In August , 1916 , Roger Casement , who was arrested on the eve of the Rising at Banna Strand in Kerry ( having come ashore from a German submarine) was hanged in Pentonville Prison , London . Of the ninty people who were sentenced to death by courts martial , 15 were executed, while the remainder( including Countess Markievicz) had their sentences commuted to life imprisonment .

In total , 1,836 men and five women ~ Brigid Foley , Maire Perolz , Nell Ryan , Winifred Carney and Helena Moloney~ were deported to prisons and internment camps in England and Wales . Between 3 and 12 May , 1916 , 15 Republican leaders were executed by firing squad in Kilmainham and Cork jails , in the aftermath of the 1916 Rising .
...and still the problem persists - how many more Risings are needed before the British admit their folly ?
During the years 1941-1948 , Lyndon B Johnson ( sworn in as U S President after the assassination of John F Kennedy) claimed he had seen 70,000 flying miles during which he had shot down fourteen Japanese planes , had his own engines shot out by enemy aircraft , acquired the nickname ' Raider' Johnson and been hospitalised on the Fiji Islands . In actual fact , Johnson's contribution to the U S war effort was one fifteen-minute flight as an observer in the South Pacific !!
.....was Johnson related to Ronnie Reagan ??

...... however , three days later (May 8) , three Republicans were executed - Eamonn Ceannt (Commander of the South Dublin Union) , Michael Mallin (Commander of the garrison at St Stephens Green) and Sean Heuston , a member of Na Fiann Eireann , who commanded the Mendicity Institute garrison . Later on that same day , Con Colbert , who had assumed command at Marrowbone Lane , was also put to death .
On May 9 , the only execution outside Dublin took place in Cork Jail where Thomas Kent , who had defended his home at Bawnard House , Fermoy , when British soldiers attempted to arrest his entire family , was shot by firing squad . On May 12 , Sean MacDiarmada and the dying James Connolly (Commander of the Dublin rebels) ,who had to be strapped upright in a chair , were shot by firing squad in Kilmainham Jail . (MORE LATER .....)

Far be it for me to speak ill of the dead , but a fact is a fact ~
In November 1989 , Catholic Bishop Edward Daly called for an end to Section 31 of the Broadcasting Act (which forbid Republican comment on radio and television in the State) . The Fine Gael communications spokesperson at the time , the late Jim Mitchell , said he favoured extending the ban to silent TV coverage of meetings , walkabouts , press conferences etc . He said to end the ban would almost certainly shift the balance in favour of "subversives" !
And that was not so much due to the way we put across the message , as the fact that the message itself was the correct path ; a fact which the Free Staters could'nt handle .

More information has been E-mailed to me re the aftermath of the 1916 Rising --

Sixteen Irish Republicans , including the seven signatories of the Proclamation , were executed by the British , after the Rising , while hundreds were imprisoned and interned in England and Wales . Within two days of the ending of the Rising ,court martials were convened by the British at Arbour Hill and Richmond Barracks - one of the first to face court-martial was Padraig Pearse , the President of the newly-proclaimed Irish Republic (32-Counties,NOT a 26-County State) and commander-in-chief of the Republican Army . On May 2 , 1916 , he was sentenced to death and despite a plea that his life be forfeit and that those of his comrades be spared , his request was rejected . During the following ten days , 15 Republicans were court-martialled , sentenced to death and executed .
On the morning of May 3 , 1916 , Pearse and Thomas J Clarke , the veteran Fenian and first signatory of the Proclamation , and Thomas MacDonagh , commander of the 2nd Battalion at Jacob's factory , were executed by firing squad in the yard of Kilmainham Jail . The following day , four more executions took place - Joseph Plunkett (GPO Garrison) ,Edward Daly (commander of the Four Courts Garrison) , Willie Pearse (GPO) and Michael O'Hanrahan (second-in-command at Jacobs factory) . Major John MacBride , a veteran of the Boer War in South Africa , who fought at Jacobs factory , was the only execution carried out on May 5 ........(MORE LATER......)

