1169 And Counting.....

Thursday, May 18, 2006

ANNUAL WOLFE TONE COMMEMORATION :
Sunday , June 11 , 2006 , Sallins , Co. Kildare .

A bus for this Commemoration , which is organised each year by the Republican Movement , will leave from outside the old McBirneys/Virgin Megastore site on Dublin's Aston Quay at 12.45PM on the day : the Commemoration itself starts at 2.30PM .

The same bus will leave Bodenstown at 5.30PM that afternoon on its return to Dublin city centre . The fare is ten Euro per person .

For information on the death of Wolfe Tone , scroll through this piece (article starts on March 9 on that page) which was published on this blog last year .
"To subvert the tyranny of our execrable government, to break the connection with England, the never-failing source of all our political evils and to assert the independence of my country- these were my objectives. To unite the whole people of Ireland, to abolish the memory of all past dissensions, and to substitute the common name of Irishman in place of the denominations of Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter - these were my means." -Theobald Wolfe Tone .

MacGIOLLA's GUERRILLAS .......
Fifteen years ago , the leadership of the 'Official Republican Movement' (now 'The Workers' Party') stated that their armed wing , the 'Official IRA' , went out of existence .
Today , the 'Official IRA' is alive and well and living mainly in Belfast and Newry . In the days when both organisations were operating in an overt way , the leadership of 'The Workers' Party' and the 'Official IRA' overlapped to a certain degree .
Tomas MacGiolla , the man who led the 'Official IRA' for the last twenty-five years has always maintained the position that the 'Official IRA' went out of existence in 1972 . But the 'Official IRA' still march on , not an army fighting the British , but as a fund-collecting agency .
DEREK DUNNE traces the roots of the 'Official IRA' and 'The Workers' Party' .
From 'IN DUBLIN' magazine , October 1987 .

During the mid-1970's , the Officials underwent a major change : there was first of all their famous conference and various papers were delivered and discussed . The Workers' Party 'Research Department' outlined that they were in favour of multi-natioal investment , rather than align the party with what they saw as being SDLP/Provo small-scale business , with the Unionists in control at the top .

By the mid-1970's , the SDLP had consolidated its middle class Catholic vote and the Provos had taken the military road : the Unionists were equally entrenched , and the Officials , in order to survive , had to carve out a new ideological niche for themselves . Since they had already renounced armed struggle as a means of attaining power their policies and direction had to be discernibly different from anything else on the political scene in order to attract support .

Hence the 'evolution' of tortured and changed positions on a range of issues from the EEC to the RUC to multi-national investment .......
(MORE LATER).

EOGHAN HARRIS : OUT OF THE SHADOWS .......
From 'MAGILL' magazine , November 1997 .
By Brenda Power .

Eoghan Harris stated - " If I broke the broadcasting restrictions then I never did it in an underhand way ; I was suspended for six months in 1974 for a programme on the treatment of internees (Conor Cruise O' Brien furiously denounced the programme at a Labour Party conference that year) and I was docked a huge amount of money , there was a point when I'd have lost my house only Gay Byrne and Bunny Carr sent me £50 . But I have seen my personnel file in RTE and there's a report in it by Michael Garvey where he says that I just was'nt capable of producing an unbalanced programme . "

That is not , however , how another senior RTE figure remembers the era : " Here was the sort of thing he'd do for the Workers Party - if a panel required , say , a Labour member and a Stickie , he'd pick the greatest gobdaw (ie 'half-wit') of a Labour specimen he could find , and put him up against the brightest Workers Party member . Or if there was a report on a issue that was dear to the Workers' Party heart , you'd have trade unionists or community spokesmen on discussing it , without any acknowledgement that they were members of the Workers Party . "

In a 'Today Tonight' programme aired on April 22 , 1982 , a Dr. John McManus admitted that there was considerable tax evasion within the medical profession during a debate on the iniquities of the PRSI system . Dr. McManus was not identified as a Workers Party Ard Comhairle (ie 'ruling body') member and a party candidate in that year's general election , nor the line he took acknowledged as the party line.......
(MORE LATER).

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

MacGIOLLA's GUERRILLAS .......
Fifteen years ago , the leadership of the 'Official Republican Movement' (now 'The Workers' Party') stated that their armed wing , the 'Official IRA' , went out of existence .
Today , the 'Official IRA' is alive and well and living mainly in Belfast and Newry . In the days when both organisations were operating in an overt way , the leadership of 'The Workers' Party' and the 'Official IRA' overlapped to a certain degree .
Tomas MacGiolla , the man who led the 'Official IRA' for the last twenty-five years has always maintained the position that the 'Official IRA' went out of existence in 1972 . But the 'Official IRA' still march on , not an army fighting the British , but as a fund-collecting agency .
DEREK DUNNE traces the roots of the 'Official IRA' and 'The Workers' Party' .
From 'IN DUBLIN' magazine , October 1987 .

The new addition to the 'Stages Theory' , as proposed by Sinn Fein The Workers Party , read that the Catholic and Protestant working class would have to be united before anything else could happen : what key personnel within Official Sinn Fein and the Official IRA said around this time about armed resistance is worthy of note .

