnify potential outcomes is because primitive humans, not being apex predators, had to be risk adverse to a degree. It was evolutionarily advantageous for us to err on the side of caution to survive the pitfalls of the environment. Combine that with the type of paranoia and sensationalism which we are fed via the news media, and by each other, and you have a perfect storm of bullshit.

5) Drama

A huge generator of depression is that we tend to live life with expectations that it should be like life in soaps or movies, basically as dramas. Even though on a conscious level we know these are fictions, they supposedly represent real life. But life is not episodic, our experiences triumphs and tragedies do not line up like a TV series. Instead our lives are in general less dramatic, our emotions muted and manageable. But the non-event which is daily existence would make for poor television, with all its red herrings, early nights, false alarms and boring safety. Therefor we create drama, and life begins to imitate art. We sabotage our happiness by constantly asking if it’s there, or when it’s at a peak of joy ,asking when it will fade. Aside from blinding us to the truth of situations, it also can result in us ascribing negative intentions to everyone who doesn’t behave as we would want to. It makes thoughtlessness and accidents seem like intentional insults. This perception in turn informs our own behaviour and can make us purposefully belligerent to people who then feel cold to us and it becomes a cycle. I know some fairly unhappy people whose entire lives are consumed by the mind-set that the world is out to get them and as a result they find that they are entirely right. They see conflict and offensive behaviour everywhere where there is at best neutrality.

6) The Blame Game

Some people can turn anything in to a witch hunt. They could stub their tow and somehow relate it back to their partner arguing with them over money that day, making them late so they hurried and stub their tow. Likewise people can blame themselves on almost any event in the past. This is related to how we assign intention to ourselves but actions to others. If you feel like your ego (or your toe) has been injured you look for some type of satisfaction, some redress. However as they say act in haste and repent at leisure. Try the next time someone accidentally or even intentionally does something minor that hurts you to just let go of the need for revenge. When we blame others for things that happen to us, we render ourselves powerless. We hand over the reins to that person. We become a cause rather than an effect. Just try and step back, analyse it and own it. Take satisfaction and even pleasure in rising above it. Not only will it give you a lasting sense of self-satisfaction but it will annoy the fuck out of the other person.

7)Compare the human.com  

"X and Y are getting married why aren’t we ? X and Y are in a relationship, have job and a nice gaff. Why don’t I have these things? There must be something wrong with me, I don’t feel like them." Sound familiar?  They say that comparison is the thief of joy. Comparing yourself to others involves two major triggers to the ego. Firstly we have to objectify ourselves by accessing our value in terms of possessions or status in society. Secondly we have to objectify someone else. Even if we judge them to be less happy, successful, intelligent, rich or handsome we still lose. We lose because in order to buy in to that illusion we have to accept the lie that we are ourselves are only measured by those parameters. The reality is that nobody really knows what they are doing or where they are going in life. The strangers in the supermarket or in the pub might look like they know what’s going on but they are as scared and uncertain on the inside as you are. We are all really children trapped in grownups bodies and ironically that reality is far less scary than the illusion that you are some sort of underachieving alien in a perfect world. Let go of the comparisons, as Oscar Wilde said “be yourself, everyone else is taken". And take comfort from knowing that plenty of people probably (wrongly) think you know what you’re doing too.

8)Deletion and Distortion:

Deletion when we ignore something, mainly because it doesn’t fit what we were looking for. It's how we often ignore the negative qualities of sexy people, or fail to see the advantages of a situation which we have made our minds about being a disappointment or a disaster. It’s that "hopelessness" people with depression feel, when they are stuck in a rut. Distortion is when our brains perceive something but allow one factor or assumption to alter the reality of it so greatly by adding emphasis or obsessive focus that we disproportionately process it. It’s can be as simple as deciding a whole night is ruined because you have a stain on your t-shirt. Or sadly it can be as fatal as feeling like you have to take your own life because of seemingly all important event which in five years you might laugh at over a can of beer.

There's no escaping the realities of how we are hardwired, and it would be dangerous if we could anyway. They are there for a reason. However we can make ourselves consciously aware of these unconscious shortcuts our brains take, so that we can question our thoughts and give ourselves another choice , another perspective on the "reality" underlying what our brains are telling us is going on. Take a step back , call someone who cares or write down your worries. We`re all in the same boat. Master your own brain and make it work for you. And above all reach out for help , you will be surprised how many people have been through the same pain and will be delighted to help a fellow traveler. Remember to love yourself, nobody is perfect.

[theloosecannonbuchanan]

Paradise Found: depictions of heaven in the poetry of James L Dickey and Rupert Brooke

