In November 1881 , a group was formed in Dublin with the objective of "removing all the principal tyrants from the country" ; they called themselves 'The Irish National Invincibles' and, within a few months, they were to make world headlines.....

'The Invincibles' consisted mainly of former Fenians and decided to announce their presence in a dramatic fashion - on May 6th, 1882, they assassinated two of Britains top officials in Ireland : Chief Secretary Lord Frederick Cavendish and Under Secretary Thomas F. Burke in the Phoenix Park in Dublin, just yards from the Viceroy Lodge.

The British offered a reward of £1000 for information leading to the arrest of those responsible and put their top man in Dublin, Superintendent John Mallon of the 'G Division' of the Dublin Metropolitan Police, on the case. He arrested dozens of 'suspects' and repeatedly questioned those who were known to be in the Phoenix Park that night , but to no avail. (MORE LATER)>>


"Two hours. Time waits for no man.I'm exhausted. God,I'm tired. I wish I could lie down and go to sleep, and wake up out of this nightmare. They're watching me again.Keep walking. I'm sure they don't even feel guilty. Money consoles their conscience. That is their purpose in life, to gain as much of it as possible . They're mindless, merciless parasites .
Torture mongers. Yes, that's what they are . Some day their turn will come . They'll have to answer for everything !" .

----- from 'The Writings of Bobby Sands' , April 1981 , page 25. (First published in the old 'Republican News' on January 13th, 1979).
"Money consoles their conscience......" ~ enough to buy a holiday home in Donegal, perhaps......


In September 1989, speaking about his memoirs,John Stalker stated that he felt "a strongly hostile feeling at middle and senior levels of the (RUC) Special Branch....downright obstructiveness was unfortunately not rare... a kind of war had obviously been declared between the Branch and my team ". He spoke of "resentful RUC officers who were particularly skilled at promising much but actually delivering very little " .
Re the fact that his inquiry terms of reference were controlled by the then RUC Chief Constable, John Hermon , Stalker said- "What I objected to was having the man, whose force I was investigating, drawing up the parameters of those inquiries" .

-----Full marks, John ; but what did you expect ?

...the killing by Robert Emmet's men of the British Lord Chief Justice in Ireland, Lord kilwarden, and Kilwardens nephew, in Thomas Street in Dublin in 1803 ,put paid to the proposed rising ,and it was abandoned......

Robert Emmet ordered his followers to disband, and he went into hiding but was captured in August 1803 ; on September 19th , he was brought to 'trial' in Dublin's Green Street Courthouse and found guilty of treason - he was sentenced to be hanged. He delivered his famous 'Speech from the Dock' which has inspired generations of Irish rebels. The next day, September 20th 1803, Robert Emmet was hanged in Thomas Street in Dublin ; within weeks, twenty-one of his comrades were executed for their part in the Rising (including Thomas Russell, who was hanged outside Downpatrick Jail on October 21st, 1803).
The events outlined above took place two-hundred years ago,and form only a small, but not insignificant,part, in the history of Irish Risings against British rule in Ireland ; the final chapter has yet to be written, but will not be drafted in Stormont.....

" I fought a monster today and once more I defeated the monster's army. Although I did not escape,I survived to fight another day. It was hard:harder today than ever before, and it gets worse every day. You see I am trapped and all I can do is resist. I know some day I will defeat this monster, but I weary at times. I think and feel that it may kill me first " .
------ from 'The Writings of Bobby Sands' (page 31) : first published in the old 'Republican News' , October 7th, 1978.


'Magill' magazine, December 1997, page 28 -
Fra Browne , former Provo Councillor in County Louth, stated that Provisional Sinn Fein was teeming with "spin doctors" :
"These people kept telling me that the Movement had changed and that I needed to change.But I said that I had'nt changed and the Movement had'nt changed. It was only the people at the top who had changed" .
....that's what happens when you 'change your structures' .......

....after returning to Dublin in October 1802 , Robert Emmet made contact with , amongst others, Myles Byrne, Michael Dwyer, Jemmy Hope and Thomas Russell and , with their help, set up several arms depots in Dublin city ; Emmet then toured Ireland , seeking support for a rising .....

