Pod Insights The Blindboy Podcast Have you anything to say about the Fuel protests Blindboy? Or are you a Government shill who is worried about losing his next Late Late show appearance? About this episode An interrogation of Neoliberal structures Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript 11,414 words · 7 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Speaker 00 Cheers to fall savings at Whole Foods Market, home of higher ingredient standards. This Halloween, share chocolates and candies made without that spooky high fructose corn syrup. Throwing a party? Make it easy with a Berry Chantilly Cake. Ready to cook pizza? No antibiotics ever chicken wings. And sushi made fresh daily. Fall gatherings never tasted better. Save through November 3rd at Whole Foods Market.
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1:00 Blindboy Boatclub? Eat the sideways sweeties, you yeasty Peters. Welcome to the Blind Eye Podcast. If this is your first episode, consider going back to an earlier podcast episode to familiarise yourself with the lore of this podcast. And if you're a regular listener, you know the crack. You know the deal. My audio's a bit fucking shit here, Lana, fix it. My vocal settings here on my preamp are off. Eat the sideways sweeties. Sideways sweeties. Yeasty Peter is whispering in the ear of a dove. He's offering the dove a sideways sweetie. If you're testing a vocal effects chain, you really do gotta be talking like this.
1:45 Blindboy Boatclub? To get the best results. Sideways Peter. Peter is eating sweeties with a dove. Whispering in his ear, he's going to hell. So you're also noticing the gentle pitter patter of rain on my roof. We're welcoming the rain in this week onto the podcast. But when it does rain, I have to adjust my microphone to accommodate the sparkly effervescence of its sound. So we've had a very intense week in Ireland. There were large scale protests. That pretty much brought the country to a standstill.
2:23 Blindboy Boatclub? Farmers and truck drivers who were impacted massively by the rising cost of fuel as a result of the US and Israel attacking Iran. That pushed up the price of diesel and petrol and then this. This triggered farmers and truckers to ask the government for assistance. So they protested, a protest that I support because I support workers. I support unions. I support collective bargaining. I support strikes. My dad was a union leader. I was raised on this. The farmers occupied roads with machinery and they also blockaded fuel depots.
3:07 Blindboy Boatclub? So by last Friday, I think it was 60% of petrol stations, civilian petrol stations in Ireland were running out of fucking petrol, of fuel. So the country itself, by Saturday, a couple of days ago, critical infrastructure had been brought to the brink of collapse because we have an infrastructure that relies upon cars and trucks having petrol and diesel in order to deliver our goods, emergency services, everything. The lunch that I ate today was different to my, my regular lunch.
3:45 Blindboy Boatclub? Because the shelves in my shop, in my supermarket, are still half empty. Because trucks couldn't get there at the weekend. The guards were called in. A request was made for the army to be called in. The guards removed physically some reports of violence, removed protesters around the, the fuel depot blockades. Long story short, the protest mostly stood down and the government responded. The government announced a 500 million euro of measures to support people that are struggling with rising energy costs. It's not an adequate response, but it's some response. And what, what I like about all of this is we saw a protest working.
4:30 Blindboy Boatclub? We saw a protest working and then a response. The response is more of a Band-Aid than a solution. Some people weren't happy with the protest at all. They were saying, if you want to protest, just get out there and march. Why do you have to block the roads? Why do you have to block critical, critical infrastructure? Why do you have to stop people getting to their medical appointments? Or unable to get fuel for their cars? That's not a protest. Unfortunately, that social contract has broken down. There used to be a social contract, which was, if you, the people, are unhappy with what your government is doing, then just very politely and in a civil way, get out there and march.
5:15 Blindboy Boatclub? And that is enough to frighten the government into action. That social contract doesn't exist anymore, unfortunately. The rain's getting very strong. That social contract doesn't exist anymore because of neoliberalism. I've done many podcasts on neoliberalism this year and last year, but.
5:37 Blindboy Boatclub? Neoliberalism, it is when public services, housing, healthcare, education, these things used to be controlled by the state, but instead they are handed over to the private market. But I pay taxes, you say. I pay taxes and my taxes are supposed to provide people in Ireland with housing. That's true, you do pay taxes. And that money that's supposed to provide a person with a house, you see, it used to go to a local council who would build a council house. And then a person would receive a council house. And the rent would be low. And it'd be a long-term arrangement and it'd be secure.
6:19 Blindboy Boatclub? But now the same tax via a scheme like the Housing Assistance Programme, now that same tax goes to a private landlord who charges market rate. So now the state, you see, is paying a private landlord. It's astronomically expensive. It makes the housing crisis worse because all that public money actually pushes up rents for everybody. No new housing supply is created, so it's not councils building houses anymore. Now the state is competing with private renters and it's this horrible feedback loop. So the housing crisis doesn't become something to solve.
7:00 Blindboy Boatclub? It becomes some, an industry to be profited from. So under neoliberalism, you, you pay your taxes for a public service. And then a private company comes right in the middle and sets up a toll booth and takes most of that money. So then you have a society that doesn't see evidence of a social net. I can walk around Limerick City. I'm aware that there's not a recession. I'm aware that there's high employment, that there's actually a bit of money flying around. Like compared to the recession 10 years ago, things appear to be doing well around me. But I also see shanty towns. I've never seen that before, even during the recession when things were terrible.
7:44 Blindboy Boatclub? I've never seen settlements of tents underneath bridges. In an Ireland where there's clearly also high, un-high employment, I mean, healthcare.
7:56 Blindboy Boatclub? In Limerick City, we have University Hospital Limerick. That's what the emergency room is. Around the time of the recession, emergency rooms in other counties, there was one in Ennis out in Clare, was shut down. And then the emergency room in Limerick started to serve as a massive region. So there's not enough beds. People are very vulnerable. People who are incredibly sick are lying in trolleys in corridors in the hospital in Limerick, and this has been going on for years. I can pull up headlines, headline from the Limerick Leader 2025, four young women dead, catastrophic failures, demand action on University Hospital Limerick now.
8:38 Blindboy Boatclub? Where there's inquests into the deaths of four young women who died while in that hospital. Public services aren't working. I would dread getting into an accident and having to go to the hospital in Limerick. I fuck, I would dread it. For me or for my kids, I would hate for that to happen because I have zero confidence in receiving adequate, dignified, comfortable healthcare. Based on evidence that social contract has broken down. But luckily, a new big, massive private hospital has been built in Limerick City. And lo and behold, what was announced? The government is seeking private hospital capacity to address the Limerick overcrowding crisis.
