SAOIRSE32

BBC

Family and friends have attended the funeral in Belfast of murdered British agent Denis Donaldson.

Requiem Mass was held at his former family home in Aitnamona Crescent in west Belfast.

Mr Donaldson was buried in Belfast’s City Cemetery

Ex-Sinn Fein official Donaldson, 56, was found shot dead in a remote cottage in County Donegal on Tuesday.

He was buried in the City Cemetery, where fewer than 100 people attended. On Friday, his family said they did not believe the IRA murdered Mr Donaldson.

He had been expelled from the party in 2005 after admitting he was a paid British agent.

Mr Donaldson’s family said they did not know who killed him but blamed the “activities of British intelligence” for their “difficult situation”.

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Guardian

Private funeral for IRA double agent

Jamie Doward
Sunday April 9, 2006
The Observer

Denis Donaldson, the murdered ex-Sinn Fein official who spied for British intelligence for 20 years, was buried yesterday in Belfast, close to his former home in Andersonstown. Fewer than 100 mourners attended the funeral of the man who had been the subject of death threats since he sensationally confessed to being a double agent on national television.

Donaldson, a former confidant of IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands, was shot dead in a remote cottage near Glenties, Co Donegal, last Tuesday.

His wife, Alice, daughter Jane and sons Pearse and Denis Jr led mourners during the private Roman Catholic service. Afterwards, mourners used umbrellas to shield the coffin from the media. The cortege then drove to the Falls Road and the city cemetery. One of Donaldson’s granddaughters clutched a single white rose by the graveside as rain fell.

Sinn Féin

Published: 8 April, 2006

Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams MP speaking during a meeting of the party’s Ard Chomhairle said “Today the Sinn Fein Ard Chomhairle met, following detailed consultation with our Assembly team, and after careful consideration, we have decided to attend the reconvened Assembly on May 15th. Our focus in doing so will be the formation of a power sharing government on the basis set out in the Good Friday Agreement. “

Mr. Adams said:

“On Thursday, in response to the joint statement from the two governments, I said that Sinn Fein would judge their proposals against the benchmark of the Good Friday Agreement, and whether they would secure the restoration of the political institutions. I also welcomed the convening of the Assembly and the clear statement that its primary role is to elect a power sharing government.

“Today the Sinn Fein Ard Chomhairle met, following detailed consultation with our Assembly team, and after careful consideration, we have decided to attend the reconvened Assembly on May 15th. Our focus in doing so will be the formation of a power sharing government on the basis set out in the Good Friday Agreement. This also has to be the focus of the Irish and British governments.

“The DUP have to decide if they are prepared to join the rest of us in a power sharing government. That is the inescapable question which they must face. If they refuse to do so the two governments must deliver on their commitment to jointly implement all other elements of the Good Friday Agreement. In the coming days Sinn Fein will seek clarity and detail on the accelerated all-Ireland co-operation and action that will replace the Assembly if the DUP is not prepared to share power.”ENDS

BBC

Six men and a 16-year-old youth have been remanded in custody on charges of possessing bomb making materials.

At Belfast Magistrates Court on Saturday all seven were charged with possessing a timer unit and other items with intent on 5 April.

It is understood the charges arose after the men were arrested in a house at Springfield Crescent on Wednesday.

The officer in charge of the case told the court he believed he could connect each of the accused to the charges.

The six men are Sean Maloney, 20, from Cavehill Road, Owen Farrell, 18, from Springfield Crescent, Joseph Connor, 23, from Charnwood Avenue, all Belfast and Ballymena men Peter Kyle, 18, from Dunclug Park, Kieran McIlwaine, 19, from Mount Street and Alan Daly, 31, from Moohan Road in Cabra near Dungannon.

The 16-year-old cannot be identified because of his age.

They were remanded in custody to appear again via videolink on 5 May.

BBC

Family and friends have gathered in Belfast for the funeral of murdered British agent Denis Donaldson.

Requiem Mass was held at his former family home in Aitnamona Crescent in west Belfast.

Ex-Sinn Fein official Donaldson, 56, was found shot dead in a remote cottage in County Donegal on Tuesday.

He is being buried later in Belfast City Cemetery. On Friday, his family said they did not believe the IRA was responsible for his murder.

