DUNNES STORES : BITTER VALUE....
"Our success has only been possible thanks to the talented people who work for us. Each individual plays an essential role in continuing the growth and development of Dunnes Stores.....we offer a broad range of challenging, rewarding careers (and are) committed to exceeding expectations (with) opportunities for advancement and competitive salaries.." (from here.)
"Kieran Wallace and Eamonn Richardson were appointed joint Provisional Liquidators to OCS Operations Limited (the "Company") trading as Clerys, on 12 June 2015. The Company has ceased to trade with immediate effect. If you have made any payment by credit or debit card for a product that has not been delivered, or if a gift voucher was purchased with a credit or debit card, it may be possible to get a refund from your card provider via "chargeback". The chargeback can be claimed when a company has ceased trading. You should contact your card provider immediately with details of the payment. As the store has closed, unused gift vouchers will not be redeemed." (from here.)
Very encouraging to see the workers in Dunnes and Clerys stand up for themselves in their fight to get their entitlements, great to see the general public support them in their endeavours and heartening to witness the various trade unions throw their weight behind those victims. Hopefully, all concerned groups and individuals will be equally as vocal in supporting and highlighting injustices to workers that are employed in jobs that are not as high profile as Dunnes and Clerys -
"We promote an informed and critical social and political awareness and challenge those elements which are detrimental to human development and particularly to the welfare of young people...we promote the highest possible standards in our practice. We are committed to high standards in the selection and support of our volunteers and employed staff...." (from here.)
An on-going dispute at the 'Ferns Diocesan Youth Services' (FDYS) which, as with Dunnes and Clerys, has been caused by the bad practices of management/owners, who are attempting to get more for less, from their workforce : '...management has attempted to force through a change to the conditions of employment of its staff while refusing to negotiate with their union or attend the Labour Relations Commission (in) a dispute concerning a unilateral change by management to sick leave benefit and its refusal to engage with their union...' (from here.) As I said, not as high profile as the Dunnes or Clerys disputes, but just as important as same. Workers and those looking for work are under attack by a vicious system that views them, first and foremost, as simply a 'commercial product' from which that system might benefit. But those hoping to benefit don't believe that they should have to speculate (ie decent wage, fair working conditions etc) to accumulate, and those of us at the bottom of that particular ladder will suffer.
THE PRICE OF PEACE......
Last month, 28 women who protested peacefully in the Phoenix Park, Dublin, against US President Ronald Reagan's visit to Ireland received £1000 each arising from their action for wrongful arrest. Gene Kerrigan recalls the weekend when another State determined Irish security requirements and details the garda action which could cost tens of thousands of pounds. From 'Magill' magazine, May 1987.
The lawyers finally found a High Court judge willing to hear a habeas corpus appeal, Donal Barrington. They went to his home in south county Dublin and he gave them an order of habeas corpus but not, as they had been seeking, effective from Monday morning - the order was effective only from Tuesday morning but, in the event, it was useless. Ronald Reagan left the banquet and retired to the US Ambassador's residence , and was spared the trial of having to pass by a group of women sitting in the dark several hundred feet away, keeping a vigil for peace.
The lawyers returned to the Bridewell to explain the legal developments to the prisoners, and were there until 2am.
FLAGSHIP AND FLASHFIRE.
As soon as US President Reagan began speaking in the Dáil (sic) chamber the next morning, Deputies Tomas MacGiolla, Tony Gregory and Prionsias de Rossa (who had on Sunday inquired at the Bridewell about the prisoners' welfare) stood up and left the chamber. Monica Barnes had absented herself from the Dáil (sic). The vast majority of the (Free State) TD's and Senators, in a joint session of the two houses, gave Reagan a welcome of rapturous applause, and the Ceann Comhairle, Tom Fitzpatrick, noted the United States' "commitment to the rights of the individual under law."
Regan began his speech at noon and he and Nancy, he said, had been made "as welcome as the flowers in May". On TV, the presidential motorcade had been seen whizzing through the streets lined with crowd-control barriers with no one behind them. As Reagan spoke in the Dail (sic) there were 4,000 protestors outside in Molesworth Street. (MORE LATER).
"WE HAVE WORN DOWN THEIR WILL."
Ed Moloney speaks to a leading member of the Provisionals who has been authorised to speak on behalf of the (P)IRA Army Council. From 'Magill' magazine, September 1980.
Ed Moloney : The Provisional IRA and its campaign of violence have been going on for nearly 10 years now. The British are still in the North despite that. Why go on?
IRA : First of all, the IRA is not 10 years old, it's over 60 years old. As for why we continue the campaign, nothing has changed in the occupied Six Counties but there is a lot of evidence that things can be changed. We have been wearing down successive British administrations, we have worn down their will. There are indications now of changes taking place within the British political scene - the 'Young Liberals', for example, have come out in support of a policy of disengagement from Ireland and there are at present discussions going on within the National Executive of the Labour Party.
There is also evidence that a lot of British soldiers are fed up with what's going on in the North and 'Document 37' shows that the present commander of land forces in the North, Brigadier-General James Glover, knows that we are not a spent force and that we will continue. And he also admitted the cause of the trouble was the presence of British forces.
The object of our armed struggle is two fold ; further destabilise the inherently unstable Six Counties and also to wear down the will of the British government. Either the British Government itself comes to the conclusion that it must leave, or that conclusion will be forced on them by British public opinion. We can make the occupation of the North extremely expensive (*) - present costs are running at £1000 million annually - and of course we will be hitting at their soldiers continually and causing their morale to be so low that the Brits will find that they are incapable of maintaining any sort of order in the North.(**) ( */** '1169...' comment : "Expensive" , no doubt, re the salaries and expenses that Westminster is now paying to former revolutionaries and the issue of "maintaining order" has, for the most part, being sorted by Westminster as a result of having those new employees on board.) (MORE LATER).
ON THIS DATE (17TH JUNE) 41 YEARS AGO : IRA BOMB WESTMINSTER.
On Monday, 17th June 1974, the then IRA decided to make it's presence felt, once again, in 'the Belly of the Beast' - a 20lb device exploded at the British Parliament, causing widespread damage and injuring 11 people. Six months before that attack, the IRA had exploded two bombs in London - one at Madame Tussauds and one at a boat show which was taking place at Earls Court Exhibition Centre and, one month after the 17th June attack, two bombs also exploded in London - British government buildings in Balham, South London, were damaged in the first explosion that day and the Tower of London was the target for the second bomb. This is a BBC report of the 17th June 1974 IRA attack -
'A bomb has exploded at the Houses of Parliament, causing extensive damage and injuring 11 people.
The IRA said it planted the 20lb (9.1 kg) device which exploded at about 0828 BST in a corner of Westminster Hall.
The explosion is suspected to have fractured a gas main and a fierce fire spread quickly through the centuries-old hall in one of Britain's most closely-guarded buildings. Scotland Yard detectives have said they fear this attack could herald the start of a new summer offensive by the dissident Irish group on government buildings. No one expected in those days the House of Commons would be a target - security was extremely casual.'
Former Labour MP Tam Dalyell ('Sir Thomas Dalyell of the Binns, 11th Baronet) gave this account - "A man with an Irish accent telephoned the Press Association with a warning only six minutes before the explosion. Police said a recognised IRA codeword was given. Although officers were not able to completely clear the palace before the bomb went off, most of the injured were only slightly hurt" and Edward Short, the Leader of the British 'Commons', announced that a review of security procedures would begin immediately, but he said the attack would not disrupt parliamentary business or intimidate MPs. Liberal Chief Whip David Steel was in the building when the device detonated and told the BBC the damage looked considerable - "I looked through Westminster Hall and the whole hall was filled with dust. A few minutes later it was possible to see flames shooting up through the windows..."
