SAOIRSE32

Belfast Telegraph
Monday, 11 August 2008

How much time is time to heal? As the 10th anniversary of the Omagh bombing approaches, Chris Thornton looks at the ongoing hurt

Ten years has been enough to fix the physical damage; to fill the crater and replace the torn asphalt on Market Street, and to repair and rebuild the shops along it. A casual visitor could not know the terrible thing that happened there.

The graves are long closed, the worst wounds are scars that have become familiar to those who wear them.

Time is the great healer, it’s often said. It washes away.

Perhaps. But for some, ten years has been like nothing. Omagh has never really been fixed for them. Waking still brings that first touch of grief. The tears may be less frequent now, but they have never dried up.

Godfrey Wilson has the tissue he used to soak up his 15-year-old daughter’s last tear. Lorraine Wilson had been working at the Oxfam shop in town. He found her in a temporary morgue with her right eye gone and a tear in the left that he soaked up with the tissue. “That’s the very little I have left of her,” he said.

What others have left is distress. There have been nervous breakdowns, suicide attempts, battles with drink. The sister of one victim took to drink so strongly after the bombing that her doctor told her she is in danger of liver failure.

Some are left with guilt. Paul Radford went to look for his brother after the bombing and ended up helping to carry other victims at the hospital — an action that was entirely natural and entirely worthy. But Alan Radford (16) was dead, and his big brother can’t escape the feeling he should have been helping him instead of strangers. “I was helping someone else when he needed help,” said Paul Radford. “I find that hard to live with.”

And, even after ten years, there is still towering anger. Stanley McCombe has been angry for the past ten years because Ann, his wife and his best friend, was so suddenly taken from him. “I don’t go to bed anymore,” he said recently, “because I don’t want to wake up to nothing in the morning.”

And Michael Gallagher, chairman of the Omagh Self Help Group who is often the even, soft-spoken voice of Omagh families, is so privately consumed by anger that he is a changed man, his wife, Patricia, told the High Court this year. The Gallaghers lost their only son Aiden, “a decent, honourable human being who had a lot to give to society”. And Aiden Gallagher died only because someone’s plans to set off a 500lb bomb in the middle of Omagh intersected with his plans to buy a pair of jeans.

It was the ordinary things that brought most people to Omagh that Saturday. Shopping for the most part, whether for jeans or food or school shoes in one of the last weekends before the new term began. That’s one reason the dead cannot be easily classified: they were not all or even mainly Protestant or Catholic, all men or women, all old or young, or even all from Omagh. All they had in common was that they were ordinary human beings involved in an ordinary human activity.

Lorraine Wilson was working in the Oxfam shop with her friend, Samantha McFarland. Veda Short was on her lunch break from working in Watterson’s shop, thrilled with the birth her grandson Lee, whom she’d just seen for the first time.

Esther Gibson had been shopping at Dunne’s, no doubt thinking about her sister’s wedding in September and her own to follow.

Rocio Abad Ramos was on her fifth trip to Ireland and was trying to impart some of her love for the place, and a bit of English, to the children in her charge. Julia Hughes was working in Image Express to get some money for her return to university in Dundee.

Elizabeth Buchanan was among those in town for the shopping. She had finished just after lunch and was sitting in her car when she noticed two men parking a maroon Vauxhall Cavalier just outside SD Kells’ shop. She and the passenger made eye contact. As the two men hurried off down the street, walking away from the deadliest bomb of the Troubles in the boot of the Cavalier, he smiled at her.

Like the two men, Elizabeth Buchanan survived because she drove away at that point, half an hour or so before it detonated. The difference was that the men knew what they were leaving behind.

The operation to bomb Omagh began about 60 hours before that lunchtime, when the Cavalier was stolen in Carrickmacross, Co Monaghan. It was then moved to south Armagh, where it was fitted with the lethal mix of fertiliser and fuel oil, to be detonated by a small amount of Semtex.

Assembling the bomb seems to have gone smoothly enough, because by this stage the bombers were well practiced. Veterans of the IRA bombing campaign, as dissident republicans opposed to the Good Friday Agreement they’d been busier than usual — bombing a scattering of towns, like Markethill, Moira and Newtownhamilton.

The Cavalier was picked partly because, like some BMWs and other cars, it could easily be refitted with heavy duty shock absorbers. They would hide the heavy load in the boot, a potential sign of a car bomb. It was refitted with new registration plates and by Saturday afternoon it was on its way. With a scout car running ahead to look out for security checkpoints, the run into Omagh would have been straightforward.

At 2.29pm, the phone calls began, the first from a call box in south Armagh. The caller told UTV that there was a bomb at the “courthouse, main street, Omagh”, which a few hundred yards away from the actual location of the bomb. Two more calls to the Samaritans were equally vague.

