An Phoblacht, August 2015

LOVE/HATE'S

SHOCKER FOR FG/LABOUR

JOHN CONNORS

EOIN Ó BROIN

The

Hooded Men

Behind the torture

reports from Athens

anphoblacht I may die but the Republic of 1916 will never die.

Onward to that Republic and the liberation of our people

Sraith Nua Iml 38 Uimhir 8

August / Lúnasa 2015

BOBBY SAN DS

Price €2 / £2

2 August / Lúnasa 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

5 Public opposition – Figures released in July show that just 43% of households have paid Water Charges

WATER CHARGES Will Sinn Féin scrap Water Charges if in Government?

Q& A WITH

MARK MOLONEY

PEARSE DOHERTY

economic, environmental and societal and community interests which serve both the public service and the public interest, and including the workforce.

Yes. Sinn Féin’s message is clear, if in Government – we will abolish household Water Charges.

To those that have refused to pay or are considering not paying, this means that if Sinn Féin forms part of the next government we will not pursue any citizen or household who has not paid.

We will repeal the draconian legislation forced through the Oireachtas by the Fine Gael and Labour majority and put this saga in the dustbin of history where it belongs.

The Government says it wouldn’t be possible to scrap Water Charges or get rid of Irish Water because of the sheer cost to the taxpayer.

The Labour Party says there are Water Charges in the North, where Sinn Féin is in Government. Is Sinn Féin giving mixed messages?

There are no Water Charges in the North.

This is a lie continuously peddled by the Labour Party as it attempts to distract from its own U-turn on this issue.

Attempts to force water charges on citizens in the North by British direct rule ministers were succesfully blocked

by Sinn Féin’s then Regional Development Minister, Conor Murphy. We did this because taxpayers were already

Sinn Féin in Government – we will abolish household Water Charges paying for these services (as we are here in this state) through general taxation.

Sinn Féin also ruled out any future privatisation of these critical public services by ensuring that the Executive, under the Department for Regional Development, remained the sole shareholder of the newly-established utility

company, NI Water. Because of this, households in the North save – and this is according to the Utility Regulator – an average of €490 per year.

Gerry Kelly MLA has asked the Regional Development Minister to bring forward new legislation to ban water meters in the North.

What about water meters in the North?

Would Sinn Féin get rid of Irish Water?

A legal requirement introduced under direct rule (before Sinn Féin blocked Water Charges) requires all new homes to be fitted with water meters. The meters are not read by NI Water but continue to record the consumption for individual properties.

Sinn Féin has been very clear in its opposition to water charges and

Yes. Sinn Féin in Government would dismantle Irish Water and replace it with a new model of governance, funding and delivery within full public ownership and democratic control and accountability.

What is required is a public water company that is not Irish Water.

We need a public sector water service which is directly accountable to the

We will repeal the draconian legislation forced through the Oireachtas and put this saga in the dustbin of history where it belongs Environment Minister and both should be accountable to the Houses of the Oireachtas.

We want a water service that is managed by a publicly-appointed board which is fairly balanced to represent the

The Government used its usual scare tactics against those of us who advocate abolishing Water Charges. They said it would leave an €800million hole in our budget and deficit targets couldn’t be reached. Now their bluff has been called as a result of the Eurostat ruling on 28 July that Irish Water is not a standalone company and money spent on it must be included in national debt.

The Eurostat ruling proved Sinn Féin's analysis to be correct.

This is a nightmare for Fine Gael and Labour.

The ruling means that borrowings by Irish Water is now deemed as Government borrowing yet Irish Water has borrowings of €850million which can rise to €2billion, mostly from commercial sources at rates higher than what the Government is paying for its borrowings.

This is simply money down the drain.

The whole argument against our calls to abolish Irish Water is now gone.

Enda Kenny should now accept defeat.

He should scrap Irish Water and Water Charges once and for all.

If the Government keeps with its plan to charge for water and to keep Irish Water off balance sheet it will need to scrap the so-called Water Conservation Grant (which is seen as a direct subsidy to Irish Water from the Government via households) or increase charges.

Either way, it will be the customer that pays and the public must be made aware of this.

With current levels of non-payment it is now economically beneficial to the state to scrap Irish Water and stop Water Charges.

August / Lúnasa 2015

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3

McGuinness meets White House on Stormont crisis

BY JOHN HEDGES AS WE GO TO PRINT, Sinn Féin MLA and deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness is returning to Ireland from a two-day visit to the United States to win support for a resolution to the crisis threatening the political institutions in the North.

His meetings included talks with senior US Government officials at the White House and State Department, and with the influential Congressional Friends of Ireland Committee.

He also briefed campaigners and supporters of the Peace Process in Washington DC and New York.

The Sinn Féin Chief Negotiator said: “The institutions of the Good Friday Agreement, which have underpinned the Irish Peace Process for almost two decades, are facing crisis.

“This is an extremely grave situation and I urge all those with a stake in this process to make every effort to find a resolution which secures the power-sharing administration.”

“In order to redress this crisis, we require an imaginative and innovative solution, which recognises the particular challenges faced by

our administration. That means ensuring the institutions are politically and economically viable and able to meet the needs of a society emerging from a long and bitter conflict.

“To date, that has not been forthcoming from

‘The institutions of the Good Friday Agreement, which have underpinned the Irish Peace Process for almost two decades, are facing crisis’ DEPUTY FIRST MINISTER MARTIN McGUINNESS

the British Government and they need to be persuaded that a new approach is required.

“It is my hope that the US administration, which has been a key ally since the inception of the Peace Process, can help convince the British Government of the gravity of the current situation and to end their current approach which

5 Martin McGuinness with Congressman Richie Neal: The deputy First Minister told senior State Department officials at the White House we are facing a 'real crisis'

threatens to undermine the incredible progress we have made.”

At Stormont, Sinn Féin MLA Conor Murphy hit back at a call by British Secretary of State for all political parties to implement the Stormont House Agreement. He described the Tory minister’s call as “ludicrous when her government is continually undermining the political institutions through cuts to the block grant”.

Villiers is due to follow Martin McGuinness’s visit to the US. Conor Murphy added: “If Theresa Villiers is serious about ensuring

the Executive has sustainable and workable finances then her government needs to provide the resources.”

He said the British Government is not an independent broker in all of this and cannot stand back and attempt to pass the blame.

“It has a responsibility to step up to the plate.

“Instead of austerity policies from the British Government we need to see investment which would allow the Executive to grow the economy and protect the vulnerable and frontline public services.”

IRISH WATER FIASCO

European ruling leaves Government with egg on its face

BY MARK MOLONEY

‘From the get go, Irish Water has lurched from blunder to disaster, highlighting the complete incompetence of the Fine Gael/Labour Government’ MATT CARTHY MEP

THE Fine Gael and Labour Government has been left with “egg on its face” after a ruling by European statistics agency Eurostat on 28 July found that Irish Water cannot be considered a standalone company and therefore it cannot be kept off the Government’s balance sheet.

The Government was required to prove that at least half of Irish Water’s income was from customers but with 57% of households not paying the charge, and the use of the Government’s so-called Water Conservation Grant being seen as an indirect subsidy from the Government to Irish Water, the company has failed abysmally. Now more than €500million spent on the utility must be included in the state’s ‘national debt’.

Reacting to the ruling, Sinn Féin Finance spokesperson Pearse Doherty TD said: “This has proven Sinn Féin right. The Government is now left with egg on its face as it argued, time and again, that its plan would pass the Eurostat test.”

Meanwhile, Midlands North West MEP Matt Carthy (who is a member

5 The Fine Gael/Labour Government's Water Charges have been roundly rejected by the public

of the EU’s Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee) said the ruling, coupled with the rejection of Water Charges by the public, means there

is no longer any economic argument for keeping Irish Water: “From the get go, Irish Water has lurched from blunder to disaster,

highlighting the complete incompetence of the Fine Gael/Labour Government. I truly believe that this ruling will be the final nail in the coffin for the utility.”

4 August / Lúnasa 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

anphoblacht Editorial

WHAT'S INSIDE 14

Lessons for us from progressive movements in Spain and Greece – Julien Mercille in Building an Alternative 19

Julia Carney is back – 'The Greatest Political Leader Ireland Has Ever Known' 21 & 22

Professor Richard English and Community Relations Council's Peter Osborne on 'Uncomfortable Conversations' 26

Belfast to Bahrain – Human rights activist Oisín Mac Canna on Government collusion in targeting protesters 27

anphoblacht Eagarfhocal

anphoblacht

THE NATIONAL HUNGER STRIKE COMMEMORATION THE HUNGER STRIKE is the pinnacle of resistance demonstrated

by Irish republican prisoners down the decades of Irish history.

It epitomises in the wider public imagination that spirit of resistance shown by all Irish political prisoners – women as well as men – who continued their struggle behind prison bars and barbed wire. From Wolfe Tone and O'Donovan Rossa to the men and women of Easter 1916, through the Tan War and Civil War, and throughout the most recent phase of the conflict from 1969, including the Blanket Protests and Hunger Strikes in Armagh Women's Prison and the H-Blocks of Long Kesh, the indomitable courage of prisoners 'in the belly of the beast' shone through in the face of unremitting physical and psychological brutality.

The importance to the British state of winning the prison struggle can be seen down the centuries, from those prison governors who persecuted O'Donovan Rossa through to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who ruthlessly prosecuted a prison regime that led to the deaths on hunger strike of Member of Parliament Bobby Sands and nine of his comrades.

Today, the struggle of those men and women continues to inspire Irish republicans, as it does Palestinian prisoners and countless thousands across the globe.

We pay tribute to the Hunger Strikers, the Blanket Men, the women in Armagh and Limerick, the prisoners in Mountjoy and Portlaoise, in England and all over the world who fought not only for political status but for a new society based on social and economic justice in a free Ireland.

Sinn Féin continues that fight.

28

Gerry Adams and that IRA raid on the Irish Independent – Press Council rules against the Indo 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 newspaper posted online weekly and An Phoblacht’s/IRIS the republican magazine archives

FRANCIS HUGHES (25) DIED ON 12th MAY 1981

RAYMOND McCREESH (24) DIED ON 21st MAY 1981

National Hunger strike Commemoration

1981 Long Kesh MICHAEL DEVINE (27) DIED ON 20th AUGUST 1981

THOMAS McELWEE (27) DIED ON 8th AUGUST 1981

KIERAN DOHERTY (25) DIED ON 2nd AUGUST 1981

The

2.15pm Sunday 23rd August Dundalk

2015 Dundalk

PATSY O'HARA (23) DIED ON 21st MAY 1981

JOE McDONNELL (30) DIED ON 8th JULY 1981

KEVIN LYNCH (25) DIED ON 1st AUGUST 1981

MARTIN HURSON (29) DIED ON 13th JULY 1981

Rhythm of Time

It died in blood on Buffalo Plains, And starved by moons of rain, Its heart was buried in Wounded Knee, But it will come to rise again.

It lit fires when fires were not, And burnt the mind of man, Tempering leadened hearts to steel, From the time that time began.

It marched with Wat the Tyler’s poor, And frightened lord and king, And it was emblazoned in their deathly stare, As e’er a living thing.

It is found in every light of hope, It knows no bounds nor space, It has risen in red and black and white, It is there in every race.

It wept by the waters of Babylon, And when all men were a loss, It screeched in writhing agony, And it hung bleeding from the Cross.

It smiled in holy innocence, Before conquistadors of old, So meek and tame and unaware, Of the deathly power of gold.

It lies in the hearts of heroes dead, It screams in tyrants’ eyes, It has reached the peak of mountains high, It comes searing ‘cross the skies.

It died in Rome by lion and sword, And in defiant cruel array, When the deathly word was ‘Spartacus’ Along the Appian Way.

It burst forth through pitiful Paris streets, And stormed the old Bastille, And marched upon the serpent’s head, And crushed it ‘neath its heel.

It lights the dark of this prison cell, It thunders forth its might, It is ‘the undauntable thought’, my friend, That thought that says ‘I’m right!’

There’s an inner thing in every man, Do you know this thing my friend?

It has withstood the blows of a million years, And will do so to the end.

Mainstream media misreporting Greece

BOBBY SANDS (26) DIED ON 5th MAY 1981

It was born when time did not exist, And it grew up out of life, It cut down evil’s strangling vines, Like a slashing searing knife.

Contact

BY BOBBY SANDS

Layout and production: Mark Dawson production@anphoblacht.com

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

It screamed aloud by Kerry lakes, As it was knelt upon the ground, And it died in great defiance, As they coldly shot it down.

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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August / Lúnasa 2015

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5

Le Trevor Ó Clochartaigh Dá mba aisteoir ‘Bearla’ é bheadh i bhfad níos mó cainte faoi

Slán le Séamus Mhicil Tom BAINEADH stangadh asam le déanaí nuair a chuala mé go raibh Diarmuid Mac an Adhastair básaithe. Bheadh aithne ag formhór Gaeilgeoirí na tíre ar Dhiarmuid as a pháirt mar Shéamuis Mhicil Tom sa sobaldhrama ar TG4 – Ros na Rún.

An rud a bhuail mé ná, dá mba aisteoir i saol an Bhéarla a bhí ann bheadh scéal i bhfad níos mó déanta faoi agus cáil domhanda bainte amach aige b’fhéidir – ach ós rud é gur aisteoir i ‘mionteanga’ é, ní amhlaidh atá.

Ní raibh fhios agam go raibh sé tinn. Ach, thuig mé láithreach nuair a chuala mé gur cailleadh é go raibh deireadh ré tagtha. Chaith mé féin thart ar 12 bliain ag obair leis ar an dráma teilifíse úd, a bhfuil an scór bliain bainte amach i mbliana acu agus bhí ‘Séamús’ i lár an aonaigh ar feadh an ama sin.

D’oibrigh mé le Fair City chomh maith agus le h-aisteoirí a raibh cáil mhór bainte amach acu sna meáin Bhéarla. Ach, bhí aisteoirí na Gaeilge ar a laghad chomh maith, muna raibh siad níos fearr, i mbun na ceirde. Buntáiste breise na Gaeilge dar liom – saibhreas teanga, cultúr agus pearsantacht nach bhfaigheann tú le h-aisteoirí aon-teanga. Sampla iontach dó sin ab ea Diarmuid.

Cé nach raibh Diarmuid ach bliain déag agus trí scór nuair a cailleadh é, cheapfá go raibh sé an aois sin le blianta fada roimhe sin! Bhí cuma an tseanleaid air le fada, agus sin ceann de na cúiseanna a raibh an oiread gean ag lucht féachana TG4 air. Ba é saol, seanórach, traidisiúnta Chonamara curtha i láthair i gcorp duine é. Bhí a mhacasamhail de sheanduine i chuile bhaile fearainn i gConamara tráth, ach fararor ní ann do morán díbh a thuilleadh.

Aon duine a raibh aithne acu ar an bhfear, bhí fhios acu go raibh i bhfad níos mo ag baint leis

IN PICTURES

le radharcanna troma agus brónacha. Agus bhreathnódh sé nádurtha agus éasca i gcónai dó. Comhartha scoth an cheardaí.

Deir sé liom uair amháin go raibh sé ag baint an oiread taitneamh as páirt Shéamus i Ros na Rún agus gur airigh sé go raibh sé ag cleachtadh don pháirt ar feadh a shaoil agus é i mbun teach ósta i mBéal a’Daingean. É ag éisteacht leis na seanleaids uilig cois cuntar, bhí sé ag déanamh nótaí ina chloigeann do na geáitsí, na nathanna cainte agus eile agus d’úsáid sé cuid mhaith díobh le linn a chuid aisteoireachta. Ní

D’airigh sé go raibh sé ag cleachtadh don pháirt ar feadh a shaoil agus é i mbun teach ósta

an bhfear ná a chuid aisteoireachta sa bpáirt úd.

Tabhairneoir, ceardaí, cumadóir agus cara dlúth.

Chas mise le Diarmuid don chéad uair agus mé i mo mhacléinn óg agus muid beirt páirteach i ndráma sa Taibhdearc i nGaillimh. Ina dhiaidh sin bhí sé de phribhléid agam oibriú leis go minic agus mé i mo léiritheoir agus stiúrthóir amharclainne agus teilifíse.