I am fascinated by the idea of Paradise. Contemplating a hypothetical afterlife can teach us what we value as individual human beings and also what we find sacred as a society. Heaven is a mirror, if a dog looks in to it do not expect an apostle to look out. We see in it what we need and by association what we fear. We tell school children, the dying and the elderly that heaven is a reward for a life of virtue or at least one of innocence. This is because we want to encourage “goodness” .With the opposite creation of Hell we try and deter society from “evil”. Yet really both good and evil are only subjective qualities without any real objective truth. There is no qualia of either in nature, no absolute archetype as a benchmark. However human beings are genetically predisposed to promote their own safety and they do this through the nurturing of stable societies built largely on the unit of intergenerational family units. What keeps us living and breeding is good. Transgression of social norms brings chaos and instability ,it is perilous to the genes which are desperately trying to go about the business of living long enough to reproduce. From our mitochondria’s point of view a planet full of marauding murderers is bad for business. So by promoting virtue ,hard work and conformity a society can regulate behaviour. Heaven , in all its many forms, was the ultimate ethereal carrot dangled above slave and king alike to urge them towards certain behaviours. The other equally important quality of an afterlife for human beings is that those who have passed away are there. It is a treasure chest holding all our beloved dead awaiting reunion. With lives often short and brutal , with those we love perishing either predictably or through senseless violence and misfortune ,a huge gap is left in the psyche. There is no resolution or logic in death for a species which has just enough cognitive ability to be aware of its imminence but not enough to prevent it. It’s inconceivable and unfair to the living mind. However the story need not end midsentence if there is a surety or at least a chance that the narrative our loved ones life begins anew mid-sentence on some other stage. From the Epic of Gilgamesh through Dante’s Inferno via the Book of Revelations poetry has been used to explore the afterlife and try to make sense of that dark continent. Anyone whose tried to entertain children with spontaneous bedtime stories will know the kind of tangents and tropes employed. The construction of heaven in poetry occurs on similar lines. Ideals of heaven simultaneously promise that neither our good deeds nor our good people are lost. It’s a location both in our minds and in whatever dimension we protect it to ,is where that great thief Time has no dominion. This a-temporal nature has been important to humanity since the first mother lost the first child or vice versa. When we say we “lose” someone it is not really in to the earth or our memory that we lose them in. It is in the river of time which has flowed on unstoppable. If people found a timeless heaven difficult to grasp they certainly had little difficulty in furnishing its spaces with highly specific, and equally unlikely fauna and form. Elaborate depictions ranging from happy hunting grounds for hunter gatherer tribes to glittering cities for the cosmopolitans appeared to be more concerned with contemporary wish fulfilment than any naturally evolved afterlife. It seems that even civilisations which saw heaven as the realm of God assume His taste in décor is Israelite castles or Athenian colonnades. I’m less interested in these superficial fantasy lands than with an enduring transcendent eternity. These other cloudy cuckoo lands inhabited by harp playing pre-Raphaelite angels are all fur coat and no knickers machinations of the ego. Personally I think they sound more like purgatory..This brings us to our two examples of paradise visited in Rupert Brookes “The Hill” and James L Dickeys “The Heaven of Animals”. These two poems offer a slightly cabalistic slant on heaven, albeit one which has been domesticated by the poets by the clever use of childish (or bestial) wonder. To concentrate on these two very different but equally enlightening conceptions of heaven we can see how absurd the  materialists or even biblical literalists visions are. Also they show us how using a corporeal filter we can see our way to enjoying (and fearing) a more complex transcendent afterlife. In Brookes “The Hill” we have a bucolic scene with presumably post-coital lovers contemplating the seemingly invincible nature of their youth whilst lying on a grassy hill. It begins with the type of triumphant affirmation of eternal life that all youth feels, even the doomed generation of young men in world war one. A war in which Brookes was sadly a member, and his life was claimed by that conflict. The Hill shows a staggering maturity of insight that Brookes can see his contemporary world as a paradise despite the ravages of The Great War .This was a young man who had seen gory death on the scale of  a Hieronymus Bosch nightmare. Yet Brooke spent his nights dreaming of an increasingly idealised vision which looked the same as normal life but was riven with much more intense levels of happiness. His brief but eventful posting on Tahiti in the Pacific was a tangible idyllic Eden which haunted him with its beauty and innocence for the rest of his short life. However from this poems joyous beginning and middle the rapture sharply turns at the end.From sunlight we enter in to the ice cold shadows of certain death. This life is paradise , this our only heaven and we have already been guaranteed entrance to this Elysium , albeit only for a short stay Several of Brookes poems deal with the idea of the afterlife in varying levels from the sublime and mystical “The Hill” to the more tongue in cheek fable of “Heaven” whose simplistic handling of the subjectivity of idealism in its last two lines “And in that Heaven of all their wish, There shall be no more land, say fish. “It harkens to a more literal age fettered by a slavish dedication to a Victorian cosmology which mapped out a quaint if vague afterlife. It made for ideal fodder to be explored by romantic poetry, usually with a heavy slice of sentimentality which can be forgiven considering both the shocking infant mortality levels and comparatively short lifespans of people. Certainly less naive but no less needy of insulation from the dangers and unpredictability of brutal life Heaven-Haven - Poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins in mid-19th century England. Surely in testing the boundaries between the linear world of sensations we experience daily and the vanishing point of infinity we can properly exam what aspects of normal life are coloured by the timeless.  There’s very little we can know about eternity than its absence. In James L Dickeys masterpiece The Heaven of Animals we have a sympathetic glimpse at a possible afterlife for beasts. Dickey himself was a keen hunter and spent time on ranches handling livestock. Its relevant to the context of the poem too that he also served as infantry in the jungles of Vietnam. Despite all this violence toward both animals and man plus his self-consciously manufactured macho persona, he never objectified animals as merely automatons. He empathised with them ,knowing that he held no lofty position in the hierarchy of life. It was natural for Dickey that animals would have their own heaven too. However instead of some saccharine Disney confection we have an earnest interpretation of souls finding paradise in playing out their earthly allotted roles as prey and predator only now with utter perfection and omniscient knowledge . Dickey identifies that it is the qualities of space and time which must be mastered , beaten even , in order to access heaven. The forces of decay and entropy can me mocked and melted to make these beasts no longer slaves to hunger or hunting but gods in their own pantheon. It is a beautiful and magnificently humane vision of heaven which I’m not embarrassed to say still brings tears to my eyes whenever I read it. The continuous cyclic nature of this heaven presents itself like cosmic Mobius of rebirth and death. But far from being the inescapable bonds of samsara it’s more like a much loved reliving of the joys of corporeal life divorced from the suffering which attended it in “real” life. In this sense Dickeys heaven may seem as much of a cop out as the cartoonish other conceptions of paradise. But there is so much more to The Heaven of Animals thesis than that. This is perfection not for perfections sake but as a means of knowing everything. Gnosis outside of time and space but anchored within it. Complicit with it. This is not some substitute for reality , it is “realer” than mortal life. Mortal life might be considered its shadow and simulacra. Both Brooke and Dickey are not feeding us this false blessing. They are offering on one hand a heaven which we live in now, which we pass through. On the other a heaven which is cyclical , which involves a form of suffering and purpose albeit one where we are aware of the inevitable happiness and immune to the pain. We are saved by knowledge in both locations. To the two poets credit , they are no offering succour to the mortal mind nor are they peddling distractions or fantasies. They are instead pointing at the very core of what it means to live knowing death is inescapable . Forcing us to distil those factors of our humanity and our world which bring us most joy. Love, dignity and the grace of some force beyond us. The satisfaction of our desires.  