Peace and Neutrality Alliance - PANA

02/09/2026

As the Informal Meeting of EU Defence Ministers gathered today in Druids Glen, County Wicklow, peace activists hoped for an announcement on their plans to oppose the supply of military weapons to the Israeli regime and so halt their ongoing genocide of Palestinians, or plans to develop genuine peace talks to end the ongoing slaughter of people in Ukraine, or their plans to respond to that new UN Environment Programme (UNEP) report on the impacts that predicted temperatures rising above 1.5°C will have on Europe.
Instead, Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs Helen McEntee warned that Europe was under threat from Russia, we need to spend more money on weapons, and this narrative was amplified by President Ursula von der Leyen, by NATO secretary general Mark Rutte, and by US President Donald Trump.
When Helen McEntee hosts the EU foreign ministers at Druids Glen, she should remember: she represents not Brussels, but the Irish people. More info on link below…
https://www.facebook.com/peoplesmovementireland/

From the Electric Picnic to the Annesley House
If you missed the incredible appearance of mischa and the bear at EP here’s your chance ….
This Friday 4th September @ 8pm on a fantastic double bill with WineMom.
Tickets here : https://ie.powertik.com/.../mischa-and-the-bear-wine-mom ...
STAND UP FOR IRISH NEUTRALITY … HANDS OFF THE TRIPLE LOCK

Prof. Glenn Diesen discussed the significance of the recent SCO Summit and an Emerging Multipolar World on Turkish TV (TRT) and Indian TV (WION):
https://glenndiesen.substack.com/p/sco-summit-prepares-post-hegemonic

According to a new UN Environment Programme (UNEP) report the impacts for predicted temperatures rising above 1.5°C include intensified extreme weather, ecosystem loss and the submersion of small island states as well as low-lying coastal cities… suggesting “Severe damage to human health, food security, water supplies, nature, cities, infrastructure and economies is expected,” Whilst Irish media amplified the need for more climate action they still refuse to highlight the elephant in the room and the cost of war-mongering and the ever escalating arms race…
Nato’s rearmament drive will impose severe environmental costs
OPINION – climate crisis, war, military-industrial complex, by John Rees
https://www.stopwar.org.uk/article/how-the-military-industrial-complex-is-waging-war-on-the-planet/
Global temperatures on track to break 1.5°C but it's not too late to bring them back down, UN says…2 Sep 2026.
https://www.thejournal.ie/global-temperatures-above-1-5-degrees-un-7149625-Sep2026/

25/08/2026

Peace activist and musician Jimi Cullen and friends have held their weekly Anti-imperialist and Palestine solidarity protests mainly outside the US Embassy in Ballsbridge, Dublin for the past 129 weeks. Currently however, due to his recent arrest at the Embassy for blocking a convoy of vehicles containing NATO & US military personnel including NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander, General Alexus Grynkewich. He was charged at Irishtown Garda Station and subsequently released on bail conditions dictating that he is not allowed in the vicinity of the US Embassy. For the moment, friends will continue the vigil at the US Embassy on Wednesdays, 2-3pm, whilst he has been forced to relocate his protests down Merrion Road to the British Embassy, Wednesdays 3-4pm. More updates on his Facebook link below.
Padraig Mannion of PANA thanked Jimi for his courage in highlighting public opposition to these US/EU/NATO warmongers … he stated, peace activists are silenced or arrested for highlighting these important issues and the need to protect Irish sovereignty, whilst our Taoiseach Micheál Martin’s ensures our economic and defence strategy is effectively becoming an extension of US imperial strategy by destroying the Triple Lock.

The Triple Lock is not some bureaucratic relic; it is the final bulwark of Irish sovereignty.
Ireland's economic model makes us uniquely vulnerable - US corporate investment underpins our tax base and employment. This gives Washington extraordinary leverage, meaning any Irish government, regardless of its make-up, is inherently susceptible to economic coercion on foreign policy. The Triple Lock provides the only legitimate, legally defensible shield against that leverage.

Historically, the Triple Lock has allowed successive governments to express political solidarity with the US while legally deferring to international law via the UN mandate. This credible "no" has prevented Washington from dictating Irish troop deployments, even amid intense pressure. Remove that shield, and the Irish government is left exposed, with no institutional barrier to block explicit threats over corporate tax revenue or investment flows. Irish foreign policy would effectively become an extension of US imperial strategy, as it already is in most of our EU neighbours.

