IRISH REPUBLICAN INFORMATION SERVICE (no. 21)
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: 15 Meitheamh / June 2005
Internet resources maintained by SAOIRSE-Irish Freedom
http://saoirse.rr.nu
In this issue:
1. Wolfe Tone honoured at Bodenstown
2. Ó Brádaigh presents papers to NUI Galway
3. Intimidation and arrests of Republicans
4. Continued harassment in Occupied Six Counties
5. Nationalists Targeted in Derry
6. Lisburn City Council kicks off Union Jack campaign at interface village
7. RUC/PSNI refuse to remove UVF flag
8. Loyalist parade rules ‘violated systematically’
9. Loyalists Suspected in Cemetery Shooting
10. Irish becomes ‘official’ EU working language
11. Body found in Newry canal
1. WOLFE TONE HONOURED AT BODENSTOWN
ON June 12 the annual Republican Sinn Féin commemoration to Theobald Wolfe Tone, the Father of Irish Republicanism, took place.
A large crowd assembled in Sallins Village, Co Kildare and led by a National Colour Party carrying the Tricolour, the Starry Plough and the flags of the Four Provinces as well as uniformed contingents from Cumann na mBan and Na Fianna Éireann, marched to Bodenstown Churchyard.
At the Monument to Wolfe Tone in the cemetery, erected by the National Graves Association, proceedings were chaired by Des Long, Limerick. A laurel wreath was laid by Veteran Republican Niall Fagan, from Co Meath and flags were dipped in salute. Peig Galligan spoke on behalf of the National Graves Association and the main oration was delivered by Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, President of Republican Sinn Féin.
In the course of his oration he described the career of Wolfe Tone and quoted from the man himself: “… Tone’s programme was ‘To subvert the tyranny of our execrable government, to break the connection with England, the never-failing source of all our political evils, and to assert the independence of my country - these were my objects. To unite the whole people of Ireland, to abolish the memory of all past dissensions, and to substitute the common name of Irishman in place of the denominations of Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter - these were my means.’
He concluded: “Tone thanked the Catholics in his speech from the Dock. He had sought to raise,” three millions of my Countrymen to the rank of citizens. When the public cry was raised against me, when the friends of my youth swarmed off and left me alone, the Catholics did not desert me - they had the virtue even to sacrifice their own interests to a rigid principle of honour”. But he sought also to remove the great disabilities imposed on the Presbyterians or Dissenters at that time. Sentenced to death he died in the hands of his enemies and we have their word only as to the manner of his passing. Suffice to say that he died for Ireland.
“His enemies decreed that two men only should accompany his coffin to this very spot, but the word got out and a large crowd gathered to pay respect. Ever since they come each year near to the date of his birthday, June 20, to do homage to his memory and renew their faith in his principles.
“There are, however, those who pretend to support his programme, who pay lip service here to his ideals while in fact they work against them day and night in collaboration with British power in Ireland. The road to Irish freedom does not lie through Stormont or Leinster House, partitionist institutions which were imposed here by England as their alternative to Irish national independence.
“One stands either for the essential unity and freedom of Ireland or for the English connection. A person cannot work with and administer British rule here and at the same time be a follower of Wolfe Tone. Neither can one, at the behest of the British government, destroy the weapons given to achieve the freedom of Ireland while one fights for Tone’s ideals.
“Above all, a person cannot don the uniform of the British police here or carry a gun in the service of English rule in this country while claiming to be an adherent of Irish Republicanism. One cannot adopt such conflicting attitudes without being a total contradiction. And Tone was certainly no contradiction; his labours, his struggles and his death attest to that.
“I submit that three simple requirements are necessary for any person to see this point clearly. The first is simply to have average intelligence; the second is a basic knowledge of Irish history, especially the history of the last 200 years - since the time of Wolfe Tone; and the third is an attribute which appears to be in short supply these days - the ability to be honest with oneself As the Bard said so many years ago: ‘First, to thine own self be true …’ Not so many are prepared to be true to themselves in recent times.
“What is more, since Ireland has been invaded, occupied and colonised - for many hundreds of years - one cannot deny the right of the Irish people, as a last resort, to avail of the option of the use of controlled and disciplined force to expel the armed forces and the administration of the invader.
