An Phoblacht January 2014

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MANDELA

LYNN BOYLAN

The media and Sinn Féin

Dublin EU contender in all-Ireland team

COLLUSION

Westminster’s death squads

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Unionist U-turn

UUP Executive rejects Haass document leader said was ‘90% over the line’

5 Ulster Unionist Party leader Mike Nesbitt

DUP negotiator Jeffrey Donaldson briefed Willie Frazer as parties neared talks deadline

SINN FÉIN ARD FHEIS THE OPERA HOUSE, WEXFORD FRIDAY 7th & SATURDAY 8th FEBRUARY

Are Orange Order and extreme loyalism driving unionist parties?

SEE INSIDE PAGE 31

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WHAT’S INSIDE 6&7 NELSON MANDELA

» ‘Terrorist’, political prisoner, peacemaker, international icon » Irish media try to airbrush Sinn Féin and IRA from anti-apartheid struggle

9 JobBridge: Anti-union companies replacing real jobs with unpaid interns

10 & 11 Collusion: British Army death squads’ links to British Cabinet 14 Carnival of Reaction: Media attacks on Sinn Féin divert attention from antiausterity alternative 16 & 17 Sinn Féin’s Dublin EU candidate Lynn Boylan profiled – ‘We’re seeing a race to the bottom for workers across Europe’

5 Members of ANC Ireland join with Sinn Féin on Dublin's O'Connell Street for a candle-light vigil on the day of Nelson Mandela's burial

5 Sinn Féin’s Dublin EU candidate Lynn Boylan, Ballymun Ward local election candidate Noeleen Reilly and Senator Kathryn Reilly meet with Poppintree Youth Project to discuss youth issues and the Youth Guarantee scheme which is being piloted in Ballymun, Dublin

20 Remembering the Past: Last days of the Section 31 state broadcast ban 21 Cá bhfuil Gluaiseacht na Gaeilge agus an Teanga faoi Ionsaí?

22 & 23 Smithwick Tribunal: IRA didn’t need Garda mole to ambush top RUC officers 24 Will 2014 be the year of Scottish independence?

26 & 27 Glasnevin Cemetery: Laden with imperial and republican history – and 1.5million people

5 Conradh Na Gaeilge and the Union of Students in Ireland protest at Leinster House for language rights and 5 Gerry Adams enjoys a slice of the cake ‘he baked’ for DUP equality for Irish speakers form the Government in the run up to Christmas leader Peter Robinson’s 65th birthday at the Haass talks

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DUP negotiator Jeffrey Donaldson briefed Willie Frazer as parties neared talks deadline

Unionist U-turn on Haass agreement UUP leader said ‘90% over the line’ THE lack of leadership in mainstream political unionism was laid bare on Monday 6 January when the Ulster Unionist Party Executive rejected the Haass document on flags, parades and the past that its own leader had declared was “90% over the line”.

Democratic Unionist Party chief negotiator Jeffrey Donaldson also admitted he had been briefing fringe loyalist agitator Willie Frazer as the Haass deadline approached.

Frazer was at the Stormont Hotel during the Haass negotiations with fellow ‘flags campaigners’ Jamie Bryson and Jim Dowson (Dowson used to be chief fund-raiser for the racist British National Party).

This confirmed earlier suggestions

by Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness that the Orange Order and unelected hardline loyalists have been heavily influencing the DUP and UUP. Orange Order Grand Chaplain Reverend Mervyn Gibson accepted the DUP’s invitation to be part of its three-member negotiating team at the Stormont Hotel talks even though he is not a member of the DUP. Martin McGuinness said on Monday 6 January, prior to the UUP Executive meeting: “As political leaders we have a responsibility to all citizens to deliver. I have a concern that the agenda for both unionist parties is being set not by this requirement but by the needs and demands of the Orange Order.”

“It is clear that there are elements of the Orange Order and extreme loyalism who do not want to see progress, they do not want to see agreement and they are hostile to the idea of peace building and a shared future. Adopting a negotiating strategy which is driven by these negative elements is a huge mistake.”

5 Lack of leadership – Mike Nesbitt of the Ulster Unionist Party Executive at its next scheduled meeting in February.”

Gerry Kelly told An Phoblacht as we went to press the day after the UUP Executive decision he was disappointed at the UUP reaction: “Right up to the last minute of the eleventh hour, the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party was up for accepting the report and moving ahead. He did have reservations but every party had their individual reservations and it’s about compromise. That’s what it’s all about.”

Down to the wire ‘The Haass Talks’ went down to the wire and ended in the early hours of New Year’s Eve without agreement.

The main unionist parties rejected the seventh and final draft of a 38page document drawn up by US former diplomat Dr Richard Haass and

international affairs expert Professor Meghan O’Sullivan.

Sinn Féin’s talks team (led by Gerry Kelly MLA, Jennifer McCann MLA and Seán Murray) said even though Sinn Féin had reservations there was enough in the Haass document to recommend it for acceptance by the party’s Ard Chomhairle as a basis for moving forward.

Notwithstanding Ulster Unionist Party leader Mike Nesbitt being seen on TV telling reporters at the Stormont Hotel that he didn’t see why the talks couldn’t succeed, the UUP and the larger DUP dashed hopes of a ‘New Year’s Day Agreement’ to complement and build on the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.

Dr Haass said at a 5am press conference that there had been significant progress despite no agreement there and then: “Success should not be measured by what we report to you tonight or

5 The Orange Order’s Reverend Mervyn Gibson

5 DUP negotiator briefed fringe loyalist Willie Frazer what the party leaders report tonight. I would ask you to judge the success in six months, in a year, 18 months, in two years; that would give a much more realistic definition or yardstick of what constitutes success.

UUP Executive

Rejecting the Haass proposals, a terse statement from the Ulster Unionist Party Executive meeting said that the UUP “seeks a positive resolution to the issues of flags, parading and dealing with the past”, adding without elaboration: “Consequently, this Executive believes the Haass document is not viable and therefore unacceptable.

“This Executive further calls on OFMdFM to sort out the mess resulting from the process they initiated.

“The Ulster Unionist Party will examine any measures brought forward by the First Minister and deputy First Minister and report again to the

5 Martin McGuinness during the talks

5 Seán Murray, Gerry Kelly and Jennifer McCann led the Sinn Féin delegation at the talks

“What I believe what we have done is laid down solid enough foundations stones.”

At the conclusion of the talks, Gerry Adams said that Sinn Féin had “stretched ourselves in these negotiations and we are up for this challenge.”

He called on the two governments and all of the parties to the Haass talks “to grasp the opportunity that now exists to resolve outstanding issues which were part of previous agreements but which were not advanced here this evening”. These include Acht na Gaeilge and commitments on the Irish language from the Good Friday Agreement and St Andrews Agreement, and the Maze/Long Kesh development, a commitment in the Programme for Government.

Gerry Kelly told An Phoblacht: “You shouldn’t have to renegotiate these things that have been previously agreed – you should implement them.”

• Dr Haass and Professor O’Sullivan have released a two-page fact-sheet summarising the Draft Agreement: panelofpartiesnie.com

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After Haass THE CONCLUSION of the protracted Haass Talks on New Year’s Eve without an agreement on parades, flags and emblems, and the legacy of the past in a the Six Counties was undoubtedly a disappointment – but that’s not the end of it.

The painstaking work done over several months between Sinn Féin, the SDLP, Alliance, the DUP and the Ulster Unionist Party with US facilitators Dr Richard Haass and Professor Meghan O’Sullivan does provide a basis for further negotiations.

The final draft agreement presented by Dr Haass and Professor O’Sullivan on New Year’s Eve was not all that Sinn Féin wanted but com-

You also get IRIS the republican magazine FREE promise is what negotiating between political adversaries is all about.

The Sinn Féin talks team, mandated by a special meeting of the Ard Chomhairle, considered there was enough there to recommend for acceptance as a basis for going forward.

The DUP and UUP declined to sign up to the Haass document.

It is now incumbent on all the parties and the British and Irish governments to build on the work by everyone involved in the Haass Talks.

Sinn Féin is up for the challenge – are the two governments and the unionist parties?

www.anphoblacht.com 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.

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AN PHOBLACHT www.anphoblacht.com Kevin Barry House 44 Parnell Square, Dublin 1, Ireland Telephone: (+353 1) 872 6 100 Email: editor@anphoblacht.com Layout: production@anphoblacht.com – Mark Dawson

Leo Wilson RIP – A spirited republican

BY GERRY ADAMS TD PRESIDENT OF SINN FÉIN LEO WILSON died on 4 January. On behalf of Sinn Féin I want to extend my condolences to Leo’s wife Maureen, to daughter Fiona and sons Cormac, Paul, Gearoid, and Pádraic, and the entire Wilson clann.

Ba mhaith liom mo chomhbhrón a dhéanamh leis an gclann ar fad I Leo Wilson.

I have known Leo for a very long time. At 91, Leo was a republican activist for most of his adult life. In October 1964, when Sinn Féin was a banned organisation under the Special Powers Act, Leo was one of 12 republican candidates who stood in the general election.

He polled a very credible almost 4,000 votes in the South Antrim constituency.

He was active in the civil rights movement and, following the pogroms of 1969, the introduction of new repressive laws and the introduction of internment, he and a small number of dedicated human rights workers (including Clara Reilly and Fr Brian Brady and others) established the Association for Legal Justice (ALJ). They worked tirelessly, day and night, providing legal advice to families of citizens detained by the British forces.

His door was always open to those in need.

The ALJ also played a key role in exposing the torture and brutality of the British Army and RUC toward detainees.

Leo was a spirited and sprightly soul and an enthusiastic Irish-language speaker. He loved ceilí dancing and often acted as Fear an Tí, calling out the dances. He was one of those who over many elections signed my nomination papers for west Belfast. In his early 70s, Leo graduated with a degree in political science and it was his understanding of the importance of access to books that saw him four years ago in the High Court in Belfast, at the age of 87, in defence of library facilities in west Belfast.

Leo was also an active member of the Belfast National Graves Association and last year he unveiled the new County Antrim Memorial in Milltown Cemetery.

The stories about Leo’s activism are many. He touched the lives of a huge number of republican activists providing advice, help and even a roof over their heads when they were in trouble.

Leo will be sadly missed by all of us who have had the privilege and honour to have known him.

In October 1964, when Sinn Féin was a banned organisation under the Special Powers Act, Leo was one of 12 republican candidates who stood in Antrim in the general election

5 Pat Sheehan MLA and Leo at the 2011 main Belfast Easter commemoration in Milltown Cemetry

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IN PICTURES

Le Trevor

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Ó Clochartaigh

An-dochar dhá dhéanamh ag Fine Gael agus an Lucht Oibre don chóras rialtas áitiúil

Daonlathas áitiúil faoi ionsaí ag Hogan

5 Solas Cuimhneacháin – Light of Remembrance: The Bogside and Brandywell Monument Committee, Derry, held a ceremony at the Monument on the Lecky Road to commemorate all those republicans from the area who have died. Raymond McCartney MLA (below) delivered the main oration

TÁ AN-IMNÍ orm maidir leis an gcreimeadh atá dhá dhéanamh ar an daonlathas áitiúil ag an rialtas seo.

Tá na pobail tuaithe faoi ionsaí go mór agus tá an chumhacht áitiiúil dhá thabhairt do státseirbhísígh agus bainisteoirí agus ciorraithe dhá chuir faoi cheilt faoi scáth ‘leasuithe’ ar an gcóras rialtas áitiúil.

Tá Phil Hogan ag cur i gcrích mianta na mBainisteoiri Contae agus ag baint de chumhachtaí na n-ionadaithe tofa leis na h-athruithe atá sé ag brú chun cinn. Cuireadh an daonlathas áitiúil faoi ionsaí ag deireadh 2013 nuair a tháinig an Bille Rialtas Áitiúil Leasuithe ós comhair Thithe an Oireachtais. Tá seo bunaithe ar an bplé cháipéis a chuir sé amach tamall ó shoin faoin teideal ‘Putting People First’ agus mar is nós leis an rialtas seo níl aon ghaol idir teideal na tuarascála agus na spriocanna a luaitear sa gcáípéis féin.

Fágfar an gnáthphobal in áit na leithphingine san athchóiriú seo, in ainneoin go bhfuil sé dhá dhíol linn mar an athchóiriú is radacaí ar an gcóras rialtas áitiúil le céad bliain.

Is é fírinne an scéil ná go bhfuil rialtais éagsúla ag baint an bonn de na comhairlí chontae agus cathrach le blianta fada anuas agus iad ag baint dá gcumhachtaí agus ag ceilt na h-acmhainní cuí orthu. Téann an plean nua seo ag Hogan níos faide arís. Tá roinnt moltaí maithe ann ar nós toghadh Méara ar Bhleá Cliath, bunú grúpaí polasaí straitéiseacha agus ag clárú íocaíochtaí do bhaill tofa ag comhdhálacha is araile.

Ach, ní dhéantar aon fhíor dílárnú cumhachta ón rialtas láir áfach. Ní thugtar aon chumhachtaí breise cinnteoireachta do chomhairleoirí ann. Níl sna cumhachtaí breise nua ach athraithe fánacha i ndáiríre, ar nós ceadú do chomhairlí chontae glacadh le tuairiscí bliantiúla, rud atá i bhfeidhm go praiticiúil cheana féin.

Níl aon mholtaí sa bhille chun dul i ngleic leis an ngéarchéim ó thaobh tithíochta de, nó cúrsaí bailithe brúscair, le seirbhísí oideachais a chur ar fáil ná chun tacú le seirbhísí dóiteáin níos fearr a sholáthar.

Níl aon athrú gur fiú trácht air maidir le cumhachtaí pleanála agus gan aon fhreagracht breise le fáil ó Bhleá Cliath.

An cur chuige a bheadh ag Sinn Féin ná dá mhéid cumhacht agus is féidir a bheith dílárnaithe ón rialtas láir agus malartú freagrachtaí ó na bainisteoirí Contae agus Cathrach. Áiríonn muid anseo cumhachtaí pleanála eacnamaíoch, bainistiú brúscar, uisce, séarachas, tithíocht agus eile.

Caithfidh aon athrú a dhéantar cinntiú go gcuirtear seirbhísí níos fearr agus níos éifeachtaí le struchtúir cuí ar fáil do shaoránaigh a bhfuil freagracht daonlathach ina chroílár. Ní aontaíonn muid le gearradh 949 comhairleoirí dá bharr seo.

Tá 112,000 duine gan choiríocht ceart ar liostaí na gcomhairlí chontae. Caithfear soláthar tithíochta a chur ar

Phil Hogan ais mar fheidhm lárnach sa gcóras rialtas áitiúil tré 9,000 teach a thógáil as seo go ceann bliain go leith.

Tá Sinn Féin i bhfábhar córas pleanála le h-inchur ó na saoránaigh atá dírithe ar phobail inmharthanacha a thógáil. Tá muid ar son cur chuige uile Éireannach chun cinntiú go gcuirtear uisce ar chaighdeán ard le n-ól ar fáil san áit a dteastaíonn sé, nuair a theastaíonn sé. Tá muid ag tabhairt freasúracht láidir do phleananna an rialtais le méadair uisce a chuir isteach, díreach ar mhaithe le hairgead breise a bhaint de dhaoine, seachas chun soláthar níos fearr uisce a dheimhniú.

Tá amhras orainn maidir le lagú na gcomhlachtaí áitiúil forbartha pobail agus an seilbh atá an rialtas aitiúil chun glacadh ar chistí ar nós LEADER agus an Clár Forbartha Pobail Áitiúil. Is iad tosaíochtaí na mBainisteoirí Contae seachas tosaíochtaí an chosmhuintir a bheidh dhá bhrú chun cinn feasta – ag baint den daonlathas áitiúil.

Ba chóir na cumhachtai maidir le bóithre agus iompar a thabhairt ar ais chuig na comhairleoirí atá tofa go daonlathach. Caithfear cur leis an gcóras iompar poibli seachas baint dhe. Is céim mhór ar gcúl atá sa lárnú ar an gclár iompar tuaithe faoin gcóras rialtas áitiúil chomh maith.

