In September 1911 , at a meeting in the Antient Concert Room in Brunswick (now Pearse) Street in Dublin , which was attended by dozens of women (many of whom were actively involved in Inghinidhe na hEireann and/or the suffragette movement) the ' Irish Womens Workers Union ' ( I W W U) was formed . The principal speakers in attendance included Countess Markievicz , James Larkin , James Nolan and Hannah Sheehy-Skeffington .
Addressing the assembled women , Countess Markievicz declared -
" Without organisation you can do nothing . The purpose of this meeting is to turn you into a army of women " . Conditions and pay at the time for all workers , but particularly for women employed in the shirt and weaving industries , was appalling . In England , organised workers were being paid up to four times the wage of their Irish counterparts and were not fined for absenteeism and damage to cloth on the same scale as the women workers in Ireland were . Also , the Irish women worked a six-day week with very little holidays . Within two years of its formation .....(MORE LATER)>>

More on Paddy Murray , editor of the 'The Sunday Tribune' newspaper , whom I wrote about here recently : in his column in that 'paper on December 9th , 2001 ,(page 14) he described himself as - " opinionated , rightwing (with) a slightly dodgy sense of humour , enjoy more pints than average and to completely lack the ability to listen to the other side of the argument " . An odd choice for a newspaper editor ..... Also , writing in the ' The Sunday World' newspaper on February 8th , 1998 , the bould Paddy stated- " I don't mind being called a Free Stater . Because I am a Free Stater " . That's it , Paddy ~ get it off your chest ...
Or was Paddy just licking-up to his boss , Anto O'Reilly (that's Dr A J F O'Reilly, to you) who , in the newspaper that Paddy now edits for him , on October 2nd , 1988 , (page 36) defined patriotism as -
" Doing a superior day's work for a fair day's pay (and) is also about putting together large sums of capital " ! DAMN IT ! If only the men and women of 1916 had stormed a bank instead of a post office , we could have had Tony on our side .....

Peter Barnes and James McCormick were to be made an example of - the question of guilt or innocence was immaterial as long as English ' justice ' had sufficient evidence to give it a pretext for judicial murder .
Pleas for clemency flooded into the British Home Office from all over the world , but were ignored .
On the day of the execution of Barnes and McCormick there were signs of mourning all over Ireland ~ flags flew at half mast on public buildings , cinemas closed , sports meetings were cancelled and public bodies passed resolutions of sympathy .
Peter Barnes , 33 , and James McCormick , 30, were hanged in Winson Green Prison , Birmingham , England, on February 7th , 1940 . They are still commemorated in Ireland to this day .

......Roosevelt knew reporters by name , played water polo with his favourites , sent cards on anniversaries , invited some to Christmas dinner and entertained all at square dances which he organised . He talked to them in the small hours while his wife , Eleanor , made them scrambled eggs in a chafing dish , and his daughter , Anna , " bustled around the table making sure that everyone had enough to eat " . By 1933 , the press felt sufficiently comfortable to ask - and receive - permission to use the White House tennis courts and swimming pool . However , not all the journalists were fooled into believing that Roosevelt was their new best friend - Arthur Krock , then head of the ' New York Times ' washington bureau , accused the FDR administration " of more ruthlessness , intelligence and subtlety in trying to suppress legitimate , unfavourable comment than any other I have known " .
Next time the media tell you why it is , for example , that Iraq ' should be made pay ' - step back and think of who's manipulating who ; and think of FDR .....

Within hours of the August 25th , 1939 , Coventry explosion ,Peter Barnes was arrested at his lodgings at 176 Westbourne Terrace and three days later James McCormick (operating under the alias James Richards) and the tenants of 25 Clara Street , Coventry, Joseph Hewitt , his wife Mary and his mother-in-law Brigid O'Hara , were detained during a raid on the house . All five were charged on suspicion only and, at their 'trial' the following December , three were acquitted while Barnes and McCormick were sentenced to death by hanging . Before sentencing, McCormick , who had remained silent and composed throughout the proceedings , told the court ~ " As a soldier of the Irish Republican Army , I am not afraid to die, for I am dying in a just cause" .
Peter Barnes , who was nowhere near Coventry on the day of the explosion , stated in court ~ " I would like to say that as I am going before my God , as I am condemned to death, I am innocent, and later I am sure it will all come out that I had neither hand , act or part in it . That is all I have to say " . The English establishment , like so many times before and since , in their endeavours ' to teach the Irish a lesson ' , were satisfied with the result as both men were Irish and had republican connections . They were to be made an example of .....(MORE LATER)>>

Bush and Blair know, from past campaigns, the potential power to be gained by manipulating an already supine media ; it was a tactic used to full effect by Franklin Delano Roosevelt , who was popular with the public but not with the media and attempted to change that situation .
In her book entitled ' FDR and the news media ' , Betty Horchin Winfield wrote of how Roosevelt was elected with 57 per cent of the vote in 1932 , yet he had only 41% of American dailies and weeklies editorial support . In 1936 , he got 60 per cent of the vote while his editorial support dropped to 37% and , when he went for the unprecedented third term in 1940 , he went down to 25% editorial support but won the election triumphantly . That situation was much the same in 1944 . Roosevelt knew reporters by name ..... (MORE LATER)>>>

Peter Barnes was born in Banagher , County Offaly , in 1907 .
At the age of 14 he joined the local slua (group) of Na Fianna Eireann and , in 1924 , at 17 years young, he joined the IRA . Peter Barnes was one of the first to volunteer for active service , at 32 years of age, in England , when the 1939 bombing campaign began . In June of that year he travelled to England and was appointed Transport Officer , operating mainly between Glasgow , Liverpool and London .
James McCormick was born in Mullingar , County Westmeath , in 1910 .
The McCormick family moved to Tullamore , in County Offaly, after the mother died , and it was in that town that James joined the IRA . In early 1939 , James McCormick volunteered for active service in England where , after acting for some time as Operations Officer in London and Birmingham , he was posted to Coventry (in May 1939) and , in August 1939 , was appointed Coventry O/C .
On August 25th , 1939, in one incident during the IRA bombing campaign , a bomb at the busy Broadgate Centre in Coventry killed five people and injured many more .
The bomb was concealed in the carrier-bag of a pushbike which was left standing at the kerb outside Astley's shop in the city centre . It was being transported to it's target some miles outside Coventry , but exploded prematurely due , apparently, to a defect in the timing device . Within hours of the explosion , Barnes was arrested .......( MORE LATER)>>

According to a book entitled "Landslide:The Unmaking of the President 1984-' 88" , by then Washington journalists Jane Mayer and Doyle McManus , Ronald Reagan "was lazy. He was'nt interested in the job . All he wanted to do was watch movies and television" . The then U S Chief of Staff , Howard Baker (who replaced Donald Regan in the job) briefly considered a proposal that the U S's Constitutions' 25th Amendment be invoked to remove Reagan from Office ~ Baker's aid , James Cannon , sent Baker a memorandum on March 1st , 1987 , which read- " Consider the possibility that Section 4 of the 25th Amendment to the Constitution might be applied" . The '25th' provides that a President can be removed from Office if the Vice President and a majority of the Cabinet certify that he/she is unable to perform his/her duties . When questioned about the above , Ronald Reagan replied "No truth at all" . But then again , some would say that Reagan would'nt know the truth even if it WAS in the script .....