And to realise that these same qualities are the root of our agonies both of the body and the soul. Conceptually both paradises are heaven shaped. They are the bucolic antediluvian natural settings so beloved of urbanised post-industrial civilisations , but they have more to teach us than an endless harp lesson. ookes the handsome young romantic world war 1 soldier and Dickey the macho mature outdoorsman might at first seem dramatically different poets. And whilst the style of their verse and indeed worlds they inhabited couldn’t have been more mismatched , their views of heaven are strikingly similar. The simple language hides a complex manifold of meaning. They both resonate with mysticism whilst remaining grounded in the fear and brutality of life for mankind and other animals. An eternal transpersonal paradise which is not only outside and beyond the normal universe, but is present within it resonating through the revelations of simple beauty, human love and dignity in face of unstoppable forces. It is not accurate to dismiss this as a naive and slightly patronising the noble savage or the primitive nature. Poetry is the ideal tool for analysis of the infinity, grappling with the pearly gates or at least feeling out theirs dimensions behind that impenetrable veil we call death. It seems to many people their concept of what would be a tolerable is for all intents a continuation of their ordinary life albeit in a bucolic setting or some cloud strew pseudo Mount Olympus. But as the saying goes “always wanting something and wanting something to be always isn’t the same”. Contemplating an eternity in a type of pantomime version of life would be unfulfilling. Perhaps it would be tolerable if the heaven was not an individual plane of existence but was populated with our loved ones. But even then it’s easy to see how fruitless and nihilistic and endeavour it would be. Death and birth not only physically bookend life they also temporally frame it. They frame it by giving actions and desires to act a certain timeline. With calendar days turning we are forced to make choices based on the imminent end. Mortality for all its faults adds value and shape to living. Everlasting life would be no less a curse when its spent in some sunny limbo than on the earth. Fear is dealt with very differently in both poems. Whilst Dickey gives his animal inhabitants an immunity to the consequences of death and hence fear , sadly the taste of perfection and paradise in The Hill is flavoured with a terror of death being present. The gallows humour of  marching “with unreluctant tread ,Rose-crowned into the darkness" is a glory not whole heartily believed by the young lovers. The knowledge of the fortune they feel in this epiphany of how perfect the world is carriers ,like all intoxicants , a heavy comedown “And laughed, that had such brave true things to say. And then you suddenly cried, and turned away.” The Hill changes from an idyllic vehicle of youth in all its glory to a type of Golgotha. Yet the vividness of the reality of being in heaven right there , having conquered it ( is now, is won) is worth the chill of the grave that is mixed with the truth. The sense that we are plucked from perfection and hurled in to the imperfect and implicitly evil Materia has a long pedigree in western thought. Elegantly described in the parables of Gnosticism and more abstractly in the philosophy of Pandeism. Both Brooke and Dickey are loath to entirely uncouple the world of sensations and physicality with heaven. They both reflect on how the natures of personality and the capacity to feel pleasure or enlightenment may be dependent on even a vestigial concept of what the person or animal once was. These poems are not about the obliteration and assimilation of Moksha or Nirvana, but they are a bubble of existence somewhere between that impersonal oneness and the empty seat at the right hand of a Yahweh, the bosom of Abraham. The tragedy of the traditional concepts of heaven to be found in certain religious texts the paradox that heaven isn’t just worth dying for now but is also worth killing for. I used to find contemplation of  the annihilation of my personality or even complete absorption of my ego by a massive over-soul terrifying and hellish but it middle age now it seems far worthier than an egocentric prison ,living like some doomed domesticated demigod. One of the most intriguing elements of the afterlife for beasts in Dickeys poem is how he stresses their parallel heaven is a result of a difference between us and them. “Having no souls, they have come. Anyway, beyond their knowing.”  Far from condemning them to some purgatory or hell ,their lack of soul or ego allows them passage to an even purer heaven perhaps than mankind can hope for. It’s a concept deeply moving , a slap in the face of the self-proclaimed divine human soul. At each step towards a wider knowledge of our place in the universe  in the last few centuries  mankind has increasingly had its supremacy challenged. We have been knocked off our pedestal of being made in the divine image at the core of an anthropocentric universe in to being merely another animal that emerged from the cracks of a vast uncaring creation. I think Dickey is showing us here that those very qualities which allowed beasts be so easily conquered by us, their lack of vanity or greed and duality from nature, are those very same redemptive qualities which allow them to experience paradise. If Dickeys Heaven is a location then Brookes might be seen as an experience. A continuous , self-affirming knowledge of perfection. Which during experience is timeless even with the knowledge that it is ephemeral ,dependant as it is on life. This might be analogous to a functionally infinite universe which still has boundaries. Heaven is not placed as a future destination but rather the actual world we live in now. Brooke is telling us that life on earth is the “glory and ecstasy” through which we pass, so we need to grasp at it or at least open our eyes to it. In this sense the best we can hope for is to grow old and remain in this current heaven as long as possible. But to acknowledge this bears the terrible burden of accepting that only annihilation and the abyss. Apart from being able to stop the clocks which rots all creation , the mirror of heaven is our most uncompromising naked reflection other human needs. For a vast majority of humanities history ,and sadly still for some, hunger was a predator perpetually in pursuit of us from dawn till night. Even after the birth of agriculture we still found ourselves at the mercy of famines caused by droughts and pestilence. Understandable then that many depictions of an afterlife be it Hellenic Elysium or Pagan Summerland painted a bucolic picture of abundant food and benevolent weather. One wonders what astral bellies and angelic thermostats our ancestors hoped to possess in order to enjoy the grub and holiday climate. This crytomaterialism can also be seen in the concept of a God or Gods who can be “happy” or  “angry” when both emotions are physical responses to stimulus in a corporeal body , it’s not less ridiculous to say that God is constipated or has a broken leg. But being humans interacting with and experiencing through our senses this type of unsophisticated perception is understandable. The idea that an afterlife is somehow a meritocratic reward for your behaviour in biological life taps in to the primeval sense of justice that the human individual rightly or wrongly craves. An interesting side note is the entire field of “holocaust theology” which emerged in Judaism after world war two , in an attempt to reconcile the brutal senseless deaths of millions of faithful Jews in the unimaginable horror of the death camps. Where was God ? Was he absent , deaf or worse still ,uncaring? But does it really make sense that a supreme being could punish or reward demeanour which was entirely reliant on a concert of the biological and environmental factors which said God had subjected them too?  The idea of an omnipotent being deliberately creating something imperfect and ignorant and in a state of constant existentialist suffering and then standing back only to interfere in the form of punishing and rewarding. At the core of the idea of heaven is the duality between our expectation that abundance as a means of achieving infinite happiness and the reality that it is only the complete removal of sources of pleasure that would bring real fulfilment. In short, it isn’t the satisfaction of desire which brings real joy ,only the removal of desire itself.        