9:23 Blindboy Boatclub? So that private hospital is going to charge private hospital rates. But to the government, another vital public service, healthcare, is being handed to the private market for profit. So I live in a city where I see emerging shanty towns. I don't mean to be disrespectful when I say that, but that's the word that we have. All right, little semi-permanent settlements of tents, which I've never seen before in my life. See that, I see a hospital I hope I never have to visit because I have zero faith in being safe there, news reports of very sick people laying in trolleys there, and inquests into deaths of young women who tried to access healthcare in a society where we're supposed to have access to healthcare. So we're all seeing that.
10:08 Blindboy Boatclub? And when you see that, then you're not seeing evidence of a social net. The social net is part of the social contract, right? It's a broad agreement that citizens in a society accept.
10:21 Blindboy Boatclub? State authority, right? Police being taxed, the laws in exchange for the social safety net. That if you are unemployed and need housing, that that housing will be employed for you. If you get sick, healthcare will be provided for you. And if you lose your job, social welfare will be provided for you. That there is the the social net and it's part of the social contract. We no longer see evidence of the social net. And there's consistent housing protests for the past 15 years. Peaceful housing protests and nothing gets done.
11:01 Blindboy Boatclub? There's been direct action housing protests such as Frederick Street in 2018, where housing activists decided to occupy abandoned property. And then masked men showed up in balaclavas and unmarked cars and beat the shit out of them in front of the police. The police stood back and let it happen. So when the social net erodes around us and we can see it, then the social contract starts to erode. And then you start to see a type of protest that is highly disruptive. That's when you start to see people blocking fuel depots and now you can't get petrol in your car. That's when you start to see that type of protest,
11:45 Blindboy Boatclub? when the social net is no longer evident. So that's what I'd say to people who were pissed off at those farmers for for blocking roads. And I say this as someone who very nearly had to cancel a gig last week. I almost had to cancel my Limerick gig because we didn't know whether people were going to get to it or not. And despite that, I still support those protests. And if you want to get pissed off with something, get pissed off with years of neoliberalism. That's what that's what leads to that. Neoliberalism erodes the social contract. It erodes.
12:25 Blindboy Boatclub? Public institutions and the social net. And when that happens, it erodes the conditions under which a society believes that collective action can work. You become hopeless, you become pointless. Protest doesn't work, voting doesn't work, nothing changes, anything. Taxes don't even work, this is hopeless. That's what neoliberalism does because it's a fucking scam. Ultimately, it's just a way to siphon public money into private pockets. And then all of us go, where's the money gone? What, what, what? I don't see any houses being built, I don't see healthcare. What's happening here? Where's the money going? It's going into the pockets of private companies that have now taken over public services. And this is what's been happening to
13:10 Blindboy Boatclub? the West, we'll call it. It started in the eighties. It started in the late seventies in Chile. Thatcher and Reagan. But it accelerated after the fall of the Berlin Wall, when capitalism no longer had a major competitor. The communism of the Soviet Union fell. And then capitalism consumed everything, including public services. But the hopelessness and futility that's created by neoliberal policies is also what creates fertile grounds for the far right. Why? Because when, when the social net is eroded and something like housing for people who need housing, when that is given to the private market.
13:55 Blindboy Boatclub? Let's just say you got to rent a house in Ireland tomorrow, which is a very difficult thing to do because there's fucking nothing on the market. You've got to rent a house in Ireland tomorrow. You're competing against someone who's homeless and might be receiving half from the government. So instead of housing being provided for people who need it, everybody, private and public, is now competing for the same housing. And that, that pushes people to see something like housing as individual competition rather than a shared system. Selfishness, scarcity, individualism. Politics doesn't appear to change anything because so much has been shifted to the private forces. And then collective action feels pointless.
14:40 Blindboy Boatclub? And we can see that there's a problem, but most people can't identify the source of the problem because it's so complex. Like, I know from, I know from seeing comments on the internet, a lot of Irish people don't understand that something like emergency accommodation, they don't understand that. One of the so-called solutions for homelessness is for homeless people to be provided with emergency accommodation via hotels. So there's, like, how much does a hotel room cost a night? Between a hundred and fifty and three hundred euro. Hotel chains are charging the government that amount of money every single night to
15:25 Blindboy Boatclub? house homeless people. That's market rate, so most of that money is profits. Hotel chains are siphoning hundreds of millions every year from the Irish taxpayer because homelessness is being run as a for-profit industry in the private market. Taxes that we think are helping homeless people are being pissed away as profits to hotel chains. Most people aren't aware of that. Have you ever stayed in a hotel that's also used as emergency accommodation? I've stayed in one near Dublin Airport. It was really expensive to stay there, really expensive per night. And then when you get into the hotel, it has full occupancy, but there's no staff. They've stopped employing people there.
16:07 Blindboy Boatclub? There's just one person at the desk looking after maybe the ten or twenty private customers. But then the rest of the hotel has full occupancy. So you have these full occupancy hotels that are making a bunch of profits at the top, but now they're behaving like they're in a recession and they have fuck all customers. They don't need customers. The government is their biggest customer. Like, one of the arguments for neoliberal policies is trickle-down economics. Well, if the government is, is paying all these hotels, then those hotels are businesses and those businesses employ people. So there's a benefit there. They're not fucking employing people. I've seen it with my own two eyes. They're keeping staff. To a minimum because most of the occupancy is through emergency accommodation.
16:51 Blindboy Boatclub? They're getting socialism for the rich and they don't need to compete for customers anymore. So there's no fucking trickle down. It's a scam that hurts everybody and turns the misery that homeless people have to face into a product that can be perpetually milked and never solved. That then causes people who are who are using the hotel to then to then have a problem with the the homeless people who are receiving emergency accommodation. I don't see the I don't see evidence for the the average person in in comment sections on the internet or I speak to understanding how deeply evil that particular system is and the scope of it and what's happening.
