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The Shamrockshire Eagle

BRITART DISASTER!!!

**I popped over to the SHAMROCKSHIRE EAGLE to see what Paul was up to and found this funny piece I Don't Know Much About Art, But I Know What I Like. I enjoyed it so much that I went searching for the news article about the fire. I'd seen the headline previously of course, but I never stopped to take in the full import of this...ahem, tragedy. I shall copy a pic of one of the ...ahem, art works, so that you, too, may grasp the situation. I'm in mourning now. Do read Paul's post though, if you want to be cheered up!


Sorrowfully up in smoke: Emin's tent - "Everyone I have ever slept with 1963-95"

Irish Examiner

Colombian president 'to act over detained trio'
29/05/2004 - 10:12:56 AM

The Colombian President has promised Taoiseach Bertie Ahern to look into speeding up the case of three Irishmen detained in his country, it emerged today.

A Colombian judge last month acquitted Niall Connolly, James Monaghan and Martin McCauley on charges of training Marxist FARC rebels.

However they have been ordered to remain in the country while Colombian prosecutors appeal the decision.

The three men were convicted of travelling to the country on false passports.

Mr Ahern met President Alvaro Uribe at a meeting during a summit of European Union and South American leaders in Mexico last night.

It is understood President Uribe promised to consult the appropriate legal and constitutional authorities in Colombia about how the legal process could be speeded up.

The Taoiseach also proposed the men should be allowed to return to their Ireland on the guarantee that they would fly back to Colombia once they were needed.

President Uribe also promised to respond to the Government’s proposals within a week to 10 days.

Mr Ahern told reporters afterwards he was pleased with the outcome of the meeting.

Supporters of the “Colombia Three” have argued since last month’s verdict that the men should be allowed to return.

Sinn Féin Assembly member Caitriona Ruane has expressed her fear that the men could be attacked if they remain in the country given Colombia’s volatile political situation and the high profile of their case.

Irish Examiner

‘Loyalist feud at an end’, claims LVF
29/05/2004 - 1:50:11 AM

The bitter feud between rival loyalist terror groups in Belfast is over, it has been claimed.

In a statement late last night, Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) announced that its conflict with the Ulster Volunteer Force had ended

The LVF called for mechanisms to be put in place to prevent any further feuding between rival amongst loyalists.

The fighting was sparked two weeks ago by the LVF when houses were attacked with gunfire and pipe bombs.

The festering divisions erupted fully when the UVF assassinated senior LVF man Brian Stewart, 34, in east Belfast last week.

Since then shots have been fired into several homes and bomb attacks mounted on properties stretching out of the city into North Down. A number of families were forced to flee their homes.

Most of the violence came from the UVF side as the organisation attempted to crush the smaller LVF.

The LVF said it hoped that Stewart’s death “will be the last of a loyalist by the hand of other loyalists” and that the conflict “is now ended”.

The group said that mechanisms and structures to prevent further feuds between loyalists needed to be set in place and all sides needed to adhere to agreed guidelines.

The terror group referred to the incidents that started the feud and insisted they had neither been sanctioned or authorised.

It said there would be an inquiry and what it called “disciplinary procedures”.

The statement came following efforts by clergymen to broker a cease-fire and a 90-minute meeting between prominent members of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) and senior police.

Assistant Chief Constable Duncan McCausland told the UUP representatives that extra police and soldiers would be drafted into east Belfast if the turf war escalated.

UUP councillor Jim Rogers warned the terror bosses to halt the shootings and bombings – or face being locked up.

“The police have got very good intelligence on those involved in this,” he said. “If they want to keep out of prison they should stop immediately because the security forces are going to catch up with them.”

Mr McCausland described his meeting with the politicians as “positive and constructive”.

He said: “The police are committed to meeting all groups willing to hold discussions towards a safer community.”

Irish Examiner

Plea for Ireland to treat Iraqi victims of torture
By John Breslin



A DOCTOR and former political prisoner yesterday appealed to the Government to allow Iraqi torture victims to travel to Ireland for treatment.

Dr Chris Neilson, the victim of torture when imprisoned for three years under South Africa's apartheid regime, issued the challenge as he pledged his support for demonstrations against US President George Bush's visit to Ireland.

"I was helped when I came to Ireland 10 years ago. If I can be helped, they (the Iraqis) have the right to be helped as well," said Dr Neilson, founder of the Irish Foundation for Torture Survivors.

His organisation of volunteer medical professionals has helped 600 victims, mostly refugee applicants, since 1999.

Dr Neilson, who suffered electric shock treatment in South Africa, said victims needed careful treatment.

There are 150 dedicated rehabilitation centres around the world, he said, but most are full and will not be able to take in Iraqi victims although Ireland can and should.

Physical, psychological and sexual torture as seen in Iraq was designed not to extract information but to shatter victims, make them powerless and create a clear warning to others in opposition, he said.

Dr Neilson linked the torture to the use of Shannon as a transit point for US troops, including those involved in events in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison and other detention facilities. He claimed Ireland is a third party to this torture and in breach of the Geneva Convention.

The Anti-War Movement, an umbrella for a number of different groups, has announced a series of events to voice opposition to Mr Bush's visit on June 25 and 26. A petition condemning it is to be circulated from today, a concert is planned for Dublin's Point Depot on June 19 and simultaneous demonstrations are planned for Dublin, Galway, Waterford, Cork, Limerick and Tralee at 7pm on June 25. Crowds of up to 100,000 are expected, said movement leader Richard Boyd Barrett.

Dr Juliet Bresson, of the Doctors against War group, called on Taoiseach Bertie Ahern to withdraw facilities at Shannon. She described as "utterly disgraceful" the spending of millions on the Bush visit while the Government prepares to close the nearby Ennis Hospital.

The calls for the withdrawal of Shannon facilities have been echoed by former UN Assistant Secretary-General Denis Halliday, who said Ireland must end its facilitation of pre-emptive war.

Mr Halliday said Ireland should espouse the cause of those who suffer as a result of injustice, poverty and the denial of human rights.

Irish Examiner

28/05/2004 - 1:07:25 PM

Police didn't care, says 'attacked' gay man

Police in Belfast today faced accusations of homophobia from a gay man beaten up in the city.

Kristian Markus, 26, claimed he faced a wall of resistance from station officers after being battered outside a nightclub.

The advertising executive alleged anti-gay attitudes also stretched to his friend being wrongly arrested for assaulting a policeman.

Mr Markus vowed to take legal action and is preparing a detailed complaint for Ombudsman Nuala O’Loan’s office.

He said: “It’s no good devising new strategies for homophobic crime if there are undercurrents within the force itself.

“Their attitude was just p*** off and go home.”

Mr Markus told how he and his friend were jumped on by a 10-strong gang early on Tuesday.

Blows rained down from the thugs who had taunted them with homosexual abuse as they left the club on Tomb Street, Mr Markus said.

He said his companion, a 27-year-old hairdresser, then chased after two of the attackers who stole his wallet during the beating.

Mr Markus, who moved to Belfast from Dublin three years ago, managed to break free and flag down a police car.

Although he identified some of the gang by their clothes, the media buyer claimed officers told him it was not strong enough to make arrests.

After learning his friend had been arrested, Mr Markus said he went to the station on Musgrave Street where he was being held.

As he waited to see him, Mr Markus says, he urged police to take photos of his bruised and bloodied face as a record.


“They refused, saying it was not serious enough,” he claimed.

“I asked one of them if it would take a dead body to be considered serious enough and he said yes it would.

“A woman officer then started talking aggressively to me, saying I had abused the other one verbally.”

When he got to see his friend and heard what had happened to him, Mr Markus says he insisted there were no grounds for arresting him.

“Other officers were brought in and they took a complaint from Geoff and a statement from me,” he recalled.

Mr Markus added that the alleged treatment was even more outrageous because it came just days after new assistant chief constable Judith Gillespie pledged to crackdown on homophobic attacks.

Such assaults are believed to be on the rise across Northern Ireland, with particularly worrying levels in Derry.

Despite tough new measures aimed at halting hate crime, the latest victim said he was left dismayed by the police.

“It’s all very well trying to be PC when you are in the top positions and have to be seen to be doing something,” Mr Markus said.

“But how far does it filter down? Are officers on the ground getting the proper training?

A Police Service of Northern Ireland spokeswoman refused to comment on the case.

She said: “If he has any complaint against the police, the proper channel to address that through is the Police Ombudsman’s office.”

Sunday Life

KILLER STONE LOSES £5,000 IN ROYALTIES

By Stephen Breen
23 May 2004

CEMETERY killer Michael Stone has been forced to hand over a slice of the proceeds from his explosive biography.

Sunday Life can reveal, that Stone's publishers paid out £5,000 to a man the loyalist paramilitary wrongly accused of being a top Provo in the book, None Shall Divide Us.

Leading London-based publishing firm, Blake, settled out of court, after the Belfast man's legal team threatened to sue for libel.

The man, who is understood to have grown up with Stone, in his old east Belfast stomping-ground, denies being a senior member of the IRA. He claimed the book - exclusively serialised in the Sunday Life - had put his life in danger.

This latest development comes, after it emerged that the former UFF killer, may be forced to repay the government the £30,000 compensation paid to the widow of one of his victims.

Ann-Marie McErlean, whose husband, Thomas, was killed at Milltown cemetery, is challenging the Compensation Agency's refusal to go after Stone, because there was nothing to indicate they would make a "substantial recovery".

The graveyard killer is also set to face legal action from former lovers over the book.

It is believed the terrorist romeo's former partners have told Blake, that it was "irresponsible" to publish details of his relationships.

When we contacted Stone about the latest development, he confirmed the man he had named in his book, had received £5,000 from his publishers.

Said Stone: "I only found out about this myself in the last few days. I'm not very happy about it, but it's true.

"People think I have made a fortune from this book, but I have hardly made anything.

"I thought we could have challenged the man's claim in court, but I'm not the publisher.

