An Phoblacht, August 2017

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August / Lúnasa 2017

H C A E S I O A T NEW Y B S D N A T S OLD GUARD MARY LOU McDONALD

Brexit undermines Good Friday Agreement

THOMAS ASHE

September centenary of first hunger strike martyr

BALLESTEROS IN BELFAST

Colombia union leader meets Sinn Féin and ICTU

Political unionism and Orangeism need to give decisive leadership against sectarianism – Gerry Adams & Declan Kearney

2 August / Lúnasa 2017

www.anphoblacht.com

Garda Commissioner takes 5-week holiday as police training college cash tangle unravels

New Taoiseach stands by Old Guard

carried out on motorists between 2012 and 2016 when it was only half that number; • Garda testimony in the trial of six people acquitted in June of the false imprisonment of former Labour Party leader Joan Burton at a water charges protest in Jobstown highlighted by the judge to the jury as conflicting with video evidence.

Despite all this, the Taoiseach has reiterated his full confidence in the Garda Commissioner.

The renewed defence of the embattled Garda Commissioner even after the damning PAC report was “extraordinary and unprecedented”, Mary Lou said.

The Sinn Féin deputy leader said: “The Taoiseach condones the failure of the Garda Commissioner to inform the Minister for Justice of irregularities at Templemore.

“It is very worrying that the Taoiseach is content that Minister and Department of Justice were kept in the dark on such serious issues.

“The Taoiseach also condones the failure of the Commissioner to provide

BY JOHN HEDGES LEO VARADKAR has “failed in his duties as Taoiseach” to act decisively to deal with the litany of scandals that has engulfed An Garda Síochhána, Sinn Féin deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald TD has said. She was speaking after the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee’s first report into financial misconduct in the Garda Training College at Templemore was published on 19 July.

Numerous controversies have raised huge questions about senior management under Garda Commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan and the issue of leadership within An Garda Síochána needs to be urgently addressed, the Dublin TD insisted.

“Whole-scale change is required.

There is a need for a new dynamic from outside.”

The fact that the Garda Commissioner has left the country on holiday

5 Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and his ministers are backing the Garda Commissioner

‘The issue of leadership within An Garda Síochána needs to be urgently addressed. Wholescale change is required. There is a need for a new dynamic from outside’

Garda Training College. The European Commission’s European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) has now joined the investigation into possible misuse of EU funds.

Justine McCarthy in The Sunday Times unravelled some of the Templemore tangle thus: “Audits going back 11 years have uncovered a slush fund of 50 bank accounts; cheques made out to individual gardaí; Exchequer money intended for students’ laundry costs spent on ‘disallowable payments’; income from the credit union’s bar

5 Mícheál Martin – All talk, no action

MARY LOU McDONALD TD

for a road trip in the USA lasting five weeks has raised eyebrows amongst politicians and commentators when her force still faces a number of investigations, inquiries and audits.

The Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee (PAC) – of which Mary Lou McDonald is a member – has uncovered a host of financial irregularities at the Garda Training College over more than a decade.

The PAC reports on the Garda Commissioner’s “persistent failure” to report for 10 months to the Department of Justice and the Comptroller & Auditor General the irregularities (including secret bank accounts) at the

5 Garda Commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan gives evidence at Leinster House

diverted to the restaurant company; undeclared company directorships; the withholding of information from the internal auditor; and so on.”

The Templemore revelations come on top of several controversies that would have seen a police chief in any other EU state resign. These include:• The smear campaign against whistleblower Garda Sergeant Maurice McCabe who exposed the widespread quashing of motoring penalty points, including for some journalists; • False Garda statistics claiming that two million alcohol breath tests were

The Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee reported numerous financial irregularities at the Garda Training College over more than a decade full and accurate information to the Comptroller & Auditor General.

“He defends the Commissioner’s actions in withholding information from the C&AG in respect of Templemore.

“This is an unprecedented statement by the head of government and a direct challenge to the authority of the office of the C&AG “The Taoiseach’s defensive arguments about the Commissioner’s discretion are threadbare and are at odds with the position of the C&AG and the Commissioners legal advisor – both reflected in the PAC report “It is unprecedented that the head of government shows such disregard for the law, for good governance, and for a constitutional office of the state.

“In taking this position, Leo Varadkar has failed in his duties as Taoiseach.”

Even though Fianna Fáil leader Mícheál Martin says his party does not support Garda Commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan staying in her post, he’s not going to put any pressure on his Fine Gael counterpart to remove her.

Sinn Féin Justice spokesperson Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire TD said it is “further proof of Fianna Fáil letting the Fine Gael Government off the hook”.

“Mícheál Martin and his party have had numerous opportunities to force this government to act – including a Sinn Féin motion of no confidence – but they just sit on their hands.”

August / Lúnasa 2017

www.anphoblacht.com

3

Tory minister who denounced Good Friday Agreement as ‘mortal stain’ pulls out of meeting Sinn Féin but poses with DUP MPs

Conservative-DUP pact is making Stormont resolution difficult THE KEY to restoring the power-sharing Executive at Stormont rests with the DUP and the British and Irish governments, Sinn Féin MLA Michelle O’Neill has said.

negotiators, was scathing about the Tory minister’s failure to follow through on July’s scheduled meeting with the party in Antrim.

“This is the latest example of the Tories’ disrespect for voters in the North,” the South Antrim MLA said.

“It is in default of the British Government’s responsibility as a co-guarantor of the Good

Any new Executive has to be a rights-based administration that delivers for all citizens and which implements all outstanding agreements, the Sinn Féin leader in the North insisted.

Sinn Féin remains fully committed to making the negotiations work and in getting the Execu-

‘The Tory Government is facilitating the denial of rights because it is in hock to the DUP’ Declan Kearney MLA

‘Sinn Féin remains fully committed to making the negotiations work and in getting the Executive back up and running’ Michelle O’Neill MLA tive back up and running “and delivering for all in society” as per the Good Friday Agreement,” the Mid Ulster MLA said.

But Sinn Féin National Chairperson Declan Kearney warned that the pact between the Tory Party in power in Westminster and Arlene

5 DUP MP Ian Paisley meets Conservative & Unionist Party Minister Michael Gove in Antrim

Foster’s Democratic Unionist Party is making a resolution harder to reach.

The “confidence and supply agreement” between the DUP and the Conservative & Unionist Party pledges DUP MPs’ support for the Tory minority government on key parliamentary votes.

Conservative Secretary of State for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs Michael Gove (who came third in last year’s Conservative Party leadership election won by Theresa May) was in Antrim on Saturday 22 July. He pulled out

of a prearranged meeting with Sinn Féin and Declan Kearney without any warning. Gove did, however, make time to pose with DUP MPs. In 2000, the right-wing Brexit enthusiast wrote a pamphlet called Northern Ireland: The Price of Peace in which he attacked the Good Friday Agreement as being based on a “rigged referendum”. The outcome, Michael Gove wrote angrily, was “a mortal stain” and “a humiliation of our army, police and parliament”.

Declan Kearney, one of Sinn Féin’s most senior

Friday Agreement to be rigorously impartial in the political process.

“The Tory deal with the DUP is making it more difficult to reach a resolution to the current political difficulties in the North.

“The DUP has been emboldened by Tory support for its opposition to the implementation of previous agreements and a rights-based society.”

The Sinn Féin negotiator said that An Acht Gaeilge, a Bill of Rights, marriage equality and families' access to coroner inquests are basic rights that are protected in England, Scotland, Wales and the rest of Ireland.

“The denial of these rights would not be tolerated elsewhere on these islands but the Tory Government is facilitating the denial of these rights because it is in hock to the DUP. “The political institutions can be re-established on the basis of partnership, respect and equality but that requires the implementation of previous agreements and an end to the dilution of basic rights at the behest of the DUP. “It will also require the British Government to show respect towards the political process and the republican and nationalist electorate.”

4 August / Lúnasa 2017

www.anphoblacht.com

anphoblacht Editorial

WHAT'S INSIDE 6&7

Civil Rights to power-sharing – DUP still doesn’t get it 9

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Government parties leave public high and dry in Irish Water crisis THE collapse of Drogheda’s public water supply system that left tens of thousands of families and businesses in the south Louth and east Meath region without water for a week is more evidence of the failure of Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, Labour, the Green Party and Independents in government to invest in this essential public service.

Sinn Féin has consistently called for an ambitious capital investment programme funded through general taxation to bring water and sanitation services up to an acceptable standard.

During the Drogheda crisis, emergency rationing had to be introduced in the last week of July as water tankers were brought in. Standpipes were opened up where families had to collect sparse water supplies essential to hygiene, cooking and keeping hydrated in the seasonal hot weather, particularly children and the elderly.

Irish Water has admitted that its repair solutions to two pipes that had burst at the Staleen Water Treatment Plant were not holding due to the complexity of the repair and the age of the pipe which channels water from the Boyne. The burst pipe is 50 years old and has been repaired previously, as late as June of last year. Now it needs to be completely replaced.

Local people say there is a history of warnings to Irish Water and the authorities about the decaying state of the public water supply system.

Fine Gael slashed capital investment in water and wastewater on taking office in 2011.

They set about investing hundreds of millions of euro creating Irish Water, installing water meters and introducing water charges.

This money would have been better invested in upgrading the state’s crumbling water system.

More than 40% of treated water is lost in the distribution system because of leaks in an outdated infrastructure In the Sinn Féin Alternative Budget for 2017, the party outlined a range of progressive measures and investments in the upgrading of water utilities.

The Fine Gael/Independent Government – supported by Fianna Fáil – has ignored these suggestions.

Contact

Operation Motorman, 1972 22 & 23

GUE/NGL President says Brexit talks must address citizens’ rights 25

European Citizen’s Award Winners – Border Communities Against Brexit 31

Netflix and Reeling in the Years – Time for a Gaelflix?

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The people of Drogheda and east Meath and across the state are paying the price today.

It is not good enough.

The public needs a state-led plan for a reliable water infrastructure with a water utility that is focused on delivering for the needs of citizens.

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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British have not met obligations – Relatives for Justice

RELATIVES FOR JUSTICE (RFJ) has accused British Secretary of State James Brokenshire and his government of not meeting their obligations to victims and survivors of the conflict.

“Rather than concentrating on the full implementation of the Stormont House Agreement, the British Government has frustrated all processes to deal with the past,” RFJ said.

“They have stood by while the inquest courts and Police Ombudsman’s Office have been deliberately starved of necessary resources despite full clear professional plans of remedy for families that have the

full support of the most senior legal figure in the north, the Lord Chief Justice, the UN and EU Human Rights Commissioner.”

And, RFJ adds, “in the most sinister

of fashions” the British Government has insisted on a ‘national security’ veto which has torpedoed the political agreements reached in the form of the Stormont House Agreement legacy proposals.

“Recently, the British Government has announced that they wish to unilaterally consult on legacy proposals, which do not have political agreement,” RFJ said.

The relatives’ organisation said that many view this as a cynical exercise in continuing state impunity, with the British state not wishing to be investigated or held to account for its role in state killings or collusion.

“The British Government has

clear legal obligations to victims and survivors of the conflict under the European Convention of Human Rights, it is long since past time they stood aside and allowed for indepen-

‘National security’ veto has torpedoed Stormont House agreements dent and robust mechanisms that can deliver to all victims to be put in place.”

The British state, Relatives for Justice declared, “is not impartial”.

August / Lúnasa 2017

www.anphoblacht.com

5

Sinn Féin Bill to outlaw tactical insolvencies gets green light

BY DAVID CULLINANE TD THE Dáil has agreed to allow to proceed to committee a Sinn Féin Bill I have tabled that will make tactical insolvencies a fraud on employees and therefore illegal.

Over the last few years we have seen case after case of workers frozen out of their entitlements, the most high-profile example being that of the iconic Clerys department store opposite the GPO in Dublin’s O’Connell Street.

On 12 June 2015, its 130-strong workforce was sacked without notice; another 330 workers employed by the store's concession outlets were locked out of their jobs and left facing an equally uncertain future.

Clerys was bought by Natrium some time between

David Cullinane TD with his Protection of Employeess (Collective Redundancies) Bill

midnight and 1:15am on that day and was declared insolvent that afternoon.

The workers did not receive the statutory redundancy lump sum from the new owners and nor were they paid monies owed in lieu of redundancy and holiday pay.

In fact, many of them only found out that their jobs had gone through social media rather than hearing it first from the company.

The state was obliged to pay those debts under the insolvency payment scheme. A company that made tens of millions of euro was away on its toes and the workers and the state were left high and dry.

In the wake of the Clerys closure, a report was written and my Dáil Bill will give legislative support to the main recommendations of that report.

The majority of employers in the state act responsibly and were as horrified as everyone else were when they heard of the tactical insolvency that took place in Clerys.

That makes it all the more urgent for action to be taken.

Not only did the workers suffer but taxpayers were affected because they had to pick up the tab, as do companies when situations such as this one emerge.

The Sinn Féin Bill will provide protection for employees in collective redundancy cases where the employer is insolvent. It will give powers to the High Court to return assets which have been improperly transferred and give preferential status to employees.

Tactical insolvencies are

5 Gerry Adams TD with Clerys workers

Over the last few years we have seen case after case of workers made redundant frozen out of their entitlements

effectively fraud and amount to theft – the theft of workers’ pay and pensions, the theft of goods and services from other companies, and the theft of revenue from the state.

At present, all of this is perfectly legal even though everyone knows it is wrong. Consequently, there is a responsibility on politicians as legislators to fix this problem.

I have endeavoured to do so and hopefully we can get the Bill across the finishing line after the Dáil summer recess and before we are faced with another Clerys, Vita Cortex, La Senza or Lagan Brick scandal.

Joe McDonnell, Fian John Dempsey and Nora McCabe remembered

BY PEADAR WHELAN AS REPUBLICANS gathered in Belfast on Saturday 8 July to mark the 36th anniversary of the hunger strike of IRA Volunteer Joe McDonnell, it was fitting that they also paid tribute to two other Belfast people, Fian John Dempsey and Nora McCabe Fian John Dempsey was cut down by British soldiers within hours of the death on hunger strike of Joe McDonnell.

The young Fian and two comrades were on active service when they come under fire from troops at the Falls Road bus depot in Belfast. He died later in the Royal Victoria Hospital.

Hours later, and also on the Falls Road, in one of the most controversial incidents involving the use of plastic bullets, 30-year-old mother of three Nora McCabe was shot dead by the Royal Ulster Constabulary.

The order to fire the weapon came directly from RUC Chief Superintendent

Jimmy Crutchley.

Secret state papers from 1985 made public in 2014 reveal that the high-ranking RUC officer gave the order to fire on Nora McCabe returning from the shops.

This information was in a report given to then British Secretary of State Douglas Hurd in 1984.

These revelations help to expose the litany of attempts by the authorities in the North to cover up the killing of the mother of three.

Speaking to An Phoblacht at the Joe McDonnell white-line picket, Robert McClenaghan, who campaigns on behalf of people killed by state forces during the conflict, said: “We shouldn’t forget that 1981 was a year in which the Thatcher Government and the unionist regime in the North did everything they could to break the nationalist community and a lot of people paid with their lives, including Fian John Dempsey and Nora McCabe, whose family are still fighting for justice.”

6 August / Lúnasa 2017

www.anphoblacht.com

From Civil Rights to power-sharing – the DUP still doesn’t get it PEADAR WHELAN casts a critical eye over how the political landscape of the North has – and hasn’t – changed since the foundation of the Civil Rights movement in 1967 to demand equality and fair treatment.

READING an article on the founding of the Civil Rights Association in the North in 1967, the oft-quoted dictum that “history repeats itself first as tragedy, second as farce” came to my mind.

The Civil Rights movement brought together human rights activists, trades unionists, republicans, nationalists, socialists, communists – and indeed liberal unionists – to formulate strategies and challenge the political corruption practised by the unionists in power at Stormont.

Observing the wreckage of the Northern Assembly and the shattered remnants of the political process in 2017, one could be forgiven for thinking that history is repeating itself 40 years later.

Successive Unionist Party governments who ruled the Six Counties from partition until 1972, when Stormont was abrogated by the British Government, denied citizens of the North their rights and equality.

Today, a recalcitrant unionism in the shape an arrogant, anti-equality and anti-Irish Democratic Unionist Party is behaving in the same manner as its unionist predecessors, a political methodology that compelled Martin McGuinness to resign his position as deputy First Minister in January.

(See Martin’s resignation letter on opposite page.)

REFUSING TO EMBRACE CHANGE Despite the intervening 50 years and the turbulent history we have all experienced, political unionism – of which the DUP is the vanguard

5 The faces of the unionist leadership at Stormont aren't the only changes – it's a different world today

– is still refusing to move forward and embrace change.

That constant, immovable obstacle is unionism, and Arlene Foster has been in the driving seat as leader of the DUP. Arlene Foster lives near the stately home of another Fermanagh unionist, the infamous Lord Brookeborough. The then Captain Brooke (later

5 Irish-language campaigners take their call to the steps of Stormont in the face of DUP opposition

to become Prime Minister) notoriously boasted to an Orange Order rally at Newtownbutler on 12 July 1933: “There are a great number of Protestants and Orangemen who employ Roman Catholics. I feel I can speak freely on this subject as I have not had a Roman Catholic about my own place . . .

