SAOIRSE32

Irish Examiner

By Donal Hickey
10 May 2006

SPECULATION that Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II will visit Ireland next year was dismissed yesterday by Tourism Minister John O’Donoghue.
“It has never been discussed at Cabinet,” he said.

Included in the speculation was that she would visit Killarney, retracing the steps of one of her predecessors, Queen Victoria, who spent four days there in 1861.

A group styling itself the Kerry Command of the Continuity IRA has issued a statement threatening her safety should she visit Ireland. The statement was accompanied by a photo of three men with weapons and wearing balaclavas and paramilitary dress.

“The Queen of England is not welcome and any such visit shall be resisted with all the force at our disposal,” the statement said.

“The Kerry Command view with concern the preparation of public opinion for a visit to the county by the Queen of England next year to follow the footsteps of Queen Victoria.

“We wish to state that we are totally opposed to any such proposed visit and speculation of such a visit must be viewed as yet further evidence of a desire to normalise British rule in Ireland.”

Daily Ireland

Danny morrison
10/05/2006

A few years ago the photographer Donovan Wylie published a book, The Maze, which contained page after page of depressing photographs of little variety and some explanatory text.
‘Inertias’ are 15-foot wide voids, containing movement sensors, running immediately parallel between the inside wall and inner fence of the H-Blocks. He published 26 of those. ‘Steriles’ are also prohibited areas running parallel to the perimeter walls but on the other side of the inner fence. They can also exist at different places within the prison. He gives us six tedious examples of these and eight examples of inner roads.
He also photographed H-5, 24 virtually identical cells in its B-Wing and the wings’ exercise yards.
All of the photography was carried out between 2002 and 2003, long after the release of the prisoners – so the jail is empty of human life, though nature is bubbling through and has begun its work in undermining the tarmac and concrete, and vines and ivy are slowly enveloping the fencing.
Wylie also publishes a photograph of a cell in the prison hospital.
The prison hospital.

It is bare, spotless and bright. Since then, it and the other cells in the hospital have become discoloured and the paint is being shed in flakes or as powder.

Photo of Bobby Sands’ hospital room by Slainte on Flickr - click photo to view and go to site

Last Friday, May 5, a group, including former prisoners and activists, marked the 25th anniversary of Bobby Sands’ death by visiting the prison hospital. We had planned a quiet and private event but mid-week the press heard about it through the Office of the First and Deputy First Minister (OFM/DFM). So, at the entrance to the prison, before and after the visit, there were responses to questions from journalists about the impact and legacy of the hunger strike. These, in turn, became the pretext for yet another unionist attack on the memory of the hunger strikers.
Bobby Sands’ courage and sacrifice have been commemorated by republicans across Ireland. The occasion of his death was marked by television and radio documentaries and features in the media. Stalking Bobby Sands and the memory of the ten hunger strikers, no matter where you looked, was a diminutive, self-important character.
Richard O’Rawe was everywhere, cheered on by the very people who attempted to criminalise the republican struggle. His book should have been called, On Another Man’s Hunger Strike for he has diminished his own sacrifice as a blanket man. The fool.

IN Bobby Sands’ cell and in those of the other nine hunger strikers we held a minute’s silence. A few words were spoken – in Irish and English – but the solemnity, the sadness, said all there was to say. An extract from the last day of Bobby’s hunger strike diary was read and some stanzas from ‘The Torture Mill – H-Block’, including:

They lounge in might and glory bright
This empire once so grand.
With bloody fleets and dirty feats,
They built it without span.
But tank or gun they have not one
To break a blanket man.

