SAOIRSE32

BBC

Assembly members are to be recalled to Stormont

The deadline for efforts to restore the Northern Ireland Assembly has been set for 24 November, political sources have told the BBC.

The date emerged after Taoiseach Bertie Ahern held talks with Sinn Fein, the SDLP and the Alliance Party in Dublin.

Assembly members are to be called to Stormont on 15 May for a six-week period to try to form an executive.

An emergency bill is also expected to be put through Westminster to change some of the Stormont rules.

BBC Northern Ireland political editor Mark Devenport said the assembly would break for summer before being recalled in September for 12 weeks until the end of November.

He also said the political parties have been told the British and Irish governments are considering holding more talks at a stately home during the summer recess to deal with outstanding problems.

News of the deadline followed a series of talks between the Irish premier and some of Northern Ireland’s political parties in Dublin on Thursday.

Political progress

Speaking before the meeting, Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness said his party would tell the taoiseach that the DUP must not be allowed to delay political progress.

“The DUP are standing in splendid isolation,” he said.

“Everybody else is demanding the restoration of the institutions.”

Speaking after meeting with Mr Ahern, SDLP leader Mark Durkan said his party has some concerns about the two government’s proposals for restoring devolution.

He said his party wanted to encourage the direction the two governments were travelling in, but was concerned about the detail which, he said, fell short of the Good Friday Agreement.

After his party’s talks with Mr Ahern, Alliance leader David Ford said it was important that the two governments stayed engaged and did not leave it to Northern Ireland’s politicians.

Bertie Ahern met with a number of NI’s political parties

“The key issue is that the two governments build on issues like a shared future and stop just managing division,” he said.

Earlier this month, Mr Ahern told the BBC a Northern Ireland Assembly may operate for some months without an executive.

Mr Ahern said the aim was to have a fully functioning assembly with an executive as envisaged under the Good Friday Agreement.

However, he said a deadlock over the formation of that executive should not stop the assembly from operating while there is work for it to do.

Meanwhile, sources have also told the BBC that next week’s package of economic assistance for deprived loyalist areas should amount to about £30m.

Some sources within unionism have expressed disappointment at the sum, given the recent cuts in areas such as education in Belfast.

However, other loyalist sources said they see the initiative as a challenge and will work with whatever money is provided for areas such as skills and training, housing and urban regeneration.

Devolved government at Stormont was suspended in October 2002 following allegations of a republican spy ring at the Northern Ireland Office.

However, doubt was cast on that after a senior Sinn Fein official acquitted of involvement said he had been a British agent for 20 years and that there was no spy ring.

BBC

Mr Justice Barron criticised the 1976 Ludlow murder investigation

The investigation into the murder of County Louth man Seamus Ludlow 30 years ago is to be re-opened, Irish police have said.

The move follows an Irish parliamentary report on Wednesday which called for the case to be re-investigated.

Mr Ludlow was shot in May 1976 after hitching a lift near his home in Dundalk. At that time gardai blamed his murder on the IRA.

The Ludlow family has said it wants an independent report into the killing.

They also want allegations of possible collusion between some gardai and loyalist paramilitaries examined.

In November 2005, a judicial report conducted in the Irish Republic named four loyalists suspected of the killing.

The report’s author, Mr Justice Barron, criticised the garda investigation into the murder.

He said gardai had failed to question four Northern Ireland suspects named in the report because the RUC might have demanded reciprocal rights in the Irish Republic.

Arrests

In October 2005, an inquest into the 47-year-old forestry worker’s killing was told that in 1998, the RUC arrested and questioned four men from County Down.

Two of them independently gave evidence of how and where the murder was committed.

However, the Director of Public Prosecutions in Northern Ireland decided not to press charges.

The inquest was also told that in 1979, Irish police had the names and addresses of the same four men but Garda Headquarters did not allow the investigating officers to proceed.

Mr Justice Barron, a retired judge, said it was important to view these matters in the context that the period between 1976-1980 was “one of huge turmoil”.

BN.ie

30/03/2006 - 13:47:14

The award-winning novelist and playwright John McGahern has died in hospital in Dublin at the age of 72.

McGahern, who was regarded as Ireland’s finest living writer, is understood to have died suddenly this afternoon following a battle with cancer.

He was born in Dublin in 1934, but grew up and spent most of his life in Co Leitrim.

In 1990, his best-known novel, Amongst Women, was short-listed for the Booker Prize.

His most recent novel, That They May Face the Rising Sun, was published in 2001 and was nominated for the IMPAC award.

McGahern was a member of Aosdana and has won a string of accolades, including the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres and the Prix Etranger Ecureuil.

He has also taught at universities in the United States, Canada, England, and Ireland.