Níor airigh mé droch fhocal ariamh ag aon duine do Dhiarmuid. Cé go mba mhinic leis ag aisteoireacht mar sheanduine, cantalach a raibh dúil san ól agus san achrann aige – ní amhlaidh a bhí an fear féin. Duine chomh gairmiuil ní

chasfaí ort in aon áit. I gconaí in am. I gcónai dírithe ar an jab le déanamh. I gcónaí cabhrach do chuile dhuine thimpeall air. Mar a deirtear – ‘corp an duine uasail’.

Ní shin le rá nach raibh féith na diabhlaiochta go láidir ann agus ba mhinic leis ag baint as an dream a bhí thimpeall air. Agus áit ar bith a mbíodh Diarmuid, bhíodh neart gáire le cloisteáil ina chomhluadar.

Chuirfeadh a chasadh féin ar aon scriopt a thugtaí dó. Bhí sé thar a bheith greannmhar agus ba mhinic an lucht feachana lagtha ag gáire faoi, ach bhí sé thar barr freisin ag déileáil

fhéadfá an cineál sin a fhoghlaim i scoil aisteoireachta san Ardchathair, agus b’fhéidir gurb shin an difríocht?

Níl aon amhras orm dá mba i mBéarla a chuaigh Diarmuid i mbun a cheirde go bhféadfadh oiread cáil a bheith bainte amach aige le leithéidí Cyril Cusack, John Hurt agus David Kelly. Ach, chloí sé lena theanga dúchais agus ba saibhre muidne mar phobal dá bharr.

Scaipfear a chuid luaithre ag searmánas clainne as seo go ceann cupla seachtain agus níl aon dabht go mbeidh cumha an-mhór ar a chlann, a chairde agus a chuid leantóirí uilig ina dhiaidh.

B’fhéidir gur chóir dúinn an ócáid a úsáid mar deis chun machnamh a dhéanamh ar aitheantas níos mó a thabhairt dá chomhleacaithe atá ag treabhadh leo, ag aisteoireacht i nGaeilge.

photos@anphoblacht.com

5 Derry marks one year since the Israeli onslaught against the besieged Gaza strip – Pictured is veteran republican Mary Nelis, a long-time campaigner for the rights of Palestinian people 5 It's Féile Time – Launch of the annual funfest Féile an Phobail in Belfast's iconic Conway Mill

6 August / Lúnasa 2015 WHEN An Phoblacht’s PEADAR WHELAN reviewed Collusion, the special feature-length RTÉ television documentary broadcast on 15 June, he concluded that for people to fully understand the implications of collusion between the British Government, the British Army, British Intelligence and RUC and unionist death squads, they must look at the “thread of continuity” that runs through successive British administrations, the Civil Service and the Intelligence services as well as the judicial and legal apparatus.

In June, the remaining 12 of the 14 nationalists known as ‘The Hooded Men’ were given leave by the High Court in Belfast to seek a judicial review against the British Government and the PSNI Chief Constable over their failure to properly investigate their case and order a full inquiry.

Peadar Whelan now contends that to fully grasp the implications of an open inquiry into the treatment of those detained during the British Army’s Operation Demetrius in 1971, it is crucial to look at it in the “historical continuity” of British colonial practice in suppressing national liberation movements, particularly in Kenya, Malaya, Aden and Cyprus.

www.anphoblacht.com

The

Hooded Men

‘The Guinea Pigs’

g n i l a e v e R h t u r t e h t e h t d n i beh torture

The end of ‘The Honeymoon Period’ As the conflict in the North intensified through 1970 and 1971, especially after the Falls Curfew when more than 3,000 British soldiers were deployed to seal off and search the Lower Falls area of Belfast, the British Army went from being hailed by the media as “protectors” of the beleaguered nationalist population to being aggressors and oppressors.

During the operation, the British military killed four men, wrecked scores of homes and arrested dozens of residents, leading to the end of the ‘honeymoon period’ when “squaddies were welcomed with tea and biscuits”.

A resurgent IRA, with popular support, was fast becoming a bulwark defending nationalists from the worst excesses of state forces and their unionist mob and paramilitary allies.

Against a background that saw the IRA setting the political agenda, there were demands from within unionism and from the British Right for action to defeat the IRA. Given the success of internment in the decades since partition, when it was employed simultaneously by both unionist and Dublin governments, it became clear that the arrest and imprisonment of nationalist ‘suspects’ without charge or trial would happen.

In his seminal book Beating the Terrorists, on the treatment of

detainees psychologically with the minimum use of violence and brutality.

nationalists in the North’s interrogation centres, BBC journalist Peter Taylor wrote: “Internment, the measure that had always contained the IRA in the past, was inevitable.”

In April 1971, months before the August raids, a secret meeting was held in Belfast which involved senior British Intelligence officers and their counterparts in RUC Special Branch.

“The purpose of the seminar,” according to Taylor, “was to discuss the most effective way of obtaining vital intelligence on the IRA which the RUC had failed to gather using their traditional methods.”

Taylor maintains that the British officers present were from the “top secret” English Intelligence Centre (EIC).

“The EIC was the storehouse of the experience the British had gained in counter-insurgency operations in her colonies in the post-war [Second World War] years.”

The interrogation techniques used in

Kenya, Malaya, Cyprus and Aden were never published or written down. The EIC received and transmitted them orally to the interrogators who put them into practice.

The so-called ‘Five Techniques’ at the heart of the interrogation methods consisted of: » Hooding the detainee; » Subjecting them to a high-pitched noise, or ‘white noise’, as it has been described; » Forcing the detainee to stand in a stress position, spread-eagled against a wall; » Depriving the detainee of sleep; » Depriving the detainee of proper food and water.

These methods induced sensory deprivation and were designed to break

As British Army units swept into nationalist areas in the early hours of 9 August 1971, Operation Demetrius was under way. Hundreds of nationalist men were dragged from their homes and frog-marched off to detention centres, where they were subjected to intense interrogation by British military and RUC Special Branch inquisitors.

Fourteen of the detainees were taken away for what has been labelled as “interrogation in depth” by none other than the British Prime Minister of the day, Edward Heath, and were airlifted to the British Army’s main base in County Derry, Shackleton Barracks in Ballykelly.

On arrival at Ballykelly the men were thrown from still-flying helicopters, thinking they were falling to their death only to find they were just feet from the ground.

After running a gauntlet of attack dogs and baton-wielding troops, they were stripped and interrogated.

Their treatment would later become the subject of the first inter-state case under the European Convention on Human Rights when the Irish Government lodged a case against the British Government in December 1971 at the European Commission on Human Rights at Strasbourg.

While the main focus of the Irish Government’s case was the treatment of ‘The Hooded Men’ or the ‘The Guinea Pigs’, the conveyor belt of arrest and interrogation continued in the notorious British Army base at Palace Barracks in Holywood, County Down.

As many as 3,000 detainees were systematically interrogated by RUC Special Branch and Military Intelligence operatives in the year after the introduction of internment.

In an interesting conclusion, Peter Taylor maintains that Palace Barracks was “Northern Ireland’s first interrogation centre and the blueprint for Castlereagh”, the ‘holding centre’ that became synonymous with the ill-treatment of suspects in the late 1970s.

Two of the senior Special Branch officers in charge at Palace Barracks (including one who was present at the secret seminar involving the EIC in April 1971) are believed to have been promoted and deployed in Castlereagh.

Britain guilty of torture In 1976, the European Commission found Britain guilty of torture, a decision the British Government of the day – a Labour administration – appealed.

In 1978, the European Court ruled that the interrogation methods used by Britain were “inhuman and degrading” but did not amount to torture.

Despite their denials, evidence has emerged that shows senior British politicians sanctioned the use of the five techniques and, in effect, the torture of detainees.

One such piece of evidence implicates Labour Party Prime Minister James Callaghan and former Secretary of State Merlyn Rees.

Ironically, while serving as Home Secretary in the Labour Government that was appealing the torture verdict of the European Court, Rees wrote to Prime Minster Callaghan stating: “It is my view [confirmed by Stormont

August / Lúnasa 2015

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7

5 The British used internment and torture to suppress movements in Kenya (above), Malaya, Aden, Cyprus and Ireland

5 Former British Prime Ministers Edward Heath and James Callaghan, former Secretary of State Merlyn Rees and former Secretary of State for Defence Lord Carrington

5 Torture techniques developed in the North were later used in Iraq and Afghanistan

unionist Prime Minister Brian Faulkner before his death] that the decision to use methods of torture in Northern Ireland in 1971/72 was taken by ministers, in particular Lord Carrington, then Secretary of State for Defence.”

The colonial experience

5 Internment was Britain's usual tactic to deal with republicans

The dogged pursuit by the remaining ‘Hooded Men’ of an inquiry into their treatment at the hands of British interrogators has echoes in a court case which began in April 2011 when four Kenyans who, according to their solicitors Leigh Day & Co, “suffered grave acts of torture at the hands of British officials during the Kenya

Emergency in the 1950s and 1960s”.

In 1957, the British colonial administration subjected detainees to a form of torture known as the “dilution technique”, a regime of systemised violence which was, according to Leigh Day & Co, “approved at the highest levels of the British Government”.

Central to their case is the discovery of 1,500 files, documenting the suppression of the guerrilla camapign by the Kenya Land & Freedom Army (aka the Mau Mau rebellion) in the African state. This huge cache of evidence was flown out of Kenya by the British Government just days before independence in a move seen as an attempt by Whitehall officials

and politicians “to protect the guilty”.

Clearly, the British Government will do what it can to protect “the guilty”, the interrogators who tortured detainees, in the way they continue to protect those behind collusion.

The consequences of the European Court’s ruling that ruled that the ‘five techniques’ did not amount to torture went beyond Ireland.

Writing in The Irish Times about RTÉ’s The Torture Files (broadcast in June 2014), journalist Rita O’Reilly said: “President George Bush’s Attorney General’s office cited Ireland v UK to allow ‘an aggressive interpretation as to what amounts to torture’ in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay.”

Preliminary investigation Also in June 2014, the International Criminal Court launched a preliminary investigation into a complaint brought

by Public Interest Lawyers UK and the Berlin-based European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights into allegations of the British Army torturing 412 Iraqis with the ‘five techniques’ used in Ireland in the 1970s.

Despite the British Government’s undertakings, made in the aftermath of the 1976 European Court ruling, that its forces would not use the ‘five techniques’, the empirical evidence indicates that these promises were not worth the paper they were written on.

The ill-treatment of detainees in Castlereagh, Strand Road in Derry and Gough Barracks in Armagh are proof of that.

The lesson we have learned as republicans when we look at collusion and the torture of detainees is that Britain fought a colonial war in the North with tactics tailored to suit a Western European context The tenacity of ‘The Hooded Men’ in forcing the Dublin Government to apply to the European Court of Human Rights to revisit its 1978 decision in light of newly-discovered files and their success in the Belfast High Court sends a message to the British that the veil of secrecy they are hiding behind is being ripped apart. Its colonial war tactics, with collusion and torture as their cornerstone, are being exposed for the world to see.

8 August / Lúnasa 2015

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NATIONAL HUNGER STRIKE COMMEMORATION, SUNDAY 23 AUGUST

5 Dundalk has played an important part in the republican struggle, from hosting refugees fleeing the pogroms in 1969 to electing an H-Blocks 'Blanket Man' as TD in 1981 and, in 2011, Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams

Dundalk’s decades of dedication

BY FIONA JOHNSTON THE BORDER TOWN of Dundalk, County Louth, will host the National Hunger Strike Commemoration on 23 August this year, marking its 34th anniversary. Many republicans from all over the country and beyond will visit Dundalk, perhaps for the first time, so it’s worth recalling the important role the town has played in the republican struggle down through the years.

In the Belfast pogroms of 1969, Dundalk provided refuge and shelter to hundreds of families who found themselves burned out of their homes by unionist mobs backed up by the Royal Ulster Constabulary and notorious B-Specials police reservists. Many of those fleeing the terror were accommodated in large halls, caravans or anywhere they could lay their heads.

Dundalk residents rallied to help their neighbours in distress. Mattresses, food, toys and clothing were supplied to those who had none. Many of these families were eventually rehoused in Dundalk and settled there. Today, many of their children and grandchildren, influenced by those events, are active in their communities and in their local Sinn Féin cumainn.

Dundalk was seen as the nearest safe haven from events that were taking place just 10 miles up the road, across the Border, but sadly that sense of security was shattered when on 19 December 1975, a car bomb exploded outside Kay’s Tavern in Dundalk, killing two men: 60-year-old Jack Rooney and 51-year-old Hugh Watters. At the time, the explosion was blamed on the unionist Red Hand Commando although this has been disputed and is the subject of an investigation into RUC collusion with unionist paramilitaries.

When the 1980 and 1981 Hunger Strikes took place, Dundalk and the rest of County Louth was not found wanting. Dundalk people downed tools at factories, took to the streets, held weekly vigils and actively campaigned for a Blanket Man from their own town to be elected to the Dáil. Paddy Agnew topped the poll in 1981 with 8,368 votes.

This was not Dundalk’s only experience with hunger strikes.

In September 1917, Thomas Ashe and others went on hunger strike in Dublin, seeking political status. This was granted after ten days but not before Ashe had died from being force-fed.

Two months later, Austin Stack, Seán Tracey and others were transferred to Dundalk Gaol.

On arrival in November 1917, they found that political status would not be afforded to them and they were forced to begin a second hunger strike. This lasted eight days and the prisoners

were released under the ‘Cat and Mouse Act’.

Seán Tracey was rearrested on 28 February and sent back to Dundalk Gaol, where he immediately resumed his hunger strike. The fast was eventually called off.

In 1923, six men were executed in Dundalk,

their remains being held by the Free Staters for a year and nine months before being returned to their families for burial. In October 1924, their bodies, together with that of an 18-year-old Volunteer who had been executed in Dublin, were laid out in the Labourers’ Hall in Dundalk before being taken to the local graveyard. Thousands attended the funerals and it was said that it took the cortege up to half an hour to pass any given point with thousands more lining the footpaths.

This year in Dundalk we will be honouring Ireland’s hunger strikers. It is to them that this generation and those before them have looked to for inspiration. We know their names and we

In the Belfast pogroms of 1969, Dundalk provided refuge and shelter to hundreds of families who found themselves burned out of their homes by unionist mobs backed up by the Royal Ulster Constabulary and notorious B-Specials police reservists sing about them in our ballads; we appreciate their sacrifice and mourn them.

We look at the families of the 1981 H-Block Martyrs who have been left behind and, try as we might, we will never understand the depth of their grief nor what they have gone through and how they bore their ordeal with such dignity.

Dundalk and County Louth republicans will also remember those who are seldom talked about outside the area: the six who were executed in 1923 (whose families are still in the town), the man who was gunned down in the graveyard when they were being buried, those who died in the Kay’s Tavern bombing, those who have passed away in Dundalk while ‘on the run’ and couldn’t go home. And so many others.

Dundalk will remember them all on 23 August.

• THE HUNGER STRIKE EXHIBITION will be housed in Dundalk Gaol during this year’s National Hunger Strike Commemoration and the commemoration itself will be passing by the local graveyard mentioned here.

August / Lúnasa 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

9

FEAR OF THE EXAMPLE THAT GREECE MIGHT SET WAS BEHIND THE DETERMINATION OF GERMANY AND THE DOMINANT EUROPEAN POWERS TO INSIST UPON A TOTAL HUMILIATION OF THE GREEK PEOPLE

What lessons should we learn from the Greek defeat?

BY EOIN Ó MURCHÚ THE CAPITULATION of the Greek Government to the completely vindictive and unrealistic demands of the European Union and the Eurozone finance ministers has naturally been seized upon by reactionaries here to pretend that this proves there is no alternative to austerity.

Indeed, fear of the example that Greece might set was one of the big factors in the determination of Germany and the dominant European powers to insist upon a total humiliation of Greece and the Greek people.

Prime Minister Tsipras was faced with, as he put it, a choice between a bad deal and a catastrophe.