When Jack Lynch was Free State ' Taoiseach ' here in the bad old days , he appointed a Mr Desmond O Malley as ' Minister for Justice' : in December 1970 , Dessie threatened to introduce internment without trial in the State ~ this was nine months before Stormont premier Brian Faulkner imposed said internment in the Six Counties ! That's the Free Staters for ya-do the Brits dirty work even before they themselves can do it .....

..... Con Colbert held the position of Captain of ' F ' Company , Fourth Battalion , during Easter Week...

Throughout the early part of that week in 1916 , he commanded Watkin's Brewery in Ardee Street , an important outpost of the South Dublin Union , which intended to cut off the approach of the enemy from the south and west . On Wednesday , April 26th , he moved his small unit of about 20 men and boys to the main garrison at Jameson's Distillery , Marrowbone Lane ~ the fight that followed was described as ' fierce and bloody' .
Following Pearse's signed order to surrender on Saturday , April 29th , Con Colbert assumed command of the Marrowbone Lane garrison to save the life of his superior officer . In Richmond Barracks , after the surrender , Colbert was picked out by Dublin Castle detectives and transferred to Kilmainham Jail . On Thursday , May 4th , he was court-martialled and sentenced to death . On Sunday , May 7th , the death sentence was confirmed and , at 3.45am on the following morning , he was executed by firing squad in the yard of Kilmainham Jail with three others- Sean Heuston , Eamonn Ceannt and Michael Mallin . That happened on May 8th , 1916 - Con Colbert was only 23 years of age .
Not one of those that went out in 1916 did so with the intention of securing a partial British withdrawal ;
The fight then ,as now , is for an island free of British interference .....

During the 1920's , Britain divided both Ireland and Mesopotamia , keeping control in each nation of the most industrialised and profitable area ; Ireland was partitioned and Mesopotamia was 'made into' the kingdoms of Iraq and Kuwait . And it's all comimg back to haunt them .....

Beannachtai na Nollag , a chara - slan anois .

One of perhaps the least-mentioned leaders of the 1916 Rising , and the youngest , was Con Colbert .
He was born in Monalena , near Newcastle West , in Limerick , in 1893 , and was reared in Athea and educated at the local national school and later at the CBS in North Richmond Street after the family moved to Dublin . After his schooling , his first job was as a clerk at Kennedy's Bakery in Parnell Street . He was a fluent Irish speaker and joined Na Fianna Eireann in August 1909 , at 16 years of age . His Fianna work became his ambition , and he helped to organise routines and training for the other boys - he also established nightly classes in the use of fire-arms , signalling , scouting , map-reading and first-aid classes .
At the invitation of Padraig Pearse , Con Colbert acted as drill-instructor to the boys at St Edna's school in Rathfarnham and formed a slua (group) of Na Fianna in the school . In 1911 , he joined the Irish Republican Brotherhood and , in 1913 , at it's foundation , he joined the Irish Volunteers at it's inaugural meeting in November that year . He was soon elected to it's Executive Committee and became one of their first instructors in drill and fire-arms . The Irish Volunteers promoted Colbert to the position of Captain of ' F ' Company , Fourth Battalion , which was then commanded by Eamonn Ceannt ~ this was the position that Con Colbert held during Easter Week ......
(MORE LATER)

The last three ' legitimate ' kings of "Great Britain" are buried in the Vatican- in St Peters itself ! The last king was not only a Catholic , but a senior Roman Cardinal ; Cardinal King HenryIX . It was not untill Edward VII ( 20th Century) that England produced a 'monarch' whose first language was English ! ... And sure have'nt we in Oireland bein' spaking the english for ages-thick Paddies howarya .....