[theloosecannonbuchanan]

The Sins of Mother Teresa

It was disappointing but in no way surprising to hear that the Catholic Church confirmed it will elevate another person of questionable repute to the level of sainthood in its ever increasing thinly veiled pantheism. Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu ,familiar to millions around the world as Mother Teresa will be canonised on September 4th this year. And whilst in centuries past it was impossible to accurately analyse the reputation of those that Rome sees fit to make demigods for worship , we have a unique advantage over our ancestors to be able to investigate and expose the truth behind twentieth century candidates for sainthood. Mother Teresa’s name and iconic appearance became synonymous , especially in countries like Ireland , with a particular brand of maternal selfless devotion to the poor. For the ever more media savvy Catholic church spin doctors the humble charity worker  is an attractive trademark. She represents a seemingly spotless bit of spin to keep those other nasty allegations out of the headlines. But on closer inspection the Albanian nun was not be the PR goldmine that the ailing church needs . A high profile friendship with Pope John Paul II ,combined with a desperate need for an expedient capitalisation on the turnaround of the disastrous paedophilia scandal which Pope Francis is stage-managing meant that Blessed Teresa of Calcutta was fast tracked to sainthood with such indecent speed I’m surprised it didn’t knock her headscarf off. The upper echelons of the Vatican are well aware of the huge criticism of her methods, motivations and even her personal faith yet her career as the benevolent highly weathered face of Rome made her irresistible none the less. 2016 is the Catholic Churches Year of Mercy and Pope Francis himself has already proved an incredible and iconoclastic example of succour to the poor. The current popes humble and sincere nature is apparent and genuine even to a non-Catholic like me. Yet even he cannot expunge the sins of the soon to be saint. To start with the Mother Superiors care for the sick and poor was far from universal. It’s widely acknowledged her institutions favoured Catholics, a distinct minority at her powerbase in Calcutta. On her orders patients were coerced in conversion to Catholicism to obtain food or shelter. Unrequested baptisms on dying Hindu and Muslim patients was allegedly commonplace. A former member of the Missionaries of Charity , Susan Shields reported that "Sisters were to ask each person in danger of death if he wanted a 'ticket to heaven'. An affirmative reply was to mean consent to baptism. The sister was then to pretend that she was just cooling the patient’s head with a wet cloth, while in fact she was baptising him, saying quietly the necessary words. Secrecy was important so that it would not come to be known that Mother Teresa’s sisters were baptising Hindus and Muslims.”  Whilst non-religious folk may argue that it doesn’t make a blind bit of difference what magic words are said or not, it does demonstrate a remarkable disregard for the dignity and religious convictions of that agonised individual. To impose an unwanted evangelical act on a person in their final moments shows an utter contempt for that persons beliefs. This procedure was done with the express command of Mother Teresa. Mother Teresa  wasn’t only involved in religious interference. If her public persona was one of being apolitical she had no problem meddling with Indian and global politics. In 1975 when Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi made sweeping crackdowns on human rights and suspended of civil liberties Mother Teresa publicly agreed with her. She encouraged her followers to submit to the appalling regressions in human rights saying that "People are happier. There are more jobs. There are no strikes."  Her friendship with the controversial prime minster wasn’t the only strange bedfellow for the supposed poster girl of benevolence. She courted many questionable, decidedly unchristian company. Mother Teresa openly supported Haitian dictator, mass murderer and voodoo cultist François “Popa Doc” Duvalier , publicly endorsing his regime of terror and Duvalier as someone who “loved the poor”. Duvalier financially raped the already poverty stricken Haitian economy  and left it crippled in a debt which breaks the back of Haitians still. She was also linked to several high profile corrupt politicians and embezzling businessmen, such as  Robert Maxwell. She even wrote letters to judges and presidents looking for clemency for criminal millionaires like Charles Keating. Coincidentally he donated millions to the Reverend Mother which she refused to return even after corruption investigations. Keating even gave her the use of his private jet. Its slightly incongruous that a supposed apolitical religious advocate with a vow of poverty was so interested in cosying up to monstrous dictators and jailbird businessmen. It seems the common factor was nothing more spiritual than an unholy interest in money. Lots and lots of money. Aroup Chatterjee  ,an esteemed Indian born doctor who worked closely with Mother Teresa within her organisation, began to lift the lid on shady dealings when he moved to the UK. Together with British journalists such as the late great Christopher Hitchens and Tariq Ali they produced a book and documentary outlining financial mismanagement, neglectful medical practices,  connections to corrupt politicians and underworld crime figures. Beneath it all there was the propagation of disease and starvation by Mother Teresa  actively fighting moves to promote contraception and safe sex. By the time Mother Teresa came to global prominence as religious celebrity she had already carved out quite an empire for herself. Her “Missionaries of Charity” consisted of thousands of nuns, lay staff and an impressive portfolio of premises spanning 133 countries. They worked with the poor and the perishing , with a particular focus on HIV/AIDS and children. The works of her Mission won her the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979. Yet considering the fact that ,when she wasn’t globetrotting around the world ,she was surrounded daily by the devastating ravages of HIV/AIDS and starving abandoned children she campaigned voraciously against the “evils” of contraception and abortion.  Her unquestionable authority among the vulnerable disciples in third world countries and Latin America meant that millions upon millions of children were born to starve to death or die of painful diseases merely to comply with her subjective (and self-serving) interpretation of the Catholicism. This steady tide of death and misery ensured that her hospices and orphanages were always full. At a casual glance the facilities of the Missionaries of Charity were chock full of patients receiving help however on actual examination of the statistics they weren’t even ranked in the top charitable organisations in the city of Calcutta due to how relatively few individuals were actually served. Most of the premises the Missionaries of Charity owned were little more than administration operations working to convert as many locals as possible. In locations outside of India such as the Missionaries of Charity in Papua New Guinea all eight facilities had absolutely no patients at all. There were purely for  converting locals. So instead of supplying the hungry and the terminally ill with food , medicine and shelter the majority of charitable funds were being funnelled in to running a bureaucracy whose primary role was assimilating uneducated local and indigenous people in to a personality cult with Mother Teresa at the helm. Despite refusing to allow advanced medical treatments to cure or alleviate the suffering of those in her care she happily accepted modern medicine when it came to her own hospital treatments, including heart surgery and a pacemaker. The hypocrisy is remarkable. There was something extremely dark at the heart of Mother Teresa’s vision of poverty.  Rather than a social issue to be remedied she appears to have viewed the suffering of others as an ascetic ritual , a type of medium through which she could demonstrate her magnanimous virtue. Without the suffering caused the disease and hunger of her disciples there could be no opportunity for her to display her charitable virtues. One of the many admission of this ethos was her answer to a question at a  press conference in 1981 .When  asked: "Do you teach the poor to endure their lot?" Mother Teresa replied: "I think it is very beautiful for the poor to accept their lot, to share it with the passion of Christ. I think the world is being much helped by the suffering of the poor people."  The aim was not to cure or prevent. This is Munchausen by proxy syndrome but on a scale of millions. For whose glory then was this suffering ? How many thousands of men women and children have been exposed to HIV/AIDS and starvation to satisfy this woman’s arrogance? The conditions within said hospices and orphanages were bizarrely occasionally worse than even the most dreadful and hellish conditions which those “rescued” were living in on the streets. All this despite the steady flow of cash and every increasing purchases of premises around the globe. In 1991 when Robin Fox of the British medical journal The Lancet visited her notorious Home for Dying Destitutes in Calcutta he was astonished by the lack of care and professionalism. Individuals with no medical knowledge were routinely making decisions which could hasten death or increase suffering among the unfortunate “patients”. It was also noted from Foxes investigation that whilst wounds were cleaned and people were spoken to kindly there was very little attention paid to pain management. The pain it seems was all part of the “graceful suffering” of Mother Teresa’s vision. The physical conditions of the facility were likewise pitiful. Worse still , there seemed to be little to distinguish patients who actually had a chance of survival and of being cured by conventional medicine and those who were terminally ill. They were all basically deprived of medicine and therapy in the assumption they would all die. And die they did ,miserably and frequently unnecessarily. No wonder Mother Teresa herself called them "Houses of the Dying". But these grossly immoral breaches of human rights and dignity where not only confined to that one location visited , nor were they confined to the nineties. Université de Montréal academics reviewed the modus operandi of the Missionaries of Charity facilities in 2013 and labelled the practice as "caring for the sick by glorifying their suffering instead of relieving it, … her questionable political contacts, her suspicious management of the enormous sums of money she received, and her overly dogmatic views regarding, in particular, abortion, contraception, and divorce." What’s even more bizarre is that she even questioned her own faith in the resurrected Jesus Christ whose torment in the passion she so sinisterly valued .Although she ordered in her will that all of her personal writings to be destroyed , when she eventually died in 1997 a selection of her correspondents was saved by her disciples and published posthumously.  In these works she confesses to losing her faith in God .It appears this was no temporary crisis of faith but lasted for decades throughout her life, at the very heights of her proselytising to multitudes. The woman who demanded that generations of destitute people should endure the effects of AIDS and starvation due to a religious dogma didn’t even believe in it herself. Unlike other small time religious and political hypocrites who don’t practice what they preach Mother Teresa was in a uniquely powerful ,self-appointed position where she controlled countless lives with her suggestions and doctrine. To raise her up now to super human status posthumously can only worsen the insult and increase the malevolent power. Her abuse of this power and the demonstration via her own confessional writing of how insincere her piety was makes her a uniquely reprehensible person. Where she doubtless did some good it was likely an epiphenomena of the sheer massive amount of influence she held. That her false image as a faultless champion of the impoverished inspired some sincere devotees around the world to do good is an unintentional side effect easily dwarfed by a cultish reign that perpetuated and exacerbated the misery of thousands. The Catholic Church has offered us enough false idols to worship, mostly men but occasionally women whose brutish exploitation of the weak and vulnerable was made possible by unquestioning submission of ourselves and our children to the assumed holy power the of all too imperfect humans.   Granted Mother Teresa did not openly petition for her life to be held up on such a pedestal as sainthood though it would be disingenuous of any Catholic observer to say that she didn’t have it in mind. However Pope Francis is doing just that, setting in stone and doubtless countless religious tatt the image of a woman far from perfect or even far from moderately moral. If a human being is to be presented as a supernaturally good example of humanity then their history and intentions must be fair game for examination and criticism. The fact that she spent part of her long life in Ireland where her legacy is still extremely powerful means that the Irish faithful more than most need to take a hard look at this supposed paragon of perfection. With Irish people more conscious than ever of the disastrous effects of allowing Catholic demagogues to go unchecked and also of the necessity for family planning and abortion legislation , we need to greet the Sainthood of Mother Teresa with informed and critical eyes. Unquestioned obedience to all too human authorities presenting themselves as the voice of god. With the imminent examination of the Irish Catholics psyche regards abortion legislation that upcoming referendums will provide lets use Mother Teresa as an example . Not the kind of example that Pope Francis would intend us too. But an example of the disastrous and devastating effects of allowing dogma and miseducation to guide reproductive rights.  

