An Phoblacht, February 2017

15 Fenianng Risi

1867

150th Éirí Amach

OUR MARTIN

FEARGAL O’HANLON LECTURE

‘The Irish Mandela’

‘Be rooted, be relevant, be republican’

ian Fe1n867

Rising

150

Éirí Amach

FENIAN RISING

150th Anniversary Commemoration

MARCH

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February / Feabhra 2017

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Equality, Integrity and Respect

N I É F N N I S E VOT

Arlene Foster snaps at DUP Assembly election launch

2 February / Feabhra 2017

www.anphoblacht.com

Arlene Foster snaps over Irish Language Act at DUP election launch

SEE YOU LATER, ALLIGATOR

BY JOHN HEDGES

ARLENE FOSTER’S LAUNCH of the Democratic Unionist Party’s Assembly election campaign couldn’t have got off to a more inauspicious start if she had tried.

Rodney Edwards, a noted journalist with The Impartial Reporter in Fermanagh & South Tyrone and the Border counties, pointed out on Twitter that DUP leader Arlene Foster mentioned Sinn Féin 24 times, Gerry Adams 12 times, RHI six times and equality just once.

Chris Ryder, retired Sunday Times and Daily Telegraph journalist and author based in Belfast who has written a history of the RUC, joined the debate by describing Arlene Foster as: “Out of her depth. Politics of fear obsolete. Need pragmatic politics based on reconciliation.”

Unionist commentator Alex Kane, a former Ulster Unionist Party Director of Communications, tweeted that “some 5 Gerry Adams and Michelle O'Neill with Sinn Féin candidates in the Waterfront see the lighter side of DUP barbs

‘I will never accede to an Irish Language Act’ DUP leader Arlene Foster

unionist leaders would be better unsettling SF by presenting an attractive form of unionism than in relentless swagger and bravado”.

At her party’s election showcase in Lurgan on Monday 6 February, the DUP leader declared: “I will never accede to an Irish Language Act. If you feed a crocodile it will keep coming back and looking for more," she added in a reference to Sinn Féin.

(An Irish Language Act is part of the St Andrews Agreement.)

Alex Kane was not impressed.

“Arlene Foster's manifesto launch speech is one of the most uninspiring, 5 Some of the Sinn Féin women candidates: Nuala Toman, Upper Bann; Orliathí Flynn, West Belfast; Megan Fearon, Newry insular, self-serving and negative I've & Armagh, Elisha McCallion, Foyle; Sínead Ennis, South Down; Carál Ní Chuilín, North Belfast; Caoimhe Archibald, East Derry; heard from a unionist leader," he said. Michelle Gildernew and Jemma Dolan, Fermanagh & SouthTyrone

Slugger O’Toole Deputy Editor David McCann replied: “But this red meat will be lapped up by her base. Snag for them that SF didn’t take the bait this morning.”

Over at Sinn Féin’s candidate election launch in the Waterfront Hall Conference Centre in Belfast, it couldn’t have been more different, with a buzz and positivity that contrasted hugely with the belligerent carping of the DUP leader.

Asked by reporters about Arlene Foster’s comments, Michelle O’Neill wrapped up proceedings by smiling that she was “not interested in the negativity”.

Then Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams bid farewell to journalists – to laughs and applause – by quipping: “In a while, crocodile.”

EVERY VOTE COUNTS FOR EQUALITY POLLING DAY

A VOTE for Sinn Féin will be a vote not just against corruption and mismanagement but for equality and respect, the party says ahead of publishing its election platform.

Polling day on 2 March gives people a chance to have their voice heard, Sinn Féin says.

It’s an opportunity to register opposition to Brexit and the North of Ireland being dragged out of the EU against voters’ wishes, casting a dark shadow over the North’s economic prospects and the future for generations to come.

Sinn Féin is reiterating that it wants a special designated status for the North within the European Union, something its MEPs and other elected representatives have been lobbying EU

MARCH

2nd

leaders and officials for in meetings in Brussels and Ireland.

The DUP ‘Cash for Ash’ scandal of the Renewable Heat Initiative, mired in controversy and suspicion – and piled on top of the DUP’s arrogant disrespect for all sections of the community who don’t vote DUP – stretched Martin McGuinness’s patience to breaking

point and has provoked the collapse of the power-sharing Executive.

In this context, this is not the time for an “ordinary manifesto”, Sinn Féin says. Standing by its agenda for the Executive departments published last May, Sinn Féin says its Assembly 2017 “platform” supplements its 2016 Assembly Manifesto.

Sinn Féin is “setting out a new agenda for the time ahead”, the party says in a document still to be published as An Phoblacht goes to print.

A spokesperson told An Phoblacht that Sinn Féin that the “platform” will point to the party’s track record of delivery in government and its unwavering commitment to the principles and spirit of the Good Friday

Agreement, including equality, respect and safeguarding the rights of everyone in the community.

It will also reiterate its guarantee of

religious and civil liberty and opportunities for all (including the LGBT community), and opposition to sectarianism, racism and misogyny.

February / Feabhra 2017

www.anphoblacht.com

Michelle O’Neill

3

tolerate Sinn Féin and the public will not financial scandal, incompetence or waste of public money

Sinn Féin will only be part of institutions that work and deliver for all

No return to the status quo CORRUPTION, SCANDAL, disrespect and bigotry have no place in our society and in our power-sharing institutions.

Good Friday Agreement. Their hands-off stance over many years has encouraged political unionism down the path it has taken.

This is unacceptable. It needs to change.

The British Government must honour its responsibility for equality and dealing with legacy issues.

The Irish Government has a responsibility to hold London to account.

Sinn Féin will insist they finally act on their responsibilities and we will continue to demand and campaign for a Border poll to enable the people of Ireland to have – for the first time – their say on their future.

That is what will take us all forward as a society towards a new Ireland, an agreed Ireland.

For now, it is over to the people to have their say.

And while I can understand the frustration of citizens at recent events, it is my strong belief

That is the clear, unambiguous message we must send in the Assembly election on 2 March.

That is why Martin McGuinness took the stand he did and called time on the arrogance of the DUP. For over 10 years as deputy First Minister, Martin worked tirelessly to make the political institutions work and ensure that they deliver for all our people – unionist, nationalist and everyone else in our society.

He took a leadership role to promote equality, respect and reconciliation.

His record, his commitment and the limitless energy that he brought to this process is beyond question.

During that time he has faced threats, a lack of respect, and a failure by the DUP to reciprocate his efforts.

He persevered because it was the right thing to do.

I have worked closely with Martin throughout that time. It has been my privilege to learn

We have striven to make these institutions work to the benefit of every citizen from him and I want to sincerely thank him for the selfless service he has given to the people of Ireland.

It is my intention – my party’s intention – to continue that work.

We will continue to confront the arrogance of the DUP who have again treated the institutions and sections of the community with contempt.

The DUP have displayed disrespect towards women, the LGBT community, ethnic minorities, the Irish language and Irish identity. That has diminished the credibility of the institutions and political process.

If we are to return to the institutions there must be real, meaningful and progressive change 5 'It is my intention – it is Sinn Féin's intention – to continue the work of Martin McGuinness'

But we will not tolerate the arrogance of and disrespect from the DUP. Sinn Féin and the public will not tolerate financial scandal, incompetence or waste of public money.

The institutions can function only with the support of the people and can operate only on the basis of equality and respect.

Sinn Féin will only be part of institutions that work and deliver for all in our community.

If something is broken, you stop and fix it.

That is the Sinn Féin approach.

We have honoured all agreements. We have striven to make these institutions work. We want them to work to the benefit of every citizen.

Martin McGuinness has acted at all times with integrity, with dignity and has taken personal and

political risks to build a process of reconciliation.

If we are to return to the institutions there must be real, meaningful and progressive change.

There must be respect and equality for all sections of our society. We are all entitled to the same rights, regardless of religion, the language we speak, our nationality, the colour of our skin or who we love.

The institutions must operate to the highest standard, with no place for arrogance or malpractice.

There must be integrity and transparency in government and effective measures established to hold those guilty of wrongdoing to account.

In this, the two governments (and especially the British Government) have particular responsibilities as joint and co-equal guarantors of the

that this is one of the most important elections we will ever face.

We now have an opportunity to realise what Martin worked so hard to build. Because what we win in this election, and in the negotiations that follow, we win for all our people.

We can fix the political institutions. We can end the waste of public money. We can end the racism, sectarianism, homophobia and sexism.

This is the challenge which faces us all at the end of this election. Sinn Féin is up for that challenge. Sinn Féin is up for the intense negotiation which needs to result in political institutions that are administered on the basis of agreements and commitments made.

We are the party that called time on the DUP and we are the party that will ensure there is no return to the status quo.

4 February / Feabhra 2017

www.anphoblacht.com

anphoblacht Editorial

WHAT'S INSIDE 9

Michelle O’Neill and the media – Robbie Smyth 10 & 11

Refugees in Calais & Dunkirk – Eyewitness report by Amy Ward 14

TK Whitaker and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance 16 & 17

The Bookies Massacre and an RUC gun attack on Sinn Féin office – Peadar Whelan’s first week with An Phoblacht 18

Reconciliation and living a republican politic – H-Blocks Hunger Striker Laurence McKeown 25

anphoblacht Eagarfhocal

anphoblacht

Equality, integrity and respect ARLENE FOSTER has got at least one thing right at Stormont – the Assembly election is probably the most important vote in the North since 1998.

This is not about Orange versus Green.

This is about bad government versus good government.

This is about Arlene Foster’s style of politics and government versus that of Martin McGuinness and Michelle O’Neill.

This is about arrogance and ignorance versus equality, integrity and respect.

This election could have been avoided if Arlene Foster had accepted Martin McGuinness’s proposal that she step aside, without prejudice, to allow a transparent investigation be carried out into the Renewable Heat Incentive ‘Cash for Ash’ scandal and financial mismanagement – a mess that occurred under the stewardship of DUP ministers, including Arlene Foster herself.

Even before the emergence of the RHI scandal, the behaviour of the DUP had already led to a considerable lack of public confidence in the institutions.

No other administration would tolerate such a scandal.

Neither the public nor Sinn Féin could continue to countenance the manner in which the DUP conducted business within the Executive and the Assembly.

Contact

Layout and production: Mark Dawson production@anphoblacht.com

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

IN PICTURES

The DUP is now trying to sectarianise the election campaign to deflect public anger from NAMA, Red Sky, the RHI and DUP leaders’ belligerence.

The provocative attitude of DUP ministers such as Michelle McIlveen and spokespersons such as Gregory Campbell was laid bare at the DUP’s election launch by Arlene Foster herself when she contemptuously declared that she will “never” agree to an Irish Language Act – part of the St Andrews Agreement.

Beyond the election, there will still be a need for negotiations to re-establish the institutions.

Sinn Féin will not agree to a return to the status quo.

There must be a step-change in the behaviour and attitude of the DUP to their partners in government and to the working of the institutions.

The re-establishment of the political institutions will be dependent on whether they will reflect in their entirety the principles and ethos set out in the Good Friday Agreement.

That means delivering for all citizens on the basis of equality, parity of esteem and respect.

On 2 March, people have an opportunity to put equality, integrity and respect at the heart of the political process with a strong vote for Sinn Féin.

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

www.anphoblacht.com

photos@anphoblacht.com

Talking Irish with the DUP – Barry McElduff 26 & 27

A tale of two markets – Carlow and south of France 31

The hollow populism of AAA/PBP SUBSCRIBE ONLINE To get your An Phoblacht delivered direct to your mobile device or computer for just €10 per 12 issues and access to the historic The Irish Volunteer newspaperand An Phoblacht’s/IRIS the republican magazine archives

5 John Gormley of the Lower Ormeau Residents’ Action Group speaks at the 25th anniversary commemoration of the UDA attack on Seán Graham bookmaker's that left five nationalists dead and many more wounded – see page 16

February / Feabhra 2017

www.anphoblacht.com

5

Labour, Tory and SNP MPs and embassies hear concerns over Stormont and Brexit

Séanna Walsh Níl ‘fhios agm ar mhaith leis an pháipéar seo ach seo é

Tá stoirm ag teacht D’FHREASTAL mé ar chruinniú ar 7 Eanair, i gCumann na Meirleach, Bóthar na bhFál. Cúige Uladh Plus a bhí ann agus thart ar 500 againn i lathair. Ní chruinniú fuarasta a bhí againn os rud é go raibh go leor fearg sa seomra. Is dócha gur meascán de neart gnéithe den straitéis s’againn le roinnt blianta anuas a ba chúis leis an fhearg. Ceart go leor, tháinig achan rud chun tosaigh mar gheall ar an scanal a d’éirigh ón DUP agus RHI, ansin an ‘stunt’ le Líofa ach téann sé i bhfad siar air sin. Ón chéad lá a chuaigh muid isteach san Fheidhmeannas leo bhí an DUP, no eite de, ag troid cogadh ‘rearguard’.

Gach uair agus gach seans a bhí acu rinne siad a bheag de agus ionsaí acu ar chultúr, ar fhéiniúlacht ach go háirithe ar theanga na hÉireann.

Is comhartha é seo den easpa muiníne atá insan phobal s’acu ó thaobh an todhchaí de, agus is cinnte gur fhás sé as an mheoin cóilíneach a d’fhoghlaim siad ó na Sasanaigh. Ach bhí sé deacair glacadh leis. Cosúil leis an lucht Apartheid san Aifric Theas, no ‘The Good Ol’ Boys’ sna stáit i ndeisceart SAM, níl meas mhadaidh acu ar mhuintir s’againn, an phobal náisiúnach ‘is poblactach sa chuid seo tíre.

Tá barraíocht ráite, cuirim i gcas i dtaca leis an pholasaí athmhuintearas s’againn agus is cinnte go gcaithfear leanúint

IN PICTURES

5 Sinn Féin MPs Pat Doherty and Paul Maskey brief political activists and members of the Irish community in Portcullis House, Westminster

Sinn Féin MPs host London briefings on developments

BY JOE DWYER

leis sin. Ach ní stádfar tromaíocht agus muid ag íoc lucht ár dtromaíochta an t-am ar fad.

I meon an DUP “Equality is a foreign country”. Ní thuigeann siad comhionnanas, níl siad sásta feidhmiú leis ag croí-lár chaidrimh s’acu linn.

Cá háit a bhfágann sin muid, mar sin? Bhuel, beidh toghchan againn i Mí Márta. Ní chreidim féin go socrófar rud ar bith leis an toghchan seo.

Ní fheicimse feidhmeannas ná tionóil fiúntach ag teacht amach as, sa ghearr tréimhse. Imo bharúil, tá gá le tréimhse san fhuacht, gan chumhacht ag an DUP. Caithfidh siadsan foghlaim nach

dtig leo fiú a dtóin a scríobadh gan cead uainn. Caithfidh lucht s’againn pilleadh do na sráideanna. Caithfear glúin úr-nua foghlaim gur pháirti feachtasaíocht a bhí ionainn agus mura mbíonn dream ar bith sásta cothrom na féinne a ghéilleadh dúinn, troidfidh muid fána choinne.

Tá gach seans go bhfuil tréimhse na n-institiúidí seasmhach críochnaithe agus blianta suaiteachta romhainn.

Ach ag deireadh thiar thall, tá muid ag druidim ar ré cinniúnach i saol agus i stair na tíre seo . . .

Tá an stoirm foirfe ag teacht, bímís réidh dó.

photos@anphoblacht.com

5 Sinn Féin Republican Youth at the Construction Industry Federation HQ to draw attention to the hoarding of landbanks

SINN FÉIN MPs undertook a special ‘Programme of Engagement’ with key people of influence in British politics following the Ard Chomhairle decision to withdraw Martin McGuinness from the role of deputy First Minister.

This complemented the ongoing year-round outreach by Sinn Féin MPs with political and public opinion.

MPs Francie Molloy (Mid Ulster) and Mickey Brady (Newry & Armagh) travelled to London on 17/18 January for a series of meetings with English and Scottish politicians from across the political spectrum.

They met with members of the British Labour Party, British Conservative Party, and Scottish National Party.

In each and every meeting the Sinn Féin MPs reflected the frustration of the nationalist community with the DUP’s consistent disregard for the power-sharing structures and the equality agenda.

They reiterated Sinn Féin’s total opposition to direct rule from Westminster and pressed the case for fresh, all-inclusive talks following the new Assembly election.

Francie Molloy said: “All the issues should be on the table and all the people should be around the table.”

The following week, MPs Pat Doherty (West Tyrone) and Paul Maskey (West Belfast) continued this work.

On 24 January, Pat Doherty briefed the Trades Union Congress and conveyed to them the risk of direct rule for workers across the Six Counties. Suspension of the political institutions would unleash the worst elements of Tory austerity, including prescription charges, water charges, the Bedroom Tax, travel for over-60s, and a tripling of tuition fees.

That evening, Paul Maskey and Pat Doherty hosted a public briefing, “No Return to the Status Quo – Defending the Good Friday Agreement” in Portcullis House, Westminster. The meeting attracted political activists and members of the Irish community in London. It was also attended by individual MPs from the British Labour Party and the Scottish National Party.

The following day, 25 January, Pat Doherty and Paul Maskey briefed 19 London-based embassies from around the world about Sinn Féin’s concerns surrounding Brexit and the argument for a special status with the EU. “Running through all of the current events in North is the Brexit issue,” Pat Doherty told ambassadors and diplomatic officers from countries that included the United States, South Africa, Cuba, Germany and from across mainland Europe.

