Spoil It on May 24th / Bodenstown June 10th .

MAKE YOUR VOTE COUNT ON MAY 24th - SPOIL IT !

This coming May 24th a 'general election' will take place in this 26-County State to elect and/or re-elect 165 time-serving place-seekers who will sit in a plush building in Kildare Street in Dublin city centre , pay themselves a basic salary of €2013 a week (...whilst , at the same time [in some cases], paying themselves up to €1572 a week 'expenses' on top of their salary!) and wash their manicured hands of responsibility for their continued and repeated failures to those voters that previously would have considered them 'worthy' enough to sit in that institution .

In this election we encourage those of our readers who are entitled to vote to SPOIL THAT VOTE ! Go to your polling station , claim your vote and deliberately and purposely SPOIL IT ! We ourselves , from this blog , will be writing - " Release All Political Prisoners!" on our voting ballot , but any message you decide to write on your ballot will have the same effect ie that vote will be deemed 'spoiled' .
A 'spoiled vote' is the only proper option open to those of us who wish to declare that we view the whole political system , as it now stands , as a corrupt , money-grabbing 'mé féin' and morally bankrupt system , run , operated , controlled and maintained by useless self-servers .

IF YOU HAVE A VOTE THIS MAY 2007 , USE IT TO MAKE A PROTEST. SPOIL IT !

ANNUAL WOLFE TONE COMMEMORATION : Sunday , June 10 , 2007 , 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 , and return to Dublin at 5.45PM.

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 two years ago .
" From my earliest youth I have regarded the connection between Great Britain and Ireland as the curse of the Irish nation , and felt convinced that , while it lasted , this country could never be free nor happy . My mind has been confirmed in this opinion by the experience of every succeeding year , and the conclusions which I have drawn from every fact before my eyes . In consequence , I was determined to employ all the powers which my individual efforts could move , in order to separate the two countries .
That Ireland was not able of herself to throw off the yoke , I knew ; I therefore sought for aid wherever it was to be found . In honourable poverty I rejected offers which , to a man in my circumstances , might be considered highly advantageous . I remained faithful to what I thought the cause of my country , and sought in the French Republic an ally to rescue three millions of my countrymen " . -Theobald Wolfe Tone .

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'The Men of 1922 / Derry Besieged / Death And Mystery.'

'THE MEN OF 1922.......'
From 'The United Irishman' newspaper, January 1958 .

' Let every man in Fianna Fail who still thinks of himself as a Republican answer these questions for himself . Rory , Liam , Dick and Joe never collaborated with Britain , never answered the English whip , never jailed a young Irish Republican .

Let us be fair to the dead at least . '
[END of 'THE MEN OF 1922']
(Next - ' TURN THE SPOTLIGHT' : 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.

The people of Derry are , in effect , locked into their city and its history . Ringed by the border , they are cut off from Donegal to which the majority Nationalist population looks as its natural hinterland . Ringed by the walls and by the zones of their housing estates , they are cut off from one another .

The county of Derry beyond is looked to by the minority Unionist population as its natural hinterland . The geographical location and the historical background of the city confirm this oppressive sense of siege , one shared by both communities . Each regards itself as surrounding and being surrounded by enemies . Although Belfast presents this mentality also , Derry , being smaller , provides a more concentrated and easily apprehensible example .

A peculiar feature of the effects generated by modern conditions on this mentality - conditions such as are associated with political violence , the welfare state , unemployment , television and modern housing - is that they supply ready-made arguments for and against capitalism , for and against socialism , for and against nationalism , radical revolution , reformist gradualism and any one of half a dozen other competing ideologies . Such a society appears , at times , to be a well run laboratory or prison , from which escape is sometimes granted for good behaviour (within the educational system) , but in which most inhabitants are serving a life sentence.......
(MORE LATER).



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 .

Local hackney driver Denis Brosnan was the last known person to see John O' Shea alive : he picked up a group of people at the centre of the village at 12.45am . John O' Shea was among them . In a statement to the inquest he described O' Shea as a "...reasonably regular customer . I observed him coming to the bus and he was steady enough but appeared tired . From observing his condition , I was not concerned that he needed to be separated from the others because of the two usual reasons , namely that he was in danger of getting sick and that he was in an argumentative mood . He was in a fine , placid mood that night . "

John O' Shea "...had dozed off.." and the driver woke him up when he arrived at his home . " I could see that he had no marks on his face or on his left hand as I held his left hand to support him as he was getting out . His condition to me seemed more due to tiredness than drink . He was groggy but was alert to what was going on . As I left the yard , his back was turned to me and he was facing the door . He was in quite an alert state and I had no worries for his safety . "

John O' Shea lived with his mother , Kate , who is in her early 70's , in a stone cottage overlooking the sea . " He was a baby to her . She lived for him . She always protected him, " says Chris O' Shea . The mother , Kate , heard the minibus arrive and leave , but when her son hadn't appeared ten minutes later she went to investigate . She found him outside on a low step , slumped to one side . There was a mark on his face and blood on the ground beside him . She called her husband to help her and between them they dragged him into the house . They removed his trousers and shoes , laid him on a sheet on the kitchen floor and put a blanket over him . They lit the fire to keep him warm.......
(MORE LATER).