———————-

Literary Encyclopedia

John McGahern

Novelist.
Active 1963- in Dublin, Republic of Ireland, England, Britain, Spain, Europe, North America

The novelist, short-story writer and playwright John McGahern was born in Dublin, Republic of Ireland, as one of five children. McGahern was raised in counties Leitrim and Roscommon, educated at St Patrick’s College, Drumcondra and University College Dublin, and later worked as a primary schoolteacher in Clontarf, Dublin (1955-64). His first novel, The Barracks, appeared in 1963. His second, The Dark (1965), provoked great controversy and was banned under Ireland’s censorship legislation. After writing this novel McGahern was dismissed from his teaching post without explanation and left Ireland for London, where he worked as a labourer, teacher and book reviewer. In 1970 he purchased a small property in County Leitrim which became his home in 1974, the year his third novel, The Leavetaking, appeared. His fourth, The Pornographer, appeared five years later and Amongst Women was published to widespread critical acclaim in 1990. McGahern taught as various British and North American universities throughout the 1970s and 1980s and received an honorary doctorate from Trinity College, Dublin in 1991, the year his play, The Power of Darkness, was premiered at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin. His Collected Stories was published in 1992.

Liam Harte, University of Manchester
Published 08 March 2001

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Cleveland Plain Dealer

First memoir is powerful tale of dark Ireland

Tuesday, March 14, 2006
John Dicker

John McGahern is the greatest Irish writer you’ve never heard of. His novels - “Amongst Women,” “The Barracks” and “The Leavetaking” - paint a very dark yet oddly affectionate portrait of Irish family life in the mid-20th century.

In his first memoir, “All Will Be Well,” the author calls the Ireland of his youth a “theocracy in all but name.” If anyone can say this without risking hyperbole, it’s McGahern, whose books were banned in Ireland from the outset of his career in the early 1960s through the end of the 1970s.

When the government censored McGahern’s 1964 novel “The Dark,” a bishop saw fit to remove the author from his teaching job. When he turned to his union for support, its members only piled on, telling him “If it was just the auld book, maybe - maybe - we might have been able to do something for you, but with marrying this foreign [read: non-Catholic] woman, you have turned yourself into a hopeless case entirely.”

“All Will Be Well” is a departure for McGahern. His motives for turning to memoir are unclear — perhaps to record a way of life, perhaps to pay tribute to his mother, who died when he was 9, or perhaps to commit a sort of literary patricide against his abusive father. Whatever the reasons, this is indeed a wonderful book.

An ex-IRA man who found a career in the new Irish state’s police force, Frank McGahern was self-serving, profoundly stingy and quick to violence. Through surviving letters and his own lucid recollections, McGahern reveals a father whose cruelty was nearly limitless. Even more than the regular beatings, the mundane acts of meanness stand out.

Upon receiving the monthly grocery bill, for example, he’d line up his seven children and read them a complete and mortifying account of everything they’d eaten. Here he is cutting off the butter: “Once four pounds is crossed you can all go and eat dry bread.”

Writing well may be the revenge of some, but McGahern indulges no triumphant anger in these pages. His tone is mainly abject astonishment. Readers match him in being astonished that he came through. The boy took comfort in church rituals — where his father was forced to concede to a higher authority — rowing a boat in a small river and in books that became keys to life’s possibilities.

Of course, luck played an important hand. If not for his father’s need for approval from a local Protestant family, McGahern would’ve been sent to clerk at a Dublin hardware store instead of completing his education. His own good fortune is never lost on McGahern, who came of age in the 1950s when more Irish people emigrated than any other decade that century. “I had become one of the privileged few who had escaped the trains and the cattle boats and was allowed to work in my own country,” he writes.

“All Will Be Well” is a dark book about a time and a place when patriarchs, policemen and especially priests were not questioned. In this place and time — counties Leitrim and Roscommon in the midcentury — feelings were barely processed, much less discussed. Life, though simple, could be lonely, cold and violent. This book’s happy enough ending says much about the mystery of resiliency:

“It is from those days that I take the belief that the best of life is lived quietly,” McGahern writes, “where nothing happens but our calm journey through the day, where change is imperceptible and the precious life is everything.”

An Phoblacht

The Birth of a Republican

The folllowing is a slightly edited version of a semi-autobiographical article by Bobby Sands, first published anonomously in Republican News on 16 December 1978. It was reprinted in An Phoblacht/Republican News on 4 April 1981 when Bobby was 35 days on hunger strike.

From my earliest years I recall my mother speaking of the troubled times that occurred during her childhood. Often she spoke of internment on prison ships, of gun attacks and death, and of early morning raids when one lay listening with pounding heart to the heavy clattering of boots on the cobblestone streets, and as a new day broke peaked carefully out the window to see a neighbour being taken away by the Specials.

Although I never really understood what internment was, or who the Specials were, I grew to regard them as symbols of evil. Nor could I understand when my mother spoke of Connolloy and the 1916 Rising, and of how he and his comrades fought and were subsequently executed - a fate suffered by so many Irish rebels in my mother’s stories.

When the television arrived, my mother’s stories were replaced by what it had to offer. I became more confused as “the baddies” in my mother’s tales were also the heroes on the TV. The British army always fought for ‘the right side’ and the police were always the ‘good guys’. Both were to be heroised and imitated in childhood play.

