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 .
In 1977 , there was a major increase in militarisation within the Official IRA in Newry : the Provos called the Officials 'Rustyguns' on account of their ancient weapons . The OIRA got Kalashnikov AK47s in 1977 and had enough weapons to arm all their members and lots to spare . Long-term weapon dumps were established , using large concrete pipes buried deep in the ground : ten , twenty and thirty weapons were buried in grease , ready to be brought out in the event of a doomsday situation developing .
One such doomsday scenario might have involved a shoot-out with either the Provos or the INLA : in 1975 , the Provos had made an all-out attack on dozens of Officials on the same day . The Official IRA and Official Sinn Fein (The Workers Party) always considered itself a cut above the rest - they were 'politically motivated' , as distinct from the Provos who were 'only interested in carrying out military campaigns' . There were many people involved with Official Sinn Fein who had no knowledge of the Official IRA : the organisation as a whole pursued a policy of 'the ballot box in one hand and the gun in the back pocket' : their vote held up across the North right up to the end of the 1970's , because they were still seen as being 'republican' in some sense .
But after the Hunger Strikes (of 1981) , their vote collapsed ; by that time also , the Provos had shown that you could be quite open about the gun and still hold support . If you were keeping the gun 'hidden' it showed that you thought that there was something wrong with having it in the first place .......
(MORE LATER).
EOGHAN HARRIS : OUT OF THE SHADOWS ....... From 'MAGILL' magazine , November 1997 .
By Brenda Power .
Fergus Finlay questions Eoghan Harris' involvement in the 1990 election of Mary Robinson - " He (Harris) wrote a very intelligent and rational letter to Mary Robinson outlining strategy , but I'm not convinced that he was the first person to suggest those points . " Speaking about Mary Robinson , Eoghan Harris stated - " She did not do the decent thing by me - I said I wanted credit rather than cash for advising her , writing her speeches : I never get paid for that work , by the way , I do it just to keep track on how good a spin doctor I am *. But she never gave me the credit . " ( * '1169....' Comment : the Harris-inspired Fine Gael 'Twink' sketch comes to mind ... !)
Eoghan Harris' next target was John Bruton and Fine Gael - a former RTE producer stated : " When I saw him move in on Fine Gael , I wondered if it was because he reckoned the party would be as easy to take over as the old WUI . " Though Phil Hogan claimed that Bruton and Harris were "...old college friends.. " , this seems unlikely since they were'nt educated in the same college , or even the same city ! Harris went to UCC and Bruton went to UCD . Eoghan Harris ceased to be 'flavour of the month' in Fine Gael around April 1991 when he devised the tasteless 'Twink Sketch' for Fine Gael's Ard Fheis , in which the 'comedienne' camped-up the toilet roll 'Ad Lady' and lampooned , amongst others , Una Claffey .
Harris is truly profligate with unsolicited advice to candidates he admires - regardless of which party they belong to .......
(MORE LATER).
" WE ARE ALL PART OF THE SAME STRUGGLE . " MARGARET WARD , author of a recent book 'UNMANAGEABLE REVOLUTIONARIES' , on the role of women in the national struggle , argues critically that republicans need to develop a non-elitist attitude of support for the feminist movement as an integral part of the liberation struggle .
From 'IRIS' magazine , November 1983 .
No By-Line.
The struggle for a new society takes many forms : the struggle against British rule in Ireland , campaigns on behalf of prisoners , workers' struggles in factories , community struggles around issues such as housing and tenant rights , the campaign for nuclear disarmament , for the right of women to have freely available abortion * . The list is endless . But , for feminists especially , our personal relationships with family and friends , and the fight against women's subordination within the family , at work , in political groups , is an integral part of this struggle . (* '1169...' Comment : "freely available abortion... " ? As in as a method of birth control , perhaps ? That particular sentiment would need to be defined in detail before it could be agreed with.)
In a most fundamental sense , 'the personal is political' , and a political movement that fails to recognise the importance of developing non-hierarchical , mutually supportive relationships , both within the movement itself and in the wider society , will find itself perpetuating the same injustices and oppression ; and this stark fact cannot be dismissed as some 'middle-class luxury' , to be enjoyed solely by the privileged while the masses struggle to combat the ravages of British harassment , poverty and despair .
There is violence in the home as well as on the streets , and violence in the streets comes not only from the British Army and RUC: men rape women and that ever-present threat diminishes the freedom of all women.......
(MORE LATER).