"I wrote the book to tell my story as a loyalist, because there are far too many stories about republicans, and people in the UK need to know where people like me are coming from."

A spokesman for Blake refused to comment.

Irelandclick.com

BREAKING DOWN THE WALLS OF LIES

Concluding our series on Collusion Roisin Cox speaks to the family of Paul Thompson, whose murder helped convince many people that the RUC/British Army were working with loyalist gangs

Ten years after Paul ‘Topper’ Thompson was gunned down by the UDA, an inquest has still not been held into his murder.

Evidence which has emerged since Paul’s murder suggests that the 25-year-old didn’t stand a chance in the carefully planned gun attack which ended his life.

Loyalist gunmen, who had tapped into a local taxi firm’s radio system, lay in wait to ambush the taxi in which the Dermot Hill man was travelling with his friend Patrick Elley.

The gunmen had easy access into nationalist Springfield Park from loyalist Springmartin, through a hole which had been cut in the peace line fence earlier that day. The loyalists were able to escape through the same breach in the fence unhindered, although RUC barracks overlooked the area in which the gunmen lay in wait. No-one has ever been charged in connection with Paul’s murder.

Paul’s mother Margaret says that her youngest son’s murder has devastated her family and admits that her son’s killing drove her to contemplate taking her own life.

Paul was shot dead on 27 April 1994 around 11.30pm. The fact that there was a hole in the fence between Springfield Park and Springmartin had not gone unnoticed by local residents. A member of the local residents’ committee had seen two men cutting through the fence on the morning of April 27 and contacted the NIO and the RUC because she feared that loyalists could gain access to the area. Her concerns fell on deaf ears, so she leafleted the local area urging residents to be vigilant. Later that night, the same woman would cradle Paul Thompson in her arms as he lay dying following the gun attack.

For Margaret Thompson time has not eased the pain of losing her beloved son. The fact that the inquest into his death has been opened and adjourned seven times because the RUC won’t hand over statements has added to her grief.

“As a wee boy, Paul was into everything, he was just a typical wee lad. He used to play all summer on the mountain and the mountain practically reared him, he was always bringing animals and stuff into the house,” said Margaret.
“There was only a year and three months between Paul and his older brother Eugene and they were like twins,” she added.

Margaret said that Paul was an outgoing popular character who was well known in the local area.

“He took each day as it came and didn’t really worry about anything.”

Margaret said that Paul had been harassed for most of his short life.

She only learned after her son’s murder that he had been threatened by the RUC just an hour before he was killed.

“Before he was shot dead he had been out in the car with his friend and they got stopped coming out of the ’Murph.

“The police recognised Paul and one of them said to him, ‘I’ll have you in six weeks time, Topper’. Paul said to him ‘I don’t think so, I have all the time in the world’.

“I wish they had lifted him that night,” said Margaret.

Paul’s aunt, Celine Crilly, said that Paul’s murder has devastated the entire family. When she heard the news that her nephew had been shot dead she reacted with disbelief – as did other members of the family.

“I remember that everyone was in total shock. I got to the City Hospital and Margaret was there and Eugene was there, it was just pandemonium, it was terrible,” said Celine.

“I went to Grosvenor Road police station and then to Forster Green Hospital where I identified Paul’s body. Paul was lying on a bed and he had a sheet over him, he just looked like he was sleeping,” she said.


After Paul’s murder Margaret said that her family was constantly harassed, including during his wake. Friends of Paul’s were forced to guard the phone during the wake, to intercept abusive phone calls from loyalists.

“I didn’t realise what was going on until my brother took one of the calls. My brother lifted the phone and the caller said ‘Paul’s away to heaven, we sent Paul to heaven with an AK47’. At six o’clock on the morning of Paul’s funeral there was a call and whoever was on the phone asked where the party was and said ‘sure didn’t Paul go out with a bang’,” said Margaret.

Following the funeral, Margaret started to receive hate mail. She was forced to change her phone number and have her mail checked in the weeks following her son’s murder.

In September 1994 an inquiry was held by the local community into Paul Thompson’s murder. The inquiry was held in Conway Mill and was chaired by the respected American jurist Andrew Somers. The RUC and NIO were invited to attend the inquiry but declined to do so. Over two days a host of international lawyers heard evidence from 15 witnesses. In his concluding statement Judge Somers accused the RUC of colluding with Paul Thompson’s killers.

“I have reviewed the evidence presented to our inquiry and have concluded that the death of Paul Thompson and the wounding of Patrick Elley could have easily been prevented by a minimum of police vigilance. I have also concluded that the shootings that took place on April 27 1994 were part of a pattern of violent abuse focused upon the Catholic nationalist community in West Belfast and that the police conduct in this case and others reflects permissive and cooperative conduct which has aided loyalist murder gangs in their intimidation of the Catholic community. Such conduct in my opinion constitutes collusion in the murder conspiracy.”

Margaret says that even ten years on, not a day goes by when she doesn’t think about Paul.

“I wanted to do myself in. It seemed to me that if I did then everything would be very nice and very quiet,” said Margaret.

“There are nights when I come into the house and it is like somebody turning on a video that I can’t turn off. It is in my mind all the time, all the time, all the time.”

Paul’s brother Eugene says the family is hopeful that one day they will know the truth about the murder. He says that the first step on the path to the truth will be an inquest.

“I want whoever is involved within the RUC to be held responsible, and there should be somebody brought to task. If they know who Paul’s killers are then they should tell the truth,” he said.

Margaret added: “We need to have an inquest and we can’t, because the RUC never handed their statements over. If they have nothing to hide why don’t they just hand the statements over?”

Irelandclick.com

VIEW TO A KILL



Armed, camouflaged, faces blackened, four-man Brit surveillance team flees this spy nest as they’re uncovered by man walking dog.

UNCOVERED!
Black Mountain rambler stumbles across covert British Army spying operation

A covert British Army spying operation has been blown by a local man, the Andersonstown News can reveal.

The man – who did not wish to be identified – was out walking his dog when he stumbled across the camouflaged surveillance team dug into a vantage point overlooking Hannahstown, Colin Glen and the Upper Glen Road area.

The man stumbled across the spy operation as he walked his dog behind the derelict shell of the former Mourneview Bar at the junction of the Hannahstown Hill and Upper Springfield Road.

The West Belfast resident and his dog stumbled upon four British soldiers who were dug into bushes.

The British surveillance team were huddled on the ground, wearing camouflage netting over their heads and uniforms, and had their faces painted. They were in possession of weapons, high-powered binoculars and communication equipment.

A number of well-known republicans are resident in the Hannahstown and Glen Road area, immediately directly beneath the eyes of the spy team.

In the days following the discovery last week, an upsurge in British Army activity was evident.

Significant movements were observed in the vicinity of the telecommunications centre on the top of Black Mountain, and increased aerial surveillance by British Army helicopters was also observed.

As the Andersonstown News investigated the incident yesterday, two carloads of PSNI officers maintained a five-hour presence on the Hannahstown Hill outside St Joseph’s chapel..

Throughout the course of the past three decades, the Andersonstown News has reported many instances when British forces have used the Black Mountain as a location for mounting electronic and human surveillance on people and locations in West Belfast.

On a number of occasions – notably after the IRA’s 1994 ceasefire – high-resolution remote cameras and long-distance listening devices were uncovered at various points on the mountain.

After at least one such discovery in the 1990s, the British Army set fire to the mountain in a bid to conceal evidence of their activity.

Journalist:: Jarlath Kearney

IOL

PRISON DOCTORS THREATEN TO RESIGN
27/05/2004 - 08:22:47

The Irish Medical Organisation’s prison doctors have threatened to resign en masse as part of a dispute over the standard of medical care available in Irish prisons.

The doctors, who have been on strike for a number of weeks, said they would all quit unless the Prison Service made a commitment to implement the Olden Report on prisoner healthcare.

The doctors have claimed that the medical care available in Irish prisons is sub-standard and have accused the authorities of caring less about the health of prisoners than that of society at large.

Belfast Telegraph

LOST BRIDGE OF BELFAST UNCOVERED

By Chris Thornton
27 May 2004

A PLAN to reshape the centre of Belfast for the future has led to the biggest dig exploring the city's past.

Archaeologists have peeled back at least four centuries of urban history as they work ahead of builders in Victoria Square - turning up evidence suggesting why the city grew where it did.

And they appear to have found new evidence of the medieval settlement on the site. which will host a £300m development.

One of the largest discoveries so far is the remains of a lost bridge which spanned a river that is no longer there.

The bridge, built in 1810, crossed the Blackstaff River in Victoria Square, across from what is now Musgrave Street police station.

The river was later diverted to the south, where it now mainly flows below ground.

But its former route illustrates why Belfast's original settlers probably picked the site - a spit of land protected on three sides by the Lagan, Farset and Blackstaff Rivers.

The lost bridge was recently uncovered in what Nansi Rosenberg, the archaeological consultant for Dutch developers AM, calls the "biggest excavation that's ever taken place in Belfast".

She said the bridge was "an impressively built structure, very well put together but only used for 20 years. It went out of use possibly because the bridge was very low."

She said early 19th century residents of the city "wouldn't have been able to get boats through" to service timber and poultry markets on the site.

The archaeologist said two teams of archaeologists working in Victoria Square and Ann Street have uncovered a range of material from across the ages.

Medieval roof tiles have shown how early the site was settled, but most material has come from the last 300 years, when the city started to grow.

In the foundation of one 18th century house, diggers found a large strongbox, about two metres long. It was empty.

Much of the area is filled land, since Belfast's Lagan Waterfront used to be further inland.

Waterlogged soil from those areas has yielded several preserved items made from leather and wood.

Belfast Telegraph

POLICE WANT SECRECY AROUND KILLINGS

Chris Thornton
Political Correspondent
27 May 2004

SECRETARY of State Paul Murphy's quest to establish a truth and reconciliation process is running up against police demands to preserve secrecy around contentious killings.