For example , in 1970 , Cathal Goulding , then acknowledged Chief of Staff of the Official IRA , said : " I believe the job of pushing the British troops out of Ireland will eventually have to be done by ourselves ...... we do advocate physical force against the establishment ..... the people are only safe when they have an armed force to resist a dictatorship by the right .. " . A private statement by the Officials , issued in one of its internal documents in the mid-1970's , and entitled 'Differences' , makes interesting reading -

' It is said that we (Official Sinn Fein) have 'gone political' and that we have rejected or begun to reject any form of military action . Whenever necessary , and in keeping with our policy , units have engaged in military action . Our main force consists of a few small units , underarmed , ill equipped , and with God knows what degree of training and organisation . ' The above is typical of the approach of the Officials to politics : while seeking to promote the party as one which has renounced violence and the gun ( at this stage the Official IRA was supposed to be three years gone!) , in private , there was in existance a clandestine Army .......
(MORE LATER).

EOGHAN HARRIS : OUT OF THE SHADOWS .......
From 'MAGILL' magazine , November 1997 .
By Brenda Power .

Eoghan Harris stated - " But I had contempt for the Derry IRA and after they shot John Taylor and Ranger Best I resigned and I did'nt return until they called a truce . And , if I was involved back then , why not admit it now ? It would give me a whiff of sulphur and might even help me pull birds . "

Eoghan Harris concedes to a limited degree that he slanted programme content to reflect the Workers' Party agenda at times - " There was a very heated atmosphere in RTE at that time and , to us , the work we were doing was important and principled political work . There was a lot of debate going on , but basically it broke down into supporters of the Provos and supporters of the Conor Cruise O' Brien line . There is a retrospective air of manipulation because I was a Workers' Party supporter , but I only pulled strings as far as I could pull them verbally , and each case had to be won by debate .

And we were better and brighter than the rest , so we got the best jobs . And , if there was a last seat to be filled on a panel debate I'd put on John A. Murphy rather than Tim Pat Coogan , and if it was for a news insert and I wanted someone to interpret a baton charge for me then I would'nt pick someone who would sound a tribal tone ....... "
(MORE LATER).

THE 26 COUNTIES : A STATE BUT NOT A NATION .......
The history of the Free State has been one of progressively solidifying partition : cross-border collaboration is only one aspect of this .
From 'IRIS' magazine , November 1983.
No By-Line.

The ripples that British 'involvement' in six of our counties has caused is a sign that there is still a national spirit of some kind alive in the 26 counties ; yet the illogicality of overlooking Free State Army collaboration on the border with the British Army , whilst condemning it in remembrance ceremonies , emphasises that opportunities continue to exist for republicans in the 26 counties to raise that national spirit higher .

In the same way , the attempt to introduce extradition , whilst expressing reservations about the use of paid perjurers in the courts to where those extradited are being sent , is yet another contradiction which presents itself for action . The repressive effects of partition , in their brutal reality for the nationalist people of the North , remain , in spite of all efforts , a strong call to the people of the 26 counties - the popular concern felt by people in the Free State during the hunger-strikes was an expression of this .

But the effects of decades of solidifying partition in the South have also been strong on those same people . There may be no nation in the Free State , which can foster real patriotism , but the vast majority of the 26-county people have come to accept the mechanisms of that State - or economic unit - which does exist . They have come to see Sinn Fein only as an isolated group relevant in the 'external' context of the North : for the vast majority of people , politics is primarily concerned with elections and in the Free State those elections are to institutions which have come to be accepted and , however criticised , there is no mood for gambling on a revolutionary alternative .......
(MORE LATER).

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

MacGIOLLA's GUERRILLAS .......
Fifteen years ago , the leadership of the 'Official Republican Movement' (now 'The Workers' Party') stated that their armed wing , the 'Official IRA' , went out of existence .
Today , the 'Official IRA' is alive and well and living mainly in Belfast and Newry . In the days when both organisations were operating in an overt way , the leadership of 'The Workers' Party' and the 'Official IRA' overlapped to a certain degree .
Tomas MacGiolla , the man who led the 'Official IRA' for the last twenty-five years has always maintained the position that the 'Official IRA' went out of existence in 1972 . But the 'Official IRA' still march on , not an army fighting the British , but as a fund-collecting agency .
DEREK DUNNE traces the roots of the 'Official IRA' and 'The Workers' Party' .
From 'IN DUBLIN' magazine , October 1987 .

In 1974 , Belfast had held a Convention to find out if the Official organisation should contest elections : the vote went against the motion by sixty-six to sixty-four . The leadership demanded and got three recounts ! In the following two weeks , whole cumanns (ie branches) found themselves suspended from membership : another Convention was called and the original decision was reversed - the leadership had demanded the second Convention "...due to groundswell of opinion among the ranks.. " !

Half of Belfast went with the INLA : a feud followed which left five dead and more than forty injured . Sean Garland was among those who were shot . Liam McMillan stated at a Belfast OIRA Command meeting that he "...would smash the IRSP within a fortnight .. " : as truce talks were under way , Gerry Steenson , still a teenager , shot Liam McMillan dead . The feud ended a few days later following the intervention of an intermediary . But an OIRA order went out that Seamus Costello was to be shot in retaliation , and he was killed by Dublin Official IRA Commander Jim Flynn in 1977 : Flynn was killed by the INLA in 1982 .

Prior to the split , Sean Garland had proposed that there be one structure for the OIRA and Sinn Fein the Workers Party : it was generally held that Cathal Goulding was the mind behind the decision to wind down the military end of things ; SFWP had come to firmly believe that in order for their revised 'Stages Theory' to work , another 'Stage' would have to be inserted .......
(MORE LATER).

