SAOIRSE32

IAIS
08/23/08

The SDLP has renewed its claim to any future ministry of justice job at Stormont and accused the DUP and Sinn Fein of unfairly excluding it.

The party`s Social Development Minister, Margaret Ritchie, claimed that under the Assembly`s rules it was entitled to any new ministry.

But Sinn Fein accused the party of putting narrow self-interest ahead of the needs of the nationalist community.

Ms Ritchie`s comments followed reports that Sinn Fein and the DUP hoped to see the Alliance party take on the new post in the event of agreement between the DUP and republicans on transferring policing and justice powers to Stormont.

The SDLP`s Ms Ritchie said: “If there is to be a justice ministry it must be a full-blooded justice ministry, not something half-baked where power resides with the Northern Ireland Office. It is the SDLP`s entitlement to take up the ministry.”

Breaking News.ie
22/08/2008

Nearly 3,000 musicians gathered tonight to break the world record for the largest number of people to take part in a traditional Irish music session.

The massive gathering of 2,852 people at the Fleadh Ceoil na hEireann in Co Offaly beat last year’s inaugural event, which attracted 2,745 musicians from all over the world.

The event was preceded by a parade, which assembled at Lloyd Town Park, Tullamore, and travelled through the streets of the town watched by thousands of people until it reached O’Connor Square.

Fleadh spokeswoman Karen O’Grady said organisers were thrilled with how the night went.

“We were absolutely delighted with the turnout,” she said.

“There were also huge numbers of spectators who came out to watch it.”

The session lasted 56 minutes, 11 minutes longer than last year’s event.

Participants came from countries across the globe, including Japan, the United States, the UK, and throughout Ireland.

Fleadh Cheoil na hEireann began last weekend and runs until Sunday.

By Mícheál Mac Donncha
An Phoblacht
21 August 2008

The first of the many street demonstrations of the Civil Rights movement in Ireland was the August 1968 march from Coalisland to Dungannon in County Tyrone. Arising out of the local experience of sectarian discrimination, the march helped to set in train a series of events that would change Irish politics forever
.
Nationalists in the Six Counties had begun to explore new ways of highlighting the reality of discrimination. They had looked to Governments in Dublin for decades but found little help there. The IRA’s Resistance Campaign had ended in 1962, having failed heroically against the overwhelming military superiority of the British Army and RUC. However, the imposition of internment without trial, the banning of Sinn Féin and the use of the B Specials as a rural terror force, all exposed the violence that lay beneath the surface of the Orange state.
The accession of Terence O’Neill as Unionist Prime Minister at Stormont in 1963 provided a façade of change and modernity. But what lay behind that façade was seen in a little-remembered newspaper advert placed by O’Neill’s wife four years earlier in the Belfast Telegraph which read: ‘Protestant girl required for housework. Apply to the Hon. Mrs. Terence O’Neill…’
Five years after O’Neill’s accession nothing had changed. Unemployment and emigration among Catholics was far higher than among their Protestant neighbours. In County Tyrone, with a population of just over 73,000 Catholics to 60,500 Protestants, there were only 52 Catholics employed in local government as against 300 Protestants. Such discrimination was highlighted by the Campaign for Social Justice established by Patricia and Conn McCluskey in Dungannon in 1964.
Parallel with these developments, the IRA and Sinn Féin were rethinking their strategy with more emphasis to be placed on open campaigning against injustice in the North. The Wolfe Tone Society was established as a forum for debate and to circumvent the Stormont ban on the Republican Clubs, the name which, in turn, had been adopted to evade the ban on Sinn Féin. Members of the Wolfe Tone Society, the Campaign for Social Justice and others were involved in the formation of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) in February 1967.

