SAOIRSE32

BBC

A company set up by the Orange Order is receiving almost 250,000 euros in funding from the Irish government.

Orange men in Donegal

The Republic’s first substantial grant to the organisation is being made by the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs.

The minister of the department is Eamon O’Cuiv - grandson of former taoiseach and famous republican Eamon de Valera.

The money will be paid out over the next two years in counties Donegal, Leitrim, Cavan and Monaghan.

It will go to a company, Cadelmo Ltd, set up to support an initiative in the border counties to promote and organise the Orange institution in the Republic.

The funding will support the work of a development officer and will also be available for the repair and refurbishment of Orange halls.

“A number of Orange halls in rural areas have been attacked in recent times, activities I totally deplore, so I am delighted to be in a position to provide funding,” Mr O’Cuiv said.

He added that he hoped the funding would encourage higher levels of participation by Orange Order members in the wider community in the area.

Drew Nelson, grand secretary of the Orange Order, welcomed the funding.

“Our members in the Republic are much more willing now to engage with civic society,” Mr Nelson said.

“Prior to this, I would have noticed that their way of survival for the last three or four generations has been to keep their heads down, don’t put your head above the parapet, don’t engage with the administration in the Republic.

“A change has come about in their attitude - there’s much more confidence.”

BBC
4 Feb 2008

One of four IRA men jailed over the shooting of Garda Jerry McCabe has been released from prison.

Garda Jerry McCabe was killed in Adare, County Limerick, in 1996

Jeremiah Sheehy, who served 12 years, was freed from Castlerea Prison in Counity Roscommon on Monday.

Garda McCabe was shot 14 times during a bungled IRA robbery in Adare, County Limerick, in 1996.

A spokesman for Mr McCabe’s wife, Ann, said the government had shown a lack of courtesy by not contacting her about Sheehy’s release.

“There are enough advisers and spin doctors and I cannot understand why they they couldn’t sent a one-line letter to Mrs McCabe officially informing her of the release,” Pat Carney said.

“The McCabe family is not longer going to allow the release of these criminals to upset it. We have moved on.”

Sinn Fein campaigned for the killers to be released early under the Good Friday Agreement but Mr McCabe’s widow, Ann, vehemently opposed this.

She was supported by the Garda Representative Association.

Sheehy was jailed for his part in the botched post office raid in Adare village in County Limerick during which Mr McCabe was shot and killed and his partner Ben O’Sullivan was seriously injured.

Last year, another member of the gang, Michael O’Neill, was released after serving eight years.

The other members of the gang - Pearse McAuley from Strabane, County Tyrone, and Kevin Walsh from Patrickswell, County Limerick - are still serving sentences of 14 years each for their part in the manslaughter.

In 2004, Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams revealed that Garda McCabe’s killers were to have been released the previous year, as part of a deal to restore Northern Ireland’s power-sharing executive.

Speaking at the time, Mr Adams said: “Release of the Castlerea prisoners was part of an agreed sequence of statements and actions.”