EOGHAN HARRIS : OUT OF THE SHADOWS .......
From 'MAGILL' magazine , November 1997 .
By Brenda Power .

Eamonn McCann said at the time - " It was well known that the Stickies killed Ranger Willie Best , and what I can't understand about Eoghan Harris is that he never took responsibility for the crimes committed by his associates during that period . He calls people 'Hush Puppy Provos' , and 'Sneaking Regarders' , and he applies these epithets to people who were never as close to paramilitaries as he knowingly was at that time . There was only one party which said that Stalin was right , which defended the invasion of Hungary and the Berlin Wall and offered abject obeisance to Kim II Sung , and that was the Official Republican Movement . In the light of those mistakes , you might expect Eoghan Harris to be a little more humble in pointing out other people's . "

Eoghan Harris is incensed to be asked about those contradictions : " If you write anything that links me to Official Sinn Fein I will sue . Seamus Costello once tried to recruit me and Cathal Goulding said - 'Put him writing pamphlets , he can't keep a secret' and he said to me ' Stay out of all that shit' . I'd be useless at clandestine activity , that's what's so crazy about trying to link me with these McAleese leaks , I never thought she was that much of a Shinner , I would'nt be able to keep my mouth shut about it . The fact was that there was a military wing attached to the Workers' Party and I was the political party's chief pamphleteer , which sometimes brought me into the same company , but if I can be smeared by association then so can Pat Rabbitte , so can everyone who was around at the time .

I'm an idealogue and a polemecist , it was fuck all to do with me , my job was to educate our membership to give up the gun , to convert them from republicanism to revisionism , to go to the old guard and say - ' Well , where did the guns get us ?' And I was very good at finding fighting formulas that did'nt require force - sit-ins and street demos , but no guns - I was a skilled propagandist at covering up our retreat from the gun . I felt the Provos were shading the balance of terror , and I could'nt go around lecturing the Official IRA to lay down their guns while the Provos were shooting politicians like Trevor McNulty ....... "
(MORE LATER).

Monday, May 15, 2006

(Great to be back . We enjoyed the break - but we enjoy the 'blog' more!)

MacGIOLLA's GUERRILLAS .......
Fifteen years ago , the leadership of the 'Official Republican Movement' (now 'The Workers' Party') stated that their armed wing , the 'Official IRA' , went out of existence .
Today , the 'Official IRA' is alive and well and living mainly in Belfast and Newry . In the days when both organisations were operating in an overt way , the leadership of 'The Workers' Party' and the 'Official IRA' overlapped to a certain degree .
Tomas MacGiolla , the man who led the 'Official IRA' for the last twenty-five years has always maintained the position that the 'Official IRA' went out of existence in 1972 . But the 'Official IRA' still march on , not an army fighting the British , but as a fund-collecting agency .
DEREK DUNNE traces the roots of the 'Official IRA' and 'The Workers' Party' .
From 'IN DUBLIN' magazine , October 1987 .

'The Greater West Belfast Community Association' was set up and the Official IRA and the UDA held structured talks under its umbrella as the Dublin leadership attempted to stamp out the military activity which was now beyond their control , and outside their ideology . 'Dissidents' were ousted ; rules and regulations were introduced which mitigated against their enemies within their own organisation .

One 'OIRA Standing Order' stated that all members of the Official IRA had to be members of their local Workers' Party Cumann (party branch) - suspension from one automatically meant expulsion from the other ! 'Dissidents' found themselves suspended for minor breaches of discipline . At the Official Sinn Fein Ard Fheis (annual party conference) in Liberty Hall, Dublin , in 1973 , Seamus Costello circulated a list of twelve people he believed could rescue the organisation from the direction it had taken .

Dessie O' Hagan also circulated an alternative to that list but it was Seamus Costello alone who was charged ; winesses who were to give evidence on Costello's behalf found themselves under suspension . Seamus Costello knew that the break was coming and had postponed carrying out certain fund-raising operations ; he also had people who remained inside the Official IRA and who were in key positions within the OIRA Intelligence Department , which was the internal group which supplied names to the leadership of people likely to defect in the event of a split . The Officials ended up staking-out some of their own people and arming some of the opposition .

In November 1974 , the Official IRA started to beat up potential defectors : Kevin Rafferty and Vincent Fagan were beaten in Belfast .......
(MORE LATER).

EOGHAN HARRIS : OUT OF THE SHADOWS .......
From 'MAGILL' magazine , November 1997 .
By Brenda Power .

An RTE producer at the time said of Eoghan Harris and his supporters in the station - " They (Sinn Fein the Workers Party) had some very powerful friends in RTE and they managed to get friends and relatives and party members into prominent positions , often without jobs having been advertised or any interviews having been held . And their agenda infiltrated every programme , even the books programme ! I remember one current affairs team doing a programme on the hunger strikes who were told to "take their line" from Mary McMahon of Sinn Fein the Workers Party and John McMichael , who was then the 'Supreme Commander' of the UDA and was said to have been personally responsible for the deaths of 600 Catholics .

