SAOIRSE32

The Green Ribbon

The Wrong Man

by Danny Morrison

Click on thumbnail for larger view

>>>Review by Tom Griffin

An Phoblacht

Wear an Easter Lily

17 February, 2005

The Easter Lily was designed in 1925 by Cumann na mBan. Its dual purpose was to raise money for the Republican Prisoners’ Dependents Fund and to honour the sacrifice made by the men and women of the 1916 Rising.

One year later, the Easter Lily Commemoration Committee was formed and existed until 1965. One of its founder members was Sighle Humphreys. The original lily was hand-made by faithful republicans, who sold it at great risk throughout the country. Over the years many republicans have been arrested, attacked, jailed and reviled for keeping alive the memory of the men and women of the Easter Rising. The symbol is associated with the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin, due to the seasonal decoration in churches during that period.

The lily has always had strong symbolic value, though its meaning and symbolism have changed through the ages. The Romans saw the lily as a symbol of hope. In Western Europe, the lily was viewed as a symbol of innocence and resurrection… During the Renaissance, the lily was often portrayed by Christian scholars and artists as a symbol of the Virgin Mary. Perhaps due to this link, the lily has been considered by some to be the sacred flower of motherhood.

The use of lilies at funerals symbolises the restored innocence of the soul at death. Today, republicans continue to honour the heroic sacrifice made in 1916, when the IRA, hopelessly outnumbered and ill-equipped, took on the might of the British Army and showed the world that Ireland unfree shall never be at peace.

Republicans wear the lily to honour all those who have given their lives in the cause of Irish freedom.

• Easter Lilies are now available from all republican outlets or from 44 Parnell Square, Dublin 1

Indymedia Ireland

Derry IRSP - Irish Republican Socialist Party
Sunday, Mar 20 2005, 8:48pm
derryirsp@hotmail.com
address: P.O. Box 1981,
Derry, BT48 8GX, Ireland
phone: 028 71262999

Son Of INLA Hunger Striker In Solidarity With Basque Hunger Strikers

Micky Óg Devine
P.O. Box 1981, Derry,
BT48 8GX, Ireland
02871 262999

March 18th

A Chara,

I would like to draw to the attention of your readers as we enter into the twenty-fourth year since my father, Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) Volunteer, Micky Devine and his comrades died on hunger strike in the gulags of Long Kesh. At a time when we as republican socialists and republicans look back on the significance of that struggle news has broke of a similar pain and sacrifice currently unfolding in the prisons of France and Spain. Following an announcement on the 16th March 2005 by the Basque Political Prisoners’ Group (EPPK), it is now estimated that 720 young men and women have begun an indefinite hunger strike.

Following protest after protest within gaol, Basque political prisoners, united for the first time ever through the EPPK have begun an indefinite hunger strike to demand nothing more than recognition of their political status, so that those incarcerated for political activities and that of their people be given a voice within the political arena with which to make their case.

Their struggle, in many ways resembles and even mirrors that which my father and his comrades embarked on twenty four years this year in the a struggle against a policy of criminalisation however this is the criminalisation of the entire Basque population by both France and Spain.

Micky Devine

As someone who has been personally affected by such a high profiled hunger strike during the early eighties as a child, I would like to extend my support and solidarity as an Irish republican socialist to the families, friends, loved-ones and comrades of each and every political prisoner involved.

To this day, I am deeply conscious of the fact that our own family and that of the families of other INLA and IRA men on hunger strike back in 1981 received widespread support from the people of the Euskal Herria (Basque Country). Thousands came onto the streets to protest across that country in anger at developments here in a gesture international solidarity with their demands and in sympathy of with the families as lives were eventually lost.

However what gave my family and that of the other families and relatives of 1981 the strength to carry on was the daily support and solidarity from their communities. The action groups and international committees who made sure that we were not alone in the fight for justice.

The political prisoners and the people of Euskal Herria are not alone in their fight for justice. It must also be made clear that both French and Spanish authorities has an obligation to the hundreds of political prisoners they hold. They must dispel themselves of their perpetual arrogance towards the people of Euskal Herria as this has been the trigger for recent developments and those of the past. They have a duty to immediately open up channels already in existence, to meet with the prisoners representatives and enter into dialogue so this situation can be brought to a successful conclusion before any lives are lost.

It is with this in mind that I would encourage everyone, republican or otherwise to play their own small part in a gesture of solidarity with the political prisoners and the people of Euskal Herria at this time.

You can write a letter of protest to the French and Spanish Embassies in Ireland to immediately enter into dialogue before lives are lost.

Demand that these governments respect the human rights of all prisoners and call for them to end the continuous torture and punishment meted out against Basque political prisoners.

You can actively participate in the Basque-Ireland Committees and the solidarity activities which are currently being organised. I call upon both France and Spain not repeat the mistakes of the British government in dealing with the just demands of Irish National Liberation Army and Irish Republican Army prisoners in the past, which led to the death of my father and his comrades on hunger strike in 1981.

In solidarity with the Basque Hunger strikes

Micky Óg Devine,
Derry

Letters Of Protest Should be Sent to:

Spanish Ambassador to Ireland
Mr Enrique Pastor de Gana
Embassy of Spain
17A Merlyn Park
Dublin 4.

Tel 1: +353 (0)1 2691640
Tel 2: +353 (0)1 2692597
Fax: +353 (0)1 2691854.

Spanish Prime Minister

Jose Luis Rodríguez Zapatero
Presidente del Gobierno
Complejo de La Moncloa
28071 Madrid
Spain.

Frédéric GRASSET, French Ambassador
French Embassy in Ireland
36 Ailesbury Road
Dublin 4.
Tel. (01) 277 5000
Fax (01) 277 5001
ambassadeur@ambafrance.ie

BBC ON THIS DAY

Tim Parry, 12 and and Johnathan Ball, 3 lost their lives in the blasts

>>>Children for Peace website

20 March 1993

Child killed in Warrington bomb attack

A young boy has died and at least 50 people have been injured in two bomb blasts close to the heart of a busy shopping centre.

Emergency services said the dead boy is believed to be four-years-old.

Another older boy suffered grave injuries when two bombs, hidden in dustbins, exploded in Warrington, Cheshire.

Twelve of the injured have been hurt “very seriously” as eyewitnesses said the first explosion drove panicking shoppers into the path of the next blast just seconds later.

‘Huge hand grenades’

The explosions shattered the Golden Square shopping mall in Bridge Street just after 1212 GMT.

The mall was packed with shoppers brought out by the warm spring weather ahead of Mother’s Day tomorrow.

