SAOIRSE32

19 December 2008
News Letter

DISSIDENT republicans opposed to policing are thought to be behind an attack on the home of a member of Newry District Policing Partnership.

The newly constructed house of Independent member, Annetter Hughes, was daubed with graffiti and scorch damage was also caused after an apparent attempt to set fire to the property.

Ms Hughes’ new home is situated on the Aghadavoyle Road, near Meigh outside Newry.

A digger on the building site was completely destroyed in an arson attack.

The PSNI are currently attempting to establish a motive for the overnight attack.

Remaining defiant, Ms Hughes said she would not be deflected from standing up for the right to proper policing.

By ALLAN MACKIE
Scotsman
19 December 2008

THE former FBI chief who revealed himself as “Deep Throat” 30 years after he tipped off reporters to the Watergate scandal that toppled a president has died. Mark Felt was 95.

John O’Connor, a family friend who wrote the 2005 Vanity Fair article uncovering Mr Felt’s secret, said he died yesterday of heart failure.

The shadowy central figure in the one of the most gripping political dramas of the 20th century, Mr Felt insisted his alter ego be kept secret when he leaked damaging information about President Richard Nixon and his aides to The Washington Post.

Some – including Nixon and his aides – speculated that Mr Felt was the source who connected the White House to the June 1972 break-in at the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee.

The FBI second-in-command steadfastly denied the accusations until finally coming forward in May 2005.

By Colm Heatley and Dara Doyle
Bloomberg.com

Dec. 19 (Bloomberg) — Gerry Adams, whose Sinn Fein party is allied to the group that waged an armed campaign for a united Ireland, urged President-elect Barack Obama to pursue talks with U.S. enemies in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Middle East.

“I would be very surprised if there weren’t some lines of communications” already in Afghanistan, Adams said in an interview at his office in Belfast. “Leaving aside moral issues, ethical issues, look at what works. There is merit in the Irish peace process in some ways being looked at in terms of broad principles.”

A total of 4,835 U.S. Army personnel had been killed in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as of Dec. 16, according to figures from the U.S. Department of Defense. Obama, elected on a pledge of withdrawing from Iraq and stepping up the fight in Afghanistan, plans to dispatch an additional 7,000 combat troops to repel the Taliban, the Islamic fundamentalist movement ousted by U.S.-led forces in 2001 after the Sept. 11 attacks.

As leader of Sinn Fein, Adams, 60, is allied with the Irish Republican Army, which carried out a violent struggle against the U.K. government for a united Ireland, and against pro- British unionist paramilitaries who wanted to remain part of the country. Between 1969 and 1994, more than 3,500 people were killed in Northern Ireland.

In 1994, the IRA called a cease-fire and after four years of talks with the U.K. government Sinn Fein signed a peace deal that led to the creation of a power-sharing assembly in the U.K. province.

Conflict Resolution

Adams said he has “no time” for al-Qaeda. “There are clearly people out there who are not terrorists but who know what’s happening, who have contacts, who themselves are open to being helpful to bring together a genuine process of conflict resolution,” he said.

Adams said that closer economic ties with the Republic of Ireland may see the island reunified within his lifetime.

Northern Ireland is the U.K.’s third-poorest region, with gross domestic product per capita 20 percent below the U.K. average. Boosted by an influx of foreign investment and a construction boom, the economy of the Republic of Ireland tripled in size in a decade before entering a recession this year.

“You have an acceptance that partition no longer has any economic value,” said Adams. “It could be that the economy would be a big decider for many unionists.”

Adams said his party hasn’t yet taken a position on a new referendum south of the border on the European Union’s governing treaty. Sinn Fein was the only major party to campaign against the Lisbon Treaty, which was designed to streamline EU decision making. Irish Voters rejected the treaty in June.

Second Referendum

Prime Minister Brian Cowen signaled on Dec. 12 he may hold a second vote on the treaty. Under the accord he reached with other EU leaders, Ireland would hold a second ballot by Oct. 31, 2009.

The deal allows all EU countries to keep a representative on the European Commission, the Brussels-based executive. Cowen also sought assurances that the EU wouldn’t interfere with tax rates or impose family planning policies.

“What’s coming forward at the moment doesn’t give one much hope,” Adams said. Cowen “ended up almost as a messenger boy for the political elite at the European Union as opposed to the leader of a state whose citizens had just very clearly set out its position.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Colm Heatley in Belfast at cheatley@bloomberg.net. Dara Doyle in Dublin at ddoyle1@bloomberg.net

Derry Journal
19 December 2008

A chara,

I would like to commend Aoife McNaught, Chairperson of the local Ogra Sinn Féin, for organising a vigil and protest to call for the release of political prisoners.