17:33 Blindboy Boatclub? People know, oh, emergency accommodation, I I think it's when they put homeless people into hotels for a couple of nights. I mean, it's great if it's cold outside and there's a family because otherwise they'd be on the streets. So isn't it great that they're in a hotel for a couple of nights? So it looks like a good thing, but I don't think they grasp that it it's a for profit system where there's no incentive to solve it because so much money is being made. It's been going on for years despite having the term emergency in there as if it's some temporary measure. It's been going on for fucking years. And the people who are living in emergency accommodation, there's no new housing supply being built for them to actually get homes. So this is actually very fucking evil.
18:14 Blindboy Boatclub? And in a caring society, it should be illegal and the government should be using our taxes to directly build and provide houses for people who need them. You can't do that. That'd be too expensive. You can't just government can't just build a lot of houses and give them to people. That'd be so expensive. It'd probably be cheaper than what the fuck we're doing now. At least that's not for profit. But we don't see that. We've forgotten what it used to look like. Like, you know how my parents got a house? Like my dad, my dad had a regular job. My dad worked in an airport. He worked at a ticket desk. My mother worked in a supermarket packing shells. Fairly humble jobs. Neither of them would get you access to housing now. There was a thing called the Small Dwellings Acquisition Act. Houses weren't financialized. Houses weren't like.
19:01 Blindboy Boatclub? Hoarded and bought and sold for profits the way that they are now. And also the state was building houses and that kept overall prices down. I remember saying to my ma, did you, did you get a, a mortgage from the bank? And she's like, no, the banks didn't give ordinary people money. The banks didn't do that. There was no mortgages. Like, how the fuck did you get a house? So if a person had a, had a job, a relatively stable job, which is what my, my dad and my ma had, the council would literally just give you a loan with fuck all interest on it. Just, they would just give you money to buy or build a house. That loan was backed by the government. So you didn't have a, a bank breathing down your neck if you missed payments.
19:45 Blindboy Boatclub? And my dad missed loads of fucking payments and nothing happened. No threat of eviction, nothing. Why did that exist? Because a social net existed. It was government policy. The government policy was it is a good idea if lots of people have their own homes. Cause then we have a stable society. In order to have a society, we must have a stable social net first. That's the most important thing. And then with that social net and the social contract, you can have the confidence of collective bargaining, strikes, protests, fucking unions. My dad was in a union. My dad worked for Aer Lingus when it was a state company owned and controlled by the state. And they had unions and if they weren't happy with their employment conditions,
20:28 Blindboy Boatclub? they went on fucking strike and their demands were met and people couldn't fly. But what it also meant was full time contracts, stable, secure job, pension. A person who the government could give a loan to for a fucking house. See, that's a system. Contrast that with the 2008 recession. Limerick, for example, half the fucking town is employed by Dell. This big giant American, American multinational corporations that are in Ireland. So that they don't have to pay fucking tax. Yes, they're providing employment, but do those people have full time contracts? Do they have fucking unions? Do they have pensions? Do they have job security? Do they fuck? All those people are given loans to purchase houses.
21:11 Blindboy Boatclub? By banks who are doing it for profit, then the economy goes tits up. Dead computers who are employing half the town have zero loyalty. They say, fuck that, we're leaving. Everyone then defaults on their mortgages and you get a massive recession. Working and middle class people lose their fucking arses, they have nothing. Then the wealthy people who have the money get to buy up all that debt, get to buy up all those, get to buy up all the really cheap houses that people had to abandon after they lost their arses. And now they're renting those things out. Neoliberalism is designed for that. It's designed for boom and bust. And every time there's a bust, the rich get richer. But the, the world of unions, council houses, getting loans from the council,
21:55 Blindboy Boatclub? job security pensions, a social net and a social contract, that has all flipped now. The point I'm trying to get to is neoliberalism, it's very difficult to see. It's a fog, it's an ether, it's a mire. You can't really point at it and go, there, that's the issue. It's such a, a complicated system. And that's where you don't see a lot of literacy around that system. Instead, what people see are, are its impacts. They just see loads of homeless people on the streets and the emergence of shanty towns are, are unaware of why nothing's being done.
22:35 Blindboy Boatclub? People are trying to get houses, trying to, people, people who are lucky enough to be able to afford to get a mortgage are now competing with giant investment funds. Giant faceless piles of cash are buying up entire housing estates to rent, to rent all those houses to the Irish government. And where do all those profits go to? To some, someone's pension in China. The same thing is being done with IPASS centres, international protection applicant centres. Refugees, they're.
23:12 Blindboy Boatclub? Provision of housing for refugees in Ireland is being run as a for-profit system. Today, the Irish Minister for State, an independent TD, Michael Healy-Reye, from Downey Kerry, he resigned from government in solidarity with the protesters, in solidarity with the farmers and the fuel protesters. He held his fist up high when the cameras were pointing at him, and it created a narrative of, a media narrative of this is a man of the people standing with the protesters. Eight days ago, it was reported in the news that this government minister, the Minister for State, his private property farm received 1.3 million for accommodating Ukrainians.
23:58 Blindboy Boatclub? So here's a government minister who's also profiting from the refugee crisis. When things like housing, things that are public services, when these things are put to the private fucking market and then run as a for-profit system, like there's a huge amount of our government ministers are also landlords.
24:19 Blindboy Boatclub? When these things are run as a private system for profit, then you have to wonder, where is the incentive for a real solution when so much money is being made? Why do you think so many hotels get built? Why do we need so many fucking hotels? Why not build houses? So many hotels are being built because they're recession-proof. If you've got a hotel, you've got guaranteed business from the state in either housing homeless people in emergency accommodation or housing people who need international protection and refugees. These structures are very complex. They're not widely understood. I know this from speaking to people and from witnessing conversations playing out online underneath news articles.
25:03 Blindboy Boatclub? This shit isn't widely understood. What is understood and seen and felt are the visible impacts of it, you see. So you look around and you see a society where something like housing is becoming unstable. People feel exposed and they feel that the causes of this are personal because it's competitive now. It's individual, not structural. Politics and voting, whoever the fuck you vote in doesn't seem to change a thing. Collective action feels fucking pointless. Protest feels pointless. And that combination of bullshit.
25:38 Blindboy Boatclub? The high insecurity, low trust in other people. No clear structural explanation because it's too complex. That creates the conditions where people are very frustrated. And when you can't see what your big, big, big structural enemy is, you redirect that anger towards visible others, people, refugees, homeless people. There's a housing crisis because of immigrants. It's them, it's those people over there. Know that there's a system where the state is deliberately, as policy, not building enough houses because housing now relies on the market.