He had been expelled from the party in 2005 after admitting he was a paid British agent.

Mr Donaldson’s family said they did not know who killed him but blamed the “activities of British intelligence” for their “difficult situation”.

Head of administration

Irish police have been carrying out searches in the vicinity of the remote cottage near the village of Glenties where Mr Donaldson’s body was found.

Post mortem examination results have indicated he died from a shotgun wound to the chest.

It said there were other injuries to his body consistent with shotgun blasts, including a severe injury to his right hand.

Police removed a car at the scene on Thursday.

Mr Donaldson had been Sinn Fein’s head of administration at Stormont before his 2002 arrest over alleged spying led to its collapse.

He and two others were acquitted of charges last December “in the public interest”.

One week later he admitted being recruited in the 1980s as a paid British agent.

He said there had not been a republican spy ring at Stormont.

Belfast Telegraph

By Chris Thornton
08 April 2006

An Apprentice Boys’ parade has been approved for one of Belfast’s most notable flashpoints in recent years.

The Parades Commission told organisers of the feeder parade past Ardoyne that they can follow their regular route on Easter Monday.

However, they will be restricted from playing music while passing the republican area in north Belfast.

The Commission also approved an Apprentice Boy’s parade that passes part of the Short Strand in East Belfast, but rerouted marchers who applied to pass through the lower Ormeau area.

Nationalist residents’ groups had planned protests against each of the Belfast marches.

Ardoyne has recently stood out as one of the most difficult marching areas, with violence breaking out in response to Twelfth parades over the past two years.

The Parades Commission met over two days this week to consider one of the early batches of this year’s contentious parades.

BBC

****Ireland’s priceless history to be sold to the highest bidder

Some of the items to be auctioned

BBC Northern Ireland reporter Diarmaid Fleming has been to see some unique relics of Irish history.

This year marks the 90th anniversary of the Easter Rising - but it also marks the largest collection of 1916 memorabilia ever to go on sale.

The collection, much of it on view to the public for the first time, goes under the auctioneer’s hammer on Sunday and Wednesday.

The 1916 Easter Rising marked the symbolic birth of the Irish Republic.

The leaders of the doomed rebellion were quickly executed by the British after a fight against hopeless odds and the might of the British Empire, but their deaths inspired the drive for Irish self-determination.

There is fascination in Ireland about the Rising and what inspired it - even among a vocal group of modern critics who argue it was undemocratic, a claim mocked by those in Ireland who today revere the leaders, the great folk-heroes of Irish nationalism.

The 90th anniversary sees two auctions.

Up for grabs are items such as rebel leader Michael Collins’ typewriter, the hand-written first manuscript of the Irish National Anthem by its author Peader Kearney, and a vast store of memorabilia - everything from police intelligence reports, personal letters, propaganda posters, medals, to art.

The first written copy of the Irish national anthem

Stuart Cole of Dublin fine art auctioneers Adam’s, said: “One of the principal unique aspects of this sale is that it contains so much material that comes directly from the families of those who were involved, principally the Thomas Clarke archive which is, to my mind, one of the only intact archives from one of the leaders of 1916.”

Clarke’s wife Kathleen painstakingly recorded everything to do with his life.

In doing so, she provided a treasure-trove for historians, much of which has not been seen before and which will provide unique new insights into the men and women behind momentous events in modern Irish history.

“She really had an archivist’s mind. Every single item, Kathleen annotated - or she sometimes even wrote a letter about it. She had a unique understanding of her place in history,” said Mr Cole.

“Tom’s last letter to her comes with an explanatory letter from her saying how he’d bribed a soldier with his watch - the only thing of value he had - to get it to her and how she received it two weeks after his death.”

1916 memorabilia is now big business. There was little interest in memorabilia for the 50th anniversary in 1966, possibly because Ireland was a poorer country and many participants in the Rising were still alive.

Ireland’s economic boom has seen revolutionary relics rocket in value.

Items stored in cupboards and drawers across the country have been brought to the auction rooms in Dublin, often family heirlooms, with owners either keen to cash in, or fearful of caring for and storing items now worth huge amounts of money.

