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 1984 , Newry businessman Brendan McNamee loaned £6,000 to the Workers' Party in Newry , through an intermediary : he said that he believed it was a loan to the Party in Dublin . A named intermediary cashed two cheques - however , no money was ever received on foot of the cheques .
On 3 May 1984 , three men robbed Mr. McNamee's office of £5,000 : McNamee met with the intermediary and another man in Newry - McNamee had been warned that he was to be robbed . According to Brendan McNamee the two men suggested to him that if he named the person who warned him about the robbery , they would repay the money . In December 1985 , an employee of Mr. McNamee's was approached by a person purporting to act on behalf of the Workers' Party and gave him a few days to pay over £10,000 . The employee was told that the two men purporting to represent the Workers' Party had been sent from Dublin and that if he did not come across with the money he would be shot in the head .
McNamee in his letter threatened that if the money was not repaid within seven days he would call a news conference to publicise the entire affair : he also informed Proinsias De Rossa and Tomas MacGiolla that he had sworn affidavits stating the facts , and if anything 'untoward' happened to anybody in the business , arrangements had been made to forward those affidavits to the law and the media .......
(MORE LATER).
SHANE ROSS : PLAYING THE ORANGE CARD .......From 'The Phoenix' magazine , February 1984 .
No By-Line.
The resolution of a mid-1970's row with his old man cleared the way for a drive on those particular sections of the Trinity electorate which enjoy hearing , if only for old time's sake , the ritualistic Southern Unionist line being drummed out .
Shane Ross made his first bid at political office in 1977 , tried again at the by-election when the Cruiser resigned in 1979 and made it at last in May 1981 : on this third outing he swept home , outgunning his nearest rival on first preferences by early 300 votes (a 3 per cent margin ) , being elected first on the fourth count . His support held remarkably constant in February 1982 and he increased his share by 150 the following November .
The most impressive feature of his performance is that he has eased out one very firmly entrenched , long-established (State) Senator , Trevor West , and has certainly put the skids under two others - Mary Robinson and Catherine McGuinness : Shane Ross has pushed these two out on a limb to fight against one another for the women's labour/liberal votes , while he mops up on other areas such as the North - some ten per cent of Trinity voters are in the North .......
(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.
There is no doubt that male socialists and republicans find it difficult to accept women as political equals : but power is never relinquished without a struggle and that struggle will take place wherever men and women are gathered together .
The final battle , however , will never be won until women discover their own identity and devise a programme that incorporates the reality of women's lives . That is the task facing all Irish feminists today - instead of continually debating what it is that divides us , is it utopian to hope that we can begin to discover how much we have in common ?
[END of 'WE ARE ALL PART OF THE SAME STRUGGLE'].
(Tomorrow - 'REPUBLICANS AND YOUTH' : from 1983.)