26:21 Blindboy Boatclub? And because it relies on the market, scarcity of housing pushes up the rents and prices, makes it more profitable for the landlords. And now, public money ends up flowing into the pockets of landlords instead of solving the shortage. So it's a vicious loop. So it becomes fertile ground for the far right. And a lot of far right elements tried to jump on those fuel protests at the weekend and tried to capture the anger and make the fuel protests about immigrants or refugees, out waving their brand new Irish flags. I mean, we're getting to the point now, I never, ever thought the Irish flag could be co-opted
27:05 Blindboy Boatclub? by the far right because it's a flag of revolution and anti-imperialism. And it's a flag of unity. But now we're in the situation where you see an Irish flag and you have to wonder, does that mean up the ra are refugees out? And the only way you can tell is if the Irish flag looks brand new and it still has the crinkles on it from the packaging, then it usually means refugees out. And then the older, non-creased Irish flag means up the ra. But why am I talking about housing when I said I was going to speak about fuel protests? Because it's all systemic. The system of neoliberalism over the past 20, 25 years.
27:47 Blindboy Boatclub? And the feeling of hopelessness, the fact that protest doesn't work, politics doesn't seem to work because things are pushed to the private market, that breeds a social infrastructure whereby effective protest then has to become disorder, disorderly. Let's not forget that there were riots in Dublin two fucking years ago, but the farmers' protest there the past week was nonviolent. The only violence that I saw was members of the Guards ripping protesters up. But this was a nonviolent, highly disruptive,
28:24 Blindboy Boatclub? highly disruptive protest that achieved a response. Not the response that the protesters would have wanted fully, but I think we should all take a little win from the fact that we all saw protest working there the past week. That's what we saw. And if you want to get back to a place where protest doesn't need to be that disruptive because a social contract exists, then educate yourself about neoliberal policies and fight back against it. Thousands of people marched to the streets peacefully at an agreed time. The government sees that and then they respond to those demands. That's the social contract.
29:06 Blindboy Boatclub? That's how it's supposed to work. And when it comes to voting, like the far right are going to emerge with very simple narratives, pointing fingers, going that person over there is the cause of your problems. The far right are shills for neoliberalism. Like, why the fuck do you think the billionaires of Trump and America are supporting the far right in Europe? Why do you think they want that? Because when the far right get in, they're shill for big business.
29:41 Blindboy Boatclub? Even more so than so-called centrists. They shill for big business and then they bring in deregulation. There's laws and regulations that protect consumers, that protect workers. There's things that businesses and industry and corporations cannot do because these things are crimes. Deregulation removes these things so they're not crimes, so that consumers can be exploited and workers can be exploited in the service of profits. You look at where neoliberalism was the most aggressive, and it's in countries where there was far-right fascist governments. As soon neoliberalism was tested out on Chile in the 1970s after
30:23 Blindboy Boatclub? a fascist coup. And when it was brought in, it was the fascist, far-right government of a pinochet who guarded all public services and handed it to private companies, all right? Vote for who's talking about healthcare, who's talking about housing, who's talking about unions, workers' rights. I hope the farmers' protest's there.
30:49 Blindboy Boatclub? It can go in one of two fucking directions. I'd like to think that the past week was an example of how collective action and civil disobedience, peaceful civil disobedience, can serve as an example for all of us going forward when it comes to holding power to account. Those protesters, like I said, they didn't get exactly what they wanted, but they can walk away with their fucking heads up high because the real victory is they showed everybody there is a way to do this. Like when it comes to housing, I keep saying this, but find out where your local CATU is, Community Action Tenants Union. There's loads of them
31:33 Blindboy Boatclub? all over Ireland. Join one of those. That's a community action tenants' union. That's collective action protest against illegal evictions, rent increases, like holding landlords to account, corporate fucking landlords. If you have a mortgage, if you pay rent, you can join CATU. You can't join CATU if you're a landlord, but if you have a mortgage and you pay rent, you can join CATU. It's not political, it is a community action tenants' union. A collection of words there that strike fear into any fucking neoliberal.
32:07 Blindboy Boatclub? If all the cat who's in Ireland gathered together and got enough fucking members, you could be dealing with a Charles Stewart Parnell situation. Charles Stewart Parnell, you know, there's a fucking Parnell Street in every city, lads. We've named streets after these people. Charles Stewart Parnell and the Land League. They had huge campaigns of civil disobedience, rent strikes, people power, and they used this against the might of the fucking British Empire to achieve land reforms and to advance home rule and to lay the foundations that would eventually become, you know, the Republic, the Free State, the 26 counties.
32:48 Blindboy Boatclub? But those farmers, they protested because a lot of them, after the attack on Iran by Israel and America, it didn't just put fuel prices up, it also put up the price of fertiliser. So I want to speak about that because it actually, it's, I get to talk about bard shit again. Not only bard shit, I was attacked by a, not attacked, I was accosted by a swarm of flies. And I want to speak about that, but it's relevant to this conversation. Let's have a little Ocarina pause before I do that. I have my bass Ocarina with me this week, so I'm going to play my bass Ocarina, which
33:32 Blindboy Boatclub? the Ocarina last week was disturbing some dogs. And also a few people pointed out that some people listen to me at night time and they like to drift off to sleep. And if I start blowing a high pitched Ocarina, it can be quite alarming for somebody who's drifting off to sleep. So I've got a bass Ocarina. I'm going to play this and you'll hear some adverts for bullshit.
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38:38 Blindboy Boatclub? And you got rain there as well. That was the bass echoing a pause. Support for this podcast comes from you, the listener, via the Patreon page, patreon.com/theblindbypodcast. If this podcast brings you mirth, entertainment, merriment, joy, distraction, whatever the fuck has you listening to this podcast, please consider supporting it directly via the Patreon page, patreon.com/theblindbypodcast. This is my full-time job. This is how I earn a living. Because this podcast is listener-funded and fully independent, that's how I have the time and space to show up every single week with a podcast. I adore this job. I love it.