“I would appeal to loyalists, therefore, wherever

possible, to employ good Protestant lads and lassies . . . I want you to remember one point in regard to the employment of people who are disloyal . . . You are disenfranchising yourselves in that way.

“You people who are employers have the ball at your feet. If you don’t act properly now, before we know where we are we shall find ourselves in the minority instead of the majority.”

Lord Brookeborough wouldn’t have a Catholic about his own place; it looks like his political descendants in Arlene Foster and the DUP don’t want Gaelgeoirs about the place – even though it’s no longer just their place.

But the fact that it is no longer ‘their place’ seems still to be hard for many unionists in the DUP and the once-dominant Ulster Unionist Party to accept.

It was a different world for unionism in 1967/68.

It is a world that unionism looks back at longingly and hankers for a return to.

When the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) was formally set up in 1967 it set out a number of demands for reforms. One of them was (in the vernacular of the time) “One Man, One Vote” ­– the demand for a universal franchise for local government elections.

The North’s electoral system had a property franchise which granted votes in local elections only to those who owned property, weighted representation heavily in favour of unionism and disenfranchised nationalists, as did the business vote system for parliamentary elections. The result was that many towns and cities with a nationalist majority, even a substantial one, were unionist-controlled (examples included Derry City, Armagh, Dungannon and Enniskillen).

Electoral boundaries were carefully engineered in the interests of unionism. Belfast’s representatives in Stormont went from 4 to 16 in 1921; there was no increase in the nationalist representation and Belfast continued to return only one MP. In the 1966 elections to the Westminster Parliament, the Ulster Unionist Party won 11 of the North’s 12 seats. Three years later, in the 1969 Stormont elections, 39 out of the 52 available seats (75%) went to the unionist candidates.

August / Lúnasa 2017

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Mr Robert Newton MLA Speaker

5 Derry mural tribute to the Civil Rights campaign against unionist discrimination in 'The Orange State'

NICRA pressed for other reforms, including the end to discrimination in the allocation of housing and appointments to public sector jobs.

NICRA also wanted the repeal of the Special Powers Act and the disbandment of the Ulster Special Constabulary (the “B-Specials”), the paramilitary police reserve entirely Protestant in its make-up and renowned for the depth of its anti-Catholic bigotry.

FAVOURING UNIONISM While recent elections (most notably the March Assembly election when Sinn Féin came within a hairs’ breadth of besting the DUP) demonstrated that the demographic picture is changing the North, the reality is that the old boundaries still favour unionism.

On the housing front, a report published in June by the North’s Equality Commission (ECNI) showed that Catholics are waiting six months longer than Protestants for social housing.

According to the report, social housing waiting lists for 2004 to 2009 and for 2013/14 show that Catholics experienced “the longest median waiting times for social housing at the point of allocation in Northern Ireland”.

Between 2004 and 2009, the average waiting list time for Catholic households was eight months, compared with six months for “other religion” households and six months for Protestants. But by 2013/14 the wait had nearly doubled for Catholics to 15 months, while “other religion” households had more than doubled to 13 months.

The wait for Protestants had increased by a third, to nine months.

The longest wait for Catholics was in west Belfast (28 months) followed by 27 months in south Belfast, 22 months in Ballymena and 15 in east Belfast.

The 2011 Census figures confirm that Catholics

5 Martin McGuinness – Felt compelled to resign are still more likely to be unemployed than Protestants.

While these significant trends in housing allocation and unemployment figures may resonate more with the ‘civil rights generation’, contemporary issues such as the Renewable Heat Incentive scandal, Arlene Foster’s sardonic description of the Irish-language campaign as a “crocodile”, the continued refusal of the DUP to embrace the equality agenda by blocking marriage equality, and the DUP’s continued hardline strategy over legacy issues have their roots in a unionist intransigence that has stonewalled political progress over many, many years.

But bad history doesn’t have to repeat itself.

If former DUP leaders Ian Paisley and Peter Robinson could have a professional, working relationship with the leader of Sinn Féin in the Executive (despite their history), what is it about Arlene Foster and her lieutenants that they feel they could treat with disdain the unfailingly generous Martin McGuinness in particular, Sinn Féin as a party and the republican and nationalist community in general?

Martin McGuinness’s resignation letter

Robin, a chara, Over ten difficult and testing years, in the role of deputy First Minister, I have sought with all my energy and determination to serve all the people of the north and the island of Ireland by making the power-sharing government work.

Throughout that time, I have worked with successive DUP First Ministers and, while our parties are diametrically opposed ideologically and politically, I have always sought to exercise my responsibilities in good faith and to seek resolutions rather than recrimination. I have worked tirelessly to defend our peace process, to advance the reconciliation of our community and to build a better future for our young people.

At times I have stretched and challenged republicans and nationalists in my determination to reach out to our unionist neighbours. It is a source of deep personal frustration that those efforts have not always been reciprocated by unionist leaders.

At times, they have been met with outright rejection.

The equality, mutual respect and all-Ireland approaches enshrined in the Good Friday Agreement have never been fully embraced by the DUP. Apart from the negative attitude to nationalism and to the Irish identity and culture, there has been a shameful disrespect towards many other sections of our community. Women, the LGBT community and ethnic minorities have all felt this prejudice. And for those who wish to live their lives through the medium of Irish, elements in the DUP have exhibited the most crude and crass bigotry.

Over this period, successive British governments have undermined the process of change by refusing to honour agreements, refusing to resolve the issues of the past while imposing austerity and Brexit against the wishes and best interests of people here.

Against this backdrop, the current scandal over the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) has emerged.

It is my firm view that the DUP’s handling of this issue has been completely out of step with a public mood which is rightly outraged at the squandering of public money and the allegations of misconduct and corruption. The public are demanding robust action and accountability but the DUP, in particular its leader Arlene Foster, have refused to accept this.

The DUP leader has a clear conflict of interest. She was the minister responsible for the RHI scheme at its inception. No cost controls were put in place and warnings were ignored. This has led to an enormously damaging pressure on our public finances and a crisis of confidence in the political institutions.

The minister responsible for the RHI scheme should have no Executive role in overseeing how this will be rectified.

There are significant conflict of interest issues and I have urged Arlene Foster to stand aside without prejudice to ensure confidence in the necessary investigation and in the wider public interest. These institutions only have value if they enjoy the confidence and support of the people they were established to serve. They only have meaning if they are delivering fairly for all our people based on the principles of equality and mutual respect on which they were founded.

I have sought to maximise the potential of the institutions for forward progress in a society emerging from a bitter conflict. But the refusal of Arlene Foster to recognise the public anger or to exhibit any humility in the context of the RHI scandal is indicative of a deep-seated arrogance which is inflicting enormous damage on the Executive, the Assembly and the entire body politic.

The First Minister has refused to stand aside, without prejudice, pending a preliminary report from an investigation.

That position is not credible or tenable.

The Irish and British governments have internationally binding obligations to uphold issues of equality and parity of esteem. They need to fulfill these obligations.

Therefore, it is with deep regret and reluctance, that I am tendering my resignation as deputy First Minister with effect from 5pm on Monday, 9th January, 2017.

In the available period Sinn Féin will not nominate to the position of deputy First Minister. We now need an election to allow the people to make their own judgement on these issues democratically at the ballot box.

Yours sincerely

MARTIN McGUINNESS MLA deputy First Minister

7

8 August / Lúnasa 2017

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Unsettling silence from unionism on messages from the bonfires

BY PEADAR WHELAN THE FAILURE of those at the very top of the Democratic Unionist Party in particular and the Ulster Unionist Party as well as the Orange Order to show leadership during the Eleventh Night bonfires associated with the Twelfth has been stark and is addressed elsewhere in this issue by Gerry Adams and Declan Kearney.

One of the most tasteless images from this year’s Twelfth ‘celebrations’ was a black coffin bearing the late Martin McGuinness’s portrait on a bonfire in east Belfast that was mocking the death of the Sinn Féin deputy First Minister.

What nationalists and republicans found most unsettling about these displays is the widespread silence of the ‘unionist Establishment’.

There was not a scintilla of outrage from the DUP, UUP, the Protestant

Unionists burn a huge effigy of ‘the traitor Lundy’ after they leave a Christian religious service churches or the Orange Order itself over the Eleventh Night bonfires.

The hate-fest of the Eleventh Night bonfires goes ahead unhindered and largely unremarked. Even the mild repudiation by DUP leader Arlene Foster

5 Loyal order members burn an effigy of Lundy in Derry

of the insult to her late colleague at the head of the Executive had to be extracted from her belatedly rather than volunteered when it first became news.

(And then the News Letter daily shockingly ran an online poll asking: “Was Arlene Foster right to condemn McGuinness bonfire effigy?”)

Every year in Derry, during the Apprentice Boys’ Lundy Day ‘celebrations’, unionists burn a huge effigy of ‘the traitor Lundy’ after they leave a Christian religious service. Given that this act has been carried out in full view of the nationalist residents of the Bogside, then the obvious intimidation of the act rhymes with the bonfire ritual.

Before 1974, the effigy was burned from Walker’s Pillar, which overlooked the city’s Bogside until the IRA blew up the pillar in one its most welcome operations in the city as it destroyed what had become a symbol of unionist and sectarian domination. Now the effigy is burned from a scaffolding in the city centre.

The unionist myopic view of these ‘towering inferno’ bonfires is summed up in the News Letter editorial of Wednesday 12 July. As the sounds of The Sash, The Billy Boys and the notorious Famine Song were echoing in the ears of nationalists around the North and Scotland, the paper was telling us “bonfires are a wonderful ritual”.

The same editorial echoed Orange Order Chief Executive Iain Carlisle’s red herring that his organisation has been “demonised and discriminated against”.

It is a theme championed by Arlene Foster.

The DUP leader said: “Bonfires on the Eleventh Night have long been part of the unionist culture.

Those who have waged a campaign of demonisation against such celebrations should dial down the rhetoric.”

The leaders of unionism and the Orange Order need to ‘dial up’ their engagement with their followers to eradicate the racism and sectarianism of the bonfires.

Otherwise, the hate messages from the bonfires speak for themselves.

Why do some nationalists copy loyalist bonfires?

BY MICHAEL McMONAGLE WHY do some elements within the nationalist community copy the behaviour of the Eleventh Night bonfire builders who do so much damage to their cause?

In areas such as the Bogside in Derry, places with a long and proud history of republican resistance to oppression, small groups of young people (and some not so young) appear hell-bent on copying loyalist bonfire builders with their own pyres on 15 August.

Not only are they imitating loyalists in

causing damage and disruption, they also cover their bonfires in stolen election posters and flags purely to provoke.

When asked why they insist on building bonfires that the local community has made it clear they don’t want, the invariable answers are ‘Because they do it’ or ‘It’s traditional’.

Some maintain it is to commemorate the anniversary of the introduction of internment in 1971, which is strange as that is not the date of its introduction (9 August). Others will say it’s to mark a Catholic religious feast, the Assumption. At least they get the date right for that one but the connection to burning

pallets, tyres, flags and election posters is unfathomable.

Such bonfires are often accompanied by the

The majority of local residents in areas where these bonfires persist have made it clear that they do not want them. The vast majority of ex-internees and former prisoners have also said this. Nevertheless, hundreds turn out to watch every year, whether out of curiosity or some misplaced sense of nostalgia.

It is too simple to say that if no one attended these bonfires then they would end, but it would remove any appearance of support or even ambivalence towards such displays of sectarianism from within the nationalist and republican community.

Small groups appear hell-bent on copying unionists with their own pyres on 15 August painting of kerbstones and the flying of flags on lamp-posts to mark out territory. It is not only an insult to the national flag and what it stands for but it is also a pathetic attempt to copy loyalism.

It is not republicanism.

August / Lúnasa 2017

www.anphoblacht.com

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Féile an Phobail | Festival of the People – Ireland’s Biggest Community (1 - 13 August) Féile 2017 (d)print (D).qxp_Feile an E 16 (c) 21/06/2017 Festival 17:55 Page 1

What celebration should be about THIS YEAR’S AUGUST PROGRAMME CONTAINS A HOST OF QUALITY EVENTS UNDER THE HEADINGS OF:-

Music Ceol Scribes and Drama Scríobhaithe agus Drámaí Discussions and Debates Plé agus Diospoireachtaí Family, Children and Youth Teaghlach, paisti agus óige Visual Arts Na hAmharcealaíona Tours and Walks Turais agus Siúlóidí Sport and Community Spóirt agus Pobal

IRELAND’S BIGGEST COMMUNITY ARTS FESTIVAL AND SUMMER SCHOOL WWW.FEILEBELFAST.COM

BY PEADAR WHELAN & JOHN HEDGES

THURS 3RD AUGUST - SUN 13TH AUGUST 2017

FOR thousands of people in the North, August means Féile an Phobail and a celebration of what is good, positive and welcoming in west Belfast – “The heart of modern Belfast, where our communities are increasingly multilingual and multicultural,” says Féile Director Kevin Gamble.

FREE COPY

As the tensions of the unionist Twelfth of July dissipate along with the echoes of the drums of the ‘Kick the Pope’ bands strutting their stuff on the Orange Order parades fade away for a while with the smoke of the Eleventh Night bonfires, the mood across Belfast lifts noticeably.

The city landscape takes on a different complexion.

The burning effigies are replaced by the influx of visitors who travel from all corners of the world for the street carnival, the music, the

Féile’s carnival parade routinely brings thousands of participants onto the streets and many more into its family and kids’ events as well as the comedy, arts, music and debates Its purpose was to celebrate the positive side debates and the fun and craic associated with of the community, its creativity, its energy, its the biggest community festival in Ireland and passion for the arts, and for sport. It furthermore aimed to provide events and entertainment probably in Western Europe.

In the aftermath of the killings of three mourn- at a price that the majority of the community ers at the funerals of three IRA Volunteers killed could afford.

In August 1988, the first Féile opened with a in Gibraltar in 1988 and the deaths of two British soldiers during the subsequent funerals, there relatively humble parade of floats, bands and was a media campaign of vilification of the GAA clubs walking in their club regalia to an people of west Belfast. Sinn Féin leader Gerry open-air party in Dunville Park. Street parties Adams, working with community groups and were organised throughout west Belfast. Door-tostakeholders, set out to develop a programme door collections were made to fund day trips of events that would challenge the stereotyp- to the seaside for pensioners and outings for ical portrayal of west Belfast in the Establish- young people.

Soon the street confrontations associated with ment media.

TRAINED GUIDES FROM Join Féile an Phobail was born out of that adversity.

REPUBLICAN AND Thethe week around the anti-internment anniversary

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ALL EVENTS IN ST MARY’S UNIVERSITY COLLEGE UNLESS STATED OThERWISE MUNA BEIDh NA hIMEAChTAÍ GO LÉIR I GCOLÁISTE OLLSCOILE NAOMh MUIRE GCUIRTEAR A MhALAIRT IN IÚL.

Free Twin SpArTS ires VISuAL FamNa ily hAmharcealaío na Fun Day!

DEMOCrACY nOW!: COVErInG ThE MOVEMEnTS ChAnGInG ThE WOrLD A TALK BY JOurnALIST AMY GOODMAn Belfast Media Group, Teach Basil

The unprecedented resistance to President Donald Trump’s rise to power did not materialize overnight. Grassroots movements have been challenging the establishment for years, and are what Democracy Now! reports on every day in its global news hour. From the standoff at Standing Rock to the voices of grassroots leaders; from Black Lives Matter activists to those fighting for peace, climate justice, migrant rights, and LGBTQ equality; from uncovering government surveillance to fighting attacks on freedom of the press, Democracy Now! has been reporting for two decades from the front lines of the movements that are changing America and changing the world. It is a modern day underground railroad of information.

DEMOCrACY nOW! AG CLúDACh nA nGLuAISEAChTAí A AThrAíOnn An DOMhAn. CAInT LEIS An IrISEOIr AMY GOODMAn Grúpa Meán Bhéal Feirste, Teach Basil Níor tharla an fhrithbheartaíocht in aghaidh theacht i gcumhacht an Uachtaráin Trump thar oíche. Thug na gnáthghluaiseachtaí dúshlán na bunaíochta le blianta agus tuairiscíonn Democracy Now! orthu gach lá le linn a nuachta uaire domhanda. Ón tsáinn ag Standing Rock go guthanna cheannairí na cosmhuintire, ó ghníomhaithe Black Lives Matter go dtí na daoine sin atá ag troid ar son na síochána, ceartais aeráide, cearta d’inimircigh, comhionannas LGBTQ. Ó fhaireachas rialtais a nochtadh go dtí ag troid na n-ionsaithe ón phreas, bhí Democracy Now! ag tuairisciú ó línte tosaigh na ngluaiseachtaí atá ag athrú an domhain.

Democracy Now! ag tuairisciú le dhá dheichniúr anuas. Is eagraíocht nuaaimseartha faoi thalamh é a bhrúnn eolas.

PLÉ AGUS DIOSPOIREAChTAÍ

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23-26 Lúnasa/Aug, 10rn/am-3in/pm

Ages 4-6: Ages 7-10:

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Magician & Dance Troops

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05 & 12 Lúnasa/Aug, 11rn/am COISTE nA nIArChIMí FALLS & ShAnKILL pOLITICAL BuS TOur Divis Tower, Falls Road This 2 ½ -3 hour tour provides indepth insights of West Belfast and the Shankill with trained guides from Republican and Loyalist communities.

