National 90th Anniversary Rally , Saturday , 22nd April 2006 : Assemble Garden of Remembrance , 2pm .
Musical Night , Saturday 22nd April 2006 : 'Saints and Sinners' pub , North King Street , Dublin . Doors open 8.30pm . Admission EURO 10 .
"Damn your concessions , England . We want our country!"
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 1962 , Cathal Goulding was at an extraordinary IRA Convention (a meeting of IRA Volunteers) at which the dropping of abstentionism was brought up ; to do so would allow Sinn Fein elected representatives to take their seats in Leinster House , Stormont and Westminster . Cathal Goulding was later to say of this proposal -
" We wanted to clear the ground (in the North) for politial action . In other words to gain freedom for political manoeuvrability . The first thing we needed was civil rights . " Goulding was then the acknowledged Chief of Staff of the IRA . Roy Johnston returned to Ireland in 1963 and involved himself with the Wolfe Tone Society ; he became 'Education Officer' for the Republican Movement , as well as its political commissar .
Roy Johnston , Cathal Goulding and Tomas MacGiolla developed their own version of 'Marxism' , peculiar to the Irish situation . They had few links with international groups , and they began to develop the perspective - in the light of the failed military campaign - which the Workers' Party espouses today . That perspective still has very few international connections , and embodys a form of 'Marxism' which is , as stated , unique to the Irish situation .......
(MORE LATER).
GARDA GUN FIRE : WHO TO BELIEVE.......?Close analysis of television news film of incidents last month at Emyvale suggests a garda's gun went off accidentally . But that is not what the Minister of Justice told the Dail .
GENE KERRIGAN looks at the evidence.
From 'MAGILL' magazine , June 1987 .
On Wednesday , May 11th , 1987 , Gerry Collins (Fianna Fail) told Leinster House that as well as firing the Uzi in the air , Detective Sergeant Joe Darwin from Monaghan "...drew his handgun and fired one further shot over the heads of the crowd in an effort to make them disperse . "
Collins' statement seemed to reflect an inadequate and inaccurate briefing ; apart from stating that the revolver shot was deliberately fired he also stated that the Uzi was discharged after the car was pushed into the stream - television film clearly showed the garda firing the Uzi before the car was pushed into the stream . Detective Darwin was trying to frighten away the crowd pushing the car .
Gerry Collins also stated that the revolver was fired after the trapped garda was released from the over-turned car : television film shows that the revolver discharged before the garda was freed . These latter inaccuracies are unimportant except in so far as they raise doubts about the credibility of Gerry Collins' statement , although this is not intended to suggest that he deliberately misrepresented the situation . The important point is that the accidental discharge of the weapon was in the official account turned into a deliberate warning shot .......
(MORE LATER).
LIAM MELLOWS AND THE IRISH CIVIL WAR .......This is the bulk of a public lecture given at University College , Galway , by Sinn Fein Ard Comhairle member and Deputy General Secretary of the 'Local Government and Public Services Union' , Phil Flynn , on December 8th 1982 , the 60th Anniversary of the Free State's execution of Liam Mellows .
First published in 'IRIS' magazine , March 1983 .
Commenting in December 1933 , on the life and times of Liam Mellows , Cumann na mBan stated :
" Writing of transport and the banking system , Liam Mellows wrote - " All transport , railways , canals etc will be operated by the State - the Republican State - for the benefit of the workers and the farmers . All banks will be operated by the State for the benefit of industry and agriculture , not for the purpose of profit-making by loans , mortgages etc . That the land of the aristocracy (who support the Free State and the British connection) will be seized and divided amongst those who can and will operate it for the nation's benefit ."
Cumann na mBan continued - " Eleven years have passed since Liam Mellows was silenced forever by a British bullet . Eleven years of native rule ! In those years our pillar boxes have changed from red to green , our enemies' uniforms have changed from khaki to green , and may become grey . Our coins have changed from king's head to pigs and hens , and our very name has changed from Ireland to the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland , and may shortly be christened a 'Republic' . Yet fundamentally the organisation of the people's lives has remained unchanged : the same hunger , want , insecurity and man-made misery stalk through the length and breadth of Ireland ....... "
(MORE LATER).
