WHERE SINN FEIN STANDS.......
The following statement was issued subsequent to a meeting of the Caretaker Executive of Sinn Fein on January 17th 1970 .
We have already dealt with the Sligo case and that of Cumann na mBan , but Northern Republicans were not to be exempt - Jimmy Steele of Belfast , who has suffered almost 20 years of imprisonment in Crumlin Road Jail for the Republican Cause , was expelled last July because he dared to criticise ultra-left policies in his oration at the re-internment of Peter Barnes and James McCormack in Mullingar .
Sean Keenan of Derry City , another veteran Republican who was Chairman of the Derry Defence Association last August and has been very active on behalf of Civil Rights in the North , was expelled in December last while on a tour of America . His first notification of this action came when a friend showed him a four days' old copy of the 'Irish Times' newspaper which contained a news report of his expulsion from the Republican Movement . These are but the most notable cases .
There is no doubt that all this formed part of a plan to push out certain members who opposed the 'master-minds' - in other words , those who showed they had minds of their own - and replace them with others . Around the country some people of mature years who had displayed no interest whatever in the Republican Movement heretofore , now joined its ranks and were quickly promoted to positions of influence . Such individuals had invariably had previous connections with the 'radical groups' already mentioned .
The basic method of procedure was stated to be that the ultimate objective was the only principle - everything else was merely a tactic ; truth and justice and many other things were to go 'by the board' , apparently . At the Ard Fheis itself elaborate precautions were taken regarding the admission of delegates known to be opposed to 'recognition' . Where a Sinn Fein Organiser would report a Cumann to be in favour or indecisive , receipts for affiliation fees and delegates cards were forwarded , even up to the eve of the Ard Fheis but the affiliation fees of long-standing Cumainn , well-known to be 'against' , were returned with the excuse that they were too late .
In Belfast , three Republican Clubs were denied representation on the 'grounds' that they had been "...inactive.." since August last . We leave it to the public to assess the validity of this last subterfuge , bearing in mind the circumstances of Belfast for the past six months . It seems hardly likely that any Republican would be 'inactive' . In all this harassment of the delegates opposed to 'recognition' , many of the full-time paid officials of the organisation were unduly active .......
(MORE LATER).
FR. DENIS FAUL : A CONNIVING AND TREACHEROUS MAN .......
First published in 'IRIS' magazine , Volume 1 , Number 2 , November 1981 .
The irreversible trend of family interventions which Fr. Denis Faul had nursed , cajoled and nourished with emotional and moral exploitation , distortion of truth , vilification and downright political hostility to the hunger-strike and the achievements of the prisoners' demands , was in the ascendency .
The coup de grace to the hunger-strike was achieved at a meeting in the Lake Glen Hotel in Belfast where all but one of the families attending a meeting there with Faul indicated that they , too , would seek medical intervention . Challenges from the O'Hara and Fox families about the implied slurs and the baseless moral pressures which utterances of Faul's had subjected the mothers of those families to were waved aside with the same arrogance as when on previous occasions Faul had been exposed as untruthful .
Once again Fr. Denis Faul trotted out the rubbish of external authorship of prisoners' statements , and perhaps sensing 'victory' , embellishing his point by referring to members of Sinn Fein as "...thugs.. " and to the National H-Block/Armagh Committee as "...cowboys.." .
All that was left after that was the formal announcement by the Republican prisoners of the ending of the hunger-strike at 3.00PM on Saturday October 3rd , 1981 .
[END of 'FR. DENIS FAUL : A CONNIVING AND TREACHEROUS MAN' .]
(Tomorrow - ' BLOODY SUNDAY : 30 JANUARY 1972 - 14 CIVILIANS SHOT DEAD' . )
ENTERING LEINSTER HOUSE - A VETERAN SPEAKS .
By Comdt. General Tomas Maguidhir (Thomas Maguire) , October 1986.
" There is no difference between entering the partition parliament of Leinster House and entering a partition parliament of Stormont . I speak as the sole surviving Teachta Dala of the Second Dail Eireann and as the sole surviving member of the Executive of the Second Dail Eireann .
In December 1969 , as the sole surviving member of the Executive of the Second Dail Eireann , I recognised the Provisional Army Council , which remained true to the Irish Republic, as the lawful Army of the Thirty-Two County Irish Republic . I do not recognise the legitimacy of any Army Council styling itself the Council of the Irish Republican Army which lends support to any person or organisation styling itself as Sinn Fein and prepared to enter the partition parliament of Leinster House .
The majority of delegates to a recent IRA Convention purported to accept the Leinster House partition parliament and , in so doing , broke faith and betrayed the trust placed in their predecessors in 1969 . The Irish Republic , proclaimed in arms in Easter Week 1916 and established by the democratic majority vote of the people in the General Election of 1918 , has been defended by Irish Republicans for several generations . Many have laid down their lives in that defence . Many others have suffered imprisonment and torture . I am confident that the Cause so nobly served will yet triumph " .
' If but a few are faithful found , they must be all the more steadfast for being but a few' - Terence MacSwiney in 'Principles of Freedom' .
Dated the 22nd day of October , 1986 .
Signed - Thomas Maguire.
Tomas Maguidhir
Comdt.General.
(MORE LATER).