He chose the bad deal but in doing so risks wrecking the magnificent vote of the Greek people in the referendum and splitting SYRIZA. Not one SYRIZA MP argued that this was a good deal: 38 SYRIZA MPs refused to vote for it while the rest voted with reluctance and despair.

Of course, the Greek situation is different from that of either Spain or Ireland (countries which have growing

German Chancellor Angela Merkel

Prime Minister Tsipras was faced with, as he put it, a choice between a bad deal and a catastrophe political forces challenging austerity) in relation to the relatively closed nature of its economy and its low levels of trade with countries outside the Eurozone.

What has now been exposed, unequivocally and unanswerably, is that the European Union is NOT a solidarity club. It exists to further the strategic economic interests of European global monopolies, and neither the rights of workers or of nations are allowed to interfere with that.

The idea of a social Europe as a counterweight to the Europe of monopoly capitalism is an attractive one but it is equally clear that this cannot be done through internal evolution of the EU itself.

The rules must be broken and challenged.

For Greece, as we know, found itself totally isolated, and countries like Ireland and Spain – which are in equal need of debt write-downs and

Irish Finance Minister Michael Noonan

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras

reconstruction – were the most venomous enemies of the Greek position.

No party has greeted the Greek humiliation with greater glee than our own Labour Party (with the obscure backbencher Eric Byrne plumbing the depths).

The worst point is that the deal won’t work. Greece will not achieve growth by being burdened with even more austerity; and if the sum of its debts was unrepayable before the deal, the situation is even worse now with more bail-out debt imposed.

Economists from Ireland like Ray Kinsella and Colm McCarthy, seasoned 5 Greece found itself totally isolated commentators in the Financial Times economy but at saving the German one.

The mistake on the Greek side was and Wall Street Journal, and even the IMF itself, all accept that this deal twofold: firstly, the negotiators seem cannot work. It just condemns Greece to have believed the nonsense that the EU was a solidarity body and that to permanent penury.

Remember that none of the money it could therefore be persuaded by “given” to Greece in these bail-outs has rational arguments.

The second was not to recognise that gone to the Greek people. Every euro has been used to pay off the banks’ the euro was the problem. All econodebts which the EU insisted the Greek mists now recognise that the euro had state take on itself, just as it insisted a flawed design from the start but the that the Irish state take on the debts Greeks let it be known from the outset that they wanted, above all, to stay in owed by private banks here.

So where did this money go? It the euro. Above all!

Restoring the drachma would not went to European banks, primarily German ones whose reckless lending necessarily have been the catastrocaused the crisis. So the banks get phe that Tsipras feared. Certainly the paid back, and the people of Greece economic problems associated with – and Ireland and Spain – are left to breaking free of the euro could not be worse than those being imposed pay back the bail-out.

We can now see that the talks were now on the Greek people.

The simple fact stands clear: if you not aimed at rescuing the Greek

stay in the euro, you stay with austerity and the priority of bailing out the German banks. If you want to end

The EU exists to further the strategic economic interests of European global monopolies, and neither the rights of workers or of nations are allowed to interfere with that austerity and give priority to the social needs of our peoples, then you must break with the euro and force the whole rotten house down.

10 August / Lúnasa 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

From Athens, Eoin Ó Broin

reports on the mood in Greece

Shocked, disorientated and in mourning THE WISDOM OF TAXI DRIVERS is almost universal, and Athens is no exception.

Again and again, taxi drivers told the same story. They rubbished the deal imposed on Greece by her creditors but believed that Alexis Tsipras was their best hope.

Three weeks after capital controls were introduced there was little sign of disruption to daily life in Athens.

Shops were displaying 50% sale signs “for as long as the banks are closed”. Some ATMs had queues, though many didn’t.

But beneath the surface, people were shocked, disorientated and in a state of mourning. These three words were repeated over and over again by people, particularly those in or close to SYRIZA. In the Athens University Law School, from 16 July, a few hundred radical left-wing activists gathered for the Democracy Rising conference organised by the Global Centre for Advanced Studies.

The weekend-long series of discussions was planned back when the post-election optimism was riding high, both in Greece and abroad. The event was to be an exploration and celebration of the rising power of popular alternatives to neo-liberalism and austerity, But after the humiliation of the Greek Government and people at the European Summit on 12 June, there

People are genuinely shocked at how the Greek Government has been treated within the EU negotiations was only one question preoccupying the delegates – whether to remain within the euro and the Troika deal – making the best of a bad situation – or take a leap of faith into the unknown of an exit from the single currency.

Much of the conference carried on as planned but the issue of whether the Government was right or not to accept the outcome of the summit was ever-present.

Some activists described Alexis Tsipras’s acceptance of the Troika deal as ‘betrayal’. Others understood that the conclusion of the negotiations was the result of a balance of forces that pitted one small, weak and cash-strapped government against the rest of the Eurozone.

The overwhelming majority from both sides of the debate urged calm and called for party unity in the time ahead.

But unity behind what was not exactly clear.

Probably the most powerful debate of the conference was on Friday evening. There, two leading figures of the Greek intellectual Left, Costas Douzinas and Costas Lapavitsas, went head to head on the issue of the deal.

Douzinas, a London-based law professor and strong Tsipras supporter, described the mood among activists as one of “mourning after a heavy defeat”. But he urged unity and, quoting Samuel Beckett, encouraged activists to stay united to “try again, fail again but fail better”.

Lapavitsas, the former London-based economist and now SYRIZA MP, spoke about things “being as they seem”. The long-time advocate of Greek withdrawal from the euro argued that it was impossible to break with austerity from within the single currency.

The debate from the floor was tense, heated and long.

Some international observers described it as cathartic.

The big question however was whether SYRIZA could remain united in the face of such strongly-held and diametrically-opposed views. Douzinas and Lapavitsas thought so. Many others remained unconvinced.

On Saturday evening, during an even longer debate on the state of the European Left after the European summit deal, SYRIZA Central Committee member Stelios Elliniados gave his own frank assessment of what went wrong.

He talked about a lack of democracy within the party and a lack of preparedness for the challenge of Government. He also spoke about the absence of any real plan for either staying in or exiting the euro.

Crucially, he told delegates that SYRIZA had

One older woman told me that, despite her frustration and anger, she would remain with SYRIZA and with Tsipras because that was ‘the country’s only hope’ 5 (Top) Alexis Tsipras, (left) Costas Douzinas and (below) Costas Lapavitsas

underestimated their opponents and overestimated the values on which the EU is supposed to be based.

His contribution provoked an explosion of angry questions with one older woman – who described herself as “just an ordinary SYRIZA voter” – almost painfully demanding to know why she was only being told all of this now.

After the discussion, the same woman told me that,

One senior activist close to the negotiations told me how, week after week, their ‘partners’ kept moving the goalposts despite her frustration and anger, she would remain with SYRIZA and with Tsipras, because that was “the country’s only hope”.

Everywhere you went there was the same conversation and the same range of emotions.

On Friday, I visited the offices of the weekly left political newspaper, Epoch. The widely-respected pro-SYRIZA publication gives voice to the main Left bloc within the party, including the current Finance Minister, Euclid Tsakalotos.

Older activists within the newspaper sought to buy time. They spoke about staying in Government and the

August / Lúnasa 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

11

5 The choice now facing the Greek people and their government is stark

euro. Their hope was for more anti-austerity governments to emerge in the coming months, strengthening the hand of those who sought change within the euro.

They also talked about the need to develop a plan for exiting the euro if a second round of negotiations at the EU level failed.

Young activists thought differently.

They wanted a general debate within the party to agree a position in advance of snap elections. Reflecting the formal position of the youth wing of SYRIZA, they

Delegates heard that SYRIZA had underestimated their opponents and overestimated the values on which the EU is supposed to be based wanted the party to reject the new bailout deal and to seek an electoral mandate for Grexit.

Remarkably, the debate at Epoch was calm, comradely and constructive. Both sides agreed on the need for party unity. A split, they all argued, would set the Greek Left back a generation.

During a number of private meetings with senior figures within SYRIZA over the weekend, a number of observations were made over and over again – irrespective of

5 The 'Democracy Rising' conference and pro-SYRIZA newspaper 'Epoch'

whether the conversations were with those supporting Tsipras or those against.

The first was that people are genuinely shocked at how the Greek Government has been treated within the EU negotiations.

People at all levels genuinely believed that rational arguments at the European Council could and would prevail.

Their experience, however, had left their faith in the idea of an EU of equals badly shaken.

One senior activist close to the negotiations spoke about how, week after week, their “partners” kept moving the goalposts. Within a few months it became clear that their EU neither wanted to negotiate nor to secure a deal – they were intent on imposing a humiliating defeat.

The second was that, despite initially believing that alliances with more sympathetic governments could be built, the Greek Government realised very quickly that they were effectively on their own on the EU stage.

For those who believe that Greece must remain within the euro, a lot of store is now being placed on the election of anti-austerity governments in Spain and possibly even Ireland.

Thirdly, everyone spoke of a lack of preparedness for Government – at both the domestic and EU level.

Some activists spoke of underestimating the role of the ‘permanent government’ within the Greek state limiting the effectiveness of their ministers.

Others highlighted the gap between the Government, the party activists and the people. Everyone agreed

Their experience has left their faith in the idea of an EU of equals badly shaken

that they read the intentions of their EU so-called partners wrong.

The historic SYRIZA election victory in January 2015 was the first real challenge to the status quo within the EU. It was a clear rejection of the failed policies of bank bailouts and crippling austerity. The demand for a better way now had a democratic mandate.

The response of the EU and IMF was swift and harsh.

Greece would not only continue on the road its voters had rejected but would be punished for daring to think that a better way was possible.

When the Greek people surprised even their own government by rejecting the Troika deal by 61% in

Quoting Samuel Beckett, a strong Tsipras supporter urged unity and encouraged activists to stay united to ‘try again, fail again but fail better’ the July referendum, the EU returned with a deal that was even worse.

The choice now facing the Greek people and their government is stark – remain within the euro and the terms offered by Brussels and Frankfurt or exit the euro.

Neither option is risk free.

Alexis Tsipras has made his position clear. Greece will remain within the single currency and continue to struggle for a better deal than that currently on the table.

Judging by the opinion polls, he has the support of the majority of the electorate. However, the opposition to his chosen course, both within his own parliamentary party and the broader party base, means that the future of SYRIZA is not guaranteed.

More importantly, the intransigence of the EU institutions – Council, Commission and Central Bank – means that Greece’s membership of the euro is also no longer guaranteed.

Greece, like Ireland, has long been one of the strongest advocates of the EU and Eurozone. But the standing of the EU institutions has taken a battering among ordinary Greek people.

Though Greek society may not be prepared to exit the single currency just yet, even those on the most pro-EU wing of SYRIZA are now asking themselves whether they would be better off outside the euro.

The only conclusion that can be drawn with any certainty in regard to recent events in Brussels and Athens is that the crisis of the Eurozone is far from over.

12 August / Lúnasa 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

Sinn Féin Summer School 2015 in Baile Bhuirne, County Cork

Activist and Guardian columnist Owen Jones:

‘I’M A PASSIONATE BELIEVER IN A UNITED IRELAND’

BY MARK MOLONEY IT WAS ALL GO in the beautiful Gaeltacht village of Baile Bhuirne in west Cork at the end of June for the 6th annual Sinn Féin Summer School. The event, which always features an impressive array of speakers, has become a calendar favourite for many and was opened this year by newly-elected Cork Mayor Chris O’Leary, who is the first Sinn Féin Mayor of the city in 90 years.

TDs, MLAs, councillors and activists from across Ireland made the trip to the ‘Town of the Beloved’ and surrounding area where much of Ken Loach’s Tan War film The Wind that Shakes the Barley was filmed.

The first Summer School section was on defending the public health service heard from transplant surgeon and outspoken health service campaigner Dr David

Owen Jones spoke of how people need to take inspiration from the likes of the Civil Rights Movement, suffragettes and the Easter Rising Hickey, who described the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) as “a disaster for the public health service”.

Irish Congress of Trade Unions official and Sinn Féin representative Louise O’Reilly (a former SIPTU nursing sector rep) told the audience that the health system is too important to be handed over to those who only care about making profits.

Dr Angela Flynn explained how the individualisation of the health service means that there has been an erosion of social solidarity.

The next discussion looked at whether the people of Europe had enough of neo-liberalism. It saw a barnstorming speech from Guardian columnist Owen Jones in which he hit out at much of the mainstream media and political parties for turning people’s anger away from where it should be directed. A particular point was the attempts to pit the

Professor Alda Sousa

Author Thomas Paul Burgess

Dr Lydia Foy

Dr David Hickey

private sector worker against the public sector with private sector workers facing wage cuts being encouraged to envy the nurse or teacher with the pension or the unemployed family ‘living it up on benefits’ rather than criticise those with power at the top.

Jones also spoke of how people need to take inspiration from the likes of the Civil Rights Movement, suffragettes and the Easter Rising: “I’m a passionate believer in a united Ireland, free of all divisions,” he told the crowd.

UCD academic Dr Julien Mercille and Portuguese ex-MEP Professor Alda Sousa also spoke in the section, with Professor Sousa accusing the EU elite of not respecting the popular opinion of the people of Europe and disregarding opposition.

Day two kicked off with a discussion on ‘Understanding and overcoming sectarianism in Ireland’. Professor John Brewer (Professor of Post Conflict Studies in the Institute for the Study of Conflict Transformation and Social Justice at Queen’s University Belfast) spoke eloquently on the need for a “unionist Sinn Féin” within working-class unionist communities, something he had previously spoke on at a conference of the Progressive Unionist Party in the previous couple of weeks. He was critical of the mainstream unionist parties for their obsession with flags and symbols while failing to do work that would actually benefit the communities they claim to represent.

He also criticised politicians and the media for their constant focus on the conflict: “It’s like driving a car – how are we expected to move forward if we are always looking in the rear-view mirror?” he asked.

Author Thomas Paul Burgess, a side drummer in the loyalist Pride of Ardoyne Flute Band before becoming an academic at University College Cork, discussed his upbringing in a working-class unionist area, how he was perceived by some within his own community when he moved to Cork, and also how – when he took a role working alongside a Belfast republican – some colleagues treated them “like lab rats”, waiting to see what would happen with people from traditionally rival communities working together.

Michelle Gildernew of Sinn Féin also spoke of her upbringing, her family’s involvement in the Caledon squatting controversy in 1968 when a local housing authority controlled by the unionist-dominated Dungannon council allocated a home to a single 19-year-old Protestant woman and prospective unionist

5 Owen Jones gives a passionate, powerful speech at the Sinn Féin Summer School

5 Newly-elected Cork Mayor Chris O'Leary and Senator Trevor Ó Clochartaigh

5 Michelle Gildernew and Professor John Brewer in the discussion on ‘Understanding and overcoming sectarianism in Ireland’

candidate ahead of 269 other applicants, including many large Catholic families who had been on waiting lists for years.

She outlined how her upbringing was avowedly anti-sectarian and how as Agriculture Minister she was heartened by the support she received from many Protestant farmers for her work.

One of the main speeches on Saturday saw Dr Lydia Foy, a transwoman, speak movingly of her 20-year battle to have her birth certificate reflect her gender identity.

Ending the series of talks on Saturday,

Dr Conor McCabe, author of Sins of the Father: The decisions that shaped the Irish economy, provided a fascinating insight into the vested interests and Golden Circles involved in the economic crash.

It’s easy to see why the Summer School has become a firm favourite amongst many republicans and a wide spectrum of progressive voices as a forum for hearing new views and holding intense discussions in the debates and in the bar into the early hours of the morning.

August / Lúnasa 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

Sinn Féin shows leadership attending British Legion remembrance ceremony

BY JOHN HEDGES SINN FÉIN figures – Assembly Speaker Mitchel McLaughlin, Belfast Mayor Arder Carson and Ard-Mhéara Bhaile Átha Cliath Críona Ní Dhálaigh – laid wreaths at a ceremony in Dublin in July to commemorate the dead of the first and second World Wars.

The ceremony at the National War Memorial Gardens in Islandbridge was organised by the Royal British Legion.

