Andrew Flood Profile picture
Apr 29, 2023 20 tweets 10 min read Read on X
Finbar Cafferkey who died resisting the Russian invasion of Ukraine Apr19 was a friend & comrade who for the two decades I knew him consistently put himself in harms way to oppose injustice. Whether that was fighting Shell or ISIS or going to Kos to help refugees come ashore/1 ImageImage
This video is him singing Glengad Strand outside Mountjoy prison in 2009 when another Shell to Sea activitist was held within. These photos show him at S2S protests from 2008 where he is in the sea under a digger dumping tons of gravel to 2013 confronting Shell's security /2
I have another recording of him singing it around 2015 at a bonfire in 'squat city' when he was one of about 30 people occupying & living in the huge squatted complex at Grangegorman - an intense struggle targeting landlordism & property speculation /3
Finbar died alongside two other international anarchist volunteers, one Russian (Dmitry Petrov), the other American (Andrew 'Harris' Cooper). Dmitry had left a note to be published if he fell fighting the Russian invasion - Finbar would probably have written similar /4 ImageImageImageImage
From what we've been able to piece together Finbarr had been in Ukraine for a year working as part of a humanitarian solidarity initiative. He had relatively recently became a military volunteer & fell as part of a counter offensive seeking to reopen the key route into Bakhmut/5 Image
Finbar gave this interview while fighting ISIS in Raqqa. Then he had volunteered in the YPG and fought under the name Çiya Demhat - as with Ukraine he just quietly went, telling almost no one he was doing so. He never centred himself, just acted /6 rabble.ie/2018/01/18/pri… ImageImage
He also campaigned for the Repeal referendum although was probably in Rojava when we got it. I heard he was missing presumed dead Wednesday and am still in shock. He would vanish for periods and then just be there again, it's hard to accept that he will no longer reappear. /7 Image
Shell to Sea "We are all heartbroken to hear of the death of our brave friend Finbar, who was guided by the principles of freedom and equality for all.  Heartfelt sympathies to all his family and friends.  Rest in peace." /8
shelltosea.com/content/finbar…
I'll add links to other obituaries as they appear. Máire did a better job than me of capturing his personality in this thread & reminds us that he was one of the 1000s of people who share Seomra Spraoi / Jigsaw social centre experience /9
The other Fin does it in a few words "A man of few words, anything he did say was worth hearing" /10
There’s been very little information about Andrew ‘Harris’ Cooper, the American volunteer who was killed in the same action but I have just found this Instagram post /11 ImageImageImage
Apologies but while screenshoting the post about Cooper I’d skipped the ‘second screenshot’ referred to above as I thought it was a Mad Max movie still meme. In fact it apparently was Coopers last post and I presume that’s him in it at/near Bakhmut /12 Image
And a little more information in this set of comments including that his name was reversed in that first comment I’d seen before the 2nd update /13 Image
Statement from Finbar’s brother /14
This is a fantastic short documentary with 3 volunteers from Ireland who went to fight ISIS in Rojava including Finbar - two of the three had been involved in Shell to Sea /15 ImageImage
I think this is the unit Finbar was part of in/near Bakhmut - this and the following obituary emphases his depth of knowledge & experience. /16 ImageImage
You get a sense from these obituaries of the many 100s of lives Finbar touched. Of people who were also doing extraordinary things in themselves. He may now not grow old with the rest of us but he will be remembered & talked about particularly when we gather /17 ImageImageImageImage
Paul Murphy TD ( member of Irish parliament, Dáil Éireann) who was also involved in the struggle against Shell and who knew Finbar from that /18
Another left wing Irish TD Brid Smith who also knew Finbar /19
Some more information on Andrews Harris Cooper & the circumstances in which they were killed (ambushed while protecting evacuees) down thread /20

