IRISH REPUBLICAN INFORMATION SERVICE (no. 13)
Teach Dáithí Ó Conaill, 223 Parnell Street, Dublin 1, Ireland
Phone: +353-1-872 9747; FAX: +353-1-872 9757; e-mail: saoirse@iol.ie
Date: 18 Aibreán / April 2005
Internet resources maintained by SAOIRSE-Irish Freedom
http://saoirse.rr.nu
In this issue:
1. Website for Dungannon cumann
2. GAA bow to media pressure on Rule 42
3. Loyalists blamed for attacks
4. Call for closure of St Patrick’s Institution
5. Pat Finucane’s widow wants judges to boycott inquiry
6. Son seeks truth of mother’s death in 1975
7. Loyalist murder bid on former associate
8. Ulster Unionist raided by RUC/PSNI in money-laundering probe
1. WEBSITE FOR DUNGANNON CUMANN
IN A statement on March 30 the PRO of the McKearney/McCaughey Cumann, Republican Sinn Féin said that they have been working hard this year trying to promote the organisation in Dungannon and East Tyrone.
The statement continued: “We have been pushing hard to up the sales of the paper and feel we have been making head way in the community educating them on the merits of ÉIRE NUA.
“We have also been working hard trying to construct a website for the area of Dungannon & East Tyrone and this week have purchased the webname thanks to those who sold Easter Lilies in the local pubs on St Patrick’s Day.
“The site is not fully complete with a POW page to be added and hopefully a local news and events page but we hope people enjoy the site and we welcome feedback and also any news or events that would link in with the area.
“The address of our website is www.rsfdungannon.com and our email is rsfdng@yahoo.co.uk.
“May the spirt off 1916 live on.”
2. GAA BOW TO MEDIA PRESSURE ON RULE 42
AT its annual congress on Saturday, April 16 the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) eventually succumbed to a sustained media-driven campaign, which has been waged over the past number of years, to drop or amend Rule 42 of their constitution. Rule 42, which ensured their national stadium in Dublin, Croke Park, was for the use of Gaelic games only, was amended to allow it to be opened up to soccer and rugby for the period that the Irish Rugby Football Union’s (IRFU) Lansdowne stadium is being redeveloped.
GAA members were faced with a campaign, which amounted to a form of moral blackmail over the past year. It was pointed out continually across all of the media that by failing to make Croke Park available to soccer and rugby, the GAA would be forcing both the Irish rugby and 26-County soccer teams to play their home games abroad. However what was not pointed out was that whilst the GAA, an amateur organisation, had the initiative, vision and ability to build one of the finest state of the art stadiums in Europe, the other two organisations, both of which are professional bodies, seemingly lacked the qualities displayed by the amateur sporting body.
In the case of soccer’s Football Association of Ireland (FAI) no one questioned why a professional sporting organisation which has participated in three world cups in 15 years, with all the attendant media attention, corporate backing and sponsorship which this entails, was unable in that period to build its own stadium or indeed what it has done with the huge finances which it must have raised during the last 15 to 20 years.
However despite the fact the GAA amended Rule 42, both the IRFU and the FAI both said they are continuing to consider alternative venues abroad. This would seem to indicate that another agenda lay behind the entire debate.
In a statement Republican Sinn Féin Vice President, Des Dalton, who himself is a member of the GAA, said that once again the leadership of the GAA have allowed elements within the media and elsewhere, who are some of the most hostile and vitriolic critics of the GAA and all that it stands for, set the agenda.
“Like the debate on Rule 21, which barred members of the British Crown Forces from membership of the GAA some years ago, the leadership of the association have allowed anti-national elements within the media and elsewhere to set the agenda.
“Those who have been most vocal in the calls on the GAA to drop Rule 42, and have driven this and previous campaigns, are actively hostile and amongst the most vitriolic critics of Cumann Lúthchleas Gael and all that it represents.
“The fact that the GAA, an amateur sporting organisation had the courage and drive to build a world-class stadium whilst professional sporting bodies, particularly the FAI, has lacked similar vision or competence has been ignored in the whole debate. Indeed the most pertinent questions have not been asked of the FAI, firstly as to what they have done with the vast financial resources they must have accrued over the past 15 to 20 years and secondly why in that entire period they were not in a position like the GAA to build their own stadium.”
3. LOYALISTS BLAMED FOR ATTACKS
A GROUP of around ten loyalists attacked a number of nationalists homes at Old Throne Park in the Whitewell Road area of north Belfast on April 12.
