SAOIRSE32

Belfast Telegraph

By Brian Hutton
28 April 2006

The epic debate over the name of Northern Ireland’s second largest city is to be decided once and for all by a High Court Judge, it was announced today.

Mr Justice Weatherup, granting leave in the High Court for an application by Derry City Council to have the city’s name determined, said the issue was “loaded with history, conflict and debate”.

Significantly, the Department of the Environment (DOE), representing the Government, welcomed a legal resolution to the contentious matter.

Appearing for the DoE, Bernard McCloskey said the Government is entirely neutral as to the outcome. “It’s a pure question of law”, he said. Mr McCloskey vowed that the DoE would participate in a “non-contentious and non-hostile manner” and give its “full co-operation” to the court.

“It has been a difficult question for a number of decades”, he added.

Michael Lavery QC, representing Derry City Council, outlined three key issues it is seeking declarations on:

Is there a separate legal entity known as Londonderry at all?

Has that entity, if it exists, been absorbed into Derry City Council and is it now known as Derry City?

Has the functions of the corporate entity Londonderry City been absorbed by Derry City Council?

Derry City Council now has 14 days to set out its arguments and serve papers on the High Court, formally requesting a legal determination on the matter. The DOE will have six weeks from then to respond with an affidavit setting out its views. The case will be heard again on June 29.

In an anecdotal aside, Mr Justice Weatherup said a visiting friend of his from Geneva was recently confused about why the city was referred to Derry and Londonderry on some maps.

The judge said it gave him considerable difficulty attempting to explain the situation to his French-speaking friend.

“Maybe I’ll send him this judgment, whoever writes it”, he quipped.

Daily Ireland

Here’s the thing – and, forgive me, but there’s no other way of putting this: the hoods who are wrecking the streets and homes and cars in the shadow of the famous old Divis Tower are already working for the Trevors

Robin Livingstone
28/04/2006

The PSNI sent a van out round the Lower Falls this week towing one of those portable ad hoarding-type thingies. The message on the board read: “Rat on the rats.” At the same time, a bunch of Trevors went round the doors posting letters.
Before we go into the details of the letter, I have to reveal that I have written a letter of my own, to the Guinness Book of Records no less, nominating this as the most expensive maildrop in the history of modern communications. My local residents’ association did a maildrop recently and paid a handful of young fellas a few quid to spend a couple of hours in the evening doing the needful. Quite why these letters had to be hand-delivered by a battalion of highly-paid and well-armed officers is not entirely clear to me – perhaps they managed to glean some low-grade intelligence as they went – lay-out of hall and living room, existence of security measures, nature of pictures on the wall, that sort of thing. Let’s hope so. Hate to think they went to all that expense for so little.
Anyway, the letters enable local people to do what the ad behind the van told them: “Rat on the rats.” It urged them to write down in the space provided the names and addresses of any young people known to be engaged in anti-social behaviour in the locality so that they can be hit with Anti-Social Behaviour Orders (ASBOs). This is a splendid idea, of course.
Allowing harassed householders to shop the young thugs who are making their lives a misery, and to do it anonymously, is clearly an excellent idea, but, as ever, it’s so much more complicated than that.
Here’s the thing – and, forgive me, but there’s no other way of putting this: the hoods who are wrecking the streets and homes and cars in the shadow of the famous old Divis Tower are already working for the Trevors.
Now listen, bear with me on this. You think I’m just saying that because I don’t like the PSNI and that I’m forever trying to score a cheap point at their expense. This is all true, I freely admit it. But I didn’t find out that the hoods in the Lower Falls are in the pay of the PSNI by stumbling across some secret documents or because one of them admitted to it while hanging upside down in a cattleshed in Co Louth. I found out about it because an officer said it on a radio programme. I should know, I was on the radio programme with him when he said it.
So I think local people should knock up a letter of their own and deliver it to Grosvenor Road barracks – what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, and all that. They could demand to see the list of Lower Falls death drivers, drug dealers, burglars, knife-merchants and general all-round ne’er-do-wells who are effectively PSNI reservists and who will never feel a hand on their collar of their short-sleeved checked Ben Shermans or have bread and water for breakfast on Christmas morning.

