......George Plant was then brought before the Free State Military Tribunal charged with shooting an informer and was sentenced to death........

The sentence was carried out by a six-man firing squad on March 5th, 1942 ; his remains were reinterred in Fethard in September 1948 .

Maurice O'Neill,a County Kerry man(Cahirciveen) was staying in a house in Donnycarney in Dublin with Harry White, when they were attacked by Staters(November 1942) ; Harry White escaped, but O'Neill was captured and brought before the Military Tribunal , charged with firing on Free State forces. He was sentenced to death and was shot by a Free State firing squad in Mountjoy Jail on November 12th, 1942. His remains were reinterred in Cahirciveen in September 1948.

Charlie Kerins, from Tralee in County Kerry, was IRA Chief of Staff when he was arrested in June 1944, and accused before the Military Tribunal with the shooting of Dinny O'Brien in 1942. No evidence was offered to the Tribunal by the Free State, and non was needed- the Tribunal delayed sentence until later in the day to allow Kerins to make an application to it whereby he might avoid the capital sentence ie plead for his life: Charlie Kerins replied- "You could have adjourned for six years as far as I'm concerned, as my attitude towards this Court will always be the same". He was sentenced to death by hanging. When no Irish person would take the job, De Valera and Boland hired an English hangman; Kerins climbed the scaffold on December 1st, 1944, the last Republican soldier to die on the gallows for Ireland. His remains were reinterred in Rath Cemetery in the Tralee Republican Plot in September 1948.
The remains of those six men were only released because public opinion began to go against Fianna Fail.......(MORE LATER)>>>


On March 2nd, 1993 (a Tuesday, if memory serves....) the then British 'Direct Ruler'for the Six Counties,Patrick Mayhew,stated- "The (British) government will, as I said in December, warmly,solemnly and steadfastly uphold Northern Irelands(sic) status. We are not indifferent, we are not neutral" .
WHAT?? Not a neutral,peace-keeping force? Not indifferent?
Not in Ireland, not in Iraq, and not in any of their other 'adventures' in other countries.

.....in his last letter before facing a Fianna Fail-organised firing squad (September 6th, 1940) , Tom Harte wrote, to his mother - "I am writing my last letter to you, because I thought more of you than any other person on earth .... you know I was always strongly Republican , was always thinking out ways and means of furthering Republican ideals...if I fought for my country, it was for the poor downtrodden people of Ireland... I knew I never showed my feelings much at any time , but you were always loved just the same ....I am going to finish now, asking you to remember me as a son you can be proud of. Say farewell to all for me. Goodbye and God bless you all, your loving son, Tom " .
At 24 years of age , Lurgan-born Tom Harte was shot dead by a Free State firing squad on September 6th, 1940.

Richie Goss was one of the most active IRA members of his time ; when he was arrested in the Casey home in Longford he was Divisional O/C of the North-Leinster/South Ulster area. When he was brought before the Free State Military Court, charged with firing on Free State soldiers, he was sentenced to death: transported from Mountjoy Jail in Dublin to Portlaoise,and made to sit on his own coffin all the way, Richie Goss was shot by a Free State firing squad on August 9th, 1941. His remains were reinterred in Dundalk in September 1948.


George Plant was from Fethard in County Tipperary and had been active in the Tan and Civil Wars ; he was one of the last prisoners to be released by the Free State and emigrated to America. He returned to Ireland in 1939 to take part in the struggle but was arrested in 1941. De Valera ordered that George Plant be taken before a non-jury court to be charged with shooting an informer, but the charges were dropped; he was then brought before the Military Tribunal on the same charge and was sentenced to death ..... (MORE LATER)>>



In February 1993, the then British Minister responsible for the environment and countryside, David MacLean, used the unusual means of a written answer to a parliamentary question to release figures showing that, in one day in February 1993, through one discharge stack, Sellafield had released nearly ten times as much plutonium as is usually discharged in a year ! MacLean described the plant officials' failure to inform the local MP,who was visiting the site at the time of the leak, as "a rather extraordinary discourtesy" !
......there is no truth in the rumour that "the local MP" gave up politics and is now employed as a street lamp.

....Paddy McGrath was brought to a shop in Rathgar Road in Dublin on August 15th 1940 by the then IRA Chief of Staff Stephen Hayes , for a meeting with Tom Harte and Tom Hunt ; the meeting was raided by Free State forces .....

The Free State raiding party, the 'Broy Harriers', was led by ex-IRA man Dinny O'Brien . Paddy McGrath escaped but, instead of making a run for it which he could have,he went back to comfort his friend who had been shot, Tom Harte . The two of them were arrested together and were later put to death together by a Free State firing squad . McGrath was known to be an uncompromising Irish Republican who rejected 'positions of power' which were offered him by De Valera. In 1960, the National Graves Association erected a fine monument to his memory in Glasnevin , which was unveiled by the late Tom Doyle .


Far dearer the grave or the prison
Illum'd by one patriot name,
than the trophies of all who have risen,
on liberty's ruins to fame.

Tom Harte was born in Lurgan on May 14th 1916 , and had three brothers and two sisters. He received his primary education in St Peters School in Lurgan and, on leaving there, became an apprentice painter to Charlie McIntyre. He joined the IRA and went to England as part of the 'Expeditionary Force' to take part in the bombing campaign- he was in London in 1939 with Arthur Conway when he was pulled in for questioning by the British police. He told them his name was Tom Green , from Baileborough in Cavan but was still deported to Dublin . Once back in Ireland, he worked as an Organiser for the GHQ Staff of the IRA . He was wounded when the Staters raided a shop on Rathgar Road in Dublin (August 15th, 1940) and was executed by a Fianna Fail-organised firing squad on September 6th, 1940. In his last letter, which was addressed to his mother, he wrote ...... (MORE LATER)>>



The THORP nuclear plant took fifteen years to build and cost stg£2.8 billion . It was finally finished in 1992 and contains more than a quarter of a million tonnes of concrete , and covers an area twice the size of the Wembley arena. 'Greenpeace' said that every four-and-a-half years , Sellafield and Thorp combined will release into the environment as much radioactivity as the Chernobyl meltdown ! That's two-and-a-quarter Chernobyls so far, and no world headlines ......

The last of the sentenced IRA prisoners were released in April 1948 - three years after the formal ending of the IRA's bombing campaign in England and the Six Counties . However , the remains of the six republican prisoners that were executed by the Free State Military Tribunal were still being held by the Staters in Mountjoy and Portlaoise prisons.
The six men were : Paddy McGrath , Tom Harte , Richie Goss , George Plant , Maurice O'Neill and Charlie Kerins . Paddy McGrath was born into one of the old Dublin Republican families and took part in the 1916 Rising , as did two of his brothers . He was sent to Frongoch Internment Camp after the Rising and served his time there with, amongst others, Michael Collins, Gerry Boland(who signed the execution order on Paddy in 1940) and Dinny O'Brien (who, years later, as a member of the Free State 'Broy Harriers' , was to lead the raid on Rathgar Road in Dublin , in August 1940, in which Paddy McGrath was arrested). Following the Treaty of Surrender in 1922, Paddy took the Republican side , as he did in the Civil War; indeed, he carried a bullet in his chest from a British soldier, when he was shot at the GPO in 1916 - it was too close to his heart to be removed. He undertook a hunger-strike in Mountjoy Prison with Dick MacCarthy, Jer Daly and Jack Lynch to obtain political status and they were released, after 42 days,unconditionally. Paddy was brought to a shop in Rathgar Road in Dublin on August 15th 1940, by the then IRA Chief of Staff, Stephen Hayes , for a meeting with Tom Harte and Tom Hunt; the meeting was raided by Free State forces ...... (MORE LATER)>>


Speaking in Japan in October 1989 , Margaret Thatcher declared- " It is improper for any country to acquire territory through war " ; she did'nt say anything about the kettle and the pot ....
Peggy Noonan , former speech-writer for Ronald Reagan , said of him- "The battle for his mind was like trench warfare in World War One. Never have so many fought so hard for such barren terrain " ! So that's why Maggie and Ronnie got on so well..