This initiative was the second in Derry in a matter of days, following the Irish Republican Forum for Unity’s candlelit vigil which too highlighted the plight of political hostages.

All over the world political prisoners struggle for justice and freedom from the Miami 5 (Cuban Trade Unionists) to the Derry Four. Each struggle bears its own challenges and significance.

This Christmas nearly 100 Irish Republican Prisoners of War will be incarcerated in gaol.

These men are imprisoned for pursuing our people’s right to national self determination and sovereignty.

Ógra Sinn Féin has called for those not released under the Good Friday Agreement to be released! I would like to ask Ógra Sinn Féin to extend this call to those prisoners who were arrested and imprisoned post Good Friday Agreement. Furthermore, I would ask them to support a campaign to oppose the criminalisation of these men.

The identity of a political prisoner cannot be changed by putting a criminal label upon him.

It is a sad fact, however, that republicans arrested after the Good Friday Agreement are being labelled as criminals based solely in their opposition to the British engineered “peace process”.

Furthermore the basic rights which were fought for with the lives and suffering of our hunger strikers, and which were afforded to other republican POWs, are now being denied to a new batch of republicans.

Aoife acknowledged at Ógra’s protest that the iniquity of internment continues to exist in Ireland and in other parts of the world today.

In our own town four of our citizens face the reality of internment this Christmas. Internment is a crime. It is a form of official oppression and has manifestly failed in Ireland. Moreover it is a lesson in inhumanity, tyranny and above all lies and hypocrisy.

Tomorrow Saturday, 20th December at 2pm a protest will begin at Free Derry Corner to campaign for the release of the Derry Four.

I would encourage Ógra Sinn Féin members given their pledge to concentrate on the issue of prisoners this month, to attend and begin actively supporting, participating and protesting against the internment of these men.

I hope to see you there Aoife,

TONY TAYLOR

Sailortown republican believes united Ireland closer than ever

An Phoblacht
18 Dec 2008

JOHN THOMAS has taken part in some extraordinary events. He spent over 16 years in prison, five of them on the Blanket, for his involvement in the IRA but says he wouldn’t change a thing – except maybe getting caught!