The PSNI has indicated twice in the past eight days that it may ask Mr Murphy to sign powerful gagging orders to suppress information. Those indications claim - as he prepared to fly out to South Africa next week - to look at ways of adapting that country's truth commission for use in Northern Ireland.

PSNI Chief Constable Hugh Orde has also advocated a truth process, but his force was accused of trying to keep "a stranglehold" on information relating to a dozen deaths spanning more than a decade.

PUP leader David Ervine today called for an inquiry into one of the cases, indicating that the UVF wants to "get to the truth" about allegations that an informer in their ranks murdered teenagers David McIlwaine and Andrew Robb.

Last week police told the High Court in Belfast they may seek a Public Interest Immunity Certificate - which would have to be signed by Mr Murphy - to stop David McIlwaine's family receiving intelligence reports about the killing.

And yesterday a Coroner in Tyrone said that there would be a further delay in a two-year legal battle over evidence while police consider blocking a ruling that they should disclose a dozen unedited documents to four inquests.

East Tyrone Coroner Roger McClernon said police had asked for the time to consider "public interest immunity issues" in the cases of pensioner Roseanne Mallon, Moy butchers Kevin and John McKearney - all murdered by the UVF - and seven IRA gunmen ambushed by security forces.

Irish Echo

This story appeared in the issue of May 26-June 1, 2004

S.F.: CLOSE SHANNON TO U.S. TROOPS
By Ray O'Hanlon

Several Dáil members, led by all five members of Sinn Fein, are
urging the Irish government to end landing and overflight rights for
U.S. troop-carrying planes bound for Iraq.

In a statement, the Dáil's Sinn Féin group submitted a motion calling
on the Irish government to "immediately" suspend the privileges
accorded U.S. forces.

The five TDs also urged Irish people to openly register their
opposition to the upcoming visit to Ireland by President Bush.

Caoimghín O Caoláin, the Sinn Féin party leader in the Dáil, said
that he believed that the majority of people in the U.S. shared Sinn
Féin's concerns over the nature and direction of the war in Iraq.

"This is not an anti-American motion; such an idea couldn't be
further from the truth," O Caoláin, a TD from Cavan-Monaghan, said
this week. "But we are very much opposed to the [Bush]
administration's policies in Iraq and the middle East and many in the
U.S. would share these views."

The Sinn Féin motion accuses the Irish government of "assisting"
hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops to participate in "the illegal
invasion and occupation of Iraq," a venture that had "resulted in
tens of thousands of deaths, including the killing of approximately
10,000 civilians and nearly 900 occupation troops, including
approximately 800 American soldiers."

The motion stated that Irish assistance in the war had contributed to
a situation where "thousands of people, including children, are being
injured or killed by exploding cluster bombs."

The motion expressed "anger" at the cost of the war to date,
including an estimated expenditure of over $100 billion by the U.S.
alone. This money, the motion argued, could have been better spent in
the war on global poverty, hunger and disease.

The motion criticized what it described as "the torture and killing
of Iraqi prisoners of war by U.S. and British occupation troops." It
called for the immediate suspension of overflight and landing
privileges to military and civilian chartered aircraft conveying U.S.
troops to Iraq.

The motion urged the Fianna Fáil/Progressive Democrats government
to "spare no effort" as part of Ireland's EU presidency and as a
sovereign state to ensure a speedy end to the occupation of Iraq "by
the so-called Coalition of the Willing."

And it called on Irish people to "peacefully register their
opposition to the occupation of Iraq and to Irish "collusion" in that
occupation during the Bush visit to Ireland next month.

Sinn Féin TDs have not been alone in criticizing the government over
the use of Shannon by the U.S. military. The government's position
was described as "morally bankrupt" by Green Party TD John Gormley.

In addition, the Irish Times reported that Dr. Jerry Cowley, an
independent TD from Mayo, as wondering how President Bush slept at
night.

During his June 25-26 visit, President Bush is unlikely to hear much
of such criticism at firsthand. Security plans call for keeping
protestors well away from the presidential party which will be
confining its business to talks with EU leaders led by the taoiseach,
Bertie Ahern.

An Phoblacht

**Story from 20 May 2004

Remembering the Past: Mass murder averted by IRA Volunteer

Ten years ago this week, the UVF came south and attempted to blow up a republican function in the heart of Dublin. They were prevented from inflicting mass slaughter due to the intervention of a quick-acting IRA Volunteer, Martin 'Doco' Doherty.

On Saturday evening 21 May, the loyalist death squad entered the Widow Scallan's pub in Pearse Street in Dublin's South Inner City. The bar was already full to capacity, with a Sinn Féin POW function in full swing upstairs and a boxing match showing in the downstairs bar.

It was Martin who confronted the UVF death squad as they attempted to prime the bomb they were carrying, causing them to abandon their attempt at mass murder. Unfortunately, he paid the ultimate sacrifice for his actions, as he was shot several times.

After hearing several bangs, the bar manager rushed out, where he found Martin, lying fatally injured in the entrance leading to the function room. Another man, Paddy Burke, had also been injured, hit by a bullet fired through the main door.

By now, word had spread of the shooting and people began to leave the function. It was then that the detenator from the UVF bomb went off, causing further panic, as patrons scattered in all directions from the pub.

The actions of the Gardaí caused widespread anger at the time. The usual Special Branch presence, commonplace at any republican function at that time, was missing at the time of the attack. When they did eventually arrive, the Special Branch inflamed passions even more when several of its members were seen laughing and joking at the scene.

Sinn Féin Dublin City Councillor Christy Burke commented at the time: "It raises again the spectre of collusion. On every occasion that murders such as this have been carried out in Dublin, there has been British Intelligence involvement. The fact that commercial explosives were used raises the question of who supplied them."

The IRA's Dublin Brigade, in a statement issued on the Monday after the attack, paid tribute to their fallen comrade: "He died heroically in the defence of others at Widow Scallan's... his courage and quick thinking during the attack undoubtedly saved many lives."

The usual Free State media/political frenzy occurred after the killing. The most notable attacks came from the Progressive Democrats' Michael McDowell and Fine Gael leader John Bruton. Both lambasted Sinn Féin for holding functions in the first place. Ongoing dialogue with Sinn Féin was also criticised, in the months before the soon to blossom Peace Process.

Martin's funeral was also the subject of much criticism, as the same establishment figures attacked his right to a republican funeral. Hundreds turned out in Martin's native Finglas on Dublin's Northside to pay their respects.

During the funeral oration, Sinn Féin Ard Chomhairle member Martin McGuinness said: "We have come to bury a brave republican Volunteer... As far as I am concerned he was a freedom fighter, a freedom seeker. He was trying to bring about a democratic Ireland. The opposition parties are nothing short of Quislings and West Brits. They don't want to talk about the causes of the conflict. Sinn Féin is trying to get all the parties involved in a Peace Process. We will not be distracted from that process."

Martin 'Doco' Doherty died whilst defending others at the hands of a pro-British death squad on 21 May 1994, ten years ago this week.

Newshound

PSNI rejects joint patrols call

Catherine Morrison
Irish News

The Northern Ireland Office last night rejected calls for gardai to be allowed to police villages in south Armagh alongside the PSNI.

Louth TD Seamus Kirk had appealed to the Irish and British governments to examine the feasibility of a joint policing arrangement between the two forces along the border in south Armagh.

He named the villages of Forkhill and Crossmaglen as the ideal location for a pilot scheme whereby Garda officers would work alongside PSNI officers to police the area.

However last night an NIO spokesman ruled out any exchanges between officers on a local level.

"Patten clearly stated that he did not envisage exchanges of patrol officers," he said.

"However the government is taking forward recommendation 159 which stated that there should be a programme of long-term exchanges, such as fixed-term secondments between the Northern Ireland police and the Garda, in specialist fields where cooperation between the two services is most needed.'

BBC News - Northern Ireland

**I like to think of it as fighting evil--even if you had to fight WITH evil to do it.

IRISH WHO FOUGHT ON THE BEACHES

By Kevin Connolly
BBC Ireland Correspondent

Sixty years on from the anxious summer months of 1944 it is a time for remembering in all the nations that were shaped and scarred by World War II.


There is one European country though where the full picture of what happened during the war is being discovered for the first time.

Neutral Ireland saw no reason to fight against Hitler's Germany alongside Britain in 1939; it was after all only 18 years since the country had bloodily secured a partial independence from London after centuries of British rule.


Irish volunteers fought in the Second World War

At the time it seemed a reasonable decision, and at the political level neutrality was scrupulously observed.

When the first, still barely believable reports of what had happened in the Nazi concentration camps emerged they were strictly censored.

And the Irish leader Eamon de Valera even paid his respects to the German representative in Dublin when news of Hitler's death emerged.

Irishmen who had volunteered for Britain's armies were given a tough time when they were home on leave, and were cold-shouldered after the fighting by a de Valera-led government that didn't see why they should qualify for state welfare payments when they came home from fighting for a foreign power.

Irish volunteers

The volunteers went into a kind of a historical black hole - largely because Ireland's official history as taught in school curriculums was always more comfortable with men who had fought against the crown, rather than men who had fought for it.

All that though is changing. The Northern Ireland peace process, designed to improve the country's future, is also illuminating its past.

First came the rehabilitation of the huge and long-ignored contingent of Irish volunteers from World War I who had been away fighting for Britain while republicans staged the Easter Rising against it in 1916.

"It suggests that while the government of Ireland may have been neutral, many of its people were not."

When Alex Maskey of Sinn Féin was Lord Mayor of Belfast, he even laid a wreath at the city cenotaph - an extraordinary gesture when you consider his party traces its roots directly back to the Easter Rising.

Now, it is the turn of the Irish volunteers who fought in World War II.

Yvonne McEwen, a historian with a special interest in Irish affairs, has now come up with a detailed estimate of the numbers of Irishmen from both sides of the border who fought for Britain.

Based on the War Office calculation that 22 men served for every one who died, she estimates that 99,997 Irishmen volunteered, with the number divided almost evenly between the North and the South.

