.....the remains of Charlie Kerins, Maurice O'Neill and Thomas Harte were released from Mountjoy Jail; the funerals made their way towards Dublin city centre .....
The hearse carrying the remains of Tom Harte turned left at Dorset Street to go North, to his native Lurgan in County Armagh: the other two hearses, carrying Charlie Kerins and Maurice O'Neill, made their way to Christ Church Cathedral where they were joined by the remains of George Plant. The funeral of Paddy McGrath , escorted by an IRA guard of honour and followed by thousands of republicans, took place from the Franciscan Church on Merchants Quay in Dublin, to Glasnevin Cemetery , where the oration was delivered by Brian O'Higgins (Editor of the 'Wolfe Tone Annual') - McGrath was then re-interred with full military honours in the Republican Plot.
At St. Johnstown Cemetery, near Fethard in County Tipperary, the remains of George Plant were buried following an oration by John McGrath; at the same time, two funerals were taking place in County Kerry- Charlie Kerins was buried in Rath Cemetery , in the Tralee Republican Plot, following an oration by Tomas MacCurtain(son of the assassinated Mayor of Cork) ; and Maurice O'Neill , who was buried in the Republican Plot in Cahirciveen after an oration by Sean Ryan. The remains of Tom Harte were re-interred in the Republican Plot at St.Colemans Cemetery in Lurgan, County Armagh , following an oration by Ruairi O'Drisceoil.

It should be noted that, during the 1940's , the Republican Movement........ (MORE LATER)..


In an article on the 1981 Hunger-Strikers , published in 'An Phoblacht/Republican News' on May 2nd, 1991 (page 7), Brendan 'Bik' McFarlane stated- " Accommodations with British-designed frameworks fly in the face of true justice and freedom" . Over to you, Brendan; speak up, now......
"Constitutional nationalists should, by now, have realised that there is no British solution, there is no partitionist solution and that a new and imaginative approach is required " - Gerry Adams,'AP/RN', May 30th,1991 (page 14) .
------- like Leinster House , Gerry ? or Stormont? Do us all a favour and stay away from Republican graves this Easter, Gerry : you could use the time you save to improve on your "British....partitionist solution" ......

The remains of the six men were only released because public opinion began to go against Fiann Fail - thousands of republicans met the remains of their comrades as they emerged through the prison gates , while tens of thousands of people lined the routes to pay their last respects as the funerals made their way to different parts of the country. The remains of Richie Goss were released on the morning of Saturday , September 11th, 1948; his coffin was handed over to his relatives at Portlaoise Prison. Thousands of republicans followed his Tricolour-draped coffin , which was flanked by an IRA guard of honour, as it made its way through Dublin and Drogheda on its way to Dundalk. On Sunday, September 12th, 1948, after mass in St Patricks Cathedral, he was buried with full military honours in the family grave in St Patricks Cemetery, Dundalk, County Louth.
The remains of the other five executed republicans were also handed over to their relatives - in the same week that the remains of Richie Goss were released, a coffin containing the body of George Plant was released from Portlaoise Prison and taken to Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin, while those of Paddy McGrath were handed over to his family at Mountjoy Jail , and removed to the Franciscan Church, Merchants Quay, in Dublin. Also , that same September in 1948, the remains of Charlie Kerins, Maurice O'Neill and Thomas Harte were released from Mountjoy Jail in Dublin, and handed over to their relatives. Escorted by IRA guards of honour and followed by thousands of republicans, including many who had served with them in the IRA, and contingents of Fianna Eireann, Cumann na mBan, Clan na Gaedheal and Cumann na gCailini, the funerals made their way towards Dublin city centre....... (MORE LATER)>>


On April 27th, 1916(three days after the Rising started),the so-called 'newspaper of record', the establishment newspaper,' The Irish Times' , said in an Editorial - " How many citizens of Dublin have any real knowledge of the works of Shakespere ?" ! The 'paper suggested that its readers use the "enforced domesticity" caused by the Rising to renew the mans work.
Yet the same newspaper was'nt shy about reporting the US/British war in Iraq; perhaps it all depends on how big your guns are ......

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

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

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

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


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

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

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


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



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

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

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


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

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



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

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


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

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



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

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

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

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

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


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

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


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

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


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

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


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

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


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

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


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

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


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

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



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

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

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

The two IRA Volunteers , friends from County Westmeath , who were held in the different camps in Ballykinlar , approached the fence which separated them and were both machine-gunned to death by a British sentry in one of the posts ; the soldier was later to be promoted in rank and moved to a different position in Ballykinlar Camp .
In the British House of Commons, the 'Chief-Secretary in Ireland' , Sir Hamar Greenwood , stated ~ " A military Court of Inquiry , held in lieu of an inquest, found that no blame attached to the soldier who fired in execution of his duty . No action of a disciplinary character is , therefore, called for , and none has been taken " .
The British Army issued a statement claiming that " a number of men in two adjoining cages persisted in communicating with each other despite the repeated warnings of a sentry " . ( It should be noted that another IRA Volunteer , Corkman Tadgh Barry , was killed by a sentry in similar circumstances in the same camp in November that year , 1921) .
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'Congrats' to Emily O'Reilly on her new position as this state's 'Ombudsman' and we also wish her well in her new role as ' Freedom of Information Commissioner' : her (nice) new Office comes with a pay-check of 3646 EURO a week , which should help her forget about her old job as Editor of'Magill' magazine which she left(in 2000,I think) because , if I remember correctly, that magazines' 'sister' publication , 'In Dublin' , made most of its money by publishing advertisements for 'massage parlours' .
When asked why she did'nt leave sooner (or perhaps why she took the job in the first place....) Emily stated- " There are levels of knowing and levels of awareness" ; so, if our new 'Ombudsperson' and 'Freedom of Information Commissioner' fails to "get back to you on that one" , you'll know its because "there are levels......" .

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

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


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

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

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

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

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