As a result of his involvement in the republican struggle, Sailortown man ‘JT’ has spent nearly a third of his adult life in jail.
Even after nearly three hours listening to JT recall his experiences throughout these years, you come away knowing that you have only skirted around the edges of a lifetime of struggle.
Jailed for the first time in 1969 after an ‘altercation’ with an RUC man, those four months in ‘The Crum’ were just a starter for what he would face in later years.
Interned in the Cages of Long Kesh, JT had a year of freedom before he was back in jail when he was sentenced to ten years for possession of explosives.
There was 50 per cent remission at the time but JT would not leave the H-Blocks of Long Kesh until nearly eight years later because of his involvement in the Blanket and other protests.
JT spent nearly five years on the protests until they came to an end with the start of the 1981 Hunger Strike. He knew personally several of the Hunger Strikers who later died.
The day of JT’s release from the Blocks came when all the world’s media were focussed on the block he was to leave from – H7.
The day before his release, 38 republican prisoners had, after the IRA took control of the Block, executed an early-release scheme. The next day, JT was arrested by the RUC as he stepped outside the gate and spent three days in Castlereagh being interrogated about the mass exodus.
JT’s spell on the outside was to last a bit longer this time round. However, he was eventually captured with the late Martin Meehan and charged with abducting a British soldier. He was sentenced to 12 years.
Released in 1992, John Thomas is now the type of oul fella you wouldn’t give a second glance to as you walk past him in the street or rubbed shoulders with him in the bookies (he’s fond of a flutter).
Yet the diminutive-looking man has been involved in and experienced extraordinary events in his lifetime.
An inner strength has obviously seen him through these turbulent years and he is still spritely for his 60 years. JT keeps a keen eye on the political goings-on of today and yet he was one of those many thousands who were making the news yesterday.
The former POW was actually born in Birmingham but his family moved back to Belfast when he was two and he grew up in the Sailortown area.
JT was one of a family of five children born to Joe and May Thomas (nee McGranaghan).
His mother had a strong nationalist streak and indeed supported her son throughout his involvement in the struggle.
JT had no early political inclinations and after leaving school started work as a commis chef in the Midland Hotel on York Street.
JT insists a couple of times during our yarn that hate of the British state or loyalists would never have been enough to keep you going throughout the struggle.
While his early involvement came as a result of what he seen and experienced while living in north Belfast, his political awareness and grasp of what it was all about came as the years went by.
JT believes sectarianism in the North, from the then Stormont regime through to the media, pervaded every aspect of society and this poison is one thing which drove him to strive to bring about change and an independent Ireland.
“If you could remove sectarianism from this place then we’d walk straight into a united Ireland tomorrow,” says the veteran republican.
“The USA electing a black man and leaving racism behind shows you that the world has moved on, although I still think a lot of unionists are tied into the old ways of not wanting to have a Catholic about the place,” says JT.
JT also paid a heavy price in his personal life for his involvement in the struggle and his one regret is that his two children had to spend a lot of their early years without their father.
During JT’s first time in Crumlin Road Jail he met current Belfast Mayor and Sinn Féin Councillor Tom Hartley, who had received a sentence for riotous behaviour.
Back out on the streets, JT looked at what was happening to his community and joined the IRA.
After the introduction of internment in August 1971, JT lived a life of avoiding capture and being involved in IRA operations on a daily basis.
He was to stay active until November 1972 when he was captured in the New Lodge and brought to Palace Barracks, Holywood.
“During those years you just weighed into houses each day and waited on women to bring weapons,” JT recalls. “We were always on stand by.
“I was brought to Holywood Barracks and the Branch beat the crap out of me and put guns to my head and pulled the triggers.”
JT ended up in Cage 3 and it was here that he had his introduction to politics.
“As time went on in the Cages, I started reading a lot and became aware of the wider politics of the struggle. I went to Irish language classes and eventually became O/C of the Cage.
“You looked at causes of the conflict – unemployment, sectarianism, etc – and the wider goal of a united Ireland.
“Plus you were reading your own history and finding out that you weren’t the first generation to go through this. The more you got to know the more you wanted to know.”
Released in March/April 1975 as internment was coming to an end, JT went back to active service on a 24-hours-a-day basis. He would have only 12 months of freedom before ending back in jail.
JT was captured in March 1976, three weeks after the ending of political status, and charged with possession of mortars. He was sentenced to ten years
Back in ‘The Crum’ again, JT would begin what would be over seven years of protest and struggle against the prison regime.
With the ending of political status, republican prisoners in ‘The Crum’ found themselves put in cells along with loyalists.
JT became O/C of the IRA remand prisoners and a battle a day started with the jail authorities.
“After getting separate cells from loyalists I remember when they were trying to mix us during association time in the yard and I had told the Screws that republicans would be attacking loyalists if they let us out together,” says JT.
“Well didn’t they let out Jim Gibney, who wasn’t the most physical of types, along with this big loyalist at the same time. The loyalist just came towards Jim and Jim stuck out his fist and knocked your man out. I couldn’t believe it.”
JT recalls that the first Blanket man, Kieran Nugent, had asked him what was the craic when they are sentenced and the Screws attempt to give them a prison uniform and JT told him to refuse to wear it.
“I couldn’t have picked a better man to begin the Blanket. Kieran was perfect – I knew he wouldn’t bend.”
After being sentenced, JT went to the blocks and immediately on to the protest.
When the protests failed to shift the British Government, the prisoners took up the last resort and the hunger strikes began. JT knew several of the hunger strikers who died.
“Bobby [Sands] was the most mellow nice guy you could ever meet. He was never angry. He was always on the same level you know – he didn’t have big highs and lows. I remember he was always into writing. He was a good singer too.”
JT shared the wing with some other hunger strikers, like Joe McDonnell and Raymond McCreesh.
“They came and they weighed them, and told them their weight, and we would’ve shouted that information to the other wings.
“After 28 days the men would have been moved to the hospital wing beside the H-Blocks, and that was the contact ended.

“I remember I spoke to Raymond McCreesh before he was moved. Ray was a real genuine person. He was very strong-minded.
“I remember speaking to him one day, not long before he was moved, and he was talking to me. He was sort of shouting but it wasn’t coming out, and you were leaning close to him to try and hear him, but he thought he was shouting, and you could barely hear it – it was a drawl, barely a whisper.