“Also, there are those who collaborate with the enemy within our gates and extradite political prisoners to him and condemn the small wars of national liberation. These very people, while pretending to uphold Irish neutrality, give material aid and comfort to the powers engaged in imperialist wars of conquest and the seizure of natural resources in the Third World.
“This reference is clearly to the brazen use of Shannon airport as a military base and the availability of Irish airspace and re-fuelling facilities to a participant in such a war. The Irish people are even required to pay through taxation for the use of some of these facilities. We know full well what would be the attitude of Wolfe Tone - and also of James Connolly - to such blatant collaboration with imperialism. Yet those who authorise these activities - while at the same time denying their obvious nature - parade here to Wolfe Tone’s grave to abuse his memory.
“Meanwhile these same collaborators with imperialism intend to sell out the Irish airline, Aer Lingus, after almost 70 years service to the Irish people This essential service to an island nation is set to be lost to the Irish people, just as another essential service, Eircom, is now gone beyond their control.
“Through the mismanagement of yet another set of collaborators Irish Shipping Ltd was lost in 1984. This was the agency that brought vital food-stuffs and raw materials to Ireland during WWII and lost over 150 seamen and nineteen ships during its loyal service to the Irish people. Without its own Merchant Fleet and its own Airline, this island people is more vulnerable to outside pressures and more dependant on external forces, a far cry from the nation visualised by Wolfe Tone.
“A new English Supremo has taken over in the Six Occupied Counties as the British government continues its effort to gain as much nationalist support as possible for its rule here in addition to its underpinning by the unionists and the Dublin establishment. This newcomer was formerly with the “Troops Out” movement in England and at one time took a definite left-wing political stance.
“They come and they go - as did the Lord-Lieutenants at Dublin Castle in the past. Since 1972 we have had Willie Whitelaw, Francis Pym, Merlyn Rees, Roy Mason, Humphrey Atkins, Jim Prior, Douglas Hurd, Tom King, Patrick Mayhew, Mo Mowlam, John Reid, Peter Mandelson, Paul Murphy and now Peter Hain. The list goes on and on. But they achieve nothing other than attempting to contain the situation in Ireland. They cannot solve the dreaded Irish Question within their restricted terms of reference. Only a definite policy decision by the English government to quit Ireland once and for all can do that.
“Republican Sinn Féin and the true Republican Movement generally have a positive policy to meet such a new situation. To a constituent assembly, elected by adult suffrage in ALL of Ireland we will bring our ÉIRE NUA programme for a four-province federal Ireland, with optimum devolution of powers down to community level.
“Even now, Unionists could still have a working majority in a nine-county Ulster, subject to the checks and balances of the new structures - and the nationalists would be within reach of power at that provincial level. We do not regard incorporation of the Six Counties into the 26-County State as desirable and nothing resembling a takeover, open or covert, should be attempted.
“True Republicans have consistently sought the creation of a completely New Ireland fashioned by the representatives of all the Irish people who would draft a new 32-County Constitution. This is the centenary year of the foundation of Sinn Féin in 1905 with the object of ‘the re-establishment of the independence of Ireland’. By a remarkable coincidence this is also the centenary year of the first meeting of the Ulster Unionist Council.
“Unionists should realise that England has little or nothing to offer to any of us at this stage. The time has come for her to bow out and for this generation of Irish men and women of all persuasions to seize the moment in unity and fraternity. We must plan our future together - Wolfe Tone would have it no other way.
“Tone demonstrated amply in his own life that he would not be content as some are with mere civil rights under English rule. Rather did he seek ‘To break the connection with England and to assert the independence of my country, these were my objects’ - ideas never heard in Establishment circles today.
“A Cháirde, before leaving for America and in this month of June in 1795 - two hundred and ten years ago exactly - Tone, Thomas Russell, Henry Joy McCracken and three or four others climbed to the summit of MacArt’s Fort on the top of the Cave Hill overlooking Belfast. There, as is recorded in Tone’s diary, they took a solemn obligation ‘never to desist in our efforts until we had subverted the authority of England over our country, and asserted our independence’.
