SAOIRSE32

Since I began posting the news of the North of Ireland five years ago, I have had the good fortune to be able to use as illustration and edification, the wonderful mural photography of CRAZYFENIAN. His work has been exhibited at three different places on the net, but if you go back and read many of the stories, the links for Crazyfenian will not work as they should because Danny Morrison closed his photo gallery without warning, and my coppermine gallery at Galacnet is on again, off again at times. You are in luck, however, because Crazyfenian’s photo albums at Webshots are intact.

Click on the thumbnail to be taken to Webshots. Look for the album link to view all photos and captions.

An Phoblacht

**For the story of Jummy Quigley, please see ‘Volunteer Jimmy Quigley’ from an October 2005 post. There is also a mural photo by CRAZYFENIAN.

A NEW DVD celebrating the lives and contribution to the struggle of three IRA Volunteers from the greater Ballymurphy area of West Belfast is to be released this coming Sunday, 18 May, after a commemorative parade.
Jimmy Quigley and Eddie ‘Mundo’ O’Rawe were both killed by the British Army while on active service in the early 1970s; the third man to be remembered, James ‘Spotter’ Murphy, died of natural causes in 1986.
Spotter, an uncle of Eddie O’Rawe, was no stranger to active service as he was active in the IRA’s campaign in England at the beginning of the 1970s.
He was involved with one of the IRA’s most successful units (which was captured at Balcombe Street) and was himself imprisoned for a number of years.
Of the other Volunteers, Jimmy Quigley was 17 when he was shot dead in 1972 while Mundo was 28 when he died.
The British Army killed him while unarmed as he tried to make good his escape from a safe house in Garnett Street in the Lower Falls.
Both Volunteers were active in D Company even though their family homes were in the Ballymurphy area.
The DVD tells the story of all three men with family, friends and comrades recounting details of the men’s lives and experiences of growing up in a sectarian state.
The DVD will serve great use as cumainn and other republican groupings will be able to use the film as an educational tool because of the historical footage and information contained in it.
One of those interviewed is the late Brendan ‘The Dark’ Hughes and in a moment of great clarity he said that people talk about the shoot-to-kill policy as if it only came about in the 1980s.
“The British Government introduced its shoot-to-kill in 1970 during the Falls Curfew,” The Dark said, referring to the time in July 1970 when the British Army curfewed the Falls Road and killed four men: three were shot dead while a fourth was knocked down by a British armoured car.
That period marked the beginning of the British Army’s war on the nationalist people of the North and the DVD, in telling the stories of Jimmy, Mundo and Spotter, tells the story of the courage, dedication and steadfastness of three IRA Volunteers who dared confront the British oppression of their people.

BBC

A Protestant man has fled his home in Derry after receiving death threats from dissident republicans.

The man said he was told by the police last week that his life was in danger.

He recently moved to the city from the Greater Belfast area, and believes he was attacked for being “a Protestant living in a republican area”.

“There’s peace in the country now, but they want to stay wrapped up in their sick and twisted little minds, and keep us all in the past,” he said.

“They can’t come to terms with the fact that this country has moved on.”

The Blanket
Dolours Price • 26 February 2008
**Via Newshound

I cannot get “the Dark” out off my head. The past weeks have been like a bad dream from which one wakes only to find, that rather than a dream, it is a reality to be lived with.

Brendan is gone and on reflection the days we spent mourning him seem all too short. I still mourn him as do his close friends and comrades and the thousands of people who turned out as he did his last “float” around his beloved area.

There is unfinished business and as each day passes I feel the urge to see it finished.

Brendan Hughes was a great and charismatic leader of Oglaigh na hEireann; he was an inspiration and a source of strength and encouragement to those of us who had the privilege to work with him in our struggle against British Rule in Ireland.

There was one other there on the day of his funeral whom I have already written about on “The Blanket” and whom I also cannot get out off my head. Gerry Adams.

As I observed the man and his antics on that day I could not but feel a little pity for him despite my rising anger. He looked sick. Sick, perhaps, because he was ignored by the massed crowd who had turned out for Brendan. This was Brendan’s day and to try to rob him of that was a sad reflection on Gerry.

Just as Brendan once was, I too was a friend and comrade to Gerry Adams. No longer, yet looking at his lonely figure, clearly uneasy at the occasion, did bring a pang of sympathy to me for the man and the place in which he has put himself.

His ego has taken him to believe himself above the common people, he has set himself aside from numerous former comrades and must feel the burden of his present life, which is a lie.

How proud Brendan had been as commanding officer of “The Dogs”, how willingly did he accept responsibility after responsibility within the Republican Movement. Always proud to serve “the Cause”. There is little need to reiterate the fact that Brendan abhorred the direction Gerry Adams took the Movement.

