SAOIRSE32

BreakingNews.ie

10/01/2006 - 18:51:00

The British government and the SDLP clashed tonight over claims the party had failed to submit proposals for state funded neighbourhood justice schemes in Northern Ireland.

SDLP Policing Board member Alex Attwood urged Northern Ireland Office minister David Hanson to go back and check his facts after he said he had received no proposals from the party on restorative justice.

Earlier Mr Hanson said the SDLP and other critics needed to be clearer about their vision for the schemes.

“At the moment it is not illegal to run a community restorative justice scheme,” the minister told PA.

“So the question for the SDLP and others is: are they saying to me I should make it illegal to operate these schemes?

“If the funding comes from American philanthropists or any other charitable source, should I ban that charitable activity? Or are they saying I should put in place regulations to make sure they operate within the criminal justice system?

“Alex Attwood asked me to publish these documents. I have done it.

“He asked me to give the political parties a chance to comment upon it. I have done it. He has asked me to consider the points he is making. I will do it when he has made them.

“I don’t think to date I have had a submission from the SDLP – they may have sent one but I haven’t seen it in front of me on my desk.”

Restorative justice schemes operating in loyalist and republican neighbourhoods bring the perpetrators of low-level crime face to face with their victims to agree an appropriate penalty.

Sinn Féin and supporters of the schemes argue they are a viable alternative to paramilitary expulsions and so-called punishment attacks.

Unionist and nationalist critics, however, fear republicans in particular want restorative justice organisations to act as an alternative to the police in their neighbourhoods.

The programmes are currently funded by American philanthropists but, with the money due to dry up soon, supporters would like them to receive Government funding as officially state-sanctioned schemes.

Under the draft guidelines, the Government envisaged the majority of state-funded restorative justice groups would refer a case they would like to handle to an advisory panel featuring the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) and representatives of the scheme, Probation Board or Youth Justice Agency.

However, in republican areas where people refuse to engage with the police, there would be no obligation on those running schemes to deal with police officers directly.

Instead they could alert the PSNI about cases they would like to deal with by contacting the Probation Board or Youth Justice Agency who will pass the proposal on to the police.

Unionists have accused the British government of trying to put the police at an arms length in the proposals.

Sinn Féin MLA Gerry Kelly accused the SDLP of whining about the proposals to undermine efforts to further secure policing changes needed in Northern Ireland.

Mr Attwood tonight said the Government was well aware of what the SDLP believed was wrong with the protocol and what needed to be done.

“The SDLP has met the Minister twice on this issue, had three meetings with senior officials, and handed over a written preliminary analysis of the draft protocol together with a range of supporting documentation,” he said.

“Yet the Government still claims that it doesn’t know what the problems are and what the SDLP has proposed to remedy those problems.

“The SDLP trusts that the minister will go and check with his own office and with his own officials and withdraw his comments which do not reflect the facts.

“The SDLP set out last October the standards we wanted on community restorative justice, including an independent statutory complaints system and dedicated oversight body for Restorative Justice schemes.

“We provided this to the British government and are publishing it again today so that people can see it for themselves.

“The SDLP hopes that the minister, rather than trying to obscure the deep concerns around restorative justice, fully faces up to the problems and dangers.”

The West Belfast MLA also claimed the minister had condemned himself by saying he was trying to achieve minimum standards for restorative justice.

“The SDLP has been clear that maximum standards are required around issues such as human rights and relationships with the police,” he countered.

“It comes as a startling admission from the Minister that the government’s approach is to create minimum standards when maximum standards are required.”

**Posted by Peter Urban to >>Seven Stars Republican Socialist News

Aiden Hulme has been imprisoned for over 2 years, and serving a 20 year jail sentence on the basis of circumstantial evidence such as a text message from a mobile phone received from an unknown party which was ambiguous at best. Since incarceration (which we believe is a miscarriage of justice ) he has been beaten, denied family visits, had medication refused, denied medical treatment and other atrocities.

He is currently imprisoned at Full Sutton Prison, hundreds of miles away from his family in North of Ireland.

He also sufers from acute injuries to his leg as a result of a motorbike accident before his arrest. The British Government has continually denied him treatment and attempted to amputate it after it became gangrenous.

Thankfully this was not the case, but he still suffers from extreme pain and requires medication on a regular basis which is not provided.

Repatriate Aiden Now!

