DYING BY THE SWORD .......
By Emer Woodful .
The murder of LVF leader BILLY WRIGHT has ignited the most violent spell in the North's recent history and threatened the peace process . He may well have considered it an appropriate legacy .
First published in 'MAGILL' magazine , February 1998 , pages 30,31,34 and 35 .
Re-published here in 17 parts .
(5 of 17).
In his house in Portadown , in his neat sitting-room , in his fairly large detached house with a manicured garden , rich with flowers , and complete with a basketball hoop , sat Billy Wright . A trim 36-year-old then , who did'nt drink or smoke , who had tattoos , dressed in denim , wore a gold ear-ring , and talked about his little dog , Levi , who'd just had an operation .
All around were the little china religious plaques announcing things like ' Jesus' Name Is Sweet To Every Ear . ' In the Laura Ashley-style room , with bordered wallpaper , his partner serves coffee in pottery mugs . All so normal , except for a feeling of tight control and anger that sometimes seeps through the man who's said to have ordered the random killing of a Catholic man on 7th July , the day before the Drumcree stand-off .
Lurgan taxi driver Eddie McGoldrick had just had a new baby and had also just graduated from Queens University .......
(MORE LATER).
WOMEN IN IRELAND'S FIGHT FOR FREEDOM .......
By the late Cork Republican , Gearoid MacCarthaigh .
" Many women were interned in Kilmainham Jail by the Free Staters during the years 1922-1923 ; the story of their treatment there is told in ' The Jangle of the Keys ' by one of them - the late Mrs Margaret Buckley . Aoife Taffe , who escaped from the jail , hid for several hours in a coal wagon which was parked on the nearby railway line until it moved off to safer places .
At Easter 1936 , Fianna Fail banned the sale of Easter Lilies for the first time - women all over Ireland were in the forefront defying this ban .
In 1936 also , the new City Hall in Cork City , which had been built on the site of the old City Hall and Public Library (which had been burned to the ground by the Black And Tans in 1920 ) was opened . The opening ceremony was to be performed by Eamonn de Valera ; Free State security was to be very tight for this event . Passes for admission were only given to very carefully selected people .
Six of those passes were given to an ex-British Army Officer who lived in Cork at that time ; he gave them to a member of the Brigade Staff of the 1st Cork Brigade , Oglaigh na hEireann ....... "
(MORE LATER).
SURVIVORS , SERVERS , AND SAVIOURS.......
From 'The United Irishman' newspaper , Aibrean [April] 1957 , page 1.
(IML. IX. UIMHIR 4 - price Tri Pingin [Three Pennies].
Thanks to my late friends Christy and Theresa L. for giving me this 48-year-old newspaper ; this thread published in memory of those two old Fenians ! - John.
' In that same eighteenth century Ireland , there were sectarian parties in Ulster - the Protestant 'Peep of Day Boys' and the Catholic 'Defenders' ; religious animosity was more bitter than it is today . Violence was common and , after one bloody affray , the Orange Order was instituted .
Despite this unfavourable background , the Society of United Irishmen was formed in Belfast , mainly by Protestants ; the Catholic element in the Society grew rapidly in numbers and soon the mass of the 'Defender' organisation had been enrolled . This signified that the Catholics had been converted to the idea that their real enemy was not the Orangeman , but England .
The United Irishmen were able to convert some of the Orangemen to the idea that their fear of Catholic numerical superiority was unfounded , and that Ireland was big enough for all her children to achieve prosperity provided that the connection with Britain was broken . Britain saw that this was true , and she decided that a prosperous Ireland would endanger British commerce ; hence the barabarties of 1797 and 1798 ....... '
(MORE LATER).