DIRECT ACTION

It was direct action on the ground that propelled the nascent Civil Rights Movement onto the streets. The Brantry Republican Club in County Tyrone had campaigned for council housing to be built but when 15 houses were built in Caledon only one of them was allocated to a Catholic. The house next door was allocated to a single Protestant woman, the secretary of a unionist politician.
Local people decided to protest. The main organiser was Annie Mary (better known as ‘Nana’) Gildernew, grandmother of Michelle Gildernew, Sinn Féin Minister for Agriculture and MP for Fermanagh/South Tyrone. Over a period of several months in 1967/68 a local family and supporters occupied a house in the Caledon estate. When they were evicted the case was raised in Stormont and began to make headlines beyond Tyrone. This was the spur for the march from Coalisland to Dungannon which received the endorsement of NICRA.
In a pattern that was to become all too familiar in the months ahead, Ian Paisley organised a counter-demonstration for Market Square in Dungannon. This was then used as a pretext by the RUC to ban the NICRA parade from the Square.
About 2,500 took part in the NICRA march from Coalisland to Dungannon. The march was stopped short of Market Square by an RUC cordon. The main speaker was Austin Currie MP, later a Fine Gael TD. Also speaking was Gerry Fitt, West Belfast MP. Fitt who, years later, was lifted into the House of Lords by Margaret Thatcher, declared that they would go on until they had “Civil Rights and a 32-County Republic”.
But the real leaders of the Civil Rights Movement which began that day were the rank and file, the ordinary people of Tyrone and beyond who marched for justice and freedom.
The first Civil Rights march from Coalisland to Dungannon was held on 24 August 1968, 40 years ago this week.

Towards a United Ireland

BY DALE MOORE
An Phoblacht
21 August 2008

The first National Hunger Strike commemoration to take place outside Belfast was attended by several thousand people from across the country in Derry City on Sunday, 17 August. In stark contrast to the wet weather that caused severe flooding across the country, the day remained dry and warm with the sun even making an appearance encouraging many families to come out and take part.

With 17 bands from as far away as Glasgow and Wexford and imaginative floats including the commemorative 1950s Brookborough Raid lorry there was a carnival atmosphere as the march departed the Creggan shops.
The parade was led by families of the 1981 Hunger Strikers and Derry Sinn Féin members carrying a banner proclaiming the theme of the March – ‘Civil Rights, Equality, Freedom-The Struggle Continues’. They were accompanied by two women Carol Harkin and Kathleen Deeney who marched the route wrapped in blankets as they did many times throughout the periods of the 1981 Hunger Strike itself.
A large delegation of young republican activists followed while children held placards with the names and sentences of republican prisoners. This was followed by a large contingent of former prisoners and republican activists dressed in black ties and white shirts.
A large delegation of Basque political activists with flags added an international flavour and the many Sinn Féin Cumann banners, made an impressive site as the march snaked its way to the Brandywell.
Many homes in the Creggan flew the Tricolour and lampposts bore the names of the Hunger Strikers and images of 1981. The parade paused at the home of Michael Devine, the last of the Long Kesh martyrs to die, before continuing to the Brandywell and passing the spot were two IRA Volunteers died in action in May 1981.
The parade stopped briefly at the home of Patsy O’Hara the fourth of the Hunger Strikers and passed a new mural by Ógra Shinn Féin to the ten brave men.
As the March looped down the flyover into the Bogside it passed Free Derry Wall and then stopped briefly at the Hunger Strike monument where a lone piper played amongst other tunes I’ll Wear No Convicts Uniform.
Wreaths were laid on behalf of the Republican Movement and families and friends of the Hunger Strikers. Before moving on to the Gasyard for the orations the parade passed a mock H-Block cell outlining the stark conditions the men in Long Kesh and the women in Armagh had to endure at this period.
Chaired by former hunger striker Raymond McCartney proceedings got under way with Sarah Griffin singing Death Before Revenge before Ógra Shinn Féin members Shilena Toland and Padraig Barton read the Roll of Honour.
The main address was delivered by Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams who extended a special welcome to the families of the 1981 Hunger Strikers and also to the families of those victims bereaved by British state forces directly or as a consequence of their collusion with unionist death squads.
He said that it was appropriate, given that five of the Hunger Strikers are from County Derry and two, Patsy O’ Hara and Micky Devine, are from the city, that the first national Hunger Strike march and rally outside Belfast, should take place there.

