Returning to Cork after her release , Mary MacSwiney virtually ran the republican headquarters in the city, but had to leave Cork in a hurry as the Free Staters were looking for her . She was arrested in Dublin on November 4th that year (1922) and was imprisoned in Mountjoy Jail - she immediately went on hunger-strike for release and was eventually freed on the 25th day of her fast , due to the huge international publicity her case received .
She was elected to the Executive of Cumann na mBan in 1926 and , in October that same year, was also elected as Vice-President of Sinn Fein at that organisations Ard Fheis , which was held six months after the split with de Valera . Along with other prominent republicans, including Brian O'Higgins , she resigned from the party in 1934 over the decision of Sinn Fein to allow members to receive IRA pensions from the new Fianna Fail administration .
( There can be no doubt of how she would react to the salaries , offices, perks and holiday-homes that the Adams Family are in receipt of , and not only from the Free State....)
Mary MacSwiney was one of the last surviving loyal members of the Second Dail who transferred their authority to the Army Council of the IRA in December 1938 .
She supported the IRA bombing campaign in England but poor health prevented her from playing her usual active part in the Movement.
Mary MacSwiney died in March 1942 , at 70 years of age, thirty-four of which she devoted to socialism and republicanism - the MacSwiney name will live on as part of the Irish struggle.

" Occasionally , I'm afraid , something has gone wrong, a bomb has landed in the wrong place " ~ British commander General Sir Peter de la Billiere , on civilian casualties in the 1990 Gulf War. ( You mean the damn civvies were in the wrong place , eh, Peter...?)

" Warfare is not that precise a business " ~ U S Commander in the Gulf War , Norman Scwarzkopf . (Translation= ' The bombs may be smart , but we're not ')

" It is difficult to look at the ground and tell what a civilian target is and what a military target is " ~ Lt. General Thomas Kelly , Operations Director of the U S Joint Chiefs of Staff .
( Translation= 'The bombs may be ...............................).
(Above three quotes taken from page 40 of ' The Sunday Tribune' , February 10th , 1991) .

In 1917 , Mary MacSwiney joined Sinn Fein following the adoption by the party of a more republican separatist policy . Following the death of her brother Terence , who died on hunger-strike in October 1920 (at the height of the Tan War) Mary MacSwiney visited America and gave evidence before the American Commission on Conditions in Ireland regarding the campaign of terror being waged against all sections of the nationalist population by the British forces of occupation .
Elections to the Second Dail were held in May 1921 , and Mary MacSwiney was elected a TD for Cork ; in December that year she spoke in opposition to the Treaty which she described as " the grossest act of betrayal that Ireland ever endured " and stated that if the Treaty was passed she would use her influence as a teacher to spread rebellion against the proposed Free State .
In the Civil War that followed , Mary MacSwiney was a formidable and unyielding opponent of the Free State and made no secret of her support for the republican side . She was imprisoned for a brief period in July 1922 , following the surrender of the Four Courts garrison in Dublin . Returning to Cork after her release ...... (MORE LATER)>>

This month , in 1976 , the first appeal for the ' Birmingham Six' was held under Judges Widgery , Lawton and Thompson . These three judges found that the ' forensic tests' used to convict the men were not "of great importance" ( ! ) ~ however , only a year earlier , Judge Nigel Bridge ruled that the tests were one of the two " absolutely critical " parts of the prosecution case .
Widgery and his two buddies gave those that cared to listen a taste of what was to come .....

The Austrian journalist , Guenther Nenning , claimed that Hitler could have been stopped by political means , or at least by minimal force if used in time : he could have been stopped if democratic parties had united against him , if the French had blocked the re-occupation of the Rhineland , or if the 'Allies' had stood up for Austria or launched an offensive in 1939 when Hitler had his hands full with Poland .
Will our children look back and say " Hussein could have been stopped by political means if only ..." ?

On March 27th , 1872 , a baby girl was born in London , was moved to County Cork and reared and educated there , at Queens College : that baby was Mary MacSwiney , who grew up to be an uncompromising republican and one of the most outstanding republican personalities of the 1920's and 1930's .
The young Mary MacSwiney trained as a teacher and returned to London for work until a suitable post was available in Dublin . A supporter of the suffragette movement , she joined the Munster Womens Franchise League (MWFL) in 1908 and , during the following years, campaigned for the franchise to be extended to women . She left the MWFL in 1914 as a result of that organisations support for Britain in the first ' World War' . After its formation in April 1914 , Mary MacSwiney joined Cumann na mBan and was appointed to its Executive Committee ; at the same time , she was a member of a number of other Nationalist organisations , including the Gaelic League .
After the 1916 Rising , she was arrested and imprisoned , and was dismissed from her teaching post ; after her release some months later , she founded a school , St Ita's , modelled on Padraig Pearse's school , St Enda's . Her sister Eithne and her brother Terence were also involved in the setting-up of the school . In 1917 , Mary MacSwiney joined Sinn Fein ...(MORE LATER)>>

