.....Tom Barry realised the need for proper training and saw the advantages of a highly-trained Flying Column to fight the British : the column was to comprise special fighters , trained in the art of ' hit and run' warfare . To this end , Barry held a series of training camps , at short intervals where , over a period, about 150 officers and men would be trained ~ it was from that group that the Flying Column would come from , while those not picked would receive more training and would be put into a reserve to replace casualties .
From early October 1920 , with strict security precautions being observed , and protected day and night by sentries , training camps were to be held at Clonbuig , near Kilbrittain and Ballymurphy , near Bandon , Schull and near Dunmanway in West Cork . All the camps were located in isolated farmhouses with outbuildings which housed the Volunteers . After one week at the camp , officers and Volunteers were expected to put their training to use by seeking an engagement with the crown forces . The first lecture at the camp , which took ten hours a day , was usually for officers only and dealt with the security of the camp itself ; on arrival , Volunteers were allocated posts which were expected to be manned within three minutes in the event of an alert at night .
The ten-hour lectures dealt with instructions in drill , gun lessons and elementary tactics . The evenings were devoted to lectures and written exercises , including instruction in map reading , signalling , street fighting , ambushes and personal security . ( MORE LATER) >>

.............the Indians met violence with violence and , by the end of the Sioux War of 1876 , the victory was with the U S Army . The completion of the railroad in 1869 ( built by the Irish and the Chinese) facilitated the arrival of settlers , and the various tribes were gradually pushed back into barren , hostile territories , while settlers arrived in their thousands across the plains , invading the Blackfoots sacred Black Hills in search of gold and building an oil field on Seminole land in Oklahoma itself . By the 1930's , the settlers had so abused and over-extended the land that it turned dry , into a dustbowl .
No need for you to go to Iraq to sort out an injustice , Mr Bush .......

.....attacks on RUC barracks continued throughout 1957 and during the early months of 1958 but , by the summer of that year, oppression on both sides of Britains border was having its effect and IRA attacks slowed down and had all but ended by the end of that year . Three years later , the campaign was officially ended with an order to all Volunteers to dump arms - eleven IRA Volunteers were killed in action during the campaign . It should be noted that no orders were issued to decommission arms or, indeed, disband the organisation ; had either order been issued , the leadership would, at the very least, have been changed .....
The IRA's Cork Number 3 Brigade , the ' Flying Column' , was formed from the Volunteers attending training camps in 1920 , when the ' Tan War ' (1919-'21) was well underway . The position of O/C of the then Cork No.3 Brigade changed hands in July 1920 , when Charley Hurley took over from Tom Hales . Tom Barry was then appointed as the Brigade's Training Officer : as a former British soldier , Barry realised the need for proper training and saw the advantages of a highly-disciplined Flying Column to fight the British ..... (MORE LATER)>>

Oklahoma , located on the southern edge of the Great Plains , was the last strong-hold of many tribes of American Indians - at the end of the American Civil War there were as many as 275,000 Indians west of the Mississippi river . During the cattle boom of the 1860's , when the big cattle trails crossed Indian lands from Texas to Missouri , Indians first collected grazing taxes from the herd drivers , but later their designated lands were simply taken over . The American Government signed and violated treaties time and time again , and then used force to try to subjugate the tribes . The Indians met violence with violence ...... (MORE LATER)>> .....

....in the Westminster election of May 1955 Sinn Fein , with an abstentionist policy , won two of the twelve seats in the Six Counties ~ Tom Mitchell and Philip Clarke, both imprisoned for the Omagh raid, were elected for Mid-Ulster and Fermanagh/South Tyrone , but were later disqualified and their seats awarded to the defeated unionist candidates ! In November 1955 , a group left the IRA and formed Saor Uladh and began attacking customs posts along the border . In January 1956 , IRA Volunteer Sean Cronin presented the leadership of the IRA with a plan codenamed ' Operation Harvest ' , with the intention of driving the British forces out of entire areas in the Six Counties and creating liberated zones .
It was originally intended that the plan would be put into effect that winter , but the action of Saor Uladh meant that ' Operation Harvest ' was to be put into gear sooner than planned .
On the night of December 11th , 1956 , one-hundred and fifty IRA Volunteers attacked targets in all Six Counties - the long-awaited border campaign had begun . The Stormont regime responded by introducing internment without trial , on December 21st. In July 1957 , following the return to power of Fianna Fail in the Free State, internment was introduced and a large number of republicans were arrested and interned in the Curragh Camp .
Attacks on RUC barracks continued ....... (MORE LATER)>>

" Even a dolt understands the principle . We need the oil . It's nice to talk about standing up for freedom but Kuwait and Saudi Arabia are not exactly democracies " ~ Then American President George Bush , as quoted in ' TIME' magazine , August 20th , 1990 .
We're all waiting , George Junior - come on , now - ' fess up .........

