SAOIRSE32

Belfast Telegraph

Dundrod toddler will see next week if the leukaemia he is battling has disappeared

By Nigel Gould
05 August 2006

Ulster prayers will be with miracle tot James Hynes next week as he faces his biggest test since his life-saving treatment in a German hospital.

The brave 13-month-old toddler from Dundrod will have his bone marrow examined to see if the leukaemia he has been battling is eradicated.

To date, though, he has been making a superb recovery since his transplant last month.

And in an interview with the Belfast Telegraph from James’ hospital ward in Tubingen, mum Cathy said: “He is doing very well. He is mad to get walking.

“We have been here seven weeks now and James has come a long a way.

“We are now in our own wee room in the main ward.

“James is still getting radiotherapy and on Monday he will have his first big test when they will look at the bone marrow and see if the leukaemia is still there.”

Before travelling to Germany, James was at death’s door.

Devoted parents Cathy and Jim had been told nothing could be done in Northern Ireland and that their little boy’s only hope was specialist treatment in Germany.

In June, after an appeal for help in the Sunday Life, the Eastern Health Board agreed to fund the £100,000 procedure after it was deemed appropriate by doctors.

Just three days after the transplant, made possible when Cathy donated her bone marrow, little James was showing remarkable signs of recovery.

At the time, dad Jim said: “He really is a wee miracle.

“He has done really well over here. He is in really good form since his bone marrow transplant - more than we could have imagined.

“Everything has gone according to plan. I prayed a year ago for my son to live - everything now is in God’s hands.”

Jim said it was “fantastic” to know they had support from both sides of the community.

“Prayers have been said across the community and we do appreciate that,” he added.

Both Cathy and James’ dad, Jim, thanked everyone who had supported them.

BBC

Irish League champions Linfield FC have launched a new anti-sectarianism campaign in an attempt to attract more families to matches at Windsor Park.

Linfield manager David Jeffrey wants only “true supporters” at ground

The aim is to allow spectators to enjoy games without hearing offensive chants.

The club said all of its staff are backing the “True Blues” project. Many of its players attended the launch on Saturday afternoon.

Linfield said they wanted to work with fans to create a more vibrant, dynamic and inclusive culture at the club.

“Traditionally, our support has come from the Protestant community, but we should be inclusive and not exclusive,” said team manager David Jeffrey.

“I personally find it offensive if any of my players feel hurt or offended.

“The vast majority of Linfield fans are there to support the team and nothing else.

“But there is a group of people who maybe come to the bigger games. I am not sure you could call them Linfield supporters.

“We are working desperately hard to make sure we can eradicate those people from the ground.

“Legislatively, at the moment, we have some difficulty in just getting them thrown out but we would not hesitate in any shape or form.”

BN.ie

05/08/2006 - 09:50:08

The exact location of the discovery of what has been dubbed ‘Ireland’s Dead Sea Scrolls’ has been revealed by the National Museum of Ireland.

The Psalter, or Book of Psalms was pulled out of a bog in the townland of Faddan More in north Tipperary, where it was first hidden around 1,000 years ago.

The ancient religious manuscript was discovered a fortnight ago when bulldozer driver Eddie Fogarty unearthed it while digging peat.

The area, rich in medieval history, has turned up several ancient artefacts in the past and a number of monastic sites have been found nearby.

Archaeologists and conservators from the National Museum spent the last seven days excavating the bog and recovered a few other important pieces.

A fine leather pouch in which the book was kept originally was discovered as well as other small fragments of the manuscript and its cover.

The museum said the investigation results suggest that the owner concealed the book deliberately, perhaps with a view to recovering it at a later date.

All the new material is being conserved and analysed in the National Museum and samples of the peat surrounding the find spot have been sent for specialist analysis.

The extensive fragments of the manuscript appear to be of an Irish Early Christian Psalter, written on vellum. Initial examinations show there are about 45 letters per line and a maximum of 40 lines per page.

Days after the find, tales of Biblical prophecies coming to pass were fabled around the world.

One piece of the manuscript which was legible was Psalm 83 and its supposed reference to “the wiping of Israel from the map”.

But in a bid to dispel fears, the National Museum revealed the psalm referred to the Vale of Tears from Verse 7 of Psalm 83 in the old Latin translation of the Bible, the Vulgate.

In the much later King James version the numbering of the psalms is different where Psalm 83 refers to Israel.

The area around Faddan More Bog is rich in medieval history. Monastic foundations such as Lorrha and Terryglass in Co Tipperary and Birr and Seirkieran in Co Offaly are located nearby.

The bog is owned by local brothers Kevin and Patrick Leonard. A leather satchel was found in the same bog six years ago that has been radiocarbon dated to between the seventh and ninth centuries AD. Two ancient wooden vessels were also found in the bog in recent years.

BBC

Police searches in County Down connected to the disappearance of Lisa Dorrian have ended.

Officers searched a number of out-buildings in Kircubbin and a number of items have been taken away for scientific examination.

The 25-year-old was last seen at a party at a caravan site in Ballyhalbert in February of last year.

Despite extensive searches, her body has never been found.

