THE BOUNDARY COMMISSION , 1921-1925 .......
A British 'sleight-of-hand' which caused a mutiny within British forces in Ireland.......
....... on 3rd December 1925 at a meeting in Downing Street in London , Free State President William Cosgrave and his 'Minister for Home Affairs' , Kevin O'Higgins , agreed that there should be no change to Britains imposed 'border' in Ireland , that the 'Council of Ireland' be scraped and that monies received from the Brits by way of financial compensation for the damage that Westminster's Black and Tans caused in Ireland would be re-paid ! Those Free State gombeens also agreed to continue paying land annuities to the British Exchequer ....... !
On their return to Dublin a few days later , Cosgrave and O'Higgins , after selling-out to the Brits once more , stuck their chests out and declared - " Today we have sown the seeds of peace ... " ! Bullshit 'spin-doctors' .
And to ensure that nobody could find out just how those " seeds of peace " had been 'won' , it was not only agreed that the Boundary Commission be revoked , but also that its 'findings' be kept hidden ; it was only published 44 years later , in 1969 !
Another episode relating to the Boundary Commission centres around the speech which the Stormont 'Prime Minister' , 'Sir' James Craig , delivered in said institution on 7th October 1924 , in which he 'reminded' the Westminster Government that he had 40,000 armed men who , like him , were not prepared to accept an " unfavourable " decision by the Boundary Commission and would take any steps necessary " to defend their territory ... " (ie - the Six County 'State') .
'Sir' Craig was referring to the 'Ulster (sic) Special Constabulary Association ' .......
(MORE LATER).
PASSIONATE FRIEND .......
For the past thirteen years , British solicitor ALISTAIR LOGAN has pursued with dogged determination an almost single-handed campaign to prove the innocence of a number of Irish people convicted of bombings in Britain in the seventies .
DEREK DUNNE talks to him about his motivation and his experiences .
First published in ' IN DUBLIN ' magazine , No. 274 , 19th March 1987 , pages 8 and 9 .
Re-published here in 5 parts .
( 2 of 5).
Alistair Logan was practicing in Guildford about three years at that time and was slightly afraid of taking the case ; firstly because it was so big , secondly because of the " attitude of the community ... " and thirdly because , unless he was prepared to go around saying that it was a " terrible job to have to act on behalf of these bastards .. " - under sufference - he was in trouble .
" If one was going to say that one had serious doubts about whether or not these people were guilty of the offences , it was going to cause a lot of trouble ... " At that time , as now , there was considerable anti-Irish hysteria in Britain due partly to the bombing campaign that was being carried out by the people later captured at Balcombe Street ; Alistair Logan was threatened by the National Front because of his involvement in defending his clients -
- " I was ostracised . I was sentenced to death by the National Front . I got hate mail . My car was done over . I published a letter in 'The Times' in which I asserted the innocence of the people involved and I got formal notification of sentence of death by the National Front . There was very great detail as to how they were going to carry it out - I would be taken out to one of the army ranges and dismembered whilst I was alive , and a variety of other things would be done to me . "
That letter from the National Front was " the straw that broke the camel's back ... " and his marriage broke up .......
(MORE LATER).
NORAID'S UNTOLD MILLIONS .......
Irish-Americans have long had complex and contradictory relations with Ireland and the 'Irish Question' . On Saint Patrick's Day , all the ambiguities are apparent .
This year (ie 1987) , on Saint Patrick's Day , the latest book by Irish writer , Jack Holland was published in New York , exploring the tangled web of links between Irish-Americans and the Irish in Ireland , the IRA and the Irish government .
' The American Connection ' describes the activities of leading Irish-American politicians , of romanticising writers and of gun-runners .
In this edited extract , the author tells how Noraid was set up and how it has resisted pressures to disclose all the sources and uses of its funds .
First published in 'MAGILL' magazine , April 1987 .
Re-published here in 31 parts .
(20 of 31).
The U.S. Justice Department was not allowing this decline in INAC support to prevent it from pressing forward with its aim of proving NORAID in violation of FARA statues and of reducing its fund-raising efforts even more . Early in 1976 , it was decided that there was now enough evidence to file suit against the INAC to demand that it declare as its 'foreign principal' not the Belfast Northern Aid Committee or the Green Cross , but the Irish Republican Army .
An attack on NORAID was also launched from a different quarter - the year 1977 witnessed the first St. Patrick's Day appeal from the most powerful Irish-American politicians ; Senators Edward Kennedy and Daniel Moynihan , New York State Governor Hugh Carey , and House Speaker Tip O'Neill , directed at Irish Americans , asking them to stop supporting organisations connected to violence .
Though NORAID was not actually named in their statement , it was obviously the target . NORAID's lawyers fought back , accusing the U.S. Government of using FARA as an excuse to interfere with their fund-raising .......
(MORE LATER).
