An Phoblacht, April 2017

Fuair siad bás ar son saoirse na hÉireann | They died for Irish freedom

anphoblacht Wear an Easter Lily and attend your local commemoration

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April / Aibreán 2017

Don't Mourn Mobilise Our Martin

An Phoblacht, April 2017 – Special supplement

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT INSIDE

Gerry Adams’s funeral oration ‘We are forever thankful to Martin McGuinness’

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Michelle O’Neill MLA, Leader of Sinn Féin in the North

‘A worker for reconciliation, a champion of peace’ Mary Lou McDonald TD, Sinn Féin deputy leader

FREEDOM FIGHTER NEGOTIATOR PEACEMAKER

2 April / Aibreán 2017

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‘The DUP’s approach thus far has been to engage in a minimalist way on all of the key issues’ – Gerry Adams

‘NO SUBSTANTIVE PROGRESS’ ENDS STORMONT TALKS

24 HOURS before the deadline was to expire in all-party talks to re-establish the Stormont Executive and the institutions, Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams made it crystal clear who was up for achieving a resolution and who was not.

“The Sinn Féin negotiating team and Michelle O’Neill are here in Stormont Castle,” Gerry Adams said. “The Irish and British governments are here also.

The DUP is not.”

Gerry Adams said it was a matter of regret that there had been “no substantive progress across all of the key issues that are at the core of the current impasse”.

He said that the recently-deceased Martin McGuinness (who had been laid to rest just 72 hours earlier) had set the tone for the current phase of negotiations when he said that there can be no return to the status quo.

“The DUP’s approach thus far has been to engage in a minimalist way on all of the key issues, including legacy issues, an Irish Language Act, a Bill of Rights, and marriage equality,” Gerry Adams said.

“They have been reinforced in this by the British Government’s stance.

This is unacceptable and a matter of grave concern.

“I am sure this concern is shared by the Irish Government. The Taoiseach knows that he is the co-equal guarantor, with the British Prime Minister, of the Good Friday and other agreements.

People across this island need to see the Taoiseach standing up for these agreements.

“For our part, Sinn Féin wants to see the institutions up and working for everyone. We are not looking special favours or privileges for anyone. The terms for the re-establishment of the institutions are clear. They threaten no one.

“Sinn Féin is up for building a pluralist rights based society as set out in numerous agreements. Is the DUP?” The Sinn Féin leader said that he believes: “Unionism is at a crossroads.

“The DUP needs to decide

5 Arlene Foster and the DUP need to decide if they will work with all sections of our society on the basis of equality and respect – for everyone

whether and when it will rise to the challenges of this time and work in genuine partnership with nationalists and republicans, and all sections of our society, on the basis of equality and respect – for everyone.”

Earlier that week, on the eve of the funeral of Martin McGuinness, Gerry Adams was in Newry at one of a series of “town hall” meetings being held by the party across the island.

He emphasised the Sinn Féin view that the talks were about an implementation process, not a negotiation process.

“There cannot be continuous negotiation and renegotiation of agreements already made,” he said, explaining why Sinn Féin was opposed to any extension of the deadline of 4pm Monday

27 March or a return to direct rule from Westminster.

“As Martin McGuinness said in his letter of resignation: ‘Successive British governments have undermined the process of change by refusing to honour agreements and refusing to resolve the issues of the past while imposing austerity and Brexit against the wishes and best interests of people here.’

“The Irish Government is the co-equal guarantor of the Good Friday and subsequent Agreements. The Taoiseach needs to make it clear by deed as well as word that the Government will implement in full its obligations and hold the British Government to account for its obligations, internationally if need be.”

He continued: “So, we will bury our friend Martin McGuinness tomorrow and move directly from his graveside to urgently do our utmost to get the Executive and the Assembly restored and working.

“The election pointed the way forward. Unionist rule failed and ended.

Direct rule failed and ended. Martin McGuinness made it clear that the way forward is through respect, equality, and integrity. Sinn Féin’s approach is not about majorities and minorities – it is about rights for all.”

As the deadline passed on 27 March, Sinn Féin MLA Michelle O’Neill insisted that the implementation of previous agreements remains key to making progress at Stormont.

“The British Government is not some sort of independent broker in this process. The British government is a player and part of the problem.

Their approach in the talks meant that no agreement was possible.”

She said that British Secretary of State James Brokenshire “cannot wash his hands” of his government’s responsibilities and obligations to implement the commitments made in previous agreements, spelling out for him and Prime Minister Theresa May: “The key to making progress is for the British Government to take some responsibility and honour its commitments.”

to take t en nm er ov G h itis Br e th r fo is ss re ‘The key to making prog ’Neill O lle he ic M – ’ ts en itm m m co its ur some responsibility and hono

April / Aibreán 2017

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3

STORMONT

An agreement made must be an agreement implemented WE ALL EXPECT that when a deal is made, the parties involved will abide by its terms, it will be honoured. Anyone who reneges on a deal is considered untrustworthy and it undermines any relationship that had been built up.

Throughout all of this, the British and the DUP never once committed to the full implementation of the agreements.

The British Government’s approach to resolving the legacy of the past was more about continuing the cover-ups than promoting healing. They refused to release the funding for inquests despite this being previously agreed and despite families waiting over 45 years for a resolution.

By Sunday afternoon it was acknowledged that the talks had run their course. The talks team, led by Michellle O’Neill and Gerry Adams, left to speak to the media.

This crisis was precipitated by the refusal to implement previous agreements. The approach of the British Government and the failure of the Irish Government to carry out its responsibilities

This holds true for politics.

The basis for progress is the ability to have dialogue, negotiate a deal and move on. Those are the fundamentals of the political process.

The current crisis in the institutions in the North has not been about the ‘insatiable demands of crocodiles’. It is not about electoral advantage, nor about ‘each side being as bad as the other’.

The crisis is the political process breaking down through the refusal of the DUP and the British Government to honour the agreements

Sinn Féin was clear – we were not going to renegotiate issues that had already been agreed and to act with respect, equality and integrity.

The talks were about rebuilding confidence in the political process and institutions.

The Sinn Féin position was made clear when Martin McGuinness resigned and stated there could be no return to the status quo.

When Michelle O’Neill spoke in the Assembly, announcing that Sinn Féin would not renominate for the position of deputy First Minister, she said: “When something is broken, you stop and you fix it.”

Sinn Féin is up for fixing the institutions.

We are for the full implementation of the outstanding issues from the agreements including (but not restricted to) legacy issues, an Irish Language Act, a Bill of Rights.

We also sought to build the maximum consensus on issues such as marriage equality and Designated Special Status for the North within the EU to give effect to the vote to “Remain”.

We sought to have institutions that are based

on genuine power-sharing and equality, institutions that deliver respect and rights for all in society. These are not a Green or Orange issue, as claimed by lazy commentators. These are fundamental issues for all in society.

It was on this basis that we fought the election and increased our mandate. And it was on this basis that we entered talks with the other parties and the British and Irish governments.

Sinn Féin was clear from the outset – we were not going to renegotiate issues that had already been agreed. The talks would focus on implementation of existing agreements and rebuilding confidence in the institutions.

The Sinn Féin talks team convened at Stormont for over three weeks. From early on it was apparent that the British Government and the DUP would take a minimalist approach. However, good work was undertaken with the other parties on shared issues such as marriage equality, Brexit and the operation of the institutions.

As the weeks went by, the Sinn Féin talks team continued to make themselves available, including on St Patrick’s Day. On the day that Martin McGuinness passed away, the talks team continued to meet with the

only break being on the day of Martin’s funeral.

The day after the funeral, the team reconvened in Stormont. Martin McGuinness, as our chief negotiator, would have expected nothing less.

As Friday dragged into Saturday that weekend, it was becoming apparent that the DUP and British Government were taking a minimalist approach to the key issues.

The Sinn Féin national leadership met in Stormont on Saturday afternoon and received a briefing on the slowness of the talks and approaches of the DUP and British Government.

Talks continued into late Saturday night. The talks team broke up and asked to reconvene the following day, Sunday, noting that little progress had been made, the volume of work still to be agreed and the shortness of time available.

For seven hours on Sunday, the Sinn Féin talks team waited on the DUP. Despite media presentations that the DUP don’t do business on the Sabbath, the DUP have previously taken part in negotiations on a Sunday and their spokespersons do make themselves available to the media.

The clock was ticking and time was running out for a deal to be in place for 4pm Monday 27 March.

5 Irish Language Act campaigners hold a colourful and good-humoured protest at Stormont on Monday 27 March

Throughout all of this, the British and the DUP never once committed to the full implementation of the agreements as a co-guarantor of the agreements emboldened the DUP in their arrogance and disrespect. They acted with the support of the British Government without any sanction by the Irish Government.

Sinn Féin remains committed to rebuilding the institutions. That is the way forward. However, as Michelle O’Neill said, we are standing firm – an agreement made must be an agreement implemented.

Talks can succeed in this regard. Much has been said about the way ahead, of independent chairs, etc. This is not an issue of process; this is an issue of political will.

If the two governments continue with their current positions, and the DUP fail to recognise the need for equality, rights and power-sharing, progress cannot be made.

The institutions can be restored – if there is a step-change in attitude and practice by the DUP and the British Government.

4 April / Aibreán 2017

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anphoblacht Editorial

WHAT'S INSIDE 8

Garda chief faces Dáil ‘no confidence’ motion 9

Beannacht leat a Mháirtín 10 & 11

Collusion – Britain still in denial over its death squads 12

Strike out! Trade unions and the media 13

Basque Country – ETA to decommission 14

The first Easter Rising commemoration 15 to 18

Easter Commemorations Republican Roll of Honour 26 & 27

Behind Brexit lies another threat – Lynn Boylan MEP 30

Seanad Bill for votes at 16 31

Danny Morrison – Nailing a lie about Martin McGuinness SUBSCRIBE ONLINE To get your An Phoblacht delivered direct to your mobile device or computer for just €10 per 12 issues and access to the historic The Irish Volunteer newspaperand An Phoblacht’s/IRIS the republican magazine archives

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anphoblacht

Build a new Ireland in tribute to Martin McGuinness

THE PAST FEW WEEKS have been dramatic and traumatic for the republican family. Politics across Ireland has changed. And we have lost an inspirational leader in Martin McGuinness.

First we had the collapse of the Executive government due to the arrogance and disrespect of unionists in power in Stormont and the British Government.

The consequent Assembly election saw – for the first time in history – the end of a perpetual unionist majority in the North. It was a political earthquake that has shaken unionism to its core and must fundamentally change the approach of the British and Irish governments. There is a need to plan for change and Irish unity.

This occurred under the shadow of the Tory Party triggering Article 50 and imposing Brexit against the will of the people of Ireland, North and South.

At this time of great change, challenge and opportunity we lost one of our finest leaders – Martin McGuinness.

Martin was a passionate republican and, like his friend Nelson Mandela, he was a freedom fighter, a political leader, a statesman and a peacemaker. And, more importantly, he was a father, husband, brother and grandfather to the family he loved.

Like Nelson Mandela, Martin took unprecedented risks for peace. He reached out to unionists while holding dear to his belief that a reunited Ireland holds the best potential for everyone on this small island, whatever their tradition.

He didn’t just talk the talk – Martin McGuinness walked the walk.

The tributes paid to Martin bear testimony to the difference that he has made, the hope he has inspired, and the example he has set for all of us, of all persuasions and none.

The talks at Stormont broke down due to the failure of the British Government to honour the agreements and the DUP failing to recognise equality and rights for all.

Contact

Layout and production: Mark Dawson production@anphoblacht.com

NEWS editor@anphoblacht.com NOTICES notices@anphoblacht.com PHOTOS photos@anphoblacht.com

The British Government – in the shape of the Conservative & Unionist Party, to give the party of Prime Minister Theresa May and Secretary of State James Brokenshire its full title – has been an active protagonist throughout the most recent period of conflict in Ireland. The outspoken opposition of the British Prime Minister and the Secretary of State to investigations by their own judiciary of killings by British state forces during the conflict proves their partisanship to anyone in any doubt. Their approach to the past is not about healing - it is about cover-up.

The British Government is not an independent broker.

It is part of the problem.

The Good Friday Agreement was endorsed by the vast majority of people across Ireland. It is the People’s Agreement The Irish Government is an equal co-guarantor of the Good Friday Agreement and subsequent agreements. The British Government must honour its commitments.

The Irish Government and the international community, including the EU, should not stand idly by.

There can be no conditionality on equality and good governance.

Unionism is at a crossroads. Does unionism embrace rights and equality for all citizens and the need to implement agreements in a spirit of goodwill and co-operation?

Martin McGuinness was selfless in his pursuit of freedom and unity, equality and respect, reconciliation and healing.

That is why he resigned from the role of deputy First Minister and made clear there could be no return to the status quo.

Martin is gone and it is now up to those left behind to follow his example and finish the work at hand.

Ours hearts are broken at the loss of Martin, but let us not mourn - let us celebrate and let us organise.

Let us build a new, united, equal Ireland as a fitting tribute to Martin McGuinness.

AN PHOBLACHT is published monthly by Sinn Féin. The views in An Phoblacht are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Sinn Féin. We welcome articles, opinions and photographs from new contributors but contact the Editor first.

An Phoblacht, Kevin Barry House, 44 Parnell Square, Dublin 1, Ireland Telephone: (+353 1) 872 6 100. Email: editor@anphoblacht.com

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April / Aibreán 2017

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5

Final journey in the town he loved so well

BY MICHAEL McMONAGLE TENS OF THOUSANDS of people thronged the streets of Derry for the final journey of Martin McGuinness in one of the largest funerals ever seen in the city.

The huge sense of grief at the death of Martin McGuinness was palpable in the city in the days leading up to his funeral as huge crowds of people gathered at the wake house from morning to night to pay their respects to the family of the iconic republican leader.

On the eve of his funeral, people of all political backgrounds and none queued for up to two hours to pay their final respects to Martin McGuinness.

On Thursday morning, crowds began to gather early in the morning as buses carrying republicans from all across Ireland ferried mourners to Derry. People lined the streets for the journey leading from Martin McGuinness’s home, through the Bogside to the church.

As Martin’s remains were brought from his home, it was met by Sinn Féin MEP Martina Anderson and leading republican Martin Lynch, Chair of Sinn Féin’s Cúige Uladh, who placed the National Flag on the coffin.

5 Thousands upon thousands thronged the streets of Derry to bid farewell to a republican legend Internationally-renowned singer Frances Black (also an Independent senator in the Oireachtas) then sang Raglan Road, one of Martin’s favourite songs, written by Patrick Kavanagh, a poet close to his heart, while Matt Molloy of The Chieftains and The Bothy Band fame played.

The cortege then started its journey to the church, with the coffin being carried by the McGuinness family.

People queued for up to two hours to pay their final respects to Martin McGuinness Members of the Sinn Féin leadership – Gerry 5 DUP leader Arlene Foster in the church Adams, Michelle O’Neill, Mary Lou McDonald, Seán Hughes, Bobby Storey and Elisha McCallion – carried the coffin down Westland Street.

The huge crowds along the route erupted in spontaneous applause as the funeral cortege passed as the people of Derry paid their own tribute.

The cortege grew as it passed the iconic Free Derry Corner where, as a teenager, Martin McGuinness joined so many others to repel the Stormont sectarian state’s stormtroopers in the Royal Ulster Constabulary from the area in what became known as “The Battle of the Bogside”.

As the funeral procession made its way up the motorway flyover towards the church, the scene of so many confrontations at republican funerals in the city during the 1980s, the applause from 5 Sinn Féin TD Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin the large crowds continued.

Mourners from across Ireland joined international guests and dignitaries for the funeral in St Columba’s Church, Long Tower.

Among the high-profile guests who travelled to Derry for the funeral were President of Ireland Michael D Higgins, former United States President Bill Clinton, former President of Ireland Mary McAleese, Taoiseach Enda Kenny, British Government Secretary of State James Brokenshire, and representatives from the Basque, Palestinian Cuban, Catalan struggles, including the Ambassadors from Cuba and Palestine.

The leaders of the North’s main political parties, including DUP leader Arlene Foster and former party leader Peter Robinson, also attended the funeral Mass and were given a warm welcome by mourners, including a special acknowledgment 5 Christy Moore sings for Martin

5 Reverend Harold Good speaks as Martin McGuinness's grandchildren look on

of thanks by the Sinn Féin leader in the North, Michelle O’Neill.

Those who could not get into the church gathered at Free Derry Corner in Martin McGuinness’s native Bogside to watch a live streaming of the funeral on a large screen while millions more watched as the service was broadcast on numerous news networks and online to a global audience.

The huge crowds along the route erupted in spontaneous applause as the people of Derry paid their own tribute During the Mass, local Presbyterian minister and close friend of Martin McGuinness, Dr David Latimer, was among the speakers who paid emotional tributes to the republican leader.

President Bill Clinton spoke during the service.

He praised Martin’s work as a peacemaker and urged everyone to build on his legacy in the times ahead.

After the Mass, the cortege made its way to

the City Cemetery, through the republican heartlands of the Bogside and Creggan on Martin’s final journey.

The cortege was flanked for part of the way by a guard of honour of Sinn Féin elected representatives, members of the party’s Ard Chomhairle and National Officer Board, and other senior republican leaders.

At the Republican Plot in the City Cemetery, close to the Cúchuilín statue which Martin and other Derry republicans helped to erect in 1975 to remember all of those who gave their lives for Irish freedom, crowds gathered at the graveside.

The graveside oration was given by Gerry Adams who said Martin was a freedom fighter who had a passion for justice and freedom, remarks which were greeted by loud applause and cheering from the large crowd (see our Special Supplement for the speech).

The sun shone at the graveside on what was one of the darkest days for Derry republicans but Gerry Adams’s stirring oration and the appearance of folk legend Christy Moore lifted the spirits of the grieving yet proud masses as they left the cemetery determined to build on the legacy left by their hero and continue his work to deliver a Republic for all.

6 April / Aibreán 2017

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Martin McGuinness in the news media

‘An inspiring example of peace and reconciliation’

BY ROBBIE SMYTH HOW MANY WAYS can you describe the life of Martin McGuinness?

“Gunman to statesman” from the Irish Independent.

“Man of the gun became a man of peace” headlined the Irish Times obituary.

“Rebel, Gunman, Peacemaker” was the Irish Daily Star’s front-page headline along with “The many lives of an IRA man turned politician”.

“IRA leader who forged path to peace” was the Irish News front page that included a silhouetted picture of Martin McGuinness.

“Ruthless republican terrorist to statesman who toasted Queen” was the obituary in the staunchly unionist daily Belfast News Letter.

“Bloody terrorist or a man of peace?” was the Daily Express take on Martin.

The front page also reported: “Queen sends her condolences but Tebbit says world’s a sweeter place”.

Norman Tebbit will be remembered in history as the notoriously hard-right Conservative Party minister who, with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, became a symbol of the uncaring malevolence of her years in office in the 1980s.

Tebbit, who survived the 1984 IRA bomb attack on the British Cabinet meeting in the Grand Hotel at Brighton but whose wife was left paralysed, responded to Martin’s death by saying he hoped he is “parked in hot corner of hell”. The Express did not carry the response of Jo Berry, whose MP father Sir Anthony Berry was killed in the Brighton bombing. She said that Tebbit was “not speaking for us all” and added: “I value Martin McGuinness as an inspiring example of peace and reconciliation.”

Jo Berry’s comments were in The Times whose headline was “Paramilitary and peacemaker who split opinion even in death”. On the front page, The Times, ever the paper of the British Establishment, told readers that Martin McGuinness was an “international pariah” without giving a source as to

where McGuinness was described in this way.

“From IRA leader to peacemaker” was the Daily Mirror headline, also giving prominence to the Taoiseach’s tribute in “Kenny hail’s Sinn Féin’s man’s lifetime journey” and a quote from President Michael D Higgins that “his leadership will be missed”.

The Jekyll and Hyde news media was in full flow in the Irish and British versions of the Daily Mail and The Sun.

The Irish Examiner used one of Martin’s own quotes about how history might assess him The Irish Sun had their front page headlined: “It’s not how you begin . . . It’s how you end” with pictures of McGuinness in 1972 in an IRA funeral colour party and shaking hands with Britian’s Queen Elizabeth in 2012. The Irish Sun’s sister edition in England, however, took a totally contrary view with the front-page banner headline “Unforgiven” and “IRA leader can go to Hell”.

“Peacemaker Martin McGuinness’s body was carried through the streets of Derry on his final journey home’ was the opening text in the Irish Sun. In England, the Editor spewed: “The Sun will not join in the revolting orgy of pious praise for Martin McGuinness”. Back in Ireland, “The Sun says” editorial declared: “The tributes paid to Martin McGuinness accurately map his incredible evolution from gunman to peacemaker”.

The Irish version of the Daily Mail had a simple full-page photo of Martin with “Martin McGuinness, 1950-2017” but ‘The Man from the Daily Mail’ in England replaced McGuinness with images of the aftermath of IRA attacks.

Back in the Irish edition, Martin is “the senior republican and Northern political giant”.

On television, RTÉ brought their Prime Time team to do a special on Martin and his “long journey from man of violence to man of peace”. Former IRA leader turned peacemaker” was the BBC declaration.