.....Thomas Miller Beach (alias Major Henri Le Caron) was privy to the negotiations which led to the 'New Departure' in October 1878 : an alliance between the Fenians led by John Devoy , the Land League under Michael Davitt and the Irish Parliamentary Party led by Charles Stewart Parnell .
John Devoy commissioned the informer Beach to carry messages and instructions to Fenians in Europe and , in 1881 , Beach was sent to Paris with same for John O'Leary and Patrick Egan~ on his way through London he passed the details in his possession to Robert Anderson , from the British Home Office , who copied the information , and Beach carried on as if nothing had happened .
Beach returned to England permanently in December 1888 . By this time , the British government had established a Special Commission on ' Parnellism and Crime' , in order to discredit Parnell , and informed the informer Beach that it would be necessary for him to come out in the open and speak against Parnell ; all concerned understood that such a move would end Beach's career as an informer . His testimony to the commission in February 1889 did not damage Parnell as much as it damaged , shocked and embarrassed the IRB leadership , who were astonished that " one of their own" was a British agent all along . Beach spent the next five years in England , in hiding , his only injury being a nervous breakdown shortly before he died . His autobiography , ' Twenty-Five Years in the Secret Service' , was published in 1892 . The informer Beach died on April 1st , 1894 - not the last high-ranking informer considered to be "one of our own"......

.....in his speech , Ramsey Clark stated - " The (U S) President has no power to kill whomever he wants , to bomb civilian populations after deliberately building up a hate campaign against the country and timing it for prime television " . Clark said the compensation he was seeking on behalf of the fifty-five Libyans would total between $75 Million and $100 Million , and that U S pilots would be sued for not refusing to carry out Reagan's illegal order to bomb Tripoli in peacetime .
Will Bertie Ahern be sued because he is allowing U S bombers to fly from Shannon ?
Will Bush be sued for "building up a hate campaign" against Iraq ?
Will U S pilots end up in court "for not refusing to carry out illegal orders" ?
And what about the groundcrew at Shannon ? Will they be sued ?
It's most unlikely , but should a court-case be instigated here then watch the gutless wonders in Leinster House run for cover while simultaneously blaming each other .

......Thomas Miller Beach (alias Henri Le Caron) began his 'career' as an informer in 1866 , when he notified the authorities of a Fenian raid to be undertaken in Canada by Captain John O'Neill and his men , whose confidence he had won . The raid went ahead as planned but was defeated by the Canadian authorities on June 1st, 1866 .
While on a visit to England in 1867 , Beach made himself known to the British Home Office and was put in touch with a Mr Robert Anderson , to whom he relayed extensive information on Fenianism in Ireland , England and America ; his arrangement with Anderson lasted for years . Meanwhile , he had obtained high rank and responsibility in the IRB and , prior to the second abortive attack on Canada , was actively responsible for locating suitable places for the Fenians to stash their weapons . In April 1870 , the Fenians walked into a carefully prepared ambush and the Canadian operation fell apart ~ the Fenians had long suspected that there was a traitor in their ranks , but suspicion never fell on Beach , such was his standing among the Fenian leadership and rank-and-file .
A founder-member of Clan na Gael in America , Beach was privy to the negotiations .........(MORE LATER)>>

Ramsey Clark was Attorney General for the United States from 1967 to 1969 ; In April 1988 , he gave a speech in Washington in which he announced that he had filed a lawsuit against Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher , seeking compensation for fifty-five Libyans killed or injured in a U S bombing raid on Tripoli in 1986 . He was suing Thatcher because she allowed the U S bombers to fly from British bases , and Reagan because he built up a hate campaign to justify killing Libyans in a bombing raid timed , he said, for U S television news primetime . In his speech , Clark stated - " The (U S) President has no power to kill .........." (MORE LATER)>>>>>

A Mr. Thomas Miller Beach , who was born in Colchester , in England, in 1841 , is one man that is well-remembered by Irish Republicans for his 'career' in the Movement~but for all the wrong reasons.....
........for almost a quarter of a century , Thomas Miller Beach (alias Henri Le Caron) was one of the most 'successful' informers in the pay of the English secret service : he infiltrated the IRA and thwarted nearly all their plans for insurrection .
He was an apprentice draper , and went to America when he was aged 20 (1861) : once there , he enlisted in the 8th Pennsylvanian Reserves in the Union Army and , during the Civil War in that country (1861-' 65) was wounded and was eventually promoted to the rank of Major . While in the Northern Army he became friendly with the Fenian , Captain John O'Neill , and it was this friendship which gained him entry into the Fenian Brotherhood . He moved and settled in Nashville , Tennessee , where he studied medicine . Beach/Le Caron's career as an informer began in 1866 ; ......(MORE LATER)>>>

And a belated "congrats" to Paddy Murray on his new job as Editor of 'The Sunday Tribune' newspaper - its a good read , but was better when Vincent Browne was in charge . However , I doubt if the (Indo) owners of the 'Trib' could afford to have Browne back in the hot seat(financially or otherwise....) as the newspaper lost over EURO1.5 million in its last financial year .
Anyway , I digress - I suspect that the newspaper will go down-market in the near future : perhaps not a 'page 3' dumb-down , but it will , I think, move to an even more anti-republican position than it already occupies . The following quote from new Editor Paddy Murray himself , as lifted from his newspaper on December 3rd , 2000 ('Artlife' section , page 11) is a sign of things to come ~ "(Tom) Barry [ Irish Rebel leader] will never figure in my list of heroes - David Beckham [an English footballer] on the other hand , will figure on that list " .
Beckham over Barry ? Bend it like the latter , Paddy .......

......Mary Anne McCracken won improvements for poor house women , in the clothing trade and in childrens education - she helped develop the idea of an infants' school which flourished for a brief period. She was bitterly opposed to slavery and seen in that issue a parallel with the 'climbing boys' , who were young boys used by chimney sweeps as helpers ; and she fought hard for better conditions for other children who worked in factories . During the early 1840's she assisted Dr Richard R. Madden , the historian of the United Irishmen , with detailed accounts of the lives of her brother and Thomas Russell .
In her last years she saw the republican principles for which she had fought and for which those she had loved had died , once again being widely espoused throughout Ireland by the Fenian movement . Mary Anne McCracken died on July 24th , 1866 , at 97 years of age , and deserves to be remembered as much as her brother , Henry Joy McCracken .

