BBC

Three people have been remanded in custody following searches earlier this week by police in Armagh and Fermanagh.

The accused appeared at Belfast Magistrates Court

Police said at the time they believed they had stopped an international gun smuggling operation.

Desmond Kearns, 41, and his wife Alison Patricia Kearns, 37, from Tannaghmore Green, Lurgan, were charged in a Belfast court with procuring weapons.

Michael Dermot Gregory, 37, of Concession Road, Crossmaglen, was charged with making assets available.

Mr Kearns was charged with conspiring with others to possess weapons includings AK-47s, sniper rifles, pistols, silencers, heavy machine guns and various types of ammunition.

He was also charged with conspiring to possess anti-tank armour-piercing weapons, plastic explosives, detonating devices and RPGs.

His wife was charged with inviting another person to provide weapons intending they should be used.

Mr Gregory was charged with making an arrangement whereby the assets of a commerical property in Portugal were made available to another who also knew or suspected the assets would be used for terrorism.

A detective inspector told the court that he believed he could connect the accused to the charges.

They were remanded in custody for a month.

Irelandclick

Let’s be very clear about this: the only reason that an agreement wasn’t hammered out between nationalists and loyalists over Saturday’s Whiterock parade was because there was no desire on the part of loyalists to do business.

The Tour of the North passed off peacefully because loyalists came to the table unsure about what way the Parades Commission would go when it came to making a determination.. As is ever the case, the loyalists found nationalist residents, community workers and politicians ready, willing and able to thrash out a mutually acceptable compromise that kept both sides’ dignity intact.

From their point of view of the loyal orders and their paramilitary henchmen, it was perfectly understandable that they would do nothing but sit on their hands and wait. After all, when they burned and wrecked all round them in the orgy of violence which followed the banning of last year’s parade from Workman Avenue, the British government fell over itself in an attempt to appease them and ensure that they put down the guns, the petrol bombs and the swords – for a while anyway. After having pocketed the tainted money they won by their delinquency, the loyalists had every reason to believe that when it came to making a decision on the 2006 parade, the Parades Commission would do all in its power to ensure that there be no repetition of last year’s scenes, regardless of the rights or wrongs of either argument. That confidence was proved justified when the Parades Commission made its outrageous ruling.

Any pretence that the Parades Commission was anything other than an instrument of government was blown away by the recent legal debacle surrounding the Secretary of State’s disgraceful decision to appoint two Orangemen to the Commission but no members of any residents’ group. The Commission has quite cynically and deliberately been moulded into the shape required by the British government and because of that its determinations will henceforth be viewed with nothing but scorn and derision.

The Orange Order are said to be unhappy with the Parades Commission direction that no more than 50 people be allowed to pass through Workman Avenue on to the Springfield Road, but in reality this is nothing more than political posturing. If just one Orangeman marches along the Springfield Road without having bothered to seek dialogue with the people who live there, or their consent, then that is a victory for the dinosaurs of unionism and a defeat for those who see co-operation and agreed compromise as the way forward.

What will happen on Saturday should the parade go ahead is anybody’s guess. It is to be hoped that an eleventh hour decision to reverse the ruling might yet be made, but at present that appears unlikely. What we can say for certain is that nationalist residents and their community and political representatives will do all in their power to ensure that the day passes off peacefully, whatever direction the parade takes on Saturday. But clearly passions have been kindled and anger is high and it would be a foolish person indeed who would rule out conflict in the area at the weekend. And if there are those in the nationalist community – from the Springfield district or from elsewhere – who now believe that riots and wrecking are what get you heard, then it would be difficult, if not impossible, to argue against them.

That, however, is the unthinking, kneejerk reaction and it’s one that would be extremely damaging in the long term to the nationalist community and to no-one else. Such a reaction on the part of nationalists would not be met with cash injections and U-turns in the way that it was when the guns and bombs were being wielded by loyalists; it would instead be met with the kind of security clampdown that we’ve seen so often down through the years, and the British government would gleefully withdraw whatever pathetic amount of funding that goes in the direction of West Belfast at present. And, of course, should a stone be thrown or a bottle broken, the usual suspects will line up to blame it all on the IRA in an attempt to bolster their anti-peace process agenda.