5 Sinn Féin MPs Francie Molloy and Mickey Brady held meetings in London with English and Scottish politicians

6 February / Feabhra 2017

www.anphoblacht.com

‘Our Martin’

BY DOMINIC DOHERTY MARTIN McGUINNESS’S contribution to the struggle for Irish freedom and sovereignty for over 40 years has been immeasurable.

Since his decision to resign as deputy First Minister and take a step back from frontline politics, the tributes flowing in from politicians, church people and citizens from across the religious and political divide and from all walks of life are testament to the stature of the man and the esteem in which he is held.

He has been described as a political giant, a colossus, “The Irish Mandela” but the one that I have heard most often and which is the most accurate is when people ask: "How is our Martin doing?"

For me, that’s the description that most appropriately encompasses what Martin McGuinness exemplified throughout the past 45 years – a man of the people – ‘Our Martin’.

Martin first appeared in the public consciousness as a young man defending his people in the Bogside from British occupation forces, quickly emerging and recognised as a leader of his community.

That he would be a force to be reckoned with was apparent even in those early days of the conflict when in 1972 – at the age of just 21– he featured prominently

the most extensive in the history of the department.

Children all over the North are now studying in the most modern school environment possible because of the school building programme initiated by Martin McGuinness and progressed by his Sinn Féin successors, Caitríona Ruane and John O’Dowd.

In 2007, following the conclusion of intense negotiations at St Andrews and an historic agreement between Sinn Féin and the DUP, the Assembly was convened

He has been described as a political giant, a colossus, ‘The Irish Mandela’ in a republican delegation which was flown to Cheyne Walk in Chelsea, London, by the RAF for talks with the British Government.

Although those first steps towards a resolution of conflict were unsuccessful, Martin’s commitment to the struggle and its resolution never diminished.

As always, leading from the front when the opportunity emerged in the 1980s to re-engage in an effort at resolution, as Sinn Féin’s Chief Negotiator, Martin led secret contacts with the British Government, culminating in the cessation of military operations by the IRA. This historic initiative opened up the space for all-party negotiations which in time produced the Good Friday Agreement, endorsed overwhelmingly by the people of Ireland.

Since then he has navigated many a stormy crisis in the operation of the political and peace processes, always coming out the other side in a better and stronger place.

Elected MP for Mid Ulster against all the odds in 1997, he unseated the DUP’s hardline Willie McCrea, the single unionist candidate, and despite the nationalist vote being

5 Martin and wife Bernie with Nelson Mandela in South Africa

split with the SDLP standing against Martin.

At the Assembly elections following the Good Friday Agreement, Martin was also elected MLA for Mid Ulster, bringing in two running mates in Francie Molloy and the late John Kelly.

At the establishment of the first power-sharing Executive, Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams nominated Martin as Minister for Education, a role he carried out with the same dedication and energy as he approached every other task he took on. The transformation of not only the educational curriculum but the schools estate was

At the age of just 21 he featured prominently in a republican delegation flown to London for talks with the British Government on 8 May and Martin formally took up the position of deputy (joint) First Minister alongside Ian Paisley Snr. The working relationship soon developed into a genuine friendship and co-operative government partnership. It was a friendship with Ian Paisley and his family that lasted until the day the DUP leader died and beyond. There can be no doubt that this relationship developed in no small way due to Martin’s affability and ability to reach out in a genuine endeavour of reconciliation. Following the resignation of Ian Paisley, Martin, in his usual positive approach, built working

February / Feabhra 2017

www.anphoblacht.com

5 Speaking at the historic 1986 Sinn Féin Ard Fheis in Dublin

5 First meeting in Downing Street with British Prime Minister

relationships with Ian Paisley’s successors as DUP leader, Peter Robinson and Arlene Foster.

But his efforts for peace making and reconciliation didn’t just apply to our own situation here in Ireland. Martin’s experience and negotiating skills were recognised and sought after in assisting the search for peace in other conflict zones throughout the world, requests which he wholeheartedly and positively responded to.

Along with Gerry Adams, and others, Martin led the transformation of our society from one of conflict and division, to one of peace - underpinned by the Good Friday Agreement, and the establishment of new political relationships at home and between Ireland and Britain.

But, of course, change does not come easily. It takes hard work, risks and, most importantly, leadership. Martin McGuinness has never been found wanting in any of these departments.

His leadership role in promoting equality, respect and reconciliation did not come without risks to his personal and family security. He has faced attacks and threats from a variety of sources but particularly from those who would portray themselves as republican.

He has faced them all with the same courage and determination he displayed throughout 45 years of service to the people. His record, his commitment and the limitless energy that he brought to the peace and political processes is beyond question.

The fact that all of his reconciliation efforts – including several meetings with the British queen – have been met in the main with a lack of respect and a failure by political unionism to reciprocate his efforts has been disheartening at times to the wider republican and nationalist community.

5 Martin takes his seat as Education Minister

5 Standing in the 2011 election for President of Ireland

5 'The Chuckle Brothers' – power-sharing with Ian Paisley Snr

5 Saluting the crowd at the 1916 Centenary Commemoration

Despite this, Martin has persevered – because it’s been the right thing to do.

For the past 10 years as deputy First Minister, he worked tirelessly to make the political institutions work in the best interests of all citizens they are supposed to serve – nationalist, unionist and all other political persuasions ­– on the basis of fairness, equality and respect.

He has engaged in unprecedented efforts to make friends with our unionist neighbours, and to find common

He has engaged in unprecedented efforts to make friends with our unionist neighbours cause both within the Assembly, and in wider society, to build a permanent peace.

Even now, while dealing with a serious illness and all that entails, he has indicated his intention to continue with that work.

He certainly hasn’t gone away, you know.

That is the measure of the man.

We are immensely proud of Martin McGuinness and the strong record of leadership that he has shown. His recent decision to resign and force an election was not taken lightly. It was not taken on a whim or as his first option. It was only after long and serious consideration of all the elements that brought him to the conclusion that it was time to call a halt to DUP arrogance, disrespect and contempt towards Sinn Féin as partners in Government and the public in general.

7

DUP actions leading to a lack of public confidence in the political institutions and by a succession of scandals involving DUP ministers including the Renewable Heat Incentive scandal, NAMA and Red Sky coupled with its irrational attitudes towards Irish identity and language, LGBT rights, Brexit and the unacceptable threat it poses to progress in the North could no longer be ignored or tolerated.

Martin made it clear to DUP leader Arlene Foster that we will not allow the North to slide back to the old politics of the past. Nor will we accept the failure of parties or individuals to demonstrate integrity and accountability in Government; those who consider themselves to be political elites who put their own interests first; or engage in greed and corrupt politics.

And we will not stand for the denial of rights, equality or respect for citizens.

Sinn Féin will not tolerate the failure of others to meet the standards in government exemplified by Martin McGuinness. The public deserve no less.

No tribute to Martin McGuinness could be complete without recognition of the enormous contribution of his family – his wife Bernie; his children Gráinne, Fionnuala, Emmet and Fiachra; and the wider McGuinness family. Without their full and wholehearted support for Martin and the work he has been involved in we would have been denied the talents and first-class leadership that Martin McGuinness has brought to the republican struggle and to politics throughout this island and beyond.

He is their Martin but their selfless support has ensured that he will always also be ‘Our Martin’. We thank them and him for that.

8 February / Feabhra 2017

www.anphoblacht.com

THE TORTURE of west Belfast man Liam Holden is one of the most publicised cases of “waterboarding”.

The 19-year-old was convicted of the 1972 killing of a British paratrooper and sentenced to death.

His sentence was later commuted to life and he served 17 years. His conviction was quashed in June 2013.

Trump’s and Britain’s special relationship with torture

BY PEADAR WHELAN & JOHN HEDGES LORD PADDY ASHDOWN, the former leader of Britain’s Liberal Democrats and an MI6 agent in the 1970s, sounded outraged on the BBC Radio Ulster Stephen Nolan show after Channel 4’s exposé of evidence from Ministry of Defence files of torture by British forces during the conflict accepted by Whitehall.

Ashdown served in Belfast as an officer with the Royal Marines in 1970 after being a commander with the SAS’s sister unit, the Special Boat Squadron. The ‘good lord’ must have known that British soldiers and the Royal Ulster Constabulary were given the green light to torture prisoners. Those not directly involved turned a blind eye. Generals and political leaders in London knew.

A Channel 4 News investigation by Alex Thomson broadcast on 1 February pointed the finger straight at the then British Prime Minis-

British Prime Minister Edward Heath was part of a cover-up of acknowledged torture by the British Army’s elite Parachute Regiment ter, Edward Heath as being part of a cover-up of acknowledged torture by the British Army’s elite Parachute Regiment.

Declassified documents uncovered by the Derry-based Pat Finucane Centre prove that the Paras used “waterboarding” and electric shock methods on young nationalist men in west Belfast in 1972.

The papers show that Taoiseach Jack Lynch raised the matter with Edward Heath, his British counterpart, with documented minutes of the meeting revealing that Lynch highlighted “the treatment of an epileptic who had been interrogated five times” by British soldiers.

Of the cases covered in the previously secret cache of documents, one man accuses the RUC

IN PICTURES

Prime Minister Edward Heath

waterboarding is unacceptable. I think we should make it clear don’t go there.”

But British forces did go there in Ireland.

British intelligence agencies such as MI6 would face a moral and legal obligation not to be involved with torture, diplomats declared.

Westminster and Whitehall saw no moral obligations not to be involved with torture. In fact, the only legal obligation they seemed to countenance was how to cover it up.

The European Commission of Human Rights ruled in 1976 in a case taken by the Irish Government that techniques used by the British Army

Gerry Adams has asked Enda Kenny to release Irish Government records of the meeting where Jack Lynch raised torture evidence with Edward Heath 5 Waterboarding torture – recreating the sensation of drowning

Special Branch of holding him over a table and pouring water up his nose, creating a sensation of drowning – “waterboarding”.

Another man, aged just 17 at the time, told Channel 4 that, in August 1972, the paratroopers took him to their base in a local primary school in Ballymurphy.

The man said he was brutalised –“a lot of physical beating and kicking”. It progressed to other forms of torture, including what is now known today as waterboarding: “A cloth [was] tied around my head. I was held face down by the two soldiers and water poured over the back on my head which filled up the cloth.”

This provoked a sensation of drowning. “Thinking back on it,” he said, “it was suffocation.”

He was “convinced” he was going to die, he told Channel 4.

That the British Ministry of Defence acknowledged that torture was used comes in documents

Taoiseach Jack Lynch

from June 1975 which indicate that they were anticipating a court challenge. One record reads: “I think we must accept counsel’s advice that he was assaulted.”

It also referred to other brutality he suffered, adding that he was “subjected to electric shock treatment.

Another memo shows that a Ministry of Defence legal report concluded that “a court is likely to award exemplary damages to mark the improper use of executive power”.

The Channel 4 broadcast was doubly awkward for the British Establishment given the reaction of politicians, military personnel and diplomats who baulked when United States President Donald Trump declared that “torture works” within days of British Prime Minister Theresa May’s meeting with Trump at the White House.

Labour MP Gisela Stuart echoed many British politicians when she said: “We have made it absolutely clear that

in Ireland on 14 men chosen for “deep interrogation” (subjected to hooding, prolonged stress positions, white noise, sleep deprivation and denial of food and drink) amounted to torture.

The findings, however, were overturned on appeal two years later when the court ruled that, while the five techniques amounted to “a practice of inhuman and degrading treatment”, they did not cause suffering of the intensity and cruelty sufficient to constitute torture.

The 1978 ruling was subsequently used as justification for the George W Bush administration’s infamous “torture memos” outlining what interrogation techniques could and could not be used on detainees. Shortly afterwards, the CIA was using the five techniques in Iraq, Afghanistan and around the world – techniques made in Britain and developed in Ireland.

• Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams TD has now written to Taoiseach Enda Kenny and asked him to release the Irish Government minutes of the meeting between Taoiseach Jack Lynch and Prime Minister Edward Heath.

photos@anphoblacht.com

5 Memorial event for Fian Gerard Donaghy, shot dead by the British Army's Parachute Regiment in Derry on Bloody Sunday, 30 January 1972

5 Sinn Féin members join Bus Éireann staff protesting at Busáras in Dublin against service and pay cuts

February / Feabhra 2017

www.anphoblacht.com

5 Michelle meets the media

THERE IS a sizeable constituency of media ‘republican watchers’. Fascinated by or maybe even politically unnerved by the growth of Sinn Féin’s success, the republican watchers have to report everything through a distorting lens of untruths, innuendo and insinuation. One of the latest examples is the announcement of Michelle O’Neill as the new leader of Sinn Féin in the North while Martin McGuinness deals with a serious illness.

‘Leader in the North’ prompted a rash of Game of Thrones memes, of course, but most of the mainstream media reverted to type.

'THE NEW FACE OF SINN FÉIN’ The Daily Mail (that’s the Londonbased one, not the Irish version) told readers that Michelle O’Neill was a “daughter of former IRA prisoner”.

Four days later, Michelle had become: “The leader from a family drenched in blood”.

Forget about Michelle O’Neill’s 20 years as a campaigning activist, councillor, MLA and minister for all Six-County citizens . . . all you need to know is: “Glossy blonde hair. Bright lipstick.

Curled eyelashes. Painted nails.

Figure-hugging outfits. Michelle O’Neill certainly isn’t what we expected.

The glamorous mother-of-two was unveiled this week as the new face of Sinn Féin.”

‘The Man from the Daily Mail’ asked: “Could there be a greater contrast between the glitzy Miss O’Neill and the blood-soaked old guard?”

RTÉ TV’s Tommy Gorman was on a similar vibe, commenting: “The old guard begins the handover to a new generation.”

The Belfast Telegraph claimed “Michelle O'Neill appointment consistent with Sinn Féin's ideological turnaround as it aims to shed military

9

A new Sinn Féin leader, same old media snark

past”. The article was written by former republican POW Anthony McIntyre, an avowed opponent of Sinn Féin.

THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW The Economist found ways to get military references into their article.

Sinn Féin has a “high command” and Michelle O’Neill “is a good television performer, known in the Assembly for her” . . . (wait for it) . . . “machine-gunlike delivery”. Rather than follow the Daily Mail’s hyperbole on Michelle’s family, they distil this into the declaration that “she is from an impeccably republican family”.

The Irish Examiner offered a catchy clickbait article on Michelle titled “Five things you should know about Michelle O’Neill”. This was also to be found on the Irish News website too but with no hint of who got their five first.

So how do you become Sinn Féin’s leader in the North? Could it be that the Sinn Féin Ard Chomhairle – elected by delegates every year at the party’s ard fheis – would have the final say?

“Appointed” was one line on the Journal.ie online news website.

“Named" was the initial wording in the Guardian. Henry McDonald, however, thinks that O’Neill’s new role marks “a sea-change in republican politics as she hails from the post-ceasefire generation of activists”.

‘LOYAL TO THE PARTY’S OLD GUARD’ Henry also told readers that “O’Neill now sits on Sinn Féin’s ruling national

executive, the Ard Chomhairle, and is loyal to the party’s old guard leadership, the now ailing McGuinness and its president, Gerry Adams”. (Henry must have gorged on Game of Thrones box sets over the Christmas.)

Henry was not alone in the throne room.

“O’Neill crowned successor to McGuinness” was the headline on Gerry Moriarty’s Irish Times article, where he wrote of “great fanfare” and the “inauguration” of O’Neill.

Moriarty also wrote of the “curious, ruthless way the party does business”.

This is the republican watchers’ code at work; after all, why use efficient or effective when “ruthless” is loaded with so much more menace?

And what’s so curious compared to other parties? Sinn Féin couldn’t be an open, transparent party, could it?

It only costs a few euro for an annual membership, Gerry.

LIKE NO OTHER The BBC stood out to me for the directness of their reporting, so we find that “Sinn Féin has announced that Michelle O'Neill is to replace Martin McGuinness” and “the 40-year-old County Tyrone woman is the current Health Minister, having previously been Agriculture Minister”.

(Wow, who knew it could be so easy to report just this.)

Finally, there are our old sparring partners over at the Irish Independent, angst-ridden veteran republican watchers.

ROBBIE SMYTH Niall O’Connor wrote that O’Neill had impressed the “party hierarchy and sections of the electorate”, and so was “handed” the Health portfolio” following last year’s elections.

O’Connor does acknowledge that “Ms O'Neill was commended by many for lifting the lifetime ban on gay men donating blood” before adding: “But it is perhaps Ms O’Neill’s likeability that makes her the best candidate for the post of deputy First Minister.”

Michelle has a “likeability factor”, Niall notes approvingly, although he should know that that’s a widespread trait amongst us Shinners. We’re nice people. And Michelle is very, very capable as well as ‘nice’.

“Unlike others in the party” Michelle O’Neill also “represents the so-called ‘New Sinn Féin’”. So-called by whom?

Expect more of this in the time ahead as young news reporters struggle with the concept of the natural evolution of an organisation’s way of working – unless you’re the Irish Independent or Sunday Independent, of course.

10 February / Feabhra 2017

www.anphoblacht.com

REFUGEES IN CALAIS AND DUNKIRK

OUT OF SIGHT OUT OF MIND

BY AMY WARD SEÁN BYERS AND I were part of an Irish Congress of Trade Unions delegation to “The Jungle” refugee camp in Calais in September. There we heard stories over and over again of families torn apart, of people losing everything, the dangers facing women and unaccompanied minors, police brutality, and systemic discrimination. Unimaginable suffering, death, despair and uncertainty loomed large over the camp.