39:23 Blindboy Boatclub? It brings me a fantastic amount of meaning. I love showing up each week. That's why I haven't missed a week in eight years. I'm gonna continue doing this podcast for as long as podcasts are things. You know, I'm gonna keep doing it. I adore this. So if you like showing up each week and listening too, then consider paying me for the work that I'm doing. But if you can't afford it, you just don't want to, don't worry about it. Listen for free. Listen for free, because the person who is paying is paying for you to listen for free. And all I'm looking for is the price of a pint or a cup of coffee once a month. That's it. So consider supporting the podcast directly, if you'd like. And if not, no hassle.
40:04 Blindboy Boatclub? Everybody gets the exact same podcast I get to earn a living. It's a wonderful model based on kindness and soundness. And it means that I'm not beholden to advertisers in any way. No adverti- advertisers don't want to sponsor a fucking podcast about neoliberalism, okay? We don't have to worry about that. I'm not worried about sponsorships. If they want to advertise here, they do so on my terms. They don't want it, they can fuck off. That's fine. No one gets to dictate, shape, change, even suggest what the content of this podcast is. This is listener-funded. I've one responsibility. To make sure that when I do show up for this podcast, that what I'm speaking about is something I'm legitimately passionate about. That's what I do.
40:49 Blindboy Boatclub? Okay, upcoming gigs. I think my next gig is Vicar Street. Yeah, I'm in Vicar Street next Monday, the 20th of April.
40:59 Blindboy Boatclub? For a lovely, gorgeous, relaxed, Monday night evening, I have a magnificent guest for this podcast. Also, I'm probably not doing another Vicar Street until 2027. Next win- I'm taking the summer off and I'd say next winter, that's gonna be, I'll be trying to get some international gigs in. So if you do wanna catch me in Vicar Street, which it's the spiritual home of this podcast, really, of the live podcast, it's where I have my most intimate gigs. If you wanna catch that, the last opportunity for a year is gonna be next week in Dublin, 20th of April, alright, and there's a small amount
41:40 Blindboy Boatclub? of tickets left for that. Then Galway there on the 25th of April on St Mark's Day. I'm there in Leisure Land, come along to that. Daytime gig in Maynooth on the 9th of May, that's a Saturday at half one in the day at the Arts and Mines Festival in Maynooth University. Come along to that if you're doing fuck odd at half one in the day on a Saturday in May. Sheffield there in July. Berlin in Germany, two gigs in Berlin on the 19th and 20th of June, but I'd say they're sold out. Let me check there. A few tickets left on the second night there in Berlin. I got some wonderful recommendations last
42:21 Blindboy Boatclub? week on Instagram for, I asked for some pubs that sell Czechoslovakian lager, so I got some wonderful Berlin recommendations there. Sheffield in July on the fucking, is that the 5th? I think that's the, July is the 7th month, isn't it? The 5th of July, I'm in Sheffield at the Crosswires Festival, taking it easy in the summer. And then October, my tour of England, Scotland and Wales, beginning in Brighton at the Brighton Dome, Cardiff, Warwick, Warwick Arts Centre in Coventry, Bristol, Guildford, London, that's very nearly sold out, Glasgow also nearly sold out, Gateshead and Nottingham. The whole
43:05 Blindboy Boatclub? tour is, even though that's six months away, that whole tour is quite low on tickets. So if you're, if you're thinking of waiting and going, I'm gonna, I'm gonna get tickets for that, close to October, you might miss out. So you're better off getting them now. So throughout the, the fuel protests in Ireland, the weather was mad.
43:29 Blindboy Boatclub? In the morning times, it'd be sunny. And then by lunchtime, it was freezing cold. And then by the evening, you could have aggressive hailstorms. And then it was sunny and warm again. So this very tempestuous, unpredictable, aggressive weather. As you know, I'm trying to grow vegetables this year. I've got potatoes and I've got loads of little seedlings for broccoli, spinach, all of these little plants. And I made a mistake last week. I keep these plants, these seedlings indoors. But I'm trying to weather them now, which means I put them outside under supervision so that they can get better quality sunlight because they're outside.
44:11 Blindboy Boatclub? And also to harden them against the cold for when they eventually go into the earth in about two or three weeks' time. But I put my seedlings out. And then this fucking colossal hailstorm came from nowhere with no warning and battered the seedlings and actually severed a load of them. So a load of my broccoli seedlings and my cabbage seedlings, they got split in two. It killed all of my sunflowers. These hailstones split them in two. And when that happened, and I was so disappointed to see the devastation of my seedlings, to see that at least 30% of my cabbages and broccolis now, they're dead because they've been battered by hailstones.
44:56 Blindboy Boatclub? I said to myself, I should have been listening to the folklore. The first 10 days of April, I say this every fucking year. These 10 days are very important to me because there is specific folklore that exists in Ireland about those first 10 days that tell us, that warn us, the first 10 days of April are insane weather-wise. So you have to be careful. Never try to predict anything with the first 10 days of April. They're chaotic. Now, they're chaotic because Ireland is an island, or a little island in the middle of the wet, moist Atlantic Ocean.
45:38 Blindboy Boatclub? As the days get longer, from the middle of March onwards, the longer days and the increase in sunlight that heats the land, it heats the soil. So the land is a little bit hotter. But then the air, that Atlantic air is cold and fucking wet. And this just creates instability, chaos. That hot air meets the cold, wet air and you've got chaos. But in Ireland, we have a story for this. A piece of folklore called Na Leainta, Leainta na Borea Vi. The Days of the Brindled Cow. So the first 10 days of April are the days of the brindled cow. And this is an old, old story.
46:22 Blindboy Boatclub? And my ma used to say it to me as a child. When it came to April 1st or 2nd or 3rd and it's sunny outside. She'd go, don't go out without your jacket. It's the days of the brindled cow. It could rain out of nowhere. Never trust the first 10 days of April. Now, I'm fascinated with any piece of folklore, which addresses the predictability of seasonal behaviour. Like Halloween is one of them. Halloween night, the Kailak, the winter goddess or the hag, emerges from a cave and strips the land bare. And that's the Halloween night story. And it's really about the emergence of winter. It's very beneficial to a population who don't have writing. You don't have fucking writing in the system of writing.
47:07 Blindboy Boatclub? You need to hold your stories in oral culture. And then the landscape and the weather systems and the cycle of time becomes the book that you read from. And these stories have held true for thousands of years. But we're the first generation living in climate collapse. We are the first generation of people to experience climate collapse. So every year, I like to watch the stories, the folklore, that I know are thousands of years old and see if, do they still hold true? And each year, the first 10 days of April, that is held true. So the story of the old brindled cow, I tell it every year at this time. I'll tell you a simplified version.