This month thirty-one years ago (December 5 , 1971) , the ' Democratic Unionist Party ' (DUP) was officially launched : prior to this , Ian Paisley was involved in the 'Ulster Protestant Action' group whose stated aim was~ " to keep Protestant and loyal workers in employment in times of recession in preference to their Catholic fellow workers " . The ' UPA ' was founded by Paisley in 1956 and used by him as an election vehicle ; on April 17 , 1970 , he was elected as British MP for North Antrim and has'nt stopped shouting since ...
In 1986 , William Beattie told the DUP youth wing " We must hire assassins ( to murder Catholics) and pay them when the job is done " . It was obviously cheaper to let the Brits do it for them-UDA , UVF , LVF etc etc .....
A man who might have been interested in DUP membership , a Mr Noel Koch , a former top U S ' anti-terrorism ' expert (who resigned from the U S Defence Department in May 1986 in protest at covert U S arms sales to Iran) suggested at the June 1987 Congressional hearings that the leader of a pro-Iranian group suspected of holding U S hostages in Lebanon should be " taken off to a nice warm dry place " where " I would take off something thats non-life-threatening like a finger and I'd wrap it in a note and I'd say ' There's a lot more where this came from ' " . He said he would then demand the release of all hostages immediately " and , if not , we'll be sending some more of this stuff around . There is a reality in which people do have to do things that are not taught in Sunday School . This hostage situation could be resolved rather handily if we choose to do it " . In dealing with ' terrorists' , Koch suggested that the U S should be " a little more creative and a little less fastidious " !! Obviously , Noel's mother did'nt name him with Christmas in mind ......

The American Civil War (1861-1865) was fought to ensure " that self-determination belonged only to the whole people of the nation " : President Abraham Lincoln stated -- "On what rightful principle may a State , being not more than one-fiftieth part of the nation in soil and population , break up the nation and then coerce a proportionally larger sub-division of itself in the most arbitrary way ?" .
The Six-County area of Ireland which Britain presently claims jurisdiction over (partitioned 82 years ago) had never existed before as an entity in history , or politics , or economics . Craigavon , deputy-leader of the Unionists in the British parliament , explained on March 29 , 1920 , why only six of the nine counties of Ulster could be brought under a Belfast parliament ~
" The three excluded counties contain some 70,000 Unionists and 260,000 Sinn Feiners and Nationalists and the addition of that large block of Sinn Feiners and Nationalists would reduce our majority to such a level that no sane man would undertake to carry on a Parliament with it . We quite frankly admit that we cannot hold the nine counties " ( see ' HANSARD ' , Volume 127 , column 991) . We can expect a similar ' explanation ' soon , from the British Parliament , as to why they now need to re-partition the partitioned area ! The Six-County Unionists would be doing themselves a favour in recognising that Britain has no permanent friends or enemies - only permanent interests ~ she will sell them out in 200? just as quickly as she did in 1920 ......

In an interview in ' Ireland on Sunday ' on March 28 , 1999 ,(page 16) , Provo Leinster House member Martin Ferris claimed that his house-phone had been cut off and his party was so broke (financially , he meant ! ) that they could'nt pay the bill for him ..... must be all those globe-trotting flights and $500-a-plate dinners and fine suits and cars that the money is spent on , Martin .....
..... he stated~ " People may not agree with me but they know I'm honest and I'll tell them the truth . I will not lie and cheat " . The medical-card incident is well known , but what about a certain M/S Ferris on a college grant ....?

That old British chestnut surfaced here again recently regarding Roger Casement ; the British still insisting that the ' diaries ' they ' found ' belong to the man . While that issue continues to fill column-space in the newspapers , Casement's speech from the dock goes unmentioned --
" Ireland is being treated today among the nations of the world as if she were a convicted criminal . If it be treason to fight against such an unnatural fate as this , then I am proud to be a rebel and shall cling to my ' rebellion ' with the last drop of my blood . If there be no right of rebellion against the state of things that no savage tribe would endure without resistance , then I am sure that it is better for men to die without right than to live in such a state of right as this . Where all your rights have become only an accumulated wrong , where men must beg with bated breath for leave to subsist in their own land ; to think their own thoughts , to sing their own songs , to gather the fruits of their own labours and , even while they beg , to see things inexorably withdrawn from them - then surely it is a braver , a saner and truer thing to be a rebel , in act and in deed , against such circumstances as these , than to tamely accept as the natural lot of men " .
The British feared such an influential man as Casement when he was their prisoner and feared the legacy he left behind after his death ; to divide his supporters it was necessary to malign his name , which is what they are still attempting to do with the so-called ' diaries ' .
Thankfully , thanks to their own history , the British have no credibility when they stand on a world stage and ask to be believed .
At their Ard Fheis in March this year , Bertie Ahern told the assembled ' Soldiers of Destiny ' -- " We need a kinder , gentler republicanism . We in Fianna Fail will continue to encourage former revolutionary parties to complete their transformation to become strictly democratic ones " . ~ Thats an easy job , Bertie ; the leadership of that "former revolutionary party" is doing the job for you !