That’s one reason for the terrible toll at Omagh. The evacuation that began immediately inadvertently ended up directing many people towards the bomb. The simple choice of direction became a matter of life and death. Most people in Watterson’s went out the back and survived; three

members of staff were out front and died. Samantha and Lorraine left the Oxfam shop and moved closer to the bomb; the shop was untouched when the massive force of the explosive was unleashed on the flesh packed around it at four minutes after three o’clock.

The blast itself was over in an instant. In a heartbeat, the force of it ripped up the road, blew out windows, wrecked the shops and tore bits of people off their bodies. Afterwards fragments of metal, plastic, glass, wood and stone were pulled from the bodies of the dead and living who were closest to the bomb. Many of the fragments came from the car that carried the bomb.

It was the immediate aftermath of the stunning force of the explosion that sticks with those who were there.

RUC Constable Alan Palmer, one of the police officers trying to evacuate the area, was showered with glass. The first thing he noticed was another officer using a fire extinguisher on a human being.

A woman was on the footpath with her thumb blown away. He tried to help another woman and found her head was partly severed. The crater left by the bomb quickly filled with water, and Constable Palmer recalled seeing a man jump in to to see if any bodies had fallen in.

Constable James Morrell saw “injured and bodies littering the streets”.

He added: “I saw a woman sitting in the middle of the wreckage. I saw that her right leg was blown apart around the knee area.

“The lower part of her right leg was still attached. There was not much blood as the flesh and bone looked to be partly cooked.”

A little boy with stomach wounds called out, “I Spanish, I Spanish”. Another boy screamed, “Mummy, mummy”.

Constable Gary McClatchey saw “a body on the road, in the middle of the road. The whole of the bottom of his jaw was missing. It was obvious that he was dead.

“I saw a girl under the remains of a burning car, I think it was a front axle. The girl was trapped and was conscious. She was screaming.”

Other witnesses said there was blood everywhere.

Buses were used to rush the dead and injured to hospital. One driver said he could hears roars of pain when he drove over speed bumps at Tyrone County Hospital.

Lisanelly army barracks then became the temporary morgue.

After the initial pandemonium, 50 firemen arrived to sift through the rubble for the injured and dead. It took them seven hours.

The rubble is gone now, but the wreckage of Omagh is still being sifted through.

After a tumultuous police investigation that highlighted serious failings in the way the search for the killers was conducted, and a single trial that some survivors described as disastrous, the hunt for the bombers nominally continues. A landmark civil action brought by some of the families is dragging through the High Court, and may ascribe blame to some individuals. But PSNI Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde has acknowledged that without some breakthrough — like the confession of someone who took part — the killers will almost certainly get away with the worst single crime of the Troubles. A decade has not been sufficient to track them down.

Ten years. It could almost encompass the entire lives James Barker, Fernando Blasco Baselga or Sean McLaughlin, all aged 12. It could barely span the conscious memories of the six teenagers who died.

Ten years was more than eight-year-old Oran Doherty got. More than Breda Devine, aged 20 months, more than the youngest victim, 18-month-old Maura Monaghan. But for erasing the horror, the inhumanity and grief, ten years is not enough.

News Letter
12 August 2008

THE DUP and Sinn Fein have clashed amid growing concern that sectarian tensions in Rasharkin could spill over at a loyalist band parade in the village in 10 days’ time.

The event, hosted by Ballymaconnelly Sons of Conquerors Flute Band, is set to attract 40 bands.

It will come at the end of a summer of trouble in Rasharkin, which has witnessed attacks on Loyal Orders’ parades and various other sectarian incidents, including vandalism at the local Orange hall and a Catholic-owned pub.

The latest conflict surrounded last Saturday’s evening Apprentice Boys march in the village.

The activities of republicans at the event are to be reported to the Parades Commission this week.

A residents’ group protest, which is alleged to have included known Sinn Fein members, is said to have breached the conditions placed on it by the parades body.

It is claimed that some protestors attempted to provoke marchers and a child was hit by a stone thrown at the parade as Apprentice Boys returned from their Londonderry walk.

DUP MLA for the area Mervyn Storey said “republicans can expect no hiding place” and their sectarian agenda had been exposed again.

But Sinn Fein North Antrim MLA Daithi McKay retorted that some bandsmen involved in the parade had broken their restrictions by breaking from the march to urinate down the side of a local nationalist bar – sparking anger within the protest.

He warned that there was now a difficult situation on the ground ahead of the August 22 band parade at which he believed bands with UVF and UDA associations would be involved.

Mr Storey, however, said Sinn Fein was brimming with hypocrisy in trying to paint itself as egalitarian and the defender of all cultures.

