Maria Walsh is an Irish, Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the Midlands-North-West. She is a member of Fine Gael, and her European Parliament is the EPP Group. Maria is a member of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs (EMPL), the Committee on Culture and Education (CULT), and the Delegation for Relations with the United States (D-US). She is also a substitute on the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE). Her current work focuses on mental health, women’s and LGBTQ+ rights, equality, protection of journalists, education, employment, and other topics.
Maria was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and the family moved to Shrule County Mayo, calling it home since 1994. She graduated [2009] from Griffith College Dublin with a BA in Journalism and Visual Media. Her career then developed in television production and creative management, working in Dublin, New York and Philadelphia. Maria competed and became the winner of the 2014 Rose of Tralee. Then, in 2019, she ran for the European Parliament. She supports issues that are important to her constituents.
Ciaran was first elected to Dublin City Council in 1991. Back then he campaigned for a light rail system for Dublin, and for greater protection of Dublin’s heritage. Since then, He has served as a TD (Irish MP) for Dún Laoghaire, a Minister of State with responsibility for Climate Action, and a councillor for Dublin’s North Inner City. He sits on the European Parliament’s TRAN (Transport and Tourism) and ITRE (Industry, Research and Energy) committees, and is president of EUFORES (European Forum for Renewable Energy Sources). He trained as an architect and urban planner at UCD and the LSE, and he set up an MSc Programme in Urban Regeneration and Development at the Technical University of Dublin (TU Dublin).
He grew up in Shankill and now lives in Stoneybatter with his family. He is proud to serve as Dublin’s Green MEP (Member of the European Parliament) for the term 2019-2024.
There are a few definitions of slavery, here are some of them, One is taken from Britannica the other from Mirriam-Webster.
“slavery, condition in which one human being was owned by another. A slave was considered by law as property, or chattel, and was deprived of most of the rights ordinarily held by free persons.”
” 1a: the practice of slaveholding b: the state of a person who is held in forced servitude c: a situation or practice in which people are entrapped (as by debt) and exploited. 2: submission to a dominating influence slavery to habit 3:DRUDGERY, TOIL”
In none of the definitions is there a reference of skin color, yet anytime you see a picture about slavery it is always of black slaves.
When people see the picture above and take it out of the context , immediately they will think that the black man is the slave and the white man is his owner. However they would be wrong. The picture was take by Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje, circa 1888 it is a photograph of a Meccan merchant (right) and his Circassian slave. Entitled, “Vornehmer Kaufmann mit seinem cirkassischen Sklaven’ (Distinguished merchant and his circassian slave)”
The Circassians, are a Northwest Caucasian ethnic group and the indigenous people of the North Caucasus. The picture was taken in 1888 or near to that time. Which is 2 decades after the abolishment of slavery in the USA, and most other western countries.
I don’t want this to become a political blog but I just feel compelled to say that it is bizarre, that the BLM movement is looking for compensation for something which happened more then 400 years ago. You can not hold people in 2022 responsible for what happened 400 years ago. Most of all if you set up a political movement you need to have all the facts, and not distort history to further your agenda, because that will not help against racism, it will create racism.
No one in their right mind will deny that the slavery of our black fellow human beings was awful and nothing less than a genocide. However one thing that is always overlooked in the BLM narrative is the fact that the slaves were brought to slaves markets, not by white men but by. fellow Africans
Records from the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, directed by historian David Eltis at Emory University, show that the majority of captives brought to the U.S. came from Senegal, Gambia, Congo and eastern Nigeria. Europeans oversaw this brutal traffic in human cargo, but they had many local collaborators. “The organization of the slave trade was structured to have the Europeans stay along the coast lines, relying on African middlemen and merchants to bring the slaves to them,” said Toyin Falola, a Nigerian professor of African studies at the University of Texas at Austin. “The Europeans couldn’t have gone into the interior to get the slaves themselves.”