The best reaction, should this immoral parade go ahead, would be one of dignified and restrained protest. In the fullness of time the bankruptcy of the Parades Commission and its decision-making processes will be held up to the forensic scrutiny of international opinion – and perhaps even a landmark court victory will eventually be won. This week the Police Ombudsman pointed the finger of blame squarely at the Commission for chaotic scenes in Lurgan at an Orange Parade in the town.

It wasn’t the first time, and it won’t be the last, that the Commission is found out.

Irelandclick

A senior loyalist source has confirmed that the North Belfast UDA has rejected the Inner Council’s decision to expel the Shoukri brothers and their associate Alan McClean.
The move has sparked fears that a standoff will take place between UDA members and those of its North Belfast faction.
The senior loyalist source insisted that the UDA’s ruling inner council did not want any blood letting similar to the last UDA feud in 2002.
But he said he predicted an “incident of some sort” would have to happen to break the deadlock.
“People on the ground are frightened of opening their mouths. They’re being told ‘if you don’t support us we’ll get you’. It’s extremely volatile. The leadership doesn’t want another feud but something will have to happen, I have no doubt about that.”
The source went on to say that previous attempts by UDA factions to break away from the main body of the loyalist paramilitary group had failed.
“It didn’t work for Johnny Adair, the ‘Bacardi Breezer Brigadier’. He has more b***s than the Egyptians and he didn’t succeed, so I don’t think it will work this time.”
After the UDA Inner Council announced they were expelling the three men from the paramilitary organisation, graffiti defying the expulsions appeared on walls in the Westland estate.
On Wednesday a statement from the North Belfast UDA said they no longer recognised the Inner Council’s authority and would not tolerate any interference in “its area”.

Journalist:: Áine McEntee

Irelandclick

HE has failed to address the housing crisis in nationalist North Belfast

Nationalist North Belfast is facing the nightmare of more high-rise flats after the Housing Executive admitted they were struggling to clear the housing stress list.
And in what campaigners say is yet another indication of the failure of the North Belfast housing strategy, Housing Executive Director Gerry Flynn has conceded that houses are being built in loyalist areas not because of need, but because “the Protestant community still feel they want to create a community and build.”
The shocking admissions were made in a meeting held at the end of May between the Housing Executive, St Patrick’s and St Joseph’s Housing Committee and local politicians.
The independently compiled minutes of the meeting reveal Housing Executive Belfast Area Manager Maurice Johnston openly discuss building “apartments” to alleviate need in nationalist areas.
The minutes state: “M. (Maurice) Johnston explained that in order to deal with all existing need and have family housing there will be apartments.”
The meeting goes on to discuss the building of houses in loyalist areas of North Belfast, and for the first time has a Housing Executive member concede that one strategy is trying to deal with two different problems on either side of the religious divide. A failed single strategy has been a bone of contention among housing activists who have long insisted that North Belfast needed two strategies.
“G Flynn responded that there are two different issues (in North Belfast), the burgeoning demand for housing by Catholics and the little or no supply of land. There has been a dwindling Protestant population leaving the city, but the Protestant community still feel they want to create a community and build,” the minutes state.
Gerard Brophy from St Patrick’s and St Joseph’s housing committee who was at the meeting is also recorded in the minutes. He said nationalists should not be forced to put up with housing that has been shown to fail in the past, and a system that makes North Belfast a ghetto.
“The community has been down the road of flats and seen the problems of developments like Unity Flats.
“People are being squeezed out of their natural community because families in nationalist areas are being told by the district office that with 100 points they have no chance of being rehoused, because there are people with 200 or 300 points ahead of them.
“People with 140 points are in need of housing but are sitting 20th on the list whereas on the Protestant side a family could get a four bedroom house with the same points,” the minutes state.
Gerard Brophy went on to express concerns about who the North Belfast Housing Strategy was actually for.
“Housing Executive figures show that 22 per cent of 152 houses have gone to people from outside North Belfast. That would lead me to ask just who the North Belfast strategy is actually for?”
A spokeswoman for the Housing Executive said they had not been given a copy of the minutes, compiled by the Northern Ireland Tenants Action Project, and therefore could not comment on the contents. However a spokesperson for NITAP insisted they sent the minutes to the housing body at the end of May.