[theloosecannonbuchanan]

Nightmare in Niemba : the Irish Congo ambush

Background I`m standing in Donnycarney community youth centre but it could be any parish throughout the country. Local school children are sweetly singing the national anthem. The gymnasium is full of locals  and curious outsiders like myself. Among us civilians ,in their medal bedecked UN peacekeeper uniforms and distinctive blue berets ,are dozens of Irish UN Peacekeeping veterans . Despite their advanced years they look spritely and noble. These remarkable specimens of their generation of Irishman make me puff my own chest out a little out of national pride. Though the old soldiers look austere and serious now only minutes before these brothers in arms had been hugging and slagging each other like school boys, and chatting animatedly to anyone who rambled up to them to shake their hand or pose for a picture. Some had attended a funeral earlier this morning and it seems these bitter sweet reunions are becoming more frequent as time and age marches on. Now as they face forward hand firmly in salute its easy to see the years melt away from their aged profiles to reveal the young soldier beneath. We are all here today to unveil a commemorative plaque in honour of a local youth , Trooper Thomas (Tony) Fennell from Donnycarney, who lost his life aged just 18 in the notorious Niemba Ambush in the Congo on November 8, 1960. We`ve heard from UN veterans representative, the lady lord mayor and from Trooper Kenny’s brother Liam. Most movingly we heard the heart breaking and harrowing testimonial of ambush survivor Tom Kenny who also read a poem. His words are running through my mind as the Donnycarney children innocently sing the anthem, and when its finished and a soldier begins to play The Last Post on a bugle I find theirs a tear rolling down my face. Judging by the amount of other civilians like me discreetly wiping their cheeks I`m guessing Im not the only one who has been touched by this ghost that haunts the Irish psyche still over fifty years on. 30 June 1960 ,the Belgian Congo finally gains independence from its hated colonial powers and becomes a republic, in name at least. As with our own fledgling nation, the Republic of Congo was almost strangled at birth by bitter internal conflicts surrounding leadership, tribal interests and partition. A vicious dispute broke out in the large southern province of  Katanga. In this flashpoint for conflict lived thousands of Belgian colonists, military and mercenaries who had a huge stake in the land and decided to secede the new union. The official Congolese government approached the UN for assistance in restoring peace. This caused all out civil war and a huge schism among the native Baluba tribes.  The followers of Kisula Ngoye wanted to support the new central government which the UN had acknowledged. The other faction under Kisula Ngoye supported secession, albeit not of the same variety as the Belgian ex pat mercenaries sought. The main fighting took place between the official Katangan authorities and some of the local Baluba tribesmen with a separatist agenda.   The fledgling Republic of Ireland joined the UN in 1955. The Irish militarys debut serving UN was in 1958 ,which involved officers posted to the Observer Group Lebanon (OGL). However the Congo mission was the first when Irish troops were in combat situations since the Irish civil war. During the entire campaign there were over 6000 individual troop missions ,as some soldiers made multiple tours of duty over the almost four years of the Irish participation.The Irish platoon involved in the fateful Niemba was part of the 33rd Infantry Battalion ONUC (Organisationes Nationales Au Congo). The lads where a long way from home. In the 1960s it took at least four days to reach their destination. They had landed first on the continent of Africa in Libya at Wheelus air base in Tripoli, then moved on to Nigeria and finally to Kamina air force base in Katanga. They were right at the heart of the conflict in war torn Congo, it would prove to be a baptism of fire for our peacekeepers. For the young and inexperienced among them it must have seemed like a different planet. Kamina was a large relatively secure installation near the tribal lands of the Baluba. The tribesmen should not have been a threat to the UN forces as they also mostly opposed the secession of Kantanga that the Belgian militias were fighting for. But the Balubas were also in on-going conflict with the official Katangan forces and engaged in sporadic tribal warfare with neighbouring pygmy tribes. This combination of social and political stressors had them poised in a state of high aggression. Stories of atrocities on all sides were widely circulated in the international press. The previous colonial governments brutality had robbed generations of their humanity and made violence common place. Under Belgian colonial rule the sickening barbarity of hacking off limbs and cracking open skulls had been casual punishments. This legacy had been passed on to the civil war combatants. The Baluba more than most had been noted for their barbarity. The militia of the tribe were drugged fanatics who had already carved a swathe of blood through sections of their own communities as they attempted to wrest a piece of the newly liberated land for themselves. Their warriors would undergone a ritual by their witchdoctors that involved covering them with a "magic potion" which would make them bullet proof. They also imbibed hallucinogenic drinks which convinced them they were invincible and whipped them in to a frenzy of rage.   What occurred in the Baluba town of Niemba turned a tense situation in to a deadly one. Niemba had been a relatively quiet agricultural town. Cotton was the predominant crop. The farmlands were broken up by areas of jungle. There was a small railway station which served some nearby villages, shops and administration buildings. This quiet area was about to feel the violence that was sweeping the Congo. On 4th October the Katangan gendarmerie looted the area and many of the nearby Baluba were massacred. The rest of the civilians scattered and left Niemba a ghost town. The UN command decided that Niemba should be secured by troops to attract the locals back to the vicinity and stabilise the area. It was this order that sent the 33rd Irish Infantry Battalion to their fate.         Ambush   November 8, 1960. Amidst this crisis an 11 man unit is ordered to secure the station , repair a damaged bridge over the Luweyeye River and restore peace and order to the war torn region.The soldiers jeep and pick-up truck encountered the destroyed bridge over the Luweyeye River and a road block .They were forced to leave their vehicles to investigate. The Balubas had been setting up road blocks to defend themselves against the Gendarmerie. The platoon support weapons ,Bren Machine Guns and ammo, had been left on the vehicles and couldn't be retrieved in time. Despite the UN mission being explicitly to defend locals ,to the Baluba it appeared they were interfering with what the locals considered their life or death protection against their Gendarmerie. The tribesmen considered it an act of aggression. Apart from the shock and barbarity of the encounter, the prevailing element was speed. Everything happened at lightening pace.   Lt. Gleeson and Sgt. Gaynor, crossed the river to investigate how to progress. Suddenly like something out of a nightmare they were surrounded by around two hundred Baluba  warriors heavily armed. With machetes bows with poison arrows and clubs. Despite the frightening confrontational nature of the situation the soldiers kept to their strict UN orders not to fire unless fired upon. The Irishmen tried to peacefully communicate with the tribesmen and explain their intentions. Lt Kevin Gleeson called out "Jamba"  a friendly greeting  in Swahili. This greeting resulted in an arrow thudding in to his arm. Suddenly the air was full of arrows as the 33rd Irish Infantry was bombarded under a hail of poison tips. Reluctantly Platoon leader Lt. Kevin Gleeson ordered his men to return fire whilst he desperately laid down cover to help his men retreat back to the vehicle. One of those who survived Pte Joseph Fitzpatrick said that Gleeson's haunting last words were "‘Take cover lads, we’re all going to be killed”. Within seconds he was swamped by dozens of tribesmen and brutally butchered to death where he stood.   Cut off from the vehicles and unable to escape the desperate situation they retreated to cover behind trees and began to return fire on the tribesmen. The enemy advanced upon them ,the bloodied, crumpled body of their commander still in sight. The tension and terror must have been extraordinary. Fighting for your life in the intense heat ,amid the thick jungle foliage and waist high elephant grass .In the chaos twenty five tribesmen where killed yet they relentlessly kept coming. The shocking speed with which the unprovoked attack took place meant that the Irish peacekeepers barely got to discharge their weapons. The terrific speed and savagery of the attack meant that possibly only three Irish Peacekeepers had time to fire their weapons in defence during the initial onslaught.Kenny (303 rifle) Gleeson (Gustav) and Browne (Gustav). One of the surviors Tom Kenny still had his ammunition belt and he didn't get a chance to fire more than the 5 rounds that were in his clip.The last of these shots went point blank into the chest of a Baluba tribesman who was about to dispatch him.The men where short of ammunition. The Irish knew there would be no negotiation, no hope of peaceful surrender. The warriors didn’t want survivors, they were only interested in the weapons supplies and vehicles. Within seconds the lads were overrun ,outnumbered over ten to one by frenzied tribesmen and the horrible scenario of close quarters hand to hand combat took place. It was a massacre . The few survivors who escaped the initial attack retreated to ridge and regrouped but again the horde pursued them. The Irish were surrounded and the butchery continued till only three soldiers were left and managed somehow to escape. Two of the survivors ,young Fitzpatrick and Kenny, were able to hide. A day later Fitzpatrick was found by an Ethiopian UN search party. Irish Army personnel located Kenny two days after the ambush. Tragically the third initial survivor Anthony Browne had gotten lost in the dense jungle. Days later , starving and dehydrated near death he begged some tribeswomen for food and water near what he thought would be the safety of a friendly village. The tribeswomen left for what he must have thought was to fetch supplies , however they returned with men from the tribe. He tried to explain to the villagers what happened and gave them his belongings but was quickly beaten to death by the villagers in what must have been an absolutely hellish experience for a young man thousands of miles from home. It would be another two years before his remains were recovered. By sheer luck an Irish army officer speaking to a Belgian lawyer in the Congolese city of Elisabethville two years later discovered the whereabouts and ultimate tragic  fate of Trooper Browne. Aftermath   Although understandably in the wake of the atrocity the name Baluba became synonymous in Ireland with barbarism , the actions of the tribesmen on that faithful day did not define the entire Baluba nation. There are some ironic , poignant parallels between the Baluba tribe and the Irish. Far from being a savage people the Baluba (or Luba) were highly cultured with a complex society and rituals. They also had a sophisticated recorded history as well as an impressive tradition of wood carving. Like the Irish they suffered terribly at the brutal hands of colonial powers. Similarly to us they made a valiant but failed attempt to break free from bondage in a rebellion in 1895. As punishment the Belgians broke the back of their society sending thousands of them to forced labour camps in Katangan copper mines. Yet still the proud people were not fully defeated and rose against their Belgian masters once more in 1917 ,again unsuccessfully. At the start of the Congo conflict the Irish army were arguably ill equipped and definitely inexperienced in battle. Most had antiquated bolt action Lee Enfield rifles yet many of the tribal militias had state of the art arms for the time, most taken from the Belgian arsenal. In addition to being under armed they were assigned ridiculously inappropriate uniforms of bulls wool and hobnail boots, despite the combat theatre being tropical. They also lacked any interpreters. Much of these oversights came from the two battalions being hastily organised to meet the demands of the UN high command. This would be the first overseas mission the new Irish state had gotten involved in. Many of the lads themselves had no idea where the Congo was ,but what they all shared was the bravery to volunteer to risk their lives for the cause of peace. Controversy   Confusion after the ambush ,combined with wilful alteration of the original statements given by top brass in the Irish army caused aspects of those fateful days to be misreported. For example Trooper Browne did not die at the ambush location  as was originally reported by officials. It’s important to note that this was not the fault of the survivors, who provided a truthful account which was "lost". During the Irish army mission in the Congo 26 soldiers lost their lives. To die so far from home ,so savagely, whilst trying only to protect civilians is difficult and distressful to imagine. Yet the survivors of this harrowing encounter were all but forgotten by the Irish authorities in the aftermath. Neither of the two survivors Trooper Kenny and Pte Joseph Fitzpatrick were offered honours , despite all the dead receiving posthumous medals in 1998. The brave survivors had to endure both the desperate mortal trauma of the incident combined with the disdain and disinformation they faced from their government and command on returning home. Their bravery and strength of character is a heroism unimaginable for most people. The terrible burden they have had to carry unrecognised and misreported is a gross injustice which only recently has come to light. Equally disturbing in addition to the neglect of their recognition was the misreporting of events which created a false burden on the already suffering survivors and families.. After a determined campaign Fitzpatrick was finally recognised with a service commendation medal in 2007. Kenny was also offered one but declined it. The remains of the nine servicemen were buried with full honours and lie in Glasnevin Cemetery Dublin. Almost 500,000 mourners lined the streets of the capital to honour the fallen`s funeral cortège. The names of those who died so brutally attempting to bring peace to the people of the Congo are : Lt. Kevin Gleeson from Carlow, aged 30 Sgt. Hugh ‘Sonny’ Gaynor from Leixlip, aged 29 Cpl. Peter Kelly from Templeogue, aged 25 Cpl. Liam Dougan from Cabra, aged 34 Pt. Matthew Farrell from Jamestown, Dublin, aged 22 Tpr. Thomas Fennell from Donnycarney, aged 18 Tpr. Anthony Browne from Rialto, aged 20 Pte. Michael McGuinn from Carlow, aged 21 Pte. Gerard Killeen from Rathmines. aged 27      

[theloosecannonbuchanan]

The Phoenix Flag of the Irish Republic

I`ve been fortunate enough to visit some of the greatest museums and galleries on Earth to witness masterpieces of art and priceless treasures from history. Yet of all the artefacts I`ve seen the most inspirational is a tattered and singed piece of cloth in a modest glass case inside the Collins Barracks Museum ,Dublin. Every Irish person is familiar with the tricolour. Influenced by the French post-revolutionary flag , it’s an early nineteenth century construct .Its optimistic symbolism bringing together the catholic green and protestant orange traditions through peace in the white centre. But this isn’t the true banner of the Rising. That was technically the golden harp upon green. However neither of those are the flag which moves me most. My favourite jewel which elegantly represents Ireland in both its glory and tragedy, it’s past and future, is the “Flag of the Irish Republic”.