D’fhéadfaí an sampla atá tugtha ag na Páirtnéireachtaí Póilíneachta Dúiche sa tuaisceart a leanúint agus inchur áítiúil níos láidre a thabhairt do na Comhcoistí Póilíneachta.

Ach, is léir gur lárnú cumhachta atá in intinn Fianna Fáil agus Páirtí an Lucht Oibre agus gur sa treo eile ar fad atá an córas ag dul.

Fágfar an gnáthphobal in áit na leithphingine san athchoiriú seo, in ainneoin go bhfuil sé dhá dhíol linn mar an athchóiriú is radacaí ar an gcoras rialtas áitiuil le céad bliain

5 Sinn Féin representatives join the family of Tan War IRA hero Martin Savage to commemorate the 94th anniversary of his death during an ambush in Ashtown

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‘Terrorist’, political prisoner, peacemaker, international icon

NELSON MANDELA A HERO AMONG HEROES

BY MARK MOLONEY NELSON MANDELA spent his entire life fighting against the injustice and inequality of the tyrannical, whitesupremacist, apartheid regime in South Africa. He was also an internationalist and close friend of Ireland and the Republican Movement.

Mandela grew up in the small village of Qunu in the Eastern Cape. In university he became increasingly involved in revolutionary, communist and African nationalist politics before co-founding the ANC’s Youth League on Easter Sunday 1944.

Following the 1948 general election (in which only whites were allowed to vote) the ruling National Party threatened to implement extremely strict racial segregation in all aspects of South African life in a system that would become institutional apartheid. It was then that Mandela and other younger members of the ANC began to lobby for direct action against the racist government.

In 1956, Mandela was arrested and charged with “high treason” for his part in protests against the demolition of black suburbs of Johannesburg.

After a six-year trial he was found not guilty.

In 1961, he co-founded the armed organisation Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation), better known as MK. In its manifesto, MK said the African people had been left with two options: submit or fight.

The MK manifesto declared: “We have no choice but to hit back by all means in our power in defence of our people, our future, and our freedom.”

Explaining his reasoning to engage in armed struggle, Madiba (Mandela’s Xhosa clan name) said it was the only option left to anti-apartheid activists: “It would be unrealistic and wrong for African leaders to continue preaching peace and nonviolence at a time when the government met our peaceful demands with force.”

MK launched a series of bomb and sabotage attacks against government facilities and was

It would be unrealistic and wrong for African leaders to continue preaching peace and non-violence at a time when the government met our peaceful demands with force NELSON MANDELA quickly banned as a “terrorist organisation”. The organisation would go on to receive military training and military assistance from the IRA, most notably in the 1980 bombing of the regime’s Sasol Oil Refinery to coincide with the apartheid state’s Republic Day celebrations.

In 1962, Mandela was arrested again and stood trial along with nine other ANC leaders. He was charged and convicted on four charges which included one of attempting to initiate a guerrilla war to overthrow the racist regime. He was sen-

tenced to life imprisonment. In his speech from the dock, he said: “During my lifetime I have dedicated myself to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But, if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”

He would spend his next 18 years imprisoned on Robben Island, used for forced labour. During this time he and his prison comrades were subjected to assaults and beatings by white prison wardens. During his incarceration he was refused parole to attend either the funeral of his mother Nosekeni or of his son Thembi, who died in a car crash. He maintained his international perspective and he and fellow ANC prisoners followed closely the Irish republican Hunger Strike of 1981 and honoured all of those who died. On Madiba’s calendar on 5 May 1981 is handwritten: “IRA martyr Bobby Sands dies.”

In 1985, South Africa’s apartheid dictator PW Botha, faced with a critical security situation, offered Mandela release from prison but only if he unconditionally rejected violence as a weapon of political change. Mandela rejected the offer.

After Botha suffered a stroke, his succesor, F. W. de Klerk released 71-year-old Mandela and legalised all formerly outlawed parties.

Addressing crowds in Dublin in 1990 (Dublin was the first capital city in the world to grant him Freedom of the City status) and also the Oireachtas, he said that the people of Africa, and the people of Ireland “should be free to govern themselves and to determine their destiny”.

Mandela’s staunch support for the Republican Movement led to senior Ulster Unionist Party politician Frank Millar describing him as a “black Provo”. During a meeting with Gerry Adams in South Africa on the 20th anniversary of the 1981 Hunger Strike, Mandela described Sinn Féin as “an old friend and ally” for supporting us “very strongly during the anti-apartheid struggle”.

In 1995, the ANC invited senior members of Sinn Féin to South Africa to discuss a peace process in Ireland. The British Government lobbied hard to stop the meeting. Mandela, then elected president by a landslide in the first free and democratic elections in South Africa, defied them, having his photo taken shaking Gerry Adams’s hand. Many more meetings between the ANC and Sinn Féin took place throughout the following years in both Ireland and South Africa.

Former MK activists even came to Ireland to visit republican POWs in prison to discuss the negotiations and tactics.

As the media continues to debate and wrestle with Mandela’s legacy, for oppressed people across the globe he will continue to be an inspiration.

5 Flowers are left at Nelson Mandela’s former residence. (Centre) Gerry Adams and Richard McAuley in the international guard of honour alongside Mandela’s coffin and (right) Mandela receives full military honours

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ROBBIE SMYTH looks at the Irish media’s slant on the funeral of Madiba

MTV freed Mandela wing of MTV and reprinted from Time magazine.

The article came with a picture of Mandela and Bono both giving a clenched fist salute.

Even in the Irish Times eight-page supplement, published on 6 December there was no space for any recognition of the years of links between Sinn Féin and the ANC. (All those Sinn Féin Ard Fheiseanna attended annually by ANC leaders comparing their struggle with ours – it was all a dream!)

Then came the invite of Gerry Adams to the funeral on 14 December. This did get coverage, particularly as the Sinn Féin president was invited along with Richard McAuley to be part of the international guard of honour standing alongside Mandela’s coffin.

The London-based Guardian got a bit closer to the truth, reporting: “Representatives from left-wing parties such as Angola’s MPLA and Ireland’s Sinn Féin attended Saturday’s homage.”

SINN FÉIN is a party dedicated to a political struggle for freedom, equality and a just society. It supported the IRA in its armed conflict with the British Government. In that context, Sinn Féin’s motives, actions and campaign were just like those of the ANC and Nelson Mandela in their military and political struggle for a free South Africa.

There, I said it . . . the 60 words almost no news media outlet in Ireland or internationally could bring themselves to utter as the world watched Nelson Mandela being laid to rest. Few probably even contemplated it.

Instead we are to believe that the struggle for a free South Africa happened on the BBC’s Top of the Pops (though not the episodes hosted by Jimmy Saville, of course).

MTV took up the baton along with massive charity concerts, the occasional rally, public meetings, and T-shirts you could wear along with dubious headgear.

There were Hollywood biopics to be watched and books to be read. That’s what cracked the South African apartheid system. Well done, everybody. Bono especially. You rock, man!

I was watching Prime Time on RTÉ TV when the news broke. Twitter and multiple news apps beeped smartphones into a communications frenzy. At the time, Miriam O’Callaghan along with the Irish Independent’s Martina Devlin and Fine Gael Chair Charlie Flanagan TD were engaging in the all-too-familiar media ritual of ‘how bad really are Sinn Féin, Gerry Adams and the IRA’. Though with yet another poll (this one

by The Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI) showing that the party has the support of one in five voters, one wonders why this ‘pack journalism’ frenzy continues.

Thus the stage was set for the next ten days’ news coverage from Mandela’s death on 5 December to the day after his burial on 15 December. Sinn Féin and its public representatives were so marginalised from the news coverage of the Mandela funeral it is like the Section 31 state censorship of the 1970s and 1980s is still casting a shadow over newsrooms.

If only Martin McGuinness had taken a ‘selfie’ like Barack Obama, David Cameron and Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt he might have got noticed by RTÉ or TV3 at the Mandela memorial service in Soweto. The 10 December memorial service got extensive Irish media coverage but not much mention of Martin.

The Irish Times on Tuesday 10 December noted that “Ireland was represented by President Higgins and the Tánaiste”. They name-checked Mary Robinson (“a friend of Mr Mandela”) and, quite properly, three of the 1980s ‘Dunnes Stores Anti-Apartheid Strikers’. No room in two broadsheet pages of coverage to mention that a former candidate for President of Ireland, Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness, was attending as the representative of the Northern Executive as joint First Minister.

The partitionist Times did find space for an article by Bono, writing on behalf of the political

5 Martin McGuinness, Nelson Mandela and Gerry Adams meet in Dublin in April 2000

5 Gerry Adams at Nelson Mandela’s funeral service

5 Martin McGuinness with Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu at the memorial service

5 Gerry Adams with veterans of MK’s armed struggle

If only Martin McGuinness had taken a ‘selfie’ like Barack Obama, David Cameron and Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt he might have got noticed by RTÉ or TV3 at the Mandela memorial service in Soweto It says a lot when it’s the Irish Daily Mail that gives the most coverage to any connection between Sinn Féin and the ANC: “Eyebrows were raised at the funeral yesterday when Gerry Adams was included in the guard of honour that marched behind Nelson Mandela’s coffin. The Sinn Féin leader – who once headed the IRA – had his name read out between human rights activist Jesse Jackson and Oprah Winfrey in a list of ‘eminent persons’ attending the event.”

The Sunday Independent’s Ruth Dudley Edwards ignored all the facts to carp that “Sinn Féin is shamelessly using the late African leader for propaganda purposes” and that “instead of repenting, they spin and lie”.

The events of Mandela’s funeral (from an obsession with reporting the inanities of the Danish Prime Minister’s ‘selfie’ and the fake interpreter to the presentation of Mandela as a pacifistic saint) show that while republicans have highlighted the revisionism of our past history, we are now witnessing the rewriting of our present.

It fits into the recent weeks of media attacks on Sinn Féin and its political leaders. This is a negative ‘politics of forgetting’ that wants to rewrite Ireland’s recent history, removing the causes of the conflict, blaming it all on Sinn Féin and the IRA. It shows, more than ever, that we need to fight for our present truths as well as our past ones.

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‘We can receive petitions from right across the 32 Counties – from Derry or Belfast to Cork or Kerry’ Pádraig Mac Lochlainn TD

NEW OIREACHTAS COMMITTEE GIVES EVERYONE IN THE 32 COUNTIES A DIRECT LINE TO LEINSTER HOUSE

Holding the Irish Government to account “We fought hard here to get more resources and I’m glad to say that recently we’ve been allocated additional staff which has been a huge help so we are clearing the backlog. In my view some of the initial petitioners were left waiting too long to get a response. But that will now change.”

This year there will be a push across local

BY MARK MOLONEY A NEW COMMITTEE established in the Oireachtas and chaired by Sinn Féin Justice and Equality spokesperson Pádraig Mac Lochlainn aims to give citizens a direct say in the parliamentary agenda.

The Joint Oireachtas Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions keeps a close eye on Government departments and ombudsmen’s reports as well as considering petitions submitted by the public on issues of concern to them.

“Where we come in is to ensure we bring in Government ministers, departmental bodies and others, to hold them to account,” Pádraig tells An Phoblacht.

“In the past, on some occasions, ombudsmen reports have been left to gather dust on a shelf or the Government felt they didn’t have to take the report findings onboard. We now make it very uncomfortable for anyone trying to ignore those reports.”

As well as holding these departmental bodies to account, the committee has another very important function which gives any person – anywhere on the island of Ireland – the direct ability to influence the parliamentary agenda through a new petitions system.

“For the first time this allows individual citizens or organisations to submit a petition to the parliament on an issue of public concern and calling for changes in legislation or a campaign on an issue,” says Pádraig.

There is no minimum number of signatures required, a single person can lodge such a petition with the committee.

“If a person identifies an issue of poor public policy, or something which requires a change in the law, then we will look at that.”

In June, the committee made Oireachtas

Any person – anywhere on the island of Ireland – has the direct ability to influence the parliamentary agenda through the new petitions system 5 Ombudsman Emily O'Reilly with chairperson of the new Oireachtas Committee Pádraig Mac Lochlainn TD history when the first petitioner was invited in to speak to them on what he perceived to be a flaw in the eligibility for the Back to School Education Allowance. Representatives from the Department of Social Protection and the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed were also invited in to discuss his submission.

Pádraig says the independence of the committee is very important: “They’re not afraid to challenge Government policy.”

If the committee feel the petition is indeed valid and an issue of concern, they can call in the relevant Government minister to provide

answers. It can also make recommendations to change legislation.

The varied nature of petitons submitted so far is impressive. These include calling for a national campaign on suicide prevention akin to the road safety campaign, one calling for an investigation into the US and CIA’s use of Shannon Airport, the issue of votes for Irish citizens living overseas, and the issue of the height of overhanging trees.

Although the ability to submit petitions has been in place for over a year, Pádraig says initial problems with resoures mean that it is only now finding its feet.

radio stations and newspapers to promote the work they’re doing and invite people to engage with the committee. The body has also been engaging with a similar committee established in the European Parliament.

“What’s very important to note is that this is applicable across all of Ireland,” says Pádraig.

“We can receive petitions from right across the 32 Counties in relation to matters of public concern. So it’s equally important for people from Derry or Belfast to Cork or Kerry to be aware that if they are engaged in a campaign for change that they should get their petitions in to us.

“This is a committee that is really growing in importance. One of the cornerstones of Irish republicanism is the belief that all citizens are equal and all citizens have rights. I think our committee is at the forefront of ensuring that.”

THE IMPRESSIVE AND VARIED NATURE OF PETITONS SUBMITTED SO FAR INCLUDE:

National campaign on suicide prevention akin to the road safety campaign

Investigation into the US and CIA’s use of Shannon Airport

Votes for Irish citizens living overseas

And the issue of the height of overhanging trees

For more information, or to submit a petition, visit www.petitions.oireachtas.ie

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January / Eanáir 2014 9

Full-time internships advertised on Forecourt attendant , e at a garag y n n e Letterk

Delivery driver t, for a floris Mallow

Labourer on a , dairy farm re o m a ll Tu

Slaughter person at ry, to a meat facllig o c Ballin

Sandwich artist , at Subway h Nenag

Server at a ip ch shop, Ennistymon

Assistant at a rca wash, Mullingar

Many companies using JobBridge are known to be anti-union and some have recently laid-off staff

SLAVE LABOUR ent review of the scheme in late 2012 found that six out of ten of interns left their internshp early – many simply out of dissatisfaction or a feeling that they were being exploited.

Employers using JobBridge are not using it solely for the purpose of filling low-skilled jobs, though. Many companies and public bodies have been advertising for “fully-qualified” positions. Such advertisements have come from the Health Service Executive and Department of Education for medical professionals and teachers in what is a blatant attempt by Government to employ highly-qualified professionals for next to nothing.

A Parliamentary Question from Aengus Ó Snodaigh to Joan Burton in November discoverd that 31 companies had been blacklisted for

BY MARK MOLONEY WHEN the Fine Gael/Labour Government launched its ‘National Internship Scheme – JobBridge’ in 2011 it was immediately denounced by many on the Left as an exploitatative scheme which would see young people working full-time in menial roles for free.

Others believed it was a thinlyveiled attempt to massage unemployment figures.

The Government (and the Labour Party in particular) were quick to dimsiss such suggestions and promised JobBridge would provide real internships where unemployed young people would learn new skills, gain necessary experience and potentially be taken on in fulltime jobs.

While Social Protection Minister Joan Burton TD has been rabid in her defence of the scheme, not all Government TDs have been on message.

When pressed on LMFM radio about the exploitative nature of many of the positions advertised on the JobBridge website in September, Fine Gael TD Damien English admitted: “Of course it’s free labour.”

By December 2013, almost 20,000 people had taken up internships in more than 9,000 companies.

Minister Burton even doubled the maximum length of a single internship in September, allowing interns to be on placement for 18 months.

Of those 20,000, almost one quarter have taken up positions in the public sector. Shortly after the launch of the scheme, Joan Burton said she hoped “the period of internship would be a job interview for a longer period of employment”. That is clearly not possible in the public sector as there is a recruitment embargo. So these interns are merely being used as a form of cheap labour, displacing real jobs, and with no hope of long-term employment.

