Dublin-based Irish solidarity campaigner Dr Declan Hayes led a solidarity delegation of 25 people from a variety of countries including Ireland, Australia, Lebanon, Greece and Britain to Syria for  St Patrick’s Day. He gave the Red Hispanosphere the following first-hand account by phone from Damascus on Friday: We went up to Aleppo and passed through Homs. Homs is like a bad area of Berlin in 1945. In Aleppo they’ve started rebuilding. We stayed beside the hotel Baron, where Agatha Christie and Charles de Gaulle stayed, and its only inhabitant was a cat. Aleppo is quiet. We could hear shelling in the distance. The NATO powers have not given one sausage to Aleppo now that the rebels have gone. There are Russian anti-mine units combing the place still. Little stalls are set up beside the Citadel [the site of years of fighting as it was surrounded on three sides by the terrorists] selling snacks. People are going up there for walks. Little children, no more than six or seve