ANNUAL WOLFE TONE COMMEMORATION : Sunday , June 11 , 2006 , Sallins , Co. Kildare .
A bus for this Commemoration , which is organised each year by the Republican Movement , will leave from outside the old McBirneys/Virgin Megastore site on Dublin's Aston Quay at 12.45PM on the day : the Commemoration itself starts at 2.30PM .
The same bus will leave Bodenstown at 5.30PM that afternoon on its return to Dublin city centre . The fare is ten Euro per person .
For information on the death of Wolfe Tone , scroll through this piece (article starts on March 9 on that page) which was published on this blog last year .
"To subvert the tyranny of our execrable government, to break the connection with England, the never-failing source of all our political evils and to assert the independence of my country- these were my objectives. To unite the whole people of Ireland, to abolish the memory of all past dissensions, and to substitute the common name of Irishman in place of the denominations of Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter - these were my means." -Theobald Wolfe Tone .
MacGIOLLA's GUERRILLAS .......Fifteen years ago , the leadership of the 'Official Republican Movement' (now 'The Workers' Party') stated that their armed wing , the 'Official IRA' , went out of existence .
Today , the 'Official IRA' is alive and well and living mainly in Belfast and Newry . In the days when both organisations were operating in an overt way , the leadership of 'The Workers' Party' and the 'Official IRA' overlapped to a certain degree .
Tomas MacGiolla , the man who led the 'Official IRA' for the last twenty-five years has always maintained the position that the 'Official IRA' went out of existence in 1972 . But the 'Official IRA' still march on , not an army fighting the British , but as a fund-collecting agency .
DEREK DUNNE traces the roots of the 'Official IRA' and 'The Workers' Party' .
From 'IN DUBLIN' magazine , October 1987 .
The new addition to the 'Stages Theory' , as proposed by Sinn Fein The Workers Party , read that the Catholic and Protestant working class would have to be united before anything else could happen : what key personnel within Official Sinn Fein and the Official IRA said around this time about armed resistance is worthy of note .
For example , in 1970 , Cathal Goulding , then acknowledged Chief of Staff of the Official IRA , said : " I believe the job of pushing the British troops out of Ireland will eventually have to be done by ourselves ...... we do advocate physical force against the establishment ..... the people are only safe when they have an armed force to resist a dictatorship by the right .. " . A private statement by the Officials , issued in one of its internal documents in the mid-1970's , and entitled 'Differences' , makes interesting reading -
' It is said that we (Official Sinn Fein) have 'gone political' and that we have rejected or begun to reject any form of military action . Whenever necessary , and in keeping with our policy , units have engaged in military action . Our main force consists of a few small units , underarmed , ill equipped , and with God knows what degree of training and organisation . ' The above is typical of the approach of the Officials to politics : while seeking to promote the party as one which has renounced violence and the gun ( at this stage the Official IRA was supposed to be three years gone!) , in private , there was in existance a clandestine Army .......
(MORE LATER).
EOGHAN HARRIS : OUT OF THE SHADOWS ....... From 'MAGILL' magazine , November 1997 .
By Brenda Power .
Eoghan Harris stated - " But I had contempt for the Derry IRA and after they shot John Taylor and Ranger Best I resigned and I did'nt return until they called a truce . And , if I was involved back then , why not admit it now ? It would give me a whiff of sulphur and might even help me pull birds . "
Eoghan Harris concedes to a limited degree that he slanted programme content to reflect the Workers' Party agenda at times - " There was a very heated atmosphere in RTE at that time and , to us , the work we were doing was important and principled political work . There was a lot of debate going on , but basically it broke down into supporters of the Provos and supporters of the Conor Cruise O' Brien line . There is a retrospective air of manipulation because I was a Workers' Party supporter , but I only pulled strings as far as I could pull them verbally , and each case had to be won by debate .
And we were better and brighter than the rest , so we got the best jobs . And , if there was a last seat to be filled on a panel debate I'd put on John A. Murphy rather than Tim Pat Coogan , and if it was for a news insert and I wanted someone to interpret a baton charge for me then I would'nt pick someone who would sound a tribal tone ....... "
(MORE LATER).
THE 26 COUNTIES : A STATE BUT NOT A NATION .......The history of the Free State has been one of progressively solidifying partition : cross-border collaboration is only one aspect of this .
From 'IRIS' magazine , November 1983.
No By-Line.
The ripples that British 'involvement' in six of our counties has caused is a sign that there is still a national spirit of some kind alive in the 26 counties ; yet the illogicality of overlooking Free State Army collaboration on the border with the British Army , whilst condemning it in remembrance ceremonies , emphasises that opportunities continue to exist for republicans in the 26 counties to raise that national spirit higher .
In the same way , the attempt to introduce extradition , whilst expressing reservations about the use of paid perjurers in the courts to where those extradited are being sent , is yet another contradiction which presents itself for action . The repressive effects of partition , in their brutal reality for the nationalist people of the North , remain , in spite of all efforts , a strong call to the people of the 26 counties - the popular concern felt by people in the Free State during the hunger-strikes was an expression of this .
But the effects of decades of solidifying partition in the South have also been strong on those same people . There may be no nation in the Free State , which can foster real patriotism , but the vast majority of the 26-county people have come to accept the mechanisms of that State - or economic unit - which does exist . They have come to see Sinn Fein only as an isolated group relevant in the 'external' context of the North : for the vast majority of people , politics is primarily concerned with elections and in the Free State those elections are to institutions which have come to be accepted and , however criticised , there is no mood for gambling on a revolutionary alternative .......
(MORE LATER).