Today, the group that carried out that attack are only a short step away from again entering that bastion of British misrule but, this time, to assist their new objective of administering the British writ in Ireland. Shame on them.
ON THIS DATE (17TH JUNE) 170 YEARS AGO : BIRTH OF A GREEN-HEARTED LOYALIST.
Emily Lawless, pictured, left (aka 'Emily Lytton'), the writer and poet, was born on the 17th of June, 1845, in Ardclough, County Kildare and was educated privately.
War battered dogs are we
Fighters in every clime;
Fillers of trench and of grave,
Mockers bemocked by time.
War dogs hungry and grey,
Gnawing a naked bone,
Fighters in every clime -
Every cause but our own.
- Emily Lawless, 1902 ; "With the Wild Geese".
She was born into a politically mixed background, the eldest daughter and one of eight children ('Sir' Horace Plunkett was her cousin) . Her father was 'Titled' by Westminster (he was a 'Baron') even though his father (Emily's grandfather) was a member of the 'United Irishmen'. Her brother, Edward, seems to have taken his direction from his father rather than his grandfather - he held and voiced strong unionist opinions, wouldn't have a Catholic about the place and was in a leadership position within the (anti-Irish) so-called 'Property Defence Association'. Perhaps this 'in-house' political confusion (mixed between stauch unionism and unionism with sympathies for Irish nationalism/republicanism, coupled with the 'whisperings of shame' that Emily was a lesbian and was having an affair with one of the 'titled' Spencer women) was the reason why her father and two of his daughters committed suicide.
She considered herself to be a Unionist although, unlike her brother, she appreciated and acknowledged Irish culture (...or, in her own words - "I am not anti-Gaelic at all, as long as it is only Gaelic enthuse and does not include politics...") and, despite being 'entitled' to call herself 'The Honourable Emily Lawless', it was a 'title' she only used occasionally. She spent a lot of her younger days in Galway, with her mother's family, but it is thought that family tragedies drove her to live in England, where she died, on the 19th of October 1913, at the age of 68, having become addicted to heroin. She was buried in Surrey. She wrote a full range of books, from fiction to history to poetry, and is best remembered for her 'Wild Geese' works, although some of her writings were criticised by journalists for its 'grossly exaggerated violence, its embarrassing dialect and staid characters...'. 'The Nation' newspaper stated that 'she looked down on peasantry from the pinnacle of her three-generation nobility...' and none other than William Butler Yeats declared that she had "an imperfect sympathy with the Celtic nature..." and that she favoured "theory invented by political journalists and forensic historians." But she had a great talent :
After Aughrim
She said, "They gave me of their best,
They lived, they gave their lives for me ;
I tossed them to the howling waste
And flung them to the foaming sea."
She said, "I never gave them aught,
Not mine the power, if mine the will ;
I let them starve, I let them bleed,
they bled and starved, and loved me still."
She said, "Ten times they fought for me,
Ten times they strove with might and main,
Ten times I saw them beaten down,
Ten times they rose, and fought again."
She said, "I stayed alone at home,
A dreary woman, grey and cold ;
I never asked them how they fared,
Yet still they loved me as of old."
She said, "I never called them sons,
I almost ceased to breathe their name,
then caught it echoing down the wind
blown backwards, from the lips of fame."
She said, "Not mine, not mine that fame ;
Far over sea, far over land,
cast forth like rubbish from my shores
they won it yonder, sword in hand."
She said, "God knows they owe me nought,
I tossed them to the foaming sea,
I tossed them to the howling waste,
Yet still their love comes home to me."
Emily Lawless, 1845-1913.
SHAMELESS DEGENERATES.
'...the group says hundreds of older people are facing regular demands for money, are having their pensions withheld and are finding that their property is being taken....in the vast majority of cases, the perpetrators are immediate family members...financial abuse is now the second most common form of elder mistreatment...' (from here.)
We have mentioned one particular case of this despicable behaviour before as, unfortunately, it has happened on our own doorstep, so to speak, in the same small(ish) town we live in, and those responsible are known to those of us who take the time to care about such issues : 'In early May 2008, my Grandad was not living at home any more and not in any state of mind to conduct family business re paying household bills or calling to the Post Office to collect his or Nana's weekly pension. My Nana, now living on her own in the bungalow (although my Grandad was brought home on a regular basis for visits and Nana and one or more son or daughter [my Uncle/Aunt] would go to see my Grandad in his 'new home' four or five times a week) and being, at the time, 81 years of age (but not too bad, physically or mentally) agreed to a suggestion from her daughter 'M' (my Aunt) that her pension, and Grandad's pension - a combined total at that time of €423.30 a week - should now be paid into the local AIB bank rather than the Post Office and that an ATM card be obtained from AIB by Nana which would enable the card holder (once they knew the PIN number) to withdraw some of the money from the account to pay bills and buy shopping etc for Nana....(from here.)
The two thieving daughters referred to in that blog are otherwise 'normal' human beings - on the outside, anyway - and present themselves in this neighbourhood, sickeningly so, as 'concerned siblings' who are forever fussing over their mother, whom they profess to love very much. There is a lot more I could write here about them, and about their disgraceful on-going behaviour in relation to their mother and their brother ('Uncle S') but this is not the time to do so. However I will take the time, now, to advise readers to please keep a close eye on your elderly and vulnerable parents or neighbours etc who are in the same boat as the poor woman featured in that blog. I don't think you necessarily have to be born 'bad' (or with a moral defect) in order for you to be capable of doing that on your own parents or, indeed, on any person, elderly or not - perhaps life's various interventions can turn you into a shameless degenerate with no empathy or feelings in relation to your own parents?
Thanks for reading, Sharon.
'1169' EXCLUSIVE!
BRITAIN'S 'TITLED' SPENCER CLAN - GAY RELATIONSHIP EXPOSÉ !
We have been working on this for the last few weeks, following a tip we received at the time, and have now collated enough material and verifiable proof and information to safely go public with the story - on Wednesday, 17th June 2015, we will name the
member of Britain's 'titled' Spencer clan that had a gay relationship (with a drug addict) and will publish details and/or supply links regarding that person, mentioning their drug addiction (heroin) and including their family history and the location of the house that both of them lived in. We are not doing this out of malice or any (misguided) sense of 'righteousness', but rather because we believe these details to be of public interest, especially so as some of those to be mentioned in our piece are 'titled' by the British 'establishment' and receive a stipend from the British tax payer.
Check back here with us on Wednesday, 17th of June 2015, for the above piece, and more....
Thanks for reading, Sharon.
THE PRICE OF PEACE......
Last month, 28 women who protested peacefully in the Phoenix Park, Dublin, against US President Ronald Reagan's visit to Ireland received £1000 each arising from their action for wrongful arrest. Gene Kerrigan recalls the weekend when another State determined Irish security requirements and details the garda action which could cost tens of thousands of pounds. From 'Magill' magazine, May 1987.
BANQUET AT THE CASTLE.
Once the details of the various prisoners had been ascertained by the four solicitors , Heather Celmalis and Ruth-Anne FitzGerald began drawing up affidavits for a writ of habeas corpus , and then they had to find a judge - not an easy task on the Sunday evening of a bank holiday weekend, but they had a list of court registrars and they began phoning around.
In Dublin Castle the State's elite were gathering for a banquet to honour U.S. President Ronald Reagan. Some of the prisoners had wondered ruefully how many of the judges whom the lawyers were trying to contact would be at the banquet! That evening, the 'Irish Campaign Against Reagan's Foreign Policy' (ICARFP) group had organised a protest march, 'Ring Around Reagan' , in which ten thousand people marched in a circle through the streets around Dublin Castle and a poem written by one of the prisoners, Sue Russell, was read at the demonstration and at the end of the protest hundreds split off and marched down to the Bridewell, and began chanting "Let the women go!".
