Ireland. So, you asked me,“Where’s it going?” Well, it’s pretty dark…

Evil, in a strange way, brings us together, forces us to discover strands of commonality and fellowship in our seemingly divergent cultures.

When I was growing up, the particularities of my homeland, Ireland seemed to function as a barrier to connections with other places. Its smallness, Its backwater nature, its sense of its own uniquely painful history, all these contributed to a sense of insularity. But, now with my country on the brink of destruction yet again, and this time as part of a globalised onslaught by the most evil forces the world has ever seen, I am able to speak about it on world stages, as though its destruction has rendered it universal in a way we had not dreamed of. It is a mixed blessing, if blessing it be. But it also serves to remind us that, when things are going well, we tend to emphasise our differences; when things become ominous we seek the common ground.

In this recent conversation with Emerson Fersch of the Upthinking Finance podcast, based in Utah, USA — we speak mainly about what is happening in Ireland and its relevance for the outside world: Ireland as emblem, as petri-dish, as guinea pig.

Strangely, for a podcast titled ‘Upthinking Finance,’ there is very little talk about money, though there is a great deal about the things that money is about — which is to say just about everything that is material — and much that is not — passing betwen humans by way of work, things, thoughts, questions, needs, solutions.

As with many conversations between people who do not already know one another, this one benefits from the constant requirement to answer fundamental questions, and explain things that might be obvious to those familiar enough not to ask. Sometimes, being asked to draw a sketch of the problems of your country can assist you in reframing the conditions into which it has blundered. Curiosity remains the most constructive element of any conversation.

Ireland and Utah

‘People will say, “What’s Ireland go to do with Utah?” Well, everything! We are one people in our struggle and our aspirations and our hoping. And this is something I realised in the last few years because, for many years, I wrote in Irish newspapers — and it’s a very parochial backwater. But now, in the last three years, I’ve started to go out to the world and realise that the things I have experienced are eminently relevant to people all over the world. And certainly our experiences of evil are very similar.’

‘Liberals’ and ‘Liberal Politicians’

‘Our political class is now the most corrupt in all the world. I don’t apologize [for this assertion] and will not hear any alternative claim. Not alone are they the most corrupt, but they are also the most stupid, which is a fascinating combination.

‘I’ve listened all my life to the societal leaders — the politicians, the editors, the journalists, the lawyers, the philosophers — such as they were — the poets, and so on. And implicit in the words of virtually every one of them was the same ideology, which was the idea of progress and the idea of liberalism. And that implied — I assumed — liberty. I assumed that liberty meant the same thing as it had meant in the beginning. But then we realised, back in March/April 2020, that there was something seriously wrong. Not alone did they not do what I assumed, which was jump immediately to the barricades and say, “Stop!”, “Enough!”, “We can’t do this!”, but when I did it, they started attacking me! And to this day I am in shock at that, because I was doing nothing but giving thought and action to the principles they had expounded all their lives in public — the “liberal agenda”, as they called it. I don’t mean the progressive agenda, but the idea that man is free and freedom is the root of everything.

But then they were telling us that, “Oh, no! Freedom is a far-right obsession!” So your question as to whether politicians are being bought off — you must go further with it and ask, “What is the mechanism whereby an entire cadre, cohort, right across society, who are the thought-leaders, the influencers, are signed up, it seems in advance?” They had already been signed up, because there was no public discussion after this appalling crime was initiated. And nobody protested, except mavericks like me — people who were never part of the liberal set in the first place, interestingly. I would describe myself, although I’m not fussed about [the title], as a classical liberal.

I believe in the freedom of human beings. But liberalism had come to mean different things. And what we realise now about liberalism is that what it means is the insistence that humanity must be changed. And it doesn’t necessarily have a final destination [in mind] for humanity. That destination may well be death, for all we know. Because that is implicit in a lot of the things they say — about climate change, for example — that they, human beings, stand up on their hind legs and decry the actions and presence of human beings. If you carry that logic to its ultimate conclusion, I think it’s pretty obvious what will happen. Well, it’s happening now — that the process that we’re undergoing seems intent upon the destruction of the human race. We have a culture, a conversation — and it’s not between the animals in the fields. It’s not between the cattle and the sheep. It’s between human beings. And essentially that discussion is about whether the human race should be entitled to continue or not, and on what terms.

