That old British chestnut surfaced here again recently regarding Roger Casement ; the British still insisting that the ' diaries ' they ' found ' belong to the man . While that issue continues to fill column-space in the newspapers , Casement's speech from the dock goes unmentioned --
" Ireland is being treated today among the nations of the world as if she were a convicted criminal . If it be treason to fight against such an unnatural fate as this , then I am proud to be a rebel and shall cling to my ' rebellion ' with the last drop of my blood . If there be no right of rebellion against the state of things that no savage tribe would endure without resistance , then I am sure that it is better for men to die without right than to live in such a state of right as this . Where all your rights have become only an accumulated wrong , where men must beg with bated breath for leave to subsist in their own land ; to think their own thoughts , to sing their own songs , to gather the fruits of their own labours and , even while they beg , to see things inexorably withdrawn from them - then surely it is a braver , a saner and truer thing to be a rebel , in act and in deed , against such circumstances as these , than to tamely accept as the natural lot of men " .
The British feared such an influential man as Casement when he was their prisoner and feared the legacy he left behind after his death ; to divide his supporters it was necessary to malign his name , which is what they are still attempting to do with the so-called ' diaries ' .
Thankfully , thanks to their own history , the British have no credibility when they stand on a world stage and ask to be believed .
At their Ard Fheis in March this year , Bertie Ahern told the assembled ' Soldiers of Destiny ' -- " We need a kinder , gentler republicanism . We in Fianna Fail will continue to encourage former revolutionary parties to complete their transformation to become strictly democratic ones " . ~ Thats an easy job , Bertie ; the leadership of that "former revolutionary party" is doing the job for you !

......but Carter had another visitor- Garret Fitzgerald , the then Fine Gael top statesman , got word that Carter had been speaking to Fr Sean McManus and requested a meeting with the now U S President .
The meeting went ahead on 14 March , 1977 , and the Fine Gael blueshirt persuaded Carter " not to speak about the Northern Ireland(sic) issue in human rights terms " . By now , of course , like all politicians , Jimmy Carter had got what he wanted and got where he wanted , with the assistance of people whom he had promised that he would not forget afterwards !
And , again like all politicians ~ ' eaten bread is soon forgotten ' . The issue here is not only Carters about-turn on the Irish issue , but rather on why any Irish man would try to persuade a powereful figure like Carter NOT to involve himself in the question of Britains involvement in Ireland .

And the race is on to try and get Stormont up and running again in time for the elections to that institution next May . When talks were held in May and June 1996 in order to put together the Stormont Treaty , one of the first issues to be discussed was that of wages and expenses for the participants ! It was agreed that those attending the talks at Castle Buildings , Stormont , would be paid a basic "loss of earnings" allowance of £100 Sterling each a day , plus subsistance and travel expenses at the standard British Civil Service rates ! Nice one , lads ....
In addition to the above , each of the then nine political parties involved were given a flat allowance of £300Sterling per day for each day they were involved in the talks , and each party was given a " research grant" of up to a maximum of £6000 per quarter year !
Another reason why the Provos and the rest of them were so anxious to get into Stormont - they could'nt afford not to ...

.....throughout Easter Week , the women engaged in the fight also helped to look after the wounded and voluntered to do the difficult and dangerous task of carrying the numerous vital dispatches between the various garrisons and outposts , in addition to gathering intelligence on British troop movements around the city .They also transported food supplies and ammunition through the many British army checkpoints .
On Saturday ,April 29 ,1916 , Nurse Elizabeth O Farrell , Julia Greenan and Winifred Carney(James Connolly's secretary) who had all moved to the new republican HQ in Moore Street following the evacuation of the GPO , carried Padraig Pearse's final order of surrender to British General Lowe at the corner of Moore Street and Parnell Street . Cumann na mBan were instructed to tour the republican garrisons with Pearse's order to surrender .
Seventy-seven women were arrested as a result of the Easter Rising , and many of those were released within days ; however , five women- Brigid Foley ,Maire Perolz , Nell Ryan , Winifred Carney and Helena Maloney were held for longer periods . Countess Markievicz , court-martialled and sentenced to death , had her sentence commuted to penal servitude for life and was released from Aylesbury Prison in June 1917 .
Countess Markievicz was born in London in 1868 . She founded Fianna Eireann in 1909 and , during the 1913 ' lock-out ' , she ran the Liberty Hall kitchen . She was baptised a Catholic in 1917 ~ she died on July 15 , 1927 . The cause that these women fought for is still with us , as is the history they left us ; it is not a history of appeasement ....