" You cannot stifle or suppress a people's desire for liberty " ~ Margaret Thatcher , during an interview she gave to BBC Radio Four's ' World At One ' programme , November 1989.
However , if you do "stifle or suppress a people's desire for liberty" , make sure you first label the people as ' terrorists' ......

Republican policy changed radically in the in the early 1950's - the IRA leadership issued an order prohibiting military action against the forces of the Free State ; attacks were now to be directed against the British forces of occupation in the Six Counties .
By 1952 , IRA recruitment was being carried out openly in the Free State and the organisation was being reformed in the Six Counties . In strong republican areas , training was carried out in preparation for an attack on the North . In June 1954 , in an operation to procure arms , an IRA raiding party captured Gough Barracks in Armagh and escaped with a massive haul of 250 rifles , 37 sten guns and nine Bren guns . New members flocked to the organisation as a result of the raid . An attempted repeat of the Gough raid backfired at Omagh in County Tyrone in October 1954 , and eight IRA Volunteers were caught and sentenced to long terms of imprisonment for "treason felony" . Meanwhile , Sinn Fein was gaining wide support ~ in the Westminster election of May 1955 ...... (MORE LATER)>>>>

In September 1998 , Free State President Mary McAleese was in Australia on a visit and , as part of the itinerary, called in to the Sisters of Mercy at Brisbanes Mater Hospital for a speaking engagement on the plight of the travellers in Ireland and that of the Australian aborigines . However , like all politicians, Mary went off on a verbal tangent and it's still not clear where she ended up ~ " When you start to unpack the solutions , you begin to see, while they are'nt exactly on all fours with each other , they are always the same shape and there is a core which is very transferable " . It is believed that our own Ronan Keating ripped -off and 'sang' a song about the above incident - " you say it best ......." !
In a column he wrote for the ' Ireland On Sunday' newspaper on October 4th , 1998 (page 17) , the UDA-linked Gary McMichael described the Six Counties as " my lovely , picturesque little country set on the North-East corner of the island " ....So there ya have it ~ the loyalists in the Six Counties live in a country which is itself "set" in the corner of another country ...or~something. The sooner the better you learn 'Mary-speak' , Gary ......

....on April 16th , 1940 , Tony D'Arcy , a native of Headford , County Galway , died after 52 days on hunger strike ; Jack McNeela , a native of Ballycroy, Westport, County Mayo , died three days later , after 55 days on hunger strike . The fast ended that night when the prisoners were informed that their demands had been met . The hunger strike began on February 25th , 1940 , in Mountjoy Jail , Dublin , and resulted in the deaths of two IRA Volunteers ~ their deaths were to mark the beginning of lean years for the Republican Movement : years of internment and oppression followed , which left Sinn Fein non-existent and the IRA threatened with extinction .
In 1948 , the republican leadership of Michael Traynor , Paddy MacLogan , Tony Magan and Tomas MacCurtain set about rebuilding the Movement .
Tony Magan , as Chief of Staff , reorganised the IRA while Michael Traynor was busy setting up Sinn Fein cumainn throughout the island . Republican policy in the early 1950's underwent a radical change .
(MORE LATER)>>

....and talking about Pakistan ....
One of the ' Tomahawk ' cruise missiles fired at Osima bin Laden in August 1998 missed it's target by 400 miles and landed in Pakistan , near the Baluchistan desert , where it was found by a shepherd !
The shepherd reported his find to the local authorities , who moved in to examine the guidance system on the weapon ~ they refused to allow the Americans near the crash site , and called in Pakistan former military intelligence Chief General Hamid Gul , who declared - " It has descended from the heavens and we'll use it " !
Watch yourself , Hamid ~ could get pretty scary soon in the desert ......