The bombs went off in Bridge Street, the first is understood to have been outside a British Gas showroom and the second went off near Argos, the catalogue store.

Police said the bombs had been planted in separate cast-iron litter bins which had the effect of turning them into huge hand grenades.

Eyewitnesses have reported many casualties, some are understood to have lost limbs.

Buses are being organised to ferry people away from the scene and 20 paramedics, some on motorcycles, have been sent to administer on the spot treatment.

Crews from 17 ambulances are dealing with casualties and it is understood a team of four plastic surgeons are travelling to Warrington General Hospital from the regional burns unit at Whiston hospital, Knowsley, six miles away.

Police said a coded warning was made to the Samaritans at 1158 about a bomb outside a Boots chemist shop in Liverpool but the bombs went off near Boots in Warrington, 16 miles to the east.

There was no time to evacuate the area after Merseyside police informed the Cheshire force of the warning.

No organisation has admitted carrying out the attack but the IRA has not been ruled out.

Bombers struck in Warrington only last month, when a gasworks was blown up, but with no injuries.

In Context

Johnathan Ball, three, died in the blasts when he was in town with his babysitter buying a Mother’s Day Card.

Tim Parry, 12, was caught in the full force of the blast and died five days later in hospital.

The atrocity also left 56 people injured in the blasts which the IRA admitted carrying out.

Tim’s parents Colin and Wendy Parry campaigned to build a peace centre and they helped set up a peace initiative within months of the explosion.

On the seventh anniversary of the atrocity the Tim Parry-Johnathan Ball Young People’s Centre was opened.

It is run by the NSPCC and the Tim Parry-Johnathan Ball Trust and includes residential accommodation for visiting groups from Ireland and around the world, an IT suite, cafe areas and sports facilities.

It also houses the NSPCC’s regional headquarters with a helpline and drop-in centre.

Sunday Life

Help us to get justice
‘Nutting squad’ victim’s family seek Dublin backing for inquiry bid

By Chris Anderson
20 March 2005

A CO Armagh couple, who believe their only son was sacrificed to protect the IRA double agent Stakeknife, have asked the Irish Government to back their campaign for a public inquiry into the murder.

Portadown man, John Dignam (32) was abducted by the IRA’s notorious internal security unit, almost 13 years ago.

He, along with fellow Provos, Aiden Starrs and Gregory Burns were interrogated for seven days, before being shot dead.

Their naked bodies were later dumped on remote border roads, in south Armagh.

The IRA admitted killing the three men, claiming they were British agents, who had been involved in the murder of Portadown woman, Margaret Perry.

However, John Dignam’s parents, Pat and Irene say they now believe their son was deliberately sacrificed to protect top IRA spy Freddie ‘Stakeknife’ Scappaticci.

They said it was now clear British Intelligence had managed to infiltrate the IRA unit that killed their son.

“It has been claimed the Force Research Unit deliberately abandoned John, and allowed him to be killed, that my son and others were allowed to be killed to protect Freddie Scappaticci,” said Pat Dignam.

“If that’s true, then the British intelligence services sanctioned my son’s death, they are guilty of murder.”

The Dignams believe a public inquiry was the only way they could get at the truth about how and why their son was murdered.

They said they had contacted Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, asking to meet with him, and calling on the Irish government to support the call for a public inquiry.

“We want the Irish government’s help in establishing the truth about what really happened to John,” said Pat Dignam.

“We have told the Taoiseach the facts surrounding John’s murder have been deliberately suppressed for 13 years.

“The RUC investigation, and the inquest into his death, were deliberately curtailed.

“We want Mr Ahern to raise our son’s murder with the British government as a matter of urgency.”

The Dignam family are also seeking the release of Garda investigation papers into their son’s abduction from a Castleblaney hotel, in June 1992.

And they confirmed they would be asking the police if RUC Special Branch knew their son’s life was under threat from the IRA, in June 1992.

Sunday Life

Jail probe as visitor becomes a guard

By Alan Murray
20 March 2005

A PROBE is underway at the high-security Maghaberry jail into how a former visitor to a hardline Republican inmate was given a job as night custody officer.

The woman is now facing dismissal from her job patrolling the jail, after being identified as a regular visitor to an ex-IPLO prisoner, who was her boyfriend.

She was suspended after an eagle eyed prison officer recognised her and informed a governor.

The episode has called into question the use of vetting procedures by the Prison Service to recruit staff to the new £14,000 a year posts, which were introduced as a cost-cutting measure by managment.

Local MP Jeffrey Donaldson said last night he was alarmed at the security implications.

A source at Maghaberry told Sunday Life:

“A prison officer spotted this woman in the jail one morning, and there was something about her that he recognised but couldn’t immediately place.

“Later in the day, it clicked with him that she had been a visitor to a republican inmate.

“When the records were examined, it was established that she had visited this inmate for quite a while and he and she were an item.

“She was immediately suspended, and we’re told she’s facing dismissal.”

The Prison Service refused to discuss the case, but it is reliably understood that one female night custody officer has been suspended over a security matter, and is facing dismissal.

Night custody officers were recruited last year to cut costs at the Category A Prison and reduce the reliance on regular prison officers, who earn double their salary before overtime.

One office said: “The management wanted to save money by recruiting low-paid staff. It appears, though, that they didn’t properly vet those they have employed.”

Lagan Valley MP Jeffrey Donaldson, whose constituency includes Maghaberry, said he was alarmed to learn that a former visitor to a terrorist prisoner had been employed to patrol the jail.

The MP expressed concerns that double-standards are being used in prison vetting procedures.

“I am dealing with one particular case at the moment involving an employee of a building contractor, who has been denied access to the prison, because he took part in a parade against the Anglo-Irish Agreement, in 1985.

“It’s a clear case of double standards, and questions need to be answered”, the DUP MP said.

The Prison Service confirmed that night custody staff have access to the main areas of the prison during their duties, and carry out observations of prisoners.

A spokesperson said that the service did carry out pre-employment security checks, which asked candidates if they did have a criminal record.

“These processes are kept under review, and were revised last month,” he added.

Irelandclick.com

Concerns for West Belfast Al Qaeda suspect
Law firm have had no opportunity to challenge ‘evidence’

Thirteen months after his arrest, lawyers for a local Filipino man suspected of being a member of an al-Qaeda-linked terror group are urging prosecutors not to delay the case any further.

Jaybe Ofrasio, a 31-year-old Filipino national resident in West Belfast, has still not been informed by the DPP as to when a decision on whether or not to prosecute has been taken. In a letter to Mr Ofrasio’s solicitors, dated February 25 this year, a senior lawyer in the DPP confirmed that “at this stage I am unable to provide an indication as to when decisions as to prosecution will be taken”.