On BBC2’s Newsnight, Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Chief of Staff during a decade negotiating the Peace Process, Jonathan Powell, gave a unique insight behind the scenes from a British Government persective into “The Martin

McGuinness I Knew”, from when he first met Martin and Gerry Adams with Tony Blair in Stormont Castle Buildings in 1997 – “the first meeting between a British Prime Minister and republican

On BBC2’s Newsnight, Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Chief of Staff, Jonathan Powell, gave a unique insight behind the scenes in ‘The Martin McGuinness I Knew’

leaders since 1921”, Jonathan Powell said.

Powell refused to shake hands with Martin and Gerry (Blair did). Years later, Powell was to invite Martin to his wedding.

The Newsnight piece – including interviews with Ian Paisley Jnr, Tony Blair, Bertie Ahern, Gerry Adams, Gerry Kelly and Denis Bradley – noted that British Prime Ministers and US Presidents agreed that the Good Friday Agreement would not have been possible without Martin McGuinness.

“The first time I met him, I saw a terrorist; when I left Government, I invited him to my leaving party as a peacemaker,” Jonathan Powell said.

“Now he’s gone, I think we’re in danger of underestimating his contribution.”

“Man of war, man of peace” was the Irish Examiner’s assessment. And the Examiner carried the most apt characterisation on their front page, using one of Martin McGuinness’s own quotes: “I don’t care how history assesses me . . . I’ll leave it to the judgement of the people.”

April / Aibreán 2017

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7

INSIDE THE STORMONT TALKS BEFORE THE DEADLINE

Back to business at Stormont, not back to the way it was

BY MICHAEL McMONAGLE AFTER the historic Assembly election in the North, Sinn Féin’s team of newly-elected and returning MLAs were back at Stormont but it was far from business as usual.

Prior to the election, Sinn Féin’s leader in the North, Michelle O’Neill, had made it clear that there would be no return to the status quo at Stormont and the party has lived up that election pledge.

On the Monday following the election success, the full Sinn Féin Assembly team of 27 MLAs arrived at Stormont for a group meeting to discuss the next move as all parties prepared for negotiations in a bid to get the political institutions back up and running.

Newly-elected MLAs such as Foyle’s Elisha McCallion, South Down’s Sineád Ennis, Fermanagh/South Tyrone’s Jemma Dolan, and West Belfast’s Olaithí Flynn sat alongside long-standing Assembly members including West Tyrone’s Barry McElduff, West Belfast’s Fra McCann and Alex Maskey – veterans of the first Assembly in 1998 – to hear that Sinn Féin will only be involved in a government based on the principles of equality, integrity and respect.

Although the Assembly will not hold a proper sitting until a resolution to the current difficulties is found, all MLAs had to sign the Assembly register. This involved all 90 members filing into the chamber and taking their seats to wait to be called to sign in.

The gathered press pack in Stormont’s Great Hall noted the impressive sight of all Sinn Féin MLAs coming down the famous staircase en masse to troop into the chamber and many

The British Secretary of State and the Irish Government Foreign Affairs Minister did not even turn up for negotiations on St Patrick’s Day – Sinn Féin did commented on the number of young women in the ranks of the Sinn Féin team.

This was in start contrast to the DUP, whose members drifted into the chamber in dribs and drabs, coming down in pairs or alone, which many took to be an indication of a party still licking its wounds after a poor performance at the polls. Or perhaps it was a signal of an unwillingness to line out behind embattled leader Arlene Foster, under fire over her handling of the RHI scandal and bearing the brunt of the blame for not avoiding the loss of the unionist majority at Stormont for the first time in history.

The shrunken Ulster Unionist Party contingent, now leaderless following the resignation of ex-TV presenter Mike Nesbitt, who held on to his seat, looked even more at sea than usual, trying to present a cheery face going into the chamber but failing miserably.

5 Sinn Féin's all-Ireland team on the steps of Stormont

5 Irish Government Foreign Affairs Minister Charlie Flanagan and British Secretary of State James Brokenshire

Inside the chamber itself, the amount of extra space with the reduction of MLAs from 108 to 90 was noticeable, particularly on the DUP benches, with the absence of such ‘big beasts’ as Nelson McCausland and Maurice Morrow failing to keep their seats. The high-profile Emma Little Pengelly also lost out.

Other heavy-hitters were also absent. Former Ulster Unionist Party minister Danny Kennedy and senior SDLP MLA Alex Attwood were both deemed by the electorate to be surplus to requirements.

And any future Assembly will certainly be a quieter place with the involuntary departure of People Before Profit’s one-term MLA, Eamonn McCann.

Aside from the formalities, the real business at Stormont since the election has taken place at Stormont Castle, where the talks have been taking place.

Regrettably, as a result of British Government intransigence and the Irish Government failing to hold the British to account, little progress had been made as I file this report.

The British Government’s Secretary of State, James Brokenshire, was left in no doubt about the state of play, however, when a meeting with Gerry Adams and Michelle O’Neill at Stormont Castle was ended by Sinn Féin very shortly after it began.

Gerry Adams promptly went out and told

the waiting media that Sinn Féin made it clear to the Tory MP sent over by his government in London that unless he had anything to offer other than “waffle, waffle and more waffle”, then the meeting was over.

A chastened Brokenshire, unused to such meetings owing to his complete lack of experi-

A chastened Brokenshire ordered his Range Rover round to the back of Stormont Castle for a hasty retreat, away from media questions ence, then ordered his Range Rover round to the back of the Castle so that reporters would not see him clambering in to make a hasty retreat.

While his skills are certainly lacking, James Brokenshire did not even turn up for negotiations on St Patrick’s Day. Nor did Irish Government Foreign Affairs Minister Charlie Flanagan. The Sinn Féin team was there, of course.

It’s certainly not back to the status quo but it is back to business.

8 April / Aibreán 2017

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FAKE BREATH TESTS, PHANTOM CHECKPOINTS AND WRONGFUL PROSECUTIONS

Garda Commissioner faces ‘no confidence’ Dáil motion

BY MARK MOLONEY GARDA COMMISSIONER Nóirín O’Sullivan is facing a motion of no confidence tabled by Sinn Féin, as the police service finds itself embroiled in yet more serious allegations of malpractice, incompetence and of misleading the public.

It has been revealed that while An Garda Síochána had said it had carried out almost two million roadside alcohol breath tests over the last five years, it had actually carried out half that number.

The scandal first came to light in 2015 when an internal Garda review noticed discrepancies in the number of breath tests recorded at the scenes of road traffic collisions.

The Irish Times also revealed that the Medical Bureau of Road Safety (MBRS) raised questions over variations between the number of disposable mouthpieces ordered for use on breathalyser readers and the number of breathalyser results recorded on the Garda PULSE computer system.

In total, the Garda recorded conducting 1,999,365 breathalyser tests but the MBRS says it was only 1,058,157.

The Garda have been unable to provide an adequate explanation for the serious conflict in facts. When questioned by reporters as to whether gardaí had simply been making up the figures, Assistant Commissioner Michael Finn said: “I don’t know. Certainly they weren’t recording them correctly.”

n ‘We need more tha ns; detailed explanatio we need to ensure that these things ’ don’t happen again

The trouble for the Garda Commissioner has been compounded by news that 14,700 motorists have been wrongly prosecuted for failing to pay fixed-charge notices despite never been given a notice to pay. The Garda say an IT update to their PULSE computer system has rectified the problem but the state is now facing the possibility of thousands of legal cases for damages. Many claimants may allege that they were forced to pay higher insurance premiums, lost jobs or failed to secure a job due to their wrongful convictions.

Meanwhile, a retired Garda sergeant has contacted the Policing Authority claiming that gardaí were also recording false numbers for the number of road safety checkpoints taking place: “Many scheduled checkpoints were not being done for various legitimate reasons but were still recorded on PULSE and used in data return figures although invalidated,” the Irish Examiner reported the Garda Sergeant as saying in a letter written to the Policing Authority shortly before his retirement.

The Policing Authority says it is alarmed by the discrepancies, adding that the revelations raise “serious questions of integrity for the Garda Síochána organisation and, combined with previous issues regarding inflated activity levels, erodes confidence in the credibility of Garda data generally”.

Sinn Féin deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald TD told listeners on RTÉ's 5 Sinn Féin TDs Mary Lou McDonald Morning Ireland that the situation within and Jonathan O’Brien

5 Garda Commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan

the police service had become “farcical”.

It is “an absolute mess”, she said, adding that it is simply not good enough to have the Garda and the Department of Justice enveloped in “fiasco after fiasco”.

The Dublin Central TD said: “We need more than detailed explanations; we need to ensure that these things don’t happen again. But, in a service such as An Garda Síochána, senior management and the quality of leadership is essential.

“The ordinary gardaí have been battered and bruised with waves of one controversy after another and, at some point, you have to call it.

“It is now eminently clear that the current Garda Commissioner is not leading in the manner that is required and is presiding over one crisis after another.”

The Sinn Féin deputy leader also said she was “not a bit surprised” that the Fine Gael Tánaiste and Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald was refusing to appear on radio programmes to debate the issue as it “raises questions about her own competence and any sense of direction coming from Government”.

Speaking to reporters in Cork, Sinn Féin Justice spokesperson Jonathan O’Brien said the Garda Commissioner’s position is untenable and she should be removed from office.

He also published the text of the Sinn Féin Private Member’s Motion which will come before the Dáil in April and aims to use the 2005 Garda Síochána Act to remove the Commissioner: “The people of this state are entitled to a standard of policing in which accountability is central to the ethos of the service,” O’Brien told media.

5 Assistant Commissioner Michael Finn

“This must be achieved on the basis of fairness, impartially and objectivity.

This standard does not exist presently.

The necessary public confidence in Garda management does not exist at this time.”

The Cork North Central TD says he is mindful that the conduct of senior

s ‘In a service such a , An Garda Síochána t senior managemen and the quality of tial’ leadership is essen

5 In total, the Garda recorded conducting 1,999,365 breathalyser tests but the MBRS says it was only 1,058,157

Garda management is already under the microscope at the Charleton Commission, which is investigating serious allegations made in protected disclosures about the actions of the Commissioner: “Sinn Féin is calling on the Government to remove the Garda Commissioner as it is clearly in the best interests of An Garda Síochána and the future of policing and justice in this state.”

April / Aibreán 2017

www.anphoblacht.com

9

Fear cróga, fear físe, fathach fir

Beannacht leat a Mháirtín Sin ceann de na tréithe ba láidre a bhí aige dar liom, nach ar mhaithe leis féin a ndearna sé aon cheo ach ar mhaithe lena phobal, lena mhuintir, lena gcuid comhshaoránaithe

Le Trevor Ó Clochartaigh CHEAPFÁ nach mbeadh rud ar bith a chuirfeadh faitíos ar Mhartin McGuinness.

Ach, fuair mé amach agus mé ag taisteal leis ar an ‘Bus Cogaidh’ le linn feachtas toghchán na h-Uachtaránachta go raibh eagla an domhain air go mbeadh air óráid nóiméad a dhéanamh tré mheán na Gaeilge le linn díospóireacht na gceannairí ar TG4.

Chaith mé dhá lá i gcuideachta Martin agus foireann an fheachtais ag dul ó bhaile go baile an t-am sin, agus mé ag tabhairt cúnamh dó ullmhú don óráid úd. Mhínigh sé dhom nár fhoghlaim se Gaeilge ag an scoil agus go raibh caith ina dhiaidh air ó shoin nár éirigh leis a theanga dúchais a bhreith leis. Ach, ba léir go raibh an-ómós aige don teanga agus é ar a mhíle dícheall ag cur na focail de ghlanmheabhair, mar gur thuig sé an tábhacht a bhain leis do bhaill an pháirtí agus do phobal na Gaeilge agus na hÉíreann.

Sílim go mba sracfhéachaint domsa é sin ar an cur chuige a bhí ag an bhfear uasal, gealgháireach tiomanta seo, a d’imigh uainn, i bhfad ró-óg, le déanaí.

Rinne muid neart gáirí ar an mbus. In ainneoin chomh tuirsiúil is a bhí an fheachtas dó, bhí aoibh gháire ar Mhartin áit ar bith a ndeachaigh

IN PICTURES

muid agus bhí gean dáiríre le brath ó dhaoine dó áit ar bith ar an gcamchuairt. B’iontach an ambasadóir don pháirtí agus don ghluaiseacht é.

Bhí neart scéalta grinn aige leis an mbóthar idir ócáidí a ghiorrú chomh maith. Scéalta faoin gcaidreamh fhuar, naimhdeach a bhí ag na hAontachtaithe dó nuair a cuireadh bun leis an gComthionóil ar dtús agus an chaoi a ndeachaigh sé i gcion orthu, go dtí an fíor-chairdeas a chruthaigh sé le leithéidí Ian Paisley i ndeire a laetha siúd. Bhí scéalta aige faoin bpróiseas cainteanna san Afraic Theas faoi scátha an ANC, faoi phearsantachtaí idirnáisiúnta ar nós Nelson Mandela, Bill Clinton, Tony Blair agus cuid mhaith eile. Státaire a bhí i Máirtín, gan aon dabht.

D’inis sé faoi na h-uafáis a bhíodh ag tarlú dá phobal i gceantar Thaobh a’Bhogaidh, a mba spreagadh iad do ghníomhaíocht McGuinness i ngluaiseacht na Poblachta. Sin ceann de na tréithe ba láidre a bhí aige dar liom, nach ar

photos@anphoblacht.com

5 Candlelight vigils in Dublin and Cork for Martin McGuinness

mhaithe leis féin a ndearna sé aon cheo ach ar mhaithe lena phobal, lena mhuintir, lena gcuid comh-shaoránaithe. Ag seasamh an fód ar son an chirt, ar son cothromas agus ar son an rannpháirtíocht.

Ach, in ainneoin go raibh cleachtadh ag Martin ar a bheith ina státaire ar an stáitse domhanda ba duine de na gnáth dhaoine é. Bua faoi leith a bhí aige ná gur bhrath tú agus tú ina chuideachta go raibh suim dáiríre aige ins an méid a bhí le rá agat. Agus bhí. Mar sin, is iad na cuimhní pearsanta sin den am a chaith daoine ina chomhluadar is mó a bhí ag teacht chun cinn agus muid ag caoineadh a bháis.

Ceann de na cuimhní pearsanta is mó atá agam féin dó, ná nuair a tugadh cuireadh dom freastal ar chruinniú phríobháideach idir Martin, Gerry Adams agus an Prionsa Seárlas in Ollscoil na hÉireann, Gaillimh i 2015.

An t-aon dream eile a bhí I láthair ná rúnaí

phearsanta Seárlas agus Ambasadsóir na Breataine. Ba é seo a chéad uair ar chas Gerry leis an bPrionsa, ach bhí Martin i ndiaidh bualadh leis roimhe sin. Mar sin, bhí roinnt chaint dhíreach le déanamh mar thús, ach, níl aon dabht gur chuidigh pearsantacht réidh, socúlach Martin McGuinness leis an gcaint a threorú i dtreo an todhchaí, an athmhuintearas agus i dtreo daingniú na síochána.

Bhí beagán diabhlaíocht ag baint leis chomh maith agus é ag spochadh as Gerry Adams faoin nós atá aige dhul amach sa dúlra agus barróga a bhreith ar chrainnte – ach thuig sé go maith go n-osclódh sé sin suas an chomhrá maidir leis an tsuim a bhí ag Seárlas féin sa bhfoghlaeireacht, sa gcomhshaoil agus dar ndóigh san iascaireacht slaite. Bhí fhios aige go maith céard a bhí sé ag déanamh.

Ní líonfar an folús atá fágtha ag Martin McGuinness i ngluaiseacht na Poblachta go deo, agus ní chóir dúinn a bheith ag iarraidh é a líonadh.

Ach, tiocfaidh ceannaireacht nua chun aibíochta.

Beidh muid ar fad ag baint ionspioráide as sampla Martin. Sin an dualgas atá orainn. Mar a thuig seisean go raibh sé de dhualgas air féin tógáil ar oidhreacht na bhfathaigh poblachtánacha uile a chuaigh roimhe féin. Beannacht leat a Mháirtín.

Tá do chion féin déanta agat a chomrádaí, lig do scíth anois.

10 April / Aibreán 2017

www.anphoblacht.com

The ‘Dirty War’ in Ireland

BRITAIN STILL A STATE IN DENIAL AS the McGurk’s Bar Massacre families continue their quest for justice from the Ulster Volunteer Force bomb attack of 4 December 1971 that left 15 civilians dead, Margaret Urwin from campaign group Justice for the Forgotten has uncovered more evidence confirming that senior British and unionist politicians as well as top British Army and RUC police officers endorsed a campaign of disinformation aimed at falsely blaming the IRA for the unionist attack on the Catholic-owned pub in north Belfast, writes PEADAR WHELAN. The evidence was included in legal documents sent by the British Government to the Dublin

Government and used in its defence against accusations of torture against ‘The Hooded Men’ during hearings in the European Court of Human Rights and as justification for not interning loyalists without trial.

The document records that a claim by a loyalist group calling themselves “Empire Loyalists” was dismissed and maintains that the bombers’ intended target was a hotel. Campaigners have uncovered numerous documents proving a campaign of disinformation but this is the first time a hotel has been cited as the target for the bomb.

The electoral shockwave in the North’s Assembly election swept away the unionist majority at Stormont for the first time in history. Amidst

“The British Government have continually failed to live up to their responsibilities as co-guarantors of the Good Friday Agreement. They have pandered to unionism time and time again, and they have shown and demonstrated a one-sided approach when it comes to the issues of legacy.”

MICHELLE O’NEILL

the consequent talks geared towards re-establishing the Executive, what is taxing the minds of many republicans is the attitude of the British Government to the legacy issue encompassing collusion, the refusal to fund inquests, shootto-kill operations by state forces, and Westminster’s rush to protect from any investigation of British soldiers responsible for killings in the North. Senior members of the British Government – including Prime Minister Theresa May – and Fleet Street newspapers have accused those demanding inquiries of being involved in a “witch-hunt”.

In the talks, Sinn Féin’s leader in the North, Michelle O’Neill, marked British Government Secretary of State James Brokenshire’s cards by

WESTMINSTER AGAINST INVESTIGATIONS OF ITS

OPERATION BANNER

WITH DERRY CITY on a knife edge as “The Battle of the Bogside” raged and Belfast was shrouded in the black acrid smoke rising from the homes of thousands of nationalists torched by the state’s Royal Ulster Constabulary

police force and loyalist mobs, the Westminster Government of Harold Wilson ordered British troops onto the streets of the North.

His decision was the clearest admission from Britain, in the aftermath of partition, that the Six Counties was a failed political entity.

From day one, the British recognised, quicker than most people, that they were dealing with a situation that had more to do with their colonial rule in Ireland over centuries and not just the ‘law and order’ problem they projected to the world at large.

5 Military intelligence fed UVF/UDA Their counter-insurgency instincts kicked in right away and this is evidenced in the fact that many of their most senior commanders and career soldiers deployed to the North in that critical period between 1970 and 1972 were involved in counter-insurgency across the globe in the Empire’s colonies as their peoples demanded freedom.

The most senior military commanders (General Officer Commanding) Sir Ian Freeland and General Harry Tuzo 5 British Army General Harry Tuzo 5 Campaigner and author Margaret Urwin

were veterans of counter-insurgency in Cyprus and Borneo.

The “Commander of Land Forces” in 1971/72, Major-General Robert Ford, had soldiered in Palestine and Aden while his predecessor, Major-General Anthony Farrar-Hockley, was a seasoned campaigner with service in Palestine, Cyprus, Aden and in covert operations in Indonesia.

Not surprisingly, in this constellation of enforcers of colonial rule, the name of Brigadier Frank Kitson looms large.

General Sir Michael Jackson of the Parachute Regiment, who by the end of his career had risen to hold the top rank in the British Army, played a crucial role in disseminating misinformation about the Civil Rights marchers shot dead by the British Army on Bloody Sunday in what infamously became known as the “shot list”. He described Kitson as an “incisive thinker and military theorist”, claiming that “he was the sun around which the planets revolved . . . and very much set the tone for the operational style” in Belfast.

If, as Jackson maintains, Kitson “set the tone” it is in her book A State in Denial: British Collaboration With Loyalist Paramilitaries that Margaret

Urwin explores and exposes what she describes as “the tangled web of relationships between British Government ministers, senior civil servants and senior police and military officers with loyalists paramilitaries in both the Ulster Defence Association and the Ulster Volunteer Force”.

She says of Kitson “having introduced counter-insurgency methods in a number of colonial campaigns – Malaya, Muscat, Oman, Cyprus and Kenya – Kitson was posted to Northern Ireland in 1970. He soon set about introducing these in his new posting by establishing plainclothes soldiers in covert units which evolved into the Military Reaction Force and encouraging the use of ‘proxy’ or supporting

April / Aibreán 2017

www.anphoblacht.com

5 Brokenshire – partisan plea for British forces

5 McGurk’s Bar Massacre 1971 – The quest for the truth continues

telling him the party does not regard him or his government as neutral.

Brokenshire’s “one-sided partisan view means he cannot be an honest-broker in negotiations”, Michelle O’Neill said.

“The British Government have continually failed to live up to their responsibilities as co-guarantors of the Good Friday Agreement. They have pandered to unionism time and time again, and they have shown and demonstrated a one-sided approach when it comes to the issues of legacy.”