A United States General , Norman Schwarzkopf , made his name in the 1990 Gulf War ("Stormin' Norman") ~
His father , a former New Jersey detective who rose to the rank of General in the U S Military Police in the 1940's , helped put the Shah of Iran on his throne and trained the Shah's police forces in the fine art of keeping a despot in power . The Shah's secret police , the ' Savak' , tortured and killed hundreds of opponents while Iran functioned as the U S's closet ally in the Gulf , policing the oil-rich region for a quarter century before the Shah was toppled in 1979 by his own people .
The U S magazine ' Newsweek' reported that Stormin' Norman wanted to start the Gulf War by exploding a nuclear device over Iraq , but Bush Senior would not allow it !
( " Aww go on , George- just a small one......)
The bould Norman stated on the last day of the war that " there is a lot more purpose to this war that getting the Iraqi's out of Kuwait" , but did not elaborate.
The war ended on February 28th , 1991 - 210 days after the invasion and 43 days after Bush Senior ordered military action " to liberate Kuwait" : on that same Thursday , the first full day of ' freedom' in Kuwait , an opposition leader was gunned down by masked men " unbothered by Kuwait Army patrols "--
lawyer Hamed Al-Jouaan had been an outspoken critic of the Sabah(ruling) family .

How many more critics of the establishment will die this time , and which U S Army 'hard-man' will make his name on the strength of those killed ?

...it was agreed to commence the ' S-Plan ' campaign in January 1939 and to stage 'tester' attacks along the border before the January deadline ~ on November 28th ad 29th , 1938, a number of British customs posts along the border were demolished but , on the eve of the attacks, three IRA Volunteers-Jimmy Joe Reynolds(Leitrim) , John James Kelly(Donegal) and Charlie McCafferty(Tyrone) were killed when a mine exploded prematurely in a house at Castlefin , County Donegal .
In late December the Stormont regime introduced internment but many of the northern leaders escaped arrest. Also , that same month, Sean Russell announced in the ' Wolfe Tone Weekly ' that Count Plunkett , J J O'Kelly('Scelig') , Mary MacSwiney , Brian O'Higgins , Cathal O'Murchadha , Tom Maguire and Professor William Stockley , the last surviving faithful members of the Second Dail Eireann elected in 1921 and usurped by the Treaty of Surrender , had transferred their authority as the legitimate government of Ireland to the Army Council of the IRA . This was to be held in trust for the nation making the Army Council the de jure government of the Irish Republic and thereby giving the IRA the right to use force and levy war . The surviving members of the Second Dail Eireann signed over their authority to the IRA Army Council on December 8th , 1938 ~ thirty-one years later , in 1969 , the IRA split and the last and still faithful survivor of the All-Ireland Dail stated that the Provisional IRA was the successor of the 1938 body ; similarly , following the 1986 division , Tom Maguire nominated the Continuity IRA as the legitimate IRA . Comdt. General Tom Maguire died in 1993 , aged 101 .
The PIRA has existed since 1986 as the military wing of a Leinster House-registered political party - if they return to their military campaign it will only be to obtain better conditions from the British ie a better Stormont ! Not " Brits Out " anymore ~ the slogan now is " stay if you want just treat us better" . It was never about that - never about so-called ' civil rights' only .......

" In front of us a curious figure was standing , a little crouched, legs straggled , arms held out from his sides . He had no eyes and his whole body , nearly all of which was visible through tatters of burnt rags, was covered with a hard black crust , speckled with yellow pus . He had to stand because he was no longer covered with a skin , but with a crust-like crackling which broke easily " ----
Journalist Rene Cutforth , describing his first sighting of a Napalm victim in Korea .
That was then , this is now ~ how have the military ' improved ' their chemical weapons.... ?

