'SECRET ARRESTS AND TRIALS.......' From 'The United Irishman' newspaper, January 1958 .
'The Sunday Independent' newspaper of December 8 , 1957 , carried a front page lead-story of Garda 'precautions' along the border on the 26-County side , and noted - " The RUC maintain a similar watch on their side of the border but within the last two weeks a band of six men managed to slip over from the South , disarm a two-man patrol and get back across the border . A party of men who tried to blow up an RUC tender also got back to the South despite the fact that radio-cars from nearby RUC stations were on the move within half an hour of the ambush taking place . "
This type of reporting is playing Britain's propaganda game in Ireland : it is absolutely unfounded and what is more the perpetrators know well that it is unfounded . 'The Sunday Press' newspaper on that same date carried a report - unconfirmed and as it turned out totally unfounded - that a man may have been killed in the blowing up of the Belleek Customs Post. Is all this accidental ?
'The Irish Press' newspaper of December 9 , 1957 , when reporting arrests of five men in Waterford , did not give the reason for those arrests : putting up posters for 'The United Irishman' newspaper ! Those men were lodged in filthy cells and held without charge or explanation . This fact was not reported .
[END of 'SECRET ARRESTS AND TRIALS']
(Next : 'Prisoners on bread and tea in Mountjoy' - from the same source)
DERRY : CITY BESIEGED WITHIN THE SIEGE .Derry , once the cockpit of the Northern Irish conflict , has become quarantined in apathy , grimness and deprivation , writes Seamus Deane , the Derry-born poet and writer . In a return look at his native city he finds that its demoralisation has disturbing implications .
From 'FORTNIGHT' magazine, 1983.
Derry has still a way to go before it rivals Belfast in its poor social structures , but what both cities are breeding now is another updated form of the siege mentality . This is the sort favoured by those who believe in authoritarian measures , distrust dissent and believe that force comes first , law second . The beginnings of this situation are visible in Derry already - the cathedrals are beginning to lose their symbolic significance .
In their place come the new 'security' barracks and , confronting them , the new and increasingly violent housing estates . The 'other' Derry is still just visible . But no more than that .
[END of 'DERRY: CITY BESIEGED WITHIN THE SIEGE']
(Next - 'Out Of The Womens Ghetto' , 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 .
For Michael Finucane , the case shows the inadequacy of the coroner's court system - " The European Court of Human Rights has set down standards that inquests are supposed to meet but the state breaks every one of them . There is no right to legal aid for the families , no right to material in advance of the inquest . All questions about John O' Shea's arrest and detention were ruled 'off limits' . The office of the coroner needs to be drastically updated - the world has moved on and it's time our legislation moved with it ."
[END of 'DEATH AND MYSTERY']
(Next - ' What Rough Beast Is This , It's Hour Come Round At Last?' , from 1987)