The MLA also said Sinn Fein’s bluff had been called on its attempts to distance itself from recent events in Rasharkin because “many of the protestors were from outside the village and in fact senior republicans from Belfast were present and were part of an intimidating crowd that stood on the main street”.

Mr Storey said: “No doubt Sinn Fein will try to tell us that they were there to keep control. Well, if that was the case, they failed.

“The protestors revealed their real agenda by displaying placards with the words ‘Pride Of The Maine not welcome here’ – a reference to the band that was leading the parade.

“A child was hit with a stone that was thrown by republicans and attempts were made to provoke a reaction from the band members and Apprentice Boys – thankfully with no success.”

Mr McKay admitted republicans from Belfast were in Rasharkin but said they were there in solidarity and to give comfort to local people who had been unnerved by past trouble.

He added: “Republicans do not have a problem with Protestant and unionist parades but with many of the bands who march along with them and have a bad record (of behaviour] in Rasharkin.”

Independent.ie

The British Army has dealt with three firebombs found during a security alert in north Belfast.

Police said the incendiary devices were viable and have been taken away for further examination.

Acting Detective Chief Inspector Alan Little said those responsible showed a callous disregard for human life.

By Barry McCaffrey
Irish News
**Via Newshound
08/08/08

Raymond McCord’s 10-year battle to bring his son’s killers to justice took a major step closer yesterday with two alleged Mount Vernon UVF members charged with murder.

‘PROTECTED SPECIES’: Leading loyalist Mark Haddock who was described in last year’s Police Ombudsman report by Nuala O’Loan as being a “protected species” despite him being implicated in 16 murders, 10 attempted murders and 23 paramilitary-style shootings PICTURE: Pacemaker

For more than a decade the 54-year-old fought a lonely battle to expose the Mount Vernon UVF gang as being protected by Special Branch.

In January last year Police Ombudsman Nuala O’Loan dropped a political bombshell when she confirmed that Mark Haddock was a “protected species”, despite being implicated in 16 murders, 10 attempted murders, 23 paramilitary-style shootings and beatings, drug-dealing, extortion, arson and intimidation.

The ombudsman found a “pattern of work by certain officers within Special Branch designed to ensure that Informant 1 [Haddock] and

his associates were protected from the law”.

Efforts to protect Haddock included Special Branch babysitting him through police interviews in connection with the 1991 murder of Catholic man Peter McTasney.

Special Branch and a senior RUC officer were later found to have withheld Haddock’s involvement in the murder from prosecution files.

In January 1993 Haddock was again ‘babysat’ while being interviewed about the murder of Catholic taxi driver Sharon McKenna.

Despite having previously admitted Ms McKenna’s murder, he was released without charge and given £500 by Special Branch to go on holiday.

Haddock’s handlers appeared reluctant to arrest him, even with evidence that he was preparing to commit murder.

In February 1994 police received information about a UVF murder plot. Haddock was spotted in the area.

However, no action was taken to arrest him and the following day Catholic man Sean McParland was shot dead. He later admitted his role in the murder and identified another police informer as the gunman. Neither agent was charged.

Both agents were promoted within the UVF as a result of the murder with police failing to arrest three other suspects due to “accommodation and manpower shortages”.

In May 1994 Haddock was arrested after the murder of Catholic workmen Gary Convie and Eamon Fox.

The gunman was identified as having a goatee beard but when Haddock was arrested he was allowed to shave off his own goatee.

No identity parade was never held and Haddock walked free.

Less than a month later Haddock was one of two gunmen who shot dead Catholic taxi driver Gerald Brady in Carrickfergus.

Dame Nuala’s inquiry found that both gunmen were police agents.

Again he escaped justice, despite admitting murdering UVF man Thomas Sheppard in March 1996.

In May 1997 police received information that Haddock and three others had beaten Protestant man John Harbinson to death.

Within hours Special Branch received evidence that Haddock’s gang were hiding at a safe house in Co Down, but no attempt was made to pass the information on to CID or the fact that two of the main suspects were informers.

Forensic evidence was later destroyed as a “health hazard”.

In October 2000 Special Branch stated that Haddock was “not currently involved in criminality” despite being the main suspect in the murders of UDA men Tommy English and David Greer.

Dame Nuala concluded that “the evidence clearly shows that Informant 1’s behaviour, including alleged murder, was not challenged by

Special Branch and the activities of those who sought to bring him to justice were blocked repeatedly”.

“Informant 1 would have been well aware of the level of protection which he was afforded.”

Despite the overwhelming evidence against him it appeared that Haddock would again escape prosecution.

In 2006 he was separately jailed for 10 years for the assault of doorman Trevor Gowdy.

Earlier this summer he applied for a court order banning the media from reporting on his whereabouts when he is released next year.

It was last night speculated that the two north Belfast brothers who appeared in court yesterday may be about to give evidence against Haddock and other Mount Vernon gang members in exchange for reduced charges.