.....but, in January 1937, Sean Russell was suspended from the IRA for embarking on his American tour without Army Council permission. He stayed out of Dublin until October 1937 , when he approached the IRA leadership in an attempt to convince them that the campaign in England should go ahead .
In April 1938 an IRA General Army Convention was held , and Russell and his supporters secured enough support to get a majority on the Army Executive and to get him re-instated in the organisation , and elected to the Army Council . He was later appointed Chief of Staff . During the summer of 1938 , training classes in explosives were organised throughout the country.
IRA Volunteers were vetted for active service in England ,chemicals and explosives were stockpiled , safe houses and dumps were secured by IRA units in major British cities and a courier and intelligence network was built up .
By early Autumn that year ,the organisation was ready - it was agreed to commence the campaign in January 1939 and to stage ' tester ' attacks along the border before the January deadline ..... (MORE LATER)>>

It could have been one of the Leinster House politicians he was describing ~
In his satirical ' Devils Dictionary' , 19th Century humorist Ambrose Bierce described a bandit as " A person who takes by force from 'A' what 'A' has taken by guile from 'B' !!
..... and the bandits were like that back then , too .....
The same writer described a Christian " as one who thinks the Bible is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbour " !
...we have that ' do as I say and not as I do' - type here as well - unfortunately , people keep voting for them .....

.....the objective was to disrupt basic installations such as electricity, water and train services and , at 6am on January 16th , 1939, there were seven major explosions in the English cities of London , Manchester and Birmingham ; the next day many pylons were damaged by bombs and cable bridges and street electricity mains were hit in a widespread series of attacks .
The years leading up to the introduction of the ' S-Plan ' have been somewhat overshadowed by the campaign itself ~ In 1934 , the leader of Clan na Gael in America, Joseph McGarrity , proposed that the IRA organise a bombing campaign in English cities . His proposals were not adopted by the IRA leadership but the then IRA GHQ Quartermaster General, Sean Russell, supported the plan and , in July 1936, ( one month after the banning of the IRA by de Valera's Fianna Fail administration) he visited the U S in an attempt to obtain arms and to enlist the support of McGarrity and the Clan for an all-out war on England .
Russell was a veteran of the 1916 Rising and was active during the Tan War and, as such, was held in high esteem by the Clan . McGarrity promised money and resources , but in January 1937 Russell was suspended from the IRA for .......(MORE LATER)>>

Around the same time as the Free State applied to join the United Nations in 1946 , the then Free State Taoiseach , Eamon de Valera (Fianna Fail) stated in Leinster house - " If the Security Council decides that action should be taken against a particular state , and that action leads to war , we must participate in that action and enter the war " .
So there ya go , Bertie - retrospective approval from one of your hero's !

...... the January 12th , 1939, ultimatum from the IRA Army Council to Lord Halifax , the British foreign secretary, continued ... " Our Government reserves the right to appropriate action without further notice if upon the expiration of this period of grace , these conditions remain unfulfilled " .
On January 16th , with no reply from the British, a proclamation was posted in public places throughout the 32 Counties , declaring war on England . That January 16th document was written by Joseph McGarrity , leader of Clan na Gael in America , and was signed by six members of the Army Council ~ Stephen Hayes , Patrick Fleming , Peadar O'Flaherty , George Plunkett , Larry Grogan and Sean Russell . The seventh Army Council member, Mairtin O'Cadhain , refused to sign as he believed the IRA was not ready to begin the campaign . McGarrity's Proclamation also highlighted events since the 1916 Rising and declared that the fight for Irish freedom was not over , that Ireland was still unfree and that only military action would ever make the English withdraw from the country .
The 1939 bombing campaign began on January 16th : its objective was to disrupt basic installations such as electricity , water and train services and , at 6am that morning ......( MORE LATER)>>

An E-mail campaign doing the rounds at the moment asks recipients to vote for Ian Paisley as the least favourite Brit , or some such : I would imagine that Paisley would get the vote of the Lyons family -
Ian Paisley made the headlines in the ' Maura Lyons Affair' in 1956 ~ the proselytising of a young Catholic girl from the Falls Road , who disappeared from her parents home for days . The girl finally returned , and eventually abandoned her new-found Free Presbyterian faith . Apparently , Big Ian thought he could save the girls soul by converting her , even if she did'nt ' want to be saved' herself !
In that same year (1956) , Ian Paisley formed ' Ulster Protestant Action' (UPA) with John McQuade and Desmond Boal , a young barrister . Boal drafted the UPA constitution - " to keep Protestant and loyal workers in employment in time of depression , in preference to their fellow Catholic workers " ! The UPA fell asunder within three years - probably because they did'nt 'convert' enough Catholics ........