Sinn Féin National Chairperson Declan Kearney said their presence was “an important contribution towards

‘For too long, remembrance has contributed to existing divisions. There is a need for an agreed culture of remembrance and commemoration which is based upon mutual respect and equality’ developing a shared sense of history and remembrance across the island”.

He added: “The role played by Irish citizens in WW1 and WW2 needs to be carefully reflected upon by our society going forward. These were epoch-making events in themselves and Irish involvement in both is now part of our collective history.

“For too long, remembrance has contributed to existing divisions.

There is a need for an agreed culture of remembrance and commemoration which is based upon mutual respect and equality.”

Mitchel McLaughlin’s participation at both the Islandbridge Service of Remembrance ceremony ón 11 July

SUGGESTED PIX:Irish Water logo Minister Alan Kelly Mary Lou McDonald **

Tá teipthe ar fheachtas Uisce Éireann

LE TAMALL fada anois tá an rialtas ag aiarraidh dallamullóg a chur orainn go bhfuil ag éirí le hUisce Eireann, to bhfuil daoine ag glacadh leis an argóint go gcaithfí na táillí uisce a íoc.

Ach leiríonn na figiúirí is deireannai ó Uisce Éireann go bhfuil ag teip go tubaisteach ar an gcomhlacht. Níl ach 46% i ndiaidh a gcuid billí a íoc faoi láthair, agus os cíonn ceathrú dena tithe nach bhfuil ag cómhoibriú le clárú fiú.

Anois tá an Tríúracht ag cur a ladar isteach sa scéal. Ina dtuarascáil faoi téarmaí “tarrthála” na hÉireann

[HEADLINE]

5 Ceann Comhairle Seán Barrett TD and Assembly Speaker Mitchel McLaughlin MLA lay wreaths at the Annual Ceremony of Remembrance at Islandbridge

and the National Day of Remembrance the following weekend “should be seen as an example of leadership in terms of mutual respect and parity of esteem”, Declan Kearney said.

He concluded: “Sinn Féin recognises how important these acts of remembrance are for the unionist section of our society. We also acknowledge the role of the British Legion in seeking to make remembrance and commemorative events into more inclusive processes.

“This period of centenary commemorations allows us all as republicans or unionists, and Irish or British to reflect how respect and parity of esteem can

be applied to the challenge of remembrance and commemoration in our society, and managing the legacy of our divided history.

“There is an urgent need across Irish society, both North and South, for us all to get to the point where our multiple narratives of history and political conflict here are acknowledged and treated with mutual respect. It is only by doing so that greater understanding and tolerance will emerge.

“None of us have anything to fear from the exercise of mutual respect, and much to learn from each other and our respective political and cultural traditions.”

IN PICTURES

5 Sinn Féin activists with Norwegian trauma surgeon Mads Gilbert who provides emergency aid at al the Shifa Hospital in Gaza during Israeli onslaughts – Israel has since banned him for life from re-entering Gaza

13

amhdaíonn an Tríúracht go bhfuil namhadas an phobail don déine dírithe isteach ar na táillí uisce, is go bhfuil daoine ag diúltú iad a íoc toisc go bhfuil siad bréan den déine.

Ach níl sé de ionraiceas ag Rialtas na hÉireann a leithéid de amhdú a dhéanamh.

Mhaígh an tAire Comhshaoil, Alan Kelly, leas-cheannaire Pháirtí an Lucht Oibre, go raibh

EOIN Ó MURCHÚ sé “sásta” le líon na n-íocóirí faoi láthair – bréag má dúradh bréag riamh.

Agus bhí urlabhraí Uisce Éireann ar an bport céanna.

Sé bun agus barr an scéil, ná nach bhfuil an pobal ag glacadh leis an ualach breise seo, go dtuigeann daoine nach bhfuil ann ach cáin bhreise ar an canachai go léir ata gearrtha ag gnáth-oibrí an fhaid is a shiúlann lucht an tsaibhris saor don chuid is mó.

Agus chuir Mary Lou McDonald a méar ar an bpointe nuair a d’iarr sí sa Dáil ar an rialtas glacadh leis go bhfuil teipthe ar an gcáin seo is gur chóir é a chur ar ceal.

Go deimhin, ní raibh móran polasaithe ag an bpairtí nua a fógraíodh i rith na míosa, na Daonlathaigh Shóisialacha, ach bhí polasaí amháin go soiléir acu: dá mbeadh aon bhaint acu le rialtas sa gcéad Dáil seo chugainn chuirfidh siad deire leis na táillí uisce seo.

Maidir leis an rialtas, nuair a insíonn siad bréaga chomh glan soiléir sin nach cruthúnas eile é nach bhfuil siad oiriúnach do bheith i rialtas ar bith.

Cuimhneóimis air sin lá na bhótála!

5 An tAire Comhshaoil Alan Kelly

photos@anphoblacht.com

5 Sinn Féin Republican Youth activists protest outside the offices of the European Union in Belfast in support of the Greek Government's stand against European and IMF austerity policies

14 August / Lúnasa 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

JULIEN MERCILLE

Author of the just-published 'Deepening Neoliberalism, Austerity, and Crisis: Europe’s Treasure Ireland'

The day that progressives unite, their strength will be multiplied by a factor that will surprise even themselves

Lessons for Irish progressives from Greece and Spain SYRIZA took power in Greece; Podemos has risen to prominence in Spain. The following outlines six lessons that I believe progressives in Ireland should consider to be successful electorally.

1. BE A PART OF PEOPLE’S MOVEMENTS

By definition, a political party claiming to represent people must be part of their daily struggles and linked to activism going on in the country.

In Ireland, this means to be part of the anti-water charges movement and communities involved in it (amongst other things).

This automatically rules out Fine Gael, Labour and Fianna Fáil as representatives of the people since they’re not involved in the most important progressive movement seen since the foundation of the state.

2. COMMUNICATE CLEARLY

Use a language that people understand.

This means that talking about the “bourgeoisie”, the “proletariat” or Marxist debates should be dropped. And this is not because people are too stupid to understand that. It’s the opposite.

It is because such ‘theory’ is often useless to understand human affairs and therefore people won’t take it seriously – and rightly so.

In this respect, Podemos is often regarded as a good example, having chosen to use clear policy lines like “Kick the Establishment out” instead of leftist jargon.

be very successful with limited resources. You don’t even need advertising to make it work.

4. BE PRAGMATIC

The goal of progressive politics is to change people’s lives for the better as soon as possible.

It is not primarily to engage in rhetorical debates about ‘Who is the purest leftist’. Advocating unattainable goals (e.g. some kind of socialist utopia) is simply bound to fail and therefore it’s not progressive.

Goals need to be feasible.

A long-term ideal vision is fine, even essential, but it’s not what should determine our concrete actions in the short-term.

5. BUT DON’T SELL OUT

This being said, we don’t want to fall in the other extreme of being ‘too pragmatic’, i.e. constantly side with those in power and then claim that ‘this was the best thing we could achieve’, as the Labour Party has done.

Arguably, SYRIZA made the same mistake when they accepted the Eurogroup agreement

5 Progressives need to unite around a set of key issues on which they all agree

of 12 July, which is a complete endorsement of harsh austerity. I think that it should have been rejected and SYRIZA should have kept debating, both within itself and with the population at large, and then go back to the creditors.

In Ireland, our unions (except for a few, notably those that are part of the Right2Water campaign)

6. UNITE

Finally, the day that progressives unite, their strength will be multiplied by a factor that will surprise even themselves.

Seriously, is there any progressive who doesn’t agree on the need for a well-funded public health care system?

Or that it’s not right to pay back all bondholders and shift the costs onto ordinary people’s shoulders?

Or that a housing bubble is not a great way to run an economy?

Or that we shouldn’t have the high inequality we currently have in the country?

This level of agreement is enough to form one group or party, or a strong coalition of those.

So just do it.

3. GET INTO THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA

Podemos has been good at using social and traditional media and it works because such outlets reach many people. Irish news organisations are rather conservative but still they do offer opportunities.

True, Ireland poses a challenge: we don’t have a single mass media outlet that is in any way left-of-centre (something like the Guardian in Britain). It may be worth exploring the possibility of setting up such a publication. I would personally favour an online daily news website, something like TheJournal.ie but more progressive. It is not too expensive to establish and there are many models out there that have proven to

have been atrocious and have been co-opted by the Government. When David Begg, former leader of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, describes the water charges protesters as “the dark forces of Irish society”, that’s a big problem and it shows the union leadership as endorsers of Government policy.

We need unions, but unions that fight for people.

5 A political party representing the people must be involved in popular people's movements

JULIEN MERCILLE is a lecturer at University College Dublin Follow him on twitter: @JulienMercille

August / Lúnasa 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

15

Dundalk Women’s Refuge

BY FIONA JOHNSTON A YEAR AGO it looked like the Dundalk Women’s Refuge County Louth would be forced to close due to massive cuts which saw their budget slashed by up to 75%. A ‘Government National Directive’ to the local authority decimated the Section 10 funding to the Refuge, making it impossible for them to continue as a frontline service for women and children experiencing domestic and sexual violence.

Louth was already operating at 38% below Europe’s recommended level of refuge and these cuts would have increased that to 57%.

One year later, the refuge’s very determined

‘We speak openly about domestic violence. We are so grateful to be here and it’s thanks to the Sinn Féin team who really helped us.

We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for them’ DUNDALK WOMEN’S REFUGE

manager, Lisa Marmion, who has been with the refuge for 15 years, said: “The service has developed over the years and now includes providing shelter, court escorts, child therapy, a playgroup and a HSE-registered crèche. We are no longer silent on this issue. We speak openly about domestic violence. We are so grateful to be here and it’s thanks to the Sinn Féin team who really helped us. We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for them.”

Sinn Féin councillors set to work to prevent the closure and were successful in securing a new Service Level Agreement which guaranteed adequate funding for Dundalk Women’s Refuge.

There has been an increase in demand for the service and unfortunately that trend is reflected throughout the country. Regrettably, this has meant that a number of families have had to be turned away over recent years because they didn’t have the capacity.

NUMBER OF YEAR PEOPLE NOT ACCOMMODATED

2011 2012 2013 2014

5 Dundalk Women’s Refuge workers Donna, Sandra, Lisa (manager), Aoife, Louise and Karen

have been aimed at the most vulnerable in society and Dundalk Women’s Refuge sees it first-hand.

“The women and children come here and go through the process of healing and sometimes that can be a lengthy process. When they are ready to go it alone and have some sort of independence they face further obstacles.”

So where do the women go when they are ready to move on?

• Cutbacks have hit discretionary payments; • If a woman leaves her local authority home, she won’t be considered for rehousing for at least a year;

• If the woman owns the property or has an interest in it, she won’t be considered; • Shortage of social housing; • Lack of suitable private rentals.

The refuge in Dundalk was once a large family home with a garden and outhouses. Lisa uses a small shed as an office. By moving the administration into the shed and outhouses, it has freed up space in the house as it is at full capacity with five families in residence.

Space is a big issue.

The refuge needs to facilitate larger families and families with complex needs. Families need

136 235 293 400

Lisa explained: “Before the recession, women had better access to finances and there were more opportunities for them to explore but that’s gone now.

No one chooses to leave their home to live in a communal refuge with their children but our women have no choice. Cutbacks and austerity have closed avenues for women.”

Government cutbacks and austerity policies

5 Services and supports for women and children experiencing abuse is at an all-time low

living space where they can breathe and just be normal. That just isn’t possible in a house that is bursting at the seams. The reality is that services and support for women and children experiencing abuse in the home is at an all-time low while it is well-documented that, in times of recession, domestic violence against women increases dramatically. Maintaining the services of the refuge should be an absolute priority.

Lisa Marmion and her staff provide an essential service to our most vulnerable women and children: “We need bigger premises or even a bit of land to build on. We need to double our capacity to

‘No one chooses to leave their home to live in a communal refuge with their children but our women have no choice. Cutbacks and austerity have closed avenues for women’ meet the demand for our service. We can’t take any more cuts.”

Lisa invited the Government to speak to those that have experience in this field.

“We have comprehensive legislation in Ireland and with a bit of consultation, common sense and goodwill we could look at these laws to really help vulnerable families and maybe there wouldn’t be as much pressure on our service.”

Louth County Council has land banks that are sitting idle and are paying almost €3million per year in interest to the Government for this unused land. Surely there is a little piece of it that could be given to Lisa and her team to build a bigger refuge to give vulnerable women and children the opportunity of a normal life?

If the Government insists on these austerity policies, then they have a responsibility to deal with the fall-out from them.

16 August / Lúnasa 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

‘Last summer there was more tabloid coverage on Travellers and feuds between two or three families than on the war in Gaza’

BY MARK MOLONEY I MEET JOHN CONNORS at a hotel just up the road from his home in Darndale, on the northside of Dublin City. “There’s a great sense of community in Darndale. There’s so many beautiful people here,” John says.

The housing estate is currently the focus of TV3’s reality show, Darndale: Edge of Town.

Born in London, John’s parents moved back to Ireland when he was just a year old and since then he has lived all his life in the Darndale and Coolock area.

While he might now be best known for his role as ganster Patrick Ward in the hit TV series Love/Hate, John has been active in supporting the campaign for Travellers to be recognised as a distinct ethnic group in Ireland, something that has been urged by the Human Rights Commission with pressure also coming from the UN Human Rights Committee and the Council of Europe.

Going back to his childhood, John tells me he “had a bit of a rough time” but not from settled kids really.

“There was a fairly large number of Travellers in my school. Some of it came from teachers.

One of them even said to me: ‘You smelly little knacker. If you ever raise your voice in this class again, I’m gonna kill you.’ I told the Principal but they didn’t believe me.Them type of things made me very angry.”

John says the way Traveller children were treated in education was appalling.

“I did very well in exams and was pretty bright, but when we went into senior school we were put into an all-Traveller class and we were given books that we read in Junior Infants. I’ll never

5 John at his family's campsite in Darndale

Ireland’s last acceptable racism

Love/Hate star JOHN CONNORS on the vilification of the Traveller community and the campaign for ethnic recognition

forget the name of that book Huggy Bear. We were like ‘What the fuck?’

“We were quickly put back in with the regular class but those kind of things stay with you. I’m only 25 and it’s still going on in some schools.

It’s segregation, and that was something that fuelled anger for me.”

As we arrive at the camp, some young Traveller boys are busy running around playing with a ball in the yard. Two small dogs are trying to join in while a rooster looks on warily from beneath the ledge of a nearby caravan. John goes over to talk to the boys, asking them how they’re getting on.

When he was just eight years old, John’s own father (also named John) took his own life. Suicide is a huge issue within the Travelling community with suicide rates six times higher than that of the settled population: “There’s many different reasons and there are parts of Traveller culture that contribute to the high suicide rate,” says John, “but when you are from a community that is marginalised and ostracised all your life, that certainly adds to it.

And when you’re never welcomed by the vast majority of people, well that takes its toll on your mental health. I think ethnicity recognition is a first step, then we need some sort of scheme to address Traveller mental health.”

He says that the discrimination he faced as a child left him with a lot of anger towards settled people.

“My father used to always bring me and my

brothers to the Stardust Memorial Park on nice days, and after he died my mother continued that tradition. I remember one day we went and were having some chips, sitting on the grass and these slightly older lads started pegging stones at us and calling us ‘knackers’. What that does is it fills you with alot of anger against settled people. It gives you the same attitude that some settled people have towards you – tarring them

John received over 1,500 online hatemails after speaking out all with the one brush. And I had that attitude for quite a bit of time,” he admits.

He says that, much like Native American culture, there is a stigma in Traveller culture attached to boys who do not have a father growing up. He says this attitude angered him and eventually led to him becoming a bare-knuckle boxer.

His bare-knuckle boxing would stand to him when he starred in the movie King of the Travellers. Initially only going for minor parts, he ended up being chosen as the lead role. He explains how his interest in film-making and production led to him looking to acting.

“I was suffering with depression at the time and the acting was very cathartic. I think my family could see the acting made me happy

‘The mainstream media don’t give a fuck about the truth – it’s about juicy headlines and they will sensationalise’

August / Lúnasa 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

17

‘My great-grandfather fought in the 1916 Rising and was on the anti-Treaty side during the Civil War,’ says John proudly and they were very supportive.”