Welcoming yesterday’s charges, Raymond McCord said: “I have to praise Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde and Assistant Chief Constable Peter Sheridan.

“They said they’d ensure a proper investigation of what the Mount Vernon UVF were allowed to get away with and that’s what they’ve done.

“I’m confident that more arrests will follow. I’m confident that the Protestant and Catholic families who suffered at the hands of this gang will finally get justice.”

Conor McMorrow
Tribune.ie
**Via Newshound
August 10, 2008

One year after the general election, the PDs and Sinn Féin are coping with the fallout from poor performances
Gerry Adams: ‘There has been a major momentum towards examining the leadership after last year’s general election’

Just over a year after its poor general election performance, Sinn Féin has turned its attention to life after Gerry Adams. The party president’s terrible performance in a pre-election TV debate with Labour’s Pat Rabbitte, the Greens’ Trevor Sargent, and the PDs’ Michael McDowell not only damaged the party’s credibility in the days ahead of polling day, it also showed the problems Adams has in understanding the South.

Speaking to Sinn Féin and other nationalist sources over the last few weeks, the Sunday Tribune found mixed opinion on when Adams might be replaced. But one overriding message coming from all those contacted is “there will never be a heave against Gerry.”

In the wake of last year’s election, in which Sinn Féin lost a seat, the party set up an internal working group to focus on future electoral gains. Senior sources now claim that the party will not have one leader in the south such as Mary Lou McDonald. Instead it will be a “broad based leadership.”

A senior Sinn Féin member and strategist said: “It was decided, even before last year’s general election, that we needed a broader based leadership. In the north there are a number of leaders and in the south there are a number of very bright people and we are trying to bring those people on. As the north is such a political hothouse, bright people have developed into leaders quicker and these leaders are emerging.

“The party did not read the election properly. By looking at each of the constituencies properly ahead of the election they would have seen problems. If you look at Tallaght, it was no surprise that Seán Crowe lost his seat as there were huge organisational failures there and the work was not being done on the ground.

“Sinn Féin needs to develop their southern leadership and they are doing that by putting people like young councillor Tomas Sharkey, a teacher from Louth, forward. People like him are being given more responsibilities within the organisation. Adams would like to be in a position to take a back seat but he can’t as the broad new leadership base needs to be developed.”

Lofty ambitions

When asked if Sinn Féin had lofty ambitions of winning 10 Dáil seats last year and using that success as a platform to launch Gerry Adams as a possible presidential candidate in future, the same source said: “There was never the slightest chance of that happening. You can’t talk about the presidency until you have a solid base in the south.”

Donegal Sinn Féin councillor Padraig MacLochlainn will most likely run for the party in Connaught-Ulster for a seat in Brussels next year. Seen as one of the up and coming new faces in the party, he said: “Unfortunately, from a republican perspective, there are two different jurisdictions and two different economies and two different realities on the island.

“It is clearly important that we should have capable and effective leaders and spokespeople in the south and in the six counties. Next year’s local and European elections are going to give us a chance to project a new layer of young leadership through people like Mary Lou McDonald and Pearse Doherty.

“The general view among my generation is that we would like people like Gerry Adams and Pat Doherty to remain on as the wisdom and experience they have from negotiations is priceless.

“Whenever Adams, Doherty, and Mitchel McLaughlin came through as leaders in the 1980s they were all in their 30s. The existing leadership in the 1980s resisted them taking over yet those men are welcoming new ideas and people now.

“There are a lot of creative and talented people being given a free voice in the party and a lot of young councillors and members were at the forefront in the Lisbon campaign. We have a collective group of about a dozen talented and dynamic young people to the fore in the party. Sinn Féin’s weakness in having no obvious new leader in the south has been turned into its strength. We have councillors taking up national profile and responsibility.

“It is too early to get into speculation about the next leader. The view within the party is that the new generation can rely on the experience of people like Gerry Adams and Pat Doherty which will be crucial in times ahead.”

Discussions about the succession in the Sinn Féin leadership have been largely muted and few Sinn Féin insiders are willing to put their name to their views on the subject. A senior republican, who is no longer a member of Sinn Féin, said: “The question of who might take over after Adams is looming very much in the not too distant future. In fairness to Adams, the leadership is a very stressful job and he probably needs to retire soon.

“If you are looking at Sinn Féin’s leadership, the big question is the division between north and south. There has been a major momentum towards examining the leadership after the outcome of last year’s general election.

“Adams was not ‘au fait’ with the southern situation during that TV debate and it was telling that during the Lisbon campaign that Adams’s face did not appear on posters. Mary Lou’s face did appear on the posters in Dublin and while she performed well in referendum debates, she remains problematic and she is not the darling of the grassroots. The republican constituency in Dublin are not entirely happy with her compared with more traditional republicans.”