Below we reprint a slightly edited version of Gerry Adams’ address:

The people of Derry endured much before and during the years of conflict.
After partition the British government set about the creation of an apartheid, corrupt little sectarian state in which Catholics were treated as second class citizens. The unionist party were the caretakers.
They governed a state in which tens of thousands were denied the right to vote, or a job or a home because they were Catholic and deemed nationalist.
This City represented all that in a very graphic way. It was a nationalist city run by a unionist elite! In response to this much of the energy and drive of the Civil Rights movement was in this city.
I remember, like it was yesterday, the 5 October Civil Rights march in 1968 – 40 years ago this October – which took place on the eve of my 20th birthday.
The brutal attack by the RUC on peaceful marchers, caught on television for the first time, was stark evidence of the refusal of the unionist state and of unionist politicians to agree to the necessary fundamental reforms.
As a result of this failure the North slipped into decades of conflict. And Derry was frequently in the front line. During internment hundreds were imprisoned from this city and county. Shoot-to-kill actions, the worst being Bloody Sunday; plastic bullet killings; paid perjurors; house raids and harassment and the torture of local men and women and much more were part of the daily lives of families here.
Lean Poblachtanaigh agus naisiunaithe na cathrach seo ar aghaidh – dílís agus neamhbriste trid ré corrach.
Bhí sibh croiúil, cróga.
Skip forward 40 years and the change has been remarkable. Of course, British jurisdiction in Ireland and other issues of injustice, of disadvantage, of poverty and underfunding in public services, continue to be major problems which need to be resolved. They are part of the legacy of partition and of British government involvement in our country. But the reality is that the Peace Process and the agreements that have emerged out of it have wrought profound change. And the challenge for all of us in the time ahead is to use these agreements to bring about even greater change.
This annual march and rally has its roots in two major historic events in the last, almost 40 years of struggle and conflict. One is the Hunger Strikes of ‘81. The other is internment. In August 1971 the British government introduced internment at the behest of the unionist regime. It was a catastrophic decision which saw a dramatic escalation in the conflict. Its human cost on families and communities across the North was incalculable.
Thirty six years ago British Paratroopers were unleashed on the people of Derry. Thirteen men were murdered in the name of the British Government that terrible day and two later died as a result of the injuries inflicted. The consequences of 30 January 1972 were so far-reaching that the repercussions catapulted us into a spiral of conflict that left few in Ireland untouched. Because truth was also a casualty that day and the denial of truth is a denial of justice.
Last Saturday I attended an event in Ballymurphy, in west Belfast, organised by the families of 11 people killed by the same British Army’s Parachute Regiment in the 48 hours after internment began. All 11 were civilians. One was the local parish priest, another was a mother of 8 children. Forty seven children were left without a parent.
And like Bloody Sunday and so many other similar incidents there was a cover-up of the circumstances. In the last few years these families have come together to organise and campaign for the truth.
The Ballymurphy Massacre Committee is demanding an Independent International Investigation into all of the circumstances surrounding these deaths and for the British government to issue a statement of innocence and a public apology.
They are not alone. Countless hundreds of other families are similarly demanding truth. Many are victims of collusion and British state violence. Sinn Féin supports them in this endeavour.
It is clear that significant elements of political unionism are deeply uncomfortable with where unionism is today. Traditionally, historically, unionism in this city and elsewhere has been about constantly saying ‘No’ and about domination.
There are some – particularly within the DUP – who would like a return to the old days, and to the old ways of majority unionist rule – it isn’t going to happen.
Tá na laethanta sin thart.
Today the DUP finds itself in a place it never wanted to be – a partnership government – in which a DUP Minister has an equal status with a Sinn Féin Minister in the Joint Office of First and deputy First Minister. Tá Sinn Féin iontach soileir ar ár gcuspóirí, ar an bhealach chun tosaigh, ar ár mbeartaoíochta agus ar na dúthshláin atá romhain.
At times all of this means that the process of change is slow – certainly much slower than the vast majority of citizens want. One example of this is Acht na Gaeilge. Another is the transfer of powers on policing and justice. In my opinion the vast majority of citizens want the transfer of powers to take place; they want the institutions to be delivering for them on all these matters, as well as on other bread and butter issues; like rising energy costs and the crisis on the housing market. There is, therefore, an understandable frustration and annoyance, and not just among nationalists and republicans, at the lack of progress and at the DUP’s refusal to engage properly.
For our part Sinn Féin will not shirk our responsibilities nor bow to unionist intransigence. The message to unionism is clear – if unionists want to exercise power; if they want an Assembly, and an Executive, taking meaningful decisions, then there is a price to be paid – and that price is sharing power with republicans in a partnership government of equals.
Anything less is not acceptable and anything less will not work.
Sinn Féin’s goal is a United Ireland. Togfaí tochaí na hEireann ar bhunchloch chearta saoranaigh do gach duine a chónaíonn ar an oileán seo.
Republicans and democrats believe it is in the best interests of all the people who live on this island that British government interference and jurisdiction are ended. To advance this goal means developing an entirely new relationship with unionism.