COMRADES: JT shared the wing with Joe McDonnell and Raymond McCreesh

“When I saw Joe he was not in the same condition. Joe says, ‘JT, I’ve snout [tobacco] there for you, I’ve left it there for you where you slop out’… I says, ‘Well, I dunno if I’ll see you again,’ and he says to me, half-laughing, ‘Well, I hope you do,’ but Joe was a bit of a joker, that was the type of him.
“Tony ‘Scatter’ O’Hara, he was in the wing with us. He was Patsy O’Hara’s brother and he would’ve got visits up to the hospital, and he would have told us what news was happening.”
With the ending of the protests after the deaths of the hunger strikers, the POWs were eventually granted political status in all but name.
Then one huge action the IRA prisoners took in 1983 would throw the spotlight of the world back on the H-Blocks.
On Sunday, 25 September, 38 republican POWs exited the jail after the IRA had taken over H7.
JT was on the block but didn’t go on the escape for an obvious reason: he was due to be released the next day.
“I remember the Peelers opening the cell door and shouting, ‘This one is sleeping!’ – I was in bed. The RUC were everywhere along with the Screws and dogs.
“They tried to make me run through a gauntlet of Screws with batons and dogs but I refused to run. Cardinal Tomás Ó Fiaich gave me a bible and they stole that when they were wrecking the cells.”
JT was released the next day but immediately arrested by the RUC and interrogated at Castlereagh for three days before being eventually released for good.
“If I had been on the escape and got caught I still would have been delighted because so many had got away and we had struck such a blow against the system.”
JT lived on the Ormeau Road for a while when he got out but it just wasn’t home and he soon moved back to the New Lodge.
Back involved in the republican struggle, JT was now active throughout the city and not just in north Belfast.
This time, JT’s spell outside the confines of a prison cell was to last nearly three years before he would find himself on the way back to a very different type of system in the H-Blocks.
JT was lifted with Martin Meehan and Short Strand republican Kevin McGuigan in 1986. His daughter was just three months old at the time and he was eventually sentenced to 12 years on a charge of abducting a British soldier.
“When I went back to the Blocks it was completely different: you were in control. We more or less had the run of the place.”
Released in 1992, JT says that he gets frustrated at times watching things unfold at Stormont but he is confident that a united Ireland is closer than ever.
“There is a new arch-bigot in Jim Allister [the Traditional Unionist Voice MEP].
“The leadership of unionism have never given Protestants any direction but hopefully that will change too as a lot of things have changed recently.
“It was easier during the war, it was straightforward – there was them and us.
“Don’t get me wrong, you were frightened doing things but your commitment overcame that fear.
“Republicans had to go through that journey to reach where we are now. You would not be able to make the decisions you make now unless that journey had been travelled.
“I think it is a lot harder now and what the Sinn Féin MLAs are doing up at Stormont takes great commitment, I couldn’t do it.”
On spending such a lengthy period of his life in jail, I ask JT has he any regrets.
“I wouldn’t change a thing – except maybe not get caught. It was a war and people dying is regrettable. It’s good that is at an end now and I believe our people have the confidence and the know-how to achieve a united Ireland through peaceful ways.
“The Brits and indeed unionism gave us no other choice but to use armed struggle. I think the conditions are now right for republicans to use a different tactic to get Irish freedom.”

An Phoblacht
18 Dec 2008

LIFELONG republican BOBBY STOREY has been involved in the struggle for well over 30 years, having been interrogated, brutalised and imprisoned for 20 years, most of which time was spent on remand.

Bobby is at home in any site of republican struggle and he talks to ELLA O’DWYER about the route through that struggle which brought him to become the new chairperson of Belfast Sinn Féin.

Photo: BOBBY: Saddest moments were at the deaths of comrades, especially the hunger strikers

OVER six feet tall and with a commanding stature, Storey is otherwise known as ‘Big Bobby’. At first glance and considering his impressive CV, you could be forgiven for expecting a macho, self-opinionated character but, if anything, he is a bit self-effacing in relation to his contribution to the struggle.
Bobby Storey makes serving time sound like no big deal and is philosophical about his 20 years in jail.
“Whatever price people might have paid in terms of imprisonment, at least people like me are alive whereas Martin Hurson, Kieran Doherty and Mairéad Farrell are no longer with us. They paid the ultimate price.”
From the New Lodge, in north Belfast, the Storey family had to move house when Bobby was very young.
“We originally lived in a place called the Marrowbone but had to move because loyalists opened fire in the area on too many occasions. We went to live in Manor Street, in another part of north Belfast, which was an interface with a loyalist area.
“I have two brothers and one sister: Seamus, who escaped from Crumlin Road Jail in 1971; Brian, who is Downs Syndrome; and Geraldine.
“Our whole household revolved around Brian. He was born in 1970 and he was a beautiful development. He’s 38 now.”

