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 .

At the Mornington conference , there was another paper delivered by Sean Garland during which the following question was posted : ' The question for the leadership (of the Official organisation) as put by a foreign observer , was : " How can a revolutionary group shift priorities when it is dominated by a secret army organised for military purposes , led largely by men sympathetic first and foremost to military action , staffed by volunteers who joined not another party but an army , and hampered by deeply orthodox traditional civilian organisation suspicious to politics ? " ' .

That question encompassed the central question relating to the Official organisation , and one which has never been completely and satisfactorily resolved . Another aspect of the Officials that was always uppermost in the minds of the leadership was discipline : this also came up at the Mornington conference and it was pointed out that failure to comply with a 'direction' from the Ard Comhairle (the 'ruling body') was no different from opting out of the organisation altogether .

As Tomas MacGiolla succinctly put it - " The need for a tight organisational structure and disciplined membership is paramount " . By the mid-1970's , Derry had ceased to be a base of substantial support for the Officials : Belfast , Dublin and Newry became the power centres . Gradually , all orders came from Dublin . In 1977 and 1978 , the Official IRA was still actively recruiting in Newry ; there were also a large back-up of people who were no longer militarily involved - they were brought out for a day a year to fire weapons , to 'keep their hands in' and to keep their support . There were about 100 active OIRA members and they continued to carry out attacks on the British Army , though never claiming these on behalf of the Official IRA .......
(MORE LATER).



EOGHAN HARRIS : OUT OF THE SHADOWS .......
From 'MAGILL' magazine , November 1997 .
By Brenda Power .

Fergus Finlay recalls "...being told no , we don't want a Labour Party spokesman for this programme , we're not having politicians , only trade unionists - and then the trade unionist would turn out to be Des Geraghty . " A senior RTE figure stated - " One of the funniest examples of this practice that I can recall was the time that a man called Brian Lynch popped up in the 'Late Late Show' audience attacking the Wolfe Tones , or somebody . It later emerged that , at the very same time , the very same Mr. Lynch was on the HQ staff in Gardiner Place counterfeiting tax books , 'Irish Life' cheque books and five pound notes ! In fact I believe the the mugshot that Interpol currently use - they're still hunting Brian Lynch - came off a piece of RTE film . "

A 'MAGILL' investigation in 1982 calculated that the cost of running the Sinn Fein The Workers Party organisation was around £3,000 per week at that time while membership fees - the party's declared source of funds - yielded about £500 per week . That report concluded - ' In an interview with 'MAGILL' for this article , Tomas MacGiolla and Sean Garland stated that the party also earned a lot from the sale of Easter Lilies . '

After his departure from both Sinn Fein The Workers Party and , in 1990 , from RTE , Eoghan Harris became what Eamonn McCann describes as " ...a freelance ideologue , a genuine soldier of fortune .. " , and he had his first major success as a 'spin doctor' with Prionsias De Rossa's memorable European Parliament campaign in 1989 : Harris also played a major part in the election of Mary Robinson in 1990 , although the extent of his involvement is questioned by others involved at that time .......
(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.

Irish Republicans must get involved in existing relevant organisations - trade unions , cultural bodies , tenants groups and so on - not the creation of new ones . It also means approaching the people in the electoral context where they are familiar with , and receptive to , political argument . The republican view of the elected institutions is not an excuse to stand aside from the political discussion altogether . ('1169...' Comment - nor was it ever used as such , and nor should it have been .)

Sinn Fein has made enormous progress in the North of Ireland , without surrender of principles , by coming to the people in a way that is seen as straightforward and understandable . The lessons for the one non-partitionist party (sic - Sinn Fein is a political organisation , NOT a [Leinster House-registered] political ' party' ) on this island are there to be learnt .
[END of ' THE 26 COUNTIES : A STATE BUT NOT A NATION ']
(Monday , 22 May 2006 : "We are all part of the same struggle" - by Margaret Ward , from 1983)

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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 .