Jaybe Ofrasio faces charges relating to alleged fund-raising and making property available in the Philippines under the Terrorism Act 2000.

It is alleged that he sent emails from a West Belfast library about the funding of terrorist training camps in the Philippines, and that he was aware that his property in Cotabato City in the Philippines was being used by terrorists.

He is disputing the charges and denies any link to the Jemaa Islamiya group which is believed to be connected to al-Qaeda.

The prolonged legal process started for Jaybe Ofrasio when he was arrested along with his wife at their West Belfast home in January 2004.

They were detained in custody for a period of five days and subjected to a rigorous schedule of 29 interrogations by two teams of detectives from the PSNI in the presence of an interpreter. His wife was released without charge.

Jaybe was held in custody for a period of 11 months until November 2004 when he was granted bail. He remains, however, subject to strict bail conditions including reporting five times per week to police, a curfew and a ban on use of mobile phones and the internet.

Having originally immigrated to Ireland legally with his wife and step-children to work, he has now had to lodge an asylum application to remain here as he believes that the charges he now faces would put his life at risk were he to return to the Philippines.

Patricia Coyle of Harte Coyle Collins Solicitors, acting on behalf of Jaybe Ofrasio, says she is concerned not only about the delay, but about the merit of the case also.

“Our original concerns about this prosecution have increased. Thirteen months have passed since our client’s arrest and we are none the wiser about the case against him. The DPP letter of 25 February confirms that the Department, despite the lapse of a significant period of time, cannot at this stage even provide a time-scale as to when a decision about prosecution will be taken.

“To date we have had no opportunity to challenge the source or calibre of the international intelligence information relied upon by the police in this case. Such information cannot be accepted at face value.

“In our view any reliance on intelligence information by a prosecuting authority is a flawed and dangerous foundation in the current global political climate.”

Patricia Coyle is also concerned about:

•Discrepancies in the evidence put by police at interview which linked him to computer equipment.

•The defence not having been given access to examine computer equipment.
•Reliance by the PSNI upon an association between Jaybe and another person who is currently interned without trial in South East Asia. They have no information about the circumstances of this person’s detention and the basis for the association is untested intelligence information.

“Meanwhile our client remains subject to bail conditions which restrict his family life. Given the lack of progress in this case we will now be advising our client about the remedies available to him through the courts,” said Patricia Coyle.

No one from the DPP was available for comment.

Journalist:: Staff Reporter

Belfast Telegraph

Magee fights back to victory

By Maureen Coleman
mcoleman@belfasttelegraph.co.uk
19 March 2005

Boxing champ Eamonn Magee was gearing up for future fights today after completing a sensational comeback following a horrendous street attack last year.

Magee was warned by doctors that his career was all but over after he was viciously attacked by a gang of men in west Belfast last February.

The assault, sparked by a children’s row over a snowman, left the Ardoyne man with a broken leg, fractured knee and a fight career hanging in the balance.

But after 15 months out of the ring, Magee was back in front of his home crowd at the King’s Hall in Belfast last night, where he made the first defence of his WBU welterweight belt with a gritty third-round stoppage of Danish challenger Allan Vester.

And despite the heart-breaking advice following the attack that he would never box again, Magee saw off Vester’s challenge with relative ease, putting him down three times in what proved to be the final round.

Now the 33-year-old wants to move back down in weight and move up a class.

He’s hoping for a crack at Bradford’s European light-welterweight champion Junior Witter and a rematch with Manchester’s WBU kingpin Ricky Hatton.

“I’m hoping maybe to have another defence this year,” he said. “Maybe I will then move back down (to light-welterweight) and have Junior Witter.

“We’ll see if we can get that fight on. I know Witter is out there and hungry for good fights.”

Magee challenged Hatton for the WBU light-welterweight crown in 2002 and sent the Mancunian to the canvas for the first time in his career, but went on to lose a unanimous points decision.

“When Ricky Hatton fights Kostya Tszyu I’d like to wish him all the best for that one and then maybe I can get a rematch with him,” said Magee.

And he had words of praise for the surgeons who helped him on the road to recovery.

“It’s fantastic,” he said after the fight. “I’ve got to take my hat off to the doctors. It’s fantastic to get back. You saw the crowd, they are obviously delighted.”

Indymedia Ireland

**Lots of photos of the protest on site, but most interesting are the comments following the short article. Here’s a glimpse:

Sinn Féin supporters protest ‘criminalisation’ accusation - 19 March 2005

by redjade Sunday, Mar 20 2005, 2:48pm

(click to view)

from BreakingNews:

“An estimated 200 Sinn Féin supporters gathered in Dublin today to protest against what they describe as attempts to criminalise the republican movement.

They say they have been victims of trial by media and are fighting to defend the peace process.

Speaking at the rally, Sinn Féin TD Sean Crowe said they are fighting back against those who are tarnishing their name for political gains, and also that the republican struggle is stronger than at any time in recent history”.

200 me backside

by Barry Sunday, Mar 20 2005, 3:38pm

There’s about 50 in those photos, and half of them seem to be either politicians or wannabes.
They have a bloody nerve holding up hungerstrikers’ photos to try and deflect the shite theyve gotten themselves into out of sheer greed and utter arrogance.

Those 10 men sacrificed everything for political status, only for Sinn Fein to sign it away when they accepted British rule.

The fact is if those men were to take up arms against British rule today, Sinn Fein would loudly denounce them as not only criminals , but British securocrat puppets.

If those men were in jail today and were to protest against British criminalisation policies, Sinn Fein would turn their backs on them. Any Sinn Fein member speaking out on their behalf would immediately be expelled by their stalinist leadership.

Fecking pile of hypocrites.

10 hungerstrikers didnt die to get Gerry Adams votes. They laid down their lives to defeat British counter insurgency strategy, of which criminalisation was only one strand.

As for Sean Crowe stating the republican struggle has never been stronger ???
What tablets is he on ??

Ive nothing personal against the man but how can he state such nonsense.

Britain has had its presence accepted and legitimised with the GFA. The gear has been decommisioned almost in its entirety, all of it being compromised. Sinn Fein has accepted partition. Political status has been signed away by Adams McGuinness et al. The British Army still control the 6 counties, and as soon as the elections are over Sinn Fein will be signing up to the British police and telling young nationalists its their patriotic duty to join up to the PSNI.

Martin McGuinness has already stated he looks forward to the day when a young nationalist PSNI recruit can wear his uniform with pride.