A death mask of Wolfe Tone is one of the lots to be auctioned

Auctioneer Fonsey Mealy of Mealy’s, said: “There is a big price range. We have items to cater for every pocket.

“The lowest priced item is a bundle of postcards of the republican leaders which might go for 50 euro, up to the original Irish National anthem which we’ve priced at between 800,000 to 1.2m euro.

“There has never been a record of any country’s national anthem going up for auction, so we’re in the dark ourselves.”

Auctioneer Ian Whyte of Whyte’s, who are also holding an auction which includes the personal papers of Peader Kearney, says that Irish wealth in the economic boom now means that 90% of 1916 collectors are Irish-based, the reverse of 30 years ago when most went to the US and abroad.

But some fear the auctions could see the disappearance of jewels of Irish political history and say that the Irish state should have intervened to buy them.

“With the large amount of wealthy collectors around, the museums and archives can’t afford to buy all this, they’d need huge amounts of funds,” said Mr Whyte.

“The happy medium is where serious and responsible collectors have the pleasure of owning items, conserving them and insuring them - and then they lend it to the museums who wouldn’t even have the space for much of this.

“But when they have big exhibitions, they can draw on the resources of collectors - which also enhances the value of their collections. So the private owners are a resource for the national institutions.”

Some collectors will be holding on to their memorabilia, while others will be buying at these auctions, mindful that in 10 years time the centenary of the 1916 Rising could see a another revolution in prices on anything to do with the Irish rebellion.

One wonders what the executed 1916 socialist leader James Connolly would think of it all….

The 1916 collection is open to the public. More details can be found on the following websites:

www.jamesadam.ie/

www.mealys.com/

www.whytes.ie/

Irish Independent

THE nation is about to witness the tragic dispersal of a unique treasure-trove relating to the centuries-long struggle for independence.

Ironically, this will happen in the week running up to the 90th anniversary of the Easter Rising. An enlightened government might have purchased this irreplaceable archive in the public interest to safeguard our heritage. This one is standing idly by as the family silver is sold off to diverse ownerships abroad or at home, notably to the private collections of the wealthy Irish diaspora and the Celtic Tiger’s nouveaux riches.

Invaluable documents and memorabilia from the 1798 Rebellion, Young Irelanders, Fenians, Home Rule, the Land League and the men and women of 1916 will all go under the hammer at private auctions.

The first commercial exodus of cherished socio-political and cultural gems takes place tomorrow in Dublin’s RDS when “The Irish History Sale” is held by Whyte’s, followed on Wednesday by “The Independence” auction of Adam’s & Mealy’s. The centre piece of Whyte’s splendid collection is The Official Peadar Kearney Archive with a fully authenticated signed and dated manuscript of the National Anthem, (Soldiers’ Song), and Kearney’s own handwritten account of its history.

It also offers signed letters from O’Connell, Davitt, Parnell, Pearse, de Valera, Yeats, Joyce, Shaw, as well as the War of Independence Ceasefire Order by General Mulcahy, a valuable 1916-22 film archive, Erskine Childers execution archive, historic collectibles with Celtic gold ring money, 1798 Rebellion weapons and a 1912 Titanic telegram.

The Adam’s & Mealy’s auction trumpets the “the most important sale of Irish Historical Documents ever held” including the Thomas Clarke Archive, the Brendan Brennan Collection Part I and the National Anthem (Amhran na bhFiann) first draft manuscript.

Also advertised in a superb Adam’s and Mealy’s catalogue are “important and previously unknown” documents from Padraic Pearse, Michael Collins, Eamon de Valera, John Devoy, Thomas Clarke’s last letter, a 1916 Proclamation, the original drawings for the design of the GPO, the telegram confirming Ireland’s Free State status and Michael Collins’ Sinn Fein membership card.

My gripe is not with the two auction houses which have done a civic service in assembling such a marvellous collection. Nor do I begrudge those collectors with financial means to do so, to acquire such coveted items. Indeed, I envy them.

What enrages me is the lack of foresight, not just by the Coalition but also by successive governments since the foundation of the State, in not passing legislation and allocating sufficient budgetary resources for the acquisition in the common good of such, literally priceless, historical material.