4. CALL FOR CLOSURE OF ST PATRICK’S INSTITUTION
ST Patrick’s Institution, the largest facility for young offenders in the 26 Counties should be closed because it is “completely inadequate” to provide rehabilitation for young people, according to a report by the inspector of prisons.
In a series of damning findings, the Inspector of Prisons, Dermot Kinlen, has found that inmates are spending up to 14 hours in their cells, while workshops have been closed due to budget cutbacks.
He also expressed concern at alleged levels of bullying and harassment in the institution, while a combination of workshop closures and rehabilitation services have turned St Patrick’s into a “warehouse” where inmates are deteriorating.
“I fully support its closure as it is completely inadequate to provide rehabilitation for the juveniles. It is far too cramped to have worthwhile space for workshops, education, etc, but especially for recreation or open areas for outdoor games,” according to the report.
He said workshops which played a valuable role in the rehabilitation of young people, had been closed due to “inexplicable and inexcusable ” budget cutbacks.
The closure of Shanganagh, a low-security open centre for young offenders, meant inmates had nothing to aspire to and no goal to achieve.
“The combination of all of these retrograde steps has seriously affected the regimes and rehabilitation prospects for a lot of the inmates and has merely turned St Patrick’s into a ‘warehouse’. The inmates will naturally deteriorate in such a system.”
Dermot Kinlen’s report comes 20 years after the influential Whitaker Report in 1985, which also condemned rehabilitation in the institution and called for its closure.
The Whitaker Report stated that the physical and environmental conditions nullified any personal development among inmates, while services, which a humane centre could provide, could not be delivered in a renovated St Patrick’s Institution.
Dermot Kinlen also expressed concern at reports of widespread bullying. There were 198 reports of inmates of inmates over a 12-month period, resulting in concern over the level of bullying and harassment.
5. PAT FINUCANE’S WIDOW WANTS JUDGES TO BOYCOTT INQUIRY
THE widow of murdered Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane has written to all senior judges in Britain urging them not to sit on an inquiry into her husband’s killing.
Geraldine Finucane wrote personally to every senior judge in England, Scotland and Wales expressing her concerns about the new Inquiries Act.
Despite having been pressing for a public inquiry for years, Geraldine Finucane believes the terms of the act could prevent the truth of her husband’s murder in 1989, and allegations of British state collusion with the loyalist death squad responsible, coming out.
Retired Canadian High Court Judge Peter Cory recommended public inquiries into the murders of Pat Finucane and three other people in 2002 after he carried out investigations for the British and Dubin Governments into allegations of collusion. He said there was strong evidence of collusion, which merited public inquiries.
Since the British Government enacted the Inquiries Act both Judge Cory and Lord Saville, who conducted the long-running Bloody Sunday Inquiry which is yet to report, have indicated they would not be prepared to sit on any inquiry set up under the act.
In her letters Geraldine Finucane said: “In view of these considerations I write to request that, if approached to serve on an Inquiries Act inquiry into my husband’s murder, you, like Lord Saville and Judge Cory refuse to accept such an appointment.”
She said that despite undertakings given by the British government in Westminster to implement the Cory recommendation in full, the British government had now enacted the Inquiries Act 2005.
“The provisions of that Act clearly fall far short of the Cory recommendations,” she said.
Geraldine Finucane quoted Judge Cory saying: “It seems to me that the proposed new Act would make a meaningful inquiry impossible. The Commissioners would be working in an impossible situation.”
Judge Cory added: “For example, the minister, the actions of whose ministry was to be reviewed by the public inquiry would have the authority to thwart the efforts of the inquiry at every step. It really creates an intolerable Alice in Wonderland situation.”
Lord Saville was quoted as saying: “I take the view that this provision makes a very serious inroad into the independence of any inquiry; and is likely to damage or destroy public confidence in the inquiry and its findings, especially in any case where the conduct of the authorities may be in question.”
He added: “As a Judge, I must tell you that I would not be prepared to be appointed as a member of an inquiry that was subject to a provision of this kind.”
Geraldine Finucane took a full-page advertisement in the English newspaper The Times to publicise her position.
6. SON SEEKS TRUTH OF MOTHER’S DEATH IN 1975
ON April 12, 1975 John Bennett’s his mother, Marie Bennett, along with five other nationalists was killed in a no-warning attack on the Strand Bar in the Short Strand area of Belfast by the British-backed UVF loyalist death squad.