On Wednesday ,October 27 , 1976 , a few days before he was elected U S President , the Irish National Caucus arranged a meeting with Jimmy Carter in Pittsburgh . About fifty Irish-American leaders from around the U S attended . Fr Sean McManus made the opening statement in which he criticised US policy on the Six Counties and urged Carter to set a new policy if elected . Carter replied- " We see specific instances where human rights are subjugated and where quite often our nation , as was pointed out by Father McManus , stands mute and does'nt speak . It is a mistake for our countrys government to stand quiet on the struggle of the Irish for peace , for respect , for human rights and for unifying Ireland " .
Good words , well spoken ; but , Carter had another visitor ...... MORE LATER ...

During Easter Week 1916 , almost 100 women , members of Cumann na mBan and the Irish Citizen Army , played a full part in the fighting : Cumann na mBan , formed in April 1914 and the Irish Citizen Army , founded by James Connolly in November 1913 , were in training months before the Rising . Both groups received instruction in first aid , signalling and weapons preparation . Connollys daughters , Nora and Agnes , who were both members of Cumann na mBan , joined other members of that organisation in travelling around the country to ascertain the strengths and weaknesses in a particular area .
On Easter Monday 1916 , as the Volunteers and Citizen Army set out from Liberty Hall to occupy the various garrisons throughout Dublin , they were accompanied by several dozen women from the ICA and Cumann na mBan - these women were joined by dozens more once news of the rising spread . Altogether , 34 women , including Nurse Elizabeth O Farrell , Julia Grennan and Winifred Carney , were stationed at republican headquarters in the GPO . Women also stood side-by-side with the men at the Four Courts , Jacobs Factory and the South Dublin Union ; however , at Bolands Mills , which was under the command of Eamon de Valera , no women served ~ de Valera wpould not allow it !
The Irish Citizen Army put Michael Mallin in charge of the rebels stationed at St Stephens Green and he , in turn , placed Countess Markievicz as second-in-command - the Countess and Margaret Skinnider , who was badly injured during the fighting , acted as snipers from the roof of the College of Surgeons . In the City Hall area , where the commander Sean Connolly was killed during the Citizen Army attack on Dublin Castle on Easter Monday , Dr Kathleen Lynn , the most senior officer at the outpost , took over . MORE LATER......

In 1796 , the British established the Yeomanry , a de facto Orange militia ; within two years they were out of control , so much so that General Abercromby , who was called in to instil some discipline and restraint in late 1797 , resigned in disgust after issuing his famous order of February 1798 ~ " The army (are) in such a state of licentiousness that makes them formidable to everyone save the enemy " ! Would that they would only destroy each other today , too ....

Tim Pat Coogan , the newspapers mentioned previously , the Provos , Piet De Pauw etc -- all wrong in relation to the outcome of the vote on the Stormont Treaty ('Good Friday Agreement') ~~
..... which was put to the vote on Friday ,May 22 , 1998 , in this Free State and in the Six Counties --
In this state , the turnout was 56.3 % ; of those , 1,442,583 (94.4%) voted 'YES' and 85,748 (5.6%) voted 'NO' .
But 43.97% of those entitled to vote in the state did not do so !