BBC

The police said they are treating attacks on buildings in a County Derry village as sectarian.

Windows were smashed in a hotel, houses and a car during the trouble at Main Street in Garvagh in the early hours of Saturday.

There are no reports of any injuries. Two men were arrested. One has since been released on police bail.

Sinn Fein councillor Billy Leonard said an asthmatic girl was living in one of the houses which were attacked.

“Purely and simply because they are easy targets, people can come along, damage their car, break their windows, so obviously they are very distressed,” Mr Leonard said.

“Can you image that person, who had a serious asthmatic attack in recent months, being wakened up to the sound of breaking glass and shouting thugs?”

Meanwhile, in Derry 25 people were involved in clashes on the Glendermott Road at about 0215 BST. One man was arrested.

The crowd involved in both incidents dispersed when the police arrived.

Police in Derry would like witnesses to contact them.

BBC

There was rioting in Dublin city centre

Two men have been arrested in connection with rioting in Dublin during a loyalist parade, Irish police have said.

The men, aged 19 and 20 years, were both arrested in Dun Laoghaire, a port outside Dublin on Saturday.

Trouble broke out on 25 February after republican protestors tried to stop a Love Ulster rally to remember the victims of republican violence.

A Garda press officer said the men were being detained at Store Street station.

During the trouble, Irish police and youths fought pitched battles along O’Connell Street and 41 people were arrested.

The rioting saw 21 Garda officers injured.

Retailers claimed they lost 10m euro in sales after shoppers fled the area.

Politics.ie

Press Release

You are invited to attend a commemoration in honour of the founder of the Fenian Brotherhood, John O’Mahony, which will take place on the 28th May 2006 at 2pm by his grave in Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin.

Click photo to view - image from >>here

The commemoration is organised to coincide with the 130th anniversary of the first Fenian Raids on Canada in which several Irish patriots died for the cause of Irish freedom. It will also recall all the members of the Fenian Brotherhood, Irish Republican Brotherhood and Clan na nGael who died in the many actions in Ireland and England in their fight against English Crown Forces. The main speaker of the day will be Tommy McKearney, a former IRA Hunger-striker who will give an oration on the brutal prison conditions that Fenians had to endure under English rule. Several noted Fenian leaders died from the severity of the conditions imposed, while others were murdered in their cells after long incarcerations. Amongst those killed were the famous Edward Duffy, the young Fenian martyr James Cody, William Meagher, Richard J. Stowell along with Fenian commanders John Lynch and Brian Dillion from Cork, to mention a few. The commemoration will also remembers Fenians such as Captain Mackey as well as his brother and also John Fleming who died trying to blow up London Bridge, along with Stephen O’Donoghue and Thomas Farrell who died fighting near Tallagh during the Fenian Rising. John O’Mahony who had taken part in the 1848 Rising along with John Mitchel and James Stephens, was exiled first to France and then to the US. He founded the Fenian Brotherhood in 1860 with the object of freeing Ireland; naming it after the army of the great heroic cycle of Finn mac Cumhaill and the Fianna. He became a Colonel in the 69th Regiment during the American Civil War and during that period expanded the Fenian Brotherhood in the US to over a 100,000 men. With the failure of the Irish Republican Brotherhood to rise in 1865, O’Mahony helped organise the first Fenian invasion into Canada in an attempt to provoke the English into war with the US. He eventually died the following year in 1897 and his body was returned home to Ireland to be buried in Glasnevin. While the most famous Fenians of the period were the Manchester martyrs, whose song ‘God Save Ireland’ was the Irish national anthem till the writing of Amhran na bhFíann, there were hundreds of other Fenians such as Thomas Clarke, Charles J. Kickham, O’Donavan Rossa etc, who were the inspirational force that kept the Fenian spirit alive for another generation, eventually helping to inspire the 1916 rising. A booklet of 33 rare Fenian poems/ballads, written by martyrs such as Brian Dillion, Charles J. Kickham and O’Donavan Rossa is available to purchase as part of the fundraising for the commemoration and can be attained for €5. Look forward to seeing you there on the day.

Organised by Craobh Gál Gréine
Irish Cultural Society

craobhgalgreine@yahoo.ie