Journalist:: Evan Short

Belfast Telegraph

‘Provo priest’ who championed individual human rights and was finally condemned by the IRA

22 June 2006

Denis O’Beirne Faul, priest: born Dundalk, Co Louth 14 August 1932; ordained priest 1956; teacher, St Patrick’s Academy, Dungannon, Co Tyrone 1958-83, Principal 1983-98; died Dublin 21 June 2006.

Monsignor Denis Faul was one of the most prominent political clerics in Northern Ireland of recent decades, a highly individual voice repeatedly in the thick of controversy, almost always on the side of unpopular causes. In terms of the Troubles he ranked in clerical importance second only to the Rev Ian Paisley, with a highly eventful career divided into two sharply differing and apparently contradictory parts.

In the first phase he was widely regarded as a Provo priest who, it was said, assisted the IRA with his relentless attacks on the British human rights record in Northern Ireland. Yet, following the 1981 hunger strikes, which he helped bring to an end in a way which did not suit the IRA and Sinn Fein, he was fiercely denounced by republicans as a “treacherous, conniving man” working in the interests of Britain.

But he had by then built such a reputation in nationalist and human rights circles as a champion of individuals against the state that most dismissed this characterisation of him. He was in any event unafraid of isolation and criticism and possessed of huge self-belief.

Born south of the border in Co Louth, he was for many years a teacher and headmaster of a Tyrone school, St Patrick’s, Dungannon, which scored some of Northern Ireland’s highest exam results. He taught Latin, religion and ancient history. Known to all as Father Faul, he devoted a vast amount of time to human rights work, making more than a thousand formal complaints against the authorities. He and another priest, Fr Raymond Murray, produced a prodigious stream of scores of pamphlets and newspaper articles criticising the authorities.

Their causes included internment without trial, army and police harassment of civilians, ill-treatment of suspects in custody, loyalist assassinations, the use of plastic bullets and controversial shootings by the security forces. Since almost all of these topics coincided with IRA propaganda, it was not surprising that the two priests should have been regarded as republican fellow-travellers.

He regularly condemned the killings of the IRA, which he described as a murder gang, but such statements were eclipsed by his attacks on the authorities. “We were regarded as crypto-Provos,” he later freely admitted:

The image of being Provo priests was thoroughly unjustified. We were always condemning the Provo atrocities, but people didn’t notice that then.

Many Faul complaints seemed outlandish at the time but were confirmed by subsequent events, the most obvious example being the case of the Birmingham Six, the Irishmen jailed for life for IRA attacks on pubs. Faul’s pamphlet protesting their innocence was published in 1976, a full 15 years before the men were eventually released by the Court of Appeal.

He also served for 25 years as a chaplain at the Maze prison, formerly Long Kesh, and it was there that the republican hunger strike proved a pivotal point in his life. The IRA turned on him when, after 10 men were dead and more deaths looked inevitable, he encouraged mothers to save the lives of their sons by having them fed. Republicans never forgave him.

Afterwards he was much more acceptable to Unionists and to British governments, though he continued to complain about what he saw as human rights abuses. Some say he changed tack, but he himself insisted that he continued to oppose injustice from whatever quarter. He once summed up his philosophy:

Justice is the big thing, justice is the solution. Most of the problems were created by the British government. We could have wiped out the Provos long ago if the government had put proper discipline on to the Royal Ulster Constabulary and the British army.

All we’ve ever asked for is for the security forces to behave within the law - don’t torture, don’t shoot to kill, don’t unjustly harass people.