Inside, the women were exhausted - some were grateful for the support but wished the marchers would keep the noise down and, as the chanting grew more aggressive, some of the women grew anxious. They disliked and feared aggression, even when directed against their jailers. Some feared violence might break out. Outside, the women who had not been arrested started singing, trying to calm the crowd. The demonstration eventually fizzled out. (MORE LATER).
THE IRA.THE NEW IRA IS YOUNGER, MORE RADICAL AND HAS SEEN LITTLE OF LIFE OTHER THAN VIOLENCE..... By Ed Moloney. From 'Magill' magazine, September 1980.
The effect of the article when it landed on breakfast tables at the Hudson's Bay and Shamrock Lodge hotels where the Provo delegates were staying was, to say the least, traumatic. According to one source, the uproar from rural delegates was such that Gerry Adams was forced to deny other reports that there were Marxists in the Provos.
According to another source 'there would have been a walkout' if he hadn't. Needless to say leading Provisionals are not keen to talk about Athlone - "We wouldn't want to air that sort of thing in the press", says Dáithí Ó Conaill, "we don't have any fundamental differences and any we do have will be settled internally". But according to another source, Athlone was something of a victory for the traditionalists - 'Marxism is now a dirty word in the Provos', he says.
Since then the Provisionals have spent their time healing wounds. Ó Conaill was elected joint Vice President with Gerry Adams at the last Ard Fheis and Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, a consummate wound healer if ever there was one, symbolically spans the gap between. Between May and July this year leading Ard Comhairle members representing both wings have toured the country. In a public show of unity, Ó Brádaigh, Ó Conaill, Joe Cahill, Charlie McGlade, and Niall Fagan of the traditionalists, and Gerry Adams, Foreign Affairs spokesman Richard Behal, and An Phoblacht/Republican News editor, Danny Morrison for the radicals, took pains to assure Sinn Féiners throughout Ireland that the trouble was over and that unity and peace reigned once again in their movement.
[END of 'THE NEW IRA IS YOUNGER, MORE RADICAL AND HAS SEEN LITTLE OF LIFE OTHER THAN VIOLENCE.....' : NEXT - "WE HAVE WORN DOWN THEIR WILL" - from 1980.]
ON THIS DATE (10TH JUNE) 34 YEARS AGO : IRA MEN ESCAPE FROM CRUMLIN ROAD PRISON, BELFAST.
Crumlin Road Jail, Belfast - designed in 1841, opened 'for business' in 1845, closed as a place of detention in 1996.
Early on a Saturday morning - 21st March 1943 - as the Logue family of Harding Street, Derry, were about to sit down for their breakfast, they noticed a part of their small garden rising up and being pushed back - their garden wall formed part of the perimeter of a neighbouring premises, Derry Jail : a figure pulled himself up from the hole in the ground and began assisting others that were trying to scramble to their feet. Within minutes there were 21 men (including Patrick Donnelly, Ned Maguire, Hugh McAteer (IRA Chief of Staff), Liam Graham and the last man to be pulled from the tunnel, Brendan O'Boyle) assembled in the small garden, all of whom rushed into the Logue house and let themselves out through the front door. They ran to near-by Abercorn Place and jumped into a waiting lorry, a furniture removal van, which was driven by an on-the-run IRA man, Jimmy Steele, who had recently liberated himself from Crumlin Road Prison. The British offered a reward of £3000 for information leading to the recapture of the men, but there were no takers!
That was in 1943 : on the 9th of August 1971, the British introduced 'internment without trial' in the Six Counties. Within weeks, 1,500 'suspected terrorists' are put behind bars, not only in the new Long Kesh internment camp, but in other prisons throughout the Six County area. The Long Kesh camp, which was built on an old RAF airfield near Lisburn, in County Antrim, was 'home' to about three-hundred of the internees, while another group, consisting of about one-hundred-and-fifty men, were interned on 'The Maidstone', a prison ship moored at the coal wharf in Belfast Docks. An estimated one-thousand internee's (and remand prisoners) were held in Crumlin Road Jail, in Belfast, resulting in serious over-crowding ; so the 'prisoners' set-about giving themselves more space!
During a prison football match in September that year (1971) , five internees made their way to a section of the wall at the opposite end of where the match was being played - they carried bed-sheets knotted together, with a wooden 'hook' made from prison tables and/or chairs tied to one end of the 'rope'.
With the football game in full swing, and the prison-screws relieved to have something to watch and help them pass a few hours, the five men succeeded in their efforts to have the 'hook' grip the top of the wall. As the five men climbed up the 'rope' as best they could, a nail-bomb exploded on the Antrim Road, which was the far-side of the wall ; the men continued their climb and, on reaching the top of the prison wall, they were startled to find themselves looking down on armed British soldiers - the Brits were probably just as surprised to be looking up at them! The nail-bomb explosion had drawn a British Army patrol to that same spot ; the men on top of the wall went into reverse, climbed back down the way they had come up and mingled with their fellow-prisoners, watching the match. That was September 1971 ; the failed escape bid at least indicated that the idea was sound. It was decided to continue with the football matches, but not to attempt an escape during same,for the time being, at least.
Over the following few weeks, arrangements were made with the then IRA on the outside for another escape attempt , using an improved version of the September idea ; rope ladders.
It was agreed that the escape attempt would take place on the 16th November 1971, and that nine prisoners would locate themselves at a certain section of the prison wall on that date, at a specific time. The nine men - Seamus Storey, Thomas Maguire, Thomas Fox, Peter Hennessy, Bernard Ellison Thomas Kane, Terence Clarke, Chris Keenan and David Mullan - were all anxious to escape. The barbed-wire fence on the outside of the prison wall would be cut to allow the men a quick exit , and cars would be waiting for them. On that date - 16th November 1971 - a football match was organised, as usual, and the prison-screws were happy enough to have something going-on to distract them from their miserable jobs ; not to be distracted, however, were the nine men - as the football match was underway , an IRA unit had parked a couple of cars on the Antrim Road and were already inside the barbed-wire perimeter fence, having cut through same unnoticed. Rope-ladders were unfurled and thrown over the prison-wall. The nine men climbed up the ladders and down the other side, got into the waiting cars and drove off at high speed towards the border. In County Tyrone, near Omagh, two of the escaped prisoners - Chris Keenan and David Mullan - were caught by the British, but there was no sign of the other seven men. It later transpired that they had sought and received sanctuary in a Cistercian Monastery near the border.
The escape made international headlines, and the British Government were further embarrassed when the seven escapees held a press conference in Dublin. The seven men exposed the torture they received from the British and the conditions that their captors held them in. Within about only two weeks of what became known as the escape of 'The Crumlin Kangaroo's', it happened again - on 2nd December, 1971, three IRA men in the same Crumlin Road Jail - Martin Meehan, 'Dutch' Doherty and Hugh McCann - tied some bed sheets together, fashioned a 'hook' for the top sheet and successfully escaped from the prison. As is usual in these events, it wasn't long before a song commemorating the escapes was penned!
That was in 1971 : on the 10th of June, 1981 (34 years ago on this date) , the 'IRA M60 Squad' escaped from that same prison : they took hostages, wore uniforms, had three handguns between the eight of them and they exited the same way as they had entered - through the front gate! You can read an account of what happened here.
ON THIS DATE (10TH JUNE) 40 YEARS AGO : THE MINISTER'S MAN ?
Larry White (left), shot dead on this date (10th June) in 1975, apparently by a person closely connected to a Free State minister...
