SAOIRSE32

BBC

The head of the team re-examining unsolved murders during the Troubles has admitted they will need much longer to complete their work.

The Historical Enquiries Team was set up three years ago and given six years to re-examine more than 3,200 deaths.

Director Dave Cox said they had only got as far as 1974 and would need an extra three years.

The HET, which is based in Lisburn and employs 180 people, has used up half of the £34m allocated to it.

The team is looking into the deaths, some of which go back as far as 1968, in chronological order.

Mr Cox said: “I think it unlikely, indeed, that we will have looked at all the cases by the original six-year period.

“I would anticipate there would be an over-run of certainly two, maybe three years.”

Independent.ie
By Anne-Marie Walsh
Wednesday July 23 2008

A TAXI driver who dreamt of honouring the forgotten victims of the Famine has been appointed to a committee to establish a national memorial day.

Michael Blanch will join academics, politicians, famine activists, and a former ambassador to plan an annual day to commemorate the most devastating event in Ireland’s history.

Over a million people died and another million emigrated when the potato blight struck the crop that was the population’s main foodstuff between 1845 and 1849.

The ravages of the Great Hunger also led to mass emigration to Britain and North America for decades afterwards.

Mr Blanch felt the victims of what was one of the worst human disasters of the 19th century had been largely forgotten.

It was a fitting honour yesterday when he was formally appointed to the new National Famine Memorial Committee by a relative of a former Taoiseach.

Eamon de Valera’s grandson and Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, Eamon O Cuiv, paid tribute to the man who “worked hard over the years to promote this concept”.

He admitted he did not expect something on the scale of the 90th commemoration of the 1916 Rising. However, Mr OCuiv said he wanted people to do “something small” on the special day through committees all over the country.

History

“This is a different type of event to 1916 and was the greatest disaster in our history,” said Mr OCuiv.

“If the Famine didn’t happen, there could be 12 million people living in Ireland and eight million could be native Irish speakers.”

The appointment of the committee was the culmination of a journey that had very humble beginnings.

Michael Blanch (57) and his wife Betty were the only people at the first commemoration in Dublin in 2003..

His idea has since grown with yearly processions from Dublin’s Garden of Remembrance to the famine sculptures near the Liffey.

Mr Blanch successfully persuaded the Government to come on board and in May this year the first official reception was held at the Custom House.

“Today is a great day,” said Mr Blanch.

“The victims of the Famine and generations of Irish emigrants will finally be given the respect they deserve.”

- Anne-Marie Walsh

Breaking News.ie
22/07/2008

One of the country’s best known historical writers is among group of experts who will decide how to honour the million people who died in the Great Famine.

Tim Pat Coogan was revealed as part of the National Famine Commemoration Committee set to explore how to mark Famine Memorial Day.

Tim Pat Coogan

The broadcaster and former editor of the Irish Press has penned a number of books on Irish history including biographies on Michael Collins, and his grandfather Eamon De Valera, and the first major work on the Irish Diaspora.

The committee, which held its inaugural meeting today, was established by Community Affairs Minister Eamon O’Cuiv who will chair the group.

“There is nothing else in the history of the Irish people than can be likened to the Great Famine, either for its immediate impact or its legacy,” said Mr O Cuiv.

“The involvement of this committee will help to ensure that the Famine, its victims and its legacy are not forgotten.”

The catastrophic failure of the potato crop in the 1840s led to the death by starvation of one million people while hundreds of thousands emigrated, sparking a worldwide Irish Diaspora.

The devastating natural disaster left a lasting social and political legacy on modern Ireland.

Ireland’s population, which exceeded eight million in the Census of 1841, was reduced by approximately 1.5 million through death and emigration. Only 10 years later, the 1851 Census recorded a population of only 6.5 million.

The Famine resulted in large Irish communities settling in countries like the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand and was also blamed for the decline of the Irish language.

Famine Memorial Day will be the first time the forgotten victims of the Famine are to be remembered in an annual official event.

The event is a major victory for the Dublin-based Committee for the Commemoration of Irish Famine Victims, which has run a lobbying campaign for five years.

Taxi driver Michael Blanch, who set up that committee and held commemorations in the capital since 2003, will have a key role in the Government’s new group.

Other members include Minister of State John Curran, historians Dr Margaret McCurtin, Prof. Gearoid O Tuathaigh, and Dr Eamon Phoenix, Gorta’s Brian Hanratty, Trocaire’s Justin Kilcullen, retired ambassador Hugh Swift, and Dr Majda Bne Saad, a senior lecturer at UCD.

The committee will also include representatives of the Departments of the Taoiseach, Foreign Affairs, and Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs.

Mr O Cuiv – who is a grandson of former Taoiseach and President Eamon De Valera - said the main objective of the committee is to consider the most appropriate arrangement for future national commemorations of the Great Famine.

“The general legacy of emigration, cultural loss and the decline of the Irish language, together with the specific issues of food security and the strong commitment of the Irish people to humanitarian aid and relief, are particular themes that will be explored by the committee during its work,” he added.

“In the context of the Irish Diaspora, it is envisaged that the committee will consider means through which this aspect of the Famine might appropriately be recognised, and the extraordinary contributions of those who emigrated, and of their many descendants abroad, justly celebrated.”