At school I learned history, but it was always English History and English historical triumphs in Ireland and elsewhere . I often wondered why I was never taught the history of my own country and when my sister, a year younger than myself, began to learn the Gaelic language at school I envied her. Occasionally nearing the end of my school days I received a few scant lessons in Irish history. For this, from a republican-minded teacher who taught me, I was indeed grateful.

I recall my mother also speaking of the ‘good old days’. But of all her marvellous stories I could never remember any good times and I often thought to myself ‘thank God’ I was not a boy in those times because by then - having left school - life to me seemed enormous and wonderful.

Starting work, although frightening at first, became alright, especially with the reward at the end of the week. Dances and clothes, girls and a few shillings to spend, opened up a whole new world for me. I suppose at that time I would have worked all week, as money seemed to matter more than anything else.

Change

Then came 1968 and my life began to change. Gradually the news changed. Regularly I noticed the Specials, whom I now knew as the B Specials, attacking and baton-charging the crowds of people who all of a sudden began marching on the streets.

From the talk in the house and my mother shaking her fist at the TV screen, I knew that they were our people who were on the receiving end. My sympathies and feelings really became aroused after watching the scenes at Burntollet. That imprinted on my mind like a scar, and for the first time I took a real interest in what was going on. I became angry.

It was now 1969 and events moved faster as August hit our area like a hurricane. The whole world exploded and my own little world just crumbled around me. The TV did not have to tell the story now, for it was on my own doorstep. Belfast was in flames, as our districts, our humble homes were burnt. The Specials came at the head of the RUC and the Orange hordes, right into the heart of our streets, burning, looting, shooting and murdering.

There was no one to save us, except ‘the boys’ as my father called the men who defended our district with a handful of old guns.

As the unfamiliar sound of gunfire was still echoing there soon appeared alien figures, voices and faces, in the form of British Soldiers on our streets. But no longer did I think of them as my childhood ‘good guys’, for their presence alone was food for thought.

Before I could work out the solution it was answered for me, in the form of early morning raids, and I remembered my mother’s stories of previous troubled times. For now my heart pounded at the heavy clatter of the soldiers’ boots in the early morning stillness and I carefully peaked from behind the drawn curtains to watch the neighbours door being kicked in, and the fathers and sons being dragged out by the hair and being flung in the backs of sinister looking armoured cars. This was followed by blatant murder, the shooting dead of our people on the streets and in cold blood. The curfew came and went taking more of our peoples lives.

IRA

Every time I turned a corner I was met by the now all too familiar sight of homes being wrecked and people being lifted. The city was in uproar, bombings became more regular, as did gun battles, as ‘the boys’- the IRA, hit back at the Brits.

The TV now showed endless gun battles and bombings. The people had risen and were fighting back, and my mother, in her newly found spirit of resistance, hurled encouragement at the TV shouting, give it to them boys!

Easter 1971 came, and the name on everyone’s lips was ‘the Provos’, the peoples army, the backbone of nationalist resistance.

I was now past my 18th year, and fed up with rioting. No matter how much I tried, or how many stones I threw I could never beat them - the Brits always came back.

I had seen too many homes wrecked, fathers and sons arrested, friends murdered, gas, shootings, blood, most of it my own people’s.

At 18-and-a-half I joined the Provos. My mother wept with pride and joy as I went out to confront the imperial might of an empire with an M1 carbine and enough hate to topple the world. To my surprise, my schoolday friends and neighbours became my comrades in the war. I soon became much more aware about the whole national liberation struggle, as I came to regard what I used to term the ‘troubles’.

Things were not easy for a Volunteer in the Irish Republican Army. Already I was being harassed and twice was lifted, questioned, and brutalised but I survived both of these trials.

Then came another hurricane, internment. Many of my comrades disappeared - interned. Many of my innocent neighbours met the same fate. Others weren’t so lucky, they were just murdered.

My life now centred around sleepless nights and standby, dodging the Brits, and calming nerves to go out on operations.

But the people stood by us. The people not only opened their doors to us to lend us a helping hand, but they opened their hearts to us, and I soon learned that without the people we could not survive and I knew I owed them everything.

1972 came and went and I spent what was to be my last Christmas at home for quite some time. The Brits never let up. No mercy was shown, as testified by the atrocity of Bloody Sunday in Derry. But we continued to fight back, as did my jailed comrades who embarked on a long hunger strike to gain recognition as political prisoners.

Political status was won just before the first, but short-lived, truce of 1972. During this truce the IRA braced itself for the forthcoming massive Operation Motorman, which came and went, taking with it the barricades.

Jail

The liberation struggle forged ahead, but then came personal disaster - I was captured. It was the Autumn of ‘72. I was charged and for the first time I faced jail. I was 19-and-a-half, but I had no alternative but to face up to the hardship that lay before me.

Given the stark corruptness of the judicial system, I refused to recognise the court. I ended up sentenced in a barbed wire cage where I spent three-and-a-half years as a Prisoner of War with ’special category status’.

