Hunger Strike Rally , GPO , Dublin , Saturday May 6th 2006 .Remembering the Hunger-Strikers 25 years on.
A rally to commemorate the heroic struggle of the ten hunger-strikers : Bobby Sands, Francis Hughes, Ray McCreesh, Patsy O'Hara, Joe McDonnell, Martin Hurson, Kevin Lynch, Kieran Doherty, Thomas McElwee, Michael Devine - who gave their lives in 1981- will be held in Dublin on Saturday May 6 2006 . Assemble at the Garden of Remembrance at 2pm for march to GPO on O'Connell Street.
"They will not criminalise us, rob us of our true identity, steal our individualism, depoliticise us, churn us out as systemised, institutionalised, decent law-abiding robots. Never will they label our liberation struggle as criminal."
- Bobby Sands.
Twenty-two Irish political prisoners died on hunger-strike between 1917 and 1981 . The Dublin Rally is being held to commemorate all those Irishmen .
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 Derry Command of the Official IRA were placed under the watchful eye of the Officer Commanding of the OIRA in the North , Malachy McGurrin , for a period ; eventually , in 1974 , when Seamus Costello split with the Officials and started up the Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP) and the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) , most of Derry went with him .
Following that split , three Official IRA assassins took over a house in Rathlin Gardens in Derry , but later aborted their mission to assassinate three Derry INLA men : the three assassins defected shortly afterwards . Before the split with the Official IRA , the Derry Command OIRA had been preparing - they had carried out robberies to fund weaponry , but did not pass the money on to Dublin . If the split had not occured , they would have set up their own private army .
Derry was unique in that it was totally politicised , but not in the way Dublin liked : throughout the early 1970's , Sean Garland was always considered a 'hard man' by those in Derry . Mick Ryan was his 'sidekick' . Cathal Goulding was not taken seriously and Tomas MacGiolla was considered a bit of a 'father figure' . Belfast , meanwhile , was having its own problems , and Dublin's decision to scale down the war was not welcomed .......
(MORE LATER).
EOGHAN HARRIS : OUT OF THE SHADOWS ....... From 'MAGILL' magazine , November 1997 .
By Brenda Power .
In reply to a student's question in Trinity College , Derek Nally accepted Mary McAleese's explanations about the leaked State Department of Foreign Affairs memos and , the following Friday , he claimed on the 'Late Late Show' debate that he had been duped , deceived and manipulated by John Caden and his dark , cloaked , shadowy , sinister puppetmaster Eoghan Harris .
Sounding like a newly de-programmed 'Moonie' , Derek Nally portrayed himself as having been briefly possessed in an almost demonic fashion , forced to speak in a voice that was not his and helplessly spewing imprecations that came from not even God knew where ! The fact that his extraordinary claims elicited not a titter of scepticism in the studio , least of all from his fellow candidates , and the air of almost awestruck admiration at a brave and lucky escape that attended his tale , prompted several callers to RTE to wonder who , exactly , was this Eoghan Harris and why did he have such acknowledged power ?
Eoghan Harris himself is tetchily dismissive of such concerns - " What's all this dark , shadowy crap ? My enemies use these terms like darkness , mental instability , manic depression , to try to harm me and turn me into dark forces . But I'm a narky fucker who'll talk to anybody . I'm completely open about what I do . I always wore my politics on my sleeve and I was totally straightforward about what I was trying to do with Derek Nally , he just did'nt have the intelligence to see it . I am a very strong personality , a person of powerful polemical force , but I have enemies in RTE and they refuse to give myself and John Caden a right to reply to this defamation ......."
(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 partition of this island is all too often thought of as just a single event which took place 62 years ago and has remained a static piece of unfinished business from that period . But that is not so .
The effects of British occupation - social , economic and cultural , as well as military - over several centuries , were part of the evolution of partition . And equally , since 1921 , those same factors have continued to solidfy partition , in an on-going process , on both sides of the artificial border .
The Stormont government was rather obvious in its efforts to buttress the 6-county state : pogroms , special powers , housing and job discrimination , and electoral gerrymandering . The Dublin government's contribution was a combination of a passive role of abandoning any thought of action to end partition - substituting meaningless verbal platitudes - and then the very active role of repressing those in the 26 counties who sought to take practical steps towards achieving the national objective .......
(MORE LATER).
(NOTE : the crew here at '1169...' have not had a break since July 2005 - in order to catch-up with other matters , we will be taking a one-week break from this Friday , May 5th . We will make a 'holding' post during our week off in relation to the up-coming Bodenstown Commemoration . Go raibh maith agat ! John)