The IRA launched it's ' S-Plan' in January 1939 , after years of preparation . Jim O'Donovan , an IRA Instructor and colleague of then Chief of Staff Sean Russell , drew up the ' S-Plan' , a blue-print for a bombing campaign which called for the destruction of military targets in England , such as communication centres , BBC transmitters ,aerodromes , bridges and military installations .
Preparations for the campaign were at an advanced stage when , in December 1938, the surviving faithful Deputies of the Second (All-Ireland) Dail signed over their authority to the IRA Army Council . That same December (on the 22nd) , internment without trial was introduced in the Six Counties and 34 republican operatives were arrested in British Army swoops ; however, this did not effect the ' S-Plan' campaign as IRA active service units were already in place in major English cities , with quantities of explosives, waiting for orders to commence the campaign .
A formal ultimatum from the IRA Army Council demanding "the withdrawal of all British armed forces stationed in Ireland" was delivered to the British foreign secretary , Lord Halifax , on January 12th , 1939 . Copies of the document were sent to the Stormont administration in the Six Counties as well . The IRA ultimatum was signed by Patrick Fleming , Secretary, "on behalf of the Government and Army Council of Oglaigh na hEireann" , and ended with the statement that - " The Government of the Irish Republic believe that a period of four days is sufficient notice to your government to signify its intention in the matter of the military evacuation and for the issue of your declaration of abdication in respect of our country ..... " (MORE LATER)>>

" We have reached , perhaps gone beyond, what is strictly compatible with Irish neutrality . It will only be a matter of time before some important issue will arise in some trouble spot around the world about which the majority of the members of the (European) Community will have no alternative , whatever our feelings may be or whatever our neutrality may suggest , or public opinion may favour , but to act upon the decision of the Community acting through the political co-operation machinery " .
------- Bertie Ahern re the Iraq situation or some other state politician in his/her ' read-between-the-lines' mode trying to cosy-up to the U S ?
Or Bertie trying to cosy-up to some other state politician ? (!)
No ~ Charles Haughey , ex-Fianna Fail boss and Free State Taoiseach , in 1986 . Thats what happens when your clothes are worth more than your morals ......

A branch of the Irish Volunteers was founded in Limerick in January 1914 , and John Daly was mainly responsible during the following months for the spread of the organisation throughout the county . The British administration in Dublin Castle were keeping a close eye on him , and discussed between themselves "the urgency of the arrest of a small knot of violent men , of whom the principals were Thomas j. Clarke of Dublin and John Daly of Limerick : men who were known to work in great secrecy, never appearing on public platforms or in the press, or making themselves in any way amenable to the law " ! It should be noted that John Daly was 71 years of age when the British wrote the above about him ......( Thomas J.Clarke , another Irish rebel, and John Daly became friends in Portland Prison during the 12 years that the latter was imprisoned there) .
John Daly was too ill to participate in the mobilisation of Volunteers in Limerick during Easter Week 1916 ; he lived long enough to see the Fenian faith of his youth winning general acceptance . He died in the summer of 1916 , at seventy-one years of age , 53 years of which he gave over to the cause of Irish freedom . John Daly will never be as well-known as the ' super-star statesmen' that prostitute themselves today with Ahern , Blair and Bush but , when examined , his mark on Irish history exposes the ' suits ' for the frauds they are .

A report in ' The Irish Times' on April 26th , 1990 (page 7) told of how , in September 1989 , the Free State administration rejected over eight million punts which was actually available from the EU Structural Funds , because the money would have ended up in the hands of community groups .
A spokesperson for the State Department of Finance insisted that there "simply has to be central control over the spending of money" !! For "central control" read- " If we can't dish it out to our cronies then we're not interested......" . And to think we're about to pay for a brand new jet for that crowd !
I have posted it here before , but it deserves a repeat ~
G K Chesterton , a poet and (British) Liberal MP , once wrote -
" With pomp and with ridiculous display
the politicians corpse is borne away ,
and all around him carped and slanged
I wept - I had wished to see him hanged !

.......later , while working as a hospital attendant in England , John Daly played an active part in the dynamite campaign in English cities during the early 1880's , and was arrested at Birkenhead in possession of explosives in 1884 ~ he was sentenced to life imprisonment .
While in Portland Prison he endured appalling conditions but was released after twelve years , in 1896, when a commission of enquiry investigated his allegation that he was being slowly poisoned by the prison authorities . A free man again , he immersed himself into the cause of Irish freedom - the overthrow of British rule in Ireland . After his return to Ireland , having been elected MP for Limerick while in prison, he opened a bakery in the city and was on three occasions ( 1899-1901) elected Mayor of Limerick. In 1911 , John Daly helped in establishing a slua ( group) of Na Fianna Eireann in Limerick city and , one year later, he provided the organisation in the city , which was led by Sean Heuston and Con Colbert, with a Fianna Hall , built on a plot of ground behind his home in Barrington Street . (MORE LATER)>>>