Fascinating stuff which still has a certain political resonance. After all it suggests that while the government of Ireland may have been neutral, many of its people were not.

Historical storytelling

And it also demonstrates that the supposedly non-combatant Irish Free State contributed as many soldiers as Northern Ireland, a region of the UK whose unionist population prides itself on its loyalty.


Eamon de Valera: Irish leader during war years

In Dublin, the national museum's splendid buildings at Collins Barracks, built for the British Army during the days of imperial rule, are to house an exhibition on the history of Irish soldiering which will take into account this changing view of the second world war.

It will include the familiar tale of Irish resistance to British rule, but the museum's curator Lar Joy is actively appealing for uniforms, medals and other memorabilia from Irish volunteers in Britain's armies so that their story can take its place in the official narrative of Ireland's place in World War II.

Mr Joy sees the job of running a museum as a form of historical storytelling - I wish people like him had been running museums when I was a child - and getting the volunteer's contribution into the public domain, is part of getting the overall story right.

For a country whose political establishment rather ludicrously used to insist on speaking not of "World War II" but of "the emergency" as though language alone could keep them out of the conflict, it's a huge step forward.

And given that that war turned out to be a global moral crusade against fascism rather than just another of Britain's foreign campaigns, as it may have originally seemed to many in Ireland, it probably suits Irish politicians well enough to discover that their country did after all play a significant role.

Anyone who may have medals or military memorabilia which might be worth a place in the Irish National Museum's forthcoming exhibition is invited to contact the curators. Yvonne McEwen is also interested in further contact with Irish Volunteers. Email kevin.connolly@bbc.co.uk and I'll pass your details on.

BBC NEWS

REAL IRA 'NOT PROSCRIBED GROUP'

A senior judge has said the Real IRA is not a proscribed organisation after he cleared four men of being members.

The landmark ruling was made by Mr Justice Girvan and it is thought it could have far reaching legal and political ramifications.

At Belfast Crown Court on Wednesday, he said under current legislation an organisation is proscribed only if it is listed or operates under the same name as a listed organisation.

The judge said while the relevant schedule listed the IRA, he added: "Schedule 2 of the Act does not include any organisation called or known as the Real Irish Republican Army."

His decision rules out the possibility of any member of the dissident group being convicted solely of membership of the Real IRA.


"The Real Irish Republican Army is identified by the state under the 1998 Act as a separate and distinct organisation whose adherents in the eyes of the law merit different treatment."
--Mr Justice Girvan

The paramilitary group was behind the 1998 Omagh bombing, in which 29 people died.

A Northern Ireland Office spokesman said: "The government is very concerned at this ruling and the DPP (Director of Public Prosecutions) is forwarding a report to the Attorney General with a view to an appeal.

"The government is clear that RIRA should be a proscribed organisation."

The prosecution contended that because the RIRA was named as a separate organisation under the earlier Northern Ireland Sentencing Act 1998, the dissidents were operating under the name of the IRA and therefore the absence of the word "Real" did not detract from that fact.

However, Mr Justice Girvan said he "must reject the Crown argument".

"The Real Irish Republican Army is identified by the state under the 1998 Act as a separate and distinct organisation whose adherents in the eyes of the law merit different treatment from members of the Irish Republican Army who signed up to a ceasefire," said the judge.

Although acquitted of membership, the four County Tyrone men are still on trial accused of conspiracy to murder and possession of a rocket launcher in February 2002.

The prosecution case is due to finish on Thursday, when the defence team is expected to argue for the men's acquittal.

They are 33-year-old Donald Mullan from Firmount Park, Dungannon, Coalisland men Sean Dillion, 27, of Roughan Way and Kevin Murphy, 33, of Altmore Park, and 26-year-old Brendan O'Connor of Cavanoneill Road, Pomeroy.

Michael Gallagher, whose son Aidan was killed in the Omagh bombing, said: "This is an organisation that's hell-bent on creating death and devastation.

"It just leaves you without words that something like this can happen."

Sunday Independent

Bogside's artists turn from guns and protests to give their troubled estates a vision of peace

By David McKittrick Ireland Correspondent
24 May 2004
Sunday Independent

Something big is happening, politically and artistically, in Derry,
the famous city which at several key junctures found itself at the
epicentre of the Northern Ireland troubles.

Having spent years chronicling events which over the decades
periodically convulsed the city, its most important artists are now
turning their attention to a dramatic new theme: that of peace.

For 10 years, the three local men known as the Bogside Artists have
created an art gallery on eight walls along the city's Rossville
Street. Some call it the People's Gallery; one wag christened it
Bogside Modern.

This street is where the "Battle of the Bogside" erupted in 1968 as
people took on the security forces at the start of the troubles. It
is also where British troops shot some of the 14 fatalities of Bloody
Sunday in 1972. Most of the murals' themes are grim, portraying
death, commotion and riot. But the artists say the ninth and last in
the series will be different.

One artist, Tom Kelly, said: "We had 30 years of conflict, mayhem,
brutality, oppression, violence. We lived through it, we breathed the
tear-gas, we were involved in the riots and all the rest of it.

"We are well aware that what we've already depicted are not the most
positive images. But now the bulk of people are pursuing peace, and
so the last mural we're planning will encapsulate something of that.
It will be full of colour and energy and light, looking to the
future, with imagery of birth and rebirth. It will be trying to
capture the hopes, dreams and desires of this generation, and the
next."

The eight murals attract much attention. Coachloads of tourists pose
for photographs in front of them, with the three artists staging
tours for visitors "from as far away as Brisbane and Helsinki". They
are fiercely independent, insistent that they are artists who happen
to come from the Bogside and who have stayed true to their roots.
They still draw the dole, they say, scorning "careerism" and "the
egomania that runs riot in the art world".

They rail against art elitism, against "your upper middle-class piece
of cheese, glass of wine" set. They decry "the art-speak bullshit",
complaining that they have had little or no help from political or
artistic officialdom.

They have won praise from the Derry playwright Brian Friel, who
said: "This is work of conscious ostentation, of deliberate defiance
but it has delicacy too. Every mural explains, but it also embraces.
Every mural instructs; but at the same time each has the intimacy and
the consolations of a family photograph."

And the artists are neither republicans nor propagandists. One of
them, Kevin Hasson, said: "We were aware we could easily be tagged
because of what we were depicting, but the fact is that all shades of
nationalist opinion were involved in those events." Kelly
added: "It's simply capturing a moment in time, saying, 'This is what
happened, make of it what you will, bring your own baggage to it'."

One of their most popular and most striking murals, entitled "The
death of innocence", shows a young girl killed during clashes with
the Army in 1971. Kelly said: "That was a call to take the gun out of
Irish politics, because we know in any conflict the innocent die, on
the West Bank, Tiananmen Square or wherever.

"We have been at the forefront of helping other mural painters to get
away from the sectarian, tribalistic imagery, to think in terms of
culture and history rather than the guy with the mask and the
Armalite or Kalashnikov."

Catholic and Protestant youngsters attend their workshops. Kelly
added: "Some of our greatest achievements are not our murals or our
exhibitions; it's seeing friendships forged in our workshops that go
on out in the streets."

IOL

Patrols stepped up over loyalist feud
25/05/2004 - 16:58:57

Well over 100 police officers and soldiers have been assigned to a violent loyalist paramilitary feud in Belfast, Northern Ireland’s Chief Constable revealed today.

As he hit out at the drug dealers behind the developing shooting war that has left one man dead, Hugh Orde also issued a contemptuous response to allegations that the security services were plotting with one of the terrorist factions.

Progressive Unionist leader David Ervine, whose party is linked to the Ulster Volunteer Force, claimed police were colluding with the rival Loyalist Volunteer Force.

But after talks with the Northern Ireland Secretary Paul Murphy and his security minister Ian Pearson, Mr Orde challenged the PUP chief by declaring: “He needs to put up or shut up.

“If he’s got evidence we have an independent, vigorous investigator of complaints against police.”

The Chief Constable met the British Secretary of State as the authorities attempted to quell heightening tensions on the streets of Belfast following the UVF murder of senior LVF man Brian Stewart, 34, who was gunned down in the east of the city last week.

Since then several bomb attacks and shooting incidents have been linked to the escalating dispute between the bitterly opposed organisations.

As he pledged to stop the gunmen wreaking terror in their communities, Mr Orde disclosed that patrols have been stepped up and Army units brought in to cope with the violence.

He said: “Over 100 officers would be deployed in this operation.”

Fenian Voice

Ulster Star
25 May 2004

57 proposals for Maze prison site

A TOTAL of 57 proposals for the development of the site of the former
Maze Prison have been received by the Consultation Panel appointed to
look into the matter.

This emerged at a meeting of the panel held at the regeneration site
at the beginning of last month during which the Chairman David
Campbell and other members expressed satisfaction at the number of
proposals made.

The meeting heard an initial `sift' of the proposals identified broad
patterns of consensus on themes for development.

It was decided the panel should hold another meeting to decide which
of the proposals should be invited to give presentations.

Those present felt a full day should then be set aside for these
presentations to take place.

However, it was stressed these were not `winning bids' but rather a
chance to explore proposals in more detail.

It was also felt the Panel should decide in the meantime what it was
expecting to learn from these presentations and have clear success
indicators.

A number of panel members asked questions about organisations and
bodies which had not declared an interest.

These included the Sports Council, the Arts Council, the Northern
Ireland Tourist Board and museums bodies.

Members were told it was presumed they were waiting to see what broad
recommendations were coming forward before entering into the process.

It was decided the panel should identify and approach a number of
such organisations after the first sift of proposals was completed.

The meeting also heard because so many initial submissions had been
received there may no longer be `any great merit' in seeking other
ideas from the USA and Europe.

However, this situation would change, it was felt, if proposals for a
multi-sports stadium on the site were not to come to fruition.

Mr. Campbell told the meeting of a recent visit by some members of
the panel to the site of Liverpool's original airport at Speke.
He said the trip had been very useful as it allowed comparisons to be
made with the work being proposed for the Maze site.