If/when George Bush sends his troops in to Iraq , the American public would do well to remember the words of Franklin D.Roosevelt , one year before the U S was plunged into WW2 - " I have said this before, but I shall say it again and again and again : your boy's are not going to be sent into any foreign wars" ~ it looks like Bush will be responsible for the first 'resource war' of the 21st Century.
Remember , also, on his last day in Office as President of the USA , Bill Clinton admitted lying under oath and surrendered his licence to practice law , for five years . He also stole furniture , china and silverware from the White House to the approximate value of EURO 250,000 . He pardoned one of the FBI's ten 'Most Wanted' , whose ex-wife 'donated' almost four million euro's to the Democratic Party's war-chest and a six-figure sum to Hillary Clinton's U S Senate campaign , without consulting the FBI or the U S Attorney Generals Office , as required by U S law .
High Office , a nice suit and the courtship of the Establishment is not a guarantee that the people in question are worthy of the trust placed in them .......

.....Mary Anne MacCracken followed with enthusiastic interest the progress of the American War of Independence and , with her sister-in-law, Rose Ann McCracken , she was sworn into the Society of United Irishmen soon after its formation in Belfast in October 1791 . Following the battle of Antrim in June 1798 and the collapse of the Rising in the North , Mary arranged safe passage for her brother , Henry Joy, on a ship bound for North America .
He was arrested as he was about to board the ship and imprisoned in Carrickfergus Jail - he was transferred to Belfast , where Mary was present at his court-martial , and comforted him in his cell as he awaited execution . She accompanied him to the scaffold .
Five years later , just as she had seen her brother make the supreme sacrifice for liberty , she was to again witness another loved one, Thomas Russell, meet the same end at Downpatrick Jail in 1803 .
She withdrew from radical politics following Russell's execution and joined forces with English prison reformer Elizabeth Fry , to form a 'ladies committee' to demand better conditions in Belfast's workhouse .
(MORE LATER)>>>

Ship-jumper Paul Whelan was not alone.....
Fianna Fail Councillor Gerry Murray , from Charlestown in County Mayo , resigned from Fianna Fail in September 2001 and declared himself an Independent Councillor . He joined Provisional Sinn Fein the following month ....
Murray stated that he was a member of PSF in the late 1970's " but drifted away because of the then weakness of the Sinn Fein organisation in Mayo " . And the reason that their organisation is "stronger" now , Gerry , is because it's full with people like you who will no doubt move on if .......

.....his health never improved and he died in Los Angeles in October 1899 , at the young age of 36 . He was buried in America , but his remains were returned to Ireland in 1901 in accordance with his wishes. They were reinterred in Maynooth . When Padraig Pearse , in his famous oration in August 1915 , referred to O'Donovan Rossa as having "the holiness and simplicity of patriotism of a Michael O'Clery or an Eoghan O'Growney ", he was evoking a name, long since dead, who during his 36 years on this earth had done much to promote the revival of the Irish language : Eoghan O'Growney was born in August 1863 and died in October 1899 and , in my opinion, is not remembered as he should be . He would have been three years of age when a woman , with whom he had a lot in common , died ~ this 97 year-old woman died on July 24th , 1866 , after a lifetime service to the cause of Irish freedom - it has been said that she was passed over by history in favour of her brother , Henry Joy McCracken :
The womens name is Mary Anne McCracken , a social reformer and revolutionary , who was born in High Street , Belfast , in July 1770 . Her father was Captain John McCracken and her mother was Ann Joy . They had six children , the most famous of whom was Henry Joy McCracken . Mary grew up with a love of liberty , and followed with enthusiastic interest the progress of the American War of Independence ....(MORE LATER)>>>

It was around June 2001 that a Mr Paul Whelan , a member of the Fianna Fail 'National' Executive (sic-ie; by this , Fianna Fail means the 26 -County state only) and then president of Roscommon Ogra Fianna Fail resigned and joined Provisional Sinn Fein ! He stated - " We have a party (Fianna Fail) more concerned with staying in power nationally(sic) than any other policy " .
"NATIONALLY" ? - By God , Paul , the Provos'll knock that type of talk out of ya ~or maybe they'll learn it from you ..... (another defection tomorrow ...) >>>

.....and were of great importance to the Irish Revival Movement . O'Growney assisted Eoin MacNeill and Douglas Hyde in the formation of the Gaelic League in July 1893 , and was appointed as first vice president of that organisation . Later that year he began a series of lessons in Irish in the 'Gaelic Journal' and in the 'Weekly Freeman' - these articles were then published in book form in 1894 , under the title 'Simple Lessons in Irish' and became the best-seller of its day and are still regarded by some as the best available such books for Irish beginners .
He suffered ill-health due , it was believed , to his hectic workload as professor , editor , writer and an activist in the Irish Revival Movement , and was advised to emigrate to the warmer climate of California , in America , which he did in October 1894 . He continued to contribute articles , in Irish, to the 'Weekly Freeman' and to American newspapers but, again due to his workload , he resigned as professor of Irish at Maynooth in June 1896 . His health never improved and .....(MORE LATER)>>>

.....with 98 of the workers suffering from cancer as a result of exposure to plutonium released in the accident . The B-52 , with four H-Bombs on board , got into trouble five hours into its flight and the crew was unable to make an emergency landing . The crew ejected and the aircraft crashed into ice eight miles west of Thule USAF base : the non-nuclear explosives detonated , dispersing the plutonium inside the bombs , which contaminated the ice . U S military personnel were sent in to ' collect ' the contaminated ice , which they then brought back to Thule where 800 Danes were working . None of the military or civilians wore protective masks because this would have made it impossible to breath in the intense cold . The U S and Danish governments attempted to put a good gloss on the incident in a joint statement they issued , which declared that "a major disaster was turned into a classic example of international co-operation " . The spin-doctors claimed that " the radioactivity spread in the area is not a hazard to people or to biological species , nor is any hazard foreseen in the future " . There were reports , at the time , of an unknown number of deaths , including military personnel , as a result of that accident . Still - it improved " international co-operation " , so it was worth it ....( expect more from the 'spin-doctors' in the near future....)