‘By the time I was interned at the age of 17, I had been repeatedly arrested, brutalised and assaulted by the Brits.’
– Bobby Storey

Bobby’s father, also Bobby, along with a brother-in-law of the late Joe Cahill, Sam O’ Hanlon, were involved in the defence of Catholic homes in the area at the time. His brother, Seamus, was in the IRA. Bobby recalls that he was “about 15 the first time our house was raided in 1971” and a rifle and pistols were found.
“Daddy and Seamus were arrested and taken to Girdwood Barracks and brutalised. Girdwood was a well-known torture centre.
“My father was released but my brother was charged and escaped from Crumlin Road Jail a couple of months later. When he escaped our house was raided on several occasions as the Brits and the RUC were looking for him.
“Meanwhile, in my own life I was involved in rioting against RUC, the Brits and against loyalists who were attacking our homes because we lived on the last Catholic street on the interface.”
Like so many other republican and nationalist families in Belfast, the Storeys had an innate opposition to the British presence in his city.
“There was an instinctive anti-British culture and politics in our house but although there was a history of republicanism on my mother Peggy’s side the main influences on me were the conditions around me. The dominant influences on me were the events that were going on around me, particularly the attack on McGurk’s bar in the New Lodge when 15 people were killed. Some of those killed would have known our family.
“Then there was the massacre on Bloody Sunday when 13 people were gunned down.”
These events took place within months of each other and they had a huge effect on Bobby.
“The fact that British paratroopers could gun down innocent protesters had a massive impact on me and from that point on I was attempting to join the Republican Movement.”
Bobby was only 16 at that time.
“I was attracted to republican resistance, especially the IRA and the fight they were bringing to the Brits not only in pursuit of a United Ireland but also in the defence of nationalists and republicans. So when I was 16 I made moves to join the Republican Movement immediately.”
Things were hectic in those days on the streets of Belfast with house raids and riots and Bobby’s schooling was disrupted.
“These were distracting times and I left school in 1971 around the time of my 15th birthday and went to work for a while selling fruit with my father. Dad had been running a small building firm and had a contract with Belfast City Council. After the Civil Rights movement started up in 1969 the council pulled a lot of the contracts from Catholics. They took the contract from my father and he became bankrupt.
“After that he bought one of the first London taxis, which we call the black taxis, and started taxi-ing for 40 years in west Belfast.”

‘I was attracted to republican resistance, especially the IRA and the fight they were bringing to the Brits, not only in pursuit of a united Ireland, but also in the defence of nationalists and republicans.’

By 1972, Bobby was an active republican involved in street activism and resistance against the British Army on the ground.
“I was involved in the Andersonstown area when the British Army came in during Operation Motorman. By the time I was interned at the age of 17, I had been repeatedly arrested, brutalised and assaulted by the Brits.”
On one occasion after an interrogation, Storey was thrown out of a Saracen armoured car on to a loyalist street. The Brits then shouted out: ‘He’s an IRA man!’ Bobby survived nonetheless.
“I would be just walking up the street and the Brits would jump out and beat the f**k out of me and leave me in the middle of the street.
“I wasn’t on the run because I was too young to be interned so I was more accessible and I was also six foot and easily identifiable.
“I took a lot of flak from the Brits. The more beatings they gave me the more my resolve developed. It developed my resolve that the British presence here was a cancer and had to be removed.”
Bobby was arrested about 20 times before he came of age for internment.
“I was interned on my 17th birthday and held in the Cages for two years in Long Kesh.
“There was great comradeship in the Kesh and internment gave me the opportunity to look into Irish history, politics, the history of the IRA and the party.
“It was also my first experience of prison struggle and one of the most obvious manifestations of that was when we burnt down the Cages in October 1974. That was one of my happiest prison struggle memories.”
Storey was released from internment in 1975 and rearrested in 1976 and charged with blowing up the Skyways Hotel. He was remanded for 13 months. He wasn’t convicted but was arrested leaving the court on the day of the trial and charged with a shooting incident. They had to release him again in March 1977 as he wasn’t convicted. In August 1977, he was charged in relation to the shooting of two British soldiers in the Turf Lodge but again the charges were dropped that December.
Internment was getting the British a lot of bad press so they changed tactics and used remand as a kind of internment, so even if you weren’t convicted of anything you were still imprisoned, as Bobby Storey’s experience demonstrates.
“In 1978, I was charged with shooting a British soldier and again not convicted. I was remanded that time for 13 months and released in May 1979. In December of 1979, I was arrested in London and charged with conspiring to help Brian Keenan escape from Brixton Prison and conspiracy to hijack a helicopter. Yet again they couldn’t convict me and I was released in April 1981. Then, in August 1981, on the day of Michael Devine’s death on hunger strike in the H-Blocks, after a soldier was shot, I was arrested with a rifle and was sentenced to 18 years.” Two years later, in 1983, I was captured during the Great Escape when 38 POWs smashed their way out of the H-Blocks. I was given an additional seven years for the attempted escape, bringing the sentence up to 25 years.
“I was released in 1994 and in 1996 was charged with having information on the Lord Chief Justice.”
In total, Bobby Storey served over 20 years in jail, and almost all of that period was on remand on charges that failed. And right up to recent years the media and various political figures have tried, in one way or another, to undermine Storey’s political activism.
Three years ago, under parliamentary privilege in Westminster, South Antrim Ulster Unionist Party MP David Burnside told the House of Commons that Bobby Storey was head of IRA Intelligence and that he was involved in the Northern Bank robbery even though absolutely no evidence exists to support that claim.
Harassment, interrogation and detention have been routine in Bobby’s life – the ‘story’ of his life.
Despite the constant hounding from the Brits and RUC and consecutive periods of incarceration, Bobby has some happy memories of prison and not just the burning of the Cages in 1974. For Bobby one high point was the 1983 Great Escape.
“It was a great achievement for the IRA. It showed the degree to which comrades could work together, not just those who escaped but those who formed the back-up inside the jail, prisoners who weren’t going on the escape. Then there was the teamwork of people outside the jail: the drivers, the safe houses. Even getting captured didn’t dampen the event. We shafted Maggie Thatcher.”
Of course, there are sad memories from along the way.
“The saddest moments were at deaths of comrades, especially the Hunger Strikers. They are iconic figures but they were ordinary people in extraordinary times. When it was required of them, they stepped into the breach.”
After his final release from jail in 1998, Bobby, as after previous releases, got reinvolved with the struggle. His work has involved developing republican politics, strategy and paving the way for the future.
“Our challenge over the last decade has been to maximise our role as a movement and develop political strength.
“After the first and second cessations there was a stronger impetus to enhance our advantage and move towards independence. The Brits, the SDLP and the DUP are out to minimise our potential to develop. There have been difficult decisions for republicans to make – the cessations, decommissioning and more recently policing. And there was the task of getting our wider base to understand the strategy. We were successful in that task and I commend An Phoblacht for the part it plays in delivering the republican message and, of course, Sinn Féin’s Organisational Development Units.”