Fourteen of the Government’s 16 departments have used JobBridge interns. Since 2011, these departments have taken on 228 interns yet not a single one of those has gone on to be offered a full-time position due to the moratorium.

5 Labour Party Social Protection Minister Joan Burton has been rabid in her defence of the JobBridge scheme Speaking to An Phoblacht, Sinn Féin Social Protection spokesperson Aengus Ó Snodaigh TD described this as an abuse of young people.

“Young people are being put onto a scheme where there is no possi-

bility of a job at the end of it,” Aengus said. “They are being used to replace highly-skilled workers.

They’re replacing teachers and special needs assistants and even working in the Garda Vetting Unit

screening CVs of job applicants working with children and vulnerable adults. And because there’s a public service embargo there’s no chance of a job at the end of it.”

It is also telling that an independ-

‘Why create a job and pay an employee when you can get an employee for nothing from the Department of Social Protection?’

Aengus Ó Snodaigh Sinn Féin TD abusing the scheme but the Government refuses to release the names of these companies who are flagrantly in breach of the rules.

Aengus told An Phoblacht that he has contacted the Freedom of Information Commissioner for a complete list of all the thousands of companies who have availed of the scheme. Many companies using this free labour source are known to be anti-union and in some cases ones which have recently laid off staff. Ó Snodaigh said: “Joan Burton should not be using her position to protect the profits of these organisations while knowing that they have been exploitative. It is sad that such a response is coming from a person who claims to be a socialist. These JobBridge abusers should be named and shamed.”

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The links between the undercover death squads and Westminster’s military and political machine

Collusion went all the way to the top

BY PEADAR WHELAN “THE KILLING OF CITIZENS through collusion with unionist death squads is a British state policy in Ireland,” pressure group Fírinne defines collusion in its campaign to expose the links between the British and pro-British, unionist killer gangs.

‘The FRU was answerable to the Task Co-ordinating Group, comprised of the heads of the RUC Special Branch, the RUC Chief Constable and various intelligence services . . . reports to the North’s Secretary of State and directly accountable to the Joint Intelligence Committee comprised of Cabinet members and senior Ministry of Defence figures. The JIC is directly answerable to the British Prime Minister’

“Collusion is the control, resourcing and direction of these death squads by British state agencies. Those who sanctioned the policy of collusion have never been held accountable . . .

“Collusion has not ended.

“The British apparatus which operates the policy of collusion continues in existence.

“Until the mechanisms have been dismantled, the strategy disowned and the truth revealed, collusion cannot be consigned to the history books.”

The deadly links between the British state and its allies in the unionist death squads have come under a high degree of scrutiny in the past months in a newly-written book by a journalist who spent many years reporting on the ground in Ireland and the prestigious BBC TV Panorama news investigation programme.

In her recently-published book, Lethal Allies: British Collusion in Ireland, Anne Cadwallader lifts the lid on the notorious south Armagh based Glenanne Gang, mainly made up of serving or recent former members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) paramilitary police and the locally-recruited and then biggest regiment in the British Army (since dissolved), the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR).

Using declassified official Whitehall Government and Ministry of Defence documents, the former BBC journalist, now a caseworker with the Pat Finucane Centre, demonstrates that successive British governments were aware of the involvement of members of the British crown forces with unionist assassination squads responsible for the deaths of 120 people and did nothing to prevent the slaughter.

Their inaction – ‘turning a blind eye’ – can only be interpreted as approval for those responsible for a killing spree throughout Counties Armagh, Tyrone, Down, Louth and Monaghan; ‘The Triangle of Death’, as it was labelled by Fr Raymond Murray and Fr Denis Faul.

Hot on the heels of the Cadwallader exposé at the end of 2013 was a BBC Panorama programme looking into a secretive British Army undercover unit, the Military Reaction Force (MRF).

Broadcast on November 21 2013, Panorama’s Britain’s Secret Terror Force carried interviews with British soldiers who disclosed that the unit “acted like a terror group” and admitted that members of the unit killed at least two people and wounded many more in ‘drive-by shootings’.

The unit was clearly and unashamedly used by the British state, its army, police and intelligence services – and its political leaders – to terrorise the nationalist population of republican

Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher

Brigadier Frank Kitson

British Army Intelligence agent Brian Nelson

Colonel Gordon Kerr

west Belfast, where it was largely deployed.

Made up of hand-picked British Army soldiers, the MRF also recruited members of the nationalist population who in turn carried out attacks on targets within west Belfast. The unit also ran a number of front companies to gather intelligence. In October 1972, the IRA uncovered and

ularly the Dublin and Monaghan bombings of 17 May 1974 in which 33 civilians were killed and 300 wounded – the highest number of casualties in any one day during the conflict.

In January 2013, in the wake of the report by Sir Desmond de Silva QC into the killing of human rights lawyer Pat Finucane, Urwin and Spinwatch Public Interest Investigations (a nonprofit company based in England and Wales) released a report tracing the roots of the covert relationship between the British and unionist death squads back to the earliest days of the conflict.

Counter-Gangs: A History of Undercover Military Units in Northern Ireland 1971-1976 shows how the application of colonial counterinsurgency theory led to the recruitment of local people by plainclothes British Army units in the early 1970s.

The report is based on years of work, including interviews with former members of the crown forces and extensive documentary research.

Among its key findings are that senior British Army officers ordered subordinates in late 1971 to develop informal contacts with loyalist paramilitaries, described as “unofficial unarmed bodies . . . working in the public interest”.

Thus the MRF came into being.

The subsequent exposure of MRF activities led to their replacement a year later by a larger and more professional unit, the Special Reconnaissance Unit (SRU).

The SRU relied heavily on SAS personnel.

Successive governments went to great lengths

‘The policy of collusion was much more sophisticated and had tangible and direct links through its chain of command to the British Cabinet’ attacked two of the MRF’s bogus front companies spying and gathering intelligence on targets: the ‘Four Square’ mobile laundry service and the ‘Gemini Health Studios’ massage parlour.

When it was dissolved, around 1973, the MRF’s operational records were destroyed. Its commanders and its members are retired on British Army pensions paid by the British Government and the British taxpayer.

While the MRF may have been disbanded, it was succeeded by the Special Reconnaissance Unit (SRU), or 14 Intelligence Company (14 Int), and, later by the Force Research Unit (FRU), according to research carried out by Margaret Urwin, secretary to the Justice for the Forgotten, now an arm of the Pat Finucane Centre, which focuses on attacks in the 26 Counties and partic-

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5 Anne Cadwallader’s ‘Lethal Allies’ book and Panorama have shed a light on high-level collusion to conceal this fact from the Houses of Parliament at Westminster and the media to be able to deny any SAS role in the North of Ireland.

Deliberately misleading information about the undercover units was fed to the press as part of a ‘black propaganda’ campaign.

Counter-Gangs is the most comprehensive study on the MRF and its successor, the Special Reconnaissance Unit.

The report is the first of the ‘State Violence and Collusion Project’, an online research collaboration between Spinwatch and the Pat Finucane Centre.

Looking at the evidence, it is clear that the ‘unofficial’ Glenanne Gang and the British Army and state-backed Military Reaction Force are two sides of the one military coin.

But to see the real story of collusion we need to get into the lift and go up to the top floor.

There we will find the policy framework for collusion.

This was set, mostly, by Brigadier Frank Kitson the pre-eminent counter-insurgency strategist of the 1970s.

A military intelligence veteran of Britain’s colonial wars in Malaya, Kenya, Aden and Cyprus, Kitson’s deployment to the North heralded the development of strategies based on his seminal military textbook, Low Intensity Operations: Subversion, Insurgency and CounterInsurgency.

Kitson describes counter-insurgency as “those military, paramilitary, political, economic, psychological and civic actions taken by a government to defeat subversion and insurgency”.

January / Eanáir 2014 11

5 (Top) UDA death squad members openly patrol alongside British troops in Belfast and (bottom) the aftermath of one of the car-bombs which exploded in Dublin and Monaghan in May 1974, killing 33 civilians He advocated “liaison with an organisation, of friendly guerrilla forces, operating against the common enemy”.

Kitson (who served in the North of Ireland in the early 1970s) oversaw the establishment of the MRF and the heavy infiltration of loyalist organisations such as the UDA and UVF. According to Relatives for Justice in their booklet, Collusion (June 2002), the FRU (also known as 14th Intelligence) replaced the MRF. “The policy of collusion was much more sophisticated and had tangible and direct link through its chain of command to the British Cabinet,” Relatives for Justice say.

Colonel Gordon Kerr took command of the unit and reinstated long-time British Army and intelligence agent Brian Nelson.

Commentators have long attempted to disguise the real role of units like the MRF, FRU or indeed the UDR and RUC personnel who made up the Glenanne Gang as ‘renegades’ or ‘rotten apples’.

The chain of command, as outlined by Relatives for Justice, tells a different story.

“The FRU was answerable to the Task Co-ordinating Group (TCG), which is comprised of the heads of the RUC Special Branch, the RUC Chief Constable and various intelligence services all relating directly to affairs on the ground. The TCG has responsibility for deploying the SAS and other covert operations.

“It also reports to the North’s Secretary of State. In turn, the TCG is directly accountable to the then Joint Security Committee (JSC), now Joint Intelligence Committee (set up under the

Intelligence Act 1994) in London which is comprised of Cabinet members and senior MOD figures. The JIC is directly answerable to the British Prime Minister and has the final say in all security matters.

“During the 1980s, Margaret Thatcher occasionally chaired the JIC.”

‘Collusion is the control, resourcing and direction of these death squads by British state agencies. Those who sanctioned the policy of collusion have never been held accountable’ This is why Fírinne say that the strategy must be disowned and the truth revealed before collusion can be consigned to the history books.

Lethal Allies: British Collusion in Ireland (Anne Cadwallader, Mercier Press, 2013) chronicles the killings of 120 people by the Glenanne gang, a unionist death squad that operated with impunity because many of its members were serving or recent ex-members of the RUC and UDR. Others were agents acting in the state’s interest, acting as deniable ‘surrogates’ to prosecute Britain’s ‘dirty war’ against the IRA and outspoken nationalists.

5 Reports on the IRA attacks which targeted the Four Square Laundry and Gemini Health Studios spy operations Ironically, most of the documents used in the text came from de-classified British Government files and information gleaned from reports compiled by the Historical Enquiries Team (HET).

What Cadwallader has done, using her wealth of investigative journalistic experience, is to link the information, look for patterns and draw out the connections between people, events and weapons to reveal the extent of state involvement in the many attacks and killings.

The attitude of the judiciary is part of the story and instructive in the way judges showed extraordinary leniency to killers.

Cadwallader writes that Brigadier Kitson took the view that the law be “used as just another weapon in the government’s arsenal . . . the activities of the legal services have to be tied into the war effort”.

In the case of James Mitchell, an RUC Reservist involved in two attacks that left five people dead and whose farm was central to the Dublin/Monaghan bombings, we see the outworking of Kitson’s philosophy and military doctrine that was taught at Britain’s prestigious Sandhurst Military Academy. Mitchell was only ever convicted of possession and given a oneyear suspended sentence.

Lethal Allies sets us the task of redefining collusion as a central plank of British Government policy and strategy in Ireland.

The breadth and width of collusion — from the counter-gang theory of Kitson to the operation of the FRU and its successors by the Ministry of Defence and Britain’s intelligence services — tells us that collusion went all the way to the top.

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MEN’S SHEDS

A welcome in for fellas THERE ARE NOW more than 150 Men’s Sheds associations across Ireland with an estimated 3,000 members using ‘the Sheds’ each week. First appearing in Australia, the community-based associations have spread to many countries, with the Irish Men’s Sheds Association starting in Ireland in 2011.

An Phoblacht’s MARK MOLONEY visisted Loughlinstown, Ballybrack and Shanganagh (LBS) Men’s Shed to see what it’s all about.

IT’S A BITTERLY COLD winter evening outside. Inside the small premises of LBS Men’s Shed in south Dublin, Shane ConnollyO’Brien, Chairperson of the Shed, is just putting on the kettle while PRO Jay McClean is taking on founder-member Noel Blake in a game of pool. The table was donated by a loal publican. On a shelf above a radiator are a number of framed merit awards in recognition of the Shed’s local community work and another award for ‘Best Men’s Shed’ from the Sunday World. As the kettle boils, Shane is busy sorting through a full box of books which has been donated and adding them to the library. Dominating the back wall is an impressive mural featuring James Connolly and Jim Larkin, unveiled by Connolly’s great-grandson to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the 1913 Lockout. Recently, the group also held a commemoration for 1913 Lockout martyr James Byrne in Deansgrange Cemetery.

The group began four years ago when Noel decided to set up a Men’s Group while working at the local community centre. “I looked at the agenda for the year and there was everything from groups for kids from two-years-old up to teenagers, and there was a few women’s groups, but there wasn’t a single thing for men in the area. That’s where it began.”

Since moving into its premises two years ago, the LBS Men’s Shed has become a vital part of the Loughlinstown community and an important place for local men to meet up and work on projects, charity work, engage in Vocational Education Committee courses or just chat and catch up.

Shane shows me a picture of a local project which the Shed, with the support of the local council, undertook.

They created a Remembrance Garden for anybody who lost somebody in the area.

“We try to do a lot of community work,” says Shane. “We help with graffiti removal and the clean-up days, and we help out with the community days – including dressing up as Santa for the kids at the community centre,” he laughs.

They also run mental health awareness courses, Irish-language classes, healthy eating courses and computer training. Noel says many of the men just like to come in for a chat. “They tell you that if it wasn’t for here, they don’t know what they’d do. People feel comfortable here

and that allows you to talk about problems you’re having.

“It’s a pub with no beer. You can come here, have a bit of craic or a game of pool and not spend any money,” says Jay McClean.

The group is looking forward to expanding their premises next year to allow them set-up a woodcraft workshop in an unused building next door.

Despite being part of the rather wealthy Dún Laoghaire/Rathdown Council area, Loughlinstown is an unemployment blackspot and is part of the Government’s Revitalising Areas by Planning, Investment and Development (RAPID) programme for disadvantaged communities.

5 LBS Men's Shed secured a small premises in Loughlinstown two years ago

The Shed runs mental health awareness courses, Irish-language classes, healthy eating courses and computer training “You’ve got Bono living five minutes away,” says Jay, “but the reality is there are two Dún Laoghaires.”

Many of those who drop into the centre are out of work with the age range for members stretching from 18 all the way up to men in their 70s.

“Obviously going to the pub every night isn’t going to help your mental health, or your wallet,” says Shane, “so the Shed provides a healthy alternative.”

A study by Dundalk Institute of Technology published in March 2013 found that men who regularly attend their local Men’s Shed show a big improvement in health and well-being. It’s something the Irish Men’s Sheds Association aren’t surprised by. They say it is rare that men will sit down and talk about their problems, feelings or health issues – but when there is a project to be working on, men will often chat about these things while getting a job done. A motto of the movement is: “Men often talk shoulderto-shoulder and not face-to-face.”

To find a Men’s Shed in your area, visit 5 LBS Men's Shed members Noel Blake, Jay McLean and Shane Connolly-O'Brien

www.menssheds.ie

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January / Eanáir 2014 13

COCHLEAR IMPLANT FUNDING VICTORY

Happy New Year for Happy New Ear FAMILIES of children with hearing loss are ringing in the New Year having forced the Fine Gael/Labour Government to change its tune and allocate €3.22million to start the bilateral cochlear implant programme at Beaumont Hospital in 2014.

Campaigners who had spent the past year in what they described as non-stop “meetings, protests, petitions and begging” had a special word of thanks for Sinn Féin TDs Gerry Adams and Jonathan O’Brien.

Jonathan O’Brien achieved the near impossible in October by having the Dáil stay silent for two minutes during a debate on the issue of cochlear implants so TDs “can get some understanding of what those children have to endure”. It was so memorable that the event featured in news website Journal.ie’s ‘The 2013 Political Year in Videos’.