The Catholic Church has , deservedly, had bad press for deeds carried out by it's ' operatives' ; however , not all its members were without conscience -
A child born in Ballyfallon , County Meath , in August 1863 , grew up to be ordained to the priesthood in 1889 , at twenty-six years of age . The child , Eoghan O ' Growney , became a Gaelic scholar and was a founder member of the Gaelic League at thirty years young . Educated at the local national school , St Finians diocesan seminary in Navan , and at Maynooth College , the young O'Growney's interest in Irish was further sparked by the reading of lessons in Irish in ' Young Ireland' , a weekly paper published from ' The Nation' office . He was also encouraged in his love of the language and history by his mother .
With other local Gaelic speakers , he spent holidays in the Gaeltacht to perfect his knowledge of the Irish language , and was a regular visitor to Cork, Kerry , Donegal and Waterford , but spent much of his time on the Aran Islands , on Inis Mean .
He became a curate at Ballynacargy , County Westmeath , and contributed articles in Irish to the 'Gaelic Journal' and was elected Editor of same in September 1891 . That same year, he was appointed a professor of Irish at Maynooth College but managed to continue his association with the 'Journal' - his articles for that newspaper played a large part in the preservation of the language and were of great importance to the 'Irish Revival Movement' . (MORE LATER)>>>

..... the nuclear material in the weapon failed to attain critical mass " .
The U S government deliberately covered up this near-disaster until 1981 when it announced that a nuclear bomb had "temporarily been lost in the '50's near Kirtland air force base" : the USAF refused to comment on what it described as "this event" . It was not until late 1986 that a statement was issued to the Associated Press news agency , confirming that New Mexico and its surrounding stated were nearly obliterated in 1957 . Another USAF disaster that caused concern was that of a B-52 nuclear-armed bomber , which crashed in Greenland on January 1st , 1968 - over 500 workers became sick , with 98 of them suffering from cancer as a result of exposure to plutonium released in the accident ....(MORE LATER)>>>.

.... O'Sullivan placed a barrel of explosives on a cart against the outer wall of the prison : the wall crumbled and the rescuers scrambled in to the prison yard only to discover that Burke was not among the prisoners in the yard ~ however , O'Sullivan and his men were able to make good their own exit in the ensuing confusion and panic . Because the British knew of the rescue attempt , they were now looking for O'Sullivan , who was in hiding in various safe-houses . He eventually made his way to America and settled in New York , where he joined Clan na Gael and remained active in that organisation and in the IRB for the rest of his life .
He played a vigorous part in the Land League during the 1870's and supported the 'New Departure' between the Fenians , Michael Davitt and Charles Stewart Parnell until Parnell's death in 1891 when , like most of the old Fenians, he dropped out of politics and confined his activities to the Clan until the 'Friends of Irish Freedom' was founded in March 1916 .
Jeremiah O'Sullivan died on November 6th , 1922 , at 77 years of age : a Fenian to the very end .....

In 1981 , it was revealed that in 1957 ,the United States Air Force(USAF) almost ' took out' the state of New Mexico ....
On May 22nd , 1957 , a B-36 bomber 'accidentally' dropped an H-Bomb on land belonging to the University of New Mexico at Albuquerque ; the bomb was a 'Mark 7' , weighing 42,000 pounds . It was described by the Pentagon as the "first droppable thermonuclear bomb to be tested" , and had a pay-load of ten thousand kilotons - a massive 625 times more powerful that that which reduced Hiroshima to ashes ! When questioned , a Pentagon spokesperson stated - " The safety mechanism was apparently moved to the wrong position , causing the weapon to fall out, taking the bomb-bay doors with it "(!) . This master of understatement then declared that the non-nuclear explosives in the bomb " detonated when it hit the ground , but the nuclear material in the weapon failed to attain critical mass " ..... (MORE LATER if we're still here ....)>>>

Jeremiah O'Sullivan , a life-long member of the Fenian movement , was born in Cahirdaniel , County Kerry , in 1845 . At 22 years young , O'Sullivan took part in the Fenian Rising in Kerry in February 1867 and , following the collapse of same, went to London and continued his Fenian activities with the Irish Republican Brotherhood . The head of the Fenians in England , Colonel Ricard O'Sullivan Burke , was captured and imprisoned in the Clerkenwell House of Detention in London , in response to the successful rescue of two Fenians - Colonel Thomas J.Kelly and Captain Timothy Deasy , who were both rescued from a prison van in Manchester in September 1867 .
Jeremiah O'Sullivan and another Fenian ,Captain James Murphy , devised a plan to rescue Burke by blowing a hole in the prison wall while he was at exercise and , after careful planning , arrangements were made to carry out the rescue attempt on December 13th . However , an informer betrayed their plans to the British and Burke was put in a cell during the exercise period ; outside the prison walls , however , the plan went ahead , and O'Sullivan placed a barrel of explosives on a cart against the outer wall of the prison .....(MORE LATER)>>

.......the KHIAN SEA left in the middle of the night , but left three-thousand tonnes of the toxic ash on a remote peninsula outside the capital city ! The ship went to a range of other states , renaming itself the 'FELICIA' and was spotted in 1991 with empty holds having probably dumped the toxic ash in the Bay of Bengal , where the Bangladeshi government have no pollution monitoring units .
A five-year sea trip , sleeping each night with toxic ash ~ they should have followed the example of the Brits , and just dump their rubbish in the Irish Sea .....

....the IRA Volunteers made their escape despite intense searches on both sides of the border .
Following approaches by the British , the Free State administration (Fianna Fail) re-introduced the 'Special Criminal(sic) Court' in November 1961 (on the 22nd of same) , in an attempt to crush the IRA campaign once and for all . The then Justice Minister , Charles Haughey (who was later to give his shirt for Ireland) stated ~ " The government will use every means in its power, including the(Free State) Army ,if necessary , to bring this futile, evil campaign of violence to an end " .
The Special Court sat for the first time that year on November 27th and , by the end of the year, 25 men had been sentenced to various terms of imprisonment : it remained in existence until October 1962 , eight months after the formal ending of the IRA's border campaign . That was by no means the first or last time that a Free State administration turned on its own people at the request of a foreign government .