I did not waste my time. I did not allow the rigours of prison life to change my revolutionary determination an inch. I educated and trained myself both in political and military matters, as did my comrades.

In 1976 when I was released, I was not broken. In fact I was more determined in the fight for national liberation. I reported back to my local IRA unit and threw myself back into the struggle.

Quite a lot of things had changed. Belfast had changed. Some parts of the ghettoes had completely disappeared and others were in the process of being removed. The war was still forging ahead, although tactics and strategy had changed.

At first I found it a little bit hard to adjust, but I settled in to the run of things, and at the grand old age of 23, I got married.

Life wasn’t bad, but there were still a lot of things that had not changed, such as the presence of armed British troops on our street and the oppression of our people. The liberation struggle was now seven years old, and had braved a second and mistakenly prolonged cease-fire. The British government was now seeking to Ulsterise the war, which included criminalisation of the IRA and attempted normalisation of the situation. The struggle had to be kept going. Thus, six months after I was released, disaster fell a second time as I bombed my way back into jail!

With my wife four months pregnant, the shock of capture, seven days of hell in Castlereagh, a quick court appearance and remand, and the return to a cold damp cell, nearly destroyed me. It took every ounce of the revolutionary spirit left in me to stand up to it.

Jail, although not new to me, was really bad, worse than the first time. Things had changed enormously since the withdrawal of special status. Both republican and loyalist prisoners were housed in the same wing.

The greater part of each day was spent locked up in a cell. The screws, many of whom I knew to be cowering cowards, now went in gangs into the cells of republicans to dish out unmerciful beatings. This was to be the pattern all the way along the road to criminalisation- torture, and more torture, to break our spirit of resistance.

I was meant to change from being a revolutionary freedom fighter to a criminal at the stroke of a political pen, reinforced by inhumanities of the most brutal nature.

Already Kieran Nugent and several more republican POW’s had begun the blanket protest for the restoration of political status. They refused to wear prison garb or do prison work.

After many weekly remand court appearances the time finally arrived, 11 months after my arrest, and I was in Diplock court. In two hours I was swiftly found guilty, and my comrades and I sentenced to 15 years. Once again I had refused to recognise the farcical judicial system.

As they led us from the courthouse, my mother, defiant as ever, stood up in the gallery and shook the air with a cry of ‘they’ll never break you boys’, and my wife, from somewhere behind her, with tear-filled eyes, braved a smile of encouragement at me. At least, I thought, she has our child. Now that I was in jail, our daughter would provide her with company and maybe help ease the loneliness which she knew only to well.

The next day I became a blanket man, and there I was, sitting on the cold floor, naked, with only a blanket around me in an empty cell.

H-Blocks

The days were long and lonely. Sudden and total deprivation of such basic human necessities as exercise and fresh air, association with other people, my own clothes, and things like radio, cigarettes and a host of other things made life very hard. At first, as always, I adapted. But, as time wore on, I came face to face with an old friend, depression, which on many occasions consumed me and swallowed me into its darkest depths. From home, only the occasional letter got past the prison censor.

Gradually my appearance and psychical health began to change drastically. My eyes, shrunken, glassy, piercing and surrounded by pale, yellowish skin, were frightening. I had grown a beard, and like my comrades, resembled a living corpse. The blinding migraine headaches, which started slowly, became a daily occurrence, and owing to no exercise I became seized with muscular pains.

In the H-Blocks, beatings, long periods in punishment cells, starvation diets, torture, were commonplace.

20 March 1978 and we completed the full circle of deprivation and suffering. As an attempt to highlight our intolerable plight, we embarked upon a dirt strike, refusing to wash, shower, clean out our cells, or empty the filthy chamber pots.

The H-Blocks became battlefields in which the republican spirit of resistance met head-on all the inhumanities that Britain could perpetrate. Inevitably the lid of silence on the H-Blocks blew sky high, revealing the atrocities inside.

The battlefield became worse, our cells turning into disease-infested tombs with piles of decaying rubbish, and maggots, fleas and flies rampant. The nauseating smell of urine and the stink of our bodies and cells made our surroundings resemble a pigsty.

The screws, keeping up the incessant torture, hosed us down, sprayed us with strong disinfectant, ransacked our cells, forcibly bathed us, and tortured us to the brink of insanity. Blood and tears fell upon the battlefield - all of it ours. But we refused to yield.

The republican spirit prevailed and as I sit here in the same conditions and the continuing torture in H-Block 5, I am proud, although psychically wrecked, mentally exhausted, and scarred deep with hatred and anger.

I am proud because my comrades and I have met, fought and repelled a monster, and we will continue to do so. We will never allow ourselves to be crimialised, nor our people either. Grief stricken and oppressed, the men and women of no property have risen. A risen people, marching in thousands on the streets in defiance and rage at the imperial oppressor, the mass murderer, and torturer. The spirit of Irish freedom is in every one of them and I am really proud.

