Aitheasc an Uachtaráin Ruairí Ó Brádaigh don 85ú Ard-Fheis de Shinn Féin in Óstlann an Spa , Leamhcán , Co. Atha Cliath , 21ú agus 22ú Deireadh Fómhair , 1989 /
Presidential Address of Ruairí Ó Brádaigh to the 85th Ard-Fheis of Sinn Féin in the Spa Hotel , Lucan , County Dublin , 21st and 22nd October 1989.....
" In the Tuam area of County Galway , emigration is running at three times the national average with the loss of 400 people in the last year alone. That reality and those images are not shown by the media here because of the inescapable conclusion it would present to the people - that both States in Ireland are a failure and are judged a failure by those forced to vote with their feet.
The fate of 34% of the population living in poverty within Ireland is no better : with record levels of unemployment , ameliorated only by the even higher levels of emigration , fifty thousand people on hospital waiting lists, the marginalised one third of the population see that an estimated 1,800 million pounds is owed in taxes in the 26 Counties alone , predominantly by well-healed tax dodgers. Many of these people are increasingly investing in foreign takeovers without any obligation on them to plough back their profits in Ireland.
Irish Republicans must fight to expose this two-tier society that has recently seen a national asset like Carysfort College being handed over to private interests while the people of Dún Laoghaire badly need a Regional Technical College......."
(MORE LATER).
BETRAYAL.......
The (State) Gardaí used John Corcoran (pictured) as a (P)IRA informer. They allowed him to be killed by another (P)IRA informer, and have since refused to investigate his murder*.
From 'MAGILL' magazine, Christmas Annual 1997.
By Ursula Halligan and Vincent Browne.
(* '1169...' Comment - their word, not ours.)
On December 13th , 1996 , 'The Kerryman' newspaper reported gardaí as stating that the John Corcoran case had been fully investigated and that a file had been sent to the State DPP . A week later , the garda press office contradicted this and stated that the case was still open and that the investigation was "ongoing" .
As reported in the following pages , Sean O'Callaghan claims that the decision to execute John Corcoran was taken by senior figures in the IRA , but a person then prominent in the IRA (in 1985) claims that that decision was taken by O'Callaghan himself , almost certainly in collusion with members of the (Free State) Garda Síochána who would not have wanted to 'blow' O'Callaghan's cover as an informer.
This would have been very likely had the gardaí raided the farm where John Corcoran was being held prior to his murder*.......
(MORE LATER).
TRADE UNIONS AND THE HUNGER-STRIKE.......From 'IRIS' magazine, November 1981.
This position of support by the ICTU leadership , for political prisoners protesting against an established 'Irish government' , contrasts significantly with its attitude to the hunger-strike in Long Kesh prison : in 1980 , during the first phase of the hunger-strike led by Brendan Hughes, the ICTU executive not only refused to support the prisoners but also , without qualification, called upon the prisoners to unilaterally end their fast.
More recently, the ICTU refused to meet with relatives of the hunger-strikers , saying - " It would be unproductive to do so..." , while suggesting that to support the republican prisoners would alienate loyalist workers and lend succour to the overall IRA campaign.
The original 'concession' of political status for IRA prisoners was made in 1920 by the British government . Thomas Ashe died on hunger-strike during that prison struggle , and central to a victory for the IRA prisoners , at that time, was a nationwide general strike organised by the trade union movement.......
(MORE LATER).