I indict our elected representatives for not having constructed a modern museum-research centre for holding these materials, to which scholars, students and school-children, as well as interested individuals and tourist visitors, could have access.

While Dublin has a National Library and a National Archive, both suffering from lack of adequate finances and facilities, it does not have the kind of public shrines displaying its history that adorn London, Paris and Washington.

Hopefully, as has been done by the Government in the case of a Kearney manuscript, its appointed servants and our academic institutions will be there with cheque-books to salvage as many items as possible for the people. Of this, I am not optimistic.

The millions of euro a philistine government has squandered on failed computer systems, unoccupied buildings, an underwater Millennium clock and a moronic Spire on O’Connell Street could have been better invested in a national museum with well-stocked materials that tell our history so graphically and tangibly.

Irish Independent

Tom Brady and Diarmaid Mac Dermott

AN eight-years-old Garda warrant for the arrest of the alleged former head of the Provisional IRA in the South has been cancelled in court.

But senior officers said last night they had the right to seek another warrant if they wanted to detain “Dickie” O’Neill.

Gardai believe O’Neill was in charge of the IRA’s so-called southern command in the mid 1990s when Det-Gda Jerry McCabe was murdered during an abortive raid on a postal van at Adare, Co Limerick.

Shooting

It was alleged at the time that the murder had been carried out by a rogue unit who did not have sanction for the shooting.

Four members of the unit were subsequently convicted of killing Det-Gda McCabe.

They are currently serving sentences at The Grove bungalow complex within the grounds of Castlerea Prison.

O’Neill was later alleged to have stepped down from his IRA position and to have left the country. He is now believed to be living in Spain for several years.

The Special Criminal Court in Dublin yesterday cancelled an eight-year- old warrant for arrest on a charge of IRA membership The warrant had been there for eight years and was cancelled following an application by the DPP at an unscheduled sitting.

The warrant was issued in 1998 for the arrest of Gerard “Dickie” O’Neill, a native of Belfast, with an address at Cushlawn Park, Tallaght, on a charge of IRA membership on July 12, 1997 of an unlawful organisation, styling itself the Irish Republican Army, otherwise Oglaigh na hEireann, otherwise the IRA, on July 12, 1997.

Prosecution solicitor Denis Butler told the court there would be no counsel appearance for Mr O’Neill.

Never executed

He said that the bench warrant for Mr O’Neill’s arrest was issued by the court on March 18, 1998, and his instructions now were to have the warrant cancelled.

Det-Supt Diarmuid O’Sullivan of the Special Branch said the warrant was never executed and he was now applying to have it cancelled. Mr Justice Paul Butler said the court would cancel the warrant.

Garda officers said last night the option remained open to seek another warrant to detain O’Neill or look for his return to Ireland under an European arrest warrant.

If the old warrant had been executed, the main plank of the case against O’Neill would have been the evidence of a garda chief superintendent.

But he has retired from the force since the warrant was issued.

cryptome.org

7 April 2006

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A writes:

This is a copy of the confession by John Dignam given to the PIRA before they executed him as a British agent.

cryptome.org/john-dignam (Zipped WMA, Audio, 8 minutes, 8MB)

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BBC

BBC, 2 July 1992

IRA murders ‘informers’

The IRA has admitted killing the three men found by the army at different roadsides in South Armagh last night. They claim the men were informers for MI5 and the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) Special Branch and they had been tried and killed by the IRA. The victims were from Portadown, County Armagh and have been identified as Gregory Burns, 33, John Dignam, 32, and Aidan Starrs, 29. In a style typical of IRA ritual killings the bodies were found in ditches, naked and hooded with evidence of beatings and single bullets through the backs of the heads.

The IRA tried to justify the murders in an unusually detailed statement, outlining the intelligence work of the three and linking them to the murder of civil servant Margaret Perry, 26. Her body was found on Tuesday in a shallow grave over the border in Mullaghmore, County Sligo after she disappeared on her way to work in Portadown over a year ago. The IRA claim that Ms Perry was having an affair with one of the dead men, Mr Burns, but says she had threatened to expose the group’s intelligence links to the IRA, so they had kidnapped and murdered her.