Crucially, the push for abolition originates in Washington, not from Irish strategic necessity. If the Triple Lock were irrelevant, it would not be a target. Its removal would transform Ireland from an independent partner into a compliant client state, where economic survival requires immediate obedience to US military and political directives.

Preserving the Triple Lock is therefore the very last defense against de facto recolonization. It is the sole mechanism ensuring that Irish troops deploy only under international consensus, not under the duress of American economic blackmail. To retain the Triple Lock is to retain the right to say "no" - and that right is the essence of sovereign statehood.

Statement from Jimi Cullen…
https://www.facebook.com/reel/1390897893236238
https://www.facebook.com/jimicullenmusic/

https://www.people.ie/news/PN-288.pdf
Shannon is a base for “US power projection” – US/NATO General

Information on IPSC events…
https://www.ipsc.ie/

Taoiseach attends 'Coalition of the Willing' meeting as Ukraine celebrates Independence Day
The EU said today it had released another €6.1 billion in military aid for Ukraine.
https://www.thejournal.ie/coalition-of-the-willing-meeting-kyiv-7139730-Aug2026/

The 36th Desmond Greaves Summer School 2026 will take place from Friday to Sunday, 11 – 13th September at the Unite Trade Union Hall, 55/56 Middle Abbey Street, Dublin. See Poster below for details…

13/08/2026

Excellent report here on how the mask can slip on Government/Western Media war-propaganda, when NATO Generals and EU Leaders forget to co-ordinate their lines...

The recent visit to Dublin by NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander, General Alexus Grynkewich, served as a unfiltered glimpse into a deep and widening void within Irish society. It is reflected in a stark domestic chasm between a determined militarising bloc and the majority of the Irish people. It is only when outside elements like the NATO chief visit that the public gets a true flavour of the dynamics at work behind the scenes.

At the head of this militarising bloc sits the Irish Government, but it does not act alone. It is bolstered by powerful, sympathetic sections of the media and academia that provide the intellectual and rhetorical cover for a steady drift away from traditional Irish neutrality. Together, this alliance operates a sophisticated narrative machine, determined to normalise deeper integration with Western military structures.

To achieve this, the bloc relies on highly legalistic definitions designed to obscure reality. Minister of State for Defence Thomas Byrne’s recent articulation of neutrality as strictly "non-membership of military alliances and non-participation in common or mutual defence arrangements" is a prime example. For the militarising bloc, neutrality is a semantic loophole; as long as a mutual defence pact isn't signed, they argue Ireland can deeply integrate its military, intelligence, and infrastructure with NATO through vehicles like the Partnership for Peace and the National Maritime Security Strategy.

The majority of the Irish people, however, do not share this viewpoint. For the public, neutrality is a matter of active non-alignment: Ireland does not take sides, does not facilitate foreign wars, and is not a logistical cog in a global power-projection machine.

Nowhere was this domestic void more starkly exposed during the General's visit than in the discussion of Shannon Airport. Ordinarily, the Government-media-academia bloc relies on Jesuitical terms to describe Shannon—framing US military transit through a civilian airport as a matter of "commercial agreements," or a technical necessity for "force protection" in UN peacekeeping. They speak in euphemisms to carefully avoid the reality of what occurs on the tarmac.

General Grynkewich dispensed with this entirely. Regarding Shannon’s role in US and NATO operations, he offered a blunt statement of fact: "It allows America to project power and keep threats at bay from all over the world."

In a single sentence, the visiting NATO commander ripped the lid off the Government's carefully constructed linguistic fiction which insists Ireland is merely a peaceful, non-aligned island engaging in transactional logistics, the rest of the world knows exactly what Shannon is being used for. The public intuitively understands that facilitating the projection of global power is a fundamental violation of neutrality; the bloc simply pretends the words mean something else.

This pattern repeats with emerging security issues. When General Grynkewich pointed to the threat to subsea cables—explicitly noting they are "essential" to NATO and US military communications—Minister Byrne immediately framed increased NATO interoperability and intelligence sharing as purely sovereign, defensive measures. The public, however, sees it for what it is: being incrementally drawn into a geopolitical military architecture they want no part of.

The void between the Irish people and the militarizers is profound. The majority of citizens believe in a neutrality that keeps Ireland entirely out of the Western military apparatus. The Government, aided by its media and academic allies, is quietly but determinedly pulling Ireland into that very apparatus. It took an outsider to state the blunt truth: only the militarising bloc is pretending otherwise.