....the following month(July 1936) those arrested on the bus were brought before a Free State military tribunal where eighteen of them , including Sean Glynn, were sentenced to nine months' imprisonment on a charge of IRA membership ,and were taken to Arbour Hill Military Prison in Dublin ....
The Fianna Fail 'Justice minister', Gerry Boland, in a statement, warned that Arbour Hill "was no longer(sic)going to be a holiday camp or hotel for republican prisoners". Conditions in the prison were grim- Free State military guards kept the republican prisoners in solitary confinement and they were punished for trying to speak or otherwise communicate with each other ; the prison was said to be like a tomb, and the system was intended to drive men insane and in some cases succeeded. Several men never recovered from their months of solitude even if they did manage to preserve their sanity. These were the conditions that drove Sean Glynn , who had been in perfect mental health prior to his arrest, first insane and then,on September 13th 1936, to take his own life.
A subsequent inquest and commission of inquiry into his death found that he had been driven insane by the 'silent-system' in Arbour Hill. After his death, somewhat more humane(but by no means pleasant) conditions prevailed for the remaining prisoners. Two days after his death, Sean Glynn was buried in the Republican Plot in Mount St Laurence's Cemetery in Limerick. He was born into a strong republican family in 1911 and, on leaving school, he began work as a labourer. In 1930 he joined the IRA. A committed Volunteer, he rose through the ranks and soon became O/C of 'B' Company of the Mid-Limerick Brigade, a position previously held by his father, John Glynn, during the early 1920's .
At 25 years of age, he was driven to take his own life on September 13th, 1936, by a Fianna Fail administration.



A poem by Brendan O hEithir , entitled 'The Gentle Black and Tan', comes to mind when I attempt to figure out why it is that Free Staters, even today, consider the Brits as a 'neutral' player in the Six Counties :

' Come all you staunch revisionists
and listen to my song,
Its short and its unusual
and it won't detain you long;
its all about a soldier
who has carried historys can,
who dodged Tom Barry and Dan Breen-
the gentle Black and Tan ' .

It's no surprise that the good Rev. J O Hannay once stated that "reading Irish history was a fatal thing to anyone wishing to remain a sound unionist " (ditto for anyone wishing to remain a sound Free Stater ....).

A 25-years young Irish Republican Army prisoner in Arbour Hill Military Prison wrote a letter to his mother which ended- " I feel I cannot stand this any longer. I have been subjected to cruel treatment since I was arrested". The young man, Sean Glynn, from Pennywell Road in Limerick city , then killed himself.

The 1936 Fianna Fail administration , led by Eamonn de Valera, had turned viciously on those it once fought beside; in June that year, the IRA had been declared an "unlawful association" and the annual republican commemoration to the grave of Wolfe Tone at Bodenstown in County Kildare was banned. It was in that atmosphere that Sean Glynn and more than two dozen other republicans boarded a bus in Limerick on Bodenstown Sunday morning to travel to the 'banned' commemoration : the bus was stopped at Dunkerrin, County Offaly, and all passengers were arrested. The following month(July 1936) those arrested on the bus were brought before a Free State military tribunal where eighteen of them, including Sean Glynn, were sentenced to nine months imprisonment on a charge of IRA membership, and were taken to Arbour Hill Military Prison in Dublin - (MORE LATER)>>


In 1991 , when Fianna Fail's Frank Fahey was Free State Minister of State at the Department of Education, with responsibility for Sports and Youth Affairs( a good 'all-rounder', is our Frank!) he gave an interview in 'Hot Press' magazine (April 4th, 1991, page 40) in which he stated - "I feel strongly about this, that Ireland in the future is going to be a country unique as a holiday destination and unique for the creative abilities that we have here. Our economic future is not in manufacturing industry. It's in our ability to become an attractive location for tourism and our ability to be upfront in sport and particularly in music " .
"An attractive location for tourism...a holiday destination (with) sport and music" but with no "manufacturing industry"; let's sit on our pony and traps , doff our caps at the paying visitors and greet them with "top o'the mornin' to ya". Sure would'nt that be grand,Frank.....

....the arrest , in November 1865, of Fenian leaders and, in particular, James Stephens,meant that a planned uprising had to be postponed; the Irish Republican Brotherhood decided to break him out of Richmond Jail ,as he was that organisations military strategist . John Devoy, the IRB's Organiser, put an escape plan together: Ellen O'Leary(John O'Leary's sister) had agreed to mortgage her home and use the money to bribe two somewhat sympathetic warders in Richmond Jail to hand over a set of keys which would enable James Stephens to simply let himself out of the prison! The plan worked; within weeks of his incarceration in Richmond Jail, Stephens had his own set of keys to the place and, on the night of November 24th, 1865, used them successfully- he was met on the outside , as arranged, and taken to a safe house. In the early hours of the 25th , his absence was noticed and the prison was searched but, as O'Donovan Rossa was to recall in his recollections of prison life- it was too late; "the bird had flown" .
The British offered what was then a small fortune - £300 - for information on James Stephens and on how he escaped , but to no avail . Within months he was in Frace , where he continued his work for the Fenians and the IRB .


The health service in this State is constantly under fire from those of us who are reliant on it - no beds, not enough staff, disorganised etc ; those that can afford it go private, the rest of us struggle on as best we can . A report from the 'El Tiempo' newspaper in Columbia , from February 20th, 1991, brought to mind a comparison of how they were then and how we are now - Speaking at a conference on South American medical authorities , a Dr Alaos Miguel Carlo said- "We are in the hands of mad politicians. Over one thousand complaints have been made about the service at Columbia's General Hospital. This famous institution has been officially opened six times by six different party leaders , but it is still not in service because the electricity has not been turned on . At the same time, the six 'opening's' cost over six million pesos, mostly for nibbles and drink" !
Must be South American blood in Leinster House.......

On the night of November 24th, 1865, the head of the Fenian movement and founder of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, James Stephens, escaped from Richmond Jail in Dublin .
Weeks before his imprisonment, the British had been involved in an all-out offensive against the Fenians; their newspaper 'The Irish People' had been suppressed and Fenian leaders John O'Leary, Thomas Clarke Luby and Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa had been arrested. They were charged with 'treason felony' , which was later changed to 'high treason' , and were put in Richmond Jail , off the South Circular Road in Dublin, to await 'trial'. In November 1865, more leaders of the Fenian movement were arrested- Charles J. Kickham , Edmund Duffy , Hugh Brophy and, perhaps most damaging of all, James Stephens : his detention not only hindered the work of the Fenians, but also slowed development of the IRB , which he had founded in Dublin on St.Patricks Day, 1858 . Stephens had built-up the organisation to such an extent that, by 1865, it was ready to rise up against British rule . (MORE LATER)>>


In 1947, the British government resettled some 8,000 men of the SS Galizien Division in Britain ; they were Ukrainians who supported the Nazi's because of their hatred of the Soviets . So,if, for example, you are a Palestinian who fought with the Iraq's because of your hatred of the United States - you know where to go.
In 1979, John Taylor , OUP , (now Brit Lord somethingorother) was returned in the European elections as one of the three MEP's for the Six Counties. In the European Parliament, he initially joined the British Conservatives in the European Democratic Group(EDG) . However, he left the EDG in 1987 because it supported the (1985) Hillsborough Treaty (2 years on the fence-a sore thing!) and he then joined the European Right Group(ERG) headed by French National Front leader, Jean-Marie Le Pen . At the time , Taylor insisted that he had made the right move , and boasted that the ERG made him their spokesperson because "I controlled their political expression". He later left the ERG(because he found its links with the neo-Nazi German Republican Party an "embarrassent" !) and joined the European Peoples Party (EPP) , the so-called 'Christian Democrat' grouping to which this state's Fine Gael party also belongs.
There is no truth to the rumour that John, having almost run out of groups to join, is to start his own and call it the 'Galizien Group' ......

......indeed, many of the IRA Volunteers that took on the British in a guerrilla war during the 1919-1921 period learned their trade in Frongoch Internment Camp in North Wales. The Irish Republican Brotherhood used their time in the camp to re-organise , and Michael Collins formed his deadly 'Dublin Squad' from those same internees ; his country-wide intelligence network was said to have been as efficient as it was because of the training its operatives received in Frongoch.
On December 23rd, 1916, the last 600 internees in the camp and the two remaining female internees in Aylesbury Jail, Winifred Carney and Helena Moloney , were released ; the sentenced prisoners, including Constance Markievicz, were held in English prisons until the general amnesty in June 1917. Frongoch, the 'Republican University' in North Wales,was first opened to receive Irish'students' on June 9th, 1916. And we're still 'learning' ......


Following the fall of the Ottoman Empire, Kurdistan was established by the League of Nations in 1920 as an independent nation for the then 25 million Kurds, whose homeland it was for well over a thousand years. In 1921, Britain set up the state of Iraq, and annexed the southern half of Kurdistan , while she was at it. Meanwhile, France was drawing up the borders of Syria and the Kurds lost the western part of their country. A year later, Kemal Ataturk founded the Turkish Republic , and took over the northern portion . Iran and the then Soviet Union swallowed up what remained . In that same period of time, Britain divided both Ireland and Mesopotamia, keeping control in each nation of the most industrialized and profitable area ; Ireland was partitioned and Mesopotamia was made into the kingdoms of Iraq and Kuwait .
Now the Brits are back, militarily, in that part of the world and would have us believe that their objective is to "restore democracy" : a word of warning to the 'pro-democracy' (ie puppet) administration that Bush and Blair will set-up ----- watch your backs; before you know it, you'll be the new "Axis of Evil"........