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More from @andrewflood

May 5
With the trap carefully baited & SF blundering into it here’s the spring being sprung. Farage & Dowson cackling with glee as their weird investment pays off. It’s a trap all the way down of course because … /1
…. The reality is the border as it exists is not policeable. So a token PR effort will be easily evaded but with anti ‘Open borders’ politics accepted you are in a cycle of closing minor roads, checkpoints & fences. Be putting the watchtowers back up in no time /2
It gets dafter - 82% want to go through an expensive deportation process to somewhere we have a common travel area with & where people deported can just walk back across any of the 400+ border crossing points again you can see where accepting this logic rapidly leads /3
Read 5 tweets
Mar 24, 2022
Reluctantly returning to #Covid19Ireland updates until the current crisis passes. Todays 1425 Covid hospital cases is 138% last Thursday but the size of that increase will be partially driven by the bank holiday increasing discharges last week & delaying them this week /1
The running total of new hospital cases in last 7 days is a better guide, the 1240 new hospital cases this week is 112% previous week & well above January 2022 wave. Even allowing for so called 'incidental' increasing from 30% to 50% this is a huge pressure on healthcare /2
Thankfully the proportion of cases going to hospital (1.42%)is not rising to pre-booster levels so vaccines are holding up well in terms of severe outcomes. The small rise is probably just under testing - as before more cases mean more hospitalisations so we need cases to peak/3
Read 9 tweets
Mar 23, 2022
Ireland just had its highest every 24 hour number of New Hospital Cases at 225, the previous high was 209 on 21st January 2022. The government 'head in the sand' approach to the 'exit wave' has now put the health service under threat again & threatens the need for restrictions/1
The 1395 in hospital is 129% last Wednesday with average stay now at 9 days
1194 new hospital case this week is 108% previous
Donnelly has yet to create a new advisory committee & has no access to modelling so we are relying on his guesswork which is not confidence inspiring/2
We are basically praying that we have or are about to hit the infection peak and so in 7-10 days the rate of new hospital cases will start to reduce. Which *might* happen, proportion of cases going to hospital is falling & Denmark has seen a far in cases & hospital numbers/3
Read 11 tweets
Mar 21, 2022
Occasional #Covid19Ireland analysis - that 1308 in hospital today with Covid is 125% last Monday & one of the highest days of the pandemic but is this simply the human cost of the 'exit wave' or indicating something has gone very wrong /1 Image
So far I'd lean towards this being the *expected* cost, the key metric of the proportion of cases that are hospital cases(1.36%) is still far below pre-Booster peak even though we know cases are comparatively undercounted since which would push that proportion up /2 Image
The increase in hospital cases is real enough, 1151 new hospital cases this week is 118% previous. About 1/2 are being described as incidental but that doesn't cancel out the increase in recent weeks as that was also true when it started /3 Image
Read 15 tweets
Mar 7, 2022
Not happy to be doing this but the #Covid19Ireland hospital stats over last few days are not great - the 808 in hospital today are 132% last Monday so the obvious rise in the graph is not just the usual weekend increase /1
The number of new hospital cases each week has also risen almost as rapidly, 749 new hospital cases this week are 124% of the previous week /2
ICU is less definitive but it lags hospital cases by a few days and we *might* be seeing the start of a rise with the 21 new ICU cases this week at 110% previous /3
Read 9 tweets
Jan 22, 2022
#Covid19Ireland ICU admissions are now very clearly post peak with
44 new ICU this week is 79% previous
New ICU is 0.03% cases, 5.15% new hospital cases
78 in ICU this morning is 88% last Saturday
I'm going to be posting less often with a focus on trends 'just in case'
/1
The post peak trend is also clear in hospital figures, everything points to an infection peak in the 1srt week of January
804 new hospital cases this week is 82% previous
New hospital cases are 0.6% cases
836 hospital is 89% last Saturday
/2
As with yesterday my biggest note of caution is the way cases (and deaths) are now rising again in the north of Ireland
3476 cases is 121% last Saturday
25268 cases this week is 118% previous
5 DoH deaths
32 DoH deaths this week is 110% previous
/3
Read 4 tweets

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