An Phoblacht, August 2016

Sunday 14th August

BOBBY SANDS

FRANCIS HUGHES

RAYMOND McCREESH

PATSY O'HARA

JOE McDONNELL

MARTIN HURSON

KEVIN LYNCH

KIERAN DOHERTY

THOMAS McELWEE

Assemble 2pm Divis Tower, Belfast

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Momentum for Irish Yes unity growing Sraith Nua Iml 39 Uimhir 8

August / Lúnasa 2016

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DONALD TRUMP

HUNGER STRIKE FILM

Compelling viewing ISRAEL’S ECONOMY

Boycotting & Pinkwashing

2 August / Lúnasa 2016

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Mixed reaction to Fine Gael/Independent Government’s housing plan

‘Rebuilding Ireland’ plan doesn’t go far enough

BY MARK MOLONEY THERE has been a cautious welcome to the Government’s Rebuilding Ireland: Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness launched to much fanfare by Fine Gael Housing Minister Simon Coveney on 20 July.

The Government says it will aim for 130,000 new homes by 2021, including 47,000 new social housing units.

Simon Coveney says the five key areas the plan focuses on is: » Addressing homelessness; 5 The Government has launched its Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness » Accelerating the building of social the previous Government when used increase of €2.2billion for social housing housing; on a smaller scale. by 2021. » Building more private homes; “It’s more like €1.29billion over the “The plan is unclear whether the » Improving the rental sector; » Utilising and renovating existing tenants moved into these rapid housing course of the next five years,” Ó Broin units are there on a temporary or said, speaking at Leinster House. “While housing stock and vacant homes. permanent basis. Adding to that uncer- it will result in an increase in social Sinn Féin Housing spokesperson Eoin tainty is the number of finished units in housing, it is nowhere near enough to Ó Broin TD – who also sits on the Dáil three years can be seen as unrealistic, tackle the level of crises that’s out there.”

He said he doesn’t believe the Committee on Housing and HomelessGovernment is doing enough, critiness – welcomed some measures cising a “paltry increase of €150million” contained in the “Rebuilding Ireland” in capital spending for next year: document but says, overall, it is “still “Given the depth of the crisis and the not good enough”. growing level of family homelessness, The Dublin Mid-West TD says the that doesn’t suggest the Government social housing targets are not ambitious is taking the situation as seriously as enough, noting that plans to produce it needs to.”

6,000 new social housing units per year Asked by reporters how he would fall 40% short of recommendations. grade Housing Minister Coveney’s plan “It’s far lower than the annual target proposed by the Dáil Housing and especially compared to experience of out of ten, Eoin Ó Broin said: “I’d give him five out of ten. Having Homelessness Committee of 10,000 the previous plan,” he said, referencing real social housing units a year which, the much-criticised modular homes in said that, I gave former Housing Minisif adopted by the minister over six Ballymun which were far more expen- ter Alan Kelly one out of ten. There are improvements and there are individual years, would have delivered 60,000 sive than initially predicted.

Eoin Ó Broin told An Phoblacht that policy measures throughout the plan units,” he said.

Junior Housing spokesperson Dessie many of the measures are “too timid” that I certainly welcome, particularly Ellis also questioned how realistic to address the crises in the state. He in relation to homeless services and Government plans are, noting the also criticised Minister Simon Coveney addressing the 189,000 vacant private reliance on Rapid Housing Build – a for “playing around with figures” after units, although even those are timid programme that caused problems for he claimed his new plan included an in themselves.”

Government has kicked reform of private rental sector into touch until autumn

Housing Spokesperson Eoin Ó Broin TD

5 Housing Minister Simon Coveney of Fine Gael

Eoin Ó Broin told An Phoblacht that in some areas of the plan, the Government clearly has not done enough.

“For example, they’ve kicked reform of the private rental sector

Dessie Ellis questioned the reliance on Rapid Housing Build into touch until autumn. Overall, the core social housing and funding target is not enough. There are some positive steps, particularly in the area of homelessness and in areas to protect families, such as those facing eviction in Tyrrelstown after

Junior Spokesperson on Housing Dessie Ellis TD

their rented accommodation was purchased by a vulture fund, but again these measures are timid and there simply isn’t enough action,” he said.

Sinn Féin Finance spokesperson Pearse Doherty accused the Government of performing a U-turn on commitments it had given to those in mortgage arrears by dropping a commitment to a dedicated new court for arrears cases and a promise to amend the Code of Conduct on Mortgage Arrears.

“We are eight years on since the banking crash yet it is as if Fine Gael are only now waking up to the mortgage crisis,” the Donegal TD said “The 85,989 families in arrears can’t afford any more backsliding on what were, in the first instance, modest steps in the right direction.”

Finance Spokesperson Pearse Doherty TD

August / Lúnasa 2016

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British Prime Minister meets Executive leaders Martin McGuinness and Arlene Foster in flying visit to Stormont to discuss Brexit before talks with Taoiseach

‘No good news whatsoever about Brexit’

BY JOHN HEDGES “BLINK and you missed her,” BBC Political Correspondent Gareth Gordon said after new British Prime Minister Theresa May flew into Stormont to meet Executive leaders Arlene Foster and Martin McGuinness for just over an hour on Monday 25 July to discuss the “Brexit” referendum result which puts Britain on course to leave the European Union, possibly in two years’ time.

First Minister and DUP leader Arlene Foster supports Brexit but Sinn Féin deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness has repeatedly pointed out that the people of the Six Counties – unionist and nationalist – voted to remain in the EU. Nevertheless, the overwhelm-

‘I made it clear that we are totally opposed to any border of any description, whether it is for trade or the free movement of people’

The new Tory leader replied “Nobody wants to return to the borders of the past” but she danced away from the issue by talking about common travel arrangements existing between Ireland and Britain before the EU and ignoring the fact that Britain’s only land border with an EU state would be in Ireland.

Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness said after meeting the British premier that he and the DUP leader are agreed on many other things such as the Fresh Start Agreement and moving forward.

On the issue of Brexit, however, he continued: “I speak for the people of the North, and the people of the North – unionists, nationalists and republicans – made it clear that they see their future in Europe.”

He added: “I made it clear to the British Prime Minister that the democratically-expressed wishes of the people of the North who see their future in Europe and voted to remain in Europe should be respected.

“The Tories have no mandate here in the North and I told Theresa May that I will continue to advocate for the majority of people in the North who voted to remain in the EU.” The Sinn Féin figure also said he raised the issue of the Border with the British Prime Minister.

“I made it clear that we are totally

5 Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness speaks to the media after his meeting with British Prime Minister Theresa May

opposed to any border of any description, whether it is for trade or the free movement of people.

“There is no good news whatsoever about Brexit. Billions of pounds would be lost to the people of the North as a result of Brexit and I raised that directly with the Prime Minister.”

Speaking at the Dáil 24 hours before Taoiseach Enda Kenny was due to meet the British Prime Minister in London, Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams said that Brexit has the potential to undermine the Good Friday Agreement, undermine the all-Ireland economy and undermine progress.

“The imposition of Brexit on Ireland

again underlines the failure of partition,” the TD for the Border county of Louth said.

“The option of Irish unity is and must be on the agenda.”

He added: “There is need for all of those across Ireland who support the Good Friday Agreement, who support Irish unity and oppose Brexit, to stand together.

“There is a need to redefine relationships across Ireland and to build a unity of purpose opposed to Brexit and to promote unity, democracy, and prosperity.

“All of this puts a huge onus on the Taoiseach.

ing number of English votes will drag the North of Ireland and Scotland out.

Prime Minister May – who took over from David Cameron a fortnight earlier – met the North’s joint ministers together and then separately before a press conference where only one journalist was allowed just one question.

On the edges of possibly the shortest media event in Stormont’s recent history, Theresa May’s spin doctors were at pains to have it reported that the British Government does not want a return to a ‘hard’ Border. Only a month earlier, however, when she was Home Secretary, it was Theresa May who warned that it was “inconceivable” that border arrangements with the South would be unchanged by a Brexit vote.

It was that statement that the single question allowed followed up on.

5 Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams TD says Brexit has the potential to undermine the Good Friday Agreement

“He must respect the vote of the people in the North and advocate for all of Ireland in his upcoming meetings with the British Prime Minister.”

In Scotland on the same day that Theresa May was in Ireland, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said independence

‘The people of the North – unionists, nationalists and republicans – made it clear that they see their future in Europe’ could be the best way to protect the interests of the Scottish people when Westminster sets in motion withdrawal from the EU. “I felt angry that Scotland faced the prospect of being taken out of the EU against our will – with all of the damaging consequences that would entail,” the leader of the Scottish National Party said.

“The outlook for the UK is uncertainty, upheaval and unpredictability.

“In these circumstances, it may well be that the option that offers us the greatest certainty, stability and the maximum control over our own destiny is that of independence.”

4 August / Lúnasa 2016

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anphoblacht Editorial

WHAT'S INSIDE 9

Rupert Murdoch's News Corp moves into Irish radio 12

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Persuaders for Irish unity NOW, more than ever, republicans must become persuaders for Irish unity, the reunification of our country, a nation once again.

A united Ireland is suddenly back on the political agenda after the Westminster EU referendum “Brexit” result.

The new British Prime Minister and her English Tory Cabinet at Westminster have effectively said that voters in Scotland and the North of Ireland have to take second place to the wishes of the more numerous voters of England.

The votes of the North of Ireland and Scotland don’t count as much as those of England.

Even people from the unionist community are angry and apprehensive about this disregard for their desire to remain in the EU and the very real impacts a withdrawal will have on their day-to-day lives and their children’s future.

As the English Tories stumble around, trying to devise a strategy for Brexit, republicans have to translate the appeal of a reunited Ireland from the emotional to the practical.

We have to persuade people across the 32 Counties

Contact

Layout and production: Mark Dawson production@anphoblacht.com

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

Blasphemy law: The state should protect people, not their beliefs 13

Gaeilge ar thaobh and bhealaigh mhóir 31

Frongoch: University of Revolution 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

– unionist as well as nationalist – that a united Ireland is affordable and workable.

In the time ahead, more and more people who would have either opposed Irish unity or would have been dubious about it will be open to the idea of exploring new relationships on this island.

Republicans must be proactive and engaged in those discussions.

There is a need to be open and imaginative about the possible new constitutional arrangements and political structures that might be needed in a united Ireland.

In the wake of Brexit, other political parties are also beginning to open their minds to the prospect of a United Ireland Referendum and Irish unity. It is something republicans should encourage amongst the rank and file as well as leaderships and the wider community.

There has never been a better opportunity in recent history for republicans to advance the ideals epitomised by the heroes of 1916 and the H-Blocks.

Let us not fail them by letting this opportunity pass us by.

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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H-Blocks Hunger Striker’s play in South Africa and Rwanda DR LAURENCE McKEOWN, the playwright and author who endured 70 days on the 1981 H-Blocks Hunger Strike, is just back from South Africa where his play about dealing with the past, Those You Pass on the Street, was selected for this year’s National Arts Festival in Grahamstown, the largest and oldest arts festival in South Africa.

“We didn’t know how it would go down but it played to packed audiences and was greatly received and reviewed, even if I say so myself,” Laurence smiled, talking to An Phoblacht.

In South Africa they were celebrating and commemorating a number of anniversaries, Laurence said: the 20th anniversary of the Truth & Reconciliation Commission, the 40th anniversary of the Soweto Uprising; the 65th anniversary of the signing of the Freedom Charter.

“So the theatre section of the festival had a theme about how nations deal with the past,” Laurence said.

Albie Sachs, the African National Congress activist who lost an arm in exile in Mozambique in a car-bomb assassination attempt by the racist apartheid regime, attended the final performance of the play in South Africa.

Albie went on to help negotiate South Africa’s peaceful transition to democracy in the 1990s and served

Albie’s book, The Soft Vengeance of a Freedom Fighter, which won South Africa’s top prize for non-fiction when it was published in 1991.”

In 2009, Albie Sachs received the annual Reconciliation Award from the South African Institute for Justice and Reconciliation.

5 The tour guide on Robben Island – where Nelson Mandela and other ANC Those You Pass on the Street also leaders were imprisoned – wondered who was wearing the Bobby Sands top went on to Rwanda to be performed for 15 years on the Constitutional turned to the audience and said, at the National Monument to the Court, the country’s highest court. ‘I’m Albie Sachs and Laurence will Victims of Genocide as part of their “While I was speaking in the Q&A,” tell you how we met.’ arts festival there, making it the only Laurence said, “Albie came up on to “The story goes back to the play from Ireland chosen to be part the stage and hugged me. He then H-Blocks and a review we did of of both festivals.

August / Lúnasa 2016

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Le Trevor Ó Clochartaigh Caithfidh muid aird a tharraingt ar fhimínteacht ‘Saighdiúrí na Cinniúna’ ag gach leibhéal gur féidir

Fianna Fáil an dá thaobh BHUEL, is fada an t-achar é seachtain sa bpolaitíocht agus ní raibh mí cosúil leis an gceann seo caite sa bpolaitíocht le fada an lá. Idir an Bhreatimeacht, na h-athraithe ceannaireachta i Sasana, Enda Kenny faoi bhrú anseo, an corraíl i dtiortha eile na hEorpa, sa Tuirc agus toghchán uachtaránachta idir dháa cheann na meá sna Stáit Aontaithe, níl aon dabht ach go mbeidh cúrsaí thar a bheith spéisiúil idir seo agus Nollaig 2016.

Agus muid díreach taréis briseadh an tSamhraidh a thógáil ó Theach Laighean, is am maith é le h-athbhreithniú a dhéanamh agus féachaint chun cinn ar an tréimhse a bheidh romhainn sa bhFómhar. Tá foireann méadaithe de sheachtar Seanadóir againn agus chaon duine ag socrú isteach thar cionn.

An rud is mó ata le brath sa Seanad go dtí seo ná an smacht atá ag Fianna Fáil ar an gclár oibre agus na cinntí polaitiúla atá dhá ghlacadh. Is Seanadóirí nua iad triúr is dhá fhichead as an trí scór agus cuid mhaith díbh ag súil go mbeadh ‘polaitíocht nua’ dhá chleachtadh i ndáiríre. Mhol mé dóibh gan a bheith ró-dhóchasach áfach, mar gurb é an cur chuige seanchaite coimeadach a bheadh i réim agus Fianna Fáil ag stiúrú chuile choscéim de chuid Fine Gael.

Tá Fianna Fáil ag freastal ar an dá thrá – iad ag ligean orthu go bhfuil siad sa bhfreasúra ach iad ag déanamh réamhshocraithe le Fine Gael maidir le vótaí ar chuile phiosa reachtaíochta. Fianna Fáil an dá thaobh! Ach, is cosúil nach bhfuil seo ag cur as do vótóirí más féidir na pobalbhreitheanna is déanaí a chreidiúint.

Tá daoine ag rá liom gur diabhaltaí gearr an chuimhne atá ag toghlach na hÉíreann má tá siad ag filleadh ar ‘Shaighdiúrí na Cinniúna’ ar an gcaoi atáthar ag rá. Ach, is straitéis daingean dec

IN PICTURES

Fáil an dá thaobh a thaispeáint chuile uair a mbíonn siad ag labhairt amach as an dá thaobh dá mbéil.

Tá ról ag baill ar fad Shinn Féin anseo chomh maith. Ná bíodh leisce ar bith oraibh an fhimínteacht seo a ardú ar na meáin áitiúla, ag cruinnithe

5 Seachtar seanadóirí de chuid Shinn Féin

chuid an pháirtí sin é seo. Tá siad ag coinneáil na seanfhondúirí siar ón spotsholas agus ag cur chun cinn an dream nuathofa nach bhfuil smál orthu.

Dhá dícheangal féin ón stair agus ag cumadh polasaí de réir mar a osclaíonn siad a mbéil gan cás, gan náire.

An jab atá againne ná an fhimímteacht a nochtadh go poiblí agus go polaitiúil. D’eirigh linn sin a dhéanamh le déanaí maidir leis na táillí nua bruscar atá tugtha isteach. Ar dtús bhí Fianna Fáil agus Fine Gael ag obair as lámha a chéile leis an réimeas nua bailithe bruscar a bhrú chun cinn.