A leading nationalist commentator who did not wish to be named said: “The prevailing view is pointing towards Conor Murphy as Adams’s successor. He is personable and has a good record as a minister. He is competent and clean-cut. He is also from South Armagh, he was in the IRA and he has done his time which is still seen as important among northern republicans.

“If you look at Mitchll McLaughlin you can see that this is true. McLaughlin has never even chaired a committee in the Assembly even though he was chairman of Sinn Féin and the reason for that was that ‘he hadn’t served time in jail for the IRA’. In the north it counts if you are army and in the south you need to have a clean bib and no IRA record.

“There is nobody coming forward as a possible leadership candidate from Belfast and this could pose problems for Sinn Féin. One of the problems with the SDLP was the domination of Derry for their leadership. There will be no heave against Adams. He is still the man in the party. When the DUP were presenting difficulties in June, it was Adams that stood up to them and said we will call a halt to the Stormont Executive. There has not been an Executive meeting since then.”

Tomas Sharkey, one of the party’s young starlets, said: “There is no question of who is the leader. Gerry Adams is president, has been our president and will be our president into the future. He is 100% respected.”

Burcombe admits role in double killings

Belfast Telegraph
Monday, 4 August 2008

The Attorney General has backed a plea bargain deal that frees Northern Ireland’s first murder case supergrass in decades, released after admitting his role in a pair of horrific murders.

Baroness Scotland says she is satisfied with an arrangement that saw Mark Burcombe sentenced to 30 months in jail — time he had already served on remand — in return for giving evidence against another man accused of the murders.

The families of Andrew Robb and David McIlwaine, the teenagers killed in a horrific knife attack in Tandragee, Co Armagh, eight years ago, were outraged at the sentence.

Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams had asked the Attorney General to review the case and consider an appeal to give Burcombe a stiffer sentence.

But she told the MP that she is satisfied the Prosecution Service has “acted correctly” and promised to explain her reasons when the case is finally closed, probably later year. She also backed the sentence imposed on Burcombe for his guilty plea for conspiring to assault Andrew Robb — although she noted that will be reconsidered if Burcombe does not testify.

“I have every sympathy for the families of David McIlwaine and Andrew Robb,” she wrote in a letter to the West Belfast MP.

“I can only begin to imagine the impact these dreadful offences have had on them.

“But, like the judge, I can only assess the correctness of the sentence imposed on Burcombe having regard to what he admitted to doing, not what the families believe he may have done.”

David McIlwaine’s father, Paul, said he understood Baroness Scotland’s reasons, but he continues to believe Burcombe’s statement to police has left out important information — including the role of a UVF leader suspected of being an informer.

“I understand where Baroness Scotland is coming from. She can only work on the information she has,” he said.

“Depending on what happens in the trial, she’ll look at it further. I believe she can read between the lines, but she can only go on what’s being said.

“But this is a disgusting situation. It’s a disgrace.”

Burcombe (27), from Ballynahinch Road, Lisburn, is scheduled to give evidence against Steven Brown, also known as Steven Revels, in the autumn.

Brown, also 27, from Castle Place, Castlecaulfield, is accused of murdering both teenagers.

Mr McIlwaine assumes Burcombe has been freed because he has spent more than 30 months in prison awaiting trial, although he has not been notified by the authorities.

While sentencing Burcombe in June, Mr Justice Hart referred to the contents of Burcombe’s latest statement to police.

He told police that Brown and another man who later committed suicide, Noel Dillon, killed Andrew Robb because he made a disparaging remark about Richard Jameson, the UVF leader in Portadown who had been murdered a month earlier.

He said David McIlwaine was murdered because he witnessed the attack.

Burcombe claimed that he thought Andrew Robb was going to get a beating for the remark, and said that he did not know a murder would take place.

By Seamus McKinney
Irish News
**Via Newshound
09/08/08

RELATIVES of three Omagh bombing victims have withheld permission for their loved ones’ names to be inscribed on a new memorial.

The names will not appear on a list of the dead engraved on the walls inside a memorial garden close to the scene of the 1998 Real IRA bomb which killed 29 people including a woman pregnant with twins.

The latest development came as it emerged that Church leaders in Omagh are to snub a 10th anniversary service organised by some families next Sunday.

Representatives of the four main Churches will instead attend a service staged by Omagh District Council next Friday. At least 10 families are boycotting the event in protest at how plans for new memorials were handled.

Michael Gallagher, who is chair of the group organising the Sunday service, said relatives had been stunned by the development.

“Some of these clergy buried our loved ones. We can’t believe they aren’t coming,” he said.

Rev John Murdoch, a Presbyterian Church minister in Omagh, said he and the other Church leaders had agreed that it was more appropriate for them to attend the council event.