Write a letter or send a post card of support and solidarity to Aiden:

Aiden Hulme
HMP Full Sutton Prison Moore Lane Stanford Bridge
YORK YO41 1PS

Further info on Aiden’s fight for repatriation:

>>Stormont Watch

Derry Journal

Mcguinness Accuses British Intelligence

Tuesday 10th January 2006

BRITISH INTELLIGENCE agencies are working ‘day and night’ to wreck the North’s peace process, Martin McGuinness told the ‘Journal’ last night. In a particularly hard-hitting outburst, Sinn Fein’s chief negotiator accused elements within Britain’s intelligence services of trying to prevent political progress in the six counties.

He said: “These are people with the same mentality as rejectionist unionism; people who are hostile to the peace process and the Good Friday Agreement. “They are opposed to the prospect of an all-Ireland agreement up-and-running with unionist, nationalist and republican politicians sitting down together to map out a better future for the 32 counties.”

The Mid-Ulster MP added: “Clearly, these people will continue with their work. They are negative influences. “But, at the end of the day, the person who has to curtail these activities, to bring these people to heel is the British prime minister. The buck stops with him. “And, of course, when we speak to him, as we will, we will make it very, very clear that we are prepared to play our part, as we have done over many years, in trying to put these institutions back together.

“But he also has to play his part in making it clear to those elements within the British intelligence services hostile to the process that their activities have to end.”

In his interview with the ‘Journal’, Mr. McGuinness also assessed prospects for political progress in 2006 and the political atmosphere for negotiations around the restoration of the all-Ireland institutions.

Expanding on his recent call for the Irish and British governments to bring forward a plan to restore political institutions in the North, the Derry republican said: “Given that prior to Christmas there were positive soundings coming from both the Irish and British governments around the issue of a big push to restore the institutions - followed now by further statements from Dermot Ahern and Peter Hain clearly indicating that both governments are going to pump up the volume on this issue - it is now incumbent on them to explain to the rest of us their plan for getting the DUP to play its part in contributing to the restoration of the Good Friday institutions.

Huge effort

“A huge effort was made by republicans last year. The IRA delivered big time on an end to their armed campaign and on the issue of arms. “As I predicted last year, a spotlight is now going to be turned on the leadership of the DUP and my hope obviously is that they will rise to the challenge; that they will recognise that we all have a responsibility to the people we represent and they have to recognise that, as Gerry Adams has said, a genuine effort is needed to end the stalemate. “We are determined that the IRA initiatives of last year are not squandered and that, collectively, we all play our part in restoring the institutions that the people of Ireland voted for.”

BBC

Sinn Fein is to discuss threats made to Catholic students outside an east Belfast college with its management.

A spokeswoman for the Belfast Institute of Further and Higher Education at Tower Street said two men verbally abused students having a smoke break.

Sinn Fein education spokesman Michael Ferguson said he wants to discuss college security.

The spokeswoman said sectarian threats were made before the men left but they returned armed with knives.

She said the PSNI were called and the men were questioned. Police said the incident was being investigated.

Masked

A PSNI spokesperson asked witnesses to contact police at Strandtown on 0845 6008000.

Three years ago the campus, which is in a loyalist area, was closed after masked men threatened Catholic students there.

The college said the students involved in Monday’s incidents were attending performing arts courses.

It said there was CCTV footage of the incidents which would be examined on Tuesday.

Daily Ireland

Fianna Fáil coalition slammed as ‘morally bankrupt’ over massive boom in Irish arms exports