The British Government, faced with a dilemma over how to deal with a political crisis in the North, is floundering, particularly because this Tory Government, fighting battles on multiple fronts, doesn’t know which way to turn.

The results of March’s Assembly election have put a Border poll firmly on the agenda.

The North’s majority “Remain” vote in the Brexit referendum and calls led by Sinn Féin for “Special Designated Status in the EU” for the North have many people looking afresh at not just the

prospects and challenges of a united Ireland but the opportunities.

Added to Britain’s woes are Fianna Fáil’s pledge to publish a 12-point plan “within months” as part of a plan for a united Ireland and Taoiseach and Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny acknowledging the citizenship of the people in the North with his referendum on voting rights for the Irish Diaspora, including those living in the North.

Meanwhile, Theresa May is still floundering over Brexit despite announcing the ‘trigger date’

for Brexit as 29 March and struggling to fend off Scotland First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s demand for a second Scottish independence referendum.

Now the British are keen to keep their legacy issues off the agenda. These go right to the heart of their war in Ireland, exposing the myth of ‘neutrality’ and the colonial policies from which flowed from direct military repression, collusion, shoot-to-kill and the deployment of secret British Army hit squads such as the undercover Military Reaction Force.

5 Battle of the Bogside in Derry and Belfast homes burned in unionist pogroms

5 Masked UDA members patrol alongside British soldiers – General Tuzo was happy to allow the loyalist gangs operate

forces (loyalist deaths squads) and local friendly forces employed throughout the colonies by the British Army.”

This strategy was the accepted policy and Margaret Urwin goes into great detail in revealing how it played itself out on the streets.

In her painstakingly thorough analysis of official British Government documents, Margaret Urwin essentially proves that the two largest loyalist death squads, the UDA and UVF, were allowed to carry on their campaign against the nationalist population.

A huge element of “plausible deniability” was attached to the attitude of the British and the unionist government at the time as the revitalised UVF and the newly-formed UDA were given free rein to carry out killings

underpinned by Kitson’s strategies, tell us that the British were operating an integrated politico-military strategy in the North and that the unionist death squads were a key element of it.

Therefore, investigations into collusion such as that of Urwin and Anne Cadwallader for her book Lethal Allies: British Collusion in Ireland leads us down a path that takes us to the door of the British Government at Westminster in London.

What lurks behind that door is Prime Minister Theresa May and her rightwing Tory Government that is determined to exonerate Britain’s armed forces and security agencies of any wrongdoing in the North.

As the puppet to a rabid right-wing Tory establishment puppetmaster, May

and intimidation, mostly against the nationalist population.

She cites, in particular, the rationale of General Harry Tuzo’s thinking when, as GOC, he suggested that the UDA be allowed to build barricades to “defend” unionist areas and that it “was arguable that Protestant areas could be almost entirely secured by a combination of UDA, Orange Volunteers [loyalist paramilitary group] and RUC”.

In fact, Tuzo believed it necessary to “turn a blind eye to UDA arms when confined to their own areas”.

When Tuzo made these comments in 1972, the UDA had already killed 18 people, four of whom were abducted at UDA barricades, taken away and assassinated.

Taken in the round, Tuzo’s thinking,

11

has revealed her colours when, according to the unionist daily the News Letter of 15 March, the British Prime Minister wrote to “Northern Ireland veterans” telling them “the whole [my emphasis] system of addressing the past” is “unbalanced”.

Her Northern echo chamber, Secretary of State James Brokenshire, parroting unionists, is on record as saying that legacy investigations are “not working . . . and we are in danger of seeing the past rewritten". He emphasised his government and judiciary “do not unfairly treat soldiers and police officers”.

The real campaign here for the British state is the fight to protect its unionist narrative of the conflict as the legitimate one and any opposing (i.e. nationalist) perspective is given short shrift and

no legitimacy.

The contents of Theresa May’s letter were reported on the day that British Royal Marine Commando Sergeant Alexander Blackman had a murder conviction for summarily executing a wounded Taliban insurgent overturned and reduced to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

It was a sign, if one were needed, of how the British Establishment reacts to protect itself. It is a protection they want to extend to those British soldiers responsible for killing civilians in the North and thereby the state’s narrative of the conflict to the exclusion of all else.

It is truly a state in denial.

• A State in Denial: British Collaboration with Loyalist Paramilitaries, by Margaret Urwin, Mercier Press.

12 April / Aibreán 2017

www.anphoblacht.com

STRIKE OUT!

Media twists on trade union disputes

5Workers defending their hard-won rights and conditions get little sympathy from the mainstream media compared to how employers and ministers get an easy ride

TROUBLESOME TEACHERS, militant strikers, demanding workers – any of this sound familiar? It’s the standard fare for what’s considered reporting on industrial relations disputes in the Irish economy.

In the last while this has included disputes involving teachers, LUAS tram drivers, doctors, nurses, DART, Bus Átha Cliath and Bus Éireann drivers, City Jet

Unions ‘threaten’ strikes but employers aren’t portrayed by media as threatening people’s rights, jobs or a community’s future air crews, gardai, and Bausch & Lomb and Tesco workers.

You may notice that unions have controlling “leaderships”, and “factions” while employers are, well, just employers. In a public sector strike, ministers get a mention but usually on how “inappropriate” it would be for them to get involved in an area they’re being paid by the taxpayer quite handsomely to manage. Take a bow, Ministers Richard Bruton, Simon Harris and Shane Ross.

Industrial disputes are nasty affairs with “threats” and “demands” made by workers while the public are portrayed as the losers as they deal with the loss of service when a work stoppage actually happens, which is rare by the way.

And employers are never accused by mainstream media of threatening people’s rights, jobs and families’ livelihoods or jeopardising the futures of entire communities, especially in areas outside the big cities.

There were 71,647 strike days last year, involving 29,372 workers, according to

‘What did unions ever do for us?’

Well, quite a lot actually Central Statistics Office figures. This is fewer than 2.5 days lost work per employee – hardly a mass strike in an economy with 2,048,100 workers in 2016.

So why do the news media write

headlines like, “Secondary schools plunged into chaos” or “Traffic chaos looms as DART drivers to vote on strike action”, as written in the Irish Times and Irish Independent.

Skewed industrial relations coverage in Ireland goes deeper. There were 35 articles in last year’s Irish Times coverage of the dispute between teachers and the Department of Education. In the headlines accompanying the articles, there is not one quote or a teachers’ union source named.

Even in the large pull quotes that stand out beside the main text there are no union sources quoted. We do get quotes from then Education Minister Jan O’Sullivan of the Labour Party, who is replaced later in the year by Fine Gael’s Richard Bruton, who gets a pull quote, as do Public Expenditure Minister Paschal Donohoe and Education Department Secretary General Seán Ó Foghlu.

The news media would claim they don’t take sides but they use hype, distorting language and focusing on the possible impact of strikes on the public rather than the working conditions that have provoked industrial action in these isolated cases.

In the recent Mandate union members’ strike at Tesco, newspapers were wholly unable to call out Tesco, a hugely profitable multinational in Ireland, for seeking to enforce a pay cut on a section of their staff after giving more than 20 years working for the company.

Tesco had no problem, though, taking the money for multiple days of two full pages of advertisements during the strike. Balanced coverage?

ROBBIE SMYTH Unions fought for redundancy payments, a minimum wage, paid sick leave and the right that many workers overlook – paid holidays In 1764, the Regular Carpenters of Dublin were founded and I think they can claim to be Ireland’s first trade union. In 1824, the British Government at Westminster repealed legislation banning unions and in 1894 the first attempt was made to create a national Irish trade union congress.

Too often, more than 250 years later, we hear the question ‘What did unions ever do for us?’ Well, quite a lot actually.

From cutting the length of the working day to the income tax cuts of the Celtic Tiger boom years, it was trade unions who were delivering better pay and working conditions for all Irish workers.

It is no accident that as trade union membership has declined so have the wages and working conditions of ordinary workers. The casual employment of the 19th century has become the zero-hours contract of the 21st century.

The tax hikes of the recession years for workers, particularly the increases in the Universal Social Charge, happened when there were no social partnership agreements and trade unions were absent from economic decision making.

A whole raft of positive working conditions we take for granted come from the agitation and campaigning of trade unions. These include redundancy payments, a minimum wage, paid sick leave and the right that many workers overlook – paid holidays.

Women laundry workers in the 26 Counties went on a 13-week strike in 1945, winning the right to two weeks’ paid holidays every year. This was extended to all workers in 1946. Compare this progress to the ‘concessions’ in the 1819 Factory Act where it was agreed that children aged from 9 to 16 would ONLY work a maximum of 72 hours per week with one and a half hours a day for meals.

What have the unions ever done for us?

April / Aibreán 2017

www.anphoblacht.com

13

Céard is fiú an Ghaeilge?

TÁ’S AGAINN gur bíogóideacht atá taobh thiar de chur i gcoinne na Gaeilge ag páirtithe Aontacha; agus nach bhfuil sa gcaint faoi chostas mór a bheith ag baint le hAcht Teangan ach cur i gcéill ag iarraidh leithscéal don bhíogóideacht sin.

Ar ndóigh, ní rud eachtrannach í an Ghaeilge do Phrotastúnaigh. Go deimhin, is fíric stairiuil é go ndearna an Eaglais Phreisbitéireach i bhfad níos mó ar son na Gaeilge ná a dhein an Eaglais Chaitliceach riamh.

B’iad na ministeirí Nielson a scríobh an Ghramadach Ghaeilge ba thabhachtaí do chúige Uladh, agus bhí dualgas ar mhinisteirí a bheith in ann searmanais a thabhairt i nGaeilge sa 18ú agus sa 19ú céad. Bhi an dualgas sin orthu toisc go raibh roinnt mhaith de mhuintir na heaglaise ann nach dtuigfeadh Béarla go heasca is a bheadh níos compordaí leis an nGaeilge.

Tá obair an-tábhachtach dhá déanamh ar ndóigh ag Linda Ervine faoi seo, gur cuid d’oidhreacht Phrotastúnaigh Uladh í an Ghaeilge.

Ní chuireann firicí mar sin bac ar na bíogóidigh mar sin fhéin. Creideann siad go mbaineann an Ghaeilge le náisiúnaithe is mar sin tá siad ina coinne – beag beann ar chearta chothromais, meas cothromach nó eile.

Ceann dena ráiteasaí ba sheafóidigh is ba bhréagaigh ar ndóigh tháinig sé ó Nelson McCausland (a chaill a

shuíochan tionóil sa toghchán deiridh).

Dúirt seisean go gcothódh Acht Teanga conspóid is scoilt is go gcosnódh sé €100 sa mbliain.

Ar ndóigh bhí ceannaire an DUP, Arlene Foster, ar an bport céanna nach mór is í ag maíomh go raibh níos

Is cuid d’oidhreacht an dá thaobh sa tuaisceart í an Ghaeilge, agus is fíorbheag an costas i ndáiríre i bhfianaise tábhacht chultúrdha na teanga mó cainteóirí Polannaise sa Tuaisceart ná cainteóirí Ghaeilge.

Mar a tharla, labhrann níos lú ná 2% Polannais sna Sé Chontaetha i gcomparáid le os cionn 5% a bhfuil Gaeilge líofa acu.

EOIN Ó MURCHÚ Maidir le costas, arís ta dul amú ar ár gcairde san DUP. Ta scrúdú déanta ag Conradh na Gaeilge ar na figiúirí a bhaineann le hAcht Teanga, is deir siad go gcosnódh Acht Teanga £19m thar treimhse cúig bhliain: sin £3.8m sa mbliain.

Agus ní chosnódh rannóg aistriúcháin sa gcoiste feidhmeannais ach £100,000 le cur sa tsiúl.

Is cuid d’oidhreacht an dá thaobh sa tuaisceart í an Ghaeilge, agus is fíorbheag an costas i ndáiríre i bhfianaise tábhacht chultúrdha na teanga.

Ní mór duinne, lucht na Gaeilge, a chinntií go mbeidh na figiúirí cruinne seo ar fáil do achan duine sna Sé Chontaetha.

Agus ná fágamais Ciarán Ó Coigligh as ach an oiread.

Ní dochar ar bith an t-eólas seo a thabhairt dósan freisin.

BASQUE COUNTRY PEACE PROCESS MOMENTOUS MOVE

ETA to disarm by 8 April 2017 ETA – the Basque independence military organisation – will disarm by 8 April, the Basque Peace Process website reports.

BakeBidea, a civil society platform dealing with the peace process in the north of the Basque Country held a forum in Biarritz over the weekend of 18/19 March.

The forum was entitled “Disarmament at the Service of the Peace Process” and included several experts and representatives of the Peace Artisans, the group of five people

Basque institutions and civil society have shown their support to the process, which would include international verification to ensure that weapons are put beyond use arrested last December while trying to put beyond use a number of ETA’s weapons.

Txetx Etcheverry, one of those five activists, announced to Le Monde newspaper on 17 March that ETA has entrusted “civil society” with the responsibility of its arsenal’s disarmament and that, on the afternoon of 8 April, ETA will be totally disarmed.

The activist called on the French

5 Arnaldo Otegi, Martin McGuinness and South Africa former Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils, 2007 Sinn Féin Ard Fheis

Government not to block the disarmament and urged it to avoid hindering it, as it had done on previous occasions.

According to Le Monde, civil society representatives have been awaiting the

commitment of the French Government to take ETA’s weaponry under custody, supervised by international observers.

Basque institutions and civil society

have shown their support to the process, which would include international verification to ensure that weapons are put beyond use.

The main stakeholders in the Basque

Country, including political party EH Bildu’s spokesperson, Arnaldo Otegi, have recognised the importance of this initiative and shown their support.

The Social Forum for Peace has been working on the issue of disarmament since January 2016, when the Forum organised its third event in Gernika. In October 2016, it presented a report titled Implementation of the Conclusions with Institutional, Political and Social Agents which covered the work done by the members of the Permanent Social Forum in the previous eight months.

La Bande Pasante – an “International Network of Critical Thoughts, Alternative Practices and Contemporary Creations” – has launched a documentary titled Peace Now, A Popular Demand to Support Disarmament and Peace in the Basque Country.

The documentary includes several prominent individuals, including Pierre Joxe, former French Interior Ministers and endorsers of the Aiete Declaration. The film has Basque, Spanish and English subtitles.

14 April / Aibreán 2017

www.anphoblacht.com

5 The banner over Liberty Hall to honour James Connolly that the Dublin Metropolitan Police unsuccessfully tried to remove

The first Easter Rising commemoration THE FIRST commemoration of the 1916 Easter Rising was held in Dublin at Easter 1917 and was an act of defiance of British military rule.

Many republicans were still in jail a year after the Rising and the city was full of British troops. The Defence of the Realm Act (DORA) imposed strict censorship and public assembly was severely restricted.

Since the execution of the 16 leaders between 3 May and 3 August 1916, respect for their sacrifice had grown among the Irish people. Their writings

BY MÍCHEÁL Mac DONNCHA

Remembering the Past

It is as important as ever to commemorate the sacrifices and ideals of the 1916 Easter Rising were reprinted, their photographs were published and sold in large numbers, and songs were sung in their memory.

There was much support for the families of political prisoners, with a leading part in fund-raising taken by Kathleen Clarke, widow of Tom Clarke and bereaved sister of Edward Daly, both of whom were executed.

It was another republican woman, Helena Moloney, who took the initiative in organising the first Easter commemoration. A close comrade of James Connolly and a co-founder of the Irish

5 Easter Monday 1917 – A Volunteer managed to reach the flagpole in the shell of the GPO and raise the Tricolour

Women Workers’ Union, she had fought with the Irish Citizen Army in Easter Week at City Hall. She was jailed in England after the Rising and released in December 1916. She immediately threw herself back into the struggle.

At Easter 1917, republican women led

by Helena Moloney held a wreath-laying ceremony at the graves of the

16 Irish Volunteers and Citizen Army members buried in St Paul’s section in Glasnevin Cemetery. Then the focus shifted to the GPO. Thousands of people gathered in O’Connell Street on Easter Monday 1917 in defiance of the British authorities. At noon, the hour at which the GPO had been occupied and the Proclamation

of the Republic read a year before, a young Volunteer scaled the walls of the GPO. The building was still only a shell of outer walls and it was a perilous climb but the Volunteer managed to reach the flagpole and hoist the Tricolour, to cheers from the crowd.

Members of the Dublin Metropolitan Police then climbed up and tried to

remove the flag but it was knotted so tight that they had to saw down the flagpole. It fell to the street and where the flag was hurriedly reclaimed by people in the crowd.

The scene then shifted to the ruins of Liberty Hall where, on 12 May, a banner was displayed: “James Connolly Murdered May 12th 1916”. When the DMP removed the banner it was replaced with an identical one and when they tried to remove this one they found the way to the roof barred by several hundredweight of coal!

Helena Moloney remained active in the struggle for many years and, along with Maud Gonne and others, successfully opposed the proposed demolition of Kilmainham Jail in 1938, ensuring its preservation today.

Every year since 1916 the Rising has been commemorated and it is as important as ever for republicans to do so today and to ensure maximum attendance at this year’s commemorations.

These details are correct as we go to press. Please check local media or An Phoblacht and Sinn Féin social media for updates or changes.

Armagh SATURDAY

12.30pm Portadown, Churchill Park SUNDAY

9.30am Crossmaglen, Rangers GFC After 11am Mass, Camlough, Raymond McCreesh Monument 2.30pm Lurgan, Francis Street 4pm Cullyhanna, St Patrick’s GFC MONDAY

2pm Armagh City

Belfast SUNDAY MAIN COMMEMORATION

1pm Beechmount Avenue

Fermanagh

Cavan

3pm Newtownbutler

MONDAY

2.30pm Kilnavart Cemetery, Ballyconnell

SUNDAY

Galway SATURDAY

Carlow

3pm City, Liam Mellows Statue Eyre Square

SATURDAY

SUNDAY

3pm Carlow Town, Michael O’Hanrahan Commemoration

12pm Athenry 1pm Ros Muc, Teach an Phiarsaigh Conamara 2pm The Square, Ballinasloe Town