We are about the decolonisation of the Orange state and it’s a mammoth task that we will not be deflected from

Gerry Adams, Bobby Storey and Seán Hughes at the launch of the Brian Keenan booklet

A year and a half ago, Storey became chair of Belfast Sinn Féin and it’s a big job of work. There are three comhairlí ceanntair, 18 councillors, nine MLAs and six Sinn Féin offices operating full-time as well as an MP.
“I put the same application into my current work as I did in the past. As republicans we are constantly making new sites of struggle and we have to be alert and scientific in our approach.
“The recession is the big issue at the moment, especially coming up to Christmas. We’ve been doing a lot of leafleting and holding conferences to inform people of their entitlements. We have a quarterly bulletin of which we distribute 60,000 copies.
“This year we had the 25th anniversary of the Great Escape and the 20th anniversary of Gibraltar. The Royal Irish Regiment marched through the city centre but we stopped them from having a fly-past. This year too Sinn Féin in Belfast holds the lord-mayorship.
“The Assembly is another site of struggle for republicans with the DUP, UUP and the Alliance parties lined up against us. Gradually we have been dragging unionists across, millimetre by millimetre.
“We are about the decolonisation of the Orange state and it’s a mammoth task that we will not be deflected from.
“The policing and justice issue is very important and it’s been a battleground trying to get the transfer of powers moved on.”
A number of people have made an impression on Bobby over the years, amongst them Che Guevara and Gerry Adams.
“When it comes to people I admire a lot – of course Che Guevara springs to mind – but I very much admire Gerry Adams. He’s a dynamic leader and he’s been there from 1970 to the present day. He’s probably the best-known Irishman in global terms. He’s also very personable and affable. Gerry has been jailed, shot and has survived several assassination attempts. We often overlook the home-grown qualities.”
Bobby Storey organised the Belfast part of Brian Keenan’s funeral earlier this year.
“Brian asked me to be one of the organisers of his funeral in Belfast. It was an honour and a privilege to do so. He was a good friend and comrade and I admired him as a republican leader.”
Storey is a big family man.
“I cherish both my immediate family – my partner, Teresa, and the three boys, my grandchildren and my nieces and the family I was raised with.”
However dismissive Bobby Storey might be about his personal privations in the course of over 30 years of struggle, he is in no way flippant about his determination to see the republican project through. “No matter whether I was in or out of jail, it was all the same struggle if with different styles of struggle. Republicans are about getting a united Ireland and there’s no reason to stop struggling until we achieve that.
“We’ve seen many sites of struggle – the Civil Rights movement, armed struggle, the Peace Process, negotiations and now we’re proceeding to a united Ireland. We’re building for government – we’re a government in waiting.”

BBC

The police have asked people in Newtownbutler, County Fermanagh, to be “extremely cautious” after they received a bomb warning.

