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.... ?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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