In the Six Counties the turnout was 81% ; of those , 676,966 (71.12%) voted ' YES ' and 274,879 (28.88%) voted ' NO' .
But 19% of those entitled to vote in the Six Counties did not do so !
The claims that "the majority voted for it" and that it represents "the democratic wish of 95% of the population " etc etc is a deliberate falsehood put about by those that would attempt to convince the Irish people that the struggle to achieve a just and permanent settlement has been achieved . That finality can only begin when the British give a date for their withdrawal from this country - it has not been a war of over 800 years only to say to the British that which the Stormont Treaty leads them to believe _ ' Stay if you want , just treat us better ...' That was never the Republican demand , regardless of how well dressed and presentable those are that travel the globe calling , in effect , for the British to implement their policy in Ireland !
In his book ' History of the Irish Working Class ' , Peter Beresford Ellis wrote- " On October 25 , 1920 , Lord Mayor of Cork , Terence MacSwiney , poet , dramatist and scholar , died on the 74th day of a hunger-strike while in Brixton Prison , London . A young Vietnamese dishwasher in the Carlton Hotel in London broke down and cried when he heard the news - " A Nation which has such citizens will never surrender " . His name was Nguyen Ai Quoc who , in 1941 , adopted the name Ho Chi Minh and took the lessons of the Irish anti-imperialist fight to his own country " .
Terence MacSwiney , Bobby Sands - how many other examples are we going to need .........?

Bertie Ahern , ' Sunday Business Post' , 3/5/98 , page 16 - said it means that "Britain is out of the equation " ~
AP/RN , 10/9/98 , page 9 - said it was " the will of the electorate in both partitioned states " ~
' The Sunday Business Post ' , 13/2/00 , page 18 - said its institutions were set up " as a direct result of a vote of all the people of this island , the will of the entire people of Ireland " ~
' Ireland on Sunday' ,28/3/99 , page 14 - said it was " the wish of almost every last man and woman in this country " ~
AP/RN , 20/5/99 , page 9 - said it was " endorsed by a huge majority of this countrys people " ~
Tim Pat Coogan , in his 'IOS' column on 24/9/00 (page 32) said that " more than 90 per cent of the people of this island voted for " it ~
Niall O Dowd , in his 'IOS' column on 13/2/00 (page 31) said that it was " the democratic wish of 95 per cent of the population in the Irish Republic and 72 per cent in the North " ~
Piet De Pauw , the Belgium lawyer and human-rights expert , said , in December 2000 , that " the majority of the people on this island voted for " it ~
AP/RN , 11/3/99 , page 12 , said it " was endorsed by 85 per cent of the people of Ireland " ~
Tim Pat Coogan , again , this time in his 'IOS' column dated 7/5/00 , page 34 , said that its institutions " were voted for by an overwhelming majority on this island " ~~~~
What were they talking about ?
And why are they all wrong ?
More later .....
According to a report released by the United Nations Committee on Air Pollution in June , 1987 , Britain was then ( still is ?) the main acid rain polluter of the 32 Counties : they were also responsible for the pollution of every one of 16 sites where measurements were taken in East and West Europe , and contributed about 43 per cent of the sulphur pollution and 36 per cent of the nitrogen pollution affecting Ireland - they were also listed as the greatest single polluter of Norway and Sweden ! ( See ' The Sunday Tribune' , June 21 , 1987 , page 4) .
Damn Brits - if they don't get ya one way ........