During the mid-1970's , the Officials underwent a major change : there was first of all their famous conference and various papers were delivered and discussed . The Workers' Party 'Research Department' outlined that they were in favour of multi-natioal investment , rather than align the party with what they saw as being SDLP/Provo small-scale business , with the Unionists in control at the top .

By the mid-1970's , the SDLP had consolidated its middle class Catholic vote and the Provos had taken the military road : the Unionists were equally entrenched , and the Officials , in order to survive , had to carve out a new ideological niche for themselves . Since they had already renounced armed struggle as a means of attaining power their policies and direction had to be discernibly different from anything else on the political scene in order to attract support .

Hence the 'evolution' of tortured and changed positions on a range of issues from the EEC to the RUC to multi-national investment .......
(MORE LATER).



EOGHAN HARRIS : OUT OF THE SHADOWS .......
From 'MAGILL' magazine , November 1997 .
By Brenda Power .

Eoghan Harris stated - " If I broke the broadcasting restrictions then I never did it in an underhand way ; I was suspended for six months in 1974 for a programme on the treatment of internees (Conor Cruise O' Brien furiously denounced the programme at a Labour Party conference that year) and I was docked a huge amount of money , there was a point when I'd have lost my house only Gay Byrne and Bunny Carr sent me £50 . But I have seen my personnel file in RTE and there's a report in it by Michael Garvey where he says that I just was'nt capable of producing an unbalanced programme . "

That is not , however , how another senior RTE figure remembers the era : " Here was the sort of thing he'd do for the Workers Party - if a panel required , say , a Labour member and a Stickie , he'd pick the greatest gobdaw (ie 'half-wit') of a Labour specimen he could find , and put him up against the brightest Workers Party member . Or if there was a report on a issue that was dear to the Workers' Party heart , you'd have trade unionists or community spokesmen on discussing it , without any acknowledgement that they were members of the Workers Party . "

In a 'Today Tonight' programme aired on April 22 , 1982 , a Dr. John McManus admitted that there was considerable tax evasion within the medical profession during a debate on the iniquities of the PRSI system . Dr. McManus was not identified as a Workers Party Ard Comhairle (ie 'ruling body') member and a party candidate in that year's general election , nor the line he took acknowledged as the party line.......
(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.

In pursuing a strategy in the 26 counties , Sinn Fein , which is a revolutionary party , therefore has to consider two major aspects : first of all it has to retain its republican analysis of partition as the major block to the development of a nation which can achieve political , economic , social and cultural justice . It therefore has to campaign against the present negations of that justice and attempt to build a revolutionary awareness of cultural pride and development , social freedom and economic independence - the reverse of the partitionist strategy - not in a vague or general way but on the specific issues .

Secondly , it has to communicate with the audience it wishes to reach in a way which that audience can , in today's context , trust and understand . The proposition then that , somehow , republicans 'are bent on plunging the 26 counties into an armed revolution' must be totally scotched ; and the habit of republicans of isolating themselves in their political campaigning must be reversed .......
(MORE LATER).

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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 .

The new addition to the 'Stages Theory' , as proposed by Sinn Fein The Workers Party , read that the Catholic and Protestant working class would have to be united before anything else could happen : what key personnel within Official Sinn Fein and the Official IRA said around this time about armed resistance is worthy of note .

For example , in 1970 , Cathal Goulding , then acknowledged Chief of Staff of the Official IRA , said : " I believe the job of pushing the British troops out of Ireland will eventually have to be done by ourselves ...... we do advocate physical force against the establishment ..... the people are only safe when they have an armed force to resist a dictatorship by the right .. " . A private statement by the Officials , issued in one of its internal documents in the mid-1970's , and entitled 'Differences' , makes interesting reading -

' It is said that we (Official Sinn Fein) have 'gone political' and that we have rejected or begun to reject any form of military action . Whenever necessary , and in keeping with our policy , units have engaged in military action . Our main force consists of a few small units , underarmed , ill equipped , and with God knows what degree of training and organisation . ' The above is typical of the approach of the Officials to politics : while seeking to promote the party as one which has renounced violence and the gun ( at this stage the Official IRA was supposed to be three years gone!) , in private , there was in existance a clandestine Army .......
(MORE LATER).