......but Carter had another visitor- Garret Fitzgerald , the then Fine Gael top statesman , got word that Carter had been speaking to Fr Sean McManus and requested a meeting with the now U S President .
The meeting went ahead on 14 March , 1977 , and the Fine Gael blueshirt persuaded Carter " not to speak about the Northern Ireland(sic) issue in human rights terms " . By now , of course , like all politicians , Jimmy Carter had got what he wanted and got where he wanted , with the assistance of people whom he had promised that he would not forget afterwards !
And , again like all politicians ~ ' eaten bread is soon forgotten ' . The issue here is not only Carters about-turn on the Irish issue , but rather on why any Irish man would try to persuade a powereful figure like Carter NOT to involve himself in the question of Britains involvement in Ireland .

And the race is on to try and get Stormont up and running again in time for the elections to that institution next May . When talks were held in May and June 1996 in order to put together the Stormont Treaty , one of the first issues to be discussed was that of wages and expenses for the participants ! It was agreed that those attending the talks at Castle Buildings , Stormont , would be paid a basic "loss of earnings" allowance of £100 Sterling each a day , plus subsistance and travel expenses at the standard British Civil Service rates ! Nice one , lads ....
In addition to the above , each of the then nine political parties involved were given a flat allowance of £300Sterling per day for each day they were involved in the talks , and each party was given a " research grant" of up to a maximum of £6000 per quarter year !
Another reason why the Provos and the rest of them were so anxious to get into Stormont - they could'nt afford not to ...

.....throughout Easter Week , the women engaged in the fight also helped to look after the wounded and voluntered to do the difficult and dangerous task of carrying the numerous vital dispatches between the various garrisons and outposts , in addition to gathering intelligence on British troop movements around the city .They also transported food supplies and ammunition through the many British army checkpoints .
On Saturday ,April 29 ,1916 , Nurse Elizabeth O Farrell , Julia Greenan and Winifred Carney(James Connolly's secretary) who had all moved to the new republican HQ in Moore Street following the evacuation of the GPO , carried Padraig Pearse's final order of surrender to British General Lowe at the corner of Moore Street and Parnell Street . Cumann na mBan were instructed to tour the republican garrisons with Pearse's order to surrender .
Seventy-seven women were arrested as a result of the Easter Rising , and many of those were released within days ; however , five women- Brigid Foley ,Maire Perolz , Nell Ryan , Winifred Carney and Helena Maloney were held for longer periods . Countess Markievicz , court-martialled and sentenced to death , had her sentence commuted to penal servitude for life and was released from Aylesbury Prison in June 1917 .
Countess Markievicz was born in London in 1868 . She founded Fianna Eireann in 1909 and , during the 1913 ' lock-out ' , she ran the Liberty Hall kitchen . She was baptised a Catholic in 1917 ~ she died on July 15 , 1927 . The cause that these women fought for is still with us , as is the history they left us ; it is not a history of appeasement ....

On Wednesday ,October 27 , 1976 , a few days before he was elected U S President , the Irish National Caucus arranged a meeting with Jimmy Carter in Pittsburgh . About fifty Irish-American leaders from around the U S attended . Fr Sean McManus made the opening statement in which he criticised US policy on the Six Counties and urged Carter to set a new policy if elected . Carter replied- " We see specific instances where human rights are subjugated and where quite often our nation , as was pointed out by Father McManus , stands mute and does'nt speak . It is a mistake for our countrys government to stand quiet on the struggle of the Irish for peace , for respect , for human rights and for unifying Ireland " .
Good words , well spoken ; but , Carter had another visitor ...... MORE LATER ...

