SAOIRSE32

RTÉ

08 February 2006 22:17

British MPs have passed motions restoring Westminster allowances worth about £500,000 to Sinn Féin’s five MPs, following a debate lasting several hours.

Last year the allowances were withdrawn following allegations that the IRA had been involved in the Northern Bank robbery and the murder of Robert McCartney.

But Prime Minister Tony Blair said the British government was acting in a fair and balanced way, in implementing the recommendations of the latest IMC report, which recommended reintroducing the allowances.

The DUP questioned the British government’s justification for restoring the funding.

BBC

The DUP’s Peter Robinson has used parliamentary privilege to claim that a leading Belfast businessman is linked to what he termed “IRA dirty money”.

Mr Robinson said Peter Curistan was a key investor in the Odyssey Centre in his East Belfast constituency.

Mr Curistan told the BBC he refuted the allegations and had already launched legal proceedings against a newspaper over similar claims.

He challenged Mr Robinson to repeat his claims outside of parliament.

BBC

The DUP’s Peter Robinson has used parliamentary privilege to claim that a leading Belfast businessman is linked to what he termed “IRA dirty money”.

Mr Robinson said Peter Curistan was a key investor in the Odyssey Centre in his East Belfast constituency.

Mr Curistan told the BBC he refuted the allegations and had already launched legal proceedings against a newspaper over similar claims.

He challenged Mr Robinson to repeat his claims outside of parliament.

BN.ie

08/02/2006 - 17:52:32

Gardaí may have covered-up the murder of a Dundalk forestry worker 30 years ago because of his killers’ links with British military intelligence, an Oireachtas committee heard today.

Seamus Ludlow, 47, was shot dead by gunmen while returning home from a pub in Dundalk on May 2 1976.

The former Sunday Tribune journalist Ed Moloney said questions had to be asked about why gardaí wrongly told the Ludlow family that he had been shot by the IRA for being an informer.

He said it had been obvious from the start that Ludlow, an innocent man, bore none of the hallmarks of someone who was killed for being an informer.

His body was not bound and gagged, he had not been interrogated for days beforehand and the IRA did not publicly name him as an informer, as was its general practice at the time.

“Gardaí smeared the Ludlow family in a shameful and disgustingly callous fashion,” said Mr Moloney.

Mr Moloney said there might have been collusion between the Gardaí and British military intelligence to cover up the murder but said only a public inquiry could establish the truth.

But he said the Garda allegation that Mr Ludlow was an IRA informer had caused divisions in the Ludlow family which lasted for two decades, as they rowed over the cause of his death, and prevented them from mounting a cohesive campaign for the truth.

Mr Moloney, who covered the North for the Sunday Tribune from 1978 until 2002, flew from his home in New York to appear before the Oireachtas Committee on Justice.

He raised a series of questions about links between the Gardaí and British military intelligence at the time of Mr Ludlow’s death.

“There is no doubt the British have over the years attempted to place agents in the Gardaí,” he said.

“There’s a lot of smoke and I don’t know whether there’s a fire, but there’s certainly smoke.”

In a wide-ranging presentation, he was warned several times by the committee chairman Fianna Fáil TD Sean Ardagh not to use the names of people implicated in murders and spying.

Mr Moloney said one of the four loyalists implicated in the killing of Seamus Ludlow, who he referred as number three, was a member of the Red Hand Commando and had been described as a psychopath with a fearsome and bloody reputation.

“Number three is living in England since the 1980s. I was told by UVF sources that he had departed under a cloud and when I asked if he was an informer, I was told it was reasonable to assume that he was.”

Mr Moloney said there were other cases where British intelligence had allowed an innocent person to be killed despite being warned by their informers. He referred to the killing of Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane in 1989 and the shooting of Francisco Notarantonio in 1987.

He described how a member of the Ludlow family living in South Armagh had been arrested in the wake of the murder and questioned about the progress of the Garda investigation.

“Why were the British army so interested in the Ludlow family case that they dispatched soldiers and helicopters? My allegation is that the British army wanted to know if one of their agents was in trouble.”

He said that a full public inquiry into the murder of Seamus Ludlow would deal with the great unanswered question: was one of the killers a British informer and what did the gardaí and the State know about it?

“There is an elephant in the room and everyone is pretending it is not there.”

BN.ie

08/02/2006 - 17:44:11

Nearly €13m has been spent on the latest police inquiry into Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane’s murder, it was revealed tonight.

The cost of former Scotland Yard chief Lord Stevens’ third probe into a loyalist assassination shrouded by allegations of security force collaboration was branded a waste of money by the lawyer’s family.

And unionists have called for the seven-year investigation to be brought to an immediate halt.

Ian Paisley Jr, a DUP representative on the Northern Ireland Policing Board, said: “There’s been absolutely no public benefit from the inquiry or the money spent on it.”

Stevens III was launched in 1999 to re-examine claims that special branch and military intelligence assisted the Ulster Defence Association unit who shot Mr Finucane at his north Belfast home ten years earlier.

It confirmed in April 2003 that rogue police officers and soldiers plotted with loyalist terrorists to murder Catholics during the 1980s, including the Finucane killing.

Now the Northern Ireland Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde – who once ran the probe – has disclosed how much has been spent on it so far.

Sir Hugh also confirmed it was being scaled back and taken over by a new unit given a £30m (€43m) budget to examine more than 3,000 unsolved killings during 30 years of violence.