I was only a working class boy from a Nationalist ghetto, but it is repression which creates the revolutionary spirit of freedom. I shall not settle until I achieve the liberation of my country, until Ireland becomes a sovereign, independent socialist republic.

We the risen people, shall turn tragedy into triumph. We shall bear forth a nation!

Belfast Telegraph

By Chris Thornton
30 March 2006

The family of murder victim Robert Hamill have welcomed tougher penalties for witnesses who refuse to co-operate with the inquiry into his killing.

But they have indicated they have reservations about secrecy clauses that will accompany the new legal move.

Secretary of State Peter Hain announced yesterday that he has agreed to hold the inquiry into the Portadown man’s murder under the controversial Inquiries Act.

The inquiry will examine allegations that police officers failed to intervene when Mr Hamill and his companions were attacked by a loyalist mob in the Co Armagh town in April, 1997. Mr Hamill, a father of three, died 11 days later without regaining consciousness.

The Belfast Telegraph revealed last month that Mr Hain was preparing to make the change at the request of Inquiry chairman Sir Edwin Jowitt.

The switch to the Inquiries Act means witnesses can be hit with jail terms and fines if they do not give evidence about the killing. Some witnesses are believed to have refused to co-operate with the inquiry team’s advance work.

The switch also gives Mr Hain power to withhold material on the grounds of national security. Those powers have been opposed by other families.

The family of murdered solicitor Pat Finucane have lobbied judges to turn down the chairmanship of the proposed inquiry into his murder because of the secrecy powers.

And the father of murdered LVF leader Billy Wright is making a court challenge against the use of the Inquiries Act in his son’s inquiry. The case is due to be heard next month.

According to Barra McGrory, the legal representative of the Hamills, Mr Hain has indicated he will not use the secrecy powers because national security issues are not linked to the murder.

“This was not unexpected as we had previously received notification from the Secretary of State that he was willing to grant the application to convert,” Mr McGrory said.

“We note the Secretary of State’s indication that he has no present intention to issue any restriction notices.

“We remain concerned that this may be a problem in the future but at the same time we welcome the additional powers which we hope will be used indiscriminately against those witnesses who have so far failed to comply.”

Six men were originally charged with Mr Hamill’s murder, but those charges were later dropped.

One of the men, Marc Hobson of Deer Park, Portadown, was convicted of affray related to the attack and spent two years in prison.

After an investigation by Police Ombudsman Nuala O’Loan, a police reservist who was in a Land Rover near the attack was accused of attempting to pervert the course of justice by warning a suspect to destroy clothes.

Former officer Robert Atkinson consistently denied making any such warning and he was cleared when the case against him collapsed.

Belfast Telegraph

By Michael McHugh
30 March 2006

Northern Ireland’s authorities should address the “gravest concerns” about collusion between the security forces and loyalists in the loyalist murder of a Dundalk man in the 1970s, a Dail report has stated.

The report into the murder of Seamus Ludlow (47), by Red Hand Commando gunmen in May, 1976, was published yesterday by the Justice Committee in Dublin. It has raised fresh fears about collusion.

The dossier also includes calls for further inquiries, short of the public inquiry demanded by Mr Ludlow’s relatives, as well as criticism of northern decision-makers. The random victim was picked up in Dundalk while hailing a lift home and shot dead near his house.

Two of the four suspected assassins were members of the UDR at the time and there are questions about the actions of the British Army and the RUC in the period after the killings.

“The sub-committee has the gravest concerns about the role collusion played in the murder of Seamus Ludlow,” the report stated.

“Two of the suspects were serving members of the UDR. The brother-in-law of Seamus Ludlow, Mr Kevin Donegan, was detained the day after the funeral by the British Army. The British Army wanted to know what the Gardai knew about the case.

“Notes of the interrogation of Mr Kevin Donegan by the British Army have not been made available by the British authorities. There was a delay of eighteen months before relevant information (on the identity of the loyalist murder suspects) was passed on by the RUC to the Gardai.”

The report is the product of three months of work on the case, which was sparked by earlier reviews by senior gardai, as well as an inquiry by former Irish Supreme Court Justice Henry Barron.

The committee recommended a re-examination of the case by the Garda, the establishment of an Historic Enquiries Team to investigate unsolved Troubles murders in the Republic and a commission of investigation similar to that which has unearthed more information on the Dublin/Monaghan bombings in 1974.

A nephew of Mr Ludlow, Jimmy Sharkey, said he was disappointed but not surprised that calls for a public inquiry had been spurned.

“We need something of substance, we need an independent public inquiry with the power to compel witnesses,” he said.

Belfast Telegraph

By Michael McHugh
30 March 2006

The Northern Ireland authorities should address the “gravest concerns” of collusion surrounding the loyalist murder of a Dundalk victim in the 1970s, an Irish parliamentary report has stated.

A report into the murder of Seamus Ludlow (47) by Red Hand Commando gunmen in May 1976 was published yesterday by the Justice Committee in Dublin, raising fresh fears about collusion between security forces and loyalists.