April 24, 1916 and Dubliners were going about their business on bustling Sackville Street oblivious they will soon find themselves at a crossroads in history. Whilst the shoppers , workers and tram traffic passed by the General Post Office two flags were hastily raised flapping in the Easter sky. One was a tricolour , the other a flag bearing the inscription ‘Irish Republic’. Most of the citizens of the empires second city would have been at most  bemused by this unusual sight . They weren’t to know that their futures and those of their children were symbolically rippling in the spring breeze above the columns of Portland stone. Over the course of the next few days the beautiful Georgian city would become an urban warzone the likes of which would not be seen in the British Isles again till the London Blitz. The sounds of mortars , gunfire and screams would be carried on the thick black smoke through the eye sockets of shattered windows and the gulfs of rubble strew streets. Irish and British blood , and a considerable volume of it innocent ,would flow on the cobbles and down the gutters of the fair city. All the while as the terrible beauty of the Rising played out below that battle scarred Irish Republic flag fluttered like a dim tabernacle candle over the cities sacrificial altar. After the Rebels surrendered ,British troops captured the war-torn banner as booty. The museum photographs show the victorious soldiers proudly holding their spoils. That the flag appears to be upside down is likely deliberate , as is the location where they are posing .Standing triumphantly at the base of the monument to Charles Stuart Parnell in what is now O’Connell Street communicates a clear message. Parnell the great leader and champion for Home Rule has been proved wrong. Parnell’s cause as hopeless as the crushed upstarts rebellion.

Every member of the British occupation of Ireland , having initially gotten over the shock of the “treasonous” Gaels mutiny, would have been relieved at the swift and devastating end to the insurrection. Much as many of the stunned citizens of the capital , these smiling young men would have likely felt relieved that the Empire had crushed the rebellion and that Paddy once again knew his place under King Georges jackboot. In their hubris they were not to know that a phoenix was about to rise from the ashes of the GPO. And that the flag they held as a trophy would be returned to the people of a new-born Republic fifty years later to take its place as an honoured relic of the unending struggle for Irish freedom. The flag itself resides in the Collins Barracks Museum on Benburb Street. It measures 4′ 3″ by 5′ 6″. The slightly faded green field is inscribed proudly in Gaelic script with “Irish Republic” in white and golden lettering. The top half of the letter C at the end of Republic is missing. But despite exposure to the smoke and fire that gutted the GPO and the shelling of gunboats and snipers alike it is remarkably intact. As with any national treasure there is a considerable amount of mythology about its creation. One legend being that it was hastily made by Countess Malkiewicz on the night of Easter Thursday ,improvised using material from the green bedspread of nationalist MP Laurence Ginnell with the help of some members of Cumann na mBan and the appropriately named Wolfe Tone Fitzgerald .The excitement of the operation apparently was too much for the countesses dog Poppet ,who is depicted beside her in her statue on Townsend Street. The yarn has it the little cocker spaniel tore a chunk out of the material , a gap which is still visible today. This story is almost certainly an urban myth, not least because Markievicz and Cumann na mBan had far more practical military preparations to attend to on the eve of war. A far more likely origin for the flag was a shirt maker called Mary Shannon who worked with James Connolly in the nationalist cooperative in Liberty Hall. The building was then of course the headquarters of the Irish Citizen Army. Mary was a machinist who we know created other fine flags and banners for the cause. Signs of improvised but careful manufacture conducive to the Mary Shannon theory can still be seen on the artefact. The choppy scissor marks are visible as are seams holding together the strips of material, like unapologetic scars.

Of course it is far more than just a physical flag. It’s a raw element that was tossed in to the crucible of rebellion. Whilst Dublin burned below it like a votive offering the emblazoned words on the fragile flag were a battle cry ,which although initially weak and largely ignored at its first utterance, has echoed down the corridors of history. The dream and the reality of the Irish Republic has been taken up by millions across the world and throughout the generations. The relic we can see today beneath the museum glass is humble yet noble . Its makeshift quality has a sincerity and coarseness that doesn’t belittle or alienate the observer the way so much imperial regalia does. We are not subjects bowing beneath it but brothers bearing it up. Despite being fragile and a victim of enemy capture it doesn’t project weakness. Because it bears the scars honestly. It doesn’t lie about the savagery of conflict. Importantly too in our modern world , it is also a symbol of peace and reconciliation. Of how the seemingly endless conflict between Britain and Ireland is largely a terrible but essentially remembered part of our past. The flags call for independence which was initially silenced and mocked by the young British soldiers who posed with it like a vanquished hunters prize has, over the course of time and struggle, been returned home as a respectful gift between two nations. Declaring the words Irish Republic at a time when it was merely a dream , the flag was the manifestation of a hope and a demand ; and a promise. And in the centenary year of the Rising 2016 it is a challenged to us too. Like a bookmark in the pages of world history , contemplating it should bring us back to the fundamentals of Irish freedom and identity. When I look at it as a proud Irishman in the twenty-first century I cannot help but wonder would my generation have the wisdom to see injustice for what it is? Would we have the courage to stand up and fight it?

[theloosecannonbuchanan]

Aokigahara : Japans haunted suicide forest

The Japanese have a unique relationship with suicide. Apart from the tragic realities of this desperate, irreversible act in Japan its steeped in centuries of complex traditions surrounding honour and ritual. Despite being one of the most technologically advanced societies on earth ,its citizens are notoriously obsessed with the paranormal. A surprisingly high percentage of Japanese take the reality of ghosts for granted as part of the world. This seems all the more remarkable considering how much of the population are living in ultra-modern megacities far from what we would imagine to be breeding grounds for superstition. However there is one location in Japan which combines the eerie remoteness of a horror movie with the peculiar Japanese obsession for suicide , the notoriously haunted Aokigahara Forrest. Before I go any further , a trigger warning. Do not google images of Aokigahara forest as mixed in with pictures of the wilderness itself there are sadly many disturbing photographs of victims. Aokigahara also known as “The Sea of Trees"  is fourteen square miles of bleak dense woodland, studded with uncharted cave systems at the base of Mount Fuji .The choking density of the suffocating  tight treeline blocks out ambient sound and creates a soul chilling silence.  The trees close proximity of and the lack of edible plants  means its home to only a very limited amount of wildlife. The forest sprang from a lava bed flowing from Mt. Fuji over a thousand years ago. The thin volcanic soil created an unusual ecosystem , the woodland is mostly Japanese cypress and Hemlock fir. Colonies of bats inhabit the hidden lava caves which pepper the forest. Legends told of it being infested with the blood drinking demons of Shinto mythology ,but now it is demons of the mind which claim human lives in this remote lonely place. In this tragic purgatory hundreds of mentally ill and depressed people have come to take their lives. Alienated and hopeless they come here and never leave. Aokigahara is Japans “Suicide forest”. Harsh and impenetrable , Aokigahara is almost devoid of any landmarks. Possibly due to the unusual volcanic rock morphology electronic devices and GPS seem to go haywire ,making even experienced orienteers susceptible to getting lost. Hikers are encouraged to use umbilical ropes to mark their trail and prevent them from getting lost among the labyrinth of identical trees. Sadly in addition to the hikers and tourists who visit approximately one hundred  desperate souls per year take their lives under the silent canopy. Its reputation for ghosts has become a self-fulfilling prophesy. But the tormented spirits here are psychological ones. The undiscovered bodies , in various states of decay and disorder ,litter the woodland like props from a horror movie. Its sobering to remember that this is not just some spooky story. This is the tragic reality of human suffering and untreated mental illness. Each body, every statistic , is not just a life lost but a family forever wounded. The yūrei (angry spirits) of Shinto legends are the misleading voices inside us. Lying that there is no other way out, that death is a solution. In this place they symbolise the moments of madness ,which in our confusion or passion ,we mistake for truth. How many of those now silent bones in Aokigahara would give everything for another precious second of life ? To have the opportunity to turn around and leave that darkness for sunshine again? A paradox of its forbidden loathsome reputation is that many tourists and morbid thrill seekers visit the edges of Aokigahara annually. But it is simply so large and difficult to penetrate, unless you are on a one way trip, that the crowds barely make an impact. Warning signs compelling visitors to think of their families and seek help are posted on the borders and throughout the “popular” suicide spots. Grim discoveries are so commonplace that there are procedures posted on how to deal with the bodies. Clothed skeletons have become part of the bleak scenery. Many victims are simply never found , though an annual body search conducted by local authorities is feverishly covered by the Japanese media. Aokigahara is more than just a macabre oddity or a supernatural tourist trap. The mysterious slice of wilderness is a metaphor for depression itself.  A dark lonely hell of isolation , surrounded  by  everyday life, which some visit and leave but others become lost in and give up. Within that geography of the mind there are frequently ignored warning signs and pathways back to "normality" and happiness which are occasionally stumbled upon but sometimes not recognised as the victim staggers deeper in to the dark. The unnecessary tragedy of this place is their lesson to us. Depression is not a final destination. There is always a path back out of the woods if you take a moment to breath and look for the sign posts. Why die , and cause such suffering, for the sake of an answer that might only be a call for help away ? Aokigahara shows us that a different perspective, another path ,can change a suicidal wanderer to  a happy hiker. When you feel wander off the path its easy to forget that there is always a clearing ahead. Your life is full of people who have answers to the questions you think are unanswerable , with experience in surviving situations you believed were unbearable. If you feel lost on the path reach out to someone. There are people who will find you.Just you call out.   Samaritans 116 123 or email [email protected] Console 1800 247 247 – (suicide prevention, self-harm, bereavement) Aware 1890 303 302 (depression, anxiety) Pieta House 01 601 0000 or email [email protected] – (suicide, self-harm) Teen-Line Ireland 1800 833 634 (for ages 13 to 19)

