Whirling into reverse: Irish folk band Dervish 

The folk group Dervish play traditional Irish music all over the world. In mid-April, the cultural terrorism began over their proposed gig in Israel, where they've played for years.

Here are typical early Facebook posts: "Have you forgotten your history, Occupation, persecution, genocide ... Are you really going to shame our Nation and those that died for our freedom by playing in Israel?"; "Make a stand for human rights, please say no to Israel's whitewashing of its brutal abuses." 

On April 27, an open letter from the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC) begged Dervish to cancel their trip and thus inter alia save the members of FullSet, their supporting band, "from the infamy of breaching the Palestinian cultural boycott so early in their career".  

The letter was signed by the indefatigable Raymond Deane, the IPSC's cultural liaison officer, a composer who since 1986 has been a member of Aosdána, a state-subsidised organisation of creative artists under the aegis of the Irish Arts Council, and who receives €17,180 annually. Since mid-2010 he has been persuading Irish artists to sign a pledge "in response to the call from Palestinian civil society for a cultural boycott of Israel".