The dossier also includes calls for further inquiries, short of the public inquiry demanded by Mr Ludlow’s relatives, as well as criticism of northern decision-makers.

The random victim was picked up in Dundalk while hailing a lift home and shot dead near his house.

Two of the four suspected assassins were members of the UDR at the time and there are questions about the actions of the British Army and the RUC in the period after the killings.

“The sub-committee has the gravest concerns about the role collusion played in the murder of Seamus Ludlow,” said the final report to the Justice Department.

“Two of the suspects were serving members of the UDR. The brother-in-law of Seamus Ludlow, Mr Kevin Donegan, was detained the day after the funeral by the British Army. The British Army wanted to know what the Gardai knew about the case,” it said.

“Notes of the interrogation of Mr Kevin Donegan by the British Army have not been made available by the British authorities. There was a delay of 18 months before relevant information (on the identity of the loyalist murder suspects) was passed on by the RUC to the Gardai.”

Editor: Colin O’Carroll
30/03/2006

In his second annual report An Coimisinéar Teanga has (Commissioner for the Irish Language) exposed a serious gap between what the government promises on the promotion of Irish and what it actually delivers.
According to the report, launched yesterday in Galway, half of all government departments have, for three decades, ignored clear pledges that civil servants skilled in Irish would have their ability to conduct business in Irish given proper recognition — by the awarding of points — in any promotion process.
This concession to the first national language was made in the early ‘70s when the government of the day did away with the requirement of all civil servants to speak Irish.
“Focal mór agus drochchur leis” as the Irish has it; empty promises. In fact, the new system was never properly implemented by half of all government departments for a generation. In one department alone, it appears that the percentage of Irish speakers has plunged in 30 years from 100 per cent to three per cent.
Fortunately, Ireland is now emerging from that bleak era when flying by the seat of the pants passed for government policy on the Irish language.
An Ghaeilge now enjoys stronger legal protection — including the post of An Coimisinéar Teanga — than at any time since the foundation of the Free State. More importantly, the increasingly sophisticated official attitude to Irish is being mirrored by a rising tide of support for the language across the country.
Key to that seachange in the fortunes of the Irish language has been the exposure of Irish people to European cultures where bilingualism and multilingualism are seen as the sure sign of a successful society.
In the past five years, Ireland, north and south, has been playing catch-up with the Welsh, the Basques, the Finns, the Catalans and the Belgians who carry their bilingualism with consummate style and ease.
An Coimisinéar Teanga, as effective Ombudsman for the Irish language, has played a key role in that progression but he can only continue to do so if his reports are followed by swift remedial action by those singled out for criticism. Action by the British to introduce a language act in the benighted Six Counties would enable the Commissioner, as with the cross-border Irish language body, Foras na Gaeilge, to extend his remit to the areas where his interventions are sorley needed.
There was time, pre-TG4 and Éamon Ó Cuív’s Official Languages Act, that Irish was seen as backward and atavistic by the powers-that-be in the Irish civil service but today those adjectives would more likely to be applied to the backwoodsmen in the Department of Transport who claim that the driving test can be taken in either official language — but who haven’t published the Rules of the Road in Irish since 1993!

Daily Ireland

“I am no longer prepared to preside over or have any part in the unremitting demise of the SDLP nor will I allow myself to be corrupted, polluted or caged.” – Eddie Espie, former SDLP vice-chair