A slave trader of Gorée, c. 1797
The anguished debate over slavery in the U.S. is often silent on the role that Africans played. That silence is echoed in many African countries, where there is hardly any national discussion or acknowledgment of the issue. From nursery school through university in Nigeria, I was taught about great African cultures and conquerors of times past but not about African involvement in the slave trade. In an attempt to reclaim some of the dignity that we lost during colonialism, Africans have tended to magnify stories of a glorious past of rich traditions and brave achievement, according to professor Toyin Falola.
How slaves were traded in Africa
European buyers tended to remain on the coast African sellers brought slaves from the interior on foot Journeys could be as long as 485km (300 miles) Two captives were typically chained together at the ankle Columns of captives were tied together by ropes around their necks 10%-15% of captives died on the way
Before African slaves there were Christian slaves and other white slaves, enslaved by the Roman empire. Anyone who has seen the movie “Gladiator” will know the tagline “The general who became a slave. The slave who became a gladiator. The gladiator who defied an empire.” although the main character is fictional, the Gladiators were mostly slaves taken from all over the Roman empire including ‘white’ Europe.
After the Romans the Vikings did their share in white slavery.
The Jews have been enslaved many times before that and after that.
Many in the BLM movement are trying to distort the History, by implying that slaves were only black and slave traders were always white. This is factual not true and will do more harm then good to the movement.
And I know that some will imply that I am a racist, even though I am as far removed from racism as you can be. I totally agree with those who want to highlight that there still is inequality between black and white ,because there is. Every human being regardless what race, colour, creed, religion, sex, sexual orientation, background should have the same rights and opportunities.
But by calling everyone who is white ‘privileged’ you are actually creating racism. Because so many, including me, are not.
I have often wondered If World War I was nothing else then a family feud gone out of control.
If you look at all the royal families in Europe and even outside of Europe, they are mostly all related in one way or another. There is nothing more clearer indicating this then a picture which was taken after the funeral of King Edward VII of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Emperor of India occurred on Friday, 20 May 1910.(picture above)
Standing, from left to right: King Haakon VII of Norway- the late King’s nephew by marriage/son-in-law and fourth cousin (once removed);Tsar Ferdinand of the Bulgarians- the late King’s second cousin; King Manuel II of Portugal and the Algarve,-the late King’s fourth cousin;Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany and Prussia- the late King’s nephew; King George I of the Hellenes(Greece) – the late King’s brother-in-law/fourth cousin and King Albert I of the Belgians- the late King’s second cousin.
Seated, from left to right: King Alfonso XIII of Spain-the late King’s nephew-in-law; King George V of the United Kingdom- the late King’s son; and King Frederick VIII of Denmark-the late King’s brother-in-law/fourth cousin.
These nine Sovereigns all had direct connection but most of the other Royal dignitaries also had direct or indirect ties.
Only 4 years later most of the sovereign states these men. were head of state of would be at war.
Two of the main nations at war German and Great Britain had direct blood ties.As a grandchild of Queen Victoria, Wilhelm II was a first cousin of the future King George V.
(Wilhelm with his father, in Highland dress, in 1862)
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On April 19, 1782, John Adams was received by the States-General and the Dutch Republic as they were the first country, together with Morocco and France, to recognize the United States as an independent government. John Adams then became the first U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands and the house that he had purchased at Fluwelen Burgwal 18 in The Hague, became the first U.S. embassy anywhere in the world.
