SAOIRSE32

BreakingNews.ie

31/07/2005 - 16:19:39

A man was recovering today after he was wounded in a so-called loyalist punishment shooting in north Belfast.

The 38-year-old was treated for his injuries in hospital after the shooting which was linked to the loyalist Ulster Defence Association.

Detectives do not believe the incident was connected to the on-going feud between the Ulster Volunteer Force and the rival Loyalist Volunteer Force which last night claimed a third victim.

The victim was shot shortly after noon today in the Westland area.

He sustained a gunshot wound to the right leg and his injury is not believed to be life-threatening.

Sunday Life

31 July 2005

ORANGE Order chief, Robert Saulters, could be facing a challenge to his position as Grand Master for the first time since he took up the reins, nine years ago.

For many rank-and-file Orangemen are strongly opposed to his recent criticism of talks with residents’ groups, in Londonderry and west Belfast.

And, a growing number of Grand Lodge of Ireland members, believe a radical new approach is required to deal with the issue of contentious parades.

Talks involving the order and nationalist residents, chaired by Derry Chamber of Commerce, led to a major breakthrough on the Twelfth.

It allowed Orangemen to march on the west bank of the city for the first time since 1992.

There were also discussions leading up to the postponed Whiterock parade, involving district master, William Mawhinney, the most senior Orangeman on the Shankill Road, and prominent republican, Sean Murray.

Mr Saulters and his deputy, the Rev Stephen Dickinson, have argued that such talks breached “if not the letter, certainly the spirit of Grand Lodge policy.”

One senior member of Grand Lodge told Sunday Life: “Robert Saulters may well have to carry the can for the sins of the past, and unless there is a major policy rethink, he will face a challenge at the Grand Lodge meeting at the end of the calendar year.”

Sunday Life

UVF blamed as feud against LVF escalates

By Sinead McCavana and Ciaran McGuigan
31 July 2005

UVF gunmen shot dead notorious LVF-linked criminal Stephen Paul last night.

The 29-year-old, who was recently released from prison, was riddled with bullets as he sat in a red Transit van, just yards from his father’s home in Wheatfield Crescent, off the Crumlin Road.

His passenger, a man, was also shot in the attack but his injuries are not thought to be life-threatening.

Last night Paul’s devastated son, Lee Brown, spoke to Sunday Life just hours after the shooting, which took place around 5.40pm.

“Cowardly bastards killed my father,” he said.

“I’m only 15 years old and my father was only 29.

“People think he was in the LVF but he wasn’t, because I asked him myself and he said ‘no’.

“If my father had been in the LVF he would have said so, that was the type he was.”

Paul is the third victim of the current loyalist feud between the LVF and UVF.

A neighbour, who did not want to be named, ran to the scene of the shooting after hearing up to 10 rounds being fired.

“I heard a lot of shots, maybe 10. It sounded like an automatic weapon because they were so close together,” he said.

“The van was sprayed with bullets, the glass was shattered.

“Stephen’s father was trying to help him, he was still in the front seat. The other guy was walking - he’d been hit but he could walk.

“The police were there very quickly but the ambulance seemed to take a while to get there.

“His father was telling police he wanted to take him to hospital in his car.

“The police officers did their best - they got him out of the van and onto the ground, where they were working on him.”

The injured victim was still being treated in the Mater Hospital last night.

Police are appealing for information, especially from anyone who saw a small blue car, registration RDZ 5600, in the area.

The vehicle was found burnt out in Forthriver Drive.

Paul was a career criminal and a notorious thug, who had previously escaped a number of murder bids at the hands of loyalists.

He was also a serial wife-beater, who was jailed in 2001 for a catalogue of offences against his young partner.

On one occasion the vicious thug beat his wife unconscious.

One loyalist source last night claimed that Paul had a public row with the UVF’s ‘military commander’ last week, which sealed his fate.

Said the source: “Paul had a row with this man, and offered him a ‘fair dig’ in front of a lot of people.

“But the other guy ducked the challenge and told Paul that he was a ‘dead man’.

“That was just a few days ago, and now he’s dead.”

But Paul had been on the hit-lists of a number of loyalist paramilitary figures for several years.

In January 1999, he miraculously survived a murder bid in Bangor’s Kilcooley estate.

His uncle, drug-dealer William ‘Wassy’ Paul, was killed in 1999 by Red Hand Commando Frankie Curry, apparently over a personal grudge.

Stephen Paul had a tattoo on his right arm: “In loving memory of Uncle Wassy murdered by a cowardly b——.”

DUP MLA Nelson McCausland last night appealed for feuding loyalists to end the violence.

“Whatever the background, whatever the circumstances, whatever the justification, there can be no justification for the taking of life,” he said.

“This feud is tearing communities apart, the unionist community wants it brought to an end.”

