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 .
" From my earliest youth I have regarded the connection between Great Britain and Ireland as the curse of the Irish nation , and felt convinced that , while it lasted , this country could never be free nor happy . My mind has been confirmed in this opinion by the experience of every succeeding year , and the conclusions which I have drawn from every fact before my eyes . In consequence , I was determined to employ all the powers which my individual efforts could move , in order to separate the two countries .
That Ireland was not able of herself to throw off the yoke , I knew ; I therefore sought for aid wherever it was to be found . In honourable poverty I rejected offers which , to a man in my circumstances , might be considered highly advantageous . I remained faithful to what I thought the cause of my country , and sought in the French Republic an ally to rescue three millions of my countrymen " . -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 .
Many members of The Workers' Party in the North of Ireland have 'legally' held handguns : some have .38 Smith and Wesson Specials . The Official IRA have structured meetings with loyalist organisations , and co-operated and continue to co-operate in operating the building site racket whereby watchmen are loyal to them .
During the general election this year , a youth in West Belfast moved posters down a lampost in order to put up the tricolour : he was accused by Workers' Party people of tearing down their posters - two weeks ago (ie September 1987) he was outside an off-licence with friends when three men who represented themselves as members of the Official IRA broke a cider bottle and pushed it into his head .
Up to two years ago , two members of the Workers' Party in Belfast ran all the building-site rackets : they were taking up to £30 per week off each worker , but somebody did their sums and discovered that there was £50,000 short and the two were elbowed aside . There are also regular meetings between the RUC and the Official IRA , or what remains of it - they would have no more than thirty or forty members who go back a long way and can be trusted politically and militarily , and there is also an extraordinary degree of co-operation with the UDA/UVF : the Josie McKee case is as good an example as any .......
(MORE LATER).
SHANE ROSS : PLAYING THE ORANGE CARD .......From 'The Phoenix' magazine , February 1984 .
No By-Line.
Shane Ross has called for the abolition of the (Free State) Constitution ("...a reactionary instrument..") , the (State) Presidency (".. a humdrum bore..") , Irish neutrality ("...only a doctrinaire commitment..") , proportional representation ("...another sacred cow..") and the "...fairyland (Constitutional) Forum.." .
Ross has not yet told us what he would put in their place , and confines himself to constant belly-aching about our "...sabre rattling.." to the Northern Unionists ; our "...ambiguous fellow-travelling attitude to the terrorists.." ; the "...dictation by celibates.." on public morality and the like .
Gestures of friendship and good neighbourliness are required , says Mr. Ross , because really you know , the majority up North is'nt all that intransigent.......
(MORE LATER).
REPUBLICANS AND YOUTH . From 'IRIS' magazine , November 1983.
By Jack Madden.
A survey conducted in Dublin last year by Na Fianna Eireann revealed the result of failure to the youth on this isle : conducted among the young unemployed , the survey confirmed the degree of youth alienation from establishment parties but also showed that a large majority considered Sinn Fein to be only 'fair' or even 'poor' in terms of its relevance to young people's interests .
Platitudes about the tragedy of youth unemployment are not enough and the Republican Movement - besides developing radical policies on issues such as child-care and education - needs to evaluate its attitudes to schemes such as the State Youth Employment Agency and towards the voluntary organisations working with young people , such as unemployment groups . It is high time such work was begun .
[END of 'REPUBLICANS AND YOUTH'.]
(Tomorrow : ' THE RIGHT TO SILENCE' - from 1987.)