David Lynch

10/01/2006

MILITARY equipment sales from the Republic have topped €300 million (£205 million) since the present Fianna Fáil/Progressive Democrat coalition came to power in 1997.
The sales figure highlights the present government’s “moral bankruptcy” in this area, it was claimed yesterday.
Joe Murray, the director of the charity Action from Ireland, told Daily Ireland yesterday that the “significant increase in the militarisation” of the Southern economy, combined with the US military’s use of Shannon airport, showed “clearly where this government stands on these issues”.
AfrI is an independent group that seeks to promote debate and influence policy and practice in Ireland and internationally on human rights, peace and justice issues.
In 1996, the group published the Links Report, the first report to highlight the growing links between Irish private companies and the international arms economy.
News yesterday that Irish companies exported €30 million (£21 million) worth of military equipment to the international arms trade in 2005 alone was no shock to AfrI.
“We gave the warning back in 1996 that this was becoming an increasing part of our economy, and the government chose to ignore that advice. They have decided to put their head in the sand like an ostrich,” Mr Murray said.
He said the government had made some “small changes” to the rules governing the arms trade from the South of Ireland “but nothing of much significance”.
“One of the ways the government gets around this issue is pointing to so-called dual-use equipment. They can say that these can be both used for military and civilian use, so we cannot be sure which.
“However, with the specific military equipment they cannot hide from the fact that this is directly linked with the arms trade.”
According to yesterday’s reports, when dual-use exports are added to the overall figure, the government granted 352 licences in 2005, amounting to more than €1.8 billion (£1.23 billion) in sales worldwide.
AfrI said Irish business should not be involved in the arms trade at all.
“There is no need for us to be involved. There is plenty of money being made in the economy already. And when people look at the misery and pain that the arms economy creates in the world, there is really no excuse for us being involved,” said Mr Murray.
Despite the fact that AfrI has not done any recent research into the issue, Mr Murray said it was his opinion that some of the military exports from the state were going to Nato members as well as other countries with questionable records on human rights.
The news of the extent and scope of Irish involvement in the arms economy also drew criticism from Labour Party deputy Michael D Higgins.
“The government has repeatedly told the public in recent years that Ireland is not a producer of arms in the normal international sense.
“How can such a claim stack up when Irish-based companies exported €30 million worth of military equipment in 2005?” asked Mr Higgins.
“Previously, Ireland had a reputation of advocating international disarmament but that status has been shattered by these figures.”
The Irish branch of Amnesty Ireland has called on the government to support an international campaign to draft a treaty regulating the global arms trade.
Amnesty, Oxfam and the International Network on Small Arms mounted the campaign as the United Nations held preliminary talks on the issue in New York yesterday.
According to Amnesty, the South of Ireland produced €240 million (£164 million) worth of military goods and €23.7 billion (£16.2 billion) worth of so-called dual-use goods between 1997 and 2002.
Amnesty spokesman Jim Loughran said these so-called dual-use goods included triggers for Tomahawk missiles, computer systems to control bomb-dropping equipment, firing mechanisms, and communications systems for attack helicopters.
“This is equipment that can have a direct military relevance, and Ireland is increasingly a significant player,” he said.

Daily Ireland

10/01/2006

Daily Ireland managing editor Seán Mag Uidhir has dismissed as “rubbish” a Sunday World report, repeated yesterday by the Irish News, that he was visited by the PSNI over Christmas to warn him he was about to be named as an “informer”.
“I categorically refuted these informer lies when they first appeared three years ago and do so now when they are being shamelessly regurgitated,” he said.
“I was not visited by the PSNI over Christmas or indeed in July 2003 when the Sunday World first ran that claim. Those are the facts.
“That two newspapers have decided to recycle this dangerous rubbish says more about them than it does about me.”

Irish Democrat

Michael O’Sullivan reviews The Galtee Boy: a Fenian prison narrative by John Sarsfield Casey, Mairead Maume, Patrick Maume, Mary Casey (eds), UCD Classics of Irish History, ISBN 1-904558-22-4, £134.95 €18 pbk

JOHN SARSFIELD Casey (1846-1896) is now a little-known figure in Irish history, though in his lifetime he was at the centre of events in the ongoing struggle to break the connection with England and return the land to the Irish people.

Born in Mitchelstown in north Cork into a family of shopkeepers, Casey was well-educated and articulate. Involvement with the recently formed Irish Republican Brotherhood or Fenians turned him into a political agitator and he became a regular contributor to its newspaper The Irish People, hence the pseudonym ‘The Galtee Boy’.

This previously unpublished account of Casey’s memoirs begins in September 1865 with the arrest of the Cork Fenians and their subsequent trial and incarceration in Irish and English prisons. Casey himself was sentenced to 5 years penal servitude for treasonous felony. His account finishes in late 1867 when he became one of the final group of prisoners to be transferred to prisons in Australia. Released there in 1870, he returned to Mitchelstown and continued to agitate and organise on behalf of the IRB and Michael Davitt’s Land League’until his death from Bright’s disease in 1896.