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Wolfe Tone Commemoration , June 2007 .

ANNUAL WOLFE TONE COMMEMORATION :Sunday , June 10 , 2007 , 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 , and return to Dublin at 5.45PM.

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 two years ago .
" From my earliest youth I have regarded the connection between Great Britain and Ireland as the curse of the Irish nation , and felt convinced that , while it lasted , this country could never be free nor happy . My mind has been confirmed in this opinion by the experience of every succeeding year , and the conclusions which I have drawn from every fact before my eyes . In consequence , I was determined to employ all the powers which my individual efforts could move , in order to separate the two countries .
That Ireland was not able of herself to throw off the yoke , I knew ; I therefore sought for aid wherever it was to be found . In honourable poverty I rejected offers which , to a man in my circumstances , might be considered highly advantageous . I remained faithful to what I thought the cause of my country , and sought in the French Republic an ally to rescue three millions of my countrymen " . -Theobald Wolfe Tone .




MAKE YOUR VOTE COUNT - SPOIL IT !

This coming May 24th a 'general election' will take place in this 26-County State to elect and/or re-elect 165 time-serving place-seekers who will sit in a plush building in Kildare Street in Dublin city centre , pay themselves a basic salary of €2013 a week (...whilst , at the same time [in some cases], paying themselves up to €1572 a week 'expenses' on top of their salary!) and wash their manicured hands of responsibility for their continued and repeated failures to those voters that previously would have considered them 'worthy' enough to sit in that institution .

In this election we encourage those of our readers who are entitled to vote to SPOIL THAT VOTE ! Go to your polling station , claim your vote and deliberately and purposely SPOIL IT ! We ourselves , from this blog , will be writing - " Release All Political Prisoners!" on our voting ballot , but any message you decide to write on your ballot will have the same effect ie that vote will be deemed 'spoiled' .
A 'spoiled vote' is the only proper option open to those of us who wish to declare that we view the whole political system , as it now stands , as a corrupt , money-grabbing 'mé féin' and morally bankrupt system , run , operated , controlled and maintained by useless self-servers .

IF YOU HAVE A VOTE THIS MAY 2007 , USE IT TO MAKE A PROTEST. SPOIL IT !

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'The Men Of 1922 / Derry Besieged / Death And Mystery.'

'THE MEN OF 1922......'
From 'The United Irishman' newspaper, January 1958 .

' No one blames 'The Sunday Press' newspaper for what they wrote . It was good writing . The subjects were of the heroic mould . It was still fine writing and true writing when it ended thus - " That which called and assembled that small company by new-dug graves in Mountjoy Jail on December 8th 1922, calls to the Irish of today and will call for all time until wrong is righted and the oppressed set free . "

That is true . It calls to the Irish of today and they have answered the call , and it will call to them "for all time until wrong is righted and the oppressed set free ." But where is 'The Sunday Press' and its owners in all of this ? Are they on the side of the oppressed ? They know their own consciences so let them answer in their own time . But one thing is certain - you can't be on the side of the right while helping wrong .

You can't be in the company of Rory O' Connor , Liam Mellowes , Dick Barrett and Joe McKelvey while jailing men without charge or trial , while sneaking others off to prison following secret trials , while persecuting young freedom fighters for the 'terrible crime' of opposing English rule in Ireland . Why then did the four martyrs die....... ? '
(MORE LATER).


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.

The anarchic spirit of the young and the apathy of most others are not contrasting reactions . They are very closely tied to one another : a rebellious spirit will constantly recruit its strength from the young , but permanent rebelliousness , with the high cost that it brings , is liable to lead to a state of exhaustion in those who realise that it allows for no let-up and , in present conditions , for no foreseeable resolution . The sheer blankness of the future has , as far as I can read it , finally demoralised the whole population .

The neighbourhood spirit , once a pronounced feature of Derry life , especially in the poorer districts , has broken down . Someone told me recently of the fate of a group of pensioners' bungalows , built only fifteen years ago , which are now roofless ruins ; men came and removed the alloy roofs despite the protests of the pensioners . No one moved to defend them . No one would , of course , have thought of phoning the RUC. The men involved had no paramilitary connections , yet they were allowed to vandalise these houses . I don't believe that would have been allowed to happen ten years ago . Nor would all the various muggings , beatings , robberies and rapes which have increased at such an alarming rate .