See the authentic sites of historical and political interest with representatives from both areas, starting in West Belfast and then swapping at Lanark Way Peace Line for a tour of the Shankill.

Cost: £15 per person Organised by: www.coiste.ie Contact: Booking is essential. Please contact us at 028 90200770, or tours@coiste.com.

Teaghlach, Paisti & 29th July, 5th August and 12th August, 11am- 12pm óige 7th -11th August, 9.30am - 12pm 29th July, 5th August and 12th August, 10am- 11am

£30 for the week scheme for 11-15 year olds

Beidh deis iontach á tabhairt do pháistí agus do dhaoine óga idir 4-15 bliana d’aois scileanna taibhithe den chéad scoth a fhorbairt le cuidiú ó ghairmithe a oibríonn sa tionscal. Reáchtálfar máistir-ranganna in ábhair amhail Ceapadh, Seiftiú, Amharclannaíocht Fhisiciúil. Clárú: youth@brassnecktheatrecompany.com nó 07597425148. Beidh áirithintí riachtanach.l Aoiseanna 4-6: Aoiseanna 7-10:

29 Iúil, 5 Lúnasa agus 12 Lúnasa, 10r.n.- 11r.n.

29 Iúil, 5 Lúnasa agus 12 Lúnasa, 11 r.n. – 12i.n.

£5 do gach seisiún Sathairn do pháistí 7-10 agus 4-6 bliana d’aois

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ch IRELAND’S BIGGEST Mo re!

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COMMunITY

COISTE nA nIArChIMí: TurAS BuS pOLAITIúIL nA BhFáL & nA SEAnChILLE TURAIS AGUS SIÚLÓIDÍ na bhFál Bóthar Túr na Dubhaise, Tabharfaidh treoraithe traenáilte ón phobal Phoblachtach agus Dhílseach léargais dhoimhne ar Iarthar Bhéal Feirste agus ar an tSeanchill ar an turas 2 ½ -3 hour uair seo. agus stairiúla suíomhanna na ar Amharc polaitiúla suimiúla le hionadaithe ón dá cheantar, ag toiseacht in Iarthar Bhéal Feirste agus ansin ag malartú ag Líne Síochána Bhealach Lanark do thuras de cheantar na Seanchille. Costas: £15 an duine Eagraithe ag: www.coiste.ie Teagmháil: Beidh áirithintí riachtanach. Déan teagmháil linn le do thoil ar 028 90200770, nó cuir ríomhphost chuig tours@coiste.com.

Spóirt agus Pobal

05 & 12 Lúnasa/Aug, 11rn/am

Aoiseanna 11-15: 7-11 Lúnasa, 9.30r.n. – 12i.n. £30 don tseachtain scéim do pháistí 11-15 bliana d’aois

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£5 for each Saturday sessions for 7-10 and 4-6 year olds SCOIL SAMhrAIDh TAIBhEALAíOnA óIGE BrASSnECK Coláiste Ollscoile Naomh Muire

Trampolines

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Children and young people aged 4-15 are being offered an amazing opportunity to develop first class performance skills delivered by industry professionals. Masterclasses will be offered in areas such as Devising, Improvisation, and Physical Theatre. registration: youth@brassnecktheatrecompany.com or 07597425148. Booking essential

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12 Lúnasa/Aug, 7in/pm

of 9 August were displaced by a positive display of the community and its creativity.

The August Féile has proved a resounding success, growing from strength to strength and inspiring other troubled areas to organise similar festivals.

Féile’s carnival parade routinely brings thousands of participants for a colourful, musical procession with specially-designed floats representing a chosen theme, dancers and children in costume and face masks.

Féile an Phobail has grown from a one-week festival to being the largest community arts festival in Ireland with a year-round programme of events including its flagship festival, the August Féile.

COISTE nA nIArChIMí “FrOM GuErrILLA WAr TO GOVErnMEnT” ThE BALLYMurphY STOrY TOur Outside Raffo’s Fish and Chip shop at junction of Springfield/Whiterock Roads.

COISTE nA nIArChIMí “ó ThrEALLChOGAíOChT GO rIALTAS” TurAS Ar SCéAL BhAILE uí MhurChú Taobh amuigh de shiopa sceallóg Raffo’s ag barr acomhal Bhóthar na Carraige Báine /Bhóthar Chluanaí

This 1½ - 2 hour tour provides a fascinating insight into the resistance of the people in Ballymurphy to British rule in Ireland. Come and meet some of those people as you make your way through a very proud community which produced some of today's political leadership. Cost: £10 per person Organised by: www.coiste.ie Contact: Advanced booking is appreciated. Please contact us at 028 90200770, or tours@coiste.com.

Tabharfaidh an turas 1½ - 2 uair léargas suimiúil ar mhuintir Bhaile Uí Mhurchú, a chuir i gcoinne riail na Breataine in Éirinn.

Tar agus buail le roinnt de na daoine sin agus tú ag siúl i measc pobail bhródúil ónar tháinig roinnt ceannairí polaitiúla an lae inniu. Costas: £10 an duine Eagraithe ag: www.coiste.ie Teagmháil: Ní mór áirithint a dhéanamh roimh ré. Déan teagmháil linn le do thoil ar 028 90200770, nó cuir ríomhphost chuig tours@coiste.com.

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SPORT AND COMMUNITY // 107 WWW.FEILEBELFAST.COM

FAMILY, CHILDREN & YOUTH

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FULL FÉILE PROGRAMME CAN BE DOWNLOADED FROM feilebelfast.com

10 August / Lúnasa 2017

www.anphoblacht.com

THE CENTENARY OF THE DEATH ON HUNGER STRIKE OF

THOMAS ASHE OCCURS THIS SEPTEMBER

THE

FIRST HUNGER STRIKER

BY PATRICK McGLYNN FIRST PUBLISHED IN AN PHOBLACHT/REPUBLICAN NEWS 4 JULY 1981

THE first Irishman to die on hunger strike was Thomas Ashe, who died at the age of 32 on 25 September 1917 as a result of being forcibly fed in Mountjoy Prison, Dublin.

Born in Kinard, near Dingle in County Kerry, on 12 January 1885, Thomas Ashe learned the Irish language from his father and kept a life-long interest in Irish culture and history.

Whilst training to be a teacher in County Waterford, Thomas became active in the Gaelic League, organising Irish classes and feiseanna and at the same time began his involvement in the Irish Republican Brotherhood and Sinn Féin.

After qualifying as a teacher in 1907, he spent a year in his native Kerry until he became principal of Corduff National School at Lusk in County Dublin, where he taught until Easter 1916. At Lusk he was closely involved in the Gaelic League, becoming a member of its governing body along with Seán MacDermott, Sean T. O’Kelly, Eamonn Ceannt and The O’Rahilly who, like Ashe, were also members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) Thomas Ashe joined the Irish Volunteers after its formation in November 1913 and founded a unit in the Lusk area. By 1915 he was training the local Volunteers on intensive military exercises and manoeuvres; by 1916 he was Officer Commanding the 5th Dublin Battalion in the north county area known as Fingal.

On Easter Monday 1916, on Pearse’s orders, Ashe mobilised his battalion of 70 men, destroying enemy communications and blowing up the Dublin to Belfast railway line. During the week he captured all the Royal Irish Constabulary police barracks in the area and on the Friday of Easter Week moved on to Ashbourne in County Meath.

The Ashbourne RIC garrison, surrounded by Ashe’s men, quickly surrendered but shortly afterwards the

Volunteers were engaging a convoy of 20 RIC cars bearing 80 policemen approaching from Slane. After five hours of fighting, the RIC men scattered, leaving 11 of their number dead and 20 injured. Two of Ashe’s Volunteers were killed in the battle. The following Sunday, having been victorious all week, Ashe received Pearse’s general order to surrender and he obeyed it.

Taken to Kilmainham Gaol, Thomas Ashe was court-martialled and sentenced to death. This was later commuted to penal servitude for life and he was transferred to Dartmoor Prison in England, from where he was released in the general amnesty of June 1917.

Ashe immediately became active in reorganising the Volunteers and was elected president of the IRB. But within a month a warrant was issued for his arrest following a speech he made in Ballinalee, County Longford, on 25 July. He was arrested in Dublin on 18 August and taken to the Bridewell.

His trial, over eight days, took the form of a court-martial in Mountjoy Prison, beginning on 3 September. On often-conflicting evidence of the ‘mental notes’ of RIC men, he was found guilty of a charge of “attempting to cause disaffection among the civilian population at Ballinalee by urging them to form military societies, arm and train, and saying that he would call out his men as he did in 1916 if the opportunity arose again”.

Sentenced to two years’ hard labour, Ashe joined some 40 other political prisoners then in Mountjoy. He immediately took the lead in resisting criminalisation and they all refused to do prison work. Ashe refused to obey prison rules, for example, speaking to all he met during exercises.

Two days after sentence, on 13 September, he was warned by the deputy governor to obey regulations

On Easter Monday 1916, on Pearse’s orders, Ashe mobilised his battalion of 70 men, destroying enemy communications and blowing up the Dublin to Belfast railway line

After five hours of fighting, the RIC men scattered, leaving 11 of their number dead and 20 injured

but replied that he would not be treated as a criminal.

On 17 September, Ashe was refused a mattress and was forced to sleep on the floor. The same day the political prisoners presented the deputy governor with their demands for political status.

The demands were: free association throughout the day; work of their own choice; separation from non-political prisoners; and to be allowed books, writing materials and more letters and visits.

The political prisoners had decided that if these demands were not met within a fortnight, they would go on hunger strike on 1 October.

On 20 September, Ashe and his comrades were moved to another wing and confined to their cells. Later the same day, warders invaded the cells, assaulted the prisoners and removed everything from the cells down to the prisoners’ boots. In response, it was decided to begin the hunger strike immediately.

Austin Stack, the prisoners’ O/C, instructed them that if force-fed they were not to endanger their lives by resisting but were not to walk to the place where it would take place, insisting on being carried.

In the next few days, word of trouble in the jail spread and crowds gathered outside. On Saturday 22 September, an intervention by the Lord Mayor of Dublin resulted in furniture being returned to the cells. The next day, force-feeding began.

Force-feeding took the form of a tube from a pump being inserted through the mouth or nose into the stomach. The other end of the pump was put into the vessel containing the food which was then pumped into the stomach. The operation lasted about ten minutes and each prisoner was force-fed twice each day. Thomas Ashe was forcibly fed only five times in all.

August / Lúnasa 2017

www.anphoblacht.com

11

Warders invaded the cells, assaulted the prisoners and removed everything from the cells. In response, it was decided to begin the hunger strike immediately 5 Battle of Ashbourne – A note from Joseph Plunkett’s field notebook about the action in County Meath

1917 - 2 017

After eight minutes of force-feeding, Ashe’s lips turned blue and he collapsed

REMEMBER THOM AS ASHE A GREAT DAY OF HISTORY AND DRAMA FOR ALL THE FAMILY PERIOD DRESS ENCOURAGED BUT NOT NECESSARY

Ashe and 40 other political prisoners in Mountjoy refused to be criminalised and all refused to do prison work

Saturday 2:30pm 23 September GPO, Dublin to Glasnevin PAUSING FOR A MINUTE’S SILENCE AT MATER HOSPITAL & MOUNTJOY PRISON

The last time Ashe was force-fed was at 11:15am on Tuesday 25 September by a Dr Lowe. On the way to the operating room, Ashe said he was well but weak. The tube was put down his throat the wrong way, causing him to cough violently. The tube was withdrawn and put down again.

After eight minutes of force-feeding, Ashe’s lips turned blue and he collapsed. From bruises found on his neck afterwards, it was obvious that his throat had been held tightly throughout.

At 12 noon, Ashe was taken to the prison hospital where his pulse was found to be weak, his breathing laboured and his temperature low. Five hours later, Thomas Ashe was transferred to the Mater Hospital.

The political prisoners’ demands were: free association throughout the day; work of their own choice; separation from non-political prisoners; and to be allowed books, writing materials and more letters and visits

As the evening progressed, Ashe grew weaker and doctors predicted his imminent death. He told the two Capuchin priests who visited him, Fr Albert and Fr Augustine: “I was splendid in the morning until forcibly fed. This forcible feeding upset me completely.”

The priests administered the Last Rites and Ashe, deteriorating rapidly, died at 10:30pm. The heavy British Army guard left the hospital and the Irish Volunteers from Fingal moved in, mounting a guard of honour over the body of their dead leader, now dressed in his Irish Volunteer uniform.

When news of his death reached the jail, his comrades expressed renewed determination to carry on the hunger

strike until all their demands had been conceded.

Force-feeding continued until the day before Ashe’s funeral when the Lord Mayor of Dublin visited Austin Stack and told him that the authorities would treat the prisoners as prisoners of war.

Ashe’s body was removed to Dublin’s Pro-Cathedral and after a Requiem Mass was taken to City Hall, where it lay in state surrounded by an armed guard of Volunteers as thousands filed past to pay their last respects.

On Sunday 30 September, people came from all over Ireland to attend his funeral which left City Hall at 12 noon.

The coffin was draped in the Tricolour and accompanied by its guard of honour. It was followed by thousands, including the Lord Mayor and the Archbishop of Dublin, and took four hours to reach Glasnevin Cemetery.

The coffin was carried to the graveside by six former political prisoners. After prayers and a short silence, three volleys of shots rang out as a final salute to the dead soldier. A Fianna Éireann bugler sounded The Last Post. Michael Collins delivered the shortest of orations: “The volley you have just heard fired is the only tribute necessary over the grave of a dead Fenian.”

The coroner’s jury, 11 days after Ashe’s death, declared, in accordance with the medical evidence, that Thomas Ashe’s death had been caused by the treatment which he suffered in jail. The jury censured the British authorities and the deputy governor of the prison and it condemned forcible feeding as an inhuman and dangerous operation.

But many more Irishmen were to die on hunger strike in the next 64 years.

5 A volley is fired over the grave of Thomas Ashe in Glasnevin

12 August / Lúnasa 2017

www.anphoblacht.com

Caithfidh an Rialtas soiléiriú a thabhairt faoi acmhainní do phleananna teanga

Le Trevor Ó Clochartaigh TÁ FRUSTRACHAS mór ar na dreamanna atá ag plé leis na pleananna teanga sa Ghaeltacht nach bhfuil an Rialtas ag cur dóthain acmhainní ar fáil chun an obair a chur i gcrích agus gur cur i gcéill atá ar bun acu i ndáiríre.

In am Beart de Réir Briathar don Ghaeilge!

Léirigh an Staidéar Cuimsitheach Teangeolaíocht ar Staid na Gaeilge sa nGaeltacht a foilsíodh i 2007 go raibh géarchéim ann ó thaobh an teanga labhartha sa nGaeltacht agus go raibh sí i mbaol báis muna dtógfaí céimeanna suntasacha leis an meath a chloí. B’as sin a d’fhás an Straitéis Fiche Bliain don Ghaeilge, polasaí ar aontaigh páirtithe uile Theach Laighean leis, chun an taoide a chasadh agus líon na gcainteoirí laethúla Gaeilge sna Gaeltachtaí a mhéadú as cuimse.

Cuid lárnach de phlean an Rialtais ná go mbeadh limistéir pleanála teanga leagtha amach sna Gaeltachtaí, 23 cinn ar fad, agus go roghnófaí eagraíocht pobail chun plean teanga a ullmhú

Tá daoine soiniciúla ann a déar fadh nach raibh an Rialtas i ndáiríre riamh faoin Straitéis Fiche Bliain don Ghaeilge agus nach raibh sna pleananna ach slí chun caoire a chur thar abhainn ar feadh dhá bhliain dá gceantar féin le h-aidhmeanna na straitéise a chur i gcrích san áit sin.

Go dáta, tá tri cheantar i ndiaidh na pleananna seo a chríochnú – Gaoth Dobhair & Na Rosa, Cois Fharraige & Cloich Chionnaola. Tá súil go mbeidh naoi gcinn eile aontaithe roimh deireadh na bliana. Ach, tá amhras ag méadú iI measc lucht forbartha na Gaeilge gur obair in aisce atá ann, mar nach bhfuil sé de rún ag an Rialtas na h-acmhainní a theastaíonn leis na pleananna seo a fhíorú ar an talamh, a chuir ar fáil dóibh.

Tá cuid de na pleananna seo ag éileamh go mbeidh roinnt daoine le n-earcú leis an teanga a fhorbairt sa phobal, imeasc an aos-óg agus mar sin de. Ach, ní léir gur leor an t-airgead a chuirfear ar fáil leis an méid seo a dhéanamh,

le daoine sách oilte a earcú, ná chun costais gníomhaíochtaí, bolscaireachta, eagrúchán agus mar sí de a chlúdach.

Tá daoine den tuairim gur cur chuige ‘mair a chapaill & gheobhfar féir’ a bhí ag an Rialtas, ach i ndiaidh dóibh an gorta maoinithe a sheasamh agus na pleananna dhá n-ullmhú acu, níl aon chosúlacht go mbeidh an Rialtas ag cloí le taobh iadsan don mhargadh agus airgeadú mar is ceart a chuir ar fáil don obair mhór a theastaíonn a dhéanamh.