An anonymous caller claimed a device had been fired at police at some stage in the last 48 hours but it had failed to explode.

Officers are now searching for the device on waste ground and have warned residents to be cautious.

They have also asked the caller to contact them with more details.

Chief Superintendent Michael Skuce, commander for the area, said those that had “fired the device in an attempt to murder police officers had no regard for their own community”.

“Leaving such a potentially deadly device on open ground where anyone could come in contact with it is totally irresponsible , especially bearing in mind that the school Christmas holidays are starting today,” he said.

News Letter
19 December 2008

EDUCATION Minister Caitriona Ruane has lavished praise on Bobby Sands – to an audience of schoolchildren.

Pupils at St Colm’s High School, Twinbrook, were told they should be thankful that the hunger striker paved the way for a better future for them.

Caitriona Ruane

But Ulster Unionist education spokesman Basil McCrea said it was “a matter of profound shame” that Ms Ruane had “lauded a terrorist” to impressionable minds.

He called on the First and Deputy First Ministers to intervene and reprimand the minister for using her position – attending the school to hand out prizes – for ideological ends.

“This demonstrates precisely why education policy is in a complete shambles,” he said.

“We have in place a minister who is fanatically driven by a narrow, hard left, republican agenda. She is incapable of telling parents and teachers of P6 children what transfer test they will face next year, but yet can find the time to praise a notoriously divisive figure from the darkest years of Northern Ireland’s Troubles.”

During her school visit, Ms Ruane also said she was saddened that a film about the Irish Civil War (The Wind That Shakes The Barley) had been criticised.

Mr McCrea said: “It is also incredibly disturbing that the Education Minister revealed frightening authoritarian tendencies by attacking those who dared to criticise a film that gave a historically inaccurate account of the Civil War.”

The Department of Education claimed this was not a matter for them to comment on.

Sinn Fein, however, hit back.

A spokesman claimed: “It would have been totally inappropriate for Caitriona not to make reference to Bobby Sands.”

He said the IRA man was not just respected in Twinbrook – where he used to live – but around the globe.

Mr McCrea’s comments were, he added, “indicative of the sort of politics he likes to involve himself in”.

The UUP man’s political career would, he concluded, be long over and forgotten, while Sands’ life and influence would long be remembered.

News Letter
19 December 2008

TWO loyalist brothers have admitted involvment in the murder of a paramilitary chief eight years ago.

Standing in the dock of Belfast Crown Court on Friday, 34-year-old David Ian Stewart and his older brother Robert Ian Stewart (38) both pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting the murder of Tommy English on October 31 2000.

The brothers, from Carntall Rise and Ballyearl Court, both Newtownabbey, also pleaded guilty to hijacking a Renault Laguna car and possessing a gun with intent to commit hijacking and to falsely and injuriously imprisoning Witness A.

They also pleaded guilty to a series of further charges that between October 1995 and August last year, they were members of the Ulster Volunteer Force.

As the pair entered their guitly pleas, Mr English’s brother inhaled sharply as he sat in the public gallery just a few feet away.

It was eight years ago when UDA Chief English was gunned down in front of his wife in their Ballyduff home.

The murder was one of seven killings during a bloody UVF - UDA feud.

Before his murder, the 40-year-old had been part of a loyalist delegation who were part of talks at Stormont as the Good Friday Agreement was set up and signed.

The prosecution is the first to be brought before the coruts by the Historical Enquiry Team, set up after the Police Ombudsman Ballast report in 2007.

Speaking outside the court, Director of the HET David Cox said the team were “delighted” at the result but that their thoughts were with the English family.

“We are delighted with the development but it is a continuing, ongoing work,” said the director who added that they were “working closely with the Public Prosecution Service and we are cpontinuing with the investigatons.”

As part of their remit, Mr Cox said the HET were carrying on investigations into a total of 19 murder, 14 attempted murders and a range of other criminality but would not be drawn whether or not more charges would be forthcoming.

Following the brief court proceedings, Mr Justice Hart remanded the brothers into custody and said he would pass sentence at a later date.

BBC
Friday, 19 December 2008

The former Irish government minister and journalist Conor Cruise O’Brien has died aged 91.

A son-in-law of ex-deputy taoiseach Sean McEntee, he was minister for posts and telegraphs in the Fine Gael-Labour coalition government of the 1970s.

Conor Cruise O’Brien was an opponent of republicanism

He was an outspoken opponent of republicanism and was for a period a member of Robert McCartney’s United Kingdom Unionist Party in NI.

He is survived by his wife Maire and two sons, Patrick and Donal.

Dr Cruise O’Brien was born in Dublin in November 1917, the son of a journalist.