Rinne muid iarracht an polasaí a chur ar ceal sa Seanad, ach vótáil an dá comhrialtas fheidhmeach le chéile le muid a chloí.

Ní cheapfá sin leis an gcaint a bhrí ar Theachta Dala dá gcuid, Éamon Ó Cuív, ar Raidió na

Gaeltachta an tseachtain dár gcionn agus é ag rá gur praiseach a bhí sa leagan amach nua ó thaobh seirbhísí dramhaíola. Thapaigh muid an deis an lá sin arís le brú a chur ar Fianna Fáil sa Seanad vótáil linn. Náirigh mé Ó Cuív ar an Raidió ma bhí an oiread sin imní air faoin bpobal go gcaithfeadh sé glaoch ar cheannaire Fianna Fáil sa tSeanad, Catherine Ardagh, chun tacú linn an tAire a thabhairt ar ais le h-athbhreithniú a dhéanamh ar na táillí agus bhí orthu sin a dhéanamh.

An tseachtain dár gcionn arís b’éigean do na comhlachtaí ‘u-chasadh’ a dhéanamh ar na h-ardaithe táillí a bhí beartaithe. Ní mó na sásta a bhí siad.

Má tá Sinn Féin le bheith éifeachtach mar fhíorfhreasúra, caithfidh muid a bheith níos cliste ná Fianna Fáil ach go h-áirithe. Caithfidh muid Fianna

Tá Fianna Fáil ag freastal ar an dá thrá – iad ag ligean orthu go bhfuil siad sa bhfreasúra ach iad ag déanamh réamhshocraithe le Fine Gael maidir le vótaí ar chuile phiosa reachtaíochta poiblí, imeasc bhur gcairde, comharsanaí agus an cosmhuintir tré chéile.

Cá bhfios cén chomh luath is a bheidh deis ag an bpobal a mbreithiúnas a thabhairt in olltoghchán arís. Bímís ar aire. Is fada an t-achar seachtain sa bpolaitíocht!

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Fáilte go dtí Saor-Ghaeltacht Theach Laighean, urlár a cúig – Sinn Féin have turned the 5th Floor of Leinster House's 2000 Annex into a "Saor-Ghaeltacht", meaning it's a space where the Irish language is welcomed, encouraged, supported, used, heard, respected and promoted

5 Gerry Adams signs the Book of Condolence at the Mansion House for victims of the Nice attack

6 August / Lúnasa 2016

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IR LE, I Ó A D H A NNG RS SEAN O D KE LÓ A L E A P I S N THE F O AL N ONE O I T NA E H T AT RIKE T S R E HUNG MORATION ME M O C

‘We know where we’re coming from and we know where we’re going to’

The newly-elected senator in the Oireachtas in Dublin, previously the youngest Mayor of Belfast and a councillor for the nationalist Short Strand

enclave in unionist east Belfast, has grown up with the legacy of the struggle in the prisons and on the streets of Short Strand, where he still lives.

It is a legacy that he is mindful of every day in a parliament that elected H-Blocks protesting prisoner Paddy Agnew and Hunger Striker Kieran Doherty as TDs in 1981. Neither of the republican prisoners could take their seats and ‘Doc’ died in the H-Blocks on 2 August 1981 at the age of 25.

“I am a product of the era of the Hunger Strikers,” Niall says with a mixture of sadness, pride, humility and determination.

HUNGE R THE

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IKERS STR

On the two floors occupied by Sinn Féin’s 30 members of the Oireachtas there are images of 1916 and the H-Blocks Hunger Strikes

Niall’s political adviser in the Seanad is Jim Gibney, who signed Bobby Sands’s by-election nomination and ran Bobby’s election campaign in 1981 with the National H-Blocks/Armagh Committee.

In recent weeks, Niall’s uncle, Seánie McVeigh, passed away. He was a protesting prisoner whose time in jail had taken a terrible toll on a much-loved character.

“Seánie used to tell me about Raymond McCreesh brushing up on his Irish and encouraging Seánie to persevere.

“When you’re stood at the bar in St Matthew’s in the Short Strand and Seánie is telling you about peering through the gap in the cell door and seeing Francis Hughes being pushed up the wing to be taken to the prison hospital, and he has his fist in the air and he’s telling the boys to keep going, that’s something that hits you like a bullet train.

“Kieran Doc from Andytown is another iconic figure for me because I heard all the stories about him from Seánie about the sheer size, spirit and courage of the man,” Niall says with undisguised admiration.

“Seánie said the Screws were terrified of Big Doc and I’m sure there’s a few heads here in Leinster House would have been terrified of him had he got to take his TD’s seat here – he would have shook this place up.”

Niall recalls going to the commemorations for the Hunger Strikers, including rallies at Dunville Park, and the streets lined with black flags in memory.

Now there are new ways to keep alive the memory and the legacy of the Hunger Strikers, Niall believes.

81 – 2 01

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NIALL Ó DONNGHAILE – one of the key speakers at this year’s National Hunger Strike Commemoration – was born in 1985, four years after the H-Blocks Hunger Strike in which ten republican prisoners died in the culmination of the (ultimately successful) fightback against the withdrawal of political status in 1976.

“In every institution I go into, I think of our patriot dead, the prisoners and their families.”

On the two floors occupied by Sinn Féin’s 30 members of the Oireachtas there are images of 1916 and the H-Blocks Hunger Strikes.

“I don’t need reminding of where we have come from,” Niall says, “but it’s useful for visitors to be reminded because the mainstream media tends to be one-dimensional about Ireland and our history of occupation and partition.”

Niall may have been born after the H-Blocks struggle but he grew up with it all around him.

“In the living room in my house, we had the 1916 Proclamation on one wall and on the other we had the iconic images of the Hunger Strikers.”

And then there are the personal connections.

“My father was in jail with Bobby Sands in Long Kesh; they were in Cage 11.

“My da,” Niall laughs, “said there were times when he could have smashed the guitar over Bobby’s head in the Cages because he wouldn’t shut up playing and singing into the night when all my da wanted to do was sleep.

“We have a telegram to my mother and father on their wedding day from Tomboy [Loudon] and Bobby.

“Then we would have shared all the photos and the stories.”

Síle Darragh, a neighbour, was imprisoned with Niall’s mother in Armagh. Síle later went on to become OC of the women POWs and, later still, Niall’s first election agent.

“My mother was also in jail in Armagh with Mairéad Farrell, who was on the 1980 H-Blocks Hunger Strike, so she would tell us the stories on their time there.”

REMEMBER

BY JOHN HEDGES

There is, of course, the day-to-day hard work of still trying to transform society. There is also, alongside that, the promotion of the republican ideals epitomised by the Hunger Strikers’ selfless sacrifice for their comrades and their people.

“The very first book I picked up for myself outside of school was The Prison Diary of Bobby Sands because it was in the house and I wanted to understand, to learn. It resonated with me; it inspired me, particularly Bobby’s clear grá for the Irish language and how that gave us a great sense of our Irish identity.

“Now Bobby’s writings are on the school curriculum and we have the graphic novel and the new documentary, Bobby Sands: 66 Days.”

‘In the living room in my house, we had the 1916 Proclamation on one wall and on the other we had the iconic images of the Hunger Strikers’ Political debates inside Long Kesh and Armagh weren’t just occupational therapy for the prisoners, Niall notes.

“The first naíscoil in the North outside of the Shaw’s Road was in the Strand,” Niall smiles, “set up by Huggie McComb, Philip Rooney and the Cunninghams, all having come through the Cages of Long Kesh and then the Blocks, they started to live that radical notion that republican politics needed to be broader than armed struggle, important as that was at that time.”

Niall Ó Donnghaile regards himself as “in some

August / Lúnasa 2016

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5 People all across Ireland and abroad mobilised in support of the Hunger Strikers

ways, a direct product” of the struggle waged by the H-Blocks/Armagh generation.

“I’m a product in the republican view that I am a citizen,” he explains, “of being involved in your community, of having a stake in your community, of striving to learn and reinvigorate the Irish language.

“I’m not alone in that,” he hastens to add, reeling off a long list of occupations and roles

‘My father was in jail with Bobby Sands in Long Kesh and my mother was in jail in Armagh with Mairéad Farrell’ in the community, “where nationalists of my generation are thriving, growing and sharing the laughter of our children”.

Republicans “are not taking anything for granted”, he says.

“We know where we’re coming from and we know where we’re going to.”

“There’s not a set of eyeballs in these institutions that we cannot look into as proud republicans

and say we are here to deliver change, for our communities and for the people whose sacrifices got us this far – the Kieran Docs, the Bobbys, the Maireáds, the Pat Cannons [Niall had spoken that weekend at the 40th anniversary commemoration for the Dublin IRA Volunteer], and all our patriot dead.

“That is important to me. And I’m also appreciative that my generation is growing up in a transformed society, in a different political dynamic because the era of the Hunger Strikes changed things completely.

“We are on the democratic route to national self-determination, so for us to be able to deliver on that we have to be in theses institutions or we leave it to the likes of others – the Fine Gaels or the unionist parties whose histories and ethos are often overlooked or airbrushed by the media.

“We have to change these institutions. I have found that wherever I’ve been – working in Stormont, as Mayor in Belfast City Council or as a senator here in the Oireachtas – republicans change mindsets simply by being republican, by approaching politics in a republican fashion, by treating people in a republican way, from the ministers to the people on the staff at the gate or the canteen who help us do our jobs and make these places work, and with the citizens who put us here to work for them.”

The seanadóir from the Short Strand is sensitive to the symbolism of republicans’ roles in once-reviled institutions, in the corridors of power, previously bastions of privilege or oppression.

“My grandfather was an IRA Volunteer interned in the 1940s. Even though he was a very progressive thinker and very firmly of the Left, his view and that in the house I grew up in generally was that the only decent future for Stormont was to level it after the decades of unionist repression of nationalists that was turned a blind eye to, if not encouraged by politicians at Westminster.

one-party police state that suppressed the civil rights movement. That is the Stormont regime that created the society the Hunger Strikers and generations before and after grew up in.

"Now things are changing but republicans are not about airbrushing anyone’s history," he insists.

“There is a new dispensation. All we are doing is demanding equality, and I don’t think that’s too much to ask.

“We are reclaiming Stormont for people, for everyone. We are reclaiming councils for people.

We are reclaiming Leinster House for people.

“To me, these are just buildings – it’s the mindsets of the people in these building is what

My generation is growing up in a transformed society, in a different political dynamic because the era of the Hunger Strikes changed things completely matters in the long run to the citizens outside of the fancy gates of these institutions.

“I think that if we keep on the road of doing what we’re doing we will deliver on the vision 5 Niall’s uncle, Seánie McVeigh, pictured in June of Bobby Sands and his comrades.

2002 in Short Strand shortly after barriers were “The Hunger Strikers set a very clear example erected to protect residents from a loyalist siege for us. If we can try to live by that republican “There is a danger of a narrative that is still trying example then we will get to the type of Ireland to be peddled of republicans being responsible that the Hungers Strikers – and all the prisoners for the conflict in the Six Counties – not that it and our patriot dead – gave their all for, a free was the product of a sectarian, gerrymandered, and reunited Ireland.”

8 August / Lúnasa 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

We cannot be held to ransom

STOP TRUMP’S IRISH WALL

BY NOELEEN MORAN THERE is an unspoilt natural beauty about the west coast of Clare that is unique and it attracts many visitors every year. This is what attracted Donald Trump to locate his investment here in the first place.

The billionaire business tycoon declares that if he doesn't get his way, if Clare County Council does not grant him permission, he will pull out entirely, leaving 200 local jobs in jeopardy.

West Clare is starved of investment and proper job opportunities. It is heavily reliant on tourism and has lost a high share of

‘This very expensive global warming bullshit has got to stop’ Donald Trump, 2 January 2014 THIS “very expensive global warming bullshit” is coming in at €10million for Donald Trump, the multi-billionaire property tycoon and US Presidential candidate who purchased the Doonbeg Golf Resort in County Clare in 2014.

That’s what it will cost to construct a 3km wall 5metres high of two-tonne limestone blocks along the dune face to prevent his golf course washing away.

Trump picked up the property when owner Leonard Long, of the Kiawah Golf Course in

its young people to emigration. Trump knows the power of his words.

Donoughmore beach is first and foremost a public amenity. It is not a private beach.

It does not belong to Trump. Trump’s wall will have environmental consequences on the unique dune system at Donoughmore.

It will also impede on the recreational use of the beach.

To people locally, the threat of job losses and the reliance on the spillover trade from visitors staying at his resort make it a difficult choice – the local environment versus local jobs.

We cannot allow ourselves to be held to ransom by this private profiteer. Trump bought the Doonbeg resort at a knockdown price; his only interest is profit making.

His concern is not for workers or the environment of west Clare. He cannot be allowed to alter the unique coastline for the sake of private profit against the public interest.

‘I got Doonbeg because I have a lot of cash,’ Donald Trump told me when he called me on the phone to offer his support for our opposition to a wind farm near Doonbeg America, retired in 2009. Financial complications triggered a lawsuit within the family that ultimately ended with Doonbeg going into receivership.

“I got Doonbeg because I have a lot of cash,” he told me when he called me on the phone shortly after he bought Doonbeg, reportedly paying €12million for a property once valued at €55million. Aside from being a climate sceptic, Trump is also a hater of wind farms and called to offer his support for our opposition to a wind farm near Doonbeg. Our concerns were, however, the sensitive location – not the function – and the offer was refused.

Trump came fresh from abandoning plans to build a second 18-hole golf course as part of his Scottish development when Scotland authorised a nearby offshore wind farm. In a fit of pique, he came to Ireland instead.

Trump first ordered the structure to be built in

BY TONY LOWES

Director, Friends of the Irish Environment February 2014. As the lorries arrived and dumped the first of the two-tonne limestone blocks in the public parking lot, council officials and National Parks & Wildlife officers had a confrontation that led to Clare County Council serving a warning letter to Trump.

A subsequent letter from Trump’s solicitors to the Council threatened that any obstruction of works “vital to the survival of the business, will force our client to hold you responsible for any resulting damages and/or loss to property, including lost income, business, and the livelihood of our many employees who depend on a fully operational 18-hole facility”.

Trump’s ‘Irish Wall’ (he also plans to build a wall in the United States between Mexico and

Texas to keep out immigrants) would kill the dune system which has evolved at Doonbeg over thousands of years, effectively creating a sand box in which JCBs can make a playground for the super-rich.

The wall would deflect the storms instead of the dunes absorbing them, scouring the beach through longshore drift. 500,000 tons of sand remain on the beach throughout the year but 700,000 tons shift through the actions of the sea and the seasons. The wall would change the dynamics of the unique ecosystem of shallow reefs and cobble beach that make it one of the finest surfing spots in Ireland.

RTÉ Prime Time (which ominously redacted the presence of the Minister for Finance at the lavish greeting for Trump’s arrival at Shannon Airport previously reported in all the media, including its own news programmes!) reported that there were more than 90 under-bidders at the sale. Some of these were locally based and willing to work with the National Parks & Wildlife Services to develop a course that would work in

Trump’s wall would change the dynamics of the unique ecosystem of shallow reefs and cobble beach that make it one of the finest surfing spots in Ireland harmony with one of the last great dune systems on our west coast.

Clare County Council has produced a comprehensive Request for Further Information that raises all the issues, including the Parks & Wildlife Service’s legally-binding ‘Conservation Objectives’ which require that “the natural circulation of sediment and organic matter” must be maintained “without any physical obstructions”.

“Further information is required,” according to the Council letter, “to show how the structure will not form a physical barrier between the beach and the dunes.”

As Trump himself says: “In the end you are measured not by how much you undertake but by what you finally accomplish.”

For both of Trump’s walls, the courts will probably end up making that call.

‘Stop Trump’s Wall’ video at https://www.facebook.com/FriendsOfTheIrishEnvironment/

August / Lúnasa 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

9

5 Are News Corp and Liberty Global taking control of the Irish media?

Murdoch’s News Corp moves into Irish radio

Media market failures ‘CALLING DENIS NAUGHTEN – Irish Government Communications Minister’.