He said: “The cost of the Stevens III Inquiry to date is £8,916,936 (€12,991,649).

“However, it is anticipated that the cost of the Inquiry will significantly reduce as the investigative capacity of the Stevens Team is being reduced from 30 to 11 officers.

“The current status of the Inquiry is that as of February 2006 all outstanding matters are being handed back to C8, the Historical Enquiries Team.”

Stevens III loyalist hitman Ken Barrett was convicted of the Finucane murder and six others for handling terrorist documents, Sir Hugh stressed.

The Public Prosecution Service is also studying 27 files on police officers and members of the security services arising from the investigation.

The findings of collusion was endorsed by retired Canadian Supreme Court judge Peter Cory, who urged public inquiries into the Finucane case and three other controversial murders in Northern Ireland.

Establishing potentially lengthy tribunals is expected to cost the Government millions of pounds.

Around £155m (€225m) has already been ploughed into the Bloody Sunday probe in Derry.

After seven years Lord Saville is due to deliver his findings on the 1972 shooting of 13 civilians by paratroopers later this year.

The Finucane family, who claim a UK-government-proposed inquiry will shield the truth, accused the authorities of squandering funds.

Michael Finucane, the solicitor’s son, said; “The money that was spent on the Stevens investigation would have been far better spent preparing for a proper inquiry.

“Stevens was asked to return to Northern Ireland in 1999 after we submitted our confidential dossier to the Secretary of State at that time, Mo Mowlam.

“That work has been ongoing for seven years; so much could have been achieved in relation to an inquiry in that time.”

He added: “The Stevens investigation on the whole hasn’t proved to be anything more than a delaying tactic.

“It doesn’t command public confidence because it hasn’t been an open, transparent inquiry – something a police investigation by its very nature cannot be.

“In this case that inevitably leads to distrust among the wider public, that’s why a public inquiry is necessary.”

Mr Paisley, whose party and Policing Board colleague William Hay received the information in a written response from Sir Hugh, was equally scathing of Stevens III.

The investigation destroyed the protection for a key informant shot dead by former paramilitary associates.

William Stobie, an ex-UDA quartermaster involved in the Finucane plot, was killed at his north Belfast home weeks after the criminal case against him collapsed.

“This inquiry has resulted in the exposure of a potential witness/defendant who has ultimately been murdered, and therefore no justice prevailed there” Mr Paisley claimed.

“It has subsequently resulted in the debacle of the Finucane’s being being granted an inquiry based on the Cory recommendations, only for it to be stymied by the family.

“From what I can see the inquiry is over and it should be brought to a halt now.”

The Police Service of Northern Ireland insisted the best way forward was for the probe to be passed to the new team headed up by retired Met commander David Cox – who worked on Stevens III.

A spokeswoman said: “It’s the view of both the Chief Constable and Lord Stevens that these investigations are best advanced by the recently established Historical Enquiries Team, within whose remit they firmly fall.”

BN.ie

08/02/2006 - 18:08:55

Police were called today to stop Belfast postal workers staging a wildcat strike from blocking the entrance to Northern Ireland’s main sorting office in Co Antrim.

Royal Mail commercial manager David Peden said they had no alternative but to call the police.

“A number of people in the picket line chose to block the road into and out of the Northern Ireland Mail Centre. They were repeatedly asked to step aside and unfortunately didn’t do so.

“At that stage we had no option but to involve the PSNI and they came along and were able to get a peaceful resolution. The pickets moved aside and we were able to open up the road again,” he said.

The Police Service confirmed that the pickets moved without protest when requested to do so.

Only a handful of workers at the Royal Mail centre at Mallusk have joined Belfast colleagues in the strike which has been going on for over a week.

Royal Mail managers from England have been shipped to Belfast to keep a skeleton delivery service going for businesses as the strike shows no sign of ending.

Members of the Communication Workers Union again ignored a call from their trade union to call off the strike, which has been going on since January 31.

But there was good news for Royal Mail when an effort to spread the illegal strike to Derry failed.

A CWU representative in the city said that “under no circumstances” would they strike while the action remained unofficial.

As the strike continued there were claims a non-striker in Belfast had received a threatening phone call at home.

The Police Service said they had received notification of the call, received on February 1, by a member of Royal Mail staff.

It was reported to police “for information”, said a spokeswoman, but no investigation had been launched.

Royal Mail, meanwhile, said about 60 managers from England had volunteered to work in Belfast until the strike was over.

They were working with local management staff in trying to get as much mail sorted and delivered to business and small businesses as possible.

But a spokeswoman said: “It doesn’t change the fact that services are being seriously disrupted.”

The strike had stopped normal deliveries to North, West and South Belfast and all Special Delivery items. No mail posted in Belfast is being processed and items posted anywhere in Northern Ireland for delivery in Britain, the Irish Republic and internationally are not being dispatched.

Incoming mail should get through – except in the three Belfast areas affected.

The Social Security Agency announced that those affected by the strike who usually received benefit payments through the post should collect them from their nearest post office on Friday.

The strike was sparked last week at Belfast’s main Tomb Street delivery office over claims of harassment of north Belfast postal workers in the workplace and concerns over the disciplinary procedures followed.

Royal Mail said today they had just got the results of an internal, confidential and anonymous Have Your Say survey of all Royal Mail staff which was undertaken on an annual basis.

“The results of those of Belfast North were of particular interest – 96% of those surveyed in Belfast North say they have not been bullied or harassed by management.