But in the face of this adversity we also witnessed some of the greatest examples of humanity and community solidarity.

Residents and volunteers alike exhibited incredible resilience, resourcefulness and collectivism, taking a negative experience and transforming it into something positive, in many instances making a home out of nothing.

The outcome of this delegation was the launch of ‘Not On Our Watch’, a coalition of activists and civil society organisations which successfully lobbied the Irish Government to relocate 200 of the unaccompanied children displaced when the camp was demolished in October.

Disgusted by the conditions we encountered, inspired by the work being done on the ground, and frustrated with the media blackout that has followed demoli-

We heard stories over and over again of families torn apart, of people losing everything, the dangers facing women and unaccompanied minors tion of ‘The Jungle’, we made the decision to spend the Christmas break volunteering in Calais and at the Dunkirk refugee camp.

The need for volunteers and practical assistance is now greater than ever precisely because the community and support networks that existed in ‘The Jungle’ have disappeared with the camp itself. Displaced refugees, where they have not been dispersed among detention centres across France, are atomised by the daily harassment and vilification they face at the hands of an auxiliary police force that evokes memories of the notorious B-Specials, the CRS (Compagnies Républicaines de Sécurité).

Refugees endure a recurring game of cat and mouse with the CRS, whereby the former attempt to evade the clutches of the latter in order to reach friends and family in nearby towns or to go about their daily lives.

Racial profiling is prevalent, with the CRS stopping and detaining people based on their appearance or skin colour. This is emblematic of the treatment routinely experienced by refugees not only in detention centres and the courts but also in shops and other public places

5 Life in the camp is grim

6 Amy Ward

– experiences which compound their suffering, isolation and feelings of hopelessness.

The greater part of our three-week visit was spent working in the Dunkirk refugee camp, rebuilt and given official recognition by the Green Party Mayor in March 2016. Though it seemed to be somewhat of an improvement on ‘The Jungle’, conditions at the

Dunkirk camp deteriorated as the population almost trebled since October, the weather has taken its toll and local authorities introduced a moratorium on structural repairs in the face of popular opposition to the camp.

We were stationed at the camp with Care4Calais, which had won a contract with the local authority to clean the interior walls and floors of the makeshift huts in which up to nine people reside. These huts are in effect badly-constructed garden sheds made from plywood. As such, they are not fit for human habitation, providing very little protection against the elements and

In the face of this adversity we also witnessed some of the greatest examples of humanity and community solidarity susceptible to the build-up of a dangerous black mould that can in its worst form cause meningitis. Indeed, many of the camp’s residents – from four-month old babies to pregnant women – have fallen badly ill and required hospital treatment as a direct result of their hazardous living conditions.

Despite the restrictive terms of the cleaning contract, we developed a project that had at its aim the repair and winter-proofing of the camp’s 330 shelters. This was done ‘under the radar’, with the support of NGOs with whom we established positive relationships as individuals with a common purpose and camp residents seeking to improve their living conditions.

For the men in the camp, the absence of work and

February / Feabhra 2017

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the means to provide for one’s family is emasculating and a source of frustration; reliance on charity perpetuates feelings of helplessness and shame. Recognising this, we sought not to present ourselves as great white saviours but rather build a team around the skills and experience of camp residents – engineers, tradesmen, designers, architects – and, with the goodwill of groups inside the camp, generate a real sense of community development.

Through this we developed friendships with residents, who insisted on sharing what little they had. We came to look forward to seeing familiar faces each morning, having sweet tea around a fire, and enjoying conversations that transcended all cultural, linguistic and national boundaries. We were regaled with Oro Se Do Bheatha Bhaile by a group of Kurds on New Year’s Eve, spent an afternoon talking family, history and culture

For the men in the camp, the absence of work and the means to provide for one’s family is emasculating and a source of frustration with a group of Afghanis, and were routinely teased about our accents and standard of English. The jokes we shared were of the sort that are only born out of real trust and familiarity.

This trust and familiarity extended to the volunteers from various organisations who sustained the project with financial contributions and the supply of wood, blankets, insulation and tools needed to carry out our work.

It was due to this collaborative effort that we were able to make such progress, with improvements made to approximately 100 huts at the time of our departure.

We heard first-hand how our work had made the freezing nights and torrential rain slightly easier to endure,

with one family telling us, for example, that they had slept soundly for the first time in four months.

When a seven-year-old Kurdish girl shared her Christmas chocolate with me because I’d scrubbed off the mould that was making her asthma worse and repaired a wall so that her blankets wouldn’t get wet anymore, I knew that I’d made the right decision to prioritise the desperate needs of individuals over strict rules enforced by the council.

Fearing that the Dunkirk camp could develop into another ‘Jungle’ and become a permanent fixture, the local authorities intervened to put a stop to our work. We refused demands to remove and undo the winter-proofing. Rumours abound that the lease for the land on which the camp is built expires in March, at which point the Mayor will be faced with the choice between making further provisions or displacing extremely vulnerable people, a large proportion of whom are women and young children. Just as The Jungle’s demolition has demonstrated that ‘out of sight, out of mind’ does not address the fundamental issues of the refugee crisis. The hasty eviction of the Dunkirk camp’s residents cannot serve a positive purpose other than a propaganda one for the French political class.

Mainstream media news coverage has vacillated remarkably between depictions of a European refugee crisis and a so-called ‘migrant crisis’, an implicitly derisive term. The presumptive and pervasive depiction of refugees as mere economic migrants has been a crucial discursive manoeuvre in the spectacle of fortress Europe’s ‘border crisis’. Little surprise then that begrudging gestures of belated magnanimity towards those who may ultimately be granted refugee status

by France have been coupled with promises of speedy expulsion for those deemed to be only migrants – illegalised, presumably undesirable and deportable.

Social and mass media were briefly haunted by the image of drowned Syrian child Alan Kurdi washed ashore in Turkey, then again by the photos of Omran Daqneesh. Although these pictures could be referred to as atrocity porn, both exploitative and objectifying, they did serve as a catalyst for productive rage.

5 Volunteers work with residents to generate a sense of community development amongst shameful conditions in which people are forced to live

11

Abruptly, the desensitising and cynical rhetoric of a ‘migrant crisis’ began to recede in favour of appeals for compassion in the face of real tragedy, accompanied by a reinvigorated language of ‘refugee crisis’.

Frustratingly, since the demolition of The Jungle, the issue has once again faded from the media and yet refugees are sleeping on the streets of Calais and Paris in sub-zero temperatures. They are being tormented by the CRS police who have been confiscating sleeping bags, dismantling tents and obstructing any effort to improve living conditions. The police appear to be upping the ante because they know that the issue has faded from people’s minds and that the limited protections that existed before have dissipated.

While we will continue to advocate for wholesale policy change at home, our project in Dunkirk has culminated in the coming together of a group of volunteers who are returning to the camp in February with the

A seven-year-old Kurdish girl shared her Christmas chocolate with me because I’d scrubbed off the mould that was making her asthma worse aim of continuing the work. We intend to circumvent the poisonous politics and corruption of the charity sector and, with the help of friends inside the camp, bring two vanloads of supplies directly to refugees.

In addition to this, we will lobby the Mayor for structural improvements to existing shelters and encourage greater communication and co-operation between those working on the camp. We call upon people to support this effort in any way they can and to join us in keeping the issue alive in public consciousness.

https://www.gofundme.com/calais-for-christmas

12 February / Feabhra 2017

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N FEARGAL O’HANLON MEMORIAL LECTURE, MONAGHA 60th ANNIVERSARY OF BROOKEBOROUGH RAID, 1957

5 Pádraigín Uí Mhurchadha, Eoin Ó Broin, Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin and Seán Ó Murchadha

THE 2017 Annual Feargal O’Hanlon Memorial Lecture took place in Teach na nDaoine in Monaghan town on Sunday 22 January. This year’s lecture, in a series that commenced in 1982, marked the 60th anniversary of the deaths in action of IRA Volunteers Feargal O’Hanlon and Seán South. This year’s guest speaker was Eoin Ó Broin TD. The event was chaired by Shane Treanor of Monaghan Town Sinn Féin. Dáil Deputy Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin introduced his Oireachtas colleague to the audience, and Pádraigín Uí Mhurchadha, sister of

Feargal, was also at the top table.

The subsequent vote of thanks to Deputy Ó Broin was proposed by Seán Ó Murchadha, seconded by Councillor Seán Conlon.

Presentations were made to Deputy Ó Broin of a copy of the recently-published book on the story of Margaret Skinnider, Suffragette, Sniper, Schoolteacher (Margaret’s father came from Monaghan) and of a special 1916 centenary limited edition bottle of Monaghan stout.

This is an extract from Eoin Ó Broin’s speech.

We are in the business of taking power FEARGAL O’HANLON is not a name in a history book. He is a real person connected to this county and to its republican community.

He was a brother and son, a friend, a public servant, a Gaeilgeoir and Gaelic football and handball player – an IRA Volunteer.

From everything I have read, and especially Pádraigín Uí Mhurchadha’s moving interview with Ella O’Dwyer in An Phoblacht back in 2007, Feargal sounds like a remarkable young man: a person of real character and integrity; the kind of person who represents everything that is great in our movement.

But what stands out most strongly for me is the bravery and leadership he showed as an IRA Volunteer.

To have played such an important role at the young age of 20 is remarkable. To have had the courage to risk his own life when that life was only truly beginning is hard to comprehend.

And though Feargal and Seán South tragically lost their lives on 1 January 1957, he is still

The character, integrity, bravery and leadership of people like Feargal O’Hanlon are needed every bit as much in 2017 as they were in 1957 with us, not just in the memory of Feargal the person but as an inspiration to the generations of republican activists that follow in his footsteps.

Eighteen people tragically lost their lived during Operation Harvest from 1956 to 1962; 256 republicans were interned.

While the campaign was a military failure, it marked an important turning point in modern Irish republicanism.

It exposed the extent to which we had become isolated from the wider community. We were no longer rooted in or relevant to the lives of the people.

That failure opened up a period of reflection.

It led to a period of change, both in the strategy and leadership of the Republican Movement.

In some respects it marked the beginning of the modern period of republican struggle.

Thankfully, we live in a very different era.

Decades of conflict gave way to negotiations

5 Eoin Ó Broin: 'Caoimhghín told us the secret of success – be rooted, relevant and republican'

and peace agreements. The option of pursuing our political objectives through peaceful and political means was finally opened.

And today Irish republicanism is stronger that at any point since partition.

But while the political context has changed, our objectives remain the same. And the character, integrity, bravery and leadership of people like Feargal O’Hanlon are needed every bit as much in 2017 as they were in 1957.

I was especially delighted to have been asked

by Caoimhghín Ó Caolain TD to speak here today. I’ve known Caoimhghín for many years and knew of his long period of service in the Dáil.

But it is only when you are elected to Leinster House you realise the size of the challenge that he and Mícheál Mac Donncha faced when they entered the Dáil in 1997. Our team today wouldn't be able to do what we are doing had it not been for the groundbreaking work of our first TD. It was 30 years ago when Caoimhghín first contested the Leinster House seat, winning a respectable 7% of the vote. Over the three decades that followed, republicans in Cavan and Monaghan, through hard work and determination,

built Sinn Féin into what it is today – 11 councillors, a TD who has held the seat in five consecutive elections, and an MEP. When looking for advice on how to replicate this growth in our own areas we asked Caoimhghín what the secret of your success in Cavan/ Monaghan was. His answer made it sound so simple. He told us of “The Three Rs” – that we have to be rooted, relevant and republican.

Commemorations are important events in our annual calendar. They are occasions where we remember the contribution and sacrifice of those who gave their lives for Irish freedom.

But they are also occasions for reflection – a chance to stop, to think, to remind ourselves who we are and to ask how we can best advance our struggle in the time ahead.

Our party constitution commits us to ending partition, reuniting our country and establishing a 32-county democratic socialist republic.

That is what we sign up to when we take the Sinn Féin membership card in our hand and commit to playing our part in the struggle.

We are not interested in grafting the Six Counties onto a deeply unequal and corrupt southern state.

We believe that another Ireland is possible – a better fairer Ireland – and that a crucial element in building this ‘Ireland of Equals’ involves Irish unity.

We understand that Irish unity cannot be imposed on anyone. It must be agreed and must have room for everyone. After 30 years of conflict, that requires peace building, reconciliation and developing deeper relationships with unionists and with others.

Equally, we are not simply interested in ending partition. The Ireland we want to create is one where every person has the chance for a bigger and better life.

A democratic socialist republic is not an empty slogan.

It means access to well-paid, good-quality employment.

It means fair taxation.

It means world-class universal public services in health, education and childcare.

It means the right to a home. It means people having a real say in how their lives are governed.

It means civil and religious liberty for all.

It means Ireland playing a positive role in EU and world affairs, promoting peace, eradicating poverty, tackling climate change and providing a safe home for those fleeing war.

Achieving these goals means on the one hand building alliances with other progressive forces

Today, Irish republicanism is stronger that at any point since partition and at the same time challenging those who are opposed to change.

Sinn Féin is no longer a party of protest. We are in the business of taking power – in our communities, on our councils and in the Assembly and in the Dáil.

But what does this really mean and how can we achieve it?

Many people confuse holding office with wielding power. The two things are not the same.

Electing councillors or TDs and MLAs does not give us power.

Indeed, being in Government does not necessarily give us power.

To wield power we need to be in Government with like-minded allies working to a Programme

February / Feabhra 2017

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13

5 Operation Harvest re-enactment (top) with Feargal O'Hanlon (right) and Seán South (below centre)

for Government designed to deliver fundamental constitutional, political, social and economic change.

We also need to be part of mobilised, politicised communities and social movements outside of Government, ensuring that promises made during elections are kept and implemented in full.

Too often our discussion of power is narrowed down to how best to win an election and who to enter coalition with. These questions are important but they are not the only ones we need to be discussing.

Our frame of reference for this discussion is too narrow. We are not learning from the experience

While many of them achieved important successes they all ultimately failed to deliver their core objectives. Left parties in each of these coalitions all suffered significant electoral decline as a result of their time in Government.

If Sinn Féin wants to be in government and to use that to build a better Ireland then we need to understand why those who have gone before us have not succeeded.

We need to understand the obstacles – domestic, European and global – that progressive

To wield power we need to be in Government with like-minded allies working to a Programme for Government designed to deliver fundamental constitutional, political, social and economic change

We also need to be part of mobilised, politicised communities and social movements outside of Government, ensuring that promises made during elections are kept and implemented in full of others, outside of Ireland, who have tried and failed to do what we are attempting to do today.

Since the 1970s, seven countries across Europe have elected governments committed to fundamental social, economic and political change – 1974 in Britain, 1981 in France, 1996 in Italy, 1998 in Sweden, 2005 in Norway, 2009 in Iceland and 2015 in Greece.

These governments are important because they were coalitions of social democrats, Left socialists, greens and others who were trying to do in their countries what Sinn Féin is looking to do in Ireland today.

5 Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin and Sinn Féin have given a greater voice to republicanism in Cavan/Monaghan

governments face when they try to deliver the change mandated by their voters.

We need to understand the mistakes they made, in alliances, strategies, tactics and policies.

We need to understand this so we can do things differently.

Learning these lessons is as important to ensuring that any re-established Northern Executive delivers as they are for our future entry to Government Buildings in Dublin.

Failure to learn these lessons will result in failure if and when we are in Government, North and South.

But if we equip ourselves with this knowledge we will be better placed to succeed where others could not.

14 February / Feabhra 2017

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CONOR McCABE

readers s e im T h is Ir , 2 In 200 itaker crowned TK Wh ishman’ Ir g in iv L t s te a ‘The Gre

TK WHITAKER

When the legend becomes fact THERE’S A LINE in the movie The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance which goes that when the legend becomes fact, print the legend.

It is uttered by a newspaper man who finds out that the events that made a senator’s career were built on a lie. However, he concludes that, in politics, what is believed is a lot more important than what is true and as the senator (played

by Jimmy Stewart alongside John Wayne) is a good man he has no desire to shatter the image, and so he buries the story.

Belief, in other words, makes its own reality.

Myths serve a purpose, although not always for as noble a reason as those of Jimmy Stewart’s senator.

Closer to home, we have quite a wealthy class in the Irish state who have their own foundation myths that have little to do with reality but are no less powerful because of that. And at the heart of them lies the recently-deceased TK Whitaker.

I have no doubt that, in his own terms, TK Whitaker was a noble man. And certainly throughout his decades of public service there was never a whiff of corruption about him. A career civil servant, he was appointed head of the Department of Finance in 1956, leaving in 1969 to become Governor of the Central Bank of Ireland.

In 1976, he stepped down from that position and entered into a period of active retirement. He is remembered today as the man who modernised Ireland, in partnership with Seán Lemass.

In 2002, Irish Times readers crowned him “The Greatest Living Irishman”.

The story of the modernisation is this: in 1957 the Irish state was backward and inward-looking, then Whitaker and Lemass came along and the state opened up to foreign direct investment, leading to greater exports and growth, with everything dandy until 2008 but don’t worry because foreign investment and exports will get us back on track.

The problem with this is that the Irish state was a relatively open economy even before 1957. In fact, in 1948 it was one of the founder members of the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation, the forerunner of today’s OECD, the

I have no doubt

5 Jimmy Stewart's character benefited from his local media perpetuating legend as fact

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. The problem was not that Ireland was closed (it was not) but rather its trade was primarily with one country – Britain.