Sir Charles Edward Trevelyan , the then permanent head of the British Treasury , was the man who held the British purse-strings and oversaw the economy while hundreds of thousands of Irish people died of starvation and disease in 1845 ,'46 and '47 . He is best remembered for saying the following during The Great Hunger ( ' Famine ' ) in this country ~ " The great evil with which we have to contend is not the physical evil of the famine(sic) , but the moral evil of the selfish , perverse and turbulent character of the Irish people " . Trevelyan was put in charge of 'relief effort' by his administration , but actually remained in England throughout that period - he received a knighthood for his work !
He once stated his belief that Cromwell had three objectives in Ireland ~ to pay off , in Irish land , the soldiers who had fought and the capitalists who had provided the money , for the conquest / to render the English hold upon Ireland secure against rebellion / to extripate Roman Catholicism . Cromwell done the damage on the military front , while people like Trevelyan ,who stayed in the background , backed up the ' Cromwells ' financially and morally . Its only right that they should be remembered , too .....
In 1847 , the Poor Law Committee stated that 2,385,000 people starved in Ireland every year , whether the potato crop failed or not . Trevelyan and his like simply hurried things along ....
On a somewhat similar note - On Sunday , July 12 , 1992 , a more up-to-date version of the above-named specimens died ~ Albert Pierrepoint , the last Englisg hangman ! He hanged IRA Volunteer Charlie Kerins , Chief of Staff , in December 1944 . Kerins will always be remembered and commemorated in Ireland , while Pierrepoint and those that appointed him will remain infamous . And that particular list is yet to be finally updated ....

The old Irish song ' The Old Bog Road ' was penned by Teresa Brayton , who was born in Kilbrook , Co. Kildare , in 1868 . The song itself is a ballad about being exiled from Ireland , while another of her songs was adopted by Na Fianna Eireann , the Republican scouting organisation , as its marching song . Teresa was known locally as an Irish patriot and a staunch Republican , and she became an assistant teacher at Newtown in Kildare . She emigrated to America in 1908 but returned home frequently , and was a friend to , amongst others , Constance Markievicz and Helena Moloney . After the 1916 Rising and throughout the Tan War she supported the Irish Republican cause in America by distributing pamphlets and fund-raising . She also wrote a song about ' The Manchester Martyrs ' ( Allen , Larkin and O Brien ) . Teresa Brayton died in America on August 24 , 1943 .

When he was British Foreign Secretary , Douglas Hurd , former Six-County Direct Ruler , stated -- " We need to make it clear that we don't accept the partition of Bosnia by force . The idea that simply because you or your friends have occupied swathes of terrority , the world simply packs up and accepts that , will be shown to be wrong " . ' Hear Hear ' , Douglas , and so say all of us !

In 1963 , the British pulled out of Kenya . The Mau Mau 'terrorists' that fought against the British presence were treated much like the Irish ' terrorists ' , and are now fighting the Brits again !
They are taking their former oppressors to court to seek compensation for human rights abuses during the 1950's and 1960's . More than half a million Mau Mau belonging to the Mau Mau Trust welfare group have hired British lawyer ( fight fire with fire ! ) Martin Day to fight their case . They claim that British soldiers regularly beat and tortured the Kenyans with rifle butts and glass bottles before putting them to work as slave labourers . It has been stated that some of the men were effectively castrated by the British soldiers , while female prisoners were raped repeatedly and with extreme violence . The brits , as can be expected , deny the claims and have said that the majority of 'official ' records(ie their own files) were destroyed in the war .
On the other hand , Mr Blair , we Irish have plenty of paperwork ......

Liam Mellows , the Irish Republican leader , predicted in the Treaty debate on January 4 , 1922 -- " Men will get into positions , men will hold power , and men who get into positions and hold power will desire to remain undisturbed and will not want to be removed " ;
Human Nature again - Mellows was warning us about those that fool themselves into thinking that they can cosy up to the British but still maintain their opposition to the British presence : the Brits , of course , are past masters of pulling people like that ' the extra mile ' ie into the establishment . They will try it now , again ,in Kenya , and are doing it now , in Ireland . But not to all of us ...