My previous posts on sea-dumping remind me of the story behind a five-year sea trip by one ship , in order to dump tonnes of toxic ash ~
The Liberian -registered KHIAN SEA left Philadelphia in August 1986 with 13,476 tonnes of toxic ash from the city's municipal incinerators . The ship was destined for the Bahamas , but they turned it away : it was also rejected by Bermuda , Honduras , Guinea-Bissau and the Dominican Republic. In October 1987 , it landed in Haiti , where the import licences said the ship was delivering fertiliser ! In January 1988 , the Haitian government ordered the ash out of the country - the KHIAN SEA left in the middle of the night , but .....(MORE LATER)>>>

.....meanwhile , IRA activities continued ~ during the following year , 1959, twenty-seven operations were carried out and , in 1960 , twenty-six operations were carried out . In April 1961 , the last internees in the Six Counties were freed by the Stormont regime in the belief that the campaign had ended . The IRA , however , was not defeated and the leadership believed that the Army could be re-organised and the fight continued . During the spring and summer of 1961 , as the northern units re-grouped , more effective attacks against the enemy continued along the border .
In the winter of 1961 , as public support for the IRA had all but evaporated , one of the last major actions of the 1956-' 62 campaign took place : in November 1961 , a five-person IRA active service unit ambushed a patrol of eight RUC and B-Specials at Flurrybridge , near Jonesborough in South Armagh , while the crown forces were operating a check-point . The British were stopping and searching people travelling to the near-by Edentubber commemoration . After a fierce gun battle , during which one RUC man was killed and three others wounded , the Volunteers made their escape despite intense searches on both sides of the border . (MORE LATER)>>

In March 1993 , the then Bishop of Salisbury said on Network Two (RTE) television - " The island of Ireland is a natural geographic unit . Britain has made a substantial contribution to divisions in Ireland , partly from strategic and political reasons- people had to be planted there who were regarded as loyal to the British state " .
In June 1993 , the then Chairperson of the ' Britain and Ireland Human Rights Centre ' , John McDonnell , stated - " Political violence in Northern Ireland(sic) is inextricably linked with Britains historic role in Ireland and its failure to complete the process of decolonisation " .
This is one issue closer to home that Mr Blair should be concerned about , before throwing in his lot with Bush on the other side of the world .....

The fifth year of the IRA's 'Border Campaign' commenced in 1961 with a decision by the Army Council to organise a final assault against the British forces in the Six Counties .
Following the beginning of the campaign on December 12th 1956 , and the introduction of internment without trial on both sides of the border , attacks on RUC barracks continued throughout 1957 and the early part of 1958 and , with oppression against republicans on both sides of the border at its height and hundreds either interned or imprisoned by the start of 1958 , it was decided by the IRA Executive to abandon attacks on heavily guarded RUC barracks and instead to concentrate on continuous attacks on British armed patrols and installations along the border .
However , by July 1958 , after some initial successes but with many of the leaders and Volunteers interned or in jail , the attacks ceased and plans for a winter offensive had to be called off . During the winter of 1958 , with the IRA border campaign virtually over, the Free State authorities began the unconditional release of internees and , on March 15th of the following year, internment without trial was ended in the State and the last detainees were released . Meanwhile , IRA activities continued ....(MORE LATER)>>

A 'Patrick Coogan' , born in West Belfast , grew up to be a Major in the British Army , earned his stripes(so to speak) ,left the B A and became an author . When the Author Coogan was asked his opinion on his previous position , he stated - " If the British Government abided by the will of the majority of the people in the first place , it would not have partitioned Ireland . Historically , partition has never worked , whether it is in Pakistan , Cyprus or Yemen . It is based on the old principle of 'divide and conquer' " .
....which begs the question - did Patrick join the right Army ?

" Remember Lincoln , going down on his knees in times of trial and the civil war and all that stuff . You can't be , and we are blessed . So don't feel sorry for ... don't cry for me Argentina " ~ Daddy Bush , then U S President , speaking in New Hampshire . George Junior is taking revenge on the wrong man.....

.....that night , at 6.30pm , the three prisoners decided to make another escape attempt , this time with no outside assistance . They again made their way down to the gate and , this time , the bolt cutter worked . They used butter and grease , which they saved from their meals, to help ease the remaining portion of the corroded bolt and two of the men got their revolvers at the ready as the third man pulled on the heavy door ~ the door creaked open sluggishly on its rusty hinges and the three men walked out !
Simon Donnelly had tried to persuade another prisoner , Paddy Moran , who was awaiting trial on the same charges as Teeling ( the execution of twelve British agents on November 21st, 1920) to join the men on the escape attempt , but Moran - who was not involved in the job and had what he considered the perfect alibi for that night- refused to leave the prison except by the front gate as a free man .
Frank Teeling , Ernie O'Malley and Simon Donnelly escaped from Kilmainham Jail in Dublin on February 14th , 1921 . Exactly one month later , Paddy Moran paid with his life for relying on British justice : not the first innocent man to be put to death by the British , and not the last Irish person to be punished by them in revenge .....

A) ~ " In our view , there can be no partial solutions , no partial negotiations and no internal settlements . Peace is only possible within the context of national self-determination " -- Gerry Adams, AP/RN , May 13th , 1993 , page 7 .

B) ~ " If you want to quieten a dissident , give him(sic) a job in parliament " -- a quote from Oliver Cromwell ,according to Joe Bermingham (Labour Party,Kildare) , as published in ' The Sunday Tribune' , May 23rd, 1993, page 13 .
DAMN IT ! can't get a link between A) and B) at all .....

.....could haul the ladder over to their side of the wall . Oscar Traynor , IRA Dublin Brigade O/C , had secured a bolt cutter and that , along with two revolvers, were packaged and smuggled into the prison by a friendly soldier. The prisoners were not sure that the bolt cutter would be up to the job but were determined to carry out the escape plan , as Frank Teeling was in line for execution ; on the night of February 13th , 1921, the three men made their way to the outer prison gate but , as the handles of the bolt cutter were incorrectly fitted , they were unable to cut the bolt . They went to 'Plan B' , and gave the signal for their comrades on the other side of the prison wall to throw in the rope attached to the ladder - the rope jammed on top of the wall and snapped when the men outside attempted to pull it back to them .
The three prisoners had no alternative but to return to their cells .The following day , the British soldier who was in on the plan repaired/adjusted the handles on the bolt cutter and , that night, at 6.30pm , the three prisoners decided to make another escape attempt ......(MORE LATER)>>>

In the early 1940's , the Catholic Archbishop of Zagref , Alojzui Stepinac , hailed the establishment of the Nazi regime as " a long-cherished wish ... a work of God that arouses our admiration " . The official Catholic magazine ' Nedelja' stated- " God,who directs the destiny of nations and controls the hearts of Kings , has given us Ante Pavelic (leader of the fascist Ustasha movement) and moved the leader of a friendly and allied people , Adolf Hitler , to use his victorious troops to disperse our oppressors and enable us to create an independent State of Croatia . Glory be to God , our gratitude to Adolf Hitler " .
-- They praise Hitler and threaten to excommunicate Irish Republicans ~ must have been the tight-fitting Nazi uniforms that swung it for them ......