The Economist magazine wrote in 1953 that “the basic problem of Irish agriculture is that it is under-capitalised” – in other words, access to credit for investment was holding back development, and credit policy was being set not by the Irish Central Bank but by a handful of private banks that chose to invest in Britain rather than make credit available here.

This was one of the main sticking points when it came to developing the Irish economy. Irish businesses (in agriculture, services and industry) lacked the access to affordable credit that they needed to expand and diversify. The markets were there (that was the whole point of Ireland’s membership of the OEEC) but the credit was lacking.

that, in itaker

TK Wh his own terms,

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was a noble ma

The Government’s solution was to sidestep the thorny issue of Irish banks and their refusal to invest in the Irish state and to come up with a plan that would ‘import’ investment through foreign direct investment along with a greater involvement in the public sector in the development of

social and economic infrastructure.

Out of this came the short-term solution of offering tax breaks for investment: a quick-fix that morphed into a 60-year economic policy of shortcuts and dead-ends. The main beneficiaries were the indigenous Irish business class that grew out of construction, accountancy, banking and law to service the expansion in foreign factories and public investment.

Meanwhile, the underlying structural problems were left untouched, leaving Ireland with a relatively weak indigenous industrial sector outside of construction.

It turned out that TK Whitaker himself saw these issues in the 1960s and highlighted them but to little avail. There was too much money being made through short-term investments for the game to be changed by something as disruptive as long-term vision. And Whitaker, for his part, was too much the social and fiscal conservative to really push things to where they needed to go in terms of social inclusion and indigenous growth.

It is said that once an idea is given an institutional form it is very hard to dislodge it and the Irish state’s low-tax/construction policy mix is now deeply embedded in the apparatus of the Department of Finance and the Central Bank. This is Whitaker’s true legacy with the myth of the man used to provide cover for those in construction, law, banking and accountancy to continue to benefit from the short-termism of the 1950s to the detriment of the rest of us today.

Whitaker may be their ‘saviour’ but to me he is no more than the man who is supposed to have shot Liberty Valance.

February / Feabhra 2017

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15

Is marfaí neamhshuim ná naimhdeas ar bith

TÁ SCÉAl na Gaeilge, agus cearta lucht a labhatha, go mor chun tosaigh anois i bpolaitíocht an Tuaiscirt – mar is ceart é a bheith.

Ach díreach nuair a bhíonn aird á díriú ar Acht Teangan ó thuaidh, ní mór duinn suil siar a chaithemah thar an ngualainn agus sampla eile de dímheas an stáit ó dheas ar an teanga.

I dTeach Laighean, i gcaitheamh na míosa seo caite, thug an t-abhcóide Séamus Ó Tuathail aitheasc don choiste um seribhísí uisce i dtaobh úineireacht phoiblí na seirbhísí sin.

Mar ghaeilgeóir, chuir an Tuathalach in iúl d’údarásaí Thigh Laighean roimh ré, go labhródh sé i ngaeilge. Tá coras ateangaireacht in ainm’s a bheith ar fáil i dTigh Laighean, ar ndóigh, is ní cóir mar sin go mbeadh aon fhadb.

Ach tháinig an lá agus tháinig an fear agus ní raibh aon choras ateangaireachta i bhféidhm.

Fabht teicniúil a bhí faoina dhear seo, dúradh.

Cuireadh in iúl don Tuathalach ansin go mbeadh air a aitheasc a dhéanamh i mBéarla – Béarla éigeantach ar ndóigh – nó nach mbeadh sé in ann a chuid fianaise a thabhairt ar chor ar bith.

“Faoi agóid” agus go drogallach ghlac Séamus Ó Tuathail leis seo.

“Mugadh magadh” a thug sé ar an scéal ina dhiaidh ag rá gur sampla eile é den easpa dáiríreacht i leith na gaeilge atá le tabhairt faoi ndear ag gach leibhéal den stát.

Sea, ó thuaidh labhrann an DUP go deistineach faoin teanga, diúltaíonn siad glacadh lena gcuid dualgaisí faoi Chomhaontú Chill Rímhinn, agus leiríonn siad naimhdeas neamhchiallmhar

i gcoinne na teanga arís is arís.

Ach ó dheas, is cuma leis an stát. Ní dhéanann siad argóintí faoina gcuid dualgaisi i leith na teanga. Díreach ní chómhlíonann siad iad.

Ní rud nua é seo. Siar i 1969, thug Mairtín Ó Cadhain léacht stairiúil uaidh faoin teideal Gluaiseacht na Gaeilge: Gluaiseacht ar Strae.

Sa léacht sin d’amhdaigh sé go raibh níos mó naimhdis don teanga ó thuaidh ná mar a bhí ó dheas. Ní raibh suim acu inti, dúirt sé.

Ach dúirt se freisin, “ag deire thiar is marfaí neamhshuim ná naimhdeas ar bith”.

Nuair a bhrúnn muide, lucht na gaeilge, ar gclár oibre chun tosaigh ó thuaidh maidir leis an Acht Teanga agus maidir le meas is uarraim a bheith ar an teanga, na déanamis dearmad de go bhfuil an cath nach mór céanna le troid againn ó dheas.

IN PICTURES

5 Irish immigrants in Boston show their opposition to US President Donald Trump's 'Muslim Ban' travel restrictions

5 Ballymurphy Massacre families meet British Labour Party Shadow Secretary of State Dave Anderson (centre) at the scene in Belfast to push the case for a inquiry

EOIN Ó MURCHÚ photos@anphoblacht.com

5 Sinn Féin's Martin McGuinness and Martina Anderson MEP with the Bloody Sunday relatives whose family members were killed by British paratroopers in Derry on 30 January 1972. Presbyterian Minister Reverend David Latimer was one of several clergy to speak at the ceremony. (Below) family members lay wreaths at the memorial on Rossville Street

16 February / Feabhra 2017

www.anphoblacht.com

A baptism of fire 1992 with An Phoblacht FEBRUARY

WITH the 25th anniversaries of two of the most notorious incidents of the conflict falling in the first two weeks of February, PEADAR WHELAN looks back on his first week as an An Phoblacht/Republican News photo-journalist. It was a week that left nine nationalists dead in separate gun attacks across Belfast while, on the Fermanagh border, a young IRA Volunteer from Sligo, Joseph MacManus (22), died on active service, shot dead by a member of the British Army.

In the first of two deadly assaults, on Tuesday 4 February 1992, Royal Ulster Constabulary police officer Allan Moore shot dead three men and wounded two others in Sinn Féin’s Belfast headquarters at Sevastopol Street.

The following day, Wednesday 5 February, a unionist gun gang from the Ulster Defence Association rampaged through Seán

Graham’s bookmakers’ shop on the Ormeau Road in south Belfast, killing five customers and wounding nine other people.

For Peadar Whelan, those two days were a baptism of fire like no other as he had just embarked on the second phase of his pre-release scheme from the H-Blocks of Long Kesh, where he had spent 16 years, four

of them spent on the Blanket and No Wash protests.

Prisoners serving life sentences in the Six Counties went through a pre-release scheme before they were freed on licence.

Peadar was in a community project in Turf Lodge where a number of republican women looked out for them, especially Rita McCracken and her friend Patricia. Rita’s son, Volunteer Kevin McCracken, shot dead by the British Army in 1988, was in the H-Blocks with Peadar. (Rita sadly died in August 2016.)

As a native of Derry, which escaped the worst excesses of pro-British terror gangs, that first week with “the paper” brought into sharp focus the reality of brutal, bigoted sectarianism on one level and the degree of political abandonment experienced

by Northern nationalists as the political establishments, North and South, turned the other way.]

MONDAY 3 FEBRUARY 1992 began with the news that the driver of a black taxi, Pádraig Ó Clérigh, had been shot dead in his north Belfast home by a UDA gun gang.

It was on Tuesday 4 February, though, that I came to realise with bitter experience just how central to the republican struggle An Phoblacht/ Republican News was. The paper was single-handedly challenging the Establishment narrative of the Northern war and prising open the steel shutters of silence and censorship behind which the British war machine was skulking.

I made my way to the office at lunchtime as I was trying to establish a pattern whereby I would leave my workplace and tie in with Jake and Mickey and see what they needed me to do.

While there, the relaxed but business-like atmosphere changed with one phone call.

A gunman had entered the Sinn Féin offices at Sevastopol Street on the Falls Road and opened

A member of the Falls Taxi Association, Pádraig was well known in Irish-language circles and was on the Conradh na Gaeilge Executive Committee.

Just months before he was gunned down he spoke on RTÉ’s Cúrsaí programme about the sectarian attacks on the Association’s drivers that left two of them dead – Thomas Hughes, gunned down in July 1991, and Hugh Magee, killed in a hail of bullets in October 1991 as he ferried passengers to Ardoyne.

With the news of Ó Clérigh’s death ringing in my ears, I made my way to the community hub

It is in situations like this that heroes are found in the most unlikely of places

A gunman had entered the Sinn Féin offices at Sevastopol Street on the Falls Road and opened fire where my “work outplacement” was based. The building, only 200 yards from the An Phoblacht ‘bunker’ which also housed the Party President’s Office meant I could skip out at break-time and touch base with the An Phoblacht/Republican News team.

The staff were going through a transition as Northern Editor Jake Mac Siacais (whom I knew from the H-Blocks) was moving on to be replaced

by Mickey McMullan (himself not long released on licence from the H-Blocks).

It was due to my close friendship with Mickey and my work as a PRO in the H-Blocks (as well as a sometimes columnist for An Glór Gafa, a jail periodical magazine produced by republican POWs incarcerated in England, the North, the Free State

5 'An Phoblacht' reports on the aftermath

and further afield) that ensured my political activism would centre on publicity and An Phoblacht/ Republican News when I was released.

My first experience of the office was a daunting experience – ringing the bell on the outer security cage, being buzzed in to stand at the second grille below the security camera to be scrutinised by unseen eyes before someone would eventually appear at the door and ‘magic’ me in before slamming the door, firmly locking it shut.

People I had never met before (Terry, Kieran, Mickey and Kevin) but who would become close friends and comrades stared at me from the admin room, looking at a face that wore

an expression akin to that of a rabbit caught in headlights.

Squeezing my way through to the claustrophobic “Editorial Department” I was again met with bemused stares.

Laura Friel, shoehorned into a cramped box space in front of what then passed for a top-ofthe-range Apple Mac, greeted me, as did Jake and Mickey. Big Mick was to come on board later.

Both were busy discussing with Laura how the killing of Pádraig Ó Clérigh would be covered.

For my first foray into republican journalism on the outside I was allocated some short “In Brief” stories and packed off to write them up.

fire in the confines of the reception area. It was already clear that people were dead but who or how many was uncertain.

For me the next few minutes were a blur as Jake, with years of experience, organised the response and, before I knew it, a driver, journalist and photographer were dispatched to the scene.

As these were the days before mobile phones and instant communications, the next hours were a confusing maelstrom of rumour, speculation and some hard news. Eventually we were able to establish that a lone gunman, having gained access to the building, opened fire, killing three people and badly wounding two others.

Of the dead, two were Sinn Féin activists: Paddy Loughran and former ‘Blanketman’ Pat McBride.

The third fatality was Michael O’Dwyer, a local man availing of the party’s renowned constituency service.

February / Feabhra 2017

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en sitting near be d ha s er ov R nd La d re ou m ar e Two RUC polic fore the attack be es ut in m r ca ay w ta ge ’s ng ga the UDA

Those wounded included ex-H-Blocks POW Pat Wilson and Nora Larkin.

And it is in situations like this that heroes are found in the most unlikely of places.

Marguerite Gallagher, a well-known stalwart at the Green Cross Art Shop (selling prisoner crafts, flags, posters, books, etc) next door, heard the shooting. Instinctively, and fearlessly, she followed the assailant to his car parked on Sevastopol Street and tried to grab the murderer before he sped away.

In the aftermath of the shooting, the RUC heavy gang Divisional Mobile Support Units (DMSU) deployed to the scene revealed their anti-republican bias when they abused and harassed party members concerned about the welfare of relatives and friends inside, lying dead or wounded.

Not surprisingly, the finger of blame was initially

The murderer was a member of an elite unit of the Royal Ulster Constabulary pointed at loyalist gun gangs but, as the day wore on, it was established that the killer, Allan Moore, was a serving member of the RUC – in fact the elite and notorious DMSU based in west Belfast and whose colleagues had been sent to investigate!

Within hours of the attack, and around the same time as RUC man Moore’s body was discovered on the shores of Lough Neagh, where he is said to have taken his own life, a caller to a Belfast newsroom was naming the killer as a member of the unionist paramilitary Ulster Defence Association.

The repercussions of the attack on the Sinn Féin party dominated discussions on the Wednesday when I again arrived at the office and the call linking Moore to the UDA was being intensely debated.

Shockingly, it would be the UDA that would dominate the discourse with its systematic slaughter in the Seán Graham Bookmakers’ shop on the Lower Ormeau Road in south Belfast.

Two gunmen entered the building and opened fire with a Czech-made VZ58 assault rifle and a 9mm pistol, killing five males, ranging from 15

17

t66 years of age, and wounding almost everyone else in the building as they had no escape route.

Just as with the attack on Tuesday, people went into overdrive as they attempted to ascertain the details for the paper, which was then published weekly and went to the printer on a Thursday.

Frantic phone calls were made to local republicans. As the day wore on, more and more information came through and it was obvious that the print deadline would have to be delayed to allow the reporters to produce as full an account of the incident as possible.

Not surprisingly, collusion and the role of the RUC was raised as local people reported that the UDA killers casually walked across to University Avenue to their escape car which was waiting 5 Marguerite Gallagher, who was in the Green Cross Art Shop, chased and tried to grab gunman

5 Relatives for Justice investigation – 'Seán Graham Bookmakers Atrocity'

5 Óglach Joe MacManus was killed in action in County Fermanagh

The UDA dominated the discourse with its systematic slaughter in the Seán Graham Bookmakers’ shop just yards from where two police armoured Land Rovers had been sitting until just minutes before the attack.

In their excellent publication, Seán Graham Bookmakers’ Atrocity, Relatives for Justice exposed the extent of the collusion between the RUC and the loyalists in this massacre, including how the pistol used was ‘stolen’ from an Ulster Defence Regiment British Army base by UDA killer Ken Barrett, who gave it to UDA quartermaster William Stobie – both men RUC informers. And both men were involved in the killing of human rights lawyer Pat Finucane.

Now, 25 years later, it is clear that An Phoblacht/ Republican News was to the fore of challenging the British, the unionist and the Free State establishments’ narrative of the conflict in Ireland, ensuring that the republican analysis was heard.

I am proud to have played my part with ‘the paper’, back in the day and today.

18 February / Feabhra 2017

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UNCOMFORTABLE CONVERSATIONS

Reconciliation and living a republican politic LAURENCE McKEOWN I BEGAN to write this article before Christmas in response to the relaunch of Sinn Féin’s policy document on reconciliation. Events in the North since then with the resignation of Martin McGuinness as deputy First Minister, thus precipitating the collapse of the Assembly at Stormont, could be said to now have made such an article redundant. I believe, however, for the purposes of political and intellectual clarity, that the subject should still be addressed.

I want to begin by saying that I have absolutely no interest whatsoever in a concept of reconciliation. That may sound strange to those who know of my work over the last two decades, which involved taking part in numerous ‘uncomfortable conversations’ with a very broad range of individuals, groups, and organisations.

As a staff member from 1998 to 2007 of Coiste na nIarchimí, the umbrella organisation for former IRA prisoner support groups, I was part of a team of ex-prisoners who conducted an outreach programme with former loyalist prisoners, former republican prisoners not affiliated to the IRA, unionists, the Protestant churches, the Catholic Church, the trade unions, women, youth, and business.

As a member of Healing Through Remembering since 2004, an organisation founded to help deal with the past, I have met and engaged with a very diverse range of people.

In the Aftermath project (www.aftermath-ireland. com) I assisted others to tell their stories of the conflict.

These included former Royal Ulster Constabulary officers, former British Army personnel, victims of IRA attacks, a family representing ‘The Families of the Disappeared’, as well as republican former prisoners and activists.

My most recent play produced by Kabosh Theatre, Green and Blue, is based on interviews with former gardaí and former RUC officers and is told from their perspective.

Yes, I’ve engaged in the ‘uncomfortable conversations’, enjoyed them, and learned a lot from them. I’ve also built many friendships out of such engagements.

My motivation for engaging in such discussions and artistic works has never been for the purposes of reconciliation (whatever that word means) but because it is my lived (Irish republican) politic.

I firmly believe in ‘An Ireland of Equals’ and those ‘equals’ include those who were once our enemies and/or those who have once injured us, or we them. As Irish republicans it is essential we engage with them, as we have been kept separate from them for so long either due to the conflict or to partition.

If someone decides not to meet me, shake hands with me, have a cup of coffee with me, or whatever because of my background, then so be it. I will continue to live my life according to my politic, principles, and value system and will not alter my way of being in the world in response to the behaviour and/or attitude of others towards me.

5 Do I have to become reconciled with the prison guard who casually brutalised us on a daily basis over the years of the Blanket Protest?

I want to begin by saying that I have absolutely no interest whatsoever in the concept of reconciliation

I neither seek reconciliation nor do I offer it. If, however, as a result of engaging in ‘uncomfortable conversations’ there develops a greater understanding, awareness, friendliness, and mutual respect, then that is great. It is all we need ask for.