Rupert Murdoch is on the march again and he is not alone in buying up Irish media firms but (as I write) we have yet to hear from anyone in the Irish Government on their vision or policies for a pluralist, open Irish media market.

In recent weeks there have multi-million-euro purchases of radio and TV stations as well as a critical report on media ownership in Ireland. The Government response has been silence as the Irish media landscape is once again restructured.

Yes, all these deals await regulatory approval but this is not a media policy for the state and the island’s media landscape is being shaped for years to come with no government or Dáil input.

ITV’s 2015 purchase of UTV created an ongoing disposal of the radio assets owned by UTV, who had stations in Britain and Ireland. The radio stations were spun off into a firm called Wireless 9.61% share; UTV Ireland had a 5.34% share.

Group comprised of the British talkSport station Along with the News Corp and Virgin Media and seven stations in Ireland including FM104, purchases, Eir was also on the acquisition trail Q102 and LMFM along with stations in Cork, in recent month. The rebranded Eircom phone Limerick and Belfast. It is this group that News company bought Setanta Sports in December Corp has agreed to buy for £220million. for €20million, rebranding Setanta as Eirsport 1.

It means in Dublin that the Murdoch’s News With two million subscribers across their fixedCorp group will have interests in two stations line phone, broadband and wireless service that have a combined 25% listening share of Irish along with their Meteor and Eir mobile phone adults, according to Joint National Listenership Research. You have a powerful media group when you add in the daily readers of the Irish Sun newspaper during the week, who are 8.3% of total digital and print daily readers according to the Joint National Readership Survey, along with the Sun on Sunday, 8.3% of Sunday readership and The Sunday Times, 10.2% of readership.

The News Corp reach does not end there, though.

There is the little matter of BSkyB’s Irish presence.

According to the most recent TAM Ireland data, Sky Ireland is in 45% of Irish homes with a TV, which is over 700,000 subscribers. Added together, the News Corp presence across radio print and TV makes it possibly Ireland’s largest media group.

News Corp is not the only international media firm picking through the UTV media assets. Enter Liberty Global, owners of Virgin Media (formerly UPC), who last year bought TV3 for €80million and now are seeking approval to buy UTV Ireland for €10million. Virgin Media Ireland has 545,000 subscribers. According to the most recent TAM audience figures, TV3 and TV3+1 had a combined 5 Media mogul Rupert Murdoch

ROBBIE SMY TH

service brands, this firm too is moving across the media spectrum.

The history of Eir and its predecessors Eircom and Telecom Éireann highlight the media and communications policy failure of successive Irish governments. Telecom Éireann was privatised in 1999, floated on the Stock Exchange twice and has had a series of owners along with growing debts and falling customer numbers. Meanwhile, the Government has been pressured into creating a National Broadband Plan because neither Eir nor any of its competitors was prepared to create a truly state-wide broadband telecommunications infrastructure.

One more critical aspect of the Virgin Media and News Corp acquisitions is the implications for news reporting in Ireland.

UTV Ireland was supposed to be a separate, independent TV news service to TV3 and RTÉ

The News Corp presence across radio print and TV makes it possibly Ireland’s largest media group in Ireland. As part of the TV3 group, who will control its news service? So far there has been silence from government on this.

We have seen the power of the Murdoch news agenda in print and TV – its role in the EU referendum Brexit campaign being just the latest instalment in a series of political interventions by Murdoch’s news media since the 1980s.

Do we really want Murdoch news on our radio stations too?

Last month, a specially-commissioned report on ownership and control of the INM group found that Denis O’Brien’s increased share in INM from 22% to 29% did “not seem to have created a significant interest, since such an interest likely existed already”. So what does this mean for Murdoch’s and Liberty Global’s control of Irish media assets? There are two conclusions here: one is that we don’t know; the other is that, right now, the Fine Gael/Independent coalition (like its predecessor) doesn’t seem to care.

5 Murdoch's News Corp has interests in Irish newspapers and radio stations

10 August / Lúnasa 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

Owen Carron sets minds ablaze at the 7th annual Sinn Féin Summer School in Baile Bhúirne, County Cork

‘We don’t want to commemorate a Republic – we want to live in one’

From culture to economics, theoretical pondering to interpretations of hard data, poetic articulation of aspirations to incisive analysis of our history, the Summer School blends together a rich mix of views and insights to cultivate pathways to gaining understanding and fresh perspectives on how we achieve a more progressive society.

There is always an air of relaxation and reflection, as though attendees are taking stock of a year that has already lumbered across its midway point. And with a general election, the ongoing campaign against water charges, the crises in housing and healthcare, there is perhaps more of need for some respite than in previous years.

Throw in the fall-out from Brexit in the wake of the Westminster EU referendum and the Chilcot Report on the Iraq War, crossed with the constant barrage of the serious and pantomime aspects of the United States Presidential election campaign, and the Summer School nestling between hills and glens where the IRA overwhelmed the Black & Tans isn’t a bad place for a political activist, journo or current affairs enthusiast to catch a breath, sup on a pint or two, and take part in open debates in between.

A simple culture of wanting to talk, wanting to be heard but also wanting to listen is something that fills the Mills Inn with a special atmosphere for the Summer School. You won’t agree with everything that you hear, not everybody will agree with you either, but that is what makes for an absorbing couple of days.

This year was no different.

From the cutting, and often hilarious satire of

5 Republicans travelled from all across Ireland to take part in the Sinn Féin Summer School from which republicans are challenged to engage with topics that often get squeezed out of the day-to-day hustle and bustle of modern politics.

In previous years, the bolts of electricity came from the likes of award-winning investigative journalist Gemma O’Doherty and internationally-renowned disability rights campaigner Joanne O’Riordan.

As somebody who grew up on a council estate, I could certainly relate to the sharp critique made by Kitty Holland of “poverty porn” in the media coverage of working-class 5 Pearse Doherty TD listens to debates before addessing the annual event communities.

I began to think about how because the subjects fill column inches and can the media like to bundle up these articles as be more easily sensationalised.

This year’s lightning rod came from somebody “human interest” – a term used to sanitise stories, cleansing the issues of any political origin and whose life has been entwined with political struggovernment responsibility. It is clear that the gle and sacrifice.

On the Friday night, when Owen Carron – mainstream media has a vested interest in the problems affecting working-class communities Bobby Sands’s election agent who would succeed the H-Blocks Hunger Striker to become MP for Fermanagh & South Tyrone – uttered the words “We don’t want to commemorate a republic – we want to live in one”, we were hearing one the most important contributions to the narrative of our contemporary history.

Owen was reflecting on the topic “What the 1916 Centenary means to me”.

We want to live in a republic. People have died for that ideal. Now we have to display the necessary strength to live for it.

Outside, a light evening mist fell on beautiful Baile Bhúirne while, inside, the Sinn Féin Summer School, brought to a hush by Owen’s emotion, experiences and intellect, wrestled with the past, contended with the present, and embraced the future.

The Summer School blends together a rich mix of views and insights

Photo: Finbarr MacGabhann

THE annual Sinn Féin Summer School is regularly referred to as “one of the most popular events on the republican calendar”. Take into consideration of the idyllic surroundings of Baile Bhúirne in west Cork, especially when streams of a golden July sun pour through the skylight in the Mills Inn and cast shadows across the timber floors, it’s not difficult to see why.

5 Owen Carron. Bobby Sands's election agent, speaks to a packed Mills Inn

Photo: Finbarr MacGabhann

BY DARREN O’KEEFFE

Paddy Cullivan to the no-nonsense incisiveness of author Frankie Gaffney, right through to the quite remarkable insight of journalist Kitty Holland, the theme of “Democracy, Equality and the Nation State – 100 years of struggle” was rigorously explored through a variety of lenses.

I arrived early on the Friday evening and by the time Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire TD stood up to open proceedings, there was already a bit of a buzz in the air. I have heard a few people refer the to Ard Fheis as “Shinner Christmas”. If the Ard Fheis conjures up feelings resembling yuletide cheer then the Summer School replicates the freedom and abandon of a day-off from work spent in company with a good book – one that challenges you and makes you ponder: ‘I’ve never thought about it like that.’

Donnchadh set the exploratory tone of the weekend by suggesting that many of today’s challenges for republicans are ones on which the 1916 Proclamation is silent. His opening comments were like a straight piece of string that was tied in a loop the following evening by the words of Matt Carthy MEP who, during his discussion on Brexit with Fianna Fáil’s Martin Mansergh (a former adviser to taoisigh and a previously a minister of state), asked: “If now is not the time for a debate on a united Ireland then when is the time?”

Inside that loop, encircling the belief that a better Ireland is possible, panelists, from inside the republican family and from far more distant pastures wrestled with the condition of youth politics on the island, how the media portrays working-class communities, and the impact of neoliberalism on our democracy.

It also important to note that the Summer School (brilliantly masterminded every year by Caoilfhinn Ní Dhonnabháin) is also a platform

August / Lúnasa 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

11

Fianna Fáil helps Fine Gael stymie Sinn Féin move to help staff in precarious jobs

Bill on zero-hours and low-hours contracts stalled

BY MARK MOLONEY FIANNA FÁIL and Fine Gael once more joined forces in Leinster House to block progressive legislation aimed at protecting ordinary workers.

Sinn Féin brought forward its Banded Hours Contract Bill in July which sought to give protections for low-hours and zero-hours workers. Moving the Bill, Sinn Féin’s all-Ireland Workers’ Rights spokesperson, David Cullinane TD, said: “All our Bill seeks to do is ensure that the hours a person works is what is reflected in their contract. It allows an employee to put in writing a request to their employer to move into the appropriate band, which is the weekly hours they work, and it gives them certainty of hours because they can and do fluctuate up and down.”

He explained there are safeguards and checks in the Bill, both for the employer and workers, and any dispute

'Deputy Collins, I did not come in here to do what your mother should have done and put manners on you!' would be decided by the Workplace Relations Commission.

Sinn Féin’s Jobs spokesperson, Maurice Quinlivan TD, said an unregulated labour market was in nobody’s interests: “It dehumanises workers, puts huge pressure on the state in social transfers, reduces people’s disposable income and impoverishes households and children. This is absolutely unnecessary and serves an employment model whereby employers want to have it both ways.”

Kathleen Funchion TD, who worked in the trade union movement before being elected as a Dáil deputy, said women are particularly affected by zero-hours contracts as they are more likely to be in part-time or low-hours jobs: “It impacts on workers being able to plan their lives. Effectively, they are in financial limbo in terms of being able to plan their daily lives.

“A person on a 15-hour contract who actually works 30 hours would be denied a mortgage.”

While opposition from the party of big business, Fine Gael, was unsurprising,

‘Zero-hours and low-hours contracts wreck people’s lives’ LOUISE O’REILLY

David Cullinane TD

5 Sinn Féin joins Dunnes Stores workers on the picket against zero-hours contracts Maurice Quinlivan TD

Kathleen Funchion TD

Fianna Fáil’s Niall Collins TD railed against the Bill despite his party leader promising to ban zero-hours contracts in the February general election campaign.

Much of his speech focused on issues north of the Border, accusing Sinn Féin of doing nothing to get rid of zero-hours contracts there. Of course, had Collins actually looked into the matter he would have seen that Sinn Féin had brought forward amendments in the Assembly to the Employment Bill to ban zero-hours contracts but that this was blocked by Alliance Party Minister Stephen Farry last February.

Niall Collins then went on to bizarrely claim that amendments put forward by his party, which include an attempt

to delay the Bill for one year, had the support of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU). This prompted ICTU to phone Sinn Féin offices moments later and confirm that what Fianna Fáil had claimed was utter tripe.

Sinn Féin TD Peadar Tóibín told the chamber: “We have just been contacted by ICTU which would like the record to be amended to the effect that Fianna Fáil has no basis for its claim and that Deputy Niall Collins will receive a letter from ICTU in the morning setting him straight.

“I ask the deputy to bring the letter to the floor of this chamber tomorrow in order that the record can be corrected.”

In a blistering speech, Sinn Féin’s

Louise O’Reilly TD, who previously worked for SIPTU, said: “I rarely find myself in a situation where I am speechless but I am speechless this evening listening to the nonsense coming from both sides of the House. We have Fine Gael and its very best friend in Government coming together to ensure that workers cannot have a contract that simply reflects the hours they work.”

She accused Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil of teaming up to protect unscrupulous employers.

“Zero-hours and low-hours contracts wreck people’s lives,” she said. “I have represented people and fought employers – the people the Minister and Minister of State are in here defending tonight.”

Clearly upset at being caught out earlier in the evening, Niall Collins then spent much of the rest of the debate gratuitously heckling those speaking.

At one point, Louise O’Reilly turned on him and told him, to cheers from all sides of the House: “Deputy Collins, I did not come in here to do what your mother should have done and put manners on you!”

Fine Gael’s Mary Mitchell O’Connor (Minister for Jobs, Enterprise & Innovation) carped that the Bill would add “significant burdens” on employers, one of which would be requiring employers to display notices outlining availability of working hours over the next month.

“These notices will have to be in English and Irish and in other languages as required. Imagine telling a Silicon Valley company that it has to display work rosters as Gaeilge in Ireland,” she complained.

It was a comment which Sinn Féin’s Pat Buckley described as shameful. “It is our national language,” he retorted.

Fianna Fáil’s amendment to defer the passing of the Bill for at least 12 months was passed by 100 votes to 43.

Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and some Independents voted to defer the Bill while this was rejected by Sinn Féin, Labour, AAA/PBP, Social Democrats and the Green Party.

12 August / Lúnasa 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

Pakistan quotes Irish Constitution in UN blasphemy law drive

The state should

protect people, not their beliefs

BY BARRY KEARNEY FOR THE LAST 12 YEARS, the Organisation of Islam Co-operation (OIC) has been leading a campaign within the United Nations to win a majority approval in the Human Rights Council and General Assembly for a resolution to combat the defamation of religion – in effect, suppress free speech.

What’s embarrassing for Ireland is that the OIC cited verbatim an article from Ireland's Constitution as their proposed wording for a UN blasphemy law.

On that occasion, the Pakistan Ambassador was speaking on behalf of the OIC, and he was referring to Article 40 of the Irish Constitution which states: “The publication or utterance of blasphemous, seditious, or indecent matter is an offence which shall be punishable in accordance with law.”

This article was ratified and enacted by the state as recently as 2010, making Ireland only the second country in the world to introduce a law against blasphemy in the 21st century – the other is Pakistan.

Last October, the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (founded by trade unionists, academics and others) announced that they had recorded 1,400 cases in 2014 alone where blasphemy had been used as cause to sentence, punish and execute citizens in Pakistan.

A few examples include: Muhammed Asghar, a Pakistani citizen convicted of blasphemy against Islam and sentenced to death by the state; Shahbaz Bhatti, a university professor assassinated by the Taliban for opposing state blasphemy laws; Asia Bibi, sentenced to death for blasphemy after suggesting that Jesus was similar to Mohammed.

No one is suggesting that the Irish state will prosecute

anyone any time soon using this law but the OIC is using Irish blasphemy laws within the UN as a justification for the persecution of religious dissenters.

In Afghanistan, people are executed for blasphemy.

In Indonesia, the Facebook police will arrest you for suggesting “god may not exist”. In India, there are people on the run from the state for claiming that miracles of crying statues are actually just bad plumbing.

For some it’s more than just a theoretical stance.

Those who are confined to a prison cell right now awaiting execution are in dire need of help, and they require international pressure to be placed upon these Middle Eastern absolutist monarchies which hold them prisoners. The Irish state can’t do this if we continue to enact our own blasphemy laws.

Today, the only aspect of our blasphemy law that separates us from those who execute citizens for the same crime is the severity of our punishment. In Ireland, it’s a €25,000 fine by the way.

5 The attack on the offices of the Charlie Hebdo magazine was an attack on free speech

6 Muhammed Asghar, Shahbaz Bhatti and Asia Bibi

The state should protect people, not their beliefs The spread of blasphemy legislation is a real threat to freedom speech across Europe. And these threats are not minor. They go to the very core of what we should protect: the freedom to criticise, to investigate, and to challenge authority.

All you have to do is take a look at Denmark in 2005, or the more recent Charlie Hebdo carnage, to understand that there is a real physical and political threat to end religious criticism.