Those responsible are , in their own witless and brutal way , providing the RUC with an argument for the necessity of 'law and order' . They also provide them with a steady flow of information on guerrilla activities , yet the RUC have so far lost acceptability that even the increase in crime is not powerful enough to redeem them . The community is caught in the squeeze between those who would impose the old system and those who flourish in the absence of any . It wants neither but has to suffer both.......
(MORE LATER).



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 .

Gerard O' Shea (41) , from Curraheen , Tralee, said he spoke to John O' Shea as he left Houlihan's Pub : he knew O' Shea through the (P) Sinn Fein party . " He was pissed off . He said he had been roughed up by the gardai . We were only talking for a few seconds . He was on his way home and seemed sober enough to me , " Gerard O'Shea said .

Chris O' Shea says she received a call from John after he was released from the garda station : " He sounded shaky in his voice , and distressed in himself ." She offered to collect him , but he insisted he would make his own way home . A few minutes later , John O' Shea got a taxi to Castlemaine - the driver said he appeared to be swaying in the back seat and falling asleep . He was let off at The Castle Inn where he drank until closing time . Numerous customers were interviewed and all of them pointed out that they saw no marks on his face .

Willie Hanafin (45) , from Castlemaine , was never approached by gardai . He says that he spoke to John O' Shea for about ten minutes in the pub - " He asked me if I'd heard what happened to him . I said no . At that he lifted his shirt . There were marks on him . He said he'd tell me some other time , but that time never came . The next morning he was dead....... "
(MORE LATER).

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Spoil It on May 24th / Bodenstown June 10th .

MAKE YOUR VOTE COUNT ON MAY 24th - SPOIL IT !

This coming May 24th a 'general election' will take place in this 26-County State to elect and/or re-elect 165 time-serving place-seekers who will sit in a plush building in Kildare Street in Dublin city centre , pay themselves a basic salary of €2013 a week (...whilst , at the same time [in some cases], paying themselves up to €1572 a week 'expenses' on top of their salary!) and wash their manicured hands of responsibility for their continued and repeated failures to those voters that previously would have considered them 'worthy' enough to sit in that institution .

In this election we encourage those of our readers who are entitled to vote to SPOIL THAT VOTE ! Go to your polling station , claim your vote and deliberately and purposely SPOIL IT ! We ourselves , from this blog , will be writing - " Release All Political Prisoners!" on our voting ballot , but any message you decide to write on your ballot will have the same effect ie that vote will be deemed 'spoiled' .
A 'spoiled vote' is the only proper option open to those of us who wish to declare that we view the whole political system , as it now stands , as a corrupt , money-grabbing 'mé féin' and morally bankrupt system , run , operated , controlled and maintained by useless self-servers .

IF YOU HAVE A VOTE THIS MAY 2007 , USE IT TO MAKE A PROTEST. SPOIL IT !

ANNUAL WOLFE TONE COMMEMORATION : Sunday , June 10 , 2007 , 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 , and return to Dublin at 5.45PM.

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 two years ago .
" From my earliest youth I have regarded the connection between Great Britain and Ireland as the curse of the Irish nation , and felt convinced that , while it lasted , this country could never be free nor happy . My mind has been confirmed in this opinion by the experience of every succeeding year , and the conclusions which I have drawn from every fact before my eyes . In consequence , I was determined to employ all the powers which my individual efforts could move , in order to separate the two countries .
That Ireland was not able of herself to throw off the yoke , I knew ; I therefore sought for aid wherever it was to be found . In honourable poverty I rejected offers which , to a man in my circumstances , might be considered highly advantageous . I remained faithful to what I thought the cause of my country , and sought in the French Republic an ally to rescue three millions of my countrymen " . -Theobald Wolfe Tone .

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The men of 1922 / Derry besieged / Death and Mystery.

'THE MEN OF 1922.......'
From 'The United Irishman' newspaper, January 1958 .

' We wonder do Fianna Fail members ponder occasionally when they read their party newspapers where would Rory, Liam, Dick and Joe have stood today had Free State English guns not robbed them of life on that bleak morning 35 years ago ? Would they stand with the men who stand for Irish freedom and who are locked in the jails of Ireland and England , or would they stand with the men who have used their power to put Irish Republicans behind bars ?

" Freedom , Independence - he had striven for these and less than these he would not take...." , the 'Sunday Press' newspaper writer so described Rory O' Connor ; 'Less than freedom he would not take ...' " He was one of the people and it was Ireland , the people , for him . He was a social insurgent as well as a national one . In his cell at night he pondered deeply on a system which would take from the rich and give to the poor ... " , the 'Sunday Press' so described Liam Mellowes . Would Mellowes then accept today the social evils of unemployment , emigration and poor living standards ?