EOGHAN HARRIS : OUT OF THE SHADOWS .......
From 'MAGILL' magazine , November 1997 .
By Brenda Power .

Eoghan Harris stated - " But I had contempt for the Derry IRA and after they shot John Taylor and Ranger Best I resigned and I did'nt return until they called a truce . And , if I was involved back then , why not admit it now ? It would give me a whiff of sulphur and might even help me pull birds . "

Eoghan Harris concedes to a limited degree that he slanted programme content to reflect the Workers' Party agenda at times - " There was a very heated atmosphere in RTE at that time and , to us , the work we were doing was important and principled political work . There was a lot of debate going on , but basically it broke down into supporters of the Provos and supporters of the Conor Cruise O' Brien line . There is a retrospective air of manipulation because I was a Workers' Party supporter , but I only pulled strings as far as I could pull them verbally , and each case had to be won by debate .

And we were better and brighter than the rest , so we got the best jobs . And , if there was a last seat to be filled on a panel debate I'd put on John A. Murphy rather than Tim Pat Coogan , and if it was for a news insert and I wanted someone to interpret a baton charge for me then I would'nt pick someone who would sound a tribal tone ....... "
(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 ripples that British 'involvement' in six of our counties has caused is a sign that there is still a national spirit of some kind alive in the 26 counties ; yet the illogicality of overlooking Free State Army collaboration on the border with the British Army , whilst condemning it in remembrance ceremonies , emphasises that opportunities continue to exist for republicans in the 26 counties to raise that national spirit higher .

In the same way , the attempt to introduce extradition , whilst expressing reservations about the use of paid perjurers in the courts to where those extradited are being sent , is yet another contradiction which presents itself for action . The repressive effects of partition , in their brutal reality for the nationalist people of the North , remain , in spite of all efforts , a strong call to the people of the 26 counties - the popular concern felt by people in the Free State during the hunger-strikes was an expression of this .

But the effects of decades of solidifying partition in the South have also been strong on those same people . There may be no nation in the Free State , which can foster real patriotism , but the vast majority of the 26-county people have come to accept the mechanisms of that State - or economic unit - which does exist . They have come to see Sinn Fein only as an isolated group relevant in the 'external' context of the North : for the vast majority of people , politics is primarily concerned with elections and in the Free State those elections are to institutions which have come to be accepted and , however criticised , there is no mood for gambling on a revolutionary alternative .......
(MORE LATER).

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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 .

In 1974 , Belfast had held a Convention to find out if the Official organisation should contest elections : the vote went against the motion by sixty-six to sixty-four . The leadership demanded and got three recounts ! In the following two weeks , whole cumanns (ie branches) found themselves suspended from membership : another Convention was called and the original decision was reversed - the leadership had demanded the second Convention "...due to groundswell of opinion among the ranks.. " !

Half of Belfast went with the INLA : a feud followed which left five dead and more than forty injured . Sean Garland was among those who were shot . Liam McMillan stated at a Belfast OIRA Command meeting that he "...would smash the IRSP within a fortnight .. " : as truce talks were under way , Gerry Steenson , still a teenager , shot Liam McMillan dead . The feud ended a few days later following the intervention of an intermediary . But an OIRA order went out that Seamus Costello was to be shot in retaliation , and he was killed by Dublin Official IRA Commander Jim Flynn in 1977 : Flynn was killed by the INLA in 1982 .

Prior to the split , Sean Garland had proposed that there be one structure for the OIRA and Sinn Fein the Workers Party : it was generally held that Cathal Goulding was the mind behind the decision to wind down the military end of things ; SFWP had come to firmly believe that in order for their revised 'Stages Theory' to work , another 'Stage' would have to be inserted .......
(MORE LATER).