Happy New Ear’s Facebook page celebrated this achievement by declaring: “Wow! We made the Journal’s ‘Political Year in Videos’! When Jonathan O’Brien brought silence to the Dáil chamber, we were in the gallery. A powerful moment we will never forget. Delighted to see it made an impact.”

Happy New Ear added in another Facebook post: “A special word of thanks to Gerry Adams, who championed and believed in us from the beginning.”

Deanna Cairns, whose son Billy needs the implants, thanked everybody for their support.

“We have been helped along the way by so many people and we would like to thank them all for their support throughout the campaign,” she said.

“Thanks to the Joint Committee established

by Gerry Adams who really pushed on this, and to all the HSE staff who met with us and

5 Sinn Féin spokesperson for Health and Children, Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin, and Gerry Adams with Happy New Ear families at the Dáil and (inset) Jonathan O’Brien TD listened to us and our children’s needs. A final thanks goes to Minister for Health James Reilly. We appreciate this more than words can say.”

Cochlear implants can provide access to sound for people with severe or profound

hearing loss. The device is surgically implanted and when coupled to an external processor, can provide access to speech and everyday sounds to aid or improve communications abilities.

It is hoped that the first simultaneous

PERNANDO BARRENA Abertzale Left – Sortu

cochlear implant surgery, where they implant both ears at the same time, will take place in May. The first sequential implant surgery, where the recipient already has an implant, will be in August.

The International Peace Conference and ETA ending armed struggle should have brought a positive government approach – in fact, the political prisoners’ situation got worse

BASQUE POLITICAL PRISONERS AT CENTRE OF PEACE PROCESS BUT STILL PERSECUTED

New year needs new attitude by Madrid BASQUE POLITICAL PRISONERS face this new year still being the real centre of the peace process in the Basque Country.

The International Peace Conference of Donostia/San Sebastian and the announcement by ETA declaring the end of armed struggle opened up a new political era that should have brought a positive government approach to the issues of political dialogue and prisoners. This never happened and the living conditions of the prisoners actually got worse.

Good news came from the Human Rights European Court of Strasbourg that last October declared void the Spanish legal framework for uncovered life sentences against Basque prisoners. It resulted in the immediate release of over 60 long-term Basque inmates before the end of the year.

An overwhelming majority of the Basque people stand for a early release programme as political prisoners are concerned. The issue of prisoners is a central one for the development of the ongoing peace process.

At the moment, more than 500 prisoners are kept scattered in over 70 prisons all around France and Spain; outside of that figure, three remain in custody in Ireland, Portugal and England.

Basque nationalist political parties (PNV and pro-independence left-wing alliance EH BILDU) stand for the repatriation of all the political prisoners to Basque prisons as fast as possible; the immediate release of ill prisoners and those having served 75% of given sentences; and the application of the prisoners’

ordinary legal rights on the basis of transitional justice principles.

Basque political prisoners publicly support the political strategy adopted by the Abertzale Left – Sortu and stand for dialogue to overcome the political conflict and its outcome as the aftermath of violent politics is involved.

They also underline the need of political talks in order to make real that all the Basques are entitled to decide on their own future and that such an exercise is fully respected by Spain and France.

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Hysterical attacks on Sinn Féin show Establishment’s fear would speak out assertively for the rights of our people, something sadly lacking during the whole euro crisis and austerity debacle.

Equally, the Southern Establishment has abandoned the idea of reunification. The current government has shamefully ignored the Peace Process and has put no energy whatsoever into the all-Ireland institutions won in the Good Friday Agreement.

And in tune with that, it has done nothing whatever to advance Irish language rights in the North, despite the commitments made at St Andrews. No surprise here, of course, in the light of the indifference and hostility which led Language Commissioner Seán Ó Cuirreáin to resign.

Nor are Fianna Fáil any better. Their only contribution to the Peace Process is to attack Sinn Féin and try to breathe some life into the dead duck that is the SDLP. Again we have seen the truth of Connolly’s prediction that partition would lead to a carnival of reaction throughout Ireland, with reaction triumphant North and South.

That is why, contrary to the posturing of the ultra-Left, that the fight for reunification in an independent republic which puts equality and the common interests of all of our people in the first place is so important.

BY EOIN Ó MURCHÚ THE increasingly hysterical attacks on Sinn Féin and on party president Gerry Adams are a tribute to the strength of the challenge that Sinn Féin is posing to the Establishment, especially in the South.

Politicians and journalists, from the Right and from the pseudo-Left, have combined to exclude Sinn Féin from the current political debate, using arguments about past strategy as a means of diverting attention from the alternative anti-austerity road that Sinn Féin is mapping out.

Of course, Sinn Féin is not above criticism.

Policies can be given a sharper edge (particularly in relation to the Irish-language issues, North and South) but the clear thrust of Sinn Féin policy is a threat to the propertied and privileged, and they are fighting back with venom.

But this campaign is not purely inspired by a careerist politician’s fear of a rival doing better. Certainly, Fianna Fáil are afraid of Sinn Féin winning the support that previously

CARNIVAL OF REACTION went to that party as a younger generation see through the lies and distortions that misled their parents.

And Labour is quaking with fear that the day of retribution is coming for their brazen betrayal of the interests of working people in whose name the party – occasionally – claims to operate.

Deeper down, there is a growing antipathy on the south Dublin dinner circuit to the idea of a truly independent state. The failure of the 26-County state to realise the aspirations of our people for good, secure employment and the ability to live in our own country have led the middle classes in particular to seek rescue elsewhere.

The fight for separation from Britain has been replaced by an acceptance of integration into Europe, forgetting Connolly’s admonition that “We fight for neither King nor Kaiser but Ireland.”

Less Britain and more Europe has been the limit of the choices the propertied classes have envisaged, with Garret FitzGerald going so far as to claim that the justification for 1916 was that it gave us our own seat in the European Union.

Of course it is better to have our own seat there rather than have Britain speak for us, but better again to have representatives who

5 (Clockwise from top left) Eamonn McCann, Mícheál Martin, Ursula Halligan and Ruth Dudley Edwards

Commentators like Eamonn McCann (who purport to distance themselves from what he calls “communal politics”) ignore the reality that the Northern Executive can only bring in a progressive economic policy if it has the power to do so – if Britain cedes that power to the people of the North.

Sinn Féin are alone in fighting for that, with McCann and his ilk standing loftily aside and joining in the media campaign against Adams.

We are back to Connolly’s fundamental point that, as he said in Labour in Irish History in 1910, the working class are the only incorruptible inheritors of the fight for freedom in Ireland.

They are not the only inheritors of that struggle but the determination of the propertied classes in putting their personal interests above those of the rest of us (as shown by the imposition of austerity) show the key necessity of winning the labour movement back to a leading role in the national struggle, as Connolly envisaged.

This means winning the trade union movement away from a slavish following of the now discredited Labour Party and building a new alliance of progressive forces for real change rather than a realignment of perks and privileges.

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Targeting disadvantaged children doesn’t mean others will suffer – in fact, the reverse is true

Making schools funding count sive Sinn Féin Education Ministers bears that out. So we are changing the way we do education. We now need to change the way we fund education because this rising attainment has not been reflected within the most disadvantaged children. We now need to ensure adequate funding is targeted at those schools and pupils who need it the most.

The independent tribunal chaired by Bob Salisbury last year recommended that more money should be directed at schools with high numbers of children from disadvantaged backgrounds.

This has caused other schools who feel they will be missing out to react and we have

BY ANDREA NASH THERE’S been a lot of debate (and misinformation) about how and why Sinn Féin is trying to change the system of schools funding in the Six Counties.

Firstly, there are practical reasons.

The existing formula has evolved over decades. It is incredibly over-complicated, over-bureaucratic, outdated and most educationalists agree it is in need of reform.

It is also important that this huge amount of money (around £1.6billion a year) is used more effectively to redress inequality within the education sector.

Perhaps one of the greatest inequalities currently facing our society is the fact that children from a disadvantaged background are much less likely to do well in school. In

Toronto in Canada embarked on a similar reform in 2003 and faced much of the same resistance – it now has one of the most equal and highperforming systems in the world

A child who happens to be born into a lower-income household has only HALF the chance of leaving school with a decent level of qualifications fact, a child who qualifies for free school meals (and who is therefore from a lowincome household) only has a one in three (32%) chance of achieving the standard benchmark of five good GCSEs. Children from more affluent backgrounds have twice the chance (64%) of achieving this benchmark.

Therefore, a child who happens to be born into a lower-income household has only HALF the chance of leaving school with a decent level of qualifications.

There are many reasons why children from disadvantaged backgrounds have poorer educational outcomes. These include the lack of learning materials in the home, parental and community disengagement from education, lack of aspiration, and the sheer stress of living in poverty. These all make it more difficult to learn.

The evidence and international experience, however, has shown that the best way to break this cycle is by creating a network of good, well-led schools which are properly resourced to do the job we want them to do.

The Canadian province of Toronto embarked on a similar reform programme in 2003. They faced much of the same resistance we are now but they persisted and now have one of the most equal and high-performing systems in the world. Their experience showed that targeting those children in greatest need of help and raising their attainment helped create an atmosphere of aspiration achievement within the schools. This meant that all learners improved, including those who had already been high-achievers.

Targeting disadvantaged children doesn’t mean others will suffer. In fact, the reverse is true.

That is our aim and we have a whole suite of policies in place which are aimed at

improving educational attainment and creating that network of good schools.

In December, the OECD confirmed that we have the correct policies in place and the gradual increase in attainment under succes-

5 Education Minister John O’Dowd has put in place a contingency fund of almost £16million

been accused of ‘robbing Peter to pay Paul’.

That isn’t the case as we have earmarked additional funds (£30million) to fund the additional ‘targeting social need’ element.

So how come other schools have seen a drop in their projected budgets?

That has largely come about as a result of a separate recommendation from Salisbury to abolish what is known as the ‘premises factor’ of the funding formula. This is a payment given to schools based on the size of their building to cover additional utility costs, etc.

Salisbury concluded that a child-centred approach should fund children and not buildings and recommended that we end the premises factor and instead increase the per pupil amount across all schools.

It was only when we drilled down into individual school budget levels that we could see the anomaly this created. In many cases, the amount of money lost through the premises factor was more than schools gained through the per pupil or even the ‘targeting social need’ increase combined. This meant they were left with a net reduction and the impression was created that this money was siphoned off to allocate to the schools in greatest need.

Clearly this was an unintended consequence and it is precisely to draw out things like this that we went out to consultation.

Sinn Féin Education Minister John O’Dowd has been clear that this anomaly will be redressed before the proposals are finalised.

At the beginning of this process, John O’Dowd confirmed that we had put in place a contingency fund of almost £16million to mitigate any impact on ‘losing’ schools.

This is a learning curve for all of us but it is one that aims to provide children with the best education possible.

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Dublin EU candidate LYNN BOYLAN talks to An Phoblacht

Running for an all-Ireland team in Europe

BY MARK MOLONEY AT THE AGE of 12, Lynn Boylan had her letter supporting a Dublin Bus strike over pay and conditions printed in the Evening Herald.

“My dad was trained as a butcher but the factories closed down. He was in and out of work before he eventually got a permanent job with Dublin Bus. “I wrote a letter to the Evening Herald, telling them that Jim Larkin would be turning in his grave. It was the first time I realised I had a voice.

“As a 12-year-old, to be able to say something and then see it printed in black and white, that was great.

I was always very outspoken on social rights and human rights.”

Brought up in the Kilnamanagh area of Tallaght, in Dublin South-West, Lynn says that from a very young age she has had a great interest in Irish history and social rights.

Following school, Lynn did a college journalism course for a year in Ballyfermot, earning a certificate, but says it wasn’t for her. “I went in as an idealist and came out as a cynic,” she laughs, giving a particularly wide smile as we’re doing the interview in the An Phoblacht offices.

She then began studies in the area of environmentalism and ecology. She earned post-graduate qualifications from University College Dublin in Environmental Impact Assessment and European Environmental Conservation Management, giving her a working knowledge of the European Union’s environmental law.

She put these skills to use when she began volunteer conservation work in Killarney, County Kerry.

There she worked as a co-ordinator with the Irish Wildlife Trust before going on to full-time work in Killarney National Park and Education Centre as an ecologist and teaching ecology for students from primary up to third level.

It was while in Killarney, in 2005, that she joined Sinn Féin.

“I met the local ‘Shinner’ a few times in the pub near where I lived. I kept giving out to him, saying there was no coverage of Sinn Féin in the local papers. I did this for about a month and eventually he sent me a letter half-jokingly saying something along the lines of ‘either join or stop complaining’. They were sick of me giving out to them,” Lynn laughs again. “So I did join – and at my first meeting I was elected to be the publicity officer for the cumann!

“I think a lot of my friends would’ve expected me to join the Green Party because of my area of work but I’ve always voted Sinn Féin. When I was 15 my older sister had her first vote. She had no interest in politics so I pestered her to vote Sinn Féin.”

While living in Killarney she went on to contest a local and general election on the Sinn Féin ticket.

Despite a previous background playing, and later refereeing, soccer, she says it was during her seven years in ‘The Kingdom’ that she became a “fanatical

5 Lynn Boylan says that workers’ rights is a key issue for her

‘Martina Anderson has been one of the few MEPs who has stood up for Irish interests. If we could send over a team of four, representing all 32 counties, and standing up against the increasing rightwing shift of the EU, that’d be a fantastic result’

Dublin GAA supporter”, in part due to the rough time she was given from the local Kerry GAA fans. “The worst part was that I was back in Dublin when we won the All-Ireland football final against Kerry in 2011, so I couldn’t even gloat.”

With the EU campaign ramping up in the new year, Lynn says she is very mindful of the important trust placed in MEPs by the electorate.

When we meet she’s just back from Brussels and a number of meetings on EU policy issues with TDs, senators and advisors from the Oireachtas.

“You’re not acting as a spokesperson for the EU – you’re Ireland’s representative in Brussels. I think a lot of MEPs go over there and just act as a rubber stamp for the system. Martina Anderson has been one of the few MEPs who has stood up for Irish interests, so if we could send over a team of four, representing all 32 counties, and standing up against the increasing rightwing shift of the EU, that’d be a fantastic result.”

Speaking at a conference organised by the Peace and Neutrality Alliance (PANA) in Dublin at the end of last year, Lynn took apart the Labour Party for their hypocritical policies on EU militarisation.

“85% of people in this state support neutrality yet you see Irish MEPs undermining, neglecting or abandoning that position, something which they have no mandate to do. Irish people respect our neutrality.”

She says she half-expects such a stance from Fine Gael, a party that has openly boasted it wants to join NATO and which produced a document called Beyond Neutrality. Labour and Fianna Fáil have been saying at home that they support neutrality but are then backing militarisation in Brussels.

“They voted in favour of a report which ‘regretted’ the cutting of military spending in defence budgets.

Across the EU we have €164billion spent on arms and yet at home in the Dáil they are voting against Sinn Féin proposals of allocating €400million for a Youth Guarantee scheme, something which could have help stem the tide of young people leaving Ireland for Australia, Canada and elsewhere.”

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We’re seeing a race to the bottom for workers across Europe. They are trying to lower working standards and reduce the minimum wage LYNN BOYLAN Sinn Féin Dublin EU candidate

5 Dr Kathleen Lynn – one of Lynn’s heroes

The fact that three of Sinn Féin’s four candidates for the EU elections are women is something that she is particularly proud of.

“Gerry Adams has been a champion for gender equality for years,” she tells me. She says that when she joined the party she had always felt there was focus placed on gender equality.

“Regardless of party affiliations, I’d advise women to be active in politics full stop. Women need to take a bigger role in society.”

She describes Dr Kathleen Lynn as one of her heroes.

The 1916 veteran revolutionised healthcare for children and the poor in tenement Dublin. A staunch supporter of workers during the 1913 Lockout, she was later imprisoned in Kilmainham Jail for her part in the 1916 Easter Rising and then deported to England. She later served as an abstentionist Sinn Féin TD for Dublin County.