That crooked despot Saddam Hussein today raised the spectre of the Vietnamese War in a ploy to put pressure on the Bush administration to back down : it's interesting that Hussein should do so ~
It was the British , in contravention of the Yalta Agreement , who started the Vietnamese War at the end of 'World-War Two' - under Major Douglas Gracey , they released the Japanese and French Vichyite (traitor) prisoners of war from their incarceration by the forces of their late ally , Ho Chi Minh, and banded these together into an armed force to unseat the latter from power as the leader of a free nation. This campaign was then continued by the French for the re-acquisition of their former colony , but they were defeated at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu . Then the U S entered to conduct a long and protracted war against the Vietnamese but were finally beaten , but not before conducting enormous acts of carnage by laying waste the agricultural and industrial infrastructure of that nation .
It was British , French and U S imperialism which was responsible for the then turmoil in South East Asia, a lesson obviously lost on the British and the American governments .......

Born on October 18th, 1845, in Limerick , this veteran revolutionary became a living link between the Fenians and the Irish Republican Brotherhood :
John Daly joined the IRB at the age of 18 , in 1863, and he and his brother Ned led the Limerick city company of the IRB in the raid on Kilmallock RIC Barracks , during the Fenian Rising in March 1867 , in one of the few actions which took place outside Dublin . He was a prominent member of the re-organised Fenian Movement and , following the collapse of the 1867 Rising , he went to the United States where he played an active role in the IRB . During the Land War of 1879-'82 , he returned to Ireland as a member of the Supreme Council of the IRB , and took on the role as Organiser for Connacht and Ulster .
He delivered the oration at the funeral of one of the finest intellects of the Fenian Movement, Charles J. Kickham , in August 1882 , at Mullinahone , County Tipperary . Later , while working as a hospital attendant in England , he played an active part in the dynamite campaign in English cities during the early 1880's ...... (MORE LATER)>>

......over the years , Panamanians began to demand control of their native terrority , and , in 1979, U S President Jimmy Carter signed an agreement with Panamanian leader General Omar Torrijos , which meant the territory would become Panamanian on January 1st in the year 2000. under this treaty , the territory would be controlled from 1980 untill 1989 by a commission chaired by the U S . On January 1st , 1990 , the U S was to hand over control of the commission to the Panamanian Government .
Rather than let Noriega , the country's effective leader , gain control of the canal , George Bush Senior ordered an invasion !
So Bush Senior went to war over water , and now his son is preparing to go to war over oil .........
That's progress !

..... at the same time that Padraig Pearse launched the newspaper ' An Barr Buadh ' and his new political party ' Cumann na Saoirse ' , he was already the Editor of the Gaelic League's newspaper ' An Claidheamh Soluis ' and was also trying to keep his school , St. Enda's , open : Pearse received some help from Brian O'Higgins , Eamonn Ceannt , Thomas MacDonnell , Desmond Ryan , Cathal Brugha , The O'Rahilly and Peadar Kearney in keeping the newspaper published , but all involved had other commitments to the cause and , after only eleven issues, the 'paper folded . A financial crisis at St.Enda's in May 1912 almost led to the closure of the school and forced Pearse to abandon the newspaper which, in turn,when it ceased publication , led to the disbandment of Cumann na Saoirse .
However , Padraig Pearse's involvement in politics brought him to the attention of the Irish Republican Brotherhood and , within the following four years , as President of the Irish Republic , Pearse was to lead the IRB to strike a blow for freedom against the British forces of occupation . The short-lived publication ' An Barr Buadh ' had helped to set in motion an event which is still on-going to this day .......

As far as I am aware , Panama is the only state in world history which was created in order to build a canal through it !
It came into existence in 1903 after a U S-inspired coup resulted in its secession from Colombia . The U S wanted a weak , friendly regime which would allow it to build and control the canal which the famous engineer Ferdinand de Lesseps started in 1879 and abandoned ten years later . The new state then offered the U S control of the Panama Canal Zone , a belt of land right across the middle of the country which later became a massive U S military installation. Over the years , Panamanians began to demand control of their native terrority and , ........(MORE LATER)>>........

Ninty-one years ago this month , a new political weekly newspaper began publication - March 16th, 1912.