In early June 1916, 1,850 Irish Republicans were brought to Frongoch Internment Camp in North Wales ; this was the first use by the British of an internment camp for Irish political prisoners . Frongoch was divided into two sections , the South Camp(capable of holding 1,000 men) and the North Camp(850 men approximately) - the internees in each camp organised themselves into units, comprising a Camp Commandant, chain of command structures and group and hut leaders . By August 1916 ,there had been a large number of releases and all remaining internees were moved to the South Camp; however, the men insisted that if they were to continue to be held in Frongoch then it should be in the smaller North Camp, which had 'better' accommodation and, on October 21st, they were transferred there. The South Camp was then used as a 'punishment centre' only.
Frongoch became known as the 'Republican University' because,as it allowed for lengthy periods of free association , the internees organised lectures,debates and training sessions on a daily basis and those that were released left as disciplined military and political activists; indeed, many of those that took on the British in a guerrilla war during the 1919-1921 period learned their trade in Frongoch. (MORE LATER)>>


The Six-County area cut off in 1920 had never existed before as an entity in history, or politics, or economics. Craigavon, deputy-leader of the Unionists in the British Parliament, explained on March 29th, 1920, why only six of the nine counties of Ulster could be brought under a Belfast parliament - "The three excluded counties contain some 70,000 Unionists and 260,000 Sinn Feiners and Nationalists and the addition of that large block of Sinn Feiners and Nationalists would reduce our majority to such a level that no sane man would undertake to carry on a parliament with it. We quite frankly admit that we cannot hold the nine counties" (HANSARD, Volume 127,Col.991). The above is too big to fit on a placard, but perhaps someone will remind Tony Blair of it, and point out that the 'Irish problem' created by the English still exists- and then maybe Tony will pass it on to George, who might then ask his daddy what to do about it ......

It has been estimated that around 1,650 men and women took part in the 1916 Easter Rising yet, in the days following its collapse, 3,430 men and 79 women were arrested by the British ; of these, 1,424 men and 73 women were released almost immediately. Fifteen men were executed ; one-hundred and twenty-three men,who were sentenced to penal servitude ranging from two years to life and one woman,Countess Markievicz(who was sentenced to life imprisonment) were all deported to various English prisons , while 1,519 men and five women were interned. English prisons like Knutsford, Wakefield, Stafford and Wandsworth were used to house the male internees with the five females (Maire Perolz, Brigid Foley, Nell Ryan, Winifred Carney and Helena Moloney) sent to Aylesbury Prison. Shortly after being interned , 650 men were released and returned to Ireland - however, almost two thousand men were served with internment orders under the British 'Defence of The Realm Act' .
In early June 1916 , Frongoch Internment Camp in Merionethshire, North Wales, having being cleared of all German prisoners, was opened for Irish prisoners and about 1,850 men were brought there by rail from the various jails . This was the first use by the British of an internment camp for Irish political prisoners ....... (MORE LATER)>>


And the Adams Family has called on people to protest against the visit of George Bush Junior in Belfast today(not Tony Blair's visit,however- he pays for their Donegal holiday-homes) and at the same time the bould Gerry is due to break bread with the man! We are told it is necessary as Baby Bush has to be kept 'on-side' due to his support for what the establishment describes as"the Irish peace process" ; Bush, we are told, is a guarantor that, eventually,the Nationalists in the Six Counties will be treated with "equality": well, run this up the flagpole,George --- we "got equality" with Catholic emancipation in 1829 , and again in 1969 with Terence O'Neills reforms, and again in 1973 with the Sunningdale Agreement and again in 1985 with the Hillsborough Treaty ...... which brings us back to the Stormont Treaty of 1998 and it's promise of "equality" .
We've had a bellyfull of'equality' , George , so have a quick word in Tony's ear and suggest that he take the best option - withdrawal.
Because Gerry certainly won't do it........

It was a member of the British Parliament , Lord Gifford, who compared the English 'supergrass' trials with those in the Six Counties and found that in England no-one was convicted without corroborative evidence - in the six North-Eastern counties of Ireland "57 per cent of those found guilty in the ten supergrass trials to date in Northern Ireland(sic) were convicted by the presiding judge on uncorroborated accomplice evidence" . The authors of the book 'Abolishing the Diplock Courts' stated- "We believe that even at its strongest , all the relevant data falls far short of the calibre of evidence which should be required before a legal right, so fundamental to the legal tradition of Britain and Ireland, as jury trial for serious offences can legitimately be even 'partially' or 'temporarily' suspended " .
The two men responsible for the book(Steven Greer and Anthony White), which was published, as I stated, around 1986 or 1987 have, in my opinion,ignored (wilfully or otherwise)the political 'reasons' for Britains use of non-jury courts; the authors looked at their subject matter without realising that the British Government considered the process of law as one element amongst many that needed to be 'tweaked' by them when dealing with what they called "the Irish problem".The British parliament and judicial system assisted the Westminster administration to that end. That said , however, the book did at least signal at the time a sense of unease with the way the politicians were conducting matters in the Six Counties and helped to draw attention to that judicial issue and other matters which Thatcher, Major etc would rather have swept under the carpet . For that alone it did the Irish cause a small favour .


In a letter to Karl Marx , Frederick Engels wrote - "The worst about the Irish is that they become corruptible as soon as they stop being peasants and then turn bourgeois. True, this is the case with most peasant nations , but in Ireland it is particularly bad " . Like most readers, I would have my differences with both Marx and Engels , but the latter , in his letter, sure knew us better !
........ The American revolutionary Benjamin Franklin once said , on finding some of his comrades willing to strike a 'deal' with the British - "Those who would trade freedom for peace will have neither" - there are many in this country for whom the absence of war means peace ~ never mind that the cause of the conflict remains.......

A book entitled 'Abolishing the Diplock Courts' by Steven Greer and Anthony White , published by the Cobden Trust in Britain about fifteen years ago , re the 'judicial' system in the Six Counties , makes for interesting (re-)reading , even today ;
" The threat of intimidation of witnesses which we have already described extends also to jurors.The jury system as a means for trying terrorist crime(sic) is under strain.It may not have broken down , but we think that the time is already ripe to forestall its doing so" -- so stated 'The Diplock Report', which was published in December 1972,and which was used by the British to further their opinion that jury trial had to be abolished.
In their book , Steven Greer(a law lecturer at Bristol University) and Anthony White(a barrister-at-law) argued that the reasons given at the time for the abolition of the jury system for 'scheduled offences' were not valid or based on "any systematic data". They stated that the arguments used to justify the Westminster move did not stand up to critical examination, and both men proposed that jury trial should have been restored. The authors quoted from a study by Lord Gifford , who compared the English 'supergrass' trials with those in the Six Counties and found that in England no-one was convicted without corroborative evidence . (MORE LATER)>>>



In 1990 , during the Free State administrations tenure of the E U Presidency , former Fianna Fail leader Albert Reynolds signed the directive authorising the E U's £2.8 billion low-cost loan to BNFL, which built THORP .There were 32 operating nuclear reactors in Britain at the time and 20 per cent of the power supply then was nuclear generated. Next January, Bertie Ahern will be in the position that Reynolds occupied in 1990 ; perhaps, as a mark of gratitude to those he so obviously considers his'betters', Bertie will let the Brits build a nuclear plant in Shannon,and convince his buddy George Bush (who knows the area well) to finance it ! Could be an'OBE' in it for ya, Bert ......

In the weeks following the shooting dead of the two County Westmeath IRA Volunteers in Ballykinlar Internment Camp in County Down , in January 1921 (Volunteers Joe Tormey and James Sloan) three more IRA Volunteers - Eamon Healy(Waterford) , Padraig O'Toole(Carlow) and Sean O'Sullivan (Kildare) died of illness at the camp due to the foul conditions the prisoners were forced to endure .
Following the signing of the Treaty in December 1921 , all the Republican prisoners and internees in Ballykinlar were freed . In later years , new camps were to be opened-up for republican prisoners and internees , this time run by their old comrades : today , again, those 'old comrades' have once more turned their back on Irish Republicans and now put as much effort in attempting to 'dress-up' the British presence as they once did in trying to remove that presence ; they are aware that as long as Britains jurisdictional claim over any part of Ireland remains in force , opposition to that claim will always be with us .......