“Also, of those surveyed, 75% stated that they felt their manager is approachable and listens to them,” said the spokeswoman.

An Phoblacht

Frank Stagg 30th anniversary - Belfast memories of Mayo hunger striker’s death

Below, in an article first published in 2002, Author, playwright and former An Phoblacht Editor DANNY MORRISON writes about his memories of the death of republican POW Frank Stagg in Wakefield Prison, which occurred 30 years ago this week.

I love St Valentine’s Day. But with it comes sad memories, especially of the year 1976. In subsequent years there were other sad memories, such as hearing, just two days after the killing of Pat Finucane, about the assassination of Sinn Féin Councillor John Davey, with whom I had been interned.

I think it was in the early morning of 12 February 1976 that we heard about the death of Frank Stagg on hunger strike in an English jail. He and his comrade Michael Gaughan had been on hunger strike in 1974 demanding to be transferred to a prison in the North. Michael Gaughan died in June of that year and, unfortunately, the solidarity protest movement on the outside was nothing of the order of the protests that we witnessed in 1980 and 1981.

This had been Frank Stagg’s fourth hunger strike and he died in Wakefield Prison, blind, weighing four stone after 62 days, his wife and mother at his bedside. There were some protests on the streets, but not many, some rioting and some IRA operations. I was standing at the corner of Brighton Street that night with a friend, Seando Moore, when we heard a muffled explosion from the direction of Iveagh. About half an hour later we learnt that a small bomb had exploded in a house in Nansen Street and that our friend and comrade, Seán ‘Stu’ Bailey, was seriously injured, along with several young people.

I knew young people there and it has just occurred to me that Stu himself was just 18. He had been in the IRA for over a year and had been very close to Paul Fox who had been killed on active service two months earlier. Stu had been shot and wounded by the Sticks in that disastrous feud of October 1975 and was still recovering. Days after the feud ended Stu, with his leg still in plaster from the gunshot wound, had gone to his brother-in-law’s wedding where the majority of the guests were Sticks!

That night of the explosion I went around to tell his wife, Geraldine, that he had been seriously injured and taken to the Royal. On the mantelpiece was a Valentine’s card from Geraldine and their young daughter, Seaneen, which Stu was never to see. Geraldine and, I think, Stu’s mother, Mrs Bailey, rushed to the hospital where he died a few hours later. He was a very funny fellow with an infectious laugh and I can still see his spirit in his daughter. It is hard to believe that was 25 years ago. But all of us, from whatever walk or persuasion, carry around inside us these evocative reminiscences, with the images and voices of our dead friends asserting themselves, and not just on anniversaries.

Frank Stagg had made a will requesting that he be buried in the Republican Plot in Leigue Cemetery, Ballina, beside his comrade, Michael Gaughan. Before his remains were released, several other people lost their lives, including 17-year-old IRA Volunteer James O’Neill in North Belfast and 15-year-old Anthony Doherty on the Falls Road.

As Frank Stagg’s body was being flown home, and as the aeroplane was approaching Dublin Airport, the Fine Gael/Labour Coalition Government ordered Aer Lingus to fly on to Shannon were the Special Branch seized the coffin. To this day I can still see Frank Stagg’s mother standing at Dublin Airport, completely bewildered, but absolutely dignified. The government had split the family, with one son, Emmet, who is now a Labour TD, sanctioning the hijacking.

And so the Special Branch buried IRA Volunteer Frank Stagg and poured six feet of concrete on top of his grave to prevent republicans from re-interring his body alongside Michael Gaughan’s. The following day, republicans gathered in Leigue Cemetery where they heard Joe Cahill make a promise to Frank Stagg. He said: “I pledge that we will assemble here again in the near future when we have taken your body from where it lies. Let there be no mistake about it, we will take it, Frank, and we will leave it resting side by side with your great comrade, Michael Gaughan.”

For six months the Gardaí were stationed in the cemetery watching the grave but eventually they gave up and left. And when they did, the IRA disinterred Frank Stagg’s remains and reburied them with Michael Gaughan, thus carrying out his last request.

When you consider all the state and loyalist violence, all the laws, all the sermons, all the editorials, all the censorship, that were used to stop republicans from being republicans and practising republicanism, what is left is mountain after mountain after mountain of failure, and thousands upon thousands upon thousands of republicans who haven’t gone away and never will.

An Phoblacht

Frank Stagg 34th anniversary
9 February 2006

Photo: Frank Stagg

The following is an excerpt from an article first printed in the 10 January 1976 edition of Republican News. GERRY ADAMS, writing from the Cages of Long Kesh Prison, writes of the terrible conditions for republican POWs in English prisons, particularly of the horrors of forced feeding, as Frank Stagg entered the final month of his hunger strike. As it happened, Stagg was not force fed during the hunger strike on which he died, but he had been on previous fasts and it was this brutal method of torture that led directly to the death of his comrade and fellow Mayo man Michael Gaughan in 1974.

Britain’s Ambassador to Chile, Mr Reginald Seconde, said yesterday that he knew Sheila Cassidy, detained in Chile for 59 days for helping a wounded Chilean guerrilla, had been tortured by Santiago police two weeks after her arrest last November. Mr Seconde was reporting to the Brit Foreign Office after his recall from Chile and pressure is building on Brit Foreign Secretary Jim Callaghan to take some firm action against Chile over the treatment of Dr Cassidy. The case has achieved immense publicity on the Brit news media and English politicians have been making very angry noises against, and about, the use of torture on political prisoners.