So of course the programmes did not reflect the huge support there was for the hunger strikers amongst the Catholic community . " In 1982 , 'Magill' magazine reported that the first four 'Today Tonight' RTE television programmes to deal with the issue of the POW position were hostile to the H-Block cause , and that a huge internal row was prompted by the irritation of the programme's then editor , Joe Mulholland , over a subsequent programme which reflected widespread support for the hunger strikers . " And that was when Mary McAleese first fell foul of Eoghan Harris and his people , " the RTE producer continues - " McAleese saw reporters being sent up to Belfast to take their line on the hunger strikes from people she knew to be members of the Official IRA . She recognised them because they used to drink in her father's pub on the Lower Falls Road - she took terrible abuse from these people at programme conferences . I remember her being called a Provo to her face , when anyone with a shred of wit could have seen that she detested violence . It just shows how vitriolic those people were , and how long their memories are , that they're still out to get her now . "

Eoghan Harris's association with Sinn Fein the Workers Party endured throughout the period when its military wing , the Official IRA , was known to be involved in murder and racketeering .......
(MORE LATER).

THE 26 COUNTIES : A STATE BUT NOT A NATION .......
The history of the Free State has been one of progressively solidifying partition : cross-border collaboration is only one aspect of this .
From 'IRIS' magazine , November 1983.
No By-Line.

Economically , following the logic of this inability to create a truncated 'nation' , the solutions are not sought within the State itself in the development of resources , but are sought from outside in attempts to attract multinationals or to beg from Brussels . Politically , all of this trend can easily be seen in the most recent developments .

The so-called abortion referendum - which ignored the social problems surrounding abortion - was a reflex action of a long socially-repressed people , which in its underlining of the confessional State could not have caused any great dismay to the Free State upholders of partition , whatever their public position on the issue . The abortion issue , as the question of divorce now is , was deliberately put into a fallacious context of 'concession to the Northern Protestants' , rather than an examination of an actual social problem in the Free State , with the inevitable partitionist result .

In the 'New Ireland Forum', the absence of any unionists - even the Alliance Party - is not seen as a major drawback at all . The 'Forum' is in fact being hailed as a success by the Free State establishment parties on the basis of a procession of unionist academics , who graciously tell it that Irish unity is not on , and a handful of 'nationalists' who suggest a variety of federal , confederal and dual sovereignty solutions which would leave the North of Ireland 'safely' separated . Fianna Fail is happily pontificating in that area of a '6 and 26 solution' ....... * (* '1169....' Comment - as , indeed , are Provisional Sinn Fein , as was verified in March 1999 when one of its leaders , Francie Molloy , stated - " Republicans are prepared to work an Executive . We are really prepared to administer British rule in Ireland for the foreseeable future . The very principle of partition is accepted . " The 'principle of partition' will never be 'accepted' by true Irish Republicans.)
(MORE LATER).

Friday, May 12, 2006

Thursday, May 11, 2006

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

Monday, May 08, 2006

Friday, May 05, 2006

Hunger Strike Rally , GPO , Dublin , Saturday May 6th 2006 .
Remembering the Hunger-Strikers 25 years on.
A rally to commemorate the heroic struggle of the ten hunger-strikers : Bobby Sands, Francis Hughes, Ray McCreesh, Patsy O'Hara, Joe McDonnell, Martin Hurson, Kevin Lynch, Kieran Doherty, Thomas McElwee, Michael Devine - who gave their lives in 1981- will be held in Dublin on Saturday May 6 2006 . Assemble at the Garden of Remembrance at 2pm for march to GPO on O'Connell Street.
"They will not criminalise us, rob us of our true identity, steal our individualism, depoliticise us, churn us out as systemised, institutionalised, decent law-abiding robots. Never will they label our liberation struggle as criminal."
- Bobby Sands.
Twenty-two Irish political prisoners died on hunger-strike between 1917 and 1981 . The Dublin Rally is being held to commemorate all those Irishmen .

MacGIOLLA's GUERRILLAS .......
Fifteen years ago , the leadership of the 'Official Republican Movement' (now 'The Workers' Party') stated that their armed wing , the 'Official IRA' , went out of existence .
Today , the 'Official IRA' is alive and well and living mainly in Belfast and Newry . In the days when both organisations were operating in an overt way , the leadership of 'The Workers' Party' and the 'Official IRA' overlapped to a certain degree .
Tomas MacGiolla , the man who led the 'Official IRA' for the last twenty-five years has always maintained the position that the 'Official IRA' went out of existence in 1972 . But the 'Official IRA' still march on , not an army fighting the British , but as a fund-collecting agency .
DEREK DUNNE traces the roots of the 'Official IRA' and 'The Workers' Party' .
From 'IN DUBLIN' magazine , October 1987 .

Twenty-three out of twenty-four Belfast OIRA Units voted to overturn the ceasefire , but Liam McMillan refused to convey the decision to Dublin on the basis that it was not unanimous ! A loose , fast and liberal interpretation was put on the 'defence and retaliation' clause .

People like Gerry Steenson , who appeared on fourteen IRA Court Martials for breaking the ceasefire , gradually became a law unto themselves . Major criticism of the people in Dublin - MacGiolla , Goulding and Garland - began to emerge and Seamus Costello became the focus for this : he argued for a return to the armed struggle , and for placing the national question firmly on the agenda . He was ousted from the OIRA .

Official Sinn Fein was by now calling for a 'democratisation' of the North ('1169...' Comment - ie like 'this') and dis-agreed with the abolition of Stormont ('1169...' Comment - ie like these) . Dessie O'Hagan , Tomas MacGiolla , Sean Garland and Cathal Goulding were publicly arguing that the armed struggle was sectarian and that class unity had to be built in advance of a British withdrawal . Seamus Lynch , now a Workers Party councillor in Belfast , sided with the Dublin leadership , as did his brother , Martin .......
(MORE LATER).