by Anton McCabe
30/03/2006

A senior member of the SDLP has resigned from his position, describing party leaders as “destroyers and dinosaurs” who are “corrupted by quick-fix solutions”.
Eddie Espie yesterday revealed he was standing down from his role as SDLP vice-chairman.
He has also resigned as chairman of the party’s most important internal committee, the elections and organisations committee, and as chairman of the SDLP Mid-Ulster constituency council. He is to remain a member of the party.
He told Daily Ireland that he believed there was space for an alternative nationalist party to Sinn Féin but the SDLP was no longer that alternative.
Mr Espie is one of the few senior members of the SDLP to come from a working-class Protestant background.
In a 1,600-word resignation letter to party chairwoman Patricia Lewsley, exclusively seen by Daily Ireland, Mr Espie said the SDLP was no longer the party he had joined.
“In my opinion, it has become polluted by obstinate representatives, corrupted by quick-fix self-interested solutions and ruined by pig-headed individuals displaying complete indiscipline,” he said.
“I am no longer prepared to preside over or have any part in the unremitting demise of the SDLP nor will I allow myself to be corrupted, polluted or caged.”
Mr Espie said people who had previously voted for the SDLP were now choosing to stay at home and would continue to do so.
“In the background of vagueness and instability, those who most intensely oppose reforms [in the party] have thrived. The destroyers and the political dinosaurs have taken advantage of political inactivity by generating artificial hope through unfilled promises,” he said.
“The SDLP will not be a serious contender in the predicted assembly elections next year or in any election subsequently because it refuses to study hard lessons from the past, in particular from the assembly elections of 2003. To date, it has failed miserably to do so.
“The current assembly group of 18 elected members is unlikely to be returned. When this happens, and given the ongoing proposals in the Review of Public Administration, the percentage share nationalist councillors currently enjoy will plummet appreciably.”
Mr Espie accused the party leadership of squandering the lifeline thrown to it by last May’s Westminster and local government elections and of instead providing little strategic direction.
“The situation where some senior staff at ‘headquarters’, in collaboration with cabals who run the party, disregard the opinions and needs of grass-roots members is indefensible.
“Common courtesy costs nothing but means a lot to these dedicated members across the North,” he said.
“So long as the leadership cabals refuse to acknowledge the problems that exist and refuse to address them, this demise will continue.
“The systematic exploitation of the party decision-making bodies, branches, constituencies and committees, all the way through to the executive committee by individuals should never have been sanctioned.
“Family connections and those with careers close to party representatives continue to deadlock crucial fundamental reforms, to the detriment of the party.”
Mr Espie said he believed the SDLP was leaving a political vacuum within nationalism.
“The fact remains that a large proportion of the nationalist people in the North will never and could never vote for Sinn Féin,” he said.
“But unless the overhaul begins with immediate effect, this opportunity will be lost.
“The unpalatable reality is being ignored and, while it is being ignored, the downfall will continue unabated.”
Mr Espie told Daily Ireland he had spoken to many SDLP members and supporters and believed he was expressing what many felt but could not yet bring themselves to say.
He said he was proud to call himself a socialist.
Mr Espie, who lives in the Coolnafranky estate in Cookstown, said the SDLP no longer spoke for people like him or his neighbours.
He came from a background in the old Official republican movement. After its effective demise in the early 1990s, he joined the SDLP in 1991.
He has been vice-chairman for the past year and an executive member for the past three.
An SDLP spokesperson said the party regretted Mr Espie’s resignation decision.
“The SDLP has embarked on a process of change, restructuring and renewal over the last 18 months. That process will continue,” the spokesperson said.

Daily Ireland

Call for new probe into disaster

By Eamonn Houston
30/03/2006

There were calls yesterday for the setting up of a scientific investigation into the possible harmful health effects in Ireland as a result of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster.

Research published earlier this month suggested that more than 1,000 infants in Britain may have died as a result of radioactive clouds that swept across a swath of Europe following an explosion at the Chernobyl plant in 1986.
Epidemiologist and statistician John Urquhart found that infant deaths in Britain had increased in the years following the Ukranian reactor explosion.
He also suggested that there might have been child deaths in Ireland.

Executive Director of the Chernobyl Children’s Project Adi Roche paying a visit to the President at Aras An Uachtarain, along with Alexy Barrett from the Chernobyl Children’s Project (Photo: Photocall Ireland 21/12/2004)

In the wake of this suggestion, Louth Fine Gael councillor Michael O’Dowd — the chairman of the All-Ireland Forum of Nuclear-Free Local Authorities — yesterday called for an independent scientific probe into the disaster’s effects on Ireland.
It is feared that the Chernobyl explosion could have been responsible for up to 200 additional infant deaths in the Southern state.
Mr O’Dowd, said: “The evidence in relation to the additional deaths in the UK was compelling as the geographic distribution of the fatalities coincided with rainfall patterns in the UK as the radioactive plume from the Chernobyl reactor explosion drifted across the country.
“In relation to Ireland, that detailed information was not available. However, when comparing different countries in western Europe for the six years after the accident, John Urquhart found excess infant deaths occurred in Nordic countries and the Republic of Ireland.”
Mr O’Dowd said further investigation was needed into the explosion’s possible effects on infants in Ireland.
Next month a relief convoy will travel from Ireland to Belarus, which was particularly affected by the Chernobyl explosion. A convoy made up of 15 articulated trucks and 27 ambulances carrying €3 million (£2 million) worth of aid will leave on Sunday, April 9. Volunteers from across the country will travel as part of Adi Roche’s Chernobyl Children’s Project International.
The effort is the 27th convoy to deliver aid from Ireland and is the biggest yet. It will pass through ten European countries. The ambulances that make up the convoy will be delivered to hospitals, health clinics and orphanages throughout the area around Chernobyl.
The fundraising efforts of various groups and individuals throughout Ireland made it possible to buy the ambulances.

Sinn Féin

Published: 30 March, 2006

Sinn Féin Environment Spokesperson, Arthur Morgan TD, had demanded the Government oppose by every means possible moves by the British Government to sell-off the notorious Sellafield nuclear plant.

Deputy Morgan said, “Sellafield must not be sold to private interests. The implications of such a move are far reaching and terrifying. It is hard to believe that the British Government would even consider such a move. The running and decommissioning of a nuclear power station cannot be dealt with by private interests, driven by a profit making and ultimately cost cutting agenda.

“Public accountability in relation to Sellafield is bad at present. The plant has a notorious record in terms of accidents and the failure to keep accurate records. Things would be a hundred times worse if this privatisation were permitted to go ahead.

