Lá Fhéile Pádraig Sona Daoibh! ('Happy St. Patricks Day!') 
FIANNA FAIL - THE MASK OF DE VALERA ....... From 'AP/RN' , August 10th , 1989 .
(No 'By-Line')
In 1932 , the IRA called for Irish Republicans to support Fianna Fail to " Put Cosgrave Out " and took an active part in the election campaign .
With its promise to dismantle the Treaty , abolish the Oath and the position of 'British Governor-General' , repeal repressive laws and release the Republican prisoners , retain the land annuities and develop native industry and agriculture to provide employment , Fianna Fail reflected the radicalism of the Republican masses who brought it to power .
But its programme was still limited by the conservatism of de Valera and his 'Document Number Two' concept of the national question . Fianna Fail had won the leadership of the anti-imperialist struggle but it stopped that struggle far short of its objectives . The IRA attempted throughout the 1930's to find a political and military direction for itself and to win back the initiative from de Valera but it found neither while Fianna Fail consolidated its position and the Republican Movement went into decline . Having got what it wanted from its 'colleagues' in the IRA , Fianna Fail began to turn into that which it once opposed ....... ('1169...' Comment : a lesson here for others.)
(MORE LATER).
BILLY WRIGHT , LOYALIST VOLUNTEER FORCE . " I have been prepared to die for long many a year . I don't wish to die , but at the end of the day no one will force their opinion down my throat . No one . "
On August 29 , 1996 , shortly before the 'Combined Loyalist Military Command's' death threat against him expired , EMER WOODFUL interviewed LVF leader BILLY WRIGHT in his Portadown home .
From 'MAGILL' magazine , February 1998 .
Emer Woodful : " How did you hear about the death threat ? "
Billy Wright : " Well , I was aware of a conspiracy after Drumcree . I had been informed from Belfast that my name was to be blackened , and an excuse sought to execute me . So this has been an ongoing process since I took my stand with the Orange Institution at Drumcree . "
Emer Woodful : " And who tipped you off ? "
Billy Wright : " Well , I'm not going to say that . But what I can say is that I have a lot of fine friends in Belfast , and further afield , and there are a lot of fine loyalists in Belfast . "
Emer Woodful : " Why do you think this death threat was issued against you ? "
Billy Wright : " I have been very vocal in my opposition to the form of politics that the PUP has espoused . Now , I respect their right to hold their point of view , but if they claim to monopolise the opinion of loyalists and claim to be speaking on behalf of people that vehemently disagree with them , and then try to impose a silence , well I think that's morally wrong , and I will not allow people to impose their form of politics on me . And I most certainly would'nt try to impose my politics on them . "
(MORE LATER).
LIAM MELLOWS AND THE IRISH CIVIL WAR .......This is the bulk of a public lecture given at University College , Galway , by Sinn Fein Ard Comhairle member and Deputy General Secretary of the 'Local Government and Public Services Union' , Phil Flynn , on December 8th 1982 , the 60th Anniversary of the Free State's execution of Liam Mellows .
First published in 'IRIS' magazine , March 1983 .
The political party which James Connolly had formed to be the political arm of the working class - the Labour Party - stood aloof * from the national struggle and thereby condemned itself to a barren existence . (* '1169....' Comment : .....and the Labour Party , today , having fallen off the fence , can be found firmly on the anti-Republican side of the equation . They are nothing short of a disgrace in respect of their 'republicanism' .)
In the second rank of Sinn Fein leadership there were many whose republican idealism made them genuinely thoughtless of class questions , and who , when the crisis came in 1922 , would have gone with any class which stood clearly for the Republic . But the Sinn Fein leaders , the men who held the power , were bourgeois . Arthur Griffith had never concealed the fact that he represented the interest of the large Irish bourgeoisie ; he had sided with the Dublin employers against the Dublin workers in 1913 when almost every other nationalist had criticised the employers . De Valera had in 1918 coined the famous phrase , " Labour must wait " .
It is often denied that Michael Collins represented the capitalist interest , but it is clear from his book 'The Path to Freedom' , that he never envisaged an Ireland which was not capitalist ; writing of the land struggles of 1880 he said that " ... the killing of landlords would have been murder .. " if it had not furthered the national Cause . And writing about his 'New Ireland' he said that Labour would be an "...element in the life of the nation .. " and would be free to "...play the part that belongs to it .. "
(MORE LATER).