EOGHAN HARRIS : OUT OF THE SHADOWS .......
From 'MAGILL' magazine , November 1997 .
By Brenda Power .

Eamonn McCann said at the time - " It was well known that the Stickies killed Ranger Willie Best , and what I can't understand about Eoghan Harris is that he never took responsibility for the crimes committed by his associates during that period . He calls people 'Hush Puppy Provos' , and 'Sneaking Regarders' , and he applies these epithets to people who were never as close to paramilitaries as he knowingly was at that time . There was only one party which said that Stalin was right , which defended the invasion of Hungary and the Berlin Wall and offered abject obeisance to Kim II Sung , and that was the Official Republican Movement . In the light of those mistakes , you might expect Eoghan Harris to be a little more humble in pointing out other people's . "

Eoghan Harris is incensed to be asked about those contradictions : " If you write anything that links me to Official Sinn Fein I will sue . Seamus Costello once tried to recruit me and Cathal Goulding said - 'Put him writing pamphlets , he can't keep a secret' and he said to me ' Stay out of all that shit' . I'd be useless at clandestine activity , that's what's so crazy about trying to link me with these McAleese leaks , I never thought she was that much of a Shinner , I would'nt be able to keep my mouth shut about it . The fact was that there was a military wing attached to the Workers' Party and I was the political party's chief pamphleteer , which sometimes brought me into the same company , but if I can be smeared by association then so can Pat Rabbitte , so can everyone who was around at the time .

I'm an idealogue and a polemecist , it was fuck all to do with me , my job was to educate our membership to give up the gun , to convert them from republicanism to revisionism , to go to the old guard and say - ' Well , where did the guns get us ?' And I was very good at finding fighting formulas that did'nt require force - sit-ins and street demos , but no guns - I was a skilled propagandist at covering up our retreat from the gun . I felt the Provos were shading the balance of terror , and I could'nt go around lecturing the Official IRA to lay down their guns while the Provos were shooting politicians like Trevor McNulty ....... "
(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 absence of unionists from the 'New Ireland Forum' allows the reality of the sectarian nature of such a 'new' 6-county State to be ignored - the exclusion of Sinn Fein from the Forum allows that sectarian reality , the brutal presence of British force , and the major advantages of real unity to be ignored .

The Forum is being hailed as a success at this stage because it continues to externalise the North ; equally , while it may appear hopelessly illogical to maintain Section 31 of the State Broadcasting Act against Sinn Fein elected representatives when they are beamed into the 26 counties on BBC and UTV , the very fact that they are on those channels and not RTE also psychologically externalises them from the point of view of the Free State viewer .

So confident is the Dublin Administration of this strengthened partition that the State courts are on the verge of introducing political extradition and can authorise the Free State Army to officially take part in a British Army 'Remembrance' ceremony which celebrates British involvement in the whole array of military imperialism , including Kenya , Cyprus , Aden and their 'involvement' today in Six Irish counties .......
(MORE LATER).

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(Great to be back . We enjoyed the break - but we enjoy the 'blog' more!)
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 .

'The Greater West Belfast Community Association' was set up and the Official IRA and the UDA held structured talks under its umbrella as the Dublin leadership attempted to stamp out the military activity which was now beyond their control , and outside their ideology . 'Dissidents' were ousted ; rules and regulations were introduced which mitigated against their enemies within their own organisation .

One 'OIRA Standing Order' stated that all members of the Official IRA had to be members of their local Workers' Party Cumann (party branch) - suspension from one automatically meant expulsion from the other ! 'Dissidents' found themselves suspended for minor breaches of discipline . At the Official Sinn Fein Ard Fheis (annual party conference) in Liberty Hall, Dublin , in 1973 , Seamus Costello circulated a list of twelve people he believed could rescue the organisation from the direction it had taken .

