Do we need an army? There is talk of closing the barracks in Clonmel, and in other locations. We have approximately 8,500 members of the Irish Army. Who or what are they defending? Our sovereignty! The only thing we have left worth defending in this country is fish and oil rights under the sea, so by all the Gods of logic, we must surely turn all the cannons and tanks into patrol boats and redesign the army uniforms into sailors outfits.
The army are peacekeepers in foreign lands now; sailors can defend. What do the army defend at home in Ireland? They are great lads in the frost and flood, but sure army or navy what difference, if the water is army green, or navy blue? Sand bags for the floods; navy, sea, sand, beach, water! Would you please pass the salt!
We still have some of the best fishing waters in Europe and possibly the worst equipped navy outside Switzerland. We are licensing oil exploration at sea. We will be building windmills at sea. We are laying power exchange cables under the sea. Wave energy.
We have the Gardaí on land who protect us very well on land. The Gardaí went to Mayo to beat the crap out of the protesters who objected to Shell. Not the army, they were in Africa. But we could send the navy to Africa, train the navy in peacekeeping; it is not very often that the peacekeeping forces of Ireland get involved in a pitched battle. They are a presence, as part of a greater presence supplied by the UN.
We were invaded, as savagely as our Celtic monks and monasteries were pillaged and raped back in the day. The IMF, EMF, MFI, ECB. Not a shot fired by the army or the FCA, in anger, in protest, in protection, or in defence of our sovereignty.
We are in a different era and we need fighters on computers now, in office blocks, not in barracks. We need accountants who can count.
But back to the Army. Are we seriously under threat of a land invasion from a foreign power, in the modern Ireland? Even if we were, realistically how long would our army mount a defence? The Irish Army has a proud tradition, there is nothing wrong with the army.
I am simply asking would we be better off protecting our sovereign right at sea, than on land? We have some of the best harbours in the world; Cork, Galway, Dublin, Killybegs. It would be good to see the Spanish, French, German, Russian, fleets being dragged into Irish ports, when they break Irish law, by a well-equipped Irish navy.
An Irish fishing fleet, being protected and encouraged, by a strong Irish navy. Be good to see thriving ports processing the catch from trawlers awash with the weight of the catch of the day, onto lines of lorries driving onto lines of moored cargo ships. It might just ignite this frozen economy. We are an island nation sitting next door to another island nation who conquered the world at sea. We are an island nation and our fishing fleet is all at sea.
We are throwing dead fish back, because some ass in Brussels says landing dead fish breaks quota; this based on the falling numbers of the species we are catching! How does firing them back into the water, dead, how does that help? It most certainly does nothing for the hard pressed fisherman flinging good marketable cod, hake, bass, or whatever to the best fed flocks of sea gulls in western European waters.
We should train the gulls to have a fly by, and a droppings raid on the Brussels bureaucrats. If they were buried up to their necks in gull shite, it might make them think twice the next time they throw bucket loads of bureaucratic bullshite on the heads of our fishermen. We are told that the harvest of the sea could create thousands of jobs on land, so surely we must protect the sea?
If we had a strong Irish navy or indeed an Irish Coast Guard services, fast boats dedicated and directed to protect not only the sovereignty of our island Irish nation, our resources at sea, the living of our fishermen, and the fish processing plants on land, how bad could that be?
Set up to chase smugglers: cigs, knock offs, and drugs. If we had a navy on peace duty in the desert why would that be so incongruous? Some say we have the only navy where the sailors go home for lunch. A navy that might influence a restructuring of the treaty deal that threw away our fishing industry on the altar of farming. If the CAP fits.
But the question is valid: would Ireland as a small island nation be better served by a strong navy? If we are to have an armed services, the question is not about how much we spend on the armed forces, but rather where we spend it, and getting best value for what we spend? How does the army serve our farmers on land, would it be better to transform the 8,500 men and women in the armed forces from soldiers to sailors? Ask the navy to save our seas and the natural treasure buried there. The SOS is gone out, this nation is in very stormy waters, some are drowning, who will respond? Army green or navy blue? Just a thought.
PS and nothing to do with the above, the Concern 13th annual Carols by Candlelight concert takes place in UCC on Friday 2 December at 6pm with yours truly hosting. Tickets €50 include concert, dinner, wine, beer. Available in the Concern shop, North Main St. 021-4223923. Good cause – good night!
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