In the Spring of that year, the debate on the issue of Home Rule for Ireland was being hotly debated ; Padraig Pearse (who supported the Home Rule Bill only because he viewed it as the thin edge of the wedge regarding full Irish freedom) used the highly-charged political atmosphere to launch a newspaper entitled ' An Barr Buadh' ( ' The Trumpet of Victory ') and to launch a new political party , ' Cumann na Saoirse' (' The Society of Freedom ' ) .
Pearse had long believed in the formation of an armed force to achieve his political objective - that of complete Irish independence : at the inaugural meeting of the new party , where the proceedings were entirely in Irish , he was the principal speaker , and the keynote of his address was " that a rifle should be made as familiar to the hands of an Irishman as a hurley " . Pearse made it clear to all present that ' An Barr Buadh' would be published to support the objective of a free Ireland ~ " to advocate the political independence of Ireland " . The newspaper emphasised in editorials and articles that Home Rule was only acceptable if it was to be used as a step towards complete freedom ; if , however , even the low measure of Home Rule should be denied , Pearse made it clear that he would call for a resort to arms ........ (MORE LATER)>>

Eoin McKiernan , founder of the Irish-American Cultural Institute , once stated~ " Self-confident nations do not board up the Alamo , recycle the Constitution of Boston Harbour or tear down Paris's triumphal arch . The one quality colonists lack is self confidence. They cannot deal with the present or project a future because they will not face the past " .
The American writer , George Santayana, put it another way ~ " Those who ignore the lessons of history are doomed to repeat the mistakes of history " .
Over the weekend just gone , and again today , the Provisional Sinn Fein leadership stated that if the British Stormont administration is to ' be put back on track' then Republicans will feel "pain" because of what will have to be given in return.
We have had over 800 years of "pain" , Gerry - we don't want more . The Brits should be told to get out.
" Do not board up the Alamo ..... " .

..... the evenings in the IRA training camps were devoted to lectures and written exercises , including instruction in map reading , signalling , street fighting , ambushes and personal security . During the last three days of the camp , each Volunteer was given command of a section , which he led in simulated attacks on a fictitious enemy .
When the camp ended , the new Flying Column attempted to engage a party of the 1st Essex Regiment which regularly travelled between Dunmanway and Ballineen , about ten miles from Kilbrittain . Having waited for most of the day with no sign of the British Regiment , the column was forced to disband as the weapons were required for a camp to be held at Ballymurphy .
That night , however , the small group of Volunteers chosen to take the weapons to the HQ at Newcestown , a few miles north of Ballineen , encountered two lorries of British troops ~ the IRA team lined the side of the road and opened fire on the passing patrol , killing an officer and several soldiers . The Volunteers then escaped across local fields to safety .
It was not the last action of Tom Barry's Flying Column , which was formed from the IRA's Number 3 Cork Brigade , in October 1920 .

' The Irish Times ' newspaper , of July 23rd , 1990 , carried a report on page 4 which told how two Indian hunters in a remote jungle 150 miles north-east of the Panamanian capital , where most of the fighting in the December 1989 American invasion took place , found a ten-wheeled US Army truck , loaded with explosives , mortars , ammunication , communications equipment and a 50-calibre machine gun ! Panama City newspaper ' La Prensa ' said the truck apparently missed the invasion and claimed that the two hunters found two large parachutes hanging from trees nearby ....
The U S Southern Command , which directed the invasion that ousted General Noriega , had been told of the find by ' La Prensa ' , but had no comment to make regarding the situation .
Let's be careful out there ......

.....Tom Barry realised the need for proper training and saw the advantages of a highly-trained Flying Column to fight the British : the column was to comprise special fighters , trained in the art of ' hit and run' warfare . To this end , Barry held a series of training camps , at short intervals where , over a period, about 150 officers and men would be trained ~ it was from that group that the Flying Column would come from , while those not picked would receive more training and would be put into a reserve to replace casualties .
From early October 1920 , with strict security precautions being observed , and protected day and night by sentries , training camps were to be held at Clonbuig , near Kilbrittain and Ballymurphy , near Bandon , Schull and near Dunmanway in West Cork . All the camps were located in isolated farmhouses with outbuildings which housed the Volunteers . After one week at the camp , officers and Volunteers were expected to put their training to use by seeking an engagement with the crown forces . The first lecture at the camp , which took ten hours a day , was usually for officers only and dealt with the security of the camp itself ; on arrival , Volunteers were allocated posts which were expected to be manned within three minutes in the event of an alert at night .
The ten-hour lectures dealt with instructions in drill , gun lessons and elementary tactics . The evenings were devoted to lectures and written exercises , including instruction in map reading , signalling , street fighting , ambushes and personal security . ( MORE LATER) >>

.............the Indians met violence with violence and , by the end of the Sioux War of 1876 , the victory was with the U S Army . The completion of the railroad in 1869 ( built by the Irish and the Chinese) facilitated the arrival of settlers , and the various tribes were gradually pushed back into barren , hostile territories , while settlers arrived in their thousands across the plains , invading the Blackfoots sacred Black Hills in search of gold and building an oil field on Seminole land in Oklahoma itself . By the 1930's , the settlers had so abused and over-extended the land that it turned dry , into a dustbowl .
No need for you to go to Iraq to sort out an injustice , Mr Bush .......