At the time of writing, and for the past few weeks, Frank Stagg, a republican POW in Wakefield Prison, has been on hunger and thirst strike, while Roy Walsh and two of his comrades are still in solitary confinement in the Prison Segregation Unit (Special Control Unit) of Wormwood Scrubs after their protest there last November. Republican prisoners in England are held under solitary confinement conditions and Paul Holmes, in particular, has spent most of his time in the Segregation Unit of Parkhurst Prison, known among republican POWs as ‘The Hole’. They are all making one basic demand, and that is a transfer to Ireland so that they may serve their sentences nearer home.

The precedent for this move was made when Dolours and Marion Price were transferred after a long and horrifying hunger strike and again, when Hugh Feeney and Gerry Kelly were moved to Long Kesh. Loyalist prisoners, albeit without hunger strikes, have also been transferred. Once again, England has shown her ability to condemn torture abroad against her citizens, while at home in her own prison hell-holes, day and daily, Irishmen and Irishwomen are tortured in the most cowardly and bestial manner.

Within the next week or two support for Frank Stagg will build in the ghettoes and among the freedom loving people of Ireland. This may be too late. It must be stressed that Frank Stagg will die if pressure is not brought to bear on the Brits immediately. With this horrible eventuality in mind I decided to write a short article on conditions for republican POWs in English jails, so that while we go about our daily business, at work or at home, each and every one of us may understand the daily hell which our prisoners in England are fighting against.

To assist me in this, I asked two comrades, Hugh Feeney and Gerry Kelly, to scribble a brief outline of their experiences, so that I could give an outline of Frank Stagg’s prison ‘routine’. Their notes arrived in this cage this evening and I have used them below almost as they were written. As a republican prisoner myself, who has spent a few years in Long Kesh and a month or two on the Maidstone Prison Ship, I have often felt quite sorry for myself and many times I have had the audacity to feel chuffed at enduring all this. Since reading Gerry and Hugh’s account of forced feeding I have stopped kidding myself. My two brief punishment sessions ‘on the boards’ here, the odd beating-up on Brit raids and the conditions which my visitors endure have all paled to insignificance beside the plight of our people in England. Long Kesh, Magilligan, Armagh, Crumlin, Portlaoise, the Curragh, the ‘Joy and Limerick Jails are bad. English Prisons are worse and are, in truth and fact, living hell-holes.

There is no martyr complex in the following notes, no talk of doing ‘bird’, no self-pity. Republicans in England are there only because of the English presence in Ireland. Until that presence is removed it is the duty of every Irishman and woman to push relentlessly for the transfer of our prisoners from English to Irish jails. The precedent has been set. English hypocrisy must find no excuse for continuing their torture of Irish republican POWs. It must stop now before Frank Stagg dies, alone and unwanted in his prison cell.

Frank has been on four previous hunger strikes and the conditions he is at present suffering are as they were when he was on hunger strike and in solitary confinement in Parkhurst and Long Lartin. He is now in the hospital wing of Wakefield prison, under the ‘care’ of Doctors Knox and Xavier. Both these men have force-fed Irish prisoners and, last May, Frank Maguire MP reported that a week after being force fed, Frank Stagg still bore the nail-marks of Dr Xavier on his wrists. These doctors call force-feeding, ‘tube’ feeding.

Frank Stagg may be in the hospital wing, but a prison hospital cannot, in any way, be equated with a civilian hospital. Frank has been moved from one cell of the prison punishment block to a greater punishment — the possibility of forced feeding. He still remains in complete solitary confinement and he must inevitably face force feeding again even after the decision by the British Medical Association to condemn it. Forced feeding has not been stopped, but it is left to the discretion of the prison doctor. Frank Stagg was last force fed in May 1975. Jenkins, in a reply a few months ago in the Brit House of Commons, stated that he had left it to the prison doctor. If, as is likely, Frank Stagg is forced fed again he will suffer the following torture and, because his throat and stomach in particular cannot have healed properly, his health will deteriorate more quickly than it is doing at present.

“He will face the possibility of at least one and maybe two ‘feedings’ daily. Force feeding is always brutal. No matter how often it occurs the victim does not get used to it. Some sessions are worse than others, but all are terrible experiences. If the ‘feedings’ are not at regular times each day, and usually they are not, then he spends the entire day trying to prepare himself emotionally. Trying to restock his determination to fight.

A team of screws are the first to appear. They come into the cell with varying expressions on their faces. These range from snarls, through impassive indifference to the odd sheepish apologetic smile. He will be ‘fed’ either in his cell or dragged outside into another one. He will be held in a bed or on a chair. Usually six or eight screws are involved. They swop in an obviously planned manner, holding and pressing down on arms and legs. He will struggle as best he can even though he knows it is useless. One grabs him by the hair and forces his head back, and when he is finally pinned down in the proper manner the doctor and his assistant arrive.

Various methods will be employed to open Frank’s mouth. His nose will be covered to cut off air, or a screw or doctor will bunch their fists or bore their knuckles into the joints on each side of the jaws. A Ryle’s tube will be used. This is a very long thin tube which is pushed through the nose. It is supposedly for nasal feeding, but, in forced feeding, it is simply a torture weapon used to force open the jaws. It rubs against the membrane at the back of the nose and, if not coated in a lubricant (which it seldom is), it causes a searing pain, akin to a red-hot needle being pushed into one’s head. If Frank cries out with this pain, a wooden clamp will be pushed very forcibly between his teeth. If this fails to work, the doctor will use a large pair of forceps to cut into the gums, the ensuing pain again forcing the jaws to open sufficiently for the clamp to be forced in. Sometimes a metal clamp, rather like a ‘Bulldog’ clip, is used. It is forced between the teeth and a bolt is turned, forcing a spring and the jaws to open.