The door at the bottom of the hospital wing, which gives onto an exercise yard, was open. We went out into it. The sky was blue but the compound was grey and grim, with a horizon of barbed wire fencing broken only by a deserted look-out post.
In 1981 the hunger strikers were moved off the wings around the 21-day mark and transferred here to the hospital where they waited for a settlement or death. At this stage they were still mobile and were allowed an hour’s exercise a day. They shuffled round this enclosed space in dressing gown, pyjamas and slippers. Laurence McKeown recalls there being some plastic chairs in the yard that summer. He brought out a pillow – his hips had shrunk and it was painful to sit on a hard surface – but the prison warders wouldn’t allow him to use the pillow and an argument broke out.
I remember being in jail in my late teens as an internee and how much we complained. There were, of course, legitimate causes for complaint: the failure of warders to respond to the emergency bell when someone fell seriously ill; the regular army searches, etc. Generally, internees felt so sorry for themselves that I am embarrassed thinking about the trifles we moaned about.
Internees and convicted political prisoners with status also had family worries and concerns, but the TV, the radio, a good book, a game of football, could act as a distraction. None of these were available to the blanket men. You couldn’t compare our prison world with their worries, concerns and fears, always waiting on the cell door opening and never knowing what size of screws were there to assault them. Contact with their family was down to one half hour a month.
Their morale went up and down. The numbers on protest also varied – as some became physically and psychologically exhausted, or because of family pressures and punitive loss of remission they left the protest.
Nevertheless, the protest never faltered and continued uninterrupted from September 1976 until 1981 when the prisoners were given their own clothes. From a position of unity and strength they then established a full return to political status.
The story of the protest in Armagh and the H-Blocks is incredible: it is epic. The suffering and endurance of the prisoners can never be taken away from them or their families.
Against the background of the commemorations, unionist politicians have renewed their criticism of plans to preserve the prison hospital and a H-Block as part of an International Centre for Conflict Transformation. Unionists are still involved in the old war of trying to criminalise the prisoners, a war that is over and which the authorities lost. They lost it as a result of the recognition which the political prisoners achieved, particularly by being elected. They lost it with the early release of the political prisoners under the terms of the Belfast Agreement. They lost it with every peace move the republican movement has made.
As far as many unionists are concerned the North was ‘a great wee place’ before 1969; there was no discrimination under Stormont; the RUC never murdered anyone; there was no torture in Castlereagh; loyalist paramilitaries only responded to the IRA and prisoners were never beaten. Those who deceive themselves the most are the DUP. They have imprisoned themselves in a maze, as grey and drab as Wylie’s pictures of the H-Blocks. Yes, definitions of Inertia and Sterile.
Unionist politicians, as well as being representatives, are meant also to be leaders. They can choose to merely represent prejudice and, by amplifying prejudices, reinforce them. However, showing leadership means grasping other concepts, viewing situations from other perspectives, allowing for other possibilities. Stating the truth can liberate another truth, and in that way liberate us all.
The hunger strike changed the nationalist community forever. It emboldened it, increased its self-confidence and determination.
For that we have to thank Bobby Sands MP, Francis Hughes, Raymond McCreesh, Patsy O’Hara, Joe McDonnell, Martin Hurson, Kevin Lynch, Kieran Doherty TD, Thomas McElwee and Micky Devine.

Daily Ireland

by Ciarán Barnes
10/05/2006

A row has broken out on a Co Antrim council after it agreed to provide land for an Ulster Defence Regiment memorial.
Unionists on Lisburn City Council have pushed through a proposal that will see the council hand over property in the city centre’s main square for two UDR statues.
Nationalists are furious at the move, which came less than two weeks after the emergence of documents revealing the extent of UDR collusion with loyalist paramilitaries during the 1970s, including providing them with the bulk of their murder weapons.
Lisburn Sinn Féin councillor Paul Butler described the council’s involvement in the UDR memorial project as “highly insensitive”.
He said: “Catholics will see this as reward for a regiment that was up to its neck in sectarian killings.
“Unionists tell us that Lisburn is a city for everyone but many nationalists will see this as more proof that Lisburn is only a city for one section of the community.
“This monument will stand as an indictment of the sectarian and exclusively unionist agenda which has been pursued by this council virtually since its inception.”
The UDR, a predecessor of the Royal Irish Regiment, had its old headquarters in Lisburn. The council awarded the regiment the freedom of Lisburn in 1990.
An equality impact study conducted by the council into the city centre’s suitability for the UDR memorial found no problems.
Democratic Unionist Party councillor Andrew Ewing said the UDR memorial plans would win the support of all communities in Lisburn.
“The UDR protected both communities. Establishing a permanent memorial in the centre of Lisburn would be a fitting tribute to the brave men and women, both Catholic and Protestant, who served in the regiment,” he said.

Irish Examiner

By Eoin English
10 May 2006

See also Wikipedia

A NEPHEW of executed 1916 hero Thomas Kent stepped behind the walls of Cork Prison yesterday to lay a wreath on his uncle’s grave — 90 years to the day after his death.

Thomas Kent from Bawnard, Castlelyons, Fermoy, Co Cork, who was named after his late uncle, said he was very touched by the poignant ceremony.

“They put in a great effort here today. We are delighted. I am here with two sisters and a nephew. We come every year but this is special,” he said.

Minister of State Michael Ahern, who attended the ceremony, called on the British government to express regret for the execution of Kent.

Considering the information that is coming forth now, it’s timely that we have some statement from the British government expressing regret at the murdering of Thomas Kent back in 1916, he said.

Mr Ahern said he was speaking personally and said he planned to discuss the matter with the Minister for Defence.