On February 17th, 2000, the then Stormont Office Minister Adam Ingram , stated that 49 people had been killed in the Six Counties since May 1998 ; he admitted that between April 4th 1998 and February 10th 2000 , a total of 2,422 people had been injured as a result of attacks, including 456 people hurt by explosions, 155 injured through gun attacks and 1,811 people hurt by 'punishment' attacks . Loyalists were blamed for 251 casualties, including 79 shootings and 172 assaults. Nationalists were said to be responsible for 134 attacks, including 46 shootings and 88 assaults - between the same dates , attacks on the RUC numbered 2,901 involving firearms,explosives and what he termed "other missiles" .
The British and the Free Staters(including the Provisionals) sold the Stormont Treaty as a "vote YES for peace" exercise ~ they got a majority 'YES'vote from those that bothered to vote , but no peace yet ; nor will there be , until such time as the British withdraw their political and military presence from Ireland.

The two IRA Volunteers , friends from County Westmeath , who were held in the different camps in Ballykinlar , approached the fence which separated them and were both machine-gunned to death by a British sentry in one of the posts ; the soldier was later to be promoted in rank and moved to a different position in Ballykinlar Camp .
In the British House of Commons, the 'Chief-Secretary in Ireland' , Sir Hamar Greenwood , stated ~ " A military Court of Inquiry , held in lieu of an inquest, found that no blame attached to the soldier who fired in execution of his duty . No action of a disciplinary character is , therefore, called for , and none has been taken " .
The British Army issued a statement claiming that " a number of men in two adjoining cages persisted in communicating with each other despite the repeated warnings of a sentry " . ( It should be noted that another IRA Volunteer , Corkman Tadgh Barry , was killed by a sentry in similar circumstances in the same camp in November that year , 1921) .
(MORE LATER).....

'Congrats' to Emily O'Reilly on her new position as this state's 'Ombudsman' and we also wish her well in her new role as ' Freedom of Information Commissioner' : her (nice) new Office comes with a pay-check of 3646 EURO a week , which should help her forget about her old job as Editor of'Magill' magazine which she left(in 2000,I think) because , if I remember correctly, that magazines' 'sister' publication , 'In Dublin' , made most of its money by publishing advertisements for 'massage parlours' .
When asked why she did'nt leave sooner (or perhaps why she took the job in the first place....) Emily stated- " There are levels of knowing and levels of awareness" ; so, if our new 'Ombudsperson' and 'Freedom of Information Commissioner' fails to "get back to you on that one" , you'll know its because "there are levels......" .

In December 1920 , internment camps capable of holding thousands of IRA prisoners were set up at Kilworth , Bear Island and Spike Island in County Cork , Rath Camp and Newbridge Camp at the Curragh in County Kildare and Gormanstown Camp in County Meath ...
Leo Henderson was IRA Officer Commanding at Ballykinlar Camp 1 and Joe McGrath filled the same position in Ballykinlar Camp 2 ; each of the two camps held about one thousand prisoners but , due to the barbed-wire fence and sentry boxes which separated them , communications between camps was not possible . This led to frequent rows between the armed guards and the internees , so the two IRA O/C's worked out an agreement with the British Commander , Colonel Little , in which the prisoners were free to use the tarmacadam pathway which separated the two camps and communicate with prisoners in the different camps , provided that they did not approach nearer than three feet from the fence .

However , the British hated the Republican prisoners to such an extent that , like now , their word could not be trusted - in mid-January 1921 , two IRA Volunteers , friends from County Westmeath , who were held in the different camps in Ballykinlar , approached the fence which separated them and were both machine-gunned to death..... (MORE LATER)>>


..... Members of the Stormont Assembly that are not re-elected or who chose not to stand made sure they would not suffer financially :
... they rewarded themselves with a "resettlement allowance" of £19,000 , a "winding-up" allowance of £11,617 and decided that ex-Ministers , Junior Ministers and other office holders would each receive an additional payment equal to one-quarter of their annual salary !
The Provisionals are just as apt to fumble in the greasy till as other British and Free State career politicians are.....

On August 9TH, 1920 , the English parliament enacted 'The Restoration of Order in Ireland Act', which was a special extension of the 'Defence of the Realm Act 1914 ' :
The ' Restoration Act ' allowed for internment without trial ,secret military courts martial , the suppression of coroners'inquests and other immunities from the normal course of law .
In December that year(1920) ,with most of the country under martial law (ie all of the Free State and most of the Six Counties) and Kevin Barry not long in his grave (the British hanged him in November 1920) a new push was made by the British to defeat the IRA : the commander-in-chief of all British forces in Ireland, Sir Neville Macready , introduced internment without trial .

On December 5TH , 1920 , one-hundred internees were sent by sea from Dublin via Belfast to Ballykinlar internment camp in County Down .
During the following weeks additional internment camps , capable of holding thousands of prisoners , were set up at Kilworth , Bear Island and Spike Island in County Cork , Rath Camp and Newbridge Camp at the Curragh in County Kildare and Gormanstown Camp in County Meath . ( MORE LATER)>>

.....the Brits have already spent billions on their occupation of this country, but its still not enough .......
' The Office Holders Bill ', of which I wrote here about before , deserves another mention --if only to highlight the sheer brass-neck of those that wrote it up and agreed with it :
This self-serving , money-grabbing and immoral piece of legislation had its 'second stage ' provision passed in December 1999 by those whom it will benefit -- the members of the British-financed Stormont assembly . The third stage of the ' Office Holders ' bill was discussed at Stormont on January 12TH , 2000 ; it allows for so-called 'MLA's' that are not re-elected in future polls or who chose not to stand would be entitled to ...... (MORE LATER)>>>

By the Autumn of 1923 , after the civil war had ended and with the republican forces smashed , thousands of political prisoners were held in Free State jails and camps . Conditions were rough for the men and women in the grim buildings and compounds , in which 77 of their comrades had been executed since November 1922 ( between the execution of PH Pearse in Kilmainham , Dublin, on May 3rd 1916 and William Shaughnessy on May 2nd 1923 , one-hundred and fifteen other republicans were executed) .
Maud Gonne led a tireless campaign to publicise the conditions in which the prisoners found themselves and the prisoners realised that , with the approach of winter , their conditions would only worsen . The Free Staters were attempting to deprive them of political status and treat them as criminals - four-hundred and twenty four men began a hunger strike in Mountjoy Jail on October 14th , 1923 . Ten of their number were members of Dail Eireann . Within days , more republican prisoners throughout the Free State joined the fast . On November 20th, IRA Commandant Denis Barry, from Blackrock in County Cork , died in Newbridge Camp ,Kildare , and on November 22nd , Captain Andrew Sullivan , from Mallow in County Cork , died in Mountjoy .
Demands from ordinary people , at home and abroad , for the release of the prisoners flooded into the Free State administration and Cardinal Logue issued a pronouncement asking for the release of the internees (but not mentioning the sentenced prisoners) . By this stage , women prisoners had joined the fast (Kilmainham Jail) and IRA leaders decided that further sacrifice of life would not be justified ~ by November 23rd ,1923 , 176 men had been on hunger-strike for over thirty-four days and a number had gone over the 40 day period . The leaders of the protest , Tom Derrig and DL Robinson (both of whom were over forty days without food) visited the prisoners to call off the protest - they were escorted to all the jails and camps by the Free State authorities , and only ended their own hunger-strikes after their Volunteers themselves had done so .
Releases began soon afterwards , with the women being released from Kilmainham first : some of the men were let out , but hundreds were still incarcerated into late December .
It was not by any means the last time that a hunger-strike would be used as a weapon against anti-republicans......
A few years ago , the ' West Belfast Economic Forum' published a booklet entitled "The Costs of War and Dividends of Peace" , in which it was stated that , from 1969 up to August 1994 , the Brits had spent £18.205 billion to maintain their presence in Ireland , a figure which included British Army costs of £5.669 billion , compensation payments of £1.593 billion and prison/RUC costs of £10.943 billion ! However , the Brits will now have to ' factor in ' (<-- economic jargon:translates as 'allow for' ....) the three stages of ' The Office Holders Bill' ....... (MORE LATER)>>

When the IRA POW's that had attempted to escape from Long Kesh were found , they were brought back to the camp by British troops and thrashed with batons , stripped naked and thrown , injured and bleeding, into cells .
Most of the 33 men who escaped through the tunnel that November night in 1974 were recaptured almost immediately , but several of that group did evade the British soldiers for some hours : three of the escapees hid in a ditch half-filled with water , for almost two hours, then climbed the barbed-wire perimeter fence and , even though they knew they were way behind time, headed for their original pick-up point . When they realised there was no transport there for them , they started on their way to a safe house , but were arrested shortly afterwards .
Another group of three men practically buried themselves in hedges beside a small stream and stayed put for almost 24 hours ! They then set off , on foot, cold , hungry and dishevelled, for Twinbrook in Belfast , walking in fields parallel to the M1 motorway - they got within yards of their destination before being arrested ......
Also , it should be noted , that after the last of the POW's had entered the Cage Five tunnel at the start of the escape attempt , the IRA O/C of the camp instructed that Cage Five be vacated by the remaining prisoners as it was known by all concerned that the British troops would take revenge on anyone found in the Cage where the tunnel was located . All the remaining POW's re-located to Cage Four but the Brits then fired CS gas into that cage , which contained approximately 450 men . British soldiers and prison guards , all in riot gear, sealed the cage and, after a negotiated stand-off between both sides, the POW's returned to Cage Five .
The escape attempt may have failed , but the fact that it had taken place at all and the vicious British re-action to it , plus the death of Coalisland POW Hugh Cooney , made international headlines and exposed the conditions in which the British held Irish prisoners .