Although the Irish Catholic hierarchy often felt he created too much fuss, he was completely in tune with its hard line on issues such as abortion, divorce and contraception. “I like pretty rigid, old-fashioned morality,” he once said. In particular he was fiercely protective of the separate Catholic education system, decrying the integrated schools movement as a “dirty political trick” to undermine Catholic education. He conjured up a hellish future for Catholics, predicting:

Pictures of the Sacred Heart and Our Blessed Lady would have to be removed to avoid offending Protestants, and in their place we would get Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and Dick Whittington and his cat.

He was only half-joking when he said of the Catholic system: “People accuse us of being in the business of brainwashing children. Well, I make no bones about it - we are.” Ironically, over the course of his life the Irish church was to lose a great deal of authority, while republicanism gained greatly in influence.

Unlike most nationalists, Fr Faul was deeply distrustful of the developing peace process. He said republicans had “a smell of Fascism” about them, warning of the process:

I am afraid that there is no substance, but shadow - deep, dark, menacing shadow. Destruction by “peace” is a new and deadly tactic.

It was at that point that he parted company with the nationalist mainstream, which in general was strongly in support of the process. In another contentious opinion, he insisted that most northern Catholics would prefer justice to a united Ireland.

In his last years he gave up teaching and became a parish priest in Carrickmore, Co Tyrone, where republicans grumbled about his presence. One of his later suggestions was to incorporate the name of the RUC into the name of Northern Ireland’s new police service. The idea was viewed as strange, coming as it did from a figure who had denounced RUC behaviour on hundreds of occasions; it found few takers among nationalists.

But, as ever, he was never uneasy about being out of step with prevailing opinion and never flinched from offending powerful forces, whether it was the British government, the IRA or his own hierarchy. He will go down in Troubles history as perhaps the ultimate troublesome priest.

David McKittrick

Newshound

(Jim Gibney, Irish News)

In case any one is in any doubt about the purpose behind Orange marches the decision by the Parades Commission in relation to an Orange march on Belfast’s Springfield Road this weekend is a timely reminder of what they are about.

Orange marches have one purpose and one purpose only – to remind Catholics and nationalists of their second-class status.

Whether it was Orangemen marching on the Longstone Road, Annalong in the 1950s, Obin Street in Portadown, Derry’s Walls or the Springfield Road, Orange marches exist to remind nationalists of their lack of power and their lack of political rights.

The marches are public demonstrations of political domination by unionists of their Catholic neighbours.

Unionist and Orange political power might be waning in the face of the peace process but the Parades Commission’s decision proves the Order still retains the capacity to impose its will on society and in particular on the Catholic community on the Springfield Road.

The Orange Order still has the power to dictate to and mobilise the forces of the British state to ensure it is protected. This will be demonstrated when the Parades Commission’s decision is policed with the usual military tactics which amount to a curfew. Residents will be hemmed in their homes; their lives disrupted living in a climate of fear.

The Order still has enough influence and strength inside the political and military system to secure decisions which undermine the peace process and do irrevocable damage to community relations.

The parade on the Springfield Road is even more offensive because it is a march associated with the UVF who are responsible for killing many Catholics from that area.

All shades of unionism, political and paramilitary, are involved in this march – the Ulster Unionists, the DUP, the Orange Order, PUP, UVF and UDA. It was this sectarian coalition which justified the mayhem last September when the Parades Commission correctly re-routed the Orange march away from Workman Avenue.

Before making his decision did Roger Poole, chairperson of the Parades Commission, bother to assess the involvement by Orangemen in last September’s street violence? They were clearly involved at every stage of the disturbances.

Orange Order violence set the scene for a week of mayhem which spread across Belfast. It involved 150 gun attacks, blast bombs, hundreds of petrol bombs and vehicles being hijacked. Belfast’s daily life came to a halt.

The Orange Order and unionist politicians blamed the Parades Commission and absolved themselves from any responsibility.

The new Parades Commission, which includes Orange Order members and sympathisers, have rewarded those behind last September’s violence.

The commission also includes, Joe Hendron, former SDLP MP for West Belfast. He needs to publicly explain to his former constituents if he supported the Orange Order’s application.

The statement from the Parades Commission chairperson defending his decision is breathtakingly naive.

