Celebrating the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in Dublin Today

This day in 1939 the Soviet Union took a gamble for peace by signing a peace treaty with Nazi Germany. It was an audacious move and totally successful. We need similar peacemakers today to bring peace to the Ukraine, Iraq, and Israel-Palestine today. 

If U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry had the courage he'd do what he knows to be the right thing and sign a similar agreement with Islamic State. 

They are not bad people. They've just had a difficult childhood. With a bit of love and understanding they might grow up to be no more bloodthirsty than a common or garden Idi Amin or Henry Kissinger.

Where are you, Mr Molotov, when the world so desperately needs you?

But, as ever, I digress. It's nice to see the anniversary of Molotov-Ribbentrop being properly marked in Dublin today. 

The Communist Party of Ireland, former TD Declan Bree, Eoghan Harris of the Sunday Independent, former government minister Justin Keating, and the late Tomás MaGiolla have come together to organise a celebration of the 75th anniversary of the signing of the  pact. 

Declan Bree in one of his phases.

Eoghan Harris in one of his.

Justin Keating is the dude on the far left.

The late Tomás MacGiolla

The carving up of Poland. The annexation by the Soviet Union of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. What's not to like. A defining and proud day. 

The Irish Anti-War Movement has issued a statement describing the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact as "brave stand for peace". 

The event will take place in Dublin, outside the former Embassy of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), where the long dead playwright Mr Sean O'Casey will publicly bless a salt shaker said to contain a fingernail that once belonged to founder of the GDR, the great Walter Ulbricht.  

The event will end with Deputy Government Chief Whip, Mr Emmet Stagg, leading the assembled in a raucous rendition of The Auld Triangle. 

Moustache combs will be provided courtesy of Galway Alliance Against War, finger food by Eamon Gilmore. 

Afterwards, for those so minded, there will be a liberation theology Mass concelebrated by Professors Roy Johnston and Doctor Helena Sheehan at Aughrim Street Church in Stoneybatter, where they will attempt to channel the spirit of  Charlotte Despard, who passed away in November 1939, just a few months after the political movement of which she was a member achieved the impossible by making a lasting peace with Adolf Hitler. 

Charlotte Despard.

P.S. An Post has announced this morning that they are to issue a commemorative stamp to mark the occasion. The stamp will contain an image based on a tasteful redrawing by the artist Robert Ballagh of this picture of former head of the Soviet NKVD, Mr Beria.

 Now for a poem.