The struggle isnt just weak, its utterly wrecked and the corrupt leadership which wrecked it has an absolute nerve using the images of Bobby Sands and Francis Hughes to cover up their slimy corruption and outright facism.

Shame on them.

Times Online

Comment: Liam Clarke: Raw truth of hunger strike fights its way past myths

March 20, 2005

(photo: artybhoy1916)

Anybody who wants to understand the history of the Provisional IRA and Sinn Fein should read Blanketmen, Richard O’Rawe’s searingly honest account of the events surrounding the 1981 hunger strike.

O’Rawe gives us something new in modern republican history: a participant’s account that attempts to face the facts without romanticising them.

Up to now we have had mostly anodyne accounts, in which every dead IRA man was good at Gaelic games, fearless on active service and loved his mother. Every decision taken by Gerry Adams, the infallible helmsman of the movement and founder of the peace process, was not only correct but also designed to save lives and bring about a ceasefire.

We have also been treated to cod biographies in which Adams never joined the IRA, and a book of lives of IRA volunteers in which well-known informers are revered for their dedication. In this alternative universe, the IRA never committed a crime and even when it made mistakes it was forced into them by the Brits. As Goethe noted, “patriotism ruins history”.

O’Rawe was a public relations officer for IRA prisoners and later for Sinn Fein, so it should not surprise him that the full weight of the republican propaganda machine was deployed to drown the simple truth that many of the later hunger strikers wanted to end the protest around the time when Joe McDonnell, the fifth of the 10 prisoners to die, reached the critical stage.

I know the feeling. I still remember the call from Danny Morrison to my home in North Belfast nearly 10 years ago. He was appealing to me not to write a book about the hunger strikes. He implored me not to slander the memory of the dead or bring distress to their families.

I had just conducted an interview with Geraldine Scheiss, the girlfriend of Kieran Doherty, the eighth hunger striker to die. She told me that he wanted to call off the strike and that, in his final two hours of life, asked her to get tablets to save him from death. Tom Toner, the prison chaplain, confirmed that shortly before Doherty died Scheiss had come out of his room to say he was asking for tablets “for his body”. Doherty’s mother wouldn’t agree until her husband Alfie got back to the jail. Scheiss tried unsuccessfully to get the tablets herself. By the time Doherty’s father returned to the prison, his son had died.

It was clear to me that Kieran Doherty was unhappy about the hunger strike and had expressed his doubts about continuing. He had told Mary McDermott, the mother of Sean McDermott, a close IRA comrade, that “there was a lot more to it than the five demands”. It was clear from her and from other prisoners that Paddy Quinn, another hunger striker who was taken off by his mother when he became unconscious, had spoken in favour of ending the strike.

I sent a copy of my taped interview with Scheiss to her for comment, mentioning in a covering letter that one or two passages were not clear. I got a solicitor’s letter back denying she had said any of it and saying the tape must all have been faulty. As a result I put in only what was independently confirmed.

Sinn Fein had stymied me at every turn in writing the book. I was invited for interviews and kept sitting for hours in a room with prisoners’ wives and relatives waiting for the Long Kesh minibus, only to be told that nobody was available to speak to me. Eventually two liaison people were appointed — Morrison later told me that the only purpose was to see what I was up to — but they proved quite helpful.

One was the former hunger striker Pat “Beag” McGeown, a republican of tremendous dedication, haunted by survivor’s guilt because his wife had taken him off the hunger strike when so many others had died. “You can’t really be sorry to be alive, but yes it does trouble me,” he said.

He hinted at things that would be confirmed and fleshed out in O’Rawe’s account. McGeown told me he had wanted the strike to end and that “a certain number of hunger strikers had arrived at the same conclusion and were saying, ‘Look, possibly the whole thing should be reviewed’.”

It was also clear to me that, although the IRA leadership had not wanted the hunger strike to start in the first place, once Bobby Sands was elected to Westminster things had changed. They wanted it to continue until Owen Carron, a Sinn Fein member who stood as “proxy prisoner” could be elected to the seat left vacant by Sands’s death. At the time there was a republican policy of not contesting Westminster or Dail elections and this was the leadership’s way round it. As Adams said in a 1985 Bobby Sands memorial lecture: “The hunger strikes, at great cost to our H-Block martyrs and their families, smashed criminalisation and led to the electoral strategy, plus the revamping of the IRA.”

O’Rawe puts it more bluntly. The hunger strikers, he said, may have been “cannon fodder” and six of them may have died just to get Sinn Fein’s political project under way.

The hunger strike was prolonged despite an offer to the Irish Commission for Justice and Peace (ICJP), which would have been guaranteed by the Catholic church’s hierarchy, that met many of the prisoners’ demands. Substantially the same offer was repeated through an MI6 officer with whom Adams was liaising, and was accepted by the prison leadership as the best deal available. When the hunger strike did eventually end, the same offer was at length implemented and greeted as a victory by republicans.

O’Rawe reveals that McGeown had been warned to keep quiet about his doubts when Adams visited the hunger strikers after many of their families asked him to end the strike. Adams made it clear the visit was a formality, saying that he had come because he “felt duty-bound to satisfy the clergymen and all those who were pressurising their families”.

Most tellingly of all he was accompanied by Carron, who was dressed in what the prisoners referred to as his “election suit”. The implied message was that they would be letting the movement down if they did not hold out until polling was over. Doherty did not attend because he was judged too ill. Instead Adams visited him in a private room and came out saying that “Big Doc” was determined to continue.

The price was deaths in the prison and on the streets, as hunger strike rioting continued. An honest debate on Sinn Fein’s entry to politics was avoided, and Adams’ strategy was advanced.

Some may say it was worth it. Ending the hunger strike after three or four deaths on the basis of the offer to the ICJP, and the parallel offer through MI6, would have set the Sinn Fein political project back. The Catholic church and the SDLP, who were to the fore in the ICJP, would have shared the credit, with little going the way of Sinn Fein.

Adams would then have had to argue openly for a political strategy. He might have faced a split.

Of course it is the duty of military leaders to take such decisions. Generals send men to their deaths after weighing the lives of soldiers against their overall strategic objectives.

It can be argued that Adams and the republican leadership made the right choice but it is an argument that they never had the courage to make. Certainly not to the families of the hunger strikers.

The Observer

McCartneys no patsies, says former IRA man

Henry McDonald, Ireland editor
Sunday March 20, 2005
The Observer

The former IRA man accused of manipulating the sisters of Robert McCartney has denied being behind the women’s battle to bring their brother’s killers to justice.