As well as working with a community scheme in Ballymun, Lynn is currently the Chairperson of Safefood, the food safety body which runs public awareness and educational campaigns on issues such food safety, food hygiene and nutrition on the island of Ireland. The highlevel position means she is constantly engaging with community organisations across Ireland, as well as government ministers North and South. Food and the environment also happen to be two areas on which the EU produces an enormous amount of legislation that has a bigger impact on Ireland than many other countries because of our history, development and size. Lynn hopes her wide-ranging experience in these fields will stand to her as an MEP. As a child of the 1980s, she remembers hard times in that recession and growing up on an island referred to as ‘The sick man of Europe’.

Labour and Fianna Fáil have been saying at home that they support neutrality but are then backing militarisation in Brussels

Having supported her father who was on strike while she was just 12, it’s unsurprising that employment and workers’ rights are key issues for Lynn.

“We’re seeing a race to the bottom for workers across Europe. They are trying to lower working standards and reduce the minimum wage. I think the EU nearly wants to see a mobile workforce that will go wherever the economic boom is rather than respecting people’s right to live and work where they want to. And that’s very much why we need to invest in local economies, so people can stay, live and work in the families and communities where they’re from.”

Sinn Féin is the only party standing European Parliament candidates on an all-Ireland basis: Lynn Boylan (Dublin), Liadh Ní Riada (South), Martina Anderson MEP (Six Counties) and Matt Carthy (Midlands-North-West)

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Palestinian Member of Parliament and Nobel Peace Prize nominee in Ireland meets Tánaiste and Sinn Féin

Ireland should officially recognise Palestine, MP urges Dáil parties UNITED NATIONS members such as Ireland who have declared their support for the two-state solution to the Palestine/Israel situation should have no problem in giving official recognition to Palestine, a Palestinian MP internationally renowned for his work as a non-violence activist has told the Irish Government and Dáil parties in a visit to Ireland.

As well as meeting Sinn Féin, Dr Mustafa Barhgouthi met Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore as Minister for Foreign Affairs and on behalf of the Irish Government.

Dr Barhgouthi told Sinn Féin: “We appreciate that Ireland voted at the United Nations for Palestinian statehood but we don’t know why Ireland cannot recognise Palestine if Ireland believes in the two-state solution.”

Dr Barhgouthi sits on the Central Council of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and is a former secular candidate for President of Palestine. He is Secretary General of the Palestinian National Initiative (affiliated to the Socialist International) and a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council (Palestinian Parliament).

He has always been a strong advocate of non-violent responses to the Israeli military occupation and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010.

His three-day visit to Ireland in December was organised by Sadaka (The Ireland Palestine Alliance). Sadaka’s Marie Crawley, who attended the briefings with Dr Barhgouthi, said the international community has taken a step back while negotiations continue but this is a mistake, allowing Israel “to continue its colonisation of the West Bank and its blockade of Gaza” without any repercussions internationally.

Meeting Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams TD and Sinn Féin Foreign Affairs spokesperson Seán

Crowe TD in Leinster House, Dr Barhgouthi showed them maps showing the increasingly aggressive expansionism of Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian lands.

Seán Crowe explained that Sinn Féin had raised the issue of Palestine in the Irish Parliament at every available opportunity and directly with the Irish Government. Dáil questions have been tabled regarding Israel’s illegal settlements and the crisis in Gaza.

‘We appreciate that Ireland voted at the United Nations for Palestinian statehood but we don’t know why Ireland cannot recognise Palestine if Ireland believes in the two-state solution’ Dr Mustafa Barhgouthi Palestinian MP and non-violence activist Gerry Adams – who has visited Palestine and Gaza three times – added that Sinn Féin has “consistently” raised Palestine with successive US Presidents, including President Obama. He said that Sinn Féin had regularly lobbied the Irish Government during its EU presidency to put the EU Heads of Mission ‘Jerusalem Report’* on the EU agenda.

Dr Barhgouthi expressed his admiration for what Sinn Féin has achieved and he believes that similar historical experiences have led to

5 Sinn Féin’s Eric Scanlon, Seán Crowe TD and Gerry Adams TD at the Sadaka-organised meeting

5 Gerry Adams TD meets with Palestinian MP Dr Mustafa Barhgouthi the evident sympathy that many Irish people have for Palestine.

With obvious disappointment and regret, he feared for the prospects of successful talks, due to “the imbalance of power” between Israel and Palestine and also because the Israeli Government contains ministers with hardline views. Some come from settler backgrounds, families living on Palestinian land occupied since 1967, including the Israeli Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, and the Housing Minister, Uri Ariel, of the pro-settler Jewish Home party.

Dr Barghouthi told Sinn Féin that there is little hope of any success in the current peace talks while the growth of illegal settlements and the violence of the Israeli military occupation continues.

“What has actually happened during the recent negotiations is a consolidation of a system of apartheid,” the Palestinian MP said.

“During this time, the rate of settlement expansions was 132% higher than in previous years,

550 Palestinians were arrested, while only 52 were released from jails and 24 Palestinians were killed.”

Palestinian homes are being demolished by the Israeli military and replaced with Israeli illegal settlers, he said. “Ethnic cleansing is taking place on the ground.”

Less than a fortnight after Dr Barhgouthi’s visit, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for a “reassessment” of his Housing Minister’s plans to build nearly 24,000 settler homes – not because the policy was wrong but because he feared an international outcry that would divert attention from Israel’s lobbying against a nuclear deal with Iran.

Speaking after the meeting with Dr Barhgouthi, Sinn Féin TD Seán Crowe said the Irish Government must continue to be active: “It could and should fully and formally acknowledge the Palestinian state as 134 countries out of the 194 represented at the UN have already done this.”

* The Jerusalem Report, produced by EU diplomats in Jerusalem and Ramallah, is a scathing indictment of the Israeli Government’s flouting of international law and its violation of the rights of Palestinian citizens living in East Jerusalem and the Occupied Territories.

5 Dr Mustafa Barhgouthi and Sadaka meet with Sinn Féin TDs and advisors in Leinster House

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January / Eanáir 2014 19

DECLAN

KEARNEY

SINN FÉIN NATIONAL CHAIRPERSON

BARRIERS TO RECONCILIATION AND A SHARED FUTURE

SECTARIANISM SEGREGATION AND

SECTARIANISM is both a by-product of British colonialism in Ireland and the cement used to embed the partition of Ireland and provide the ethos of the new Northern state just over 90 years ago.

The government of the state was infamously described by a one-time Prime Minister James Craig as being “a Protestant parliament for a Protestant people”.

It was designed to guarantee an overall permanent unionist and Protestant majority.

To this day, Northern society continues to exhibit the communal sectarian divisions which were used to create the Northern state and a present-day siege culture originally fostered by the unionist ruling elite to maintain social control and provide the fledgling state with a raison d’źtre.

The fact is that sectarianism and segregation are central to our contested past. For as long as that remains the case, it will hold back the address of legacy issues.

The polarisation and societal and political ambivalence fostered by sectarianism means that Northern society has yet to address with any sustained or mainstreamed discourse the nature of sectarianism and how it should be tackled.

It is a fact that, for as long as the attitudes and agents of sectarianism and segregation remain unchallenged, division and polarisation will be perpetuated, intolerance and bigotry will continue, and the potential for instability and conflict will be a constant.

The Good Friday Agreement provides the political framework and governing principles to facilitate the conduct of politics and coexistence of distinct and competing political traditions and aspirations.

True democratic politics, bereft of sectarian culture or attitudes, need to work and be seen to do so successfully within our institutions, under the agreed and binding Good Friday Agreement principles.

To that end Sinn Féin supports:• The full implementation of the Together Building a United Community (OFMDFM) strategy and calls for that to be reinforced with the following measures aimed at undermining sectarianism in the longer term.

5 Sinn Féin supports a popular campaign against sectarianism and segregation • All-party unity and leadership of a popular campaign against sectarianism and segregation.

• A citizens’ anti-sectarian charter.

• The re-establishment of a civic forum as a platform to encourage cross-community and antisectarian solidarity within civic society.

Part of our present reality is that the past cannot be changed or undone, nor can the suffering, hurt or pain be disowned – by any side, because none of us were bystanders to the conflict.

However, all victims deserve acknowledgement and healing of their pain, if that is possible An initiative of common acknowledgement

by all sides – British, Irish, unionist and republican – of the injustices, actions and practices, and attendant hurt caused by and to each other could introduce a powerful new dynamic to our Peace Process which could help create the space for healing, forgiveness and space to grow.

Sinn Féin advocates an all-inclusive crossparty engagement to build upon the measures contained in the Together Building a United Community strategy.

We believe the Civic Forum has an important role to play in such discussions.

Consideration should also be given to the formulation of a dedicated Reconciliation Strategy under the auspices of the NorthSouth Ministerial Council.

It is through the implementation of such measures that entirely new circumstances can be forged and provide a new context within which to finally address the legacy of our past.

Reality shows, however, that some within our society are implacably opposed to peace and progress. Sectarianism and segregation is the refuge of those who reject the Peace Process. They offer nothing except an agenda of permanent sectarian division – and they must not be allow to succeed.

A Bill of Rights should be urgently introduced to copper-fasten the right of all citizens to live free form all forms of sectarian harassment, bigotry and intolerance.

In addition, we believe international best practice should inform the entrenchment of a definition of sectarianism in anti-sectarian legislation in the North of Ireland. This should include robust incitement to hatred provisions. Such new legislative instruments must be guaranteed the full support of the criminal justice system.

In order for sectarianism and segregation to be comprehensively tackled, our political and social context must be changed.

Sinn Féin believes this can happen through the development of an authentic reconciliation process with the critical mass and momentum to assist in transforming current divisions with new human and political relationships.

An inclusive reconciliation process could re-energise politics and support in opening up a new phase of our Peace Process.

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At first set in fairly vague terms, the restrictions were tightened in 1976 by Labour Party Minister for Posts and Telegraphs Conor Cruise O’Brien to specifically ban Sinn Féin. O’Brien’s successors renewed the order under Section 31 annually

BY

BY MÍCHEÁL MÍCHEÁL Mac Mac DONNCHA DONNCHA

Section 31 goes in Ireland and Gerry Adams arrives in US

Double blow to censorship

5 Protesters – including Larry O’Toole (third from left) whose 1992 High Court case put the first nail in the broadcast ban’s coffin – show their opposition to Section 31 outside Leinster House

IN JANUARY 1994, the armed conflict in the Six Counties was at a critical stage. The previous year had seen the deaths of 84 people in the war and, while there was some political movement, it was by no means clear that a peace process could be put in place to end the armed conflict and to address its root causes.

The dialogue between Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams and SDLP leader John Hume was the crucial factor that changed everything. That dialogue increasingly set the political agenda in 1993 despite the vitriolic political attacks on both men, especially from the political establishment in the 26 Counties who saw John Hume’s role as a betrayal of their strategy, pursued over many years, of attempting to demonise and isolate Irish republicans.

A key element in that strategy was widespread Government censorship of the broadcasting media. Since 1971, successive Dublin governments had used Section 31 of the Broadcasting Act 1960 to bar republicans from the airwaves. At first set in fairly vague terms, the restrictions were tightened in 1976 by Labour Party Minister for Posts and Telegraphs Conor Cruise

O’Brien to specifically ban Sinn Féin.

O’Brien’s successors renewed the order under Section 31 annually, ensuring that people in the 26 Counties received a totally one-sided view of the war in the North and of its consequences for the whole of Ireland.

Ironically, it was another Labour Party Minister with responsibility for broadcasting, Michael D. Higgins, now Uachtarán na hÉireann, who was to lift the ban. The Fianna Fáil/Labour Government took office in 1992 and Higgins, who was appointed to the Cabinet, had expressed his opposition to Section 31.

With the development of the Hume/Adams dialogue and the early beginnings of the Peace Process, Higgins decided not to renew the Section 31 ban and he announced this on 11 January 1994. The ban lapsed on 19 January and the broadcast media in the 26 Counties were free to interview Sinn Féin spokespeople. The first such interview was with Gerry Adams on Dublin’s 98fm radio station.

A second major element in the attempted suppression of the republican message was what became known as ‘censorship by visa denial’.

emembering R the

Past

5 In 1994 Gerry Adams was granted a visa to speak at a peace conference in New York Successive United States administrations had refused visas for Sinn Féin spokespeople to visit and speak in the USA. In 1992, in the run-up to the Presidential election, candidate Bill Clinton had pledged that he would support the granting of a visa to Gerry Adams. Clinton, who went on to win the presidential election, also supported the MacBride Principles of Fair Employment and the appointment of a US Peace Envoy to Ireland.

On 14 January 1994, Gerry Adams applied for a US visa to visit New York for a conference on peace in Ireland.

His application was supported by the

US Ambassador to Ireland, Jean Kennedy Smith, a Clinton appointee.

The British Government immediately began an intense political and media lobbying campaign in Washington against the granting of the visa.

Clinton’s Secretary of State, Warren Christopher, and Attorney General Janet Reno were against the visa but on 29 January it was granted by President Clinton.

Gerry Adams travelled to New York on 30 January on a two-day visa to attend a conference at which John Hume also spoke, to meet IrishAmerican supporters and to speak to

the media in broadcasts that went coast to coast across the USA. British and unionist reaction was furious with Ulster Unionist Party MP Ken Maginnis saying that, in future, “deaths in Northern Ireland will be Clinton deaths”. Unionists turned down the invitation to attend the New York peace conference because of the presence of Gerry Adams.

Within the space of ten days, two major elements of anti-republican censorship – Section 31 of the Broadcasting Act and US visa denial – were broken in January 1994, 20 years ago this month.

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EOIN Ó MURCHÚ

Cá bhfuil Gluaiseacht na Gaeilge agus an Teanga faoi Ionsaí?

IS SCANNAL DÁMANTA é go raibh ar an gCoimisinéir Teanga, Seán Ó Cuirreáin, éirí as i bhfianaise fhaillí an rialtais i dtaobh na Gaeilge, sé sin an chaoi gur cuma leis an stát cearta lucht labhartha na Gaeilge fiú chómh fada is a bhaineann siad lena ndlithe féin nó le Bunreacht an stáit.

Fear díograiseach is ea an Cuirreánach, agus fair play dhó nach raibh sé sásta fanachht ina thost nuair a bhí an rialtas agus polaiteóirí Thigh Laighean ag déanamh neamhaird dá seasamh oifigiúil féin.

Ach ní leór an stát a cháineadh mar gheall ar an scéal seo, nó an Cuirreánach a mholadh. Ní leór eagrafhocal tacaíochta san Irish Times ach an oiread, cé go mba mhaith an rud é sin.

Sí an cheist ná céard a dhéanfaidh lucht labhartha na Gaeilge faoi?

Caoga bliain ó shoin chuir an réabhlóidí Mairtín Ó Cadhain an cheist chéanna rómhainn sa bpaimfléad Irish Above Politics.

Thug sé faoi ndear an chaoi go raibh na páirtithe go léir ag an am sásta an cupla focal a rá, tacaíocht bhéil a thabhairt don teanga is

leanacht ar aghaidh ag déanamh neamhaird de mheath na teangan.

Mhol an Cadhnach gur chóir do lucht lab-

5 Mairtín Ó Cadhain – Irish Above Politics

hartha na Gaeilge a spéis sa teanga a chur sa túsáit ó thaobh vótála dhe. Ábhar polaitiúil a dhéanamh den teanga sa gcaoi nach mbeadh na páirtithe in ann neamhaird a dhéanamh di.

Agus má bhreathnaíonn muid ar an Dail inniu, is é Sinn Féin an t-aon pháirtí a chuireanns leas na teanga chun cinn: is cuma le Aire Oideachais ó Pháirtí an Lucht Oibre an bhfuil gaelscolaíochta ar fáil, mar shampla; is cuma le Aire Gaeltachta ó Fhine Gael nach féidir le lucht labhartha na Gaeilge a gcearta a fháil ón stát; agus is cuma le Fianna Fáil go bhfuil a strfaitéis fiche Bliain féin ligthe i ndearmad.

Agus cá bhfuil gluaiseacht na Gaeilge sa scéal seo? An bhfuil gluaiseacht ann?