Is cosúil go bhfuil an Stát sásta maíomh as na beartais dhearfacha uile a bhíonn ag eascair as cur chun cinn na Gaeilge sa Ghaeltacht, ach má thiteann an tóin as an teanga is ar na pobail a chuirfear an milleán, mar gurb iad atá freagrach as na pleananna teanga a chur i gcrích. Níl sé seo ceart ná cothrom agus tá sé thar am ag an Rialtas soiléiriú a thabhairt maidir le maoiniú ilbhliantúil agus soláthar níos fónta a bheith ar fáil leis an meath a stopadh agus an Ghaeilge a neartú mar theanga pobail sna Gaeltachtaí ar fad.

Tá daoine soiniciúla ann 5 Aire Joe McHugh

a déarfadh nach raibh an Rialtas i ndáiríre riamh faoin Straitéis Fiche Bliain don Ghaeilge agus nach raibh sna pleananna seo ach slí chun caoire a chur thar abhainn ar feadh dhá bhliain.

Is beag fianaise atá ann chun a mhalairt a léiriú.

Más ea, is mór an cur amú ama é don dream deonach ar fad atá ag tabhairt faoin obair le croí mhaith, ag cur uaireanta fada isteach ag plé leis na geallsealbhóirí ar fad, chun pleananna cumasacha a ullmhú.

Tá am na cinniúna tagtha anois áfach don Rialtas agus don Aire McHugh, beart de réir briathar a dhéanamh. Beidh le feiceáil ins an gcáinaisnéis seo romhainn an mbeidh an méadú maoinithe a theastaíonn curtha ar fáil an bhliain seo chugainn chun bonn ceart a chur faoin obair mhór seo, nó ar saothar in aisce a bhí sna h-iarrachtaí seo ar fad. Tá faitíos orm gurb shin a bheidh ann.

Beidh sé spéisiúil chomh maith feiceáil cén tionchar a bheidh ag an gcomhaontú ‘Muiníne agus Soláthar’ idir Fianna Fáil agus Fine Gael ar an gceist seo ar fad agus an mbeidh ‘Saighdiúir na Cinniúna’ sásta an fód a sheasamh ar son na pobail Ghaeltachta.

August / Lúnasa 2017

www.anphoblacht.com

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justice report Sinn Féin MEP Matt Carthy hosts Dublin launch of tax

Big Four audit firms ‘promote secrecy, aid tax avoidance’ THE first-ever major report looking into the secretive workings of the Big Four accountancy firms that assist individuals and companies to dodge taxes has been released in Dublin by Sinn Féin MEP Carthy and colleagues from the European United Left/Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL) European Parliament Group.

“independent” networks of companies be rejected and that each of the Big Four is acknowledged as being single corporations under common control (which must apply for a single licence to operate in the EU). It calls for ‘The Big Four’ to publish worldwide group financial statements that includes full country-by-country reporting on the public record.

A new proposal from the European Commission for an EU regulation on enablers and promoters

‘The Big Four – A Study of Opacity’ is an in-depth study on how KPMG, Deloitte, EY and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) operate their businesses.

Co-authored by Professor Richard Murphy (founder of the Tax Justice Network and director of Tax Research UK) and Saila Naomi Stausholm (PhD candidate at the Copenhagen Business School),

‘The Big Four’ are crucial regulators of the global economic system with a unique role of auditing and advising the study analyses the size, scope and location of the activities of ‘The Big Four’ accounting firms.

It was unveiled at the European Parliament Office in Dublin on Tuesday 18 July by Matt Carthy and his fellow MEPs from GUE/NGL who sit on the European Parliament’s Panama Papers tax inquiry committee.

Saila Naomi Stausholm and Oxfam Ireland CEO Jim Clarken spoke at the Dublin event, which was attended by tax justice activists, NGOs and academics.

The report makes a number of findings including that these firms are heavily over-represented in tax havens when compared with the population

The Irish state is once again identified as a tax haven – or secrecy jurisdiction size and GDP of these locations, where they make exceptional profits.

The Irish state is once again identified as a tax haven – or secrecy jurisdiction – in this report.

Some of the practices uncovered by this study include deliberately obscuring the links between their numerous offices in dozens of countries by claiming they are separate legal entities.

The findings show that while each firm claims to consist of networks of legally independent companies, they all in reality have central management organisations under common control. The authors of the report suggest that this structure has been adopted because it reduces the level of legal risk and scrutiny from regulators that they and their clients are exposed to. It also ensures secrecy on the scale of their operations and the rewards flowing from them.

In addition, the report identifies that ‘The Big Four’ often conceal data on profits earned as well as the number of staff working in various jurisdictions globally.

Matt Carthy said:

“Over the past year of our work on the Panama Papers Inquiry in the European Parliament, we have examined in great detail the role that enablers and promoters of tax avoidance and tax evasion schemes play internationally.

“The Big Four auditing and accounting firms are central players in this ecosystem of tax avoidance, yet they are allowed to operate in secrecy with no measures in place to deal with obvious conflicts of interest between their provision of both auditing and tax services.

“They are crucial regulators of the global economic system – with the unique role of both regulating multinationals through their auditing role and simultaneously advising these same companies on how to abuse the legal system in order to avoid paying taxes – yet they are subject to minimal public scrutiny and regulation.

“This situation, and the outcomes it leads to, is entirely unacceptable. This report calls for the separation of the auditing and tax service roles of the Big Four.”

The report proposes that the fiction of

of tax avoidance (including lawyers, banks and accountants) would require that advisers report tax schemes that may potentially be abusive.

The proposal does not, however, recognise networked firms as single entities or extend the obligations of firms in EU member states to include their network partners beyond the EU’s territorial limits.

The Murphy/Stausohlm report suggests these measures are essential if the new regulation is to be effective.

Matt Carthy added: “I will be working with others in the European Parliament to ensure that these important recommendations on improving the accountability and transparency of ‘The Big Four’ are taken into account when the Panama Papers inquiry produces its recommendations, and also when the Parliament considers the Commission’s current proposal around regulating enablers and promoters of tax avoidance schemes.”

The report is available to upload from www. guengl.eu under “Publications”.

14 August / Lúnasa 2017

www.anphoblacht.com

JOBPATH

The privatisation of the Irish state’s social welfare system

Attempts to find out what these fees are have hit a brick wall as the department cites “commercial sensitivity” and refuses to answer the question.

Our contact ‘David’ says he believes the initial fee is worth approximately €300 per person and that staff were essentially told to not let anybody out of the building without signing that contract.

Once this contract is signed, jobseekers are locked into JobPath for 12 months. They cannot transfer to Community Employment or other training schemes.

BY MARK MOLONEY SINCE the winding-down of the discredited JobBridge programme – which saw unemployed people being exploited to work full-time for a paltry €50 on top of their dole – a new ‘job activation’ scheme has slowly been rolled out across the state.

There hasn’t been as much media coverage but the scheme has come in for major criticism from those forced to take part in it, even the staff at the private companies who are tasked with implementing it, and groups in the Community Employment sector.

“It’s a crock of shit; it is definitely not randomly selected,” ‘David’ tells me over the phone. He worked for one of the private companies contracted by the Department of Social Protection to deliver their JobPath programme for several months.

He is contesting claims by the department that long-term unemployed people are selected at random to go onto the job activation scheme.

Instead, he says, the Department of Social Protection’s own case workers are picking and choosing who to send on it. He has anecdotal evidence to suggest it is almost being used as a punishment so the department can wash their hands of individuals they do not like dealing with.

“The referrals are the ones that are pissing the case officers off or are a nuisance. It’s like putting out the rubbish,” he says.

The JobPath scheme is supposedly only targeted at long-term unemployed. After being piloted in Bray and Longford, it was implemented across the state in mid-2016. The two companies who received the tender are Seetec and Turas Nua. Both companies receive an initial fee for every jobseeker with whom a “personal progression plan” is prepared. They also receive “job sustainment fees” for the length of time a person who has found a job via JobPath stays in that position.

These fees are paid at 13, 26, 39 and 52 weeks.

“Some of these questions are highly personal, and shouldn’t be asked,” says David. “They deal with things like mental state, financial situation and general health. If a Garda asked me I wouldn’t answer them.

“From those, they derive a chart that is supposed to tell the person in what areas they are lacking – this could be in confidence or even their appearance. After this meeting, however, this chart is put away and may never be seriously referred to again.”

THE PROCESS After their first group meeting, at which the contract is signed, jobseekers then meet with their personal adviser where they are subjected to a 90-question profile known as “The Catalyst”.

Map of Turas Nua (blue) and Seetec (orange) office locations

There are concerns about the retention of personal data from such forms and also the transfer of personal data between the Department of Social Protection and private companies running the scheme.

From here on out, the jobseekers receive little training or support. Many jobseekers explained how they may have been required to travel for upwards of 90 minutes to their local office only to sit in front of a computer sending out CVs for an hour.

David explained that the huge pressure local office staff are under to meet ‘targets’ (upwards of 100 clients a week) means they have no ability to dedicate adequate support or training to individual jobseekers.

One of the easiest ways to “get your numbers up” is to invite all your clients in on a certain afternoon and have them sit at the computer bank firing off CVs. If the client has no experience in using computers or limited literacy skills, well that’s just tough – the staff don’t have time to engage.

The Department of Social Protection's focus on hitting targets and getting people into a job, no matter what type it is, means that the best interests of jobseekers are not at the heart of the scheme. Part-time or substitute teachers find themselves being pressured to take jobs in the services industry; tradespeople are in a similar boat. The entire focus seems to be pushing people into employment whatever their skills-set.

Jobseekers who miss meetings are often warned about cuts in their dole.

Many jobseekers have expressed frustration that JobPath does not take into account that some of those on the course are working part-time and find themselves unable to attend meetings due to work commitments. In one case a man explained how he was threatened with having his benefits cut because he failed to make a meeting – he was with his wife as she gave birth to their child.

In a response to Denise Mitchell TD in July, Social Protection Minister Regina Doherty said there were “approximately 22,000 cases of customer non-engagement” in the JobPath scheme out of a total of 105,000. (“Non-engagement” includes those people who often cannot make meetings due to legitimate reasons.)

Of these a “reduced payment rate has only been applied in approximately 5,000 cases”.

‘David’ explains that there is no set criteria for staff on how to deal with non-engagement cases.

The Department of Social Protection is quick to point to its own surveys which claim satisfaction levels of 81% as opposed to dissatisfaction levels of a mere 8%. However, many claim that the fear of benefit cuts means a reluctance to openly criticise the scheme.

Even jobseekers who find employment on their

August / Lúnasa 2017

www.anphoblacht.com

15

5 Sinn Féin TDs Martin Kenny, Imelda Munster, Denise Mitchell and John Brady highlight the issues at Leinster House

own initiative aren’t free of JobPath. They explain how they were hounded for months afterwards by former personal advisers (themselves under pressure) looking for details of the employment they had gained themselves. Companies can claim “employment sustainment fees” from the department for the next year.

JOBPATH EXPOSED Sinn Féin TDs John Brady and Denise Mitchell have been leading the charge against the scheme.

In July, they launched the “JobPath Exposed” campaign which aims to highlight the deficiencies in JobPath and is calling for a full review of the scheme with an aim to ultimately end it.

“Over 105,000 jobseekers have been referred onto JobPath so far,” John Brady tells An Phoblacht. “We’ve been overwhelmed by damning stories from participants on JobPath as to how they have been treated on these schemes. We want the Minister for Social Protection to initiate an immediate review of the scheme with the view to abolishing it outright.

“It’s a disgraceful privatisation of the job activation area.”

Denise Mitchell adds: “It’s not just about the unemployed people on these schemes either. The people who are actually working in the companies who are delivering these schemes have contacted us to say how they feel jobseekers are being insulted by the standard of support they are receiving.

“The people who are employed to help others get a job are questioning their own training to deliver the scheme – that should raise serious concerns.”

‘David’ agrees.

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5 New Social Protection Minister Regina Doherty is all smiles as she's driven to her job interviews

He describes the initial four days of training for staff as “an absolute joke”, adding that most staff only stay for a few months: He also criticises the lack of knowledge amongst Department of Social Protection staff as to how the JobPath scheme operates. Individuals over the age of 62 are being referred despite the fact that people of that age are exempt from job-activation schemes. In other cases, teachers are being referred to the scheme during summer

@JobPathExposed ExposingJobPath jobpathexposed@gmail.com

holidays despite the scheme supposedly only catering to the long-term unemployed.

KNOCK-ON EFFECTS JobPath is not just a source of frustration for jobseekers and staff in the companies tasked with delivering it. The Community Employment sector is finding its referrals dwindling.

Eoghan Brunkard of the Campaign for Community Employment Reform says JobPath represents a “huge threat” to the viability of Community Employment (CE) schemes.

“The companies’ profit is derived from outcomes. Therefore, for the company to achieve the most profit from a client, it is obviously in

their interest to source employment of any kind.

"The participant becomes a product that must be sold. This mechanism creates an immediate disconnect between the participant’s best interests and that of the company,” he says.

“By contrast, Community Employment Schemes – which are not-for-profit by nature – source specific training to the needs of the participant.

“CE recognises the problems in confidence, ability and experience that long-term unemployed people face. Onsite supervisors provide support for people who are becoming adjusted to the labour force. CE schemes bring long-term unemployed back into the culture of work while providing a public good, such as community crèches, sports clubs and youth projects.”

The outlook for many such projects is bleak.

With unemployment rates dropping, it seems more and more jobseekers are being forced into JobPath so as to keep it profitable for the companies involved. In turn, referrals to CE schemes are drying up.

Summing up the situation, ‘David’ says: “JobPath could have been the answer to our long-term unemployment problem. However, I have yet to come across a private company who were in it solely for the good of the service user.

16 August / Lúnasa 2017

www.anphoblacht.com

Hate crimes at ‘rogue’ bonfires cast a pall over peaceful Twelfth of July parades

Political unionism and Orangeism need to give decisive leadership against sectarianism

BY DECLAN KEARNEY MY REPUBLICANISM has been inspired by the United Irish tradition synonymous with my home area of County Antrim. So I felt particularly honoured to speak at this year’s annual Sinn Féin Bodenstown Commemoration for Wolfe Tone, the founder of Irish republicanism.

Local Antrim United Irish leaders such as Henry Joy McCracken, Roddy McCorley, and William Orr are remembered to this day in song and poetry. Jemmy Hope – ‘The Weaver’ from Templepatrick – became a revolutionary reference point for later generations. They and other men and women personified the central doctrine of emergent Irish republicanism in the 1790s: the unity of Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter.

As modern-day republicans following in the United Irish tradition, Sinn Féin is dedicated to

We believe that anti-sectarianism must be embraced by all sections of our community and must be at the heart of a rights-based approach to government in the North.

We published proposals which argued for: · A legal definition of sectarianism as a hate crime; · An anti-sectarian pledge for Executive ministers, MLAs and all other publicly-elected representatives; · A citizens’ anti-sectarian charter; · Concrete anti-sectarian measures within the next Programme for Government; · And that anti-sectarian priorities to be implemented by the next Executive office.

Such an approach would be the manifestation of the Good Friday Agreement which set out the requirement that all citizens have “the right to live free from sectarian harassment”.

Sinn Féin believes that the complete eradication of sectarianism and sectarian segregation in our society is essential to political progress and building a shared future.

In the week of the Twelfth, the annual Battle of the Boyne Orange celebrations took place across the North.

All sections of our society have the right to celebrate and commemorate their cultural traditions when that is done in a respectful way and without giving offence to other citizens or sections of society.

The building and lighting of bonfires is a significant feature of the 11th/12th July celebrations.

We believe that antisectarianism must be embraced by all sections of our community and must be at the heart of a rights-based approach to government in the North the achievement of an agreed, united Ireland, one which celebrates diversity and equality and shuns bigotry and discrimination.

Sinn Féin stands against all forms of sectarianism, racism, homophobia, sexism and intolerance in society.

Sectarianism is a scourge on the social and political landscape of the North of Ireland. In the decades following partition it was cultivated to maintain communal divisions. Sectarianism dictated employment, education, housing and voting rights.

Today, sectarianism and sectarian segregation influence our society’s approach to educational preference, choice of sport, how and where citizens choose to live and socialise, and (to some degree) the location of their employment.

Sectarian attitudes are the most incendiary catalyst for violence and for excusing continuous communal instability and division in the North.

Sinn Féin has consistently pressed for agreement on the adoption of anti-sectarian measures as an important foundation upon which to build reconciliation and healing.

5 Declan Kearney at this year's Wolfe Tone Commemoration in Bodenstown

Some bonfires are managed and regulated in an appropriate way. However, many others fall outside any form of public control or regulation.

These are ‘rogue’ bonfires which are built on

‘Rogue’ bonfires have become bywords for sectarian hate crime and environmental vandalism on an industrial scale.

In my own constituency of South Antrim, and all across the North, on the Eleventh Night, thousands of rubber tyres and other combustible and carcinogenic materials were burned. Election posters, Irish national flags, Irish and other cultural emblems such as GAA flags, as well as religious symbols were destroyed on these pyres. In a particularly vile act of hatred in east Belfast, an image of the late Martin McGuinness on a coffin was placed on a bonfire.