As the family of the murdered father-of-two were preparing yesterday to fly back to Ireland from Washington after hundreds of media interviews and a meeting with President Bush, Anthony McIntyre rejected Sinn Fein claims that he was using the tragedy to undermine the party.

Just as Paula, Claire, Donna, Catherine and Gemma and Robert’s fiancée Bridgeen Hagans’ fame has spread around the world, so has a growing whispering campaign against them.

McCartney was stabbed and beaten to death outside Magennis’s Bar in Belfast on 30 January. The dozen or so men thought to be responsible formed the backbone of the IRA’s so-called 3rd Battalion in the city.

Seventy-two people were in the bar, of whom none has given a statement to the police. Among them were three Sinn Fein election candidates. While the IRA did not sanction the killing, it has been accused of cleaning up the bar before forensic examination could take place and of intimidating witnesses. The sisters and Robert’s partner have called for potential witnesses to make statements to the police.

Speaking from his home in the Springhill area of west Belfast, a republican stronghold where Sinn Fein has huge support, McIntyre said he had been wrongly demonised by the Sinn Fein deputy leader Martin McGuinness and others.

‘The morning after Robert McCartney was stabbed, I got a phone call from his aunt, a close personal friend. She was distraught and told me that her nephew had died. I attended the vigil for him the Friday after his death. I wanted to express my sympathy with the family. I then went to Robert’s home and paid respects.’

McIntyre, an ex-IRA prisoner turned writer who served 16 years in the Maze, then wrote an article for the radical republican website that he runs with his wife, Carrie Towmey.

‘The following Tuesday, I attended the funeral. I remained in the company of the aunt who was my friend and her family. On Thursday evening, I received a call from the family. They asked me to I speak to them, as they wanted to ensure that Robert’s murder was not another statistic. They said they had been touched by my article and felt that I was a writer who would approach the matter fairly.’

He suggested that, unless the women highlighted what happened to Robert in the national and international media, his story would be forgotten. He then contacted The Observer , as well as a Dublin-based Sunday newspaper.

‘That Sunday, both papers carried major articles and the sisters’ campaign became major news. I have not been in the family home since, nor seen any of the McCartney women. I have been in touch with them by phone, for the most part putting journalists in contact with them. But now that journalists know them, my contact with the family is infrequent.’

Last week McGuinness named McIntyre as the man behind the McCartney sisters in a radio interview on RTE.

McIntyre said he accepts he is an opponent of Sinn Fein’s current political strategy. However, he has stated publicly his opposition to any return to republican violence.

He is convinced that there is a progressive bloc inside Sinn Fein. ‘The majority of good, decent republicans remain in Sinn Fein. The problem is that the leadership has been in power too long and controls all independent thought. That is why it runs away from the truth. The only alternative to Sinn Fein for republicans will have to come from within Sinn Fein.’

McIntyre was not the only figure from the radical left or republicanism to offer his support to the McCartney sisters: the veteran civil rights activist and journalist Eamon McCann spoke at a rally for the family, and politicians from across the sectarian divide have expressed their backing for the women’s cause.

All of them have been mindful not to be seen to be too closely aligned to the sisters. Until their meeting with Bush last week, the only political event the family had attended since Robert’s murder was Sinn Fein’s annual conference in Dublin - at the request of Gerry Adams.

The sisters themselves have laughed off hints and innuendos that they are puppets on somebody else’s strings.

McIntyre expressed particular admiration for Catherine McCartney, a further education lecturer and former Sinn Fein voter. ‘Catherine is strategically light years ahead of me and needs no advice from me. There is something deeply sexist about the hints that these are just little women being used by someone else,’ he said.

Despite his absence from the McCartney home, McIntyre defends his right to speak about the killing and its aftermath.

‘I will do everything in my power to maintain public attention on their campaign. That thugs can run through Belfast streets like an Interahamwe, hunting down victims for hacking, is anathema to any republican sentiment,’ he said.

Sunday Herald

**Via Newshound

SUPPORT FOR SISTERS PUT TO TEST AS CLAIMS AND RUMOURS ABOUND

By Suzanne Breen

“THOSE women have completely lost the run of themselves. Everybody felt sorry about what happened to their brother, but they’ve taken it too far.

“They’re traipsing around the States like they’re presidential candidates and doing down the republican movement,” says a man in the Westwood Shopping Centre in Andersonstown, west Belfast.

There is still substantial support for the McCartneys in nationalist areas. Yet, slowly but surely, the IRA and Sinn Fein assault on them is gathering pace. The public warnings and veiled criticisms of the sisters by Sinn Fein’s Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness last week are feeding down to grassroots nationalists, while some negative reaction to their high-profile US visit is spontaneous.

There was a similar reaction to the Omagh bomb families – initial sympathy but then a feeling in some quarters that their grief was being elevated above those of others bereaved in the Troubles.

“What happened to Robert McCartney was awful, really awful,” says a woman shopper. “But what about the hundreds of others killed just as brutally? You can’t switch on the news these days without hearing about the McCartneys. Why should Robert McCartney be singled out ? Was his life more valuable than other people’s?”

Another woman says: “If it had been the Brits or the police who killed him, would it still be in the headlines nearly two months later? Plenty of people in this area were shot dead with plastic bullets and there was no big campaign to bring the killers to justice.”

“They’re glory-hunters . They couldn’t care less about their brother. They’ll say anything to be on TV,” says yet another woman.

Some reaction may be a response to what is thought to be a smear campaign by Provo apparatchiks to challenge the sisters’ integrity. One example is the exaggeration of their financial status. It’s been said Donna McCartney owns a top Belfast restaurant – she in fact runs a sandwich shop. Nor do they have fancy headquarters: their campaign is run from the living room of Paula McCartney’s very ordinary home in the working-class Short Strand area of east Belfast.

Some claims are more political. One story is that the sisters have hooked up with the SDLP to secure it votes in May’s Westminster election. Another false claim is that they are being advised by anti-Agreement former IRA prisoner Anthony McIntyre, and are furthering a dissident republican agenda. Despite these claims the sisters have welcomed SDLP support, as they have that of any party which has offered it. They say they are strongly pro-peace, and their call for co-operation with the police hardly fits the dissident republican position that the security forces are legitimate targets.

The McCartneys have dismissed as sexist the claims that they are being manipulated, and Sinn Fein has never made such accusations about families such as the Finucanes, Nelsons or Hamills. Perhaps the difference is that these families’ campaigns concern bringing to justice members of the security forces who colluded in, or turned a blind eye to, murder, and not members of the IRA.