The key to criticising an authority is satire. It is the freedom to make light of something which would like to appear strong and powerful, and this is a freedom which is being continually withdrawn from us.

It’s the same right that those in Denmark and Paris were defending – the right to use satire to criticise an authoritarian voice, a dogma which claims to know what is correct.

Neither we, nor the state, should be selective in defining who has the right to say what – and that’s exactly what blasphemy laws do.

In 2013, the constitutional convention recommend that our blasphemy laws be put to a referendum. The government endorsed this, and then did nothing about it, which makes it clear that it’s pretty far down the priority list.

Democracy is very much a numbers game and the freedom of speech movement needs people to speak up.

August / Lúnasa 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

13

AN CHOMHAIRLEOIR

BARRA Ó MUIRÍ

Gaeilge ar thaobh an bhealaigh mhóir IS MÓR an trua go bhfuil fadhb ag duine ar bith leis an Ghaeilge. Is linne uilig ár dteanga, agus ba chóir go mbeadh meas againn uilig uirthi.

Is minic a labhraím ag cruinnithe de chuid na Comhairle s’againn (Comhairle an Iúir, Mhúrn agus an Dúin) faoin dualgas atá orainn uilig, mar ionadaithe poiblí, meas agus comhthuiscint a léiriú i gcónaí. Bíonn neart deiseanna againn an rud ceart a dhéanamh.

Tógadh mé i mBaile Úr, sraidbhaile beag i nDeisceart Ard Mhacha. Agus mé ag fás aníos bhí mé cairdiúil le roinnt mhaith daoine gur protastúnaigh iad. Thaisteal muid ar an bhus scoile céanna,

Tá polasaí dátheangacha ag an Chomhairle.

Ní athróidh an polasaí seo d’imir muid ar an fhoireann sacair céanna, agus chuaigh muid amach le chéile. Níor bhac siad leis an pheil ghaelach, agus thug muid neamhaird don Ord Oráisteach. Tá meas ag muintir an Bhaile Úir ar a gcomharsana den chuid is mó.

Bhí mé feargach mar sin, nuair a chuala mé go ndearnadh damáiste do chomhartha bhóithre na Comhairle ag Fane Valley, taobh amuigh den Bhaile Úr.

Cé go raibh daoine ag gabháil don chóiriúlacht seo le cúpla seachtaine anuas, ba i nDeisceart an Dúin is mó a bhí an damáiste; daoine ag

scriosadh amach an Ghaeilge ar na comharthaí dátheangacha ag cur fáilte roimh chuairteoirí chuig an cheantar.

Fiú nuair a mhothaigh mé ar Facebook iad siúd sa phobal atá naimhdeach roimh an Ghaeilge, ag déanamh gearáin faoin chomhartha ag Fane Valley, níor chreid mé go ndéanfaí damáiste dó.

Tá polasaí ag Comhairle an Iúir, Mhúrn agus an Dúin comhionnanas a thabhairt don dá theanga, an Ghaeilge agus an Béarla. Tá sé aontaithe go dtabharfar tús áite don Ghaeilge i gconaí ar pháipéireachas nó ar chomharthaí boithre.

Ní athróidh an polasaí seo, agus tá sé thar am go gcuirtear stad leis na hionsaithe ar

chomharthaí na Comhairle. Cur amú ama agus cur amú airigid atá sa creachadóireacht seo.

An gcreideann duine ar bith go gcuideoidh sé seo linn chun deontais, infheistíocht no turasóireacht a mhealladh isteach chuig an cheantar?

An cuma leis na creachadóirí?

Bhí cás na Gaeilge á phlé i nDoire ar na mallaibh ag imeacht faoi 1916 agus An Ghaeilge

An Ghaeilge 1916 – 2016

RÓL NA GAEILGE i rith ré na hÉirí Amach a bhí á phlé i nDoire le déanaí ag imeacht de chuid Shinn Féin. Is é an teachta dála Pearse Doherty a thug príomhoráid na hoíche ag an imeacht i gCultúrlann Uí Chanáin.

I dteannta an Teachta Dála Doherty, bhí painéal de chainteoirí a thug faoi dhíospóireacht maidir le tionchar na Gaeilge sa bhliain 1916 agus stádas na

LEIS AN TUAIRISCEOIR teanga sa lá atá inniu ann; ina measc siúd a bhí Carol Nolan TD, Cuan Ó Seireadáin (Conradh na Gaeilge), Fionntán de Brún (Ollscoil Ualdh) agus Ian Malcolm (Iriseoir).

Dúirt Oifigeach Náisiúnta Gaeilge Johnny McGibbon: “Bliain thábhachtach spreagúil do phoblachtánaigh is ea 2016 agus ní ceart ról na Gaeilge a fhágáil i leataobh agus muid ag plé ré na hÉirí Amach. I ndáiríre, bhí an Ghaeilge ina chuid lárnach den athrú cultúrtha agus polaitiúil a tháinig ar an tír sna blianta roimhe sin.”

Lean sé leis: “Gabhaim mo bhuíochas leis na cainteoirí ar fud a thug barúlacha suimiúla agus eolas tráthúil. Tá súil agam fosta gur chuir sé leis an phlé leanúnach i leith thodchaí na Gaeilge.

Tá Johnny ar fail ag gaeilge@ sinnfein.ie nó ar na meáin shóisialta trí @SinnFeinGaeilge ar Twitter agus Facebook.

14 August / Lúnasa 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

We need a government that will stand up to EU and put Ireland first

BY EOIN Ó MURCHÚ IT WAS NO SURPRISE that Taoiseach Enda Kenny was treated with plain indifference – if not open contempt – when he obsequiously presented himself before the European Union’s leader of ultimate resort, Angela Merkel, to plead Ireland’s case in the aftermath of Brexit.

The operative word is ‘plead’.

It was right that the Taoiseach should immediately get involved to make sure that the specific interests of Ireland were advanced in any negotiations which the EU will have with Britain, but his job wasn’t to plead humbly that Ireland has a more direct involvement with the consequences of Brexit than any other member state.

His job was to tell the EU what Ireland needs.

Above all, Ireland cannot accept a hard border in our country, separating

A whole range of new treaties has now to be negotiated North from South, or interfering in any way with the free movement of people or trade North and South.

Instead, Merkel listened, gave Enda an encouraging pat on the back and indifferently informed him that Ireland’s interests were just one among those of the 27 states.

We should not be surprised by this.

Throughout the banking crisis, the EU as a whole, and Germany in particular, paid no attention to Ireland’s needs as 42% of the costs of Europe’s banking crisis were heaped upon us.

What we needed was a bit of realpolitik of our own, an Irish Government that would be determined unashamedly

5 Enda Kenny is keen to be seen as 'best boy in the class'

to insist that Ireland’s priority be recognised in any EU negotiation.

Brexit has caused a major shock to the EU system but the Irish Government has no vision whatever of how to take advantage of this. Fine Gael/ Labour Governments, and Fianna Fáil ones before them, have been content for years to meekly tug the forelock at every EU development towards a superstate, extinguishing the last remnant of national sovereignty, and to row behind Britain in the councils of Europe.

No attention has ever been paid to building alliances with other peripheral member states; and when some of these countries – notably Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic – publicly expressed their unhappiness with the EU elite and its superstate ambitions, Ireland remained silent and indifferent.

We chose instead to be “best boy in the class”, to get the smiles of approval of Merkel & Co. Now we find yet again that the “best boy in the class” gets the worst deal.

A whole range of new treaties has

now to be negotiated, centering on, but exclusively related to, future relations of Britain to the EU. Clearly there are major dangers to us in this if the EU is allowed to indulge its superstate ambitions by insisting on a hard border in Ireland.

But there are also opportunities if we act together, particulary with popular movements throughout Europe who reject the austerity that lies at the heart of the EU. The very fact of renegotiation of treaties opens up the possibility of dismantling an EU that has gone beyond the original purpose for which it was sold to the Irish people – namely economic and trading co-operation, help for less developed economies and so on.

Joining the original European Economic Community gave us higher prices for our agricultural produce, access to the wider European market, and important transfers of funds which enabled us to develop our infrastructure.

But these benefits came at a cost.

Our fisheries were signed over, lock, stock and barrel. The number of

5 Opposition to austerity policies has been the driving force behind new popular movements across Europe

5 The benefits of EU membership came at a cost family farms was seriously reduced, Now it all lies in tatters. The Irish and intense emigration has been a people, like the Greek people, have permanent feature of membership, with been forced to carry a major economic burden that has left thousands either homeless or in fear of homelessness, with wages depressed and jobs insecure, while the bosses get richer and more brutal in their overlordship of the economy.

To have a decent way forward, with job security and good wages, we must break with austerity and the policies that put the interests of financiers and investors first.

But to do that we need to dismantle the current austerity EU by using Brexit negotiations to force a different Europe onto the agenda.

Unfortunately, we don’t have a government that even remotely considers such an option.

T h e s h a m i n g p e r fo r m a n c e of the Fine Gael leader in Berlin only a short break during the bubble merely emphasises why we need economic years 1998-2007 when we governmental change sooner rather appeared to have a thriving economy. than later.

There are also opportunities if we act together, particular with popular movements who reject the austerity that lies at the heart of the EU

August / Lúnasa 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

15

ROBBIE SMYTH looks at the acclaimed new

movie on the 1980/1981 H-Blocks Hunger Strikes

Bobby Sands:

66 Days WHEN you hear that not only has the BBC co-funded a documentary about Bobby Sands but it also has Irish Times Pontificator General Fintan O’Toole featuring extensively the alarm bells go off. But Bobby Sands: 66 Days is worth the ticket price when it goes on general release in August.

The documentary is a compelling interpretation of the multiple perspectives there are on the H-Block protests and hunger strikes.

The republican voice is strong throughout.

Alongside this is a thread of how unionists saw the H-Block struggle – petulant anger and derision, if you’re wondering. There’s a hand-wringing view from Dublin, scornful disdain from London, disquiet in the United States and, of course (as is the case with ‘serious’ documentaries) there is a long series of vignettes from academics giving supposed context and a critical viewpoint.

Then there are the potent, searing writings of Bobby Sands, spoken by an actor and used throughout the 105 minutes of this feature. They give a depth and context, setting a tone and pulse to this documentary, cutting through the academic wordplay that attempts to portray the H-Block protests as an artistic drama. Yes, Sands was an artist and some contend that the Hunger Strike was his final creative act!

A compelling interpretation of the multiple perspectives on the H-Block protests and hunger strikes Irish republicans have a more studied analysis.

The nationalist people rebelled because of systemic injustice and oppression. It wasn’t imagined or fabricated.

Bobby Sands was clear on this in his writings, and 66 Days does categorically show the conditions that created the conflict in Ireland. It concisely shows the incendiary turmoil that Sands grew up through and emerged into as an adult. Critically, as Sands approaches death in May 1981, the editing of director Brendan J. Byrne captures the raw emotion and tumult that brought people to the streets in their tens of thousands across Ireland.

What is fascinating is how this is ignored or overlooked by some of the other contributions.

This is as relevant today when you consider the industry of ‘Official Ireland’ that continually seeks to overlook, dilute and explain away the Sinn Féin political successes and continued electoral growth.

From a republican viewpoint there are

5 Bobby Sands became an international revolutionary icon

Artist Danny Devenny

Jim Gibney

contributions from Tomboy Loudon, Danny Morrison, Séanna Walsh, Danny Devenny, Gerard Rooney, Gerry Adams, Brendan ‘Bik’ McFarlane, Owen Carron and Jim Gibney which build into a picture of Bobby Sands as friend, IRA Volunteer, revolutionary, community activist and leader.

These inserts create a tangible personal sense of Bobby and the film’s director has captured something here.

Two contributions from the academic side do stand out.

First, Denis O’Hearn, a US academic and author of the Bobby Sands biography, An Unfinished Song, provides insights into the political activism of Sands.

Dr Ronnie Close, once an An Phoblacht photographer himself and now teaching at the University of Cairo in Egypt, gives a unique perspective on the emergence of Sands as an international revolutionary icon.

Not included at all in this documentary are inputs from the Catholic Hierarchy in Ireland.

During the Hunger Strikes, Cardinal Ó Fiach visited Tory Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in Downing Street and numerous other interventions were

made, including the controversial inputs of Denis Faul, a priest who visited the prisoners regularly.

I also wonder what David Beresford, the Guardian journalist who died earlier this year, would think of the documentary. Beresford wrote the intense 10 Men Dead book which tells the story of the H-Block protests and resulting hunger strikes.

Aside from these omissions, a key strength of this documentary is the cinematography, the editing of archive footage, weaving it with news reports from the time and other images culminating in a powerfully visual work.

The film for me was skewed by beginning and almost ending with long monologues from

The potent, searing writings of Bobby Sands are spoken throughout Fintan O’Toole, who claims: “Ultimately, Bobby Sands effectively marked the end of the tradition of armed struggle in Ireland. Because what he said was there is really no justification and no need to kill people, what you really need to do is dramatise your own suffering.”

Sands wrote extensively on what he believed, yet O’Toole reinterprets this by emphasising his take on Sands, whom the Irish Times columnist never accurately quotes in the documentary.

O’Toole is trumped by the very last words in the film which are given to an excerpt from Bobby’s Rhythm of Time, which ponders on “the inner thing in every man”: 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!’

If you are watching this documentary wondering about where truth lies in the weaving of conflicting narratives and views of Bobby Sands and the 1980/1981 Hunger Strikes, the only solid conclusions one can make is that history matters.

Ultimately, you have to make your own mind up on it but maybe read a few books first and listen to the people who were there.

66 Days will be shown at Féile An Phobail from 3 and 4 August at the Omniplex Cinema, Kennedy Centre, in west Belfast, and goes on general release in cinemas nationwide from 5 August

An Stailc Ocrais

Ireland's Hunger Strikes Fuair siad bás ar son saoirse na hÉireann

August / Lúnasa 2016 | www.anphoblacht.com

Thomas Ashe

Michael Fitzgerald

Terence MacSwiney

(died) 25th September 1917

17th October 1920

25th October 1920

IN MEMORY OF THE GALLANT PATRIOTS WHO DIED O

The Rhythm of Time 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.

Andrew O’Sullivan

Tony D’Arcy

22nd November 1923

16th April 1940

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.

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

Michael Gaughan

Frank Stagg

3rd June 1974

12th February 1976

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.

Raymond McCreesh

Patsy O’Hara

Joe McDonnell

Martin Hurson

21st May 1981

21st May 1981

8th July 1981

13th July 1981

‘They have branded me as a criminal. Even though I do die, I die in a good cause’

THOMAS ASHE 1916 leader and the first republican to die on hunger strike, 1917

‘I may die but the R T E Republic of 1916 19 81 – 2 016 will never die.

Onward to that Republic and the liberation of our people’

Joseph Whitty

Joseph Murphy

Denis Barry

2nd August 1923

25th October 1923

20th November 1923

BOBBY SANDS Leader of the H-Blocks Hunger Strike, 1981

DIED ON HUNGER STRIKE FOR NATIONAL FREEDOM It smiled in holy innocence, Before conquistadors of old, So meek and tame and unaware, Of the deathly power of gold.

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

Seán MacNeela

Seán McCaughey

19th April 1940

11th May 1946

Bobby Sands

Francis Hughes

5th May 1981

12th May 1981

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 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 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!’

Bobby Sands

Kevin Lynch

Kieran Doherty

Thomas McElwee

Michael Devine

1st August 1981

2nd August 1981

8th August 1981

20th August 1981

TRIKERS RS

REMEMBE

HE HUNG

18 August / Lúnasa 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

UNCOMFORTABLE CONVERSATIONS

Information and disclosure vital to the McGurk’s families

CIARÁN Mac AIRT

Author of The McGurk’s Bar Bombing: Collusion, Cover-Up and a Campaign for Truth

THE STRATEGY of the British state is to prevent any ‘Uncomfortable Conversation’ about its role in perpetuating, sustaining and prolonging the conflict in Ireland.

At its core, the strategy is deny information and disclosure to families murdered by the British state and its surrogates within militant loyalism. This has been challenged and resisted by families. The evidence is that the British state is not up for the ‘Uncomfortable Conversations’ on legacy as its leaders’ focus is to protect their own interest over the needs of families.