On February 14th 1921 , three IRA men, Frank Teeling ,Ernie O'Malley and Simon Donnelly , escaped from Kilmainham Jail in Dublin .
Frank Teeling was sentenced to death in connection with the events of November 21st, 1920 , during which twelve British agents were killed. Teeling and Ernie O'Malley were being held in Kilmainham Jail and , on February 11th, were joined by Simon Donnelly ; he was taken into their confidence and told of their plan to escape . After weeks of careful consideration , an escape plan was decided upon ~ the peep-holes in the cell doors were three inches in diameter and , if one of the men could get his arm through it , it would be possible to open the door from the outside ; the plan then was to make their way to the yard (as the men had noticed that the door leading from the prison to the yard was usually left closed-over, but not locked) and then cross the yard to a large iron gate on the west side of the jail , cut the bolt on same and escape .
A 'Plan B' had been made in case the bolt cutter should fail ~ IRA Volunteers from 'F' Company ,Fourth Battalion , Dublin Brigade, would take up positions outside the prison wall with a rope ladder and , awaiting an agreed signal , throw in the rope attached to the ladder , so that the prisoners could haul the ladder over to their side of the wall ....(MORE LATER)_>>>>
"Strenuous efforts must be made to bend towards the Unionists , to show them that their civil rights and their religious rights will be respected - EVEN(his emphasis) if that means making internal arrangements that will suit Unionists better than they will suit the rest of us" ~ ....no, not John Hume or one of his Stoop Down Low Party lackeys , but Gerry Adams , in a 'Hot Press' interview on May 19th, 1993 (page 13) ---- And the bastards STILL (my emphasis) won't let you surrender with dignity, eh, Gerry . There's respect for ya .....

....the jury brought in a verdict of guilty - sentence was deferred until 3pm that afternoon ; when they were brought up for sentence a plea by John , the younger brother, that he be allowed to take the punishment for both was rejected and they were sentenced to be executed the following day .
At mid-day on the day of their execution (the ninth anniversary of the fall of the Bastille) John and Henry Sheares were hanged outside Newgate Jail in Green Street, Dublin , beside what is now the Special ' Criminal' Court . The bodies of the brothers are still preserved in the vaults of the nearby Saint Michan's Church , in Church Street , Dublin . John Sheares , aged 32 , and Henry Sheares , ages 45 , were executed by the British on July 14th, 1798 .
The British tradition of conquest , theft, exploitation and dispossession has touched most corners of the globe and is still with us in this country : spys,informers , false treaty's and pillage has been their stamp here ~ over the on-going period of their 'conquest' , the British have purchased some of the Irish (and I include Adams and his Provo outfit of outlaw pets in that ) and branded the rest of us as "dissidents" .
And I , for one , am proud to be classed as such by them .....

NEWSFLASH>>>NEWSFLASH ---
" A return to Stormont in any form is unacceptable to nationalist opinion in Ireland " --- so said Gerry Adams , in what can only be described as a ground-breaking devel...OOPS ! wait a minute..No ,sorry , that's been on my desk since April ,1996 , as a quote from Adams as printed in AP/RN , April 11th that year (page4) . My mistake.....

Yasser Arafats biographers , Tony Walker and Andrew Gowers , call Arafat the " grand illusionist " - Roger Hardy , a London-based writer and broadcaster on the Middle East , wrote - " Arafat is a master magician in the theatre of politics but , like every magician , he relies on sleight of hand " ~ just like our own (Gerry) Arafat .....

....on their return to Ireland , the brothers joined the United Irishmen : John became a member of the Leinster Directory and later, following the arrest of most of the leaders at the home of Oliver Bond in March 1798 , he took on the position of chief organiser . He was arrested,along with his brother, on May 21st, two days before the proposed Rising , having been betrayed by Captain John Warneford Armstrong, a Dublin Castle spy : Armstrong had befriended John Sheares by claiming to be a 'reluctant soldier' and had offered to assist the United Irishmen in their efforts to capture the English military camp at Leighlinstown , where he (Armstrong) was stationed .
The brothers were charged with 'high treason' and lodged in Kilmainham Jail : at their 'trial' , which began in Green Street Courthouse on July 12th (with the infamous Lord Norbury .' the hanging judge' , presiding) , the English spy, Armstrong, was to earn his keep as the principal witness against the brothers . The proceedings lasted twenty-four hours without an adjournment and , at 8am the following day, the jury (after an absence of only 17 minutes !) brought in a verdict of guilty .....(MORE LATER)>

In 1995 , documentation from the British Atomic Energy Authority confirmed that 2,517 tonnes of radioactive waste had been dumped in Beaufort Dyke in 1981 ; the information was given in answer to a Westminster parliamentary question in 1985 ,and it was also confirmed that unscheduled dumping had taken place due to "adverse weather" , but claimed that it was only a " small quantity of concrete waste" ! Yeah,right - tell that to the fish........or to Nuclear scientist Augustin Janssen , who stated on October 16th, 1995 , that "the Irish Sea is more dangerous than French Polynesia" . (Wonder where they dump their concrete ?).

The brothers John and Henry Sheares , who were both born in Cork , were put to death on the same day by British forces in 1798 after being found guilty of "high treason" ....
Henry Sheares was born in 1753 and John in 1766 . Both were educated at Trinity College in Dublin and both were called to the Bar in 1788 ; the two brothers then moved to Dublin to practise their profession . Both brothers had an interest in the revolutionary changes taking place in France and in other European capitals and , in 1789 , they both went to France to visit relatives . They were present , as spectators, at the fall of the Bastille on July 14th and were regular visitors to the political clubs where they became acquainted with many of the French revolutionary leaders , including Roland,Brissant and Robespierre .On their return to Ireland in August 1793 , the brothers joined the Society of the United Irishmen ......(MORE LATER)>....

My 'Person-of-The-Day' Award ( an all-new and possibly once-off category on this page!) goes to Anthony Williams , a one-time employee of Scotland Yard .
Mr. Williams was employed by 'the Yard' as an accountant and , over his eleven years there , was , apparently, a model employee- kept his head down , down his work , good time-keeper etc. However , over that same eleven years , he stole five million pounds Sterling from the job and used it to purchase practically all of the town of Tomintoul in Inverness ! He was caught , and an Old Bailey judge locked him up for seven-and-a-half years .
The bould Tony slipped-up : he should have declared himself Mayor of Tomintoul , and Sheriff ,and Town Clark ,City Manager etc etc and claimed diplomatic immunity ......

......and in March 1858 , Michael Doheny assisted James Stephens and John O'Mahony in founding the Irish Republican Brotherhood , and was a member of the American delegation which accompanied the remains of Terence Bellew MacManus to Ireland in November 1861 . A plan had been set in motion for another attempted rising in Ireland , and the arrival of the MacManus remains was the signal for the rising to commence : however , on the advice of John O'Mahony , who had been in Ireland earlier that year , the rising was abandoned - O'Mahony reported that the people were not properly organised . On his return to New York , Michael Doheny , author ,poet , soldier , journalist and lawyer , died suddenly on April 1st , 1862 , at 57 years of age . A rebel heart , true and true ...