Oscar-nominated director Jim Sheridan has since tipped him for Hollywood fame.

Following his role in Love/Hate, the everyday racism, such as being refused entry to pubs, largely disappeared.

He praises the RTÉ series for its authenticity in portraying some aspects of Traveller life.

“Yes, I was playing a Traveller who is a gangster in Love/Hate. But everybody else in it is a gangster too. So I was okay with that. Love/Hate did it the best in terms of nailing the culture and we were even using Gammon [Traveller language, also known as Shelta] without subtitles. It was so authentic.”

John says its important that Traveller culture is defended in its entirety – and says some who seek to present a sanitised version make it acceptable to settled people are doing a disservice to their own community. He describes them as “almost ‘Uncle Tom’ like” by condemning or denying things like bare-knuckle boxing but he accepts there are problems involving Traveller feuds amongst a handful of families. He tells me that as a bare-knuckle boxer himself, he almost always went for a pint with his opponent afterwards and there was no lasting animosity.

He’s strongly critical of the tabloid media for its vilification of Travellers, describing the attitude to Travellers as “the last acceptable racism in Ireland”.

“Last summer there was more tabloid coverage on Travellers and feuds between two or three families than on the war in Gaza. It’s ridiculous.

They know Travellers are an easy target because there’s not too many speaking up for them.”

John eventually decided to tackle the media head on: “I really tried after Love/Hate to represent Travellers in a positive way, and tell the truth.

But it backfired on me and I realised you can’t win with these people. They don’t give a fuck about the truth – it’s about juicy headlines and they will sensationalise any way they want and put a quote in any context they want. In terms of mainstream media and tabloid media – I’ve kind of stayed away from it now because it’s been very damaging and I’ve had my family being upset by some of the articles and how they twisted what I said.”

John received over 1,500 online hatemails after speaking out, while others claimed – because he’s an actor – that he isn’t really representative of Travellers. “I was brought up on a camp site, not even a halting site. We had no running water or electricity. I fought bare-knuckle boxing. I’ve never been removed from my culture.”

Recently, John met with Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams TD in the Dáil on the issue of Traveller ethnicity, something the party has been active on. He thinks it unlikely the current Fine Gael/ Labour Government will do anything.

“I don’t have a lot of hope because a lot of things will have to happen if we get ethnic status, particularly a commitment to protect our culture, and I don’t think they want to do that.”

He points to the state’s previous attempts to deal with Traveller issues via the 1963 Commission on Itinerancy: “The stated aim was to liquidate our culture

5 John's bare-knuckle boxing stood to him when he starred in the movie 'King of the Travellers'

and absorb us into the settled community. Now that sounds like some Nazi Germany shit.

“Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (the first TD from a Traveller background) said many times that ethnicity recognition isn’t going to change anything overnight but it gives us a good building block and hope.”

A 2011 study by the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin and the University of Edinburgh showed that the DNA of Travellers is distinct from that of the settled population. It points out that Travellers have been largely separated from the settled community for almost 1,000 years.

John feels Traveller history has largely been written out of the narrative of Ireland through a combination of ignorance and racism.

“My great-grandfather, Patrick Ward, fought in the 1916 Rising,” says John proudly. “He was a staunch republican and was on the anti-Treaty side during the Civil War. He did a year in Kilmainham Jail. In 1942 he settled in a field in Athlone and was accused of snaring rabbits by a local landowner.”

Newspaper reports at the time tell how local man Jospeh Lee stormed down to the Traveller camp, brandishing a shotgun. As Patrick Ward

He has been active in supporting the campaign for Travellers to be recognised as a distinct ethnic group in Ireland

5 John and other Love/Hate cast members at a Hope4Homeless sleep-out in Dublin

5 John Connors as Patrick Ward in the hit Irish TV crime drama 'Love/Hate'

stood up from beside the camp fire to go speak to the man, he was shot dead.

An Irish Press article at the time reports the killer telling gardaí: “I have shot a tinker dead this morning. I lost my head. What am I going to do?” Charged with murder, he served only six months in prison after being found guilty of manslaughter.

“If you killed anybody else you’d have done a lot more than six months,” notes John earnestly.

He says that while racism in the past was more severe, today it is more common and casual.

Education is a way to overcome that, with John pointing to the key roles Travellers played in ensuring traditional Irish music and stories have survived to the present.

“As a Traveller going into the education system you feel like you have to change your accent or lie about where you’re coming from because there is a feeling of shame.

“Travellers have played their part in all aspects of Irish history. I’d love to see a situation where Traveller history and culture are taught in a classroom, and Traveller kids feel proud of that and their settled classmates do too.”

JOHN CONNORS will appear in upcoming feature film, Float Like a Butterfly, while his own film, Cardboard Gangsters, is currently in production.

RTÉ confirmed a sixth series of Love/Hate is 'in development' but will not return before 2016

The Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin and the University of Edinburgh have shown that the DNA of Travellers is distinct from that of the settled population

18 August / Lúnasa 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

Some workers see their hours vary wildly from one week to the next, making the simplest of planning – be it childcare or meeting the bills – unduly difficult

BANDED HOURS CONTRACTS BILL PUBLISHED BY SINN FÉIN A SURVEY of Dunnes Stores workers carried out by the trade union Mandate earlier this year found that two thirds of the successful retail chain’s staff are on part-time flexible contracts, yet a whopping 98% of these workers want more weekly hours.

Don’t let anyone fool you into believing Dunnes Stores employment model is due to the seasonal nature of the retail sector. Sure, extra workers are taken on over the Christmas and New Year periods, and of course there are peaks and troughs in business during the year but this is not unique to the retail sector. Most businesses have what they call quiet periods.

In sectors like retail and hospitality, where activity significantly increases during specific times of the year, business owners and management plan their staff requirements by providing a core level of staff throughout the year, and then increasing shifts or taking on temporary staff during the busy periods.

But be very clear – this is not what has been happening in Dunnes Stores or elsewhere, where similar practices are deployed.

Dunnes management have very deliberately kept the majority of their staff on short-hour flexible contracts in an effort to limit their obligations.

Even where some staff regularly work longer hours, they remain on short-hour contracts, making them, in effect, full-time permanent staff on short-hour, insecure contracts.

Some workers see their hours vary wildly from one week to the next, making the

Dunnes management have very deliberately kept the majority of their staff on shorthour flexible contracts in an effort to limit their obligations simplest of planning – be it childcare or meeting the bills – unduly difficult.

Dunnes is a highly profitable company that has been in the retail business for a long time.

There is no sound business case to be made for treating employees in such a draconian manner in a developed 21st century economy.

We want businesses to be profitable. We also expect employers to provide fair terms and conditions for their staff, and that they engage with the state’s industrial relations mechanisms.

Where companies take the decision to ignore trade unions and the Labour Court, legislators have an obligation to intervene by providing

BY SINÉAD NÍ BHROIN 5 Sinn Féin Workers’ Rights spokesperson Senator David Cullinane and Jobs Spokesperson Peadar Tóibín TD launched the Bill

5 Thousands rally in support of striking Dunnes Stores workers

alternative ways to facilitate the relationship between employers and their staff or the trade unions that represent them.

Sinn Féin has published legislation that provides for banded hour contracts which goes some way to address the imbalance between rights and responsibilities pursued by poor employers like Dunnes Stores.

Banded hour contracts have been successfully negotiated by Mandate with a number of employers so they are already an accepted mechanism by unions and employers alike to provide stability to workers in a way that does not damage the viability of businesses.

Sinn Féin’s Bill (launched by Sinn Féin Jobs spokesperson Peadar Tóibín TD and Workers’

5 Sinn Féin elected representatives join Dunnes Stores workers on picket lines earlier this year

Rights spokesperson Senator David Cullinane) enables a worker or their trade union representative to formally request increased weekly hours after six months in the same employment.

There are seven bands provided for, from 11.5 hours to 37 plus. An employer must consider the request and can only refuse on the basis that it is not economically viable for the business

Sinn Féin has published legislation that provides for banded hour contracts which goes some way to address the imbalance between rights and responsibilities pursued by poor employers like Dunnes Stores to do so. Where an employee disagrees with the refusal they can pursue their complaint through the Workplace Relations Commission.

Employers must also provide to all employees the overall availability of working hours in the employment.

The Labour Party in Government has failed (or refused) to address the emerging fault lines in Ireland’s industrial relations system despite the hoopla around recent legislation regarding Registered Employment Agreements and collective bargaining. With the former they are simply reinstating a mechanism that had been in place as long as my Granny has been alive.

As for collective bargaining, the Programme for Government even concedes that the Government has only finally delivered on this “to ensure compliance by the state with recent judgements of the European Court of Human Rights”.

We welcome both but those who portray these pieces of legislation as great victories are selling you a pup. To pinch and adapt Fianna Fáil’s old election slogan . . . some done – a lot more to do!

August / Lúnasa 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

19

Unsung Heroes

BY JULIA CARNEY

THE Greatest Political Leader Ireland Has Ever Known sat quietly in a run-down basement on Hill Street in Dublin’s north inner city.

He was alone.

But it didn’t bother him.

In many ways, he had always been alone.

For more than 30 years he had, without exception or doubt, been The Smartest Person In Every Room. It had been difficult to make friends, impossible to keep them. So few, so very few, were capable of appreciating his insight, his grasp of nuance, his helter-skelter leaps of logic, his subtlety and his wit.

Ah yes, they’d loved his wit. The journalists, you know. They always laughed at his little jokes, his little ventures into humour, even if he was never sure they quite understood them, quite grasped the undertones, the delicate turns of phrase. Still, they had amused him too, in their own way and, at least, he could avoid them with ease.

It was the others he held in contempt – the men and women he had been forced to work alongside for half his life.

He frowned. Not forced. Not really. He had, after all, volunteered for this task knowing he was The Best Person For The Job, his sacred mission.

But, still, he had hated it. For most of his adult life he had sat in rooms, big and small, rich and poor, surrounded by fools and cowards and cretins.

He had to listen to them, to feign interest, to nod soberly and seriously at ideas characterised by contradiction and confusion.

The man in the basement room in Hill Street chuckled to himself. That they could have sat next to him for so long and never grasped quite how deep his contempt for them went, could never have understood his purpose, why he said the things he said, had done the things he had done only showed they fitted their fate.

The door to the basement opened and the man looked up as Seán Garland walked into the room.

Seán Garland.

The man did not have any heroes. How could he?

How could The Greatest Political Thinker of Our Times have heroes?

But he respected Garland. He acknowledged a man whose commitment was only less than his own because, to be fair, the man was his intellectual inferior.

Here, after all, was the anointed and thrice-blessed Ambassador Plenipotentiary from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the one who had first revealed to the man the Principles of Juche as laid out by the Great Leader, Kim Il-Sung.

Garland knew that De Rossa, Gilmore and the others would betray the great dream of building an Ireland founded on the principles of Juche, an Ireland where happy and well-fed children could grow tall and strong under the wise and gentle guidance of the Workers’ Party.

For more than 30 years he had, without exception or doubt, been The Smartest Person In Every Room

He knew they would attempt to force a split in the party, claiming outrage as they discovered that the Workers’ Party retained an armed wing. Which it did not. And which, of course, it simultaneously did.

A student of Juche, the man reflected, could think two completely contradictory things at the same time, believing in both with equal passion, with the same fervour.

It was a talent that had been of no small use to him throughout his decades in the Irish Labour Party.

That was why Garland had chosen him, The Most Loyal and Committed Socialist Since Connolly Himself, to go with the traitors, to speak and act as one of them, to ape their beliefs and their habits.

Garland knew that empty men – those lacking courage or ideals, principles or beliefs – find each other and come together. And so De Rossa and Quinn found each other, and came together as those who had fled the Workers’ Party merged with Labour. And he had been right there with them.

It was too good an opportunity to miss. Along with

5 The man himself – 'The Greatest Political Thinker of Our Times'

those who had forsaken the Workers’ Party went the man in the basement room. One man, one Exceptional and Brilliant Man, A Hero of the Revolution, who was not what he seemed, whose loyalty never wavered.

His goal, his seemingly impossible task: to destroy the Irish Labour Party from the inside, to shred its credibility, its self-respect and its principles. To see its once-proud name dragged through the gutters, to hear it cursed and mocked in every corner of the land, to watch its former supporters turn their faces away in shame.

And once that was done, and only then, could Pat Rabbitte’s lifelong work be accomplished. Only then could he stand in that basement on Hill Street and shake Seán Garland’s hand.

Only now can The Greatest Double Agent in History smile a genuine smile and permit, briefly, a real emotion to appear. For now, with the Labour Party disposed of, there was nothing that could stop the inevitable march to power of the Workers’ Party.

Nothing at all.

20 August / Lúnasa 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

JAMES CONNOLLY’S

GUE/NGL & DUBLIN SINN FÉIN

ANNUAL JAMES CONNOLLY SCHOOL

Mandate Trade Union Hall, Parnell Square, Dublin 1

(Opposite Gate Theatre)

Saturday 19 September, 10am to 4pm » James Connolly: Revolutionary, Feminist and Trade Union Activist » Women, Austerity and the Labour Market » TTIP: Jobs and Workers’ Rights » Resisting the Neo-liberal Agenda Prominent speakers including Lynn Boylan MEP Panel discussions

‘Re-conquest of Ireland’

BY MÍCHEÁL MAC DONNCHA DURING 1912 and 1913, when it seemed that Home Rule for Ireland would come about, James Connolly was working on his vision of how the trade union movement could bring about a new society. This work was expanded and became a book which Connolly published in 1915 and called The Re-conquest of Ireland. It is a major statement, setting out many of Connolly’s key ideas.

Building on his earlier book, Labour in Irish History (1910), Connolly briefly described the political, social and economic conquest of Ireland and then went on to look at the conditions of the day and how they could be transformed. He described life for industrial and agricultural workers, the status of women and the need for a revolution in Irish education.

He put special emphasis on both Dublin and Belfast, showing how, in the latter city, sectarianism was used to divide workers. On the centenary of the book, we carry here some key extracts.

The Conquest Let it be remembered, then, that the conquest was two-fold – social and political. It was the imposition upon Ireland of an alien rule in political matters and of a social system equally alien and even more abhorrent . . .

The Catholic dispossessed by force, the Protestant dispossessed by fraud.

Each hating and blaming the other, a situation which the dominant aristocracy knew well how, as their descendants know today, to profit by to their own advantage.

Dublin in the 20th Century Thus the high death-rate of Dublin

is seen to be entirely due to economic causes, to rise and fall with economic classes.

The rich of Dublin enjoy as long an immunity from death as do their kind elsewhere; it is the slaughter of Dublin’s poor that gives the Irish metropolis its unenviable and hateful notoriety among civilised nations.

Belfast and its Problems Our shipyards offer up a daily sacrifice of life and limb on the altar of capitalism. The clang of the ambulance bell is one of the most familiar daily sounds on the streets between out shipyards and our hospitals.

It has been computed that some 17 lives were lost on the Titanic before she

Connolly put special emphasis on both Dublin and Belfast, showing how, in the latter city, sectarianism was used to divide workers left the Lagan; a list of the maimed and hurt and those suffering from minor injuries as a result of the accidents at any one of those big ships would read 5 Connolly had a vision of how trade unionism could bring about a new society like a roster of the wounded after a vouchsafed the right to claim as her buildings, the present system of battle upon the Indian frontier. own a single penny of the money despotically-controlled education earned by her labour, and knowing gives us a staff of wretchedly-paid Woman that all her toil and privation would teachers with no rights but with duties The worker is the slave of capitalist not earn her that right to the farm continually increasing. society, the female worker is the slave which would go without question to of that slave. the most worthless member of the Re-conquest – A Summing Up In Ireland, that female worker has family, if that member chanced to be As democracy invades and captures hitherto exhibited, in her martyrdom, the eldest son . . . public powers, public ownership will, of an almost damnable patience. She has In its march towards freedom, the necessity, be transformed and infused toiled on the farms from her earliest working class of Ireland must cheer with a new spirit. As democracy enters, childhood, attaining usually to the age on the efforts of those women who, bureaucracy will take flight. But without of ripe womanhood, without being feeling on their souls and bodies the the power of the industrial union behind fetters of the ages, have arisen to strike it, democracy can only enter the state them off, and cheer all the louder if as the victim enters the gullet of the in its hatred of thraldom and passion serpent . . .