[theloosecannonbuchanan]

The mysterious theft of the Irish Crown Jewels

The theft of the Irish Crown Jewels from Dublin Castle in 1907 was a sensation throughout the British Empire. It wasn’t only because of the glamour of the objects and wealth of those involved but for the salacious gay scandal and royal intrigue the investigation exposed at the heart of Anglo-Irish power. The treasures known collectively as the Irish Crown Jewels were owned by King Edward II and consisted of the fist sized Star of St Patrick which had fifty Brazilian diamonds, a magnificent emerald shamrock and a ruby cross upon shining blue enamel. There was also a badge made of rubies, emeralds and silver. Despite the name the treasures technically do not correspond to their English namesake famously held in the Tower of London. The Irish counterparts were essentially ceremonial bling worn at functions of the Order of St Patrick presented to the Order by King William IV in 1831. Despite the efforts of generations of investigators, the authors of dozens of books and numerous disreputable cranks ,psychics and sensation seeking television presenters later ,the jewels have still never been recovered. Conspiracists of the day quickly jumped to conclusions about the motive and masterminds behind the heist. Initial bets were on a Unionist plot to disrupt Home Rule or Republicans trying to ransom the priceless treasure to raise funds or simply shame the Brits.

However ,as the investigation evolved, the smart money went on an inside job. Fingers pointed what was described as a gay “secret society” at work within Dublin Castle. This ring was accused of organising everything from orgies to drunken private tours of restricted places ,and it seems grand jewel heists. Rumours of this unearthed club leaked to the general public via the newspapers of the day, bolstered by headlines of cover ups, shocking dismissals and pay offs of witnesses. In 1905 changes inside the Order of St Patrick necessitated that the jewels be shifted to a safe in the strong room of the Office of Arms in Dublin Castle. They would be under the supervision of serving Ulster King of Arms, Sir Arthur Vicars. He was assisted by other lower ranking members of the Order ,one of whom was his alleged live in lover Frank Shackleton. Frank was the younger brother of the famous polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton. Frank was awarded the honorary post of Dublin Herald by his housemate Sir Arthur Vicars. During this move to the strong room ,which was located in the Bedford Tower of Dublin castle, it was discovered that the safe containing the jewels was too large to fit through the door. Castle authorities decided to leave the safe in the ornate library of the tower whilst a smaller safe was obtained.

The gemstones were last seen ,at least by anyone who didn’t steal them,  on 11 June 1907. After that,in a seemingly unrelated incident on Wednesday 3 July ,a cleaning lady found a door in the secure tower unlocked and raised the alarm. It was noted that Sir Arthur Vicars acted in a very blasé manner ,ill befitting the blind panic a custodian would be expected to express. A few days later on Saturday 6 July the same cleaning lady observed the strong room door was open .When she informed Vicars the information was again met with bizarre indifference. Later that day Vicars uncharacteristically asked another member of staff to deposit something in the safe and gave him the key. This breach of protocol was highly suspicious in itself, combined with the previous nonchalance it might appear that somebody wanted to imply that security was lax, perhaps foreshadowing for a robbery. When the shocked man who Vicars asked to check the safe  opened it he found it was ransacked and the jewels gone. What’s more, because it hadn’t been regularly checked ,the burglary could have taken place weeks before. To add to the pandemonium this was just four days before King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra were due to visit Ireland to take part in a ceremony involving the missing treasures. They weren’t even the only thing stolen.

Five expensive ceremonial collars for the Knights of the Order were also pillaged. A police investigation concluded that the safe hadn’t been broken. It had been unlocked with one of the custodian keys. This levelled suspicion on laid back Vicars plus a handful of other possible suspects. Among these was the aforementioned Frank Shackleton brother of the famous explorer. Vicars was notoriously fond of the gargle and had a reputation for drinking on overnight security duty. Rumour had it that he woke up one morning with an incredible hangover and modelling the jewels around his neck. The massive royal commission that was set up to get to the bottom of the crime and retrieve the jewels. It’s very closely monitored by the furious King Edward VII himself. The clandestine gay gang were quickly discovered during the course of hundreds of interviews. The ring was composed of Vicars, Lord Haddo (who was the son of the effective ruler of Ireland the Lord Aberdeen, the Viceroy and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland) Frank Shackleton and a Capt. Richard Gorges. Also mentioned was the most eyebrow raising addition to this group. Shackleton`s other alleged lover and frequent visitor to the castle , the Duke of Argyll, who was married to Princess Louise, sister to King Edward VII. It was clear that a cast iron media blackout was needed in order to save the British empire royal blushes.

Vicars unorthodox approach to security became an apparent and easy excuse for the robbery. In addition to the drunken stories there was also a string of incidents where Vicars would boastfully show the jewels to friends and unauthorised visitors. But was it cavalier carelessness on his behalf or was he complicit in a deliberate inside job? Of all the other suspects Shackletons schedule proved him to have had the most access to both the jewels and to Vicars. The pair ,who lived together for years ,were allegedly secret lovers. Their connections to the clique of Duke of Argyll , Capt. Richard Gorges  and Lord Haddo also surfaced. Shackletons romantic involvement with the Duke of Argyll who happened to be the King of England’s brother in law gave him a bizarre immunity. Francis Bennett Goldney ,another suspected part of the ring , had access to the jewels. Years after Goldney died it was revealed he had stolen numerous other expensive objet d'arts and documents from other collections but these discoveries were too late to offset either the finger pointing at Vicars. There were peculiar financial ties between Vicars ,Shackelton and Goldney. Debts and irregularities were cropping up at every turn. During the inquest Shackleton was the last to give evidence. He had been away in Italy during most of the chaos. Whilst admitting to money problems ,and discretely alluding to a very close friendship with Vicars ,he totally denied any part in the. He also made no secret of his lofty connections to the royal family and several other "untouchable" institutions. To those in the know , it appear like a well connected man may have been untouchable due to a combination of his esteemed friends and some revelations he might spill if pushed too far. When the king heard this shocking news during the  inquisition he wanted to silence any possible embarrassing evidence  investigating Shackleton might be turned up. Vicar’s head was on the chop. The indisputable fact was seven people had keys to the office, but there were only two keys to the safe, both were in the were in the sole custody of Vicars. The constant minor breaches of security were starting to look more like breadcrumbs left by him, an orgy of misdirected evidence to justify a robbery by outside parties. Vicars did himself few favours by declining to attend the private hearings and face his accusers. He also refused to resign. Sticking to his guns he demanded a public royal inquiry which of course ,given the potential fallout of the Shackelton sex revelations, was a non-runner. Rightly or wrongly Vicars was set to become a convenient fall guy. When the verdict came through on 25 January 1908, the  result was a forgone conclusion.