STEVEN McCAFFERY
The Herald
23 July 2008

The Northern Ireland government is unlikely to meet again until the autumn as a result of a stand-off between the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and Sinn Fein.

Critics hit out at the parties after confirmation that an executive meeting set for Thursday was cancelled at short notice, with no further meetings scheduled for the rest of the summer.

Opposition parties blamed the delay on divisions between the two biggest parties.
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The Ulster Unionists and the nationalist SDLP who also have seats on the Assembly’s ruling Executive accused Sinn Fein of exercising a veto on Cabinet meetings until the DUP moves on key issues.

The DUP and Sinn Fein, who are deadlocked over issues including the transfer of policing powers and an Irish language act, denied there was a crisis.

SDLP deputy leader Alasdair McDonnell said: “I am gravely concerned to learn that the Executive meeting planned for Thursday has been shelved and no date has been set for another one.

“This means the Executive will not have met for more than a month while important issues remain on the long finger.

“As the DUP and Sinn Fein squabble, people in Northern Ireland are suffering from a crunch in the economy.”

Leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, Sir Reg Empey, said: “The executive has not met in over a month and will not do so for a further two months, how is this delivering for the people of Northern Ireland?

“A large amount of non-contentious issues are sitting there because Sinn Fein are effectively using their veto.

“This is all connected to the devolution of policing and justice. It is a thing people in Northern Ireland don’t want at the moment and we are being held to ransom by Sinn Fein on this.”

Sinn Fein has said the transfer of policing powers was promised in the St Andrew’s Agreement that paved the way for the power-sharing government, but the DUP has blocked the move until more is known of how any new justice ministry would work.

A Sinn Fein spokesman accused the SDLP of failing to resist unionist intransigence and said: “Sinn Fein make no apology for demanding people’s basic rights and entitlements.”

Republicans said Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness was ready for talks to resolve the dispute.

DUP Junior Minister Jeffrey Donaldson said: “We would refute entirely that the business of government is not being done.”

Breaking News.ie
22/07/2008 - 14:58:41

Republican gunmen who abducted a Northern Ireland man in France and dumped his body must come forward with more information, his sister said today.

Seamus Ruddy, 32, from Newry, Co Down, was teaching English in Paris when he disappeared in May 1985 and his remains have not been found.

He left the political wing of the INLA two years earlier and the guerilla group was blamed for his killing.

A search of a Normandy forest last week failed to find anything.

Mr Ruddy’s sister Anne Morgan said: “We hope that the INLA will go back and talk to its members and find out if anyone else has been to that forest and if so to come back and give us the information.

“It has taken us eight years to get to this point where we have felt the disappointment, eight years of co-operating with the INLA to help get this information.”

She believes her brother was murdered because he had knowledge of arms trafficking routes used by the group but said she refrained from criticising it in the hope of recovering her brother.

“They have obviously taken the word of someone who was leading us all down the garden path literally,” she said in explanation for the failed investigation.

A thorough technical search including forensic experts from the Republic of Ireland and the UK took place in the Rouen region of France organised by the cross-border Independent Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains.

There was a dig in the same area in 2000.

Ms Morgan added: “It is absolutely devastating, it really is.

“The forensic team said it was 97% sure it was going to be successful.”

She said fun-loving Seamus had nine brothers and sisters and although he never married he was close to his family and nephews and nieces.

A spokesman for the Commission said last week’s search was the latest in a series of visits to the site by Commission representatives and experts.

“Work concluded at the weekend and unfortunately, no remains were found,” he added.

“The Ruddy family has been kept fully informed during all stages of the search.

“The Commission has no further information on where Seamus Ruddy may be buried, but the case remains open.”

Information can be passed in confidence to the Commission on 00800 555 85500.

BBC
22 July 2008

The family of one of the Disappeared, Seamus Ruddy, said they are being misled in the search for his body.

It is thought Seamus Ruddy was murdered by the INLA

Mr Ruddy, 32, from Newry, was working as a teacher in Paris when he went missing in 1985. It is believed he was killed by members of the INLA.

The family were told his remains were in a forest in Normandy, but they found nothing.

His sister, Anne Morgan, said the person who gave them the information had “led them up the garden path”.

Representatives from the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims Remains went to Normandy last week accompanied by forensics experts from the UK and the Republic of Ireland.

Investigating

It was the latest in a series of visits to the site by the commission, which was set up to recover the bodies of those murdered and secretly buried, mainly by the IRA, in the 1970s and 1980s.

Ms Morgan said the team had been investigating a site next to one they searched eight years ago.

“The information which was given was from the same individual who had given information for the 2000 search,” she said.

“So he has literally led our family up the garden path concerning the recovery of Seamus’s body.

“He has wasted forensic experts’ time, their energy, money and he has wasted 23 years of our lives waiting for this moment.”

The commission has asked anyone with information to contact them.

“Work concluded at the weekend and unfortunately, no remains were found,” a spokesperson said.

“The Ruddy family has been kept fully informed during all stages of the search.

“The Commission has no further information on where Seamus Ruddy may be buried, but the case remains open.”