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 .
One of the names on one of the 'McNamee cheques' was that of a John Hobden : the same name as that of a member of the Workers' Party in Newry . The other name , on the second cheque , 'John Gartland' , is an alias .
The Newry bank account became very important to The Workers Party in recent times : it was used to take the monies owed from their American enterprises , which are based in California : The Workers Party own several pubs - 'The Starry Plough' in Berkeley , 'The Plough and the Stars' bar in San Francisco , and 'The Poet and The Patriot' bar in Los Angeles . These investments are a good source of income for The Workers Party and a good bet against inflation .
However - Brendan McNamee never called his news conference : two weeks ago (ie September 1987) members of The Workers Party video-taped workers arriving on a building site in the Short Strand area : the workers asked what was happening and they were told that the building of the social club was an historic occasion in the locality and that the tape was being made for the archives of the Short Strand area . Some of the men who were videoed were afterwards approached by different people and asked to hand over some money , and they were led to believe that if they refused , the tape would be forwarded to the social security people (the 'dole' office) - some of the workers were apparently drawing social security money at the same time as they were working .
The Workers' Party have extensive 'interests' in the North , including 'drinking clubs' and bars .......
(MORE LATER).
SHANE ROSS : PLAYING THE ORANGE CARD .......From 'The Phoenix' magazine , February 1984 .
No By-Line.
Even Shane Ross's opponents have been impressed by his 'election machine' : he is as well organised as any party politician in Leinster House , as professional in his preparation and as meticulous in his image-building . The small team he has gathered around him don't just 'turn on the heat' at election time as was customary in this constituency - they have isolated and identified every interest group on the Trinity College register (electorate 11,000) and will circulate these with 'Ross-bumpf' literature long before an election is due .
No-one knows the electorate's intentions as well as Shane Ross does and he is an extremely hard campaigner - he has altered the whole nature of Trinity Seanad contests . While a lot still rests on the 'old boy network of contacts' , which he has cornered , Ross has also given a high-profile emphasis to his campaign and , with the exception of flamboyant gay rights man David Norris , none of the other candidates has the nerve or inclination to follow him onto this tricky terrain . All in all , his position in the (Free State) Seanad is seen as secure for a few years at least , "...unless he seriously blots his copybook.." , as one associate puts it , darkly .
Paul Tansey has played a big part in this electoral success - he has been directing Shane Ross's campaigns since he first ran for the Seanad and has also been his best friend when it coes to media exposure . Ross , not yet a member of the NUJ , began writing his unremarkable few lines on the Stock Exchange for 'The Irish Times' newspaper when Tansey was business editor in that newspaper . Ross now also has his 'Opinion Piece' on the leader page of 'The Sunday Tribune' newspaper where Paul Tansey is also involved . Ross is also a great pal of Vincent 'Mad Dog' Browne and they are regularly seen together in Doheny's and Nesbitts pub .......
(MORE LATER).
REPUBLICANS AND YOUTH . From 'IRIS' magazine , November 1983.
By Jack Madden.
Establishment political parties in the 26 Counties have in recent years been re-acting to what they view as an increasingly worrying phenomenon - the alienation of growing numbers of youth from the political system . The sudden realisation by political parties that they can no longer rely on 'traditional hereditary' political affiliations , with children voting as their parents before them , has led to a flurry of activity and the emergence of youth sections such as Young Fine Gael , Ogra Fianna Fail and Labour Youth .
Yet few have been fooled by this apparent new 'concern' for youth welfare , and the youth sections have tended to recruit among the families of people already involved in establishment politics : there they are generally used by aspiring party hacks as an easy way to climb the ladder and catch the eye of the party leaderships . But for the majority of youth , their alienation is so complete that they view these aspiring power-mongers with the same healthy contempt they display to their political leaders .
For more than sixty years the political system of the Free State has ignored its young people ; patronage has been , and is , the means of winning power , with real or imaginary 'favours' to people being traded in return for votes . With the possible exception of queue-jumping into jobs in the civil and public services , young people were irrelevant to this system of patronage.......
(MORE LATER).
