'IN CURRAGH CONCENTRATION CAMP'....... From 'The United Irishman' newspaper, January 1958 .
CORK :
Tomás Mac Curtáin, Rosebank , Douglas Road .
Liam Early , Martinville , Commons Road .
David O' Connell , 26 Lough Road , The Lough .
Pádraig Ó Cuanacháin , 7 Bóthar na mBráthar Uacht , Crosaire Tuirnéire .
Seán Kenny , Cork City .
CLARE :
Martin White , Lisdoonvarna .
Francis Lyons , Erna , Fountain , Ennis .
Lot O' Halloran , Ballygriffey , Ennis .
Michael O' Keefe , Churchill House , Ennistymon .
Martin McCormack.
DERRY :
Laurence Bateson , Ballyroan Road , Magherafelt.
DONEGAL :
Patrick Dawson , 33 Lower Main Street , Letterkenny .
Tommy Breslin , Lifford .
Norman Daly , Lifford .
(MORE LATER).
THE PRISONS OF THE PAST.......
In a jail outside Belfast , republican prisoners have begun smearing their cells with excrement . They are demanding the right to political status . We have been here before.....
From 'MAGILL' magazine August 2003 .
By Niall Stanage.
The fear lurks in many minds - not all of them republican - that a prison struggle , with all its inherent evocativeness , could be just the thing to breath life into the cause of the 'dissidents' . Unyielding action from the prison authorities , if resisted with enough fervour inside the jails , could invest them with a credibility they have signally lacked so far .
The authorities have shown no signs of conceding the point on segregation ; they are wrong , just as those who were in the same position at the tail-end of the 1970's were wrong . There are good reasons , both principled and pragmatic , for separating prisoners of contrasting allegiances in northern jails .
The original H-Block hunger strikes were the ultimate response to the British policy of criminalisation , an initiative intended to disguise the political nature of the northern conflict and instead present paramilitaries as 'common criminals' . One among the many problems with this move was that it was , simply , wrong - irrespective of whether one supported , sympathised with , or was disgusted by , the actions of paramilitaries - they were different from other prisoners and were , therefore , always likely to resist efforts to conceal that difference . They were in jail , after all , for acting on political beliefs and - however ignoble some of their actions were - their mindset was demonstrably different from that of 'ordinary criminals'.......
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TAKING IT HANDY.......
Provisional Sinn Fein are fighting this election as a party which has just emerged from seventy years of abstentionism. The party is banned from the airwaves and there is a strong apparent bias against the party in the press.
From 'In Dublin' magazine Election Special, 1987.
By Derek Dunne.
People want to know about the state of the roads , about water rates , about jobs . One couple say that they are sick and tired of all the electioneering and that they are not going to vote for anybody - " If you don't vote for us , you're better off not voting for anybody " , says Gerry Adams .
His style on the doorstep is easygoing . Because his voice is not that well known , as a result of censorship , people are slightly taken aback that it does not fit in with the generally portrayed austere image of the man . He is uneasy about stopping people and asking them to vote for his party , because there is an invasion of privacy there .
Throughout Tallaght , many of the houses display Provisional Sinn Fein posters, and as many display Workers' Party posters. Some voters say they will either vote for the Provos or for the Workers' Party : here , at least , the distinctions between the two organisations have become blurred * to the point where people would vote First and Second preference , for each/either group . ('1169...' Comment - those 'distinctions' have , if anything , become harder to distinguish over the years as the Provos are now handling the mantle of 'New Stickies' with ease!) In one instance , a man on his doorstep says that he is quite definite that he will not vote 'Sinn Fein' , at which point Gerry Adams notices that he is involved in sport . The fact that there is no vote in it doesn't matter , as Adams spends at least five minutes talking to him about who won what and when . As he leaves , he is wished the best of luck.......
(MORE LATER).