Gluaiseacht ar strae a thug an Cadhnach air, ach an fhaid is a bhíonn muide, lucht labhartha na Gaeilge, sásta tada a dhéanamh ach cáineadh go ciúin eadrainn féin ní thabharfar aon aird orainn.

Tá gá go dtiocfadh lucht na Gaeilge le chéile, ag tabhairt tacaíocht do pháirtithe is polaiteóirí a thugann tacaíocht duinn, ach ag cinntiú go mbeidh ár leas polaitiúil sa túsáit againn.

An féidir linn Irish a chur above politics?

@

100 YEARS ON Famous publication to be digitised to An Phoblacht online subscribers AN PHOBLACHT will be making all the editions of The Irish Volunteer, the newspaper of the Irish Volunteer movement, available to online subscribers each week over the next two years and exactly 100 years after they were first published.

The Irish Volunteer - tOglác na hÉireann was first published on 7 February 1914 and from then on every week until 22 April 1916, just days before the Easter Rising.

The official newspaper of the Irish Volunteers, it outlined the political views of the leadership and reported on manoueveres and important events, such as the Howth Gun Running of 1914. It played an important part in giving a nationalist and republican perspective on major news stories. While officially edited by Eoin MacNeill (who would later go on to issue countermanding orders in an attempt to cancel the Easter Rising) many of those involved were senior members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood.

The paper was incredibly important in influencing public opinion and garnering support for the Irish

online Volunteers, forerunners of the Irish Republican Army.

Included within its pages alongside political opinions and news reports are various advertisements from shops across Ireland selling items such as revolvers, bandoliers and military uniforms.

In its final edition, published just two days before the beginning of the Easter Rising and following reports of the capture of Roger Casement as he attempted to land weapons from a German submarine, the newspaper wrote: “Arrangements are now nearing completion in all the more important brigade areas for the holding of a very interesting series of manoeuvres at Easter. In some instances the arrangements contemplate a one- or two-day bivouac. As for Easter, the Dublin programme may well stand as a model for other areas.”

An online subscription to An Phoblacht costs just €10 for 12 issues and includes a digital copy of each new edition of the paper and IRIS magazine, access to our digitised historic archives, and copies of the Irish Volunteer.

Sign up at www.anphoblacht.com – ONLY €10

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‘I am convinced that the IRA did not require any Garda assistance or collusion to carry out the assassination of these two RUC officers’

SMITHWICK TRIBUNAL

Investigator rejects findings “There was no mole and we would ask that this be discounted very firmly and very quickly,” John Hermon said.

Conor Brady was editor of The Irish Times between 1986 and 2002 and recently one of the three Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commissioners. Prior to that he had been Editor of the Garda Review and had written a history of An Garda Síochána. He said of the Smithwick findings “it is a far step from [Garda corruption] to participation in the murders of fellow police officers, albeit in a different jurisdiction”.

Brady notes that the report concludes that “the passing of information by a member of an Garda Síochána was the trigger” for the ambush operation in which Chief Superintendent Breen and Superintendent Buchanan were killed. “This conclusion would appear to be built upon a structure of deduc-

WHATEVER the headline in The Irish Times says, the Irish Government’s Smithwick Tribunal DID NOT find evidence of collusion by a ‘Garda mole’ in the IRA ambush and execution of two high-ranking RUC police chiefs in 1989.

The IRA ambushed RUC Chief Superintendent Harry Breen and Superintendent Bob Buchanan on March 20 1989 near the Border in south Armagh shortly after a meeting with senior gardaí in Dundalk, County Louth.

They were two of the RUC’s most experienced and senior commanders in south Armagh.

Chief Superintendant Breen was the highest-ranking member of the RUC to be killed by the IRA. He had 1,200 British Army and RUC personnel under his command and had a leading role in all major operations, including SAS actions such as the ambush at Loughgall in 1987 that wiped out an eight-strong IRA unit and killed a civilian.

It was alleged that a ‘mole’ in the Garda in Dundalk had passed on to the IRA details of the men’s movements that enabled the IRA operation.

The IRA denied this. Three former senior IRA activists involved in the planning and execution of the operation gave direct testimony to lawyers for the tribunal.

The tribunal was told the former IRA members gave detailed accounts and replied to questions from the inquiry team.

Tribunal lawyer Maura Laverty SC acknowledged the meeting was “a very significant development” and described it as “an unprecedented development”.

Their evidence was that the operation was the culmination of many months of surveillance of the RUC officers at many levels and locations.

What Judge Peter Smithwick did find in the publication of his 500-page report on 3 December was that, because of suspicions about three Garda officers – none of whom was linked by Smithwick to the RUC killings — that “on the balance of probabilities” there was collusion.

No one is identified as a source of information in the Garda or anywhere else. The three gardaí are actually ruled out.

What is remarkable to any dispassionate or outside observer is that in a case involving two police forces and a tribunal headed by a respected judge, the fact that no evidence has been found is disregarded in favour of conjecture.

“On the balance of probabilities” becomes a matter of fact for The Irish Times (the selfproclaimed ‘Paper of Record’).

Even the Smithwick Tribunal’s own investigator discounted its report’s findings that gardaí colluded with the IRA. Former Garda Detective Inspector Gerry O’Carroll was appointed by Judge Peter Smithwick as an investigator in October 2006 and spent 10 months looking into all aspects of the collusion allegations and the IRA attack.

O’Carroll said he did not agree with the conclusions of Judge Smithwick, the man who had hired him. He publicly declared that the IRA did not need Garda collusion to carry out operations such as the one he spent almost a year looking into all aspects of.

“I must confess to being shocked and astonished at the content and tone of some of the report,” O’Carroll said immediately after its publication.

“The Garda and RUC investigations found no evidence of collusion between gardaí and Provos. Judge Smithwick found no conclusive or irrefutable evidence of collusion in his own inquiry, despite an eight-year investigation.

“Judge Smithwick states that, on the balance of probabilities, collusion had taken place but he has not produced irrefutable or compelling evidence to back up this.”

O’Carroll reiterated that he personally was “not convinced or persuaded” that there was any collusion between members of the Garda and the IRA. A former columnist for the Evening Herald who wrote under the banner title of ‘The Sheriff’, O’Carroll hates republicans and would be loathe to give the IRA credit for anything but he added: “From my own knowledge and investigations into this affair, I am convinced that the

‘On the balance of probabilities’ becomes a matter of fact for The Irish Times

IRA did not require any Garda assistance or collusion to carry out the assassination of these two RUC officers.”

The former Ulster Unionist MP and now Independent MP for North Down, Lady Sylvia Hermon, is the widow of the RUC Chief Constable at the time of the killings. Sir John Hermon was an implacable and bitter enemy of the IRA. His wife said that had there been “a shred of real evidence of collusion he would have said so and acted on it immediately”.

In the aftermath of the attack and the flurry of speculation at how the IRA had struck such a devastating blow to the British security set-up along the Border, the RUC Chief Constable agreed with senior Garda assertions that there had been no leak.

‘The conclusion would appear to be built upon a structure of deduction rather than any hard evidence . . .

Judge Smithwick acknowledges the lack of any direct evidence’ tion rather than any hard evidence . . . Judge Smithwick acknowledges the lack of any direct evidence.”

Brady quotes from the report itself (23.1.2): “There is no record of a phone call, no traceable payment, no smoking gun.”

The former Garda watchdog then points out: “And when [Judge Smithwick] considers the possible involvement of the gardaí who were examined by the tribunal, he rules each of them out . . .

“We are left with the possibility that some unknown garda notified the IRA of the RUC officers’ visit. This requires one to conclude (as the judge does) that the IRA’s claim to have mounted the ambush on the basis of its own surveillance and intelligence is false. But notwithstanding Gerry Adams’s maladroit comments about the murdered officers’ approach to their security, it should be borne in mind that, in recent years, IRA statements about past operational matters have been generally accurate.”

The critical comment about Gerry Adams

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5 The IRA says it mounted the operation on the basis of its own intelligence and surveillance

5 RUC Chief Supt Breen with weapons from the SAS ambush at Loughgall. (Inset) RUC Supt Buchanan refers to the Sinn Féin President’s description during a radio interview of the RUC officers’ attitude to their personal security as “laissez faire”.

It is particularly noteworthy that while the media seized on this to excoriate Gerry

Three former senior IRA activists involved in the planning and execution of the operation gave direct testimony to lawyers for the Smithwick Tribunal

5 Judge Peter Smithwick

Adams, he was actually reflecting testimony in the Smithwick Tribunal Report, evidence that is in the public domain and which the Establishment media and political opportunists chose to ignore.

In his Léargas blog on 5 December, Gerry Adams wrote in response to a furore fuelled by cheap point scoring by political opponents and headline writers: “I am very conscious that at the heart of this issue are two bereaved families. I did not need to be reminded of this by any of my

political opponents and I am concerned, as I was during the Newstalk interview, not to say anything which detracts from that or which causes any further hurt. That was never my intention.

“What I said reflects what is recorded by Justice Smithwick.

“So those who attack me are at odds with what is contained in the Smithwick Report.

“It is nonsense to suggest that I was blaming the two RUC officers for their own deaths.

Everyone knows the IRA was responsible.

That was never in question.

“There is also no question but that the Smithwick Report records serious concerns about the security arrangements for RUC officers travelling to Dundalk through south Armagh.

“It is a fact that RUC Officer Bob Buchanan was crossing the Border on average 10 times each month and on most occasions he travelled in his own car which was ‘readily identifiable’.

“In his report, Justice Smithwick records (and I quote) ‘there was a general view that the RUC crossing the Border were targets’ and ‘they [referring to RUC members] were all warned in relation to that’.

“Clearly, the decision to continue to travel as frequently as they did across the Border, without escort, left the RUC officers open to the real possibility of attack.

“None of this distracts from the tragedy and loss of life.

“Sinn Féin supported the establishment of the Smithwick Inquiry. I co-operated with the inquiry and met Justice Smithwick and his team a number of times.

“I have concerns about the tribunal’s conclusions given that it accepts that it found no direct evidence of collusion and then went on to claim without supporting evidence that ‘on the balance of probabilities’ there was collusion.

“Sinn Féin supports the recommendations

5 Gerry Adams’s comments reflect report’s findings the tribunal makes with regard to changes in policing and developing full all-Ireland cooperation on policing and justice.

“There is also a need to deal with the outstanding issues of Weston Park. The Finucane family are entitled to the same support and levels of disclosure as the Breen and Buchanan families.”

Gerry Adams pointed out that he asked the Taoiseach only a few weeks ago to facilitate a reasoned and rationale debate on the past.

“I made the point that the past must not be allowed to become an obstacle to building the peace and a harmonious and fair future for all our citizens.”

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PHIL Mac GIOLLA BHÁIN SCOTTISH INDEPENDENCE REFERENDUM 18 SEPTEMBER 2014 NEW YEAR CELEBRATIONS are very common across the world. Within these islands, no one does the New Year thing quite like the Scots.

In an age of branding and marketing it is one of fair Caledonia’s unique selling propositions. I’m a veteran of quite a few Scottish New Years. In my early adulthood as a nondrinker, I looked on a bit bemused in Glasgow as ‘The Bells’ rang at New Year, wondering precisely what was ‘new’ about any of it.

This New Year in Scotland, however, could really be a new beginning. In 2014, the people of Scotland have an opportunity to make the biggest geo-political change in these islands since Mick Collins sat across the table from Lord Birkenhead and David Lloyd George in London. Thankfully, in Scotland there has been no conflict and politics have, mercifully,

In 2014, the people of Scotland have an opportunity to make the biggest geopolitical change in these islands since Mick Collins sat across the table from David Lloyd George in London remained demilitarised. There has been no need to take the gun out of Scottish politics because it was never there in the first place.

As I look on from my vantage point in a Border county, as a Glaswegian and an Irish citizen, I think that the Scots of this historical moment are blessed. They have the choice simply to vote to establish their own national self-determination. We republicans know that Westminster steadfastly refused to grant that same right to Ireland despite being asked persistently for it by the vast majority of elected representatives from this island.

Scotland First Minister Alex Salmond’s view was that once Scots had a taste of home rule (devolution), limited self-government within the aegis of Westminster wouldn’t be enough for them. Give people a little freedom and they often want more. Ultimately they want it all. That isn’t something that is unique to the Irish or the Scots – it is human.

2014 will be the year of the referendum debate and in late 2013 the Scottish government launched its White Paper on independence. The early rounds were clearly won by the ‘Yes’ side. Not only is the Scottish National Party on that side, there is also the Scottish Green Party, the Scottish Socialist Party,

ALL TO PLAY FOR THIS YEAR YES SUPPORTERS

Alan Cumming

Elaine C. Smith

Gerard Butler

Liz Lochead

Brian Cox

groups such as ‘Labour Voters for Independence’ and Radical Independence, and numerous well-known figures from the world of the arts and culture.

The ‘No’ side – under the banner ‘Better Together’ – is fronted by the Labour Party’s Finance Minister from 2007 to 2010, Alistair Darling, a nice man who has undergone a complete charisma bypass and had his personality amputated at some point in the past.

All the main Westminster parties oppose Scottish independence and Alistair is their darling.

Think of Gay Mitchell’s shot at the Park without the, ahem, deft media handling that assisted the Blueshirt and you get the idea. It really is that bad. The ‘Yes’ side are trouncing them in the debate. The polls still say that the ‘No’ side will win but by how much is the question.

If the ‘Yes’ vote is, say, 43% or 44% then the Scottish question isn’t settled by a long way.

What the ‘No’ campaign fears most of all at present is to enter into ‘neverendum’ territory,

At this stage, the ‘Don’t Knows’ have the result in their grasp. Consequently, the ‘Yes’ campaign see it as all to play for but a resounding victory for the Better Together side would settle this issue for a generation or more. A recent opinion poll put the gap between the two sides as only 9%.

This is the first time that a poll has shown the gap to have reduced to single figures and, at this stage, the ‘Don’t Knows’ have the result in their grasp. Consequently, the ‘Yes’ campaign see it as all to play for.

Although the decision is for the Scottish people and for them alone it is correct that all the countries and communities of these islands should be interested in the debate and the outcome. What Scotland decides in 2014 will impact on all of us in this archipelago and beyond into the rest of Europe.

The ‘Fleg folk’ in the North of Ireland look on in horror as the consent principle is applied to the ancestral homeland of Ulster Scots; the rest of the people on the island of Ireland will instinctively get that it is a natural human yearning to be in charge of your own affairs and will wish the Scots well. I know I do.

PHIL Mac GIOLLA BHÁIN was a Constituency Organiser for the Scottish National Party in the East End of Glasgow during the 1987 general election.

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Supporting Basque prisoners

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This is funded by the European United Left/ Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL)

I SIGNED a letter with other human rights minded MEPs at the end of 2013 in support of the developing peace process in the Basque Country. In October 2006, the EU Parliament adopted a resolution supporting efforts to solve this political conflict. Martin Schulz MEP declared during the debate: “The road towards dialogue is the only way we can bring an end to this spiral of violence.”

Republicans have long recognised the centrality of dialogue to laying the foundations for a peace process but for it to succeed it must be inclusive of all participants of the conflict.

As with building peace in Ireland, building peace in the Basque Country contributes to

Aontas Clé na hEorpa/Na Glasaigh Chlé Nordacha Crúpa Paliminta – Parlaimimt na h Eorpa

Another Europe is possible

On the path to peace, prisoners’ human rights must be respected

stability in Europe. Therefore it is incumbent on MEPs to play our part in the resolution of the ongoing conflict within EU borders.

In October 2011, Kofi Annan, Bertie Ahern, Gro Harlem Brutland, Jonathan Powell, Gerry Adams and Pierre Joxe attended the International Conference in San Sebastian to promote the resolution of the conflict in the Basque Country.

On behalf of the broader international community they presented a road map for the resolution of the conflict. ETA responded to this call three days later by declaring the end to its armed campaign. Since then, this road map has received the support of many, including Jimmy Carter, Ban Ki-moon, Bill Clinton, scores of MEPs, former MEPs, MPs from different European national parliaments, as well as 13 former South American Presidents.