Many of us shared that abhorrence, but Brendan was singled out for particularly harsh treatment for his non-conformity. He was ostracized, castigated and maligned. All of this contributed to his ill-health.

Gerry Adams knows who, and what he, himself, was during “the Long War”. Let him unburden himself before it is done for him. What Brendan saw as a noble thing, Gerry Adams denies. It is time for Truth. Let it come from his own lips rather than mine. I too, like Brendan, was a proud Volunteer in Oglaigh na hEireann, an honour I hold dear.

Brendan has gone from this physical life but there are those of us who will carry on where he left off. We will be his litigants, his constant voice on this earth.

Newshound
(by Suzanne Breen, Sunday Tribune)

The Real IRA has warned of further attacks on the security forces after the attempted murder of a police officer in Co Tyrone with an under-car bomb last week.

The dissident organisation said the attack showed the seriousness of its intention to kill “members of the crown forces”. It claimed its capacity to do so would be demonstrated in further attacks.

The Real IRA leadership told the Sunday Tribune that semtex had been used in the bomb which was planted under the car of Ryan Crozier, 27, a Catholic recruit to the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI).

Crozier sustained serious leg and back injuries in the explosion in the village of Spamount, just outside Castlederg. His life was saved when two local men dragged him from his burning car last Monday.

The under-car booby trap bomb played a pivotal role in the Provisional IRA’s campaign, accounting for multiple deaths and injuries. The device hasn’t been used by republicans in the North for six years.

The PSNI said security for officers is now under review. In a statement claiming responsibility for the bomb attack, the Real IRA said: “We reserve the right to strike against organs of the British state and its infrastructure in a manner of our choosing, at a time and place of our choosing, in the six counties and elsewhere. As we continue to strengthen our military capacity, this will be demonstrated.”

While the Real IRA lacks the ability to mount a sustained campaign, this is its third attempt to kill police in the North in the past six months. An officer narrowly escaped death in a gun attack in Derry in November. Another officer was injured in Dungannon days later.

Crozier, who comes from a well-known Co Tyrone family, is a keen GAA supporter. He has vowed to return to work. He was driving to Enniskillen police station to start a shift when the device exploded.

PSNI Assistant Chief Constable, Judith Gillespie, said: “I shudder to think what could have happened had he not been helped to safety because the car is absolutely gutted.”

She said police had been expecting dissident republican attacks.

“We have been warning for some time that the capacity for dissident attacks on the police and on business premises exists. We are concerned but we do not want a return to policing from behind barriers. We will not be deterred from providing a proper police service to all the community.

“We always advise our officers to take sensible precautions when off-duty. We will be discussing the implications of this attack at the top level of the PSNI and with the Policing Federation.”

The North’s Deputy First Minister, Martin McGuinness, who visited Crozier in hospital, denounced republican dissidents. “The elements within our society who perpetrated this act have nothing to offer, they are without mandate or strategy and represent no-one,” he said.

May 19, 2008
________________

This article appeared in the May 18, 2008 edition of the Sunday Tribune.

BBC

A man and a woman arrested in relation to the attempted murder of an off-duty policeman in County Tyrone have been released pending further inquiries.

The pair were arrested on Friday night over the attack near Castlederg.

Four men arrested at different locations in County Tyrone on Thursday morning are still being held, a police spokesman said.

The officer sustained leg injuries after a booby-trap bomb exploded in his car in Spamount last Monday.

Dissident republicans have been blamed for the attack.

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Date: 16 Bealtaine / May 2008

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In this issue:

1. Republican SF calls for No vote
2. British occupation is the crime
3. Irish and Cypriot jail experience recalled
4. UVF-linked band gets lotto and Ulster-Scots body cash
5. Bobby Sands film gets first showing at Cannes
6. Amnesty calls on 26 Counties to accept exonerated Guantánamo detainees
7. People not being told truth about text, says Alliance
8. Protesters removed from Hill of Tara
9. Scottish Insurrection remembered
10. Glasgow RSF on May Day march

1. REPUBLICAN SF CALLS FOR NO VOTE

REPUBLICAN Sinn Féin on May 14 called for a No vote in the Lisbon referendum “to defend sovereignty, neutrality and democracy”.

Speaking at a press conference launching Republican Sinn Féin’s campaign against the Lisbon Treaty/EU Constitution Ruairí Ó Brádaigh said the issue at stake was not EU membership, as claimed by the Yes campaign. It was about the movement of power towards the centre in Brussels and the tightening of the EU grip.

In a statement Ruairí Ó Brádaigh said:

“Republican Sinn Féin calls for a NO vote to defend sovereignty, neutrality and democracy and defeat the Lisbon Treaty in the coming referendum on June 12.

