.......the English had strengthened the Antrim Garrison and were better prepared than was known ......
Though lacking adequately-trained officers and now with only 3000 men , due to a belief shared by the majority of his previous force that an attack on Antrim was unwise , McCracken assembled the insurgents on Donegore Hill , above Antrim and , after assembling his force and issuing instructions , they began the fight . Within hours , nearly all of Antrim , except Carrickfergus and Belfast , had been captured by the United forces .
The attack on Antrim was a disaster ~ the insurgents occupied strategic positions and forced the English troops to retreat : however , it went wrong due to bad communication - the United forces from County Down , under Samuel Orr , were advancing on Antrim after their success at Randalstown and , on seeing the fleeing Englisg garrison , mistook it for an attack . Orr's men scattered and soon the panic spread to McCracken's men who broke ranks and fled . When English reinforcements arrived to Antrim that evening they took revenge on insurgents and civilian's alike .
McCracken hid for months in the Slemish Mountains and transport was arranged for him to escape to America . But it was not to be - he was arrested by the English , tried by court-martial , found guilty of treason and hanged at Belfast Market House on July 17 , 1798 . He was 31 years of age . McCracken's legacy will always be remembered , whereas those that helped do him in , like Magin , leave nothing but a bad taste in the mouth .

On U S President Abe Lincoln's orders , political opponents and dissidents of his war policy were jailed without charge at Fort McHenry in Baltimore Harbour - among those jailed were the Mayor ,Police Chief , Police Commissioner , thirty-one members of the State Legislature , newspaper reporters and members of the U S Congress and Judges !!
Will George Bush Jnr do the same ?

Another informer , Nicholas Magin , earned his 30 pieces of silver during the 1798 Rising ......
Henry Joy McCracken , leader of the United Irishmen in County Antrim during the 1798 Rising , was born in High Street , Belfast , in August 1767 . When he was 24 years young , he founded the United Irishmen with Wolfe Tone and Thomas Russell . At 29 years of age he was known to the authorities and was arrested for his involvement in an ' illegal organisation' (sounds familar!) ~ he was imprisoned in Kilmainham Jail and kept there for 13 months before being allowed out on bail .
He made himself scarce and , unlike many of the other United Irish leaders , he succeeded in avoiding arrest in the months leading up to the rising , and was appointed to command the insurgents in County Antrim . By June 6 , 1798 , two weeks after the beginning of the rising , McCracken mobilised 12,000 fighters , armed with muskets , swords and pikes and prepared to attack Antrim town . Arrangements had been made for thousands of insurgents from County Down to join them in the battle and then to march on Belfast itself .
However , the English commander of the northern garrison , General Nugent , was already aware of the plan , thanks to Nicholas Magin , a man trusted by the united Irish leadership ,~ and an informer . The English had strengthened the Antrim garrison and were better prepared than was known .......(MORE LATER ) >

" You people of the Shankill Road - what's wrong with you ? Number 425 Shankill Road : do you know who lives there ? Pope's men , thats who ! Forte's ice-cream shop , Italian Papists on the Shankill Road ! How about 56 Aden Street ? For 97 years a Protestant lived in that house and now there's a Papisher in it . Crimea Street , number 38 ! Twenty-five years that house has been up , 24 years a Protestant lived there but there's a Papisher there now " .
----- Ian Paisley , speaking in 1959 , in the run-up to that years July 12 ' celebrations' . Most people dismiss Paisley as a loud-mouthed dinosaur , a figure of fun, almost - but he is dangerous enough in that he will set people up for a ' visit' from his buddies in the Loyalist community , even if he condemns those same friends afterwards .