Local SDLP MLA Alban Maginness added his condemnation, saying the UVF could not profit from the violence.

“They must pull back immediately. In the week of the IRA’s decision, it is imperative loyalists get their act together and end this violence now.”

Thug no stranger to violence

COCKY criminal and serial wife-beater Paul was riddled with bullets in a previous loyalist murder bid - and then spat his defiance in an interview with Sunday Life.

Paul, then just 22, - but already a father-of-four - was ambushed outside this home in Bangor in January 1999.

From his hospital bed, with a bullet still lodged in his neck, he vowed to return to Bangor, saying: “I want to go back to prove that I’m not afraid. They have tried their best shot and I have survived . . . I don’t fear them.”

Paul was no stranger to violence. Just 24 hours before he was shot, he’d appeared in court on a charge of threatening to kill.

He was a gangster, drug dealer and self-confessed wife-beater.

He had been shot five times in the legs by the UDA when he was just 16. After that attack, he moved to Bangor where he continued his criminal life.

During a stretch in jail he formed an unlikely alliance with LVF drug dealer Adrian Porter.

Porter had been right-hand man to loyalist Frankie Curry, who shot dead Paul’s uncle, William ‘Wassy’ Paul, in 1998.

Stephen Paul, who idolised his uncle, hated Curry but became close to Porter - the two bound by a mutual interest in drugs, crime and a shared hatred and fear of senior UVF/Red Hand Commando figures.

Porter was shot dead by the Red Hand Commando in Conlig in March 2001.

Paul lived in fear of a similar attack by people close to his former wife, who accused him of beating her.

It is believed that is why he was ambushed in Kilcooley in 1999, and he later received threats, including a bullet delivered to his house.

And in October 2001, Paul was jailed for six-and-a-half years after confessing to a shameful list of crimes against his wife, including threats to kill, false imprisonment and a string of brutal assaults.

Sunday Life

By Ciaran McGuian
31 July 2005

A MAN charged with an attempted murder in a Co Down cemetery was a close pal of slain LVF godfather Steven Warnock.

Robert Black (35), described by senior security sources as a “leading light” in the LVF, appeared in court last week, accused of abducting and shooting a man in an incident in Holywood in June.

However, career criminal Black’s violent, drug-dealing past was raised in an earlier court hearing, in which the gangster-busting Assets Recovery Agency seized around £200,000 from the estate of murdered LVF chief Warnock.

Warnock was gunned down in September 2002 while driving through Newtownards with his three-year-old daughter, in the back of his £30,000 BMW.

Judge Girvan painted Warnock as a drug-dealing paramilitary godfather and said: “He associated with Robert Black, a known and proven drug dealer with 103 convictions for various offences including the importation of drugs, possession with intent to supply, robbery, burglary, deception and crimes of violence.”

A senior security source told Sunday Life: “Black is one of the most violent and dangerous members of the LVF.

“When he was remanded in custody, it made it a lot easier for the UVF to go into the Garnerville estate and start putting people out.

“With him still there, it could have turned very messy.”

Black, who survived a UVF murder bid near a south Belfast primary school two months ago, was arrested last weekend by detectives investigating a brutal shooting in Co Down last month.

A 26-year-old man was lucky to be left alive after being blasted in the chest with a shotgun.

He had earlier been abducted by three men from a filling station on the Old Holywood Road and taken to the Redburn Cemetery.

Black, from Glenlea Park in Belfast, appeared in Ards Magistrate’s Court last Monday charged with attempted murder.

Another man, Jonathan Smyth (22), also from Glenlea Park, is also charged with the attempted murder, which Crown lawyers have linked to the ongoing feud between the rival UVF and LVF paramilitaries.

The charges were scheduled, and will be heard before a judge sitting without a jury if they proceed to the Crown Court.

Sunday Life

By Alan Murray
31 July 2005

THE UVF’s drive against the LVF in east Belfast, last weekend, wasn’t planned.

What began as a minor incident snowballed, but now the UVF is keen to repeat what it regards as a successful tactic against it’s bitter rivals.

Loyalist sources say the UVF operation, in Garnerville, which drove out the LVF, last Sunday and Monday, began with a few UVF men having a barbecue, before they turned to give LVF rivals a grilling.

It’s understood that on Sunday evening, a leading UVF man went to the area with another UVF man, who had been put out of the estate by the LVF months previously.

Along with two other UVF men they went to the exiled man’s old home, in Garnerville, where his wife and family still live, and decided to have a barbecue.

After a few drinks, more UVF men were invited to come up and join in, and eventually the now swollen UVF party decided to pay a visit to the home of one of the LVF figures in the estate.

“It just snowballed after that. The LVF man panicked and jumped into his car and fled, and the UVF men thought this was a successful ploy and went to another couple of houses, phoned up more UVF men, and went from house to house, telling the LVF men that they were staying in the estate. The rest is local history,” one loyalist revealed.

“It wasn’t a grand plan by the UVF leadership, it all just bubbled out of a barbecue, a few drinks, knocking on a few doors, and the LVF panicked.

“They thought they were going to be hammered, but there was no big UVF plan, and the LVF just put one and one together and got three.

“But, now that it’s done, there will be no going back, and the UVF will push on to Holywood to winkle them out of there, and put them across the river.”

Loyalist sources also revealed that unknown to the UVF, a key LVF figure in Garnerville had been ’stood down’ by its overall leadership just two days earlier.

The man, who we can’t name for legal reasons, is a relative of a man shot dead in a loyalist feud.

LVF sources have confirmed to Sunday Life, that he was relieved of his position within the small terror group, a couple of days before the UVF invaded the estate.

‘Freedom Party’ for troubled estate

WHAT a difference a few days make.

There was a party atmosphere in the Garnerville estate yesterday, where, earlier in the week, masked UVF men and supporters invaded to drive out people accused of links to the rival LVF group.

Yesterday, kids played on bouncy castles, and had their faces painted in a street celebration, dubbed a Freedom Party.

One local woman, a long term resident, said: “We’re calling it a Freedom Party because we don’t have the LVF here anymore to torture us.”

Some residents, who favoured the UVF invasion, claimed they were glad to see the back of LVF elements, who they blamed for drug dealing, noisy all-night parties, intimidation, and other anti-social behaviour, during the last couple of years.

Sunday Life

UVF plan to push terror rivals into Antrim estate

By Alan Murray
31 July 2005

THE UVF is planning to drive LVF remnants in north Down across the Lagan into exile in Co Antrim.

And, UVF bosses are preparing for another Garnerville-style mass invasion - this time in Ballysillan, north Belfast, before forcing their rivals to Ballycraigy, in Antrim.

Local commanders in east Belfast and north Down have been ordered to concentrate on pushing the remaining small knot of LVF activists and associates out of Holywood, where they fled to, after being forced to leave the nearby Garnerville area.

But, a heavy PSNI presence in Holywood, since Wednesday, has prevented the UVF from repeating their saturation tactics in Garnerville, which intimidated LVF opponents from the area, last Sunday and Monday.

But, a reliable source told Sunday Life: “The UVF leadership wants them out of Holywood, and they won’t let them move down to Bangor, nor will the UDA. Neither organisation wants the LVF about them, because of the trouble they cause.

“The UVF intends to hit the dozen or so flats and houses, occupied by the LVF, in Holywood, and force them out,” one source revealed.

The UVF expects what remains of the organisation in east Belfast and Holywood to decamp to Ballysillan, in north Belfast.

“The UVF feels that it can deploy enough men in Ballysillan to intimidate the LVF out of there, just as they have done in east Belfast, and plan to do in Holywood and ultimately drive the LVF to Ballycraigy, in Antrim, well out of the way, and out of striking distance”.

slnews@belfasttelegraph.co.uk

Sunday Life

By John McGurk
31 July 2005

THE Secretary Of State, Peter Hain took a historic step towards a new Northern Ireland - on the streets of Crossmaglen!

For the Ulster political supremo undertook an impromptu walkaround in the south Armagh border village where the security forces have, in the past, been wary to tread.

The Secretary Of State revealed that he had decided to see the village for himself, during what was described as “a routine visit” to the local police station last Tuesday.

An NIO spokesman told Sunday Life: “He was visiting Crossmaglen police station and, during the visit, he asked about the public access area.

“So he went out onto the street of Crossmaglen and then walked down to the square for about five to 10 minutes, accompanied by the local police commander, Bobby Hunniford.”

Speaking to BBC’s Newsnight, Mr Hain said that the response from locals to his impromptu walkabout, with police and soldiers in support, “was not unfriendly”.

And he added that he could foresee a “future in which we can have normal policing, including community bobbies” in the village and elsewhere.

Other Secretaries Of State are thought to have visited Crossmaglen security base in the past. And former Tory spokesman for Northern Ireland, Quentin Davies went to the border village in 2002.

But many political observers believe that this is the first time a current Secretary Of State has actually set foot in the streets.

However, Hain’s potentially historic walkaround was a bit of a mystery to some locals.

Barmaids in two pubs - the Clarnagh Maid and the Grocer Publican Undertaker - said that none of their customers had clapped eyes on him.

One barmaid told Sunday Life: “You would expect to hear people talking about it. But nobody has mentioned it.”

Sunday Life

By Stephen Breen
31 July 2005

Joan Feenan, from Ardglass, Co Down is seeking a face-to-face meeting with graveyard killer Michael Stone over the murders of her elderly aunt and cousin.

She believes Stone can help solve the double-killing of Kathleen and Terence Mullan.

Mrs Mullan (79) and son Terence (32) were gunned down at their isolated Ballynahinch home by the UFF in 1986.

Lisburn loyalist Jeffrey McCullough was convicted of assisting the killers, but no-one has ever been charged with their murders.

At the time, loyalists claimed Mr Mullan was a driver for senior republicans - a claim the family vehemently denies.

Ms Feenan (53) wants to meet Stone because she believes the gun used was one of the weapons later used by him to kill three people at Milltown Cemetery, in 1988.

Said Ms Feenan: “My aunt and cousin’s senseless murders have been on my mind for a very long time.

“We were told that the weapon used in the attack was the same one used by Stone at Milltown - that’s why I’m willing to meet him.

“I don’t know if he killed my relatives but he may know something about it. I’m not afraid to meet him.

“I just want to know why they were murdered. They were completely innocent, and even if it is almost 20 years on, we still deserve answers.

“I’ve also decided to speak out now because I’m aware of the promise by police to re-investigate unsolved murders of the Troubles, and I want to know if my aunt and cousin are included in this process.”

Stone said: “I’ve no problem meeting this woman because I have nothing to hide. I didn’t kill her relatives.

“I’ll admit that I did see his ‘file’, and I believe he was a legitimate target because I believe he was involved with republicanism.

“The gun I used at Milltown was taken from a police officer some two years before, but I can remember the cops telling me a different type of weapon was used to kill the Mullans.

“I was active in the south Down area, and I will try and tell this woman why young loyalists went out to kill in a ‘war’ situation.”

Times Online

**Via News Hound

Liam Clarke
July 31, 2005

THE Democratic Unionist party will insist on a two-year decontamination period before entering government with Sinn Fein if the IRA fails to provide visual proof that it is has dumped its weapons.

The party has warned that in the absence of transparent decommissioning it will demand an extended period of IRA inactivity before sharing power with the republicans.

Last night Peter Robinson, the deputy leader of the DUP, said: “If they (the IRA) do their decommissioning in a hole-in-the-corner way, we could be talking several years of an assessment period to gauge their intentions. If they do things openly and transparently then obviously the period of assessment could be significantly shortened.”

By openly and transparently, the DUP means with a full photographic record of the decommissioning process and an inventory of the arms put beyond use. This, they believe, is necessary to build confidence among their voters that the IRA threat has passed.

“The less transparency you have the more time it will take for people to feel confident,” said Robinson.

Jeffrey Donaldson, a DUP MP and member of the party’s negotiating team, said the IRA and Sinn Fein had refused to move before carrying out a period of consultation with their grassroots and ensuring their followers were happy. “We have the same approach. We will not move into government unless we are confident that the unionist community can support what we are doing. It may be that we will want to test public opinion on the issue through an election.” Elections to the suspended Northern Ireland assembly are not due until 2007.

Donaldson added: “That period of assessment will lengthen with the lack of transparency by the IRA on decommissioning. It has already lengthened as a result of the early release of Sean Kelly (the Shankill bomber), which has dented unionist confidence.”

Robinson and Donaldson will drive the point home this Wednesday when they bring a delegation of people injured in, or bereaved by, the Shankill bombing to meet Peter Hain, the Northern Ireland secretary. He agreed to release Sean Kelly, who planted the bomb that killed 10 people in 1993, after reading a draft of the IRA statement.

The DUP’s attitude represents a setback for the British and Irish governments. They had hoped that, if the IRA held to promises made in its statement, they might restore power sharing next spring.

While the DUP may not be willing to enter government so soon, the party’s leaders are prepared to enter a shadow assembly without executive powers. Such an interim assembly would not have local ministers sharing power but could scrutinise the work of British ministers. Nationalists might accept this plan as a stepping stone to full power sharing.

The British Army is due to start demolishing a number of other security bases in Northern Ireland this week, paving the way for a reduction of troops down to garrison level. Bases earmarked for early closure include several watchtowers in south Armagh.

Times Online

**Via News Hound

Dearbhail McDonald
July 31, 2005

THE ink was barely dry on last week’s IRA statement when a group of army engineers flew in to dismantle the super Sanger lookout post that has blighted the South Armagh enclave of Newtownhamilton for almost 30 years.

Local residents, who had heard the army had moved in at 9am on Friday morning to dismantle the nearby hilltop observation tower at Sugarloaf mountain in Camlough, gathered in disbelief to see for themselves whether the infamous observation post was finally coming down.

Increased security — paratroopers patrolling the streets and helicopters flying overhead — failed to raise expectations that the towering concrete and corrugated tin structure that forces residents to take a two-mile detour around the town would be torn down.

“It is just like any other day,” said Noelle McGarvey, a mother of three from the village and a local SDLP councillor. “Don’t be fooled by the paras on the streets or the drone of the helicopters. That means nothing, they’re always here. Newtown is an army barracks with a village surrounding it, instead of a village that has a police station.”

Thursday’s IRA statement, the fruit of six months of unrelenting pressure on Sinn Fein, called an end to the war and was billed by the republican party as a momentous document. But even locals in the IRA’s south Armagh heartland, ground down by years of peace-process tedium, struggled to respond with appropriate fervour.

“We’ve been living under a cloud of oppression for so long,” said Frances Caherty, a member of the local development committee. “I’m trying to get excited about the IRA statement, I haven’t heard it in full yet, but it has reached a point where total apathy has set in. People still resent the army presence here, but there’s nothing you can do. You just get on with it.

“You couldn’t compare the IRA statement to the Good Friday agreement, you can’t even think about it in that way. But, hopefully it is a small step towards returning our lives to some semblance of normality.”

In the Central bar, punters were equally unfazed. “Aye, I suppose it’s great. Everyone keeps telling us that it is, but it’s about 11 years too late,” said Patrick Haughey from Cullyhanna. “The problem in Northern Ireland was never politics. It was sectarianism and it still is. I suppose it is historical because we can try and move from war to peace and Catholics will get to have their say, because up until now they’ve been ignored.”

Publican Neil Gildernew, who owns the Central, said locals had more important issues, such as policing, criminality and inward investment, to discuss.

“Nobody is even talking about it,” said the cousin of Michelle Gildernew, the Sinn Fein MEP for Fermanagh/South Tyrone. “In fact, the only people getting excited about it are the media. I think it is an historic statement; at least I hope it is. I’m trying my best to be optimistic.

“Newtownhamilton is the town the world has forgotten. People don’t realise it’s still under siege by the soldiers. I’ve been burgled three times in recent weeks, and I’ve given up on the police catching the hooligans. Who is policing this area? The paras, the police or paramilitaries?” In nearby Crossmaglen, therepublican capital of “bandit country”, close to the home Thomas “Slab” Murphy, chief of staff of the IRA, the presence of the British Army was of primary concern.

“We’ll be the last to go, we’re not too optimistic about any major changes in Cross,” said Neil Comiskey, 23, a regular at Shorts bar. “I want the soldiers off the streets and the troops out for good. Then I want proper jobs and opportunities for young people like me. We have nothing to do all day except hang around the streets”.

“The IRA statement is just a bunch of words and it means nothing to people in Crossmaglen,” said Aidan Short, son of the late publican Paddy Short. “There were more celebrations in 1994. There was a cataclysmic shift in people’s minds back then. Locals have faith in the sincerity of the statement, but it’s not historic. The momentum has gone and people here have just got on with their lives.

“We are still living under watchtowers, we are still cut off and living in a cocoon. Nobody will trade here because they think it is unsafe.”

Most locals seemed happy to turn a blind eye to the IRA’s criminal enterprise, the subject of much criticism from the Irish government. “Diesel laundering, smuggling, all the craic is not criminality, it’s a way of life,” said one local. “We don’t connect that activity, the way that some people like Michael McDowell do, with criminality and paramilitary activity. It’s not all going to fund bloody IRA weapons, everyone does it. They’re just trading, and evading tax while they’re at it. That’s normal, that’s Crossmaglen, it’s not criminality. The IRA statement won’t change that. People are doing well out of it too.”

In Camlough, home of Raymond McCreesh, the republican hunger striker and Conor Murphy, the rising star of Sinn Fein, reactions to demilitarisation were mixed. “I’m delighted to see it go,” said Barry Doherty, who has lived in the shadow of the army base in Camlough. “But it should have come down a long time ago.”

Surprisingly, in this republican heartland, nobody openly called for a return to violence although not everyone was happy with the decision to dump IRA arms. “You would just want to be careful about who you talk to about the IRA,” cautioned one local. “A lot of people aren’t as happy with it as they seem.”

The Observer

The IRA member’s reaction

Anthony McIntyre
Sunday July 31, 2005
The Observer

Anthony McIntyre served 18 years in prison for IRA activity. He is currently a republican columnist with the online journal, the Blanket

Whatever one may think of Seanna Walsh’s views or his management style, there can be little to quibble about when it comes to his courage and stamina.

A fully committed IRA volunteer who lasted the distance and mastered challenges faced by few others, he was leader of the H-Blocks IRA in 1982 as it made the transition from prison protest to accommodation with the regime. It was an accommodation that benefited the IRA much more than it ever did the prison authorities.

In a twilight zone where the old certainties had crumbled for many of us, Walsh had the necessary vision to set the IRA on course for some of its most remarkable achievements in prison.

When I watched him read the IRA statement announcing a formal end to its armed campaign against the British, my only emotion was indifference. Better, no doubt, that he read it than some career-bent politician who had shunned republicanism when association with it came bearing a hefty price tag. It is difficult to work up the energy required to feel something when formalities are all that we are left with. It is comparable to receiving a death certificate many years after a loved one has died. The raw emotion was vented at the time of the event rather than at the point of its much-delayed announcement.

I have long come to accept that the IRA lost its war with the British state. Whatever way it seeks to camouflage last week’s statement in the garb of ongoing struggle, it has effectively settled for an internal Northern Ireland solution. Having Walsh read out the statement was an attempt by the Provisional leadership to smuggle into the subtext the imprimatur of Bobby Sands. We have no idea what Sands would have thought today. But at the time his death was an act of defiance against everything the Provisional movement has come to embrace today.

Throughout the peace process IRA volunteers were treated with contempt by their own leadership; allowed no input, the end game was always withheld from them. The British were never in any doubt where it was all going. They assiduously aided the Sinn Fein leadership in its slow strangulation of the IRA, which saw Western Europe’s most formidable guerrilla army degenerate into a new Official IRA - the Sticks - an alternative republican body, regarded as traitors and despised by the men of the Bobby Sands era.

Sands once famously remarked that our revenge would be the laughter of our children. Our children, if they are generous, will not laugh at us for fighting a futile war, merely for pretending that it was somehow victorious.

From his grave Sands may ruefully ponder, ‘for what?’ From his own, Cathal Goulding, long-time chief of the Official IRA, will smugly say: ‘We are all Sticks now.’

BreakingNews.ie

31/07/2005 - 10:12:41

aerial view of Croagh Patrick from here

An estimated 25,000 people have begun climbing the Mayo mountain of Croagh Patrick.

It is part of the annual pilgrimage for the summit of the holy mountain, where saint Patrick is believed to have fasted for 40 days and 40 nights.

A Mass will take place in the mountain’s church, which was bulit 100 years ago.

Harry Hughes of the Croagh Patrick Archeology Committee says for most climbers, it is a spiritual experience

“But throughout the summer months, in July and August, we have many other visitors and tourists that climb it”, he said.

“They climb it for exercise, for a day out. Most people when they reach the summit realise they are on a sacred mountain and that this is a sanctified place.”

Sunday Business Post

By Barry O’Kelly
31 July 2005

“They have already gone away, you know,” an IRA veteran said sourly last week, ahead of the formal declaration instructing all volunteers to hand up their arms.

The man’s ironic twist on the famous remark by Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams some years ago - “they haven’t gone away, you know’‘ - reflects the unease felt by some republicans about the behind-the-scenes moves leading up to last week’s historic announcement that the IRA was to end its armed campaign and dump its weaponry.

The IRA’s estimated 600 volunteers, minus a handful of exceptions, are expected to abide by last Thursday’s instruction, an extraordinary achievement, owing as much to clever internal manoeuvring as it does to the persuasive powers of Adams and the electoral gains of Sinn Féin.

The manoeuvres have been slow, almost imperceptible at times. But the IRA which declared an end to armed struggle was a very different organisation to the one which last called a ceasefire nine years ago.

The membership, as of 4pm last Thursday, included at least 100 people recruited after the 1997 ceasefire. Their sole purpose, claim those marginalised in the process, was to shore up support for Adams’s political project.

In Dublin, for instance, between 12 and 15 new volunteers were recruited last year alone, informed republican sources told The Sunday Business Post. One of the leading figures in the movement in the city was a man who never saw active service, the sources said. New recruits were also taken on in Louth, South Armagh and Belfast, while those perceived to be unsupportive were effectively sidelined.

At a senior level, commanders in the key republican areas of South Armagh, Tyrone and Belfast were brought on to dominate the Army Council which now has a distinctly northern bias, thereby ensuring greater discipline over the militant brigades. Tellingly, South Armagh recently had two representatives on the seven-member council, one of whom is a man nicknamed The Surgeon. This newspaper understands that this veteran battalion commander, who is thought to be responsible for the deaths of 70 people, is believed to have grown tired of the project and stood down from the council. However, the move did not prompt any local volunteers to leave. The mood in the republican heartland was one of sombre resignation following the announcement last week. Only key local commanders had been briefed in advance, but there was no talk of dissent or defections to dissident groups.

One source likened the advance briefings to the Adams axis making an address to a mirror: the key figures being consulted were already on-message, having been appointed in the first place by those briefing them.

“I don’t have a problem with this,” the source said. “Good luck to them. You’re never going to get everybody to agree.” Those not in agreement, he added, now hold little influence in the republican movement. Or so it seems. Gardai believe this is the great imponderable hanging over last week’s statement. The best barometer of republican thinking on such events, an army convention attended by hundreds of volunteers, did not take place ahead of the announcement - it was not required after a change in IRA rules in 1997.

“There was obviously a reason why they didn’t hold a convention.

“So who knows how many hardliners are going to move over to the dissidents? There is no intelligence to show this is going to happen, but we simply don’t know,” a Special Branch detective said.

The Special Branch recently launched a review of its personnel resources, in anticipation of the statement winding down the IRA.

About 300 officers are believed to be engaged in monitoring republicans. This figure will remain unchanged in the short term. “We will still be monitoring the same people as before to make sure they are playing ball,” a detective said.

“There is also a worry that they could join the dissidents. But the primary focus now will be on monitoring the dissidents themselves.”

While the IRA has not actually gone away, the now inactive group is headed by an army council whose raison d’etre is to ensure it remains that way. For the first time in its recent history, the controlling body is now comprised entirely of people from the North.

This is no coincidence, according to republican sources. The most committed and experienced IRA members are in the Northern brigades. And the presence of four men from Belfast, two from Tyrone and one from South Armagh will obviously enhance the likelihood of keeping local units in check.

It is believed that a core unit is being retained to protect the IRA leadership itself from assassination and to ensure internal security.

How this will function in practice is unclear. The dissident Real IRA and Continuity IRA are expected to seek to capitalise on the demise of the Provisionals. The Real IRA (RIRA), the bigger of the two, has about 150 members in Limerick, Dublin, Dundalk, Derry and Belfast. Detectives said this weekend that RIRA has been actively recruiting in recent months, particularly in Dublin where it has one technical expert, a mature college student.

The group is also believed to have one or possibly two members in the Irish army, the sources said.

However, the organisation is riven by informants and tainted by its wholesale involvement in crime.

Meanwhile, detectives are sceptical of their own chances of unravelling the Byzantine business affairs of the Provisionals, in spite of the expressed determination to do so by the Minister for Justice Michael McDowell. IRA sources are similarly sceptical. The huge finance department once raised millions of euro every year from cigarette and oil smuggling, cafes, bars, taxi firms, building companies, property deals, nightclubs and the occasional bank robbery.

However, these interests have been cut adrift by the republican movement over the past year, according to sources. Many of the people running the businesses simply received start-up loans at low interest. “They are on their own now, the movement no longer has an interest in them,” a source said.

This generous policy is not without its benefits: anyone who now stands to gain would be loathe to oppose the Adams strategy. The financial rewards from the Northern Bank heist are likely to achieve a similar shift in thinking, if it is required of those who took part.

Again, gardai are unlikely to successfully prosecute any member of the 40-plusteamwho carried out the record €37.8 million heist last December. The Sunday Business Post understands that detectives will be relying on corroborative evidence to make a link between the €3 million seized in Cork and the bank robbery in Belfast.

“It is beyond doubt that this is the money from the robbery, and we’re confident a case will be made on the basis of all evidence gathered to date,” a source said.

However, the source conceded that it would be extremely difficult to identify to the satisfaction of an Irish court that any of the one million seized notes were stolen, solely on the basis of bank records or forensic evidence taken from pre-robbery users of the notes.

The source revealed that files on ten people, all of them from Munster, will be sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions arising from the wide-ranging probe. Gardai will be recommending that these people be charged with money-laundering offences. Most of these people are not thought to be IRA members.

While the Provisionals have tidied up their financial affairs, restructured their command structures and marginalised the mavericks, it has left behind a small, deeply apprehensive group of activists, who administered justice as they were instructed to do against drug dealers and joyriders in working class estates.

“It is no longer our role to go after them [criminals]. But there’s also no protection either,” said one source. “All of that is finished.

“Who knows what’s going to happen? And who is going to fill the vacuum?”

Sunday Business Post

By Barry O’Kelly and Pat Leahy
31 July 2005

The Provisional IRA is preparing to carry out a major act of arms decommissioning this weekend, according to informed sources.

The act is to be witnessed by two clergymen, a Protestant and a Catholic, and Canadian General John de Chastelain. Sources said it would be the most significant act of decommissioning to date.

IRA leaders are believed to have already begun the process of collecting guns from the organisation’s estimated 600 members. This process began five weeks ago, according to republican sources.

Last Thursday’s IRA statement, declaring an end to armed struggle, is expected to be reciprocated by the destruction over the next six months of the controversial British Army watchtowers in south Armagh. The joint police and army base at Forkhill is also to be closed. A similar base in Crossmaglen is to be dramatically scaled back, while British Army patrols in the area are to be withdrawn.