A chairde, we have come a long way and we have a lot of work ahead of us.
The most important challenge facing us is the challenge of nation building. Republicans have a vision of a new future, a better future, and we have the spirit and the confidence born out of decades of struggle to achieve this.
The two key words – concepts – of our republican future are ‘change’ and ‘equality’. Republicans are for positive change – progressive and deep rooted. We are for an Ireland with core values which uphold the well being of the aged, and the advancement of youth, the liberation of women and the protection of our children, where all citizens are treated equally. Our past was built on colonialism, dispossession, discrimination and division. Our future has to be different. Our future is a future together.
To succeed we have to take this republican message of hope and change, of progress and equality, and of freedom; to every corner of this island; and to every citizen. And everyone here can play a part in that.
As Bobby Sands put it: “Everyone, republican or otherwise has his own particular part to play. No part is too great or too small, no one is too old or too young to do something.”
41 years ago, as a young republican activist I attended the meeting in Belfast from which emerged the Civil Rights Association. Forty years is a long time in a person’s life. But it is only a blink in the history of struggle.
Today we can take great confidence from the reality that republicanism is bigger and more popular than in generations; and is ready to achieve what previous generations only dreamed of. This is in many ways due to the huge courage and sacrifices of the hunger strikers and their families.
Is fir spreagúla iad – thug said sampla duinn uilig sna laethanta gruama,dorcha sin i naoi deag ochtó a haon, chuir said i néadan Rialtas crúalach, gránna na Sasanaigh i nÉirinn. Tá cuimhne ar Thatcher ar an náire a tharraing sí ar a tír fein agus ar an chruáileacht a thaispeáin sí do tír s’againn.
For their part the hunger strikers are remembered with pride by freedom loving people every where.
Even in the worst of times and the worst of conditions they never gave up.
More than that they were confident of success, and they succeeded.
Well, this is our time to succeed. This is our time to change history.

The ceremony was brought to a close with Sarah Griffin singing Amhrán Na bhFiann.

By Ronan McSherry
Ulster Herald
14 August 2008

Almost 11 years after the murder of her husband by the LVF, Martina Dillon is still waiting to hear the full facts surrounding his death after the latest adjournment of his inquest.

Seamus Dillon (46), a father-of-three from Stewartstown was gunned down while performing his duties as a doorman outside the Glengannon Hotel in Dungannon on December 28, 1997. He died of a bullet wound to the head. Two other doormen and a 14-year-old waiter were also injured in the attack.

His murder was carried out around 12 hours after LVF leader Billy Wright had been shot dead by the INLA in the Maze prison. Mr Dillon had served a term of imprisonment as a Republican prisoner but the attack was a random one at a place frequented by Catholics. In the next two weeks 10 Catholics were shot dead by the LVF and the UFF.