5 Martina Anderson MEP helps out with a Christmas charity collection for the homeless These recommendations called on the Spanish and French governments to play an active and positive role in the peace process.

Unfortunately, this has yet to happen.

I welcome the 21 October 2013 decision by the European Court of Human Rights on the extended detention of Basque political prisoners leading to serious breaches of fundamental human rights. The ruling found the Spanish authorities (through the so-called ‘Parot Doctrine’) kept over 50 Basque political prisoners in detention despite the fact that they should have been released years ago.

The compliance of the Spanish judiciary with the ruling and the subsequent release of the prisoners was a victory for human rights,

presenting an opportunity to progress towards conflict resolution.

The end of the policy of dispersion, facilitating prisoner transfer to prisons close to their families, and the immediate release of seriously-ill prisoners should be the natural progression of this human rights based approach.

The determination of all who seek a peaceful future should be the construction of a political space for dialogue and an end to draconian policing and judicial measures as the option of first resort.

It is time to build peace in the Basque Country based on human rights, justice and truth. On the path to peace, prisoners’ human rights must be respected.

Martina Anderson MEP is a member of the GUE/NGL Group in the European Parliament

What the mainstream media won’t show you – www.welcometogaza.com

Welcome to Gaza

5 Eileen Carr says the plight of the people of Gaza is not reflected in the mainstream media

A MENTAL HEALTH THERAPIST and human rights worker who travelled to Gaza with the ‘Welcome to Gaza’ Convoy last July has criticised the mainstream media for failing to reflect the daily suffering of people of Palestine.

Eileen Carr is trying to fill that information gap by hosting a series of film shows and talks in Ireland, such as the one I attended in December at St Mary’s College in Belfast.

It was an event that brought home the cruelty, the viciousness and the total disregard for Palestinian lives that is at the heart of what can only be characterised as the Israeli killing machine.

Eileen, who is also an anthropologist, actually lived in the West Bank for a time “but nothing prepares you for what you see in Gaza”.

BY PEADAR WHELAN One of her films deals with the death of a young Palestinian boy killed while playing soccer.

Another shows children wading through streets flooded with raw sewage, a direct product of the area’s infrastructure destroyed by the regular sortie attacks by the Israeli military machine.

A silent film focuses on a woman as she flicks through the pages of a book . . . a bombed home, a man with no legs, a couple each with a missing limb.

Then she leafs through the book until she found the photograph of herself with memorials to her five babies – five children who will never sing, dance or play football.

This is followed by footage of doctors futilely attempting to save the lives of another five children from the same family. Their limp, lifeless bodies are testimony to Israel’s state terrorism.

“None of this is shown on mainstream media,” Eileen said.

“The water, fuel and medicine crisis is escalating. The sewerage system is breaking down, leaving children wading through streets flowing with waste.”

Eileen is committed to raising awareness of human rights violations and relating the suffering and mental trauma of a society exposed to chronic levels of fear, loss and violence.

The ‘Welcome to Gaza Convoy’ project takes groups of journalists and activists to visit the Gaza Strip to raise awareness in the West, to bring solidarity, and to promote international projects and working links.

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26 January / Eanáir 2014 OPENED in 1832 following years of campaigning by Daniel O’Connell, Glasnevin Cemetery is the largest non-denominational cemetery in Ireland. Within its walls and watchtowers (originally erected to deter bodysnatchers) are the graves of over 1.5million people and an estimated 200,000 monuments and headstones.

In 2010, a new museum opened its doors, providing exhibitions, walking tours and allowing people to trace their own family history. It has quickly become one of Ireland’s top historical and tourist attractions.

MARK MOLONEY met Glasnevin Cemetery Museum Lead Historian Shane MacThomáis to speak to him about ‘Ireland’s Necropolis’.

IT’S a cold but bright winter morning as I chat with Shane MacThomáis outside the Glasnevin Museum, in the shadow of the great round tower erected over the tomb of Daniel O’Connell. As we talk, an Irish Defence Forces veteran in a smart green blazer and a blue United Nations beret approaches Shane to invite him to a commemoration taking place later that day.

“The last time I was here like this I was in the guard of honour for de Valera’s funeral,” he smiles. He and other veterans are there to remember the Niemba Ambush of 1960, when nine Irish Defence Force members were killed by Baluba tribesmen while on UN peace-keeping duties in the Congo.

Another veteran, in uniform and clutching a piece of paper with some notes scribbled on it, makes a beeline for our group. Along with taking part in the commemoration, he’s hoping to use this visit to Glasnevin to find out more information about a relative who was buried here in the 1880s.

Prior to the establishment of Glasnevin Cemetery, Irish Catholics had no cemeteries in which to bury their dead. The repressive Penal Laws also meant many Catholics could not perform their full funeral services in public. Daniel

Prior to the establishment of Glasnevin Cemetery, Irish Catholics had no cemeteries in which to bury their dead O’Connell led a campaign to open a cemetery where Catholics could bury their dead with dignity. After Glasnevin opened in 1832 the first thing he did was to declare it non-denominational, something which was incredibly progressive for the time.

“This cemetery has never refused anybody burial,” says Shane, “and because of that you have all aspects of Irish history here.

“There’s certainly republican history with Young Irelanders, the Land League, the Invincibles, right up to the Tan War and Civil War. But alongside all of that you also have parliamentary politics with people like Charles Stewart Parnell and then you have Ireland’s imperial history: graves of people from the Charge of the

www.anphoblacht.com

GLASNEVIN

IRELAND’S NECROPOLIS A look at the fascinating history of the last resting place of 1.5million souls

5 Shane MacThomáis, lead historian and curator of Glasnevin Cemetery Museum Light Brigade, the Crimean War, the Boer War – soldiers who were unionist in their politics.

“The cemetery really encapsulates the whole history of Ireland, not just one aspect.”

Many great rivals, on completely different sides of politics and conflict, found their resting places right next to each other in Glasnevin.

‘Big Jim’ Larkin, the great trade union leader, is buried only 25 feet from his arch-enemy, industrialist William Martin Murphy. Éamonn de Valera is less than 200 feet from Michael Collins, while anti-fascist IRA Volunteer and An Phoblacht Editor Frank Ryan is 50 feet from Blueshirt leader Eoin O’Duffy.

It’s said that, following the passing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty by the Dáil in 1921, representatives of both pro and anti-Treaty sides of the IRA arrived at Glasnevin on the same day to buy up plots in anticipation of the Civil War. Recently, the Glasnevin Trust was granted €20million by the Government over a period of 10 years for the huge amount of restoration needed to the 20,000 monuments but it only received a portion of that before the economic crash and the election of the Fine Gael and Labour Government. Thankfully, the money the Trust did receive allowed them to finish the museum centre. The ongoing restoration work is financed through tours, book sales, the museum’s coffee shop and the sale of monuments and flowers. “For me it’s a very socialist model,” says Shane. “There isn’t anybody taking a profit from this.”

Shane points across the glass wall along the endless rows of gravestones. He describes two graves which lie next to each other near the chapel. One is of a young man named Emmet, a member of the Irish Volunteers who was killed

near Boland’s Mill during the 1916 Rising; the other, named Dunne, is a member of the Dublin Fusiliers killed at the Battle of the Somme that same year.

“Both of them could have joined the Irish Volunteers at the Rotunda in 1913,” Shane suggests. “For all we know, they could have been best friends. One went with John Redmond and the other stayed with Pádraig Pearse but they both ended up in unmarked graves here in

‘There’s certainly republican history here but alongside all of that you also have parliamentary politics and then there’s Ireland’s imperial history’

5 Frank Ryan is 50 feet from Blueshirt leader Eoin O’Duffy

Glasnevin. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission marked one and the National Graves Association marked the other. Two working-class fellas both end up dead, side by side by 1916, but their politics are completely different.”

Shane says this dichotomy is what he loves about Glasnevin, but it is also a challenge in that the tour guides must give a broad and neutral history – something which can be difficult for people who are passionate and really immersed in their history and politics.

“We get lots of cross-community groups from the North doing shared history projects. Some of those see the South as this monolith of green but when they come down and see graves of a soldier from Dublin who fought in Gallipoli, for

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students are getting a lecture on how to conduct a walking tour. They’re being told the importance of hand movements and eye contact in keeping visitors interested – and they’re having a good laugh in the process. “Next week they’ll come back and each one will give a talk on a different grave to a tour group. They’ll get a certificate and everything.” It’s one of the many educational events the museum runs. Shane says that while these events are educational and entertaining, its also very important to be respectful.

“Remember, we still bury the dead here, we still cremate, so the trick is to get the balance

example, it breaks down some of the preconceptions that some people have.”

The museum itself contains video and audio displays on those buried within the 124 acres, including interactive screens showing the linkages in life between many of those buried here.

Included is Shane’s own father, Éamonn. A wellknown and respected author, historian, RTÉ broadcaster and former Editor of An Phoblacht, Éamonn is buried next to another former An Phoblacht Editor, Frank Ryan.

Other exhibits look at what happens to coffins and bodies after lengths of time below ground.

The records held by Glasnevin, stretching back to the 1830s, have been digitised and are fully searchable for those interested in finding out information on their family history.

Inside the museum, Shane brings me into the store room where the cemetery’s original handwritten records are kept. He takes down a large

Anti-fascist IRA Volunteer and An Phoblacht Editor Frank Ryan is buried 50 feet from Blueshirt leader Eoin O’Duffy leatherbound ledger dated from 1913. Inside are the records of all those who were buried in Glasnevin during the period of the 1913 Lockout.

It’s telling that the majority died of very basic dieases. Shane scans through a few lines in the ledger listing their causes of death. He reels them off: “Bronchitis, TB, kidney disease, childbirth, diarrhoea, pneumonia, TB again, influenza, apendicitis, lockjaw . . .” The likes of Alice Brady, who died after being shot in the hand during the Lockout, is listed as dying from lockjaw – tetanus. Shane puts the ledger back and takes down another huge book. “These are the poor people.” Many of those listed within are children, dying of such things as diarrhoea. One little girl from Charles Street West’s cause of death is listed as “succumbing to marasmus” – severe malnutrition. From August 1913 through to February 1914 the death rate increases sharply, as does infant mortality. Others are listed as “being lain upon”, usually children crushed by parents or other adults as they huddled tightly together for warmth or to get to sleep in thr tenements.

“These records are really a social history of poverty,” Shane says sadly.

We leave the record room and get into the lift.

When we exit upstairs, a group of Transition Year

5 Shane MacThomáis looks through a ledger recording burials in the cemetery in 1913

Glasnevin recently hosted the launch of ‘Lethal Allies’ on collusion between British state forces and unionist death squads; then the Ulster Commemoration Committee’s exhibition on politics in the North between 1912 and 1914 and the formation of the UVF right. You can’t have a funfair or something like that in a cemetery while somebody is grieving.”

The museum and centre is used by groups from various backgrounds. Recently, Anne Cadwallader’s book Lethal Allies, which exposes shocking levels of collusion between British state forces and unionist death squads, had its Dublin launch here. That was followed shortly afterwards by the Ulster Commemoration Committee’s exhibition ‘The Third Home Rule Crisis: The Unionist Response’ explaining the politics in the North between 1912 and 1914 and the formation of the UVF. “For me that’s an integral part of Irish history.

Without the Ulster crisis and the formation of the UVF we might would never have had the 1916 Rising. So it’s about all these things. And there’s nowhere better to do it than a museum where you can have rational debate and discussion.”

For more information on Glasnevin Cemetery Museum and Trust visit 5 An exhibit at Glasnevin Museum shows how grave robbers stole bodies to sell to medical schools

www.glasnevintrust.ie

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Fógraí Bháis

Neil McLaughlin DERRY CITY THE DEATH occurred on Monday 23 December of Neil McLaughlin (65), a committed republican from Shantallow who represented Ireland at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich.

A talented flyweight, Neil reached the quarter-finals of the 1972 Olympics. He was one of four Derry men on the Irish Olympic team, the others being fellow boxer Charlie Nash, swimmer Liam Ball and Terry Watt (judo).

The previous summer he won a bronze medal at the European Championships held in Madrid, Spain.

A lifelong republican, Neil was one of the founding members of the Sinn Féin cumann in the Shantallow area and for years was the party’s organiser He gave evidence at the Bloody Sunday Inquiry, telling Lord Saville that he’d heard bullets “whoosh” over his head as British Army paratroopers fired at him when they moved into Derry’s Bogside.

Among those who paid tribute to Neil was joint First Minister Martin McGuinness, who said he was sad to hear of the death of his friend.

At the City Cemetery graveside oration to Neil on St Stephen’s Day, Sinn Féin Councillor Tony Hassan said that Neil was a great inspiration to young republicans in Derry City and in particular to the people of Shantallow, evident by the hundreds who attended the ceremonies for Neil.

Tony Hassan said of his “friend and comrade”: “Neil will always be remembered as someone who led from the front and for the hard work

5 Councillor Tony Hassan and Martin McGuinness MLA place a Tricolour on the coffin of Neil McLaughlin

and dedication that he gave to the republican cause.

“He was very much seen as an ‘old hand’ back in the early 1970s and he was the man that the people of Shantallow went to for advice and guidance.

“Like many other republicans in the early 1970s, Neil was at the forefront of protests and opposition to internment and British rule in Ireland, and when other work needed to be done Neil was never found wanting.

“He toured Ireland, bringing the political mes-

Caroline MooreDERRY CITY

CAROLINE MOORE grew up in a family of 12 – six boys and six girls – the youngest in the family.

Tragically, Caroline’s mother also died very prematurely, when Caroline was only six years old.

Her father was to die soon after.

Maybe it was that experience that shaped Caroline’s outlook towards family and community.

Her love and deep commitment to family was the essence of Caroline’s own family since meeting Mada almost 30 years ago, having been married together for almost 27 years and raising a family of four: Paul, Danielle, Shakira and Declan Óg.

Caroline was also a republican in her own right and Mada was very much involved in the resistance. Caroline – as his partner and confidant – saw a hive of republican activity around the flat, with many IRA personnel coming and going and organising.

Caroline was unwavering in her support of the struggle and resistance. She was arrested in the late 1980s and interrogated in Castlereagh as part of an RUC strategy to break republicans and their families.

Some of Mada and Caroline’s closest friends and comrades subsequently died on active service. At the funeral of two of these Volunteers, Paddy Deery and Eddie McSheffrey, Caroline – standing in the front line defending our right to bury our comrades with dignity – had her arm broken by the RUC. Mada was incarcerated in 1991 and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Like many other republican women, Caroline was left to raise (at this stage)

sage of Sinn Féin. His house in Shantallow was always open to republicans no matter what their problems were and his work for the political prisoners and their families was always at the top of his list and ensured that those on the run had a bed for the night.

“Neil never shied away from his responsibilities and ensured that the republican struggle continued at a time when many might have faltered. He took a leading role in protests during the Hunger Strikes and was director of elections when Martin McGuinness won a seat in the Assembly elections of 1982. He supported the Peace Process and the Good Friday Agreement, and he worked for Sinn Féin right up until he fell into bad health.

“As we lay Neil to rest I could not but think

that on many occasions he could be seen at the graves of soldiers of Óglaigh na hÉireann, tending the graves and ensuring they had the respect they deserved. Neil never forgot his fallen comrades. In fact, he believed that their sacrifice should be a catalyst to spur us on in the pursuit of Irish unity.

“We will never forget the role he played in our struggle. He was in life an inspiration to those around him and in death people will look back on a man who was an example to us all.

“He was a boxing legend but he was also a republican legend.

“On behalf of Sinn Féin in Derry, I offer my deepest sympathy to Margo; sons Neil, Liam, Michael, Mark and Colum; and daughters Fiona and Isabelle.”

three young children on her own, travelling up and down to prison, and holding down full time employment to ensure her children were looked after at home and that Mada was also looked after in prison.

Throughout this time, Caroline also assisted the Sinn Féin project locally as an election worker. She was in protests against sectarian marches (being viciously dragged from the Derry Walls by the RUC), and campaigning for the release of all political prisoners.