On 4 December 1971, the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) planted a no-warning bomb on the doorstep of McGurk’s Bar. The bar was located at the corner of North Queen Street and Great Georges Street, close to St Patrick’s Church in north Belfast. As the bomb exploded, 15 innocent men, women and children lay dead; 16 others were seriously injured as the building collapsed.

Within 12 hours, the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) circulated the lie that the McGurk’s Bar bombing was an IRA “own goal” (i.e. premature explosion). This RUC lie sought to criminalise the innocent victims of the massacre rather than investigate the UVF gang who planted the bomb. This lie was then spread by the British Government, the unionist politicians and the complicit media.

The focus of the lie was that the IRA had either been making the bomb in the bar or transporting it from the bar.

This lie was part of a wider British policy of disinformation which was designed to distract attention from Britain’s conflict policies and actions. Lies and falsehoods were a key thrust of their black propaganda strategy.

The families and the local community always knew this to be a lie. The McGurk’s families now have the British Army, police and Government documents to prove it, obtained from Britain’s own archives.

These secret papers show that two days after the atrocity, Prime Minister Brian Faulkner, in a meeting with British Home Secretary Reginald Maudling, advanced

5 15 people died when the UVF bombed McGurk's Bar in Belfast in 1971

The evidence is that the British state is not up for the ‘Uncomfortable Conversations’ on legacy as its leaders’ focus is to protect their own interest over the needs of families

the theory of an IRA “own goal” and brazenly admitted to political interference in the RUC investigation. The British documents prove that the cover-up went right to the top of the political establishment.

On 16 December, RUC Chief Constable George Shillington told Prime Minister Brian Faulkner, Minister of State for Home Affairs John Taylor, and the General Officer Commanding the British forces, Lieutenant-General Sir Harry Tuzo: “Circumstantial evidence indicates that this was a premature detonation and two of those killed were known IRA members, at least one of whom had been associated with bombing activities.

Intelligence indicates that the bomb was destined for use elsewhere in the city.”

This is damning proof that the RUC told lies and misled government. ‘Investigative bias’ on the part of the RUC was also later recognised in a Police Ombudsman Report.

Families now want to know why the lies were told.

Such lies on top of political cover-up have unquestionably compounded family loss and grief.

The families are campaigning for the documents about the McGurk’s Bar bombing and subsequent cover-up to be made public. The British response has been to hide and conceal documents.

They hide behind the shield of so-called “national security”. How do so-called British “national security” interests trump the rights of families seeking the truth?

British documents prove that the McGurk’s cover-up went right to the top of the political establishment And what national security interests could possibly be at stake 45 years after the deaths?

For the McGurk’s families, “national security” is a blanket shield being used a weapon to deny the truth.

The documents that detail British policy decisions and their propaganda considerations are held in Whitehall, the Public Records Office and National Archives.

Withholding information is core to their conflict policy.

It is vital that these archives, information vaults and files are opened.

Accessing information is vital for these families. Ending the so-called “national security” veto and maximising information disclosure are vital to unlocking the truth about the McGurk’s Bar massacre. This is the real ‘Uncomfortable Conversation’ that the British state is unwilling and reluctant to have with families.

Ciarán Mac Airt’s grandmother, Kathleen Irvine, was one of the 15 civilians murdered in the McGurk’s Bar attack on 4 December 1971. Mac Airt is also manager of the charity Paper Trail, which helps other families who lost loved ones during the conflict access information in public records. More information available on the family campaign at www.mcgurksbar.com

August / Lúnasa 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

19

UNCOMFORTABLE CONVERSATIONS

SEAMUS FINUCANE

Seamus Finucane is a lifelong political and community activist He is member of Sinn Féin in Belfast

Reconciliation processes must be inclusive and owned by all

RECONCILIATION PROCESSES must be inclusive and owned by all. As a process they create a space that invites us all – republican, unionist, British or Irish – to make sense of our history, to understand others, to challenge and be challenged, with the common objective of building a better future that promotes equality and which protects the rights of all.

At its core, reconciliation processes are an invitation to build relations between people who have experienced violent conflict, repression and suffered injustice.

Here in Ireland, a reconciliation process invites us all to rebuild and redefine new sets of relationships within and between communities and between these communities and the state which, in the past, was exclusive and discriminatory.

Reconciliation is about building for the future, that our violent past will never again be repeated.

For many republicans, the Northern state from partition resonated with the apartheid system in South Africa. The “Orange State” governed through a “Protestant Parliament for a Protestant People” slogan that defined systemic exclusion. The Northern state was a ‘cold house’ for Northern republicans and nationalists where we were treated as second-class citizens, reflected in discrimination in housing, employment, education, health and the general lack of opportunities to improve our quality of life.

This systemic exclusion was tightly regulated by the state through the RUC and the B-Specials police reservists whose sole purpose was to suppress the nationalist and republican people. If we are serious about ‘Uncomfortable Conversations’ as the vehicle to build for the future, this experience must be acknowledged.

It is not exaggerated; it is not a myth; it is a living experience that resonated for generations.

It was the politics of exclusion, regulated through state force, that erupted in the late 1960s when the peaceful civil rights campaign was met with state repression and violence. This culminated in the sectarian pogroms of 1969. The early bombings and killings of this period were the primary responsibility of the unionist population. These facts are often ignored.

Yet if we are serious about genuine reconciliation it is incumbent on unionism and the British state to acknowledge how their politics of force and coercion from partition perpetuated what was a ‘living nightmare’ for many republicans and nationalists. These early experiences of sectarian state violence shaped and influenced the direction of my life, the lives of my family and my community.

In the decades that followed, these influences of exclusion and fear manifested itself in its different guises, perpetuating class division through sectarian politics, British military intervention and republican resistance. This has created a legacy experience that is itself as contested as it is divisive but engage with

5 Now is the time to address the consequences of the conflict

Early experiences of sectarian state violence shaped and influenced the direction of my life, the lives of my family and my community

the past and build for the future we must. This means engaging and listening to the other.

We must all be receptive to the ‘Uncomfortable Conversation’. This will be particularly difficult as this society come to terms with the pain, loss and heartbreak of the past.

Now is the time to address the consequences of the conflict and, as importantly, engage with the causes that gave rise to conflict.

There is a huge onus on all of us – republican, unionist, British or Irish – to collectively apply ourselves to progressing all legacy matters in a human rights compliant manner.

The truth of victims is the real truth of society. Collectively we need to break the cycle of denial and cover-up.

We need to challenge the impunity and dismantle the secrecy to allow the healing process to take place.

The past will never go away as long as people remember injustice.

Equally, there are multiple narratives about the origins of the conflict. The live challenge, however, is to acknowledge and understand how these narratives serve as psychological barriers that are also used to politically wage war with ‘the other’.

Reconciliation is not the sole responsibility of republicans Of course I have my experiences of the past but I want to listen to and engage with others who have a different understanding. Reconciliation will only work when it is inclusive and owned by all.

As things stand, few are leading on reconciliation but sadly even less people are following. Reconciliation is not the sole responsibility of republicans. It is an issue for all of society to promote. We have before us an opportunity to finally engage with the legacy of the past and in so doing shape processes that will embed, support and enhance reconciliation.

Engaging with ‘the other’ and acknowledging their experiences of conflict is but the first step. This will take time. However, only when reconciliation processes are inclusive and owned by all will they deliver for society.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Guest writers in the Uncomfortable Conversations series use their own terminology and do not always reflect the house style of An Phoblacht.

To see more go to – www.anphoblacht.com/uncomfortable-conversations

SINN FÉIN BOOKSHOP 58 Parnell Square, Dublin 1. Tel: (00 353 1) 814 8542

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RRP €3.50 / £3

19 16 Éirí Amach na Cásca

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Doing My Bit For Ireland

By Margaret Skinnider MARGARET, the only female Volunteer wounded during the Easter week, tells the account of her active role prior to and after the 1916 Rising, including the inside story from the republican garrison in the College of Surgeons on St Stephen’s Green.

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The History of the Irish Citizen Army

By R. M. Fox THIS VITAL historical account brings to life the rise from 1913 of the The Irish Citizen Army – in whose ranks women fought alongside the men as full members – was to the fore in the 1916 Easter Rising and the subsequent war against the might of the British Empire before taking the republican side during the Civil War of 1922-1923.

Rotunda cover Spread.qxd

15/10/2013

10:07

Page 1

T H E ROT U N D A BIRTHPLACE OF THE

Óglaigh na hÉireann

THE ROTUNDA, located at the top of O’Connell Street and within sight of the GPO, has always had a special place in the life of people in Ireland’s capital city. It is the location of one of the three main maternity hospitals in Dublin as well as being the first maternity hospital in the world.

What may be lesser known is the place it has in Ireland’s historic struggle for national independence and freedom from British colonial rule.

Aengus Ó Snodaigh, a noted republican historian as well as being a Teachta Dála (Member of Parliament) in Dublin for Sinn Féin, looks at the centrality of the Rotunda in Irish history, including being the birthplace of the Irish Volunteers, a rebel military force from which was to emerge the Irish Republican Army.

“The meeting to form the Irish Volunteers was switched to the small concert hall in the Rotunda complex, then to the large concert hall, which could hold 500; but, with interest growing, the Rotunda Rink, a temporary building in the Rotunda Gardens capable of holding 4,000, was booked.

“At the meeting, the stewards, all Irish Republican Brotherhood men and members of the Fianna Éireann republican scouts, got 3,000 enrolment forms signed. In addition to the 4,000 people inside the hall, a crowd of about 3,000 was unable to gain admission. Traffic on Parnell Square was blocked by the crowd.

Two overflow meetings were held, one in the large concert room and the other in the gardens.”

Aengus Ó Snodaigh TD

Éamonn Mac Thomáis

PRODUCED BY REPUBLICAN PUBLICATIONS

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T H E ROT U N D A BIRTHPLACE OF THE

IRISH VOLUNTEERS Óglaigh na hÉireann

BY AENGUS Ó SNODAIGH TD

Sinn Féin Centenaries Commemoration Committee | Coiste Comóradh Céad Bliain

By Aengus Ó Snodaigh TD THE ROTUNDA,within sight of the GPO, and being the birthplace of the Irish Volunteers, a rebel military force from which was to emerge the Irish Republican Army. Aengus Ó Snodaigh TD, looks at the centrality of the Rotunda in Irish history.

THE ROTUNDA: Birthplace of the Irish Volunteers

IRISH VOLUNTEERS

The Rotunda: Birthplace of the Irish Volunteers – Óglaigh na hÉireann

THREE SHOUTS ON A HILL

Sinn Féin Centenaries Commemoration Committee | Coiste Comóradh Céad Bliain

Three Shouts on a Hill By Éamonn Mac Thomáis A short collection of essays by Éamonn Mac Thomáis, a fervent republican in the Connolly tradition. In this series written for An Phoblacht/Republican News in an era of state censorship, Three Shouts on a Hill is a window into Ireland’s history at a turbulent and tragic time.

memoration Committee | Coiste Comóradh Céad Bliain. duced by An Phoblacht. www.anphoblacht.com 27/10/2015 13:20

Raidió na Poblachta – Radio of the Republic

EASTER RISING

• Full chronology of events

Éamonn Mac Thomáis

nued his association with the republican family ase and played a role in the campaign in support of nger Strikers in Long Kesh in 1980 and 1981. a Hill is a series Éamonn had written for An an News in an era of state censorship, combining his ge of Irish and republican history with commentary events almost a decade before the advent of the b and when wordsmiths such as Éamonn earned hrough dedication, painstaking research in countless s, and sheer hard work.

Hill is a window into Ireland’s history at a turbulent

www.anphoblacht.com

CENTENARIES SERIES EXCLUSIVE TO

THREE SHOUTS ON A HILL

TS ON A HILL is a short collection of essays by the TV personality and acclaimed historian Éamonn Mac h republican whose involvement in the Republican ed four decades. n into a staunchly republican and, as he described ite family, A fervently republican in the Connolly n joined the Irish Republican Army as a young man republican throughout his life. was a political prisoner in Portlaoise in 1974 that ok, Me Jewel and Darlin’ Dublin, was published by

20 August / Lúnasa 2016

BY MÍCHEÁL Mac DONNCHA

Remembering the Past

“Irish Republic declared in Dublin today. Irish troops have captured city and are in full possession. Enemy cannot move in city. The whole country rising. Pearse GOC. Connolly commanding Dublin. Plunkett Chief of Staff.”

THESE WERE the words of the first international radio broadcast from Ireland.

They were sent from O’Connell Street, Dublin, in Morse code tapped out on a transmitter by a Volunteer of the Irish Republican Army. The building was then Reis’s shop, 10-11 Lower O’Connell Street, at the corner of Abbey Street, now the Grand Central Bar. In the upper floors in 1916 was the former Wireless School which the Volunteers captured. They had to venture out on the roof and brave British Army gunfire to erect the aerial.

Proclamation signatory Joseph Plunkett was himself an amateur radio enthusiast and knew the vital importance of getting word out to the world that there was a Rising in Ireland. And so it was that the capture of the Wireless School was part of the plan for the Rising.

James Connolly himself, in a written order, instructed the Volunteers in this and neighbouring buildings that the main purpose of their post was “to protect our wireless station”. Captain Thomas Weafer gave his life in that duty when he was killed nearby (a plaque marks the building today).

We do not know the full extent to which the historic first broadcast and subsequent messages throughout Tuesday and Wednesday of Easter Week were picked up. However, the speed with which the press in the USA in particular reported news of the Rising, despite British censorship, indicates that several ships received the signal and passed them on. Under British fire, the wireless station was abandoned on Wednesday, with Volunteers taking equipment across the bullet-swept street to the GPO. On 21 July this year, a plaque was unveiled on the wall of the Grand Central Bar to commemorate the broadcast.

This writer spoke as Cathaoirleach of Dublin City Council’s Commemorative Naming Committee and pointed out

5 Joseph Plunkett was an amateur radio enthusiast the motivation of the republicans in ensuring that they broke through strict British censorship to get news of the Irish Republic out to the world. I reminded those in attendance that if the unveiling had happened on the 75th anniversary of the Rising in 1991 my remarks could not have been broadcast under Section 31 of the Broadcasting Act which censored Sinn Féin. Communications Minister Denis Naughten unveiled the plaque.

The full story of this hitherto little known but important aspect of the 1916 Rising is told in the excellent Rebel Radio by Eddie Bohan in the ‘Kilmainham Tales’ series of pamphlets (see www.kilmainhamtales.ie).

3 ‘Rebel Radio’ by Eddie Bohan – cover photo shows Joseph Plunkett with a radio set

5 ‘Rebel Radio’ author Eddie Bohan, Sinn Féin Councillor Mícheál Mac Donncha and historian Las Fallon at the unveiling of the plaque marking the site of the Irish Republic broadcast of Easter 1916

August / Lúnasa 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

21

Ni Féidir Iontaoibh a Bheith Againn as Figiúirí Oifigiúla

TÁ BRÉAGA ANN, bréaga damnaithe agus staitisticí. Ach, i bhfianaise a d’fhoilsigh an Príomh-Oifig Staidrimh, is féidir linn figiúirí oifigiúla a chur leis an liosta seo.

Tá’s ag madraí na sráide nach bhfuil geilleagar na hÉireann méadaithe 26% le bliain anuas, ach níl na figiúirí bréagach nuair a léiríonn siad an t-amaideas seo: seo an chaoi go bhfuil na figiúirí den olltáirgeadh intíre (GDP) curtha le chéile ar fud an domhain.

Séard a léiríonn an clampar seo ná nach féidir brath ar fhigiúirí an olltáirgeadh intíre ar chor ar bith. Agus, cuimhnigh, tá polasaí eacnamaíoch an stáit bunaithe ar na figiúirí seo le blianta fada, an déine, an bochtanas, an scriosadh dóchais.

Agus breathnaigh ar an gcaoi go bhfuil na figiúirí seo gan chiall fós dhá lua le léiriú go bhfuil an ráta idir olltáirgeadh agus fiacha feabhsaithe (sea, feabhsaithe!).