47:50 Blindboy Boatclub? There's a herd of cows in a field, they're brindled cows. It's a pattern. And there's one old cow, she's, she's, she's an old brindled cow. And she's seen a lot of winters. And it gets to the end of March. And she walks around all cocky in a field and she says, that was a very mild winter. Fuck that winter. That was nothing. The breeze didn't knock me. I'm an old cow and that winter should have killed me and it didn't. Look at me. Now I'm off to enjoy summer. But the season of winter overheard the cow and got mad offended. The fuck do you mean? What do you mean I was a shit winter? What do you mean I wasn't cold enough? What do you mean I wasn't windy enough or wet enough? What do you mean I couldn't kill you? You stupid cow. I'm winter.
48:36 Blindboy Boatclub? I'm all powerful. How dare you insult me like that? So winter is so insulted. So winter, the month of March, consults the month of April. So two months are having a chat with each other. So March goes to April and says, this fucking prick of an old cow is boasting that I'm not harsh enough. Alright? I wanna finish her off. But then the month of April says, chill out, March. It's my turn now. I'm about to, I'm about to get warm and hot. Alright? But then, March says to April, how would you feel if that cow was taking the piss out of you? Come on, are you on my side or not? So April says, okay, fair enough, March. Alright?
49:20 Blindboy Boatclub? I'll give you a shot at killing this cow with some cold freezing breezes. Give, give her everything you've got. I'm gonna give you a loan of 10 days. So the month of April gives a loan of 10 days that should be spring, but hands it over to March and says, go nuts. Do a bit of winter for 10 days. You're grand, you can have it. So March gets the 10 days and really prepares to wreak havoc on the land. Now meanwhile, the old brindled cow is out in the middle of the field, not a care in the world. The old brindled cow is like, fuck winter. Winter was shit. Now it's summertime. Now it's my time. So she's wandering around the field all cocky, eating nettles, eating grass, convinced that summer is upon her.
50:06 Blindboy Boatclub? And then finally, winter goes, you don't fucking know that I'm after getting ten days. I'm after getting ten days off summer. So for the first ten days of April, it's not spring, it's not summer, it's actually winter. It's the end of winter and winter has fucking mad crack with it. So it goes nuts and kills the cow, kills the cow with wind and rain and sleet and hail. And everything that I saw in the past week, everything that I witnessed and experienced in the past week, the first ten days of April, chaotic weather, that fucking story delivers it. And I, I should have known better than to put my seedlings outside.
50:47 Blindboy Boatclub? Within two, they just got decapitated by hailstones from fucking nowhere. After it happened, I said, these are the ten days where that shit happens. So I was glad to live another year during climate collapse, where the first ten days of April were chaos. That gave me a feeling of comfort and predictability. Once that starts shifting, you see, and you can't, and the first ten days of April aren't chaotic. Then the climate is changing before your eyes and the old stories are losing their meaning. That's heartbreaking. A story like that, which was once oral, existed before writing, that that will now become irrelevant.
51:31 Blindboy Boatclub? And the reason I know that that story most likely predates writing is because it's actually highly relevant to farmers and to fertilizer. Before colonization, Ireland had a pastoral tradition. We were a cattle-based economy, so cattle was a big deal. But people moved with their cattle. And there used to be a tradition that would start about now. This tradition was called boating. Boating was very important. So if you had cattle and they were to feed on grass, instead of fertilizing your field to get stronger grass, when it came to about April.
52:15 Blindboy Boatclub? Every community, usually the teenagers, the young boys and the young girls, came to about April, they would move with their cattle, right? Up to the hills where the grass was thicker. So you're not relying upon fertilizer, you're moving your cattle to an area where the grass is better. And entire communities in Ireland, I'm talking 1500 years ago, longer. Entire communities in Ireland would move with their cattle to the hills to stay in these huts known as boilies, boaly huts, and they would stay there for the summer with their cattle. But what made it really important, it wasn't just about moving cattle to the hills.
52:59 Blindboy Boatclub? It was a meeting place for all different communities. And it was a place of courtship because it was the teenagers that were going. So people would meet people from the opposite sex, from a different community. You'd share songs, you'd share stories, you'd share weaving techniques. Culture would be shared at these pastoral sites of moving, these boaling sites. But that story of the old brindle cow as a piece of oral folklore is so old that it was for the benefit of people who were boaling. It was for the benefit of people who moved with their cattle to the hills. The thing is with boaling, if you had a herd of cattle and everyone else has a herd of cattle,
53:44 Blindboy Boatclub? well, you want to get the best spot on the mountain. So some people, like if you're on holidays and the Germans come out with their towels and they leave the towels on the deck chairs before everyone else.
53:58 Blindboy Boatclub? You might have some people who decide, I'm going to go up to the mountains early now and I'm going to bring my cattle and I'm going to get the best spot. If these people did this on the first of April, the second of April. Then chances are their entire herd could die because it would get battered with that crazy Irish weather that happens in the first 10 days of April. But they couldn't write this down. This, this is happening before, before the fifth century, when the technology of writing arrives in Ireland. So you hold that knowledge in the story of the old brindle cow. So you tell the story of this cow went out into the field at the start of April and winter got angry and battered it.
54:42 Blindboy Boatclub? So that was like the, that was the folk knowledge that warned people, don't go boating, don't take your entire herd of cattle up to the mountain on the first 10 days of April. Boating started to collapse, that, that practice, the pastoral farming, uh, moving with, people moving with their cattle, that collapses with, with colonization. I'm really simplifying things, but I've done podcasts on this. If you want, if you want a podcast about the history of Irish farming traditions, go to my, my podcast about potatoes from about six weeks ago, I think. Ireland from the 1600s to the 1800s, right?
55:24 Blindboy Boatclub? Fully colonized country, which becomes an, an export based cattle economy. So forests are cleared, land is cleared and Ireland becomes pasture land where cows are an industrial product to be exported for the benefit of the British Empire. Dairy and then by the 17, 1800s, a lot of Irish beef was being exported and salted via cork for the slave colonies, colonies that the British owned. But it establishes a farming tradition that's based heavily on, on the export of cattle products. And then a huge reliance there then on, on fucking fertilizer, fertilizer that can be brought in from outside.