Meanwhile, Laurence Rush, whose wife Libby was killed in the bomb attack, confirmed that her name would be one of the three missing from the list.

Mr Rush said he did not require a monument to remember his wife. He also said he was unhappy with the way the council had handled the event. Relatives of the other two victims could not be contacted last night.

They weren’t a response to the British being in Ireland, but to how the British behaved there.

Liam Clarke
Sunday Times
10 August 2008

**Click on the above link to read the people’s comments concerning this article

Anthony McIntyre and Ed Moloney must be closet astrologers, as their timing defies explanation. Moloney brought out his updated biography of Ian Paisley just a few days before the big man announced his retirement. Moloney joked at the time: “He called and asked me, ‘When would suit you?’ ”

Last week McIntyre trumped him with a tome entitled The Death of Irish Republicanism, published as the Irish and British governments commissioned a report from the International Monitoring Commission (IMC), designed to ascertain if the IRA army council is still in existence. The fact that they need to ask, and need three weeks to consider the evidence and weigh up the reported sightings, speaks for itself.

A few years ago, the two governments wouldn’t have needed to ponder these things. A steady stream of bombings, shootings and attacks would have reminded them of the continued existence of the organisation — one that for 30 years was the greatest single threat to the security of the British state.

McIntyre, a former IRA commander who served 18 years for murder and then did a PhD in republican history, is right. The Provisional IRA — and the army council that plotted its campaign — is on its death bed. It may thrash around like a headless chicken for a few years, but it is past reviving. If the IRA ever re-emerges, it will be a new organisation with new people.

Nowadays, senior police officers such as assistant chief constable Peter Sheridan, the PSNI officer in charge of intelligence and analysis, believe the council is still around but seldom meets, and is no longer replacing members who leave. As Martin McGuinness put it on Wednesday: “The IRA have clearly gone off the stage since 2005, but attempts are still made by some people to drag them back on, and I think that’s silly.”

Sinn Fein is currently marketing a T-shirt with a rising phoenix symbolising the IRA, and the slogan: “1968-2008 The Struggle Continues”. The message is inescapable: give or take a few months, this marks the lifespan of the Provisional IRA.

Former members such as McIntyre are left to count the cost. He points out that the organisation is shuffling off the stage and into history without achieving any of its objectives. “The public stance was that, in Charlie Haughey’s phrase, Northern Ireland was a ‘failed political entity’, but the Provos proved the Northern Ireland state was, in fact, a viable entity. It was the Provisional project that wasn’t viable,” he says.

McIntyre’s book is a collection of articles he wrote between the signing of the Good Friday Agreement — which he says was fatal to the republican project — and 2007. A fascinating chronicle, it is full of interviews with former prisoners, political insights and aphorisms.

“Republicanism is effectively dead. It is dead as a strategy that can deliver anything. It can’t cope with the principle of consent, it can’t out-manoeuvre it and it can’t overcome it, so it has had to reconcile itself with the British ground rules,” he told me. “Republicanism is just an aspiration — that’s what it has been reduced to. Although there are still republicans, we are just the survivors of the wreck.”

In retrospect, McIntyre believes that the Provisional IRA, founded in 1969, bore signs of compromise from the start. He found that older republicans, the pre-69ers, were “amazed and disappointed at the people joining”, and said that the Provos were “a completely different phenomenon from anything that was continued from 1916”.

I was reminded of the words of Peadar O’Donnell in the 1920s: “We don’t have an IRA battalion in Belfast, we have a battalion of armed Catholics.” McIntyre argues that the IRA was mainly a northern phenomenon, and not ideologically purist. “They weren’t a response to the British being in Ireland, but a response to how the British behaved there. All the British needed to do to end the campaign was to change their behaviour. But they didn’t have to leave to get a deal.”

This is an analysis borne out by the sales blurb for the T-shirt, which talks of “the struggle from the days of the civil rights movement to the present,” but never mentions British withdrawal.

McIntyre’s analysis of the role of informers and collaborators and their role in steering the republican struggle has a savagely satirical edge. Take the case of Freddie Scappatticci, the IRA’s head of internal security, who was exposed as a British military intelligence agent in 2003. “Did he not hanker after the very things the leadership sought? Affluence, a house in another jurisdiction, divesting the IRA of its guns, and its ultimate dissolution?” McIntyre asks. “Freddie Scappaticci should not be killed; he should be on the Sinn Fein negotiating team,” he suggests.

McIntyre believes Scappattici’s role was to shorten the campaign by making the IRA’s military option redundant. This, he believes, forced the Provisionals back onto Gerry Adams’s political strategy, which was being pushed forward with the help of agents such as Denis Donaldson in Sinn Fein. McIntyre argues convincingly that the British army, MI5 and the RUC Special Branch used their extensive network of agents within the loyalist paramilitaries to protect key republicans. Security from attack or arrest was, he believes, one of several incentives for republicans to “smile” for the intelligence agencies.

