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 .
During the Hunger-Strikes of 1980 and 1981 , the Workers' Party came out against the strikers - in the late 1970's , Tomas MacGiolla had stated that his organisation had 'no prisoners' : the political change in the Officials had seen less people serving time , but when political status was first abandoned in 1976 , 'The Plough' newspaper in Newry stated - ' Merlyn Rees wants to have political trials but no political prisoners and with all the grace and arrogance of a seasoned dictator , that is what he has decreed . The ending of political prisoner status is another pillar of the repressive state which has been built up against the working class people of the Six Counties during the past five (sic) years . It is not until these basic , democratic demands are conceded by the British that we can talk about the ending of political prisoner status . '
The Official IRA carried out numerous robberies throughout the late 1970's and early 1980's :
April 1977 - £229,997 taken in a robbery from a Securicor van in the Glens of Antrim .
November 1978 - £150,000 taken from the CIE Office at Inchicore in Dublin .
May 1980 - £60,000 taken in jewellery robbery from Dundalk jewellers .
November 1983 - £250,000 in cash and cheques taken from a Securicor van in Newry .
Dublin Official IRA Commander Jim Flynn was shot dead by the INLA who said that it was he who killed Seamus Costello in 1977 : following the death of Flynn , the Official IRA in Dublin drifted apart - they are still active in Dublin , but not to the same extent .......
(MORE LATER).
EOGHAN HARRIS : OUT OF THE SHADOWS ....... From 'MAGILL' magazine , November 1997 .
By Brenda Power .
Eoghan Harris is convinced that "...maybe 50 per cent of the people in the Republic (sic) are unhappy with the Hume-Adams agenda that Mary McAleese represents , the blurring of moral boundaries between Constitutionalism and the physical force tradition ... " , and goes on to say that those people will despatch her and her 'Bad Politics Supporters' on polling day .
Eamonn McCann says - " Harris cannot accept that you might disagree with him other than in bad faith . He does'nt believe that you could calmly consider his theories and find them a heap of shite . He genuinely believes he is the most fascinating person you have ever met , and that just gets boring . "
Harris himself states - " If I am wrong , if I am just some eccentric , why am I being denounced ? I know why I don't get a right of reply in RTE - I could name 22 Provos in the radio centre - but could it be they suspect that what I'm saying makes sense ? If McAleese wins she'll be a lame duck President , and I don't believe she'll get more than 40 per cent first preference votes . I believe in the people's 'Secret Fatwa' on Sinn Fein supporters , and if I'm wrng I'll retire . I really fucking will . "
[END of 'EOGHAN HARRIS : OUT OF THE SHADOWS']
(Tomorrow - 'SHANE ROSS : PLAYING THE ORANGE CARD' ; from 1984)
" 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.
Can there be socialism without the liberation of women , can national liberation be more than an abstract phrase , if women remain oppressed within the new nation state ? There are many instances , Iran being the most recent , where a national revolution was accompanied by the increased enslavement of women . If we are to have a fully human society , it cannot contain within it the restricting , deformed remnants of old ideologies . We must have the courage to break free , to develop now - in however limited a manner - our new vision of the future .
This will entail encouraging people to fight for their own interests within their communities , not to take them over , to impose a leadership , but to provide comradely support . It will involve recognising the legitimacy of other organisations - women's groups , claimants' unions , tenants' organisations , prisoners' action groups - and working with them .
It will involve a principled commitment to human liberation that challenges the power of church and state . It should have involved active participation by Sinn Fein in the anti-amendment campaign , which was one of the most important challenges to the ruling class and church power to have emerged in Ireland . The defeat of the anti-amendment campaign is a terrible defeat for Irish women and for all who have fought for a more just society - one based on compassion , not dogma , on freedom , not fear . The demoralisation that has resulted from this defeat will have serious repercussions unless a mass movement can be re-grouped , particularly if the victorious Right now decide to campaign against the limited freedoms that do exist in the 26 Counties , such as the contraceptive law .......
(MORE LATER).