“Could anything be clearer? Tone, Russell, McCracken, and many, many thousands more in the 210 years since that day on the Cave Hill, gave their lives rather than break that solemn obligation. Here to-day at Bodenstown, in this centenary year of Sinn Féin and in close communion with the spirit of Theobald Wolfe Tone, let us, each one for himself or herself pledge ‘never to desist in out efforts …’ ”
2. Ó BRÁDAIGH PRESENTS PAPERS TO NUI GALWAY
ON Monday, June 13, Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, President, Republican Sinn Féin, presented a collection of papers from his personal collection to the James Hardiman Library in the National University of Ireland, Galway. The collection consisted of the following
1. HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS
(1) Mary Mac Swiney’s booklet The Republic of Ireland published in 1932 and aimed at visitors to the Eucharistic Congress in Dublin in that year; (2) Pink booklet published by the IRA in 1934 containing their Governmental Programme (largely a social & economic programme) and the Constitution of the IRA as agreed at the General Army Convention of 1932.
2. STATEMENTS
by Sinn Féin and by the IRA in 1956-62, some copies of the United Irishman of the same period, statements by the IRA relating to tensions between the IRA and Sinn Féin leaderships in 1962 which were sent to the Clan na Gael and IRA Veterans of America organisation in 1963-64. Newspaper cuttings and other material. All adverted to under “2″ came from Andy Higgins of Dublin who was active in the late 1940s and early 1950s and emigrated to Chicago where he was also active with the Clan.
3. “NOTES”
compiled by Ruairí Ó Brádaigh at meetings between Republican Movement representatives and Her Majesty’s Government representatives 1975-76 and other material relating to these encounters. An article on the Feakle talks of December 1974 which was written by RÓB thirty years later. Clare Champion interviews in January and February 2005 with Rev Billy Arlow and RÓB.
The three RM reps at the talks right through the contact with the British officials were Billy McKee of Belfast, Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, President of Sinn Féin and another who has not been contacted to give his consent to the use of his name. This latter person has not been active with the RM since the late 1970s.
4. MacBRIDE-BOAL TALKS.
Two representatives of the Republican Movement, namely Joe Cahill and Ruairí Ó Brádaigh met two representatives of the Ulster Loyalist Central Coordinating Committee, John McKeague and John McClure, at the request of the latter body, in late December 1976. Other meetings followed. Their purpose was to try to find a way to accommodate the ULCCC proposals for an independent Six-County State with the RM programme for a new four-province federation in Ireland known as ÉIRE NUA. It was agreed that if this could be done, a joint Loyalist-Republican approach could then be made to the British government to tell them to leave Ireland. Eventually it was agreed to have Desmond Boal QC to represent the Loyalists and Seán Mac Bride SC to represent the Republicans. Both men were approached and both agreed. For months they had meetings in various places including Paris. All this activity must not have gone unnoticed because Dr Cruise O’Brien became aware of it and condemned it on RTÉ Radio. The Loyalists had insisted on absolute secrecy and the talks went into decline. (Mr Mac Bride’s house was visited by the Special Branch who told him they believed he was being held hostage there. He denied this and refused to let them search his house.) The typescripts are drafts for statements to be issued at the time.
These documents wee given by Ruairí Ó Brádaigh on extended loan to NUI Galway. They had been read by An t-Ollamh Gearóid Ó Tuathaidh of NUIG for assessment purposes. The only other persons to have read them were the writers Nollag Ó Gadhra who used quotations from them in his book in the Irish language Margáil na Saoirse (1988), Peter Taylor of the BBC who used them in his television series and his book both names Provos: the IRA and Sinn Féin (1997 & 1998) and Professor Robert W White of Indiana University who will shortly be publishing a biography entitled Ruairí Ó Brádaigh, The Life and Politics of an Irish Revolutionary.
More than 70 people were in attendance for the presentation to Marion Reddan, on behalf of the Library. Professor Robert White from Indiana University, USA, also spoke at the presentation. He said that the collection being presented threw much light on the events of 1974 and 1975.
3. INTIMIDATION AND ARRESTS OF REPUBLICANS
ON Wednesday, June 8 the home of a Republican Sinn Féin member in Ballybrack, Co Dublin, was raided by armed gardaí and Special Branch, driving a white transit van with ladders on the roof-rack. They were hammering the door at approximately 7pm and shouting to be let in. They spent about two hours there and would not let the bin-men collect the rubbish - they searched through it. They also searched his car.
On Saturday, June 11 two members of Republican Sinn Féin were arrested in a house in Tallaght, Dublin after a very aggressive house raid in which the front door was completely destroyed. The two double-glazing glass panels on the front door were smashed in before one of the occupants had time to open the door, which he was in the process of doing. He had been woken up seconds earlier to hear the door being banged and men shouting ‘armed gardaí, open the f…ing door’.