In May 1803 , Robert Emmet sensed an opportunity for a push against the British when war broke out between England and France ; it looked likely that the French would be in a position to invade England within a couple of months, and Emmet worked with an August 1803 uprising against the British in mind .
However , his hand was forced when one of his Dublin city arms-dumps exploded on July 16th, 1803, and badly injured one of his men, who was captured by the British; within days, Emmet's Rising had begun, but it was short-lived.

The killing by Emmet's men of the British Lord Chief Justice in Ireland, Lord Kilwarden, and Kilwardens nephew,in Thomas Street in Dublin, threw Robert Emmet's plans into confusion - his plan, which was well thought out and put together, was to place Dublin Castle under siege, take over the Pigeon House British fort and Islanbridge Barracks ; in doing so, the rebels in the rest of the country would rise up . Kilwardens death, and the British re-action to it, put paid to the proposed rising and it was abandoned ..... (MORE LATER)>>


'Fortnight' magazine, September 1991 , page 14 -
--- Archbishop Robin Eames said: " Here (in the Six Counties) we cannot allow it to go by default to say that it's a religious war, which blatantly it's not; it is a crisis situation in which the religious element coincides so much with these other issues as to make violence almost inevitable.There is a very definite religious element- there is a religious identity to this, but it is no more (than that).It is sociological, cultural, political, economic-it is a much wider question than that " .
....so the British are not the self-proclaimed 'peace-keepers' between the 'warring Irish' , as they like to portray themselves internationally .
- which is what Republicans have being saying all along...

.... in 1802, Robert Emmet met Napoleon to seek assistance for a Rising in Ireland ....

Emmet quickly became frustrated at what appeared to be Napoleon Bonaparte's posturing on the issue of an armed insurrection against the British in Ireland , and was left with the opinion that the French were more interested in making the British believe in the possibility of a French-organised armed campaign than an actual campaign itself . Robert Emmet then began to study military text books and experimented with rockets and explosives in an attempt to leave himself less dependant on the French.
He grew more disillusioned with the French in March 1802 , after they concluded the 'Peace of Amiens' with England in that month, and he returned to Dublin in October 1802. He made contact with, amongst others, Myles Byrne , Michael Dwyer , Jemmy Hope and Thomas Russell and , with their help, set up several arms depots in Dublin city, before touring the country to organise support for a rising. (MORE LATER)>>


In an article entitled 'Appeal to young people' ( AP/RN ,September 12th, 1991, page 14) ,one of the Provos' lesser-known suits, Larry O'Toole (Dublin North) declared - " If our structures (in Provisional Sinn Fein) do not suit their(young people) needs, we must change them accordingly " .

----- Right, so : you accept new members who don't like, say , 'policy x' - so you change it. Then , next month, you take in more new members who don't like the new version of 'policy x' , so you change it again . But that might upset the first batch of new members, so.....
....but what if a third batch of new members join, and their view of 'policy x' is different again ?
Rather than be just another 'catch-all' Leinster House party, Larry, would it not be better to stand by your principles ? To say to possible new members- ' This is what we stand for; take it or leave it' ?
Or has your party no principles? No bottom line? Don't stand for anything in particular ?
That would explain your comments .....

In the summer of 1798 , the 'United Irish Rising' collapsed ; one of its best known leaders, Thomas Addis Emmet, had a younger brother who was determined to follow through the push for Irish freedom - Robert Emmet .....

Within weeks of the 1798 Rising being crushed, Robert Emmet began preparations for another armed insurrection in Ireland , and made contact with the French Government to seek assistance ; the British were aware that Robert Emmet had made this move , and ordered his arrest . However, Emmet knew that the British Government were looking for him , and left Ireland for France, in 1801.