..... Wolfe Tone and the United Irishmen were in agreement that the best hope of carrying out a successful revolution was with aid from France , which was by now at war with England ; the French responded favourably to Tone's plan . Being sympathetic , the French knew that if they could land a large army in Ireland it could overrun the country , make it independent from England and so weaken their enemy ~ a meeting was arranged for Tone to discuss war details with a French nominee : the Reverend William Jackson .
The meeting took place and a plan of action was agreed - however , shortly afterwards , the informer Cockayne lead the English forces to Jackson , who was arrested . Presumably , Cockayne was paid his thirty pieces of silver . In April 1795 , Jackson was charged with high treason and brought forward to ' trial ' where he was found guilty .
On April 30 , 1795 , at 58 years of age , Jackson poisoned himself , and died , in the dock of the courthouse . Although perhaps not as well known as other aspects of that period , the ' Jackson Affair ' is yet another example of how informers have stymied possible advances at cruical times in Irish history ~ a history which is still being written .....

" Let me first of all make quite clear that I do not advocate anything other than British withdrawal(from Ireland) . We stayed in India on much the same plea that there would be much greater communal violence if we withdrew and indeed there was very great communal violence . Part of that was due to the fact that we should have withdrawn twenty years before " . -----
A J P Taylor , British historian , who died aged 84 on September 7 , 1990 . Wise words , and still time to act on them .....

The Reverend William Jackson , who was born in Dublin in 1737 , lived most of his life in London , where he edited a radical journal , the ' Public Ledger and Morning Post ' . He was vocal in his support of the American revolutionaries of 1776 . Following the founding of the United Irishmen in October 1791 by Wolfe Tone , the newly-established French revolutionary government sent several emissaries to Ireland , the most important of whom was the Reverend Jackson .
His betrayal and arrest , following his arrival in Ireland , caused consternation in the United Irishmen and forced many of the leaders of that organisation to go into exile to avoid arrest .
When he was fifty-five years of age , Jackson went to France and was commissioned by the authorities there to ascertain the chances of success of a French invasion of England and , while in London , en route to Ireland , he renewed acquaintance with a man named Cockayne ~ an encounter he was to regret later .......

One of our better known career politicians in this State ( better known now because he was actually caught with his hand in the greasy till) is Liam Lawlor (now ex) Fianna Fail , a man who was always full of his own self-importance , and perhaps never more so than in February 1990 when , in an interview with ' Dublin Diary' magazine ,he stated - " Politicians are trusted , and up to 75 per cent of the population turn out to vote for their politicians , thereby recording their faith and trust in public representatives " .
.... Told ya so - voting for them only encourages them !

" .... lets shoot 100 men a week " ~ No doubt MacReady learned his ' peace-keeping' skills in other countries which the British sought to claim as their own -- Wales , Scotland , North America , Africa , India , Australia , New Zealand , Burma , Afghanistan , China , Sudan , Egypt , and South Africa !!

Like most of the above-named countries , Ireland has had various British ' solutions ' imposed on her ~ direct rule , indirect rule , genocide , apartheid , puppet parliaments , so-called 'real' parliaments (Stormont) martial law , civil law , colonisation , land reform and partition . All have failed , being successful only in prolonging the conflict . The alternative , so far ignored and dismissed by the establishment as " unworkable " ( and not even up for discussion by the professional politicians in Leinster House , Stormont or Westminster) is that of a complete British military and political withdrawal from the 32 Counties of Ireland .
However , there are still those amongst us pushing for that solution ...

Eamonn's friend , Garret Fitzgerald , is remembered (by me, anyway !) for his conduct during the November 1982 Leinster House election campaign in this State , when he verbally lashed the then Fianna Fail leader , Charlie Haughey , for not supporting Maggie Thatcher in her Malvinas(Falklands) War _- Fitzgerald stated that if he was Free State Taoiseach during said episode he would have supported her ! According to ' The Sunday Tribune' newspaper of July 24 , 1983 , a former senior Free State civil servant (not named) claimed that Fitzgerald made a rushed secret visit to London in 1974 to persuade the British Government NOT to withdraw from the Six Counties . It was also claimed that the then leader of Fianna Fail , Jack Lynch , also made it known to the Brits that he was against withdrawal - he is said to have pleaded with the then British Foreign Secretary , James Callaghan . I can just picture a small queue of sniveling Free Staters waiting outside Downing Street .......