(Dumping at sea,continued.....) In February 1995 , the British Ministry of Defence admitted that 145,000 tonnes of chemical weapons were secretly dumped in the 1950's off the coasts of Antrim and Donegal - this admission followed years of denial by the British . The Free State Minister for the Environment at the time , Brendan Howlin , confirmed that the deadly nerve gas,TABUN, as well as mustard gas and phosgene , were amongst chemical weapons dumped by the British into the Irish Sea during the 1950's . The British , for good measure , stated that almost no steps were taken to protect the dumped weapons from natural erosion once under the sea and that the dumps have remained totally unmonitored since around 1955 . According to the Celtic League (in 1993) , around 8,500 tonnes of chemical weapons were dumped by the British in the Biscay region to the south-west of Ireland . The Brits have really been dumping on us , in more ways than one ....
( Perhaps we should be grateful that the dumped munitions did'nt land on an unexploded H-bomb .....) .

......the armed rising failed and Michael Doheny was forced to go ' on the run ' with a price of £300 on his head . Discouraged ,weak from travel and on his own , Doheny began to keep a journal of his wanderings that became part of Irish rebel literature , and were published in 1849 under the title ' The Felon's Track '~ it remains , to this day, a classic of the literature of Irish freedom .
Doheny eventually succeeded in escaping to America and settled in New York , where he set to work at organising an armed force for another attempt at revolt in Ireland . He was actively involved with the Emmet Monument Association (the early 'Fenian Movement') and , in March 1858, he assisted James Stephens and John O'Mahony in founding the Irish Republican Brotherhood . (MORE LATER)...

The Beaufort Dyke is a deep trench which runs from north of the Isle of Man to near the Wigtonshire coast , in England . It was into this seabed hole that the British dumped thousands of tonnes of surplus and disintegrating war supplies over a 30-year period which supposedly ended in the late 1960's . Included in this military rubbish was tonnes of phosphorous shells and bombs and TNT munitions ; also dumped at sea by the Brits was 'C W Munitions' (Chemical Warfare bombs) , some of which contained the nerve agent TABUN , which was developed by the Nazi's ! (MORE LATER)>

Author,poet,soldier , journalist and lawyer - a full life for any person , but this man,who was born at Brookhill, near Fethard in County Tipperary in 1805 , did not allow his own busy and prosperous life-style to blind him to the everyday struggle of those around him .
As a student of Gray's Inn , in London, Michael Doheny supported himself as a journalist until he was called to the Bar in 1838 . He returned to Ireland and settled in Cashel , from where he defended the poor in the courts against the excessive demands being made on them by local landlords . In 1842 , at the invitation of Thomas Davis , he joined the Repeal Association and became a regular contributor of articles and poems to the newspaper ' The Nation' . He was an effective speaker in Conciliation Hall , Lower Abbey Street, Dublin , where he spoke in favour of the policies of the Irish Confederates , a group of radical Young Irelanders who seceded from Daniel O'Connell's Repeal Association in January 1843 .
It was the sight of dozens of food-ships sailing out of the country in the midst of 'famine' which decided him on the necessity of an immediate rising and , in July 1848 , Michael Doheny , James Stephens and William Smith O'Brien attempted an armed rising ........(MORE LATER)....

A U S pilot lost his life in 1965 when his aircraft rolled off the aircraft carrier TICONDEROGA , which was heading for the Japanese port of Youkosuka . The plane sank in more than three miles of water , as did it's cargo - a Hydrogen bomb with the potential blasting power of one million tonnes of TNT ! For years the U S Navy refused to admit that the incident happened ~ the Pentagon listed the incident but claimed it occured 500 miles from land . Researchers for the Institute of Policy Studies in Washington placed the incident 70 miles east of the nearest Japanese island and 200 miles from the more heavily populated Okinawa . Documents which proved the incident took place were released under the ' Freedom of Information' laws in 1989 : twenty-four years after the event ! In 2027 , we may be told the truth as to why George Bush Jnr started a war with Iraq .....

.....Jemmy Hope was on an organisational tour in Ulster when the ill-fated rising broke out in Dublin . He escaped arrest and eventually , after the political amnesty of 1806, returned to Belfast and resumed work as a linen weaver . In the early 1840's , he assisted Dr. R.R. Madden , the historian of the United Irishmen , with detailed accounts of the events in 1798 and 1803 .
During the course of a long life he never changed his views on the rights of the working-class . His writings earned for him the title of "the first Irish socialist" in whose footsteps James Fintan Lalor and James Connolly were later to follow . A fervent adherent of the principles of the French Revolution and the United Irishmen to the very end , Jemmy Hope died in February 1847 , aged 83 . The man deserves to be remembered for that which he stood,and died,for .

'SPOT THE DIFFERENCE' Competition,part two -
"By God ,it is enjoyable being a Minister . This is what I like doing , taking decisions , and I had to take the decision to put the troops in while I was on the plane on the way back from Cornwall " ~ the then British Labour Party Home Secretary , James Callaghan ,in his diary , on the open deployment of the British Army in the Six Counties , August 14th , 1969 .

" I loath and detest the miserable bastards. Savage, murderous thugs. May the Irish ,all of them , rot in hell " ~ British Lord Arran , then a columnist in the 'London Evening News' , May 1974.

The only difference is the four different speakers : the sentiments expressed are similar .

A poet , a revolutionary , a social reformer : perhaps briefly mentioned in passing in academic circles , and one of the many Irish heros that goes unsung ~ born at Templepatrick in County Antrim in 1764 , Jemmy Hope is all of the above .
Largely self-educated , Hope, the son of a Presbyterian, left school at the age of ten and was apprenticed to a linen weaver . Having served his time , he left his job and became a traveller and journeyman . The French Revolution had a profound effect on his life and he was influenced by the writings of Paine and Rousseau - the ideas of equality and of the rights to life , liberty and property . In 1795 , he joined the United Irishmen , and became a close associate of many of the leading United Irishmen , including Theobald Wolfe Tone , Henry Joe McCracken and Thomas Russell. He was sent to Dublin in 1796 to scout for the Society .
He returned to the North of Ireland in 1798 and took part in the Battle of Ballynahinch during the Rising that year and , following the collapse of same, he went ' on the run ' in Ulster for five months before making his way to Dublin , where he worked as a weaver in the Liberties area of the city . Hope supported Robert Emmet in planning the rising of July 1803 but was on an organisational tour in Ulster when .......(MORE LATER)...