He stressed the airport authorities had put a large amount of
resources into access and general appearance before any regeneration
had taken place.

Mr. Campbell also expressed concerns about possible gaps in popular
opinion regarding proposals for the site and said he had hoped to be
contacted by political parties since the last meeting.

At this point Sinn Fein representative Martin O'Muilleoir
acknowledged although a representative of his party had submitted a
proposal it should not be regarded as the official SF proposal.

The Ulster Unionists, it emerged were content to look at the broad
proposals made by all others but were not planning to make a specific
one of their own.

The SDLP were in a similar position and the Panel's attention was
also drawn to a letter from Dr. Ian Paisley supporting the idea of
Laganside Rural Development being involved in the future of the site.

The meeting heard an ad-hoc committee had been established to look at
access strategy for the site.

However it was stressed options only were being considered.

Finally, the panel was told the Office of the First Minister and
Deputy First Minister will receive a report during the summer on the
second phase of the Environmental Heritage Assessment of the site – a
heritage assessment by consultants.

This will then be made available to the Environment Heritage Service
to look at before making a recommendation.

In the meantime a report from the Construction Service on the
condition of the site is awaited.

Derry Journal

SF Candidates Make 'Contract' With People
Tuesday 25th May 2004

SINN FEIN'S local election candidates have promised to bring a "radical new programme of accountability" to local representation in Donegal under a new initiative called 'Our contract with the People'.

At a special conference in the Holiday Inn in Letterkenny on Tuesday, chaired by Buncrana Councillor Padraig Mac Lochlainn, Martin McGuinness, MP, and EU candidate, Pearse Doherty this week helped launch the new initiative which makes four key pledges to the voters ahead of next month's local election.

The initiative promises the public that Sinn Fein will work to enshrine an inclusive power sharing system, oppose secretive meetings, be fully accountable to the public on issues and declare all financial gains derived from Council membership.

"We are very serious about these issues. We have made the commitments to set ourselves out as unique as set against other parties in the county and we are very serious about living up to our 'Contract with the People'," Colr. MacLochlainn told the 'Journal'.

"We see the election as a chance for people to lend us their vote and if, come the next election, we haven't honoured those commitments, then they can take their vote back," he added.

The party's new initiative begins by pledging an inclusive power sharing system in local government: "Sinn Fein council members will strive to have all positions on the council, and within committees rotated on a fair and equitable basis."

"We believe that those who vote for independent candidates have an equal entitlement to have their voices heard as those who vote for Sinn FÈin and other parties.

"We will work to enshrine an inclusive power sharing system that is free from self-serving political interest.

The 'contract' adds that Sinn Fein council members will oppose 'in committee' and workshop meetings and allow the public full access to the contents of public discussions.

"We believe that those types of meetings prevent the public from examining how their elected representatives come to make critical decisions that impact on their lives.

"Our council chambers must be fully accountable to the public. There should be no meetings behind closed doors."

Next on the 'contract' is a pledge to be active in every parish.

"Sinn Fein council members commit themselves to holding public meetings in each parish of their respective constituencies on an annual basis at which their attendance, voting patterns and representations will be outlined.

"This will provide the public with a clear benchmark to monitor the performance of their Sinn Fein councillors."

The fourth promise by the party regards the Councillor's expenses and other incomes derived from public service.

"All income derived from council membership (salary and travel/subsistence expenses) will be voluntarily detailed for public scrutiny.

"We will provide reports on our attendance at any conference we attend including a rationale as to why we felt it was necessary to attend.

"The public deserve to know where public funds go in order to make an informal judgement as to whether they are getting value for money."

Derry Journal

McCann Says 'Arrest George Bush'
Tuesday 25th May 2004

The candidate for the Socialist Environmental Alliance in the forthcoming European Elections, Eamonn McCann has said that US President George Bush should be arrested on his arrival in Ireland next month.

Mr. McCann said: "To describe Bush as a murderer isn't a matter of rhetoric. His administration has declared open season on Arabs.

"US forces slaughter innocent Iraqis at will, then libel the dead even as mourning begins. Bush promotes Sharon as a "man of peace," while the Israeli army treats Palestinians the way Nazis treated Jews."

He added: "Racist mass murder is now the hallmark of the US role across the Middle East. Millions of Americans, probably a majority, are as revolted as the rest of us by the spectacle.

"In what grotesque world of inverted morality do we live that massive security is mounted to shield Bush from justice while he's within the range of Irish law? Ought not the priority be to bring him to account for his crimes?"

Eamonn McCann went on: "On his last visit to Ireland, local leaders lined up at Hillsborough in docile formation to be lectured by Bush about the necessity of peace.

"The SEA invites them to join with us now in repudiating that view of Bush, and calling on the Ahern government to declare him persona non grata.

"If Ahern welcomes Bush, we ask other parties to join with us in seeking to have him detained. The US doesn't recognise the International Criminal Court. But Southern Ireland does. Bush should be arrested and handed over to it.

"The SEA is currently in discussion with other anti-war campaigners and legal advisers about the technical details of bringing this about."

Derry Journal

Derry Vigil For Iraq
Tuesday 25th May 2004

SEVERAL HUNDRED people gathered in the Guildhall Square on Friday in a show of solidarity with Iraqi victims of British military violence.

The crowd gathered around a large black cloth map of Iraq as they listened to families read accounts of how their own relatives were killed by the British military in Derry and Belfast.

The families' testimonials also included references to particular Iraqi victims of British state violence.

Among those who gave accounts of their loss at the hand of British soldiers was Peter McBride whose 18-year old son, also called Peter, was shot dead by British soldiers after they had searched him.

Two soldiers were convicted of his murder and sentenced to life in prison but later released and allowed to rejoin the British army.

Both soldiers have subsequently served in Iraq.

The crowd also heard accounts from the families of Kathleen Thompson, the Creggan mother of six shot dead by British soldiers outside her own home in 1971, the family of Manus Deery shot dead by a British soldier from Derry's Walls in May 1972 and also from another local family, the English family, which lost two children in the conflict here, one knocked down by a British army landrover and another, an IRA man, killed in an accidental explosion.

Other accounts from Derry families included an account of the death of Daniel Hearty shot dead by the British army in July 1972 during Operation Motorman, the death of Creggan man, Thomas Friel, the last person in the North to be killed by a rubber bullet who died in May 1973 and also the death of 11-yearold Stephen McConomy who was killed by a plastic bullet fired by a British soldier in April 1982.

The crowd also heard a detailed testimonial about the death of 14-year-old Annette McGavigan who was shot dead in September 1971 by a British soldier in the Little Diamond area.

The dead girl's sister told the gathering: "There was rioting going on in and around the Little Diamond, at the edge of the Bogside. British soldiers were positioned in the grounds of the old post office.

"During the rioting, two nail bombs were thrown at the soldiers. They replied by opening fire into a crowd of young people, mainly girls. Annette was in the crowd; she was hit by a bullet in the back of the head and died instantly.

"The soldiers claimed that there was a gun battle, eyewitnesses refuted this. There is no evidence of a proper investigation by the RUC into her death.

"The soldiers' version of events went unchallenged because their statements were taken by the Royal Military Police. No soldiers have ever been prosecuted with her killing. Annette was 14-years-old."

Interspersed with these accounts was details of some of the deaths at the hands of British soldiers in Iraq.

The crowd was told that between April and September last year at least 7 people died in British military custody in Iraq.

Derry Journal

Derry Group Appeals For Murder Witnesses
Tuesday 25th May 2004

THE DERRY based human rights group, the Pat Finucane Centre is appealing to GAA supporters to watch a BBC Spotlight Special to be screened tonight which investigates allegations of collusion in the Armagh and Tyrone area in the 1970s in the hope that it might jog some memories of a double murder.

The Centre hopes that the programme may jog the memories of witnesses who may have vital information regarding the murder of two GAA supporters in South Armagh on August 24, 1975.

The two murder victims, Colm McCartney and Sean Farmer, were from Bellaghy in County Derry and Moy, County Tyrone and were returning from the 1975 GAA football semi-finals in Dublin.

The two men were stopped at a bogus security forces checkpoint on the road between Castleblaney and Newtownhamilton, (the A25), approximately 600 yards north of the County Bridge border crossing in an area known as Altnamackin, sometimes referred to as Cortamlaght, Cortamlet or Tullyvallen.

Both men were taken from their vehicle at the checkpoint and shot dead.

Other supporters returning from Croke Park passed through the same fake checkpoint; some in a convoy of cars, having been diverted by official diversion signs soon after crossing the border at a different location.

At least five armed men in uniform were at the bogus checkpoint, which may have been in place from approximately 10pm to 11.35pm on the evening of August 24 1975.

The PFC is anxious to talk to anyone who was diverted from their route, who drove through the fake checkpoint, arrived on the scene of the murder soon after or has any information relating to this or other incidents at the time.

Potential witnesses will remember that Kildare lost to Tyrone in the minor semi-final while Derry lost to Dublin in the senior semi-final.

PFC spokesperson, Alan Brecknell, whose father was murdered in a gun and bomb attack on Donnelly's Bar, Silverbridge, said in advance of the programme: "We are hoping that witnesses may come forward in relation to a number of fatal attacks in the area at the time.

"The Donnelly's Bar attack was linked to the murders at Altnamackin and in turn to a whole series of attacks in Armagh, Tyrone, Monaghan, Down, Louth and Dublin. We are hopeful that tonight's programme may jog memories."

The Spotlight programme will focus on allegations that those responsible for the Dublin and Monaghan bombings went on to carry out dozens of other murders with virtual impunity.

Derry Journal

Derry Hungerstriker Remembered
Tuesday 25th May 2004

UPWARDS OF hundred and fifty republicans gathered at the graveside of INLA Volunteer and 1981 hungerstriker Patsy O'Hara in Derry on Sunday for a wreath laying ceremony to mark the 23rd anniversary of his death.