During Easter Week 1916 , almost 100 women , members of Cumann na mBan and the Irish Citizen Army , played a full part in the fighting : Cumann na mBan , formed in April 1914 and the Irish Citizen Army , founded by James Connolly in November 1913 , were in training months before the Rising . Both groups received instruction in first aid , signalling and weapons preparation . Connollys daughters , Nora and Agnes , who were both members of Cumann na mBan , joined other members of that organisation in travelling around the country to ascertain the strengths and weaknesses in a particular area .
On Easter Monday 1916 , as the Volunteers and Citizen Army set out from Liberty Hall to occupy the various garrisons throughout Dublin , they were accompanied by several dozen women from the ICA and Cumann na mBan - these women were joined by dozens more once news of the rising spread . Altogether , 34 women , including Nurse Elizabeth O Farrell , Julia Grennan and Winifred Carney , were stationed at republican headquarters in the GPO . Women also stood side-by-side with the men at the Four Courts , Jacobs Factory and the South Dublin Union ; however , at Bolands Mills , which was under the command of Eamon de Valera , no women served ~ de Valera wpould not allow it !
The Irish Citizen Army put Michael Mallin in charge of the rebels stationed at St Stephens Green and he , in turn , placed Countess Markievicz as second-in-command - the Countess and Margaret Skinnider , who was badly injured during the fighting , acted as snipers from the roof of the College of Surgeons . In the City Hall area , where the commander Sean Connolly was killed during the Citizen Army attack on Dublin Castle on Easter Monday , Dr Kathleen Lynn , the most senior officer at the outpost , took over . MORE LATER......

In 1796 , the British established the Yeomanry , a de facto Orange militia ; within two years they were out of control , so much so that General Abercromby , who was called in to instil some discipline and restraint in late 1797 , resigned in disgust after issuing his famous order of February 1798 ~ " The army (are) in such a state of licentiousness that makes them formidable to everyone save the enemy " ! Would that they would only destroy each other today , too ....

Tim Pat Coogan , the newspapers mentioned previously , the Provos , Piet De Pauw etc -- all wrong in relation to the outcome of the vote on the Stormont Treaty ('Good Friday Agreement') ~~
..... which was put to the vote on Friday ,May 22 , 1998 , in this Free State and in the Six Counties --
In this state , the turnout was 56.3 % ; of those , 1,442,583 (94.4%) voted 'YES' and 85,748 (5.6%) voted 'NO' .
But 43.97% of those entitled to vote in the state did not do so !

In the Six Counties the turnout was 81% ; of those , 676,966 (71.12%) voted ' YES ' and 274,879 (28.88%) voted ' NO' .
But 19% of those entitled to vote in the Six Counties did not do so !
The claims that "the majority voted for it" and that it represents "the democratic wish of 95% of the population " etc etc is a deliberate falsehood put about by those that would attempt to convince the Irish people that the struggle to achieve a just and permanent settlement has been achieved . That finality can only begin when the British give a date for their withdrawal from this country - it has not been a war of over 800 years only to say to the British that which the Stormont Treaty leads them to believe _ ' Stay if you want , just treat us better ...' That was never the Republican demand , regardless of how well dressed and presentable those are that travel the globe calling , in effect , for the British to implement their policy in Ireland !
In his book ' History of the Irish Working Class ' , Peter Beresford Ellis wrote- " On October 25 , 1920 , Lord Mayor of Cork , Terence MacSwiney , poet , dramatist and scholar , died on the 74th day of a hunger-strike while in Brixton Prison , London . A young Vietnamese dishwasher in the Carlton Hotel in London broke down and cried when he heard the news - " A Nation which has such citizens will never surrender " . His name was Nguyen Ai Quoc who , in 1941 , adopted the name Ho Chi Minh and took the lessons of the Irish anti-imperialist fight to his own country " .
Terence MacSwiney , Bobby Sands - how many other examples are we going to need .........?