If someone wants to call that reconciliation, that is their term. I call it a lived politic – good manners, respect, civility.

The suggestion that only in a united Ireland will there be full or true reconciliation is, for me, a totally erroneous statement not founded on anything other than wishful thinking. If there was a united Ireland tomorrow there would be those who would have major difficulties with it, be it from a socio-economic, political, historical or cultural perspective.

Are we to believe that in a united Ireland former enemies will suddenly embrace one another as the ‘fog of false consciousness’ is lifted? Of course not. I do understand the sentiment behind it though: that only in a united, independent Ireland can we demonstrate that everyone can be treated as equal. And that should

If someone wants to call that reconciliation, that is their term. I call it a lived politic – good manners, respect, civility be our goal – not some idea of reconciliation. It should be the creation of a society that treats everyone with justice, equality, and respect. Liberty, equality, fraternity.

And why should people be reconciled? Or why do we think that a good thing?

Should the person abused, either in a domestic or institutional setting, become reconciled with their abuser? Would we ever ask or demand that?

Do I have to become reconciled with the prison guard who casually brutalised us on a daily basis over the years of the Blanket Protest? No. But I do have to work for a society that treats him and his children as

February / Feabhra 2017

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19

To call the cessation was one of the most courageous decisions the IRA Army Council ever made. It reflected a confidence in themselves and in our people 5 Laurence McKeown on Robben Island during a recent tour in South Africa of his play, 'Those You Pass on the Street'

equal in every respect and in exactly the same manner as I wish to be treated and my children to be treated.

As Bobby Sands wrote: “Let our revenge be the laughter of our children.”

And what of intra-community reconciliation (if we are to use the ‘reconciliation’ term) rather than inter-community or cross-community?

What of those living within republican communities today who have had family and loved ones killed by republicans during the struggle? Or had their houses taken over, or cars and tractors regularly taken for IRA operations? I don’t see any indication whatsoever of attempts to become ‘reconciled’ with them or to ‘explain’ our actions during that period. And yet that would be a process that would probably lead to much better results. It certainly would not be disempowering in the way that attempting to get unionists to reciprocate to republican gestures is.

Following the announcement of the IRA cessation in 1994 there was a period of much confusion amongst republicans. ‘What now? What deal was made? Surely we could not end 25 years of intensive struggle on a

5 Martin McGuinness and DUP leader Paisley Snr together led the powersharing Executive

They found Martin McGuinness to be a leader who didn’t ever run away from the difficult conversations and the even more difficult decisions that had to be made

whim and a prayer? There must be some quid pro quo?’

It took some time to realise there wasn’t. And therein lay its strength. We, the republican community, were beholden to no one. We would act as we seen fit and as and when we decided to do so. Others could respond as they wished. That was their prerogative.

To call the cessation was one of the most courageous decisions the IRA Army Council ever made. It reflected a confidence in themselves and in our people.

More importantly, it unleashed an incredible period of debate and discussion.

It showed that things could change, that things had changed and would never be the same again. Even when the cessation collapsed two years later, everyone knew it would be reinstated at some point. A change in perspective had occurred. It was never again going to be the ‘same old, same old’ ever again.

A similar shift in mood took place within the nationalist/republican community in the North when Martin McGuinness announced that he was resigning his position as deputy First Minister.

Unfortunately, some in the DUP had mistaken good manners and civility as weakness and thought they could adopt the behaviour of their forefathers (and they were fathers/male) during the ‘glory days’ (sic) of the Stormont regime 1921-1972.

There was a palpable sense of ‘never again’ as Martin – referring to the manner in which unionists had (mis) treated elected Sinn Féin members of the Assembly – said, “There will be no return to the status quo.”

But things have also now shifted at a societal level, and not in a way that anyone could have predicted.

Martin’s announcement that he would not be a candidate in the forthcoming elections and was now focusing on recovering his health led to an outpouring of genuine sympathy and best wishes from the Protestant community which surprised many – I would imagine not least within the leadership of the DUP. It is much too soon to say how that will effect, if at all, the results of the upcoming Assembly election and the future of the institutions but it is an indication of how much people have valued his contribution to the Peace Process, how much they admire the manner in

Martin McGuinness put into practice the true Irish republican politic – respecting others in ‘An Island of Equals’ if still a partitioned island which he conducted himself in office, and the degree to which they found him personable, honest, civil, and courteous – the way they found him to be a leader who didn’t ever run away from the difficult conversations and the even more difficult decisions that had to be made.

Martin put into practice the true Irish republican politic – respecting others in ‘An Island of Equals’ if still a partitioned island. The result of living that personal politic endeared him to so many. If some wish to call that reconciliation, fine. I call it living a republican politic.

We shouldn’t ask for a quid pro quo in terms of how we live our lives, the decisions we make, how we treat others, and the policies we follow. Neither do we ask permission. If we follow our politic the rest will follow (call it reconciliation, if you will) as it will follow Martin to the end of his days. Leader, statesman, diplomat, peacemaker.

Laurence McKeown is a former political prisoner (1976-1992). During that time he took part in the protests for the return of political status and spent 70 days on hunger strike in 1981 in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh. Upon his release Laurence completed a doctoral study at Queen’s University and is now an author, filmmaker and playwright.

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

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

20 February / Feabhra 2017

T he

www.anphoblacht.com

150th ANNIVERSARY

Fenian Rising

BY MÍCHEÁL Mac DONNCHA

Remembering the Past

ON 5 MARCH 1867, the ill-fated Rising by the Irish Republican Brotherhood, popularly known as the Fenians, consisted of sporadic and short-lived confrontations with British forces in a few locations across Ireland.

But this was by no means the end of the IRB and the continuing influence of Fenianism was profound.

It was a force that had the potential to subvert British rule in Ireland with very serious wider implications for the British Empire, both before and long after 1867.

The Irish Republican Brotherhood – also known as the Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood – was founded in Dublin on St Patrick’s Day 1858. Its leader was James Stephens, a veteran of the Young Ireland Rising of 1848. Another ’48 veteran, John O’Mahony, simultaneously established the Fenian Brotherhood of America, naming it after the Fianna, the legendary heroic figures of ancient Ireland. “Fenians” became the popular name for the movement on both sides of the Atlantic.

The fire of Fenianism soon blazed high, finding a ready response in a

The IRB had the potential to subvert British rule in Ireland with very serious wider implications for the British Empire nation devastated by the Great Hunger of 1845-1849 during which at least a million people died of starvation and disease and a million emigrated.

The flow of people out of Ireland was unceasing throughout the 1850s and 1860s, and from 1858 the popular political movement among those who remained and those who emigrated,

5 Fenian leaders John Devoy and Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa

especially the young, was Fenianism.

Ireland was still in the grip of British rule and landlordism, the twin evils that had caused the Great Hunger, and thousands of people were soon pledged and organised to break that grip.

In Ireland, Stephens was very successful in building up the organisation based in secret ‘circles’ spread throughout the country. His confidence

and apparent daring won many recruits and the movement spread quickly, especially in the cities and towns among tradesmen and the labouring class. In the United States, the movement grew among the ever-expanding Irish communities, with a steady flow of recruits and money.

The trans-Atlantic strength of the movement was shown in 1861 when the body of the patriot Terence Bellew

IT WAS A BITTERLY COLD NIGHT of blizzards and snow. In south County Dublin, large bands of men gathered for the long-postponed armed insurrection against British rule in Ireland.

But promised arms from America had not arrived.

Poorly armed or unarmed, the men went through a night of bitter disappointment, confusion, tragedy from the and finally dispersal for most, imprisonment for many and death for a few. e Republic based on universal suffrag government, we aim at founding a OF OUTRAGE, enforced poverty, Similar scenes on a minor labour. their of value WE HAVE SUFFERED CENTURIES ic intrins the all to secure es have been trampled on by an alien which shall scale occurred in Cork, Limerpossession of an oligarchy, belongs to and bitter misery. Our rights and liberti our The soil of Ireland, at present in the usurped our lands and drew away from ed. restor be aristocracy who, treating us as foes, must ick, Tipperary, Waterford and it us to us, the Irish people, and . of conscience and complete unfortunate country all material riches e, also, in favour of absolute liberty Louth in that month of March and declar We cattle for room make to ed The real owners of the soil were remov church and state.

1867. The month before, in of living and the political rights denied separation of evidence of the justness of our cause. driven across the ocean to seek the means We appeal to the highest tribunal for action were condemned to loss of and t in the County Kerry, unaware that though of men our while home ity of our sufferings and we declare, to them at integr the to ony testim ce. bears y existen al Histor our memory and hope of a nation the Rising, originally fixed for war against the people of England – no life and liberty. But we never lost the intend we that en, s. brethr our power of face sense of justice of the dominant er English or Irish, who have eaten wheth , We appealed in vain to the reason and locusts February, had been postponed, ratic aristoc the t to s war is agains our with sneers and contempt. Our appeal aristocratic leeches who drain alike Our mildest remonstrances were met Fenians marched from Cahirthe verdure of our fields – against the arms were always unsuccessful. civeen towards Killarney ative left, we again appeal to force fields and theirs. is your cause. Our enemy is your Today, having no honourable altern ng it Republicans of the entire world, our cause conditions of appeal, manfully deemi before dispersing. it is not only as our last resource. We accept the us. As for you, workmen of England, with be hearts utter of your nce Let . existe enemy an ue m than to contin ation To many an outside observer better to die in the struggle for freedo Remember the starvation and degrad your hearts we wish but your arms. look serfdom. sion of labour. Remember the past, it must have seemed that the oppres the by es one firesid t your protec to t to brough and, in associating All men are born with equal rights giving liberty to your children in the by lves yourse avenge and , Irish rebels had lived up to the should future well to the demands that such associations another and share public burdens, justice coming struggle for human liberty.

British propaganda image of ty instead of destroying it. lic. rest upon a basis which maintains equali of monarchical Herewith we proclaim the Irish Repub curse the endure to longer them as ineffective, divided and unable We therefore declare that, infiltrated by informers. While NMENT IONAL GOVER THE PROVIS there was a grain of truth in some which had been established ional Government of the Irish Republic Provis the by 1867 March in issued were: rs This Proclamation was membe of this, the propaganda image was The year. that ry on 10 Februa by the Irish Republican Brotherhood designed to hide the sheer scale, Colonel Thomas J. Kelly Dominic Mahony (Chairman) depth and extent of Fenianism as a Edward O’Byrne William Harbison (Munster) Edward Duffy (Leinster) (Ulster) political and military phenomenon (Connacht) in Ireland, Britain and North America.

THE FENIAN PROCLAMATION Irish People to the World

McManus was repatriated to Ireland and interred in Glasnevin after a huge and impressive funeral organised by the IRB. The pro-British Catholic Archbishop of Dublin Cardinal Cullen tried to thwart the funeral and led widespread clerical condemnation of Fenianism then and subsequently. Because of this hostility and that of the press, Stephens founded The Irish People newspaper in 1863. It championed Irish republicanism and had a radical social edge.

As one modern historian, Marta Ramón (A Provisional Dictator – James

The Fenian Proclamation also appealed to the ‘workmen of England’, reflecting contact between the fledgling workers’ movement in Britain and the Fenians Stephens and the Fenian Movement, 2007),has commented: “The paper’s campaigns in favour of peasant proprietorship, social egalitarianism, working-class self-reliance, or independence from ecclesiastical influence in political matters, appeared to the movement’s contemporaries as the thin end of the wedge of a whole new social arrangement, and one that middle-class constitutionalist nationalists had every reason to oppose.”

The Fenians exposed the hypocrisy of the Catholic Hierarchy who blessed

February / Feabhra 2017

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5 A dramatic interpretation of 'The Battle of Tallaght'

5 Fenian flags captured after Tallaght (top) and from Stepaside (below)

the British Empire and the Irishmen who joined its army but at the same time condemned those pledged to Irish freedom. A founder member of the IRB, Jeremiah O’Donovan Rossa, summed this up in a ballad: No sin to kill for English greed in some far foreign clime, How can it be that patriot love in Ireland is a crime?

How can it be by God’s decree I’m cursed, outlawed and banned Because I swore one day to free my trampled native land?

The aim of the Fenian movement was to establish an Irish Republic and its method was by force of arms through insurrection in Ireland with the support of officers, arms and money from the United States and with the co-operation of Fenians in England and Scotland.

It also appealed to the “workmen of England”, reflecting contact between the fledgling workers’ movement in Britain and the Fenians.

5 March 1867 was set as the date for the Rising. In England, the Fenians planned a daring raid on Chester Castle, which had a large store of arms but was poorly guarded. The attempt, for which 1,200 north of England Fenians mobilised on 11 February, was betrayed by the informer John Joseph Corydon.

Two days later, the premature outbreak in Kerry took place, with the seizure of the barracks in Cahirciveen, which was the beginning and end of that action.

Despite these disasters, preparations for 5 March went ahead. The main focus was Dublin where Fenians were to mobilise in the city and to the south in Tallaght and the Dublin mountains.

The principal body of Fenians was at Tallaght and they assembled on that night of fierce weather only to be thwarted by confused leadership and totally inadequate arms. Nonetheless, several hundred marched on the barracks where they were fired on by a small force of police. In the confusion, the Fenians thought they were facing a much larger force and retreated. Two Fenians were killed – Stephen Donoghue and Thomas Farrell.

(They are buried in the Fenian Plot in Glasnevin Cemetery).

Elsewhere in south Dublin that night, a smaller but better-armed and organised body of Fenians set out for the mountains from Palmerstown Park.

They fired on Dundrum Barracks and went on to capture Stepaside and Glencullen barracks, seizing arms and taking prisoners. In an account published in America in 1905 (quoted in the 1958 Wolfe Tone Annual) Henry P Filgate, who took part, says that the men marched in regular military formation, some armed with modern rifles, and his officer, Patrick Lennon, ordered police to “surrender to the Irish Republic”.

Isolated mobilisations also took place in Counties Cork, Limerick and Tipperary, and a large number of Fenians assembled in Drogheda. By the night

‘Fenians’ became the popular name for the movement on both sides of the Atlantic As the movement grew, tension and anticipation heightened, not least among the British authorities. Despite later claims that the movement was riddled with informers (though informers there were) it was remarkably watertight given its size and the significant financial inducements offered by the British authorities.

The success of Fenian recruiting among Irishmen in the British Army in Ireland was such that the chief recruiter, John Devoy, later estimated that they had up to 15,000 members in regiments stationed in the country, ready to rise at the IRB’s command. This was in 1865, but the unique opportunity was to pass, never to recur.

Insurrection was promised by James Stephens and aimed for in 1865 but the arrest of most of the Irish leadership and the suppression of the Irish People newspaper in the autumn of that year was a severe blow. Stephens was held in Richmond Prison and was sprung from that jail

by the IRB in November, his escape giving a brief boost to a movement that had been greatly disrupted. In February 1866, John Devoy and other key ‘soldier Fenians’ in the British Army were arrested. James Stephens was heavily criticised for not ‘giving the word’ to rise and his leadership was coming to an end.

In the United States in 1866, the Fenian movement was also experiencing serious internal division.

John O’Mahony struggled to maintain control over the organisation which he compared to a wild horse.

He was determined to focus its energy on sending practical aid, including a military expedition, for the planned rising in Ireland. But the ‘Senate wing’ of the movement, led by millionaire Irish-American WR Roberts, wanted to launch an invasion of British-controlled Canada. An initially successful raid was made across the border but it could not be followed up after the US authorities clamped down.

The Fenian split in the USA was complex but a key factor was that some leaders, such as Roberts, were using the movement to advance their personal ambitions among Irish communities who were beginning to flex their muscles in US politics.

Many Irishmen who had fought in the American Civil War (1861-1865) were Fenians and were eager to fight for Irish freedom. In the winter of 1866/67, significant numbers of them made their way to Ireland. Stephens was by now discredited and in December 1866 he was replaced by Civil War veteran Colonel Thomas Kelly as head of the IRB. A French adventurer and political radical, Cluseret (later a leader in the Paris Commune), was recruited by Kelly as a military commander.

On 10 February 1867, the Provisional Government of the Irish Republic was established with Kelly at its head. It issued a Proclamation, a precursor of 1916, which was socially advanced and internationalist: “Republicans of the entire world!

Our cause is your cause. Our enemy is your enemy.”

n a i n e F

1867g Risin

150th ANNIVERSARY COMMEMORATION

2 pm SUNDAY 5 MARCH 2017 ASSEMBLE

Citywest Shopping Centre MARCH TO

Tallaght Village

21

of 6 March, the much-heralded Rising was over, a mere shadow of what it might have been. But this was far from the end of Fenianism.

Too late, a Fenian arms ship, the Jacknell, renamed Erin’s Hope, sailed from New York, reached Ireland in May and then returned across the Atlantic.

In September in England, Thomas Kelly was arrested and, following his rescue from a prison van in Manchester, three young Irishmen – William Allen, Michael Larkin and Michael O’Brien – were framed and executed in November, gaining immortality in the annals of Irish republicanism as “The Manchester Martyrs”.

Despite the catastrophe of 1867, the Irish Republican Brotherhood remained alive in Ireland and, though divided, Fenianism persisted in the United States.

At Stepaside, a Fenian officer ordered police to ‘surrender to the Irish Republic’ There were Fenian bombing campaigns in the 1870s and 1880s in England, and the threat of force influenced the Irish policy of British governments, as even Prime Minister William Gladstone admitted.