When he looked out the window and saw two men pointing guns at the house. Two uniformed and seven plainclothes policemen (two of whom were in a white transit van with roof-rack and ladders) smashed their way in and proceeded to assault the young men who were in the house. They were members of Na Fianna Éireann and Republican Sinn Féin who had stayed there the previous night after a benefit function in the city.
The men were pulled from their beds and either dragged or thrown down the stairs. All the time the gardaí were shouting ‘get on the f…ing floor’. They were punched and kicked and a garda stood on one man’s head. This man suffers from cerebral palsy. The men were refused permission to use the toilet during the search which went on for approximately one hour and 15 minutes. During the raid the women who were in the house were held in the kitchen. Several items were taken away. Photographic evidence is available as to the damage to the house and the bruising/cuts inflicted on the men.
The following is an account of what happened to John Sheehy from Listowel, Kerry, one of the men arrested under section 30 Offences Against the State Act. The warrant for the raid was signed by Ruairí Corcoran.
“On Friday, June 10, 2005 I travelled to Dublin from Kerry to attend a function and stayed overnight at a friend’s house along with several others. The following morning (Saturday, June 11) at 7am I was woken up with a gun being pointed at my head and an armed Garda shouting at me. I was dragged out of the bed, thrown down the stairs and forced to the ground. My head was banged off the floor and I had a headache all day after it.
“I was told I was being arrested under 30 of the Offences Against the State Act for ‘withholding information likely to be of use to terrorists’. I was handcuffed and dragged along the front garden, which left my knees cut. On my way out the front door I saw that both glass panels in the front door was broken and that the glass was all over the hall and outside the front door. I was taken to Tallaght Garda station where I was placed in a cell. After some time a garda came to my cell door and, in a very aggressive manner, said that if I did not ring my mother and tell her to come home from work to open our front door, the door would be kicked in. Having seen the state of the door in the house in Tallaght I had no doubt that this would have been the case.
“My solicitor arrived and advised me. I was also seen by a doctor who was in the station at the time but he did not seem very interested in the state of my head which was very sore and tender. During my detention I underwent two periods of questioning during which they persistently questioned me about firearms, training camps in Dublin and a certain date six months previously. They were very insistent on questioning me about the other man arrested with me.
“When I was told I could go, I was brought into to a room by a Branch man and he told me ‘You are going to jail, I am going to make it my business to put you there - the only way you can stay out is to help me. I can meet you somewhere else if you want, I can give you a phone number.’ I said no and he said ‘you will definitely be in jail soon’. I was then released at around 6.15pm. My home in Listowel, Co. Kerry was raided while I was in the station. Six Gardaí searched it and they also searched the garden using shovels and slash hooks that they brought with them and took several items of my property. They were aggressive to my mother and said to her ‘I wonder what your bosses would say if they knew what was going on here’.”.
The other man arrested, Ciarán Stanley from Dundalk (he too had attended the benefit function the previous night) was also asked to become an informer. His home was raided while he was in detention.
The men were released without charge.
Meanwhile in Co Mayo, at approx 7pm on the same day, three uniformed and one plain clothes Gardaí raided the shop and home of Noel McHugh, Claremorris. Noel, who runs a barber shop in the town, was told by the gardaí that they were looking for petrol bombs. He told them he knew nothing about petrol bombs and he certainly had no such material in his shop. They then asked him for information as to what was ‘going on’ in the town (clearly a reference to some fires that had been started in the town) but he told them he knew nothing of what was happening. The raid lasted approx 45 minutes, naturally nothing was found. The Gardaí then raided his home. Again nothing was found and nothing was taken.
Josephine Hayden, Vice-President of Republican Sinn Féin said: “Clearly there is an increase in the harassment of members and supporters of Republican Sinn Féin in an attempt to intimidate them to give up their political interests. The very heavy presence of the gardaí at the annual Wolfe Tone commemoration in Bodenstown on June 12 is also an indication that they intend to return to the ‘heavy gang’ tactics of the 70s.
“However members and supporters will not be intimidated by their jackboot tactics. We are here for the long haul and will continue our fight for a 32County Socialist Republic. Republicans have been at the receiving end of such tactics for many years and no amount of intimidation will deter us.”