Clare

MONDAY

SUNDAY

3pm Drumcliff, Ennis

Cork SUNDAY

11am Youghal 12.30pm Bandon 2pm Cork City

Derry SUNDAY

12.15pm Dungiven 2pm Derry City, Westland Street MAIN COMMEMORATION

2.30pm The Loup MONDAY

2.30pm Swatragh

Donegal SUNDAY MAIN COMMEMORATION

3pm Drumboe, Ballybofey MONDAY

3pm Pettigo

Down SUNDAY MAIN COMMEMORATION

12 noon Newry, Patrick Street 4pm Castlewellan, Lower Square

Dublin SUNDAY MAIN COMMEMORATION

2.30pm Garden of Remembrance MONDAY

2.30pm Dún Laoghaire, Deans Grange

3pm Clifden Thomas Whelan Statue, Conamara 5pm Tullycross Cemetery

CAITH LILE NA CÁSCA Tabhair ómós do laochra na hÉireann

Téigh chun do chumhneachán Cásca áitiúl Attend your local Easter commemoration

WEAR AN EASTER LILY SUNDAY

SUNDAY

3pm Sligo Town

Tipperary SUNDAY

3pm Fethard

Tyrone SATURDAY

Honour Ireland’s patriot dead

Limerick

Sligo

Meath SATURDAY

3pm Coalisland SUNDAY

3.30pm Carrickmore

Waterford SATURDAY

3pm Waterford City SUNDAY

Kerry

11.45am Limerick City

4pm Ashbourne

12 noon Portlaw

SUNDAY MAIN COMMEMORATION

Longford

Monaghan

Westmeath

SUNDAY

SUNDAY MAIN COMMEMORATION

12.30pm Tralee

Kildare SATURDAY

2pm Grey Abbey, Kildare Town

Laois SUNDAY

2pm Camross Village

Leitrim SUNDAY

3pm Fenagh, Selton Hill

2pm Longford Town, Monument

Louth SUNDAY MAIN COMMEMORATION

After 12 noon Mass, Drogheda St Peter’s Church 3pm Dundalk, Market Square

Mayo SUNDAY

10am Achill Island 3.30pm Kilkelly

3.30pm Monaghan Town MONDAY

12 noon Scotshouse 3pm Clones

Offaly SUNDAY

3pm Raheen

Roscommon SATURDAY

5pm, Kilglass Cemetery, Kilglass

MONDAY

2.30pm Mullingar

Wexford SUNDAY

2.30pm Wexford Town MONDAY

3.30pm Enniscorthy

Wicklow MONDAY

1.30pm Bray

www.anphoblacht.com

1969 Republican Roll of Honour | L BELFAST BRIGADE 1st BATTALION VOLUNTEER

Tony Henderson April 4th, 1971 VOLUNTEER

Terence McDermott

VOLUNTEER

Albert Kavanagh

VOLUNTEER

VOLUNTEER

March 4th, 1972

February 23rd, 1981

Patrick McCabe

Rosemary Bleakley

VOLUNTEER

VOLUNTEER

VOLUNTEER

DOWNPATRICK

April 17th, 1973

Vivien Fitzsimmons

Gerard Crossan March 9th, 1972 VOLUNTEER

Tony Campbell August 4th, 1985 VOLUNTEER

March 27th, 1973

Brian Smyth VOLUNTEER

October 2nd, 1971

Tony Lewis

March 9th, 1972

Brian Dempsey

Seán McKee

VOLUNTEER

VOLUNTEER

VOLUNTEER

VOLUNTEER

Martin Forsythe October 24th, 1971 VOLUNTEER

Tony Jordan June 28th, 1972 VOLUNTEER

John Finucane June 28th, 1972 VOLUNTEER

Francis Hall

August 30th, 1973 VOLUNTEER

Daniel Burke April 9th , 1974 VOLUNTEER

Gerard Fennell

Seán Johnston March 9th, 1972 VOLUNTEER

April 5th, 1976 VOLUNTEER

Thomas Kane

Patrick Campbell

VOLUNTEER

Harry Burns

Martin McDonagh

VOLUNTEER

3RD BATTALION

VOLUNTEER

Robert McCrudden August 3rd, 1972 VOLUNTEER

Michael Clarke August 11th, 1972 VOLUNTEER

Jimmy Quigley

Daniel McAreavey October 6th, 1972 VOLUNTEER

Patrick Maguire October 10th, 1972 VOLUNTEER

John Donaghy

Tom McGill

February 28th, 1986 VOLUNTEER

Jim McKernan

September 14th, 1986 VOLUNTEER

Margaret McArdle June 7th, 1987 VOLUNTEER

Kevin McCracken March 14th, 1988 VOLUNTEER

Caoimhín Mac Brádaigh March 16th, 1988 VOLUNTEER

Patricia Black

November 15th, 1991 VOLUNTEER

Frankie Ryan

VOLUNTEER

Frank Fitzsimmons

September 4th, 1970

VOLUNTEER

Michael Kane VOLUNTEER

Joseph Surgenor

February 6th, 1971

VOLUNTEER

James Saunders

Trevor McKibbin

May 15th, 1971

VOLUNTEER

Billy Reid

Jackie McMahon

August 9th, 1971

VOLUNTEER

Patrick McAdorey

Jackie Mailey

December 8th, 1971

VOLUNTEER

Tony Nolan

December 21st, 1971

VOLUNTEER

October 10th, 1972

Joseph Cunningham

Joseph McKinney VOLUNTEER

Stan Carberry

Gerald McDade

Jim Mulvenna

February 10th, 1972

VOLUNTEER

Laurence Montgomery

VOLUNTEER

February 21st, 1972

VOLUNTEER

January 18th, 1973

Gerard Steele

Francis Liggett

Gerard Bell

Frankie Donnelly

VOLUNTEER

February 21st, 1972

VOLUNTEER

April 12th, 1973

Robert Dorrian

Edward O’Rawe

VOLUNTEER

VOLUNTEER

February 21st, 1972

May 16th, 1973

Joseph Magee

Joseph McKenna VOLUNTEER

Patrick Mulvenna August 31st, 1973 VOLUNTEER

James Bryson

September 22nd, 1973

VOLUNTEER

February 21st, 1972 VOLUNTEER

Samuel Hughes April 7th, 1972 VOLUNTEER

Charles McCrystal

VOLUNTEER

April 7th, 1972

August 3rd, 1974

John McErlean

Martin Skillen VOLUNTEER

John Kelly

January 21st, 1975 VOLUNTEER

John Stone Paul Fox VOLUNTEER

Seán Bailey

April 4th, 1994

February 13th, 1976

VOLUNTEER

VOLUNTEER

VOLUNTEER

April 7th, 1972 VOLUNTEER

Edward McDonnell May 28th, 1972 VOLUNTEER

James McGrillen February 15th, 1976

Jackie McIlhone VOLUNTEER

May 28th, 1972 VOLUNTEER

Martin Engelen May 28th, 1972 VOLUNTEER

Louis Scullion

VOLUNTEER

July 14th, 1972

Liam McParland

October 16th, 1976

James Reid

VOLUNTEER

Tommy Tolan

VOLUNTEER

November 6th, 1969

Jimmy Steele August 9th, 1970 VOLUNTEER

Peter Blake

October 27th, 1970 VOLUNTEER

Tom McGoldrick October 27th, 1970 VOLUNTEER

Charles Hughes March 8th, 1971 VOLUNTEER

Séamus Simpson August 11th, 1971 VOLUNTEER

Danny O’Neill January 7th, 1972

January 5th, 1979

VOLUNTEER

Joseph Fitzsimmons

2ND BATTALION

June 21st, 1978

VOLUNTEER

December 1st, 1975

August 12th, 1996

June 21st, 1978

VOLUNTEER

May 28th, 1972

Jimmy Roe

June 21st, 1978

VOLUNTEER

VOLUNTEER

John O’Rawe

January 18th, 1978

VOLUNTEER

January 21st, 1975

VOLUNTEER

April 17th, 1977

VOLUNTEER

VOLUNTEER

Pearse Jordan

October 16th, 1976

VOLUNTEER

November 15th, 1991

November 25th, 1992

October 16th, 1976

Denis Brown

November 13th, 1972

VOLUNTEER

January 13th, 1976

VOLUNTEER

VOLUNTEER

June 9th, 1983

October 31st, 1975

February 3rd, 1999

April 23rd, 1977

Dan Turley

January 8th, 1992

March 25th, 1972

October 10th, 1972

Brendan O’Callaghan

VOLUNTEER

VOLUNTEER

VOLUNTEER

August 10th, 1976

May 7th, 1974

VOLUNTEER

July 6th, 1976

Danny Lennon

VOLUNTEER

Frederick Leonard

VOLUNTEER

March 9th, 1972

VOLUNTEER

Seán McDermott

May 2nd, 1987

Séamus McCusker

VOLUNTEER

VOLUNTEER

Finbarr McKenna

May 18th, 1973

Proinsias Mac Airt

September 29th, 1972

November 15th, 1974

June 25th, 1986

Tom McCann

November 8th, 1974

John Rooney

VOLUNTEER

James Burns

Paul Marlowe VOLUNTEER

July 27th, 1977

VOLUNTEER

July 15th, 1972 VOLUNTEER

Joseph Downey

VOLUNTEER

July 21st, 1972

April 25th, 1979

Séamus Cassidy

Billy Carson VOLUNTEER

Kevin Delaney January 17th, 1980 VOLUNTEER

Terence O’Neill July 1st, 1980 VOLUNTEER

Liam Hannaway February 2nd, 1981

VOLUNTEER

July 28th, 1972 VOLUNTEER

James Sloan

February 3rd, 1973 VOLUNTEER

Tony Campbell February 4th, 1973 VOLUNTEER

James McCann February 4th, 1973

January 5th, 1979

Martin McKenna October 23rd, 1979 VOLUNTEER

Laurence Marley April 2nd, 1987 VOLUNTEER

January 13th, 1976 VOLUNTEER

February 10th, 1973

NEWCASTLE VOLUNTEER

Pauline Kane July 21st, 1973

PORTADOWN VOLUNTEER

Julie Dougan July 8th, 1972

DERRY BRIGADE VOLUNTEER

Thomas McCool

f “ Life springs from the me

June 27 th, 1970 VOLUNTEER

Joseph Coyle June 27th, 1970 VOLUNTEER

Thomas Carlin July 8th, 1970 VOLUNTEER

Eamonn Lafferty August 18th, 1971 VOLUNTEER

James O’Hagan August 19th, 1971 VOLUNTEER

Colm Keenan March 14th, 1972 VOLUNTEER

Eugene McGillan March 14th, 1972 VOLUNTEER

John Starrs

May 13th, 1972 VOLUNTEER

Seamus Bradley July 31st, 1972 VOLUNTEER

Michael Quigley September17th, 1972 VOLUNTEER

John Brady

November 28th, 1972

VOLUNTEER

Charles Maguire May 28th, 1981 VOLUNTEER

Eamonn Bradley August 25th, 1982 VOLUNTEER

Phil O’Donnell

VOLUNTEER

December 24th, 1982

July 25th, 1988

November 28th, 1972

VOLUNTEER

VOLUNTEER

Richard Quigley

October 23rd, 1993

December 29th, 1972

Brendan Davison Thomas Begley

CLARE VOLUNTEER

Hugh Hehir

James Carr

James McDaid

April 21st, 1984

Francis Bradley

VOLUNTEER

June 24th, 1974 VOLUNTEER

Michael Meenan

VOLUNTEER

VOLUNTEER

October 30th, 1974

June 25th, 1973

John McDaid

VOLUNTEER

December 7th, 1974 VOLUNTEER

Ethel Lynch

December 7th, 1974 VOLUNTEER

Dorothy Maguire

Jim Gallagher

October 23rd, 1971

May 17th, 1976

VOLUNTEER

VOLUNTEER

Brian Coyle

October 23rd, 1971

June 30th, 1976

VOLUNTEER

VOLUNTEER

Anne Parker

Dennis Heaney

August 11th, 1972

June 10th, 1978

VOLUNTEER

VOLUNTEER

Pat Harkin

Ciaran Fleming

March 25th, 1993

December 6th, 1984

DONEGAL

Volunteer Willie Fleming

December 6th, 1984 VOLUNTEER

Charles English August 6th, 1985 VOLUNTEER

VOLUNTEER

Dec 30th, 1991

Philip McFadden

DUBLIN

VOLUNTEER

Patrick Cannon

May 31st, 1986

Patrick O’Hagan August 9th, 1986 VOLUNTEER

VOLUNTEER

July 17th, 1976 VOLUNTEER

Colm Daltun

Gerard Logue

January 15th, 1983

VOLUNTEER

Mick Timothy

March 22nd, 1987

Paddy Deery

October 28th, 1987 VOLUNTEER

Eddie McSheffrey October 28th, 1987

VOLUNTEER

February 9th, 1975

November 24th, 1978

December 18th, 1971

VOLUNTEER

VOLUNTEER

May 28th, 1981

September 9th, 1985

VOLUNTEER

COUNTY DERRY

December 1st, 1975

VOLUNTEER

Raymond McLaughlin

February 22nd, 1986

VOLUNTEER

George McBrearty

July 17th, 1976

Damien Brolly

October 2nd, 1978

Laura Crawford

VOLUNTEER

Peter McElcar

Tony Gough

VOLUNTEER

Patsy Duffy

VOLUNTEER

VOLUNTEER

September 1st, 1973

Bridie Dolan

VOLUNTEER

Danny Doherty

Joe Walker

May 10th, 1973

Anne Marie Petticrew

December 2nd, 1984

December 3rd, 1973

June 24th, 1974

Maura Meehan

VOLUNTEER

James Kelly

VOLUNTEER

BELFAST

VOLUNTEER

Antoine Mac Giolla Bhrighde

December 2nd, 1984

David Russell

VOLUNTEER

February 7th, 1982

VOLUNTEER

CORK

CUMANN NA MBAN

VOLUNTEER

Danny McMullan

Feb 18th, 1986

Gerard Craig

Dermot Crowley

December 18th, 1971

VOLUNTEER

May 6th, 1988

Tony Ahern

VOLUNTEER

James Sheridan

VOLUNTEER

January 26th, 1985 VOLUNTEER

Christy Harford May 5th , 1992 VOLUNTEER

Martin Doherty May 21st, 1994

Martin Lee

ENGLAND

VOLUNTEER

Michael Gaughan

John Bateson

December 18th, 1971

VOLUNTEER

(PARKHURST PRISON)

June 3rd, 1974

They died for Irish freedom | Fuair siad bás ar son saoirse na h

| Liosta Laochra na Poblachta 2017 VOLUNTEER

Patrick McKeown

LIMERICK

June 11th, 1997

VOLUNTEER

Patrick Sheehy January 2nd, 1991

December 21st, 1974

December 4th, 1972

VOLUNTEER

FIAN

Francis Stagg

Michael Marley

February 12th, 1976

FIAN

(WAKEFIELD PRISON)

VOLUNTEER

Edward O’Brien February 18th , 1996 VOLUNTEER

Diarmuid O’Neill September 23rd , 1996

FIANNA ÉIREANN FIAN

November 24th, 1973

Robert Allsopp March 23rd, 1975

July 2nd, 1974

VOLUNTEER

James Moyne

January 13th, 1975

Michael Sloan January 11th, 1972

VOLUNTEER

Seán Bateson June 7th, 1990 VOLUNTEER

Pól Kinsella

December 13th, 1994

H-BLOCK MARTYRS

FIAN

Eamon McCormick January 16th, 1972 FIAN

Gerry Donaghy January 30th, 1972 FIAN

David McAuley February 19th, 1972 FIAN

Seán O’Riordan March 23rd, 1972 FIAN

Michael Magee May 13th, 1972 FIAN

Joseph Campbell June 11th, 1972 FIAN

John Dougal July 9th, 1972 FIAN

Tobias Molloy July 16th, 1972 FIAN

Joseph McComiskey September 20th, 1972

na hÉireann

May 21st, 1981 VOLUNTEER

Patsy O’Hara (INLA) May 21st, 1981 VOLUNTEER

Joe McDonnell July 8th, 1981 VOLUNTEER

Martin Hurson July 13th, 1981 VOLUNTEER

November 6th, 1975

VOLUNTEER

August 9th, 1977 FIAN

John Dempsey July 8th, 1981

August 2nd, 1981

Thomas McElwee August 8th, 1981 VOLUNTEER

Mickey Devine (INLA) August 20th, 1981

MONAGHAN VOLUNTEER

Seán McKenna

GHQ STAFF

June 5th, 1975

VOLUNTEER

Peadar Mohan

Jack McCabe

December 27th, 1971 VOLUNTEER

Thomas O’Donnell May 17th, 1973 VOLUNTEER

Mairéad Farrell March 6th, 1988 VOLUNTEER

Dan McCann March 6th, 1988 VOLUNTEER

Seán Savage March 6th, 1988

February 5th, 1972 VOLUNTEER

Charles McCann VOLUNTEER

February 21st, 1984 VOLUNTEER

Declan Martin Peter Rodden

Kieran Doherty

FIAN

VOLUNTEER

June 4th, 1978

Henry Heaney

FIAN

Paul McWilliams

August 8th, 1984

VOLUNTEER

VOLUNTEER

FIAN

August 15th, 1969

VOLUNTEER

February 21st, 1984

August 1st, 1981

James O’Neill

VOLUNTEER

Henry Hogan

Hugh Coney

August 29th, 1975

February 12th, 1976

VOLUNTEER

November 6th, 1974

James Templeton

Gerald McAuley

Desmond Morgan

VOLUNTEER

Kevin Lynch (INLA)

FIAN

Séamus Harvey

February 5th, 1972

FIAN

Kevin McAuley

Robert Carr

Phelim Grant

Raymond McCreesh

Seán Hughes

VOLUNTEER

VOLUNTEER

VOLUNTEER

December 7th, 1987 VOLUNTEER

Gerard Casey April 4th, 1989

NORTH ARMAGH VOLUNTEER

Michael Crossey November 22nd, 1971 VOLUNTEER

Charles Agnew

December 17th, 1971 VOLUNTEER

John Francis Green January 10th, 1975 VOLUNTEER

Terry Brady

December 5th, 1975 VOLUNTEER

David Kennedy

December 10th, 1975

VOLUNTEER

Colm Murtagh August 9th, 1972 VOLUNTEER

Patrick Hughes

VOLUNTEER

VOLUNTEER

December 30th, 1990

March 1st, 1983

Seán McKearney

VOLUNTEER

VOLUNTEER

April 8th, 1996

Neil Lafferty

VOLUNTEER

VOLUNTEER

August 8th, 1996

Keith Rogers

SOUTH FERMANAGH

VOLUNTEER

VOLUNTEER

Louis Leonard

December 15th, 1972 VOLUNTEER

Séamus McElwain April 26th, 1986

SOUTH DOWN

Tom Smith VOLUNTEER

Brendan Seery February 19th, 1992

February 5th, 1992

Oliver Rowntree

Michael McVerry

August 22nd, 1972

November 15th, 1973

VOLUNTEER

VOLUNTEER

Seán Boyle

February 1st, 1975

LAOIS

Brendan Quinn

Francis Jordan

December 24th, 1973

June 4th, 1975

VOLUNTEER

VOLUNTEER

VOLUNTEER

VOLUNTEER

Seán Campbell December 6th, 1975

HONOUR IRELAND'S PATRIOT DEAD

VOLUNTEER

John Quinn

March 3rd, 1991 VOLUNTEER

Malcolm Nugent March 3rd, 1991 VOLUNTEER

Dwayne O’Donnell March 3rd, 1991 VOLUNTEER

Tony Doris June 3rd, 1991 VOLUNTEER

Lawrence McNally June 3rd, 1991 VOLUNTEER

Pete Ryan

June 3rd, 1991 VOLUNTEER

Danny McCauley June 4th, 1991 VOLUNTEER

Seán O’Farrell

February 16th, 1992 VOLUNTEER

Brian Campbell

Kevin Barry O’Donnell

December 4th, 1983

February 16th, 1992

VOLUNTEER

Patrick Vincent

Colm McGirr

December 4th, 1983 VOLUNTEER

William Price July 13th, 1984

VOLUNTEER

February 16th, 1992 VOLUNTEER

Peter Clancy

February 16th, 1992

SINN FÉIN

VOLUNTEER

David Devine

January 26th, 1972

Charlie Breslin VOLUNTEER

April 24th, 1974

James Carlin

February 23rd, 1985

February 18th, 1976

VOLUNTEER

Michael Devine

August 26th, 1972

Martin Curran VOLUNTEER

VOLUNTEER

VOLUNTEER

August 14th, 1974 VOLUNTEER

Francis Rice VOLUNTEER

April 10th, 1991

TYRONE VOLUNTEER

Denis Quinn July 3rd, 1972 VOLUNTEER

Hugh Heron

John Patrick Mullan

Joseph MacManus

March 3rd, 1991

Jim Murphy

VOLUNTEER

VOLUNTEER

VOLUNTEER

Noel Wilkinson

February 23rd, 1985

October 16th , 1972

January 20th, 1975

October 9th, 1990

Peter McNulty

SLIGO Kevin Coen

VOLUNTEER

Martin McCaughey

VOLUNTEER

VOLUNTEER

Colum Marks

March 17th, 1975

Paul Duffy

February 26th, 1978

December 17th, 1984

VOLUNTEER

April 26th, 1975

March 12th, 2003

May 18th, 1975

PORTLAOISE

May 13th, 1974

Malachy Watters

VOLUNTEER

Seán McIlvenna

May 13th, 1974

Eugene Martin

Paul Magorrian

VOLUNTEER

December 24th, 1973

Eugene Martin

November 11th, 1982 VOLUNTEER

March 15th, 1974

Fergal Caraher

July 21st, 1973

September 12th , 1989

June 12th, 1993

VOLUNTEER

VOLUNTEER

VOLUNTEER

Edward Grant

VOLUNTEER

February 29th, 1988

Alphonsus Cunningham

August 22nd, 1972

Michael Motley

Kevin Murray

November 11th, 1982

Eddie Dynes

March 15th, 1974

Brendan Moley

February 10th, 1973

SOUTH ARMAGH

VOLUNTEER

VOLUNTEER

VOLUNTEER

August 22nd, 1972

Noel Madden

VOLUNTEER

February 29th, 1988

Leo O’Hanlon

Eugene Toman

Jim McGinn

Patrick McDonald

November 11th, 1982

Gervase McKerr

November 26th, 1973

Brendan Burns

August 26th, 1972

February 1st, 1981

NEWRY

January 16th, 1977

VOLUNTEER

Seán Burns

VOLUNTEER

Séamus Twomey

August 16th, 1973

May 3rd, 1974

VOLUNTEER

Brian Fox

VOLUNTEER

April 15th, 1976

VOLUNTEER

May 12th, 1981

FIAN

VOLUNTEER

October 18th, 1974

VOLUNTEER

Francis Hughes

December 4th, 1972

Patrick Quinn

December 15th, 1973

VOLUNTEER

VOLUNTEER

Peter Cleary

VOLUNTEER

May 5th, 1981

November 14th, 1974

Michael Hughes

June 9th, 1979

VOLUNTEER

Bernard Fox

VOLUNTEER

August 16th, 1973

NORTH ANTRIM

Bobby Sands

James McDade

VOLUNTEER

Peadar McElvanna

VOLUNTEER

FIAN

December 6th, 1975

VOLUNTEER

Brendan Watters

Patrick Teer

VOLUNTEER

August 27th, 1974

VOLUNTEER

Teddy Campbell

Piarais

VOLUNTEER

Daniel McAnallen

April 1st, 1980

September 9th, 1973

Pádraig Mac

VOLUNTEER

James Lochrie

LONG KESH Francis Dodds

ath and e d m o r f s g rin atriot p f o s e v a r g m the ring p s n e m o w d men an .” living nations

VOLUNTEER

Patrick Kelly

VOLUNTEER

October 16th, 1972 VOLUNTEER

Eugene Devlin

VOLUNTEER

Colm Mulgrew

February 23rd, 1985

Derek Highstead

VOLUNTEER

VOLUNTEER

October 9th, 1976

May 8th, 1987

Maire Drumm

VOLUNTEER

Seán Ó Conaill

May 8th, 1987

Tony Gormley May 8th, 1987 VOLUNTEER

Eugene Kelly May 8th, 1987 VOLUNTEER

Paddy Kelly May 8th, 1987 VOLUNTEER

Jim Lynagh May 8th, 1987 VOLUNTEER

October 25th, 1982

Jeff McKenna

November 8th, 1982

Paddy Brady

November 16th, 1984

John Davey

February 14th, 1989

Tommy Casey October 26th, 1990

Eddie Fullerton

May 8th, 1987

Pádraig O Seanacháin

Gerard O’Callaghan VOLUNTEER

March 7th, 1990 May 24th, 1991

August 12th, 1991

Séamus Woods

Tommy Donaghy

VOLUNTEER

Bernard O’Hagan

July 7th, 1988

Brian Mullin

Gerard Harte August 30th, 1988 VOLUNTEER

Martin Harte

August 30th, 1988 VOLUNTEER

VOLUNTEER

Peter Corrigan

VOLUNTEER

May 8th, 1987

VOLUNTEER

June 25th, 1973

(PARKHURST PRISON)

October 1st, 1977

Sam Marshall

June 25th, 1973

Patrick Carty

October 28th, 1976

Pádraig McKearney

VOLUNTEER

Seán Loughran

(LEICESTER PRISON)

Séamus Donnelly

VOLUNTEER

VOLUNTEER

July 16th, 1976

Noel Jenkinson

August 30th, 1988

May 13th, 1973

June 5th, 1976

Declan Arthurs

December 27th, 1972

Kevin Kilpatrick

Paul Best

James Joseph Connolly February 6th, 1989 VOLUNTEER

August 16th, 1991

September 16th, 1991

Pat McBride

February 4th, 1992

Paddy Loughran February 4th, 1992

Danny Cassidy April 2nd, 1992

Sheena Campbell October 16th, 1992

Malachy Carey Dec 12th, 1992

August 11th, 1973

Liam Ryan

Peter Gallagher

November 29th, 1989

VOLUNTEER

VOLUNTEER

Alan Lundy

October 9th, 1990

Pat McGeown

Gerard McGlynn Séamus Harvey August 11th, 1973

Dessie Grew

March 24th, 1993 May 1st , 1993

October 1st, 1996

Wear an Easter Lily and attened your local commemoration

COMPILED ??TH MARCH 2017

Poblacht na hÉireann Rialtas Sealadach Phoblacht na hÉireann le mhuintir na hÉireann A FHEARA AGUS A MHNÁ NA hÉIREANN : In ainm Dé agus ghlúnta na marbh óna bhfaigheann sí a seantraidisiún mar náisiún, tá Éire, trínne, ag gairm a clainne chun a brataí agus ag bualadh buille ar son a saoirse.