Tá a fhios go bhfuil na figiúirí ag insint bréige, ach fós luaitear iad mar chuid den dioscúrsa eacnamaíoch. (Focal deas ag saineolaithe is ea dioscúrsa.) Is tá polasaí le bunú ar a leithéid seo.

Agus anois caithfidh muid €280 milliún sa mbreis a íoc leis an Aontas Eorpach i bhfianaise na bhfigiúírí neamhfhírinneacha seo.

EOIN Ó MURCHÚ

Geilleagar leipreachánach a tugadh air seo ar fud an domhain. Sea, ábhar náire dúinn é seo, ní mar gheall ar na figiúirí a bheith mí-chruinn ach mar gheall ar iad a bheith amaideach is i bhfad ón bhfírinne.

Ar ndóigh tá míniú ar an bhfigiúir mí-cháiliúil seo: aistriú acmhainn as an ngách isteach sa tír, agus mar sin; ach ní leithscéal ar bith é go mbeifear ag leanacht leis an gcoras céanna le sláinte na heacnamaíochta a mheas.

Séard a léiríonn fior-staid na heacnamaíochta níos fearr ná figiúirí a bhaineann leis an líon daoine atá ag obair, leis an tairgeadh a dhéanann siad is mar sin.

Céard é an difir bhunúsach mar sin idir an olltáirgeadh intíre (GDP) agus an t-olltairgeadh náisiúnta (GNP). Go bunusach is é an t-olltairgeadh intíre ná luach na hoibre a dhéantar sa tír, móide airgead nó brábúis a seoltar ar ais agus lúide airgead nó brabúis a seoltar thar lear. Sin e luach na n-acmhainn ata san eacnamaíocht ag nóiméad ar bith.

Is é an t-olltairgeadh náisiúnta ná luach na hoibre a dhéantar sa tír, agus is léiriú níos cruinne ar shláinte na heacnamaíochta e.

Tá ábhar sa gcoras seo le daoine a chur amú, ach tá sé i bhfad níos fearr ná an t-amaideas a chonaiceamar le deireannas.

Derek Highsted 40th anniversary marked with dedicated publication

FAMILY, friends and comrades remembered Derek Highsted, Sinn Féin Organiser in Britain during the 1970s, on Sunday evening at a wreath-laying ceremony in July which enjoyed warm sunshine at his final resting place in St Patrick’s Churchyard, Glen, Maghera, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of his death in England.

Hundreds of republicans from down through the different generations of struggle from across County Derry turned out in tribute to the man who will forever be linked to the memory of IRA Hunger Strikers Michael Gaughan and Frank Stagg.

Many of Derek’s comrades from the local area who were imprisoned with him in Crumlin Road Jail during the IRA’s 1950s campaign were present and a special tribute was paid by them

Tribute to veteran and Sinn Féin Organiser in Britain during the 1970s to Derek. This also included representatives from the families of deceased republicans from the neighbouring townlands who had been imprisoned with them also. A wreath was laid by Derek’s teammates from Watty Graham’s GAC, of which he was an active and playing member.

A colour party from the South Derry Martyrs Flute Band, resplendent in 1916 uniforms, performed the lowering of the flags in salute to Derek and in memory of Ireland’s patriot dead at his graveside They were joined by the County Derry 1916 Re-enactors who wore the uniforms of the Irish Volunteers, Cumann na mBan, Irish Citizen Army and Na Fianna Éireann.

5 Flags are lowered in St Patrick's churchyard in memory of Sinn Féin Organiser Derek Highsted in the evening in Brackagh Hall.

Veteran republican comrade Maureen Maguire, who worked alongside Derek in Britain in promoting Irish republican campaigns and looking after the families of the political prisoners incarcerated in English jails during the course of the 1970s, joined local MLA Ian Milne and Raymond McCartney in making presentations to Derek’s children and sister.

Concluding proceedings at the launch of the special commemorative booklet, Paul Bryson on behalf of 5 Derek will forever be linked to the memory of IRA hunger strikers Michael the local Highsted, Casement, Kelly Gaughan and Frank Stagg Sinn Féin Cumann said it is to remind Derek’s children, Brendan and Bríd, and Sinn Féin MLA for Foyle Raymond people of the contribution that Derek and his sister Patricia McDaid were McCartney pay great tribute to the Highsted – together with his contempresent at the commemorative events republican leader when launching a poraries in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s which heard H-Blocks Hunger Striker special commemorative booklet later – made to the republican struggle.

• The special commemorative booklet is now on sale from the usual republican outlets and members of Maghera Sinn Féin, price £5.

22 August / Lúnasa 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

THE global movement for a campaign of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel until it complies with international law and Palestinian rights was initiated by Palestinian civil society in 2005 and is co-ordinated by the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), established in 2007.

BDS is a strategy that allows people of conscience – wherever they are in the world – to play an effective role in the Palestinian struggle for justice.

BDS BOYCOTT, DIVESTMENT AND SANCTIONS

Buying power to the people

STOPPING SHOPPING FOR ZIONISM

BY PEADAR WHELAN GROCERY SHOPPING is one of the most tedious of household tasks most people dread. Pushing a wonky trolley up and down aisles in a supermarket just isn’t anybody’s idea of fun but it has to be done.

And it is especially time-consuming if, like our family, you try to be ethical shoppers who check out the brands.

We’re cereal boycotters.

We refuse to buy Kellog’s Corn Flakes as the breakfast giant is one of dozens of companies owned or linked

We discovered the Buycott app and boycotting became hi-tech – and it’s free to Monsanto, one of the largest pharmaceutical and agricultural companies that producers a wide range of genetically-modified foods and seeds, drugs and pesticides and herbicides which many people see as a major threat to people’s health.

But it is in support of the Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) that we have waged

our boycott campaign with particular vigour, especially after witnessing the vicious Israeli state’s attack on Gaza in 2008/09.

Codenamed “Operation Cast Lead”, the Zionist military launched its blitz on Gaza over the Christmas period, killing 1,166 Palestinians and wounding 1,417. 5 The BDS boycott list provides information on brands and companies which support apartheid Israel Like so many people, frustrated the same again and every time I see by my powerlessness, and furious at Helen Mirren on TV advertising L’Oréal the anti-Palestinian reportage of the reciting “Because you’re worth it”, I Western media, I looked about for some think of the hundreds of Palestinian tangible way of showing solidarity children whose lives, whose futures with the people of Gaza and Palestine. were not worth it.

It was about that time I seriously got (Mirren is “a believer in Israel . . . I into the idea of the BDS movement as think this is an extraordinary country part of my everyday life, not just rallies. filled with very, very extraordinary If boycotts could work for the South people” she says, dismissing the BDS African people in their struggle against campaign.) apartheid, it could help Palestine also.

Moves by Israel and its international I began searching out information supporters attempting to outlaw people on companies who support the state and organisations who promote BDS of Israel and we stopped shopping 5 Dunnes workers refused to handle South African goods during apartheid with them.

So if something was on the BDS without that packet of Nestlé’s white Tesco and Marks & Spencer went to top of my ‘Don’t shop there’ list, given boycott list the app would ping back chocolate bars, especially when I now that they stocked both Israeli products the information: “This is a product know that Nestle’s main presence in Israel is in Sderot, a settlement founded and goods sourced in the Occupied of Israel.”

Like most people, we found there in 1951 near the Gaza Strip built on the West Bank, which is actually illegal were some old favourites that just had lands of the Palestinian town of Al-Najd under international law.

Something to be on the lookout for to go back on the shelf when Buycott which was ethnically cleansed in 1948.

So the Milky Bar Kid will never be due to the effectiveness of the BDS warned us off them, but, hey, I can live campaign are companies branding Israeli goods as either ‘own brand’ items or are falsely labelling them. show that Zionists are worried about For example, Hadiklaim is Israel’s the long-term effect of an anti-apartlargest exporter of dates. Some of its heid-type boycott. dates originate from the occupied An Israeli Finance Ministry report Jordan Valley and Dead Sea area and made public in 2015 after a two-year therefore is illegal yet the company freedom of information battle revealed sells the dates in supermarkets such as that the state’s economy could lose up Waitrose, Tesco and Sainsbury’s under to $10.5 billion per year if the country is brand names such as Jordan River and subject to a full international boycott.

King Solomon to cover up the fact they Clearly, BDS is effective, it is working come from the Occupied West Bank. and it gives people a way of doing Eventually, we discovered the Buycott something positive in solidarity with app and boycotting become hi-tech. the people of Palestine.

All we had to do was scan the barcode of a product and the app » Also see the Ireland Palestine Solidarity would come back with a message of Campaign website www.ipsc.ie under 5 Helen Mirren says she is a 'believer in Israel' approval or disapproval. the heading “Campaigns”.

Moves by Israel and its allies to outlaw BDS show that boycotts worry them

August / Lúnasa 2016

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23

USINGCT S I L E EFLE ISRA HOW HTS TO D PATION IG U GAY R THE OCC FROM

’ G N I H S A W K N ‘PI

S E M I R C R A W

BY MARK MOLONEY DUBLIN’S annual Pride Parade parade in June saw signs saying “Queers Against Israeli Pinkwashing” as members of Ireland’s LGBT community showed their anger at Israel using a veneer of acceptance of gay people to gloss over its ongoing brutal occupation of Palestine.

In recent years, Israel has been busy promoting itself as one of the few gay-friendly tourist destinations in the Middle East. Tel Aviv was named “World’s Best Gay City” in 2011. The Israeli

‘Gay pride brochures fail to mention that Tel Aviv is also an hour away from the world’s largest open prison, Gaza’

Mashpritzot activist group hold a "die in" protest in Tel Aviv (Creative Commons license)

left-wing and Jewish activists in Ireland who oppose Israel’s occupation should be smeared by claiming their opposition is based on “sexual identity problems”.

Palestinian-American journalist Ali Abunimah said the Deputy Ambassador’s comments “indicate an innate homophobia that is at odds with Israel’s efforts – known as pinkwashing – to portray itself as supportive of the rights of people who identify as LGBTQ”.

A month before Dublin’s Pride Parade was the world-famous Tel Aviv Pride festival. ‘Pinkwatching Israel’ – an organisation created in 2010 to “expose efforts by Israel and its supporters to pinkwash Israeli crimes” – called on those thinking of traveli el ra Is t ns protest agai tos from IPSC) s ling to Tel Aviv for the festist vi ti ac LGBT ide (Pho at Dublin Pr val to take a deeper look at Israel’s pinkwashing gay-friendly persona.

“Gay pride brochures fail to mention that it is marriage certificate from another country where it is legal then their marriage is legally also an hour away from the world’s largest open recognised. Despite this, Israel still has the most prison, Gaza, and that it is built on stolen land,” advanced LGBT rights in the Middle East where in the group said. “They forget to mention that the some countries, such as Yemen and Saudi Arabia, gay soldiers you dance with in the Pride parade homosexuality can result in a death sentence. check, arrest, and kill Palestinians on a daily basis.

“After your day of Pride, some tour operators Though Israel’s Pinkwashing campaign has been going on for over a decade, not everybody will take you to Bethlehem or the Dead Sea, without telling you that you will travel through got the message.

In 2012, Channel 10 News in Israel exposed the illegally Occupied Palestinian Territories, a communique from former Israeli Deputy or that the wine you are drinking in the Golan Ambassador to Ireland Nurit Tinari-Modai to Heights comes from businesses that have been Israel’s Foreign Office in which she suggests that declared illegal under international law.”

Tourist Board has pumped millions of dollars into promoting the country as a gay-friendly destination through billboard advertising, sponsorship of LGBT film festivals and other events.

Same-sex marriages may be conducted in Israel but they have no legal recognition, although if a couple have a

Fadi Khoury, an Arab LGBT activist who boycotted the Tel Aviv Pride parade this year, told the AFP news agency: “Israel wants to rebrand itself as a liberal democracy – despite the Occupation – by claiming that neighbouring societies, especially

The Israeli Deputy Ambassador to Ireland didn’t seem to embrace the gay-friendly image being pushed by her government the Palestinians, aren’t as tolerant towards sexual minorities. A moral human rights struggle cannot be one that is partial. The state is the same source of human rights infringements for both the Israeli LGBT community and the Palestinians under occupation.”

LGBT activist Haneen Maikey, an Arab citizen of Israel, told Israeli newspaper Haaretz that, despite the hype, in reality there are very few gay rights in the country: “There are specific court cases that, when won, allowed certain individuals for instance to adopt a child. What is worth noting

is that these decisions are case-specific, in the sense that they are made for this specific case, for this specific child and for these two mothers.

You cannot build a human rights campaign on court cases that are not ratified.”

Attacking Israel's policy of ‘pinkwashing’, she said: “Stop speaking in my name and using me for a cause you never supported in the first place.

“If you want to do me a favour, then stop bombing my friends, end your occupation, and leave me to rebuild my community.”

24 August / Lúnasa 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

Another Europe is possible Treo eile don Eoraip

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

BREXIT

President of European Parliament Martin Schulz shares concerns, says Martina Anderson MEP

MARTINA ANDERSON MEP has led a number of high-level engagements from across the European Union to discuss the impact of the Westminster EU referendum on Ireland and, more specifically, the North of Ireland.

“I met with representatives of the main political groupings in the parliament, including Alyn Smith and Ian Hudghton from the Scottish National Party and both of the co-chairs of the Greens/ European Free Alliance Political Grouping,” the Irish MEP from Derry said.

"I also met with Dunuta Hubner, who previously served as the European Commissioner for Regional Policy. As the current chair of the Constitutional Affairs Committee in the Parliament, Ms Hubner led a delegation to Westminster last year, which I also attended.”

The MEP for the North of Ireland said she

thinks this was the first time the case of the North was considered in the whole Brexit debate and due to her raising it at every given opportunity.

“Since then, Ms Hubner has been acutely aware of what being dragged out of the EU would mean for the North,” Martina said.

‘President Schulz sees the enormous uncertainty’ She also met with the President of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz.

“I was relieved to hear that he shares our concerns in terms of our citizens, our trade and our funding. President Schulz sees the enormous uncertainty and has vowed to keep 5 President of European Parliament Martin Schulz

in touch and work with us in the months ahead.

“We also discussed the impact of being dragged out of the EU by the right-wing of the British Tory Party would have on our universities, small businesses, infrastructure, agriculture and continuing efforts to build the all-Ireland economy.”

She added that they also discussed the need for reform of the EU institutions and the need to build a progressive, prosperous and social Europe, which respects sovereignty.

“I am confident the outcomes of the meetings were positive, with each representative recognising that our voices need to be heard at the negotiations table,” Martina said.

“I made it clear to them that the majority of people in the North of Ireland voted to remain in the EU and that vote must be respected.”

Chilcot Report highlights ‘unjustified use’ of Shannon Airport for Iraq War

MEP LYNN BOYLAN has said the findings of the Chilcot Inquiry Report further highlight the immoral and unjustified use of Shannon Airport for the Iraq War. “The publishing of the Chilcot Inquiry has raised a lot of questions for Britain and the role of Tony Blair in invading Iraq,” the Dublin MEP said, adding, “but as the fall-out of the report continues it is important that we look at the facilitatory role Ireland played in the Iraq War. “At the time, Fianna Fáil shamelessly backed the war by allowing US troops and ammunition pass through Shannon Airport on their way to and from Iraq. Not only did this contravene our stance as a neutral nation but it also facilitated death, destruction, and destabilisation in the Middle East.

“With that precedent set, both Fine Gael and Labour, when in Government, also allowed Shannon Airport to be used as a US military installation.

“Prior to the invasion of Iraq, opponents of the war – most notably, Jeremy Corbyn – said that it would set off a spiral of conflict, of hate, of misery, of desperation that would fuel the wars, the conflict, the terrorism, the depression and

the misery of future generations.

“It is the unfortunate truth that such projections have been proven correct.

“In light of the distinctly fraught nature of international relations combined with the militarisation of Europe and moves by the European Union

‘Ireland needs to reassess its foreign policy, reinforce its neutrality’ to create a ‘European Army’, Ireland needs to reassess its foreign policy, reinforce its neutrality, and stop the use of Shannon Airport by US troops.”

The Dublin MEP said that the findings in the Chilcot Inquiry do not exist in isolation for Britain.