The UVF gang threw a bomb into the bar and barricaded the doors to make sure no one escaped. Six died and more than 40 were injured in one of the UVF’s worst attacks. Marie Bennett died instantly, leaving behind a grieving husband and seven children, the youngest was just five.
For John, aged just 12, it was as though the heart had been torn from his family.
“We heard the explosion and ran up to see the bar in ruins. People were digging through the rubble to try and pull survivors out, but we were ushered away. We didn’t know then that our mum was dead, we were told the next morning. We were all just numb, no-one knew what to do and in those days there was no counselling, it was a question of just getting on with it. A neighbour brought us in and I will always be thankful for that. We really were lost and heartbroken.”
That the UVF gang could have penetrated into the heart of the fortified Short Strand area and escaped without hindrance immediately raised suspicions of collusion. In 1975 the Short Strand was criss-crossed with security barricades, dragons’ teeth ramparts and swamped with the British army and RUC. Despite that the UVF had managed to kill six people in the very heart of it.
The Short Strand community’s suspicions were confirmed when it emerged that a British army agent had organised the bombing. A nationalist, originally from the Short Strand, he had provided the UVF death squad with detailed information on how to carry out the attack and the best escape route. He even told the UVF team to bring a plank of wood with them to barricade the Strand Bar’s doors.
The agent, Séamus O’Brien, was shot dead by the IRA in 1976 after he was caught attempting to bomb a bar in west Belfast. O’Brien was one of a team of people from the nationalist community who had been recruited into a “counter-insurgency” unit of the British army, with the aim of spreading confusion and terror amongst nationalists.
No one was ever convicted of the Strand Bar bombing. Of the dozens of witnesses who were in and around the bar that night only a handful were questioned.
“It’s quite clear that the British government was involved in the murders of six innocent Catholics in the Short Strand. They were involved in a lot more too, yet even now, 30 years after, they won’t admit it,” John Bennet said.
“The British government had a policy then of counter-insurgency which involved using Irish people to kill other Irish people. That is a matter of public record and it led to the death of my mother. We have been campaigning for the past 30 years to get to the truth but the British government is afraid of the truth. Without it we can’t move on.”
One man was arrested and charged with the murder but was found not guilty. Only a few witnesses were called to give evidence. For John Bennett the reason for the lack of investigation into the murderous attack on innocent civilians is clear.
“In all the collusion cases there seems to be a pattern that the RUC did not investigate the murder with any enthusiasm at all. There was dozens of witnesses there that night but none of them were spoken to. There were no questions asked by the RUC.
“The reason is simple - why investigate a murder when you know who did it and you know that your paymasters organised it as part of a military campaign.”
On Sunday April 10 a mass was held in St Matthew’s Church to commemorate the six victims of the Strand Bar bombing. An Fhírinne, the campaigning group for victims of collusion, had an exhibition on display in the local community centre.
The five other victims of the Strand Bar bombing were, Michael Penn (33), Elizabeth Carson (64), Agnes McAnoy (62), Mary McAleavey (57), and Michael Mulligan (33).
7. LOYALIST MURDER BID ON FORMER ASSOCIATE
On Friday, April 15 shots were fired indiscriminately yards away from Knockbreda primary school in the Rosetta Road area of south Belfast.
Members of a loyalist death squad fired four or more shots at loyalist Robert Black, an associate of former LVF leader Stephen Warnock (shot dead outside a school in Newtownards, Co Down in September 2002 by loyalists), as he drove along the road just before 2pm, wounding him in the leg and hitting a number of parked cars.
Eyewitnesses said that people dived for cover as the gunman fired after the car and two women waiting to collect their children from school had a narrow escape when a bullet smashed through their car window seconds after they had gone into a shop.
8. ULSTER UNIONIST RAIDED BY RUC/PSNI IN MONEY-LAUNDERING PROBE
THE home and offices of Ulster Unionist Party Stormont assembly member and chairperson of a district policing partnership (DPP), Michael Copeland, were raided on April 15 by the RUC/PSNI as part of a major money-laundering investigation involving a senior loyalist and an estate agent.
His Castleragh Borough Council offices and his assembly offices on the Albertbridge Road were also searched. Copeland denied any wrong-doing.
East Belfast estate agent Philip Johnston (39) - who runs a chain of six branches across the city - denied money-laundering charges earlier in the week. Last week, days after being expelled as “brigadier” of the east Belfast UDA, Jim Gray was arrested and charged with possessing and concealing criminal property. His girlfriend, Sharon Moss (34), was also charged with money-laundering.
ENDS