All three men disappeared from their homes a few days ago and their bodies were dumped close to the border within 10 miles of each other, at Newtownhamilton, Bessbrook and Crossmaglen. The army left them overnight in case they had been booby trapped. These are the first killings in Northern Ireland in eight weeks, and come in the wake of recent progress at talks in Stormont, Belfast and London.

Speaking in the House of Commons, Prime Minister John Major said, “The IRA’s actions demonstrate yet again the true nature of terrorism”.

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www.birw.org

British Irish Rights Watch
Director’s Report
February 2006

[Excerpt]

I attended a meeting on 22nd February between the family of John Dignam and the PSNI’s Historical Enquiries Team in Lisburn. John Dignam was murdered by the IRA in 1992 and branded as a Special Branch informer, after he made a forced confession of involvement in the murder a year previously of a civil servant, Margaret Perry. However, there is evidence to suggest that at least one of John Dignam’s two associates was working for army intelligence, the Force Research Unit, and that all four murders could have been prevented. The HET is looking into the case as part of their investigation into the activities of Frederick Scappaticci, known as Stakeknife, who was FRU’s key agent in the IRA internal disciplinary unit known as the nutting squad.

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www.birw.org/

British Irish Rights Watch
Director’s Report
November 2005

[Excerpt]

BIRW has prepared a report on the murder of John Dignam whose body was found on 1st July 1992. The bodies of two other men, Aidan Starrs and Gregory Burns, were found on the same day at separate locations. The IRA were responsible for all three murders. They claimed that the men were informers and that they had been involved in the murder of a woman called Margaret Perry, who was killed a year earlier. According to a confession extorted from John Dignam, he was an accessory after the fact, in that he helped Aidan Starrs to hide her body. BIRW is concerned that no-one has ever been brought to book for these three murders. Like other families, if the Northern Ireland Offences Bill is passed, the Dignams can expect no justice.

BN.ie

08/04/2006 - 08:57:15

A double agent who infiltrated the IRA for British security services has broken his cover to tell the BBC that he has been given no protection, despite promises to the contrary from the British government.

His revelation comes in the wake of the brutal killing of former Sinn Féin official and self-confessed British agent Denis Donaldson on Tuesday last.

The long-time British agent fled to England when his cover was blown and assumed a new identity., but has come forward to tell the BBC that he expects to suffer the same fate as Denis Donaldson.

He said he is scared and frightened and was forced to assume the new identity himself as the British government refused to issue him with one.

BBC

The two governments’ deadline for a deal to restore devolution will be written into an emergency law due to be brought before Parliament this month.

Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain told Radio Ulster’s Inside Politics this will make the deadline rock solid.

He said unionists should not be concerned about any change to NI’s constitutional position if a deal on devolution cannot be achieved.

“There’s no question of joint authority or anything like that,” Mr Hain said.

“There’s no question of joint government. That would be in contravention of the referendum that that the people of Northern Ireland voted on when they endorsed the Good Friday Agreement.

“So there’s no issue about that, it’s not a constitutional matter.”

Mr Hain also confirmed to the programme there were plans for a prime ministerial summit on Northern Ireland in June.

Deadline

The deadline for a deal on devolution is 24 November.

Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern travelled to Northern Ireland on Thursday to give parties a “take-it-or-leave-it” plan.

The assembly is to be recalled on 15 May with parties being given six weeks to elect an executive.

If that fails, the 108 members get a further 12 weeks to try to form a multi-party devolved government. If that attempt fails, salaries will stop.

The British and Irish governments would then work on partnership arrangements to implement the Good Friday Agreement.

An Phoblacht

Photo: Alan Lundy was shot dead by the UFF while working on the home of his friend, Sinn Féin councillor Alex Maskey (click to view)

Alan Lundy - casualty of British policy

On 1 May 1993, Alan Lundy was shot dead by the UFF while working on the home of his friend, Sinn Féin councillor Alex Maskey. Alan, his wife Margaret and their four young children lived in Ardoyne, an area which had suffered so much from unionist killer gangs, but was in the relative safety of West Belfast when he was cut down.

Alan Lundy was a husband, a father, a son, a brother, a friend, a comrade, a neighbour, a worker and a valued member of his community- he was all of these things and much more.