At Dungannon Courthouse on Monday, coroner John Leckey said witnesses who had been summonsed to appear had not done so for unknown reasons. He also said he hoped the Historic Enquiries Team review of the murder would have been read by the family before a rescheduled inquest in December.

Mr Leckey said he sympathised with the predicament of Mr Dillon’s family. “No-one has been made amenable for the murder of Seamus Dillon. An inquest should be held as soon as possible but I accept the views expressed by the family as to why they want it adjourned.”

Speaking to the UH outside the courthouse, solicitor Paddy Murray acting on behalf of the Dillon family said, “‘We sought an adjournment because we felt we felt we wouldn’t have a proper inquest before all the relevant facts are fully investigated.

“The inquest has been adjourned on several occasions basically for the same sort of reasons.

“It is very frustrating this is going on so long. Seamus Dillon’s wife Martina has been waiting 11 years for this inquest to take place.

“We hope to meet with the Historic Enquiries Team and study their report over the next few months and be back here in December hopefully with all witnesses present.”

Part two
Belfast Media

**If I find Part 1, I will post it.

Unfortunately prosecutions of other captured did not discourage more bodysnatchers from invading the Clifton burying ground in North Belfast as many reports in the Northern Whig covering the years 1824 to 1832 show.

The families of those buried in Clifton Street used many different devices to prevent raids on their loved one’s graves.

A lot of the families kept watch on the graves at night until the bodies were in a state of decomposition. Other families hired watchmen to do this for them, and it was not uncommon for these watchmen to enter the burying ground armed.

Until 1831 the Burying Ground committee would not allow watchmen into the graveyard if they had guns, but after a meeting held in that year the committee decided to supply their own watchmen with firearms. However on the 27th of February, 1833, there was cause for an investigation:

Poor-house 27th February, 1833

At a special meeting of the committee held for the purpose of enquiring into the circumstances connected with firing shots in the graveyard on the night of Monday last, one of which struck the barrack, and entered through one of the windows of the room in which the soldiers were sleeping.

Two soldiers of the 80th regiment deposed that at about half past twelve on Monday night, the 25th inst., a shot was fired from the rear of the barracks, which entered through the centre pane of one of the windows, and that about two o’clock, four o’clock and six o’clock the shots were repeated but they do not think that any of them struck the barracks. On the whole they are sure that about six shots were fired.

After having heard the statement of the men who were on watch on Monday night, the 25th inst. - viz, John McIlwain and James McFarlane fired several shots on Monday evening unnecessarily, thereby causing both alarm and danger, thereby acting contrary to their orders, and in consequence thereof the committee be summoned for Saturday to take into consideration the propriety of not allowing firearms to the watchmen in future.

(Signed) A. C. Macartney. Chairman

The two watchmen were ‘sacked’ for firing shots to pass the time. Before the new watchmen had started, a decision was taken that they should have only blank ammunition for their guns, and that a report was to be made each morning.

Eventually, though, the Society became completely frustrated with the system of watchmen guarding the Burying Ground. This led to the withdrawal of watchmen for good. The watchmen, it seemed, could not be trusted to keep or protect the Burying Ground satisfactorily. So disgusted was one family with the entire situation that they made their own ‘coffin guard’. This was an apparatus (used quite successfully) to prevent the removal of a dead body from its coffin, being a cage like framework in which the coffin was placed. Bars were then placed across the top, bolted, and the coffin was then buried. One of these was found in the graveyard in the early 1900’s, and is now on show at Clifton House.

Other ways to prevent bodysnatching included the building of large vaults for burial, and the placing of stone slabs on top of graves, all of which can be seen today in Clifton Street graveyard.

Bill was passed

Bodysnatching ended as suddenly as it had began. In the early part of the 1830s a bill was passed legalising and regulating the conduct of schools of anatomy and surgery. Almost at a stroke the operations of the bodysnatchers were over.

