REPUBLICAN MARTYRS OF 1957.......
From 'The United Irishman' newspaper, January 1958 .
PAUL SMITH was from Bessbrook , County Armagh , and he knew that force of British arms have kept our country divided and unfree . He knew that only by force of Irish arms could Ireland be restored to her rightful owners , the Irish people . He died at Edentubber on November 11 , 1957 .
OLIVER CRAVEN was from Newry , County Down and , out of his own experience , he knew that by force of arms the usurper maintains his rule in our land and that there was no other way to win independence for our nation . He gave his life at Edentubber on November 11 , 1957 .
GEORGE KEEGAN was from Enniscorthy , County Wexford . He followed the path his father had trod 40 years before him , and he followed it through all the way to his death at lonely Edentubber , overlooking the Gap of the North on November 11 , 1957 . He died for the Republican faith which once united Wexford and the North in the days of William Orr and Fr. John Murphy.......
(MORE LATER).
KING OF THE YUPPIE HEARTLAND....... !
Dessie O'Malley would expect to draw his support almost exclusively from middle-class areas , but if he is to succeed in getting the twenty seats he hopes for that support base would also have to include working-class areas , especially in Dublin . On the evidence of one day spent with PD leader O'Malley ,that working-class support is unlikely to be forthcoming.
From 'IN DUBLIN' ELECTION SPECIAL , 1987.
By Derek Dunne.
In Kilbarrack , Dublin , Dessie delivers himself , in response to a question , of the opinion that he is against capital punishment . PD party workers are good on the ground here , and a good crowd is out and about . Dessie tells all that coalition is now a possibility , and states that whether the PD's enter into such an arrangement or not "will depend..." , but he doesn't say on what it will 'depend' .
A woman replies that she will not vote for him on that 'depend' answer , while another voter did not like the PD policies on privatisation . And so on it goes . As he prepares for his next stop , Dessie says - once more - that if he was doing the whole election again , he would run more candidates .
[END of 'KING OF THE YUPPIE HEARTLAND']
(Next : 'TOXIC WASTE IN KILL , COUNTY KILDARE' - from 1983)
REPUBLICAN MOURNERS DEFEAT RUC.......
Between December 1983 and May 1987 , over 25 republican or nationalist funerals were systematically attacked by the RUC as a matter of deliberate British policy . The objective was to drive mourners off the streets so that later Britain could claim dwindling support for republicanism as 'evidenced' by the small numbers attending IRA funerals . As Jane Plunkett reports , the opposite happened . More and more people came out to defend the remains of republican dead , the RUC were exposed as being as brutal and sectarian as ever , and these two factors , combined with damaging international news coverage , eventually forced the British government to reverse its policy of attacking republican funerals .
From 'IRIS' magazine , October 1987.
For many nationalists , the RUC's use of plastic bullets between the years 1983 and 1986 was reminiscent of the way they were used during the 1981 hunger-strike* (* 29,665 fired) , when they were fired at the heads of people taking part in street-corner Rosary groups , at young children such as Julie Livingstone and Carol-Ann Kelly, and at mourners at the funeral of Joe McDonnell.
The RUC's aim at that time was to terrorise protestors off the streets and crush nationalist resistance . That was to be their futile aim , too , when attacking republican funerals .
The British government decided to systematically attack republican funerals as a direct response to the upsurge of nationalist consciousness which took place through the hunger-strike and which was expressed in October 1982 in the success of five Sinn Fein candidates in the Assembly elections. In June 1983 , Gerry Adams was elected MP for West Belfast , the first republican* ever to hold that 'honour'...... ( * '1169...'Comment - ....which philosophy he abandoned in 1986.)
(MORE LATER).
