#& that great university that I got that education from is currently occupied by BDS protestors u know!

[drumlincountry]

how about some old style blogging

feeling blown about by the winds of history recently. might be the election. Some of it is Palestine.

The evil empire in which we all live is particularly obviously evil and particularly obviously an empire at times like this. I'm thinking a lot about how the Irish became white, how we are both colonised people and now neo-colonisers.

Last night my mother showed me a small paperback book which belonged to my great-grandfather & I was reminded again that my grandfather's great-grandfather (I think?) landed in our area from probably-galway and the family managed to hold onto speaking irish for A CENTURY until my granddad married an english woman & decided it was rude to teach their children a language she didn't know. I love my granny, but come oooooooon.

& you know my mother did become fluent in adulthood and did her best to pass that on but. you know. failed. Love to have my tongue cut out.

The book was Tóraíocht Dhiarmada agus Ghráinne, and my great-grandfather had annotated it with loads of little pencil notes. That generation is gone & i can barely understand their language. The generation after it is gone except for my great-aunt who lives in Texas. There's a lot I will never know.

I've been thinking a lot about the image of sustainability vs the reality of sustainability. Greenwashing, etc. A lot of people think 'traditional ways' are greener. some of them are. A lot of people think modern high tech solutions are greener. Some of them are. the reality is that we are based in 2024 & no other generation has had to face the crisis we're facing & trying to lift solutions wholesale from any other time will be. ineffective.

So yeah. Image vs reality. sometimes the difference is hard to spot. A solid fuel stove burning wood which is locally grown (using native species, in an area suitable for woodland) & coppiced on a sensible rotation = VERY SUSTAINABLE. A solid fuel stove burning most firewood you can buy = I HAVE MY DOUBTS. A solid fuel stove burning turf = I'M SORRY BUT THIS IS SO SO BAD.

Empires are bad for the environment. This is so basic it feels like it shouldn't have to be said. Empires are bad for the environment!

Irish people only really started burning peat at scale in the 17thc I believe? because colonisation had denuded the landscape of its ancient forests. That great big british navy you know. Those ships had irish bones, among others. My point being: poor people have to make environmentally destructive choices to fucking survive.

The ecological footprint of my lifestyle is largely invisible to me as a citizen of the global north. I don't see the exploitative mining practices, farming practices, manufacturing practices. This is part of the evil of empire. The decision making is concentrated in the imperial core & the imperial core does not give a flying fuck about the ecology of the colonies.

Eating locally sourced food doesn't have much impact on ur carbon footprint btw, but it gives u more transparency.

The artist who designed jamie's engagement ring for me only uses Irish silver in her work, because she knows that 1. Ireland is bound by EU environmental regulations 2. Ireland has SOME level of worker protections 3. If a massive scandalous breach of these standards occured in a silver mine in Ireland, she'd hear about it somehow.

This is part of why I have this quiet worry that my work will betray me. For those who don't know: my job is about paying farmers to be good to the environment.

A few problems with this. 1. commodifying the environment is a dangerous game. if you STOP paying someone to be good the environment they're more likely to stop being good to the environment than they would be if you never paid them in the first place. Think like - paying people to donate blood. the rate of donations actually goes down. 2. if we're going to pay people around here to de-intensify agriculture & we all end up eating food produced in exploitative conditions at the imperial fringe. Well that would fucking suck! 3. the whole idea of the work rests on the idea that people who own big chunks of THE LAND have the right to do whatever they want to THE LAND & the rest of the community (& the state claiming to represent them) can only nudge these land "owners" to do things for the common good. bit too fucking libertarian for my taste. Whatever our paperwork may say, you can't own mud. mud owns itself!!

4. the conservative libertarianism baked into this system isn't a side issue. the fact that land is mostly passed down thru male lines, the association between the farm and the patriarchal family all leads to .....bad fucking politics! lotta queerphobia, misogyny, racism, climate change denial. I see this all the time with the people i work with and it is heartbreaking. If we manage to reverse some ecological destruction without in any way undoing the power systems that birthed it. uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh. We'll have done some good. but I'll be unsatisfied.

Yes you can quote me on that. I will not be satisfied unless my little job teaching people about wildflowers and hedgerows topples the empire of the global north.

Will they betray me? They're already betraying me all the fucking time. Today at work my coworker told me he thinks a local fascist 'had a point about immigrants'.

I betray me too! Not that way, but I'm a tool of empire. I'm dangling money in front of ppl without much of it, enticing them to do what the EU & the state wants them to do.

Today for work reasons I stood in a field and articulately defended the need for farming to continue in Ireland b/c of the benefits it can provide for climate change mitigation and ecosystem maintainence AND the value of our heritage and our traditional attachment to the land. Two people asked to exchange numbers at the end because they want to hear more. I agree with what I said, but it wasn't even half, a quarter of the picture.

The root of the problem is: we have become white. We have become colonists. The Common Agricultural Policy of the EU drives what happens with farming on Many continents & only one of those continents gets to vote on it. If we continue to exploit Africa, South America & Asia for our food, we are like the British cutting down the Irish forests for their ships. The root of the problem is: none of us are free until we're all free.

Last night I held my great-grandfather's book in my hands and remembered that I am living a life beyond his wildest dreams. I have a bright & warm home. Clean running water. Electricity. Cupboards full of food & I don't have to break my back toiling in the fields. I studied in a university. I've travelled farther than he could possibly have imagined.

But if all that comes at the cost of oppressing people the way he was oppressed? I don't want it.

Of course I want it. Everyone wants ease and comfort. I just want it without the cost. I need to not want the cost more than I want the ease. That's the only way to have a soul.

I have some knowledge of what life is like at the bottom of the heap. I am a strong believer in destroying the heap entirely.

I get so very annoyed when anyone refers to a two story house as a 'cottage'.