.....attacks on RUC barracks continued throughout 1957 and during the early months of 1958 but , by the summer of that year, oppression on both sides of Britains border was having its effect and IRA attacks slowed down and had all but ended by the end of that year . Three years later , the campaign was officially ended with an order to all Volunteers to dump arms - eleven IRA Volunteers were killed in action during the campaign . It should be noted that no orders were issued to decommission arms or, indeed, disband the organisation ; had either order been issued , the leadership would, at the very least, have been changed .....
The IRA's Cork Number 3 Brigade , the ' Flying Column' , was formed from the Volunteers attending training camps in 1920 , when the ' Tan War ' (1919-'21) was well underway . The position of O/C of the then Cork No.3 Brigade changed hands in July 1920 , when Charley Hurley took over from Tom Hales . Tom Barry was then appointed as the Brigade's Training Officer : as a former British soldier , Barry realised the need for proper training and saw the advantages of a highly-disciplined Flying Column to fight the British ..... (MORE LATER)>>

Oklahoma , located on the southern edge of the Great Plains , was the last strong-hold of many tribes of American Indians - at the end of the American Civil War there were as many as 275,000 Indians west of the Mississippi river . During the cattle boom of the 1860's , when the big cattle trails crossed Indian lands from Texas to Missouri , Indians first collected grazing taxes from the herd drivers , but later their designated lands were simply taken over . The American Government signed and violated treaties time and time again , and then used force to try to subjugate the tribes . The Indians met violence with violence ...... (MORE LATER)>> .....

....in the Westminster election of May 1955 Sinn Fein , with an abstentionist policy , won two of the twelve seats in the Six Counties ~ Tom Mitchell and Philip Clarke, both imprisoned for the Omagh raid, were elected for Mid-Ulster and Fermanagh/South Tyrone , but were later disqualified and their seats awarded to the defeated unionist candidates ! In November 1955 , a group left the IRA and formed Saor Uladh and began attacking customs posts along the border . In January 1956 , IRA Volunteer Sean Cronin presented the leadership of the IRA with a plan codenamed ' Operation Harvest ' , with the intention of driving the British forces out of entire areas in the Six Counties and creating liberated zones .
It was originally intended that the plan would be put into effect that winter , but the action of Saor Uladh meant that ' Operation Harvest ' was to be put into gear sooner than planned .
On the night of December 11th , 1956 , one-hundred and fifty IRA Volunteers attacked targets in all Six Counties - the long-awaited border campaign had begun . The Stormont regime responded by introducing internment without trial , on December 21st. In July 1957 , following the return to power of Fianna Fail in the Free State, internment was introduced and a large number of republicans were arrested and interned in the Curragh Camp .
Attacks on RUC barracks continued ....... (MORE LATER)>>

" Even a dolt understands the principle . We need the oil . It's nice to talk about standing up for freedom but Kuwait and Saudi Arabia are not exactly democracies " ~ Then American President George Bush , as quoted in ' TIME' magazine , August 20th , 1990 .
We're all waiting , George Junior - come on , now - ' fess up .........

" You cannot stifle or suppress a people's desire for liberty " ~ Margaret Thatcher , during an interview she gave to BBC Radio Four's ' World At One ' programme , November 1989.
However , if you do "stifle or suppress a people's desire for liberty" , make sure you first label the people as ' terrorists' ......

Republican policy changed radically in the in the early 1950's - the IRA leadership issued an order prohibiting military action against the forces of the Free State ; attacks were now to be directed against the British forces of occupation in the Six Counties .
By 1952 , IRA recruitment was being carried out openly in the Free State and the organisation was being reformed in the Six Counties . In strong republican areas , training was carried out in preparation for an attack on the North . In June 1954 , in an operation to procure arms , an IRA raiding party captured Gough Barracks in Armagh and escaped with a massive haul of 250 rifles , 37 sten guns and nine Bren guns . New members flocked to the organisation as a result of the raid . An attempted repeat of the Gough raid backfired at Omagh in County Tyrone in October 1954 , and eight IRA Volunteers were caught and sentenced to long terms of imprisonment for "treason felony" . Meanwhile , Sinn Fein was gaining wide support ~ in the Westminster election of May 1955 ...... (MORE LATER)>>>>