All relevant statutory agencies – including the Housing Executive, Environment Agency, PSNI, and local councils – are in dereliction of their legal obligations by facilitating these ‘rogue’ bonfires to happen and in direct violation of the law, environmental regulations and the rights of the wider community.

‘Rogue’ bonfires are not culture. They indoctrinate sectarian hatred and communal division.

They cause untold levels of damage to the environment, they threaten public health, they endanger nearby property, and they cause widespread community disruption.

The Orange tradition is an integral part of Irish society. It deserves to be respected and affirmed.

However, those who choose to celebrate that tradition on the 11th and 12th July and throughout the summer must do so responsibly, lawfully, and without causing offence or causing destruction or disruption.

The failure of the unionist parties’ leaderships to disassociate themselves from ‘rogue’ bonfires and to publicly call for them to be stopped is a disgraceful abdication of responsibility.

Their sponsoring of a narrative that republicans are engaged some type of ‘cultural war’

All sections of our society have the right to celebrate and commemorate their cultural traditions when that is done in a respectful way land without the permission of the landowner.

They are dominated by criminal and extremist elements acting without any community mandate.

5 The late Martin McGuinness talks with an Orange Order outreach worker at the Balmoral Show

August / Lúnasa 2017

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5 ‘Rogue’ bonfires are not culture – they inflame sectarian hatred and communal division

or seeking ‘cultural supremacy’ is preposterous and an attempt to deflect away from their own failure of civic and political leadership.

Political unionist and Orange leaderships are complicit with what happens at these bonfires by refusing to disassociate themselves or their

benefits from illegal or dangerous bonfires.

All forms of sectarianism, racism, homophobia, bigotry and intolerance in our society must be eradicated.

Expressions of hatred should be subject to legal sanction.

Sectarianism is the antithesis of republicanism.

Sectarianism is the anti-thesis of a shared future. Zero tolerance against bigotry and hatred must be reflected in legislation and public policy.

This is a challenge which should be embraced by all sections of society. Political and civic leaders need to be fearless champions for anti-sectarianism.

The current leaders of political unionism and Orangeism need to end their complicity and ambivalence. They need to give decisive leadership against sectarianism.

For our part, Sinn Féin will ensure that tackling sectarianism remains a central focus within this society.

By their silence, political unionist and Orange leaderships are complicit with the sectarian hatred promoted at ‘rogue’ bonfires organisations from the sectarian hatred which is promoted.

Bonfires – regardless to which section of the community they are associated with – should be subject to statutory regulation and control.

Only bonfires that are lawful, safe and legally compliant should proceed. No community

10

ANISM ONECO G SECTARI MMUN TACKLIN ITY

ONECOMMUNITY

TACKLING SECTARIANISM

INTRODUCTION POINT Sectarianism remains a blight on the societal and political landscape of the ANTI-SECTARIAN north of Ireland. This is a direct consequence of partition which created the northern statlet on a sectarian headcoun t.

ACTION Sectarianism is the antithesis of republica nism and has been fostered over centuries to divide the people of Ireland.

PLAN In the decades

ONE

following partition it was cultivated to maintain divisions in the north to benefit ruling elite and create the illusion of dominan the unionist ce by the protestant working class over their catholic neighbours thus preventing united community class consciousness.

Sectarianbodies ism dictated will employment, education, housing and voting sector rights. local authorities and all public le on nalised discrimin 1. The Executive & Assembly, It legitimise availab d institutio m policy and make it publicly ation, communal violence and division.

In the south religious doctrine adopt a dedicated anti-sectarianis directly influenced the direction of the state and social policy, and alienated s. sections of the Protestant population. their website Sectarianism has infected ent each and every level of society. and implem uphold ively pro-act to bound be 2. All elected representatives will Despite political progress and the ending tarianism pledge of office. of conflict, sectarianism remains a cancer the commitment of his / her anti-sec in Irish society; if left unaddressed it will remain an open wound to be exploited. It must be eradicated. will service and public sector workers civil staff, ly Assemb of r 3. Every membe be equipped with the may they so training ess undertake sectarianism awaren bigotry. skills and awareness to challenge Sectarianism and segregation influence our society’s the private sector approach to educational preferen sport; how and where citizens choose trade unions and employers in ce; choice of 4. To develop a strategy with to live and socialise; and, to some n behaviour sectariaent. degree, the location of their aimed at challengingemploym es initiativ t to promote policies and relevan of aware ees employ make ce and to Unless the attitude and discrimination in the workpla

COMMUNITY REALITY OF SECTARIANISM

s which sponsor and perpetuate the nature of division and conflict society are eradicated and resolved within our , the culture of ‘them and us’ will

legislation.

recycle divisions and continue to encourage thein of the past as a political weapon. the funding use Government contracts or public Sectaria attitude s are the most incendiary catalyst 5. Every successful bidder for within mnpolicy for violence now and in the future, adopt an anti-sectarianis rationalising, staff even and for legitimis private and voluntary sectors will and ing, continuo for us communal instability and segregat training sectarian awareness This ion. reality represents the biggest barrier management policy and include to a shared future, and arguably challenge to dealing successfully the most significant volunteers. with the past. ss of the damage n will be devised to raise awarene 6. An extensive publicity campaig attitudes and ting the consequences of bigoted caused by sectarianism, highligh ons against sectarianism. protecti legal the and division of cost behaviour and the The Good Friday Agreement (GFA) provides the political framework ed sectarianism and governing principles to facilitate the conduct PSNI officer will receive dedicat of politics, and co-existence of distinct 7. A requirement that every and competing political tradition s and aspirations.

However, the failure to fully embrace awareness training. the GFA principles of mutual respect, parity of esteem, equality and the right to both um live education curricul free from sectarian harassment, and to pursue political will be introduced within the peaceful politics, means goals on the basis of that the culture of sectarianism 8. Anti-sectarianism initiatives awareness clear a with d retards equippe is the primacy north the of democratic politics.

Despite some progress over the past with the aim that every child in decade through Executive led initiative s such as Together Building a United Community, grass roots and understanding of the issue. community led projects, and initiative s taken by the Sinn Féin leadershfor promote people reconciliation, Sinn Féin believes young es ip to tarian messag that anti-sec bolder ing initiative reinforc of s set need to be taken which ways the benchmark for tackling and 9. To develop new sectarianism. tarianism training emphasis on anti-sec Sinn Féin acknowledges the vital outside of the classroom with an reconciliation work of grassroo ts community projects, civic organisations, trade unions, educatio development. nal institutions, business organisa tions, faith groups and our new communities inial sporting Ireland, north and south. e with four of the most influent There isto 10. To develop a strategic initiativ eleantino promot acceptab level of sectarianism. It is unjustifiable.

SINN FÉIN PROPOSALS Rugby, Soccer & Boxing) Every section of our community demonst organisations in Ireland (GAA, rate zero tolerance of sectarian actions must island. the across nce or utterances. Legal sanctions and and intolera part of this endeavo education must sectarianism, and oppose bigotry

POLITICAL FRAMEWORK

4

ON TACKLING THE SCOURGE ur.

OF SECTARIANISM 2 IN NORTHERN SOCIETY FEBRUARY 2017

PUBLISHED BY SINN FÉIN NATIONAL DIRECTOR OF PUBLICATIONS, 44 PARNELL SQUARE, DUBLIN 1 PRINTED BY NOVA PRINT @ 155 NORTHUMBERLAND ST, BELFAST , BT13 2JF

be

A Peace Wall bonfire looms close to Falls Road and nationalist homes

Naked sectarianism at bonfire ‘hate-fests’ must be confronted by unionism, says Gerry Adams THE “nakedly sectarian strand within Orangeism” exposed during this year’s bonfire celebrations of the Battle of the Boyne must be confronted and challenged by the leaderships of the loyal orders, political unionism and civic society, Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams has said.

The former MP for West Belfast was speaking after an effigy of the late Martin McGuinness was burned on an Eleventh Night bonfire.

Other bonfires saw the burning of the images of Sinn Féin, SDLP and Alliance Party candidates along with Irish national flags, GAA banners, and racist and sectarian slogans.

The Orange Order protests that it does not organise or control these bonfires but it does defend them as an expression of unionist culture.

“I am sure the vast majority of unionists, including members of the Orange, are appalled at the aggression and sectarianism around some bonfires,” Gerry Adams said.

“They know that there can be no place in our society for sectarianism, bigotry, racism or incitement to hatred.”

Unionist leaders, he said, need to clearly and publicly challenge those who are reducing Orange celebrations to a “hate-fest”.

Pointing out that there were more than 500 Orange marches held across the North without incident over the Twelfth and there would 2,500 loyal order parades during the year, the Louth TD added: “Each of these was an opportunity for the

loyal orders to express their sense of culture and identity, to fly the Union flag, and to march and play their music. All passed off without incident and peacefully.”

The Sinn Féin leader dismissed claims by unionist political leaders and others of a

‘I am sure the vast majority of unionists, including members of the Orange, are appalled at the aggression and sectarianism around some bonfires’ GERRY ADAMS so-called ‘cultural war’ by republicans against the Orange tradition.

“Orange is one of our national colours,” he said.

“Irish republicans accept the right of the loyal orders to parade and to promote their sense of identity. However, this has to be on the basis of respect and tolerance for other opinions and identities.”

18 August / Lúnasa 2017

www.anphoblacht.com

Patriotic March National Organiser Huber Ballesteros addresses Irish Congress of Trade Unions conference and Sinn Féin activists

Colombian trade union leader freed from prison speaks in Belfast

BY PEADAR WHELAN SENIOR Colombian trade unionist and recently-released political prisoner Huber Ballesteros has told Irish republicans in Belfast of his frustration at the Colombian Government’s failure to fully implement the peace deal recently signed with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrilla movement that has ended a 52-year-long conflict.

Huber Ballesteros is one of Colombia’s best-known trade union and opposition leaders.

He was arrested on 25 August 2013 and imprisoned for over three years without being convicted.

At the time of his arrest he was one of the spokespersons of the nationwide strikes taking place across Colombia in agricultural, health, transport and energy sectors in opposition to Colombian President Santos’s policies and particularly against the free trade agreements.

Since his release from prison in January of this year, Huber himself has received eight death threats, including against his daughter and

Huber Ballesteros was imprisoned for over three years without being convicted and was released in January partner. He travels everywhere in an armoured vehicle and with bodyguards.

In Ireland on his first international visit after being released from prison, Huber spoke with a delegation of Sinn Féin activists in Belfast on 5 July.

The trip was organised by the Justice for Colombia campaign group, a British-based NGO that campaigns for human rights, workers’ rights and the search for peace with social justice in Colombia.

During his stay, Huber was also a speaker at a packed fringe meeting at the Irish Congress of Trade Unions biannual conference in Belfast, highlighting the current situation in his country and continued threats against Colombian social activists such as himself.

Since the 1980s, 3,000 Colombian trade unionists have been assassinated.

He described how, over the past year, 150 civil society activists have been assassinated in Colombia.

More than 50 killings have been carried out so far in 2017.

He wanted to make people aware of the

continued need “for international support to ensure the full implementation of the Colombian peace agreement”.

He thanked Sinn Féin for the party’s continued solidarity with the people of Colombia and its support for the Justice for Colombia campaign group, who organised his trip.

The Sinn Féin delegation included a number of senior party figures who have travelled to Cuba where they had met with representatives of all sides to the talks process. These included former ministers in the Executive government at Stormont, Megan Fearon, Conor Murphy and Jennifer McCann.

Also present was Paul Maskey MP, who has travelled to Colombia on a number of occasions as a member of international delegations. MLAs Fra McCann and Pat Sheehan attended, as did members of the Mairéad Farrell Republican Youth Committee.

Belfast City Councillor Séanna Walsh and Michael Culbert, representing the republican ex-prisoner network Coiste na nIarchimí and who had travelled to Cuba during the peace talks to brief FARC representatives on developments around the political prisoner issue, also attended the briefing.

Huber is National Organiser for the Patriotic March, a social and political movement of more than 1,500 groups from across the political spectrum and rural as well as urban communities. It includes grassroots organisations from the most conflictive rural zones, as well as national trade unions, student groups, leading peace activists and many more within its ranks.

Over 130 leading activists of the Patriotic March have been murdered.

Huber raised the concerns of Colombian civil society and the Patriotic March over delays in the implementation of the 2016 peace agreement.

Among those concerns are that, despite the United Nations recently confirming that they have received all of the individual weapons from FARC combatants (see An Phoblacht Online) and the FARC has begun its transition to a non-armed group, the Colombian Government has failed to

5 Sinn Féin West Belfast MP Paul Maskey shows Huber Ballesteros last month's feature on Brazil

5 Pictured in the Felons' Club before their meeting on 5 July: Councillor Séanna Walsh, Huber Ballesteros (Colombian trade unionist and Patriotic March organiser), Mariela Kohon (Director, Justice for Colombia), former MLA Jennifer McCann and Director of Coiste na nIarchimí Michael Culbert

implement several areas of the peace agreement.

The Government has not completed the 26 temporary zones where FARC members have been living since the laying down of arms process.

In August, these zones are due to become “reincorporation areas” for FARC members after the decommissioning process.

The delay in releasing almost 2,000 FARC and other political prisoners under the amnesty law passed at the end of December 2016 is another area of concern. Some 1,400 FARC prisoners

5 Robert McClenaghan (Sinn Féin and legacy activist), Tam Donlon (political adviser to Fra McCann MLA), Fra McCann MLA, and Councillor Séanna Walsh of Coiste na nIarchimí listen to Huber Ballesteros talking through his interpreter

began a hunger strike on 26 June in protest against this situation, including FARC commander Jesus Santrich.

While the international media focuses largely on the peace accords signed by FARC, the

In Ireland on his first international visit after being released from prison, Huber spoke with a delegation of Sinn Féin activists in Belfast on 5 July activities of the right-wing death squads and drug cartels who feel threatened by the peace process continue.

Huber Ballesteros reminded the Sinn Féin delegation that the economic, social and political exploitation and inequality that gave rise to

August / Lúnasa 2017

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19

5 Some of those who attended the briefing on Colombia with Huber Ballesteros in the Felons' Club in Belfast

the FARC and its guerrilla war still affects the lives of the majority of Colombian citizens and needs to be resolved.

He outlined how the concentration of land ownership is second-highest in the world – 1% of landowners have 66% of land. Colombia is the second-most unequal country in the world, after Haiti – 10% of Colombia’s richest people have four times the wealth of the nation’s poorest people.

“There are seven million internally displaced people in the country, the highest in the world – more than in Iraq and Syria.

“Added to this there are 8 million of Colombia's working population exploited on informal and unstable work contracts, with little security or benefits. Only 4% of Colombian workers are unionised.”

Huber raised the concerns of Colombian civil society and the Patriotic March over delays in the implementation of the 2016 peace agreement

Huber is an executive member of Colombia’s largest trade union confederation and Vice-President of Fensuagro, the Colombian Agricultural Workers’ Union, the second-largest union in the country. Over a thousand of its members have been assassinated in recent years.

The Justice for Colombia fringe meeting at ICTU Congress was chaired by ICTU President Brian Campfield and included interventions from Irish trade union leaders who have supported Justice for Colombia’s peace campaign.

Kevin Callinan (IMPACT Deputy General Secretary), ICTU Vice-President John Douglas (also Mandate General Secretary), Tom Geraghty (PSEU General Secretary), Patricia McKeown (UNISON Regional Secretary), Jimmy Kelly (Unite Ireland Regional Secretary) all spoke about the importance of the role of Irish

trade unions in the international campaign for Huber’s release.

Huber personally thanked the trade unions in Ireland for their unwavering solidarity when he addressed the plenary.

He received a standing ovation from delegates, many of whom had developed a personal connection to Huber through the stream of video messages smuggled out of his prison cell and had played an active part in the campaign for his freedom.

At ICTU Congress, Huber also met with President Michael D. Higgins and International Trade Union Confederation General Secretary Sharan Burrows.

Congress moved an emergency motion in support of the work of Justice for Colombia and calling for the release of remaining prisoners.

DRAMATIC RISE IN FEMICIDES IN COLOMBIA

SINCE the beginning of 2016, alarming statistics on femicides – sex-based hate crimes in the form of the intentional killing of women or girls – have been reported in Colombia.

There have been multiple killings of women throughout the country. In the department of Valle del Cauca, in south-west Colombia, there were 14 femicides in only 28 days.

The majority of victims are killed by their own partners or former partners, many of whom had already been reported to authorities for domestic abuse.

The National Institute for Forensic Science has stated that, from 2014 to mid-2015, there were 1,351 femicides in Colombia. Even though the Colombian Government signed the “Rosa Elvira Cely” law against femicides in July 2015, feminist and women’s activists have criticised the authorities for failing to safeguard women’s rights.

There have been reports of police brutality against sex workers and in Bogotá a woman who died in the street was left there for seven hours. The riot police were sent when the local community called for a response.

20 August / Lúnasa 2017

www.anphoblacht.com

Operation Motorman

BY MÍCHEÁL Mac DONNCHA

Remembering the Past

ONE of the largest military operations undertaken by the British Army since the end of the Second World War was mounted across the Six Counties on the last day of July 1972. British military commanders codenamed it ‘Operation Motorman’.