George Bush is wrong to do what he's doing now , and Jimmy Carter was wrong to do what he done ~ While he was President of the United States , Jimmy Carter connived in the introduction of death squads to El Salvador , conspired to try and keep Nicaragua's Somoza in power and , when he failed to do so, he smuggled Officers of Somoza's army out of the country in planes disguised with 'Red Cross' markings.....
..... different degrees of interference , no doubt, but both wrong .

The ' International Brigade ' comprised 45,000 volunteers from 54 countries ; one-hundred and forty-five were from Ireland , of whom 61 were killed . Those who returned faced condemnation from the Catholic Church , which supported the fascist rebellion led by General Franco , aided by Hitler and Mussolini . After the fascists took power , they murdered 196,000 Spaniards between 1939 and 1952 ~
Why is the Catholic Church so quiet here in relation to the Iraq situation ?
Are they afraid they've backed the' wrong side ' again , in their acquiescence ?

In 1974 , a mass break-out from Long Kesh prison camp had been organised , but had to be postponed after a large part of the camp was set on fire by the POW's on the night of October 16th that year......
After the trouble in the camp, and with the tunnel not having been discovered by the British , it was agreed that the escape plan should stand - early November (1974) was chosen as the time to put the plan into action. On November 6th , 1974, in Cage Five of Long Kesh prison camp, the plan was outlined ~ the tunnel led from that Cage to the fields on the camp's farm , close to the perimeter fence ; on leaving the tunnel , the escapees would have to crawl through rolls of barbed-wire and then climb over the Camp's outer wire fence . IRA units had been notified to collect the escapees at an arranged rendezvous point and drive them to safe houses where the POW's were expected .
Thirty-three men went into the Cage Five tunnel but, when the first few emerged from same in the field , they were spotted by a patrol of British soldiers in a jeep ; each escapee knew that the element of surprise was gone and their chances now of success were slim , but all those who could exit the tunel made a run for it just the same . The British soldiers immediately raised the alarm as the POW's scattered , running through a ditch and crawling through coils of barbed-wire ; the British troops in the jeep opened fire without warning , and IRA Volunteer Hugh Cooney was badly wounded .
By this time , some of the British soldiers from the jeep had made it to the mouth of the tunnel and threatened to shoot the men still emerging from same unless they lay down .
Requests for a doctor or a priest to attend the dying Hugh Cooney , who was in a ditch, were refused and, indeed, the recaptured POW's later spoke of how the British soldiers standing over Cooney had urinated over the dying man . British Army re-inforcements, with dogs, were by this time searching the area and those escapees that were found had the dogs set on them . When they were returned to the camp , the POW's were thrashed with batons , .......... (MORE LATER)>>

In the late 1960's/ early 1970's , the ' security ' of the Six Counties was left in the hands of the British Army Command in Belfast , under General Freeland ( ! ) , a veteran colonial soldier renowned for his command of the MAU MAU campaign in Kenya ~ in other words , the Brits felt it was time to get even tougher with the natives ......
In 1979 , British Army Captain Mike Biggs told listeners on BRM Radio - "Northern Ireland(sic) is a problem , a problem that we started ..... " ~ and it's not finished yet , Mike...
In 1993 , the Free State administration spent 410 million punts on on their Army , which included 135 million punts on so-called ' border security ' ~ the Brits impose it on us , and the Free Staters help pay for it ! " Take it down from the mast ........ "

One of the earliest escapes from Long Kesh prison took place in September 1973 , two years after it first opened . IRA Volunteer John Francis Green walked out of the camp dressed as a Catholic priest !
Following the introduction of internment in August 1971 , the internees were initially held in Magilligan Prison in County Derry and on the Maidstone prison ship , moored in Belfast Lough . In September that year (1971) the majority of those held were moved to Long Kesh , a disused Second World War British Army airfield near Lisburn , County Antrim . Here they were housed in nissen huts in 21 cages surrounded by a huge barbed-wire perimeter fence .
Eventually , sentenced prisoners were transferred to Long Kesh and the cages were divided between republican and loyalist internees and sentenced prisoners . On the night of October 16th , 1974 , in protest over conditions , the sentenced prisoners and internees burnt a large part of the camp , destroying sentry towers and most of the huts . After CS gas was dropped on the detainees from a helicopter , a large force of British troops entered the camp and , in the riot which followed, the POW'S were severely assaulted . They were then returned to the various cages , moving into make-shift accommodation . The burning of Long Kesh camp on that October night in 1974 meant that a plan to escape , which was by then finalised, had to be postponed - a mass break-out had been organised via a tunnel out of Cage Five , and dozens of IRA men from that cage were ready to go .........
(MORE LATER)>>

' Number-crunchers ' reading this may find the following information interesting and , hopefully, bring up the subject at their next social gathering(which could very well be their last such outing....) ~
In September 1971(after internment) a MORI Opinion Poll in Britain found that 59 per cent of those polled wanted their troops out of the Six Counties ;
In December 1975 , a GALLUP Poll found that 64 per cent wanted their troops out /
February 1977 , GALLUP 53% / May 1978 , GALLUP 53% / September 1978 GALLUP 55% /
November 1980 'WEEKEND WORLD' Poll 50% / April 1981 MARPLAN 58% /May '81 MORI 59%
August 1981 GALLUP 54% / May 1984 MORI 53% / January 1987 MORI 61% / Nov '87 MARPLAN 40%
March 1988 MORI 50%/ December 1989 HARRIS 51%/ December 1990 BRITISH SOCIAL ATTITUDES -
59% / October 1991 MORI 61% / March 1992 MORI 54% .
....and the British claim to be in the Six Counties because a majority of people want them there !

~ all six men( the three IRA 'Gardai' and their 'prisoners' ) were admitted into Mountjoy Jail ;
Once inside , the warders were over-powered and one of their master-keys was taken . The three'Gardai' and 'prisoners' made their way un-challenged through the series of gates and passageways and freed 19 IRA prisoners . The twenty-five men , escorted by three of their number dressed in Gardai uniform, again bluffed their way past the confused jail staff and made it safely to the street ( included in those that walked to freedom that night were Jim Killeen , Michael Carolan and David Fitzgerald) .
A number of cars had been arranged to take the escapees away , but only one car turned up (driven by taxi driver Tom Finlay) and had parked on the North Circular Road , outside the prison. This car loaded-up with as many men as it could fit in and sped off ; the rest of the IRA men escaped on foot . Within less than an hour the area around the prison was sealed off by Free State military and police but it was too late - the twenty-five men were already in safe houses .
This event took place on November 25th , 1925 , and proved highly embarrassing to the Cosgrave Free State administration : it was not the only time they were to be embarrassed .........

.........the cost of loading their tenants on a ship to Canada was £4 per person , compared with a cost of £7 per person per year for tenants sent to the workhouse , a sum the ' landlord' would have been liable for ; hundreds died making the passage to Canada ....
The local Catholic Bishop claimed that another 3,060 people were evicted , and that most of those died on the roadside, trying to live on the bogland or in the workhouses . On November 2nd , 1847 , Major Mahon was shot dead because he had overseen the eviction of a whole town . The Mahon family offered to let the tenants come back if informants came forward , and two men were later hanged in Roscommon Square on the strength of fake confessions which the Mahon family had printed up . An estimated one million people died and 1.3 million people emigrated during the years of The Great Hunger .
The above is just one incident among many that the Irish people were put through during those years ...