The British Embassy declined to comment last night.

Three generations of Kent family members, Lord Mayor Deirdre Clune and members the Organisation of National Ex-Service Men and Women were escorted into the prison grounds yesterday by senior army officers for the intimate and emotional ceremony.

Just inside the perimeter wall on which Kent’s headstone is inset, they watched as Mr Kent laid a wreath on his uncle’s grave.

The 51-year-old, who was leader of the Cork Brigade of Irish Volunteers, is buried just a few hundred yards from where he was shot by firing squad at dawn on May 9, 1916.

Padraig O’Callaghan, General Officer Commanding of the First Southern Brigade, said members of the Irish defence forces were very proud of Thomas Kent.

“We in Collins Barracks are the successors to the Cork Brigade of Volunteers,” he said.

“We wear their insignia on our uniform every day of every year. We are proud of the values and tradition which we hold in trust for future generations. We too are proud of Thomas Kent.

“Had he lived, it is perfectly reasonable to suggest he would have stood proudly alongside MacCurtain and MacSwiney as the process of reorganisation got underway in 1917 — and thereafter, anything might have been possible.

“In that context, his execution was much more than just another casualty statistic from Easter 1916. It was, in fact, an unquantifiable tragedy.”

After the ceremony, the delegation moved back to nearby Collins Barracks.

The Lord Mayor’s flag, which normally flies over City Hall, flew over the barracks for the first time.

Ms Clune inspected a guard of honour drawn from some 200 soldiers, many of whom will serve on UN peacekeeping duty in Kosovo later this year. She then laid a wreath in memory of Kent, and in memory of all Irish soldiers who have lost their life while on duty on home or abroad.

Meanwhile, copies of Kent’s court martial documents, and a small portrait of him, were later unveiled at the barracks’ museum.

Belfast Telegraph

Retired senior policeman claims his rights breached

By David Gordon
10 May 2006

Retired senior policeman claims his rights breached

POLICE Ombudsman Nuala O’Loan has been threatened with legal action after criticising a high-profile investigation by a senior RUC detective.

Ex-Chief Superintendent Eric Anderson, now retired, was in overall charge of the inquiry into the death of teenager Alice McLoughlin in Portadown in 1991.

Sixteen-year-old Alice sustained a fatal wound from the gun of an off-duty policeman.

In a report published yesterday, Mrs O’Loan cleared the officer of any involvement in her death.

But she criticised the investigation headed by Mr Anderson, arguing that a more thorough forensic inquiry could have addressed many of the concerns of Alice’s family.

Her report did not name Mr Anderson, referring to him only as the senior investigating officer. It also stated that he had refused to co-operate with her office’s review of the case.

His lawyer, Lisburn solicitor Jim McFarland, has alleged that his human rights have been breached.

He told the Belfast Telegraph that he is recommending legal action by Mr Anderson.

“It is a clear and unequivocal breach of a person’s human rights to publicly criticise him without giving him a chance to defend himself,” he said.

The solicitor denied that his client had refused to co-operate with the Ombudsman. He said his co-operation had to be limited for health reasons.

The lawyer also defended the forensic investigation into Alice’s death, saying it had exceeded anything carried out in Northern Ireland before, and had involved bringing over a forensics expert from Great Britain.

In her report, Mrs O’Loan stated: “The Police Ombudsman is of the view that it would be both morally and ethically desirable for retired police officers to assist investigation into cases of which they have knowledge, particularly where the family of someone whose death is being investigated need as much information as possible to facilitate some form of closure on such tragic incidents.”

A change in the law would be needed to give the Ombudsman the power to compel retired officers to co-operate. Mrs O’Loan intends to raise this issue in a five-year review of the legislation governing her office.

BN.ie

10/05/2006 - 12:01:06

Around 1,500 civilian jobs are to be axed as part of a sweeping military normalisation programme in Northern Ireland, it was announced today.

Defence chiefs have also decided to retain just 11 bases and sites for the North’s peacetime army garrison.

The headquarters for the Royal Irish Regiment – whose Home Service units are to be disbanded – is being shut down.

As well as closing the St Patrick’s base in Ballymena, Co Antrim, Shackleton Barracks at Ballykelly, Co Derry, and St Lucia Barracks, Omagh, Co Tyrone, will also go.

With troop levels in Northern Ireland due to be cut to 5,000 by July 31 next year, Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram has now confirmed the scale of civilian staff also being laid off.

The workforce of 3,400 will be reduced by 1,500. Another 340 new posts are expected to be created to support the new military arrangements, although retraining will be required.