In September 1998 , Free State President Mary McAleese was in Australia on a visit and , as part of the itinerary, called in to the Sisters of Mercy at Brisbanes Mater Hospital for a speaking engagement on the plight of the travellers in Ireland and that of the Australian aborigines . However , like all politicians, Mary went off on a verbal tangent and it's still not clear where she ended up ~ " When you start to unpack the solutions , you begin to see, while they are'nt exactly on all fours with each other , they are always the same shape and there is a core which is very transferable " . It is believed that our own Ronan Keating ripped -off and 'sang' a song about the above incident - " you say it best ......." !
In a column he wrote for the ' Ireland On Sunday' newspaper on October 4th , 1998 (page 17) , the UDA-linked Gary McMichael described the Six Counties as " my lovely , picturesque little country set on the North-East corner of the island " ....So there ya have it ~ the loyalists in the Six Counties live in a country which is itself "set" in the corner of another country ...or~something. The sooner the better you learn 'Mary-speak' , Gary ......

....on April 16th , 1940 , Tony D'Arcy , a native of Headford , County Galway , died after 52 days on hunger strike ; Jack McNeela , a native of Ballycroy, Westport, County Mayo , died three days later , after 55 days on hunger strike . The fast ended that night when the prisoners were informed that their demands had been met . The hunger strike began on February 25th , 1940 , in Mountjoy Jail , Dublin , and resulted in the deaths of two IRA Volunteers ~ their deaths were to mark the beginning of lean years for the Republican Movement : years of internment and oppression followed , which left Sinn Fein non-existent and the IRA threatened with extinction .
In 1948 , the republican leadership of Michael Traynor , Paddy MacLogan , Tony Magan and Tomas MacCurtain set about rebuilding the Movement .
Tony Magan , as Chief of Staff , reorganised the IRA while Michael Traynor was busy setting up Sinn Fein cumainn throughout the island . Republican policy in the early 1950's underwent a radical change .
(MORE LATER)>>

....and talking about Pakistan ....
One of the ' Tomahawk ' cruise missiles fired at Osima bin Laden in August 1998 missed it's target by 400 miles and landed in Pakistan , near the Baluchistan desert , where it was found by a shepherd !
The shepherd reported his find to the local authorities , who moved in to examine the guidance system on the weapon ~ they refused to allow the Americans near the crash site , and called in Pakistan former military intelligence Chief General Hamid Gul , who declared - " It has descended from the heavens and we'll use it " !
Watch yourself , Hamid ~ could get pretty scary soon in the desert ......

.....on March 1st , 1940 , Jack McNeela and Jack Plunkett , who were both arrested during the swoops which followed the raid by the IRA on the Magazine Fort in Dublin's Phoenix Park on 23rd December 1939 , were sentenced to two years and eighteen months respectively on a charge of "conspiring to usurp the function of government " by , of all things , operating a 'pirate' radio transmitter ! On March 5th , 1940 , Tony D'Arcy and Michael Traynor , both arrested during a raid on the Meath Hotel, Parnell Square , Dublin , the previous month , where an IRA meeting was being held to plan an attack in the Six Counties , were sentenced to three months imprisonment for refusing to answer questions .
After being sentenced , the four prisoners were transferred to Arbour Hill Prison , Dublin , and , on March 27th , were moved to St Brican's Military Hospital next to the prison . On April 1st , they were joined there by Tomas MacCurtain and Thomas Grogan , both of whom were still awaiting trial ~ MacCurtain was charged with shooting dead a Special Branch detective in Cork and Grogan with taking part in the Magazine Fort raid .
Fifty-two days after he began his hunger strike , that is , on April 16th , 1940 , Tony D'Arcy died ...
(MORE LATER)>>

On May 26th , 1998 , Pakistan 'flexed it's muscles' and tested its nuclear capability ; the the Prime Minister of that country , Nawaz Sharif , stated on Saturday , July 11th , 1998 , that Pakistan would have to pay a price for becoming a nuclear power and that the country's then 130 million people would have to tighten their belts and " pay some price " .
Did anyone question the morality of telling people , most of whom were already on the bread-line , that there was worse to come ?
Is it only a well-paid , professional career politician that could see nothing wrong in warning , for instance, parents , that the trouble they're having now in feeding their family and paying the bills etc is about to get worse ?
Was it being insinuated that those parents should take comfort in the knowledge that they now live in a country with nuclear capability ?
If you and yours are living hand-to-mouth , day in , day out , do you face each day in a more optimistic way because you live in a country with nuclear capability ?
I was in Dublin city centre last night and witnessed , not for the first time , a couple of homeless men trying to make a bed for themselves in the vicinity of the new Dublin ' monument' , which is a large , shiny 'needle'-type structure which cost just shy of four and a half million euros ; the two men were moved on by the Guards but were no doubt allowed sleep in the gutter up some side street .
The politicians are living beyond our means .....