A group called ' Ailtiri na hAiseirghe' , Irish for ' Architects of the Resurrection' , entered the political scene in the Free State in the early 1940's , with the intention of creating a ' Gaelic , Christian ,Corporatist (fascist) state ' . They apparently supported the Portugese dictator Salazar , and condemned "the cumbersome indirect methods of our imposed, corrupt , unchristian , Godless and inefficient brand of parliamentary democracy " . They stated that there should be "room for only one national party " in the State , and that under its rule we would be " a model for the whole world ,and our superior civilisation would enable Ireland to control not only the Atlantic , but the Pacific ... " .
They also claimed that such a State " could dictate to dictators and in co-operation with Divine Providence it could settle the affairs of the universe for another two-thousand years ! In the 1943 election , four 'Resurrection' candidates amassed four thousand votes between them - in !944 , seven 'Res' candidates got six thousand votes , all but one of them losing their deposits . In the 1948 election they fielded one candidate and received only 323 votes . Perhaps Fine Gael should change its name and improve its fortunes ......
About ten years ago , a Mr Geoffrey Wheatcroft was a columnist with the (ever-so) British ' The Sunday Telegraph' (perhaps he still is - its not a newspaper I 'take' , as they say...) . In one of his columns , Geoffrey stated - " Fifty years ago , Serbs and Croats were massacring each other on a scale that makes the Ulster(sic) problem seem as trivial as it indeed is . Partition has been the greatest boon and benefit Ireland has enjoyed this century .It is the essential condition without which the southern state could not have survived as it has " . I say-steady on , Geoffrey , old man !
I have just removed 'The sunday Telegraph' from my Christmas card list ...

In May , 1956 , while speaking to the Aden Legislative Council , British Lord Lloyd stated~ " The importance of Aden both strategically and economically is such that we (British Government) cannot forsee the possibility of any fundamental relaxation of our responsibilities for the colony " -- In November 1967 , Britain withdrew !
Speaking about Cyprus in 1954 , Henry Hopkinson , a Colonial Office Minister of State , said~ " It has always been understood and agreed that there are certain territories in the Commonwealth which , owing to their particular circumstances , can never expect to be independent " -- In August 1960 , Cyprus became independent ...
In ???? , speaking at ////// British PM ~~~~~~~ stated that due to the proximity of the two isles/our stiff upper lip/ for the sake of our position on the world stage/ the British will continue to exercise a jurisdictional claim in Ireland-- however , in ..........

An extract from MIchael Davitts ' The Fall of Feudalism in Ireland' states -- The genius of misgovernment has never been more wilfully blind in its methods or more persistent in the folly of political unwisdom than in the ways and means of Englands rule in Ireland . Laws and force have come to us across the sea in their most provocative form and applicaton , while concessions were never wisely or tactfully made to a cry of justice , but always to the pressure of turmoil , illegality or insurrection . Every stage of the Anglo-Irish struggle attests this fact in its history " .
Those that left the Movement in 1986 and are now in the pay of the British -"attempting to change things from the inside" - would do well to remember that it was tried before ; the only position the British will allow them is that of a poacher turned gamekeeper . And our history is littered with those ....

By early 1931 it was obvious to the Free State administration that what they termed " the normal process of the law " could no longer deal with Republican activity in the State , and Free State President Cosgrave introduced the necessary paper-work to set up a Military Tribunal on October 14 , 1931 . Eamon de Valera , who had left the Movement in 1926 and formed the Fianna Fail party , stated - " They (the then IRA) are to be taken into these secret tribunals and maltreated and nobody is to hear a word about it and nobody is to be allowed to raise his voice in protest. That is the situation. But tradition is a hard thing to kill. They have been reared in that tradition . That is the Gospel that kept Irish Nationality alive through all the centuries of persecution . These are the men whom we want to crush now . These are the men who are represented as terrorists , these who never thought of themselves . They are simply the rats that are to be squelched . These are the people who are ready to give everything that they had for Ireland , and well we know it , and now they are being deserted by the majority of their people . They have been deserted by old comrades who can no longer see any hope of success on the line they are adopting , by people who were with them originally but who are so far away from them now that the road which they are following is leading diametrically in the opposite direction . They are brave men anyway : let us at least have for them the decent respect that we have for the brave " .
---- Words from a heavy heart , obviously , but words the man was to put into action .