EOGHAN HARRIS : OUT OF THE SHADOWS .......
From 'MAGILL' magazine , November 1997 .
By Brenda Power .

One senior RTE producer said of Eoghan Harris and his Workers Party colleagues : " They were very determined and personally ambitious people , which of course conflicted totally with the dominant ethos in RTE in those days , and so they found it very easy to take over the Workers Union of Ireland . Then Harris brought in John Caden , who was an account's clerk . The NUJ was too lazy and cynical to concern them at the time - the journalists always wanted just more money , but the WUI represented the producers .

Harris and those realised that if they controlled the producers then they could control programming and effectively control the television station , and that was what they set out to do . " To this end Eoghan Harris set up a secret branch of 'Sinn Fein the Workers Party', which was called the Ned Stapleton Cumann , within the Workers' Union of Ireland . Although he was never a member of Sinn Fein the Workers' Party himself , Harris recruited members in 'sensitive positions' who could not openly support the party - " We had people in the IDA , for example , who gave us information for our pamphlets : they could'nt be seen to be members and so people like that could vote through the Ned Stapleton Cumann , " said Eoghan Harris .

Though Mairin de Burca , who was an Ard Comhairle ('Ruling Body') member of Sinn Fein the Workers' Party at the time , says now that she doubts that the Ned Stapleton Cumann ever actually existed within RTE - " Just because Eoghan Harris says he helped set it up does'nt mean that's true , you know , " she said . But the group and its activities still remain a part of RTE lore : a producer who was in the station at the time but does not wish to be named stated - " Essentially , he ran a sort of a left-wing freemasonry within RTE at the time . The agenda was to promote the Workers' Party through the programmes , and they set about achieving this in a number of different ways ....... "
(MORE LATER).

THE 26 COUNTIES : A STATE BUT NOT A NATION .......
The history of the Free State has been one of progressively solidifying partition : cross-border collaboration is only one aspect of this .
From 'IRIS' magazine , November 1983.
No By-Line.

Today's 26-county state is very different from what it was 62 years ago - very much the stable unit that suits those who rule it and who profit from it : it does , however , lack an essential ingredient for totally solidifying that stability - the ability to portray itself as something more than an apparently independent state ; in short - to portray itself as a nation .

Because of the all-too-obvious contradictions of their true actions on nationalism , the establishment Free State parties have to restrict the national expressions of the people least these flow to their natural conclusions . In verbalising , Fianna Fail allows itself freer rein in this regard , but has successfully created an unwholesome cocktail of rhetoric which includes friendship with Britain and rejection of force even as a conclusion to a traditional rebel-rousing oration .

If this exists as a 'safety valve' to nationalist emotions , underneath the stifling of national characteristics is much more in evidence : thus , the distinctive culture - a keystone of any nation - including the Irish language , is deliberately neglected and allowed to wither . Instead an alien mish-mash of mid-Atlantic culture is imported . Equally , social values of a most conservative type , in keeping not with the historic spirit of the people , but rather with the objectives of the economic system , are used as shackles to development .......
(MORE LATER).

(NOTE : the crew here at '1169...' have not had a break since July 2005 - in order to catch-up with other matters , we will be taking a one-week break from this Friday , May 5th . We will make a 'holding' post during our week off in relation to the up-coming Bodenstown Commemoration . Go raibh maith agat ! John)

Thursday, May 04, 2006

MacGIOLLA's GUERRILLAS .......
Fifteen years ago , the leadership of the 'Official Republican Movement' (now 'The Workers' Party') stated that their armed wing , the 'Official IRA' , went out of existence .
Today , the 'Official IRA' is alive and well and living mainly in Belfast and Newry . In the days when both organisations were operating in an overt way , the leadership of 'The Workers' Party' and the 'Official IRA' overlapped to a certain degree .
Tomas MacGiolla , the man who led the 'Official IRA' for the last twenty-five years has always maintained the position that the 'Official IRA' went out of existence in 1972 . But the 'Official IRA' still march on , not an army fighting the British , but as a fund-collecting agency .
DEREK DUNNE traces the roots of the 'Official IRA' and 'The Workers' Party' .
From 'IN DUBLIN' magazine , October 1987 .

Liam McMillan was the Officer Commanding of the Official IRA in Belfast ; he was one of the 180 or so people who had emerged from internment in Crumlin Road Jail in 1962 to a shattered Republican Movement : he took over Belfast two years later , and built up the number of activists to 120 in a five-year period .

He was quite ruthless , as evidenced in an interview he gave in 1972 in which he responded to a question about whether or not the Official IRA should have wiped out the Provisional IRA at birth : " Well , this was discussed at one stage . But the attitude of the movement was that if we did have an all out go at the Provos that the British Army would only be standing on the sidelines rubbing their hands , and we would have been doing their job for them . "

Liam McMillan was trusted militarily and politically by the Dublin leadership ; the rank and file in Belfast resented the direction taken by Dublin . The Official IRA was structured in 'Units' , with up to forty people in each . They ran training camps in Donegal and Louth and their weapons were mainly old bolt-action rifles . In September 1972 , four months after the ceasefire was called , Patricia McKay was killed when a bomb she was carrying went off : the ceasefire had been called without any consultation with the membership . And the membership were'nt having it .......
(MORE LATER).

EOGHAN HARRIS : OUT OF THE SHADOWS .......
From 'MAGILL' magazine , November 1997 .
By Brenda Power .