'On 10 June 1975, Larry White, a leading Saor Éire activist from Cork was shot several times on Mount Eden Road. He died of his injuries a short time later. The Official IRA are widely believed to have been responsible for the killing with a number of members claiming that White had aided the INLA in shooting and injuring Sean Garland in Ballymun in March of that year. In 1976 a number of members of the Official Republican Movement were convicted of the murder of Larry White, among them Bernard Lynch (the husband of Labour party TD Kathleen Lynch). The case was later quashed on the basis of evidence at the original trial was no longer admissible....' (from here.)
'The extraordinary saga began in 1975, when Larry White was a member of republican splinter group Saor Éire. He fell out with Official Sinn Féin – one of many splits between republican factions that occurred during the period.....he did not suspect, however, that his position would cost him his life. Mr White was killed in a hail of bullets as he was walking home at midnight on June 10, 1975, in Cork city. The 25-year-old didn’t stand a chance: he had been hit 12 times, mostly in the head. "You can take that," the gunman was heard to say before he made his getaway.....during the trial, three statements – admitted as evidence by the Special Criminal Court – were crucial. Between them the statements put Bernard Lynch at the heart of the murder plot, and at one point even identified him as the gunman....'
'It was the feud, the time between the Stickies and the Provos...the minister's husband was the Stickie, Bernie Lynch. The victim was Provo IRA man Larry White....he had shot Larry White dead in an IRA feud in Cork city, he and his wife the present minister (Kathleen Lynch) ,then belonging to the Official IRA. That was back in the Seventies.... (from here.)
The Irish state covering up murder: The hypocrisy of the Labour Party has resurfaced as Kathleen Lynch recently appointed her husband Bernard Lynch as a paid advisor to her Office and the Dublin Government. Bernard Lynch was found guilty of been involved in the murder of Irish Republican Larry White in 1975, and was only released on a technicality as the Gardaí took a statement from a State witness after his detention period had elapsed. At the time of the murder of Vol. Larry White, Official Sinn Féin/the Workers Party were operating as a criminal gang throughout Ireland, and were heavily involved in bank robberies, extortion, money laundering, and later in the distribution and sale of illegal drugs....when members of Official Sinn Féin/the Workers Party murdered Larry White in Cork in 1975 it was to further their own criminal activities, and had nothing to do with national or social ideology.....the progression of Official Sinn Féin/the Workers Party into Democratic Left and now the Labour Party doesn’t absolve members of his group from their criminal activities, nor does it give them immunity from prosecution, whether its in relation to any one of the murders they committed or the misappropriation of funds that were stolen from (Official) Sinn Féin throughout the late 1960’s and early 70’s.... (from here.)
Finally, it never rains but it pours : Kathleen's husband is not that family's only member with 'a bit of previous' - 'Bernard's brother Brian, 58, was suspected of being the brains behind a massive counterfeiting scam uncovered by gardaí in a raid at Repsol Ltd, which was on the ground floor of the Workers' Party Dublin headquarters in 1983....Brian Lynch was one of a number of men wanted for questioning by gardaí in relation to the operation....Gardaí have never been able to question him about his alleged role in the forgery ring despite alerting Interpol and other organisations....there has never been a garda prosecution, but sources this week said the case remains open and the warrant to arrest him for questioning remains active...' (from here.) However, in fairness - and to their credit - none of those mentioned are paedophile rapists....
WHEN EVENTS CLASH. PART ONE....
Last Saturday, 6th June 2015, tens of thousands of supporters of Dunnes Stores workers took to the streets of Dublin to demand fair working conditions for employees of that conglomerate, which has a long history of trying to take advantage of its staff - a history which they, the owners/management, seem intent on persevering with.
I was in two minds whether to attend the Dunnes march or a local anti-double-water tax protest, which was being held at roughly the same time - some of my friends and colleagues were going to one or the other but myself and three friends finally decided to 'go local' , as we knew the Dunnes march would be supported by tens of thousands of people whereas the local water tax protest was never going to gain that level of street support (although it should). Anyway - about one hundred of us ended up outside the Community Civic Centre, in Ballyfermot, having marched on the road from near-by Clondalkin, and being cheered-on by hundreds of on-lookers along the way and 'beeped' repeatedly at by supportive motorists. Pics of that protest can be seen here.
...AND PART TWO :
Every year for as long as I can remember, Irish republicans have gathered at the grave of Theobald Wolfe Tone , in Sallins, County Kildare, to pay respect to one of our founding fathers and a man who continues to inspire us, and this year the commemoration will be held this coming Sunday, the 14th of June (details here) and, by coincidence (!! - don't those organising committees ever talk to each other!) , the CABHAIR group are holding a 650-ticket raffle in a hotel which is not a million miles away from the village of Sallins. However, close and all as both events are, myself and the usual 'raffle crew' haven't yet mastered the art of bilocation (!) and, unless we do so over the next few days, we will not, unfortunately, be able to make it to the Wolfe Tone commemoration.
Honestly! Some times I feel like throwing my hat at the whole thing and just buying a bottle of water in Dunnes, calling into an hotel on the Dublin/Kildare border for a bit of lunch and then going for a leisurely stroll in a small Kildare town. But there's probably an organising committee somewhere that would screw that plan up on me !
HEY BUDDY, CAN YOU SPARE A DIME.....
Free State president, Michael D. Higgins (right of pic) is paid a salary of €5208 a week and is entitled to 'expenses' on top of that. A fiver, therefore, would be neither here nor there for the man, by which I mean he wouldn't be stuck for a bob or two, no matter what circumstances he found himself in. Distressing, then, to watch as he finds himself and his media scrum within feet of a street busker, who was trying to earn a few shillings extra. Rather than just walk past the busker as if he wasn't there and conscious that cameras were recording his movements, Higgins decides to feign interest in the man and make a donation to him : he puts a fiver in the collection 'plate' but then completely ruins the gesture by taking a few coins change from the 'plate'!
Which, when you think about it, explains perfectly the mentality of Free State politicians - no matter how much they have (€5208 a week, in this case) , they can't resist the 'need' to take more from the working class!
Thanks for reading, Sharon.
IN HONOUR OF PETER ROGER CASEMENT BRADY.
On Saturday 6th June, 2015, the 2nd Annual Ruairí Ó Brádaigh Summer School will take place in the Abbey Hotel, Roscommon, from 9.30am to 5.30pm. This year the Summer School will be looking ahead to the centenary of the 1916 Rising.
Ruairí Ó Brádaigh worked throughout his life for economic, political and social justice both in Ireland and internationally and these themes will be reflected in the Summer School programme - current issues such as the campaign against water charges and the battle for the control of our natural resources, for example the Shell-to-Sea campaign, will be debated in terms of how these issues reflect in a modern context the ethos and thinking behind the 1916 Proclamation.
The Rising and the politics of commemoration : the relevance of the 1916 Proclamation and what it has to say to the Ireland of today. The 1916 Rising and Ireland's place in the global struggle against imperialism will all feed into what promises to be a day of lively debate and discussion and a book launch ('Selected Writings and Speeches Volume 1: 1970 -1986, Ruairí Ó Brádaigh', edited by Dieter Reinisch) will be held in the hotel straight after the Summer School at 6pm on the Saturday. On Sunday, 7th June, a commemoration will be held, which will form up beside the entrance to the Abbey Hotel at 11.45am and proceed to the grave of Ruairí Ó Brádaigh at St Coman’s Cemetery where the oration will be given by John Joe McCusker, Fermanagh. All genuine republicans welcome!
"TO BREAK THE CONNECTION WITH ENGLAND..."
ANNUAL WOLFE TONE COMMEMORATION : Sunday,
June 14th, 2015, Sallins, Co. Kildare.