Caroline was always organising for her family and for her friends. If someone in the family needed something done they turned to Caroline; if close friends needed something they turned to Caroline. She was always the centre of craic and attention and banter. You’d often hear Caroline before you would see her. Caroline was as deeply loved and appreciated by her friends as she was by her family. None of us really knew or fully understood how big an impact Caroline’s health had on her life. That should not be surprising as she never complained, she rarely sat down and she always brought positivity, laughter and love into whatever company she found herself.

To Caroline’s brothers and sisters John, Ray, Ambrose, Gerald, Paddy, James, Phyllis Ann, Vera, Cath, and Liz; to my good friend and comrade Mada; his children Paul, Danielle, Shakira and Decky; we extend our heartfelt condolences. Your loss is ours too.

BY KEVIN CAMPBELL

Mada and Caroline Moore

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I nDíl Chuimhne

All notices and obituaries should be sent to notices@anphoblacht.com by Friday 17 January 2014

2 January 1991: Volunteer Patrick SHEEHY, Limerick Brigade.

5 January 1979: Volunteer Frankie DONNELLY, Volunteer Laurence MONTGOMERY, Belfast Brigade, 3rd Battalion.

7 January 1972: Volunteer Danny O’NEILL, Belfast Brigade, 2nd Battalion.

8 January 1992: Volunteer Proinsias Mac AIRT, Belfast Brigade, 2nd Battalion.

10 January 1975: Volunteer John Francis GREEN, North Armagh Brigade.

11 January 1972: Fian Michael SLOAN, Fianna Éireann.

13 January 1975: Volunteer James MOYNE, Long Kesh.

“LIFE SPRINGS FROM DEATH AND FROM THE GRAVES OF PATRIOT MEN AND WOMEN SPRING LIVING NATIONS.” Pádraig Mac Piarais 13 January 1976: Volunteer Martin McDONAGH, Belfast Brigade, 3rd Battalion; Volunteer Rosemary BLEAKLEY, Cumann na mBan, Belfast.

15 January 1983: Volunteer Colm DALTUN, Dublin Brigade.

16 January 1972: Fian Eamon McCORMICK, Fianna Éireann.

16 January 1977: Volunteer Seamus HARVEY, South Armagh Brigade.

17 January 1980: Volunteer Kevin DELANEY, Belfast Brigade, 2nd Battalion.

18 January 1973: Volunteer Francis LIGGETT, Belfast Brigade, 2nd Battalion.

18 January 1978: Volunteer Jackie McMAHON, Belfast Brigade, 3rd Battalion.

20 January 1975: Volunteer Kevin COEN, Sligo Brigade.

21 January 1975: Volunteer John KELLY, Volunteer John STONE, Belfast Brigade, 2nd Battalion.

26 January 1972: Volunteer Peter McNULTY, South Down Command.

26 January 1985: Volunteer Mick

TIMOTHY, Dublin Brigade.

30 January 1972: Fian Gerry DONAGHY, Fianna Éireann.

Always remembered by the Republican Movement.

O’SULLIVAN, Timmy. In loving memory of Timmy, Passage West, County Cork, whose anniversary occurs on 22 November. Always remembered by his friends in the Lee Walker CSC Lochee (Dundee), Scotland.

» Notices All notices should be sent to: notices@anphoblacht.com at least 14 days in advance of publication date. There is no charge for I nDíl Chuimhne, Comhbhrón etc.

IN PICTURES

STONE, John. In proud and loving memory of my dear brother Óglach John Stone, B Company, 2nd Battalion, Óglaigh na hÉireann, son of the late John and Mary Ann Stone, who died on active service 21 January 1975. “They will not criminalise us, rob us of our true identity, steal our individualism, depoliticise us, churn us out as systemised, institutionalised, decent law-abiding robots. Never will they label our liberation struggle as criminal” – Bobby Sands. Also remembering his comrade, John ‘Bap’ Kelly, D Company, Belfast Brigade.

Remembered always with love and pride by brother Francis, partner Kate and children Jennifer, Emerson, Córa and Laoise.

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

You can also get a small or large box advert.

Contact: sales@anphoblacht.com for details.

photos@anphoblacht.com

Cairde Youth launched in Scotland

BY MICHAEL VALLELY CAIRDE na hÉireann’s impressive growth in Scotland has led it to setting up its very own youth group for republicans aged 14 to 25.

Cairde Republican Youth will give younger people a forum and a focus for political and social activity in support of Sinn Féin and the Irish community in Scotland as well as issues such as the Bedroom Tax and youth unemployment.

The youth group’s committee was elected

at its first AGM just before Christmas with a constitution also being established for the group.

The committee consists of Chair, ViceChair, Secretary, Treasurer, Campaigns & Publicity Officer, Women’s & Equality Officer, and Political Developments & Education Officer.

Its first public activity was a food collection over the festive season for a homeless shelter in Coatbridge and Glasgow.

Follow Cairde Republican Youth on Twitter @CairdeYouth.

www.sinnfeinbookshop.com THE ROTUNDA BIRTHPLACE OF THE IRISH VOLUNTEERS

LOCKOUT 1913 AUSTERITY 2013

THE HISTORY OF

THE IRISH CITIZEN ARMY

By Aengus Ó Snodaigh TD

Edited by Councillor Mícheál Mac Donncha

R. M. Fox’s book reprinted

Price €9.99 Plus P+P

Price €7.99 Plus P+P

Price €14.99 Plus P+P

Sinn Féin Bookshop, 58 Parnell Square, Dublin 1.

Tel: (+353 1) 814 8542 Email: sales@sinnfeinbookshop.com

A large crowd attend the annual Christmas vigil for the Ballymurphy Massacre that ended at the local Garden of Remembrance. Family and friends of five people killed in the nearby Springhill/Westrock area also took part in the procession as did representatives of the 15 people killed in the McGurk’s Bar bombing

See more: www.anphoblacht.com

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BETWEEN THE POSTS

30 January / Eanáir 2014

THE

www.anphoblacht.com

BY CIARÁN KEARNEY

DECIDE TO FIND YOUR STRIDE THERE IS ONE epidemic which all policy-makers agree is increasing every year in Ireland and in 2014 it could affect you too. It is inactivity.

Not surprisingly, the ‘inactivity epidemic’ is growing just as obesity is increasing, especially among children. The question is: what example are adults setting for the next generation and what implications do these trends have for Irish society a generation from now?

A recent PhD published by former Antrim hurling star Dr Paul Donnelly reported that only 6% of the population were “model citizens” in terms of physical activity, diet and lifestyle.

Minimum moderate physical activity requires an adult to exercise until out of breath five times a week. If you want to get a gauge of whether you’re doing enough, the ‘talk test’ is helpful. In other words, exercise until you’re too out of breath to talk.

Elaborate and ambitious New Year resolutions are not the answer. Research has also shown that just 8% of people fulfill their resolutions. But setting personal goals can help with motivation and increasing physical activity. The best goals are challenging but achievable.

A common excuse for not partaking in physical activity is

lack of time. This really doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. There are times when each of us will have competing commitments.

Actually, times like these are when we need exercise and physical activity most of all.

In the aftermath of his passing, one of the features of Nelson Mandela’s life that went mostly without comment was his love of sport. Madiba’s role in presenting the 1995 Rugby World Cup to South African captain Francois Pienaar was rightly the focus of attention.

But it was long before that moment that he had developed his love for sport and exercise.

Madiba’s main passion was boxing, as he wrote in his 1994 autobiography The Long Walk to Freedom: “My main interest was in training; I found the rigorous exercise to be an excellent outlet for tension and stress. After a strenuous workout, I felt both mentally and physically lighter.

It was a way of losing myself in something that was not the struggle.”

He said this approach to exercise gave him the physical and mental strength to cope

with his 27 years imprisoned in an apartheid jail.

Madiba became so well-conditioned that for many years after his release from prison he maintained the routine he began in his youth of early morning exercise. Like many public figures in our own society, he had plenty of other duties taking up his time but he felt exercise made him fitter for the job.

You don’t have to look so far from home for good examples.

Belfast Mayor Máirtín Ó Muilleoir has a frenetic schedule yet every week he meets up with citizens at one of the city’s leisure centres and goes out for a mid-day jog.

Sinn Féin MEP Martina Anderson is another who has fitted exercise into a busy programme of political activity.

After spending so long in an English jail, Martina could be forgiven for wanting a more sedentary lifestyle. Instead, in the all years we’ve worked together, her passion for equality and justice has been matched by a sporting spirit.

Likewise Leo Green, head of Sinn Féin’s Assembly and Cuige

Minimum moderate physical activity requires an adult to exercise until out of breath five times a week

5 Mayor of Belfast Máirtín Ó Muilleoir with six medics who ran all night across Cavehill in aid of NI Hospice

team in the North. With more than four decades in activism, his political staying power is equalled by an athletic stamina which has been proven on several marathons. None of this trio could be confused with being lazy.

Sometimes we need more than the power of a good example. Each of us needs a little extra inspiration now and again. I find some in books. The first book I ever got on the subject was Athletics – A Handbook for Tomorrow’s Champions, by Tom McNab. I was nine years old at the time.

More recently, two great books I’ve read over the Christmas break and would recommend are Jim Stynes’s autobiography, My Journey, and The Little Book of GAA Quotations, by Rory Callan.

In the coming year my team talks and current training in applied sport and exercise psychology will draw heavily upon Rory Callan’s book, which is full of wee gems.

But when it comes to inspiration and motivation for sport and life, the words of the late great Gael Jim Stynes powerfully make the point: “We all have a purpose – we just need to find out what it is.

And you do that through your struggles. You do that through facing adversity.”

5 Conor Murphy MP and others make ‘The Precious Present’ Christmas morning climb of Camloch Mountain

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BOOK REVIEWS BY MICHAEL MANNION

Eyewitnesses to 1916, and Peadar O’Donnell’s jail journal 1916: What the People Saw

By Mick O’Farrell Mercier Press THE DELUGE of books being produced to commemorate the centenary of the 1916 Rising is quite remarkable. Some are merely exploitative, jumping on the lilybedecked bandwagon and producing nothing of originality or merit.

Others, thankfully, serve to provide new information or insights into the seminal events of Easter Week.

1916: What The People Saw is most definitely in the second category.

This is a collection of contemporary eyewitness accounts (many previously unpublished) describing the events as they occurred and reactions to them. By avoiding contributions from active participants and concentrating instead on the civilian population’s contemporary observations, Mick O’Farrell has provided an original collection of viewpoints and commentary previously neglected by many authors and commentators.

The tone of most of the accounts is almost exclusively condemnatory and critical of the rebellion. The few commentaries that offer a qualified sympathy (or at least not outright condemnation) seem to have mostly been written at a later date and

5 Buildings surrounding O’Connell Bridge in ruins following the 1916 Easter Rising belong to him” reveals an ingrained racism that is nowadays difficult to comprehend.

This book provides a thoroughly

fascinating view not just of Easter Week but also of a colonial mindset that had yet to realise that it was witnessing its own demise.

He comments on his particular loathing of the Irish Independent newspaper for its continual ‘misrepresentation and abuse of the facts’, demonstrating that some things never change

The Gates Flew Open

By Peadar O’Donnell Mercier Press PEADAR O’DONNELL was born into an Irish-speaking family in Dungloe, County Donegal, in 1893. The resilience of the close-knit community in the face of intense rural poverty served to ignite the twin passions of socialism and nationalism that continued to be his motivating force until his death in 1986.

He initially trained as a teacher but switched to become a full-time organiser for the Irish Transport & General Workers’ Union, where he demonstrated a radical streak not always popular with some of his more conservative colleagues.

During a strike at the Monaghan Mental Asylum, Peadar took control of the running of the institution and declared it to be the first Irish soviet, flying the red flag from the roof. It was shortly after this that Peadar realised that a socialist society could not occur until an independent Irish Republic had been established.

Peadar joined the IRA and rose to command the Donegal Brigade operating in the Donegal and Derry areas. He adopted a strong antiTreaty position and was active in the Four Courts during the shelling. He initially managed to escape capture but was subsequently caught and imprisoned. This book covers that period of incarceration until his escape after the end of the Civil War. The Gates Flew Open is a truly important work on several levels.

Not only is it a well-written record of

based on recollections by eyewitnesses that may well have become modified by subsequent events. This serves to illustrate the fundamental problem with works such as this.

Those with the time, resources and inclination to record events and experiences in journals and letters come from a generally prosperous strata of society comfortable with the status quo and antagonistic to change.

This does not make their viewpoints any less valid or informative but it does make it very difficult to source contrasting opinions from the sections of society without the leisure or desire to record their daily musings.

The attitudes towards the ‘lower orders’ expressed by some of the commentators is truly staggering, referring to them as “rabble, tramps and tinkers” and outraged that they would dare approach “respectable people”. The casual dismissal of the majority of the population with the words “it always gives an Irishman of the lower class immense pleasure to cut down a tree that does not

5 Peadar O’Donnell the ‘jail journal’ type, providing real insight into the events and activities that Peadar experienced, it also provides vivid assessments of the char-

acter and abilities of many of his contemporaries, most of whom were pivotal figures in the struggle.

One particularly interesting analysis is that of Michael Collins, whom he describes as “confusing the conquest of Ireland with its occupation by British soldiers”.

He comments on his particular loathing of the Irish Independent newspaper for its continual “misrepresentation and abuse of the facts”, demonstrating that some things never change. But his most caustic vitriol is reserved for the Irish Catholic bishops whom he said supported the Treaty “not for the measure of limited political freedom it gave but for the fetters it imposed”.

First published in 1932, this book is an absorbing and sometimes deeply moving memoir that should be essential reading for a fuller understanding of this critical period of Irish history.

• Peadar O’Donnell was Editor of An Phoblacht from 1926 to 1930.

Tickets available from Brian Dowling 58 Parnell Square, Dublin 1 Telephone: (00 353) 87 230 1882 Email: briandowling@sinnfein.ie

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IDA job creation agency exploits free labour scheme

BY MARK MOLONEY THE Irish Government’s state agency tasked with creating jobs in Ireland is trying to employ an “Executive Assistant” through the JobBridge free labour scheme because it cannot create an actual job due to the public service recruitment embargo.

The Industrial Development Agency (IDA Ireland) advertised the vacancy in their International Financial Services Division on the FÁS website over the New Year break through the JobBridge programme. JobBridge has been criticised by trade unions and labour experts as exploitative.

Sinn Féin Social Protection spokesperson Aengus Ó Snodaigh TD said the public services embargo prevents the IDA hiring new staff, “so they are trying to get around it on the backs of desperate, unemployed graduates”.

He accused the IDA of telling job-seekers ‘we can’t create a job for you but we will use your free labour to create jobs for others’.

“Instead of doing their job, creating employment, they are looking to benefit from nine months’ free labour from a third level graduate with previous experience.”

The professional role, which requires the staff member to work full-time, will pay the

Last year, ten IDA staff members received salaries of €100,000 to €170,000 – the IDA spent €300,000 on toilets at its Wilton Park offices intern an extra €50 on top of their social welfare payment.

At the end of 2013 it was revealed that ten IDA staff members received salaries of €100,000 to €170,000 per annum. In April, the

Aengus Ó Snodaigh

agency was criticised for spending almost €300,000 on refitting toilets at its Wilton Park House offices.

Responding to Aengus Ó Snodaigh’s statement, an IDA spokesperson said it is incorrect to accuse the body of abusing the programme when there is no possibility of full-time work.

Job-seekers have the opportunity to apply for jobs “within the organisation, as and when such positions arise”, it was claimed. But, of course, the IDA skips around the very obvious point that they cannot actually hire a single person as long as the state public service recruitment embargo is in place. Are they expecting job-seekers to intern for €50 a week for years on end?

Aengus Ó Snodaigh said the Fine Gael/Labour Government should lift the public services recruitment embargo and allow vacancies to be filled properly.

“This exploitation of the unemployed and the job displacement associated with it has to end,” the Dublin TD said. “Creating proper jobs with proper pay and conditions should be the aim of any government agency, not workers on the cheap through internships and schemes.”