That there is widespread fear and loathing for Eoghan Harris within RTE is not in doubt ; scarcely anyone can remain neutral at the mention of his name and , while some remember him as a fearless opponent of Provo sympathies in RTE in the heated years of the late 1970's and early 1980's many others consider that he and a handful of acolytes wielded unaccountable power within the station for the advancement of their own political ends in those times .

They dominated current affairs editorial lines and 'packed' panels and slanted coverage towards their own agenda , setting out to crush anyone who stood in their way . " Fearsome .....mesmerising ....intimidating ...bombastic .." are among the terms used by former colleagues to describe the means by which Eoghan Harris swayed and seduced all round him in those days .

As the major ideologue , pamphleteer and chief adviser to Official Sinn Fein leader Cathal Goulding in the early 1970's , after Harris joined RTE as a producer he first became active within the RTE branch of the Workers' Union of Ireland in the implementation of Sinn Fein The Workers Party strategies of infiltration .......
(MORE LATER).

THE 26 COUNTIES : A STATE BUT NOT A NATION .......
The history of the Free State has been one of progressively solidifying partition : cross-border collaboration is only one aspect of this .
From 'IRIS' magazine , November 1983.
No By-Line.

The national objective has been reduced by the two major Free State parties - Fianna Fail and Fine Gael - to a mere cypher , a mere 'difference in emphasis' between two essentially conservative parties , which successfully creates a smoke-screen behind which the vested interests of capitalist economics can be protected in a state which has - because of its history of militant social as well as national agitation - a potentially dynamic working class .

As part of the overall restriction of such dynamism , the creation of a closed confessional state - in direct negation of all the principles of republicanism - has played a very significant role in turning the 26-county state inwards on itself . The collapse of the Stormont government , and therefore , in effect , the collapse of the 6-county state , should have seen a dramatic acceleration towards a united Ireland - even though the British prop remained . It did not do so because of the determination of Dublin governments that it should not do so .

The establishment political parties and the economic interests they represent could not hope to sustain the comfortable position they had built for themselves in a new 32-county Ireland .......
(MORE LATER).

(NOTE : the crew here at '1169...' have not had a break since July 2005 - in order to catch-up with other matters , we will be taking a one-week break from this Friday , May 5th . We will make a 'holding' post during our week off in relation to the up-coming Bodenstown Commemoration . Go raibh maith agat ! John)

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

MacGIOLLA's GUERRILLAS .......
Fifteen years ago , the leadership of the 'Official Republican Movement' (now 'The Workers' Party') stated that their armed wing , the 'Official IRA' , went out of existence .
Today , the 'Official IRA' is alive and well and living mainly in Belfast and Newry . In the days when both organisations were operating in an overt way , the leadership of 'The Workers' Party' and the 'Official IRA' overlapped to a certain degree .
Tomas MacGiolla , the man who led the 'Official IRA' for the last twenty-five years has always maintained the position that the 'Official IRA' went out of existence in 1972 . But the 'Official IRA' still march on , not an army fighting the British , but as a fund-collecting agency .
DEREK DUNNE traces the roots of the 'Official IRA' and 'The Workers' Party' .
From 'IN DUBLIN' magazine , October 1987 .

The Derry Command of the Official IRA were placed under the watchful eye of the Officer Commanding of the OIRA in the North , Malachy McGurrin , for a period ; eventually , in 1974 , when Seamus Costello split with the Officials and started up the Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP) and the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) , most of Derry went with him .

Following that split , three Official IRA assassins took over a house in Rathlin Gardens in Derry , but later aborted their mission to assassinate three Derry INLA men : the three assassins defected shortly afterwards . Before the split with the Official IRA , the Derry Command OIRA had been preparing - they had carried out robberies to fund weaponry , but did not pass the money on to Dublin . If the split had not occured , they would have set up their own private army .

Derry was unique in that it was totally politicised , but not in the way Dublin liked : throughout the early 1970's , Sean Garland was always considered a 'hard man' by those in Derry . Mick Ryan was his 'sidekick' . Cathal Goulding was not taken seriously and Tomas MacGiolla was considered a bit of a 'father figure' . Belfast , meanwhile , was having its own problems , and Dublin's decision to scale down the war was not welcomed .......
(MORE LATER).

EOGHAN HARRIS : OUT OF THE SHADOWS .......
From 'MAGILL' magazine , November 1997 .
By Brenda Power .

In reply to a student's question in Trinity College , Derek Nally accepted Mary McAleese's explanations about the leaked State Department of Foreign Affairs memos and , the following Friday , he claimed on the 'Late Late Show' debate that he had been duped , deceived and manipulated by John Caden and his dark , cloaked , shadowy , sinister puppetmaster Eoghan Harris .

Sounding like a newly de-programmed 'Moonie' , Derek Nally portrayed himself as having been briefly possessed in an almost demonic fashion , forced to speak in a voice that was not his and helplessly spewing imprecations that came from not even God knew where ! The fact that his extraordinary claims elicited not a titter of scepticism in the studio , least of all from his fellow candidates , and the air of almost awestruck admiration at a brave and lucky escape that attended his tale , prompted several callers to RTE to wonder who , exactly , was this Eoghan Harris and why did he have such acknowledged power ?

Eoghan Harris himself is tetchily dismissive of such concerns - " What's all this dark , shadowy crap ? My enemies use these terms like darkness , mental instability , manic depression , to try to harm me and turn me into dark forces . But I'm a narky fucker who'll talk to anybody . I'm completely open about what I do . I always wore my politics on my sleeve and I was totally straightforward about what I was trying to do with Derek Nally , he just did'nt have the intelligence to see it . I am a very strong personality , a person of powerful polemical force , but I have enemies in RTE and they refuse to give myself and John Caden a right to reply to this defamation ......."
(MORE LATER).