.........indeed, after his stint as a British ' peace-keeper ' , Widgery maintained his British Army connections by continuing to serve with the British Territorial Army for several years after the war . He is perhaps best remembered in Ireland for his statement on Bloody Sunday ~
" I would not be surprised if , in the relevant half-hour , as many rounds were fired at the (British) troops as were fired by them " ! It was obvious that defence of the Para's actions , not inquiry into them , was what Widgery saw as his task .
The British Minister of State for the Six Counties at the time , a Mr Van Straubenzee , later stated that he had visited many British Army barrackrooms and was constantly told , and I quote - " The average troops feeling is that if only they could be let off the leash they could finish the whole thing " . An echo of a similar statement by British General MacReady , who vowed to solve the Six County situation by proposing to shoot 100 men in a week ! (MORE LATER) .

He is said to be this States highest paid journalist , and is certainly never far from the headlines ~ Mr Eamonn Dunphy , that is - you may see him on a bus near you soon ...
The man was once a member of Fine Gael , and said he joined because he was " attracted by Garret Fitzgerald . He seemed a man of reason , a cut above the rest . He did'nt pander to the Catholic Church , did'nt promise to do away with the border overnight , or indeed at all , nor did he promise to make us wealthy in the morning . I knew nothing of Blueshirts - I had lived in England for nearly 25 years , and was unfamilar with the fine print of Irish politics " .
I would have thought it wise to check-out the political scene before joining any political party - but apparently the Blueshirts will accept the politically ignorant , perhaps even depend on them ......

" It strikes me that the British Army ran amok that day and they shot without thinking of what they were doing . They were shooting innocent people . I say it without reservation - it was sheer unadulterated murder "
------ So said British Major Hubert O Neill , the then Derry City Coroner , at the end of the inquest into Bloody Sunday ; O Neill delivered the above comments on August 21 , 1973 - a full 19 months after the massacre had taken place . It took the British that long to admit to something that must have been obvious to the rest of the world within hours of it happening - that the British Army were under instructions to let the Nationalist population in the Six Counties know that their then existence , their then lifestyle , such as it was , WAS IT ! There was no more on offer , whether requested politely by so-called Nationalist leaders or whether demanded on the streets - there was no more for the Nationalist population ! And that in-built discrimination which Bloody Sunday , January 30 , 1972 , symbolised , still lives on in the Six County area , even if it has been given a new coat of gloss with the Stormont Treaty .
On that Sunday , 15,000 people assembled in the Creggan Estate and , when the march reached the perimiter of the Bogside , near the high-rise Rossville Street flats , the marchers were confronted by barricades manned by the British Para's - the Parachute Regiment were under orders to prevent the marchers from entering the walled city ; suddenly , with no warning , the British Troops opened fire on the crowd - they shot 42 people , 14 of whom died . The British ' Report ' into Bloody Sunday was headed by British Lord Widgery , a man who had seen service in the British Army during WW2 - indeed , after his stint as a British ' peace-keeper ' ........ (MORE LATER) >

Although it is often assumed that the Free State ' Offences Against the State Act 1939 ' was introduced as an emergency measure due to the imminence of what became known as ' World War Two ' , it was in fact a routine adoption by the State of repressive powers . According to the then Fianna Fail Minister for Justice , Seamus Ruttledge , who introduced the OAS Bill in February 1939 , the FS administration " had it under consideration " since the adoption of the 1937 Free State Constitution . The period 1937 - 1939 was one of exceptional calm , as was agreed at the time by the Free State Labour Party leader , William Norton , and Fine Gael leader T F O' Higgins . Fine Gael , however , voted for the Bill on the day .
They may have thought it was'nt necessary , but then again , if it helps secure the position of the Establishment .....

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 ........