Mr Ingram said: “The Ministry of Defence has thoroughly researched the requirements of the future peacetime garrison and taking all factors into consideration – not least efficiency and value for money – has now identified the bases most fit-for-purpose.

“Inevitably, there will be a substantial number of surplus posts as a result of the wider security normalisation programme but every effort will be made to lessen the impact of redundancy with transfer and voluntary retirement.

“The Department fully recognises the magnificent support to the military over the past 35 years by its civilian staff, and is committed to engaging and supporting them at every stage of this period of change.”

Ministry of Defence officials have begun a 90-day consultation process with the trades unions over how the changes will be implemented.

Talks will also focus on redundancy packages made available, with special enhancements expected.

With 19 Light Brigade, currently based in Catterick, due to be relocated to Northern Ireland and Scotland, Mr Ingram announced what sites are to be retained.

They are: RAF Aldergrove; Thiepval Barracks, Lisburn; Abercorn Barracks, Ballykinler; Palace Barracks, Holywood; Massereene Barracks, Antrim; Kinnegar Logistic Base, Holywood; Ballykinler Training Camp; Magilligan Training Centre; Duke of Connaught Unit, Belfast (a hospital wing); Laurel Hill House, Coleraine (an adventure training centre, retained subject to a review of adventure training provision); Divis Mountain mast, Belfast (a hilltop communication site).

Shackleton is set for closure in April 2008 when the infantry battalion it houses, the 2nd Battalion, The Princess of Wales’ Royal Regiment, departs.

St Lucia Barracks will shut by July 2007 when the Royal Irish Home Service battalions disband. St Patrick’s Barracks will close by March 31 2008.

By that stage the last Home Service personnel will have been discharged or transferred.

BN.ie

10/05/2006 - 11:12:42

Sinn Féin will bid to have the Reverend Ian Paisley nominated as Northern Ireland First Minister when the North’s Assembly is reconvened next week, Gerry Adams insisted today.

As Stormont’s 108 Assembly members prepared to gather next Monday for the first time since they were elected in November 2003, Mr Adams said his party was focused on trying to get the power-sharing institutions under the Good Friday Agreement set up.

The West Belfast MP told his party’s Assembly team at Stormont that the Assembly proposed by the British government was an inferior model to the one which had previously operated.

And he also dubbed it the Peter Hain Assembly.

Mr Adams said: “After a thorough discussion we have agreed very strict guidelines and conditions for our party’s participation in the Peter Hain Assembly.

“Consequently, our focus will be on the restoration of the institutions. So, I intend to nominate the Reverend Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness for the position of First and Deputy First Ministers.

“If this is unsuccessful we will seek to return to this business at the earliest possible time.

“We will also participate in a business committee to ensure that the election of the First and Deputy First Minister and any business for the urgent preparation of the restoration of government is discussed by the Assembly.”

In their road map for restoration of devolution in Northern Ireland, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Taoiseach Bertie Ahern announced that Assembly members would return on May 15 and would initially set about trying to elect a power-sharing government involving Mr Paisley’s Democratic Unionists, Sinn Féin, the Ulster Unionists and the nationalist SDLP.

However, if the Assembly was unable to form a multi-party devolved government within six weeks before the summer, the two Prime Ministers suggested that Assembly members would return in the autumn and be given a November 24 absolute deadline to try again.

The British government also proposed that in the meantime Assembly members could embark on a programme of work and take part in debates on issues which they would normally be handling under devolution, such as education, reform, health, water charges and planning.

Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain has appointed former cross community Alliance Party deputy leader Eileen Bell as the new Assembly Speaker.

He has also proposed a programme for the first two weeks of the new Assembly.

MLAs will spend next Monday registering as unionists, nationalists or other under the Assembly designation system for voting.

He has also proposed that business leaders would meet the Assembly next Tuesday for a discussion outside the chamber and then MLAs would take part in their own debate about what they had just heard.

Scottish First Minister Jack McConnell has also been invited to address Assembly members outside the chamber on May 22, highlighting the benefits of devolution.

MLAs would then go into the chamber to debate what Mr McConnell had said. However, today Gerry Adams dismissed the proposals as a talking shop Assembly.

“It has been suggested that the Peter Hain Assembly will provide the opportunity for the discussion of important issues like education reform, water charges, health and rates increases,” the West Belfast MP said.

“This would be pointless. In reality, the Peter Hain Assembly is powerless on all these issues.

“It would be nothing more than a talking shop.

“Of course, there is a way to effectively tackle these matters but that depends on local politicians taking up their responsibilities.

“We have an opportunity to send British ministers home and for local politicians, who know the issues, to take responsibility for deciding the future direction of health and education, the environment, policing and justice and much more.”