Through contacts inside Mountjoy Jail , Sean Russell, before he was arrested , had located a twenty-minute ' gap ' when internal secirity was slack , and had built the escape-plan to suit same ~
It was proposed by the escape committee that six IRA Volunteers , three disguised as Free State Gardai and the others as prisoners , would bluff their way into the prison , hold up the warders and the sentries and release their comrades . Three Garda uniforms had already been procured and false paper-work had been forged , 'stamped' and signed - transport had also been arranged . On the evening of November 25th , 1925 , George Gilmore and five IRA comrades met in a house in Drumcondra , Dublin , and held a final rehearsal of their roles ; three of them changed into Garda uniforms and , as well as the forged committal orders , armed themselves with revolvers . All six then drove to Mountjoy Jail .
At the prison gates , ' Sergeant Ryan ' ( George Gilmore) and 'Gardai Shelly' and 'Malone' informed the prison staff that their three 'prisoners' would be serving a three-month prison sentence for poaching in Wicklow ~ all six were admitted to the jail ...... (MORE LATER)>>

One of the most harrowing tales still remembered in this country from the times of ' An Gorta Mor' ('The Great Hunger') is that of British Major Denis Mahon , the 'landlord' of Strokestown Park in County Roscommon ~
Major Mahon inherited the estate after his cousin , Lord Hartland , was declared to be insane . At the time , the estate consisted of 9,000 acres on which thirteen-thousand people lived , but later , in 1847, it expanded to 27,500 acres when the Major's daughter married a Roscommon landowner . The Major employed another cousin , John Ross Mahon , as the land agent for the estate , and he drew up a memorandum saying that due to the potato blight, the growing of potatoes should be replaced by oats . But , since oats required 12 acres and potatoes only one acre per family for subsistence , he estimated that two-thirds of the tenants had to be evicted or ' made ' to emigrate . The Mahon family hired charter ships to assist the emigration to Canada of about 1,000 of their tenants - this cost £4 per person , instead of supporting those evicted in the workhouse , which would have cost over £7 a year , a sum the 'landlord' would have been liable to pay - hundreds died making the passage ....... (MORE LATER)>>

On November 25th , 1925 , an event took place in Dublin which was highly embarrassing to the Free State ( Cosgrave) administration , and a spectaculat propaganda coup for the IRA ; six IRA Volunteers disguised as Gardai (police) and prisoners managed to free 19 of their comrades from Mountjoy Jail ~

After the Civil War ended in May 1923 , republican prisoners were led to believe that their release was imminent - however , they soon realised that that was not the case , and a mass hunger-strike by republican prisoners and internees in camps and jails throughout the island began . In December that year (1923) , the internees and the women political prisoners were released and , by the end of 1924 , all of the sentenced IRA prisoners had been set free .
The IRA began to re-group in 1925 , and the Free State regime once more began to imprison large numbers of republicans . David Fitzgerald and Jim Killeen , two IRA Officers , were arrested and put in Mountjoy Jail ; the O/C of the Dublin Brigade , Mick Price, and the IRA's Director of Intelligence , Michael Carolan, along with Sean Russell , set about organising a jail-break from Mountjoy but , before the plan could be finalised , both Carolan and Russell were arrested .
Mick Price and George Gilmore took over the operation ; they were aware that Mountjoy Jail was now more or less being run as a ' civilian' jail , but also knew that there was a light contingent of armed Free State military present . Through contacts inside the jail , Russell, before he was arrested, had located a twenty-minute 'gap' when internal security was slack , and had built the escape-plan to suit same ........ (MORE LATER)>>

Khalid succeeded Faisal to the throne as ruler of Saudi Arabia , and ruled from 1975 to 1982 . King Fahd once lost £8 million in one evening's 'play' in Monte Carlo , in 1962 . He has seven huge palaces in Saudi Arabia worth at least $11 billion , and also has a 100-room palace in Marbella , another fitted out for 18th century French kings outside Paris , a third with 1,500 telephone lines in Geneva and a huge house near London which cost £30 million to refurbish ! He has a flying palace , a Boeing 747 fitted with a sauna , a lift , chandeliers , gold bathroom fixtures and gold tooth-brushs .....
When he travels , his Boeing 747 is followed by another for his entourage , and three 707's to carry the 'Royal' party's luggage . No fewer that fifty members of the ruling family are billionaires . Political parties are illegal in Saudi Arabia , as is the right to peaceful assembly .
So - Bush , Blair and our own lap-dog Ahern ~ if corrupt regimes are in your sights ............

In 1941 , a ' witness ' was beaten by Free State detectives into agreeing to give incriminating statements against two Irish Republicans who were being charged with the execution of an informer ( George Plant was one of the men) but , on the day of the ' trial ' , in the Special Court , the 'witness' refused to co-operate with the system and the 'trial' collapsed . George Plant was , as expected, immediately re-arrested and Gerry Boland(the Fianna Fail Justice Minister) transferred the case from the Special Court to the Special Military Court , where the only sentence was death and the verdict could not be appealed .
De Valera , like the good vindictive Free Stater he was , wanted to ensure the demise of his former comrades and , in an unprecedented manipulation of the legal system , issued an ' Emergency Powers Order' in December 1941 , which was retrospective and provided for the acceptance of ' witness ' statements in evidence even if they had been withdrawn and even though the people who had originally made them were not present in court !
At his second ' trial ' , George Plant was found guilty , sentenced to death and executed in March 1942 . Today , courtesy of the 1998 Stormont Treaty (' Good Friday Agreement ') , those convicted of 'offences' similar in nature to those of George Plant and his comrades , are denied political status and labelled as ' dangerous criminals' by Free State administrations . Those that signed-up , supported and campaigned for that Treaty in 1998 knew that those still fighting against the British presence would be thus labelled but , like Dev , were prepared to turn on their former comrades ......

.......one of Ibn Saud's sons , the Crown Prince, built a palace for $10 million , knocked it down when it was finished because he did'nt like it , and built a second one on the same site for $30 million ! Another son drove a Cadillac until it ran out of petrol , gave it away and bought another one which had a full tank ......
Ibn Saud's eldest son and heir , Saud , ruled from 1953 for eleven years , and squandered ten's of millions of dollars on trivialities such as the use of 25,000 light bulbs in the garden of his palace . In the early 1960's , Saud's palace was using 4,000 eggs , 200 chickens and 30 lambs daily . In 1964 , Saud was replaced by his younger brother , Faisal , who ruled for eleven years until he was assassinated by an irate nephew for non-political reasons , in 1975 . Khalid succeeded Faisal to the throne , and ruled from 1975 to 1982 .......... (MORE LATER) >>

....the ' Emergency Powers Act' of September 1939 gave the new Free State justice Minister Gerry Boland powers to intern suspected members of the IRA and suspected republican sympathisers .
However , the 53 internees held in Arbour Hill Prison in Dublin had to be released in December 1939 when ' Part Six ' of the June 1939 'Offences Against the State Act' was found to be unconstitutional in the Free State High Court and , in an attempt to remedy that situation and to close -off what the Free Staters considered to be a 'loop-hole' in the legislation, the Fianna Fail administration used the excuse of the Magazine Fort raid , which took place just before Christmas 1939 , and the fatal shooting of a garda in Cork at the beginning of January 1940 , to justify the introduction of even more draconian legislation ~ in early January 1940 , the Free State administration rushed through the 'Emergency Powers (Amendment) Act 1940' giving them the power to intern without trial . Because of the "state of emergency" which existed , the new legislation could not be challenged in the courts !
Hundreds of republicans were arrested and interned in a new internment camp , ' Tin Town' , at the Curragh in County Kildare . Three detectives were shot in Dublin in August 1940 , two fatally, and the 'Emergency Powers (Amendment) Act' was altered with the right to appeal against the findings of the military tribunals removed . Within a month , Paddy McGrath and Tom Harte , who had been arrested in the raid in which the two detectives were killed , had been convicted and executed in Mountjoy Jail . Between the years 1940 and 1944 , a further four prisoners were to meet the same fate .......... (MORE LATER)>>

Saddam Hussein lives a life of luxury and , should he survive his present troubles , will no doubt continue to do so ; meanwhile , his people scratch an existence on rubbish-tips and hand-outs from Hussein's local gangsters ~it is a life-style which he probably picked-up from his near neighbours :
In Saudi Arabia , in 1946 , a mere $150,000 was spent on building schools , while $2Million was spent on the 'Royal' garage ! Ibn Saud , the first King and founder of today's Saudi Arabia , once turned down a request from his son Tallal to build a hospital , telling him to " do something useful instead" ....
In 1950 , the funds for development projects (roads , bridges etc) were held up so that the family could spend the money on a lavish simultaneous wedding for six of Ibn Saud's sons. Ibn Saud personally owned hundreds of slaves and has hundreds of wives who , between them , have given him 42 sons and , it is said , 125 daughters ! On a state visit to Egypt , he said ~ " This country is full of pretty women . I would like to buy some of them and take them back home . How about $100,000 worth of them ?" ....... (MORE LATER)..........