Republicans of all shades in an open show of solidarity with the O'Hara family attended the ceremony. First to speak was Paddy Browne of the IRPWA (Irish Republican Prisoners Welfare Association) who read a statement from the prisoners in Maghaberry outlining their current plight.

This was followed by the main oration which was delivered by Eddie McGarrigle of the IRSP's Ard Comhairle who said there were no words or speeches which would adequately explain the full extent of Patsy O'Hara's courage or determination.

"No fine words will be sufficient to convey the enormity of the terrible burden of grief and pain endured by the O'Hara family both during the traumatic days of the 1981 hunger-strike and the long, lonely years which followed.

"We can only bow our heads in awe of their courage and steadfastness. Mixed with the grief and pain is a great sense of pride and today we gather here at his graveside with you to embrace you in solidarity.

"Patsy was 23-years-old when he died on hungerstrike; during his short life he witnessed the barbaric nature of British rule, the repression and gerrymandering of the Stormont state with the backing of the British, forced young men like Patsy to take up arms.

"He saw injustice, he resisted, he saw brutality, he resisted, he witnessed at first hand the lackeys of imperialism baton and murder peaceful protesters in this city, he resisted.

"Patsy was on the side of the downtrodden and oppressed, he was interned at the age of 17, he was the victim of several frame ups and internment by remand.

"He was a revolutionary soldier who joined the ranks of the INLA and fought for the liberation of his class and his people."

He continued: "Times have changed in many ways, it is clear that we all find ourselves living in somewhat confusing times, spin doctoring seems to be the order of the day.

"The recent report by the Independent Monitoring Commission came as no surprise to any Irish republican, its independence is a sham, it is a tool of policy for both the British and Irish governments with a mandate to isolate and demonise republicans, it is yet another mechanism by which they hope to pressurise republicans into conforming to their set of rules, let me make this clear, the Republican Socialist Movement will never jump through any hoops to suit the agenda of either government."

Mr. McGarrigle concluded by calling for a united campaign in support of the prisoners in MaghaberryJail: "All republicans, regardless of differences or tactics need to rally to their support.

"Today in Maghaberry prison Irish Republican prisoners face the same enemy as the prisoners faced in Long Kesh in 1981 - the criminalisation of Irish prisoners.

"Republicans of all shades need to put their differences to one side and form a united campaign of support.

"Wherever and whenever injustices are found republicans of all traditions need to stand shoulder to shoulder."

Irish Independent

SF IN LINE FOR FIRST EURO SEAT AS VOTE SURGES

SINN Fein has moved into strong contention for its first seat in the European parliament, according to the latest opinion poll.

New figures released last night for the North West constituency show a surge in the Sinn Fein vote for Pearse Doherty although it may not prove sufficient to overtake Marian Harkin, the Sligo based independent TD.

Ms Harkin still looks on course to replace sitting MEP Dana Rosemary Scallon as the Independent representative for the constituency.

Two successive polls have now placed the independent TD in a solid position to take a European seat on her second attempt. She lost out in 1999 to Dana.

Within Fianna Fail, the findings of the Questions&Answers/Irish Examiner poll, conducted by Lansdowne Market Research, show that Junior Minister Jim McDaid has now edged ahead of party colleague, Sean O Neachtain, as favourite to win a seat.

Fine Gael's Senator Jim Higgins remains in a strong position to take a seat in the fiercely fought three-seat constituency with transfers from running mate Madeline Taylor Quinn.

However, he is under more pressure than in previous polls and could still find himself fighting for the final seat.

The main findings of the poll, taken last Friday and Saturday with a sample of 500 voters in the North West are: Dr Jim McDaid (18pc), Marian Harkin (16pc), Sean O Neachtain (15pc), Pearse Doherty (15pc), Jim Higgins (14pc), Dana Rosemary Scallon (8pc), Madeleine Taylor Quinn (7pc), Labour's Hugh Baxter (4pc) and Independent Marie Hainsworth (2pc).

Separately, the surveys suggests that the referendum on citizenship is far from a foregone conclusion.

Asked whether a baby born to non-national parents in Ireland should get automatic citizenship 47pc said No, 43pc said Yes, with 10pc stating Don't Know.

While the pollsters did ask the direct question of whether people will vote for or against the referendum proposal to remove an automatic right to citizenship, it still suggests the margin in favour of the referendum change remains close with a majority of just 4pc backing the Government's proposal.

The poll indicates that the race in the European election is extremely close with Fianna Fail certain to win at least one seat.

Although it is still possible for the party to take a second seat, the figures suggest that the battle for remaining two seats will be fought to the last vote between Harkin, Higgins and Doherty.

The sitting MEP Dana Rosemary Scallon faces a huge challenge if she is to have any hope of turning her campaign around in the remaining weeks.

Sinn Fein is now in with a chance of winning two, or even three, seats in the European parliament. The party is being tipped to take a seat in the North and has an outside chance in Dublin. Its strong showing in the North West contest is mirrored by an equally strong performance in the local elections with the poll showing the party vote at 14pc.

Results for party preferences in the local elections showed Fianna Fail (45pc), Fine Gael (24pc), Sinn Fein (14pc), PDs (5pc), Labour (4pc), Green Party (3pc) and Others (5pc).

Because the main contenders are pitched together so closely in the European contest the next two weeks will see a massive effort by all the candidates to drive home even the smallest advantage.

Fianna Fail strategists believed that it was possible for the party to take two seats but the infighting and rancour between the McDaid and O Neachtain camps is likely to end that challenge.

For Sinn Fein the poll results will be a major boost since it gives Doherty a slightly better chance of winning a seat than his colleague, Mary Lou McDonald in Dublin.

Brian Dowling
Political Correspondent

IOL

IRA informer is revealed, claims agent
24/05/2004 - 16:00:07

The identity of another top-ranking IRA man who worked for British intelligence in Northern Ireland has been revealed, it was claimed today.

He is a Belfast man who once sat on the Provisionals command in the city, it is alleged

He was named to senior detectives from Metropolitan Commissioner John Stevens’ team investigating collusion between loyalist paramilitaries, police Special Branch and MI5.

Self-confessed IRA double-agent Kevin Fulton says he identified the man to officers during a 35-minute meeting in central London today.

Later he claimed: “He organised a safe house where I was interrogated after a planned IRA hit went wrong”.

Fulton was interviewed as part of the Stevens team’s probe into his allegation that the man named as top British spy codenamed Stakeknife threatened him.

He claims west Belfast builder Freddie Scappaticci, aged 58, interrogated him following a failed IRA ambush on a detective in east Belfast 10 years ago.

Scappaticci has categorically denied widespread accusations he is Stakeknife, an agent working for British military intelligence while a member of the IRA’s so-called internal security squad.

Detectives asked for the details of any others who were present and could corroborate the alleged interrogation, Fulton said.

“I have given them the name of a senior IRA informer who was there,” he added.

“He was an intelligence officer on the Provos’ GHQ staff in Belfast who set this up, but he is also a special branch and MI5 informant.”

Police arrested a number of terrorists who had been planning to ambush Chief Superintendent Derek Martindale in 1994.

Fulton claimed he and another member of his family were interrogated by Scappaticci amid allegations police had been tipped off in advance of the planned IRA attack.

Stevens has already interviewed Stakeknife about his role in Northern Ireland’s dirty war.

In a report published last year the Scotland Yard chief found members of the British army and Royal Ulster Constabulary colluded with the loyalist paramilitary group, the Ulster Defence Association.

Up to 20 British army and police personnel could face criminal charges arising out of the report which centred on the murder of Catholic solicitor Pat Finucane in 1989 and Protestant student Adam Lambert in 1987.

Although a major report by retired Canadian judge Peter Cory recommended a public inquiry into the Finucane killing, the British government has yet to confirm it will set up a tribunal.

IrishExaminer.com

Higher education that’s open all hours
24 May 2004
By Dan Buckley

WHEN Nuala Willis wanted to go back to college, she had a problem. Her children were so busy with sporting and other extra curricular activities that she found herself always on the road, ferrying them to and fro. The solution was to enrol in the Open University (OU). “It’s amazing how much reading can be done, even by the light of a car,” says Nuala, a secondary teacher from Kinsale.

Last month, that time spent studying her notes in the car bore fruit when she collected her MA in English literature. “I absolutely loved it,” she says. “I would never have found the time to go to regular lectures. With two children and going between music and sports, I figured it made better use of my time to be studying.”

Her son Kenneth, 22, is studying to be a barrister at the King’s Inns in Dublin while daughter Jennifer is in transition year at Scoil Mhuire. Their mother’s achievement now rivals their own.

For years, Nuala’s focus was on her children, but the OU course allowed her concentrate on herself. “It has really enhanced my life. There comes a time when you need to do something for yourself, to stimulate the old brain cells.”

For over three decades, studying with the Open University has given more than 11,500 graduates an inspirational learning experience. While it is a British institution the OU has always been open to Irish people but it is only in the past few years that Irish residents have taken it to heart.

Among those who have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams is maintenance technologist John Coleman. Curiosity got the better of John, 49, from Kilmallock, Co Limerick. He joined the Open University to develop his maths skills in order to help his children with their homework.

“I was at a point in my career that required further development academically if I was to move on. My family was also growing up and I always had an interest in further study. I never thought at the time that I would follow through to collect a degree.”

John had the support of his employer and soon after he began his OU studies, he was promoted.

For Tom Kilcommins, a teacher from Dundalk, Co Louth, the Open University was a godsend. Busy at work and with three young children, flexibility was the key to his success. “I could work from home and at weekends. There was no travelling to university and I could study in my own environment. That was really important. I also found the tutors extremely good and that was probably because they were OU graduates themselves.”

Since Open University began in 1969, it has opened the door to higher education for more than two million people.

For further information, see www.open.ac.uk

IOL

Feuding loyalists 'working for intelligence'
24/05/2004 - 09:54:20

Loyalists involved in a bloody new feud are working for intelligence agencies in Northern Ireland, it was claimed today.