The Commission found that Vicars "did not exercise due vigilance or proper care as the custodian of the regalia.” He was dismissed from his post as custodian in disgrace, taking the blame and losing everything.  Is it possible that his irresponsibility with the keys was taken advantage of, or was it a plot cooked up by two lovers to get away with a heist by effectively blackmailing any authorities who tried to apprehend them?  If so it was a dangerous game to play at a time when King Edward II had near absolute power. If Shackleton did it was his motivation to take such a risk?  Records from the time show that he was effectively bankrupt and in dire financial straits due to a lavish playboy lifestyle. He owed huge debts to some dangerous people. Its suspected some of these unscrupulous people may have forced or bribed him in to stealing Vicars keys and making a copy. Perhaps Shackleton's true colours started to showed a few years later when he was convicted of fraud in 1913. He served 15 months hard labour. When he got out of prison he changed his name to Frank Mellor and lived an uneventful life as an antique shop owner in Chichester until he died in 1941. Interestingly Capt. Richard Gorges made several claims later in his life that he had stolen the jewels, however that line of investigation ended after he committed suicide by jumping in front of a train in London. As for the incompetent but perhaps innocent Vicars , his professional life was effectively ruined by the scandal. He retired to Kerry and married in 1917. He was shot dead as an informer by the IRA in 1921 in front of  wife and his home was burned to the ground. Despite his violent death Vicars got the last word on the whole Irish Crown Jewels scandal though in his scathing will. The contents were deemed so sensational at the time that it was not made public until 1976. In it Vicars lashed out at the British establishment and King Edward himself, accusing them of a cover-up and laying all the blame for the theft squarely on his former close friend , housemate and possible Crown Jewel thief Francis Shackleton.

[theloosecannonbuchanan]

Cannibal YOLO-caust: semiotics of The Green Inferno

Although this is less a review on the plot of the Green Inferno than an analysis of the themes and semiotics there are spoilers so please be warned. Primarily Green Inferno is marketed as bodyhorror.But to a special effects savvy and violence jaded audience the real fear inducing elements spring from the secondary text of this film. Betrayal, deception and exploitation of good will.EliRoth is a master of this, subverting the loyalty of friendship, and the comfort of pleasurable situations. We are at our most vulnerable not roaming through haunted houses or bad neighbourhoods,but when eating and sleeping with the enemy.Hismain tool for this as ever is the "foreigner". Utilising "otherness"  is nothing new. It taps in to our innate distrust of the alien and how we try and balance this aversion to interacting with them with the irresistible seduction the stranger or strange land embodies. I was pleased that Roth kept the nods to certain other legendary Amazonian cannibal movies to a minimum. Beyond of course the actual title of the movie itself. The Green Inferno being the name of the movie within Cannibal Holocaust. So few other references were there in fact that  a lad leaving the cinema behind us loudly lamented that there "wasn’t even a bleedin` sniff of a turtle in it" Most viewers would be delighted with this ,considering current sensibilities which see graphic rape and butchery of humans as practically tea time viewing ,whilst even representations of animal cruelty using CGI dinosaurs is considered taboo….even whilst said offended viewers tuck in to their Big Mac and KFC. But I digress…… The cast of relative unknowns and rising stars playing the doomed Westerners were well chosen. Appropriately likeable and irritating in necessary measure. The only disappointment being Chilean actor Ariel Levy who played the evil pseudo-Guevara figure Alejandro. I thought he wasn't quite believable or charismatic enough. Considering Sky Ferreira ,the leads roommate who doesn’t even go to the jungle and has about five minutes overall screen time basically stole the first half of show. And that leads us to the indigenous Amazonian stars. Memorable costumes and makeup allowed just enough variety to distinguish memorable tribe members when required, but there was enough fog of war sameness when a swarming mass of feral bodies was better suited to the action. The iconic high priestess had enough oodles of old-crone archetype to grate at subconscious Freudian fears. Lorenza Izzo playing heroine Justine is definitely leading lady material , and the roles quite steep if wobbly rise from passive naiveté through fear paralysed victim and then ultimately to ruthless saviour. In fact her primary transformation had little to do with survival itself ,more than learning that deception and manipulation of truth for the sake of a goal is an end of itself. She actually married the director Roth which can only guarantee her inevitable rise to stardom. Social commentary and low key satire are The Green Infernos main fright tools. From reading the politically incorrect hype about Roth's latest controversial offering I was worried it would be lazily offensive and culturally insensitive. On the contrary , I think we immediately know who the "baddies" are and its most certainly the greedy developers and the vain-glorious activists. I will agree that colonial stereotypes are not exactly subverted, but neither is there any effort to compare the societies unfavourably. It's difficult to label it culturally insensitive when it is a fictional tribe in a non-specific part of an almost unimaginably massive jungle. Granted we know the country and the river, we associate the body paint , the huts and blowpipes to generic Amazonians. But this is no bones through the nose cartoon primitivism for the sake of being a counterpoint to the colonial western "goodies". The westerners are far more unsophisticated in their greed and vanity and ruthless in their betrayal and duplicity than the natives. Grindhouse horrific yes, but definitely not xenophobic. The self-righteous ignorance of crusading social justice advocates are knowingly lampooned. You could sum up the voice of reason and jaded twenty-first century ennui she embodies by her sniggering line “Activism’s so fucking gay” .I loved her. The precarious path of interventionist politics is broached gingerly. Justine's father being a stereotypical white upper class UN attorney whose lofty position reaches even to the lawless jungles of the amazon. But ironically perhaps the interventionist narrative is most powerful in the final scenes where we see the tearful New York "damsel" relating a crafted narrative of Nobel savages and trendy evil developers which the audience of do-gooder UN officials is eating up. The ISIS era weariness of following internet proselytising revolutionaries proves justified for the characters when swarthy Alejandro shows his true colours. Thankfully in The Green Inferno there are other dimensions to the dynamic of fresh faced American students versus malicious manipulating natives. And that tension between calculated corporate power and bestial tribal brawn is at the heart of the lurid culture war depicted. Whilst their methods of obtaining both the corporate goals and the tribal ones are analogous ( blow pipes and ak47s are all the same when you're gazing down the barrel) it is the motivations which greatly differ. Industry seeks to profit from something they know to be both immoral and illegal. They are ashamed and afraid to let the public eye see their transgressions in the form of live streaming cameras. The tribes are simply seeking to survive. Thus they are unashamed of their actions and actually celebrate it , decorating their village and the crash site with the decapitated and dismembered spoils. And the analogy continues as here in the jungle the invaders themselves become a resource to be consumed.And the only reason they were able to enter this dangerous remoteness is because of their wealth and social standing. That privilege is a vulnerability, and is something which makes one a target for being used and abused is something that might hit a raw nerve with many middle class yuppie spawn. The violence was just on the right side of stylised ritualism. There's the expected bawdy dismemberment and nausea inducing guts devouring. But there's was also dollops of deeply unnerving sexually traumatic stuff which might prove a trigger for a lot of female viewers in particular. Part of the theme of crossover of barbarism from the realms of the "other" to "civilised" societies is the plot relevant issues of female genital mutilation. Sadly this brutal inhumanity is not just a handy chilling horror trope, but a despicable reality for millions of girls and woman throughout the world. One hopes that the injustice of this horrendous practice will get more outraged attention shone on it by the depiction this film gives it. Female sexuality is also dealt with in the brilliantly blasé depiction of a loving lesbian couple. Obviously given the circumstances this romance has a less than happy ending. And of course the violence isn't only physical. In addition to the threat and menace there is the embarrassment of losing face. The focus on the shame inducing social nudity before peers is very telling about where our modern priorities lie. The ego is more fragile than flesh. We see body shaming both in the highlighting of how a fat bloke was chosen to eat first ,and sly Alejandros comment about it enrages his fellow prisoners. And how the act of a female victim having to defecate in public is somehow more mortifying than death itself. Cannibalism is an extremely appropriate for the two faced amoral utility of exploitation. What better analogy for capitalism and the rape of natural resources, or more accurately in this case , the birth right lands of indigenous populations than consuming human life?  Turning the tables on these privileged westerners by threatening their most valued resource, which countless  industries battle Sisyphus like in vain, the defeat of death and continuation of life. A side effect of this of course is that in doing so these "savages" are doing us the favour of reminding us how precious and priceless this commodity really is. The predatory gruesome consumption is only the sideshow. Hunger is relentless and beyond morality. It is utilitarian and doesn’t require apology. Greed however is controllable, self-serving and conscious. Faced with two evils, the hungry "savages" are angelic by comparison to the greedy exploiters. People with nothing are not afraid of losingit.But for these well connected kids sharing your resources with the less fortunate and wealthy via social responsibility, rather than stealing them via venture capitalism and colonialism seems to be the greatesthorror.This terror goes hand in hand with the fierce individualism visible in modern US society. It's very telling how the single most traumatic disaster scene of the movie, the plane crash , doesn’t necessarily elicit the greatest declarations of terror or could it be that as this "attack" from nature or saboteurs is actually less potent to their egos as it effects the entire group anonymously, rather than each as individuals? Yet when we see butchery , and in inevitable insinuation that this will then happen to them it becomes an existentialist threat. This is the quintessential heart of the movie. Violation of the body ,whether it's through genital mutilation or butchery and consumption, transforms the individual to the nameless faceless masses. The Green Inferno is fantastic fun , and ultimately its unassuming subtexts of greed and betrayal will last longer than the overt video nasty gorefest its promoted as.A modern classic cannibalised from the golden age of eighties horror.