In the Short Strand, those who know the McCartneys defend them strongly. “They’re a very decent family, only doing what they think is right . If Sinn Fein had dealt with this honestly and openly , there would have been no damage to them politically. They’ve only themselves to blame,” says a neighbour.

Another woman says: “Robert was a gentleman. His murderers must face justice and the family are right in not resting until then.”

Her friend adds: “They’re great girls, very brave. If it was my brother, I’d like to think I’d be strong enough to do the same.”

Another neighbour says: “It’s a lie to say they’re attention-seekers. They don’t want to be in America, they’d far rather be at home. It’s not like they’re on holiday. They haven’t even had time to mourn properly.”

Even this sympathy may not last. President Bush is hardly popular in working-class Catholic areas of the north and his support for the McCartneys will impress few republicans. Sinn Fein, though, is in no position to criticise them for meeting Bush, since Gerry Adams has been – until he was left out this year – happy to enjoy White House hospitality on St Patrick’s Day.

The family set out with the sole aim of having Robert McCartney’s killers convicted; but the by-product of the murder, its cover-up and their activities is, as some staunch republicans admit sadly, doing what Margaret Thatcher never could: criminalising the republican movement.

20 March 2005

Unison.ie / Irish Independent

‘Adams didn’t even put his hands together when McCain praised us’

IT’S been a momentous week for the McCartney sisters. In their pursuit of justice, the five courageous women from Belfast and their brother’s fiancee have found themselves thrust into the limelight, meeting leading politicians in Washington and being credited with changing the political landscape of the Irish peace process.

On January 30, father of two Robert McCartney was stabbed to death in a bar row in Belfast. His sisters blame the IRA for the murder and for intimidating witnesses, and their campaigning has highlighted the issue of IRA criminality.

President Bush invited the McCartney family to the White House on St Patrick’s Day as part of a gesture to all those working towards peace in Northern Ireland, marking a shift in policy that saw Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams increasingly sidelined.

In Washington with Robert McCartney’s fiancee, Bridgeen Hagans, 27, were Gemma McCartney, 41, who is a district nurse; Paula, 40, a mature student at Queens; Donna, 38, who runs her own business; Catherine, 36, a politics teacher at a college offurther education; and Claire, 27, a trainee teacher. At their hotel, they gave us thisdiary of their week in thespotlight.

Sunday, March 13 (Belfast)
Bridgeen: I tell the boys [Conlaed, four, and Brandon, two] they’ve been so good that they’re going away for a holiday with my sister Catrina in Birmingham. My mummy’s going to take them over there as a treat and I say that I’m staying home to look after the house.

I’m afraid they’ll get upset if they know I’m going away. It’s too soon after their father, Robert, has gone from their lives. I spend the day getting them ready and packing their things.

Gemma: And I have to prepare clothes and lunches for the week for my two children, Louise and Robert, and my husband Tony.

Monday, March 14 (Belfast and Dublin)
Donna: I own a newsagent and sandwich shop in the city centre, so I go in to work to make sure everything’s OK. I’ve got another girl in to help while I’m away.

The customers have been great. They’re wishing me luck and some are giving £20 or even £50 to help us out.

Bridgeen: I still haven’t really had time to think about the week ahead. I’m just worried about leaving the kids.

It’s the first time I’ve gone away without them. I’m not looking forward to the trip. I’m worried about all theattention, but we’ve got todo it.

Gemma: We all drive down to Dublin in the evening, six of us in a minibus with Donna’s partner and a friend of his.

It’s the first time we’ve all been together in about a week and it’s a good chance to catch up on the latest developments. We’ve just heard that a senior Sinn Fein official was in the bar at the time Robert was stabbed and we talk about that too. It’s disgusting.

Tuesday, March 15 (Dublin, London and Washington)
Gemma: I go on the radio to say what I think of Martin McGuinness for warning us to be very careful and not enter the world of party politics. It was arrogant and patronising. We’re nobody’s fools and nobody’s pulling our strings.

Donna: We flew from Dublin this morning. Now we’re waiting on the tarmac for the BA flight at Heathrow and the stewardess comes down and asks if we’re the McCartney party. We say “yes”.

Gemma thinks we’re going to get thrown off, but actually the captain has moved us to empty seats in the first class cabin.

Gemma: It’s a great flight. We talk a bit about what’s ahead of us. We’ve been so busy that it’s only sinking in now that we’re on our way to meet the President of the America.

We’re not sure about what to expect, but we’re certainly not apprehensive, sure we’re not. We’ve come a long way in the last few weeks and we’re not allowing ourselves to be overwhelmed.

Robert’s been murdered and we have to get justice for him. That afternoon, the party arrives at Baltimore/Washington International Airport.

Bridgeen: We hit a bit of a problem at immigration. The officer asks why we’re here and I say that we’ve come to see the President. He asks which President and I say, “Mr Bush, you know, George Bush.”

Then Catherine says we’re going to the White House. The official asks how we’re getting there and she says by taxi. Then he asks us if we have an invitation and we say, no, but we have our passports.

At this stage, they escort us all off to another room, because they don’t seem sure about our story, but we give them all the contact numbers and everything seems to be fine after they call Teddy Kennedy’s office. They apologise and wish us luck.

Gemma: We come out of the airport and into our first media scrum. Welcome to America.

Wednesday, March 16 (Washington)
Donna: The meetings begin. First we see Mitchell Reiss, the President’s envoy to Northern Ireland. He says he wants to meet us again in Belfast, which is great as it will keep the campaign going.

Then we’re off to see Senator Kennedy. He’s cancelled seeing Gerry Adams, which is another victory. He comes outside to meet us with his two dogs and then takes us up to his room, where he shows us the photos of JFK, Bobby Kennedy and his family.

He makes us a cup of tea and phones our mummy, Kathleen.

Gemma: We’re joined by Senators Hillary Clinton, John McCain and Chris Dodd. They want to hear from our own mouths what happened in the bar that night.

They are horrified. Hillary finds it incredible when we tell her that senior Sinn Fein officials were in the bar and she asks us to email her the details. We show them pictures of Brendan Devine in hospital [the stabbed friend whom Robert was protecting].

Bridgeen: I show them photos of Robert with the kids. Paula describes what [his attackers] did to him. It’s still so painful to talk about it.

Donna: Only now are we starting to grasp how big this issue is over here. Even our taxi driver told us he couldn’t believe the IRA was murdering innocent Catholics.

Part of the success of this campaign is its spontaneity. We haven’t prepared speeches, we just tell people what happened. If it gets too orchestrated, we could lose momentum. That evening, the group attends the American Ireland Fund gala dinner alongside Bertie Ahern.