He was raised a Catholic but soon rejected religion.

In 1961, when the Congo was threatened with civil war, he was chosen by the United Nations Secretary General to be a special representative to the country which had become newly independent.

Dr O’Brien stood in the 1969 Dail elections and won the North-East Dublin seat for Labour.

He became his party’s spokesman on foreign affairs and particularly on the civil unrest in Northern Ireland.

He lost his seat in 1977 but was elected to the Senate two months later.

He became editor-in-chief of the Observer newspaper in 1978 and held the post for three years.

Taoiseach Brian Cowen described Dr O’Brien as a leading figure in Irish life in many spheres since the 1960s.

He said he had never doubted “his sincerity or his commitment to a better and more peaceful Ireland”.

BBC

The family of Danny McIlhone, one of the so-called Disappeared whose remains were discovered in County Wicklow, have said they are “now at peace”.

The group searching for the bodies of the Disappeared said remains found last month had been confirmed by the Dublin coroner as those of Mr McIlhone.

The IRA claimed Danny McIlhone died in a struggle with a captor

Mr McIlhone went missing from his west Belfast home in 1981. The IRA has since claimed responsibility for his death.

The family said it was “eternally grateful” that its search had ended.

“We as a family are now at peace and now have the opportunity to given our brother Danny a Christian burial and to lay him to rest with our beloved mother and father,” said the statement.

“While we have now found peace, our thoughts and prayers remain with and will always be with the families whose anguish and loss continues.”

‘Anguish’

Secretary of State Shaun Woodward said he hoped the family could now have some “closure”.

“The McIlhone family have endured great anguish and pain over the last 27 years,” he said.

“Anyone with any information, no matter how small or insignificant it may seem, must come forward to help end the families’ suffering and agony.”

A spokesperson for the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains said: “Our thoughts and prayers are with the McIlhone family at this time and we hope that the confirmation that the remains of their brother have been recovered will bring them closure.

“The work of the commission continues and we hope that we can also bring closure to other families of the disappeared.”

‘Struggle’

There had been two previous unsuccessful searches - in 1999 and 2000 - for Mr McIlhone’s remains.

In a statement in 1999, the IRA said Mr McIlhone was not suspected of being an informer but was being questioned about stealing IRA weapons.

It was claimed that he was killed in a struggle with the person who was guarding him.

The IRA admitted in 1999 that it murdered and buried nine of the so-called Disappeared - Seamus Wright, Kevin McKee, Jean McConville, Columba McVeigh, Brendan Megraw, John McClory, Brian McKinney, Eamon Molloy and Mr McIlhone - in secret locations.

The bodies of five - Eamon Molloy, Brian McKinney, John McClory and Jean McConville and now Danny McIlhone - have been found.

Others who vanished during the Troubles include Gerry Evans, Charles Armstrong, Robert Nairac and Seamus Ruddy, who disappeared in France and whose murder was admitted by the INLA.

BBC

Two brothers have admitted having a role in the shooting dead of a man in a loyalist paramilitary feud eight years ago.

Mr English was shot dead in front of his wife in October 2000

The men pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting in the murder of UDA member Tommy English in October 2000.

David Stewart, 38, from Ballyearl Crescent, and Robert Stewart, 34, from Carntall Rise in Newtownabbey also admitted being in the UVF.

Mr English, 40, was shot in front of his wife in his Newtownabbey home.

The judge remanded the brothers in custody for sentencing at a later date.

It is the first case brought to court by the historical enquiries team (HET), a special police team set up to investigate murders during the troubles.

HET director David Cox said it was a “positive development” in their work investigating 19 murders, 14 attempted murders and other crime associated with the UVF in the Mount Vernon area of Belfast.

“We have made a commitment to the other families who lost loved ones as a result of the violence carried out by this paramilitary group.

“It is our hope that today’s result will serve as a demonstration of our commitment to the families and will inspire others to come forward with information.”

BBC

The trial of four men from Derry charged with membership of an illegal organisation has collapsed.

At the Special Criminal Court in Dublin, the prosecution said on Friday that they were no longer proceeding with the case.

The trial took place at Dublin’s Special Criminal Court

The four men were accused of being involved with dissident Republican activity.

On Thursday, the court ruled that their arrest in County Donegal in March was unlawful.

The men - Gary Donnelly, 38. from Kildrum Gardens, Michael Gallagher, 28, from Sackville Court, Patrick John McDaid, 39, from Marlborough Street and Martin Francis O’Neill from Colmcille Court in Derry - had all pleaded not guilty.

The three judge non-jury court had been told that officers acted on information that a paramilitary group was about to put on a show of strength for the media.