'SPOT THE DIFFERENCE' Competition -
" The Nationalist majority in the county Fermanagh stands at 3,640 . I would ask the meeting to authorise their executive to adopt whatever plans and take whatever steps, however drastic, to wipe out this Nationalist majority " ~ Unionist M P E.C.Ferguson , addressing a unionist convention in Enniskillen in 1948 .

" Now men , Sinn Fein has had all the sport up to the present , and we are going to have the sport now . You may make mistakes occassionally , and innocent persons may be shot , but that cannot be helped , and you are bound to get the right parties sometime . The more you shoot , the better I will like you , and I assure you , no policeman will get into trouble for shooting any man " ~ Colonel Smyth , RIC Divisional Police Commander for Munster , June 1920 .
Can't 'spot the difference' ? - wait 'till you see tomorrows two entries .....

.......were waiting with four cars to transport the escapees to safety , but they landed at the wrong spot ; approximately 500 yards away .The men realised their mistake and made their way to Queen's Road bus terminus where they commandeered a bus and drove across the city to the Markets area . During the journey , the bus was spotted by a British Army Land Rover which attempted to stop the vehicle ; however , the Brits backed-off when the bus entered the staunchly republican Markets district , which was then surrounded by British reinforcements . A search of the area was carried out by the British Army and RUC , but none of the escapees were found ~ the 'Magnificent Seven' were long gone to a different part of Belfast !
Eight years after Lemass and his ' we are for sale' statements (see yesterdays article) , the then Free State Foreign Affairs Minister , Patrick Hillery(Fianna Fail) said re EEC entry - " We would have to act closely in political as well as economic affairs and would have to participate in common action , even the defence of the new Europe " ; those that consider themselves this State's 'political elite' know the price of everything but the value of nothing .

In 1979 , the U S concluded a secret bilateral pact with Norway to allow nuclear munitions to be stored there under certain conditions , despite the wishes of the Norwegian electorate , expressed through a referendum . The secret pact was only accidentally discovered by the Oslo media five years after the event , 1984 . "Weapons of mass destruction" in Norway : So when you're finished with Iraq , George .....

....the day after the fifty men were transferred from the ship , the ' Magnificent Seven' escaped ~
One of the group had spotted a seal slip through a gap in the barbed-wire draped around the ship and it was decided that if the seal could come in , then they could go out !
The men used black boot polish to camouflag themselves and smeared each other in butter , to keep out the cold . They had already cut through a bar in a porthole which they now slipped through , and clambered down the Maidstone's steel hauser and entered the water . Several of them were badly cut by the barbed-wire , but they all managed to get through it . In single file , they swam the 400 yards through the ice-cold floodlit water to the shore : it took them twenty minutes , as some of the men could not swim and had to be helped by the others . On the bank , Volunteers of the Andersonstown unit of the IRA's Belfast Brigade were waiting with four cars to transport the escapees to safety , but ....(MORE LATER) ....
This State's intention re it's neutrality has not only been highlighted by the recent U S Army near take-over of Shannon -
In July 1962 , in New York, Sean Lemass stated~ " We are prepared to go into any integrated union without any reservations at all as to how far this would take us in the field of foreign policy or defence commitments" : also , while negotiating in Bonn for admission to the then EEC in October 1962 , Lemass said - " In the East-West conflict we are not neutral . We have made it quite clear that our desire is to participate in whatever political union may ultimately develop in Europe . We are making no reservations of any sort, including defence " .
Could someone out there please contact George Bush and tell him he's OK ; then contact Saddam and tell him he's welcome , too ~ after all , we have "no reservations of any sort" . Come one, come all .....

James Emerson Bryson , Tommy Tolan , Thomas Kane , Tommy Gorman , Peter Rodgers , Martin Taylor and Sean Convery : a group of Irish Republicans known as 'The Magnificent Seven' because of the nature of their escape from the Maidstone prison ship on January 17th , 1972 .
Of the 226 men detained following the introduction of internment in August 1971 , 124 were initially held in Crumlin Road Jail while the remainder were held on the Maidstone , a prison ship moored at the coalwharf in Belfast docks . The prison ship ,used as an emergency billet for British troops who arrived in 1969 , was totally unsuitable as a prison - it was cramped , stuffy and overcrowded , with the 'lock-up' section located at the stern below the deck , which was used twice a day for exercise . On January 16th , 1972 , fifty men were transferred from the ship to the new camp at Magilligan : this sudden move spurred on internees who were planning to escape .......(MORE LATER) ....
In 1883 , British Lord Salisbury declared - " Ireland must be kept , like India , at all costs; by persuasion,if possible , - if not, by force " . So the Brits purchased some of us and bullied the rest !
However , there's hope for us yet ~ On October 23rd , 1918 , Brit Lord Hugh Cecil stated - " We must accept the fact of Irish Nationality. It is regrettable , it is unhistorical ; in view of Ulsters feelings it is even absurd . But it is a fact : the majority of Irishmen do think Ireland a Nation and we must do the best we can in the circumstances "
"Unhistorical"? "Absurd"? Steady on , old chap .....
(Translation from Sunday - " Do not be breaking your shin on a stool that is not in your way").

.....the entire nationalist population of Lisburn were driven out of their homes by the UVF and other loyalist mobs . Nationalist areas of Belfast again came under attack from loyalist gangs - there were burnings ,shootings and looting on a massive scale which lasted until the end of that month .
In the last ten days of the pogrom , 31 men and women were killed and hundreds of Catholics were burned out of their homes : property damage was put at one million pounds . Within a week of the ending of the pogroms , the British government invited members of the loyalist murder-gangs and the UVF to join the newly-formed 'B-Specials' ! The 1920 pogroms subsided after five weeks , on September 3rd of that year , and are rarely discussed these days ; and no wonder ~ a shameful episode in a long list of shameful episodes which the British introduced into Ireland .

On October 28th , 1986(a Tuesday,I think!) , Colonel Gadaffi of Libya was interviewed on RTE television's ' Today/Tonight' programme and , amongst other things, said - " If I were the leader of the South of Ireland I would consider that the North is colonised and I would fight to liberate that part of Ireland" : the Free State Industry Minister at the time (now ex-leader of Fine Gael) Michael Noonan declared that Gadaffi's comments " had sent shock waves through the board-rooms of America" , which indicated that Free State government policy is dictated in the "board-rooms of America" as much as in the meeting-rooms of Strasbourg , Brussels and Whitehall !
Witness the servile attitude by this States gut-less , arrogant and un-principled administration to Bush's use of Shannon .If (when?) it comes back to haunt them and , unfortunately ,by association , the rest of us , we will all regret they forgot the following -- " Na bris do loirgin air stol nach bhfuil ann do shlighe" .
(Translation later)....

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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