56:09 Blindboy Boatclub? We used to get fertilizer from bird shit. Up until about 1905, most fertilizer came from imported bird shit. That was the source of nitrogen. What stopped that was. A chemical process called the Haber process was invented in 1905, where modern chemistry figured out how to pull nitrogen from the air. So now we had unlimited fertiliser. But in order to execute the Haber process, you need natural gas. And that's where the Iran war right now, like that's impacting Irish farmers and fertiliser,
56:51 Blindboy Boatclub? not just fucking Irish farmers, farmers all around the world. 20% of the world's fertiliser has to pass the strait of hormones, right? Which is that choke point there at Iran that's been in the news all week or for the past three weeks. So countries like, so Iran, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Oman. They have the natural gas, right? Where a lot of the world's fertiliser is made to do this Haber process. They use natural gas to pull nitrogen from the air and make this into fertiliser. This is what gives us, this is, this is where the world has eight billion people.
57:36 Blindboy Boatclub? When the Haber process was discovered in 1905, humanity effectively achieved unlimited nitrogen. There used to be a finite amount of nitrogen. You got nitrogen from decaying, from cow shit, from decaying plants. Certain plants that you can grow, like clover can take nitrogen out of the air and put it back into the soil. But before the Haber process, the human population could only grow to a certain size, because that's how much food we could grow to feed ourselves. As soon as the Haber process got discovered, we had all this nitrogen.
58:17 Blindboy Boatclub? And then the human population in the world exploded because there was more calories available. The current global unsustainable human population, the massive amounts of humans that exist in the world, exists because of an excess of nitrogen and because of access to that nitrogen. When. Israel and America attacked Iran a couple of weeks ago, right? 20% of the world's nitrogen was cut off from supply chains because of the Strait of Hormuz. The United Nations announced yesterday that 32 million people worldwide are now facing famine
58:58 Blindboy Boatclub? as a result of this. You're talking about growing seasons. 20% of the world's fertiliser, that's massive. So crops that were supposed to be planted a couple of weeks ago and grass that was supposed to be fertilised a couple of weeks ago, that didn't happen because 20% of the world's fertiliser did not leave the Strait of Hormuz. So for me and you, what that will mean is, come September, October,
59:29 Blindboy Boatclub? food in the supermarkets is going to be quite expensive. What it means for people living in the global souths will be famine. Even if shit resolves tomorrow and all that fertiliser manages to get out, it's creeping out at the moment, we're talking about growing seasons, it's too late. So that there was also a huge driving force behind the Irish fuel protests. It's not just the price of diesel for their tractors, it's the fertiliser. 20% of the world's fertiliser supply disappears, then you have to try and find fertiliser from somewhere else. Under the rules of capitalism now fertiliser is more scarce, so the price
1:00:10 Blindboy Boatclub? goes up, now it becomes unaffordable and farmers are going to be out of business. That's real shit.
1:00:19 Blindboy Boatclub? So the question you have to ask there is, how the fuck does it get to a situation where 20% of the world's fertiliser is in such a volatile area? Like, does that not seem fucking nuts? So all the fertiliser is being made in these Gulf countries and if shit kicks off with Iran and Israel, this hotbed, if shit kicks off there, you mean a strait of international trade is closed and we're all fucked? How the fuck does that happen? Neoliberalism, the great race to the bottom, the great race to the bottom.
1:00:56 Blindboy Boatclub? Is what happened there from the 1980s to the 2000s, right? So, under deregulation, trade liberalisation, cost-driven globalisation, right? Associated with neoliberal policies, the large corporations figured that they would, they would make the most amount of profits and produce the cheapest fertiliser if they moved all production to the, that Gulf area inside the Strait of Hormons. That's what happened. It actually serves to destabilise the, the area more because it makes the stakes higher. You're gonna put all the fertiliser there in that area where all the countries are fighting with each other, where Israel is stuck into the fucking middle of it, canonising,
1:01:39 Blindboy Boatclub? you're gonna, all the fertiliser's gonna be produced there. Why? Because this is neoliberalism. This is about profits. This, this is, this isn't about social nets or social contract. This is about the profit of private corporations. So, our profits are actually more important than food security. That's what's the most important here. So, we can make the cheapest fertiliser there around the Strait of Hormons and export it globally. But then what happens is fucking Trump decides to have a crack at Iran. And now, the world lost 20% of its fertiliser and 32 million people are gonna be plunged into famine, according to the United Nations.
1:02:24 Blindboy Boatclub? Does this impact the nat-, the, the, the companies that are producing the natural gas that the fertiliser is being made from? No, their profits go up. It, people are the ones who pay the price, not, not the corporations. This, this just means that fertiliser has become more scarce. So, if you're in the fertilising, selling business, or if you're in the natural gas business, this is excellent, your prices go up now. And then what happens in Ireland and loads of other countries now, because of that, last Saturday, you couldn't put petrol in your car because the farmers are blockading the roads because their livelihoods have been put in stake because of this Strait of Hormons shit. That's a huge, that's nuts. Could, could somebody not have predicted this?
1:03:09 Blindboy Boatclub? Could somebody, yes, they could have, absolutely. Food security is also part of the social net. The capacity for a country to produce its own food if it needs it. We used to have a state owned fertilizer company. Ireland used to make its own fertilizer, specifically so that something like this could never happen because something like this used to be completely and utterly unthinkable. It used to be unthinkable that the farmers of Ireland could not access fertilizer. That's just, no, no, no, that's not society. No, no, no, we can't let that happen. How do you not let that happen?
1:03:51 Blindboy Boatclub? Well, what you do is you have a fertilizer company which isn't run for profit. This isn't, this actually isn't run for profit. It's run by the state as an essential service because fertilizer is so fucking important. Food security is so important that just like our electrical service is state run, or the health service, or even the airline is state run. We need to have essential services and we can't expose these to capitalism. We need to make sure that they're state run. So fertilizer is so important, let's do that. So in the 1960s, Irish Fertilizer Industries, I F I, there were two fertilizer plants in Ireland. One of them was down in Cork, I believe.