The background to ‘Motorman’ was the British Army’s breach of the truce with the Irish Republican Army which had lasted from 26 June to 9 July 1972.

Earlier that year, the British Army had been responsible for the Bloody Sunday massacre of 14 civil rights marchers in Derry, the climax of the intense military repression of nationalists that had begun the previous August with the imposition of internment without trial on 9 August 1971.

The reaction worldwide to Bloody Sunday on 30 January 1972 caused a On 21 July, the IRA carried out over crisis for the British Tory Government 20 co-ordinated bombings across of Edward Heath and for the unionist Belfast. Warnings were given for all government in Stormont. In March, locations and passed on to the RUC. the British Government abolished the In all but two cases, these were acted Stormont parliament and introduced upon and civilians cleared but two of direct rule with the aim of shoring up the bombs exploded in crowded areas. the crumbling Six-County state.

Seven civilians and two British soldiers On 13 June 1972, IRA Chief of Staff were killed on what became known as Seán Mac Stiofáin held a press confer‘Bloody Friday’. ence in Derry. He offered a cessation The British Government had for long of IRA operations if the British Governwanted to enter and militarily occupy ment would publicly agree to talks. the nationalist ‘no-go’ areas secured by Mac Stiofáin later wrote that, with the the IRA. These areas had developed after national and international reaction to the unionist pogroms of August 1969.

Bloody Sunday, the fall of Stormont and The British Army now used the 21 July the escalating IRA campaign, the IRA tragedy as a pretext and brought in an was seen to have the initiative and it extra 4,000 troops. was opportune to begin peace moves.

On 31 July, 12,000 British troops The British Government responded and a truce was called.

During the truce, a republican delegation met British Secretary of State William Whitelaw in London and set out short-term and long-term conditions for the continuation of the ceasefire, including the immediate ending of internment and a British declaration of intent to withdraw from the Six Counties within a three-year period.

On 9 July, the British Army colluded with the unionist paramilitary Ulster Defence Association in Lenadoon as the UDA tried to prevent houses being allocated to nationalists. This marked the end of the truce and a resumption of intense, armed conflict.

That evening, the British Army shot dead five civilians, two of them children, in Ballymurphy.

There were deaths on a daily basis throughout July, including, on 18 July, the 100th British soldier to be killed 5 13 June 1972: IRA press conference with Martin McGuinness, Dáithí Ó Conaill, Seán Mac Stiofáin and Seamus Twomey since 1969.

– using tanks, bulldozers and armoured cars – smashed through the barricades.

Schools, factories and other premises were occupied, many of them remaining as British Army fortresses until the Peace Process at the end of the 1990s.

In Creggan in Derry, the British Army killed civilian Daniel Hegarty (16) and IRA Volunteer Seamus Bradley (19).

The British Army’s invasion was based on two major misconceptions.

First, they believed the IRA would mount an armed defence of the no-go areas. Second, they believed that by occupying those areas they could prevent the IRA from operating effectively. British Government documents released in 2003 show it had authorised its army units to use rocket launchers if necessary and that it acted on the basis that the invasion would deprive the IRA of ‘safe havens’.

On both counts they were wrong.

The IRA refused to be drawn into major engagements against overwhelming numbers and its support within the nationalist community was such that it could operate just as effectively, if not more so, after the invasion.

British Army papers revealed in 2015 confirm family and community suspicions that Volunteer Seamus Bradley was murdered by the British Army and ill-treated after he was first shot, and that 15-year-old civilian Daniel Hegarty was also murdered by the British Army.

The papers show the huge scale of Operation Motorman (the largest since the British invasion of Suez in Egypt in 1956) and the way in which British forces were effectively given carte blanche to murder Irish civilians.

• The British Army’s Operation Motorman took place on 31 July 1972.

August / Lúnasa 2017

www.anphoblacht.com

21

Is féidir leis na Breatnaigh rud nó dhó a mhúineadh dúinn TÁ CATH tábhachtach ar siúl maidir le hAcht Teangan ó thuaidh, ach is ceart cuimhneamh go bhfuil cath ar siúl ó dheas freisin le fírinne a dhéanamh dena prionsabail is dena geallúintí atá déanta i leith na teangan.

Tá dualgaisí i leith na Gaeilge curtha ar na comhlachtaí poiblí ar fad nach mór. Ach ní thugann cuid mhaith de bhainisteóirí na gcomhlachtaí aird ar bith ar na dualgaisí seo - sa stáitsheirbhís agus i ngnólachtaí ar leis an stát iad i gcónaí.

Mar a deireann an t-eólaí, tá cuid déanta, tá a lán le déanamh go fóill.

Mar sin fhéin ní cóir go mbeadh muid teoranta do chomhlchtaí poiblí, mar - ar ndóigh - tá tionchar níos mó go minic ag comhlachtaí príobháideacha, nó comhlachtaí a bhíodh poiblí ach a príobháidíodh, orainn.

Mar shampla, bhain an Post leis an stát tráth, ach

IN PICTURES

anois, mar chomhlacht phríobháideach, tá sé saor óna dualgaisí a leagtar síos sa reachtaíocht. Bíonn gearáin ann go forleathan, mar sin, go mbíonn moill ar phost a bhfuil an seóladh i nGaeilge ann, nó go minic ní thagann sé a chor ar bith.

Bhí an t-am ann nuair a bhí sé riachtanach go mbeadh Gaeilge ag oibrithe poist - ar a laghad ag leibhéal go mbíodh siad in ann seoltai as Gaeilge a aithint. Ach níl sé riachtanach a thuilleadh, agus an leithscéal atá ag an bPost ná nach bhfuil Gaeilge ag eachtrannaigh agus gur eachtrannaigh a lán dá gcuid oibrithe anois!

Agus an toradh? Ní fhaigheann Gaeilgeóirí seirbhís cheart.

Is fiú súil a chaitheamh ar an mBreatain Bheag. Ní hamháin go bhfuil dualgaisí i leith na Breatnaise ag gach comhlacht stáit, gach comhairle condae, bord sláinte, oideachais is eile.

EOIN Ó MURCHÚ Má ghlaonn tú ar na comhlachtaí seo, is tú ag labhairt Breatnaise, bíonn duine ann le Breatnais a labhairt leat.

Ach anois tá siad ag dul nios faide. Aontaíonn 57% de mhuintir na Breataine Bige gur cheart go mbéifear in ann Breatnais a labhairt le bainc is le hinstitiúidí airgeadais eile. Aontaionn 51% gur chóir go mbeadh dualgas dlí ar lucht ollmhargaí féachaint chuige go bhféadfaí gnó a dhéanamh ann as Breatnais.

Sé sin ní féidir le comhlachtaí iad féin a cheilt taobh thiar den argóint gur gnólachtaí príobháideacha iad.

Nach sampla maith é sin dúinne in Éirinn?

photos@anphoblacht.com

5 Members of Dublin Bay North Sinn Féin – including Councillor Daire Ní Laoi and Denise Mitchell TD (right) – take part in Sinn Féin's day of action against bin charge hikes

2017

5 Elisha McCallion MP (centre) meets Royal College of Nursing reps on the ‘Scrap the Cap’ pay campaign

National Draw Crannchur Náisiúnta

To sell tickets or for more information contact Brian Dowling:

Full rules can be viewed on | Is féidir na rialacha a fheiceáil ag:

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22 August / Lúnasa 2017

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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 talks: Citizens’ rights must be urgently addressed

5 MEP Gabi Zimmer (fifth from left) with the GUE/NGL Brexit fact-finding visit in Ireland, March 2017

MEP meets BMA over NHS fears after Brexit

HEALTH PROFESSIONALS are concerned about the impact of Brexit on patient care and access to services, Martina Anderson MEP said after meeting representatives of the British Medical Association (18 July).

She said they are very concerned that Brexit would reduce patient access to services and clinicians and that doctors and other health care staff will not be able to move freely or have their qualifications recognised across Europe.

“They want to see increased all-Ireland co-operation on healthcare, not increased barriers or borders.”

Separately, Martina said warned that NHS patients in the North may have to wait longer for vital new medicines as a result of Brexit because they would no longer be part of the EU. All new medicines and drugs set to enter the healthcare system are currently regulated and approved by the European Medicines Agency, which is based in London at the moment.

“There is considerable doubt about what will happen if Britain leaves the European Medicines Agency as a result of Brexit,” the Derry-based MEP said.

SPEAKING ahead of the substantial negotiations that began on 16 July between the European Commission and the British Tory Government on the Brexit withdrawal process from the EU, GUE/ NGL President Gabi Zimmer issued a statement on behalf of the GUE/NGL Brexit working group on citizens’ rights and with particular regard to the North of Ireland.

“Brexit affects around 1.2million British people living in other EU member states and over 3million EU nationals living in Britain – not including the 1.8million people in the North of Ireland who are legally entitled to Irish citizenship and, by virtue of that, to EU citizenship.

“The EU has committed itself to uphold The Good Friday Agreement in all its parts: this includes human rights, constitutional and legal rights, and political rights.”

The German MEP recently visited Ireland as part of a fact-finding mission on the potential effects of Brexit.

She noted that up to 30,000 people cross

the Border in Ireland every day to work and study, in addition to movements for normal societal, domestic and recreational purposes.

Many businesses and farms straddle or have premises on both sides of the Border as well, she pointed out.

The border in Ireland has been open for the last 20 years and any border in Ireland risks being exploited by the enemies of peace and endangers the peace process, the GUE/NGL President said.

“At a time when the British Government and its allies in the Democratic Unionist Party have prevented the establishment of an Executive in the North of Ireland on exactly this issue of citizens’ rights and their failure to respect the Good Friday Agreement, it is essential that the EU urgently pursues this issue of the rights of citizens in the North of Ireland.

“This would be best achieved through a ‘Designated Special Status for the North of Ireland Within the EU’.”

EU must act on rise in HIV-AIDS, TB, HepC DRUG-RESISTANT diseases are on the rise because of an over-use of antibiotics by humans and animals, MEP Lynn Boylan told the European Parliament in July.

The Dublin MEP made her comments in the European Parliament, which was calling on the European Commission to address

the increase in life-threatening diseases such as HIV-AIDS, tuberculosis (TB) and Hepatitis C. MEPs say the number of people affected by drug-resistant epidemics is spreading.

They’re calling for a plan of action to address that increase in deadly diseases.

MEP Lynn Boylan

EU multinational tax transparency weakened

MEP Matt Carthy

MEP Matt Carthy has welcomed the European Parliament’s vote in Strasbourg to introduce public country-by-country reporting of turnover, profit and tax information for multinational giants but criticised conservative groups’ forcing through a so-called ‘safeguard clause’ loophole that significantly weakens the proposal.

The Ireland Midlands North West MEP said it was “appalling” that conservatives had sided with multinationals against full public transparency.

Telling the European Parliament debate this, Matt said: “Public country by country reporting is the single most important action we can take to lift the veil on the profit shifting by multinationals

which results in $500billion in tax being lost each year.

“Tax justice activists and development NGOs have been campaigning for this measure for more than a decade. We need to get it right.”

He said that limiting the requirement to companies with a turnover of more than €750million excludes 85% of multinationals. It should apply to all those with a turnover of more than €40million, he said.

Turning to conservative MEPs resisting the moves, he said: “The only people with anything to fear from tax transparency are tax cheats and their cheerleaders. Why are you helping them?”

August / Lúnasa 2017

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Matt Carthy

Martina Anderson

Liadh Ní Riada

Lynn Boylan

23

www.guengl.eu

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

5 MEPs protest in the European Parliament against EU militarisation

New EU budget must not be ‘military slush fund’ EU Budget Committee member MEP Liadh Ní Riada has called on the European Parliament to return to its roots by developing a social Europe and to resist the drive to militarising the EU as an adjunct of NATO. The Ireland South MEP made the comments in Brussels during a debate (14 July) on the Parliament’s priorities for the 2018 budget.

Its central priorities should be sustainable economic growth, stable and high quality jobs, socio-economic integration, migration “and our humanitarian duty as well as tackling climate change”, she said.

Young farmers ‘being let down

by EU’ says report

“Social integration is a basic right and in the context of the hardship experienced by many immigrants it is even more crucial that it be addressed and suitable resources provided to enact it in the 2018 budget.”

The Ireland South MEP said that, in addition, the people of the EU need specific measures to support the regions, particularly in Ireland, a country that is going to be enormously adversely affected by Brexit.

“The European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) has failed to fill the investment gap across the EU. The same mistakes cannot

A NEW EU report reinforces the widely-held view that CAP is not delivering for young farmers, said Matt Carthy MEP, who is a member of the European Parliament’s Agriculture & Rural Development Committee.

He was responding to the publication of the Court of Auditor’s Report on EU support to young farmers.

“Over the next few weeks I will be meeting with farming organisations across Ireland to discuss the best ways to both help young farmers and protect older people who may not be socially or economically secure enough to exit the sector,” Matt Carthy said.

EN

2017

Special Report

NO

EU support to young farmers should be better targeted to foster effective generational renewal (pursuant to Article 287(4), second

1977 - 2017

subparagraph, TFEU)

10

be made with its successor,” she said.

“We must implement an ambitious public investment plan in the EU that will support strategic and structural investment, providing added value to the economy, the public sector, the environment and society in general.”

Liadh added that she and her colleagues will resist any attempts to divert resources towards the militarisation of the EU.

“We are strongly against any steps towards the creation of a European Army or military co-operation in the style of NATO. “The EU and NATO are not and must not be the same,” she said.

“It is our duty to ensure the 2018 Budget helps those most in need right across Europe and is not used as a slush fund for big business or the military-industrial complex.”

Britain’s ‘Trumpesque’ fishing withdrawal ‘rash and reckless’ BRITAIN’S decision to withdraw from the London Fisheries Convention has been described by Ireland South MEP Liadh Ní Riada as rash, reckless and “Trumpesque”.

The EU Fisheries Committee member said the move is worryingly typical of a British Government careering into a hard Brexit with little purpose or direction.

“This announcement will only serve to harden attitudes in Europe on all sides and if nothing else is wildly premature as quotas and fishing rights will all form part of the Brexit negotiations taking place over the next two years.

“As is becoming the norm, Ireland is once again left as collateral damage in the Tory quest for a hard Brexit. This move will have a damning effect on centuries of Irish and British boats sharing waters, not to mention the problems it will cause for fishermen North and South.”

MEP Liadh Ní Riada

24 August / Lúnasa 2017

www.anphoblacht.com

O

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E DWY JO

FR

THERE’S A STORY that’s told of an Italian in New York at the turn of the 20th century who wrote home to his family: “I came to this country because I had heard the streets were paved with gold. Since getting here, I’ve learnt three things: First, the streets aren’t paved with gold; second, they aren’t paved at all – and third, I’m expected to pave them!”

The sketch is readily transferable to the experience of the Irish diaspora across the globe, an emigrant people who often faced hardship and prejudice.

Now, however, the Irish diaspora stands today as a rich source of international influence and goodwill. There’s a reason Bill Clinton once remarked: “Ireland's greatest export is its people.”

Rather than sit on the Westminster Parliament’s green benches, appealing to disinterested British parliamentarians, the Sinn Féin team of MPs has resolved to engage the Irish diaspora. This engagement constitutes a vital component of the wider effort to mobilise towards Irish national self-determination.

BY

Diaspora engagement is central to the work of Sinn Féin MPs WESTMIN

On Sunday 25 June, Mickey Brady MP was in Liverpool for the unveiling of a plaque dedicated to the Liverpool-Irish who participated in the 1916 Easter Rising.

The plaque is the first-ever permanent Easter Rising memorial on British soil and lists the names of some 48 Irish men and women “who left Liverpool to fight for Irish freedom”. The tribute is located in St Anthony’s Church in the Vauxhall district of the city.

5 Mickey Brady MP speaks on Cairde's international panel in Glasgow

The following day, Francie Molloy MP was in London for another plaque unveiling. This time the ceremony was at the London Irish Centre and the plaque was dedicated to “The Forgotten Irish”, the men and women who left Ireland for Britain following the Second World War. Francie remarked: “There probably isn’t a family in Ireland who didn’t see someone go off to London, Birmingham, Coventry, Manchester or elsewhere in Britain to seek better work and to send money back to support those who stayed behind. They should never be forgotten.”

The erection of such permanent

There’s a reason Bill Clinton once remarked: ‘Ireland’s greatest export is its people’

5 Elisha McCallion MP after meeting with NIO officials in Westminster

memorials reflects a greater sense of confidence and security within the Irish community in Britain.

On Tuesday 27 June, Paul Maskey MP attended the farewell reception for Dan Mulhall, Ireland’s outgoing Ambassador to Britain. In his farewell address, Ambassador Mulhall outlined how 2017 had seen a 70% rise in demand for Irish passports from people based in Britain. The attendance at the reception demonstrated the success of the Irish community in Britain.

The following week, newly-elected MP Barry McElduff was the keynote speaker at the Annual CHAMP Dinner.

CHAMP is a not-for-profit organisation facilitating dialogue and peace initiatives across and between Ireland and Britain. The evening was once more characterised by the attendance of leading Irish business professionals, civic leaders and community activists.