When Frank’s jaws are finally pried open, a wooden bit, rather like a horse bit, is forced into his mouth. This bit has two pointed ends, which are used to force and to hold an opening. It ’sits’ across his mouth with a screw holding each end, and there is a hole in the centre of it through which the feeding tube is forced. A flat piece of wood is inserted first to press the tongue down and then a three-foot long rubber tube, coated in liquid paraffin, is shoved in and down his throat. A funnel is placed on the open end and they will pour some water in. If the water bubbles, they know the tube is in Frank’s lungs. If so, the tube is removed and the whole process starts again.

Michael Gaughan was murdered in this way. When the tube is eventually fixed properly, it is pushed down into Frank’s stomach. There are different widths of tube and obviously the wider they are, the more painful the torture. Doctors usually use the widest as food goes down quicker and they don’t have to delay overlong. Frank will feel his stomach filling up and stretching, an experience he has undergone before. Automatically, he will vomit up, the disgorged food being caught in a kidney dish. If the doctor in charge is especially sadistic the vomit will be forced back down his throat again (this happened to Gerry Kelly). As the tube is removed it tears at the back of his throat, more so than before because the liquid paraffin has worn off on the way down. The last few inches will be ghastly. Frank will get violent pains in his chest. He will choke and, at this point, he will be sicker than before, as the tube coming out triggers off more retching (Marion Price passed out at this stage once). After ‘feeding’, Frank will find it impossible to stand up, to sit up, or to move in any way.

Frank Stagg is also on thirst strike. This is dealt with in two ways. The first method employed is simply more force feeding with water fluids in the food. Since this liquid bypasses his mouth (via the tube) that is where he will feel it most. The other method involves putting extra salt in the liquid during force feeding. This causes a more concentrated dehydration and increases the desire for water. To repeatedly alternate between thirst and hunger strike, as Frank Stagg is doing, is extremely difficult and indescribably agonising. He may be refused a towel or water to wash off his vomit as Hugh Feeney was, and his cell will stink of sour milk and disgorged food. On one occasion Hugh Feeney was even denied Communion by a priest, so Frank could find himself denied even spiritual comfort.

This then is a broad outline of the barbarism condoned by English politicians in England and condemned by them elsewhere. It is inflicted, with equal savagery, on girls as well as men. Dolours and Marion Price were tortured like this during a strike which lasted 205 days.

National Commemoration

Volunteer Frank Stagg
30th anniversary Sunday 12 February

Assemble: 11.30am Ballina

Main speaker: Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams

An Phoblacht

McAleese and 1916 - Controversy and contradictions

BY Mícheál MacDonncha
9 February 2006

At the end of her address on the 1916 Rising President Mary McAleese said: “Enjoy the conference and the rows it will surely rise.” Rows were risen about the speech by the usual suspects — the hysterical anti-nationalist elements whose loudest voice is Kevin Myers of the Irish Times. The absurd Lord Laird and David Adams also weighed in. The attack on McAleese by Ian Paisley has added fuel to the controversy which rumbles on in the letters pages. (click photo to view)

It would be a mistake for republicans to read too much significance into the speech, despite the current din. As one letter writer pointed out, in defending McAleese against her critics, her predecessor Mary Robinson made similar remarks when she unveiled the statue of James Connolly in Dublin city centre. The reaction from the anti-republican elements is coming from a quarter that is much less politically significant than it was when Eoghan Harris was witch-finder general in RTÉ and when the Dublin Government ignored the 75th anniversary of the Rising.

In most countries a speech by the head of state praising those who fought for independence would be so unremarkable as to be largely ignored. But the reason for the row is that Ireland is not independent. That also points up a contradiction in the speech. Mary McAleese spoke of “this strong independent and high-achieving Ireland”. The question of Irish independence has not been resolved and many people do not concur with her argument that the Good Friday Agreement “ends forever one of the Rising’s most difficult legacies, the question of how the people of this island look at partition. The constitutional position of Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom is accepted overwhelmingly by the electorate North and South.”

The reality is that people voted for the Good Friday Agreement for a wide variety of reasons. The union still exists and is still strongly opposed. Unionism remains entrenched but politically weaker than it has ever been. Republicans retain their conviction that the union and Partition are undemocratic. The one key factor that united people in support of the Agreement was not the constitutional question; it was the belief that the Agreement offered a peaceful way forward, a road beyond conflict.

The 1916 Rising would never have occurred if Home Rule had not been whittled down to the weakest form of devolution and then snatched away from the Irish people by an armed alliance of English Tories and Ulster Unionists who routed the Liberal Government and the Irish Parliamentary Party. There are echoes of that today in the efforts of British securocrats and rejectionist unionists to scrap the Good Friday Agreement.

Mary McAleese was correct to highlight the positive, progressive legacy of the freedom fighters of 1916. The political challenge, 90 years on, is not for her but for the Fianna Fáil and PD Ministers who got their seals of office in Áras an Uachtaráin. Do they fear Sinn Féin Ministers in a restored Executive boosting the electoral fortunes of Sinn Fein in the 26-County General Election? Are they determined to restore the Good Friday Agreement or will they be content to be seen to ‘make the effort’, while blaming the DUP and Sinn Féin in equal measure for failure to reach agreement? And in the event of rejectionist obstruction succeeding again what are they going to do to advance the national interest they claim to uphold?