Labour in Ireland tends to become for freedom the women’s army forges ahead of the militant army of labour. more and more self-reliant, and in its self-reliance it discovers its strength.

Schools and Scholars of Erin Out of such strong self-reliance it develWhere the democracy, function- ops a magnetism which will draw to it ing through a representative public more and more support from all the body, would supply a competent adherents of all the causes which in staff of well-paid teachers, and splen- their entirety make for a regenerated didly equipped, heated and lighted Ireland.

ALL WELCOME FÁILTE ROIMH GACH DUINE For further information contact

lynn.boylan@sinnfein.ie

FOR

JUST €10

YOU CAN SUBSCRIBE TO

www.anphoblacht.com 5 Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa's funeral at Dublin City Hall. Rossa's daughter Eileen and wife Mary Jane (Molly) are pictured with James Connolly standing on the right

and get exclusive access to a series by Mícheál Mac Donncha chronicling the road to the 1916 Rising as seen through the pages of 'An tÓglach – the Irish Volunteer' from 24 April 1915 to 22 April 1916

August / Lúnasa 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

21

UNCOMFORTABLE CONV ERSATIONS

Genuine commitment to the necessary change?

PETER OSBORNE

Chair, Community Relations Council Former Chair, Parades Commission RECONCILIATION is the starting point and an end point for these ‘Uncomfortable Conversations’.

Real reconciliation is more than allocating a grant to a cross-community project. Real reconciliation is about ensuring that relationships and attitudes are transformed and that the society which created the need for cross-community projects is reformed and rebooted.

Real reconciliation must mean that our values become civic, not just sectional. It will allow this society to take the best of what we all represent and create something special that hasn’t been possible, ever, on this island or this part of it.

In these ‘Uncomfortable Conversations’ we need to understand the damage caused by a sectional approach.

It fuels mistrust. It is a barrier to generational change and to systemic, structural and societal reform.

That is why people from all backgrounds – on the street and in Government – must be challenged.

At times, poor examples have been set by everyone. That parade in Castlederg, a plaque very publicly unveiled, that play park. Ongoing discrimination against some, murals with masked gunmen that continue to be unveiled, bonfires plastered with sectarian signs, posters and flags.

Regardless of the individuals and the need for families and communities to remember, commemorate and celebrate, there are ways of doing things that can be unhelpful – things that can prolong sectional bitterness and glorify parts of the past that are best not glorified.

Yet if young people are sometimes encouraged to view the past unhelpfully, then they are also being failed in the sort of structural reform necessary to support them to learn and develop together.

Martin Luther King, 50 years ago almost to the day, led a rally against “the infamous wall of segregation in education” in Chicago.

Segregation lacked sense then; it still does now.

Shared education is a concept that has yet to demonstrate results in bringing young people together, not just produce outcomes in rationalising property portfolios.

Structural reform is needed to ensure children and young people – and their teachers – learn and develop together.

And all of us need to demonstrate the sort of courage Martin Luther King showed in challenging the status quo in education.

Racism seems as prevalent in the United States now as it was in King’s day, systemic racism as well as attitudinal. One lesson from the USA is that change of this nature takes a long time; another lesson is that social and economic disadvantage, inequality and an absence of hope and aspiration are important factors in prolonging racism and sectarianism.

Here there are clear issues around educational under-achievement in areas of need on all sides of the community. Many young people are a million miles away from having the hope and aspiration that will drive their future as citizens and leaders.

On these issues there needs to be a fierce urgency of now in leadership and in Government.

While much of the physical infrastructure that supported conflict has been removed, the physical infrastructure that managed division, the interface barriers, are dropping slowly – far too slowly.

Meanwhile, reconciliation needs to be reprioritised within Government.

Resourcing is tight all around but the community-based reconciliation infrastructure is being eroded; organisations that do so much on-the-ground are going out of business; the capacity for positive community response at interfaces is being lessened while need is still as great.

Reconciliation is about relationships, attitudes and trust. It is also about ‘stickability’ because this process, if it is to work, is generational and will take decades.

There will be at some point, therefore, a test arising from generational change in leadership and a change in the engine room of the process.

The touchstone of that change is what we will pass to the next generation. Whether our children – and their children – will be able to laugh together will be determined by what we do now.

Much has been achieved in the last 20 years. That is true and should not be under-estimated. The change effected has been immense and the leadership needed to deliver it should never be undervalued.

But each of us must ask ourselves have we done enough so far to change the status quo in attitudes, relationships and structures? The answer is that none of us have.

We need more ‘Uncomfortable Conversations’. But we need much more action and change too, from those on the

The touchstone of change is what we will pass to the next generation. Whether our children – and veir children – will be able to laugh together will be determined by what we do now

5 50 years ago Martin Luther King led a rally against 'the infamous wall of segregation in education' in Chicago

ground and from those in Government.

Society needs evidence, from the most ardent republican to the most loyal unionist, that the aim of transforming relationships and restructuring this society is genuine and those who can deliver are able to deliver.

22 August / Lúnasa 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

UNCOMFORTABLE CONVERSATIONS

NEXT STEPS IN AN IMPORTANT DEBATE?

RICHARD ENGLISH

Professor of Politics at the University of St Andrews and author of 'Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA' reviews the ‘Uncomfortable Conversations’ book THERE ARE NOT many aspects of politics on which 5 What we need are everyone in the North agrees. But I suspect that inclusive and sustained almost everybody would share the view that where processes of dialogue we currently are in the Peace Process and in the wider political situation is not where we would like to end up.

Some might suggest that this is as good as it is likely to get. Inherited sectarian enmities run so deep, and the legacy of the conflict is so painful, that it would be easy to take a negative view and assume that things cannot improve all that much from here.

But if there is to be a more fruitful future for this part of the world, then the kind of debate reflected in Sinn Féin’s and Declan Kearney’s new book, Uncomfortable Conversations, points the way in terms of one necessary aspect of how to proceed towards change. The volume collects a diverse set of reflections from political, cultural and other figures from across a spectrum of different political backgrounds, and it brings together pieces initially published in the pages of An Phoblacht.

Many valuable points are made. There is an emphasis on the need for unionists and nationalists to listen genuinely to each other (a point well made here by Gerry Adams and by Declan Kearney himself); there is a summary of some of the anxieties held by Northern Protestants (in a very good piece by Irish Methodist Heather Morris); there is some honest reflection about the difficulties and possibilities in dealing with the bloodstained past (Kieran McEvoy); and there is much else of value about the need for debate, reconciliation and open reflection.

Much of it concerns the legacy of the conflict. Declan Kearney observes rightly here that “the past cannot be changed or undone”. But he also wants there to be a new approach to producing a more benign context for future generations, and he recognises that this involves addressing the actual damage done on all sides during the last 50 years (and more).

Trust and empathy will be vital here. And – after so many years of division and suspicion and vicious violence

– these qualities are understandably in limited supply.

But, as academic Professor John Brewer points out in this book: “Compromise is the reciprocal agreement to act toward each other differently in the future.”

And we should remember how far there have been moves in that direction already.

When I moved from London to Belfast in 1989, the idea of Martin McGuinness and Queen Elizabeth II meeting cordially would have seemed extremely unlikely. But now such endeavours have become almost taken for granted, very quickly.

It ultimately depends on how far we really do want things to change. Oscar Wilde’s phrasing (“Sooner or later in political life one has to compromise. Everyone does”) hits the mark, I think. And a lot of people have moved significantly in that direction. Many lives have been saved as a result.

What we need are inclusive and sustained processes of dialogue. These have been moved forward by this book and by the initiative on which it is based. I think that they can move forward yet further if even more voices are included.

Some nationalists and republicans unsympathetic to Sinn Fein will be less than enthusiastic about the conversations held so far. But their views are distinctive and necessary too.

Similarly, there does surely need to be a sustained engagement by mainstream unionists – as well as by the eloquent individual Protestant voices heard in Uncomfortable Conversations – to explain that political vision, and to produce as much common, democratic ground as can be won across the political spectrum.

Yes, the conversations will be very uncomfortable. But the future politics of the island will be much more painful if they are not held, and this book makes a very helpful contribution.

If there is to be a more fruitful future for this part of the world, then the kind of debate reflected in Uncomfortable Conversations points the way in terms of one necessary aspect of how to proceed towards change

5 Former President of the Methodist Church in Ireland, Heather Morris, chats to Sinn Féin’s Declan Kearney

5 Professor John Brewer

August / Lúnasa 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

23

UNCOMFORTABLE CONV ERSATIONS

WESTMINSTER MEETING HEARS CALL FOR A

‘Coalition for Reconciliation’ past, reconciliation may be a long way off.”

He said that difficult compromises were necessary on all sides and that while many were happy to have the results of the Peace Process, they did not want to deal with how this had been achieved.

The former Secretary of State for the North of Ireland also shared concerns of the effects of the Tory Government’s economic policies: “Imposing austerity is not only the wrong economics, it is also dangerous for the Peace Process.”

Irish in Britain Chief Executive Jennie McShannon spoke of how the Peace Process had transformed the position of Irish people in England, Scotland and Wales. She said the Peace Process had “changed the relationship with Britain and provides a chance to change our perspectives”.

Lord John Alderdice praised Sinn Féin and Declan Kearney for taking the initiative. He said that during the Peace Process “all of us modified our views

BY JAYNE FISHER IN LONDON

A PACKED MEETING in Westminster’s Portcullis House on 14 July heard a wide-ranging discussion, led by Sinn Féin National Chairperson Declan Kearney, on the theme “Uncomfortable Conversations – Towards a Dialogue on Reconciliation”.

The panel also included former Labour Secretary of State Peter Hain; the Archbishop of Canterbury”s Canon for Reconciliation David Porter; former Assembly Speaker Lord John Alderdice; and Irish in Britain Chief Executive Jennie McShannon. Leading academic Professor Mary Hickman of St Mary’s

Declan Kearney said developing the ‘difficult and painful’ challenge of reconciliation means ‘uncomfortable compromises’ are inevitable University London was the chair, including for an audience Q&A. Introducing the meeting, Sinn Féin MP Pat Doherty said that it was important to bring the discussion to Westminster, to put a spotlight on the need for new process of reconciliation between Britain and Ireland.

Leading off the discussion, Declan Kearney underpinned his comments with a call for a ‘Coalition for Reconciliation’.

Beginning his remarks by evoking the “unimaginable horror” of the First World War and the “colossal devastation and suffering” of the war some 30 years later, the Sinn Féin Chairperson said that “painful questions” had to be asked in the process of realising reconciliation. These are “part of the uncomfortable conversations which need to happen for reconciliation and healing to grow”, he said.

Acknowledging the “terrible devastation and human loss caused by the political conflict in Ireland and Britain” he went on to assert that “the absence of war is not in itself enough”. He urged

5 Sinn Féin Chairperson Declan Kearney speaks at the event in Westminster

‘Imposing austerity is not only the wrong economics, it is also dangerous for the Peace Process’

LABOUR PARTY FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE PETER HAIN

during that experience”. Reconciliation meant dealing with “historic disturbed relationships” and, he said, whilst the law may have changed in many respects “mindsets” remained. He said it required “fundamental changes of attitudes to have a shared community”.

He said that while the current argument over welfare is “legitimate”, the political institutions “cannot be hostage to this”.

A broad and stimulating discussion from the floor raised a myriad of issues, including the impact of the failure to deal with discrimination, the effects on young people emerging from a post-conflict society, the role of schools and education, how economic policy affects the 5 'Uncomfortable Conversations' participants Professor Mary J. Hickman, Declan Kearney, David Porter, Jennie McShannon, peace, dealing with mental heath and Lord Alderdice, Pat Doherty MP and Jayne Fisher the inter-generational problems arising “all of us to develop reconciliation, This kind of leadership from both us all”. He asserted that an “honest from conflicts, the situation for current promote healing and to embrace sides sends “a clear message to those remembering” and “a hard telling” were prisoners, and the need for political forgiveness”. This “difficult and painful” who are hostile to this agenda”. prerequisites for reconciliation. He parties to show leadership. challenge also meant “uncomfortable David Porter, the Archbishop of raised concern that “cultural and social Responding to the wider debate compromises” are inevitable.

Canterbury”s Canon for Reconciliation, loss in working-class unionism” was around economic policy, Declan Kearney Referring to the minority who “still referred to the “essential architecture” “expressing itself in fear”. asserted: oppose that vision”, he stressed the of the work of the Consultative Group Former Labour Secretary of State “We need economic and social importance of political leadership and on the Past, of which he had been part Peter Hain said that there were serious scaffolding to build a process of “symbolic initiatives” such as the recent and which had informed the proposals problems with attempts to deal with reconciliation.” meeting between Martin McGuinness, of the Stormont House Agreement. the past and for victims who felt that He concluded by underlining his He said the conflict “belongs to us their pain was “not recognised”. He said: call for a ‘Coalition for Reconciliation’.

Gerry Adams and Prince Charles, which held “great significance” in asserting a all” and that “any progress on recon“Unless we have a comprehensive The process of ‘Uncomfortable ciliation will require great courage by and inclusive way of dealing with the Conversations’ is set to continue. different vision – for reconciliation.

24 August / Lúnasa 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

www.guengl.eu MEPs ignore European public’s opposition to TTIP

MEMBERS of the European Parliament have voted in favour of a controversial report on the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) – the massive new free trade deal being negotiated between the EU and the US. Speaking from Strasbourg on 8 July, Midlands North West MEP Matt Carthy, said: “I am hugely disappointed by today’s vote in the European Parliament on the report on TTIP. “In my view, this vote gives a free hand to the Commission to continue with the approach to these trade negotiations.

“TTIP represents a real threat to our democratic institutions, our standards, our public services, our workers and our agricultural sector. The report adopted today does very little to address these threats in any meaningful way.

Matt Carthy MEP

“There is little attempt to thwart the handover of power to corporations and investors as the watered-down proposal for an Investor State Dispute Settlement contained in the report still allows democratic decisions to be subverted for the interests of those solely interested in the profit margins.

“Today was an opportunity for MEPs to take a stand and shape the mandate of the European Commission to ensure that the interests of citizens right across Europe were placed at the heart of these negotiations.

“Instead, they have given a green light to the European Commission to sell off our core values and standards to the highest bidder with little thought to the consequences for ordinary people across Europe.”

Youth unemployment delegation in Brussels DOZENS of young people and activists visited the European Parliament in Brussels on 30 June at the invitation of Dublin MEP Lynn Boylan to discuss the issue of youth unemployment.

The delegation met with trade union representatives from Belgium and Germany; the European Youth Forum, which represents 99 youth organisations; and the EU Commission youth employment and entrepreneurship sector.

Speaking following the delegation’s visit, Lynn Boylan said: “One of our delegates asked an interesting

question of the Commission and guest speakers: if any young person in the EU had actually obtained employment out of participation in the Youth Guarantee programme.”

(The EU Youth Guarantee is a fund and programme established by the EU aimed at ensuring all young people are in employment, education or training.)

“The European Youth Forum representative explained that a review carried out by the European Court of auditors in March stated that they have yet to see a single person that has got a job from the Youth Guarantee.”

Lynn Boylan added: “When you look at frightening statistics like five million unemployed young people across the EU, not only do we need to develop a comprehensive, well-funded plan to tackle this problem, we need a change of policy.

“Austerity is not working. Investing in our young people without growing the economy and creating jobs will not solve the problem. We also need to ensure that the jobs being created are quality jobs, not the precarious and low-paid jobs young people too often find themselves in.”

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

Irish Marine Minister refuses to meet sole Irish MEP on Fisheries Committee

LIADH NÍ RIADA, MEP for Ireland South has strongly criticised Ireland’s Minister for Agriculture, Food & the Marine, Simon Coveney, for ignoring her repeated requests for a one-toone meeting to discuss the situation in Irish fisheries.