On Thursday 8 July, Michelle Gildernew MP was in Liverpool to address a community-led commemoration of ‘The Great Hunger’ of 1845-1852.

In her address, the Fermanagh & South Tyrone MP praised the Liverpool-Irish

5 Michelle Gildernew MP in Liverpool to mark 'The Great Hunger' of 1845-1852

for having successfully built a thriving, dynamic community which has become an essential element of the wider city’s character.

That same day, in Glasgow, party colleague Mickey Brady MP addressed an ‘International Solidarity Conference’ organised by Cairde na hÉireann in Scotland. Mickey praised Cairde in Scotland and England for its invaluable work over the years advocating and advancing the cause of Irish unification. Cairde also highlights social issues affecting the Irish community and shows solidarity with international struggles as well as anti-racist activity.

The work of Irish republicans outside of Ireland can often feel like ploughing a lonely furrow, Mickey said, but Sinn Féin’s MPs are committed to lending whatever support and appreciation they can.

On the Twelfth of July, Foyle MP Elisha McCallion held a meeting with the Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Ireland and the Irish in Britain inside the Westminster Parliament, British Labour Party MP Conor McGinn, to discuss the issues directly impacting on the Irish community in Britain.

Diaspora engagement is not limited to Britain alone.

In June, Paul Maskey MP held a transatlantic conference call with Friends of Sinn Féin Canada who carry out sterling work for the cause of Ireland.

Meanwhile, in July, Chris Hazzard MP travelled to the United States for a series

of speaking engagements organised by the AOH and LAOH Freedom for All-Ireland Committees in Buffalo, New York.

There remains a fundamental inequality of Irish citizenship that penalises those living outside the 26-County state.

Ireland’s outgoing Ambassador said 2017 has seen a 70% rise in demand for Irish passports from people based in Britain Sinn Féin is clear that this must end. The Irish Government has thus far utterly failed to recognise the legitimate rights of the Irish abroad (and even those living in the Six Counties) to vote in elections or have political representation in the Houses of the Oireachtas.

The 1916 Proclamation spoke of cherishing all the children of the nation equally. Sinn Féin understands that this aspiration includes those Irish who have had to leave Ireland, for whatever reason.

Diaspora engagement is central to the work of Sinn Féin MPs.

August / Lúnasa 2017

www.anphoblacht.com

25

BREXIT European Citizen’s Award winners tell Irish Government

‘Get off your knees’

BY MICHAEL McMONAGLE THE Irish Government has been told to “get off its knees” and demand ‘Special Status for the North Within the EU’.

Tom Murray, a spokesperson for lobby group Border Communities Against Brexit, made the call at an event in Monaghan organised to mark the group winning the European Citizen’s Award 2017.

Border Communities Against Brexit were nominated for the prestigious award by the four Sinn Féin MEPs and two Independent Irish MEPs. The group was formed last year and is made up of small business owners, community workers, trade unionists, rights campaigners and others from the Border region who are who are opposed to the British Government’s plans to drag the people of the North out of the EU against their will.

Elected representatives from across Ireland – including the four Sinn Féin MEPs and Sinn Féin mayors and council chairs from along the Border corridor – attended the celebration attempt in Monaghan’s Garage Theatre on Friday 14 July.

A delegation from the group will travel to Brussels later in the year for the formal prize ceremony.

Speaking at the event, Sinn Féin MEP for the Midland North West constituency Matt Carthy

Matt Carthy said that Border Communities Against Brexit are an inspiration to others said that Border Communities Against Brexit are an inspiration to others.

“Since the result of the Brexit referendum on 23 June last year, which will have profound implications for us all, Border Communities Against Brexit have taken their campaign to hundreds of thousands of people.

“They have outlined and highlighted the concerns not only of people in Border areas but right across Ireland.

“We were very pleased to nominate Border Communities Against Brexit for this prize and that two Independent MEPs, Marian Harkin and Nessa Childers, joined us to co-sign the nomination papers,” he said.

Ireland North Sinn Féin MEP Martina Anderson said the group is a worthy winner of the prestigious award.

“We were delighted when Border Communities Against Brexit had won the European Citizen’s Award, although I was not surprised given the work the group has done,” she said.

“They have stood up and taken their protests to the streets, to council chambers, to the Dáil and Assembly, and to the European Parliament.

“They have highlighted the impact on businesses, farmers, communities, and the sheer damage the Tory Brexit agenda will bring.

5 Sinn Féin MEPs, MLAs, TDs, senators, mayors and council chairs with members of Border Communities Against Brexit who won this year's European Citizen's Award for their energetic and imaginative grassroots campaign highlighting the challenges posed by the Brexit policy of the Tory Government in London

“When we brought the group to Brussels we got them access to the key players in the Brexit negotiations so they could make their case on the international stage,” she explained.

Independent MEP Marian Harkin, who also signed the nomination for Border Communities Against Brexit to win the accolade, also attended the celebration.

“When Matt Carthy approached me to support his nomination I was absolutely delighted to do so,” she said.

“I have lived in a Border community and I’m very aware of the potential catastrophic consequences that Brexit might bring about. The interest that this group winning this award will generate right across the EU will help in the campaign.”

Sinn Féin’s Ireland South MEP, Liadh Ní Riada, said Brexit will impact on the entire island of Ireland.

“From small beginnings, Border Communities Against Brexit have already achieved so much.

“While Brexit is a huge concern in Border communities, it goes right across Ireland and I want to let Border Communities Against Brexit know that we are all behind you, right across the island.

“This is only the start of something bigger.

Not only can this group unite Border communities but we can unite communities right across Ireland,” she said.

Dublin Sinn Féin MEP Lynn Boylan presented the European Citizen’s Award winner’s medal to

5 Members of Border Communities Against Brexit from Derry and Donegal with Sinn Féin MEPs Martina Anderson, Lynn Boylan and Matt Carthy in Monaghan to celebrate the group winning the European Citizen's Award 2017 (Seated centre is the Mayor of Donegal, Sinn Féin Councillor Gerry McMonagle)

Tom Murray on behalf of the Border Communities Against Brexit group.

Speaking after receiving the medal, Tom Murray said it was an honour to pick up the award.

He also warned about the dangers Brexit poses to the Good Friday Agreement.

“The Border has done already done horrendous damage to the economic and social damage to the communities who live in its shadow. A new

‘The Government of Ireland needs to stand up and represent the people of Ireland’ European border will cause more damage to the whole island if Ireland.

“It threatens to undermine the Good Friday Agreement and will upset social and economic growth for many years,” he said.

Tom also had a strong challenge for the Irish Government.

“I call upon the Irish Government to get up off its knees and demand protection for its citizens from Europe.

“We demand Special Status for the North. Let’s push the Border off the island of Ireland and into the sea where it belongs.

“Put away the begging bowl and stand as an equal nation in Europe and demand our rights.

“We cannot be punished for the errors of others and a vote in Britain. And we cannot accept the undemocratic imposition of a border.

“The Government of Ireland needs to stand up and represent the people of Ireland, fight for Special Status and push the Border out to sea,” he said.

26 August / Lúnasa 2017

www.anphoblacht.com

Mary Lou McDonald TD DEPUTY LEADER OF SINN FÉIN

MACGILL

SUMMER SCHOOL 2017

Partition has failed the test of time yet some tell us that the time is not right to talk about unity – now is the time

Planning for the future Our diversity is our strength BREXIT has created a constitutional earthquake and its aftershocks have exposed the fault lines of partition in Ireland. The Border is now laid bare as the false construct it has always been – and its contradictions must now be dealt with.

95 years on, would anyone now propose partition as a means to resolve division and conflict?

Does anyone believe that partition has been an economic success or has delivered prosperity for all citizens?

The North has failed to deliver the economic growth rates of the South since partition. It has never reached its economic potential or replaced the investment lost with the decline of traditional industries.

Partition has failed the test of time yet some tell us that the time is not right to talk about unity.

Now is the time.

Now is the time to plan for unity, to build support for unity, to challenge division and to build an Ireland for all our people.

This is not the Ireland of the 1920s. Ireland has changed. The Orange State is gone, replaced by power-sharing and increasing demands for full equality. It is not coming back. I say this not out of a sense of triumph but as a matter of fact.

Those who created partition did so with the intent of an inbuilt, everlasting unionist majority.

Recent elections have thrown up real challenges for unionism and in particular the DUP. Unionism lost its majority in the Assembly elections. Its mandate has fallen below the 50% in the Westminster elections. This was never meant to happen.

Unionism no longer dominates. If it wishes to be in power it will be only on the basis of power-sharing and equality.

In the South, where once Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael could command 80% support, they now represent between 50-55% between them.

Don’t miss the sign of that change.

Politicians, media, the church and business leaders – the so-called pillars of the state – no longer command the unquestioning support of citizens, and I believe we are all better for that.

These changes across Ireland cannot be reversed. Demographic change cannot be reversed. The genie is out of the bottle. We have a young and progressive population.

Change is coming.

As political leaders, the question for us is how do we shape this change.

The speed of change has accelerated with

5 The Good Friday Agreement is imperilled by Brexit

the imposition of Brexit. The progress that has been made in the North, across Ireland and between our islands is at stake.

Brexit is incompatible with the Good Friday Agreement.

It has the potential to fundamentally undermine rights and safeguards, including access to the European Court of Justice, an essential component of the Good Friday Agreement.

Brexit will undermine Strand 1 of the Good Friday Agreement. The Executive cannot function unless it complies with EU law. In real terms, Brexit will mean the Executive and Assembly must change how it functions.

Brexit is a body blow to Strand 2 and to the North/South Ministerial Council, the implementation of common EU policies, programmes and proposals for the island. In short, it is devastating

5 Political leaders – unionist and nationalist – need to call out these acts for their ugly hatred

for cross-Border and all-Ireland working.

Critically, the negative impacts of Brexit on Strand 3 of the agreement will fundamentally undermine the relationship between the North and South.

If we are to safeguard the Good Friday Agreement in all its parts post-Brexit, then the way forward is for the North to secure special status within the EU. Brexit has brought the failure of partition into clear view, and – like all great challenges – it brings with it a real opportunity to deliver progressive change and prosperity for all our people, north, south, east and west.

This is not romantic analysis. This is hard-headed realism. We can sink, or we can swim. There is no place for viewing the North solely through the prism of the past, the conflict or lazy sectarianism.

We have pressing economic challenges facing the island which require us to chart our own path, for now with the support of the EU. Britain is in a heap. Tory cynical politics are the order of the day and Theresa May, like her predecessor David Cameron, has little interest in the North. The Tories care for one thing – the Tories.

The DUP have given the Tory Party a blank cheque on Brexit with their commitment to support legislation at Westminster – a blank cheque regardless of the impact on the North.

The choice is stark.

On the night of the Eleventh of July, effigies of Martin McGuinness were burned on unionist bonfires. Unionist leaders were silent. Posters of Sinn Féin and SDLP Assembly members were all set alight, as were those from the Alliance Party. These are representatives elected by unionism’s neighbours and fellow citizens.

We need to call out these actions for what they are. This is not colourful pageantry. It is the ugliest side of sectarianism. It is a hate crime and it sucks the hope of future generations.

Unionism tells us they want to share power with nationalists and republicans yet are complicit with this naked sectarianism. We are at a fork in the road. Choices need to be made.

This status quo is not my vision for the future.

This is not as good as it gets. We can do better.

Relationships need to change within the North and between the North and the South.

We live in a shared society, one that demands respect not only as a demand for one’s own tradition but – as importantly – to be extended to others.

Irish citizens and British citizens in the North

August / Lúnasa 2017

www.anphoblacht.com

The Orange State is not coming back – I say this not out of a sense of triumph but as a matter of fact

Future Taoiseach’s policies being hidden by tittle-tattle

POLITICAL GOSSIP DISTRACTION

PAT FINUCANE ANNIVERSARY LECTURE I WANT TO KNOW WHY. I WANT TO KNOW HOW. I WANT TO KNOW WHO.

Brexit will undermine Strand 1 of the Good Friday Agreement. The Executive cannot function unless it complies with EU law

There is no place for viewing the North solely through the prism of the past, the conflict or lazy sectarianism

27

We live in a shared society, one that demands respect not only as a demand for one’s own tradition but – as importantly – to be extended to others

The legacy of

Charles J Haughey

anphoblacht HISTORY MAKERS Sraith Nua Iml 40 Uimhir 3

Price €2 / £2

March / Márta 2017

SINN FÉIN ELECTION SURGE UNIONIST MAJORITY GONE

5 ' Unionism lost its majority in the Assembly elections'

must be entitled to the same rights enjoyed in the rest of Ireland and across Britain, including language rights and the right to marriage equality.

The DUP should not use the Petition of Concern to block a vote in the Assembly on the fundamental right of same-sex couples to marry. It is wrong.

I respect religious practice and beliefs.

Religious practices and expression are fundamental to a free and equal Ireland. But no religious ethos or dogma can shape the law of the land.

North and South, Ireland is a modern, globalised multicultural society. We are on a journey from conflict to tolerance to respect. For our part republicans recognise and respect unionisms British identity. This respect does not conflict with our ambition for Irish unity.

Our vision of united Ireland is an inclusive and agreed Ireland. One in which all identities must be respected and all rights shared equally by citizens.

We want to openly and respectfully engage with unionism in the discussion of a united future. We want to discuss ending partition with every section of Irish society.

It’s probably no real surprise that both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael support Irish unity but criticise Sinn Féin for calling for a referendum on unity. Both parties sustained the “Carnival of Reaction” that James Connolly predicted for partition.

They locked up our women and sold their babies off in foreign lands, brutalised poor children, handed over public education and health services to religious orders, and gave the 1937 Constitution to the Catholic Church for sign off.

The outworkings of all these failures are still

5 'The DUP should not use the Petition of Concern to block a vote in the Assembly on the fundamental right of same-sex couples to marry'

felt today. But be very clear – Home Rule is no longer Rome Rule.

So when the Taoiseach or Mícheál Martin or anyone else tells me that now is not the time to progress the call for Irish unity, it just doesn’t cut the mustard.

Irish unity is very much on the political agenda and on the agenda of civic society. Educators, business owners, farmers and communities the length and breadth of Ireland are talking about Irish unity. Why else would both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil be working on Irish unity White Papers?

Sometimes a charge of opportunism is laid at our feet. Now, in fairness to us, Sinn Féin couldn’t be accused of being coy on the national question. Our desire for a united Ireland is certainly not a secret. We want to realise the Republic.

After so many years of working to secure the Peace Process, Martin McGuinness spent the last ten years of his life demonstrating how alliances could be built and respect secured where there is the political leadership to grasp it. That is why the profundity of Martin’s resignation on 9 January must be recognised. His

5 Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have both sustained the 'Carnival of Reaction' James Connolly predicted

death has been devastating but he has left behind an incredible legacy and a team primed to take up the mantle, and the challenges.

There can be no return to the status quo. We are moving on.

The proposition of this debate is that a new relationship, North and South, is needed. For all the talk of difference and the real need for respect and to resolve divisions, actually what people want – North and South – is pretty much the same: a fair shake and recognition of who they are and reassurances that the positive values that bind their communities will not only be respected but also protected.

Within this must be a reassurance that the Orange too will have its place. That it will be respected and its rights safeguarded.

Much progress has been made on the issue of parading, dialogue has taken place and agreements made. There can be no place for sectarianism of any colour in an Irish Republic.

Citizens across the island want a transparent and accountable political system. They want a police force they can rely on. They want a home to call their own. Equality of opportunity not just for themselves but for their children.

They want public services and decent infrastructure. Businesses need stability, an educated and skilled workforce.

I believe a united Ireland can be the conduit for all of this.

We are a small island. United we are stronger. Our diversity is our strength. There is no place for dogma and dominance. Partition WAS a carnival of reaction. Unity will be a celebration of equality, prosperity and social justice.

Brexit is coming, change is coming. All of us who want to see a prosperous, peaceful and united Ireland free from division and inequality need to stand together.

28 August / Lúnasa 2017

www.anphoblacht.com BOOK REVIEWS

Triumph over tragedy

Our Declaration of Independence

Life After Life

Proclamation of the Irish Republic, 1916: The Title Deed of Irish Republicanism

Paddy Armstrong with Mary-Elaine Tynan Gill Books €16.99

REVIEWED BY MICHAEL MANNION THE LIST of miscarriages of justice stemming from the conflict in the North is so extensive it could fill a book all by itself – just the list, never mind any analysis of each individual case.

The sheer scale of prosecutions and inevitable convictions carried out on an industrial scale serves to normalise the process and deaden the public response to a rigged judicial system and mass incarceration. And yet, despite this numbing of public perceptions, some cases are so blatantly reprehensible that the public conscience is jolted from its apathetic acceptance to question the entire process.

The two most notable examples are ‘The Birmingham Six’ and ‘The Guildford Four’. This book is the story of Paddy Armstrong and its

By Michael Kenny National Museum of Ireland €8

REVIEWED BY AENGUS Ó SNODAIGH TD THIS is a beautifully-illustrated and easy read about that seminal document, the Proclamation of the Irish Republic which was read outside the GPO on Easter Monday 1916.