Dessie O' Hagan also circulated an alternative to that list but it was Seamus Costello alone who was charged ; winesses who were to give evidence on Costello's behalf found themselves under suspension . Seamus Costello knew that the break was coming and had postponed carrying out certain fund-raising operations ; he also had people who remained inside the Official IRA and who were in key positions within the OIRA Intelligence Department , which was the internal group which supplied names to the leadership of people likely to defect in the event of a split . The Officials ended up staking-out some of their own people and arming some of the opposition .

In November 1974 , the Official IRA started to beat up potential defectors : Kevin Rafferty and Vincent Fagan were beaten in Belfast .......
(MORE LATER).



EOGHAN HARRIS : OUT OF THE SHADOWS .......
From 'MAGILL' magazine , November 1997 .
By Brenda Power .

An RTE producer at the time said of Eoghan Harris and his supporters in the station - " They (Sinn Fein the Workers Party) had some very powerful friends in RTE and they managed to get friends and relatives and party members into prominent positions , often without jobs having been advertised or any interviews having been held . And their agenda infiltrated every programme , even the books programme ! I remember one current affairs team doing a programme on the hunger strikes who were told to "take their line" from Mary McMahon of Sinn Fein the Workers Party and John McMichael , who was then the 'Supreme Commander' of the UDA and was said to have been personally responsible for the deaths of 600 Catholics .

So of course the programmes did not reflect the huge support there was for the hunger strikers amongst the Catholic community . " In 1982 , 'Magill' magazine reported that the first four 'Today Tonight' RTE television programmes to deal with the issue of the POW position were hostile to the H-Block cause , and that a huge internal row was prompted by the irritation of the programme's then editor , Joe Mulholland , over a subsequent programme which reflected widespread support for the hunger strikers . " And that was when Mary McAleese first fell foul of Eoghan Harris and his people , " the RTE producer continues - " McAleese saw reporters being sent up to Belfast to take their line on the hunger strikes from people she knew to be members of the Official IRA . She recognised them because they used to drink in her father's pub on the Lower Falls Road - she took terrible abuse from these people at programme conferences . I remember her being called a Provo to her face , when anyone with a shred of wit could have seen that she detested violence . It just shows how vitriolic those people were , and how long their memories are , that they're still out to get her now . "

Eoghan Harris's association with Sinn Fein the Workers Party endured throughout the period when its military wing , the Official IRA , was known to be involved in murder and racketeering .......
(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.

Economically , following the logic of this inability to create a truncated 'nation' , the solutions are not sought within the State itself in the development of resources , but are sought from outside in attempts to attract multinationals or to beg from Brussels . Politically , all of this trend can easily be seen in the most recent developments .

The so-called abortion referendum - which ignored the social problems surrounding abortion - was a reflex action of a long socially-repressed people , which in its underlining of the confessional State could not have caused any great dismay to the Free State upholders of partition , whatever their public position on the issue . The abortion issue , as the question of divorce now is , was deliberately put into a fallacious context of 'concession to the Northern Protestants' , rather than an examination of an actual social problem in the Free State , with the inevitable partitionist result .

In the 'New Ireland Forum', the absence of any unionists - even the Alliance Party - is not seen as a major drawback at all . The 'Forum' is in fact being hailed as a success by the Free State establishment parties on the basis of a procession of unionist academics , who graciously tell it that Irish unity is not on , and a handful of 'nationalists' who suggest a variety of federal , confederal and dual sovereignty solutions which would leave the North of Ireland 'safely' separated . Fianna Fail is happily pontificating in that area of a '6 and 26 solution' ....... * (* '1169....' Comment - as , indeed , are Provisional Sinn Fein , as was verified in March 1999 when one of its leaders , Francie Molloy , stated - " Republicans are prepared to work an Executive . We are really prepared to administer British rule in Ireland for the foreseeable future . The very principle of partition is accepted . " The 'principle of partition' will never be 'accepted' by true Irish Republicans.)
(MORE LATER).

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