THE 26 COUNTIES : A STATE BUT NOT A NATION .
The history of the Free State has been one of progressively solidifying partition : cross-border collaboration is only one aspect of this .
From 'IRIS' magazine , November 1983.
No By-Line.

The partition of this island is all too often thought of as just a single event which took place 62 years ago and has remained a static piece of unfinished business from that period . But that is not so .

The effects of British occupation - social , economic and cultural , as well as military - over several centuries , were part of the evolution of partition . And equally , since 1921 , those same factors have continued to solidfy partition , in an on-going process , on both sides of the artificial border .

The Stormont government was rather obvious in its efforts to buttress the 6-county state : pogroms , special powers , housing and job discrimination , and electoral gerrymandering . The Dublin government's contribution was a combination of a passive role of abandoning any thought of action to end partition - substituting meaningless verbal platitudes - and then the very active role of repressing those in the 26 counties who sought to take practical steps towards achieving the national objective .......
(MORE LATER).

(NOTE : the crew here at '1169...' have not had a break since July 2005 - in order to catch-up with other matters , we will be taking a one-week break from this Friday , May 5th . We will make a 'holding' post during our week off in relation to the up-coming Bodenstown Commemoration . Go raibh maith agat ! John)

Tuesday, May 02, 2006

MacGIOLLA's GUERRILLAS .......
Fifteen years ago , the leadership of the 'Official Republican Movement' (now 'The Workers' Party') stated that their armed wing , the 'Official IRA' , went out of existence .
Today , the 'Official IRA' is alive and well and living mainly in Belfast and Newry . In the days when both organisations were operating in an overt way , the leadership of 'The Workers' Party' and the 'Official IRA' overlapped to a certain degree .
Tomas MacGiolla , the man who led the 'Official IRA' for the last twenty-five years has always maintained the position that the 'Official IRA' went out of existence in 1972 . But the 'Official IRA' still march on , not an army fighting the British , but as a fund-collecting agency .
DEREK DUNNE traces the roots of the 'Official IRA' and 'The Workers' Party' .
From 'IN DUBLIN' magazine , October 1987 .

Cathal Goulding was quoted as saying in 1972 - when the Official IRA was supposed to have gone out of existance - " I am a physical force revolutionary . I'm not naive enough to think that we don't have to use guns . An armed proletariat is the only assurance that they can have the rule of the proletariat . "

In the nine months preceeding the ceasefire , the Derry Official IRA killed twenty-one British soldiers . At that time , Free Derry was in existance , and the Official IRA operated in conjunction with Saor Eire and the Provos . Dublin , from where all the supplies came , started to scale down the war before the ceasefire was called ; they sent up wrong ammunition in order to slow down activity . Dublin , even prior to the ceasefire , were clearly worried about the direction their Derry comrades were taking .

Derry had its own paper , 'The Starry Plough' , which was selling almost as many copies as the Official's publication , 'The United Irishman' : incidentally , Eamonn McCann contributed to both publications at this time , and for six months in 1972 , wrote all the editorials for 'The United Irishman' .......
(MORE LATER).

EOGHAN HARRIS : OUT OF THE SHADOWS .......
From 'MAGILL' magazine , November 1997 .
By Brenda Power .

'Their' prejudices are the residue of a collapsed ideology - they may have reservations about Mary McAleese's "...appalling record on the liberal agenda.. " but they won't dare raise it because their 'Crypto-Provo-Trot' sympathies run deeper than their 'liberal feminist conceits' .

If , as Eoghan Harris predicts with absolute conviction , the 'People With Bad Politics' (ie alleged 'Provo sympathisers') feel the wrath of the 48 per cent of voters who have imposed a "Secret Fatwa" on Sinn Fein's critical supporters on polling day , McAleese has lost and then " I deserve credit . I alerted my country to her character . And , if she wins , I still deserve credit because she will enter Aras an Uachtarain under a cloud , and she'll fill the place with Shinners singing 'The Men Behind The Wire' and she'll be astonished at the public revulsion to her over the next few months , and I choose the term 'tribal timebomb' very carefully because she'll blow up in Bertie's face sooner or later . And if she wins , not on a technicality but because so many people gave her their number one , then I am living in a country I no longer understand . "

Eoghan Harris has a flair for a memorable tag line and an impressive facility for certainty : so Derek Nally is a "...slimeball , a blustering bucolic windbag (who) bottled out .. " of pursuing the strategy that had been tailored and presented to him for free and which , Harris reckons , was technically foolproof but for the fact that it had failed to contemplate the shortcomings of "...a big thick Guard .. " ('1169...' Comment - Nally was an ex-Garda , while Harris is an ex-citizen of Planet Earth !)

According to Eoghan Harris , Nally was "...the best candidate to point up McAleese's bad politics .. " and he was "...going like a train .. " under the guidance of Harris and his friend John Caden right up to the Trinity College debate when "...McAleese eyeballed him like a bright young barrister cross-examining an elderly cop on a car crash and he just lost it ....... " ('1169....' Comment - Mickey Spillane has nothing on this guy . Except Spillane might have had closer ties to Planet Earth .)
(MORE LATER).

ORANGE JUDGE EXECUTED.......
From 'IRIS' magazine , March 1983 .
No 'By-Line' .