Gerry Adams is also present. Senator McCain delivers the main speech, condemning the IRA and Sinn Fein and lauding the bravery of the six women.

Donna: It is great to hear the applause. I just watched Adams during the Senator’s speech. He stared ahead and looked really grim. I didn’t expect him to clap when there was criticism of Sinn Fein, but he didn’t even put his hands together when McCain praised our courage. That speaks volumes.

I realise now how badly this is going for Adams.

Gemma: We’re all exhausted. I was so tired tonight that my legs gave out on me as I was walking down the stairs.

Catherine is drained and losing weight. We’re all worried about her health.

Thursday, March 17
Gemma: Catherine and Paula go off at 8am to do an interview on CNN. This is the big day, the meeting with the President. We decided last night not to present him with the dossier we’d put together.

It seemed too much of an imposition. We thought it would be better to make our points directly.

Donna: We join the queue at the White House. It’s like waiting to see Santa Claus and it’s freezing outside. Eventually we’re shown into a reception room with portraits of the First Ladies. Only threeof us are going in to see Mr Bush - Catherine, Paula and Bridgeen.

Bridgeen: We are ushered in with 12 people from different groups. There are pieces of paper on the floor with our names so we know where to stand. I move mine because I want to be in the middle of the other girls.

Then the President enters the room. He spends about five minutes with our group. He asks who is the widow and asks me about the boys and how I am. He clearly knows what happened to Robert.

He is gracious and friendly, but I am too nervous to think straight. It is all a bit of a blur. Paula tells him Robert was a quiet, gentle, good man and Catherine tells him that we hope he can use his influence to help bring the murderers to justice and that this is a test of the sincerity of Sinn Fein in the peace process.

He says that he is 100 per cent behind us and that justice would be done. And he thanks us for our courage. After it was all over, we pop outside for a smoke and can’t get back in. Locked out of the White House!

Gemma: We also meet Ann McCabe. She tells us that we were doing a great job and that we have started a revolution.

That is a big boost. Then we emerge into the biggest media scrum of all. It is crazy outside. Donna: I think what really strikes us now is that we’ve had to bring our campaign so far. We don’t want to have to be here. Every day, we hope that the phone will ring and someone will tell us that they’ve arrested the bastards who did this.

We know who did it, the police know who did it, but it’s gone on and on and that’s why we’re here. Because we’re not going to give up, it’s gone too far. And we’re not going to settle for the arrest of just two or three people.

Or for the IRA to dish out their own justice. We want everyone involved to be charged, everyone involved in the cleaning up and covering up.

That’s more like 15 people. We know the names and we want them put away.

Bridgeen: I have to walk past some of these people when I go out with the boys. They’re there, laughing and free. We can’t accept that.

Gemma: That evening, we go to the Irish ambassador’s St Patrick’s Day party, but we are too tired for much of a celebration. We’ve been on the go from 7am and it’s taking its toll. We go home early and crash.

Friday, March 18
This is the first day the group have spare time, although they are besieged for media interviews. It is time for them to reflect on these momentous days.

Gemma: I call my husband. He says we’re all over the news back home. I just want to go back to walking my dog and doing the gardening, Donna needs to get back to her job, Bridgeen needs to find work now that Robert’s gone, Paula’s got her studies and Catherine and Claire have the teaching.

But we can’t do that yet. We know the media’s going to start to lose interest, but we’re not going to let this fizzle out. We’re going to hold rallies, we’re going to send a petition to Tony Blair, we’re going to visit the European Parliament, we want to meet Nelson Mandela.

And we might well run against Adams and McGuinness in the Westminster elections, as candidates for human rights and truth. We’ve got all sorts of plans to keep this alive until they arrest the men who did this. I’ve got a degree in modern history and I can see parallels between these IRA thugs and the Nazis. Donna: People keep saying how much we’ve achieved here, but really we’ve achieved nothing until Robert’s killers are behind bars. We’re not here to disband the IRA. If they end up disbanded, then they did this damage to themselves.

Our goal is justice for Robert. Because justice for Robert is justice for everyone who these bastards have murdered. And then we hear that there are people going on the radio back home saying that we’re visiting the world’s biggest terrorist and that we’re enemies of the Republican movement. It makes me sick.

Gemma: We’ve cried a lot and we’ve laughed a lot while we’ve been over here. The humour helps us hold it together, but we’re deadly serious about this.

One other thing. Some people ask about the money. Well, we’re staying in two rooms with four double beds. Bridgeen and Claire are sharing one and I’m sleeping on the floor. Most of us borrowed our outfits for the dinner on Wednesday.

Some family money paid for the flights and hotel rooms, but we’re skint here. Nobody’s paying for us and we don’t want anybody to pay for us. If we were being funded, we wouldn’t be living like this.

Bridgeen: We don’t need anybody behind us. We’ve got truth on our side and we’ve got each other.

© The Sunday Telegraph

Philip Sherwell

Sunday Independent

McCartneys call SF/IRA ‘Nazi thugs’

Jody Corcoran and Philip Sherwell

THE McCartney family, in a powerful and emotionally charged account of their week in America, has compared the Provisional IRA to Nazis.

The family kept a searingly honest 2,000-word diary recording the dramatic events in Washington, the highlight of which was its meeting with President Bush.

In the diary, published exclusively in Ireland in the Sunday Independent today, Gemma McCartney says: “I’ve got a degree in modern history and I can see parallels between these IRA thugs and the Nazis.”

Another sister, Donna, said: “People keep saying how much we’ve achieved here, but really we’ve achieved nothing until Robert’s killers are behind bars. We’re not here to disband the IRA. If they end up disbanded, then they did this damage to themselves. Our goal is justice for Robert. Because justicefor Robert is justice for everyone who these bastards have murdered.”

The family used its diary to hit out strongly at an insidious campaign, secretly promoted by SF-IRA, designed to undermine their cause.

Said Gemma McCartney: “Some people ask about the money. Well, we’re staying in two rooms with four double beds. Bridgeen and Claire are sharing one and I’m sleeping on the floor. Most of us borrowed our outfits for the dinner on Wednesday. Some family money paid for the flights and hotel rooms, but we’re skint here. Nobody’s paying for us and we don’t want anybody to pay for us. If we were being funded, we wouldn’t be living like this.”

The murdered man’s partner Bridgeen Hagans, 27, adds: “We don’t need anybody behind us. We’ve got truth on our side and we’ve got each other.”

In the US with Bridgeen were Gemma McCartney, 41, who is a district nurse; Paula, 40, a mature student at Queens; Donna, 38, who runs her own business; Catherine, 36, a politics teacher at a college of further education; and Claire, 27, a trainee teacher.