More words from another anti-republican ; " The only solution for dealing with the (P)IRA is to kill 600 people in one night- let the United Nations and Bill Clinton and everyone else make a scene , and it is over for 20 years " .
--- Former British Defence Minister Alan Clark , October 12 , 1997 (see ' Ireland On Sunday' newspaper , 12/10/97 , page 15) ; that's the attitude that got the British into trouble in all the countries they colonised - indeed , it is the reason they set out on their conquest . And they still have'nt learned !

One of this State's elected representatives who sits in Leinster House and is paid 1438 Euro a week for doing so has what hundreds of thousands of ordinary working-class people have'nt got - a medical card , which he has used three times since his election last May . Politicians in that institution received a pay-rise in 2000 and , in January 2001 , they received another increase ( of 18.7per cent) , then an extra 4 per cent in October last plus another wage increase last week (announced after the budget) which has them at their present wage ; after ten years ' service ' they get 1670 Euro a week , based on present wage structures . On top of their salary , they also get 625 Euro a week in various expenses , not all of which has to be vouched for with receipts . Martin is apparently a quick learner~ Leinster House has no shortage of financially and morally corrupt members - now , since last May , Ferris ( the ' good ' apple) has gone into the barrell ( of bad apples ) to change them or , at the very least , to ' keep an eye on them ' but ... human nature kicked in and another wealthy politican decided he , too , wanted more !
Plus ca change , plus c'est la meme chose .

A Mr George Marshall was ' Regional Director of BBC Northern Ireland(sic) ' in 1937 and is best remembered by us for the following quote - " There is no such thing today as an Irishman. One is either a citizen of the Irish Free State or a citizen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland(sic) . Irishmen as such cease to exist after the partition " . George may be gone but no doubt his sentiments live on in the minds of his BBC colleagues .

The Informer Reynolds~
The meetings that Reynolds attended of the ' United Irish Supreme Executive' were detailed gatherings to plan the Rising - he supplied chapter and verse on these to his English paymasters . He also compiled and handed over information which led to the arrest of most of the membership of the Leinster Directory of the United Irishmen : the arrests took place at the home of Oliver Bond , in Bridge Street , Dublin , in March 1798 . The arrests were a severe blow to the organisation and irreparably damaged the prospects of a successful rising taking place the following May .
Reynolds , thinking that his ' job ' was done , refused to comply when ordered to testify at the ' trial ' of Oliver Bond and John McCann , the Provincial Secretary of the Leinster Directory , and so was placed under arrest himself ( in May 1798) ! However , being the weasel that he was , he struck a deal -- in exchange for personal immunity he agreed to appear in court to give evidence about certain figures and , for a lump sum of £5000 and a pension for life he agreed to tout on the people arrested at Bond's house .
Reynolds was no doubt proud that , thanks to him , three members of the Directory - McCann , Billy Byrne and Bond were found guilty in July 1798 . McCann and Byrne were executed while Bond died in jail the following September . The Informer left Ireland for his own safety and was employed abroad by the English authorities . He settled in Paris and died there on August 18 , 1836 . I can only hope he had many a sleepless night .
Lloyd George again ~
In his book 'Year 501; The Conquest Continues' , Noam Chomsky tells how former British PM Lloyd George noted approvingly that British diplomacy had prevented the 1932 Disarmament Convention from banning the bombardment of civilians . Lloyd George observed - " We insisted on reserving the right to bomb niggers " . God knows he sent enough people , including coloureds , to their deaths ...