Tar éis di eagar agus oiliúint a chur ar a cuid fear trína heagraíocht rúnda réabhlóideach, Bráithreachas Phoblacht na hÉireann, agus trína heagraíochtaí míleata oscailte, Óglaigh na hÉireann agus Arm Cathartha na hÉireann, tar éis di a riailbhéas a thabhairt go foighneach chun foirfeachta agus feitheamh go rúndaingean leis an bhfaill í féin a fhoilsiú go tráthúil, tá sí ag glacadh na faille sin anois, agus le tacaíocht óna clann atá ar deoraíocht i Meiriceá agus ó chomhghuaillithe calma san Eoraip, ach ag seasamh di ar a neart dílis féin ar an gcéad ásc, tá sí ag bualadh buille agus í lándóchasach go mbéarfaidh sí bua.

Dearbhaímid gur ceart ceannasach dochloíte é ceart mhuintir na hÉireann ar dhílse na hÉireann agus ar chumhacht gan chosc ar chinniúint na hÉireann. Forghabháil an chirt sin atá á himirt le fada ag pobal agus rialtas eachtrannach, níor mhúch sí an ceart sin ná ní féidir é a mhúchadh go brách ach le díothú mhuintir na hÉireann. Gach glúin dár tháinig, dhearbhaigh muintir na hÉireann a gceart ar shaoirse agus ar fhlaitheas náisiúnta; sé huaire le trí chéad bliain anuas a dhearbhaigh siad faoi airm é. Ag seasamh dúinn ar an gceart bunaidh sin agus á dhearbhú arís dúinn faoi airm os comhair an tsaoil, fógraímid leis seo Poblacht na hÉireann ina Stát Ceannasach Neamhspleách agus cuirim-

id ár mbeo féin agus beo ár gcompánach airm i ngeall lena saoirse, lena leas agus lena móradh i measc na náisiún.

Dlíonn Poblacht na hÉireann, agus éilíonn leis seo, dílseacht mhuintir uile na hÉireann, idir fhir agus mhná. Ráthaíonn an Phoblacht saoirse chreidimh agus saoirse shibhialta, comhchearta agus comhdheiseanna dá saoránaigh uile, agus dearbhaíonn gur rún di féachaint chuig séan agus sonas an náisiúin uile agus gach páirte de, clanna uile an náisiúin a chaomhnú go cothrom, gan beann aici ar na difríochtaí ar chothaigh Rialtas coimhthíoch go cúramach iad agus a dheighil mionlach ón tromlach san am a chuaigh thart.

Go dtí go dtiocfaidh an uain, de neart ár n-arm, Rialtas Náisiúnta buan a bhunú, a dhéanfaidh ionadaíocht do mhuintir uile na hÉireann agus a thoghfar le vótaí a cuid fear agus ban uile, déanfaidh an Rialtas Sealadach, a bhunaítear leis seo, gnóthaí sibhialta agus míleata na Poblachta a riar ar iontaobhas thar ceann na muintire.

Cuirimid cúis Phoblacht na hÉireann faoi choimirce Dhia Mór na nUilechumhachtaí, a n-impímid A bheannacht ar ár n-airm, agus guímid gan aon duine a bheas ag fónamh sa chúis sin easonóir a tharraingt uirthi le mílaochas, le mídhaonnacht ná le díbhearg. Ar uair seo na cinniúna, ní foláir do náisiún na hÉireann a chruthú lena mhisneach agus lena riailbhéas, agus le toil a chlainne iad féin a íobairt mar mhaithe leis an gcoiteann, gur fiú é an dán ró-uasal dá ngairtear é.

The Provisional Government of the Irish Republic to the people of Ireland IRISHMEN AND IRISHWOMEN: In the name of God and of the dead generations from which she receives her old tradition of nationhood, Ireland, through us, summons her children to her flag and strikes for her freedom.

Having organised and trained her manhood through her secret revolutionary organisation, the Irish Republican Brotherhood, and through her open military organisations, the Irish Volunteers and the Irish Citizen Army, having patiently perfected her discipline, having resolutely waited for the right moment to reveal itself, she now seizes that moment, and supported by her exiled children in America and by gallant allies in Europe, but relying in the first on her own strength, she strikes in full confidence of victory.

We declare the right of the people of Ireland to the ownership of Ireland and to the unfettered control of Irish destinies, to be sovereign and indefeasible. The long usurpation of that right by a foreign people and government has not extinguished the right, nor can it ever be extinguished except by the destruction of the Irish people. In every generation the Irish people have asserted their right to national freedom and sovereignty; six times during the past three hundred years they have asserted it in arms.

Standing on that fundamental right and again asserting it in arms in the face of the world, we hereby proclaim the Irish Republic as a Sovereign Independent State, and we pledge our

lives and the lives of our comrades in arms to the cause of its freedom, of its welfare, and of its exaltation among the nations.

The Irish Republic is entitled to, and hereby claims, the allegiance of every Irishman and Irishwoman. The Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens, and declares its resolve to pursue the happiness and prosperity of the whole nation and of all its parts, cherishing all of the children of the nation equally, and oblivious of the differences carefully fostered by an alien Government, which have divided a minority from the majority in the past.

Until our arms have brought the opportune moment for the establishment of a permanent National Government, representative of the whole people of Ireland and elected by the suffrages of all her men and women, the Provisional Government, hereby constituted, will administer the civil and military affairs of the Republic in trust for the people.

We place the cause of the Irish Republic under the protection of the Most High God, Whose blessing we invoke upon our arms, and we pray that no one who serves that cause will dishonour it by cowardice, inhumanity, or rapine. In this supreme hour the Irish nation must, by its valour and discipline, and by the readiness of its children to sacrifice themselves for the common good, prove itself worthy of the august destiny to which it is called.

Arna shíniú thar ceann an Rialtais Shealadaigh, Signed on behalf of the Provisional Government,

THOMAS J. CLARKE SEAN Mac DIARMADA THOMAS MacDONAGH P. H. PEARSE EAMONN CEANNT JAMES CONNOLLY JOSEPH PLUNKETT

2017 Roll of

Remembrance

Vol. JIM O’HANLON, Belfast Vol. TERRY TOOLAN, Belfast Vol. JACKIE MOONEY, Belfast Vol. MICHAEL NEIL, Belfast Vol. JOHN JOE MARTIN, Leitrim Vol. COLM MULVIHILL, Leitrim CATHY McGARTLAND, Belfast (Cumann na gCailíní) Vol. GERRY McKIERNAN, South Armagh Vol. PADDY MULLIGAN, Lisnaskea Vol. JIMMY CONNOLLY, Fermanagh Vol. STEVIE SCULLION, Belfast Vol. JACKIE McCARTAN, Belfast Vol. JAMES E McKENNA, Roslea Vol. CHARLIE McGLADE, Dublin Vol. JOE BUCKLEY, Dublin Vol. JOHN JOE McGIRL, Leitrim Vol. BRIDIE O’NEILL, Belfast Vol. LIAM McDONAGH, Belfast Vol. TIM McGARRY, Donegal Vol. LIAM MULLHOLLAND, Belfast Vol. FRANCIE McGIRL, Leitrim Vol. PACKIE DUFFY, Monaghan Vol. TIM DALY, Monaghan Vol. DAMIEN McFADDEN, Donegal Vol. MICK SHEEHAN, Dublin Vol. BOB SMITH, Dublin Vol. PADDY McMANUS, Belfast Vol. RITA McGLYNN, Dublin Vol. MICK MURRAY, Dublin Vol. TERRY CLARKE, Belfast Vol. SEÁN REHILL, Leitrim Vol. GARY TONER, South Armagh Vol. PATRICK ROONEY, Roslea Vol. TOM CAHILL, Belfast Vol. JB O’HAGAN, Lurgan Vol. JIMMY DRUMM, Belfast Vol. BARNEY McFADDEN, Derry Vol. PADDY O’HAGAN, Tyrone Vol. JOHNNY COPELAND, Belfast Vol. DANNY O’HAGAN, Belfast Vol. BARNEY McKENNA, Belfast Vol. SEÁN CAMPBELL, Tyrone Vol. ANNE McCOY, Toome Fian NEIL McCRORY, Belfast Vol. EDDIE BROPHY, Belfast Vol. SEÁN O’NEILL, Belfast Vol. KATHLEEN THOMPSON, Belfast Vol. KATHLEEN CARMICHAEL, Belfast Vol. CON McHUGH, Belfast Vol. PADDY MULLAN, Derry Vol. JIM FRIEL, Derry Vol. HARRY McCARTNEY, Armagh Vol. JOE CAHILL, Belfast Vol. MARIE WRIGHT, Belfast Vol. HUGH DUFFY, Derry Vol. LIAM CASEY, South Derry Vol. RAYMOND WILKINSON, Belfast ALFIE HANNAWAY, Belfast TONY CURRY, Belfast MARY HUGHES, Belfast, Sinn Féin JOE ENNIS, Cavan, Sinn Féin JACKIE CALLAGHAN, Belfast, Sinn Féin JOHN HUDDLESTON, Belfast, Sinn Féin

PAT O’HARE, Belfast, Sinn Féin MARGARET McKENNA,South Derry, Sinn Féin GERRY LOUGHRAN, Monaghan, Sinn Féin HARRY CRAWFORD, Belfast MARY McGREEVY, Belfast GERALDINE McMAHON, Belfast PADDY SHANAHAN, Dublin GERRY CAMPBELL, Belfast GONNE CARMICHAEL, Belfast DAVID THOMPSON, Belfast, Sinn Féin JOE McGILLOWAY, Derry, Sinn Féin MATT DEVLIN, Tyrone, Sinn Féin BRENDAN DORRIS, Tyrone, Sinn Féin Vol. DAITHÍ FORDE, Wexford Vol. KEVIN FALLON, Leitrim PHILIP McDONALD, Monaghan Vol. FRANCIE CARAHER, South Armagh Vol. KEVIN CAHERTY, South Armagh BRIAN CAMPBELL, Newry Vol. SIOBHÁN O’HANLON, Belfast Vol. EILEEN HICKEY, Belfast Vol. BILLY REID, Belfast Vol. ROBERT MURPHY, Belfast Vol. GERALD FEARON, South Armagh Vol. LIAM FARRELLY, South Armagh Vol. JACKIE McGRANE, Dundalk Vol. EAMONN McCANN, Lurgan Vol. EUGENE McMAHON, Fermanagh Vol. CATHAL QUINN, Tyrone PATSY McMAHON, Tyrone, Sinn Féin BARNEY McALEER, Tyrone, Sinn Féin MICHAEL FERGUSON, Belfast, Sinn Féin MARY McGUIGAN, Ardoyne SALLY KEARNEY, Turf Lodge GEORDIE SHANNON, Turf Lodge Vol. MARTIN MEEHAN, Belfast Vol. OWEN McCAUGHEY, Tyrone Vol. MICKEY McANESPIE, Tyrone BENNY CONNOLLY, Dublin BRIAN O’GORMAN, Dublin JIM HYLAND, Laois Vol. BRIAN KEENAN, Belfast Vol. EUGENE COSGROVE, Fermanagh Vol. JOAN FOSTER, Fermanagh Vol. PAT LYNCH, South Armagh MARIE MOORE, Belfast, Sinn Féin PJ BRANLEY, Donegal, Sinn Féin DESSIE McNULTY, Donegal, Sinn Féin ÉAMON MacTHOMÁIS, Dublin ROBERT SLOAN, Dublin IVAN BARR, Strabane, Sinn Féin CHARLIE McHUGH, Castlederg, Sinn Féin EDDIE KEENAN, Belfast MICHAEL MULRINE, Donegal SEAMUS FLYNN, Belfast, Sinn Féin Vol. MARSHALL MOONEY, Belfast FRANK KELLY, Dublin EUGENE O’NEILL, Donegal Vol. PETER HAMILTON, Belfast Vol. PATRICK MARKEY, Belfast Vol. ROBERT McMAHON, Belfast Vol. DECLAN McCLOSKEY, Belfast An Phoblacht, March / Márta 2017

CAITH LILE NA CÁSCA Tabhair ómós do laochra na hÉireann

Téigh chun do chumhneachán Cásca áitiúl Attend your local Easter commemoration Honour Ireland’s patriot dead

WEAR AN EASTER LILY

April / Aibreán 2017

www.anphoblacht.com

19

BOOK REVIEWS BY MICHAEL MANNION

Ruth Dudley Edwards hates it Before the Dawn – An Autobiography (Updated)

By Gerry Adams O’Brien Press €14.99

THIS BOOK will be a familiar title to many readers, and not just because there’s a definite chance that they may have heard of the author.

Before the Dawn was first published in 1996, although the main body of the book covers the period 1948 (Gerry Adams’s birth) until 1981 and the end of the H-Blocks Hunger Strikes.

There is a new foreword and epilogue, both written in late 2016.

The epilogue comments on the enormous implications of the “Brexit’

Before the Dawn is about family and community and oppression and resistance, love and resilience and, most importantly, about humour and hope vote for Britain, the European Union, the Northern economy, the Border and the Good Friday Agreement.

Gerry also points out that Theresa May’s signalling of her intention to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights, and the Tories’ proposed scrapping of the Human Rights Act are fundamental breaches of the Good Friday Agreement.

In fact, there are so many points raised in this eight-page addendum that it could easily be expanded into a book all of its own.

The book is best summed up in the author’s own words: “Before the Dawn is mostly about the nature of the Northern state, the actions of the unionist regime, the oppression of nationalists and republicans and our response, and the first decade of conflict.”

All of that is true, but it is also about much more than that.

It is about family and community and oppression and resistance, love

and resilience and, most importantly, about humour and hope.

The book is also a coming of age saga of a young boy in a Belfast that, in many ways, no longer exists (although the indomitable community spirit remains).

It is screechingly funny in places. The account of First Confession is laughout-loud hilarious account worthy of Flann O’Brien or (if you’ll excuse a quintessential English humorist) Jerome K Jerome.

5 The section covering the H-Blocks Hunger Strikes makes for particularly visceral reading

There are also passages of raw emotion and pathos. The final section of the main body of the book, covering the H-Blocks Hunger Strikes makes for particularly visceral reading

Kingdom or Heaven James II, King in Exile: Warrior, King and Saint

By John Callow History Press £12.99

FIRST published in 2004, this volume has been revised to accommodate additional research and analysis not included in the first edition. As the title makes clear, it’s not a biography of James II but an account of his life as an exile following his defeat in Ireland.

Most people probably know more about William of Orange than they do about the enigmatic James II. The enthusiastic cheerleaders of the Orange Order have ensured William’s popularity within one particular section of the community and his perceived qualities, whether real or imagined, have been widely disseminated.

There has been no reciprocal espousal of William’s Jacobite opponent. As a consequence, James II remains a largely unknown figure reviled by both sides.

Protestant Ireland caricatured him as the pantomime Papist determined to coerce them into Romanish enslavement; to the native Catholics he was Séamus an Chaca (“Seamus the Shit”)

following his flight after the Battle of the Boyne.

This book comprehensively shines a spotlight on James as a nuanced and complex individual driven by a sense of duty and an almost pathological sense of his own self-worth.

This work is a pretty impressive document: over 450 pages of minuscule print but every page reveals points

To Catholics he was Séamus an Chaca – ‘Seamus the Shit’ – after his flight from the Battle of the Boyne of interest in an accessible and engaging manner.

The sheer volume and depth of research is mind-boggling but it is presented in such a well-written manner that it never feels overly stuffy.

The book charts three distinct phases of James II’s life: warrior, king and saint.

In his early life as the Duke of York,

This is a document of record and it explains motivations and hopes. Ruth Dudley Edwards hates it. That’s one reason to like it but the best is simply because it’s a really good read.

James had been widely regarded as something of a military maestro, but that image was irredeemably smashed by his precipitate fleeing from the Battle of the Boyne and his abandonment of his loyal troops.

Following this ignominious episode, James sought to recast himself as the king-in-exile in his sumptuous French palace of St Germain-en-Laye.

He attempted to operate a sort of shadow royal court which presumably would meld seamlessly into the Westminster Court once he was rightfully reinstated as king. As disillusionment over this failing scenario set in, James turned to his third (and arguably most successful) incarnation – that of saint.

He seemed to reconcile himself to not being able to regain his earthly crown and devoted the remainder of his life to attaining a heavenly one instead. His undoubted piety and religious devotion provided the basis around which the subsequent Jacobite cause would be founded.

Many of the events analysed in this book still have a resonance today. Accordingly, it is essential reading for anyone hoping to understand the past in order to make sense of the present.

20 April / Aibreán 2017

www.anphoblacht.com

Labour Minister for Direct Provision scandal showboats on migration in USA

NO

THE

ACTION MAN

BY MARK MOLONEY JUST HOURS after taking his place in the White House, US President Donald J Trump followed through on his promise to “get tough” on immigrants (particularly those from Muslim majority states) and announced his travel ban targeting seven states.

The move was widely condemned.

Many immigrants from Mexico and other Latin American countries living in the US illegally are now fearful that the lives they have built for themselves will be torn apart in coming years (not to mention Irish ‘illegals’).

Irish illegal immigrants living in the United States, estimated to number more than 50,000, are also clearly worried. In March, one Irish man was detained and faces deportation as An Phoblacht goes to print.

But never fear, Aodhán Ó Riordáin’s here!

The Irish senator has been making a big name for himself, particularly on TV in the USA, by proclaiming himself to be standing up for the rights of immigrants, condemning Trump and articulating foreign discontent about the new White House administration.

Coverage of Ó Riordáin, both at home and in the US, has been almost universally positive and unchallenged, with the notable exceptions of Dublin freesheet Rabble and Phoenix Magazine.

They correctly questioned his record as Minister for Equality in the Labour/ Fine Gael Government. Ó Riordán lamely dismissed the criticism on Twitter, without actually addressing any of the facts raised.

The most damning of these criticisms is that Aodhán and his party had five years in Government in Ireland where they could have changed the shameful treatment of asylum seekers here.

Many hoped he would end the widely condemned Direct Provision system – which sees asylum seekers who want to work and contribute to society stuck in terrible conditions in Direct Provision centres for years on end to scrape by on just over €19 per week.

The Direct Provision centre based in the old Mosney resort in Meath was described by Gerry Adams TD as “like Long Kesh without the ‘Screws’ and watchtowers”.

Is it reasonable to ask how a senator who is so staunchly in support of the rights of undocumented immigrants in America could have overseen such a horrible system in his native land while he had the power to change it?

5 Aodhán Ó Ríordáin making himself a big noise in America

5 When he had the power, Aodhán failed to end Direct Provision

The Labour Party notably voted against a Bill which would have ended Direct Provision and replaced it with a system that would have required asylum seekers to be processed in reception centres, with a cap of six months and a right to work after that time. Ó Riordáin's support for illegal immigrants in the USA (many of them Irish citizens who stayed despite their working visas having expired) is also directly at odds with his support of the International Protection Bill in Ireland which promised to “streamline” the immigration process. Part of the Bill aimed to fast-track the deportation of illegal immigrants from Ireland.