The Fenians played a key role in the Land War of the 1880s. The IRB was revived at the start of the 20th Century by former Fenian prisoner Tom Clarke, in conjunction with John Devoy, head of Clan na Gael in the USA. Devoy and Clarke were the main movers in planning the 1916 Rising and to Clarke went the honour of being first signatory of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic.

James Connolly wrote of Feniansim that “its glory consisted in the fact that against all odds . . . there were proven to be in Ireland thousands of men and women who were prepared to affirm that Ireland was a nation with an independent destiny of its own” and that “we of the working class are proud to remember that those heroes were of our own class”.

22 February / Feabhra 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

EU committee has ‘huge concern’ at Brexit impact on Ireland A EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT report has warned that the British Government’s Brexit agenda will require the Good Friday Agreement to be altered, Ireland North MEP Martina Anderson has said.

Speaking after the publication of a report from the Policy Department for Citizens’ Rights and Constitutional Affairs, the Irish MEP said that the document identifies a number of issues specific to Ireland.

“Central to this is the threat Brexit presents to the Good Friday Agreement and associated institutions,” the Derry-based MEP said.

“This report acknowledges the positive impact European Union funding streams have had in the North and concludes that Brexit will have more than a financial impact on Ireland.”

She quoted the report as saying: “The impact [of Brexit] will be political, in particular since the Good Friday Agreement, an international agreement, will require alteration . . . and economic/technical as the re-establishment of a hard border between the North and the South could provoke a reversal of improvements in cross-Border trade.”

Martina Anderson said that the report’s conclusion “flies in the face” of comments made by the British Government in relation to Ireland and the question of a ‘hard border’.

“The only way to ensure that the devastation that will come with Brexit is avoided is if the

Ireland North MEP Martina Anderson

EU must deliver on income inequality and social justice EU CITIZENS will suffer further and the EU will be “the recruiter in chief” for Euro-sceptics unless the EU shows people a willingness to change, Dublin MEP Lynn Boylan has told the European Parliament.

Speaking in January on the European Pillar of Social Rights (EPSR), she called for the European Union to draft an EPSR that delivers in a way that will combat poverty, income inequality and other serious social injustices.

“If the EPSR is to be successful and deliver

on its stated aims then it has to represent what the citizens of Europe need and want,” the Irish MEP said.

“It is time the EU works to ensure that social policy is not considered a burden to economic growth but rather the two are considered to be symbiotic. I hope that the EPSR will achieve this.”

The EPSR provides a great chance for the EU to move in a new direction, “to prove it has the capability to change in how the EU works post-Brexit”, Lynn Boylan said.

Martina Anderson meets EU’s chief Brexit negotiator and key EU funding officials democratic wish of the people of the North of Ireland is respected and we remain in the EU,” she said.

Martina Anderson has also led a delegation of MEPs to meet the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier.

“He is acutely aware of the unique situation we face in Ireland in relation to Brexit in terms of its impact on the Peace Process, the Good Friday Agreement and on EU funding,” she said later.

“We presented our case that the people of the North voted to remain in the EU and that we need to secure Special Designated Status for the North within the EU.” The Ireland North MEP has also met the European Commissioner for Regional Policy, Corina Cretu, and key officials to discuss EU funding and the possible impact of Brexit.

“As a result of the British Government’s reckless Brexit agenda, the North stands to lose at least £3.5billion in funding across communities,” she said.

‘It is of the utmost importance that the EU does not let European citizens down’ “It is of the utmost importance that the European Union does not let European citizens down and that it seizes the opportunity which the EPSR presents.

“However, if the EU proves incapable of change and it continues in a business as usual manner, then European citizens will suffer further and the EU will be the recruiter in chief for Euro-scepticism.”

NUJ call for media mogul to face Oireachtas committee LYNN BOYLAN MEP has supported the call by the National Union of Journalists for billionaire media mogul Denis O’Brien to appear before the Oireachtas Communications Committee in relation to Independent News & Media’s proposed acquisition of the Celtic Media Group.

INM already controls five national titles and 13 regional papers. A takeover of the Celtic Media Group would increase INM’s influence to 20 major local newspapers.

GUE/NGL published a report on media ownership in Ireland

REPORT ON THE CONCENTRATION OF MEDIA OWNERSHIP IN IRELAND

AN INDEPENDENT STUDY COMMISSIONED BY LYNN BOYLAN MEP ON BEHALF OF THE EUROPEAN UNITED LEFT/NORDIC GREEN LEFT (GUE/NGL) GROUP OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

Submitted by: Caoilfhionn Gallagher Jonathan Price Doughty Street Chambers 53-54 Doughty Street London WC1N 2LS

Gavin Booth Darragh Mackin KRW Law LLP 3 rd Floor 9-15 Queen Street Belfast BT1 6EA

Tel: +44 207 404 1313 c.gallagher@doughtystreet.co.uk

Tel: +44 28 9024 1888 gavin@kevinrwinters.com

Last October, Lynn Boylan published a report on media ownership on behalf of the GUE/NGL group that describes Ireland as having “one of the most concentrated media markets of any democracy”, with the two main controlling entities being RTÉ as state broadcaster and “individual businessman Denis O’Brien”.

She echoed the NUJ’s call at the European Centre for Press and Media Freedom’s ‘Newsocracy’ conference in Dublin on 31 January.

Dublin MEP Lynn Boylan

February / Feabhra 2017

www.anphoblacht.com

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

GUE/NGL MEPs grill PwC official in Panama Papers hearing THE European Parliament’s Committee of Inquiry into Money Laundering, Tax Avoidance and Tax Evasion (PANA) has discussed the role of intermediaries as revealed in the Panama Papers scandal.

The hearing heard testimonies in late January from academics and European Banking Federation officials as well as from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

MEP Matt Carthy challenged the PwC representative on behalf of GUE/NGL about the role of the ‘Big Four’ auditing firms – PwC, Ernst & Young, Deloitte and KPMG – in advising EU governments on tax issues and the potential conflict of interest issue that this raises.

“In Ireland, PwC’s managing partner has been involved in advising Google, Apple, Facebook and others on how to use the country as the centrepiece of their global tax avoidance strategies, including by setting up the corporate loophole; the ‘Double Irish’,” the Ireland North West MEP said.

MEP Matt Carthy challenged PwC on behalf of GUE/NGL about the role of the ‘Big Four’ auditing firms “But this same leader of PwC is also the Chair of the American Chamber of Commerce’s tax group in Ireland. In this role, PwC successfully ensured the withholding tax that required the ‘Dutch Sandwich’ to be used in conjunction with the Double Irish was scrapped,” Matt Carthy added.

“Of course, there is also the role played by PwC in the LuxLeaks scandal. So, in at least two member states of the EU, we can see that PwC has played a major role not only in facilitating massive tax avoidance by multinationals

but also in directly designing the whole system, even at the government level.

“How can the Big Four justify the conflict of interest between advising multinationals on how to avoid paying tax whilst at the very same time, playing a major role in designing states’ tax laws?”

Addressing the panel on the issue of tax havens, globalisation and the role of wealth managers, GUE/NGL MEP Miguel Viegas was adamant that “the capacity of tax administrations in EU member states must be reinforced so that they can prosecute illicit activities more effectively”.

Cypriot MEP Takis Hadjigeorgiou also intervened and queried: “How can anyone establish and register a company without your name appearing anywhere? What other reasons can there be to justify this if it isn’t to do with tax avoidance?

Unless there are other reasons, why don’t we know?”

Ireland North West MEP Matt Carthy

New President of European Parliament meets Liadh Ní Riada on Brexit THE NEW President of the European Parliament, Antonio Tajani, met Ireland South MEP Liadh Ní Riada within days of his election to hear Irish concerns about Brexit, the planned British withdrawal from the European Union, and its potential impacts on the whole of Ireland.

The Ireland South MEP had called for the meeting to discuss a number of issues including Brexit, the effect it will have on the Irish economy and the need to protect the democratically-expressed will of people in the North.

Their meeting concentrated on Brexit “and I informed Mr Tajani of the disastrous effect it will have on the Irish economy, North and South”, Liadh said.

“British Prime Minister Theresa May has absolutely no regard for people in the North of Ireland and the particularly disastrous effect a ‘hard Brexit’ will have on them. She is happy to claim that joint authority in the North would be regarded as a constitutional change and would require the consent of the people but at the same time she is taking the North out of the EU against the expressed will of the people there.

“Theresa May seems content to not only sacrifice the economy in the North at the Brexit altar

‘Mr Tajani agreed to call a meeting of all of the Irish MEPS to discuss our red line issues’ but also to allow the Good Friday Agreement to be collateral damage in this disastrous scheme.”

She said she reminded Mr Tajani of the integral role that the EU plays in the Good Friday Agreement and urged him to use any influence he has in conferring a Special Designated Status on the Six Counties.

“I asked him in his dealings with the Irish Government to argue for that position and to remind Taoiseach Enda Kenny of the Irish Government’s special position as co-guarantors of the Good Friday Agreement, and to encourage them to adopt this position.

“I am glad to say that Mr Tajani took on board all my concerns and has agreed to call a meeting of all of the Irish MEPS to discuss our red line issues on these matters.”

Israel and international law debate refused at UCC

Ireland South MEP Liadh Ní Riada with the new President of the European Parliament, Antonio Tajani

CORK-BASED Ireland South MEP Liadh Ní Riada said she is concerned at University College Cork preventing an academic conference on Israel and international law from taking place on campus.

The conference, ‘International Law and the State of Israel: Legitimacy, Responsibility and Exceptionalism’, was due to take place at UCC from 31 March to 2 April and would have featured speakers from all sides of the debate.

The Ireland South MEP said that this event was

previously banned from a university campus in England after a high-profile campaign from pro-Israel lobbyists. More than a dozen Irish academics have published an open letter expressing their concerns that the Israeli Embassy was trying to prevent UCC from hosting the event.

Liadh Ní Riada hoped that UCC would reconsider their position “and retain their long-standing reputation for courageously examining complex subjects free from outside interference”.

24 February / Feabhra 2017

www.anphoblacht.com

Societyor the market THAT’S THE CHOICE

BY EOIN Ó MURCHÚ AS WE REEL from one apparently insoluble crisis to another, it is clear that our society and its political system are completely dysfunctional and unable to meet the needs of the Irish people.

The health crisis gets worse and worse, public transport faces collapse, there is no end to the housing crises, wages remain below pre-crisis levels, and the shadow of austerity still blights us all as we continue to pay millions to the EU to pay for promissory notes which guaranteed German banks that they wouldn’t go to the wall for their reckless lending.

But this is not a matter of incompetence (though incompetence does abound at the highest levels). It is a matter of class interest.

To tackle the problems we face, we need the subordination of the nation’s wealth to the common good – an old republican principle. Instead, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil (acting together to form government policy even though they

To tackle the problems we face, we need the subordination of the nation’s wealth to the common good try to deny it) see their role as nothing more than at best creating the conditions in which ‘the market’ can provide the answers.

That means, of course, that profit-makers can make even more profits out of people’s needs and that the wealthy (who are the primary backers of both Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil) can get even wealthier.

In health, for example, under-investment remains central even as the Government backs down on its plans to break consultants’ contracts re pay.

We still have fewer beds today than we did in 2009, even though our population has increased and has on average gone up in age.

Having refused to provide jobs for trainee nurses as they qualified in the years 2009 to 2014, we are now desperately trying to entice them back

5 Public service cuts are driven by rules of 'the market', not needs of the people

5 Public transport is a social service, without which rural Ireland cannot function

– in competition with higher wages and better conditions abroad, and with immovable obstacles in housing.

Housing is the most obvious crisis as the Government resolutely refuses to provide the funds for the state and local authorities to build the houses we need– as was done in the 1940s, 1970s and 1980s.

Of course, providing such finance would run contrary to the Fiscal Compact rules of the European Union, and we can’t upset them, can we?

Even worse, while forcing people into the private profit-making rental sector, the Government still refuses to provide legal guarantees of secure tenure and fair rents. The pathetic nods in the direction of rent controls only play at the edge of the crisis while tenants remain at the mercy of a professional landlord class that has never shown anyone mercy.

The accidental landlord, the person who bought a house but can no longer meet the repayments and is saddled with negative equity, is crushed by a taxation system that

ignores the debt reality of individuals as the vulture funds enjoy tax-free killings.

Transport is another example, with the Government insisting that Bus Éireann, Bus Átha Cliath and Iarnród

Éireann are commercial enterprises which should be left to their own devices.

They are not.

Public transport is a social and economic service, without which rural Ireland cannot function. The costs must be met by the state in any rational, civilised country.

And those who work in public transport are as entitled to a proper wage and working conditions as anyone else, as entitled indeed as the ubiquitous Transport Minister Shane Ross.

The point is that in order to safeguard the profits of the rich, and to give them more and more opportunities for

5 Colm McCarthy, Chair of the Government's infamous 'Bord Snip'

profit-making at the public’s expense, it is ‘the market’ that rules, not the needs of society.

As we look back at the boom and subsequent crisis we can see how this operated. Remember the infamous ‘Bord Snip’ and ‘Bord Snip Nua’?

Economist Colm McCarthy was charged with cutting public expenditure at any cost. And the cost was huge. Why? Because instead of starting from the basis of what services (in

Remember the infamous ‘Bord Snip’ and ‘Bord Snip Nua’? public administration, health, education transport and employment creation) we needed and then finding the money from the rich to pay for these services, the focus was to cut services and wages so that the rich would escape the burden of sharing their wealth with the rest of us.

Within this mindset there is no solution to any of the problems we confront; and within this mindset there is no alternative either.

What is needed is to reject the rule of ‘the market’, to reject the subordination of public policy to the enrichment of the greedy, and to bring society’s needs for an interventionist, job-creating state to the forefront – even if that brings us into direct conflict with the rules of the European Union.

February / Feabhra 2017

www.anphoblacht.com

25

BARRY McELDUFF

Talking Irish with the DUP I SPOTTED a DUP adviser in a store off the M1 near Lisburn in the middle of December, I was returning home from a long day at Stormont and was feeling hungry myself. So I went in for a bite and I joined the DUP adviser at his table as if he was a cousin of mine and we chatted for a short while.

We eventually got around to the subject of the DUP’s attitude towards the Irish language.

I told him that his party’s attitude was, at best, irrational. It would need to change. It wasn’t acceptable.

Gerry Adams and other Irish speakers have come to describe the DUP reaction against the Irish language in even more direct, stark terms.

I mean, why would anyone hate a language, especially the Irish language, which belongs to

5 Acht na Gaeilge protest organised by An Dream Dearg lobby group at the Belfast City Centre HQ of the DUP

“Maybe we do need to have a conversation about the Irish language.”

We sure do. After the election, in early March, I’d say, would be time enough for a proper conversation.

Sinn Féin has worked consistently to achieve Irish-language rights in the North.

Sinn Féin has achieved much on cultural and language rights through our support for Irish-medium education, in district councils and in high-level political negotiations over recent years.

Gerry Adams has not been alone within Sinn

Féin in leading this work but, as party leader, he has been consistent and to the fore.

Commitments to the Irish language were secured by Sinn Féin in the Good Friday Agreement itself as well as the subsequent commitment to an Irish Language Act by the British Government in the St Andrews Agreement.

I took up the roles of Sinn Féin Chairperson of the Assembly Education Committee and of Irish Language spokesperson within the Assembly in May of last year.

The new Assembly was being established and it was expected to run from 2016 to 2021.

I assured the DUP diner that the Irish language was a rich feature of our common heritage

We eventually got around to the subject of the DUP’s attitude towards the Irish language us all and which is all around us?

I assured the DUP diner that the Irish language is a rich feature of our common heritage.

Tá An Ghaeilge in ‘achan áit. In our everyday speech. In our place names. Literally, everywhere.

I studied Irish at school and at university.

Parts of Mid Tyrone were considered Gaeltacht areas until the 1950s.

In 2017, there are thriving Gaeltacht communities in south Derry and west Belfast.

More and more páistí are being taught in Gaelscoileanna throughout the country.

We wrapped up our conversation and the DUP adviser conceded:

The DUP’s mishandling of the RHI scheme, however, and their disrespect and contempt for the Irish-language community, Irish identity and whole sections of our community brought about Martin McGuinness’s decision to step down as deputy First Minister to let the people have their say.

In their time as Education Ministers, Martin McGuinness, Caitríona Ruane and John O’Dowd (as well as former Culture Minister Carál Ní Chuilín) did Trojan work to promote the Irish language within communities in the North and within Education.

Carál created the Líofa scheme which included bursaries for young people to go to the Gaeltacht

5 Martin McGuinness, Caitríona Ruane, John O’Dowd and Carál Ní Chuilín have done Trojan work to promote the Irish language

and John certainly took resolute action to promote Irish-medium education.

We know only too well that DUP Ministers Paul Givan and Peter Weir have attempted to undo this good work.

There were protests in the streets as people who care about the language expressed that they were “Dearg le fearg”.

Respect for the Irish language is sure to feature in future talks.

The British Government and the DUP need to understand that one of our basic demands will be for the implementation of the Irish Language Act as agreed at St Andrews.

26 February / Feabhra 2017

www.anphoblacht.com

A Tale of2 Markets

5 Carlow's food market has earned plaudits for its produce from around the region

ROBERT ALLEN IN Marcel Pagnol’s Water of the Hills, Parisian taxman Jean de Florette inherits a farm and decides to seek the “authentic” with his wife and young daughter. He grows pumpkins to raise rabbits for the town market. His neighbour, Ugolin, harbours a dark secret and a desire to cultivate carnations for the same market.