Speaking on 8 July, Liadh Ní Riada said: “It is incredible that Minister Simon Coveney has been long ignoring my requests for a meeting considering that I am the only Irish MEP on the European Committee for Fisheries.

“There are pressing issues that we both need to discuss such as how the absence of a commercial quota restricts sustainable recreational practices and the ‘catch and release’ programmes.

I also want to discuss a Single Boat Payment plan with the Minister.

“There is a litany of pressing issues which demands a constructive engagement between the minister and I, so I am once again calling on him to make the time to hold this discussion.”

Mobile roaming charges deadline must be enforced MARTINA ANDERSON MEP has called on the European Council to enforce a new deadline for the abolition of mobile phone roaming charges.

Speaking on 30 June, she said: “Last year the European Commission agreed to scrap roaming charges

by December this year; however the Council pushed the date back to 2018.

“That delay was unacceptable to us and would have led to people living and working in border areas being hit with unfair roaming charges for another three years.

“Matt Carthy and I recently met with senior officials from the European Council to discuss this.

“Today’s decision by the European Council to bring forward the date for the abolition of roaming charges is welcome but they will still be in place until June 2017.

“The onus is now on the European Council to ensure this deadline is adhered to so that customers, particularly those in Border areas, are not penalised by unfair charges beyond that date.”

August / Lúnasa 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

25

Another Europe is possible Treo eile don Eoraip REPORTS BY EMMA CLANCY AT THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT Lynn Boylan Right2Water report adopted by Environment Committee

Liadh Ní Riada

Matt Carthy

EU should not fund Israeli groups in breach of international law DOZENS of MEPs have demanded an end to EU funding of Israeli organisations involved in breaching international human rights laws.

Martina Anderson MEP is the Chair of the EU’s Delegation to the Palestinian Legislative Council. She wrote and circulated a letter calling for an end to this funding which was signed by 79 MEPs before being sent to Fedrica Morgherni, the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs, on 17 July.

“There is widespread concern among Palestinian groups about some of the Israeli

Ireland should legislate to stop ‘vulture funds’ MATT CARTHY MEP, member of the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee, has highlighted the importance of establishing a new legal framework for sovereign debt restructuring to prevent ‘vulture funds’ posing a risk to all future debt restructuring processes.

“Vulture funds are predatory hedge funds that buy bonds of debt crises countries at rock-bottom prices on the secondary market,” Matt Carthy explained.

“They pose a number of risks to all future debt restructuring processes, for both developing and developed countries.

“It is imperative that safeguards are established to effectively deal with these concerns.

“I’m calling on the Irish Government to follow the lead of Belgium which has passed a law to cap how much these vulture funds can recoup from Government debt.”

groups accessing funding from the Horizon 2020 programme,” Martina Anderson said.

Horizon 2020 is an €80billion EU funding Research and Innovation Programme.

“Those views are shared by a growing number of MEPs who are concerned that current EU guidelines to assist international law do not go far enough.

“Palestinian groups have brought to our attention a report by the ‘Stop the Wall’ group detailing financial assistance given to Israeli military and security companies who are involved in violations of international law.

5 Martina Anderson and other MEPs show solidaity with the Freedom Flotilla currently on its way to deliver humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza

“The international community and the EU in particular have a responsibility to support the Palestinian people and challenges breaches of international law.”

Martina Anderson also hosted a delegation of Palestine solidarity activists from the North of Ireland at the European Parliament in Brussels on 1 July.

Members of the delegation met a range of Palestinian officials, including Shebli Hadi, the head of Palestine’s mission to the EU, to discuss the latest developments in the region.

THE European Parliament’s Environment Committee adopted the Boylan Report on the Right to Water on 25 June.

The report’s author, Dublin MEP Lynn Boylan, said: ”I am absolutely delighted that the committee has adopted all my recommendations on the European Citizen’s Initiative (ECI) on the Right2Water in spite of the attempts by Fine Gael’s EPP group to postpone the vote.

“Almost two million citizens signed this ECI and the Commission’s response was simply not good enough.

“Citizens have serious and legitimate concerns regarding the privatisation of water services which I have highlighted in my report. Water is a human right, not a commodity.

“I am especially pleased to see that my amendments excluding water services from internal market rules and trade agreements such as TTIP were successful.”

European Council calls on Britain to support Irish language rights THE European Council’s Committee of Ministers has recommended that Britain “adopt and implement a comprehensive Irish language policy, preferably through the adoption of legislation providing statutory rights for the Irish speakers” as a matter of priority.

The call followed the third and fourth monitoring cycles on the application of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages.

MEPs Liadh Ní Riada and Martina Anderson met with Thorsten Afflerbach, the head of Secretariat for European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, on 8 July to discuss this recommendation and how the introduction of legislation can help to protect and develop regional or minority languages.

Liadh Ní Riada said: “This meeting was a useful engagement and Martina and I, along with Minister

for Culture in the North Caral Ní Chuilin, hope to meet with Dr Vesna Crnic-Grotic (Chair of the Committee of Experts of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages) in the next few months to discuss this in further detail.

“Acht na Gaeilge is a commitment under the St Andrews Agreement and it is about achieving rights and equality for those who use the language every day.

“The protection and enhancement of the Irish language does not pose a threat to anybody. In fact, it will improve levels of appreciation for cultural diversity across all communities.

“On 10 February 2015, the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure launched a public consultation on proposals for an Irish Language Bill and thousands of submissions were made.

“The rights of Irish speakers need to be afforded official protection in legislation.”

Martina Anderson

Lynn Boylan

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

26 August / Lúnasa 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

USION L L O C Belfast to Bahrain

BY OISÍN Mac CANNA

Sentinel Human Rights Defenders SINCE 2011, Bahrain has seen plenty of political turmoil with many of its citizens calling for reform, democracy and universal suffrage. The Shia majority within the state is marginalised and treated as second-class citizens in strong contrast with the Sunni minority, the same religion as the royal family. Since this began to occur, the level of harassment and attacks that Shia Muslims have faced at the hands of pro-government militias has increased tenfold. We can see history repeating itself and comparisons between the North of Ireland during the 1970s/1980s and Bahrain today.

Ian Henderson is one name that frequently comes up when discussing collusion in Bahrain. Henderson, who died two years ago, was dubbed ‘The Butcher of Bahrain’.

As a Colonial Police officer he had helped suppress the freedom struggle by the insurgent Kenya Land & Freedom Army in what is known as ‘The Mau Mau Uprising’ against British rule. He was awarded the George Medal for his role in a conflict infamous for its brutality and torture.

When Kenya secured its independence from Britain, Henderson moved to Bahrain, taking with him his experience of counter-insurgency policing and repression. He was installed as head of security in Bahrain in 1966 when the country was still a British protectorate.

He was described by renowned Middle East commentator Robert Fisk as “the most feared of all secret policemen”.

When Bahrain declared independence in 1971, Prime Minister Bin Salman kept him as head of the state’s intelligence service. He is widely believed to have trained the Bahraini security forces in torture techniques used

in the North of Ireland against republican detainees during the conflict. While some argue that this remains speculation, the British Government refuses to release a 38-year-old document that human right groups worldwide believe would shed light on the allegations. The document should be available under Britain’s 30-year rule but the only version that has been released thus far has been a highly redacted and censored version.

Despite the cloud that hangs over Henderson, he made a Companion of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II in 1984. He was, of course, received several awards from the Bahraini royal family.

One Bahraini journalist who reported the anti-democracy state violence and paid for it with his life is Ahmed Ismaeel.

Ahmed had been a citizen journalist in Bahrain, documenting the pro-democracy demonstrations and ground activity in the area since the people’s movement began in Bahrain in 2011.

Soon after gaining recognition among major news agencies operating in the area for the footage he was capturing and which they used in their reports, he began to receive death threats from various sources.

This only spurred him on to show to the world the ongoing human rights violations that were occurring in Bahrain.

5 Bahrain's Sunni elite have been cracking down on the Shia majority

‘The most feared of all secret policemen’ is widely believed to have trained the Bahraini security forces in torture techniques used in the North of Ireland against republican detainees during the conflict Ahmed was shot dead while filming a peaceful protest. The bullet was fired from a moving vehicle that made three passes at the demonstrators. He was shot in his upper leg, where the bullet hit a critical vein that was connected to a large number of arteries. He was rushed to hospital where he died sometime later. Locals believe the masked assailants to be one of the multiple pro-Government militias operating in the region.

For months on end he had been receiving death threats from state intelligence agents in Bahrain telling him to stop. Only a week before his death he was threatened one last time and stood his ground by saying: “Do you know water? I am like water – you cannot catch me.”

A quote from the Bahraini Free Press Association’s

annual report from the year of his death states how “intimidation and direct targeting policies against media professionals have been on the rise”.

During the opening of the Washington News Museum, Ahmed’s name was posted on a large mural commemorating journalists who were killed in 2012. In a bittersweet turn of events in Bahrain, it is a father who is inheriting his son’s legacy. Ahmed’s father chose to continue his son’s mission to show the world the ongoing oppression and human right violations that have become routine in Bahrain and the people’s demand for change.

Today, Ahmed’s father is covering the protests and violations that his son can no longer document. As he carries a photo of his son while he works, it appears Ahmed has never really left the crowd.

SENTINEL HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS is an international NGO based in Dublin promoting the empowerment and participation of civil society all around the world. It seeks to fight any form of discrimination and to end practices such as torture, arbitrary limitation of individual freedoms or any other form of violence.

www.sentinelhrd.com

5 Journalist Ahmed Ismael died after being shot in the thigh by a suspected Government death squad. (Right) His father carries on his legacy, covering the pro-democracy protests in the Gulf island nation

August / Lúnasa 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

ROBBIE SMYTH on how the mainstream media are reporting – or misreporting – Greece “GAMBLING, defiant, egotistic, populist clowns” who are “more interested in lecturing the rest of Europe, rather than persuading us they can run the Greek economy”. Their “brinksmanship has reached dangerous levels” because they are “slow learners”.

These are all terms used or reported by the news media to describe the SYRIZA-led coalition government in Greece. The “lecturing” quote comes courtesy of Labour Party leader and erstwhile socialist internationalist Joan Burton.

The endless online content along with acres of print coverage have largely glossed over some critical issues of how power is wielded in Europe and by whom.

Instead, the deliberations between the Greek Government and the EU have been full of trivia, while critical aspects of the negotiations are ignored.

With the SYRIZA election victory in January, came commentary on the casual dress style of Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and former Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis. Who knew the lack of ties could be a deal breaker in talks. Or maybe it was the cool motorbike that Varoufakis travelled on in Athens in his leather biker gear. Did you know that he has a backpack rather than a briefcase? And RTÉ Radio’s Playback seemed to think it important that we know Varoufakis’s wife on the back of his motorbike is a blonde.

As well as a motorbike, Varoufakis has a PhD in Economics. I couldn’t find any news coverage that called him Dr Varoufakis. But German Chancellor Angela Merkel frequently becomes Dr Merkel, particularly in Irish Times news coverage. Okay, maybe this is my republican paranoia conspiracy mindset at work, but could there be a distorted language of power in this news coverage?

SYRIZA, is the “Leftist”, or “far Left”, or “radical left-wing” party, depending on whether you read the Guardian, Telegraph or Newsweek respectively.

The Irish mainstream media parroted these lines but seldom do we hear RTÉ or Newstalk speak of “the rightwing Fine Gael”. No right-wing terms are used for the EU Troika or Merkel’s Christian Democrats either.

This double standard permeates the reporting of the Greek debt talks.

Throughout the negotiations, statements were routinely ignored if made

by SYRIZA but casually repeated ad nauseam if made by the Troika, even when seen to be untrue.

One example is the assertion repeatedly made by Troika representatives that the Greek Government had not made proposals to them. An Irish Times editorial on 12 June, like many other news media reports, trots out this line,

27

New statesmen and old media mores

BY ROBBIE SMYTH

5 There were noticeable double-standards applied to the coverage of the main participants in the Greek debt deal

5 Mainstream media ignored comments made by SYRIZA but parroted the noises of the Troika – even when they were wrong

writing that Greece was “rejecting plans put forward by its creditors but not coming up with detailed alternatives”.

On 20 June, the Irish Times carried an article by Yanis Varoufakis where he states that he had presented detailed

proposals on “a comprehensive reform agenda”, “a debt break mechanism” and “debt swaps”. Varoufakis maintains that his submissions were met with silence and the reiteration that Greece had made no proposals. This critical point

has been ignored by most news media outlets, including the Times.

When Varoufakis objected to a Eurogroup communique being issued without Greek consent, he was told “the Eurogroup does not exist in law,

Why does it fall to opinion columnists like Paul Krugman, Joseph Stiglitz, Seamus Milne or David McWilliams to offer a contrary view to misleading hyped headlines and comments that have characterised reporting of the ‘Greek crisis’?

there is no treaty which has convened this group”.

Varoufakis said: “What we have is a non-existent group that has the greatest power to determine the lives of Europeans. It’s not answerable to anyone, given it doesn’t exist in law; no minutes are kept; and it’s confidential.”

Surely this is the key element to the ‘Greek crisis’ story. The question not tackled is why do so few journalists want to tell this side of what has happened since SYRIZA took power?

Why does it fall to opinion columnists like Paul Krugman, Joseph Stiglitz, Seamus Milne or David McWilliams to offer a contrary view to misleading hyped headlines and comments that have characterised reporting of the ‘Greek crisis’?

Paul Krugman sums it up about recent media coverage of Greece: “You need to realise that most – not all, but most – of what you’ve heard about Greek profligacy and irresponsibility is false.”

And perhaps Malcolm X was on the button much earlier when he said: “The media’s the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power. Because they control the minds of the masses.”

5 The media took huge interest in Yanis Varoufakis's motorbike, his wife and his lack of neckties – but his important economic arguments were often ignored

28 August / Lúnasa 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

Sinn Féin leader wins Press Council complaint

Gerry Adams and the IRA raid on the Irish Independent

BY MARK MOLONEY THE Press Council has upheld a complaint

by Gerry Adams that the Irish Independent distorted comments he made in relation to the newspaper during a speech in New York last November.

Adams, commenting on the Indo’s virulent anti-republican campaign, noted as a matter of history that during the Tan War, on 19 December 1919, Michael Collins’s response to “the Independent’s criticism of the fight for freedom was to dispatch Volunteers to the Independent’s offices” who held the editor at gunpoint and destroyed the printing press.

The Indo was found to have taken Adams’s comments out of context and had not made

Michael Collins’s men said they should have shot the editor of the Irish Independent after it had condemned the IRA it clear that it was about an incident a century ago – thus making it seem that Adams had threatened the current editor.

The Indo’s criticism in 1919 was of the attempted assassination of the Lord Lietenant of Ireland and Supreme Commander of the British Army in Ireland, Lord John French, as he returned to the Phoenix Park from Ashtown train station. During the attempted ambush, 21-year-old IRA Volunteer Martin Savage was killed. Lord French managed to escape.

Under the editorial title “A deplorable outrage”, the Irish Independent condemned the actions of the freedom fighters as “appalling, revolting, immoral, unchristian and reprehensible deeds” which “discredit the country” while engaging in thinly-veiled gloating at the death of Volunteer Martin Savage.

So outraged were the IRA over the coverage of the Ashtown attack and the condemnation of their comrade that they decided to take action.

Gerry Adams TD

Speaking to the Bureau of Military History, Lieutenant Patrick J. Kelly of the Dublin Brigade said: “Dick McKee and Peadar Clancy deemed it about time to teach the Independent a lesson,” he said, explaining how about 30 Volunteers surrounded the newspaper offices and printers on Middle Abbey Street with 16 (including himself) going inside armed with revolvers, sledgehammers, crowbars and heavy wrenches.

“Two DMP [police officers] who were on guard outside bade us goodnight, no doubt mistaking us for workmen,” he recalls.

The editor and ten staff members were then held at gunpoint while the Volunteers went to work dismantling the machinery. A statement was also given to the editor with orders that he print it in the following edition. “Peadar Clancy remarked to me later ‘We should have shot the editor’.”