“The biggest risk factor for the organisation was ex-prisoners not prepared to return to prison. For others, such as Sinn Fein activists with a public profile, the threat of assassination by loyalists was a constant on their minds. One sure way to retain their profile, minus the risk, was to work for the British.”

It brought to mind the words of Jonathan Powell, Tony Blair’s former chief of staff, who wrote key passages of Gerry Adams’s speech for one Sinn Fein Ard Fheis. Powell glowed with pride: “It was a bit like watching your children graduate from college; you thought, ‘fantastic’. Now they’re free, now they’ve done it, and they’re on their own.”

McIntyre paints a picture of a republican leadership who were reformists from the outset, being secretly protected, groomed and eventually steered into Stormont by the British forces they claimed to be fighting. All the while, a supine membership cheered them on from the sidelines, easily fooled by symbolism and rhetoric.

McIntyre’s analysis is acute, and informed by deeply felt republican convictions. But, as he has already observed, republicanism is now dead as a practical strategy and survives only as a critique and an ideal.

In the real world, what would have been the alternative to winding up the IRA and settling for the reform of the northern state, with Irish unity reduced to a long-term aspiration? What would have been the alternative to accepting the principle of consent enshrined in the Good Friday Agreement?

To his credit, McIntyre doesn’t dodge this awkward dilemma: “The major question historians will ask is not why the republicans surrendered, but why they fought such a futile long war,” he writes. “It has not been unconditional surrender. And it has been infinitely better than continuing to fight a futile war for the sake of honouring Ireland’s dead, yet producing only more of them. But let us not labour under any illusions that the conditions were good.”

That may indeed be the verdict of history on the Provisional IRA.

Posted by by jmstipe20
Monday August 11, 2008
Indymedia.ie

Republican Sinn Féin
Email: saoirse at iol dot ie
223 Parnell St
Dublin 1

Oration delivered by the Vice President of Republican Sinn Féin Des Dalton at the annual Richard Goss commemoration St Patrick’s Cemetery, Dundalk, Co Louth on Sunday August 10:

‘To face death in such circumstances for a free Ireland, when through deliberate misrepresentation of facts, the movement seeking to achieve that ideal had been robbed of popular support, requires courage and fortitude of a high standard. It requires something more. It requires that those making the supreme sacrifice have a clear concise idea of the object in view, and a firm conviction of the moral truth and righteousness of the cause which they die to serve’

The editorial then asked a rhetorical question: “Have they died in vain? Most emphatically no…those men have helped to ensure the continuity of the struggle, have given to those who remain, to those who will follow after them, the inspiration, the courage and hope that will sustain them.’ (An t-Éireeannach Aontuighthe – The United Irishman, October-November 1948)

“The generation of the 1940s were a generation which endured hunger strike, the blanket in Portlaoise, the internment camp, the gallows and the firing squad. Their sacrifice ensured the survival of the Irish Republican ideal.

“Richard Goss epitomised that generation, the poet Austin Clarke in his poem ‘The Last Republicans’ dedicated to the Irish Republicans of 1936-46 wrote that the generation of 1913-23 had inspired the succeeding generation; “Because their fathers had been drilled, formed fours among the Dublin hills.”. Richard Goss’s father Pat Goss was a staunch trade unionist and a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood.

“Richard like his father was also an active trade unionist, working in Rawson’s shoe factory; he was an officer in the local branch of the National Union of Shoe and Boot Operatives. Like his father Richard Goss was determined to play his part in the historic and ongoing struggle to rid Ireland of British rule. In 1933 he joined the North Louth Battalion of the Irish Republican Army. In March of the following year he was sentenced to three months’ imprisonment by the Free State Military Tribunal for refusing to account for his movements. The first of many periods of imprisonment.

“Along with local Republicans such as Paddy Murphy he trained in the Cooley mountains “Perfecting his discipline in arms”. He played an active role in the IRA’s campaign in England in 1939. On his return to Ireland he was interned without trial in Arbour Hill. In December 1939 he was released with all other 53 internees due to a successful Habeas Corpus action by Seámus Burke.

“Going ‘on the run’ Richard Goss was appointed OC North Leinster-South Ulster Division of the IRA in preparation for a campaign against British forces in the Six Counties. He was finally captured at the home of the Casey family in Co Longford following a gunfight with Free State forces. Tried by the infamous ‘Military Court’, which was comprised of three Free State army officers who had no legal training. Regardless of the charge anyone convicted by this court had a mandatory death sentence imposed. This was to be carried out by a firing squad within a matter of hours, usually 48. There was no appeal to any other court, only the 26-County administration could commute the sentence or confirm it. On August 9 1941 Richard Goss was shot by Free State firing squad in Portlaoise prison.

