Wednesday, April 19, 2006

EASTER RISING 1916-2006 : 90th Anniversary Events organised by the Republican Movement -

Easter Sunday , 16 April 2006 : Deansgrange Cemetery , Dublin , 1 pm . Assemble at Cemetery gates and march to Republican Plot .
Easter Monday , 17 April 2006 : Assemble Garden of Remembrance , Parnell Square , Dublin , 2 pm . March to GPO .
National 90th Anniversary Rally , Saturday , 22nd April 2006 : Assemble Garden of Remembrance , 2pm .
Musical Night , Saturday 22nd April 2006 : 'Saints and Sinners' pub , North King Street , Dublin . Doors open 8.30pm . Admission EURO 10 .
"Damn your concessions , England . We want our country!"


MacGIOLLA's GUERRILLAS .......
Fifteen years ago , the leadership of the 'Official Republican Movement' (now 'The Workers' Party') stated that their armed wing , the 'Official IRA' , went out of existence .
Today , the 'Official IRA' is alive and well and living mainly in Belfast and Newry . In the days when both organisations were operating in an overt way , the leadership of 'The Workers' Party' and the 'Official IRA' overlapped to a certain degree .
Tomas MacGiolla , the man who led the 'Official IRA' for the last twenty-five years has always maintained the position that the 'Official IRA' went out of existence in 1972 . But the 'Official IRA' still march on , not an army fighting the British , but as a fund-collecting agency .
DEREK DUNNE traces the roots of the 'Official IRA' and 'The Workers' Party' .
From 'IN DUBLIN' magazine , October 1987 .

Sean Garland went on to say that "...the enemy today is Anglo-American imperialism . We must all the time be conscious of this fact . " He makes no mention of the fact that the Workers' Party support what could be termed the bastion of ' Anglo-American imperialism' - multinational investment .

Neither did he mention that the Workers' Party are now effectively pro-EEC . Sean Garland is indicative of the Workers' Party today - he epitomises the contradictions and the changes that have manifested themselves . It could be considered a source of wonderment how a party that has changed so much could still be led by the same people . ('1169....' Comment : we could supply a link here to another Leinster House-registered political party which "has changed so much [despite being] led by the same people... " [since 1986 , that is - when they registered themselves as a political party] , but we believe you know to whom we refer!)

What is now the Workers' Party has gone from a position of traditional militant republicanism to espousing an ideology which is ostensibly hard left . They also claim to have severed all links with their military tendency . However , the Official IRA is still active , mainly in Belfast .......
(MORE LATER).


GARDA GUN FIRE : WHO TO BELIEVE?
Close analysis of television news film of incidents last month at Emyvale suggests a garda's gun went off accidentally . But that is not what the Minister of Justice told the Dail .
GENE KERRIGAN looks at the evidence.
From 'MAGILL' magazine , June 1987 .

Gardai very rarely fire their guns . When they do , their actions become the subject of public scrutiny ; the facts are required to be explained to Leinster House by the State Minister for Justice .

On Wednesday , May 11 1987 , Gerry Collins gave an account of incidents of two days previously , in Emyvale , County Monaghan , when a garda detective fired both from a submachine gun and a revolver . Collins' account denied the truth of what was evident from the TV news reports seen by hundreds of thousands of people . The garda's revolver was seen to have been discharged accidentally . As a result of what happened , two garda representative organisations have been drawn into conflict with one another over the facts and the interpretation of the facts .

The Garda Representative Association and the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors have tangled with each other publicly as to whether the gun was fired accidentally or not . The incidents happened on the evening of Monday , May 11 , 1987 , at Emyvale , County Monaghan , when the body of James Lynagh , one of the eight IRA members killed in the ambush at Loughgall , was being carried through the town on its route from the North of Ireland to Monaghan . There was a confrontation between gardai and the Provisionals when the latter fired shots over Jim Lynagh's coffin .......
(MORE LATER).



LIAM MELLOWS AND THE IRISH CIVIL WAR .......
This is the bulk of a public lecture given at University College , Galway , by Sinn Fein Ard Comhairle member and Deputy General Secretary of the 'Local Government and Public Services Union' , Phil Flynn , on December 8th 1982 , the 60th Anniversary of the Free State's execution of Liam Mellows .
First published in 'IRIS' magazine , March 1983 .

On 11th September , 1922 , Liam Mellows wrote to Austin Stack : -
" The unemployed question is acute . Starvation is facing thousands of people ; the official Labour Movement has deserted the people for the flesh-pots of Empire . The Free State government's attitude towards striking postal workers makes clear what its attitude towards workers generally will be . The situation created by all these must be utilised for the Republic . The position must be defined : FREE STATE - Capitalism and industrialism - Empire . REPUBLIC - Workers - Labour . "

There is strong evidence that Liam Mellows was very influenced by James Connolly and certainly they had a lot in common politically as is clear from these documents . For example , the connection between the national and social struggles and the sense of internationalism . As Desmond Greaves points out in his book - " In his analysis of the character of the proposed Free State he must surely have been one of the first to discuss the new methods of imperial domination ... " (subsequently christened 'neo-colonialism') .

His insistence on politics , his demand for a return to the masses as the basis of the revolution , for the political education of republican soldiers , and for the establishment of a new revolutionary government , show him to have been as Peadar O' Donnell justly remarked - " ...the richest mind our race has achieved for many a long day .. "
(MORE LATER).