10/08/2026

The world needs more Peace makers, not War mongers!
Neutrality Roadshow, Monday 10th August | 1pm Cultúrlann Uí Chanáin, Great James Street, Derry.
https://www.facebook.com/Donegalyarnbomb

This weekend marks the 20th anniversary of what the Derry Anti War Coalition (DAWC) described as “the first major occupation of the Raytheon facility in Derry” by members of the Coalition. DAWC spokesperson Davy McAuley said: Members of DAWC disarmed the Raytheon offices in response to the massacre at Qana in Lebanon caused by a Raytheon weapons system. Despite the huge damage caused to the Raytheon facility a court found the DAWC members not guilty and accepted they had acted to prevent further Raytheon involvement in war crimes, and DAWC has “pledged support for the ongoing campaign against the proscription of Palestine Action”.
Derry IPSC meets at 3pm every Saturday in Waterloo Place to protest the ban on Palestine Action. PA was proscribed by the former Home Secretary Yvette Cooper under section 3 of the Terrorism Act 2000 after damage was caused to a number of military planes at an RAF base in Oxfordshire.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/derryantiwarcoalition/

09/08/2026

There is a small, well-resourced network of arms industry lobbyists and their allies in think tanks and advisory committees who have secured access and influence in Ireland that ordinary citizens do not have. This report in the Neutrality Files pulls back the curtain on that network and highlight how decisions on defence spending and the direction of Ireland’s military are made.
You can read the full report of ‘The Defence Club: How a Handful of Insiders Shape Ireland’s Security Debate’ by clicking on this link below.
https://www.uplift.ie/neutrality-files-volume-two/

The United States dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, and on Nagasaki three days later, on 9 August. A nuclear weapon of this magnitude had never been detonated before. The death toll resulting from these attacks varies, but some estimate it to be between 150,000 and 246,000 people, most of whom were civilians.
It remains the first and only uses of nuclear weapons in an armed conflict.
The bombing was unnecessary from a military perspective. Japan had already de facto lost the war. It was directed against civilians and constitutes, from today's perspective, a grave war crime that, however, remains unpunished to this day.
The US is to date the only country that has used nuclear weapons against civilian targets.
At the memorial ceremony in Hiroshima, neither Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi nor the Mayor of Hiroshima mentioned the USA as the perpetrator of the immense suffering.
– Irish CND organised its annual commemorative ceremony at the memorial cherry tree in Merrion Square Park, Dublin last Thursday 6th August.
– There was a commemorative lantern vigil held at the Big Fish/Donegall Quay/Lagan Weir in Belfast from 9.00pm – 11.30pm on Wednesday 5th August to mark the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings and stand for nuclear disarmament today.
– The WP held their annual Hiroshima and Nagasaki wreath laying commemoration at the Peace Park in Cork last Thursday 6th August.

Has the European Union built its own propaganda machine?
According to journalist and analyst Thomas Fazi, the answer is yes. In a new investigation, Fazi alleges that Brussels has constructed a vast system of influence spanning NGOs, media outlets, and universities—funded to the tune of billions of euros—to shape not only policy but public perception itself.
Thomas Fazi will speak in Dublin at the Desmond Greaves Summer School on 11th September (awaiting details). His latest book, "The European Propaganda Machine: The Dark Side of NGOs, Media and Universities" (2026), is available now. For more information on this report please go to the People’s Movement Facebook link below…
https://www.facebook.com/peoplesmovementireland/

29/07/2026

President Donald Trump was elected on a peace platform: end the proxy war with Russia and get America out of the forever wars in the Middle East. Instead, he doubled down on both and redefined "America First" as a neo-con war project.
The decision by Ukrainian forces to strike an Iranian civilian cargo ship in the Caspian Sea, causing the death of one sailor, is a dangerous development, one that risks dragging a historically quiet region into the crosshairs of a broader proxy war. Both Ukraine and Gaza have become testing grounds for modern warfare, where NATO can use information gained on Russian/Iranian weaponry to improve their own strategy and technology.
There is growing evidence of ever-increasing military cooperation and military intelligence sharing between the US, Israel and Ukraine. This warmongering spreads fear, demands for increased militarisation and support for the NATO narrative, if we give Ukraine and Israel never ending military support, we can destroy our enemies…
Iran’s retaliatory warning that Ukraine has rendered its own territory a legitimate target under Article 51 of the UN Charter reflects the harsh reality of proxy warfare.
For a country like Ireland, which values its neutral status and advocates for the protection of civilian life under international maritime law, this situation serves as a grave reminder. When a state allows itself to become an auxiliary branch of a foreign military machine, it inevitably invites the destructive consequences of that machine back to its own shores.
For more information see People’s Movement…
https://www.facebook.com/peoplesmovementireland/

