SAOIRSE32

The following story comes directly from the current issue of The Plough, which I receive via email, and which you may view on The Plough site on Blogspot. Click on the blog image to go to the site:

Around the turn of the century just before the bulk of PIRA prisoners were released under the Good Friday Agreement a number of Real IRA prisoners were charged and brought into Portlaoise Jail in the 26-counties. The prison authorities and the screws were going to either disperse them to other prisons or to the ‘bunker’ where they would either have been criminalised or had to stay in solitary, as they had no landing to go on to.
The INLA prisoners intervened and gave them accommodation on the INLA E4 landing rather than see fellow republican prisoners in solitary confinement or being criminalised.

The Real IRA eventually got their own recognised landing on E3 and thanked the INLA for accommodating them. Since that time there remains a very good relationship between both sets of prisoners. Later the Continuity IRA found themselves in the exact same position and were to be moved to Limerick jail where they would have been treated as common criminals. Once again the INLA prisoners accommodated the CIRA prisoners on the INLA landing.

Then a number of years ago several PIRA prisoners found themselves in the same position as the Real and Continuity prisoners and once again the INLA prisoners accommodated them. So at this stage there were INLA prisoners, Provisionals and Continuity on the INLA landing of E4.

The Reals were on E3 and McKevitt’s ‘faction’ a breakaway from the Real IRA on E2 and Gilligan’s mob of criminal drug dealers were on E1.

The INLA prisoners( which included Declan Duffy, and Dessie ‘OHare two comrades demonised by the Fre Stae media) then drew up a Charter, which both the Provisionals and Continuity had an input into, and which enshrined the rights of all the groups, recognised each other’s organisations and structures, and agreed that all would be treated with equal respect and dignity and have an equal say in the landing.

Remember this was an INLA landing and in the past INLA prisoners had been treated extremely badly by PIRA command structures in jails and treated as common criminals. So the stand taken by the INLA prisoners with the full authority of their outside leadership was magnanimous and extremely tolerant.

Subsequently over the following few years from the Charter was introduced, all of the then existing INLA prisoners were released. This just left the Provisionals and Continuity and a small number who split from the Continuity on E4. Then last year the Provisional prisoners refused admittance to the wing to a Dundalk man charged with INLA membership. He had to remain in solitary confinement until the outside leadership of the Republican Socialist movement sorted out and the comrade was ‘allowed’ to go on to E4. Subsequently the Dundalk comrade got bail. Then last year the Provisional prisoners once again refused admittance to a man charged with keeping INLA weapons and once again the outside leadership of the Republican Socialist movement intervened resulting in him being admitted to E4.

On February 2008 a number of people were arrested in Cork and charged with INLA membership and when jailed they went onto the INLA E4 landing, the Provisional prisoners left and aligned themselves under Micky McKevit’s command on E2.

Over the next number of months a number of people were charged with allegedly INLA activities and membership and others were released on bail. There are now currently 11 prisoners on E4 associated with the INLA and 8 or 9 out on bail.

Subsequently the PIRA prisoners broke both the spirit and letter of the Agreed Charter by claiming sole rights to visiting boxes. This is the background to the recent disturbance in Portlaoise. Despite that disturbance the Republican Socialist Movement remains committed to the Charter, regards all other political prisoners as political prisoners, makes no distinction between them and rejects any elitism among political prisoners. Our position has always been that if we can enhance the position of any republican prisoner regardless of affiliation we will do so
The Republican Socialist Movement are now attempting to make sure that there is a mechanism put in place which will ensure that whatever grievances exist, they can be resolved peacefully.
(WG)

Belfast Telegraph
14 Oct 2008

A UDA-linked conflict transformation scheme that faced a funding ban by Social Development Minister Margaret Ritchie has nevertheless received nearly £400,000 from her department, it has emerged.

The SDLP minister pledged to stop funding to the project last October after loyalists failed to obey her demands for weapons decommissioning.

But an ongoing High Court challenge of her decision has forced the minister to continue funding the scheme and it has been confirmed £382,475 has been paid in the last year.

Sinn Fein Assembly member Paul Maskey said people would be shocked to hear of the funding of the Conflict Transformation Initiative (CTI).

Mr Maskey said: “Last year in a great fanfare Minister Ritchie announced that she had withdrawn funding from the UDA linked CTI project.

“At the time Sinn Fein and all of the other Executive parties publicly supported her position but were fearful that the approach she adopted in not seeking Executive cover left her decision open to challenge.

“Unfortunately it now seems that this position has been borne out. Since her announcement last year almost £400,000 of taxpayers’ money has been pumped into this project away from the glare of the media.

“I am quite sure that the vast majority of ordinary people will be shocked at this revelation.”

But a spokesman for the Ms Ritchie said: “The minister had hoped this matter would be resolved in the courts last November. The constant delays are not of her making. The legal process can be long and drawn out and the minister has absolutely no power to intervene in the process.

“Following a ruling by the courts, we have continued to fund the project and have maintained close monitoring of its work. We cannot comment on the detail of the case as it is currently before the courts. After a number of postponements, the hearing is now scheduled for early November.”

4ni.co.uk
14 October 2008

After months of political wrangling, and conflicting media reports, the NI Sports Minister now looks poised to ditch plans for a national sports stadium at Long Kesh.

Gregory Campbell said finalised recommendations have now been formulated, and he was ready to brief Executive colleagues.

The Minister confirmed he had quizzed football, rugby and GAA officials over a preferred ‘plan B’, should proposals for a mixed stadium at the Maze falter.