This is not a diary, Casey is writing from recollection. The descriptions nevertheless of prison life are immediate and vivid. The filth and degradation of the cells, the brutality of the warders and the invidious nature of the whole system make compelling reading. What sustains him throughout is unshakeable faith in the rightness of his cause, solidarity with his comrades and a withering contempt for his captors.

Casey was obviously well read in political literature and deeply conscious of the wider significance of the struggle, making continuous reference to European revolutionary figures and texts. His narrative compares favourably with O’Donovan Rossa’s Prison Life, (they were in Portland at the same time) and is a welcome addition to the existing corpus of prison literature.

Credit is due to the editors for a lucid text. There are extracts from the newspaper reports of the time and useful pen-portraits of Casey’s prison comrades.

Sinn Féin

Published: 10 January, 2006

Sinn Féin spokesperson on Policing Gerry Kelly today accused the PSNI of colluding with loyalists in the BIFHE complex at Tower Street yesterday after two men threatening Catholic students with knives were not arrested by PSNI members at the scene.

Mr Kelly said:

“ Yesterday three catholic students at the BIFHE complex on Tower Street were victims of sectarian abuse while standing outside the main building. The three students fearful for their safety returned to the canteen in the main complex.

“ The two men who had previously abused the students outside the building then followed the three into the canteen and produced knives. They again hurled sectarian abuse at the catholic students and threatened them with the knives. The three were obviously extremely fearful and sought help from the security staff on duty. The security guard did not assist the students. The PSNI were contacted and arrived at the scene. The two men were still present and still carrying knives.

“ The PSNI did not arrest the men and choose instead to simply ask them to leave the canteen. One of the students has been in touch with Sinn Féin this morning and is extremely angry at this incident. The PSNI yesterday colluded with loyalist thugs, who were carrying knives and threatening catholic students attending a local college. This is completely unacceptable and is not the actions of an acceptable or accountable policing service.”

BreakingNews.ie

10/01/2006 - 11:42:43

Priceless family treasures belonging to William Butler Yeats will be handed over to the National Library of Ireland tomorrow for its first major exhibition on the Nobel prize-winning poet.

The hoard includes poems, portraits and a precious Japanese sword given to Yeats during a lecture tour of the US in 1920.

The material will be given to the Library on temporary loan by Yeats’ son, Michael for the forthcoming exhibition, ’Yeats: the life and works of William Butler Yeats’ due to open later this year.

“This will be the first major exhibition developed by the National Library on the great poet and we are indebted to the Yeats family for their support,” said National Library director, Aongus O hAonghusa.

“It will draw on a wide range of Yeatsian scholarship and will attempt to engage with all the major aspects of Yeats’ life and works to give a comprehensive view of him.”

The family material will also feature an illuminated copy of the Lake Isle of Innisfree, printed by Yeats’ sister Elizabeth and portraits of Yeats’ wife, George by artists Edmund Dulac and John Butler Yeats.

The Japanese sword being donated was described in Yeats’ poem Meditations in Time of Civil War.

The artefacts will augment the National Library’s permanent collection of Yeats manuscripts and books donated by the family over many years including manuscripts or early printed versions of most of Yeats’ best-known poems like Lake Isle of Innisfree to Circus Animals’ Desertion, and Under Ben Bulben.

The material being assembled for the exhibition will also include previously unseen pictures of Yeats and Maud Gonne on loan from Mrs Anna White, grand-daughter of Maud Gonne and daughter of Sean McBride.

The Yeats manuscript collection is one of the largest literary collections in the National Library, and the largest collection of Yeats manuscripts in a single institution anywhere in the world.

The Yeats Library comprises 3,000 volumes owned and used by Yeats in his lifetime, and an additional 350 titles by and about him, published after his death.

The exhibition will make full use of digital media including electronic ‘turning the page’ technology and multimedia to convey the interest and excitement of Yeats’ life and of his creative process.

Born in 1865, Yeats was a leading figure in the Irish Literary Revival and a founder of the Abbey Theatre.

He published almost 400 poems and 26 plays as well as volumes of memoirs, essays, ideas, introductions and reviews.

He was appointed to the Irish Senate in the early years of the Irish Free State.

He was awarded the Nobel prize for literature in 1923 and later died in France in 1939.

BreakingNews.ie

10/01/2006 - 08:48:04

A minister in charge of controversial community justice plans in the North today challenged its critics to come up with better proposals.

Northern Ireland Office Minister David Hanson threw down the gauntlet after the nationalist SDLP called on the Criminal Justice Inspectorate to refuse co-operation with the British government’s proposals.

Mr Hanson said: “I would say to the SDLP, if there are schemes operating as there are now – 14 to 15 privately-funded schemes in nationalist areas and five or six privately funded schemes in loyalist areas – then what do they think we should do about those schemes?

“Should we let those schemes operate without any minimum standards or should we not put in place minimum standards?

“That is what this discussion is all about. That is what these proposals and guidelines are about.

“Now they may not think what we have proposed is tight enough – in which case come to me with positive suggestions about it.

“Don’t come to me and say don’t inspect the schemes – which is what the latest statement says – because then I’ll say at the end of February there are no guidelines. However the schemes will still be there.”

Restorative justice schemes operating in loyalist and republican neighbourhoods bring the perpetrators of low-level crime face to face with their victims to agree an appropriate penalty.

Sinn Féin and other supporters of the schemes argue they are a viable alternative to the expulsions and so-called punishment attacks meted out by paramilitary groups.

Unionist and nationalist critics, however, fear republicans in particular want restorative justice organisations to act as an alternative to the police in their neighbourhoods.

The programmes are currently funded by American philanthropists but, with the money due to dry up soon, supporters would like them to be officially state-sanctioned, receiving British government funding.

Under draft guidelines, the British government last month envisaged the majority of state- funded restorative justice groups referring a case they would like to handle to an advisory panel featuring the Police Service of Northern Ireland and representatives of the scheme, Probation Board or Youth Justice Agency.

However, in republican areas where people refuse to engage with the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), there would be no obligation on those running schemes to deal with police officers directly.

Instead they could alert the PSNI about cases they would like to deal with by contacting the Probation Board or Youth Justice Agency who will pass the proposal on to the police.

The PSNI would consider if there needs to be any action – such as fingerprinting – before referring a case to the Public Prosecution Service which would ultimately decide if a community restorative justice scheme should handle it.

Unionists, however, have accused the British government of devising proposals which would put police involvement in restorative justice at an arms length.

In a fresh offensive against the plans, the nationalist SDLP also warned the Criminal Justice Inspectorate (CJI) yesterday that its credibility could be damaged if it took on an inspection and accreditation role under the scheme.

SDLP Policing Board member Alex Attwood argued: “The CJI would be giving validation to restorative justice schemes even when the protocol does not cover 95% of restorative justice work.

“The protocol does not create independent complaints schemes. The requirements around training and human rights are inadequate.

“The commitment of restorative justice schemes to assist the police is vague and evasive.

“The CJI has a critical role in investigating criminal justice institutions in the North. That is the role given to it following the Good Friday Agreement.

“It would be going into dangerous waters if it assumes a role in monitoring and accrediting restorative justice schemes, when the schemes are established on such weak and shoddy principles.”

Mr Hanson said the SDLP and other critics needed to be clearer about their vision of community restorative justice.

“At the moment it is not illegal to run a community restorative justice scheme,” the Criminal Justice Minister said.

“So the question for the SDLP and others is: are they saying to me I should make it illegal to operate these schemes?

“If the funding comes from American philanthropists or any other charitable source, should I ban that charitable activity?

“Or are they saying I should put in place regulations to make sure they operate within the criminal justice system?

“Alex Attwood asked me to publish these documents. I have done it. He asked me to give the political parties a chance to comment upon it. I have done it. He has asked me to consider the points he is making. I will do it when he has made them.

“I don’t think to date I have had a submission from the SDLP – they may have sent one but I haven’t seen it in front of me on my desk.

“So I would say to Alex, by all means ask us to kill off inspection but if we do not have Kit Chivers inspecting these schemes, they are going to operate without those inspections and minimum standards.

“My challenge to Alex and others is come up with minimum standards you think they should operate under.”

BBC

Thomas Devlin was murdered as he walked home from a sweet shop

Police investigating the murder of a schoolboy in north Belfast last year have carried out searches in the area.

Thomas Devlin, 15, died after being stabbed five times as he and two friends walked along Somerton Road on 10 August.

On Tuesday, police searched an area in the Mount Vernon district and took away items for scientific examination.

A number of premises in the area were also searched in December and a number of items seized.