Introducing the Bill in the Seanad, Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald explained how the Fine Gael and Labour Government’s moves would “ensure that Ireland is equally effective in enforcing deportations and border controls to prevent and tackle those wishing to enter and remain illegally

in a country without proper cause”. Ó Riordáin’s ministerial colleague forthrightly declared: “I do not think it is good enough that if a person's working visa has expired in another country, he or she should be able to come to Ireland and abuse the system here.”

Doras Luimní, the Irish Refugee Council, the Migrant Rights Centre Ireland and Nasc – The Irish Immigrant Support Centre all called for the Government to withdraw the legislation.

Sue Conlon, CEO of the Irish Refugee Council, expressed her fear that the Bill would result in swifter deportations after a very cursory examination of the applications and “lead to people being at risk of being returned to persecution or serious harm and refugees separated from family members at the time of the biggest refugee crisis since the Second World War”.

So where was Aodhán during all this time?

He was in the Dáil chamber voting down amendments and extolling the virtues of this Bill.

The Labour Party as a whole proved themselves to be completely inept and incapable while in Government.

They abandoned their supporters, their principles and their own ideology to become a mudflap for right-wing conservative elements. They forced through socially regressive legislation across the board while mouthpieces like Ó Riordáin were allowed to sail through softball interviews, preening their liberal plumage in the studio lights.

It would be far easier to accept if

Labour had had the courage of their convictions. Ó Riordáin’s all bark and no bite attitude when it came to the issue of Traveller ethnicity saw the former Minister for Equality speak keenly in favour of recognising the special ethnic status of our Traveller community. But when it came to the crunch he was nowhere to be seen as his Fine Gael/ Labour Government voted down a Sinn Féin Bill on the issue. Ó Riordáin didn’t bother to show up and vote despite claiming to support the proposal.

Maybe he didn’t want the TV cameras on him for a change.

April / Aibreán 2017

www.anphoblacht.com

21

IRISH GOVERNMENT NEEDS TO NEGOTIATE DIRECTLY

5 Border tariffs and new procedures will hit producers and consumers across all of Ireland, North and South

BY EOIN Ó MURCHÚ

WHILE commentators and politicians alike agree that the British withdrawal from the European Union (“Brexit”) poses major threats to Ireland, in terms both of trade and in respect of the Border, the Fine Gael/ Independent Government in Dublin stands frozen like a rabbit caught in the headlights.

Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and Labour reassure themselves that ‘Europe’ understands our concerns, that we (in the 26-County state) will be part of ‘Team Europe’ in the post-Brexit negotiations, and that everything will be alright on the night.

In fact, even though the EU may well understand Irish concerns, there is no indication whatsoever that these concerns will form a red-line issue for the negotiators.

Indeed, Michel Barnier, the head of the EU negotiating team, has made it clear that Britain must get a worse deal outside the European Union than it would get inside. This, of course, is to make it clear to any state that wants to follow Britain’s example that you will suffer some dire punishment if you break with the EU bloc.

This punitive attitude poses great threats for Ireland.

First of all, our country has been divided against the will of the majority of the Irish people, and it is unacceptable that the free movement of people and goods between North and South would be interfered with at this stage.

But, secondly, Britain is the largest single trading partner of the 26-County state, accounting for 14% of exports and 26% of imports. While the rest of the EU combined accounts for 39% and 34% respectively, the rest of the world (excluding Britain), accounts for 47% and 40%.

In agriculture, the situation is even more precarious with some 50% of 26-County agricultural produce being sold on the British market.

If the EU imposes a 50% tariff on British agricultural produce going into the EU (as Michel Barnier is threatening) Britain will retaliate in like manner.

If we leave it to ‘Team Europe’, such a tariff would have a devastating effect on Irish agriculture and the economy of rural Ireland.

No Irish Government worthy of the name can just sit back and hope for the best, as Kenny & Co are doing now.

The fact is that the only people who will make Irish concerns a red line issue are the Irish people and our political representatives.

In other words, irrespective of what the EU does, the Irish state must begin separate negoti-

Irrespective of what the EU does, the Irish state must begin separate negotiations directly with Britain on those two issues of major concern – trade and the Border ations directly with Britain on those two issues of major concern – trade and the Border.

These negotiations should have the aim of ensuring that no ‘hard border’ will exist in Ireland and that Ireland as a whole shall have a special status vis-à-vis the EU to ensure no interference with free movement of goods and people, North and South.

Such special status could be by way of associate

5 Taoiseach Enda Kenny needs to lead at more than media events with Prime Minister Theresa May

membership, or a protocol excluding us from any negative provisions of the final Brexit deal – pending, of course, a realignment of the EU itself and our relationship with it.

It is particularly enraging therefore that the White Paper produced by the European Commission in respect of the future of the EU – debated at the Rome Summit at the end of last month – should have been totally ignored in official comment.

But this White Paper includes the option that the existing EU should be shorn of all its state pretensions, its European Army, single foreign policy, common defence and security policy, and be confined to being purely a trading and economic co-operation area.

It is obvious that this option is more in the interests of Ireland than the Commission’s preferred way forward – accelerated progress to a federal super-state.

Instead of going down the road of acquiescent ruin, we should negotiate a deal with Britain that preserves our existing sovereignty, protects

our existing trade and opens up the road to Irish reunification.

This should be presented to the EU as a red-line commitment which must be fulfilled, whatever Barnier and the Commission bureaucrats want.

Heavy EU tariffs on postBrexit Britain would have a devastating effect on Irish agriculture and the economy of rural Ireland These issues may not be important in Warsaw, Budapest, Prague or Bratislava but they are vital for the Irish people.

Do we have a government that is capable of or willing to fight for Irish interests, or are the crowd in Government Buildings just messenger boys for the EU bosses?

22 April / Aibreán 2017

www.anphoblacht.com

Another Europe is possible Treo eile don Eoraip

Funded by the European United Left/ Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL) Aontas Clé na hEorpa/Na Glasaigh Chlé Nordacha Crúpa Paliminta – Parlaimimt na h Eorpa

GUE/NGL condolences on passing of Martin McGuinness – ‘A man of peace and courage’ EXTENDING the European United Left/Nordic Green Left European Parliamentary Group’s deepest condolences to Martin McGuinness’s family, to Sinn Féin “and to the Irish people for this great loss”, GUE/NGL President Gabi Zimmer said: “We will remember and be inspired by his remarkable life as we face the challenges ahead.

“Martin McGuinness dedicated his life for the vision of a united Ireland. He left behind a legacy that symbolised hope and struggle for

principles dear to the Irish people. His courage made him a man loved and respected by people from all political backgrounds.”

‘We will remember and be inspired by his remarkable life as we face the challenges ahead’ – Gabi Zimmer

She said that Martin McGuinness’s “remarkable leadership” enabled the progress in the political process that paved the way for the historic Good Friday Agreement “which made possible reconciliation in the North of Ireland”.

She added: “He dedicated his life – through words and deeds – for peace and the reunification of his country and the shaping of the democratic institutions in the North of Ireland, leaving behind a legacy that will endure.”

Gabi Zimmer

Better WiFi ‘Bucharest to Ballyferriter’ IRELAND SOUTH MEP Liadh Ní Riada has brought proposals to the committee stage of the European Parliament that call for the creation of WiFi hubs in towns and villages across Europe.

Liadh, who is the lead negotiator on the WiFi4EU project, said the initiative would help bring connectivity and investment to rural areas.

“The basic premise is that we equip as many towns and villages as possible with free wireless internet access, centred around the main centres of public life in that area, by 2020,” she said.

“It would be focused on places like parks and squares, libraries, health centres, museums or

wherever people happen to congregate in a given area.

“While the scheme will be dispersed in as geographically balanced a manner as possible,

provision and how the desire to commodify water as if it were no different from any other product increased in the fall-out of the economic crisis.

“I explained the different experiences in relation to water provision across many European countries. For example, the pressure which Greece and Italy came under from the Troika and the ECB to privatise and liberalise their water services.”

She said that many conference delegates were shocked to hear of the “complex web between Government, the EU, private business, the media, and the ideological and repressive state apparatus” around the issue.

“Similarly, they were aghast at the underhand tactics of the EU Commission in overtly taking sides and their efforts to undermine the

Rural hubs will bear huge returns for communities

I feel it is important that special consideration is given to rural and peripheral areas, particularly those suffering from a lack of internet access even in this day and age.

“This scheme will bear huge benefits for

peripheral communities, giving disadvantaged individuals and areas access to the internet, giving local social enterprises access to a global market, generating employment in communities that people, particularly young people are being forced to leave; the benefits are endless.

“It will be used to promote things like health and e-tourism; the scheme is only as limited as the imagination of the communities it will benefit.

“Proposals like this are the type that were originally envisaged for the EU – a social partnership of countries working together to improve the lives of everyone from Bucharest to Ballyferriter.”

Dublin MEP keynote speaker at Barcelona ‘right to water’ conference

DUBLIN MEP Lynn Boylan was a keynote speaker at a high-level international conference in Barcelona on the human right to water.

The conference was titled “Water, A Common Good – Challenges and Future.”

Speaking afterwards, the GUE/NGL MEP said: “It was a fantastic and humbling experience to be asked to give a keynote address at this excellent conference as an expert on the situation regarding provision of water in Ireland and mainland Europe.

“The opportunity allowed me to speak to the international guests of the direction water provision has taken in the EU and the nefarious role of the Commission in setting the agenda.

“I outlined how the EU has sought to impose a neoliberal market based approach to water

If Slovenia can enshrine in its constitution the right of citizens to clean water, so can all the EU member states

Right2Water movement in Ireland by briefing journalists off the record on certain issues.”

She concluded that the overwhelming evidence presented at the conference was that privatisation of water has failed to deliver for citizens and it generally leads to higher prices for citizens and poorer quality as profits are diverted to shareholders and investment in infrastructure dries up.

“In November 2016,” the GUE/NGL MEP noted, “Slovenia made history by being the first EU country to enshrine in its constitution the right of its citizens to access to clean water. If Slovenia can do it, so can all the EU member states.”

April / Aibreán 2017

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Matt Carthy

Martina Anderson

Liadh Ní Riada

Lynn Boylan

23

www.guengl.eu

are MEPs and members of the GUE/NGL Group in the European Parliament

Brexit broadside video goes viral THE VIDEO of Martina Anderson’s blistering attack on the “Brexit” withdrawal from the European Union by British Prime Minister Theresa May’s government is tipping one million views on Facebook.

While the searing words provoked anger amongst right-wing politicians, it won wide acclaim amongst the public.

In the video, Martina said on the record in the chamber of the European Parliament: “Mr President, so the radical House of Lords amendments were voted down today by the Westminster Brexiteers, and the Brexit wreck-it gang tell us to get over it; that it is the best thing that’s happened since sliced pan bread.

“Yet I have not met one business person, one

Let me put the record straight: no border, hard or soft, will be accepted by the people of Ireland

young person, one farmer, one man, woman or child who has said to me, rubbing their hands in glee, ‘God, this divorce from the EU is going to be very good!’ But Ireland is told: ‘Get over it.

Don’t worry about it. It is going to be a frictionless border’ – whatever the hell that means!

Nobody knows.

“And let me put the record straight to everybody

here: no border, hard or soft, will be accepted by the people of Ireland.

“What British armoured cars and tanks and guns couldn't do in Ireland, 27 member states will not be able to do.”

In a message to the British Prime Minister, she ended: “So, Theresa, your notion of a border – hard or soft – stick it where the sun doesn’t shine because you are not putting it in Ireland!”

Britain’s ‘Brexit madness’ – EU must protect Ireland

British Prime Minister May is absorbed by a 'Global Britain', not a divided Ireland

IRELAND NORTH MEP Martina Anderson (who also serves as GUE/NGL group’s Brexit co-ordinator) has urged the EU to guarantee the rights of Irish citizens in the North of the island and highligted that the Peace Process is at stake: “Whether a hard or soft border, the people living in Border communities in Ireland will not stand for it. Frictionless or electronic borders don’t reassure anybody.

“The damage that would be done to the Peace Process in Ireland is immeasurable,” she warned.

“The EU has a political, legal and moral duty to help us ensure that the next generation is not faced with hard borders and hardship.

“The Council and the Commission in its negotiations must protect Ireland’s north, south, east and west from England’s Brexit madness,” she concluded.

The Ireland North MEP led a delegation of representatives of Border Communities Against Brexit to meet with “key players” in the European institutions, leading groups in the European Parliament, MEPs from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, and representatives of the Irish Government in Brussels to impress on them the need for the Irish Government to act in the national interest of all Irish citizens under the Good Friday Agreement.

Brexit – Rural committee gets formal submission MIDLANDS NORTH WEST MEP Matt Carthy has made a formal submission to the European Parliament’s Agriculture & Rural Development Committee on its Brexit Resolution.

Matt has asked the committee to recognise the particular challenges presented to Irish farming by Brexit and has sought agreement

Matt Carthy presses EU to recognise particular challenges to Irish farming that EU supports will be put in place.

Speaking in Strasbourg, Matt Carthy said: “The possible return of border controls poses serious threats to the Irish agriculture and agri-food sectors. This industry operates in a highly integrated manner with many sectors being entirely all-island in nature.

“The submission I have made to the Agriculture & Rural Development Committee’s Brexit Resolution highlights Ireland’s special interests

and vulnerabilities and urges the recognition of the unique situation of Ireland, North and South.”

He explained: “Barriers of any nature on the island of Ireland – including tariffs, origin checks, import licence requirements, documentation and additional paperwork, physical border checks as well as the costs of complying with two different regulatory regimes – would seriously disrupt long-established all-island industries. This is due to the large number of products that travel north and south for processing, slaughter and breeding every day.”

He added: “I have called for the North to be able to participate in the EU Geographical Indications Scheme, especially due to the fact that some GIs (such as Irish whiskey) cover the entire island. I further called for solutions to be found for labelling requirements, since Brexit implications will only exacerbate the issues farmers operating on a cross-Border basis have faced with regard to country-of-origin labels.”

Matt Carthy

24 April / Aibreán 2017

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Revolutionary groups, political parties and former US Presidents among those who mourn Martin McGuinness

5 Scottish National Party former leader Alex Salmond MP with former President of Ireland Mary McAleese at the the funeral Mass for Martin

5 The Tricolour flies at half-mast at the Catalpa Memorial in New Bedford, Massachusetts, USA 5 Former US President Bill Clinton touches Martin's coffin after his eulogy

International tributes pour in for political giant

BY MARK MOLONEY TRIBUTES poured in for Martin McGuinness from across the globe as the republican leader and political giant was laid to rest in his native Derry.

The Palestinian and Cuban Ambassadors were present in the City Cemetery, along with political activists and leaders from around the world as Martin was laid to rest.

The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) described Martin McGuinness as “a symbol of the just cause of the Irish people”. It said: “Our late comrade Martin always reassured the Palestinian people of the constant support of Sinn Féin and his personal commitment for the fulfillment of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people. His passing will be an irreparable loss to all those

‘A symbol of the just cause of the Irish people’ PALESTINE LIBERATION ORGANISATION

who struggle for social justice, peace and freedom from oppression and injustice.”

Cuba’s ruling Communist Party described Martin McGuinness as “an unforgettable friend” and said his death was an “irreparable loss”. The revolutionary government praised his “important contributions in political life, the partisan cause and relations with Cuba”.

South Africa's governing African National Congress party said Martin McGuinness will "forever be remembered as a man of moral courage, as a unifier, and a force for change".

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People’s Army (FARC-EP) said Martin McGuinness is an “inspiration” who was “committed to the struggle of his people”.

Martin had travelled to Colombia three years ago to aid in the peace process there. The rebel army, who recently signed a peace agreement with the Colombian Government, ending over 50 years of war, offered their “eternal gratitude” to Martin McGuinness for his work. It also said: “Martin is an example of the revolutionary struggle for peace, social justice, solidarity and internationalism.”

Scotland’s former First Minister, Alex Salmond MP, who attended the funeral, said Martin McGuinness’s friendship with Ian Paisley was “the anchor of the institutions consolidating the Peace Process”.

“They were both solid and continuing friends of Scotland,” Nicola Sturgeon’s predecessor said, while Welsh First Minister Carwyn Jones said Martin McGuinness was “vital to bringing peace” to the North of Ireland: Bill Clinton, former President of the United States, delivered a speech at the funeral service in Derry where he said Martin would want people to “finish the work of peace so we can all have a future together”.

Clinton made special mention of his role as Minister for Education and his focus on helping the most deprived communities – including many working-class unionist areas, Bill Clinton said: “Normally it’s not a good thing to be proud of yourself but if there’s a secret category of things you can be proud of, taking care of the children of people with whom you have been at odds is surely on that small list. That’s what he did. He persevered and he prevailed.”

Noting the thousands who turned

out to say goodbye, Clinton, one of the key players during the most intense negotiations of the Peace Process, said: “Our friend earned this vast crowd today. Even more, he earned the right to ask us to honour his legacy by our living. To finish the work that is there to be done.”

Former President Barack Obama said in a message: “His leadership was instrumental in turning the page on a past of violence and conflict that he knew all too well.”

New York Representative Joe Crowley described Martin as “one of

‘The anchor of the institutions consolidating the Peace Process’

SCOTLAND FORMER FIRST MINISTER ALEX SALMOND MP

the most extraordinary leaders I have ever met” who “never gave up on his belief in a united Ireland”.

Across mainland Europe, many political parties mourned Martin McGuinness’s death.

In Spain, Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias said: “Martin McGuinness worked decisively for peace and reconciliation in Ireland. Our solidarity to the family and comrades from Podemos.”

The Communist Party of France (PCF) paid tribute to a “historical figure” who “passionately did everything to preserve and consolidate the peace with a view to the reunification of Ireland”.

Italy’s Communist Refoundation Party said they wanted to pay tribute to “a

5 1995: Martin McGuinness goes fly-fishing with his son (Photo by David Speilman, Irish America magazine)

brave activist, freedom fighter and political leader who has been able to build a peace and reconciliation process”.

In the European Parliament, German MEP Gabi Zimmer, President of the European United Left – Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL) parliamentary group, said Martin’s “courage made him a man loved and respected by people from all political backgrounds” (see previous pages for more).

Basque independence leader Arnaldo Otegi, who attended the funeral with other Senator Urko Aiartza and other Basque representatives, described Martin McGuinness as “a loyal friend, a friend of the Basque people and the Basque Country”. He described him as “a true Irish republican” who “with the same determination with which he fought the British occupation, managed the subsequent Peace Process”.

April / Aibreán 2017

www.anphoblacht.com

Right2Water

‘One Last Push’ RALLY – DUBLIN

BY JOHN HEDGES

Final details will be announced shortly, Right2Water Co-ordinator Brendan Ogle said, after consideration of the best location in the midst of major roadworks for new LUAS lines.

April’s “One Last Push” will be a family-friendly event in one central location with feeder parades from Heuston and Connolly rail stations. Based

BRENDAN OGLE

on experience, tens of thousands of people from across the country are expected to attend.

Right2Water Co-ordinator Brendan Ogle was joined by Sinn Féin TD Jonathan O’Brien from the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Water, and Maeve Curtis, a community activist from Dundalk. The three represented the three pillars of the Right2Water campaign: trade union, political and community.

APRIL

8

its report on schedule in early March. Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil TDs, however, got together to outvote TDs supporting Right2Water and unnecessarily moved to extend the deadline by another four weeks to 14 April for more legal opinion to be sought.

“We’ve already had five different sets of legal opinion. Nothing is going to change the facts.

There is no reason why we couldn’t have finalised the report this week,” the Cork City TD said.

THE Right2Water movement has announced a “One Last Push” rally for Dublin City Centre on Saturday 8 April.

Right2Water feels it is necessary to bring its voice back into the arena for the public to have their say

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5 Calling for 'One Last Push' – Right2Water Co-ordinator Brendan Ogle and Sinn Féin TD Jonathan O’Brien from the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Water

There was a number of Independent and AAA/ PBP TDs in the audience to show their support.

Brendan Ogle said the movement has come a long way since the threats issued by the Fine Gael Government to cut off householders’ water or garnish water resisters’ social welfare payments or wages.

Now Right2Water feels it is necessary “to bring its voice back into the arena, for the public to have their say”. It’s time for the Dáil to “carry out its democratic mandate” to force one and for the end of water charges and to block “commodification” and the privatisation of water in Ireland, Brendan Ogle said.

“Without the sustained pressure exerted by the public through the Right2Water campaign since 2014, we would not be where we are now with charges nearly abolished and an

Oireachtas Committee largely reflecting the views of hundreds of thousands of people who came on to the streets of our towns and cities to assert our human right to water, as well as the electorate in election 2016.

“We welcome the unanimous view of the Oireachtas Committee that a referendum should be held to enshrine our water services in public ownership.

“The demonstration on 8 April will allow the public to demonstrate that this issue is not an issue of political opportunism but is, and always has been, about vindication of our human Right2Water by paying for our water and sanitation through the exemplary model of progressive taxation.”

