Gathering in shame to honour the US President

Has there ever been a worse time for the Irish to venerate and celebrate the President of the United States?

With human rights being eroded, innocent people being shot dead for daring to stand up to armed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents on US streets, and shackled prisoners being renditioned through Shannon Airport, this seems to be a strange time to decide to honour the first citizen of the US.

But it’s happening in Galway this week.

Right now, an Irish man who has been living in the United States for almost two decades is sitting in a detention centre in Texas, almost 4,000km from his Boston home.

Even though he had a valid work permit and no criminal record, he was arrested in a random immigration sweep after going to buy supplies at a hardware store.

Speaking from the detention centre in El Paso, Seamus Culleton, from Co. Kilkenny, told RTÉ radio this week that he is in fear for his life.

The country in which the youth wing of the Fine Gael party, who have been in power for nearly 14 years, produced a poster to say that they “stand with Israel”. Funny how they have never stood with the oppressed people of Palestine, whose land has been taken over by colonisers.

“You don’t know what’s going to happen on a day-to-day basis. You don’t know if there’s going to be riots, you don’t know what’s going to happen. It’s a nightmare down here,” he told the ‘Liveline’ talk show.

He has been locked up in the same tiny cell for four and a half months, living in what he describes as “filthy” conditions, getting very little time to exercise, and trying to survive on three tiny meals per day.

Seamus is married to an American woman and does not have any convictions in either the US or Ireland. He has a work permit and had almost completed the process of getting a Green Card when he was seized by ICE agents in Boston.

“It’s just a torture, I just don’t know how much more I can take.”

The Taoiseach told the Dáil (the Irish parliament) yesterday that there are “five or six” Irish people being detained by ICE in similar circumstances.

Right now, a young man in Palestine is recovering from the shock of being seized by ICE agents, put in detention, and flown to Israel, while shackled, via Shannon Airport in “neutral” Ireland.

Maher Awad (24) is originally from the West Bank. He has lived in the US for almost a decade and has a partner and a baby in Michigan.

He found himself being deported to Palestine, along with seven others, on a private jet owned by Gil Dezer, a family friend of current US President Donald Trump. After being flown to Tel Aviv, via Shannon, he and the other seven men found themselves being dumped on a street in the occupied West Bank.

They had their wrists and ankles shackled throughout the journey from the US to Israel, including the refuelling stop at Shannon.

“They dropped us off like animals on the side of the road,” Awad said. “We went to a local house, we knocked on the door, we were like: ‘Please help us out’.”

He now has no way of knowing how he can see his partner and baby again.

Meanwhile, here in Galway, the incredible ability of the Irish to fawn over the powerful has surfaced yet again.

At a time when the Irish should be condemning clear breaches of human rights and international law by the administration of President Donald J. Trump, someone in this city has decided to celebrate US “President’s Day” with a wreath-laying ceremony at Eyre Square this Friday afternoon.

Never mind that Trump’s policies have resulted in an innocent Irishman being held without charge in a tiny Texas cell for four and a half months or that shackled Palestinians were deported via Shannon Airport in a private jet, in a clear breach of international law.

The ‘Friends of the White House Association’ in Ireland have decided to mark US President’s Day by inviting the Mayor, Mike Cubbard, or his deputy to lay a wreath at Eyre Square this Friday lunchtime.

If the organisers want to argue that this wreath-laying ceremony is not just about honouring President Trump, well Irish people can argue that the previous President of the USA, Joe Biden, armed, funded, and refused to stop the mass slaughter of innocent civilians in Palestine.

Many of us felt that Biden, supposedly a proud son of Ballina, Co. Mayo, had shamed the memory of his Irish ancestors.

It would be laughable if it wasn’t so sick.

But, then again, this is Ireland; the country whose Taoiseach (or Prime Minister), Micheál Martin, posed for a propaganda photograph near the Gaza border fence in Israel while senior Israeli politicians were threatening to wipe out the entire population of Gaza in late 2023.

The country which allowed President Trump to prioritise disgraced fighter Conor McGregor over the Taoiseach when inviting him to the White House on St Patrick’s Day last year. The Taoiseach was relegated to a more minor role a few days earlier.

The country whose politicians have made it clear that staying on the right side of the leaders in Washington DC is far more important than standing up for human rights, international law, Irish neutrality, or any sense of justice for the Irish people who may find themselves the target of ICE raids in US cities.

The country in which the youth wing of the Fine Gael party, who have been in power for nearly 14 years, produced a poster to say that they “stand with Israel”. Funny how they have never stood with the oppressed people of Palestine, whose land has been taken over by colonisers.

On Sunday, I attended a vigil at Shannon Airport where people have been protesting over its “de facto” use as a US military base, in clear violation of Irish neutrality, for 25 years. Protesters have been asking An Garda Siochana, the Irish police, to at least go into the airport to check who or what is on those planes since 2001. To no avail.

The reality is that the people who have decided to mark US ‘President’s Day’ with a wreath-laying ceremony in Galway city centre are more in tune with our craven politicians, who are so keen to fawn over the powerful, than ordinary Irish people’s innate sense of injustice due to our own history of being colonised.

The Chairperson of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Zoe Lawlor, asked the assembled Gardai to do something about the prisoners who were being renditioned through Shannon Airport after being detained by ICE in the United States.

“I just wanted to address the fact that, on 21^st January and 1^st February, Palestinian men were illegally detained and deported from the US by ICE,” she said. “They were brought through Shannon Airport and held on a plane here, brought by Journey Aviation, in shackles on this runway. They could barely even bend over on the plane.

“It is really obscene that our so-called civilian airport and our government are not only facilitating the US military, but also facilitating the US Government and Trump’s fascist goons in ICE, who are killing people in their own country and incarcerating people in camps all over the United States. We do not know what is being done to them there. Our airport is yet again being used for rendition flights.”

Ms Lawlor said it was obscene that peace activists in Ireland were going on trial for trying to search the airplanes at Shannon while US rendition flights were going through the airport “untouched, uninspected, and unhindered”.

My country has a proud history of standing up against colonisation and oppression and it embarrasses me how much we are seen as a beacon of light or freedom during my travels to the Middle East.

The reality is that the people who have decided to mark US ‘President’s Day’ with a wreath-laying ceremony in Galway city centre are more in tune with our craven politicians, who are so keen to fawn over the powerful, than ordinary Irish people’s innate sense of injustice due to our own history of being colonised.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.