"From my earliest youth I have regarded the connection between Great Britain and Ireland as the curse of the Irish nation, and felt convinced that, while it lasted, this country could never be free nor happy. My mind has been confirmed in this opinion by the experience of every succeeding year, and the conclusions which I have drawn from every fact before my eyes. In consequence, I was determined to employ all the powers which my individual efforts could move, in order to separate the two countries. That Ireland was not able of herself to throw off the yoke, I knew ; I therefore sought for aid wherever it was to be found. In honourable poverty I rejected offers which, to a man in my circumstances, might be considered highly advantageous. I remained faithful to what I thought the cause of my country, and sought in the French Republic an ally to rescue three millions of my countrymen". - Theobald Wolfe Tone.
A lecture delivered to Dublin republicans by Joe Egan in November 1989 (who was a member of the RSF Education Department at the time) still makes for interesting reading today for Irish republicans. The subject covered is the death of Wolfe Tone : "Theobald Wolfe Tone was born on June 20, 1763 - the exact time and date of his death are unknown. Wolfe Tone was sentenced to death on November 10th, 1798 ; on November 11th he was informed by his gaolers that he would be publicly hanged on the following day, Monday, at one o'clock. It is generally accepted that Wolfe Tone died on November 19, 1798 ; in fact, he could have been murdered at any time during the previous week, and there is no doubt, and none of us should be in any doubt, of his murder by British Crown agents. It is time now, once and for all, to bury the lie that Wolfe Tone took his own life. These false stories were put out at the time not just to cover up the murder but also as black propaganda to denigrate Tone and the Cause he cherished with all his being. The proof of their successes in trying to destroy Wolfe Tone's character is still evident today nearly 200 years later.
Yes, the British establishment was expert at that time at covering up their crimes, even more successful than they are today. Many historians to this day trot out the same British lies, as if they were gospel, that Tone committed suicide ; they quote all sorts of stories to 'back-up' their claims. They use the most abominable argument that especially as Wolfe Tone was of the Protestant faith it would not be repugnant for him to take his own life : I say here and now that this was and is the most objectionable of arguments. It was against everything Tone dedicated and gave his life for, namely, to substitute the common name of Irishman for the religious denominations.
To spread the lie and imply that somehow being a Protestant made it acceptable to commit suicide is to be against all Wolfe Tone stood for. The argument is still going on with new books being written about Tone and praised and published by the present establishment who are as much against what Tone stood for as were the British establishment of the time.
Why do the establishment, British and Irish, make such a case for Wolfe Tone's suicide? Because to face the truth might make people today see the light and not just follow Tone's teachings but practice them. It is often quoted also that Tone's son accepted his father's suicide ; even if this were true it is of no consequence as what he thought one way or the other has no bearing on the facts. How did Tone's son know how long his father lay dying? There was no way he could know, no more than anyone else - at no time were any visitors allowed into see Wolfe Tone. His father tried every possible move through the courts to get his son free. His lawyer applied for and was immediately granted a writ of Habeas Corpus by Chief Justice Lord Kilwarden. Major Sandy, in charge of the barracks, was recognised generally as being a man with scant regard for justice or truth. It has been stated as proof of Tone's suicide that a man of Sandy's calibre and his hirelings wouldn't do such a botched murder that would take eight days for the victim to die.
How do we know how long Wolfe Tone took to die? It could very well have been eight minutes, not eight days. The only evidence ever produced to support the suicide verdict is an account from a French royalist, a Doctor Lentaigne, of whom little is known. This same doctor was by his being a royalist first, and working for the British Army, doubly opposed to all Wolfe Tone would stand for. How anyone with the remotest feeling for justice or truth could accept the word of such a man under the circumstances at the time is an insult to ordinary intelligence. But then as the old cliche says - "where ignorance is bliss it's folly to be wise." The secrets of a state prison at that period in history are seldom penetrated and even today would be virtually impossible. Abundant proof is available even today if a thorough search was to take place but we who wish to know the truth have only to know the man : he had dedicated himself to his principles and had seen his friends and compatriots, including his brother, hanged, and he would not let them or his country down by taking his own life.
Without knowing the man, even reading his last letters is enough to disprove the abominable lie that he committed suicide. Did he not write to his wife - "My mind is as tranquil this moment as at any period in my life." One only has to read his last speech from the dock at his trial to see and understand the character of the man. Just to quote a few lines is enough to convince any fair mind of the impossibility of Wolfe Tone committing suicide ; only the avowed enemies of truth and justice could dare say otherwise - "Mr. President and gentlemen of the Court Martial : I mean not to give you the trouble of bringing judicial proof to convict me legally to having acted in hostility to the government of his Britannic Majesty in Ireland. I admit the fact from my earliest youth, I have regarded the connection between Ireland and Great Britain as the curse of the Irish nation and felt convinced that, whilst it lasted, this country could never be free nor happy."
Regarding the French, Wolfe Tone said - "Attached to no party in the French Republic, without interest, without money, without intrigue, the openness and integrity of my views raised me to a high and confidential rank in its armies ; under the flag of the French Republic I originally engaged with a view to save and liberate my own country. For that purpose, I have encountered the chances of war, amongst strangers. For that purpose, I have repeatedly braved the terrors of the ocean, covered as I knew it to be, with the triumphant fleets of that power, which it was my glory and my duty to oppose. I have sacrificed all my views in life ; I have courted poverty, I have left a beloved wife, unprotected children I adored, fatherless. After such sacrifices, in a cause which I have always conscientiously considered as the cause of justice and freedom - it is no great effort, at this day, to add the sacrifice of my life. To the eternal disgrace of those who gave the order, I was brought hither in irons, like a felon...."
During his last speech from the dock, Wolfe Tone stated - "I mention this for the sake of others, for me I am indifferent to it. I am aware of the fate which awaits me, and scorn equally the tone of complaint and that of supplication. Whatever be the sentence of this court, I am prepared for it. Its members will surely discharge their duty ; I shall take care not to be wanting in mine." Tone's use of the word 'eternal' and 'his duty' are obvious references to God and posterity and he would have been fully aware and very careful about their use. Any study of the man and any understanding of him as a person to those who wish to see the truth can only draw the one conclusion. To quote just a line or two from his last letters to his wife : "...be assured I will die as I have lived, and that you will have no cause to blush for me. Adieu, dearest love, keep your courage as I have kept mine. My mind is as tranquil this moment as at any period of my life."
Are these the words of a man contemplating suicide? No! Wolfe Tone knew that suicide would have damned his reputation irreparably and consequently the cause he dedicated his life to. There is only one conclusion to be drawn knowing the man - murder by a person or persons unknown."
This brave man will be commemorated in Bodenstown Churchyard on Sunday, 14th June 2015, in what will be a fitting tribute by his republican comrades.
THE PRICE OF PEACE......
Last month, 28 women who protested peacefully in the Phoenix Park, Dublin, against US President Ronald Reagan's visit to Ireland received £1000 each arising from their action for wrongful arrest. Gene Kerrigan recalls the weekend when another State determined Irish security requirements and details the garda action which could cost tens of thousands of pounds. From 'Magill' magazine, May 1987.
Some of the prisoners had visitors, others didn't, but the gardaí would allow only one prisoner at a time receive a visitor. Elaine Bradley's husband and two children were standing outside, as they weren't allowed in. A garda asked one of the kids - "Is your mammy in there? Poor little fella...", and he gave the child ten pence. For a while afterwards, the child associated garda uniforms with nice people who give you money.
Some of the women remember being hysterical and banging on the metal doors ; upstairs, a woman called Sophie had been calling for what seemed a couple of hours for her medication - she was taking anti-biotics and the medication had been taken away. She became distraught and eventually the gardaí took her out into the corridor. She began having a seizure. The women in the cells, looking out through peepholes the size of a 2p coin, shouted for Ludy Methorsg to be let out of her cell to help Sophie. Ludy had medical training. The women pleaded and screamed for 15 minutes, and they saw Sophie's back arch and her body drop. Some of them thought she was dead.