As police questioned one man about fresh violence between the Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) and the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), which has left one man dead, Progressive Unionist Party leader David Ervine accused the intelligence services of helping to recruit new members of the splinter LVF.

Mr Ervine, whose party has links with the rival UVF, which was blamed for last week’s murder of leading LVF member Brian Stewart, claimed the motive was to create havoc within loyalism.

“The existence of the LVF, the behaviour of the LVF, calls into question at the very best the security tactics of the intelligence services in Northern Ireland,” he said.

“These people are allowed to operate for the sole purpose of disruption within loyalism,” he added.

His claims were rejected by an LVF source, who claimed that members of the UVF have long acted as security force agents.

The source said: “David Ervine is accusing police of recruiting the LVF to work for them. The UVF have been involved in 29 murders of Protestants and there has not been one person charged with any of them.

“Before the LVF was formed, who were these people working for? The UVF no longer respects David Ervine’s political opinion and analysis and he is trying to get back in their good books.”

Mr Ervine and other members of the PUP have been informed their lives are under threat following the murder of Mr Stewart, who was gunned down as he arrived for work in east Belfast.

The murder was blamed on the UVF, which is also thought to have carried out two bomb attacks on houses in the Ballyhackamore area at the weekend.

Loyalist sources have also claimed that the UVF was responsible for a gun attack on a vacant house on the Ballybeen Estate on the outskirts of east Belfast last night.

Police said two men on a motorcycle approached the house at Longstone Drive and fired through the front window. They added they were keeping an open mind on the motive.

Mr Ervine, who said he was working tirelessly to end the feud, claimed that police had turned a blind eye to the criminal activities of the LVF.

“The security services want to have the ability to constantly cause agitation within loyalism, which means that it diminishes massively within its own community.

“I don’t think we should have to call on the government to stop the collusion between the security forces and the LVF. It should never have happened in the first place,” he added.




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Irelandclick.com

Attack proves PSNI are not wanted claims Assemblyman


New Barnsley barracks hit by petrol bombs

A weekend petrol bomb attack on New Barnsley barracks proves how unacceptable the PSNI is to the nationalist community, a West Belfast MLA has claimed.

On Saturday night the Springfield Road barracks was hit with two petrol bombs.

In the wake of the attack a spokesperson for the PSNI urged the local community to remain calm – a statement that has been scoffed at by Sinn Féin.

Assemblyman Michael Ferguson says that although the petrol bombing of New Barnsley was unfortunate, it is proof that the PSNI is still unacceptable to nationalists.

“The issue here is why did someone feel the need to throw a petrol bomb at New Barnsley barracks?” said Mr Ferguson. “People in West Belfast have, and still are, suffering at the hands of the PSNI, Special Branch and its political masters.

“The current policing arrangements remain totally unacceptable to the nationalist community. Until we have the full implementation of the Patten report public opinion will stay the same.”

Journalist:: Ciaran Barnes

Irelandclick.com

Barracks to go by September

Andersonstown Barracks will be demolished by September according to the SDLP, who have set out proposals for the future of the site.

The SDLP say that an official announcement on the decision to close the barracks will be made at the beginning of June.

Proposals for the future of the barracks, set out by the SDLP include opening up the site to the public before demolition, developing a landmark building on the site which will give the local community a sense of ownership, erecting a memorial monument and creating a green area around the proposed new building. The SDLP have also proposed that following demolition of the site, an archaeological dig should take place to explore the archeological history of the site.

The proposals were launched by Lord Mayor of Belfast Martin Morgan, SDLP Policing spokesman Alex Attwood and local Councillor Margaret Walsh outside the barracks on Thursday.

SDLP MLA Alex Attwood, speaking to the Andersonstown News at the launch, said that the future of the site cannot be decided without determining the wishes of local people.

“The decision to close the station will be taken in the first week in June and the issue now is not the closure it is the future of the site,”said Mr Attwood.

“We have three phases of proposals and have gone round the doors in the area and delivered 500 letters to see what people think,” he added.
Mr Attwood said that the first proposal involves opening up the site prior to demolition for community access.

“There are a number of ideas in circulation,” said Mr Attwood.

“These include a photographic exhibition where a collective of photographers would present photographs going through all sides of what happened in and around this building.”

The second phase of the SDLP proposal involves exploring evidence which suggests that the site of the barracks was once an iron age fort and subsequently a fourteenth century church.

“We are saying that the archaeologists should be allowed on the site to see what is in there, because after demolition before anything is done, and this might take 18 months or two years or longer. There is plenty of time and adequate opportunity for an archeological dig to happen which would give an added feature to the this part of the world.”

Mr Attwood said that the third stage of the proposals is to erect a landmark building that is reflective of the strength of character of the people of West Belfast.

“We believe that there should be some memorial to the people who suffered in and around the barracks, be they civilians or police so that it may be an inclusive memorial,” he added.

Mr Attwood said that the building should be inclusive of all the people in West Belfast.

“The building should not be an entertainment facility, restaurant, hot food bar or licenced premises, it should be something to do with the workings and the needs of people in West Belfast. It should not be hostel-based, it is a landmark site and should be defined in a landmark way not as yet another development for mixed use but a particular development for landmark use.”

Lord Mayor of Belfast Martin Morgan said that the barracks represented the past.
“The impact of Andersonstown Road barracks goes beyond the boundaries of Andersonstown and West Belfast, for me personally it was a symbol of the division and the troubled past of our country and our city.”

Mayor Morgan said that although the SDLP were putting forward proposals for the site, it is ultimately local people who should decide the site’s fate.

“The barracks surely had a negative impact on the emotional fabric of West Belfast society. Things happened in the barracks that we probably prefer nowadays not to talk about, things happened in this barracks that we can only guess and we have to listen to the stories of people in the area, so there is no better use than to see it closed and turned into a facility for the people of West Belfast.”

Journalist:: Staff Reporter

Irelandclick.com

FEUD FEAR

Catholics will be targeted when loyalists stop their fighting, councillor warns

A nationalist councillor has warned Catholics to be vigilant, claiming that the lesson of history is that when loyalist feuds end, Catholics end up dead.
Sinn Féin’s Joe O’Donnell said that loyalist feuds were becoming an annual event – “almost like the Twelfth.”

Tensions rise as feud continues

Nationalists are being warned to be on their guard amid fears that the fall-out from the latest loyalist feud could see the UVF and LVF turn their guns on the Catholic community.

Just weeks after the 2000 Shankill UDA/UVF feud ended, loyalists murdered Catholic builder Gary Moore at a construction site in Monkstown. The same day, December 6, the UDA shot and seriously wounded taxi driver Paul Scullion as he sat in his car on the Oldpark Road.

For the past three years the Short Strand has borne the brunt of sporadic loyalist attacks. And with East Belfast acting as the epicentre of the latest UVF/LVF feud residents of the isolated nationalist enclave are fearful they could be targeted.

Local councillor Joe O’Donnell called for the feuding to halt.
“Loyalist feuds are becoming an annual event, almost like the Twelfth,” he said.

“This latest one certainly isn’t helping the peace process which is at a very difficult stage.

“There is genuine concern from within my community that people could become the target for attacks. That is why this pointless killing has to stop to allow the peace process to get back on track.”

The weekend saw two pipe bomb attacks on the homes of men connected with the LVF in the east of the city. It is believed the UVF was behind both murder attempts.

The attacks came after last Tuesday’s UVF murder of LVF commander Brian Stewart. The killing was sparked by a number of brawls between members of the rival groups. The LVF have vowed to avenge the murder of its chief and have targeted prominent PUP politicians David Ervine and Billy Hutchinson. Speaking yesterday, Mr Hutchinson said he would not be intimidated.

“Nobody knows what’s going on at the minute, and I think our party will sit down after Brian Stewart’s funeral to discuss everything,” he said.

“I don’t know what this feud is about, but one thing is for certain – my party will not be intimidated by a group who have been involved in feud after feud.”

Journalist:: Ciaran Barnes

Irish American News.com

FOR THE REPUBLIC
by Chris Fogarty

BRITAIN’S RECONQUEST of Ireland is nearly complete. Its centuries-long “right” to murder in Ireland which was opposed in recent years is now being reestablished. The deadliest car bombings and other chief massacres of the past thirty-five years are now in their final phase of cover-up via “official investigations” and “reinvestigations.” The Irish, US and Irish-American news media all cover up the fact that British forces, since 1968, murdered 153 of the total of 173 murdered children and six-sevenths of the total of all murders. Meanwhile they apply the “terrrorist” label to the Irish, the terrorists’ victims. Innocent Irish are convicted of “conspiracy” when there is no evidence against them, while the few British soldiers convicted of murder become English media heroes free to murder elsewhere. I just received four photos and two maps showing where some SAS terrorists buried their (Irish) victims. One photo caption reads; “The place on White Hill where the SAS unit parked their car before making their victims walk the few hundred yards to their place of execution on the edge of the wood.” (The Nemesis File) Though the IRA had fought the British army to a stand-still in this post-’69 phase of the war, the Brits end up the victors. It was through its spooks and the news media that Britain won. Like the Zionists, the Brits managed, through news media, to choose who would speak for their victims. By 1973, whether through bribery or blackmail, Britain got the 26-County gov’t and news media to routinely blame the IRA for atrocities perpetrated by Brits. It is a stunning victory for the Big Lie that, after more than 800 years of Britain’s genocidal violence in Ireland, they managed to get this phase of it blamed upon the Irish. (For the truth of it see www.terrorismireland.org.) Among the most effective of British operatives were Ireland’s Catholic bishops and many of its priests; but that’s not new. The hierarchy have been abetting the genocide of Ireland since 1795 when the Brits ended their practice of giving bounties for the severed heads of Catholic bishops and priests. Cardinal O Fiach (RIP) is reported to be the first bishop in Ireland since 1795 not short-listed (pre-selected) by the Brits to the Pope. He was honest and is greatly missed.

