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 .
With the passing of Tomas MacGiolla from the leadership , The Workers' Party is in a way signalling a change of direction ; the leadership of that party claims that the Official IRA 'went out of existance after 1972' - yet , the fact remains that in the 1980's there are people appearing in court claiming to be members of this 'non-existant' organisation .
The question is not really whether or not the Official IRA exists : the question is what they are now doing with their guns - it would appear from their behaviour in Newry and Belfast that they have sunk to an all-time low and have degenerated , just as their INLA counterparts have degenerated , into self-motivated thugs .
Both the Official IRA and the INLA are two parts of the same monster that came out of the split with the Provos in 1969/1970 - the Official IRA are not armed to support their politics . The question posed at the Mornington conference in relation to militarists turning towards politics has never really been fully resolved .
[END of 'MacGIOLLA's GUERRILLAS' .]
(Tomorrow : 'THE RULES OF ENGAGEMENT-The 'Peace Talks' ' - from 1997.)
THE YOUNGER BREED : ANDY CALLAGHAN.From 'The Phoenix' magazine , April 1986 .
No By-Line .
One of the more curious young Turk's mingling among the ranks of the 'Soldiers of Destiny' during last weekend's Ard Fheis ('annual meeting') was Councillor Andy Callaghan .
Thirty-year-old Andy was formerly a bright star in Sinn Fein , but he was elected to Dublin Corporation on the Fianna Fail 'ticket' in Crumlin , Dublin , last June (ie 1985) . Now he is pushing very hard for a nomination in Dublin South Central .
Despite his early apprenticeship in Sinn Fein , Andy Callaghan is typical enough of the hungry new breed of Fianna Failer's swelling the ranks since the local elections of 1985 - "...rugged individualists ... " is the euphemism most often quoted by senior Fianna Fail party figures to describe them .......
(MORE LATER).
THE RIGHT TO SILENCE.......Section 31 of the Broadcasting Act has just been renewed for another year by State Communications Minister Jim Mitchell , despite increasing protests and lobbying by the NUJ .
HELEN O'CONNOR examines the results of a recent NIHE survey of the attitudes of Dublin people on the issue and GERRY LAVERY looks back to the roots of Section 31 .
From 'IN DUBLIN' magazine , February 1987 .
A just-published survey of the attitude of the Dublin population to Section 31 of the Broadcasting Act , by Niall Meehan and Jean Horgan of the 'National (sic) Institute of Higher Education' in Dublin concludes that only the supporters of Fine Gael are in favour of Section 31 , and only then by a small percentage gap .
The survey covers an area where ninty per-cent of the population have acess to BBC and ITV where no such reporting restrictions exists , and ironically , most cable viewers get these foreign channels relayed to them by a subsidiary of RTE itself !
Overall , the survey finds that fifty-three per-cent of all Dublin people dis-approve of Section 31 censorship and that over three-quarters of all people polled thought it should not apply to Local or General Election candidates , no matter what their creed or politics : one question specifically enquired as to whether Sinn Fein should be allowed express their opinion on RTE and all party supporters right across the board were in favour of allowing that .......
(MORE LATER).
