'THE MEN OF 1922'. From 'The United Irishman' newspaper, January 1958 .
' " Rory and Liam and Dick and Joe
Star of the morning , Mary come .
Red is their hearts' blood ,
Their souls like snow ,
Mary Immaculate guide them home ."
- Padraíg de Brun.
Thirty-five years ago Rory and Liam , Dick and Joe were killed . They died for the Irish people . For freedom . For the Republic of Pearse and Connolly. The 'Sunday Press' newspaper remembered them on December 8 (1958) , while 125 Irish Republicans exercised in the Curragh Concentration Camp, another half dozen moved around the cells of the same Mountjoy Prison where those four men met their deaths , 250 Irish Republicans were guarded with guns in the Crumlin Road Prison in Belfast and seven others exercised in English jails with the convicts of England .
Rory O' Connor , Liam Mellowes , Dick Barrett and Joe McKelvey , the 'Sunday Press' remembered you . You were also remembered by the Irish Republicans of our day in the prisons of Ireland and England . The top men of Fianna Fail attended Mass at Trinity Church , Dublin Castle, in memory of the four martyrs , on December 8th . They were photographed later and next day the 'Irish Press' newspaper told us all about it . But no photographer travelled to the Curragh , or Mountjoy , or Crumlin Road , Wakefield or Wormwood Scrubs. If he had he would not have been admitted or , indeed , might have stood a good chance of being locked up.......'
(MORE LATER).
THE YOUNG BLOODS : CLARE DALY....... Swords (Dublin) councillor , Clare Daly , wiped a tear from her eye in the (State) High Court after being sentenced to one month in Mountjoy Prison for contempt of Court in defying an injunction on her blockading bin lorries.
From 'The Phoenix' magazine, September 2003 .
The Labour Party's former Mayor of Dublin , Dermot Lacey, seriously embarrassed his party in January this year (2003) by voting against his party to pass an increase in the council charges so as not to spoil his stint in the Mansion House. Although the Labour Party condemns the charges , it is recommending people to 'obey the law' and pay up ! The Party is moving to the political right under Pat Rabbitte who has sidled up to the bloodsports enthusiasts at the National Association of Regional Games Councils (NARGC) (sic - that Association is a 26-county body only) and endorsed the privatisation of services earlier in 2003 - so the Labour Party won't be doing anything radical on the bins issue .
While this makes the Labour Party vulnerable to both (P) Sinn Fein ( whose members in Leinster House from beyond the Pale , it emerged , have paid their bin charges!) and the Socialist Party in working-class areas , there is little (P)SF support in Swords and it is Clare Daly who will benefit and who could take the Labour seat off Sean Ryan. In 2002 , she received more of (P) Sinn Fein's candidate , Mick Davis's, transfers than anyone else ; however , republicans consider the 400-member Socialist Party - which was inspired by and emerged in the same way as the British Socialist Party - to be virtually unionist on the issue of the North , classing British squaddies as "workers in uniform" ! ('1169...' Comment - those that were then critical of the Socialist Party in relation to the North-Eastern issue are now on that same road themselves , dismissing those of us whom still hold true to Republican ideals as 'micro/unrepresentative/dissident' groups . The 'squaddies are just workers'-remarks will surely follow in time...)
The Socialist Party has a virtual monopoly on the anti double-bin tax issue in Fingal , where it is most serious . For Fingal County Council to put one Socialist Party member in jail could be excused as unlucky , but to put the scariest woman in north Dublin behind bars was just plain foolish . Clare Daly will be back to haunt them .
[END of 'THE YOUNG BLOODS : CLARE DALY'] .
(Next - 'DERRY : CITY BESIEGED WITHIN THE SIEGE' , from 1983)
DEATH AND MYSTERY ....... John O Shea was a small farmer and republican . He died at his Kerry home in October 2001 within hours of being released from Garda custody . The inquest into his death raised more questions than it answered and now Kerry County Council has backed calls for a public inquiry . Did John O Shea die from natural causes or is there a more sinister explanation ?
By Mairead Carey.
From 'MAGILL' magazine, May 2003 .
According to the Gardai , John O' Shea was kept in a cell in Tralee Garda Station until 9.40pm , when they woke him up . He made the bed , put on his boots and returned with them to the dayroom to collect his belongings . As he left the station another garda waited outside ; he was then questioned on the steps of the station in relation to the car accident but refused to sign garda notes . All the gardai present testified that he was sober and was in "...good form.." when he left them .
John O'Shea's arrest , detention and subsequent questioning were all unlawful , according to the family's solicitor , Michael Finucane: " There is no law that says you can't be under the influence of alcohol and be a passenger in a car . They invited him out of the car and created a situation where he was drunk in a public place and arrested him for it . It's a contrived offence , " says Finucane , the son of murdered Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane.
" They then detained him for almost three hours , when there are no provisions in the Act for detaining him without charge for longer than it is nesessary to take his details . When he walked out the front door there were two gardai waiting for him to question him about the car accident . Why didn't they question him in the Garda station ? " Michael Finucane wanted answers about the manner of John O' Shea's arrest but the coroner in Kerry was having none of it , and stated as much in a letter.......
(MORE LATER).