Sinn Féin TD Jonathan O’Brien said the Joint Oireachtas Committee could have published

The majority of TDs in the Dáil are opposed to water charges SINN FÉIN TD JONATHAN O’BRIEN

Describing the action as “a stalling tactic by Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil for a bit of breathing space in which to reach a deal between themselves”, Jonathan O’Brien explained: “Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil are very reluctant to take a decision which I believe is ultimately going to be taken – the scrapping of water charges.”

He added: “The majority of TDs in the Dáil are opposed to water charges and the delay in the Joint Oireachtas Committee in making that decision flies in the face of the will of the people who have already had their say in the 2016 general election.”

26 April / Aibreán 2017

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‘The conversation on the current failures of the EU and how it should function into the future needs to be had amongst citizens in the member states, not in Brussels’

BEHIND BREXIT LIES

ANOTHER THREAT

AS THE THREAT of “Brexit” rightfully preoccupies the minds of most Irish people, there are equally significant machinations taking place in Brussels and throughout the European Union’s 27 member states.

European federalism has evolved from a theory into a concrete political ideology that has become militant in pursuit of its ends: the usurpation of the powers and sovereignty of nation state debates taking place in member states and the European institutions, one thing is apparent: a well-known political ideology is opportunistically using the current state of confusion and consternation in the aftermath of Brexit to organise and dictate the future of Europe – federalism.

European federalism has been a political theory since the 1940s and the aftermath of the Second World War. The original aim of federalists was the belief that only by uniting could the states of Europe overcome the divisions of the past and ensure a future of peace and economic prosperity. That vision can be seen as forming part of the basis of the modern European Union. Ideals such as inclusivity, respect for diversity, co-operation, and equality were all espoused by early European federalists.

The term ‘federalism’ means different things to different people and can be used in a variety of contexts.

However, in the years since the Maastricht Treaty,

BY LYNN BOYLAN MEP European federalism has evolved from a theory into a concrete political ideology that has become militant in pursuit of its ends: the usurpation of the powers and sovereignty of nation states and conferring them upon a supranational European “federal union”.

This push for a supranational system of governance and a move away from the concept of simple inter-governmentalism is what was at the root of the Maastricht, Nice, and Lisbon treaties.

In spite of the five scenarios proposed by the Commission’s white paper, there is no doubt that the favoured option is “to do much more together”. While Jean-Claude Junker stated that now is not the time for him to outline his favoured position, it is abundantly clear what the preference is. Juncker has been a leading advocate of deeper EU integration. To believe that he and the Commission will push for any

scenario other than ‘ever-closer’ union would be naive.

This leads into the workings of the European Parliament and the response of MEPs to the future of the EU. Over the past number of months, a triumvirate of the most ideologically-driven federalists operating in European politics today produced two reports on the future functioning of the EU. The first report, Report on Improving the Functioning of the European Union Building on the Potential of the Lisbon Treaty, was authored by arch-federalist Guy Verhofstadt, the President of the Alliance of Liberal Democrats (ALDE) European Parliament group and chief Parliament Brexit negotiator.

This push for a supranational system of governance and a move away from the concept of simple intergovernmentalism is what was at the root of the Maastricht, Nice, and Lisbon treaties

6 Guy Verhofstadt

© Claude Truong-Ngoc / Wikimedia Commons

In the wake of the Brexit referendum result, the EU institutions have scrambled to formulate plans to counter the shock of the decision of a member state to leave the EU by producing reports and white papers trying to outline visions for the future of the EU. The most-publicised of these plans was the EU Commission’s White Paper on the Future of Europe, presented by President Jean-Claude Junker to the European Parliament on 16 March.

The 37-page white paper is the Commission’s way of instigating and shaping a major debate about the EU’s future by outlining what it sees as the five ways forward for the EU:» Carrying on; » Nothing but the single market; » Those who want more do more; » Doing less more efficiently; and » Doing much more together.

If this paper is the Commission’s way of outlining its visions for the future of the EU, then two European Parliament reports – the Verhofstadt Report and the Brok/Bresso Report – were an attempt by a section of MEPs to try and outline a parliamentary position.

With these reports and papers in mind, as well as the

The second report on the possible evaluations and adjustments to the current institutional set-up of the European Union had two equally federalist draftspeople: Elmar Brok, the German MEP from the European People’s Party (EPP) EP group and current President of the Union of European Federalists (UEF); and Mercedes Bresso, Italian MEP of the Socialists and Democrats (S&D) EP group and former President of the UEF. The reports outlined various positions but a continuing theme was that the difficulties facing Europe could all be ameliorated through an ‘ever-closer’ union with greater powers at the expense of the sovereignty of member states. What was called for in the reports included harmonised fiscal and macro-economic

April / Aibreán 2017

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27

5 People need to keep a watchful eye on what's going on in the European Parliament beyond Brexit

Reports included harmonised fiscal and macro-economic policies, an EU Finance Minister and an EU Treasury, plus the establishment of a European Intelligence Office and strengthening common defence policy – paving the way to an EU army The views contained dismiss or ignore contrary opinions on the future of the EU. They blame member states for failures within the EU and propose that only closer integration and a greater transfer of power can equip the EU to deal with such difficulties. The issue with this one-dimensional analysis of the current state of the EU is that it is an exercise in confirmation bias. There is no proof that the transfer of more power to the EU would result in more effective governance of the bloc. That the EU has failed to deliver on the promises outlined when sovereign powers

© Claude Truong-Ngoc / Wikimedia Commons

policies, an EU Finance Minister and an EU Treasury with ability to borrow, common internal and external security policy with the establishment of a European Intelligence Office, and strengthening common defence policy (paving the way to an EU army).

But such views as contained in these reports focus more on why states should integrate further rather than why states would voluntarily surrender their sovereignty.

4 Elmar Brok

to their national governments, while 27% favoured a continuance of the status quo. Only 19% felt a further transfer of powers to Brussels was the best way forward.

The myopic nature of the federalist view is that it refuses to address the problems created through the transfer of certain powers to the EU and they display complete ignorance of the fact that the surge in rightwing and anti-establishment sentiment within the EU has stemmed from Europe’s failed neo-liberal policies.

There is no doubt that debate is needed on the current failures of the EU and how it should function into the future but, in order for that to happen, the conversa-

There is no proof that the transfer of more power to the EU would result in more effective governance of the bloc 4 Mercedes Bresso

were transferred to it through the Lisbon Treaty should bolster the call that more powers should be transferred back to member states.

Such a view is also expressed by many citizens in EU member states.

In June of last year, a Pew Research study on attitudes to the EU showed that a median of 42% of people in ten nations surveyed (including the nations which account for 80% of the EU-28 population and 82% of the EU’s GDP) actually wanted more powers returned

tion needs to be had amongst citizens in the member states, not in Brussels.

The scope to work together and improve the functioning of the EU exists within the powers, rightly or wrongly, already transferred. The EU needs to use those current powers to deliver positive change for European citizens in conjunction with returning certain powers to member states so they can also deliver for their people and run their own affairs as best they know how.

In times of such political flux there is a danger that the simplistic narrative of a federal Europe will prevail as a unitary truth. Therefore, while Brexit rightfully preoccupies the minds of most Irish people, a critical eye still needs to be cast upon events taking place in Brussels.

28  April / AibreĂĄn 2017

IN PICTURES

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5 Part of the huge crowd from all over Ireland and overseas that turned out for Martin

5 Singer Frances Black

5 People pack the route, waiting to say their goodbyes

5 Martin McGuinness's family say 5 Martin is laid to rest their final farewell

5 Singer Christy Moore pays his own tribute to Martin

April / Aibreán 2017

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All notices and obituaries should be sent to notices@anphoblacht.com

I nDíl Chuimhne 1 April 1980: Volunteer Robert CARR, Newry Brigade.

2 April 1987: Volunteer Laurence MARLEY, Belfast Brigade, 3rd Battalion.

2 April 1992: Danny CASSIDY, Sinn Féin.

4 April 1971: Volunteer Tony HENDERSON, Belfast Brigade, 1st Battalion.

4 April 1989: Volunteer Gerard CASEY, North Antrim Brigade.

4 April 1994 Volunteer John O’RAWE, Belfast Brigade, 1st Battalion.

5 April 1976: Volunteer Seán McDERMOTT, Belfast Brigade, 1st Battalion.

7 April 1972: Volunteer Samuel HUGHES, Volunteer Charles McCRYSTAL, Volunteer John McERLEAN, Belfast Brigade, 3rd Battalion.

8 April 1996: Volunteer Eugene MARTIN, South Armagh Brigade.

9 April 1974: Volunteer Daniel BURKE,

Life springs from death and from the graves of patriot men and women spring living nations PÁDRAIG PEARSE Belfast Brigade, 1st Battalion.

10 April 1991: Volunteer Colum MARKS, South Down Command.

12 April 1973: Volunteer Edward O’RAWE, Belfast Brigade, 2nd Battalion.

15 April 1976: Volunteer Peter CLEARY, South Armagh Brigade.

17 April 1973: Volunteer Brian SMYTH, Belfast Brigade, 3rd Battalion.

17 April 1977: Volunteer Trevor McKIBBIN, Belfast Brigade, 3rd Battalion.

21 April 1984: Volunteer Richard QUIGLEY, Derry Brigade.

23 April 1977: Volunteer Brendan O’CALLAGHAN, Belfast Brigade, 1st Battalion.

24 April 1974: Jim MURPHY, Sinn Féin.

25 April 1979: Volunteer Billy CARSON, Belfast Brigade, 2nd Battalion.

26 April 1975 Volunteer Noel LAFFERTY, Tyrone Brigade.

26 April 1986 Volunteer Séamus McELWAIN, South Fermanagh Brigade.

Always remembered by the Republican Movement.

CASEY, Gerard. In proud and loving memory of my dear husband Volunteer Gerard Casey, murdered on 4 April 1989 by British collusion. Words are few, thoughts are deep, memories of you are mine to keep. Always loved and remembered dearly by your wife Una. xxx CASEY, Gerard. In proud and loving memory of my father Volunteer Gerard Casey, murdered on 4 April 1989 by British collusion. No farewells were spoken, you were gone before we knew it and only God knows why.

ENTS ‘GERNIKA 80’ WEEKEND OF EV ARK IN DUBLIN (21-23 APRIL) TO M IST 80TH ANNIVERSARY OF FASC BOMBING OF BASQUE TOWN

ABERRI EGUNA

Always loved and remembered by your son Paul, wife Noleen and grandchildren Orla, Erin and Odhran. xxx CASEY, Gerard. In proud in loving memory of my father Volunteer Gerard Casey, murdered on 4 April 1989 by British collusion. If we could have one lifetime wish, one dream that could come true, we would ask with all our hearts for yesterday and you.

Loved always by daughter Geraldine, husband Gary and Grandson Cillian. xxx CASEY, Gerard. In proud in loving

memory of my father Volunteer Gerard Casey, murdered on 4 April 1989

by British collusion. Memories are not framed in gold for all the world to see, they are safely locked within our hearts, where you will always be.

Always loved and remembered by son Kevin, wife Linda and boys. xxx CASEY, Gerard. In proud in loving memory of my father Volunteer Gerard Casey, murdered on 4 April 1989

by British collusion. Memories have such lovely ways of bringing back our yesterdays, as each of us in our own way have special memories of you today. Always loved and remembered by your daughter Tara and grandchildren Gerard and Katie. xxx

» Notices All notices should be sent to: notices@anphoblacht.com There is no charge for I nDíl Chuimhne, Comhbhrón, etc.

» Imeachtaí There is a charge of €10 for inserts printed in our Imeachtaí/Events column.

You can also get a small or large box advert. Contact: sales@anphoblacht.com for details.

THEN & NOW

Commemoration Weekend. Dublin. 21 - 23 April 2017

The Day of the Basque Homeland and the 1916 Easter Rising

ABERRI EGUNA – The Day of the Basque Homeland – has been marked annually in the Basque Country at Easter time since 1932.

The idea to celebrate a Basque national day was proposed by Elias Gallastegi, a leading Basque nationalist with strong ties to Ireland. Elias had been exiled to Mexico in 1926 during the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera, returning home to Bilbao in 1931 following the fall of Rivera and the establishment of the Second Spanish Republic.

Greatly inspired by the 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland, Elias had penned numerous articles in Basque nationalist publications celebrating the heroism of the Irish rebels. As a mark of respect he proposed the celebration of a Basque National Day to coincide with the anniversary of the Rising.

29

The first Aberri Eguna demonstration was held in Bilbao in 1932. It was attended by over 60,000 people and led by members of Emakume Abertzale Batza (Basque Women’s Patriotic Front), which was inspired by Cumann na mBan. The organisation was founded in

The Basque Women’s Patriotic Front was inspired by Cumann na mBan Bilbao in 1922 following a meeting, organised by Elias Gallastegi, which was addressed by an Irish republican and Sinn Féin member, Ambrose Victor Martin, on the subject of Cumann na

mBan. The British Government had expelled the Argentinian-born Martin from Ireland in 1919 for republican activities.

In subsequent years, both men established the Irish Iberian Trading Company with assistance from the Irish Ambassador to the Spanish Republic, Leopold Kerney. The purpose of which was to open up alternative trading routes for the Irish Free State during its Economic War with Britain in the early 1930s.

When the Gallastegi family fled the Basque Country to Ireland in 1937 following the bombing of Gernika, they settled in the Meath Gaeltacht in a house owned by Ambrose Martin.

This year’s Aberri Eguna will be held in Gernika to coincide with the 80th anniversary of the bombing of the town.

FRIDAY 21st APRIL

7.30pm, Wynn’s Hotel, Abbey Street, D1

SATURDAY 22nd APRIL

From 12.30pm, Unite The Union, Abbey Street, D1

8.30pm, The Cobblestone, Smithfield Square, D7

SUNDAY 23rd APRIL

3pm, Glasnevin Cemetary, Finglas Road, D11

For full details of each event see our Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/Gernika80

30 April / Aibreán 2017

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Seanad Bill to lower voting age to 16 SENATOR FINTAN WARFIELD is using Sinn Féin Private Member’s Time to bring forward legislation to reduce the voting age in local government and European Parliament elections to 16.

The Bill was being discussed as An Phoblacht goes to print.

In 2015, the European Parliament officially endorsed a voting age of 16 for European Parliament elections and asked member states to consider the proposal.

The European Parliament passed a joint report from MEPs on reforming EU electoral law and voted in favour of giving votes to 16- and 17-years-olds.

As well as lowering the voting age to 16, the MEPs’ report included a broad package of proposals that included electronic voting and voting rights for EU citizens living abroad.

Senator Warfield said that Sinn Féin’s Electoral (Voting at 16) Bill 2016 aims to lower the voting age from 18 to 16 for local and European elections.

“This Bill is timely in advance of the 2019 local and European elections, particularly given an official endorsement by the European Parliament to support voting at 16 in European Parliament elections and a recommendation of the Constitutional Convention in 2013,” he said.

“The referendum for Scottish independence and the referendum here in Ireland for marriage equality represent a reality that young people are at the cutting edge of change,” the Sinn Féin senator said.

“Their voices must begin to be heard by our political representatives who at times have proven themselves to be out of touch with young people who, in turn, struggle to hold their political representatives to account.

“Only by widening the political franchise can we guarantee that the rights of young people stay firmly on the agenda of politicians.”

He said that Sinn Féin is serious about legislating for the rights of young people and he is hoping for crossparty support, particularly given the longstanding commitment to this issue by the National Youth Council of Ireland and many other youth organisations.

Independent Senator Lynn Ruane, who is seconding the Bill, said: “It’s a sad fact that it is young people who are most affected by political decisions taken today but have no voice in who makes those decisions for them. Inclusion of Irish citizens between the ages of 16 and 18 in the democratic process is the only way this will ever change.

“This Bill is a crucial first step in realising a stronger and more vibrant democratic contract between the Irish people and our European political representation and local government structures.

“Reducing the voting age for local government is vital to ensure the full engagement of young people with local politics and their local communities. Moreover, during this crucial period for the future of the European Union, we need young people to have a voice in deciding our future role in a post-Brexit EU. 5 The marriage equality campaign showed that young people want a say

‘The referendums for Scottish independence and marriage equality represent a reality that young people are at the cutting edge of change’ Senator Fintan Warfield

“The Government have recently demonstrated a commitment to broadening democratic participation, with the recent announcement of the referendum to extend Presidential voting rights to our Diaspora. In the same spirit, we ask that they ensure the speedy passage of this legislation through the Oireachtas.”

The European Youth Forum has said it strongly believes that giving the vote to 16- and 17-year-olds “would empower them and truly engage young people in the democratic process from an early age”.

The European Youth Forum is the platform of youth organisations in Europe, representing 100 youth organisations, including National Youth Councils and international non-governmental youth organisations.

It said: “Paired with comprehensive citizenship education in schools, votes at 16 can help instill a habit of voting at a younger age and boost lifelong participation rates.

“The right to vote is a major part of the democratic process and is a key recommendation of the Youth Forum’s #YouthUp campaign, which aims to rethink politics to engage and include young people.”

5 Independent Senator Lynn Ruane

April / Aibreán 2017

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DANNY MORRISON Nailing a lie about Martin McGuinness ON BBC Radio Ulster’s Talkback (22 March) a story about Martin McGuinness was repeated, a story aimed at illustrating that Martin McGuinness was callous towards victims and not sincere in his attempts at reconciliation. Stories like this can affect people’s attitudes, responses and even the decisions they make.

The first time I heard the story was in a report about a meeting in Stormont organised two weeks previously by Traditional Unionist Voice leader Jim Allister MLA to commemorate ‘European Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Terrorism’.

One of the speakers was David Kelly whose father was a soldier in the Defence Forces killed in Leitrim during an attempt to rescue supermarket executive Don Tidey in 1983.

Mr Kelly told the Stormont meeting that in 2011, when Martin McGuinness was running as a candidate in the Presidential election, he confronted him and asked for help in finding his father’s killers but was told “to move on”. Then he qualified this remark: “He [McGuinness] told me it was time to move on. He said that to my face. My father was doing his duty, providing for a young family, gave his life for his country.”

There is a huge difference between “move on”, which suggests “get out of my way”, and “time to move on”, as I shall illustrate by the actual contemporaneous reports of Mr Kelly’s confrontation with Martin McGuinness in 2011.

The account of the confrontation can be found in the Irish Times, 11 October 2011. It reports:

Guards, do the decent thing, go to the authorities and hand themselves in and then we might have some justice, some truth and then maybe we can think about moving on in this country,” he [Mr Kelly] told the Westmeath Independent.

Other reports of the confrontation in the Irish Independent, Irish Examiner and on RTÉ make no reference to the “move on” comments attributed to Martin McGuinness.

Stories like this can affect people’s attitudes, responses and even the decisions they make In July 2012, when David Kelly accepted the Military Star Medal, awarded posthumously to his father, he made no such claim about Martin McGuinness.

Again, when speaking before Westminster MPs last November at the launch of a book, Mr Kelly

made no such claim about Martin McGuinness.

So how did the perception arise that Martin McGuinness used those words which would add great pain and distress to someone who had already lost a loved one at the hands of the IRA? It was the News Letter on 13 March which used the ambiguous headline “Martin McGuinness told me to ‘move on’”. It also reported that when the audience heard the alleged remarks it prompted “a collective gasp of horror”. Clearly, the audience understood the words to mean that Martin McGuinness was cold and heartless towards a son whose father was a victim of the IRA. But it was on BBC2’s Newsnight, only hours after the death of Martin McGuinness, that the totally false construction on words that McGuinness hadn’t even used was reinforced.

Austin Stack’s father, Brian Stack, was the Chief Prison Officer at Portlaoise Prison and was mortally wounded by the IRA in 1983. He told Newsnight: “My friend David Kelly, whose father private Paddy Kelly was shot by the IRA . . . David approached Martin McGuinness, asking him for answers in 2011 and Martin McGuinness shunted him away with the words ‘just move on, you’.”

The anger, passion, loss and sense of injustice

5 Martin McGuinness with Harold Good, former President of the Methodist Church, at the launch of Sinn Féin's 'Uncomfortable Conversations' book

felt by victims of the IRA towards republicans is completely understandable.

But what Austin Stack is saying about Martin McGuinness is not only unfounded but is patently untrue. His reasons for saying it might be understandable – to paint Martin McGuinness in as bad a light as possible. It is also understandable that those who admire and revere Martin McGuinness and his memory will call out a lie about him, especially when such a lie may well influence people and can affect judgments about the Peace Process and its future.

“I don’t know who was responsible for the killing of your father but I fully and absolutely sympathise with you,” Mr McGuinness replied. “I have been at the heart of a very important peace process in the North over the last 20 years which has brought conflict and violence and death to an end and I am going to continue with that work because that’s the work of peace.

“This is in the past, you are heartbroken on account of it and my sympathy is 100 per cent with you and your family,” he added.

Mr Kelly continued, “I just want to say to you before there can be any reconciliation in this country there has to be truth.”

Mr McGuinness replied: “Absolutely, and we have proposed that there should be an International Independent Commission on Truth.”

The journalist who witnessed the exchange, Eoghan MacConnell, makes no mention of McGuinness telling David Kelly to “move on” or “it’s time to move on” or even that anyone in McGuinness’s entourage told him to move on.