Retold by Claude Berri in film, the story is at first a paean to the romance of country life, until reality sets in and the greed and stupidity of people is revealed in a tragic ending that is sad beyond belief.

Something similar is now happening in reality, in France (not too far from Pagnol’s imagined Provence), in Ireland and in many countries where the desire to seek the “authentic” has become overwhelming.

One hundred years have passed since the fictional Jean and Ugolin were united in sorrow by their naiveté, and in that time local food markets have had to survive the impact of global forces. Some countries (such as Italy, Switzerland and Turkey) have clung hard to the integrity of their food market traditions, while others (such

as France and Ireland) have had to reinvent the wheels of the cart that brings the food to market.

Two markets born out of a will to create “a space of conviviality around local food products”. Both in EU countries, yet two markets with different realities and unchartered futures.

For more than a decade, Carlow’s food market has presented a strong image to town and country, at its height attracting a turnover of half a million euro. Founded in August 2004 as the direct result of a local enterprise scheme to energise the community, John Hayden, the local rural resource worker put in charge of the project, had posed the question: “Would you be interested in a food-only/producer-only market, with handicrafts once a month?”

Consumers and producers alike said they would.

It was agreed there should be two stallholders each of bread, fish, meat and vegetables (for variety and competition) because these foods were seen to be essential to the success of a food market. There were 16 stallholders.

It got off to a good start. The town council adopted a hands-off approach. The original stallholders became Carlow Farmers’ Community Market, took out collective and individual insurance to indemnify the town council against claims (there have been none).

They registered as a group with the Revenue Commissioners and acquired licences from the Health Service Executive to trade in the space provided by the council in the centre of the town.

In turn, the council passed a by-law to allow the group to trade on a Saturday between 9am and 2pm. Local businesses supported the market.

Founded four years later, the food market at Grabels, in the Languedoc region of the south of France, was an initiative from the local authority with the aim of “strengthening social ties and making fresh and affordable food available”.

The mayor delegated a team to investigate how this should be done. Jean-Pierre Divet, who looks after agriculture in Grabels, remembers an ulterior motive. “The idea was to bring Grabels back to life on Saturday morning,” as well as “support local small-scale agriculture over everything else as a way of being sure of having safe, fresh food”.

Agronomist Yuna Chiffoleau realised this was going to be easier said than done.

5 Organic meats fresh and direct to the shopper

5 Yuna Chiffoleau at Grabels market in the south of France

“They became aware that there were almost no farmers left around Grabels, and no smallscale farmers in particular, and learned that local artisans procured most of their raw materials from wholesale markets.”

Eventually, the new market launched with 20 stallholders, selling cheese, fruit, olive oil and vegetables. There were five artisans and five retailers but some had travelled a long way to sell their produce.

There were problems ahead.

Both markets received plaudits during their start-up years. Carlow certainly did better than Grabels, largely because there was transparency to the Irish operation. The produce was local, no

Grabels market, in the south of France, initiated a colour scheme – green indicated own produce, orange for produce sold by intermediaries

more than 60 kilometres away, and two-thirds was produced by the stallholders themselves.

To solve their problem, Grabels initiated a colour scheme – green indicated own produce, orange for produce sold by intermediaries. Stallholders displaying the orange label had to guarantee that they knew the produce and could vouch for it.

In 2016, the people of Grabels celebrated the leitmotiv of International Market Day on 29 May — “I love my market.” Their market was a success.

Nadja Saralam, an Australian who works at the cheese stall, said much the same about Carlow.

“It is a growers/producers-only market. So everything is grown and produced locally, and you can talk to the vendors about their growing methods and environmental values, and be comfortable in what you’re buying. You’re dealing with the people who really do produce what they sell, and know the food terrain.

“I love grabbing a bunch of carrots and knowing they were pulled from the ground only a few hours previously. You certainly can’t beat the quality of the food you buy there, and prices compare to supermarkets. I no longer bother to shop anywhere else.”

Saralam was full of praise for the local producers.

“I believe one of the best things you can do

February / Feabhra 2017

www.anphoblacht.com

27

5 Blessed are the cheese-makers

5 Malone Fruit Farm offers a range of individual or gift-packed local produce

5 'Say cheese'

for the planet is to buy locally from responsible producers, and primarily eat seasonal, non-imported foods. Despite Ireland having lost its cheese culture, there is still a really good selection of Irish cheeses on the market.

“The stall at the Carlow market is run by a cheese-maker who farms and produces cheese just four kilometres from my house – you can’t get better than that!”

With 27 stallholders who sell bread, champagne, cheese, chickens, condiments, eggs, fish, fruit, honey, jams, mushrooms, pastries, plants, snails and wine, Grabels food market is now firmly established. It is branded by the national Ici.C.Local trademark (here it’s Local) – farm produce or

‘You certainly can’t beat the quality at Carlow Farmers’ Community Market, and prices compare to supermarkets. I no longer bother to shop anywhere else’ local/regional produce – and supported by local, regional and national government.

Carlow Council, with support from the state, desperately needs to follow the example of Grabels and grow its food market. The “no support, no interference” strategy from the local council is damaging the market because Carlow now faces the same problem Grabels started with – a lack of local producers.

There is a strong feeling in Carlow and in the country in general that the attitude of the state towards small-scale producers who are not interested in the export market must be challenged, for the sake of local, seasonal food production.

The Carlow market has an ageing population and hardly any young blood coming through.

5 Spelt bread and pastries fresh as the morning

decides to move his business indoors there is a possibility he will not bring his truck to town for the open market.

Raw-milk cheese-maker Elizabeth Bradley has been under investigation by the authorities and is determined not to be forced out of business or out of the market, where she sells cheeses from Ireland, France and other countries.

Other threats to the market include the town council’s plans for the space the stalls presently occupy, the lack of a manager to deal with bureaucratic problems (like the Ryans had), logistical issues (including new stallholders) and marketing issues (for instance, the website and general awareness).

Both markets are about the group and the

Both markets – Carlow and Grabel – are about the group and the quality of produce, and this makes them unique

at and Jimmy Mulhall, who sells organic me food meat products, has been researching their models markets, travelling to France to see in Dublin and looking at the closed markets There is a shortage of bread and pastry-makers, vegetable growers and artisanal producers.

And the group is shrinking. There are now only ten stallholders.

Vegetable growers Charles and James Ryan had their growers’ licence withdrawn by the Department of Agriculture over an auditing issue with new guidelines by the Food Safety Authority of Ireland that got blown out of proportion when arbitration would have resolved the problem.

The fact that they have been closed down

and ordered off the market for an issue that has nothing to do with food safety has angered market-goers. A petition in support of the Ryans was signed by over a hundred people on one morning in January.

Now there is a fear that more stallholders will be lost to the food market.

Jimmy Mulhall, who sells organic meat and meat products, has been researching food markets, travelling to France to see their models and looking at the closed markets in Dublin. If he

quality of produce, and this makes them unique.

Agronomist Yuna Chiffoleau understands this better than anyone. She was there at the beginning in Grabels and is there now to see the results of their careful planning.

“From 2005 I became interested in assessing how direct sales and short distribution channels can help protect agriculture from economic and social duress. I am very serious about helping the agronomists of tomorrow understand how much their decisions will have consequences in society,” she says without a hint of irony.

Down the road in fictional Provence there were consequences when Ugolin’s uncle persuaded him to plug Jean de Florette’s spring, and thus deprive him of the precious water he needed to survive, consequences that are now mirrored in modern Ireland.

In Grabels, the plug was never put in so there was no need to pull it out. In Carlow, the plug is so embedded no one knows it is there.

28 February / Feabhra 2017

www.anphoblacht.com

5 Slua mór ag freastal ar an chaint i seomra páirtí Shinn Féin agus ag léirsiú ar son na Gaeilge ag geataí Theach Laighean

Eamonn Ó Nualláin, Dessie Ellis TD agus Gearóid Mac Ádhaimh ag plé labhairt na Gaeilge sa príosúin

“An Gaoltacht”

LABHAIR iar-phroisiúnaigh a bhí páirteach sa “Gaoltacht” – an leasainm a thugtar ar an phobal lán-Ghaeilge a d’eascair sna príosúin i rith thréimhse na coimhlinte – mar gheall ar an seal a chaitheadar ann.

Bhí an lucht féachana a bhailigh i Seomra Pháirtí Shinn Féin ‘gafa’ ag an méid a bhí le rá acu i rith na hócáide a bhí eagraithe ag Sinn Féin Ghaeilge.

Cathaoirleach Shinn Féin Bhaile Átha Cliath Éamonn Ó Nualláin, an Teachta Dessie Ellis agus Uachtarán Shinn Féin, an Teachta Gearóid Mac Ádhaimh a bhí mar aoichainteoirí a chuir an slua ann faoi dhraíocht. Bhí an Seanadóir Niall Ó Donnghaile mar fhear an tí an oíche úd.

Ba ghluaiseacht shuntasach í an Gaoltacht a bhunaigh Gaeltacht i measc phríosúnaí poblachtacha fad is iad faoi ghlas. Ón gCampa Géibhinn Frongach a d’eascair sé agus thosaigh glúnta de phoblachtaigh ag teagasc agus ag spreagadh a chéile le hathbheochan na Gaeilge a chruthú fhad is a bhíodar sa phríosún. Bhí an oiread sin cáil ar an Gaoltacht, go ndearnadh léiriú air sa scannán Hollwood ‘Blown Away’ a thaispeánann na príosúnaigh, Tommy Lee Jones ina measc, ag labhairt na Gaeilge ag tús an scéil.

Le dúshlán a thabhairt in aghaidh cos ar bolg le lámh láidir a d’fhoghlaim na cimí an teanga.

Ba dhearbhú a féiniúlachta agus oidhreachta é. Spreagadh daoine chun an Ghaeilge a úsáid, mar theanga bheo, agus nuair a scaoileadh saor na príosúnaigh scaipeadar an grá don teanga le spiorad is le fuinneamh go dtí na ceantair sin inar oibrigh siad agus inar chuireadar fúthu.

agam ón scoil. Bhí an-chuid daoine ag foghlaim na Gaeilge. Bhí ranganna de ghach saghas sa phríosún - Fraincis agus Spáinnis freisin. Tháinig múinteoirí isteach ón dtaobh amuigh chun ranganna a mhúineadh. Urlár uimhir a ceathair is ea an áit ar labhraíodh Gaeilge.

Thóg an Teachta Ellis sean-chóip den iris ‘An Trodaí’ a d’eagraigh na príosúnaigh chun na cainte leis. Bhí iris ar fáil i nGaeilge ann freisin.

“Bhí an t-atmaisféar go dona babhtaí bhí oifigigh ann ag iarradh na príosúnaigh a bhriseadh. Bhídís ag teacht isteach gach am den lá ag déanamh cuardach agus ag cur isteach ar na príosúnaigh.”

Ach níor laghdaíodh spiorad na bpríosúnaithe.

“Bhíodh seisiún de gach saghas sna cillí bhíodh scéalta, amhránaíocht agus ceachtanna go rialta ann sa ‘rec’ - (seomra sosa). Bhí uair don Ghaeilge gach lá agus bhí an-chraic ann.

Bhí gach duine ag déanamh a seacht ndícheall teacht le chéile.”

Chuir Dessie focail agus nathanna cainte suas ar na ballaí.

5 Cuid den slua a bhí ann faoi scáth an mhúrphictiúir nua de Theachta Dála agus stailceoir ocrais Kieran Doherty

tabhairt amach nó ag labhairt faoin dteanga féin. Bhaineamar taitneamh as an teanga a fhoghlaim agus a úsáid.”

Gearóid Mac Ádhaimh

Eamonn O Nualláin

Dessie Ellis Bhí Gearóid Mac Ádhaimh i gCampa Géibhinn na Ceise Fada idir 1972-1976 agus chaith sé seal sna H Blocanna sa bhliain 1978.

Bhí Éamonn Ó Nualláin i bPriosún Phort Laoise ón bliain 1982-1995.

Bhí Dessie i bpriosún i bPort Laoise ón mbliain 1983 -1989.

“Nuair a tháinig mé go dtí an príosún ar dtús bhí náire orm toisc nach raibh mórán Gaeilge

‘Bhunaigh Jim Monaghan an Gaoltacht i 1982 i bPort Laoise. Cé go raibh Gaeilge ann sna cillíní bheifeá ag meascadh le cimí gan Ghaeilge freisin - sa chlós mar shampla.

Sna H-Blocanna ní rabhadar ag meascadh leis na príosúnaigh eile - Gaeilge a bhí ann fiche uair sa lá.

“Rinneamar Gaeilge a úsáid sa ghnáthshaol.

Rinneamar drámaíocht, díospóireachtaí bhíodh oíche cheoil agus léachtanna againn.

Bhíodh dráma againn um Cháisc agus ceolchoirm na Nollag. Spreag siad daoine chun an Ghaeilge a labhairt - seachas a bheith ag

5 Leathanach tosaigh ó iris na bpríosúnach poblachtach i bPort Laoise An Trodaí

“Bhí níos mó Gaeilge le cloisteáil sna Blocanna H ná in aon áit eile. Bhí bothán Gaeltachta ann le Séanna Walsh, Gerry Mooney agus Bobby Sands. Mhúin Proinsias McGurk, a bhí i ngéibheann sna daichidí agus na caogaidí, Gaeilge do Bobby. Ba cheoltóir iontach é Proinsias agus fíor Ghaeilgeoir a bhí ann. Dónal Mac Billín a mhúin an Ghaeilge dom.

“Bhí pobal Gaeilge ann i gcónaí i mBéal Feirste - agus nuair a tháinig na leaids amach agus iad i mbun oibre - sna scoileanna agus mar sin, thugadar leo an spiorad a bhí ann linn na stailce ocrais - bhí an áit ag pléascadh leis an nGaeilge.”

Leanadh leis an teagasc lasmuigh de bhallaí an phríosúin. Luadh mana Bhóthar Seoige “ná habair é, déan é” go minic le linn na cainte.

Ba cheart an dearcadh sin a bheith ag gach aon duine.

February / Feabhra 2017

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

I nDíl Chuimhne 1 February 1975: Volunteer Seán BOYLE, South Armagh Brigade.

1 February 1981: Volunteer Peadar MOHAN, Monaghan Brigade.

2 February 1981: Volunteer Liam HANNAWAY, Belfast Brigade, 2nd Battalion.

3 February 1973: Volunteer James SLOAN, Volunteer James McCANN, Belfast Brigade, 3rd Battalion.

3 February 1999: Volunteer Harry BURNS, Belfast Brigade, 2nd Battalion.

4 February 1973: Volunteer Tony CAMPBELL, Belfast Brigade, 3rd Battalion.

4 February 1992: Paddy LOUGHRAN, Pat McBRIDE, Sinn Féin.

5 February 1992: Volunteer Joseph MacMANUS, Sligo Brigade.

5 February 1972: Volunteer Phelim GRANT, Volunteer Charles McCANN, North Antrim Brigade.

6 February 1971: Volunteer James SAUNDERS, Belfast Brigade, 3rd Battalion.

6 February 1989: Volunteer James Joseph CONNOLLY, Tyrone Brigade.

7 February 1982: Volunteer Danny McMULLAN, County Derry Brigade.

9 February 1975: Volunteer Bridie DOLAN, Cumann na mBan, Belfast.

10 February 1972: Volunteer Joseph CUNNINGHAM, Belfast Brigade, 3rd Battalion.

10 February 1973: Volunteer Leo O’HANLON, South Down Command, Volunteer Vivien FITZSIMMONS, Cumann na mBan, Downpatrick.

12 February 1976: Fian James O’NEILL, Fianna Éireann.

12 February 1976: Volunteer Francis STAGG (Wakefield Prison), England.

29

Life springs from death and from the graves of patriot men and women spring living nations PÁDRAIG PEARSE 13 February 1976: Volunteer Seán BAILEY, Belfast Brigade, 2nd Battalion.

14 February 1989: John DAVEY, Sinn Féin.

15 February 1976: Volunteer James McGRILLEN, Belfast Brigade, 2nd Battalion.

16 February 1992: Volunteer Peter CLANCY, Volunteer Kevin Barry O’DONNELL, Volunteer Seán O’FARRELL, Volunteer Patrick VINCENT, Tyrone Brigade.

18 February 1976: Paul BEST, Sinn Féin.

18 February 1986: Volunteer Francis BRADLEY, South Derry.

18 February 1996: Volunteer Edward O’BRIEN, Wexford Brigade.

19 February 1972: Fian David McAULEY, Fianna Éireann.

19 February 1992: Volunteer Brendan SEERY, Portlaoise.

21 February 1972: Volunteer Gerard BELL, Volunteer Robert DORRIAN, Volunteer Joseph MAGEE, Volunteer Gerard STEELE, Belfast Brigade, 3rd Battalion.

21 February 1984: Volunteer Henry HOGAN, Volunteer Declan MARTIN, North Antrim Brigade.

22 February 1986: Volunteer Tony GOUGH, Derry Brigade.

23 February 1981: Volunteer James BURNS, Belfast Brigade, 2nd Battalion.

23 February 1985: Volunteer Charlie BRESLIN, Volunteer David DEVINE, Volunteer Michael DEVINE, Tyrone Brigade.

26 February 1978: Volunteer Paul DUFFY, Tyrone Brigade.

28 February 1986: Volunteer Tom McGILL, Belfast Brigade, 1st Battalion.

29 February 1988: Volunteer Brendan BURNS, Volunteer Brendan MOLEY, South Armagh Brigade.

Always remembered by the Republican Movement.