In September, the PSNI confirmed the prime suspects in the inquiry were two young men with a black and white dog.

Sweets

Thomas, a student at Belfast Royal Academy, was a talented musician who played the horn at school.

He had just bought sweets from a nearby shop and was on his way home when he was stabbed in the back five times.

His 18-year-old friend was injured in the attack, but not seriously. A 16-year-old boy managed to escape.

A number of people detained for questioning about the murder were subsequently released without charge.

1) Spicer Conference Alert
2) New Plastic Bullets Report
3) Bloody Sunday Weekend Reminder

1) Spicer Conference Alert

Former Scots Guards officer and mercenary Tim Spicer is due to speak at a conference in the US later this month. Subscribers will remember that he pulled out of a recent conference in London after Jean Mc Bride announced her intention to attend and confront him.  Spicer has repeatedly sought to justify the murder by soldiers under his command of Peter Mc Bride in Belast in 1992. His company, Aegis, last year won a major Pentagon contract to provide ‘private security services’  in Iraq. Aegis is currently under investigation following emergence of a shoot-to-kill video filmed in Iraq and allegedly linked to the controversial company. In recent weeks US Senators Charles Schumer and Barack Obama have questioned the $295 million Aegis contract.

PFC subscribers should contact the conference organisers (and their elected representatives) and ask if they are aware that Aegis, co-sponsors of the conference, are currently under investigation or that the President of the company, LT Col Tim Spicer, faces serious allegations concerning his mercenary activities in Sierra Leone and Papua New Guinea and his defence of the murder of an unarmed youth in Belfast.  

Contact: Warren Wm. Gollop, Tel: 246.417.5328 Fax: 888.844.4901 (Toll Free) EMail:

defense@marcusevansbb.com
    
Conference details

Reconstruction and Stabilization in Iraq
Optimizing Post Conflict Efforts of Future Operations
23-25 January 2006  
Location: Sheraton Premiere at Tyson’s Corner, Vienna, VA, USA

>>Information

2) New Plastic Bullets Report

The London based NGO, British Irish Rights Watch, has published a new report titled Plastic Bullets-A Human Rights Perspective 2006. The 54 page document is available online at www.birw.org

According to BIRW the new report, which replaces a September 2005 publication includes:

a)  accurate figures for the firing of AEPs in 2005 by the police and army

b)  it takes account of the Police Ombudsman’s report on firings in 2001/2002

c)  it takes account of the Policing Board’s human rights advisors’ report on Ardoyne and Whiterock in 2005

d)  it takes account of the PSNI’s guidelines on the firing of plastic bullets.

3) Bloody Sunday Weekend Reminder

The last Bloody Sunday weekend before publication of the Inquiry report takes place in the week leading up to January 29, the date of the march. Full programme details will be posted soon but events will include a Relatives Conference on Saturday, January 28, focusing on recent developments concerning the NI Offences Bill (see PFC/RFJ/JFTF statement on website) and the relevance of the Historical Enquiries Team and Police Ombudsman for relatives who have been bereaved. Other events will include discussions, films, plays, and the annual Bloody Sunday Lecture to be delivered on Friday January 27. The Inquiry report is expected to be published later this spring.

Contact PFC for background on any of the above at info@patfinucanecentre.com

See also www.patfinucanecentre.org

ADAM’S

**This is not the particular letter Dublin wants back but ‘another surrender note written by Pearse from his Arbour Hill cell’.

Padraig Pearse (1879 - 1916)
Surrender Letter, Easter 1916.

Sold for €700,000

Click to view letter

Written in Ink on paper,35 x 20.5cm (13 x 8″)
The single page having several drawing pin holes and crease marks
Signed and dated 30th April, 1916.

” In order to prevent further slaughter of the civil population and in the hope of saving the lives of our followers, the members of the Provisional Government present at headquarters have decided on an unconditional surrender, and commandants or officers commanding districts will order their commands to lay down arms.
P.H.Pearse, Dublin, 30th April 1916 “

Provenance : Fr. Columbus O.F.M. Cap.; Fr. Conrad, O.F.M. Cap. As Provincial (Superior) of the Capuchin Order. Thence by descent

Literature: Seamus O’Buachalla (Ed) The Collected Letters of Patrick Pearse.
Peader O’ Donabhain, Doicimead Stairiuil O 1916, Comhar, Samhain, 1975.
Piaras Mac Lochloainn, Last Words, Letters and Statements of the Leaders Executed after the Rising at Easter, 1916.