The British police in the Six Counties (PSNI) have been in the news here recently in connection with their recruitment , as an informer , of a 13-years-young boy with special needs ; the youth was offered sums of money to report on the movements of a number of people in his area , and arrangements were put in place wherby the youth could pass this information on to his British handlers .
The use of informers by the British is as old as the struggle itself , and one such infamous tout springs to mind ~
Thomas Reynolds , the son of a wealthy merchant , was born in Dublin in March 1771 , and became a successful dealer in silks . He married into a family connected with the Tone clan , and he joined the United Irishmen in 1797 . Such was his popularity that he was elected leader of the Kildare Society of United Irishmen and was soon promoted to membership of the Leinster Provincial Directory . In 1798 , his financial situation took a turn for the worst , and his father died . He inherited considerable property from his father and , for a time , this stopped him from becoming bankrupt . One of his creditors , a man named Cope , persuaded him to sell information to the British authorities as a means of keeping himself going financially . Reynolds was desperate for cash and agreed - his position within the United Irishmen gave him access to valuable detail regarding the planned Rising for that year .
More on this informer later ....
Quickie on Llyod George - On Monday , December 22 , 1919 , his ' Bill for the Better Government of Ireland ' (known here simply as ' The Partition Bill') was read to the British Parliament and was passed into British law in 1920 , but did not come into force until May 1921 . And has caused nothing but trouble since ....

'Quickie' on Lloyd George -
The man's son once said " Father was sick of the Irish Republicans .He was quite willing to let them have what they seemed determined to have ; an impoverished semi-peasant country with their peat fires and undrained bogs and dreams of glory seen in a fine mist of alcohol " . The nerve of that man ~ and after all we done for him ....

Another decent Brit who promised to look after us was Henry 8th - he operated a policy known as 'Surrender and Regrant' , wherby 'Pardons' and English titles were offered to Irish ' terrorists ' if they surrendered to him and pledged to follow English laws ! ( So thats where Blair got it from ) .

Those Irish people that refused to ' cut deals' with the likes of Lloyd George etc were treated the old-fashioned way by the British ; after the executions of the leaders of the 1916 Rising (and leaving out the deaths on hunger-strike of Tomas Aghas in 1917 and Terence MacSwiney in 1920) the British Government executed 24 Irish Republicans in the five years of conflict from late 1916 to 1921 ; but the new Fianna Fail regime in the Free State executed some 77 Irish Republicans in the six months from November 1922 to April 1923 . "Poachers turned gamekeepers" ~ still with us to this day ; they have no ' bottom line ' , no principle , no new low they won't stoop to - they know the price of everything and the value of nothing . But they have always been with us ,and have always failed to carry out their paymasters instructions . As it should be .

More on OLIVER CROMWELL ~
He apparently had much to gain , personally , from the invasion of Ireland ; in 1642 , following the passing of the ' Adventurers Act ' by the English Parliament ( the aim of which was to defray the cost of subduing Ireland by inviting 'contributions' from the wealthy merchant class , in return for which they were guaranteed land in Ireland following the conquest ) in which Cromwell invested to the tune of £2,050 , which ensured that he was subsequently granted land in the ' Barony of Eglish ' ( Co Offaly) .
The historian James Leyburn stated - " What Cromwell did (in Ireland) deserves to be ranked with the horrors perpetrated by Genghis Khan . His 'pacification' of Ireland was so thorough that it left scars on that country which have never been forgotten or forgiven " .

" One perplexity after another.Crises chasing each other like the shadows of clouds across the landscape . Miners , unemployment , reparation , Silesia and , as always , Ireland " .
------ Lloyd George , June , 1921 .
Lloyd George became British PM ( in an administration comprising Liberals and Unionists ) in December 1916 . More on this man ,and a quote from his son ,later .....

