AN EXPERIMENT IN JAMES STREET : THE DEATH OF NIALL RUSH.......From 'MAGILL' magazine , September 1984.
By Derek Dunne.
The test also involved doing cycometric tests , which attempt to measure motor responses to drugs , and are considered an indicator of how a person who had been prescribed the drug might act whilst driving a car. These tests were taken three times a day : one such test monitored reaction when a light was switched on or off , another test involved watching a circular tray of lights , knocking each one off as it was switched on. After taking the drug , the time taken to complete these tests increased dramatically. When Joe Claffey was doing this test he was given four cardiographs a day , one of which was done while he was lying down , one standing and one sitting , with three minutes between each reading.
There are many different tests performed at the Institute , ranging from one-off tests lasting a few days up to those lasting a month. Some of the trials are split with intervals of perhaps weeks between each session. Conditions for individual volunteers inside the Institute vary according to what drug they are on : some volunteers might have to give , say, three blood and urine samples a day and, for the rest of the time, they would watch TV , play cards or read etc. Others might have to give more samples , some might have a permanent needle in their arm .
Meals are regular - breakfast , lunch , tea , supper ; some volunteers might have to fast in the morning with certain drugs and those on less exacting tests might sit around playing cards or chatting during the day. The Institute has always had a reputation among some of the people who went in there with , amongst other things , descriptions given of cannabis smoking sessions. A few years ago , the Institute began doing THC tests , which would show up cannabis residue in the bloodstream , and anyone found to have a positive test would be deemed unsuitable to continue their test.......
(MORE LATER).
THE PETER BERRY PAPERS....... The Top Secret Memoirs of Ireland's Most Powerful Civil Servant : Dirty Tricks, Election '69/ Spying on a Unionist Politician/ Keeping the (State) Taoiseach informed/ The Garda Fallon Murder/ Advice to Jack Lynch- 'Fire the pair of them...'/ Vivion De Valera's advice to O'Malley/ Rumours of a Coup D'Etat/ The Internment Plot, November 1970/ Secret Meeting with William Craig.From 'MAGILL' magazine , June 1980.
" With Ministers , the trouble I ran into was generally in connection with their efforts to get the use of additional State cars for personal purposes where government directives restricted each to the use of one car. As Accounting Officer during my 10 years as Secretary , I was held personally responsible to the Minister for Finance and to the Committee of Public Accounts that all disbursements and services within the Votes for the Department of Justice were administered as efficiently and economically as possible and within the treasury rules.
The 'treasury rules' , republished in 1929 and still being circulated to incoming Accounting Officers , in their pristine form in the 1960's provided that where an Accounting Officer differed with the political Head of his department (the Minister) in relation to a matter coming within his purview he should require the Minister's directions in writing and report the matter to the Minister for Finance and to the Committee of Public Accounts.
I had to invoke this protection clause in Mr Haughey's first year of Office and at least twice while Mr Lenihan was Minister. In Mr Haughey's case it was a trial of strength - he was flexing his muscles and exercising what he understood to be absolute authority within his department. It came about in this way : in 1960 , while Parliamentary Secretary , he had promised a minor appointment carrying a small capitation grant while unaware that the Minister , Mr Traynor , was allocating it to somebody else...... "
(MORE LATER).
On Saturday 27th November 2010 , the authors of this blog will be taking part with members of Republican Sinn Féin in a trade union-organised 'anti-budget/cutbacks' protest march through Dublin city centre : we want to stress , again , that we do so in support of the employed and the unemployed , the 'abled' and the 'disabled' and the 'havenots' rather than the 'haves' , who are about to be forced to pay €6 billion between them to bail out the politicians and their property-speculating and big builder friends , and that our participation should not be viewed as an action in support of the trade union leadership who are , in our opinion , as morally corrupt as the politicians they claim to oppose.We dedicate this song to those who , like ourselves, are about to be penalised , again, for the wanton greed and incompetence of the fine-suited , corrupt and perma-tanned bastards that not only caused this poverty , but are determined that others should rescue them , financially - they are beyond any attempted moral rescue.
The assembly point for this protest march is the Garden of Remembrance , Parnell Square , at 12 Noon : hopefully , thousands of people will take part in this on Saturday 27th November 2010 and shut down Dublin City Centre for a few hours.
Thanks to our colleagues in RSF in Cork for bringing this worthy 'Facebook' page to our attention. Contact details for the 'National Graves Association' can be found here , and we wish Matt and the team continued success in their great work. They are a tireless bunch , totally dedicated to their objective , and deserve any assistance you can give them. 
Vinny Byrne, who was 15 years old at the time of the Rising in 1916, asked to see Lieutenant Peter Ames and Lieutenant George Bennett at the door of 38 Upper Mount Street in Dublin :"As I opened the folding-doors, the officer, who was in bed, was in the act of going for his gun under his pillow...."
(From here : please note - the word "murder" is not a word we would use to describe that which happened....)
The ballad session which was to be held in the 79'r Pub in Ballyfermot , Dublin , on Friday 17th December 2010 has been postponed : one of the three acts which were booked to appear had, in fact , being double-booked and the organisers were unable to replace that act in time. As the event had been advertised and promoted locally as a "three-group gig" , the Organising Committee considered it best to postpone the event : a wise decision , I think , as the venue and the crowds who attended all the previous gigs in the venue might have considered themselves to have been 'short-changed' ie expecting a three-group event at which only two groups played. It takes a lot of effort over a long period of time to build a good reputation - as that particular RSF Organising Committee have done - but only one 'wrong move' to destroy that reputation. When the gig has been re-organised we will , of course , post those details here.
Thanks for reading!
Sharon.