They headed for home yesterday after a whirlwind tour of Washington that saw their campaign to hold the IRA to account make an unprecedented impact.

The five sisters were thrust into the spotlight when they decided to take their fight for justice to the US.

As a result they won the support of President Bush, Senators Ted Kennedy, Hillary Clinton, and John McCain and US envoy to NI Mitchell Reiss.

The family’s campaign to get the men who brutally murdered their 33-year-old brother to court has been hailed a huge success that triggered an international protest against Sinn Fein’s continued links with the IRA.

The party has been accused of a sinister cover-up over the January 30 murder.

The coming months back in Belfast will be hard and bitter for the McCartney sisters and Miss Hagans. They will be subjected to the full force of Sinn Fein’s PR machine, which will attempt to smear them and their motivations. That machine could already be heard cranking up last week.

Aware of the imminent backlash, Paula McCartney yesterday told the Sunday Independent: “We are not afraid. The point of our campaign is that, far from being afraid, ordinary people should do the right thing and come forward.”

On Monday, March 14, Gemma records: “We’ve just heard that a senior Sinn Fein official was in the bar at the time Robert was stabbed and we talk about that too. It’s disgusting.”

On Tuesday, Gemma adds: “I go on the radio to say what I think of Martin McGuinness for warning us to be very careful and not enter the world of party politics. It was arrogant and patronising. We’re nobody’s fools and nobody’s pulling our strings.”

Later that day, she adds: “It’s only sinking in now that we’re on our way to meet the President of the United States . . . We’ve come a long way in the last few weeks and we’re not allowing ourselves to be overwhelmed. Robert’s been murdered and we have to get justice for him.”

Meanwhile, British police have said there is a substantial risk of an attack in Britain by IRA dissidents. Police on Friday raised the threat level from Irish paramilitaries to ’substantial’. That is just below the ’severe general’ threat posed by al-Qaeda.

A Metropolitan Police spokeswoman said there was no specific intelligence that would prompt a public warning. However, one Sunday newspaper has quoted from a memo allegedly sent by anti-terrorist police to London businesses this week, stating that “dissident Irish republican terrorists are currently planning to mount attacks on the UK mainland”.

The Observer

Irish terror groups ‘to hit London’

· Police and MI5 issue warning to British businesses
· ‘Substantial threat’ from dissident republican groups

Martin Bright and Henry McDonald
Sunday March 20, 2005
The Observer

Police have issued a stark warning that mainland Britain faces a ’substantial threat’ of an Irish republican bombing campaign, The Observer can reveal.

Scotland Yard’s counter-terrorism section sent out an email about a new threat to businesses across London on Friday evening, following intelligence received from MI5 about an increase in activity from breakaway groups such as the Real IRA.

The chilling note, seen by The Observer, states: ‘Reporting indicates that dissident Irish republican terrorists are currently planning to mount attacks on the UK mainland.’

It goes on to explain that methods used by dissident groups in Northern Ireland could be transferred to Britain. These include ‘incendiary and improved explosive devices’ used in recent republican campaigns, ‘postal devices’ and ’shooting attacks’. The police warning adds that hoax calls have also been made ‘to amplify the disruptive effect of such attacks’. The level of the threat is now said to be ’substantial’, just one stage below the ’severe general’ threat from al-Qaeda.

The email seen by this newspaper was sent from Martin Gurney, an inspector from the counter-terrorism section of the Metropolitan Police, to London First, a campaign group that works with 300 major firms to promote the capital. It was received just after 5.30pm on Friday by Denica Lundberg, who co-ordinates the organisation’s dealings with the police.

Police and the intelligence services warned of an increase in the threat from the Provisional IRA at the beginning of February after strong signals that they would return to the armed conflict following the breakdown of negotiations over arms decommissioning.

One Whitehall intelligence source warned of making too clear a distinction between dissident groups and the IRA itself. ‘It is often convenient for the security services to talk about “provisionals” and “dissidents”, but there are an awful lot of grey areas and blurring of the edges,’ he said.

Irish police have been concerned about the ‘cross-fertilisation’ between the IRA and dissident members who have been working together. There were two separate incidents in the Republic over the last month in which supposed dissidents turned out to be members of the Provisional IRA. One officer said it was even possible that dissidents were being used as cover.

Police counter-terrorism sources said that existing resources would be sufficient to cope with the heightened risk as anti-terror police were already in a state of readiness to cope with al-Qaeda.

In early February the IRA issued a statement to the British and Irish governments saying: ‘Do not underestimate the seriousness of the situation.’

The note came 24 hours after it withdrew an offer to decommission weapons.

The spectre of a new bombing campaign has raised the stakes. It was thought that the Real IRA, which was responsible for the Omagh bomb in August 1998, had been largely dismantled. It is not known if the new threat comes from a newly revived version of the breakaway organisation, another group such as the Continuity IRA or a new splinter group altogether.

Dissident groups are thought to be in disarray and heavily infiltrated, although there is some overlap between them and mainstream IRA in South Armagh, Cork and Dublin.

Last night, a senior Irish detective said that while it was unclear if the entire IRA organisation had decided to sanction an attack on Britain, there were forces inside mainstream republicanism in favour of a short, sharp attack.

A spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Police confirmed that the threat level had been raised on Friday. She said the warning was sent out as part of a system to inform companies and businesses in the City of London to remain vigilant against terrorism.

The upgrading of the threat level will raise fears about the collapse of the peace process - already under pressure after allegations of IRA involvement in the murder of Robert McCartney and the raid on the Northern Bank in Belfast last December in which £26 million was stolen.

Prior to the collapse of all-party talks in December, a group of republicans still inside the Provisional IRA contacted The Observer . They passed on a statement opposing any moves to decommission weapons as part of a deal to get Sinn Fein into government in Belfast with Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionist Party.

Senior detectives in Dublin believe that the Northern Bank robbery was sanctioned by IRA leadership because it was seen as an alternative to a renewed bombing campaign in Britain. The heist has been described as a ‘bloodless spectacular’ against the British state.

On Friday, Northern Ireland Secretary Paul Murphy said that there was ‘no hope’ of political progress until the question of IRA criminality had been dealt with. Speaking from Washington, where he had celebrated St Patrick’s Day, he said the onus was now on Sinn Fein to deal with IRA lawlessness.

He added: ‘As far as the political process is concerned, to all intents and purposes we are not talking about any future negotiations or discussions until the issue about criminal activity on the part of the IRA is addressed.’