In a further act of repression on Tuesday, June 14, when a member of Republican Sinn Féin visited his local newsagent in Dublin to deliver his monthly SAOIRSE, an employee of the newsagent told him that once again the Special Branch had visited the shop.
On this occasion the Special Branch asked the newsagent to identify who was delivering the paper. They brought in a few sheets of photographs to see if the newsagent could pick out the person. On previous occasions the Special Branch asked the newsagent did he realise the money from SAOIRSE was going to an illegal organisation to fund illegal activities.
Not content with harassing Republicans they are now self-appointed censors. This is another draconian attempt being used by McDowell and his cohorts in his ongoing efforts to silence and censor the voice of true Republicans.
4. CONTINUED HARASSMENT IN OCCUPIED SIX COUNTIES
DURING the past month there has been a dramatic increase in intimidation and harassment from the RUC/PSNI and the British Occupation Forces in Cos Tyrone and Armagh.
On June 10 two members of the McKearney/McCaughey Cumann, Republican Sinn Féin were travelling by car to Dundalk, Co Louth from Dungannon when they were stopped on the Armagh to Newry road by the British police who gave the driver a ticket for obstruction under the Road Traffic Act, the reasons for which were unclear.
The police became very aggressive with the passenger for not answering a question about his date of birth and told him to answer the f… question. The driver was told to go ahead and when he was crossing the border on his return from Dundalk he saw a police car on the Jonesborough roundabout.
He suspected he was being followed and as he approached Lidl’s store in Armagh City he saw a British army checkpoint up ahead then saw Brits in the Lidl car park. He was stopped and asked to pull in by the Brits on the checkpoint, but when the Brits in Lidl saw him pass them they jumped into their vehicles and flew in behind him.
The driver knew then they were waiting for them. They were taken out of the car and the car was stripped. They asked him for his licence which was given to them and they then searched both men. The Crown Forces called them “a pair of Fenian bastards” and that their details would be passed on. When asked what he meant, he told the driver to fuck up or “he would do him himself”. They told him he could not have his license back because they had to give it to the loyalists to copy.
The driver told IRIS: “I now fear for my life and the safety off my family. We were held for over an hour. I want to condemn this behaviour, harassment of this kind will not be tolerated. True Republicans will fight on for freedom in the face of this injustice.”
5. NATIONALISTS TARGETED IN DERRY
NATIONALISTS targeted in firebomb attacks were singled out because they supported nationalist candidates in the recent Six-County local elections.
British-backed loyalist death squads in north Derry used electoral records to identify two families whose members had nominated and seconded nationalist candidates in the recent local government elections.
In one attack, a family escaped injury when a Molotov cocktail-type bomb failed to ignite after being thrown at their home in Coleraine. At the same time in a nearby street, a similar device was used to destroy an automobile parked outside another family’s home.
6. LISBURN CITY COUNCIL KICKS OFF UNION JACK CAMPAIGN AT INTERFACE VILLAGE
TENSION has begun to rise among the nationalist community in Lisburn as the City Council has begun implementing their new policy of erecting Union Jacks on all Council flagpoles throughout the city.
The first - erected in the predominantly Nationalist village of Dunmurry on June 6 - caused outrage amongst local residents.
A Dunmurry man, who asked not to be named, explained: “My father is a Protestant, and I have no issue with religion, but I find the British flag deeply provocative - especially when it is placed in my village by my own Council.
“To Catholics living here, the actions of the Council this week amount to intimidation. It’s very sad to see that Lisburn Council wants to go back to the old days when unionists marked their territory with Union Jacks.
“My family have lived in Dunmurry since 1916, but this is no one’s territory. This is our home, and it has been a peaceful place of late, but this kind of behaviour threatens the stability of community relations yet again. It sends out the message that Dunmurry village is a no-go area for Catholics, even though Catholics make up almost 80% of the population here.”
The Council are now planning to erect a Union Jack on the bowling green at the Lagan Valley Leisureplex.
Last week’s controversial Council motion also proposed to “give consideration to” communities who want the Council to erect a new flagpole in their area to fly the Union flag.
Ironically, the proposal added that there is “a need to resolve the flags issue in a way which is widely acceptable to the local community”.
7. RUC/PSNI REFUSE TO REMOVE UVF FLAG
BRITISH police refused to remove a British-backed loyalist death squad flag flying from a private home just two months after a promised crackdown on the display of sectarian flags.