He described last September’s violence as “savage and shameful” and then incomprehensibly says this violence will not be allowed to hold back progress towards a “shared future”.

For Poole the “shared future” is allowing unwanted Orange parades to march through Catholic and nationalist areas.

In what can only be described as a bout of wishful thinking to bolster his decision Poole described low-level contact between both sides as “courageous, real and meaningful” dialogue.

Meaningful dialogue is what is needed. Low-level contact should not be exaggerated to fit into the commission’s agenda.

The Orange Order should be judged on their intentions. And their intentions are to cause offence to people in places like the Springfield Road. On that basis Orange parades which apply to go through areas where they are not wanted should be banned.

The Orange Order is a secret, oath-bound, sectarian, anti-Catholic organisation. It forfeits any rights it has when it seeks to march through Catholic areas where it is not welcome.

No-one should try to balance out the rights residents have to live free from sectarian intimidation and those of Orangemen. There is no equivalence.

Residents should be protected by the state against the Orange Order which is the aggressor.

No-one would suggest that racists or anti-Semites have rights over those they seek to trample over.

The same attitude should apply to the Orange Order.

June 23, 2006
________________

This article appeared first in the June 22, 2006 edition of the Irish News.

Irish Independent

A DRAMATIC decline in the standard of spoken Irish is confirmed in a long-awaited study which will be officially published today.

Under a third of pupils in 3,000 ordinary primary schools have achieved mastery in Irish communication, compared with more than half in 1985.

A series of tests were given to pupils in 219 schools and the results show that in the ordinary national schools:

— 16.6pc of pupils failed all Irish speaking objectives tested.

— 14.4pc of pupils could not converse successfully about any of the nine specified topics in the communications test.

— 5.7pc of pupils could not say anything meaningful in conversation about eight of the nine specific topics - the only exception was they could give their name, age and class details in Irish.

The study also reveals that the standard of Irish in Gaeltacht schools has declined significantly.

This is because many of the pupils have English as their first language and because an increasing number of Gaeltacht schools are opting not to teach all aspects of the curriculum through Irish.

The percentage of pupils attaining mastery of ‘general comprehension of speech’ in Gaeltacht schools has dropped from 96.3pc in 1985 to 73.3pc in 2002.

The main bright spot for the language is the Gaelscoileanna where the number of schools and pupils has increased substantially. There are now 127 primary Gaelscoileanna in the Republic and standards have remained high, with more than 90pc achieving mastery in the main listening and speaking objectives.

However, even these pupils have a marked tendency to reproduce linguistic errors in speech and written activities, despite exposure to quality listening exercises.

Significantly, the success of the all-Irish schools is not dependent on factors such as the social background of the pupils, the level of education reached by their parents or the use of Irish in the family home.

The study was carried out before the new curriculum - with its emphasis on the communicative approach - kicked in fully, and the impact of the change is not yet known.

Education Minister Mary Hanafin recently announced a package of measures to help the language, including 30 extra language experts, more courses for teachers and fun Irish summer camps.

The study began when Dr John Harris was with the Institiuid Teangeolaiochta Eireann, which has since closed. He is now working in Trinity College Dublin. The report says there has been a general feeling of disillusionment among many teachers for some time now, a feeling that they were carrying a disproportionate share of society’s responsibility for the Irish language.

The fact that during this period the growth of all-Irish schools began to overshadow the traditional achievements of ordinary schools may also have taken its a toll on morale.

Dr Harris recommends a strong national plan of action and the establishment of a high-level group within the Department to co-ordinate and implement a new plan for Irish.

John Walshe

BBC

Nationalists in west Belfast are to challenge the Parades Commission’s decision to allow a limited Orange Order parade through their area.

Clonard residents are seeking a judicial review of the commission’s ruling on Saturday’s Whiterock parade.

The commission has said one lodge would be allowed onto the nationalist Springfield Road with the main parade re-routed via a former factory site.

The Order has said it would abide by the commission’s restrictions.

On Thursday, organisers of the parade from the Orange Order’s number nine district recommended a reduction in the number of Orangemen who would take part in the march.