“Successive Irish governments should also heed its findings and reflect on how their allowance of the use of Shannon Airport facilitated an illegal war, and how we now, more than ever, need to put a stop to the transportation of troops and ammunition to war fronts via Ireland.”

5 Irish MEP Liadh Ní Riada with the European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Youth and Sport, Tibor Navracsics

August / Lúnasa 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

Matt Carthy

Martina Anderson

Liadh Ní Riada

Lynn Boylan

25

www.guengl.eu

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

Fisheries – Liadh Ní Riada attends high-level meetings in Norway IRELAND SOUTH MEP Liadh Ní Riada visited Norway as part of a five-member delegation of the Fisheries Committee in the European Parliament.

“We held a series of important and productive meetings over the course of the visit in order to share best practise and to ensure we are maximising the potential of the fishing industry and also to discuss the Agreement on fisheries between the European Economic Community and Norway,” Liadh said back in Brussels.

Norway is the world’s leading producer of Atlantic salmon and the second-largest seafood exporter in the world. It has developed

Norway has been proactive and creative in achieving potential of fisheries sector to become an industry of major importance internationally due to the fact that Norwegian authorities have been proactive and creative in achieving the potential of its fisheries sector.

“In Ireland, it’s the opposite,” Liadh said, “as our potential has been consistently squandered.”

The Fisheries Committee group met with Jens Christian Holm, the Acting Director General of the Directorate of Fisheries. The Directorate is an advisory and executive agency for the Ministry of Trade, Industry & Fisheries for the management of the fishing and aquaculture industries and it monitors

5 Matt Carthy MEP addresses regional journalists in Strasbourg

compliance with legislation and regulations.

They also met with Sissel Rogne, Managing Director of the Institute of Marine Research, an advisory organisation for the Ministry of Trade, Industry & Fisheries, with key remits to investigate and monitor fish stocks and marine mammals, the marine and coastal environments and to oversee aquaculture and marine ranching.

“Their research covers areas like the marine ecosystem, aquaculture and the effects of climate fluctuations and human impacts,” Liadh said.

“The Institute maintains close contact with marine researchers in other countries, including Ireland.

“A number of factors are causing issues for the fishing industry in Ireland at the minute and therefore it is important that meetings like these are carried out and relationships are maintained.”

5 Irish GUE/NGL MEPs meet with Rebecca Harms, German politician and MEP for The Greens – European Free Alliance parliamentary group

MEPs support Matt Carthy’s calls to amend Code of Conduct for Commissioners MEP MATT CARTHY has described the appointment of former European Commission President José Manuel Barroso to investment bank Goldman Sachs as a “sickening” confirmation of the “corporate lobby revolving door” in the European institutions.

Matt has written to to Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union, calling on Barroso to be stripped of his EC pension.

Matt Carthy is a member of the European Parliament’s Economic & Monetary Affairs Committee “Barroso was President of the European Commission for a decade, from 2004 to 2014,” Matt Carthy recalled. “He was the man at the helm during the global financial crisis and shaped the EU’s austerity-driven response to it, with devastating effects for the people of Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and many other countries.

“Now, after serving the absolute bare minimum of the 18-month cooling-off period, he has stepped into a plum role in one of the main institutions that caused the crisis.

“Just three months ago, Goldman Sachs admitted to knowingly defrauding investors from 2005-2007 and was found guilty by the US Justice Department.”

The bank was fined more than $5billion for its role in the global financial crisis.

“This appointment is absolutely sickening,” Matt Carthy. “Unfortunately, it’s not surprising.

It’s yet another example of the revolving door in the European institutions between EU officials and the major corporations that shape EU policy through relentless lobbying.

“Now the former Commission President, with all of his contacts and networks, will lobby the same institution he recently led for a massive and notoriously corrupt bank.

“His job will be to push the aggressive deregulation agenda that aims to reverse the measures

Former European Commission President José Manuel Barroso joins controversial investment bank Goldman Sachs put in place in the aftermath of the financial crisis.

“Barroso should face sanctions from the European institutions for this brazen act and his generous pension from the Commission should be cut.

“The Treaty on the Functioning of the EU clearly states that European commissioners must ‘respect the obligations arising therefrom and in particular their duty to behave with integrity and discretion as regards the acceptance, after they have ceased to hold office, of certain appointments or benefits’.

“The cooling-off period of 18 months, within which former EU officials cannot step into lobbying roles, is clearly not sufficient and must be extended significantly.

“I have written to Jean Claude Junker to use the provisions of the Treaty in order to strip Mr Barroso of his future pension and any related benefits by making an application to the Court of Justice.

“I also urged the Commission to amend the Code of Conduct for Commissioners in order to extend the cooling-off period from 18 months to five years in order to reduce the risk of conflicts of interest. Several MEPs from other political groupings in the Parliament have also co-signed the letter, supporting my objections.

“This appointment will simply confirm the cynical view held by millions of people in Europe of the unhealthy relationship between the corporate lobby and officialdom. It brings all of the European institutions into disrepute.”

26 August / Lúnasa 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

Revisiting 'The Valley of Tears'

Hanrahan Legacy The

surrounding countryside (lichens, grass, soil and silage) was being affected by emissions from the factory. But these investigations did nothing for the farmers, especially John Hanrahan.

The strategy of the state, local authorities and the Merck management was to claim that the problems were confined to the Hanrahan farm, that the problems were caused by John Hanrahan’s mismanagement, and that they had no connection with the factory. But this strategy was undermined by the simple fact that problems existed on other farms, that Hanrahan had, until his cattle began to die, been a model farmer and was recognised as such in the locality.

“It was one of the greatest scandals this country has seen in recent years,” James Tully, the Minis-

ROBERT ALLEN

Merck Sharp & Dohme Ireland celebrate their 40th anniversary this summer

THE SILVER-HAIRED WOMAN is standing in the sitting room of her modest home, a large two-storey farmhouse built in the perfunctory tradition of the few native families who managed to hold land after the Anglo-Norman incursions into their region, acknowledging the location of her family domain in the picturesque Suir Valley in south Tipperary.

“This is the Valley of Tears,” she says quietly.

She is solemn, though it is possible to detect a trace of emotion in her voice.

“Our story was true, you see. We were very pleased that in the end we got, I suppose you could say, justice. But at what price? That is something none of us can say.”

Mary Hanrahan has the manner of a matriarch. This is not tradition. It is the consequence of a tragedy that has virtually destroyed her son and his family. For without Mary, her son John might never have endured the ordeal that could have easily wiped out many another man.

It is a cold December afternoon, dry and crisp without a hint of rain.

The day is bright, patches of hazy blue can be seen in the winter sky. The Hanrahans should be elated. They have just received an out-of-court settlement against the US chemical corporation, Merck Sharp & Dohme, after a 12-year legal battle to prove that emissions from the company’s Ballydine factory – just beyond the hill and over the railway – were responsible for the death of 225 of their farm animals.

5 An IDA advert from November 1986 outlining the authority's vision of a 'new' Ireland.

It is now a quarter of century later and what should be regaled as a turning point in Irish history is now no more than a footnote, one

Neighbouring farmers began to suspect that health problems, animal and human, were being caused by emissions from the factory that a certain corporate would like to see erased completely. It tried very hard at the time, to the extent that journalists and researchers dared not

approach the subject, nor the subject matter.

Those who did, under the supervision of the once-feted PR guru Frank Dunlop, were told: “You shouldn’t believe everything those hippy environmentalists are telling you.”

Merck had been in operation in Ballydine, manufacturing bulk chemicals, for 27 months when neighbouring farmers began to suspect that health problems, animal and human, were being caused by emissions from the factory.

Finally, after 18 months of complaints, South Tipperary Council commissioned a study on air pollution around the area of the factory. No evidence of serious air pollution was found. In the meantime, animals began to die of a strange wasting disease, cattle miscarried, twin births and deformities increased, and milk yields dropped.

Then a report based on research by Trinity College Dublin’s Botany Department was leaked.

It found that there was “clear evidence” that the

ter for Local Government, announced in the Seanad on 6 April 1976.

Schering Plough had decided to abandon an investment for a pharmaceutical factory at Killaloan, Clonmel, following a threatened High Court action by a group of concerned citizens who had objected vociferously and ceaselessly to the planning application.

The objectors’ action, Tully argued, amounted to “blackmail”. South Tipperary Councillor Tom Ambrose claimed that the whole country was amazed at a decision that allowed a small minority to prevent a major industry coming into the area.

Schering’s “impetuous decision” angered South Tipperary County Council who, with the assistance of the IDA, had hoped to secure a second chemical factory for the area, following Merck in Ballydine. Had the Schering Plough application been accepted, more chemical companies might have been persuaded to set up shop right along the Suir Valley. The dream of those who saw an industrial corridor stretching from Limerick and the Shannon to Waterford and the south-east coast had been shattered.

The true scandal in Tipperary was not what happened to Schering Plough or the plans of those who wanted a chemical corridor, it is what happened to the Hanrahan family. And the majority of the blame rests not with government, local

August / Lúnasa 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

27

5 Robert Allen covered the pollution controversy for Magill magazine in 1988

or national, not with industry and its acolytes, and not with those who supported the state policy to attract “toxic” capital to the country. It rests with the environmentalists who climbed all over the work that had been done up to the point when the Hanrahans “won” their court case against Merck.

It is now a quarter of century later and what should be regaled as a turning point in Irish history is now no more than a footnote

5 Former Government Press Secertary and PR guru Frank Dunlop said: 'You shouldn’t believe everything those hippy environmentalists are telling you.'

The ‘greens’ – in all their guises – came to prominence during the 1990s, at a time when environmentalism was the new buzzword and eco-warriors could be found colluding under every tree in the few woodlands that remained in the country. They made promises, including several to the Hanrahan family, and they gave the impression that they were doing something about all the environmental issues now rampant in society, not least the rise of respiratory-related illnesses, when the reality was that they were

doing nothing that would change anything in society.

Despite the activity among those in communities concerned about “green” issues, who were prepared to advocate and support non-violent direct action and multimedia activism, the majority of greens pursued personal agendas and actively damaged local campaigns.

John Hanrahan became a green darling and when his use conflicted with their career paths they jettisoned him just at the time when he and his family needed friends in high places.

The Hanrahans went on to fight more legal battles in the Four Courts, winning them all.

Today, new NGO Uplift is calling on people to sign a petition against Monsanto.

Monsanto are one of the most revered and reviled corporations on the planet. They are lions of industry, highly experienced and have a tradition of manipulating everything that affects them to their own advantage. By comparison, Merck Sharp & Dohme are kittens, yet they have managed to ensure that the history of their presence in Ireland has remained unsullied.

Merck Sharp & Dohme Ireland celebrate their 40th anniversary this summer. It is they and not the Hanrahans who have left a legacy. One petition that is crying out to be done is one to exonerate the Hanrahan family in the public arena. Then we would have a legacy recognising a very brave family.

28 August / Lúnasa 2016

www.anphoblacht.com

BOOK REVIEWS BY MICHAEL MANNION

Revolution and revisionism The Rising – Ireland: Easter 1916

By Fearghal McGarry Oxford University Press

THIS “Centenary Edition” is a rerelease of Dr McGarry’s excellent book, first published in 2010 but now with the addition of a new preface outlining the evolutionary processes that various commemorations have undergone over the past one hundred years.

The one constant element is the subordination of any commemoration to the particular political imperatives of successive government regimes.

The preface describes the Fine Gael/ Labour Coalition’s disastrous 2016 video release “Ireland Inspires”, issued to outline the richness of the Government’s proposed commemoration. The

Ballycastle, Mayo, commemoration

A very fine volume of ‘rank and file’ testimonies from Easter Week 1916 video managed to completely omit any mention of the leaders of the Rising and focused instead on “such figures as W.B. Yeats, Queen Elizabeth II, Ian Paisley, Katie Taylor and Bob Geldof”.

Even The Irish Times report was moved to lead with the wry headline: “Don’t mention the war”. The Government’s own Expert Advisory Group’s comment was rather more forthright: “Embarrassing, unhistorical shit”.

Although this book, with the exception of the new preface, has been in print for the last six years, it is really a very fine volume.

When this book was first published, in 2010, it was relatively groundbreaking in that it uses the testimonies collected by the Bureau of Military History in the 1940s and 1950s to illuminate the experience of the ‘rank and file’ who took part in the events of Easter Week 1916. The key condition

attached to the bureau’s work was that the material it collected would not be released until all of those who had contributed testimonies were dead. Consequently, they were not released until 2003.

This volume, along with Charles Townshend’s Easter 1916: The Irish Rebellion constitute the two definitive books on Easter Week and either, or both, should have a place on everyone’s bookshelves.

MAYO SINN FÉIN held a commemoration in Ballycastle, County Mayo, on 4 June in honour of local patriots Tommy Nealon, Clydagh and Dr John Crowley.

Geraldine McManus welcomed the crowd before Sinn Féin Seanad leader Senator Rose Conway Walsh of Mayo gave a stirring oration.

The Proclamation was read by Laura McAndrew and wreaths were laid at the monument on the edge of the town.

5 Senator Rose Conway Walsh addresses the commemoration

Years of Turbulence: The Irish Revolution and its Aftermath Edited by Diarmuid Ferriter and Susannah Riordan UCD Press

THIS is essentially a collection of essays, each dealing with a unique aspect of Irish life, both of individuals and of specific societal groups, and of their relationship to the revolutionary struggle.

The entire volume is dedicated to Michael Laffan, Professor of History at UCD, and all the contributors are former students of his. Professor Laffan is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the “revisionist” school of history and the fact that the 12 essays are proceeded by a mini-hagiography of Professor Laffan is somewhat disquieting for readers of a republican, or even just nationalist, viewpoint.

Laffan has never been a friend of republicanism, and to mask antipathy as objectivity is disingenuous.

In a recent Irish Times article he defended the revisionist approach by writing: “To an extent the state has acted to protect the image and legacy of the Easter Rising from being appropriated by extremists, some of who are – at best – recent converts to democracy.”

It is always worrying to see academics who regard their function as implementing state propaganda rather than research or education. They are quick to accuse others of a lack of objectivity whilst they themselves toe the party line in every pronouncement.

The 12 contributors to this volume, as favoured protégés of Professor Laffan, would be regarded as generally hostile to the republican tradition. But they are

5 A plaque is unveiled in memory of IRA Volunteer Patrick Cannon on his former home in Edenmore, Raheny, in north Dublin. (Above) Noel Harrington, Councillor Ciarán O'Moore, Pat's sister Margaret O'Moore, Senator Niall Ó Donnghaile who delivered the main oration and Councillor Mícheál Mac Donncha at the commemoration in Balgriffin Cemetery

also superb scholars and their essays contain a wealth of original research illustrating many aspects of Irish society

Worrying to see academics who regard their function as implementing state propaganda not previously considered, or at least not examined in detail.

Topics covered include the Suffragette movement; the 1915 All-Ireland Hurling Championship; Casement’s Irish Brigade; division within the Irish

Parliamentary Party; images of Patrick Pearse after 1916; GHQ’s role in the Tan War; violence against women; executions of spies and informers; the Treaty and Civil War in County Galway; military service pensions and poverty; Bulmer Hobson; Seán Lemass. Quite an eclectic selection but all illustrating various elements of the tapestry of revolution being woven after 1916.

As republicans, it is important to not remain safely cocooned in one’s own world view but to examine contrary arguments, understand their motivation and to refute their contentions with logical and informed discussion.

It’s something revisionism fails to do.

5 Sinn Féin Councillor Martin Browne with members of the Carrick-on-Suir RFB at the 2016 General Liam Lynch commemoration in Tipperary

August / Lúnasa 2016

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I nDíl Chuimhne 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

All notices and obituaries should be sent to notices@anphoblacht.com by Friday 12 August 2016

Life springs from death and from the graves of patriot men and women spring living nations PÁDRAIG PEARSE 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 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.

FÓGRAÍ BHÁIS

Seán Tierney Newbliss, County Monaghan THE death took place on 30 April of lifelong republican Seán Tierney of Corlat, Newbliss, County Monaghan.

A committed and staunch republican, Seán served a sentence in Portlaoise Prison in the 1980s for his involvement in IRA activities.