The UVF flag, right, flying from the balcony of a high-rise flat, is visible to motorists on one of the main access routes to Belfast. Commuters believe it should be straightforward for the RUC\PSNI to act against the tenant of the flat, as opposed to the difficulties in identifying those who attach flags to telephone poles and streetlights.
But a police spokeswoman said officers would not remove the flag at Mount Vernon flats on the Shore Road, blaming the need for the cooperation of “local communities and statutory agencies”.
Raymond McCord, whose son was murdered by the Mount Vernon UVF, said the RUC/PSNI’s inaction was symptomatic of a system that allows Loyalist groups to rule areas.
“In Mount Vernon the UVF are a law onto themselves. They are a disgrace to the unionist cause. These people are totally immune to prosecution. They are holding the police and their own community to ransom,” he said.
“The majority of people in Mount Vernon are good, decent people but a small minority have turned it into a drug den and a place where murderers live. Nobody wants to see paramilitary flags flying. It’s a disgrace - take it down.”
In April a protocol was signed by the RUC/PSNI, the Six-County British Housing Executive and British government bodies to get rid of all displays of sectarian flags.
8. LOYALIST PARADE RULES ‘VIOLATED SYSTEMATICALLY’
TWO International observer groups criticised the RUC/PSNI Parades Commission for allowing “systematic violations” of official commission determinations governing contested Orange marches in the Six Counties last year.
The US-based Brehon Law Society and the Irish Parades Emergency Committee whose observers attend and monitor contested Orange marches and other Loyalist parades said the RUC/PSNI were failing to enforce restrictions on some parades. They made their claims in their fourth report, “Law and Lawlessness: Orange Parades in Northern Ireland” which was published on June 6 just ahead of the Six County’s so-called “marching season”.
The report said that violations of Parades Commission rulings included displays of UDA and UVF flags during parades and senior UDA figures and “hangers on” accompanying the July 12th parade past nationalist Ardoyne last year. “Loyalist paramilitary displays have been repeatedly documented at contested parades in Ardoyne, Springfield Road and Short Strand for the past several years,” the report added.
The 2004 Brehon and IPEC delegation which included observers from the US, Italy and France also faulted the “massive military and police deployments throughout Belfast in June and July, particularly the decision to deploy the paratroop unit inside the Ardoyne community on July 12th” when serious violence erupted.
The observers said the deployment of the infamous British army’s paratroopers “reflected either gross negligence or an intention to trigger violent confrontation”.
9. LOYALISTS SUSPECTED IN CEMETERY SHOOTING
LOYALIST death squads were the main suspects for the shooting and serious wounding of a 26-year-old man at a graveyard in Holywood, Co Down in the early hours of June 6. The man was in a critical condition in hospital after he was abducted at a petrol station near Holywood and taken to the nearby Redburn Cemetery, where he suffered a single gunshot wound to the stomach. Local sources said they believed loyalists were behind the attack.
10. IRISH BECOMES OFFICIAL EU WORKING LANGUAGE
THE Irish language will become the 21st official and working language of the EU on January 1, 2007, following a unanimous decision by EU foreign ministers meeting in Luxembourg on June 13.
The decision is the result of a number of years campaigning by Irish language groups. However the 26-County administration have requested a watered-down version of the official status afforded to other EU official and working languages, which will not require all documents to be translated into Irish.
From 2007, all primary legislation approved by the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament will be translated into Irish and ministers and MEPs will be able to use Irish on request during council meetings and European plenary sessions.
In a separate move, the foreign ministers agreed to offer only semi-official status to so-called minority languages, which have a constitutional status within a member-state, and to the national language of any member state. Whilst this will have a limited benefit for languages such as Basque and Catalan it provides absolutely no support to languages such as Breton, which for example is not recognised by the French state.
11. BODY FOUND IN NEWRY CANAL
A BODY found in the Newry Canal, Co Down on June 11 was believed to be that of Gareth O’Connor, who disappeared on May 11, 2003 while driving from his home in Armagh to Dundalk police station in Co Louth, where he was to sign on to fulfil bail conditions in the 26 Counties.
The body was discovered in the seating section of a Volkswagen Golf car belonging to Gareth O’Connor. A postmortem was carried out to establish the identity and cause of death.
ENDS