Iran accuses Ukraine of deadly attack on Caspian commercial vessel…
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/7/25/iran-accuses-ukraine-of-deadly-attack-on-caspian-commercial-vessel

Picture below shows three warmongers, President Donald Trump, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who met at the White House, before attending the recent funeral of another horrific warmonger Senator Lindsey Graham.

Speaking to The Young Turks on Tuesday, former Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene slammed late Senator Lindsey Graham for his staunch support of Israel. “He was a neocon warmonger. He was a murderer. He wanted to wipe out and kill many innocent people in Iran, in Gaza, in Lebanon. He supported war more than anything. He never wanted peace,” she said. Graham died on Sunday at the age of 71 following a brief illness according to his office.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/M6pvLwv69s0

Concern over study visa refusal rate for Gazan students
https://www.rte.ie/news/education/2026/0728/1585354-gaza-student-visas/

The one-time “peace project” is rapidly being transformed into a centralized and militarized power that actively undermines the sovereignty of its member states. Time to ask whether seeking to swap the authority of Westminster without also addressing the authority of Brussels can bring true independence?
Organised by Féile an Phobail Debates and Discussions Committee…International
https://feilebelfast.com/

23/07/2026

Medea Benjamin is an American political activist, co-founder of CODEPINK: Women for Peace, and earlier this month she completed a speaking tour across Ireland. (See post here 6th July)
In this short video Medea explains the tactics used by US administrations, endless wars, and manufactured conflicts as "weapons of mass distraction" to divert the electorate's attention away from domestic issues that affect their lives, find an enemy and get corporate media to amplify a major threat to society… however according to the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, it is those far-left protestors highlighting health, housing, migrant rights, and defence spending and they are to use Margaret Thatcher’s phrase the ‘enemy within’ , suggesting CODEPINK are funded by the Chinese Communist Party. Rubio also believes international organisations that can’t be controlled by the US like the International Criminal Court, and the United Nations, they must be regarded as a threat to US security.
Why the US is going after the International Criminal Court?
https://www.dw.com/en/why-the-us-is-going-after-the-international-criminal-court/a-78006596
EU leaders have also developed a similar tactic of manufactured distraction, as President, Ursula von der Leyen demands a massive increase in defence spending budgets, we are constantly warned of an impending Russian invasion. Those peaceful protesters who oppose their warmongering and their silence on Israeli genocide of Palestinians are demonised, arrested and imprisoned across Germany and the UK. According to Padraig Mannion of PANA, authoritarian tactics and legislation are being used against peaceful protestors here as well, one example being the recent ‘End the Race For Militarism’ protest that was restricted to Dame Street in Dublin, as EU leaders met in Dublin Castle. It is worth reminding people of the recent report by the Irish Network of Legal Observers that highlights the disproportionate use of force observed at pro-Palestine and Shannon Airport protests, and concerns over the misuse of section 8 of the Criminal Justice (Public Order) Act 1994. (See Link below)
Legal observers have identified “emerging issues” in the policing of protest in Ireland in a first-of-its kind report.
https://www.irishlegal.com/articles/legal-observers-raise-emerging-issues-with-gardai
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte outlined a new era of NATO-EU defence cooperation at the NATO Defence Industry Forum in Ankara. Von der Leyen unveiled Europe's €800 billion rearmament drive, while Rutte warned Russia's war economy demands a "transatlantic defence industrial revolution," calling for faster weapons production, stronger resilience, and closer cooperation with Ukraine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWPyXl1FitQ

Medea Benjamin
https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=medea%20benjamin

17/07/2026

Peace and anti-imperialist activists continue to highlight those important issues, outside Dail Eireann, and at the US embassy in Dublin.

09/07/2026

08/07/2026

Undeterred by 101-degree heat that forced the cancellation of the official Philadelphia parade, the coalition — About Face, 50501 Vets, Veterans For Peace, Common Defense, Military Families Speak Out, Fayetteville Resistance Coalition, and Center on Conscience and War marched.