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The Lee Harveys: Protest Punk.

AS THEIR NAME might suggest, Dublin punks The Lee Harveys – made up of musicians who have been hanging around the Irish punk scene since the early 80s – were originally very much about American political protest songs. An odd niche for a Dublin-based band, perhaps, if one most punks would agree offers fertile ground.

The band are angry, firing off two-minute, politically potent tracks on themes like Israel and Palestine, gun crime and a certain Donald Trump. Their latest EP, due shortly, is entitled ‘Resistance is Not Terrorism’, and – amongst other themes – rounds on Eurovision’s visit to Israel with an ‘alternative Eurovision’ track.

“One of things that I loved about the Dead Kennedy’s was the sense of mischief they had, and that’s what we’re doing here, throwing the cat amongst the pigeons,” guitarist Peter Jones says of the song. “It’s not against the Eurovision, it’s in support of Palestine.”

“We’re not against the Israeli people, we’re against what’s happening over there. I think it’s like holding the Eurovision on the Shankill Road in the middle of the troubles,” Bitzy Fitzgerald explains.

“We have submitted the track to RTE, but we haven’t had a response. I’m not sure we really wanted one. But the whole thing was to make a point about it, really, a bit of subversion and a bit of craic.”

There’s a real punk ethos to the way the Lee Harveys release their music, too, with circumstances seeing the band cram their new ‘EP’ with old classics because they can.

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Politics

Planning Objection: Mill Street Student Development Public Access

This week I lodged a formal objection to a planning application aimed at closing off the Mill Street (Dublin) student accommodation block from public access. I thought I’d share it below, in case anyone wants to borrow it (or parts of it) to do the same (note: the deadline for this is Wednesday, October 25). It costs €20 at Dublin City Council’s offices in Wood Quay, after which they’re obliged to tell you of their decision and the reason for it, and you have the right to appeal.

There are a lot of blocks like this being built in our part of Dublin city (I live just south of Cork Street, Dublin 8), and many of them talk a very good game about integrating into the community. Of course, students are a little transient by nature. That’s not their fault, I remember living my university years almost totally cut off from the community I lived in, and most of the time I wasn’t in blocks like these ones, which seem still more shut off.

That said, I think the developers could help integrate the students in a small way by opening up some of these vast complexes to public access, and that’s exactly what this particular block promised in their planning permission. I think this was a key factor in getting such a massive project past local objections.

I was particularly frustrated, then, that when the block opened they immediately shut off all access, including a planned through road, via a huge metal gate (the gate crosses the entrance shown in the pre-build design image, shown above). This has since been protested and highlighted locally, and the current request to change the planning conditions from the owners seems most likely to be a response to those protests. Essentially, the owners are trying to bring the rules back to their position, rather than comply with the rules that got them very recent planning permission. They cite ‘safety’ in a fast-improving area that is, if anything, better than the time of their original application.

I think this is a complete spoof: get the plans past the public (they weren’t popular at the time) by promising to participate in the community, and totally go back on that once you’ve got your highly-priced student accommodation blocks in place.

You can read more about the issues in a Dublin Inquirer article published earlier this week, here.

The objection I have lodged on behalf of myself and my wife (whose name I have removed from the version I’ve put up here) is below. It goes without saying I wave copyright on the below if anyone wants to use it to lodge a further objection themselves.

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Music

Why Rubberbandits Matter…

It’s high time the comedy hip-hop stars were given credit for their insight and intelligence.

YOU MOST LIKELY KNOW Rubberbandits for something daft. It might be that ‘Horse Outside’ video, their numerous appearances on RTE’s ‘Republic of Telly’, or an episode of ‘Rubberbandits’ Guide To…’. You might even remember their channel 4 outing with the ‘Almost Impossible Gameshow’. In the latter, they had contestants complete ludicrous mini-games like ‘groin croissant’, in which the frustrated participants had a few seconds to shake free a plastic pastry attached to a certain part of the outside of their jumpsuit with velcro.

They are, in short, quite exceptionally silly. But their satire also has a tendency to shine a light on Irish society. Put aside the croissant shaking, or songs about ‘Spastic Hawks’, and some corners of their professional output is subtly but brilliantly political.

They take a satirical look at race relations on ‘Black Man’. ‘Spoiling Ivan’ documents the friendship between a grown man and a child, playing off the inbuilt societal assumption that labels such a friendship as somehow wrong. There’s even an ode to holding off on sex, and its relationship benefits.

Far beyond the music, their use of social media, and public comments on sensitive issues have stretched in scope and become ever-more assured. It’s a trend that seemed to really kick off when Blindboy Boatclub called into Joe Duffy to debate the drug references in ‘Horse Outside’. In doing so, he absolutely shredded an irate caller, confidently explaining the duo’s thinking in the process.

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Politics

On Same Sex Marriage and Irish Citizenship

yes equalityI’m a straight, married man, but the same sex marriage referendum in Ireland moved me to tears. Now I’m thinking about applying for Irish citizenship…

It’s ten days since Ireland voted to legalize marriage between two men or two women, updating the constitution to read “marriage may be contracted in accordance with law by two people without distinction as to their sex.”

You could be forgiven for asking why something like that would interest me all that much. Sure, I’m pretty liberal as political viewpoints go, but I’m also a straight, married man, so you could argue that it has very little impact on my life.

In practical terms, it doesn’t, though in abstract kind of way being an equal institution makes my own marriage feel stronger. On a more philosophical level, I’m blown away.

My view of Ireland as a place has changed dramatically. I see hope beyond the conservative parties that dominate Irish government, beyond the still-substantial influence of an invariably counter-progressive church, and beyond the ‘backwards Ireland’ label that’s never well sat with my own experience here.

Now I feel hope.

Fears, tears and a weekend of hope.

It was hard not to feel really involved in the marriage referendum. It’s coverage in the weeks running up to the event was all pervasive, and while the polls kept saying there were ‘undecided voters’ and around a third voting no (which was certainly expected to be much more come polling day), how anyone could fail to feel moved by the pleas of the gay population is beyond me.

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