'THERE WILL BE ANOTHER DAY.....'
By Peadar O'Donnell ; first published in January 1963.Jack Boyle was a man of this townland and I had sat by every fireside in it. It was not a meeting I wanted just then but a chat with James Duirnin , and I addressed myself to him and the people stood around and listened. I knew James was not at the chapel gate and I asked him if the neighbours were in with him to tell him what I said , and they were. "The dangerous hour will be the early morning...." he said, in his serious way, "...always the dangerous raid, whether the British made it or the Free Staters , was the early morning raid. We will guard against that by making a place for Jack Boyle's cattle in our byres at night. And we thought the best way would be to draw carts across the one road into the glen by day so that a motorcar won't be able to bring trouble on us without warning. People will be on the watch and someone will give a shout." He looked round at his neighbours. " This is the neighbourliest townland in the whole world and the Republicanist townland in Ireland." Just like that. I felt strangely inadequate - even a little scared - and more than a little moved. I told them this was my first place of call and that I would be on my way now to see a man here and there in other townlands , that I would not keep them from their work on a good harvest day , but I would be back. That scene in Black James Duirnin's field of oats is one of my great 'stills'.
(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.
" I said that I felt like resigning forthwith , in protest, but that to do so in advance of the arms trial would look like trying to run away from my obligation to give testimony and I said that I contemplated retiring on that account in the following January when I would have completed another full year's service which would have pensionable value. My relations with the Minister were not on as cordial a plane after that. When, later , I was to institute an action against the 'Irish Press' newspaper for a defamatory article published on 25th September , just before I was due to give evidence in the arms trial , I showed Senior Counsel my notes in relation to Deputy de Valera's character assassination of July 1970 which I did not propose to use , on the Minister's account, and he said that while it did me much credit it was an unanswerable course of action. "
31ST AUGUST 1970 :
" I resumed work on Monday 31st August. While I had booked an apartment in Torremuella , Spain , for the month of August, I returned to Dublin on 16th August , leaving my wife and daughter behind. The fact that I was to give testimony at the trial of Mr. Haughey in September destroyed my peace of mind and I felt that I would be happier in my home surroundings with books etc to occupy me. I resumed communication with my office and the Garda Authorities who maintained an armed guard on my house throughout the twenty-four hours. The Commissioner prevailed on me to carry a gun for safety and I was given police instructions in the use of it. A firearms certificate was issued by the local District Officer of the Garda and was repeated in 1971....."
(MORE LATER).
BRITAIN WAIVES THE RULES.....
MARTIN COREY 'GUILTY , INNOCENT , GUILTY....'
It's not very often that the mighty British political establishment shows its fangs in public , as it prefers to present itself on the world stage as 'toothless' , if not 'neutral' , when it comes to issues pertaining 'colonial issues' ie '....we introduced democracy to the natives , taught them social etiquette showed them how to trade and then left them to it..'.
Occasionally , however , the drool spills and , in the case of Martin Corey , it flows : "Irish Republican Martin Corey From Lurgan, Co. Armagh was sentenced to Life Imprisonment in December 1973. He was 19 years old. He spent the next 19 years in jail and was finally released without signing anything, in June 1992.Without warning on April 16th 2010 he was taken back into custody. No Reason for same was given to Martin at the time or since his return to jail......"
There have been 'developments' in the last few days in relation to Martin's position which have been aptly commented on by Irish Republicans but , if there is a 'silver lining' to be found in this political 'cloud' , it is to be had in the fact that Westminster's claim to be 'neutral' re its on-going role in this country has publicly been exposed as lie.The judiciary in the Occupied Six Counties will be 'obliged' to play second-fiddle to its paymaster in Westminster (monkey , organ-grinder springs to mind!) when the latter decides that doing so protects its interests better : nothing new to be learned there for Irish Republicans, of course , as we experience smaller instances of that nature whenever we are stopped by HM 'Security Forces' whilst crossing Britain's illegal border and/or when on the streets of the O6C , by which we mean that we know to expect harassment and to have our toes stood on , literally, by these uniformed thugs, but Martin's case has brought things to a level not experienced in a good few years : internment for no reason other than your political viewpoint having marked you out as a target for the State.
The only guaranteed way to exit this 'level' is to obtain a complete British military and political withdrawal from this country and , regardless of how many of us fall victim to the 'monkey' , that will remain the objective. The latest news on this travesty of justice - and opinion on same - can be viewed here.
UP FOR THE MATCH AND IN FOR THE DRAW.....!
We had a wilder than usual time on Sunday last (8th July 2012) at the monthly Irish Republican raffle , as we found ourselves in the middle of four sets of competing fans : Galway , Kilkenny , Dublin and Wexford were playing against each other (in some or other combination!) in GAA fixtures which yours truly hadn't a clue about. Two members of the raffle team apparently knew about the matches as they purposely wore 'neutral colour' clothes but the other three of us were picked-on/slagged/supported/encouraged (include and/or between all of those descriptive terms!) because of the colour of some or other item of clothing and because of our Dub accents !
But , as usual with all the sporting fans we've met at previous raffles, it was all in good craic , and we gave as good as we got and didn't care whether they were Dubs or culchies! Anyway - down to business : one of usual customers , Anto the coach driver, went nuclear when a ticket (202) he sold to his pal , Tony Burke, was the first one out of the raffle drum , winning a tidy €200 for Tony but then it dawned on Anto that he couldn't share in the spoils 'cause he was the 'designated driver' and so we done the only thing we could do : we slagged Anto !
When Anto and Tony calmed down a wee bit , we got Tony to pull the second prize (€100) and that was when Tony's celebrations paled into nothingness as a young Dublin lady , Sonya F , whooped and danced her way to our table to verify that ticket number 044 was the winner - and it sure was! Amidst the chaos that ensued , we managed to get one of Sonya's friends to pull out the third prize - €40 - and a young Miss from Arklow , in the county of Wicklow - Trisha K - made her way to the front of house to claim her prize with ticket number 461. The Arklow lass pulled the fourth prize for us - ticket number 253 - and a young Waterford lad , Tommy D , calmly approached the table , handed over his ticket stub and , with a wink, quietly collected his twenty spot. That 'TD'(!) then gave an oul fella from Ballyer in Dublin - Paddy T - fifth prize of €20 on ticket number 650 and Paddy extended the good karma by picking ticket 295 , which Brandan from Carlow had bought and he, in turn, passed-on a similar sum to Tomás , from Waterford , on ticket number 257. And it was that latter winner we blamed for no-one else winning except Colm Farrelly , who had bought ticket 120 from one of our regulars , Owen , and won our last prize with it.
When things returned to normal (or as normal as possible with all the GAA supporters present!) we left two of the Committee members to tidy-up the books and the rest of us went off in search of Tony Burke , to take him up on his earlier offer of a pint or two to celebrate his win. Which is how we ended up in Kilkenny (or was it Galway?) for the remainder of that day and some of the next one and also explains why it is that I'm so late in posting this report..... ;-)!
Thanks for reading, Sharon.