The gardaí first said "Ah, she's just hysterical..." , but they finally allowed Ludy out of her cell and she examined Sophie and said she needed hospital treatment. The gardaí wouldn't do anything on their own authority, so they sent for the station sergeant, who agreed to allow the prisoner be taken to hospital. Having received a valium injection at Blanchardstown Hospital, Sophie was returned to the Bridewell, 45 minutes later, around 10pm. She was pale and shivering, wrapped in a blanket, but still considered to be a danger to Ronald Reagan : she was locked up for the night. (MORE LATER).
THE IRA.THE NEW IRA IS YOUNGER, MORE RADICAL AND HAS SEEN LITTLE OF LIFE OTHER THAN VIOLENCE..... By Ed Moloney. From 'Magill' magazine, September 1980.
In 1974, Dáithí Ó Conaill praised the UWC loyalist strikers for showing "tremendous power and acting in a responsible way". On several occasions since he has described moves by loyalist paramilitary groups towards the idea of Northern independence as "encouraging". Although Federalism remains the official policy of Sinn Fein, it has now been rejected by the radical and Northern dominated IRA Army Council. One Army Council member explained why : "We are opposed to it because of the historic abuse of power by the loyalists in the North. Federalism wouldn't unite the Irish people, but perpetuate sectarian division". Ó Conaill's thinking as represented by his public statements between 1972 and 1975 led directly to the Feakle and post-Feakle talks, but is now light years away from the Northern radicals. Northern Provisionals are undeniably more sectarian than their Southern counterparts, not least of all because of the bloody carnage in Belfast and elsewhere in the North. Their view of Northern Protestants, influenced by left wing groups like the 'Peoples' Democracy', is that the Northern State is irreformable and so are most Northern Protestants.
The unease and leftward shift in republicanism allied to the change of attitude on Federalism has led inevitably to talk of there being two identifiable wings in the movement. One led by the spokesman for the radicals, Gerry Adams, and the other led by Ó Conaill. Twice last year the tensions between the two surfaced briefly. The first was in reaction to Gerry Adams' fiercely socialist oration at Bodenstown. The other was at a special weekend conference of 200 Sinn Féin leaders at Athlone last October (1979). By co-incidence, the Dublin-based 'Sunday World' newspaper published that same weekend an essentially accurate report claiming that Federalism was about to be abandoned and the Provos were about to 'lurch to the left'. The article also spoke about 'the waning influence' of Ruairí Ó Brádaigh and Dáithí Ó Conaill . (MORE LATER).
ON THIS DATE (3RD JUNE) 41 YEARS AGO.
Michael Gaughan (pictured, left), the eleventh Irish republican to die on hunger strike. He was four months away from celebrating his 25th birthday.
Immortalised in song by Seamus Robinson , Michael Gaughan was an IRA activist in England and, in December 1971, he found himself in front of a British judge in the Old Bailey, where he was sentenced to seven years in Wormwood Scrubs for taking part in a (fund-raising) bank raid in north London. Two years later, he was transferred to Albany Prison on the Isle of Wight and demanded that he be treated as a political prisoner. This was refused and he was placed in solitary confinement before being moved to Parkhurst Prison, also on the Isle of Wight. On the 31st of March, 1974, Michael Gaughan joined an on-going hunger-strike protest and, after 23 days, he was force-fed : the tube that was forced down his throat punctured his lung, killing him, in Parkhurst Prison, on the 3rd of June, 1974. His body was removed from London and on Friday and Saturday, 7th and 8th June 1974, thousands of mourners lined the streets of Kilburn and marched behind his coffin, which was flanked by an IRA guard of honour, to a requiem mass held in the 'Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus' in Kilburn.
On that Saturday, his body was transported to Dublin where, again, it was met by mourners and another IRA guard of honour who brought it to the Adam and Eve's Franciscan church on Merchant's Quay, where thousands filed past as it lay in state. The following day, his body was removed to Ballina, County Mayo. The funeral mass took place on the 9th June, at St. Muredach's Cathedral, Ballina, and the procession then led to Leigue Cemetery, Ballina. Gaughan was given a full republican burial and was laid to rest in the Republican plot. Mayo republican Jackie Clarke (Seán Ó Clérigh) presided at the last obsequies, and the oration at his graveside was given by Dáithí Ó Conaill, who stated that Gaughan "had been tortured in prison by the vampires of a discredited empire who were joined by decrepit politicians who were a disgrace to the name of Irishmen..." His coffin was draped in the same Tricolour that was used for Terence McSwiney's funeral 54 years earlier. He left a final message in which he stated - "I die proudly for my country and in the hope that my death will be sufficient to obtain the demands of my comrades. Let there be no bitterness on my behalf, but a determination to achieve the new Ireland for which I gladly die. My loyalty and confidence is to the IRA and let those of you who are left carry on the work and finish the fight." And today, 41 years after Michael Gaughan was buried, republicans are still working towards that same objective.
ON THIS DATE (3RD JUNE) 94 YEARS AGO : 'WARRIOR DAY' SHOOTING IN DUBLIN BY IRA.
This episode in republican history is definitely not as well known, or discussed as often as, other IRA actions from this period, and with good reason - the objective itself was sound, but the manner in which it was prosecuted was reckless, to put it mildly.
No doubt as part of its 'normalisation policy' of the time (1921) the British administration wanted to present Ireland to the rest of the so-called 'Commonwealth' (and further afield) as a colony where, apart from a few 'dissident troublemakers', its writ not only still ran but was welcomed by a majority of those in the country, same as Westminster attempts to depict the situation here today. And what better way to do so than to organise a cricket match in Dublin at which the British military would have an input, which is what they did on the 3rd of June, 1921.
The British military-linked 'Warrior's Day' ('...our crest is surmounted by the Imperial Crown that was worn by His Majesty King George V when the Council was established in 1921...the centre piece of the crest is a stylized rendering of the Princes' Gates depicting our loyalty to the Royal Family......many of our members served "King and Country....' from here) , established in 1921, was to be marked ('celebrated') in Dublin on the 3rd of June, 1921 - when the fighting between the IRA and the British military was at its most vicious - by the holding of a cricket match between the 'Gentlemen of Ireland' and the British military in the grounds of Trinity College. The IRA wasn't prepared to allow proceedings take place without incident and two men, Paddy O'Connor and Jim McGuiness, were instructed to stop the match - "....our instructions were that we were to go down to the vicinity of Trinity College and fire into the grounds.... Jimmy McGuinness and myself cycled down as the match was just starting. From a position behind the boundary wall of Trinity College at Lincoln Place, the two of us opened fire in the general direction of the players...." And this, from the same source - "At 5.30pm, just as the military band was leaving the field after the tea break, shots rang out from the railings on the Nassau Street side of the ground. The band and the Army players, who were fielding, threw themselves to the ground. Not knowing what was going on, the two batsmen looked on in stunned disbelief before they too were hauled to the ground by the soldiers. According to the Irish Times, two men had cycled up '..and carefully placed their machines against the kerbstone. They advanced towards the railings and, producing revolvers, fired them in the direction of the players. They then put their revolvers in their pockets, remounted their bicycles, and rode away....' "
Two female spectators were shot, one of whom, only 21 years of age, died as a result of her wound. It was, at best, a reckless attack on the British military which could and should have been carried out in a more organised (and therefore successful) manner although, having said that, it did expose the Westminster-attempted 'normalisation policy' as the folly it was then, and is now.
SPEAK OUT....
...AND BE DAMNED!
The man pictured above, using the loudhailer - Martin Reilly, a solid person that myself and many others have had the pleasure of protesting various issues with - has found himself being victimised due to the fact that he has made a stand, on subjects ranging from the double-water tax issue to injustices against Irish republicans. Martin is a gentleman, well educated, soft-spoken and strong in his convictions, and has now being singled out for standing up for what he believes in - his employer called him into an office and "..told me I was being suspended, when I asked why I was shocked with the answer I received....because of (my) involvement in tap tax protests....."(more here.)