But then you stop and say, “Yes, but who’s asking this? Who’s saying this?” And we find that the power has drifted to the top. And the weird thing is that all these rebels, and mavericks, and Marxists, and revolutionaries, and insurrectionists, whom we saw with their placards from the 1960s on — on the street, on the street, on the street — they’re all good with Larry Fink being the Emperor of the whole world!‘

The Church’s Shame

‘Rightly or wrongly, I grew up trusting the Church, in broad terms, to act according to reason — something that you could intuit, the “good” response. So, when I see tyrants coming down the street, driving metaphorical tanks, I look around me and expect to see the Archbishop of Dublin with his crozier, saying, “Stop!” to the tank. And they didn’t do that. And that was the beginning of the end for me, because in the Black Death the priests went out around to reach people, to save their souls. That was their imperative. They didn’t care about getting infected. They needed to get to those people, and that was the priority. And what does that tell you? To me, it says that these people don’t believe in God anymore. They don’t believe in anything anymore! They are just functionaries. They’re social workers, working for The Man.’

‘Jesus embraced the lepers! Wha’? Where’s that gone to? We’re afraid of a sneeze! We’re afraid of a cough! This is how ridiculous it’s got. But of course it’s not about a sneeze of a cough at all — it’s about something else, it’s about all this stuff we’re talking about. So, you asked me,“Where’s it going?” Well, it’s pretty dark. I think this is the worst moment in the history of the world, frankly — [or] with that potential. This could be the worst moment, because we’re on the threshold of entering into Hell on Earth. There’s no question in my mind about that — when you see the symptoms, what they’re trying to do, how they’re trying to shove people into cities, how they’re trying to control them, to imprison them for using their fires, for using their fuel, and stop them growing their own vegetables, so they will be completely dependent on the state. All of these things.

‘I cannot tell you how disgusting the Church has become in Ireland. And I struggle with this because, for many years, I defended the Church, and spoke about the faith and spoke about religion in a philosophical way — the centrality of the religious idea to the imagination of humanity, of a functioning humanity. But now I look at them and I see them on the altar with their hand-sanitisers before they handle the Host. And I hear that somebody I knew as a child has died alone, without a doctor, without a priest, because these guys wouldn’t go to visit them. It’s grief-inducing to think about that part of it. But then I hear about them talking about mass migration, and bullying the people of Ireland into accepting all-comers. All comers! Doesn’t matter who, on what basis, however fraudulent. And [I hear them] completely — frankly — lying about what the Church’s teaching is. Because the Church’s teaching on mass migration is nothing like what they’re saying, nothing like what the pope is saying.

The Church’s teaching on mass migration was laid down many centuries ago by Thomas Aquinas. And it remains: that people have no responsibility to absorb into their cultures other than people who are willing to revere that culture, and have an express wish to be there, and a reason to be there, and who apply with humility, respect and veneration for membership of that nation. And, yes, Aquinas said, such a person — such a family — may be accepted into a nation — after two to three generations! He did not say that, by giving them eleven hundred quid out of the taxpayer’s petty case, they could go into a room and buy an Irish passport, regardless of where they came from or what their intentions are in our country.’

Where Hope Resides

‘My hope is not a pious, Jesus-will-save-us literalism. I don’t feel that. But I do feel something else: That this is not going to happen — because it is wrong! Because God lives, and, because God lives, we must fight for His kingdom. And that is the thing that will make it happen, that will make the victory come for us. It’s not going to be achieved, in my opinion, on our knees — it’s quite the contrary. It’s going to be achieved by speaking the truth to power, and shaming those who have behaved so abominably, which includes the journalist skunks, the bishops, the pope, the politicians, the presidents, the prime ministers — the whole lot. The scientists and the doctors?