A farmer, Seán had a keen interest in engineering and had an inventive mind which he applied to good use throughout his working life.

A keen interest in sport brought Seán into administrative roles with his local boxing club and the Éire Óg GFC in Smithboro.

Members of Seán’s family also experienced imprisonment for their nationalist and republican beliefs.

Seán’s uncle, Joe, was in Crumlin Road for his part in the Civil Rights protests. Seán’s brother, James, was arrested with the late IRA Volunteer Seamus McElwain and did a term of imprisonment in Long Kesh.

A County Monaghan Sinn Féin Honouree, Seán, like many republicans who took part in the debates on strategy and changing tactics, could put his point of view across and never drew back from the challenge.

Despite the onset of Parkinson’s Disease and its steady advance, Seán’s republican spirit remained resolute to the end.

His remains were waked at the home of his brother

Martin and taken to Killeevan Chapel for Requiem Mass where Fr Peter Corrigan presided. Flanked by a Sinn Féin guard of honour – including Dáil deputies Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin and Martin Ferris and several Sinn Féin councillors from Monaghan, Cavan and Fermanagh – the turnout was testimony to the respect that Seán had deservedly earned throughout his life.

In his graveside oration, Martin Ferris TD recalled shared days in Portlaoise Prison and that Seán’s “engineering skills had brought him to the Midlands University of Revolution”.

To the graveside audience’s delight, Martin accused Seán of “poaching GAA money in County Kerry” when he towed a car, a raffle prize for the Éire Óg club in County Monaghan, to Killarney where he sold “lots of tickets”. “When Seán set his mind on something, there was no turning back,” declared Martin Ferris.

Predeceased by his parents Michael and Bridget and his brother Patrick, the sympathy of the republican family throughout County Monaghan and throughout Ireland is extended to Seán’s brothers – Martin, Denis, Vincent, Oliver, Michael, Peter and James – and to his sister Elizabeth and to the extended Tierney family.

I measc laochra na nGael go raibh a anam dílis.

29

Comhbhrón BEECHER. Deepest sympathy to Peadar’s wife Hannah, his daughter Catherine, son-in-law Tony and the entire Beecher family. Peadar was a lifelong republican and loving husband, father and grandfather. Remembered by Micheál Hennessy and the Ahern/Crowley Sinn Féin Cumann, Cork.

LYNCH. Deepest sympathy to John’s wife Bernadette, daughters Tracey, Deborah and Shauna, and son Stephen on the death of John, a loving husband, father and grandfather. Sympathy also to his brothers and sister. John was a sound republican and good friend to all. Always remembered by Micheál Hennessy and the Ahern/Crowley Sinn Féin Cumann, Cork.

LYNCH. Deepest condolences to Shauna Lynch and family on the recent death of her father John. A committed and hardworking republican activist in Cork City, he will be sorely missed. From Dave Barry and the MacCurtain/MacSwiney RFB and Committee.

» 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.

IMEACHTAÍ | EVENTS DUBLIN

Race Night

Constituency Office Fundraiser.

9pm Friday 29th July, The Eagle House, Glasthule, Dublin.

Tote betting on the night.

Organised by Dún Laoghaire Sinn Féin.

Peadar Beecher Cork City PEADAR BEECHER joined the Republican Movement in the very early 1970s, prompted by the unfolding events in the Six Counties.

In May 1974 he was arrested along with his comrades Colum de Barra, Tim O’Connor and Mick Hyland following the discovery of a bomb factory near Crossbarry, County Cork. He received a 12-month sentence for membership of the IRA and a concurrent 6 months for failing to account for his movements and was incarcerated in Portlaoise Prison. Peadar used to hold court in his cell and some of the younger Volunteers would seek his advice from time to time.

When a younger comrade expressed his trepidation at the thought of having to visit the dentist, Peadar sought to ease his concern by offering him a cup of tea. The cup was only half empty when the young lad spotted Peadar’s false teeth in the bottom of the cup. He never needed encouragement to see the dentist after that!

Peadar was released in February 1975 and continued to play his part in all aspects of the struggle.

He sold An Phoblacht and Easter Lillies with great enthusiasm. He ended up in prison for refusing to pay fines for selling Easter Lilies without a permit on a number of occasions.

Peadar was also the Secretary of the Traolach MacSuibhne Sinn Féin Cumann in the Southside of Cork City. The cumann was praised at Ard Fheiseanna for record sales of An Phoblacht. It had a well-earned reputation as one of the most active cumainn in the city, a legacy its members continue to this day.

Peadar was to the fore in organising protests on a range of issues, including the struggle in the H-Blocks. In 1985, Peadar stood for Sinn Féin in the local elections and narrowly missed being elected by six votes. Peadar was also one of the key figures who helped raise funds to purchase the Sinn Féin office in Barrack Street, Cork, named in honour of his comrades Volunteers Tony Ahern and Dermot Crowley, killed on active service in 1973.

As a former POW, Peadar had a deep commitment to supporting republican prisoners. He worked tirelessly to ensure that prisoners and their families had transport and other supports from the 1970s right through to the 1990s.

On 13 July, Peadar passed away after losing his long battle with cancer. He was 82. His funeral was attended by his friends and comrades from across the generations and by those from other political persuasions, a mark of the respect in which he was

5 The Sinn Féin office in Barrack Street opened in 1986

by Martin McGuinness: John Murphy (RIP), Deirdre O’Byrne, former Passage West Town Councillor Jimmy Mee, Peadar Beecher (RIP), Martin McGuinness, Mary O’Byrne and Gene Harrington (RIP)

held as a life-long republican.

Peadar is survived by his wife Hannah, his daughter Catherine (USA), his son-in-law Tony and his grandchildren Alana and Kerri with whom he built up a special relationship. We extend our deepest condolences to them and the wider family circle.

Ní bheidh a leithead arís ann.

30 August / Lúnasa 2016

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There is no team without culture

BETWEEN P STS

THE

TWENTY YEARS AGO this summer, I visited South Africa for the first time.

Two years after the first democratic elections, real social and political transformation had a long, long way to go. Yet there was a sense of anticipation. Belief in the mission, passion and commitment which helped secure an end to the repressive apartheid government was still in abundance.

One day, I found myself amidst a throng of trade union activists in Johannesburg. Trade unions had always been an equal and esteemed member of the tripartite alliance that had spearheaded the fight against apartheid. Most of those attending were members of the National Union of Mineworkers.

Thousands had gathered to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the miners’ strike in 1946. Their leader at the time, J. B. Marks, was once revered in South Africa. He wasn’t a name familiar to our young band from Ireland. That was one of many things I learned that summer. Along with gifts for family members, I bought myself a T-shirt at that rally. Emblazoned on the front of the crimson red cloth was an image of J. B. Marks. On the back of the shirt was a slogan: “1946-1996. Same demands – the struggle continues.”

Twenty years later, J. B. Marks’s vision and values seem to have fallen between the political fault-lines in South Africa.

Culture and values are at the centre of every successful endeavour in life.

Passion and purpose, fervour and focus distinguish great sporting achievements.

Last summer, history was made by a Japanese team which overpowered a much-favoured South Africa in the Rugby World Cup. So far this summer, we have been treated to a spoil of riches.

The English Premiership saw Leicester City become the unlikely league champions. Their manager Claudio Rainieri was credited with much of the success. Even before the season was over, the story of Leicester City was being hailed in the media as a fairy tale.

More forensic sporting analysts were unpicking the dynamics of the team and the collective spirit fostered by their Italian manager. The most revealing insight of all was an interview in which Ranieri attributed the team’s success to his ability as a manager to understand his players.

Once known as “The Tinkerman” for his interventionist management style,

Ciarán Kearney

5 Leicester City's unlikely capture of the English Premiership was hailed as 'a fairytale' by the media

Ranieri adapted himself as a manager to suit the needs of his players and to understand the culture of their club while remaining true to his own, personal values.

The process of engendering values and culture among a team which transcends personalities and outlast individuals is known as enculturation.

It’s a kind of sporting alchemy.

The Euro 2016 soccer finals provided a glimpse of this spectacle.

With Iceland’s triumph over England, the contrast between Premiership salaries and the passion and purpose of the part-time team was stunning.

Passion and purpose, fervour and focus distinguish great sporting achievements

5 The success of tiny Iceland at Euro 2016 was a highlight of the competition

IN PICTURES

the players have changed repeatedly over those three decades. The tactics and demands of Gaelic games have been transformed. Yet spend time in Tyrone’s ‘Centre of Excellence’ at Garvaghey and you’ll see a constancy and self-assurance.

The walls are festooned with vivid displays about the county’s history, heritage and ancestry from which current players might draw strength.

None of this can be swept away in the hype of post-match commentary, good or bad. Leaving the pitch after blitzing Cavan in a replay, the players lined up to shake hands with their teammates.

Respect for the jersey matched by respect for the teammate who wears it.

Winning their ninth Ulster title, many of the players involved were not even born when Harte first managed Tyrone.

Bookies’ odds and favourite tags completely miss the point. Of course Tyrone produces excellent players but they build even better teams – teams which can be rejuvenated without relinquishing core values.

How much team culture influences the final stages of the championship remains to be seen. But without it, victory has a hollow ring.

photos@anphoblacht.com

The outcome wasn’t determined by more talent or technical ability. Iceland certainly didn’t have more money (one of their part-time managers is a dentist by profession). Look behind the spectacle and you’ll find a team which prized relationships above financial reward.

In the same competition, Wales defied detractors and reached the semi-finals.

Among their back-up team was a sports psychologist who works full-time for Swansea City FC. Of course, the squad included players of undisputed talent.

Yet there was no odious elitism; no hierarchy or cliques. A collective team spirit was palpable.

While I was in South Africa in 1996, Mickey Harte was managing the Tyrone minor football team. Under his stewardship (1991-1998) they won three Ulster titles and an All-Ireland. Respect for the county jersey was something Harte introduced to his young charges. It has become part of the changing room culture now for successive senior teams.

The faces and the flairs of 3 Tyrone GAA manager Mickey Harte

5 Sinn Féin Newry & Armagh MLA Megan Fearon with some local Team Ireland hockey players heading off to the Rio Olympics

August / Lúnasa 2016

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5 Descendants of the internees, including singer Damien Dempsey and actor John Connors

CENTENARY COMMEMORATION AT FAMOUS 1916 PRISON CAMP IN WALES

FRONGOCH UNIVERSITY OF REVOLUTION

IN THE SMALL VALLEY of Frongoch, in north Wales, 400 people gathered on 11 June to mark the 100th anniversary of the arrival almost 1,800 Irish POWs following the 1916 Easter Rising.

Speaking after the performance, Francie Molloy MP told the audience: “It just reminded me, listening to the children singing, of the words of another man who was interned, only in Long Kesh internment camp. The words of Bobby Sands that: ‘Our revenge will be the laughter of our children.’”

The Sinn Féin MP reminded people: “What the men and women of 1916 set out to achieve has not been achieved. We still have partition in our country. Ireland is still divided and the British still occupy a part of it.”

Outlining Sinn Féin’s commitment to ending partition and realising the vision of 1916, he concluded by saying: “Let us move on to the next revolution.”

Other speakers at the event included historians Lyn Ebenezer and Seán O’Mahony; Councillor Elwyn Edwards of Gwynedd Council; Linda Tomos, representing the Welsh Government; Ambassador Daniel Mulhall; and, former Plaid Cymru MP Dafydd Elis-Thomas.

6 Francie Lord Elis-Thomas famously played a pivotal role during Frongoch

The internment camp at Frongoch was famously christened by its inhabitants “Ollscoil na Réabhlóide”, or “University of Revolution”. It was inside Frongoch that Michael Collins came to the fore as a leader among fighters for freedom. Frongoch’s ‘graduates’ were to play a key role in restructuring the Irish Republican Army and prosecuting the guerrilla warfare of the Tan War (1919-21). By 1920, eight former Frongoch internees were amongst the 13-member IRA GHQ Staff. By the end of 1921, 30 ‘Frongoch men’ were Sinn Féin TDs. The morning of the centenary commemoration saw a parade along the main street of the nearby town of Bala, Gwynedd, led by the Liverpool Irish Patriots Republican Flute Band and the Cambria Band. This was followed by a procession to Frongoch’s ‘North Camp’, where flowers were laid at a memorial stone and plaque erected to commemorate the site.

There were many descendants of Frongoch internees present for the emotional occasion.

92-year-old Mairtín McCullough, son of former IRB President Dennis McCullough, had travelled from Dublin especially for the occasion. Other descendants who attended included the singer Damien Dempsey and the actor John Connors of Love/Hate fame. Coaches were also organised from Liverpool and Dún Laoghaire.

Sinn Féin’s Francie Molloy MP and Councillor Sorcha Nic Cormaic were also there.

There was an exhibition hosted by Ysgol Bro Tryweryn Primary School, which was built on the site of part of what was formerly ‘South Camp’ in 1971. The exhibition featured photographs, aerial maps and artwork produced by the local pupils.

As part of the commemorative ceremony, the pupils of Ysgol Bro Tryweryn performed a song in the Welsh language telling the story of the journey from Dublin to Frongoch. The piece was written by Myrddin ap Dafydd and set to a tune composed by Robat Arwyn.

5 Many republicans including Michael Collins came to the fore inside Frongoch camp

BY JOE DWYER

Frongoch has resonated through the decades as one of the symbols of the revolutionary period in Ireland Molloy

at

5 Francie Molloy and Joe Dwyer marching with the Cairde na hÉireann Liverpool banner

the 1981 H-Block Hunger Strike when he passed the writ of by-election following the death of Bobby Sands MP, in response to the British Government’s desire to stall the democratic process.

Following the speeches there was a walking tour conducted by Adam Balchder and Alwyn Jones. The tour included the original house that served as quarters for the British Army camp commandant. The tour concluded at a field known locally as “Croke Park”. It was there in July 1916 that the “Wolfe Tone Cup” was contested by teams representing Louth and Kerry. In the event, Louth was defeated by just one point. The day’s commemoration concluded with musical performances by Damien Dempsey, Ian Prowse, and Willie Byrne.

The centenary commemoration was organised by local community activists and historians but received assistance through ‘Cymru'n Cofio/Wales Remembers 1914-1918’, a Welsh Government programme established to mark key global events which took place during this period and to explore their impact on communities within Wales.

The importance of Frongoch, not only to Irish history but also to the history of Wales, was reflected by the strong turnout for the day-long centenary commemoration. As the historian Jon Parry wrote: “The name Frongoch has resonated through the decades as one of the symbols of the revolutionary period in Ireland. It was one of the few Welsh names with which Irish people were familiar, even if they found it unpronounceable. Similarly, to some Welsh men and women it became a symbol of national struggle.”

NEXT ISSUE OUT Thursday 1 September 2016

anphoblacht

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IN PICTURES

Sraith Nua Iml 39 Uimhir 8 – August / Lúnasa 2016

photos@anphoblacht.com

5 Gerry Adams TD at the opening of the East Cork TD Pat Buckley's new Sinn Féin office in Middleton

5 Belfast Sinn Féin Senator Niall Ó Donnghaile called for the opening of an Irish Passport Office in the North

5 The Asgard Commemoration in Howth, north County Dublin, remembers the Howth Gun Running of 1914 and the Bacherlor's Walk Massacre, Sinn Féin MEP Lynn Boylan was the main speaker 5 Martin Ferris TD and David Cullinane TD at the opening of the new 5 A Hunger Strike vigil organised by the Cooper, Canavan, Daly, Murphy Sinn Féin Cumann takes place in Monageer, Wexford Waterford Sinn Féin office in Dungarvan

5 Protesters on O'Connell Street in Dublin call for the protection of homeless families who are currently in emergency accommodation in Lynam's Hotel. Families are worried the sale of the hotel will force them to look elsewhere for emergency accommodation

5 Sinn Féin's John Brady TD, Councillor Mick Roche, Councillor Fionntán Ó Súilleabháin, Mary Lou McDonald TD, Councillor 5 Team SInn Féin Limerick get ready for the NOVAS 7-a-side Johnny Mythen and Councillor Oisín O'Connell at the 'Building for Political Power' meeting in Gorey, Wexford fundraiser for the homeless at the University of Limerick