When I lived in n. Ireland the notorious Divis Flats were dubbed 'Planet of the IRPs' as they were a stronghold of the Irish Socialist Republicans.
  With the deal struck between May's desperate Tory Government and Arlene Foster's DUP, the six counties could easily be termed 'Planet of the DUPs'.
   The deal may bring positive aspects on pensions and care for the elderly, but it's highly likely these u-turns would've happened anyway.
​   For Cymru in particular, Carwyn Jones is right to call it a 'bung' and insist that Wales receive similar funding ; likewise Scotland and poorer regions of England.
   The other advantage may well be a 'soft border' between n. Ireland and the south, though this could have serious implications for Welsh ports if all the trade goes on that route rather than  through Holyhead , Fighguard and Pembroke Dock, with prohibitive customs.
   For six months n. Ireland has had no devolved administration and this week hasn't seen the matter resolved, despite the deadline.
   It goes against the very essence of the Good Friday Agreement that the Government should be in league with one side of the power-sharing government and I doubt that Sinn Fein will agree given the fact that there is still a public enquiry  into Foster's potentially fraudulent 'cash for ash' scheme and the DUP will resist any calls for legislation giving the Gaelic language official status, on a par with Cymraeg.
   Into this lethal vacuum, you can only add the increasing disenchantment with Stormont's ability to change anything at all.
  Sinn Fein's platform to end selective education simply hasn't happened for example and, the more ineffectual Stormont is seen by the republican population the more frustrated they will become.
   Dissident republicans ( and there are a number who would not resort to violence) can then point out that devolved government is a failure and only by immediately addressing the question of the border's existence can matters be righted.
   Should direct rule be imposed, Sinn Fein will no doubt clamour for a referendum on Irish independence and that is no longer a foregone conclusion.  
   Despite their working-class support - held fast by the Orange Order - it's worth remembering the DUP aren't merely socially conservative, but a theocratic party.
   Their origins are in the Free Presbyterian Church created by Rev. Ian Paisley in his own image : fundamentalist Protestantism with all its bluster, bigotry and refusal to accept the very place they live in.
   Traditionally, the Tories always sided with the now weak OUP ( Official Unionists).
   Today, a number of their MPs are backed by groups associated with loyalist paramilitaries and historically, they have worked hand-in-hand with them.
   Paisley's early sermons and their aggressive anti-Catholicism were cited by sectarian killer Gusty Spence as a major reason for his actions.
   Of course, Paisley did change and eventually worked alongside former IRA leader Martin McGuinness in the power-sharing administration.
   During the second Ulster workers' strike, in 1976, I happened to be unemployed and living near the DUP-supporting town of Ballymena. On the day of that reactionary strike, I signed on along with 100s of hard-line loyalists.
   Legal at that time, the paramilitary UDA ( it carried out sectarian murders under the name of UFF) reinforced that strike by setting up road-blocks throughout the province.
   I was fearful for my wife , who taught at a Catholic school some 12 miles away from our flat .
   Luckily, she avoided the road-blocks, but in the evening we decided to go shopping in Ballymena.
   By then Paisley and his cohorts had no need of the UDA and the police (RUC) set up a cordon around the town to stop anyone entering except the Reverend and his tractor-driving convoy, who took over the town centre.
   Ballymena's a fiercely loyalist area, but also the birthplace of famous 'left-footers' Liam Neeson and Brendan Rogers.
   It's also the town where Sir Roger Casement attended school. Like Yeats and Lady Gregory he was destined to reject the Protestant ascendency of his upbringing and embrace Irish republicanism, culture and the history of a land his ancestors had exploited. He became fascinated with the Irish language as well.
   His experiences of imperialism in Africa - both Belgian and British - made him look again at Ireland and realise it too had been oppressed as a colony.
   Looking at the DUP and their hatred of Gaelic, their homophobia, creationism and climate-change denial it would be too easy to characterise the history of Protestantism in Ireland in such basic terms ; imbued with triumphalism and strident Britishness.
   Yet, they're a folk in denial of their own history which, from Wolfe Tone to Erskine Childers ( who advised Collins against partition) and later to John Turnley and Ronnie Bunting is one of a series of significant contributions to Irish liberation. ( The latter two were both assassinated by their own people for their allegiances!).
   Just a glance at the culture which has emerged from Protestant n. Ireland is to be aware just how much a part it is of Irish culture as a whole ; I think of Van Morrison and his work with The Chieftains on 'Celtic Heartbeat' and the poetry of Michael Longley and Derek Mahon, so rooted in the place and its people.
   Nothing's simple as it seems and when we lived there my wife ( a Gaelic speaker) always stressed that the president of the Gaelic League
( representing Irish-speakers throughout Ireland ) was a Protestant.
   The ultimate irony is that a deal meant to solidify Westminster government  will be responsible for its demise.
  Like the pointless Brexit referendum, the DUP deal represents the death throes of a nation-state based on expensive celebrity monarchy and a Tory party which will do anything to remain in power.
   Carwyn Jones, for all the candour of his comments, will not be honest about the future. 