In March 1932 , with the help of the IRA , De Valera's Fianna Fail party was voted into power in the Free State - it was a decision which not all IRA activists were to live to regret .......

.......the ' Treason Act ' was introduced by De Valera's administration in May 1939 ~ this called for the death penalty for what the Free Staters described as " acts of treason " (which , of course, those same Free Staters would know nothing about ....) but was not their triumph card - within weeks , an even more draconian piece of legislation which was to be used almost exclusively against republicans during the following decades was in place ; the ' Offences Against the State Act ' ( still operational today) allowed for imprisonment and internment without trial (Part Two of same) and gave the Leinster House administration the power to set up Special Military Courts . Over fifty republicans were quickly interned .
In August that same year (1939) the military courts were established and were to remain in operation until the end of the European war in 1945 . The following month ( after the outbreak of war in Europe) the Free Staters declared a " State of Emergency" (which stayed in place for 37 years , only to be replaced by an updated version , in 1976!) and passed 'The Emergency Powers Act' , which supplemented the ' Treason Act' and ' The Offences Against the State Act' ~ the 'EPA' gave the new Free State Justice Minister , Gerry Boland, powers to intern suspected members of the IRA and suspected republican sympathisers ...... (MORE LATER)>>

Until November 8th , 1988 , in the Six Counties, a suspect had an absolute right to remain silent while being questioned by the RUC, and at his/her 'trial' . On that date , an ' Order in Council' approved by the British House of Commons removed that right - in December 1993 , that same ' Order in Council' was extended to include Britain .
The British , like all colonisers, used a captive country and its population to ' field test ' new legislation before introducing same on what they referred to as the ' mainland' ; today , the British and their fellow war-mongers are testing new weapons in Iraq ~ tomorrow............ ?

...... the convoy in which the English viceroy Lord French was travelling was alerted to the IRA presence and did not slow down , as the road was only partly blocked ......
..... with the convoy now travelling at high speed and the British military escort with the convoy expecting a gun-battle , they were prepared when the IRA opened fire . The Volunteers concentrated their fire on the second car and hurled grenades and mills bombs in its direction . Fire was returned and a fierce gun battle took place , in which IRA Volunteer Martin Savage , 21 years of age, was fatally wounded by the machine-gun and rifle fire from the British Army escort ~ he had taken up position behind the cart with Dan Breen and Tom Kehoe .
The British military kept driving towards the Phoenix Park , leaving two wounded DMP men on the road - the Volunteers ignored them and instead carried Savage's body into Kellys Pub and then vacated the area , as they knew British re-inforcements were on the way .
After an inquest , Martin Savage's body was handed over to his relatives and he was buried with full military honours in his native Ballisodare , County Sligo .
Lord French lived through that December morning , partly due to the fact that he had been travelling in the first car , and remained as viceroy until after the Truce in July 1921 . He was rarely seen in public , and spent most of his time in England .
However , he was never allowed to forget the episode , as his sister was the prominent Irish Republican and feminist , Charlotte Despard ......

When he was President of the United Stated , Henry Kissinger was associated with the brutal coups in Chile and the secret bombing of Cambodia . If one studied what he meant by ' realpolitik' it becomes clear that his analysis and formulation of foreign policy ruthlessly excluded ethnic or moral considerations . He stated - " Ronald Reagan knew next to no history , and the little he did know he tailored to support his firmly held preconceptions " . ... the kettle calling the pot black !
Kissinger stated that the details of foreign policy bored Reagan , and that analysis of substantive issues was " not his forte" ~ he describede Reagan as " unintellectual " ....
When future generations look back on George W.Bush Junior's term(s) in Office , they might just be kind enough to quote John Dewey's verse , and leave it at that -
" Open-mindedness is not the same as empty-mindedness . To hang out a sign saying ' come right in; there is no one at home ' is not the equivalent of hospitality ".

The English viceroy in Ireland , Lord French , was on a train due to arrive at Ashtown railway station at 11.40am on December 19th , 1919 ; an IRA unit was waiting for him ........
Three of the eleven IRA volunteers pretended to be farm labourers and entered Kellys ' Halfway House' Pub at the crossroads , from where they had a good view of the main road which led in the direction of the Phoenix Park . The rest of the unit , armed with revolvers , mills bombs and grenades , took cover in the ditches along the road leading to the railway station . The three men in the pub were to place a cart across the narrow road leading from the station to the park-road in order that Frenchs' convoy would slow down as it approached the obstruction ; when this happened , the Volunteers in hiding at the side of the road were to open fire on the second vehicle in the convoy , as the IRA Intelligence Department had learned that it was that second car which would be carrying French .
When they heard the train arriving , the three Volunteers left the pub to block the road with the cart and had almost done so when they were challenged by a DMP Officer (British policeman) - the DMP man was fired on by one of the IRA men but the damage had been done ~
the delay meant that the road to the Park was only partly blocked and the convoy , alerted by the gunfire , now knew not to slow down . (MORE LATER)>>

....... only one per cent of the land of Belarus remained unscarred by radioactvity , which will stay in the soil for a mimimum of one thousand years . In a further offshoot of the disaster , it later emerged that large quantities of heroin reaching the United States drugs market came from the Chernobyl region , the product of over-large mutated poppies which were highly radioactive . The radioactivity came from Strontium-90 , which enters the bone tissue through dairy products and causes tumours and leukaemia ; Plutonium , taken into the blood system ; Caesium-137 , which the body mistakes for potassium and concentrates in the muscles ; and Iodine-131 , which concentrates in the thyroid glands which control growth .
Chernobyl was not done on purpose :
how far is Bush prepared to go in his quest for cheaper oil and a friendly puppet administration in an oil-rich country ?
how far will Hussein go to protect his ill-gotten empire and life of luxury ?
and how much will the rest of us pay for either man's decision ?

ADDENDUM to yesterdays apology ~
My guestbook (bottom of page) has been 'taken over' by ' Cathy and band ' and/or ' Leslie and Dakota ' ; don't know how or why : I don't even like rock'n roll (more of a 'jitter-bug' man meself....) So leave the guestbook alone for now .
Thanks , man.......

[3/19/2003 6:40:29 PM | John Horan]
In 1919 , an IRA unit planned to assassinate the English viceroy in Ireland , Lord French :
This unit , led by Dan Breen and Sean Treacy , had established that French made his way from his residence in Dublin's Phoenix Park to attend 'official' functions in Dublin Castle in the city centre but was cautious enough to vary his route each trip - however , in early December 1919 , the IRA Intelligence Department received information on the English viceroy's proposed movement for a function to be held on the 19th of that month and the IRA unit set in train a plan to ambush him .
A few days before the 19th , it was reported in the media that French was in England on a week-long business trip , but the IRA were aware that he was actually at the family home at French Park in Roscommon ; they also knew that he was to return to Dublin by train to Ashtown Station on the 19th of December from where he would travel by road to the Viceregal Lodge in the Phoenix Park . On that date , the assassination plan was put into place ~ eleven Volunteers took up position near the railway station at Ashtown and waited for the train carrying French to arrive - it was due at 11.40am ........ (MORE LATER)>>

On April 26th , 1986 , 1,900 tonnes of highly radioactive uranium and graphite exploded : the people of Chernobyl and surrounding areas were exposed to radiation ninty times more intense than from the Hiroshima bombing . For those in the Republic of Belarus , immediately North of the border region where the reactor was located , the effects were , and remain, devastating ~
of the then 2.2 million population , over 70 per cent were contaminated by nuclear fallout . Only one per cent of the land of Belarus remained unscarred by radioactvity , which will stay in the soil for a minimum of one thousand years ........ (MORE LATER)>>

Apologies for the way this page has repeated itself in some posts in the last few days , but it appears to be out of my control ; within the last week I have had trouble in trying to even access the Blogger site itself , and major trouble in opening the ' Edit/Post and Publish' page of ' 1169....' ~ and now my posts are apparently being returned to me and sent out again and again and .....
It's probably just gremlins connected to the 'Google/Pyra Labs' issue , although I am aware that there are those 'out there' with a better knowledge of computers than me (I am an old dog trying to learn new tricks!) and better operating units than the petrol-driven system I have (thanks to my 14-years young son for that description......) .
However , I shall persist and , if the explanation for the trouble is not as simple as just gremlins somewhere in the new/changed Blogger network , then watch out , Big Brother -
you're gonna need to do more than you're doing now ........
(HOPEFULLY MORE LATER)>>

