SAOIRSE32

7 December 2007
Derry Journal

A woman who claims she was cured of Multiple Sclerosis after visiting the holy shrine at Knock, will visit the Long Tower Church on Sunday night.

Marion Carroll

Marion Carroll thought she was nearing the end of her life when friends took her to the shrine in 1989. But after sitting under the statue of Our Lady in Knock she says she heard a whispery breeze which told her to get up.

She stepped free from her wheelchair that day, dumbfounding medics. She is now considered completely cured of her illness.

Marion now claims she has been blessed with the gift of healing and travels Ireland sharing her story with people in need of healing. By 1989 Marion Carroll had spent 17 years fighting MS and was paralysed from the waist down.

“I was doubly incontinent,” Marion told the ‘Journal.’ “I was paralysed from the waist down, blind in one eye, and had only partial sight in the other eye.

“My speech was badly affected and I could barely eat.

“Friends decided to take me to Knock. I didn’t really want to go. Although I’d always liked praying and trusted God to do what was right, I knew I was nearing the end of my life and a trip to Knock wasn’t really on the cards.

“I believe now that God and our Lady had it all planned out for me that day.

“During the anointing of the sick I felt only what I can describe as a ‘whispery breeze.’ A voice told me to get up and walk. At first I didn’t listen but then I felt the urge to get up.”

When Mass was over, Marion stepped, free of pain, from her chair - and walked.

“I felt a great sense of peace that day,” said Marion.

“I had been cured.”

In 1991 Marion had another remarkable experience when she visited Medjugorje, another Marian apparition site.

Since that time, she has acquired the ability to help in the healing of others.

“I had an experience with my hands in Medjugorje,” she said. “At first I told no-one about it, but when people began coming to my house to pray with me I knew I had been given a gift.”

However Marion prefers not to describe herself as a healer.
“No one can heal but Jesus,” she says.

“I present people to Jesus. I like to think I give people the prescription but Jesus is the doctor.”

Marion claims among her many healings the cure of a young man crushed by a tractor and the cure of a woman with a cancerous lump.

Marion will speak as part of the Long Tower Novena at 6 p.m. on Sunday night

Derry Journal

7 December 2007

Four men were still being questioned by police last night after they were arrested as part of the investigation in to the shooting of an off-duty police officer in Bishop Street last month.
The arrests were made in a number of areas of the city yesterday and searches were also carried out at a number of houses and police took a number of items away for further examination, including a car. It is believed that leading dissident republican, Gary Donnelly, is one of those arrested.

The four men were taken to the serious crime suite at Antrim PSNI station where a police spokesperson said they were being questioned in connection with “serious terrorist crime.”

The arrests are part of the ongoing investigation into the shooting of 43 year-old PSNI officer Jim Doherty on 8th November. Mr. Doherty was shot minutes after he left child to school in Bishop Street. The Real IRA later claimed responsibility for the shooting.

BBC

Fianna Fail has registered as a political party in Northern Ireland, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has revealed.

Mr Ahern said NI’s Electoral Commission had confirmed that the party was now officially registered there.

Speaking at a party dinner in Dublin, he said his party was consulting its grassroots on the possibility of organising in Northern Ireland.

He said it was a historic step in the development of the party on an all-Ireland basis.

Two newly-formed Northern Ireland branches of Fianna Fail, at Queen’s University, Belfast and the University of Ulster, were also welcomed into the the party by Mr Ahern.

BBC

One of the two clergymen who witnessed the IRA’s arms decommissioning is to receive a prestigious peace award.

Rev Harold Good is the third Irish winner

The World Methodist Peace Award is to be presented to the Rev Harold Good at a ceremony and celebration in Knock Methodist Church, Belfast.

Previous winners of the award include UN Secretary Kofi Annan, President Jimmy Carter and Nelson Mandela.

Two years ago, Rev Good and Fr Alex Reid were independent witnesses when the IRA destroyed their weapons cache.

A former president of the Methodist Church in Ireland, Rev Good said: “So many people across this community have made major contributions to our peace process - some are well known and others may never be known.

“I see myself like the captain of a team who will receive this award on behalf of all who have striven for this peace.”

The 70-year-old clergyman is the third Irish winner in the 30 years since the award was launched.

Today is the anniversary of the death of John Lennon

If you had the luck of the Irish
You’d be sorry and wish you were dead
You should have the luck of the Irish
And you’d wish you was English instead!

A thousand years of torture and hunger
Drove the people away from their land
A land full of beauty and wonder
Was raped by the British brigands
God damn! God damn!

If you could keep voices like flowers
There’d be shamrock all over the world
If you could drink dreams like Irish streams
Then the world would be high as the mountain of mourne

In the ‘Pool they told us the story
How the English divided the land
Of the pain, the death and the glory
And the poets of auld Eireland

If we could make chains with the morning dew
The world would be like Galway Bay
Let’s walk over rainbows like leprechauns
The world would be one big Blarney stone

Why the hell are the English there anyway?
As they kill with God on their side
Blame it all on the kids the IRA
As the bastards commit genocide
Aye, aye.. genocide

If you had the luck of the Irish
You’d be sorry and wish you was dead
You should have the luck of the Irish
And you’d wish you was English instead
Yes you’d wish you was English instead

–John Lennon 1940 - 1980

From The Plough Vol. 4
theplough.net

In many of our activities as a Party we in the IRSP are often asked, occasionally in a hostile manner, but more often in a resigned but curious way,

“So What’s your Alternative to the Good Friday Agreement?”

Often as not the question is posed by supporters of the Provisionals or by ex members of that movement who simply walked away in disgust at the direction their movement had taken. It is a genuine question. It is one that requires a serious answer. And it is not a question to be answered in pubs and social clubs as former ex combatants reminisce over a few pints and ask where did it all go wrong? That’s when the mixing can be begin and as the drink flows in so does the wit flow out.

Those who now are in the ascendancy – those who now walk the corridors of power when once they walked the streets in protest, can feel secure in the knowledge that there is no serious opposition to their hegemony.

The Administration At Stormont (TASS) has no serious parliamentary opposition. The pathetic little Alliance party is desperately trying to get the Ulster Unionist Party to give up the fruits of office and join them in opposition. But any opposition based on the Alliance or unionist perspectives would be a false opposition because they all fundamentally accept the prevailing economic policies pushed by the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the USA Government.

Of course there will be minor differences within TASS. The two main nationalist Parties PSF and SDLP will place more emphasis on “social justice” and “equality” while the unionist parties will emphasise issues such as “law and order” and “economic stability” and “prudence.” When elections loom both sides will then revert to banging the big drum of nationalism of unionism to stroke up the sectarian flames and bring out their voters.

It is also most unlikely that a coherent electoral opposition could be established before the next elections to create a new TAAS. Any such opposition would have to be built on clear opposition to the economic and social policies of the current TASS. It would have to be socialist, have some prospects of success to generate support and have no illusions that there really is a parliamentary road to socialism. No organisation now existing would seem to have these credentials. Nor would there necessarily be agreement that such credentials would be essential. In other words all those on the left would soon find reasons to fall out with each other and denounce the SWP/SP/CPI/ etc as traitors to the class struggle.

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