This recommendation was later “overwhelmingly but reluctantly” backed by at a full district meeting.

Belfast DUP councillor William Humphrey said he hoped the parade would pass off peacefully.

“The district master and his colleagues have put in a plan to ensure that the parade we will have on Saturday will be a peaceful parade, will be a dignified parade,” he said.

“And it will be a parade that will ensure that the passage of the brethren along the Springfield Road returning to west Belfast Orange hall where they started out, that will bring honour to the tradition we are all proud to be a member of.”

Review

Earlier this week, the Parades Commission turned down a request from Sinn Fein to review its ruling on the march, which last year saw serious rioting.

The commission said there was no new evidence to look at.

The cost of policing the Whiterock parade last year and subsequent rioting in a number of loyalist areas was estimated at £3m by the PSNI.

Police officers were attacked with petrol bombs and blast bombs, as well as live rounds during the trouble.

Last year the Orange Order delayed the parade until September in protest after the commission re-routed the entire parade through the former Mackies factory site instead of allowing it through Workman Avenue.

The government-appointed Parades Commission was set up in 1997 to make decisions on whether controversial parades should be restricted.

www.michaelmckevitt.com

Via group post by Artybhoy to Saoirse Na hÉireann

‘Michael McKevitt is a political hostage framed by MI5 with the assistance of the FBI and senior members of the Irish Gardai.

Michael was sentenced to 20 years and has been incarcerated in Portlaoise Prison for almost six years now.

The purpose of this Website and ‘The Framing of Michael McKevitt’ booklet is to highlight the injustice done to Michael and his family and to launch a campaign on Michael’s behalf.

The Framing of Michael McKevitt

The Framing of Michael McKevitt written by Marcella Sands, sister-in-law of Michael and sister of Bobby Sands, outlines the gratuitous suffering imposed on the McKevitt family culminating in the framing of Michael.

It also raises serious questions about the activities of MI5 in Ireland, Senior Garda collusion and a judiciary swayed by political rather than legal argument.’

An Phoblacht

West Belfast Sinn Féin Assembly member Fra McCann has said that people in the Springfield Road area are angry at the role played by senior SDLP member Joe Hendron in the decision to force the Orange Order parade through their community this weekend.

“Over the course of recent days I have met with many people throughout West Belfast, but particularly in the Springfield Road area, angered at the role played in the Parades Commission decision to force the Orange Order through the local nationalist community by senior SDLP member Joe Hendron.

“Joe Hendron is the most senior SDLP figure in West Belfast. He is a former MP, Assembly member and Councillor for this constituency. He is also a member of the Parades Commission who have decided to once again ride roughshod over the rights of the nationalist community in West Belfast.

“SDLP claims to oppose the Parades Commission determination ring hollow when faced with the fact that one of their most senior party figures was directly involved in making it.”

Guardian

Owen Bowcott, Ireland correspondent
Friday June 23, 2006

Ireland has publicly acknowledged its British military past by issuing a stamp commemorating, for the first time, those who died during the battle of the Somme in 1916.

Next week the Irish government will break fresh ground by staging a state ceremony at the Islandbridge war memorial in Dublin to remember the thousands of Irish soldiers and those from the Ulster Division who perished in one of the bloodiest engagements of the first world war.

Article continues
For decades those in the republic who volunteered to serve with British forces during the first and second world wars kept silent about their experiences and received no recognition. Poppies were rarely worn on Remembrance Day.

Public praise was reserved for those who participated in the “blood sacrifice” of the 1916 Easter uprising and the war of independence which led to the withdrawal of British troops and the foundation of the Irish state.

Earlier this spring the Irish government held the first state parade in Dublin for more than 35 years commemorating the uprising.

The ending of Northern Ireland’s Troubles, however, has initiated a period of cross-border reconciliation and renewed interest in those Irish men and women whose military service was sidelined by republican versions of history.

The 75 cent Irish stamp shows a painting, entitled The Battle of the Somme - Attack of the Ulster Division.