“The executions of the 1940s, the deaths on hunger strike all took place under the dark cloud of censorship. Even the last letters of the executed men were not given to the families, and were not handed over until the bodies of the men were also handed back to the families in 1948. The intention of the 26-County administration was to mask the fact that another generation of Irish Republicans were determined to resist British rule. It was in vain, because the legacy and memory of Richard Goss and his comrades resounds down the decades, inspiring each successive generation.

“The funeral of Richard Goss is recorded in the pages of The United Irishman by Seámus G O’Kelly. “It was a military funeral in every sense of the word. His coffin was lowered into the grave and after the clay had been filled in, and the Last Post sounded, there came the crack of the three volleys which told the assembled multitudes that another Fenian grave had been made.” We are proud and humbled to stand by this ‘Fenian grave’.

“We honour also today the memory of Willie Gaughran, friend and comrade of Richard Goss. Captured on the English Campaign in early 1939, he was sentenced to 10 years and sent to Camphill Prison, Isle of Wight. There he contracted TB and was released in 1946. He died some months later.

“Today the cause which inspired Richard Goss to dedicate and ultimately sacrifice his life, a free and independent Ireland remains unfulfilled. The new Stormont regime with former comrades on board is setting about the normalisation of British rule, administering it, policing it and enforcing the British writ on the ground. House raids and arrest of Republicans has intensified within the Six Counties, whilst MI5 with in recent placed leaks to the media show that repression is set to increase. In the 26 Counties people are being conditioned into accepting partition – to view the Six Counties as another country.

“Meanwhile we hear calls for unity from many disparate elements; Irish Republicans are described as ‘elitist’ and ‘backward’ if they are not willing to dilute their programme in the interest of this so-called ‘unity’.

“Irish Republicans want unity. In 1969/70 and in 1986 Republicans resisted those who sought to divert the Republican Movement down the cul de sac of reformism. Many of those most vociferous now in their calls for ‘unity’ ignored the leadership given by Republicans such as Ruairí Ó Brádaigh and Daithí Ó Conaill who charted a path of unity based on the sure foundations of basic Republican principle.

“It is true unity that is required to achieve the goal of Irish freedom. But it must be a real unity based on a common programme, cohesive and coordinated and based on unequivocal Republicanism.

“The Republican Movement provides such a programme, it is the only vehicle which can deliver direction and leadership it has and remains in the words of Dáithí Ó Conaill the “catalyst for the most progressive forces in this country”. Irish Republicans have always given the lead, most obviously in leading the struggle against British rule, but also in defending and promoting the Irish language, the rights of workers, in support of Irish neutrality and opposing imperialist wars particularly the use of Irish airports and airspace in support of them. Since 1972 Republican Sinn Féin and the Republican Movement have opposed the creation of a militarised and undemocratic EU superstate and played its part in the recent defeat of the Lisbon Treaty.

“The editorial of The United Irishman in December 1957 pointed the way forward: “The Republican Movement takes its stand on the Proclamation of 1916, and any instrument or enactments which in any way curtail that charter of liberty can have no validity for Irish Republicans.

“By strict adherence to principles, by pursuing a clearly-defined policy, by placing the national interest before personal considerations, the Irish Republican Movement has built up a reputation for honesty and integrity. The Irish people can put their trust in that Movement sure in the knowledge that it will never betray them or their interests.”

“The lessons are simple; by sticking to the basic fundamentals of Irish Republicanism is the only means to ensure unity of purpose whilst delivering a clear and coherent message to the Irish people. At the Ard Fheis of Republican Sinn Féin in 1983 Ruáiri Ó Brádaigh pointed to the fact that there were no splits or splintering of the Republican Movement during the period 1969/70 to 1983, “Long may it remain so” he said, “as it will provided we stick to basic principles”.

“Drawing our inspiration from the memory of Richard Goss and his comrades let us set about building a mass movement of the Irish people capable of delivering a 32-County Democratic Socialist Republic.”

Related Link: http://www.irish-solidarity.at.tf

Posted by Maitin Og
Email: ceartais at hotmail dot com
Indymedia.ie

Failte Gach Daoine

CEARTAIS will be holding a comprehensive seminar on Tuesday, August 26th @ 11.30am in the Felon’s Club on the Andersontown Road in Belfast.

CR Gas Covering Long Kesh

The purpose of the Seminar is to update Republican Ex-Prisoners and the wider community on the progress of our Campaign thus far.

We will also be putting on display newly discovered photos of the battle and brutality that took place on October 16th, 1974.

Everyone is welcome…

Please visit: http://ceartais.blogspot.com