A 'quickie' on Fine Gael-- A woman from Co Down contacted Fine Gael Head Office in Dublin earlier this year and enquired about membership . A M/S Sarah Belton wrote back to the woman , stating - " We are always delighted to hear from people with new ideas. As you are living outside Ireland , associate membership is the only option available to you " . That explains Fine Gael's political position better than I could !
Britain has the worst record on human rights in Western Europe- to date, it has lost more than 50 of the cases brought against it at the European Court of Human Rights ; 12 of those cases (almost 25% of the total) have been directly connected to the conflict in the Six Counties , where Britain has been found to have breached articles of the European Convention on Human Rights(ECHR) on the right to life , on the prohibition on torture , on the use of inhuman or degrading treatment , on unjustified detention and on the right to a fair trial . Twice , Britain has been forced to derogate from the ECHR under Article 15 because of it's use of illegal seven-day detention orders . The ECHR was finally incorporated into British law in October 2000 , some 50 years after it came into being !
The refusal to incorporate the Convention was based on Britains continued use of the ' temporary ' Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) , most specifically the use of seven-day detention orders which were in flagrant breach of all human rights conventions and legislation . Under Blair's Labour Government , the British state has managed to circumvent the threat to the PTA posed by incorporation of the ECHR simply by making the legislation permanent (the new 'Terrorism Act') and by making seven-day detention dependent upon a magistrate rather than a police officer !
The British administration are a devious bunch to cut a deal with - the Provos have apparently taken them on their word in relation to the Stormont treaty and , while the Adams family may make a living on the ' rubber chicken' lecture circuit and promote themselves as world leaders , no date has been given for a British withdrawal from Ireland . Have you a ' Plan B ' , Gerry ?

The Fine Gael party has been in the news here recently due to the death of one of its Dublin ex-Leinster House members . The party has an interesting history , which is hardly ever mentioned --
During their lifetime , the Blueshirts underwent four name changes; The Army Comrades Association , the National Guard , the Young Ireland Association and the League of Youth . The name changes were due to proscription by the then Fianna Fail administration in Leinster House . Eoin O Duffy , who was sacked as Commissioner of the Free State police , was elected as leader of the Blueshirts - on his instruction , in 1933 , the ' right-arm salute ' (think Nazi) was adopted !
From then untill September 1934 , the Blueshirts enjoyed their greatest period of support and activity .
it was at that period that O Duffy was ousted as leader and replaced by Ned Cronin , who promptly took the group downhill ~ it struggled on for two years but ceased to exist after 1936 . Most of its members jumped camp into the fledging Fine Gael .
Following his explusion , O Duffy founded his own organisation and led an ill-fated crusade to Spain to support Franco's fascists during the Civil War . The Fine Gael party is not alone anti-Republican but is a pro-British and pro-Unionist political party . It has no time whatsoever for the Republican position re the political issue in our six north-eastern counties , and would be of the opinion that the British won the issue a long time ago ; with this in mind , I will annoy the Blueshirts by quoting the words of Padraig Pearse in his last few hours before he was executed by the British -
" We seem to have lost . We have not lost . To refuse to fight would have been to lose ; to fight is to win . We have kept faith with the past , and handed on a tradition to the future ..... if you strike us down now we shall rise again and renew the fight . You cannot conquer Ireland. You cannot extinguish the Irish passion for freedom . If our deed has not been sufficient to win freedom , then our children will win it by a better deed " . Look out , Fine Gael - it's not over yet ....

....Austin Stack was sent to Strangeways Prison in Manchester , from where he escaped in October 1919 . During the Black and Tan war , as Minister for Home Affairs , he organised the Republican Courts which replaced the British legal system in all parts of Ireland . He rejected the Treaty of 1921 and , following a short PR tour of America , returned to Ireland to take up arms on the Republican side in the Civil War .
In the general round-up of Republican leaders in April 1923(during which Liam Lynch was shot dead by Free State troops) Stack , the Deputy Chief of Staff , was arrested in a farmyard in the Knockmealdown mountains . This was four days after Lynchs death . Imprisoned in Kilmainham Jail , he took part in a mass hunger-strike by Republican prisoners in October 1923 , which was his 5th hunger-strike in 6 years . Shortly after the end of the 41-day hunger-strike , in November , he was released with hundreds of other political prisoners . He married Una Gordon in 1925 .
In April 1929 ,he entered the Mater Hospital in Dublin for a stomach operation - he never recovered , and died 2 days later , on April 27 , 1929 . Austin Stack is buried in the Republican Plot in Glasnevin Cemetary , Dublin .
Go ndeanaidh Dia trocaire ar a anam usual calma.
Martin Ferris and others like him have no shame to attempt to link themselves to those men and women like Austin Stack . Make a career for yourself by all means , Martin , but not on another mans wounds .