All three sporting bodies had previously backed plans for a mixed-use sporting facility.

However, unionist fractions have continued to blast proposals for a sports stadium located at The Maze - citing its connotations with H-block prisoners as a major political issue.

However, nationalists have insisted a Long Kesh development would project a positive message for the future, by providing a shared facility for the country’s main sporting traditions.

This week, Mr Campbell faced probing from DUP colleague Jim Shannon during Ministerial questions.

Mr Shannon asked whether the three main sports bodies had been informed of any alternatives to a shared facility at the Maze.

Minister Campbell said: “I said to each of them that I knew what their previous position was, and I then alluded to them, ‘Is that still your same position?’.

“And then asked them, ‘If we were talking then, for whatever reason, hypothetically, if your previous position is not going to be the final outcome, what would your preferred solution be?’

“Now as a result of those discussions I am now in the position where I am able to furnish my Executive colleagues with a paper which should end the uncertainty,” he added.

In spite of this, Sinn Fein Lagan Valley MLA Paul Butler has rebuked any alternative proposals, vowing that his party would veto any plans to relocate the stadium away from the Maze.

Tribune.ie
**Via Newshound
12 Oct 2008

An unlikely friendship between an RUC officer and murdered solicitor Pat Finucane proved lasting, writes Northern Editor Suzanne Breen

A former senior RUC officer has spoken for the first time about his unlikely friendship with Pat Finucane, the solicitor shot dead by loyalists amidst allegations of security force collusion.

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Kevin Sheehy: ‘Even after I joined the RUC, Pat and I remained good friends’

Kevin Sheehy, who was variously head of the serious crime, anti-racketeering, and drugs squads, has disclosed how his friendship with Finucane was cemented when they were students at Trinity College, sharing digs, and playing for the university football team.

“Pat held strong republican views and when I said I was considering a career in the RUC, we agreed to differ. But even after I joined, we remained good friends. We’d bump into each other in the courts and go for coffee or a pint of Guinness,” he told the Sunday Tribune.

Sheehy writes at length about the friendship in his autobiography, More questions than answers: reflections on a life in the RUC, which is published tomorrow. He also covers his involvement in the 1979 Warrenpoint bomb investigation in which 18 British soldiers were killed by the IRA.

The bomb was detonated from a field across Carlingford Lough in the Republic but Sheehy claims that Charlie Haughey later ordered gardaí not to co-operate with the RUC investigation because the soldiers were members of the Parachute Regiment which had shot dead 14 unarmed civilians on Bloody Sunday.

Sheehy, who came from a working-class North Belfast family, was the first Catholic graduate to join the RUC. He first met Pat Finucane when they attended St Malachy’s College in Belfast. Bik McFarland, who went onto become officer commanding the IRA prisoners during the 1981 hunger-strike, was also a pupil.

Sheehy studied history and politics at Trinity while Finucane studied law. “We shared a house in Rathmines with other lads from Northern Ireland. I was always unionist and had a picture of the Queen on my bedroom wall which Pat and the others slagged me about.

“At the cinema, I’d try to escape before the ‘Soldiers’ Song’ was played, and they’d block me in for the craic.

“I actually courted Pat’s future wife Geraldine for a while, though I was fonder of her than she was of me. I later introduced her to Pat and she fell for him. Until he died, my partner Rosalind and I would regularly have dinner with Pat and Geraldine in their home in Belfast. Pat and I would argue about politics over a drink. There would be voices raised as we both had strong opinions but we always parted on good terms.”

Sheehy said that shortly before he was shot dead by the UDA in 1989, Finucane was concerned about his security and approached him about obtaining a legally held gun: “I advised him on how to go about it.”

Finucane was shot dead in front of his wife and children as he ate Sunday dinner. An officer at the murder scene, knowing of the pair’s friendship, phoned Sheehy. “I went to the house. There were dozens of mourners there. Some looked at me in disbelief. Geraldine had been shot in the foot. We embraced. She said: ‘Thanks for coming but it might be better if you didn’t stay.’ I didn’t go to the funeral because I didn’t want there to be a confrontation with anyone.”

Sheehy doesn’t believe there was collusion in Finucane’s murder nor does he support a public inquiry into the shooting: “But I feel for the family and I think steps should be taken by the authorities to give them the answers they crave.”

Sheehy remembers the surreal scene after the 1979 Warrenpoint bomb: “Mutilated and burnt bodies lay scattered over a beautiful and tranquil landscape. A helicopter was needed to dislodge the soldiers’ arms and legs from the trees.”

Gardaí arrested, and then released, two men on a motorbike in Omeath, several miles from the detonation point. They also had forensic evidence from the scene, including lemonade bottles and cigarette butts apparently left by the bombers. But RUC requests that the two men be re-arrested were rejected, Sheehy claims: “At a meeting in January 1980, senior garda officers said they’d been instructed by Charlie Haughey to treat the deaths at Warrenpoint as political because of Bloody Sunday and not to help the RUC. This caused much ill-feeling, especially since we’d always enjoyed an excellent relationship with gardaí.”

Sheehy’s wide-ranging career included interviewing paedophile priest, Father Brendan Smyth, in 1994: “I questioned him about indecent fondling of a seven-year-old. He replied, ‘She didn’t tell me to stop, she didn’t say she didn’t want it.’”

Sheehy took early retirement from the RUC in 2001. Before he left, he was interviewed under caution about allegations that he and others were involved in drug trafficking and criminal acts. He was exonerated. He now runs an animal shelter.

‘More Questions than Answers: Reflections on a Life in the RUC’, Gill & MacMillan €22.99