Letters to the Editor: Jarlath Burns' regrettable response to Palestine protest in Croke Park
'He forgets that loyalist terrorists and the British state punished people north and south for breaking the 'unwritten rules' with bullets. Just like Zionists do today...' Picture: Nick Elliott/InphoÂ
It was regrettable that Jarlath Burns compared the protest [against the] GAA accepting sponsorship from a company blacklisted for buying Israeli war bonds, to the illegal occupation of Palestine.Â
Even more shockingly, he referenced his own experience of the Troubles as a reason for being above the calls from many organisations and GAA members to stop accepting blood money.
Referring to the Croke Park protests on Saturday, February 28, he said Croke Park staff “put themselves in harm’s way today to try and keep the protests out”.Â
By trying to shift the narrative, and spinning a story that the protests weren’t peaceful, is Burns trying to distract from the actually violent acts of funding Israel’s genocide?Â
Allianz’s subsidiary has bought almost $1bn of Israeli bonds since Israel invaded Gaza. That’s the real violence that somehow, for some reason Burns and the “ethics” committee don’t have a problem with.
Ironically, the day of Mr Burns’s diatribe against Palestine solidarity, Israel bombed Iran yet again. Israel attacked seven countries in 2025. I don’t think the GAA would be accepting sponsorship from a company supporting Russia’s war.
Mr Burns also brought up the Troubles. “I don’t need any lectures or people shouting in my face about what it’s like to go to bed at night, fearful that somebody would barge into your bedroom and riddle you with bullets. Because that was my lived experience when I was young.”
If that’s [his] memory, why is he adamant and passionate to accept Allianz’s blood money? He mentioned a friend of his, Michael Donnelly, who was murdered by the Glennane gang. I wonder how Michael Donnelly’s family feel about Jarlath Burns using their relative’s name and loss to justify turning the gaze of the GAA away from occupation, torture, and genocide in Palestine today.
Protesters entering the GAA meeting only happens when ears have been closed, and the powers that be must be met with discomfort.Â
If people followed the “unwritten rules” of protest that Burns imagines exist, then we wouldn’t have gay marriage or reproductive rights. We wouldn’t even have a free, independent nation.Â
He forgets that loyalist terrorists and the British state punished people north and south for breaking the “unwritten rules” with bullets. Just like Zionists do today, punishing Palestinians with torture, maiming, rape, and death.
There’s a lot of cognitive dissonance in Jarlath Burns’s angry words. He sounds embarrassed that he has been confronted face to face with the shame of it all. I hope that the GAA can bypass this defensive attitude, and undo the harm that they have done.
As part of its work, the Covid-19 Evaluation Panel is tasked with conducting a specific module examining how the pandemic was managed for older people living in the long-term residential care sector.Â
There were significant failures in Ireland’s pandemic response in this sector. The panel states that its work will be “open, iterative, and collaborative”.
Previous investigations, eg, [into] the Magdalene laundries and mother and baby homes, published anonymised survivor (and family) accounts as part of their reports, providing an important contribution to the historical record.
While the Covid-19 Evaluation Panel proposes to hold listening sessions with residents of long-term residential care, and their families, these accounts will not be published.Â
People who want an anonymised record of their experience published are denied that option. We do not know whether a record will be kept of these testimonies.
Age Action has been contacted by families who are troubled by this. Many felt their needs and concerns were not heard during covid, and that their preferences are not being considered now in the panel’s methodology.Â
Some will prefer that their accounts be kept private, others will not: they should have the option of an anonymised record of their experience being in the public domain. Given persistent failings in this sector, it is important that the voice of those affected is both heard, and seen to be heard.
Age Action calls on the Covid-19 Evaluation Panel to reconsider its approach to the testimonies of survivors, their families, and families whose loved ones died, alone, behind the window of a nursing home.
Not everyone shares the same sense of humour and thank God for that. The publican who thought that erecting a massive effigy of St Patrick holding a pint outside The Temple Bar pub in Dublin would help us to celebrate St Patrick’s Day properly because he was of the opinion that “we don’t do Paddy’s Day very well”.Â
Apart from adding to the image of the drunken Irish I really don’t see any merit in having an effigy of St Patrick, with or without a pint, on the wall of a pub in a prominent gathering area for visitors, an area I might add that does not have a very good record regarding serious assault and drunkeness.
A bit of respect for our patron saint would not go astray besides reducing him to something resembling a Disneyland character.
One in five TDs earns rental income. The very people who are supposed to solve Ireland’s housing emergency are the ones cashing in on it. Slow reform, weak tenant protections, and token supply measures aren’t mistakes, they’re choices that serve their own pockets.
This isn’t just incompetence. It’s a blatant conflict of interest. While first-time buyers scramble and families face eviction, politicians profit from the crisis they helped create.
Ireland doesn’t just have a housing crisis, it has politicians who are its landlords, profiteers, and enablers. It’s actually insane — the numbers show they have the highest rate of landlords of any profession in the country. It’s laughable, if it weren’t so devastating.