“Those supporting Lisbon have freely admitted that it is 95% - 96% the proposed EU Constitution which was rejected by the people of France and Holland in referenda in 2005. Lisbon is the EU Constitution by the back door in that it would constitute or establish a new European Union in the form of a supranational Federal State.

Qualified Majority Rule

“Lisbon is also a power-grab by the EU s Big States, Germany, France, Britain and Italy. By making EU law-making mainly dependent on population size, it would increase the relative weight of the Big States in making EU laws in future and reduce that of smaller States like the 26 Counties.

Sovereignty

“Under Lisbon more than 50 policy areas will no longer be covered by a member state’s veto. Another clause gives the EU Council of Ministers the right to extend its powers in all areas with the exception of defence.

Neutrality

“The mutual defence clause contained in Lisbon would commit all member states to assist by all means in their power any EU state which is the victim of armed aggression on its territory. This is a significant step towards the full militarisation of the EU. It will be recalled that a Fianna Fáil general election manifesto in recent times guaranteed no participation in the NATO led Partnership for Peace without a referendum. Yet 18 months later the Fianna Fáil-led administration brazenly brought the State into that Partnership for Peace without a vote of the electorate. Neutrality is being steadily eroded.”

Democracy

“The non-elected EU Commission holds the power to initiate legislation. Under Lisbon the 26-County State will lose its commissioner for five out of every 15 years, ie for one-third of the time.
”Lisbon would give the EU Court of Justice the final decision on what our human and civil rights are in a wide range of areas. Already its Laval ruling set the free movement of goods and services as superior to the right of workers to strike. The Lisbon Treaty will further this agenda, placing competition above the rights of the working people.

“The issue at stake here is the Lisbon Treaty, the movement of power towards the centre in Brussels and the tightening of the EU grip, NOT the question of EU membership. If Lisbon is defeated, life will go on as before as happened when France and Holland rejected the proposed constitution and the whole matter will have to be reconsidered. In fact this State could give a lead to the other peoples of Europe to demand their own referenda in turn, thus increasing democratic accountability.

“Voting NO to the Lisbon Treaty/EU Constitution is opposing the creation of an undemocratic superstate, increased militarisation, the erosion of neutrality, the privatisation of public services and unfettered capitalism. We want a more democratic, not a less democratic Europe, a Europe of peoples.”

2. BRITISH OCCUPATION IS THE CRIME

ON May 15 a spokesperson for Republican Sinn Féin condemned the ending of automatic 50% remission for prisoners within the Six Occupied Counties. Richard Walsh, RSF Director of Publicity, added that British occupation was the greatest crime being committed in Ireland.

“A foreign military power does not and cannot have the right to incarcerate people on Irish soil,” he said. “And the fact that many people have been jailed by the English for opposing the illegal occupation of our country is especially abhorrent.

“Those sentenced to ten years’ or longer imprisonment will have to serve the entirety of the British-imposed sentence before being considered for parole. This means that these sentences are effectively being doubled. Automatic fifty percent remission has also been cast aside for the remainder of prisoners.

“It should always be remembered that it is the occupation of Ireland by a foreign enemy which remains the greatest crime being perpetrated against the Irish people.”

3. IRISH AND CYPRIOT JAIL EXPERIENCE RECALLED

A LITTLE-known chapter of recent Irish history was recalled on May 10 with the launch of a book on Irish Republicans and Cypriots who were imprisoned together in British jails in the late 1950s.

The book, Cypriot and Irish Political Prisoners by Vias Livadas, published by Power Publishing of Nicosia, shows how Irish Republicans and Cypriot EOKA guerrillas developed close links in British prisons such as Wormwood Scrubs and Wakefield Prison.

Speaking at a reception in the Pearse Centre in Dublin, former family home of 1916 leader Pádraig Pearse, the journalist and historian Tim Pat Coogan noted that Ireland and Cyprus were both subjected to partition.

But whereas Ireland historically had to deal with only one major power, “Cyprus is tossed like a cork in a storm set off by many cyclones.”

Vias Livadas said the Irish and Cypriot prisoners were jointly known as “the rebellious team” and that their “permanent goal” was escape. Among the Irish contingent were well-known Republicans such as Séamus Murphy, who famously escaped from Wakefield prison in 1959, Manus Canning, Donal Murphy, the late Cathal Goulding, Seán Mac Stiofáin, Séamus McCollum and Joe Doyle.