But one local journalist, Karen Downey, does quote Mr Kelly himself as using similar words: “I asked him to reveal the identity of those killers, those killers directly should go to the

5 Colin Parry, whose young son was killed by an IRA bomb in England, invited Martin McGuinness to speak at the Warrington Peace Lecture 2013

Contact phoblacht.com NEWS editor@an @anphoblacht.com NOTICES notices oblacht.com OS photos@anph

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IN PICTURES

Sraith Nua Iml 40 Uimhir 4 – April / Aibreán 2017

photos@anphoblacht.com

5 Meath Sinn Féin staged a Liam Mellows Spring School Weekend of talks in Navan in March

5 Sinn Féin TD Aengus Ó Snodaigh with the Inter-Parliamentary Rugby Challenge Cup won by the Oireachtas rugby team after vanquishing their opponents from the British Houses of Parliament

5 Liadh Ní Riada MEP and Sinn Féin members in Clonmel, County Tipperary, defend Bus Éireann services

5 A black flag is flown on the Sinn Féin Bookshop, Parnell Square, Dublin, on the day Martin McGuinness died

5 Support for Bus Éireann striking workers from members of Cork Sinn Féin

5 Maeve Curtis, Brendan Ogle and Sinn Féin TD Jonathan O'Brien at the Right2Water announcement of the 'One Last Push ‘ demonstration for 8 April in Dublin City

Our Martin

An Phoblacht, April 2017 – Special supplement

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FREEDOM FIGHTER NEGOTIATOR PEACEMAKER

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Martin McGuinness 1950-2017 - SPECIAL SUPPLEMENT www.anphoblacht.com

Michelle O’Neill MLA, Leader of Sinn Féin in the North

‘We are forever thankful to Martin McGuinness’ “WORDS cannot express my sense of pride, sense of privilege and honour to say a few words as we lay our friend Martin to rest.

“Bhí Mairtín ina cheannaire againn uilig agus ina chara againn uilig.

“Martin was a leader to all of us. He was a friend to all of us and he will be a huge loss to all of us.

“He was a man of great passion: passion for his family and passion for his country. And he gave everything he could to both.

“To his family – Bernie, Grainne, Fionnuala, Emmet, Fiachra, the grand kids and the wider McGuinness clan – we know you are hurting.

“And we are forever thankful to you for the many sacrifices you have made down through the many long and difficult years of struggle.

“I hope that you can take some comfort from the way that Martin touched the lives of so many people, in how he is revered by so many for his contribution to building a new and united Ireland.

“He inspired us, he challenged us, he led from the front. He didn’t just make followers – he made other leaders.

“I’m proud to say he was my good friend.

Two months ago to this day, on 23 January, he held a press conference in Stormont where he announced he was passing on the mantle to me as our new leader in the North.

“On that day, I felt I was the proudest woman in Ireland. Proud to have learned from the best,

‘I was the proudest woman in Ireland – proud to have been asked to take over from a man that I spent my whole life looking up to but, most of all, I was proud of him’ proud to have been asked to take over from a man that I spent my whole life looking up to but, most of all, I was proud of him.

5 Michelle O’Neill

“However, Martin didn’t just talk about republican ideals – he lived his life by them each and every day through his actions.

“We didn’t know then that, just two months later, we would be standing here today, supporting his family and laying our comrade to rest.

And our hearts are aching.

“Much has been said about Martin over the last few days: the depth of the man that he was.

The journey that he was on has been discussed by many.

“He was not a man of two sides. He was one

man, with one struggle, with one aspiration: a Republic of Equals.

“His legacy will live on in our hearts and in our actions.

“We will build on all of his work. He has laid the solid foundations.

“He is now a guardian of our struggle and takes his place alongside the iconic republican leaders of the ages: Tone, Pearse, Connolly, Sands, Drumm and so many others.

“They have never left us. And Martin never will.

“Go raibh maith agat, Martin.”

5 Belfast vigil for Martin

5 Martina Anderson MEP, Marty Lynch and Pat Doherty MP place the Tricolour on Martin's coffin

5 Martin's family carry him home

5 Arriving in the City Cemetery

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5 Martin McGuinness (centre) at an early Civil Rights march in Derry

5 1982: Campaigning in the Assembly election

5 2006: Remembering the Hunger Strikers

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5 1981: Martin at the funeral of H-Blocks Hunger Striker Kieran Doherty TD

5 Meeting Nelson Mandela in South Africa

5 2011: Martin McGuinness with wife Bernie and sons Fiachra and Emmet at the end of his President of Ireland election rally

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Gerry Adams’s oration at the funeral of Martin McGuinness

From the barricades of Free Derry to building peace out of conflict THOSE OF US who knew Martin are proud of his achievements. Of his humanity and compassion.

Martin was a formidable person of the rarest kind – one who did extraordinary things in extraordinary times.

He would not be surprised at the commentary from some quarters about him and his life.

He would be the first to say that these people are entitled to their opinions. In particular, those who suffered at the hands of the IRA. But let me take issue with those in the editorial rooms or in their political ivory towers who denounce Martin McGuinness as a terrorist.

Mar a dúirt An Piarsach at the grave of another Fenian – the fools, the fools, the fools.

Martin cannot answer them back.

So let me answer for him.

Martin McGuinness was not a terrorist.

Martin McGuinness was a freedom fighter.

He was also a political prisoner, a negotiator, a peacemaker, a healer.

And while he has a passion for politics, he was not one-dimensional. He had many interests – nature, spirituality, cooking, fly-fishing, story-telling. He was a good writer. He was a decent poet with a special place in his heart for Seamus Heaney and Patrick Kavanagh.

He enjoyed sports of all kinds – football and hurling,cricket, golf, rugby, soccer.

He especially loved having the space to have time with Bernie and their clann.

That’s what grounded Martin McGuinness.

Martin was born into an Orange State which did not want him or his kind Bhí Martin ina chara mór acu siúd uilig a bhí ag troid ar son na saoirse ar fud an domhain.

He was a friend to those engaged in the struggles for justice across the globe.

And he travelled widely, promoting the imperative of peacemaking – in the Basque Country and Colombia, the Middle East, including Iraq.

I want to welcome here today the Ambassadors of Palestine and Cuba.

He travelled to South Africa to meet Nelson Mandela and others in the ANC leadership, as well as in the National Party, to learn from their experience.

Martin was also a man who was, in many ways, very ordinary. Particularly in his habits and personal lifestyle.

Like many other Derry ‘wans’, Martin grew up in a city in which Catholics were victims of widespread political and economic discrimination.

He was born into an Orange State which did not want him or his kind.

Poverty was endemic. I remember him telling me that he was surprised when his father – a quiet, modest church-going man – marched in the civil rights campaign here in Derry.

The Orange State’s violent suppression of that civil rights campaign, the Battle of the Bogside and the emerging conflict propelled Martin into a life less ordinary.

Bhuail muid don chéaduair blianta fada ó shin i nDoire Saor. Is cairde agus comrádaithe sinn ó shin.

5 Michelle O'Neill, Mary Lou McDonald and Gerry Adams say farewell to Martin We first met, 45 years ago, behind the barricades

of Free Derry. We have been friends and comrades ever since.

From time spent on the run, to imprisonment in Mountjoy, the Curragh, Portlaoise and Belfast prisons, through his time as Northern Education Minister and later deputy First Minister (along with Ian Paisley, then Peter Robinson and then Arlene Foster), Martin made an unparalleled journey.

Reading and watching some of the media reports of his life and death in recent days one could be forgiven for believing that Martin, at some undefined point in his life, had a ‘Road to Damascus’ conversion – abandoned his republican principles, his former comrades in the IRA, and joined the political establishment.

To suggest this is to miss the truth of his leadership and the essence of his humanity.

There was not a bad Martin McGuinness or a good Martin McGuinness.

There was simply a man, like every other decent man or woman, doing their best in very difficult circumstances.

He resisted by armed actions those who withheld these rights, and then he helped shape conditions in which it was possible to advocate for these entitlements by unarmed strategies Martin believed in freedom and equality.

He resisted by armed actions those who withheld these rights, and then he helped shape conditions in which it was possible to advocate for these entitlements by unarmed strategies.

Throughout it all, Martin remained committed to the same ideals that led to his becoming a republican activist in the first instance – the pursuit of Irish unification, freedom, equality and respect for all.

Martin believed that the British Government’s involvement in Ireland, and the partition of our island, are at the root of our divisions.

He was absolutely one hundred per cent right about that.

The British Government has no right whatsoever to have any involvement in Ireland.

Along with others of like mind he understood the importance of building a popular, democratic, radical republican party across this island.

He especially realised that negotiations and politics were another form of struggle.

In this way he helped chart a new course, a different strategy.

This involved taking difficult initiatives to make political advances.

Our political objectives and our republican principles and ideals did not change.

On the contrary, these guided us through every twist and turn of the peace process.

Thanks to Martin we now live in a very different Ireland, which has been changed utterly.

We live in a society in transition.

The future can now be decided by us.

It should never be decided for us.

Without Martin there could not have been the type of peace process we’ve had.

Much of the change we now take for granted

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5 Martin's family in St Columba's Church, Long Tower: Emmet, Fiachra, Fionnuala, Gráinne and Bernie

could not have been achieved without Martin McGuinness.

In my view, the key is in never giving up.

That was Martin’s mantra also.

He was also tough, assertive and unmovable when that was needed. Dogmatic at times.

Wimps don’t make good negotiators – neither do so-called hard men. Martin learned the need for flexibility. His contribution to the evolution of republican thinking was enormous, as was his popularising of republican ideals.

Over many years of working together, Martin and I both realised that advances in struggle require creativity and imagination and a willingness to take initiatives.

Martin embraced that challenge and he didn’t just talk about change – he delivered it.

He once said: “When change begins, and we have the confidence to embrace it as an opportunity and a friend, and show honest and positive leadership, then so much is possible.”

Bhí sé ina ábhar mór bróid agam chun Martin a

From being on the run to imprisonment to deputy First Minister – along with Ian Paisley, then Peter Robinson and then Arlene Foster – Martin made an unparalleled, astonishing journey ainmniú mar an chéad Aire Oideachais i ndiaidh Chomhaontú Aoine an Chéasta.

It was a source of great pride for me following the Good Friday Agreement to nominate Martin as the North’s Minister for Education.

It was a position he embraced, putting equality and fairness into practice in the Department of Education, seeking to end the 11-Plus and improve outcomes for children and to bring about the most radical overhaul of the education system since partition.

In 2007, he became deputy First Minister and an equal partner to Ian Paisley in Government.

They forged a friendship that illustrated to all the progress we have made on the island of Ireland.

His reconciliation and outreach work, and his work on behalf of victims and for peace, in Ireland and internationally, have been justifiably widely applauded.

As part of that work, Martin met Queen Elizabeth of England several times.

He did so while very conscious of the criticism this might provoke. He would be the first to acknowledge that some republicans and nationalists were discommoded at times by his efforts to reach out the hand of friendship.

That is the real test of leadership – to reach out beyond your own base.

It is a test that Martin passed every time.

Some unionist leaders were discommoded also at the sight of their queen greeting Martin or, on another occasion, using a cúpla focail or bowing in salute to the men and women of 1916.

These are symbolic gestures but they are important nonetheless.

As Martin pointed out in his letter of resignation on January 9th: “The equality, mutual respect and all-Ireland approaches enshrined in the Good Friday Agreement have never been fully embraced by the DUP. Apart from the negative attitude to nationalism and to the Irish identity and culture, there has been a shameful disrespect towards many other sections of our community.”

I quote this more in sadness than anger.

And I try to understand why this is so.

That’s what Martin did.

So, here at the graveside of this good man, let me appeal to our unionist neighbours.

Let us learn to like each other, to be friends, to celebrate and enjoy our differences and to do so on the basis of common sense, respect and tolerance for each other and everyone else – as equals.

Let me appeal also to nationalists and republicans – do nothing to disrespect our unionist neighbours or anyone else.

Stand against bigotry, against sectarianism,

but respect our unionist neighbours. Reach out to them. Lead, as Martin led, by example.

By little acts of kindness and generosity.

Is féidir linne bheith iontach bródúil as Martin.

Is duine é de na fir agus de na mná iontacha sin a sheas an fód ar son saoirse na hÉireann.

We can be very proud of Martin. He is another of those great and remarkable men and women who have stood up for Irish freedom and for what they believed to be right.

Martin believed that a better Ireland, a genuinely new Ireland, is possible. He rejected any suggestion that gender or race or class or skin colour or disability or sexual orientation or religion should exclude citizens from their full rights and entitlements.

That is a legacy we must build upon.

Of course, much progress has been made, not least in the numerous lives saved in the last 20 years. Nevertheless, Irish republicans know that a long, long road, with many twists and turns, still lies ahead.

It’s all about rights . . .

Civil rights. Human rights. Religious rights.

Language rights. LGBT rights. Social and economic rights. Rights for women. National rights.The right to freedom.

These rights can’t be left to any political party.

If you want an Acht na Gaeilge campaign for it.

Ná habair é. Dean é.

If you want a Bill of Rights, campaign for that.

If you want marriage equality, mobilise for that.

If you want freedom, go out and take it.

Organise. Mobilise. Unite for your rights.

That is the challenge facing us – to build a mass movement for positive change across all 32 counties of our island. And for all our people.

5 Martin's funeral passes by the Bloody Sunday and Battle of the Bogside murals

Facing that challenge we are the stronger because of Martin.

So don’t mourn. Celebrate and organise. That’s what Martin would want.

He exemplified all that is decent and fair about our republican ideology and our core values of freedom, equality and solidarity. It is now over to us to take the struggle from where he has left it.

Like Bobby Sands, he believed that our revenge should be the laughter of our children.

By his example he showed us that it is possible to build peace out of conflict, to build a better and more equal future based on fairness, and to build unity out of division.

Let us learn to like each other, to be friends, to celebrate and enjoy our differences and to do so on the basis of common sense, respect and tolerance for each other and everyone else – as equals Martin will continue to inspire and encourage us in the time ahead.

Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam dílis. Ní bheidh a leithéid arís ann.

I never thought I would be giving this oration today. Martin was looking forward so much to stepping back in May from public office. This wasn’t to be but his was a life well lived.

That is little consolation to Bernie and her clann today but we pray that she and they in the time ahead will take comfort from the happy times they enjoyed with Martin.

He said Bernie was his rock many times during his illness, “My Rock of Cashel”, he told me. “I am lucky to have her.”

Bernie was also lucky to have him. So were the rest of us.

We also loved him.

Thank you, Bernie, for sharing Martin with us.

He will be missed by many but you will miss him more than anyone else.

Farewell, Martin.

Slán, a chara, slán go deo.

We thank Martin McGuinness.

He was a rebel – up the rebels!

We salute Martin McGuinness.

We applaud Martin McGuinness.

Up the Republic!

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Mary Lou McDonald TD, Sinn Féin deputy leader, in the Dáil, 21 March 2017

‘A worker for reconciliation, a champion of peace’ ABOVE anything else, Martin McGuinness was a proud Derryman. There is no doubt that his childhood and young life in the Bogside formed him, shaped him and defined his character.

Martin was born in 1950 into an Orange, discriminatory state. He, his family and his kind were regarded as second-class citizens.

They endured terror. Martin, a person of courage, chose to stand up and be counted.

He chose to fight injustice. He chose to fight back. I know that he felt a deep sense of personal responsibility to defend Derry and his community.

Martin joined the IRA. He never resiled from his ambition or his duty to defend his city. He felt a sense of responsibility to fight back because terror was brought to the streets of his city.

In later years, Martin would show that same courage again and again, and not least as chief negotiator on behalf of our political party in crafting and delivering the Good Friday Agreement and the agreements which followed.

In bringing forward that work, Martin demonstrated not just his courage, but his considerable political skills, personality and ability to build bridges and work with others. He always believed that, whatever the odds, a good outcome was possible. In the course of his work, he demonstrated that to be true.

As Minister for Education, Martin handled and tackled the issue of educational inequality head-on when he took on the 11-Plus. In taking

on the 11-Plus, he took on large sections of the educational establishment and the establishment more generally. Martin believed that every person was born equal and that every child deserved equality of opportunity.

Perhaps it is in his role as deputy First Minister for ten years that Martin’s star shone most brightly. In reaching not just a partnership but a deep personal friendship with the late Ian Paisley and in his work with Peter Robinson and – let it be said – Arlene Foster, Martin demonstrated

Martin visited the Somme – he did this work sincerely, not for show or headlines but because he believed and knew it was the right thing to do not just by words but by deeds his intention, ability and resolve to build peace. He famously met Queen Elizabeth for the first occasion. I thought they hit it off rather well, which I said to him at the time.

Martin visited the Somme and I accompanied him on one such trip. He developed very strong personal ties and relationships with many

5 Comrades: Gerry Adams, Mary Lou McDonald and Michelle O’Neill carry the coffin of Martin McGuinness

5 Martin McGuinness with Gerry Adams and Mary Lou McDonald in Navan, County Meath

people from what is termed the other side of the community.

He did this work sincerely, not for show or headlines but because he believed and knew it was the right thing to do. All the while, Martin never lost his essence as an Irish republican.

His absolute commitment to Irish unity, justice and full democracy on the island of Ireland remained undimmed and it was never dimmed by his ability to reach out the hand of friendship to the other side.

Martin McGuinness was an international as well as a domestic figure, an outstanding statesman and proud republican, a worker for reconciliation, a champion of peace, an IRA Volunteer, a

risk-taker and a hope giver.

He was also a committed family man who made it his business to return home each and every evening that he was in the Assembly in Belfast.

He was immensely proud of his children, Fiachra, Fionnuala, Gráinne and Emmet, his grandchildren and his wider family. Martin never missed an opportunity to tell the story of and praise his clan. He loved his wife, Bernie, who was, without doubt, the centre of his world. Today, we offer Bernie and the rest of Martin’s family our deep condolences.

We, on these benches, have lost not just a leader but a friend. We will never see his likes again. Ní bheidh a leithéid arís ann.

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5 Passing the Hunger Strike mural

5 Former US President Bill Clinton embraces Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams TD at the funeral

5 The start of the huge funeral cortege

Eoin Ó Broin TD

Martin McGuinness – The beating heart of Irish republicanism IT IS HARD to put into words the deep sense of loss that Irish republicans are feeling.

The untimely passing of Martin McGuinness has left a hole in our political world.

Martin was not just a colleague. He was at the very centre of our political gravity. With his calm determination he inspired, encouraged and led in equal measure.

My first real encounter with Martin was on a trip to Westminster with Gerry Adams in 1997.

The two newly-elected MPs were travelling deep into enemy territory.

I was a fly on the wall for An Phoblacht as they sought to rebuild a peace process faltering on the rocks of unionist intransigence and British indifference.

As a wide-eyed young activist I caught an up-close glimpse of these two towering figures of Irish politics at a crucial moment in our country’s history.

They had a relationship that was unique, borne of long periods of time working together during the dark days of conflict.

When talking together between meetings, their conversations were thoughtful, exploring every option, asking others for opinions – even those of us with little knowledge or experience of the huge matters at stake in the day’s engagements.

Gerry’s great gift of strategic foresight was bolstered by Martin’s gut instinct, his intuitive sense of where we as a political movement were

at and where we could go.

Both men were determined to take risks to advance our struggle for a united, just and peaceful Ireland.

The challenge was always in finding the balance between the level of risk and the rate of return – and to do this in a way that brought all of us with them while earning the respect of opponents on both sides of the Irish Sea. I have no doubt that in those years of high-stakes risk taking, things would have been much more difficult without Martin.

His Sinn Féin Ard Fheis speeches in the years surrounding the Good Friday Agreement were always calming. He spoke from and to the base

With his calm determination he inspired, encouraged and led in equal measure of our movement. He was listened to because he was always at the front line. He was the beating heart of Irish republicanism.

Contrary to the narrative of some, there was only ever one Martin McGuinness. Throughout his life he displayed the same bravery, determination and commitment no matter the circumstances.

Indeed, that strength and continuity of character played no small part in changing those

5 Not just a funeral but a celebration of Martin's life

circumstances from days of loss and pain to days of hope and possibility.

When his neighbours marched peacefully for civil rights, he marched with them. When his friends were beaten and shot off those same streets, he stood up to defend them. When war arrived uninvited to his doorstep, he did not flinch.

But when risks were required to bring peace and reconciliation, he was not found wanting.

As Minister for Education he challenged inequality. As deputy First Minister he fostered reconciliation.

The breath and warmth of the tributes paid to Martin and his family are testament to the strength and depth of his character.

They are, whether people know it or not, a testament to everything that is noble in our political tradition.

The republican commitment to equality demands that we strive to understand others, especially those who do not share our worldview.

There is a compassion embedded in the republican principle of solidarity, a generosity that flows from our embrace of liberty and freedom.

Martin didn’t just understand these things.

He practised them every single day. He never wavered in his commitment to realise a united, just and peaceful Ireland yet always demonstrated an ability to engage, listen and seek agreement for the greater good.

There will be many tributes paid to Martin in the coming days from people who knew him far longer and much better than I did.

But having been witness to his selfless pursuit of the Republic during my 20 years in Sinn Féin, I can say only this – if at the end of my political life I achieve a tiny fraction of what Martin has achieved it will have been a life well lived.

Martin, we miss you deeply. Your absence will never be filled but your life will continue to inspire our generation of republicans to realise the goals that you fought so hard to achieve.

5 The funeral of Martin McGuinness