Daily Ireland

Via Newshound

by Ciarán Barnes
03/08/2006

A victims campaigner has branded a meeting he had with secretary of state Peter Hain as a “complete waste of time”.
Raymond McCord Sr was left bitterly disappointed with Tuesday’s get-together. He later accused Mr Hain of “not giving a toss” about the victims of Ulster Volunteer Force violence.
The meeting at Stormont was to discuss the police investigation into the 1997 murder of his son Raymond McCord Jr. The 22-year-old was beaten to death in a quarry on the outskirts of north Belfast by the UVF.
Two of the gang involved in the murder are Special Branch informers. They escaped prosecution over their roles in the killing in return for continuing to provide information about the UVF.
Police Ombudsman Nuala O’Loan is probing the police investigation into the McCord murder. Her report on the case is to be published in the autumn. It is expected to recommend prosecutions against the detectives who gave their UVF touts a licence to kill.
Ulster Unionist Party MP Sylvia Hermon accompanied Raymond McCord Sr during Tuesday’s meeting.
According to Mr McCord, Mr Hain refused to answer questions as to whether the overall leader of the UVF was a police informer.
The same paramilitary boss was named as a police agent in a report on the McCord murder commissioned last year by the human-rights organisation British-Irish Rights Watch.
“The meeting with Peter Hain was a complete waste of time,” Mr McCord told Daily Ireland.
“He wasn’t interested in what I had to say. All he would say is that he couldn’t comment until the ombudsman’s report into young Raymond’s murder is published.
“I asked him straight if the UVF is state-controlled but he brushed off the question.
“Mr Hain needs to realise that 30 people have been murdered by the UVF since it called a supposed ceasefire in 1994 but not one person has been convicted of carrying out any of these killings.
“This is proof, if proof were needed, that the UVF is state-controlled.”
A spokesman for the Northern Ireland Office, which arranged the meeting, said Mr Hain had listened carefully to what Mr McCord had to say.
“He fully understands and supports Mr McCord’s demand that those responsible for the horrific murder of his son, Raymond Jr, be brought to justice,” said the spokesman.
“Mr Hain hopes that the report by the Police Ombudsman Nuala O’Loan and the work of the PSNI Historical Inquiries Team will move the case forward.”

Newshound

(Newton Emerson, Irish News)

Still no official statement from the DUP on last weekend’s loyalist violence. The party has replied to a News Letter article by Peter Hain and also issued a press release on IRA criminality but apparently it has nothing to say about the UDA mob rule which paralysed north Belfast.

This is strange, given that the faction-fighting all took place within the parliamentary patch of Nigel Dodds MP, who had no problem criticising police action against the UDA’s Shoukri brigade when the Alexandra Bar was raided six months ago.

Still no official statement from the Ulster Unionists either. Now that they are allied to the UVF they can hardly intervene in a UDA feud without looking even dumber than they look already. The Shinners have also been tactically taciturn – they can’t call on the state to enforce the rule of law when they don’t ‘recognise’ the state, its forces or its laws. But diverting as it is to ponder the stinking hypocrisy of the sectarian parties, it is purely a distraction.

Local politicians don’t determine policy towards the UDA – their silence merely facilitates those that do. The question we really need to ponder is this: Who has decided to ‘peace-process’ the UDA via managed feuds, selective prosecutions and localised suspension of public order?

No doubt Chief Constable Sir Hugh could provide some useful answers. When last year’s UVF-LVF feud resulted in similar scenes of mob rule in east Belfast, the PSNI claimed that nothing could be done because no complaints had been received from the public. This was a despicable attempt to pass responsibility for its own job on to the very communities it is supposed to be protecting. It was also complete nonsense. The police can always press charges without receiving a complaint and there are plenty of relevant charges available, from unlawful assembly to behaviour likely to lead to a breach of the peace.

As 500 UDA members were able to hold a ’show of strength’ on the Shankill last Saturday without suffering a single arrest, loyalists can safely assume that they are exempt from all such charges if they gather in adequate numbers. Sir Hugh might say that he has insufficient resources to handle things differently – but he has rather conspicuously failed to say anything of the kind.

The Alexandra Bar raid demonstrated that the PSNI is perfectly capable of rounding up an entire UDA faction without sparking off a bloodbath. So why has it only ever rounded up the one UDA faction that has just fallen out with all the others?

Sir Hugh Orde has expressed frustration with the way the courts handle loyalist cases. Is the PSNI receiving its peace-process signals from the Public Prosecution Service? The PPS is responsible for both prosecutions and bail applications.

Until this year it operated a clear revolving door policy towards loyalists, including the Shoukris – until a mysterious foot was suddenly jammed in that door in the case of the Shoukris alone. The director of the PPS is Sir Alasdair Fraser QC, who demonstrated after the Stormontgate fiasco that he sees no reason to explain himself to anyone.

However, Sir Alasdair does answer directly to UK attorney general Lord Goldsmith, who sits in the cabinet. The cabinet is formally advised on Northern Ireland matters by Jonathan Phillips, the NIO permanent secretary and former NIO political director.

Implementation of peace process policy is handled day-to-day at cabinet level by the prime minister’s chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, but because Tony Blair has never held a cabinet vote during his entire term in office, ultimate responsibility for loyalist peace processing goes right to the top. The situation in Dublin is much the same. Irish president Mary McAleese is most strongly associated with southern overtures towards the Jackie McDonald faction of the UDA – but whether or not this was her idea, it is inconceivable that she would pursue it without the taoiseach’s full permission. Bertie Ahern has recently confirmed this by meeting the ‘mainstream’ UDA himself.

Perhaps these establishment figures in London, Dublin and Belfast are correct in their cynical approach – but they must still be held accountable for the consequences. Last year the UDA murdered three people, including one Catholic and one Protestant civilian.

Those victims are unlikely to be its last. Is official policy towards the UDA striking the right balance between overreaction and appeasement?

We would have a much better chance of an answer to that question if our two largest parties could bring themselves to ask it.

August 4, 2006
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This article appeared first in the August 3, 2006 edition of the Irish News.