.....on March 1st , 1940 , Jack McNeela and Jack Plunkett , who were both arrested during the swoops which followed the raid by the IRA on the Magazine Fort in Dublin's Phoenix Park on 23rd December 1939 , were sentenced to two years and eighteen months respectively on a charge of "conspiring to usurp the function of government " by , of all things , operating a 'pirate' radio transmitter ! On March 5th , 1940 , Tony D'Arcy and Michael Traynor , both arrested during a raid on the Meath Hotel, Parnell Square , Dublin , the previous month , where an IRA meeting was being held to plan an attack in the Six Counties , were sentenced to three months imprisonment for refusing to answer questions .
After being sentenced , the four prisoners were transferred to Arbour Hill Prison , Dublin , and , on March 27th , were moved to St Brican's Military Hospital next to the prison . On April 1st , they were joined there by Tomas MacCurtain and Thomas Grogan , both of whom were still awaiting trial ~ MacCurtain was charged with shooting dead a Special Branch detective in Cork and Grogan with taking part in the Magazine Fort raid .
Fifty-two days after he began his hunger strike , that is , on April 16th , 1940 , Tony D'Arcy died ...
(MORE LATER)>>

On May 26th , 1998 , Pakistan 'flexed it's muscles' and tested its nuclear capability ; the the Prime Minister of that country , Nawaz Sharif , stated on Saturday , July 11th , 1998 , that Pakistan would have to pay a price for becoming a nuclear power and that the country's then 130 million people would have to tighten their belts and " pay some price " .
Did anyone question the morality of telling people , most of whom were already on the bread-line , that there was worse to come ?
Is it only a well-paid , professional career politician that could see nothing wrong in warning , for instance, parents , that the trouble they're having now in feeding their family and paying the bills etc is about to get worse ?
Was it being insinuated that those parents should take comfort in the knowledge that they now live in a country with nuclear capability ?
If you and yours are living hand-to-mouth , day in , day out , do you face each day in a more optimistic way because you live in a country with nuclear capability ?
I was in Dublin city centre last night and witnessed , not for the first time , a couple of homeless men trying to make a bed for themselves in the vicinity of the new Dublin ' monument' , which is a large , shiny 'needle'-type structure which cost just shy of four and a half million euros ; the two men were moved on by the Guards but were no doubt allowed sleep in the gutter up some side street .
The politicians are living beyond our means .....

Those of us that were politically active in the 1980's will always remember the hunger strike of 1981 ; in one way or another , it touched everyone on this island and , indeed, it's no exaggeration to state that it exposed the British " Irish gangsters/criminals " propaganda on a world-wide scale .
Since James Connolly , the executed 1916 leader, embarked on a hunger strike in September 1913 , a number of fasts took place in both Irish and English prisons for various demands . Towards the end of the Irish Civil War , three young Volunteers died on hunger strike ~
Andy Sullivan , from Mallow, in County Cork, died in Mountjoy Jail in Dublin on November 22nd , 1923 , and is buried in Mallow : Joseph Whitty, from William Street in Wexford , died at the Curragh Camp on September 2nd, 1923 , and is buried in Ballymore Cemetery in Killinick , County Wexford : and Denis Barry , from Blackrock , in Cork , died at Newbridge Camp , County Kildare , on November 20th , 1923 and , on November 28th his remains were reinterred and buried in St Finbarr's , in Cork , in the Republican Plot .
Mindful of the dire consequences of the act , the Volunteers in Mountjoy Jail in the spring of 1940 , who were being denied political status, embarked on a hunger strike in support of the demands to be treated as political prisoners , free association for all prisoners and to have two prisoners transferred to military custody . In late February 1940 , in an attempt to bring about a change, the six-prisoner command of 'D' wing in Mountjoy Jail ~ Jack McNeela , Tony D'Arcy , Michael Traynor , Jack Plunkett , Tomas MacCurtain and Thomas Grogan ~ embarked on a hunger strike with the understanding that they would continue to the end and then be replaced by six more Volunteers .
On March 1st, 1940 , McNeela and Plunkett , both arrested during the swoops ....(MORE LATER)>>

When the 'Stormont Treaty' (' GFA' ) was voted on here in May 1998 , one of it's main "selling-points" , according to the Establishment that were promoting it ( ie Fianna Fail , Fine Gael, Labour , Provisional Sinn Fein , the Church's , media etc) was that the British Government would legislate for the creation of a united Ireland if a majority within the Six Counties desired same ~ this was said to be a major development and , on it's own , worth voting 'YES' for :
however , that commitment from the Brits was contained in the ' Ireland Act' of 1949 , the ' Northern Ireland(sic)Act' of 1973 , and Section Five of the 'Sunningdale Agreement' and the opening section of the 1985 Hillsborough Treaty ! It was a deliberate mis-representation of the facts by the pro-treaty side , which repeatedly claimed that a peaceful end to the North-Eastern conflict depended on a majority "YES" vote in the referendum , thereby insinuating that those who voted "NO" were pro-war ...
as Liam Mellows said of the Treaty of Surrender in 1922 ~ " This is not the will of the people ; it is the fear of the people " . The conflict continued after the 1922 Treaty , and continues today ......