This is by no means the first time that something like this has happened, and definitely won't be the last, but such sackings/suspensions are usually masked and/or cloaked with a veneer of 'legal respectability' ( ie 'outside contractors/customers folded and his/her position became untenable' etc) but, in this case, the employer seems to be of the opinion that they are within their rights to punish an employee because of the social issues that that employee protests against in his/her own time. I would hope that all readers of this piece will highlight this injustice on their own blog/site/Facebook page etc as it could be anyone of us next.
BREAK A LEG. SERIOUSLY.
If there was a 'Shameless Corner' section of this blog then the following would be assured a spot in the top three, at the very least - '...the new farcical play about the 1916 Easter Rising (in which) Padraig Pearse...the annoying little twerp..will be portrayed as a cross-dressing control freak with a fixation on his mother...Connolly is a gruff thug; Dev is a morose creep, Michael Collins is a wide-boy on the make....' (more here.)
The people behind this and, indeed, those that go to see it are, in my opinion, infected with a sense of self-loathing to the extent that they have no concern for their own dignity or that of others and are divested of all moral reference points. If they could get away with 'putting on a show' about the death of a family member, and felt that to do so would further their stage/screen 'career', I have no doubt that they would do it and would consider it sufficient reward for having done so if, as a result, they were invited on to a TV chat show to discuss how 'funny' they are. They are a sick breed for whom so much means so little.
Thanks for reading, Sharon.
IRELAND 1921 : 'OWN GOAL' BY THE IRA.
In 1921, in Ireland, a British attempt at 'normalising' its military and political presence in Ireland did not go unanswered by the IRA - but, in doing so, the IRA launched a reckless operation which resulted in two civilians being shot, one of whom died later. There were no British military casualties as a result of that operation, although media headlines were achieved. But mainly for the wrong reason....
(More on Wednesday, 3rd June 2015.)
YES! IN THE NAME OF 'EQUALITY'.
'...a secondary school in North Dublin held an LGBT week and pupils were forced to wear LGBT badges, write essays in favour of LGBT rights and do artwork in a similar vein....a 16-year-old girl who refused to wear one of the badges was told by her teacher that she was being "disrespectful" to LGBT people....another girl (aged 14) was asked to do an art project on an LGBT theme. When she objected, the teacher said she would have to leave her convictions outside the classroom...'(...from here.)
Hopefully, the above incident will be the exception rather than the rule although, having said that, I can almost picture a State in which a teenage boy and girl meet up behind the school bike shed for a clandestine kiss and to whisper their intention to go on a date that night, for fear that to do so in the school yard or on the street would cause 'offence' to fellow pupils and/or teachers (are separate schools the answer and, if so, why not separate shops,buses and whole housing estates etc?). Indeed, we should perhaps go the whole hog now - strike while the iron is hot and all that - and demand that all State citizens wear some item of clothing or badge etc identifying them as 'pro-equality' in relation to the 'gay marriage' issue, with failure to do so to be considered a probable offence under a new 'Public Order Act'. Those that object (especially the majority of voters from the Roscommon-South Leitrim constituency and some from Donegal South-West) will be moved to a 're-education' camp for their own good and that of society overall, and be 'encouraged' to stay there until they realise that a gay man can be a 'mother' and be described as such on a birth certificate!
And, speaking of 'equality', there has been no media uproar about the obvious lack of it regarding the age at which a citizen can be officially considered 'fit for office' in relation to the 'job' of State president (a position which, incidentally, I do not believe should exist at all) - ageism , apparently, is not as important and/or as 'sexy' an issue as 'gay marriage' and seemingly not as 'cool' to propagate on. And, as an Irish republican , it annoys me to witness careless people confuse the 26 county State with the country of 'Ireland' : Seth MacFarlane/@SethMacFarlane/Congratulations to Ireland for legalizing same-sex marriage on a national level! Come on U.S., let's catch up to the future. Richard Branson/
@richardbranson/Great to see the people of Ireland voting to live in a country where everybody is treated equally #MarRef #YesEquality(...and more here.) But perhaps it's only a rainbow that's blocking their vision.
The only answer which should be given in regards to the Office in question : this pic shows a ballot paper from the 'State presidential age' referendum, which was held here on Friday 22nd May 2015.And, finally - it seems that whereas 'gay marriage' is good and ageism is acceptable, being politically inept can be rewarding. It's at times like this that I wonder if we're doing ourselves more harm than even the British could do!
THE PRICE OF PEACE......
Last month, 28 women who protested peacefully in the Phoenix Park, Dublin, against US President Ronald Reagan's visit to Ireland received £1000 each arising from their action for wrongful arrest. Gene Kerrigan recalls the weekend when another State determined Irish security requirements and details the garda action which could cost tens of thousands of pounds. From 'Magill' magazine, May 1987.
"IS YOUR MAMMY THERE?"
The prisoners were told they could make a phone call, if it was practicable. It wasn't practicable, said the gardaí, so some prisoners prevailed on the gardaí to make phone calls for them, to relatives and friends, usually asking for dry clothes.
Outside the Bridewell, the women who had not been arrested gathered to give support to their friends inside, and a priest visited them and said Mass in a corridor, with the women in two rows, delighted to get out of the cells, some sobbing. In the cells emotions swung , above all the feeling of powerlessness, and rage at times - tears of anger, frustration, anxiety and fear. As always, there was singing. Paper plates were cut into quarter-moon shapes and used to decorate the cell, and plastic forks became brooms for paper witches.
Monica Barnes, the Fine Gael representative, got a phone call and went to the Bridewell that evening. The gardaí first wanted the prisoners to select a spokeswoman to come out and meet the politician, but this search for ring leaders had been a feature of the garda activity in the Phoenix Park - so the women pointed out yet again that they were individuals and had no hierarchy. The gardaí went around the cells flushing the toilets before Barnes came in ; she went from cell to cell and visited all the women, and was appalled at the conditions. She found some women frightened, a high level of anxiety throughout, some worried about their families, not knowing what law they had broken, not knowing how long they could be held like this. (MORE LATER).
THE IRA.THE NEW IRA IS YOUNGER, MORE RADICAL AND HAS SEEN LITTLE OF LIFE OTHER THAN VIOLENCE..... By Ed Moloney. From 'Magill' magazine, September 1980.
But those two developments and, in particular, the Economic Resistance campaign, are at the root of conservative unease with the move leftwards. Not only is Economic Resistance uncomfortably reminiscent of the 'communist' Officials and their concept of a National Liberation Front, it also smacks of the same politics that led to the 1970 split over recognition of the two States in Ireland. For an Economic Resistance campaign to be really successful it clearly needs to get into the businesses of making demands on the State, both North and South of the Border. Building campaigns around the demand for jobs or better housing will lead, say the traditionalists, to a de facto recognition of Leinster House and whatever Humphrey Atkins can devise in the North to replace Stormont.
So far an uneasy compromise has been reached, which allows for agitation in the South but only glorified social work in the North. The most significant change in Eire Nua has come in the present differing attitudes of the IRA Army Council and Sinn Fein to the core of the 1972 document. That is Federalism, or the creation of strong Provisional government in Ireland when the British withdraw. Underlying Federalism was an implicit hope that it would mollify Northern Protestants and persuade them that however unrealistic the chances of re-unification, the Provisionals didn't really bear Protestants there any ill will. The Provos were even prepared to give them a large measure of self-government, should the distant dream of re-unification be realised.
The Provisional most closely identified with Federalism, is of course, Dáithí Ó Conaill. As Director of Publicity of the IRA between 1972 and 1975, Ó Conaill spoke more often of the need to build a 'United Ulster' than a 'United Ireland'. He even banned the latter phrase from Provisional vocabulary for a while. (MORE LATER).