Bertie Ahern , ' Sunday Business Post' , 3/5/98 , page 16 - said it means that "Britain is out of the equation " ~
AP/RN , 10/9/98 , page 9 - said it was " the will of the electorate in both partitioned states " ~
' The Sunday Business Post ' , 13/2/00 , page 18 - said its institutions were set up " as a direct result of a vote of all the people of this island , the will of the entire people of Ireland " ~
' Ireland on Sunday' ,28/3/99 , page 14 - said it was " the wish of almost every last man and woman in this country " ~
AP/RN , 20/5/99 , page 9 - said it was " endorsed by a huge majority of this countrys people " ~
Tim Pat Coogan , in his 'IOS' column on 24/9/00 (page 32) said that " more than 90 per cent of the people of this island voted for " it ~
Niall O Dowd , in his 'IOS' column on 13/2/00 (page 31) said that it was " the democratic wish of 95 per cent of the population in the Irish Republic and 72 per cent in the North " ~
Piet De Pauw , the Belgium lawyer and human-rights expert , said , in December 2000 , that " the majority of the people on this island voted for " it ~
AP/RN , 11/3/99 , page 12 , said it " was endorsed by 85 per cent of the people of Ireland " ~
Tim Pat Coogan , again , this time in his 'IOS' column dated 7/5/00 , page 34 , said that its institutions " were voted for by an overwhelming majority on this island " ~~~~
What were they talking about ?
And why are they all wrong ?
More later .....
According to a report released by the United Nations Committee on Air Pollution in June , 1987 , Britain was then ( still is ?) the main acid rain polluter of the 32 Counties : they were also responsible for the pollution of every one of 16 sites where measurements were taken in East and West Europe , and contributed about 43 per cent of the sulphur pollution and 36 per cent of the nitrogen pollution affecting Ireland - they were also listed as the greatest single polluter of Norway and Sweden ! ( See ' The Sunday Tribune' , June 21 , 1987 , page 4) .
Damn Brits - if they don't get ya one way ........

Sir Charles Edward Trevelyan , the then permanent head of the British Treasury , was the man who held the British purse-strings and oversaw the economy while hundreds of thousands of Irish people died of starvation and disease in 1845 ,'46 and '47 . He is best remembered for saying the following during The Great Hunger ( ' Famine ' ) in this country ~ " The great evil with which we have to contend is not the physical evil of the famine(sic) , but the moral evil of the selfish , perverse and turbulent character of the Irish people " . Trevelyan was put in charge of 'relief effort' by his administration , but actually remained in England throughout that period - he received a knighthood for his work !
He once stated his belief that Cromwell had three objectives in Ireland ~ to pay off , in Irish land , the soldiers who had fought and the capitalists who had provided the money , for the conquest / to render the English hold upon Ireland secure against rebellion / to extripate Roman Catholicism . Cromwell done the damage on the military front , while people like Trevelyan ,who stayed in the background , backed up the ' Cromwells ' financially and morally . Its only right that they should be remembered , too .....
In 1847 , the Poor Law Committee stated that 2,385,000 people starved in Ireland every year , whether the potato crop failed or not . Trevelyan and his like simply hurried things along ....
On a somewhat similar note - On Sunday , July 12 , 1992 , a more up-to-date version of the above-named specimens died ~ Albert Pierrepoint , the last Englisg hangman ! He hanged IRA Volunteer Charlie Kerins , Chief of Staff , in December 1944 . Kerins will always be remembered and commemorated in Ireland , while Pierrepoint and those that appointed him will remain infamous . And that particular list is yet to be finally updated ....

The old Irish song ' The Old Bog Road ' was penned by Teresa Brayton , who was born in Kilbrook , Co. Kildare , in 1868 . The song itself is a ballad about being exiled from Ireland , while another of her songs was adopted by Na Fianna Eireann , the Republican scouting organisation , as its marching song . Teresa was known locally as an Irish patriot and a staunch Republican , and she became an assistant teacher at Newtown in Kildare . She emigrated to America in 1908 but returned home frequently , and was a friend to , amongst others , Constance Markievicz and Helena Moloney . After the 1916 Rising and throughout the Tan War she supported the Irish Republican cause in America by distributing pamphlets and fund-raising . She also wrote a song about ' The Manchester Martyrs ' ( Allen , Larkin and O Brien ) . Teresa Brayton died in America on August 24 , 1943 .