A number of attempts were made during the Tan War to assassinate the English viceroy in Ireland , Lord French : The English viceroy was a member of the French family from French Park in County Roscommon and , in 1874 , he began his career in the British Army . He was made a ' Viscount ' in 1915 for his services to the British Crown a year earlier as Commander of the British expeditionary force in France and , no doubt as a ' Thank You ' gesture to his employers , proposed that conscription be introduced in Ireland . At the height of the anti-conscription campaign in Ireland , French was promoted to Lord Lieutenant (May 1918) and immediately ordered the arrest of Irish Republicans ~ over 70 members of Sinn Fein and some IRA Volunteers were arrested within days and imprisoned in England . Not long after the Tan war began in January 1919 , Sir Neville Macready was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the British forces in Ireland , having being recommended and proposed for the position by his friend , Lord French , who, under the ' Defence of The Realm Act ' awarded himself extensive powers with which to 'subdue the natives' . That same year (1919) IRA leaders Dan Breen and Sean Treacy were in charge of a group of IRA Volunteers who had been specially chosen to form Michael Collins' "hit squad" , and the two men decided to assassinate senior English government officials in Ireland ; it was felt that the publicity ensuing from such an assassination would generate worldwide interest in the Irish struggle and would make other British 'statesmen' think twice before using Ireland as a stepping-stone for their own career .......... (MORE LATER)>> William Craig was the British 'Home Affairs' Minister in the Six Counties when he stated ~ " When you have a Catholic majority you have a lesser standard of democracy " !! The same man banned the 1968 civil rights march - his comments and actions were obviously noted and approved by his superiors , as he was nominated by the British Government , in 1977, to a legal committee of the Council of Europe where he was assigned the task of reporting on human-rights legislation ! The words 'fox' and 'hen-house' spring to mind ......

The Four Courts garrison surrendered on June 30th , 1922 , after two days bombardment by the British-armed Free State forces ; Dick Barrett and over 100 other republicans were arrested and imprisoned in Mountjoy jail in Dublin where , over the next few months, they planned future republican policy and actions .
Sean Hales , a Free State deputy ( Leinster House member) was assassinated in Dublin on December 7th , 1922 , and his companion Padraic O Maille , deputy speaker of the Free State parliament , was seriously injured . ~ the reaction of the administration was swift and ruthless:
it was agreed to execute four of the republican prisoners being held without charge or trial in Mountjoy jail. The following morning , December 8th , 1922, at dawn, Dick Barrett , Rory O'Connor , Liam Mellows and Joe McKelvey were summarily executed by firing squad in the yard of Mountjoy jail .
The Free State declared that the four men were executed - ".... as a reprisal for the assassination of Brigadier Sean Hales and as a solemn warning to those who are associated with them who are engaged in a conspiracy of assassination against the representatives of the Irish people " .
The four men were the first of the Free State administration's executions of it's former comrades ~
but the struggle continued .....

After signing the 1985 Hillsborough Treaty , Garret Fitzgerald (Fine Gael Taoiseach at the time) told Leinster House that it was "the first clear affirmation in any binding Anglo-Irish agreement since 1921 that Britain had no interest in the continuing division of this island " ~ however , to his embarrassment , in addressing the House of Commons one week later , the then British P M , Margaret Thatcher , stated ~" Far from representing any threat to the Union of Northern Ireland(sic) with the U K , the agreement reinforces the Union " .
Some of the Irish claimed it was a "Brits Out" treaty , while the Brits claimed it re-inforced their jurisdictional claim in this country ~ and the whole thing was run again 13 years later with a new name !

The Four Courts garrison surrendered on June 30th , 1922 , after two days bombardment by the British-armed Free State forces ; Dick Barrett and over 100 other republicans were arrested and imprisoned in Mountjoy jail in Dublin where , over the next few months, they planned future republican policy and actions .
Sean Hales , a Free State deputy ( Leinster House member) was assassinated in Dublin on December 7th , 1922 , and his companion Padraic O Maille , deputy speaker of the Free State parliament , was seriously injured . ~ the reaction of the administration was swift and ruthless:
it was agreed to execute four of the republican prisoners being held without charge or trial in Mountjoy jail. The following morning , December 8th , 1922, at dawn, Dick Barrett , Rory O'Connor , Liam Mellows and Joe McKelvey were summarily executed by firing squad in the yard of Mountjoy jail .
The Free State declared that the four men were executed - ".... as a reprisal for the assassination of Brigadier Sean Hales and as a solemn warning to those who are associated with them who are engaged in a conspiracy of assassination against the representatives of the Irish people " .
The four men were the first of the Free State administration's executions of it's former comrades ~
but the struggle continued .....

After signing the 1985 Hillsborough Treaty , Garret Fitzgerald (Fine Gael Taoiseach at the time) told Leinster House that it was "the first clear affirmation in any binding Anglo-Irish agreement since 1921 that Britain had no interest in the continuing division of this island " ~ however , to his embarrassment , in addressing the House of Commons one week later , the then British P M , Margaret Thatcher , stated ~" Far from representing any threat to the Union of Northern Ireland(sic) with the U K , the agreement reinforces the Union " .
Some of the Irish claimed it was a "Brits Out" treaty , while the Brits claimed it re-inforced their jurisdictional claim in this country ~ and the whole thing was run again 13 years later with a new name !

The Four Courts garrison surrendered on June 30th , 1922 , after two days bombardment by the British-armed Free State forces ; Dick Barrett and over 100 other republicans were arrested and imprisoned in Mountjoy jail in Dublin where , over the next few months, they planned future republican policy and actions .
Sean Hales , a Free State deputy ( Leinster House member) was assassinated in Dublin on December 7th , 1922 , and his companion Padraic O Maille , deputy speaker of the Free State parliament , was seriously injured . ~ the reaction of the administration was swift and ruthless:
it was agreed to execute four of the republican prisoners being held without charge or trial in Mountjoy jail. The following morning , December 8th , 1922, at dawn, Dick Barrett , Rory O'Connor , Liam Mellows and Joe McKelvey were summarily executed by firing squad in the yard of Mountjoy jail .
The Free State declared that the four men were executed - ".... as a reprisal for the assassination of Brigadier Sean Hales and as a solemn warning to those who are associated with them who are engaged in a conspiracy of assassination against the representatives of the Irish people " .
The four men were the first of the Free State administration's executions of it's former comrades ~
but the struggle continued .....

After signing the 1985 Hillsborough Treaty , Garret Fitzgerald (Fine Gael Taoiseach at the time) told Leinster House that it was "the first clear affirmation in any binding Anglo-Irish agreement since 1921 that Britain had no interest in the continuing division of this island " ~ however , to his embarrassment , in addressing the House of Commons one week later , the then British P M , Margaret Thatcher , stated ~" Far from representing any threat to the Union of Northern Ireland(sic) with the U K , the agreement reinforces the Union " .
Some of the Irish claimed it was a "Brits Out" treaty , while the Brits claimed it re-inforced their jurisdictional claim in this country ~ and the whole thing was run again 13 years later with a new name !

On December 8th, 1922 , Dick Barrett , Rory O'Connor , Liam Mellows and Joe McKelvey were executed by firing squad in the yard of Mountjoy jail in Dublin .

The executions took place at the height of the Civil War and aroused revulsion and anger at home and abroad. Dick Barrett was born at Hollyhill, Ballineen , County Cork during the 1890's , and was educated at the local national school and later qualified as a teacher . He was an IRA Brigade Staff Officer and occasionally acted as Brigade Commandant of the West Cork Brigade during the Tan War 1919 - 1921 .
He continued his teaching job despite being heavily involved in IRA operations , as this helped him to avoid British suspicion . Barrett also managed to organise fund-raising activities for comrades 'on-the-run' . In 1920 he was appointed Quartermaster of the West Cork Brigade ;
after the Crossbarry ambush ( in which a company of over 100 IRA Volunteers ambushed nine lorries of British troops and killed a large number of them ) Dick Barrett was arrested (March 1921) and imprisoned in Cork jail and later on Spike Island , off the Cork coast .
He rejected the Treaty of December 1921 and played a leading part in the establishment of the republican headquarters in the Four Courts in Dublin , in April 1922 ; on June 28th that year , the Four Courts were attacked by Free State forces armed , in part , by the British ....... (MORE LATER)..

In an attack on partition in March 1941 , a Cardinal McRory , in writing to a Colonel Donovan ( U S President Roosevelt's representative , I think) described the Irish situation as existing because of partition - " The whole miserable state of affairs rises from an un-natural division of a natural unit . Being artificial , partition can be upheld only by unjust measures , of which the incitement of religious bigotry and sectarian prejudice has a main place " .
It would be a pleasure to listen to a sermon like that any day in Church , but it won't happen ~ the Catholic Church in this country , while not as powerful as it once was , has fixed itself firmly to the coat-tails of the Establishment and abides by the same rules and regulations as the political ' elite' etc .
When the Establishment changes , so will the Church ......

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.... ?