1:04:35 Blindboy Boatclub? But these were state bodies, semi-state companies, like Aer Lingus, but of fertilizer. From the 1970s, Ireland had, we had natural gas from the Kinsale gas field. So Ireland was producing its own fertilizer for our own farmers at an affordable price because it's not being run for profit. It's being run for the social net for food security. By the 1980s, it started to collapse because of neoliberalism, because of cheap imported fertilizer from outside, from the private market, from these new companies that were being set up in the Gulf, were undercutting. This really, really, really cheap imported fertilizer
1:05:19 Blindboy Boatclub? was undercutting the safe domestic fertilizer that existed to prop up the food safety net. And then by 2002, the company had to be wound up. So by 2002,
1:05:33 Blindboy Boatclub? We no longer had a national state producer of domestic fertiliser. Our fertiliser used to be a public service. This public service doesn't exist anymore and then it was put to the private market. But because the private market is run exclusively for profits and not for a social net or for safety or for food security, because it's only profits. Now we experience collapse when something goes wrong. So that's the farmers are out protesting because they have no social net. And in six, seven months' time, the poorest people in Ireland are going to have great difficulty affording out to feed themselves.
1:06:14 Blindboy Boatclub? And according to the UN, 32 million people in the global souths are going to be plunged into poverty and we don't know how many of those people are going to die from famine. It's not just because of the horrendous actions of Trump and Israel. It's also the system of unfettered capitalism where profit is far, far more important than a social net. When I say social net there, what I'm saying is regulation, right? Neoliberalism seeks to deregulate. Regulation, it's laws for businesses, laws that say, no, that should be a crime. No, that can't happen. That should be a crime. Hold on a second.
1:06:58 Blindboy Boatclub? 20% of the world's fertiliser is being made in this one extremely volatile area. And if something goes wrong with the straight of hormones for like two weeks, you mean tens of millions of people could die just so ye can earn more money? Ye gas companies and ye fertiliser just so ye can earn more money? That should be illegal. No, no, that's out of the question. That's unthinkable. No, no, no, you should go to jail for even suggesting that. No, no, food security and fertiliser is way, way too important, way too important. So what should happen is that different countries should have, fertiliser should be a public service to make sure that something like this doesn't happen as part of the social
1:07:42 Blindboy Boatclub? contract and the social net. So we're going to bring in regulations to make sure that that happens. Neoliberalism, we used to have those regulations. Neoliberalism deregulates them so that profit is the most important thing. So anyway, before I go, I told you I was accosted by a lot of flies.
1:08:02 Blindboy Boatclub? So in the Bardshit district, the bar, the starlings haven't returned yet, they're gonna return mid to late May. So in the Bardshit district in Nimerick City, which is a city, a street that's full of bird shit, not right now.
1:08:19 Blindboy Boatclub? One of the flagship shops on this street was, was a Deals. Deals, if you're listening over in England, it's like Poundland. It deals, Deals is a fantastic shop. It's a dollar store, a just really, really, really cheap shop, but an excellent place for people who don't have a lot of money to buy shit that they need really cheaply, especially like cleaning products, toilet roll, fantastic for that. Deals has shut down since the pandemic. That model is no longer profitable for the company. Inflation, rising costs mean that
1:08:57 Blindboy Boatclub? they can't really operate as a super budget shop anymore and turn over a profit. So the poorest people, Poundland closed as well, I think, over in the UK, I might be wrong about that. The poorest people are losing access to the shops, the last vestiges of affordable living, these are disappearing. So Deals is shut down in the Bardshit district. But what's left outside it now is thousands and thousands of flies. It only shut down a couple of days ago. Now, I can't explain it, but like in the summertime, people walk around the Bardshit district and they have to put their T-shirts up over their faces
1:09:40 Blindboy Boatclub? because the stink of bird shit is so great. And then when they put their hands up above their T-shirts, they lose balance and then slip on the bird shit. It's phenomenal. But now people are getting, not attacked by flies, but there's so many flies that people are running past them. It's chaos because of all the flies outside this Deals. And it's only been happening for a couple of days, but I've been fascinated by it. Now, I can't answer why the flies are localized around this abandoned Deals.
1:10:13 Blindboy Boatclub? There was obviously something at the door or in the shop where the flies were spawning, okay? But I went down there to where the flies were and I managed to capture one and then correctly identify it. And this is the bit that I'm fascinated about.
1:10:32 Blindboy Boatclub? The flies are called Saint Mark's flies. They're a very common indigenous fly to Ireland, Saint Mark's flies. The reason they're swarming and that people are being really disturbed by them outside the deals is they're currently, they're engaged in a mating ritual and part of the, I'm talking a swarm of thousands, right? They're not massive, they're like large midges, they're black, but the males are looking for a mate. So what the males do when they swarm is they all do a dance and the dance is quite a lazy, swaying dance. So this is why they're annoying cunts, they're flying all over the Bardshit district into people's mouths and eyes and everything.
1:11:17 Blindboy Boatclub? But I want to close on the Saint Mark's fly because here's the thing.
1:11:24 Blindboy Boatclub? You know, I keep speaking about, what are the stories, the stories and folklore that are relevant to the seasons where you can, you can measure it against the climate and see evidence of climate collapse. So the days of the brindled cow rang true, the first 10 days were chaos, brilliant. Fucking Saint Mark's fly. They're called Saint Mark's fly for a reason. Saint Mark's Day is the 25th of April.
1:11:52 Blindboy Boatclub? These flies, their behaviour is so predictable that we've decided to name them after a fucking day, 25th of April. They're after appearing two or three weeks early outside an abandoned deal. Now, why does it matter? Why something like that? Who gives a fuck about something like that? Who cares about Saint Mark's flies? They're very important pollinators. They're only going to live for about a week.
1:12:17 Blindboy Boatclub? So they're supposed to come out around the 25th of April. So that means that flowers will emerge around the 25th of April. And their pollinators are already dead. Because whatever change has happened in the climate, the St Mark's flies think that the 5th or 6th of April is actually the 25th of April. So when it comes around to the 25th, the St Mark's flies have already died. They've pollinated fuck all. They've just danced outside of deals. And then flowers have lost their pollinator. And that there is climate collapse.
1:12:57 Blindboy Boatclub? All right, I'll catch you next week. Last two gigs on my Big Irish tour next week. And then I'm chill a bit for the summer, except for a couple of gigs peppered here and there. But come along to Vicar Street next Monday. That's going to be wonderful. All right. In the meantime, rub a dog, wink at a swan, and shove your head into a swarm of dancing St Mark's flies and tell them that I was asking for them. Dog bless.
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