 
SCRIPTURES OF FEAR
​
( Ballymena, 1976)
 
 
 
All the swings were padlocked,
the park gates shut, so we travelled
to the coast and Ballycastle
where Sundays were green and open
and children and adults played.
 
The man in the flat opposite
marched up and down outside,
his shrill flute unsettling.
My wife’s Gaelic magazine
could have been a death certificate ;
bedroom window next to the road
and an easy escape.
 
In the town of Liam Neeson
the bands were parading
before July was in ; red, white and blue
on Council estate paving-stones
and Union flags claiming farmland,
‘British’ pronounced as ‘Brutish’.
 
Oil-drums filled with concrete
on guard outside the shops,
a place empty of troops
where a ‘Taig’ was set on fire
at a house party, for being himself ;
where Paisley ruled like a baron
with his scriptures of fear :
for every sermon another gun. 


  

   I keep returning to the same land. It is my neighbour after all.
   Beyond a rudimentary wooden fence there's a no-man's-land half-wild and half-tamed ; beyond that the Waun we once called Common Land.
   Of course, it was never officially 'common' : only that so many went there for many different reasons.
   Back then, when we first arrived, there were no fences.
   Years later there were strange rumours of cows falling down unprotected mine-shafts and we suspected a conspiracy, preparation for the inevitable opencast mining.
   Because this is both a land of past coal (small shafts and drifts, many waste-heaps now overgrown ) and of future coal.
   There remains a threat, though I'm told the Norwegian landowner is only thinking about the possibility of having a ski-slope there ( didn't we learn from the failure of the one at Troedyrhiw?).
   This land - for all its absurd DANGER signs - is both precious and useless.
   Precious ,above all, to the animals who live there : foxes, squirrels, frogs, lizards and too many birds to name ; precious to the myriad wild flowers and plants, to bramble, briar and ancient, druidic oaks.
   Useless to successive owners, because so much coal is covered over by this flora and fauna ; coal to feed the final , hungry funnels before they're forever shut down.
   ( A huge hollow across valley looms over the town like a warning).
   
   I keep returning to this land, like my painter friend overlooking Swansea Bay and visiting its waters in his dreams.
   It's impossible to stop it encroaching : wild roses, thistles and reeds invade the garden.
   I have tasted the cress in thick bunches by streams ; cut myself blackberry picking ; fed horses by hand and been kicked by one.
   I have inhaled the minty perfume on banks.
   I've held a small frog on my palm ; stopped shocked as a fox crossed my path chasing a small bird.
   Fed the geese as they hissed and gobbled ( owned by a butcher, destined for the blade).
   Are there plans for this land?
   Tir gwyllt, the Waun, moorland.
   Great designs to pave, contain?
  The cuckoo is late this year and doesn't call for long. Swallows sign with wings an invisible deed, for now owning the air .
   The land belongs to all of us , and all of them......and none.


                                         THE  WAUN  IN  JUNE


Horses and cattle gone.
The grass grows long.

Old mine-shafts plugged,
bramble and fences surrounding.

Drift mines are suggestions,
tracks of shifted stones.

I miss the horse-riders,
tent mushrooms, disappearing lovers;

even dog-walkers rare,
bounding hounds lost in reeds.

Now's the time of year
for looking downwards :

Bird's Foot Trefoil, Lady's Smock,
Llysiau Taliesin underfoot ;

fallen daylight stars,
small delicate stories

pressed inside a book.
Draw curtains, turn pages.
   

  A poem for election week :-

If yew int got nothin
there's fuckall t lose
an ev'rythin t gain.

I bin standin
on-a street corners
buskin far too long.

A dragon flag draped
( a bit manky-lookin)
over my shiverin shoulders.

Crowds pass by f'r-a game
singin theyer ol ymns,
with theyer three feathers on :

daffs f'r-a day,
pissed as fuckin farts,
droppin a few coins.

I play s many tewns,
sneakin in my own songs ;
Eaves an Stevens an Jarman.

Quick pic f Facebook an Instagram,
some'll stop an lissen ;
always on the edge o things.

Opefully, one day centre stage
performin f the ones oo gather,
ones oo'll finelee make a change.