In July 1780 Adams replaced Laurens as the ambassador to the Dutch Republic, then one of the few other republics in the world, ironically less then 3 decades later it became a monarchy. With the aid of the Dutch Patriot leader Joan van der Capellen tot den Pol, Adams secured the recognition of the United States as an independent government at The Hague on April 19, 1782. In February 1782 the Frisian states was the first Dutch province to recognize the United States, while France had been the first European country to grant diplomatic recognition in 1778. He also negotiated a loan of five million guilders financed by Nicolaas van Staphorst and Wilhelm Willink. By 1794 a total of eleven loans were granted in Amsterdam to the United States with a value of 29 million guilders. In October 1782, he negotiated with the Dutch a treaty of amity and commerce, the first such treaty between the United States and a foreign power following the 1778 treaty with France.The house that Adams bought during this stay in the Netherlands became the first American-owned embassy on foreign soil.(Medallion given to John Adams in 1782 by Johann Georg Holtzhey to mark United States as an independent nation by the Netherlands)
Adams liked the country. At an earlier visit to the Netherlands in 1780, Adams wrote to his wife Abigail:
“The country where I am is the greatest curiosity in the world. This nation is not known anywhere, not even by its neighbours. The Dutch language is spoken by none but themselves. Therefore they converse with nobody and nobody converses with them.
The English are a great nation, and they despise the Dutch because they are smaller. The French are a greater Nation still, and therefore they despise the Dutch because they are still smaller in comparison to them.
But I doubt much whether there is any nation of Europe more estimable than the Dutch, in proportion. Their industry and economy ought to be examples to the world.
They have less ambition, I mean that of conquest and military glory, than their Neighbours, but I don’t perceive that they have more avarice. And they carry learning and arts I think to greater extent. The collections of curiosities public and private are innumerable.”
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Signed on 7 February 1992 the Maastricht Treaty represented a significant step forward not only for Europe in general, but also for cohesion policy in particular. The treaty brought the first reform of cohesion policy, more flexibility being created for national governments. It firmly established economic and social cohesion as one of the core objectives of the European Union, alongside the single market and the Economic and Monetary Union.
Representatives from 12 countries signed the Treaty on 7 February 1992 – Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom.
The parliaments in each country then ratified the Treaty, in some cases holding referendums. The Maastricht Treaty officially came into force on 1 November 1993 and the European Union was officially established.
Since then, a further 16 countries have joined the EU and adopted the rules set out in the Maastricht Treaty or in the treaties that followed later.
So much has happened with the EU ever since that day in 1992 and I really could fill my whole website with only EU stories but I limiting this blog to that one day in Maastricht.
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I am passionate about my site and I know you all like reading my blogs. I have been doing this at no cost and will continue to do so. All I ask is for a voluntary donation of $2, however if you are not in a position to do so I can fully understand, maybe next time then. Thank you.
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I am just being a bit cheeky here but sometimes you see pictures of European leaders and you wonder “How friendly were they really?” Above and below are pictures of Kohl and Mitterand,holding hands in Verdun, 1984
Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev embraces Erich Honecker, hardline communist and general secretary of the Communist Party (SED) as members of SED applaud during the 11th SED party’s congress, on April 17, 1986 in East Berlin. The socialist fraternal kiss or socialist fraternal embrace was a special form of greeting between the statesmen of Communist countries.
That Honecker sure got around Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev and East German leader Erich Honecker change kisses after Brezhnev was honored with the title “Hero of the German Democratic Republic” and the “Karl Marx Medal”.
Europe’s odd couple, often called Merkozy.
French president François Hollande is greeted by President Higgins and Sabina Higgins at Áras an Uachtaráin
Russian President Putin holds hand of German Chancellor Merkel during tour of Hanover Messe in Hanover.
Ending with one more of Honecker and Brehznev.
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I am passionate about my site and I know you all like reading my blogs. I have been doing this at no cost and will continue to do so. All I ask is for a voluntary donation of $2, however if you are not in a position to do so I can fully understand, maybe next time then. Thank you.
To donate click on the credit/debit card icon of the card you will use. If you want to donate more then $2 just add a higher number in the box left from the PayPal link. Many thanks.
So much has happened with the EU ever since that day in 1992 and I really could fill my whole website with only EU stories but I limiting this blog to that one day in Maastricht.
History of Sorts 
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