Among the attendance were Cypriot Ambassador to Ireland, Sotos Liassides; Prof Frixos Joannides, formerly of University College Dublin; Séamus Murphy, Manus Canning, Eamon Boyce, Cathal Óg Goulding, son of the late Cathal Goulding; Máire Mhic Stiofáin, widow of Seán Mac Stiofáin; ex-Eoka member Renos Kyriakides and former Sinn Féin abstentionist TD for Mid-Ulster, Tom Mitchell. Republican Sinn Féin Vice Presidents Cathleen Knowles McGuirk and Des Dalton as well as Ard Chomhairle member Des Long, Limerick also attended.

The ceremony was chaired by veteran Republican Charley Murphy.

(more…)

Independent.ie
By Arifa Akbar
Friday May 16 2008

A controversial film documenting the final weeks of IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands has been defended by its makers at the Cannes Film Festival as a useful insight into the mindset of suicide bombers.

British director Steve McQueen poses during a photocall for his film ‘Hunger’ at the 61st Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, southern France Credit: ANNE-CHRISTINE POUJOULAT/AFP/Getty Images

‘Hunger’, a 96-minute film by Steve McQueen, tells the tale of Sands, who died on hunger strike at Maze prison. The film has drawn criticism for creating a hero out of a terrorist.

But Jan Younghusband, executive producer of the film, said the harrowing story merely exposed the mentality of someone ready to die for a cause, such as the London suicide bombers.

“You look at suicide bombers and wonder what it is that drives them to kill themselves in their attempt to make the world better. This is a very contemporary issue, destroying your body for something you believe in,” she said.

“We look at terrorists and we think ‘aren’t they horrible, they are blowing us up’. But we have to ask ‘What is our role in that?’ We are not without responsibility.”

The gritty drama, the directorial debut for Turner-Prize-winning artist McQueen, focuses on the last six weeks of Sands’ life. Jailed for possessing a gun, he became an icon in the Republican movement when he died in 1981 at the age of 27 after 66 days on hunger strike — a protest at prisoners losing their political status.

Sands became an MP 25 days before he died; his death prompted several days of riots in nationalist areas of Northern Ireland and drew 100,000 people to his funeral.

Some have suggested the film’s release is likely to rekindle bitter feelings in Belfast. Sands’ family have been invited to see the film but have declined the offer of a personal screening.

McQueen, whose recent work includes a series of postage stamps bearing the faces of dead soldiers who had served in Iraq, said: “The body as site of political warfare is becoming a more familiar phenomenon. It is the final act of desperation; your own body is your last resource for protest.”

The film’s Dublin-born writer, Enda Walsh (best known for ‘Disco Pigs’) spent several weeks interviewing Sand’s fellow prisoners and prison guards.

Its makers say the story draws a parallel between IRA prisoners in the Maze, and those currently in Abu Ghraib prison and Guantanamo Bay.

- Arifa Akbar

Irish News
BY Staff reporter
17/05/08

A civil action against five men blamed for the 1998 Omagh bombing is expected to extend into the autumn.

An extra week of hearings is being planned in Dublin in an effort to complete all evidence from Garda witnesses, it emerged yesterday.

The multi-million-pound compensation case had been expected to end before the High Court in Belfast goes into recess at the end of June, with judgment delivered later.

But Mr Justice Morgan had been told it was unlikely that this schedule would be met.

With neither side asking him to take the unusual step of sitting during the summer, the judge said hearings would resume in September.

It is understood it could then take some weeks to finalise submissions.

Relatives of some of the 29 people, including a woman pregnant with twins, killed in the Real IRA atrocity are suing Michael McKevitt, Liam Campbell, Seamus McKenna, Colm Murphy and Seamus Daly for damages. All five deny liability.

The trial, which has been running since April 7, returned to Belfast after a week in Dublin.

Plans to resume hearing evidence from Garda witnesses over three days at Dublin’s Four Courts later this month were already in place.

However, that session is expected to be dominated by the cross-examination of gardai by Murphy’s legal team.

Mr Justice Morgan said arrangements would be made with the authorities in Dublin to arrange another suitable week in June.

The case was adjourned.

Henry McDonald
The Observer
Sunday May 18 2008

Sensitive information about a former republican prisoner and leading figure in Orange Order marches was on a disk lost by the Rosemary Nelson inquiry. It is understood the man, who was a target in the past for loyalist paramilitaries, has been told of the security breach.

Solicitor Rosemary Nelson died after a bomb was left under her car by the Loyalist Volunteer Force in March 1999. She was targeted because of her work with a number of nationalist residents’ groups opposed to loyalist marches passing through their area. Her family and human rights organisations have long campaigned for a public inquiry into the killing. They have alleged that people in the security forces aided her killers.

In a statement the Rosemary Nelson inquiry team said it deeply regretted ‘the serious breach of secure data handling protocols within the inquiry’.