An Phoblacht

On the week of the 30th anniversary on hunger strike of Mayo republican Frank Stagg, Shane Mac Thomáis looks back at 120 years of Mayo involvement in the national struggle

Shane Mac Thomáis
9 February 2006

What eventually became known as the National Land League was initially formed in County Mayo in 1879 by Michael Davitt, James Daly, and others. It endeavoured to bring about the greatest social change ever witnessed in Ireland.

Davitt, who was born at Straide, County Mayo and James Daly from Boghadoon, near Lahardaun, both played a crucial role in the early land agitation in Mayo which started at a meeting held in Irishtown, near Ballindine, County Mayo, on Sunday 20 April 1879. The meeting, attended by a crowd of 10,000, arose from the threatened eviction of a number of tenants for arrears of rent from the estate of a local absentee landlord. (Photo: Michael Davitt)

The new departure

On 1 June 1879 in Dublin, Fenian leader, John Devoy, Michael Davitt and Charles Stewart Parnell, agreed on ‘The New Departure’, whereby Fenians and constitutional nationalists agreed to combine in a struggle to reform the Irish land-system. A week later Parnell urged tenants in Westport “to hold a firm grip on your homesteads and lands”. His call came as Potato Blight was spreading once more through the West, and the number of evictions for non-payment of rent was rising steadily.

On 16 August, under Davitt’s leadership, the National Land League of Mayo was founded in Castlebar, and two months later the campaign moved well beyond the borders of Mayo with the inauguration in Dublin of the Irish National Land League, with Parnell as its President and Michael Davitt as one of its secretaries.

The Land agitation destroyed servility and paved the way for the emergence of republican ideals. Under the provisions of the Local Government Act 1898, Grand Juries (which consisted of the chief landowners in each county) were abolished and replaced by county councils with a significant extension of local democracy. The change saw some readjustments to county boundaries including Mayo. These developments were aided by the Gaelic Revival of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries.

John MacBride

After the rebellion of 1916, 14 of its leaders, including a Westport man, Major John MacBride, were executed. MacBride had led the Irish Brigade in the Boer War in South Africa against the British, and was married for a time to Maud Gonne the founder of Inghinidhe na hÉireann. Their son, Seán, became Chief of Staff of the IRA and winner of the Nobel and Lenin Peace Prizes.

Tan War

The historic general election of 1918, in which Sinn Féin candidates won a landslide victory, led to the establishment of the First Dáil in January 1919.

These developments were followed by the Tan War, with a number of incidents in County Mayo, notably at Foxford, Islandeady, Toormakeady, Kilmeena and Carrowkennedy near Westport.

Perhaps the most famous incident to occur in East Mayo during the Tan War was the aborted bombing of Ballaghadereen RIC Barracks. A bomb had been prepared and transported to the town in a cart of hay but the daring mission had to be called off after British troops came across some IRA Volunteers preparing to push the cart towards the station. The bomb was seized by the British and defused in a bog several miles from the town. The blast was so powerful it broke windows in Ballaghadereen.

Ballaghadereen was one of the hotbeds of the Tan War and several Volunteers recall the damage that was caused to the town when it was attacked by the Black and Tans in 1921. One Volunteer, Capt Paddy Boland, was brutally murdered by the Tans in the village of Tooreen; others were savagely beaten and maimed for life.

Seán McNeela

Mayo Republicans would continue to help the struggle for Independence through the Civil War and afterwards and the county had the honour of burying three of its sons who died whilst on hunger strike for POW status. They were Jack “Seán” McNeela. He died on 19 April 1940 in Arbour Hill Military Detention Barracks, Dublin, after 55 days on hunger strike. Michael Gaughan who died on 3 June, 1974, after 64 days on hunger strike in Parkhurst Prison, England and Frank Stagg, of Hollymount who died on 12 February 1976 after 62 days without food.

An Phoblacht

9 February 2006

Sectarian attack - Stoneyford family targeted by unionists

Loyalists have been accused of attempted murder by a man whose home they attacked. The man has also criticised the PSNI who refused to describe the arson attack as sectarian. “The dogs in the streets know the names of the loyalists involved but the PSNI totally ignore these details,” he said .

A unionist gang torched the house in Stoneyford, County Antrim in the early hours of Thursday morning 2 February. A 31-year-old man, his 25-year-old partner and their five-year-old daughter escaped serious injury after a gang of loyalists poured petrol over the front door of their Stoneybridge Meadows home.

Sinn Féin Councillor Paul Butler told An Phoblacht that, “the PSNI know who is behind the on-going campaign of sectarianism against nationalists in Stoneyford but have shown no interest in dealing with them.”

Butler added he would be meeting Dublin Government representatives in the coming weeks to raise ongoing sectarianism in Stoneyford. “The Dublin Government is not doing enough to safeguard the rights of nationalists in Lisburn and Stoneyford. Indeed it has been only too willing to accept PSNI briefings despite that force’s refusal, against all the evidence, to attribute the attacks to loyalists,” he said.

The attack was captured on a CCTV camera which the family installed on their in the aftermath of previous attacks. Still pictures show the loyalists approaching the house just before 1am.

The family managed to escape after the alarm was raised by neighbours.