“The Dublin Government’s softening attitude in relation to the use of nuclear power was demonstrated at the recent European Council, where the Government broke with previous policy, and failed to join Germany and Austria in rejecting the nuclear option at the Council meeting.

“By supporting the European Council’s call for a new generation of nuclear power this Government and specifically Dermot Ahern opened the door for the British to go ahead with plans to privatise the running and ultimately decommissioning of all their nuclear energy sites.

“The Irish people are overwhelmingly opposed to nuclear power. The Government must reflect this opposition by opposing these moves to privatise Sellafield and by stepping up the campaign for its closure.” ENDS

BBC

The number of suicides in Northern Ireland soared by almost 50% last year, new statistics have revealed.

Figures from the General Registrar’s Office showed that 213 people in NI took their own lives in 2005.

The figures were released ahead of an announcement on a government suicide prevention strategy, entitled “Protect Life”, costing almost £2m.

Health Minister Shaun Woodward said the increase in suicides made the need to tackle the issue even more urgent.

“The fact that 213 people took their own lives clearly is a problem which we all have a duty to address,” he said.

“This year’s increases make the need to tackle the underlying causes of suicide and self harm all the more necessary and urgent.”

The government’s suicide prevention strategy was compiled from the recommendations of a report into the issue by voluntary and statutory agencies.

Families in Northern Ireland who have lost loved ones to suicide also helped conduct the research.

A further £2.4m has also been set aside for the government’s suicide prevention strategy for 2007/08.

Philip McTaggart, co-founder of the Public Initiative for the Prevention of Suicide and Self Harm (PIPS), said he was “gobsmacked” by the number of people in Northern Ireland who took their own lives last year.

“The government and the system has let them down,” he said.

“We were being told it was around 150 per year and that the figure had dropped but that did not match up with what we were dealing with in north and west Belfast.”

He said part of the problem was that young people were waiting up to three months to see a counsellor.

Mr McTaggart welcomed news of the government funding but said it was a “drop in the ocean” given the increased suicide rate in some of the most deprived areas of Northern Ireland.

In 2003, there were 144 suicides (112 males and 32 females) in Northern Ireland. The following year there was a marginal increase to 146 (105 males and 41 females).

The Department of Health said no gender breakdown was yet available for 2005.

CAIN

Photo from www.irishhungerstrike.com

Thursday 26 March 1981

Bobby Sands was nominated as a candidate in the by-election in Fermanagh / South Tyrone on 9 April 1981.

Sunday 29 March 1981

The Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) decided to withdraw the nomination of Austin Currie from the forthcoming by-election in Fermanagh / South Tyrone.

Monday 30 March 1981

Noel Maguire decided to withdraw his nomination in the forthcoming by-election in Fermanagh / South Tyrone. [This decision meant that voters were faced with a straight choice between Bobby Sands and Harry West, the Unionist candidate.]

BBC ON THIS DAY

30 March 1979

The bomb exploded when the car was leaving the car park

Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary Airey Neave has been killed by a car bomb as he left the House of Commons car park.

The bomb, said to be highly sophisticated, exploded as Mr Neave began driving up the exit ramp shortly before 1500GMT.

Emergency services were on the scene in minutes.

The 63-year-old Conservative MP, known for his tough line on anti-IRA security, was taken to Westminster Hospital where he died from his injuries.

So far two groups, the Provisional IRA and the Irish Natonal Liberation Army, have claimed they carried out the killing.

It is not yet known when the bomb was attached to his car but investigators believe a timing device and trembler - which detonates the bomb through movement - were used to ensure the bomb went off as Mr Neave was leaving the Commons.

The area around Parliament Square was immediately closed as police began a full-scale search of the premises.

Despite increased threats to the safety of MPs not all cars are checked fully as they enter the car park.

Gilbert Kellard, assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police said Mr Neave was aware of the dangers and was “happy and content” with his security.

Conservative leader Margaret Thatcher led tributes to Mr Neave saying: “He was one of freedom’s warriors. Courageous, staunch, true. He lived for his beliefs and now he has died for them.”

Prime Minister James Callaghan said: “No effort will be spared to bring the murderers to justice and to rid the United Kingdom of the scourge of terrorism.”

The killing is thought to have been timed to coincide with the start of the election campaign which was announced yesterday.

Mr Neave was a close adviser to Mrs Thatcher, he led her campaign to become the Conservative Party leader and headed her private office.

In Context

The inquest into Airey Neave’s death was told the bomb was attached to the car by magnets and the timer started by a wrist watch. A tiltswitch was used to activate the bomb when the car started.

The Irish National Liberation Army claimed they carried out the killing and said Mr Neave was targetted because he was engaged in “rabid militarist calls for more repression against the Irish people”.

Mr Neave’s wife, Lady Airey, was made a life peeress in June 1979 as a tribute to her courage following the death of her husband.

The Conservatives went on to win the 1979 general election and Mrs Thatcher became Britain’s first ever woman prime minister.