The exiled 'United Irishmen' in Paris took Emmet in, and the group were joined, in 1802, by Thomas Addis Emmet.An appointment was made for Robert Emmet to meet Napoleon , and arrangements were put in place wherby Napoleon's Ministers would assist Emmet in his endeavours . (MORE LATER)>>


....Pope John Paul stated , in November 1980, re the 'Third Secret of Fatima' , that it's contents will not be made public and that it - "should be sufficient for all Christians to know this much- if there is a message in which it is said that the oceans will flood entire sections of the earth , that from one moment to the other , millions of people will perish, there is no longer any point in really wanting to publish this secret message " .
A somewhat obfuscating reply, but the fact that the question was'nt dismissed out of hand must make you think twice .....

....Matt Fitzpatrick, an IRA prisoner in Monaghan County Hospital , was to be rescued from his hospital bed by the IRA .....

All arrangements were made by Dan Hogan , O/C of the Monaghan Brigade, and his staff, who also arranged for IRA units to block the roads used by the escape party after they had passed through.
Not long after 2am on March 30th, 1921, Dan Hogan and his team entered the hospital by a side-door which an employee had left open - telephone lines were cut by some of the IRA men and others overpowered a drowsy sentry in the corridor. The six British Army soldiers in the ground-floor room were disarmed and tied up but only after shots were exchanged ; this alerted the sentry in the ward with Fitzpatrick who opened fire through the door and only surrendered when the RIC 'patient' in the same room threw his revolver away.
Matt Fitzpatrick was lifted on to a stretcher and carried out to one of the waiting cars; other Volunteers gathered up the weapons and ammunition from the British Army and RIC guards . The rescue party then escaped along the pre-arranged route (towards Threemilehouse) while other Volunteers blocked the road behind them .
The whole operation, from entering the hospital to leaving it, took less than fifteen minutes, but it took the 'authorities' a lot longer to live it down.....


From 'An Phoblacht/Republican News' , June 6th, 1991, page 2 -
In the 'Opinion' column of above, the SDLP were lashed for being prepared "to sit down...at a negotiating table with representatives of the government which sanctioned the Coagh killings and Unionist politicians who gloated over them " .
The worm turns in the spinning grave ....the 'Adams Family' now shout "foul" because the Brits won't let them sit in a British parliament !

When on a visit to Fulda in Germany in November 1980 (as reported in the German magazine 'Stimme Des Glaubens') , Pope John Paul was asked why it was that the Third Secret of Fatima still remained unpublished ; he replied - " Because of the seriousness of its contents, in order not to encourage the worldwide power of communism to carry out certain coups, my predecessors in the Chair of Peter have diplomatically preferred to withhold its publication.On the other hand, it should be sufficient for all Christians to know this much - ...." (MORE LATER)>>

....the IRA O/C of the Wattlebridge Company, Matt Fitzpatrick, was badly injured in an IRA raid for arms and had been captured by the British ; he was under heavy guard in Monaghan County Hospital - the IRA decided to rescue him ....

IRA sympathisers in the hospital were asked to observe and monitor the level of security on Fitzpatrick , and it was quickly established that there was one British soldier in his ward and another on guard in the corridor . An armed RIC sergeant was placed as a 'patient' in the bed next to the prisoner, and six more British soldiers were housed in a ground-floor room.
The IRA were told that the guard was changed every 48 hours- it was decided to begin the rescue operation at 2am on the second morning of their shift, when they would be tired and slower to react. Also, transport was required; not only for the necessary escape, but also to carry Matt Fitzpatrick away on a stretcher, as he could not move under his own strength . (MORE LATER)>>


In reviewing Bernard Ingham's book 'Kill The Messenger' , in 'The Sunday Tribune' magazine , June 9th, 1991 (page 2) , Peter Prendergast (former press officer for a Fine Gael administration) stated - " In my experience, no more than about twenty per-cent of what a government is discussing at any time is known to the media. Over time, that might have grown to fifty per-cent. This means that fifty per-cent of what they do is never discovered at all " .
Until , perhaps , the thirty-year disclosure period comes around but , by then , the crooked politician is either dead or has been disgraced already in some other fashion (ie Charlie Haughey , Ray Burke,Michael Lowry etc). And still they continue to draw down their pensions and can make a comfortable living on the 'rubber chicken' circuit...
Meanwhile , we wait for the next batch to be named and 'shamed' .....