Both the 36th (Ulster) Division and the 16th (Irish) Division took part in the battle. Politicians hoped the common experience of unionists and nationalists fighting alongside one another would heal rifts at home. Many volunteered for service in the belief that it would force the London government to grant home rule.

Guardian

Owen Bowcott, Ireland correspondent
Friday June 23, 2006

The grand secretary of the Orange Order wants to promote the institution’s annual parades, which have often descended into sectarian violence, as tourist attractions rivalling the Notting Hill carnival in London. Drew Nelson envisages the marching season as a cultural celebration of one of the United Kingdom’s “ethnic minorities” - Northern Ireland’s protestants.

His long-term project is to rebrand the bowler hat and pipe band ceremonies seen often as ritualised territorial claims. A more immediate challenge looms tomorrow when the annual Whiterock parade skirts through the edge of republican west Belfast. The parades commission has offered a compromise, allowing 50 Orangemen to detach from the main parade and march along the most contentious section of the route.

The influence of the Co Down solicitor, Mr Nelson, is already apparent. The Orange Order has held an unprecedented series of meetings this year to ease tensions between communities venting anger over disputed marching routes.

Officials for the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland have met the Irish government in Dublin, the Catholic Primate, Archbishop Sean Brady, in Armagh and the nationalist Social Democratic and Labour party. The overtures signal a recognition that, after years of confrontation over the Drumcree parade in Portadown and the loyalist paramilitary violence unleashed following last year’s Whiterock parade in Belfast, the order needs to rethink its tactics.

But the SDLP is cautious about the Orange Order’s approaches. “We would like to see a carnival atmosphere too,” said a party official, “but it’s difficult when one community has victims from past paramilitary attacks.” Having severed its formal links with the Ulster Unionist party, there are signs that the Orange Order - estimated to have between 30,000 and 50,000 members - is considering adopting a less overtly political position. One of the order’s most persistent internal critics, the Reverend Brian Kennaway, has accused it of allowing itself to be used as a “battering ram” against the 1998 Good Friday agreement.

Mr Nelson’s aim is to replace the parades commission, which the order refuses to meet, with a body responsible for all events on public highways. There is an acceptance that some form of regulation is required. “I would like to see the Twelfth of July [commemorating William III’s 1690 victory at the battle of the Boyne] become a tourist attraction,” says Mr Nelson, who was once a UUP parliamentary candidate. “It’s one of the most colourful spectacles.

“Only the Notting Hill carnival can beat it in the British Isles. Notting Hill has overcome its problems of drugs, [policing and] deaths. We can overcome our problems.”

Mr Nelson admits the order does not have control over the membership of loyalist bands which are hired in for parades, but says it is developing codes of conduct. “Paramilitary activity is incompatible with membership of the Orange Order,” Mr Nelson insists before adding: “We can’t always tell who are [paramilitary] members. There’s moral ambiguity in all these things throughout Northern Ireland.”

An Phoblacht

Mickey Devine

The twelfth man to join the 1981 Hunger Strike was Mickey Devine from Derry. He was the third INLA member to join the 1981 Hunger Strike and had assumed the role of INLA O/C in the Blocks after his friend and comrade, Patsy O’Hara, commenced his hunger strike and he continued in this position even when on the protest himself.

Photo: 1981 Hunger Strike: Mickey Devine from Derry

Mickey was born on 26 May 1954 into the slum that was Spring Town Camp on the outskirts of Derry, a former US military base in the second world war. The sectarian Derry council of the time used it to house impoverished nationalist families in the most appalling of conditions. Mickey Devine’s sister Margaret recalled that the huts were ok during the summer but leaked during the winter. One of Mickey’s earliest memories was lying in bed with a stack of coats over him to protect him from the rain.

Perhaps a sign of the single-mindedness and determination of his character was that he supported Glasgow Rangers throughout his youth, a difficult course of action for anyone growing up in nationalist Derry.

Devine was present at the Bloody Sunday massacre in Derry in February 1972 and it had a profound effect on him. He said at the time, “I will never forget standing in the Creggan chapel staring at the brown wooden boxes. We mourned and Ireland mourned with us.”