Sold for €700,000 ($896,000) (£476,000)
Important Irish Art
James Adam Salerooms
25 May 2005

BreakingNews.ie
09/01/2006 - 23:00:37

Dublin City Council is to write to the British government calling for the return of a surrender letter rebel leader Padraig Pearse handed to an English general after the Easter Rising, it emerged tonight.

Sinn Féin councillor Christy Burke is demanding the return of the handwritten document given to General WHM Lowe after Pearse agreed to an unconditional surrender on April 29, 1916.

He also wants an all-party Dublin City Council delegation to go to the UK National Archives in Surrey to check for more 1916 artefacts.

Tonight Mr Burke said he was very pleased his motion at the council meeting was moved to report without objections, allowing for a letter to be sent to the British Ministry of Defence.

Mr Burke said having the surrender document returned was important, particularly for young people who did not know much about the Easter Rising.

“It’s the only properly handwritten letter left, and we’re going to have a museum, and he was a leader, so think it’s appropriate that we have our history, which is very valuable to us.

“I think it’s important that all aspects of the Rising are on display in the museum.”

The motion the councillor had put before Dublin City Council said: “This council calls on the Irish Government and the Minister for Defence to request from the British Government and the British Ministry of Defence, the handwritten letter by Padraig Pearse, Commander in Chief of the Irish Volunteers in Moore Street at Easter 1916.

“This letter should be preserved when returned, and placed in archives or a museum as part of the collection of historic 1916 artefacts.”

The Marino councillor says although the British claim the surrender note is part of their history, its rightful resting place is in Ireland.

Mr Burke wants the letter put into an Easter Rising museum planned for No 16 Moore Street in the capital, where Pearse and his fellow volunteers finally surrendered.

The building became a brief headquarters for the Rising leaders after they abandoned the GPO on Friday, April 28, 1916.

Pearse made the decision to surrender with Thomas Clarke, Joseph Plunkett, Sean MacDermott and William Pearse when they were gathered round the bed of wounded James Connolly on Easter Saturday.

The letter reads: “In order to prevent the further slaughter of Dublin citizens, and in the hope of saving the lives of our followers now surrounded and hopelessly outnumbered, the members of the Provisional Government present at Headquarters have agreed to an unconditional surrender, and the commandants of the various districts in the City and County will order their commands to lay down arms.”

BBC

Patrick Pearse wrote letter of surrender in 1916

Dublin City Council is to debate a motion asking the British government to return a surrender letter signed by Irish rebel Padraig Pearse.

The letter, signed at the end of the 1916 Easter Rising, was handed to an English general.

Councillor Christy Burke, Sinn Fein, wants a council delegation to go to the UK National Archives and check for more artefacts relating to the rising.

Mr Burke said the letter should be placed in an Easter Rising Museum.

This would be established at No. 16 Moore Street, Dublin, where Pearse and his fellow volunteers finally surrendered.

The letter was given to General WHM Lowe after Pearse agreed to an unconditional surrender on 29 April, 1916.

It states: “In order to prevent the further slaughter of Dublin citizens, and in the hope of saving the lives of our followers now surrounded and hopelessly outnumbered, the members of the Provisional Government present at headquarters have agreed to an unconditional surrender, and the commandants of the various districts in the City and County will order their commands to lay down arms.”

Pearse was later executed with 14 other rebels captured in the battle to overthrow British rule in Ireland.

Mr Burke said he had asked Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams to raise the issue with Prime Minister Tony Blair.

The letter was written after the 1916 Easter Rising

The Sinn Fein motion to request the return of the letter is expected to be raised at a Dublin City Council meeting on Monday.

It states: “This Council calls on the Irish Government and the Minister for Defence to request from the British Government and the British Ministry of Defence, the hand-written letter by Padraig Pearse, Commander in Chief of the Irish Volunteers in Moore Street at Easter 1916.

“This letter should be preserved when returned, and placed in archives or a museum as part of the collection of historic 1916 artefacts.”

Another surrender note written by Pearse from his Arbour Hill cell fetched 700,000 euro (£483,000) at an auction in Dublin last May. It was sold to an anonymous overseas bidder.

At that time, the National Heritage Council criticised the Irish government for not trying to secure the document.