When he was British Foreign Secretary , Douglas Hurd , former Six-County Direct Ruler , stated -- " We need to make it clear that we don't accept the partition of Bosnia by force . The idea that simply because you or your friends have occupied swathes of terrority , the world simply packs up and accepts that , will be shown to be wrong " . ' Hear Hear ' , Douglas , and so say all of us !

In 1963 , the British pulled out of Kenya . The Mau Mau 'terrorists' that fought against the British presence were treated much like the Irish ' terrorists ' , and are now fighting the Brits again !
They are taking their former oppressors to court to seek compensation for human rights abuses during the 1950's and 1960's . More than half a million Mau Mau belonging to the Mau Mau Trust welfare group have hired British lawyer ( fight fire with fire ! ) Martin Day to fight their case . They claim that British soldiers regularly beat and tortured the Kenyans with rifle butts and glass bottles before putting them to work as slave labourers . It has been stated that some of the men were effectively castrated by the British soldiers , while female prisoners were raped repeatedly and with extreme violence . The brits , as can be expected , deny the claims and have said that the majority of 'official ' records(ie their own files) were destroyed in the war .
On the other hand , Mr Blair , we Irish have plenty of paperwork ......

Liam Mellows , the Irish Republican leader , predicted in the Treaty debate on January 4 , 1922 -- " Men will get into positions , men will hold power , and men who get into positions and hold power will desire to remain undisturbed and will not want to be removed " ;
Human Nature again - Mellows was warning us about those that fool themselves into thinking that they can cosy up to the British but still maintain their opposition to the British presence : the Brits , of course , are past masters of pulling people like that ' the extra mile ' ie into the establishment . They will try it now , again ,in Kenya , and are doing it now , in Ireland . But not to all of us ...

A group called ' Ailtiri na hAiseirghe' , Irish for ' Architects of the Resurrection' , entered the political scene in the Free State in the early 1940's , with the intention of creating a ' Gaelic , Christian ,Corporatist (fascist) state ' . They apparently supported the Portugese dictator Salazar , and condemned "the cumbersome indirect methods of our imposed, corrupt , unchristian , Godless and inefficient brand of parliamentary democracy " . They stated that there should be "room for only one national party " in the State , and that under its rule we would be " a model for the whole world ,and our superior civilisation would enable Ireland to control not only the Atlantic , but the Pacific ... " .
They also claimed that such a State " could dictate to dictators and in co-operation with Divine Providence it could settle the affairs of the universe for another two-thousand years ! In the 1943 election , four 'Resurrection' candidates amassed four thousand votes between them - in !944 , seven 'Res' candidates got six thousand votes , all but one of them losing their deposits . In the 1948 election they fielded one candidate and received only 323 votes . Perhaps Fine Gael should change its name and improve its fortunes ......
About ten years ago , a Mr Geoffrey Wheatcroft was a columnist with the (ever-so) British ' The Sunday Telegraph' (perhaps he still is - its not a newspaper I 'take' , as they say...) . In one of his columns , Geoffrey stated - " Fifty years ago , Serbs and Croats were massacring each other on a scale that makes the Ulster(sic) problem seem as trivial as it indeed is . Partition has been the greatest boon and benefit Ireland has enjoyed this century .It is the essential condition without which the southern state could not have survived as it has " . I say-steady on , Geoffrey , old man !
I have just removed 'The sunday Telegraph' from my Christmas card list ...

In May , 1956 , while speaking to the Aden Legislative Council , British Lord Lloyd stated~ " The importance of Aden both strategically and economically is such that we (British Government) cannot forsee the possibility of any fundamental relaxation of our responsibilities for the colony " -- In November 1967 , Britain withdrew !
Speaking about Cyprus in 1954 , Henry Hopkinson , a Colonial Office Minister of State , said~ " It has always been understood and agreed that there are certain territories in the Commonwealth which , owing to their particular circumstances , can never expect to be independent " -- In August 1960 , Cyprus became independent ...
In ???? , speaking at ////// British PM ~~~~~~~ stated that due to the proximity of the two isles/our stiff upper lip/ for the sake of our position on the world stage/ the British will continue to exercise a jurisdictional claim in Ireland-- however , in ..........