Micky was assaulted by the RUC on two occasions in 1969, around the same time as the infamous assault on civil rights campaigners at Burntollet. He joined the Stickies in 1971 and people who remember him from that time recall an able soldier who was ‘game for anything’. Increasingly disillusioned with the Sticks, he defected to the INLA in 1974 and was a founding member of that group in Derry city.

Devine fought the brave fight despite the overwhelming odds arrayed against his fledgling organisation. He was eventually captured after an arms raid in Donegal. He made it back to Derry only to be captured and eventually, on 20 June 1977, sentenced to 12 years imprisonment. Devine immediately joined the blanket protest and 22 June 1981 he went on hunger strike.

It is an indication of the principled and committed nature of Mickey Devine that at the commencement of his hunger strike in 1981 he had only 13 months of his sentence remaining.

CAIN - Hunger Strike 1981 - Chronology

Click to view
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Monday 22 June 1981
Michael Devine, then an Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) prisoner, joined the hunger strike.
______________________________________________

Irish Hunger Strike 1981 Website

Mickey Devine Joins Hunger Strike

22 June 1981

‘TWENTY-seven-year-old Micky Devine, from the Creggan in Derry city, was the third INLA Volunteer to join the H-Block hunger strike to the death.’

Read Mickey’s biography >>>here

_________________

IRSM

Fallen Comrades of the IRSM - Michael Devine

‘Michael James Devine was born on 26th May 1954 in Springtown, just outside of Derry city. He grew up in the Creggan area of Derry, where he was raised by his sister Margaret and her husband after both parents died unexpectedly when he was age 11.

Mickey was witness to the civil rights marches of the late 1960s in Derry in which civilians were often brutally attacked and the trauma of Bloody Sunday. In fact, Mickey himself was hospitalised twice because of police brutality. In the early 70s, Mickey joined the Labour Party and the Young Socialists. Then in 1975, Mickey helped form the INLA.’

>>Read on

_____________________________

Daily Ireland

By Eamonn Houston

Two former republican prisoners who took part in the Long Kesh hunger strikes last night described Monsignor Denis Faul as a man of complex character whose legacy will endure.
Tommy McKearney spent 53 days on the first hunger strike protest in 1980 and Lawrence McKeown was taken off the second fast the following year after 70 days.
As the British government dug in its heels over the prisoners’ demands, Monsignor Faul sought to end the hunger strike by persuading the prisoners’ families to intervene.
On July 28, 1981, as Kevin Lynch approached the 69th day of his fast, Fr Faul met some of the prisoners’ families.
He told them he believed British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher would not make any further concessions and that nothing could be gained by more deaths.
In earlier years his role as chaplain in Long Kesh won him the respect of prisoners and their families. As the authorities in the North clamped down on republicans with internment and brutality, Monsignor Faul was outspoken in his criticism.
However, for republican prisoners Monsignor Faul’s intervention in the 1981 hunger strike was viewed as a betrayal.
Mr McKearney knew Monsignor Faul all of his life and was taught by him at St Patrick’s Academy, Dungannon.
He said that republicans should take a balanced view of Monsignor Faul’s role in Long Kesh and his human rights campaigning in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s.
“I don’t think that we should see him purely as a critic of the IRA and republicans,” Mr McKearney said.
“There was another side to him. He campaigned very staunchly for human rights for republicans on a huge number of occasions. We need to take a look at both sides - not just the one.”
Lawrence McKeown remembers Monsignor Faul smuggling cigarettes, tobacco and pens to prisoners on the H-Blocks. He would also keep the prisoners up-to-date with football scores and developments outside the prison, but things changed.
“I do think that the steps he took to intervene in the hunger strike were totally reprehensible in the extent to which he went to manipulate the families of those on the fast.”
It was also significant, according to McKeown, that in later years Monsignor Faul became a vocal opponent of republicanism.
“He was a bit of a conundrum. He had a flawed side of his character, but we can’t take it away from him - in the 1970s he took a forthright stand on torture and brutality. The community looked to him in the 1970s, but didn’t in the 1980s.”