However, it is believed that the Garda Special Branch will continue to monitor IRA members around the country.” We will still be monitoring the same people as before to make sure they are playing ball,” a detective said. “There is also a worry that they could join the dissidents. But the primary focus now will be on monitoring the dissidents themselves.”

The Special Branch recently launched a review of its personnel resources in anticipation of the statement winding down the IRA.

About 300 officers are believed to be engaged in monitoring republicans. This figure will remain unchanged in the short term.

“There will be some changes down the road, and resources will be redirected to dealing with Islamic groups,” a source said.

Meanwhile, senior Fianna Fáil figures have played down recent statements by justice minister Michael McDowell, which suggested that the Criminal Assets Bureau would intensify its efforts to target the wealth of senior Provisionals.

“McDowell is capable of saying anything,” said one government source. Describing his input into Northern negotiations, the source said: “He’s a player, but he’s not a serious player.”

Other Fianna Fáil sources insisted that Northern policy was Fianna Fáil’s responsibility, and criticized McDowell for making statements with the potential to derail the painstaking work of the last few months.

“He appears to be unable to control his mouth,” said one source.

Government sources suggested that a timetable of events, including decommissioning in several stages, has been put in place, in the lead-up to elections in the North next year and the restoration of the devolved government.

Crucially, sources said the government was satisfied with the response of Ian Paisley’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) to the events of last week. Dermot Ahern, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, had a telephone conversation with Peter Robinson, deputy leader of the DUP, last Thursday afternoon.

It has also been learned that gardai are unlikely to successfully prosecute members of the gang who took part in the €37.8 million Northern Bank heist last December.

The Observer

**Now, if we could just get some kind of help for the trauma of having to endure Henry MacDonald’s whining and hyperbole week after week…

Gaby Hinsliff and Henry MacDonald
Sunday July 31, 2005
The Observer

The suffering of the victims of Irish terrorism is to be recognised by the creation of a Victims’ Commissioner to help heal the wounds of three decades of bloodshed.

Peter Hain, the Northern Ireland Secretary, told The Observer this weekend that the perpetrators of terrorist acts on both sides must acknowledge the pain they caused to victims’ families and survivors

New hopes have been raised over the search for ‘the disappeared’ - people abducted and murdered by the IRA and never seen again. Sinn Fein is understood to have given assurances of fresh co-operation to identify their unmarked graves, allowing their families to lay them to rest.

In addition, the British and Irish governments are working with forensic archaeologists in the search for bodies, thought to be buried mainly south of the border.

The government has been consulting on a new strategy for victims, their carers and children who may have grown up traumatised by what happened.

‘It is vital to moving forward that those who have lost loved ones or suffered injuries themselves get access to the support and services they need,’ Hain said.

‘It is about official acknowledgement on the part of those responsible. The idea of a Victims’ Commissioner has a lot of merit.

Hain said this plan would draw on experience in South Africa, where a Truth and Reconciliation Commission collected testimony from victims and confessions from perpetrators, who were granted amnesty from prosecution.

However, it would be impossible to copy the South African idea exactly because the Northern Irish community was divided in a totally different way, he added.

Nevertheless, the plans would involve directly confronting a painful past: ‘We will be looking at processes by which people can get at the truth and have some acknowledgement for their pain and suffering.’

Hain will also make a statement tomorrow outlining detailed plans for ‘the normalisation’ of the province. This is expected to involve halving the number of troops there, subject to security assessments, and dismantling military bases.

He is also expected to extend the devolution of decisions on policing, but only if Sinn Fein formally recognises the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

His words about help for victims reflect an angry reaction to the IRA declaration from some of them, including former Tory cabinet minister Lord Tebbit, whose wife Margaret was paralysed in the 1984 Brighton bombing.

Yesterday, he described her distress at having missed out on some of the everyday pleasures of family life. ‘She shares with so many other victims both the narrowing and impoverishment of her life and the complete and absolute indifference to her plight of not only IRA-Sinn Fein leaders, but also the Prime Minister, who seems not to care about what they have suffered and lost,’ he added.

Meanwhile, unionists have raised fresh questions over the true significance of the IRA calling an end to its 35-year war. They have pointed out that the Provisionals did not explicitly promise to disband.

Jeffrey Donaldson, the Democratic Unionist MP for Lagan Valley, said his party would play a ‘long game’ before entering any new coalition in a revived Northern Ireland Assembly. It would wait first for details of the IRA’s destruction of its weapons, which will be witnessed by two churchmen, a Protestant and the redemptorist priest Father Alex Reid, who is confessor to Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams.

Talks will begin in September on reviving the assembly. However the DUP is expected to impose a timetable lasting at least six months to test the IRA’s intentions, and insist on fresh elections to ratify any new deal.

The IRA ’subjected Northern Ireland to the Long War so we will subject them to the Long Wait,’ Donaldson said.