An extract from MIchael Davitts ' The Fall of Feudalism in Ireland' states -- The genius of misgovernment has never been more wilfully blind in its methods or more persistent in the folly of political unwisdom than in the ways and means of Englands rule in Ireland . Laws and force have come to us across the sea in their most provocative form and applicaton , while concessions were never wisely or tactfully made to a cry of justice , but always to the pressure of turmoil , illegality or insurrection . Every stage of the Anglo-Irish struggle attests this fact in its history " .
Those that left the Movement in 1986 and are now in the pay of the British -"attempting to change things from the inside" - would do well to remember that it was tried before ; the only position the British will allow them is that of a poacher turned gamekeeper . And our history is littered with those ....

By early 1931 it was obvious to the Free State administration that what they termed " the normal process of the law " could no longer deal with Republican activity in the State , and Free State President Cosgrave introduced the necessary paper-work to set up a Military Tribunal on October 14 , 1931 . Eamon de Valera , who had left the Movement in 1926 and formed the Fianna Fail party , stated - " They (the then IRA) are to be taken into these secret tribunals and maltreated and nobody is to hear a word about it and nobody is to be allowed to raise his voice in protest. That is the situation. But tradition is a hard thing to kill. They have been reared in that tradition . That is the Gospel that kept Irish Nationality alive through all the centuries of persecution . These are the men whom we want to crush now . These are the men who are represented as terrorists , these who never thought of themselves . They are simply the rats that are to be squelched . These are the people who are ready to give everything that they had for Ireland , and well we know it , and now they are being deserted by the majority of their people . They have been deserted by old comrades who can no longer see any hope of success on the line they are adopting , by people who were with them originally but who are so far away from them now that the road which they are following is leading diametrically in the opposite direction . They are brave men anyway : let us at least have for them the decent respect that we have for the brave " .
---- Words from a heavy heart , obviously , but words the man was to put into action .

More words from another anti-republican ; " The only solution for dealing with the (P)IRA is to kill 600 people in one night- let the United Nations and Bill Clinton and everyone else make a scene , and it is over for 20 years " .
--- Former British Defence Minister Alan Clark , October 12 , 1997 (see ' Ireland On Sunday' newspaper , 12/10/97 , page 15) ; that's the attitude that got the British into trouble in all the countries they colonised - indeed , it is the reason they set out on their conquest . And they still have'nt learned !

One of this State's elected representatives who sits in Leinster House and is paid 1438 Euro a week for doing so has what hundreds of thousands of ordinary working-class people have'nt got - a medical card , which he has used three times since his election last May . Politicians in that institution received a pay-rise in 2000 and , in January 2001 , they received another increase ( of 18.7per cent) , then an extra 4 per cent in October last plus another wage increase last week (announced after the budget) which has them at their present wage ; after ten years ' service ' they get 1670 Euro a week , based on present wage structures . On top of their salary , they also get 625 Euro a week in various expenses , not all of which has to be vouched for with receipts . Martin is apparently a quick learner~ Leinster House has no shortage of financially and morally corrupt members - now , since last May , Ferris ( the ' good ' apple) has gone into the barrell ( of bad apples ) to change them or , at the very least , to ' keep an eye on them ' but ... human nature kicked in and another wealthy politican decided he , too , wanted more !
Plus ca change , plus c'est la meme chose .

A Mr George Marshall was ' Regional Director of BBC Northern Ireland(sic) ' in 1937 and is best remembered by us for the following quote - " There is no such thing today as an Irishman. One is either a citizen of the Irish Free State or a citizen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland(sic) . Irishmen as such cease to exist after the partition " . George may be gone but no doubt his sentiments live on in the minds of his BBC colleagues .