It is easy to see that bodysnatching was an unnecessary evil and one that thrived on the anomalous nature of the law.

One authority on the subject has written of the whole episode:

“There was little choice in the matter. It was either a violation of graveyards so that the profession of medicine might rest on the sure ground of a knowledge of human anatomy, or that ignorance should prevail and medicine fall to the level of quacks and charlatans.”

Next Friday, 29th August, Joe will be leading a tour of the cemetery as part of the New Lodge Festival.

This will look at the graves of the United Irishmen buried there and which will include the actual founder of the United Irishmen. Afterwards the tour will go up to McArt’s Fort where they took their oaths. Meet outside the Ashton Centre at 3pm.

By Patrick Corrigan
Amnesty Org.
22 August 2008

As the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) deliver their first Taser shock, it’s been announced that an application has been made for a judicial review into the decision-making process which led to the deployment of the controversial weapon here.

Campaigning victims group Relatives for Justice said yesterday that a family has lodged papers in the Belfast High Court naming Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde, the NI Policing Board and the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Shaun Woodward, as respondents in the legal challenge.

The review of the Chief Constable’s decision is likely to focus on his alleged failure to follow the proper statutory process for equality impact assessment before introducing the weapons.

The query against the Policing Board the Secretary of State will centre on a separate legal point. Relatives for Justice Chairperson Clara Reilly (whose friend Emma Groves was blinded by an army plastic bullet in 1971 and hence has rather long-standing concerns about ‘less lethal’ weaponry in the hands of the security forces), said in a statement yesterday:

“The action will also include the Secretary of State and the Policing Board who ultimately retain jurisdiction under Section 6 of the Police Act to prevent their piloting and actual deployment from the outset – a duty that they failed to discharge and which we believe will be a central feature of the forthcoming litigation.”

Despite the publicly stated opposition of the Northern Ireland Policing Board, PSNI Chief Constable forged ahead with a pilot of the electro-shock weapons at the beginning of the year. With the expected six month pilot period at an end as of late June, it remains unclear if last weekend’s use by the PSNI of the Taser (welcomed by the sister of the man Tasered, it should be noted) was part of an extended or rolling trial or part of a more general, post-pilot deployment of the weapons.

In any case, it is clear that the Taser pilot went ahead without the PSNI first carrying out an Equality Impact Assessment of the weapons, as would seem to be required by Section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act. Although the PSNI completed the EQIA some months ago, they have delayed publication of its findings.

As we note in our official response to this first use of Taser by the police here, Amnesty considers a rigorous training regime for authorised Taser officers as an absolute prerequisite to any deployment:

“Because these weapons are potentially lethal, police officers must be trained to the same high standard as they are for using a firearm, receiving intensive, ongoing training to ensure that they only use these dangerous weapons in very limited circumstances.”

Indeed, back in January, when the device was first introduced, concerns were already being raised about the PSNI training prgramme. Prof Monica McWilliams, head of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission noted publicly:

“We are surprised that the police are deploying this weapon after only a two-day training programme.”

However, the police themselves made much of the quality of their Taser training programme when, at the start of the year, they announced the Taser roll-out in the face of opposition from the Policing Board.

So, why are they now being so coy about the training regime? The PSNI has recently refused (for the second time) a Freedom of Information inquiry, which I first lodged back in February, asking for information about their training programme for officers to be issued with Tasers.

After admitting that they forgot (oops!) to send me the verdict of the PSNI’s own Freedom of Information internal review panel back in April, the police last week finally told me that the panel:

“considered that the ability of police to honour these [policing] obligations could be hindered by the release of information outlining training methodology.”

I have to admit that I don’t see it myself, and think that the police might actually be able to improve public confidence in their use of Tasers if they were more open about this and other matters relating to the weapon.

For now, the debate continues. We await with interest next month’s Policing Board meeting, where the issue will come up for debate, as well as the possible judicial review, which could also be heard next month.