Disgraceful! Not all of them, in fairness — we’ve seen a huge number of really ethical doctors emerge in the last three years. But, man! — they have conducted genocide in our country. There’s no other word for it. It’s a genocide that’s happening behind a veil, a veil of pretence that nothing’s happening. This misdirection, this conjuring act that’s going on all the time, where this pseudo-reality is placed in front of people and this evil happens just behind the veil. I was reading an academic paper recently about genocide and the nature of it. It has to do with how it works most strongly when there is a gap between the perpetrators and the victims. And you know what that gap is called? Social distance.

When there is social distance between the murderer and the victim, the murder is more likely to happen. What was the first thing they introduced in 2020? Social distancing. The beginning of the genocide.‘

‘The most primal battle in the world is good versus evil. And because those two entities exist, this means that the Evil One exists, but also that the Good One — God — exists also. And all we can do then is reason to ourselves: What is the “good” thing to do? What is the “right” thing to do, every day? Little things. Small things. The Power of the Powerless, as Václav Havel called it. To actually stand against this, and shame these people out of existence.’

‘To put flesh on why it works is really important as well. It works because, by our actions, our movements, the smiles on our faces, the demeanour we have in public, the fact that we have spoken truthfully about this, and people now look to us — in confusion, in questioning, in doubt maybe – but they see us and they see a demeanour that is not sneaky, that is not stealthy, that is not underhand. And that is itself a statement that could turn the world around from this. Because what they have tried to do is beat people into sheep, to make people kind of shrivel up into themselves, and just crawl around looking for a direction from one another. So it’s precisely what I have described as “walking through reality” — the religious demeanour.

The religious sense in reality is to walk upright on the path that you envisage before you, moving forward towards the horizon, towards the destination that may be clear, may be unclear, but nevertheless you know that you are going somewhere important, and that you want to go there, But the journey — the way — is important too, because other people will see you and say, “I want to walk with him!” And that’s the way we will do this. And I believe it’s possible, if we can find in ourselves the disposition to be clear in our minds that what is happening is wrong. See, how they did it was they convinced people, with fear and propaganda and lies and fear and so on, that they were good guys: They wanted to “save lives”. No they didn’t. I just said it:

Social distancing. That’s a genocidal instrument. In its absolute essence, that’s what it is. And from that first proposal, they were announcing themselves as Evil Ones. And we need to grasp that, and then look around and say, “Well, who are the good guys?” Because the cavalry is not gonna come over the hill. We are the cavalry!’

Love of Country

‘It is a spiritual relationship. Of course it is. We love our country. We adore our country. We are absolutely slain in the spirit by our country. The idea that it could be taken from us — which it is being — is the most terrifying thing, worse than death itself, in my view. The idea that we would be alive and our nation be taken from us, is in my view the most unimaginable horror. These people have no souls. This is the problem, They are zombies. They don’t know what you’re talking about. They call you “far right” if you love your nation.’

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+ NYT. Frank Kitson, 97, Dies; Helped Shape the Conflict in Northern Ireland. February 15, 2024

“General Kitson drew on his experience overseas to change Britain’s approach to the Troubles. He set up an undercover unit, the Military Reaction Force, tasked with surveillance and occasional assassinations of Republican fighters. He fed slanted information to local reporters, and he supported the British Army’s campaign of interning thousands of suspects without charge…

10,000 unarmed Irish Republicans were holding a march through the city of Derry to protest internment. They were walking along the edge of a “no-go” area, where British soldiers were blocked from entering and risked armed attack if they did.

Soldiers from General Kitson’s brigade were waiting for the protesters, with plans to apprehend several leaders of the Irish Republican Army, whom they expected to be at the head of the march.

As the protesters neared the soldiers, a few began throwing rocks; the soldiers responded with rubber bullets, tear gas and water cannons. Suddenly, shots were fired, and within minutes, 13 protesters were dead; another died in the hospital of injuries. The day became known as Bloody Sunday, one of the worst losses of life during the Troubles and a rallying cry for Republican forces.”

General Kitson was on leave when the shootings occurred, but when he returned, he gave his deputy a dressing down — for not being more aggressive. Once the firing began, he said, his soldiers should have taken advantage of the confusion and pushed into the no-go area…”