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.....
" A welcome if belated development in Ireland has been the increasing willingness of Church bodies and spokespersons to speak out on behalf of the poor , as they have done in Latin America and elsewhere in the Third World. Some of them have joined with us in calling for the unemployed and young people of Ireland to refuse to emigrate and to fight for a decent future in their own country.
The past year has seen a remarkable series of anniversaries in different countries connected with major historical developments , some of them more remote than others , but all relevant in their own way for this organisation and for the Republican Movement. Our hallmark always has been , despite the detractors, the lies and the clever propaganda , the pursuit of a genuine developed democratic system , based on national sovereignty and international respect for the rights of all members of the family of nations.
Nineteen eighty-nine has also seen some remarkable developments in current liberation struggles and in the efforts of those pushing for reforms , some good, some bad, some radical and revolutionary , some unexpected , many unbelievable even to the members of this organisation whose basic tenet - core value if you will ! - has always been that the Irish people are capable of practically anything in the pursuit of their august destiny as long as they believe in their own strength and their inalienable right to self-determination....... "
(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.)
There is a further point , however . It is virtually certain that Sean O'Callaghan would have briefed his garda handler fully on what happened to John Corcoran after the murder* had taken place . O'Callaghan was , according to himself and the gardaí , the richest source of information in 20 years on what was happening within the IRA.
This means that while the gardaí were pretending to the Corcoran family and to the public (and also, almost certainly, to the State Department of Justice) that they were investigating the murder* , they were not doing so.
They knew from a very early stage precisely what had happened and who was involved and thus had no need to investigate the Corcoran case.......
(MORE LATER).
TRADE UNIONS AND THE HUNGER-STRIKE.......From 'IRIS' magazine, November 1981.
Uniquely amongst the general trade union movement , the executive of the ICTU is exceptionally anti-nationalist and adhers loyally to the confused and stumbling politics* it has borrowed , on the 'national question' , from the State 'Labour Party' . (*'1169...' Comment - whilst others were quite happy in 1998, to 'borrow' from the anti-republican agenda of Leinster House , Stormont and Westminster.) Dominated by Labour Party supporters - members of a party which never turns down the opportunity to coalesce with the ultra-conservative Fine Gael - the ICTU leadership conjures up many spurious arguments to justify its otherwise inexcusable immobility on what is now a major national and international issue .
The spectre of a loyalist backlash , within the trade unions in the Six Counties , is a figment of the ICTU's imaginatiom . In fact the Belfast Trades Council - which is loyalist dominated - has a long-standing policy of sympathy with three of the hunger-strikers' demands , and an implied desire to see the hunger-strike ended by the British moving towards full concessions to the protestors.
Even the Rev. Martin Smyth, 'Grand Master' of the Orange Order - to which many loyalist workers belong - has pointed out that the conceding of political status poses no great problems for his organisation. In fact , the hunger-strike is not the question which could seriously divide the organised trade union movement.......
(MORE LATER).