" Somehow the North was in him. Joe McKelvey had commanded a brigade where all around were foes , and he had that astuteness of the man who works in constant danger , the astuteness and a courage which he does not know himself to possess ..." , the newspaper wrote of Joe McKelvey . Would he stand today for co-operation with the British authorities in Occupied Ireland? And Dick Barrett who was "...to write one strange line showing that he had thought much and was great : ' Death ' , he wrote ,' is only terrible from a distance' . What of Dick Barrett.......? '
(MORE LATER).



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.

It is more than twenty years since I lived in Derry and , although I have visited it regularly in that interval , I have become an outsider and can lay no claim to any special knowledge of the way it is now . My affection for the town remains unimpaired , but it is founded on memories which are constantly being disturbed by its present image . There is no need to rehearse what the place has been through in the last fifteen years - despite heroic efforts on the part of various organisations , the effects have been devastating .

Town-planning has been responsible for a great deal of this , especially in the Bogside, where the open spaces of earlier years have been replaced by bleak apartment blocks and where , as in Belfast , the shape of the neighbourhoods has been changed to accommodate the motor car . New housing estates have sprung up in Shantallow and the Waterside. The Creggan, the oldest of the town's housing estates , built initially both to rehouse people and to preserve the gerrymander system, is , in part , a ruin . Vandalism is responsible for that , but the conditions which allow it to grow and become rampant remain distressingly familiar .

Unemployment is one of them , disaffection with the 'State' and its 'security forces' - which have an appalling record of unpunished crime in the city - is another . The pressure of political and social circumstances has been so unrelenting for so long a time that many people seem to be borned down by it . There is certainly strong support for the IRA and for Sinn Fein in the districts which have suffered most . This is , in itself , sufficient commentary on the policies of successive British governments.......
(MORE LATER).


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 .

Even before the inquest into the death of John O' Shea was held , coroner Helen Lucey wrote to solicitor Michael Finucane saying : " The inquest would be to establish identity and to establish how , when and where the deceased met his death . The question of blame or exoneration will not arise . "

After leaving the Garda Station it was thought that John O' Shea took a taxi to Castlemaine to his local pub . However , this magazine has spoken to a number of people who say they met John O' Shea at a pub in Tralee shortly after he left the garda station . Local man Jerome Daly (35) said he met O' Shea in Richie Houlihan's pub at around 10pm : " He pulled up his shirt and said 'Look what them fuckers did to me...' There were red marks on his side , up near his rib cage , " said Jerome Daly .

Daly , who says he knew John O' Shea through (P) Sinn Fein , was never interviewed by gardai and says he never thought of going to them - " My understanding was that he hit his head and that that was how he died . It's different now . No one is sure anymore . " According to Jerome Daly , John O' Shea "...didn't stay long in the pub . At most he had a short......."
(MORE LATER).

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Rock the 'establishment' on May 24 : SPOIL YOUR VOTE !

Make your vote count on May 24th - SPOIL IT !
This coming May 24th a 'general election' will take place in this 26-County State to elect and/or re-elect 165 time-serving place-seekers who will sit in a plush building in Kildare Street in Dublin city centre , pay themselves a basic salary of €2013 a week (...whilst , at the same time [in some cases], paying themselves up to €1572 a week 'expenses' on top of their salary!) and wash their manicured hands of responsibility for their continued and repeated failures to those voters that previously would have considered them 'worthy' enough to sit in that institution .

In this election we encourage those of our readers who are entitled to vote to SPOIL THAT VOTE ! Go to your polling station , claim your vote and deliberately and purposely SPOIL IT ! We ourselves , from this blog , will be writing - " Release All Political Prisoners!" on our voting ballot , but any message you decide to write on your ballot will have the same effect ie that vote will be deemed 'spoiled' .
A 'spoiled vote' is the only proper option open to those of us who wish to declare that we view the whole political system , as it now stands , as a corrupt , money-grabbing 'mé féin' and morally bankrupt system , run , operated , controlled and maintained by useless self-servers .

IF YOU HAVE A VOTE THIS MAY 2007 , USE IT TO MAKE A PROTEST. SPOIL IT !


ANNUAL WOLFE TONE COMMEMORATION :
Sunday , June 10 , 2007 , 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 , and return to Dublin at 5.45PM.

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 two years ago.
" From my earliest youth I have regarded the connection between Great Britain and Ireland as the curse of the Irish nation , and felt convinced that , while it lasted , this country could never be free nor happy . My mind has been confirmed in this opinion by the experience of every succeeding year , and the conclusions which I have drawn from every fact before my eyes . In consequence , I was determined to employ all the powers which my individual efforts could move , in order to separate the two countries .
That Ireland was not able of herself to throw off the yoke , I knew ; I therefore sought for aid wherever it was to be found . In honourable poverty I rejected offers which , to a man in my circumstances , might be considered highly advantageous . I remained faithful to what I thought the cause of my country , and sought in the French Republic an ally to rescue three millions of my countrymen " . -Theobald Wolfe Tone .

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