As Diplock Judge William Doyle got into his Mercedes saloon car after leaving St. Brigid's Catholic Church in Derryvolgie Avenue , two IRA Volunteers , armed with a .38 Special and a Magnum , and dressed in hats and black overcoats to blend into the middle-class environment , approached and fired several rapid shots , killing Doyle instantly . Seconds later , the Volunteers ran off to a waiting car driven by a third Volunteer , which the Active Service Unit abandoned a short distance away before transferring to a second vehicle and returning to base .

The IRA's ability to carry out intensive surveillance and intelligence on a county court judge , normally protected by round-the-clock RUC armed bodyguards , and to mount an elaborate attack on such a prestigious target , proved a major embarrassment to the Brits in the immediate aftermath of Doyle's death , especially since security procedures were supposed to have been tightened following an earlier unsuccessful attack on 'Lord' Chief Justice Lowry by the IRA in March 1982 .

It also drew unwelcome attention for the British to the collaborative role of some middle-class Catholics in the North , in propping up the British administration and so inevitably prolonging the war and the suffering of the nationalist people . It is a collaboration that the IRA will not gladly tolerate . ('1169....' Comment : that obviously depends on who is doing the collaborating.)
[END of 'ORANGE JUDGE EXECUTED']
(Tomorrow - 'The 26 Counties : A State But Not A Nation' - from 1983)

Monday, May 01, 2006

MacGIOLLA's GUERRILLAS .......
Fifteen years ago , the leadership of the 'Official Republican Movement' (now 'The Workers' Party') stated that their armed wing , the 'Official IRA' , went out of existence .
Today , the 'Official IRA' is alive and well and living mainly in Belfast and Newry . In the days when both organisations were operating in an overt way , the leadership of 'The Workers' Party' and the 'Official IRA' overlapped to a certain degree .
Tomas MacGiolla , the man who led the 'Official IRA' for the last twenty-five years has always maintained the position that the 'Official IRA' went out of existence in 1972 . But the 'Official IRA' still march on , not an army fighting the British , but as a fund-collecting agency .
DEREK DUNNE traces the roots of the 'Official IRA' and 'The Workers' Party' .
From 'IN DUBLIN' magazine , October 1987 .

Malachy McGurrin , Officer Commanding of the Official IRA in the North , was fully aware that British soldier Ranger Best had been 'arrested' by the OIRA : following the killing , he oversaw the press release which talked about the "...slobbering moderates.. " who condemned the action . It should be noted that Malachy McGurrin was one of the people that Tomas MacGiolla complimented on taking their organisation along a more peaceful line after 1962 .

Sean Garland ordered an inquiry into the shooting of Ranger Best and Dublin wished to take disciplinary action against those involved , including shooting the Derry Officer Commanding of the OIRA : the OIRA Army Executive discussed the matter , and the motion to shoot the OC was defeated by just one vote - that of Seamus Costello's , who stated that the day the Official IRA shot one of its own for killing a British soldier would be the day he would leave the organisation .

The Stalinist Dublin leadership of the OIRA used the Ranger Best killing to call a ceasefire , but allowed members to use weapons for defence and retaliation - this 'clause' was effectively a sop to the younger members in Belfast who would have joined the PIRA if there was no military activity within the Official IRA .......
(MORE LATER).

EOGHAN HARRIS : OUT OF THE SHADOWS .
From 'MAGILL' magazine , November 1997 .
By Brenda Power .

They love : French films , John Waters , the 'Questions & Answers' RTE television programme audience , Gerry Adams on the 'Late Late Show'. Hanging around the IFC in black clothes . Nuala O Faolain , DCU journalism , Trotskyism , Feminism (" Scratch a Trot or a feminist and find a Provo... ") and RTE Radio One .

They hate : Zionism , Dana , The Daily Telegraph , Camille Paglia , Unionism , Conor Cruise O' Brien ("...a touchstone for bad politics.. ") , Rupert Murdoch , American cinematic classicism and Aristotle . 'They' are 'People With Bad Politics' , and Eoghan Harris can spot them at a glance - one small 'tic' , one gesture or smart quip and then Eoghan Harris knows , he reveals in 'Alien-script' uppercase , it's ONE OF THEM !

They are typically Dublin middle class professional types who have a series of kneejerk cliched positions on a tight core of political opinion . They are 'Sneaking Regarders' , Hush Puppy Radicals and if they join an organisation it will be a "...mosquito group.." like the International Marxist Group.......
(MORE LATER).

ORANGE JUDGE EXECUTED.......
From 'IRIS' magazine , March 1983 .
No 'By-Line' .

Responding to Bishop Cathal Daly's criticism of Irish republicanism , the IRA said - " But we pose one of these questions again so that the nationalist people , who will find it outlandish that we are the gravest threat to them in 50 years , can see who is and who is not afraid of the truth .

We ask the bishop in plain and simple layperson's language to answer the question : is the British presence , generally speaking , morally good for the nationalist people in the North ? We will see if he is as quick to answer this as he is to condemn us . " The IRA , doubtlessly not to its surprise , is still waiting for Bishop Daly's reply .

Judge William Doyle , a conscious upholder of British law in the six counties , a Diplock judge who had played his full role in railroading republican and nationalists into jail on forced 'confessions' and perjured 'evidence' , died in a carefully planned and carried out attack in the middle-class Malone suburb of South Belfast on January 16th 1983 .......
(MORE LATER).