CONNOLLY, James Joseph. In proud and loving memory of Volunteer ‘Josie’ Connolly, West Tyrone Brigade, Óglaigh na hÉireann, who died on 6 February 1989 from injuries received on active service. “Life springs from death, and from the graves of patriot men and women spring living nations.” Remembered with pride by friends and comrades in the Harvey, McGlynn, Connolly, McHugh Sinn Féin Cumann Castlederg.

HAMILTON, Peter. In proud and loving memory of our comrade Peter ‘Skeet’ Hamilton. Never forgotten by the Halpenny, Worthington, Watters Sinn Féin Cumann, Dundalk.

HAMILTON: In fond memory of our friend and comrade Peter ‘Skeet’ Hamilton. Always in our thoughts.

Paddy and Catherine Agnew, Dundalk.

KELLY, Patsy. In proud and loving memory of our comrade Patsy Kelly, whose anniversary occurs at this time.

Always remembered by the Halpenny, Worthington, Watters Sinn Féin Cumann, Dundalk.

MacMANUS, Joseph. In proud

FÓGRAÍ BHÁIS

Raymond Casey Béal Átha na Sluaighe, Gaillimhe RAY became engaged in the republican struggle at the height of the civil rights movement in the Six Counties when persecution of nationalist communities culminated in atrocities such as the murder of civilians on Bloody Sunday in Derry.

The Hunger Strikes had a profound effect on Ray and he never missed the annual vigil in Ballinasloe on 5 May. He was always active in the Volunteer McCann Cumann of Sinn Féin in Ballinasloe, County Galway, and was ever-present in canvassing during election times.

Ray was very active in the Right2Water campaign locally in east Galway and attended all the large marches in Dublin and was central in the local march in Ballinasloe.

A stonemason by trade, much of

Ray’s work can be seen across Ballinasloe and further afield. Ray was also a keen fisherman and caught many a monster pike on the River Suck as well as playing an active role in the local fishing club.

Ray Casey was a true republican, friend and comrade. The community in Ballinasloe has lost one of its favourite sons. Witty, friendly, kind, trustworthy, a family man, a straight talker and particularly generous in giving his time to help advise others are some of the traits that sum up Ray’s character.

Ray was very proud of Sinn Féin’s growth both locally and nationally in recent years and was an ardent supporter of the Good Friday Agreement. The Volunteer McCann Cumann and the Sinn Féin party offers its deepest condolences to the Casey family.

Bartholomew ‘Batty’ O’Brien east Cork THE Clonmult Martyrs Sinn Féin Cumann in east Cork has paid tribute to Bartholomew ‘Batty’ O’Brien, of Michael Collins Square, Midleton, and formerly of Ballinacurra, who passed away peacefully at his home on 9 December 2016.

Batty was a proud family man and lifelong republican who never shirked from his responsibilities and lived his life as a true republican, activist and supporter. Blessed with character and

a witty sense of humour, he would always bring a smile to your face.

Beloved husband of Margaret (nee Stafford), loving grand-dad of the late Ben, Batty is sadly missed by his wife, son Gearóid, daughters Catherine, Mairéad and Collen Erin, grandchildren, great-granddaughter, brothers, sister and a wide circle of friends.

Batty will be sorely missed by his family, friends and comrades but will never be forgotten.

and loving memory of our dear son Volunteer Joseph MacManus, who died in action on 5 February 1992.

“Grieve not for him. Speak not a word of sorrow although his eyes saw not his country’s glory. The service of his day shall make our morrow. His name shall be a watchword in its story.” We love and miss you, Joe. From Mum and Dad. MacMANUS, Joseph. In proud and loving memory of my brother and comrade Volunteer Joseph MacManus, who died in action on 5 February 1992. “True republicanism is the sovereignty of the people.

There are natural and imprescriptible rights which an entire nation has no right to violate.” – Lafayette. Always remembered with pride by Chris.

MacMANUS, Joseph. In proud and loving memory of Volunteer Joe Mac Manus, Óglaigh na hÉireann, killed in action, 5 February 1992. Always remembered by your friend and comrade Noel, Corinna and family.

MacMANUS, Joseph. In proud and loving memory of Volunteer Joe Mac Manus, who was killed on active service on 5 February1992. From Iris and Jim. MacMANUS, Joseph. In proud and loving memory of Volunteer Joseph MacManus, who was killed in action in County Fermanagh on 5 February 1992. Always remembered by his comrades in Sligo.

McNEILL, Bob. Bob McNeill (London and Toome), always remembered by family friends and comrades in the » Notices All notices should be sent to: notices@anphoblacht.com There is no charge for I nDíl Chuimhne, Comhbhrón, etc.

West London Republican Support Group, Hammersmith, London.

MATTHEWS, Eamon. In proud and loving memory of our comrade Eamon Matthews, whose anniversary occurs at this time. Never forgotten by the Halpenny, Worthington, Watters Sinn Féin Cumann, Dundalk.

O’BRIEN, Edward. In proud and loving memory of our son and brother Ed, who died on active service in London on 18 February 1996. Lovingly remembered by parents Miley and Margo, and sister and brother Lorraine and Gary.

O’BRIEN, Edward. In proud and loving memory of Ed O’Brien, who was killed on active service in London on 18 February 1996. Always remembered by Ann. O’BRIEN, Edward. In proud and loving memory of Volunteer Ed O’Brien, who died on active service in London on 18 February 1996. Always remembered by Tony Duncan.

O’BRIEN, Edward. In proud and loving memory of our friend and comrade, Volunteer Ed O’Brien, who died on active service in London on 18 February 1996. “There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere.” Never forgotten by the Volunteer Ed O’Brien Sinn Féin Cumann, Gorey, north Wexford.

Comhbhrón HALSE. Sympathy is extended to the Halse family on the the death of Tommy Halse, who carried the flag in Kilmichael just a couple of days before his untimely accident. Regards Noel Harington, Kinsale, County Cork. » Imeachtaí There is a charge of €10 for inserts printed in our Imeachtaí/Events column. You can also get a small or large box advert.

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Tim Woods NEWRY & ARMAGH Sinn Féin members were stunned by the death of local party activist Tim Woods, who was killed in a road accident on the outskirts of Keady on 28 January during the Assembly election campaign.

Extending condolences to Tim’s family, Sinn Féin’s Cathal Boylan said: “I am shocked and deeply saddened at the news. Tim was a valued friend and party activist. He was a man of great wit and charm and will be sadly missed by all who knew him. It’s still hard to take in that he has been so tragically taken from us.”

Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams said that he was shocked to hear of the tragic death of Tim, describing him as a well-known and very well-liked and respected party activist in the McVerry/ McElvanna Cumann in Keady.

“Like all of his comrades across the North, Tim had been busy in recent weeks preparing for the election on 2 March. On Saturday he was helping to erect posters for his friend and colleague, Cathal Boylan.

“On behalf of Sinn Féin, I want to extend my sincerest and deepest condolences to Tim’s family and many friends.”

30 February / Feabhra 2017

www.anphoblacht.com

SEÁN Mac BRÁDAIGH

Fascism’s dark entertainment YOU CAN’T get away from him. He’s the elephant in the room – or the bull in the china shop.

The relentless media concentration on the personality of US President Donald Trump is understandable, particularly in light of the statement by a group of psychologists from Harvard Medical School and the University of California to President Obama “expressing their grave

incipient fascism in the US and Europe has been the misplaced Irish media’s sniffiness regarding the Trump-era phenomena of ‘fake news’.

There is a deep irony in listening to Morning Ireland hosts wringing their hands at the decline of trust in traditional media when you consider that, for decades, RTÉ rigorously implemented overt political censorship and had its current affairs programming dictated by a ‘secret’ political faction with occasional token protests by the station’s presenters.

The ghost of Section 31 broadcasting censorship is clearly difficult to exorcise at Montrose. For instance, what justification was there in RTÉ News including details of a gun attack on a PSNI officer in the same report as the appointment of Sinn Féin’s new leader in the North, Michelle O’Neill?

RTÉ’s Northern correspondent has also

There is a deep irony in listening to 'Morning Ireland' hosts wringing their hands at the decline of trust in traditional media concerns” over the mental stability of the man with his finger on the nuclear button.

Of course, while darkly entertaining, such a narrow focus serves not merely to distract from the real effects of his dangerous policies but also clouds important lessons arising from the US election.

These include the failure of liberalism to offer coherent solutions to the crisis in US capitalism, a failure which partly made a Trump victory inevitable – a failure crowned by the choice of Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders as the Democratic Party candidate to challenge Trump.

RTÉ analysts have been all at sea trying to explain Trump’s success, revealing again the hermetically-sealed echo chamber the station has inhabited for decades.

Despite the newsroom squeamishness around Trump, RTÉ deference to the US continues unabated. On the day of his inauguration, the 9pm TV news ended with the American national anthem and scenes of Trump’s moment of glory.

Can we expect this to be repeated on the elevation of leaders in other countries?

While the media, in general, has been filled with dark tales of alleged Russian interference in the US election, none that I noticed pointed to the long (and verified) record of US meddling in other countries’ elections.

And speaking of Russians, the skewed nature of international news coverage in Ireland was underlined by the relegation of the assassination of the Russian Ambassador to Turkey to fourth or fifth item on RTÉ’s Six One News. Does anyone seriously think this would be the case if a US or British Ambassador was murdered?

An amusing aside to depressing evidence of

5 Mud slinging at DUP ex-minister Jonathan Bell

5 US President Donald Trump – grabbing the news like no other

claimed that the DUP merely “mismanaged” the scandalous Renewable Heat Incentive scheme.

What qualifies an RTÉ journalist to make such an adjudication? In the absence of a full and proper inquiry, how can anyone dismiss the idea of corruption by DUP figures?

The same report included the extraordinary and loaded claim that DUP former minister Jonathan Bell was merely “throwing mud” in the Assembly when he was, in fact, pointing to direct connections between DUP members and inviduals in the RHI 'Cash for Ash' scandal.

Finally, is there any clearer indication of the interests served by the Establishment media than the contrasting coverage of the legacy of recently-deceased former civil servant TK Whitaker and the political record of Martin McGuinness on the latter’s resignation as deputy First Minister?

While McGuinness’s outstanding role as statesman, peacemaker and reconciler was constantly coupled with criticism of various IRA actions during the conflict, there was a

complete absence of critical analysis of Whitaker.

Hagiographic comment credited Whitaker with “creating modern Ireland” – dubious praise in a state riven by a chronic housing shortage, a dysfunctional health service and an economy unresponsive to the needs of its people.

Ireland has witnessed repeated waves of emigration since publication of Whitaker’s Programme for Economic Expansion in 1958.

His approach was a classic example whereby native elites of former colonies opt for the tender mercies of foreign capital ahead of developing indigenous state industry. This policy led to an economy overly reliant on Foreign Direct Investment.

In many ways, Whitaker was the father of Irish neo-liberalism, which has wrought such pain on average working people.

He is also ‘credited’ with having control of Jack Lynch’s Northern policy, writing all his major speeches on the issue and, according to a recent piece in the Irish Times, resented praise of Gerry Adams’s central role in the Peace Process. Enough said.

5 Civil servant TK Whitaker wrote Jack Lynch's major speeches on the North

February / Feabhra 2017

www.anphoblacht.com

31

The hollow populism of AAA/PBP

BY MARK MOLONEY & JOHN HEDGES

THE Anti-Austerity Alliance/People Before Profit (AAA/PBP) has set its sights firmly on Sinn Féin, North and South, above all those on the Left who do not agree with their Trotskyist worldview.

Their ‘broad front’ began in the run-up to the 2015 Assembly election.

The AAA is the creation of the Socialist Party and the PBP of the Socialist Workers’ Party, longstanding rivals in ultra-Left politics.

This coming together of the two parties’ flagships in the interests of consolidating their small electoral gains for the purpose of state funding and speaking rights in the Dáil (including at Leaders’ Question Time) took some by surprise, particularly after their experience in the short-lived United Left Alliance.

This marriage is not without its problems, of course, particularly for the PBP in the Assembly elections where it is mounting another bitter campaign of vitriol and misinformation against Sinn Féin in particular.

Just hours before Martin McGuinness announced he would not be contesting the Assembly election, People Before Profit Derry posted a graphic on Facebook describing McGuinness and Arlene Foster as “Partners in Crime,

5 People Before Profit Derry had to hastily pull this post after complaints, especially in Foyle

“dissident republicans” whose own election forays challenging Sinn Féin have fizzled and faded.

That the SWP/PBP opposed the Good Friday Agreement and called on citizens to vote against it in the referendum only adds to its street cred amongst this base.

So why does the AAA/PBP spend an inordinate amount of time attacking Sinn Féin?

Writing in An Phoblacht in June 2015, Eoin Ó Broin noted that People Before Profit’s Eamonn McCann “suffers from that Trotskyite pathology of always having to attack your more moderate rival on the Left, irrespective of whether the facts support your case”.

This is because, in PBP’s analysis, “Sinn Féin is not a potential ally on the Left but the main obsta-

The AAA is the creation of the Socialist Party and the PBP of the Socialist Workers’ Party Corruption and Privatisation” in a post about the Renewable Heat Incentive financial scandal, making serious and unsubstantiated charges against the First and deputy First Minister.

Public reaction prompted the post’s removal, no doubt fearing a wider backlash, particularly in the Martin McGuinness heartland of Foyle where PBP/SWP guru Eamonn McCann is seeking re-election.

PBP supporters claim that they are separate from their counterparts in the 26 Counties and therefore cannot be challenged on the bizarre neo-unionist politics of their AAA/SP partners.

(The SP opposes a referendum on the reunification of Ireland and seeks “a socialist Ireland as a free and voluntary part of a socialist federation of Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales”.)

The fly in this Trotskyist ointment is that the PBP candidates in the Assembly election appear prominently on the PBP website alongside the PBP TDs. And AAA TD Paul Murphy of the Socialist Party has openly declared in a tweet to followers on 18 November 2015 that he and People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett “have sent letter to polling companies seeking #AAAPBP to be correctly treated as one entity” (our emphasis).

In a Dáil debate on Brexit which discussed a possible Irish unity referendum, AAA/PBP Mick Barry TD firmly rejected the idea, equating all Protestants with unionists by asking: “Does anyone believe that 800,000 Protestants could or should be coerced into a united Ireland against their will?”

Deputy Barry was speaking for the AAA/PBP – not just the AAA without the PBP bits in Dublin, Derry or Belfast.

The PBP campaign in the North is focused

5 AAA/SP leader Paul Murphy raises the banner for AAA/PBP 'to be correctly treated as one entity'

on peddling half-truths and attacking Sinn Féin over austerity issues caused by the Tory British Government at Westminster, which controls the North’s finances.

The PBP’s Gerry Carroll wrote glibly in Socialist Worker: “Sinn Féin and the rest of the parties at Stormont should tax the rich and use that money to raise the standards of living for those at the bottom of society.”

An admirable position but Carroll intentionally ignores the fact that Stormont does not have any tax-raising powers. While Sinn Féin has relentlessly been calling for the transfer of fiscal powers from London to Belfast, the PBP were nowhere to be seen.

The unwanted partition of Ireland which forced hundreds of thousands of nationalists into an apartheid state is apparently irrelevant to the Trots except when PBP act as a lodestone for all and sundry opposed to Sinn Féin, especially

Deputy Mick Barry rejected an Irish unity referendum, speaking for the AAA/PBP – not just the AAA without the PBP in Dublin, Derry or Belfast

The SWP/PBP opposed the Good Friday Agreement cle to the growth of the Socialist Workers’ Party and its electoral alliance, People Before Profit”.

Commentator Donal Lavery, writing on the Jude Collins website, has summed up the problem for the PBP’s credibility on a united Ireland: “Partition in perpetuity serves the interests of the capitalist ruling clique on both parts of this island – Connolly verified this when he claimed that ‘The cause of Ireland is the cause of labour; and the cause of labour is the cause of Ireland.’

“I want People Before Profit to mention explicitly in their election literature that they stand for the reunification of the Irish people as a matter of priority at any given time in our politics.

“I want them to stop focusing on calling for revolution on the streets of the world and start working towards a real democratic revolution on the streets of Ireland.”

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32

IN PICTURES

Sraith Nua Iml 40 Uimhir 2 – February / Feabhra 2017

photos@anphoblacht.com

5 In a speech remembering the three men killed and those wounded when an RUC police officer attacked Sinn Féin's Falls Road offices in February 1992, former MP Gerry Adams paid tribute to the dead, the wounded and the many family members who gathered for the 25th anniversary ceremony organised by local activists – see page 16

5 Brexit – Sinn Féin launch in Belfast of 'The Case for the North to Achieve Designated Special Status Within the EU'

5 Housing protest at the Dáil by the Sinn Féin Parliamentary Party to highlight the Government's lack of action to tackle crisis

5 Sinn Féin Committee Chair Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin TD at the launch of the 'Report on Traveller Ethnicity'

5 Flowers laid at the Volunteer Joe MacManus 25th Anniversary Commemoration at Sligo City Cemetery

5 A section of the packed hall at the Sinn Féin National Youth Conference in Derry's Gasyard Centre (see An Phoblacht web for report)

5 Wreath laying by Galway City East Sinn Féin for the former Queen's College Galway Professor Valentine Steinberger who was arrested and deported by British occupying forces in April 1916 because of his friendship with members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood