.....the campaign started with inconceivable ferocity on the night of July 19th , 1920 , when armed loyalist mobs attacked the Catholic areas of the city ~ setting fire to houses , shooting , looting ,and wrecking shops while the British military refused to intervene . The death toll after four days was 19(most of them Catholic) with over 200 wounded and thousands of pounds worth of damage caused to hundreds of nationalist homes . When the British Army finally intervened it was to fire upon IRA Volunteers who were attempting to drive back the loyalist mobs .
The following day , the entire Catholic workforce was driven at gun-point by the ' Belfast Protestant Association' out of the two shipyards , four main engineering works , the main building firm and a number of the linen mills in Belfast . A total of 10,000 men and 1,000 women were expelled . During a debate at Westminster , Carson defended the pogroms and expulsions of the nationalist workforce while the British government was denounced by nationalist MP's for callously and deliberately formenting the sectarian attacks in Belfast to justify their proposed partition scheme .
During August 1920 , the 'Ulster Volunteer Force' (UVF) openly re-organised in the North . On August 22nd , following the execution by the IRA in Lisburn of District Inspector Swanzy of the RIC (who was responsible for the murder earlier in the year of the Mayor of Cork, Tomas MacCurtain) , the entire nationalist population of the town were .....(MORE LATER)....

In May 1989 , the London magazine 'Time Out' uncovered a letter written in 1987 by Lord Marshall of Goring , then Chairperson of the Central Electricity Generating Board , which was at the time Windscales most important customer . The letter was written to the then Tory Energy Secretary ,Peter Walker , but was never sent . In it , it was conceeded that Windscales environmentalist opponents had been correct - "A major part of the past problems at Sellafield(Windscale) and a substantial part of potential problems in the future are due to the simple fact that Sellafield has the wrong technology" ; also ,(see 'The Sunday Tribune' Colour Magazine ,June 4th,1989, page 6) the letter stated that it had been "nothing less than a failure of policy-making (by BNFL) which had resulted in radioactive leaks at Sellafield and a loss of public confidence in that plant and in nuclear power generally" . BAD MENTAL PICTURE - Homer,Springfield ,DOH!

......the boycott was not sufficiently crippling , for though Belfast was the main distribution centre for large areas outside the Six Counties , the backbone of its economy was manufacturing industry , which exported the bulk of its products to Britain and her colonies . In addition , the industries where most of the expulsions had taken place(shipbuilding and engineering) hardly did any trade with the rest of Ireland . However , the boycott sent a clear message to the Loyalists and their British paymasters - the Six Counties had not been abandoned by the people in the rest of the country .
The pogroms that encouraged the boycott have their own tale to tell ~ During the summer of 1920 , with the British administration in Ireland virtually crippled by the IRA's guerrilla war , Belfast witnessed its worst pogroms for almost a century . In July , with the ' Government of Ireland' Bill being debated at Westminster and the partition of Ireland stated to be "inevitable" , the Loyalists were determined to secure , at the very minimum , a state comprising the six north-eastern counties of Ireland . Concerned that they might be left with a four-county state and , worse still , that the working-class Protestants might join ranks with the Nationalists in the poverty-stricken conditions of post-war Belfast , Loyalist bigots,urged on by the sectarian rhetoric of Edward Carson , began a series of systematic attacks and pogroms against the Nationalist population of Belfast ; the campaign started with inconceivable ferocity .....(MORE LATER)>

" Is it likely that we could have the British rail police , harbour police , Scotland Yard , all involved? Forensic people? The Jury? The Judges? And that each and every one of those had been 'got at'? I don't believe it is possible in the society that we have that this could happen " -- Ken Maginnis ,RTE's favourite Unionist, ' Hot Press' magazine ,February 9th, 1989 , page 20 , on the 'Birmingham Six' .
Well there ya go , Ken! And its not that the "rail police,harbour police,Scotland Yard" etc etc were "got at"~more like they volunteered.....

.....the boycott got underway on a huge scale in early September 1920 when the Council of County Councils issued a recommendation that the boycott should be adopted throughout Ireland . At a meeting of Dublin Corporation several days later a committee was organised to put the boycott into immediate effect . During the following months, the boycott was strictly enforced throughout the country by the IRA , who were assisted by the Republican Police, Cumann na mBan and Fianna Eireann .
IRA Volunteers attacked lorries and trains carrying goods produced in Belfast , and a special ' Boycott Patrol' raided shops and warehouses in Dublin and other towns , seizing Belfast goods and taking action against firms which handled them . The population were given ' black lists' and were encouraged to boycott firms which dealth with Belfast and to withdraw deposits from Belfast-based banks . In January , 1921 , the Dail appointed Joseph McDonagh ,acting Minister for Labour while Countess Markievicz was in jail , as Director of the Belfast boycott and voted £72,500 for the campaign , which continued throughout 1921 until after the signing of the Treaty the following December .
Although the boycott was effective and harmed the Belfast economy , it failed to achieve its main object - the reinstatement of the expelled Nationalist workers in Belfast .......(MORE LATER).

On Saturday , November 1st , 1986 , 15,000 Scottish loyalists gathered in a Glasgow park to hear the Rev. Ian Paisley call for a "fight to the death" against the 1985 Hillsborough Treaty . The same crowd later heard the then OUP leader, James Molyneaux, say - " We are not here to organise or raise an illegal army. We are not here to entice young people to violence" ;
--- "fight to the death" but "don't use violence" ~ Scottish loyalists sure are different from their colleagues in this country ......

.....the Dail was divided on the issue .....
.....with the resolution initially opposed by many of the available deputies , including Countess Markievicz , Terence MacSwiney , Ernest Blyth and Arthur Griffith. Countess Markievicz was not convinced that a boycott of Belfast goods would be effective and warned - " to declare a blockade would be playing into the hands of the enemy and giving them an excuse for partition " , while Griffith felt that the resolution was practically a declaration of war by the Republican government on part of its own territory .
After much discussion , the Dail declared it illegal for employers to require religious tests as a condition of employment but postponed its decision on a boycott of Belfast goods . However , when pogroms against Nationalists were resumed in Belfast at the end of August 1920 (resulting in 31 deaths)the Dail agreed to implement a boycott and from September 1920 , a strict boycott of goods from Belfast , Lisburn and a number of other northern towns was begun .
The Belfast boycott started in August 1920 on unofficial lines when shops in Galway city refused to stock goods originating from Belfast but it got underway on a huge scale in early September when .......
...(MORE LATER)...

During the 'Great Hunger' in this country in 1848 , British Lord Londonderry made a contribution of £20 to relief-efforts and his wife donated £10 , while at the same time spending £15,000 renovating their house in Mount Stewart ; presumably so the poor wretches outside his estate would see something pretty before they died of hunger . During that same period , each British Landlord was responsible for paying the rates of every tenant who paid less than £4 in yearly rent , so those whose land was crowded with poor tenants were faced with huge bills . The tenants on their estates were too poor to pay anything , so they were evicted from their small plots and the land was re-let in bigger lots to people with more money : to do that anytime would be bad enough , but to do it while the tenants were in the state they were must require a certain 'stiff-upper-lipness' .

....the 'boycott' call was made in response to the anti-Catholic rioting and pogroms in Belfast in July 1920 , during which 19 people ,most of them Catholics, were killed and over 200 wounded , Thousands of pounds worth of damage was caused to hundreds of Nationalist homes , and the campaign of discrimination against Nationalists by Loyalist employers intensified , with those lucky enough to have a job being required to sign a declaration of loyalty to the British crown .
Sean McEntee , a native of Belfast and TD for South Monaghan in the 32-County Dail Eireann , urged the Dail to sanction a boycott of goods manufactured in Belfast. On August 6th , 1920 , McEntee , on behalf of four Sinn Fein members of Belfast Corporation , appealed for help in "the war of extermination being waged against us " and , in a resolution, called for a boycott of Belfast goods and a withdrawal of funds from Belfast-based banks by people in the rest of Ireland . At all times it was made clear that Protestants in other parts of Ireland would not be molested in any way on account of the actions of their co-religionists in Belfast.
However , the Dail was divided on the issue , with the resolution initially being opposed by many of the available deputies ..... (MORE LATER)>

A few days ago , Dublin was practically brought to a stand-still by the Irish Farmers Association , when thousands of farmers, driving tractors, headed for Dublin , and 300 of their number drove into the City Centre ; this reminded me of an earlier tractor blockade -- that which was organised by Ian Paisley in 1977 :
Paisley organised a tractor blockade of Ballymena , as part of an " all-out offensive" by the 'United Unionist Action Council' . The UUAC wanted the British Government to crack down harder on Republicans and to set up a parliament along the lines of the old Stormont . Paisley issued what he called a " solemn promise " to leave politics forever if the UUAC did'nt succeed - it did'nt and Paisley did'nt !
His own followers should have had the measure of the man from that stunt , but....did'nt !
Ah well- it was 26 years ago: no use crying.....

....and, in England , the mutineers suffered long periods of solitary confinement and ill-treatment during their fight for political status ( a fight which is still going on today) . They were later moved to Maidstone Prison and , on January 3rd, 1923, the remaining sixty mutineers were released and returned to Ireland.
In October 1970 , the remains of Daly , Smythe and Sears were brought back to Ireland : Smythe , a native of Drogheda, Co. Louth and Sears, from Neale , Co. Mayo , were buried in the Republican Plot in Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin . James Daly , who was executed in Jullunder in India on November 2nd , 1920 , was re-interred in his native Tyrellspass .
If the English were'nt killing Irishmen in Ireland , they were killing them abroad .

In the same year that James Daly was executed , the First Dail Eireann made one of it's most controversial decrees - its decision , in the summer of 1920 , to implement a boycott of Belfast goods ...... (MORE LATER)........

Francis Hughes and the last will and testament of SAS man David Anthony Jones -- The issue was referred to the High Court in London in July 1980 . Delving into ancient preceendent ( one going back to the middle ages) , Mr Justice Arnold concluded that Jones had been engaged in active military service against " a conjuration of clandestine assassins and arsonists " and that was enough to validate his will , resulting in Anne Mannering receiving Jones' £3000 death grant and belongings ( despite bitter protest from Jones' mother) .
Judge Arnold was not , of course, required to delve into precedent on the reverse question , as to whether " a conjuration of assassins and arsonists" on active service were entitled to special status !!

....... On June 30 , 1916 , following the deaths of Privates Patrick Smythe and Peter Sears in an attempt to capture the magazine at Solon , the mutiny ended . Seventy-five of the mutineers were arrested and taken to Lucknow where they were held until September when they were moved to Dayshai Prison to stand trial .
While awaiting trial ,the prisoners were subjected to such harsh treatment by the British that it resulted in the death of one of the men , Private John Miranda , a native of Liverpool . At the subsequent general court-martial , fourteen of the prisoners were sentenced to death and the remainder to terms of imprisonment varying from ten - twenty years . In mid-October , 13 of the fourteen death sentences were commuted to life imprisonment - the exception was Jim Daly , a native of Tyrellspass , County Westmeath . After six months , the mutineers were transferred to Portland Convict Prison in England , where they suffered ........(MORE LATER) >

Francis Hughes , an IRA Volunteer , was arrested on March 16 ,1978 , after a gun battle with British soldiers in a field in his native South Derry , in which a British SAS man , David Anthony Jones , was killed . Before he died , Jones told his colleagues that he wanted his girlfriend , Anne Mannering , whom he was planning to marry , to get - " all my stuff" . Under English law ,there are two circumstances in which a verbal ( as opposed to a written) last will and testament is binding - the first is if it is made by a sailor at sea : the second is if it is by a soldier during a state of war ......... (MORE LATER)

.....after the split in the Republican Movement in January 1970 , Jimmy Steele , a member of the IRA's Belfast Brigade Staff and the Provisional Army Executive ( a post he held until his death) was active in Belfast re-organising and re-arming IRA units to defend Nationalist areas from attack by Orange mobs backed-up by the B-Specials and RUC . A founder member of ' Republican News' in June 1970 , the four-page weekly paper under the editorship of Steele soon had a circulation of 15,000 copies per week . Jimmy Steele was Editor of the 'paper when he died on August 9 , 1970 ,at 63 years of age : more than twenty of those 63 years were spent in jail . Steele by name , and Steele by nature - hard to break ......

Around the same time as Jimmy Steele joined the IRA , 1920 , the Black and Tan War was at its height .
Irishmen serving with the British Army in India mutinied in protest at the atrocities being committed in Ireland by the British . The three-day mutiny began on June 27 , 1920 , when 350 Irishmen gave in their arms and refused to soldier for England . The mutiny was confined chiefly to members of 'B' and 'C' Companies , 1st Battalion , Connaught Ranger Regiment , stationed at Wellington Barracks , Jullunder , Punjab, India . The men at Jullunder were led by Private Joseph Hawes and their protest was joined two days later by a detachment of 'C' Company at the hill-station in Solon , under Private James Daly , a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood . (MORE LATER) .....

Like Nixon , I ,too, had a dream last night .....
Henry Kissinger is wanted for questioning on human-rights abuses by courts in France , Spain , Belguim , Argentina and Chile .He supported the genocidal regimes of Pol Pot of Cambodia and General Suharto of Indonesia , and has questions to answer re his knowledge of the assassination of General Rene Shneider , the Commander of the Chilean Army in 1970 . Someone should have asked Dickie to investigate .....

.....Steele figured in two major operations during his brief period of freedom .....
..... in March 1943 , along with Liam Burke and Harry White , he organised and assisted in the escape of 22 IRA Volunteers from Derry Jail and , in April 1943 , he participated in the Broadway Cinema operation on the Falls Road when armed Volunteers took over the cinema and stopped the film while Steele and McAteer went on stage and read a statement from the IRA Army Council . The two men finished off the nights entertainment for the packed cinema by reading the 1916 Proclamation !
By May , Steele was back in jail, this time sentenced to twelve years .When he was released in September 1950 , he was the last Republican prisoner of that era to be freed , leaving Crumlin Road Jail empty of political prisoners for the first time since partition . During the following years , Steele edited two Belfast newspapers - ' Glor Uladh' and ' Resurgent Ulster' , and was the main author of two books published by the National Graves Association- ' Antrim's Patriot Dead' and ' Belfast Patriot Graves'. On December 21st 1957 , following the beginning of the IRA's Border Campaign , internment was once more introduced in the Six Counties and Steele was among the 167 Republicans interned in Crumlin Road Jail - he was released three years later and reported back to the Army . Steele was an outspoken opponent of the policies being pursued by the leadership of the Republican Movement and , in an oration at the re-interment of the remains of Peter Barnes and James McCormick (both executed in England in February 1940 ) at Mullingar , County Westmeath , in July 1969 , he severely criticised the leadership and in particular the running-down of the IRA .
Within six months (January 1970) the inevitable split in the Republican Movement occured...... (MORE LATER).....

" There is no art that one government sooner learns from another than that of draining money from the pockets of the people " -
Adam Smith, ' The Wealth of Nations' , 1776 : Smith lived in late 18th Century Edinburgh , and was shunned completely by society ; he was known to ramble around in a trance , not properly dressed , and was of a very nervous disposition ( ie he 'twitched' constantly) and spoke loudly to himself . His appearance was said to be that like a " worm with legs" . He never married and lived all his life with his mother . While ostracised by the establishment of the day , he certainly had their measure - " People of the same trade seldom meet together even for merriment and diversion but the conversation always ends in a conspiracy against the public " .
A far-sighted man , mentally ahead of those that considered themselves the superior class .....

........ he joined the IRA .
Arrested twice , in 1923 and 1924 , he was held for several months in Crumlin Road Jail . Following his release later that year and the freeing of the internees in 1925 , he assisted with the re-organising of the IRA and Na Fianna in Belfast . On April 25 , 1936 , while attending an IRA court-martial in connection with the abortive Campbell College raid in December 1935 , at the rooms of the Craobh Rua Club at Crown Entry in Belfast , Steele and most of the Belfast Battalion Staff were arrested . On May 29 , 1936 , Steele was charged with ' treason felony' and , along with twelve others , was found guilty and sentenced to five years penal servitude in Crumlin Road Jail .
Released in May 1940 , he reported back to the Army leadership and continued on as before . While ' on the run' , he married Anna Crawford , a member of Cumann an mBan who came from a staunch Republican family ; unfortunately , married life in freedom was to be short-lived -- the following December he was re-arrested and sentenced to ten years in jail . In January 1943 , along with Patrick Donnelly , Ned Maguire and Hugh McAteer , Steele escaped from Crumlin Road Jail . Despite a reward of £3000 being offered by the Stormont government for his capture and his photograph being displayed throughout the Six Counties , he reported back for active service and was appointed Adjutant of the Northern Command Staff .
Steele figured in two major operations during his brief period of freedom ...... (MORE LATER) .

On September 4 , 2000 , BBC2 television broadcast a programme entitled ' Reputations' which , if memory serves , was a series of interviews with various politicians/'personalties/flavours of the month and used by same as an 'image-building' vehicle . The above-dated episode featured Henry Kissinger , who recalled being roused from his sleep , in the early 1970's , by a phone call from U S President Richard Nixon : Nixon ordered Kissinger to bomb Damascus !
Kissinger , however , probably experienced in such late-night 'phone calls , went back to sleep ....
The following morning , Nixon met Kissinger to discuss various issues but failed to mention the " bomb Damascus" order : and , sensibly , Kissinger said nothing either !
Considering that Nixon was U S President for almost six years , we can but speculate on how many countries ' Tricky Dickie' dreamed about .....

.....and was beginning a 20-year penal servitude sentence .
After serving nine years in various English prisons , he was released on condition that he went into exile until the period of his term of imprisonment had expired . He spent most of this time in Paris where he was visited in March 1879 by Charles Stewart Parnell and John Devoy to discuss Fenian business . He returned to Dublin and began writing his reminiscences , which were published in 1896 under the title of ' Recollections of Fenians and Fenianism' . He communicated the essentials of Fenianism to those who came after him and , through his example , his writings and his close association with Republicans during the last years of his life , he influenced a younger generation of rebels who would later lead the Easter Rising of 1916 . John O'Leary died in Dublin on March 16 , 1907 , having insured that the cause would live on .
Another man to be charged by the English with " treason felony" ( an archaic charge originally devised for John Mitchel , the Young Ireland leader , in 1848) was Jimmy Steele , who was born in Belfast on August 8 , 1907 : he lived his life as a soldier , writer , poet and devoted his 63 years in this world to the Republican Movement and the cause of Irish freedom .
At the age of 12 , he joined Fianna Eireann and was active with his young comrades in assisting the Volunteers in his own area , the New Lodge Road , during the Tan War . Following the Treaty of December 1921 , and the split in the Movement , Steele remained true to his republican principles and , in the early 1920's , he joined the IRA . (MORE LATER) .........

According to ' Ireland On Sunday' (March 12 , 2000 , page 34) a British Army GOC directive issued in 1997 stated that the British Army's objectives up to 2001 envisaged maintaining six resident battalions , six RIR battalions , a constant level of force troops and six 'roulement' battalions in the Six Counties - ie approximately ten thousand troops ! It was also stated that 80 cameras, codenamed "GLUTTON" , were installed in public sites , all camouflaged , in the Six North-Eastern Counties , and another 20 cameras were "located privately" ( perhaps on holiday-homes in Donegal ? .... ) .

A man born in Tipperary town in July 1830 went on to become one of the most prominent members of the Fenian movement : John O' Leary .
His parents enrolled him in Trinity College , Dublin , to study law , which he did , but he abandoned his studies when he discovered that barristers were required to take an oath of allegiance to the British crown .
At the age of 18 , he took part in the Young Ireland Rising of 1848 in Tipperary , after which he was imprisoned in Clonmel Jail for several weeks . In 1863 , at the age of 33 , John O 'Leary was appointed editor of the newly-established Fenian weekly newspaper ' The Irish People' , with Thomas Clarke Luby and Charles J.Kickham as his co-editors and chief contributors. Two years later , the paper was suppressed ( September 1865) and O'Leary , Luby , Kickham and dozens of other prominent members of the Fenian movement were arrested after being named to the English forces by the informer Pierce Nagle .
By December that same year , O' Leary found himself charged with " treason felony" and was beginning a 20-year penal servitude sentence ...... (MORE LATER) .

On March 18 , 2001 (page 6) ' The Sunday Business Post' wrote that British Army security documents from the 1970's entitled ' Military Appreciation of the Security Situation in Northern Ireland(sic) ' , revealed that special Brit Army units known as ' Q Squads' were set up to "mystify , mislead and destroy the terrorists(sic) " ~ no doubt ' steaknife' and his globetrotting comrades (when they're not in Donegal buying holiday-homes , that is) are knowledgable regarding the action of the ' Q Squads' , as I know their own members are "mystified" as to whats going on !
The objectives of the Provisional organisation have been so reduced that there is now no justification in an armed campaign to obtain them . Or are they going to wage war for a better Stormont ?

.....all was not as it first appeared.....
Fine Gael had indeed polled the Blanchardstown and Castleknock areas of West Dublin : ten-thousand ' Freepost ' cards were sent out to residents of the area , asking do they --
1) support the stadium; or
2) support a scaled-down version of the stadium ; or
3) reject the stadium .
Question 1) prevented the poll being classed as ' loaded ' and allowed Fine Gael to state that the poll was fair . The results (ie " 78.2 per cent of people" against the project) were trumpted far and wide ;
however , it later emerged that , of the 10,000 questionnaires sent out , only 355 (or 3.65 per cent) were returned !!
And of those , thirty-four were spoiled votes , leaving a valid poll of 321 :
13 per cent of which were in favour of the stadium ,
8 per cent favoured a scaled-down version , and
78.2 per cent ( 251 votes) were against the scheme .
Ten-thousand households asked to vote , 321 did so , and the result was propogated as the ' majority decision' !
Once again , as in the Stormont Treaty poll , the facts behind the head-lines are whats important ......

In June 1983 , the then leader of the Official Unionist Party (OUP) , James Molyneaux ( now Lord , or Sir/Madam or something in the Brit establishment) alleged that USSR submarines were landing guns , ammunition and explosives on remote beaches on the Free States Atlantic Coast , for use by Republicans ! He did not cite his source or his evidence for that claim ( see ' The Evening Press' newspaper , Tuesday June 21 , 1983) . In the same month , the bould Jim requested the RUC to find out who was responsible for putting up posters showing him inspecting a band of hooded men , carrying cudgels , done in an orange colour , with the caption-- ' Does Jim Support Separation Now? ' . The RUC found out that the Lisburn branch of the UDA were responsible and that the photo used in the poster was that of Molyneaux inspecting a UDA demonstration against the creation of a ' no-go' area in the Bogside , in 1972 .
I dunno , Jim - seems like a commie plot to me ......

Bertie Ahern, the not-yet-superseded Fianna Fail leader and Free State Taoiseach , has been in the news here over the last three or four years in connection with the proposed stadium and sports campus which was to be built in Abbotstown , West Dublin , which is apparently not now going ahead . In December 2001 , the Fine Gael branch (they don't have ' Cumann ' - nor do the Tories) in West Dublin decided to do a poll on the views of those living in the Blanchardstown and Castleknock areas of West Dublin , to ascertain whether , like Fine Gael, the residents were of the opinion that the ' Bertiebowl ' should not be built .
The results of that poll , according to Fine Gael , showed that "78.2 per cent of people" were against the project going ahead - if the figures were accurate , and Fine Gael insisted they were , then that would indeed represent the majority point of view .
But........
( and , as I stated here recently in relation to the false interpretation given to the results of the 1998 Stormont Treaty)
...........all was not as it first appeared . (MORE LATER)

In an interview with the 'The Sunday Business Post' newspaper on April 14 last year (page 3) , British nuclear consultant John Large , who was commissioned by the Russian Government to raise the Kursk submarine , was asked his views on the Windscale/Sellafield nuclear plant : he replied ~ " The plant should never have been allowed to get into this condition in the first place and now it's crammed with waste in every nook and cranny . Waste has been stored for decades in containers not designed for it , they have'nt been maintained , and people have just walked away " .
Sellafield seems to be heading for an ' Irish solution ' ~ something bad will have to happen before anything is done .

.......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 ......