“We were worried for our daughter because the whole door was engulfed with the flames. We used a garden hose on the flames until the fire brigade arrived,” said the householder.

In previous attacks loyalists smashed his front door and threw paint bombs at the house. “They come at night when people are in bed. They are nothing but sectarian cowards. All the people who live on this mixed estate just want to live in peace with each other”.

Meanwhile An Phoblacht has learned that a well-known loyalist, with connections to the Orange Volunteers, was arrested and questioned by the PSNI last week

The arrest came after unionists threatened nationalist youths wearing GAA tops as they walked through Stoneyford village.

The man was later released.

An Phoblacht

09 February 2006

When Cúnamh, the Derry-based community mental health project, was discussing the possibility of carrying out research into the long-term psychological and physical effects of the Blanket Protest, something quite unexpected happened.

A former prisoner came to them, by co-incidence, and asked the organisation to undertake some sort of research on the issue. He told them that he was concerned for a number of his former comrades who, almost 30 years after the Blanket Protest, were still suffering the ill-effects of their experiences.
(Click photo to view)

What transpired was the development of a self-help group for former prisoners, which provided researchers commissioned by Cúnamh with a core study group of 21 former prisoners for a pilot project into the impact of the protest on prisoners’ lives. The results of that study, Blocks to the Future, were recently published.

The report’s author, clinical psychologist Brandon Hamber, explains that of critical importance to Cúnamh was a desire to use the findings to help “break down the perception that ex-prisoners have no right to services and to challenge attempts to exclude political prisoners and their families from receiving adequate support”.

Hamber acknowledges the limitations of the study, given that it used such a small cohort of subjects; 21 individuals out of an ex-Blanketmen population of between 300 to 400 — and because it excludes any of the women former prisoners who also took part in the protest. He stresses that the problems experienced by those in the study do not necessarily affect every former prison.

On 15 September 1976 Kieran Nugent refused to put on a prison uniform. His decision set off a train of events which ended in the 1980 and 1981 Hunger Strikes and all that followed. The escalation of the Blanket Protest into the No Wash Protest and in to the Hunger Strikes is well-documented. Some of those interviewed spoke vividly about this. One prisoner recalled that, after a particularly brutal beating and in his cell: “I felt so lonely I thought I could never be happy again in my life.”

What is less clear is how the experiences of prisoners and their methods of coping translated into life after prison. What was apparent however, was the difficulty some of the group had in speaking about their experiences and accompanying feelings. In some cases this inability to express feelings had a detrimental effect on family relationships. The experience and psychological demands of growing up under unionist and British oppression, of being part of the armed struggle, followed by years of rigorous self-control and of masking emotion, stayed with them long after release. One prisoner explained: “The Blocks made me really hard, I lost a lot of compassion. I find it impossible to cry. I couldn’t even cry at my mother’s funeral, you know my family was wondering what the fuck is wrong with you?”

Given the appalling conditions of the Blanket and No Wash protests — and the extreme youth of most of the former prisoners who participated in it — it is hardly surprising, therefore, that 25% of the group have experienced severe mental health problems, and a further 25% need mental health support — although the author cautions against extrapolating these figures and applying them to the entire ex-prisoner population.

In order to address the issues raised by the study, Hamber recommends that a broader research programme be implemented and, further that those who took part in the protests be encouraged to document their experiences. He also suggests that more formal support structures should be put in place for female former prisoners, families and children.

Crucially, he calls for political and policy changes to improve support services for former prisoners. There should, he says, be a process of “mainstreaming psychological support for ex-prisoners who were on the No Wash/Blanket Protest through the provision of accessible and appropriate community-based services”.

Sinn Féin

Published: 8 February, 2006

West Tyrone Sinn Féin MLA Cllr Barry Mc Elduff says that last night Omagh District Council officially declared for Irish Unity and that Strabane District Council is almost certain to follow suit next Tuesday night.

He issued the statement following the passing of a Sinn Féin motion challenging An Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and his Dublin government administration “to begin to pro-actively pursue all-Ireland agenda policies in accordance with the democratically expressed wishes of the majority of Irish citizens in this part of the 32 counties”

The motion was passed with: 9 Sinn Féin councillors voting for, 6 unionists voting against, 1 independent abstaining with the 3 SDLP and the other independent councillor absenting themselves from the debate.

Speaking following the successful passing of the motion Barry Mc Elduff said,

“Last night’s Council decision is a highly significant statement showing that the majority of people of this area want Irish Unity. It also sends a powerful message to An Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and the Dublin government administration that we expect the same rights and entitlements as Irish citizens in the 26 counties and that we expect the Dublin government to begin to pro-actively pursue initiatives, policies and strategies aimed at achieving a United Ireland, which is the stated objective of all nationalist parties on this island.

“This message will undoubtedly be reinforced when this motion is debated in Strabane District Council next Tuesday. We can no longer be treated as second-class Irish citizens in our own country and the primary onus is on An Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and his administration to bring us into a new era of
equality and to begin to take a lead in planning for Irish Unity.

Motion to Omagh and Strabane District Councils

Propose that:

· This Council welcomes the fact the Irish Unity is now the stated objective of all nationalist parties on the island of Ireland including the present Irish government administration.

· This Council therefore believes that An Taoiseach Bertie Ahern TD has a unique responsibility in giving practical expression to his administration’s and nationalist Ireland’s stated objective on the issue by immediately commissioning a Green Paper on Irish Unity: a paper focussing on the compelling logic of this outcome in political, social and economic terms as well as spelling out what pro-active strategy his government is going to undertake in pursuance of the stated objective of nationalist Ireland.