Alan Lundy was a member of Sinn Féin. He had been interned some 20 years previously and was then imprisoned for a second time by the Diplock courts. He was one of 20 members or relatives of members of the party assassinated during this period. He was one of 99 residents of Ardoyne to be killed between 1969 and 1998, and he was one of almost 1,500 nationalists to die at the hands of the British state forces and the unionist paramilitary groups they ran throughout their war.

Alan Lundy died as a result of the policy of institutionalised collusion which the British state in Ireland has operated since the outset of the recent conflict. The person who pulled the trigger may well have been an Irish-born ‘loyalist’ but the people pulling the strings were at the very heart of the British Government.

The revisionist line on collusion is that it was a matter of some ‘rogue elements’ of the RUC or British army leaking intelligence documents on suspected republicans to autonomous unionist killer groups. This is far from the truth. The British, as a matter of policy;

• Organised unionist paramilitary groups.
• Supplied weapons to these groups.
• Supplied military and special branch intelligence to them.
• Used them strategically to target nationalist civilians - over 1,000 of whom were killed between 1969 and 1998
• Used them to assassinate ‘political problems’, including republican activists, human rights campaigners, journalists and lawyers.

Alan Lundy was killed by the UFF, a cover name for the UDA which was set up in September 1971 by British agent Charles Harding Smith. In April the following year, when appearing in a London court with fellow agent John White and RUC officer Robert Lusty on charges of attempting to buy £100,000 worth of weapons, Harding Smith was supplied with a glowing reference from an RUC Assistant Chief Constable which referred to his usefulness as a ‘pacifier’. They were acquitted.

In 1972 the UDA killed more than 70 Catholics, yet in November of that year, the British Prime Minister had a letter from his Ministry of Defence stating that “An important function of the UDA is to channel, into a constructive and disciplined direction, Protestant energies which might otherwise become disruptive.” The UDA remained legal for the next 20 years during which time, in a ‘constructive and disciplined direction’, it killed another 300 Catholics.

The other major unionist paramilitary group, the UVF, was also under the control of the British state. Retired RUC Detective Jonty Brown recently said that every fifth or sixth UVF man was working for one or other branches of the security forces. That does not include those who were working with them, in mutually beneficial relationships. The commander of the UVF in Mid-Ulster, for example, amassed a personal fortune from construction contracts for the ’security forces’ and had a licensed personal protection firearm. This despite the fact that his unit was responsible for dozens of sectarian murders.

From the very beginning of the conflict, the British state ran these organisations. They trained them, armed them and directed them to such a degree that it can justifiably be said that every unionist killing (and there were more than 1,000 of them) was a state killing. This use of pseudo-gangs to ‘terrorise the terrorist community’ was a tactic used by Britain in earlier colonial conflicts in Cyprus, Aden, Malaya and Kenya. There is no doubt that they are still at it in Iraq.

We can’t bring Alan Lundy back, or any of the more than 3,700 people who lost their lives in the conflict. What we can do though is ensure that we build a society worthy of their memory and that none of their stories are lost in the lies and propaganda spun by revisionists.

Republicans need to focus on the main points around the collusion issue. Collusion was central to the British Government’s counter-insurgency strategy and as such was pivotal in its attempts to defeat republican resistance to their rule in our country. Collusion goes straight to the heart of Britain’s dirty war in Ireland.

As the Sinn Féin spokesperson on Truth and Victims it has been my experience that while there is a lot of goodwill towards victims and victims’ issues, activists often don’t know what they should be doing.

Families and victims’ groups dealing with this issue require our assistance. We owe it to them and to all victims to do everything we can to help them in their campaigns.

On the broader issue of truth recovery and dealing with the past, which the British have turned into a site of struggle, Republicans need to actively challenge those who attempt to conceal and ignore issues such as collusion. The Sinn Féin groups on Truth and Collusion have a DVD presentation on this very question. If your area hasn’t been covered you should ask through your Comhairle Ceanntair. In the meantime, you should be pushing for:

• Acknowledgement by the British state of its role in the conflict and clarification of its actions throughout.
• Adequate resourcing and funding by both governments to enable victims’ groups to pursue their remits.
• Equality of treatment for all victims and survivors and an end to practices that perpetuate and discriminate against victims of state violence and collusion.