ON THIS DATE (27TH MAY) 95 YEARS AGO : IRA OPERATIONS BEGIN TO ATTACK BRITISH FORCES IN THEIR BARRACKS IN LIMERICK.
The building, left, which was used at the time as a barracks for a British 'police force'.
In 1867, the Fenians attacked a British military outpost at Kilmallock in County Limerick, but were repelled ; fifty-three years after that event, the Fenians (IRA) decided to burn the outpost (then an RIC barracks) to the ground. The building was a two-storey, solid masonry structure with steel shuttering and was set back from the road ; it housed an RIC garrison of one sergeant and seventeen constables, all armed, and was known to be a 'tough' building. But it had one possible weakness - its roof.
A house to the right-hand side of the barracks, which was owned by the Carroll family, was taller than the barracks, and had a 'skylight' in its attic. Clery's Hotel and a bank practically faced the barracks, as did a shop, owned by the O'Herlihy family. If, during the attack, RIC reinforcements from other areas were to attempt to rescue their colleagues they would find the routes into the town barricaded by armed IRA units. Sixty IRA Volunteers were organised for the operation ; at least half of them, plus some local men, went out on the night of 27th May 1920 and blocked a number of roads leading to Kilmallock. IRA leader Tom Malone ('Sean Forde') and his unit took over Carrolls house, Tim Crowley and his Volunteer group took control of Cleary's Hotel, D. O'Hannigan was in charge of a unit of IRA men which occupied the bank and J. McCarthy and an IRA unit moved in to O'Herlihy's shop for the night. Michael Brennan, an IRA leader from East Clare, was also in the shop.
A few Volunteers were positioned near outhouses at the rear of the barracks. Just after midnight, IRA leader Tom Malone and his men took it in turns to lob heavy objects out of the skylight of the Carrolls' house, the objective being to break a hole through the roof of the barracks, into which prepared petrol-bombs could be thrown. When Malone's first object hit the roof, the IRA units positioned around the barracks opened fire on the front and rear of the building ; within minutes, the RIC men trapped in the building were shooting back. While this gun-fight was going on, Malone and his men succeeded in breaching the roof - dozens of parafin and petrol bombs were thrown through the hole, followed by a flaming torch and a grenade : the building was now on fire.
By 2am (approximately two hours after the attack began) the upper storey of the barracks was about to collapse on top of the ground-floor section, where the RIC men were now confined : the IRA stopped the attack and advised the RIC to throw out their weapons and then come out themselves. The RIC refused the offer.
However , all was not as it seemed to the attackers ; the RIC men had been retreating to the outbuildings at the back of the barracks , braving the sniper-fire from the IRA Volunteers rather than face the onslaught coming through the front of the building. By about 7am, with the barracks now a smouldering ruin, it was obvious that a fresh plan and re-deployment of the Volunteers would be necessary if the RIC were to be removed from the various outhouses they were now in, and the order was given for the IRA to withdraw ; one Volunteer, Liam Scully, was dead, and the RIC Sergeant and one of his constables were dead - six more RIC men were seriously wounded.
The Kilmallock attack, on 28th May, 1920 - in the middle of the Tan War - was one of the most prolonged and fiercest battles of that period. The actual battle itself began on the 27th of May, 1920, 95 years ago on this date.
ON THIS DATE (27TH MAY) 217 YEARS AGO : BATTLE OF OULART HILL, WEXFORD.
On the 27th of May, 1798 (Whit Sunday) , a few hundred well armed British Kingsborough militiamen and yeomanry from the North Cork Militia were sent to Oulart (Abhallghort/Orchard), in Wexford, to quell 'native unease' and, as expected, they plundered and caused havoc on their journey to 'put manners' on those Irish men and women who had assembled, approximately one-thousand strong, in Oulart, under the leadership of Fr.John Murphy, General Myles Byrne, from Ballylusk, and General Edward Roche of Garlough, Castlebridge.
A description of the battle can be read here, but suffice to quote one paragraph from that link : '...the (British) militiamen were soon completely overrun, and must have seen their fate written in the pent-up hatred on the rebels' faces. They turned and fled for their lives, spilling down the slopes from where they had come just a few minutes before. Some ran for miles before being overtaken, impaled and gutted. They begged for mercy in both Gaelic and English. They blessed themselves and shouted out prayers, since many of their number were themselves Catholic, but received absolutely no pity from the rebels. To the insurgents, the men begging for their lives were the same ones who had so recently burned out and murdered their neighbours and friends. The merciless pikemen offered no quarter, and the detested North Cork Militia disappeared forever on the bloody slopes of Oulart Hill....'
One of the above-mentioned leaders, Myles Byrne (who lived long enough to serve as an officer in Napoleon's 'Irish Legion') was born in Monaseed in Wexford, on March 20th, 1780. He was only a boy when he witnessed the attacks by the yeoman militia and other mercenaries which England let loose in Wexford in 1798. But he took his place in the United Irishmen and fought through the Wexford campaign, joined Michael Dwyer afterwards in Wicklow, later came to Dublin and was a comrade and friend of Robert Emmet in the continuation of '98 which failed so sadly in 1803. He was sent by Emmet (then on the run) to France to seek assistance from Thomas Addis Emmet and the other exiled United Irishmen. He went with no hesitation, in the hope that he would return in the ranks of a conquering army and, for over 30 years, he followed the flag of France across the battlefields of Europe, whilst seeking out information from all sources on the situation in Ireland. After his retirement in 1835, when all hope of striking a blow for his own country had failed, he settled in Paris and continued to write, off and on, for twenty years, right up to the day of his death in 1862.
His widow published his memoirs in three volumes and the story was published in serial form in the 'Shamrock' newspaper of Dublin, in 1869, and reprinted in the 'Irish Weekly Independent' in 1898. In his memoirs, he was critical of the "gentlemany nature" of the rebel approach, believing them to have been "too willing to negotiate and to accept (British) government protections and non-existent government good faith".
Whilst in Paris, his home was a 'safe house' for all who had ever served Ireland and one of the most welcome visitors to his home was that fine old soldier John Mitchel, who described Myles Byrne as "..a tall figure, the splendid ruin of a soldier d'elite , bearing himself still erect under the weight of eighty winters. The grey eye is keen and proud, the thin face bronzed and worn by war and weather, and the whole bearing gives the idea not of decrepitude, but of a certain dashing gallantry. He has marched over half of Europe, and stood full often at the head of his regiment on the rough edges of battle in Spain, in Germany, in Greece and other, earlier memories, cloud at times his clear grey eyes; and through and beyond the battle smoke and thunder of all Napoleon's fields, he has a vision of the pikemen at New Ross, and hears the fierce 'hurrah' on Oulart Hill..."
Myles Byrne died in France on Friday 24th January 1862, aged 82, and was buried in Montmarte Cemetery ('The Hill Of Martyrs'), Paris, in a grave marked with a Celtic Cross (since replaced with a different headstone) , inscribed with the words 'Sincerement Attache A L'Irlande : Son Pays Natal, IL A Fidelement Servi La France, Sa Patrie Adoptive.' The words on the new headstone read - 'Here lies Myles Byrne, Lieutenant Colonel in the service of France. Officer of the legion of Honour. Knight of St Louis, born at Monaseed in the county Wexford in Ireland, 20th March 1780. Died at Paris, the 24th January 1862, his long life was distinguished by the constant integrity and loyalty of his character and by his high-minded principles. Sincerely attached to Ireland, his native land, he gave faithful service to France, the country of his adoption.' He done more for Ireland on that one day, 217 years ago on this date, then some will do in a lifetime.
Thanks for reading, Sharon.