· This Council further calls on An Taoiseach Bertie Ahern TD to an initiate a holistic consultation process amongst all sectors of society north and south to assist in the formulation of a Green Paper.

· This Council further calls on An Taoiseach Bertie Ahern TD to give immediate effect to the Constitution’s recognition of the entitlement of every person born on the island of Ireland to be part of the Irish nation by legislating for: six county representation in Dáil Éireann, the right of people in the six counties to vote in national referenda on articles of the Constitution and the right to vote in Presidential elections.

· This Council communicates the above requests in writing to An Taoiseach Bertie Ahern TD.

Notes to Editors:

· Omagh Council has at least a 13/6 Republican/ Nationalist majority: 10 Sinn Féin, 3 SDLP, 3 DUP, 3 UUP, 2 Ind (From nationalist background but politically unclassified). Full monthly meeting of ODC takes place on Tuesday7th February.

· Strabane Council has an 11/5 Republican/Nationalist majority: 8 Sinn Féin, 2 SDLP, 1Ind Nat, 3 DUP, 2 UUP.- Fill monthly meeting of SDC takes place on Tuesday 14th February

· Sinn Féin launched its Green paper on Irish Unity in February 2005

Sinn Féin

Published: 7 February, 2006

Sinn Féin have accused the DUP in Ballymoney of trying to exclude a nominee to a Community Centre Committee in Rasharkin because they’re Catholic.

Sinn Féin’s Group Leader, Philip McGuigan MLA, said:

“At this week’s full Council meeting it was expected that Council would ratify the recommendation of the Rasharkin Community Centre Committee and the Leisure & Amenities Committee to co-opt two new members onto the Community Centre Committee, one Protestant and one Catholic.

“However the DUP’s Roy Wilson then said that he wanted it referred back to a DUP-controlled Committee as he was unsure of the criteria for filling these positions and whether the candidates met these.

“This was quite an amazing comment for him to make given that he himself had nominated one of the proposed members and had not raised this concern when given the opportunity at both the Community Centre Committee and the Leisure & Amenities Committee meetings. I must also raise the question that if he was ‘unsure of the criteria’ then why did he go ahead and propose someone for the role?

“The truth is quite clear. Roy Wilson was satisfied with his proposal to the Committee, but has now stopped the selection process in its tracks because the other nominee is a Catholic woman. Even after the Director explained to Cllr Wilson that the Catholic nominee had met the criteria set out the DUP still voted to refer the matter back to a Committee behind closed doors. This is just another example of the bare-faced sectarianism that Catholic ratepayers have to put up with in this area.”

Rasharkin Sinn Féin Councillor Daithí McKay continued:

“This is not the first time that the DUP has used its majority to deny fair representation of the nationalist/republican community on this Committee. Last year it blocked the largest nationalist party in the area – Sinn Féin – and the 2 Councillors that represent them in the area from sitting on the Community Centre Committee, positions that Sinn Féin were, and are, entitled to.

“Its petty and pathetic behaviour and people in Rasharkin are sick, sore and tired of the DUP’s continuing sectarian misrule in this area.” ENDS

BN.ie

08/02/2006 - 15:13:01

The Court of Criminal Appeal has reserved judgement on appeals by five Dublin men, described by a garda chief superintendent as members of the Dublin Brigade of the Provisional IRA, against their convictions for membership of an illegal organisation.

The three-judge court, presided over by Mr Justice Adrian Hardiman, today heard closing legal submissions on behalf of the five men and for the DPP after which Mr Justice Hardiman said the court would give judgement at a later date.

The men were each jailed for four years at the Special Criminal Court on February 21 last year for membership of an illegal organisation styling itself the Irish Republican Army, otherwise Oglaigh na hEireann, otherwise the IRA on October 11, 2002.

The appellants are Thomas Gilson (aged 25), of Bawnlea Avenue, Jobstown, Tallaght; Patrick Brennan (aged 42), of Lindisfarne Avenue, Clondalkin; Sean O’ Donnell (aged 33), of Castle Drive, Sandymount; John Troy (aged 26), of Donard Ave and Stephen Birney (aged 32), of Conquerhill Road, Clontarf.

After conviction, Chief Superintendent Peter Maguire told the SCC that all the men were members of the Provisional IRA, were attached to that organisation’s Dublin Brigade and were answerable directly to its leadership.

During the 24-day trial, the court heard the men were arrested after an off-duty Special Branch detective, detective garda Michael Masterson, noticed suspicious activity around three vehicles - a Nissan Almera car, a Nissan Micra car and a van.

The court heard gardaí recovered a large quantity of Sinn Féin posters, including election posters for Sinn Féin TD Mr Aengus O’Snodaigh, from the Nissan Almera car in which they also found a stun gun, a CS gas canister, a blue flashing light and a beacon.

Gardaí also found two pick axe handles, a lump hammer, three portable radios , cable ties, balaclavas and fake Garda jacket in the van. Four of the men were found seated on the floor of the van and two of them, Gilson and O’ Donnell, were dressed in fake garda uniforms, the trial was told.

Chief superintendent Philip Kelly, the head of the Garda Special Branch, told the trial that he believed each man was a member of an unlawful organisation.

In their appeal, the man are challenging the admissibility of that opinion evidence and they are also alleging their arrests were unlawful.