Michael Kenny explains in the historical background section that it wasn’t the first such proclamation. The United Irishmen of 1798, Robert Emmet and the Fenians all issued declarations and proclamations. The first proclamation of an Irish Republic I have come across is one in 1626.

Another not mentioned was the 1868 Supreme Council of the Irish Republican Brotherhood proclamation. His short chapter captures the similarities

Paddy Armstrong’s words speak from every page. The sheer humanity and decency great strength is that it defines him as an individual in his own right and not merely as a cipher as one of the Guildford Four.

The book is divided into three distinct parts: Paddy Armstrong’s childhood and upbringing on the Falls in 1960s Belfast; his arrest, torture, trial and patently wrongful imprisonment for the 1974 Guildford bombings by the IRA; and his eventual release and catharsis, finally ending as a contented house-husband and father in suburban Dublin.

This is a very finely-crafted book and, although it is ghost-written, it is done so sensitively. It is Paddy Armstrong’s

5 Police mugshot of Paddy Armstrong, December 1974

words that speak from every page. The sheer humanity and decency of the man is palpable and evident throughout.

The book is full of poignant and searingly emotional passages.

From the death of his two-yearold baby sister to the more recent deaths of two of his fellow Guildford Four co-accused, Gerry

Conlon and Carole Richardson, the writing manages to convey the triumph of the human spirit over tragedy.

Paddy Armstrong is the last of the Guildford Four to write about his experiences, and he does so with magnificent candour.

One of the most moving passages describes his actions on the first day of his release when, unable to sleep in a soft comfortable bed, he is forced to drag the mattress to the floor. The next morning, Paddy sits in the room for hours, until his concerned hostess comes looking for him because he did not realise that he had the authority to open the door or leave the room without permission.

This book is essential reading to appreciate the lengths the state will go to in order to protect its interests. It is also a testament to the indomitable nature of some individuals caught up in conflict not of their making.

Helena Molony slept on the Proclamations, armed with a revolver between these documents that are still visionary today.

After the centenary celebrations and commemorations of the Rising last year, many young people in particular will be interested in how the Proclamation was written, prepared, signed and how James Connolly was the one who got it printed in Liberty Hall after he and Thomas MacDonagh read it to the two compositors and printer who were tasked with the job. (There is a lovely photograph of the trio in Michael Kenny’s book.)

They worked away on Easter Sunday with a detachment of the Irish Citizen Army standing guard.

Helena Molony was tasked

then with the distribution of the 2,500 copies printed. She slept on them, armed with a revolver until the time to issue them came. Helena and Connolly distributed them among Volunteers and Citizen Army members who proceeded across the city with them to paste them at 12:45pm as Pearse was reading it out aloud at the GPO. All the intricacies and peculiarities of the printing process, the errors, the wrong

fonts are all illustrated and explained in simple terms and brings to life the pressures the men printing it were under. Also included are photographs of the original letters, the trestle table on which it was set out, proofread and piled up on before it was issued to those who would paste it around the city.

It’s a book well worth a read for republicans, enthusiasts of 1916 and young students of history and a gift at €8

Available from: www.sinnfein.ie/martin-mcguinness-portrait or your local Sinn Féin outlet "We were incredibly moved when we saw Robert's painting of Martin. It was wonderful to receive such a lovely piece from such a renowned artist to honour Martin's life."

Bernie McGuinness Only 500 limited edition prints are being produced. Each is signed, numbered and stamped by the artist. Printed on museum quality paper with archival ink, each print is treated

MARTIN McGUINNESS OFFICIAL PORTRAIT SPECIAL LIMITED EDITION PRINTS

Authenticated by the renowned Irish artist Robert Ballagh and endorsed by Bernie McGuinness with the utmost care to ensure the finest reproduction and closeness to the original portrait. Size is 24.5 inches deep x 16 inches wide. Prints are DELIVERED FREE in special protective

tubes 3 inches in diameter x 20 inches long. Each print is rolled with specially treated protective paper and accompanied with a numbered certificate to confirm its authenticity.

August / Lúnasa 2017

www.anphoblacht.com

29

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

Life springs from death and from the graves of patriot men and women spring living nations PÁDRAIG PEARSE WATTERS, South Armagh Brigade 9 August 1970: Volunteer Jimmy STEELE, Belfast Brigade, 2nd Battalion 9 August 1971: Volunteer Patrick McADOREY, Belfast Brigade, 3rd Battalion 9 August 1972: Volunteer Colm MURTAGH, Newry Brigade 9 August 1977: Fian Paul McWILLIAMS, Fianna Éireann 9 August 1986: Volunteer Patrick O’HAGAN, Derry Brigade 10 August 1976: Volunteer Danny LENNON, Belfast Brigade, 1st Battalion

11 August 1971: Volunteer Séamus SIMPSON, Belfast Brigade, 2nd Battalion 11 August 1972: Volunteer Anne 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

IN PICTURES

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.

photos@anphoblacht.com

5 Belfast – Volunteer and 1981 Hunger Striker Joe McDonnell's brother and sister, Paul and Maura, applaud Lenadoon side Oliver Plunkett, winners of the soccer tournament in memory of Joe

Help restore Irish patriots memorial in Australia CAIRDE Sinn Féin Australia are raising funds to help the Irish National Association (INA) repair the damage caused by vandals to the premier monument in Australia to honour Ireland’s patriot dead. All funds raised by this project will be publicly donated to the Irish National Association.

The 1798 Memorial in Waverley Cemetery in Sydney is the burial site of United Ireland leader Michael Dwyer.

Known as ‘The Wicklow Chief’, Michael Dwyer is the most prominent Irish republican leader to be buried in the Southern Hemisphere.

“Made of marble, bronze and mosaic, Waverley’s 1798 Memorial is the finest of its kind in the world,” Cairde Sinn Féin says.

Chiselled in the monument’s stone are the names of the executed leaders of the United Irishmen from 1798 and 1803 along with the names of the executed leaders of the 1916 Rebellion.

The memorial also features a plaque honouring Bobby Sands and the nine other H-Blocks Hunger Strikers who died in 1981.

Michael Dwyer was the last United Ireland leader to hold out. Having fought in Wexford in 1798, Dwyer took to the Wicklow Hills and fought on until the end of 1803 when Robert Emmet’s Rebellion was finally quelled.

Michael Dwyer arrived in Sydney on 15 February 1806 with his wife, Mary, on the convict ship Telicherry.

He died in 1825 and was buried in the Devonshire Street Cemetery in

5 Tipperary – General Liam Lynch Commemoration attended by Connolly/Plant Sinn Féin Cumann members with Councillors Catherine Carey and David Doran and main speaker Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire TD

Sydney. His wife, Mary, died in 1860 and was buried with Michael in a vault at Devonshire Street Cemetery.

As the centenary of the 1798 Rising approached, the Irish community rallied and bought a prestigious burial plot overlooking the sea in Waverley Cemetery.

On Easter Sunday 1898, the caskets of Michael and Mary Dwyer were taken to Waverley Cemetery in the largest funeral Sydney had seen up to that time. The caskets were placed in a vault and the foundation stone of the present monument was laid. The monument was opened on Easter Sunday 1900.

Just 16 years later, another generation of brave Irish men and women struck their blow for Irish freedom in the 1916 Easter Rebellion.

For decades now, the Irish community still gathers at 2pm every Easter Sunday at the Waverley Monument to honour all those who fought and died for Ireland’s freedom.

Among the inscriptions decorating the memorial is the following in Gaelic: “People of Ireland, treasure the memory of the deeds of your ancestors. The warriors die but the true cause lasts forever.”

Cairde Sinn Féin Australia says: “In that spirit, we ask you to donate what you can to repair the damage caused by mindless vandals and help restore the Waverley Monument to all its glory.”

You can contribute through the GoFundMe page gofundme.com/irishmemorial “Restore the Irish Patriots Memorial”.

5 New York – Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams TD at the opening of the new Rockland GAA clubhouse in Rockland County

30 August / Lúnasa 2017

www.anphoblacht.com

Photograph courtesy of Conor McCabe Photography

The spear in the thatch

John Hedges IT’S NOT a remake of Mutiny on the Bounty or Zulu Dawn in our main photo but the new Sinn Féin Ardmhéara Bhaile Átha Cliath, Mícheál Mac Donncha, taking part in ‘The Casting of the Spear’, a maritime tradition to commemorate the setting of Dublin City’s boundaries dating back to 1488.

Long-time readers will recall that Mícheál was once Editor of An Phoblacht and still pens our ‘Remembering the Past’ column. He’s not only the Mayor of Dublin now but he can add to his esteemed titles the rank of “Honorary Admiral of Dublin Port”.

After the ceremony they made him give his admiral’s hat back but don’t be surprised if Mícheál launches an armada to take back Rockall.

ANTIQUES ROADSHOW AT STORMONT THE BBC’s Antiques Roadshow appearance at Parliament Buildings and Stormont Estate on Saturday 29 July is not connected to the thoughts of DUP relics such as climate change denier Sammy Wilson and creationists in the party.

Melody Flute Band thought dressing up as soldiers (complete with Royal Irish Regiment headgear) would go down well but the British Army instead tore them off a strip.

Declaring that it “takes a dim view on those in society who misuse and abuse military equipment and regalia”, the British Army big brass said: “Such practice is an insult to the men and women who serve with distinction on behalf of all.”

NEIGH BUYER FOR BILLY’S BITS UNIONIST RELICS that haven’t galloped away at auction are the riding stirrups worn by King William of Orange at the Battle of the Boyne.

These authentic bits of King Billy failed to whip up enough interest at the famous Christie’s in London and they had to be put back in the box.

Touted around Ireland back in the 1790s as

‘SO YOU’VE GOT AN IRISH PASSPORT BECAUSE OF BREXIT’ THE MASSIVE RISE in the number of people in Britain applying for Irish passports because of Brexit (100,000?) has prompted Mary Bourke to write some helpful tips in England’s Guardian newspaper as a guide to what being Irish really means when they rock up here on the Emerald Isle from John Bull’s Island.

Mary includes “the precise etiquette of when to take tea” and other valuable suggestions, including this: Be culturally sensitive Aldi does a range of spirits that include something called Oliver Cromwell London Dry Gin.

WAR NEWS a recruiting tool by Lieutenant Colonel William Blacker (one of the founders of the Orange Order in Armagh and a participant at the Battle of the Diamond.), the reserve auction price of £40,000 seems like it was a non-runner for the horsey set.

TRIBUTE BAND HIT BY UNFRIENDLY IRE A UNIONIST BAND taking part in an Orange Order parade in Bangor on the Twelfth wearing British Army combat uniform has come under fire – from the British Army.

Two-dozen members of the Newtownards

Unionist pensioners who stood in massed ranks on hillsides with Ian Paisley’s ‘Third Force’ loyalist militia in 1981, openly threatening to use their legally-held weapons against nationalists, probably thought this BBC Antiques Roadshow guideline was just for them: “Any firearms brought to the Roadshow must have a Firearms Certificate.”

Brings back memories, eh, Third Forcers?

the nationalist stronghold of west Belfast after sharing the Orange Order’s Twelfth celebrations.

The “lifelong British patriot” and his goons are fond of barging into mosques in England to harass and harangue Muslims peacefully at prayer but in Belfast he was careful not overstep the mark.

That said, he did produce not one but TWO loaded thumbs to declare later on Twitter: “Showing my contempt for Sinn Fein/IRA at their HQ on the Falls Road, West Belfast!

GSTQ NS.” The big kid also stuck his tongue out as he was driven away and returned safely to base.

THE LEADER of the far-Right Britain First, Paul Golding, is a figure of fun for many but the Saxon warrior showed little fear when he rolled up in

Demand to see the manager and ask why they are selling “genocide gin”. They’ll probably give you the email address of head office but at least you’ve made your point.

Now that you’re an Irish passport holder, Cromwell is not a revolutionary hero but a genocidal war criminal.

• Mary Bourke’s ‘I Want An Irish Passport’ runs as part of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival from 4-27 August

August / Lúnasa 2017

www.anphoblacht.com

‘REELING IN THE YEARS’ – IS IT TIME FOR A

?

ROBBIE SMYTH IF you have succumbed to a Netflix subscription you can quite easily find a film with an Irish connection in the sometimes mind-numbing scrolling through viewing choices.

There’s The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965, starring Richard Burton) which has a few scenes filmed around Dublin’s Smithfield Market, or Kill the Irishman (2011), a film about organised crime in 1970s Cleveland.

In the last few months, though, more actual Irish content is available on Netflix, including comedies such Neil Jordan’s High Spirits (1981) – which has a young Liam Neeson before he started his run of films where he gets angry and kills everyone – John Carney’s Sing Street (2016), and the very watchable Young Offenders (2016), written and directed by Peter Foott.

Alongside the ‘Happy Ireland’ is a wider reflection of other Irelands, including a Nick Hornby screenplay of Colm Toibin’s Brooklyn (2015), which tells a stifling tale of emigration and social class prejudice in rural 1950s Ireland, albeit with a happier ending than the book.

Getting darker is Stephen Frears’s Philomena, based on TV journalist Martin Sixsmith’s book about an Irish mother’s 50-year journey to find the son she was forced to give up for adoption.

Steve McQueen’s Hunger (2008) has come to Netflix this summer. The award-winning film with Michael

Fassbender as Bobby Sands offers a chance to see a spellbinding Liam Cunningham as the prison chaplain and Fassbender play out of a complex ideological discussion on the merits of the 1981 Hunger Strike and the IRA’s armed struggle.

Fassbender goes on to greater fame in a number of roles, including Magneto in X-Men, and Liam Cunningham’s survival skills in Game of Thrones as

120 years on after the first Irish-made film, the case for a ‘Gaelflix’ is compelling Davos Seaworth are impressive.

And then there’s the Netflix Original production The Siege of Jadotville (2016). Starring Jamie Dornan of 50 Shades/The Fall, it’s based on the real-life story from 1961 of 150 Irish troops with the United Nations

Operation in the Congo, Central Africa, battling against an overwhleming force of several thousand, including European mercenaries.

This is only a snapshot of a vast treasure of filmed content made about or in Ireland. It is time to fund a digital online home for all of Ireland’s film culture, including the good, bad and maybe one too many leprechaun films.

In a world where there is a tsunami of visual content, shouldn’t we create a space for our visual cultures?

“Inspiration for the nation” is the catchphrase for the advertising campaign surrounding the newly-reopened National Gallery in Dublin’s Merrion Square. If we have museums and galleries for Ireland’s physical culture, it is a logical next step to create a digital one. What sort of inspiration could a moving image archive create?

The Irish Film Institute (IFI) has taken on some of this role and created an impresive archive of saved and restored film. The IFI (who describe themselves as “custodian of the nation’s moving image heritage”) have done extraordinary work on saving a legacy of film from 1897 to the present day.

This year the IFI has made available TV adverts from RTÉ’s first decades of broadcast. They are a social document

31

of the time and you can access them via the IFI Player. Watch out for The Dubliners in a Bass ad and young Terry Wogan hawking Bovril cubes.

The IFI’s work needs to be supplemented by a broader strategy of archiving online or national work.

Wouldn’t it be interesting to see the years of party political broadcasts? In the United States there is a museum of the moving image and this material is readily available there.

Shouldn’t we have constant access to the 1980 Charles J. Haughey “living beyond our means” broadcast? At the moment, it’s on the RTÉ archives but there is no guaranteed archived access to the wealth of other political interviews and broadcasts that have been recorded over the years (and it doesn’t include an archive of TV3 output).

RTÉ has nearly six decades of televised drama, some of which needs an audience again.

I am not suggesting a ‘15 Years of The Riordans’ box set or Tolka Row (1964 to 1968) but what about the 12

It’s time to fund a digital online home for Ireland’s film culture – including the leprechaun films episodes of Bracken from 1980 to 1982 in which a smouldering Gabriel Byrne deals with challenges of being a small farmer? It is a romantic drama but the issues of class and small farmers in Ireland deserves a repeated viewing.

Now, 120 years on after the first Irish-made film, the case for a ‘Gaelflix’ is compelling.

It would house the decades of commercial films made here and the vast amount of Irish Film Board and RTÉ-funded content, amongst others.

Just please make it easier to search for films. I just might want to binge watch Benjy in The Riordans.

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

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IN PICTURES

Sraith Nua Iml 40 Uimhir 8 – August / Lúnasa 2017

photos@anphoblacht.com

5 Belfast (above and below) – March for Marriage Equality on Saturday 1 July

5 Childcare workers forced onto the dole over the summer months protest outside the Department of Finance to highlight their precarious contracts and the lack of state investment for the Early Years sector

5 Farmers concerned at grain industry changes and seeking a meeting with the minister unload bales outside the Department of Agriculture in Dublin

5 Sinn Féin Councillor Edel Moran, Bernie Doyle from Donnybrook and Sinn Féin deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald TD protest at Dublin City Hall against the new bin charges

5 London launch of the 2017 National Hunger Strike Commemoration hosted by the Wolfe Tone Society. Pictured are Peter Middleton, Joe Dwyer, Sinn Féin Senator Rose Conway Walsh (main speaker), Shelagh O'Connor and Colm McGuigan

5 Waterford – Protesters calling for a 24/7 cardiac facility for the South East join family representatives of Thomas Power who died following a cardiac incident while being transported from Waterford to Cork University Hospital