Reporting on the attack in the Independent on Monday, the paper said that the IRA had

5 30 Volunteers from the IRA's Dublin Brigade took part in the operation against the Irish Independent “wrecked practically all the valuable machinery on the premises” and that staff were “covered with revolvers” while the printing presses were shattered.

The Indo also complied with demands from the IRA and published a statement from the “raiders” which explained that “to brand with the name of ‘assassin’ a high-souled youth [Martin Savage] who risked his life and gave it in an endeavour to rid his country of one of these tyrants, you have outraged the sensibilities and endeavoured to misrepresent the sympathies and opinion of the Irish people. This suppression will illustrate to the Irish people that you have been thus reminded.”

In a twist of fate, the Volunteer who had held the editor at gunpoint, Bill Judge, was later sent by his business to meet with the editor a week later: “As he entered, the editor looked up from his desk and, seeing Bill, automatically raised his hands. Bill said ‘This is a business call’ and went on to explain his errand. There was no 5 IRA Director of Intelligence Michael Collins reference made to his previous visit.”

5 21-year-old IRA Volunteer Martin Savage (inset) was killed during a gun battle following the attempt on Lord French who managed to escape

ANNUAL LIAM LYNCH COMMEMORATION

5 Sinn Féin Nenagh Councillor Seamus Morris and Limerick University history lecturer Dr Ruan O'Donnell addressed the annual Liam Lynch Commemoration at Goatenbridge, County Tipperary

August / Lúnasa 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

I nDíl Chuimhne

All notices and obituaries should be sent to notices@anphoblacht.com by Friday 14 August 2015

1 August 1981: Volunteer Kevin LYNCH (INLA), Long Kesh 2 August 1981: Volunteer Kieran DOHERTY, Long Kesh 3 August 1972: Volunteer Robert McCRUDDEN, Belfast Brigade, 2nd Battalion 3 August 1974: Volunteer Martin SKILLEN, Belfast Brigade, 2nd Battalion 4 August 1985: Volunteer Tony CAMPBELL, Belfast Brigade, 2nd Battalion 6 August 1985: Volunteer Charles ENGLISH, Derry Brigade 8 August 1981: Volunteer Thomas McELWEE, Long Kesh 8 August 1984: Volunteer Brendan WATTERS, Newry Brigade

8 August 1996: Volunteer Malachy WATTERS, South Armagh Brigade 9 August 1970: Volunteer Jimmy STEELE, Belfast Brigade, 2nd Battalion 9 August 1971: Volunteer Patrick McADOREY, Belfast Brigade, 3rd Battalion 9 August 1972: Volunteer Colm MURTAGH, Newry Brigade 9 August 1977: Fian Paul McWILLIAMS, Fianna Éireann 9 August 1986: Volunteer Patrick O’HAGAN, Derry Brigade 10 August 1976: Volunteer Danny LENNON, Belfast Brigade, 1st Battalion 11 August 1971: Volunteer Séamus SIMPSON, Belfast Brigade, 2nd Battalion 11 August 1972: Volunteer Anne

Comhbhrón LYNCH. Deepest sympathy is extended to Donna and family on the recent loss of my friend and comrade Brendan ‘Benny’ Lynch.

29

Sorry I could not be there to share your grief. From the O’Callaghan family (Lenadoon) and Mick O’Callaghan in Dublin.

Life springs from death and from the graves of patriot men and women spring living nations Pádraig Pearse PARKER, Cumann na mBan, Belfast 11 August 1972: Volunteer Michael CLARKE, Belfast Brigade, 2nd Battalion 11 August 1973: Volunteers Gerard McGLYNN and Seamus HARVEY, Tyrone Brigade 12 August 1991: Pádraig Ó SEANACHÁIN, Sinn Féin 12 August 1996: Volunteer Jimmy

ROE, Belfast Brigade, 1st Battalion 14 August 1974: Volunteer Paul MAGORRIAN, South Down Command 15 August 1969: Fian Gerald McAULEY, Fianna Éireann 16 August 1973: Volunteers Daniel McANALLEN and Patrick QUINN, Tyrone Brigade 16 August 1991: Tommy DONAGHY, Sinn Féin 18 August 1971: Volunteer Eamonn LAFFERTY, Derry Brigade 19 August 1971: Volunteer James O’HAGAN, Derry Brigade 20 August 1981 Volunteer Mickey DEVINE (INLA), Long Kesh 22 August 1972: Volunteers Noel MADDEN, Oliver ROWNTREE and Patrick HUGHES, Newry Brigade

25 August 1982: Volunteer Eamonn BRADLEY, Derry Brigade 26 August 1972: Volunteers James CARLIN and Martin CURRAN, South Down Brigade 27 August 1974: Volunteer Patrick McKEOWN, Newry Brigade 29 August 1975: Fian James TEMPLETON, Fianna Éireann 30 August 1973: Volunteer Francis HALL, Belfast Brigade, 1st Battalion 30 August 1988: Volunteers Brian MULLIN, Gerard HARTE and Martin HARTE, Tyrone Brigade 31 August 1973: Volunteer Patrick MULVENNA, Belfast Brigade Always remembered by the Republican Movement

» Notices All notices should be sent to: notices@anphoblacht.com at least 14 days in advance of publication date. 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.

DUBLIN

FÓGRAÍ BHÁIS

Centenary re-enactment of O'Donovan Rossa funeral and 'Fenian Weekend'

5 Hundreds of people attended the funeral of Benny Lynch in Belfast

Events on 1 August and over the weekend to mark the famous call to arms for the 1916 Rising. Groups interested in taking part in this historical event should contact 1916@sinnfein.ie.

Full 2016 programme at www.sinnfein.ie/1916.

Commemoration 5 Former POWs Séanna Walsh and Gerry McConville drape Benny Lynch's coffin with the national flag as Martin Lynch looks on

5 Benny's wife Donna carries his coffin

Brendan ‘Benny’ Lynch Belfast

HUNDREDS of mourners from across the country attended the funeral of former ‘Blanketman’ Brendan ‘Benny’ Lynch who died on Sunday 5 July after a long illness.

Among the mourners were prominent Sinn Féin politicians, including deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness, Junior Minister Jennifer McCann, Arts & Culture Minister Carál Ní Chuilín, West Belfast MP Paul Maskey, and MLAs from across the North.

Many party activists also attended.

Benny’s standing, both as a community activist and a physiotherapist, was also evident with representatives from across the community sector and the sporting world.

His work with the Falls Community Council, where he worked as an anti-drugs campaigner and on drugs awareness programmes, put him at the heart of campaigns aimed at turning young people in

particular away from substance abuse.

He was renowned as a physiotherapist and worked with both GAA and soccer players over many years.

Benny was part of the backroom staff at Premier league side Cliftonville when they won back-to-back league titles in 2013 and 2014.

He also tended to injured players at his beloved Lámh Dhearg GAC at Hannahstown, in west Belfast, where his sense of humour and wit made the healing process easier.

VOLUNTEER CHARLIE McGLADE

Volunteer Charlie McGlade Commemoration.

Saturday 19 September. Assemble 3:30pm, Dolphin Road Green, Drimnagh. Main speaker: Aengus Ó Snodaigh TD. Colour party and Rising Phoenix RFB in attendance.

The Volunteer Charlie McGlade Memorial Cup TugO-War Challenge will be held on the day.

30 August / Lúnasa 2015

www.anphoblacht.com

BETWEEN THE POSTS

BY CIARÁN KEARNEY

LEAVING the pitch at Pearse Stadium, Brendan Rogers looked agitated and dismayed. He had just been shown a black card. When he and his teammate Mark Lynch, captain of Derry, questioned the decision they were met with an abrupt retort. “I don’t have to explain myself to you,” said the referee. An hour later, Derry had been knocked out of the All-Ireland 2015 qualifiers by Galway and were on the long road home.

In every sphere of public life, accountability is a mantra. Yet nowhere is this is so deeply contested as in sport.

The rules of Gaelic games are only as good as those who make and enforce them. Those rules have undergone a monumental overhaul in recent years.

Some changes have been inspired by a desire to speed up the sport and harness more support, especially abroad.

Ironically, as public interest increases, so too does transparency in decision making.

Increased television coverage and use of social media platforms such as Twitter, YouTube and Vine now mean instant replays and analysis of events in Championship matches. No longer do supporters of Gaelic games have to await the Monday morning newspaper.

Visibility brings increased transparency. The question remains whether this is matched by accountability.

Where players and managers are concerned, there is no shortage of commentators offering a public

WHO GUARDS THE GUARDIANS?

evaluation. Some post-match reports even carry ratings out of ten. Noticeably absent is any rating of match officials. Most county managers during this year’s championship demure from open criticism of referees, fearing official censure behind closed doors.

After the match in Galway, unfettered by such restraints, Derry senior Gaelic football team manager Brian McIver bravely broached the conduct of match officials. Highlighting a series of match-defining decisions which tipped the outcome away from Derry, McIver asked to whom the referee is accountable: “Matches should be decided by players, not by referees.”

His words met with assent not only by many of the reporters gathered but they were also widely supported on social media. The inconsistency

of refereeing decisions in matches is a debate too long ignored.

While nothing should take away from Galway’s victory, the referee had a disproportionate influence on the outcome. As Derry forward Cailean Ó Boyle leapt to connect to a goal-bound ball he was pushed to the ground by his Galway marker. Irish Examiner sports

impact too.

A penalty was wrongly awarded to Kerry in the Munster Final against Cork. Some commentators praised the gamesmanship of Kerry forward James O Donohue for ‘creating’ the penalty. In any event, that penalty brought Kerry back to life. They forced a replay which they won to claim another Munster title. Of course, Louth will never forget, or forgive, the decision of the referee to allow the goal by Meath forward Joe Sheridan which cost the Wee County a Leinster football title.

In other sports the fallibility of adjudicators is increasingly recognised.

Rugby provides a Television Match Official (TMO) to help the referee make the right decision. A graphic example of this was in November 2013 when New Zealand beat Ireland in Dublin. It

Visibility brings increased transparency.

The question remains whether this is matched by accountability reporter John Fogarty tweeted: “Derry penalty all day long.” Without so much as a word with umpires, penalty claims were brushed aside and, moments later, Galway returned serve with a great goal. A six-point turnaround in 60 seconds.

If goals win games, penalty decisions

IN PICTURES

5 Ahead of leaving for Los Angeles, Ireland's Special Olympic footballers are presented to the crowd at Dalymount Park, Dublin, by the new Sinn Féin Ard Mhéara Críona Ní Dhálaigh during the Bohemians v Sligo Rovers match

was a critical victory for the All-Blacks, capping an historic international campaign that year. It all came down to a try by New Zealand in the dying seconds of the match. Referee Nigel Owens called for TMO video replay of the final two passes in the phase of play to confirm they were lawful. He also permitted All Blacks kicker Aaron Cruden to take the conversion for a second time after missing it because Ireland illegally charged the kicker. TMO will be used extensively in the Rugby World Cup later this year.

In tennis, players have a quota of challenges against umpire calls.

This uses Hawkeye technology, a decision-making aid now introduced to Croke Park to help to confirm points.

Bias in decision-making reliant on eyewitness testimony is something long recognised in other spheres, such as court proceedings. The eye sees what the mind perceives.

Seeing players after Derry’s defeat

by Galway is justification enough for a new system of accountability for match officials. Like their opponents, Derry had trained and prepared for months for this game. Huge personal sacrifices had been made. Derry midfielder Fergal Doherty made the 500-mile round-trip that day to play for his county before returning to his mother-in-law’s wake.

Of course, referees are human too. They make sacrifices. But when they make mistakes, it’s the players who pay the price. That must change.

photos@anphoblacht.com

5 Sinn Féin MEP Matt Carthy and his son Seán celebrate Monaghan's Ulster Final victory over Donegal at St Tiernach's Park in Clones

August / Lúnasa 2015

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31

BILBAO

A city reborn

BY MÁIRTÍN Ó MUILLEOIR MAYOR JUAN MARI ABURTO of Bilbao put his finger on it when he accepted my plaudits about the formidable two-decade rise of his city but noted that many challenges lie ahead.

Elected in May, Mayor Aburto has pledged to ensure Bilbao is “a meeting place for the exercise of pluralism, tolerance and respect for difference”.

He learnt Basque as an adult and speaks good English, a product perhaps of three summers spent in Wexford as a teenager.

Key investments in buildings and infrastructure have transformed Bilbao but there is still much work to do to provide work for youth, good quality social housing and equal opportunity for all.

But this is a former industrial ship-building city which has been born again. While there has been much talk of a ‘Guggenheim effect’ in cities across the world that have made flagship investments,

The Mayor of Bilbao learnt Basque as an adult and speaks good English, a product perhaps of three summers spent in Wexford as a teenager the one city which can claim to have benefited from that effect is the forerunner: Bilbao itself.

Frank Gehry’s dreamlike Guggenheim Museum is a clear match for the world’s greatest artists who exhibit there. But now there are many equally prestigious buildings built by fellow ‘starchitects’. A Metro by Sir Norman Foster, a Calatrava bridge, a university library by Rafaél Moneo and a 40-floor tower by César Pelli, who built the famed Twin Towers of Malaysia. Pritzker Prize-winning architect Zaha Hadid has started work on a new masterplan for Bilbao to regenerate a rundown industrial area across the river from the Guggenheim.

The ambition of Bilbao is breathtaking but it’s also reassuring to hear that Mayor Aburto wants, as he told me, much more than “a pretty city”.

Of course, like Belfast, Bilbao is enjoying the fruits of the emerging peace process in the Basque Country. Our cities, therefore, have much in common and much common ground on which to build new alliances and partnerships.

I hope we can start that work in October at

5 Key investments in buildings and infrastructure have transformed Bilbao the Belfast Homecoming. I have invited Mayor Aburto to come to the Homecoming not only to join in the conversation about how best to build greater cities serving all our peoples but also to see how the Irish and Scots-Irish diasporas are contributing to Belfast’s renaissance.

The Basque diaspora is as far-flung and as talented as our own but to date there hasn’t been

Like Belfast, Bilbao is enjoying the fruits of the emerging peace process in the Basque Country

5 Máirtín Ó Muilleoir with Mayor Juan Mari Aburto of Bilbao

a strategy to engage the global Basque family on the scale pioneered by the Irish Government with its diaspora strategy.

I have no doubt that a visit to Belfast by Mayor Aburto would usher in a new era of co-operation between our cities. And he won’t be without peers as at least two other mayors have also confirmed for the Homecoming: Mayor of Belfast Arder Carson and Árd Mhéara Bhaile Átha Cliath Críona Ní Dhálaigh!

• I hot-footed it back from Bilbao to take part in the Stormont Finance Committee inquiry into the NAMA sale of its Northern portfolio — a sorry debacle. All the evidence to date points to NAMA having been duped to sell at a rate far below the true value of the 850 property loans it held.

A proper sales process would have brought in a much higher return for the Southern taxpayer.

As the investigating arm of government, our job is to determine the full truth of what one MLA has described as the “dirty scheme” which constituted the NAMA sale.

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IN PICTURES

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5 Mayor of Derry City and Strabane District Elisha McCallion, Gerry Adams TD, Ard Mhéara of Dublin City Críona Ní Dhálaigh, Mary Lou McDonald TD and Mayor of Belfast Arder Carson at Dublin City Hall following Críona's election as mayor

5 Remembering the Past – Sinn Féin TD Martin Ferris shares his history with re-enactors at the annual Asgard Commemoration in Howth where he was the main speaker

5 Sinn Féin activists protest at Belfast City Hall demanding 5 Sinn Féin elected representatives and party that Justice Minister David Ford restore funding for activists hold a protest against Water Charges interface projects outside the gates of Leinster House

5 'Pádraig Pearse' (actor Allan Keating) at the launch of Sinn Féin's re-enactment of the funeral of Fenian veteran Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa.

(Below) Gerry Adams TD with members of the Cabra Historical Society

5 Relatives of the 1916 leaders with Sinn Féin TDs demanding An Taoiseach stop the proposed sale

by NAMA of the Moore Street 1916 battlefield site to international investors

5 Sinn Féin's Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin TD with abuse survivors from the Magdalene Laundries and Mother & Baby homes protesting outside Leinster House in Dublin