IRELAND’S CURRENT SURRENDER was engineered by MI5 operating through Fr. Alex Reid of Belfast’s Clonard monastery. Reid then managed to subvert Gerry Adams for MI5. It was Britain’s network of collaborators who, Soviet-style, arranged for the news media to stampede the Irish in both parts of their partitioned country to “Vote YES for Peace” re the Good Friday Agreement (GFA). This “Agreement” is a Brit document. It is comprised of 68 pages of aspirational bafflegab that concealed one-third of a page of clear text. That partial page is an unambiguous commitment to strip Articles 2 and 3 from the Irish Constitution; thus handing over the 6-Counties to Britain. Gerry Adams’ “Provos,” now enforce British rule in Ireland, shooting and knee-capping Irish republicans exclusively; those who reject his sell-out and still demand Irish national self-determination. Thus, the centuries-long British tradition of murder in Ireland continues; but, as the Brits once paid the mercenary RIC to terrorize their fellow Irish into silence, they now get Adams’s group to do so. By means of an Adams gang the Brits murdered John O’Connor of Belfast, and they knee-capped McCall just last month. Thus, the Crown is in full control of all of Ireland again (it has controlled the 26 Counties gov’t since 1923 excepting a brief period some sixty years ago).

THE “REPUBLIC” never did achieve national self-determination. The British, prior to its army’s 1923 departure, had instigated a bloody civil war in Ireland; a war over Britain’s 1920 partition of Ireland. On one side were Ireland’s patriots; the Padraig Pearse/Cathal Brugh faction insisting upon basic democracy – national self-determination. The other side was comprised of those willing to accept partition. These were paid and/or munitioned by Britain. They were comprised of the news media, Catholic hierarchy, and forces led by Michael Collins and Mulcahy. Though the IRA killed Collins, his and Mulcahy’s treasonous Free State army prevailed and became today’s Irish army. This traitorous faction froze out Ireland’s patriots by denying livelihoods to them. By 1924-25 the patriots were being starved and marginalized out of Ireland. I knew some of them here in Chicago. A few lived until recent years. They were Ireland’s Best and were great Americans; intelligent, unassuming and morally-developed to the max. We may never again witness such splendor.

IRELAND’S STREET NAMES to this day, many of them, commemorate British genocidists and empire battle sites. Are there streets in Hiroshima and Nagasaki similarly named for the pilot and crew of the Enola Gay that A-bombed them? Are there streets in Hanoi named for General Westmoreland? Is there a Lt. Calley Street in My Lai? What about streets across Africa, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Malaysia, Burma, Iraq, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Malta, Cyprus and Kuwait? Do they, too, commemorate the Brits who once tried to exterminate them? Are there Adolph Hitler streets in Poland and France? Not very likely. What’s wrong with Ireland? Nobody I know in Ireland supports those Brits who tried repeatedly to wipe out the Irish. But evidently they do exist.

IRELAND’S QUISLINGS have been in place from day one. Many are of the old Brit remnant whose ancestors didn’t flee Ireland after “independence.” They possess Ireland’s largest farms and custodial sectors (insurance, banking, brokerages, newspapers, mills, etc) Their accent is rare; unlike any I ever heard in my ten years in Ireland. It’s so distinct as to be named “the Dublin 4 accent.” Dublin 4 is Dublin’s southside along the coast heavily populated by the Brit Ascendancy many of whose descendants remain there. It is the Brit/Irish hybrid accent affected by Consuls General, Aer Lingus (“goss mosques”)and Radio Telefis Eireann (RTE). An odd feature of that accent is that two Irish immigrant brothers here in Chicago speak with a true Irish accent. But their sister who is an RTE news reader speaks with an accent nothing like theirs or, for that matter, like the one she was raised with. Other quislings are of Irish descent. For example, the infamous Conor Cruise O’Brien, though Irish, is the third generation of a quisling family. As Ireland’s Minister of communications he arranged for the gardaí to threaten anyone who’d sing patriot ballads in pubs. He also threatened to lock up writers of letters to editors if they advocated Irish freedom. Eamonn McThomás, editor of An Phoblacht newspaper was jailed for some two years to silence him. Enforcers of Brit control in Ireland have always been rewarded; from official sources. One can only speculate as to how Chicago’s Irish Heritage Center came to choose Conor C. O’Brien to “educate” us all on Finlay Peter Dunne and Irish history (on the day Mary Robinson visited). A few days later in his (London) Times column he described his Heritage Center collaborators as moderates and slurred as “provos” those who protested the Hrtge.Cntr’s misrepresenting him as an “Irish Statesman.” Those same “moderates,” five years after the MacBride Principles were finally enacted into Illinois law, bravely issued a non-binding Hrtge Cntr resolution in favor of it!

GERRY McGEOUGH exemplifies the current plight of Ireland’s patriots. He was born in Occupied Co. Tyrone and as a teen-ager rebelled against Brit genocidists in his area. We remember his missives from the German prison where he spent some four years. Then we remember how the Germans had to release him; but extradited him to the US to face charges of attempting to acquire weapons for the IRA; and how Federal collaborators with the genocidists sent him to Long Kesh prison whence, after a few years more, the Brits amnestied him under the main GFA sop to the Irish. Upon release, he attended Trinity College, got credentials and became a history teacher in a Dublin secondary school. As if part of an evil, old tape running since 1923, the school administration learned of his exemplary patriotism; for which they immediately fired him.

LET’S UNDERSTAND THIS fully. For supposedly trying to provide the means of self-defense to his fellow Occupied Irish, he was imprisoned for years, first in Germany and then extradited to imprisonment in the U.S. and finally to a prison in Occupied Ireland. How can it be that such a paragon is punished even in his own country by bureaucrats? How did the noble sacrifices of so many young Irish volunteers’ lives, especially since 1968, result in such a debacle? Rather then point fingers, let’s focus on what must be done to end Britain’s “right-to-murder” in Ireland.

IRELAND’S CURRENT PLIGHT is thus clear. Britain’s centuries-long tradition of murder with impunity in it is newly reestablished. What can we do? First, let’s review what we are already doing well.

IRISH TRADITIONAL MUSIC is on a roll. So is dance. They give us the beauty and glimpses of eternity that we so need. It was only recently that I learned that angels dance. Mary and I are both witnesses. At Lanigan’s Pub on St. Patrick’s night, celestial beings danced to heavenly music. Words fail. We heard that some are nieces of the great Michael Flatley. Last Sunday Martin Hayes and Dennis Cahill mesmerized a packed Old Town School of Folk Music. Next door at Grafton Pub was Patrick Finnegan and other musicians including many children, making exquisite music. Music at Nevin’s Pub in Evanston is a joy on Sunday afternoons. The GAA, similarly, reinforces Irish self-identity. In sports and the arts Irish identity is fully realized in Chicago and the US. The survival of the Irish as such is not in any danger in this regard. So how do we end Britain’s tradition of murder in Ireland?

EDUCATION, TRUTH-TELLING are the only means; at least for now. Subjugated people usually must use guns to free themselves; but the Big Lie (of “IRA terrorism”) has such a grip on Ireland (and even on Irish-America) that, for now, our primary target must be the Lie itself. Each of us must take responsibility to correct persons who refer to the Irish or the IRA as “terrorist.” We must especially contact TV and print editors and demand corrections to such falsehoods.

INTEGRITY. We must follow the noble example set by John O’Grady. When the Hrtge Cntr mis-advertised Conor C. O’Brien as “Irish Statesman and historian” O’Grady did the right thing. As a board member, he objected to disinforming the public so. The rest of the board had to make a choice; but they chose to continue with the Big Lie; and O’Grady departed the board. CCO’B vindicated his critics by co-founding the United Kingdom Unionist party. O’Grady’s integrity is an inspiration to us all. We are already the majority; let us oust the quislings who occupy key positions.

OLD ST. PATRICK CHURCH, as Irish-Catholicism’s main shrine in heartland America, must be reconsecrated as a place of Truth and Honor. How sacrilegious that its altar is used to launch Brit-type falsifications of Irish history that serve only to abet Britain’s murder policy.

CHICAGO IRISH RADIO must become disseminators of truth. It nearly alone, I believe, will free Ireland once it begins to educate Chicago’s Irish about the Six Counties. Two of its announcers once went so far as to opine on air that the “famine” Irish suffering was far less than that of WW2 Jews. Another recounted how a Kerry woman married a man from Tyrone where they lived the rest of their lives to became “Britain’s longest wed couple” (thus promoting Britain’s claim that Tyrone is in Britain; not Ireland). The BritIrish gov’t’s hand is obviously acting there. My repeated correspondence to the Consul Gen was repeatedly answered, not by him or his office, but, bizarrely, by the daughter of a radio show host.

OUR DUTY AS CITIZENS is clear. Our gov’t is not, as I once believed, on “automatic pilot.” We must take some responsibility for its policies. It is outrageous that members of the 9/11 Investigation Committee have lauded Britain’s murderous MI5 and have proposed that our spook agencies be replaced by an MI5-like organization. There seems to be no gov’t awareness that FBI agent Buckley and his gang were working for MI5 when they committed their crimes in Chicago, Winnetka and Ireland. Law-abiding agent Joe Doyle alerted us of MI5 involvement even before the crimes began. After their successful Omagh atrocity murder of twenty-nine, to be blamed, like the Winnetka massacre, on the IRA, they did succeed in framing a republican, Michael McKevitt, for it. Were the MI5/FBI criminals arrested in Chicago, they would not have been free to perpetrate Omagh and blame it on the IRA and McKevitt. During our Chicago trial preparation Buckley denied involvement with MI5; but later at the McKevitt trial MI5’s key role was officially revealed. As gov’t employees, FBI agents are our servants. But they routinely perjure themselves and fabricate evidence, all with impunity while any of us will go to prison if we lie to them! Who is the servant here? Let us go to work and demolish the Big Lie by following the selfless example set by John O’Grady. The truth will do the rest.

WHO STARVED your relatives? See www.irishholocaust.org.
Reach me at fogarty@ix.netcom.com .